** I have nothing to say. Idk. Just read. If you dare.**

Chapter 6

She awoke to an obnoxious banging on the doors.

Lyla threw her fists over her eyes, unsticking her eyelids from each other before blearily opening one of them. For a moment, she couldn't remember where she was, or why the room was moving in smooth, rippling motions, but then there was the banging.

Lyla rolled over. There was a faded rug on the floor. This wasn't her room.

Right.

Someone knocked again; louder and more insistently this time. The doorknob began rattling slightly. Lyla froze. "Coming!" She swung her legs over the side of the bed and rushed to her valise, banging her ankle in the process. Ouch. She could hear Inez's muffled groaning through the wall.

It's morning. I'm surrounded by strangers. I've... left home.

Lyla squashed her panic into a tight, compact ball and let it settle at the bottom of her stomach for her to deal with later. She focused on pulling out her clothes. Dress. Stockings. Shoes.

As soon as she'd declared herself decent, a fresh-faced Inez was already sweeping her into the noisy room from the evening before. It was empty this time, but there was a small wooden table with two three-legged chairs and a few glasses of orange-colored liquid.

Inez sat across from Lyla and pushed the drink towards her.

She slowly sat down, her body still fighting the effects of sleep, and eyed the liquid. It seemed safe enough, so she drank. It was sweet, fruity, and smoothed the arid dryness in her throat. There was another goblet of water beside it, so Lyla snatched that too. That was better.

When she finally set the glass down, she found that Inez was leaning back in her seat, surveying her with rapid, angular eyes.

She didn't waste any time. "So what's your story, princess?"

"I'm not the princess," Lyla replied automatically, inwardly scolding herself. She'd been mistaken for the Queen's eldest daughter for longer than she could remember. "She's my... uh, cousin."

Inez's mouth dropped open. "You're a royal?" She squinted at the girl across from her, and seemed almost impressed for approximately two seconds before she shrugged. "Alright, so you eat hot potatoes. Who cares?"

Lyla stared, blank-faced. "I'm only the Grand Duchess's daughter. I don't have a title."

"So?" Inez snorted. "You still live in the palace and eat boiled cactus."

"Uh, actually, I don't know where that rumor came from, but it's not-"

Inez leaned forward, slamming her palms on the table like it was an interrogation. "Why are you here, anyhow? Why'd you leave the palace? Are you a spy?"

Lyla blinked. "Do I look like a spy?"

"No," Inez instantly spat, and Lyla raised her eyebrows.

She decided she was feeling better this morning. The rocking of the ship would need to take a bit of getting used to, and she hadn't slept much, but at least she had the energy she needed to deal with whatever today threw at her. She looked back at an expectant Inez and chewed on her lip as she thought of a response.

"I needed to leave Apreuna, and I thought I could slip onto the ship without anyone noticing..." Inez snorted again, and Lyla chose to ignore her. "It doesn't matter. Ari and Aveline may simply decide to kill me anyway."
The braids that were threaded into Inez's black hair slapped against her cheeks when she shook her head. "Not a chance. They don't kill children."

"I'm nineteen!"

She curled her lip and stared at the ceiling. "Practically a child."

Lyla almost huffed. "Well, how old are you?"

Inez's stare was defiant. "Twenty."

Lyla didn't bother responding to that.

"Either way," Inez continued briskly, "they wouldn't. The Captain picks up stragglers all the time. They're not... bad people, Lyla. They're likely up there right now, trying to find a reason to trust you."

Lyla shrugged because she didn't know what to say, locking her gaze on the floor by her feet. She wasn't sure what to make of Inez, or anybody else on this ship, for that matter. But if Inez was telling the truth, then perhaps there was a significantly higher chance of Lyla's survival.

"Oh, and Princess?" Lyla looked up from the floor to find Inez staring at her intently. "If I were you, I'd give them a reason."

"A reason for what?" A squeaky, adolescent voice stumbled through the door and the auburn head of a boy peered around the doorframe. He was clearly a youth, whose feet were bare and probably twice the size of Lyla's. His childish eyes brightened as they landed on her. "Ooh, she's a new one. Who are you? Did you come from-"

"This is Lyla," Inez informed the boy, "And you're gone."

"Too late," Someone else sang as a small crowd of children pushed each other through the door, the same scraggly group Lyla recognized from the evening before. Eventually they tumbled over each other in Lyla's general direction until there were three boys and two girls crowding her and Inez's cowering table.

Inez fixed them with a stern glower. "Lyla, this is Imani, Nikolai, Javen, Misael, and Aza," she rattled off, barely slow enough for Lyla to catch their names. "And Henry, who's supposed to be on deck cleaning the floor." She frowned at at the first boy who seemed a bit older than the others.

"Missus," Henry bowed sloppily and stuck out his hand. Then they all began talking at once.

"Did the Cap'n hire you?."
"Are you going to look after us?"
"Did you leave Apreuna because they only eat cactus?"

Lyla's head swung back and forth like a pendulum on a grandfather clock. "I don't-"

The door swung open one last time, slamming the doorknob into the wood. There was a small dent in the space where the knob fit; Lyla was beginning to realize that on this ship, no one ever knocked; they simply barged in. Preferably by hurling the door open into the wall.

But then the room instantly hushed; it was the First Mate herself. Aveline stood in the doorway, one olive hand on her hip and the other holding a small black bishop.

She looked very different than she had in the palace. Her skirt only fell to her thighs, and her hair was tousled. There was charcoal around her eyes and a large black sash tied around her waist. It had been difficult to figure before, but now Lyla could immediately match Aveline and Ari together; they both wore leather and sarcastic smiles. Pirate.

The knot in Lyla's stomach tightened and she tried to look brave.

"Lyla," Aveline addressed firmly, swinging the object that dangled from her slender fingers.

Inez dug a sharp elbow into Lyla's side.

Lyla tensed, but Aveline's expression was even as she drew a short breath. "Do you know how to play chess?"

—

Needless to say, Lyla did know how to play chess.

"Checkmate," She said warily, claiming Ari's queen and setting it aside.

Ari glowered furiously at the board.

"No one has ever beaten Ari before." Aveline's eyes twinkled as she lifted her drink to her lips. They were sitting rather in a sort of lounge area of the ship with a chessboard in between them, while Ari scowled, Lyla fidgeted, and Aveline amused herself with the entire spectacle.

"Pure luck," Ari protested— in that raspy voice he seemed to always have, as if his throat was in constant recovery from shouting too often. Which, when Lyla thought about it, made perfect sense.

"I self-taught," Lyla volunteered tentatively, pulling her legs underneath her lap. Most of Lyla's chess games had been played by herself. Was that pathetic? Lyla opted not to answer her own question.

Aveline smiled crookedly. "Have you always lived in the palace, Lyla?"

They were studying her carefully, Lyla noticed, perhaps evaluating whether or not they could trust her, or possibly which heavy tool to gut her with. So she nodded, gulping.

Aveline may have been planning to beat around the bush a little bit more, but Ari cut to the point.

"I assume you wouldn't have been permitted to go to Kibet," He said casually, and Lyla wondered how they'd guessed. Perceptiveness made her uneasy. "So we looked in your valise," he continued conversationally. Lyla looked up, startled. "Purely for security measures, of course. You must like the color blue. You brought a lot of blue dresses. But how did you plan on getting into the Tarrah without an invitation?"
She bit down on her bottom lip, unsure of how to respond. What did you say to someone who shamelessly admitted to looking through your personal items?

They were looking at her expectantly, waiting for a response, so Lyla decided to be honest before they pulled her intestines out through her throat.

She hesitantly pulled the invitation from her corset. "Well, I... I stole one."
They stared. There was a brief pause as Aveline's cheeks slowly stretched into a grin. "You stole one?" She elbowed Ari, looking pleased. "I like her already."

"Well, I don't," he whined. "She cheats."
Lyla shook her head without thinking about it. "I don't know how you could have deduced that, since Aveline was watching the entire game."
"Avie would pay you to cheat," he insisted, turning his glare to his first mate. "If only to spite me."
Aveline laughed. "So true."

Ari's expression suddenly lightened. "Speaking of cheating," he began, turning to Lyla, "you live in the palace. So you could tell us what happened with the prince, correct? The queen was oddly vague, considering that she would like us to solve the problem in question for her."
Lyla blinked at the subject change. "Oh, well, that's because she doesn't truly know," she admitted without thinking.

"Truly?" Ari looked puzzled for a brief moment, and then he shrugged. "Well, I suppose that would make sense."

"He just... disappeared. One day he was here, and the next day he wasn't." Lyla distinctly remembered the Grand Duchess discussing the matter in low voices with the panicked queen as they sipped rosehip tea that Lyla herself had delivered in an attempt to calm Queen Rowena down. "At first they all thought he would come back. Sometimes Tristran left home. He wasn't always happy being at the palace. He would leave, sometimes... but he always came back." She looked up at her audience and was surprised to find that they were still listening. Aveline was nodding and scribbling notes on a parchment with an ink pen.

Lyla pursed her lips and plowed on. "This time... he didn't. And then when the other princes and princesses went missing, we knew they all were connected." A streak of anxiety, like hot water, shot down her spine at the memory.

"Was Prince Tristran acting strange before he left?" Aveline cut in politely, and Lyla shook her head.

"Not that I know of."

There was a long silence, interrupted by the gentle swaying of the boat and the breathing of the ocean as it lifted them up and down.
"Well, this is new information," Ari mused, tapping his nose with his index finger. "Ave?"
"Thank you, Lyla. You've been very helpful," His first mate set down her pen and loosely grasped Ari's hand as he pulled her to her feet.

Lyla nervously skimmed her hands over her skirt and unfolded her legs to stand. "I was repaying the favor."

She suddenly felt jumpy and skittish, unused to all of the focus on her. She promptly realized that wasn't sure how to act when paid attention to.

"So, how do you like Inez, Lyla?" Aveline asked politely, and that was it; the conversation had ended as promptly as it had begun.

Lyla puffed out a breath of relief. "Well, she's... she's lovely."

A small crash against the left wall made Lyla jump. The floor swayed slightly under her feet. "What was that?!"

"It's only the waves," Ari said, looking at her oddly. "Haven't you been on a ship before?"

Lyla's cheeks reddened slightly. Of course she hadn't, where would she have gone? Apreuna had no close neighbors, and she wasn't important enough to be sent on any voyages. And it likely would have remained that way until she was married off to a prince of some kingdom she would never have heard of.

Ari cocked his head expectantly, like he already knew her answer.

She hadn't ever been on a ship, but she was much too afraid of him to say otherwise, so instead she kept silent and twisted her hands together.

Ari didn't seem to mind; he rubbed his hands together and breezily steered towards more important topics. "I'm hungry. Shall we see what's in the kitchen?"

"We just had dinner," said Aveline, and he rolled his eyes.
"Your point?" He steered them towards the stairwell going to the upper deck and began climbing the stairs.

"I know you like to pretend that we're made of money, but-"

"Wait." Lyla halted, confused, and still trying to keep up. "You've had dinner? How long was I sleeping?"

"Most of the morning," Aveline supplied with a bit of a smirk.

"Most of the..." Lyla rushed up the last step and was immediately assaulted by yellow light. She shielded her eyes from the sun with one pallid hand and glanced around- she was still on a ship, surrounded by infinite swells of water.

Suddenly struck by a feeling, Lyla lifted a quivering hand to her lips and hurried over to the side of the deck, nearly tripping over her skirts as she did so.
Glittery blue waves heaved merrily against the sides of the ship, winking in the noonday light. The brown smudge that was Apreuna was no longer visible in the distance, and there was nothing else to greet her but the endless ocean. It made her feel very small, suddenly, as if she were the only person in the world, and she shivered at a breeze that lightly tapped her on the shoulder.

How lonely it was, this endless expanse of blue.

Lyla finally turned back around to see Aveline and Ari bickering over the wheel. They glanced up in unison as she approached, and her breath shortened at the beauty of her companions. They each had smudges of soot on their calloused hands and pistols tucked in their leather outfits, but their expressions were unwrinkled and they moved with an easy contentment that struck her. They had found their place. What must that feel like?

"I've... I've never been this far away from home before," she blurted, surprising herself.

Ari looked aghast. "You call that tasteless desert patch home?"

"Home can be a lot of things, Captain," Aveline reminded him, and, ignoring his answering scoff, she then addressed Lyla. "You'll have to forgive Ari. He isn't easily impressed by things that aren't gaudy and pretentious."
Ari nodded in agreement, seeming to accept this, and Aveline softly continued. "Would you care for a tour of the ship?"

Lyla managed a meek nod, not stopping to wonder if she'd regret it as the pirates led her into the cavernous den that was their home.

---

The new guest on the ship- Layla, or whatever- acted like she'd never seen a weapons room before.

(Ari decided she wasn't truly a guest; well, at least not at first, since she'd smuggled her way onboard. Semantics.)

Anyway, he figured, since she lived in a palace, they'd had to have at least three different weapons rooms. For every wing.

"We don't go to war very often," she'd explained timidly (everything she said was timidly, like she was afraid to break something with her voice), reverently skimming the hilt of a sword. "These are very hazardous weapons to keep onboard," she nervously observed.

"Oh, but our ship is very safe," Aveline said quickly. Ari almost snickered, then caught himself as she shot him a look. "You wouldn't have to worry about anything here. Truly."

The new girl seemed more concerned that they trusted her, which was a puzzle.

"But... I'm a foreigner," she'd explained, shaking her head to herself and squinting her eyes until they were almost shut. "Aren't you afraid I'll-"

"What? Slit our throats while we're sleeping?" Ari had laughed until he was quite sure that she was offended. "Did you forget? Everyone is afraid of us, princess."  He ran a sharp stone down the rough edge of his dagger and watched her flinch.

"You're dangerous," she mumbled, suddenly seeming to come to herself.

"We're all dangerous, Lyla. Even you," said Aveline gently, something like a smile flickering across her lips. "You just don't know it yet."
Diplomatic. Lyla looked horrified— though Ari was sure Aveline hadn't meant to frighten her, Lyla's polite, doll-faced expression had twisted in alarm. Ari chuckled.

"And this is the hall that winds back to your room," Aveline continued buoyantly as she opened the door. "The stairs over there are to the lower level. We keep it locked because there's a lot of storage in there that we don't particularly want to look at."

Ari absently trailed them, fishing the Queen's invitation back out of his pocket as he did so.

He glowered down at it, wondering what could have possibly happened to Queen Rowena's missing son. Fortunately, he and Aveline had some experience finding people who didn't want to be found. But usually, when he and Aveline were investigating something, they already had some sort of an idea of what exactly happened. And as of now, he was coming up with nothing.

Ari continued to re-fold, unfold, and crumple the invitation in his scarred, brown hands. When he had a task, it was difficult for him to concentrate on anything else. It made for a nice balance; though Aveline was more observant of details, she became distracted easily, while Ari was able to best center on a goal. Certain ruder people had called it 'obsessive', he preferred the word 'focused.'

Ari had always been a bit difficult. He was talented and intelligent, if perhaps too cheeky for his own good, but his utter disinterest with the world around him was obvious, and he held other people in such contempt as to be sure of deliberately offending everyone he came in contact with. Aveline had once told him that he had passion, but didn't like to share it with others. Which was why he was so bad at making friends. Come to think of it, Ari wasn't sure he had friends, period.

He had his crew, which didn't count. He had Aveline... who also didn't count.

Whatever. Since he and Aveline had made a life for themselves travelling the ocean with his crew, he finally felt like had his own corner of happiness. It was a gift so rarely bestowed that Ari found himself in constant fear of losing it. Perhaps that was his problem.

Ari then abruptly remembered that he didn't particularly like to think about his problems. He preferred to sweep them under the rug and nonchalantly hope they didn't end up ruining his life.

Ari ultimately determined to put the issue of his questionable coping skills out of his mind as he followed Aveline and Lyla to find supper. Finally.

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