"Go on." Su Li pushed the charcoal pencil to the middle of the table. "What do you want to call it?"
Saina was the first to pick up the pencil. She scrawled three crooked characters on the paper and held it up for everyone to see.
"Vegetable Garden."
Elena's temple twitched.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because it's a Tier Five power ship meant for transoceanic voyages, not some little river skiff that hauls vegetables." Elena spoke quickly and evenly. "If you sail into an imperial port flying the name 'Vegetable Garden,' they'll think we're here to deliver takeout."
Saina slapped the paper onto the table. "I've been growing my vegetables for ten years. Why can't it bear their name?"
Elena braced her hands on the tabletop as well. "Your vegetables can go on the deck. They can't go on the bow."
The two stared each other down. The air crackled with sparks.
Elonore sat on the corner of the table, her shoulders drawn in. She looked at Saina, then at Elena.
Then she picked up the charcoal pencil and gently wrote two characters on the paper.
"Ginkgo."
Her voice was so quiet it was nearly drowned out by Saina and Elena's standoff.
Su Li heard her.
"Ginkgo." He picked up the sheet, glanced at it, and read the name aloud.
The table fell silent for two seconds.
Saina tilted her head and thought about it. Ginkgo Alley No. 3 Courtyard—the place where there was a cabbage patch in the back yard, an anvil in the woodshed, where the four of them had lived for years.
Her expression softened.
Elena took the paper and looked it over. Ginkgo. Not rustic, not tacky. It had a history without flaunting it.
"Fine." She set the paper down and filled in the ship-name field with