“No. his is something we can’t ignore,” said Seren, waving the letter. “We can’t just leave them to their fate.”
“Sure we can. That’s exactly what fate is, something that can’t be avoided.”
“Rive needs to vote on this, since we’re at odds.” She paused. “They need to know about this anyway, they’re a member of the crew.”
“Shark’s Cove first. Think of it this way. The note said the people writing it were from a ship, right?” Vachlan stayed silent until Seren nodded. “They normally employ how many people on a ship?”
“Captain Juji looked to have at least twenty?” She tried to remember how many she’d seen on her brief trip over. “Maybe more than that?”
“And when you rescue them, are you going to drape them over tree branches like the laundry?”
A direct hit. Seren wanted to protest, pointing out that they only needed to get the people off the island, but Vachlan was correct. There was no way to really transport people with the ship at its current size. And that didn’t account for anyone who might be injured or ill.
A small voice in her pointed out that she should be worried about her father, who’d been poisoned, before she worried about people she’d never seen and who might be dead, but she tramped that worry down. Her dad wouldn’t let him die without a fight, and since she wouldn't be receiving any updates, it wasn’t like she’d be able to put her worries to rest.
“I’m just going to trust that things will work out,” she muttered to herself.
“Good,” said Vachlan. “When we land in the city, we’ll give that message to someone who can act on it.”
Seren smiled weakly, not wanting to explain that she’d been thinking about something else. The woman was right, though. With the size of the ship, they couldn’t take on a whole crew.
“We’ve got to figure out what type of magic can build onto the Picotree Drop. We’ll not sail far if we’re worried about storage and quarters.”
Vachlan nodded at that, her beak full of jerky.
“We still let Rive know about this. Maybe they have a different idea about what we should do.” She tossed the bottle onto the bed and kicked up the rug to reveal the trap door. Climbing down with one hand was too difficult, so she tucked the message under her chin for the duration, grabbing it again when both feet were on the ground.
“Rive!”
“Captain!” came the reply. “It’s certainly been a busy day.”
When Seren rounded the corner, she saw them leaning against the engine block.
“How can I help you this time?”
“The net brought up a bottle.” Seren waved the paper at them. “We’ve already come to different thoughts about it, but you’re part of the crew and need to know as well.”
They reached out for the message and she handed it over.
“Well, this is something, isn’t it?” Rive gave it another read through, then pressed their lips together. “Let me guess, you want to rescue them?”
“Yes.”
“Vach, on the other hand, doesn’t.”
“She thinks we should give it to someone in Shark’s Cove, though I’m not sure who would want that type of information.”
“Probably the guilds,” Rive muttered, “they could make it a quest or something like that. I think. Did Vach say why she didn’t want to go?”
“We don’t have the space to put people.” Seren heard a grunt of agreement from Rive and felt her heart sink. “I think we ought to go, get the ship enlarged, then go find these people.”
“That’s a lot of things to do in a short amount of time,” Rive commented. “I know you want to go rush off and help these people, but I think it would be better to see this as planning for something we can do in the future, and make sure they get the help they need now.”
“I don’t want to wait, though.”
“They waited more than a year to write this, I’m sure we can wait at least a month. That’ll allow others to step in and lead a rescue if they have the resources, and if not, hopefully by that time, we’ll have someone to help with space.”
Seren rolled her eyes. “And here I thought I’d be able to do what I wanted, when I wanted.”
Rive laughed at that, the peals echoing through the passageway. “When has a person ever been able to do that? When my siblings and I were younger, our parents told us what we could and couldn’t do. As we grew older, society stepped into that role, and finally, all the rules your heart makes take on that role.”
“My heart?”
“Well, your soul is possibly a better word, but I feel heart is more romantic.” Rive flashed her a smile. “Think about it. Your soul absorbs all the experiences you survive in life and controls your thoughts and feelings if it comes around again. Were you burned by a furious fire? Your soul tells you not to touch it. Confessed your love to someone and got a stony silence? You create chains that prevent you from doing that again.”
Seren felt as if all the breath had gone out of her. Was that all there was to life? Listening and obeying the rules that, if not placed by people, a person placed on themself?
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“How old are you again, Rive?” she asked, the words trembling as she tried to laugh them off. “You sound like an old man, unhappy with how life turned out.”
They tapped the side of their nose. “I prefer to think that I’m knowledgeable, and a realist. If I know what’s probably going to happen, then I can prepare for my reaction to it and move in the direction I want to. It’s more... Moving with the chains instead of against them. Much easier to do than wasting energy fighting and going nowhere.”
Was that what she did? Waste energy? Seren shook her head. No. Well, maybe. But her struggling like that had gotten her a ship, was the whole reason this crew was forming, and who knows what would happen in the future.
“I’d like to go on record that this is not my choice,” she stated. “You and Vachlan wish to hand this over to another group, and I want to help since we were the ones that found the message in the first place.”
Rive put a hand on her shoulder. “You could always pull rank as captain. We’re your crew. We have to follow your commands.”
“That’ll be a hard no.” She stepped back and folded her arms over her chest. “If you really think I’m going to behave like my father and force you to do something you don’t want to, then you don’t know me.”
“To be fair,” murmured Rive, “I’ve known you for several days?”
“... Fine!” She snapped. “That’s the whole reason I ran away from home—I was sick of being told what to do! Yes, I might be the captain here, but I will not pull rank. I’m certainly not going to force a person to do something they don’t want to do. When there are options I want to hear what you both think, and yes, I might not agree with you about the timing of helping people, but if we don’t have room to transport someone who might be sick or injured, then we probably shouldn’t do it.”
Rive waited for her to finish. “Are you planning on becoming a medical ship?”
“No, but we’re going to need more than one bed when there’s already three people in the crew. Maybe you’d like to sleep at night for once?”
They chuckled. “Maybe. Just... I guess I’m wondering what we’re going to do. Traveling is fine, but just dropping into place that catches our interest isn’t a long-term strategy.”
“Rive, I think nothing we’re doing right now is a long-term strategy.” Seren sighed. “I don’t even know what going to the guilds is going to do for us as a crew, if that’s something we even want.”
“I thought I saw that book from earlier? That we were reading in Tairdi’s library? How to Join a Guild.”
She nodded. “We never finished it, so there might be more than the writer’s complaints about how hard and strange guild initiation is.”
“That might tell us why joining is a good idea.” They shrugged. “And if not, we’ll ask around when we’re down in Shark’s Cove.”
“I’m going to check the book while we fly.”
“I’ll continue working down here, then.”
Seren was still annoyed at them when they left the underground, popping her head out into the room. Vachlan was chewing on another piece of jerky, laying on the bed with their back to the ceiling.
“What did Rive say?”
“They agreed with you, then asked what I’m doing as the captain of the ship.”
“Which is?” She wanted to say, wondering more and more why she'd taken on crew members. She could have lived alone in peace and quiet, drifting with the winds and just absorbing the atmosphere.
“Probably going stir-crazy.”
“Mm?”
“Never mind,” said Seren, waving her hand to dismiss the words. “I was thinking of something else. There’s a book around here that I wanted to continue reading, though... ah ha!”
It was at the end of the bed, almost covered by one of the history books that she’d wanted to start reading.
“What’s the book about?”
“A guy who wrote it, but ended up not able to. I guess writing the book was a form of therapy. He really lets the sharper side of his tongue out on the organization. I was hoping to find out why, or if there were any special benefits and opportunities.” Seren started reading where she and Rive had left off, but then began flipping through the pages, trying to skim and see if she could quickly find anything.
“There’s got to be something in here... Vachlan, I’ll be outside under the tree if either you or Rive needs me.”
A wing flapped in her direction and Seren left the small room, walking out and immediately enjoying a light breeze.
“If it gets any colder up here, I’m going to need long sleeves and a thick sweater.” With a mental note to get that long before winter, she walked up the path and settled down between the roots of the tree, the book clenched in her hands. “Okay, we stopped when Atois Burke began talking about siblings. He mentioned nothing at the beginning of the book about why he and his group wanted to join, so maybe there’s something in the back?”
She flipped to the back and began working her way forward.
“This is stupid,” Seren muttered to herself after a few minutes, brushing away tendrils of hair that wanted to become bookmarks. “It’s just a guy griping about something he thinks is unfair.”
About a third of the way from the back, though, she stopped.
“Huh. Okay, maybe I was wrong about the guy.” Skimming the long rant, there was a bit more information in there about why he’d wanted to join, and many more angry vents about him and his group not being accepted. “Never mind. He’s still bitter about this, and it’s been about two hundred pages. At this point, either let it go or be angry enough to do something about it.”
She briefly wondered what became of Atois Burke, but trying to find a single person would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Viadora had been full of so many beings, and that was only one place.
“Let’s see exactly why you were so desperate to join.”
I wanted to join for the adventure. To proudly proclaim myself as a hero. Sure, there’s magic in the world, but registering with the guilds is the only way to combine magic, and if a person doesn’t have any, like me, it’s how we can be better at offensive and defensive attacks.
Raise an arm to ward off a blow? That’s going to get you broken bones. Do the same gesture when you have guild mates with you? Depending on their strengths, you could have a shield of fire form in front of you. Maybe air that’ll knock the attack away? At worst, their endurance would be added to yours and you wouldn’t have to worry about splints and slings.
“Okay, that’s pretty cool. Rive’s like me and doesn’t have magic to draw on, and Vachlan would probably add earth to the spell.”
So there’s that. The other thing is that some actions are available only to guild members. Want to make money in the skies? On the seas? Going to have to join. Bottled lighting is something that can only be done with their approval. Same with a lot of fishing, though there are smaller villages that sneak boats out. From what I can tell, if it stays local, and the place is small enough, no one cares.
“That makes sense. Can’t really regulate everyone everywhere, so concentrating on the main populations would be the most efficient move.”
While there are a ton of reasons, the last reason is probably the most important. I wanted to go on quests, collect bounties, and live life outside of the country. We’re probably going to head back to our homes and pick up jobs there, but who the hell wants to run a food stand every day of the week? Sell items in a store? Or do anything again and again until they die? If we were adventuring, we’d at least be seeing new things, changing up what we did.
“I think even flying the skies might become what you were so afraid of. Never ending clouds, countless shades of blue. Though I guess the weather might be something to look forward to, storms of different intensities. Messages in bottles.” Seren looked out across the blue sky. Up here it was quiet, and she could feel content. “And I was lucky enough to meet a dragon during my first few days up here. That’s enough for me to know I’m on the right track.”