Chapter 35: Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It...

I now have an editor, so you all shouldn’t need to put up with my typos and poor/dyslexic editing skills anymore. :)

Kendra lay in her hammock looking up at the underside of the Argo’s weather deck. Her cheeks ached slightly from smiling so much. She figured that she must’ve been smiling in her sleep for them to feel like this. She used a bit of mana to heal the over-strained muscles, and then smiled at the necessity of doing so.

“You awake?” Selene called from another hammock.

There were four hammocks in the ladies’ area, arranged in a square. Anthiel slept in the forward starboard hammock and Rachel had previously slept in the forward port hammock. That put Selene in the rear starboard hammock and Kendra in the rear port hammock, which had been Alana’s at one time apparently.

“Yeah, why?” Kendra leaned out slightly and looked down so she could see the drop-dead gorgeous Brazilian woman, who was doing the same. They slept with their feet facing each other.

“Just curious.” She replied. “I’ve been laying here trying to find my mana for a while now, but I can’t even feel it.”

“Finding your mana can take a while; it did for me.”

“I’ll keep at it then.” The Brazilian woman sighed. “I just hope I’ll be good at something for a change.”

The dragon huntress looked up at her. “What do you mean?”

Selene hesitated, then shook her head. “Never mind. Rachel said that there’s a theory that a person will have an affinity for the first kind of magic that’s used on him. Do you think there’s any truth to that?”

“That’s an old wives’ tale.” Kendra shook her head. “However, one of my teachers said that if a person had a strong experience with magic before he learned to manipulate his own mana, he might have an affinity for the magic that was used on him.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, he said it was like baking bread.” She explained. “The strong magic pushes the bread into a shape, and then learning to move your mana is like ‘baking’ the bread so it stays in that shape.”

“Interesting.” The Brazilian woman mused. She sounded...

Sad?

Disappointed in herself?

“Is something wrong?” Kendra asked.

“I keep getting my ass kicked by Ethan in training, and there’s not much I can contribute here besides my sword arm, so I feel kind of useless.”

“He’s been practicing a lot longer than you have. It’ll take time.”

“I appear to have a lot of that.”

“Oh?”

Selene nodded, then leaned back into her hammock. “Yeah. It’ll be a while before we get time to deal with Smithbond and I get to go home.” She made a thoughtful sound. “Well, at least I’ll get to go home temporarily.”

“Yeah, from the sounds of it, the secret government organizations are just as bad on Ethan’s world as they are here.”

Selene looked up again. “You sound as if you speak from experience.”

Kendra hesitated before replying. “I’ve seen things.”

The ex-FBI agent made a thoughtful sound. “I asked Taloni about you a while back, and she said that you said you were a ‘problem eliminator’. Sounds pretty first hand to me.”

“Fair.” Kendra replied. “I hear you were a constable of some kind on Ethan’s world. How did you achieve that without knowing the sword?”

“We used guns, and I’m a pretty good shot.”

Kendra nodded, remembering that Ethan had described guns when recounting his story. “Well, I can’t get a gun for you, but I can certainly teach you how to handle a sword better. In fact...” The dragon huntress looked around the room. “ ... we can do a little sparring before breakfast down below, since it’s important to learn how to fight in an enclosed space. Interested?”

“Absolutely!” Selene replied.

Beth woke up with Ethan’s arms around her and Taloni’s gently fluttering wings tickling her back. She giggled and looked at the Fey, who appeared to still be fast asleep.

Morning angel. Ethan said with a smile, though she could feel the edge of the dragon through their bond.

Good morning Dominus. She thought back as she snuggled closer to him. I really missed this while you were captured.

Me too angel, me too. He replied. Fortunately, you should never have to deal with that again.

I hope so. She replied with a sigh. My father will be really mad that you married more women than just me though, so I’m worried he’ll try to separate the others from you. I know they’d hate it as much as I would.

Never. Going. To. Happen. The dragon thought back, and if he’d been speaking it probably would’ve come out as a growl.

I’m glad, but he still won’t be happy about your other wives.

I thought that was legal here? He replied, a bit of Ethan coming back.

It is, but-- The blonde stopped as she heard a contented sigh from Ethan’s other side. She lifted her head to see Rachel and Alana sleeping in each other’s arms, the redhead’s back snuggled up to Ethan’s. She couldn’t see Rachel’s face, but Alana looked rapturously content.

She frowned. Is it just me, or do they look almost ... I don’t know; like a couple?

Ethan chuckled. You finally noticed huh?

Wait, ‘finally’? This isn’t new?

Ethan outright laughed at that. Not by a long stretch, but I don’t mind. Actually, I think it’s kind of cute.

Oh. Was all Beth could think to reply. She vaguely remembered learning that some women liked other women the way women like men, but she’d never met any of them.

Well, apparently she had.

“Hmm?” Rachel yawned as she started stretching, probably woken by Ethan laughing.

“Somfing fny masser?” Taloni mumbled as she also started waking and stretching.

About a minute later, three bleary eyed women were yawning and stretching while Beth enjoyed snuggling with their husband. As usual, Rachel was a bit more reserved about her stretching, and she made sure the sheet was covering her while she did. Ethan retracted his wings and lay on his back, pulling Rachel closer on his left and Beth closer on his right. He looked at his two remaining wives, then frowned.

“Well ladies, we’ve got this huge new bed, let’s see if we can’t get everyone snuggled up with the new space.”

Alana rolled so she was lower than Rachel and Taloni mirrored her, so the two women were laying with her heads on Ethan’s stomach, while the other two were laying their heads on his chest. He reached down as far as he could and managed to sort of get his arms around all four of them.

“Ah, that’s better.” He sighed looking at all of them.

Beth smiled at him, so incredibly grateful that she was here with him. She found it odd, but she even liked his smooth scales against her skin.

“So, you were about to explain why your dad doesn’t like multiple wives.” Ethan said to her.

“Yes, so his mother was a second wife.” Beth explained. “But his stepfather -- my step-grandfather -- didn’t really want to marry her. He was kind of pressured into it because she was his brother’s widow, and she needed someone to provide for her after her first husband -- my grandfather -- died.”

“I take it she wasn’t treated well?” Rachel asked.

“No, she wasn’t.” Beth nodded sadly. “It really is a shame; Grams is such a nice woman, but she had a hard life and was treated very badly.”

“How badly are we talking here?” Ethan asked.

“She was basically made to be a maid, near the level of a slave.” The blonde said sadly. “The other wife was treated very well, and so were her kids, but not Grams or her kids. My father and his siblings were basically servants in the house. I once heard Grams saying that the only time he paid any attention to her was when she made a mistake or he wanted sex.”

“That’s awful.” Alana’s face fell.

“It doesn’t happen often, but I’ve heard of marriages like that.” Rachel said with a similarly sad expression. “The Book of Light is clear that husbands must take care of their wives, and usually a husband is castigated by the community if he doesn’t. If he doesn’t straighten up, the community will ‘correct’ him for it.”

“Why didn’t that happen here?” He asked.

“My step-grandfather was good at hiding it.” Beth replied. “Apparently, he would occasionally beat her but make sure the bruises didn’t show, and then he would be nice to her in public, but basically ignore her in private. Well, unless he wanted something.”

“Oh.” Alana cocked her head to one side, like something had just occurred to her. “Your father is worried that’ll happen to you because of Ethan and I. He wanted to marry me originally, but he was sort of pressured into marrying you, and your father is worried that Ethan will be like his stepfather.”

“I would guess so.” Beth nodded. That made a lot of sense, and she kind of knew it somewhere in the back of her mind but hadn’t really thought about it consciously.

“Hmm, so I need to convince Lord Borden that I won’t treat you like that.” Ethan mused.

“I don’t think you can.” Beth replied. “Grams got to be the perfect little actress and she was able to convince anyone that she was madly in love with her abusive husband and was so grateful that he’d married her. I’m not sure anything you or I said would make a difference.”

“And I don’t suppose anything his other wives said would carry weight either.” Rachel added.

“Gram’s fellow wife was also pretty mean to her in private, but treated her like a sister in public.” Beth shook her head. “So probably not.”

“What about Anthiel or Serif?” Taloni asked. “They know you all treat us well master, maybe they could vouch for us?”

“That might help.” Beth said. “But I doubt that alone would convince my father. He might assume that Ethan is good at hiding it.”

“I mean, I literally fought a necromancer and crossed worlds to bring you back from the dead.” Ethan pointed out. “Won’t that count for something?”

“Maybe!” Beth exclaimed brightly.

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Rachel said as she backed off a bit and propped herself up on her elbows, though the sheets still covered her pretty well. “Things like this aren’t usually logical; they’re more emotional. If he had a bad experience his entire childhood, it’ll color his view of everything without him realizing it.”

“Yeah, good point.” Ethan frowned, then looked at Beth. “And you don’t think that Anthiel or Serif’s word would be enough?”

She smiled back into his green, cat-like dragon eyes. “It won’t hurt, but I doubt it’ll be enough to convince him.”

“I hate to say this, but we should think about the worst case scenario.” Rachel said.

Ethan grimaced. ‘Which is?”

The redhead took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He could take the Argo. I doubt he’d hurt any of us, if for no other reason than you’re reputed to be a prophet of Illuminar. But the Argo does belong to him; we’re technically just borrowing it.”

“That would be bad.” He nodded.

“Especially for Kendra.” Taloni pointed out. “We just told her last night that she could make the Argo her home.”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “I think she’d be okay if she could stay with us, and worst case scenario we could get passage back to Nalatia. I’m sure The King or Navaro would put us up for a bit, and maybe get us another airship, but I’d rather not.” He looked around the captain’s cabin. “I don’t know, the Argo is really starting to feel like home.”

“Now that Kendra’s is here?” Taloni gave him a teasing smile.

He rolled his eyes and chuckled.

“Regardless, we should tell Kendra.” Alana suggested. “Especially given the invitation for her to stay with us last night, she should know.”

“Agreed.” He nodded.

“Get off the horse.”

Sarah jerked awake from her attempt to sleep atop the horse. It was early morning and they had been riding all night. Not fast, but continuously. They had taken so many turns on the roads that she was hopelessly lost and obviously quite far from home.

“Hey, chin up; it’ll be okay.” Lady Ekthros said from beside her, though she looked quite worried at the guards around her. Sarah was incredibly glad that she was here; she had been nothing but kind to her.

They had stopped near a large earthen ramp which led up to an airship that was docked at the top. The soldiers were dismounting and tying their horses to nearby horse hitches. It looked like a tiny little outpost. They’d exited the forest, and she could see unfamiliar rolling green hills stretching into the horizon. Despite the situation, it was a good view and she was grateful for it.

It cheered her up slightly.

She silently prayed. Illuminar, I know I can’t escape this, but please help Lady Ekthros escape. She’s been so nice and I would hate to see something bad happen to her because of me. And please make me good.

One of the soldiers roughly pulled her off the horse, grabbed her by the arm, and started half-pulling, half-dragging her towards the ramp up to the airship. Lady Ekthros wasn’t far behind, being likewise pulled along by another soldier.

They were dragged onto an airship which was about the same size as Ethan’s, though not nearly as nice. The wood had an aged look to it, like this ship was old and not very well taken care of. It was clearly a military vessel, and the dozen soldiers milling about the deck made that obvious.

She gulped.

They brought the two women below decks and dragged them to the rear of the ship to a small steel cell. Sarah and Lady Ekthros were roughly thrown into the cell and the door was locked behind them.

“Now I don’t want no trouble from you bitches, you hear?” One of the soldiers said. He had a nasty wart on his cheek and didn’t look like he even knew what a bath was; the stench coming off him was all but confirmation of that. “You cause us any trouble, and I might just let the boys have some fun.”

He made a lewd thrusting motion with his hips to drive the point home.

Lady Ekthros gave him a scathing look while Sarah retreated behind the older woman. The auburn-haired woman didn’t look as scared as Sarah felt, but there was a waver in her cold expression; she must be scared too, just hiding it better.

He scoffed and left the room, leaving the two women alone.

Sarah sat down, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. It would be okay, at least she hoped it would be. Gabriella had promised that life would get hard, and this was certainly hard. But it would get better.

The angel had said so.

“Hey, come here.” Lady Ekthros said as she sat down next to her and pulled her close, wrapping her arms around the innkeeper’s daughter. “It’ll be okay; we’ll get through this.”

Sarah nodded, wishing more than anything that Ethan was here. He could help. He was the prophet of Illuminar and such a good man. He could help ... if only he knew.

Sadly, he didn’t.

“We can figure a way out of this.” Lady Ekthros said.

“I wish...” She said, then stopped.

“You wish ... what?” The auburn haired woman prompted.

“I wish the prophet of Illuminar knew that we were here. He could help.” She admitted.

Something about the older woman’s body language changed. She suddenly seemed stiffer and less open, like she knew something that she didn’t want to share.

She spoke after a moment, but did so in a very diplomatic tone. “Maybe he could.”

“You don’t think he would?” Sarah asked.

“I didn’t say that exactly.” Lady Ekthros said delicately.

“But you meant it, didn’t you?”

She hesitated a moment before answering. “I’m ... I’m not as convinced about him as most people.”

“Why?”

“I really shouldn’t say.” She replied.

“Why?”

“He’s...” Lady Ekthros hesitated, then shook her head. “It doesn’t matter; he’s not coming so there’s no reason to shatter the image.” She said this, then inhaled sharply like she’d said too much.

Shatter the image?

What did she mean?

She’d met Ethan and knew him to be a good person, but Lady Ekthros seemed to think he wasn’t.

Why?

She was an advisor to a lord, so perhaps she knew something that other people didn’t? She couldn’t imagine what it would be though. Given all that he had done, it seemed impossible that he wasn’t a good person.

He must be a good person...

Right?

Kendra mostly listened as Ethan and his wives laid out the situation with Lord Borden over breakfast. When they had finished, she asked the only question that was on her mind. Well actually she hesitated, took a deep breath and then asked.

“If you’re forced to leave the Argo, can I come with you?”

“Of course.” Ethan replied immediately. “I meant what I said last night. And while it might not be on the Argo, you’re welcome to travel with us wherever we go.”

“Thank you.” She nodded. “Then, I have a confession to make: I think I’m partially responsible for Lord Borden knowing that you have multiple wives.”

“Oh?” Beth asked.

“Yeah.” Kendra replied to the blonde. “He asked about you when I went to confirm Ethan’s story. I didn’t want to give anything away, so I simply said that you were happy and getting along well with your fellow wives. I thought that was the minimum I could say to put a father at ease. I’m sorry.”

Ethan shrugged. “He would’ve found out anyway.”

Beth nodded. “It seemed like half of Ivernia knew that Ethan had multiple wives by the time we stopped to pick up Selene, so he would’ve found out soon anyway.”

“There’s another thing.” The dragon huntress said. “He sort of insinuated I wasn’t welcome in the city anymore after I told him that I wouldn’t let Taloni be hurt or separated from you.”

The Fey beamed.

“I mean, you can stay outside if you want.” Ethan said. “We can drop you somewhere outside the city and pick you up when we leave if you’d prefer.”

She hesitated only a moment before shaking her head. “No, I haven’t broken any laws and he’ll need something significant to charge me. Plus, if I arrive with all of you it would seem suspicious if something happened to me. I’d like to come with.”

“You’re welcome to.” Ethan smiled.

“So, what should we do when we arrive then?” Kendra asked. Then she realized that she had just included herself in the Argo’s crew by saying ‘we’.

Hmm.

She liked that.

“I’m not sure there’s much we can do except hope for the best.” Ethan said. “I figure we’ll just tell him what happened and hope he understands.”

Kendra noticed that Beth glanced down slightly and bit her lip. “Beth, you don’t think that will work?”

“I hope it will.” The blonde replied. “I know one thing about my father though; he often says that ‘talk is copper, actions are gold’.”

Selene chuckled. “Yeah, we have a similar saying on Earth.”

“I’m not sure what actions we could take to convince him though.” Ethan said rubbing his chin.

“Also, you might not want to tell him that I died.” Beth grimaced. “He won’t take that well, despite the fact that I came back from the dead.”

“Maybe master could tell him about his conversation with Illuminar.” Taloni suggested with a slight flutter of her wings. “Surely that would help.”

Beth shook her head. “I doubt it. No one else was there to corroborate the story.”

“Well, you could tell him all about Gabriella then.” The Fey countered.

“Then I would have to tell him that I died.” She replied. “That wouldn’t be good. Like I said, one of my father’s favorite sayings is ‘talk is copper, actions are gold’.”

“We should all brainstorm and see what we can come up with.” Ethan shook his head. “We have a couple of days before we arrive.”

After breakfast ended, Kendra realized for the first time that she didn’t have any idea what the Argo’s crew did to pass the time. She helped clean up from breakfast as best she could, though she didn’t know where anything went. It seemed that Selene had sort of taken over that job though, and she felt slightly in the way.

Ethan’s wives all followed Alana to the boxes containing the weapons that Graflex had forged. The wood elf started enchanting by the looks of it, and the others helped by donating mana. Taloni donated first, and when she was done she walked up to Ethan.

“Ready master?” She asked brightly.

“Always.” He grinned back.

They both took to the sky and it seemed like this was something of a morning ritual for them. They didn’t fly very far away from the Argo, but they seemed to enjoy themselves. It rather reminded Kendra of a couple taking a morning walk, only it was a morning fly instead. After about ten minutes, Taloni started to droop slightly in her flight and they returned to the Argo. That’s when the dragon huntress realized that she wasn’t wearing the weight reduction necklace; she was flying all on her own.

Kendra smiled.

It wasn’t long ago that the Fey girl needed the necklace to fly that long, now she could do it under her own strength. The raven-haired woman guessed that before long the Fey would be able to fly as long as a human could walk. That brought a smile to her face.

By the time Ethan had returned, Alana appeared to have finished working with what she was enchanting, and she presented the training sword to Ethan. “Here you go; all done. I gave the entire thing a self-repairing enchantment and primed it for a summoning enchantment. A drop of deep mana is all it takes to finish it.”

Ethan took the sword, concentrated for a moment, then hurled it into the air. It was pointed towards him when he started summoning, but it righted itself in mid-air and flew towards him hilt first. He caught it deftly and spun it expertly.

“Damn, I still can’t get over how amazing this feels in the hand.” He said after a moment.

He activated the hilt extension and spun it like a spear, then deactivated it and started moving it like a sword again. Kendra had to admit that it was a pretty clever weapon.

“Wanna spar?” Selene asked him.

“Sure.” He replied, then frowned. “I should probably do it with my armor on though, just so I get used to it.”

“Oh, you finished the armor then?” Kendra asked.

Ethan got a massive grin on his face. “Check this out.”

He spread his arms out, and then Kendra saw a bunch of white armor plates fly out from the direction of the captain’s cabin. They flew to him and stuck to his body, almost instantly curving down and locking into place, covering him from head to toe in armor. His hands were only partially armored though, and it looked like some of the smaller plates hadn’t been finished yet.

Still, it was impressive.

The armor had pretty good coverage considering it was all plates and no chainmail. There were gaps between the plates of course, but they weren’t very large. A skilled swordsman could target the gaps, but most ordinary fighters wouldn’t have a chance.

Ethan finished locking the pieces of armor into place and got a massive grin on his face. “Pretty cool right?!”

“It is.” Kendra agreed, and he noticed that there wasn’t an edge in her voice. Now that he thought about it, there really hadn’t been an edge in her tone since the previous evening.

Hmm.

The change was good.

“Ready?” Selene asked, then hesitated. “So, do I need to hit the gaps?”

“Nah.” Ethan shook his head. “We’ll call them as hits like I’m unarmored. I mostly want to get used to the feeling and weight.”

“Okay.” The Brazilian woman nodded, then turned to Kendra. “You want to call go?”

The dragon huntress smiled, and he got the feeling that she liked being included.

“Ready ... Begin.” She called.

Ethan raised his practice blade, ready for his first actual sparring session with the new weapon. Selene raised her sword and shield and slowly advanced with nearly her entire body protected by the large kite shield. He activated the hilt extension and aimed a thrust up high to move her shield out of position. She batted the tip of his blade away with her shield, and simultaneously stepped in to close the distance. He retracted the hilt extension to get weapon into sword form, then--

His vision blurred slightly and time slowed for a split second as he saw Selene aim a high descending blow.

His vision cleared just as Selene aimed a high descending blow. Startled, by the sudden change in vision, he leapt backwards and shook his head slightly.

Obviously able to tell that something was wrong, the Brazilian woman lowered her weapons. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I think so.” He frowned. “My vision just got slightly blurry there for a moment. Let’s keep going.”

Selene nodded and raised her weapons as Ethan raised his. They nodded at each other, then Selene charged forward. He responded by switching to spear form and aiming a thrust at her legs, which she blocked with her shield. He took a step back to gain distance and switched to sword mode just as--

His vision blurred slightly and time slowed for a split second as Selene began an artful flat-blade thrust.

Time began to move normally again, just as Selene began an artful flat-blade thrust. He parried it with difficultly and took a step back to get more distance, but Selene wouldn’t let him have it. Covering nearly her entire body with her kite shield, she pressed the attack, starting to--

His vision blurred slightly and time slowed for a split second as Selene began a diagonal slice aimed at his torso.

Time began to move normally again, just as Selene began a diagonal slice aimed at his torso.

“Stop!” He called as he jumped back, shaking his head and feeling somewhat disoriented by his vision changing so rapidly.

To her credit, Selene immediately pulled her strike and even looked a little concerned. “Seriously, are you okay? I’ve never been able to press the attack like that before.”

“I don’t know.” He said, then thought. Taloni, can you come over here?

The Fey was at his side in seconds. “Yes master?”

“I’m having a weird thing with my vision, can you check me out?”

The Fey got a pink tinge in her cheeks and thought to him. You are perfectly sexy master.

He rolled his eyes and chuckled. Not how I meant that.

She smiled coyly at him, then put her hand on his head and closed her eyes for nearly a minute. “I don’t see anything master.”

“What’s wrong?” Selene asked as his other wives came up, all looking a bit concerned.

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “My vision went slightly blurry for a moment and then I saw...” He cocked his head to one side. “I saw your attack a split second before you started it.”

Selene gaped at him. “You’re kidding.”

“No.” He shook his head. “But it wasn’t anything like you might think. It was incredibly distracting and disorienting, and that’s without the vision blurring.”

Selene frowned. “Did you vision actually blur, or were you just seeing two things at the same time so close together in time that it appeared to blur?”

He opened his mouth to reply, closed it, then scratched the top of his head. “You know, I think you might be right. If so, then this whole spider-sense, predicting the future thing is a non-starter; it’s so disorienting that I could barely fight.”

“When you enchanted yourself, did you try for all danger?” Rachel asked.

“I did.” He replied.

“Maybe that’s the problem.” Kendra suggested. “You don’t really need to be informed of danger you’re already aware of, just danger you aren’t aware of.

“Good point.” He grinned at her. “That means I’ll need to disenchant what I’ve already done and restart from scratch. I’ll take being warned of a surprise attack, even if it’s a little disorienting. Plus, it should get less disorienting the further out I can see.”

Ethan closed his eyes and focused on removing what he’d enchanted so far. It took nearly a minute, but he was able to without much trouble. After he’d finished, it occurred to him that he’d never disenchanted himself before and yet had no trouble with it. He was thankful that what Alana had said on his first night in the Ten Kingdoms still held true; dragons could use magic instinctively. Of course, he was rubbish at enchanting anything other than himself, but he had the lovely wood elf for that.

“Okay, disenchantment done.” He announced. “I’ll start back up with the new enchantment tonight, though judging by the last one it’ll take a few days to work.” He looked at Selene. “Shall we resume?”

As she suspected would happen, Selene got her ass kicked in sparring the rest of the morning. Ethan was back to his usual self and she only landed blows in two matches that morning. As much as it galled her to admit it after having spent half her life training in a dojo, Ethan was a better fighter than she was; at least with weapons. It seemed his real world experience and him being trained by people who actually put their lives on the line when they dueled made a real difference.