Chapter Four Hundred and Thirty-Six - Draw the Party Line

“Thank you,” Caprica said to a nice sylph who came by and placed a tray of little finger foods onto the table in the centre of the room, right where everyone sitting around it could reach.

The young sylph’s face went red and he bowed towards Caprica twice before scampering out of the room.

“Are they all like that?” Amaryllis asked as she looked over the contents of the plate, then picked out one of the snacks.

Caprica sighed. “They are, yes. The sylph in Port Royal are only a small minority of the city's population, most of them come from Sylphfree and work with or around the embassy. I’m worried that they’ve made themselves somewhat insular, and they seem to basically worship the royal family.”

“You’d think being separated would dull the fanaticism,” Amaryllis mused.

Booksie shook her head. “That’s not how it works. At least, from what I’ve noticed myself... usually in books. But you see it a lot in Port Royal. There are a lot of little areas in the city where people from different places all group up. They tend to almost exaggerate their home culture. There’s a Pyrowalkian block that sells a lot of stuff from back home, for example. I think maybe it's something like homesickness, or perhaps being surrounded by foreigners causes them to idealise their homeland.”

“I think it’s something like that,” Caprica said. “The sylph here are more loyal to Sylphfree’s royalty than the royalists back in the capital. Which wouldn’t be any sort of problem if I wasn’t right here. I swear, I’ve only been here for a few hours, but I suspect that the average sylph here thinks that I can do no wrong.”

“Then why were you kidnapped?” I asked.

“Kidnapped? No, they’re ‘keeping me safe’ against my own will. It won’t last. The moment I put a foot down they’ll fold.”

“Does that mean that they won’t tie you up and drag you back home?” Awen asked.

Caprica blinked, then parsed the question. “I think I’ll be fine,” she said. “If anything, we have staunch allies while we’re here. I just can’t overstay my welcome.”

“What’s that mean?” I asked.

“It means that if... no, when, news that I’m here reaches the capital, they might... kindly ask the local embassy to tie me up and drag me back home, as Awen so eloquently put it. They might even listen. The sylph here are enamoured with royalty, but the ambassador has a good head on his shoulders.”

“Will we need to sneak you out of here?” I asked in a low whisper so that only my friends would hear.

“After I’m done with these,” Calamity said as he plucked another canape from the plate.

“No, I should be able to just walk out. Now, whether they’ll send an entire escort with me or not, that’s up for debate,” Caprica said. “In any case, I don’t intend to spend the rest of the day here. I’d be far more comfortable sleeping in the Beaver than here.”

I smiled. Having Caprica feel like the Beaver was home made something nice and warm glow within my chest. It was home to me too, but home was mostly about the friends and family you had than about the place itself. “I’d like it if you were at the Beaver too.”

“Then it’s settled,” Caprica said with a decisive nod. “We’ll head back to the Beaver. At least, once we’re done with this plate, which shouldn’t take long.” She looked pointedly at Calamity, who was stuffing his face again. He shrugged innocently.

“The tea is nice, at least,” Booksie said.

“Oh, right, Booksie will probably want to go home too at some point,” I said. “And we have a heap of other things to do as well.”

Amaryllis nodded. “Awen needs her parts, and we need to visit the Exploration Guild, there are papers to fill.”

“Should we split up?” Caprica asked. “I’d love to spend some time with you, Booksie. Broccoli told me a bit about you, and I’d be remiss not to make friends while I have the opportunity.”

“Ah, are you certain?” Booksie asked. “I’m just a bookshop bun, nothing too special. You’re an actual princess.”

Caprica snorted. “Nonsense. Trust me, I need to make as many good friends as I can while I can. My past will catch up to me eventually, and then I’ll be dragged back to Sylphfree and probably watched over like a stray dragon for a while.”

I grinned. It was nice seeing Caprica so eager to make more friends, although it could be hard to make friends so quickly and effortlessly. I was working really hard on that and was still a ways away from being good at it.

“Actually,” Amaryllis said, and there was a definite note of scheming-ness in her tone that immediately worried me. “This could be an opportunity.”

“Oh?” Caprica asked. She had the same note in her voice, which only worried me even more.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“Well, Caprica’s embassy here has a lot more manpower than we have, and we just happen to have a monumental task ahead of us that we haven’t even started working on,” Amaryllis said.

“The assassins?” Booksie asked.

I’d hoped that she had more or less forgotten about that. I felt guilty bringing it up already, it was a worry on top of all the rest of the worries she had to deal with.

“Exactly,” Amaryllis said as she gestured towards Booksie with a wing. “We’re just one airship crew. We can hardly be expected to scour a city the size of Port Royal to discover where a bunch of ne'er-do-wells are hiding and plotting. The embassy, on the other talon, is filled to the brim with overeager sylph. I peeked a little at your guards. Some of them are in their second tier. They’ll be pretty talented when it comes to spotting danger, and they’ll have training that we lack besides.”

“That’s certainly an idea,” Caprica said. “But with the normal levels of animosity between the sylph and the average dragon, it’ll be hard for me to ask them to essentially foil a plot that goes against the local dragons.”

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“Even if that plot is meant to start a super big, really bad war?” I asked.

Caprica frowned and rubbed at her chin. “This is the same plot that set off those pirates to the north and which attacked the diplomatic mission heading to Sylphfree. And our airforce did participate in a raid against them already. I suppose we’ve laid down some precedent for us interfering.”

“Alright, we'd be happy to have the hel ... wait.” I frowned. “Is this even a good idea? The sylph have an embassy here, but they don't have jurisdiction, right? They're not the city's law enforcement. I'm ... guessing they can't just go stomping around looking for bad guys, right?”

Caprica shrugged. “It’s basic espionage. They should have plenty of experience with it here.”

“Should you be admitting that?” I asked.

Caprica rolled her eyes. “Of course not. But I expect all of you to be at least a little discreet about it. Besides, the embassy and its staff would just deny anything if asked.”

“Can you get them to report to you?” Amaryllis asked.

“Yes... maybe,” Caprica said. “Technically we’re both in entirely separate chains of command. The head ambassador of the embassy doesn't have to obey me, same for the chief of security. But I suspect that they’d both at least listen if I asked.”

I wasn’t sure if it was okay or not to use Caprica’s influence to help, but if no one helped, then it would be much, much harder to catch any bad guys, and some pretty terrible things could happen. Booksie’s special day might be ruined! We had to do what we could to help!

“It’ll take me a while to talk the head ambassador around. The chief of security will jump on this. I think he finds this posting to be something of a dead end,” Caprica said. “I think I’m going to miss out on visiting the Exploration Guild tonight.”

“Oh no,” I said.

Awen shook her head. “We shouldn’t go today anyway,” she said.

We all turned towards her, and she shrunk back a little.

“Uncle’s there. It’ll take him at least one day to tell all the stories of the things he’s been up to,” Awen said. “If we got there now, it’ll still take until tomorrow, at least, before we get anything done.”

“So, we can put that off until tomorrow,” I said with a nod. “Should we shop for Beaver parts, then? I’m sure the sooner we have those, the sooner we can start fixing the ship up! Oh, and some parts might need to be ordered or custom-made! That’ll take even longer.”

“That seems like a sensible choice,” Amaryllis said. “How about you take Booksie to see the Beaver and get those parts. I’ll stay here with Caprica and help her with the politics. If you don’t mind, that is?”

“I wouldn’t mind at all,” Caprica demurred.

Calamity yawned. “I’ll come with ya, Captain. Need to walk off all of this food.” Saying that, he reached over and plucked another canape.

I nodded along. I was trading one friend for another. Temporarily, at least. “You’ll meet us back at the Beaver?” I asked Amaryllis.

“Later, yes. I’ll try to drag Caprica back too, if I can,” she said.

I didn’t like splitting up much, but it wasn’t like I had too much of a choice. And besides, it would be much easier on Booksie to make friends a few at a time, instead of having us all there at once.

“I’m looking forward to seeing your ship, Broccoli,” Booksie said as she jumped to her feet. “And it was nice meeting you, Princess Caprica.”

“Just Caprica to my friends,” Caprica said. “And I should be seeing you later. Hopefully in a less formal environment.”

Calamity stood up too, stretching his arms over his head before he plucked his hat from the back of a chair and stuffed it onto his head.

Caprica escorted us into the entrance hall, and I noticed the embassy staff standing at attention as she led us to the exit. Since we were splitting up, it was as good a time as any for goodbye hugs. Amaryllis fussed, of course, but she gave in to nuzzles and hugs soon enough, then it was Caprica’s turn. I couldn’t decide if the guards were envious of Caprica hugs or if they were about to jump in and toss me back into that cell.

“You two will be alright without us?” I asked.

“I’m more worried about you,” Amaryllis said. She handed me a small pouch that clinked metallically. “That’s our repair budget. Don’t go over it. Collect receipts and invoices. Let Awen do any negotiating.”

Caprica chuckled. “Listen to your first mate, Broccoli; she knows what she’s doing. And don’t worry about us, we have an embassy full of sylph to keep us safe.”

“I will, but you keep safe anyway, Caprica,” I said before giving her an extra bonus hug.

We left the embassy, and I could feel the eyes of the guards on us until we crossed the gates and were on the street.

“Alright, so, where to?” Calamity asked as he tilted his head back.

“Awen knows what we need, more or less,” I said with a nod to Awen. I reached into a pocket and tugged out my notes. “And I have a list right here. Some of these things aren’t for the repairs though.”

Booksie let out a long breath. “That was intense. Do you always have so much going on?”

Calamity laughed at that and started walking backwards with his hands folded behind his head. “You have no idea, little bun. By the way, who is she?”

“This is Booksie! Didn’t I tell you about her? Oh! Booksie, in case it wasn't clear, this is Calamity! He’s our... hmm, I guess he’s our ranger specialist? Hunter?”

“I’m the pretty one in the crew,” Calamity said with a wink and a grin.

Booksie shook her head, but she was smiling. “I think I see. Anyway, I don’t know too much about airship parts, but I do know Port Royal pretty well. I can lead the way, if you want?”

“I’d love that,” I said.

***