BETWEEN THREE ROGUES
By Eric 'Erico' Lawson
Forty-Two: I Don't Want To Talk About It
Officially, Marco's title was 'crewman' but really, his role aboard the ship was whatever Vyse or the officers felt like teaching him that day. When he wasn't swabbing the decks, helping out on kitchen detail, or hanging out with Pow and Pinta, the raggedy boy was getting lessons on basic engine design and maintenance from either 'big sis Aika' or the (adopted) brothers Lapen and Hans. Or getting helmsmanship instructions from Don, who more often than not mixed up useful information with stories about the 'good old days' when Valua didn't have an Armada but a Royal Navy. Then there were the times that Domingo gave him and Pinta navigation and cartography lessons, which the explorer insisted were vitally important in their future careers as 'little sailors.' He'd been picking up other stuff too, from everyone on the crew who bothered to give him the time of day. Which most of them did, if only because they got curious about Vyse's 'very first crewmember,' a label that Marco was proud of.
His life was so different now compared to what it had been a year ago. A year ago, he'd been living on the streets and starving, sneaking through the sewers and the old catacombs to get around. Running into Vyse and Aika and Drachma had changed his life. He'd figured out how to get into the Grand Fortress after they'd left, the work of three months of furtive sneaking and daring attempts. Then he'd snuck on board the biggest, nicest looking ship in the whole shipyard, hunkered in a hatch, and waited for them to fly out and make port somewhere else. If there was one skill that Marco had learned well and early in his life, it was sneaking around. He'd known it was important to help keep him alive.
He hadn't known it would lead him to his freedom - and his friends. That was what Vyse and Aika were, what Fina became. They were his friends, adults who somehow smiled in spite of everything that got thrown at them. They weren't like anyone he'd ever known growing up in Valua, not even his own parents. They were better. They liked him, and they wanted him to stay around.
Marco had almost forgotten what 'home' felt like. What it was supposed to be. He hadn't had a home in years, or people who cared for him for even longer than that. He hadn't counted on his home being weird, though, which is what it ended up becoming after they left Windmill Island behind.
...Girls were weird. Seriously! He says one nice thing to that girl Lyndsi back on Vyse's home island and then she wouldn't leave him alone? And then Vyse and Aika and Fina couldn't stop laughing about it? He felt so betrayed for a while after that, even if he did get Pow as a pet afterwards. Didn't they understand that his stomach got all twisted up whenever he thought about that girl who was grabbing for his arm the whole time he'd been there? Didn't they get that girls were weird and he'd never ever understand why Lyndsi wanted to kiss him?
It took until they were all flying through the Dark Rift for Marco to realize that no, they didn't. Because it turned out that most of the crew was placing bets on which of the two Vyse was in love with. Marco just didn't understand. They were all friends, Vyse didn't...He didn't do all that mushy stuff. He was a Blue Rogue! He was a captain of the Blue Rogues, he didn't have time for cuddling and kissing and holding hands and all that gross stuff which made Marco's stomach twist into knots all the time…
...Right?
Nasrad Marketplace
294 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape
Mid-Afternoon
"For the love of - Pinta, why is it you never put on a shirt?" Marco sniped at the younger boy. They were walking through the bazaar with Princess Moegi and Kirala and Urala, along with Lawrence and Lapen and Pow. Enrique had stayed behind with a fair portion of the crew to man the Delphinus while the rest went ashore to gather supplies and collect wealth - Domingo had made a beeline straight for the branch offices of the Sailor's Guild, with Osman harping at his tail the entire time to make sure the money went straight to the ship's coffers. Marco was keen on taking his crewman's wages and buying something nice for his corner of the men's section of the bunkhouse back on Crescent Island. A music box, maybe. His memories about his parents got foggier the older he got, but he could still remember the smile his mother had made when she talked about a music box she'd inherited from her own mom. He also remembered how sad she got right after when she went on to say that they'd pawned it off to buy medicine for him when he'd been a baby. Money well spent, she'd always reassured him, giving him a kiss and a hug after. Marco had doubted that for a long time after they died, and he was only now starting to feel differently about it. Maybe if he found another one, he could stop feeling so bad about it all.
He'd just been hopeful that he could find one without incident, but Pinta was 2 years younger than him and a handful. Like right now. The round-bellied boy stuck his tongue out at Marco and adjusted his unbuttoned vest, ignoring the open stares of the Nasrian merchants and the Mid-Ocean traders and the city's common folk as they all looked in their direction. "Hey, I wore a shirt when we were in the Lands of Ice! It's warm here, I can get away with it!"
"You're going to sunburn like crazy in this heat." Marco complained, pulling down his sunhat even tighter. His first experience in the Nasrad markets had scorched his neck and ears red, and even though Fina had healed him after, the freckles that got left behind in their wake hadn't disappeared. Now he knew to be more cautious when he knew he was going to be outside for long stretches.
His lack of caution regarding the blistering heat and sun of Nasr didn't carry over to a lack of caution in everything else. For all that he was a Blue Rogue and a sailor under Captain Vyse, Marco had never really shaken his first years of schooling on the streets of Valua. What surprised him was that some of the others did the same things he did. Kirala's eyes seemed to be forever roaming in opposition to the direction of her feet and the turn of her head, looking everywhere. Urala didn't say much of anything, but she had her ears turned towards every little sound. It was enough to make Marco wonder how hard their lives were back in Yafutoma before they had joined up. Hadn't Vyse said that Prince Daigo had recommended them?
They saw movement coming towards them from the opposite end of the bazaar before he did, but Marco didn't need their senses to figure out that they weren't in danger. Through the bustling crowd of the bazaar that shuffled along past the rows of stalls, a scrawny, sunburned, dirty child moved along just a hair faster than the other people around him. They kept their head down and stayed as unassuming and non-threatening as possible. It didn't fool Marco for a second.
Looking at that kid was like looking at himself. He knew what starvation and stubborn survival looked like. It had been months since his life had changed, but he hadn't forgotten what his life was like back in the Lower City of the Valuan capital. He never would, really, and Vyse had told him as much. Some scars, Marco, run deeper than your skin.
The Nasrian kid was a decent pickpocket, but he wasn't perfect. He didn't grab for anything tied too tightly to belts or sashes, like he didn't trust himself to get away with it. Instead, he went for an orange taken from a sack of them tied to a weighted-down Dhabu. An egg from a countertop when the customer and the seller weren't looking and which neither noticed until he was four stalls away. He only stole food, though. He didn't go for money.
Or at least, he didn't until one customer spilled his coinpurse on the counter and a gold piece rolled off of it and onto the broken stone street, and the boy made the mistake of grabbing for it while the man was turning around to look at him.
"Thief! GUARDS!" The man bellowed, reaching out and clenching his hand tightly around the boy's outstretched arm. The boy's head snapped up fearfully and Marco saw the sunken skin beneath his eyes that the boy had hidden before. Marco moved without thinking, running ahead of the Yafutomans and Pinta, and stood awkwardly between the man and the boy.
"Let him go." Marco snapped. "He's no thief, old man. You dropped your money and he was picking it up."
The fellow was dressed in clean white linens meant for the desert heat and had a sizable paunch hanging over his belt. He scowled, refusing to let go of the boy, who yelped as he squeezed harder. "He was going to steal it, he's a thief! And you'd do well to stay out of this, boy! Or are you his accomplice?"
By then, a pair of guards had shown up and moved into the marketplace, hands on the hilts of their scimitars. Marco looked over his shoulder and saw Kirala, Urala, and Princess Moegi scowling at the scene. This had the potential to go all kinds of wrong, and if the guards patted the kid down, they'd find everything else he'd swiped already. Kirala's eyes met his, and to his surprise, he saw her move a hand to the top of her chest where the shirt's fabric split and pull up a glimmer of steel. The woman was packing a knife down her shirt, and she was ready to use it.
Marco swallowed and gave his head the smallest shake he could manage. No. This needed to be solved without any fighting.
"I'm no thief, and I'm no accomplice. You know who I am, you fat sack?" Marco declared to the man, digging in his pocket before holding up a large gold coin impossible to mistake for a normal piece of currency. His Crew Coin, the mark of membership Vyse had given to every person who had taken the Oath and served under him.
The idle chatter and the whispering in the bazaar from everyone watching the scuffle stopped and then increased after a few seconds. Blue Rogue, he's a Blue Rogue, that's Vyse the Daring's Coin…
"My name is Marco. I'm a Blue Rogue under Captain Vyse." Marco said, somehow keeping his voice from shaking. He couldn't show weakness, not here. Not now. Not when he could hear the featherlight and frantic wheezing of the street urchin beside him still held tightly by the man. "And I'm telling you that this kid isn't a thief." Marco put his Crew Coin away and reached for his coinpurse stuffed down the front of his shirt, pulling out a single gold coin to match the one snatched up in the boy's hand. As the guards drew closer, Marco made a show of holding it up for everyone to see and then holding it out to the fat Nasrian. "You say he took your coin? I say he didn't. But even if he didn't plan on returning it, so long as you get a coin back, does it matter who it comes from?" Marco shot back, looking over his shoulder to the guards, gauging them. To his surprise, neither seemed particularly on edge. They saw it as a situation resolved.
The Nasrian man scowled once he saw the same thing, and he scooped up the coin from Marco's palm in a rough grab, letting go of the small boy's arm and shoving him against Marco. "Get him out of my sight, Blue Rogue. I won't be so merciful next time."
Marco found himself with the odd mixture of wanting to whimper like he'd had to all the time in his old life and needing to growl back at the man and shout something derogatory at him. He did neither, holding the smaller Nasrian boy closer and backing them away from the stalls to the other side of the street. He sat the shaking street urchin down on a stairstep.
The others of his party surrounded them quickly after that, with Urala quickly checking Marco over. "You all right?" She asked in stilted Mid-Ocean.
"I'm fine." Marco told the cook, who turned out to be a decent medic as well. He hadn't known she had that skillset. Did Dr. Ilchymis know? Did Aika or Fina know? "But the kid isn't. He looks like he hasn't eaten in days." Urala turned her attention on the boy and squawked in alarm, and Marco handed the kid his waterskin. "Here, drink something. You look like you're gonna fall over."
The boy gaped at them all like he couldn't believe they were real, but a nod from Marco had him drinking the water down so fast he almost choked on it. "Easy! Easy, kid, it's not going to get taken away from you. Promise." Marco told him, and Princess Moegi gave him a concerned look.
"Why would it be taken away from him, Marco?"
"Because for someone living on the streets? Everything else does." Marco grumbled, and looked away when he saw how horrified Moegi turned at the prospect.
The Nasrian boy finished off the entire waterskin and handed it back while ducking his head. Marco carefully took it back, not reaching out to touch him. That would only make the kid run. "Better?" He asked instead, and the boy nodded, rubbing at scrawny arms marked by old bruises.
"Why?" The kid got out in a scratchy, disused voice.
"Why did we help?" Marco said, and the boy gave a short nod. "Because we're Blue Rogues. Because Blue Rogues Always Help Out Those in Need." Marco let that sink in before going on. "You're hungry. How can we help you? What's your name?"
The boy sniffed. "I'm Salas." His eyes red from dryness that tears didn't touch, he finally risked looking up at them all. "Can you help?"
"Marco is right. We must help, if we can." Moegi told the young boy softly. She started to reach out for him and Salas flinched and pulled away. Marco glared at the princess as she reluctantly pulled her arm back. Salas relaxed once he realized they were giving him some space, and he nibbled at his lip.
Marco knew why he was so skittish, so cagey. If a bunch of people had come up to him in Lower Valua asking if they could help, he would've probably cursed them out and made a break for it already. People didn't help out other people in the slums of Valua. They rarely helped each other out anyways. For a moment, he remembered a waifish brown-haired girl he'd known back when he was first on the streets, Leeda. They hadn't been close, but they'd helped each other on a couple of thefts when they were hungry. Then one day, she was gone. Marco asked around and found out that a couple of men had offered her something to eat and told her there was a place that she could get more. She'd gone with them, and he'd never seen her again afterwards.
Marco stayed away from people that promised him things after that. He didn't know Salas or his life experiences, but he knew that the kid wasn't that hardened. Not yet.
"We're not going to hurt you. We're not here to steal you, or beat you, or anything else." He promised the boy softly, reaching over to Pinta and tugging the younger boy closer to him. "We're kids too. Yeah? And these women, they're okay. They're Blue Rogues like we are." Pinta nodded helpfully and produced his own Crew Coin for Salas to stare at. "I know you're new to this. I know that you're only stealing because you have to. You're not a bad person. You're a kid. You're a hungry, hurting, starved kid. So tell us what we can do."
Salas searched Marco's face for something, and the young red-haired Blue Rogue kept his expression steady. "Will you help?" He asked weakly. Marco nodded and held out his hand. But he didn't reach for Salas like Moegi had. He held it out in front of him and he waited.
Seven seconds later, Salas took his hand.
For a starved shrimp of a kid, Salas had a death grip. He didn't let go of Marco's hand once as he led them out of the still rebuilding bazaar, past buildings that had only suffered token damage and were mostly rebuilt, and towards the rougher part of town. Marco saw Kirala openly draw out a knife as some lowlifes caught sight of well-dressed Blue Rogues passing through their neighborhood, and even Urala kept the new cast-iron skillet she'd purchased in the market waiting in one hand. It wasn't much of a threat to the poor and desperate, but it was enough of one to have them decide that it wasn't worth the effort of going after the richer folks just passing through.
Once they were surrounded by abandoned buildings and rubble that had been blasted apart during the Sack of Nasrad and never rebuilt, Salas took a deep breath and looked up at Marco.
"You promise."
"What am I promising?"
"That you will help. That you're not bad people."
Marco gave his hand a squeeze. "Salas. I promise." The boy nodded and tugged them along towards the remains of a two story tenement whose roof was half caved in and was missing a massive chunk of the wall.
Moegi and the two Yafutoman sisters had to duck to move under the debris, but Marco and Salas and Pinta had no trouble with the obstacles. They emerged inside the large space at the center of the ruined, abandoned building, and Marco blinked when his eyes adjusted to the dim light enough for him to make out signs of habitation. Dirty blankets. A corner that smelled of human leavings.
He heard soft wet coughs next, the sound of sickness muffled behind hands and fabric. Sounds that weren't from Salas. He straightened up his back and stared around inside of the space with new focus, and saw that the other Blue Rogues were as well. He picked out his first figure in the darkness because he caught a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye. It was enough for Moegi to whisper something to Urala, who produced a red moonstone flash igniter and clicked it on. In the added pale light of that single flame the small device produced, Marco found himself unable to do anything but stare as one, then three more, and then close to a dozen other small children, all of them no older than Pinta, staring back at them. Too tired, too hungry, and too sick to be afraid.
"Moons." Marco uttered, and saw Moegi sink to her knees with a sob she stifled behind a hand as she looked back at them all with wide eyes.
Moegi had never known poverty. Of course the sight would hurt her hard. Marco felt a twinge of sympathy and old nightmares rising up, and he quelled them quickly. Salas squeezed his hand again, and Marco looked down at the boy.
"Will you help us?" Salas asked him earnestly.
Marco ignored the stinging sensation that grew in his eyes. "Yes." He said, and wrote it on his heart as a vow.
The Calm Sands Inn
Nasrad
Evening
There were fourteen children living in the crumbling ruins of the slums. Fourteen Nasrian children whose parents had died during the Valuan bombardment or shortly after, or who had been on their own even before the Sacking of Nasrad. The youngest was four and couldn't say a word. For want of the safest place to put them, Marco had led the procession of Blue Rogues and street children to the Calm Sands Inn, a still intact lodging run by a stern older woman called Fatima who Aika had told him once was 'a good woman, and respects the Blue Rogues.' Salas acted as their protector and their leader, and he'd refused to eat until everyone else had. Refused to sleep until everyone else was resting in a bed and was safe. Refused to speak about their circumstances or about anything until Marco asked Moegi to send someone to find Vyse and drag them back. Vyse in turn had brought Aika and Fina as well, while Enrique went off with Moegi to see to the ship's resupply.
Vyse listened calmly and quietly as Salas dully recounted what he knew. It turned out Salas wasn't their first leader. That had been another boy around Marco's age named Farouk who had taught him Salas to steal, who had brought the children together and given them someplace safe away from the adults who would only want to hurt them. Then Farouk had been taken by the city guards and they had never seen him again, and Salas had taken charge.
Salas had heard stories of Captain Vyse, the Blue Rogue who had found Daccat's treasure, who laughed in the face of Valua. He looked at Vyse like he hung the Moons, and when Vyse had said that the children would all be taken care of, that they were safe now and that they wouldn't be broken apart (The biggest fear that Salas and the others had), the Nasrian boy had broken down crying, even as Aika pulled him close and stroked his back and made soothing noises to calm him down. For Marco, it had all been too much. He turned around and left the room just short of a run.
It was an hour after that when someone finally came out to check on him, finding him on the small balcony off the side of the inn's second story. Marco had expected it to be Vyse, or big sis Aika, but instead it was Fina who glided out beside him, a reassuring smile on her face.
Marco wiped the back of his hand over his eyes. "Hey."
"Hello, Marco." The Silvite woman returned his greeting. "May I join you?"
"Nasr's a free country now." Marco glibly retorted, remembering that the Nasultan was dead. Unlike Marco, who sat wrapped around one of the rails with his legs dangling off the side of the balcony, Fina came down gently with her skirt and her legs folded beneath her. She didn't say anything immediately, just glanced at him indirectly until he squirmed enough to do something. "How's the kid doing?"
"He's asleep, finally." Fina told him. "I was worried he might never sleep, or that I'd have to use a low-grade Slipara spell on him to get him to do so. Aika startled him when she opened up the door to check in on him."
"Yeah." Marco huffed. "He's used to sleeping light. How they were living, where they were living...You have to be ready to move." It brought up too many unpleasant memories, and he shook his head to stop from dredging them up again. He turned his head skyward and stared at the red moon, something that he'd never seen back then. It was so different from the yellow moon almost always hidden behind stormclouds.
Fina shifted a bit. "He reminds you of yourself, doesn't he?" The blond-haired woman asked. Marco stared at the red moon even harder. He wasn't back there. He wasn't back then. He was here now. He was a Blue Rogue, he wasn't…
"I don't want to talk about it." He forced out, and Fina nodded after a small pause. Marco steadied himself and finally broke his eyes away from the dark sky. "What's going to happen to them?"
"Ideally, we find someone to take care of them." Fina said. "From what Salas said...I don't think any of them have parents left. I'm just afraid that there won't be anyone around here who can. Or will want to."
"They can stay here." Marco insisted. "I paid Fatima. They have rooms here. They have food here. They have beds to sleep in."
Fina sighed and reached a hand over, sliding her fingers through his hair. He shivered at the touch. It wasn't bad, and he scowled when Vyse did it so much, but it felt different when it was Fina messing with his hair. It made him feel weird. "It's a temporary solution, Marco, and you know it. Fatima runs an inn, she doesn't have the time to take care of a bunch of children."
Marco gripped at the railing with his hands and squeezed. "So what do we do?" He forced out. "Because I can tell you right now, if we don't do something, if we just ask for the adults here to do something? They're just going to end up back where I found them. Nobody is going to help them." His head tipped forward until he rested it against the railing. "Nobody ever helped me."
Fina kept running her hand through his hair, consoling him. "Do you remember your parents?" She asked. Marco blinked.
"Not very well. Did Vyse…"
"He told me they died, yes." Fina confirmed. "Was it a secret?" Marco shrugged his shoulders. It was more he just didn't like thinking about it. They were there. Then they weren't, and he was all alone. "Can I tell you a secret?" She asked, and Marco finally looked back at her. She had been nibbling at her lower lip. "I never knew my parents. Growing up, all I had was...were the Elders. And Cupil. And a friend that I lost. I didn't have a family. Aika's parents died when she was young too, you know. Vyse's mom and dad took her in, took care of her." The Silvite tilted her head to the side. "Now, Vyse and Aika are my family."
"They're your friends. They're Blue Rogues." Marco pointed out, and Fina's smile widened as she ruffled his hair even more.
"What is a family, Marco?"
"I don't know." Marco grunted.
"Family isn't just having a mother and father. A family is all the people who care for you. The people who take care of you, and who you take care of also."
"Sheesh." Marco harrumphed. "You could say that about all of the Blue Rogues." The hand in his hair stilled, and Marco blinked and repeated what he'd just said inside his mind. "Wait." He jerked his head up away from the balcony railing and looked at Fina. "There's a - That one Blue Rogue captain down in Ixa'taka! Centime!" And the more he thought about it, the more perfect it sounded. "He could take them! He takes in all the kids he finds! He gives them a home!"
"Wow, what a wonderful idea." Fina exclaimed, her blue eyes sparkling. "I'm so glad you thought of it, Marco. There's just one problem, though. We're not going back to Ixa'taka for a while, we're going to our base. We picked up a lot of things to refit the ship for our next mission, after all, and we're going to be busy."
Marco squinted his eyes up, thinking about it. Fina had just told him that Salas and the other kids couldn't stay here at the inn, so they'd need someplace safe until they could get them to Centime and Missus Carol down in Ixa'taka. He could think of only one good answer.
"Then we take them with us." He told Fina. She blinked, and he frowned. "Blue Rogues help out those in need. It's in our Code. And if we want power, we have to defend the powerless. That's what Vyse says. So if they can't stay here, and we can't leave them in Nasrad, then we have to take them with us where they'll be safe." Fina just stared at him with those wide, too blue eyes of hers, and Marco ducked his head again. "You don't understand, do you? Nobody cared about me until Vyse came along. Nobody gave me a chance until Vyse did. And nobody else cares what happens to these kids. So we have to. I...I have to."
He wasn't expecting her to pull him in and smush him into a hug so warm and so tight that he could smell her skin through the silver dress she always wore. But then, his nose was right up against that cutout right over the top of her…
"You always find a way to surprise me." Fina laughed, giving him another squeeze for good measure before finally releasing him. Marco pulled back, knowing his face was beet red, but Fina didn't seem to care in the slightest. "You're a wonderful boy. I can't wait to see the kind of man you'll grow up into. Okay, we'll take them with us, if they want to come."
"I'll talk to Salas tomorrow morning." Marco mumbled, sniffing as he stood up. "Night, Fina."
"Goodnight, Marco. I'm so proud of you. And so is Vyse."
He blushed even harder at that and took off, running inside. Aika caught him in the hallway right before the stairs, and he came to a stop when she held out her hand.
"You doing okay there, Marco? Your face is as red as your hair."
"I don't wanna talk about it." Marco scowled, and pushed past her. The last thing he needed was Aika teasing him about getting hugged against Fina's chest and smelling like her. He swore he did. The thing he didn't understand was why he didn't mind it so much. After all, Fina was a girl. And girls were gross. Even if their chests were super soft, and…
Marco let out an angry grunt and ran out of the inn as fast as he could. Anything to get away from the weird feelings he kept getting.
Crescent Island
297 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape
Marco loved sailing the skies, but he loved landfall just as much. The air on the island that Vyse called home was clean, the skies were clear and blue instead of cloudy and gray. But for all that it was different from Valua, it was the people on the island who poured out of the ship and turned mostly empty buildings into a bustling settlement that made it special.
Home isn't a place. Home is people, big sis Aika had told him long ago. And Fina had told him that family wasn't just your parents, it was everyone in your life who you cared about and who cared about you.
There weren't many sailors from Admiral Komullah's Remnant Fleet stationed on the island, and the few who'd been tending the kitchens and keeping the underground base shipshape and ready for the Delphinus had told Captain Vyse that Komullah was finally pushing back against the Valuans after licking his wounds and reorganizing, creating a picket of ships while centralizing the bulk of the fleet to respond to incursions.
Which was good for them, the scuttlebutt in the island's tavern quickly spread about. A large part of their purchases in Nasrad had been on insulating material and several unusual pieces of machinery, as well as enough additional electrical bulk wiring to make Marco's head spin when he saw the size of the spools. The amount of rubber that had been down in the ship's holds was...Why would they need so much? Vyse didn't give an exact answer, but he didn't keep everyone entirely in the dark either. They were headed for the Yellow Moon Crystal next.
The fourteen Nasrian orphans, including Salas, found themselves positively agog as they were brought aboard the Delphinus and then Crescent Island. The moment that someone had pointed out that none of the kids could read Mid-Ocean, Enrique had taken it upon himself to hold impromptu classes on letters, reading, writing, and numbers. Marco found himself pulled into it also, but at least Princess Moegi was there as well.
It wasn't too surprising to Marco that Enrique would do that for the children, but what did surprise him was that Fina and 'Mistress' Kalifa the fortuneteller joined in as well on the schooling sessions, working as assistants while Enrique patiently walked the children through their numbers and letters. The first few hours of that day of school were frustrating to the children, but Enrique and the two women had nothing but patience for them as they got through the alphabet and the numbers 1 through 10.
It was all worth it when just before dinner, the adults patiently guided the children through one last writing exercise. Marco figured out what they were doing but kept quiet about it, waiting for the reveal. He wasn't disappointed. The look on Salas's face when he was told he'd just written his name was nothing short of wondrous, and there was something shining in his eyes besides frustration when Enrique dismissed the children to go get something to eat before their minders could put them down for bed. It was pride.
Kalifa and Enrique and Moegi went with Marco to the tavern afterwards, and over plates of spiced Nasrian Grapor stew over a bed of Yafutoman rice with steamed Mid-Ocean vegetables on the side, Marco found himself staring at Enrique. "How did you know that would work?"
Enrique paused in his chewing for a moment, then finished his mouthful and swallowed before reaching for his drink. Once he'd cleared his throat, the blond-haired prince turned to him. "Could you elaborate on that, young Marco?"
"The name thing." Marco said, gesturing with his spoon. "I could tell some of the kids were getting antsy and impatient, but you stuck with it, and Missus Kalifa and Fina both played along. How did you know that having them write their names would make them care?"
Enrique hummed quietly for a moment, and looked at Moegi carefully. The dark-haired princess turned ambassador and diplomat nodded back at him, and Enrique squared his shoulders. "Do you remember how we found that ruined settlement on Daccat's Isle? The village, where we found the gravestones of Daccat and his two wives, Yasmina and Kikue?" Marco flushed at the mention of it, but bobbed his head. He still was sorting that out on his own time, how the most famous pirate in history had married two women and given them command of the Scorpion and the Salamander that had been the terror of the skies. Marco had never thought that there could be people who would do that. "On Daccat's gravestone, it - it said he was born a slave and died free." The prince's face hardened. "I can't imagine what his life was like, but I know one thing. It wasn't right. To not even own yourself? And chances were that those children, if nothing had been done, might have ended up in the same situation. The Nasultan was famous for having concubines, and Nasr no longer had slavery as an institution, but they had indentured servitude. The same thing by a different name." Moegi reached for his hand and Enrique grabbed it and held onto it like a lifeline. He steadied himself and turned back to Marco. "The only thing that Daccat could claim as his own was his name. The Ixa'takans enslaved and put to work in their sacred mountain digging for moonstones were the same. We can do better, Marco, and we should. But it begins there. It begins with us telling those children that they aren't forgotten, that they are more than the forgotten dregs of a city blown to pieces. It begins with us giving them their names, giving them the knowledge to use it."
"Knowledge once gained can never be taken away." Kalifa agreed quietly, eyes hidden behind her thick glasses. Marco couldn't help but feel that she was looking at him, and he squirmed in his chair some as he dug into his meal. "And speaking of knowledge, there are some members of the crew that I have yet to talk to."
Enrique laughed a little. "So, you're still collecting stories, are you?"
"Mistress Kalifa moves as the Moons tell her to." Kalifa said piously, bringing her hands up on either side of her head. She looked to Marco. "I have not written your story yet, young one."
Marco scowled and stabbed at his food. "Yeah, and you won't."
"I must." Kalifa said, and she sounded more severe for a moment. Marco tensed up before shaking his head again. "Marco, please. Telling your story isn't just for you. It is for everyone who will come after us. For those who will wonder who Captain Vyse and his crew of Blue Rogues actually were. It is important."
Marco shoved another spoonful of spiced stew into his mouth and shook his head.
I don't want to talk about it.
300 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape
The Delphinus was in the belly of the hollowed-out island. It was completely shut down while Aika and her engineering teams led the effort of putting the vessel through a refit that put the one they'd done for the Glacia Expedition to shame. For reasons that Marco couldn't fathom, they were coating the entire outer surface of the hull in a layer of tree sap taken from rubber trees that grew naturally in the balmier Frontier Lands as well as Ixa'taka. Osman had been moaning for days about how much they had spent buying up every scrap of rubber concentrate, including sources from black marketers out of Valua. Marco chafed at buying Valuan-sourced goods, but as Vyse pragmatically said, 'For an evil empire, they do make pretty good stuff.'
When he wasn't in class with the Nasrian kids or helping to keep an eye on them, Marco was assigned work on the inside of the Delphinus beyond his usual cleaning duties. It kept him busy, but some of the work was a lot easier than when he first started out, and he'd grown out of his clothes. He stopped by Dr. Ilchymis's laboratory after he finished helping out with the gardening so the man could do a followup physical Marco had been putting off, and that was when he asked the question on his mind.
"To be honest, Marco, your sudden growth spurt isn't all that unexpected." Ilchymis told him, as Marco slipped his shirt back on. "You're at the age where your body naturally develops, and you gain height and muscle. Before you joined up with Vyse, you were likely malnourished, and you weren't eating enough food for your body to grow. Now you are, so it's making up for lost time."
"Seriously?" Marco whined. "You mean I'm going to outgrow this shirt too?"
The silver-haired doctor smiled. "Most likely. In any case, you're perfectly healthy. Just keep eating regular meals, I'm not overly concerned about you getting enough exercise. I understand things are rather busy right now with the ship."
"Yeah, you could say that." Marco slipped his scarf back on and sniffed once.
"In fact, everyone's so busy that Aika and Fina haven't stopped by to get their medication. Could I convince you to do me a favor?"
"You need me to deliver something, doc?" Marco asked, and Ilchymis went over to his desk. He reached inside a drawer and came up with two wrapped parcels bound in twine, with Aika and Fina's names on them.
"Deliver these if you would."
Marco took them, shaking them gently. "What are they?" Dr. Ilchymis put a hand over Marco's, stopping him.
"These parcels are private, young man, and not for your eyes." He sized up Marco. "Can I trust you to deliver these?" Marco bit back his curiosity and nodded. Ilchymis smiled and stepped back away, opening the privacy curtain he put up around his area of the base interior for physical examinations and treatment. "Excellent. Hurry on then. Remember, you're a growing boy, outgrowing your clothes is normal! And if you need someone to explain the other changes you're going through, my door is always open."
Marco scowled at him, not wanting to hear anything more about how his body was changing. No, he'd just go deliver these packages and then...His stomach growled. Okay, he'd go get something to eat then.
The good thing about Crescent Island and the base hidden away in the mountain at its backside was that for as big as it was, you could still find people if you went looking for them seriously. Nobody had seen Fina recently, but one of Belle's gunner girls said that they'd seen her heading up the walkway into the Delphinus. He turned away from the reinforced cabin where they stored extra shells for the ship's magazines and made for the ship herself, which was still swarming in crewmembers dangling from the sides on lifts, always tied to the ship's upper railing by safety lines and carabiners. Enormous tanks of heated and compressed tree rubber sat on the docks beside the ship, and long hoses ran up to the crewmembers, supported and weight-eliminated by a confusing mess of pulleys hanging from the dock cranes. Marco had to stare at it all, because it was even crazier and messier than it had been yesterday. The slap on the back made him shout in surprise, and he spun around in time to catch Aika laughing.
"Geez, Marco, I didn't think I could scare you that bad." The pigtailed redhead snickered. "You were really spaced out there."
"Yeah, yeah." He grumbled, looking back at the ship. "It got worse."
"Crazier, yeah. But better." Aika corrected him. "It took us a while to figure out the best way to rig up the spray hoses, but doing it this way we can really pick up the pace. And we'll need to, because if we don't keep the rubber moving it'll harden up inside of the hoses and then we'd have to spend forever shutting it down, replacing the lines, and scraping the hoses out. Without tearing them."
"But what's it all for?"
"Insulation." Aika said. "For our next mission, we figured it might be a good idea to come prepared. None of us are too keen on getting electrocuted, after all."
Marco blinked, and then he finally caught on. Electrical insulation. Like the rubber that went around the wires on the Delphinus that sent power through the ship. "Are we flying into a thunderstorm?"
Aika sighed. "Boy, I hope not. But with our luck, Marco, it's better to come prepared."
Marco nodded, and then pointed to a group of workers that were hovering underneath the ship on runabouts, drilling up through the hull and installing what looked like oversized lightning rods. "And that?"
"Insurance." Aika muttered darkly. She looked down at him. "But what brings you by, Marco?"
"Oh. Right. I was looking for you and Fina." Marco held up the first package with Aika's name on it. "Doc Ilchymis asked me to deliver this to you after my appointment."
Aika looked down at the package and seemed to say 'oh' without making a sound. Then she grinned like always and took it from him. "Thanks, Marco. I see you have another one there. Is that for Fina?"
"Yeah."
"You can give it to me. I'll make sure she gets it." Aika said brightly, reaching for it. Marco pulled it out of her reach, suspicious. "Marco…"
"Doc said they were private." Marco told her. "I don't think he would want you looking at her medicine, or want Fina looking at yours. It's my job to take it to her, and she's on the ship somewhere."
"Yes, but she's busy."
"Doing what?"
"She's…" Aika started, and she blushed a little. "She's in a meeting, you can't bother her right now. I can take care of it, Marco."
"In a meeting with who?" He demanded.
"With the captain." Aika said, and Marco stepped back and stared as she lunged for the package again "Marco, trust me. I can take care of it. Besides…" Aika paused for a moment, then squared her shoulders. "You probably don't want to hold that medicine any longer than you have to."
"...Why?" Now he was curious, even though he remembered the doc's warning.
"It's medicine for girls." Aika blurted out. Marco blinked in confusion, and she looked a little put out. "For our girl parts." Marco blinked again, still wondering what she was getting at. "Oh, for...Marco, do you really want to know this?"
Did he? Maybe not, because it didn't sound good. Involving girl parts and all. "...It's something gross, isn't it?"
"You'd probably think so, yeah." Aika sighed. "But when you're a woman, it's just something you have to deal with." She held out her hand again and waited, and Marco finally decided that if Aika was this dogged about it, he probably didn't want to deal with it after all. He plopped the wrapped parcel for Fina in Aika's hand and shook his head. "Thank you. I'll make sure she gets it. You can be pretty stubborn when you want to be." What really ticked him off was that she grinned and rubbed his hair after, and he scowled and pushed her hand away.
"Lay off the hair already! Geez, Aika, I'm not some dumb kid!" He snapped. Aika just laughed and skipped back away from him, looking him over in a way that made him squirm.
"No, you aren't." She finally said. "But you've still got some growing left to do. I remember when Vyse was your age, his heart and his courage were bigger than his body. You're a little scrawnier than he is, but when you finally catch up?" Aika winked at him. "Lyndsi had better watch out, because you're going to be a Moons-damned heartbreaker."
Marco hadn't thought about that crazy blond-haired girl from Windmill Island in a long time, but the mention of her name had him blushing and remembering how she kept hugging his arm. He turned around and ran off, trying to ignore the sound of Aika's laughter as it rose over the sounds of the ship refit in the hidden drydock.
It was deeper and more mature, but it reminded him of Lyndsi's laugh, and the way that crazy girl always looked at him. For a moment, he thought that maybe it wasn't such a bad thing after all to have a girl looking at him, and that was enough to make him run even faster.
301 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape
Evening
It wasn't that Marco didn't know about sex. He did. That was something you figured out early if you grew up on the streets. In the Lower City, the two things that people were always short on was food and shelter, and if you couldn't pay for it with money, you either stole it or found other ways to buy it. For some people, that meant using their bodies as payment. Marco never had, but he heard about it happening all the time, and had seen it once, a dirty man shoving a girl older than him but younger than Aika against a wall with their pants around their ankles and bouncing against her while she cried quietly. After he groaned and stopped, he'd given her a few gold coins that she used to get dinner for herself and her mother, a woman who died a week later from a lung infection. Marco knew that people had sex, he just never saw the point of it after that. It happened. People did it. It didn't change anything for the folks in the slums, didn't mean anything.
So why in blazes was everyone on Crescent Island so obsessed with talking about it?
Gossip must have been part of being on a ship, because people talked about each other all the time. There were the looks that Khazim and Belle kept sending at each other, and the gunnery teams argued about it all the time. Most recently, they'd been talking about how Belle was sneaking down to the exercise gym so she could peek at Khazim when the man did his weightlifting. Then there was Lawrence, who was nearly as partial to Pow as Marco and Pinta were. There were a couple of times that Marco had caught him hanging out with Lapen, and he wouldn't have thought anything about it if he hadn't seen the same look in the eyes of old Brabham and Izmael, the engineer and carpenter that Captain Gilder had loaned out to Vyse. The two old-timers had a way of just existing in each other's company that seemed awful friendly, though most of the time it seemed that all they did was argue with each other. But they still ate together, went places together, and celebrated each other's achievements on Crescent Island - and with all the money rolling in from their spoils and Osman's buying and selling and their Discovery rewards and bounties, there was plenty of that for the both of them to build items galore. And of course, the Yafutomans liked to watch Prince Enrique and Princess Moegi as they did stuff together. What Marco didn't understand was how they could watch those two do something as simple as go for a walk while holding hands and smiling at each other, because that was just plain boring.
But the sex conversation that everyone on the crew seemed obsessed about was Captain Vyse, and which of his two closest girls he was with. Or dating. Or 'seeing', as the argument went. Kalifa the fortuneteller even had a nice little side business going with a betting pool, and the crew seemed divided on the issue of whether Vyse was in love with Aika or Fina. Like it mattered. Vyse was friends with both of them, they were the two who were the most committed to his mission to stop Valua from taking over the world. Everyone had a reason for joining, but they were special. He hadn't had a ship of his own before Enrique helped them and they broke out of the Grand Fortress the second time. The first time, all Vyse had had was Aika and Fina, Captain Drachma and a rickety old fishing boat converted for arcwhale hunting. To Marco, it didn't matter which one of them Vyse was sweet on. Sure, he'd figured it was Aika because big sis had told him once that redheads had to stick together, and he believed in that. But he hadn't placed a bet.
It made for lively dinner conversation, at least.
"No, you're wrong!" Osman shouted at Khazim over the campfire ring that Izmael had built up outside of the tavern once it became clear that the building was too small to hold everyone in the crew during a meal rush or extended carousing. "Vyse respects Aika and she's his oldest friend, but he clearly prefers the Silvite's company! Fina is by far more demure and appealing to his sensibilities." The rubenesque woman pouted behind her ruby-colored glasses. "A man prefers a woman that doesn't run everywhere like some wild hellion, Khazim."
"Bah!" The gunner snapped back at the merchant, throwing back another swig of ale before reaching for Belle and tucking the (much) younger woman up against his side. "What do you know of what men prefer, Rabina? No, it is fire that we true strong men desire! Fire in our women, yes, and our chief engineer has fire to spare as a daughter of the red moon! It was what my father told me long ago, after all! To go forth and find a woman who was a real spitfire, a woman that wouldn't let me get away with anything! And such is miss Belle, who catapulted her way into my heart!" Belle blushed at the sidewards hug of the boisterous gunner, and pushed him away with a huff.
"I may be looking for love, Khazim, but you're twice my age!" She protested. "And just because we still argue over who has the better eye for azimuth tables, it doesn't mean I'm in love with you!"
"I'm not hearing a no…" Khazim laughed, and Belle blushed even deeper, hiding her face in her hands. Khazim's gunnery crew went into roars of laughter at that, and the man himself chuckled twice before silencing them. "No, no, be at ease Miss Belle. For though I do find you very appealing, rest assured that on my honor as a Blue Rogue, I shall make no advance on you. It would be imprudent, given your status. However, once you reach your age of maturity, I suspect you will tell Khazim your true feelings." The Nasrian man puffed out his chest and preened. "Khazim is more than willing to wait to be wooed by such a lovely young maiden."
"Oh, shut up already!" Belle shrieked, pushing him away before looking at the other girls from Clara's crew that had come with her to join up with Vyse and the others. "Nara, Lilly! Not you too!"
"When you stop ogling Khazim while he's working out, Belle, then maybe we'll believe you." Lilly said, sticking her tongue out at the other girl, who resembled a boiling teakettle more and more.
Polly chuckled as much as the rest of them while she cuddled up next to her husband Robinson, and took pity on Belle's sensibilities. "Now now, Khazim. If you think that Vyse prefers Miss Aika because she's a spitfire redhead, then you're a little out of luck. I seem to recall that Fina has a temper on her as well. It just runs deeper beneath the surface. Do you remember how irritated she got that night when both she and Aika planned dates with Vyse?"
"Oh, that was something all right." One of the former Esperanzan sailors hummed happily. "Kalifa's betting pool turned into a mess after that. Right now I've got bets on both of them just to be safe, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who's done that."
"You're all wrong." Lawrence scoffed. "Just look at Enrique. He's the closest member of the crew to the three of them, seeing as it was his ship before he gave it to Vyse, and Vyse has been training him to serve as the commander in their absence. And who did Enrique put a bet on?" The helmsman tapped the side of his head. "He bet on Fina."
"Why does it matter?" Marco asked, staring all the adults down as they turned to look at him. He wanted to yell at them. "For crying out loud, we're at war with Valua! We could all die the next time we cross paths with them! And you're here arguing about who's having sex with who?"
"It's because we could die tomorrow, Marco." Belle said soothingly. "Blue Rogues...well, anyone who goes up against the Valuan Empire and the Black Pirates on a regular basis, we tend not to live that long. You have to find something else to live for besides violence and vengeance. It's why Captain Clara took us all in, a bunch of girls and women who got tired of being kicked around all the time. She found her love and kept chasing after it until Gilder finally got it through that thick skull of his that she wanted him regardless of what might come the morning after." The young woman sighed and stretched, the striped red and white shirt she wore flexing over her body in a way that Marco couldn't look away from until she settled back down again. "We have to remember what we're fighting for. And who."
"And for as much as I like to tease and make idle gossip, I do want the good captain to have a measure of happiness in his life. And I want Aika and Fina to have equal happiness, but the first step in that is figuring out which one has claimed his heart, and which one we'll have to console and guide to find love elsewhere." Marco stared at the large woman and her grand claims, and Osman wilted a little. "Oh, very well. And I'm also keen on winning the bet." She admitted with a grumble that got a laugh from the circle of people around them. "What?! Come on, as if any of you wouldn't like having that extra gold to buy something nice!"
"Yeah, well I don't see us solving that bet anytime soon." Domingo chuckled. "If Prince Enrique has any idea which one of those two women Vyse favors, he's been mum about it. And Princess Moegi's friends with both of them, so she's no help either. No, Osman, if you're trying to tip the scales you'll have to figure it out in a different way."
Osman hummed thoughtfully at that. "Something I've already thought about, and it occurs to me that there's a solution. We just need someone to sneak close to the good captain's cabin to scout it out, and see which of our two lovely leading ladies he takes to his bed."
"Which is on the second floor of the primary barracks, mind you." Lawrence pointed out dryly. "In a private cabin that none of us have ever been allowed in."
"In a private cabin...which Vyse ordered a king-sized bedframe and mattress for." Osman smiled, and that sent tongues to wagging. "So you know he isn't sleeping alone. Yes, I have an ulterior motive, but don't all of you want to put this puzzle to bed and settle Kalifa's wager?"
The crew all looked at each other and Marco rolled his eyes. He just didn't understand the adults some days.
"Even if we wanted to find out, who's going to do it?" Khazim asked. "Khazim is skilled in gunnery, not in sneaking about."
"True. We need someone small enough and light enough to move quietly, and who has the skills to shimmy around the outside of the building if needed." Osman explained. "Luckily, we have someone here who meets those criteria." And she turned and stared directly at Marco.
He stared back at her, realized what she wanted him to do, and opened his mouth to say no -
"He's perfect!" Belle cried out with a happy squeal, stopping him.
"Of course, why didn't I think of that?" Domingo tapped the heel of his palm against his forehead.
"Marco could figure out who Vyse is shacking up with in a hurry." Nara added.
"I haven't said yes!" Marco yelled at them all, fuming. "Why would I even...C'mon, really?!"
"Would you do it for money?" Lawrence asked innocently. Marco gaped at him, his mouth opening and closing a couple of times.
"No!"
"How about a shitload of money?" Osman asked, and Marco sucked in a big gulp of air.
"How much?" He heard himself ask, wondering why he'd said it for only half a second before he thought of all the things he could buy with a lot of money.
"Fifty gold coins from each of us." Osman said, leaning in with a fierce smile. "And one item from my shop or something that I can retrieve easily, up to a value of 500 coins." Marco immediately thought of the music box he'd wanted to look for in Nasrad, and then lost the time and money to do so once they stumbled across Salas and the orphans. Not that he would ever give up their welfare, their chance at a better, happier, healthier life for something that reminded him of his mother, but now? Now, he'd be able to get one for doing a little climbing and snooping just like the old days, and the rest of the crew would finally stop gossiping and betting about Captain Vyse's love life.
"Deal." Marco said, setting his plate aside and standing up.
There were other spaces inside of the mountain that had been purpose-built for additional housing, but the lodging that had been built next to the pond was what that the crew argued over, even if the first floor was just a bunkhouse. The second floor had more lavish, private rooms set up for the command crew, four rooms set aside for the captain, Aika, Fina, and Enrique. While Vyse and Aika and Fina were off chasing down a rumor of ancient ruins and celebrating Aika's 18th birthday, Princess Moegi had been given the use of Fina's room, and now it was an open secret that Moegi shacked up with Prince Enrique in his private quarters. The first floor bunkhouse had been partitioned to give personal quarters for the men and the women on the crew who preferred waking up with sunlight coming through a window. Most of the men on the crew took rotating shifts on a system Enrique had worked up to be fair, although Lawrence and Lapen and Brabham and Izmael all never took advantage of it, opting instead for double rooms deeper in the island's interior. For Marco's part, unless the weather was disagreeable, he preferred to sleep outside with as many blankets as he could steal away with. Too many years of shivering beneath stormclouds had given him an appreciation for open skies, sunny days, and warm nights full of stars.
The old lessons came back too easily. He could have walked up to the second floor and tried to climb up to the roof from there, but that might have made too much noise. It was quieter to shimmy up the storm drain on the corner of the house which fed into the fish pond, but from there it got a lot harder to work his way over to Vyse's window. Marco thanked his lucky stars he'd put on his cleats in the morning, because he could dig them into the siding, and his fingers found just enough grip to hold him in place as he slowly sidled from the corner of the house to the south-facing window of Vyse's cabin. At least this time, he wasn't clinging to a brick wall in the rain, desperately holding on with every scrap of strength in his body while trying to avoid soldiers and thieves alike. Once he got to the window, he ducked down underneath it and used the frame as a better handhold. The room was dark except for the light through the window and there wasn't any movement. Vyse wasn't back yet. Marco dug out a pair of hooks and wedged them into the siding next to the window, then used his belt's carabiner hooks to tie into them. It couldn't support all of his weight but it helped, because he had no idea how long he'd be hanging and waiting for Vyse and whichever of the two women he was seeing to show up.
He waited for about fifteen more minutes before the door to Vyse's room opened up. Marco hunkered down in the lower corner of the window, keeping his movements slow and steady, and watched as someone slipped inside. It wasn't Vyse, though. It was Aika.
Aika. Of course. Marco stayed where he was and watched as the red-headed woman conjured up a small bit of fire in her cupped palm and leaned down to light a candle mounted in a small bowl. Afterwards, she stood up into a stretch and immediately winced, reaching a hand up to her neck and shoulder. She must have overworked herself on the ship's ongoing refit again. Of course she would. Aika didn't push anyone harder than she pushed herself. The rest of the engineering team didn't take their orders from her just because she was Vyse's closest friend, after all.
Marco tensed up when the door to Vyse's room opened up again, and he blinked when it wasn't Vyse that walked in, but Fina. And when Aika turned half around to greet the person coming in, she didn't seem at all surprised that it was the blond-haired woman intruding on Vyse's space. In fact, she smiled and said something that Marco couldn't hear, which surprised him. Even with the window closed, some sound should have escaped. Maybe Izmael had done something to the rooms upstairs that dampened the sound in them. Come to think of it, Marco couldn't think of a time he'd ever heard any noises from upstairs while he was sleeping in the bunkhouse.
Fina closed the door to Vyse's room behind her and stretched her arms up over her head with what should have been a loud yawn, then removed the headdress that she always wore. Aika reached up to unbraid her pigtails, but winced as another flash of pain stopped her. Fina's head snapped up and her drowsiness died in an instant, and she asked Aika something. The redhead shook her head, probably trying to play down the pain she felt, and Fina didn't let her get away with it. She all but shoved Aika onto the one chair in the room and started undoing her hair with gentle, practiced movements, and Aika didn't tense up or argue. They'd done this before. Aika didn't like anyone messing with her hair, she'd yelled at Marco the one time he got miffed and tried tugging at it as payback for the hair ruffling she and Vyse did to him all the time.
There in the quiet of Vyse's room, Aika sighed and sank back against the chair, closing her eyes as Fina unmade her braids. Fina's eyes were open but lidded as she and Aika made quiet conversation that Marco couldn't hear or translate by watching their lips, but he could imagine what it might be about. The two of them talking about their day and what they'd gotten done. What still needed to be done tomorrow. Whatever was on their minds. After pulling out what seemed like close to a dozen bands and ties, Aika's red hair was finally freed from its usual confinement, and hung down behind her head in a tangled mess. Fina conjured up her pet Cupil from her wrist and the strange creature took the form of a comb. The Silvite took her time in running it through Aika's hair, slowly working out the knots until it hung straight and long behind her. Marco swallowed when he realized just how long Aika's hair really was, how much of it there was, and he wondered what it would feel like if he ran his fingers through it like Fina wa -
What? Marco startled and nearly pushed back away from the window. Where in blazes had that thought come from? He blinked several times and scowled before leaning back in. So, big sis Aika had nice hair. Who knew? And more importantly, who cared?
It was like Aika was a different person entirely as she sat there and let Fina brush out her hair. The door opened again and Vyse came in, finally, looking worn out but cheerful as he shut the door and hung his black tricorned hat with the blue, red and silver ribbons on a hook attached to the wall. Fina looked over her shoulder and smiled wider, while Aika just spoke his name. Marco could figure that much out from how her lips moved.
He sat on the edge of his bed and worked his boots off as the three all talked to each other, and Aika scowled a little and crossed her arms when Fina said something that made Vyse look sharply in their direction. Vyse said something else then and Aika cracked open one eye, and once Vyse had nothing but socks on his feet, he got up and traded places with Fina behind Aika. The captain of the Blue Rogues put his hands on Aika's shoulders and started kneading at them, and the redhead tensed up for a moment before her eyes fluttered shut again and she groaned silently, turning boneless in his hands.
Marco sighed. It figured. The rest of the crew was all crazy. The three of them were just really good friends, that was it. Vyse let them come into his room so they could talk about things privately, and Aika trusted the two of them enough to brush out her hair and work the knots out of her muscles that the day's work put there. Everyone had been so sure that Vyse would pick one of the girls and leave the other out to dry, but there was nothing he was watching that hinted at any of that.
Fina slipped off her shoes and then eased back on the bed, laying on her side so she could watch Vyse give Aika a powerful shoulder rub that he enhanced by bringing red magic into his hands. Warming them, maybe? Marco remembered Fina saying that warm water and hot packs were good for loosening up tight muscles, it would make sense he'd do something like it. And a good captain looked after his crew, Marco had heard Vyse say once. Vyse was really focused on the massage as he moved up to Aika's neck and palmed it while his fingertips scooped around to sweep under her throat as he kneaded the muscles in her neck, and Fina was grinning from ear to ear as she leaned on her hand and said something, probably to Aika. Aika, for her part, muttered something back at the girl that just made Fina giggle and made Vyse smile.
It was no wonder that people kept thinking that Vyse was in love with one of them, Marco decided. If they didn't know how close these three were, how they acted more like family than friends and shipmates, they'd probably get it wrong. Marco nodded quickly to himself, preparing to slide back and shimmy down the drain pipe.
Then the glow around Vyse's hands faded, and Aika responded by reaching an arm up behind his head, pulling him down towards her as she turned her revitalized neck and shoulders around...and she kissed him.
Marco froze in place and stared. Aika...Aika kissed him. Worse, Vyse didn't freeze up and flinch like he had the time that the girls had pinned him down in the galley and demanded that he choose one of them in front of the Moons and everyone after kissing him stupid. His eyes darted over to where Fina was lying on Vyse's bed, not sure how the other girl, the one Vyse hadn't chosen, would take it. Would she flip out and start screaming at them? Would she break down crying and run out of his bedroom? She didn't do that. She didn't do any of the things that Marco guessed she might do. Fina slid off the edge of the bed, walked over to where a bent-down Vyse was still kissing Aika, and pulled the other girl up and out of the chair. Then Fina kissed Aika even harder than Aika had kissed Vyse, while the captain leaned back and looked at the two of them with one of his best smiles. The kind of smile he only had when everything was going right, and he was absolutely happy and feeling good about the world. Aika brought her hands up behind Fina's head, holding it gently as the Silvite kept pressing their lips together.
When Fina and Aika stopped kissing and pulled apart, Aika looked like she was close to crying. She said something then that Marco had no trouble understanding, because he could finally read her lips good enough to get it.
I love you.
Fina's smile lit up the room even more than the candlelight did, and when she went to kiss Aika again, it didn't matter that the redhead was a few inches taller than her. The Silvite tipped up on her arches and met Aika as an equal. As a lover.
Marco kept on staring. He kept on staring when Aika nudged Fina towards Vyse's bed - their bed - and whispered something into the blond's ear. He kept on staring when Vyse pulled Aika's hair to the side so he could suck on her neck and make the redhead close her eyes and arch her head back. He kept staring when Vyse's hand glided up from Aika's waist and over her stomach and cupped one of her boobs.
It didn't - it wasn't - he was - she was - they were -
Marco couldn't blink. He couldn't look away, he couldn't make a sound, he could only stare as Vyse reluctantly let go of Aika's body and reached for the buttons on his coat. It was too much. He hadn't thought that this was what was going on. Nobody had. Nobody had seen this coming, and Marco didn't understand how it worked, but - It did.
He kept staring even when Vyse finally got his coat off and Aika pulled his shirt up over his head. He kept staring through the corner of the window when Vyse's hands worked at Aika's clothes. When Fina did something to the metal collar of her dress's neckline that caused the entire thing to slide down her body and expose her bare back and her panties, Marco gave in to the thundering of his heartbeat and leaned over more for a closer look. Fina turned just a little bit, and when he looked at her back as it started to turn, he could just make out the curve of her left -
And then his blood froze when he felt a spike of something run down his spine, and he looked up to see Vyse staring past his two women to the window. Staring at him.
Marco let out a gasp and slid back out of view, then lost his balance completely. He tumbled backwards and hung from his carabiners and hooks stuck in the siding, or he did until the wood gave way to his weight and the hooks let go, dropping him the twelve or so feet to the ground. Marco landed on his legs and let them crumple underneath him with a yelp, and rolled to shave off the momentum. It resulted in bruises and a limp when he finally started the walk away from the lodge.
His heart was still thundering and that weird feeling in his stomach was burning now, and for once, Marco didn't want it to go away. He could close his eyes and see how Vyse and Aika and Fina had all kissed and touched each other, and he remembered Fina's bare back and her...her…
"Marco! What in blazes happened to you?!" He blinked and came to, finding himself on the edge of the outer campfire ring that he'd left behind who knew how many minutes ago. Maybe even an hour. The others who'd charged him with spying on Vyse to see which girl he was sleeping with were all looking at him in a mixture of alcohol-fueled curiosity and concern, as the more observant of them looked at his legs.
Oh. He was limping. Right.
"I fell." He muttered, waving off those looks. "I'll be fine. Just bruised is all."
"Well, okay. If you're sure." Domingo hummed.
"Yes, yes. Now that your health is assured, what can you tell us?" Osman asked, leaning forward eagerly. "What did you see, young Marco? Which one of our fair maidens does Vyse take to his bed?"
Marco's mouth went dry in an instant as everything that he'd seen played out over his eyes and in his mind. The way they smiled. They way they loved each other. The way they were there for each other.
Would anyone else understand? If the crew knew, he suddenly wondered, would it change how they acted around their leaders?
Marco had spied on them for the promise of money, had peeped while they'd kissed and gotten undressed to - to -
His stomach full of butterflies turned sour, and he shook his head. "I don't want to talk about it." He got out, and grabbed the glass of alcohol from Khazim before the Nasrian could stop him. He chugged back a swallow of it and immediately coughed as it burned his throat.
"Marco, that wasn't our deal." Osman pouted as some of the others in the circle groaned. "If you don't tell us, you don't get paid."
"Keep your money." Marco rasped once he could breathe again. He turned around and left the warmth of the campfire behind, ignoring the shouts that chased after him. He went into the guy's part of the bunkhouse, grabbed his usual blankets and pillow, and settled in against a stump that lay next to Kalifa's tent on the north side of the island.
He stared up at the stars, stuck between feeling guilty over what he'd done and feeling something else stirring as he kept thinking of Fina and Aika, and how pretty they both were. He felt himself getting hard and he didn't know why, or why it wouldn't go away.
Marco had always figured that girls were gross, and weird, and he could never understand them.
He fell asleep wondering if he'd been wrong all along.
302 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape
Noon
The next morning, Marco got up quietly, put his blankets and pillow back away in the bunkhouse quietly, grabbed a quick bite of cold bread and some fruit and a flask of water from the tavern quietly, and then immediately raced for the Delphinus. Where he got to work on doing the odd errands not related to the ongoing rubberization of the hull and the strange installation work while avoiding everyone he possibly could. Quietly.
He made it all the way to lunch without being bothered by anybody, and for a while, Marco began to think that maybe he'd gotten lucky. Maybe Vyse hadn't seen him peeking in through the outer window last night at him and his women, and everyone would just move on to business as usual. That hope died quickly while he was running another load of refined moonstone ore from the forward hold to the moonstone reactor storage bays and a hand as hard as steel clamped down on his shoulder. He let out a scream, jumped, jerked his head back, and felt the life drain out of him when he found himself looking into the grave face of Prince Enrique, the third (fourth?) in command of their particular Blue Rogue contingent.
"Crewman Marco." Enrique's voice rumbled lowly. "Captain Vyse has requested your presence in the island's meeting room."
Marco swallowed, plastering on an uneasy smile. "Um, sure. Yeah. I'll head right on up, just as soon as I finish…"
The hand tightened in warning. "The captain's order was immediately, crewman. Someone else can take care of this."
"...okay." Marco mumbled, dropping the heavy metal box and the strap he'd been using to carry it. Enrique's hand relaxed, but didn't let go of him. "Um. I'm pretty sure I can get there myself."
"Vyse has been looking for you all morning. He was getting impatient. No, I believe that it's better if I escort you to him. I'd hate for you to become lost again."
Well, shit. He was in trouble. He was in so much trouble.
Enrique didn't say a word the entire time that they walked out of the ship, or through the underground base. His hand pulled back away from Marco's shoulder, but he kept pace with him and Marco got the feeling that if he tried to run, it wouldn't end well for him. Nobody else they passed by batted an eye or saw anything amiss. Why would they, Marco asked himself. It wasn't like they had been caught spying on Vyse and his women having - doing - that.
The sun was up and there wasn't a cloud in the sky when they emerged from the inside of the mountain, and they rode the elevator up the outside of it to the large reinforced platform that led to the carved-in conference/planning/cartography/war room it had been built for. Tikatika was perched on the railing looking out over the island like usual, and he squawked a greeting at them. Enrique nodded his head, and Marco waved and gave a smile he wasn't feeling.
Then Enrique knocked on the door to the conference room, and there was a second's delay before Vyse's voice answered. "It opens!"
Enrique chuffed and turned the knob on the door, opening it partways. "Captain. I have Crewman Marco here to see you."
"...Good. Thank you, Enrique." Vyse said, and there was a stiffness and formality there that made Marco shiver. "Send him in and close the door. Then you're dismissed for your other duties. And tell Tikatika to take a powder."
"Aye, captain." Enrique nodded, and his hand came around and pressed on Marco's back, shoving him into the room. Marco turned about, wanting to say something to the prince, but no sound came out as the door closed on his face. He heard Enrique speak to Tikatika, who let out an exclamation of protest, and then their footsteps retreated. A few seconds later, the sound of the lift platform lowering down the side of the mountain made it abundantly clear that he'd been abandoned here to his fate.
Marco felt Vyse's eyes burning into the back of his skull, and he shivered.
"Turn around, Marco." Vyse ordered coldly.
Oh, he was so dead. Marco swallowed and fought down the urge to run and hide, trying to remind himself that this was Vyse. This was Vyse, the man who'd taught him to be brave, the man who'd given him the world.
This was Vyse, the man whose trust he'd betrayed by spying on him in his most private moments. Marco braced himself and turned around, and flinched automatically, because there was no spark of warmth in his captain's eyes. There wasn't outright hatred either. Vyse stood at parade rest beside the large charting table that was the room's main ornament, his hands behind his back.
"Would you mind telling me why you were outside my window last night?" Vyse asked him. Marco's first instinct was to lie, to deny it had ever happened. To try and make Vyse doubt that he'd seen him. But something in Vyse's eyes, especially the one with the scar underneath it, made him hesitate. It turned out to be a good thing, because Vyse brought his hands around and tossed a couple of splintered boards on the table next to him. Pieces of broken siding from the second floor of the lodge. "I'm glad to see you didn't try to lie about it, Marco. It means you've been paying attention to the lessons I've been teaching you."
"I didn't tell anyone." Marco blurted out quickly, and smacked his hand over his mouth afterwards. Vyse raised the eyebrow above his telescopic goggle.
"Were you planning to tell anyone?" Vyse questioned him, and Marco wilted. "Why were you spying on us, Marco?"
"There's…" Marco started, blushing. "Some of the crew, they're betting…"
"There's a bet over Aika and Fina, and which one of them is my lover." Vyse cut him off. Marco stared at him. "I'm aware of it."
"You - you know about it?!" Marco stammered. Vyse smiled, and Marco groaned. "Right. Of course you'd know about it, you know everything."
"Nobody knows everything, Marco." Vyse argued, shaking his head. "But what does that bet that nobody is going to win have to do with you violating our privacy?"
Marco rubbed at the back of his head. Vyse was going to kill him for this, he might as well just get it over with. "The crew was arguing last night about the bet. Then Osman got the bright idea that they should get someone to get close enough to see for themselves. So they told me to do it."
"Did they force you to spy on us?"
"Um." Marco ducked his head. "No, they...they were going to pay me." Vyse didn't say anything to that, and Marco closed his eyes. He heard the captain walking towards him and tensed up, preparing himself to get smacked or yelled at.
He wasn't prepared for Vyse's hand to settle on his shoulder gently, or for Vyse to be kneeling in front of him when his eyes snapped open. The hard look on his face was gone, and there was respect in his brown eyes then. Sympathy. "You said they were. But they didn't. Because you didn't tell them."
Marco felt himself breaking apart. "How could I? I don't - what was - you were there, and they kis - they…" He felt so confused, and so lost, and thinking about it now made his stomach go funny again and he could feel himself getting hard again and that just made him even more embarrassed. "Vyse, I don't understand." He forced out, hating how the last word sounded like a whine. "All three of you?"
Vyse chuckled, standing back up. "Yes, Marco. All three of us. Just like Daccat and Yasmina and Kikue, although we didn't know about their marriage when we first got together."
"How does that work?"
"The same as any other relationship does, or so Fina tells us. With complete honesty and trust and respect and love." Vyse explained, which didn't help Marco a bit. He still felt lost. "I love the both of them. I love them equally with all of my heart. Fina loves me, and she loves Aika. Aika loves me and she loves Fina, and all three of us want to be together."
"...Girls can be together?"
"Yes. And two men can be together as well." Vyse said patiently. Marco chewed on that for a bit, and...oh. Suddenly, things made a lot more sense about Lawrence and Lapen. And Brabham and Izmael, for that matter. "I know it's not what a lot of Mid-Ocean believes in. I know that they don't talk about it in Yafutoma, they just look the other way and pretend it doesn't happen. I know that it's forbidden in Valua, and in Nasr it's considered deviant. I don't care, and I don't plan on conforming to their rules."
Marco nodded numbly. "Do you not want anyone to know?"
"Oh, people will figure it out eventually." Vyse shrugged. "We don't go out of our way to broadcast it, but we're not trying to hide it either."
"Who else knows?"
"My mother, for one. Walked in on us one morning after we…" Vyse paused and coughed, smiling a little. "Probably my father by now. Gilder and Calamity Clara. Enrique and Moegi. You." Vyse looked up at the ceiling, lost in thought. "Kalifa hasn't gone out of her way to tell us she knows, but I'm pretty sure she does too. She's got a way of knowing things she shouldn't."
"So…" Marco grasped at straws. "Are you mad at me?"
"Well, I didn't exactly like you looking at them, kiddo." Vyse pointed out dryly. "How long were you out there watching us?"
"Um. The whole time, up until you started taking your clothes off." Marco confessed, blushing. And he felt his pants tighten up again and this was absolutely the worst time for that. "Fina's...really pretty."
Vyse nodded, not smiling. "She's gorgeous. But that's not why I love her." Marco tilted his head to the side, and Vyse frowned. "Marco, how...how old were you when your parents died again?"
Marco shrugged. He'd been younger than 10, he knew that much, and the only reason he knew his age now was because his parents had told him what year he was born in and Dr. Ilchymis had used that to figure out how old he was. His years living on the streets of Valua were fuzzy. Best left forgotten.
"Did they ever talk to you about what happens to you when you grow up? Vyse asked him. "Did they ever talk to you about sex?"
"...no." Vyse blinked and drew a hand across his face, sighing at that. He motioned for Marco to follow him into the room, they sat down and Vyse poured them a couple of glasses of smallbeer, and explained things to Marco.
It was a little uncomfortable to listen to and there was a lot more detail than the little bit Ilchymis had talked about, but Vyse just pushed on. Marco got to learn not only what was happening to him, but what happened to girls as well. Even when Marco was beet red and he couldn't look Vyse in the face, the captain just kept on talking. And then he really blushed when Vyse explained what sex was. And why people did it so much, even when they weren't trying to make a baby.
Just...ew.
Then Vyse finished, and he waited as Marco finished off his drink and shook his head. "Geez." Marco uttered.
"Congratulations, you're a growing boy." Vyse smirked at him. "And I'd say, based on how tight your pants got when you were thinking about Fina, you like girls."
"Vyse!" Marco whined, and buried his head into his arms on the table. "Could you just kill me?"
Vyse laughed, and he reached over and ruffled his hair. "Not in the cards. I like you too much. Did you have any questions for me?"
Marco didn't. And he did. But one stood out in his mind. "People had sex back in Valua. They did it out in the streets sometimes. It's how some people bought dinner, or got money for medicine. Or just to put a roof over their heads. Sex makes babies, but you keep talking about it like it means something. Why? It didn't mean anything to the people I saw back then."
Vyse blinked. He stared at Marco for a bit, and then stood up. "Come with me for a bit, Marco. I want you to see something." He walked to the back of the conference room and the confused boy followed him, and they passed through the door in the back to a smaller space beyond it. A private office that had been included at Vyse's request with one notable feature, Marco realized; two large moonglass windows that looked over the underground base and the Delphinus in its drydock. Vyse waved a hand for Marco to come to his side, and he looked out through the windows to the ship far below them. At all the people running around her and over her.
There, supervising the ongoing work of the ship's refit aboard a runabout with a megaphone in her hand was Aika.
"Do you see Aika down there?" Vyse asked him. Marco nodded. "Now, I want you to really look at her. You've got my permission this time. And then tell me what you see."
Marco did what he was told. He kept looking at Aika as she barked out orders, flew between the people carefully spraying latex rubber over the ship and fixed kinks in the hoses, corrected spray patterns, and then turned around and did the same thing of helping and directing the work on the crazy assembly that they were building underneath the ship and on top of it. She was sweaty and looked tired, and the day was only half over. But she did it all with bright eyes and a grin on her face that was positively feral.
"She's pretty, but she doesn't act like other girls. She's...happy. I think? But tired?"
Vyse chuckled and patted his head again, which made Marco scowl a bit and knock his arm away. "Not bad for a first try, kid. But there's things that you missed and it's not because you did anything wrong. It's because you don't love her the way that I do, or Fina does."
"Why would that make a difference?"
"It does." Vyse said, and Marco did a double take when he realized that the captain hadn't looked back at him the entire time. He just had a stupid smile on his face and his eyes weren't focused on anything but big sis Aika. "When you love someone, really, truly love someone, you know who they are beneath the surface. You see Aika as a woman who doesn't act like other women. Why? Because she's athletic? Because she can fight? Because Aika doesn't go around in dresses? Please. She's a spitfire. She wears her heart out on her sleeve for everyone to see. When she's happy, you know. When she's sad or irritated, you know that too. She's real, Marco, in a hundred ways you're still too young to fathom. She's been my best friend my entire life, and that hasn't changed. She's someone I've always trusted to have my back, and she's one of the only people crazy enough to go against the Valuan Empire with me and come out laughing about it. She's never anything less than absolutely honest and I've always known where I stand with her. She's one of the bravest people I know, and she knew she loved me a long time before I figured out I loved her back." His smile died a little. "And I almost lost the chance to tell her that. That's why I make sure to tell her that I love her every day. Because she makes the world a better place by being in it."
Marco blinked at Vyse's description of Aika, and looked back down at her through the windows again. She wiped sweat off of her forehead and took a drink from a canteen of water, then got right back to work. She'd been beautiful last night, but…
Now, thinking about what Vyse had said, he could almost see what Vyse saw in her. What Vyse loved about her. Almost. He ended up nodding his head quietly.
"There's something else I want you to know, Marco." Vyse said, and the tone of his voice meant his attention was back on him. Marco turned his head and looked up, and saw Vyse looking serious again. "The kind of sex you saw growing up in Valua...It happens. There's bad kinds of sex, and yeah, sometimes people do that to survive or to get by. Other people make a career out of it. And there are people who treat sex like it's something that they can take, and that's wrong." His face darkened for a bit, and Marco shivered. "But that's not what sex is supposed to be. That's what I want you to know. You're growing up, Marco, and some day, probably sooner than you think, you're going to want to have sex."
Vyse waited for that to sink in. "The kind you saw back then, it's not the kind that's special. That's not what I have with Aika and Fina, that they have with each other. It's not the kind of sex you want either."
Marco knew he was blushing. He knew this conversation was already awkward as hell, but he stayed. Because if anyone was going to give him a straight answer and help him sort out his feelings, it was Vyse. "What kind of sex do I want?"
"It's a gift." Vyse said. "It's when you're close enough to someone else, a boy, a girl, or more than one someone, and you want to show them that you love them, that you want to be with them. It's a gift. You're opening yourself up to them. You're dropping every defense you have, you're showing them, this is who I am. You're telling them I love you, do you love me? You're letting go of yourself, just like they are, and becoming something more. It's love, Marco, pure and simple. A hug can mean different kinds of love. A kiss means deeper love. And when you have sex with someone precious to you, someone you trust and adore, it means so much more than the kind of sex you saw on the streets. That's why we call it love-making. It's a gift. It's the gift. So yeah. You saw Fina mostly naked, and it made you feel things. That's lust. You thought she was pretty and she definitely is. But it's not love. Some day, you'll find a girl of your own to love." Vyse paused. "Maybe two girls, if you all decide it's the right thing for you, but I'm pretty sure that me and Aika and Fina are the exception, not the rule. I'm not going to stand here and tell you that you have to wait until you're married. I sure as hell didn't, although I think of them as my wives already. But I will tell you to be careful. Because you're born with one heart. And it can break so easily. Yours...and theirs."
"Yeah." Marco mumbled, looking back out at the ship again. "Anything else you wanna tell me?"
"You get a girl pregnant before you're old enough to support her and the baby and be a good father and I'll be a very angry person." Vyse said flatly, and Marco huffed out a watery snort and shook his head. Fat chance of that happening. "And...Just remember. Your parents loved you. At least, that's the impression that you always gave me when you talked about them. They loved you and they wanted you to have a better life than they did. Not everyone has parents who care about them, I know. But yours did. They made a baby together, and that baby was you. I think they'd be proud of the boy you are now. Of the man you're turning into." The assertion made tears come to Marco's eyes, and he sniffled. "I know I'm proud of you. I know Aika and Fina are too. And some day, when the three of us have our own children, I hope they're just as wonderful as you are Marco."
Marco spun around and buried his head into Vyse's chest to stifle the sob that confession dragged out of him. "Sh - shut up." He choked out, crying even harder when Vyse's arms wrapped around him. "I thought you were going to yell at me."
"No." Vyse rebuked him. "I know your story didn't have a happy beginning, Marco. I know that's why you were so insistent on helping Salas and the other orphans, and I'm so damned proud of you for that. But you get to write what happens next. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. And you are, kid. We all love you."
"...You're not my dad." Marco tried to argue, one last barb in his quiver to keep Vyse out, to not turn into a blubbering mess.
"No." Vyse agreed, patting his back. "But I'll always be your friend."
Early Afternoon
They stayed up in Vyse's office for a while after that, calming back down and wiping at their eyes until Marco felt like he wasn't going to roll over and be a mess again. He did have a reputation to preserve, after all, and the last thing he wanted was the rest of the crew thinking he was a crybaby. Afterwards, Vyse told him he was off-duty, and instructed him to go get something to eat and take the afternoon and evening off, since he'd been given a lot to think about. And Marco did eat, making sure that Salas and all the other kids had eaten as well. They had, and they were still a little nervous about their new home, but they were adjusting. The stories that Hans and Lapen told them about Centime and his wife and all the children they'd taken in and looked after gave them a bit of hope as well. Hope was something they'd never had before. Marco had given them that hope, just like Vyse had given Marco his own.
He wandered for a bit after that, still sorting through everything that Vyse had told him about the coming changes to his body and how he was going to start paying attention to girls now that he'd seen a glimpse of...yeah. Marco was still a little embarrassed about it all, but he got the feeling that Vyse had forgiven him. Besides, Marco found himself thinking about that girl back on Windmill Isle again, Lyndsi. The one who'd been so interested in him, enough that she gave Vyse a kiss to pass on to him. He wondered what she'd look like in a few years when they both grew up a little more, and found himself imagining Lyndsi's face and body instead of Fina's. For a little bit, anyways, before he got red and embarrassed and walked it off again.
But once he'd gotten his thoughts in order, Marco found himself outside of Kalifa's more lavish tent. She'd pressed him once before about wanting to write down his story. The Nasrian woman wanted to write down all their stories, which still confused Marco a little. Why did it matter what his life had been like? What his thoughts on Vyse and the ship and the crew and their mission was? He wasn't Vyse, he didn't matter.
But Vyse believed he did. So maybe, just maybe, Marco could believe that his story mattered too.
He stepped inside of Kalifa's tent and found the Nasrian woman with the thick glasses pouring herself a cup of tea. She looked up and seemed surprised to see him. "Young Marco? What brings you to Mistress Kalifa?" She straightened up. "Something has happened. Something...something has changed."
"Yeah." Marco said with a quick nod. "Something has."
She smiled. "Are you here to place a wager in my betting pool?"
Marco thought about it for half a second. "Maybe later." Once he got over his guilty feelings about placing a bet nobody else had because he knew the truth. "But that's not why I'm here. You wanted me to tell my story, right?"
Kalifa tilted her head to the side. "I did. But you did not wish to speak of it." She poured out a second cup of tea and held it up towards him.
Marco walked all the way inside and sat down opposite of her small table and her octahedral focusing crystal, taking the tea from her. He hadn't before, that was true. It still hurt to think about, but it had happened, and it was in the past. Maybe his story could help others escape the same fate. Maybe Vyse was right. He got to write how his story went from here. "I do now." He replied evenly.
Kalifa grinned and set her fortunetelling equipment aside, then laid out a thick book and an inkpot and several quills. She flipped the heavy text to a blank page near the end and dipped her quill in the ink.
"How many people have you gotten to talk to you so far?"
"Most of the crew." Kalifa told him. "But not all. I am Mistress Kalifa, daughter and Seer of the Red Moon. Marco of Valua...will you tell me your story?"
There was a heavy weight in that question, and Marco prepared himself. He drew in a breath, and she set quill to paper.
Marco spoke, and Kalifa wrote his story.
Author's Note: Say, did you know this story also gets cross-posted on Archive Of Our Own? It does! And there's more Author's Notes and other details there!
