Cast Off by R J Theodore

Author:R J Theodore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fantasy, Pirates, Magic, Aliens, adventure
Publisher: Robot Dinosaur Press
Published: 2022-12-06T05:00:00+00:00

Talis couldn’t leave the helm or hear well enough above the howling wind to have that conversation in the rain, so it had to wait out the storm. The rain drove harder, the gusts fought their course, and even Meran looked exhausted by the end of it. Talis weighed that fair, as it could not have been a simple matter to keep their ship steady against such an onslaught.

But finally, they were through, stars twinkling merrily at them from the clear, dark skies beyond.

Since the deckhouse’s heat relied on the engine currently out of commission, Talis and Meran went to the great cabin to have their talk. The room was smaller than the cabin aboard Wind Sabre had been, and Talis tended only to sleep there and seek out the company of her crew during waking off duty time. She motioned Meran to sit on her bunk, the only padded accommodation available, and unhooked the desk stool from its tether beneath the small navigator’s console.

Meran sat but did not look comfortable. Her fingers picked at the details carved into the railing that kept the cotton ticking in place. The motion was absent, furious.

Talis began to open her mouth, but a knock on the door interrupted her. Zeela entered with coffee, and that comforting smell would have soothed Talis’s spirits if she wasn’t about to try to come to terms—or negotiate, or placate, whatever—with a woman who already knew what she was going to say, as much as Talis knew how Meran would reply. She still wasn’t sure where to start.

But after Zeela left, Meran began the conversation. “I find myself inconsolably angry, Talis.”

There was something to her voice. A vulnerability. A plea for help. For comfort.

All presupposed, combative words crumbled on Talis’s tongue, unspoken. She felt the compulsion to reach out but sat instead. “How can I help you?”

Meran rolled her shoulders, as if to settle bones and tresses back into place and took a deep breath that would have been cleansing if her expression had softened to match. “Can you soothe my rage? Can you quell this acid? You are doing what you can. Four of ten pieces of me have been recovered. We were making strides toward a fifth. You have not asked too much of me and my power—though what is in your best interest right now is also in mine—and yet . . .”

She looked out the window, at some distant point far past the clouds outside.

“Yet?” Talis prompted.

“I am as angry at you as I am at Hankirk, as I am at Onaya Bone and the others. I fight to control it, but it edges out my happiness. I must focus on my compassion to keep from losing it.”

The skin prickled up Talis’s arms. The thought of Meran losing control was far outside the realm of anything she could imagine.

“I could tell you what I do when I’m angry, but I can’t say I’ve ever been that angry.” Talis felt helpless. She hated feeling helpless. “I don’t want to leave you alone with this, but I don’t know how to help.

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