Elias and Kristen hurried with Captain Rae down the steps to their holding room, where their bags and that golden coin was. Kristen dug through her bag and pulled out the purple sack.
"Here it is" she said, handing it over to him
Captain Rae opened it with haste and grabbed the coin. He held it up and inspected it, even taking off one of his gloves to feel it.
"Yep. Thats an Azsolan gold coin... Most likely from a Dragonfin ship.. " he said as he gave it back to Kristen.
"We can keep it!?" she said with surprise.
"Yea. Finders keepers... or in this case... thievers keepers." He winked at them. "Besides, we have some of it already, just by trading with the guys."
Captain Rae headed out the room, leaving Elias and Kristen inside. They remained there and expected the door to be shut again. Surprisingly, upon exiting, he turned back and looked at them.
"Coming?"
"Oh yea sure!" Kristen mumbled
"Bring your bags" Captain Rae added.
They both followed him out.
"Alright you two. Talk to Adira and she'll bring you to your rooms. Coincidentally we have 2 extra beds on this skipper!" The Captain said as he walked ahead without looking back.
They arrived onto the deck, the dawning sunlight blasting their faces. The crew worked hard moving things, controlling the many ropes that connected the balloon to the ship's base, and even just cleaning. In the near distance, Elias saw Adira. She appeared to be analyzing the deck floor for some reason.
Kristen began walking towards her and Elias followed.
When they arrived, Adira smiled. "Hey Elias, Kristen! Are'ye two looking for your rooms?"
"Yea.. what were you doing?" Kristen asked
"Oh.. this ship is horrible. I've been trying to get Rae to invest in a plastered ship, or even steal one if possible.."
Adira stomped her boot onto the deck and began to wiggle it. The deck board screeched and moaned with every ounce of pressure she did.
"I don't see it surviving a battle or what not." She continued.
"But lets forget that shall we?" She walked in between Elias and Kristen and headed towards the indoor portion of the ship. Elias and Kristen followed along.
They entered a hallway with 5 doors lining each side. They walked towards the end, and Adira opened the last one on the right side. It opened up to a tiny room. A bunk bed was on the right and a normal one on the left. In the center, against the wall was a little wooden nightstand.
"I call top bunk!" Kristen hollered as she climbed its ladder.
Elias looked at both of his options. He hoped to get bottom bunk cause he liked the feeling, but when he looked, the bed under the bunk looked like it's been used. The other hasn't.
"I call left side I guess" He said as he began walking in
"Good choice." Adira told him quietly. Informing him that the bed below the bunk was hers.
"Why did you choose that one if you were alone in here?" Elias questioned her
"Makes me feel safer, you know?" She said grinning
"I know exactly what you mean!" Elias replied
"Yea if you call bumping your head every morning 'safer'" Kristen laughed
"Alright you guys can settle in. I'm going to get back to inspecting this rickety ship." She said this while wriggling the door back and forth, emphasizing the creaking noise. Eventually walking out and shutting the door.
Kristen rested her head onto her pillow and closed her eyes.
"There's like... no privacy in here.." Elias mumbled as he sat onto his bed "I can literally almost touch the other bed with my feet"
He stretched his legs out in an attempt to demonstrate.
"What's that? I can't hear you all the way across the room dude" Kristen joked
"I'm serious, Kristen"
"I'm just joking. It is cramped in here, but i'm sure there's somewhere else private doings are done! Sleeping isn't private is it?" She said as she put her hands behind her head and relaxed even more.
"Hmpfh" Elias grunted as he settled into his bed as well."
The day went quickly, and night fell. Elias and Kristen spent most of the day doing nothing in that room but talking. Adira came in with her sleepwear- a dirty white tank top and shorts. Elias could clearly see where her arms and the prosthesis transitioned. It was somewhat gross, but Elias thought it was beautiful. The combination of life and technology.
Adira put out the lamp that Elias kept on and rested on her bed.
It was silent and dark. Kristen was obviously asleep. If she was awake, she would've said something stupid by now.
"It was my sister" Adira whispered into the darkness
"What?" Elias replied
"She... she took part ..in removing my hands.."
Elias stayed quiet. He didn't want to say anything that could make things worse.
"It's a Dragonfin custom to cut the hands off of mutineers or thieves. My sister proved her loyalty to them by doing this... but I still escaped."
"Im... sorry for asking earlier.." Elias whispered back
"It's not your fault." She said
Elias could feel her crying. There wasn't any noise coming from her, but he could feel it. The room was just so cramped that he could just sense it.
Later on, it was still much easier to sleep since he had a mattress and pillow to rest on unlike the room downstairs.
Days turned to a week, and Elias and Kristen were given their first jobs. Kristen became a hauler, moving coal and resources around the ship. Elias was simply a translator for Captain Rae, and sometimes he participated in making food.
During that week, they talked to the rest of the crew, learning who they were. There was what Elias and Kristen believed to be a Spiran, but he called himself an 'Elemental'. Of course they thought he was delusional. His skin was a blue hue, but that isn't something unusual for their people. There was Dom'Lo, an orange-skinned Grolobb from North Spire. He left his business to explore the world, and ended up with these guys. Lastly another Spiran with long orange hair. He was littered with freckles, an unusual sight for Spirans from North and South Spirea. He says he's from the Hyphian Isle south of Majka, 'at the bottom of the world'.
Although he already knew how to boil and season sianee, Elias learned how to prepare meat and make minced meat pockets. He also learned how to smash fruits into a fine jelly for different uses like juice and Jelly Bowls. From this job, he was shown the 'freezer' a large room filled to the brim with Troggler meat, eggs, fish and fruits. He was told that magic kept it cool, but he didn't believe.
As the second week came around, their clothes began to smell. They've gone through all of the clothes they had in their bags.
"If you wanna be a pirate, you ought'ta smell like one huh?" Kristen would say as an excuse
They would wash their stuff from time to time but soap was scarce, and mostly used for hand washing to prevent getting sick.
Week 3 comes along. The Captain says they'll probably arrive to the south western shores of the new world in about 9 days. They'd stop from time to time to send people down to go fishing.
The ocean was vast. Sometimes it felt as if they were going in circles. But one day something about the water over a thousand feet below looked different.
The water appeared to have a massive stem of darkness under it. It stretched for miles, the end being too far for naked eyes to see.
That day Elias was working on food with Adira and Kristen.
"Hey what's up with the water?" Kristen asked as she mashed up some thawing fruit.
"It's a crack or something. It runs deep into the crust- a result of the cataclysm" Adira explained.
"It was once called the Great Divide by the Librarians. Their boats never dared to cross it..." Elias added
Adira looked up at him and smiled
"Right. You know a lot for a city boy, huh?"
She said as she walked out with old dishes and plates.
Kristen and Elias were left alone.
"Wow" Kristen blurted out
"I know its pretty cool. Now that we have Airshi-" Elias replied
"Not that- You and Adira! You really like her huh?" Kristen stepped closer to Elias to nudge him
"Uh.." before Elias could speak, Adira waltzed back in to continue her work.
"No. I don't, Kristen" he said aloud, not knowing she was back.
"Yea I don't like boiled Troggler Eggs either" she said, smoothly changing the subject. Elias really appreciated Kristen as a friend, and moments like this are why.
Week 4 rolls around. They were almost there. Specks of land became more and more common and the crew was alert for that long awaited "land ho".
Elias and Kristen came to know more of the crew members. There was Lani-Maeve, or just Maeve. She was a grey-skinned imp with transparent, vein traced wings. She was a dark character who kept to herself most of the time. There was Boiler Genn, the one who caught them. There was Boiler Marcey. Another robot that had a mind of its own, he was skinny, talkative, but always seemed to be in a nervous state.
Water was running out but food wasn't much of a problem. Captain Rae ordered for food to be rationed and limited so that it lasted longer. They were expected to reach the west coast of the continent by the end of the next day, so everyone was excited.
That night Elias found something new and interesting in the Maj-Compendium while rereading it. A prophecy about guardians. Word spread throughout the crew.
Currently the only words he could make out were Irarye, prophetic, and guardian. The others were faded or scribbled over, so he took the book back to his room to try an find it elsewhere in the pages.
Sleep started to take him over, so he closed the book, put it on the night stand and went to bed.
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