The Kelp Herder
Aboard the Beauty
56 – 58 Spring
Vanja and Roux speak about what happened to Vanja. The crew makes more plans and nail-bombs.
The fish-folk invader turns out to be asking for help, and gives Athelia a pouch of three eggs to protect. A large, bioluminescent serpent creature appears on deck, kills the fish-folk, and they engage in battle and kill it. Sylas is able to tell that it’s an aberration and corrupted from what it should be, based on changes to its physiology. He discovers a strange parasite in its head, which is locked into the Inquisitor’s concealing box.
Sylas and Vanja chat for a bit, where Sylas blows up at Vanja for mothering him and saying Bax is no longer there, while Vanja lashes back trying to figure out who he is.
Astarael has another strange vision: She’s on a foreign shore, clinging to some rocks in the eye of a hurricane, surrounded by clouds and lightning, and intense wind. Offshore is the wreck of the Belree, and in the water, the bodies of maidens, drowned. Astarael clings to the slippery rock, looking at the storm around her, and at the two moons overhead, the sky showing through the break in the clouds
When she comes back to the present, she tells Sav. They find Roux and engage in a conversation about the ballad he sang about the ship.
The Belree
we have hewn and sold the last of her
the jib, the boom, the bowsprit
pulled her down by the mizzenmast
and by cognac rent the wheelstill she danced the daft and dift
the fairlead and the fathomher heel, her hike, her skirts all hoisted high
and under head and foot flown freewith songs of hearts asunder
her laughter sung by tether thread
and sails into the wind
never shall I look there upon that sea again
It’s an old song and Roux doesn’t know the true origin, but it’s about a ship called The Belree. The story goes that an old city was at war and the king sent his daughter and the maidens and girls onto a ship to escape to an island. As he sent them on his way he lord prayed to the wind and swore he would pay any price to see his city safe. The lord miraculously won the battle. The enemy never breached the walls, but the lord came to learn that the ship sank in the turbulent waters and all the daughters drowned.
Sav figures out from the ballad structure and lyric scheme that it’s pre-Cataclysm old (as is the lightning javelin).
Sav tells them what she figured out about the piece of the Octurne that fell, and that Ethan was not in favor of delaying the progress toward Danica; Roux isn’t either.
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The Early Bird and the Worm | 63 Spring
- Warbler approaches the box, and the parasite inside. (Warbler)
A New Baseline | 58 Spring
- Vanja examines Sylas, and he tells her to get over herself. (Sylas and Vanja)