The three of them sat in, or near, the tree for a while after launch. It was wonderful feeling warmth on her face again, and Rive tilting their head towards the sun showed that they were thinking the same thing.

“Did you ever experience sunlight, Vachlan?”

She clacked her beak and shook her head. “Bah, you think we lived underground, in darkness, our whole lives? Of course we ‘experienced’ sunlight!”

Seren was about to apologize for her remark, but the winged woman continued talking, moving her wings to gesture around at their surroundings.

“Nothing like this, I’ll admit. Most beastkin are more at home in the early dawn or late night times, and I’m certainly one of those, which means we see a weaker sun and more moon than others like you and Rive. I think that might be an eye thing, though.”

That was a good question, and Rive picked up on it a few seconds before she did.

“How are your eyes with this much sunlight?” They asked.

“In a little pain,” Vachlan admitted, blinking. Seren saw that there were even a few tears trickling down into her feathers. “But it’s not blinding. I’ll be fine once I get used to it. And if I go flying around, I’m most likely looking down, or at the height I’m flying, which means I won’t be staring at the sun.”

“We should probably go inside and pour over the map,” suggested Seren. “I don’t want us to fly far enough away that we’ll need to make up the time later.”

“Let me clean up the insides first, eh, Captain? There’s still too much unorganized and strewn about. Or I can get the map and bring it out here?” Rive shrugged. “I’m sure everything’ll fit somewhere, but, um... Ha. Good luck with the books.”

Seren sighed. “True, and those are mine to figure out where they need to go. But for now, let’s see if we’re heading to Wavemeet or somewhere else.”

They nodded and left for the shell part of the ship, and she slid from her place in the branches. As soon as she thumped onto the ground, Seren reached out behind her to assist Vachlan, but the woman took to the air and glided to the landing pad with a quick wing flap.

“Well, you certainly didn’t need my help.” Seren grinned at her second crew member.

“Got the map,” Rive called out, exiting the seashell and flourishing the paper. “Nothing’s changed and the biggest city near us is Wavemeet, but give me a second and I’ll get something to keep this from flying away.”

They handed the paper to Seren, who unrolled it and spread it out on the deck. When she looked up again, they had six books with them, one for each corner and another two for opposite sides.

“Here’s Azmar,” said Vachlan, pointing with her wingtip to a small dot in the middle of canyons. “And we’re heading west, so if we want to go to Wavemeet, we’ll need to head north for a while.”

“There are also a few other dots along the coastline. Second biggest is named Shark’s Cove.” Rive tapped the map to where the name was. “South instead of north, but it looks like it would take about the same time to get there, barring any storms or propeller problems.”

“The wind’s blowing steadily eastern for the moment, which means we can go either way and correct the course later on.”

“Captain?” They looked up at her, Vachlan mimicking the movement. “It’s your decision.”

Seren studied the map. A small part of her wanted to keep running, to get the farthest she could from Viadora, but she knew they wouldn’t last long at their current size and capabilities. “Wavemeet is the biggest place, and that makes it likely we’ll find who and what we need there. Rive, adjust the propeller so we head north. Vachlan, can you tell us if any storms are heading our way?”

“Um, not really.” She cleared her throat. “Possibly in the future, but… I lack the experience to be sure of my findings.”

“That makes sense,” said Seren, nodding and smiling to show it was okay to have a weakness, especially one that could be worked on. “And it’s something we can hopefully figure out together. I’m sure there are things you’ll sense before us, but we should learn to understand the weather as well.”

“With that decided, I’ll start us northward.” Rive got up and saluted Seren. “And then I need to reorganize the downstairs, so I’ll be there for a while.”

“And I’ll put things away in the shell.” Seren looked over to Vachlan. “You don’t have any duties for the moment. Did you want to join either of us?”

She shook her head and spread her wings again, tail flipping from left to right, then back again. “I want to fly.”

Rive snapped their fingers. “Should I recast the net?”

“Why?” Seren looked from Rive to Vachlan. “She was born to fly.”

“Because she's not used to flying.” Rive put up their open hands before Seren could ask another question. “Think of it like swimming, since it’s pretty much the same, right? Someone needs to be there to catch you before you go underwater for too long. If she runs out of energy, neither of us can actually catch her, but I can put the net out. If Vachlan needs it, all she has to do is land in it and we’ll pull her up.”

“I... Thank you. I would like to do that.” Vachlan dipped her head. “I don’t think I would fly until I get too tired to land, but that’s a mistake a person can only make once.”

Seren shivered, thinking of how close Rive had been to making that mistake before, and then grinned.

“What’s that face for?” asked Rive, giving her an odd look. “And how badly should I be worried?”

“I just realized that you don’t need to go out when you land again. That’ll be Vachlan’s job from now on.”

They grinned as well. “Works for me.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“That’s okay. Take the time to work on your wing muscles and learn about the sky.” Rive patted her on the back, though Seren saw it turn into a smoothing motion after a few seconds. “I’ll teach you what we need to do for landing, and the good news is, if you fall, you at least have wings.”

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She chortled and bobbed her head up and down. “That does sound like a better job for me than you.”

“Rive, can you collect the books and take them in with you? I’m going to grab the map and make sure it doesn’t fly off into the aether.”

“Got it.” They started picking up temporary weights, and when it looked like the wind was going to snatch the map, Seren grabbed it before it was lost in the clouds.

“Vachlan, let me get the net set up for you. It’ll take me a few minutes to make sure it’s secured well enough.” They gave her a thumbs up. “I’ll come back up soon. Captain, is there any place in particular you want these?”

“On the bed is fine.” She stifled a yawn. “If it’s occupied, then I won’t be tempted to sleep.”

“Now’s actually the best time since we’ll need to get back to our swapping arrangement.” Rive grinned as she let out a groan. “Just saying.”

“Noted.” She yawned again, this time not bothering to cover her mouth. “I’ll look through them, set out anything that might interest you two, and then sleep.”

There was something important to do first, though, before Rive recast the net. Seren shook off her tiredness, turned to Vachlan, and put a hand on the woman’s feathery shoulders.

“Welcome to the crew.”

***

“Why did I think I’d be able to fit more books?” Seren let out a sigh and moved away from the bookshelf. “I already had this shelf super packed before.”

There were about twenty new ones between the books she’d bought and those lent by Tairdi. She tilted her head and studied the shelf. “Hmm…maybe I can put non-fiction here and store the fiction somewhere else?”

Of course, that would require her to figure out how many of each book she had, and see if the non-fiction selection was more or less than the others. She put everything on the little table and started tossing fiction books onto the bed. While she sorted, she put a few to the side for herself, Rive, and Vachlan, and when there were duplicates, those went into a separate pile.

“Never really sure who’ll be doing the buying, and they shouldn’t have to worry about accidentally getting rid of books we wanted to keep.” Seren stretched. “Okay, that’s the piles. Let’s see what we’ve got for Rive.”

She’d need to get more books about engineering specifically, but Mark of Iron; Craft of Will looked like something they might find interesting. It was a non-fiction book about how a person could train themselves to come up with inventions and ideas.

How to Join a Guild. Seren held the book and sent a mental thank you to Tairdi. This was certainly xyr contribution, and hopefully it would help them all prepare for the tests they’d eventually take.

For Vachlan, there was Blue Sanctuary, which, having been co-written by a sky master and a water master, might have some information about sky things, maybe even about weather.

“As for myself...” She already knew what she wanted to read, but, seeing how much there was of the world she didn’t know, it would probably be best to start with a few historical books. Seren put A Field of Nightmares and The Fall of the Crooked to the side. A quick glance showed that the first one was about the aftermath of the Night Sky War, and the second one was written on the corruption of Byyg’s government. Wherever that was.

“We might never go to Byyg, but it won’t hurt to have read it. Especially since I’ll make the other book required reading for me.” She pushed and moved the chosen books out, then looked at all the ones that needed to go up on the shelf. “Right... There’s still no way everything is going to fit.”

First thing was to have a separate space for the extras. Those could go under the bed, or downstairs for storage. Rive might have enough room for a dedicated “things to sell when hitting the next area” section, which would make it even easier to fill a bag, grab it on the way out, and know that nothing in it would be a mistake to get rid of.

Under would do for now, until she could ask Rive for space, and then there was the rest. Seren looked at the shelf and put the thickest ones on the bottom, laying them horizontally. With a layer of two books covering the shelf that way, she began putting the rest of the books in vertically. Adding the last book was a tight squeeze, but that finished it. Seren stood up and looked at her work from the bed.

“It doesn’t look good,” she finally said, “but it’s holding everything, and there’s just enough space for the copies right now.”

She fished the two out from the bed, added them, then put the yellow ribbon back up.

“That looks...”

Seren turned around to see Rive popping up from the trapdoor and shrugging.

“It works for now, and that’s what we need.” She shrugged. “Good to see you so soon, but I thought you were still organizing.”

“Wanted to grab something to snack on.” They exited and sat on the other side of the bed. “Something small.”

“Oh, I found a book you might like!” Seren took Mark of Iron; Craft of Will from where she'd kept it separate and passed it to Rive. “It’s all about inventing and inventions, but I’m not sure if you already know these things or if it’s something new.”

“I’ll flip through it later, and hopefully it has diagrams. Thanks!” They bit into a dried mushroom and waggled the remaining stalk at the book. “It might even have different materials to add for better strength or conductivity.”

“That sounds like a good thing.”

“It is,” Rive agreed, finishing up the stalk in their hand. “And it’s something I’d rather have a recipe book than fiddle around with myself.”

“What about the joy of discovering something?”

“Tempered knowing that I don’t have the money to continue ruining things just for a bit of happiness when someone else has already discovered it and I could have spent time and money making something with the material they already magicked up.” Rive shrugged. “I mean, why spend all the time digging a hole to plant a tree when someone else’s already dug it and I can just use it?”

Seren nodded. That made sense.

“Then I hope it fires up the brain and helps you think of many things to make.”

“Did you find things you wanted to read?” They finished the stalk with a bite. “They’re your books, after all.”

“History books.” She smiled and decided not to correct them on thinking that the books were her property. “They’ll help me get a better understanding of the history I’ve clearly missed out on.”

“Nice!” Their eyes raked over the shelf. “And there’s a lot more to read.”

“Right now it’s about half fiction and half non-fiction? I haven’t counted, and probably won’t until it gets to the point we need separate shelves for each section.”

“And that’s going to be ships away, or at least until we have someone who can make this ship even bigger. That’s probably easier than buying a new ship.”

“Do you think,” Seren asking, tapping a finger against her chin, “there’s a basic point where we can’t add or change anything?”

Rive shrugged. “I think there’s a reason that they craft most ships to the sizes they are. No idea though if that’s because wood's expensive, there’s a hidden cost of magic, or basic luck.”

She snorted. “Nothing that I need to worry about for the moment, then. I’ll just focus on laundry, things we can sell when we land, and catching up on history.”

“I’ll be seeing what I can make with items I got in Azmar.” Rive rubbed their hands together. “The oil itself was worth the trip, and I’m half tempted for us to go back to Viadora to see if I can get a trade route started.”

Seren thought of Bri and shuddered. “Not for a while, at least. I mean, I’m sure we’ll go back just so we can visit your family again. And I doubt I’ll be threaded upon landing again, but...”

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder when idiots and assholes are involved, I get it.” Rive took two more mushrooms, tossed one to Seren, then saluted her with the other one. “Farewell for now, captain. Time to make new things.”

“And time for me to get chores done.” Seren bit into the mushroom and enjoyed the earthy, slightly woodsy, taste. “Good luck with yours.”