[center][color=7ea7d8][b][h1][i][b]S[/b] o l i a[/i][/h1][/b][/color][/center]
[right][hr][color=gray][b]Windward Island[/b]
Port Harbor, the Skullfish
[@SunsetWanderer][/color][hr][/right]

Evander’s answers stayed her, momentarily, and she nearly fell behind him. There was much to consider about this man, much more than she had previously thought to expect. Or perhaps for his kind, these sorts of stories were common. She had no way of knowing. On Maelstrom her understanding of people was not simply basic, it was limited. Her home had attracted specific types of minds, most of which thought beyond her own reasoning. It was what staggered her when she’d tried to explain herself, and for a while even before she’d come to Windward, this gap in knowledge troubled and embarrassed her. But, she’d figured, does an enchanted sword understand the mystical intricacies of its own enchantment? No. It simply knows what it is and what it does. 

She frowned to hear his own father had passed away. He hadn’t explicitly stated as much, but she wondered if that had been what drove him from his home. It was easy for Solia to assume that he must have cared deeply for his father, and wonder then how close they might have been. Like her and her own, perhaps? She could empathize with the loss, then, which seemed to her a new, if bitterly exciting feeling. 

It troubled her as well to hear that his experience as a diver had been…less than excellent. She knew well enough that some people were prone, often even justly, towards self-preservation. She did [i]not[/i] know that so many were divers—a profession she had previously thought to be comprised majorly of selfless, heroic souls. Evander’s story had her glancing around again at their company. Many with strong, healthy forms and well-made equipment, suddenly required a consideration not simply for their worth as aid on the mission, but for the origins of their own fortunes. How many had stabbed allies in the back for a glimmering artifact? Left divers behind so that their cuts might swell in the absence? How many would jeopardize this mission, and the safety of Windward Islands residents, the moment danger forced them to choose between themselves, and another? 

Troubling, she thought, and thought no more on it. 

As the two of them approached the Skullfish, she noticed once again the Imperial and her louder, bolder teammate, who in fact made it hard [i]not[/i] to notice them. The young man and his blue-haired friend were nowhere to be seen. She supposed the fewer children there were putting themselves in danger, the better, but she could also not forget how furious the chief had been. Once this was all over, hopefully the tempers will have cooled.

Evander gestured to the ship, ready as were the other divers. 

[color=7ea7d8]“Certainly,”[/color] she agreed, and did her best to match his grand smile with one of her own, as she followed his lead aboard the Skullfish.