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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/TheCurserHasntMoved on 2025-08-11 14:53:04+00:00.

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Cadet had nearly gotten used to not needing to skulk down the corridors of the Among the Star Tides We Sing. It had been nearly six months since he’d come aboard her, and there was only a twinge of panic at being caught when he saw a crewman. He didn’t want those instincts to completely disappear, since they came in handy when he wanted to filch cookies before dinner. Rose and his dad hadn’t gotten married or anything, but she sure acted like she was already his mom. Cadet didn’t mind that exactly, since his own mom had never bothered, and she’d even failed to notice that one of her hatchlings had got famous out here among the stars. Well, he wouldn’t look back. Never back to that place. Instead, he looked forward.

Mainly, he looked forward to not being in the class with the babies anymore. Well, to be fair, the other first graders were only two or three years younger than him, but it still galled him that he didn’t test into third grade. He always considered himself pretty sharp, but being able to figure out how to live on the run wasn’t the same as knowing history or how to write in Commercial English or Seafarer’s Negotiation. He told himself that his placement didn’t mean that Aunt Helen thought he was stupid, but he still felt like he’d let his dad down. So, he studied hard. His dad, and Jason, and Trandrai all helped him, but it was his own will that made him return to those boring books and silly poems. His own will, and the classes that he got to be in where he was the youngest kid there instead of the oldest.

Being able to catch on to math was a grand thing, all right, but that wasn’t what shone in the boy’s heart. It was his time on the station sims. For obvious reasons, the George family didn’t let kids actually man ship’s stations while she was underway, but they did have so many redundant consoles that they could basically simulate her operations at any given time, and even though she was a passenger liner, Nana had some interesting scenarios to put the kids through. He did pretty well at any bridge station, and he was fair in a gunner’s chair, but where Cadet really stood out was in a pilot’s seat, or at the simulated helm of the We Sing herself. He could feel her through his avian feet as she steadily sailed between the stars. She was calm, but she was strong too, and the scenarios let him simulate making the massive ship dance like he wouldn’t believe such a large ship could. Or that is, he wouldn’t believe it if he didn’t know he strength felt every day he lived aboard her.

The other thing that warmed Cadets heart, though he’d never admit it, not even to himself, was the littles. Everywhere he went in the crew only areas, he had three or four extra shadows at a time though they totaled at two dozen, and he knew them all by name. In the public areas, his shadows gained temporary additions, and these he tried to remember despite the fact that they would depart with their parents when they arrived at their destinations. It had began because girls between the ages of three and six thought he was pretty and wanted to follow him around just to look at him, but it had grown. He found that his younger cousins and the daughters of crew were full of questions, and ready to hear even the most far-fetched answers from him. He took a secret (so he thought) delight in telling tall tales at their request, and had quite the fan club as a result.

It was on a day when he’d both gotten to pilot a shuttle in a simulation and had spun a particularly ridiculous tale that he found his dad waiting for him at the kitchen table in their quarters where he studied into the hours of the evening most days. The old man looked serious to Cadet, and he worked to master his feathers as he asked, “What’s going on, Dad?”

“A bunch of stuff,” Vincent rumbled, “so bear with me.”

“Start at the first one.”

“First off, Helen says that you can move on to second grade next week. Good work.”

Cadet’s chest feathers puffed out as he swelled with pride at the simple compliment. He still couldn’t understand how other boys take such treasures as their dads telling them “good work” for granted. Maybe it was because most other boys didn’t know what it was like to not have a dad. “Thanks, Dad.” It was important to thank the people you loved when they did important things for you, Cadet knew that since Jason had shown him how good it was to be thanked.

“Next, we got approval from the clan head to let you start putting hours behind a yoke for real. Logged and official ones, I mean. It’ll be important when you decide to get your pilot’s or helmsman qualifications.” Vincent informed him.

Cadet curled his talons under the table and said, “I kind of wish I could make a ship really dance again.”

Vincent slid an official looking paper over to Cadet, and he looked at it. It was in his native language, and spelled out a name, He Pulls Light from the Dark, across the top. He read on and said, “Dad, this is a legal name chang… for me.”

Vincent coughed. Cadet’s dad sometimes had a hard time saying things with words, but Cadet thought he understood. “Your given name is supposed to be a gift from your parents, not what basically amounts to ‘that one.’”

“This is a strong name, Dad.” Cadet croaked. The feathers on his cheeks felt damp for some reason. Cadet was a little like his dad. Saying things with words was hard for him. “But why didn’t you give me a Terran name?”

“Well, I figure since I adopted you for you, I don’t have much business changing who you are. I know a little about how Corvian names are supposed to run, and well, I guess I wanted to set this right.”

For some reason it was really hard for Cadet to push out the words, “Thanks Dad.”

Vincent coughed and said, “There’s one more thing. She’s got a new reactor, and needs a new name, but you, Tran, Sweetie, Little Lady, and the Chief will have to settle the name for her. You have to share her, and she’s a little ship, but without me taking up my old room it won’t be so crowded. You could probably even remodel her so nobody has to sleep in the galley when you take her on short trips.”

“You’re giving up The Long Way?” Cadet gasped.

“She’s a new ship now, but yeah. Now you’ll have to share, but I guess you won’t mind so bad.”

Cadet flung his wings around his dad.

The tang of salt water filled the air, the sound of surf churning pebbles competed with the cries of vibrant green sea birds gliding on the wind, and a young Lutrae girl stood on a swim dock in the sheltered cove on Woat. Vai had spent the past five months since departing from the Among the Star Tides We Sing after her all too brief month aboard her staring at it longily from her hospital room window. By all accounts, Vai had been recovering well from her surgery, but she had wanted it to go faster. Her mother Sam, had decided that they would reside on the Lutrae cradle world until she was as recovered as was medically possible. Besides, her mothers side of the family was mainly from Woat, if not another Lutrae world in the Star Council, it was only Sam who had the alleged misfortune to fall in love with a RNI trooper when he was on shore leave. Vai didn’t really think much about her extended family’s opinions of her father though. She knew he deserved his Stormborn title, even if nobody ever talked about it. What she did think about was that it was finally the day. well and truly, it was finally the day when she would swim in open water again. Well, open-ish. It wasn’t as though the cove ever got in the least bit rough.

Vai let the aluminum crutches that Trandrai had machined for her clatter to the dock’s wooden boards, pulled in a deep breath, and dove. Bubbles rushed past her head as at long last she felt the water of a sea take her in. Colorful fish darted out of her path to hide in craggy rocks and folds or coral as her powerful rudder tail propelled her forward like a torpedo beneath the surface. Her heart pounded joy against her ribs, and she put the thought of her own father naming her a Stormborn out of her mind. She dove to the sea floor and marveled at the unfamiliar sea life of Woat. The fish, crustaceans, and cephalopods were all strange and wondrous to her, and she longed to learn of them so strongly that it nearly overcame her longing to return to the Among the Star Tides We Sing. Almost. Today was also the day she’d call her friends from The Long Way, and Cadet had said in the group chat that they had something important to talk about. She’d replied that she had news too.

Vai propelled herself to the surface with increasing speed. She thought about her friends and how much they said they depended on her during their journey. They’d told her that she held them together, that her cheer and cooking, and care had kept them going. How could she leave them after that? The surface rushed toward her. She didn’t know much about the Star Sailors, or about all their talk about honor, but she thought it would be wrong to abandon her friends after they told her all that. She broke the surface, and droplets of water sent light scattering across the disturbed water and …

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1mnf4wp/the_long_way_home_chapter_47_wind_at_their_backs/