“Wait hold on,” Myth interrupts, as the sky turns from night to day then quickly back to night again. She turns to Poise, No One and Brave.
“There’s another story worth telling. How’d you manage to escape the sky sailors?”
Poise and No One look at each other, then over at Brave.
“Uhh…it’s all starting to get hazy,” Brave admits, “but the story goes…”
I was angry. Yes, I know that I was angry. Piper disappeared as soon as we arrived, and suddenly we were caught up into a net and spilt out on the deck of a flying ship.
And I’m screaming, yelling curses at the lieutenant as the others shrank away from me.
“Just comply,” one whispers sharply.
“You’re making it worse,” Another seethes.
“Me?” I look around as they all cast their gaze down. It’s always me, why are they always blaming me?
“He’s the one who captured us,” I bite back. “And it’s my fault because I’m angry.”
The lieutenant looks down at me with a familiar, lying smirk.
And all I could think was great, another place, that was just the same as the last.
“You’re making everyone uncomfortable.” He gestures to the group.
“We were all getting along so well before you caused a problem,” he tsks. “You’re ruining it for everyone.”
“I—”
“Stop arguing.” He grabs my face and turns me to the others. “Why can’t you listen like the others.”
Tears well up in my eyes, and I let them streak down my face as I glare at him. “I’m not going where you’re taking me.”
“You think anyone cares what you want?” he seethes, pushing my head down. “Look what you’re making me do, you manipulative little—” His words are cold and haunting.
And this strange melody keeps playing, making the air itself sway as they dress us up in fancy clothes and paint our faces with a garish, stifling make-up. And the next thing I know, I’m sitting in an isolated corner of the dining hall, the rotting, creaking table covered in bugs as they slap a bowl of gruel in front of me. The rest of the arrivals won’t even look at me, as we sit sullen over beautiful meals and fine cutlery.
“And I kept hearing this lullaby, this melody,” Brave whispers to the misfits as they sway in their hammocks.
“How-how did it go?” Deter asks, swallowing back her fear.
Brave shudders in her hammock. “Something like, ‘you are what I say you are and only what—’”
“Hey, hey,” a girl I don’t know interrupts my trance.
“A girl,” Poise scoffs, sitting up. “I’m not a girl. I’m the girl. It was hard to tell with the terrible clothes and make-up, but they wouldn’t let me do it myself.”
Brave looks over at her, a small smile twitching at the edge of her lips.
“As I was saying, the story goes, I look around suspiciously, not knowing who was in cahoots with who and convinced we’d been tricked by this supposed Maestro of Mischief.”
Poise wipes the table with a cloth and scowls before sitting down elegantly with her bowl of gruel.
“I’m Poise,” she whispers. She glances over at the guards preoccupied in their own conversation, then leans in close to me.
“We don’t know about the rest of them, but we’re getting out, we assumed you wanted to too.”
“What happened to your arm?”
She looks down. “Oh, one of ‘em grabbed me on the deck when I was trying to pull the lieutenant away from you.”
“You were…you were trying to help me…why?”
She looks at me, confused. “What do you mean why?”
I don’t answer and she sighs.
“I get it. I wouldn’t trust us either, but I’m not asking for your trust…what do they say? The enemy of your enemy is your friend?”
“Or just another enemy.”
Suddenly No One appears next to Poise. She scrapes her knee on the table as she sits down, and winces like an afterthought. She looks at our bowls, grimaces, and pushes her plate into the middle, motioning for us to eat, confidently oblivious as she gulps down huge mouthfuls.
“So,” she prompts. “Is she in or is she out?”
“I was getting there,” Poise mumbles, examining her silverware cautiously, then opting to use her hand instead. “It’s a delicate situation,” she informs, daintily scooping food from the side of the bowl. “Obviously she doesn’t trust us.”
No One lowers her voice, then glances at both of us, a clever glint in her eyes.
“What’s there to trust? If you don’t wanna be here and we don’t wanna be here, couldn’t we not be here together? After that,” No One points out, “if we want to stay together, that’s a matter of trust.”
“I have to admit,” Brave pauses in her hammock and looks over at No One, “you seemed pretty cool.”
“I sound pretty cool in your retelling.” She yawns as her eyes droop.
“See, we don’t want to be too obvious, but we’re trying to be obvious enough to stage a mutiny.”
“Wait…really?”
“No,” Poise sighs, “first of all, you have to be crew to stage a mutiny.”
No One shrugs. “Sounds like split ends to me.” Then continous, more seriously, “when we drop this fork, everyone who wants to leave…runs.”
I frown, disappointed. “That’s it? We run?”
“That’s it,” No One finishes, taking a bite of food.
“What if they capture us again?”
Poise and No One glance at each other.
“We didn’t consider that,” Poise admits sheepishly.
“I doubt there’ll be fancy food the second time.” I look around. “Not that I wanna find out. We need a distraction…something that—” I look down at the slop riddled with bugs and grin.
“No One, when you’re ready, drop your fork.”
She swallows the bite in her mouth and looks at me, knowingly, as she lets the shiny gold cutlery fall from her hand.
“FOOD FIGHT!” I yell, throwing my bowl of gruel at the closest crew member. Poise grabs her plate and follows suit, while No One drops her plate on the ground, the shattered pieces of expensive ceramics scattering across the floor. Suddenly the whole mess hall is filled with the loud tumultuous sounds of our escape.
“Of our mutiny,” No One corrects as Poise reties her hammock.
Myth chuckles. “Or so the story goes…now you’re all on the deck of the aeroship. And Brave, you say to Witt…”