***
Iona Erthen, Illorin, Reyna
November 1, 1800

"We ought to head to Belises Port," said Illorin, thoroughly exhausted after a few days of living in a run-down motel. It was the closest one to the castle they could find that also fit their budget. "If I heard right, Captain Han's going to be there to pick up the first mate. Actually, I heard he was going to be there a while ago, but knowing my captain, he probably still hasn't gotten there."

Reyna sniffled and swatted the fly flying around her face. "What makes you say that?"

"Well, I would love to tell you about our Captain's procrastinating tendencies, but that wouldn't be right." Illorin would love more than anything to tell the world than Han always arrives at Querilke to protect the Ruby a day or two late even with all the pressure on him regarding the safety of the Ruby. It was why Aeryn Branche had managed to get inside the cave in the first place. Because he was late.

Iona sighed, her head just short of falling off her hand and onto the table. "We can't cross the border, Lord Illorin."

"Then we should send a letter to him," Reyna suggested, taking another swing of water as if it were something else. "Or we could send one to Captain Branche."

"I don't know her that well," said Illorin.

"What makes you think we know Captain Han all that well either?"

Iona snickered. "I mean, I guess you could say we know him from how much you talk about him all the time."

Ignoring what she said, Illorin balanced his chin on the table.

He swept his eyes across the dimly lit room. Had someone of importance been nearby, he would say he'd woken up early like Iona and Reyna, but the truth was that he was yet to fall asleep. On the Black Egret, he took the night shifts simply because any other time of day made him sleepy, and trying to adjust to these women's' schedules was as difficult as climbing up from the depths of Hell. Or the Underworld?

Which one of the two truly existed?

"Oi, Illorin," Iona said, waving a hand in front of his face.

"What do you want?"

"What should we do?"

He slumped back into his seat. "I don't know. I'm just a fill-in gunner while she's," he pointed at Reyna, "your real gunner and you're the quartermaster. If you really think about it, my opinion is the last one you should be taking."

Reyna smiled, looking out the window as if the sun was already up. "Shall we head out for a day of shopping?"

"In Auber's Night Market?" The Night Market was a concept from Tereline, but it had been copied and applied to many other country's that couldn't come up with their own customs. Similar to how so many believed Britain's constant bragging about their creation of the Night Market.

Tereline was a country constantly overlooked and taken advantage of, but they were more powerful than anyone could know. Even if the leader was horrible, the country and its people were so unified that nothing would change. Tereline was yet to start a war and fight one that they lost.

This was why the war didn't bother Illorin as much as it did Iona and Reyna. Both of them lived in Auber the majority of their life from what he'd heard, and they would know better than anyone that Auber was going to lose this war and the majority of its population with their pride.

Suddenly curious, Illorin asked, "Reyna, where did you come from?"

Raising a brow, Reyna set her glass of water down. "My mother?"

"No, no. You said you lived somewhere before coming to Auber."

"I used to live in India before I came to Auber when I was five."

"But your name--"

"The Britishers forced my parents to convert into Christianity before they had me."

Silence fell at the table.

Illorin knew a little about Britain invading India quite a while ago, but it never seemed that pressing of an issue. Not that he would know. The Black Egret picked him up from a fighting ring in Portugal when he was just eight-years-old.

"So," Iona said, keeping her elbows on the round table in the motel's lobby, "what's the plan?"

***

"I can't believe this is the plan."

"Iona, relax and enjoy the view for a little while," said Illorin as he pushed Iona from her frozen position. The dirt serving as the path made it easier to move her, but she was simply both taller and stronger in a way that made him spiral in questions and needs to be better. Sure, he was short, but he was the tallest just seven years ago. Those days, he was treated like a king, but no longer.

"Why would speaking to a fortune-teller make any difference in our plans?"

Reyna slurped the juice she managed to sneak out of the lobby. "Is it not our only plan at the moment. Since we do not have a messenger owl, we'll have to wait for someone of importance sends us a letter with further instructions. Until then, we should have a bit of fun."

Iona growled. "By plans, I meant something like breaking into the castle to retrieve Jules and Maya."

"Why would we do that?" Illorin said.

On the day Maya was cuffed and dragged into the castle, he was as clean as a toddler eating by themself in the sense he lost sight of what to do. Now, apparently, he was fine. For Iona, it was the opposite. As the days passed by, Iona couldn't help but worry.

"We cannot die this early into our lives. The king of Auber is ruthless if you didn't know, Auber citizens," he continued.

"He's right."

Iona merely scowled at Reyna just as she had been ever since they were sent on their mission. "Whatever."

Just then, an owl flew by, dropping a letter into Illorin's hands.

Unfortunately, the fill-in gunner had his mind focused on the fortune-teller's stall rather than his surroundings and failed to catch it in time. He then had to bend down and collect the paper. It had no seal or anything to close the envelope. It looked as if Captain Han had rushed himself to write it. Regardless, he wrote his name in near calligraphic handwriting on the envelope's bottom right corner.

Reyna and Iona bother peered at the letter from his shoulders, but it was no use when the writing turned out to be incomprehensible.

"Ah, Captain's finally sent word," he muttered as he read through the script, not bothered by the scribbles thrown onto the page.

"I don't think that's written in English," Iona said.

"It's written in Portuguese."

"Captain Han can speak Portuguese?" asked Reyna.

"Actually, when he came onto the Black Egret a few years ago and learned that I could speak Portuguese, he used to ask me to teach it to him. He never told me why, but he picked it up quite fast, so there must've been some reason."

What Illorin didn't know was that Han wanted to learn to cure his boredom and because he thought it would be a great way to show off to anyone who questioned him. It was then when he gained the obsession of learning new languages and had become conversationally competent in more than a few.

But what Illorin said was a lie. The Captain learned Portuguese from the First Mate, but since Marty himself wasn't fully fluent, he'd asked Illorin for help sometimes. Merely because he wanted the new captain to feel comfortable especially since he seemed like the person who truly hated human existence. Illorin's first real encounter with the Captain was when he'd been asked to fill-in for Marty while he took a vacation, but even then it was Quartermaster Suzy doing the talking. The first time he'd spoken to the Captain was when they'd gone to Querilke and came across Aeryn Branche's ship and her attempt to retrieve the Ruby.

Now, it was an honour to think that the Captain trusted him enough to send him on such an important mission to safely transport Princess Maya to the Arce Ace. Not that that had gone smoothly.

Allowing Illorin a few minutes to decipher Han's handwriting, Reyna asked, "What does it say?"

"Hold on."

As he read on, the messenger owl that had come to send the letter perched itself onto Iona's shoulder, pecking at her hair. Owly was bored, so he might as well entertain himself. It's not like either of the three could harm him. He was their only way of communicating with the captain.

On top of that, if these three didn't give him instructions soon, he would be angry for taking up his time. Not that he had any other letters to send.

"Roughly translated, the captain wants us to do whatever we want until he sends further word," Illorin said, rather confused. He looked up from the paper. "Doesn't he want us to return?"

"Not yet, it seems," Reyna said. "How about we do what we came here to do and wait for further orders."

"Right."

***
WORD COUNT: 1500