A day with a dragon

Dear Diary,
I feel a bit cold, but I like guarding the ship in nights like this one. It feels like it is a different ship. It is not as noisy as it is during the day, but it isn’t also dead silent. There is always the sound of the waves to keep you company. And, from time to time, you can hear noises from here and there. Sometimes, it is just Vadrek or Brunek making fun of other crewmates or people just walking around the ship. If you listen for a longer time, all the noises slowly disappear, and it is just you there but somehow you don’t feel alone. For some reasons, this small unnoticeable thing that happens every night makes me very happy. I feel at peace on this ship and tonight, more than anytime else, I need peace. Everybody keeps telling me different things, and I do not know who I should listen to. I do not even know if I should listen to myself anymore. I want to cry, but I have no real reason to. I can’t do that. I am a fighter, not a crybaby. I have to stand up and fight, no matter how hard the fight, right? I do not know…
Despite all the mess that was in Prepo, the day started very well. Nixie, brought with her a new crewman. Her name was Anevys. She is another elf that used to sell flowers, but she decided she wants an adventure, so she wanted to join us. I find her quite interesting and very amusing. She didn’t talk much, but it was enough to make me like her. But, after all that happened, the poor girl probably realized too late that she chose the most cursed ship for her adventure and is now trying to find a way to escape. I think she is a brave girl. I just wish, she will not get stuck in all of the world’s mess because of us.
Then, we had the first official meeting of the “Girls Council” in the bath. For now, it is just Eve, Nixie and me. But i hope the other girls will join next time. The information there are secret, so I will not say them here. Plus, I do not yet want to talk about Nixie nor Eve. But there was some very good news as well. We were preparing for a party.
Drenizek and Dillen apparently started the preparation for a painting party for Nixie. At first, I didn’t realize what was happening, but Dillen pulled me aside and explained. It seemed like a very good way to lighten the mood a bit, and to provide the promised entertainment for Nixie, so I was more than happy to help. Of course, it was obviously Drenizek’s idea. He is a genius sometimes. Unfortunately, a very quiet one. Of course, I couldn’t let Heron, Bart, Eve and the rest, stay out of this, so I asked them to help us. First, we came up with the idea, that everyone should paint something, maybe it will raise their spirit a bit. We had a few good ideas, but in the end, we decided that the main theme of the drawings, would be “Something that represents your home” or something similar. Of course, it was quite simple, I already knew what I wanted to draw: A ship, with a missing stick that catches the wind, sailed by some very brave people, which sails through a large sea, with the sunrise in front. I know, dear diary, very simple and expected. But it was all I needed for my home.
 
Unfortunately, the party did not happen because the demons decided it was that time of the day that they needed to visit us. While we were talking for a bit, Smart Orman came running to us. It seems that he had seen Maltor’s ghost in the one of the rooms. When we went to see what was happening, we only saw one dice, on the table. Smart Orman said that “Maltor’s ghost” invited him to play some games again, like they used to. Poor Orman, he must miss his friend...We tried to explain Smart Orman what was happening was just the curse trying to get to him, but we didn’t have time for many explanations. From the other side of the ship, we heard Brunek scream and swear. The SHIP attacked him. I wanted to find out more so I can maybe catch whatever was in that room, but all I got to see, were a few rats chewing on the bed. And then, Eugen told us about his old fluffy cat Cato who appeared behind him. Whatever this is, it got a lot of power over us. And, given the situation, I am sure we are offering them enough methods to attack us. We all miss something or someone, even we admit it or not. As Bart and Eve said, it is not something we can fix now, but we have to keep fighting. It is always a fight we need to have, isn’t it?
 
We didn’t get to see anything on our way, just fire and smoke. The old Vedia was destroyed, and dragons were freely wondering around. We didn’t stop much until the next day when we got in Iomen. Even here, there was another fight expecting for us. When we arrived, the whole port was in a huge chaos. There was a big fire in the middle of the city, and people, were running everywhere, trying to get on the boats. There was no one to lead this place, their so-called king Tersiolis, ran away long before everybody else. We asked the crew to help us pull out the fire and we searched for a translator to help us organize the port a bit. But there was no time anymore. From far, we could hear a dragon’s voice, getting closer and closer. If people were scared before, now they became utterly terrified. They started going into the water and trying to climb on every ship, including ours. The crew was on the shore, so it was just Isbel and Kelly protecting the ship. When the crew was finally ordered to go get the ship, we could already see the dragon. It was now, up to us if we wanted to fight or not.
 
To be honest, we had a small discussion about this problem just a few hours before. I didn’t feel it is alright to leave all these people to die, and just run to finish our mission. I told this to the rest of the party. Nixie seemed to be against the idea, and so did Eve. “There is a difference between courage and recklessness” they said. Bart seemed a bit undecided, and so did Heron. Somehow, to my surprise, Eugen seemed to agree with me. But he was so rude with the others when he said it, that I didn’t even counted him as being on my side. Still, after some time of convincing, we started to discuss what options we had, to fight these dragons. We never got to finish that talk, and now, here we were, with a big decision to make: we leave these people and make sure we finish our mission so that we save the world, or we risk to die here, trying to fight a dragon and save the people in front of us.
 
Nixie gave us the order to retreat to the ship and leave as soon as possible. But I couldn’t leave. No…It was more that I didn’t want to leave. There were a few thousand people staying here in this city. If we left them here, most of them would have died. “We will save them if we get to Roib” I heard Nixie say. That was a beautiful lie to make us feel better. We all knew that, by the time we got to Roib, all these people would have been long dead. It seemed to me we were just running away because we thought of ourselves so much more important to this war than any people here. But just because we have more information, or some allies with us, doesn’t give us any right to leave these people here to die. “What kind of king leaves their people behind?” said Nixie today in Roib. I find it…what was the word…. ironic. We are no kings, but we do pretend ourselves to be responsible with protecting this world. Are these not people a part of it as well? Did they not deserved to be saved just because they do not have a part in this war? I understand that not all of us are great leaders that can influence the world and that our mission is to talk with people that can make a difference and take a decision. But that doesn’t mean forgetting about the smaller people.
I did understand what the consequences of my actions were. Yes, we all could die, but just the fact that that I care more about our crew, allies and friends, doesn’t mean I have to leave other people die. Everyone is important to somebody else in the world. But my most selfish reason is that, I didn’t want everyone to live with this burden on their hearts. If we left, even if we never spoke about it, all of us would know what we did. Some of us, probably, would have been fine with it, but for some, it would have haunted them forever. We won’t be able to save everyone, but in cases like this, when we have even the slightest chance to help, why turn the other way? I simply couldn’t understand it. But it doesn’t matter anymore what any of us thinks, the fight happened, and we can’t take it back.
 
It was a very long fight. At first, the dragon seemed to be building a big nest on the new ruins of a king’s fortress. The dragon seemed it didn’t mind us too much. We started to follow Eve who, to everyone’s surprise, started to run straight to the mouth of the dragon. Thanks to elves, the dragon was not flying yet but it was still throwing fire at us. You could feel the power of its fire from streets away. We managed, more or less, to avoid it. By the way, dear diary, I hope Bart never gets angry at me, he seems very aggressive when he swears. The dragon was not stupid. The moment it got the chance, it spread its wings and off you go in the sky to kill Eugen, of course. I never flew so high before. If I were alone, I would have probably been very very afraid. While I was running on its head, trying to hit what I could, I saw Xixi, who was hitting the eye. On the other side of the dragon, I heard Heron’s voice who was trying to climb. And of course, there was one person, who would never miss the opportunity to risk his life to hang on something. Yes, dear diary, I was talking about Drenizek who was hanging on the dragon’s tail. It may seem very amusing now, but it really wasn’t. We had to hang on very well, and the dragon’s magic protection was extremely annoying. Our weapons were not able to hit through it a lot. In the meantime, the dragon would try very hard to eat Eugen. I wanted to help heron, and throw him close closer to the eye, so he could hit, but guess what, I failed miserably, and he fell. Poor Heron, he spent a lot of time climbing that dragon. In the end, the elves, in front with our dear Miremis, managed to bring the dragon down, and freeze it for a bit. Miremis is one of those people I will always listen to. We all tried to hit the dragon with all we had, and the dragon seemed a bit more disoriented. Somehow, Drenizek made it to the head, and used some artifact that he stole from Xebec, in the dragon’s eye. Where does he get all that courage from? I mean, fighting the dragon I understand, but stealing something from Xebec? I am joking, dear diary. The truth is that I feel he is changed. I don’t know, I want to think that he is the Drenizek we knew, but it doesn’t seem so at all, even the crazy things he does remain the same.
 
In the end, we didn’t kill the dragon and we didn’t manage to save all the people in the city. Although, for some good time at least, I do not think that dragon is going to come back. We didn’t lose men, but the elves did: 20 of them died. And another few good hundred people died in the city. But there were three thousand that survived. And they started gathering around us, very curious to see what was going on. They were waiting for us to talk, and we expected Nixie, as our leader, to talk for us. But she didn’t. She just refused to talk. I am no better to judge her decision, I also didn’t say anything. I thought that talking in her place, would undermine her authority more than I already did. Eugen on the other hand, went ahead and tried to talk with the people. They started cheering like he was some kind of God and they said that they would listen to whatever Eugen said.
We spent the rest of the day helping around the city and burning the dead because it seems that some no-life-no dead people were somewhere close. Of course, after we sorted out a strategy how to get people out of that stupid land.
 
Do I regret that I chose to stay? No. But the moment I stepped back on the ship; I felt the heavy feeling that was all around. I saw Nixie’s reaction that day at the speech. She was very upset. When she decided to leave, I had to make a choice: Trust her, and leave or trust myself and stay. And while I do trust her, there are times, when I trust myself more. After I did take my decision, I felt both selfish and stupid. I was supposed to have trust in her, both as a crewmate and friend. Yet, for some reasons, I thought I know better. I didn’t think much why, but I thought I am smarter. I was really sorry, so I went to apologize to all of them. There was nothing that would give me a reason to act like that.
While we were talking, Xebec stormed in very angry. And he got a point. There was a problem that almost costed our life. In very short words, the captain took too long to give orders and even when she did, they were not obeyed by the rest of us. I do not think I have seen him so upset before. He even said some nonsense that nobody there likes him. I really do not think that it is true.
It was time to start fixing my newest mistake, so, the next morning I went to talk with Nixie. Eve was already there. I wanted to apologize and so did Eve. But, before I didn’t even get to an end, Nixie stated: “No, you are not sorry”. A perfect reaction from someone who was upset. I could understand why she was acting mean. As we were talking, she kept telling us that “we will see” and that she learned a very valuable lesson, and we will see. Once again, as many others before, she didn’t say anything to us. Come to think of it, every time I asked her to tell us what she thinks, she didn’t listen. Actually, she never listened to what we had to say in general. That’s the reason I chose to trust myself. She does hear our opinions, but she doesn’t consider them. It was the same with the crew, and it was the same at the conversation we had before the dragon, and her dream. I understand that she has her own good reasons to do what she does and that I, as a crewmate, I should trust her. But she didn’t properly consider the option to tell the truth until she started to run out of options and then, once again she wanted to lie to the fastodans about Menn’e, a few weeks after. And now, when I told them, I am not feeling alright with leaving people behind, she insisted that we must go no matter what, without thinking it through, not until we had a whole conversation about who agrees and who doesn’t. I understand that in emergency situations, she must take a decision fast, in which case, I would like to listen to her. But…she cannot ask of me to trust her, when she doesn’t trust us. She clearly didn’t trust the crew, and probably doesn’t trust most of our party either or so I feel. Or I don’t know, it is a weird feeling to describe. It feels like she never reaches out to us, but she expects us to reach out to her.
 
But again, at this point, it doesn’t matter what I think anymore. The solution is simple. I have to obey. I did a mistake, and I will fix it. It was the promise we made during the last together training. I do not need to make this more complicated than it is.
Well the discussion didn’t last for much longer anyways because Eve threw away her sword and said that she will never fight again when she heard Nixie saying that “she’s done with the whole situation”. I do understand that she feels guilty and sad about everything that has been going on recently. Especially since she and Bart did have a fight, and the demons coming over us. None of us are alright. And she really cares what we, especially Bart and Nixie think. But was it such a terrible thing what we had done that it was not worth fighting for anything, anymore? Were we really just some barbarians that didn’t care about anything? When she threw the sword, she made me feel like she was disgusted by herself and me. Again, no complications, it is fine, it was probably just me feeling that because I was upset.
 
I am not made of stone either though. The discussion with the girls made me feel exhausted. But, I knew, that on this ship, there is a certain pirate that is more upset than us. And I think both of us needed a bit of company. So, I went to visit Xebec. We talked about the whole situation with the captainship for a long time. He once again explained me everything, and I agreed with him. He must have been both very upset and worried about everything that had happened. I apologized to him as well, especially because I made him worry, I did not intend to. After he seemed to be a bit more less upset, we talked about Nixie. He still is convinced that Nixie isn’t fitted to be a Captain. He still thinks that she is not a “woman of action” and that she proved that by not talking in front of everyone. And that, she needs to make the crew get used to her leadership. I wanted to argue with him, but I do not think I was in the position to say anything, and to be honest, I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I just wanted a hug and to stay with him. Just for a few seconds...I just wanted a bit of peace. Despite that, he still seemed very upset about the whole situation so I tried to listen to him. I was not the only one who had a bad day and i hoped that at least one of us to feel better . But I did notice something that changed from before. When he talked about this ship, he said that “I would have given up the captain position anyways”. I do not know, the way he acted that day, and what he said, it made me think, that maybe, he is really trying to protect this ship now, because he really wants to, not because he is captain. Maybe it was just my imagination, but for a second there, I felt more relieved. Since I was curious, I asked him if he thought more about what he is going to do next. He seems to be quite excited for traveling this world in this ship. I’m really happy about it.
 
Xebec also mentioned something that he was bothered that Eugen was leading those people. I am going to admit it, the way he put it, was funny. But, i did not agree with it completely. He cared for this people, from the beginning, and he wanted to help them, more than i did. And while, the rest of us were quiet in front of the crowd (except for Bart, who i think was getting ready to say something), Eugen took this responsibility. Bart and he, thought for a long time about how we should help the survivors, while the rest of us were too busy solving our own issues. I don't know about the others, but i do not think badly about him. He is after all, the one who brought us in this journey, and he saves us in heavy fights. Even today with the dragon, he did fight bravely there. If anything, i am grateful to him. At the discussion about the dragons, it did help to know that he agreed with me. It was very nice of him. But he is sometimes just very straight forward. He did tell Eve that she should stop criticizing and start making suggestions, and then, he also told Nixie, while we were in front of the crowd that "if you don't have anything good to say, then shut up". I do not mind these offences, but, as Eugen minds that he is called in certain ways, the girls also are annoyed about certain things he says. I think we are all at fault. On one side, it is us, who do tend to pick up on everything he does, but he also doesn't make the situation easier. I know he means it well, but sometimes, maybe he should put it a lot nicer if he wants to be listened, and listen to the others as well. I am a bit worried about what happened on the ship. Isbel told us about the people he killed while trying to save the ship. I fear it might affect him, and his magic. I will talk with him when i have the chance, we don't do that too often, but maybe the two of us are more alike than i think.

One of these days, I met Bart on the deck. I asked him how he was feeling after all of these events and we talked a bit about the whole situation. First, we talked about what Xebec says about Nixie, and he says he agrees to a part of it. I don’t know if that made me feel better or worse, but it doesn’t matter now. We also talked about the dragon fight. To be honest, all I heard all day was about captain, but I really wanted someone to say something about the fight and Iomen in general. It was more than the story than just a captain and some crew men fighting. But none of them said anything. I guess everyone kept their feelings for themselves. Bart talked with me about it. And not only that he talked about it, but he even gave me some advice. He also explained that he was worried about the ship, which is why he wanted to leave Iomen before the dragon attack. They were quite a few questions I had for him and it mattered most to me that he talked with me about all of them, sincerely and very heartily. I asked him how he would deal with regret, and how to deal with orders and many more. He has a whole process for dealing with orders he doesn’t agree with. Although the subjects were not the happiest, the whole talk made me feel at peace for a bit.
 
Well, the whole conversation made me feel better, but I was still not well. There are too many fights going on. I do not want to have them anymore. I cannot focus on all of them at the same time. I do not to fight with the party, or the crew or anyone I care about. I got too involved in all of this. I have learned my lesson; you have to choose between feelings and rationality. You can’t have both. I have to put my feelings aside, far away, and I will talk about them only when it is the case. I have to fight this as a fighter, not as a child. I cannot get mad over the smallest things, and I cannot fight the demons if I can’t control my own feelings. To be honest, I do not know exactly what to do. Everyone on this ship has their opinions, and I think that makes them who they are. But most of them do not say them, maybe I should do the same. But then, if we do not talk about our problems, why are we even here? I do not know. There are way too many fights. I feel this war is taking away everything I have, and it is merciless. And I am afraid, that, in this way, by the time we finish it, I will lose everything I have. I have to change; I cannot do mistakes anymore.
 
We took some of the vedian people to Trekko, where we met a nice captain who was taking care of the people there. We are now on the way to Roib but the other ships returned to take the other people from Iomen. We haven’t heard news about any of them in a day. I am very worried, before we left, we heard some dragon screams close to the island.
Please, the Almighty, please protect these people that survived, and the Roib people, and all of us. And please, help us save more people in time.
 
P.S.: Thank you, to you all the elves that sacrificed for saving the lives of many people, and for defeating the dragon. And thank you, all the people who died on these dragon attacks. And thank you, Anevys mother, for having your daughter.