"I just lost my best friend when she enkindled me less than five minutes ago, all to save my life when that stronzo showed up. And then I was losing until you showed up," she replies with a frayed, manic grin. "I'm strained from healing, I have no idea what I'm doing, and I probably have a post-battle crash coming. No, I am not remotely alright."

"Well then. Well, then!"

He levels the ship out, leaps forward over the controls.

"You're still alive, aren't you?" He rests a hand on her shoulder. "I have a berth for you. Cry, sleep, rest. The dreams will not be pleasant, but all shall pass. The world will be here tomorrow."

She sighs, then smiles bittersweetly. "Yeah, you're right. At least there's that. Any chance you could explain some finer details of how spirit bearer life works, once I'm fit for human company again?"

"I'm not so much a hermit as to abandon you to ignorance, I have honor! Come, this way, before you collapse. Worry about all that tomorrow."

She follows behind him, slightly unsteady on her feet as she goes.

There's a door into the ship, and a short hallway. A whirling, glowing contraption is visible at the end with a wide walkway around it, something about it making it obviously the heart of the ship, with concentric rings of shining metal spinning and spinning around a miniature star.

Instead of the powerful arcane mechanism, he leads her to a small room. There's a bed, and an even smaller bathroom, and a few cabinets built into the ceiling, and a small fold-out writing desk built into the wall that he shoves closed.

"Go on, sleep."

The heart of the ship is fascinating, but not nearly enough to drown out the siren song of her waiting berth. She sits down heavily onto the bunk with an exhausted whufff.

"Thank you," she says after a moment, looking up at him with a tired, frayed smile.

And then the door closes. And she's alone with the girls in her head, alone in a world without Teresa, no one to impress or charm. An inky tear wells up in her eye, and then another. She curls up on her side, hugs the pillow tightly to her chest, and cries, softly at first, gradually building up to silent sobbing, as her headmates pet her in mindspace.

Eventually she exhausts herself and falls asleep, her raiment falling away with her consciousness.

Her dreams are awful.

In one, Teresa calls her a waste of magic for not being able to beat the demon.

In another, the goat tears Teresa apart while Bria is forced to helplessly watch.

She runs away from her extended family in the next, while they stalk her with some mortal spell that destroys a spirit bearer's magic.

One has her simply melt apart into ink whenever her family needs a favor, helpless to either solve their problems or escape their expectations.

Another features the goat attacking Maya, Nova, and Erika, and they don't come back when popped.

Eventually she wakes up, still miserable, but with a great deal of the fray that had built up at the back of her mind having untangled in her sleep.

She slowly puts herself back together. She knows who she is. She knows where she is. She knows Teresa sacrificed what was left of her fading unlife to bless her and protect her, igniting magic in her soul.

<Look at it this way,> Erika says. <She'd want you to live brightly, see the world, flirt with pretty girls, not get lost in missing her.>

Nova nods and strokes Bria's cheek, tracing out an illusory cross and putting it in a gift box before handing it to her.

Bria sighs and smiles. "You girls are right, as usual. She'd want me to chase every bit of joy in this world, every bit of love, and live as loud as I can. And that this blessing was her gift to me."

With a sigh of relief like breathing clear air again after leaving a polluted factory, she dons her raiment and looks down at herself more properly, taking herself in. A soft giggle escapes her. Wow, she looks great.

She twirls in place delightedly, then steps into the bathroom to briefly wash up, before finally venturing out into the ship to see what there is to see.

The whirling heart of the vessel is still there. That's the most attention-grabbing feature of this deck. There's also stairs down to a lower level, and the way back outside. From what she remembers, it's not a huge vessel - more like a fishing trawler than a passenger liner in size.

Also, there's a plate of crackers and cheese and a canteen in the room for her.

She sighs softly and stares at it for a while, savoring the beauty of the arcane mechanism as it revolves.

<It's beautiful,> Maya says in her mind. <I'd not considered being an airship before, but a gorgeous mechanism like this making it possible certainly makes the idea tempting as a future dream.>

<Yeah,> Bria agrees. <You'd be the best ship in the sky.>

She sighs softly. <Be really nice to hold your hand.>

<Maybe try the spell again?>

She does. Maya shimmers into view next to her, hand extended. They try to hold hands, but Bria's hand goes right through Maya's, like a ghost.

<That... That's not enough. We can do better,> they think in unison, focusing hard on the ability to make all of the headmates tangible, at least to each other.

It feels as though this is a deep, deep abyss of power she could reach for. There is so much they could do, and this? Is a tiny figment in comparison. It's barely a push at all, if it's just each other.

Then push they shall, and something goes click in Bria's soul, and Maya's hand wraps around hers gently.

They stand there for several minutes, quietly savoring each other's company, watching the mechanism.

And then they go back into the room, because Erika pointed out that there was food left out. Bria sits gently on the edge of the bed and eats, savoring the simple fare as her girls all cuddle physically against her. They spend a few minutes after she finishes eating just cuddling, simply reveling in the sensation of being able to touch each other for real, finally.

And then they fold back into the mindscape, each kissing Bria's cheek before they go, and Bria steps out to go look for the captain on the outer deck.

They're actually not flying anymore; The ship is pulled up alongside a concrete pier. It's a bit warm out and there are port buildings around, as well as a lighthouse. The ship hardly seems to move at all in the gentle harbor waves.

The captain is not immediately visible on the outer deck. However, one of the bits of fantastical shiny metal-crystal rope hanging at regular intervals waves in the air, and then forms an arrow pointing aft.

Well! This is a lovely place to be docked, and that's a clear enough guide, so aft she heads, taking a look at the surrounding bits of town as she walks.

She may recognize the place after enough observation - this is Tripoli, the very same place that Luigi Luzzatti is always making speeches about taking from the Ottomans, while they're still weak from the whole Balkans Affair!

The Captain is carefully overseeing a large cargo net that steadily winds itself over crates and barrels and lifts them, ferrying them out onto the pier.

"Good morning!" He calls out, once more in Italian, though with a foreign accent. "I did not introduce myself last night- Captain Nicholas Straus, at your service. How do you feel?"

"Good morning," she replies with a warm smile. "I'm Bria.. Benedetta."

There's the barest pause before she gives the last name. She hadn't picked one before now, but that feels like an excellent way to remember Teresa's gift to her.

"I feel quite a lot better. I'm still sad to have lost her, but the fray has eased, and I'm resolved to live as bright and joy-filled a life as she was always encouraging me to seek. Thank you again, for the rescue and the breakfast."

"You are welcome. It's a mariner's duty to render aid when able. And a spirit bearer's as well." Sigh. "I don't know you or your friend, but I do believe that is one of the best... Roads. My apologies, my Italian is not the best. I am American by birth."

She nods and smiles softly. "It is one of the best paths, true, we spoke of it often. It was just so much harder to remember that in the moment yesterday."

But then she brightens. "American, you say? Teresa told me much of her travels in America. She particularly enjoyed sharing tales of Florida and Louisiana."

"Ah, swamp country! It does have its charm. Florida has excellent beaches, too. The whole wide world is turning into cities these days, though. Sometimes I think it's no wonder the monsters are getting worse too. Would you like to try some Jambalaya tonight, perhaps?"

She switches to English. "Perhaps this will make conversation easier. I doubt it's cities, though the spirits can't be too pleased about those, so much as all the suffering. But that's just my guess based on picnic discussions with a ghost.

"And I'd love to try jambalaya tonight! Teresa did say it was delicioso. Also, is there anything I can do to help out aboard?"

"English is a fair bit easier, thank you."

He makes a thoughtful noise and watches over the cargo unloading for a bit.

"If you really wish to help a few minor chores, perhaps, or the eternal one of pouring power into the works if you can learn it. I spend much of my time alone by preference, but I'm happy to have the honor of a brief sort of apprenticeship, as it were. So long as you know it's temporary." He turns to her with a smile and a stage-whisper. "It'll keep the busy-bodies off my back too. I'm contributing, if I'm teaching."

"I'd love to do all of those," she says with a nod. "Whenever you get tired of teaching me, feel free to drop me anywhere that speaks English, French, or Italian that has other bearers. I'm not picky."

"I want to assure you that I also have absolutely no romantic or similar intentions as one may occasionally suspect a man with an unrelated woman of. Such things are generally very relaxed in our community, anyway."