Red arrived at Ayjax's cabin almost an hour later. He would have liked to stay even longer, but his pen had run out of ink due to the moisture. He nearly continued by carving the rest of his design right into the floorboards. Unfortunately, Torrent put a stop to that idea. He was such a buzz kill.
He knocked on the cabin door and waited for a response. Torrent had shown him Ayjax's cabin during his brief tour of the ship despite not being allowed to enter. A few moments later, Red heard movement on the other side of the door. It swung open with a click, revealing Ayjax sitting at a small wooden desk in the center of the room. Ayjax glanced up briefly and waved him inside.
Red stepped into the room, taking a moment to observe his surroundings. He was somehow both surprised and not at all surprised by the contents of the room. There was a corner with Ayjax's bed, which was to be expected. Although he was sitting at his desk and making it seem like he was working, there was barely anything on it. However, the strangest thing about the man's room was that almost half of it was taken up by what appeared to be lifting weights. He just stared at those for a long moment.
"Here, take a seat," Ayjax instructed as he tucked the single piece of paper on his desk into a drawer.
Glancing at it skeptically, Red pulled a chair in front of the desk and took a seat. "So are you answering my questions now?"
Ayjax chuckled, "I would have earlier if you'd actually shown up."
"Uh," Red stiffened slightly, "Sorry."
"What were you doing anyway? Torrent said something about taking apart one of his weapon systems."
Red couldn't help himself, "I just thought that I could get some inspiration for my own design, but it seems that your design is worse than mine. Whoever made it was an idiot. It was way overcomplicated for no reason."
Ayjax chuckled slightly, "I think I know where you get that from as well."
Red grunted in response, "Are you going to tell me why you came to find me on a Gearborn ship of all things?"
"What I originally told you wasn't untrue, if much briefer than the truth. " I was a friend of your parents," he paused as if reminiscing. "We fought in the war together." We worked together to unlock our core layers from the different seas."
"Anyways, that is besides the point. When we were entering the final stages of the war…don't tell anyone that I said this…there was a large fear that we were going to lose. Many people would not like that fact circulating, but it's the truth. It was so bad that the alliance very nearly abandoned a few of the seas entirely."
"Sorry, but I don't see how this matters," Red grumbled.
He wasn't here for a history lesson. He was here for answers. Who cared about what happened 15 years ago? That was all in the past now, and it was far better to look towards tomorrow.
"I'm getting there," Ayjax replied reverently, "A few of us decided that the leadership was not going to end up making the right decision. We knew that if we continued the way we were, we'd have lost. So a large force joined together, including your parents. This was around the time when your parents left you, I assume in Wale Port. Anyways, they chose to keep it a secret in case any of us were captured by the Gearborn during the upcoming fight."
"I'm going to try and not sound presumptuous, but our team was probably the strongest one in existence. We were probably the only major threat to the Gearborn's continued expansion. I don't need to bore you with the details, but despite many of us dying during the fight, we managed to outsmart the Gearborn majorly. We became the first humans to actually enter their home sea…"
"Why does it seem like you are just trying to brag to me about your accomplishments? If that's all you wanted, then I can just guess why you ended up coming to find me," Red interrupted.
"Fine. I came to find you because your parents died in that fight. It's actually thanks to their sacrifice that we managed to win at all."
Red glared at the man. He knew most of the stuff about what Ayjax had said, at least about his parents. Old Man Gary had told him most of this when he was a kid. That didn't make it any better.
"Yes, all thanks to them," He growled, "Anyways, you felt that you needed to find me, but what the hell took you so long?"
Ayjax didn't speak for a long moment, "What part of what I said made you so angry? I thought you'd want to know that they didn't die in vain."
"If you think that, then maybe you don't know me as much as you thought that you did. Just answer my question," irritation filled his voice.
His jaw tightened, "It took me so long because your parents did a very good job of ensuring that no Gearborn would find you and use you as leverage. Besides, I couldn't spend every moment of my time looking for you. We had entire nations to rebuild after the war."
They both fell into silence until Ayjax asked a question that made him stiffen, "You don't want to talk about them, do you, but I have to ask…do you hate them for what they did?"
Red hesitated, "It doesn't matter. That's all in the past. I choose to look towards what happens tomorrow, not what happened years ago."
"You didn't answer my question…"
"I didn't think you'd like my answer if I did."
Ayjax nodded his face, turning stony behind his beard. Red wondered what the man was thinking about inside that head of his. He didn't care if Ayjax understood why he thought the way he did. Ayjax didn't have to live through what Red had to. His life might have been alright in the last few years, but it took everything he had to survive once Old Man Gary died.
None of that mattered now. What was important was that he learned from the past. He would not make the same decisions that his parents did. All their heroic deaths did was leave him behind. There was nothing to be gained from a heroic sacrifice when there were far better ways to go about it.
"What are you planning on doing with me? I assume you aren't just dropping me somewhere and leaving."
Ayjax shook himself out of his thoughtful stupor, a smile returned to his face, "No. We are headed to the Fallen Isles. If you want to return to Wale Port to pick up anything you left behind, that is up to you. However, I plan on helping you in every way that I can!"
He emphasized that last statement.
"Alright. I don't know what I want to do. I've only ever lived in Wale Port, and that place is tiny."
"It definitely is," Ayjax laughed, "My first step is going to be getting in contact with Finn Crest. He's an old friend, and he has a lot more power in Valencia than I do. He'll be able to help get whatever you want, but we can talk about that when the time comes."
"How long until we get there?"
"A couple more days at the current pace."
"Great, that should be plenty of time to finish," Red turned his attention to the present.
Ayjax raised an eyebrow, "I hope you aren't intending on sitting in the weapons room for the rest of the trip. I plan on taking full advantage of this time to train you up."
Red gave a side glance at the weights in the corner of the room.
"Not with those," He laughed and pointed at the center of his chest, "With this."
"Don't tell me you are going to beat me up or something," Red grimaced, remembering how Old Man Gary had trained him when he first unlocked his core.
"What?" Ayjax asked in surprise, "Of course not. I'm going to have you beat yourself up."