the Boy in the Book

Chapter 8 ~A Peculiar Market Place~

Lol this is the longest chapter I've written so far... xD

Chapter 8

Arisa suddenly sat down on the deck, wrapping her arms tightly around the mast. Yakov stared at her sudden movement, looking a bit bewildered from being shoved into the mast, before letting out a long sigh and plopping down beside her, running a hand through his unruly red hair. He didn’t bother to hold on to the mast, as he was not nearly as clumsy as Arisa and seemed to get on just fine.

Leaving space seemed nothing at all like arriving in it. When they had lifted from the ground before, Arisa found herself being pushed hard to the floor of the ship… but now with the descent, she found it hard to stay grounded at all. She had no idea how all the other pirates managed to stay so easily grounded as they bustled around the ship. She felt nearly weightless and was glad for the support of the mast.

“You’re too skinny.” Yakov remarked as he put a hand on her head and gently pushed her down, as she had begun to rise slightly from the ground, despite her hold on the mast. Arisa stuck her tongue out at him for that.

Soon the whole ship was overtaken by clouds as they slowly descended into Lilica’s atmosphere. Arisa watched with amazement as the bubble that surrounded them slowly began to glow red and they fell faster towards the earth. All Arisa could see was red fire blazing all around and white puffy clouds.

She clung to the mast even tighter, and even Yakov grabbed hold now, but then they were both thrust hard to the floor as their falling suddenly slowed. All at once they broke free from the clouds and Arisa let out a gasp of astonishment. She had expected nothing to be very surprising or really all that beautiful after seeing the sky when the ship had taken off, but boy was she wrong. Ignoring Yakov’s shout of alarm she suddenly stood up and rushed to the edge of the ship, leaning over with mouth dropped open to see the surface of the new planet. Yakov wasn’t far behind and was quick to rest both hands on her shoulders to ground her to the ship, lest she go flying off.

Far below, underneath the huge metal wings that propelled the ship through the air, was a land so vast and green that Arisa had never seen the likes of. Her own little broken planet seemed dull grey compared to the vast fields and valleys and forests and oceans spanning around this gigantic planet. Here, it was not dull winter. It was so vibrantly summer Arisa thought she might go blind from it.

As they descended towards the planet and reached a level where the oxygen was apparently suitable for breathing, the huge protective bubble suddenly popped, and Arisa’s hair was suddenly whipped up with the force of the wind at such a high altitude. Her crimson cloak and hair flew around her and against Yakov behind her, who sputtered to get her hair out of his face. Her entire being was filled with the scent of summer, even from so high up.

Yakov’s hat went flying away and he ran off to try and catch it, but it flew over board before he could do so, and he watched it flutter away with a disappointed gaze.

“Cripes, Da gave me that hat…” he groaned.

Soon a city came into view far below with a huge harbor filled with all sorts of strange ships. Some had spikes on every inch of the outer shell; some were carved elaborately in the likeness of dragons or snakes or silvery fish, and some were covered in strange contraptions. They had strange wires and gears and big metal wings like the ship Arisa was currently on, but they had other strange contraptions Arisa didn’t even begin to know how to name.

There was a castle too, right in the middle of the silver city, shining in the sunlight. It seemed like something straight from under the sea with huge tall twisting spires all silver and blue and shining and beautiful. All around the castle there were tall buildings that extended out over the land for miles. But it was quite clear even from this height that the harbor was the main point of happenings.