The Dusk of Dawn

Chapter Seven- The Loser g**g

“Uh… I’ve made breakfast if anyone’s…?” Fluffy trailed off and looked down at the shadowy hulk, where he could hear two people breathing and one snoring loudly. He climbed down the stairs and walked over to Jackson, Kitty, and Driya, who were all still asleep at one end of the boat.

“Uh…” He began, but Kitty’s eyes snapped open first.

He flinched, but she didn’t seem to notice him. Instead, she looked down and saw Jackson’s foot on her chin. With a hiss, she grabbed his ankle and yanked his leg up,  waking him with a yelp.

“What are you doing, idot with an i in the middle?!” He snarled, pulling his leg away.

“Same question to you!” She yelled, not letting go of his ankle. “What is your foot doing?!”

“How should I know? Let me go!” He tried to stand up awkwardly with one leg, but as he tried to straighten himself with his arms, he accidentally stamped his palm onto Driya’s face. She woke up with a screech.

“BAI CHI ni ge Bu hao!” She yelled, straightening up and rubbing her face where Jackson had pushed on. “A fine way to wake someone up!”

“It was her—”

“Kitty— dodge!” She yelled. Kitty smirked and dropped Jackson, she ran off to talk to Fluffy about breakfasts instead. Then Driya leapt up, swirled mid-air, and did a 360 degree crescent kick on Jackson’s face! 

“YOW! That HURTS!” He wailed. 

“So does this!” Driya protested, pointing at her face.

“I’m sleeping somewhere else tonight!” Kitty snapped.

“You’re most welcome to do so!” Jackson yelled back. 

It was these kinds of fights all day long, and Fluffy had gotten used to them. He tried to make himself scarce and not get too involved as they argued— or the boat might just crash and sink onto a reef somewhere and no one would know, and be presumed dead. Well— everyone must’ve thought the four of them were, right? Just like that dude from Driya’s show according to her stories.  

“What’s for breakfast?” Kitty asked happily, breaking away from the fight. “That ray yesterday gave me a weird hiccup. Can I just have some mild tea this morning?”

“Right… I think those ‘sea eggs’ taste weird,” Driya said, making a face. “Are you sure they aren’t dead squid?”

“I want more food for breakfast!” Jackson complained. “Since I’m the captain— I should get the most!”

“When did you become the ‘captain’?” Kitty spat, turning around and glaring, while Driya made an offended, confused, and ‘what is wrong with this i***t?’ face. “You were just our temporary leader! Plus we’re just voyagers! There are no ‘captains’ needed anyways!” Kitty was right. She wasn’t sure about Fluffy, but she and Driya certainly didn’t ‘need’ anyone. Besides, they only agreed to use the boat for liberty. and Jackson was the least fitting out of all of them for that role in any case.

“And you already have the most food!” Driya insisted. “You cleared out all our commodities in a week!” She concurred. “Ignorant, egocentric cretin!” She finished ambiguously. Fluffy noticed that she liked using complex and fancy phrases— not to show off, she didn’t care about vanity or peoples’ opinions— but rather for personal benefit. They looked at her muddled, especially Kitty and Jackson.

“Huh?” Jackson expressed. 

Driya rolled her eyes; “Argh, aren’t-aware-of-anything bendan!”

“Oh. Well that’s not my problem!” Jackson yelled back. “The storage is nearly empty anyways!” 

Fluffy sighed. He pushed them apart and turned to Driya with his notebook in hand.

“A tuna salad without sea eggs this morning, then.” He scribbled, noting down the points.

“Can’t I have pizza? Or bread, at least?” Driya groaned.

“No— as your cook I have to guarantee a healthy breakfast,” She rolled her eyes. He turned to Kitty; “you just want tea?”

“Yeah,” She clarified, then started playing with his short-afro dark brown hair again. “Ooh! Your name is really true, huh?”

Fluffy pulled away and coughed awkwardly, then turned to Jackson.

“How about a whole roasted salmon for you?” He asked.

“Great,” Jackson replied. “Some sea kelps and snails as an entrée would also do.”

Fluffy nodded and shut his notebook.

“Hey—” Driya spun around sharply and glared at Fluffy, “that’s not fair! How come he gets to order his food?” Driya yelled. “And that too, a lot of it!”

“Because I’m the captain!” Jackson snapped.

“We don’t have a captain!” Kitty snarled.

Fluffy rubbed his head then walked outside to check the navigation table that Kitty had calculated for him the previous night and made sure they were on the right track for Town Nile. Then he left the three of them arguing in the hull and set off for the kitchen. Humming to himself, he opened the door of the small cabin lit dimly with sunlight. He reached inside and pulled out a basket of vegetables, then started chopping them on the table.

He wasn’t sure if any one of his travelling companions was noting it down, but it had already been two weeks since they left the Flow Jungle. 

And three weeks since I left home. He sighed, mixing chopped lettuce and tuna meat in a bowl. And perhaps even three years before I return again. The end of the world— where there’s no horizon; it’s probably quite far.

Although… Compared to the most feared voyager, the Queen of Garavia, and the girl that obeyed nobody, his dreams sometimes seemed like a distant cloud; something he could see, but not quite reach.

He set Driya’s salad aside and picked through the tea cans after he’d placed Jackson’s salmon on the furnace. A white tea like white peony would probably fit Kitty’s needs, a week ago she said she was more of a light flavoured person.

He tapped the glass of their kitchen storage tank where food like clams, seaweed, and snails was temporarily kept for freshness until someone wanted to eat them. He scooped up a handful of wakame leaves, he mixed them up with sea kelp all the time until a few days ago, he finally realized wakame leaves grew in a large, fan-like shape while kelps grew in strips. He then tugged free some snails that clung to the tank wall firmly, waving their antennas pitifully at him as he pulled them off.

“Stop being so pathetic,” Fluffy ordered, putting them together with the salmon on the pan. “We’re still going to eat you.”

For himself, he made a pancake they saved from the last time they arrived at a small town on an island. He hoped that they’d come across another… They needed to purchase more resources.

Thanks to Driya’s arrow skills, they managed to capture a lot of strange fish to exchange with— or financial shortage might be a really big problem.

He picked up all the plates and opened the door with his back. Outside, Driya stood on the boat’s side and aimed her arrow at something beneath the surface of the sea. Jackson was doing his morning workout (handstand, punch something, handstand, and punch something again). He leapt off the boat’s front and landed hard onto the hull when Fluffy came out with the food.

“Stop shaking the boat, bendan!” Driya yelled. 

“Yeah, sure.” Jackson shrugged matter-of-factly, then took his plate from Fluffy. “Thanks.”

“Where’s Kitty?” Fluffy asked, glancing around. “Is she still inside the hull?”

Jackson shook his head and pointed upwards. Fluffy looked up and saw Kitty at the top of the sail, her legs in liquid form again and twisting around the sail’s pole. She held a telescope in her hand, looking around the sea.

“Kitty!” He yelled. “Breakfast is ready!”

He thought he heard Kitty say something like ‘thank you’ from the sails, but then her arm melted, and suddenly her hand was in front of Fluffy. It picked up her cup and shot back towards her with it.

There was a triumphant cry from Driya, he looked around and saw her pulling up an arrow she shot with the largest crab He’d ever seen on the other end. It was almost as large as Driya herself. He had no idea how she’d pulled it all the way up. The boat rocked ferociously as she battled with the crab, who had grabbed hold of the boat’s railing with its pincers so tight that Fluffy was afraid it might splinter. She pulled out a knife from the scabbard on her left cnemis, spun it around her hand, and stabbed the crab— but the blade bounced right off its shell.

“Who’s shaking the boat now?” Jackson yelled from the other end, busy shoving all the food into his mouth before the plate could spill.

“Come and help me control this thing already! Ack!” She exclaimed. “Bendan!” She yelped as the crab waved its free pincer at her. “And that was different! Technically it’s the crab by the way— not me.”

Fluffy tried his best to not let the food he still held spill, he leaned onto the safe and firm sail pole and sighed with relief.

“Fluffy! Dodge!”

He looked up, but it was too late.

Kitty came crashing down from the top of the sail, she liquefied her body, but she still landed right on top of Fluffy.

Fluffy screamed at the sudden blackness and bumped his head onto the sail as Kitty leapt off.

“Ow! Sorry, Fluffy,” Kitty grinned awkwardly. “My bad.”

Fluffy didn’t even get the chance to complain before a large screech came from Driya’s side. They turned around and saw her pinning the crab to the ground— she’d managed to drive a spear through its underbelly.

“Ha! Bendan crab! This is what you get for fighting ME!” She yelled triumphantly, dragging the crab up onto the deck.

“What has that crab done to deserve this?” Jackson said, shaking the last remains of his plate into his mouth. “Ish the mosh (most) brutal dess (death) I’ve ever sheen.”

“Well— thank me for making sure that we can get everything we need until the next time we find a town!” Driya snapped. “This crab is probably worth ten bags of flour! And CHEW WITH YOUR MOUTH CLOSED will ya?! Disgusting bendan…” 

“Speaking of towns…” Kitty said, twisting around the sail again. “There’s one there.” She nodded towards the North, and everyone rushed to the side of the boat to squint at the horizon.

There was a shape of a ship they hadn’t noticed before. But from a distance, they could still tell it was really large, with enormous sails propelling it forward.

“I’m pretty sure that that’s a boat,” Jackson said, making his odd face. “Not a town. Unless the know-it-all Kitty can’t tell the difference between these two things?” He mocked.

“Of course not, dumbhead!” She snapped, cuffing Jackson on the back of his head. “I was looking at the boat just before I smashed onto Fluffy. This boat is called ‘Titanius’. The third largest of the Moving Cities.”

“The Moving Cities?” Fluffy echoed. “What’s that?”

“I haven’t exactly seen any of them in real life. This is the first time, but it’s made out of twenty parts, seven of them are large boats, just sailing across the sea. Most of them, eleven, in fact, are camps, moving from Kingdom to Kingdom. The last two are airships. They’re really rare, only royals go to that place. Normal people like us won’t have a chance to go there.”

“Oh right! Mom once told me that—” Driya exclaimed, but caught herself and stopped. “Ahem,” She coughed awkwardly. “Mom once said that the Moving Cities sometimes arrive at Luana for refilling.”

Fluffy looked around. Jackson and Kitty didn’t really acknowledge Driya. Kitty continued to drone on— something about the connections and possible directions between the cities and Jackson looked highly offended when she said a brain like his wouldn’t understand it. Fluffy glanced at Driya, she looked nervous for a moment. He’d been suspicious about Driya’s real identity ever since they first met. She kept mentioning her ‘mom’ but none of them knew who she was. Fluffy tried to ask her about it sometimes, but she usually ignored the question with a shrug. And if Fluffy insisted, she would just usually bang him on the head and change subject.

I wonder… Fluffy deliberated.

“So…” Kitty said casually. Fluffy looked back at her and collected his focus. “We can get everything we need from Titanius. It’s basically a large, floating trade market.”

“Great,” Jackson replied. He walked to the sails and rose them, then he nodded at Kitty. “Let’s head over.”

Fluffy and Driya settled themselves beside the railing, holding on tight as Kitty slipped into the sea. Seconds later, the boat slowly sped up and headed for the Titanius.

Driya ordered Fluffy to keep hold of the crab she captured as the boat shot across the ocean surface. White waves splashed out of the sea behind them. Salty droplets kept spraying Fluffy, making it hard for him to open his eyes and see properly.

Driya and Jackson, however, still looked as if nothing happened and fought over who was going to purchase what at the boat’s front.

Fluffy sighed. In an adventure like this, dyslexia caused problems more than once. He was positive that he was going to pay with his life for this one day if he was not careful.

He had spent time watching his friends taking adventures and risks, but as he tried to follow, his body always collapsed halfway through. Just like now— Kitty was in the sea. With the help of her power, she was pushing the boat forward at such high speed that the boat itself could not achieve. Her power had also helped them heal wounds instantly several times. And without Driya’s particularly helpful skills, he wasn’t even sure they could have even lived through the Flow Jungle, let alone now.

He glanced down at the crab she caught and felt another stab of envy and guilt.

During their voyage, Jackson had successfully led them out of many troubles. He also had supernatural strength. No one (including himself) knew why or how he could do that, but judging by the last time he splintered a large boulder just by hitting it, his power was not common. Kitty kept saying that it must have been related to why he was imprisoned with her, with so many chains too. And… What he did all day was stay holed up under the safety of their shadows and cook.

He sighed again as the boat decelerated to a stop. The white waves cleared and he looked up.

It was the largest boat he had ever seen (not that he’d seen a lot). Smaller boats like theirs were being pulled up and let down all around its tall, giant, freshly painted wooden hull. Even from down here, he could hear the sounds of people talking and arguing over prices from the boat’s deck. People hung around the boat’s hull, fixing cables that pulled the other smaller boats, and others who looked like guards watched over the crowd of boats and directed them towards their spots.

A bubbly puddle of water extracted itself from the sea behind them and leapt onto the boat. It swirled into the form of a human and solidified into Kitty.

“Well?” Jackson asked. “It’s cool, but what do we do now? Are we going to climb?”

“Obviously not, bendan,” Driya riposted, rolling her eyes. “Look— boats are being pulled up. Maybe we could do the same?”

“Yeah,” Kitty replied, shaking her wet hair. “We can just steer the boat to one of those little cave things at Titanius’ side and there would be people who pull us up.

“People are going to pull us up?” Fluffy asked. “Like, with the boat?”

“Noooo,” Kitty breathed, dipping her arm into the sea. The boat moved slowly towards a free spot, where two guards sat on cables and waved glow-in-the-dark sticks, signalling them. “I think there’s a machine up there.”

The two guards dropped the sticks and started tying cables around the hull as they got closer. Then they blew a kind of whistle, the cables vibrated a little, and they rolled up slowly, pulling them away from the sea’s surface.

“Wow,” Fluffy breathed, looking down at the sea that started to distance apart. “I didn’t even think boats could go up this high.”

Jackson sat cross-legged on the boat’s front, looking both surprised and excited. Driya was telling Kitty how far more she could shoot from this height and Kitty was telling her what it might feel like to drop from this height.

“Hehe yeah…” Driya mused. “I read in a book once, that apparently landing in water is just like landing on concrete or something, ‘except that concrete doesn’t swallow you’. Really good book though, one of my favourites.”

“Hmm… Water doesn’t exactly swallow you either, it embraces you.” Kitty contemplated.  Driya rolled her eyes.

But finally Fluffy felt his legs getting softer as they arrived at a specific height. It felt like he might fall at any point and get crushed, the boats and people beneath were shrinking into the size of ants. The horizon stretched further, and the clouds seemed like they were rising from the sea.

“High, right?”

Fluffy screamed as Kitty firmly set her hands on his shoulders. She giggled.

“We might crash, you know?” She said.

“Stop it.” Fluffy rubbed his nose and backed inside, sliding from the rail.

“Stop acting like a grieving sea cucumber,” Driya teased from the other side. “Have some bones.”

“As if you have any,” Jackson mocked from the boat’s front. Fluffy did not understand how he could still be sitting there, without railings at such a height.

“Oh bosh, you bendan,” Driya rolled her eyes. “As if!”

Suddenly, the boat jerked and Fluffy tensed, but it turned out that they’d just arrived at Titanius’ platform.

Biting his lips and not looking down, Fluffy scuttled past the metal bridge that connected their boat from the Titanius’ deck, followed by Kitty, Driya, and Jackson who instantly started asking Driya for the crab as soon as they got there.

“Well, sell it first,” Driya replied. “And bring us the money. Then we can decide what to get.”