Strange New World

"I just need some time alone, that's all," Astra said. She looked away from Sudukis.

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely."

Sudukis stood before her for a minute before giving up and slipping away.

Astra stared at Esau, who was able to find his seat again. It was hard for Astra to believe that Esau was blind and weak. There was something about him that commanded Astra's respect and caution. Did she fear him? She thought to herself. "Yes. I do fear him. But now is not the time to flee. Wait through this."

Esau was also thinking. It was unfortunate that he never had a chance to learn the mariner's language. He had spent his youth in the interior, and had never thought that he would need to speak anything other than Barque. He now saw that the world was changing. He could not speak with the new dragon, Astra. Words were trecherous tools. They softened the truth, and allowed one to talk about glibly about things that would be too terrifying to picture. That was one of the traps that led men like Lucius astray. But without words, all Esau could do was communicate through vision and sound. Yes, he once could see, and still could in his imagination. And, although he did not know her language, he had a sense of how Lucius had tempted her. It was not purely through wealth. He had offered to help her past the stage of weakness and vulnerability, and become master her power. Astra would have to tell him more. But Esau felt that for now, it would be better to remain silent. Although he could not understand the language, he understood the tone of the exchange between Sudukis and Astra, and sensed that the vision may not have been fully understood. He held his palms up in the air and raised his eyebrows, to try to convey that there were some things that he did not understand, either.

For the rest of the journey, little happened. The ship entered the harbour, and a little barge came alongside. Astra was the first load of cargo out of the ship. She marvelled at size and complexity of the ship's rigging. The barge was moved by men with long poles. It took the barge some time to enter the delta of the creek, and to find the proper wharf. She scrambled onto the wharf, and expected to walk into the city.

Instead, there was a large open platform, drawn by a team of horses, waiting for her. She walked onto the platform with some strange men. Esau and Sudukis were nowhere to be seen, but it seemed that these men answered to them. Two of the men had some sort of weird weapons. They appeared to Astra to be clubs held with the thin end facing forward. The concept of a musket was beyond her understanding. The other men had more sensible daggers. Astra did not fear these weapons, but decided that it would serve her interest to go along with the men.

Parts of the town that she saw looked like those of the first vision that she saw over the sea. She recognized the horse racing track, among other things. She noticed two more things. First, the ride in the platform was amazingly smooth. The large roads were paved with cobblestones, but something under the platform smoothed the bumps. A chariot in Aqualaria riding over the cobblestone surface would give an almost impossibly bumpy ride. The second was that the public buildings were taller, and had more glass in their windows that similar buildings in Aqualaria. Instead of being built of stone, wood, or marble, the masons of this town used lots of concrete. Biscuit Creek did not appear to be as large as Colonia Gallia, but she could tell that they had mechanics or mages that were more skilled than those of Aqualaria.

The horses and platform turned into

1. a narrow street. On one side was a whitewashed concrete building with extremely thick walls.
2. a wide and spacious square - the centre of the town. The surrounding buildings were colorful and airy, with lots of windows.

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