76th Ashan, 718
It was drizzling when the broken ship finally pulled into the docks. The shredded sails of the one remaining mast flapped uselessly in the mild but persistent wind that blew through them. One mast was gone completely, splintered off near the base. And a second had broken practically in half; the burnt, shattered remains littering the deck of the ship, ignored by the survivors who were powerless to do anything about it. The ship itself was unable to move under its own power, helplessly drifting in the currents until it either sank, or washed ashore somewhere.
The few surviving crew did their best to keep order among the surviving passengers. There were a number of leaks in the hull so most of the passenger quarters were either ruined, or too dangerous for the survivors to stay in. As a result, they were being kept on the deck and being shifted around as need be for the surviving crew to do what little work they could. The food had finally run out completely three trials ago, but they had been on extremely short rations since the storm that had crippled them twenty three trials ago. Lei'lira and Teia had given most of their rations to Tiran and Taerin, but the twins who were not quite an arc and two seasons old had not been eating solid food for long, and the ship food was hardly the best quality for such young children. Nor were they eating only solid food yet, but Lei'lira's milk was running low since she herself was starving as well. What little she had to offer had to go to Kaien, who wasn't even able to eat any solid food yet. To make matters worse, the last of the fresh water had run out at the same time as the food. It seemed strangely ironic to Lei'lira that they were surrounded on all sides by water yet had nothing they could drink. But the crew had cautioned the surviving passengers about drinking the salty ocean water, claiming that it would only make them sick. Lei'lira believed them. They had no reason to lie to them, and she had never seen them attempt to drink the sea water that they had cautioned the passengers against drinking.
Rescue had come when the ship had finally drifted into sight of some land that was unknown to Lei'lira. Exhausted talk among the crew said it was some place called Scalvoris, but the name meant little to Lei'lira. It was vaguely familiar, so she knew she had heard it somewhere before, but she didn't know where she had heard it, or in what context. She didn't even know if the crew was right about where they were. What was of far more interest to her was the two ships that had pulled up alongside them and were pulling the badly crippled ship towards the land they could see.
Lei'lira's throat burned with thirst, and her belly ached fiercely with hunger. She had lost a considerable amount of weight in the twenty three trials since the storm; weight that she didn't have to lose since she had still been trying to regain the weight she had lost last Vhalar while she was a captive. She had made some progress under her cousin's care in Rharne, but she had still had a ways to go before she would have been considered to be at a healthy weight. And all of that progress was gone now. But she didn't cry, or complain as some of the other survivors did. Teia was in the same shape she was in. And it was worse for the children because they were too young, too delicate to handle the deprivation as well as an adult could. Tiran, Taerin, and Kaien were all too weak to cry, and that hurt Lei'lira far more than her own suffering could.
When the ship finally pulled into the docks, the world seemed to explode into activity. Crew from the docks ran about securing the ship while members of the crews of the ships that had brought Lei'lira's ship in boarded the vessel and seemed to take over. They took over the tasks of the injured and exhausted crew, and rounded up all of the survivors. Those who were too weak or hurt to move under their own power were carried off first. Lei'lira and Teia weren't much better off, but they could walk on their own if assisted, so they patiently waited their turn to disembark.
