As was often the case, it was a quiet
night on the deck of the Passion. Lay's crew were busy below deck
indulging their various pleasures while she took it upon herself to
keep watch for Pack. She was not completely alone, though, she had
been down to see Petal earlier, but she had had to return to the deck
afterwards and he had insisted upon coming with her. Of course, he
wanted to keep watch from right beside her, but almost immediately
his paws were all over her body and she had sent him to the other
side of the ship. Maybe no one else realized it, but she was the
captain of this ship, and she could be counted upon when something
needed to be done. Still,she was already starting to get a bit
bored, and several times now she had contemplated going over to him
for a bit of fun. It was so quiet up here, no one would ever know...
“I see something!” he shouted,
startling her. She rushed over to where he was standing and placed
her paw on hie shoulder. He had to point it out to her, but sure
enough, there seemed to be a ship on the distant horizon.
“Great job”, she gave him a quick
kiss on the cheek. “I think it's him!”
She hurried over to the wheel and swung
the ship around to head in his direction.
“I'm just glad I could help”, he
said sheepishly.
She gave him a hug. “I couldn't have
done it without you.”
He held on to her tight, and she knew
his intentions right away. “Speaking of... ah... it'll be some
time before we gets here, perhaps we could go... to your cabin?”
She smiled and patted his head with her
paw. “I'm sorry, sweet, I have to get ready. I can't have
visitors looking like this, look at my fur, it's a mess.”
He didn't say anything, but she could
read his response in his big blue eyes as clearly as if it had been
written down. He didn't care what she looked like, she knew full
well that his feelings for her went far beyond physical desire.
“I'll try to come down and see you
later tonight, okay?” she said, patting his shoulder.
“Yes, my queen.” They both knew
how things were. She sighed. She never meant to let it get this
way, but she was weak, and sometimes she needed to feel loved. She'd
sort things out with him later, somehow.
Before that, though, there was the
matter at hand to attend to. She quickly tided her fur in her cabin
and prepared to greet the other ship. Sure enough, the elusive grey
tabby that they had all been seeking finally showed his face.
“Pack!” she exclaimed, “You're
all right! Did you find the Black Ship?”
He nodded. “I have to see Corsair.”
There was none of his usual joviality in his voice.
“What happened? Are you okay?”
He closed his eyes. “I had hoped the
Black Ship would lead me to what I was looking for, but instead I
found what I've been running from. I understand now why they fear it
so much, but I finally think I'm on the right track to finding
Lapse.”
“So it helped you?” she asked,
surprised.
“I think it means well, but its help
comes at a terrible price. I now understand why Corsair tried to
hide it from me, but for Lapse I would endure anything.”
“I admire your devotion to her.”
She said, honestly. “I wish someone would do that for me.”
“What about Corsair?”
“I- I don't know if he would-” she
stammered, putting her paws behind her back. She had definitely not
expected him to say that.
“If it's important to you, you should
ask him directly. If it you let your fears stop you, nothing's ever
going to change.”
“You're right”, she said, still a
bit embarrassed. “Let's go find Corsair.”
“Follow me, then”, he said,
stroking his whiskers, “I know where he is.” And with that, he
went back to his own ship. Lay took the wheel and followed close
behind, fervently milling over what she was going to say to Corsair.
---
“Come back here!” someone yelled.
“You won't get away from us!”
Corsair didn't stop to check who it
was, he just kept running down the narrow passageway.
“You can't run forever!” a
different voice jeered at him. He was right, the passageway came to
an abrupt end with high brick walls on all sides. Frantically, he
looked for a way out, but the walls were solid and far too high to
climb. He braced himself against the wall at the back and faced his
attackers.
A man appeared from around the corner,
followed by two others. They were tall and dressed in dark clothes,
and the way they lurched towards him made it clear they were bad
news.
“We've got you now”, said one of
them, laughing cruelly. They continued slowly pacing towards him,
not making any sudden moves.
“Fighting all three at once in such
closed quarters would never work”, Corsair thought to himself.
“The only way is to break through them. When they get close
enough, I'll try to catch them off-guard.” He braced his left arm
against the side wall and waited for the right moment as they drew
closer.
Suddenly there was a flash of bright
light and something struck the ground in front of him, causing the
men to leap back. They all looked upwards to find the source, and
something swooped down out of the sky and landed in front of him. It
seemed to be a person, but he'd never seen one like it.
“Be gone, scoundrels!” boomed the
mysterious figure. It was clearly a woman's voice, but she was
covered from head to foot in some kind of strange armour. It was a
mixture of red and grey and appeared to fit quite tightly to her
body.
“Butt out of this, lady”, said one
of the men. “This ain't none of your business.” They started
advancing towards her, but Corsair was too awestruck to do anything
but watch.
“The strong preying upon the weak is
always my business!” she declared, raising a gloved hand.
Suddenly, a bolt of light shot out from her palm and struck the
attackers, knocking them backwards. “Retreat!” one of them
shouted, and they scrambled to their feet and ran off down the alley.
The woman lowered her arm after they
left and turned to face him. The front of her body was also
completely covered by the armour, she even wore a mask that concealed
her entire face. Her suit in no way obscured her feminine figure,
however, if anything it seemed to draw even more attention to her
chest, which was emblazoned with a giant T. She was definitely the
strangest person he had ever seen.
“Fear not, citizen”, she boomed, “I
have driven them away with my magical powers!”
“Magical powers?”
“Surely you saw for yourself the
special powers that I control” she raised her hand, which glowed
with a strange light. “With this gift I will protect the ordinary
citizens of this city!”
“Ordinary?” He supposed anyone
would be ordinary compared to her. Still, he couldn't help but be
intrigued by this strange person, and he wanted to know what was
behind her mask. He looked at her for a moment, then an idea came to
him. “Actually”, he added, “I also have special powers.”
“Oh?” Said the stranger, looking
at him. “Is that why they were after you? What is it that you can
do?”
“I can see into the minds of others”,
he said, with a smirk on his face.
She seemed taken aback. “So you can
see my other identity?” she said, nervously.
“Other identity?” Corsair asked,
absentmindedly. “Why yes! The life you lead, once you return from
this place! That's exactly what I want to see!”
Everything went dark. Then there was a
small light, but he wasn't in the alleyway anymore. It looked as
though he was staring at the ceiling of a room, but it was strangely
blurred. He tried to reach out towards it, but realized he could not
move. It was also eerily quiet, he could not even hear his own
breath. Suddenly, the roof shifted downwards, revealing a wall with
a window. It was light outside, but he could not see much through
the white curtains that covered the glass. Below the window, a hand
reached out towards a small box with some red numbers on it, and
tapped it.
“What am I seeing?” he wondered.
He found he could not speak, either.
The perspective shifted again, and the
hands grabbed hold of some fabric and tossed it aside, revealing a
pair of legs. The legs moved to the side and drooped over some
ledge, and then the perspective moved back up, facing a different
wall this time.
“I'm seeing this through someone
else's eyes”, he realized. “Just what is going on?”
The blurriness and the strange
sensation of seeing events that he had no control over was highly
disorienting, but it seemed as though they were standing up and
walking towards a door. A hand reached out to open the door,
revealing a dark hallway beyond. They walked forward through the
door and turned right into an open doorway, which suddenly lit up as
they walked through. Inside, he saw a woman standing against the
wall- no, as they moved closer, he realized it was a reflection in a
mirror. It was hard to make out any features, but the woman in the
mirror had brown hair and light-coloured skin.
“Is this... the true form of the
stranger?” Corsair wondered, incredulously.
She reached out with her right hand to
touch the mirror, and-
“No!” cried the stranger, and
suddenly he was back in the alleyway, and she was back in her armour.
“You can't just go reading another person's deepest secrets!
Power has to be used responsibly and never for evil!”
“But I just want to learn how to help
people” he said, honestly.
“It's not always easy to help
others”, she said, her tone suddenly serious. “Sometimes we mean
to help but we only make things worse . That's why I want to be a
hero, someone who can help everyone.”
Corsair saw that the stranger was no
longer in that armour. It was the brown-haired girl he saw before,
though she was shorter and more slender than the woman in the suit
had been. “I don't really have special powers”, she said, sadly,
“I just wish that I did”.
“You helped me, though”, Corsair
replied.
“Aww, that's so sweet of you”, she
said, hugging him. He returned her embrace. “You're soft”, she
said, brushing her cheek against his, “almost like a kitty.”
She released him, and he noticed the
city walls had vanished from around them. “I have to get back”,
the stranger said, “there are people who need me. You take care of
yourself, now.”
“You too”, he said, waving to her
with a paw as she vanished into the distance. He turned to find his
ship was waiting for him, behind where the wall that trapped him had
once stood.
---
He thought about telling Sister that
she had been right all along and that the strangers did have a
separate existence, like their own, but he figured she would probably
take it the wrong way. “Sometimes we mean to help but we only make
things worse”, the stranger had said. She was right. The best
thing he could do right now was give her some space.
“I suppose I should look for Pack”,
he thought to himself as he climbed to the helm of the ship. He had
all but forgotten about him these last few nights, with so much else
going on. He felt badly about it, but at this point he knew there
was nothing more he could do, he'd have found the Black Ship by now.
“I just hope he made it back safely”.
He had barely finished that thought
when he caught a glimpse of a white speck on the horizon. At first
he thought it might be a star, but it was getting bigger. And then
it split into two. “Could it possibly be?!” he exclaimed aloud,
and he immediately set his ship sailing towards them, without even
alerting anyone on Sister's ship that they were leaving. “If
that's Lapse with him”, he thought, “then maybe this could be the
end of all of our problems!”
Unfortunately, as he got closer, it
became clear that it was not Lapse's ship, and his heart sank: “He
is coming back to report bad news.” He tried to console himself in
the knowledge that at least he had made it back at all, but it wasn't
working. A short time later, Pack joined a distraught Corsair on the
deck of his ship.
“Pack!” he said, trying to sound
enthusiastic. “I'm so glad you made it.”
“I found the Black Ship”, he said,
getting straight to the point. “I understand now why you tried to
keep me away from it.”
Corsair's false demeanour quickly faded
to a pained grimace. “You mean... you also saw... something
terrible?”
He closed his eyes for a moment. “Yes.
It was awful, but now I understand what I was doing wrong. Corsair,
I need you to tell me the rest.”
Corsair was puzzled. “The rest of
what?”
“The rest of how to find Lapse.”
“But I don't-”
“Look, I get it now.” he said,
interrupting him. “I was a prideful fool who let my self-image
control me, and it cost me everything. Even then, I wouldn't accept
anyone's help, I just tried to find her on my own. And I failed. So
now I'm asking you to help me. Tell me what it was you did to find
Steven.”
“But that's just it” he said,
agonized. “I don't know how it happened. I just came straight
back after I met the captain of the Black Ship. On the way back, I
found Steven.”
“But... I've already done that!”
Pack exclaimed, suddenly distraught. “You mean to tell me it was
just a coincidence that you found Steven? That it was just some...
dumb luck?!”
“There might have been some trick to
it I don't yet understand. I've been working on-”
“No, no, it can't be!” Pack put
his paws on his head. “The Black Ship showed that to me for a
reason. It was telling me to trust others! You must know something
else!”
“Look, I know that answer's not good
enough. That's why I'm trying to find a better one. I may not know,
but I bet the strangers do. Maybe he was telling you to trust them!”
He shook his head: “So you really do
know nothing.” he said, in a gravelly voice. “I've tried. I've
tried asking them so many times. They don't know. No one knows
where she is. There's nothing left. She's... not coming back.”
“Pack, no! You can't say that!”
He reached out towards him and shook him by his shoulders. His head
just drooped forward.
“I never had your dumb luck, Corsair.
I just had hope. And a fat lot of good it did for anyone.” There
was a terribly unnerving sense of calm in his voice that had never
been there before.
“Pack, I'm going to find out what's
really going on here, I swear. And when I do, I'll let you know, and
then we'll bring her back, okay?”
“Goodbye Corsair”, he said, sadly.
“Maybe I'll just go sail around, hoping to run into her. It's the
best we've got, right?” And with that, he slunk away, back to his
own ship.
Corsair sighed and stared out over the
railing as Pack's ship slowly drifted away. The sea was calm, and
the air was totally still. Someone put their paws around him from
behind.
“Is everything okay?” Lay asked,
softly.
“No. I try my best for everyone, but
it's never enough.” He sighed again. “No one appreciates it,
either.”
“I appreciate you”, she said,
nuzzling up against his cheek from behind. “I know how hard you
work for everyone.” She gently pulled him backwards, squeezing him
more tightly. “Why don't we get away from here for a while?”
She whispered to him. “You deserve a little thanks for your hard
work.”
“All right”, he said, turning to
face her. She leaned forward and kissed him, and he returned it
eagerly, surprising himself.
Without another word, she took his paw
in hers and led him back to her cabin.



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