Of all the perils in the sky-sailing life, as to be expected, most unattend the sailor’s time at port. Oft secured as harbors were from gales and storms, dangers are seldom of great concern once the vessel has landed and the envelope deflated. The double duty of the patrols is then reduced, and the alares are liberated from scouting the changes of weather or turbulent zones, and limited to a relaxed watch out for enemies aground or airborne.

And so, while the Daybright rested in Xenon’s shipyard, the second mate Pax sent us on patrols of a much larger tract of the sky than was usual. War prowled the border, and the captain and her officers trusted the men of Xenon no more than the unlikely assailants among her rivals.

It was at this time that the reduced responsibilities and pressing need for improvement in my combat abilities necessitated that my training be intensified. The pledge grants much, and bestows such instincts that allow the combined act of flying to be as natural as a light jog on foot. And yet Gladiola was adamant, quite reasonably, that there are times in combat where my wonted overreliance on my wyvern would not avail me. And so our Prima took it upon herself to be my flying instructor, while Valerian guided me on the art of the runestaff. Navigation, complex maneuvers, rune invoking, spell tuning. If they sounded simple to speak of, it was not so in practice. For it is one thing to learn to fly and fly properly, another to meet the expectation of some of the finest alares in the skies. That much I could say with surety and no mere flatteries from what I had learned through hearsays and passing remarks from the two themselves. It was known that Gladiola hailed from royal stock, and had once been involved in the high office of the Pagan Empire’s legions. And as for Valerian, gossip was of a more limited variety, but by some measures far more outrageous, chiefly of her being an erstwhile saintess, personally touched by a Goddess of old. I would have laughed at that tall tale if not for all those years she had spent healing the Daybright’s crew with but her shining hand.

And then there was I.

Lest some hold still the idea that I exaggerate in regards to my inferiority among my supposed peers, know that when I raised the question of Acis’ uninvolvement in my training, I was met with only firm denial. That is to say, I was told in no vague terms that even the basics of Galanthus’ abilities and, by extension, her knight’s, were not something I could ever hope to attain, not for all the long life of an azure that I may spend honing my meagre skills.

Not for the knight, at the least.

In the end, I was little more than a somewhat expressive changeling. At the very best, I may hope to one day fly among those puissant figures without being a great hindrance. So I trained and hoped for the best that that day may come to pass.

One such morning, coming back from a session, Ala Estival was crossing the farmlands beyond the city gate with our formation spread thin. The knights set eyes on the ground, and wyverns the clouds.

The high sun glanced, refracting blue sparks on my face. For a short slack of vigilance, I brought my hand to the silver pendant resting on my breast, where my sapphire shone between the intricate patterns upon its zenith. In the morning light, the scarlet mote within radiated strikingly, like a warm cluster upon the deep blue sky.

It was, in a way, another gift from Litzia. The first day at port, she had overseen the making of this pendant and the chain on which it hung, while Thea and I made merry around the city, regrettably. I was thankful and apologetic for the fact, which by all means she should be able to tell through our senses made linked by the pledge. And yet as I admired my new and first piece of accessory, the wyverness grew sombre.

“What of it? An eye I yet have on clouds,” I said, “I’m not distracted.”

“Nothing,” she said, furrowing her scaly brow, “but an ill feeling. An omen.”

“You smell something?”

For my part, I could feel naught. The sky was as pleasant as could be, and the clouds were sparse enough that no sudden enemy could possibly spring upon us from within. Yonder, wild geese on their wings and stretching their long necks in a formation much like ours, heedless of such imagined dangers in the air. And when even the birds are so at ease, one could not be blamed for jeering aught suggestion of natural foulness.

“Nothing,” and with that, Litzia fell into a dead silence.

“Listen,” I began, “if you’re sulking, don’t. When the patrol is over, let us go down the city again. I admit it wasn’t very nice of us to…”

That was when Acis’ voice started me. Ever she was the one who warned Litzia and me of danger, being the closest to us. “There it comes!” Ere the words rang completely out, the wind shifted.

And come it did. Out of nowhere, a squall rose and sent us scattered. Along with it, a sudden driving sleet befell the Ala. All when seconds before the sun was visible and no dark clouds in sight. But now darkness abounded, pellets rapped on Litzia’s scales and stabbed my unprotected flesh. The temperature had dropped dramatically, so that I felt naked under my thin layers.

Before we could rally, Litzia had been tossed violently by the squall from others. All darkened. Flung about wildly, I could but grip tightly the wyverness’ torso with my all limbs. The above and below became indiscernible in the roaring of the sky, as though an evil no less terrible than the great leviathan Sheol had swallowed us whole in its dark. And this one, invisible as yet, was bent on destroying us in particular.

Gladiola’s command, or instruction, was battered miserably by the wind. Of Valerian and her pledge-sister, I could neither see nor hear. But some way off, Acis’s voice rang out, all alarmed. “The devil’s wind rises! Stay it! Stay the howl, light us a path!”

But the shriek of Galanthus sounded like a curse.

Even as she cried, the sleets harshened, until pellets the size of one’s fingers ragged my skin, tearing flesh and drawing blood. The pain grew unbearable: my legs, my arms, my head, my body – all bruised, beaten. No longer could I hold on. A violent gale hoisted me at last from Litzia’s back, and flung me off the sky. I fell. The cries of my Ala-sisters were carried off. In the brief time while our pledge persisted, I saw Litzia plunge after me. But the squall arrested her, and her form soon reverted. Then I was dropped off from the dark, into the world where the pleasant day and sunshine still reigned. Aloft and gradually diminishing, the squall was bizarrely contained in an evil billow of black. The last thing I saw was a growing light of pure white in the heart of that dark, before with the force of a cannon blast ramming myself into the solid ground.

Then I was gone.

**

Blinding light. Muddy dark. I awoke with all my senses corrupted. Someone was over me, I knew not who. Or where. Or who I was. Again, I vanished.

Quietude, still air. Even breathing. Haziness.

Nose ached from stinging foulness. Stomach grumbled, groaning, ejaculating. Felt like death. Avast! Avast the racket! Avast!

**

Dizziness. Incomprehensiveness.

But this, a someone. A face. The blinding light. Now it ceased. No more light. Only dark. In which features blurred.

“Do you know who I am?”

Who? What? Of course, I do.

“Valerian?” I asked.

“Good grief.”

Her features were becoming clearer.

My entire body ached.

“What happened? Where am I?”

“You died, Aster.”

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“Oh.” I said, “Oh. I see.”

I turned my head to the side and saw an unlit room. The sickbay.

Then again sleep consumed me.

**

In the morning I came to at last. Valerian, the only other presence in the sickbay, sat by the porthole as she idly flipped the page of a small book.

“You were out for a week,” she said after examining my face.

“That… is rather a long time.”

“So I was told. Here.” She produced a bucket from under the bed and thrust it in my arms.

Sitting there with my arms wrapping around the thing, I was puzzled. But then the familiarity of the situation informed me proactively of its meaning.

“Oh, I died,” I muttered.

And how.

A flood of filth erupted from the depths of mine. I bent over the bucket, extracting all that was within as the revolting pain in my guts was doubled by the excruciating memories of my death. My mind went blank, as if in an attempt to block out the intense agony, and for a moment my consciousness slipped. At length, it passed. This was not my first time waking from a terrible death, and improbably my last.

“By the Under! I do not recall a worse death though.”

As I limped over my own filthy substance, eyes glazed and limbs listless, Valerian stared at me with pity. I could only return an empty look.

“I could do little to lessen the mental pain. I consulted your maid, but she said the bucket is about all one could do about it.”

“Blergh,” I said. What I really meant was, “Aye, Thea was right.”

“She also told me to give you food, though you may not hold them in for long, as it would hasten the healing process.”

“Well, she would know. Thea’s been taking care of me for years. I’m her hobby of sorts.”

Valerian was in a conversational mood, though she looked at me with earnest concerns. I suspected it was to exercise my consciousness, and as far as I could tell, it worked.

“I have never treated an azure before, so you must excuse my lack of expertise in this regard. And, no offense, but you lot have a very interesting, if eerie physique. Which did spark my curiosity.”

Of course, an azure by nature does not need medical care when she can heal over time, so seldom is one sent to the sickbay to be attended to by a healer. It was a neat change to be looked after like a human, by a human.

Gripping the bucket tight, the memories prior to my death began to return, with it the terror and the enigma.

“Litzia! Litzia—what of her? Is she harmed?”

“Gladiola caught her in time. But you were beyond our reach, for that, I…”

“Ah, you didn’t really have to,” I exhaled and dropped back. So she was alright. “Honest. It took me a week, but see, I’m well alive now. That’s how us changelings are built. Was she worried?”

It was not her first time waiting for me to recover from death. But I shuddered. The girl had gone through a lot with the death of her old pair, Begonia. Too much. The last thing I wanted to inflict upon her was even more guilt. She’d had it aplenty without my portion.

“Your fits of mania when half-awake were not flattering, Aster. I sent them both, chased them to be exact, out of here a few days back. By the Under, watching them depressed me thither and back. It was less for your proper rest and more for my mental well-being.”

“You had it rough too, Valerian.”

The knight shrugged and rose. “Now I go fetch your doting parents. Be a good girl and lay still the while, perhaps lighten up a bit before they come, though they will chastise me nonetheless.”

Valerian exaggerated, for they were not so keen on tormenting her. Litzia, with Thea in tow, marched into the room brightly lit by uncovered portholes. Noble as ever they were, while dumbly I sat with a bucket of vomit in hands.

But for once, I shall be fair to myself: I died, they didn’t. I deserved then pardon from any outward comparison, in times like these at least. Still, I had heavy doubts that my lot in life would change so drastically and so soon that I would be spared from such pitiable states in the near future.

For now, they looked at me with such sad eyes, as if beholding a dead kitten, or a dying one.

It was hardly bearable! Valerian did not overstated.

In this instance, Thea won the initiation. She was the first to take a seat beside me, almost dropping aback and lounging on my sickbed, as though it was the most natural thing ever, and too exhausted she was to even stand. Litzia only stood there, and what I expected to see was in those eyes of gold: traces of regrets and guilt.

“You know I don’t blame you,” I told her.

“I know,” she responded unsurely.

“Do you, Thea?” I frowned.

The human girl sighed, “No. But I suspect you can’t so easily absolve the guilt of one so daring to shoulder the whole world’s burden.”

There was evidently an attitude of sorts between the girls, one birthed from one conversation or another when I was unconscious. But Thea wasn’t in the mood to go into detail. I only hoped she hadn’t made too many observations on Litzia’s presence in relation to my habit of dying gruesome deaths. In any case, Litzia was the sort who made the connection herself.

On this occasion, the girl appeared to have more pressing concerns: she stole glances about, scanning for any likely ears at large. Though in her own peculiar way, it was less a sneaky gesture, more a preemptive warning off to aught who may have met her icy gaze.

The only other person in the room was again sitting someway off under a porthole, reading at her leisure. And, seeing that Valerian held more interest in the content of her book than their gossip, Litiza dropped on a stool by my bed, and drew closer.

“There is something I must tell you,” she said.

“Yes?”

“She’s been anxious,” Thea said, “But she would not tell me, not when you are not around.”

“It is not something to speak freely,” Litzia frowned.

“Something grave?” I asked.

“You will know once you let me talk.”

As said by Thea, she seemed to be in an anxious mood.

“Well, do.” I could not help but feel like I should be the one to be treated kindly here.

“Sure,” she emphasized, “firstly, how much do you remember of the incident?”

It was not the right time to seek a satisfying answer to that question, not in my current fuzzy state. She demanded one regardless.

“Not much. There was a sudden squall, then I fell off your back.”

“Nothing else? Do you not feel anything strange.”

“A squall in that weather is already strange, no? But no, I don’t think I feel differently than the others. Probably less, seeing that my senses are dull. Other than pains, I supposed.” Unconsciously, I rolled up my sleeves, feeling the mostly healed skin there, which had been torn bloodily by the sleet. The smooth olive of it was tender now, actually nice to the touch.

“You’re right,” Thea curiously ran her hand down my arm. “So soft it warrants a bite.”

“Well don’t.”

Litzia coughed. “I sensed something back then. A foul presence.”

“You’d be hard-pressed to derive any goodness from that squall.” I shrugged. “But what are you suggesting, actually?”

“Not only implicit. Nay. I am certain. That incident was intended. I sensed it when it was imminent, then when the squall rose, I could almost touch the malice.”

“Sensed?” I frowned.

Litzia seemed to struggle for words. “I could see, sometimes, Aster. I could sense people’s intentions on occasion. Though much weaker it is than by the link of our pledge, but it is there, more than a nagging thought, but almost utterance on the person’s tongue themselves.”

It took me a moment to process the information. But acceptance came easily. Many a time I have seen this ability of hers demonstrated. Differently, perhaps, in forms and methods, between that time in Sheol’s darkness and in confronting Halal the Accursed. Even as the latter being less supernatural, sorcery was of a surety at play, if faintly, superficially.

“So say, it was an ambush, then who was the perpetrator? An enemy? Have you discussed this with Gladiola?”

“No.” She answered, fiercely, decidedly. I didn’t know how, but she seemed already resolved in this course during the time I was unconscious.

“But why…” then it dawned on me. It was obvious. It could be an outside enemy, but that is unlikely. For our patrols were too vigilant for a force of invaders to infiltrate so easily and to set up such a careful ambush that would escape our alares’ keen eyes. The only other party, those who knew the land well enough to spring an assault upon us, was the local people.

“Litzia, you don’t want to see it repeated, is that why?”

She didn’t answer. There was doubt yet in her determination.

“It is not my place to say,” Thea intruded, “it is not, a servant that I am. But pray, is it wise to think of the locals when already they have caused a death among us? The next victim may not be an azure.”

“You are right, but…” I found myself struggling to find a reason. There were not so many readily available. I was desperate to avoid harming the people of Xenon further, that’s all. Though murderers some of them might be. It was a foolish desire, perhaps not in small part influenced by Litiza’s intense guilt, but I simply could not act as an executor. And yet I might have been killed once in their hands.

“Still—” I stammered, “still, we could not be sure if it was the Xenon people who did it. They must have understood by now that we came in peace. What reason have they…”

Even as I uttered my flimsy excuse, a ruckus burst through the sickbay’s door. Alarmed shouts came from the aloft mixed with wyvern shrieks. Then in came some deckhands carrying two women gravely wounded.