"It's a seagull." Calum answered.

Auriga had spotted the bird and pointed it out to him. He was happy to take the sign of it to mean that they were getting close enough to land for the gulls to be ringing out near them.

The cries of the seagulls seemed to be welcoming him home, though he could not see land yet.

He hummed to himself, thinking about how he couldn't rest as well in a place without the gulls piercing voices high in the salty breeze.

"A seagull?" The woman, with suns for eyes, questioned again, having asked him what the creature was she'd seen.

"They hunt fish. They are brazen and never shut up; they're my kind of bird."

She nodded thoughtfully, taking his words at face value.

Neither Calum nor Auriga were aboard the Kana'Ku. Instead, they were on the pirate's vessel, and Calum realized with a frown that he didn't know the craft's name; that was bad luck.

Neither ship was extensively damaged by the battle. And one would be sold by the surviving crew of the Kana'Ku, the proceeds going to widows and families of the fallen.

If more of their crew had survived, they would have almost certainly retired or sold the Kana'Ku and taken pirate's galleon as a replacement, as the larger and better armed of the two.

But as it was, the enemy craft was the more likely of the vessels to be sold, with any money left after paying the relatives of the deceased going back into the Kana'Ku itself for repairs and the hiring of a new crew.

Calum mourned the loss of it, as the pirate's vessel was magnificent.

Its sails were as beautiful as any petals, bluish in complement to the sky and waves, with the ship itself made of some once-white wood unfamiliar to him. Time had since made it dark enough to be considered a light brown- but you could still see its original shade once you got inside the ship interior. It had a carving of a horse's head as the figurehead, with a wooden mane painted golden.

Her bows met the water with regal dignity, creating waves of her own, choosing her path with each passing moment.

Calum hummed once more, his thoughts seemed to be taking an oddly romantic theme, and he wondered if it had anything to do with his close brush with death.

"And that?" The woman pointed at the giant steel anchor at the bow of the ship, bringing him back from his thoughts.

"That's the anchor. We use it to keep us from drifting off. That's what the rope attached to it is for. It sinks, catches, and then holds us in place."

She nodded, making the connection of seeing it for the first time now that they were moving, as she vaguely recalled something like it being thrown overboard when the fighting had ended on the first day.

Auriga stood beside Calum, following his directions to aid in sailing the large ship when needed, and otherwise asking questions.

He mulled on his thoughts again. Perhaps his feelings of introspection might also be due to the education he was attempting to give the woman beside him, as instead of the drone-like state he usually did this sort of work in, she kept him thinking about things and how to explain them.

She soaked up everything he said with a mix of zealous desire to know more and childlike glee at having the opportunity to learn anything to begin with.

She'd also taken to writing down what he told her, at his suggestion, in a ledger- now turned journal, taken from the pirate's vessel.

It had contained some merchant ships list of wares, though the actual merchandise was likely long gone, sold to black-market buyers or even the general population, if the pirates had found a way to prove that the cargo was indeed theirs.

Now the pirates were themselves, locked in their own brig, below the deck he was working on at that very moment. A brig, he suspected, that was more often used for the capturing slaves than dealing with unruly crewmates or stowaways.

Calum glanced around the ship admirably, as well as mentally tallying the crewmen aboard with him, which soured his mood some.

The survivors of the Kana'Ku were sailing both ships for harbor, each operated by a skeleton crew of Calum's remaining shipmates.

Most of his still-living crew was unfortunately, not on their feet yet. And only sixteen were able to sail normally, which was thanks only to Auriga's incredible healing power.

She had only recently returned from performing the rounds on her patients- patients being both his crewmen and their pirate captives. Channeling her magic into them and accelerating their own healing process.

Despite her efforts, they were still delayed. As they had to sit in the water for at least a week to allow wounds to heal, a delay which grew longer due to snail's pace they were traveling at, brought on by the lack of manpower to properly sail two ships at once.

It would still be a month less then it would have taken were it not for Auriga. That was without accounting the time that would have been lost by having an even smaller crew, as many of the men she helped wouldn't have survived without her aid, and they would have been forced to leave one of the ships behind.

For all these reasons, the crew were extremely grateful, if incredibly wary. Sailors were a superstitious lot, and while in other situations, a naked woman showing up on a boat full of men trapped in a ship for months on end might lead one to imagine... troubling situations. The reality was that the crew avoided her, despite all she'd done to help them.

Most thought she was a spirit of the sea which they'd earned the favor of somehow and were dead set against interacting with for fear of somehow angering. A few thought she was the human form of a dolphin from a pod they encountered near the beginning of their journey. A couple others thought she was a servant of Ditrix, The Goddess of Sanctuary, or perhaps Beatha, The Goddess of life.

Some even thought she was Muir himself, the God of the Sea, who'd taken female form to tempt them into foolishness, which would give him an excuse to rouse his temper and sink them all.

Her magical abilities, which were unusual though not miraculous, weren't what led them to these conclusions, though they helped. It was more so due to her beauty, mixed with the unease when caught in her sight, which gave one the feeling of being stared at even if you were only marginally in her peripheral vision.

All this, added to the sheer supernatural timing of her arrival, had resulted in the rumors; which, in turn, resulted in Calum becoming the middleman between her and the rest of the crew.

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye.

She was clothed now, thankfully. In a shirt and pants too large for her and held to her frame by a pair of belts. Her skin was slowly turning from the pale alabaster it had once been to a more sun-kissed shade.

He, in truth, suspected she was no deity, despite her beauty and eyes. For she knew far too little and did not seem to have the mischievousness he'd expect from a god or sea spirit playing a trick on sailors.

He'd asked her where she'd come from, and she answered with what he already knew; she had fallen from the sky and had been unable to answer anything else, saying that she had no memories before the event.

While many would have suspected a story like that, he didn't. Calum was from the Hollow Mountain; the Weeping King's domain and his parents had been Spellborn themselves.

The humans known as the Spellborn that the Weeping King created for his armies were made fully grown and yet without memories, just like this woman was.

However, she was clearly not one of his kinsmen, as the Weeping King had never made humans with glowing eyes, to his knowledge. And that thought led Calum down a rabbit hole. Precisely as to who, besides the Weeping King- for all his power was effectively a god on Dirt, could create life?

Her voice threw his thoughts off rhythm. "Did I do something wrong?"

He looked over to her. "What do you mean?"

"The rest of your..." she waved her hand in the air.

"Crew?"

"Yes." She nodded. "It feels like they're avoiding me."

He looked to her and quickly noticed that she seemed... awkward, anxious, embarrassed even. It was things like this that wiped away any concerns of her being a deity or great spirit.

"They don't know what you are, so they're afraid of you."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

Her brow furrowed, and she tapped her fingers against the railing of the ship. "Why are they afraid of me if they don't know what I am? Am I... scary?"

He paused, perhaps for a moment too long before answering. "No, not normally, but they don't know where you came from, or who sent you. They don't want to... make you or whoever sent you angry, and so they just won't say anything to be sure."

"But... even I don't know where I came from." She turned her head to the side. "Should I be afraid of whoever sent me?"

Calum shook his head. "I don't think so, no. They’re just... erring on the side of caution."

"Oh." Auriga couldn't help but be disappointed.

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She felt lonely and a little lost. And while Calum was helping her- which she was very thankful for, it felt like he was keeping her at an arm's distance and she couldn't help but notice how he seemed to tense whenever he entered her sightline.

They all did, actually. Even from a distance, she could turn her head so that the sailors on the other boat were in her vision, and they'd tense up. A few would look over at her when she did it.

It was odd- and a little unnerving. They always knew when she was looking at them. As if they all had eyes in the back of their heads hidden by hair.

It added to a general sense of unease she had around them. While Calum seemed more than friendly enough, he appeared the exception, not the rule. And even he tensed when she turned her vision onto him.

She also couldn't forget how terrifying they'd looked when they had been fighting the pirates.

Yes, she wanted to befriend the sailors she'd saved, but memories of the fight and how horrible it had been sent shivers up her spine, mading her wonder if perhaps she was better off without such deadly friends.

She shook her head and slapped her cheeks. She was too quick to judge sailors, and the pirates had attacked them, not the other way around.

Calum looked at her with a raised brow, to which she smiled and then turned away, looking over at the other ship and theirs again and quickly turned her head away when one of the crewmen turned his head back to look at her.

"Calum..." she started, feeling silly for asking the question. "Do you have eyes in the back of your head hidden by your hair?"

He turned to her with a raised eyebrow. "No, why?" He tensed. "Wait, do you?"

She shook her head. "No, it just seems like you always know when I can see you. It's strange."

He looked bewildered, raised a finger, then began chuckling. "Oh, that's weird? I suppose that makes sense." he looked upward in thought. "We don't have eyes in the backs of our heads or anything like that. We can just... get a sense when someone is really focusing on us. Not always, but sometimes."

She turned her head to the side, hummed. "I'm not really focusing on anyone though."

"You aren't? Sure feels like it."

She didn't know what else to say. The two fell into an awkward silence, only occasionally broken by Calum giving her directions to aid with the sailing of the captured vessel. A skill set she had taken to with ease.

—-

Auriga held onto the ship's rigging as a swarm of seagulls flew overhead. Calum had said that some sailors believed that the gulls were guardians to souls lost at sea, but she suspected they were just 'brazen birds,' as he'd first described them.

She liked the white noisy birds, if only for the simple fact that they were far more talkative company than the sailors were.

Well, at least the merchant ones, the ones below in the brig said a lot of things, but Auriga didn't particularly enjoy hearing any of it.

She turned her vision outward, now able to see land, and had been able to for almost a day now. As close as they were, she could see the 'city' and its 'docks' and other ships dotted around it.

Kaiaulu, a port city, and to the sailors, it was home. Or in the case of Calum, just another port to sail to and from.

But to Auriga? It was amazing. With her incredible sight, she could spot the people working at the docks even now, albeit not in great detail.

And there were so many of them, hundreds of the docks and ships alone, and there were clearly more beyond, as she could see dozens of buildings, if not more.

It was so colorful, the people, the ships, and the buildings.

The people themselves seemed to go from shades of yellow, to blues, to greens, all with great big splotches of dark black, and their large eyes, the only person she'd met so far who didn't look this way had been Calum, who sported brown skin and smaller eyes than the natives of the area.

The ships, too, were colorful, or at least the flags and sails were. Though most were white with some being a light blue like the captured vessel she was on, most had symbols or designs, of fish, birds, and weapons, marked in every color from red to gold.

The buildings were less so, pale-colored things that seemed to be made from some material she didn't recognize.

"Calum! What are they made of?"

He called back up to her. "What is what made of?"

"The buildings."

He looked over to the city, his brow furrowing in thought. "Clay bricks, most likely, but I can't tell from here, and I haven't been to this city before."

She nodded and made a note of it in her ledger, and a mental one to ask him more once they were close enough to see. Then she climbed down the rigging, as soon they'd be docking, and they'd need all hands for that to avoid crashing into anything.

The closer they got, the more she heard to match what she saw; people shouted, and a vague cacophony of competing sea shanties and occasional minstrel reached her ears, mixing in with the screeching of the gulls. It wasn't exactly a pleasant noise, but it left her terribly excited. Soon she'd be on land for the first time ever, in a city so full of people it looked fit to bursting.

She frowned, and looked at her feet, thinking of the prisoners below them.

"Calum, what will happen to them?"

"Who?"

"The pirates."

"Ah." He frowned and thought. "We'll turn them over to the authorities and hopefully receive a bounty for it."

"A bounty?"

"Gold or silver maybe, for capturing them."

"Oh." She frowned, that was... nice... wasn't it? Money was good. "But what will happen to them?"

"Depends on their known crimes. But for what they've done to us? Hanging most likely, though a few might get sent to work camps instead." He went to say more but thought better of it, he felt he'd already said too much to the woman. And didn't wish to tell her that if the pirates she'd saved- had escaped their sentences prior or if they had a considerable record of crimes, would result in them likely being crucified to make an example to the rest.

She still visibly deflated when she heard his words, however.

"But why?"

He gave her a somewhat critical look. "Should people just be able to kill and enslave without fear of punishment?" He regretted it immediately, even if she had physical and mental maturity, if she was what he thought she was, then she had no experience to draw any conclusions from.

Auriga frowned in thought. "I don't...know. I don't think so."

The following silence was awkward yet again. Calum mentally cursed out whoever had made the poor thing, only to drop her from the sky amid a sea battle.

He tried a different tack. "Do you have any plans for what you're going to do once we land?"

She pondered a moment, then shook her head in the negative while he directed her to help roll up the firstmost sail.

He hummed. He'd thought as much, before glancing down at her still bare feet and baggy, ill-fitting clothing. "How about I help you out with some shopping, teach you how currency works, and get you some boots, maybe a dress, or pants and clothes that fit?"

She smiled, though it still looked somewhat mournful to his eyes. "Thank you, Calum."

A sailor beside them started a shanty, as staying in a good rhythm was all the more critical when docking.

"It's a damn tough life, full of toil and strife, we sailor-men undergo."

Another joined for the second line.

"And we don't give a damn when the gale is done, how hard the winds did blow."

The Calum himself joined for the third.

"For we're homeward bound from battle spear-bound with a good ship, taut and free."

"And we don't give a damn when we drink our rum on the land, in good country."

Calum had heard various versions of the song, but this one had taken on a patriotic tilt with a few changed words, and though this wasn't his homeland, he still joined in.

Auriga, who didn't know the lyrics, still found her mood made somewhat better by the singing. Not it was that good, or any good, for that matter. As the singers in question weren't precisely amongst the best that Dirt had to offer, it was still exciting to have the chorus from their ship join the cities cacophony.

She could just barely hear their sister ship, the Kana'Ku, now singing in return.

—-

Docking the ship had actually been a somewhat smooth, albeit an involved and dull affair. It had also cost the crew of the Kana'Ku a few more silver coins, then it would generally have to find and rent a space to dock the vessel they'd captured. From there, it had been merely a case of hiring dock workers to aid in offloading their goods and contacting the local authorities to take away their pirate captives.

Luckily for the crew, and unlucky for the prisoners in question, a few of them did have outstanding bounties, as did the ship itself, and they'd received a considerable sum for ridding the seas of it.

Between the bounty and the sale of the cargo alongside it, they'd be able to hire a new crew with the money, or they would have left after this coming winter.

Auriga watched them receive their good news and felt some degree of happiness for them. Still, she struggled to keep a hold of it when she saw the pirates marched away by dozen armed men in shiny metal clothing, armor, apparently. The guardsmen pushed the men along with what were clearly weapons of various types based on how they held them.

She bit at her lip, drawing blood as she watched what she considered to be devastatingly unpleasant, an opinion that was clearly not shared by the masses he jeered and shouted at the captives.

The pirates had been genuinely unpleasant, even when she was healing them, they'd cursed at her, or suggested doing things that Auriga had absolutely no interest in doing, and only vaguely understood.

But she still felt a pang knowing they were likely going to die, even if they might deserve it, she'd prefer it if they didn't have too.

She spotted Calum approaching her from behind out of the corner of her eye and called out to him. "Hello, Calum."

He started and then shook his head. "Are you really sure you don't have eyes in the back of your head?

She gave him a smile since she was pretty sure that was a joke. "About... eighty-five."

"Eighty-five?"

"Eighty-five percent sure."

He snorted. "Oh, well in that case. I'm sure it's all fine, I'd bet on those odds."

He sat down beside her and produced a pouch that jangled. "The crew gave me some money to give you."

She eyed the pouch and the procession of pirates being escorted off into the city at once. "Where did it come from?"

He grimaced. "Does it matter?"

She turned her head so that she was looking directly at his face and spoke softly. "Yes."

He ducked his head and sighed before he gestured lamely to the slowly shrinking forms in the distance. "Will you take it?"

"No, but you can have it if you like."

He hesitated, then nodded, putting the pouch away on his person.

She sighed herself, then asked tentatively, "They still won't talk to me?"

He drummed his fingers on the railing before shaking his head. "They’re grateful, very grateful, but they don't want to make you angry accidentally. They've heard stories of the like."

She looked over at the group of men, busy unloading their merchandise. "I know it's unfair, but I think they already are."

Calum swallowed any retort to that, changing the topic instead. "Shall we see about that shopping, then?"

"Don't you want to help them with the cargo?"

"No, they just paid me to help deliver it, and they can find dock workers for less than I'd charge. Besides, they're a little mad at me."

She quirked a brow. "Why?"

"They invited me to invest my money in their ship, buy some shares, and stay on permanently."

That sounded like it could be good news, but he didn't seem to agree. "And?"

"I turned them down, of course, I don't want to tie myself down to one ship, I'd get to sail half as much, and travel overland not at all."

She nodded. It made sense to her, in a way, staying in one place for an extended period? Years maybe? She scowled, the more she thought about it, the more it sounded miserable to her.

He hopped up onto his feet. "Well then, shall we see the town?"

She smiled and took his hand to help herself up. "Lets."

They headed into town, and as they did, Auriga couldn't help but wonder what the future had in store. It felt like she had a problem, maybe even a big one, as she had no idea what she was planning to do now.

She smiled, shrugged, and sung the song she'd heard just hours before, though with some changes to suit her tastes.

"It's a real tough life, full of toil and strife, we wanderers undergo."

The future was uncertain, and she was okay with that.