Vaelora pushed one open like it was her own front door.
"They'll be inside," she said.
"Who?" Raum asked
She didn't answer, only giving a nervous half smile.
The entrance hall had things in it to say the least. Not just furniture. A case of instruments that looked more for display than use. A painting large enough to be two paintings. Shelves of objects that were beautiful in the specific way of objects no one was allowed to touch.
Raum began to twitch at the sight of everything. He could have taken half of it in a heartbeat and restart his life on land.
Vaelora didn't look at any of it.
She moved directly across the hall to where a man was standing. Not for attention, but in the way of someone who is always doing something even when still. Broad, unhurried. He had been watching Raum the moment he entered with Vaelora, and had not dropped his gaze once.
Vaelora went to him first. She put her hand briefly on his arm and said something low that Raum didn't catch. The man looked at her. Then past her at Raum. Then back at her. His face didn't change much.
Raum looked around. They were in what could only be described as a throne room. Two identical chairs of equal measure and importance were at the center of the room. One was already occupied.
A tall, dark-haired woman, the violet of her eyes muted compared to Vaelora's, like a copy made from description rather than source. She had no tattoos like Vaelora, and radiated no heat from her.
"Vaelora." She crossed the room and took her daughter's face in both hands the way you hold something you've been worried about. "You were supposed to be back before the market closed."
"I got a little distracted."
Slone's eyes moved to Raum.
He was wearing a dead man's gray shirt and brown pants, but they didn't have to know that.
"This is Raum," Vaelora said. "He's my Captain."
"Your-" Slone stopped. "You joined a pirate crew?"
"Yeah!" Vaelora said it like she had brought home an adopted dog without permission and now was asking to keep it.
Lonz appeared in the doorway behind her. Broader than Slone, same muted violet eyes, a short beard already gray. He looked at Raum like how a father looks at a man when he says he's marrying their daughter.
"Raum," he said, letting his words echo through the room, "Where are you from?"
"The air" he answered.
He could feel the person who Vaelora went up to intensify his stare.
"The air," Lonz repeated.
"I'm a captain, I needed crewmates and she wanted to join."
Vaelora began to look at freshly cut flowers placed in a vase. She touched one petal with her fingertip and it curled from the heat, blackening at the edge. Lonz's eyes moved to the flower, then to his daughter. He said nothing.
"Vaelora." Slone's voice was careful in the way of someone choosing the right tool. "Can I ask what exactly is happening."
"Oh." Vaelora turned back from the flower. Her expression was open, like she was about to answer what two plus two is.
"We're going to steal the Moon. I'm leaving with him. I wanted to tell you first instead of just going. I thought that was more polite."
The room was quiet.
Lonz looked at Raum. Raum looked back at him without any expression.
The man from the entrance had not moved. He was still watching. Still on Raum alone. Patient.
Raum let him be.
"Steal the..." Lonz exhaled slowly through his nose. He looked at his wife. Then at his daughter. Then at the man who had told him he recruited his daughter to go steal the moon.
Slone set both hands flat on the table between them.
"Sit down," she said. "All of you. Please."
The please made it clear it wasn't a question.
Raum took the first seat he saw. It was the one Lonz preferred. That much was clear from the unsubtle gestures asking him to stand back up.
Raum didn't move. Lonz remained standing, positioned just to his right.
He glanced across. Lonz's hands were pulled just slightly behind his back. Meanwhile, Slone had begun pouring tea no one had asked for.
An attendant came, set the cups down, and left no sooner than they had arrived. Once the room was finally clear, Slone began.
"Vaelora." She stated this calmly, closing her eyes, resting both hands over her lap. "You know what you are to our family. To this city."
"I do," Vaelora answered, but seemed more preoccupied with the tea in front of her. She took one sip then spit it out. "Ah-Too cold!" she whined.
Raum reached to feel the cup in front of him, it was well past the point any liquid should reasonably be served at.
"Then you understand that what you're asking for."
"I'm not asking," Vaelora said. "I told you I'm going."
Slone paused and cleared her throat, thinking of a way to re-explain what she wanted.
"This family has waited four generations for someone to carry the phoenix bloodline, Vaelora. Four generations of children born without it, carrying the name without the flame."
She stopped to compose herself. She folded her hands into her lap and tightened them until the knuckles went pale. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter. Her voice didn't falter, but it felt as if it could break and crack on any of those words.
"Do you know what you mean to us? Not just as a daughter?"
"Yeah," Vaelora said.
"Then you understand why we can't simply let you go."
"I understand why you don't want me to go." She said it plainly. "I'm not saying you're wrong to feel that way. I'm saying I'm going for my own self."
Raum stood before Slone could answer. "I'm going. I have a ship and crew to build."
The two parents looked at him like he was an uninvited guest that they had to entertain at a party.
"Your daughter joined my crew. She's under my protection and my responsibility. Not yours. Not anymore."
Lonz spoke as if Raum was just a fly in a room that buzzed in his face then disappeared, gripping the back of the chair with both of his hands on the back of the chair he was seated in. "There are responsibilities that come with what you are, Vaelora. Capimus has built certain expectations around your presence here. The clans, the council, the city all expect one thing. You."
"I know," she said, beginning to stand up herself.
"Then"
"I said I know," she said again. "I've always known. I've known since I was small what I was supposed to be for this city." She glanced briefly at the objects in the room. The paintings, the shelves, the instruments nobody played. "I know every single thing that was arranged for me. I just don't want any of it. I've never wanted any of it."
The room stood still processing those words. Slone looked at the instruments on the shelf. Lonz looked at the floor. Vaelora looked at neither of them, her attention turned back to the tea in front of her. She looked as if she just answered what two plus two was and was ready for the next question.
Slone looked at her daughter for a long moment. Then she looked at Raum.
"And you," she said, "You came here for a ship and a crew. What exactly do you intend to do with my daughter?"
"She's my first mate" Raum said, looking up through the ceiling and to the Moon. "You've never given her a choice to do anything in her life. Now she's finally making one on her own."
Slone blinked once.
"She is not a woman who lacks choices," Lonz said, turning from the window. His voice was on edge now.
"She's never made one," Raum said. "Was it her choice to never leave Capimus? Was it her choice to be the token symbol of your family's legacy?"
That landed the way a thing lands when it's accurate and nobody wanted it said out loud.
Lonz's jaw shifted. "You don't know how this family works."
"No, you're right" Raum agreed. "I've only known Vaelora for about a day."
The parents looked at him more intensely.
"But I know what she is. She's kind. She gets interested in things far too easily" Raum began.
Vaelora began to pout, "Hey that's not true! Tell him it's not true!"
"But I know what conviction looks like. She has it."
Vaelora stopped her protests, instead letting her grin that caused a canine to come out take hold of her face.
From across the room, the bodyguard had not moved. He had been still the entire time, positioned just inside the door, listening to the conversation intently. But now, his position began to slightly shift.
Lonz crossed his arms and looked at Raum. "You have a Pulse?" he said.
Raum didn't answer. Instead he just lightly nodded.
Lonz finally looked at him like he was another human in the room, weighing him up and deciding it wasn't worth the risk to fight him on this.
"If anything happens to her," Lonz said.
"I'm her Captain," Raum said.
Lonz held his gaze and exhaled slowly. He gave Slone a nod and didn't say anything else after that.
Slone reached out and tucked a piece of Vaelora's crimson hair behind her ear.
"We are not done," she said quietly, still holding onto the chance her daughter might still choose to stay in Capimus.
"We are." Vaelora said pushing her chair in.
"No, you are not" the one voice in the room that hadn't spoken called out from the entrance.