Duncan stared at the white dove with a somewhat stunned face, which the pigeon also returned with an equally stunned expression.
It was not easy to see the expression on a bird’s face, but somehow, Duncan got this inkling sensation he could. There’s wisdom in those slightly reddened bird eyes, and the two green irises were clearly reflecting his image.
“A… Dove?”
After stalling for several seconds, Duncan finally started to mutter something under his breath.
Why a dove? Why did a dove suddenly pop up? Why is my brass compass still hanging on this bird’s neck? How did that dagger come about?
All in all, a thousand words could be summed up in one sentence: Can something normal happen for once on this abnormal ship?!
And when Duncan’s side was full of question marks and complaints, the dove that had been there for half a day seemed to have finally “woken up”. Nodding its head and taking two steps forward on the table, the bird stretched its neck up at Duncan’s direction and made a loud “googoo” sound.
Duncan stared wordlessly at this, somehow coming up with the image of a classical pirate captain from his memories. “Having a bird on my shoulder does fit that picture, but shouldn’t it normally be a parrot instead…. So what’s the deal with a white dove?”
The bird seemingly overheard the remark and nodded its head again. Then, to the captain’s dismay, the dove spoke with a strange and feministic voice: “Teleportation is complete!”
Any sort of murmuring and thought instantly vaporized from Duncan’s side. Nearly choking from his own saliva at the shock, he glared at the white dove with a confused expression and a sense of déjà vu from when he first met the goat head.
But this was not the first day he came to the Vanished. After the brief surprise, he immediately regained his composure and summoned up a puff of green flame from one hand and stared at the bird with a guarded posture: “Where are you from?”
The dove tilted its head, one eye looking straight at Duncan, the other up at the ceiling: “The address is wrong. Please reconfirm the address again, or contact the system administrator.”
Duncan: “…?”
Compared to his expression’s momentary sluggishness, a bigger wave of shock had set off in his heart!
This dove had said something… not of the style from this world. No one should be speaking like this here, not Alice, not the goat head, and absolutely not the hooded cultists from his soul journey. The term should only be familiar to someone like him, “Zhou Ming”, an earthling!
However, the bird did not seem to notice the change between Duncan’s eyes and expression at all. Pecking its winging for a quick clean, the dove started to pace freely around the table until it ran up to the obsidian dagger used by the cultists. Then speaking with the same strange and feministic voice like before: “Take up this solar tomahawk and embrace the glory of battle!”
Duncan jerked up from his desk and caused the chair underneath to tip over backward, making a harsh crashing sound as a result.
The reason? Because the phrase there was not of this world!
Perhaps due to the loud commotion, Duncan suddenly got a direct inquiry from the goat head: “Captain, are you okay?”
Still staring at the dove on the table, he replied calmly since the goat head wouldn’t peek into his personal quarter: “I’m fine.”
“Miss Alice has come to see you. Do you want to…”
“You meet with her first.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Duncan exhaled heavily and then glanced back at the door leading out to the mapping room. Immediately, the bombardment of stupid topics continued with the wooden statue and Alice, the latter trying multiple times to get up and leave only to be stopped by the former.
He promises to apologize to the doll later, but for now, this earthling has more important matters to attend to.
Taking a seat back in front of his desk, Duncan wanted to try communicating with the dove when he suddenly noticed a detail he hadn’t noticed until now – a strand of fire was vaguely stretching out from his right finger and connecting to the bird’s wing.
This made Duncan frown. He thought about what this meant, then as a test, he flicked his right hand. Next thing he knew, the bird had disappeared in an instant and reappeared on his shoulder, pecking his hair while making a googoo sound!
Raising an eyebrow, he flicks his finger again to test the theory. Sure enough, the dove disappears and reappears on the table. However, unlike the last, the compass hanging around the bird’s neck radiated a green glow this time.
Duncan frowned, “… Is it related to this brass compass?”
There’s certainly a connection between the dove and himself, even closer than the connection between him and the Vanished, which might also explain why the bird “knew” about that “phrase” from Earth that only he knew. Now the question was why did this dove appear now?
Going back and forth in his mind, Duncan eventually focused in on the spooky brass compass.
From testing the ghost fire to the present, everything had begun with this compass. Whether it was the previous soul journey into the corpse, the item’s disappearance, or the dove’s emergence, it’s all sourced from this compass.
Determined to find out why, Duncan reached out for the item to study.
The dove was surprisingly unaversive to his touch. However, instead of feeling the metallic hardness, his finger directly went through the compass and touched the feathers instead!
The dove jumped a few times in place at the tickle, exclaiming wildly in protest: “Today is KFC Crazy Thursday, half price….”
Twitching in the corner of his eye, Duncan tried several more times at this gesture. Eventually, he concluded the compass wasn’t coming off and had obviously been bound to the dove.
Or rather, maybe the compass’s real body was the bird itself?
Duncan had no way to confirm his speculations at the moment, but for now, he needed an excuse to settle this dove on the ship.
After a short thought, he decided to give the bird a name first.
“I’ve got to give you a name,” he said with a light tap of his finger on the table, “I suppose you can understand me, right?”
The bird tilted its head, and the two mung bean-sized eyes stared at Duncan wistfully, “Ai?”
