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If she had to use one word to describe her first day on Canella, Aurora would describe the experience as overwhelming.
Actually, overwhelming felt too small a word. One moment, she was facing the undersea council, and the next, she was here, meeting more people than she had seen in years, and probably counting the days until she saw her head on a wanted poster. Jarring seemed more accurate for the situation, if not downright absurd.
Not that her time on Zero was bad by any means. Stepping on solid ground again was a luxury Aurora didn’t know she’d missed, and perhaps more importantly, she’d finally gotten the chance to meet the rest of the so-called Riptide Pirates.
They were certainly an exotic bunch. An old man who berated her with questions, an earth genasi from the black sea, a little half-elven boy who might just cause Aurora to die from cuteness, and a bard whose company Aurora found she very much enjoyed. There were a few others as well, but by a certain point, it became difficult to keep track of who was and wasn’t a part of the crew.
Aurora really did try her best to remember their names, and though she did write them down, her journal was in the captain's quarters, and without it, she couldn't recall a single one of their names. Except Queen, which was pretty hard to forget.
In some ways, they were similar to the Black Rose Pirates. There was the same freedom to them in the fact that they could go wherever they wanted, simply because they wanted to. Aurora loved her home, but she longed to see the rest of the world with her own eyes.
That dream long died out with time and responsibility, but it was funny to think that now, years later, she was finally seeing it through.
And so far, the world was beautiful.
A gust of wind breezed by her, tangling in Aurora’s hair as she leaned on the rails of a rosewood boat. A placeholder, while the crew's first ship was stuck in the black sea (though Aurora doubted she’d ever see it for herself). Her hands pressed into the railing as she looked out past the docks.
From here, she could see all of Zero, a city that, in her opinion, looked like it was picked right out of a storybook. Wood and brick buildings stacked onto each other, with quaint shingle roofs that reflected the last beams of sunlight. The evening light painted the town pink and gold. A couple of silhouettes of people still walked the red dirt paths, and Aurora wondered if any of them were Chip and Gillion.
The two had left to escort the rest of their crew back to that one girl– Ensa? Ensa’s house some time ago. They offered for Aurora to accompany them, but she politely declined, wanting some time to get used to the ship.
Or that’s what she told them. Truthfully, she’d rather not step foot on Zero again if she could help it. It’s not that Zero wasn’t lovely. The place had a certain charm to it, and people were especially friendly towards their group, a couple even waving at them when they’d walked by as if they were old friends.
It was the same tight-knit feeling Aurora loved so much back home.
A sharp pain tore at her heart, as if it were being ripped from her chest. The feeling may be the same, but Zero was nothing like the Primrose Archipelago, where magic coursed its way through every person, place, and thing that lived there.
Where Aurora had left her own family behind.
She swallowed and looked up to force tears from pooling down her face. Damn it. Aurora blinked until her vision stopped blurring. Not here. Not when she was trying so hard to stay strong, not when she was doing so well.
Her hands shook against the railing, and she pressed them down further. It’s hard not to think of her mothers, holding her hand with their last bit of strength. There was so much she hadn’t said back then, and she would never get to if she made a wrong turn now. She was one of the only druids left alive, one of the only people who could do this, so if she was nervous, she’d have to grin and bear it. She couldn’t let them down.
But gods, this would be so much easier if she could throw herself into the sea and disappear forever.
Not that she would ever do that, obviously.
She might not even need to! Joining these pirates – who were no older than herself – seemed like a good idea at the time, but since then they’d been taken prisoner, and put on trial in the undersea, all while tasked with saving Mana not just from losing its magic, but also from an ancient world ending creature called the Nameless Prince, two goals which – last Aurora checked – they’d made zero progress on!
Aurora inhaled, letting out a heavy sigh. No one could have predicted just how complicated and chaotic the undersea would be. The fact that they made it out at all was a miracle. Still, an entire week had gone by. In that time, the Nameless Prince could have made his move, the world tree could have died, so what if they were already too late? And if they weren’t, how much more time could they afford to lose?
Her eyes instinctively land on her left arm, the closest she had to an answer. Hesitantly, she lifts her hand and brings it in front of her face. The ice trickles down her forearm like icicles on an overhang. Harsh, but stopping a few inches short of her elbow, the skin underneath is still numb. She bends her wrist, and then her fingers, each moving as easily as they always had. Her mobility was still intact. If the ice had grown, it wasn’t enough for Aurora to notice.
Perhaps the growth had slowed thanks to her ever-growing distance from the tree. That, or her stay in the undersea somehow prevented its growth. Either way, it meant they had more time than she’d thought they would, so Aurora was grateful.
She could only hope it would be enough.
Aurora’s thoughts are interrupted by the sound as a door clicks open behind her. She slams her hand back down just in time as Jay walks onto the dock, her striking orange hair immediately catches in the wind. She stops when she notices Aurora, not expecting to see her still on the ship.
“Decided not to go back with the others?” Jay throws up a half wave before closing the door behind her.
“They seemed to have it covered,” Aurora explains, surprised by how steady she’s able to keep her voice.
Jay gives an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I would've kept you company if I knew you were here.”
“It’s fine,” Aurora’s eyes drift back towards the docks, "Actually, it was kind of nice to have a moment to myself for once.”
Jay frowns, and Aurora immediately wonders if she’s said something wrong. “I can go, I don’t mind giving you space if you need it-”
“-No, don’t!” Aurora says all too quickly, “I mean, if you want to, you can. I don’t know.”
Part of her didn’t want Jay to go. As if one more second alone would send Aurora spiraling, and the weight of her own anxieties would swallow her whole. Then again, maybe she needed this. Maybe sorting out her inner turmoil was the only way to move past it?
Who is she kidding? Aurora has no idea what she’s thinking.
How could she even begin to describe it to Jay? Jay had her own burdens to carry, Aurora couldn’t ask Jay to sit through hers, even though technically that's exactly what Aurora had done by summoning them to the Lunar Grove in the first place-
“Do you mind if I join you?” Jay asks. Her tone is softer, more so than usual.
It breaks Aurora out of her head as she thinks the question over. Maybe she’s not sure if she should be alone or not right now, but that’s not what Jay’s asking her.
“Some company would be nice.” It feels like a weight lifts off Aurora’s shoulders the second she says it. Jay walks forward so that she stands at the railing next to Aurora.
It's silent for the next few minutes. Neither of them says anything, and Aurora is fine with that arrangement, happy to stare out at the open sea. She braces herself, expecting her crazed spiralling to come back in full swing. First, it would be failing her family, then all of mana, then it would be dying a brutal death, for some reason. She expects the sting of tears to threaten her eyes, and the inevitable break as Aurora decides she can’t keep it in anymore, as the dam overflows.
Instead, she’s met with quiet, broken only by the sounds of waves crashing against the boat as it sways rhythmically. The air smelled of salt, but not sickeningly so. The boat swayed gently beneath her, a constant reminder that she wasn’t on land. It was a strange feeling, but the longer Aurora stood there, the more she could see the appeal of sailing overseas. It was as if all of her fears and problems, big as they were, couldn’t compare to the vast ocean surrounding her. For the first time in a long time, Aurora felt calm.
“Look, um,” Jay says after another minute. It’s awkward, and her voice is so quiet it nearly drowns out in the wind. “ I won’t ask if you don’t want me to, but… I know what it’s like to leave your family behind. It sucks. And– I’m not doing that great either–”
She takes a breath, steadying herself. “What I’m trying to say is I get it, and I’m here to talk, if you need it.”
Aurora considers the offer. Her first instinct is to deny it, to say she can handle this, not because it's true but because Aurora needs it to be. Though at this moment, the idea of opening up is more tempting than it should be, if anyone could understand her current turmoil, it would be Jay. Aurora would be lying if she said she didn’t want to open up more than she already had.
She appreciates the gesture, truly. It's not like she can take Jay up on it, though, right? They’d already done so much for her by agreeing to help her; the last thing she wants is to burden her new friends after putting them through so much trouble already. Unfortunately, though, she is a terrible secret keeper, and before she can stop them, her thoughts spill out like ink on a page.
“I can’t help but think of my mother,” she admits. “I know I had to leave them, it’s just that I don’t have a clue what to do next, and maybe they would.”
“I know the feeling.” Jay gives a tight smile.
“You do?” Aurora looks up. She remembers the flicker of fear in Jay's eyes back in the Lunar Grove. There’s a hint of it now, but Jay quickly shakes it away.
“I left my mom, before I knew the world tree was dying, obviously. She always told me stories about it, and the last time I saw her, she was sick, she said it had something to do with her magic. My dad, he went to check on her, but…”
That's right, Jay had mentioned her mother when Aurora first explained the world tree. She seemed frightened at the time; now it makes a little more sense.“I take it she was a druid too, yes?”
“She came from a bloodline of them, yeah.” As much as she’d normally like to, Aurora doesn't press any further. Curiosity eats at her—questions about symptoms, Jay’s mother in general—but she holds back. Messed up as it is, the fact that Aurora’s not carrying this burden alone brings her some relief.
Aurora forgets to respond, instead studying the blue and gold eyes that stare back at her. Even in the darkness of the night sky beginning to take shape, Aurora can spot the gold flecks in Jay’s blue eye that certainly weren’t there when they met. The memory is still fresh in her mind. Hours of preparation for the ritual, followed by a bittersweet reunion threaded with history she, at the time, couldn’t possibly fathom. Even now, with more of the story, bits and pieces still eluded her.
She remembers Jay, holding her head up high even as tears trickled down her cheeks, and onto the shoulders of her friends as they held each other. And after, she recalls Jay nearly dragging her leg, held together just barely by a makeshift prosthetic. Luckily, Jay had been able to get a replacement prosthetic at Zero, but just the thought of the seeping rot leaking down her leg before was enough to make Aurora feel seasick. How Jay was able to walk, let alone know it was there, and keep her composure at the time–
Aurora looks away, back at the open sea.
It took a strength Aurora could only hope to unearth in herself.
“How do you do it?” Aurora asks finally. “You left your family. You’ve gone through so much; everyone in your crew has. How do you cope with that?”
Jay leans over the railing beside Aurora and gazes into the sea with a one-hundred-yard stare.
“I was a spy when I first joined Chip and Gill,” she answers eventually, and rather bluntly. Aurora turns her head towards Jay in disbelief. She did wonder how a daughter of the Ferin’s had wound up as a pirate, but she never assumed– well, she never took Jay for the dishonest type.
“I was looking for the pirates who killed my sister,” Jay explains.
Aurora’s eyes widen, her gaze darts to the dock she’d last seen Chip and Gillion on. “Did they–”
Jay laughs, cutting her off. “Gods no, they would never. It was actually the navy who killed her, I think.” Aurora exhales, a sigh of relief.
“Anyway, my dad wasn’t happy that I left. We had a complicated relationship.” She runs a hand through her hair, careful not to mess up the braid Aurora had carefully woven in her hair only a few hours prior. “I knew I had to confront him eventually, and admitting that meant I had to make some hard choices. It took a long time, and he didn’t take it well. I never stopped loving him…”
Aurora’s gaze flicks toward her. She hadn’t realized Jay’s jaw was set that tight.
“Sorry, I don’t know where I’m going with this. I don’t know if it even – if it even makes any sense.”
“It does. A lot, actually.” Aurora places a reassuring hand on Jay's, which is now gripping the side of the ship so hard her knuckles are turning white, similar to what Aurora had been only minutes ago. Jay's grip loosens, and a breathless laugh slips through her lips. Then she leans over, peering at the docks with an intense stare.
“What is it?”
“Chip and Gil,” she answers with feigned annoyance, before calling out to her co-captains. “What took you so long?”
Aurora follows Jay’s gaze into the town. It's so dark that she almost misses the two silhouettes approaching the ship. If she weren’t searching for them directly, the two figures definitely would have slipped under her radar.
“We took a perfectly normal amount of time!” One of the figures - who Aurora can now discern as Chip - hollers back. He breaks into a jog towards the ship. Jay mutters a sarcastic sure you did as the other figure (Gillion most likely) follows closely behind.
“You guys weren’t waiting for us, were you?” Chip yells again, and Aurora winces as the sound rings out. It’s unnecessarily loud. He does realize he can wait until he makes it on the ship, right?
Jay breaks into a laugh, and Aurora’s eyes widen as she realizes she did, in fact, say that last bit out loud. Jay doesn’t seem to mind, though; she takes a second to compose herself. “Listen I don’t know what’s going on in his head half the time.”
“What’s so funny?” Chip shouts. This time, he’s easily close enough to the ship that he doesn’t have to be yelling. Jay rolls her eyes before shouting back.
“Nothing!” She hoists a hemp rope ladder over the side of the boat. Chip catches it and begins to climb. Gillion follows just after.
“Actually,” Jay continues, loud enough for Chip and Gillion to hear, but no longer yelling, “I was just telling Aurora how I used to be a spy.”
Aurora stiffens, because why would Jay bring up such a sore subject so easily? Aurora expects the awkward tension, the vibe being for lack of a better word, killed. She’s surprised when, as he reaches the top of the ladder, Chip bursts out laughing.
“Oh man,” he leans one arm on the railing for support. “Yeah Jay, you were the worst!”
Even Gillion, who stops half-way hoisting himself over the railing and onto the boat, smiles fondly at the memory. “We were so young back then-”
“It was months ago,” Jay reminds him.
“- so full of life -”
“Gill I shot you,” Jay reminds him.
“Good times…” Gillion shakes his head kind of like a proud mother watching their child grow up. Actually, from the week or so Aurora had spent with them, this casual, and sort of strange banter over the horrific moments they went through was pretty normal for them.
Jay pulls up the rope ladder, tossing it haphazardly to the ground. Chip walks over and seats himself on a barrel leaned up against the wall. “Yeah, Lizzie tried to warn me you might be working for the Navy.”
“Remember when she tried to hold me at gunpoint?” Jay smiles and leans her back against the railing.
“Lizzie is the Captain we’re searching for once we leave Zero, right?” Aurora asks.
“Yup,” Chip answers, “she’s a real piece of work too.”
“We talked once, sort of,” Aurora reminded him, recalling the call they’d made to her when Aurora first summoned them. Aurora didn’t actually say anything to her, but she remembered Lizzie’s voice, sounding as if death itself was knocking on her doors.
“So what,” Chip asks, propping one of his legs onto the lid of the barrel, “You guys were just hashing out your life stories this whole time?”
“Something like that.” Aurora looks back at Jay, who shrugs.
Chip thinks for a moment before tossing his own (metaphorical) coin in the ring. “Did I ever tell you I was there the day the Black Sea opened up?”
Aurora’s eyes widened, interest piqued. It made perfect sense. Why wouldn’t he have been?
“You may have mentioned it. I just never… How did you even survive that?”
Aurora resisted the urge to open her journal and bombard Chip with questions. She’d wait to write everything down later. She directs the energy towards something else, picking at the stone tied to a string tied around her neck. It’d been so long since Chip gifted it to her, she doubts he even recognized it. Still, she could never bring herself to let it go.
Chip shrugs. “I don’t really remember much of it. Hell, I must have been, what, ten?” He asks, as if any of them would know the answer, “shit, I don’t think I would’ve known how old I was. Now that I’m thinking about it, I might not even be nineteen–”
“You’re nineteen?” Aurora interrupts. She shouldn’t be surprised. After all, she met Chip when he was a kid, and he was easily a few years younger than she. Still, the fact that Chip was nineteen and had a bounty of over 100,000 gold and enough stories to last any pirate a lifetime was absurd.
“Well, we just learned Chip might in fact not be nineteen,” Gillion corrects her, though it almost comes out of a question.
“I don’t know how you never realized that– how the thought never crossed your mind that, y’know, you didn’t know how old you are,” Jay cuts in.
“Hey, okay, it's not like it ever came up!” Chip looks between the group, offended. “Besides, it's not like we can really know for sure!”
“You had to be nine or ten when I first met you…” Aurora thinks aloud.
“Oh my god, I forgot we’ve met before,” Chips scrunches up his face. “That’s so weird to think about.”
Aurora ignores Chip, muttering as she does the math, “That had to be about ten years ago, because I was fifteen…”
“Holy shit, you’re old,” Jay comments, interrupting Aurora’s train of thought. This time, it's Aurora’s face that scrunches up.
“I am not!” Aurora crosses her arms, “It's not my fault you guys are like- babies!”
Chip and Jay both laugh at that, and after a second, Aurora finds herself laughing too, unable to maintain her feigned annoyance. Sure, compared to a boat full of children, maybe she was a little old.
Her laugh is the first to die out as her eyes fall on Gillion, who had been mostly quiet since arriving back at the boat. He was smiling with them, but his eyes were staring off in the distance, as if he were somewhere else entirely. He looks up, catches Aurora staring, and promptly looks away, looking down at his fidgeting hands.
Aurora hadn’t known Gillion for long, but even she could tell he’d been quiet since they left the undersea. It made sense, considering everything they learned about the undersea, and about him…
Aurora didn’t know how to take that pain away, or how to help him let go of it just for a night, but she understood.
“What about you all?” Aurora asks, as the rest of the laughter dies out. “Before sailing together, did you guys ever meet each other?”
“Nah,” Jay sits down. She must have been the last to do so, as Aurora realizes she and Gillion had taken a seat on the ship's floor at one point or another. “We all grew up in basically different worlds.”
“Well – and this doesn’t really count…” Gillion pipes in, “There was this one time, when I met Jay’s dad, and I stabbed him.”
“Gill!” Jay laughs again, and though Gillion looks away, Aurora doesn’t miss the soft chuckle from him. “That was my dad! Did he at least deserve it?”
Gillion looks up, an almost guilty smile painted on his face. “Yes, kind of.”
“Then he had it coming,” Jay says, and leaves it at that.
Gillion turns to Aurora, “I mean, we were all connected in one way or another. Jay and I both had family on the Black Rose; you’ve met my grandpeepaw a few times now.”
“I was a fan of his,” Aurora admits, though fan is an understatement. Growing up, she had read countless of Finn’s works, and meeting him after such a long time was a little surreal.
Without warning, Gillion stands up. He walks toward Aurora, gets down on one knee, and ignores the questioning look he gets from Aurora as he puts a hand on hers.
“And I am deeply, deeply sorry for your loss,” He says earnestly.
Aurora didn’t even think his newer works were that bad…
Chip coughs loudly, clearly trying to change the subject. “Yeah so we all knew people on the Black Rose, that's cool! Great actually!” He says it far too quickly. “But like, not just that, all our sisters knew each other too.”
Jay pauses for a second, as if to figure out what Chip’s referring to.
“I didn’t know you thought of Lizzie as your sister,” she comments, teasing.
“We both grew up on the Midnight Rose, so that basically makes us sisters,” Chip explains.
“You mean siblings?” Aurora asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah.” Chip frowns, then quickly tries to change the subject again. “Jay wasn’t Lizzie in love with your sister or something?”
“I guess so?” Jay gives him a weird look. “Edyn knew her, too. I guess this is technically after we all met, but apparently Edyn was a part of Lizzie’s crew.”
Gillion looks up at the mention of his sister’s name. “I didn’t even think of it like that, but you’re right.”
“It’s kinda hard to see her as the pirating type,” Chip agrees, “but I think she fits the bill pretty well.”
Gillion smiles, but it only lasts a second before frowns suddenly.
“You swore you wouldn’t flirt with her.”
Aurora laughs.
“I’m not!” Chip puts his hands up in defense, “I was trying to be nice!”
“Good.” Gillion keeps looking at Chip, unblinking. It’s sort of scary.
“I would love to meet her one day, the real her,” Aurora says, half because she’s genuine, and half to save Chip from being stared down by Gillion. He sighs in relief when Gillion looks at Aurora.
“She would like you.” Gillion smiles again; it's tighter this time. “She’s strong. Stronger than I am, anyway.”
“What is she like?” Aurora asks.
“Oh, well,” Gillion pauses, unsure how to describe her at first. “She is like the water itself.”
Gillion's description of Edyn is beautiful. He tells stories of their childhood, of happy memories, and before Aurora knows it, they’re all sharing happy childhood memories.
They go on like that for hours, and Aurora loses track of exactly how long. She ends up sharing a few stories of her own, stories of family, and festivals that went on for days at a time. In turn, she learned of festivals in the undersea and the oversea. Jay actually recognizes some of Aurora’s traditions from her mother's side, and turns out Aurora and Gillion even share a few holidays celebrating the moon goddess herself.
And Chip… Chip was Chip. He would probably forget half of their conversation come the following morning.
Enough time passed that eventually Jay stretched and declared she was going to bed. It took Chip until he was yawning every other sentence to finally clock in himself, leaving Aurora and Gillion as the last two standing.
“You know,” Aurora rests her head on her arm, growing slightly sleepy herself, “this is the first time I feel like I’ve gotten to truly know you guys. Ever since I met you, we’ve been dragged from one thing to another. I liked getting to– I don’t know, actually talk to you guys, for once.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” Gillion brings his knees closer to his chest.
“Sorry if I’ve been… distant today. I’ve been thinking a lot about things.”
He says it vaguely, but Aurora knows what he means.
“It's fine, I can only imagine what it's like–” she stops herself, the memory of Jay and their conversation coming to mind.
She adjusts her position, leaning forward slightly. “I won't pretend to know what it’s like, but I learned recently that it helps to have someone to talk to when you’re hurting. I learned that from you guys. So if there’s any part of this weight that I can help you carry, it’s the least I can do.”
Gillion doesn't answer immediately. He studies Aurora intently, and Aurora can't tell what that means, if she overstepped, or maybe he just really, really didn’t want to talk about it–
“I don’t really know how to put it into words,” he rests his arms on his knees, “but when I do, I’ll find you.”
That's more than enough for Aurora. Gillion doesn’t say anything after, and the silence that follows is reminiscent of that earlier, with Jay. Aurora lets her eyes close for a second. Waves crash against the bottom of the ship, and moonlight just barely illuminates the top of the deck. The air is slightly colder, but otherwise it’s the same serene feeling washing over the boat.
Aurora’s nearly nodding off when Gillion stands. “We should head to sleep,” he says, and Aurora knows he’s probably right. She stands up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as Gillion opens the door to the captain’s quarters.
“Actually,” Aurora stops walking, “you go on ahead, I’ll be right with you.”
Gillion pauses halfway through the door.
“Alright,” he says, “Goodnight, Aurora.” The door clicks in place behind him.
After watching the door for a second, Aurora slowly drifts back to the railing, where her evening had first started. They hadn’t even set sail yet, and she was already getting used to the feeling of the boat rocking underneath her feet. She takes a deep breath, and air courses through her lungs.
It’s not home, but she can see why her friends call it one.
She looks up at the sky. It looks back at her, and she can’t explain the feeling, since it's one she doesn’t get very often, but for the first time in what might be years, Aurora feels like she’s exactly where she’s meant to be.
It's strange. Only a few hours ago, she’d been overwhelmed by the challenges ahead of her. They hadn’t lessened in the slightest, but even the pressure felt lighter now, manageable even.
And she thinks that if this group of co-captains, so haunted by their past, could find the strength to face the evil threatening the world itself, despite everything that same world threw at them, perhaps she would be able to as well.