TRAVIS

Travis woke with a start to a slight scratching sound and frantically looked around the room. He saw a flash of movement in the corner of his eye and spotted a familiar shape silhouetted against the moonlight.

"Paragon!" Travis stared in disbelief, then frantically searched the bed and floor for the wooden figure. His breath turned ragged as he failed to find the carving. Panicked, the young shipwright ran to the window and leaned out, his eyes struggling to see in the dark. In the darkness, he felt sets of tiny fresh scratches on the windowsill beneath his hands. "Paragon!" He frantically called for her in a whisper.

When no one responded, the shipwright's son focused and tried to feel for his magical bond with the silver figurehead. He was shocked to feel it and tried to call her, but it was far too weak. Travis wasn't confident Paragon could even feel his presence. "Paragon!" He raised his voice a tiny bit.

There was no reply.

His heart sank as a pillow slammed into his back. "Go back to sleep..." one of his brothers groaned, the sleepy voice an unrecognizable grumble.

Travis thoughtlessly ran out of the room, blindly fumbling through the house and out the front door. "Paragon!" He yelled and studied the moonlight landscape. His heart leaped as he saw movement, then sank as he realized it was just the shipyard cat circling the waste pile.

Continual silence filled Travis's ears as he panicked and moved to run into the dark shipyard wearing nothing but his shorts, but a hand grabbed his arm.

"Boy, what do you think you're doing?" Dad's stern voice rang in the air like a dropped glass. "Get back in bed."

"I-I think I left something on the ship." Travis tried to step off of the porch, but his father's grasp remained firm. "I need to get it."

"It can wait till morning." The master shipwright dragged his son back into the house. Travis missed the magical strength Paragon used to grant through their bond. He wished he could call her, but the connection was as thin as a spiderweb. The master shipwright dragged his son back to the boys' room without letting the youngest brother get a word in. "If I hear anything from the night guards that they saw you wandering around the shipyard tonight, you'll pull a double shift in the morning. Now get to bed!"

Travis jumped as the door slammed, and his two brothers woke with a start. They looked at the youngest with half-asleep glares, then groaned with differing levels of annoyance and pulled pillows and blankets over their heads.

With a sigh, Travis returned to his bed with a long look at the window. He left it open, hoping the little wooden sea dragon would return and he would wake up with Paragon by his side.

However, matter how much he tried, Travis could not fall asleep. His eyes remained closed, but his mind filled with worries and refused to settle. Morning came, and the sleep-deprived human scanned the shipyard as he walked to the shipyard. However, he never spotted the silver woodcarving.

He boarded the ship and knocked on Myrllen's, Marin's, and Costasiella's doors in a near-frantic rhythm.

Soon, all three of them opened their doors, confused. "Travis?" Myrllen blinked, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"Paragon is alive somehow; feel the bond." Travis started. "I finished the carving last night, and it came alive, but she's gone."

"Gwone?" Costasiella appeared both shocked and confused.

Travis nodded. "I think she escaped out into the shipyard. She probably smelled the scrapyard and jumped out the window my brother opened in the night. Whenever she gets low on materials, she gets cravings, but I guess she had no materials so she was starving and going by instinct."

"It's faint, but I can feel the bond trying to form," Marin admitted in a soft voice as if speaking would disturb the connection.

"I'm going to try to find her today. Now that I'm home, Dad wants me to go back to work." Travis nodded.

"Can we help?" Myrllen asked, near desperation in his tone.

"I think it would be best if you stayed here or went to town. I don't know how well the workers would respond if you entered the yard." Travis slowly admitted. "I know you want to help, but it's safer if you stay here. I'll try to keep you updated. But for now, I have to get to work before I get scolded for taking too long." With a wave, he hurried off the ship.

The young captain visually scanned the shipyard as he hurried to his assignment. He waved to Jack as he picked up his axe and started to split logs for the mill. However, his lack of sleep soon caught up to him.

"Travis!" Jack yelled in his ear and snapped in his face, bringing Travis back to focus. "Travis, what is wrong with you!?"

"Sorry, sorry." Travis picked up his axe and continued to spit the log in front of him. "I didn't get much sleep last night, and I lost something last night. It is super important to me, but I haven't found it yet."

"If you lost it in the yard, it might be gone. Maybe one of the workers picked it up. You could always ask around. What was it?" Jack pulled another log down from the pile as if it weighed nothing.

"It was a carving I made of a tiny sea serpent to remember my time on the ship." Travis started.

"You realize sea serpents are basically the dragons of the ocean, right? They're monsters. If I had seen it without knowing you made it, I would have broken it on the spot and thrown it into the scrapyard." Jack shook his head. "Sea serpents are bad luck."

Travis blinked in realization and looked across the yard. Though piles of stacked wood and incomplete ships blocked his view, his focus locked towards the field of piles of decaying wood. His eyes widened as he realized that was where Paragon would go, especially if she was hungry. He knew the liveship could smell scrap from miles away, especially if the material was from old vessels. Any broken, unusable pieces of wood went to the scrapyard. A wood eaters paradise, but looking for her there would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

"Travis!" Jack snapped in front of the young shipwright's face.

"Sorry, sorry." Travis returned to work with twice the vigor. "I was thinking about checking the scrapyard later."

"You know you're on thin ice with Boss, right? He's not going to let you do anything dangerous for a while. He just got you back he doesn't want you to die again." Jack shook his head. "And you know the scrapyard is dangerous; the wood is just randomly piled up and collapses randomly. It's probably about time we burned it all and sold the charcoal."

Travis's breath caught and he broke out into a coughing fit. "No—" he managed as he choked.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Just carve another memorabilia. And I suggest a fish instead of a sea serpent. Sea serpents aren't exactly welcome around fishing vessels. Maybe one even caused your ship to sink."

"The sea serpent saved me from the wreckage." Travis recovered his breath. "Her name is Paragon I can't remake it, it's special and will never be the same. I don't even know what wood I used, it was a strange piece of white driftwood." If Paragon retained her invincibility magic, Travis doubted she would be damaged. However, he wasn't confident in the wooden figure's ability to withstand fire. "Can I at least have a chance to look around before we burn the pile?"

Jack paused. "I can try to convince everyone to push it off to tomorrow if you focus and get all the logs for today split. I can't make any promises after that. But don't let the Boss catch you near the pile. You know you're not supposed to be near it alone, especially when it's that big. I saw it shift suddenly on my way back here this morning and almost hurt Curtis. It's unstable."

"Thank you." Travis breathed a sigh of relief. Now, he was sure Paragon was there. "You can't begin to believe how much this means to me." Travis hoped Paragon would be ok, though he knew that if she became pinned under some wood, she would simply eat her way out. Either way, he couldn't try to find her until after he finished his tasks for the day. With focused vigor, Travis fully devoted himself to his work as much as his tired body could manage.

Several hours later, with the sun begging to set, Travis dragged his last split log to the sawmill. His pockets were filled with small pieces of wood that had broken off while he cut the log in half to give him an alibi for being near the pile.

"Paragon?" He called as he looked up at the top of the eight-foot tall pile. He recognized this as a perfect place for a hungry, wood-eating figurehead to fill her stomach. He could feel the bond was stronger, but when he tried to call her through it, he felt a hollow echo in return. She was alive but unresponsive. She's probably asleep. At least the bond is strengthening; that's a good sign. Travis frowned and desperately tried to wake her up. "Paragon!" He called again. He felt Paragon tiredly stir, and his hopes rose. "Paragon! Wake up!" He began to reach out towards the pile, desperately wanting to find his friend.

"TRAVIS WOODGRAIN! Boy, what are you doing!?" The voice caused the shipbuilder's son to jump back in surprise.

"I'm depositing some scraps from today!" Travis yelled as he quickly emptied his pockets, the pieces of fresh wood scattered into crevasses between larger pieces of wood. "Sorry, Dad! I'm just tired." He stepped farther away.

"Son, get away from there!" The master shipbuilder barked as his son finished emptying his pockets. "Your inattentiveness will get you killed! Curtis was nearly hurt earlier today." Travis's dad released an annoyed grunt. "Get dinner and go straight to bed. This pile is going to be burned in the morning."

Travis slowly nodded, his heart sinking slightly. He could feel Paragon slowly waking up and tried to send her a mental warning of danger. However, he wasn't sure the sleepy figurehead heard as he marched to their home with his father behind him.

Author Notes!

I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

Thank you for reading!