Boony and Clide's Hero

The pirates needed to take a detour to some whatever place that Instinct didn’t care for. All it cared about now was figuring out where Saif had gone. It didn’t want to make things right. Instinct wanted to make sure Saif won’t do anything stupid. So Instinct retreated once more, leaving the vessel empty for Saif to take charge whenever the wimp finally came back.

Saif was in the barren field. He was surrounded by the shadows and ghosts, in every possible shade of grey between black and white. Curled up on the ground with head in his hands, Saif was trying to ease the tension out of it.

Rather than scaring him, or hurting him even more, the ghosts were trying to comfort him. They touched him, sending flashes of the better moments of his human life as encouragement.

The feel of the first winter coat he bought with his own salary.

The taste of his grandmother’s rice, fed by her own hand.

The sight of his name on the side of his school with the other graduates.

The smell of the first batch of cookies he successfully baked.

The sound of his family singing happy birthday, echoing in a new apartment.

Saif sighed. These parts of his human life didn’t hold the same weight here. He curled in even more. Saif wanted to do good. Was that too much of him?

Instinct was right. He doesn’t have control. He didn’t choose to come to the fields, or to be a bug, or to die. He wasn’t used to being in control. He didn’t know how to be.

Thanking the ghosts for their help, Saif wasn’t motivated to go back, but he still found the courage to face it.

After all, what better time to learn than now?

Saif took control of the vessel, breathing in a deep gasp of ocean air. He was still on the boat he realized, based on the constant swaying under his feet. This wasn’t where he thought he’d be at all. He was so sure Instinct would have gotten very far in the search for Creatures without him. Where was it anyway? Eh, no matter. He’ll look for Instinct later.

Scuttling around, Saif realized he was locked in one of the cabins inside the ship’s belly, where he could hear music and cheering going on outside. He looked at the bed, the clothes all over the floor, the chest full of treasure and realized that it was the captain’s room. He debated looking at the wardrobe too, but that felt like a bit much. Scuttling some more, Saif found the hidden door. He opened it, finding that it connected to a room right beside it.

In the other room, Saif found Clide. Huh. Okay…

He was sitting at a desk in the dark, the singular swaying lantern wasn’t doing much to keep it bright. Clide was surrounded by buckets of sand all around him. Saif watched as he picked up a bucket and poured it into a tray the size of the desk. Clide shifted the tray to level it and started to sort through the sand?

Gesturing his confusion over the buckets of sand, Saif caught Clide’s attention.

“New face! You scared me half to death. I thought you were Boony for a second. Um, this is a part of the starseed business, so I can’t tell you too many details or Boony would have my head for sure.”

Saif sat on the table opposite them, leaving over the tray of sand to push a few pieces around himself, trying to find what was special about the sand.

“Do you want to help? You’re Boony’s prisoner just like I am for the moment, so I don't think she’d mind you helping out. Pick out the bigger stuff. Anything smaller than say, uh, this thing here,” Clide tapped the tip of Saif’s pincer, “is what you keep. Toss the big stuff in the bucket under the table. Same with anything that’s not a star.”

Saif shrugged. Why not?

They sorted the sand. The music of the party outside was very loud, but it muffled to an enjoyable level here in the boat’s lower cabins.

After finishing a bucket, Saif tried asking why Clide wasn’t outside partying with the rest by pointing and gesturing heavily.

“I’m not very social.” Saif tilted his head in sympathy, recalling his own life in the same position. Clide poured out another portion of sand to sort through. “I- I don’t know, it’s just, I get so nervous when I try to talk to everyone. I’m not from the capital like the rest of them are, so when I hear them making jokes I don’t understand I feel terrible. I’m not even a girl like they are... I’m not a pirate either, I'm a banker. Or, I was, rather. That's where Boony stole me away from, actually.

“Boony and the other pirates of the Peril of the Pool were making a gem deposit, I was the one to count their money. I always loved doing that. Counting, sorting and the like. When I was done, she grabbed me by the back of my clothes, like she does with you, and told me I was too pretty a girl to waste away there. She didn’t listen when I told her I was a boy. That was it.” Clide seemed happy, if not a bit lost in thought.

They went back to sorting through the sand for a little longer. Saif thought he found a massive starseed. It was like he took two pyramids and mashed them together into one eight-pointed star. It shifted hues, changing from a cool white to a warm yellow and back. He showed it to Clide, thinking it was the coolest thing in the world. “Toss it, new face. I told you already, big ones go under the table. It’s not a five-pointer, so the only purpose it’ll have is to be a sedative for the volcano. We have to get the right size of starseed sand so we compress it into proper usable shapes and sell them to the night.”

Saif blinked, not really understanding much. Clide sighed.

“If you have a wish you really want to make true, toss a starseed up into a clear night’s sky for good luck. If Greater Luck shines down upon ye, it’ll turn blue and disappear.”

Saif pocketed the star. It would be good to have it on hand. Just in case.

“I don't think I’d hate being a girl,” Clide sighed, watching a few lost crabs try to escape. “I don’t hate calling Boony ‘captain’ or Bonbon or anything she tells me to call her. I just need time to adjust.”

Saif stood on the table, carefully stepping across to pat Clide’s head.

The door burst open, wood splintering into a million pieces. “IS IT TRUE, LOVE?”

“AH! Boony, you scared me,” Clide whined, “and now there’s wood all over the sand.”

“The door was locked. Nevermind the sand, is it true what I overheard?”

Saif ran out the door, giving the pair some privacy but he was the only one on board who respected it. All the other pirates were ignoring their party in favor of listening in on Boony and Clide. He had to scuttle over them to make it through, dealing with their giggles and hushing one another.

It was endearing.

He knew he did the right thing when both of them came out of the room a while later, red and with tears streaming down their faces. The other pirates ran off while being berated by a breathless Boony. Clide found him and invited him back inside to sort again, a silly grin over their face.

After sorting even more buckets of sand, they made it back to the harbor.

Saif bid Boony and Clide his farewell. “Come find us if you want to help out with the starseeds again. I’ll be sure to pay you this time around.” Boony said.

Clide bent down to pat his head. “We never thanked you properly for taking out the monsters. Sorry about that. They don’t know the proper etiquette. Thank you, new face. You’re our hero.”

Saif walked through town with his head high and heart warm, not realizing where he was going until the whispers got loud. Faint and distant, barely loud enough to pull him in. Hiding in plain sight, he found them.

Those aren’t bugs. Why do they whisper to him then? Saif tried conversing with the bucket of shrimp, but they paid him no mind. He retreated to get Instinct to try.

Distracted by all that happened, Saif forgot about his disagreement with Instinct. He knew Instinct had good intentions and was insightful about a lot that goes on, but that didn’t mean that everything it said, did or wanted to do was the only choice. Saif had his own insight as well.

Instinct took over without giving Saif any attention.

Instinct didn’t translate either, it just listened. Saif focused instead of fumed, hearing these things’ words as Instinct understood them.

Creatures was hunting something down, it asked every living creature about its prey and was last seen heading westward on a strange boat.

Boat eh? Good thing they just made friends with pirates.

”We can’t take ye.”

What? Saif huffed, Why? All he did was point to the western ocean on his map to Boony when he spotted her unload the buckets of sand he and Clide sorted.

Boony sighed, “that there’s Deadline Trench, the most dangerous zone of the sea. If it’s not the tides or a storm, it’s a bunch of monsters hopping on our boat and pretending to be our crew. If not that, then a giant monster that looks like a treasure tricks you into getting off yer boat and eats ye in a bite. Ye need a massive fool to even think about making their trip and coming back alive”

Great, now Saif had to find one person with a boat out of everyone docked here who would happen to know be foolish enough to risk it all and try heading into the deepest, most dangerous oceanic trench.

Instinct tingled. They had a lead.