Parallax Tide — Part 2: Navigate
Kylie—Heisenberg—stumbled on the deck, ed by her undead counterpart. The smoldering sun had just set, maybe just seconds ago. Still, its evening dusk brought warmth to a gentle breeze.
“Well, seems like a time to explore, as a duo, what exactly we should do now.”
“Right. This means figuring out where we are, how to move this old-ass galleon about, and, where to go. I imagine you’re hungry, as well.”
The vampire was right. Adult Kylie’s belly didn’t gurgle like an on-cue prop, but it was certainly acting up.
“The pantry’s at the bottom level. Or perhaps I should say, it IS the bottom level. Can’t miss it, really.” Smirked the bloodsucker. “I figure there’s enough hardtacks for a human to last a year.”
“Sheesh, I didn’t expect roast duck, but hardtacks? Really?”
“Don’t complain too much. I had to feed on rats and seabirds before you showed up. Shit tastes awful and I need to shrivel up like four of the fuckers to last 24 hours. Least I got plenty of time to watch the stars. Not quite enough to get the wherewithal we need, but...I did figure a few things. Go get refueled and I’ll tell you about it, yeah?”
“I suppose...I’ll be right back then.”
The still quite hungover mercenary thus made her way down to the hold. As she descended in the bowels of the galleon, she felt the temperature drop. Made sense to her, it was below the waterline. And a basement was storage, at sea as on land. Her other, thankfully, had exaggerated on the hardtacks. There were plenty of other food as well, though, granted, even a basic vending machine had more variety. But at least there were cured meats. Though, true, it was mostly hardtacks. Oh well. She took a dried sausage and two hardtacks, along with a jug of freshwater, and made her way back to deck. There, the vampire was looking at the stars with an old fashioned spyglass decorated with ornate gold rings.
“So, what did you find out?”
“Two things, mainly. I used to look at the stars all the time, and the first thing I noticed was, wait, this doesn’t look like the constellations I know at all. For a moment, I got worried...If we were on another planet, or, worse, another dimension, we’d be proper fucked. But then I noticed...No, all our constellations are there ; Just oriented differently, and mixed with others.”
“And that means...what?”
“We’re in the southern hemisphere. Probably very close to the equator.”
“Huh.” Reacted Adult Kylie, nonplussed, at first, until she ed something. “Huuuuh...Isn’t the southern hemisphere like almost all water?”
“That is correct. However, I have a good reason to believe we’re not stranded smack dab in the middle of the Pacific.”
“Do tell.”
“The birds. I fed on some, as you should have seen in the crew quarters.”
“Yes, I saw. Yeesh. And that helps us how?”
“They’re terns. Coastal birds. Land cannot be too far.”
That did come as a huge relief. She imagined having to spend the rest of her life stranded at sea for a moment there.
“So we need to narrow things a bit and we should be able to make landfall?”
“Basically, yes. And the library in the captain’s cabin should help us do that. Fortunately, there are books in there that clearly have information about both stars and birds. Unfortunately, they’re all in friggin’ Spanish. OLD Spanish.”
Historically, that made sense, thought the Pretty. Spaniards and Portuguese were the main men when it came to big ass ships like these. She wasn’t too bad in the language, but circa 17th century was another matter entirely, true. Wade then added...
“Oh and I took French in school rather than Spanish. Unusual in Pasadena, but...latinos and I have, let’s say, severely bad blood.”
“Okaay, won’t pry, don’t care. But I can try to translate them when you’re asleep. We both are going to have time to kill anyway, might as well be constructive.”
“Right. I’ll try more vampiric methods in the meantime.”
Yay, more cooky cadaver lore.
“Like what?”
“Well, I suppose it won’t surprise you that Cainites have an assload of different powers, I’m sure.”
Quite rightly supposed. You guys are the power hogs of the horror genre, thought the Pretty.
“Turns out one of them is talking to animals.”
“Well, that sure is useful, the birds should know exactly where the closest land is!”
“My thinking exactly. Thing is, I’m not exactly well trained in this power. Right now all I can do is attract the critters. I have the potential to get to the Dolittle part, but...I’ll have to work on it some.”
“So, we both have our work cut out. Hmm...How much time do we have? There’s enough shit in the hull to last me a year, but you?”
“Well, given what I drank from you gave me...Four nights at best, obviously I can’t survive forever just on you. Not unless I want you to die of blood loss in two weeks. So...animals it is.”
The thought of her perfectly sexy body ending up a shriveled corpse horrified the adult enough to recontextualize the situation. Indeed, how many vampire stories in existence talked about the lamprey surviving forever on just one human? Fortunately, the undead her, expressed an alternative, disgusting though it clearly was to her.
“Looks like I’m on rodent control for a while yet. I can try fishing as well, I guess.”
“Yyyou do that. I’ll get right on translating conquistador lit.”