Visit the One-Eyed Captain in the hospital

The shadows fall long inside St. Mara’s. Doctors in white and nurses in stripped pinafores step loud and bold through the endless hallways, but you only ever seem to catch their shadows as they vanish into the half-light. Finally, one pauses long enough to point you towards the One-Eyed Captain before disappearing. In the distance, some unfortunate soul laments their torment with piercing wails.

She has her own room. Her name in brass above the door, a single bed, white sheets and blue flowers by the open window. You add your meagre bouquet to the other and approach her place of rest. Bandages cover her body and her arms up to the shoulders. Half her face is shrouded, the eyeless socket and bone-deep wound wrapped in gauze. Her legs are cast in plaster.

She stirs at your approach but does not wake.

You have brought a book. One of the pulpy, borderline illegal romances she likes. The story of a foreign peasant girl learned in some fantastical magicks does not appeal to you, and the world it describes makes you doubt the author’s sanity.

But her breathing seems to calm, her slumber deepens, and her motionless face looks peaceful. A smile, almost. You finish the chapter, then another, and as you turn to leave night has fallen over the sleepless City.

”She’s got such bad taste,” says a voice, shaded in the door frame. ”She used to read Feyish and Greenish both during grammar school – and now she only reads this dreck.” The figure laughs softly and steps into the light. ”First Officer, right?”

She looks so much like the resting Captain, the same dark hair and amber eyes. A gentle smile plays on her younger face, kissed by the sun rather than bitten by salt. She looks oh so innocent. Her cheeks, flushed a bucolic red, and even her linen sundress speaks of verdant contemplation save from the merciless Sea and callous City life.

Then her smile turns crooked and her eyes sparkle with familiar mischief. ”Though she’d always go for practice rather than theory. I bet she damn near broke your dick, just to pass the time. I’m her sister, by the way,” says the Younger Dustwell and offers you her hand. ”Pleased to meetcha.”

You shake her hand and confirm your name. She arrived in the morning and has vowed to guard her sister’s resting body. ”All night, every night,” she says, ”I’m such a piece of shit.” She sighs. ”I’m already gettin’ thirsty, and I don’t know my way around. Could I trouble you? Just for one beer?”

The One-Eyed Captain is fast asleep and your throat is dry from reading.