Rav closed the door of the gondola and huddled beside it, praying someone would come find him and tell him what to do. If he started wandering, would he end up somewhere he wasn't supposed to be? Meeting someone who would prefer not to come face-to-face with a cabin boy? Or did he have duties he was being expected to do?

When nobody came, Rav steeled his nerves and crept to the other side of the room. A doorway led to a hallway down the center of the ship. Closed doors brooded in its walls, but further down, a curtain swayed in an open doorframe, lit cheerily from behind. Things clinked and rattled beyond it. Over the engine's throb, Rav heard a snatch of song. Rich, spiced smells wafted after it like the notes themselves had an aroma.

The galley. Someone in a ship's kitchen would not be a maharaja, and Rav had learned from experience that people who sung to themselves tended to be kind. Father's kitchen staff had always been singing.

Rav edged down the hallway with arms folded tight across his chest, like they might betray him and try to touch one of the doors. He reached the galley and realized he had no plan for explaining himself to the person there. And what if he wasn't allowed to talk to them? Father didn't like it when he spoke with the kitchen staff at home. But he was a cabin boy here, not a youngest son. Did that make it permissible? Paralyzed with indecision, Rav hugged himself tighter and listened to the deep, sweet voice as it harmonized with the galley's sounds. The singer paused to lift something, and Rav leaped back as the curtain swung aside.

The man in the doorway startled. "Gods above! I didn't hear you there."

His eyes flicked across Rav's face, and Rav already knew what they saw: boyish features and a build less intimidating than a chital deer's. Rav was not light-skinned by any stretch, but next to this man's rosewood complexion, he was certain he looked like a spoilt child who had spent his life indoors.

"Are you the new cabin boy?" The man's smile was bright and warm. He adjusted the huge pot he was carrying and touched his forehead, then chest in a greeting Rav recognized as one from the northern coasts. "Salai. Welcome aboard. I'm Manish."

Rav managed to stutter his own name. He willed his trembling stomach to silence, and shrank down further when it did not comply. With the curtain open, the smells from the galley were beyond mouth-watering.

Manish stepped back and held the curtain aside. "Come in. Are you hungry? You must not have eaten since sunrise if you came in on the morning ferry."

Rav ducked through the curtain to find himself in a kitchen space barely three paces across. Manish returned the giant pot to the stove. He was little taller than Rav, but his shoulders were broad and he handled the pot like it was full of fog, not water. Rav spotted a washbasin in the corner that looked meant for handwashing. He glanced at Manish to confirm this, but the man had procured a bowl and was filling it from one of many pots. Rav scrubbed his hands as quickly as he could and dithered in front of a tiny counter with two tall stools on its other side. Beyond them was the dining room, if it could even be called that. It was barely larger than the galley, with a table bolted to the floor and three chairs cramped around where there should have been two.

"Pick a seat," said Manish cheerfully. He waved towards the stools, so Rav scooted through the gap in the counter and took one. Manish set the bowl gracefully in front of him. The steaming dal turned Rav's mouth to a monsoon. Even the naan was still warm from the pan.

"Feeding the cabin boy, are we?" said a gruff voice from the doorway.

Rav nearly dropped the warm flatbread. Was he disobeying orders by eating here? He should have asked first if he was needed.

"Good," grumbled the captain. "He needs it."

Manish wiped his hands on a towel. "Do you need me on lookout?"

"No, no. Sanjay set our heading already. You been around the ship yet, boy?"

Rav shook his head. Maybe he should have explored instead of skulking in the entryway for so long.

"I can show him around," said Manish.

The captain flapped a hand. "No, no, you keep doing what you're doing. I'll get Sanjay to do it. So, boy. What's your name?"

"Rav."

"Hm. Well, boy, how much did they tell you about this ship down at the docks? I tell them not to go on about it when I put an ad in for a new hire, but those dockhands gossip like old women."

There was a sparkle in his eye that Rav wasn't sure he liked. "Um... they said it makes deliveries," he said. That didn't feel deferential enough, so he added, "Captain."

The captain's deep chuckle rumbled like the engines. "So we do, boy, so we do. Only ship on the continent that'll sail anywhere, and let me tell you, there's a fine market for deliveries like that." He leaned on the balsa counter and rapped a knuckle on the wood. "They pay well, too. That woman you saw on the docks? Gave us three hundred sona just to take a box to her biological station out on an island. A box! Nothing special even; I took a peek inside, and it was just a microscope and a bunch of parts. Three hundred sona. So you see, boy, there's money in not being scared."

Rav kept his mouth shut and nodded. The captain had settled in like he planned to stay. He was only just getting started.

"Used to be a warship, this was. I would know; I sailed her in the three decades war. Took out the last bomber dropping landmines for the ground troops to bury up at Bandaragaah when they turned the inland port into a no-man's land. The empire built Dakshin Tat after that to revitalize all the traffic they lost. But they wouldn't pay me for winning their battle for them, so I did it my own way."

He leaned in with a grin that was just a little too wide. "I went in and salvaged the downed bomber. Right off that field. Sold all the parts for a fortune; the Alliance made good airships. And I bought my ship back!" He slapped the wall. Manish winced as things in the cupboards tinkled.

"And then you know what I did, boy? I said Snakes Bite You to those pompous dogs, and I started running deliveries. Got hired by a Tsar to fly his brat son over the Klyk Gory to safety when his father suspected an assassination plot. Gave me a third of the family fortune when I did that and ran the airship that followed us into a wind waterfall. Smashed them on the mountains, and I didn't even need a cannon."

He threw back his head and laughed. "A third of their fortune! With that, boy, I bought all this you see around you. That Skydragon skin on the envelope? Paid a man to hunt that one myself. Who knows, I might even have gotten the last one on the planet." He returned his elbow to the counter and lowered his voice. His eyes sparked triumphantly. "They said it was illegal, but you don't have to be legal or saintly when you can pay the state more than the conservation groups can. I land now and I see their jealous eyes, boy. It's the sweetest revenge."

Rav swallowed the bite that had lodged in his throat, to find it wasn't a bite at all. His windpipe pinched, and he frantically patted down the heat in his stomach. Poaching was illegal. Paying for it was wrong, and he would never see what had once been the most beautiful of the dragons because of it. But the captain was still smiling. He was waiting for a response. Rav ducked his head and nodded.

A heavy, calloused hand patted his shoulder. "You know, I had my doubts when I saw you, but I like you, cabin boy. I like you."

The next moment, an eerie silence cut the room as the engines stopped dead.

A/N: If you've read this far and you like what you've read, you can support this work by pressing the little vote star in the top right (on the web) or bottom left (on the app) corner of each chapter. Not the one above this—that's just a photo. Votes go a long way in boosting a book on Wattpad, and I humbly admit they make an author's day.

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