BETWEEN THREE ROGUES

By Eric 'Erico' Lawson

Ten: It's Hard Making Friends

67 Days After the Grand Fortress Escape

Central Ixa'taka

The next morning, they left behind the tall and circular mountain teeming with Valuan patrol ships and headed north. The green lands hung ahead of them, with the skies full of rain and the warmth so vastly different than it had been in Maramba and the desert around the Temple of Pyrynn. There, it had been dry, unceasing, something to be feared.

But here in Ixa'taka, Vyse realized, it wasn't hot, it was warm. Warm, and wet, oppressively so. Even with the windows cracked open in the wheelhouse to let in the breeze, his hair was plastered to his forehead, and he was certain he was leaking sweat into his boots. Drachma seemed remarkably unaffected by it, merely tying a wet bandana around his neck and then slipping a dry one above his eyes. Fina's silvery dress did a fantastic job of staying dry, regardless of how flushed her face was. But the thing Vyse noticed the most was Aika, who was baking under the humidity and had unlaced the top of her leather bustier to 'let the girls breathe' as she put it, and he couldn't help but notice just how perfectly her undershirt clung to her body, revealing the outline of her…

Vyse shut his eyes and forced his head to look straight on as they continued to sail. No. Not going to think about that.

He cleared his throat. "Aika? What's our fuel status?"

"We've got about four hours of propulsion left. After that...say, another day before the Little Jack loses lift and we either land it on solid ground or sink to the Deep Sky." Aika responded, dabbing at her face.

"And no moonstone refueling station around here to be had." Vyse said, going for a weak joke. "I haven't exactly seen a lot of ships or settlements around here either. Nowhere to go for directions."

"If the Valuans acted like their usual, dumb, oppressive selves, I'd bet you anything that anyone who lives here would go to ground and hide." Aika snarked back.

Fina hummed thoughtfully. "You mean, like Vyse's father and the Albatross crew were going to after we rescued them?"

"Exactly like it." Vyse said with a chuckle. "Of course, since we don't know how exactly any of the Ixa'takans...should we call them that?...might camouflage their settlements, we could still use a bit of direction and advice.

Drachma stepped out past the wheel and parked himself in front of the forward window, leaning until his forehead was almost touching the reinforced glass.

Then he grunted, stepped back, and pointed a finger. "There, boy." Ahead of them, and down below tree level beside a lake was parked a vessel maybe one and a half times the size of the Little Jack, which would have gone unnoticed save for a sudden breeze from a different direction tossing a green canopy...and the black sails revealed underneath, perfectly visible even when furled. "Put 'er down next to that ship."

"Is that a pirate ship?" Aika got out the ship's telescope and extended the tube to get a closer look. Drachma shook his head and chuckled.

"No. That, lass, be a ship of the Black Market."

The ship looked to have about fifteen to twenty years of patina, and whoever the owner was spent enough money to keep it running well enough by a quick exterior glance, but didn't give two figs for how it looked. The Little Jack settled down onto the ground next to it, and Vyse and Aika quickly threw all the levers to completely disengage the engines and cut the levitation drive. From there, it was just a quick stroll to get on board the other vessel and go looking for the crew…

Though there didn't appear to be one on board.

"Captain Drachma, I'm not sure anyone's home." Aika mused, digging into a crate packed with straw and coming up with nothing but a cracked, empty bottle of rum and a disgusted look on her face. "Ugh. Smells awful. I think a bird's been using this for a nest."

Vyse stayed on high alert, strolling ahead with swords drawn while the girls and Drachma lingered near the back. He listened for the shuffle of footsteps or the creaking of a floorboard. But there was nothing.

"Let me see that bottle, Aika." Drachma suddenly said, and Vyse glanced back as Drachma took the broken bottle in his mechanical hand and turned it over slowly. The old man sniffed at it, made a face, then turned it around and examined the bottom of the container.

Then, strangely, he smiled and threw it over his shoulder, letting it break into a thousand tiny shards across the deck behind them. "I know who's here. You can relax, boy. We won't be needing those swords on this ship."

"You know who the captain is, Drachma?" Vyse asked, sheathing his cutlasses and doing his best not to look too relieved. Drachma might be at ease, but he was still in unfamiliar territory.

"Aye." Drachma drawled, looking up at the sky. "And this time of day, he'll still be wallowing in bed." He looked over to Aika and Fina. "Girls, the galley's down the stairs two flights and then halfway to the stern, port side. You'll be wanting to brew up some tea. Some strong tea. Boy, you're coming with me."

Aika and Fina looked over to Vyse for confirmation, and Vyse caught the twitch in the corner of Drachma's eye that they treated him as the leader. Vyse just smirked, patted Drachma on the shoulder, and headed for the stairs. "You heard him, ladies. Hup hup."

"Insufferable pup." Drachma grumbled lowly, trudging after him.

"So, strong tea." Vyse said, when they were a floor down and he let the old man take point in their search for the ship's owner. "Mind if I ask why?"

"For the hangover he's going to have." Drachma answered coolly. "And the headache I'm about to give him." They stopped in front of a closed door, and Drachma put a finger to his lips to keep Vyse from asking any more questions. Then he nudged the door open, the thing creaking on rusty hinges, revealing a pitted out mess of a bedroom littered with wrappers, bottles, and clay jugs. The entire room smelled of stale sweat, spilled beer, and soiled clothes, and Vyse leaned out of the room to suck in a breath before diving back inside.

The smells didn't seem to affect Drachma in the slightest, who strolled up towards the bed and the snoring lump buried underneath a patchworn blanket on top of it. He reached over with his mechanical arm, grabbed hold of the far edge of the mattress, and then turned it completely over. The lump of sleeping inebriate came to right after impact with the floor, groaning in pain.

"Up and at 'em, ye drunken reprobate!" Drachma bellowed, his voice thundering in the small cabin. The groaning intensified, and the lump slowly stretched out, a scrawny leg emerging from the cocoon. "Sun's up and it's time to move yer' sorry ass in gear, you've got customers!"

"Moons, Drachma, not so loud…" The ship's owner groaned. The lump stopped moving after a few seconds, and Drachma looked back to Vyse, holding up his left arm and counting down his fingers as they waited for the fellow to come to his senses.

"Wait. Drachma? The fu…" The fellow's head finally emerged from the pile, with blurry brown eyes blinking wildly under a ragged and thinning mop of graying brown hair. He blinked a few more times after shooting a quick look to Vyse. Outside, the chirp of insects and the screeching of wild birds accented the odd moment. "Um, am I still drunk, or are you actually here, Drachma?"

In response, Drachma reached down with his left arm and flicked the man's forehead, making him hiss in pain and clutch at it. "Finish taking your morning piss, Lorenzo, and then meet me in the galley." He turned and gestured at Vyse, then walked out of the door.

"Hey, the hell do you mean, finish my mor…" Lorenzo started angrily, then paused and looked down at his blanket, and to the wet spot on the front of it. "Oh. Bugger me." Vyse wrinkled his nose again and quickly chased after Drachma.

"Interesting friend." He finally said out in the hallway, coughing away the smell.

Drachma snorted at that. "How many friends do you think that drunk actually has, Vyse?"

His name was Lorenzo, and as Drachma explained while giving the alcoholic a hangover cure of strong tea mixed with other things that the old man outright refused to detail, he was a black marketeer that he'd had dealings with up in North Ocean some time ago. On first evaluation, Vyse had found very little about the man worthy of notice, and his opinion hadn't required much adjustment. Lorenzo looked to be a man in his early to mid forties, with his hair going gray and falling out at the same time. There were holes in his teeth, and the trousers and striped shirt he'd thrown on were marginally clean, but still carried some of the same stink as the rest of his room had. His brown eyes were bloodshot, but he was quickly perking up. Whatever Drachma had given him was doing the trick.

"Long time ago." Lorenzo muttered, shaking his head. "One-Armed Drachma, as I live and breathe. The hell are you doing in Ixa'taka? How the hell did you get here? And for that matter, who the hell are these kids?" He gestured wildly at Aika, Fina, and Vyse, who stayed clustered by the doorway and as far away from the terrible smelling man as they possibly could. Only Drachma seemed immune to the marketeer's foul odor.

"They're a...temporary crew." Drachma muttered. "Vyse, Aika, and Fina. I could hardly go sailing across the Southern Ocean on my own now, could I?"

The black marketeer snorted, then did a double take. "Wait. What? Vyse? As in, two-stars on the Valuan piracy board, Vyse the Determined?"

"Oh, joy. I'm determined now." Vyse sighed, looking to Aika and Fina, who both didn't bother hiding the giggles. "Would have thought I'd get a better name after squashing Admiral Belleza."

Lorenzo harrumphed and took another swig of the tea, making a face. "Your hangover cure is still terrible, Drachma." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small silver flask, then poured out a few liberal swigs into the cup. "There. Hair of the dog. You want some?"

"Is it that same rotgut we found an empty bottle of out on your deck?"

"No. That's just what I drink when I'm bored. This is the good rum."

"Hand it over then." Drachma groused, and took a hearty chug from the flask, exhaling loudly after. "Sweet as ever. And illegal in Valua."

"Like that ever concerned us." Lorenzo smirked, raising his glass. The two old men clinked flask and metal mug together in a makeshift toast. "So. The Southern Ocean? You really crossed it?"

"Aye. That's one of the reasons I'm glad we found you." Drachma capped the flask after another swig and handed it back.

Hung over as he was, Lorenzo's brain had finally caught up, and he glanced at them under couched eyebrows with unusual acuity. "Running low on fuel?"

"Aye."

"Figured. You still using those same piss-poor cannons?"

"Added a new one."

"Harpoon Cannon. After-market modifications, which definitely made it illegal. I heard about it. Story goes you took down Belleza with it. So. You need some more fuel, and maybe I can convince you to buy some better armament."

"Eager to make a sale, are we? Must have pissed it all away on the booze again." Drachma folded his arms. Lorenzo chuckled a bit at that.

"Hardly. Getting past the iron netting the Valuans put up to keep anyone else from getting into Ixa'taka takes bribes. Some serious ones. I'll need something substantial for my trouble."

"Oh, sure. Like you ever threw money at the border guards when you could pawn off whatever crap you had down in the hold instead."

"No, you're thinking of yourself, you one-eyed hack. Like that time you tried to pay me for that new engine mount with a pile of dried fish, like we were still using the barter system!"

For his part, Vyse watched the exchange with the curiosity only an outsider to the game of black market buying and selling could possess. It was obvious that there was an easy back and forth between the two, and they hadn't gotten serious about the sale yet. There weren't any numbers being spoken, or even the indirect phrasing that he'd heard some of the Nasrian merchants bandying about while they'd been in Maramba.

It was more like they were old friends hedging around the issue, using the opportunity to catch up on old times and throw insults at someone who wouldn't mind them.

"Seriously, though. For a while there, the Valuan patrols around here were thick. After you lot had your dustup with Belleza, the Valuans had an entire battle group waiting for you all to show up." Lorenzo waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "You never did do things by half-measures, Drachma. You and your new friends pissed them off but good. I had to put down and hide the ship to keep them from impounding it and throwing me in the brig."

"Aye." Drachma stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Good thing that the trip took us a while longer than we thought. But I see you made good use of the time. Haven't seen you this ruddy in the face in a decade."

"Seemed as good a time for a bender as any." Lorenzo shrugged. "Wasn't anything going on, after all. They finally thinned out and sent most of the group back home just a week ago, though. Guess they thought you'd up and gotten lost at sea."

"Almost were." Drachma said laconically. "So. We're in the market for three things. Fuel, maybe better guns...and information."

"I could spare a few days' worth of fuel for the right price, but I'll be heading back home myself soon now that things have quieted down some." Lorenzo cocked his head to the side. "And guns...Actually I've got in some Valuan-issued 'Shock' class torpedoes."

That got Vyse's attention. "Shock Torpedoes? And the launchers?"

Lorenzo grinned, and Vyse realized he'd made a mistake in the bargaining. Drachma turned and glowered at him for it as well.

"That I do, Mr. Vyse the Determined. Fire and track them in for maximum impact on target with your normal shots. They'll do a number on arcwhales, I figure...and they'll ruin a Valuan warship's day as well." He looked back at Drachma. "I figure you could even rig 'em up to fire out of those old side cannonholes on your gun deck, if you didn't want to mess up your foredeck too badly.. There's just the matter of paying for it."

"Aye. Well. We're not flush with money at the moment." Drachma explained, which made Lorenzo's face fall. He turned to Vyse, quirked the eyebrow over his left eye, then turned back to the black marketeer. "You still have your Guild accreditation?"

"For Discoveries and the like? Yeah. There's this one explorer fella named Domingo I was expecting, but this whole blowup with the Armada waiting for you must have put a damper on his plans to go looking for new things out here."

Vyse filed that tidbit about Domingo away; he'd met the man briefly on Sailor's Island, and every time Domingo got a whiff of something before Vyse did, the price on what he did find dropped sharply. Here, he had an opportunity to make some coin before Domingo ever knew about a rumor.

Still. More pressing needs first.

"How'd the Guild like to hear about a few things we stumbled across during our grand ocean voyage?" Vyse inquired, getting into the spin of the haggle. "That sort of Discovery information worth anything to you?"

Lorenzo tapped the side of his nose with a finger. "Might be. Okay. Third thing. Information from me. What about, exactly?"

Drachma gestured to Vyse, indicating for him to keep plowing along. Vyse breathed in and out.

"We're looking for the native Ixa'takans. We figure they've gone into hiding because of the Valuans."

"For the most part, yes." Lorenzo suddenly looked like he was constipated, and it took Vyse a moment to catch on that he was thinking very hard. "But. I think there's one settlement close by that's a little more exposed. Supposedly, there's a crew of pirates that crashed there. Had some dealings with them, but the natives pretty much shun them."

"Pirates?" Aika made a face. "Black Pirates?"

"Oh, no. The Blue ones."

Vyse blinked at the news, and didn't even think to correct the man that they were Blue Rogues, and not Blue Pirates.

"Blue Rogues? Here? In Ixa'taka?" He said, surprised and hopeful. "Where? Where's this village?"

"It's called Horteka." Lorenzo replied. "On an island floating in the upper range of the flyable sky to the southeast of us. A couple of hours."

"Shoot, we flew right by that island and missed it!" Aika muttered, kicking her boot into the decking.

"I guess we're going back then." Vyse grinned.

"As soon as we finish our transactions." Lorenzo corrected him. "A man's gotta eat."

"Lorenzo, you drink your dinners." Drachma scoffed.

Lorenzo laughed and patted his, by comparison to the white-haired sailor, flatter torso. "It may be hell on my liver, but at least I look good! Now spill it, Vyse. What did you find out there in that swirling mess of wind, rain, and tempests?"

Vyse, his head thrumming with excitement at finding other Blue Rogues in the world, did his best to keep it on the back burner and stick to the sale. "So, there we were, just turning the corner from Typhoon Alley to the corridor of windswept islands…"

Horteka Village

Aside from one momentary stir at the gates as they arrived, when the natives had questioned Fina in halting Mid-Ocean tradespeak if she was 'Quetya', the Hortekans had more or less ignored them when they laid anchor and strolled into what passed for civilization. Many wore wooden masks with fearsome faces carved into them. The villagers inside of their residences, however, went without. Perhaps the masks had been something worn only by those out in the open, like the Nasrian women did with their veils and shawls.

Indifference, Vyse realized, was likely the preferred means of the Ixa'takans dealing with them. Worse were the ones who glared at them hotly, openly. As soon as the news had passed around that they were not Quetya, or servants of Quetya, that they were just more foreigners come to Ixa'taka like the Valuans, the change was immediate.

Vyse preferred them hiding and staring at them from the shadows, as opposed to any of the more direct means of voicing their displeasure. They'd already been turned away from Horteka's supplies merchant and weapons smith, a father and daughter pair who looked at Vyse like he was some kind of poisonous frog to be killed on the spot, if they could manage it without being attacked.

"Not our biggest fan club." Aika muttered lowly. Neither she nor Vyse had felt the need to draw their weapons, and Cupil was still in bracelet form around Fina's wrist, but the feeling of so many hostile eyes on them had her jumpy as the cats she liked to collect stuffed animals of in her youth. "Who's Quetya, anyways?"

The name picked at the back of Vyse's brain. He'd heard it somewhere before, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember where. "Someone important, I guess. Someone they look up to."

"The way they used it in conversation implies some sort of...guardian, or a patron god or goddess, perhaps." Fina suggested. She shifted the fabric of her sleeve a little. "Though, it doesn't explain why they all looked at me like I was a goddess."

It's not that hard to think, Vyse thought to himself, and then quickly shook his head before Aika could catch his gaze and make a guess at what he'd been thinking. Stubborn girl had eyes like a hawk for some things, and she was always watching him now when she wasn't preoccupied. "Well, put a pin in that for now. Since the Hortekans aren't inclined to be all that helpful, maybe we can find these rumored Blue Rogues Drachma's friend Lorenzo told us about."

"I told you boy, he's not my friend." Drachma groused.

"Oh, right. My mistake. I forgot you didn't have any friends." Vyse snarked back at him with a wink, getting a frustrated glower from the old man, and a hearty laugh from Aika. "Okay. So. If I were a Blue Rogue living here in Horteka...around a bunch of people who rarely gave me the time of day…"

"You'd want to be living as far away from them as you possibly could, aye?" Drachma surmised.

Aika, walking ahead of them as they meandered the wooden walkways through the treetop dwellings, came to a stop and tilted her head to the side. "Like on the other side of the island, maybe?" She said, pointing down and to their right, and to a tunnel burrowed through the foliage overgrown with lichens.

The settlement where there was any sign of Blue Rogue activity was clear of any of the dwellings inhabited by the Ixa'takan natives. A rusted-out, moss-covered airship with flywheel propulsion was half buried in the ground and perched precariously close to the edge of the village with a picturesque view of the distant green islands through the haze of a constant foggy drizzle.

Children, all of them younger than ten, were running around in the open ground, laughing and yelling and screaming through some bizarre game of tag that Vyse couldn't quite place. To his surprise, there was even an Ixa'takan girl with them, though in comparison to their striped sailor's shirts and rough and patched trousers, her own clothes made her stick out even more than the darker color of her skin.

They all stopped playing and stared at the four pale-skinned strangers that strolled by them, past the outdoor tents and tarps covering up old crates of supplies and piles of drying sardis and fruit. One of the boys finally got tired of just staring at them and came up, standing in Vyse's path and crossing his arms like a stubborn doorman.

"Who are you?" He demanded.

"We're Blue Rogues." Vyse said. The boy frowned and squinted his eyes.

"Nuh-uh! My daddy's a Blue Rogue and he doesn't look anything like you all. You're all weird!" He pointed at Drachma and made a face. "Especially him!"

"Hey, now." Drachma complained with a snort.

"Well, he's not wrong. You are weird looking." Aika smirked, before looking back to the boy. "Listen, do you know where the adults are? We really are Blue Rogues, sport. We came a long way to get here, and we need to talk to them."

"That's enough, Clarence!" A harried-looking woman with graying brown hair came racing out of the grounded ship, her hands on the skirt of her dress so she wouldn't trip over the hem. A young man in a red shirt and brandishing an overly long wrench was hot on her heels, and they came to a stop in front of Vyse and the others.

The older woman scrutinized him, and Vyse squirmed under the stare so much like his own mother's before he gave her a respectful nod. "Ma'am. Are you...Are you the Blue Rogues we've heard about?"

"That would depend on who is asking." She said primly, and the youth on her left slung the wrench over his shoulder. "Or did your parents not teach you to make introductions?"

Vyse chuckled and rubbed at the back of his head. "I'm sorry. My name is Vyse, son of Dyne."

"Dyne of the Blue Storm?" The woman said incredulously, cutting him off.

Vyse had to blink at that. "...You know my father?"

"He's a legend among the Blue Rogues. My husband often spoke of him. Never had an unkind word to say." She smiled and bowed her head slightly. "My name is Caroline. My husband is Centime, the Tinker...another Blue Rogue." As the children started to gather around them, Danielle expanded her arms out. "And these are our children."

Aika made a choking noise at that. "A...all of them?"

The older boy standing by Caroline, now at ease, gave her a smile. "You can relax. We're all adopted. I'm Hans, by the way."

Vyse nodded back. "And these are my friends, Aika and Fina...and this is Drachma."

While the old man grunted and crossed his arms at being so singled out, Caroline bowed to each of them in turn. "I'm happy to have so many fellow Blue Rogues here, but I have to ask...how did you end up here? Were you taken by a hurricane as well and blown off course like we were?"

"Afraid not." Vyse said. "We took the long way around, crossed the Southern Ocean to get here. When we heard that there might be Blue Rogues here, we had to come investigate."

"That must be some story." Caroline mused, shaking her head. "But something tells me you didn't come here for us."

"No." Vyse admitted. "Happy surprise, though. And we could use a friendly face to fill us in on the situation here."

Carolina beamed at them. "Of course. We were just about to have lunch. Are you hungry?"

"I could eat." Drachma said agreeably, and that opinion was one that they all shared.

After the first introductions, the woman who oversaw the encampment insisted on Vyse and the girls calling her 'Carol', as she was always 'mom' to the children and had long been denied the pleasure of having friends she could use her favorite nickname with. A bit of back and forth proceeded over a lunch of roasted squab with a pan full of roasted fruits and vegetables that was sweet to the taste. Hortekan aila loqua, a lightly fermented cider, capped off the meal and made the tough game birds slide down more easily. Simple topics came first; a hurricane had thrown their tiny ship across the South Ocean and had left them stranded on the shores of Horteka. They had quickly established an uneasy relationship with the natives, who were gunshy after Valuan aggression in the region, making trades of Mid-Ocean goods for food and supplies for repairs, but even that much had been slow going at first. When a Valuan patrol had stumbled across their camp, Centime had surrendered himself, with the stipulation that the children and his wife would be left alone. For their part, Vyse explained how they'd made the crossing over the Southern Ocean, and how they'd just barely cleared it before their fuel supply went critical. Carol was surprised to hear that there was a black marketeer in the area, and asked Vyse to have the fellow sail by if they saw Lorenzo again; Centime's ship, the Iron Clad, was in desperate need of parts that Hans struggled to repair or fabricate without his father's assistance.

It was Fina who led off into the more nebulous realm of personal questions. "So...all of the children here, they're adopted?" She asked. "And adoption means that they are not yours biologically, but that you have assumed responsibility for them?"

"Exactly so." Carol smiled at her sadly. "Centime and I...we tried, when we were younger, but I wasn't...well. We just reached a point where we realized that if we could not have children of our own, we still owed it to the world to be parents. So, we started adopting."

"And never stopped." Hans, the oldest of the children in the Blue Rogue camp, cut in. "Mom even has an Ixa'takan girl now. Well, sort of. Her name is Ba'zili, and her parents were killed in a bad Valuan raid. The rest of the village looks out for her too, but she drifted in with the rest of us. There are others her age here."

"Anybody can make a child." Aika argued. "It takes a real parent to raise one. At least, that's what Vyse's mom likes to say."

"Okay, so here's one for you all." Carol said, setting her plate aside. "You didn't just cross the Southern Ocean for the heck of it. The world at large doesn't know about Ixa'taka; Valua's been keeping news of this place suppressed. What made you try the journey that we made on accident?"

Vyse chuckled. "You wouldn't believe us."

"Try me, young man."

"All right. We're saving the world." Vyse gestured to Fina. "And helping her to do it. Fina is from a hidden civilization who saw that the Valuans would bring the world to ruin if they got their hands on these ancient, powerful moonstone energy sources called the Moon Crystals. With them, Valua could wake up some terrifying creatures called Gigas."

Carol blinked at the confession. "My. And there's...one of these Moon Crystals, here?"

"Somewhere." Fina confirmed. "I only know about the old world, the ancient civilizations. But in the Green Lands, there's supposed to be the Green Crystal."

Carol's face went hard. "The Valuans have taken enough from these poor people."

"Agreed." Vyse nodded. "They've taken enough from everyone. But getting the Ixa'takans to help us has been difficult. You didn't exactly get a warm welcome yourself, right Carol? What changed?"

"The day Centime was taken, that's what happened." Carol shut her eyes. "They came and took him, and left the village alone. After that, the people of Horteka all realized we were like them. Lighter skin, different clothes...but all of us, oppressed by Valua. If you want to change their minds about you, and get some help, then you need to speak to the village elder. I wouldn't have the foggiest clue where to start with helping you with your search. But he would."

"Where does he live?" Vyse asked, feeling at last like progress was being made.

"Back into the village. Go down to the lowest level, cross a few bridges, use the underground passage to the far side. Just short of the lookout's cliff, you'll find a few huts. His is the largest over there."

"Terrific." Vyse stacked up his dishes and stood up, giving Carol a grateful nod. "Thank you, ma'am. For the food, and the advice. Aika, Fina, Drachma. Come on. Let's hustle it up."

"Actually, Vyse?" Aika said suddenly. She bit her lip and looked back towards the ship. "If it's all right with you, mind if I stay here until we're ready to head out? Hans said he'd be willing to lend us some more moonstone fuel, but I'd like to do something to make up for it. I can help him fix up the Iron Clad while you're off playing diplomat."

Vyse blinked once, saw the logic in it, and gave his oldest friend a thumbs up. "Sounds good to me. Don't work her too hard, Hans! I need her able to fight if we bump into the Valuans out there!"

The red-shirted engineer and adopted son of Centime and Carol chuckled. "No promises, Mr. Vyse."

I'm going to choke on this much formality, Vyse mused, and headed out with the Blue Rogue children shouting goodbyes after him.

The village elder of Horteka was an old, stern man, whose wrinkles were forged more out of stress and suffering than laughter. When Vyse, Fina, and Drachma had appeared, he had startled once at the Silvite's form, but quickly returned to himself, scowling as he looked down at them.

"You come seeking our help. You claim to be different. But all I see are more travelers from the east, come to take and give nothing back."

"What can we do to prove to you that we are not like the Valuans?" Vyse finally asked, having exhausted every explanation. That they were Blue Rogues meant nothing to the village chief. That they were enemies of Valua, also meant nothing. The old Hortekan was unsatisfied with words. Something stronger was needed as the burden of proof.

He wavered, leaning on his walking stick, judging Vyse. "I give my permission for you to speak to the villagers." He gestured once to a messenger who had been standing by the door, and the masked fellow took off like a shot, likely to pass the news on. "If you are here to help, as you claim to be, then you must first learn of our suffering. See what the men from the east have done, feel the pain they have caused. Then, come back to me. We shall see if your conviction is equal to the burden you claim."

Vyse exhaled, nodded. Stood up, went for the door.

Drachma leaned in once they were well clear. "Not exactly rolling out the welcome mat, are they, boy?"

"Scars run deep." Vyse mused. "And I get the feeling that theirs have been growing for years."

The people of Horteka, forewarned that the elder wanted them to share their stories, wasted no time when Vyse, Fina, and Drachma came to visit them. The shopkeeper and his daughter that had turned them away explained, with no small amount of venom, that the mother of their family had been ripped away from them to work in the 'sacred mountain', to mine moonstones for the invaders. They met the sharp-eyed hunter Tikatika, who was so distraught over his inattentiveness to see the Valuans coming before the first raids that he now stayed up on the cliff beyond the elder's hut, keeping constant vigil for trouble. His already keen eyes had been sharpened, through guilt and sheer determination, to mythical levels of ability; he even pointed out some landmarks for Vyse to look for later on. He would have made the best ship's lookout in the world, Vyse thought to himself.

But of all the people in the village who shared their stories with them, none made quite the impact as a woman perhaps a year or two older than Vyse and Fina, who lived and once worked in the Hortekan great hut. Giant vats of loqua simmered away, filling the upper floors of the building with a sweet and cloying scent, but down below, all was quiet. Her name was Merida, and she served them all a wooden cup of Horteka's prized alcoholic beverage, made out of the garpa fruits which grew in abundance on, and underneath, the island.

Vyse did his best not to stare too openly, but Fina must have been taking lessons from Aika. She caught him several times...but instead of the admonishments or punches to the shoulder that Aika would have given him, Fina just smiled, occasionally smirked, and looked between the silver-haired dancer and Vyse.

"She is quite beautiful." Fina observed.

"I suppose." Vyse conceded, gritting the words out. "You can tell she's a dancer. Her body's built for it."

"Oh? How can you tell?"

"Well, her build." Vyse said, happy for a slightly safer topic. "A warrior skilled with a bow will have strong arms and shoulders, a powerful back to support the weapon and allow him to draw it back as far as possible. Like Tikatika. He wears that mask all the time, but his back and shoulders were very well defined. A person who runs for a living will have a slender build, but powerful legs to fuel their strides. And with Merida...well. She has a build close to a runner, but the tone and definition in her calves and ankles are much more prominent."

"I didn't know you paid such close attention to people's bodies." Fina teased him. "Should I be worried?"

Vyse snorted and took advantage of the cup of loqua, drinking to buy himself time to think. "Why would you worry about where I'm looking?"

"No reason." Fina said, far too innocently. There were still things about the world she was oblivious to, but attraction and looks were not a part of that list. And she was a terrible liar.

Vyse looked to Merida, drained the rest of his glass, gestured towards her. The liquid didn't have much of a burn, and retained the bulk of its sweetness. He doubted any Mid-Ocean cider was its equal. "Merida, could I trouble you for another glass?" The silver-haired woman came over, her long and tanned legs moving gracefully beneath her grass skirt, giving a hint of the treasure her undergarments concealed. Vyse looked away to Drachma, and his face burned when he realized the old man was smirking just as hard, and with far less disguised innocence than Fina had at catching him in the act.

Merida poured him a second cup, her eyes narrowed and her jaw set. She didn't trust him. She didn't like him.

So Vyse opened his mouth and just dove into it.

"Merida, are you a dancer?"

Her eyes shot wide, and Vyse knew he'd gotten her attention.

"I was." She said, and the scowl returned. "But I have nothing to dance for now."

"Because of the Valuans." Vyse wagered. "They...they hurt you. Took people from you."

"Yes." The young woman said curtly. "My parents. I danced to bring joy to my people, to honor Quetya and the gods. But then the men from the east came, bringing fire and death and ruin."

"I know." Vyse said sympathetically, and felt the prick of some familiar thought he couldn't entirely place zipping around just out of reach. "The Valuans hurt everyone. My people, the Blue Rogues, have been fighting against them for years. But we could fight back. Here? In Ixa'taka? There was nobody able to fight them."

Merida's anger crumbled into sorrow, and she looked away, tucking the serving platter under her arm. "I even wrote a letter to Quetya, sent it on the winds...asking for her help. But Quetya did not come. So we suffer, and we die, and the men from the east...they keep on taking what they want."

Vyse blinked rapidly. She wrote a letter? A letter to Quetya? It dug harder in his mind, forcing him to think about it, to consider it.

"This letter...how did you send it?"

"I put it in a bottle left by the easterners. Tied it to a balloon. Sent it into the skies."

Like a thunderbolt, Vyse placed it. He knew that letter. He had carried it with him ever since finding it on Sailor's Island. That letter, a plea for help in the face of Valuan aggression, had given him the resolve to go on right before he and Aika and Drachma had left to infiltrate Valua.

He pulled out the carefully folded letter from his pocket, and held it out to her. "I found your letter." Vyse told Merida solemnly. The girl dropped the platter, reached to the folded up note with a shaky hand, unfolded it and gasped when she saw her own handwriting.

Her eyes, misting up, went to his face. Vyse mustered a smile. "Quetya did not come, Merida...but maybe, she sent us instead."

Merida's lip quivered. "You...You will help?"

"I swear by the Moons, we will try." Vyse promised her. "Blue Rogues always help out those in need."

"It's his code." Fina added helpfully, putting her hand on the side of his arm. "His oath."

Merida wiped her eyes, chuckled a little, and actually smiled. It filled the room, and she stood a little straighter after it. "Then I will dance again, to give you the strength to fight the Valuans." And she skipped back away from them and headed for the stage.

And by the Moons, could she dance. She held nothing back, there was nothing refined. Just raw, explosive power in controlled movements to a drumbeat only she could hear, a dance meant to awaken the gods.

It awakened Vyse, because there was no mistaking the sensual pull it caused. He drank his loqua and sat transfixed, in awe of Merida, and of her people.

These were the victims of Valuan expansion and oppression. Bitter, withdrawn, jaded. But for those few minutes, he saw a glimpse of who they had been, who they really were. Joyful. Exultant. Uninhibited, full of life. Fina had said that the Green Moon brought the powers of renewal and restoration, of newness. Healing magic, vitality, was the domain of the emerald moonstones.

"She's amazing." Fina marveled, in a breathy whisper. Vyse swallowed back another sip of his drink, his throat still dry.

"She is." He agreed hoarsely.

"Is she the kind of girl you're looking for?" Fina asked, so innocently that Vyse, still entranced by Merida's erotic display, had to blink before he caught the hitch in her voice. Without turning his head, he bent his eyes sidewards to glance at the Silvite.

She had one hand up to the side of her head, brushing back her headdress to curl a finger in her blond tresses. Like she was worried. Or lost in contemplation.

"No. Not really." Vyse managed to answer.

"What kind of girl are you looking for?" Fina asked, and turned her head slightly to meet his eyes straight on.

Vyse didn't dare blink. He knew what this was now. In her own way, Fina was doing exactly what Aika had tried days before when they were alone.

And Drachma, able to read the room better than any of them, stood up from his chair as the wood groaned, glass in hand, and walked by them. "I need some air." He muttered gruffly, leaving Vyse alone with Fina and the Hortekan woman dancing up on stage to inspire them.

Trapping Vyse with Fina, really. The bastard.

What did Vyse want? Well, that was easy. Or it had been, up until Fina stumbled into his life, into their lives, and suddenly Aika went from aggressively playful and friendly to...grabby and jealous. And just aggressive. It didn't matter what he wanted, Vyse told himself. Because they were both…

Aika, always at his side. The first to step into danger with him. The one who knew how, even when he stood bold and proud in the face of danger, he still carried worries and doubts. A girl who was strong in her own right, proud...Always proving herself.

Fina. Demure. Naive in most things, yet profoundly wise in others. Her smile could light up the room with warmth, and to make her laugh was an untold joy. She commanded a mastery of magic that left even Aika's considerable skill in the dust, and her mind was a steel trap of forgotten lore. She had fallen into their lives like a meteor, changed everything, and somehow, still found her place.

How could he choose either of them without hurting the other? Why did it just feel right to have them both around?

Moons, his mother had known before he had. 'Don't string them along. A woman's heart is more fragile than you know.'

What did he want? What kind of girl was he looking for?

I'm not looking. They found me. And he couldn't do a damn thing about it. Not when choosing one would hurt the other.

Not with the fate of the world riding on their shoulders.

"I want…" Vyse said, closing his eyes. "Someone strong enough to be themselves. Someone who wants to be in my life...and still have one of their own."

Fina hmmed thoughtfully. "I see. If I understand you...you don't want them just becoming a part of you and losing who they are. Or were."

"Yes, exactly!" Vyse insisted. "Not like my mo…" And his eyes snapped open as his mouth clamped shut.

Fina just smiled at him. "Like your mother." She finished.

"...Yeah." He mumbled, and looked back to Merida as the girl, now sweating lightly along her forehead, came to the conclusion of her dance.

Fina leaned into him, and her head fell against his shoulder. His traitorous hand came up and pulled her closer on reaction alone.

"I would think that any girl you liked enough to be in a relationship with would be strong enough to remember who she was." Fina sighed. "It's not about giving up who you are, you know. Or it shouldn't be."

"What is it, then?" Vyse rasped.

"It's caring enough about someone to want to be in their life...and still allowing them to have their own." She said, and sighed again when his hand rubbed up and down the side of her arm.

"Sounds hard." Vyse admitted.

"Harder than going up against an empire trying to rule the world?" Fina suggested playfully, and Vyse chuckled.

"Hell. Sounds almost easy by comparison."

"It depends on how much room you have in your heart." The Silvite nuzzled his shoulder, and that was just enough to make him freeze. She went still, and Vyse pulled his arm away from her, scooted away from her side. "I'm sorry, I…"

"It's all right." Vyse waved off her shaky apology, breathing deep. It had gotten...too real, too quickly. He turned and looked to Merida, who stood there, panting and flushed as she looked to Vyse and Fina. "I think I know why the village elder asked us to visit with everyone, Merida. I understand your pain now."

"And I will go with you when you tell him you are ready to help us." The dancer promised. "Quetya has sent us a warrior, and now you carry our strength. Are you ready for what is to come?"

This, Vyse knew. Relationships? Hard. But living up to the Code of the Blue Rogues? Fighting Valua? Saving the world?

"Born ready." He promised Merida. Fina, looking a little disappointed, rallied well enough to smile at him and Merida, and give them both her usual respectful nod.

She was hurt a little, but nothing compared to how hurt she would be if he gave in. Or how hurt Aika would be. If he chose.

He would stick to keeping them both as friends.

That was hard enough.

Author's Note: This story is also available to read on Archive Of Our Own, and over there, you can get an occasional end of chapter rant from yours truly. Just putting that out there for you all.