Road Tales

The morning tide is fortunately late, but with everything having been prepared, Rowen and Reynart and Martin and Lark are aboard the Queen Vialle. Everything being prepared includes an exchange of goods: the ship was carrying a lot of different things, including items clearly purchased for sale in Weirmonken, and room was made to bring Weirmonken wool in exchange. Someone worked all night to make that happen.

Martin looks no worse for the wear after the banquet. Lark is tired, as she was almost certainly up past her bedtime, but still quite chipper. She has sea legs already, as does the prince. The crew is used to Weir and has no concern with Reynart, whom they know, and Rowen. They seem fond enough of Lark. Martin is more of a distant presence, and not considered unkind, perhaps because he so obviously dotes on his daughter. He spends much of his time on deck, watching the skies and currents, and occasionally, if Rowen is on deck with him, she can feel something.

The vessel loses sight of Weirmonken and Valistaad earlier than Rowen might have expected.

The first moments aboard was a flurry of activity that is predictably familiar to the crew, but seemingly chaos to the two land-oriented guests, and Rowen in particular, so they tried their best to just stay out of the way. The first set of quarters offered to Rowen stopped her at the threshold, prompting the question whether or not she could sleep on top of the ship. Upon seeing the horrified look of the deckhand, she amended the request to "be able to see the sky."

Once her things were put away, she slipped up top to watch the shipboard routine settle in. Checking in on Reynart, she asks, "What did you do to pass the time on these things while you were going to Gateway?"

"Music, dancing, sparring," Reynart answers. "Very light sparring."

"How do you do that with all this movement?" she asks, markedly leaning against the door jamb as a giant third point of contact to steady herself against the pitching and rolling.

"You'll figure it out in a day or two. It's just a matter of getting used to the rhythms." Reynart drops his voice. "You may notice when you see the sailors on ground that they have a swaying walk. It's what happens when you spend time on the ocean."

Lark's appearance once the ship is underway is a tremendous relief, the young child probably delivering the most interesting and factually-meandering tour offered on a seafaring vessel. Rowen does occasionally stop to ask a crew member what something was or how it worked, if Lark's explanation seemed a little too far-fetched. Most of it seems really far-fetched.

Eventually, when Lark tires enough for a nap, Rowen finds Martin and initially just stands on deck near him, observing and waiting to see if he is amenable to talking.

Martin turns his head casually to look at Rowen by way of acknowledgement. "You probably have about a million questions. I might be able to answer some of them, though others will have to wait a while."

Rowen offers a small smile in return, wrapping her hand around a nearby stay. "All at once or one at a time?" she asks with a light laugh. She opts for something in between. "Who are these clerics... monks?" she corrects herself. "What do they want with the royal family? What have they done to you so far?"

Martin frowns and starts ticking the list off on his fingers. "One of our eldest cousins died while in their custody; they claim they didn't kill him. They don't have any credibility with me, though. They took custody of my elder daughter--whom I didn't even know about--and one of our other cousins, whom they stole from his mother as she lay in childbed, and hid them from us for decades. We just rescued four cousins we didn't know we had from them after they tried to seize one of our uncles, and the only reason they got him was he was protecting other people with him. When my wife was pregnant with Lark, they tried to obtain genetic information from her by deceit. And that's all just off the top of my head, and fairly recently, within the last few decades, on top of the spying and troublemaking and everything else, plus whatever got Grandfather to throw them out of Amber in the first place."

"That's... a lot," Rowen mulls aloud, the gears grinding behind her eyes. A slight furrow finds the spot between her brows. "These are known clerics. They used to be in Amber? How would we be able to recognize one if they came near? They were capable of capturing royal family members. How did they do it?"

"The ones they captured were cousins, in the younger generations, so they didn't know who they were and hadn't come into their power." Martin shrugs. "With enough people, or enough treachery, someone can get you, almost always. I may theoretically be an immortal superhero but in practice I watch my drink to make sure no one drugs it. And yes, they were in Amber a long time ago, and my grandfather King Oberon banished them, and the records aren't clear on the details. And the answer to how do we recognize them is, we don't, always, but we're starting to get our hands around the question."

He pauses, puts his finger to his tongue, and tests the winds. "Hang on a moment. I've got to make a shift here." And while he doesn't seem to do anything that Rowen can see, she can feel something happen, and the sky is a slightly different color, and the winds have picked up.

She quietly watches him work, or at least he had that look of concentration about him. Her eyes scan the skies as the incremental changes stack up.

"There we go," Martin says. "Next question?"

"What did you just do?"

"You felt it?" Martin smiles, and it's genuine. "Good. That's a good sign. I exercised the gift of the royal bloodline, and moved us into a different shadow. We're no longer in the waters off Weirmonken."

Rowen dips her chin a hint and looks "up" at him. "You announced it," she teases. "There was a... sensation and then the sky changed colour. What does that portend?”

"When I make the shift, here, I focused on the color of the sky, to make it more like the color of the place where I'm going. It's one of the simpler ways to make those adjustments, especially on the ocean. Also at night you can use the stars--when the clouds come through, you can find favorable stars on the far side. Harder to do during a storm, obviously, but if it's just regular clouds, pretty simple," Martin explains.

"Some people feel it more easily than others. I didn't make a huge shift there, so many people won't have noticed. I'm going to ask you a question now, and there's no shame if you don't know the answer. But if you do, it'd make things easier if I knew."

He lowers his voice. "Rowen, do you know for certain who your biological father is?"

"No." Her answer is quick, terse, and matter-of-fact.

A beat, then, "Growing up, they--my mother, the Counts--would always dodge the question. What's known is that Mother returned to Weirmonken pregnant with me. I was never affirmed as Earl Raptor's, so it doesn't take much to guess what happened.

"Mother made sure that I was schooled in the ways of Amber. One could," she continued, her tone casting doubt on this line of thought, "speculate that it was out of interest to prepare for the day that would come where we could visit again." She lowers her head a hint. "A more pragmatic person might have other reasons." A soft laugh escapes a characteristically open-mouthed smile. "And the more fanciful might dream of being a secret princess." A mischievous smile and a playful glin in her eye awaits his response.

Martin smiles, but there's something wistful around the edges about it. "If you're Cambina's full sister, you truly are a princess, because your father was the late King Eric, of course. She didn't like the title and didn't use it after his death, though. Jerod, who was her half-brother, still does. I think it's likely that Eric was your father. You have the sense for what we call the royal gifts. If you don't know for certain, you won't be the only child of the royal blood who doesn't know who their father was. And Eric certainly isn't the only man of our blood who discovered he had a child previously unknown to him." He glances at Lark, who is clearly comfortable on the ship and 'helping' the sailors with rope work. "Lark is more of an exception than a rule in the family."

"She looks to be very well-loved," Rowen observes following his gaze. "Is there a way to know the truth?" she asks.

Martin nods, once. "Lark is very well loved."

He continues: "There is a test of the family blood, but it won't prove which of us sired you. But if you're not one of us, it is fatal." Martin's expression grows serious. "It can kill you anyway, as it turns out. It's physically and emotionally grueling and you don't want to do it more often than you have to, which is usually only the once. But that's some distance in your future, so you don't have to worry about it today."

"That seems a horrid test for lineage. Why would anyone do it if they weren't already sure of it?" She doesn't really expect an answer. She acknowledges but doesn't press the deferment to some ambiguous future. "So, I may never know. I had hoped that truth might reveal itself one day."

"Well, that's the thing," Martin says, "There's not a lot of surety about it. Sometimes people adopt their siblings' children; sometimes men don't step up, or don't know--that happened to me--or people let sleeping dogs lie because the truth is inconvenient. I'm pretty sure Jerod will accept you as his sister for Cambina's sake, which will certainly place you as Eric's daughter. But what will be most important in your future is the relationships you forge in the family."

He starts to add something else, but then a strange look comes over him, and he says, "Bide a moment, Rowen," and then, "Who calls?"

There's a pause, as if someone is talking to him.

"Hello, Bleys. What's up?"

Another pause.

"I'm on my way back to Xanadu. But I can take a side trip if need be."

Another pause.

"I can check into that. I'll let you know what I find."

Another pause.

"No, it's not a problem."

Another pause.

"You're welcome. Talk to you soon."

It takes Martin a moment to focus back on Rowen. He makes a face not unlike the one Rowen imagines Lark making at a spoonful of bitter medicine. "I hate that. That was our Uncle Bleys, wanting me to follow up on a little naval skirmish he had in Tortuga. Have you ever heard of it?"

Rowen lightly shakes her head, side-to-side. "What is Uncle Bleys like?" she asks, beginning to pace a little on deck with uncertain steps. "Will there be fighting? Is this ship suited for it?" She had, of course, observed a great many things coming onto the ship, but her knowledge of sea warfare is largely theoretical.

"I don't think anybody will come after us," Martin says with a shake of his own head. "The Queen Vialle is a big warship. We're well equipped and have enough marines to fight off most of the ships we'll see out there. So you don't need to worry on that front. As for Bleys--" his smile turns rueful "--you'll like him. Everybody likes him, often in spite of ourselves."

"That is reassuring," the redhead mutters, possibly speaking to either point. She begins to rock from side to side, trying to keep herself upright while the ship pitches and yaws. "The books Mother gave me were good at describing genealogy, but not so much in describing the character of the individuals. Should I be wary of any of them?"

Martin snorts, amused. "We're all the soul of honor, kindness, mercy and goodness. Trust us in all things." He's clearly imitating someone, though obviously the original speaker is unknown to Rowen.

Rowen's brow arches upward, catching the shift in tone. The particular turn of words draws a wry grin to her lips.

Resuming his normal tones, he adds, "The redheads are by tradition considered untrustworthy. They're descended from grandfather through Queen Clarissa, who is a sorceress in her own right and whose children learned the most about the art and science of working with the family gifts.

"I have a personal beef with one of them, but he's safely dead and I try not to hold what he did against the other two. They were on the wrong side for most of the late war, but all of them except the dead guy signed up on the right side before the end."

"The matter of trust can be a touchy subject. Is that an opinion that holds specifically those redheads, or is it more general?" she asks, tilting her head to let her own red tresses tumble over her shoulder.

"Redheads in that sense are the descendants of Queen Clarissa. Assuming Eric is your father, which I think is likely the case, you'd count among the descendants of his mother, Queen Faiella. Hair color can be changed and it matters little compared to descent. Brita was a redhead even when she was blonde." Martin's mouth makes an amused little quirk.

The joke likely landed very differently than intended, by the quirk of Rowen's brow. "She is the one who can know people by smell? Is that not typical of the family?"

"No. Best guess is it's because of her other heritage, just like you have Weir gifts from your mother," Martin explains.

"Seriously, though, you should probably be a little wary of all of us. We're all a heady brew and most of us know just enough about the universe to be dangerous." Martin smiles, thin lipped. "But we all have ideas about how to make it better and that's the really dangerous part."

"Especially yourself?" Rowen pokes, with a broad grin smeared with mischief.

Martin's expression softens a little. "When I was young and ignorant, someone tried to kill me. I'm still angry about that, so I try to take care of the new kids in the family. I do have a lot of ideas about how to improve the universe, but a lot of them involve improving our family.

"Sometimes, though," he adds, "I have to blow things up and tear them down to let new things grow in their place."

A quick gasp betrays her surprise. “Are you a wizard?”

Martin laughs. "Oh, no, when I blow things up it's usually high explosives. Like fireworks. Only a lot more concentrated and powerful."

Rowen slowly twists her head into a quizzical cant. "What are 'explosives' and 'fireworks'?" she asks.

Martin's amused, but not in a mean way--more as if he were explaining to a young adult than to Lark. "Think of them as chemistry--alchemy, but no magic--as ways of making explosions. Fireworks are made with colors and sent into the sky, so you can see the colors in the night. They're for celebrations. High explosives are concentrated, like when you leave alcohol in ice and let all the water freeze out of it? So a small portion of it it makes a big boom."

If she's interested in more, Martin will go on a bit about the chemical details of basic explosives, how they relate to the cannon on this vessel, and a bit about firework colors (though not in detail, because he only has a very basic idea of a couple of colors, like gold is made from charcoal.) Martin seems to know a little bit about a lot of things, but his knowledge isn't always deep and he doesn't seem bothered by the fact that he doesn't know everything or by admitting it to Rowen.

Rowen is definitely interested in more, but may need some very rudimentary chemistry explained to her, down to the concept of elements, if Martin goes that far. She's fascinated by the idea that there are ways to make things get very big very fast. If there's someone else more knowledgeable on the ship to pick their brains, she's not against being fostered off on them so that Martin can keep up with his task.

She'll want to know how the cannons work as well as any other weapons on the ship that she's unfamiliar with.

Martin can explain a lot of it, and does, but is also careful to talk about how certain things that work in some places chemically don't work in others, so even though there are cannons, which are much more powerful weapons than men with swords, the crew of this vessel has to be ready for conditions to change. If they're attacked while travelling in a Shadow where cannons don't work, they have to be ready to go blade to blade.

Blades are always reliable, Rowen confirms. Or is it possible that they may also not work? How do the Princes and their crews find out if something works in a place or not? Do they have maps of all the Shadows?

She can talk to the officers about the cannons, and will pick up some practical basic chemistry from them, but Martin says explains that their focus is practical rather than theoretical.

Rowen will try to get as much from them as she can, but at some point, she'll want the full lesson on how to operate one, or any of the other things on the ship that go bang. Exploring the ship is also high on her mind, so she may be flitting in and out of spaces asking "What's this?" and "How does it work?"

Martin answers as many questions as he can and farms out those he can't.

He's walking along with Rowen on the deck when he stops and makes a face. "Someone is trying to reach me by Trump. Hang on a moment; I probably need to take this." He composes himself and answers the call: "Hey, Uncle Gerard. What's up?"

There's a pause while Uncle Gerard says something to him.

"Sure," Martin answers, "I can do that. Bleys asked me to drop in on Tortuga on my way back to check out some kind of skirmish he had with what sounds like the Klybesians, so that's where I'm headed. Have you heard from Jerod recently?"

A brief pause, then:

Martin shakes his head in the negative, once. "No, but I think I've found something--someone--that will interest him. Long story, please keep it under your tricorn until I get a chance to talk to him. He's not answering my Trump but he might just be busy. Do you want to send Alex through now? Does he have his things?" To Rowen he adds, "One of our cousins is coming through."

Cataloguing the names, Raven mentally places them amidst the names on the family tree she had memorized and built on from various books and her mother's teachings. She makes particular note of Jerod's interest.

Martin reaches out to Alex and says, "Come on through."

"Through from where?" Rowen asks.

As Alex comes through, wood, sails, and salty sea air wrap around him, depositing him on the top deck of a ship that would be considered large for a mid-18th century Shadow Earth sailing ship.

Immediately to the side of Martin is a hitherto unseen woman, slender and fair with brilliant red hair, backing away from the Prince awkwardly, as if to make space for something unknown. Dressed in a waistcoat over a blousy shirt, pants cut just below the knee over stockings, and a neatly tucked cravat, she looks not dissimilar to the officers on the ship, but there's something a little more refined about her look, almost like it's tailored or ideally chosen for her.

Her dark brown eyes seem large for her angular and ethereal face, wider still from wonder at the figure appearing out of thin air. Her jaw drops open with a gasp.

Alex steps out of the air with some degree of grace, readjusting quickly to avoid falling. He also comes with a sea chest, balanced on one shoulder.

"King Random's castle!" He appears to think it's an answer to Rowen's question.

"Thanks for the lift, um, cousin Martin? Hiya, miss, I'm Alex." He gives Martin an inquisitive look, just a flicker.

He's wearing blue, mostly; his clothing -- tunic, breeches, boots -- is simple but tailored well, built to last. Thicker cloth than you might expect, as if it might need to withstand some abuse. His tunic is not tucked in at all.

The woman claps her hands together. "Oh, that was marvelous! I'm Rowen." The lack of an additional title or rank might be telling that she's not part of the crew, despite the similarity in dress.

Martin makes the introductions: "Rowen, this is Alex, who is a cousin, but we don't know whose he is. Alex, this is Rowen, whom we suspect is King Eric's daughter, but we haven't confirmed it yet. So we're all cousins. Rowen, Alex comes from a realm with a very different kind of technology to yours, and I don't think there's any magic." He says the last glancing at Alex, clearly a bit uncertain. "Rowen's home has more magic but not a lot of tech. No steam, no electricity, no cannon--I've been explaining the cannon on this vessel to her, and fireworks.

"Also, Lark's around here somewhere and she'll be happy to see you, ALEX." Martin grins, and both Alex and Rowen can hear the echo of his daughter's voice in his intonation.

Alex cocks an eyebrow. "Whoa, you've never seen fireworks before, Rowen? Man, I want to see your face when you see those for the first time, they are the best. Um..."

He counts on his fingers. "Two: good to meet you; so far I've liked all my cousins although I'm sure the streak has to break sometime. Including Lark! It'll be good to see her again, that's three. And four, yeah, we don't have magic where I come from, just card tricks, and that's just making people look where you want them to look so you can do other things while they're not looking. And I'm not even any good at that."

He examines his remaining finger, which doesn't seem to have a conversational topic attached to it.

Rowen waits for a moment, rocking gradually closer as if that topic will be forthcoming, but after a awkward moment she returns to neutral, slipping her hands behind her.

"Well met," she replies. "We had Wizards, but I don't know how they did their magic. Not even sure it really was magic. There was always a suspicion that it was all a ruse or trickery.

"Card tricks, on the other hand," she adds, presenting her hands, with slender fingers caged around a deck of cards. In an instant, they split in multiple directions into an elaborate display of panels. A pause, and just as quickly, they snap back into a nearly-trimmed deck.

"That's gonna come in really handy," Martin tells both of them.

The Captain is waiting outside the charmed circle of the Amberites and Martin looks at him, nodding. He says, apologetically, "Your Highness, it's the Lady Lark."

"Oh," Martin says and winces. "If you two will excuse me, I have to go get my daughter before she makes whatever it is worse. Rowen, can I ask you to show Alex around for a bit and help him get his sea legs?”

"Of course, Your Highness," Rowen replies, accepting the task. "Good... luck?"

"Thanks." And Martin follows the Captain belowdecks to find Lark.

Turning to Alex, and gesturing about with empty hands at the relatively calm seas, Rowen narrates, "The water is calm at the moment, but it can get worse. I'm not at ease with it like the other sailors, but thus far what's worked for me is keeping the lower body loose to let the ship lurch under you while keeping the upper body smooth.

"Would you like to stow your belongings first?" she asks, dipping a brow toward his chest.

Alex hefts the sea chest onto his shoulder, without undue effort. "Love to." He's balancing like an athlete who hasn't spent much time on the water; center of gravity low, but he can't anticipate waves at all.

"So, what's your story? How'd you find the family? I got thrown in jail!"

Rowen leads him belowdecks, matching her pace to his. "The family threw you in jail? What for?" she asks, before the shadows swallow her form.

Within the hold, without hesitation, she moves with confidence, clear on her destination. "A contingent of my people, including my brother, who is"--she pauses and takes a deep breath, eyes searching the ceiling--"somewhere nearby, served Prince Jerod in a commando mission and Prince Martin brought them back. I had captured a Wizard earlier in the day when they returned. When I gave my report to the Count, the Prince said my life was somehow in danger. And, now, here I am.

"So how did you get out of jail?" A surreptitious glance. "You seem to jovial for this to be part of your punishment."

Alex shakes his head. "Nah, these -- have they told you about the Klybesians yet? Some sort of society of monks that has it out for us. Anyhow, those guys captured me and a couple other cousins, Delta and Misao. I guess to study us, ew. None of us knew we were part of the family, we just all woke up in jail cells. So I busted down the door of my cell and broke Delta out, and then Cousin Huon showed up, and then a million other people showed up and I wound up in Xanadu."

He takes note of the searching gaze, with a slight tilt of the head. "They told me the same thing, about danger, which I guess I believe given the whole jail thing. This is supposed to be a reasonably safe place for me to see a bit more of things, so I guess the same for you, huh?"

"They told me they had kidnapped some cousins. I suppose that would be you. They did not go into tremendous detail, so I still don't know much, except that they have ill will toward the family. What were they like? What precautions are you taking now against them?" Rowen asks.

"How do you capture a wizard? That sounds kind of tough."

"The original plan was to drop out of a tree," she says, pantomiming the tree, and then on hand falling out of it and wrestling with the other hand. "But he had company, so instead I snuck into his tower and caught him by surprise from behind, while he was looking out the front door." Now that she's mentioned it, she's made surprisingly little noise this entire time as she leads him to one of the quarters. "You'll want to bind the hands and the mouth first, before they can do anything, then eyes and ears. Or knock them out, if you think you can get it clean on the first strike."

She stops at one of the berths and opens the door for him. "This one's empty. I'm over there, and Reynart is next to it."

"I didn't really... get the chance to talk to any of them. So, uh, mostly what I can say is that the ones who kidnapped us are mostly dead." An expression flickers across his face for a moment, but is soon chased away by his usual sunny smile.

"I'm hanging out with people who know what they're doing, these days, for safe keeping. Also learning to use a sword, which is fun. Now I think I kind of want to learn how to capture a wizard, too; about half of that is well within my usual pursuits."

He mimes dropping to the floor with a leg sweep, followed by a sharp elbow to where he thinks the back of an imaginary wizard's head might be.

Though he does this in a way that would have likely avoided her, Rowen deftly steps out of the way nonetheless. The sight of him doing this while still toting a chest draws a wry curve to her lips. "I gather we will have our chance. Martin suspects your monks and my wizards may have some connection."

"Who's Reynart?"

"Reynart is my brother. Larger than me," she answers, lifting a hand to illustrate. "Maybe not faster, hairier, and red," she adds, giving her hair a slight twist with her fingers.

She jerks her head slightly toward the quarters. "Get yourself settled in. Get changed if you like. I can help you find some sailing clothes. And then we can go for a tour. There's not a lot, but I imagine you might want to know how not to get in the way," she says, sidestepping and flattening herself against a bulkhead to make way for a sailor carrying a heavy sack, coming from behind her.

Alex laughs, pleased. "Sailing clothes! Hey, you know what this family needs? A guidebook. We should write a guidebook. Um, do you write? Cause I don't. And yeah, I surely do like not getting in the way, so I thank you for that." He resettles his sea chest on his shoulder, and ducks into his new room. "Out in a second!"

Rowen offers a mild shrug. "I can read. I can write, but I haven't had much need to do it. My people have a largely oral tradition, but my mother taught me to do it. Is it the same for your people?"

"Nah," comes the voice from inside the room, somewhat muffled by the shirt Alex is pulling over his head. "We all read and write. I mean not everyone, but mostly, it's taught in schools and all that. Like our big cities are millions of people, it'd be awkward if everything got passed along by voice."

"It worked well enough for us," the voice calls back through the door. "We weren't many, though. Larger than many of the surrounding clans." By the sound of things, they weren't millions of them. They may not even know what millions are.

Alex is betting that his chest includes some of these sailing clothes, given that he didn't pack it. If there's a hat with a plume in it in there, he's going to come out wearing it.

Whether for their own amusement or knowing his nature, the pages have packed a plumed hat in the chest, thankfully one that goes with the sailing clothes in the chest, along with a cutlass. When he reappears, Rowen leans against the corridor, playing out elaborate designs with her deck of cards. The O she makes is a satisfying validation of his outfit. "Ready for the rest of the tour?"

Alex chuckles, pleased. "Sure am. Do we go to the front or the back first? Kidding! I know it's the bow and the stern, but I don't know more than that."

She dips her chin, just enough to look at him through her lashes. "The back!" is accompanied with a playful raise of the brows. And off she goes, leading him along a merry chase through the bowels of the ship. She takes him first to the galley, snagging a link of dried sausage for herself. The cargo holds get some attention, though access may be limited. She points out hiding places. She's probably not pointing out all the hiding places.

Although she knows where things are, it's also clear she doesn't know everything about them, in particular, what each spot or feature might be for. This hole? Don't know. Maybe for arrows? This is a cannon. She heard it makes a lot of noise and shoots a heavy ball at things.

Alex says, fairly deadpan, "I've always liked the rear view." He picks up his own sausage, along with a couple of beers -- where did those come from? -- one of which is on offer to Rowan if she likes.

Rowen accepts the drink with gratitude and takes a sip. Continuing the tour, she uses descriptive but incorrect terms for what they see, perhaps making it up along the way. In fact, it's obvious she's making it up and that he knows she's making it up, but rolling with it anyway.

He takes in the hidey-holes thoughtfully and posits that the holes are left over from when the ship was wrapped up for delivery.

"Can't imagine anyone delivering something this big," she mutters.

After a bit of wandering, he suggests, "Do you climb? You seem like you might climb, and I'm kind of interested in the view from on top of the masts. Uh, I mean the big sticks, I'm sure I wouldn't know what a mast is if you brought one along to dinner."

"Oh, I know where to find those. There are four big sticks," she says, illustrating by extending four fingers from the hand holding the now empty bottle. "The second one from the front's the tallest. And it has a flag on it!" She doesn't say it explicity, but she seems down to climb.

"Going to have to remember to figure out what my flag looks like one of these days, I guess." Alex finishes up his own beer on the way to stick the second. His climbing style involves muscle more than grace, although there's some of that, but clearly he's used to powering through rather than finessing. Come to think of it, the lengthy story he told about the Giants of the Southern Shipyards was like that too, on the verbal level.

It doesn't take more than a few seconds of climb before it becomes apparent that Alex has a competitive streak a mile wide. He's not exactly racing, but he's interested in being in the lead.

Alex is good and over time he could probably outpace Rowen, but on this occasion her skill and admittedly limited experience outmatch him.

In counterpoint to Alex, Rowen's style is more finesse than power. Highly technical, she takes advantage of every handhold and foothold, leveraging the rigging as well. The years of climbing trees in her native shadow gives her the steady advance up the mast. His power and enthusiasm surges him past her from time to time, but her scramble is dispassionately methodical. With one last spring off the sheets at the top, she touches the flag and swings her legs around to perch on the boom.

Alex cheers happily from just below the boom, then takes his time about his next step. After some thought, he inverts himself on the rope and tries to get his legs over the boom, but it's a bit too big for that to feel really secure, so he undoes the whole thing and thinks some more.

"I don't climb stuff as a rule, but it sometimes happens, but I am not usually more than like fifteen feet off the ground." He peers down at the deck. "I like being flashy but I also don't like being flat. Yeah, okay."

That last sounded and was decisive; he makes the remaining scramble the safe way, up a rope the way the shipbuilder intended. A quick slap of the flag, and he settles himself on the boom, leaning against the mast.

Rowen grips the boom with her hands and lets the balls of her feet slip off to dangle, while she takes a seat. "Climbing wasn't frowned upon, but it also wasn't taught. It wasn't common for my kind to drop out of trees, but it was something I found useful, so I practiced it. The trick was looking ahead, past the next handhold, to see the path you want."

"Fun, though! I'm gonna get good at this if I stay on this ship a while and holy crap that view! You know what any of those places are?” Alex gestures at anything that's visible. "Man, it's-- I don't mean to expect all the answers from you, I just keep meeting people who know everything already. Kind of nice talking to another newcomer."

She shakes her head. "I'm as much a novice as you are. This is my first trip on a ship like this, and my first trip into shadow. I only left home a dozen or score days ago. It's hard to tell. The days and nights are uneven with whatever Martin is doing to move us through them. I wouldn't even know how to chart these," she says, gesturing at the islands. "What shadow do they belong to? Since we won't stop to explore, what name do we give them? Are they inhabited?"

Alex laughs softly. “Yeah, I've been at this about the same amount of time. I... I don't think they bother to name the worlds they pass through while getting where they want to go. Pay attention and you'll notice that the ones that have names are the ones where we spend time. Others are just footpaths."

Rowen idly kicks her feet as she ponders a smooth dome of an island in the distance with a spare cluster of tall ferns, like a bad combover. Seems uninhabited. No, there's some movement. Small critters, polypedal. "There's a convenience in not having to remember the inconsequential things. What places have you been so far in your travels?"

Alex peers up at whatever knots are fastening the flag to the mast, speculatively. "Well, let's see... the jail cell where the family found me. Um, specifically a guy named Huon found me. He did something awful in the past to a city called Rebma, which is one of the big important places. Anyway, the cell might have been my earth."

He pauses, counting on his fingers. "Then they took us to Xanadu, which is ruled by Random, who's an uncle of ours. Another big important place. Also a safe place; lots of guards, lots of relatives, it's a castle. Port town too."

"I've heard of Random. He's one of the younger uncles, though he's still far older than you or me," Rowen says.

Alex tilts his head. "Yeah, I guess so. I mean you can't tell by looking at people, but he kind of acts like he's younger, or wants people to think of him that way? Like, informal." A casual lift of the shoulders seems indicative of a lack of familiarity with that implication. "He purposefully acts unskilled?"

"Yeah, like that -- not a lot unskilled but I think he likes people to underestimate him." Alex grins, to himself more than anything. "Perhaps it's an entertainer thing.

"Being underestimated can be a very advantageous position," she says. One look at her and it's apparent she's likely used that to her own benefit a few times.

"What is the nature of Xanadu?"

"That's where I've spent most of the last few weeks, but me and Delta -- another cousin, she was with me in the jail cells -- oh man, there's so much. Did they tell you about the cards?"

Rowen gives a gentle shake of her head. "Martin has not mentioned anything about cards. What is special about them?"

"Ah! OK, so -- this is not all cards, but there are people who can make them? You know, imagine a pack of cards except the royal cards are pictures of specific people. And if you look at them hard, you get to talk to that person. And even go to them. It's wild."

"Is that how you appeared earlier, holding Martin's hand? Do all the cousins use these magic cards?" she asks.

"Yeah; exactly like that, you just reach into the card and boom, walk through."

He shakes his head. "Listen to me acting like that wasn't completely ridiculous. You walk through a card? What a world."

"That sounds absolutely fantastical! Can anyone do it?" Behind that, an implicit 'can I do it?' "What else can you do with the cards?"

"Yeah, I think anyone can do it? I mean go through them, use them to talk to people, that kind of thing. I don't know if just anyone can make them. If they can, nobody told me the trick."

He sits up, straighter, reminded.

"Oh, crap, did anyone tell you about the pattern thingie yet? This is maybe going to answer your Xanadu question a bit too."

A little furrough develops between her brows and her face manages to pinch a hint without tightening her eyes. "Hitherto, we've only talked about the ship's regimen and history and things that sound like magic that I don't quite understand. Are they so predictable that you can map out their behaviours?"

Alex shakes his head, making a face which strongly indicates that he's searching his memory. "We should ask Martin about this, probably. It's not a secret, it's just one of the ten thousand things they take for granted. I mean, it's a secret from non-family, but not from us."

He lifts one hand from the mast, maintaining his balance with ease, and sketches a complicated design of sorts in the air. "There's this thing, they call it the Pattern. There’s one in Xanadu, there's one in an underwater city called Rem -- no, sorry, Rebma, and I think a couple of others. If you're a family member, but only if you're a family member, you can do some kind of ritual at it. And if you survive the ritual which is supposed to be really dangerous, then you can move between the worlds under your own power instead of relying on another family member to take you."

Something about the complicated design Alex is sketching feels familiar to Rowen. It sings in her blood like the howl of a wolf for her companions.

"This isn't the cards thing, that's a totally separate magical trick. This is like walking slowly from place to place, and the place you wind up at isn't in the same world as the place you start in. But you don't get to do it when you’re new to the family, because it's dangerous. I am not totally sure if that's true, I think they may just want to watch us a bit to make sure we're trustworthy, because this is where you get the serious power from."

He sighs.

"Anyhow, that's why Xanadu is important. It has a Pattern-thingie in it. Most places don't. Um, and don't worry, I don't understand any of this either. People keep saying 'Oh, Alex, you must have questions, I will answer your questions!' But I don’t even know what to ask. Like the last thing in the world I would have thought to ask is whether or not there’s a magic maze in the basement."

Rowen quietly listens, tapping out a regular rhythm on her lower lip with a fingertip. “And this magic made bestows the power that allows them to walk between worlds? That is how Prince Jerod returned our brethren to us. They are keeping you from doing it off course,” she surmises, in the same way one night commiserate about not getting to eat dessert first with a cousin.

Alex nods. "Yeah, that's the size of it. And I don't know, maybe it is really dangerous, right? But they found me when some monks wanted to do experiments on me anyhow, so I'm not sure I'm in any more danger just cause I've done the ritual. Mostly I think nobody wants to let me out of their sight. Or you."

He contemplates Rowan a moment. "Betcha it drives them nuts. I am the kind of person who busted through a prison door a few weeks ago, and I get the impression you kind of go where you want when you want as long as you don't think it's gonna hurt anyone. Yeah? So trying to keep us from sticking our noses into problems, it's probably like trying to keep kittens under control."

"Prince Martin seems to be keeping quite busy running errands for his uncles--our uncles?--maybe that's how they keep an eye on us. No time for mischief if you're too busy doing chores." Now that things have settled somewhat on the beam, Rowen digs through her satchel to lift out a bottle of amber liquid. Not a flask. A bottle. She cants her head at Alex. A wordless invitation. Whatever's in the bottle looks a might stronger than the beers they picked up in the kitchen. "You must be very strong if you can break through doors. I would imagine a prison door to be fortified."

Alex says, without modesty, "I am. Also my performance art means I've spent a lot of time learning how to kick inanimate objects without hurting myself, so that helps, although prison doors are harder than folding tables."

He reaches over, and accepts the bottle, and samples it curiously.

It's a whiskey. A little strong and definitely not refined like a scotch or a bourbon. He might even consider it a better-than-average moonshine, but one look at her and he might suppose there's not regulatory agency where she's from to make the concoction illegal.

"I don't think it was supposed to be a prison, to be fair. More like a medical facility where you might have patients who are getting angry about being kept there? Is there a difference?"

"From what you say, I would expect a prison to be fortified, but this facility," she says, the word coming unnaturally to her tongue, "would be a common construction, with perhaps a lock on the door. What is a medical facility? It sounds like it has relations to medicine.

"And what kind of performance art focuses on kicking inanimate objects? People in your world do that as art?"

Alex gives an appreciative whoof to the whiskey, then glides to his feet, balanced neatly on the yard. "Sort of, it's confusing. You start out with wrestling as a sport, real competition, yeah?" He's walking now, seemingly confident in his poise, although he's clearly conscious of which ropes he might grab if need be. "And then some smart guy says 'hm, will people be happier if the good guy loses'" -- and that's a thrust kick into the gut of someone invisible -- "then battles back against the odds, and eventually wins?"

Maybe he's grabbing the invisible someone around the waist, then throwing them?

"You can make a better story if the fighters are in on the story part. We don't tell the audience, it's good to let people be fooled if they want to be."

For a second he looks like he's going to try a cartwheel along the yard, but then he thinks better of it.

"So, and we can put in stuff you couldn't do if it was a real competition. Like, uh, I kicked someone through a pane of glass once and that would have hurt a lot if he didn't know it was coming. It's fun."

Just as fluid, he's back sitting again.

"This is why I'm such a show-off."

He earns himself a look, the kind that comes through her lashes and carries with it an unspoken, "You? A show-off?"

He blinks. "And your important question -- yeah, a medical facility, a place people go to heal. Maybe from mental problems in this case, so you want the doors to be strong enough to keep people in, but if you're determined enough... I could have gotten through it with a chair leg as a lever, I think, even if I was just average strong."

"Is it common for people of your world to have diseases of the mind? How terrible must it be if it requires them to be imprisoned? What is their madness?" she asks, reaching out to claim the bottle for a swig. Idly, she kicks her legs while she sits neatly on the arm. "Have you ever had to fight for real, when it wasn't for show?" She further qualifies, "Aside from your prison escape."

He flashes a brilliant grin, in answer to either the look or the second question, but answers the first question first.

"It's a complicated world, and people get stressed trying to handle it, I guess? But have you ever known someone who's so convinced that their neighbor is going to hurt them that they decide to take the first shot? Stuff like that.

"And yeah. For the entertaining I do, it's important to let people believe it's real, yeah? So I have to carry myself like a tough guy, inside and outside of the ring. And there's always someone who wants to prove a point. Like, even if they know it's not really fighting, they want to show off to their girlfriend by taking down the fake fighter. So it's a good idea to know how to carry yourself."

There's a shadow over his face, for a moment.

"Never till the prison breakout did I see someone die in front of me, though." He tilts his head a bit. "You? People seem pretty familiar with death in these parts, so maybe I just gotta get used to it."

"You fight for entertainment. How curious. In my home, we fought to train ourselves, or for sport, or for play, or to assert dominance. Death or injury was common, but I dare say that we were more on the giving end of that," she says, chuckling at varying points along the way.

She glances at him out of the corner of her eye. "You seem pretty nimble for a man your size. How much of what you do is technique over raw power?" She reaches over and pokes at his bicep with a fingertip, testing his elasticity. "Does it bother you that people test you all the time?" she asks, without irony.

He has an appreciative grin at the giving end bit. "Well, and we do plenty of fighting for real. I don't think my entertainment would work as well if people weren't used to watching similar stuff where the outcome isn't pre-determined. And there are wars, and fights over sports teams, and all that. Just some carnival owner back a century or so ago thought 'hey, this would make me more money if the bad guy only won when I wanted him to.'"

He flexes his arm at the poke, still cheerful. "More raw power than technique, but I have a lot of raw power and that makes the technique easier. There are people out there who are better at technique than I am. And balance is really important -- I spend a lot of time throwing myself off ladders and such, and you want to control how you land, right?"

A look downward. "Not from this far up, though.

"And nah. If I didn't love it when people look at me, I wouldn't be in this line of work. I could make money in the ring in real sports as well, maybe even more, and I’d have to fight less often. But I love crowds."

"If you throw yourself from a ladder repeatedly, I would hope you figure out a way to land. That sounds not all that different from jumping out of trees." She pauses to consider him closely. "I would like to see you perform, sometime," Rowen says with a grin. Though it is closed-mouth, not baring teeth, it seems no less genuine than any other smile.

"What would you do now, though? In my home, such entertainments did not exist and who's to know what we'll find ahead of us." She looks off into the distance as she asks the question, taking note that the island they were looking at just moments earlier has disappeared, certainly not because the ship is fast and traveled great distances. It should be there, but it isn't. Little things here and there might be noticed if one were observant. The clouds aren't as puffy. The air feels a little cloying and it isn't coming from her. The water is darker and has a bit more of a chop to it, also felt in the swaying of the ship. It's felt all the moreso from the top of the mast.