The Urbem (Completed)

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Coming To America

(Lyra)

I don't think that this boat was exactly what Nephele had been expecting; to her it was probably stone-age. All of the technology on earth was contained within the walls of Uxor, so we sort of roughed it and made do with what we could salvage from nature, meaning we had an old-fashioned wooden boat. It was better than nothing. I really felt taking a boat was the safest course of action. Uxors rarely monitored the activities of the ocean since they believed that most of the Insurgo die shortly after being exiled... To them, being cast out of the city was a death sentence since they were absolutely traumatized by the idea of the animals and thought that they were all senseless, bloodthirsty monsters; they really had no idea that, on a worldwide scale, the number of Insurgo came close to matching theirs. We were literally everywhere, but we knew that safety lied in being scattered. 

I was standing out on the dock of the ship, watching Dolosus, Avi, and various other bird Animus and their mates fly around. They were the only ones really enjoying themselves; all of us who remained earthbound  were getting restless, anxious, and cramped. The boat was large, but there was now almost three-hundred of us after Kassandra's friends joined the mix... When we took into account that we'd also need room for the Animus and their mates, we realized that it was not going to be a fun ride.

Looking down briefly at the white foam from the waves that kept coating the hull of the ship, I fleetingly wondered to myself how much it would suck to have a fish for an Animus... A dolphin or whale would have been cool, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be forced to spend the rest of my life on a boat. I grinned, having never considered it before. Dolosus seemed to laugh at my thoughts, agreeing with me.

‘I’ll take trees any day.’

"I hate water..." said Kassandra, appearing next to me and cringing back into the center mast of the boat. ”Well... It’s not exactly the water; it’s more the waves I don't like." I chuckled slightly, stepping back to join her.

"You must have loved living on a shoreline..."

 "I was safe there," she said, reminiscing. "Out here, though... It’s just horrible."

 "The forces of nature are ruthless," I replied with a small smile.

 "All other forces of nature are fine; they are bearable and avoidable." She smiled back and ran her fingers through her hair. "Waves and water, however, are far from that." Trying not to laugh at her pointless phobia, I stared at the sky and watched Dolosus soar for a few moments, reminiscing myself.

"We had a pond back at our old camp, but many of my comrades have never even seen the ocean, let alone cross it."

 "Lucky them," she laughed. "Honestly... How can the waves not freak you out?"

 "I don't mean to sound arrogant," I laughed as the boat took another shuddering jerk from a wave, "but not much scares me. I've fought my way out of life-or-death situations many times and I've infiltrated both Europe and Russia more times than I can care to count... I don't sit by idly and let them get away with it." To my surprise, she bowed down low.

"So I have heard, and for that my camp and I applaud you. I cannot tell you how great it is to finally meet someone who has the very determination that I needed to get myself motivated."

"I must be more famous than I thought..." I murmured more to myself than her.

 Well," she grinned, "I don't like the word fame... Not for you anyway; I would say you are more... Notorious. Fame is for the lazy." I smiled, feeling a bit embarrassed so I changed the subject.

"What do you think we should do when we get there?" She was about to answer, but the boat made a particularly rough jerk and she screamed, clinging to my arm.