Spelljammer Story, Chunk 9

(Damn, someday I'm going to learn to do this before 2:00 AM. Anyway, 2047 words here, and 2086 on something else, which catches me up again.)

When I arrived, I knocked gently, then let myself in. Haelle was lying on the bed, her arms at her sides. Her face was expressionless, but I could see from the set of her shoulders and the way she held her arms that she was tense as a harpstring. I pulled up a chair beside the bed, and nodded to her. "Rin says you're to be fed for the next couple of days, to give you time to recover. I'm the only one free for it."

She nodded slightly, and opened her mouth enough to whisper "I'll live."

I placed the bowls down on the table, and held out a spoonful for her. She took it gingerly, obviously expecting standard shipboard fare. Her face lit up in a pleased smile as her tongue disabused her of that notion, although that quickly became a wince as battered facial muscles protested.  She whispered "Tastes good!"

I nodded, and smiled a bit. "Our cook is pretty good. He knows what to do with food. More?"

She made another small nod, and I began feeding her the soup in earnest. She finished the bowl quickly, and I finished my own bowl soon afterward. We sat in silence for a minute, then I shrugged awkwardly. "Excuse me, I have to go." She nodded slightly, and I headed out.

Over the next couple of days, our routine became established. I'd come in with the food, and she'd eat in silence, or perhaps with a comment about the quality now and then. She didn't give thanks, and I didn't speak unless I had too. On the third day, though, Fort Haelle finally showed a crack in her walls. When I had finished feeding her lunch and had just got up to leave, she suddenly spoke up "Um... thank you!"

The last came out in a rush, and she closed her mouth with a look of mingled surprise and embarrassment, as though her tongue had betrayed her. I was a little shocked myself, but I nodded and shrugged. "Think nothing of it."

When I came to bring her supper that night, she was suddenly more talkative. As I was sitting down with our plates of soft-cooked stew, Haelle spoke up. "How goes the charging? Any word of when we're getting off of here?"

I raised an eyebrow, and replied calmly "Anxious to escape our clutches?"

She colored a bit, but shot back gamely. "No one likes Verpax. You can't be any more eager to go than I. What's the best estimate?"

I pondered for a moment, but decided that a deadline couldn't be that helpful in an escape attempt. Besides, she probably had a good idea of how long it would take anyway. "Probably another four weeks, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. It's never precise with this sort of thing. As I'm sure you know."

She shrugged. "I've never had much to do with the lifestone. And we're usually in a position to charge it fast, anyway."

"Well, we can't exactly sun-dive here, now can we? If we got caught, I doubt your precious Navy would bother to ask questions before And that would be the end of you as well as us." I replied with some heat.

She shut her mouth in a tight line, and didn't say anything for the rest of the meal, not even to thank me. I cursed my quick tongue, and left with a downcast feeling I couldn't quite explain. The next day at breakfast, however, Haelle once again started a conversation. "How are the repairs coming?" she asked.

My heart brightened a bit for no reason I could place, and I took care to respond civilly. "Pretty well. We'll be finished patching long before the lifestone is charged. Of course, it's just patches, since I don't think wood fit for shipbuilding grows on Verpax, but we make do."

She tilted her head to the side a bit, and actually smiled! "So I've heard. Lord of Life knows that the Navy never bothers to come here for it. Practically proverbially worthless, as planets go."

I nodded, and turned to my food for a moment to hide a slight smirk. Haelle sounded a little too casual about dismissing Verpax as useless. I wondered if she knew why it was forbidden to the Navy, or if she was just assuming that it was good policy not to make anyone curious. I decided to change the subject for a bit. I was curious about the ban, but I didn't want to arouse her suspicions by questioning her about Verpax too closely. "So," I asked. "Just what does a Songmaster do all day, anyway? You're the first I've met, so it's all very thrilling."

Haelle frowned at my sarcasm, but her faced cleared, no doubt as she realized I was only teasing, not mocking. "Not too different from a ship's mage, I would imagine," she replied. "You cast the spells the captain orders you to, command the crew, and fight other mages if it comes to that. We just do it all more... musically."

I eyed her. "Really? Sounds very prosaic. I would have thought there would be, oh, concerts, or dances, or something. Why have a minstrel on board if they don't use music to entertain the crew from time to time?"

She frowned, and shook her head sharply, before wincing as her wounds warned her not to do that. "Songmasters are hardly common 'minstrels', Rafael. We have a gift granted to us by the Powers of The Circle, and we have a responsibility not to use it frivolously. We must only employ it when it is fitting to do so."

I looked at her in surprise. "So, you can't just sing? Or play? You can't whistle a tune to pass the time, or play a reel to liven up a dull evening? Can you do music at all if you're not doing magic with it?"

Her shoulders stiffened. "We may play or sing at certain ceremonial functions, or by command of the Admiralty, for special performances. It would not be..." She seemed to be searching for the right words in the language. "...Seemly. It would cheapen the gift we are given, to use it whenever we wish."

Her face was set firmly, but I thought I caught a hint of regret in her voice. I stood up in silence, gathered our finished plates, and headed for the door. Just before I left, I said back, over my shoulder "Well, I don't know protocol from a viper pit. But I think it's a shame to hide a real talent. And from what I heard of you in the fight, you do have talent."

I turned back and left, but I caught sight of her face for a moment as I was locking the door. Haelle had an expression of bright, open, honest joy, the first time I had really seen her untroubled features. I felt my heart skip a beat, and as I took the plates back to the kitchen my heart was singing a little song of its own.

Over the next couple days, Haelle and I had several more conversations. I learned some details of her life, although she was cagey on specifics. She was the third daughter of her family, and had been sent into Songmaster training as soon as her gift manifested itself. She had been on the Purple Emperor for about five years, and expected to stay there for another twenty before promotion. She had laughed at my surprise at that, and pointed out that to an elf, twenty five years was perhaps a twentieth of a lifespan, rather than the quarter it was for humans. "Besides," she had said laughingly "If we promote people too fast, the Navy would be all admirals, and no one would actually do anything!"

I learned that she actually preferred human food to elven, at least when it was properly prepared. Apparently, elven food was too light for her tastes. "It's always fluffy!" she had complained at one point. "An elf cook never saw an egg he didn't want to make into meringue! And tenderized meats are alright sometimes, but I like meat you can sink your teeth into." I had grinned a bit at that, and had pointed asked if she would have preferred that right then. She stuck her tongue out at me, and we both laughed.

She didn't go into detail much about life on the Emperor, no doubt feeling security-conscious, but I did learn that she was, as I had first guessed, effectively second ship's mage. There was a third mage below her, but from the way she spoke of him, I guessed that he was inexperienced at best. The first mage, on the other hand, seemed to be something of an object of fear for her. Haelle talked about him as if she was convinced that only self-restraint prevented him from unleashing raw magical chaos to destroy all enemies of the elves. Even if she was over-inflating his prowess, however, several stories she told of spells she had seen him cast - portals to other worlds, summoning elemental spirits, creating magical servants - all suggested that he was, indeed, very, very powerful. And worse, versatile, not the simple blaster wizard that elven ships often carried. I had to suppress a shudder or two at the thought of what he could have done to us if he had decided to accompany the boarding party.

The captain of the Emperor I heard about more than I liked, frankly. I learned his name quite quickly: Aareniel Liirae, apparently a second cousin of dear Troven. Haelle thought he lit the suns, carved the stars out of diamonds, and personally gave every planet a shove to start it circling. Once she started, she could not seem to stop talking about Captain Liirae. He was handsome (tall, blond, and rail-thin, I imagined). He was intelligent (can follow the Navy Book with a modicum of creativity now and then, most likely). He was kind (he didn't beat her, unlike his cousin). And he would do his best to rescue her, or any of his crew, from any peril (he may have made a note in his log about her loss). I managed to restrain myself during most of her speeches on the all-around wonderfulness of Captain Liirae, but a couple times I wasn't quite able to hold my tongue. Every time I failed to do so, I was treated to a very harsh reception. Haelle would get the coldest expression, then stop talking to me entirely for several hours. It would usually take two meals before she warmed up again. I learned to rein in my mouth a bit better, since those periods of silence were oddly disturbing to me. I had come to enjoy the conversations with Haelle, and losing them seemed almost too much to bear.

Over the five days that I ended up feeding her, I came to one conclusion. Haelle was younger than almost any other elf I had met. It didn't show obviously, but as we talked, I became more and more convinced. Despite looking like a fully-mature woman, perhaps just after her twenty-fifth year, she acted like a teenager trying to show how old she was. A particularly intelligent teenager, perhaps, capable of realizing what reactions would give away her youth and controlling them, but the reactions were there nonetheless, and I picked up on them. I was intrigued. In truth, our Songmaster was a mysterious elf. Younger than she should be, especially for a Songmaster, which required special training, by all accounts. Head-over-heels in love with a captain who was far beyond her reach, if I knew anything at all about Navy custom. And willing to put up with a vicious little sod of a superior officer, when I could clearly see that she was not someone to take any shit from anyone. A beautiful puzzle, inside a lovely little mystery, wrapped in an attractive enigma.