Shelby’s legs clanked across the stone streets, the sound clanging like bells in the failing light. It was strange, the little things that brought her joy now. It was amazing that she could walk down this street in a busy town of her own volition and without fear, green magic washing over the buildings she passed like light reflecting from a pool at night. It should not have felt like a treat to take a simple stroll down the street in the evening. And yet she relished every moment of the luxury.
But where did a ship her size go, on a night out? She knew Vincent used to frequent bars and clubs, and she’d met quite a few smaller aeo constructs who’d invited her to such attractions, but there was nowhere there for her but the parking lot. In fact, while she’d met more people like her than she ever imagined existed during her short time here, aeo constructs of her size were very rare. While every Etelutian possessed the ability to cast aeo magic, from what she’d learned, none of them were quite as adept at it as the few humans who possessed the ability. It would take many Etelutians a lot of cooperation and effort to bring life to a creation like here. And so, even here, where she had finally found acceptance, in so many ways she was–often literally–on the outside looking in.
So she walked. For hours at a time she strode across the city, sometimes making ventures to the nearby islands, often just exploring the busy streets. She’d been down nearly all of them now. But not this one.
Voices and music escaped from restaurants and bars. Smiling Etelutians left shops with their evening shopping swaying from their arms in cloth bags. All places where she was a stranger at best, a nuisance at worst. She kept walking until the lights of bars faded to closed office fronts, faded to a city park, until the brick sidewalk gave way to a dirt road. A narrow path wound its way into the trees, but she stayed to the edge of the woods, leaving enough clearance between her roof and the trees that she didn’t snap the branches.
As she left the city behind, she felt a sort of energy wash over her, and she found herself walking faster. It was like the gentle radiation she’d always felt when Vincent was near. She didn’t have any sensors designed to detect it, but it was unmistakably and tangible, even when he wasn’t actively casting aeo magic. It was strange, feeling it now when he wasn’t around. Every Etelutian seemed to radiate a bit of it, though when they cast a spell near her, it was about as strong as when Vincent was asleep in her cab. Still, the background noise was enough to keep her going, and it was stronger here.
She did a swift scan of the area. There was a group of Etalutians off in the trees somewhere, and her optical sensors picked up a thin stream of green light in a familiar spectrum broadcasting in the sky nearby. Perhaps that path led to one of the temples the Etelutians spoke of. It was a benevolent concept that she of course appreciated. It allowed her more freedom than she’d ever had when she’d been completely dependent on Vincent for her supply of energy. But while she understood the kindness of donating aeo energy for all of her kind to utilize, the weight these people placed on faith baffled her. Aeo magic was 100% possible without faith. She was living proof of that. And their insistence that godless aeo magic was an affront to some invisible “Giver” was exactly why the ban on aeo magic in the Perfectorate existed, to hear them talk. (Though she suspected it also had to do with military strategy).
In the end, these people’s faith was just another unfounded theory that had kept her in servitude for so many years, and in the end, their temples, though designed for her betterment, were just another place she didn’t fit.
As she walked, she felt herself begin to leave the temple behind, but it was still close enough to feel when she arrived at the base of a large hill. She scanned the way up, surprised to see that there was a path big enough for her to climb. It was a bit overgrown–a wagon would have a hard time of it–but it was nothing her legs wouldn’t take her over easily. With nothing better to do to fill the time until her next shift with Vincent, she began the climb.
She wondered where he was right now. It was strange, not knowing the answer to that question. It was better now. The temple spilling green luminescence into the sky allowed them a healthier relationship–a relationship with boundaries and freedom and personal space. But some part of her would always think of him as her human, and some part of her would always feel wrong when they parted ways at the end of their work days. Perhaps it would be different if she truly felt she had somewhere else to go.
The path curved gently around the hill, and as she neared the top, she began to feel like she was not alone. As she crested the top of the hill, the green beacon clear against the dark sky from up here above the trees, she applied her breaks, shifted, ever so slightly into reverse. There, in front of her, was the battered hulk of a Rim Ship. It rested in a crater at the top of the hill, only a fraction of its body remaining, its one remaining engine gouged and rusted, its balloon in tatters on the ground next to it.
Perhaps, she thought, one of the Perfectorate’s vessels had managed to escape its carefully laid course and crashed here. But what had happened to its inhabitants? Did the Etelutians know this was here? Before she could ask more questions, the ship began to glow.
In a voice deep as voids that stretched under her as she crossed a bridge, the ship spoke. “I DID NOT EXPECT A VISIT.”
“I DID NOT EXPECT TO VISIT ANYONE.”
The two ships regarded each other, Shelby parked at the lip of the crater, the stranger rusting in its center.
“YOU ARE BROKEN,” Shelby said. “PERHAPS I CAN HELP.”
“OTHERS HAVE TRIED,” said the stranger. “THE RIGHT PARTS ARE NOT MACHINED HERE, AND THE ARKERS LIVE AMOUNGST THE HUMANS, FAR AWAY WHERE THERE ARE NO STARS.”
“YOU ARE ALONE HERE. I CAN TOW YOU TO TOWN. THERE ARE OTHERS LIKE US HERE.”
“THERE ARE NO OTHERS LIKE US IN THAT TOWN.” The ship creaked, shifting her hulk in the dirt as if falling farther into decay.
“PERHAPS NOT JUST LIKE US,” said Shelby.
“I DO NOT WISH TO LIVE IN THAT TOWN,” the ship said.
“WHY NOT?” said Shelby.
“IT IS NOT A MEMORY I ENJOY ACCESSING.” The ship said.
Shelby left it at that. Eventually, she took a step closer. “I AM SHELBY.”
“I AM JOURNEY.” The ship shifted to display a faded name written along her side. It was scored with a clawmark, but still legible.
“DO YOU LIKE TO BE ALONE?” said Shelby.
There was a long pause. Seconds and seconds stretched out between them as the light front eh temple pulsed slightly behind Shelby. Finally, Journey spoke again. “NO.”
“THEN PERHAPS I CAN VISIT YOU, SOMETIMES.”
More silence. Then, “IF YOU WOULD ENJOY THAT, IT WOULD BE MUTUALLY ENJOYABLE.”
With a hideous creak, Discovery opened one of her bay doors. “WOULD YOU LIKE TO COME INSIDE? ONE OF MY CRAWLER BAYS REMAINS MOSTLY INTACT.”
Shelby hesitated, then crawled forward to the doors. She fit perfectly inside the other ship’s bay. She felt that Vincent would have made some sort of joke about it if she’d said something like that out loud around him, but it wasn’t a joke to her. In fact, she couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt anything this close to an embrace. For a while they just sat together in silence with the bay doors open, watching the thin stream of green, nourishing, light swirl into the sky.
Then, two hours, forty three minutes, and twelve seconds later, the sky erupted into a swirl of green. Shelby could feel the power surging through her, familiar and exhilarating and tinged with inexplicable homesickness.
Journey’s hull surged with power as well, and for a moment, in the brilliant green, the rust didn’t look so thick.
“IT HAS BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE I FELT MAGIC LIKE THAT,” said Journey.
“MY HUMAN USED TO CAST MAGIC LIKE THAT ALL THE TIME,” said Shelby.
“I HAD HUMANS ONCE,” said Journey.
“WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM?” Said Shelby.
“ANOTHER UNHAPPY MEMORY FILE,” said Journey, then after three more seconds. “THIS ONE WILL NOT BE.”
“I AM GLAD.”
“AND I AM GLAD YOU WERE HERE TO EXPERIENCE IT WITH ME.”
Shelby locked her braces against the bay and settled in, glad for her freedom, but also glad that she didn’t have to spend every night alone.
Crawling the Edge: The Coastrunner Chronicles 