The Canard (Prequel to One Flame)

"Makes birth?" Clephesia repeated.

The door swung open again before Alifa could explain.

A man with a yellow vest, a trimmed beard and a nice hat was behind it. He looked to the princesses with confusion, and then realization.

"Ah, you'll be the new cleaners we picked up."

"Yes," Alifa agreed instantly.

"That is what we are," Clephesia added.

"Well, as flattered as I am that you're starting here, my quarters are all tidied up. The kitchens will need you soon enough."

"Of course, Captain..." Alifa paused for him to offer his name.

"Penley."

"Captain Penley. Me and my sister were just wondering if there was a nice place to stash our packs. We have some family heirlooms, you see, and..." she played the part of the shy cleaning girl okay, Alifa thought.

"Well, Miss, I don't mind keeping them in here. By the desk if you please."

Alifa unslung her pack. "It's okay Boots, go ahead."

"Could I get a quick reminder of your names? You're Buataisí, and the shorter one's...?"

Alifa colored, not sure if the make-up would show it. She'd used her sister's nickname in Faerie. If the captain recognized the language...

"River," Alifa said, keeping her false name Eastern Human.

His eyebrows lifted, but more teasingly than suspiciously. "Sisters, huh?"

"Dad named her." Alifa nodded to Clephesia. "Mom didn't let him after."

Leaving the captain chuckling, Clephesia pulled Alifa out and into an area with fewer prying ears. "We're leaving our stuff with him?"

"We'll check on it often," Alifa promised. "Let's find the kitchens." And POSSIBLY put the real cleaners to sleep and leave them on shore, she thought.

But before they could do either of those, the captain came back out and started bellowing orders:

"Sails down, anchor up! Pull up the plank and unfasten us from the docks, we're moving, ladies and gentlemen! Adjust the sails so the wind is blowing us forward, boys, haven't you ever sailed before!?"

And while their ship did seem to be moving off the docks slower than the others, the wind caught the massive, white sheets and the shore started to get further away. Then smaller, and smaller as the Princesses watched Faerie, their only home, leave them behind.

"Do you still think this will work?" Clephesia asked Alifa. "Because based on how far you can swim, I think our last chance to bail out is now."

"I think so," Alifa said. "I think it's the only shot, if this town's just going to be the first of many. We need to find out why people are coming here if we want to stop it, chasing off this one colony won't do anything. Come on, Princess Heir Clephesia iníon Mab, some pots need scrubbing."

Boots smiled at her sister and went with Alifa to the stairs below decks. "Alright, Princess Alifa, but you'd best mop the floors." They ran into Captain Penwel one more time, and he actually gave them directions to the kitchen.

"Enjoy your home for the next two weeks, The Canard," he said cordially.

"Two weeks," Boots whispered. And once the Captain had moved on past them, she added to Alifa: "what in Balor's pubic hairs is a week?"

The kitchen staff were at work getting the first meal of the trip ready: A simple stew and some bread. Since the grub was still being made, dishes came in pretty slowly. Clephesia was thus not surprised when she was handed a bowl and bread and asked, "could you bring this to our ledger? She said she wanted to have her meal in private."

"Uh, sure," Clephesia said. "Where's the ledger?"

The cook handing the stew to her froze for a second. "Uh, you'll find her."

Curious, she nodded to Alifa. "Okay, I'll be back. Assuming I don't get horribly lost."

"See if you can figure out where we lay down for the night while you're at it." Alifa mixed hot water with soap to get ready for the rush of dishes after the crew had their fill.

"Will do!" Clephesia called back. She went out onto the hallways, her father's boots echoing with each of her steps on the bending wood planks. She said a silent I'm sorry to the slain trees she was treading upon. She had a few guesses at where the ledger might be: Belowdecks, so that sea spray didn't get on the ledgers, and there couldn't possibly be that many rooms on the boat. She passed by a big room full of crates and curiously set the bowl and bread aside to crack one open.

Empty. It seemed this was mainly a ship for transporting supplies to the colony. Maybe some crates had a few things taken from Faerie, or supplies for the return journey, but Clephesia didn't check them. She picked up the stew and bread and kept going through the lower decks.

The next door down was locked, so Clephesia knocked on it with her elbow.

"Just a second!" Clephesia soon heard a metal padlock get moved aside. She pushed the door open and smiled down at who she assumed to be the ledger from the ink stains on her fingers and her rolled-up sleeves.

Clephesia was frequently said to be someone with a weakness for a pretty face. Just on the way back to the Icehearth, her mother's palace, Alifa had scolded her for (successfully) wooing three evergreen dryads, two gwragedd annwn, and even a wandering Green Knight from the court of Áine iníon Áine, their mother's twin and rival.

The Princess Heir had never considered humans for their beauty before, though she really only interacted with the river folk on the other side of the Baba Mountains once. This woman, though, sparked her immediate interest. She had a figure Clephesia had never seen before: for one, she was quite short. She was a little less than a double-step tall, though clearly wasn't a child. She still had all the marks of maturity shared by humans, nymphs, and the half-nymphs in between, leaving her curvy in ways that Clephesia found both delightful and unique.

"Oh by the sweet milk of Danu, you're gorgeous,"

The ledger looked surprised, as if she'd expected Clephesia to go a completely different direction with that. "Huh. Not usually the first thing I hear from people. Particularly not goddesses." The ledger backed up to let her in, and Clephesia shook her head to deflect the description of her.

"Oh, I'm only one-eighth goddess. Actually, a bit more because Lugh... I mean I'm not a goddess at all. Zero Echtach in me," Clephesia said rapidly. "Oh, banshees' buttcheeks, that was just a compliment, wasn't it?"

"Um... are you... crazy?"

"Yes," Clephesia said instantly. "Yes, I am." She'd certainly dodged an arrow on that one. Now this woman would never suspect her of being a fairy princess.

"Here's your stew and bread." Clephesie offered both, and Zaria went to the Ledger's table with her food.

"Thanks, beautiful. What's your name?"

"Buataisí," the Princess said, only slightly upset that she'd be known by her family nickname on the boat.

"Bwah-ties..." Zaria struggled.

"You can call me B, if you like."

"B," Zaria settled on. "It's nice to meet you. So ah... anything I can help a gorgeous crazy lass with?"

Clephesia blushed hard. She wasn't sure if it would show through the makeup, but she hoped it would. Her bright blush was one of her favorite things about her own face. "I was wondering where to sleep tonight... aside from wherever you are, of course. My sister needs to get some rest, too."

"She might be the only one," Zaria suggested with a wide smile. "After I eat I'll show you the crews' quarters."

Alifa was elbow-deep in a giant pot of hot water when she heard footsteps coming back.

"About time. Can you go around the ship and collect everyone's bowls?"

"Uh... yeah, sure." It was a young man she hadn't spoken to before, Alifa realized. She loved up a hand to signal him to stop, then gasped and shoved her sea-green arms back into the pot.

"Wait! Sorry, I thought you were someone else. Please, why did you come in?"

"I was... looking for the privy."

Alifa, panicked, realized she didn't know where to go for that either. "Ah..."

"I mean, I know where it is. I just got a little turned around."

The Princess looked up at him. "Hmm. Well okay then, see you around."

"Right! Good-bye!"

Alifa watched him go, then took her arms out of the pot and froze the water soaking them. She clapped her hands and shattered the ice off. Frowning down at her no-longer-disguised arms, she remembered that her make-up was back in the Captain's Quarters.

"Néit's nuts," she swore.

Luckily, Boots arrived in not too long, looking pleased with herself, the brown lipstick worn out and her pear lips showing a bit.

"Boots! You... Did you kiss somebody?" Alifa challenged.

"What, you just guess that whenever I walk in now? Please, Alifa, it's not like I proposition everyone I run into."

"Your lipstick rubbed off on them."

"Oh, Evil Eye!" Boots announced in frustration.

"Okay. I need you to go get my makeups from the Captain's Quarters... and I want to test something, so if there's someone watching the door, tell them you're there to relieve them."

"What if they don't believe me?"

"Come back here and we'll come up with a new plan. Keep your lips covered, if you can."

Boots pressed her lips together.

"That... that'll do. Good luck, Boots."

Her lips squeezed together oddly, the Princess Heir to Mab iníon Áine walked with confidence in her father's boots, striding right up to the man who'd saluted her and Alifa before.

"I'm here to relieve you."

"Very good, Ma'am. Yes, Ma'am."

Just like that, he left his post, no questions asked. Clephesia waited an extra minute after she could see him no longer, then slid into the Captain's Quarters.

"Good afternoon," Penley said pleasantly as she came in. He was holding up an emerald encrusted with the emblem of the Winter Court -- a frosted-over pine -- on one side, and the symbol of Queen Mab's house -- a fly with long horns shared by Áine the Great and her daughters -- on the other. Clephesia glanced at her pack. Its contents were spilled on the floor. "Here to check on your things, Highness?"

Alifa was still scrubbing dishes, making sure to hide her arms in soap and water whenever anybody came in. Idiot. How did you forget you had this on? You can't possibly maintain the "cleaner" role for two whole weeks. That was the worst possible cover.

Not that she was in a position to correct the Captain... though the fact that the real cleaners hadn't come in to claim their post lent credence to Alifa's thoughts. It seemed as though every member of the crew didn't know what they were doing, but would not admit it. In fact...

"Hey! Smaller, weaker princess!"

Alifa didn't look up. She gathered that Wenny was crawling along the support beams and.... rafters? She wasn't overly familiar with the parts of boats. She was climbing around out of sight, and that was good enough for Alifa.

"Nice to hear from you, Wenny. How has your stay on the ship been?"

"You left me in that room!"

"You told me you could stay out of sight. Unless you also have a disguise, you're better off hiding on your own."

"I thought we were friends, ocean girl!"

"Mhm. What's my name?"

There was a long pause. "I forget!"

"Yep. Any reason you've come to me?"

"Oh, right. We've been made!"

Alifa sighed. "Well, that was quick. What happened?"

"Captain Penpal--"

"Penley."

"Started looking through your stuff and found your sister's cool rock!"

"Fermenting Fomori, I sent her right to him. Think, Alifa, think... there's got to be a way out of this... one that doesn't end in us killing the only person on the boat who knows anything about sea travel... wait. Wenny, could you get back in there?"

"'Course!"

"Okay. I need you to get the papers on the Captain's desk and bring them to the ledger. Do you know where that is?"

"Yes, but..."

"Good, I don't. Give me directions."

"Shouldn't you be rushing to your sister's rescue?"

"Oh, I am. Let's move."

Alifa went out in the open, much of her disguise was missing. Right after rushing from the kitchen she was asked why her arms were green.

"Oh, Flib, you remember what happened with the octopus, don't you?" She asked.

"Um... yes, of course I, Flib, remember that!"

Alifa brushed past him and half-jogged to the bookkeeper's office, Wenny's instructions echoing in her mind. She pressed her hand to the office door and uttered a hex. The door froze, then shattered into a pile of frozen wood chips.

"SHIT!" The person on the other side shouted. Alifa barged in and turned to the small woman working at the desk, the air around her visible with the chill gathered around her.

"I need your ledgers from these dates." Alifa lifted her hand and a handful of papers were passed down to her from the beams overhead. She handed them to the inkworker.

"Ah-ah... yeah, sure." The woman got to work checking the dates and going through the papers. Alifa noted that many were poorly done, but the most recent work was all impeccable... and the same handwriting.

"You've been on this boat for a while, haven't you?"

"I... yeah. I didn't think there'd be an angry ice woman here, I might have taken my chances on Faerie."

"You must have known the whole crew was made up of stowaways."

"I mean, sure, but what's that to me? This is just a nice place to lay low. I uh... worked with ledgers before in ways that are less... endorsed... by a few legal bodies."

"Hmm. I think I know what's going on here." Alifa crouched over the desk and started pointing out the differences in the records between the Captain's personal ledgers and the ones this woman had access to.

"He gets more shinies--"

"Money. Or farthings, if you want to be more specific."

"From not paying his workers than he would gain by making his trips faster from them knowing what they're doing. But why are so many stowaways traveling both ways?"

"The Batillus Unus," the criminal said simply. "An empire's been burning its way through everyone in its path. We -- that is to say, the Woolen Coast -- are next. A lot of us want to fight. A lot of us want to run. Where better to run to than a place no one can find? But... well, we can't get very far in. Whenever we try to put up a second town further from the coast, all the people we send to get it started want to take their chances with the Batillus. So they want to go back."

"And he gets paid for supply runs to the colony..." Alifa pointed to the relevant section. "With a crew of people running for their lives both ways. He's exploiting these people's fear," she said with a scowl.

"If you don't mind me mentioning it, you might be causing the fear, from the look of you. You're one of the fairies, aren't you? And that other lass, Buataisí. She's one, too."

"We just want to be left alone. We're not trying to force you into an empire," Alifa said coldly. "Would these ledgers be proof enough to show that the Captain is doing this to the crew? Can they all read them?"

"I'll back you up, but no, I wouldn't expect a lot of the crew to be literate." She nodded to the stack of papers. "Not even most of the ledgers have been."

"Well, your word might have to do. I've got my big sister to save now."

"She's your sister? So are you also one-eighth god?"

Alifa only paused a second to sigh "I tell her to put on a disguise, she recites her ancestry," before she stepped over the shattered wood and away from her fellow reader.

Clephesia moved closer, but kept the desk in between her and the Captain. She rolled her armor seed in her left hand, not sure if she should risk starting a fight by slapping it on. If he had a weapon, he'd have plenty of time to use it before her armor fully grew in.

"Apologies for the deception," she said instead, and gave a knightly bow. "Princess Heir to the Winter Court Clephesia iníon Mab, Scion Unseelie, Mayor of the Palace serving under the Sundered Throne of the Split Horizon, Grand Duchess of the Emerald Forest. At your service."

"Honored to have you aboard my vessel, princess," the Captain said, mulling over the implications. "Tell me, why are you trying to reach the Woolen Coast?"

"We want to find out why you are encroaching upon our lands, and speak to whoever can make it stop. Faerie is not to be sullied by your barbaric practices. Uprooting forests, desecrating their corpses, keeping prisoners for milk and meat! It's repugnant, and has no place in the Summer or Winterlands."

"Deep apologies that our culture is so revolting," Penley said with an ironic smile.

"Tell you what, fairy princess. Our Baron will want to talk to you, so I'm happy to deliver you. I'll just need you and your sister to be confined to the brig for the remainder of our journey."

"Brig?" Clephesia said, trying out the word. Alifa's language spell would translate concepts between languages seamlessly, but Clephesia didn't know the concept.

"A little iron cell where we keep people when we don't want them moving around too much."

"Iron?" Boots shrank back. That word she knew.

"Just to keep you from... I don't know, turning us all into dolphins."

"Absolutely not. Those sheep don't belong in a fence, and neither do I!"

"Hmm. I guess the other one's the smart one." Standing, the captain drew a thick, gleaming sword with a curve to its blade.

Boots slapped her armor seed onto her chest and backpedaled. Her sword was one of the last things to grow from her living armor. She'd have to stall... or run. Boots reached for the knob behind her and yanked the door open.

Alifa was behind it.

Alifa was flattered by the relief in Boots's face, but wasn't sure she could live up to it. Her spellbook was in her pack, and she didn't really have anything memorized that would help if the captain remained violent. But she was pretty sure she knew what they would do if they went out in public, so she grabbed her sister's arm and yanked her out onto the deck.

Captain Penley chased after the princesses for a while before laughing and calling out: "Gents, we've got stowaways on board!"

Every single crewmember in earshot jolted around, looking guilty and fearful.

"These two lassies--" as relief flooded into the faces of everyone around, Alifa brought her hands together using a spell that finally would help: a voice amplification spell.

When she spoke, a shiver came over each crewmember on the ship and it was as if she was right next to them, whispering into their ear. Alifa spoke softly, for she knew there was no need to shout.

"We are not the only stowaways on board... The Captain here has been taking advantage of your fear to profit off of your labor. Join us and claim your due compensation as proud men and women." Alifa grinned at the Captain, but despite hearing her every word, he shrugged. And nobody made a move to join the sisters.

"Ship of stowaways doesn't necessarily mean 'willing to stick their necks out for strangers,'" Clephesia observed. She drew her living wooden sword, grown into a sharp edge -- Green Fang. "But it also means they won't step in to save him." Her shield on her right arm, sword ready in her left, the Princess Knight of the Winter Court stepped up to face Captain Penley.

Suddenly, Penley looked less sure of his chances. Alifa noted that he still had his advantages -- the biggest being that sword. It appeared to be made of some iron alloy, probably steel, so it was especially effective against fae like Alifa and Clephesia. In comparison to Clephesia's sword, it also had much more of an edge and could theoretically cut through Boots's weapon. While Green Fang was a sharp wooden sword, it was still a wooden sword, and couldn't trade blows with a metal one for too long. It was for that reason that Boots's biggest advantage was her armor and shield. Also made of living wood, yes, but much better than the complete lack of armor employed by the Captain. She didn't have to trade blows with Green Fang, she was free to intercept with her shield or even let the weaker blows hit her armor while she continued pressing the attack.