Chapter Two Hundred and Sixty-One - Airtime Naptime

Amaryllis glared at the cards on the table.

Then, with slow and careful solemnity, I lowered my hand next to those cards. “Flush,” I said.

The corner of Amaryllis’ eyes twitched. ‘You didn’t cheat,” she said.

“I’d never,” I said. ‘That would be unfair and mean, only bad friends cheat.”

“And you never even tried to bluff.”

“I’m not good at lying,” I admitted.

“How?” Amaryllis asked. She let her own hand fall next to mine, a bunch of cards with numbers on their tops and coloured shapes in their middle splaying out across the table. “How?”

“I guess I got lucky?”

Amaryllis stood up suddenly, her chair squeaking back. “I’m going to go read. At least the pages in my books don’t have Dirt’s own luck on their side.”

I held back a giggle. It wouldn’t be nice to laugh at Amaryllis. She was making an effort to be a good sport about losing too, even though this was the fifth round she lost. We weren’t even betting anything, mostly because I insisted that gambling was wrong.

We had started playing with four of us. Amaryllis and Captain Risa explaining the rules, and Awen joining in even though she didn’t seem to get it, entirely.

The captain had to run off to do captaining stuff, which was fair, and I think Awen just found the game a bit boring.

Which meant that now I was all alone at the card table.

Sighing, I picked things up and shuffled the deck idly for a moment before fitting it back into its box. It was the captain’s deck, so I didn’t want any of the cards bent or stained or anything.

I leaned back into my seat and glanced out of the nearest porthole. We were moving, that much was obvious. Mountains surrounded the Little Atlas on all sides, their sheer walls passing by at a slow crawl. The cargo ship felt like it was heavy, big, and cumbersome, despite the amount of lift it needed to stay afloat.

The Beaver could likely fly circles around this ship, but we weren’t in the Beaver.

I was a little bored, which was a nice change of pace from the high-energy excitement I’d been going through nearly every day for such a long while. Still, I wanted something to do. I couldn’t practice most magics in a confined place, and it might be rude to cast spells in someone else’s ship besides. Training physically was right out. The passenger quarters were small and a bit cramped, and already pretty warm.

Standing up, I moved towards my little room. Maybe I could flop down in bed and just take a nap? That felt very unproductive, but at least it was something to do.

I saw Amaryllis engrossed in a book in her room, then I crossed by Awen’s quarters and saw her on her back, staring at the ceiling.

Maybe I wasn’t the only bored one?

I walked to Awen’s door and knocked. “Bored?” I asked.

Awen tilted her head up. “Yeah, a little.”

I stepped in, then sat on the edge of her bed. She scooted over, so I flopped down next to her, put my feet up on the bed, then stared up at the ceiling too. “I’m bored too.”

“There's nothing to tinker.”

“I can’t make friends with the crew because they’re working.”

Awen bobbed her head. “Boring.”

“Yup.”

If I leaned my head back a bit I could see out of the porthole in her room. It was mostly cloudy skies, but once in a rare while a mountain’s peak would float by. “Do you know anything fun about the capital?” I asked.

“You mean Goldenalden?” Awen asked. “Not really. I guess there’s a lot of sylph there. And there’s some gold, I guess.”

“That makes sense, with a name like that.”

“Yeah, the sylph are supposed to be very rich. They have a lot of mines all around their nation, and a big army. I don’t know if they do a lot of trade with Mattergrove. We’re far away.”

“There’s a whole mountain range between the two of you, and like... at least two other countries.” I squinted as I tried to remember where the nations were. ‘Unless they go all the way around, like we sort of did.”

“They could come in from the north too, to the south of the Snowlands,” Awen said. “That’s Trenten Flat’s territory, but they only started to colonize that later, so it’s still very wild.”

“Huh,” I said. “The entire bit to the north of your home is all independent, right? Like Rosenbell was.”

“Mostly, yeah,” Awen said.

“We should visit there someday. And we should go all the way west.”

“To Pyrowalk?” Awen asked. “I hear that it’s a very weird place. Sometimes we’d get visitors from there.”

“Oh, and the Ostri desert too. And whatever is beyond Pyrowalk. Maybe we could even find out what's south of the known world, off the bottom edge of the maps.”

Awen giggled. “There’s a lot of places you want to visit.”

I nodded. “I want to visit all the places. And see all the cool things, and make even more friends. I have a very long bucket list, you know. I didn’t think I’d get to check off ‘ride a dragon’ so early.”

“I’d like to visit the Snowlands,” Awen said. “It’s cold, but they have a lot of machines, and everyone says that their airships are the best in the world.”

“Then we should go there,” I said. “Maybe after all this stuff in Sylphfree is done?”

“That would be nice.”

“Yeah, I think so too.” I yawned, jaw cracking and ears shivering in delight. I should have gotten up and moved, but instead I shifted a bit on the bed and kept on staring at the ceiling. Getting up takes way too much energy.

“I’m sure we’re going to...” Awen paused to yawn herself. “Have plenty of adventures after this one.”

“Mmhmm,” I agreed. “Maybe one day we’ll have to settle down or something, but I hope not.”

“Uncle Abraham never settled down.”

“That’s right,” I agreed. Things were a little fuzzy, and I couldn’t help but blink at the ceiling a bunch. There was some warmth coming in through the window. Did we fly over the clouds at last? It was nice.

Awen shuffled next to me, and I felt her head settling in next to my shoulder, so I leaned to that side.

My eyes closed, and suddenly I was asleep.

“Broccoli?” Someone shook my shoulder and I blinked awake. Awen was leaning over me, blonde hair tucked behind her ears. “Broccoli, I can’t get out.”

“Huh?” I asked before a yawn cut me off. I looked around and... yeah, I was between Awen and the edge of the bed. And next to me was Orange, currently rolled up into a furry ball with her face tucked in close to her middle. The sort of puffball cat-shape that looked very nice to pet, but that would inevitably lead to scratches if touched. I carefully swung my legs over the edge and sat up.

“It’s okay,” Awen said. “I think we’re nearing the city.”

“We are? How long was I sleeping for?”

“I don’t know, I took a nap too,” Awen said.

I wobbled to my feet, thankful that Cleaning magic made sleeping with my shoes on acceptable, then I wandered over to the doorway. Amaryllis was sitting at the little table we’d been playing cards at, along with a Bastion who was finishing off a plate of something that smelled nice, and Captain Risa was there.

“Hey,” I said as I stumbled closer. I flopped onto the seat next to Amaryllis. “Where are we?”

“About twenty kilometres from the capital,” Captain Galebane answered. “We should be within visual range within the next ten to twenty minutes. Which means, unfortunately, that I’ll need to head back up.”

“That’s too bad,” Awen said as she joined us and sat next to Bastion. “We didn’t get to talk much.”

“Do you think you could show us the capital from above?” I asked.

“That should be doable, yes,” the captain said. She stood up. “If you want anything to eat, Captain Bunch, Miss Bristlecone, then there should be some left in the mess. I’ll be moving to the topdeck, I need to keep an eye on the crew as we come in for docking maneuvers.”

“Those are pretty tricky,” I said. “Can we eat on the top deck?”

“As long as you stay out of the way, you should be fine,” she said.

I stood right after the captain, then stretched until my toes and ears both shivered in delight. “I’m going to grab a bite and see the sights!” I said.

“I guess I’ll come with you,” Awen said as she stood up too.

“Oh! I didn’t say hi to Bastion!” I waved to Bastion. “Hi Bastion.”

The sylph grinned. “Hello Broccoli,” he replied. “Sleep well?”

“It was a good nap. Been a while since I had one of those. What about you?”

“Well enough. I think I might have a hard time sleeping on anything that isn’t an airship. I’m growing quite used to the constant rocking.”

“It is nice,” I agreed. “Will you join us later? I bet you know the capital really well! You too, Amaryllis.”

“I’ll see it in due time,” Amaryllis replied. “You enjoy yourselves.”

“I’ll finish up my meal first,” Bastion said.

I nodded, then with a final wave goodbye, skedaddled. The mess, as it turned out, was a section at the rear of the ship’s bottom deck where a small kitchen was tucked away. I think the stove used the same flue as the engine above to spew out any smoke it created. The chef, a big burly fellow (for a sylph) with a big apron and a bigger smile, was more than happy to give Awen and I a pair of bowls full of still-piping-hot stew and some wooden spoons to eat it with.

Awen and I moved up to the top deck where sailors were busy spooling ropes, adjusting sails, and chatting amongst themselves. Mostly it looked as if the Little Atlas’ crew was doing busywork while staying sharp in case they were needed.

I guess that on a bigger crew, that was going to happen a lot. Moments of hectic work when they were nearing or leaving port, but then long drawn-out times when there wasn’t much to do.

We moved up to the foredeck. The ship didn’t have a figurehead, which was really a shame. Still, we installed ourselves by the rails there and blew across our stews while a chill wind breezed by. I had the impression that we weren’t all that high off the ground, relatively speaking. It was likely all the mountains around us providing all of that chill.

Goldenalden appeared before us as we went around a particularly sharp mountain top.

“Whoa!” I said as the city stretched out before us.

I’d been to some pretty big places in my admittedly short time on Dirt. Awen’s home city was pretty big, sprawling out across a large patch of arid land. And Port Royal was quite large, the way it was split on multiple levels lending it a sense of grandness. Even Fort Sylphrot was pretty big. That city was built up rather than out.

Goldenalden was so much bigger. It spilled out over the sides of a mountain that looked as though it was shaved off at the top. Plateaus all around, built on dozens of terraces that formed walls.

That wasn’t to mention the actual walls around the city.

It was obvious that whomever had designed it had added more walls as the city grew. There was a maze of stone walls cutting all across the city, but none were as impressive as those on the exterior, huge slabs of stacked stone with guard towers every hundred metres or so.

They didn’t compare to the Gray Wall, but they were still really cool!

There wasn’t just one port, but at least five of them that I could see. With airships big and small docked in place, and dozens of them dotting the skies around the city and either moving towards or away from it. And that wasn’t including the military airships. Small, boxy ships like the ones that escorted the Beaver back in Granite Springs were constantly moving around the city, like schools of metal fish in the sky.

At the very top of the city was a castle, an imposing, blocky building with towers all around it, all topped with golden roofs.

“Pretty, isn’t she?” Captain Galebane asked as she walked up next to us. She looked proud, and for good reason.

“It’s gorgeous,” I said. “I can’t wait to see it for myself!”

***