Chapter Twenty: Passage to Womanhood
"You can't be seen? But...how?" he asked, rather confused.
"I don't know, no one will explain to me exactly why. My mother can be seen, even though it's slightly blurred, according to Y'lorani. Y'lorani thinks that it's probably that way because my mother has lived as human and goddess of elves, so she can be seen by both human and Elvin seers, though not clearly by either. Y'lorani could see my father, too, but he was slightly blurred like my mother. She says she still doesn't know exactly why she could see him, but it doesn't really matter."
"So," Devon said thoughtfully, "if I stay close enough to you, they can't see me either, right?"
Reanna just shrugged. "I don't know, I haven't had any experience with human seers. I didn't really know that there were any until recently. We could always try it, and if it works, great. If it doesn't...well, we'll just have to figure that out when the time comes. If it ever does.
"Now, since you say that St. Maarten was where you were hired, there is a good chance that there will be a couple of leads to be found in my search for my father's killer."
Devon grimaced. He didn't want to be seen by anyone when his own ship was nowhere near here, but he apparently had little choice. His captain--damn her--was going to force him into helping her get her revenge on the seer, whom he felt sure had actually done the killing. From what Reanna had told him of Jack's sudden downfall, it must have been the man known for his various poisoned darts.
When Devon had been hired, it had originally been to kill that man, and when that job had been completed without a hitch, he had been hired to seek out this wonderfully smart, beautiful, and incredibly volatile woman. He wondered if the man above the seer was aware of his weakness for lovely women, and wondered if that man had even seen Reanna. Surely if he had, he would have found a female bounty hunter--and there were those--to search the girl out.
When he had asked the seer why his master hadn't bothered speaking to them--and he would know, the bounty hunters weren't secretive with each other about who had hired them, even if they wouldn't share the details of the job--the seer had grimaced, saying that his master had some sort of bias against women. Especially the strong ones.
It wasn't Devon's job to ask questions about why he was to do what job, and he had never had any problem with not knowing the whys. He hadn't had a problem with that until now, anyway. Why was his employer seeking Reanna? She had only just come into her captaincy--not to mention her womanhood--and had never done anything to anyone. Except me, he corrected himself, then thought, I wonder what she'll do when she's backed into a corner with no way out? She certainly showed her prowess with a sword, and then there's her trick with fire. Does anyone know about all of this besides me?
"Devon!" Reanna shouted with annoyance, sounding as though she had tried to get his attention more than once.
"What?" he asked, more sharply than he had intended. Reanna raised an eyebrow.
"Don't ever speak to me with that tone again, especially in front of other crew members. I am the captain, and I am to be treated with respect at all times, do you understand me?" she asked, her tone deadly.
Devon swallowed his resentment at being talked to like he was a subordinate--granted, he was, he just hadn't gotten used to it yet. "Aye, captain," he said, trying to keep his voice level so as not to show his anger.
Reanna glared at him for a moment longer, and then said, "Get back to bed for a couple hours, Devon, but be prepared to work your arse off in a few hours. We set sail for St. Maarten the moment the sun peeks over the horizon."
She turned her back on him then, a clear dismissal. He quietly left the cabin, still nursing the wound his pride had sustained at the all-too-clear lecture he had received. I suppose I'll have to get used to being ordered around by a seventeen-year-old, he mused, and then realized that she actually was seventeen now. Tonight would be the full moon, which meant that today marked the day of her birth.
To his surprise, he found himself wanting to do something special for her to signify her coming out into womanhood. But what?
**
Reanna didn't go back to sleep. Instead, she went out onto the deck after she had sent Devon away to look at the stars. Their nightly dance was nearly over, the nearly-full moon reaching the western horizon. Today I am seventeen, she thought to herself. I am a woman now in all meanings of the word, I suppose. Strange, I don't feel any different than I did yesterday, or the day before. I don't feel like I've changed any, though my life certainly has.
Isn't there supposed to be some revelation once you reach adulthood? Some sort of epiphany? Why don't I feel any different?
Not finding an answer within herself, she dismissed the man in the crow's nest, telling him to get some rest and that she would take over until dawn. The grateful man quickly complied, clambering down the ladder quickly.
She curled up in the nest, staring upwards, feeling the comforting and gentle rocking of the ship at rest in the sea. It had always comforted her to be even a little bit closer to the stars, even if they did feel more empty and cold than they ever had before. What had happened to make the warmth disappear from them? Had she done something to disappoint them?
She sang the star greeting, even though it was nearly dawn. Her voice lifted high, seeming to reach all the way to the heavens, and those of her crew that had been sleeping fitfully suddenly fell into deep and peaceful sleep.
**
When Devon heard the sweet, silvery soprano voice penetrating everything even to his own cabin, he found himself sliding towards slumber and resisted it with all of his might. He wanted to find out who was singing, and so sadly.
Fighting the urge to lay down, he took his boots off so that the sound of his coming would not make the singer stop at his approach and walked up to the deck. When he didn't see anyone at all, he thought that he might have been imagining things, but the voice was still singing in that beautiful language that he had never before heard. It was like a warm rain, or a peaceful stream. He had never heard anything like it and could not resist trying to find out who--or what--was singing.
For one heart-stopping moment, he remembered the old tales of the sirens that lured sailors to their deaths on the rocks. The memory lasted but a moment, however, before the song took hold of his heart again. When he thought to look up, he saw what could only be Reanna in the crow's nest, her black hair free of all confinement for the first time since he had met her, her arms lifted to the sky.
What language was she singing in? Why did she sound so sad?
Instead of climbing up and disturbing her, he went back to his own cabin feeling inexplicably sorrowful until he laid on his own bed and fell asleep almost immediately.
************************************************************************
Haha! Still a day ahead of schedule! Yay! I thought I wasn't going to make it, because I took an almost two-hour nap this morning with Korin, and that's usually when I write my chapter for the day. It also didn't help that at first, I had no idea what I was even going to write about, but hey, it apparently worked out for the better, so I hope you guys enjoyed and I shall hopefully write again tomorrow!