“Quit wreckin’ our port like you own the place!”
“We just wanna fish! Your ships are in the way!”
“Rescue the women! Attack the ships! There might be more!”
We quit our fishing and used our harpoons and nets to attack the foreigners. It was still dark out, so we hurt ourselves as much as we hurt our targets, but we weren’t gonna stop once we’d picked a fight with them.
The new aub then showed up with a group of nobles. Some wore the purple capes we were used to, but others wore blue and yellow ones. They attacked the ship and settled our fight in the blink of an eye.
“At first, I thought we were in for it,” I said.
“Yeah! Nearly soiled my trousers when they showed up. Didn’t know if they were gonna thank us for saving the ladies or kill us for attackin’ their precious trade partners.”
Seeing the knights arrive had made us all nervous, but they’d immediately started attacking the foreigners and rescuing the kidnapped women.
“They smashed those huge ships with ease. We’re nothin’ compared to nobles, huh?”
“Don’t forget what came next—the new aub froze the ocean with that huge light and closed the gate out at sea. She even went outta her way to heal us. It’s a lot to take in, but one thing’s clear: she’s somethin’ else.”
The new aub used seasonal magic we’d never seen before. She was nothing like any of the nobles we knew.
“Never seen or heard of any other aubs healin’ commoners. She really is somethin’ else, ain’t she?”
Some green light had rained down on us, and all the cuts and bruises on my arms had vanished. They didn’t even hurt anymore. We’d seen some yellow light next, which one of the knights told us was a spell meant to protect the citizenry. He must’ve been right because the foreigners hadn’t been able to hurt us after that. I didn’t think I’d ever experience something like that again, but that was fine; I was just glad to know that the nobles saw us fishermen as worthy of protection.
“Well, it ain’t all good,” Segt complained, slumping his shoulders as he bit into his fish. “My old man finally retired, but that healin’ spell fixed up his leg. Now he won’t quit yakkin’ about gettin’ back to work.”
“Guess the old coot’s still got some fire in his belly!”
We all cackled. Segt’s old man had punched the foreigners with as much force as he put into yelling at kids who caused trouble on the water. Now that he was better, he and Segt were fighting about who owned their boat and who was the head of the family.
“No two aubs are the same, huh? She’s nothin’ like that blonde lass.”
The young blonde aub had come to the port once to watch the foreign ships leave. We hadn’t seen her there since, as she’d called us all eyesores and ordered us to stay home during her future visits. She’d even told us to moor our ships so far away that she wouldn’t be able to see them. I doubted that girl would have ever healed or protected us.
“Well, not everyone’s good at fishin’. Doesn’t surprise me that not everyone’s good at bein’ an aub. Just a shame that our last one was such a disaster.”
“Our lives are at stake! We can’t afford to have disasters in charge!”
“Yeah, and it sucked while we did.”
“Gossiping about the new aub again, huh?” a new voice called.
I turned and saw Furt. He wasn’t a fisherman but a shipmate on a merchant vessel that carried goods here and there. His most recent shipment had taken him up north; he must’ve just gotten back.
“Good news, then,” he said. “I saw the new aub doing some work up north!”
“Yeah?! What kinda work?!”
We all made room for him, excited to have any news about the aub. He passed around the fruit and alcohol he’d brought us as souvenirs, then turned over a box and sat with us. His cup was full of beer before he knew it.
“So, I went up to Kannawitz...” he began.
Kannawitz was a province bordering the ocean. The merchant ship Furt worked on would stop by several cities on its way north, buy local goods in Kannawitz, and then return south.
Furt continued, “We saw Lady Rozemyne and some others on their highbeasts while we were making our way back here.”
“‘Lady Rozemyne’? Is that the new aub’s name? How did ya find out?” It was rare for commoners to learn a noble’s name. Merchants allowed to visit noble estates and the castle might pick up a few, sure, but never fishermen like us.
Furt gave a proud smile and said, “Lemme get to that. Just like when she intervened in the fight, she was the only one riding a two-seater. She was carrying this big chalice-looking thing and pouring rainbow light down from the sky. It made the cloudy ocean turn clear in moments!”
“Furt, calm the heck down,” I said. “I’m not followin’ at all. You gotta explain what the rainbow light was. And don’t skimp on the details. Was it like that green healing magic? Or the yellow protective kind, maybe?”
“I dunno, but it was crazy. The seaweed grew so suddenly that the ocean changed color, and the fish too thin to be caught in nets became huge! I swear, all the fishermen nearby went nuts.”
“Huh?! ’Course they went nuts! And you’re serious?!” I’d never heard of magic that could make fish grow like that.
“Yeah, I’m serious. They started cheering and waving at Lady Rozemyne, so guess what? She waved back! Everyone cheered again, and a guy from her group came over and told everyone to pray.”
“To... pray?”
“Yup. He said something like ‘Lady Rozemyne, the Divine Avatar of Mestionora, has become the aub of this land. Offer her your prayers! Praise be to Lady Rozemyne!’”
That reminded me—we were meant to pray during our baptism and coming-of-age. It must’ve been the same kind of prayer. Furt and the others in Kannawitz had apparently been so thrilled that they’d done as they were asked without question, inspiring Lady Rozemyne to pour even more rainbow light into the province.
“That’s nuts. Real nuts. But we’re the ones taking fish to the castle, right?” I smacked a fist against my knee. “She should do somethin’ about the water here!”
Furt crossed his arms. “You might not know this, since you only fish in close waters, but the land and ocean are way worse up north. People are starving there. Bindewald doesn’t even have a giebe right now, so things there are absolute hell. Only makes sense she’d start with the north.”
That was fair enough; I didn’t know much about how the duchy was doing elsewhere. I wished she’d give us some attention too, but everyone all across the duchy was probably thinking the same thing.
“She’s just starting with the worst spots,” Furt said. “We can expect her back here soon. She won’t abandon us, so we’ve just gotta wait our turn.”
“Yeah... You’re right.” Something told me she’d come back, especially when she was doing so much for the sake of the duchy’s commoners.