Sisters of Swords and Secrets

May 17

17 May

Beast Slayer

Time Strait, Near Hestin

Dear, dear, T:

I'm sorry. No, I'm sick really. After a little rest and some time without impending doom hanging over my head like a storm cloud, I realized I could have handled this better. Much.

First of all, we're safe, out of immediate danger. I should have made that clear in my last letter, please forgive me. When I wrote it, I was fairly certain that as long as the wind didn't die, we wouldn't fall to the fog. Yet I didn't tell you that. To be honest, I think I went a little crazy for a while, in the most delicious way.

Given a break from using the Touch, I've come back down to earth, so to speak, though the ship still thrums in the back of my mind. I cannot understand how Captain Clacey was such a terrible man when he must have felt as I did. That said, it's curious, the Slayer doesn't remember him. I tried to picture the Captain through our bond, and all I get is a distant, foggy feeling from the ship before the connection between us recedes back to normal.

The widow-fog chased us for nearly five days, but as we moved into warmer waters (no longer white and blue, but white and green, far prettier than it sounds) the mist seemed almost to tire like a living thing, gradually falling behind. Interestingly, Tory thrived with the ship under motion. Despite his poor leadership decisions he does have a clear understanding of how to bring the best out of the ship, communicating that clearly to the sailors. I think, at some juncture, I'll need to appoint a different first mate and keep Tory where he's most suited.

On that note, I have thought long and hard about what you've said, and I've decided having a captain in reality is better than having a figurehead that turns the wheel this way and that. A persuasive part of me wants to go back to hiding in the galley, lugging buckets of eel guts rather than being responsible for the barely controlled chaos that is the Slayer right now. Only I now understand retreat isn't an option. The chain of command is so established at sea that even when the crew wants to break it, the men waver without that familiarity.

The problem is, I can't even imagine myself as captain of a nethership. So I've tried, essentially, to adapt your advice and be Mama brought back from the dead.

It's not going tremendously well. Worse than I expected, actually. The crew has parted into two factions, unequal slices of buckberry pie. Far and away the biggest slice persists in treating me with apathy or disrespect, calling me, "Captain Mar", stolen from Uri's slurred pronunciation. I've decided to ignore the taunts, sensing my making an issue of their snideness only fuels the fire. The worst offenders I can't ignore though, those that spit towards my feet when I'm close or eye me suggestively when I'm at the wheel. I rebuke them, ordering more shifts (like I can make them work). I still keep a knife tied to my wrist, Sawl's now since Nate's is covered with...well, I keep Sawl's close. The danger has kept the men in line, but I'm bracing myself for what they will do given leisure.

After the fog let up, we set up a skeleton crew. Lacking any better ideas, I had the men reef the sails until we figure out where we are, and everyone else but me slept until the drool nearly swamped us. Unfortunately, we always founder when I'm forced to sleep, since I have no relief helmsman with the Touch. We drifted, waking to a glorious morning shining on waves the color of spring trees, the sky blue above us. Uri anticipated my order, starting to troll before first light with our collection of massive, deep-water fishing poles.

A crab the size of a carriage wheel, with gold-tipped claws and black fur (yes, you read that right, fur, I cut off a bit to include in this letter) was his most significant catch—and a lucky one. Apparently, the crab just swallowed a fish that Uri'd already hooked and was about to reel in. According to Uri, these giant crabs are rare but found mostly in the northeast of Time Strait (magnetism doesn't really work the same here but we use the same names for directions). Combined with the green currents, he's fairly certain we are close to the south edge of Hestin, a Nethercountry with whom we have no trade inhabited by tall goblins who would, quoting Uri, "fry our gizzards and play pick-up-sticks with our bones."