To Fly the Soaring Tides

The young and newly reborn sorcerer suggested she just pop on over to Plackelo real quick on some lightning and check for the treasure, but it was of course vetoed. Despite her argument that she would become invisible once she arrived, the Council wasn’t having it.

In fact, visiting Plackelo for any reason in person was considered as official as business got. Some had the gall to argue that she was not likely to keep a low profile. Outrageous.

Cira first expressed how she did not want to bear the symbolic sun of the Final Sky on her flags. Shores could do what he wanted on his own time, but she did not intend to lean into her role as an object of worship any further than the sky forced her to.

So, she was quick to dismiss the golden sun insignia. Somehow, though… in some way which escapes even the daughter of a sage, she ended up with not one, but seven suns painted on a giant black flag atop the unfortunately christened ‘Saint’s Wings’. This was still technically her flag ship, but Breeze Haven sported a new flagpole as well that stuck out of her yard at the crew’s recommendation.

Unfortunately, signage was at the mercy of the Mortal Council. Since the armada was acting on official business, they had to put forth the right image. Only a couple members wanted to lean into the prophecy stuff, but it was utterly vetoed by the majority, which Cira was endlessly thankful for. Still, they needed people to recognize that the elusive Saint of Seven Suns was backing them. Evidently, that mysterious young woman was the Boreal’s newest rising power—along with the upstart pirate captain Cirina Dreadheart, as fate would have it. This effect was only exacerbated by the fact that nobody knew anything about them or even saw them since Fount Salt turned into an egg.

After a heated debate, Cira talked them down to seven white suns, the artistic kind with wavy points, surrounding a golden skull. She was ashamed to admit she almost slapped the shit out of the good Reverend Shores, who wasn’t even on the council, when he suggested the eyes should be eggs, but everyone else shared her sentiment. It was nice for a change. Any attempts to make crossed staves behind the skull turned out unrecognizable from any distance at best, or as Jimbo put it, phallic at worst.

So just the skull and seven suns. Simple enough, and Cira made the first two flags herself in a totally different style from the gaudy Final Sky sun. This way, perhaps it would be blasphemy to deviate from her original design in the future.

It really felt like she was about to initiate some serious pirate business after getting all hyped up with a few barrels of paint, and she was going to conjure Breeze Haven’s artillery just for show when James reminded her Plackelo was just a regular island Wick happened to own a couple plots of.

That buzzkill was enough to put the real Cirina Dreadheart back in her cage, and she relaxed a little as they forged a path through the fog. Still, they made her switch out the whimsical violet robes she spent the morning sewing so cheerfully and made her change right back into the Dreadheart getup.

To get her to stop pouting, they ended up scrounging a new hat from somewhere. One befitting a real Captain, they claimed. It made her happy enough as she floated along between Breeze Haven and the sun-cannon warship.

“I gotta say,” Tawny called over from the deck of the latter. “You flying next to us lookin’ like you’re just standing there is kind of creepy.”

“…What do you mean?” Cira was caught off guard.

Luckily Gil was nearby to chime in, “I think she means it just looks kind of funny. We’re going pretty fast but you’re keeping up with us just standing there… on nothing.”

Despite having both legs, Cira was taking full advantage of not needing them. Flight magic was so simple now she felt genuinely stupid for not figuring it out until she had a mountain of deritium at her disposal.

When making her staves levitate, they often adhered to a fixed position in relation to her as the origin. It cost less mana to let them float around so long as they stuck to their center point, Cira. Of course, it cost much more to alter its position in real time at her will, which she often did when she had to throw a staff at someone or otherwise move it where she wanted.

Still, it would cost astronomically more if she were to, say, keep her orichalcum staff aloft with wind sorcery. This line of thinking led Cira to the realization that she could simply move. Her position changed at will, not through a convoluted game of propulsion and resistance—plus the myriad other factors which stifled her sorcerous ingenuity.

Magicians called those factors ‘physics’, but any sorcerer worth their salt wouldn’t let some natural law tell them what to do. There was almost always a way around it, one way or the other, at least temporarily. And taking advantage of such a way by altering her position in real time using nigh-imperceptible amounts of mana using her last position as an origin point rather than herself as she would her staves, Cira did not need to move in any way or flex one muscle in order to travel great distances.

“I could go significantly faster without doing anything. The wind will get out of my way, even. Are you suggesting I should be doing something merely so I don’t look so awkward? I suppose many of my casting gestures follow the same logic…” Cira raised a hand to her chin as she left a wake in the mist she displaced. “I’ve got it.”

She began walking. Ever since she was a child, she always dreamed of walking on the clouds. In reality, a bird appeared and whizzed past her head in half a second as she casually strolled through the sky.

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s doin’.” The newly appeared Jimbo leaned against the railing with his flask, “You’re just walking insanely fast. Really flauntin’ that new leg aren’tchya? Don’t even need to step on nothin’ huh?”

“Should I run, instead?” Cira started sprinting in the air, as she would after prey, next to the flagship while her crew slowly gathered with confused looks on their faces. “I have to say, this feels like it’s defeating the purpose. Maybe for my morning jog, but that’s not what I’m going for here.”

Cedric politely raised his hand, “What are you going for?”

“Oh!” Cira clapped, “That’s it!”

A lightning bolt appeared under Cira then she turned to the side and planted her feet on it, pretending to balance with her arms for effect. “Huh? What do you think? I can just ride this lightning bolt around.”

Cedric, her lone lightning mage, covered his mouth and gasped. “That’s—that’s incredible!”

“Yeah, I gotta agree.” Jimbo swayed, holding himself upright with his arm against the railing. He had been noticeably drinking a lot since they took the palace. “Ya need to teach me that one.”

“Looks like a cheap trick.” Tawny gave her a dramatic thumbs down, “Slowest lightning bolt I ever saw.”

It dispersed, and Cira threw her hands up in defeat, “You guys are impossible to please! What should I do? A flying kick?"

Cira assumed the position of a flying kick whose target lay beyond the horizon and proceeded to float alongside the others.

This one actually had unanimous vote, but she vetoed it herself.

“Shouldn’t you just point your head forward?” Tawny continued, “The smallest you can be will cost less mana when it comes to wind resistance.”

Yes, yes… it takes mana to resist the wind. Obviously, I’m ignoring it for convenience.

“True… I suppose we could look at this from a strictly pragmatic point of view.” Cira knew that as a sorcerer, convenience went hand in hand with utility, but the girl had a point. Over long distances and in a general sense, she would want to minimize the cost to the utmost. Cira was now standing up, however, rotated 90 degrees with her head facing forward. “I can imagine my neck getting sore from staring ahead over long distances, but how does it look?”

She was basically flat on her stomach with her hands at her sides, neck craned all the way up to see forward. It didn’t seem like this pose would do much more than trade comfort for mana. This was not the sorcerer’s way.

There were a few head nods and shrugs from the crowd, and they thought it looked alright, overall.

“Kinda looks natural,” Shores shouted from the helm, “when you look down though, it looks like you’re not paying attention to where you’re going. Could be confusing. I saw a guy shot out of a cannon once and he looked like that.”

“Oh, come on…” There was no way she was going to add a pose to her regular rotation wherein she had to subject her neck of all places to ergonomically compromised positions simply to look dignified. Okay, think. Ergonomics. If I move my arms, it should lessen the stress on my neck.

Cira put two fists forward, inline with her body as she lay on her belly at unknown speeds through the sky. It did make her neck feel a little better, but her shoulders would certainly get tired after a few hours now too.

“That’s it!” Gil shouted.

“Yeah… looks like you’re goin’ into battle.” Jimbo slurred. “You could punch someone twice from miles away.”

Then the usual suspect, Tawny, rained on her parade, “Looks kind of pretentious.”

“Fine then! How about this?”

Cira rotated around until she was floating through the air while laying on her back, arms up with her hands supporting her head. She closed her eyes and pretended to sleep.

“Nevermind. That’s the one.” Jimbo snapped and pointed, slurring his words.

“For some reason, your opinion is the most questionable at the moment. Give me that flask.” It lifted effortlessly out of his hands and landed in Cira’s. Given her ability to ‘heal’ away most toxins, poisons and the like, she thought it couldn’t hurt to indulge in what she had learned was called ‘Rum’. She thought the name was rife with whimsy in that it was short and to the point, while she had no idea what it meant. Drinking it, she thought the name was fitting, for what it’s worth. “I’m onto you, you drunk bastard…”

Jimbo didn’t know what to make of the ambiguous accusations when Skipper’s voice cried from above, “Land ho!”

Huh…? Cira was quite comfortable with her hands interlaced behind her head as they broke through a stark border between storm and sky. The mist was almost like a wall behind them, and she stared at the ascending sun.

Fascinating… So, the storm is far from natural after all. I must admit, I’m a little disappointed.

She pushed against the ground that didn’t exist to get a better look ahead. The island was hardly a couple miles across, and mostly flat. While there was some farmland, about half of the island was forested, but no trees rose much above a single-story building.

It looked like a small city as they approached, paved in stone and developed with a deliberate hand. While the town spanned an impressive distance, all the buildings looked the same, seemingly laid out to plan. The streets were clean, and windows were fitted with clear glass. It was bizarre seeing so clearly after being stuck in the mist for so long, and Cira took a moment to appreciate the beautiful azure sky that awaited her once she found the treasure and wrapped all this up.

In that same moment, she also noticed a fair amount of people in the streets, then bells started to ring from the center of town.

“Is this Plackelo…?” Cira thought the town looked very nice, but the percussive bells going off in this moment could not have been a coincidence. “Did we perhaps launch an invasion? James, explain this to me.”

Breeze Haven had a very nice cannon, if you will, which shot a beam of light which put Captain Shores’ to shame. Cira was initially very excited to show it off, but looking at this island, it was not one on which she wished to disrupt the peace, so it was unfortunate to receive such an unwelcome welcoming.

James gave her that sideways glance like he was a little disappointed too but that’s just how it was, “Captain Wick has been dethroned, and Dreadheart has taken his place and more. I don’t want to cause a panic either, but you own these skies, like it or not. Showing up and trying to hide would make us look bad, or weak, or both.”

“Can you define ‘these skies’?” Cira remembered what that old merchant said, that only half-rate pirates live on the Dead Belt. It was difficult to argue after overthrowing Wick ten minutes after waking up.

“The Noose, of course, and basically Dolliver to Plackelo. Don used to post up on Hawker’s Pact sometimes and extort a toll from all the merchants waiting for the storm to pass. Dangerous game though, what with the witches all over the place.” He shrugged. “Wick had been struggling to hold onto his territory after Earth Vein moved in, actually.”

A red flare arced through the sky, originating from a building that looked like it had a handful of mages on the roof. The streets had already emptied by the time they started approaching the docks.

“Huh. So, Fount Salt is part of my rightful territory? I wonder how Earth Vein would feel about that.” While she may have been drifting along the sky, the situation was so concerning that Cira was full blown sitting down right now with her arms wrapped around her knees attentively. “I must say, this looks like they’re preparing to fight us. Weren’t we trying to avoid that?”

Cira put the flask away in her ring for now and flew over to retake her standard arms-crossed pose on the ship’s bow.

“They shouldn’t be reacting this bad…” James groaned into his hand, trying to think through it. “Dammit. I’m sure Wick did something.”

“Well…” Prismagora appeared in a flash of light and layers of geometric shapes wrapped around ‘the Saint’s Wings’. Because she wasn’t a hack, the barrier became transparent for visibility shortly thereafter. She couldn’t let her flagship be so much as scratched or marred. “We can just accept their anger until they decide to listen to us. We’re reasonable folk, aren’t we?”

Breeze Haven stayed in the sky, casting a shadow over the island while the ship moored itself on unfamiliar docks. Long-range magic came from across town and fizzled out against the barrier while the crew threw ropes across to tie off, lowering the ramp at the same time. It seemed they were quite practiced at docking in a hurry.

For special effect, at the council’s suggestion and to Cira’s great reluctance, Breeze Haven’s barrier above radiated a holy light which cast no shadows upon the small island of Plackelo.

As if they anticipated a scenario wherein their docks were invaded, cannons fired atop the buildings lining the boardwalk and guards in uniform stacked up at the shore’s edge with rifles. Cira had to work even harder to protect the docks and nearby ships from these people’s long-range magic and incendiary munitions. It was quite a hassle.

“Don’t they see our flags?!” Cira cried. “It’s different from Wick’s, right? What even was his?”

“It did have a gold skull,” James replied, “It was all gold though.”

Ugh, why does there have to be a crossover between the church and pretentions asshole pirates? I happen to like gold as a color. It’s very pretty, and these people are ruining it.

“PEOPLE OF PLACKELO—AH, OOPS!” Cira’s voice shook the docks and people fell to their knees, dropping their guns and crying out from the intense waves of mana. Let’s just… tone that down a little.

“Captain Wick’s reign has ended.” Cira crumpled up a small card the Council wrote her lines on and turned it to dust. How did I let myself get roped into this? “I stand before you as the Eternal Pirate Empress Cirina Dreadheart.”