“Ah, the spirit sea’s domain,” Emilia said. “We’ve never met a spirit before. We’re quite looking forward to it.”
I considered having a meeting to think of a plan against the spirit, but Queen Belletochka smiled gently and dropped a stunning announcement. “We’ve actually already entered the spirit sea’s domain,” she said. “You’d best be prepared, everyone.”
“Huh?!” The blood drained from my face as I turned to face the queen.
CLACK! Right on cue, the ship shook and suddenly halted. “Huh?! We were sailing so smoothly!” I said. “The ship just stopped!”
“Whatever is the matter?” Emilia wondered. “Is it a ghost ship? Pirates? Or a kraken, perhaps?”
“Emilia, are you taking a dig at me?”
“You’re the one who claimed that these are classic events when one goes sailing.”
While Emilia and I were engaged in our pointless argument, a crew member who’d gone to check on the vessel popped into view.
“Your Highness, we haven’t observed any abnormalities with the ship!” they reported.
“Lady Mary, the wind has stopped...” Safina said.
She gazed around on high alert and placed a hand over the blade at her waist. Only once she’d pointed it out did I notice that I no longer felt the refreshing sea breeze on my face. The eerie silence from the lack of wind gave me a tinge of anxiety.
“The tides have stopped too...” Sita said, leaning a bit over the railing of the deck to observe the even stranger phenomenon.
Total tranquility fell upon the ship, and I gulped nervously as I gazed around. “We really are right in the thick of it... Right inside the ship graveyard...”
“Hmph! This is much too soft to stop us!” Emilia scoffed from the ship’s bow. “Soft, we say! Too soft! Even softer than a nice pillow!” she bellowed at the horizon.
“Emilia, I find it unwise to provoke the spirit here...” I warned, standing a bit behind her.
“Our ship needs no wind or tide!” Emilia boasted. “Come forth, Krakky! Show them the might of the kingdom of Relirex!” She ordered proudly, pointing ahead of her.
Silence settled over us. It continued for a good while.
“Um... Princess?” I prodded her.
“What’s going on?!” she shouted. “Don’t tell me that you’re fast asleep in the middle of an emergency!” She leaned forward over the deck and gazed at the water’s surface below. There wasn’t a peep to be heard...
Well, almost. With a small splash, a tiny tentacle appeared and wriggled around apologetically. It made some sounds as it spoke to the demon.
“What?!” Emilia demanded. “What do you mean you can’t go forward?! You coward! Do you fear the spirit, you spineless monster?! Not that you had a spine to begin with.”
I honestly couldn’t tell if she was calm or not when she was making jokes while scolding our ship’s kraken, Krakky.
“Miss!” Sita called out, acting like a student in class as she raised her hand with gusto. “Since the spirit tree can manipulate the trees in her domain as she wishes, I believe that the spirit sea can manipulate this domain of water as they please!”
“Very good. That’s correct,” Queen Belletochka confirmed, smiling brightly and clapping her hands together like a supportive teacher, completely unfittingly for this dire situation.
“So Krakky in the water is stopped by some sort of unknown force in the sea, or has its tentacles tied by the water pressure,” I presumed. “Which means that it can’t move at all.”
“I believe so,” Queen Belletochka said calmly, still taking the role of a kind mentor. “You can safely assume that anything that occurs within these waters will be as the spirit wishes.”
“Interesting...” Emilia said. “Then Krakky was speaking the truth, it seems. Ah yes, all’s well, we suppose? Of course it isn’t! How is this any better?! This is against the rules!”
“Well, that’s how spirits are,” I explained. “That’s all there is to it.”
“How perfectly unreasonable!”
“Yeah, I get it, Emilia. I totally understand you. This is why I avoid getting involved with spirits as much as I can.” How bittersweet it was, gaining a comrade in resignation... In any case, I couldn’t find a way to bust through our current situation. Even if I punched the water, the best I could do was create a large ripple, and I wasn’t sure if that’d damage the spirit’s body anyway. I doubted that I’d leave a scratch. What’s more, if what I did produced a large wave that sank the ship, I could only get on my knees and beg for mercy. Recklessness would only lead to my downfall here. Ugh, this makes me feel so impatient.
“Wh-Wh-What shall we do?!” Emilia cried. Her proud attitude moments ago had disappeared and been replaced with a disposition of panicked begging. “Should we apologize right now? Is this the time to use that prostrating technique of yours, Mary?”
“As the Relirex princess, I wish you’d stay more resolute...but if a single kowtow will let us get through this mess, I, Mary Regalia, will happily grovel alongside you,” I assured her.
“M-Mary...”
It was truly an emotional moment. It was such a pathetic discussion, in fact, I was on the verge of crying out in pain.
“Your Highness! A massive whirlpool suddenly appeared near the ship!” a crew member watching above the mast reported. “It’s growing larger and larger, and at this rate, it’ll engulf the ship!”
It seemed like the spirit was getting serious. Wait, the fairies and spirits I’ve met before were certainly troublesome, but they’d never been this vicious without trying to make contact first. Is this spirit just an outlier? Probably. I can’t help but be a bit curious what made them this way...
No, no, now’s not the time to mull over stuff like that! What should we do?! How in the world can I fight against the ocean?
It was then that Queen Belletochka stood in front.
“M-Mother!” Emilia gasped in awe.
The queen strummed her lute and began to sing. Shockingly, the whirlpool grew weaker and smaller before our eyes.
“Amazing...” I murmured. “This must be the power of a songstress...”
“No, this is the power of our mother,” Emilia replied.
“Right, so, a songstress.”
“No, it’s our mother’s power.”
“Emilia, stop your bickering and let us retreat for now,” the queen interjected, ending our pointless argument and scolding her daughter in an unusual display of assertiveness.
“Oops,” Emilia, Belletochka, and I all said at once. Why had the queen joined us, you may be asking? Well, it’s because we’d made her stop singing.
As you might expect, the whirlpool immediately grew larger, as though we’d angered the sea. The violent vortex of water was about to swallow us whole.
“This is your fault, Mary,” Emilia said. “You told mother not to sing when she talks, remember?”
“No, this is because you were nitpicky with what I said!” I growled.
While we were embarrassing ourselves blaming each other, the situation grew worse by the second. Magiluka pressed an index finger on her lips to shush us away from barking at each other like puppies.
“Wait, don’t you hear something?” she asked.
We fell quiet and listened intently. Like Magiluka had said, we heard the sound of the wind, or something that resembled a song.
“My singing finally reached them,” Queen Belletochka said with a sigh of relief.
The whirlpool weakened once more, and the ship finally lurched forth like it was freed from its shackles.
“The spirit’s distracted,” Queen Belletochka said. “Emilia, head for the sound of the song while we can!”
“We’re still a bit confused, but right!” Emilia shouted. “All right, Krakky! You’re a monster who strikes fear into the hearts of all who dare tread into the ocean! Use your willpower to burst forth from the weakened shackles and flee!”
Willpower? Don’t you just mean regular old power? Emilia’s confusing command notwithstanding, the ship groaned forward and sailed through the weakened whirlpool to head for the song we heard in the distance.