Sailing Home (Everyone)

[Continued from Sailing Away.]

The trip from the sea caves to the Redport docks takes a full day, which means that they must leave at dawn if they want a cover of darkness when they reach the docks. Two ships creep from the caves in the early pale light of morning: one, the tiny rental ship which Ka'Ri commissioned and captains; the other, the sleek beauty which is Korogur's pride and joy.

Korogur stands at the wheel, looking fresh and relaxed despite the harrowing trip through the dark caves from his berth. Tree, nee Gwynnestri, clambers about in the rigging in preparation to drop full sail when the ships clear the caves.

Glen is the first to emerge, coming up from below deck with Elen behind, having been eating some breakfast and having a sip of coffee. He steps easily up to Korogur and stands beside him, following his gaze and watching the horizon. Elen rubs up against the orcish pirate's legs. "Morning, Captain. I hope it's alright if I keep watch up here with you and the crew. Anything I should be on the lookout for?" He speaks calmly but with a twinge of nervous excitement to bring their charge back safely.

"So," Thimb asked some of her other party members away from the crew when a moment presented its self, "On a scale of 1-10 how likely do we think it is we'll need to like, re-kidnap Tree from Laedrya?" she tried to make it sound like a joke, but it really, really wasn't.

"On the plus side, she trusts us," Sithani replies in a similar joking-not-joking tone. "Sehanine blessed her priests a lot, right? Laerdya probably won't be able to magic Tree away from the temple. Hopefully. I don't actually know what she can do."

"Actually, the plan right now is Yondalla's temple, not Sehanine's, and Laerdya won't be there to start with," Sunrise adds. "My hope is that after meeting with Rik and Luther, Tree will feel safe enough to meet with some city officials and maybe even Laerdya, but. Baby steps."

"Watch out for pirates," Korogur advises Glen with a winning grin.

Glen grins back with a chuckle. "Will do. Thanks." He sees his companions gathered on the deck, but does not join them, assuming that whatever information he might need will be passed along to him in some way or another. He takes up a watch post not far from the captain, where he has a clear view of Korogur himself, the crew, and the surroundings in all directions. He leans on the railing of the ship easily, enjoying the wind in his hair and on his face. Elen chirps and runs around the deck, looking for crewmembers who will be willing playmates.

"I still need to give her her diary back and apologize for cracking it..." said Thimb with a mix of guilt and shyness. "But how do I even do that? 'Here you go! Sorry about that but I thought you were maybe kidnapped not run away and had to make sure by the way love your use of swears'?"

Sunrise shrugs. "I mean, she knows we thought she was kidnapped. If she had been kidnapped then going through her things to find clues is exactly what we should have been doing."

"So you think I should just..." Thimb trailed off, "give it back and say sorry? Like, just like that?" Thimb was good at a lot of things, but, people was not one of them. "Maybe I could have Hamish hand it back as I apologize... hard to be angry when Hamish is there bein' all soft..."

Korogur grins at Glen again, the morning sunlight bright on his face. "I'm not entirely joking," he admits. "We're fair game out here, for the guard and privateers. Most of those will leave us be out of mutual self-interest, but there's enough who'd be happy to capture us. So, yeah, keep your eyes peeled if you like."

"Makes sense," Sithani offers. "It might work with me, although I do have a constant burning anger in me so who knows? But! We do still need to talk to her about the aboleth. The diary would be a good way to bring that up."

"And if her memory was maybe modified..." added on Thimb a bit darkly. Hearing Sithani was made of rage Hamish took their cue to sit by her feet and stare up at her expectantly. They had decided to be less avian today, feeling the whole water theme more. Where they got the tiny saddle was another question.



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Sithani sits down on the deck to cuddle and stroke Hamish. "That's a difficult question to ask if you actually want an answer. Where did you get that saddle, sweetie? Is it part of you?"

"Well, sometimes becoming aware of that sort of magic can disrupt it. It's... difficult and complicated so hard to keep it, well, secure. Then again, fey tower..."

Hamish leaned into the petting and let out a pleased sort of trill. The saddle, upon closer inspection, was the bit of leather Thimb used to keep her quills together.

"Are we sure those diary entries are about the aboleth?" Sunrise frowns. "We all assumed they were, but in retrospect I'm thinking they might be about the replacement body. It was sort of in a 'glass tank' too, wasn't it?"

"Hmm. Could work," she replies to Thimb. "Though - gods, what's their name? Some philosopher argued that memories are made up each morning; they said that if people can't remember something and you give them false details, they sometimes remember the false details as if they're an actual memory." Sithani shivers. "Memory modification is a really nasty trick if it exploits that feature of the mind."

In response to Sunrise's theory, she adds, "Could be, but it felt to me like there was genuine moral revulsion. Being killed so your soul can transfer to a new body is unsettling but it would be weird to have that kind of horror about it. Well, unless she conflated it with the ongoing lack of respect for her personal agency and independence, I guess."

"Well, we could open with what we thought it was about, and see what she says?" offered Thimb, digging the pink book out of her pack, frowning as she noticed her quills scattered about her bag and quickly bunching them back up.

"She did mention that the new body was stuffed full of the plague material," Sunrise points out. "That alone could justify the revulsion. And I don't know, I'd find it fairly horrifying. But yes, let's talk to her. I've got some questions too, about this amulet."

Ka'Ri is one of the only members of the team on the smaller vessel. She was doing her best to appear confident and charismatic, putting at ease the nervous crewmembers who were getting antsy about sailing with a notorious pirate ship in the dead of night.

So she kept in her worries, holding them like a lead balloon in her gut.

Glen nods from his post. "I'm a little surprised that people don't stay away from you on reputation alone. You're quite the fearsome pirate, Captain." He grins, teasing a little - but still careful, as he's sure that someone doesn't become a famous pirate without slitting a few throats.

Korogur laughs at this. "Merchants, sure. Smart pirates, yeah. But smart people tend to find a less dangerous line of work. And there's always reckless kids who wanna prove they're better than you, and older assholes who wanna cut down the competition. Add in the bounty on my head and now you got serious hunters looking to make payday. Not to mention steal whatever I got in the hold and sell my crew into slavery. Some days it's smooth sailing, some days it's kill-or-be-killed, and Osprem never tells you in advance which days are which."

---

Tree lands on the deck with a smooth thump of her boots after the last of the sails shakes free to catch the morning winds. She eyes the others as they approach her, wary again in the early dawn light.

Glen nods. "Ah, true. That makes sense. But we shouldn't have any trouble, even if we're set upon. Our merry band," he grins, "is pretty good in a fight, and I'm guessing you can handle yourself as well."

Sithani reaches down to Hamish and points their head in Tree's direction. "Do us proud, cute thing."

Hamish straightened up, looking at their new target and gave a solemn nod before taking the diary in their mouth and slithering over before Thimb could react.

"Hamish!" Thimb hissed after them to no avail. "Oh you little shit!" she whispered chasing after her familiar right as they stood up on their, well, not back legs, they had no legs at the moment, but stood up as much as a snake like creature could, offering the diary back to Tree with sparkling puppy dog eyes.

"Er, hi," squeaked Thimb coming to an awkward halt behind Hamish. "We, er, didn't meet, but, uh, I'm Thimb, t-that-s Hamish, and, uh, I guess you probably recognize your own journal- I, er, well, we thought maybe you were kidnapped so... I... broke-your-cipher-and-translated-it-and-I'm-real-sorry-but-I-didn't-show-Laedrya-or-Luther?" Her voice went up a full octave. Hamish wiggled a little in anticipation of pats for a job well done.