Sirius liked to look up at the stars. They always made him feel a little less lost. Not just because they could guide your way. It was something about the way they made the world seem both larger and smaller at the same time. Wherever you went, they were always there.

They docked port in Little Rock early in the morning. It was a place Sirius never thought he would ever return to, but the price had been too good. A new client wanted some cargo moved offshore, quietly and without any questions. So here he was once again, back home.

“Hey Cap, what time we moving it?” a ship hand named Jimmi asked.

“Fourteen hundred hours,” Sirius replied.

Jimmi nodded. “Me and the boys gonna go grab a drink, you coming?”

Sirius shook his head. “You go along, I’ll catch up later, got something else to take care of first.”

Jimmi nodded then headed down the gangway with a few more shipmates in tow.

Sirius sighed. Time to stop putting it off.

He yelled down into the lower deck of the ship. “Hey Shiv! Stay with the ship, you’re in charge until I get back. No funny business.”

“Got it boss.”

Sirius trusted Shiv. He trusted his whole crew in fact. After all they were the ones that had put him in charge after the death of the last captain. Sirius wasn’t the youngest there but he was close to it. There were many others who had served aboard the The Black Dog much longer than he, many others who deserved to be captain more than he, and yet they had chosen him. He hadn’t shied away though. One couldn’t really say no to such a request. He suspected many of them just didn’t like the responsibility and work of being in charge, the decision making or the negotiating with clients. What they loved was the sea.

The ship needed to make money in order to travel though and that meant finding work, usually in the form of shipment contracts. For some reason men listened to Sirius. When others in the crew tried to barter or bargain with the merchants it was always a debate and sometimes a fight. Many of the men were not good at keeping their temper. Sirius though was always calm. Others in the crew had always marvelled how he could have someone yelling in his face and yet just stand there and then make a clear counter offer. It was something that seemed to scare a lot of people. It also helped that Sirius was physically not a small man.

Today they had their job planned out. There was a little extra space and he could have spent some time hunting for a merchant to fill it but Sirius had other plans first. Something he’d been wanting to do for years but he’d never thought he would. Something he was afraid to do.

He loaned a horse in town from a man named Lemmy and headed out just north of the town. Having never learned how to drive, a horse was the next fastest thing. Most people used horses around Little Rock anyway. Even the Emerald city further south had a decent amount of equine traffic. It wasn’t until one got inland or to some of the really massive cities that cars became more than just a side interest. But to get there you usually had to travel through the Dragon mountains and a dragon’s favorite thing to eat was metal. But there was a still a small portion of Little Rock’s permanent residents who had a motorised vehicle of some kind, and for the richer residents, the ones who lived further inland, some had several.

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The ride took him only 20 minutes and soon he sat perched on the back of a horse staring down the long drive of what looked like an abandoned farm manor. The house was three stories tall and painted a dark black.

His stomach felt like the knots on the dark trees that surrounded the house. Not willing to turn around now he had come so far he moved the horse further up the drive. He wasn’t sure what he had expected but it wasn’t this. Not this empty shell.

The place was dark, the front porch dusty. Had he expected his sister to come running out to great him, having missed him after being gone all these years? Had he expected his father to glare at him from the shadow of the windows?

He peered into the darkened windows in case he had missed something but no one stared back. Where had they gone?

He dismounted, tying the horse to the fence near the front of the house. The porch creaked as he climbed the steps to the door. Drawing closer he noticed that the front door was open. It moved slightly as the displaced air from his approach pushed it inward. He hesitated briefly wondering about ghosts. But this house had always had ghosts. If there were more now he was sure he would hardly notice the difference. As long as his sister wasn’t among them.

Sirius had left home when he was sixteen, barely two weeks past his birthday. It felt like a lifetime ago, even though it had only been four years, almost.

His breath caught at that thought and he almost returned to his horse then. But something drew him in. He took a deep breath and crossed the threshold. The air smelt stale.

“Hello,” he called but nothing nor no one answered.

He explored the house, room by room, taking his time. He found not a soul and the entire place was covered in dust and leaves that had blown in from outside. Upon closer inspection however he could see that it couldn’t have been that long since someone was here. Yes the place was messy and undusted but underneath it was still in good nick. They couldn’t have left that long ago.

He looked everywhere, the attic, the basement, even the stables. There were clothes still in his sister and father’s rooms. He couldn’t be sure if what was left was all they had owned to know if they had left intentionally or been dragged away. One thing he was sure of though was that wherever they were they weren’t here.

He looked outside and judged the time by the angle of the shadows. It was time to head back. He thought coming back might make him feel less guilty about leaving but all it had done was reopen old wounds and unveil a new mystery. He was certain now this wouldn’t be the last time he returned here.

He left the way he had come, closing the front door behind him, hoping to minimise the discord created from the elements inside.

He rode back to town with a heavy heart and much on his mind.

He arrived just as they were loading the crates on. Shiv and Brian seemed to have things under control so he returned to the bridge to get things ready for departure.

A few minutes later a thin blonde man with hair tied back in a pony-tail entered the bridge. It was a crewman named Neko. “Boss the client wants to send a man along with her crates.”

Sirius looked up from the table where he’d been pouring over some maps. He frowned and shook his head. “We don’t take passengers. She knows that.”

“Yeah well she’s offering quite a bit extra, and…” Neko hesitated “It seems there was something else she didn’t know.”

“What.”

“About our no animal policy.”

Sirius was already half way to the door. As he passed through Neko followed him. “You’ll want to hear the price she’s offering though.”

“I said no animals, I mean no animals. They’re nothing but trouble and we can’t look after them.”

“She says that’s what the man is for. And I checked, it’s just a few winged horses, nothing fire breathing or anything.”

Sirius paused and sighed. “Let’s hear her offer.”

Discussions were had and Sirius managed to talk the woman up to almost double her initially offered price after threatening quite seriously to unload everything again. He was by the end of it more reluctant to let the animal handler on board than anything else but he had to admit they had no means to care for the animals. Once the agreements were made Sirius returned to the bridge.