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been before she anchored, in some ways, as heavy, confused seas continued to roll in from the southeast. She lay with her head to the wind now, which meant she climbed each steep roller as it came in, then buried her nose and kicked her heels at the sky as it ran aft. And just to complete Saylkyrk’s misery, thegalleon threw in her own special little corkscrew with every third or fourth plunge.
    “ Please take me now!” he added as one of those corkscrews ran through the ship’s timbers and his stomach heaved, and Aplyn-Ahrmahk laughed.
    “I doubt he’d have you,” he said. As an ensign, he was neither fish nor wyvern in a lot of ways. Although he was senior to any of the ship’s midshipmen, he still wasn’ta commissioned officer, and wouldn’t be until his sixteenth birthday. As such, he continued to live in the midshipmen’s berth and served as the senior member of the midshipmen’s mess. Now he looked across the swaying mess table at Saylkyrk and grinned. “Archangels have standards, you know. He’d probably take one look at that pasty green complexion and pass.”
    “Fine for you to say,” Saylkyrk saidwith a grimace. “There are times I don’t think you have a stomach, Hektor!”
    “Nonsense! You’re just jealous, Trahvys,” Aplyn-Ahrmahk shot back with a still broader grin. Some midshipmen might have resented being required to take the orders of someone so much younger than he was, but Saylkyrk and Aplyn-Ahrmahk had been friends for years. Now the ensign elevated his nose, turned his head to displayhis profile, and sniffed dramatically. “Not that I don’t find your petty envy easy enough to understand. It must be difficult living in the shadow of such superhuman beauty as my own.”
    “Beauty!” Saylkyrk snorted and dug a spoon glumly into the stew. “It’s not your ‘beauty’ I envy. Or that I would envy, if you had any! It’s the fact that I’ve never seen you puking into the bilges.”
    “You would’veif you’d been in my first ship with me,” Aplyn-Ahrmahk told him with a shudder. “Of course, that was a galley—only about two-thirds Destiny ’s size.” He shook his head feelingly. “I was as sick as a … as a … as sick as Ahrlee over there,” he said, twitching his head at the still-miserable Zhones.
    “Oh, no, you weren’t,” Zhones replied feebly. “You couldn’t’ve been; you’re still alive.”
    The othermidshipmen chuckled with the cheerful callousness of their youth, but one of them patted Zhones comfortingly on the back.
    “Don’t worry, Ahrlee. They say once your tonsils come up it gets easier.”
    “Bastard!” Zhones shot back with a somewhat strained grin.
    “Don’t pay any attention to him, Ahrlee!” Aplyn-Ahrmahk commanded. “Besides, it’s not your tonsils; it’s your toenails. After you bring your toenails up it gets easier.”
    Even Zhones laughed at that one, and Aplyn-Ahrmahk smiled as he pushed his own chocolate cup across the table to the younger midshipman.
    Hot chocolate was even harder to come by aboard ship than it was ashore, and it was expensive. With his allowance from his adoptive father, Aplyn-Ahrmahk could have afforded to bring along his own private store and enjoy it withevery meal. Fortunately, he also had enough common sense to do nothing of the sort. He’d been born to humble enough beginnings to realize how throwing his newfound wealth into his fellows’ faces would have been received, so instead he’d invested in a supply for the entire mess. By this point, they’d been away from port long enough it was running decidedly low, however, and the cook’s mate assignedas the midshipmen’s mess steward was rationing it out in miserly doses. But the Charisian naval tradition was that the ship’s company was kept well fed, with hot food whenever possible, especially after a day and a night like Destiny had just passed. Despite Saylkyrk’s obvious lack of enthusiasm for the stew in his bowl it was actually quite tasty