Deciding whether to stay in the forest or fly to the nearest town was the first action as soon as Shark awoke the next morning. Comrad tended to work longer into the night than Shark cared to stay up, so ever since Comrad could navigate he slept on the lower bunk. Shark gave him a light shove as he got down from his own bunk. He wasn’t happy with Comrad’s decision to help a wild vampire, and he didn’t plan on letting Comrad forget that; thoughtless kindness would hurt the boy one day, Shark was certain.
Lights blossomed on in the common room. Despite it being well past dawn, no natural light lit the hull, as there were no windows and the hatch was firmly shut. Good thing they didn’t have to pay for lighting.
Shark walked directly to the chest that held the majority of both his and Comrad’s worldly possessions. Kneeling beside it, he tipped the heavy lid back. Two-thirds of the trunk was filled with regular school books, as well as almost every book on navigation Shark could get his hands on; he refused to leave Comrad uneducated, no matter their circumstances. The rest of the trunk was filled with heavy cloaks for when winter winds shook the sky, as well as thick boots to go with them. Shark picked up a world atlas from the top of the navigation stack and closed the chest back up.
Comrad shuffled in, blinking sleep out of his eyes. Tossing the atlas onto the table in front of Comrad’s usual chair, the one with the back to the hatch, Shark took a seat in his own chair. He hated having Comrad do all the work, but he had to admit that he could be no help when it came to any geography.
“Find out where we are. We just have to hope the closest town has a doctor that won’t throw us out.” Shark began counting the many marks on the table top as Comrad silently opened the atlas. He had counted them before, but he needed a simple task to focus on that wouldn’t let his mind wander. Comrad had little trouble finding the forest they were in, his ability to remember cloud coordinates as well as star locations helping immensely.
Swivelling the atlas to face Shark, Comrad pointed at a small drawing of a cluster of houses on the edge of a green blurb.
“It’s only a half mile walk straight through the forest, we can be there and back by dinner if we leave now. It’s so close to a vampire inhabited forest, they have to have some sort of healer.” Comrad slowly traced a line with his finger between the houses and an ambiguous point in the green.
“You better hope they have a doctor, or the vampire won’t be the only one bleeding.” Shark warned as he pushed himself up out of his chair.
“I know you’re all talk, Shark. You like me too much.” Comrad smiled up at Shark from the table, childish enjoyment shining in his eyes. Shark walked out to the hatch without a word in response.
Patches of bright sunlight peeked from between thousands of swirling clouds. The vampire sat in the shadow of the ship, leaning against the hull. He was still in his human form as a full beam of sunlight had yet to touch his skin. Shark got a closer look at him from the deck above. Skin that was most assuredly pure white was so caked with dirt it appeared well tanned. Hands, caked in dark brown dried blood, were laying across his chest like he had been pushing against his wound until he fell asleep. Despite the injury, the vampire wasn’t in bad shape: the forest had not held back in providing fresh blood.
Tossing a bag up onto the deck, Comrad pulled himself up out of the hull. He paused, glancing between the cloth bag in his hands and the open hatch. Confusion raised his brows.
“How did you get up here so quickly last night? I didn’t hear the pot get thrown, and you had just gone down so you couldn’t have already been coming back when I called out.” Comrad looked at Shark, whose shoulders seemed to tense.
“I was already coming out. We never move the pot, so it isn’t like I had to look for it. I didn’t want to throw it and risk getting a dent either. It was just lucky.” Shark’s eyes never wavered from the boy below him, but they weren’t looking at him.
“You were crazy fast, almost like we had stairs.” His curiosity quenched, Comrad joined Shark at the rail.
“We should get stairs.” A legitimate way, Shark thought.
They had not opted to lower their voices, and the vampire looked up at them. Whispering was no point, really, with the ears the boy had. Shark jumped over the rail and landed next to the vampire. Comrad landed on the other side and kneeled down.
“We can’t help you, but there might be someone nearby who can. Will you come with us?” Comrad extended a hand out to the injured vampire. A blank look came onto the vampire’s face, Comrad’s hand left outstretched alone.
“He’s wild, Comrad. The chances of him speaking our language are even less than the likelihood of there being a welcoming doctor in town.” The vampire looked up at Shark and furrowed his brow. He looked at Comrad’s hand again before looking at the boy’s face.
“Comrad?”
A grin blossomed across Comrad’s face and he frantically nodded. The vampire’s voice was pleasantly smooth, unexpected based on his appearance. The human tongue still sounded foreign from him, however. Comrad’s name didn’t sound like a word, more like a mash-up of repeated sounds. Even that was impressive as the boy had only heard it a few times. Shark’s disapproving face cracked, morphing into one of honest surprise.
“Yes! That’s me, my name is Comrad.”
“Comrad.” The name sounded less odd this time.
“Shark, can you believe this?” Comrad looked back at Shark, lowing his hand. The vampire followed his line of sight.
“Shark?” Anyone walking by could have thought one of the boys simply sneezed instead of one of them trying to say Shark’s name. Shark let it slide, favoring the good in the situation. If the vampire was learning their language this fast, it soon wouldn’t be as hard to communicate with him. Shark gave a simple nod in reply.
Comrad changed to using hand motions to communicate, despite the small victory with talking. He pointed at the bloody gash in the vampire’s shoulder, rubbed his own shoulder, and then pointed out into the forest in what Shark assumed was the direction to the town.
“Heal shoulder, come this way?” Whether or not the vampire understood was unclear, but either way he appeared to be inclined to follow Comrad. Leaving the ship behind them, the three boys made their way toward the tree line. There was about a foot or two between the end of the ship’s shadow and the dappled shade of the forest. Before the sunlight could touch him, the vampire’s body shook and crumpled in on itself. A second later, where the boy had stood was now a small black vampire bat. It flapped a few times to stabilize, but one of its wings was twisted oddly. Bobbing a few times, it landed on top of Comrad’s head, nestling into his fluffy curls. Comrad’s smile widened as much as physically possible, and the two boys, one bat, continued toward the town.
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