Chapter 17: What the Cat Heard on the Apple Barrel
Morning found her how most mornings found her which was to say, not well. That was not to say it was not a good morning, for the sun shone brightly in a cloudless sky, a light sea breeze rolled in from the water, promising fair winds, and the air was warm but not stiflingly so like it could be in Esthar.
Something about getting up a short 2 hours after sunrise itched her ears. Getting up at all except in the direst need, like judging humans, rubbed her wrong, but mornings were the worst offenders. People were always loud, and in a hurry to go somewhere, and tended to ignore the simplicity of their task in taking care of her. As it was this morning.
She woke to being roughly grabbed by that big brute she called a friend before being whisked out the door with the rest of the crew without so much as a nibble of fish for breakfast. Out the door, down the streets, and into a damp dinghy later, they were once more aboard the Spitfire.
At least there was plenty of sun to be had; Mitty had had enough human-play for a while and was content to live on four paws for a couple days and catch some rays.
She’d pondered what she’d seen yesterday as she stretched out atop a barrel of apples. Clearly, she would be crossing paths with Hawk again, though probably not as allies from the sound of it. Hopefully as friends at least, but she didn’t know what sort of deal he made for that cloak, so who knew.
In a rare sober moment of self-awareness, she acknowledged that making any sort of deal with someone like that was probably a bad idea, even for someone as clever and amazing as herself. For someone less so, Hawk might be in a bit of trouble. Maybe she would cook him some fried potatoes when next they met. That always made her feel better whenever she made a life-ruining mistake. As a cat she could afford many of those.
She paused her inner musings to hiss at Rowan for daring to attempt to move her to get at the apples below.
Train of thought disrupted, she cast her attention to the quiet conversation she could just barely hear coming from the captain’s quarters. She wished they’d quiet down a little more, she was trying to catch some sun, and ignoring things whispered in secret was a weakness of hers. She respected their dumb human efforts at it though. Well, not really.
“…there in three days time. We can dump it there.” That was the captain, she recognized.
“Will it be safe though? You know we’re being followed.” This one was probably the first mate Sparrow, though she’d not interacted with him much during her time on the ship.
“That’s why we can’t keep it. It’s big and heavy and slows us down by almost a quarter. Besides, it should be safe there. For a time at least. Seeking magic doesn’t penetrate and it has its other protections. Also, I don’t much care for keeping something like that around,” His voice was whispered, and that last addition even quieter.
“Agreed on that point captain. I still thing we should just dump it overboard.” He said, with the tone of one who’s offered a piece of advice many times with no expectation of it being followed.
“You know we can’t do that. I fear what might rise from the depths far more than I fear the Sultan should it go off. And it wouldn’t do to accidentally crush a small country of merfolk. I suspect they might have some objection to having their homes reduced to an underwater crater.”
“I’d say the same of our ship captain, but there wouldn’t even be that left of it.” The mate said accusatorily.
“Yes, yes, I know. Try to cast it out of your mind. Just a few more days and we’ll be rid of it.” He placated. “Besides, we’ll be stopping by Windcrown afterwards, so you can take some time to see your family. How is little Emilia doing these days?”
The whispered conversation turned to lighter topics, losing the air of secrecy that it had originally held. Still, she’d learned some interesting stuff, there on the apple barrel, pretending to be asleep. Perhaps she’d go exploring again, this time with a little more purpose.
…After getting some breakfast. Harq had restocked the fresh fish, and she’d been meaning to try out a new way of preparing it called “sushi”. She felt like the secret to her biggest culinary breakthrough since her first steak would have to do with fish, and starting with the ingredient in its purest form seemed a good start line.
She’d felt the beginnings of it with her chowder that weirdo kept bugging her about, but it smelled incomplete, lacking both direction and ingredient, and again with her recent experiment, lacking only the right piece of the puzzle. Maybe she’d stea- request more fish from the boy.
She hopped off the apple barrel and padded over to the kitchen on the other end of the ship, shifting back when she reached the threshold. Harq wasn’t there, likely doing various chores for getting the ship underway.
She was alone in the kitchen, which was as she liked it. Company had its place, but mornings were a time of solitude and grumpiness for her. Dinner prep would likely find her gracing the rest of the crew with her presence. Anyhoo, she had some fish to slice.
***
His time aboard the Spitfire over these past couple weeks had been great. Eye-opening for certain. Despite this, he felt his time with the crew was ending. There was more to learn about sailing the seas, he knew, but he also knew it wasn’t here his heart laid. He didn’t seek anything in particular, out here on the water, just for it to take him somewhere new and novel.
He didn’t even know what there was left to learn aboard this ship, but he knew he’d barely scratched the surface. What he did learn was that unrestricted freedom was possible. No chain, no leash, no master but himself. What was once a dream he’d given up on was now reality.
It was scary.
Like a dog who finally caught the car, he didn’t really know what to do. Well, he was doing that whole food thing, but was that all he was? How would he achieve it? What could he do? He didn’t know. Perhaps this is why I latched onto Mitts, he mused. She always seems to know the whats and the hows. He saw her lounging on an apple barrel, pretending to be asleep as the crew worked, preparing to cast off.
There wasn’t much to do. For the most part, the work involved passing a hand over a rune, and a light would glow, and a rope would tighten, but still, there were only a few of them, so the preparations still took several minutes which he spent pondering his goals.
After a few minutes he decided to not think about those things as it was making his head hurt. He’d let Mitts decide their goals, and he’d just stick with her. Her plans are almost as good as her food he thought idly, thumbing his belt for his flask, but brushing up against his walking stick instead.
Wait, walking stick? When did he get this? Much of his first day on the island had been fuzzy, so probably then at some point.
It is very nice. Sturdy too. Would be nice if it was longer though. As it is, it’s barely enough for a cane.
As he thought these words, the stick grew, nearly doubling in length, as though responding to his thoughts. He was pretty sure they didn’t normally do that but put it out of his mind. He had little experience with sticks in the past, so what did he know?
Anyway, that’d been enough thinking for one day, and there was work to do. And lunch was soon.
***
Feeling somewhat remorseful for having abandoned Dantes the previous day, Mitty put some effort into lunch. Using the ingredients she got at the market, she prepared a simple fried salmon with honey glazed almonds.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Due to the nature of fish, despite the two salmons that went onto the pan, only one made it onto the plate, with the other disappearing… somewhere. She also threw some green stuff into the frying pan, more to make it look good than anything else, but she fried them up and slapped some sauce on top to make it edible.
She threw everything onto a basic wooden plate irreverently, before opening the door and shoving it into Dantes’ hands. He always arrived right when food was happening. Not that she’d complain, she was hardly a barmaid, shuttling dishes about. No, the kitchen was her domain, and she was content with that.
The second plate she made with the smaller fish smelled good, but it didn’t smell… more. The ingredients she used were basic, if fine, but they didn’t hold that extra taste like her spices she’d acquired two nights ago, or that golden fish Will had caught that once.
She glanced around the kitchen, hoping the dishes would just do themselves as she picked at her plate. It wasn’t bad. She could probably have toasted the almonds a bit hotter before glazing them.
Near the end of her meal, the door creaked open a hair, and the brown mop of hair attached to the cabin boy peeked through, and a scent drifted into the kitchen.
“Excuse me miss… I brought you some Featherfish. A, a few dozen. I. I know I said I’d treat you to some on shore, but I guess we weren’t there as long I thought. Do you want me to just leave them here?”
She grinned as two problems just solved themselves at once. It was like solutions just flocked to her just to bask in her greatness sometimes.
“No, why don’t you stay and help me clean up while I prepare that for supper. And you can have the leftovers from lunch” she said, gesturing to the half-eaten piece of salmon and greens.
“Aw hell yeah” he said, pitching everything into his mouth in three big bites. “Mm hash ood, ish”
“Yeah, yeah, just clean the dishes and we’ll call it even.”
Rolling up her sleeves, she already had a good idea of what she wanted to do with these. The Featherfish were only a handspan in length, and had four long translucent fins about its length again, each. These would be the crux of the dish, not the meat. Like it’s name, the fins felt closer to feathers. They were light, flexible, and soft.
Lining up a fish on the cutting board, she quickly sliced off a fin, and she knew she had ruined it. The fin had gone from soft to brittle in that one moment. She nibbled at the now crispy fin. It wasn’t bad, and would probably go well with a dip, but that feeling of magic had left it.
That was what it was, she decided. No, knew. She knew if she were skilled enough, could find the right way of preparing this fish, then it would yield its secrets in the form of something more than the sum of its ingredients, beyond taste or scent or sense. “So tell me your secrets” she muttered under her breath.
Now focused was only a cat could, she inspected the fish, the cartilage attaching the “feathers” to the body, and its scent. Flight, freedom, softness were the feelings she got from the feathers. She observed as she slowly cut into the base of another feather. Before the knife even contacted it, the feeling of freedom slipped away as though carried on a wind. Upon contact with the knife, the feeling of softness faded. After the cut was complete, and the feather severed, flight drifted away too, leaving her with a grey fin. Crispy and fishy, yes. But just a fin.
Late morning slipped away as she experimented. Touching, and even getting close to touching the feathers cause its freedom to fade like morning mist, but touching with her hands did not cause the feathers to lose its softness, where even laying her knife flat across a feather did. Something about the hardness of metal ruined the texture.
She of course tried snapping them off with her hands, but the feathers were too durable to be pulled off just like that. If she could just get one of the three aspects she smelled, she felt she could make something decent.
She tugged and pulled and even attempted some sort of contraption with twine and a spatula, but nothing worked. The feather remained stubbornly attached, bending like a broken reed, but never snapping off.
Eventually, in a fit of annoyance, she transformed and hissed at it, batting at it with her paw.
Like magic, the feather that had so stubbornly remained attached for almost half an hour now, just fell away, like it was carried away by a gentle breeze.
After a moment of shock, she admonished herself. Hissing was always worth a shot; she should have done it sooner. Trying again, though, she discovered it was her paw that had so cleanly removed the fin.
She did it again, but slowly, and discovered why. The feather had been soft compared to everything else she had handled it with. But with her paw, the feather was the thing that was harder. And as though it forgot it was supposed to stay attached to the fish, it just put up a modicum of resistance before floating down to the floor.
Something about using the aspect of the ingredient to prepare it properly. It hadn’t been like this for the other fish, but perhaps this was a special case. How do you use freedom to harvest a feather?
She tried using the stolen bag of nuts that she’d gotten for free, but it seemed like the dead fish did not care for monetary freedom.
How small minded.
Armed with her new knowledge, she set about testing if she could unlock other aspects of the feathers.
***
It was relieving to have the salt back in the air. The air on the island had a certain charm to it. It had been a little spicy, but the air didn’t circulate down on the streets. Not to mention claustrophobic, for those inclined to that sort of thing. The nest of buildings felt constricting at times, and it had only been two days ashore.
He thumbed his scar unconsciously, tracing its line up one cheek, across the bridge his nose and down the other. In a way, he’d preferred waking up in that belltower to the inn. At least there, the air was clean, with a nice view of the bay. And freedom. He’d unconsciously started to think of the sea as freedom, and just being near it put him at ease.
That was not to say he wanted to stay onboard much longer. He’d almost completed this adventure, and there was so much yet to do and experience, he couldn’t justify staying longer than Windcrown. Not to mention Mitts would also be leaving then.
Windcrown sounded interesting though. It was apparently home to the most magic users on the red sea, due to some “natural characteristics and magical formations of the city” according to Rowan. It had been the seat of power of some ancient queen, and remnants of the city remained from back then.
According to the quartermaster, the city is most impressive during the coming months when a great aurora can sometimes be seen high above the mountain peak the city is built into.
He’d asked more about the city but was met mostly with a “It’s better to see for yourself” or some variation of that. That’s fine, he was patient. It was his job to be patient once upon a time, and he could channel that, if he so desired. Unlike the cat.
He took a break from coiling the sheets to shield his eyes from the suns light. Up in the crow’s nest he saw Mitty attempting to toss fish into the air with her teeth before batting them with her paws before they landed. From the hissing sounds, it seemed she wasn’t having much success in… whatever she was doing.
While not a chef, he was pretty sure that was atypical as far as food prep went. He wouldn’t argue with results though, and some of the recent dishes had been rather mouth opening. Eye watering. Whatever. His stomach grumbled, remembering the raw fish with rice he’d had for dinner the day before. Sushi, she’d called it. It was a formidable dish. She’d even drawn a little cartoon dog and cat on it in some sweetish red sauce, which was a nice touch.
Getting back to work, he saw Captain Crow and his first mate Sparrow rowing back from the little archipelago where they’d stopped briefly. The rope ladder was still there from when they’d embarked, but the bottom rung was almost 6 feet above the water line, so he payed some more out.
A shadow moved in the water out of the corner of his eye. Or maybe it was just the way the light played across the water.
Something about these islands unnerved him, and he was glad they’d just stopped for an hour or so. Why that was, no one would say, though he had suspicions about it. They say some humans bury their treasure just like dogs with a bone. This was the case here, he was sure.
When they returned, both captain and mate appeared to have a great weight lifted off their shoulders, though Crow’s posture was unchanged from before. Regardless, as if to mirror the captain’s mood, the sun shone brightly for the remainder of the voyage, and the ship seemed to slip through the water as though pulled from some long rope as they sped into the setting sun towards Windcrown.
***
Mitty found herself, rather unwillingly, accepting a dinner invitation from Rowan. He’d finally cornered her in the crow’s nest, and had rather excitedly been talking to her about the nature of her magic, gesticulating wildly as he did so. The middle aged man was enthusiastic, but lacked the ability to convey any thought through to conclusion.
Like he can teach me anything about that. Look over there! That gull needs flying lessons.
Nonetheless, he’d stacked the deal too far in her favour for her to consider declining. Traditional Windcrown dishes cooked by his wife, a cookbook owned by his grandmother, AND he’d enchant her boots for free? All for the low cost of letting him and his wife observe her cooking and pretending to care about why magic works.
It’s magic. Why bother thinking about it so much.
She cast around for something else to talk about that would shut the man up, settling on a bright star on the horizon, directly towards where they were heading.
“Oh that?” he smiled. “Good eye. That’s the Glass Sentinel of Windcrown. The highest point touched by mankind, some say, though it’s in contention whether it was men who built it, since it was here long before any of our known ancestors arrived. One of the older civilizations, probably.” He took a deep breath, ready to continue.
“Neat. I guess we’re arriving soon then?” She cut off another tirade she could see building in the man. He was definitely passionate about talking. It was almost endearing.
“Oh, not until tomorrow, if the Sentinel is just coming into view, even at our pace.”
She tuned him out again as she saw he spoke true. The false star slowly rose in the sky throughout the remainder of the night until the daylight banished it from the horizon, but just as the sun warmed her back, she saw the tip of the mountain piercing up from the sea like a needle through cloth.
Land finally spotted, she curled up in the crow’s nest, letting the morning air lull her to sleep.