Elara watched the scene unfold through the glass walls of the navigation room. She was eyeing the enemy ship critically, scrutinizing the freighter’s appearance and structure. It looked like a solid enough ship, she supposed, well maintained and orderly. Elara however preferred the Aleph Null in every way. She considered the Aleph Null to be hers, and hers was the truly great ship. 

Her brow furrowed as she watched the crew board the freighter, a small frown showing her worry. Her place was here in the navigation room. A sailing master stays with the ship, of course. She had no great talent for fighting nor a particular desire to do so, but she disliked that she was unable to help the crew at the moment. Once they left the ship, they were no longer under her protection. While she understood completely that they did not in any way need her protection and were much better off than she ever could be in a fight, she couldn’t help but feel concern for the shipmates currently going against unknown enemies on another ship. Elara was simply to wait and wait until it was time to fly off with their new cargo.

She was pacing the navigation room when she felt the slight jolt. Immediately sensing something off with the ship, her gaze flew up in search, but the problem was rather obvious. Elara paled, eyes widening as she watched the sails of the ship, her ship, become engulfed by flames. The fire seemed to be coming from the enemy ship, but Elara was too busy being shocked to even think about where or who the flames may have been coming from. The young woman let out a string of low curses, dropping the map that had been in her hand. She raced out of the room as the forgotten piece of parchment fluttered to the floor. 

Coming out onto the deck, she could see crew members running around, doing whatever it was the deckhands were supposed to be doing in this situation. [i]Okay,[/i] she thought, standing still among all the commotion, [i]the flames need to be put out. How the hell am I supposed to put the fucking flames out?[/i] She deliberated for a moment, before taking a breath and running towards the mast. Once she stood beneath the sails, she extended her hands, trying to feel the stannum around the flames. The first thing she did was try to create a barrier with the stannum, meant to stop any more fire from reaching the sails in the first place. That wasn’t too difficult, but it didn’t stop the sails from continuing to be on fire. Drawing on the caith’s energy, she then tried to manipulate the air away from the flames. Aeurgy and fire didn’t truly mix in the first place. It wasn’t as if she could just blow out the fire like one great big candle. Hell, if she wasn’t careful she’d probably cause the flames to spread even faster. Ventus sails were expensive and unfortunately flammable. Maybe if she could just stop the fire from getting the air it needed… 

Elara winced, this kind of aeurgy was not the kind she normally did. It required a certain finesse that Elara had always lacked when manipulating stannum. “Gods dammit,” she snarled, wiping a bit of sweat from her brow. She gritted her teeth, keeping the barrier and trying to put out the fire was complicated and quickly becoming exhausting. With the ship not moving, and the calm weather she had been appreciating just a few hours ago, there wasn’t much stannum to draw on. It seemed that at most she was perhaps keeping the flames from spreading, or at least she was keeping them from spreading with the kind of speed they would normally have. 

It took only another moment for Elara to realize her own stupidity. “Oh hell,” she muttered, reaching for the orange crystal that always hung from her neck. Some genius she was, forgetting to grab the thing in the first place.

With the crystal’s caith to draw on, it only took a bit more sweat and struggling to snuff out the last of the flames. Once the fire was gone, Elara had a strong desire to sit down. She really needed to be keeping up with the exercises she’d learned at the spellcrafter’s guild. She’d come to rely on simple, brute blasts of caith, instead of more complex manipulation, and it showed with the difficulty she’d just had with the damn fire. With a frustrated sigh, her grip on the crystal loosened slightly. She kept the barrier up as she moved away from the commotion on deck. She’d be damned if she was going to let the sails catch on fire again, even if that meant tiring herself out. Elara surveyed the the sails. The fire had certainly done some damage, she thought. The main topsail hung limply in tatters, and the uppermost part of the topmast looked somewhat charred, but fortunately the other sails didn’t appear to be obviously damaged. Still, they would need to repair it. Grady would probably not be overjoyed by that fact, Elara decided.