Not surprisingly, it took Amelia a while the next day when she awoke, to understand she wasn't in her own bed, her Delbert comfortingly by her side. Coming to her senses, she shook her head, sighed, and got out of bed. She stood up, stretched, and put on some clothes.
After making and eating her breakfast, she decided to make an inspection of her new home. She opened the font door to her house, and walked down to the main level. The landscape was really quite spacious, and really quite breathtaking. After a while, she came to a place that she never would forget. She looked out over a scenic seascape, only ocean as far as the eye could see, complete with the biggest collection of ships Amelia had ever seen.
Most of the ships there Amelia had never seen the likes of before. But she knew ships---whether they were light-ships or not---and she decided to take a closer look. She walked out on to the long quay, her heels clicking on the wooden planks. She spotted a most ornate looking vessel with tall forecastle and sterncastle, where a good-looking human man leaned against the rail.
The man had shoulder-length blond hair, and wore rather archaic clothes done up in various shades of blue. Curiously, his torso seemed to be encased in shining steel armor.
"Ahoy, sailor!" Amelia yelled up at him from down on the quay.
The man snapped his head around, then looked down. "Ahoy, my lady!" he called back, his smile warm and bright.
"Might I speak with your Captain, sir?" Amelia called back to him.
"I'm the Captain," the man declared. "How may I assist you?"
"Ah! I was wondering if I might come aboard and take a closer look at your vessel. She's a real beauty!" Amelia asked politely and looked up at the great ship.
The man laughed good-naturedly, and waved her up. "Of course, my Lady," the human said, and slid the gangway down to allow Amelia aboard.
"Thank you, Captain," Amelia said and walked briskly up the gangway up on to the ship's deck. "Captain Amelia Doppler, at your service, sir," she said eloquently, and held her hand out to him.
"Ah, a pleasure, Captain. I am John Smith, Captain of this good ship," the man told her, shaking her hand firmly.
"So a sailor, are you?" Captain Smith asked. "I hope you'll pardon my saying this, Miss, but…well, you hardly seem the sailor type."
"For your information, Mr. Smith," began Amelia briskly. "I've been a Captain longer than you've most likely been alive, sir."
Smith laughed, and bowed his head. "I beg your pardon then, Captain."
"I have never seen a ship like this before," Amelia said looking around the wooden ship. "My ship, the RLS Legacy, a light ship, is nothing at all like your vessel," she said.
"Amelia…" John Smith mused aloud, thinking. "Say… you aren't, by any chance, from that Treasure Planet story are you?"
"Well, yes. Yes I am," Amelia said in surprise. "I suppose my notoriety precedes me then."
"I thought so. Here… let me try to help you to understand the differences between your ship and ours. Well, to begin with, our ships are really very nearly the same," Smith said. "The real difference comes from the fact that our ships travel over water and are wind powered, where your ships travel through what Kitty calls 'space', and utilizes solar power instead."
"Indeed?" Amelia commented, continuing her inspection. Smith did have a point, she conceded. His ship from a distance could indeed be mistaken for an older light ship. The design was nearly the same, wooden hull, multiple masts, square-rigged sails. It was only upon closer inspection that the differences could be seen. No solar sails, nor could there be found any of the energy management machinery needed to run the ship.
Amelia looked up through the complex rigging to the ship's tall main mast. "May I visit your crow's nest, Captain Smith?" she asked, pointing upward.
"Of course! Be my guest, Captain," Smith replied, watching in awe as Amelia almost seemed to glide up the shrouds to observation post at the top the mast.
"Say what you will… that woman climbs faster than anyone I've ever seen," Smith admitted to himself.
"Yes, she does… and she hasn't even begun her training yet," a voice observed with pride from somewhere behind him.
"Kitty! Ms. Petro! What are you doing here?" Smith asked, clearly thrilled, but also surprised too.
"Keeping tabs on a certain feline Captain, who just disappeared to take a look about it seems," Kitty told him, looking up to the main mast. "Ah, and here she comes now," she added as Amelia leapt down precisely in the same manner she had used when Jim and Delbert had first come aboard the Legacy.
"Good morning, Amelia," Kitty called just a little sharply.
"Good morning, Ms. Petro," Amelia answered primly.
Kitty looked at Amelia, and asked her quietly, "Why, in all the galaxy, do you find it necessary to head out on a trip on your own?" Kitty paused to let that sink in, then added, "You could have gotten lost, you know. This place of mine is so big that even I have problems finding everything and everyone sometimes." Kitty linked her arm through Amelia's, and began to guide to the gangway of Smith's ship. "Now do come along or else you'll be spending loads of quality time with your old friend Silver as his little baby girl. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, ma'am. Abundantly clear," Amelia remarked rather quickly. Kitty led Amelia down the ship's gangway to the quay.
"Good luck with your training, Captain!" Smith yelled down after her.
Once back to the cenral amphitheater again, both having walked in total silence, Kitty brought Amelia before a certain door. Kitty opened the door and instructed Amelia to enter. Amelia did so, as she figured Kitty could always make if she made too much of a fuss.
She walked inside what appeared to be a huge gymnasium of sorts. She turned quickly around when the door locked itself behind her.
"So. Shall we start your training or not?" Kitty asked.
"I'm ready when you are, ma'am," Amelia replied, a bit surprised when her own voice came out rather small and nearly a whisper.
Kitty nodded her head, and retrieved a small notebook and a pen from the air. She opened the book and started to check what was written down. After she'd finished, she looked over at Amelia. "I think we shall start with something called 'element breathing'," she declared and began to write again.
"Excuse me, Ms. Petro," began Amelia, evidently very confused. "But, begin with what again?"
Kitty sighed, then explained further, "Breathing an element. Was that too difficult to understand? Here, let me show you, okay?"
Kitty snapped her fingers, and a stick appeared in her hand. "There are four elements, okay?"
She took a deep breath, then said, "Air," she said and blew on to the stick, which quickly iced over.
"Fire," Kitty continued and then blew a concentrated stream of fire as if she were some human equivalent of a dragon. The ice on the stick melted to steam, and the stick caught fire immediately, and burned furiously.
"Water," Kitty instructed and a blew a jet of water from her mouth that extinguished the fire in a blink of an eye.
"And, lastly, earth," Kitty finished, and exhaled sharply, a thin line of dust issuing from her mouth that soon obscured Amelia's view of the poor stick. The dust quickly cleared, and the stick now gleamed, highly polished, all signs of its past abuse erased.
Amelia could only blink and gape at what she had just seen. "I-I-I can do that?" she asked incredulously.
"You bet… but only after a whole lot of training," Kitty said, smiling. "But unlike the demonstration you've just seen, you may only choose one of the elements, you understand. So… which would you choose?"
Amelia thought furiously. Which element would be the one she chose? By process of elimination, she finally decided. "Fire. I choose the element of fire," she told Kitty, after much deliberation.
"I thought so," Kitty remarked, smiling as she continued to write in her notebook.