Those weeks were strange for Flint: for the first time since he was a child, he was an accepted part of a community. Despite his best efforts to remain unaffected by this realization, in his heart of hearts he knew he was beginning to enjoy himself. Any other person would call these people friends.
The experience was marred by a low buzz of anxiety, though. He had frequent nightmares about Ettermire, his subconscious playing through countless disquieting what-if scenarios, each one uniquely gruesome and emotionally devastating. Multiple times a week he’d wake in the morning dark and sneak down the narrow hall to peek in on Luned as she slept. Every time he felt like a fool, but he couldn't deny the need to ensure she hadn’t been taken from him in the night by one of the myriad horrors they’d faced. They had seen so many monsters that sometimes their survival seemed the dream.
And Ettermire hung over him for another reason. The longer the voyage went on, the more paranoid Flint became at the thought of Luned discovering the Swaysong in his possession. He spent an unhealthy amount of his private time devising increasingly creative hiding places for the little vial. He was driven by the ridiculously overdramatic scenarios he imagined: that she would find the vial and fly into a rage and denounce him in front of the entire crew, and they would ostracize him for his betrayal. He would be forced to throw himself overboard, and ultimately he’d drown alone and forgotten, an unknown speck in the unfeeling sea.
Every time he saw her sitting alone above deck, staring forlornly at the horizon, he imagined she was thinking about that lost opportunity – the opportunity he was secretly denying her. If she had the Swaysong, she could fix the darkness in her past and mend the cold hole in her heart. Once, he was so wracked by guilt that he considered giving it to her. He had it in the palm of his hand, but when she smiled at him as he approached he quickly pocketed it.
It was easy to forget the fear and the guilt most of the time, though. She spent much of her time with her nose in a book and once she finished she would recommend it to Flint and he would, without exception, proceed to read it. When they weren’t side-by-side reading, they were discussing the wondrous things they were learning, or sharing in their mutual glee for outlandish stories under the guise of criticism. He could see the way his intellect continued to surprise her, and that was endlessly pleasing to him.
There was an overcast day that saw them sitting with their backs to a mast in the late afternoon when the sky unleashed the most abrupt and overwhelming downpour either of them had ever experienced. Flint had been reading so protecting the book was easy, but Luned had been penning notes. They scrambled to save Luned’s papers, but by the time they retreated below decks they were both utterly soaked.
“Damn,” Luned said, separating the sopping pages so the ink wouldn’t run any worse than it already had. Flint started to devise some means of drying the pages, but his attention wandered as he watched her.
The rain made her hair into dark, straight, thick strands, and as she worked she tucked those strands in behind her ear and inadvertently exposed the scars on her neck. Flint’s eyes followed a droplet as it ran over her freckled cheek to her jaw, and then his gaze abandoned it and followed the pale scar instead, which lead him inexorably to the clinging material of her blouse.
“Here,” she said, startling him. She raised her eyes, finding his, and handed him a relatively dry piece of paper. “Hold that for me a second?”
He nodded without saying anything.
Later that night, he wandered down to the mess to pilfer a strip of salt jerky. The dwarf surprised him, apparently whipping up another baked wonder, but he risked all ire and claimed the jerky anyway. The cook didn’t seem to care, so he sat down and gnawed on his treat sullenly.
“So,” the red-head said. “You gonna make a move on her or…?”
Flint glowered, and opened his mouth to respond, but a harsh laugh interrupted him. Muir leaned out of a far shadow, setting his bottle down on the common table. “He’s ugly, not stupid, Blue,” the pirate said. “Lune likes her beaus soft and pretty. You have no idea how long she had that coffee-skinned man-tart chasing after her. What the hell was his name, the doctor boy.”
“Petru?” Flint said, raising an eyebrow. That had been the man who had nursed him back to health after Agnie helped them escape Ettermire.
“That’s the one!” Muir said. “I thought for sure the two of them would have fifty rugrats strangling their ankles by now, but I guess old Bleddyn keeps my sister busy. Anyway, don’t feel too bad for him, Blue. There’s no accounting for taste.”
“Indeed,” Flint said, tearing off a strip of jerky with his teeth as he stalked away.
“Goodnight!” Muir called after him.
Flint trudged up the stairs without saying anything.