Chapter 21

The next morning, I wake up from my sleep, and from a very interesting dream, but I have things to do. So, I reluctantly get up from bed, and prepare for the day, which involves a bath. Thinking again, I should be tired of water, since me and my companions just happened to have fought against a crazy pirate with the power to control water. However, I do need to take a bath, and not matter what, I'm going to take it. Anyways, I take it, get clothes on, and get out of my bag.

Once outside, my two companions also get out of their bags, with Amber wearing new clothes, while Emily is wearing the same thing. I mean, I know they always try to remain hidden, or something like that, but for every day sounds a little too much. Well, I'm not a Sram, so whatever works for her.

"Ready to go?" I ask.

"As ready as we can be," says Emily.

"Then let's go to the docks, An might be waiting already." We head to the door, and the moment I open the door, we find An at the other side, ready to knock on the door.

"Top of the morning, everyone," says An after dropping her hand.

"Morning," we say.

"So, you have everything ready?"

"All set and ready to board," I say.

"Then follow me to the docks. Our adventure awaits!" says An and starts walking away, while we follow behind her.

We walk out of the inn, and on our way to the docks, people greeted us, and wished us good luck in our travels.

"So, how does it feel to be heroes?" asks An.

"Been there already, but it's always nice," I say.

"Same here," says Emily.

"I'm actually enjoying it for the first time," says Amber.

"Well, enjoy it as much as you can because we're about to leave this place, and head straight to Sufokia," says An and we continue on our way to her boat. Once we reach her boat, we simply get on board, but I found something weird about the boat.

"So, where's your crew?" I ask, and An turns around with a smile on her face.

"Right here," says An, which was pretty weird. She doesn't point towards anything, she simply keeps looking our way. Maybe they're behind us, so I look behind me, but I don't see anyone. Wait a minute, it's not what I think it is, and if it is, this is going to be weird.

"There's no one else but us."

"Exactly." Oh my goddess, she didn't.

"I don't get it," says Emily.

"She means that we are the crew," says Amber, good to know someone can catch on quicker than our little Sram.

"Wait, what happened to your crew?"

"The lot of them never returned, and for good reason. I wasn't going to take them back anyways," answers An.

"And now, you need a crew to pilot the whole ship," I say, and I'm not exactly mad, but I feel played, and I don't like that.

"Don't you worry, we're more than enough to make her sail."

"Yeah, I'm sure we are, but the real problem is that I'm pretty sure none of us know how to make a ship work."

"Is that right?" asks An and looks at my companions.

"I lived most of my life in Brakmar, so I never touched a boat before," answers Emily.

"I've traveled in a boat before, but I don't think that would help right now," says Amber.

"Well don't you worry, just do what I ask and we'll be just fine," says An, and walks towards the wheel.

"You sure you don't mean order?" I ask.

"Hey, you guys saved, not only the port, but my ship. So no, I won't treat my heroes like my useless crew. Besides, I didn't treat them that bad, I just put discipline when it was necessary."

"Yeah, let's go with that. Are we ready to go?"

"Get the anchor up, and let's set sail to Sufokia!" I don't know why she does that. Anyways, we look for the thing to pull up the anchor, but we don't see it. "It's at the bow."

"The bow?" asks Emily, and An look at us with a blank expression.

"The front of the ship." With that knowledge, we head to the front of the ship, and find the thing to pull up the anchor. We get it up, and we wait for the next thing to do. "Now, the sails." I imagine she wants one of us to climb the mast and release it. Of course, I don't want to waste time, and climb it using my tattoos. I found the knot holding something, so I just pull it free, and the sails open. The ship starts to slowly move away from the port.

"Anything else?" I ask.

"Not at the moment, you can come down." I climb back down, it's simply too high to jump down and don't want to damage the ship. "Well then, sit back, relax, and enjoy the trip."

It's been two days since me and my companions left the port and set sail to Sufokia. True to her words, An has been a good captain, and it's been a normal trip. Sure, we had to help around the ship, usually cleaning, helping with some cooking, working the sails, etc. Today wasn't any different, we finished cleaning the deck a while ago, and were just enjoying the day. As far as I understand, An was on the deck doing some fighting moves. Emily was on the wheel because she wanted to try it for the first time. Our course was already set, so she only needed to keep the ship straight. Amber below deck, said that she wanted to make sure 'our fortune was favorable', or something like that. As for me, I'm just resting on the rail, and also keeping an eye out for trouble. Even in the open sea, there could be danger, like pirates, or something else. Don't know what else, but it's always good to be ready. Suddenly, I feel something, it's very familiar, and it's coming to my right. I take a look, and find our captain looking at me, while holding some pose. To be honest, it's not the first time, I've noticed her looking at me yesterday and the day before. I would say she's checking me out, but she always kept a very calm expression, and tended to look away pretty quickly. However, this time was different because she kept eye contact with me.

"Say, mind if we have a sparring session?" asks An, and it came so suddenly, it took me a moment to understand what was going on.

"I don't mind, but why so sudden?" I ask.

"Nothing special, just trying to keep my skills sharp." That makes sense, I guess.

"Alright, just let me stretch a bit." I move away from the rail, and simply start stretching and warming up. Through the whole thing I noticed An watching me, but in a different way. It's like she's looking for something, but I have no idea what it could be. Maybe she's just looking for my weaknesses, but it's just a sparring match. It's not like we have to be so serious about it. Anyways, once I'm done with my warm ups, we move to the center of the deck, and move a few feet away from each other. Then, An takes a fighting pose, and I never thought about it, but that might be one of the reasons that she was the captain of her own ship.

"Are you ready for this, hero?" she asks with a confident smile. I can sense it now, she really means to take it seriously, and I'm not one to disappoint. I take my fighting pose, and prepare for whatever she throws at me.

"Just call me Zoe." I don't remember the last time I fought a Pandawa, this should be interesting.