《Tink's Shorts》The Navigator

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Dusk broke early this time of year. Snow crept down the mountains, the next valley over was burried under the deep avalanches of snow that were common there. Trailing edges of the aurora borialis flickered across the evening sky, dancing between the stars.

The worn bronze necklace was smooth in her hands, the only polish it had ever seen in her 17 years were her fingers sliding across the deeply carved filagree, worn smooth with time, but still traced by her thumb as she watched the prismatic show above her.

The creaking of the boats in the mid-winter's iced harbor being the only sound; well aside from a burst of laughter now and then coming from the pub at the land side of the pier.

"Still fondling that broken compass, Evie?" an old woman's voice called out, followed by a sharp snap of a dish cloth in the air.

"Good Evening, Nora." the girl calls back, without taking her veridian eyes off the skies. her vibrant red hair barely being tamed by the winter garments meant to keep the heat against her body, frost forming on stray bits, and even some on her exposed eyebrows.

"Gonna be a storm tonight, young'n. I feel it in my bones." Nora called back to her. Evie had gotten warnings from her like this in the past, every time it had passed true. The skies were clear right now, but Evie knew that if Nora said it would storm, it would storm.

"Telling tall tails again?" a mature man's voice called out, dull thuds on wooden pier boards adding to the lightly lapping water through the chunks of ice in the harbor, ice dangerously encroaching on some of the mored boats. "Evie, you have the stove going?" he called out again, as he threw a brand new white rope coil onto the deck of the sailboat Evie had been laying on.

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"Been going for the past two hours. You took your time getting new lines, I'm not gonna have time to re-rig the sails on the mizzen or main mast before morning, so we will need to be underways."

"Evie, I have seen you rerig an entire four masted cutter, solo, in seven hours, why aren't you gonna be able to do only one line on two masts?" the man asks sharply as his boots thud onto the boat.

"Nora said it's gonna storm, and I believe her, we need to be out of this harbor in two hours, or less." Evie said as she stood, grabbing the center of the rope coil and chucking it below deck through a small door, a dull red light visible as she did so, a wave of heat knocking the frost off of her eyebrows that had formed as she laid on the deck.

"You still believe ol' Nora can tell the weather?" the man asks through gritted teeth, doubtingly; but throwing off lines as he spoke, betraying his own verbal disbelief.

The wood creaked as the main sail chased a bird to the top of the mast, and slowly began moving in the eerie light, cast only by the prism of the sky.

"Hey! Eddie!" a man called from the dock after the boat was away. Ed's jaw set as he turned on the deck to face the caller, Evie's face turned into a scowl, and faced her uncle.

"Uncle Ed, you did pay for the rope, didn't you?" she accused.

"Yep, paid for the rope." he answered quickly. "Didn't pay for the slip." he told her truthfully, then called to the man on the shore. "See you in a week Ned!" he yelled, adding a cheerful wave.

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"Not this time!" the man yells from the shore. a flash, and a thunderous roar emenate from the man on the pier, as waves form around each of the piles supporting the slip the boat had just left. Evie's face splashes with something warm a split second later, as she watched her uncle's headless body fall into the water off the back of the boat. "Evie, settle your sail, or I take you as well." the man called. her hand seemed to move on autopilot, and the fabric sail falls back down to the deck.

Without power, the boat seemingly travels by itself back to the slpway, and mooring lines reattach to the cleats in the decking. "Alright boys. Eddie owed four hundred sixty six silvers, go through the boat till I get my due. leave Evie, and her clothes alone, there should also be a new rope somewhere that was paid for, leave it too." Ned seemed to be a fair man, but swift in action, even if it was unwarnted. it was one of the reasons Evie never liked stopping at this particular harbor, Ned owned all the marina's here, and seemed perpetually unhappy.

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