Mako felt unpleasant. Every joint felt sore, and his back ached. As he shifted his body, he soon realized where exactly he was. The rope was on top of him, collapsed in some heap on a staircase. Hauling himself up, he made his way to the top deck.
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(You know I got you)
The island, while not as large as emberhold, was still large enough that from Ari’s perspective she couldn’t quite see where the beach curved to form the other side of the island. Towards inland, the beach continued perhaps 10 metres and gradually became rockier, ending in a thick woods. The woods seemed to take up the entire core of the Island. Although here and there stone ruins popped out of the tree line, far too uniform and neat to be a natural formation.
Tharos shook out his boots nearby. “Caelin reporting, unfortunately I have some bad news. One of our human crew went overboard.”
Mariner woke with a splitting headache. Literally, as he checked himself over, his hands caught on a 3 inch crack running just above his left eye. Immediately his concern was replaced by the fact that he was alone, Dolphus was nowhere to be seen. He ignored his head, and rushed to the deck.
“Is anyone hurt” he rasped out. Unfortunately few on the crew could understand him, as he’d subconsciously slipped into speaking in his native tongue. Even those who spoke the language would have a hard time following his archaic dialect.
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Huh? What? Why am I on the floor? This makes no sense… wait… something hit the ship… I think…
Karl’s eyes began opening, allowing him to see the now tilted hallway through a bleary, smeared filter of half-closed eyelids. Someone was shouting, and he thought they were coming closer. What had just happened, and why he was slumped against the floorboards of the main hallway would have to wait.
He tried to sit up, and immediately felt a wave of dizziness and pain throughout his head.
“Urrgh… ouch! How…?”
Karl realized that his question was answered by the open door across the hall.
“I see… I fell over when that shock hit the ship,” he said to himself.
After a few seconds, he climbed to his feet, head ringing, but at least he was now standing.
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“I do believe i am alive. If you can call feeling like you just swallowed a bucket of chum the same as being alive, that is.” He clambered out onto the deck, sliding back on his now dry mask. His mouth was full of grit, clawing at the roof of his mouth. To call this an unkind awakening would be more than true.
He turned to face Alexis, and his eyes widened.
“Uhhh…you seem to have a…” Mako pointed to the side of her forehead.
Mako’s attention was quickly drawn by the somewhat pained rasping down into the ship. Without another word, he sped down into the ship to the source.
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“Which one?” Alexis called back, her voice weary, the events of last night had really taken a lot out of her and the splitting headache wasn’t helping.
“Observant, are we?” She cracked a quick joke before wincing in pain again. “are you in well enough condition to start gathering some wood we’re gonna need it.”
“Nevermind.” Alexis mumbled before turning to scan their surroundings to see if she spot any points of interest. “Is that a boat?” She said as she moved close to the railing, making sure to avoid any debris that had suddenly made their new home upon the deck.
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“The umm. The young fellow… The storesman. I tried to save him, but he was gone.” Tharos got extremely quiet. Staring at his boots dejectedly, he sniffled once or twice. Then hurriedly tried to pass it off being cold and wet. He idly raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
Suddenly all the crew on land were bathed in the warmth and light of a merry bonfire. Tharos huddled close to it, but it didn’t warm him inside.
Mariner still paced the deck. He was desperate to get down amongst the crew and take charge, but the dangers of dry land reigned even over his worry. Instead, he began to issue screeching, and clicking noises. The effect on the human ear was jarring, but in Ancient Halinth, they were positive and upbeat words of compassion for his crew.
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Ari did not have any time to waste. Her mind mostly cleared and she needed to act fast if she didn’t want to be spotted. She bolted towards the small unconscious figure of Dolphus laying before her, grabbing him and placing him under her arm as she ran, made a sharp turn, and moved towards the closest point of the forest with all the speed she could muster at the moment, hoping that the people on the ship were too preoccupied with assessing the damage to catch sight of her. Without looking back she ran between the trees until the beach completely disappeared from her sight and the sound of the waves couldn’t be heard anymore.
Did they see her?
Even if they did, it would take them time find her here, so she decided to stop and take a proper look at her new involuntary companion. She leaned him against the nearest tree and stared at him for a few seconds, dumbfounded by the unusual sight before her eyes. To her utter surprise, it was a kid with black hair and a frail build, wearing an Armadan military cape, way too young to be a soldier and utterly unconscious. What kind of warship would have a child aboard? Is he some kind of an important figure they were transporting? Did she have a chance of using him as a hostage to get off this island? The last thought disgusted her, but it looked like she had no other choice.
Ari had too many questions without an answer, so the only option she had was to stand amidst the trees and wait until the kid wakes up and starts talking
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After following the sound back onto the deck, Mako was greeted with one of the worst sounds he has ever heard. Gritting his teeth, he asked Mariner a question.
“Sir, are you alright?”
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Dolphus’ mind stirred, as the extremely ungraceful movement of a full sprint was definitely not the most soothing. But as his eyelids began to crack open, he convinced himself that it was Mariner moving him about, presumably to safety, after whatever had happened. His eyes shut again and he dozed off once more.
…for about five seconds, because the water draining out of his ear made a horrible clearing noise, and suddenly one side of his head could hear excellently as branches snapped and brush was torn. He pressed his lids together, trying to stay as sleepy as before, but he was slowly being brought towards consciousness, and the inevitable responsibility of having to deal with the rest of the world.
He felt himself be seated against what was probably a barrel, extremely rough and a bit rounded, but the ground was surprisingly moist and soft for a ship. Which was extremely concerning, because none of the scenarios he could invent to explain such an environment were exactly cozy, and they kept getting worse the more possibilities he tried to conceive. And to top it all off, there was that nagging feeling, one he had only felt a few times before, that something important was happening right in front of him.
His other ear finally clearing was the last straw, however, and with an internal sigh the drowsy Dolphus relented and slowly woke up, rubbing his hand across his eye as he looked up at Mariner.
Panic mode. There was a very tall woman standing in front of him, with about seven tons worth of hair, a tan even greater than Rook’s, and enough scars to match the moon. Dolphus immediately shot halfway upwards, using the tree as support, but just as quickly smashed his head against the stub of a former branch and shot straight back down to the ground, trying to keep his eyelids from squeezing together in frustrated pain.
Part of him was annoyed, that pesky teenager part. The other two parts were awe and fear, and they easily carried the day, parting his mouth as he looked up at his… captor? he wasn’t sure just yet, with equal parts wonder and worry swirling in his tired eyes.
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“Fine” Mariner said with a series of clicks. “How’s the crew.” It didn’t quite click in his brain why Mako’s words sounded so strange, only that they did. “I’ll need a casualty report” he spoke briskly. Trying to count the human crew, both on the shore, and on the ship. Dolphus was not among them.
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Ari didn’t immediately notice that the kid woke up, her vision was still a bit blurry and, gosh that headache was unbearable. However, him springing upwards and immediately crashing his head into the tree with an audible thud made her aware that he, in fact, finally came to his senses.
“Slept well?” She asked, leaning towards him with a slight grin.
She moved closer and had to crouch down significantly to be about on the same eye level with the boy. She placed her hand on his left shoulder and squeezed it. “Is there anywhere you hurry to? Your friends on the ship are a bit busy now, so you aren’t in any rush. You are too hurt from the crash, you won’t be able to run, so have a little rest while you can.”
Only now she realised how cold and tired she was. Her clothes were fully soaked in seawater and the cold morning breeze definitely didn’t help. If only she could take a nap next to a campfire right now…
“Now, there are some things I want you to tell me”, she stared intensely into the kid’s panicked eyes, “What kind of ship were you on? Where was it going? What was the purpose of the voyage? How many Armada soldiers are there? Why would they sail with someone like you… who in the world are you?!”
She looked around worriedly. Did she just hear footsteps?
No, it’s just the wind. But it won’t be too long until they notice that the boy is missing and start looking for him, so she needs to act quickly.
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Oh, so that’s what’s happening.
Dolphus’ irritation started taking a bit more control back.
Dolphus winced at the pressure, his shoulder squirming and trying to escape from her admittedly powerful grip. His eyes traveled to the mid point between her face and her hand, trying to recall something that had happened. How had he blacked out? What was going on? How did he end up on… an island?
And alone, too… I wonder if we’ve perhaps run aground-
Hold on. Dolphus’ eyes traveled back to Ari’s face as some of her words started returning to his mind. “What crash? What are y-”
“Stop, I can’t…” Dophus tried to wave her away, but his hand got too distracted from the pain of his throbbing skull. He could probably take her on, but not like this. She seemed perfectly desperate, or at the minimum concerned, so perhaps he could stall.
Or she could break my shoulder if I try that. He sighed. Okay, let’s try a drip-feed. Least useful info first, not enough to go off of for the rest, then Mariner gets over here and decapitates her stupid head.
I have to stop doing that. She could be a mind reader. Of course if she is I’m already in trouble.
“Dolphus, G-Greylark.” He forced out, hoping it covered up how he almost went for his real name right off the bat. Goodness, I must be pretty bad off. “Cartographer for the Caelin’s Hand. There aren’t any soldiers, there’s a… there’s ghost sailors, I don’t… think that counts…”
He rubbed his palm into his eyebrow, his head rocking back and forth ever so slightly. “Expeditionary force, we uh… hadn’t chosen a… heading… the other fleet…” His eyes narrowed, eventually traveling up to Ari’s, slowly recalling events, the sensation of waking up to Mako’s snapping , the sound of Mariner’s song. “The… I remember that, that there was a…”
“…A squid.” Dolphus’ fingers pressed through his hair, his face growing haggard as his eyes drifted off once more. “It was massive. It ran into the ship, threw… Mako overboard, and it had me… It was digging into my leg, it wanted to tear me apart… Lifted me so high that I… I…”
“B-but I cut it,” Dolphus gestured to his sword, looking at Ari once more, emotion bubbling outwards at the opportunity to talk to someone who wasn’t a part of the crew, who earnestly wanted to hear what he had to say. “I c-cut it and I fell, and I fell, and it was there, and I looked down, and it swallowed me, and I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t. There was so much pressure. It was s-so much pressure.”
His fingers gripped through his hair into his scalp once more as tears slowly ran down his cheeks. Ari’s face was lost in the colors of the trees. “It burns… I think of it and it burns… I can’t- I can’t do this, she’s counting on me; I can’t fail like this, not after so long.” His eyes turned back towards Ari’s, locking with them as all pretense of acting melted away under his emotional turmoil. “B-But I can’t just- keep going, it doesn’t end, it- I can’t.” He swallowed, his emotions slowly working themselves back together again. “But I need her, I have to… to…”
He smeared his sleeve across his nose, sniffed a couple of times, and looked away from Ari’s eyes, clearly reading the awkward tension he had just created as his emotions stabilized, his hysterical outburst leaving regret at losing control so easily. “I prob-… don’t see much point in… telling you all that.”
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"The crew… " He hesitated. “Sir, I only understand a hair of the halinth language. Pardon me for my misinterpretation. The crew would seem to be fine. I am not entirely sure where the nearest port is, as i am not the cartograph-”
Wait a hot minute.
Mako looked at the crew. I should have known. He’s missing. But where could he have gone?
Mako scanned the landscape, before noticing something, and calling out to Alexis. “Captain! Do you see that wreck over there?”
He points over to the damaged ship at the horizon. @N01InParticular
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Ari listened to the boy’s ramblings, the look of concern and confusion on her face becoming more and more obvious with each sentence.
Caelin’s Hand… The kid is a cartographer… Ghost sailors… Giant squid…
All those things sounded so fantastical and absurd, as if they came from the stories her mother used to tell her as a kid. How could he expect her to believe these obvious lies… why would he make up such absurd stories… is he mocking her? Even in his situation? But why does it feel so strange?
Ari has always been good at reading people. It’s a talent she has had since childhood and it helped her out in many situations, but this time she didn’t even need it to tell that the kid somehow wasn’t lying… or at least, he wholeheartedly believed everything he was saying. He was speaking from his heart, and there’s absolutely no way to fake those emotions… he was clearly not telling her everything, yet he was telling the truth, she could feel it.
But could she trust her own feelings in this situation? Haven’t they failed her in the past?
The stupid kid started crying.
This, she was not prepared for at all. Not knowing how to react, she was left staring at her companion as tears rolled down his face. She knew that feeling of hopelessness all too well… that feeling she tried to get rid of all those years ago
The kid couldn’t be lying, that she knew for sure.
Ari let go of Dolphus’s shoulder and stood up, looking around.
“Dolpus, right? My name is Ari. I got stranded on this island with you.” She extended her right arm, expecting a handshake. “Either you are the best liar I have ever met, or somehow everything that you just told me is true. I’m leaning towards the latter.”
Ari tried to hide the sound of relief in her voice. If this isn’t a warship filled to the brim with soldiers, she might be able to reason with these people, but she still can’t let her guard down.
“So you’re telling me that you are not a part of an Armadan warship crew? Then what is that cape for?” She gestured at the piece of blue fabric covering the boy’s left arm.
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Dolphus looked towards her hand, then up at her face, somewhat bewildered by the offer, but eventually pushing himself to weakly accept the offered shake. I, uh… Hmm. I supoose I can’t take any of that back at this point, now can I?
Well, now I have this relationship to deal with, on top of everything else…
He opened his mouth to say that the crew would be able to verify everything, but he decided against it. Better to choose my words carefully with this one.
Dolphus’ expression of relative calm lapsed into confusion, and then, slowly, into ever-so-slight annoyance. He glanced at the cape, then back at Ari, and gestured with his hand to the obvious lack of a left arm. Maybe I’m overestimating her a little.
“It tends to be a bit more sightly than what remains.” He swallowed, his sinuses not fully over his episode.
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In the lapse in the conversation, Dolphus could just hear twigs snapping, a slight rustling of branches, and the subtle sound of skree gently cascading. As if one was trying to disguise their presence coming down a shale slope. Every now and then there was a soft clink of metal on metal.
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Dolphus had hardly finished gulping down the byproducts of profusely crying all over the place before he heard the noise. Years of swordfighting exercises kicked in, and his senses forced all other sensory overload aside. His brow instantly turned cold, the mask for a very brief second settling over his face in full.
It didn’t last. Dolphus decided he had better not risk offending her in some manner, and forcibly pushed through the mask over the course of half a minute, studying the noises whenever his head stopped throbbing for long enough and Ari’s voice didn’t end up as sharp or as present. However, eventually the sounds got too loud and too unsubtle for comfort.
“Someone is here.” He whispered. His head slowly turned towards the sounds, hoping he didn’t seem rude for seemingly ignoring her reply; he would have to amend that later. If there’s one thing I don’t need, it’s to make yet another person hate me.
Which might happen in a few seconds regardless. His hand rested on the handle of his sword, and his throbbing head stilled, the swordmaster’s training finally kicking into full gear.
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Ari kept glancing between Dolphus’s shoulder and face, clearly not understanding what he was implying, until something clicked in her mind.
“Ah. So the giant squid bit off your arm!”, she exclaimed with a face full of confidence.
This was followed by a good minute of awkward silence, during which the kid suddenly started acting strange, his face turning emotionless, as if he became concentrated on something else.
What kind of mind game is this kid trying to play? He’s the only one who knows the rules it seems and that’s irritating.
At this point Ari started picking up on the strange sound coming from behind. She realised that the kid was looking in the direction of its origin, which was confirmed by him saying that they were not alone. How did he notice it quicker than her even in his current condition? He must have some great senses…
Ari spent way too much time thinking today. She went way beyond her usual daily limit and she wasn’t having any of it. All these mind games were getting on her nerves, her head felt heavy and she needed a distraction.
She spun around, facing the direction from which the sound was coming from, took her metal bet off her belt and took her fighting stance, holding the weapon with both hands in front of her torso, all her muscles tense and a scowl on her face.
“Here’s the deal, kid. Your ship is in shambles and won’t go anywhere, so you’re stuck here with me and… whatever that thing is. I am a shipwright, some say a great one, and I can get you and your crew out of here fast so you can continue whatever your idiotic quest is, only if you take me with you and help me get as far away from the Armada as you can. Now, I hope you can stand up and use that toothpick you have strapped to your belt. I have a feeling you’re going to need it.”
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To the direct left of the two, a new sound started. A set of leisurely footsteps. Wandering towards them from the same direction they came.
Meanwhile the same noise they had heard previously came back, redoubled. This time all around them. They were surrounded.
A voice with a Northern Armada Accent called out. “Let’s put the toys away, shall we children? Don’t want anyone getting hurt.” This voice came from the same direction as the footsteps. Whoever it was, they were cutting off the path back to the beach.
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Dolphus turned his eyes back towards her with a slight glare, deciding the matter was unimportant and it was in everyone’s best interests - at least for now - that she be wrong about a few things. Still though… Well, I guess I can’t fault her for coming to that conclusion.
But still though.
Dolphus had started to turn to stand up, but his head turned back towards Ari with eyebrows raised when the massive steel bat thicker around than his leg came into play. She can lift that with just one hand?! I’m starting to think Mariner might not be so capable of putting her down after all.
Toothpick? TOOTHPICK?!
Well I guess it- NO. Dolphus scowled. There’s no excuse for such flippant disregard of such fine craftmanship. This sword was forged and perfected for three years; the pearl on the pommel has no equal for- okay well the pearl is relatively cheap but that is no excuse.
Grabbing onto the branch nub he had collided with before, Dolphus slowly staggered to his feet, wobbling all the way. “That, at least, we can agree on.” He slowly turned around, unsheathing his sword to cover Ari’s back, as much like before he had noticed the sounds of movement from behind her a bit faster than she likely would.
Dolphus exhaled. His hunched posture and weak breaths were likely not helping his case here, what with being surrounded like this. The accent was slightly relieving, since it immediately brought to his attention the northern fleet ships that had tried to shoot down the Thauin before it attacked the Caelin’s Hand.
Dolphus swallowed hard before speaking.
“Well, you know how attached people get to these sort of things,” He replied, trying desperately to make his voice sound conversational and not as worried and tired as his eyes looked, which scanned the trees for some indication of their opponent. “If this is your property, your sign must’ve blown over.”
I don’t know if this sarcastic levity is hurting or helping. My stomach hurts.
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