After a few days the storm stopped drenching us the deck became safe to walk on again. This was both a blessing and a trial. I loved the fact that I now had so much more freedom to move about, particularly with the fresh air, however.

"Excuse me miss," the third sailor to almost run me over in the past minute said.

I'd taken up a spot as out of the way as possible, but the whole top of the ship was a hive of activity. Men were running to and fro like ants in an upturned hill, patching holes and railings, and hammering on things I had no clue to the function of.

"Well, best we stay out of the way huh?" Robert moved up beside me, looking on as the men tried to hoist a new mast into place.

"Quite so, I've no desire to have another mast dropped on me."

He chuckled, "How close was it then?"

"Well, I was standing about here, and it fell... actually you can see where it took out the railing."

"Scary, I've been meaning to ask the captain what the current plan is."

"Current plan is that we need to get the ship moving. The captain said he wasn't completely sure where we are at the moment, but until the clouds clear up all the way he can't be. That said he is sure we were closer to the elven continent than the human one. So, we're sailing west until we find land or get a grip on where the heck we are." I'd asked this morning after breakfast if we were turning around and gotten a full breakdown of the situation myself.

"So we have no idea where we are? That's concerning." Robert frowned a bit as he spoke, looking out at the waves.

"That's ocean travel friend. It's all based on the sun and stars."

"Do you know how to do it?"

"Not at all, but I know it's all based on the sun and stars." I pointed up at the thick cloud cover, the last of our storm. "And as you can clearly see, it's rather difficult to use those right now."

As we chatted I looked towards the very back of the boat. There Selene was giving our youngest mage a brief tutoring in magic. He'd awakened as a wizard with, no surprise here, an affinity towards water magic. Which was good, since I doubted there'd be many elements the captain would be happy about him slinging around his ship.

"He's coming along," Robert observed, "Not powerful by our standards, but he's got drive."

"Yeah."

I'd been studiously refusing to teach young Elian anything. Partially because my magic was of a different form and partially because I might accidentally give some insight that counted as a state secret to him. It pained me to watch, because I was fairly sure with a bit of prodding he'd turn out a pretty good mage.

"Alright, that's a look. What's on your mind?"

"Considering. That kid could go far with his drive if he had the right education."

"Sure, and I'm sure the elves have schools. Who knows if he'll get into one, but what can you do? I don't think our academy would take him, not unless he becomes a citizen or something."

"That's the thing holding us back isn't it? Everyone is always secretive about all their research and all their training. Good grief, can you imagine where we'd be if everyone who had any talent with magic or even research had been properly educated?" Sure it was a bit hypocritical of me to go on a rant about hiding research when I was hiding so much, but I didn't want to, I just knew that if I didn't people would come after me.

"That's what our benefactor was on about too wasn't it? You going to follow in his footsteps and make a school or something?" He gave me a light smile.

"Don't know that I have the temperament to sit around teaching classes all day, but setting one up, getting everything together. Maybe when I'm older..."

"We've already got one Alana, and a pretty good one. I've still got no clue why anyone would set one up in the middle of nowhere."

That led me to thinking, why had Ristolian tried to build his school way to the north in the middle of jack all? Well, he wasn't really constrained because of the portals I guess, but still not being in a country meant no support, no help, no... laws... He'd be totally independent, and with how he was setting those portals up...

That was an interesting line, while I'd not really thought too much of it before certainly someone else had. The people of this world were a bit behind on tech compared to Earth, but they were by no means stupid.

After taking a few seconds to consider I just shrugged. "Who knows, when we get all our research working someone will have to go around setting things up; perhaps I'll do that. Be good fun to go and see the world."

"Gonna be honest here Alana, I think I'm going to be done with exploration and adventure after this."

We laughed and enjoyed the day for a bit longer.

It was two more days before the clouds fully cleared and our new rigging was finally starting to get set up properly. The carpenter had worked like a dog, day and night to get everything in place and secured on the new mast, but it was all having to be rebuilt. He had neither the tools, nor the proper materials for this level of repairs, and even with help it was an uphill battle.

As the sun set to our first clear sky in far too long I once again stood on deck. I knew it was a distraction to the sailors, but I was feeding them, and so they could suck it up.

The captain looked out at the horizon with a furrowed brow as he began to take out several of his navigational tools. Some ships had a navigator separately, but he fulfilled both jobs. He marked down the time of sunset, comparing it with a small watch that looked distinctly magical. That done he began to look at the stars in earnest, using clocks and a sextant to measure their angle from the horizon. The whole process looked rather involved.

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His work done the old man retreated to his quarters to run numbers. This wasn't an unusual occurrence by any means and was what he did most nights. Right after he finished the men started to light the lanterns and set things up for the night watch.

Elian was putting the lights in place with a minor spell. This was a good chance for him to practice and I was thrilled to see he was using every one he could. There were only a few, just enough to let those on deck see.

"Good evening miss Alana," he said as he came to join me. "How are things?"

"Quite well, yourself?"

"Good, good, um, I didn't get to say it before, and I haven't had a chance to talk to you, but... thank you. I thought I was dead back when I got thrown into the drink."

"Don't worry about it, I'm sure you'd have done the same for me." I kept up my vigil of the stars. With no lights out here other than the few on our ship they were truly magnificent.

"Like to think I would. How did you get me anyway? I thought I was too far out, did you use a grabbing spell like I did on the lanterns?"

He'd managed to find the one subject I wanted to talk to him the least about. "Similar, bard magic works a bit differently, but the wave helped bring you to me as well."

"Could you teach me how to do things like that? I think eventually I'd be able to pick up a man overboard, but learning other ways..."

I silenced him with a raised hand. "Elian, I told you that bard magic works a bit different. The way I use it also works a bit weirdly, and learning that isn't really in the cards for you. When you're older perhaps it would help, but right now I think it would only cause issues."

"Ah, sorry for asking..." He looked down, nearly slinking away.

"I'm not angry with you Elian. I merely think you should focus on what you have now." I thought for a moment. "When I was little, my teacher taught me something important, and I think it will help you."

"Oh?" He looked back up with hopeful eyes.

"It's best to focus on one thing at a time, learn it, perfect it, master it. A lot of young mages go and try to learn as many spells as they can and it weakens their power. That's how I do things anyway, I learn one spell and work on it until I'm happy, then I move to another. Why don't you try to get your spells to make water and move things going well for now, then try to learn more."

He made just the cutest face as he thought about that, finally nodding. "Okay, thanks for the advice!"

He was a nice kid... actually with how long elves lived he might well be way older than I was, but he stilled looked like a kid. While I considered taking an early night he sat there and practiced a little more on floating one of the pins used for rigging.

"How'd you end up on a boat anyway?" I asked, breaking the silence.

"Parents abandoned me. When my talent manifested the captain took me in, cause there's always need for someone who can make water on a ship."

"What? Why in the world!?"

"Look, my family were pretty poor, and well, before it manifested I had no talent, no magic at all. That... that doesn't really happen for elves you know? Pretty much all of us have something, and so when my brothers and sisters needed food, they got it, but me... not so much."

He took my stare of stunned silence as a cue and continued. "Without magic there was no future for me. No woman would marry someone without any mana at all and the jobs I could take would be almost nothing. There was a big fight and they just sort of... threw me out after. My talent manifested not too long after, but there was no way I was going back there, not after all that."

"That's... that's really terrible Elian. I don't really know what to say." I reached out to hug him lightly.

"Eh, the captain took me in, and after all that look at me now, now I'm a proper mage. My family was always kinda weak, and we haven't had a real mage in generations. Maybe one day I'll go back and show them what they lost. You know what it's like being an orphan?"

"The Order of The Shield runs a lot of the orphanages back on the human continent, and while I never went through anything like you did I did have to spend a bit of time in one."

"Really?"

"Mmm, lot of bad things happened when I was a kid and I got separated from my family. I wasn't sure if I'd ever see them again for awhile there, but there was nothing for it."

"But now you're like... really strong."

That made me laugh. "I don't know about all that, but it worked out well enough in the end. I did find my family after several years. While I understand that you're mad, try to forgive them, you may not like them, or want to be around them, but you can still let go of what they did to you."

"I'll think about it." While I didn't know if he would, but he seemed like a good kid, and I thought he'd work it all out in the end.

As he finished up I saw the captain leaving his quarters and going below deck. That was pretty odd, as he generally didn't go down there, and that way went towards... He returned a few moments later with the carpenter and Olnir in tow all three looking highly agitated.

It was hard to make out but I thought I heard the captain grumbling something to the effect of "... south... fucking... doldrums."