Another World of Dreams-The Escape

Chapter 15 - Lowest Class

"Wake up." Two sturdy hands shook Liv by the shoulders. She opened her eyes and saw a familiar blushful face with a white mustache.

"Captain Marks." she wheezed. She did not like her weak voice and refrained herself from asking more questions.

Captain Marks smelled of tobacco and had a thin line of sweat at his hairline. Otherwise he was clean, the way no one in a crew but the captain looks.

"You've been knocked out for almost a day. Do you remember what happened?" he asked, but Liv remained silent. "Elijah lay on the foredeck when he saw the balloon catch fire. He alerted me immediately," he continued and nodded toward the shabby-looking seaman snoring on a chair behind him. A ray of sun beamed through a round window above the door and struck his face. She scanned the room, but there was nothing but bare white walls to see.

"We saw you fall and heard you bash into the sea. I say, that must've hurt. We sailed up to the balloon wreck and caught the rope that you'd gotten yourself tangled up in floating on the surface. Elijah dived in and we fished you out of the water before the abyss swallowed you for good. You cannot imagine how surprised we were when we realized that it was you who'd fallen from the sky."

Liv pulled up her night-gown to look at her stomach. A speckled pattern of bruises colored her left side from ribs to knee. Not until then did she notice the gnawing pain running through her body. The strain in her leg was familiar. She had injured herself many times before and knew that the battered muscles would recover within days, but the torturing wound on her arm worried her. Captain Marks held up a scratched mirror. Blue bruises covered the side of her face and a big swelling had formed on her forehead, which made her look sick with plague. Together with the short disheveled hair she doubted who the girl in the mirror was. Yet the captain had recognized her, and that meant that pursuers could too.

"I must say, smuggling an elf across the water makes me feel young again," said Captain Marks and grinned a grin wider than his face.

Liv tightened. "You know who I am."

"Of course I do! The men in Southport told me you were the daughter of some important lawman and that an elf had abducted you. That would be the lad who seemed so fond of you, I assume. If you'd only let me know he was an elf, I could've protected you. You're a half-elf, I see that now as clear as day. You know you're not the only one around here. There are districts in Norma where many half-bloods live."

"Do you often smuggle Beings?" she asked.

"In my youth I did. That was how I paid for the Rising Cloud. Few Beings or half-bloods come to Southport nowadays. Too heavily guarded, I suppose."

"Where are we now?"

"In Northport of course! Onboard one of the house barges. If you excuse me, miss, I must hurry and load a shipment of cotton onto my boat. Rest properly, and when I return I want to know more about your adventures." He put his hand on the foot of the bed and pushed himself up.

"Captain Marks?" she said. He panted for air and sat back down. "How can I thank you?"

"Elijah liked that golden compass of yours. Let him keep it if you don't mind. For me, may I be so bold as to ask for a kiss on the cheek?"

She gave the old man a dry kiss, her face turning even redder than the captain's. Then he stood up and walked outside, his stomach bobbing up and down as he giggled.

Liv threw off her blanket, touched the floor with her feet, and tried to stand up. She felt weak and every muscle in her body was ached. Her legs trembled as she put pressure on them, but she kept herself upright with a force of willpower. In a box under the bed she found her clothes, as filthy and ragged as before her accident. The medallion the gnomes had given her hung around her neck, but otherwise her all possessions had disappeared. Having made sure that Elijah was still asleep, she threw her old rags back on and sneaked out through the door on bare feet.