Page 3 of Buoy
“Do you like it?”
“Stinks most of the time.” Like dead fish and sewage.
Soren scrunched his nose. “I noticed. But I meant the academy.”
Honestly, Rhys would rather stay full time in Tova. He knew more people there and everyone was friendly. Here, even though everyone knew him, he didn’t have a clue who they were anymore, and they still treated him like a child. He supposed he was still a child. Technically. But he wished they’d not be so condescending. “I love learning magic.” Rhys couldn’t stop the smile from spreading on his face.
“Yeah? What’s your favorite…” Soren’s brows scrunched as he thought. “I don’t know anything about academies.”
“Healing.”
“That’s why you had the crystal yesterday? Did it work?”
Rhys’ shoulders dropped. “Not as well as I had hoped.”
“Oh. Well. I’m sure you’ll find something that will.” Soren fidgeted with something in his hand.
Rhys nodded. There was plenty he hadn’t tried yet. There had to be something. He searched his brain for a question to ask. “Do you like… living on a ship?”
Soren dropped his apple core into the sea and watched it bob away before answering. “I like it for the most part. When Kane leaves me alone. That’s Bellani’s brother.”
“WhoisBellani?” Rhys searched his memory for the knowledge, but came up blank.
“Captain Vex’s life mate. She hates me.”
Rhys tipped his head. How could anyone hate Soren? “Bellani hates you, but Kane is the one that bothers you?”
Soren nodded. “Bellani stays away from me, mostly. But when she’s in a bad mood, I have to lock myself in Vex’s office or hide below deck.”
Well, that was terrifying. Rhys couldn’t say he could relate. “At the academy, if we have problems with someone, we have to talk it out. The teachers are all very nice. They encourage us to think and work things out ourselves.”
Picking at the basket, Soren watched the waves. “If anyone starts a fight on board, we go to shore so they can duel with pistols. If they miss, they fight with swords until someone makes first blood. I don’t like pistols. They’re loud and stink, not as much as the cannons, though. But Vex doesn’t use the cannons all that much. He’d rather use magic to destroy or capture the other ships. Sometimes he shifts to his dragon and…” Soren shivered and squeezed his eyes shut. “He destroys the other ship.”
Rhys swallowed. Battle magic wasn’t something they’d covered at the academy yet. And he could imagine what Soren meant by destroying the ship.
“I don’t like hearing the screams when he does that.” Soren pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs. “There’s no fighting allowed on the ship. It disrupts the chain of command, and Vex is a good captain. He treats everyone fairly.” Soren nodded to himself. “We don’t have to go to shore often for quarrels.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“A few months after Vex brought me on, there was someone that tried to cause a mutiny. But everyone loved Vex and instead those assholes got marooned.”
A high-pitched whistle blared over the waves.
Soren scrambled to his feet. “I have to go. But I should be free tomorrow. If you want to come back?” Without waiting for Rhys to answer, he ran off, his feet quiet on the worn wood.
Rhys blinked, watching that long white hair in the wind.
SOREN (AGE 10)
Over the next week, Rhys came to visit Soren, always bringing food with him. Soren wasn’t sure what to make of the dragon shifter, but he enjoyed his company. A lot. It took three days to get Rhys to tell him more about his magic school. He really wasn’t very talkative, but seemed as lonely as Soren.
Soren couldn’t help his jealousy, though. No one cared enough about him to send him to school. He knew six languages. Okay, only three fluently. He picked them up rather easily. He could figure out the other three if he needed to. But he could only read one language, the one he grew up with… before. And it, along with his native language, were fading from his memory since he hadn’t been exposed to it for so long.
He shut his eyes and shook his head, trying to clear it. Ship life wasn’t so bad. Captain Vex didn’t make him do anything that would cause him too much harm. But there were days Soren didn’t want to crawl through tiny holes or sneak into affluent houses to steal their jewels. He was small and fast, not to mention he could disappear when needed anytime he was in open water.
Rhys munched on an apple, explaining fire magic, but Soren couldn’t have concentrated if he’d wanted to. If he ate anymore, he’d have tummy troubles. He enjoyed watching Rhys eat, liked seeing the subtle fangs. Liked watching the sun catch in his deep auburn hair. Bronzy eyes. The patch of red and orange scales on the back of his neck. What did they feel like? Were they hard? Were they soft like his own?
Dragons were strange creatures, but of all the shifter types Soren had ever known, they were his favorite, aside from his own merfolk. If dragons didn’t have horns and fangs, they’d look practically human, if not overly large. Captain Vex was damn near eight feet tall and muscular. Rhys still had the softness of childhood, but Soren was sure he’d muscle out like most dragons. Though Soren wasn’t sure if dragon muscles were natural, or something they had to work for. Didn’t really care. They made him feel safe. And Captain Vex would never hurt him. He’d promised. Vex’s life mate, on the other hand, the raven shifter and her brother, were cruel.
