[Abandoned] The Dragon That Is Most Certainly Not a Prince

In Which He Sails Over the Ocean

Sailing on boats is not a foreign concept to me. I've been overseas once before, when I was younger and a human. Sailing as a dragon, though, is completely different. Bellwyn has to hold tight to me before we cast off, frowning at me as I wiggle around in my sea-faring cloak, eager to scamper up to the crow's nest and watch the world pass by beneath us. "Don't get in anyone's way, Verdant," she admonishes the second I'm let go, perched on the railing around the deck. "I don't want to have to lock you in my cabin."

The women's cabin, she means. I would much rather be locked in Gavin's cabin, but he sleeps with the sailors, so I'll just have to be careful about what I stick my nose into. Bellwyn turns to call Alice over, and off I go , scurrying around the deck and climbing onto the rigging, passing a couple of sailors waiting for their orders perched in the ropes. I take advantage of the still air and glide over to the mast, climbing up it and leaping up onto the edge of the little basket they have for a crow's nest. The lookout looks surprised to see me, but not too surprised; he probably saw me ride Bellwyn in, and he just pats the lip of the basket next to him, and I sit there, watching the sea ahead of us. He lowers the telescope, and I butt my head against his hand. he complies and holds the telescope at my level. Peering through, it's a little disorienting, but I can see a little further in the distance than my dragon eyes can see normally. He takes it back, and brings it up to his own eye briefly, before disappearing over the edge for a moment to relay his report.

I'm carried down by a rather pleased lookout that night, and he passes me on to one of his crew-mates who looks a little more skittish about me than everyone else. Sitting quietly on the rail next to him while he plays cards with some friends by the light of a single lantern, I look out over the ocean. We'll be on this ship for the next two months, so I'd better get used to it.

Julika joins the table, jotting things down on her parchment with her new inkwell and her new quill from Alice. She frowns at the paper, and I hop off the railing to jump onto her lap, looking at the list she's making. It's of things we need to do before we see the Emperor about his missing jewels. Land, account for our luggage, register Verdant as a pet to allow him clearance with us, present inquiry to guards and whoever else asks our business, make leash for Alice-- she crosses the last one off, then continues writing. Alice needs to be watched (give her Verdant, give dragon strict instructions not to wander off as well), Bellwyn will require a visit to the healer, Gavin will need to accompany-- Her list of to-do has turned into a list of needs. I poke the leash item with a talon, then tap the side of my snout with the same talon. Julika understands immediately, and looks a little surprised that I can read. Create leash for Verdant to go under cloaks is added to the list and underlined. Assign Alice to hold other end (to help keep an eye on the small dragon in the big city) is added after it, smaller but still probably just as relevant.

The sailors at the table don't seem as unsure about me, now that I've been quietly sitting on Julika's lap. One of them slides a dry biscuit (sea biscuit, for on the sea, to last over the sea) over the table to us. Julika ignores it, and I lean out around her arms to pick it up, and start nibbling on it while she continues to write. My cloak had smudged a little bit of her writing so that Verdant looked a little more like Verdont and less like my name, and I felt that it was a little reminiscent of how many times I'd been told not to do things in my life.

Then she blows on the ink, scatters some sand over it, and leaves it to dry in the ocean air, asking to be dealt in.

Hopping off her lap, biscuit held secure in my jaws, I wander over to the actual night watch, who picks me up and sits me on his shoulder, not minding the crumbs I spill all down the front of him from my biscuit. In fact, he seems rather charmed by me, and I'm glad to keep it that way. I don't need someone chasing me off a ship in the middle of the ocean.

A bell tolls quietly in the gloom, waking me up. I'm passed from shoulder to shoulder, and this new hand gently tugs my hood over my head, patting my nose gently before he takes his station.

The next bell I hear is announcing breakfast, and the watch that I end up on grins when I sit up and yawn. He takes me down to eat in the galley. I had taken my meals there instead of in my rooms, the last time I'd sailed overseas. Here, on this ship, the cook willingly hands my ride an extra biscuit and piece of meat before sending us on our way to the long table where the sailors all sit and eat, talking loudly and laughing uproariously. Nobody really seems to notice as I take my meat and biscuit and sit next to some plates in the middle of the table. Hands reach over me, around me, and conversations float around me, mingled so much with the others that I can't really piece together words. Just as I finish my meat, one of the younger members of the crew sneaks out with a couple of plates in his hands. I launch myself off the table underneath Gavin's arm (where had he come from?) and skitter after the boy, biscuit in my mouth and dropping crumbs all along the planks.

Slipping into the room behind him, I hop up into the hammock Bellwyn had just gotten off, sitting up and starting on my biscuit while Alice giggles at me. The boy puts the plates in Bellwyn's hands, and Julika shakes her head, bleary from just waking up. Of those in the cabin currently, only Bellwyn is really dressed; Alice is bouncing around in a nightgown, and I avoid looking back over at Julika, who isn't dressed at all. Bellwyn pulls a stool over to sit next to Julika's hammock, and she blocks most of Julika from view, so I finally let Alice's cavorting around the tiny room catch my eye.

Skipping around, she seems excited just to be on the ocean. Every time she passes the single porthole in the room she stops and looks out at the water below, at the glimmering horizon, and then she returns to hopping around with seemingly limitless energy. Then her energy is snapped up in Bellwyn's arms as she forces the girl to get dressed, and I sink down to lay on my back in the hammock, kicking the side to hopefully start rocking again. A small hand reaches over and gives me a push before she's roped back into dressing by Bellwyn's authoritative voice.

Eventually, I wake up to Bellwyn slinging me unceremoniously over her shoulder, carrying me out of the cabin and leaving my half-eaten biscuit in the hammock. I'm a little more upset about the biscuit than the rude awakening, but when she emerges on deck I immediately forget my disappointment. All around us is water, the sun shining off the surface, reflecting and bouncing and waving at us with the soft swell of the waves against the side of the ship. The unique ocean smell is swept over us by the gentle wind keeping us moving forward, and I turn my face into the wind, closing my eyes to relish in the breeze.

Alice's voice wakes me up again. She's got me in her arms, and I peek over her shoulder to see the other humans arguing over something with the captain. Alice has her back turned and is retreating to her cabin, making it hard for me to understand what they're saying, but I can hear what she's whispering to me.

"I don't like this, I don't like this. The captain says the wind isn't strong enough so we have to sit until it comes back but we have to get there soon," she's whispering, her face buried in my cloak, shivering with worry. "He said we can't go on but Mother needs us there soon, she knows we can't be on the ship too long cuz of Bellwyn, but he won't let us."

Bellwyn? What about her? I hadn't noticed anything that morning. It doesn't seem like Alice is going to tell me, either, in her worried whispers as she cradles me in her hammock. The stale biscuit is still sitting in Bellwyn's hammock.