AN: Okay, I have good news and bad news.
The bad news is that I've been so busy this summer that the exhaustion finally caught up with me and I've made myself sick. (Or it could have been food poisoning, but I prefer to say it's exhaustion because it makes me sound like a really hard worker.) This means that the 8000 word chapter I was planning to post by the end of the summer is no longer possible.
The good news is, I just happened to finish editing a good-sized chunk of text before I got sick, and the part I've written has a nice juicy cliffhanger. So instead of making you wait indefinitely for the entire scene, I'm going to post this smaller chapter so that if school completely swamps me (which it most likely will) you'll have something to tide you over until winter break.
So...here it goes.
Isaac leaned over the ship's railing, trying to find his reflection in the sea. The sea was choppy today, though, so the most he could spot was the occasional flash of yellow before a wave collapsed into froth and blocked his vision. A faint shadow with a long neck swam under the ship. It was most likely a turtle dragon. They sometimes grazed on the algae clinging at the bottom of the ship. They could be pretty fierce, especially since they liked to fight with other monsters, but they only attacked if the adepts disturbed their feeding. Isaac ignored the shadow and tried to find the spot where he last saw his reflection. A stiff gust blew past, and Isaac loosened his scarf to get some much-needed air down his neck.
"Isaac!"
He looked up and searched the deck for the voice. The ship's deck was divided into three sections, with the sections on each end elevated by about ten feet. Each side had two sets of stairs leading to the higher levels and a door which led below deck. The back section supported the crow's nest, and its door led to the kitchen and the boys' rooms. The front section sported the helm, and its door led to Kraden's study, the girls' room, and the lower levels. The middle section just had the dining table, barrels of cargo, etc. None of the areas had any sign of people, though, so where-
"Over here, Isaac." Picard poked his head out from the left door. "I just wanted to warn you that the ship's getting pretty close to the coast, so I'm going to bring her into flight fairly soon. Try not to lean too far over the edge when we lift off, all right? We wouldn't want you getting in an accident just before you got home."
Isaac laughed and assured his friend that he'd hold onto the railing. Picard went downstairs, and Isaac turned back to the ocean.
He was starting to have doubts about going back to Vale. It wasn't that he was nervous about being the only leader. He'd led his friends across the world, so taking charge of a mission in his hometown shouldn't be too difficult. The fact that the Vulcan's Greaves might be cursed didn't bother him either. He'd come across a lot of cursed weapons on his journey, so he knew that as long as you didn't use them, they couldn't hurt you. All Isaac had to do was take the greaves to a priest, and then the artifact would be as safe to use as his own sword.
Maybe Felix's story had scared him more than he'd thought? But even if Saturos had been telling the truth, it hardly meant the council of elders would turn away Isaac and Garet. Hearing a story of doom and catastrophe from your centuries-old enemies was one thing, but having your mayor's grandson hand you proof that the world was ending was quite another. Surely the council of elders would be glad to help once they learned the truth. Isaac couldn't imagine them doing otherwise.
Mostly Isaac just felt an odd sense of dread, which was completely stupid on his part. Vale had been his home for seventeen years. The promise of returning there had been all he could think about the first few months of his and Garet's journey. Two weeks in he'd gotten so homesick that he made himself physically ill, and he cost their journey half a day just throwing up in the bushes. If Jenna knew how many times he'd nearly given up and run back...
Maybe dread wasn't the right word. The feeling was more a combination of guilt and anticipation. Going home before he finished his quest felt wrong somehow, like skipping to the end of a book or biting into a piece of pie before it finished cooling. He was afraid that if he went home now, it wouldn't be ready for him. As if by arriving too early, the experience wouldn't be quite as good as if he'd waited. Or worse, his return home would be exactly what he dreamed, but because he cheated to get there, he wouldn't get to keep his prize.
He'd tried once before, to return home before he'd earned the right. After the send-off ceremony, he and Garet had been walking through their neighbors' fields to the village limits. Isaac hadn't been able to stop wondering why his mother hadn't come to the ceremony, and Garet had noticed his somber mood. He'd told Isaac that leaving Vale in such a gloomy mood wasn't a proper way to start their adventure, and offered to wait by Farmer Dercha's cabbage field while Isaac said goodbye to his mother.
Isaac had felt more than a bit silly, jogging up the hill to his house less than twenty minutes after the town had gathered to see him off. Most of the townspeople were still standing in the square, listening to one last speech from the mayor. Isaac took the back roads through the woods though, just in case anyone had snuck off early. He didn't want anyone to see him and think he'd lost his nerve already.
He remembered walking down the footpath, soaking in every detail he could so that the memory of his house would stay sharp. Knocking on the door. Calling his mother's name.
He heard his mother shuffle to the door. Her voice was barely loud enough to hear through the wood. "Who is it?"
Isaac stepped closer to the door and into the strip of shade cast by the cottage. "I-it's me," he croaked, the words barely making it past his throat. His mother was silent, and Isaac cursed his weak voice. He swallowed and tried again. "It's me, Isaac. You…you didn't come to see us off, so I thought I'd come to you."
He stared ahead, trying to find the spot where his mother's eyes would be, so that when she opened the door they'd be the first thing he'd see. He waited, and when the door didn't budge he forced himself to shout. "I wanted to say goodbye-"
"You're mistaken," she said. Her voice was only a whisper, but it sounded louder than Isaac's shouting.
He stepped back as if he'd been struck. "What?"
"My son swore to me that he would only return once he'd rescued Jenna and recovered all four Elemental Stars. I know my son, and he wouldn't break his promise so easily."
Isaac gripped the edge of his scarf and gave it a quick tug to draw it tighter. He vaguely remembered making such a promise to his mother in the whirlwind of packing and goodbyes. But he'd thought that it was just her way of telling him not to worry about her, of making sure he committed to the mission. He hadn't realized she'd take it so…so literally. "Mom, I-I wasn't breaking the promise. Garet and I haven't even left yet."
He could practically hear his mother shaking her head. "The town saw off my boy this morning." She paused, and then whispered, "I watched from my window."
So she was watching. Isaac felt himself relax, just a little. "But we haven't really left Vale yet. We've only just made it to the outskirts of the farmlands, so really we haven't started our journey yet."
"Isaac promised."
"Yes, but he- I mean I- it..." Isaac closed his eyes and took a shaky breath. "I just wanted to say goodbye." He tried to get a glimpse inside the house through the window, but the curtains were drawn. "Please?"
"No! You can't! I mean he can't. I mean…I…" Her voice sounded thick and shaky, as if she were trying to hold back a sob. "I can't. I wanted to go down to the ceremony so badly, to just smile and wave the boys off with everyone else. The Jerras were able to do it for Garet. But I…I can't stop crying. I can't get Kyle's face out of my mind." She took a ragged breath. "I saw it just before the boulder hit. It wasn't scared or shocked or anything, just blank. Accepting. And then he was gone, and I felt like my heart stopped beating. And now, now-"
She started gasping in between words. "My baby boy is leaving. With that same look on his face. And I can't watch it again. I can't. I can't watch…my baby boy…" She sobbed. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Your son understands," said Isaac. Or maybe he apologized. Or maybe he'd stumbled across the yard and left her crying next to the door. He didn't remember.
The ship shuddered. Isaac felt the hum of psynergy through the railing and looked down. The water was slowly receding down the hull. The heavy feeling in his stomach told him that he was rising, but his eyes told him that the world was sinking and that he was standing perfectly still. Nevertheless, he remembered his promise to Picard and held the side of the ship.
"Hey Isaac!"
Isaac gasped and whipped his head around. Jenna was thirty feet away, hanging off the ladder to the crow's nest. "You all right?" she called.
Isaac nodded his head. "You just surprised me, that's all. I thought everyone else was below deck."
Jenna climbed down the rest of the ladder. "Oh, heheh. Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I was just enjoying the view with Ivan, and I looked down and saw you with this weird look on your face. So I wanted to check and see if everything was, you know-" She stepped off the ladder and turned around to face him. "-okay."
He paused, and then flashed a smile up at her and nodded. She was still looking at him expectantly, though, so he added, "Everything's fine. Thanks."
Her eyebrows creased. For a second she looked like she was going to call him out for lying, but then her eyes softened and she grabbed the ladder with one hand. "If you're sure…"
Isaac nodded, perhaps a little too quickly. He felt a little guilty, shutting her out like this. Back in Vale, Jenna had been the person he usually went to when he was depressed or scared. Garet, while a great friend, just couldn't understand what it was like to lose a loved one. Jenna, on the other hand, was practically an expert on the subject, so Isaac often went to her for comfort, even though she'd lost three family members while he'd only lost one.
But they weren't in Vale anymore, and Isaac was a lot less selfish now. Complaining wouldn't change anything, and besides, what could Jenna possibly say? That it wasn't his fault that he misunderstood his promise? That his mother was selfish for not wanting to relive her husband's death? It wasn't Jenna's responsibility to come up with excuses for his behavior. She had enough things to worry about besides Isaac's relationship with his mother. Besides, if Isaac was going to be leader again, it was about time he started solving some of his own problems.
Jenna stared up at the crow's nest. "All right, if you don't need me then I guess I'll just, um, head back up and-"
Suddenly an ear-piercing shriek flooded the air. It sounded almost human, like seven or eight children screeching in a different pitch. Isaac and Jenna slapped their hands over their ears, and then the deck tilted. Isaac's feet slipped out from under him and he grabbed the railing just in time to keep from tumbling across the deck.
Isaac heard the crinkling sound of splintering wood as something tried to slam its way up the ship. The slope of the deck became slightly steeper with each thud, and some of the cargo boxes on the deck started to edge towards the water. With one hand still on the railing, Isaac unsheathed his sword and waited for whatever this thing was to reach the deck.
Sheba had been playing cards in the kitchen with Garet and Mia when the screaming started. Or howling, or screeching, or whatever that horrible noise was. Then the floor shifted underneath them, sending Garet tumbling into Mia and throwing Sheba backwards in her chair. The back of her seat hit the floor with a smack, and white spots danced into her vision.
She blinked a few times until she could see clearly, then pushed herself upright. The other two had already run out into the hall and were halfway up the stairs, so she stumbled after them, trying not to slide into the wall as she ran. She managed to overtake them, rushing out into the daylight.
The ship shuddered and tilted a bit more to the right. Sheba shifted her weight to keep from sliding, and out of the corner of her eye she saw a stack of barrels collapse. Before she could shout, eight of them crashed into the door behind her in an explosion of wood chips, powder and herbs. She turned around and swatted at the cloud of dust and leaves with her arms a few times before she thought to make a gust to blow it away. Once the debris was clear, she saw the top halves of Mia and Garet's heads peeking up from behind the debris.
She rushed up to the heap of wood and shouted, "Are you two all right?"
"We're fine, what about you?" Garet yelled back over the howling.
"I'm okay. Can you get through the door?"
The pile shuddered as Garet leaned his weight against it. A few wood chips tumbled off, but besides that the obstacle stayed in place. "Damn it, it's too heavy. Mia, Sheba, stand back. I'm going to try burning it away."
"Don't you dare!" Mia shouted. "Do you know what was in those barrels?"
Garet paused. "No, what?"
"I don't know, but what if Picard stowed our bombs in there? Do you really want to risk blowing up the ship just so we can get through the door?"
"But then how are we going to get on deck?"
"We'll have to go downstairs and come up on the other side. Sheba, is the other door clear?" Mia called.
She turned around quickly to check. She told them it was.
"And are you going to be all right by yourself until then?"
Sheba rolled her eyes, even though Mia probably couldn't see them over the debris. "I'll be fine. There aren't even any monsters out here yet."
"Then what the hell's capsizing the ship?" Garet shouted.
"I don't know. Let me go check."
"Wait, Sheba!" Mia cried. "It's not safe to go alone. Wait until Garet and I can-"
Sheba didn't hear the rest of Mia's warning, as she was already making her way to the right side of the ship. The shadow cast from the crow's nest made it hard to see where the deck was wet, but by carefully controlling her slide Sheba managed to make it to the bottom without slipping. When she got to the ship's railing, she gripped the side and leaned over as far as she dared.
Three quarters up the side of the ship, a rust-colored turtle dragon clung to the wood with its flippers. It screeched at the sky, baring its long algae-stained fangs, and then headbutted the side of the ship. As it drew its head out, it shook the splintered planks out of its hide with a shiver. Then it reached up and shoved one of its front flippers in the new hole, its back flippers barely trailing in the water. With a squeal the turtle dragon hauled itself further up the ship's hull, and the deck tilted again under its weight. Sheba spotted a ladder of similar holes in the ship and knew that if the it hadn't been floating above the ocean right then, it would have been half-sunk from the damage.
The turtle dragon stopped screeching as it stretched its neck, trying to bite the railing of the ship so it could haul itself onto the deck. Sheba started to prepare a lightning strike to try and shock the monster into letting go of the ship when she heard Isaac's voice.
"-eba! Sheba, up here!"
She turned around and saw Isaac hanging from the railing on the other side of the deck, waving his sword to catch her attention. Sheba felt her stomach drop. "Isaac! What are you doing up there? When the turtle dragon climbs up you're going to be right in the line of attack!"
"Turtle dragon?" He looked at his sword and frowned. "Can you tell me where it'll pop up? Maybe I can-"
Sheba heard Jenna's voice call from the other side of the crow's nest, "You're not that lucky, Isaac. Try to shuffle over here and we'll attack it from the side."
"Do I have time?" Isaac called to Sheba. The turtle dragon started screeching again, but it had been screaming for so long that its voice was starting to crack, so Sheba could still make out most of the words Isaac and Jenna were saying.
"I can make some," she shouted back. She turned to the crow's nest. Now that Sheba knew where Jenna was, it was easy for her to pick out her friend's silhouette behind the pole. "Jenna, is anyone else up here?"
"Yeah, Ivan's up - crow's nest."
Isaac looked up. "No, he-" The rest of his words cut out in the screeching.
"What?" Jenna shouted.
"He's not up there," Isaac yelled louder. "I don't see him."
Before Sheba could think about the implications of this news, she heard a clatter of footsteps coming up the opposite stairwell. She turned just in time to see four people pile into the doorway.
"Sheba?" Garet shouted. "Hey Sheba, we're here! And we found Felix and Picard!"
"Are the others up here with you?" Mia called. "Are they all right?"
Jenna waved her hand so the others could tell where she was. "We're fine, but Ivan-"
"I SAID I'M UP HERE!"
Sheba looked up. Ivan was dangling by his cloak three feet below the crow's nest like a criminal on a noose. His cloak was snagged on one of the knobs in the railing, and Ivan's weight had torn it into a zigzag of barely connected tatters. Most likely the force of the turtle dragon's first attempt to climb the top of the ship had thrown Ivan over the edge. He was lucky his cloak was such a sturdy material, otherwise he'd probably be freezing in the ocean right about now.
"Oh gods. Ivan, are you okay?" Picard yelled.
Ivan grabbed the cloak around his neck and pulled so that he could have the air to shout back, "I'm fine. As long as I don't move, the cloak shouldn't rip any more. Honestly, you should be more worried about yourselves." He pointed to the front of the ship. "You're about to get some company."
As if on cue, a handful of white crab-like creatures scrambled over the railing onto the portion of the deck above Felix and the others. They started shuffling around the helm towards the adepts, and others quickly popped up in their place. Garet peeked around the corner of the stairway and then leaned back against the wall. "Pincers? Seriously? Don't we have enough unwanted guests right now?"
Sheba wished she could say she was surprised. Pincers were scavengers, so they often attacked ships during monster fights with the hopes of snabbing some prey while the larger, tougher beasts provided the distraction. They were just like crabs, really, except they were knee-high, dusty white, and had a knack for popping a person's kneecaps with their over-sized claws. Assuming you didn't let them get too close to your legs, they weren't that tough individually; a few hits and they were dead. The problem was, they tended to fight in swarms, so if the colony was big enough, their threat level could change from nuisance to catastrophe pretty quickly.
She started climbing back up the deck, grabbing a loose rope or fallen debris whenever she felt like she was going to slip. When she reached the far set of stairs, she was about to climb up to help Jenna rescue Ivan when she heard Isaac shout. She looked over at a line of pincers scuttling down the railing, lining up for the chance to attack him. The front most pincer took a few tentative steps, then scurried back as Isaac swung his weight forward and slashed at it with his sword. Isaac fell back and then swung forward again in time to knock the pincer off the ship.
The ship shuddered and tilted. "Sheba!" She looked up to see Jenna already halfway up the crow's nest. "I'll take care of Ivan. Go help Isaac."
"Got it!" She climbed an extra few feet, then started making her way across the deck, holding the railing for support. The deck was now steep enough that her feet only supported about half her weight, the rest being held up by her arms. When she got within range, she cast a few small lightning bolts that easily knocked the monsters overboard.
Isaac turned around with a confused look on his face, but when he saw where the lightning had come from he grinned. "Thanks, I owe you one."
She winked. "I'll add it to your tab. So which side should we head to, Felix's or Jenna's?"
"Let's go help Jenna. I want to-"
Suddenly the turtle dragon let out a screech, and the deck dropped completely out from Sheba's feet. The turtle dragon was finally on deck, its front flippers draped over the side of the ship and its neck arching for an attack. There was no time to dodge, so Sheba gasped up as much air as she could and turned away.
A wall of water slammed her body into railing of the ship, crushing the air out of her lungs. The water went on and on, and all she knew was rushing and pressure and freezing pain. She couldn't see anything except streaks of blue speeding past her, but she was vaguely aware that she was still on the deck, if only because the railing was cutting into her ribs. She was going to drown on the deck of her own ship, assuming she wasn't crushed first.
Then the attack stopped, and Sheba felt her body lurch back and the railing slip out of her wet hands. Through the water in her eyes she saw a blurry Isaac reach his hand out to grab her. She reached out for his hand and missed, and as the world around her tilted she realized she was falling, probably to her death.
Then everything went black.
Author's notes:
About the ship. While writing this, I realized that I got the layout of the ship wrong. The ship in this story is constructed more like Eoleo's ship than Picard's. I tried to change it to look as much like Picard's ship as possible, but because of the mechanics of the fight, certain differences had to stay. The differences aren't much: The crow's nest is a pole rather than a tower, the ship has two doors rather than one, etc.
I'm way too tired to go on another one of my usual rants, so I'll just say thanks to DropofInk for editing this chapter and to everyone who reviewed.