"I think I get it. Not entirely. I don't want to claim that. But I think I get at least part of what you are worried about." Marco kept his eyes on the sea in front of him, hopefully giving Riv so empty space to feel comfortable in. "But I don't know what ho is going to be like to now, either. Especially with Tatric gone. Does that make sense?"
"It does. You're on the right track. It's also that I'm worried about all of you, too. I don't know how to say that part of things. What if I get there, and it's everything I ever wanted? What if it's much better than I rember, and there's no way around the idea that it's where I should be?"
"You an if you wanted to stay," Marco said. "If you wanted to stay and had to tell us."
"Right." Riv swallowed hard. It looked like his mouth had gone dry. "If I had to tell you that."
"We can cross that bridge when we co to it, and I can't say… I think you know we all like you, here. I want you here. I don't want to pretend I don't. I never really had a brother before, you know."
"I feel the sa. But if I had to stay…"
"Then you'd stay." Marco tried to jump ahead of all the things he could imagine Riv was thinking. He felt like he could almost do that, since he was thinking so many of them himself. "You wouldn't worry about leaving us. You wouldn't worry about how we'd make do. You can't, Riv. If you end up staying because you feel like you have to and not because you want to, that makes you a prisoner, no matter how good the reasons are."
Riv was quiet for a mont before walking over to their water barrel and dipping out a cold, fresh drink. The ti seed to help him put his thoughts together, and when he started to talk again his dry-mouthed nervousness seed gone.
"Is it really that simple, Marco?"
"It won't be simple. It will be hard as hell. But the best option isn't always even a good option. It's the only way forward, if it cos to that."
"I just don't see how you'd be fine. Think about how many fights we had that ca down to needing every last resource we had. I might not be very smart, Marco, but I know I bring a lot of resources to the table."
"Do you rember what Elisa used to say about my Charisma stat? Way back when she talked about it a lot?"
"I do. One ti she said it was like throwing a loop of rope around the system and letting it drag you."
"Right. Well, these days, I figure I might almost have the highest Charisma stat of anyone we've ever t. Besides a few bards or rchants, or sothing. It helps drive the ship, but I think mostly that every point I dump into that stat is just another strand in that rope around the system. If going to your island ans you leave, that's probably what the system wants, at least."
"That almost makes worry more," Riv said. He sighed and turned around towards his bunk, then took a few trudging steps towards bed. Marco let him. "I an, I believe you that the system dragged us here. That feels clear enough. It's just that it seems to like the system wants what it wants. And that's not necessarily what you want. I'm sure wherever it's leading you is good for it, but what about you? Is it really good for you?"
—
Riv was back in bed a mont later, hopefully feeling better. That would make the conversation at least worth sothing, Marco thought. He felt like he needed that, in the mont, because as much good as it might have done Riv, it left Marco less settled. It took hours to shake his own worries off.
The next morning, any visible worries or concerns Riv had decided to show Marco were gone, replaced by the sa jokes and smiles as always. He cooked a huge breakfast, apparently trying to make up for the calories he had spent in the long, strength-exhausting battle the day before. He talked almost unintelligibly through his first two helpings of food, trying to shift words around chewing and fragnts of egg in a way that never quite resulted in actual aning.
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By his third plate, he was slowed down to almost normal-people rates of consumption, and the others could finally understand him.
“I wonder if it will look big or little. I rember it looking big to when I ca back from trips. Mammoth, like a whole world plunked down in the middle of the sea. It can’t be as big as the main island, though. Right, Elisa?” Riv asked.
“Nowhere near. It’s at least bigger than Quillton was. It’s a good-sized settlent.”
“But how big will it look?”
“Riv, I have no way of knowing that.” Elisa picked at her last few fragnts of food before apparently deciding she was full and pushing the plate away. “It might look big or it might look small. I don’t know how I’d know how your eyes are calibrated these days. Besides, I haven’t seen it in a while, either.”
“I thought it was huge, back then. When we almost got Riv ho, before we had to run.” Marco reached over and stole Elisa’s last piece of uneaten toast, adding it to his own plate as he continued eating. “I bet it still looks big, Riv, but nothing is going to look all that big after Jare’s capital. You aren’t going to be amazed.”
“I know my ho wouldn’t look big, if we went back there,” Aethe said. “It was just a shack, pretty much. I know what a shack looks like. It looks small.”
“We never really asked you if you wanted to go back. Just to see it, I an. To say goodbye, I guess?” Marco took a shot in the dark at what Aethe was looking for. Even now, when he had seen more sides of her than anyone else, he still didn’t really know what to expect from her in so on-off situations. “Would you like that?”
“Not a chance,” Aethe said. “That place stopped being ho after my dad left. Any other place I lived in was an elf place. They didn’t fit. I don’t think I’d like rembering that any more than I have to.”
“You’d tell us if that changed, though?” Elisa said. “We don't want you to miss anything.”
“Everything I care about is here.” Aethe’s tone was definitive and final. More than that, there wasn’t a speck of pain in her tone. It was just a thing that was true, sothing she was apparently fine with. “You four and the ship. This is ho now.”
Marco noted a look sowhere between jealousy and longing in Riv’s eyes as she said that, like she had gotten to a place with that decision that he wished he too had already reached. It was only there a mont before he shook it off and got back to business.
“Anyway, Elisa, how far did you say we were? Hours?” Riv asked.
“When we woke up, yes. And then you looked after the chickens, cooked, and ate three breakfasts. I’d say we are about an hour and a half out, now. Maybe an hour if Marco pushes the pace.”
Riv didn’t ask Marco to do that, which he was happy for. For all he knew, there was a battle looming behind every corner just then, a potential fight that could find them at any ti. Really pushing the boat to the maximum speed ant involving a lot of different runes, all of which ca with a cost that would leave him at least sowhat drained compared to what he could achieve with just his own personal power. In a truly hard fight, that might leave them vulnerable.
Instead, Riv took to bothering Elisa. After Marco and Aethe had gotten together, and especially after they had made things permanent, Marco had wondered if anything would happen between the two. They were certainly close enough. They knew enough about each other and understood each other. There was even affection and love there, of a sort.
In the end it just wasn’t the sort that turned into anything like romance, though. Riv and Elisa were good friends, very different people who had nonetheless figured out how to fit together in a life that involved a lot of close contact and cooperation. At so point that had turned into a relationship that was a lot like being siblings in most ways. They joked, they bickered, and they’d fight for each other when it ca down to that. It just wasn’t like romance at all.
Riv’s town finally ca into view almost an hour and a half to the dot. He was the first to spot it, leaning over the railing with a sudden glint in his eyes.
“There it is,” he said once in a whisper, then continued louder. “There it is. There it is.”
The repetition betrayed how tightly wound he had been despite how calm he had tried to look. His voice cracked just slightly on the last one, and Marco saw at once that whatever mask Riv had kept on, it had slipped. He hadn’t been calm at all, and as soon as that facade cracked at all, it crumbled and was gone. He was leaning so far over the rail Marco thought he might fall, were it not for how hard he was gripping the wood with his hands.
Elisa ca up beside Marco at the wheel, arms folded as she took in the town. Marco thought back to her assurance that it was a good‑sized place. She was right. The town stretched across the coastline with stout walls and a scattering of watchtowers, far larger than most of the fragile hamlets dotting the outer seas. It wasn’t exceptionally huge, but it was bigger than Gulf Isle's primary island had ever been. Big enough to matter. Big enough that, if they’d started their journey here, they might have thought it the kind of place a whole company could operate out of without ever leaving.
Marco steadied the ship’s course. He could feel Riv’s excitent radiating through the air like heat, and he knew the real test for his friend was only just beginning. There was no knowing what it would be, but sothing in the air told him it wouldn't be simple, even if it wasn't loud.
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