Amelia Roberts was in her usual place that first night. Her own private little headspace island called Neverland. Or Wonderland depending on her mood and what stories she had been reading recently.
Her mother had once called it her “island sanctuary”.
Her father had said it was her “mind palace”.
Her primary school teachers had frequently maligned it as her “panic room”.
Her elder sister half-jokingly called it her “little hidey hole” and her younger sibling said it was her “happy place”.
The common denominator in all these descriptions was that they all originally sprouted from a place of mild irritation or exasperation. But the fact was they were all, in some way or another, true.
She now dug into that plane of whimsy as firmly as she could and held fast as she had been doing for the past several days.
Reason being the real space her body occupied in said period was about as far from her comfort zone as one could be in somewhat sane reality. A fact made all the crazier by that it was entirely her own decision. One she had been fretting over and doubting even since before she’d first set her tender foot on the deck boards.
But there was no retreat now. Her passport didn’t cover round trips. Unless she found a bottle of pixie dust secreted under a rock somewhere she was going to have to keep to this path she’d started herself on for the foreseeable future.
Hence her keeping her gaze so vehemently fixed figuratively inward.
She sat in her mute fantastical sanctity inside the belly of a rocking, rolling passenger barge on its way to a school. An Academy, so her father’s old mate Billy Bones had told her on not infrequent occasion, for those select beasts with an unmitigable inability to abide authority.
He hadn’t phrased it nearly so concisely, but it had stayed with Amelia all the same.
Outside, thunder rolled like grim drums, searing bolts of lightning painted the dark quarters of the cargo hold in harsh pale shades. Each time offering her a brief but intense view of her surroundings.
She had made the mistake of poking a periscope out of her daydream utopia exactly five times during the entire voyage and had recoiled instantly on each occasion.
Isolated was as good a word as any she knew to describe her state. But despite her feelings or what she may have dearly wished was the case, in actual fact she was in the furthest fathomable thing from solitude.
Pressing in on her unrepentantly from all sides were beasts of every possible shape, size, color and pattern from each of the farthest corners of every land mass from the frigid Mentatan tundra to the swampy Amurzan badlands.
They sat packed together like a herd of livestock on stiff wooden benches as they had done more-or-less constantly for the last two days. The benches were arranged fourteen rows deep and two across, with a narrow aisle splitting them evenly along the ship’s boney keel.
Amelia herself was wedged in between two particularly surly Pantherine females. She knew she wasn’t the only one who no longer had any sensation below the knees mainly because every other beast within earshot seemed physically incapable of keeping it to themselves.
Among their diversity of ranks were a sizable majority mammals including Canines, Uruses, several distinct Felines both large and small, and Marsupials, just to name a few.
They also ferried Avians from all but seven of the one hundred fifty-one Tail Islands. Amphibians held some scattered presence as well, though for various reasons mostly related to biology considerably less than even the other ectothermic taxonomic groups.
All in all they ranged from the sleek and fast to the thick and brutish. There were those who wore slippery or armored scales instead of the more appealing fur, feathers or skin. Some walked on hooves and others on clawed paws or talons. Most had posable forelimbs, most of which sported at least one set of opposable digits.
That and a general preference for upright postures constituted the lion’s share of their commonalities.
One more was a peculiar habit they all, for some odd reason, shared. One for which an origin had yet to be ascertained by historians or divined by mystics of any stripe. That was to cover themselves, if nothing more than the regions involved in reproduction, with innumerable styles, types and patterns of materials. Fabrics, mostly.
Some were festooned with ribbons, others patterned with creative combinations of silken threads. A few even wore armored mesh woven into the lining of their garments.
On a normal boat ride this might have raised some suspicion, both from the passengers and the crew. But considering where this particular vessel was bound for, it made almost too much sense.
One other shared feature from Amelia’s viewpoint was that the bulk of the crowd outweighed her by at least one whole order of magnitude.
Amelia herself was known in academic circles as an Anuran of the Sapient variety from the Amurzan mainland. To the laybeasts of Aevon, she was known as a poison dart frog, but more commonly was just simply called an Anuran, simply because the word more easily rolled off the tongue and stuck more easily in the brain.
She had been born into skin which seemed to have been knitted together using scraps of summer sky and fresh orange peels. Her hues were considered exceptionally vibrant even by the fiercely competitive standards of her home Region, Ophidna. A portion of the broader Amurzan Continent frequently “traded” in for its immense variety of rich floral and faunal pigment permutations.
Amelia’s dissimilarity didn’t end there. Even for an Anuran she was small, slender and abnormally bookish. Unusually large violet eyes were set into her otherwise ordinarily constructed reuleaux head.
Like most Anuran females of her age, where other beasts’ ears would visibly protrude she wore decorated floral arrangements whose prominent leafy fans were meant to symbolize youth and vitality while the gemstone beads that dangled and danced about her neck and shoulders idolized purity and all that entailed.
She had grown to suspect both attributes were about to be as unrecognizably tattered as the planet’s eruptively reconstituted Crust by the time this crucible forge was through with her.
An Anuran’s most famous and feared trait by far was the ability to secrete a powerful alkaloid neurotoxin ... a lethal chemical cocktail which prevented its victim’s nerves from transmitting, leaving their muscles in a permanent state of forced contraction.
It was said that a teacup full of the stuff was capable of killing nearly every living being on this ship three times over.
Of course the beasts who pushed such research were well known, and deeply despised, among the actually enlightened for their, to put it nicely, lavish exaggerations. But even with this misleading light casting its proverbial inflated shadow the point still held strong.
The undeniable truth was that this secretion was as virulent and dangerous a natural asset as any fang, claw or horn. The only catch it came with was that to produce it Amelia had to imbibe a special Amurzan herbal formula known colloquially in the worldwide primary language of Adamic as “Pink Berry”.
It’s worth noting that, contrary to popular opinion, the only time this formula had any sort of magickal effects was when the fruit was allowed to sit in its own fermented solution for about ten years.
Otherwise, to any beast lacking the inbuilt facilities needed to manufacture poison, it was effectively nothing more or less than a garden variety fruit juice. Albeit one with a reportedly rather spicy aftertaste.
Lucky thing for all in her vicinity that Amelia wasn’t presently carrying any because the stresses of this voyage were putting her natural pacifistic tendencies under near unbearable strain.
This being the case, she had reverted to the time-tested school survival strategy of squeezing herself into the furthest, darkest corner she could and trying not to make so much as eye contact with any other beast for the majority of their thousand-parayard journey.
One thing Amelia had in common with her fellow passengers was her reason for being in this miserable position in the first place. They were on their way to enroll in the legendary Flint Pyrate Academy, or FPA.
It was a boarding school, of sorts, founded over three generations previously to train aspiring Prospects like herself to become hardened Abyss-faring Pyrates like the Academy’s now legendary founder, Captain Nathaniel Flint.
Amelia had initially been a bit uncertain about this when her father had first brought up the prospect of her and her sisters one day enrolling when they were still little more than tadpoles.
But when two of them had been lost to the Abyss and the third disappeared into the Void shortly thereafter, Amelia had made her mind up she would become the greatest, most fearsome, Pyrate to ever sail the Nine Depths. Even if that meant she had to imbibe phoenix essence and burn and die in fire a thousand times.
The problem was that she was neither fearsome nor great. Alone and afraid on a ship bound for destiny’s shore, she chastised herself post hoc for acting so irrationally.
It was going to take a lot of work to turn her into a powerful Abyss-rover, or a powerful anything for that matter.
“Ow,” she whimpered again as she was tossed again by the ship’s insane jostling. Her thirteen-year-old bones were not yet used to taking this sort of abuse, and they protested mightily as she grunted and whimpered, as the ship tossed her tiny frame about like a hat caught in a raging typhoon.
Even though it did not sail on water as legends say the ancient ships of the Before Times had done, it was no less subject to the whims of nature. As they drew nearer their destination, the torrential wind and water battered her with the fury of a wild wyntyrdyr desperate to shake an obnoxious hitchhiker.
All of the passengers jolted and flailed about beneath its effects, irrespective of mass or leverage. Which was bad news for those on the lower end of that scale.
Ever since the First Divide first fractured the world some twenty million years ago, flying ships like this one had been the only effective means of long travel for most species.
Like all other free-faring vessels Post Divide, it rode on a cushion of hemispherically condensed Orons, particles which alchemists hailed as the building block of the Magisphere. Otherwise known as “God Particles” or “Magick Glue”. These repulson fields were held in check by two massive Magnolsis reactors located just aft of the main hold in an uninsulated cabin.
This was why bulky stock freighters like this weren’t normally used to transport living cargo.
The reasons for this one being an exception were threefold:
#1, they, that is the smuggling group the FPA contracted to ferry prospective students, were running several days behind due to rampant logistical and mechanical failures and this was the only floating thing they had available that was both large enough to fill their entire quota on time without drastically exceeding its cargo capacity and on which all essential components met minimum safety standards. Not that they cared about those anyhow. But having an entire ship and load fall into the Abyss was typically bad for business, so the better all around.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
#2, this ship had recently undergone certain “refits” that made their current arrangement legal. Albeit by the skin of the captain’s last remaining organic tooth.
And #3, it was a whole five times cheaper than the next available private or commercial transport. As Amelia’s father had liked to say, “if you want to die rich you have to be willing to live like a beggar.”
Frankly Amelia could not and never had given a damn about wealth. Although a therapist might have posited that her coming from the bosom of one of the wealthiest illegitimate moguls this side of the century might have skewed her mind some. But right now all she really cared about was not dying in a place that looked and smelled like the inside of an unwashed sock.
Now, finally, after days of being crammed inside this miserable flying packing crate, they finally heard the call from overhead that they had been longing for. From his lookout post on high atop the main mast, the words of the spotter filtered down below through the narrow hatchway vent slits. “On deck! Land Ho!”
The palpable unrest that had settled over the stuffy cabin evaporated in an instant. Understandably excited and eager for any excuse to get off the hard-wood benches, all the Prospects clambered over and under one another to steal a glimpse out of the line of tiny, hastily installed and thus inoperable portholes.
That is, all except for little Amelia, who stayed firmly plastered in her seat. Although this meant being repeatedly buffeted by the anxious throng.
After a moment of intensive chatter the bulk of them returned bitterly to their seats, having been unable to see anything through the dense veil of Abyssal clouds looming beneath the ship’s ungainly tub.
Another long chunk of time later, the skipper's unmistakable bellicose bellow came leaking down through the creaky deck boards.
“Bring us in nice and steady!” he was yelling to the anchor house. Then came his more general refrain. This time aimed at the rest of his crew.
“Bleed those sails and make ready!”
Amelia felt a rush of relief flow over her like a river of molten sunlight as she anticipated eagerly her imminent extrication from this miserable flying casket.
She'd never been fond of Abyssal travel even when she was on deck and not sequestered away below like as many stowed portions of salted meat.
Her father had used to take her and her sisters out for a quiet day adrift whenever the weather and his work permitted it. But each time, she had always had this uneasy feeling like some unsavory thing was watching her and just waiting to seize and gobble her up.
She knew this was just her childish imagination playing games on her at the time. But something about hanging suspended many parayards above the planet’s immeasurably torrid core by an intangible thread held less than no appeal for her.
This, she knew, had less to do with her own imagination and far more with her species hyperactive survival instincts. An unfortunate, though undeniably advantageous, attribute for a beast self-set on such a notably dangerous career path.
Soon she felt the ship start decelerating and as if to prove this the captain yelled to the fo’c’sle mates, “lay anchor!”
And to the midshipbeasts on the main deck, “Stow sails and pull in the yards!”
They heard the captain's final order, “dry out the engines! Let 'er ride!” as the hatch above them swung open and one of the burly fo’c’sle mates came stomping down to take stock. Bringing with him a deluge of rain and saarding cold wind.
For the first time in days, Amelia could finally let herself breathe normally. Now came the difficult part: trying to get off this ship without being left behind or getting pulverized.
As soon as the land-side hatch opened and the gangplank was slid firmly into place, she leapt out of her seat as quickly as she could and bolted toward the narrow opening.
But she wasn’t fast enough. As is typical when a system reaches critical pressure and a floodgate appears to provide insufficient release, the crowd surged towards the tiny portal with irresistible ferocity and vigor.
Amelia had made the costly mistake of trying to squeeze through the jumble of meat and sinew, but the ferrous mob in front of her was simply too densely packed. The rest of the passengers gathered in behind her, and she was quickly swallowed up by the lumbering mass of flesh and bones.
Once it gained momentum, the unyielding horde started dragging her along its way like a racing current as merciless and perilous as the last Divide. So she fell back on her favorite tactic, duck and pray.
She let the current of the crowd take her. Not that she had much of a choice in the matter.
She was just about to reach the gangplank when she was violently knocked off her feet by a spiral-horned beast.
“Watch where you’re going whelp!” the beast sneered. To add injury to insult, he purposefully ground the clove of his hoof into her fingers as he shoved past her.
She screamed and cried out at his cruelty but it all fell on deaf ears. Every other beast was too preoccupied with getting out the door and into shelter away from the driving rain, which by this time was peppering the ground like a hail of Nexi, showing no sign of letting up.
She climbed painfully to her knees but couldn’t find it within herself to climb all the way to her feet. So, she just stayed there, sniffling, wallowing in her pain and self-pity. She cradled her one injured hand in the other and valiantly fought against the urge to cry, but a hollow void had taken root inside of her. Lacking any better alternative, she attempted to fill it by dredging up her deepest reservoirs of anger and despair. What could have possibly possessed her to want to come to such a horrible place?
The thought occurred to her to sneak back into the hold and steal a ride back home to Amurza just as a tall, shadowy, cowled figure came into view out of the gloom. His form only distinguished from the night by the flame of a small golden lantern.
The only reason she noticed him at all were his eyes. Emerald dots that played with the lantern’s fire glow from under his hood like pond waves tossing a lily pad back and forth between them.
As the figure drew nearer, she heard him shout up at some beast on deck. “Is that all of them?” To which she heard the skipper's gruff drawl, “Dunno! I thinks I counted ‘em right!”
The figure produced a wooden pallet from inside his cloak. After a moment’s consideration, he shook his head and answered, “By my count, we’re still one short!”
He cast his eyes into the open hatchway, and it was then that he noticed Amelia huddled in the darkness just behind the hull planks like a scared kitten wanting its mother.
“Hey, you!” the figure shouted at her from the ground. “Hey Runt! Hey! Come on! Let’s go! We’re all waiting on you inside!”
She didn’t move. She couldn’t. Not for fear that doing so would knock loose some of the comforting ice scabs that had formed around her mind.
But notwithstanding her wretched state, she wasn’t about to go anywhere with the likes of a forest wraith. Even if he did remind her of a character she'd encountered in one of her older sister’s romantic pulp novellas.
When she remained impudent to his second call he stepped up onto the gangplank and started to yell at her a third time, but he stopped short upon seeing and recognizing the extent of her injury. At which point his seemingly callous, cold demeanor dropped and was replaced by the closest thing the present atmosphere would let show through as naked warmth.
He approached as though she were a wounded animal caught in a trap. When he reached the doorway, he crouched down so that his glistening emerald eyes were level with the top of her head. She looked up at him with wet eyes but could do no more than sniff faintly.
He removed his hood to reveal a luscious coat of long, flowing black fur, topped by tall pointed ears and a long narrow muzzle. He was an elegant canine creature by every possible definition.
She had never seen the likes of him before. At least not in person.
She had, of course, read extensively detailed accounts of the inhabitants of the frozen Zenith continent of Menta. Many of which noting the stark contrast between the unconditionally warm and loyal Canids and the harsh, unforgiving landscape they called home.
The particular breed in front of her were distinguished by greater than average grace, luscious black coats and their majestically flowing tails. They were also well known for their soft, ruminative manners. It was frequently remarked on by travel boards and travelers to Menta alike how the whole native Canid family conducted themselves with the utmost honor and humility.
Up until this very moment, she’d passed much of that off as merely poetic blabber. She never really believed that any creature could be so flawlessly breathtaking. That is until she met one.
He held out a hand and she laid the affected one in it. At his touch a warmth that could not have been strictly physical leaked into her. He looked her abused limb over carefully. Then with a smile like the glow of a winter hearth he gave it back saying, “looks like just a bit of light bruising. Nothing a shot of something strong can’t fix.”
His voice was deep and soothing. His every word was for her bruised psyche what a sip of Papa Manchineel Tea was for a churning stomach. His jewel-like eyes twinkled in the warm light of his lantern’s fire. At that moment Amelia was extremely grateful that her metabolism was permanently set at a consistent state making her physically incapable of blushing.
“Name’s Harold Drake by the way,” he said, taking and holding her gaze with his as though it were an antique tea set. “But most just call me Drake.”
“Who’re you?” he asked when she failed to reciprocate.
It took her a moment to remember herself enough to figure an answer. Which, all told, was probably for the best. For she felt that if she had spoken any sooner she would have wound up wishing she hadn’t.
“Am-Am-Amelia,” she stuttered. Unsatisfied with this meager performance, she swallowed once and tried again, this time without looking at him. Instead, she gave her full attention to the floor. “Amelia Roberts.”
“Well, Amelia,” Drake said in a big-brotherly sort of tone, “let’s get you inside and warmed up.”
He helped her get to her feet. When it was clear her brain hadn’t yet remembered quite what those were for yet, he placed a strong hand on her shoulder and guided her over to the hatch where a board Rat was waiting expectantly.
Drake threw his hood back up and fetched something from a hidden pocket that clinked when it smacked into the Rat’s clammy paw.
The beast flicked a clawed finger in salute and scurried back topside. When he’d gone Drake muttered as though reading off the back of a wrongly addressed post card, “I swear these mongrels get stingier every year.”
Not knowing if or how best to respond, well aware of the great mass of dislike the word “mongrel” carried from a Canid’s mouth, Amelia opted for the proven safety of still, obeisant silence.
Drake paused one boot out into the Gaian bonanza. He then spun on said same heel, reached into his black pocket of a cloak again and extracted a neatly folded brown bundle. This he handed off to her, saying, “you might want to put this on.”
She unfolded the parcel, finding it to be a shepherd style poncho. Amelia smiled, putting on the cloak, deciding then that she liked this Drake fellow, even though he didn't talk or act the least bit like a Pyrate ... or perhaps it was precisely because he didn’t.
Regardless she let him lead her down the stone tile pathway toward the Academy which, first impressions of its occupants notwithstanding, looked warm and welcoming in this dismal weather.
Words had not been invented yet that encompassed the sheer scale of this place. Not just in the physical sense, which was undoubtably impressive, but also on the metaphorical scale.
Truly a greater bastion of freedom and hope had never been erected anywhere. At least not within living memory.
The main gatehouse easily dwarfed the main mast of the glorified barge she’d come in on. And a skilled pilot could have driven a large Frigate through the actual gates at full sail with a few parfeet to spare.
In front of this gigantic structure stood an equally imposing mossy bronze statue of a grizzly old Dog brandishing a tree-sized cutlass into the battering storm.
“Mister Drake?” Amelia not so much asked as croaked. “Is that him?”
Drake looked down on her without slowing his pace and quirked a smile.
“Yep,” he said, waving his hand with a dramatic flourish as they passed, “that’s the old Dog himself. Captain Nathaniel Flint. The greatest, or at least the richest, pirate who ever lived.”
Amelia’s thoughts raced many leagues ahead of her. She'd always been fascinated by old myths and legends. Namely the fantastical and historical heroes. One of her all-time favorite characters had been the legendary “Black Prince”. Master of the equally famous ship, The Fallen Claw.
She had seen several portraits of him in her books. But no plait or parchment sketch could possibly do justice to the awesome creature standing before her here in immortal metal.
She forgot the torrential rain for a second. She stood, utterly possessed by a sense of reverent awe.
As worn and weathered as the idol was, the indominable pride and strength it and its subject embodied were intoxicating and invigorating. She knew she would need both if she was ever to break through the swill of this mean world.
They were about to enter the impressive gatehouse as Amelia turned to her self-appointed chaperon and started to ask, “mister Drake …” when Drake whisked her question away with a cutting wave. “Just Drake. That ‘mister’ stuff makes me sound like a cardboard administrator or something.”
Amelia put her hand over her mouth. She didn't dare giggle for fear she might offend the closest thing to a friend, or at least ally, she had thus far managed to make.
When she'd reassembled her composure she said, “before … back on the ship I mean … when you said ‘we’re waiting for you.’ Who exactly did you mean?”
He stopped under the meager shelter of the gatehouse and gave her a confused look. “The rest of your Prospect group, obviously.”
Drake let a moment of mediating silence pass before he put a compassionate hand on her shoulder again.
“Ours isn’t an easy road kid. There’s a reason we have to outsource our ferry rides. In the words of Samuel Sparathia, ‘freedom means setting your moral compass by the winding road, not by static stars. Those who can do this are few. Those with the guts to do so even less so. That is why the free are dreaded.’”
Amelia had her mouth open to speak when she realized she was shaking from head to toe. There was a reason Amphibians didn’t venture out past Aevon’s tropical zone if they could help it. Water was her home element. Water condensed by the freezing Zenith stratosphere was a death siren.
Drake was quick on the uptake and like a clinical nursemaid he ushered her through the great armored doors and firmly shut the incompatible weather out behind them.