Fairy Opera Chapter 2: Crash

 

Crash

I woke up and found that it wasn’t a dream. Ruby sat on my bedpost, her legs kicking back and forth.

She stood up. “You’re awake. You said you’d deal with this in the morning. It’s morning now.”

“So what do you want from me?” I got out of bed and washed my face in the water basin. “I heard something about a quest. Isn’t that what normally happens in situations like this?”

“Good, good!” Ruby lifted off the bed post and landed on my shoulder. “You understand.”

“But what if I don’t want to go on a quest?”

“I figure that you’re going to go on it whether you like it or not.”

“We’ll see.” I yawned, and then went downstairs, where Ami was preparing breakfast.

I sat down at the table.

Ami looked, with surprise, at the fairy on my shoulder. “Rock! What’s that?”

Ruby flew off my shoulder and circled Ami. “My name is Ruby. It’s nice to meet you, Rock’s sister.”

Ami laughed. “Wow! It’s a fairy! She’s real, and she’s magical!”

Ruby returned to my shoulder and touched down. “You must not tell anyone that I’m here.”

“I know, I know.” Ami continued to stir the porridge on the cook fire. “Why are you here?”

“I’ve come to ask something of Rock.” Ruby kicked her legs back and forth. “He’s in danger now and he has to listen to what I have to say.”

“Sorry, Ruby.” I watched Ami cook. “I don’t think I’m capable of helping you. I’m just an ordinary fisherman.”

“But you’re not! You’re much more special than you think you are!”

I shook my head. “Sorry. No. You can stay here if you have nowhere to go, but other than that, I’m not going to go on some hairbrained adventure with you.”

Ruby sighed. “Sure.”

Ami put a bowl of porridge in front of me. “Eat up. You have to be at the docks soon, don’t you?”

I finished my food quickly and left the house. Ruby’s body flickered, and she turned into a small red gem about the size of a coin. The gem landed in my hand. I wrapped my fingers around it.

“This is my hidden form.” Ruby’s voice came from the gem. “Please don’t lose me. Put me somewhere secure.”

I slid the gem into my inner pocket and buttoned it shut. I still had my glove on my left hand. I hoped that no one would ask any questions about that.

“You work as a fisherman, right?” Ruby’s voice came from inside my coat.

“Yeah.”

I walked across town to the docks. It was still dark outside, with the beginnings of dawn on the horizon. I reached the place where the Big Hutch, the ship I was signed to, was moored.

The docks were attached to the edge of the floating island on which Bearskin was situated. Beyond the wooden piers, one could see all the way down to the skyfloor. The skyfloor featured an endless green carpet of trees amidst floating banks of fog. I watched my step as I climbed aboard the Big Hutch.

Captain Nire was directing the sailors at their various jobs. “Get that rope tied, Mark! Brian, what are you doing? That’s not how you scrub the deck!”

Tae stood at the ship’s bow, working with her hands on something. I walked up behind her.

“Hi. Good morning.”

Tae grunted. “This thing is giving me a ton of trouble. Don’t talk to me.”

I waited for her to finish whatever it was she was doing. She sighed and looked at me. “You look different. Like your eyes. Did you do something?”

“Um, no. Not at all.” I tucked my gloved hand into my coat. “I’m ready to man the harpoon.”

“Good. Captain says we’re lifting off in half an hour.” Tae walked past me. “You’ve been doing good recently. I think the captain wants to give you a promotion.”

“Uh, yeah, I guess that’s a good thing.”

Tae slapped me on the back. “It’s a very good thing. Come on, now. We have knots to tie.”

We spent the rest of the sunrise tying knots and oiling harpoon guns. When we were ready to set off, we cast the mooring lines and unfurled the sails. The ship floated away from the docks and out into the great sky.

We traveled east for an hour, chasing the clouds. Clouds meant that skyfish would be nearby. The lookout cried as a school of bekits flitted out from between the billows. I manned my harpoon.

Just as we were about to engage with the school of fish, the clouds parted to reveal a skywhale.

“Hard to port! Skywhale! It’s a killer!”

The ship banked hard. I slid across the deck and slammed into the side railing, cracking the wood. Slivers of wood fell away, twirling as they shrank into the distance. The sky whale lifted up its gigantic mouth and bit the Big Hutch in two. Splinters flew everywhere. The mast cracked, the sound echoing like a thunderbolt. Several sailors fell into the open sky. They screamed as they fell.

The ship’s sky engine faltered and the two halves began to fall. I gripped the railing, my knuckles turning white. Tae slid past me. I grabbed her arm and held on.

Ruby’s gem in my pocket grew warm. She transformed and flew up next to my shoulder. “Use your magic!” She unfurled a small parchment scroll in front of me. “Read this out loud!”

“Null canus, set variable X.”

“And Y! And Y!”

“And Y. Call for physics package.” The ship’s halves began to pick up speed as they fell.

“Louder!” Ruby did her best to keep the scroll oriented in front of me.

“Execute feather fall.”

Tae and I lifted off the wooden ship’s deck and floated away. The ship fell below us, as our descent slowed. Tae and I were holding hands while hovering in the air. We were still falling, but at a much slower rate.

Ruby snapped her finger and the scroll disappeared. “Good. You did it.”

“Was that just magic?” Tae looked at me with wide eyes. “You can use magic?”

“I didn’t know before this either.”

Ruby flew over to Tae. “Hello. My name is Ruby.”

“Tae.” Tae looked down and her face turned a bit green. “Wow. You saved our lives.”

“It wasn’t just me. Rock’s pronunciation was very good for a beginner.”

“I was just speaking normal Common!”

“Eh? That’s what it sounded like to you?”

“Um, yeah.”

Ruby put her hands on her hips. “Well then. We’ll sort that out later. For now, you two are descending onto the skyfloor. You’re going to have to survive down there and repair the sky engine of the ship.”

“Can’t we use magic to get out of this?” Tae closed her eyes.

“There’s no such thing as flight magic.” Ruby flitted around Tae. “I have wings, but you two don’t. So either you figure out how to create flight magic or you’re stuck repairing the flight engine.”

Tae swallowed. “Don’t flight engines just work through the heating of sky steel?”

“That they do. I’m surprised you even know that.” Ruby flew over to me and laned on my shoulder. “I have high hopes for you two down there.”

We continued to lower towards the skyfloor canopy. The process took about half an hour, during which Tae kept her eyes closed. Ruby sat on my shoulder and kicked her legs back and forth as we fell.

We came close to the canopy. The sound of animals rose from below. The wreck of the Big Hutch was splayed out around an area of about an acre.

Tae and I landed on the large boughs of a tall tree. The feather fall magic dissipated and I felt my weight return. I looked down at the ground, and immidiately caught sight of zombies.

“Looks like the crew didn’t make it.” Tae gripped my hand. One of the zombies was captain Nire. “We’re the only ones left.”

“How are we going to fix the engine with zombies below us?” I looked at Ruby.

“I’ve got a few ideas, but I’m not sure they’ll work.”

“Yeah?”

Ruby fluttered her wings. “You can use the fireball magic spell and burn them all.”

“Can I do that? Won’t that require a lot of magic power?”

“You’ve got plenty of mana. It’s one of the reasons why I chose you. Come on, now.” Ruby unfurled another parchment scroll. “Read this out loud.”

“Null Bravos. Set parameters two-one-five. Burn hot. Fire.”

A big orange ball of fire appeared out of nowhere in my palm. In a panic I pointed the fireball at the zombies below us. The fireball shot from my palm and blasted apart several zombies. More, though, came through the underbrush and started clawing at the trunk of the tree.

“That didn’t work out. Maybe throw more?” Ruby continued kicking her feet back and forth. “Just say “Null repeat break.””

“Null repeat break.” Another fireball flew from my hand and smashed into the zombies. “Null repeat break.” I repeated the process a dozen more times. I began to feel tired, as if I had just finished a large meal and was sitting in front of a nice fire on a cold day. My eyes closed.

“Whoa there.” Tae caught me and kept me from falling from the branch.

Ruby sighed. “Guess that won’t work. Even with your magic power, we don’t have enough to kill them all.”

Zombie bodies were strewn about the undergrowth, and much of the vegetation was on fire. More zombies staggered out from between the trunks of the surrounding trees.

“At least they can’t get us up here.” Tae sighed, sitting down on the branch and letting her legs dangle. “Maybe we could build a bridge to the other trees?”

“Maybe.” Ruby tapped me on the head. “Do you have enough mana to do one more spell?”

“Um, yeah. I think so.” I was feeling quite tired but I wasn’t about to quit. Ruby unfurled a scroll in front of me again.

“Null Gravitas. Growth chamber import. Liken to fernifera. Continue.” I felt a large burst of energy leave my body. I swayed, but Tae managed to keep me on the branch with her arm around me.

The tree beneath us began to grow. Twisting leafy tendrils reached out from the branches around us and formed first a mat, and then a bridge-like walkway. The walkway was coated in vines that wrapped themselves around the wood. The bridge grew towards the site where the Big Hatch had crashed. Below, the zombies increased their moaning.

We traveled the bridge, though Tae had to keep me steady on my feet. After a few minutes, and several dozen meters of bridge, we reached the site of the crash. The wood of the ship had cracked in multiple places and the masts were caught in the trees around it. The two halves were placed some distance away from each other. There, on the ground, the sky engine sat, still letting off steam. No monsters seemed to be around it.

Tae held on to a branch and leaned towards the sky engine. “Looks like it’s mostly in place. If we can build a small raft and attach the engine to it, then we’ll be able to get out of here.”

“Let’s hope we can do it without attracting the attention of those zombies.”

Ruby twirled in front of me. “I have just the spell for that!”