For Emerson it was just another day of being a pirate. He didn't know how many times they had been in situations such as this and most of the time they came out unharmed thanks to his Captain's fast thinking. Over the years they lost a number of good men in such small skirmishes and Emerson would be damned if he let it happen again. He nodded at Kristoph, "Aye." He said before darting down to the gun deck below. The long dark room lined with men, young boys and canons was a familiar sight to the man. He had spent most of his childhood in this very section of the ship and he knew the floorboards like the back of his hand. 

Emerson darted between the men, shouting orders between the loud booms that erupted from their canons. The men were dirty and sweaty and in the weak light that filtered through the gun ports he could see that most, if not all of the men and boys were already bleeding from the ears. Emerson aided the boys in ferrying the gunpowder to the gunners before helping the gunners themselves. This was possibly one of the most dangerous places to be on the ship, up on the masts tying down the sails or opening them up was the most dangerous place on the ship. In the high winds many men had been blown off the masts as if they were bugs. The canons presented their own dangers. He had known a man who had his foot crushed by a canon rolling back with the recoil. The man's foot was too mangled to save and he had it amputated. He died less than a week later. 

"READY! AIM! FIRE!" 

This was one of the jobs that Emerson was the best at. He aided the men in positioning the canons in the right place before giving another command to fire. They were going to take down the ship. There was a moment of relief when no canon fire came from the other ship. It would take the men on the other ship a few moments to recover from the blow before reloading their canons to fire at the Silver Arrow again. 


Emerson left the men to see if there was anything else that Kristoph needed him to do. The gunners and powder monkeys were all capable and he trusted them to do their jobs right. He wiped the blood from the sides of his face before heading up to his captain. Emerson's ears still rang and he was a bit dizzy so he gripped onto the railing to steady himself. "Any other orders?" He half yelled at Kristoph.

---


Eagleharbor was the largest city on Tiriene, with a population of around seven thousand five hundred people, plus the merchants who would stay half of the year before leaving. There were other cities on the larger floating continents that boasted cities two or three, sometimes five times larger than Eagleharbor. The small city was given its name due to the various birds that settled on the underside of the continent itself and under the small boardwalks that connected the ships to the port and up on top of houses. This was her favorite part about Eagleharbor and it was what she always looked forward to. 

She was nervous about leaving the safety of Nightfort. What if something happened to their aunt and uncle and she wasn't there to help them? Like her sister, there was a part of Zaria that longed for the world outside the boarders of Tiriene. Ever since she was a child there was something about the outside world that drew her in. The twins were educated; their aunt taught them how to read and to write. She taught them of the outside world and read those stories from all over the world and stories of the surface far below them. Zaria had enjoyed the stories and even today she would read them again but the woman came to realize that her home and family were the most important things to her. Often Zaria and her sister would clash over their differences but they always made up in the end; they were twins after all and had been through everything together.

The older twin smiled slightly as she brought a hand to shield her eyes from the sun. "I want to continue in this journey." She said, "I just worry, perhaps a little more than I should, about our aunt and uncle."  

The road leading from Eagleharbor to the smaller towns and villages over Tiriene was empty today. Most of the merchants had left for the season but would be back in six months’ time. "And I worry for us." Zaria said with a faint, slightly sad smile. The streets were still busy but not as busy as they would have been two weeks ago. She stopped and leaned heavily on the walking stick that she had brought from Nightfort; her leg was beginning to bother her again. It wasn't something that would take away from her work, no, she'd power through the pain to the point of further injury. Zeva had been there the day that Zaria broke her leg. They had been trying to climb up a small cliff when she had slipped. After the fall she had been confined to the house until she had fully healed but there had been a few hiccups here and there along the road of healing. Zaria lifted her leg a few inches in front of her before stretching it out behind her. After a few more times of stretching her leg they continued on into the city.