“Why don’t you give her a present?”
“A present?”
“Yeah, but something meaningful. Girls like that. Something that tells her she can still be herself, a Princess of Serpul. She just also now has to be the Princess of Bristola.” Cartari whipped a fish out of the waters with his telekinetic powers and dropped it into the waiting basket. He brushed his sleeve across his brow, sweeping back his dark brown hair. It had a reddish glow in the sunlight. He had a smattering of freckles that dotted his ski-slope nose, a charming, boyish look that girls found irresistible, I knew. He had a square jaw that had been punched far too many times, though he was often good at dodging his way out of fights with his clever tongue and witty remarks.
“Nice shot,” I said. What Cartari said made sense.
“How did you guys first meet? Is there something meaningful from that?”
I laughed. I knew just the thing. “You’re smarter than you look, Cartari.”
“Takes one to know one,” he quipped and flung another fish into the basket.
I quickly called to one of the attending sailors nearby and arranged for Ceritha’s present to be brought to the nearby dock. She would be meeting me there in about an hour. Cartari and I were catching fish for when Ceritha and I were to go out and meet some of the firefins. I figured she had her way of speaking to the most majestic ocean beasts that Farian had, and I had mine.
There would be presents all around, today.
“Do you want to come with us when we go out to meet the animals?”
“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss this. Normally, we are tracking them for days, trying to get them to come near enough to us so we can hit them with a tranq gun. And they have been getting more and more skittish, since we have been trying to get more and more of them for analyzing with the blue flu. So, I want to see this whispering that you are going to do.”
“Well, I am not going to do it, but Ceritha is pretty amazing. And the electricity that comes from speaking to the animals, that’s just something else…”
“You really think what you felt when you touched the firefin was from the fish?” Cartari laughed.
“What do you mean?”
“Sometimes, feeling electricity like that is from a girl you like.”
“And how would you know?” I threw a fish at Cartari instead of the bucket and he sidestepped it, swinging out his own telekinesis to catch the fish and plop it into the bucket. Then he looked at me, quite seriously.
“Hey, girls like me.”
I looked at Cartari, with his rakish charm, quick wit, and laughter that was always quick to his lips, and knew that it was true. He always had one or five girls in the rotation. But, I had never known him to feel love. And that is the only thing that electricity ever referred to. And I had just met Ceritha. There was no way… Nothing but the Curan Destin lore said anything about electricity like that from the beginning. It had to be from the telepathy with the fish.
“Well, whatever it was, I want to feel it again.”
“I shall come along, my liege. I hope to see it in action.”
Cartari and I caught a good few buckets of fish and made our way down to the ship we would be taking to the firefin nesting grounds. It was a pod that I was familiar with and had swum with as a youth. They used to be much friendlier, but we had been doing a lot of research on them. We had likely worn out our welcome. I was truly relying on Ceritha at this point.
The Princess was already at the ship when we arrived, which was good, because I would have a chance to give her the present before we launched. She looked beautiful, in a bright yellow top and black pants and boots, a large straw hat worn over her blazing red hair. Cartari bowed low as he met her and they exchanged pleasantries.
She seemed a bit uneasy as we nodded hello to each other. She had trouble meeting my eyes, but I smiled at her as warmly as I could. She blushed a little and looked away. I couldn’t understand the blushing, but it was better than immediate dismissal, I figured.
“I have a present for you, if you please, Princess,” I said. “Will you follow me?” She nodded and stepped into the path beside me, quiet, but not the angry quiet I had come to expect from her. Something had definitely shifted within her. Maybe she was just excited about the prospect of getting started on the mission for why she was here.
I led her out onto the docks and smiled as I saw it. I was quite pleased with what my sailors had acquired for me, just from the quick detailed orders I had given. My men and women were well trained. I stopped in front of a small, trim sailboat, nice wood lines, 12-foot-long, an almost exact replica of the sailboat Ceritha had been sailing on Serpul when we met. The only difference was that this one had a sail the turquoise of Serpul’s ocean waters.
“This is for you, Princess,” I said, gesturing to the boat. “I want you to know that you always have access to the oceans, that you are always free here, even when you are tied to the shores with me.”
Ceritha’s hand covered her mouth as it dropped open a moment, her eyes widened with awe, then her hands brushed the wooden accent lines of the little boat and she ran her fingers along the tethering line.
“It’s for me?”
