Hell Hath No Fury - Book One

Homecoming

Oceane felt downright giddy. She was already a morning person but even if she wasn't, the sun she had planned would have been enough to make the early wake-up time worth it. The sun wasn't even close to rising when Oceane hopped out of her hammock and ran up to her room. Her room was, as most times, a disaster. Not only were her plants taking over the room, she now had a ridiculous amount of ribbon, and thread, and fabric, and paper littered around the room. Proof of her hard work and dedication to the craft of sewing.

Laid out on her bed were several outfits she was working on, none of them finished. Oceane kept getting too excited about ideas that she would start a new project before completing her last. That resulted in about 8 different sets of clothes being constructed at once. The clothes she had promised Theo, however, was something she diligently worked on. And gods knew she needed all the time on it she could get, after bugging her captain for so long about it there was no way she couldn't deliver. But everything that Oceane had produced had been shabby, wonky, and not fit for Theo which meant she had started over around ten times.

Amongst all her trials and all her errors, she had managed to successfully finish one item of clothing. It was a shirt, plain and simple but crafted by her own two hands. It was more akin to an undershirt than a shirt, being sleeveless and a bit tight, but she was proud of it anyway. That is what she chose to wear for the special sun ahead of her, she layered it with a vest, some pants, her worn-down boots and she was quickly back out the door, leaving her room in disarray once again. After a quick stop to fill up her waterskin, getting her bow from the armory, and grabbing her bag from the lower decks, she was back on deck trying to find who she was looking for.

"Iona!" Oceane shouted and jogged up to her friend with a smile, "good morning."

Iona did not look as pleased or as happy as Oceane felt, she had bags under her eyes and she was exhibiting the telltale signs of having an early shift.

"Morning, O," Iona yawned and finished coiling up some rope, finishing the task Oceane had interrupted, "you ready?"

"I am, are you?" Oceane asked.

"Aye, give me a moment to grab Evanna and we should be on our way," Iona put the rope away and walked off, leaving Oceane alone on deck.

She was jittery, too excited for the sun ahead to stand still. She wished that they had been able to dock at the port, but that was never the case for Drokian. Too many important were people around to get away with docking, even with their special merchant's permit to dock in most of Efriti. Not only were they out of port, they were so far from it Oceane couldn't even see the outline of land from where they were. No one was around to keep her occupied and she was so ready to just go, that she decided to just climb into the boat that would row them to shore. Oceane wondered why Evana had to go to shore, she had never shown an interest in Drokian any of the other times they had been there.

Oceane distracted herself by pulling a stale biscuit from her bag and biting into it. What a fulfilling breakfast. She had snuck it from the kitchen the night before knowing she would have no time to stop for a snack on her long walk through the forest. It was hard to eat and instead of finishing it, she began to pick off crumbs and throw them into the ocean, in hopes that some fish would benefit from it more.

"You're going to attract a sea monster," Evana commented as she climbed into the boat, Ioana right behind her.

"We've got a vanguard leader with us, she can fight them off," Oceane offered Iona up for the challenge.

Evana just laughed as she took a seat next to Oceane, "How are you this morning, dear? Excited?"

"As always," Oceane beamed, "why are you going to shore?"