Everything that could have gone wrong that morning did go wrong. Xyra was sick, the meat stick from the night before did not sit well with her. With no one to hold Theo accountable in the morning, she was late to meet her first contact for leads. She recruited Cooker to join her on pirate business and Theo was surprised that Cooker agreed. Cooker hated that part of the job which is why she opted to not go for first mate. The first contact, the one she was late for, was not fond of Theo and Cooker and refused to deal with them if Xyra wasn't around. Her second contact had no good leads.

"If we go back with nothing, Xyra is going to throw us into the sea," Cooker pointed out.

"I am the captain. I do not fear Xyra," Theo said and they both laughed. "I fear Xyra just a little."

"She'll slash us so we bleed before she pushes us off the plank," Cooker described as they walked, "so the sea creatures can come and eat at our flesh as we slowly bleed out."

"She wouldn't do that. I feel as if she would torture us first. Pull out our teeth and make herself a crown before leaving us to die, toothless in the ocean," Theo responded.

They went back and forth, coming up with hypotheticals of how they would die if they returned empty-handed. They theorized that Xyra would make a side deal with the gods to forever curse them, skinning was mentioned, they also toyed with the idea of being burned alive. They were not serious, Xyra wasn't violent like that. She preferred emotional punishment like freezing them out.

Bavar, the next lead they were seeing, was sitting on a chair outside of his shop, smoking a pipe. When he saw them, he slowly got up. His large belly made it hard for him to maneuver up and down easily, "The Captain! In the flesh. My dear, this morning I received something perfect for you. Aren't you lucky."

"Jokuz has certainly blessed me," Theo said, referring to the Islander god of fortune and luck.

They followed the man inside and he handed Theo a paper. Theo handed it to Cooker, "What do you think?"

Cooker skimmed through the paper, reading some of it aloud, "45 crates, 30 barrels... Cargo is valued at 120 thousand gold... Final destination Gossem... The preferred route would be through the coastal passage... Harsh penalty if not delivered within three cycles... Total payment of 15 thousand gold upon delivery.''

"Gossem is on the way to Corinspe, perfect. What is the cargo?" Theo asked.

"Doesn't say," Cooker flipped the page over and examined it, "nothing there either. Bavar?"

"It's just a few different types of ugali," Bavar shrugged.

Theo shook her head, "We're not taking it."

"Theo, it's 15 thousand gold," Cooker looked stressed at Theo suggesting they pass up the opportunity.

"I don't transport ugali," Theo said firmly. It was a type of drug that was highly addictive. Theo had seen whole towns and families brought down because of it. The drug came in a few different forms that all had the same effect, a heavy sedative. It could be drunk, eaten, or inhaled.

"This client is very important. If you do this, they might have other jobs for you in the future. Things are tightening up with the reclassification coming around and these jobs are going to be harder to find. Better get yourself an in with those with influence," Bavar tried convincing Theo.

He had a point. Ports were closing, illegal activity was coming to a halt, and merchants were increasing precautions towards pirates to lose the least amount of money before the classifiers evaluated their worth. Leads and jobs were going to start getting harder to find. The merchants they raided to fill in whatever hole they had when no leads were also going to get harder and riskier to raid. It was her conscience versus what was best for the crew. 15 thousand could go a long way, which would put each woman's share at around 300 gold coins. If they took this job they would have made the same amount of money in two cycles as they did in ten cycles the length before.

"Your client, are they firm on the route? I'm not too sure about the coastal route? Rather take a few extra suns and go further out. Too many Bathean patrol ships and this close to reclassification they're probably boarding ships to check cargo more often than usual," Theo explained. If she was going to go against her gut, she would be doing it in the safest way possible.

"Not sure why they chose that route. If you can get it to them in three cycles, I'm sure they don't care how you get it there," Bavar supplied.

Theo stayed quiet, lips pursed as she thought of what to do. She knew Xyra would value the large payment over her morality of carrying ugali. Cooker, who was usually on her side when it came to issues like this, was the one convincing her to take the job.

"What's your cut of my 15?" Theo asked

"Nothing. The client is paying me separately upon delivery of the cargo, untouched, and in time. Which is why I think you'd be the best for it," Bavar explained. Theo was known for her reliability when it came to transporting jobs.

"Fine. I'll do it," Theo said. The liaison, which was Bavar, usually charged a fee from whatever the profits of the job were. Not having a fee was the last piece of the puzzle, Theo was in.

They finalized what they needed to do with Bavar and left back to the ship, having secured a well-paying job. 15 thousand gold to transport something that was already on the way to their final destination was ideal. She hoped it was the right decision, putting aside her personal preference for the sake of her crew, but that was something she would have to wait and see.

-------------

Ava awoke with the side of her face burning. She had left the window in the cabin open and the sun was beating down on her. She stretched out and rolled onto her other side, immediately being hit with a wave of pain. Right, the earring. She sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes, adjusting to the light. It had to be mid aftermorning by the time she woke up and she felt well-rested. Her ear was not hurting, only a dull throb was present. She put her bare feet on the ground and got up. Ava made the bed, collected whatever she had left the night before, and made her way to the lower decks.

She found no one in the lower decks, not even sleeping. Going back up onto the deck she saw no one either. The ship was practically deserted. Ava was on the deck for a reason, she wanted to go to Theo's quarters to see if her clothes had been delivered. After she knocked on the door and then tried opening it herself she realized no one was there. Even if her stuff had been delivered, there was no way to get it. There seemed to be none of her regular group around and she was at a loss for what to do. Niveal was intimidating, loud, and busy and she wasn't sure she was ready to take it on by herself. With the crutch of friends gone, it was either boredom or braving the Nivealean streets alone.

Ava refilled her coin purse with her stash and set out. There were a few things she was interested in doing that she hadn't gotten around to doing, mainly visiting a bookstore and the market square. She disembarked from the ship and walked up Stumbler's row, deserted compared to night time. The sun was strong and it shone down on her bare arms, burning her slightly. Ava, being so pale, burned easily and she tried her best to stay out of the direct sunlight. She heard the market before she saw it. Like the sun before, there was a large array of products and goods waiting to be bought.

There was no logical place to start as there was no structure to the market. It couldn't even be compared to a maze, a maze was structured and well defined, this was not. It was more like a battlefield, no right place to go except to keep marching onwards. She opted to just start with what looked pretty to her, a booth with tapestries. Hand-dyed fabrics lined the stall and the older couple running it seemed lost in their own world. Ava just wanted to observe, not buy. She didn't have the luxury she had yesterday of being able to get items delivered because of Theo so she needed to be wise with her purchases.

Ava hopped from stall to stall. Her weakness was the fruit, every stall she stopped at that had fresh fruit she ended up buying some. One to eat and one to take with her. By the time she had finished only one of the many sections of the market, she was full off fruit. The bag she was given at the beginning by one of the fruit vendors was weighing on her arm. She figured maybe it was time to stop indulging in the fruit and she looked for other goods.

Each stall was slightly different but they mostly sold the same category of goods: dried meats and fruits, artisan decoration, artisanal jewelry, and hand-dyed fabrics. She had a mantra going in her head, only buy what is necessary. Ava tried her hardest to stick to it but she caved, she bought a thin silver ring for herself, a few decorations she had no business buying since she had no home to decorate and finally she bought some dried meats for Theo. She pondered over the last purchase for a bit. Would Theo read into it? Was it weird?

She remembered the multiple occasions where she saw Theo snacking on jerky and also remembered hearing Theo complain about running out. Ava felt silly about it after her purchase. Theo was one of the most well-known pirates around and she had what seemed like unlimited funds. If Theo wanted jerky, Theo would get jerky. Ava stared at the bag that contained it and considered finding someone to give it to. She decided against it, she needed to just give it to Theo regardless of what it may look like.

After going through half of the market, she decided to call it quits. There was more for her to do elsewhere. She had seen a bookstore during their time shopping the sun before, Theo had walked past it saying it was of no interest to them. It was odd to Ava, Theo was someone who requested a library on the ship. Her best friend and she read books together. Theo posed to be someone who was passionate about books and art. Ava has a sneaking suspicion something was off, the same feeling she had the day before when they were shopping.

The sun before, the only thing that changed between the times Theo had refused to help Ava and the time that she did help was the language the list was written in. When they were going into the Aelizan shop, Theo was all ready to be helpful and read the list. She was able to list the items and help Ava shop for them. In the three shops before that, Theo hadn't even lifted a finger to help. The helpful Theo was the Theo she had grown to know. There had to be something impeding Theo from wanting to help.

Ava racked her brain. Was she morally opposed to something the first three shops sold? Was she uncomfortable with all of the other shop owners except the Aelizan one? Or was it something more ludicrous, something that had been poking at the back of her mind.

Could Theo not read?

Or at least, not common. At the surface level, it made no sense. There wasn't a possibility that the captain of a ship could not read. Thinking deeper though, it made a little bit of sense. Come to think about it, Ava had never seen Theo pick up anything to read. More than that, Theo's pirate business was never conducted alone. Yesterday all of the questions about the list went straight to Xyra as if it was a habit.

Theo spoke Aelizan; it could only be assumed she also read it, which is why she was willing to help in the last shop, the Aelizan one... But could she read common? No signs pointed to her being able to. Ava had more evidence that Theo couldn't than that she could. Her mind was racing, with questions and with wonder. If it was true, then Theo had managed to get very far in her profession. Ava wanted to respect Theo's privacy on the matter but curiosity got the best of her. She would have to figure out a way to test her theory but was at a loss on how to.

Ava managed to find the bookshop with relative ease, small and inconspicuous from the outside but massive on the inside. Much like the jewelry store, the outside did not hint at the enormous interior. It had rows of bookshelves reaching more than 15 feet in the air with ladders in each row. There was no second story, just a tall ceiling that allowed for the shelves to reach high up. Ava craned her head up to observe every inch of the store. It was cozy and despite the tall ceiling space still felt a bit cramped due to the number of items in the store. Ava felt so overwhelmed she did not even know where to begin. There was no one around to help.

She began to browse and stumbled upon a sketch that was nailed into the side of a bookshelf. It was the layout of the store, split into four quadrants, each one a new genre. There were nonfiction biographies, fiction, nonfiction, history. Ava didn't know why history was not with nonfiction but she was not one to critique a system she knew nothing about. The first item on her mental list was a book that explained the social rules and norms of different continents. There was no way she was going to get caught up in an embarrassing Safriti moment again. How she had not known that Efritit was considered two separate provinces was beyond her. Ava needed something that laid out the current state of things.

It took her a while before she pinpointed the row that she needed within the quadrant she needed. Nonfiction quadrant in row 13, Baethan nonfiction with a concentration on the continents. Once there, she perused the books until finding one she wanted. A thick, 600-page book. It was about two times wider than any standard book and heavy. It seemed comprehensive and flipping through it Ava saw sketches throughout the book. Clothes, houses, food, hairstyles, everything that Ava could use visualization for, the book provided it. Her arms were beginning to grow very tired and the book was not helping matters. She had a few more things to buy but she wasn't sure she would be able to carry anything else back to the ship.

Lugging the large book around she made her way to Nonfiction about weapons. She was going to read up on everything there was to know about weapons and combat, there had to be something useful she could learn like that. When Theo was ready to have the vanguard conversation, Ava would be prepared. Another half an hour later, she found the weapons book she wanted. A smaller book, not too wide, and only around 150 pages. It had illustrations of the weapons, the history of them, and some useful information as to their uses. The lighter book still made a significant weight contribution to her growing collection of goods. Her fingers were straining to keep it all up and she had to take frequent stops to put everything down.

She could have just left then but she had one last book selection to make, Theo. Ava had an inkling that Theo was the subject of at least one book and Ava wanted to find it. It wasn't that she felt she couldn't ask Theo about her life, it was that she would have rather read about it than had to ask. Ava was already known for her questions and she didn't see the issue with reading public knowledge. She wasn't invading privacy if that information was easily accessible. She just wanted small details that explained who the captain was, where Theo was from, how long she had been sailing, little details of her life before becoming a captain, and her accolades as a captain. It wasn't like Ava was going to hide it from Theo. If Theo asked what Ava had bought, she would be honest but she also wasn't going to go out of her way to tell the captain.

When she managed to find the correct quadrant and section, there wasn't just one book about Theo, there were five. Skimming through them, she couldn't figure out the difference between any of them so she decided to take the two thickest ones.

Ava lugged her belongings to the checkout desk. At least, she assumed that is what it was. She had found it during her many revolutions around the quadrants during her search for the books. She rang a bell that was on the counter and waited. A woman with thick glasses and a friendly smile approached the counter after emerging from behind some rows of books. She was short and had to use a step stool behind the counter to be at eye level with Ava.

"Good aftermorning! Have you shopped with us before? Apologies if you have, I don't seem to remember you," the woman asked, her smile never fading from her face.

"First time. Your shop is lovely," Ava complimented.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it! Did you find everything you needed?" the shopkeeper asked.

"Aye," Ava handed her the books, "I was shopping around yesterday and some shops offered delivery. Would I be able to do that?"

"We don't deliver past a certain point. Where would you want this to go?"

"To the docks. The Scorned Woman," Ava said, praying she would not have to drag the books back.

"Your one of The Captain's girls?" the woman's permanent smile somehow grew.

"Aye, I joined the crew not too long ago. You know Theo?" Ava asked.

"Apparently more than you do," the woman teased, holding up one of the books about Theo.

Ava's cheeks heated up and fidgeted in her spot a bit, "She's a bit of a mystery."

"Those pirates keep their cards close to their chest, I don't blame you. Would you also like me to deliver what you were carrying?" the shopkeeper offered.

Ava looked down at her items. Her hands were itching for release and she put her items on the counter, "Yes, please. That would be so amazing. How much would it be in total for the deliveries too?"

"Delivery is free for any of Theo's girls. It will be delivered to her quarters though so you'll have to coordinate with her to pick things up," the woman explained then began to collect all of Ava's things, "the books will run you seven silver."

Ava took out a gold piece and placed it on the table. She had too much money to need the change and she wanted to leave a little bit extra as a thanks for the help. The shopkeeper never officially ended the transaction, just packed up the things, and left. She disappeared behind the rows of books once again, leaving behind the payment. After standing around for a few minutes, Ava realized the woman wasn't coming back and she left, her hands-free and her schedule open.