soundless exile

Chapter 5: Discovery

Back in the infirmary, Hearless was sitting, reading the book when she noticed a section on pre-constructed magic. She flipped to the page and started to read, making little notes in her notebook as she wrote in it. The small symbols were most nonsensical to anyone, but she wrote, then tore the page out. She crumpled the paper and placed it in her palm, and consequently, the paper went up in flames like it was covered in gasoline. She only felt a light tickle as the flames danced next to her hand before the fire vanished, leaving nothing behind.

"So they are written in order, like a set of instructions, so if the order is wrong, it can backfire?" She looks at her book again, reading on and continuing to make small notes and separate pages of the symbols. She flips to a section and notices a small chart of how to order the spell and tries to make her own, writing different symbols, each one small and simple. She crumples the paper and sets it on the counter, setting her hand on it, concentrating on it, and removing the hand quickly as a miniature lightning storm appears above the paper before vanishing, leaving small scorch marks on the table. "I probably should have covered that. I hope Vestal isn't mad." She turned and saw Vestal entering the room. She saw the scorch marks and looked at Hearless with a small head shake. "Your lucky that is only the snack cabnet", Hearless nodded. She closed her notebook and placed the books in her side bag before Vestal waved for her to follow.

As they walked she saw several of the girls just talking with each other, and also buying items as they headed closer to the water soon reaching a dry dock, with a cruiser in the bay looking at the fire damage, and structural issues, the docks were seemingly empty of any life, vestal bring her hand to her mouth and soon after dropped it suddenly a entire flock of little yellow birds and a few very short girls some wearing drills one wielding a hammer and several with what seemed to be a sword of some sort all looking at vestal who moved her hands "she must be talking" soon the birds and girls left walking off to do several job suddenly hearless stood back in shock as she saw a girl lift a entire stack of steel plates and walked with it over her head while a small flock of birds followed behind her as they went on board the ship setting the plates down and they start cutting the old damaged plates out and welding the new plates in, "how the fuck that would weigh like 400 pounds and she moved it like it was 50", she looked around more seeing the other girls doing the same thing with their own flock of birds.

Hearless turns to Vestal looking bewildered and a girl with red hair walks in looking upset and starts talking with Vestal, Hearless calmly looks back to the ship and starts to get on the structural scaffolding around the ship, grabbing a pair of goggles and a cutting torch and lighting it off. She took it to the steel. Her vision through the goggles is nearly complete darkness with the bright light of the torch. The metal threw sparks and molten metal as she worked her way into the ship. After several minutes, the steel fell away from the hull and slammed into the concrete below. hearless lifted her goggles, seeing her handy work. Looking at the ship's structural ribs, she exhaled, using the cutting torch's light to look into the darkness inside. As she used the blue flames for light, she saw more problems. She extinguished the torch, walked back to Vestal, and tapped her shoulder. She stopped talking for a moment to look at the hearless, who was already walking off, waving over her shoulder to follow. The girl with red hair follows as well. hearless light the torch again and pokes it into the hull, pointing at a few areas in the hull, some being holes and pipes with corrosion damage, along with a small blue glow imitating within the depths of the ship's hull, the source out of view.

Vestal seemed concerned about all the things hearless pointed out except about the blue glow she smiled and facepalmed making a laughing motion, she motioned for hearless to follow her as she walked into a small building in the dry dock inside the building she grabbed a book and handed it to hearless with a title of "What is a kansen?", hearless gave it a confused look then looked at vestal who just motioned for her to open the book which hearless did and paused reading the first ten words, "a kansen or more known as a shipgirl is a humanoid manifestation of a ship", she looked at vestal then to the book again reading on, "with free will and the ability to call on their ship in the form of rigging", the book showed a small image of a green haired woman who seemed to be a teacher with a set of metal contraptions on her sides and back looking like ship parts the metal parts had what looked like tiny aircraft on them, "what the hell?" She kept looking at diagrams and information, learning more and more about ship girls, and suddenly a thought ran through her mind. "I worked on 500 different ships; they kept moving me from different places or they fired me, and I went to a new shipyard, and I think most of those ships were military", she freezes. "Am I technically a mom?" She looked at Vestal, then the book, putting it in her side bag and sitting down, unsure what to do with this information. "Do I tell them, or do I not? Am I responsible for them? Are they their own person Would they think I'm their mom? What am I to them?", She sat in the small office, conflicted. Vestal made a small smile and left to let her process this new information.