Deepwater's Daughter

Chapter 11

"A what?" Rasha scoffed.

"A new home," Ysara whispered again, leaning across the gap between their bunks and wishing that Rasha would keep her voice down.

"Still can't hear you," Plec said from her perch on the bunk above. She stuck an oily fingertip in her large ear and wiggled it. "Say again."

Ysara rolled her eyes and raised her voice as high as she dared, "The satyrs need a new place to live," she said, "somewhere safe where other people can't get to them."

"They have a place to live!" Rasha laughed, "a great, sandy desert that no one else wants!"

"I hope we go there next!" Plec said, "I bet they've got all kinds of sand!"

"So, I don't know what nonsense Geffen was trying to feed you, but..." Rasha began.

"He wasn't lying to me!" Ysara snapped.

"Well then, I don't know what kind of nonsense the captain's been feeding our oh, so trustworthy, Master Geffen," Rasha laughed, "but I wouldn't worry too much about the future of one of the most ancient societies in the world. I believe the satyrs will be perfectly fine."

"Well, why are we going then?" Ysara demanded. She scratched at her arm in frustration where her last bandage clung to the persistently scratchy scars covering her left forearm. She had removed her uniform coat in the warmth of the shared cabin, but the straps of her new undershirt kept slipping off of her narrow shoulders. She angrily tugged one back into place as she glared at the fox woman.

"Maybe there's buried treasure!" Plec offered, leaning so far forward that Ysara began to worry that the mouse girl might tumble, headlong off the upper berth.

Rasha nodded her approval of the theory. "With all the secrecy surrounding this little voyage," she said, "there's bound to be something valuable waiting to be dug up when we arrive."

"I wonder what our share will be," Plec mused, wringing her paws together in anticipation.

"Probably a very long drop from a very great height," Rasha sneered.

Ysara shot her an ugly look.

"Why do you have to ruin a perfectly good imagining?" Plec scoffed.

"If there is one thing I've learned about wealth, Plec," Rasha cooed as she stretched out on her bunk, wiggling her furry toes, "it's that people do not like to share it."

"I just want everyone to be all right," Ysara said, wishing now that she hadn't shared Geffen's message with her friends. She had felt better when it was still a secret between her and the satyr boy.

"That's your job, Ysara," Rasha chuckled, "Do you think you and that stick are up to the task?"

"It's not a stick!" Ysara snapped.

"Well, it's obviously magical," Rasha said, "I've already checked."

"You what?" Ysara demanded. She reached out and snatched her medicine staff from where it leaned against the wall between the bunks.

"Odd sort of magic though," Rasha said, "I've never encountered anything quite like it before, but, then again, I don't get 'round to Neshat all that often."

"Please don't touch my things without permission!" Ysara said.

The voice of the River Spirit giggled with mirth in Ysara's thoughts.

"I didn't touch it," Rasha said, "I didn't have to."

"Seriously though," Plec interjected, "don't touch any of my things... either of you... The captain made me put all the really boomy stuff in the armory, but still..."

"I wouldn't touch your things without your permission, Plec," Ysara assured her in her grumpiest tone.

"What does it do for you anyway?" Rasha pressed, "this magical... stave of yours? Is it a focus of sorts?" She waved her fingers in a vaguely arcane gesture.

Ysara looked up at the carven head of her staff. It smiled down at her in cool benevolence.

"It reminds me who I am," she answered.

"Do you often need reminding?" Rasha chuckled.

"Sometimes... sometimes we all need reminding," Ysara said with a gentle smile.

Rasha's smile grew thin, and she looked away, falling silent at last.

Plec shifted from her perch to lie on her belly and hang her head down to look at Ysara. "What happened next?" she asked.

"Hmn?" Ysara asked, shaking herself from a reverie of old memories.

"Geffen," Plec said, "What'd he say next?"

"Oh, ah..." Ysara paused, trying to recall their parting, "That was kind of all we talked about."

"Did you kiss him?" Plec asked.

"W-what?" Ysara stammered.

"To thank him for sticking up for you!" Plec sighed, "That's what you're supposed to do when a guy punches somebody in the face who made fun of you."

"That's not true!" Ysara said.

"Well, did you?" Plec demanded.

Ysara shrugged, slipping another shoulder strap in the process. "Well, yes," she admitted as she tugged the strap back up. She gave the mouse girl a sheepish grin.

Rasha was sitting up again, her pointed ears twitching to alertness. "Details!" she demanded.

"I don't know," Ysara sighed, waving her right hand as she cradled her staff with her left arm, "it just sort of seemed like we should, so..."

"And he kissed you back, right?" Plec asked.

"I think so," Ysara.

"Huh?" Plec asked, wrinkling her snout.

"Did he pull away in shock?" Rasha asked.

"No!" Ysara replied.

"Then he kissed you back," Rasha stated.

Ysara considered it. Suddenly the room felt even warmer than it had before. "I guess he did," she admitted with a dreamy smile.

"Are you gonna marry him now?" Plec asked.

"What?" Ysara gagged.

"I mean, that's what you do, innit?" Plec said, "When two people are in love..."

"I'm not... I mean..." Ysara gestured wildly in confusion, nearly losing her strap again.

"You've led a rather sheltered life, haven't you, Plec?" Rasha drawled.

Plec bared her long teeth at the fox woman and then gave Ysara a serious look. "Well, when you do get married," Plec said, "I wanna be the flower girl!"

"Flower girl?" Ysara said, "What's that?"

"The girl that throws flowers at everybody," Plec explained.

"Why would you... throw flowers?" Ysara asked.

Plec shrugged. "You gotta have somebody throw flowers!" she said, "It's what you do."

Ysara considered it. "All right," she said.

Plec's face lit up with a smile. "So, I can then?" she asked.

"but I'm not planning to marry him," Ysara explained.

"But, if you do," Plec said, "I've called it, right?"

Ysara gave her a tense smile. "Sure," she agreed.

"Whoo hoo!" Plec exclaimed rolling back out of sight into her bunk, "I'm'a start plannin' it!"

"No daisies, Plec!" Rasha warned her, "They make me sneeze."

"No daisies!" Plec repeated, and Ysara heard the scratch of Plec's pencil in the mouse girl's notebook.