"Are you alright Raum?" Vaelora asked with interest.
Raum lowered his hand from his face. Vaelora was still grinning, one canine still peeking out, apparently very pleased with how the conversation had gone.
"Yes, I'm fine," he sighed which didn't really help his case, but it was better than letting his frustration out on the girl he just met. Besides, there was a more pressing issue he needed to resolve first.
"Vaelora?" Raum called out.
Her head perked with interest as if it were a dog being summoned.
"Do you know where I can get a ship? Any will do." Raum said.
"Oh! I know just the place. Capimus has a harbor with a bunch of ships we can take" Vaelora said chest pushed out.
"We?" Raum said in response.
"Yes, we." Vaelora said. She went back up close to Raum, her body heat radiated outward. "I want to steal a Moon too now. That sounds like fun!"
Her eyes were blinking, giving him a pleading look as if she would cry and burst into flames if he said anything but yes.
Raum exhaled softly, already feeling remorse about his decision. "Fine. Don't make me regret this." He extended his hand with a gash out, "You're now a Space Pirate."
Vaelora accepted the hand. The heat from her hand cauterized the wound instantly, though Raum didn't think much of that.
"So do I get a cool role? Oh - Do I get to say shiver me timber? Oh do I-"
"You get to be a crew mate and no one ever says things like that. Talk normally" Raum said beginning to walk away.
"Wait for me!" Vaelora yelled, even if they were no more than five paces away. "Capimus is that way by the way"
She pointed towards the dense wilderness where the gang had emerged from.
"You said there's a harbor, why would we walk through land and not by the sea?"
"It's faster. Trust me, I know my way home" She walked the way she intended.
They began walking, cutting through foliage, debris, and whatever else was in their way.
Raum began to notice his walking form was much more active than it should be. He was used to the constant adjustments required in the air. A sudden wind change, ships shifting course on a dime. Nothing ever stayed the same for too long.
On land, it was the opposite. The ground was still the same as it was five steps ago.
Vaelora's keen eyes noticed.
"You look like you never walked before."
"I'm fine" he said.
"You look like you keep second guessing the steps you're going to take."
"I'm fine" he said louder.
"How long have you been in the air?" she asked
He turned sharply. One look. Then he let it go. "All my life, basically," he said.
"Basically?"
He thought about the last time he ever felt solid ground. Before he was turned to piracy. The early harbor smell, someone's small hand giving him over, a voice he had forgotten about.
"A long time" Raum said turning away.
"Basically?"
"Don't." Raum stopped her before she could repeat his lines again.
"What's it like up there?" Vaelora's eyes looked up at the sky. She stumbled and tripped over a fallen branch, but continued walking like nothing happened.
Raum had to hide a laugh.
"Same as down here I'm starting to think. People, ships, problems." He thought aloud.
"And the Moon? Why do you want to steal it?" She asked catching up.
He stopped in his pace. "At night its the largest thing in the sky."
"Then why not the sun? Isn't it the largest thing during the day?"
"The sun isn't as cool as it. Besides..." Raum looked where he knew the moon would be at this point in the day. "It's just the start."
Vaelora looked up at the same sky. She was way off course, but she did her best to at least try and stare at the same thing as Raum. She went quiet for a moment in a way that had actual weight to it.
"What about yourself. Why do you want to steal a Moon too now?" Raum said. Their eyes locked onto the same thing.
"I've never left Capimus," she said.
He looked at her. "Is this area still Capimus?"
She nodded, making a slight noise with it. "Not ever. The outskirts, sure. But that's different from leaving."
He didn't push it further. If he was confined to the same conditions, never leaving the same place after all those years. Raum would have clung onto the first thing that came from the books she says she read.
"Air pirates are a different breed than the ones you see sail around here on land. Are you fully willing to commit what they do yourself?" Raum asked.
Vaelora went quiet, but it felt like she was thinking out loud.
"If I have to." She said at last. Not in her usual loud voice, but something that sounded like she still wasn't sure about her decision. Nothing else followed.
They walked the rest of the way in silence.
Capimus finally appeared after a final thick leaf. Not whatever territories like the beach and forest had been. But the actual city, dense with houses and shops that grew in size and land as it drew inward.
The entrance was packed with people that had little space to themselves. Wooden stalls crowded narrow streets which looked like they were placed on a whim during the development phase because they wanted something specific to fit in that area which didn't exist anymore. Residential houses had patched roofs, fish smelled like they were rotten, but the people continued moving through it regardless.
At the center, in stone that had never been patched, a building sat like it had been placed before the city and the rest had grown around it.
They passed through the gate. And immediately, without any hesitation, the city stepped out of Vaelora's way.
A fruit seller pulled her cart left before they were close. Two men in conversation drifted apart as she passed between them, still talking, their eyes sliding elsewhere. A boy chasing a dog changed course without looking up, the dog continuing on alone. Nobody bowed, nobody called out. It was subtler than that. The way water moves around something without being asked.
Raum walked beside her, but he realized they weren't moving away for him in fear.
He looked at the people watching her. Then at her.
She was looking at the buildings, her expression open and mild.
He thought about what she'd said on the road. Not ever leaving this place.
The city was moving itself around Vaelora, while she walked through it all like it was a normal occurrence.
She stopped in front of a market stall selling small carved wooden figures. Vaelora smiled as she picked one up, spun it around in her hand with whimsy then set it down.
The vendor finally let out the breath he'd been holding.
But once it looked like houses had room to breath, the respect deepened.
People began to physically kneel and close their eyes.
"Do you want to explain this Queen thing of yours. The people are practically treating you like a prophet." Raum finally said
"I told you. I'm a half-phoenix" Vaelora said, as if that was a reasonable response. "Do air pirates not get this kind of treatment?"
"I didn't even get half this kind of treatment from my own crew except from my former First Mate"
"Were they nice?" Vaelora asked
"She was crazy." Raum looked up at the sky, thinking maybe she would fall any second herself to find him. "Crazy in her own way."
"So I must become crazy if I am your First Mate?" Vaelora asked innocently.
"I would prefer if you were yourself. That's already more than enough."
"Aha! You finally said I'm a part of your crew." She acted like she finally beat Raum at a game he didn't know he was playing. She playfully began to raise her finger as if to point to where she thought the moon was.
"I said you were already. And will you put that finger down." Raum closed her fingers tight and held them by his side.
Raum didn't need a set of eyes or ears to feel as if the entire city had changed what they were looking at. Every pair, locked in on him like he had committed murder in broad daylight.
A stone building began to take shape as they got closer. From across the city it had looked small and alone. Just the one structure that hadn't been built around.
Up close it had more detail, but the detail didn't make it more inviting. The stone was old in the way that reminded you things had existed before you and remain after.
The entrance was a pair of large wooden doors that were clearly never locked because nothing about the building suggested it expected to need to be.