- CHAPTER SIX -
We Are Not Shining Stars

She swore and said we are not, we are not shining stars
This I know, I never said we are
Though I've never been through hell like that
I've closed enough windows to know you can never go back

-fun.

Two weeks ago

"I spy with my little eye something beginning with S."

"Sky. Gilan, your turn."

"I spy with my little eye something beginning with… S."

"Sea. Evanlyn?"

"I spy with my little eye something beginning with—"

"If it starts with S," Will interrupted, "I might hit you." Evanlyn frowned.

"There goes that idea."

Will sighed. "There has to be something here that starts with another letter," he grumbled, and Gilan shrugged.

"Well, we're at sea on a ship that has sails, and we can see the sky and the sun and—"

Will held up his hands, effectively stopping the flow of various s-words. "All right," he conceded. "Lots of things start with S."

"Maybe we should do something else," Evanlyn suggested, and the two Rangers nodded emphatically.

"Let's do that," Gilan agreed. "After all, there's only so many things to see on a wolfship like this."

After the Araluen coast had dwindled to a hazy faraway line on the horizon, the three Araluens had sat for a while, almost numb. There had been sorrow and anxiety and a great many looks of trepidation toward their captors. But after some time, it had become apparent that the Skandians were largely uninterested in their Araluen captives. After all, Will had reasoned, it wasn't as if they could run off.

It wasn't long after that before they'd been struck by just how boring being at sea could get. Like Gilan said, there was only so much to look at. Wolfships weren't that interesting.

The three captives lapsed into silence.

Will, Gilan noticed with interest, was dealing with the issue of boredom much better than he and Evanlyn. It was unlike the boy as Gilan knew him—and very unlike the stories Halt had told, of an energetic young boy who could hardly sit still. While Gilan knew there was nothing to be done about their current situation presently, he couldn't help thinking ahead, worrying his lip and seeking solutions to a number of imagined future scenarios. And Evanlyn seemed uninterested as though she'd been to sea before and knew what to expect. The silence wore away at them.

But Will was transfixed by the ocean. Every time Gilan looked over at him his gaze was somewhere over the horizon, mapping its far curve or fixated on the glittering waves in the distance. That was well, Gilan thought. Most orphan boys would never travel outside their own fief, much less see the ocean. Will's innate curiosity had at last met its match—an ever-changing sight that could never be well described or portrayed, one that had to simply be taken in. A mystery that could never be puzzled out. Will seemed at all times like he was trying to take in the massiveness of it all.

"Do you regret it?" Evanlyn asked suddenly, and Gilan somehow knew she was talking to both of them. "The bridge?"

For a long moment, no one spoke.

Will smiled, the edges of his face soft with resignation. "Did we have a choice?" he asked. Evanlyn nodded.

"Everybody always has a choice."

Gilan nodded. "Then we made the right one."

"We did what we had to do," Will said with a shrug. "But it's done, anyhow."

One had to admire his commitment not to talk about his feelings. Still, Gilan knew him well enough to see the wistfulness behind his eyes. He remembered, not for the first time, that Will wasn't yet sixteen.

"We might not regret the decisions we made," Gilan said quietly, "but it's only human to wish things ended differently."

Will looked down. Evanlyn turned aside. For a moment, they sat in silence.

Will was the one to break it, turning his head to look at Evanlyn. "Twenty questions?"

"Ah—" Evanlyn stammered. "I'm no good at that one."

Twenty questions was not a skill game, of course. Will gave Evanlyn a strange look before saying, "Suit yourself."

Gilan wondered if Will had also noticed how determinedly Evanlyn avoided saying anything about herself.

Will turned so that he faced Gilan. "Gil," he began, quietly, so that Evanlyn (sitting slightly apart) wouldn't hear. "What are the chances of us staying together?"

In truth, this was the question that had been plaguing Gilan ever since he and Will had stood at the wolfship's railing, watching as they sailed away from the only father the boy had ever known. They were headed to Hallasholm not as prisoners of war but as slaves. (Hallasholm was Gilan's guess, anyway. It was the Skandian capitol, and therefore probably where most of the slave trade interactions in the country took place.) Would they stay together? Probably not, Gilan knew. Maybe the two of them—maybe. It was a small chance. Evanlyn would definitely be separated from them, most likely early on. After that, the odds of the two Rangers going to different masters, possibly even different towns—

Will took his silence as an answer. He didn't speak again, and neither did Gilan.

"Can anybody think of any other games?"

Evanlyn shrugged at Will's question. "Hide and seek?"

Gilan gave her a long, beleaguered look that reminded Will very much of Halt. He spoke with the worn air of a man fifteen years his senior. "With us? You would lose."

"Carry On" is by fun., from their album Some Nights. Going to be switching up the chapter order and adding a few extra ones after this, so hang tight if things seem messy.

On Will's age: I never know how to date him. Book 1 has the Choosing taking place around age 15. I'm guessing maybe that's in the summer, since the Harvest Festival must be in the fall? At the beginning of book 2 Gilan notes that Will is still 15, so that must be less than a year into Will's apprenticeship. Which doesn't make much sense. But now, since they're about to encounter the Summer Gales, I'm going to put Will's birthday in late July and say that's when the Choosing happened, which means he'll turn sixteen on Skorghijl. There's no clear chronology, so I just picked one that kind of makes sense and I'll stick with it.