A Journey in Griffonstone

by RangerOfRhudaur

Silverstream II

She said hello to the Sea for her mom, currently lying below deck.

As soon as they'd climbed aboard Allegiance, while her dad thanked the transport's crew for ferrying them there, her mom had wobbled over to their cabin and collapsed on her bed. In the days since then, she'd rarely gotten up, only doing so to talk with her and Dad, eat, and pace when her anxiety made sitting still intolerable.

(She paced a lot.)

Even when she left her bed, she didn't leave their cabin, taking all her meals inside of it and tracing the beginnings of a groove in the floor with her pacing. The captain had given them free run of the ship, but Mom acted like that was just a trick, like leaving their cabin or going out on deck would be falling into the captain's trap. The one time the captain had suggested her mom do so, her face had paled to bone-white. She'd stammered out an excuse about seasickness, and Dad and her had agreed to pretend that that was the case; they loved her (though Dad's love was a thousand times stronger, a prince's love for his princess) and they didn't want people to make fun of her. A seasick Arisian was someone to sympathize with, an Arisian who was afraid of the Sea was a laughingstock, like a Homestrian afraid of harmony or an Oddon afraid of the Sun.

(Even if they had good reasons for being afraid.)

Stars twinkled off the water, bobbing up and down and through the foam of Allegiance's wake. She didn't recognize most of them, hadn't since they'd crossed the North-South Axis a few days back, but she still recognized their beauty; cold and warm, bright and dark, personal and aloof, meaningless and holding power over the whole world. She stretched a hand out to touch them, and millions of kilos of nothingness held her back.

Would her mother's prayers reach them? Could words fly over the abyss that stopped her hand? Or were they doomed to tire, fall, crash into the Sea, and sink?

... taking on water...

She let her hand fall. It didn't matter, anyway; they weren't Starwatchers, her mom wouldn't pray to them. Their's was the Pantheon, the spirits of all who had been, were, and would be, born of Ouros Stone-Father and Issus Wind-Mother before time began. It was to them, the All-Parents, and the greatest of their children that her mom prayed, not the skyborne gems which loomed forever beyond her hand.

That was her character, wasn't it? Distracted from what was really important by shiny things. Stars, the Sea, fantasy, romance, anyone who was willing to listen to her ramble on about nothing important for hours on end, she drank all of them up like saltwater in the desert. She knew she did it, she knew it was bad for her, and she still always drank every drop.

"It's not a good idea to be out here alone," the captain's voice pierced the gloom of her thoughts. "Especially not at night."

She wiped her eyes as the captain began sauntering over the deck towards her. "Sorry," she sniffed. "I just needed some air."

The captain raised a brow at her as she approached. "Are those tears," she asked, "part of the reason you needed that?"

Silverstream shook her head. "No, don't worry," she reassured her. "Everything's fine, I was just... thinking."

"Hm," the captain rumbled, clearly unconvinced. "Bit for what you were thinking about."

"How easily distracted I am," she sighed. "I know it's a problem, I know I need to stop doing it, but I keep letting it happen."

"Letting?" the captain asked as she leaned on the railing beside her. "Or having?"

Silverstream looked at her in confusion.

"I grew up in a bad place," the captain explained. "Somewhere that makes the Oddo from just before Thorax's rebellion look like a paradise. There was no way to survive if you followed the rules, so people... didn't. Some of them chose to do the things that they did, things your parents would kill me if they knew I told you about, and others, like me, just did what they did to survive. The lying, the stealing, the smuggling, it happened to us. We didn't let it happen because it didn't care whether we let it or not; it made the decision to happen, not us. So, do you keep letting yourself get distracted or do you keep having yourself get distracted?"

"I," she bit her lip. "I, I..." She sighed in defeat. "I don't know. I just... you see those stars?"

The captain chuckled. "I'd have to be blind not to."

"I'm scared that, one day, I'll be blind," she replied. "I won't see the beauty or wonder or goodness in the world, just the world itself. I'll look up at the stars and not wonder about them, not think of them as anything more than pretty specks of light. I can't let that happen, I can't... I wouldn't be able to live in a world like that, one cold and quiet and-and dead. So I make sure to wonder about the stars, about everything, but there's so much to wonder about that I just lose myself in it. Does that make any sense?"

"Yeah," the captain nodded. "If I didn't think you'd heard it a thousand times before, I'd tell you to try to hold yourself back, try not to get lost in your wondering, but I'm sure you have." She raised a shrewd eyebrow at her. "Probably tried it a million times, too."

She nodded shame-faced. "I've tried," she murmured. "But whenever I do, something happens, something that I don't feel wonder at, and I just... panic and give up. Even when I know that it's going to happen and that it's not the end of the world if it does, I still run away from it." She scraped a fleck of paint off the railing and into the Sea. "I'm so immature."

"Immature people don't know that they are," the captain reassured her. "And even if they do, they don't care. You know, and you clearly care, so don't worry about it; immaturity's not your problem. As for what is," she shrugged. "I dunno. I'm a sailor, not a doctor. Best thing I can think of telling you is keep your eye on what you need to do. The crew doesn't care if I weep in wonder at a whirlpool so long as I steer us clear of it. Dreaming's a good thing, but you need to get things done in the real world."

Silverstream sniffed, then smiled gratefully at the captain. "Thanks," she replied. "I'll try to keep that in mind."

"Good," the captain nodded. "You'll need to, in Griffonstone. Sir Cloudfloor and his friends have done a lot to clean the place up, but it's still a really dangerous place to sleepwalk in. Until Guthwin takes, and holds, control and manages to fix relations with Homestria, Griffonstone's in for a tough time, and tough times mean desperate people. At least your parents managed to wait until the Keyron joined back up with the city, before that even bread was hard to come by, and you haven't seen desperation until you've seen a Man who can't get bread."

"You've been to Griffonstone before?" Silverstream asked, ears perking up.

"Kid, Allegiance's been crossing the Celestial Sea for over ten years," the captain snorted, a smirk growing on her face. "There's no way I haven't been to Griffonstone before now. Last time before this was," her face fell a bit, "during Thorax's rebellion, actually. Half the crew wanted to help him, the other half wanted to help stop him, so I decided that we'd simply stay away from him until things calmed down. I didn't want my crew, my family, fighting each other. Some of them didn't like it, of course, one or two even tried sneaking off to join Thorax or Chrysalis, but I managed to keep the peace. Or, at least," her smirk returned, though darker. "I kept the war to between me and the crew."

Silverstream put a hand on her shoulder in attempted comfort. Thorax's revolt against his mother had been an emotionally turbulent time for Mount Aris, too, as well as the Cadmuns. With Chrysalis' too-late hiring of the Golden Steel, almost all the kingdoms around the Celestial Sea had taken an interest in the war, all except the eastward-focused Labradorors and, oddly enough, the almost habitually outward-facing Homestrians. What was an agonizing problem for Mount Aris or Caer Draig seemed to be an insignificant, local issue for Castellot.

"It wasn't all bad, though," the captain spoke up again. "Managed to use the chance to visit some places in the eastern Celestial; Griffonstone, Ash Bay, Labrador Harbor. Me and the crew traded tales with the Sea Dragons, saw the sun set behind the Heart of Fire temple in Caer Draig, even managed to help the Labradorors catch a few pirates in the Mittelmare. Still, it was nice when Novo told us we could come home. Well, to our land-home, anyway; even as divided as it was, Allegiance," she tapped the deck with her prosthetic leg, "was still our home."

"Really?" Silverstream tilted her head. "I thought that Gull Point was your home. At least, that's where Skystar told me she sent her letters..."

The captain laughed. "That's because I use that place as a mailbox. Gull Point's a good place for storage, taking on supplies, and, like the princess told you, getting messages, but it's not my home. Ever since I first stepped on deck, I've never felt at home off the water. Crest-climber, Foam-flier, Allegiance, all of them have been my home at one time or another, but never Gull Point. I'm a daughter of the Sea, not the land."

"Not this Sea, though," Silverstream noted.

The captain shrugged. "Just because some mapmaker gives something a different name doesn't mean it's different. North Lunar, South Lunar, Celestial, Mittelmare, the Sea's the Sea; the accent might be different, but it still tells you the same things. Honestly, when you spend as much time traveling as we do, you learn that that's true for a lot of things; mapmakers carve the world up, but that doesn't cut the land and Sea. Neither do princesses or kings or whatever you call the people who tell other people what to do; Manehattan looks a lot like Griffonstone if you spend enough time with them, just like Ash Harbor looks like Abden, which looks like the first two. People can say all they want about how they're different, how they're better, but everyone needs to eat, everyone needs to drink, and everyone needs to do something else after that." While Silverstream tried to hide her giggle, the captain continued, "All of us need those things; the only difference is how we get them. Some of us ask for what we need, others just take it." Her face darkened. "Some of us decide to kill innocents, others don't get around to deciding not to."

Waves lapped against Allegiance's hull while Silverstream bit her lip. The memories were clearly painful for the captain, but sometimes shining light on a wound could help it heal. Holding a candle right up to it wouldn't do any good, though; she needed to be careful in how she brought it up, needed to choose her words-

A thick, black, barnacle-encrusted tower loomed out of the night, passing by on Allegiance's right as they went up the coast.

More quickly joined it; a large, stout tower here, the tumbled remains of a taller, slenderer one there. Sunken spires and broken blocks of stone peeked out as the waves crested up and down. Peering over the side, Silverstream could faintly see a drowned courtyard beneath the water, a statue standing in its center, beaten down to a vague lump of stone by the passage of time.

"Gemerelli," she whispered in recognition. "The Unbreakable Land."

"It was called that, once," the captain sighed. "The Groverians say that it was once the greatest city in the world. The Gemerellites knew how to shape stone, how to carve it and build with it, and how to turn it into stuff better than stone; Gemerellite bronze was a work of art, and they figured out how to make iron ages before the first Vingol looked down into a lightning-crater. They trained soldiers that could trounce anyone from here to the Gap and scholars who made the Oratory look bad. And leading them all, a council of elected leaders who ruled fairly and wisely. Gemerelli was great."

A piece of stone cracked off of one of the towers and crashed into the sea.

"Once," Silverstream sadly murmured.

The captain nodded. "Now, everyone calls it the Drowned Ruins, and the only people who talk about it are the Groverians, and even then only to say how much better things were 'back in the day.'"

"What happened to it?" Silverstream asked. "My history teacher said that it was just the Gemerellites dispersing over time, just natural development, but this," she gestured at the shattered ruins of the Unbreakable Land, "there's no way this was natural."

"Sorry to disappoint you," the captain chuckled, "but all the people I've spoken to say that what happened here was completely natural; the Gemerellites built their stonework, metalwork, soldiers, scholars, and leaders, and then just - stopped. Why did they need to develop them further? They were the best in the world. They got comfortable, so they stopped growing, then they stopped changing, then they tried to stop the rest of the world from changing. They failed; other people came up with ways to fight off their soldiers, their secrets for stone- and metal-working spread, and the 'elected' leaders ended up spending more time fighting their own citizens than the city's enemies. Then, when the Cold Age struck, Nature or the gods or random chance or something decided to punish them for misusing their gifts and gave them a new one, a tidal wave that could be seen from Griffonstone." She snorted. "I guess they got what they wanted, huh? They wanted not to change, and look at them now; thousands of years, and barely any changes to talk about. Not even the water level's changed, even after the Cold Age's ice melted. No, the Gemerellites' leaders got their wish; nobody will ever come close to them again. Not even criminals, and here would be almost perfect for them; well-constructed, out of the way, easy to hide and move around in, this place would make a perfect hideout or safehouse, but people remember what else was perfect here and how that turned out."

A solemn silence fell on them as Allegiance passed through the drowned city, dark and brooding ruins reaching out to them before falling away as the ship sailed by. The last memories of a once-great kingdom, fighting to stay above the abyss that had claimed that kingdom's people...

"Whose side were you on, captain?"

Blinking, the captain turned to her and raised a brow.

Silverstream swallowed. "Thorax or Chrysalis?"

The captain's face changed, melting into an impenetrable mask. "You know about Ornithia, kid?"

Frowning in thought, Silverstream eventually shook her head.

"It was my home," the captain replied, lip curling. "Ornithia, land of a thousand islands. A thousand islands, and ten thousand rulers. Every island was like Griffonstone, pretenders and mercenaries fighting each other while the rich profited off of them and those caught in the crossfire. There was no law except the whims of the rich and the strong, and they weren't particularly interested in things like peace or security or anything other than their own wants. Some of the islands had courts, yeah, with judges and juries, all of whom were either in the rich's pocket or the line of fire of the strong. The only ways out were wooden boxes; either you got on a ship and went as far away as fast as you could, or you stayed, tried to scratch out a living, and ended up in a coffin anyway. Chaos, suffering, a law that was worse than lawlessness... why would I want to wish that on somewhere I didn't know, let alone somewhere like Oddo where I had friends? I didn't want either Chrysalis or Thorax to win if winning meant subjecting Oddo to that. I wasn't for Chrysalis or Thorax; I was for Oddo, for the people those two claimed to care for." She spat into the sea. "They claimed a lot of things. Like, Thorax, he claimed that, with how Chrysalis had deteriorated, rebellion was the least worst option. What could be worse than something that caused Chrysalis' purges, Pike's execution, and Bluefield?"

Silverstream shivered at the suffering-haunted last name, and weakly replied, "Bluefield wasn't him, it was-"

"One of his captains, I know," the captain cut her off. "I know that not saying 'no' isn't the same as saying 'yes', too. For things like this, though, for soldiers and judges and kings, it sounds close enough."

"He was trying not to be his mother," she said, "give his subordinates the chance to talk about their orders instead of blindly obeying them."

"He tried too hard," the captain retorted. "There's a reason orders are given, and that's because the higher-ups know more about what's going on than the boots on the ground do. If that turns out to be wrong and the boots know more than the captains, the boots are welcome to talk about it and help the captains get a bigger picture. They're not welcome to completely disregard orders, no matter how weakly worded they are. Of course, from the sounds of it, it also would've helped if Thorax had actually made it a clear order, not just an 'oh, by the way, when you get this city to surrender, please don't wipe its inhabitants off the face of the planet.'"

Silverstream paused, then asked, "You don't like Thorax, do you?"

"I didn't like him at first, no," the captain shook her head. "Too weak, too indecisive. I get that he wanted to be more open than his mother, wanted to involve more people, but a leader needs to be willing to make a decision on their own. He needed to take charge, not because it was his right but because it was his duty; his advisors' job was to advise him, but his job was to take that advice and make a decision with it, then get others either to agree with it or convince him to change it. You can only plot one course at a time, and it was his job to plot it. But, thankfully, he grew; the Thorax crowned at Queensgrave was a better leader than the Thorax who defeated Pike, just like the Thorax who took the Hive was a better leader than the one crowned by Dagger. He grew, he learned, and he was willing to change, which is why I don't hate him now; he's not the indecisive boy who wasn't able to protect Bluefield from being butchered anymore. Now, he can prove that he cares about his people instead of simply saying that and hiding in the corner. But I can't just forget the days when he was like that; I can't forget what it took for him to get where he is now. I like the current Thorax, but whenever I see him I think about the old Thorax and all the people who died in his splendid little war, and I wonder if it was worth it."

A hand lashed around Silverstream's ankle.

Without thinking, she began to scream, as high and loud as she could, while her free foot began feeling around for the arm of whoever was grabbing her. She found it, then stomped with all the strength in her leg, grinding her heel into the thick arm.

With a hiss, it retreated, and seven others surged over the railing, pulling dripping, muscular bodies up the side of the ship.

With a desperate screech, she struck at every hand she could find, trying to keep the railing a wall to keep whoever was coming out. But there were too many of them, her strongest blows only caused them to retract and grab somewhere else, now one of them was over the railing, reaching for her, and her head hurt where she'd hit it, sending it spiraling down into the sea.

A howl of pain shrieked to her right, salty iron drops spattering her cheek; the captain's knife was drawn, and one of the climbing hands was missing two fingers. It quickly joined its companion over the side.

Another one rose up to take the place of the one Silverstream had knocked away, and she prepared to send it after the first, but then she looked at it and all she could see was it, and it was wrong, it looked like a Man but without a nose, its eyes were too wide, its teeth were fangs, and its skin was drowned, it was a drowned Man walking, drowned Men didn't walk, didn't breathe, didn't bring souvenirs home, and it grabbed her and its touch was so cold-

Desperation gave her strength, strength in her arms which shrugged its arms off and strength in her legs which crashed into its body and sent it reeling over the edge, down into the depths where drowned Men belonged.

Another splash, and there were no more hands, all of them were back in the sea, just like the captain's knife went back into her pocket as she pulled out her phone and shouted into it, "Ocypete, I don't care where we are, full speed ahead."

A brief indiscernible buzz from her phone, and then the churning of the water down below as Allegiance's engines roared to full life.

"We should never have come here," the captain growled. "Sunken rocks and speed don't go together, and going slow and arriving at Griffonstone safely don't mix either nowadays."

Silverstream said nothing in reply, instead bending down to pick something up off the deck: the two fingers the captain had slashed off, thankfully apparently done bleeding out. While the captain's words echoed meaninglessly in her ears, she looked the fingers over curiously, some unknown question driving her.

Why was she interested in them? They looked normal, if a bit thicker and stronger than she was used to. The nails were short and the skin looked almost like it was sparkling, but nothing really out of the ordinary.

Except, when she accidentally dropped them, they didn't drop, the fingers trying to grab her even after being detached, though now only the fingertips had the strength to try.

Her hand frantically flapped as she screamed, eventually throwing the fingers back down onto the deck with a sickening crack. She fearfully shuffled away from them, staring at them with eyes almost as wide as the fingers' wielder's had been.

Then someone else was grabbing her, but she didn't fight back; this grab was different, one she'd felt countless times before.

"Silverstream, are you okay?" Sky Beak asked while Mom simply hugged her and blubbered. "We heard you screaming, we came as fast as we could."

"There was an attack," the captain interrupted before she could reply. "For all we know, another might be on the way. All of you, back to your cabin, I'll send a few of the crew to help keep you safe as soon as I can."

"Attack?" Sky Beak frowned. "An attack by who?"

"Don't know, doesn't matter," the captain curtly replied. "All that matters is that you're not safe out here. Get to your cabin, hunker down, and don't leave until I give you the all-clear; I promised Novo I'd get you safely to Griffonstone, and however much I crossed that promise by going through this wreck of a place, I don't intend to break it. I will keep you safe, whether that means from yourselves, the weather, the Sea, or whoever attacked us. You're under my roof, and that means I have a duty to you, and I will not fail that duty."

A crashing wave slammed into a nearby tower, scattering foam and starlight through the air as Ocean Flow and Sky Beak carried Silverstream back to their cabin.

The captain prepared to follow them, but paused on the threshold of the ship's castle. Turning back to the stern with a thoughtful look on her face, she bent down and picked up the discarded fingers, rolling them around in her hands.

Standing back up, she stuffed them in a pocket, murmuring, "Whoever, or whatever attacked us," before heading inside.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

an Oddon afraid of the Sun

Unexpected but interesting object of reverence given who the Oddons equate to.

Ocypete, I don't care where we are, full speed ahead.

Even with a far more anarchic Ornithia, it's nice to know that those two end up together.

Drowned zombies in the sunken ruins of a fallen civilization? I'm sure its nothing. And that no harm will come of holding onto those fingers. (Though really, there are even odds that those digits will be either Silverstream's ruin or salvation.) Let's hope the locals don't keep making their displeasure known.

[RangerOfRhudaur]

11127977

Unexpected but interesting object of reverence given who the Oddons equate to.

Less an object of reverence than an object of nigh-omnipresence. A desert isn't exactly the best place to avoid the Sun.

Even with a far more anarchic Ornithia, it's nice to know that those two end up together.

Well... End up together, yes, end up *together* together, no. This Ocypete, though she shares the same name as the one from the comics, is a completely different one, possessing a friendly relationship with the good captain as opposed to a romantic one. Apologies for the confusion, and any potential disappointment.

Drowned zombies in the sunken ruins of a fallen civilization? I'm sure its nothing. And that no harm will come of holding onto those fingers. (Though really, there are even odds that those digits will be either Silverstream's ruin or salvation.) Let's hope the locals don't keep making their displeasure known.

One can only hope...

[Eroraf86]

Well, that was creepy. Hope none of those drowned zombies have tridents.

[RangerOfRhudaur]

11128177
I'm sorry, did I give you permission to give me war flashbacks to those abominable, "Now-I-Am-Become-Death-The-Destroyer-Of-Worlds" monstrosities of a mob?