Tattered

--Tattered One--

I.
Her father couldn’t remember the words.
“And so I — er — what was it again?”
“The jaws of fate, papa,” she said impatiently, prancing. “Something something no family name.”
“Now I can’t abide that.” Her father rubbed his chin. “You’re my girl.”
“But you gotta! Or I’m gonna get struck by lightning!”
“Oh, screw it. I love you, lassie. Go make your way in the world, and tell the lightning to come talk to me if it has a problem.” Her father hugged her, then shook his finger before her nose. “No racing.”
“Didn’t you just say I was free?”
Her father sighed. “Guess you’ll learn the hard way. Noggin’s harder than diamonds.”
He watched her scramble towards the Fields of Ingenuity, warm pride glowing in his heart.

II.
There was a lot of talk going on in the fields.
For one thing, Starshade Police were cracking down on ship-racing. With the new tour-boat business in full bloom, rogue racing ships were seen as a danger, a threat.
Naturally, pirates — who hate the law for the most part — saw this as a challenge. Soon winning pots were tripled and crews were wagering the greatest boon of all: ships themselves.
As the eager young Mirror scampered through the Fields, she heard the word race whispered over and over again. And that was her dream.
She didn’t know why. She just wanted to go fast.
For another thing, two dragons were patching up a cursed ship. This news whispered on the wind alongside the word race. And Tattered, already manic with excitement, was inflamed even more. She scurried from ship to ship inspiring cries of “hey, watch it!” and “outta the way, dumb lass!” looking for the cursed ship.
Finally she spotted it. Clans were gathered indirectly around a small, storm-torn boat, never looking directly at it. Sometimes they would shove one another and dare them to hop on that craft, laddie, we’ll never see you again.
Tattered shoved through the little crowd and gasped. She fell in love at once. The bold orange lightning-lines, the freshly-patched sails. A Tundra and a Nocturne staunchly ignored all the whispering and continued their various tasks.
Tattered couldn’t stand it. “What’s with all the whispering?!” she called.
The crowd melted away with grumbles and curses. The handsome Tundra looked up and cocked his head.
“The Fields are no place for younglings. Especially not young girls,” he said dismissively.
Ponzu snorted. “Hmmm-k. Whatever you say, Captain.”
“How many does your crew have?” Tattered interjected. “You need at least three to command a schloop of this size. One person to check the wing-sails, one to take the fore-sail, and one to take the wheel.”
Garr paused. “Is that right?”
“I got blood-loosed this morning, sort of.” Tattered nodded so hard she almost fell over. “But I know plenty. Been on the Starman, Wayland Faire, Mark III—“
“She’s your age,” Ponzu chuckled. “Blood-loosed youngin’s.”
Garr’s cheeks flushed. “We have two. And we’re fine with two.”
Tattered blinked. “You can’t fly it with two —“
“Well, we are.”
“In the race?” Tattered snapped. “Nonsense. I’m coming aboard.”
Garr moved to block her. “I’m the damn captain of this damn ship —“
“Coming. Aboard.” Tattered squared her shoulders and marched up the plank, onto the deck. She grabbed a sheet from the pile of sandpaper by her feet and began to sand it down. “Splinters all over the place…you all are crazy.”
“No, you’re crazy,” Garr snapped.
“Oh, aye, good one, Cap,” Ponzu whispered. “Lacerate her with that wit.”
Garr ignored her. “This ship is cursed.”
“And you’re going to fly it with two dragons. That doesn’t sound cursed, that sounds stupid.” The Mirror sanded harder in excitement. “Besides, if this works out, we only need to fly it once.”
“We?!”
“We. Oui.” Tattered’s tail lashed out like a whip. “Top five ships in the race tomorrow get a new ship. No joke, either.”
When the Tundra didn’t say anything, Tattered peeped over the edge of the ship. He was rubbing his face with his paw.
“I’m a pirate. Not a racer.”
“Well,” Tattered said brightly. “Why not both?”
III.
Garr didn’t like it. He said that repeatedly, even as he set to harder work. After all, if the ship had to be ready tomorrow, they had to hurry.
Ponzu was the bolt-checker. She moved from plank to plank, checking over and over again that nothing was loose.
Tattered’s specialty, apparently, was rigging. Garr believed the worst until she adeptly tied two mother’s knots and unfurled a ragged spider’s web hanging from the main mast.
His was hard labor. He rushed back and forth from the Badlands to the Fields, lugging massive stakes of wood and carving them with his sharp claws. Ponzu carved little notches in the deck for him to fit the mast in. Since the Lass was so small, the work was soon completed.
All they had to do now was wait. They sat around a small campfire. Garr glowered at Tattered, who was slowly blinking herself to sleep.
Ponzu yawned and stretched. “Consider it this way, cap. If we race tomorrow and we die in the attempt, we don’t have to worry about anything.”
“That’s pretty dark.” Tattered yawned like a dog, tongue furling and unfurling.
Garr scowled at the dirt. “I wouldn’t mind getting away from here forever. There’s nothing left here for me.”
“Hmmm. I’m supposed to have dinner with my parents every two weeks.” Tattered scratched her ear.
“That’s not blood-loosed, lassie.”
“Whatever. My family’s got such poor luck, we used it up long ago.” She smiled brightly, and Ponzu snorted.
Garr buried his face in his hands and groaned.
IV.
Still, he couldn’t suppress excitement when he woke the next day at dawn.
All around the Fields, ships were rising into the air slowly, gracefully, like herons lifting off a lake. The crews scurried around the bottoms of them, shouting and laughing, knotting ropes and cutting anchors. Some grew so excited that they fluttered from place to place.
Garr watched this scene fondly, though deep down he wished his father could be here to witness it.
Or maybe not. He had a feeling that if his father knew he was flying the Wayward Lass, he would never hear the end of it.
He was startled by the Lass lifting into the air — Tattered was heaving the ballast out, and the buoyant rocks were rising to the ceiling of their hold like soda bubbles.
Ponzu let out a whoop, but Garr couldn’t clear the foreboding from his chest. Other ships bobbed in the wind. The Lass simply hovered there, like it had some unknown purpose. Some…reason. A mind of its own.
Shaking off these thoughts, Garr offered a paw to Ponzu. Together they flapped upward and landed on the deck.
It was decided. He would have the wheel, Tattered the wing-sails, Ponzu the main-sail.
Sorriest crew I’ve ever seen. Sorriest ship, too.
With a few minor hiccups, they sailed gently forward, breeze blowing through their fur and scales. With the wind, Garr’s apprehension disappeared. Almost.
As they tried to join the other ships at the starting line, things began to go wrong.
The sails were pointed the wrong direction, parallel to the breeze. Blinking in confusion, he looked askance at Ponzu. But the Nocturne was focused on her job, and to disturb a main-sail-woman was folly.
Still, Garr could feel it: pressure and wind were building from the other side of the ship, shoving against where he wanted to go. He looked at Tattered, but the little air-brain was doing her job correctly.
Then what —?
Before he could answer that, a fierce cold wind blew. Without warning, one of the ropes binding the sail snapped. It lashed out and struck Tattered on the nose. She squeaked and reached up to clutch it, then let go of the rope holding the other wing-sail.
The ship listed to the right.
Garr frantically looked to Ponzu, but she was lost. The crack of the whip had brought back memories of the slavers, the thunderstorm, the fear and danger —
A howling gale rose and shoved the ship westward. Blinking tears of cold from his eyes, Garr saw the tops of the impenetrable forest. They were sailing out past it, riding a sacred wind — out of control of the ship.

-Bio by Caelyn-