Chapter One Hundred and Seventy-One - Oh, The Small Manatee

I could tell that not all of my friends were comfortable with just sitting around and waiting--Bastion, especially. For all that he was a pretty cool guy, he didn’t seem the sort to just sit back and look over an enjoyable view. He was more of an action-first kind of sylph, which was fine.

We’d head back home soon. I grinned. The Beaver Cleaver was already feeling like a home!

“So, Joe, what do you do when you’re not being a pirate?” I asked.

Joe shrugged, the gesture uncharacteristically humble. “Not too much,” he said. “I work over in the docks. Not the airship ones. Just hauling things around for a few copper an hour. It’s dull work, but I’ve learned a lot about packing things away, and ballast, and I get to talk to a lot of old sailors, so that’s neat.”

“Those wages sound awful,” Amaryllis said.

“Yeah, they are,” Joe agreed. “But it’s work that’s there when you need it, you know?” He gestured to his two friends. “We’re putting all of our money aside to buy the things we need to become real pirates.”

“Honest work for dishonest goals?’ Bastion asked. “Somewhat ironic.”

Joe glared at the sylph, but it bounced off of Bastion’s armour like chaff. “The others work hard too.”

Sally nodded. “I work at the shops. It’s mostly easy things. But one lady, the book shop owner, she taught me how to read a little, and how to write. I do a lot of labels and stocking shelves since I know how. She even paid me in a book or two about ships.”

“That’s really neat,” I said. “We should get more books in the Beaver. Turn part of it into a library.”

Awen of all people, nodded. “We could use more ballast.”

“Reading is good,” I said. “My butt got saved by a few books already. Mostly about plants and such. It’s a nice hobby to have too.”

Sally looked down, but she was smiling all the same. “I’ve been teaching Oda and Joe too, but they’re not very good yet.”

“Hey,” Oda said. “I’m just more of a hands-on guy.”

“You work at the smith, right?” I asked.

“And at the repair shop by the shore. They don’t give me any of the real complicated things to fix, but I’m learning. The money helps. Soon we’ll have enough parts to finish off the Manatee.”

“The Manatee?”

Oda looked to his friends, and got a pair of nods in return. “It’s our ship. Our pirate ship. Do you want to see it?”

“You’re darn right I do!” I said. “Where did you guys park it? At the docks?”

“With the amount they charge?” Joe asked. “And the administration there doesn't like us. They’d make us pay as if the Manatee was ten times its size. Nah, we have a spot by the shore. It’s a quiet area. There are a bunch of other small ships pulled up and stored there.”

“Should we?” I asked my friends.

“It’ll be our last stop for the night,” Amaryllis said. “We do have some things to work on aboard the Beaver. We can’t just leave it all day.”

“One last bit of exploring then,” I agreed.

Leaving the church was about as easy as getting into it, which is to say that it required a bunch of climbing and squeezing through tight holes while working hard to keep my skirt on straight and my captain’s hat atop my head.

Once we were all out and ready to go, Joe took the lead and headed right for the shore. We left the somewhat poorer parts of town and passed through a market filled with shops and bustling people. For the most part they were all human, with the occasional grenoil here and there. No sylphs, and no harpies that I could tell. And no other, more exotic species of people either.

Needleford felt a little insular after visiting so many places that had such a diverse mix of peoples.

We arrived in an open lot right next to the docks proper. There were lots of ships--for the air and sea--most of them in these big square boxes stacked atop each other, with pads holding them in place and ladders leading up to them. “These are the small ship drydocks,” Joe said. “They sell used skiffs and dinghies here.”

“Neat,” I said as I took a moment to spin around. There was a salesman-looking guy to one side, talking to some sailors while gesturing at a row-boat, and a shop nearby had oars and all sorts of ship-related equipment for sale within.

“That’s the Manatee,” Oda said as he pointed to the end of the lot.

The ships there weren’t in their own berths. Most were just left on the ground here and there, and they didn’t seem to be in the best of shapes.

The Manatee was behind these. Covered in an old tarp that had a few holes in it.

Oda and Joe pulled the tarp off and revealed their ship.

It wasn’t all that much to look at. It was maybe three meters long, with a wooden hull that came to a narrow point and that bulged out in the middle. That middle had a clunky-looking engine in it, an engine that was spotted with its fair share of rust.

At the back sat a propeller on a shaft that led to a gearbox connected to... a pair of foot-powered pedals.

“Is this a paddle boat?” I asked.

Amaryllis huffed. “It’s an airship tender.”

“A what?”

“When you have a larger ship, something bigger than the Beaver, sometimes you don’t want to come to a landing, but you still need to send someone to the ground. So you use one of these. It’s small enough to pack away on deck, and you can carry five, maybe six people, and a bit of cargo.”

I nodded and looked back at the Manatee. It was in surprisingly good shape for a tarp-covered ship in what looked like a scrapyard.

The wooden hull had a few scrapes on it, but those were covered over by a fresh layer of lacquer. None of the handles and ties on the sides matched, but they were all freshly painted and functional, and while the engine was rusty, it was still very clean. “That’s a pretty nice boat,” I said.

Joe smiled wryly. “It’s not much of a ship for a crew of pirates,” he said. “But she’s ours.”

“How did you get her?” I asked.

“The hull’s from a ship we bought here. Did some work for the owner and he’s a nice guy. He lets us tinker with the Manatee every so often. The engine, that’s Oda. He rebuilt it from scrapped parts he got from the repair shop. The rest is mostly Sally. She’s good at repainting things and all that.”

Joe ran a hand along the rail running around the ship and smiled. He seemed quite fond of the little dinghy.

“Have you flown her a lot?” I asked.

“Not yet,” he said. “She’s ready to go but... yeah.”

The moment grew a bit long, and a bit awkward. The scallywags were looking to Joe with expressions that I couldn’t quite read. I think that it was worry, or something very close to that. They wanted their freedom, to take to the skies, but at the same time, taking that big of a step was scary.

I pat Joe on the shoulder. “It’s a real nice boat,” I said.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Maybe if things don’t work out, we can sell it. Split the profits three ways.”

“It might not come to that,” I said.

Amaryllis sighed. “We should get going. I can’t imagine how long it’ll take to get back to the Beaver in this backwater maze.”

“Sally, want to lead them out?” Joe asked. “Oda and I will tinker with the Manatee a bit, I think.”

“Sure,” Sally agreed.

Our goodbyes were a bit stunted, and I felt like someone saying goodbye to someone at a funeral home for some reason. Everything was awkward and a bit weird. Fortunately, as soon as we were out of the yard, Sally spoke up.

“Joe’s like that,” she said. “He really believes in our dream, even when Oda and I aren’t so sure, you know? But he gets afraid easy.”

“He sounds like he’d make a good captain,” I said.

“What? No way. I’m gonna be the captain. No matter if Joe or Oda want it more,” Sally said.

I giggled, the air lightening a bit. We were crossing through the same crowded market as before when I noticed Amaryllis looking around. “Where’s Awen?” she asked.

The four of us stopped. I felt my heart beating crooked. She wasn’t behind us. I’d been walking with Sally, and Bastion and Amaryllis were right behind so... “Maybe she saw something?” I asked. It didn’t sound so sure, even to me.

“She would have said something,” Amaryllis said. “We should double back.”

“No,” Bastion said. “Broccoli, can you get to the roofs?” I nodded. “Good. Take the left side of the road, I’ll take the right. Amaryllis, stay here in case she returns.”

Bastion jumped up, and his wings beat humming-bird fast for a moment before he took off and flew towards the top of the nearest shop.

I shook my head, grabbed only my hat, and spent a load of stamina jumping to the roof across from that shop. The buildings here were only two stories tall, with steep tiled roofs that were broken up by chimneys. I scrambled up to the peak of the roof and looked down at the crowds below while working to keep my footing on the tiles.

No blonde hair, not across the crowds that I could see. My eyes jumped from person to person, looking for Awen, her coat, or maybe a scuffle or something. A glance across the street showed Bastion moving along, tracing back over the path we’d taken.

I tightened my fists and tried to shove any accusations against myself to the side. I knew I should have been paying more attention, that I should have watched over Awen some more. Was she feeling sad? Did she leave all on her own?

It was pure coincidence that had me looking up and towards the airship docks.

They were a ways away, far enough that anyone I could see was just a tiny figure.

That didn’t stop me from spotting Awen. She was the only person being manhandled by two big sailors on the deck of a ship. The only one with a black band over her mouth. Her hair waved about as she fought against the men holding her from behind and wrapping ropes around her.

“Awen!” I screamed, but she was hundreds of meters away, aboard an unfamiliar airship that was even now putting down its sails and pulling out of its berth.

How did they get so far so quickly? For that matter, who were they and where were they going with my friend?

“Bastion!” I called out.

The sylph looked over at me, then followed my arm towards the distant figure of Awen. His eyes widened a moment before he lunged over the roof and landed by my side. “Damn,” he said when he landed. “We need to get to the Beaver.”

I nodded, then hesitated. How long would it take to get the Beaver ready to go. Would the Beaver be able to take on a much bigger ship, one that looked to be armed and crewed by dozens of men?

“No, I have another idea,” I said.

We jumped down and landed near Amaryllis and Sally. “Did you find her? What’s wrong?” Amaryllis asked.

“Quick, we need to go see the Scallywags,” I said.

“The who?”

“The pirates. Sally’s friends. We need the Manatee, and we need it now,” I said. “We need to go save Awen.”

“Oh, Joe is not going to like that.”

***