AMONGST THE YOUNG
by SpelCastrMax
CHAPTER Eight: Clumsy Thief
A sorceress crossed her arms over her chest and scowled at the red haired man cowering before her. "Do you realize what you have done! You read the wrong words! You were supposed to make them younger!"
"I beg forgiveness..." he began to trembled, "I...I did not mean to turn them into teenagers..."
"Quiet!" she snapped, her eyes flashing. As the Celt on the floor of her lair shook and awaited his fate, the witch laughed a little, her black hair brushing against her shoulders as she moved. "Teenagers, did you say? Well, then. This may still work to my advantage."
After the teens were dressed into more fitting clothes for their age, Firouz checked both Maeve and Sinbad over thoroughly, then left them to sit alone below deck while he told his findings to the others.
"Other than the cut on Maeve's side they are both perfectly healthy," the scientist pointed out, "Just...older."
"But why are they older?" Doubar questioned aloud.
Bryn was holding the book and scrap of parchment that had been left on the floor. "I think that man read some of the words out of this book instead of the spell he was supposed to say."
"Let me see that," Firouz requested. Bryn handed him the leather bound tome and his eyes grew wide. "This is Maeve's journal. The little her pulled it out of a cupboard her first day back on board."
Nodding, Bryn added, "And the page it was open to mentions something that happened to Maeve when she was sixteen years old."
"What was that?" Doubar asked.
"It doesn't say," Firouz told him, "But it must be the reason they are the way they are now."
"How are they?" Bryn wanted to know.
Firouz was still distracted by the book, but managed to tear his thoughts away to answer, "Oh...um, they're shaken up, but they seem alright. They even remember everything...well, Maeve still doesn't know who she is, but the remember everything else."
In that moment, the young captain came up on deck with a forced confidence in his steps. He took note at how all of the men on board stared at him, watching how every one of them compared his movements with the captain they all knew. Trying to ignore their gaze, he focused on Doubar, Firouz, Rongar, and Bryn and said, "So...what's our next move?"
"Where's Maeve?" Bryn questioned.
The teen gave a little shrug and nodded at the doorway he had just exited from.
Doubar glanced at Bryn who smiled to tell him she understood. Dermott flew onto her hand and the pair went below deck. Maeve was holding up a piece of glass to inspect her appearance. She was running a hand through her red hair and frowning.
"You wanna talk?" Bryn asked her as she set Dermott on his perch.
At first, Maeve scoffed, "There's nothing to talk about."
Pursing her lips together and sensing all the confusion in the young woman, Bryn took a seat in the large room and pretended to be preoccupied with Dermott.
Maeve, annoyed by the unwanted company, set down the mirror and limped into her cabin, muttering something about how Firouz told her to rest. Bryn waited a second before, with Dermott back on her gloved hand, went to the cabin door to hear Maeve crying gently. The sorceress knocked lightly and was surprised when she heard a sixteen year old voice gave her permission to enter.
Doubar invited Sinbad to sit with him, Rongar, and Firouz as they discussed the next course to chart. "What we need is to find someone who could undue Rumina's spell," Firouz stated.
The young captain's brow creased. "I thought only the person who cast a spell could break it."
"Yes, but in this case Rumina's had her minions performing the spells, excepting the case where she turned you into a child. So, there could be a chance that someone with great power could perform the same spell again in order to make you both the right ages." Firouz seemed rather proud of what little magical knowledge his logic had been able to come up with.
Doubar grumbled, "What we need is Master Dim Dim."
Sinbad shook his finger in the air and his eyes lit up. "Or maybe we don't need another person at all. I bet Bryn could perform the spell if she just had something that would temporarily give her more power." He faced his friends to make sure he had their attention. "I have this memory of this amulet which gave a person complete control over a large amount of magic, but only for a short amount of time. It's in an ice cavern on an island in the north..."
"You remember that?" Doubar nearly choked. Rongar and Firouz looked at the first mate questioningly and he clarified, "When Sinbad was fifteen he was the crew member on a ship that took a voyage to that ice cavern. The captain went power crazed and in the end destroyed himself. The only reason the ship and men made it back home was because of Sinbad. They made him captain after that."
Sinbad couldn't help smiling and being pleased with himself as pride welled up in his chest. Bryn and Maeve came from below deck, the teenaged girl obviously feeling better about her new situation after having a talk with the female crewmember. Dermott was comfortably perched on Maeve's hand.
She stood outside of the group of men and commented, "I don't like that smirk on his face."
"I think I know how to fix us!" he told smugly.
The young woman shot him a sharp look and responded with, "I didn't know we were broken." With that she walked over to the stern of the ship with Dermott chirping away.
Sinbad's smirk faded. With a roll of his eyes he asked the others, "Is she always going to be like this?"
The rest of the crew all glanced at each other until with laughing eyes, all responded with their own 'yes'.
Doubar continued to chuckle as he rose up from the group and announced, "I'll go chart the course. You want to give me a hand, little brother?"
The sixteen year old Sinbad still had his eyes on Maeve who was sharing a quiet moment with the hawk. No one would have guess that only a few moments earlier she had been weeping for reasons even she was unsure of. Sinbad couldn't explain the sudden feeling of embarrassment that swept over him, since he had no recollection of feeling like that around any of the other girls in his past, but he decided that the past was too full of holes to trust. So, he shook off his thoughts and followed Doubar.
Firouz exhaled loudly. Rongar gave him a questioning expression to which the scientist replied, "I was just thinking that we are in trouble. At least with them as children we could discipline them. There's no telling what will happen with them this age."
It was Bryn's turn to smirk. "Come on now Firouz, teenagers aren't so bad. You just need to know how to relate to them."
"Ha! I didn't know how to relate to them when I was one," the man pointed out, "And Rongar's teen years weren't exactly average. And you don't even remember your..." Bryn's eyes fell. "I am sorry..." he started.
"It's alright," Bryn put in, "I think that's why Maeve's confiding in me; she knows I can relate in some ways to what she's going through."
Firouz nodded. "It's so strange. Maeve used to be the one of us who knew how to relate to people who were lonely and lost, now she's that person and we don't know how to help."
Bryn's smile turned sad. "Firouz, for Maeve to relate to those people means she was always lonely and lost."
The man of science's head seemed suddenly heavy as it faced the deck and his shoulders slumped a bit. "Perhaps Sinbad was right...the adult Sinbad...perhaps it would be better for Maeve if we left her like this. She's still not too old to start all over again."
The three crew members now had their attention on Maeve who was seemed happy enough for the time being. She was smiling as she looked out onto the water, daydreaming of a home and family she knew did not exist. Then, they looked at Sinbad. Sixteen years old and he still had that arrogant stance with his hands on his hips. He took charge, but still listened intently to every instruction Doubar gave him. He was in no way uncertain. It was easy to see how he had become a captain at such a young age.
That day Sinbad and Maeve had little time to talk or continue the easy friendship they had developed as children. Maeve began to read the magic books she found in her cabin while Sinbad studied charts and refreshed his memory to all the skills he needed as captain. It was rare for them to have entire conversations, but the talks usually involved a question on something of little importance or updates on the healing wound in Maeve's side followed a couple of insults being flung from both directions. Still, the more rare these conversations became, the more determined Sinbad was to have a chance to talk to Maeve.
The next day, pair were taking a break on deck. Maeve had chosen to sit on the steps leading to the upper deck overlooking the sea. Sinbad watched Maeve as she was quick to brush the hair from her face. "I think it was you," he finally spoke with thoughtfulness and slight embarrassment.
The girl looked up at him with a questioning stare. "You think it was me..."
"Bryn told you I had a broken heart as an adult. I think it was you who broke it," Sinbad stated, then instantly wished he could take back the theory.
He watched as the maiden attempted to hide the red in her cheeks amongst her red tresses. Recovering from the thought, Maeve shook her head a little and told him, "Well, if it was me I'm sorry. I'm sure I didn't mean to turn you into a pirate with a bad attitude."
"I couldn't have been that bad!" Sinbad scoffed.
"Well...you were certainly moody," Maeve put in, "What can you remember? Do you remember your life?"
"Only up to this age," he confessed, "It's the strangest thing cause I can remember yesterday and being a little kid here on the ship, but I can also remember a yesterday where I was in a sea battle...It's like the two memories are fighting against each other in my head." He touched his forehead for a second, tapping his finger against where the headband had been. Then his hand moved shyly to Maeve's head, but he did not touch her. "What about you?"
"Nothing still...although I think..." Maeve forced a smile and shook her head, "Nothing. It's nothing."
Sinbad scooted closer to her with curiosity. "No, really. What is it?"
"It's just a feeling, like something bad happened when I was this age...something that changed my life," Maeve explained, 'I can't remember what it was though."
Dermott flew down at that second, perching on the side of the ship just beside Maeve. She reached out and gently caressed his feathers. "Dermott might know," Sinbad suggested, "Everyone told me that he's been with you since before you came to the Nomad."
"I tried that. He won't tell me anything," Maeve explained, "He says I have to remember on my own, but I think he's just being stubborn." With a sigh, Maeve put her attention back on Sinbad, "Maybe I don't want to know."
He chuckled, "You keep saying that."
Maeve smiled, then fell back into silence, staring off at the sunset. She barely noticed when Dermott, growing bored, flew off to find Bryn.
"A dinar for your thoughts," Sinbad offered as he tried his best not to show how Maeve how the feeling was washing over him again, that sudden feeling that made him nervous and self-conscious.
Her cheeks flushing once again. "Nothing."
"You keep saying that too."
"It's just...why do you think it was me who broke your heart?" She managed to say the words quickly, stuttering and stumbling over them as any embarrassed teenaged girl would.
Sinbad shrugged, "I don't know. I guess the same way you know that something horrible happened to you at this age." He leaned in close to whisper in case Dermott was still close by, "It's just a feeling."
The two teens continued to sit very close with their faces breathing the same patch of air. They moved in a little closer when suddenly a booming voice called out, "Little brother!"
Sinbad, like a thief caught red handed, instantly jumped up and tried his very hardest to act casual. He guiltily avoided Maeve's vision and went to see Doubar. Had he looked at her he would have realized she was looking in the opposite direction. "Yeah," he said back attempting to sound bored.
Doubar was at the tiller. His face was a mixture of amusement and annoyance. "Why don't you stay up here and help me steer the ship."
"Sure thing, big brother," Sinbad replied thinking he had almost gotten away with the lost moment.
Doubar gruffly added, "And don't be getting ideas about Maeve. I remember exactly what you were like at this age and I'll have none of that around the lass."
The teenager rolled his eyes and insisted, "Honestly, I wouldn't dare try anything with Maeve. She'd probably kill me."
"Probably."
"Besides. It isn't like that. Maeve was my friend...right."
"Right."
"Nothing more. Right?"
"Right."
"I'd be broken hearted if any of my friends disappeared like she did."
"Of course you would."
"Doubar, stop laughing."