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Tyril Starfury had undergone much since he’d left Undermount, nearly a year ago. He’d spent most of that time alone, preparing himself in every way he could think of to face the Shadow Court and make them pay for what they’d done. He’d pushed himself past limits he didn’t even know he had, crossed lines he never thought he would have crossed, and yet nothing could have prepared him for this.
“Gods above, I’m BORED,” El flopped backwards onto the sun soaked deck of the Sun Maiden, throwing her arm dramatically over her eyes, “all my life I dreamed what it would be like to sail away from Riverbend, but this is just tortuous!”
“Hate to break it to you, kit,” said Mal, leaning back against the mast and stretching his arms above his head, “even in the life of an adventurer you’ve got to put up with a bit of tedium from time to time.”
Tyril rolled his eyes and settled back against the ship, struggling to remain in the little shade offered by the poop deck. He’d been trying his best to tune out their useless bickering for the better part of an hour, instead focusing on the meager map that the captain of this wretched vessel had leant him, rather begrudgingly, earlier that morning. Yet despite his best efforts, their voices still drifted towards him on the salty breeze.
“How can you be bored?” said Threep, rolling onto his back beside her, “Did you not meet a mermaid just this morning?”
“Well yeah, but that was hours ago,” said El, reaching down and scratching his exposed belly, “and we’ve still got whole day to go of just bobbing in place.”
“The hours do seem to go slower at sea,” agreed Nia, shading her eyes and squinting out at the glittering waves around them.
Tyril couldn’t help the scoff that escaped him at that. Humans and their impatience, what did they know of the passage of time?
“And what’s so funny over there, Mister Undermount?” Said El, sitting up and drawing her knees to her chest, “Don’t tell me you find that single map you’ve been pouring over for the past two hours riveting?”
“Well, it is more occupying than simply moaning about circumstances beyond our control,” he said without so much as looking up from the creased parchment.
“Ouch,” Mal’s smirk widened, “he’s got you there, Ellie.”
“Call me Ellie again,” said El, smiling sweetly, “and I’ll feed you to a bloodsquid.”
She pushed herself to her feet, brushing down her rumpled tunic and to Tyril’s surprise, crossed over to where he sat, plopping herself down unceremoniously on an upturned barrel next to him.
“I thought you told me you’ve taken hundreds of geography lessons back in Undermount,” she said, leaning over to get a better look at the map in his hands, “what more could you learn from this old thing?”
Her shoulder brushed his and he almost jumped at the unexpected touch.
“Not much,” he said, glad that his voice came out even and unstrained, despite the fact that his heart had made a sudden leap in his chest as she leaned even closer to squint at the map. He became suddenly aware of the warmth of her and from this close, he could see a smattering of freckles across her nose and dusting the tops of her cheeks, “but it’s better than nothing.”
El jabbed a finger to the far corner of the map, where a crudely sketched sea serpent coiled around a rocky island, and asked, “What’s that place called?”
Tyril quirked an eyebrow and she smiled innocently up at him, “What? Maybe I’d like a geography lesson, or if you’d prefer I could go back to moaning about circumstances beyond my control.”
Mal snickered and Tyril shot him a glare, but spread the map out on a crate between them. El’s grin widened and she propped her elbows on her knees, resting her chin in her hands as Tyril smoothed out the creases on the parchment. Behind them, Mal had started shuffling a deck of cards for another round of Sailors Luck with Nia.
“It’s the Isle of a Thousand Deaths,” he said, holding down one corner of the map as a sudden breeze threatened to carry it away, “practically every creature there is venomous, or poisonous to some extent. It’s rumored that offenders to the crown would be marooned there, years ago.”
“Well that story sounds like something right up Kade’s alley,” said El, “I’m surprised he never mentioned it, maybe he’d never heard of it either.” Tyril watched with raised eyebrows as she pulled a small, dog-eared notebook and a nub of a pencil from her pocket, and began rifling through the water warped pages before jotting something down.
“Are you,” he paused, regarding her warily, “taking notes?”
She smiled again and his stomach fluttered. He looked away quickly, clenching his fist in annoyance.
“I did say I wanted a lesson, school master Tyril,” she teased, but a tinge of sadness softened the corners of her mouth, and she looked down at the little notebook, thumbing through the warped pages as her smile faded, “I suppose I am taking notes,” she said, “there’s so much I want to tell Kade, once I find him. I don’t want to forget anything, so I’ve been writing things down.”
Tyril didn’t say anything and El looked away, smoothing back the pale flyways that had worked themselves free of her braid, “It might seem a little silly.”
“I didn’t say that,”
She looked back at him, already the corners of her mouth lifted in another smile. He didn’t know how she could do it. Maybe it was a human thing, to have it all so close to the surface. Years of calculating every action before it was taken had schooled his face into what felt like a rigid mask. To display anything meant failure, and yet El sat across from him, still mostly a stranger to him, and she had handed him this vulnerability as if it was nothing. Was she simply naïve, or did she really trust him so easily, after only a few days of his company?
“Kade used to write me stories,” she said, turning the grubby pencil over in her fingers, “he couldn’t go out much when we were young, he was a pretty sickly little thing. So I was the one who did most of the working and scouring for food, and to make up for it, he’d spin me these amazing tales while he waited for me to come back. All about the grand adventures of Elaine the Wanderer and her brother Kade the Wise, or Kade the Archivist, or something,” she shook her head, still smiling sadly, “we never good decide a good name for him.”
“Elaine?”
“Oh right,” For the first time that he’d known her, a pink flush crept up her neck and deepened the color on her already ruddy cheeks, and she dropped her gaze, “Elaine is my name, my real name I guess. But I prefer El.”
“Not Ellie,”
Her gaze snapped back to his, a smile lifting the corners of her lips and Tyril felt his own twitch before he looked away, clearing his throat.
“No, definitely not Ellie,” she looked down at the map between them, drawing her hand across the back of her neck, “Elaine just sounds so elegant,” she straightened up, adopting a lofty posture and lifting her sunburned nose into the air, “Lady Elaine of the Duchy of Riverbend at your service,” she said, her voice pinched and nasally. Tyril had to bite back another smile, but she must have seen it anyway, because her own face broke into a true smile. It was almost as unbearable to look at as the sun sparkling on the waves.
“El sounds much better for a scrappy orphan turned adventurer,” she said, tracing over the letters in her notebook, “with nothing to her name but the clothes on her back.”
“Well,” said Tyril carefully, keeping his eyes trained on the map between them, “by the end of this venture, you’ll have more than enough noble deeds to your name as well.”
“You think?”
She sounded so optimistic he couldn’t help but smile as he looked up. Her eyes were practically sparkling, nearly as bright as the fae fish scales.
“Elaine of Riverbend,” he said, “defender of the realm, conquer of the Shadow Court. I think that’s how you’ll be known, soon enough.”
“That does have a nice ring to it,” she said, grin widening, “but I think the vanquisher of the shadow court sounds way more heroic. ”
Tyril couldn’t help it, he smiled back, “I’m sure you’ll have time to work the details out before the award ceremony,”
“Tyril Starfury,” she said, grinning, “did you just make a joke?”
He shook his head, but to his own surprise, his smile didn’t budge, “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
“It will be a difficult task,” she said, “but I’ll try and keep it between us,” she stood up, and patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll let you get back to your map now.
Again, his stomach swooped uncomfortably and he took a steadying breath. She smiled again and started to head below decks but paused, turning back to him and bracing herself against the doorway. The hair that had escaped her braid made almost a halo around her face.
“Thanks for the lesson, Tyril.” She said, her voice strangely soft, and barely audible over the sound of the waves slapping against the hull. He inclined his head, a ghost of a bow,
“You’re welcome… Elaine.”
She smiled again and Tyril watched as she turned and headed below decks. The waves still whispered in his ear, the wind carrying the smell of salt brushed against his flushed cheeks, and her name sat heavy on his tongue.
“Elaine.”