Ocean travel was next in a long line of firsts for Aja. The world rocked side to side every second, the rhythm depending on the temperament of the sea and the clouds. Everything creaked, at all times. The salt crusted men and women aboard seemed to treat work and leisure as the same thing; smoking, eating or drinking in the midst of daily duties that held the fate of the ship in their hands. Lapsed discipline of this magnitude would make her father’s head spin, but Aja understood. If you could combine work and leisure, that’s not laziness. She’d argue that’s quite innovative.

That aside, Aja found the days of travel relaxing, despite the new conditions. Her honed sense of balance from meditation and dance left her handily capable of moving as the ship moved, and the creak of the wood and crashing of water were no more than their Nyama speaking to her. Granted, it felt more like a screaming match where the ocean yelled at the boat to get off its head, and the boat cursed at the ocean in return, but at least she felt privy to the conversation.

In fact, she was able to use the flow of Nyama between the ship and the sea to help the captain steer clear of oncoming storms, quickly endearing her to the crew. Before long, crew members wanted to share tobacco, rum and sugarcane with her, and invite her to their card table. Aja said she knew nothing of card games, to which the crew seemed even more excited to welcome her. But whenever she’d sit at the table and the first mate would start to deal, Brexton somehow appeared at a seat too, often when the table was seemingly full. He’d materialize just enough room to fit at the table and greet the dealer with a smile.

"By your lead, first mate," he’d say, winking at the woman with cards.

"…Aye, as ya please, Magus," she bitterly replied, dealing cards to each player.

Aja scooped up her cards and studied them, "Uh…Am I supposed to show one? Or both?"

Brexton gave a phony gasp, "My, my, sailors of N’Jarosyl," he chided, "Is our Animist not informed of the rules?" A wave of half-hearted excuses circled the table. "Very well then," he went on, "Let us proceed."

Aja looked at Brexton cock-headed, then at the sailors, similarly confused. They all apprehensively picked up their cards, followed by a round of groans and under-breath cursing as they threw them back down. The cards had been altered, in place of the numbers and symbols, now they simply said ‘Cheat not a superior cheater.’ Aja looked back at her own, and they bore a different message: ‘A first impression does not divine one's nature.’

After the crew dispersed, Aja followed Brexton as he paced along the upper deck of the ship in the crisp night air. "Magus," she called from behind. He turned to her, leaning on the railing of the ship, relaxing his posture for the first time. "It was my understanding that Arcane Mages recited words to perform magic?"

"Indeed they do."

"Then what was that?" She gestured back towards the lower deck, the card table now being carried off.

Brexton simply shrugged, "You are now a representative of the Century Chapter, that does not mean you forget what you knew before." She furrowed her brow as he turned and leaned over the railing, looking wistfully over the black waves. "What the Chapter teaches is one thing, what you implement is another," he posed, "Knowing things does not make you intelligent. Application of knowledge does."

"That is not much of an answer," she accused.

Brexton turned to her with a brow raised, "One cannot open the book of a man’s life and jump straight to the middle."

"I’m aware of how books work, Magus. If it is a book, take me through the beginning."

He looked off, weighing her request, "Show me some application, perhaps."

Aja set her hands on her hips with impatience, then looked at the water. You are already on the boat, she thought, it’s not as though he can send you home. She grinned.

She tilted her head to look at the sea, letting a hand rest on the Tilik at her side. She took a quiet breath and felt wind gather, feeling the Nyama in the water of the clay inside her Tilik, which then travelled into the ocean and blasted a cone of water up into Brexton’s face, sending him staggering backward and spitting seaweed. His soaked hair hung over his eyes, but Aja could still feel his penetrative stare as she fought to hide her laughter. With a wave of his hand, a fish was pulled out of his robes and tossed aside. Aja caught the fish, a small striped bass, and stroked a finger up its side, allowing the water droplets to pass through its gills. Now Brexton’s demeanor shifted, he watched as Aja allowed the fish to breathe on land by moving the water upwards. She smiled warmly at the bass before walking to the edge of the ship and summoning a branch of water to cradle it back to the sea. She then rotated on her heel with a victorious look on her face and leaned on the rail. Then a confounding thing happened: Brexton laughed. Full-bodied, belly-shaking laughter.

"Very well," he conceded, "Let me show you the first page."

He ran hands through his hair as he walked to the stairs, trying to wring out the water. With a flick of her fingers and a hand on her Tilik, Aja conjured a gust of wind that whipped the water from Brexton’s hair.

The spacious ship was somehow rather modest, very sparse decorations and bare-bones quarters for crew and passengers: bedrolls, hammocks and at most a small dresser. Aja didn’t mind this, as she and her father never put much care in finery or ostentations like some in Tilibulo did. It wasn’t uncommon there, nor even negative; Aja could never fault expressions of culture through clothing. As an Animist, however, she favored function over fashion, as her chosen garb reflected — dark red cloth tied snug around her torso, under her arms and above her midriff, a gold sash around her waist, a red skirt she’d cut into two pieces draped down to her shins, loose black pants underneath. Her minimalist style did not go unnoticed as she and Brexton passed her open door; her luggage all fit in one corner and her bedroll was only flanked by two personal essentials: her satin head wrap and a hollowed calabash of hair oil.

"You travel light for one of your station," Brexton noted.

"Growing up in the Faama’s court," she chuckled, "I would always see men and women so twisted up in gold and knotted fabric that a strong wind could knock them over."

"A strong wind you perhaps provided?"

"I could not possibly say, Magus," she grinned.

Brexton snickered, "Not one for ceremony?"

"It’s not that," she shrugged, "Animists need movement. Flexibility. And most things I need, I can make."

Brexton pursed his lips, "I appreciate that," he nodded, "Arcana is limited in the realm of creation, it’s more…transitive." He stopped at his door and whispered a few words of that odd language — Arcana. Aja tried to listen, but the esoteric words hit her as discordant vowels. Brexton closed a fist, a pale blue runic circle appeared over the door, then dissipated. She knew not what that spell was, but it wasn’t hard to see why it existed: Brexton was protective of his privacy. However, he then opened the door and motioned for her to enter first. "I wish that kind of resourcefulness extended to us. Century mages, well…we tend to hoard."

She entered his room, only to see stiff evidence to the contrary: there was nothing inside, save a bed, a dresser with its drawers open — empty — and a small desk with some sort of pointed object sitting atop it under a silk purple sheet. Other than that, nothing. No clothes, no luggage, no parchment, no books — no books?! The Century Chapter was made of books!

"Hoard?" Aja posed, eyes trailing around the quarters, "What is it you hoard?"

"Knowledge, principally."

"I thought the Chapter kept knowledge in writing?"

"We do."

"Is that writing stored elsewhere?" She spread her arms expectantly.

"In a sense," Brexton chimed, another grin hiding beneath his beard. He pulled the sheet off the desk, and Aja’s head bobbed backward in confusion. It was the only item in the room Brexton clearly owned, but she couldn’t hope to identify it. It was a pyramid, roughly one foot tall and one foot across the base, made up of weaving brass cogs and circular pieces, with an apex of what looked like a luminous sapphire. Brexton clasped his hands behind his back as Aja circled the table. Her hand fumbled and found her Tilik, and she focused the Nyama on her surroundings: the grass, ash and clay inside the Tilik itself, then the wood of the ship, Brexton himself and even the air around them as gusts of wind circled her. The Nyama hit the pyramid, then…rolled right down the slopes, like rain on roof. Her head tilted in bewilderment.

"Impossible…" she trailed.

"A tawdry word, you’ll soon realize," Brexton quipped.

"All things in the world have Nyama inside them, this has…nothing…"

"What, then, may you deduce from that?"

She took a long pause, then finally met his calm, but unmistakably eager gaze. "…It is not from this world?"

He looked up in thought, then motioned his head from side to side, "Somewhat."

She leaned forward, "That is not a proper answer, a thing is not ‘somewhat’ from another world!"

"I respectfully disagree," he said, circling the pyramid on the other side. "You are able to tap into the Nyama of the tides, are you not?" She nodded. "Well, the tides are moved by the moon, which is not of this world. Ergo, the tides are simultaneously of this world and not, and still you can release the energy inside them. This is just…unfamiliar."

Aja chewed on this as she walked closer, feeling Nyama dribble off the pyramid’s impenetrable slopes. It felt like she was touching a rock in a river, flushing and thrumming in her ears as her magic failed to interact with it. ‘Unfamiliar.’ That seemed to be the word defining this entire enterprise. The Chapter was unfamiliar with Animism, and sought answers. She was unfamiliar with the outside world, and sought passage into it. Now, she stood before something unfamiliar to the natural forces of the entire realm.

She reached the edge of the desk and looked back at Brexton, resolution on her face. "Familiarize me, then."

With a nod, he fished into his robes and produced an eight sided graphite stone. He held it in his palm and recited words of Arcana. Tiny white runes blinked to life on the stone as the sapphire atop the pyramid glowed brighter. It illuminated so brightly that Aja had to shield her eyes. Suddenly she felt a wind whip past her — no, not a wind, she was the one moving, falling! She looked around, seeing her feet still on the floor, but the world around her strained, it became fuzzy and stretched, before the wood walls just became trails of dust. She felt her stomach whirling, her whole body shook, her very being were unravelling like yarn, she was ready to scream right before she condensed back onto two solid feet on a new floor…a floor made of immaculately smooth, bronze stone.

She stood straight, catching her breath and — what is that?? Her face creased with confusion. The air tasted different. The best she could describe was slightly humid, yet perfectly temperate, maybe? A rush coursed through her body as she felt a familiar sensation. Nyama! Despite recognizing it, it had a completely different texture and rhythm. A smile broke out over her face as she looked all around, finally taking in where she was:

The bronze floor spread outward in all directions like water spilling on a table, trailing in random directions and growing new things out of itself. Sprawling research stations, black boards and maps unfolded from the floor like creased paper, staircases grew themselves in criss-crossing directions, towering shelves rose at direct 90 degree angles and ascended into a misty space hundreds of feet above, while the walls crawled black tile by black tile after them. Swirling rings of brass and gold floated above and formed massive gyroscopes, their glass lenses and crystal orbs casting brilliant light across the chamber. With every new structure, a new wave of Nyama rocked Aja’s body, making her shake, her muscles clench and her skin raise. Rather than alarmed, she felt stronger with each wave. She was touching energy that no Animist ever had.

"Have care," Brexton’s voice echoed behind her, "Some have lost years of their lives just watching."

She turned, catching a shaky breath as Brexton approached. He raised a palm, and a wheeled cart unfolded from the floor, supporting a tea pot and several plates of biscuits and pastries. He levitated a cup from the table and guided it into Aja’s hands. "Wh…what is this place?" She inquired, eyes quickly trailing off from Brexton back onto the ever moving structures.

"An Astral Chateau," he mused, joining her in a watch, "It’s a dimension between larger planes where the magically inclined are able to manipulate matter. There is no discovered limit to its creative capacity, so it lends itself quite generously to storage and research. Chapter mages of certain renown are granted them."

"'Greatness is the expected minimum,' yes?" Aja jabbed, cheekily sipping the minty tea.

"I will admit to some...overdramatic rhetoric," he conceded sheepishly. "I was nervous myself, in truth. It’s not often a Century Mage is so far outside their area of knowledge, so I…I was perhaps exaggerating."

"Peacocking," Aja grinned. "That is the word we use for it. You are like a bird with plumes of colorful rump feathers. They make you look large and splendid."

He tittered back. "I do hope I haven’t disappointed now that I’ve dropped my rump feathers?"

She glanced around the cavernous space and looked back at him with a raised eyebrow. "I think I will overlook it. On one condition."

"Of course," he beat her to it, strolling past her towards the center of the room, where a ring of curved desks surrounded a raised platform, a twenty foot stone dais sitting atop a few stairs, adorned only by what looked like a massive stone table, ten feet in diameter, with a one foot wall around the top. "Any knowledge held here is at your disposal. For the duration of our voyage, that is. Once we make N’Jarosyl, with a few years of work, you may be given your own."

Her jaw dropped. "I…This can be mine?"

He beckoned her to join him atop the dais. "You’re an Animist of the Century Chapter, are you not? The tools of understanding the universe are yours to command."

She leapt up the three stairs in a single bound, joining him at the dais. She peaked into the stone table, filled to the top with a strange grayish sand, seemingly the same material as the graphite stone Brexton used to cast his spells.

"The Steelgrain," he began, reading her curiosity. "It’s the base arcane substance that makes up all matter in this plane. It’s…versatile," he said, flicking a finger in the air. As he did, the gray sand rippled, responding to his gesture and rising up weightlessly. With a snap of his fingers, it fell back to into place.

Aja giggled. "Animists can do the same thing with the soil in the…home world."

"I’m afraid we don’t share that talent," he tilted his head.

She narrowed her gaze at the Steelgrain and crept forward. She laid a hand flat on the compact surface. She shut her eyes, laid her other hand on the tilik at her belt and took a powerful breath. She exhaled swiftly, and a wave of Nyama breathed through the grains, whipping them up into a brief cyclone before it relaxed back down. She laughed ecstatically, while Brexton’s eyes widened slightly.

"Versatile in many planes, I see," he gave, maybe a little bit stung. Aja got the impression this wasn’t the level of aptitude and adaptability he’d been expecting, but he didn’t seem bothered by it. He made a beckoning gesture and the tea cart drifted up onto the dais. He poured himself more tea, then offered a plate of biscuits to Aja.

"What are they?"

"Whatever you’d like them to be."

She looked crookedly at him, but took a biscuit anyway. She bit into the crusty wafer, and the explosion of flavor made her gasp. The magic biscuit filled her mouth with the taste of chakery, her favorite dessert from when she was a girl. The sweet, creamy couscous treat tickled her tongue as she munched the rest of the biscuit and tore through three more. They tasted exactly like her father’s recipe, complete with the hint of pineapple and spice he added. Was this dessert reading her sense memory? It didn’t matter, she decided. It reminded her of home. She thought back on what Sabati told her with newfound prescience:

Wherever she was, she was never far.