Staz, the Rok merchant vessel captain, looks like a human lounge chair. She’s one of the smallest women Taru has ever seen, and she’s utterly engulfed in a full-length wool coat that might’ve been stung by a thousand bees, so swollen are its folds. Captain Staz’s tiny wrinkled face and her head, covered in a cloud of dark, gray-threaded hair, barely rise from the top of the coat, like the turtle the ship is named for recoiling into its shell. Her equally tiny hands are folded in front of her. There are darkened rounds of glass guarding both of her eyes from the light of day.

“You don’t look Crachian,” the Captain observes.

Taru stiffens. “So I’ve been told.”

“I imagine they confuse you for one of us, don’t they?”

“It has been implied a time or two.”

Staz grunts. “You don’t look like one of us. But your everyday Crachian can’t tell the difference between an Islander and a B’ors outrider anyway.”

“My name is Taru. I serve Gen Stalbraid as retainer. I am here on behalf of Brio Alania. He left certain articles in your charge. I must claim them.”

Staz cocks her head. “Where is Brio?”

Taru expected her voice to match her stature; perhaps high and squeaking like a creature from a folktale. Instead Staz sounds like a sage speaking from atop a mountain.

“He was… taken. We do not know where. We only know he is alive, or at least he was several weeks ago.”

The Rok captain’s lips purse tightly, though she doesn’t seem entirely surprised by this news.

“I don’t know you,” Captain Staz says, less an accusation and more a puzzled observation.

“Brio always chose to visit you alone,” Taru explains. “To keep your confidence as well as his own. I often accompanied him as his protector when he came to the Bottoms.”

“Brio is a good boy. His father brought him here many times when he was a child. I enjoyed watching him run around the deck, playing pirate. I never had any children of my blood. The sea gets jealous, you know.”

“I am afraid I do not. I have never been one for boats or the water.”

The Black Turtle’s crew laughs, though its captain remains quiet.

“Brio told me nothing of you,” Staz said. “What did he tell you of me?”

“The same.”

Staz nods. “A good boy. His father also saved my life, a long time ago. I was a guest in your dungeons during the Fifth Invasion of Rok, the last invasion, as it turned out. When the war ended, Brio’s father negotiated the release of all Rok’s children from Crachian custody. No small feat, I assure you. Your Protectorate Ministry wanted to murder us out of spite.”

“I… have never heard of this conflict before. This invasion you speak of.”

Again, the crew laughs at Taru’s ignorance.