The Non-Human Society

“Vim.”

My eyes opened before I fully woke up… and the world became noisy. Noisier even than the battlefields in my mind.

Sitting up in the bed, I took a small breath to confirm what I was hearing. The familiar smell of the rain in the desert was unmistakable… and rather soothing.

“What’s wrong?” I asked Renn, who had stood up straighter upon my own movement. She must have been leaning over me, as to wake me. I wonder how long it had taken her to do so… hopefully not long.

“I’m sorry Vim… I know you’re tired, but I’m worried and I think you’d get upset with me if I didn’t wake you,” she spoke calmly, even though her words sounded dire. She even had a gentle smile on her face, which told me whatever was happening… wasn’t really anything worth fretting over.

I rolled a little, to bring my legs off the bed and to the floor. Taking another breath, I noted the slight sway of the ship. The whistle of the wind finding its way through all the cracks in the wood and windows told me the reason.

“What is it?” I asked as the world lit up. Bright flashes were followed by thunder, and an even more intense downpour.

“The ship. It’s… well… flooding,” Renn frowned as she spoke.

Flooding…?

Firming my bare feet on the wooden floor, I focused on the feeling of the wood. It was still dry, even in the humid air, but…

Yes. It was tightening and shifting a little too strongly. The boards were rubbing up against each other, instead of having tiny little gaps like usual.

The ship wasn’t just listing; it was overweight all of a sudden.

I sighed as I stood and listened to the sounds all around us. The harsh rain. The river waves. The wood creaking. Dripping sounds from water leaking just right outside the hallway. Loud voices all throughout the ship, the women and girls being noisy.

“Is it sinking quickly?” I asked. It didn’t feel like it was. We were supposed to be three levels above the water-line, and although I could hear the splash of the water it was still far enough away that I knew we’d not sunk too badly.

“I don’t know… it’s just… flooding, but Roslyn is really panicking over it,” Renn said as she stepped over to the door, to peer her head out into the hallway.

I joined her, and bent around her as to see what she meant.

Dozens of drops of water were falling up and down the hallway. Mostly lining near the walls, where the joints in the floor above us were.

Honestly the leakage didn’t seem that bad. But I knew better than to think Renn was simply overreacting. After all, I could hear the shouting coming from down the hallway and stairs past our room. It sounded like most of the women were downstairs, where the hold would be.

“It’s been storming for a bit, and it just keeps getting worse. It happened all of a sudden too, the skies were clear and then it was here. It smells weird too,” Renn said.

“That’s a desert storm for you,” I said as I stepped back into the room. I checked our bags, to make sure they weren’t getting soaked. They weren’t, but there was a growing stain on the wall near the window. The water was seeping into it… which meant over time it would likely start to leak too.

I put the bags into one of the trunks, which required taking out some of the blankets that had been inside it. It wasn’t water-tight but it was better than nothing.

“Vim?” Renn watched me as I sat back down on the bed and yawned.

A part of me wanted to lie back down. The rocking wasn’t bad at all, if anything it’d just put me to sleep faster. Plus the storm… well…

Glancing at Renn, I wondered what she’d do if I asked her to lay back down with me. Maybe she’d blush and go wide-eyed like she did when I flirted with her out of the blue… but something told me she might also glare instead.

She was very protective of those she came to favor. If she thought I was abandoning these women, even to something as non-lethal as this… well…

Stop, Vim. Not only should I not ignore the plights of those around me… even if annoyed, I definitely also shouldn’t be thinking such a thing about Renn.

“Where’s Roslyn?” I asked, as to distract my half-asleep thoughts.

“Downstairs.”

Right.

I debated putting my shoes and socks back on, but decided against it. Especially if the ship really was sinking.

Getting back up off the bed, I patted Renn on the shoulder as I passed her and headed for the hallway.

She made a noise as I headed for the stairs, and she followed me down into the bowels of the ship.

The next floor had another large hallway with more rooms. I ignored it, and the two women who were busy trying to cover a window at the other end of the hall. Looked like it had no glass anymore, so all the rain was free to fly in without resistance. They were boarding it up with what looked like misshapen wood. Honestly they weren’t doing a very good job… though it was interesting that I couldn’t see any broken pieces of glass on the floor around their feet. Either the windowpane had broken outward somehow, or it had never been there to begin with.

As we reached the second to last floor of the ship, and the world became a little noisier with all the splashing and shouting, I paid close attention to the designs of the ship’s hull. I scoured the rather open floor, that had only a few small rooms, for any sign of a pump or ballast system.

There were none.

Descending to the last floor, I paused before the last few steps of the stairwell. They were underwater.

Stepping out of the stairwell, I stepped into cold river water. It was up to my shins, and rather dark. Between the dark water and all the stuff floating everywhere it was impossible to see the floor.

“Watch your step Renn,” I warned her as she folded her pants up her legs, nearly reaching her knees. I waited until she too stepped into the water to make sure she’d be fine. She had a huge smirk on her face as she did, but she still nodded dutifully to my warning.

Wading through the water, I made sure to walk along the center of the hold, where there was a raised section. This ship, like many river ships, was flat bottomed but there were still sunken sections on the sides. In this ships case it was likely for barrel storage. I didn’t want Renn stepping off the center and falling into deeper sections and hurting herself. Even our kind could suffer a broken ankle if not careful.

Women and children were busy filling buckets of water, and handing it off to others who then handed them off to someone else. The other side of the ship had another stairwell; one that I knew was likely full of women all the way to the top. They were handing off full buckets of water and exchanging them with empty ones.

I wasn’t sure if they were carrying the buckets all the way up to the top deck, but I doubted it. There should be a few places before the deck that had places for them to dump out the water. A window, or cannon opening.

A simple system, but…

Glancing around for the source of all the water, I was a little surprised to not find any. For it to be this bad already and no real hole… it must be in the floor. Which was strange… If it was in the floor, it would have gotten like this long before the rains had started.

“Careful!” Roslyn shouted at a younger woman who had slipped and fell. She had dropped her bucket in the fall, and another woman helped grab it and helped her back to her feet.

Watching her and the rest filling their buckets, I frowned in thought.

Yes. Too much water. The buckets weren’t that big, but they were actually moving quite a bit of water rather quickly. Yet it seemed…

Glancing over at Renn, who was grimaced worriedly… I studied her legs. The pants she wore right now were the thinner set. The stuff she didn’t usually wear while we traveled. She had pulled the ends up, curling them as to try and keep them above the water. They were now getting wet too, and not just because of her splashing footsteps.

The water was rising quickly.

The ship was sinking.

“Roslyn,” I got the captains attention. She turned quickly at my voice, and her face full of worry was a little depressing to see.

A pirate shouldn’t panic so visibly. Especially so the captain.

“We’re sinking,” she said stiffly. I could tell by her tone she was wondering why we weren’t helping.

“That you are. Where’s the hole?” I asked.

“I don’t know. We’ve tried to find it, but…” she shook her head, and then went to grab a bucket from another woman. One that was full. She hurried away from me, to hand it off to another woman in the stairwell.

“Vim?” Renn asked worriedly as I watched the women while they all tried to save their home.

How long had they been at it? They were all soaked. Some were even naked, or nearly so. A few were even crying.

I sighed at the sight of them.

This was why Renn had awoken me. She wasn’t worried for our own selves, obviously, and maybe not even the women. After all a slowly sinking ship, in a small river… even during a thunderstorm, wasn’t that deadly of an event.

Rather the danger here was something a little more… practical. A little more personal.

This was their home. The home of people Renn found herself enjoying the company of.

Turning, I splashed in the cold water as to face Renn. “Go find me a hammer and sheets of metal if possible. If you can’t find metal, find…” I felt my eye twitch as I heard one of the women behind me fall again. She let out a small cry of pain as she splashed around, and others went to helping her back up.

Renn peered around me worriedly, her eyebrows upturned as she watched them. At least she hadn’t rushed forward to help them.

I needed her to not help down here. If during all the commotion and movement her hat fell off, or her tail got free… well…

“Renn,” I got her attention again. She blinked and nodded at me, and smiled.

“Vim,” she said my name, and patiently waited.

“A hammer. Preferably a flat one. I’ll need something to fix the hole with. Something I can bend and force into shape. If you can’t find metal anywhere, then break apart someone’s furniture. So I can have the flat pieces of wood. Or a door. If you need help have someone help you,” I gave her commands as I formulated my own plans.

“Hammer and metal, or flat boards. Right,” she focused as she nodded.

“Nails too, if they have any. But focus on the wood and metal first,” I said.

“Right.”

“Go on then. Use that stairwell,” I said with a point back to the stairs we had taken to get here.

Renn spun on a heel, and splashed loudly as she ran off.

I waited and watched her until she entered the stairwell before going about my own task.

Stepping off the flat path in the center, I went deeper into the water. I had to push aside floating boxes and… lifting a soaked shirt that had gotten wrapped around my hand as I moved stuff out of the way, I realized most of the stuff down here was personal effects. Clothes and other such items.

Great. Great indeed.

Why’s it always something? And why now? I had hoped to… relax a little, before reaching the camels and the Stone Kingdom. I had even tried taking a nap for once.

Nothing ever went my way.

This was why I never rested. It only made things worse.

I took a small breath, and then crouched and dived into the water. With closed eyes, I felt the water… and everything in it. Things bumped into me, floating past. The ship moved under me, rocking in the river… and…

And no tug or pull from any kind of real current.

Standing up, I emerged from the water and hurried to another section. I went farther away from the group of women, to the other side of the ship, and once again submerged myself.

Once again I couldn’t feel any hint of pressure or current. If water was seeping into the hull from this area, it wasn’t doing it in great quantities at all.

“What’s he doing?” I heard one of the women ask as I submerged myself again in another section. Near the stairwell Renn had just ran up.

This section too had no signs of a hole.

Huffing as I continued searching for the hole, I tried to deconstruct the ship in my head for a moment. The ship was flat bottomed. The hull rounded. A few hundred feet long, half that wide… The wood it was formed out of used rope and other things as lining for its water-tightness.

A typical river ship in this region. Shaped similar to a trireme, yet I didn’t see any sections or spots for oars. There weren’t any shelves or gangways along the sides either, where usually men would sit and oar. Though a calm river like this likely didn’t need such a thing.

The keel was underneath the center, where one could walk. The rudder’s ropes and the tiller weren’t visible… so they were likely on the floor above. There was only a single pillar in the room, the mainmast, which meant the other masts were behind the stairwells out of sight… which meant…

Stepping out of the deeper water, I returned to the center of the hold… and realized the water was now up to my knees. It had gone up quite a bit while I had been searching for the hole.

Considering the size of the hold, that was an insane amount of water. This ship would start sinking very quickly if I didn’t figure it out.

But I had a good idea now, after checking most of the sections and not finding the hole.

Stepping between hurried women who were struggling to fill their buckets faster than before, I rounded them and went to the stairwell they were using. The women in the stairs stared at me with weird gazes as I studied the stairs… and the walls around them.

There.

Stepping around the stairwell, I stepped deeper into the water and walked along the wall for a moment until I found the latch. It was half-submerged, but even with it being under the water it was easy to open… and as I did, more water rushed in.

Lifting the panel, I watched as a lot of water flowed out of the foremast’s room. The section in the bow of the ship, behind the stairwell. A part of the hold, but not.

“Do you hear that?” someone behind me asked, and I knew it was because they could now hear the loud flow of water I had just released.

Tearing the panel off its hinges, I wondered if this thin piece of wood would work for now. I’d need to find the hole first, but…

“Vim?” Roslyn splashed her way to me as I pushed the panel into the section of now opened wall. It was difficult to get it through the hole, since the panel was a little bigger than the hole itself, but I was able to angle it through.

“Vim, did you find the hole?” Roslyn asked as she reached me. I ignored her as I crouched and stepped through the hole, and entered the dark… and basically flooded section.

The water in here was up to my waist, and luckily that seemed to be all that was in here. In here there was no debris or floating junk.

“Yes. I sent Renn to find a hammer and nails, go help her,” I said to the captain.

“Aye!” Roslyn hurried away, shouting orders as I went to finding the hole.

The room behind the stairwell was small, but not because it actually were. A large timber pillar took up most of the room, the foremast. The ceiling was also low, so low that as I walked around I bumped my head against one of the beams.

Kneeling a little, I quickly felt the flow of water. It was coming from behind the pillar, near the direct front of the ship.

As I rounded the pillar, and started to feel and hear the rush of water pouring in from the large hole… I panicked for a tiny moment. It felt as if it was coming from the stem, which would mean the ship was toast and nothing I could do would fix it… but as I reached the hole, and found it, I was able to calm down.

A hole about the size of Renn’s rear was in the hull next to the stem. I wasn’t sure how it had happened, since it was actually right under the waterline… but the cause of the hole didn’t matter.

All that mattered right now was to plug the hole, or else the ship was done for.

Pushing the panel I had ripped off earlier up against the hole, I just barely got it over the hole before it cracked and snapped in two. The water pressure was too strong for such a thin thing. I tossed the panel pieces aside, and quickly went through my memories for something suitable. It’d have to be large. A few wooden boards weren’t going to work here. The hole was too big, and it was in the front of the ship. It was rolling into the water… so it’d need a little bit of sturdiness…

Was I going to have to tear apart a wall or door to fix this? Could I do it in time, before the whole ship just… sunk? The rocking from the storm was starting to soften, and not because the storm was dying down. The ship was mere minutes from capsizing.

“Vim!”

Renn’s voice called for me from outside the little flooded room. I stepped around the pillar, and found the hole was almost flooded completely. I could just barely see Renn over the water line through it.

“What’d you find?” I asked her as I waded over to the hole.

A mallet looking thing was held out to me. I smiled as I took it, and realized I should have told her to focus on the materials to block the hole over the hammer. I could force things into shape and push nails into wood with my bare hands; I didn’t actually need this…

“Fretta gave me this,” Renn then said as she pushed a shiny piece of metal through the hole.

Taking it from her before it was tugged out of her hands from the water flowing out of the room, I frowned at the platter.

It was a fancy… bronze food platter. The large thing was more than big enough, and heavy enough that it might just survive the pressure.

“This should work. One second, let me see,” I said.

“What about the nails?” she asked.

Oh. Right. I held my hand out under the hole, and I felt a bunch of nails get pushed into my hand.

I felt a few drop as I grabbed them, and I frowned at them. There were nails of all shapes and sizes, and more than a few were already bent askew.

Had she pulled these things out of the boat? I’d need to have her show me where she got these, lest another hole simply became another problem.

“Want me to come in there?” Renn asked as I stepped away.

“No,” was all I said. The water in here was high enough, and splashing around enough, that her hat would just get lost.

Renn grumbled something, but her voice was lost in the sounds of the sinking ship as I went back to the hole.

Pushing the metal platter up against the wall and hole, I was glad to see it withstood the force of the pressure. The water still spewed out from the sides of the platter, sneaking in-between the designs grooves etched onto it, but the amount of water spraying in was nothing compared to earlier.

Without waiting I went straight to hammering the thing into the hull. I knew this was in a way only making the situation worse. The nails I used to hammer the metal piece to the hull were a little too thick and big. They were likely going to result, in time, the wood hull cracking and failing even worse than it was already.

Instead of doing it this way, I should be nailing other pieces of wood over the platter instead. So that the nails only went so far into the wood, not all the way.

But…

Hammering the platter firmly into the hull, I then went to hammering out the edges. To flatten the spots where the river water was spraying in from. In most instances, my hammering sent the edge of the platter into the wood itself… and in little time at all the hole went from a giant spigot to a tiny trickle.

Admiring my work, standing in waist high water, I listened for any other sounds. To make sure there were no other holes in this room.

It didn’t seem like there were, so I went back to the exit.

Ducking through the hole, I emerged back into the hold and smiled down at Renn who smiled up at me.

“Did you fix it?” Roslyn loudly asked, stepping towards us. She even stepped up against Renn, bumping her shoulder in worry. Renn didn’t seem to take offense, but it bothered me.

Roslyn grabbed me by my arm, and I noted her chilled fingers and hands. They were freezing. Their cold, worried, trembling were the only reason I had not pulled my arm free of her grip.

“For now. I’ll check the rear too, there should be another room where the rudder is, with the mizzen mast,” I said.

Renn sighed in relief, and Roslyn actually sobbed, although only a single time. As if a huge weight had just been dropped off her shoulders, she slumped and hung her head for a moment.

Glancing at Renn, who was smiling at the pirate captain, I gestured for her attention… and then gestured with the mallet at the woman holding my arm.

Renn nodded, taking the hint, and went to get Roslyn’s attention.

“Let’s get the water out now,” Renn said, reminding the woman she still had a job to do.

“Ah. Right. Let’s hurry!” Roslyn finally released me, and with Renn in tow she hurried back to the rest of the women. She told them of what I had done, and they cheered before returning to their task.

Sighing at them, I went back to my own. To make sure no other holes were threatening Renn’s… little adventure.

After all that was all this was. A small stop along our way. A tiny… forgettable moment.

Wading through the water, passing the women still filling buckets and Renn who had joined in their little line of bucket hauling, I wondered if I was grumpy because I was tired.

Usually helping out didn’t bother me too much. I may not be the kindest man, but usually I’d…

Pausing before the latch to the rear room, behind the rear stairwell, I realized I was actually annoyed. And not just because my clothes were soaked now, or that Renn was too.

“Maybe I’m still upset over Lumen,” I wondered as I opened the latch.

I didn’t break this one off, and entered the small room… to find only a little bit of water.

The water barely went above my ankles, even with the swaying ship, and I sighed as I took in the little room. The pillar in this one was much smaller than the other, small enough I’d be able to wrap my arms around it and touch hands. It let the room be more in view, but it also made the place feel…

“I miss the ships of the empire…” I whispered as I walked around the area, looking for any signs of holes or leaks. Those had been ships. These weren’t even worth being called such. Those had been works of art… weapons of war and…

Hitting my head again on what was likely the mirrored beam I had hit in the other room, I growled at it. I really was tired still, for me to not be paying attention.

Coughing, as to keep some potent words from escaping through clenched teeth, I finished studying the room.

There were no holes. This room was fine. The water wasn’t even leaking in too badly from the hold, which was surprising… since parts of the wall were just thin planks of wood.

Yawning as I left the room and went back to the hold, I tapped the mallet against my head as if to knock myself awake. It didn’t help, but it did make Renn pause mid-bucket dunk.

She stared at me, as I stared at her… then she scoffed a laugh and handed her now full bucket off to Roslyn. She said something to the women, and then hurried over to me.

Walking back to the center of the hold, I went to the stairwell… and sat down. A little above the water, I left my feet and legs in the water as Renn hurried over to me.

“No more holes, I think,” I told her as she approached.

“That’s good. Thank you Vim,” she said.

“Mhm,” I nodded. It was good. It’d keep her happy, after all.

“You’re soaked. Make sure your hat doesn’t fall off,” I warned her.

She nodded.

Studying her soaked clothes, I frowned at the way her pants hugged her legs and waist. I could see the outline of her tail, somewhat wrapped around her waist and right thigh… but I knew anyone else who saw it would just think it was her pants being oddly scrunched up.

“How’re the broken bones?” I asked her.

“Huh? Oh… it still hurts, but not as bad as before. I actually brushed it this afternoon, and didn’t want to yelp,” she said.

“Brushed…”

She smirked at me. “With a comb,” she said as she made a combing motion with her hand.

Ah. Interesting. I mean, it was obvious she might brush her tail but I hadn’t ever noticed her doing so.

Maybe I should buy her a proper comb for it.

Wait. She had brushed her tail? Really?

That meant she had done it in our room. She’d not risk letting her tail be seen elsewhere on the ship, after all. Our room was the only place we could close the door and be… well… left alone. Especially since Roslyn’s little girl was so nosey.

But… that meant she had brushed her tail. In our room. And I hadn’t really left our room since we boarded.

Had I actually slept through that too? I had missed such an adorable sight?

“Will the ship stop sinking now?” Renn asked, tugging me out of my upset regret.

I nodded. “For now. I’ve only done a temporary fix, Renn. This ship needs… serious attention. I don’t know how that hole was made, but something tells me it was just the result of years of neglect,” I said.

It could have been hit by a floating tree or something… but something like that shouldn’t have punctured the hull to such a degree. That meant the hull was not being properly tended to. It was rotting, from age and wear.

Though that might not be the fault of the women. They very well might simply… not have the tools needed to fix the ship, or keep it healthy. It took resources, time, and money to keep a ship like this outfitted properly.

All of a sudden my mind went down a list. On what was needed to fix this ship. To refit it. To add the necessary additions, like a pump, to make sure this didn’t happen again.

Blinking, I let Renn’s smile become the focus of my mind, stopping me from going too deep into thought about this ship and the people who lived upon it.

They weren’t worth worrying or thinking about.

Standing up, before Renn could say anything, I gesture for her to go back to her friends. “Go help them, Renn. They’re getting exhausted. I’ll check the rest of the ship for holes while you… work the buckets,” I said.

Renn smirked at me. “Work the buckets. I’m surprised they have so many of them, to be honest!”

“How else would they get rid of refuse?” I asked her. Didn’t she realize we had a similar bucket for us? In the room next to us? Odds are they all had a personal bucket, then there were likely many more scattered throughout the ship for other reasons too.

She blinked, and I couldn’t help but smile as I watched the understanding dawn on her face.

Renn groaned as she looked down at her hands in disgust, and I patted her gently on the cheek before turning and heading upstairs.

Seeing that adorable look on her would keep me calm enough for the next few days, at least.