• “Drink, drink, drink, drink!” Everyone chants. They were all drunk, cheering Ayn and Rey on. All of them had a drinking contest and the finalist was those two.
    “You’re pretty good for an outsider” Ayn bellows.
    “I’d say the same about you!” Rey cackles.
    Keller swayed and tackled Fen. Now they were wrestling, testing their strengths. Roe and Non locked arms and they were singing, cheeks flushed, whiskey in hand. Even Maruru was drunk and it only took her one sip! She was prancing around, running, climbing, and ended up in the crow’s nest. Now she was playing pirate.
    “Wont be long till you snap!” Rey howls, literally! He was like a wolf.
    “Ha! Never!” Ayn chugs another glass. Rey does the same.
    They slammed the cups down and stared at each other fiercely. Then they rolled onto their back, laughing like maniacs. “Lost! They say at the same time.

    Maruru woke up from atop the crow’s nest. Everybody collapsed and was asleep where they fell. The moon was fading, only one hour till sunrise.
    “Some party…” Maruru got up and look down to the deck. “At least I never get hangovers” her eyes trailed to each person but one. Someone was missing.
    “I always thought…” a voice said, it was Ayn. He was still awake and he was standing beside Maruru, looking towards the horizon, his arms on the ledge of the crow’s nest. Maruru gulped.
    I didn’t know he was up here, she thought. What was he doing here anyway?
    “I really liked her” he says bleakly. “Met her when I was thirteen. It was when I got my first Aier”
    Maruru tilted her head to the side to get a glimpse of Ayn’s face. His cheeks where slightly flushed.
    Great, she thought. He’s still a bit drunk and he doesn’t know what he’s saying.
    “She already had one and was teaching me how to ride” he continued talking. “Once I got the hang of it, we started riding together. Then her Aier broke one time and she couldn’t get another one because she was poor. I wanted to be with her so I let her ride with me” his voice was in a single tone. “It made me really nervous to be so close to her. It distracted me a lot, too, but I didn’t hate it”
    Maruru inched closer to Ayn. “What happened to her?” she bit her tongue, wishing she never said that, but to her surprise, he answered.
    “They took her and it was all my fault” he sat down, his back against the mast. “I even promised to protect her”
    “It…it wasn’t your fault” Maruru didn’t know why she was trying comfort him.
    “Yes it was” a long pause. “Because I was the one that killed her” he gave a short, weak laugh. “It was all my fault. No one forgave me, no one but Non. That’s what makes him a fool”
    “Non was there?”
    “He liked her. It was the same girl, and he liked her first. Then I stole her away from him. She liked me; she even told me she did”
    “How did she…die?”
    “I was a thief. Always was, even back then. And because she was with me, she was a perfect target for bounty hunters or assassins sent by people with grudges against me”
    “Then that means they killed her, not you”
    “I told her to leave, to forget about me, but she wouldn’t listen. She was always stubborn. But I let her stay. I started learning how to fight so I could protect her from harm. Then, in a battle, I murdered her” he gives another short laugh. “I never let anyone near me since. No one other than Roe, Fen, Keller, and Non”
    Maruru opens her mouth, shuts it, and then opens it again. “What about…me?”
    “Then Maruru came”
    That’s when Maruru realized that Ayn wasn’t speaking directly at her. He was answering her questions, but what he said wasn’t meant for her. It was for him, to convince him, to remind him.
    “She was only a hostage but that night, she saw something. I know she did. She tried to look into my past and I let her. Until I saw her wince, she was in pain. I kept her away from me after that. Then the next day came. I was supposed to let her ride on the Aier with me, and I was nervous. The ride wasn’t like the first, because the first time she was a hostage” his eyes drooped and a weary smile formed on his lips. “She held on to me so tight I was suffocating. I kept telling myself that she’s nothing special”
    Gee, thanks, Maruru thought.
    “I even told her to go away, to forget, but she wouldn’t listen. She even came back on the ship. Now I think I might kill her”
    Maruru gulped and leaned toward Ayn. It looked like she was going to give him a kiss but stops an inch away. “You’re not going to kill me” she whispers to him. “It’s going to take more than you to make my spirit die” she gets up and climbs down the mast of the crow’s nest.
    Ayn’s smile grows. “You’re so stubborn”

    to be continued