It was harder than she thought it would be to ask questions about this new world and its rules. Rive and their grandfather had morphed into an enormous family, and now the table was crowded with the addition of older siblings, younger siblings, and one middle-aged father with silver at his temples. Rive was similar in stature to their father and grandfather, with the same orange-eyed brightness, blue hair, and dark brown skin. The others didn’t have those traits in common. One of the younger kids was much paler with darker blue hair, another older sibling had orange hair with blue eyes while being about half as dark as Rive, and then there were a few siblings that had patches of light skin against dark skin. It was interesting and novel to her. She hadn’t seen this much of a range when looking over the few pictures her father and dad had shown her of their families, and she loved it.

The couple of plates she, Rive, and their grandfather had started out with now included a spicy salad, some type of fresh meat with melted cheese over it, colored rice, wheat bread, and vegetables of all shapes, colors, and sizes. Rive collected a plate for her and handed it over.

“These people are all your family?”

Rive arched an eyebrow at her.

“Yeah. Going from most annoying to least, there are my brothers Ghaste and Habir, my sisters Trili, Mekin, and Disan, and my siblings Minnis and Krins. He’s my dad Flase,” Rive pointed at the middle-aged man, “And you already met my grandfather Darfar. Both my moms are probably out working since they tend to sink deep into their jobs.”

Seren nodded to the older man, who was watching either her or Rive, she couldn’t tell, then went back to putting names to faces. Trili was the little girl with the dark blue hair, her feet kicking excitedly as she sat on a bench far off the ground for her. Mekin and Minnis seemed to be the same age, and the two of them had contrasting features; Mekin, busy stuffing a purple vegetable into her mouth, had orange eyes and pale white hair with hints of blue while Minnis had light orange hair and dark blue eyes, and was eating the same purple vegetable piece by tiny piece. Disan was quiet, reading a thick book under the table, and Krins sat next to her, sketching on a piece of parchment. Ghaste and Habir were the loudest of the bunch, screaming over the table to tell each other what they’d accomplished earlier in the morning.

She stayed quiet as chaos reigned around her, shrinking smaller so that she wasn’t hit when someone threw bread down the table or reached over her to get a platter of food. Maybe she imagined it, those few times she thought Rive had been staring at her, but every time she checked, they were looking somewhere else.

Not being part of the conversation allowed her to inspect the room. Back home, the second floor had been closed off from the first floor, but here the room stretched up, a roofed-over space in the middle of the building.

The other areas, Seren realized, were ringed around this central place and made the biggest chamber focus on the people instead of the purpose. Interesting.

“You’re new,” said a sweet voice in a sing-song manner. Seren looked over to see a tall and slender person entering the room, their head in danger of hitting the ceiling. Behind them was someone slightly older, shorter, and wider than their companion.

“Good afternoon Lissa and Owri, my loves.” Flase nodded to them. “We have a ghost joining us for lunch today.”

There was that term again, ghost. Seren put her finger against her wrist, wisps of doubt remaining even as she felt her pulse beating under her skin.

“My table is always open; the light is always on,” both recited with a slight rhythm. Then the second person who had entered continued on, smiling wide so that all her teeth showed. “But who receives a blessing for bringing today’s wandering soul?”

“Rive!”

“Rive actually brought someone home!”

“Rivey!”

A chorus chimed out Rive’s name, and from where they sat across the table, Seren could see them shooting murderous gazes at everyone, with the most directed at Ghaste, Habir, and Trili.

“Found them outside the White Tower,” Rive finally muttered, stabbing a slab of meat on their plate before shoving it in their mouth, muffling their next sentence. “Looked like they’d recently burnt a message.”

As one, all the eyes turned to look at her, burying her under varying hues of orange and blue. And one purple, Seren added when she saw Lissa’s eye color.

“Now that my wives have returned, I can finally ask,” said Rive’s father, grabbing a piece of bread and spreading butter on it. “What’s your name?”

“Serri.” She remembered Captain Juiji and Jo asking if she preferred he, she, or something else. “And I use she/her.”

Rive nodded at her and Seren grinned, glad at being able to remember a social cue in this whole new adventure.

“Doesn’t look like a prayer,” Trili pipped up, breaking the measure of silence and starting the conversations again.

Lissa joined the table to sit across from Rive while Owri sat down next to Flase. The two of them were wearing white clothes with varying streaks and dots of color on them, Owri leaning heavily to cooler colors like green and purple while Lissa had warmer yellows and reds. They reminded her of her parents, one tall, straight, and wearing a no-nonsense look while the other was shorter, bendier, and seemed more likely to toss chores away for fun.

Seren assumed they were both painters, but painters of what? Portraits? Landscapes? Something else?

“She could be one!” argued Mekin to Trili, the muffled response shouted through another mouthful of purple. “If a person’s a prayer, they don’t burn them!”

Serri saw Rive sneakily replace the remaining vegetables with something green, but Mekin didn’t. She bit into whatever new vegetable the green was, made a face at the taste, but continued chewing and talking.

“I’m tellin’ you it can’t, listen! Ser-e. That has to be at least four letters…” Trili began to count on their fingers.

“Or maybe she spells it with double letters, like S-e-r-r-e-e. Or replace ‘e’ with an ‘i’ and those could be six—”

“Then ask her!” Trili turned to Serri “Hey hey hey, how do you spell your name?!”

“That was my question!”

“Clearly they’re not from here, and that automatically makes them not a prayer,” said Disan, closing her book and frowning at her empty plate. “Pass the greens, please.”

Seren took the bowl and held it out, pulling slightly back as Rive snatched it out of her hands and dumped a good amount on her plate.

“Didn’t invite you over here to listen to them talk,” they said, arching an eyebrow. “I brought you here so you’d have food.”

“Thank you.” Seren smiled, but it fell fairly quickly. “I don’t have any money to pay you back for this though—”

“Helping another is a blessing all of its own, and neither Lissa nor I would turn away someone in need,” interrupted Owri. “And it’s good to see that our children continue that tradition. Surprising, also, in Rive’s case.”

She turned to Seren, cocking her head to the side. “Where are you from, though, dearie? There’s a hint of an accent clinging to your words, enough so that I’m inclined to think Trili’s right about you not being from here.”

“She’s right. Um, I’m from a nearby island.” Her thoughts raced ahead of her, trying to weigh how much she could tell, should tell, and what she needed to keep secret. “My father and dad said they wanted to raise their daughter in nature, so I’ve never seen a city this big. Are they all this crowded?”

Everyone at the table laughed, shaking their heads.

“Nah, this is just Viadora,” said Rive, stabbing a cooked carrot and transferring it to their plate. “Most cities are smaller.”

“Though some of the sky pirates tell stories of other places, some tall enough to be in the skies, others digging deep into the ground.”

Seren felt her heart thump hard at the thought of flying away and seeing those places. Viadora seemed like a good place to live, but not visit. Or at any rate, she didn’t want to settle for the first place she’d found.

“Um... does anyone here know how to get a license?” Seren paused, finding that the food was sticking in her throat. She gave a little cough. “For flying.”

There was another noisy explosion, much louder than the last time.

“Shut up!” yelled Rive, banging on the table and quieting everyone down for a few seconds.

“Rive, I’ve taught you better,” scolded Lissa, shaking a finger at them. She stared at them, opened her mouth to say something else, but settled with giving a disappointing look.

“Um, yes. For flying.” Seren tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Why? What’s wrong with that?”

“Rive’s already plotting to murder you an’ take your place!” laughed Habir. Startled, Seren looked to Rive, who, if murder was on their mind, was certainly thinking of murdering their brother.

“I want to fly,” said Rive, emphasizing the last word while cutting a piece of cheese-meat on their plate. “Not be working off a murder.”

“Working off?”

“What happens if you get caught doing nasty stuff here,” explained Rive’s father after swallowing a bit of cheese. “I’ll not elaborate on what counts as nasty since that’s not a proper topic while eating.”

“Like murdering people and pulling out their insides and watching the blood gush!”

“Trili!” The little girl looked up at Lissa, eyes wide and with a frown trembling on her face. Seren shoved some of her rice into her mouth before she laughed at how cute the kid was.

“Trili, little girls don’t say things like that when others are eating food.” There was a pause. “Actually, let this be a reminder to everyone here, Ghaste and Habir especially. Nobody, no matter their age or gender, should say anything like that at the table. Upstairs. Now.” Another few seconds passed. “You can take your food with you.”

The reprimanded girl sniffled and looked on the verge of breaking down, but Krins was already grabbing their plate and hers, asking if they could join since they wanted to get away from the noise and concentrate on their drawings. They received thankful nods from their parents for their action.

“Krins, don’t be filling her head with your gory sketches!” their father called after them, shaking his head. “Never sure what to do when she wants to hear stories about zombies and ghosts.”

“Is that—” Seren stopped, then plowed onwards, eaten up by curiosity. “Is that why you called me a ghost?”

“What?” Rive’s grandfather raised their head from their plate. “Not at all. A person’s always a ghost when they first come over. We don’t know them, we only know them as they exist before us. What’s your name? Age? Drive in life?” The questions were so rapid-fire that Seren answered them without thinking about it.

“Seren, fifteen, explore the world in my shellship.” An echo of what she’d said ran through her mind and she winced.

“Wait,” yelled out the younger sibling, waving their arm in the air. “I’m confused. Is your name Seren or Serri, ‘cause you said both but you’re only one person.”

“And what’s your name?” asked Rive, rolling their eyes. “Minnis, Minni, or Minnow?”

Seren almost sighed in relief at the unintentional rescue. Instead, she caught Flase’s eyes and automatically straightened her back, pretending as if revealing her full name hadn’t been a mistake.

“All three!” They wriggled in their seat, then took a piece of bread. “My name’s Minnis, but moms call me Minnow since I’m like a little fish! And you call me Minni!”

“Which one do you like?”

The little kid stopped squishing the bread together, scrunching their face up to answer the question.

“Um... all! Minnow like a fish, and Minni ‘cause that’s me, and Minnis ‘cause that’s what my paper name is.”

Rive nodded, then ruffled the kid’s hair.

“Right, so let Serri have her nickname.”

“Polite manners,” added their taller mother, “is to call the person what they introduced themselves as.”

“Okay!” Minnis nodded, then abandoned the conversation and concentrated on attacking the food on their plate.

“Where’s your ship?” asked Rive. Seren gave a half-hearted shrug.

“Um... I’m not sure? I mean,” she babbled as everyone looked at her again, “I came in on my ship, well, actually, I came in with another ship, the Crimson Cloud since I need to fix my propeller and when I got off to get a license, a berth manager name Bri threaded me into going over a very high bridge and delivering an envelope to be burnt at the white tower you found me at.”

She gulped in a breath after everything else came pouring out. “And I don’t know where I am and I don’t have money to fix my ship or even pay for the license I’ve been told I need to get and I don’t know how to even start.”

“Start with a breath,” said Rive, standing up. “Done with lunch?”

Seren looked down at her plate.

“Yes?”

“Hey, dad.” Rive waited until Flase was looking at them. “I’m taking her to the shop, okay?”

A strange expression crossed the man’s face, but before Seren could puzzle out what she was seeing, it was replaced with a quivering smile.

“Are your chores done for the day?”

Rive hesitated, then looked over at their younger brother.

“Ghaste, I’m calling in my favor.”

“What?!” The bluehead at the end of the table opened his mouth in surprise and had to duck as Habir tried to throw something into it. The vegetable piece bounced off the table and onto the floor. “Now?”

“Yes, now.”

“For today’s chores…” He stressed the words, looking between Rive and Seren suspiciously.

“Not quite.” Rive placed a hand on Seren’s shoulder. “It’s a big favor, much too big to be equated with one day’s worth of chores, right?”

There was a slight nod of agreement from Ghaste.

“Yeah…”

“So chores for the week and the debt’s paid.”

Ghaste sprayed half-chewed food onto Mekin, who started screaming at him. Lissa leaned in to help her clean the mess.

“The WEEK!?”

“Did I stutter?” asked Rive, guiding Seren into standing and pulling her away. “And you know that favor’s easily worth two weeks of chores, so quit your belly-aching.”

The bluehead looked around the table, his eyes lingering on the remaining siblings. Seren had a feeling that they would call on debts of their own and force some of the chores onto their younger siblings. She’d never seen something like this since she was an only child, but her dad and father both came from bigger families and had described the same thing happening to them as they’d grown up.

“Shit rolls downhill,” Seren said quietly.

“What was that?”

“Um, nothing.” Looking down allowed her hair to cover her face. Seren was pretty sure ‘shit’ was on Rive’s father’s list of “nasty things not to talk about while eating.” She peeked through her bangs, but they didn’t look convinced.

“Come on, then.” They took her arm and started walking towards a different door than the one they’d originally come in from. Seren grabbed one of the last two pieces of bread as she left the table.

“Where are we going?”

“My workshop. I have some questions to ask you about that propeller.”