Foes and Heirs: Segment Two: The New Life

SEGMENT 2 – THE NEW LIFE

“You will never understand the true meaning of your life, until you travel and experience how others are living theirs.”

5:

“Aaaand… touchdown!” Cheered Azura Wilder as her brother guided the Origin onto the ground, setting the ship down as gently as he could, given that it was his first time piloting the thing. “You did it!”

“Did I?” Her brother looked out of it as he leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. “What, uh… what time is it?”

“Iamos, it’s, like, past seven!” Azura blurted. “You’ve been flying for ten hours?”

At her words, Iamos exhaled and laughed softly to himself.

“No wonder I feel so tired.” He muttered.

“Yeah, no duh!” Rolling her eyes, Azura leant forward and ruffled her brother’s hair. He groaned in response.

“Don’t do that.”

For her part, Azura simply flashed him a coy smile before turning on her heel and practically skipping away, listening to the clank of her feet on the ship’s metal floor. She had to admit, she was growing to love the sky boat. Something about the hum of the engines and grinding of the mechanics was soothing, and she had found herself falling asleep the previous night faster than she could remember. It didn’t help that she had the unfortunate habit of having bad dreams, so she would often wake up early and have to wait for her brother to come and calm her down. Though, that seemed to have not happened this time. Which was good, because her brother had been busy driving the ship and he wouldn’t have had the time to stay with her – which was fine. She understood.

“We’d all be dead if big brother had stopped flying during the night.” Azura mentally reminded herself as she walked happily up the rusting set of stairs that led to the largest room, at the top of the ship. It was something like ten meters by ten meters wide, and there was a big round table in the middle of it, made of wood and with some chairs beside it. A perfect meeting place.

Already sat around it were Loden and Daiyu, who looked pretty tired themselves (though not as tired as her brother), as they had spent a portion of time scouring the ship to see how big it was and how many rooms there were.

“We landed?” Loden asked, as Azura wandered into the room.

“We landed.” Confirmed Azura. Loden clapped his hands, making Daiyu jump.

“Great.” He declared. “Now we can discuss what happens next.”

“Why do we need to discuss?” Whined Azura as she plonked herself down on a chair. “Why can’t we just go… wherever we want to go?”

“We have to decide where that is first.” Loden told her, to which she frowned and folded her arms. Sure, she guessed it made sense, but she didn’t like how everyone had to meet and talk about it.

“Couldn’t we just put some places in a hat?” She protested.

“Do you have a hat?” Asked Loden back.

Azura’s face fell. “No, I forgot mine.”

“Well we can’t very well put place names in a hat if we don’t have a hat.” Loden informed her, like she didn’t already know. “Look, we need to focus on this.”

He pulled a battered bit of paper out of his pocket.

“What… what is that?” Daiyu asked, saying something for the first time since Azura had entered the room.

“It’s a map.” Loden told her, as he unrolled it and began to peer at it again. “It looks like it encompasses the entire continent.”

“Let me see!” Azura sprang forward to have a look for herself. When she saw, she glared in disappointment. “It doesn’t look special.”

“Well, I don’t know. I’m not an expert.” Loden shrugged. “Iamos seemed to think it was-”

“Rainer.” Iamos interrupted, entering the room. Azura considered flinging herself at her brother but stopped herself when she saw how tired he looked – honestly, he seemed to be about to fall over even without her help – so she settled for waving vigorously.

“Master was the one who emphasised its importance.” He continued, plodding forward before collapsing into a chair. “I don’t… know why. But I… I trust him.”

“Yeah, could we have some background info?” Loden pressed his friend. “I mean, why was our house on fire?”

“I don’t know.” Confessed Iamos. “I mean… there was a man. Another alchemist. And he… he fought Master, they duelled with alchemy. And Master told me to get the map, and get the Origin-”

“The what?” Azura spoke up. “What’s an Origin?”

“That’s the name of the ship, Azura.” Explained Iamos.

“What kind of name is “Origin”? Or “The Origin”, or whatever it’s called? We need a proper name for our ship.”

“And what do you have in mind, o authority on naming flying ships?” Loden asked her.

“Uh…” Azura was forced to ponder the question. ““Big Metal Floaty Thingy-Thing”?”

“Yeah, we’re sticking with the Origin.” Declared Iamos, sinking back in his chair and letting breath slip through his lips. “Look, feel free to make a plan without me. I’m going to go to sleep, because I feel like I could slumber in this bony wooden chair if I tried, so just tell me what you have in mind when I wake up.” Having said his piece, he rose onto shaky legs and plodded down the stairs.

“See you later bro!” Azura called after him. He raised a hand in acknowledgement before vanishing.

“So…” Loden said once Azura’s brother had vanished. “Where even are we going, anyway?”

“We need to sort out a list of priorities!” Azura stated. “What do we need?”

“I didn’t find any food on board.” Contributed Daiyu. “We’ll need some.”

“Got it!” Chirped Azura. “What else?”

“We have no idea what these engines run on, do we?” Loden thought, an unusually pensive expression on his face as he spoke. “Someone needs to look into that.”

“I can do that!” Azura volunteered, remembering the nice noises of the engine. “AND I can check and see if they’re broken or not!”

“Uh… okay, Azura.” Loden nodded, letting her see his smile. “So we’ll need food, and we might need fuel. Where’s the nearest place we could get some?”

“Can I see the map?” Asked Daiyu. “I know the country pretty well.”

“Right, of course, ‘cus of your…” Loden trailed off as he gave the scrap of paper over to Daiyu, who peered at it before nodding in a confirming sort of manner.

“Yes, I… look.” She turned the map around and pointed at a dot on it. “This is the nearest city that I remember.”

““Phek-kai”.” Recited Loden. “What’s that city like?”

“Actually, that’s the capital of our Empire.” Daiyu revealed. “I think. In any case, it’s, uh… it’s a big city. Supposedly the Emperor and his family live there…”

“Well, that looks like a good place to head. How long d’you think it’ll take using this ship?”

“Well, i-it would help if we knew exactly where… where we are.”

“I could always go for a bit of a wander?” Loden suggested.

“I… okay. You’ll need to look for a sign or something.” Daiyu advised him. “All we need is our location, so once you find something, come back.”

“As you wish, ma’am.” Loden shot her a grin and a mock salute, before sauntering down the stairs. Daiyu then turned to Azura.

“Do, um… do you want to go down… to… to the engines?”

“You got it!” Azura declared, almost tripping over her own feet in her hurry to descend to the engine room.

Her feet were once again echoing through the ship’s corridors, and once again Azura slowed down to appreciate the sound. It wasn’t like he had walked on pure metal before, after all. Heck, being surrounded by so much was a new experience in itself. If this was her new life, she was okay with it and then some.

The engines themselves, she remembered as she found the engine room, looked like giant eggs from the outside. But inside was a mess of wiring and cogs and so many other cool mechanical things. Azura peered into the dimly lit room. There were a few gauges on the sides of different machines, so she looked for the one marked fuel (as anyone else would logically do when looking for a way to check how much fuel the engines had). Eventually, she saw one marked “fuel levels”. Luckily, the indicator thingy was still in the green section of the colour-coded ticker – so unless whoever built the engines was colour blind, they still had plenty of fuel left.

“Good.” She said out loud. Without fuel, they wouldn’t be able to get anywhere, and that would be a disaster. A travesty. An utter catastrophe, even. She wanted, some might even say desperately, to go somewhere.

**********

A significant amount of time had passed before Loden had returned. Azura herself couldn’t possibly say how long, because she had spent the whole time examining the engines, but it was long enough that when she heard Loden’s voice and tried to stand up, her leg cramped and she had to give it a bit of a hasty massage before rising and hobbling after him.

She saw him in the corridor, and called after him. “Loden!”

He turned around where he stood. “Oh, Azura!”

“So where are we?”

“We’re outside a village called “Zutaros”.”

“I… have… absolutely no idea where that is.”

“Well, with any luck, Daiyu will. Or at least, it’ll be on the map.”

“Goodie!”

With no more words required, the two hurried up to the meeting room, where they saw Daiyu asleep and leaning across the chair.

“Daiyu!” Azura bellowed as she entered, causing the ravenette jerk awake with a shriek. Whoops. She had never been one for gradual awakenings.

“I-I-I – what – where?!” Daiyu sputtered before seemingly regaining her senses.

“The nearest village is called Zutaros. Is that on the map?” Loden asked her.

“L-let me check.” Daiyu’s hands shook as she brought the map closer to her face. “Y-yeah, it’s o-on here.”

“How far away is it from Phek-kai?” He pressed.

“Not too far, by the look of it.” Daiyu informed him. “Maybe another few hours? I… I guess it depends how fast the ship is.”

“Let’s hope it’s nothing longer.” Azura looked down at her stomach as it growled a rather unpleasant growl. “My stomach’s beginning to realise that breakfast hasn’t arrived yet.”

“It might be longer, Az. Iamos needs to sleep, remember?” Loden pointed out.

“Shoot, you’re right.” Said Azura. “Can I wake him up?”

There was a brief silence. Eventually, Daiyu turned to Loden.

“H-how long has it been?”

“At least a couple ‘a hours.”

“And how much sleep can… can Iamos function on?”

“He’s a deep sleeper, and he doesn’t get much. If we wake him now, he’ll be cranky, but he should still function until we get to Phek-kai.”

“Then I’ll go wake him!” Volunteered Azura, thundering down the stairs before either of the others could stop her. “Big brother! Big brother! We need you!”

There was no reply. Azura, on her quest to find her brother, began to poke her head through every door she came across, calling his name each time she did so. She had gone through almost every door of the ship before automatically sticking her head through the cockpit door and seeing Iamos curled up on the three seats, which he had dragged into a line for him to lie on.

“Big brother!” She cooed, marching forwards and leaning over him. “We need you to fly us to Phek-kai!”

“To where?” He groaned, turning over so his face was pressed against the back of a seat.

“To a city!” She emphasised. “We can only get there by flying!”

“Okay, can I just…” He groaned and shifted himself into a sitting position. “Right. Flying… ok, I’m going to need someone to be here with me.”

Azura raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Two reasons.” Her brother held up two fingers, scratching as his few-days old beard as he did so. “So that they can guide me, because I have literally no idea where fleck kai or whatever is. And so that they can stop me from falling asleep in the chair. Because this chair is comfy.”

“Fair enough.” Azura conceded. “I’ll get Daiyu, is that ok?”

“Fine.” He waved her off. “She’ll be quiet, at least.”

“Good luck, bro!” She called over her shoulder as she headed back to the meeting room for a third time. Poking her head above the floor of the higher room, her eyes met Daiyu’s lilac irises for a brief moment before the other girl looked away.

“Iamos needs you to show him where to go and keep him awake.” She explained.

“I… uh… okay.” Daiyu nodded, and Azura hopped up the last few steps before motioning to her, who in turn travelled down them on her way to the cockpit. Once the sound of her footsteps stopped, she turned to Loden, who was looking at her with an inquisitive grin on his face.

“What do you think?” He asked. It was Azura’s turn to smile.

“Oh my gosh they’re, like, perfect together.”

“Think so?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, well don’t try and interfere. Most of the time this stuff doesn’t work out because of… uh… external interference.”

“Ok.”

“And you have to not be sad if it doesn’t happen, because sometimes…” Loden’s smile faded away. “Sometimes these things just don’t work out, you know?”

“I know.” Azura nodded, trying to act as sagely as her brother but probably failing because she was still grinning like a maniac. When Loden’s smile returned, it looked more tired than she remembered it.

“Now,” he said with what struck her as forced enthusiasm, “let’s get to Fekky!”

“Is that what we’re calling it?”

“Yep.”

“Fine by me.”

**********

The hours passed slowly.

Azura passed her time by either gossiping with Loden, meandering around the ship (and getting to know where everything was because she wasn’t really good with directions) and lying in the engine room, listening to the hum – no, it was more like a purr, like there was a big cat beside her – of the engines. She had decided that it was her new favourite sound. Something about it was just so…. soothing. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. It was like how her brother liked the smell of old books, but didn’t really know why. It was just one of those things, she supposed.

She had found a nice space to lie, just underneath a jutting metal box with a bunch of wires sticking out of it. It was about as high as a table, so there was enough room for her to turn over and stuff. A couple of cables draped over her as she lay, which was a bit annoying and probably unsafe, but aside from that it was really nice, with the heat emitted by the machinery stopping her from getting cold and fan she had positioned her face under stopping too much dust from getting up her nose.

A way she had found to not die of boredom was to look at all of the different symbols and diagrams decorating the various metallic components of the engines, and try to figure out what each one stood for. Some were obvious, like a symbol that looked like a flame was probably a warning against fire. But some, like that one that looked like a circle with a line through it, were more difficult. No ball games? Not to be left out in the sun? Ah well.

It was after not only her leg but her entire body began to cramp up that Azura decided to cut her losses and emerge from her shelter, brushing grime from her long hair as she stood up and began to tramp back up to the meeting room, where Loden was sat.

“I’M BORED!” She announced as she entered the room, before taking a seat opposite him and peering in his general direction. “Entertain me.”

“There is literally nothing to do on this ship.” Complained Loden, in response. “There’s nothing I can really help you with there, short stack.”

“This is serious business, Loden.” Azura complained right back. “What’s the point of going on awesome magical adventures if we’re just gonna be bored the whole frikin’ time?”

“Heck if I know.” Shrugged Loden. “I don’t even know why Iamos wants to go through with this anyway.”

“Good point.” Mused Azura. “Why couldn’t we just stay in the village until whatever was happening there had stopped. What even was happening, anyway?”

“Didn’t you hear?” Loden leaned back in his chair. “Someone attacked Rainer and burned the house down.”

“Yeah, I know that.” Azura found herself shuddering. She hoped Rainer was alright. “But I want to know WHY. Like, just why?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Said Loden. “But whatever. Maybe after Iamos rests we can convince him to take us ba-”

“Don’t even finish that!” Growled Azura. “Don’t you even want to go anywhere!?”

“Not really. I kinda just want to head back once we’ve made our Phek-kai pit stop.”

“You haven’t even considered that something important slash awesome might be happening?”

“Of course I’ve considered it.” Snapped Loden. “Our frikkin’ house burned down! But, I… I dunno. I guess I just thought we could sort it out within a couple of days, or something.” He glowered at the table below him. “I didn’t sign on for anything longer than that.”

“Well, feel free to get off when we reach Pekky!” Azura told him.

“No way in anything.”

“Well I- wait, what?” Azura found herself understandably surprised at Loden’s statement. It was a bit of a contradiction, to say the least. “I thought you…?”

“I may not like what’s going on, but I’m not abandoning Iamos for anything.” He said.

“I… uh… ok.” Azura nodded, ever so slightly dazed, before heading back down the stairs where she tried to process Loden’s actions, which really were quite inconsistent. As her brother would have said…

“This requires ponderage.” Azura stated out load, before stalking back to the engine room. For another lie down.

However, before she could get there, she felt the ship lurch again.

And it didn’t righten itself.

Worried, she ran to the cockpit, where she saw Iamos and Daiyu staring as the ground rushed towards them.

“What are you two doing?” She almost shrieked. “Are we crashing? Why are we crashing?!”

“Relax!” Ordered Iamos, irritation evident in his sleep-deprived voice. “It’s called a landing, Azura. Just let me…”

He tugged on the wheel, and the ship stabilised with a jolt, hovering just above the ground.

“Daiyu!” He said. “Button!”

Nodding, Daiyu pressed a button to her left. Azura heard a faint sliding noise, and Iamos brought the ship down onto the ground with a final tiny jolt.

“Well, we’re here.” He showcased with a wave of his hand towards the glass. “Phek-kai.”

Peering through, Azura saw buildings higher than she had ever seen in her life. Below the hill they had landed on stretched out a sprawling landscape of houses and roads, slums and palaces. She made to ask her brother more, but saw with little surprise that she had already fallen asleep in his chair, the bags under his eyes more prominent than she had ever seen them. Sighing, she ruffled his hair once again.

“Thanks, bro.” She muttered.