Damon’s head was pounding from both the inside and out when he awoke the next morning. His memory of the previous night was spurious, but he remembered how drunk he’d been, falling onto the bed, and Vel’s loving thighs.
She’d undressed him and tucked him in. Damon smiled, feeling as close to her as he’d ever been, despite the five-year gap in their relationship. He made the mistake of trying to get up and get dressed and nearly collapsed under the weight of his hangover.
Over the course of several arduous minutes, he managed to make himself decent and start his day. He headed out into the hallway, which had a strange, timeless feel to it from the illumination of the light crystals, and then upstairs.
The common room showed few signs of the amount of drinking he’d done the previous night. It was well into the morning, at least an hour or two after he’d normally wake up, and only Malon was present. She was clearing a plate from the table and turned to greet him, her smile warm and welcoming and a salve to his labored mood.
“Good morning, solas,” she said.
“Good morning, aesta. I know I’m not the first one up. Is everyone else already at work for the day?”
She shrugged, wiping her hands on the apron she wore over her dress. “Vel is at the wheel, but I’m not certain I’d describe that as work for her. Lilian said she’d check the furnace to make sure it was still flush with coal, but I suspect she’s finished by now.”
“Ria?”
“Still in bed. She’s unused to ship travel. I think this may in fact be one of her first times sleeping on one.”
Damon took a seat at the table. Malon disappeared into the ship’s kitchen, returning a minute later with several thick slabs of maple toast and a mug of tea. He sighed as he looked at the food, having less than no appetite, but knowing that food would expediate his recovery.
“Would you like me to warn you the next time you’re about to pass from simple drunkenness into the type that leaves you aching the following morning?” she asked, with a hint of a smile.
“Please do.” He sipped at the tea, which was sweetened with honey. “I would head back to bed, but I need to make sure Vel knows what she’s doing.”
“I was going to ask about our course,” said Malon. “For now, she’s just been heading due west.”
“According to Myr, that’s where we need to go,” he said.
“I can help you make adjustments when we’re further out,” whispered Myr. “As close to due west as you can manage.”
“We’ll need to resupply during the journey,” said Malon. “Stopping in Telsius, before we’re too deep into the Endless Ocean, seems prudent.”
“That it does. The island survived after… everything, I take it?”
Malon nodded, though her expression looked strained. “Better than any city in Veridan’s Curve. I heard that it had some issues with the sheer number of refugees for a time, but it’s been years, and I’m sure the situation has settled down.”
“That’s where we’ll head, then,” he said.
He crammed down his breakfast and made his way to the upper deck. Vel was dressed for the fair sea weather, with a shirt that left her stomach mostly bare and a slitted, sarong-style skirt. She was at the wheel, eyes narrowed in concentration, despite navigating an empty sea.
“Good morning,” said Damon.
She flashed a smirk over her shoulder. “You’re alive! I wasn’t so sure you would be, after last night.”
“I… may have underestimated the strength of Avarice’s booze,” he said, with a shrug.
“Well, the ship has been managing fine under my watchful eye,” she said. “Aesta mentioned Telsius as being a reasonable destination before we commit to the bulk of the journey.”
“So I heard,” he said. “Have you plotted the course yet?”
“Nope. I was hoping you might help with that.”
Damon nodded and looked at the various charts and maps laid out across the table. Vel had made enough progress that morning to put the coast, and Avaricia, out of sight behind them, but she was navigating by compass, and he could make a reasonable guess about where they were.
“We should head a bit north,” he said.
“How much is a bit?” asked Vel.
He leaned over behind her and gently adjusted the ship’s wheel a small amount. “About that much. From now on, we need to double check the maps each morning and the star charts each night.”
“When you say we, you mean…?”
“Mostly you,” he said. “I’ll help when I’m at the wheel or when I have free time, but we need to make sure we aren’t just navigating blind.”
Vel sighed, clearly more enamored with the ease of operating the wheel than the specifics of their direction, but she didn’t object. Damon planted a kiss on top of her head.
“Thanks for last night,” he said.
“Of course. You would have done the same for me.”
He squeezed her shoulder. She grabbed his wrist and pulled him down so their faces were even and gave him a real kiss.
“Where did that come from?” he asked.
“Think of it as a reminder that it’s kind of annoying when you go to bed with someone, and they’re too drunk to be effective .”
“You could have taken advantage of me if you’d really wanted to,” he said.
Vel blinked and slowly shook her head. “You are such a boy. Come find me later. You’ll need to be taking the late shift at the wheel unless you want us to have to drop anchor again.”
“I will,” he said. “And tonight, I plan on being a bit more considerate about how much I drink.”
“Mmm, you’d better be.”
Damon headed downstairs and out onto the main deck. He found himself without a clear idea of how to spend his day, given how few pressing chores there were, given how efficient The Reunion was to operate.
He remembered Malon mentioning fishing equipment the day before, and after rifling through a storage closet in the back of the main deck, found a rod and some tackle. There was also a fishing net, carefully folded and tied to keep from being tangled, but he had only a passing idea of how to make use of one and decided to save it for later.
He felt a bit silly setting up at the very front of the main deck, against the edge of the ship’s guard railing. Vel was watching him from her perch up in the glass cabin, and while he doubted there would be much to watch until he managed to get a fish on, it still added a certain amount of pressure. Damon was far from a fisherman and only had a semblance of what he was doing.
He cast out and waited. And waited. And… waited some more. He pulled up the line, wondering if perhaps one had bitten and he just hadn’t felt it. No such luck.
He was heading toward a new spot off the side of the ship under the assumption that perhaps the bow was scaring off his potential quarry, but before he could cast out, Malon came out onto the deck and waved to him. They’d traveled out far enough from Veridan’s Curve for the sun to be visible through the clouds again, and she looked beautiful in the early afternoon glow.
“Solas,” she said. “Would you mind heading down to check on seta?”
“Ria is still in her cabin?” he asked.
“I… don’t think she’s taking well to the ship.” Malon shrugged and looked a little worried. “I would check on her myself, but…”
“Right.” He nodded, feeling a bit sobered by the reality of Malon and Ria’s strained relationship. Regardless of how grand their journey was, and how comfortable their accommodations were, they still hadn’t escaped from their history with one another.
“Thank you,” said Malon. “For this, and for everything.”
“Aesta, you don’t have to thank me.” He set a hand on her waist and brushed a few stray strands of red hair out of her face, blown astray by the warm sea breeze. They shared a kiss, soft at first, growing more passionate until it felt like the start of something too distracting to happen in the open, in the middle of the day.
“I should do some cleaning in the main cabin,” said Malon, clearing her throat.
“And I should go see Ria,” he said.
“Later… we can talk more.”
“Definitely.”
He headed below decks. Ria’s cabin was next to his, and he heard a pained moan from within as he knocked on the door.
“Ria?” he called. “Are you alright?”
She was clad only in her small clothes, laying on her stomach, head positioned over a sour-smelling bucket. Her hair was disheveled, and a bit of drool hung across her chin. She groaned and shook her head, taking a few steadying breaths.
“I… am far from alright,” she muttered. “The motion of the ship has undone me. I simply cannot settle my stomach.”
“Seasickness,” said Damon. “It’s a hell of a thing. It hit you pretty hard when we were traveling by boat after the Honorshade Tournament. Remember that? We stole a boat from Glittershell Island.”
“Please, no…” muttered Ria. “I do not wish to think of that any more than I wish to experience this.”
“Hey…” He took a seat next to her on the bed. “Just breathe and try not to fight it. It’ll pass, in time. It’s just a reaction of the body. You’re not really sick.”
She glared at him for a moment, and then her cheeks suddenly bulged outward, and she was spitting into the bucket. Damon winced and started rubbing her back, soothing her much as Vel had soothed him the night before.
“Would some tea help?” he asked. “Aesta made some earlier.”
Ria shook her head.
“Wine?” he joked.
“Mmm… Perhaps. If I could… confuse myself into thinking this feeling was from drunkenness, I might handle it better.”
He hadn’t been serious, but considering her state, he figured it was better than trying nothing. He went up to the main deck and returned with a bottle and a glass. Ria took small sips, spitting as much of it into the bucket as she actually drank.
“Thank you,” she muttered. “I think I should try to sleep.”
“I think that’s a good idea.” He planted a kiss on the back of her head. “I’ll come check on you again in a little bit. Stay strong.”
He found another bucket for her and rinsed out the contents of the previous one, surprised at how indifferent he was to the mess. If it had been someone who he didn’t care so much about, it would have seemed awkward or gross, but it was Ria. For her, it was nothing.