Snippet on a Saturday!

After a few hours of intense typing, I am now thoroughly in love with Stream Pirates. It was rocky there for a little while; I'd hate it, then kinda like it, then hate it, then LOATHE it entirely, then tolerate it. But now, after crossing a number of hurdles (some involving physically moving the characters to a certain place and some involving emotionally charged scenes), I officially love it. And in honor of my new-found love, I'm taking a break from diving into the next scene (which deals with mermaids, so it goes without saying that I am very excited about it) to post a snippet for your reading pleasure.

This snippet should be self-explanatory, so I'll just do a quick re-cap. Lu has enlisted the help of the notorious stream pirate Yazoo Oxbow to help her find her father, the king, who was kidnapped about a week and a half ago. She is currently on Yazoo's steamboat, heading to an undisclosed location, when she encounters something -- odd.

The boat slid to the right now, and Arachne screeched laughter. Ikkin, still fiddling away on the roof, sped up his tempo to match the excitement of whatever was happening. I clung to the wall of the pilothouse and looked from Perry at the table to Yazoo at the helm.

“What–” I started to ask as the boat slid forward and I all but fell out the door.

Perry laughed. Both he and Yazoo didn’t waver in their stances, as though they were so used to the boat shifting about that normal, solid ground would be uneasy to them. “The Proteus,” Perry said and pointed around us. “You don’t know it?”

I shook my head, fingers digging into the doorframe.

It was Yazoo who chuckled now. “And you call yourself the heir of Radial Stream.”

I was about to spit a retort when Perry jumped in with the much-needed explanation.

“The Proteus,” he repeated. “The only shape-shifting river in, well, the world, I’d say.”

“A shape-shifting river?” I squeaked. “There are no shape-shifting–”

This time, as the boat slid to the right, I snapped my head around to watch. The distant right edge of the river moved. The water surged into the shore, pushing it a few good yards inland. The forest had learned this river’s sporadic behavior and stayed quite a distance back. I could almost hear the trees sigh, wondering why the river they grew next to had to be the one that didn’t follow orders.

“–rivers,” I finished. Yazoo chuckled again.