In the month or so that the Black Shield crew had been guests aboard Serenity’s Song, Stefan had taken to retiring to a particular hold in one of the vessel’s lower decks each night. His lodgings consisted of little more than a hammock suspended from the ceiling, but it was comfortable. After all, he had slept through countless episodes of warfare, and comfortably at that. Well, as comfortable as one could get in a massive piece of floating wood in a long-forgotten sector of the Global Ocean. Only a single curtain separated him from the next person’s lodgings. Ironically, despite how close their accommodations were, he hadn’t interacted with its resident much in their time aboard the ship. But it would change that night. Gently pulling the curtain open, he was greeted by the sight of a figure sitting with their back against a barrel. On their lap was a notebook and a pen in one of their hands, and to their right was a thick book whose design was recognisable by Stefan.

That’s the Shimajima language book Jay gave her, he mused, its aged cover and yellow pages a dead giveaway.

“So…ra,” Anwen whispered to herself as she wrote characters in her notebook that were incomprehensible to the boy silently observing her. “Sky.”

She’s lefthanded? Stefan registered as the black ink from her fountain pen flowed smoothly against the paper of her notebook in almost graceful strokes. It looked more like a piece of artwork being created than words being printed by Anwen's nimble hand. I’ve only just realized that… cool.

“Anwen, do you mind if we—

Completely immersed in her study and startled by the boy’s voice, Anwen shrieked. Her fountain pen flew from her hand, causing it to collide into a support beam. The girl snapped her head towards Stefan, her frightened expression quickly transforming to one of disappointment.

“Fucking hell, Stefan! Can you be a little considerate next time?” she grunted, before getting on her feet and stomping her way to her pen. Stefan scratched the back of his head in embarrassment, his face reddening rapidly.

As Anwen returned with her pen, she noticed a viscous feeling on her fingers. Taking her spot next to the barrel, she looked at her hands, covered in the ink of her broken pen.

“Shit, look what you made me do!” she grumbled, tossing the now useless instrument to the side. “Now I’m gonna have to borrow one of the Captain’s. It was such a nice one, too.”

“You did that, don’t blame me.” Stefan sighed. His conscience was deep in consideration for the girl.

“Well, I guess I can’t study for the rest of the night,” Anwen frowned. She wiped her hands on her a handkerchief, but the ink was smudged into her skin. It would be hard to remove. “So what did you scare the shit out of me for?”

“It’s about Ilias. He told me about what happened in your workshop.”

“What about it?”

“He was pretty upset when he came to me about it. I managed to calm him down, but you really need to watch what you say to him.”

“I was being honest. Everything I said, it came from my heart. I didn’t mean to hurt him, but what was I supposed to do? Lie to the kid about his own father? I want to paint Gareth in the way I and I only knew him, not as some mythical hero. Aunty Manisha probably told Ilias his dad was something like a legend, but he needed to hear the truth.”

“You need to remember that he’s a lot younger than us. He won’t understand what you say, even if it’s true. From what I could tell, your tone, the way you said it was harsh.”

Anwen gazed at her stained, sticky palms, taking time to register Stefan’s words. She understood he appreciated her honesty, but she didn’t want to accept that her words were hurtful.

“I don’t remember the first four years of my life, Stefan,” she turned to the boy after a few long moments of reflection. “I would do anything to get even a little bit of that time back. You were held back from knowing about your own truth, and... I understand I had a part in that,”

Stefan cringed internally. He remembered exactly what he’d done to the girl, having been consumed by a primal rage. All because he was furious that the truth was delivered to him with such a delay.

“I don’t want Ilias to not know the truth about his dad. And I know I could’ve said it in a better way, I tried to say sorry, but it was just… it was just begging for me to let it out, Stefan! I had to let it go. Am I a bad sister for doing that?”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Stefan took a seat next to the girl, expressing empathy to her in such an awkward situation.

“There’s something I never told you about that happened to me during the battle at the Depot.” he spoke in a soft tone.

“What’s that gotta do with all this?”

“Just hear me out. On that day, I saw my older brother. Fighting out on their front, for the Titanians, as some sort of a scout. He saw me, and I saw him. But he didn’t try to attack me. Instead, he told me exactly what had happened to him this whole time, everything that happened to my family. All the questions I wondered about from the moment I woke up on Gareth’s shoulder were answered. It hurt so much, you know. To know that I’d never see my mom and my uncle again, to learn about what my brother had to face. I’d be lying if I said I was completely over it. But, I think… slowly, I’m starting to feel relieved about what he said. I have a few less things that’ll linger in my head now.”

Anwen turned her head, gazing into the boy’s eyes with some sort of renewed vigour. Her eyes spoke of curiosity, sympathy, and ease all at once.

“I’m happy you got some closure, even if all your loose ends aren’t tied. But why did you decide to tell me that now?”

“I’m answering your question, about if you were a bad sister or not. I don’t think you are one. I can only imagine my brother feeling some kind of relief after he told me his story, even as I was bawling my eyes out surrounded by so much danger. I think Ilias will appreciate you telling him some of his own truth, some time down the line. But just not now.”

“I… feel a little better now,” Anwen said after a short spell of silence. “Thanks for telling me that, Stefan. I don't feel as awful now. But yeah, you’re right. I should’ve said it to him in a way his little brain can digest.”

“You shouldn’t feel bad for that at all,” he said. “But you know what you should feel bad about?”

“Huh—

Anwen was so taken aback by the switch in the boy’s tone that she failed to register that the weighty book that was to her right was now in Stefan’s hands, standing upright in front of her. His arms were stretched out to the ceiling, using his stature to hold the book as far away as possible from Anwen in the confines of the small space.

“What gives?” she cried, shooting up to her feet. Her hands clawed at the sky like a child trying to reach a kite tangled in the branches of a tree.

“You should feel bad for doing every single thing on your own!” Stefan scolded. “Have you even bothered to ask me or Ivan for a little help? Or even Aunty Manisha when she’s not working?”

“What kind of help could you give me? Do you understand how complicated the stuff I do is?” Anwen cried as she practically tried to climb up Stefan’s lengthy form.

“I’m dumber than you, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help! Look, your pen’s broken, right? There. That’s something I can help with.”

“What do you…”

“You just have to say the words. Then you get your book back.”

Anwen crossed her arms and rolled her eyes, reluctantly taking the defeat.

“Can you help me learn Shimajima, please?”

Stefan beamed, his knees bending as he descended to the floor.

“Was that hard at all?”

“Whatever, just start already! So how exactly are you going to help when you don’t know how to read it?” Anwen followed the boy’s lead, seating herself.

“It’s easy. You teach me.”

“I…”

Stefan opened the book, carefully flipping some aged pages. He saw that the right hand side of the book contained words and phrases in standard Yeupisian, while the lefthand side contained their translation in Shimajimese. To that effect, he avoided looking at the side with the foreign characters scribbled all over them. He genuinely wished for Anwen to teach him some of the language.

“What does that say?” he said, pointing to a line.

“That…?” Anwen said, leaning over to get a clearer view of the words. Remembering the sound of each character, and what the order they were printed in meant, it took her a few moments to decipher the simple sentence.

“Sendou ooku shite fune yama ni noboru.” she said, with great effort. Without a native speaker of Shimajimese to correct her, it was impossible determine if her accent was near acceptable, but she was sure the pronunciation was correct. This was the first language other than Yeupisian, neither its northern nor southern dialects, that Stefan’s ears had heard. He wanted to laugh, considering that to him, the words were nothing but gibberish.

“And that means…?” he asked after suppressing himself just enough to not burst out laughing.

“Too many captains will steer the ship up a mountain.” Anwen said, full confidence breaming from her voice.

Stefan slapped a palm over his own mouth, unleashing a gale of cacophony from it.

“Steering a ship up a mountain…? I’m sorry, that’s… that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard!”

He threw his head back as he cackled, his body heaving with each breath he made. Grumbling, Anwen grabbed a handful of the front of his t-shirt, pulling his face inches away from hers.

“I thought you were going to help me practice my Shimajimese, not laugh at me!” she snapped.

“I wasn’t laughing at you! I was laughing at your words!”” he put his hands up in surrender. Anwen’s face was set in an expression of severe distaste, keeping it that way as she held his shirt, staring daggers into his soul. Stefan debated on whether to pull himself out of her grasp—he definitely, very easily could—but then the girl’s face became tender, and her grip on his shirt loosened.

“Oh, I know. I thought it was funny too when I first said it. But... you still laughed at my expense. So get a face full of ink, Stefan!” she said cried, patting the boy’s cheeks like they were a drum, leaving it with faint marks.

Stefan felt his cheeks getting hot at the girl’s touch.

“Okay, but what does it even mean though?” Stefan shook her hands off of him, an effort to conceal his flustered state.

“I guess it means something won’t work if too many people have a part in it. You ever heard of this one proverb? It goes something like ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’. They mean the same thing.”

“Nope. On to the next one!” Stefan exclaimed, flipping through the book vigorously.

“Be careful with that, that thing’s ancient!” Anwen exclaimed as Stefan grinned.