Chapter 2 - Part 8

Ois felt her lips being opened, and warm porridge of some kind going down her throat, soothing her, warming her.

Awareness returned. Thick blankets were wrapped around her. She felt a rocking. A slow and gentle movement.

The changeling thief-turned-paladin opened her eyes. Trained from a youth spent on the streets of Aundair, she grasped many details in her first glimpse of her surroundings.

Delegado was above her, his intense eyes staring out from the greenish skin that marked his orc ancestry, the thick lips around his jutting lower teeth stuck out like they did when he was concerned.

Her eyes focused, picking out details. A shuttered porthole. A wooden ceiling, low. A curved wall and three straight ones. A set of drawers built into the wall. Her bed was actually a bunk. All the furniture was bolted down. The wood had an age to it, a smoothness associated with generations of use. A tint of crimson was in its paint.

“Eat more,” Delegado said. His voice was soft, far softer than any who knew him would have guessed it capable of becoming. He was holding a bowl full of something warm.

“Where are we?” she asked. Turning her head and looking around. “Your father’s – ”

“Body, which you nearly killed yourself for?” Delegado asked. “It's in the cabin next door. What the hell were you thinking? Bad enough that you attempted to swim in freezing water, in armor, after no sleep and wounds barely recovered from – ”

“Mithril armor,” she coughed. She leaned forward and took a bite of the warm gruel off of the spoon that Delegado was holding. “Much easier to swim in. This is good, where did you get it, where are we?”

“Short version,” the half-orc said, dishing up another mouthful and feeding her. “My father’s body and Iron Orphan’s body are in my cabin, which is next door to this one.” She must have whined because he hastily corrected that. “Orphan isn’t dead, he’s how you left him. Just inert. Neither Thomas or I know how to repair him, so he’s – well I put him on a spare blanket to warm and dry him.”

“Thomas?” she asked, after swallowing.

“Kept you alive with a scroll,” Delegado said, feeding her more. “He was holding out, but then he spent it on you. He goes back and forth between hating you and helping you so fast ... well, anyway we’re on a ship. Not like any other ship I've ever been on, but it’s, um, it’s – hard to explain.”

“Whose ship is it?” she asked. She pulled an arm out of the woolen cocoon that she was in and she took the spoon for herself.

“He calls himself Captain,” Delegado said. “That’s it.”

“So he’s from Lyrandar?” she asked. “Or House Orien?” She took some more of the porridge. “Mm, or Ghallanda?”

“No, none of those,” Delegado said, his voice a bit distracted. “He, um, he keeps a well-stocked vessel.”

“What’d you break?” she asked.

“He left some weapon lockers on deck,” Delegado said. “Unlocked. I was in kind of a hurry and I broke it by accident.”

“What was his crew doing here, anyway?” she asked. “You going to explain this dues ex machina?”

“The what?”

“Dues ex – never mind, I mean the ship.”

“The ship’s name is the Crimson Ship, not Doozzex whatever,” Delegado told her.

“The name isn’t important,” she told him. “What were he and his crew doing here?”

“No crew,” Delegado said. "Or at least not one visible to me."

She put the bowl and spoon on the floor and sat up. She still felt a bit fatigued, but other than that she felt fine. “If I’ve recovered from my hypothermia you must be able to explain things to me.”

He shrugged. “I don’t exactly understand it myself,” he said. This Captain, he um, well Thomas and I were ready to fight him, but – um, he told us if we wanted you to die we could waste his time, but that he didn’t usually fight his passengers, they fight for him.”

“What?” she asked.

“Look,” he told her. “It’s about mid-morning on the 4th of Aryth. You’ve only woken up three times in the past forty-eight hours, and then only barely. Thomas stays in his cabin, he won’t talk to me, just yells at me through the door, tells me to take care of you. Easy enough to do, the part of the ship that we’re allowed to walk around in was a well stocked mess.”

“Part of the ship?” she asked.

“Captain made it clear that most of the ship was off-limits, said we wouldn’t be able to open the doors to the other decks in any event, but we were to stay here.”

“How big is it?” she asked, looking around.

“No idea,” he said. “Feels like it shouldn’t be this big. Feels strange.” She looked at him. “I have a sense of the weather, of time,” he said. She nodded, she knew that about him. She’d thought it magic when she first met him long ago, but then learned it was just something one picked up from a life lived outdoors. “This ship is – something is otherworldly. It's space feels wrong.” He looked her in the eyes, and she felt the power of his heart, as she had so many years ago. “Anyway I didn’t exactly go sight-seeing. Every spare moment has been spent in here taking care of you.”

Ois didn’t know what to say. She lowered her eyes…and saw a glint of mithril from a barely opened drawer. Of course. If she had been freezing he would have had to take off –

She suddenly realized that while she had on about four or five blankets, she was utterly without clothing underneath them.

She smiled at him. “Thank you,” she smiled. “Thank you for saving my life.”

“You’re welcome,” he said. He saw that she realized her condition under the blankets. "Your clothing was soaking with freezing seawater."

"I know," she said simply. "Thank you."

“It was strictly medical,” he added, his greenish cheeks flushing under several days worth of stubble. "And besides, I've seen you naked before."

“True,” she said, secretly enjoying his blush. “However that doesn’t mean that I want you here when I void almost two day’s buildup of my bowels and bladder into the bedpan.”

Her small laughter chased him out of the cabin as he firmly shut the door behind him.