Seren was trembling. She could feel it most with her fingers, and someone with nothing to fear wouldn’t be shaking so badly, so she put her arms behind her back and grasped her wrists. Bri continued to stare. The berth manager cocked her head to both sides as if sloshing her memories like water would help her remember.

“She’s new.”

The two of them glanced over at Rive, Seren thankful for the rescue and Briarrshi’s mouth turning into a frown.

“You. Are you an orange?” There was a pause, but the woman continued on, ignoring the anger rolling off of Rive’s rigid body. “You’ve got the eyes at least, burning with wrath.”

Seren reached out and touched the crook of Rive’s arm; they glanced at her and she was glad that their eyes focused on her. They took a deep breath, then turned to face Briarrshi.

“If my eyes are burning with wrath, then there might be a reason,” they said carefully. “Come on, Captain, we’re done here.”

They walked stiffly past Bri, and Seren hoped she was the only one that saw their fists curl as they passed.

“Your crew member needs to be reminded of his manners,” said Bri, her eyes following Rive out of the main doorway. “And to be careful in Viadora. There’s a well-known group of troublemakers with orange eyes operating in the city, and if they cause a problem, he’ll be counted with them.”

Seren bit her tongue. A person shouldn’t be punished unless they did something. Her thoughts flashed back to her father punishing her for deliberating breaking the dishes and she felt her jaw clench. Even when a person did something against the rules, the cause should be looked at. She took in a deep breath, ready to fight with Bri about this, and saw a spark of recognition growing in the woman’s watchful gaze.

“Since they are my engineer, I’ll look after them,” Seren said instead, lengthening her stride as she followed Rive out of the mushroom office. She didn’t dare turn around and see what happened as she left. As soon as exited, a hand grabbed her by the shirt and yanked her out of sight.

“When you said you’d been threaded, I didn’t know it was by her,” Rive hissed, continuing to walk away. “We need to leave, now.”

“Where to?” asked Seren, stumbling along after them. “Back to your house? The lab? And I mentioned her by name, why didn’t you say something then?”

They shook their head.

“We’re heading somewhere else. And I don’t know her damned name, I just know her face.”

“But my ship’s back there,” said Seren, turning to look at the mushroom. “Our ship.”

She let out a small noise as she saw Bri exit the office and stand to the side, hand over her eyes. She was looking for them. Rive must have heard her since they didn’t ask what she’d seen; Seren felt their hand tighten and pull her in the direction they wanted to travel. The teeming streets swallowed them up. The two of them were hidden by all the other beings, and while camouflaged, Rive took her down so many lefts, rights, unders, and overs that her head was spinning by the time they stopped. She leaned against an orange-blossom colored building and took several deep breaths, a slight wheeze giving away the fact that she’d had to push herself to keep up with them.

“Sorry,” Rive said, straightening. They cracked their neck, but Seren was pretty sure they also took advantage of the movement to look behind them. “I needed to talk to a teacher I know, and he lives here.”

She looked again at the orange building. There were three open windows, each with a distinct set of colored curtains, and a ladder that ran up one side to access the rooftop. The main door was the same as Rive’s house, that double layer of fabric and beads enough to keep people out.

“What does he teach?”

Rive stopped, their hand pushing away the door hanging.

“History. Atrema! Are you home?”

Seren stayed where she was, willing to wait on the street while they talked, but Rive’s head popped out a moment later.

“Coming?”

She pushed her way past the hanging beads and took a step into the cooler space. It wasn’t only the shade that gave her that feeling. Walls were painted in every color of blue, amplifying the refreshingness with the first bottom layer of frost blue, continuing in hues so that the top was the darkest night sky she’d ever seen. It was easy to see the change in colors since the rooms were well lit by the many lanterns hanging from the ceiling.

“What do you learn here?” she asked, not seeing any books, charts, or models around. Rive was the only one in the next room and they were too busy leafing through a thick sheet of papers.

“What?”

“Here? You said he was a history teacher, so what part does he teach?”

Rive didn’t meet her eyes. They turned away from the stack, empty-handed, and walked over to a blue footstool. Twisting the top cushion part separated it into two pieces, and revealed a hidden section filled with yet more paper and a few gears, from what Seren could hear. It wasn’t much, though. Rive had put their body between her and the items, which kept them a secret.

“He teaches... modern history.” Rive laughed a little at that, though Seren wasn’t sure where the joke was in their words.

“I do indeed teach contemporary history and politics, but I know I haven’t taught thieving.”

Seren and Rive whirled around to see a tall person standing in the doorway, their hand parting the curtain.

“Atrema, I’m sorry, I didn’t know where you were—“

“And so you decided to rifle through my things, that’s completely understandable.” The tone they had, as far as Seren felt, made that last statement false. It was like when her father found out that she’d done something he didn’t want her to do, but also couldn’t yell at her in front of her dad. “Rive, we’ve talked about this. Several times.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What are you supposed to do when you can’t find me?” He moved into the room with an uneven gait and an odd thumping noise; a quick glance at his feet showed he was using a peg leg on his right right. Looking at Rive, she saw that their head hung down, which made Seren wonder if their eyes were regretful or angry.

“I’m supposed to wait until you come back or wait for someone else to find you.”

“And did that happen?”

Rive shook their head.

“Instead, you showed one of my hiding spots to a stranger.” Atrema turned to look at Seren. She felt a bit self-conscious under his gaze and straightened up, pulling back her shoulders and tilting her head to look him in the face.

“I promise I won’t tell anyone else about it,” she said, nodding. The annoyed look in his eyes didn’t go away.

“Atrema, I’m heading out and I want my key.”

“Heading out...” Atrema looked back at Rive, then to Seren again. “I see. Is this the person you’re going with?”

“Yes.” There was a pause. “Eventually. I still need to fix my Captain’s propeller, and we still need to get our papers.”

Atrema walked away from both of them and sat on the couch against the wall, crossing one leg and letting the other stretch out before him. He took a large breath and let it out slowly, then repeated the movement two more times. Rive said nothing, so Seren took her cue from them and kept quiet. After a few minutes, there was a low whistle from the couch.

“Alright, Rive. Here’s what I can do. I don’t have your key on me or in this house; I’ll need time to fetch it. While that happens, I have one last favor to ask of you.”

“Depends on the favor.”

“I need to make sure my encoder is working and will work until I’m able to find your replacement.” Atrema took a pipe out of his inner shirt pocket and tapped his other hand with it. “Is that good with you?”

Rive nodded.

“Sure. I can check it on my way out since I’ve made sure yours is up to date. Any re-calibrations needed can be done quickly.”

Atrema nodded, then looked at Seren, his eyes going up and down.

“And who are you in all of this? Another pirate?”

“She’s my captain,” answered Rive, butting in. “Captain Seri.”

“She’s not a captain until she has a ship, which I believe is the other thing you needed to talk to me about, since you just said you don’t have papers.” He waited, a grin broadening across his face when Rive nodded. “Very well. We need to discuss names, dates, stamps, and purposes. Both of you sit down. I need to go get my inks.”

Atrema stood up and left, going into a different room than where he’d come from before.

“Psst!” Rive looked up at Seren’s whisper. “What’s he going to get?”

“Inks. Did you think we could just go in and get our ship documents?” Rive shook their head. “No. You stole the ship, and that means there’s no way to register it since it would already be under the name of the person who owns it. We need new documents and bluff our way through that way. Once we’re up in the air, it’ll only seem as if two similar ships were both registered.”

Seren slowly nodded. She didn’t want to do any more illegal activities. Stealing the ship had been bad enough, but if those papers allowed her and the ship to become legal, then... in the end, everything was okay, wasn’t it?

“I don’t like it,” she said, picking at the skin near her nails. “Can’t we just register here? It probably didn’t come from here, so they wouldn’t have the paperwork, would they?”

Rive snorted.

“Trust me, they would. We’re not dealing with a Viadora thing here. No, this is the guild, and they’re a different beast to bring down. No. Atrema is the best at what he does and I’m confident this is the best way.”

Seren wasn’t sure what to say about that. She looked around the room again, taking in the blues rippling across the walls. There were also curios scattered about; an old tin pot near a shuttered window had plants in it, though she couldn’t tell what kind, only that they grew there and hadn’t been cut. There was also a pair of swords over the doorway, crossed with their blades pointing up.

“Rive? Who employs him to teach history?”

Just as she asked, Atrema limped back in carrying a case of inks and biting the end of a pen in his mouth.

“Okay, first off, we need to fill in the paperwork. I have the stamps and the aging process to make it look as if registration took place about two years ago.”

“How much is this all going to cost?” asked Rive. Seren bit her tongue; she hadn’t thought about that at all. They still needed to pay for repairs and registration, but maybe they would not have to pay as much if this had already been in the works.

“For you, Rive, and your years of service, nothing.”

“Bullshit.” They stood up, looking Atrema straight in the eyes. “I know you. There’s always a catch, you’ve taught me that.”

“Fine.” There was a momentary pause. “You’ll get your papers and key; I'll get my machine looked over and...” He suddenly broke off and glanced at Seren. “Come. We’ll talk under the light.”

Seren stayed on the couch as the two left the room, pulling a curtain aside long enough that she could see the walls were alight with golden colors. Did they name rooms here according to color themes? She and her parents had simply referred to the rooms for what use they had.

“Okay,” she said, leaning back and looking up at the ceiling. “We still need coin to pay for repairs, but... that should be it. And if I can find Jo, then she should be holding ten eyes for me, as long as Bri kept up her end of the deal.”

And that was the problem, wasn’t it? Bri had forced her into delivering the letter to the temple; could she trust the woman to hold up her end of the deal? Captain Juji had trusted Bri, and she trusted him. He’d towed her ship here after all. Atrema and Rive walked back in, scattering her thoughts.

“Okay, let’s get back to filling out the papers,” Rive said, a slight catch in their voice. Seren felt the roughness hook her heart. If they were being backed into a corner and it was all her fault...

“Rive...” She waited until they looked her way. “If you don’t want to do whatever your teacher asked for, then don’t.”

They shrugged, but didn’t say anything.

“I mean it,” she insisted, her voice getting louder. “I promise, we’ll find another way.”

“It’s...” Rive sighed, shrugging and rubbing the back of their head. “It is what it is, captain, don’t worry about it.”

Seren stood up, eyes narrowing and fists clenching.

“Rive!” she snapped, darting forward to pull them away from Atrema. “No. If you’re going to be my engineer, you need to learn how to follow my orders, and my order is this: don’t do something you don’t want to do.”

Rive laughed at that, and the worried look that had been lurking at the edges of their eyes melted away.

“It’s fine. I don’t want to do it, but I’m also not against doing it. A bit of both.”

“You're sure?” She watched their orange eyes for any signs of distress, and after a few seconds, Rive winked at her.

“Yes, I’m sure.” A pause. “Captain.”

“Right, now that that’s taken care of,” drawled Atrema. Seren turned to him in time to catch him rolling his eyes. “Fill out the cursed paperwork, will you, captain?”

Rive motioned for her to take a seat at a smaller desk, the one opposite from Atrema. Seren took her place on the stool and picked up the quill, Rive leaning over her shoulder.

“Faction name and ship name are going to be the hardest,” they pointed out. “There are rules.”

“Such as?”

“Factions need to be named after a season, then followed with something connected to that season.”

Seren thought back to Captain Juji’s Autumn Sky faction and his ship, the Crimson Cloud.

“It’s also something that needs to be connected to your ship,” added Atrema. “So think as long as you need about it, if the name doesn’t fit they’ll know these are forged.”

Her ship was a seashell. With a maple tree on it. And was probably never supposed to be flying.

“Faction...” There was a season back on her island that always reminded her of the ocean. “The raintide sea faction.”

“Raintide?”

“It’s when the harder rains come and the ocean waves are looking to snatch unwary people walking along the beach. It’s a good time to have seedlings. Seeds will be washed away, but if the plant is too mature, then it can’t use all the water it’s forced to drink in.”

“I’ve heard of it,” said Atrema, “so it should be okay to put down. Unique, but within the guild lines.”

Seren wrote Raintide Sea on the biggest line.

“And there’s only one ship... Picotree Drop.” She let out a pleased laugh. “It’s a tiny droplet of a ship compared to the others I’ve seen, with a tree and my dad told me that type of shell is like a pico seashell.”

“… this is a fascinating conversation,” muttered Atrema, “and I wish I could have seen the skyship that merits an ocean name.”

Seren looked at Rive, since they hadn’t seen the ship yet either, but they shrugged and didn't try to explain, so she went back to the questions. The rest of them were much easier to answer. Rive wrote their name down for first mate and engineer, as well as where their family was located. For Seren, she wrote Captain Seri Affoill and listed her starting area as Viadora.

“I can do that, right?”

“It would be best,” Rive said, shooting a dissuading look at Atrema. “I know you don’t want to list your original island, but you can’t put down this location. I’ll give you the address of a house next to me, that should work.”

Seren scribbled in the words they told her, parroting it back so she didn’t accidentally misspell her own home area.

“There.” Rive took the paper and passed them to Atrema. “They’re done and signed. Work your magic.”