Chapter Two Hundred and Thirty-Five - Cross-cultural Xenopsychology 101

“That was a rush,” I said.

The two remaining planes were rocketing away, both of them just hazy blurs with trails of black smoke behind them now, though it looked like they were both running out of propellant. Maybe they would glide the rest of the way back? I hoped that they didn’t have any more planes like that. Or bigger, scarier things to fight us with.

“That was certainly something,” Amaryllis agreed.

A clunk sounded to the side, and I turned to see Awen extricating herself from the inside of her crossbow turret with just a bit of difficulty. It was a tight fit in there, after all, and it didn’t look like she had installed a proper door to get in and out yet.

“Well done, Awen!” I cheered before enveloping her in a big celebratory hug.

Awen laughed and returned the hug. “Thanks!”

“This thing is so cool! And it’s just the prototype? Are you going to make it even cooler?”

“Awa! It needs a lot of tweaking. I didn’t realize how many problems it had until I started using it. The sights aren’t good; the turning speed is really bad. I think some of the controls could be placed in better places. I should take notes before I forget, for the next iteration, I mean.”

“It is an impressive contraption,” Amaryllis agreed. “If you improve it a fair bit, perhaps simplifying it some, I’m certain there would be a market for them. Merchant ships often have ballista emplacements that take up a lot of room. This seems more compact.”

Awen nodded. “That’s what I was thinking too. The Beaver is very small. I’d like one of these to be able to deploy from both sides. Ideally. It might take up one of the bedrooms on the other side.”

“We have two that are empty... one now that we have a passenger,” I said.

“Speaking of which,” Amaryllis muttered.

I nodded. Amaryllis had questions, and, well, so did I. But there were other things to look into first. The rush of victory was fading, and I was beginning to notice all the damage.

It wasn’t too bad—I didn’t think. Some ropes cut, a few burns across the tarp of our balloon. The holes were already being patched up by Steve and Gordon, with the Scallywags working as a team to reconnect one of the lines.

There were burns here and there, but most didn’t seem more than paint-deep. A bit of washing and a fresh coat of paint would fix the worst of it.

“I need to talk to Clive, then I’ll join you below deck, okay?” I asked.

“Take your time,” Amaryllis said. “I’ll be in the office. I think we might have gone a little off course. Not too much, mind, but I’d still like to chart everything properly, just in case.”

“And I need to figure out how to get this back down,” Awen said. “I think I skipped off the rails; this is going to be annoying to fix.”

“Let’s make sure the Beaver’s in tip-top shape before we worry too much about that,” I said.

Awen nodded. “Right. I’m going to go look at the engine room, make sure that nothing is loose or on fire.” She waved us off as she jogged to the back and then into the aft section.

I moved across to the other deck and hopped closer to Clive. “How’s it going?”

“He’s holding up,” the old harpy said. “I’ve been in my share of engagements with pirates and some nasty flying beasties. This was far, far from the worst. Port sails aren’t deploying right. We’ve lost some buoyancy from escaped helium, and I think the rudder’s sticking a little.”

“Is any of that critical?” I asked. The buoyancy bit sounded dangerous.

“On their own, no. They’re all little things, the kind of problems that’ll pop up and need some maintenance. But it’s a lot to take care of all at once,” Clive said. “The boys are taking care of the balloon now. That’s the main thing. We can still turn and maneuver, and once the rigging is fixed on the port side, we should be fine. It’ll be jury-rigged for a while, but we’ll make it back to whichever port.”

I sighed, some nerves leaving me in a gust. “Good. I was worried.”

“Aye, don’t be, captain. I’ve flown on worse ships that had more troubles on them when they were fresh out of the skydock. This little ship’s a tough fella.”

Grinning, I patted Clive’s back, then gestured to the rear. “I’ll be down below. We have someone to interview real quick. It shouldn’t be long. Just call if anyone spots another one of those planes.”

“I’ll try to make good speed,” Clive said. “Get out of anything nasty’s range.”

“Alright!” I called as I jogged across the deck, then went down a deck. The lower deck seemed completely fine. Though, the things in Awen’s room had been flung around a bit, and when I crossed Amaryllis’ I saw some of her stationery on the floor. My room was... empty?

My spade had fallen over, and my bag had rolled across the floor. Obviously some of the manoeuvres we’d done had been a bit rough. That wasn’t a problem. The problem was the lack of a big floating crystal person. “Moonie?” I asked.

“Broccoli, we’re here!” came Amaryllis’ voice from deeper in.

I stepped out of my room and then continued down the main corridor, only stopping when I saw the door to one of the empty rooms left ajar.

Amaryllis was sitting on the edge of the bed and staring at Moonie with a look that I might have called a glare if I didn’t know Amaryllis any better.

“Hey,” I said.

“I was just showing our passenger to their room,” she said. “And of course I had a few questions.”

The cry shifted in the air so that they were facing us with their curved bits to the side. It was strange talking to a cry when they had no face or eyes to look at. “We don’t mind answering any question you might have. Though we don’t know everything,” Moonie chimed.

“No one knows everything,” I said. “Even if Amaryllis sometimes acts like she does.”

My harpy friend squawked and sent the pillow on the guest bed flying towards my face. “I know that you’re an idiot,” she said. “That fact was plain enough to uncover.”

I laughed and moved over to sit next to her. “Just teasing,” I said as I bumped shoulders with her. “So, Moonie, can you tell us why those cry were after you? And where they got planes?”

The cry bobbed. “I am... defective. We... I... We wish to know what you know of the cry, as individuals.”

I noticed Amaryllis staring at me, so I translated. How’d she manage to get Moonie here without understanding what the cry was saying in return?

“Not very much,” I replied to Moonie’s question.

“We see. The cry are not born, we are split from the form of a larger cry. I am Shard of Mountaintopper’s Growth, Fourth Shard, and not Yet Whole. I am a piece of a cry called Mountaintopper, who earned a name for themselves after several hundred years of existing. They too, were once a shard of another cry, and that cry, in turn, was the shard of another.”

“Huh,” I said. “So, that’s different from how I know babies are made. No storks, for one.”

“What?” Amaryllis whispered.

“Yes?” Moonie chimed. “When we are split, we are given time to grow, to become an individual. We do not have a gestation period, but for a long time, we must relearn many things, things which we lose in the split.”

“But the cry you split from doesn’t lose those things?” I asked.

“Some, but most are prepared for the loss, information is segmented, and only some aspects are pushed into a new shard. Some of these are aspects which we no longer want. I am one of those. We are one of those. Forgive us for our impertinence.”

“Impertinence?” I asked.

“We... I refer to myself as I. Yet we are nameless. It is part of what being broken means. And it is why we are being chased by other shards. A broken shard like myself is not suffered to grow within the Crying Mountains.”

“That’s awful,” I said. “What did you do that deserves that?”

“We are too individualistic. We have too many memories from the shard that we split from. On occasion, a shard will break from a cry that has too much of the named one’s power. I am like that, I suppose. I remember thinking of myself as myself, as an individual as opposed to part of the whole. That is something reserved for those cry that have grown grand and powerful, and who have earned the right to individuality. I am not even healed from my own split.”

“And so that’s why you’re being chased down,” Amaryllis said. “They want you dead.”

“No, not necessarily dead. Merely broken more until I, we, lose our individuality. Some shards are against this. Shard of Waterwatches Compassion, Third Split and One Whole is one of those.”

“How can they be against it if they’re not, uh, an individual?”

“Individuality and the ability to think for oneself is a fine line among the cry; one that grows blurry as a cry grows and begins to earn their way into our society.”

I hummed. “So, I guess... are we still bringing you to the Lonely island?”

“If you wish it; we would be grateful.”

“The amount of gold we received will barely cover the repairs we had to do,” Amaryllis said.

I gave her a look. “I don’t think the damage is that bad.”

Amaryllis crossed her wings. “Well, I would have asked for more if I knew of the danger.”

“We were not expecting the aircraft,” Moonie said.

I nodded. “We weren’t either. Are planes common around here?”

“No,” Amaryllis said. “I’ve seen some, but they are frequently disasters. Little room to transport anything, they require small but powerful engines. Need a dedicated pilot, not to mention a landing area that isn’t compatible with any modern port. I’ve seen some proposals for them as fighter craft, but I think today’s attack proved their inefficiency.”

“Well, we have plenty where I’m from,” I said. “Not rocket powered ones though.”

“Have you seen the size of the Beaver’s engine? Can you imagine something like that on a craft so small?” Amaryllis asked.

“Uh,” I said. “I guess?” Turning to Moonie, I asked the question on the tip of my tongue. “Do the cry have lots of planes?”

The crystal turned from side to side, a sort of headshake, if its entire body counted as a head. “When airships became common enough that we realized the Grey Wall would no longer be as effective as it once was at stopping armies, the Crying Mountains commissioned dozens of different sorts of craft. There are hundreds of aircraft stationed around the Crying Mountains to be deployed in case of an attack. Not that the great named ones couldn’t burn ships out of the sky.”

“Scary,” I said. I could still vividly remember the giant crystals jutting out of the mountains on the other side of the Grey Wall. If those were actual cry, living, thinking people able to use skills, then... well, if their lasers were proportionally the same size as those from the small cry that had attacked in those planes, then they would be firing beams of magic as big around as the entire Beaver. That would suck to fight against.

“The cry learned their lesson about invaders long ago,” Moonie said.

“Right,” I replied. “So, we’re going to bring you to the Lonely Island. I don’t know if you’ll be happier there, but, well, it’s on the way, and that’s where you want to go, right?”

Moonie bobbed. “It is. There are others like us there. I want to meet them, to make a new home for ourselves, myself.”

“Alright! And maybe on the way there we can share some stories and have a bit of fun. I’ve never made friends with a genderless sentient crystal before, so there’s all sorts of new things to learn, I’ll bet.”

“That sounds like it might be... amusing?” Moonie tried.

“The word you’re looking for is traumatizing.”

“Amaryllis!”

***