[i]Sail me closer![/i]

The knight [i]is[/i] the Starsong. She knows her lines and wales as well as she can, given the length of their journey. And when the ropes whine and strain under the task, they are her own tendons and nerves howling. To deliver the Praetor to her doom is the death of the ship. But the ship [i]will[/i] perform its duty. Nothing less is asked for it than all that it can give. And always, always, it is...

It's like taking the next step, the very next one. (Crest this wave. There will be a moment outside the waves; the sails will need to be turned already.) It's always her who's taken the next step. (The vertigo, the lurch, the strain of the sails threatening to rip away if she does not hold them.) The step from the earth to the sky. (The swing of the prow in the final approach, a knife defiant against the Eater of Worlds.) The step from star to star. (The next wave is the truly dangerous one.) And she chose the river, didn't she? (She screams the ship's pain as the wave crashes, crushes, envelops them whole, seeks to disperse, ropes pulled taut around waists, not a one of them slipping free, and they're through, and the sails are sodden, but they're alive for another wave, and that's all she can ask of herself, another step, just one more.) Running was like this when she was a girl. (Final approach back towards the head, riding the swell, a razor's edge and on either side the ship capsizes.) Is that why she is laughing? (Her lover glitters like a star to follow.)

So close now. (The eye swallows the sky.) The ship is dying. (The ship gives itself for everyone it loves.) This last crest will be the final one. (The ropes come unwound as she lets them all go, as she draws her sword, as she knows the route she will take across the deck in her heart. If every safety line is connected to the ship when it shatters, they will all drown with it.) Her sword is a kiss. (Each line grabbed by the carabiner.)

With a scream, the [i]Starsong[/i] yields to the inevitable ocean. With a cry, the knight leaps through the wave, with all but one of the crew's lifelines attached to the mag harness about her hips, reaching out her hand for the hand she knows will be there. 

Go, Praetor. Only this far can she take you, no further. And when you are victorious, she will be there waiting, she and the Mosaic and the crew of the [i]Starsong[/i], bound together in every way that matters.