The Disaster
Minami-Akali Ocean
For a conversation about a large blue demon encased inside a submersible ship with a group of humans, the news that Kai's elemental was on board went down surprisingly well. Most of the passengers aboard were just glad to be safe after hearing the cannon fire and submerging so suddenly.
Mostly, it loomed away from the crowds, observing silently and staying out of the way. The children invented a game where they would try and get as close as possible to it before it turned around to look at them, then run away shrieking.
Sama played along, surprising all of their curious faces when she stood in the same space as the blue figure, totally enveloped inside it.
"Hey, bud," Rubi said to Take'Ichi when everyone had settled down after the fire fight. "Thank you for helping me. Are you doing alright?"
He nodded slowly, though he looked unsure.
"You threw yourself over me." he said. "You used yourself as a shield and got me to safety."
"Of course I helped you." Rubi replied. "You're my friend. You needed help, so of course I protected you. And you'd just saved me with those knots."
"I thought the next shot was going to hit the glass. Then the rats would eat me alive."
"For a while, so did I." she confessed. "I've never seen a ship sail so fast. Or so many rats. I didn't know a Collector could even control animals, but I suppose it's not too far fetched."
Take'Ichi hugged her. He was still quivering a little, even after a few hours had passed.
"You didn't turn into a stick that time." Rubi recalled. "What happened with that?"
Take'Ichi paused for thought, looking strangely sheepish.
"I- I don't know." he stuttered.
"Maybe you're getting braver." she suggested with a smile. "You're growing up."
"You think so?"
Rubi measured the top of Take'Ichi's head against her with a hand.
"Definitely." she confirmed. "At least two inches since you joined the crew. You might get taller than me. Any pain in your legs?"
"What would pain in my legs mean?"
"Just growing pains. Lot of people get them when they have a growth spurt. I certainly did."
"Oh, right. No, no pain."
"That's good at least. We'll have to wait and see how tall you get."
Take'Ichi smiled but said nothing.
Rubi travelled to the engine room to check on Mimi. She was sitting in front of the console, routinely checking the controls and looking through the forward facing window. Mimi's eyesight had to be phenomenal. She steered a smaller wheel that was inside the control room, directly affecting the engine's route while the rudder was out of use. They had never hit anything, no matter the available light or ferocity of the water.
"Captain," Mimi said, acknowledging her.
"Hey, Mimi. How's everything looking?"
The golem pointed towards the center of the control panel.
"Quite well, but the engine will need recharging by tomorrow night." she said. "When do you wish to surface again?"
"If we can surface before nightfall tomorrow, we should." Rubi said. "Provided the coast is clear. I haven't seen the underside of that clipper for a while, but I don't want to get caught out with no power left in the engine. Gaku should see us come back up and set down the Wanderlust again. He can finally tell us who that maniac was."
"I believe we were nearly accosted by pirates." Mimi said plainly.
"That's not fair, we're pirates." Rubi joked, but it seemed not to hit the mark.
"It is unlikely that Minam law enforcement would send Collectors after us." Mimi continued, cupping her chin in one hand as she thought. "But I wholly expect that we all would have been taken straight back there for sale."
"Or worse." Rubi added, remembering the prison all too well. They may very well have just been sailing in the wrong place at the wrong time. The thought crossed her mind; was slavery worse than death? Her father had thought so, and she was inclined to believe him.
That morning, Rubi walked the decks, looking through the glass at the expanse of blue around them. The water was so deep here that she could only see the ocean all around her.
Kai wandered around the deck, looking for things to do to make himself useful. He and Indra stood near the glass, the young blind man running his hands on the glass as Kai talked with him.
"What do you remember about home?" he asked Indra. "I've never been to Akali."
Indra smiled with nostalgia.
"For I lost my sight," he began. "I remember the trees. I loved climbing them with my friends, eating the fruit. There were cobblestones on most streets and potted plants everywhere. I went to school with an old teacher who was also blind, so we learned braille as well as reading with our eyes. He was so important to me as a role model, even though it was old age that took his sight.
He taught music. He knew his instruments so well that he didn't need to see what his hands were doing, he could feel it. I've always loved music, probably thanks to his passion for it. Nothing like noise we heard from that ship. That sound was so angry."
"I've never seen anything like it." Kai replied. "It was this bag with tubes poking out of it."
"Like a mashak?"
"I don't know what that is, I'm afraid." Kai admitted.
"It's an instrument that has one blowpipe and then other pipes with two reeds inside that vibrate when air passes through them. The bag inflates so you can store air in it to push out through the reeds. You can change the tone by covering or releasing the holes in the chanter."
"I think he had something very similar then."
"That's a shame." Indra said. "At home we usually only play the mashak for weddings and happy events. We'd never use them for conflict."
"Can you play the mashak?"
"Quite well, yes. I was in Port Kibo for a few years, so I probably need a bit of practice."
"How did you end up there, if you don't mind me asking?"
"It's alright to ask. I was in the nearby city visiting family. My town is up in the highlands so we would travel down once a year or so. I got separated one day and was sure I could find my way back to our residence. Someone jumped me and I was taken to the docks.
Next thing I knew, I was on a ship and we were dropped off in Minami. Someone talked to me about what skills I had, and all I could think of was music. That person bought me to play for them and eventually to pick up deliveries in town. I can read some maps with my fingers because the ink is raised on the sheet. Only in the last year was I allowed out of the house to work.
I always wanted to escape and get back home, so we started to plan using braille. We would scratch the paper with our nails so that when you flipped it over you could feel the words pressed through."
"Indra, that's so smart!" Kai praised him. "You solved a problem with a niche skill you could teach others, and you saved their lives with it."
"Thank you," Indra said, smiling. "I'm not sure who told the military police, but I suppose if they hadn't, we all may never have crossed paths."
"You always find a silver lining, huh?"
"Maybe that's my gift."
"It's a good one."
Rubi felt a warm sense of belonging as she overheard their chat. Seeing people continue to be so pleasant and open with one another encouraged her to believe that, even after something so frightening happening, people were ultimately good to one another. If only they could have brought more people with them, but there was no room.
The children and their families watched curious fish through the glass. Once Rubi had seen a whale coast up alongside them and swim by their side for a few miles. She had only ever heard about whales in books before then.
It was larger than anything she had ever seen. Simply massive. A living mountain of grey, coasting gently with the sway of its majestic tail. It eyed them carefully, equally curious to examine them.
For a few hours they traversed the ocean side by side. She wondered if it was lonely and, when it departed, if it would meet with more whales and tell them about its strange encounter.
Today there were jellyfish, shimmering and pulsing as they drifted. Thousands of iridescent, bluish-white bells with horseshoes of pale colours suspended inside. Long, gossamer tendrils dangled beneath them. They floated, occasionally contracting their bodies to push their forms through the water. The passengers stared wide eyed at the alien creatures surrounding the submersible.
"What are they?" asked one awestruck woman.
"They're animals." Rubi explained. "The top part is the body, and the long threads are it's legs. It uses them to catch food."
"Are we safe?"
"Absolutely. They can't touch us through the glass."
"Where is it's face?" a child asked, her hands and nose up against the dome.
"It doesn't really have one." Rubi said, trying to figure out how to best describe how jellyfish worked. "There's a mouth on the underside of the body, though. The legs catch the fish and carry it up to the mouth."
"No eyes?" she asked.
"No eyes."
"But how does it know where it's going?"
Rubi paused.
"I don't know. That might be a question for Mimi, the lady with the purple hair."
"Her hair looks like magic." another child said.
The other children chattered in concurrence.
"Oh, that's not magic. That's just dye."
"What about yours?" a little boy asked. "Magic or dye?"
"My hair?" Rubi said, her hand instinctively touching her red, corkscrew curls. "Neither. It grows like this."
"Excuse me for my interest, but are you from Minami?" one of the mothers asked. "I've never seen such red hair before."
"I'm from Migiue, the country in the north. But my father is from the west side of the territories where they speak isiMingam, and my mother is from the east side. I got my red hair from my father."
"Is it common?" the mother asked.
"Not really." Rubi said. "My brother and I both have red hair, though his is a little darker. My mother's hair was dark brown, almost black, I've been told."
"They must be very proud of you." she said.
"I hope so." Rubi said, trying to smile. She hoped the conversation would end. The last thing she needed was to feel homesick.
She excused herself to get her log book and do some sketches of the jellyfish. She had probably drawn them before, but she wanted to do a redraw project for once. She was more practiced now.
Sometimes Mimi could look at the pictures and rattle off a page of information about the plant or creature. Rubi would make notes like a student and hope that some of the facts would stick in her brain.
Growing up she had had a lot of schooling. Her father was so insistent that she and Hiiro had the best education he could find. When she was younger she had lived for school, for her tutors and visits to their library. Hiiro was less enthused, preferring to build things and run amok.
"What can I expect?" her father said, often rubbing his brow in frustration. "He's my son, and I did the same."
Something their father had taken upon himself was to show them how to garden. When he was growing up, he was taught how to farm. He had swapped yams and melons for bold cerulean lotuses and delicate violet irises. He loved to be outside, it was a welcome retreat from the bustling court.
While Rubi had a relatively black thumb rather than a green one, he was always patient with her. The older she got, she started to miss more school sick in bed. Lessons became stricter and stuffier, focusing on economics, politics and royal ceremony. No more astronomy, geography or philosophy.
The world seemed to become smaller while she was still standing in it, looking on in horror as doors closed around her. Things she would no longer need as a royal woman, girlhood suddenly so far behind her. Hiiro would talk about his lessons and the massive diversity of his education. It hurt to feel she was missing so much.
Then Hiiro left, practically overnight.
How she wished he had said something. She remembered how at first it seemed like there was some kind of mistake. He had gotten up early and they just had not seen him yet. She checked the library, the dining room, the rose garden, the courtyard with the fountains. All in vain. The note was stuck to the front gates.
My dear family,
I'm so sorry to have to leave you, but I can't stay and see the look on your faces when you realise you hate me.
Please forgive me.
Much love,
Hiiro
Now Rubi knew that Hiiro had left because he was a Collector. It was no secret that her father was as untrusting of magic as the next person. When she had come to the conclusion that she was a Collector, the only option was that she needed to leave too. It was the only way she could avoid conflict with her father.
She had already resisted his insistence that she be, at the very least, open to marrying another noble - as was expected of her status. She had to lead by example, an image of the new Migiue nobility. Proper, astute. Better than those who came before her.
It was a huge weight, and it removed her individuality from the equation. All of that was just too much. She refused to be miserable because it was tradition.
She sketched quietly, contemplating what to do with the rest of their time at sea until they made port. First, she definitely wanted a cup of tea. Then they would have to prepare to resurface and hoist the sails. The usual chores to keep the place running smoothly with their new roster.
She rubbed her belly, testing to see if there was any tenderness. For now, it seemed to be fairly normal. If she pushed hard, it hurt, but moving around was not too bad. She still had some time before the worst of the pain started to creep back. Then she would have to try the new medications they had bought and hope they were more effective than the last.
She took herself to the kitchen and boiled the water. She wanted to bring a cup to Take'Ichi and Kagemaru too before they tackled the sails. No open fire or coals could safely be used on their ship, since it was largely wood. Instead, they had an extremely tightly-contained, bellows powered charcoal burner, protected by layers of increasingly fine grates for cooking.
Smoke was funnelled out of the kitchen towards the engine where it aided the whirling turbines and was expelled through the engine's exit. Cooking once a day while they were submerged helped keep the air clearer, as no mechanism was truly perfect.
Gaku had introduced them to a remarkable invention from his home, an airtight cooker that used the steam from the food to increase the temperature and pressure. It had an escape valve to prevent it from exploding and had not failed them yet.
The little pitter-patter of tiny feet came down the stairs.
"What are you doing?" Sama asked, standing on her tiptoes to examine the kettle.
"Making tea. Would you like one?"
"Yes, please!"
"What kind would you like?"
The little girl looked perplexed.
"There are lots of types of tea?" she asked.
"Yeah. Do you want to smell some and choose one?"
"Yes!"
They stored their tea in a tea chest with numerous little sections filled with dried teas. Sama scooped them up one by one with the wooden tea scoop and smelled them, making little noises of intrigue with each one.
"This one!" she said happily, pointing to the one with fragrant green tea, dusky rose petals and dried currants.
"Sure, I'll put it into this infuser to stop any of the leaves getting into the water while it brews. It'll be hot though, so let it cool a bit before you drink it."
"I will!" she chirped. "Can I make one for Kai?"
"Oh yeah, of course. That would be very nice of you."
Sama beamed.
Rubi dunked the defusers a few times in the cups to help them steep, placed the two for Kai and Sama on matching saucers in case they spilled, and picked up the remaining three on a small round tray.
Sama disappeared down the hall with the saucers to where Kai likely was, and she carried the tray up the steps to her friends. She thought about the saucers and considered that they might be a little redundant if Sama was impervious to most harm as well as immortal. She brushed it off.
"Kage, 'Ichi," she called across the deck, gesturing to the tray.
"Thanks." Kagemaru said, accepting a cup.
"Thank you, Rubi." Take'Ichi echoed.
They sipped their tea, quietly watching the ocean pass them by.
"Do you want to resurface soon?" Kagemaru asked.
"Yes, after we have this drink."
"Thank goodness," the sprite breathed. "I miss the sunlight already."
"How do we flag down Gaku?" the winged young man asked between drinks.
"He'll see us." Rubi assured him. "And no one has seen another ship near us yet. It'll be safest to emerge in the open ocean."
"Right. We'll get on that as soon as we can. Full sails?"
"Full sails, please." she nodded. "You get some people to assist you doing the main sails, and bud, you take some people to help you with the foresails. I'll handle the jibs and bowsprit."
Setting up the sails to rise again was relatively easy. The sails needed reattaching so that when the telescopic masts rose, they could haul the sheets with them up to the top. Once they were set she could inform Mimi to sound the alarm and they would begin to surface.
The Disaster burst through the surf, water cascading from the dome and rushing down the glass walls. The evening sunlight washed over them, ripples from the running water casting mesmerizing shadows on the deck. The dome retracted back into the ship smoothly and the passengers began using scrub brushes and brooms to remove any sea water that made it onto the deck.
Rubi looked to the sky, shielding her eyes from the sun's rays. She spotted a shape in the sky and smiled, immediately recognising it as the Wanderlust. The sails billowed to life around her and she knew Gaku would see them now. The tiny form of the airship began to circle and descend gently.
"You're going to want to see this." she said to Take'Ichi, pointing to the ship drawing closer. She spotted Kai by the stairs and waved him over. "Watch this!" she insisted, ready to see the look of shock on their faces. The Wanderlust cruised down like a sea bird preparing to land.
"Wow!" Sama exclaimed, not flinching as the hull touched the surface and sprayed a fine mist of sea water at them. The ship coasted across the water, steadily slowing and coming around in a semi circle to their parallel.
"What's that?" Sama asked, pointing up to the sky again.
Rubi squinted and followed her gaze, suddenly seeing a strange shape in the sky, gliding on the wind. What was it? An albatross? Two albatross flying in tandem? Her jaw dropped a little when she realised what it was Sama had seen.
It was Kiramaru. He was airborne, two pairs of beautiful tawny and ivory streaked wings extending from his bare back, twice as wide as he was tall, carrying him on the airwaves weightlessly. He was flying - or rather gliding - towards them, gradually slowing and losing speed.
Right before he seemed to be at risk of dropping from the air, he angled himself into the rig netting called shrouds. He grabbed on for dear life, an exhilarated grin on his face. The windswept crew of the Wanderlust ran to the mast and cheered, Kiramaru whooping back in success.
"That was AWESOME!" Sama shouted, jumping up and down.
"Yeah it was!" Kiramaru shouted back, making his way down the rigging.
Before Rubi could say anything, Sama had climbed onto the side of the ship and leapt almost thirty feet into the water. She skipped like a stone, bouncing off the water's surface with one foot and took another extraordinary bound onto the Wanderlust.
"Sama, you get back here!" Kai called after her. "I told you not to use your powers!"
"She's, uh..." Rubi said. "Pretty excited, huh?"
"Oh." Kai said, realising something and stifling a laugh. "You gave a small immortal caffeine. In the tea. Sorry, she's going to be bouncing for a while."
"Ah. Right."
"WHY DO YOU HAVE FOUR WINGS?" Kagemaru suddenly yelled.
"You don't yet?" Kiramaru replied, stretching his gorgeous plumage.
"NO! HOW DID YOU GROW MORE WINGS?"
Kagemaru spun around and immediately whipped off his shirt.
"RUBI COUNT MY WINGS!" he demanded.
"Kage, there's two. Two wings." Rubi insisted. "Stop shouting."
"Are you sure?" he said, craning his neck to look over his shoulder.
"I can only see two." she replied. A spatter of clumpy, deep red caught her eye. "Wait, are you hurt?"
"No." he said, confused. "Why?"
"There's dry blood on your feathers. Right in the middle of the arch..."
"Well... they have been aching, but not all that much."
"Why didn't you tell me you were hurting?"
"It wasn't that bad!" he insisted. "Can you please look and see what's going on back there?"
Rubi parted the feathers around the blood. They were soft at the top, like downy feathers. The feathers grew in length as they extended downwards, becoming more streaked and freckled with colour as well as coarser.
She tried to find a wound, combing through the feathers gently with her fingers. She noticed the skin looked a little red, but they were so densely packed it was hard to be sure. The topmost bone seemed fine from the side, but from above Rubi finally saw the problem.
The skin was pulled tight. She could see the telltale, indented, purplish marks of the skin stretching to its limit. Then she felt a divot with her fingers. Not just a divot, a whole valley, running the length of his wing.
"You've scratched some stretch marks," Rubi explained. "There's some kind of indentation on the top of your wing bone, right where I'm touching. It feels like bone on either side of it."
"I think I need a talk with my brother." he said, wincing.
"How bad is the pain? Out of ten?"
"When you're poking it, an eight."
"Kage! You should have said something!"
"I thought it would go away. Anyway, I need that showoff over here right now."
Kiramaru poked around his brother's wings for a while. Kagemaru twitched and muttered as he listened to his sibling to himself, saying things like "interesting, cool, gross". After a few minutes he finally seemed satisfied.
"Yep, it's happening to you too."
"What?" Kagemaru asked.
"Your wings are splitting. Like mine did."
"Splitting?" he blurted.
"Yeah. Your bone has already started to part in two, lengthwise. The skin will steadily split and heal over until the whole limb is duplicated and you'll start growing feathers on them. It's really awesome that I can see it this time, I had no idea what was happening when mine did it. It took a few months for them to separate out. Then a few more to get decent feathering."
"Why did yours happen so much earlier than mine?"
"It's not surprising it didn't happen at the exact same time for us." Kiramaru shrugged. "We're fraternal twins, not identical ones. I've always been a bit older than you."
"There's twelve hours between us." Kagemaru said, rolling his eyes. "It's not that much."
"You'll understand when you're my age." his brother said whimsically.
"Sure." Kagemaru agreed, in no mood to argue.
"I didn't actually know you two were twins." Rubi admitted. "I always figured there was a year or so between you, like most siblings I know."
"We were born in the same clutch." Kiramaru explained, making a cradle with his arms as if he were holding a baby. "There were three of us, but only two of us hatched."
"You hatched?" Rubi repeated in awe. "We all just can't help but be unique, can we?"
"I just imagine one short, wide egg, and one tall, thin egg sitting next to each other in a nest at the top of a tree." Kiramaru said.
"How soon do you think they'll split?" Kagemaru asked, ignoring him.
His brother pondered, scratching his stubbly chin.
"Maybe another month? Then they'll get really, really painful for a week or two 'til they completely separate."
"Oh joy." he muttered. "Good thing we stocked up on painkillers."
"You'll be fine. Just soak in sea water, it helps them stay clean and heal."
Kagemaru wriggled his shirt back on over his tender wings with a huff.
"I'll take the first watch with Indra." he said in a low voice. "I don't feel like sleeping anyway. Goodnight."
He strode away, shoulders hunched and climbed the rigging up to his prefered crow's nest on the main mast. Soon they could hear the strumming of his guitar, which rarely left that spot.
"Why's he so upset?" Take'Ichi asked quietly that night.
"He's in pain." Rubi replied, although she lacked the certainty that was the real problem. "He also probably feels like no one bothered to tell him that his wings would change, even after it happened to Kira. From what I understand, he and his brother have always been competitive. They may look alike but they're very different people.
Kagemaru works very hard for what he has and Kiramaru always makes things look easy. It's hard for him to be compared to his extroverted brother when he's an introvert."
"What about you and your brother?" the sprite asked.
Rubi smiled.
"He was always my best friend growing up." she said fondly. "We were inseparable for all of our childhood. Then we grew up and life just took us different ways. He's still so incredibly important to me. I'd drop anything and everything if he needed me to."
"I know you haven't seen him for a while and that's sad," Take'Ichi said quietly. "But at least you've got really good memories to hold onto. You'll see him again soon I'm sure. I hope I can meet him one day."
"I hope so, bud." Rubi said. "Go to bed, it's getting late."
"Alright. Goodnight."
"Goodnight, bud. Rest well."