Solveis stood near the boat's wheel, watching Arlendr, who seemed to be directing orders at adults.

Her attention was drawn back to her surroundings by an awareness of the swift movement of the vehicle she was on. She looked forward. The yacht was on a course, fast approaching a larger sea vessel, which looked like a two level house boat masquerading as a pirate ship. It really wasn’t far away at all.

People congregated around Solveis, at the front of the yacht, looking out to the other ship. It must be Brutoin’s ship.

Van stood at the front and spoke above the din of the small crowd, “We’re approaching. Everyone. Come on. We all know what to do. Our goal is to rescue Margar first of all, and to cause as little injury and harm as possible in the process, and to all make it back in one piece. You know your roles. We’re supposed to have trained for this. Let’s not let each other down,” He commanded soberly.

Van, followed by Patra, spotted Solveis. En and Girselle were standing just behind her, looking out and shivering. Van came toward them. He grabbed En’s forearm firmly, but not roughly. He spoke just loud enough for the three children to hear him, “You are not going on there. I don’t know how you even made it out here. Go to the back of the yacht. Take shelter and stay unseen.”

In response, Solveis glanced toward Arlendr who was standing with some commanding looking grown ups. ‘What about him?’ Solveis thought about her brother, who seemed to have permission to put his life at risk.

Van seemed to read her mind, and answered her thoughts, “Not him either. Unruly though he is, he won’t be allowed over either. He did his job already.”

Solveis thought that Van underestimated her brother's unwillingness to be ruled over. Her incredulity affected the expression of her face, but was misinterpreted as petulance.

She and her two companions were directed away by the atto brother and sister.

After the children were tucked in their corner, they were found by Arlendr.

“They sent you away too?” En asked his friend.

“What?!” Arlendr responded disgustedly. He shook off the offensive comment and forgot that it had ever been said. “Sister, did you bring a weapon?”

“I only have my bow and arrow, but I need it.”

“I need it more. Give it to big brother.”

She almost considered doing so. He could really make better use of it. Despite not having as good long distance aim as herself, he was much more likely to actually use it to defend himself or someone else.

“But they won’t let us over anyway. What’s the point?”

“Says who?!” Arlendr presented firmly.

“Patra says so,” Girselle reminded Arlendr.

Arlendr shook his neck and shoulders, seeming to get the weight of the restrictive memory off himself.

“Nonsense. We had a plan. A secret child plan, remember? Let’s go.” He reconsidered, then added “No. – The cowards stay. – I will go.” Then, he put his hand out to Solveis, for her bow and arrow.

Solveis thought about it.

Before she had a chance to decide, he snatched the arrows from her still clutching hand. He got them, but wasn’t able to snatch the bow off from around her body. In trying, he jerked her forward. She lunged at him. He ran off and she ran after him.

Arlendr, balancing in his mind both the battle with his sister and the need not to be seen by certain adults, he weaved quickly and carefully through the small crowd. He chose to stop and turn toward his sister at the front of the deck, but out of sight of Van, who was at the other side and tightly surrounded by his command subjects. Solveis caught up with Arlendr and pushed him hard.

He laughed. “We’re here now. I have to go get the pirates. Gimme the bow,” Arlendr taunted his sister. Then, calling her bluff, he added, “… or just follow me over.” He laughed at her.

She didn’t know what to do. Just a moment later Van spoke out to the people. “We’re just about there. Get ready to board. – You two first. – Everyone else, be ready to follow us over as soon as we can get their engine off.”

As the yacht got right up against the pirate boat, Van and a few others jumped across onto the other vessel. Some fort people started jumping across. Others waited in anticipation.

“They are boarding – WITHOUT ME,” Arlendr shouted, bringing her back to the conflict with her brother.

Solveis blinked, uncertain.

“Stupid child. You can’t use it anyway. Give it to me. – NOW!” he continued. Then he used the hazing technique of shouting something loud and rude over and over again at her, “Now! Now! Now! Now! Now! Now! Now! Now! – Little tiny child.”

At this point, the other vessel had stopped moving and a little platform had been leveled between the house boat and the yacht. Almost everyone from the yacht had gone across it and joined the fray. Arlendr realized that he was left behind and panicked. He sprinted to the platform.

Solveis blinked again, now at no one. Still not sure of what to do, and realizing that her brother was armed with arrows, but no bow, she ran after him. All she had to do to get to him was cross a platform. She did so, immediately regretting doing something that no adult would have been happy about her doing.

Arlendr grabbed her arm to get her attention. “Give me the bow and go back now,” he barked at her.

An adult bumped into them. “What in the world! What are you doing here? What will your parents say if you get hurt? Seriously, you uncivilized little monsters,” the adult railed at them. Then the angry adult spotted Stefanie. He tapped her shoulder and shouted at her, “You know these savages, right? You are on rescue duty anyway. – Put them in some safe corner.”

She saw them. It took her a few seconds to understand what her eyes were seeing. Then she shouted incomprehensible angry sounds at them. With a weapon in one hand, she used the other to grab Arlendr’s wrist as tightly as she could.

There was an open door heading into the enclosed lower level. A group of friendlies were already down there. She rushed the kids down, past a potentially dangerous scuffle. The area they entered was a tiny hall with four flimsy doors. There was no way they could all be doors to rooms, the level was way too small to fit four rooms. The closest door was opened and a couple of their own people were standing inside. She asked them, “This room? Empty?”

“Yes,” she got back from a few voices.

“I’m tucking these kids in there. If things go bad, get them off board.”

A few nods of affirmation met her. She shoved them in the door, and then rushed off toward the action.

The room was quite dark. It took a moment for the children's’ eyes to adjust. Once they did, they saw what one would expect, a musty cabin with random boat paraphernalia all over. There were chests, but there were also a few cages. The cages didn’t seem like the normal loot of pirates.

A strange beautiful whistle, hit Solveis’s ears.

“That’s our bird,” Arlendr spoke angrily. “Who stole our bird? – It shouldn’t be in a cage.”

The little blue bird nodded in angry agreement.

“Give me the bow,” Arlendr shouted at his sister again. Then, he took a little knife out of his clothes. He presented it to her, “trade,” he said without an option for argument.

She accepted the trade.

“Cut the ropes,” Arlendr told his sister. “They’ll need keys or tools to get the rest.” Then he ran out.

She understood him to be advising her to untie some of the ropes that were around some of the chests. He expected her to find keys and let Margar out too somehow. Since she was able to cut cords, and she didn’t want to be doing nothing at all, she complied.

After cutting as many ropes away from chests as she could find, she stalled out. What next? She was in a room alone, except for the cages and loot. Just outside the door, her people stood talking in low voices and directing people down passages. She went up to the person in the room who she knew best, to the caged blue bird. “What else?” she asked the bird.

The bird glanced at her own lock.

“It needs a key,” Solveis explained.

The bird sighed impatiently.

“What else can I do?” Solveis pleaded, feeling guilty for her ignorant lack of situational understanding.

The bird glanced toward a large rectangular contained in the corner. Solveis went to it and lifted the very heavy wooden lid off. The heavy, rough wood left her hands a little torn up. It had weird metal tools in it, nothing she recognized. She didn’t know how to use any of these to help. Now, she felt useless, and fear and guilt started to take grip.

Luckily, Arlendr slipped into the room with a tall gazelle-hu lady. The lady had multiple key rings with some keys on them and a few other tools in her hand.

Arlendr had one fewer arrows than before.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“You used an arrow?” Solveis questioned him in their language.

“On his hand. He tried to grab me,” Arlendr referred to some enemy.

The gazelle-hu woman interrupted their conversation. “Here, try these keys. We’ll find if there are any more,” she directed Solveis, giving her some key rings. “You’d better stay in here too. This is the safest job I can give you until someone can get you out of here.”

Arlendr ran out again. Solveis obeyed the woman though. She went to the bird first. She figured that the different key rings probably had some duplicate keys, so she would rely on using the ring with the most keys on it. The other rings probably just had duplicates of those. On the bird’s cage, she tried many of the keys on the big ring. One of the keys worked. The bird and her two companions flew around the room, then she settled on the top of the cage.

Solveis managed to open a couple of chests too. It was surprisingly time consuming, trying key after key. After they were opened though, she didn’t know what to do next. “Tell me which to do, what to open,” Solveis asked advice from the bird. The bird directed her toward a cage with a particularly small house cat and a similarly sized dog companion. She managed to unlock it after some attempts.

The bird then flew past Solveis onto a small cage on top of a chest. Solveis saw that there was indeed some small creature in it. It was a little, see through lizard. It seemed stunned or passed out. The bird was hesitant. Solveis wasn’t sure what to make of this. She glanced at the bird asking what was up. The bird just flew away though. Solveis worked on the lizard’s lock in the meantime, until the bird communicated with her again. A moment later, the bird came back carrying a small cloth in her feet. “Careful,” the twinkling breeze warned Solveis, dropping the cloth into her hands.

“Should I wrap it up in the cloth?” Solveis asked the bird. “Will it bite me?”

A gazelle-hu fort person who had popped back into the room looked at Solveis when she heard the question. She had been using tools to break things open. Registering Solveis’s question, she paused her activity and answered. “Oh. Yeah. – Wow. – You need to warm the that guy up. And don’t let him hurt your hands.”

Solveis obeyed. Then, still holding the lizard in the cloth, she went up to the lady. “That’s all the cages in here. Someone else probably needs the keys,” Solveis suggested to her.

“Oh yeah,” she agreed. The lady carefully opened the door. Seeing that the coast was temporarily clear, she examined the passage. Her people were standing guard outside the other doors in the short hall. She told Solveis, “I can’t leave you here to stand guard. Find someone and give them the keys. Let them search, and then get into a secure room again.”

Solveis couldn’t believe she was given this job, this independence. She really was afraid to run down this very short hall. She saw the need of it though and obeyed. A friendly man stood guard in between doors. She asked him, “I have the keys. Anyone need to be unlocked?”

“That door there is locked,” the guy told her, pointing to a door across the hall. He hadn’t seemed to realize that it was for him, the adult, to go over there.

Since he continued to just stand sentinel in the hall, she was obligated to go to the door. She stood, her back to the empty hall, and fidgeted with keys. Her hands shook as they had not while she had been in the safer room. Finally, after a deep breath, she found the right key and unlocked it. Someone rushed at her from inside. The door knocked her down. Someone, not the man she had just spoken to, ran towards her and then rushed out of the door. The sentinel came and pushed Solveis aside. He stood between her and the person who had come out of the door, a very short adult guy. The very short adult had twisted Solveis’s wrist and badly bruised her shoulder when he pushed the door at her. Now he looked down at her incredulously. He said to the sentinel, “You’re as bad as them, using kids.”

“What?!” the sentinel asked in confusion.

The short man replied, apparently no longer afraid, “You know they’ve got one down there, in the captain’s cabin. He’s got a good head on him too! Poor kid.”

“Yeah. We know. That’s what the commotion’s all about.”

Solveis suddenly realized that there were noises down the hall. She didn’t have time to figure out what was going on. Suddenly, a boy – with translucent skin, Solveis noticed in confusion – came tumbling out of the door that had the commotion. Apparently he chose to trust her most, being a child too. He stopped right in front of her, as others came rushing after him. He asked urgently, “Where do I go? Hide me.”

Solveis sprinted down the hall to the room of the gazelle-hu. Solveis’s two adult hallway companions, one very short and other one, blocked the hall and held back the person who was chasing the boy. The kids were able get to the treasure room and dash in without being stopped. Solveis pulled the gazelle-hu into the room and closed the door. She asked the adult, “Does it lock?”

“You have the keys.”

Solveis did have the keys. She didn’t need them though, because it had a twist lock from the inside. Quickly, she locked them in.

“Thanks,” the boy sighed in relief. The bluebird found him and landed on his shoulder. Solveis stood, eyes round in surprise. She had never seen this the bird be so friendly to anyone. She hadn’t even seen her acknowledge anyone before. Who was this boy with the weird, iridescent skin?

Eventually, someone knocked on the door in a calm manner. The sound of the tiny man’s voice came through the door, “It’s me. Things are secure. Let’s get you out of here.”

The boy reached out politely, past Solveis and the adult, and unlocked the door. Walking out, they were led out to the deck, which, for a moment, was too bright. The din of noise seemed to rouse the lizard which Solveis had forgotten that she was still holding in one hand. She realized that her hands were providing no warmth, so she pushed it closer to her chest.

Up on the top level, out in the sunshine, was a strange scene. Brutoin was on his knees, being held there by a fort person on either side of him, Ranulf on one side and Marty on the other. Across form him, facing him, Yu and two others were restrained and sitting on the floor. The fort people were standing all around, acting as guards to those restrained. Solveis heard a bird sound. Recognizing it as Arlendr’s sound, she looked around until she spotted him. Behind her was a little bar area, under the cover of a lattice structure. It must have been sturdy because a few for people were crouched up on top of it, holding long distance weapons and hiding their bodies behind a table or something, facing the pirates. Arlendr was one of these people. He smiled proudly.

Solveis’s attention was pulled away from her brother when Brutoin made a gargling, rage-ful scream. The humiliation and dis-empowerment would have been enough to inflame him, but on top of that the kneeling position was hurting his back and providing him with extra vitriol.

He writhed and shouted, “Release me. Who are you to stand in my way?! I am Brutoin, follower of Noin. My mission is not yet complete.”

Lou answered him calmly, but loudly. He seamed to be speaking to Brutoin, but also to Brutoin’s crew and to his own people. “What you have done here is not just. It is theft…”

Brutoin cut him off. “Theft. Only you could believe it was theft. You just don’t know. When you let me go, you’ll see. RELEASE ME.”

Van asked seriously, “What are we going to do with them?”

Lou directed his answer as much at Brutoin as at his own people. “Firstly, we need to get these people and things back to their homes.” Then he looked gently at Brutoin’s followers. “I’m not trying to destroy your lives. Let this just be a mistake which you recover from.”

They looked a little relieved. This incident had given them a fresh dose of reality, a face full of frigid water. They didn’t want to be taken by the authorities, to have this season of insanity define the rest of their lives.

Brutoin saw the weakness in his people. He shouted at them. “Not a mistake! Let me go. Fight me, man to man. You’ll see who’s stronger.”

Lou’s people made incredulous expressions. What would that prove? Lou continued to speak gently. “If you’ll come with us, we’ll have a conversation first. I want to understand. I’m sure whatever led you to this desperation could be resolved. There will be consequences, I can’t hide that from you. But, I’m sure you have a story with hearing out.”

Brutoin didn’t want this lecture. He raged, “You know what I am doing. I know you’ve heard of me, of us. I am the restorer. I will be restored. I will go on.”

“I have heard of you,” Lou admitted. “As a group of radicals who go to fairs and try to convince people to abandon their meaningful lives in order to find the ends of rainbows. – You aren’t restoring balance. What have you restored? Nothing is better than it was before you got your hands on it.” Then, to punctuate his point, he looked at the restrained people and asked them, “Have you been healed? Is your home restored to you? Your income? Brutoin’s back still aches, no?”

Just when Lou was making this persuasive point, a pretty and deranged looking young woman emerged into the bar area, underneath the archers. She came up form some area that Lou’s people didn’t know was there. She held a torch in one hand and a small wooden container in the other. From the wicked glee on her face, Solveis presumed that the wooden container must have something explosive, or at least flammable, in it. The sudden tense alertness of the fort people all around confirmed that it must indeed be dangerous.

Having a bad feeling about her brother’s childish bravery, she looked back at him. He was in fact standing up as high as he could, to be able to get her in his line of sight, which was awkward from his position right above her. The deranged lady noticed him and looked pleased. She maneuvered her hands so that she was holding both the container and the torch in one hand. Then she used her free hand to fish a small knife out of her waist band. This maneuver alone put everyone on edge. The flame was far too close to the container. She seemed to be quite unbothered by it though. She threw the knife up at Arlendr’s little figure, sticking up among his peers. Solveis gasped. He wasn’t retreating, but rather looking critically out at the scene. An adult acted for him though and pulled him down by the shirt. He let an arrow loose just at that moment. The result was that the arrow flew off in the wrong direction, but the knife also missed its mark and lodged into the boy’s arm rather than his torso. Arlendr seemed shocked. He stared at the knife, hanging awkwardly out of his flesh. He didn’t know what to think about it. Solveis had a desire to run up to where he was, but she knew it would make her a target, so she looked around for context clues. What were the fort people doing? They were standing at the ready, either to fight or escape.

Brutoin shouted at Lilah, “Yes! Yes. Take us all, if that’s what it takes to take them out.”

“My pleasure,” she purred out happily.

Lou gestured to his people, and they all recognized his gesture and responded to it by escaping off the sides of the sea vehicle. Being mostly on the top level, they had to jump directly into the water rather than taking the risk of going down to the first level. The yacht wasn’t so close to the pirate vessel as it had been before, anyway. As people escaped off the side of the pirate ship, a few fort people stayed behind to guard the bound. They did their best to avoid the insane girl with pyromaniac intentions. Solveis instinctively followed her companions off the side. She didn’t mind heights, but this jump down to the water was higher than she had expected, and it took a moment before she hit the freezing water. She felt the lizard, still in her hand, tighten up in distress. She also was instantly miserable. The waster was beyond freezing. She was sure that her organs were all stopping their functioning. The cool, late-fall air wasn’t warming her at all. She swam towards the yacht, among her people. Though it was extremely difficult, she waited her turn and climbed up. She did this one handed, as she still had the lizard, although it felt dead now. An adult found her and gave her a big towel. She could see that there weren’t enough for everyone, but she took it anyway. She was particularly susceptible to cold and thought she might throw up from the malady.

Before the kind person could walk away, she shouted – or at least she tried to shout, but her teeth chattered too much – “No. Here. Warm him up. I’m afraid he’s about to die.” Solveis shoved the lizard into the warmer person’s hands. She could see now how far they were from Molil, and they would have to wait a minute to head back. She didn’t know how she would handle sitting here like this for so long. One small consolation was that Girselle and En found her. They immediately began asking her questions.

“What happened?” En asked.

“Did your brother really get stabbed. They are surrounding him over there.”

She couldn’t answer for cold, but she really hoped they would stand closer to her and radiate warmth. The cramped deck made them move closer. It was wonderful relief. Finally, the boat started up, and shortly after arrived at the dock of Molil. Walking onto her dock, she was sure that she must look bluer than the strange boy.