Diana held the book she had yet to read a word of, glaring a hole in the back of the Healer clearing away the tray of food. Nothing had yet to quell the anger of today, she had watched and heard all from shower, pounding her fist on the metal at the most infuriating statements. A few people held her malice ever since she saw the message the Witch had given her the night before. What a worthless source of magic. How were the stars so powerful if most Witch rituals required the Druid’s help to complete? Fia hardly seemed to miss her coven, almost as if the woman had transcended the need for a bunch of dancing naked women in the forests. She knew she couldn’t win a duel against Fia, word or magical. The Witch could always pull out the triumph of winning the war. No, she could apply her anger to someone else.

“Do you think my sister’s murder is not worth avenging?” Diana asked loudly when the Healer wouldn’t turn to look at her.

Kalyah breathed a heavy sigh. “Every body that loses its soul is a great tragedy in Corpine’s eyes,” she said as if quoting a scripture. “Every body.”

“Yet you minimized Luann’s death, just as Fia did!” she declared.

The Healer checked on Jonah as he stirred. “You’re lucky he’s drugged,” she said. “He’ll be in pain by the time he wakes up. I have half a mind to leave that solely to you. It might help you with this rage you have.”

“I will avenge my sister, no matter who I have to kill to put Blodwyn back in her tomb,” Diana said coldly, gripping the leather cover of the tome in her hands.

“Perfect, that’s what they all said last time,” Kalyah mocked, hands on her hips. “Each side had millions of dead, don’t forget that.”

“You feel sympathy for the Ash Makers!” Diana cried, standing up from her seat.

“Every body,” Kalyah confirmed. “You know my goddess, you served with my people.”

Diana was quiet, appalled. Her fellows at the temple had spoken of their pacifism, but that was before, when there was no war raging. It was a silly thought then, to be against fighting when no major war was about, when most everywhere lived in peace. It left a horrible taste in her mouth, looking at a woman she had served beside, had respected in the grueling hours of work. “You’re no temple priestess, you can’t be that stupid,” she said.

Kalyah’s eyes lit up with fire. “A vow of non-violence is an unbreakable one! My goddess would not answer my prayers if I disobeyed her in such a way!” she shouted. “Just because I am stranded away from my brothers and sisters does not mean I have totally forgotten what it is to be on the sidelines, to see the conflict.” She jabbed an accusatory finger at the Druid. “I didn’t see the Order war, all the dead, but the Ash Makers and the army didn’t all raise their hands or fade away because your ancestor pinned their leader to a tree! They kept trying to fight, they wanted their freedom, to live how they wished. Can you imagine what it’s like to be born in a world that hates your existence?”

“They sided with Blodwyn, they knew what they got into,” Diana said dismissively.

“An Ash Maker is born, a body with challenges, a body still designed by the goddess herself,” Kalyah countered. “Blodwyn and her army wiped out scores of people, but she also recruited young children, brainwashed them into fighting. Into using their magic to explode people like she did. They kept going, for generations, wanting to break their leader out, keep their fight going.”

The thought of young children born with the curse of an Ash Maker hadn't occurred to Diana much. She had never met one, they were not welcome in most places that she frequented. The sources applied endless pressure to their bodies. Someone Luann’s age had enough to worry about, without adding magical pain to it. “They have their islands, they can live there,” she defended.

“Ah, a few strips of land that no one wanted,” Kalyah scoffed. “So accurately called, the Isles of Ash, hardly anything grows there and no Kingdom wants to openly trade with them. How nice of a place.”

“I will trap Blodwyn, no matter what it takes,” Diana said quietly, folding her arms. The coldness of the room had increased, that pure vengeance was the only thing that kept her from freezing in that suffocating sorrow.

Kalyah knew she had won, but was not delighted in her victory. She might have to repent for how violently she had swatted down Diana’s argument. It had been so good, at least in the moment, to let loose on a woman that diminished a murder. The Healer didn’t think less of Luann’s death, she was sincere in pacifist grief. “Honey, the war wasn’t won in a week or a day. If you try to fight anything or anyone now, then you’ll just end up as a casualty. Enough people have died in this war already, my heart broke for Luann. It broke at Jonah’s condition, before and after he woke up,” she said kindly. “I meant what I told him and you heard every word, I’m sure.” She walked up to Aiko and ran her hand along its back. “I know what this means, you know what this means.” She tapped the cat’s head to its purring. “You can’t even heal without showing your pain, imagine yourself in a battle. I don’t fight, and that means I won’t fight to stop you from making a foolish choice either.” She walked up to the Druid, patting her shoulder. “There are many pains of the body that I can’t heal, they have to be dealt with in other ways.”

“You can leave me here, he’ll need Daisy sap,” Diana said, blinking away the tears forming on her eyes. She swiftly wiped them away.

“Thank you,” Kalyah said with a grin. “Goddess did it help me to save a man from dying and living such a different life.”

Diana nodded.

“Call if you need anything,” she said. “Ring the buzzer for the kitchen when he needs food, and make sure Lucy doesn’t bring it.”

“Are you two really a pair?” Diana asked with a struggling laugh.

“We were a ship that would help small towns with dry wells and visiting places just so people could take pictures with the legendary Heroes,” she said, forlornly gazing about the cabin’s dimensions. “What we did in between those times was just entertainment. Two weeks all our priorities shifted.”

Diana stayed quiet.

“Lucy is going to have to beg for my forgiveness now,” Kalyah stated with a smirk.

The same ghostly laugh left Diana. If only she could really enjoy herself without recalling a laugh she would never hear again. With an incline of her head, Kalyah left and Diana sat to actually read this time.

Several hours later the portholes showed the night, the half moon rippling across the sea. There was no land mass in sight and the Druid felt strange with only water around, as she had many times before on an airship. This had a much more serious goal, though every moment that passed that destination seemed farther and farther away. Several times she had been leveled to feel like a little girl. Even her familiar made her feel pathetic, not leaving Jonah as she walked the hall to stretch her legs. Her former boyfriends had not attracted this much attention from the feline. Aiko had been so close to her the last couple weeks, now it felt like a betrayal to be unheard.

There were scones set at even intervals of the hall and Diana distracted herself in counting them each time she passed a set number. The man had been snoring, dead asleep even as she ate, the spoon catching louder than she expected. Without a table she couldn’t keep to her royal manners and ate as if she were camping. Kalyah had entered with her lunch, checking on him, whispering questions to her. Nothing had changed, and the Pixie had spells to monitor him anyway, she was really checking on Diana. Quietly she had been practicing her magic.

Now the door to the deck opened loudly and Angelina came climbing down, followed by the crimson skinned Lucy, who went pale in the cheeks on seeing the princess. “Ah, good evening Diana,” the Pirate called, not so discreetly snagging the arm of her quartermaster. “How are you doing?” She stood at the end of the stairs, the door above slamming like an earthquake.

Diana wondered why the aged ship kept anything but the externals as it was two hundred years ago. At least the bathrooms were sleek and modern. Her mother had told her there were none at all the last time she flew the Pirate’s Ship. “I am well,” she said.

The Pirate had only her bandana on, vest popped open, shirt a few buttons undone, her freckled breasts showing in a wrap. There was no reason for her not to be wearing a bra, she didn’t have the requirements of a Druid’s armor. When it was noticed, she clenched her outfit parts together. “Feeling the sea breeze you know,” she laughed.

Lucy was similarly disheveled, pants unbuttoned, shirt untucked in the front. She averted her eyes from the Druid, guilt clear in the shifting of her burgundy lips.

“I’m more partial to a forest rain shower,” Diana said, more than a tad bit peeved. Some had not readjusted their priorities. “Any word on Blodwyn’s whereabouts?”

“Oh, I’m afraid not,” the Pirate grimaced. “Trust me, you would be the first to know.” She grinned, such a fast switch. “Have you been practicing your Crown?”

“Yes, I have,” she said.

“Good, good,” the Pirate nodded. “We have a few places to go, we’ll have a list in the morning. For now we’re only orbiting the planet, trying to get a read on the Order leader.”

“I see, I was about to ask,” Diana said, relieved. “These are possible Ash Maker locations? The cells that you mentioned before.”

“Yes, yes, sightings, nothing too dangerous,” Angelina said, looking around Diana.

There was Fia coming up behind her.

“Jonah is sleeping for now,” Diana told her.

The Witch twitched her lip. “I don’t have any interest in him right now. Same problem as you,” she said with disdain.

Before Diana could say anything the woman passed her, heading up the stairs and outside with a flick of her finger controlling the door. It raised silently, but shut with a deafening slam. It even woke Jonah, the man groaning in agony. Aiko reported his pain with nervous feelings of urgency that made Diana uncomfortable as her heart raced like caffeine high.

“Don’t worry, she’s that way with everyone,” Angelina urged. “Anyway, Lucy would like to properly apologize for what happened earlier.”

Diana nodded, squirming in her palpitations as the cat mewed through the cabin door.

“I was very unprofessional,” Lucy admitted. “It won’t happen again, I swear.”

“It’s fine, I don’t care a bit. I have received plenty of insults before,” Diana said, pushing through the pain as she stepped backwards. “Watching a shapeshifter in my form grope herself was a new one, but not as bad as others.”

The devil frowned, there was no way she was unaware of the princess’s history.

“Gods, I can hear you, I am coming! I couldn’t even finish a conversation! I’m not his bloody nursemaid, he has one already…” Diana stared off in the general direction of Kalyah’s room.

“We’ll see you in the morning. Hope the boy feels better and you both can meet the crew tomorrow,” Angelina said, walking off towards the captain’s quarters, her crewman dragged along beside her.

Diana stalked off to Jonah’s room, the Healer nowhere in sight.