Chapter 103: Nereida’s Voyage
Nereida knelt beside the first mate. His breathing was even, there was no sign of injury. She hoped that the Great Dragon of the Clouds had not left anything behind in Evander. She found his cloak nearby and tossed it over him, as his skin was cool and clammy in a way that made her nervous.
“Wake up,” she whispered. He just moaned in reply. Not far off, Kana had arrived, and was getting ready to feed Damara. She was chatting animatedly with Aella, probably the most words the two of them had ever exchanged, though most of the words came from Kana. Aella’s attention kept going back to the infant, a moon-struck expression on her face.
“Princess?” Evander’s voice was low and gravelly. He blinked a few times as if the sun was too bright. She gasped and threw her arms around him. “Touchy-Feely Princess! Get off!” He was laughing as he pushed her off. “He’s gone!” He jumped to his feet, but then fell back again, hitting the sand with his rump. Nereida leaned on her walking stick.
“Can you get up?” she asked. He nodded, his joy fading. He opened his mouth, eyes on her leg, but she held up her hand. “No. I don’t want to hear it. No condolences, no empty promises that it will get better. Not from you.” He nodded.
Together they joined the fire. Nereida sat on a log and leaned into Aella. Her real knee ached, and the muscles on her new leg burned. Kana’s face was wrinkled in worry as she kept trying different positions to feed the infant.
“She won’t latch,” the siren said, sounding concerned. Damara did not cry, but simply looked about with wide, unfocused eyes. The siren woman made a frustrated sound, and shifted positions again. The baby did not feed no matter what she tried.
“Maybe she isn’t hungry?” Aella suggested, sounding lost. Nereida tried not to shoot an annoyed glare at her wife. Of course the baby was hungry.
“How did such a tiny thing get out of the egg on her own?” Kana asked, handing the baby to Aella.
“She… hatched.” Aella took the baby. Kana fussed, correcting Aella’s hold as the Admiral looked on helplessly. Kana blinked slowly, as if expecting a more detailed explanation, but Aella just shrugged half-heartedly. The siren called water from the ocean into the pot they had prepared, singing the water but not the salt, her alto tones rising and falling like the waves. That was when Damara cried, the cry of a hungry infant.
They attempted to feed her again, but the child was now inconsolable, screaming and refusing to latch. Kana’s expression had moved from concern to fear.
“If she cannot eat, she will not survive the day.” Her words were quiet, meant, Nereida suspected, for Evander, who was watching helplessly. But Aella heard too, and her face went carefully blank. Fury burned in her eyes.
“Never utter such a thing again.” Her words were even, measured, but above them the sky darkened as clouds blocked out the moon. Kana backed up, taking shelter behind Evander. She was trembling.
Nereida, exhausted from waiting, strode up to her wife. She looked into silver eyes, not hazel ones.
“Enough, Moon,” she whispered soothingly, reaching out a hand. “Give her back. Please.”
“She is not a mammal, child,” Moon hissed, her voice echoing alongside Aella’s. The baby quieted. “For all Cloud made her look like you, she is mine.”
“Ours,” Nereida said, though she felt the urge to bow her head and take a knee. She fought the urge. She would not be pulled like the tide! “Tell me, Great One, how to feed our daughter.”
“With the gifts shared by all who have the blood of gods.” She crocked her head to the side like a cat. It was unnerving to watch Aella do it, it seemed so very wrong. Nereida stared at the silver eyes of the Moon, waiting for more, when Evander hissed out a single word.
“Magic.”
The Great Dragon laughed, a low rumble that did knock Nereida to her knees.
“The Scion is correct. Show me you understand, Moondaughter.” She carefully placed Damara in Nereida’s arms. Aella blinked, but sideways, as if she had grown a second set of lizard eyelids. Nereida swallowed, feeling her heart pound and her mouth go dry. Carefully she touched her daughter’s face and sang. It was a lullaby, soft and sweet, and one of the songs she used to heal. The effect was immediate. It felt as if she had run for an hour, her breath came raggedly. The baby’s cheeks grew pinker, and she no longer fussed or stirred. Nereida sank farther into the sand, clutching her daughter as she caught her breath. Damara yawned and closed her eyes, her breath even as she drifted to sleep.
“That’s the way, Moondaughter. Rest now, she’ll need that until her teeth grow and she can eat food to supplement.” With that, Aella pitched forward into the sand. Evander surged toward her to catch her as the light returned. The clouds had drifted away. Aella sputtered a long, low curse about dragon anatomy as she tried to stand. Evander brushed her off, giving her a sympathetic wince.
The drama over, Aella collected the sleeping baby and one of their large wool blankets. She began trying, and failing, to swaddle the sleeping babe in a blanket meant for an adult.
“Can I show you?” Nereida asked, her mouth quirking up in barely contained mirth. But Aella shook her head.
“I need to try first.”
“Then start with a smaller bit of cloth, Admiral. Y’all are makin’ this painful to watch,” Evander said from the sand. He piled the sand in front of him into a mound like a child at play. “Honestly, y’all knew she was gonna hatch, yeah? Why didn’t you borrow a gown and such from the little baby princess salamander?” Nereida glanced at her wife and felt heat climb up her cheeks. Aella went red as well, busying herself anew. Evander laughed, slapping his knee. “Good gods, women, you’re lost without me, eh?”
The sun had not yet fully risen, and so with the little one snoozing contentedly, Nereida and Aella did the same. Evander watched over them, sticking near the fire, while Kana returned to the ocean until she was needed to feed Basiano’s daughter. The sand was a comfortable bed in her exhaustion. Dawn, however, came bright and strong. After only a handful of hours of sleep, Nereida was blurry-eyed and sore. Her new leg ached and popped in strange ways when she moved. Her shoulders were stiff. She was too old to be sleeping in the sand. She did not miss this stage where the baby needed constant feeds, where sleep was a myth.
In the bright, unrelenting light, Nereida got her first good look at Evander. A hiss escaped her before she could catch it. Evander’s skin was mottled with light patches, like a sky on a cloudy day.
“It doesn’t hurt none,” Evander said conversationally, his smile too tight as he stared at the fire. “He said I’d know that I was touched for the rest of my life. Asshat.” He spat into the sand. “I’m a need some lessons to sing, too.”
“You have a lovely voice,” she said softly, thinking of the nights gathered around a lantern. But he shook his head.
“Not that kind. The finger-wiggling kind.”
“We don’t actually have to do specific movements,” she said with a sigh. “It’s all about intention. The songs or the words or the wiggling, that’s how it’s focused.” She tried to stand but her forsaken leg was not ready and collapsed beneath her. Evander was at her side in an instant.
“How about I teach you to focus your will, Evander, and you help me learn to walk again. No debts between us.” At her words, he gave a smile.
“No debts between friends, Touchy-Feely.”
The rest of the day passed in a strange kind of peacefulness. Aella pushed her to keep walking, the shifting sand somehow worse than the ever swaying deck. Kana did return with news that the ship would be there to collect them the next morning, before she fluttered into the waves and disappeared. Damara consumed bits of their magic, leaving whomever she fed from tired and cranky. They could at least trade off the task, and even Evander took a turn near sunset, when both Aella and Nereida were exhausted beyond their limits. It was the first bit of magic he did, feeding the baby, but she seemed full after, and he collapsed onto a cloak in the sand, falling asleep in minutes. They otherwise cooked and shared tales, mostly Nereida talking about the early days of her boys, and the challenges of babies. Still, she longed for a real bed, the gentle sway of the sea. She wanted to go home, to her cabin.
Climbing in the boat the next morning was the best feeling. Aella and Evander both helped to row, and so Nereida was tasked with holding Damara. She sang and whispered to the baby, who barely bothered to open her eyes. She didn’t sing for her daughter’s benefit, but to calm her own nerves. She knew, once she was back on deck, that the boys would want to see their new baby sister. She fretted over their reaction. Was Egaz expecting a baby dragon? Would Alejo become angry again, and hit her? Or would they love her, spoil her? She desperately wanted to know. And she desperately wanted to avoid it.
The worrying turned out to be for naught; her boys were waiting for her on deck, dressed in their smart little outfits of red, purple and black that were becoming too small for them. Her boys waited with patience beyond their years, clinging to Bassiano, one on each leg. She climbed from the rowboat onto the deck with Evander’s help. Egaz let out a screeching noise of pure joy.
“She’s even cuter than a puppy!” he exclaimed.
“She hasn’t even opened her eyes.” Alejo scoffed. Still, a smile crept its way onto his face. “We missed you mama. Can I hold her?”
“No, me first!”
“No! I’m the oldest.” The young boy stomped his foot. Epelda stepped between them, cautiously keeping her wings tucked against her back. She shook a finger at both of them, her expression stern. When they wilted, she grinned and simply signed about being the biggest and oldest. She glided across the deck with a grace beyond anything Nereida could hope for. She scooped Damara out of Nereida’s hands, cooing to the baby. And just like that, Damara was family, was accepted. Epelda sat on the deck on the ship, leaning against the mizzenmast. The boys crowded around her, gently touching the alert little infant’s hands and feet. Bassiano loomed over them, holding his own infant daughter and smiling softly. Out of the corner of her eye, Nereida caught sight of several crew exchanging gold. Even this? She turned to give them a piece of her mind when Aella grabbed her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. Nereida felt her anger melt away, looking into the eyes of her wife.
“They needed this,” Aella muttered, motioning vaguely toward the chattering crew. “Leave it alone for now, love. You need to rest, the boys need your attention, and we need to set sail.” Nereida nodded, only letting go of her frustration when she saw that their cabin door had been replaced. At last, a chance at some privacy with her wife.