The dining hall was huge. Or, at least, it felt that way to me. Tables were on one side of the room, all shapes and sizes, and all made of cloud. More chairs surrounded them. Again, some were weird, and some were perfectly normal.

On the opposite side of the room, long rectangular tables were covered with selections of food. An out-of-place looking round table held desserts. Salad and stew, chicken and bacon, pie and cake and chocolate, and some odd little sparkling tartlets that looked as though they might have some sort of magic in them—every type of food anyone could imagine was on those tables. I wondered how anyone could possibly eat it all.

Then more Blesseds began to file into the room through various doors. My jaw dropped. Yes, the ship had certainly been huge, but I had never imagined... this. Hundreds of them. A variety of people the likes of which I had never seen before. Nevermind coming from different villages, some of them had to have come from different places altogether. I'd noticed some odd styles of clothing before, of course. Yet now I noticed even more: long, flowy garments with flower embroidery; bits of cloth woven with gold, draped over shoulders and wrapped around heads in various styles; clothing made of what looked to be wood, or deerskin, or some kind of scales.

It was beautiful.

It was also scary. My pulse began to pound, louder and louder, until I was sure everyone in the room would hear it. So many people.

The captains entered last. There was a small raised section in the middle of the room, just large enough for two people to stand on it, and that was where they went. Conversation fell to a low buzz, then disappeared completely.

Captain Rayan was the first to speak, flashing her bright smile across the room. "I'm sure you've heard of the new Blesseds who've come to us, Fyra and Bran and Reed and Lark. They arrived earlier this afternoon. They don't yet know whether or not they'll be joining our crew, but I hope you'll all show them that, if they do choose to do so, they'll be welcomed and accepted within the group."

A low murmur of assent swept through the room.

"Good," said Leith. "Time to eat!"

He strode down the stairs of the dias and toward the tables covered in food. Captain Rayan rolled her eyes and followed him. The crowd of Blesseds chuckled.

Sharla gave me a gentle tap on the shoulder to get my attention. "You can sit with me if you like. I know it can be overwhelming at first, with so many people and so many chairs, and you barely knowing any of them."

"Thanks," I said, smiling slightly as a warm feeling spread through me. I'd been slightly dreading having to pick a place to sit, knowing I didn't want to intrude on anyone's hospitality, or somehow sit in a place I wasn't supposed to. But now, everything was simpler. Now I didn't have to worry.

"No problem." She grabbed my wrist. "Come on. You've got to be a bit bold if you want to get to the food."

We went into the crowd together, squeezing between laughing women and shrieking children. I wondered how many had been born here. This place was a village of its own.

When we arrived at the tables, Sharla wasted no time shoving a plate into my hands and piling it with different types of food, somehow managing to weave past people, hold her plate with a tight, steady grip, and keep her hold on my wrist at the same time. I turned away and started to walk out of the crowd before we got to the dessert table, assuming that rules here were the same as they were in my house: no dessert before dinner.

"What are you doing?" Sharla laughed. "You've forgotten the best part!"

I allowed her to drag me back into the people, over to the table of treats. My eyes grew wide at the huge selection.

Sharla grinned when she saw my reaction. She released my wrist and handed me a second plate, this one slightly smaller than the first. "Different people have different tastes in desserts, so I'll let you choose your own."

Blankly, I stared at the food. It all looked so good. I wanted to take a bite of everything, but there was so much that there was no way it would all fit on my plate. I settled for a mini cherry pie, a sea salt caramel, a few strawberries dipped in the vat of melted chocolate I found at the back of the table, and one of those sparkly little tartlets I'd noticed earlier.

I swept my gaze across the room, looking for Sharla, worrying that I'd somehow lost her. But there she was, standing on the other side of the dessert table. I scuttled over to her.

"Are you done?" she asked, frowning at my plate. "That's not very much." I raised my eyebrows; she shrugged, voice lowering into a conspiratorial tone. "Ah, well, you can always come back for seconds. Trust me. You'll want to."

She swept her dessert plate over so that she was holding both her plates in one arm, then grabbed my wrist again. Somehow, we made it all the way across the room without her dropping the plates, even though several people bumped into us.

Finally, we arrived at a table shaped like a long, four-pointed star.

"Is this one okay?" Sharla asked.

"Sure," I said.

"Great." She swept her arm toward it. "Go ahead. Pick your chair. I know sometimes it's hard for new people like yourself to figure out how to properly sit on the weirder ones, so if you don't want to use one of those, don't. I fell off the round kind at least seven times before I had to admit defeat."

I couldn't hold back a laugh at the mental image. "Really?"

"Really."

I walked slowly around the table, finally settling on a soft, nest-like thing. Sharla chose the armchair beside me. A few minutes later, Lark arrived, sitting cross legged next to me on a glorified pillow.

"What do you think of that?" she asked me.

I grinned. "I think it's more food than I've seen in my entire life."

"It's amazing," Lark agreed.

"Isn't it?" Sharla popped a round, green fruit in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. "Usually, we don't have food quite to this quality. I mean, it's still amazing compared to the food where I lived before, but the cooking Blesseds don't spend as much time on it." She glanced back to the crowd. "Would it be all right if I invite a few of my friends over here?"

I shrugged; Lark said, "Sure."

"Thanks," said Sharla. "You'll probably like them." She turned to the crowd, waving her arms wildly above her head. "Dren! Sil! Erenia! Pendo! Over here!"

"Dren?" I asked. "I thought he didn't like you."

"Eh," she said dismissively. "He tolerates me. Deep down, he doesn't think I'm that horrible. He just doesn't like that I'm always asking him for rocks."

A few moments later, a brown-skinned girl in an outfit of very fine fabric that almost looked woven with gold seated herself beside Sharla. She had a bit of the same fabric wrapped around her head as well, hiding all of her hair except for her dark brown eyebrows. She smiled at me and Lark.

"I'm Sil," she said. "You're... Fyra and Lark, right?"

"Right," I said.

"It's great to meet you." She jerked her head toward Dren and another dark-skinned boy, who were hurrying their way over to us. "You've already met Dren, I think, but the other one is Pendo. And Erenia should be here any moment. She just needed to find another sibling to give her little sister to."

Dren slid into the seat across from Lark. He glared at Sharla, then began working on the large, precarious pile of food on his plate. Pendo sat across from Sil. He waved at Lark and me.

"Hi. I'm Pendo."

"I'm Lark," said Lark.

"And I'm Fyra," I added.

He nodded, then began to eat.

After another moment or two, Erenia arrived. She had pale skin, blond hair, striking blue eyes, and a quiet, shy smile, which she directed at Lark and then me. Softly, she said, "I'm Erenia."

Lark and I reintroduced ourselves. It was quiet for a moment.

"Erenia," said Dren, "have you made any more progress on the flying machine?"

She shook her head. "The materials you got me last time were too thin. They tore."

"Oh."

"I could make you something," Sil said eagerly. "Something with lots of colors, not like those drab bits of silk you've been using until now."

Sharla nudged me and said, "Her Blessing is weaving cloth out of nothing. Erenia invents things that don't quite make sense. Pendo heals people."

Pendo rolled his eyes. "That's overly simplistic. I communicate with the bits of skin and muscle and talk them through weaving themselves together. If I do it wrong, it can turn out incredibly bad."

Sharla stuck her tongue out at him. I turned back to Sil and Erenia's conversation.

"Could you make the cloth stronger?" Erenia was asking Sil.

Sil frowned. "Maybe. It'd take a lot of practice. How strong do you want it?"

"As strong as you can get it." Erenia paused, thinking for a moment. "Could you weave metals into it, like how you weave gold into the cloth you wear?"

"I think so. Whether it'll actually make it stronger though... I'm not sure."

"What about spiderweb?" I said. Erenia and Sil turned to look at me, and I shrunk into myself, hoping I hadn't overstepped. It had just popped out.

"Spiderweb?" said Erenia. A slow smile spread across her face. She turned back to Sil. "Could you do that?"

Sil grinned excitedly. "If I weave the spiderweb in with metal, it might make it even stronger. I just need to figure out how to do it right, use the right kind, and stop it from being sticky."

"I can summon some if you want," said Dren.

"No need," said Sil. "There are spiders all over the ship. In fact, I know where I can find a great web. I've just got to finish eating."

She began shoveling food into her mouth determinedly, so fast that I wondered how she wasn't choking.

Pendo suddenly sat bolt upright, eyes wide.

"What?" said Sharla.

Pendo shook his head, mouth too full to speak. He nearly choked. Dren pounded him on the back for a moment as he tried not to inhale his food.

Finally, he swallowed, and said, in a slightly hoarse voice, "Hasn't the other problem with the flying machines been the glue that sticks the fabric to the frame?"

Erenia frowned. "Yes. Why?"

"Spiderweb's sticky. Sil could weave ropes made of it."

Sil gasped, dropping her fork dramatically. "And then you could have the fabric both stuck on and tied on! Brilliant!"

Sharla chuckled and stood, grabbing her plates. "I'll be back once I've got seconds." She glanced down at my empty dishes. "Fyra? Want to come with me?"

I thought for a moment. There was a comfortable, full ache in my belly, but... the food was so good. There had to be room for a bit more.

"Sure," I said, standing and grabbing my plate.

Lots of weird chairs, huh? For every vote this chapter gets, I'll fall off of an oddly shaped chair and land on my face. You won't get to see it, of course. But you can assume it's happened.