After Abi calmed down and we finished loading everything onto the ship, it was time for us to leave Gaerrana behind. The ship - which looked much like a sailing ship, if you took off the sails, tacked on some fin-like wings instead, added a couple rockets in the back, and made the entire thing out of metal - took off around sunset. All of us stood on deck to watch the sun setting over Myendeita Bay.

“Beautiful,” Ella breathed. Nadrire and I nodded and murmured our agreement.

I leaned over the railing to watch the colors stain the waves and couldn’t help but notice that Shei had repainted the ship’s name - The Drunken Dragon - on the side of the boat in neat, curling letters.

“You know,” I murmured to my friend. “You’ve had this damn ship for three years and I still can’t believe you actually went through with naming it what you did.”

Shei just stared at me for moment. “You… recall that I made a promise, right? You were there, and I’m not one to break promises… Plus, well, I wasn’t going to take the other suggestion for the name.”

“Well-“

“YO! DUMBASSES!” Abi’s voice screeched out of the PA system loud enough to make us all jump. “We’re approaching the Gate in two minutes, so how ‘bout y’all make yourselves useful instead of standing around and gawking?!”

Shei swore, then bustled off to the control panel on a podium in front of the ship. It controlled the cannons mounted on the front of the ship and the defense system, the latter of which was used as we jumped through the Gates. Shei began fiddling with a few switches and buttons as we approached the Gate.

While I had been through the Gates a multitude of times before, I still could not grasp the magnitude of its presence and the energy that swirled around it. It was so much more than a tunnel in space. This was a hole cut into the very fabric of the reality of my home plane. It was huge, easily dwarfing our tiny ship. Staring into it gave the paradoxical feeling of looking everywhere and nowhere at once. It seemed to hold everything and nothing, every sort of sensation and a soul touching numbness. It was an impossible, improbable thing beyond comprehension.

Ella, Nadrire and myself had spread out to the sides of the ship, but I could feel everyone’s attention being drawn to the gaping void in front of us. I mean, it is pretty hard to ignore.

Shei pushed a button on the panel. Stretching out their fingers, they then set their hand in the divet next to the button. The wings tucked in and from below, something mechanical began to whir. A thin layer of magic - a warm orange, because it was coming from Shei - spread around the ship like a bubble.

I looked up and down at the shield, checking for any uneven areas, cracks, or spots where the magic bubbled or popped. I knew Ella and Nadrire were doing the same.

“Looks good, Shei,” Ella called.

“I don’t see anything,” Nadrire agreed.

One at a time, we each repeated what Shei had done: pushing a button on a small control panel (this time mounted in a box in the side of the ship that we had to crouch to reach) and then placing our hands in the divet next to the button. Our individual magics spread through the shield, strengthening it, as it became thicker and more opaque.

After the shield was ready, Abi began to count down. “Three, two, one…”

I heard the jets whir to life underneath us, and we were launched into the void.

Every time, I forgot how incomparable being in a Gate was to even merely looking at it. I could feel the energy from the Gate simultaneously pushing and pulling at the shield with its infinitude and its absence. I closed my eyes and bowed my head so I wouldn’t look at the shield and consequently withdraw my magic. The blood pounded in my ears as I fought the strain that soaked through, in spite of the shield.

And then, just like that, it was over. The pressure lifted off of the shield and disappeared. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath. I began to breathe again. Inhale. Exhale. Then, after I had steadied myself, I removed my hand from the control panel, pushed the button again, and rose to my feet.

Below us were the forests of eastern Yiannjine, and in the distance, I could see a mountain range bathed in the light of early dusk. I grinned as I turned to Shei, but before I could say anything, the PA system blared to life again.

“I declare a meeting in the control room!” We had refused to let Abi refer to the control room as the cockpit (even though it was the more technically accurate term) because they kept making far too many… obscene jokes.

“Hey!” I exclaimed. “I thought only a captain could declare meetings!”

“Yeah, well, I bought all these pastries from Jhalkiana’s for y’all, but I’m not entirely opposed to eating them all myself-“

“Abi! You’re a ghost!” Ella chided, already moving towards the control room.

“And you’re an automaton,” Abi shot back.

“But I have magic and a sense of taste!”

“Well, an experimental prototype of the latter,” Shei conceded.

I rolled my eyes and followed after Nadrire.