by Kell Inkston
Colette’s indignancy gets the best of her as she stares straight at her mother- to her, the deception is obvious.
“You need my permission to exist, you shitty pamphlet!” she says as she pulls the trigger. Light floods her vision as a crackling, deafening sound smashes through the air.
The Deception Escalates to an Unnerving Degree
Fire’s everywhere amongst the tatters of the book and Vuuya’s dying scream. Colette bursts out from the doors to look upon a brawl between The Captain, Jim and the two islanders, The Captain attempting to quell all three with no regards for sides.
There’s a sudden pause before the older islander speaks up. “There she is, kill her!”
The Captain, holding Jim in a headlock, smacks the guard islander across the face. “Miss Ketiere, you look as though you’ve seen a ghost. Whatever’s the matter?”
“I…” She takes a breath as she tosses the rifle across to The Captain. “I shot the book!”
The Captain, apparently now free from his trance, stares at her blankly. “You what?”
“You what!?” The guard islander exclaims as the other one flinches in realization and runs out of the building.
“The book’s gone like, burnt up. We need to go.”
The Captain looks over through the hall, all the way to Vuuya’s chamber. In his sight is a blazing inferno, spreading rapidly across the packed wicker and dried wood.
Jim struggles under The Captain’s grip. “Eh, I vote for that.”
“Indeed,” says The Captain as he releases Jim. “Let’s be off.”
The group tears out of the ziggurat with the guard, who quickly ducks off down one of the routes. Only seconds later the structure collapses, falling in on itself in a dramatic crash as it sinks into the warm swamp.
“Well, I suppose that’s that.” The Captain adjusts his cap as he gazes across the trees to spot the guard scattering off somewhere. “I suppose we’ll be back to the ship, then.”
Jim sighs as he massages his neck. “Damn.”
“S-sorry, Captain,” Colette says as she offers his rifle back.
The Captain takes it up. “I forgive you, as I understand failure is the path inherent in success, but do try explaining to the rest of the crew why they won’t be getting their bonuses this month.”
Colette nods with a look of shame marking her features as they trek off to town, the flames of the infernal ziggurat already fading into the damp wood of the swamp below.
They return to the port town, and everyone’s celebrating. The young man from before rushes up to them. “Well done, sir. It seems like you’ve saved us!” The islander says, nodding over to the town.
Just yesterday they were celebrating having their loved ones given to them through illusion, but now, seeing the truth, their freedom is even finer.
Colette looks over to The Captain to respond, but he, along with Grancis, just walk towards the ship. She shrugs, and turns to respond to him. “Well gladly. You know now that the people you were seeing wasn’t real, right?”
The islander nods as The Captain and Grancis turn and look at Colette and Jim, then at one another as if something’s wrong. They turn around.
“Well, I’ve got to go start helping with building a ship to get off the island. Your crew did a good thing today.” The islander says, giving a quick bow.
Colette looks to Jim, and Jim smirks. “We did a good thing today, Colette,” he says with a nudge.
“Don’t touch me,” Colette says, her smile dying the second Jim acted like they were friends.
“O-damn, alright,” Jim turns aside and spots his two approaching crewmates. “Hey, Captain, thought we were going to the ship.”
The Captain straightens his cap as he looks over toward the islander’s general location. “Who is this that you’re talking to, Colette?”
Colette raises a brow at the weird question, and nods over to the islander, who raises his hand. “This guy. He was thanking us for a job well done.”
The Captain rubs his bandaged chin, and comes to a slow nod. “So that’s how it is… very sly.”
Grancis hums lightly as she eyes over the islander’s direction. “Uh, but Colette, there-”
“Jim,” The Captain says, cutting off Grancis. “I’ll have you back to the ship.”
Jim salutes. “Sir!” he steps off without a word, leaving The Captain with the ladies and the islander.
Colette snaps to The Captain with a perplexed look on her face. “What’s going on, Salt?”
The Captain nods in the islander’s general direction. “This gentleman here, do you see him, physically?”
Colette looks over to the islander, who shrugs; he’s as real as anyone. “Yeah?”
The Captain nods. “How very barbaric. This Vuuya lady’s magical scope is vast, and she is witty, but her magical form does have its drawbacks.”
Colette shakes her head, apologizes to the islander for her captain’s weird attitude, and then turns back to him. “Salt, what the heck do you mean?”
“Observe,” The Captain says. He kneels to the ground, picks up a pebble, and turns to where he assumes the islander is. “Here you are, sir.” The Captain hands the rock over to the islander, and what Colette sees and what Grancis sees are two very different things.
Colette scoffs, seeing the islander take the rock with some confusion in his body language. “Salt, what the hell are you doing? You don’t think he’s real or something?”
“Precisely,” The Captain says. “I just dropped that rock on the ground.”
Grancis clears her throat. “That Captain’s right, look," Grancis says. “The Captain just dropped the rock and it’s right there.” Grancis points at a spot on the ground, and Colette looks it over carefully.”
“Are you serious? There’s nothing there,” she says. Grancis knows when Colette’s getting indignant, and she can hear it clear in her voice right now.
Grancis looks to The Captain. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Vuuya’s what’s wrong. Her projected witchcraft degeneracies shouldn’t extend to people if we burnt her vessel… which must mean that we haven’t finished the job.”
“That’s…” Colette scoffs. “That’s impossible. I shot the book. I saw it go up in flames!”
“The whole event which, I regret to say, must have been illusory itself. All of us were already under its sway, possibly the moment we started into the swamp… possibly even before then.”
Colette scoffs. “But how would you know? You were under the spell too!”
“Acting, Miss Ketiere. I figured quickly that Vuuya is unaware if her illusions are effective or not— a decisively-fatal crack in her mountainous façade. She still has hold over you.”
Colette huffs up. “No, no way. I saw the book burst into flames! How do you not understand that? You saw the temple, whatever, place go up in flames, right?”
The Captain nods. “Yes?”
“Pretty sure nothing made of paper could survive that.”
“That’s fair enough, but what if it were magical?”
Colette looks aside. “Well…”
“And what’s more, what makes you think that the tome you spoke to was, in fact, not an illusion in itself?”
Colette searches the dismal, fully-veiled sky for an answer. “Well, well I don’t, but that’s too far-fetched, why would everyone start acting like they weren’t under an illusion? I’m not seeing what I want anymore.”
The Captain nods. “Yes, but you are seeing what you’d believe. I believe that Vuuya, in a secret location, is projecting illusions to you to perceive that all is well and that you have, indeed destroyed her. She must be assuming that the rest of us could be fooled by her illusions and also see the projected villager coming up to us… How peculiarly professional of her.”
Colette squints an eye. “What?”
“Jim didn’t come in contact with the book, and yet he also seemed convinced by the illusion… and yet Grancis did not.” The wind bl
ows, and he holds down his cap as he looks back to the dense swamp. “Ahh, just as I suspected.”
“What?” Colette snaps, shrugging as she waits for The Captain to explain this big awaited twist.
The Captain hums to himself in his typical mysterious way, chuckles, and then nods in decision. “Miss Ketiere, I’ll have you back to the ship, and make sure Jim doesn’t cause any trouble, yes?”
Colette straightens up in defiance. “W-What?! You’re taking Gran?!”
He nods and pats a surprised Grancis on the head, who coughs in disbelief. “I think she’ll be perfect for this,” The Captain says.
“B-but she’ll die!” Colette says.
Grancis takes a deep breath to calm herself. “S-she’s right, sir. I’m not good with fighting. Don’t you think we’ll be expected?”
“It’s likely,” The Captain says, “so haste will be vital. We’ll have to track down the book’s true location and take it out. What’s more I have complete confidence in your abilities, Miss Vereyrty. Victory comes to the confident, so be confident.”
“O-okay,” Grancis says, not too afraid of going back into the swamp, though she’ll try her best to look that way for Colette’s sake.
Colette sighs with a frustrated tone. “Salt, this isn’t fair! I’m not under the influence of anything! I wanna go!”
“My mind’s made up, Miss Ketiere. Now go on back to the ship.”
She takes a deep breath, and nods. “… Fine,” is all she says.
“Also,” The Captain lifts Grancis’ heavy pack from her shoulders. “We won’t have enough time to be cooking or snacking, so you might as well take this as well.”
Colette groans in frustration and snatches the pack, hardly weighing her down with her trained physique. “Yeah, sure,” She whips around to the path toward the port, firing a single, contemptuous glance to The Captain before blazing off down the trail.
The Captain shakes his head. “She’s much smarter than people think, but on my word if I haven’t met anyone so brash.”
Grancis nods. “She’s been like that ever since we were kids, sir… So you really think I’ll be good for this?”
He pats her on the shoulder to have her follow along. “I’m certain you’ll do just fine. Let’s get this done.”
“Right.”
The two turn back to the swamp, and The Captain reaches through his bandages, inside of himself, to retrieve a pistol. He holds it by the barrel and presents the handle to Grancis. “You know how to use one?”
She looks at the gun like a knife pointed at her face. Fumblingly, she grabs it and holds it as if it were something dead and unpleasant, with only her index finger and thumb. “Uh, yes, I think so, sir.”
The Captain sighs as they near the treeline. “It won’t bite, grasp it the way you would if you were going to fire.”
She flips it into her grip, feeling the curvature and the placement of the barrel and trigger. “How do I load it?”
“It’s semi-automatic, dear. It’ll do all the work for you. Just hold it with both hands, point and squeeze the little trigger, alright? You have eight bullets.”
She nods. “Alright.”
They disappear down the treeline just as one of the islanders run up to Colette. They exchange a few words, and Colette stops walking. She looks back in The Captain and Grancis’ direction, and then steps off with the islander toward the town, rather than to the port. She’ll handle this her own way.
Grancis and The Captain take the long way to the Book
The chirping, swirling chaos of the swamp is simultaneously peaceful and eerie as the two step down boardwalk after boardwalk.
“So how are we going to find it?” Grancis asks, “You seem pretty certain.”
The Captain leads as they promptly round a turn. “I’m entirely certain, but even if I weren’t, I’d still act as though I do. Confidence is key in leadership, you know.”
Grancis hums. “So, that time on Langstane Island where the beach was all quicksand and you had everyo-”
“We won’t be talking about anything that happened on Langstane Island, Miss Vereyrty.”
“Y-yes, si-”
“It was a very silly place, and not fit for figures of command and their subordinates.”
“Right.”
“…That jackanape Jim thought it was humorous I’d bet,” The Captain says, adjusting his spectacles as he flicks his gaze between the boardwalk ahead and the water to keep an eye out for ambush predators.
“I think just about everyone did, sir.”
“Well I’m certain you didn’t.”
Grancis smiles as she looks aside to the water. “Of course not, sir.”
The Captain nods. “Very good,” he says before reaching a particularly-dense thicket of vines. “We’ll have to crawl through here.”
“Roger, sir. Lead the way,” Grancis says. Her words and the expression on her face give two entirely different messages.
The vines, both descending from the tree tops above and reaching up from the waters below are host to all manner of thorns- she’s certain at least one must have chemical-defensive properties, something that The Captain won’t have to worry about, but with her human flesh she’ll have to.
The Captain pulls himself into the single, roughly human-sized entry through the vines and starts the arduous crawl through. “They don’t go all that far back, thankfully,” he says just before he rips his coat. “Dammit!” The Captain says, tucking his cap and glasses away into his coat once he gets unstuck.
After the amusing start, The Captain begins flowing through the spiked maze as if it were natural to him. Grancis has noticed that about him. He seems to mystically become proficient at things after only a moment of effort; like he’s in a constant state of relaxed play.
Now it’s her turn, and she’s far more concerned about her performance.
She enters with the utmost care, with much more poise than The Captain. Her wear is baggier than The Captain’s, so her adventure through the vines will need even more grace. If she were frank, she’d feel like most of her life’s been on par with crawling through brambles, but now ever more-so; it’s no longer just a metaphor.
“Now then, how’s the crew been treating you?” The Captain asks.
She crawls forward at a maddeningly-slow pace. “The crew? Well, good, I suppose.”
“‘Well’, or ‘good’?”
“Oh, good!”
“I believe ‘well’ is the correct term, Miss Vereyrty.”
She knew that, but she said good first, so she sticks to her guns.
“Roger, sir. I’ll keep that in mind,” she says, pressing herself under an inconveniently-low tangle of thorns.
“And Colette, how do you think she’s been taking it all?”
“I don’t talk to her too often, sir. She wakes up earlier than me usually, and sort of conks out the minute she lies down for bed.”
“Is that so?”
“It is, sir.”
He brushes over a vine, causing the entire thicket to shake. “Mind that,”
Grancis holds still until reality stops trying to stab her from all directions. The vines stop shaking and she continues onward. “Roger, sir.”
“I suppose that’s quite a bit like Boris and I. Our schedules are different, but we’re good friends.”
“…Also, Captain, about that.”
The Captain slithers through a group of vines seeming almost intentionally-grown to stop human passage. “About what?”
“Boris.”
“Ahh, yes?”
She clears her throat. “I found like, a sketch in one of his meat books.”
The Captain’s quiet a moment. “…Did you now? What sort of sketch?”
“A cut chart, like for animals… but it wasn’t an animal.”
The Captain is quiet a moment. “Now is that so?”
Her features are perplexed as she considers how to best word her feelings. “…He’s not planning on… on eating me, is
he?”
“Well, if he were, I’m sure you’d be delicious.”
She sighs. “That’s not funny, Captain. He always asks the weirdest things. Like: ‘Grancis flesh, be of the jumping in this pottening!’ or ‘Grancis meat, won’t you be of the cutting yourself off of the fingers for Boris?’ I keep telling him that it would maim or kill me and he just doesn’t seem to get it.”
“Well I’m sure it’s all in good fun. What’s a night in the kitchen without a little friendly mutilation?”
Grancis decides not to acknowledge that one. “He has a giant cheese grater in the closet, Captain, and asked once if I wanted to ‘be of the toppening’.”
He scoffs. “Oh, alright. He’s not going to eat you, promise.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m The Captain, Miss Vereyrty. Trust me,” he says as he pulls himself out of the thicket and to the other side of the boardwalk.
In a rare, honest expression, her face blands out with a sour look. “…Yes sir.”
“Really, don’t worry about it. Also, if he… well, on the very slight off-chance that he does try to eat you. Call him a crawfish, and tell him some rubber bands would look good on his claws. That always does the trick.”
She bails over an especially large vine near the exit. “W-…what?”
“Trust me, it drives him crazy,” The Captain says with a laugh skewed in.
He’s not usually like this, Grancis knows, but The Captain does have his moments.
“Thank you, sir. I’ll keep it in mind.” She pulls herself up and out from the tangle, having only succumbed to a slight prick halfway in.
He offers his hand up and she takes it.
“Thank you.”
“Of course,” he says. “So,” he adds once she’s at her feet, “are you enjoying your job any more than you have been?”
“Pardon me?” The two start back down the walk.
“You’ve been quite crestfallen ever since you joined the crew: ever since Colette took you along on this little adventure out to sea, I’d imagine. You’ve seen quite a lot, but it hasn’t seemed to scare you much, rather you’ve just struck me as being depressed.”