Sailing Ether Tides

Sailing Ether Tides

Ch: 8 Family Trauma

“So you got in trouble with your folks for hunting monsters… so they sent you sailing with your auntie… for a ‘punishment cruise’?” The young dogman asked in mild bewilderment, while lounging by the fire with a teacup in his hand. “And this house follows you everywhere you go? Like in a folktale, or the mad wizard in those ‘cosmic books’ the orphans trade?”

“When you say it like that…” Wilf began, with a shifty look on his face. “We’re just Adventurers… from an adventuring family…”

“Give it up Wilf.” Amy said with a giggle. “Yes, Jeskin. Leafy, if you’ve read the cosmic books, you’ll figure it out sooner or later and poor Wilf can’t lie. That’s us… The three kids from the story.” She kicked back on the sofa and whistled a short, happy tune.

“So you claim that you are the three kids from ‘Ether Tales’...” Jeskin mumbled softly, while eyeing Leafchaser with concern. Amy just nodded and continued her sweet melody.

“You wanna ask how much of it’s true… That depends how much you’ve read.” She murmured a few bars later. “The boys don’t like to talk about it, but they also suck at hiding the truth.”

Both young men were quietly exiting the main room heading down a flight of stairs behind an unobtrusive door. They departed silently, off on some mysterious errand of their own.

“There’s a lot of family trauma wrapped up in that story, which just happens to be our story.” Amy sighed when they were gone. “Nobody thought to ask us before they published it… They changed all the names, but we’re pretty much… us.”

“Zombie armies? Musical witchcraft? Dryads and spirits? Demons and wicked lords?” Jeskin asked very softly. “The stories in those picture books are you? And they’re… true?”

“Oh, yeah… our folks and auntie Becky made him cut out all the really scary stuff. The sexy stuff too.” She added with a wink. “Our uncle Dannyl wrote and drew them, after our papa died. When they came out, our mom wanted to skin him alive for a few years. That made things tense at home; tense Adventurers are not very good company… so in a lot of ways we lost our father and our uncle.”

“That must have been hard…” The dog boy murmured awkwardly, while Leafy slid over and gave her new friend a hug.

“Yeah, but s’okay. We got them both back in the end.” She gave the confused couple a wide, bright smile and started for the long table where several adults were seated enjoying their own tea. “Enough moping, let’s go meet the captain and her crew.”

Two sailors were hard at work in the kitchen, among billowing clouds of steam and the hiss of hot metal. Marc and Yusef grinned at the two girls as they slipped into seats at the long table with captain Esperanza, her first officer Dante.

Nicolai, the newest and youngest member of her veteran crew of traders and Adventurers, was stuck playing waiter. When the two young warriors emerged from the bath, he laid down bowls of steaming rice topped with stir fried beef and spring onions, followed by curried potato fritters and a salad of spring greens dressed with a goat cheese and sweet wine vinaigrette.

It was a splendid meal, well prepared and excellent, the four sailors ate with gusto and appreciative murmurs, while the captain and her three young charges devoured theirs as though they had been marooned hungry for a week. The sailing men were still eating, when all three young people rose and trooped into the kitchen.

“Ahh, what’s for round two, kids?” Esperanza asked eagerly, while the men of ‘Bounty’ settled in with their pipes and Yusef produced his guitar.

“Fresh frogodile legs with garlic butter noodles. Tomorrow for lunch, beans and croc tail sausages.” Amy announced happily. “This is gonna be good!”

“Jeskin, Leafchaser… join us by the fire.” Marc called to the two visitors, who were still seated at the table, looking stuffed and worried. “They don’t expect you to eat any more… unless you are still hungry.”

“Go on… we won’t be much longer.” Amy urged her new friends.

“The captain and her kin are… robust in vigor and appetite… it is a family trait they all share.” Dante murmured softly, as the two beastfolk watched in growing alarm.

The four still at the table were destroying a huge quantity of foodstuffs, with single minded enthusiasm. Sweet, smiling Amy gnawed a frog leg down to bare bone in a terrifying few seconds, then cracked the bone seeking marrow.

When there was no more to be had, she idly fell to crunching down the shattered bone, while debating with her brothers, whether to add some steamed coconut crab and giant spearshrimp to the banquet. “We even still have some garlic butter from the froggylegs.” She whined pitifully. “Come on Wilf! You’re the best, don’t be shellfish!”

Their groans and complaints over her abuse of the language didn’t last long. Soon, Wilf was heating up a wok and a steamer for another round. Amy and Rio were cutting more vegetables and stirring things at the stove with perfect synchronization, stepping in time to music only they heard.

“Garlic chili frogtail stir fry?” Wilf asked from inside a cloud of fragrant steam.

“I already started the rice.” Rio answered, from his own simmering pot.

#

The moon was up and night had fallen while the odd crew shared a quiet and intimate evening ashore with the two locals. Jeskin stifled a yawn as the night grew long, prompting Amy to take the couple by the hands.

“Come on, we’ll guide you home…”

“We’re still wearing your clothes…” Jeskin murmured quietly, since their own had been spirited away at some point and these had taken their place.

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll bring you your things tomorrow… before we open for trade.” Amy sang happily. “Tell your neighbors, Barter Town is open for business at second bell. We trade in scrap, all kinds of foraged and monster goods, oddities and curiosities.” She chattered as her brothers lit a pair of pole lanterns. “We take rusty anchor chains and shattered brass binnacles… old bells, broken copper pots, we trade in junk and obscure things.”

While she was nattering on about her junk trade, the group marched along out to the pier and across… to the beastkin slum. The pier had sprouted a pontoon bridge, reaching all the way across to the other side of the channel. Tiny lanterns illuminated the deck and waist high railing, bobbing on empty wine barrels.

The two young men and their chatty sister escorted their guests back home and departed, with another reminder. “Tell your friends, we’re bartering junk and scrap for finished goods. We’ll look at monster parts, herbs and all that stuff…” She called out, as her handlers dragged her off.

Mystified beastkin peered from windows and porches, or loitered in the streets, watching two young sailors drag a fancy dress pirate lass away. “Humans…” More than one person sighed in utter exhaustion.

####

Sorry readers, I had a death in the family and need to take a little break for… stuff and things. We will be back to the hijinx in a couple weeks.

With Llove, Ll.