Chapter Two Hundred and Thirty-Seven - People Come Here to Be Forgotten

The Lonely Island was... an island. Not a chain of islands or an archipelago, but a single large lump of an island. I couldn’t see all of it from our height, the island stretching too far to the north for all of it to be made out, but what I could see was fairly plain.

The ground was all paleish yellow, likely some sort of sandstone if I had to guess, with little topsoil for grass and trees to grow in.

It wasn’t entirely bare, there were some splotches of colour, especially on the western side of the island, but they weren’t all that big or bright.

“It looks like a sad place,” I said as we started to come down.

Bastion joined me by the front and eyed the island as we approached it. “It’s an interesting location, actually. Far enough from the shore that it’s basically impossible for any sylph to fly to it, and the winds around here are typically pretty rough. The ocean near the coast is often choppy, and there are frequent storms that blow past in the autumn.”

“You know a lot about the place,” I said.

“It was once used as a penal colony,” Bastion said. “On the other end of the island. There should still be some docks and such. Sylphfree stopped when we discovered that the cervid were doing the same.”

“Wait, two nations were using it as a prison island?” I asked.

“Yes, and neither realized it for decades. The cervid would toss their prisoners off near a beach on the south end, and we would drop ours off near the north. I imagine they met up somewhere in the middle, formed their own little community and such.”

“That’s weird,” I said. “Did anyone try to escape?”

“Oh, that’s almost a certainty,” Bastion said. “But there aren’t many resources here.”

“Captain!” Clive called.

I patted Bastion on the shoulder, then jogged over to Clive. Well, it wasn’t quite a jog. Jogging would require that I be able to move my legs properly. After the day before’s training, my legs were a wobbly mess, and every step hurt in new and interesting ways.

Being on Dirt might mean that I healed faster than back home, but that didn’t mean nothing would hurt.

“What’s up?” I asked Clive.

“We’re slowing down nice and steady before we land,” the pilot said. “Question is, where do you want us touching down?”

“Hmm.” I looked out ahead. The Lonely Island was surrounded by a reef, often with big chunks of stone poking out of the water like jagged teeth. I could only imagine there being even more stones just under the surface of the water, ready to scrape the hulls of any nautical ship. Not that that was a concern. “I can’t see any settlements,” I said.

“Aye, none in sight. And none that I know of.”

That didn’t mean that there were none. If there were people here, they had to be living somewhere. Where would I build my house if I was stuck on this kind of island?

“I think we should circle around the west side, keep an eye out around the bits of wood there. If there is a place to live, they’ll want space to grow stuff. Assuming they ever found anything to grow.”

“Folk find a way,” Clive said. “No matter where you go, and no matter how harsh, people will always find a way to root themselves in and make a living. Might not be a pretty or comfortable one, but folk will manage.”

“Huh,” I said. “I guess so. I don’t think we’ll be spending much time here. Just a quick touch-and-go.”

“Should we aim for civilization, then?” Clive asked.

I rubbed at my chin, then reached up and straightened one of my ears. The right one had a tendency to bend over when I was thinking hard. “How about you keep up off the ground, and we’ll see if it’s worth landing.”

Clive nodded. “We need a few days in dock to fix the balloon properly. Patches are all well and good, but they’re not meant to keep.”

“Yeah, but something tells me there won’t be any airship docks here,” I said. “Let’s take it slow and steady. I don’t want to strain the Beaver any more than we need to.”

With that said and done, I headed to the back, then down a level to the deck below.

Awen was in the dining room, pouring over some papers with a frown on her face while Amaryllis sat next to one of the portholes on a chair that was usually tucked in the corner of her room, legs folded up and beak buried in a thick book.

“Hey guys,” I said as I walked over. “Where’s Moonie?”

“She... it, is still in its room,” Amaryllis said.

“She?” I asked.

The harpy shrugged without looking up. “The name is feminine. I suppose I’m not used to dealing with genderless beings.”

I shrugged. “As long as Moonie doesn’t mind, I guess. Ah, speaking of Moonie, we’re over the Lonely Island, or near enough to over it.” I pointed out of the window over Amaryllis’ head. She leaned back and up to peek out, then nodded. “That does look like an island.”

I huffed at her, one of her own ‘oh, come on’ sort of huffs. “You should be more excited! Bastion said that the island is filled with all sorts of prisoners and people like that! I bet it’ll be super exciting to visit.”

“Ex-- Broccoli, that makes me want to go down there less,” Amaryllis said. I noticed Awen nodding from the corner of my eye.

“Awa, I think Amaryllis is right; that makes it scary, doesn’t it? Also, are we really going to bring Moonie there if there are mean people below?”

“Prisoners are just potential friends who made a mistake,” I said. “And... I guess that is sending the wrong message, isn’t it? Moonie isn’t a convict, we shouldn’t be bringing them to a place that’s meant to be a prison. Or an ex-prison, I guess.”

“Forgive me.”

I turned at the sound of Moonie’s voice from the corridor. The cry hovered closer, ducking down just enough to avoid the doorframe. “I overheard you speaking. The walls aboard this ship are a little thin.”

“That’s okay!” I said. “We were kind of talking about you, so I guess it’s only fair that you join in. What do you think, by the way? About the island?”

“It seems like a fine place. It’s where Shard of Waterwatches Compassion, Third Split and One Whole wished for us to go.”

“Yeah, but is it where you want to go?” I ask right back. “We can bring you elsewhere, or at least, to someplace where we’re going. Sylphfree is next, but then who knows where our next adventure will bring us?”

“We... I don’t think I am made for adventure. I would rather have a quiet life, some dozen years to become whole, perhaps a little bit of company to sing and talk with.”

“Alright,” I said. “We should at least make sure the island is safe before dropping you off though. I’d feel really awful if we brought you there, and then you got hurt right after.”

Moonie bobbed up and down. “That’s appreciated. Truly.”

“So! Assuming you do want to go down there, is there a place in particular you’d like to make landfall at? The island has some big hills in the middle, I think, and there are some trees and stuff on the west side.”

“We have heard that there is a place with some cry near the south of the island. That would be the best place, I think. But we do not know where, exactly, that is.”

“Then we’ll find it!” I said. “Come on, let’s get onto the deck. I bet we’ll be able to spot it from the air.”

“Really, Broccoli? It’s unlikely to be some big town. What are you expecting, a large tower with ‘land here’ written next to it?” Amaryllis shook her head, then casually flipped a page. “If they’re trying to be hidden, then we won’t be able to spot them easily.”

“I bet it's really hard to find something when you’re not even looking,” I said.

Amaryllis looked up from her book, then snapped it shut with a clack. “Fine then, let’s prove it, shall we?”

She stomped past in a birdy huff, then climbed up the steps at the rear.

“I guess I should come too,” Awen said, and she wiggled out of her seat.

“What were you working on?” I asked Awen as we started towards the back, Moonie a bit ahead of us.

“Oh, ah, some plans. I need to make sure the new version of the crossbow platform fits right in the room on this side of the Beaver. She gestured to the empty guest bedroom. “The prototype is a bit big.”

“So you need to make it smaller?”

“More compact, yes. You can’t really make the seat smaller, or some of the mechanisms, so it’s everything else that needs to take up less space. And then there needs to be room for the rails, and a way for the wall to move out of the way.”

“And it needs to stay somewhat airtight,” I said.

“Airtight?”

“What if we have to land in some water one day? Or if we fly north and arrive in a place that’s really cold, or someplace super hot? It’s probably best that the ship remains well-insulated.”

“Oh, I hadn’t considered that.”

I rubbed at the back of my neck. “Oops? Sorry, didn’t mean to put more on your plate.”

Awen shook her head, arms waving this way and that in denial. “No, it’s better to know now!”

We made it to the top deck, and all three of us moved over to the side where Amaryllis was glaring very hard at something ahead of us.

I blinked, then leaned over the side a bit to see better. The Lonely Island was very desert-y. Not entirely made of sand, but more bare stone and windswept dirt, at least on one side. The hills in the middle marked a split, with grass growing on the other side.

Out in the middle of a rather plain part was the unmistakable blue of a small lake, and right next to that, a big tower of pale stone.

It would have been easier to miss if there weren’t so much nothing on the island.

“Well, there’s a building,” I said.

“I noticed,” Amaryllis said. “Moonie, does that crystal at the top look like something the cry would make?”

I squinted, but I guess Amaryllis had better eyes than I did, because other than noticing that the top was more or less blue, I couldn’t make out a crystal.

Moonie hovered close, then quivered in the air with a meaningless chime. “Yes. That is a cry.”

“Should we get closer?” I asked. There didn’t seem to be any other villages around, but we were still a long way out.

“We should be safe. The cry aren’t usually immediately aggressive. And we may be able to speak with them first,” Moonie said.

I translated that, then came to a quick agreement with Amaryllis and Bastion, who had come over to see what all the fuss was about.

“Clive! Port, ten degrees, and bring us down another hundred metres or so. I think we have a place to explore already!”

“Aye aye, captain!”

“Alright everyone,” I said. “Let’s get ready to move. We don’t know if the people down there are friend material just yet, so we might have to leave in a hurry. It might be best to be prepared, just in case.”

I glanced at the tower again. It didn’t look particularly mean, just a big yellowish pillar.

I hoped that it was filled with potential friends!

***