Even with Tarka’s insistence that they leave immediately, it took the group a few days to finally set sail. Yarik apparently had some human affairs that he had to get in order — finalizing the sale of his house, and purchasing supplies for the trip being the main ones. Alika wasn’t quite sure what to think of him, but she had to admit that the fish softened her up a bit. Her previous encounter with humans might have been negative, but her parents had said that they’d made friends with humans on their travels. As ugly as they were, perhaps they weren’t all quite so bad.

Alika saw Yarik’s boat for the first time as she was helping to haul supplies for him. Snow had used her magic to disguise her as a yak: a large beast woolier than a dragon. It was a useful disguise, as it let Alika pull a cart down to the docks without raising any suspicion.

Yarik’s boat was an impressive hunk of wood. Unlike the small canoes that Tarka had been captured in, Yarik’s boat — the Windrider — was a voyaging canoe consisting of twin hulls, the deck of the boat connecting them. Two great sails had been furled up to the forward and aft of the deck, which was partially covered by thatching in order to shield the crew from sun, rain, wind, and snow. It was certainly more cramped than the open paths on which Alika had been walking, but it would comfortably fit them all.

Yarik described the Windrider in endearing terms, almost as if it were his own cub (although he called it a ‘she’, for reasons completely unknown to Alika). Apparently, it was well-known for being both impressively-sized and fast, the perfect boat. He claimed that she’d taken him across the sea many times, back when he was a ‘merchant’, although Alika was still unclear what exactly that was.

It was the dead middle of night when they finally took set sail, and the docks were empty but for the crashing of waves. One of the Twins was out in full, while the other was hiding beneath the horizon. The Windrider bobbed up and down as Yarik swung himself aboard, gathering up coils of rope, and a cool salty breeze ruffled Alika’s fur.

Alika placed a paw on the Windrider’s deck. The boat rocked beneath her, pulling against the rope that kept it to the dock. As she climbed onto it, her additional weight caused the boat to tilt toward her, the hull sinking down into the water.

“Are we sure this is safe for dragons?” Alika’s talons grabbed onto one of the masts, holding herself tight as the boat swayed. “Maybe we should take the land bridge instead.”

Yarik had mentioned to her that there was, in fact, a path in which they could walk across the sea instead — however, he’d recommended against it, do to the road being slow, dangerous, and deep in the heart of human civilization. Alika had taken his advice, but feeling the small boat rocking against the great ocean was making her second guess herself.

“We’re perfectly safe!” Tarka claimed. He spread his wings, leaping onto the deck and causing the boat to shudder up and down. Alika hugged the mast tighter. “Don’t worry, Alika! If I couldn’t rock the one I was on over, there’s no way I can do it to this one!”

Alika’s ears tilted backward. She still felt guilty about not managing to rescue him.

“It would take quite a storm to capsize us,” Yarik explained. “This late in the season, we won’t need to worry about that until we cross beneath the rings.”

“So it is possible?” Alika gulped. The boat felt so uncertain under her hindpaws, tilting from side to side. What if it capsized in the middle of the ocean, and they were stranded far from land?

“I’ve been sailing the Windrider for fifty years, and it’s never turned over,” Yarik assured her. “You have nothing to worry about.”

“Fifty years?” Alika asked, her ears perking up. How old was this human? If she remembered right, humans didn’t live longer than maybe eighty or so.

“Now, my ship before that…” Yarik chuckled. “Well, let’s just say that some things are best left at the bottom of the sea.”

Alika gulped once more, cowering down.

“Be assured, some mistakes you only make once,” Yarik said.

“Psh, only fifty years?” Snow scoffed. She leaped aboard the ship, unlike Tarka, hardly making a dent in it. She whipped her tails as she walked around the border of the deck. “That’s nothing. You’re practically still a kit!”

Yarik raised a fluffy white eyebrow. “A kit, you say.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“How old are you, Snow?” Tarka asked, cocking his head.

“It’s considered impolite to ask a fox her age,” Snow replied, leaping in front of Tarka and raising her snout smugly. “My mother would have cursed all your fur to fall out for that!”

Snow hissed as she curled the ends of her tails, her fur expelling white sparks of light. Tarka leaped back, almost over the edge of the ship’s deck.

“Sorry,” Tarka whimpered.

Snow laughed, lowering her tails. “I’m just messing with you. It’s pretty obvious how old I am if you count my tails.”

“One, two, three.” Tarka raised a forepaw, counting off on his talons. “You’re three years old? That’s younger than I am!”

“Close. I grow a new tail every hundred years,” Snow explained.

“Three hundred?” Tarka squealed, leaping up and down. The boat rocked, and Alika glared at him. “You’re three hundred years old? Actually for realsies?”

“Not too far off,” Snow replied, leaping onto a large beam of wood connected to the mast and surrounded by furled-up fabric. “I started out with a tail, and I think I’m probably halfway to my next one, so I’m around two and a half hundred. Two hundred and fifty. Approximately. I stopped keeping track a century ago.”

“That’s older than Mom was!” Tarka exclaimed. “And probably Mom’s Mom! Maybe even Mom’s Mom’s Mom! Three moms old! A tail for each mom!”

“Yep. I’m older than all but the oldest dragons.” Snow’s whiskers and ears lowered, and she turned her snout up to the stars. Her voice was suddenly as quiet as a whisper. “And soon enough, I’ll be the only one alive who remembers any of you.”

“Wait, do you have kits?” Tarka asked. “Do your kits have kits?”

Snow spat in surprise. “Deer Fox in the Sky, no! I still have quite a few centuries left before I need to think about that!”

“Hey, just asking!”

Alika finally managed to unclench her forelegs from around the mast, and warily ambled across the deck. The boat tilted as she did so, and her talons dug into the wood as if she could slide off at any moment. The dragon suddenly felt queasy. Maybe she shouldn’t have eaten so many fish that morning.

“It’s odd at first, but you’ll get used to it,” Yarik said as he unlooped the lines from the dock.

The boat, now untethered, began to drift away from the shore. Alika carefully dipped a paw over the side, brushing it against the surface of the water. Had she really agreed to live on this small piece of wood?

“Alika, take this.” Yarik held out a long piece of wood with a flat fan at the end. “It’s a paddle. We need to get away from shore.”

Alika cocked her head in confusion.

Yarik demonstrated, squatting down at the edge of the canoe and dipping the flat end into the water. Using one hand to hold it in place, he twisted it around. The boat turned slightly.

“Don’t let go,” he said, placing it in front of Alika as he went to get a second.

Alika squinted, placing her paws around and trying to hold on the best she could. Carefully, she carried it over to the water and dipped it in. Twisting her body, it moved beneath the water for a moment, before slipping upward and almost out from her grasp. This wasn’t working.

Instead, she tried something a little different — she used one paw to hold the center of the paddle against the boat while wrapping her jaws around the end. Pulling her head back, the paddle twisted, her neck straining against the water.

“You’ve got it!” Yarik put his own paddle into the water on the opposite side of the boat, rowing in his own fashion. “Just try a little further beneath the surface, and pull for longer.”

Alika did as he asked, and the boat began to move, very slowly, away from the shoreline. As they moved away from the coast under the dark of night, the wind began to pick up in earnest, tossing Alika’s mane. Her neck ached with each stroke of the paddle: she hadn’t ever had to pull like this before.

“Alright, we’re good!” Yarik said, extending an arm. “Tarka, I’ll let you do the honors. Grab that line, and we’ll hoist the sails!” He pointed at a rope for Tarka.

Tarka bit down onto the end of the rope and began pulling it across the deck. A yellow-white sail began to rise from the beam that Snow stood on, unfurling. Snow leaped to the end of the beam before the sail could sweep her off her paws, watching as the sail rose. The wind caught ahold of it, whipping it from side to side.

“Just about there!” Yarik called out, crouching down and taking the line from Tarka’s jaws. “That’s good. Tarka, watch as I tie the line off — I’ll want you to do it with me, next time. Alika, start paddling! Just enough so the wind catches the sail!”

Alika did as she was told, getting back to the paddle. Slowly, the boat started to turn.

“What can I do?” Snow asked.

“Get down from there, for one!” Yarik laughed. “I don’t want anyone overboard this soon!”

Snow leaped to the thatched covering, and a moment later, the beam swung over Tarka’s head, the sail flapping in the wind. Yarik fiddled with a few more ropes, causing the sail to puff out.

Suddenly, the boat began to move forward. Alika lurched, almost losing the paddle again but for the grip of her jaws. She pulled it back away from the water, keeping herself low to the deck to avoid toppling over.

Gusts of wind slammed against her snout, and she pulled her wings in tight. A spray of cold seawater splattered her fur. She peeked her head up, peering over the edge of the canoe. The first colors of dawn rose in front of her, while the faint candlelights of the city grew smaller behind.

“We’re moving!” Tarka shouted, flapping his wings, the wind scooping them up like miniature sails. “We’re moving!”