Their vow ceremony went well. Bastian gave Lia a pair of sapphire earrings, not anything especially expensive, but a perfectly fine pair of earrings anyway. They sat on his bed for a while, had tea and then proceeded to go to sleep.
Bastian was not into co-sleeping, not normally, but after such great emotional turmoil he welcomed a warm female body and a bright mind next to him so that it was possible to get any sleep at all.
He woke up to Em and Sammy knocking on his door, telling him something about their ship being able to reach Port Flintstone within a day or so, but he was still half asleep and in no position to give out any orders to anyone, including himself.
"Fetch Tilda," he commanded the girls. "I need my pipe and tobacco."
Cursing himself for getting addicted so easily, he waited for the woman to bring him a dose of what he needed. She came with a small purse that she had packed full of those raisin-scented dried and chopped tobacco leaves.
"Here is a bit more of this stuff so that you won't have to ask me all the time, Captain," Tilda said.
Bastian strolled on the deck for a while, trying to push his worries aside. In a moment, he would go ask how Amanda was doing, but for now, he tried to get a hold of the general vibes of the ship. He knew that the atmosphere spoke, in its own, cryptic language, and once a man had been cursed, he had to be careful in order to avoid making his situation worse. It was a good idea to stay focused and aware of any further degeneration on the astral level.
The white, fluffy clouds reminded Bastian of the Persian cat his family had adopted. The poor thing had been treated badly, but that didn't stop in the new home, no. Roy had realized that a pet was a new reason to be envious of any attention Bastian got. There was no stone left unturned. Roy took everything that had once been wholesome and brotherly and turned it into a vicious weapon.
Bastian sighed and went to check the condition of his first wife.
Amanda had apparently been unconscious for a good while, but now she was stirring from her deathlike slumber. Looking pale, almost green in the face, she coughed and smiled weakly when she realized that her husband was present in the same space.
"I must look dead," she said.
"You better not," Bastian said, gently squeezing her healthy arm. "Sammy is crying her eyes out for your sake. I saw her bawling on the deck. The others are pretty concerned, too, but Sammy does miss you a lot."
"I am sorry," Amanda whispered, tears welling up in her eyes. "I heard you took a new wife. Congratulations. How was Lia?"
Bastian failed to immediately understand the question. Only after pondering for a moment he made the connection. His first wife was indeed asking about his carnal relations with the other one, and not in a jealous way. She seemed amused.
"I'd gather if she reads a lot, she's a beast in the sheets," Amanda cackled, with a mad voice that suggested the presence of some strong medication in her body. She was a bit loopy, not entirely present in this world.
"Well, you have to ask Lia in person," Bastian said, giving his drugged wife an understanding smile. "It would be awful of me to be spreading rumors about my wives."
"Psht! Goody two shoes…"
"You are a menace," Bastian said, chuckled and patted her on the shoulder. "I love you. Try to get well soon. I am worried."
"No need to. The snake protects me," Amanda said and went unconscious, starting to breathe deep, calm, meditative breaths.
"What snake?" Bastian asked. "What snake?! Give me some context. You cannot just say something like that and go…oh, I guess you can."
Defeated, he turned away and began to leave, but he bumped into Sammy on the way back to the deck.
"She has been talking about snakes for a while now," the other first mate said. "I don't understand, either. And yes, I have been crying about her. She's my friend."
Sammy looked like she was about to cry again.
Bastian retreated back into his cabin in order to gain some clarity.
He had underestimated his need for rest, though. He was unable to fight the feeling of nodding off into a peaceful, feathery soft slumber, and once he closed his eyes, he was only a minute away from deluding himself into believing that yes, he would just rest for less than an hour, it would be a temporary solution, a power nap.
He drifted into the world of dreams and fantasies in the same disembodied way that he had used to enter the space between two worlds. Except that now there was something intentional about this, like he was actively searching for something or someone.
He found himself in a boat, in the middle of a thick cloud of fog. He was rowing on the ocean waves which seemed too calm to belong to any real body of water.
Then, a female voice spoke. It was as hollow as it was beautiful. It sounded like its owner was not a human being at all, instead some elven royalty or a goddess.
"You have come to seek my assistance," the goddess said. "You will have to pass through many trials to gain a direct connection to me."
Bastian felt frustrated as he could not give the voice a face or a name. He kept on rowing, hoping that petulance would make the goddess - or whoever was speaking to him in this liminal space - reveal herself and her identity.
It didn't work. Once the female voice laughed and began to grow more distant, Bastian yelled in shock. It felt like his very soul was being ripped apart by her departure.
Then he saw her and he had to say a million apologies inside his head to his ladies, for he had truly never seen a mortal woman with such a body.