They shake their heads. They do not think that sounds like a good idea at all. There are nine of them. Two of them are the two who were with him on the ship. I think about gutting them to make a point, but I think my point has been made.
“My mother was your queen. That makes me your queen. Now explain to me why none of you have mended your shitty clothing. Oh, and why you have hundreds of starving, miserable people sitting around this piece of shit ship.”
“I am Marvork.” One of the faye steps forward with a deep voice and calming manner. He’s wearing a mauve shitty sweater with stains on it. It is very hard to take any of them seriously when they look this bad, but I suppose I can, as I look down at my tattered, rusty, and oh yes, bloody attire. “I apologize for the method of your arrival. It is not as we would have organized it, but Savork had his own ideas.”
“Not anymore, he doesn’t.”
I feel a new sense of control. I also feel another sense, one I haven’t experienced before. It takes me some time to put a mental word to it. Oh. Yes. Responsibility. I feel responsible for this mess.
“We took refuge in this reality in an effort to avoid persecution. But persecution followed us. We were attacked multiple times. We had our supplies looted. We were left to drift among these cursed stars because Savork refused to let us return to the original world.”
“Why didn’t you rise up against him. Those people back there… they're suffering.”
“Savork told us once he had you there would be no further problems. He promised you would be our savior.”
I twirl the blade in my hand without dropping it. It’s super cool. “I might be your savior,” I agree. “How do we cut space?”
“Savork was the only one who knew how the blade worked.”
“Oh.”
I look down at the body of Savork, which offers absolutely no clues whatsoever. I possibly should have asked some questions before killing him.
“Give me a second,” I say with a slightly embarrassed smile. “I’m sure I can get it working.”
“TIMMMMEE CHOP!” I wave the sword in the air. It does nothing, as one might expect.
“SPACE DESTROY!” I try again. Still nothing.
“Time-o, space-o!” I wiggle the tip of the blade in the hopes it will make a teeny, tiny, pokey hole.
It does not make a tiny space hole. It just waggles about.
“I er… we… uhm. There could be some temporary stuckness here,” I tell them. “I’m sure I can work it out. I’ve never met a weapon I didn’t know how to use before.”
The faye do not seem concerned by my lack of abilities. They also don’t seem not concerned. They seem flat, as if life has beaten them down once, twice, a thousand times too many.
“Anyway, what other names do you have?” I change the subject, which is the right thing to do in uncomfortable conversations.
They introduce themselves. Most all their names end in ‘ork,’ I think it’s a male faye thing. Marvork. Fyork, Tork, Ethork, Spork, Bjork, and three others whose names I forget almost immediately on hearing them.
“Are you in charge, Marvork?”
“We all prefer an advisory role. Especially when someone executes the last regent in front of us.”
“So I could be in charge?”
“Yes,” he agrees. Bjork and Fyork exchange unsettled glances. I don’t blame them. The idea sounds pretty poor to me too.
“I don’t have a lot of experience, but I have been told I have the breeding. Let’s go address the people out there. Come on. Big news. Chop chop!”
The last part is me trying to activate the sword. It doesn’t work. But that’s okay.
The huddled masses look at me with their woeful eyes and I try my best to be generally comforting. Someone has to be. This place is absolutely bleak.
“I’m Astaria. My mother was a queen, and now I’m, well. Here. Mostly. Anyway. I want you to know that I’m going to fix this. I’m not sure how, because frankly I have no life experience whatsoever, and I’m not even entirely sure where I am, but…”
“Useless,” a woman mutters.
“Probably. Possibly. I mean, let’s see, shall we? First things first, we’re going to share all Savork’s rations out because he won’t be needing them anymore.”
That gets a positive reaction. Like every asshole who thinks himself in charge, Savork had managed to stockpile a good amount of the limited rations for himself.
It gives me a great and unexpected pleasure to see the innocents of the ship being well fed. They look so happy and somehow, I feel happy too. It’s all very strange, but here we are.
It’s not until we’ve eaten, and I still can’t get the sword to work, and hours have passed, and the faye keep sort of looking at me in an expectant way, and I’m really missing Blackmane, that this all starts to feel like a bad trip.