The Belree
The Beauty
17 Summer 218
The Suffering as Vivian visits Talith and says goodbye, she’s off to other venues, and exhorts him to think bigger.
Sav asks Astarael about Astarael invading Vanja’s mind.
Ethan makes Athelia a hot meal and threatens to kill her if she enthralls someone to be her slave again.
Storm-wracked (by Sen Souvannavong)Lightning threatens the ship and strikes Astarael, spiriting her away for a time. She sees visions of the Belree, the Morathi lord Vikarn Salendir who sacrificed all the noble daughters of the kingdom on the Belree for immortality, the curse cast by a woman who looks identical to Astarael against Salendir, and the passage of time as he exists, undying. Another lightning strike brings her back, and she reveals what she saw and learned to the others.
Warbler heals the ship of the scars from the fires and lightning.
Sylas gets twitchy and weird from lack of sleep, until Warbler and Sav put together a tea to make him sleep and makes him sleep in her hidey hole to see if that changes any of the dreams he has. It doesn’t. He spars against the masked being who protects the Raven Queen before the hidey-hole ends and he falls to the ground. Sav tells him to go back to sleep and he passes out.
Ethan finds Sav and asks what the medals and insignias he found from Deren’s chest mean; she tells him one is for bravery in battle and one is a field promotion. He proposes creating an identity of a retired Swan and asks for her suggestions; she suggests perhaps one who mustered out due to battle-stun (essentially, PTSD), and he asks if she knows of any deadly battles like that. She talks of one taking down a rebellious Lord Harven, where the siege team was left undefended to draw out the defenders, while a sapping force invaded and locked the doors behind the defenders and trapped the siege weapons—coincidentally, the one where the Two Shoes were wiped out and she deserted. She gives him a Swan breastplate, longsword and lieutenant’s insignia (left over from the troupe Inquisitor Sylas led) and he says he’ll come back for more stories later.
The Belree
Written by Chris Wong, Performed by Isaac Horner
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
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