On the easternmost peninsula of the mainland of Skysea Adalay, there was a town that hugged its coast. It wasn’t a large place, definitely not the largest in the region, but it supported a fairly healthy population to support the main draw of the town.

That draw was its massive shipping yard, one of the largest on the continent. Though the title of largest was still taken by the vastly more convenient dockyards on the Landfall coast and in Farrin Felborrough, it was still among the top 5. This dockyard was not, however, a public one. Its job was almost exclusively for shipping and delivery of good, not people. So it wasn’t uncommon for uninformed travelers to reach the town only to find that their goal of Betel was just out of reach. This town was Betel Stretto, coincidentally named similarly to the island it so often delivered cargo to.

On the docks that day, two young men worked a temporary position as dock hands. They loaded boxes to and from ships to be later taken to wherever they were needed.

Because the job was rather dull and there was a bit of a wait between work orders, the two of them sat on some nearby unloaded boxes and spoke. Taking the opportunity to eat their lunches while they did so.

“So Dotti, did ya hear ‘bout that nasty business up north?” The first man said.

“Oel, is this another joke? I ain’t got the patience for it. My feet are killing me.” Dotti said.

“Naw, really, heard my dad saying a whole mess of bandits up north that got sluiced. Just totally liquified and everything.” Oel said.

“That don’t sound too good. What’d they say did it?” Dotti asked.

“Couldn’t tell ya, but whatever it was I wouldn’t wanna throw with it.” Oel said.

“Too right, I knew you had some sense in ya.” Dotti said.

“Beat ya! I ain’t done though, you hear ‘bout Saint Brisa?” Oel said.

“That old tale? The one ol’ bar flies go hollering ‘bout when the maid comes in with a second round?” Dotti said.

“Yes! I mean, no? Kinda? You know what, shut it and listen. I heard there has been this girl all over the Skysea doing a bar hop. Just right up and serving folk like it was her god given duty. They don’t even pay her! Then when she’s done fer the night she just heads on to the next place. Folk been callin’ her Saint Brisa ‘cause of it.” Oel said.

“Sounds like you been hitting the bottle yourself, bud, do you believe everything you hear or are you just especially sauced today?” Dotti said.

“Bah, yer no fun. Anyway, I got one more. Ya heard of that fancy mage trotting around town, with that kid packed up to the teeth in steel?” Oel said.

“Ah, yep, you know Patser, you know from down the way? He saw them earlier today, strange he said. What would bring such a fancy pants CapDan down this way?” Dotti said.

“No idea, did the mage glow like I heard or was that a lie?” Oel asked.

“Couldn’t tell ya, wouldn’t surprise me. Gotta imagine the mage is pretty important. I heard their robes are top of the line. Something you’d only find in the capital.” Dorri said.

“The kid too, he’s carrying enough gear on him to equip a whole squad. Nobody I heard talkin’ about him could tell me who he was. Must be pretty important to be escorting a CapDan Mage like that.” Oel said.

“Back to the other thing. Why’d they come our way? There’s nothing here but crates and crabs. I could think of a few better places to spend my afternoon and a couple of them would be 6 feet under.” Oel said.

“You know how it is, sometimes folk just get lost sometimes. It’s not like you suddenly gain a compass and map behind your eyes when you get important.”

“I mean, yeah, but I don’t think that’s very likely. What’re the chances someone like that would just turn up on the docks like that?” Oel said.

“Hey, can I get some directions? I’m a bit lost.”

They both turned to see a girl a few younger than them, wearing a ratty old white mages hood with long red hair spilling out from under it.

-----

Andromeda was wandering around the docks, trying to find someone who wasn’t too busy so she could ask directions. She saw these two sitting on some crates eating a few sandwiches and thought it would bother the fewest number of people to bother them.

The two of them looked at her confused for a moment, then the one who was talking a moment ago cleared his throat.

“Sure? I guess it depends on if I can help ya. I’m just a dock hand.” He said.

“Me and my friend are trying to find a ship to Betel, we heard that there was a dock here in town, but haven’t been able to find what we’re looking for.” Andromeda said. The other man looked at his friend with a cocky sneer, which did nothing but draw an annoyed frown from his friend.

When he looked back at Andromeda he stopped himself short and leaned forward, looking behind her in Eli’s general direction. She turned to see that Eli was standing near the edge of the dock, holding one of the spears he pilfered from the bandits in his hand and swirling it around in the water.

The man sighed when his friend playful smacked him on the shoulder.

“Right, anyway, sorry to say but you came to the wrong side of the region. This is a shipping town and barely anyone runs passengers through here. You can try asking around but I don’t-” He said.

While he was talking, Andromeda brought her hand to the necklace that now laid around her neck. She carefully rubbed the gem in the center and felt a now familiar, but nevertheless unnatural feeling in her mind.

She looked at the other man sitting beside his friend and directed a thought toward him.

>”Won’t you help us get to Betel?”<

Then she took her hand off the gem and her mind returned to normal. The other man blinked several times and then interrupted his friend.

“Hey Oel, we aren’t that busy today. We could probably convince the boss to let them go on the ship. It’s not like they would be much trouble.

“Are… Are you sure? The boss would hold that over our heads for a week.” The Oel said.

“Yeah, I’d feel like an ass if we made these two traipse half away across the country just catch a boat.” The other man said.

“I don’t know, that would be a pretty big hassle…” His friend didn’t seem convinced, which meant she had to lean a little harder.

“How much of a hassle?” Andromeda said, pulling a bag from her pocket.

Within the hour they were sat down in a spare crew quarter. Andromeda paid the men from before enough coin to dissuade any reservations they might have had, and they buttered up their boss enough to let them have a room on the ship they were to take to Aeroae. On the condition that they not get in anyone’s way and feed themselves throughout the trip.

Once that was settled, they took the spare change they had to afford enough rations to keep them fed through the 3-day boat trip and settled into their room.

This marked the first day they had a warm place to sleep in weeks. Andromeda nearly cried when she saw the beds. She threw herself on a bunk and felt a deep and cold fatigue that nearly made her pass out right then and there.

Before she got the chance, a little voice in her head, as well as a louder voice, argued about what they should do.

>We have to settle with Eli first before you get to sleep.<

It has been weeks since we’ve had a bed that wasn’t made of leaves, and you want to avoid this?

>All of us, for various reasons, have dragged the poor man across the entire continent. Plus I feel awful for my part in that. I just want him this business settled.<

Getting pretty big in your britches, making group calls like that.

>Just let me have this White.<

Andromeda slapped both sides of her head to get them to stop bickering, then turned her attention to Eli. By this point had turned taken off everything that wasn’t his regular clothes and piled them high on the table.

She didn’t consider it until this point, but he was carrying a LOT of things on his person. Swords, daggers, a great sword, a spear, travel supplies, food, armor, and other assorted things. Among those assorted things was the outer layer’s of Andromeda’s robes. They had mutually decided that Andromeda walking around in fancy clothes was drawing too much attention, so they stashed everything but the inner layer in Eli’s bag.

All together, it was a massive load that he carried with no complaint. Considering that he was a farm hand his entire life, that made sense, but even this was excessive. She put the thought away with the reasoning that some people were just built different and got his attention.

“Hey Eli, we should talk for a bit before settling in.” Andromeda said.

“Ya figure?” Eli asked.

“Yeah, I have kind of an idea what I’m going to do when I get to the island. But what about you?” She asked. Eli sat quietly for a moment in thought, and while the gears in his head turned, Whisper piped up.

>As far as I could tell when I was in his mind. He didn’t really have any ideas. Can’t say that hasn’t changed, what with all the life threatening events he’s lived through, but his head is kind of like a rock that leaks water when it comes to long term planning.<

Thats… Kind of rude? I think?

>It’s the truth, I’ve… Well, I’ve “known” a lot of people in my time. Nobody was as fortified as him in terms resoluteness. Imagine trying to bite into a brick, that is what his mind is like.<

Hold on, why are you mentioning this again?

>Because I believe this conversation is going to be like pulling teeth.<

So why did you want to do this?

>I just have to, okay?<

“I’m not really sure, I guess I could stick around you for a while until I know everything is safe. I’m not really looking forward to the hike back home.” Eli said.

>Huh.<

Not as hard as you suspected, eh?

“If you’re sure about that, I won’t say now. But I want you to be really sure about it. I’m not walking into a friendly situation, and you might get caught up in it.” Andromeda said.

“After what happened in the forest, and what you’ve been able to do since, I’m probably safer here than anywhere else. Might as well capitalize.” Eli said.

Andromeda felt her hand instinctively go for the necklace around her neck. She looked at her other hand and saw the color on the skin of her fingers ripple between its normal pinkish white, to bleached white, and then tan, then back again.

She wasn’t exactly sure what the necklace did, or who the man who gave it to her was. However, it seemed to have stabilized her somehow. If not stabilize, it gave her some control of her instability.

When she touched the gem of the necklace. She could feel a strange feeling overcome her mind. White and Whisper both felt something similar, and it seemed like all of their minds blended together while she touched the gem.

While she did so, she discovered that she could shift her body between each of their corporeal forms. Between her normal fair skinned for, to White’s Albino form, to Whisper's tanned form. She could make her hands her own again, or make them tanned up to her elbow like Whisper, or she could do the same to her face.

This wasn’t just cosmetic either, the ratio of each of their forms caused their respective abilities to grow. When the majority of her body was like White, the mending aura that she and Eli described would activate and take effect. This is how they travelled the distance to Skysea so quickly after receiving the necklace.

If the majority of Whisper’s form was present, her mental abilities would grow too. Being able to travel farther, act faster, and push harder on the minds of those around her.

Lastly, though it hadn’t come up much before, when Andromeda’s regular form is the majority, her magical abilities like mending and purification were easier to do. She only learned this on their trip using White’s aura as a supplement for sleep. The stronger the aura they produced, the harder it was for her to use magic.

If she focused really hard, she could take on these different forms without touching the gem. But doing so made it easier for some reason. Unfortunately, without wearing it or touching the gem, she couldn’t do anything at all and her normal form with White’s bleached fingers returned.

All of this is something she discovered through tacit use throughout. There was a lot of depth left to explore, but she just hadn’t had the time to look into it while they traveled.

“That’s all well and good,” Andromeda said, “but you can’t just follow me around the whole time. I’m going to be busy with things, and I don’t think you’ll be able to be my shadow the whole time.”

“That’s… A good point, do you have any suggestions?”

>Oh god, not this.<

What? What do you mean?

“Not really? I barely know what I’m going to do, I have no idea what you could do.” Andromeda said.

“You have to have some idea. You can’t expect me to make my own plans when the whole reason I’m here is because of you.” Eli said.

“Oh god, please not this…” Andromeda thought.

He’s going to force our hand on this, isn’t he…

>Yep…<

“Eli, I’m not your mother. I’m not going to hold your hand and tell you what to do. If it comes to it, you’re going to need to find a way to handle yourself at some point.” Andromeda said.

“That’s rich coming from you, I’m pretty sure if I turned my head at the wrong time you’d throw yourself into the sea because you thought someone was drowning.” Eli said.

Ooooh.

>Yikes… He’s got you there.<

“Eli, just… I don’t know, go freelance for a bit. I’ll let you know when I’m free, I guess.” Andromeda said. This seemed to please Eli a bit because he smiled on hearing it.

“Good, so, anything else you wanted to talk about?” He asked.

No.

>NO!<

“No.” Andromeda said.

With that, the two of them turned to their bunks and rested for the night. One of the first calm nights, any of them had felt in weeks.