Aleicree retired directly to the Serene Chordalite. The majority of the crew was still off the ship carousing in the city, but Aleicree had done the one thing zie was excited to do in Griolor and now zie needed sleep.
The crew quarters were almost austere. Hardened by a dragons' form, most of the seagons slept upon the wooden floor next to the coffers and chests that stored their belongings. A slotted depression ran across one wall in which these storage trunks could fit, pressed up against their neighbours, without sliding around too much with the turning of the waves. Each space large enough for a dragon to sleep in was shared across three dragons, one to each shift.
There were a few variations up the row hinting at who slept there. Most of the seagons had a pillow up against their private coffer. The vrash aboard ship had larger chests and sometimes two for that they needed also to store their peculiar armoured attire. The crew’s only swaivshon craved comfort and had accumulated a mess of pillows that were used for all three dragons who shared that space. Smaller than everyone else, the one vohntrai among them did not share sleeping arrangements, but had instead strung up a hammock across the farthest corner of the crew quarters.
One final variation was relevant to Aleicree and zir two colleagues: each of the windmages had their own space to sleep in. It was a very simple luxury, not nearly as good as having a cabin, but Aleicree often needed it. The simple open space was enough to read and write in. A magic lantern was hung over Aleicree's place, and zie used it that night to reread old letters sent and received until weariness overtook zir.
The next day, Aleicree awoke in the morning again. This was somewhat displeasing; zie was used to waking up just before the start of zir shift on deck as the windmage. Yet zie had fallen asleep early in the evening the night prior, and had gotten a good long sleep in before the morning shift bell rang, so that it was the morning shift bell and the general rising of the morning shift dragons in the crew quarters that roused zir up as well.
Zie was off-duty at this hour, and could do as zie pleased (more or less), so that it in a sense did not matter if zie was up now or later. Pragmatically, zie could take zir daily exercise early. There was nothing wrong with that save the irritation of being up at an unaccustomed hour two days in a row.
They were still anchored at the dock as the morning shift ate hearty corn chowder. It was one of the galley's commonly recurring dishes. Aleicree had a distinct ambivalence to the ship's corn chowder, but zie didn't turn zir nose up this time, instead joining the morning crew to take a bowl.
When zie'd eaten, zie returned to the crew quarters. Zie wouldn't waste away staying cooped up for one day. Opening Vrekant's new letter to read, and composing zir reply, would be more vital to zir happiness than flying about the ship.
Zie fetched out the letter with delight, but this quickly turned to dismay when zie read it: "Will I forever be serenaded by a seagon out a-sailing?"
Vrekant had written a rebuke to Aleicree!
The last letter zie had sent to him before this one had been mainly a poem, and so had many letters prior to that. He didn't like it anymore.
Years prior he had rebuked zir for the sameness of zir letters, and so Aleicree had bought a dictionary to learn more of words. Zie had used the dictionary to dive into the abyss of letters to find every way of saying things, seeking first for turns of phrase, and then thereafter to find ever more clever ways of putting them so that the repeated descriptions should become something akin to song. That was how Aleicree had gotten started writing poems to Vrekant—and only Vrekant. All around Tachamund and for years, zie had been singing to him of the wind and sea, but especially of the wind.
Now he rebuked zir again, rejecting these songs. The poetry had run dry of novelty just as more prosaic descriptions of shipboard life had run dry long ago.
"I adored you at university, and you weren't a poetgon then," he wrote. He missed her, he said.
Aleicree missed him, too.
Zir eyes welled up with tears reading the letter from Vrekant. The one zie'd mailed him in Griolor's post office was mainly a poem again. Would he understand that zie'd posted it before reading this letter? He might, but he wouldn't love it. He didn't love zir poems anymore. Aleicree held the letter from Vrekant with one hand as zie rubbed at wet eyes with the other.
"We should meet again!" he wrote.
With sudden determination, Aleicree decided zie would find a way to make it happen. Zie had never been there, but zie knew where Sorjek was! From there, zie knew Vrekant's address.
Aleicree put Vrekant's letter in the chest of correspondence zie kept in zir sleeping space. Over the years, quite a collection of paper had accumulated there, for zie kept all the letters zie received and even copies of all the letters zie wrote. It was zir chest of memories.
Then zie went out onto the deck to look for Captain Kagnir. If zie wanted to meet Vrekant again, zie needed a vacation.
Captain Kagnir was up with the morning and evening shifts. His cabin was off the quarterdeck, but Aleicree found him standing out upon the deck overseeing the departure from the port.
He was a vrash of yellow scales with a pink stripe to each side of his body; the pink colour dripped onto his earfins likewise and showed up again to each side of his tailtip in a spade. He wore none of the vrash armour and only a few slim bands of jewellery upon his body, for he seemed proud of his natural colours. Symmetrical gold piercings adorned his tailspade.
They were away from the dock already and underway, so nothing urgent was going on.
As he was not rushing between one function aboard to another, zie spoke to him then and there. The subject was quite simply Aleicree's misgivings with staying with the ship and its schedule, but zie didn't immediately jump to thinking zie might want a change of career; rather zie said, "Captain! I have a friend in northern Kanjamund that I haven't visited in too many years, and as it will take me off our route for too long a distance, I would like a vacation long enough to get there and spend some time with him."
"You've been a good seagon for years and I'm loathe to refuse, but I'll ask you give me a circuit's warning," said Kagnir, which was a gentle phrasing yet no less an order: a circuit's warning meant that Kagnir would grant no vacations without the Serene Chordalite going through a full 52-day journey circuiting Tachamund between when the request was made and when it was granted. "For you know well I cannot sail with less than three windmages, and I shall need to arrange for a replacement at Griolor if you're to have even a few days from your duties."
"But we have barely left Griolor," zie protested. "Do I really have to wait 52 days? Can't you send an officer to fly back to the academy and hire someone for this circuit?"
He mulled over these words for a moment. Aleicree was painfully conscious of the heavy wind that pushed them out to sea; every moment the ship grew farther from the bay under the wind of Kajir, the morning shift windmage.
"Alright," conceded Kagnir. "I suppose you're right."
So he tapped Calira, a blue vrash who wore blue armour, and who stood as the officer of the watch in the morning shift. She was up on the quarterdeck with them, as was her station. "Calira," he said. "I'll take over the morning watch in your role today. I need you to go to the academy in my name and hire a tertiary windmage for this circuit. Pick up a cheap student, would you?"
"Aye, captain," said Calira. She took off then. She took off into the wind with a leap, and turned towards shore when her altitude took her out of the bubble of Kajir's wind.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Even with the perfect wind that favoured ships, a dragon in the air was still much faster than a ship, so that Calira and the windmage she hired should catch up without issue. Visiting Vrekant would be possible!
"I'll stay with the ship until Hiakoreska!"
Captain Kagnir nodded at zir and said, "Aye, that’s what makes the most sense. I'll put the new tertiary on your shift. Make sure they're capable, Aleicree."
"Aye captain!"
With that, Aleicree left his company and set out at once to take zir daily exercise. Once more zie hung in the sky over Zyrine Bay, this time in the unaccustomed brightness of the morning sky. Raul still burned eternal over Zyrine itself. Many trade ships still sailed across the sea to supply the hungering industries of Zyrine and Griolor, and half a dozen or more dragons flew in the air around each of them. The sun shone brilliantly in partly cloudy skies, reflecting off of the brightly multicoloured scales of dragon after dragon.
Aleicree tipped zir wings to Danahae and Renéeden, who were morning shift lookouts for the Serene Chordalite and often on the wing. Zie flew in a brief spiral with Nysalum, who was an afternoon shift seagon. Zie touched wingtips flying alongside Eldaryn, a morning shift seagon who zie knew had a powerful amicus breeze to keep him stable in the air for a dangerous manoeuvre like touching their wingtips together. Eldaryn was not a windmage, but as he grinned with the thrill of getting away with a risky manoeuvre in flight, Aleicree wondered if he would join the academy someday.
Most of the night shift seagons flocked around the ship to take their daily exercise in their unstructured time, but Aleicree flew away from them by instinct. They were never working while zie was the wind for the evening shift; they were busy at work while zie was unstructured during the night shift. By some combination of shyness and respect for their work, zie had rarely spoken to them, so the night shift were all as such nearly strangers. Zie knew their names, but beyond that not even gossip; Aleicree was not sociable enough to know gossip.
Dragons ranged between each other’s ships as well. Some glittering golden vashael who Aleicree did not recognize flew with the dragons over the Serene Chordalite; that was a visitor from another ship. Aleicree dipped away and became such a figure in the cloud over another ship travelling in the same direction. It was easier to play during the day, when sight was clear and there was no need to stay quite so far from other dragons. So zie swooped and spiralled and was chased by dragons whose names zie didn't know and would likely never know, until zie was happily tiring and looking once more for the Serene Chordalite's familiar silhouette.
Landing again aboard ship, zie saw it wasn't yet time for the shift change, so zie sought out the windmage of the morning shift: Kajir. He was the lucky one, the most competent of the three, and the only windmage aboard the Serene Chordalite who could control the wind while staying unbound without external signs of meditative trance. He had no need of the windmage room in the forecastle. He was up in the rigging checking on rope knots when Aleicree spotted him, and zie waited nearly under him for a few minutes while he worked.
As a silver vashael, his appearance was something remarkable. When they were clean, his scales fairly gleamed. Although he was sometimes grimy with shipboard life, he was never so dirty from it that his scales were hidden. Aleicree thought he wouldn't tolerate it. His silver scales were beautiful in the sunlight. He wore of course the same vest zie did, a white vest with a blue wind rune upon its tails, and a great feathery fluff warming his neck. This was a windmage uniform.
When he finished in the rigging, he saw zir in turn, and climbed down calling, "Hallo Aleicree!"
When he was on the deck, Aleicree said, "H'lo Kajir. Have you any books I could borrow? I want something to study."
"Aleicree," he said with a smile. "Too rare a pleasure. I have a copy of Sea Gods' Laws, if you like? I kept it from school thinking I might someday learn sounding."
Sounding geomancy, or more broadly termed hydromancy, had a vital usage in mapping the depth of the water and spotting well in advance the presence of unseen shallows that might be a hazard to a ship. (There was, of course, a more mundane skill which involved casting sounding lines from the ship, and half a dozen seagons could perform that.) A ship whose windmage was also a hydromancer could sail swiftly near shoals and in unknown waters.
"Did you?" asked Aleicree with a curious head-tilt.
"No," said Kajir, shaking his head. "The book doesn't help, as the sea gods do not grant sounding by piety alone. I now believe that training the skill requires living underwater for some years."
"What happens to the amicus breeze if one submerges a vashael?" asked Aleicree.
"A curious question. I don't know," said Kajir. "Perhaps it orbits in some faint spiral of current, ready to be called out to and magnified into an amicus whirlpool."
This was an inventive idea that made Aleicree smile, but privately zie thought submersion probably just dissipated the amicus breeze. Living underwater was for a rare breed of dragons: the veserus. Imitating a veserus by living underwater would be at least as unusual as the izerah Ekis studying wind magic.
"Here though, do you want Sea Gods' Laws?" asked Kajir, and Aleicree nodded. Together they went into the crew quarters and to the particular coffer that held his belongings aboard ship.
Kajir fetched out a stout textbook of a style that Aleicree recognised from the windmage academy decades prior. It looked so well-kept that zie expected that it had a self-cleaning enchantment upon it. Books were so expensive and the self-cleaning enchantment was so basic that it was a very common work for geomancers to enspell their books to last longer. Much longer, indeed. Aleicree zirself worked that spell on every book that passed zir hands for more than a day.
Aleicree took the book from Kajir. "I'll keep it safe. Thank you for lending me this," zie whispered to him. (For there were three shifts of seagons aboard the vessel, and always someone slept in the crew quarters.)
"Of course," he said quietly, though not quite as quietly as Aleicree had. He jerked a hand towards the door.
Once the two were up the steps and back on deck he said, "It's good to talk to you. If you'd ever like to 'talk shop'..."
Aleicree shook zir head, touching the deck as zir whole stance weighed down for a moment in dark sentiment. Zie envied Kajir ferociously for being able to operate the wind over the ship while walking about like this, but outwardly zie conveyed only the sorrow of not being able to keep up with him. "I think our technique is too different to translate between."
"I wouldn't be so sure," Kajir said. "I used to do full meditation as well." Here he swept an arm, and Aleicree felt a gust of wind blowing across zirself from the gesture. Brightly he said, "I received my lighter method in reward from service to a land god!"
Kajir is more of a geomancer than me, thought Aleicree. Aloud, zie said, "Then I would like very much to hear!"
Kajir looked back and forth, then led Aleicree somewhere that no work was being done. "If anyone bothers us while I'm on-shift, we'll tell them this little storytelling event is important for your development as a windmage." He grinned at zir, and started into a longer tale.
Aleicree listened closely while Kajir told the tale of a workgroup being assembled several centuries prior to build elevated roads to the specifications of Akilno, the land god who reigned in Mosdenechrak, which was an unusually renowned farming theome in central Tachamund. The workgroup was mostly geomancers who'd been directed to find each other; this they'd accomplished through Querent-Querent, whose offices in Mosdenechrak were eager to have something productive to do. "So many of the dragons there are actively opposed to ever travelling," said Kajir, "That despite having a very substantial and beautiful building to work in, Mosdenechrak is one of the most demoralising Querent-Querent postings."
Its neighbouring theome Varsitra had roads being reworked. The elevation points in the roads of Varsitra were entirely for the animals of the theome, Kajir explained, the land gods having taken an interest in preventing the depletion of small game animals and, by extension, small-to-medium predators in a theome without a land god tending it.
"Did Akilno explain this to you?" asked Aleicree.
"He did! And, if you ever go to Mosdenechrak... Well, if you can ever ask me about this when we're on land, I will show you the ritual to summon him." Kajir jumped from one spot to another suddenly. "It involves too much leaping about to do the whole thing on deck."
Aleicree shied from the jump in surprise, but zie was impressed. He is definitely more of a geomancer than I, zie thought.
After that, Aleicree retreated to zir space in the crew quarters to read quietly. Sea Gods' Laws was very much to zir interest. There were three worlds in Theoma, the introduction promised: the surface, the deep-under, and the ocean. Each had greater divinities ruling over it. Over a third of the ocean was believed to be claimed by one greater divinity or another, and collectively these were known as sea gods. Any dolphin in the ocean might be a sea god incarnate, the book said.
After the introduction, the first chapters were something of an overview on Veserus settlements under the coastal seas. Having been at sea for decades already, Aleicree wondered if there was any relevance to the Veserus settlements; they didn't trade with them, skimming blithely over the unmarked seas where they dwelled. Would it be that way forever?