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This one's a little bit shorter.

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I've slept twice since my last entry. I don't know for how long, and the skies above always look the same anyway so I can't tell the time. So what do I call this? My third waking? I feel like I need something to measure by.

Third Waking.

Yesterday--no, last waking we buried Haley.

Outside the ship is just mud. It's a mountain of mud. The keel is facing downhill. The ship is on its starboard side, and the port is to the skies. We spent all yesterday--this is going to take some getting used to--we spent all of last waking salvaging everything we could, and prying out some planks from parts of the ship we could spare them from, to make a sort of platform outside, uphill from the ship. The ground is too muddy to walk on.

Is this an island below the clouds? Is it even an island? It seems to go forever in all directions. But then it's too dark to really tell. Is it a new continent? I'm trying to think. Where were we? We were many leagues west-southwest of Isla de Faro. I've heard that in Valua the skies are always dark. But Valua is so far to the north, there's no way we could have drifted that far. And Nasr is just as far away.

We can't have drifted very far, laterally. This has to still be the middle of Mid-Ocean. Only small islands out here. So where are we?

We're below the clouds, that's where.

I'm distracting myself. I wanted to write about Haley.

We had to build a platform, and then we laid a long line of planks a little way out, in the direction the prow is facing. It's strange. When you bury your dead, why do you do it at a distance? This ground is so horrible. It would have been easier to bury him closer, now that I think about it. But imagining so close a grave makes me...uneasy, somehow. Strange.

At the end of the plank-line, we used some of the railing posts (they had a good shape for it) to dig as much of a depression in the ground as we could. It was shallow, but it served. And I guess digging in mud is easier than digging in hard dirt. We laid Haley in the ground and Greys said a few words. What a great sailor he had been. How much he'd be missed. Those things upper crewmen are supposed to say. There really aren't any words that are sufficient though. The only words that would come close to being sufficient would be...a journal's worth.

Moons I miss my journal.

But at least I have this.

Now, there was something that I've been hesitant to put down, because Haley told me never to tell anybody about it. I try to make it a habit not to write things that are none of my business, if I can help it. But I guess it just became my business. The thing that Haley told me to "give to her" has to go to Shanda. It's a ring. It took me forever to find it in our quarters. At least it was still in its little box.

But I can't do it right now. Shanda won't talk to anybody but Dhalan at the moment. Early this waking when I came out I saw them both already up, outside and sitting near the tip of the prow, with their legs hanging over the deck. I don't know if either of them had slept. I'll get it to her eventually.

Meanwhile, we've been trying to see what we can do about the engine. The only one who knows anything about ship engines is Greys. He and Dhalan and I have been dismantling it, and bringing the bigger parts out here to the platform. That's where I am now. This...big bendy-looking piece was the last one Greys said he needed out of the way, so I dragged it out and...got distracted.

That's the downside to keeping a journal, if it can be called a downside; it's that the log-lust can take you at any time, no matter what you're doing. But fortunately, they haven't called for me back yet. Even so, I guess I should see if they still need my help...

Okay, they don't. All they needed was another piece taken out of the way. Besides, there's barely enough room in there for just the two of them. Our ship is big, but not that big. It is called the Zephyrus, after all. I've written that before.

On the way back out here, I checked on Porter. He's been a little distant ever since we crashed. I've written before about how talkative he is, or was. But now he's so quiet. And he doesn't come out of the galley very often. Greys says it's best to keep a positive mindset, and Porter almost seems to be doing all right. Almost. But, I don't know if he's really handling it very well.

Shivers, are any of us handling it very well? Shanda's still in shock about Haley (and still there on the prow), Dhalan is tied up just getting his sister to remember to eat, Porter stops talking and Greys... Greys... Greys seems... the same, almost. His face is a little harder. With Captain Peralta dead, everything falls to him now. Could I ever do that? Hold myself together when everything else falls apart? I wonder what's in his head. Does he wish he could just break down and cry? People look to their leaders for comfort and surety. Who do the leaders look to?

But anyway, Porter says he's fine. And he still makes the meals. From a sideways galley. That's one good thing: the main hold of the ship is positively laden with sardis. This is a fishing vessel. So at least we'll have food for a good while. But still, the way Porter looked at me when I went in there... I don't know.

I'm looking at the mountain we're grounded on. The peak of it goes up into the clouds, from what I can tell. It's still very hazy and hard to make out. We're thinking of scouting up the slope, to see if it leads anywhere, or if we can get a little higher and maybe catch someone's attention. It's something to hope for, but with all this mud, I don't know how we could do it, or how long it would take...

Greys said think positive. Positive...positive... We have plenty of food and water, none of the five of us are injured. ...I know. My splinters are gone. That's positive.