The chow bell served again its purpose of rousing the afternoon shift. The crew ate their meals at every juncture between the shifts, so that the two meals of the afternoon shift were held firstly with the morning shift and secondly with the evening shift. The ship drifted without its spell-wind for a brief interval at every join of shifts while the two shifts mingled and the windmage was not yet at their post.

The ship was well under way. They were next off to Hiakoreska carrying cotton and indigo produced in Rhakanin.

Hiakoreska was a theome without distinct natural resources, though it had a balmy climate enabling some citrus farming. Its dragons were mostly occupied in manufactories. The cotton and indigo from Rhakanin were an example of supplies for such a manufactory, and they would take onward bales of completed clothing from the warehouses at Hiakoreska.

Rhaokir and Aleicree reported to the windmage binding station on deck, finding Shiowatha already present when they arrived.

"I hope someday that I'll be able to do this without the bindings," said Rhaokir with some trepidation as Aleicree and Shiowatha set about binding zir into place.

"I do too," said Aleicree, "But it's not necessary. We can keep binding you as long as needed."

"Yes, but... What do you mean that you do, too? You checked on me many times yesterday. Do you mean to claim you can't meditate without bindings?" asked Rhaokir.

"I can manage brief trances, but not stable meditation. The ship moves too much under me and it disrupts my concentration," said Aleicree.

"That's what the bindings are for," chimed in Shiowatha, tugging taut one of the ropes zie'd tied about Rhaokir.

"If we could both be bound at the same time, we could both watch over the wind together," said Aleicree.

Shiowatha held zir arms up wardingly for a moment at the other two, then moved to another binding. "Only one binding station aboard. We're not equipped for wind redundancy."

"You should really be working with Kajir on the morning shift," said Aleicree as zie too continued with the bindings. "He can do walkabout meditation and stay with the wind no matter what he's doing."

Rhaokir blinked. "So why was I assigned to you?"

"This is the shift that'll have a vacancy in a few days. I've been working on this shift for decades without a vacation. Now I'm going to Kanjamund for a circuit!" Aleicree stood tall.

Shiowatha and Aleicree had continued on the bindings throughout the conversation, and at this point Shiowatha blindfolded Rhaokir. Both of them heard the red and gold vashael mutter something faintly as they did, "Decades?" Zir voice sounded drained by the prospect of doing wind meditation for decades without a vacation, but nevertheless Rhaokir settled into the bindings and the wind rose a moment later.

Rhaokir had seemed very competent the day before, so Aleicree decided to try trusting in zir and seeing how the wind blew that day. Zie wanted to write a letter to Vrekant to post at Hiakoreska.

Zie told him that Captain Kagnir had offered zir a vacation almost immediately. The ship had taken on a fourth windmage at Griolor - a student windmage named Rhaokir - so that Aleicree could take a vacation without the ship losing a shift of wind magic. This vacation would provide the opportunity to visit Vrekant with weeks of freedom, until the Serene Chordalite met Aleicree again on its return to Griolor.

Zie mentioned in the letter that zie was studying a textbook called Sea Gods' Laws to learn more of geomancy, and bemoaned to Vrekant that zir grades in academy had been mediocre in everything but wind control itself. "I thought nothing of it then," zie wrote, "For I had always intended to land a place aboard a ship, and pure wind control was ample for that."

As with the letter to Denziu the night before, zie set the letter out so that its ink would dry, but this time zie went back out onto deck immediately.

The wind felt normal, but despite this Aleicree found a clear space and went into a brief trance to check on Rhaokir's control of it. Zie was immediately hit by a stifling sense of boredom that suffused the ship invisibly, and this was so unexpected as a sensation on the wind that it dropped zir from the trance.

Trying again, Aleicree braced for it and touched the sense of boredom again. The wind was flowing strong, but everywhere was a whisper in the whorls of the air currents: decades.

Rhaokir's trance was corrupted, yet firm. Aleicree didn't know whether to be impressed or concerned. The inclusion of such a strong mood detail made trying to meditate with Rhaokir an unpleasant idea. Yet as far as zie knew, it was harmless and would work just fine for pushing the ship along to its definition. Zie wished zie'd done better in geomancy classes. Could Rhaokir curse the ship by suffusing the wind with zir reaction to the idea of doing wind trances for decades?

More prosaically, zie worried about Rhaokir's ability to be a careerist windmage with a reaction like that.

Dithering about on the deck, Aleicree wondered if zie should do anything about the corrupted trance Rhaokir was holding. Would it affect anything? Could the wind channel boredom in a way that mattered to anyone but a land god? Zie knew no reason to suspect it would, and zie regretted not reading zir textbooks more carefully.

I hope it doesn’t upset the local sea god, but I think it’s a good enough channel for the workday, zie thought.

It upset zir own oversight of Rhaokir, as well. Zie couldn't join in being the wind without being afflicted with that boredom. That was probably worth complaining about... later, or if the wind slackened.

Acting on zir concerns for the sea gods, zie went to the crew quarters and fetched out Sea Gods' Laws, which text zie carried back to the windmage room on the forecastle. Sitting near the slitted wall of the room to judge the wind, zie passed the shift reading and waiting for Rhaokir to slip up. There was no sign of it. Likewise the book yielded nothing about overly emotional "meditation" disturbing the sea gods. Aleicree found nothing about such as Rhaokir was doing.

Eventually, the chow bell rang the evening meal as darkness fell. Shiowatha showed up to assist Aleicree, taking the blindfold off of Rhaokir first before the two of them together started on the unbinding.

While they were still working, Aleicree said, "Did you keep meditating on boredom the entire time you were being the wind?"

Rhaokir replied with a question of zir own: "Why didn't you check on me more often?"

Aleicree crinkled up zir snout, but swallowed zir irritation without saying anything. They continued the unbinding. When they were done and Rhaokir was stretching out the discomfort of hours spent in trance-bindings, Aleicree found zir voice again to say, "You shouldn't maintain a corrupted trance like that if you're trying to work with someone. It's unpleasant to share."

Rhaokir mirrored Aleicree's wrinkled up snout, and the two of them stood grimacing at each other for a moment before Rhaokir sighed and said, "I think of it as being myself. I can hold onto a thought while I'm doing the wind, and just... be that thought. Everywhere. It passes the time. Does it really do any harm?"

"I guess not," Aleicree allowed, "As long as your wind doesn't slacken. Have you gotten any commentary on it from your teachers at Griolor?"

"Aye. The first year instructor banned it. I complained a lot. Since then, 'as long as your wind doesn't slacken' has come up more and more." Rhaokir tossed zir head towards the door to the little room with the windmage binding station in it. "Can I go to the galley?"

Aleicree gestured to the door, and the two dragons exited the small room on the forecastle... directly into rain. It'd been raining much of the day. Rhaokir went on to the galley while Aleicree rushed to the sleeping hall to stow zir book. The self-cleaning enchantment on it would keep it safe from a brief exposure, but zie couldn't shake the inclination to clutch it tightly to zirself and hide it from the rain.

Zie grabbed a bowl of food that night and didn’t eat it. Aleicree wished zie'd felt the confidence to forbid Rhaokir from doing anymore strange meditations. Perhaps that would have been tyrannical?

Worse, zie couldn't fly for exercise in weather like this. Well, hopefully there was no harm in that. The gods wouldn't let zir body waste away.

Once zie’d read for several hours after dinner and become dulled to the task, Aleicree slept for a while. Checking on the deck after, zie discovered it was still raining, so with a sigh zie decided to do something arguably productive by practising unbound wind meditation despite the rolling of the ship. Laying in zir own sleeping space, zie became the wind about the ship, mingling as an invisible presence with Jazhou, the night windmage. It was a peaceful shared meditation, greatly reassuring after Rhaokir's disturbing negative emotion channel. With Jazhou's presence all-embracing as the very air surrounding zir, eventually Aleicree's awareness faded into slumber.

Hiakoreska was another destination that was arrived at during the morning while Aleicree slept. The ship bobbed gently at anchor when the blue dragon stood from the floor of the crew quarters.

Zie leaned over zir chest of belongings and fished out two of the four recently written pages, then fitted them into envelopes and folded down the tops as firmly as zie could, then put them away in zir flight pouches.

Aleicree climbed the stairs to the bustling deck with the envelopes, and took flight almost immediately over Hiakoreska. This reeking city had the dubious honour that it had in Aleicree's opinion nothing to esteem it other than the post office. It was so full of awful-smelling buildings such as tanneries and dyeries. The quainter industries such as weavers and quilters were no rescue against them. They didn’t exactly make the air smell better.

Still, as Aleicree flew overhead, zie had to admit that at least the ready availability of pigments made the city a colourful sight from the air. There were many different paints used on the buildings. A few of the larger buildings even had advertisements or creative murals painted across them where their walls reared up over other, smaller buildings. If Aleicree wanted to know where Biski’s Miracle Soap was made, zie knew exactly which factory was supplying it.

The fields beyond the city were full to the horizon with cash crops, and yet it pulled on more than its own farmland. A great deal of import shipping was needed to keep the manufactories working at full tilt.

As Aleicree landed on a hilltop landing field in the north end of the city, zie looked at the crowded boulevards here where various businesses served dragons aplenty. There was something else that was special about Hiakoreska: all the dragons here were clothed.

There, a brown swaivshon was adorned in a green robe. Rose-thorn wires tangled across their body and wound around their legs, blooming with sepia flowers. Such attire looked impossible to get on and off of a furred body.

Worse was a sea-green vrash who had abandoned the customary vrash armour for a polychromatic dress. Their wings were adorned with rainbow-striped garniture and their hips were hidden by a bustle striped in absurd colours.

In what was clearly a show of wealth and dubious taste, a vashael of abyssal hue and bright green wings was covered all over in delicately worked silver jewellery. Each leg, both arms, both wings, twice each upon their neck and tail! Upon their head was a tiara, and they wore a green-blue dress whose shimmer was dimmer than their wings.

Aleicree wouldn’t have worn such things if they were handed out for free. As far as zie was concerned, Hiakoreska's cause celebre was its own bit of ridiculousness. Aleicree had one outfit, zir windmage uniform, and it was as enchantingly self-cleaning as everything zie valued.

The post office was near the field, for it had a great deal of air traffic coming and going with parcels. The building reared up with blue brick next to the boulevard, its ornamented windows standing dignified. Aleicree passed into the building and met the attendants behind the counter. A brief transaction later and the delivery of the letters had been arranged.

They were close enough to Sorjek that a well-trained postal flyer could see to it that Vrekant would have a letter the next day. Aleicree could sometimes estimate in an instant the travel time of letters from each particular post office.

After that, Aleicree set off again directly back to the ship. There was nothing on land here to draw zir away from that gently bobbing anchored ship. Zie wanted away from the stink and bright colours of Hiakoreska. Nor was Aleicree's opinion quite unique. The ship was usually nearly vacated once the transfer of cargo was complete. Here at Hiakoreska? This was not a vacated ship. Clearly there were others who disdained the city's amenities.

Fashion was not universal among dragons because clothing was not universal among dragons. There were a lot of undressed dragons aboard the Serene Chordalite, clad only in their scales. Or their fur, in the case of Chidavith, their one swaivshon.

Aleicree was not entirely surprised to see the ship packed, though it was displeasing even from a distance. There was music playing from the ship. Someone had an accordion.

They were all off of work and the shifts mingled. Aleicree even saw the night shift up and about. There was some scent of alcohol and a number of dragons holding blue bottles. Several vrash seagons stepped around in an awkward three-legged way to keep hold of a bottle in their fourth limb.

The presence of the night shift up and about in the afternoon without looking dead on their feet from exhaustion meant that someone must have passed around waking puffs. That was peculiar. They were stored away in Captain Kagnir's quarters. As he'd said, special dispensation only. Wanting to throw a party shouldn't qualify; they were an emergency provision.

Aleicree had intended to come back and while away the hours copying more of that farming manual. Zie was looking forward to selling a bonus copy of it. This unexpected festivity would get in the way.

Looking around for a familiar face, Aleicree spotted Jazhou near the gangplank (still presently extended to the dock). Zie didn't see Jazhou often, despite often being awake at night, because Jazhou was the other windmage who spent shifts bound and meditating. The two of them could catch a word at the changeover meal sometimes. Aleicree didn't usually seek anyone aboard.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Jazhou was a gaunt female vashael, whose scales were blue and white. She had a broad build that suggested she could have been quite strong if she worked in a more active profession than windmage, but years spent bound and meditating had taken a great and visible toll on her. They both skipped meals sometimes, too. Although it was a likeness between them, it meant they met each other even less.

"Jazhou!" called Aleicree as zie landed.

Jazhou turned and looked at Aleicree. "H'lo there Allay! Want a bottle?" And so saying, Jazhou stepped aside and revealed that she was standing guard next to an open crate of blue bottles. That explained the alcohol at the party.

"No, I don't drink," said Aleicree, waving off the offer.

"That's alright! Hey, everyone thinks I'm a sober enough guard, I'm not drinking any of it!" said Jazhou.

Jazhou was drawn away from Aleicree as another seagon approached, and Aleicree watched her say, "H'lo there Tulor! Want a bottle?" to one of the seagons on the crew who Aleicree wouldn't have known the name of if not for overhearing everyone while being the wind every day. Tulor did want a bottle, and walked away carrying it. The closest Aleicree and Tulor had ever gotten to having a conversation was officially that Aleicree had been standing nearby when Tulor wanted booze. Great.

Seeing Aleicree still standing there, Jazhou looked to Aleicree again. "What's up in Allayville?" she said jauntily.

"I'm just wondering what all the festivity is for," Aleicree said.

"Bit of a joyous revolt! Everyone here - oh, h'lo there Taitharn! Want a bottle? - everyone here finds this port a bit dreary." Jazhou fingered her windmage uniform. "They're all dressed up dragons! Even the factory workers dress up! We stick out in a bad way, so we'd rather stay where we are."

"Even the windmages?" asked Aleicree. The three windmages aboard the ship were never down to their scales for attire.

"Well... You, me, and Kajir could get away with Hiakoreska, but it's unfriendly to leave our colleagues behind."

Aleicree felt distinctly like being unfriendly. As far as Aleicree was concerned, the ship just felt way more crowded than usual with all three shifts on deck. Someone had fetched out musical instruments on the aft-castle and a lively tune was starting up over there. The deck crowd was shifting to create openings large enough for dragons to dance in, but the fun atmosphere wasn't reaching Aleicree.

"I don't like this city either," said Aleicree with a frown dragging zir cheeks down. "But I wanted to pull back and read!"

"Ah, well, I don't think you want to know what our dragons are using the crew quarters for right now then," said Jazhou, and then looked away for (of course), "H'lo there Chakun! Want a bottle?" Chakun did.

Aleicree grimaced, and for a minute sat there by the gangplank, sour-faced as Jazhou guarded the depleting crate of bottles.

Jazhou held out a hand as she offered, "You, uh... May want to stay in an inn ashore tonight, Aleicree. Tulor saw you buy a waking puff from Kagnir and heard you claim they're available in every port, so he went looking and came back hawking 'em at-price. They were bought. The whole crew's going to be up around the clock this time."

There was a momentary distraction from yet another crew member coming to the crate, but this time she waved her hands across and said, "Hey, Quojin! You've had plenty!" Quojin was a green vrash; he walked off grumbling.

Aleicree's tail rested on the deck, zir shoulders were slumped, and the cheery music being played might as well have been a dirge. "I like a peaceful ship. I don’t care what the crew gets up to in port, but I hate when dragons being dissolute messes up the ship."

Jazhou shook her head fiercely at that. "Hey! We're hardly dissolute."

"Dissolute enough that the crew quarters is 'I don't want to know'," scoffed Aleicree. That seemed a special threshold. "I'm going back to the post office."

A brief flight later, Aleicree bought more paper and envelopes from the post office and with their permission brooded over a writing desk in the customer section, writing a letter to Taltios asking, "How are those cute swamp lizards you raise doing of late?" Taltios' swamp lizards ate pond scum and other awful plants, but they grew to a good size and their meat was good.

Zie sat for a while over the letter, wanting to add something other than complaints, but zie didn’t know much about lizard-raising or anything else about Taltios’ life. Zie was stumped for a while until zie recalled that there was definitely good news to share: "I've been given a vacation from the Serene Chordalite, and there's a new windmage called Rhaokir taking my shift. Zie seems competent and the whole of the evening shift will be trusted to zir once I leave the ship at Hiakoreska. I'm planning to fly south through Kanjamund to visit Vrekant, who I think has been pining for me to do something different rather than sailing forever this back-and-forth journey around Tachamund."

Aleicree duplicated the letter and set both copies on the desk. Zie blew on them, impatient for them to dry. Maybe an instantly drying ink would be a good blessing to seek... no, zie shouldn't bother. Zie started on another letter.

The next one was addressed to Ekis. Zie hadn’t gotten a reply yet from Ekis and wouldn’t expect one while Ekis and Denziu were off on a mercantile venture, but there was no sin in sending more than one letter. This time zie just straight-up complained that "you don't want to know" had taken over the crew quarters, and zie didn’t actually know what that meant. "What could they be doing that Jazhou would tell me I wouldn't want to know about it? Why does the whole ship have to be up and about, keeping me from my reading?"

Aleicree considered writing a letter to Praoziu, but zie thought it wrong to write complaints to a land god. The weave of Fate stretched over all Theoma and every land god influenced it. Writing to a land god would be too much like wishing for bad consequences to befall zir shipmates.

It was still not late as Aleicree departed the post office. This was vexatious. Zie had no idea how to spend the evening in Hiakoreska. Zie wished it were a typical market day where the revelling happened on shore rather than having partying seagons take over the ship in protest of a dull port. They were disrupting the silence aboard the ship!

Aleicree took to the air again and flew back to The Serene Chordalite. It was still busy, musical, brightly lit, and crowded. Landing on deck, Aleicree sighed and milled around, resigned to waiting out the party until the sleeping quarters were fit to use again. Eventually, zie ran across Kajir.

“Aleicree!” he called to zir, “This has been awesome.”

Zie stared at him.

“Well, I think it’s been awesome. You wouldn’t believe what’s going on in the-”

"DON'T tell me," cut in Aleicree with a sudden shout. Zie looked down. "Don't tell me. I'm sorry I shouted. I wanted to spend the evening copying a book, but Jazhou warned against investigating the crew quarters. So whatever’s going on, would you leave me innocent?"

Kajir blinked at Aleicree, the smile having been blown away by the unexpected shout from quiet Aleicree. "What's the point of-"

Sensing an impertinent question, zie silenced him again with a glare before he said anything that made zir regret apologising. Zie must have hit the mark for he shut up at once.

"Fine," he said, now a bit glum. "You're drearier than Captain Kagnir, and he’s been spending the evening holed up in his quarters."

"In his defence, this is usually a very orderly ship," stressed Aleicree.

Kajir shook his head. "Market days are just not enough. Throwing a party every so often is good for dragons. Really," he said, and he tried a smile again. “It wouldn’t hurt you at all to join the fun.”

"...I'd rather be flying south to visit a friend in northern Kanjamund, Kajir. I will be, soon. I've been stuck on this ship for years," Aleicree said.

"So've we! So we... have some fun with it, you know?" said Kajir. "But I guess different dragons want different things. You write letters, right? You probably have a whole bunch of quiet friends. Strange though, I heard rumours about you from the academy."

Aleicree blinked. Rumours? Kajir couldn't be younger than zie was! He'd already spoken of doing geomancer things centuries ago and gaining a wind magic ability by it! "You went to the academy WAY before me," zie said. "Didn't you? Are you going to say you graduated from Griolor more recently than I did?"

"No," said Kajir, "Or kind of. I joined the Chordalite in '09, right? Did you know the academy has a continuing education program? I go back for a semester or two between postings. Pick up courses of interest, brush up on old bad grades, and... well, it's really just an excuse. Ships hire at the Griolor Wind Magic Academy, so being there is one of the best ways to find ships that are hiring windmages."

That answered why Kajir was at the academy more recently than Aleicree. Truly, zie knew what kind of rumours Kajir had probably heard, but zie didn't even want to think about it. Zie'd let some dragons - like Vrekant - talk zir into a few weird things back in the academy. There had been a particularly strange alchemical elective...

Blushing at the thought of it, Aleicree said, "You know, it's weird for an old dragon to be picking up rumours on much younger dragons."

Kajir grinned. "Nuh uh. You don't get to pull that one. Past a hundred, nobody cares how old anyone is."

"Kajir, I am right now not yet a hundred," said Aleicree. Zie was 75.

"O-oh." Kajir pulled back. He coughed, adjusted his vest, and stood up straighter. "That's... I'm sorry, Aleicree. I didn't know." An awkward moment. "Did you... tell everyone at the academy?"

Aleicree made a sour face. "No. I kept my age completely to myself so I wouldn't miss out. But I was young and dumb and did a lot of things that I don't do anymore, so please don't talk to me about rumours from the academy."

"I won't," said Kajir, standing quite as straight as vashael can.

He looked very sincere in that promise, but to Aleicree they were still parting on a sour note. This was probably a death knell of Aleicree's party life aboard the ship, but that was for the better.

Zie didn't usually like to think of the age gap between zirself and everyone else. They were all unaging, praise the land gods, but sometimes that meant anyone under a hundred was still in the creche. Aboard the Serene Chordalite it did not usually matter. At all. Nobody seemed to think of Aleicree as distinctly young. Like it had been to Kajir, Aleicree's true age was a surprise. And Aleicree, flustered by mention of old rumours from academy, had let the secret slip.

The academy had posed a problem for Aleicree. In hindsight, zie had been young enough to fall for 'fun', yet superficially mature enough that dragons thought zie knew what zie was getting into. They had taken zir for two hundred. Zie'd been thirty. Hindsight being 20/20, zie wished zie would've been forthright. Ah, but then zie wouldn't have gotten along as well with Vrekant... Maybe it was better that things worked out the way they did. Vrekant was a charm worth keeping, and zie was looking forward to seeing him again.

In the meanwhile… If Captain Kagnir was being dreary in his quarters, maybe he was a like-minded soul.

Aleicree went to the Captain’s cabin and knocked on the door. A frowning yellow vrash head poked out through a partly opened door. “Something gone wrong?” he asked.

“This ship’s a madhouse,” Aleicree said. “Mind if I spend the evening with you?”

The door opened all the way. “Someone shares my opinion of all this noise,” said Kagnir, brightening up a shade.

Aleicree stepped into Captain Kagnir's cabin. This was a little room of wonders; zie was surrounded by the finds of a once-adventurous captain who had not always taken this staid and safe supply route around Tachamund. There was a bookshelf with nearly twenty books upon it, and a stone bust of a dragon wearing heavy golden jewellery. There was a table with the map of Tachamund on its surface semipermanently, but a bin of other maps stood at its side. There was a peculiar model of Theoma in one corner which was shaped like a column with a smoothly tapered bulge in the centre; this was set up with a map stretched across it such that it could be rotated in place to view other parts of Theoma.

There was also a painting on the wall whose story Aleicree had heard years ago: it depicted Captain Kagnir in a boreal scene with a birdskull-adorned dragon from a primitivist tribe in Niazon. He had once tried to make her his wife, but the seaborne life had disagreed with her so steadfastly that after a few years she had gone back to her tribe in Niazon.

Captain Kagnir closed the door behind Aleicree and walked over to sit on his haunches behind the table with the map of Tachamund. There were regularly spaced pins on the map, all the way around Tachamund. With the regularity of the wind that the ship's windmages could provide and the experience that the Serene Chordalite had in making this voyage continuously, the pins represented the ship's probable location as of each shift change all the way through the supply run.

“I hope you don’t mind,” said Kagnir dryly, “But I’m not prepared for any festivities.”

“So much the better. I’d be in the crew quarters reading, normally, but ‘you don’t want to know’ took it over.” Aleicree folded zir arms.

Kagnir glanced towards midship. “Actually, I would like to know. What ARE my crew quarters being used for?”

Aleicree was caught out. “I… don’t know. I refused when someone offered to tell me.”

A span of relative quiet passed between them. They both listened to the revelry outside. “Do you think…” started Kagnir, then stopped himself. Another few moments, and he said, “I know this isn’t something I’ve asked before, but could you wind-watch for me?”

Aleicree frowned. “Are you ordering me to spy on your crew?”

Kagnir brushed one leg with the other. “Wellll… I won’t order it,” he said. “But I’d like to know why my quietest crew member can’t go read in peace, and it’ll be awfully disruptive if I show up myself.” He paused for a bit, and then said, “And I’m not sure what we’ll have to talk about with this hanging in the air.”

Aleicree paced the room. “I wouldn’t mind being the wind. I like watching over everyone that way. I wouldn’t usually… but you do have an interest in the crew quarters…” zie muttered to zirself as zie thought about it, then zie turned towards the door of the cabin and laid down facing it. “Fine, I’ll do it.”

Wind-watching started out exactly the same as being the wind, but where Aleicree could count on a placidly all-accepting attitude to be the wind without caring what dragons did aboard ship, to wind-watch them zie had to take a keen interest in what was going on. Zir consciousness expanded in the ethereal form of the air itself, spreading from Captain Kagnir’s cabin until zie encompassed the ship, and then zie zeroed in on the crew quarters.

There were knots of dragons all up and down the hall where they slept. Each knot had a dragon in the middle of it, babbling copiously. Not a word of what they said made sense, because one was talking about plains of ravishing grasses that gleamed like fire, while the next spoke about breathable oceans full of friendly metal beasts. Every so often the babbler stopped, and was cajoled back into talking again by the bystanders surrounding them.

Being the wind relied on calm, and spying on other dragons like this was not calm for Aleicree, so at this point zir trance failed, and zie found zirself abruptly back in Kagnir’s cabin. Looking over at him, zie said, “They’re gathered around dragons describing otherworldly places. It’s a lot of babble.”

“Is that all?” asked Captain Kagnir.

“That’s all.”

“Pshaw,” scoffed Kagnir with a grin. “You’ve misunderstood it. There must be something more than storytelling going on, or they would’ve asked me to join. Look again!”

So Aleicree looked again. It was hard to ‘see’ what was going on, because zie was not exactly seeing at all. They were fuzzy silhouettes. Scent and sound carried on the wind, but zie could not tell Kagnir every member of the crew in the sleeping quarters, for many of them were sitting quietly as they listened. Colour didn’t carry on the wind.

For some minutes, Aleicree watched over them, trying not to take too keen an interest lest the trance break again. Eventually, a breakthrough! A new knot formed down the quarters, and a phial was passed to the dragon in the centre of it. “Are you sure this is safe?” asked the dragon who received the phial.

“Safe enough for the other two so far,” came the reply.

“Here goes nothing,” said the dragon, tossing back the phial and swallowing its contents. “How long will the madness salts take?”

“A few minutes,” said another of the gathered dragons.

Aleicree let go of the trance and came back up in Kagnir’s cabin. “They’re dosing the talking ones with something called ‘madness salts’ to induce visions,” said Aleicree.

Captain Kagnir hmmed. “Does it look like anything dangerous is going on?” he asked.

“No,” said Aleicree. “They’re just talking.”

“I’d rather they asked permission,” said Captain Kagnir. “Although I suspect I’ll grant them forgiveness well enough. Thank you for satisfying my curiosity. I’ll ask tomorrow what was going on and I’ll keep your name out of it.”

Aleicree nodded. “Thank you.” Zie glanced over at Kagnir’s bookshelves. “Do you mind if I borrow a book for the evening?”

Captain Kagnir perked up. “I’d tell you not to touch my treasures, but I know you of all dragons will be gentle with it!” He walked over to his shelf and beckoned to zir, so that soon they were both standing next to it browsing the titles.

While the revelry outside went on, Aleicree spent a quiet evening with Captain Kagnir, with both of them reading a different book from his shelf. When the noise outside died down, zie gave him back his book and went out to sleep in zir usual spot.

The next morning, Aleicree gathered a pouch worth of coin and then reported to Kagnir’s office again to officially report that zie was leaving Rhaokir in charge of zir shift as zie departed on vacation, and then zie was off.