Three

Ajax became aware, once he was further along in breathing like a normal human being again, that a lot of the crew was staring at him, at least, all the ones that could get away with it. A man who appeared to be the first mate was standing over him with a frown, hands folded behind his back. Ajax, struggling a little, sat up.

“Hi,” he said, his breath still heavy, he tried to smile in a charming way.

Luckily, Rosie already intercepted him, and Ajax heard the clink of gold changing hands. He put his head in his hands and closed his eyes, exhaling and inhaling, rubbing the cramp in his side that was almost gone, but still ached. A little bit later, he felt a sharp tap on the top of his head and looked up to see Rosie motioning for him to follow. He struggled to get up, his legs feeling now like worse than jelly (and the tossing of the sea was not helping matters).

Eventually, though, he managed to follow her down into the ship with some semblance of grace.

It was a large ship, this Ajax was reminded of as they walked along it. However, they did eventually get to their cabin, the smallest one in the prow. It barely had enough room for its two, stacked hammocks.

Ajax collapsed on the ground and watched Rosie nimbly get to sitting on the top hammock.

“Thank you for asking which one I wanted,” he said.

“You wouldn’t have been able to get into this one. I didn’t need to ask.”

“Well, you actually do not know that,” Ajax said. “I am, in fact, a superb climber.”

“No you’re not,” she replied.

Ajax sat up, craning his neck a little in the small space allotted to him in the cabin, to look at her. They sat in silence for quite some time. All the while, she watched him, and he watched her back.

She wasn’t staring at him like some of the girls did in Ardor, giggling behind their hands and blushing. She wasn’t staring at him with any contempt, either. She wasn’t even sizing him up, at least he didn’t think she was, she didn’t look like she was expecting him to run away or something. She just watched him.

So he watched her back, though his own expression was of, if anything, confusion.

            Time seemed to pass more and more slowly, though, the longer they just sat there. With every second that passed, Ajax’s distress and irritation started to increase exponentially. It was just sinking in now, that he would probably never be going back home, never see his friends or father again. He wasn’t even sure if his father was still alive. He felt empty, like all of a sudden everything had been sucked out of him and he had spent twenty, long years on this earth with absolutely nothing to show for it. That was what upset him the most. He was nothing. These people had made him nothing. He had hated Ardor’s politics, hated the job his father was convinced that he would have as an inheritance, but at least it would have been doing something. Briefly, he had even gone so far as to entertain fantasies of hunting the people that had killed his family, to unite his country in, for once, a just cause, instead of just trying to please the rest of the nobility by throwing the Guide tribe out of the mountains and giving the land away, or other such nonsense. That wasn’t important. But this, this was.

            “What are we going to do?” he said quietly.

            Rosie started a little. “I don’t know,” she replied. “Run, probably.”

            “To where? For how long?”

            He looked up and was surprised to meet her eyes, because now she wasn’t just watching him, but engaging him with her deadly serious expression.

            “However far and however long we can,” she replied.