Hinata woke up to the noise of shouts and activity above deck.

  Plenty was already awake, sitting in a chair in the middle of the cabin while Lyn braided his hair. A dim aetherlight orb lit the room, tinting everything light blue.

  “Morning, Sunshine,” Plenty smiled.

  Hinata rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and rolled out of the hammock. “Where’s breakfast?” she asked while signing.

  “You slept through it. But I saved you some.” Plenty handed her a bowl filled with dried fruits, jerky, a pickled egg, and some nuts.

  “Thanks,” she spoke between bites and signed while her mouth was full. “I assume we’re already offshore?”

  “Yep, not long ago. If you hurry, you might be able to see Safo.”

  That sounded like a good idea, so Hinata took the bowl of breakfast and went above deck. The air was misty and bracing cold. Grand white sails billowed in the ocean winds. Captain Jerome was barking orders as the crew hurried to and fro. Hinata tried to stay out of the way as she climbed the stairs to the upper deck. Danielle was at the wheel, her peg leg secured into a hole in the floor, her puffin familiar perched on a nearby support beam.

  “Ahoy!” Danielle greeted Hinata. “How’d you sleep?”

  “Better than I expected, to be honest. Slept right through breakfast. Is Safo too far to see now?”

  “Nah, look over there,” Danielle pointed. Then she reached into her jacket’s breast pocket and pulled out a spyglass, handing it to Hinata. “Give ‘er a peek.”

  Hinata thanked her with a smile and looked off in the distance Danielle had pointed. Sure enough, a small dot marked the horizon. When Hinata looked through the spyglass, she could see the shape of Safo’s central mountain.

  Her breath stopped as reality settled in: home was far behind her and she might never see it again. She might never see Morgan or Zeke or Hormiz or Aegir ever again. Her hands trembled as she handed Danielle back the spyglass. “Thank you.”

  “Nothing of it. I take it this is your first time away from home?” Danielle asked.

  Hinata shook her head. “Actually, I left home once before. I was 15 when I left Crescent.”

  Danielle inhaled sharply in shock. “Godfather, I’m so sorry.”

  “Hm,” Hinata winced at the name. “It’s alright. It’s been over 40 years. But I’ve never left the Vulpen Islands, so I suppose you still had me clocked.”

  Danielle chuckled. “Well, I’ve a sharp eye that’s seen some shit. But don’t worry, your secret is safe with me,” she added a wink for good measure.

  Hinata felt seen and cared for, like she’d made an instant friend. But she didn’t want to distract and smother her new friend, so Hinata thanked Danielle again and then left her to drive the ship.

  Life at sea proved monotonous. The weather remained agreeable but the sight of endless ocean stretching out in all directions never changed. Books proved a much-needed blessing. Most of the crew had read each book at one point or another. Strict rules were enforced regarding their use. Only 1 book per person at a time, and the consequences for damaging or ruining a book were unspeakable.

  Early one evening as she perused the shelf, Captain Jerome walked in and eyed her up and down.

  “Ehem,” he cleared his throat. “I been wondering, and I mean no offense, mind you, but is you a man or woman?”

  Instantly, Hinata noticed she was in a confined space and Captain Jerome was blocking the only exit. He didn’t seem threatening, but Hinata suddenly felt very unsafe. Was there a wrong answer to his question? What would he do if her answer unsatisfied? Her heart pounded in her chest as adrenaline flooded her body.

  Get a grip. Calm down and answer his question, her rational mind said.

  “I’m a woman,” she answered simply.

  His eyebrows furrowed skeptically. He examined her muscular arms, thin waist, flat chest, and faint mustache, lingering on the lump on her throat.

  “Huh. Okay,” he sounded unconvinced. But he shrugged and turned his attention to the bookshelf. Grabbing a tome, he passed it to Hinata. “Try this one. It’s one of my favorites.” Then he left the room and Hinata feeling very foolish and doubtful.

  Should she have lied? Did she lie?

  She shook her head to try to evict the nonsense. She was correct to tell the captain she was a woman. Two grown men accompanying a strange young girl across the ocean? That sounds suspicious–more suspicious than her unkempt facial hair.

  For as long as Hinata could remember, she always thought of herself as a tomboy. But her body had other ideas. Growing up on the cliffside of Crescent, boys and girls were treated the same. It didn’t matter what you called yourself. All that mattered was chainfishing. With a proper chain harness, one man could feed and defend an entire village. It didn’t matter if that man was a man or woman. What mattered was the chain and the skill of its wielder. And Hinata was perhaps the last chainfisher alive. Everyone else died when Adam destroyed Crescent.

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  Back then, Hinata lived as a boy but always felt closer to her sisters than her brothers. They used to torment her for being so small and pretty, but she shut them up once she mastered chainfishing.

  After Crescent was destroyed, Hinata spent the next thirty-plus years living in relative isolation with Morgan and the faefolk. One day, Hinata chose to leave her tomboyish trappings behind and live fully as a woman. Morgan supported her. It was simple.

  Living so simply, so constantly, and for so many years, Hinata had grown accustomed to her identity being a simple fact. Yet out in public and among strangers, her identity was a topic for discussion and debate.

  Again, harsh reality settled in. Hinata was far from home.

  Hinata spent much of the next several days sequestered in their cabin. The three travellers played endless rounds of cards, liars dice, and deck-building games.

  The book Captain Jerome had recommended was titled, ‘Frog Song,’ and it was a delightfully absurd adventure of a frog warrior whose gender changed every time anyone nearby sang above or below certain pitches. The frog was born a boy but cursed with gender-fuckery by a witch. As a girl, the frog was exceedingly beautiful and all the boy frogs chased after her, but the frog warrior was secretly in love with a turtle princess.

  It was one of the best nonsense stories Hinata had ever read, and she realized the captain–in his own, indelicate way–was trying to be friendly.

  But all the same, she started wearing her harness every day. It was tidy and lightweight. The chain itself was thin and coiled onto a spring contraption on her lower back. Even though Captain Jerome hadn’t meant to intimidate her, Hinata hated feeling vulnerable and afraid. With her chains on her back, she feared nothing.

  Or so she thought.

  -8-

  Plenty mistrusted the open ocean. Selkies were shoreline creatures. The absence of any visible landmass filled Plenty with overwhelming anxiety whenever he stepped outside, so he spent much of the journey in the cabin passing the time with Lyn and Hinata.

  He didn’t know how to read so the books were of little use to him, but Lyn was happy to interpret words from passages in a story she was reading. She used the side table as a grand stage for her illusions, and she put on a damn good show.

  Lyn’s illusions were detailed and stylistic. Life-like human facsimiles were beyond her scope; her illusions were still uncanny. Before her reset, Lyn’s illusions had progressed to an exceptional sophistication. Her spells were central to the feirm’s continued survival. After her reset, she lost all but her earliest memories. One day soon, Lyn would make an unstoppable infiltrator, but for now, her illusions were enough to grace even the most tedious story with a flourish of artistic greatness.

  So the days passed easily. Lyn had stopped being obstinate and settled into a more grateful attitude, which was a welcome relief. She was a good bean, that one. Self-centered at times, impulsive, insatiable, and dangerous, but also generous of spirit, clever, inventive, and powerful. Most of all, she was a good friend and, paradoxically, a good listener. Plenty, Hinata, and Lyn whiled away the hours sharing ideas, memories, hopes, and anxieties.

  To accommodate Lyn’s sunlight allergy, Plenty and Hinata slept during the day. It seemed unkind to leave Lyn alone each night. But the cramped space was enough to drive anyone restless, so one night they all left the cabin to breathe in the ocean night air. The moon was a thin sliver in the sky obscured by dark clouds, so the Floating Library was rocking against the waves in near-total darkness. Only the ship’s aetherlight orbs resisted the night.

  In the darkness, Plenty’s landless anxieties were diminished. He held fast to the ship’s railing and breathed deeply the salt and mist–and something else.

  What is that? he wondered and sniffed again intentionally.

  A selkie’s sense of smell was closer to canine than human. He could smell nuances within scents from miles away, and right now, what he smelled was unfamiliar, alarming, and distinctly human. Plenty opened his eyes and knew deep in his gut that somewhere out in that impenetrable darkness bobbed another ship, and it reeked of death.

  Plenty ran up the stairs to the upper deck to find Captain Jerome at the wheel.

  “Where’s the fire?” he asked.

  Plenty almost blurted an answer but he stopped and collected his thoughts. What to tell the captain? How much could he be trusted? Plenty’s gut told him Captain Jerome was a good man, but Plenty couldn’t hinge the safety of his entire party on a gut hunch.

  “I think there’s someone out there,” Plenty said cryptically.

  The captain’s eyes flashed behind his thick spectacles. His answer was immediate and serious. “Where? What makes you think that?”

  Plenty sniffed the air again and judged the wind. “Don’t you smell that? I think somewhere over that way but I can’t be sure.”

  The captain looked skeptical for a moment but he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a spyglass, scanning the darkness in the direction Plenty had pointed.

  “Argh, it’s too damn dark to see anything.” He looked grim. “There’s not much to be done about it. We’ve passed the point of return, and that’s our heading. I can try to go around them, but we’re a cargo vessel. If pirates see us, we aren’t fast enough to outrun them.”

  “Shit!” Plenty cursed. It was dangerous to trust any human. “Damn it, okay fine, listen. I have an idea but I need your help to pull it off.”

  Captain Jerome said nothing but raised a single eyebrow, the stoic bastard.

  Plenty weighed his options again and finally said, “I can hide the ship but I need you to keep your familiar below deck while I do it.”

  Captain Jerome looked intrigued. His head tilted side to side thoughtfully. “Okay. Show me.”

  Plenty closed his eyes and sang, focusing and channeling the ocean’s endless mana into a note of pure mist. Selkie magic was limited but had many uses. Heavy Mist was one of the first spells a selkie learns as a pup. It took almost no energy to maintain, mostly requiring focus and controlled breathing.

  A rare human may be born with an ocean-oriented mana skillset, but Heavy Mist was a particularly selkie spell, which the worldly and well-read captain might recognize. But if he figured him out, Captain Jerome made no indication, simply nodding with a grateful grunt. “Hey, you,” he shouted at Hinata. “Come over here.”

  Hinata looked uneasy, her hand lingering behind her back reflexively, but she went up the stairs and said, “Yes?”

  “Hold the wheel, just so. Hold it steady. Good. I gotta relay a message to the first mate; uphold my end of a bargain,” he spared Plenty a glance. “Back soon.”

  Captain Jerome went below deck.

  Hinata looked confused and more than a little concerned. Lyn walked up the stairs, also curious.

  Both their faces expressed a simple question: What’s happening?

  Plenty answered simply, ‘Pirates.’

  If you want to read more stories with trans characters, I'm happy to recommend Wear Your Soul 'Round Your Neck by Lachina McKenzie

  It's a wonderfully told tale. I hope you'll check it out. Then y'all come back, y'hear?