Inner Mechanisms II

Piercing sunlight reflected off the freshly swabbed wooden deck of the Legrassi I. That was the name of the biggest ship in the Redwing Pirates’ fleet of three—and the one where Haruki and Anemone had been staying. At last, the crew trusted them with the ship’s name, when before, they seemed to hold its name sacred amongst themselves.

Haruki swept the dust off every conceivable surface on the observation deck, while Anemone followed through, ridding the same things of mold and mildew. Manual labor was hard, but at least they were free to bathe in the sun when they wanted, and their food was a distant upgrade from the stale butter bread served in prison.

The Redwing Pirates had been circling the same several kilometers for the past four days for reasons unknown to Haruki. Originally, he planned to cooperate with the pirates until they reached the Federacy, only to fly out with Anemone when the time was right.

But with no land in sight, and the Inverted City still looming far, far into the horizon, any plans to escape now would only end in failure—and the promise of a watery grave. The Kenichi Modern only had about an hour of flight in its tank, after all.

On the noon of the fifth day, Flare returned from her patrols, riding a griffon half the size of the one that chased Haruki in the mountains. Two other griffon riders like her flanked her.

“Ahoy!” The dwarven pirates above deck shouted, raising their axes and brooms as her griffon perched on the boat.

Flare disembarked from the griffon. The creature nuzzled her, squeezing its beak between her torso and underarm. She cradled its head and gave its yellow beak a playful kiss. The griffon purred, almost like a cat—or perhaps a satisfied lion.

She pumped her fist at the crew in front of her, signaling them to come closer. Haruki and Anemone ambled ahead of the crowd.

“Listen up,” Flare commanded. “I know we’ve been stuck here for a few days now, and you might be wondering what’s been going on. We’ve been in the dark all this time, but I finally have an answer for everyone—and good news, if I may.”

“Good news?” Anemone tilted her head, arms clasped behind her back.

“First, the facts,” Flare said. “Thing is, we were told to stay put by a reputable Federacy informant. Now I know why. Some Federacy states around this area have declared a civil war amongst each other, and crossing this section of the sea would have us involved in the conflict.”

Haruki crossed his arms. “Is that a thing that happens with the Federacy?”

“It’s not my first rodeo with it,” Flare said, nodding. “Federacy states fight each other all the time. I’m not too privy with their internal politics, but you really don’t want to be on the business end of their weapons.”

If the Federacy was unscrupulous enough to use slaves to mine Titanseye en masse for weapons development, then Haruki definitely didn’t want to see that used against him—even though he knew not what Titanseye-powered weaponry looked like.

Warren Redshield squeezed between a pair of pancake-looking dwarven fellows. “So princess, the good news?”

Flare looked at Warren through half-lidden eyes. Her expression might’ve meant she already intuited he was behind Haruki’s little “hazing ritual”.

She clicked her tongue and refocused on the crowd. “We’ve been granted safe passage, but only if we travel through a very specific route through the warzone.” Her eyes drifted towards Anemone, the sight of her drawing a radiant grin from her lips. “And there, our contractors will be collecting the bounty.”

Anemone blinked nervously. “Oh.”

Haruki tapped his foot. If they were going to get shipped off in the middle of the sea, that definitely hampers their plans somewhat, if not shatters it completely. “We’re not making landfall on Federacy territory?”

“This is Federacy territory,” Flare answered. “The Federacy is a collection of island states and archipelagos, not a giant landmass like Ka-Ilyah or even Helsreach, my dwarven homeland.”

So there was no veracity to my escape plan. Great to know. The future suddenly looked very, very grim. This made searching for Ako in the future a more daunting prospect, too.

While specialized tamers escorted the birds to their roost below deck, Flare marched through the crowd and began barking orders left and right. They were to begin sailing through a specific route through Federacy waters, and the crew must make preparations in logistics and ship aesthetics. They needed to look as professional as possible, and not like the ragtag sea thieves they were.

Haruki pulled Anemone aside, dutiless but all the more concerned.

“This isn’t good,” Haruki whispered. “They’re gonna hand us over in the middle of nowhere. Our plan’s all shot.”

“We had a plan?” Anemone blinked, absentminded.

“W-What? Of course we did. What do you think I’ve been discussing with you all this time? Our plan was to fly out the moment the trade happens, and run further into Federacy landmass.”

“Oh.” Anemone’s half-lidded eyes looked off to the side. She rubbed her chin like a sleuth piecing together a puzzle. “I thought that was just a theoretical.”

“I-It is a theoretical! That’s what a plan is!”

“I see.” Anemone straightened herself out. “So what’s the plan now? I don’t know the lay of the land anymore than you do.”

“Good question,” Haruki said with a sigh. “I’m pretty stumped. But I think we can figure something out over the next few days.”

Flare materialized between them, then slung her arm around Haruki. He shook, feeling the press of her powerful arm, fearing she'd crush his skull with it. When did she get here, and how much had she heard?

“Your plan’s been pretty boned from the start.”

“F-Flare! How long have you been here?”

“Long enough,” she said. “I’m only half upset. Come.” With a wave of a hand, she released Haruki and invited both he and Anemone to follow her. “A word?”

Anemone’s neck muscles tightened. “Are we in trouble?”

“As far as I know, you’ve been in trouble since the very start. Unless you liked being in jail.”

“I don’t…” Anemone said low, pretending like she wasn’t having the time of her life behind bars.

“Come on then.”

Haruki and Anemone followed her into the ship’s interior and back into her private chambers—a room Haruki had unfortunately committed to memory.

Once there, Flare hung the “Donut Enter” sign on the doorknob again, and they entered together. They sat around a small round table, a single unused ashtray at the center. There weren’t signs of it ever being used, and Flare never seemed to smoke anything, so it was a wonder why it was even there.

“Haruki. Princess,” Flare began. “I know you’ve been wanting to escape all this time. And you obviously have the means. I even let you out of your cell,” she said, looking outside the small, circular window of her chamber in search of the Kenichi Modern. “So why haven’t you?”

“Why did you let us out of the cell, if you knew?” Haruki asked.

“I suppose I felt a little thankful.”

“Thankful?”

“For the raid on the slave camp,” Flare said. “We pulled off nothing short of a miracle there. Not a single man lost, and done in a little under twenty minutes. That kind of thing usually costs us—in resources and lives.”

Haruki huffed. “Why’re you thankful? You forced me into it.”

“I didn’t expect it to go so well. And you were so obedient, too.”

Anemone cocked her head, hair tumbling behind her shoulder. “Enough to risk me getting away? I thought you said I was the key to the Redwings’ future prosperity?”

“You were. At the time.”

“Something changed?”

Flare stood up and paced. She leaned on the wall beside the window and crossed her arms. Her gaze shifted to a palm-sized picture on the wall, its contents faded and molded over.

“Have you noticed something about the Redwing Pirates? About us being dwarves.”

Haruki floated his hand above his chin again. “What, the beard thing?”

“None of the men here have beards. Such is the pride of a dwarf, and when you grow into your years without hair on your face, you are considered an outcast. Doors open to many dwarves are closed to you.” Flare’s gaze cast downward. “Unhappy with being deadweights to dwarven society, many turned to a life of freedom in the sea. To a life of piracy. Thus, the Redwing Pirates.”

“But,” Haruki mused. “You have a beard. Is that normal for dwarven women, or did you get caught in some kinda topsy-turvy situation with the men?”

“Do you not know? It is normal for dwarven women to have beards, even if they are not as lush as men’s. This is common knowledge, isn’t it?”

Haruki sighed and leaned on the table. “There’s a reason I’m an ignoramus to your normal. I’ll explain later. I’d rather not derail your train of thought. So, what’s your story?”

“I am a woman, yes.” Flare straightened her posture, emphasizing her height compared to all the other men in the Redwing. “But as you can see, I am quite tall for a dwarf. I am about the height of a normal Sapian woman. And this,” she said, igniting a tiny wisp of flame over an open palm. “I was born with an unnatural talent in magic. Elemental magic not born of rock and stone.”

Anemone cooed. “Oh. You are three times an outcast.”

“Twice an outcast,” Flare said. “But being a woman emphasized all these flaws in my birthright. The only door available to me in society is motherhood or whoredom. And no sane dwarf man would take me as a wife. But someone had proposed Sapias would take a liking to me.”

“Rude,” Haruki grunted. “Whoever told you that should shove a cutlass up his bum.”

Anemone pursed her lips, curiosity clear. “Is that really true? You seem well respected in the Redwing.”

“In a crew of outcasts, respect is paid to those who are deemed the greatest sufferers.” Flare leaned on the wall again. “And when one of the leaders of the Redwings died in battle, who was left to command their respect but me?”

“And thus, giving you a role in a new society,” Anemone mused.

“Correct, princess,” Flare said, smiling. “Like a lily among thorns. Molten rock between frigid stone. A princess among pirates.”

Haruki slung his arm over his chair’s backrest and affixed his eyes on Flare’s. “Right. So, what changed?”

Silence fell in the room, both expecting an answer from Flare. She walked over to her dresser and picked up a small brown pouch from atop it. Returning to position, she swung the bag by its sling between her fingers.

“After finding your proper place within society… Knowing you’re appreciated and valued there, would you give all that up if you really wanted to be elsewhere?”

Haruki’s expression scrunched, skepticism growing in his gut. “What do you mean?”

“As a child, I had dreams. Ambitions. I wanted to be an artisan, an engineer, like my father before me,” she said, swaying the pouch between her eyes. “Many dwarves in the Redwing are satisfied living in day-to-day survival, looting and plundering. Many were happy to be removed from the dwarves’ highly stratified society, even. But not me.”

Anemone inched closer. “What’s in that pouch?”

“Working on your machine, Haruki,” she stated, shifting her gaze to meet Haruki. “It gave me ideas. I even intuited the inner workings of your machine. And from there, I realized I was living my life wrong. I woke up. And then this…”

Flare removed the contents of the pouch and scooped it with her hand. From it spilled a chunk of amber that blazed in the sun filtering through the window. Its center glowed a radiant red—in the shape of an eyeball.

“From this, I could create the baseline of my ambition.”

Her eyes glazed over when she stared at the chunk of Titanseye. Her frozen expression alone told Haruki everything he needed. She was ready to surrender her life—and everyone’s future—for a selfish whim.