Tides

Chapter 7- Apollo

The more I thought about it the more it bugged me. Twenty years ago I'd been taken, sold. It explained a lot actually. Honestly I now found it hard to remember her face and voice but in all the images I could recall she looked the same age while I was growing up. Was that a mer's power? To stop ageing at a certain point in your life. I only wish I knew.

Looking at the dagger as I walked I couldn’t help but recall the long days I was left on my own while she was off being a black smiths apprentice. He hadn’t wanted her, hadn’t wanted a woman in his shop but she’d persuaded him. And the fact that I’d found the dagger, one thing that she’d made, when I’d seen it I knew it was her's, I’d felt it but now it was as if t was trying to drag me back to the past, back to the...

"Woh!" Praxis said pulling me out of the path of a carriage. "Watch where you’re going, this is no time to be away with the fairies."

"Yere," I murmured. "Sorry, just...thinking I guess."

"That’s fine but eyes on the road. I’d like us to get back t the ship in once piece after all." He sighed. "So Apollo," he said emphasizing my new name. "You going to stick around for a while or are you planning to go walkabout on your own still?"

Shrugging I said, "We’ll see."

~~~

It was another two weeks until we were to reach Gillie. Through out that time I kept them well supplied with fish, planning to start gathering more of them up to sell as 'honest trade' when we got there.

Looking at the harbor from the boat I could see it had a grand market, rich with jewels and gold the treasures of witch were the envy of every nation. "Its great isn’t it." Rowen laughed.

I smiled, this was him home town after all. "You going to see anyone in particular?"

"I've finished another book, so I'll go, give it to my sister and she'll give me another one to fill." He looked up at the town all starry eyes before hoping off the boat as it pulled close up to the dock. We weren’t even tied up yet off he went like some hyper little kid who couldn’t wait to taste his mum's best home baked cookies.

"You want to help us set up shop?" Tyler called over to me as they begun bringing up some of the stuff they'd stolen from Orpheus.

"Course," I said pulling up the collar of my shirt so that the metal embedded with jewels around my neck didn’t show so much. The sleeves were already long enough to cover the ones around my arms as were the trousers to hide those around my ankles.

As other people in the crew secured the ship to the dock me, Archer and Tyler unloaded a fortune worth of things from below deck, and it wasn’t even a quarter of what we had. We were just carrying down the first load of things when a bunch of armed guards arrived.

"We're looking for the captain of this ship?" They said to me.

I just shrugged, way to nervous to talk to anyone in armor. Luckily Archer saw my distress and came over. "Can I help you fine gentlemen?"

"Yes we're looking for the captain of this ship." They said obviously annoyed at having to repeat themselves.

"Praxis is..." He frowned a second before looking at me. "You seen him?" Shaking my head I cast a worried glance at the guards. "Ok, I honestly haven’t got a clue but the first mates just up there. It's the woman with the really bad attitude just don’t tell her I said that."

With that we both went to walk off but the guards stopped us. "If you could come back up to the ship with us it would be much appreciated."

Archer raised an eyebrow. "Your going to arrest us aren’t you?" He looked behind him and down the ramp then. There were a lot of guards there now. Some keeping everybody away while others just waited with chains to drag us all to prison.