Upon the Flying Ship: Rewritten Records of the Illiterate Author

Chapter 8

"Here's your letter!"

Vanille grabbed the piece of paper and stuck it into her bag with the rest. She vaulted onto her messenger-cat, Chocolace, and she bounded off towards her boat. Speed was necessary, as a plethora of bugs were trying to sting, bite, and poison her. Her sails filled with wind on command, ignoring the fact that the ocean was stiller than ever before. Vanille was told that the patterns sewed onto the sails did this, but painting the same designs on toy ships didn't have the same effect. Vanille liked to think that the reason anything happened was that the painter was a wind Mage.

She thought about what she was running away from. In around a day, a good half of Northleans Island was flooded with insects. Mainly the venomous or highly painful ones.

Nobody was exactly sure where they came from, or maybe nobody thought to tell the messenger. Sure, she knew there were at least three other mail-carriers that had tried to get off the island, but she couldn't see them on the water or in the air. Was she the only one?

This sudden epidemic of bugs had begun (according to the letter in her hand) at around five in the morning. The bugs then spread across Northleans Island, and were reaching her half when she ran.

Well, Vanille wouldn't call it running, instead 'hastily bringing mail to the continent proper'. This letter was addressed to the DSS, and of course, it would be in the western part of Northleans. Basically, the maximum distance from Northleans Island.

"What's the fastest way to get to West Northleans?" she asked herself, imagining a map of the Northleans continent in her head.

Definitely not rivers, since she'd be going upstream for the first half. Not around the continent over water, as that would be the longest route.

"Chocolace. What would be the fastest way to get to West Northleans?" Vanille liked to think that her cat was intelligent and understood human speech.

And then Chocolace bounded off into the woods. Huh, maybe she really could understand speech.

Ten minutes later, Vanille decided that her cat had actually run off to West Northleans. She walked into the trees, yelling her cat's name every now and then.

Of course, ten minutes would be probably enough to get pretty far into the continent, and she'd never catch up to Chocolace.

The cat hadn't even grabbed the bag of letters! "Aargh! Choco! Why'd you run off at this moment? Couldn't you have waited until the letters in my bag weren't as important?"

That's when her cat stalked out from behind a clump of trees, with someone else on her back.

"CHOCO!" Relief first at seeing that her cat hadn't actually tried to make her way to Northleans, then jealousy because who was sitting on her cat?

The guy noticed her angry expression, and began to slowly fade out of existence.

Vanille noticed this. "You're not going anywhere! Who are you and who let you onto my cat?!"

Chocolace dumped the guy onto the ground, noticing that her partner was not happy by this turn of events. "Hey! I didn't do anything wrong! Why throw me off instead of nicely signaling that I should be getting off? Birdy would never have done such an indecent thing." He muttered the last sentence, but Vanille heard 'Bird' anyway.

"You have a bird?"

"I do have a bird. A dragon-bird, to be more precise."

"Full grown?" There was no way Vanille could hide the awe in her voice.

"Yes. I raised her myself."

Vanille could imagine the beautifully plumed creature, membrane-and-feather wings, smoke that sometimes poured out of their beaks. Could he fly on it? A small leather saddle appeared in her imagination, fitting neatly onto the bird's back.