SOMD Chapter 41 - Return (Patreon)

After she returned to her store, she immediately set about making plans.

Fixie would have to stay behind, of course. She would be miserable without projects to do. The next decision was a bit harder, but it felt right. She instructed Iggy to prepare Spark to watch the store while she was gone. The little sub-aspect didn’t have much ambition or flexibility within his thoughts, but he could follow orders well enough. He would guard the store if Iggy told him to.

Finally, she hit her wall and could not continue. She fell asleep early in the evening.

Because of that, Alice woke early in the morning. She stayed long enough to collect some clothes into her carry bag and ensure that Spark and Fixie both knew their duties while she was gone. Fixie, of course, was to continue repairing things as best she could with the tools on hand. Alice laid out a few silver coins for her to eat as needed and made sure that Numi told her, specifically, to run and hide should anybody break into the store. She was not to defend her things. After all, there would always be more to fix.

Spark was given orders to patrol the inside of the store, but not outright attack anybody who entered unless they found Fixie. He was only to outright attack mice and vermin.

Alice worried for a few moments about how she was going to keep him fed, but Iggy assured her that Spark had been eating the mice that he found scurrying in the walls. There were plenty here and around the town to keep him satisfied.

Alice shuddered but agreed.

Then, with clothes in hand and Numi holding her stash of coins in her storage stomach, Alice headed back out to the port.

It was a lovely walk, with Iggy flying on ahead and Numi scuttling in the nearby drainage ditches for any bits of treasure (she only found rusty nails). Prim, as usual, rode on her shoulder and chirped encouragingly whenever Alice’s energy began to flag.

When Alice got within view of the harbor, she saw several ships at port. Alice went up to the first ship that was boarding passengers. It was about half the size of the vessel that had taken her over here, but it would do.

Perhaps it was because she was tired, and already worried about the travel ahead, but she found herself more brusque than usual.

“I need passage back to the capital city,” she said to the Captain who was out welcoming people on board. “Is this the right ship for me?”

“Indeed it is, Miss. You’re just in luck. We have a room available. Two gold.”

That was expensive. Alice narrowed her eyes. “And how long will this take?”

“The Sea Shanty is a fast ship, my dear,” the Captain said. He was about Alice’s age, unusual for this rank, and looked very smart with a fisherman’s vest, though he spoke to Alice as if she were much younger. “We can cross the passage in five days.”

Several days slower than her trip out here, and twice as expensive. Alice didn’t like the sound of that. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, but...

She reached into her pocket and pulled out one of the few coins she had that Numi was not carrying for her. She held up a blue steel coin to let the sun glint off its surface. “This is yours if you can get me there in three days.”

“Miss?” He blinked as if he had just been struck upside the head, and then immediately snapped into action. “Yes, Miss! This way, Miss! I assume you need a private room?”

He must have been flustered because he didn’t realize he had already offered that. “Yes,” Alice said, “and meal service.”

“Of course, Miss. Let me take your bags—er—bag?” He looked at her, seeming to realize that she had not come with either heavy luggage or an entourage.

She smiled tightly at him. “Unfortunately, this was a last-minute journey. I will hold my bag.”

“Of course, Miss, let me show you aboard...”

The room itself was much smaller than the suite she had on the way over. It had a bed, a little table for writing, and most importantly, a window. Alice opened it, let her dragons in, and then fell upon the bed.

She was still tired from her long night and day. One night was not enough to catch up on her sleep debt. She was so exhausted that she fell asleep right away and did not feel the ship cast off into the sea.

****

Alice woke several hours later with all of her dragons curled around her.

Prim was curled up, rose gold and beautiful, by her neck. Every time Alice breathed in, she caught the sweet perfume of dragon. Numi was draped over Alice’s stomach, a warm band that was as comforting as any blanket could be. Meanwhile, Iggy lay sphinx-like at the foot of the bed. He wasn’t completely asleep, but his eyes were half-lidded, and his head was pointed to the door, ever watchful.

At first, Alice wasn’t sure what had woken her. The light from the outside was indistinct, that of early evening. She must have slept right through the afternoon. Then she heard a gentle knocking on another door down the hall. Listening, she heard a room attendant ask the patron inside about dinner.

Either that noise or Alice’s awakening must have stirred the other two. Prim woke right away and listened, head cocked. Determining there was no danger, she started preening her wings.

Numi woke up with a groan, “I hate the ocean.” She dragged herself to the window to stick her head out.

Alice hoped that she was just getting a bit of fresh air, but she doubted it.

When the attendant knocked on her door, she bade the rest of her dragons to hide before she went to answer it. Alice cracked the door open and requested that the meal service be brought to her room instead of eating in the dining hall with the others.

She had a feeling she could get away with a lot of special requests with the promise of a blue steel coin.

A hearty dinner of steak and potatoes was delivered shortly. But it wasn’t enough to feed Alice plus two hungry dragons. By this time, Numi was feeling poorly enough that she didn’t even want to eat so much as a copper coin.

But Alice had a plan for Iggy and Prim. It was growing steadily darker, and some weak clouds were cast over the moon. She opened her window, and Iggy flew out eagerly, looking for fish. He returned soon with a wiggling jolly silver in his claws.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think that I can take this to the kitchen again,” she said, looking down at the fish doubtfully. “I heard that you can eat fish raw.”

Prim made a face, though Iggy seemed intrigued.

“I don’t see how it is very different from the mice that Spark and I have eaten,” he said.

“You’ve eaten mice?” Prim asked, horrified. Meanwhile, Numi made a retching sound and stuck her head again out the window.

“Yes, of course I have partaken a taste of my enemy,” Iggy said, looking shocked at Prim’s response.

“Raw?” Alice asked.

“Well, alive at any rate,” Iggy said. “They wiggle very nicely going down.”

Alice was not a squeamish girl, but that was a bit much for her. But before she could react, Iggy added.

“But I do not believe we need to eat this fish raw.”

He’d already dispatched it before he brought it into the room. Now, he held up his claws, and they glowed an ominous orange. His fire claws had activated.

They glowed brighter and brighter until Alice started to feel alarmed. She grabbed the half cup of water she had left over from her dinner in case the nearby drapes started on fire.

Then Iggy plunged his claws into the fish. The flesh started to sizzle immediately, and Prim looked on, interested.

It took in total about ten minutes, and the spots where he had plunged his claws in had gotten a little charred around the scales, but even Alice could smell that the fish was cooking.

Unfortunately, she realized belatedly she had neither scaled the fish nor taken out the offal from its body, but her dragons didn’t seem to mind, and Prim only cared that the flesh was cooked.

Alice used a knife to split it down the middle.

The two dragons dug in, and even though Alice knew it probably would not work, she did offer some to Numi who shook her head and continued hanging her head out the window.

At last, her dragons were fed, and Alice fell back asleep.

The rest of the night passed quickly, and eventually, even Numi started to feel a little better. The next day, she pointed out some fingerling fish, each as long as Alice’s finger, schooling nearby.

Iggy went out and collected much more, so they all had a bit of a midday meal, too.

The young captain was better than his word, and on the second day, they pulled into port.

It was so foggy that even as they were pulling into the dock, Alice couldn’t see the city. She was familiar with this type of weather. It was a thick, soupy fog that sometimes rolled in on summer days and for some reason, couldn’t easily be burned off by the sun.

Out on deck, she strained to see the outlines of buildings, of anything familiar. She relaxed when she spotted some of the boat houses, some still missing rooftops or in a state of half repair after the attack on the city not too long ago.

I’m home, she thought, but that didn’t sit right anymore. She wasn’t exactly sure where home was—with the store or somewhere else. Perhaps home was wherever her dragons were.

On disembarking, the captain saw all of his passengers off, and received praise for the quick travel. It looked like he had suffered for it. There were dark rings under his eyes as dark as bruises.

He must have stayed up all night to ensure their safe passage, and Alice almost felt bad for him.

She pressed the blue steel coin into his hand. “Thank you.”

He looked at it and the lines of exhaustion on his face stretched into a smile. “No, thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me, Miss. If you need anything else in the future, please don’t hesitate to ask for me or the Sea Shanty.”

Just in case I have more blue steel coins on me, she thought with a smile, and promised that she would.

However, she felt some of the passengers’ eyes on her as she left. Those who were observant couldn’t have failed to notice a little byplay between the two. Perhaps they understood the mystery of how they had gotten to port so quickly.

As Alice walked, she murmured to Prim, who was hidden in camouflage on her shoulder, “Change my visage slowly. I don’t want anybody to recognize me or be able to follow us.”

With that in mind, she waited until she rounded the next bend and then changed her visible class from Apprentice Merchant to Maid.

Apprentice Merchant was a high enough class to stand out to the wrong people, but no one looked too close at a Maid.

The fog seemed to thicken as they got away from the harbor, and in some places it was difficult to see more than twenty feet away.

It was hard to tell for sure, but she thought that the streets had the usual amount of traffic to them. Certainly, most of the food vendors were open, but there was a strange tension thick in the air. It was as if the city was braced for another attack at any moment.

She had to find Oliver and speak to him about the mines. Hopefully that didn’t mean going back to the estate, though she would do it if she absolutely had to.

Above her head, she could feel Iggy and Numi flying, safely hidden in the fog bank. At least it was good for something.

She had turned down several streets and was just getting her bearings, trying to remember which direction to turn to go to the more expensive districts

Suddenly, she heard a scuffling sound behind her, as well as heavy running footsteps.

Alice started to turn when a figure of a man raced out of the fog. He threw something and a heavy, weighted net closed over her head. Alice was dragged to the ground.