No part of this is right. Neither of them ought to be here. The ship’s champion had as much business at the helm as the ship’s cook. Poseidon would prove their folly, momentarily, except there would be no one left to accept the truth of the matter. Or, rather, those that were wouldn’t get to accepting said truth for some time, on account of the more pressing matters of a ship split in two.

But Dionysis didn’t operate on what ought to be. They stood atop a terrifying mountain of possibility, and promised all of it real, in exchange for all propriety learned and ingrained. Only here could the impossible seem rather doable. And only here could an answer be seen for how simple it was.

The crew belonged to the Captain. The ship belonged to the Captain.

Whoever commanded them was, in effect, the Captain.

[i]Click![/i] Went the cover of a speaking-tube.

“Reduce speed. Return to prior heading. 73 point 2 degrees starboard. Raise prow 11 point 7 degrees.” Went the calm, steady voice of a sheep.

[i]Fwomp![/i] Went a pocketful of fluffy, muffling wool, jammed down the only tube to the engine room.

Dolce’s hooves made no sound, as he turned to face Redana, and the communications dial she’d just shattered. Behind him, the blocked pipe, that she would have to go through him to repair. Beside them both, the viewscreen, the gathering storm, and proof to the question that would decide their fates:

Who commanded this ship?

**************************************************

Of course there wasn’t a way to tell in any way that mattered. The thought was a silly, useless old thing, forgotten for a reason. What good did it do her to know what her great-great-great grandparents were designed to do? Their lives were their own, as hers was her own, and she wasn’t going to run off and, and become a street sweeper or whatever they did just because they were born for it. Silly of her to even bring it up in the first place.

The uncharacteristically silly Vasilia considered the implements laid out before her, seemingly deaf to Iskarot’s words. Forks? Corkscrews? Ladles? No, no, it would be chopsticks today. For the challenge, you see. (Oh gods what had her life come to) She laid herself out, set to savor a bowl of coleslaw in her finest bathrobe, and only then did the Grand Magos drift back into her awareness, welcomed by a gracious gesture of her chopsticks.

“Well? I believe you were telling me why I’m so great and powerful?~”