Her ship was barely a week out from land when the Nazari patrol ship caught up with them and boarded them, setting their much smaller barge on fire in the process. This was the end of the journey for them, the captain said. They would be taken back "home". Gan knew that did not involve living much longer once they arrived at the port of Nairene, probably a few days out now. She didn't know exactly how long. She hadn't been paying much attention to the days, in the pitch darkness of the hold.

  Once again, she prayed to Nairu. For inspiration. For guidance. For anything, really, at this point. She prayed to her family for good measure. She prayed to the hearts of the Osara elders she had hoped to meet before her future was doomed to the gallows.

  It was all she could do, of course, with her wrists and ankles bound together, sitting in her own waste because the crew laughed and said that no, there was no way in the seven hells they would give a huge aleph like her the chance to try anything funny. They were being cruel, of course--the sick, twisted behavior of those who fed off the idea of controlling, suppressing, hurting that which made them uncomfortable, that which they didn’t understand. That which they swore hurt them through its mere existence. The sadism of cowards.

  Or so Gan told herself in order to find her peace, her dignity, among the reek of fluids and dead bodies of her compatriots. Among the groaning of the hungry and the dying. The quiet sobs of friends she once thought unbreakable.

  She tried not to let the irritation get to her when she heard the first shouts from aboveboard.

  Were they drunk? Were they going to come down again to remind her of how horrible it smells? To humiliate those who have managed to survive this long? They had not been given satisfaction for it so far. Some of the bodies were evidence of their displeasure when reactions just weren’t happening. They would continue to not receive that satisfaction.

  Wait. No, that wasn't just drunk imperial shitheads.

  Fire. They were yelling about fire.

  That got Gan's attention. Gan’s and everyone else’s in the hold who could still so much as think. She started trying to stand, but could only do so much. None of them could really go much of anywhere.

  They all started yelling. It wasn’t logical, of course. In their hearts they knew the crew would gladly leave them to burn and sink. Instinct is powerful, though, and when they started smelling the smoke, it simply took over.

  Her heart was pounding in her ears as she screamed her throat raw. She felt the ticklish brush of tears going down her cheeks. So much for the fucking gallows. She was going to fucking burn alive instead. Surrounded by fucking water. She felt her arm pop out of its socket as she struggled. It didn’t matter how often it happened, the pain would cut through her like a sword every time. The only things that changed over the years was her ability to stop screaming bloody murder about it. If she wasn't so devout, she thought to herself, she might be cursing Nairu right about now.

  She was about to, too, as the hatch to the hold swung open with a squeak and a slam and, with a dying scream, a uniformed body fell through it and landed on the floor of the hold with a wet thud. Droplets of water and blood and who knows what else peppered Gan's face before she could turn away.

  Smoke poured into the hold in earnest now, filling their lungs and replacing the yells with desperate coughing. Gan squinted through her tears and could sort of make out a figure silhouetted by the flickering light outside. They were also able to make out the shouts more. Not just fire. Pirates. There was fighting, screaming, gunshots, and the distinct thudding of bodies hitting the deck.

  A sense of urgency rose within Gan. Intense, overwhelming anxiety. Whatever needed to happen, needed to happen now, but it's not like they could move. If only they could move.

  "Someone give me a fucking torch, I can't see a thing down there!", the figure yelled back at the melee, punctuated by coughs.

  Gan and the others went silent, aside from their reflexive coughing. Pirates might well be a worse fate than what awaited her. They weren't known for bothering keeping people alive even as a formality. Life on the seas was difficult enough without having to waste food and a latrine with a fucking ship full of pilgrims. At least the Nazari authorities would've given them some nominal semblance of due process, even for the sake of appearances. A kangaroo court and a 2-meter drop somehow felt better than walking a plank at sword point.

  "It smells like shit down here, what in the hells?"

  A torch crossed the threshold of open hatch, into what Gan could now see was the middle of the night. The torch waved around a bit, before a head popped down and looked at her, only to immediately go back up, taking the light with them.

  "Priso--"

  The voice cut off. Gan clenched... everything, really. Then, the clang of metal against metal, followed by a loud gunshot. The clanging stopped.

  "Prisoners! They have a bunch of fucking prisoners! I'm going down there, cover my ass!", there was a pause, "And give me another torch!"

  The torch from the threshold flew down, thunking against what was a fortunately dryer patch of the hold's floor. For the first time in days, the space was lit. Gan didn't need to see to know what was there, but she looked anyway. She couldn't help it, really. And she immediately regretted it.

  "Hey! All of you! Eyes on me. Now." A short yodh hurried down the stairs. He grimaced as he took in the scene, careful about where his feet finally landed. Torch in one hand, double-barreled pistol in the other. It was still smoking, the scent burning at Gan’s nose.

  He waved the flame around, revealing various sections of the hold as he got a closer look, expression perfectly unreadable. He was tiny, Gan could tell now. Clearly an adult yodh. Short even for a Nazari one, yet spoke and walked carried himself like someone twice his size.

  "You," he looked straight at Gan. Eye to eye, piercing and commanding, "Can you stand? And yes I'll fucking untie you first. You look strong, and I need you to help the others." He hurried over and swapped his pistol for a large knife (or a small cutlass? By Nairu, he was like 150cm), and started sawing through the thick, itchy rope that had been digging into Gan’s wrists. She just stared at his face as he worked.

  "Yes I know I'm very pretty now please answer my question." He didn't look up.

  "No, sorry, I--", she stopped herself, "Yes, I can help, let me help. Sorry about that, I was just surprised. Just tell me what to do."

  Right as the bindings unraveled onto Gan's lap, the yodh slapped the tiny machete into Gan's hand, "This ship ain't gonna be floating that much longer, and it's going to be a nice wood-fired oven before it even sinks, so unless you want to be a nice, soggy, toasty baked loaf, get to work, help the others, and get your ass up on deck before our ship has to get away from this mess. Can you do that?"

  Gan looked at the knife. He just gave her a knife. He didn't even know if she was dangerous.

  "Hey. It's not brain time, it's slicey-slicey time. We good?"

  Gan snapped it of it and nodded to the yodh. She was pretty sure she caught a small smirk in the dim light as the pirate turned around and went back into the fray.

  As she started to move, a shock of pain reminded her of her arm and she cursed and grumbled to. She had to do it right now, then.

  So she placed her other hand on the elbow of the useless, limp arm, and pulled up. Hard. She didn’t even make a sound. She’d done this a thousand times by more and it didn’t suck any less but at least she knew what to expect.

  No brain time. Get to work time.

  They were encouraged to rest after all that. Some of the crew even yielded their hammocks to the elders. The pilgrims had a chance to scrub themselves with fresh water and everything. The quartermaster told them to go slow with the hard tack and water; that they would all have a terrible time if they downed too much too fast after days of deprivation. At least one of them didn’t heed that advice.

  Gan kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. They were all too kind. She even had a cry about it as she curled up on the floor of the crew quarters with a huge, warm blanket around her.

  The pilgrims were all woken up early the next morning and told to muster on the deck. The captain was ready for them.

  So this is where they would have final judgment passed on them, Gan thought, her back popping audibly as she stood up and stretched. Far. A crew member stared in amazement at just how far. She laughed as she always did.

  “Remember to do your stretches, yeah?”

  She punctuated that with a smile joined the others upstairs. She was used to brushing those reactions off. It was better to leave out the part where she was often tired, in pain, or she would be doing perfectly mundane things only for her shoulder to pop out of its socket. The part where her body was like a doll held together by loose string and the world was a child twisting its limbs in inhuman ways.

  What else are you gonna do?

  When she found her way up on the deck, the sea breeze filled her nose with its salty petrichor and the sun kissed her skin like a warm lover greeting her first thing in the morning.

  By Nairu, everyone smelled so much better, too.

  They all stopped glancing at each other and around the ship and crew surrounding them at the loud slam of a door across from them. They snapped to attention in a line, stiffening, for some reason trying to give their best impression of proper sailors preparing for a formal inspection.

  Before the door stood an absolutely enormous aleph. Taller than her, even. Comically close to her mental image of a pirate, with her equally enormous tricorn hat, long coat with ruffled sleeves, and saber at her side.

  Her left eye was covered by an eyepatch, her face contorted in what was probably a permanent resting tav face.

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  She stepped closer, and her voice boomed, scaring a seagull that had perched nearby, “So! Y’all have freshened up! Good, good. Have mercy on our noses, ya know?” She laughed at her own joke, her belly bouncing along. No one else shared her jocularity.

  “I’m not throwing y'all o’erboard, don’t ya worry ‘bout that.” She grinned, looking at each one of them. A dozen or so shoulders visibly relaxed. Gan's didn't.

  She cupped the top of her hat and lifted it, dipping her chin ever-so-slightly. “Name’s Cap’n Mia Sterlin'. I tell the crew t’call me Chum but only like two of ‘em do and they roll their eyes every time.”

  She popped her hat back in place and beamed at the pilgrims, showing mostly missing teeth, the remaining ones clearly in less than ideal condition. She spread her arms wide, “Welcome ‘board the Stardust, finest merchant vessel this side o’ the Isles.”

  Gan clearly let her guard down, because she actually laughed.

  And then the Captain drew her saber.

  No one moved. Definitely not Gan, who suddenly found herself with the tip of a saber touching just under her chin. Definitely not her fellows. No one from the crew, either, whose expressions did not betray anything about what they thought of what was happening.

  She could feel every eye on that deck focused on that one point. The Captain looked dead serious.

  "We are a merchant vessel. We have always been a merchant vessel. If you have any reason to believe otherwise, you can take a look at the fine wares in our hold and judge for yourself." Her manner of speaking completely changed. Her voice dropped. She sounded just like the officials back in Nazari who would come by to collect rice from her village--the dues owed to the palace. It dripped of the same venom.

  The Captain stepped closer, tip of the saber pressing against her skin, threatening to draw blood, and looked down at Gan. Their eyes met. Gan really wasn't used to looking up at anyone.

  When she responded, she spoke slowly, carefully, yet firmly. "Understood, Captain. We're all grateful for you rescuing us from our sinking barge. I don't know what we would've done if your ship hadn't found us when it did." Gan frowned, Captain Sterling looking between one eye and the other, judging each and every word. Hopefully, that's what she wanted to hear.

  The blade withdrew and found its way back into its sheathe.

  Captain Sterling laughed again and patted Gan’s shoulder as if she were an old buddy of hers, “Oh, yer welcome! Can’t just, like, leave a buncha folks to drown, y’know? I’m glad you’re safe. So very glad.” She smiled wide. It seemed like the most genuine thing in the world, not a hint of the darkness from before behind it. Gan didn’t even know what to think anymore.

  “Yer prob’ly wonderin’ what happens now. And that depends on where y’were headed!” She took a few steps backs and crossed her arms, looking over the devotees assembled before her.

  “If I were t’tell ya a lil bird told me there’s a lil island that them Nairu cultists somehow find their way to where they’re welcome ‘n stuff, would that ring any bells?”

  “We’re not cultists!!” shouted one of the other pilgrims, someone Gan hadn’t really gotten a chance to know much yet.

  “By Nairu will you shut the fuck up, Ted?”

  The pilgrims murmured among themselves in agreement, some of them slinging similar abuse at Ted. Gan kept her words to herself.

  Of course the Captain found it absolutely hilarious, laughing so hard that by the time she managed to stop, she was wiping tears from her eyes.

  “Well, kids, yer in luck, ‘cause I know a place and maybe y’all can just tag along. This ain’t a B&B, though, so I’ll have ye workin’ on… somethin’.” She made a point of looking around, then curled her fingers towards someone among the crew.

  A yodh stepped forward. Short and petite, Gan recognized him right away: the same one who had freed her the night before. Now, in the daytime, she could take a good look at her for the first time as he turned to face them. He was breathtaking. She swallowed.

  Captain Sterling stepped behind him and put her hands on his shoulders, “This ‘ere’s Marama Cariad. He’s my quartermaster. That means he’s my right hand and I trust him more than anyone else on this merchant vessel.” She smirked and looked at Gan as she stressed the words. She was too distracted to notice.

  “He will be assigning you whatever he wants you to do for the next few weeks—“ she paused for a moment, looking around, curious about further objections. Everyone had learned their lesson by now, of course. “At which point we’ll drop y’all off in Temoo, and y’all can go right back to whatever journey y’all were on.”

  She leaned forward and whispered something in the quartermaster’s ear, and got a nod in return. Then, she let go of him and looked around the rest of the crew, raisingb her arms, “A’ight the rest o’ ya, hoist the sails and let’s turn this lil one back East. We’ll be in the open blue fer a while!”

  With that, she stepped away, and the quartermaster stepped forward. Towards Gan, specifically. “Hi again,” he grinned and lowered his voice, leaning forward and looking up at her playfully, hands behind his back, “You know, you can stop staring now.”

  Gan was pretty sure that wasn’t just the heat of the sun on her cheeks. She really has been staring this entire time, barely paying attention. “Oh uh—”

  “Chill, I won’t bite. I know I don’t exactly look like I fit in.” He looked back at his crewmates, hurrying to their respective positions on deck. “They won’t bite, either. Good crowd.” There was an obvious fondness in his voice, “We all care. The Captain cares, too. You’re in good hands.”

  Marama put on his best welcoming smile for the others as he turned to address them, too , “It’s good to have you on board. I will be finding busywork for you, but you’re free to go for now and just rest. You’ve been through a lot. Take the time you need.”

  Various pilgrims expressed their gratitude and offered blessings before wandering off—some back below decks, some off to explore the rest of the upper deck or find excuses to help the crew that had now gotten fairly busy.

  “How many of you were on your barge?” Marama asked once it was just the two of them standing together, watching the others from afar.

  It took a few moments venue Gan finally felt enough awareness of everything else around her that she noticed the fresh breeze blowing in her hair, the gentle bobbing of the ship in the waves.

  Her words came out like a whisper, her voice tense trying to stop itself from cracking. With her awareness came the rest of reality. “Around fifty of us. Maybe a dozen children. Two pregnant carriers.”

  Marama nodded. Just once. He closed his eyes and Gan could hear him pull a chestful of air in through his nose. There were no children on this ship. Or anyone visibly pregnant.

  When he opened his eyes, his voice was gentle, “Please go rest. I’ll bring you all a meal in a bit.” He looked up and glassy eyes met Gan’s, “anything else you need for now?”

  Gan looked away. She wasn’t ready to see that right now or think of what it meant. To be pitied. Or to be empathized with. Or whatever else that was. It didn’t matter. She didn’t know how to process being felt for right now.

  “No, Quartermaster.”

  “Marama. Please. I’m not your damn boss.”

  He chuckled and pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment. Gan realized it was to wipe his eyes.

  “What’s your name, Pilgrim?”

  “Gan. Gan Fayadh.”

  He smiled wide, the scrunch around his eyes showing how genuine it was, “nice to meet you, Gan. I’m glad you’re here.”

  And for the first time in a long time, Gan really did feel glad she was here.

  They would go on to spend much of the next few weeks together: Marama seemed keenly interested in her life as a Nazarin villager and Gan was sure the task assignments were largely excuses to keep asking her about this or that, or how she felt about it, or what she expected to come next. Gan did feel a bit amused at how many tasks were literally just reaching high places for him. Short people problems.

  One evening, towards the end of their journey to Temoo, as they sat in Marama’s private quarters talking about politics as they’d now taken to fill their time with, he finally asked something Gan realized he’d been holding back, as if afraid of the answer.

  “So what are your plans, once you get all the way to Ottago?”

  Marama was turned away, facing the wall, keeping his hands busy with one of the books that stood in a row on his dresser, flipping through occasional pages as if he hadn’t read each one a thousand times over. It gave Gan time to respond.

  She took a deep breath and leaned forward on the arm chair across the room, “I’m going to find the Osara and join a monastery. And then that’ll be the rest of my life.” It was matter-of-fact for her. It was a plan she’d decided on long ago, as part of coming to terms with the limitations of her body, with the abuses of living within the confines of the Empire, with her growing faith and desire to connect with her ancestors’ ways of life. It had just taken her many years to put it into action.

  He didn’t respond right away. Marama had already stopped pretending the book in his hand was of any interest at the moment and gently shut it, sliding it back into the open space among its siblings. When he spoke, it was soft, vulnerable.

  “I need you to know something about me. And I need you to know that you’re the only one on this ship who will know, if you consent to hearing me out.” He didn’t turn to her, just spoke at the wall. He lightly gripped the corners of the dressers as if bracing himself.

  “I’m here. You can talk to me, Mara.”

  They had grown so close in such a short amount of time, but it was clear that what they had found in each other was rare, even unique.

  Marama took a deep breath and started talking, keeping his voice as level and measured as he could manage.

  Gan sat there, putting in her best effort to mask her astonishment as he shared his story.

  Everything made sense the more he spoke. His position on the ship. His accent that, until now, she hadn’t quite been able to place. The books. His beauty, for lack of a better term, which was clearly not just natural but the result of great care starting during someone’s early years and its ongoing maintenance. His personality. His clear, deep understanding of politics. Marama was not someone who belonged in a place like this.

  Mara told her everything right then, leaving not a single detail out. Gan listened.

  She didn’t know how long he’d been talking when there was a long pause. She stood up, understanding it to mean that he was done, and stepped behind him. “Can I… hug you?”

  “I wasn’t asking for your pity, I just—“

  “—I know.”

  After thinking about it, he nodded his consent, and Gan wrapped her arms around his shoulders. So narrow and delicate. So small in her arms. So different from the larger-than-life attitude he carried himself with around everyone else.

  He reached up and touched her forearm, fingertips caressing the hardened keratin along the outer side that most alephs developed as they became adults. Ran them over the black and white stripe tattoo that decorated it.

  “You smell nice.” He whispered into her arms, his voice pitching higher.

  Her nose against his hair, Gan filled her lungs with his scent, “You do too.” Her voice was deep and husky.

  Their cycles had lined up. They could both tell now. He pressed back against her and she jolted a bit at the sensitive contact.

  “Look I—I don’t want to carry right now. But I still, I mean—“

  “—You don’t have to worry about that. Not with me. I… can’t.” She interrupted him.

  And then she felt his hand there. She bent forward and whimpered into his nape as his fingers explored her. The scent gland was releasing in earnest now. It overwhelmed her senses as it filled her nostrils, making her entire body feel things in a way she’d never experienced before. Even from a yodh, this was just so much.

  “Oh. Yeah ok.” He started, “I get it. Sorry, I just—“

  She bit him. Firmly, on the shoulder, though she didn’t break the skin with her barely-developed tusks. It was all she could do at this point to hold back. Except the sound he made just made it all worse.

  Marama turned around and kissed her, deep, sloppy, and scooted himself onto the dresser, bringing himself closer to her height. He fumbled desperately with the ties of Gan’s skirts as she, in turn, worked to undo his corset.

  Pulling his hair back gently, Gan whispered in Marama’s ear, her own scent gland filling the air of the room, their pheromones intermingling into that powerful musk that way only an aleph and yodh can usually produce together.

  “May I?” She was still playing at being gentle. She was holding back so much even as her body screamed in ways she’d never felt before.

  “Fuck. Yes. Do it already.” He practically hissed at Gan, reaching up and placing his hands behind her head.

  He nearly ripped her hair out as she brought her hips forth, and entered him.

  Much later, as they lay tangled with each other in the comically narrow bed, when they had finally been able to release from each other, Marama nuzzled her broad, soft chest, cool to the touch from the sweat.

  “Stay with me, Gan.”

  She kept her eyes closed, not sure how to respond, aside from pulling him closer using the arm around him. He felt so small against her.

  “I’ll have my own ship soon. My own crew. It can be our crew. I swear to you we can make a better future than one where you have to hide in a cloister.” He looked up at her now, she could feel it. “I vow to you now, by iron, that I will make Nazari a place where you and your people can be free.”

  Gan took a sharp breath. That was a tall order. This tiny, gorgeous yodh. This sailor on a small “merchant” vessel was promising to topple the greatest Empire the Isles had ever known, and he wanted her at his side for it. Spoke as if he needed her.

  Had it been anyone else, she would’ve laughed in his face. Had she not believed the story of where he came from, she might’ve just stormed out of that room.

  But something told her this was the greatest crossroads of her life: to go the easy route, pursue a life of peace away from her oppressors, or to put everything on the line—possibly even her own people—for an unlikely chance to shake the world to its very foundation.

  Yet, if there was anyone who could possibly pull this off, it was definitely Marama Cariad.

  There was only one acceptable answer.