She buried her face in her hands, “nnnnnnNNOOO!” She wailed. “Oh, merciful Enlightened Hosts! Have mercy! No wonder the Wind Elementals never respond favorably to my greetings!!!”
“This is a problem…” Sevrina murmured. “That was my understanding of the words as well… we may need to restart our efforts at learning the languages of the Elementals.”
“Oh, gods…” The Shipwright moaned. “How did we get that so wrong?!”
“Well, have you ever had friendly contact with these elementals? Do you have their writings?” I asked.
“Elementals don’t write!” The shipwright lamented. “Or at least never that we’ve found! And no, we’ve been trying to decipher what words we can catch when they speak!”
“Oh… yeah… that’s rough…” I noted. “On a good note, you were saying something that I could translate…”
“That is something… say it again. What did it mean?” She pleaded, grabbing a quill and parchment.
She wrote down the phrase and its translation, then got the translation for “You asshole, let me go home” and “Why are you doing this?”.
“Hells, we have horridly misunderstood…” She lamented looking at the statements.
“So… what about the Elemental you are binding for this ship?” I wondered.
“It is already bound in an anchor.” She explained. “The anchor is then mounted into the ring and the elemental is used to power it.”
“Can I… see the anchor?” I asked.
“Yes, yes… come this way.” The Shipwright jumped to cooperate.
The anchor was an emerald, or similar green gem, in a cut that was at least what I always imagined when I thought of a gem. It was the same cut that Jacob had ended up going with on the ring he’d bought his wife, and I only knew its name because he’d insisted I come with him as he figured out what to do for his wife’s ring, since she had told him she didn’t care (and for once when a woman said that, she actually meant it). He’d gotten her what was known as a Round Brilliant cut. And while the size of a golf ball, this green transparent gem was cut very similarly.
I held it in my hand and just kinda thought at it, [[Hello?]]
It took a second for any response.
[[Eh? Wah?… I was sleeping… what do you want?]]
I got a little excited. [[Are you okay? I mean, I just kinda learned that you got stuck in here. Do you know what’s happening?]]
[[Not really. But… no one ever talks to us. If it isn’t some Pointy One shoving us in a thing until it breaks and we get to go home, it’s a Tiny One, one of the Fuzzy Ones, or a Flapper making us fight.]] The response came.
Pointy? Tiny? Fuzzy? Flapper? I looked around and had an epiphany.
[[Pointy? Do you mean an Elf?]] I asked.
[[Oh? Is that what the Pointy Ones call themselves?]] The gem replied. [[Guess it doesn’t really matter. They never… wait, how are you talking to me?]]
I sighed. [[Well, I kinda got summoned too. But one perk of that is that when I talk, whoever I’m talking to just understands.]]
[[I wish I got that. The closest I ever got to talking to a Pointy was her yelling ‘Fuck You’ at me before using their weird magic to force me into this gem. But hey, at least there was that.]]
I felt bad for the elemental. [[Do you want out? To go home?]]
There was a second of thought. [[Am I going to be used for something interesting?]]
[[Huh?]] I thought before my brain could even comprehend what it was asking.
[[I mean, we never know what is gonna happen when we get pulled through the sparkle on the Plane of Air. I mean, fighting is lame and hurts, but generally, we go home pretty quickly. But honestly, home is kinda boring.]] The creature in the crystal replied. [[So what did they snatch me for?]]
[[Well, it’s a flying ship.]] I told him, remembering the image.
[[Oh! That looks fun!]] The voice replied.
[[You can see it?]] I noted in confusion.
[[You showed me, so yeah.]] The elemental retorted.
[[You’re okay with this then?]] I confirmed.
[[I get to throw a big… carrying thing… through the air while a bunch of pointy ones hold on! That sounds like fun!]] The elemental replied. [[And worst case, it crashes and breaks and I go home.]]
That sounded reasonable.
[[Okay, I just wanted to make sure you were good with this.]] I assured.
[[I appreciate the sentiment. Are we doing anything important? I mean, flying is fun, but seems like a lot of work for fun.]] The elemental asked.
I took a moment to explain our goal, then had to explain the war and the distinction between the races and everything.
[[Wow, that seems… dumb. Aren’t they all pointies? Why do they fight if they are all pointies? Why do their gods… I just don’t get it. You’re trying to stop this stupidness? I will help.]] The elemental rumbled.
[[Well, it will only take a few more days and the ship should be done.]] I told him.
[[What’s a day?]] The Elemental wondered.
[[You know, sun rises, sun sets. That’s a day. It gets bright, then it gets dark.]] I told him.
[[Oh, I wouldn’t know about that. It is always light on the Plane of Air, and I can see nothing from inside this gem. The only reason I know what I’m in is I could see it before I got put in here.]] The elemental confessed.
[[Oh, I might be able to help with that.]] I noted. [[I’ll see what I can do.]]
[[That would be great! Thanks! What are you by the way? You don’t seem like a Pointy, or a fuzzy, or a flapper. What are you?]] The elemental asked.
[[I’m a human.]] I told him.
[[Hu-man? Strange. But I like you. Maybe we can talk again. It gets boring in here sometimes.]] The elemental confessed.
I returned the crystal to the Shipwright.
“Well, the elemental thinks being part of the ship is cool. But it’d love to be able to see.” I told her.
“They can’t see!?” She groaned. “We’ll see what we can do.”
I got some interesting looks from the shipwrights and my companions and decided to leave them to their work.
“You spoke with the elemental?” Sevrina prodded as we walked out.
“Yeah, it was interesting. It said elementals are usually called by… Pointy ones, Fuzzy ones, Flappers, or Tiny ones.” I told them.
“Pointy ones…?” Nauveir noted in confusion.
I reached out and tapped the tips of her ear. “Pointy ones.”
They looked at each other, then laughed. “Pointy ones! That is amusing!”
“Then the fuzzy ones… those would be the Felanin or the Lorpins… and the Flappers are probably the Hawkar!” Sevrina noted with continued amusement.
“The ‘Tiny Ones’ are probably the Halfmen.” Nauveir chuckled.
“So, I’ve heard those names before… What are they?” I asked.
“Well, the fuzzy ones… The Felanin and the Lorpin…” Tavorwen noted. “They live far enough from our lands that only our most ardent wayfinders have come in contact with them.”
“The Felanin are described as large humanoids, with most standing taller than any lineage of the elves. They are almost as diverse as our lineages, but there are some things that remain true for all of them. They are covered in fur, hence the ‘fuzzy ones’. They have short triangular ears on top of their heads and have elongated faces, to one degree or another, with forward-facing noses and larger jaws, with teeth that serve as one of their primary forms of self-defense, along with their claws that replace fingernails like we have. Most have tails with various degrees of prehensility. It is not safe to generalize on the other traits.” Tavorwen noted as we wound our way through the dilapidated bridges.
“So… they’re cat people?” I asked.
She shifted uncomfortably. “More like tiger and lion people, but yes.”
I nodded. Made sense. The fucking Thundercats were real here. I’d seen the action figures in the stores and hoped I didn’t have to deal with a giant cat licking itself as I tried to negotiate.
“The Lorpin… if the Felanin were ‘cats’… the Lorpin are rabbit-people,” Sevrina noted. “They too have fur, and have ears on top of their heads like the Felanin, but where the Felanin have short triangular ears, the Lorpin have elongated ears that if counted in their height would add another two knots to their height.”
Let’s see, a knot was like 8 inches, so like sixteen inches in ears?
“They have strong legs and can run very fast and jump very high, though they tire even faster than we do,” Sevrina noted. “They have seemed very friendly, the varieties we have met.”
“So how tall are they? If they have two knot-long ears?” I murmured as we jumped a missing plank.
“They stand between nine and ten and a half Knots,” Sevrina replied. “If the wayfinders are to be believed.”
Let’s see, that was… between six and seven feet?
“Hawkar are smaller, from the reports, but in place of our arms, they have wings,” Tavorwen noted. “Their feet have longer toes like the talons of birds of prey. They do not have beaks, however, and are far more humanoid than most birds.”
So we have birds, cats, and rabbits, what were the halfmen going to be? They were called “Tiny ones”, so maybe guinea pigs?
“The Halfmen… well, the reports are hard to believe,” Sevrina noted. “From most reports, Halfmen are almost indistinguishable from an elf, until placed next to one… The reports are that they stand between three and four cords tall.”