Erika woke to her husband's snoring. She reached up and tapped his cheek trying to get him to quiet. "Ruben stop" she groaned. Ruben snorted coughed and woke himself up. "You ok my love whats wrong?"

Erika smiled blew out through her nose "it is fine my love you were snoring. Time to be up anyway I expect." She said looking at the dim patch of light around the stairs and raising from their hammock.

"I'm guessing captain wants to speak to you?"

"She better if she wants to take us South." Erica replied.

"Can we do it" he asked. Getting up as well.

Erika looked at her husband and at the slowly waking crew mates around them.

"I have some ideas," she said "of course they will require a strong helmsman."

"Oh do they?" Ruben stepped close behind his wife and kissed her neck.

"Yes" Erika said turning around in her husband's arms. "And some of them even involve going south" she laughed as her husband lifted her up by her legs and kissed her deeply.

"I love you Erika" he told her

"I love you Ruben." She replied. He put her down and she quickly got about dressing and arming herself.

"I'll see you on deck yeah?" She said as she turned and swiftly walked down the aisle of waking sailors and up onto the deck then to the captain's quarters.

She knocked on the door and waited. She heard a shuffling and the closing of something inside before Esmerelda called out "enter"

"Captain." Erika said stepping into the room

"Ah Erika, perfect I need to speak with you about our charting our voyage."

"I figured, I heard we're going south"

"Heard?" Esmerelda paused for a second. "Yes of course, you weren't there."

"Ruben told me about the challenge. Dimitri, the Northerner? Seems a bit out of the blue"

"He's young, didn't have enough experience to even know he didn't have a chance."

"Poor kid, is he still sailing with us"

"He is. I think he is trying to pass the whole thing off as a joke."

Erika laughed. "Best of luck to him I guess. Are my maps still in the same place?"

"Of course why wouldn't they be?"

"I don't know. Thought I may have heard you moving stuff around in here." Erika led.

"I'm sure your mistaken Erika, everything is in its place."

Erika shrugged "look boss if you wanna keep secrets thats your business. Long as i know where were going I'm fine"

The captain responded with silence and stood with her hands held behind her back. Erika walked to the cupboard pulled out her maps and spread them on the captain's desk.

"Right so there's basically two ways to do this. Either we take the long way, which means we'll stick to the coast and cross through Twelve Isles, then follow the opposite coast back out." She looked up "at this point it could be decided to either go further South down the Southern continent or stay on its north coast and eventually go back the way we came. It puts us much longer on the monstrous sea but we should be able to avoid extended time in the doldrums."

"And whats option two" Esmerelda asked.

"Option two is a direct crossing." Erika said simply. "We sail down the north continent like we always do, we put in for last supplies at Corsaña, and we sail straight as we can for North Town." Erika indicated the southern most point of the northern continent and the northernmost tip of the southern.

"And what do you suggest Erika?" Esmerelda asked.

"Its a choice of much more time in the monsters sea as we sail in, with an easier passage through the doldrums at twelve isles; or, a shorter route that takes us directly through the doldrum. The route is rarely attempted let alone accomplished in a ship without a galley. Land ship anyway."

Esmerelda looked at her navigator. Erika had been with her the last ten years. She had joined her crew from the Aina and carried with her a certain pride which she held over the other “land” nations and sailors as she called them.

"For me the answer is easy." She said "for you and your land crew, not so much."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that the best way across the monstrous sea is straight from Corsaña to North Town with either a water druid or a storm sorcerer or cleric to put wind in the sails through the doldrums."

Esmerelda sighed and looked up from the map.

"Erika you know I don't share their superstition"

"I know captain, its just situations like this when I wonder how you people made it off land at all."

"Erika can you get us their or not?"

"Can I get us there? Captain that is squarely your job. I can tell you how to get there, and I'll know where we are every step of the way. Whichever way you choose to go."

Esmerelda looked down at the map and took a deep breath. "East, and through twelve isles. There will be plunder along the way to keep the crew happy. We will be in the mosterous sea for longer but its a much less risky way across the doldrums."

"Very good captain. I'll let the helmsman know our heading."

"Yes thank you Erika."

Esmerelda watched as her navigator left the room. She had known her since she was a young, barely sixteen. Now, fifteen years later she remained the most singularly gifted navigator she had met as well as an extremely able hand in a fight. Esmerelda remembered the first day Erika set foot on her deck. Her hair a fierce main of tight waves, her chin red and swollen with fresh tattooing, her whole self alert and assessing. Esmerelda also distinctly remembered her braking several bones of the first other sailor who tried to touch her without her permission. She was the same age then as that ridiculous Lark boy now though much more ready in nearly every sense of the word.

Esmerelda had watched her do that crucial second phase of growing up on the Bonnie Bounty. Her propensity for violence had been honed from an ever lashing hurricane to a simple and deliberate promise that never went unfulfilled. Her skills as a navigator had only increased with her experience. The sharpness of her tongue had stayed more or less the same and had not gained much by way of governance. Erika was always one to speak her mind. Esmerelda typically valued her input, even if it lacked the least of respect used by the rest of the crew.

Esmerelda looked down at the map Erika had brought them from her people when she joined her crew. They were particular to the 'Aina people and that all inland cities, boarders, and the like were left blank. After all, they didn't need them. The 'Aina were, by their own stories, the first and an exclusively seafaring people.

She traced her fingers down along the coast of the northern Continent and over to twelve isles. It was where she and Erika had met. She wondered if Erika missed her people. The 'Aina considered themselves at once to be without specific home land but also to be always within its boarders while on the sea.

Esmerelda's conception of a homeland was different. She had never been south. She knew generations ago some distant great grandparents had come to the Northern Continent from the Southern. It was a common story in the region where she grew up. She had grown up speaking southern with her many siblings and half siblings, her cousins, father and grandparents. She knew the stories, the food, the music, all the things she had been told made home, home. And yet she had never set foot there.This homeland she had never been to had often crossed her mind in her decades of sailing but there was always some excuse not to go. Years go by and the urge gets stronger but the hurdle gets that much higher too, the doubt that this land had anything for her or that she had anything for it.

She paced away from her desk.

What was there in a homeland anyway. She thought to herself. She was born in Corsaña she lived on her ship. Her people were her crew. Her family were her friends. This was her home she was home now. And yet. She walked back to maps.

She had to do this it couldn't be helped she had to do this. This was her history, her ancestory, her origin. It was her language. She had to go.

Besides they hadn't been to that part of the ocean in years. The western coast was lucrative but the southern coast was an adventure. She justified to herself. But that adventure was not what was driving her. She had been told growing up all about this far off home. As if the home they had wasn't good enough. Why was she going? She had to go. Why was she going? She wanted to go. Why was she going? She needed to go.