Aether's Heart

Twenty minutes later, the pirates sat in one group on the deck and the house boaters sat in their own small group closed off from them. Spider leaned against the mast, dipping her sea biscuit in the bowl of beans to soften it. Several of the other pirates were watching the small group and trying not to laugh as the group attempted to eat their sea biscuits without softening them, completely unsuccessful. Finally, after several minutes of frustrated noises, Hack took pity on them and said, "You have to dip them first."

"Huh?" Paimon said around her sea biscuit, having stuffed the whole thing in her mouth. She tried to chomp down on it again, without success.

"It's sea biscuit," Hack repeated. "It's hard because it lasts longer and it's cheaper to make. You're supposed to soak it in something to soften it up before eating it, like water or beans."

Their entire group froze, as if all collectively making the connection of "Oh, that's what the beans are for." The entire group, Spider noticed, except Belxibis, who had no problem biting into the bread with his sharp teeth.

The injured one hesitated for a long moment, before he said, "uh... thanks," to Hack. Hack turned away from them again, shrugging slightly.

"It was getting too painful to watch," Mar chimed up.

"I was waiting for one of them to break a tooth," Kniss said stonily, and from the tone, it was hard to tell if she was sorry at the idea of breaking a tooth or sorry Hack had stopped them from it. Spider smirked slightly, then took a bite of her sea biscuit, softened from the bowl of beans.

Valno's mouth spread into a wide smile when his eyes landed on Belxibis eating his biscuit with ease, and Spider knew the look of awe and recklessness enough on him to know what was coming. Kniss did too, because with no change in facial expression, she held out her hand and said, "Valno, give me your sea biscuit."

"What, why?" He said, moving his hand away from hers.

"You know why. Give it." She extended her arm farther and he sighed and handed it over, muttering a nearly inaudible, "I wanted to try though" under his breath.

Geida, who'd been watching the house boaters with an intense glare and in a fit of silence, suddenly broke it to say matter-of-factly to Valno, "You're an idiot."

"I prefer the term 'adventurer'."

"In what world are those two terms synonymous?" Hack wondered aloud.

"A risk-taker?"

"That doesn't cancel out the idiot part," Geida muttered under her breath, lifting her bowl to her lips to drink what was left of her beans.

"Gross!" Marble exclaimed, and she stared at him without batting an eye as she drained the entire thing.

"Oh, I see!" Paimon chirped as she mimicked Geida, following suit and starting to drink the beans in her bowl.

"Paimon," the sad, wounded man beside her muttered in what sounded like disappointment.

Geida had not been pleased to be attacked by whatever monster Paimon seemed to control, and she seemed to consider throwing her bowl at her as she watched Paimon copy her. Valno's eyes widened as he looked between the two, and he grinned. He glanced at Kniss then chugged his beans down before she could reach out and snatch them from him.

"Valno," Kniss muttered in an almost identical tone of disappointment. He looked up from licking the inside of his bowl.

"Hmm?"

"Have some self respect," Kniss said tiredly.

"Must've left that in my other suit," Valno said with a growing smirk. Paimon openly laughed at that.

"Don't encourage him," Hack said from beside her.

"You guys discourage having humor?" Paimon asked. "That explains a lot, actually."

Geida glared at her and did throw the bowl this time. On reflex, Belxibis reached over the sad man's lap and snatched the bowl out of the air just before it hit Paimon in the face.

"Hey!" Paimon exclaimed. "What did you do that for?!"

Geida looked at her coolly and said, "Oh, you didn't find it funny?" Marble snorted. Valno seemed to consider throwing his own bowl, just to cause chaos, and Spider reached over without a word and plucked it from his hands.

"Is this about the golem?" Paimon asked. "I really am sorry about that. It's just that we thought you were going to kill us, and hey! Turns out you were. I was aiming for the door; didn't mean to bruise your beautiful head."

"My beautiful head?" Geida repeated, then reached over and took Valno's bowl from Spider before throwing it at her as well. Belxibis was too focused on his sea biscuit, and this one hit her square in the face. Spider smiled a bit, and covered it with her bowl of beans.

Paimon's face tensed up for a moment as the bowl fell off her face and into her lap, but when she opened her eyes and looked back to Geida, she smiled.

"Hope this makes us even!" she said, rubbing her nose.

Kniss tilted her head. "Even, you say? I'm struggling to remember, didn't you try to kill our captain? You want to get even?" Spider subtly kicked her, and Kniss turned around to glare at her.

"The key word," Paimon said, raising her finger like she was making a very important point. "Is tried. And then changed our minds."

"You didn't change your minds," Mar said matter-of-factly. "You just stopped before you got yourselves killed."

"So technically," Hack piped in from beside Paimon, "we changed them for you."

Paimon pursed her lips in thought for a moment, humming.

"But we let you change them," she said finally, a stupid grin returning to her face.

The unsteady woman spoke up. Spider saw now that she was blind. "We weren't planning on killing anyone. We were just trying to escape back to the house, which seemed like the only option at the time."

Valno set his chin on his hand and grinned. "You thought you could fight your way past fully armed pirates?" He asked, voice filled with a childish fascination. He seemed genuinely and completely amused by the idea.

"Well, I did," Paimon said. "Then we got on deck and you melted my brother."

"We weren't looking to become prisoners..." the mopey curly hair boy added, and it seemed like he cut the sentence short, like he wanted to add an "again" to it. Spider doubted he realized he gave her information to use on them later, if needed.

All the pirates stiffened at the mention of magic, and though Valno still seemed to find it funny, Spider knew that he knew well enough to not broach the topic of magic— or anti-magic necklaces— in front of strangers. The only indication that anyone seemed to know anything was that several coincidentally looked down at their bowls at the same time.

Spider glanced back at the sad boy, who was toying with his own beans and sea biscuit. She didn't care if he didn't want the food they offered, but if he started to complain about a meal Marble had thrown together in thirty minutes on leftover stolen goods and hardly any sleep in a day, she'd begin to have a problem. The annoying one's complaining was enough to cover their entire crew combined.

He had stopped playing with his food for a moment, only to turn to the young dragon who was curled up by his leg. Out of all of them, besides Belxibis, the dragon was the one who intrigued her the most. He held out the sea biscuit to the dragon, who gingerly sniffed it, and then stuck his snout back under his wing.

He cleared his throat. "Uh, I was wondering if there was meat on board."

"What's wrong with the food?" Kniss interrogated. Spider could tell from her clipped tone that Kniss was already at the end of her rope.

"Oh, not for me... For Iv— for my dragon."

After a moment of silence, Kniss repeated, "What's wrong with the food?"

"My dragon can only eat meat," he said, like it was the only thing that made sense.

"There are dead bodies downstairs!" Valno said helpfully.

"You mean the ones covered in bluecough?" Paimon said. "Don't think that's a good idea."

Valno shrugged. "You said meat," he said nonchalantly.

"That's disgusting," Geida muttered.

"You're disgusting," Valno said, and Geida narrowed her eyes at him.

"Those are people," the wounded man next to Paimon said. It was then that Spider noticed the winged cat in his lap.

"Were," Valno corrected, as if that made it any better. Then, he smiled. "Can't your dragon try to catch fish?"

"I suggested that too. He's... too injured to hunt right now." The boy pet the young dragon's head absentmindedly.

"Well, if worst comes to worst," Valno said very seriously, "There's always the two cats."

"You're such a weirdo," Geida muttered, shoving his head to the side.

"I'm not saying I would eat the cats!" He argued. "That's over the line! But animals eat animals all the time, don't they?" He shrugged.

"They're sentient!" The blind girl blurted out, horrified.

Valno tilted his head. "Huh. Well I guess that would make a bit of a difference."

"Just a bit?" Marble wondered aloud.

"No one is eating the cats," Belxibis stated firmly, as if to dispel the anxiety.

Immediately, Valno said, "But in a hypothetical situation—"

Spider interrupted him. "Valno, no arguing with a captain," she said calmly. Valno immediately fell silent.

The sad boy stood up suddenly. "He is not our captain." He glanced around the group, then picked up the dragon and stormed off.

There was a small silence that followed as the boy started to stalk towards the stairs.

"Railyn," Belxibis called gently after him, but he was gone.

There was a moment of awkward silence, then Valno said, "Spider, what if I—"

"Don't," Kniss said immediately.

"But what if—"

"Shut up, Valno."

He sighed irritatedly, then did a bad imitation of Railyn and said, "You're not my captain!" He grinned at his own joke, and seemed to find the fact that no one else was laughing even more amusing.

"You're so stupid," Geida remarked.

"I try," he sighed happily, laying back onto the deck.

"Valno," Spider said, "go after him and help him find meat for the dragon."

"Aww," he said, "but I just laid down!"

Geida flicked him on the head. "Get up, stupid." He glared at her and rubbed his head.

"Fine, fine, I'm up." He stood, and chased after Railyn.

"So," Belxibis said slowly, breaking the intense silence. "How do you want us to use our magic to help you all get through the eternal storm if our magic is blocked?"

Spider tilted her head and made eye contact with him. A small smile passed over her lips, and she said coolly, "Don't worry. You'll be able to use your magic when we want you to."

"When you want us to?" the wounded man beside Paimon asked.

"So does that mean I won't be able to...?" The blind woman spoke up, but didn't finish her sentence. She seemed to slouch in defeat, and Belxibis reached over, resting his hand on her shoulder.

"See," the wounded man finished for her. "She needs her magic to see."

Spider watched her carefully, then said, "She'll have to deal without it then."

Paimon started angrily, "You can't be serious."

At that moment, Valno and Railyn returned, the dragon trailing behind and chomping on a large fish.

"It was on ice," Valno explained, talking loudly with no regard to the conversation that had been going on before him. While Valno could be hard to control sometimes, that was a trait she'd always respected. He without fail always managed to read the room and seamlessly steer the conversation towards— or away from— whatever he wanted, and even though he hadn't known what was happening, he'd sensed the tenseness in his crew and stepped in. He sat down back in his place.

Marble took advantage of Valno's distraction and said suddenly, "Did people introduce themselves when I was below deck, or has that just not happened yet?"

"Nope! Nobody's introduced themselves— yet," Valno replied, flashing a wide grin.

Valno stood up rapidly at the opportunity to introduce himself, so fast that he nearly toppled over, and said, "What's sailing! I—" He was cut off by the thump of himself being yanked down to the ground by Geida, who'd grabbed one of his ankles and pulled. "Ow!" He complained loudly, and she flicked him on the head.

"First mate first, you idiot!" She said, and he pushed himself up, rubbing his head.

"That's no reason to hit me!" He exclaimed, yanking her down to a lying position and trying to hit her.

"She has a head injury!" Gibs said, exasperated, and Kniss stood without a word and grabbed Valno by the back of his shirt to drag him off of Geida. After dumping him back on the ground a few feet away, Kniss stood back up.

"My name is Idra Kniss. You will call me Kniss, and nothing else. I am the quarter master of this crew, and everyone answers to me second to the captain, so if you need something and can't find her," she gestured at Spider, "then I'm the person to look for."

"So how do we get to use first names?" Paimon asked. "Buy you a drink?"

"I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or genuinely stupid," Kniss said calmly, then provided no other answer besides sitting down again and saying, "Hack."

Hack hesitated, then stood awkwardly, as if he weren't quite sure if he should actually stand or not. "Uh... I'm Hack Jetter," he began, "and I'm the sailing master."

"Master of the sailing, I am the sailing master," Paimon imitated quietly in a deep voice, and Hack sent a weird look her way.

"So I guess I'm like the third in line for the throne," he said. "You can ask questions if you have them, but please don't make me repeat my answers, because I won't." With that, he sat down abruptly, and Marble stood up, absent-mindedly undoing his bun and redoing it to capture some of the hairs that had fallen out.

"I'm next up, I suppose," he began. "I'm the boatswain, and if you don't know what that is, ask Hack, but uh, don't ask him twice, apparently." He gave a small smile, and Valno laughed. "I'm also the temporary cook." After a pause, he added, "Oh, my name is Marble Davey, but most people call me Mar."

Paimon raised her hand and didn't wait to be called on to talk. "What about Marmar?"

"No," Marble said, his smile freezing slightly though he didn't glance at her.

"Spidey calls you Marmar!" She said, and he sent a rare cold glare at her.

"Captain Spider," he began carefully, "can call me whatever she wants. You," he emphasized, "cannot." Then, he smiled again at the rest of their group and sat back down.

On the ground, Valno murmured, "Spidey," then grinned and whispered, "Spidey" again. Geida thumped him on the head again as she began to stand up, and he shoved at her legs. She kicked him lightly.

"Geida Pill, gun master," she said nonchalantly. "I enjoy most things except getting attacked by golems—" she shot a glare at the group— "and I'd call myself experienced in basic weapons."

"She's killed tons of people!" Valno chimed in cheerfully.

"How many is tons?" Railyn asked in a small voice, and Valno replied reassuringly, "At least dozens." This did not seem to reassure him, because he fell silent again with a faintly green look on his face.

At that moment, a lean woman with short, brown hair rose up from the fringes of the group, giving Valno a narrow-eyed look.

"Zefra Finney," she said sternly, as if to cut Valno off from more commentary. "Carpenter. If anything breaks, I'm the one to fix it."

It was then that Gibs stood up as well, beside Zefra, who promptly sat back down. The two seemed eager to get through the rest of the introductions.

"Doctor Gibbot," she said, giving a quick look that swept across the group. "You can call me Doctor Gibs."

Paimon's lips twisted and parted as if to make a quip, but upon a glare from the wounded man sitting beside her, she snapped her mouth shut.

A grin slowly spread across Valno's face, and Geida muttered, "Oh gods."

"Shut it! It's my turn to talk!" He said smugly before he rose to stand in his spot.

The rest of the pirate crew let out a faint groan in unison. He held a hand up. "Silence peasants, the all-powerful pirate is speaking!"

"All-powerful?" Hack echoed doubtfully, then smiled faintly when Valno shoved him with his foot.

"I'm Valno Helmer, the fearless, jaw-droppingly gorgeous rigger of this ship," he continued, grinning.

"Don't kid yourself," Marble laughed. "Sit down Val, come on."

"Oh, I'm not kidding," Valno said reassuringly.

"Yeah, you're just lying to yourself," Geida sighed in fake sympathy. Valno kicked her, and she growled, "Quit it!"

"It's my turn to talk!" He emphasized, then looked back up again. "Single and ready to mingle, indescribably hot and could probably be bought, swinging across decks and ready for—"

"Shut up," Geida groaned.

"Not good enough?" He asked. "In battle I'm a beast and I'm amazing in the—"

Spider stood suddenly, cutting him off. "Valno. The rigger. And now he's going to shut up and sit down— right?"

Valno squinted his eyes, took a small breath, and said, "Yes, captain." He sat down, his ecstatic energy at the prospect of new people slightly dimmed. Spider watched him, unsure of whether she had called him out too publicly, or if because she was the captain, the comment had deflated him more. She moved her eyes away from him. She'd check on him later, but for now, there was the group to deal with.

"I'm Captain Spider Monkey," she said shortly. "Captain, Captain Spider, Captain Spi, whatever variation you come up with is fine. I run everything and I'll be the one giving the order to kill you if you do something stupid, so please don't."

She turned slightly and looked at Belxibis. She gestured her arm towards them, then sat down again, a cryptic smile on her face. "Now— your crew.”

Belxibis glanced around at his companions, and Paimon was the only one who made eye contact with him. He gave her a nod as if to indicate she could go first. Paimon smiled proudly and hopped to her feet.

"I have many names," she said, strutting around the deck while holding her elbows behind her back. "Paimon. Paimon Fel. Ms. Fel. Felon. Doctor Fel Jr., the cool one. As for my work, we don't really have roles, do we?" She glanced around at her companions.

"If I had to say what I do, I'd say I'm our supplier. That's my house you've got floating behind us. Also, if you want sunweed, buckflower, peoda seeds, let me know."

Spider noticed Hack leaning forward at that, and she made a mental note to talk with him later, but before she could think about it, Valno said, "Cool."

"Don't you dare," Geida said, pushing him, and he stuck his tongue out at her.

"Shut up," Marble said, "they're talking."

The injured man looked between them uncertainly, and Marble nodded. Valno sighed and set his chin on his hand, turning his full attention to the man.

"Elidy var...um... Elidyr Adonis," the boy with the winged cat said quietly, then cringed. "Yes, from those Adonises..." He cleared his throat. "Eli to my friends. Not to you. And this," he added, gesturing to the cat, "is Lady. Be nice, she can understand you." He sighed and leaned back slightly. "Battle healer and captain, though you don't have to call me either of those things. Paimon's the doctor; I'm the one who does the magical healing."

Valno raised his hand. "If we can't call you Eli, we just call you Elijah?"

Elidyr blinked. "Elidyr."

"Elidys," Valno corrected.

"Actually, it's Elliot," Paimon said casually, and Elidyr shot her a look.

Valno glanced at her and gave a confused smile. "Yeah, I already said that. Elin."

"Adonis," Marble interrupted. "What type of royalty are you?"

"Not anything valid on this ship," Kniss interrupted and Geida snickered.

"Alright," Spider interrupted, "leave the injured boy alone." They fell silent, and Elidyr seemed to contemplate correcting her, then decided against it. Spider smiled coolly. "Next?"

After a look with his dragon, the curly haired boy got to his feet, like he was making a speech. He glanced around at all of them, and cowered slightly, but a touch against his dragon's back and he cleared his throat. "My name's Railyn, and this is Ivern, my, uh... dragon—"

"How'd you get a dragon?" Valno asked suddenly, staring at Ivern intently.

"Uhh, that's a long—"

"Can I—"

"Don't touch the dragon," Geida whacked his head, and he dodged out of her range.

"Well, can I—"

"No, Valno, you cannot have a dragon. Now, shush." Spider commanded. The amount of chaos that kid would be if he had his hands on a dragon... Spider shoved that thought out of her mind. She directed her attention back to Belxibis. "Continue. Hopefully without interruption this time."

Belxibis slowly got to his feet, picking up the small brown tabby cat that had been hidden in his lap. With a small bow of his head to Spider, he simply said: "I'm Belxibis. If you prefer, you could call me Bel. This is Tabby."

At that, he nodded to the feline curling up in his arms.

"Captain Belxibis," Spider corrected smoothly, looking at her crew. "Don't drop the title— got it?"

They all nodded, watching Belxibis, who seemed extremely uncomfortable. He sighed and nodded in resignation. Spider smiled slightly, but hid it behind a cough. She nodded for him to continue. He watched her hesitantly, then started again. "I used to help people find rare magical items. Now I'm traveling with them," he said with a weak smile, nodding in reference to his companions. At that, he returned to sitting, keeping the cat steady in his arms on the way down. After setting the cat back in his lap, he leaned over to the blind woman, gently touching her shoulder, and whispering something to her.

The woman nodded and rose, drawing herself up to her full, diminutive height. Her pale face turned slightly pink under the crew’s focused attention.

“Tyri Vidal. Spellcaster and primal sense user… Ah. Well. Usually. My magic doesn’t seem to be working at the moment—“ She paused, and her expression showed only a hint of her distress before she smoothed it over with a pleasant smile. “So pardon any clumsiness.”

“I’m also a historian, with a good grasp of most of Synilas’ languages. Lovely to meet you all.”

If the courtesy was supposed to be mocking, it didn’t show in her expression. She ran her clouded gaze over the crew as if by reflex, then took her seat again.

"She's blind," Valno stated in a loud whisper to Geida, and she thumped him behind his head.

"Clearly, now shut it," she retorted.

"You two are bad at whispering," Marble put in, and both of them turned to glare at him.

"Alright," Spider said, interrupting the conversation to stand. "Now that introductions are done— everyone needs sleep. I'll keep first watch. Valno, you've got the graveyard shift."

He groaned. "But—"

"No arguing," Spider said back. "You've got several hours until then, so I suggest you sleep. Most of us haven't in over a day."

"I'm not tired," Valno began to argue, then cut himself off with a yawn. Geida watched him, amused, but didn't say anything, just ruffled his hair a little.

"Sleep," Spider repeated, then turned to Belxibis' crew. "We haven't assigned rooms yet, but there should be plenty for people to sleep in pairs. Kniss, divide up rooms and pairs."

Kniss nodded in agreement, then stood. "Follow me," she said, and Spider's crew stood to follow. Belxibis' group stood slightly slower. Spider watched for a second, then turned without a word and walked to the upper deck. She grabbed the lower ropes and twisted her way up into the air easily, climbing quickly and efficiently up to the crow's nest. She leaned against the mast behind her, her eyes taking in the water all around them with calm serenity.

Below, she heard people making their way down the stairs, but she ignored them, keeping her eyes on the darkened waters. She stayed still and sturdy, never wavering, steady on the rocking ship, her eyes scanning for any threats. She sighed slightly, seeing nothing but empty ocean. It was going to be a long night.

Railyn followed the procession as they marched their way below deck, single file. Railyn found himself behind Paimon and ahead of Bel, with Ivern walking next to him. He didn't dare look back to make conversation or to say.. something. Anything. He felt horrible after walking off like he did, but he still couldn't get himself to meet the man eye to eye. He spent the entire time after just thinking of ways to talk to Bel, how to start off that conversation, at least until Ivern nudged him and everyone was drilling holes into him, waiting for an introduction. 

He didn't even really listen to that various conversations and introductions that happened, besides the guy who helped him get food for Ivern, Valno. He seemed... interesting, to say the least. 

Railyn wasn't a horrible person for calling Bel out, right? He wasn't their captain. They weren't a pirate crew, for one, so having a captain is absurd, but Bel wasn't their leader, either. They were just a group who came together out of circumstance and a stupid prophecy -- which Railyn didn't even know how to start with that-- and they have just been stumbling their way through towns and fights and talks, all the way onto this stupid ship where they're at now. 

"Railyn." His name brought him out of his own mind, and he was face to face with Kniss, who was staring at him with impatience etched all over her face. He opened his mouth to respond, but no answers came out. She threw her eyeline to the door on his right. "This is your room. Since you have your dragon, you'll be rooming alone." She turned and added. "Next time, pay attention. I do not repeat myself."

Railyn, too stunned to say anything, just stepped into his allotted corner of the ship. Before he latched the door shut, he caught a glance at Belxibis, who was too busy helping Elidyr along to notice him. Railyn sighed and shut the door, barring it closed with a small latch. 

He slumped against the door and crumpled to the floor, the events of the past hour finally collected themselves and stampeded their way to the forefront of his mind. He felt as though he had aged years within minutes, and all he felt now was just exhaustion. 

He was tired.

He felt the familiar cold yet warming nudge against his hand on the wooden floor, and he absentmindedly scratched Ivern's chin. Maybe he had said that previous thought aloud, or maybe Ivern had just gleaned Railyn's mood from his physicality. 

Railyn groaned. If only he could hear Ivern again, like he did during Nua. Ever since Ivern had awoken from his fight with Bel, Railyn couldn't hear anything from the young dragon. At first, he thought that perhaps Ivern just needed his space from Railyn after those events --Railyn wouldn't have blamed him, as he too needed his space from everyone after what happened, and he still hasn't even talked to Bel since. Plus Railyn counted himself partially responsible for his wounds. Ivern protected him. Ivern almost died because of him.

Well, him and Belxibis. 

Railyn shoved that dirty thought into a deep, dark hole to let it rot. 

He fell to the floor besides Ivern, staring into his dull crimson eyes. "Why won't you talk to me?" Ivern blinked slowly, his thin tongue flicking out to lick one of his eyes. Railyn let out a frustrated moan and cupped Ivern's face in his hands, bringing his forehead to the dragon's snout. "If I could just talk to you. If I could just hear you again."

He didn't know where that thought would have lead. If he could hear Ivern, then... what? Then what?! He didn't even know, but he knew well that it would be far better than the isolation his mind was suffocating him with that current moment. 

Ivern whined, a high and sobering sound that reverberated through Railyn's ears and mind, and nudged him with his cool snout. 

Railyn sighed and buried his head under Ivern's wings. The warmth reminded him of the steam vents that webbed through his small home back in Yse. Every night as he would collapse in his sorry excuse for a sleeping arrangement and the steam vents would sear the fibers on the back of his shirt as some steam manage to escape the pipes. Eventually, the heat would win out over his exhaustion and he would take off his work clothes and pass out. In time, that heat became what he looked forward to, out of everything in the day. 

Those were simpler times. 

A part of him wished so dearly to transport himself back to those days, in that stuffy town that loved to isolate its citizens from the rest of the world and work them half to death, in that stuffy room to lay in that stuffy bed for one day and pretend things weren't the way they were.

But, of course, that wasn't his life. His life, currently, well, it was stuck in a ship that wasn't even theirs after draining themselves to try and cross the ocean in a house, stuck in a ship overrun by pirates who are really wanting them to be dead. As much as he thought Yse was a prison, it was nothing compared to his situation right now. No matter how he spun the scenarios in his head, there was no way for them to get off this ship. That house, as well as it sailed for those five days, was one step from succumbing to the depths of those waters. Like it or not, this ship was the natural next step in their journey. 

Railyn adjusted his body to curl up within Ivern's wing as the dragon made himself comfortable on the floor, preparing to sleep. Railyn felt something dig into his side, and he fished into his pants pocket. He found the culprit, and took it out, inspecting it under the dying flame in his room. 

It was the half of Ryun's gift Railyn had taken with him from Yse what felt like ages ago. Honestly, he didn't even know he still had that. He thought that Mythica's goons had for sure taken it from him back in Nua, and they definitely did not have enough time to grab their belongings before duking it out with Mythica or half the port sinking into the ocean. 

It was like fate that it still resided in his pocket. A small reminder of the life before this chaotic nonsense, and even before his problems at Yse. It was the last fragment of his first friend. 

Railyn examined the small toy. It had been cracked nearly perfectly in half, and he had the metal portion. It was a delicately crafted piece of machinery hidden within a toy for kids. It contained several different metal domes with circle caveats dotted around their surfaces. As it spun (or, well, used to), the metallic domes would spin around each other, revealing hidden images within. Railyn and Ryun used to pretend it had landscapes of what Yse might hide outside of its earthen walls. 

Now he realized it just held disappointment and danger. 

Railyn, deflated, stuck the toy on the floor next to him. Under Ivern's warmth and safety, Railyn eventually shed his clothes and dozed off, his vision stuck on Ryun's last gift to him. 





The first thing he saw were bright flashes of red against the flush darkness. They sunk down against his vision, or perhaps he rose up into the constant waves of crimson and void. The waves stagnated and elongated, and became clearer. The red shifted and curled around itself, and he felt himself moving along with it. 

Railyn felt himself bob to the surface of a crimson sea, surging out against the bloody waves. He looked around, searching for something this world would never give him. Instead of solace, he saw the crescent moon shining stark whiteness over the endless sea of death and blood. 

A crescent wave splattered across the moon, bathing it in the same crimson color of the ocean, and it spread like the vines that grew between the mines of Yse, and it covered the moon completely within moments. For a brief moment, everything burned bright underneath the harsh crimson sun, but even a tainted light does not last forever. 

Pitch black tentacles crawled from the center of the sun and slithered its way towards the edge. The ends thinned out and formed into sharp claws that wrapped their deadly ends around the sun. The claws spiraled around the sun and cradled it like a child's marble. 

Then something started climbing out of the center mass of tentacle claws, grabbing onto the slithering mass and bathed in the shadow from what was left of the sun's light. As the figure got further out and closer to Railyn. 

Then it looked up, burning orange eyes searing into his mind. 

Massive claws burst forth from the ocean on either side of him, and they sliced through the waves towards him. Before they are able to reach him, something pulled him down beneath the waves, and everything becomes pitch blackness. Emptiness. Nothing. 

A flash of brightness. It came into focus. It was the River. But this time it was not the River he remembered. It was a river of fire and flame, ravenous for something it was devoid of. 

Life.

And that life was in the river. Ivern. He was struggling, trying to escape the maw of flames. Railyn could not move, even though he tried. 

Ivern tried to scream. Maybe he wanted to scream for Railyn to help, or scream to get away from something. But, as he opened his maw, it was ripped open, swallowing everything whole. 

The void rang against Railyn's senses, battering his sense of self with nothingness. 

Suddenly, something appeared from the void. The face of... an owl. It screeched.

Railyn jumped up, startling Ivern and slamming his back against the door. He gasped for breath. He felt chills run down his back and sweat drip off his chin. For a moment, he didn't know where he was, and he had the overwhelming sensation of unbearable loneliness. Then his awareness came flooding back in, and he could make out Ivern's outline in the dying light of the candle he forgot to extinguish before he fell asleep. He could feel Ivern's deep, rumbling breathes vibrate the floor, and he felt some comfort from that. At least one of them was able to go back to sleep. 

Rubbing his back, Railyn managed to ease himself back onto the wall by the door. He struggled to remember the details of what woke him, but the emotion that evoked was still deep in his mind. Fear, dread. He couldn't admit to himself of what.

He had to do something, anything, to get his mind off of the nightmare. Wriggling his legs free from underneath Ivern's tail, Railyn unlatched the door and stepped outside into the small hallway. 

It was pitch black outside his assigned room, completely quiet except for the occasional snore and the sloshing of the waves against the hull of the ship. Railyn's eyes couldn't adjust to the pitch black, so he thought of fire, just a small amount, and he imagined him cradling that fire in his hand. No matter what, the fire would not leave his hand, would not escape his fingers. As he finished that last thought, light flared to life in front of him. He squinted as his eyes adjusted to the stark difference in light. As he was able to see the hallway better, he focused on his hand for a moment. The fire flickered and moved just like a normal candle would. He pondered the light. It felt a tad warm to him, but other than that it wasn't any different than before he summoned it. It wasn't like an actual fire, he thought as he passed his other hand across the flame. It didn't hurt him. Perhaps, deep down, he wouldn't allow it to hurt him even if he wanted to.

He meandered down the hallway, lurching slightly against the ship's own lurching. The flickering light danced along with him. He wondered if it had a mind of its own. He knew so little of magic, it wouldn't surprise him. Well, it would certainly surprise him, but it wouldn't shock him. He didn't know where he was go, or even where he wanted to go. If he could, he would go back to Yse. It was the closest thing to a home he had left.

As he worked his way up to the deck, he shivered against the cold night air. Back in Nua, seeing Paimon with her parents sent a chill down Railyn's spine that he couldn't really comprehend until now. He didn't remember his parents. He never knew them. He didn't have a family. In fact, he didn't even have friends after Ryun was taken from his life. Perhaps that was why he so willingly jumped into this sense of adventure. He didn't really have time to think on it, or on much of anything until they went out to sea. Ever since the fight at Nua Port, and the struggle with Bel, Railyn felt like he didn't have time to do anything but think. Whether it was thinking about, well, Bel, or Ivern, or his own problems, Railyn didn't know if he had spent so much time in his own mind, well, ever. It was overwhelming. If Railyn could describe his journey on the water, it would probably be overwhelming. He didn't even know how to swim! (something that Paimon had given him flack over at least once at that point. It probably wouldn't be the last, either)

"Hey!"

Railyn's thoughts vanished and suddenly the world swooshed back in, and he was dangerously close to the edge of the ship, over a flimsy rope railing. He gasped, stepping back. The cold air met his lungs greedily and stole his ability to take in a breath.

"I know we held you prisoner for a bit, but you don't gotta throw yourself overboard for that." Railyn turned to the voice, and saw Valno leaning against some netting, smiling to himself. His teeth were the only thing Railyn could see clearly as they reflected the moon's light. Railyn tried to speak, but nothing came out. Valno didn't seem to mind him not responding, and chuckled at his own joke. He gestured to the edge. "You're not actually going to jump, right?"

Railyn managed to get a breath out. "I--"

"If you do jump, can I have your dragon?"

Railyn stepped back, suddenly losing feeling in his arms and legs. The night around him warped, and he could feel only a tingling sensation where his fingers were supposed to be. They were still there, right? Railyn stumbled his way to a barrel and collapsed onto it.

"Whoa, whoa, you okay?" Valno jogged over there. "You look pale. Although I don't know if that's what you usually look like." Valno glanced around, trying to find something to do with his hands. "I'm-- okay, I'm going to get you some water."

As Valno disappeared, Railyn felt himself being able to breathe a bit better. It still hurt, and it felt like he was stabbing himself with each inhale, but at least he was able to get something in.

Valno appeared shortly after with a mug. "Here," he said, and shoved the mug into Railyn's still tingling hands. Shivering, Railyn managed to bring it up to his lips and drunk deeply from the mug. The cold water shocked him, and he started coughing. Eventually, the coughing stopped, and he took another swig of the water.

He glanced up to Valno staring at him with a half smile on his face. "Thank you," he managed to whisper out.

"No problem." Valno glanced at the horizon. "Soooo, we gonna talk about you almost jumping off the ship? Or is that a morning thing?"

Railyn sighed. "I was not trying to." At Valno's bemused gaze, he added, "I swear. I was just thinking."

"And you thought your way out of your room and on deck?" Railyn opened his mouth, but he couldn't find a way to directly discount that. In a way, he did do that. Well, in a way. "Must have been quite a thought, to get you up here without getting dressed."

Railyn glanced down, and, true to Valno's statement, Railyn was in his rather revealing undergarments. He gasped and covered himself up with his hands. Valno let out a chuckle at that. "Don't worry, I didn't see anything. You must be cold, though." No wonder it was cold outside. Valno left and came back with a small wool blanket. "Here."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it." Valno pulled a stool near Railyn and plopped down on it, glancing at Railyn as he did so. Neither of them spoke for a bit. Valno turned to look at the sails, then off to the left somewhere, then back to Railyn, his legs bobbing. It was like he was waiting for Railyn to speak. Railyn, in turn, didn't even know what to say, or how to start. He wasn't really prepared to speak to anyone right now, especially someone like Valno. He was... a lot to deal with. The tension between them settled like a thick fog.

Valno cleared his throat. "So..."

Railyn sighed. "I--"

"I--" Valno stopped, and chuckled. "You start."

Where to start, though? Inwardly, Railyn sighed. "I-- I wasn't trying to jump off." He didn't think he was prepared to have that conversation; the thought of going in the water and not making it out terrified him.

"Well, that's good." Valno stared at him expectantly, like he was urging him to "go on!"

"I had a nightmare." Railyn sputtered out. He didn't know why it was so difficult saying that out loud. "I just needed to think." To breathe.

"What was the nightmare about? Oh, you know what, I shouldn't ask that. It's none of my business." Valno scooted his body around on the stool. How that man had all that energy, Railyn would never understand. "You know, when my head is buzzing too much, like there's too many thoughts in it and not enough time to think all of them, I find only one place on the ship can help me out." Valno looked at Railyn with excited eyes. Railyn stared back at him. Perhaps he was wanting Railyn to ask him where it was, or share some sort of excitement with him. Railyn was too tired for that. But, he figured it would be best to not ignore him.

"And where is that?"

Valno's eyes lit up. "I'll show you." He held out a hand to help Railyn up, and Railyn took it. Suddenly, Valno was already off, and he was half-leading, half-pulling Railyn to the other end of the ship. They stopped at the bottom of the crow's nest (or at least that's what Railyn thought that was --he had no idea what half the terms of a ship were, and he didn't know if he could trust Paimon's word as she spouted them out at him all the time while they were on the house. Railyn was trying to catch his breath as Valno stared up at the wooden structure.

Valno focused his attention on Railyn. His eyes were a beacon of energy and excitement, and for a moment, Railyn could swear he felt Valno's excitement flood over him. It was a rush, Railyn had to admit. He only barely felt his leg complain in protest to all of this movement. Railyn stared up at the crow's nest, and then at Valno. Suddenly his leg felt a lot more noticeable. "Valno--"

"Huh?" Valno glanced back to his eyes.

Railyn stumbled over his words. "I, just, I don't know if I can climb up there."

"Nah, you got this!" Valno led his hand over to the ladder. "I'll go after you, I'll make sure you don't fall."

Railyn glanced at the climb and back to Valno. He nodded and mentally tried to encourage himself mentally. Okay, he said, and climbed up the first railing, using his non-injured leg. Okay, this was easy, he thought. You can do this. He lurched up a railing, and stepped his injured leg onto the wooden peg. Tensing his muscle reminded him of the gashes that adorned them. He could feel the gashes opening up again, trickling blood down his leg. He glanced down, just to make sure that there was no blood dripping on to the wood. He noticed Valno looking up at him. He gave a thumbs up. "You can do this! I'll be right behind you."

Railyn felt blood rushing to somewhere other than his leg, suddenly embarrassed. He turned his attention back to the space above him, instead of the man gawking at him below him. He steadied his injured leg on the wooden peg and let his weight shift on it. The leg buckled under him and he almost fell off the slight height above the floor he was on. He felt a hand steadying him and holding him up. Railyn looked down and muttered something about his leg, but nothing comprehensible came out. Valno nodded at him encouragingly. Railyn focused his attention on climbing when he realized that Valno had his hand on, well, Railyn's backside. Valno pushed him up as he switched legs and he was able to kind of use his two arms and his good leg to scramble his way to the crow's nest.

He stumbled and slumped against the edge of the nest, sighing in relief. Valno appeared up there a moment after. Railyn looked at him as he gazed out at the night sea. "Can you feel the breeze? It just... feels different here. Like I can actually think. Like I can actually--"

Breathe.

"Yeah."

"Oh." Railyn didn't realize he said that out loud. But, it did feel different, like the air was fresher up there. He let the wind flow through his outstretched hands, and he closed his eyes. He felt his thoughts flow out of his mind just like wind twirling around his fingers, and all was fine. All was fine.

He felt something touch his hand, and he opened his eyes to Valno staring at him excitedly. Valno tapped his fingers. "Come here, look at the view."

Railyn obliged him, and huddled over next to Valno, who rest his head on the railing of the crow's nest. "Best view on the ship, don't you think?" Valno asked, glancing at Railyn.

He nodded. "It's pretty good."

Railyn felt something next to his hand on the wood, and he was acutely aware of Valno's hand near his. Every sensation, the wind on the back of his neck, the sound of the waves sloshing below, the scent of salt in the air, was heightened, like he could pick it out of his own mind and examine it. But all he was focused on was the hand excruciatingly close to his. A part of him just wanted to grab it, another was wanting him to do something, but a much larger part of him was just frozen on what to do, so he ignored it and focused on the horizon. The moon was shining over the water, a large dew drop dripped its light onto the waves. It felt like they were in a whole different world. Perhaps they could be there forever.

But the moment was ruined by Railyn himself, as he stifled a yawn. Valno chuckled awkwardly. "You should get back to sleep. I imagine it's going to be a rough morning for you and your friends."

Railyn glanced down for the first time since they got up there. Valno sighed. "It's easier going down than going up... if you don't look down."

Railyn nodded at that. The whole moments after that were a bit of a blur until Railyn was back in his room. Ivern glanced up at the commotion, tilting his head for a moment before fitting it back under his wing.

Railyn was feeling a whole bunch of things right now, but he was very fortunate in that it wasn't the things that kept him up before. Sleep tugged at his eyes and he couldn't think much before it won over and he drifted back off, with no nightmares this time.

Sand swept around his bare feet, clinging to his bare skin like a protective layer against the winds and the raging heat. A cloudy figure stood close beside him, towering over him by a few feet, and his hand clung to their white cloak like a wad in his tightly wound fist.

He inched in closer to the person - a man, he thought. A human man. Perhaps, the one who raised him?

"200 Gildar," the man said. And that was when he noticed a figure in front of them, like a distant fog, blending into the sand. The sun shone like a halo behind their head, blinding against the pale, cloudless sky.

The voice that responded sounded faint, but in his chest he felt a clanging bell.

The man pried Bel's small hand away from the cloak, and in that moment Bel realized that was his safety net.

Now it was gone.

The sound of waves lapping against the side of the ship was like a lullaby. With every other wave the ship would sway one direction, and the whole room would creak with the swell.

There were things built in place that kept furniture from screeching across the floor at every opposing angle. Tables and beds were mounted to the floor, and small items had drawers that locked, or drawer-like shelves. Most beds were substituted with hammocks that could sway with the the ship, and any bed that did exist had four low walls to keep people from rolling out in their sleep.

Bel had gone with Eli for the night, and they'd been assigned the only other room apart from the captain's quarters that had a real bed. The bed was designated for Eli, who both Paimon and Gibs insisted still needed looking after. They agreed that Eli's condition had improved, but they insisted that someone should look after him overnight. With Railyn disappearing before that conversation was even had and Tyri still struggling with her magic, Bel was quick to volunteer. He felt like it was the least he could do.

As a result, he found himself waking up frequently anytime Eli moved - which, in honesty, wasn't that often. Half the time it ended up being the creak of the ship playing tricks on his ears.

But this time as Bel's eyes fluttered open, he actually heard Eli stirring.

He sat up quickly from his mat on the floor, peering over the side of Eli's bed to make sure he was alright. A strange feeling lingered in his chest that he couldn't describe, but he shook his head, brushing it off.

Lady had gotten up beside Eli and started stretching out her wings, pointing them up straight in the air as she arched her back. Meanwhile, Eli slowly rolled his head to the side.

Bel wanted to give Eli a moment to come to consciousness before pestering him with questions, and since Eli didn't sound or look like he was in notable pain or needed help, Bel decided to start rolling up his sleeping mat and blankets, tucking them away under the bed into their previous home.

In doing so, Tabby revealed himself by poking his head out from under the bed and brushing his face against Bel's hand affectionately. Bel smiled lightly and scratched behind Tabby's ears, which made him start to purr loudly.

"....Bel?" Eli asked, sounding very tired. He didn't sound very rested at all.

"Oh, hey," Bel said softly, trying not to be too loud. He quickly scooped Tabby up into his arms, letting the little cat climb up his chest and up to his shoulder. By now, Tabby had learned which shoulder was off-limits.

"How are you feeling?" Bel asked.

Eli groaned. "Like crap," he said, pushing up onto one elbow. "You?"

Bel hummed, reaching up to Tabby to continue petting him.

"A little tired," he said. "But alright."

If Eli was asking about how Bel felt physically, that was the honest answer, so he kept it at that for the moment. Eli was still waking up.

Bel decided to sit down by the foot of the bed, feeling too lazy to grab a chair. He leaned on the frame and Tabby hopped down into his lap, curiosly staring down at Bel's tail. Not wanting to have his tail attacked by a cat, he curled it in the opposite direction, out of reach.

"Are you hungry?" Bel asked Eli, glancing back over to him.

Eli blinked at him, then smiled shyly. "Starving."

"Marble should be making breakfast," Bel said. "I heard some footsteps maybe an hour ago, but fell back asleep. Do you want me to go check if anything's ready?"

He flopped back down onto the bed, startling Lady. "Please."

Bel laughed lightly, though it was a tired laugh, and short-lived.

"Alright, then," he said, picking up Tabby once more. "You get to babysit Tabby, then."

He once again got to his feet and lifted Tabby over Eli, gently placing Tabby on Eli's chest. Tabby turned to Bel, reaching out with his head towards Bel's receding hands like he didn't want to be left alone, but Bel pulled away.

"I'll be back," he said, and it was an assurance to both Tabby and Eli. "Don't do anything too crazy while I'm gone. Paimon and Dr.Gibs say you're still basically on bedrest until you can stand without swaying. Granted, I think that's a bit of an unfair stipulation since we're aboard a ship, but, doctor's orders."

"Ha, hilarious," Eli muttered, throwing an arm over his eyes. "Don't think I'll be moving yet. There's a cat on my chest."

"Exactly," Bel said with a smile, watching as Tabby made himself comfortable, curling up and starting to purr.

He turned to the door and stepped into the hall, quietly shutting the door behind him. Daylight leaked through the cabin windows, but Bel didn't know how long that sun had been up. He hoped they hadn't slept in too long, because he had a feeling that could irk the pirate crew that was reluctantly hosting them.

The hall was empty, but Bel found himself assaulted with a confusing combination of smells. One, the unpleasant odor of rotting corpses. That one was distant enough from their room that it wasn't overwhelming, but it still lingered in the air. Two, the smell of sea salt and musky, moldy floorboards, and the seemingly permanent dampness of the walkways.

Thirdly, was the faint scent of something savory. It smelled hearty, and oily, and like it probably had too much salt.

Of all the smells, that was probably the least unpleasant, so Bel decided to consider it something to look forward to. He followed it.

The smell led him down the hall to the right, passing a few other rooms before he saw an open door, where the scent drew its source. Upon poking his head in, he saw that it was a small kitchen, and Marble was stirring a very large pot of what he presumed to be some kind of soup or stew.

The room was a little steamy from the heat, and Marble was waving a rag around in the air to clear some away from his face before he grabbed a lid and covered the pot, setting a spoon to the side. The pot had been set on a table, and Bel could only assume that Marble had finished it recently, since it didn't look like he was actively cooking anymore.

"Hey," Bel said from the doorway, drawing Marble's attention.

Marble turned to meet his eyes, and upon seeing Bel, flashed a freckled smile.

"Hey, if it isn't the captain himself!" Marble said, waving a hand towards him to welcome him in.

Bel found himself getting a little calloused to the title of captain after all of yesterday's tension, but he couldn't find the energy in him to fight it anymore. He nodded to Marble with what was, at best, a weak smile, and walked into the kitchen, eyeing the various knives, spoons, and other cooking utensils mounted on the walls.

"If I'm not intruding," Bel said. "I was wondering if I could get a bowl for Eli. He finally seems to have an appetite, which is good."

"Oh, Eli. The guy with all the uh..." Marble gestured to himself, up and down with one head, implying the existence of many wounds. "Yeah. Looks like he went through something fierce. Good to hear he's coming back around, though. Food is the best medicine."

Bel nodded, stopping at the edge of the table and peering into the pot. It looked more like a soup than a stew, and he could see pieces of meat and vegetables floating around in the thick, yellow-orange broth.

"Oh! Right," Marble said suddenly, smacking his forehead as he whirled around and started digging through a cabinet drawer. He pulled out two bowls and two spoons, spinning back around to Bel with his hands extended towards him. "Go and fill on up!"

"Thanks," Bel said with a grateful smile, watching as Marble ripped the lid away, like he was eager for Bel to serve himself.

Bel glanced at Marble, then down at the pot, then back at Marble. Marble seemed to be watching him expectantly, and Bel wasn't sure why. It was just soup.

He set one bowl down and picked up the ladle Marble had hung off the pot's handle and scooped into one bowl, then the next, slipping the spoons in each for easy carrying. Just as he reached for both the bowls to turn to leave, Marble interrupted.

"Wait!" Marble said. "You have to taste it first."

Bel blinked.

"I need to know if it's good. I can never trust Idra's opinion. She's always so picky and gives bad reviews just to mess with me half the time anyway," Marble explained. "Just a little taste test, please."

Bel pursed his lips and shrugged, picking up one of the bowls. He took a spoonful of soup and chewed on a vegetable, letting it ruminate in his mouth a moment.

"Tastes good to me," he said with another little shrug. "Tastes like it'll be filling."

Marble's eyes squinted into a mischeivious smile, and he rubbed his hands together.

"Perfect. Okay. You can go now," he said.

"Thanks for the soup," Bel said, picking up a bowl in each hand and making note that the left one was his.

"Thanks for eating it," Marble replied.

Bel let out a little laugh as he turned around.

"Anytime," he said as he stepped back out into the hall, finding his way back to his room.

When he got to the door, he briefly balanced both bowls on one arm, up against his chest so that he could turn the doorknob and push the door open. Catching the door with his foot, he returned the bowls to each hand and dipped his head into the room, looking to Eli, who hadn't moved from where he left him.

"I come bearing soup," he announced. "You'll need to sit up for this."

"I don't wanna move," Eli grumbled, not moving an inch. Tabby's tail twitched, but he hadn't moved either. "But that does smell good."

Bel closed the door behind him with his foot, and walked over to the little desk, setting the bowls down.

"Can't move, don't want to move, or need help moving?" Bel asked as he turned back around to Eli, standing beside the bed and looking down at him.

"I can move," was the soft response, slightly indignant. "I think... I just don't want to. Freaking hurts, still." Eli started muttering something in what was obviously a different language--probably High Asturian or something, if Bel was hearing it right. Not that he understood anything other than 'Mythica' there.

Bel let out a quiet sigh. There wasn't much he could do to relieve Eli of his pain, and there wasn't much he could do to help, besides move Eli around when needed and make sure he got food and had his basic needs met. He wished he could've been there, when Eli had gotten caught, so Eli hadn't been stuck on his own. If only I hadn't been so stupid, he thought, [/i]sneaking out and leaving him. I didn't have to play the hero.[/i]

"Well," Bel said quietly. "Let's start with sitting up. I'll help this time."

He reached down and picked up Tabby - who by now seemed a little fed up with being moved around after just getting comfortable. When Bel set Tabby down on the bed, Tabby let out an annoyed hiss and hopped off the bed, scurrying back under the bed where he couldn't be fussed with anymore.

"Uh, do I have to?"

"Eli," Bel said. "It's kind of hard to eat soup while lying down. Unless you really want me to tilt your head up and feed it to you."

Eli lifted his arm and grimaced at Bel. "No thanks. Been there, done that. Would really rather not do so again, Bel."

"I know," Bel said softly. "Here, let me grab something to prop you up."

He reached back under the bed, remembering the blankets he'd slept with and that there were some other spare things under there as well. He found a feather pillow and a thick quilt, and wrapped the quilt around the pillow to add extra padding. Then he placed it just above Eli's head, and leaned down, carefully sliding his arm behind Eli's shoulders and back to help him up. Slowly, he lifted him, and helped pull him closer so that his back could lean against the blanketed pillow. Eli grunted and grimaced the entire time.

"There," Bel said, pulling away. "Now your reward is soup."

He was quick this time to go grab it, because he really did want Eli to feel that it was worth the trouble - and it was. Eli needed to eat as well as rest if he was ever going to heal up and regain his full strength.

He sat on the edge of the bed and held out Eli's bowl, closer to Eli's lap so he wouldn't have to stretch his arms out very far.

"Eat," he said. And it wasn't an order, but more of an announcement.

Eli, almost begrudgingly, lifted up his bowl and grabbed his spoon, starting to feed himself still with the pained expression stuck on his face. Bel knew it wasn't enjoyable for him, but there was only so much he could do, so he just sat by and started eating his own soup.

The two of them ate in silence, and the only sound heard over the constant swell of the waves outside was the clinking of their metal spoons against their bowls.

Bel finished his soup first, and though he still felt hungry once it was all gone, he decided to wait and let it sit for a few minutes to see if the hunger would fade. He didn't want to take more than his fair share, and he knew there were at least a dozen other people who needed to be fed. He could also imagine that each meal had to be measured out at sea, with limited resources.

He decided to sit in the quiet that followed, waiting patiently for Eli to finish. As he stared off into the room idly, he felt a nudge at his ankles. Glancing down, he saw it was Tabby again, butting his head against Bel's legs. Bel, not wanting to manhandle him again, simply reached down and scratched behind Tabby's ears before setting his hands back in his lap. That seemed to be all Tabby wanted, because once Bel pulled away, Tabby receded back under the shelter of the bed.

Lady, however, who had formerly been snuggled up beside Eli, wandered up to him, placing her head on Bel's thigh, looking up at him expectantly for attention.

Bel looked down at her with a faint grin and started scratching under her chin.

"Really, Lady?" Eli asked, sounding amused. "Is this because I've been mostly unconscious lately?"

"Is Lady not allowed to have other friends?" Bel asked, looking over to Eli with a teasing smile.

Eli snorted. "She can do whatever she wants."

Bel watched as Eli lowered his bowl into his lap for a moment before turning to look down at Lady. He gave her another little smile and brought both of his hands under her neck, massaging her loose skin and fur.

"As she should," Bel said quietly.

There was a lull of silence that followed as Bel continued to pet and massage Lady's neck, and she started to purr, eventually flopping on her back with her belly up to him, swishing her tail back and forth on the bed.

Bel found his mind wandering, trying to filter through yesterday's events. There was a lot that was out of their control. They had to cooperate with the pirates or otherwise face the fates that the sea had to offer, or worse, die at the hands of pirates. It didn't seem that the pirates were eager to be murderous, and Spider seemed to want to keep them there, if only for selfish reasons, but it was difficult to put much trust in their fragile alliance.

That, and it seemed that they traded one problem for a handful of others. They weren't stranded on the seas anymore, but Tyri couldn't see or use her magic, and now they were being dragged into a quest to find a lost ship, which may or may not still even exist above-water. Railyn still wasn't talking to him, Ivern was avoiding him, Eli was still hurting, and if Bel was being honest, that was only scratching the surface.

There was still bluecough, and the bodies on the ship, and the countless bluecough deaths he'd seen only in three weeks. He still thought about Lettie, and her family, and Serion being razed to the ground. He still thought about how useless all of their efforts had been in stopping the spread and helping the sick, and how everything they ever did only culminated in him being turned into a mindless weapon against his friends... if he could even call them that. He didn't know if they considered him anything at all but an obligatory piece of baggage that came with a prophecy none of them asked for, that none of them even knew anything about.

If he gathered anything from recent events, Bel would say he didn't feel destined for anything but destruction. Why else would the prophecy give him these powers?

Maybe he just needed to accept it. As long as he had no control over himself when he "went orange," he was going to hurt people again, and again, and there were no guarantees that his friends would be any exception.

A strange feeling stirred in Bel's chest that felt heavy, exposed, and helpless, and he didn't know why it felt so familiar.

He sat with is for a moment, still idly petting Lady, until Tabby jumped up on the other side of him, flopping on his back, belly-up. He must've gotten jealous.

Bel used one hand to pet each cat, now having both of them cuddling and curling up against him.

"Never thought I'd be so popular with cats," he commented quietly.

Eli chuckled. "Neither did I."

"Did you not like cats before Lady?" Bel asked, glancing up at him.

He shrugged, eyes on Lady still sitting beside Bel. "Never really thought about it before."

Bel hummed, looking down at Lady as well. Her eyes were closed and she seemed happy to be petted. She was simply enjoying the attention, it seemed.

"How long have you had her?" Bel asked.

Eli blinked, surprised. "I met her near Nila as I was crossing the border," he said softly, closing his eyes. "She was hurt, pretty badly...so I healed her. She hasn't really left me since." He sighed and opened his eyes, focusing on Bel. "That was several months ago."

"Well, I'm glad you healed her," Bel said softly. "She's a good companion. I'm glad I've gotten to meet her too."

"Me, too," he muttered, leaning more heavily back against the pillows. "Me, too, Bel."

Bel hummed softly, letting another small lull of silence pass before speaking again.

"You were traveling for a while, right? Before we all met?" he asked.

"Yeah," Eli sighed, glancing over. "I was. My parents, uh...basically kicked me out after my stint in the military. Told me to go find myself or something."

Bel looked to Eli, his expression softening.

"Was that hard? Leaving home?" he asked.

He shrugged. "Not really. Had to do so for military training, so I wasn't that surprised. I'm not a first-born."

"Ah. Right," Bel said, glancing down at the cats again. "So, how long ago was it since they kicked you out?"

"About a year, I think?" Eli frowned. "It took a while to get out of Asturia and the capitol."

"I can imagine," Bel commented. "I haven't been there in a while, but it's very busy. Easy to get lost... not that you had problems navigating your home."

He looked up to Eli with a slight smile.

"I'm sure it helps when you can read signs," he said.

Eli snorted, then gave Bel a sharp look. "You can't read?"

"Oh," Bel said with a little laugh. "Sorry, yeah. I thought it was common knowledge already."

"In case you haven't noticed," Eli said, a little self-deprecatingly, "I've been mostly unconscious lately."

"Ah," Bel said, suppressing a smirk. "That explains so much."

He rolled his eyes. "Mmh, it does, doesn't it?"

Bel lost the very short battle and let himself smile, nodding his head as he pressed his lips together. But the smile faded quickly, and he let out a short sigh.

"I know it's been really hard," Bel said, looking over to Eli. "And that in and of itself is an understatement. I know everyone keeps checking in with how you're doing in your physical recovery... but how are you holding up otherwise?"

Eli frowned, tilting his head. "What do you mean? Mentally?"

Bel could sense that Eli understood the question, and probably just didn't want to answer.

"I mean, you don't have to answer if you don't feel comfortable talking about it," Bel added, ignoring Eli's question. "I get it if you don't. I just wanted to ask, and give you the opportunity to. And because I care, too. I know we haven't known each other for very long, but I still do."

"I feel like shit," Eli snapped, looking away. "Does that answer the question?"

"I mean, that's a start," Bel said gently. "And completely warranted."

He grunted, still looking away from Bel and basically boring a hole in the wall with his eyes.

"You know I'm not judging you for feeling like shit, right?" Bel asked. "It's okay for you to say it. It's not complaining."

Eli exhaled heavily and then relaxed slowly. "I'm sorry, Bel. I shouldn't take it out on you." He sighed and glanced over. "I'm a military healer... We're not exactly known for our decent bedside manner, you know."

"But you're the one in the bed, Eli," Bel commented.

"We don't make good patients, either." Eli offered him a crooked smile.

"I've noticed," Bel said with a small smile in return.

"I'm sorry for being such a crappy patient," he added, smile fading.

"I think you should save that apology for Paimon and Dr. Gibs more than me," Bel said. "I'm just here to keep an eye out and grab them if anything goes wrong."

He snorted. "I'll keep that in mind."

Bel nodded, pausing in the cat-petting to readjust his hands since the cats had started moving again.

"I'm sure that, having been in the military and all," he said. "This isn't your first time being a patient."

He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Unfortunately not, no."

"And I imagine this isn't your first time getting hurt... away from home?" he asked.

"No," Eli muttered, sagging slightly. "I've spent little time at home since joining the military, Bel. So...most of my injuries occured...in the line of duty, I suppose."

"Being in the Asturian military sounds like hell," Bel commented. "I'm sorry you had to endure it."

"It's worse if you don't volunteer for it," he said, shrinking in on himself. "My home country does not have a good reputation for a reason."

"Has it felt better, then, to be away from it these past few months? At least... until all of this happened?" Bel asked.

Eli glanced over again and nodded. "Yeah," he said, smiling slightly. "Much better. At least I don't have to see the slaves anymore."

Bel nodded slowly. While he didn't know too much about Asturia, he was aware that the country had been built on the backs of slaves. He tried to peel back the nuance of what Eli was saying, knowing that Eli was in no place to bring about any change, he imagined that came with a lot of guilt. He let another small silence pass.

He could tell Eli didn't really like being pitied, but he hoped he wouldn't despise encouragement, especially if it was honest.

"You know, Eli," Bel said. "I know I don't know your family personally, but I find it very impressive that you somehow managed to not end up like them. It sounds like you got dealt a really terrible lot in life, but you've got a good heart. That's really commendable. At least, to me."

He flushed slightly, lips parting before he cleared his throat. "T-Thanks, Bel... That means...a lot to me."

Bel offered a small smile, shrugging. "Hey, someone might as well say it," he said.

He returned his attention back to Lady and Tabby. The two of them were both starting to crawl into his lap, like they were fighting over who got the most space. He lifted his hands away, deciding to let them battle it out instead of interfering.

"Okaaaay," he said quietly, more to himself before looking back to Eli.

"Are you still hungry?" Bel asked.

Eli jerked his head, shaking it. "No, I'm fine."

"Alright," Bel said. "If you get hungry again, though, just let me know. I don't mind getting you seconds."

"Okay," he muttered, nodding slowly. "I think I might go back to sleep..."

"Want me to help you lie back down?" Bel offered.

"Please?"

Bel nodded in response, turning to look down at the two cats cuddling in his lap. Lady seemed to get the cue without him saying anything, and she - though a little begrudgingly - hopped out of his lap and fluttered to perch on the end of the bed. Tabby, however, looked up at him with wide eyes, unfazed.

"I know you're going to hate me for this," he said to the cat. "But I'm going to have to move you again."

Tabby only blinked, wiggling but not moving off of him.

Bel sighed, reached out his hands to Tabby, and before he could grab him, Tabby spazzed erratically, leaping off his lap and running across the room, hiding under the desk.

Well, at least he could get up now.

Bel sat up with a small grunt and moved to the head of the bed again, gently lifting Eli off of the pillow propping him up, and lying him down with a pillow under his head instead. He had to be careful not to strain his injured shoulder, which made his movements slow, but he managed to get Eli comfortable without any trouble.

After pulling the blanket back over Eli's shoulders, he pulled away and glanced over at the window. Now the morning sun was shining through in its full brightness, and he could see the little specks of dust floating in the air.

"If you need anything, just say so," Bel said, turning to look back at Eli. "I'll just be at the desk. I think Paimon should be...."

But mid-way through his sentence, he realized Eli had already fallen back asleep.

With a sigh, Bel turned back around to the window, looking out at the waves. He really hoped Eli was able to recover more before they hit the storm because frankly, he wasn't sure if they were going to make it through that. But then again, he hadn't known if they'd make it through everything else, and they were still there.

I guess that counts for something.

"Oh my name is Jack o'Lumber, what a jolly jack am I, and I'll swing my jolly axe until the day I jolly die!" Paimon sang as she dragged her mop across the deck. After five swipes, she dipped it into saltwater and repeated the process. The newly mopped boards gleamed in the late afternoon sun, and Paimon sang her way across the ship with a saltwater trail.

"What kind of song is that?" Bel asked, swinging a mop a few meters away.

The handle of Paimon's mop ground into the floorboards, and she stopped suddenly. "Dunno. Learned it from some lumberjacks."

Bel raised an eyebrow, leaning on his mop. "Lumberjacks?"

"Try to keep pace, you two," Kniss called from the upper deck. "Singing may be annoying, but not swabbing the deck like you're supposed to be doing is even more so."

Bel picked the mop back up and kept moving. Paimon could hear him starting to hum the lumberjack song under his breath.

Paimon launched back into the song herself, untroubled by only knowing one verse. Around the ship, the rest of the crew was hard at work as well. The sails had been let down for the time being, and Marble dangled from a rig at the side of the ship, patching holes with pitch on the outside. Over her head was Valno, climbing back on the rope that was tying Spider's pirate ship to Paimon's family home.

Valno dropped to the deck, his belt jangling with items and his hands spread wide. "Ta-da," he said. "I got more stuff!"

Paimon put her head down and pushed the mop heavy into the deck. The pirates could take what they wanted, she supposed. Her parents had taken their belongings with them when they'd lent Paimon the house. "Less weight you'll have to carry," Azazel had explained, his arms full of staves. "Less chance the house will burn down, too."

They'd left under cover of night, and Paimon was too busy surviving to think about what was happening. Whatever was going on back home, she wasn't able to do anything about it. Best to get busy surviving, so she wouldn't have to think about it. Her house bobbed in the waves, looking impossibly small.

"They're really not that good at it, are they?" Paimon heard a voice that by now, was a very familiar source of contempt. She looked back to the upper deck where Kniss was, only to see that Spider had joined her.

"You'll have to do better than that," the captain called, looking pointedly at Paimon. "Otherwise, I might just get bored of you."

Paimon gritted her teeth and stared straight at Spider, then opened her hand to let her mop fall and clatter to the deck. She could see Spider and Kniss exchange looks.

"You know, work like this isn't really suited to us," Paimon said, gesturing to her tools. "We've spent the last few weeks breaking in and out and into every city in Synua, and paving into the ground anyone who tried to stop us."

In one leap, Spider was soaring from the railing, blotting out the sun. She landed heavy into a crouch right in front of Paimon, and when she rose to full height, their eyes were aligned. "And now you're on my ship, swabbing my decks," she said simply. "Which you should get back to."

Out of the corner of her eye, Paimon saw Bel turning away and hunching over slightly so as to not be seen, quietly swabbing twice as quickly as before.

Direct confrontation wouldn't help, Paimon knew that much. Every time she was faced with a problem, it was a whole city, or a whole country stacked against her. But even now, faced with a single pirate who could take away their magic, Paimon was just as powerless as before. But she was used to that powerlessness, all twenty-four years of it.

She shrugged and bent down to pick up the mop. "I was just taking a break. Trying to start a little conversation around here, too, get to know each other a bit! Our fun fact is that we bust heads on a regular basis, Bel especially."

For a second, Paimon thought she saw Bel stop swabbing, and look off into the distance. Still, in the next second, Valno was bringing a tide of noise into her senses.

"So, you use that golem thing to fight?" he asked. "That's cool. I mean, not as cool now that it's gone," he added with a grin, "but it sounds cool."

"Thanks," Paimon said flatly. "But I mean, it's not just me. We've all got our ways of taking people on. Honestly, most times it doesn't even get that far. I just have to flex a little, Bel shows his teeth, and boom! Problems solve themselves."

Spider's eyes narrowed. "Oh, is that so?"

"It is so," said Paimon, feeling giddy to return the earlier smugness. "Seriously, once we get going, it's scary. Like big-orange-tiefling-running-at-you-with-huge-claws scary."

"Shut your mouth," Spider snapped. "I'll have none of your discrimination when you're aboard my ship."

Paimon blinked. "What?" She glanced at Valno, who had raised his hands and stepped back. His head tilted in a slight frown, like he was studying her in a new light. Paimon looked back at Spider. "Wait, what?"

Spider was glaring at her with an intensity Paimon hadn't seen before, not even when she'd wanted to kill them. This, it dawned on her, was solid rage. Real rage, not just petty annoyance.

"Wait, wait wait," Paimon said, waving her hands. "You mean the tiefling bit, don't you? Look, I know you're not big on humor, but in Synua we call that a joke. Besides, Bel's my friend! I don't buy into all that stuff they say about tieflings."

"Then why joke about it?" Spider asked.

"Because it's stupid! And the best way through anything that stupid is to joke about it! Bel knows that, he doesn't mind."

Spider's eyes slid to Bel, who had been quickly mopping the same spot for a while. Paimon noticed now that he was leaning on one foot, his head down and turned away from her.

"Have you ever asked?" Spider said, her voice dropping to a soft murmur.

Paimon's grip tightened around the mop. "You don't even know us. You think you can just threaten to kill us and then tell us how to act around our friends? Hey! I'm talking to you!"

Spider was walking away from her, across the deck. She placed her hands on Bel's shoulders and waited until he glanced up at her. She held his gaze for a second before slowly turning him to face Paimon.

Spider let go of one shoulder, stepped to the side, and glanced at Paimon. "Bel, do you enjoy being called scary?" she said softly. "Being identified by your claws, or your fangs, as if you're more a beast than person?" She sounded truly disgusted with the way Paimon had described him.

Though Bel was now facing Paimon, she noticed that he wasn't meeting her eyes. He stared at the deck, with his eyebrows knit tightly together. He slowly pulled his shoulder away from Spider's touch.

"It's not that I like it," he said lowly. "I'm just used to it."

Bel's eyes flicked up to Paimon, and in that second of eye contact, Paimon found herself looking for anger, for surprise, for confusion, and found none of it. All she saw in Bel was resignation. Resignation to her. Suddenly, the sway of the ship beneath her feet was gigantic, upending Paimon in a giant wave.

"You know I didn't mean it, right?" she said, moving towards Bel. "Hey, Bellybuddy. Listen, I didn't-- I don't mean it. You know that, right?"

Spider glanced to the side, and Kniss was stepping between them, holding the mop bucket. "Report below decks to Doctor Gibs," Kniss said, grabbing the handle of Paimon's mop.

"I don't mean it," Paimon said, as Kniss pried the mop from her hands. Her voice had fallen to a whisper. "I don't."

Kniss shoved the mop and bucket into Valno's hands, and he grumbled but got to work. Kniss moved away towards the mast. Spider lingered for a moment before walking away after Kniss, leaving Bel and Paimon standing opposite one another. For a second, Bel opened his mouth, but then shut it tightly. He looked straight at Paimon, and it felt like she was melting into tar. Her voice had died away, and her trembling mouth closed now, drawn into a hard line.

Paimon turned and walked away, heading below decks. She could feel Bel's gaze on her back as she went, but then heard a splash of his mop into water as he went back to swabbing.

Walking down the hall beneath the deck, Paimon was assailed with smells of the mold stuck to the corners, the faint rot of corpseflesh, and the saltwater soaked into the wood. Her own footsteps seemed jarring to her, as if she were haunting her own body. In the space of -- what, thirty seconds? -- her world had been stretched and pulled over her head until it was suffocating. She knew the pirate captain disliked her, but seeing Bel take her side -- no, it wasn't her side. Spider had been the one asking how Bel felt. The only one out of all them to do so.

"Dammit," Paimon said. She pursed her lips and biting them together, trying to walk fast enough to escape the storm in her head.

Her frantic pace took her quickly to the galley, which was at the end of the hall, towards the storerooms at the bottom of the ship. When she entered the door, the tang of mustard obliterated every other smell. Paimon almost gagged where she stood before Gibs ushered her in.

"Don't let the smell out," Gibs said, shutting the door behind her. "If it reaches the deck, Spider won't let me hear the end of it."

"No problem," said Paimon, plugging her nose. "What're you doing in here, anyway?" The room was filled with barrels with their lids popped open, revealing roots, powders, and biscuits. On an oddly short central table was a pot steaming atop a flat disc-shaped rock.

"Making hybroth," Gibs said. She raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were a doctor."

"I am," Paimon said indignantly, and made the mistake of inhaling too deeply. She started hacking, and doubled over, moaning until the burning sensation stopped. "My potions just don't smell this bad, ever," she said once she could speak again.

"I'm sure they don't," Gibs replied curtly, "but when we're on a wooden ship, warmweed's safer than open flame."

Paimon looked over the pot. Floating in the mixture was a large spoon filled with of damp, wavy roots. At the edges of the spoon, the mixture boiled and let off rancid steam, as the roots seemed to leap around, curling up as their juices leaked away. "Just like noodles," she noted.

Gibs grabbed another pot from beneath the table and slammed it on another flat rock. The table that had seemed oddly short to Paimon was a perfectly reasonable height for the ship's doctor. "Here, I'll show you how to use it," she said. "Trickier than it looks, it is."

Gibs measured out twenty roots from a bowl on the table. Taking the bundle in her hands, she deftly cracked them in half, and a fresh, acrid scent engaged Paimon's nostrils. "It's the tinctures within the root," Gibs explained. "Lets them make their own heat."

Gibs filled the pot with water and put the roots in a spoon, swirling them gently in the mixture. When it began to simmer, she ordered, "Add the rest now."

Paimon grabbed the riander root and pell leaves . For some reason, being around a doctor other than her mother made her even tenser. She slowly doled them into the pot, being careful not to crowd the ingredients too close to each other. This earned a small grunt of approval from Gibs, and when Paimon smiled up at her, the dwarf doctor nodded. "Good. Keep stirring with the spoon, and take it out if steam gets to billowing."

"For sure," Paimon said, and Gibs returned to her own pot. For a while, they stirred in silence, with Paimon focusing on the motion of the potion. She remembered when she'd play among the rocks with Seir, finding a tide pool and shoving her arm into it, flailing it in a circle until the whole surface was spinning. If she went fast enough, a whirlpool opened up in the center, a hole to the bottom of the sea that swirled like an unblinking eye. Seir would shout and giggle, and Paimon would feel as strong as a sea squall. His laugh crackled through her like static electricity.

Paimon's grip on the spoon tightened. Even after admitting guilt, that pain would remain. Well, it's not as though apologizing could bring Seir back. It wasn't about that. It was about moving forward. But what was she moving forward towards? The prophecy, the prophecy. She'd left her family once again, all for the sake of...saving the world? She really couldn't remember.

The moment Seir's golem had melted into the salty air, Paimon felt their prophecy vanish with it. The curse that had followed her for twelve years vanished. And now, everything felt hazy. If she'd moved on from her guilt and their prophecy, was there anything good left? At this rate, probably not. She could travel this whole world and still be a closed-minded fool.

She glanced over at Gibs, who seemed at peace in the midst of her work.

Paimon cleared her throat. "Hey, Doc. You're a dwarf, right?"

Gibs stopped for a beat, then looked up. Her face held a forceful lack of emotion. "Yes, I am."

Paimon's mind went blank. "How is that for you?" she stammered.

Gibs blinked. Then she blinked again. Eventually, she said, "Pass the warmweed, please."

Paimon nodded quickly and handed her a bundle of roots, then vigorously went back to watching the pot. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment as they returned to stirring in silence.

"Not bad," Gibs said.

Paimon looked up. "Um?"

"Being a dwarf, it's. Not bad." Gibs was still stirring.

"Ah," Paimon stuttered. "Well, that's good to hear."

"It's different, though," Gibs added suddenly. "Different things happening in different places. I get asked different questions."

"Like what?"

"Like how being a dwarf is."

Paimon felt steam rising from her face as well as from the pot. "Sorry," she said. "Forget I said anything."

Gibs glanced at her, then down at the bowl of warmweed between them. "This warmweed and I come from the same place, you know. Up north in the Asturian highlands, this thing grows like, well, a weed."

Paimon nodded, confused.

"Warmweed is what the humans call it, because they can't stand how it gets into their crops. The dwarves call it huun-itsal. Life root. It keeps our soil warm in the deep winter, lets us grow our food. For that, we owe it everything."

Steam began to billow up from Gibs's pot, and she lifted her spoon out. "But in the rest of the world, it's just a weed that chokes what they want to grow. So they call it an annoyance. It really only depends on where you live."

Gibs looked up to the ceiling. "Being a dwarf, well, it feels like that. Location-dependent. I get different looks in every city I go too, and not all of them are kind. Not all of them trust me to do my work well, or with the right intentions. That's probably why I'm a ship doctor. Like a weed that drifts on the sea."

Paimon pursed her lips together, trying to find something to say. "You're not a weed," she finally said.

Gibs chuckled, but it seemed directed inward instead of at Paimon. "I know that. I've rambled on too much, this potion's already done." She pulled the spoon out and discarded the warmweed in a small metal bin.

"Put your weed in there when you're done," she said. "Give the potion about ten minutes, then you can let it cool." She walked to the door.

"Good work, doctor," Paimon blurted out, not knowing where it came from.

Gibs nodded, not meeting Paimon's eyes. "Yes, good work." Paimon had no idea if she was repeating the sentiment or returning it. Gibs exited the door and shut it behind her, leaving Paimon in a room full of steam where it hurt to breathe deeply, or think.



Paimon sat on the floor of her room, ignoring the growls of her stomach. She couldn't bring herself to eat dinner with everyone else, not now. Besides, the smell of warmweed did horrors for the appetite.

Why think of herself right now, anyway? Wouldn't any good daughter be thinking of her parents right now, how they were fighting against the Synua Guard with impossible odds in the hometown she'd abandoned twice now?

But considering how the pirates were threatening their lives, it wasn't as if the prophecy was going much better. And now the rune sphere had vanished, also because of those pirates. And it was those pirates who kept lording over her, driving her apart from her friends.

"Damn it," she said, pounding the floor. "Damn this, damn it all."

The last eighteen days had been exhausting. It had all begun with one bad day, hadn't it? At first, she'd wanted to just smoke it away, or even use something stronger. But now the five of them were responsible for the entire world, and it seemed like the world was against them. Nothing had ever come easy for her, not even when a magic prophecy said it was supposed to.

Paimon wrapped her arms around her knees and breathed in. The last time she'd felt like this was the time she ran away from home. When the guilt and desperation had bunched up in her shoulders and sprouted wings, she had done everything she could to escape the feeling of guilt.

But even then, guilt had pursued her with a runic spiral. She couldn't outrun it, couldn't earn her way free, and couldn't become miserable enough on her own to make it vanish, no matter how dire things got. Paimon pictured Bel's face again in her mind. She had looked for anger because that was what she'd expected of him. Get angry, and get scary. But there was just the resignation, like this was nothing new for him. Her words were a knife sliding into a wound with its exact shape. Though the world was crashing around them, she had still hurt Bel.

"It's got nothing to do with the world," she said to the empty room. "I'm just a racist."

It didn't feel relieving to say. It still burned hot in her ears, and she wanted it out by any means possible. She just had to figure that out before she hurt Bel again. He wasn't a weed, he was her friend. Was being a tiefling friend different from just being her friend? She didn't call the others her human friends. Maybe that was part of it, though. Like Gibs said, it was different.

A knock at the door broke her train of thought. It was timid, and she heard Bel's muffled voice.

"Paimon?"

Paimon snapped her body into a rigid shape and slowly moved toward the door. When she opened it, Bel was looking down at her with the same resignation in his eyes.

"Spider told me to get you," he said solemnly, his voice low. "The house is starting to sink, and she's going to cut the line."

Paimon had already opened her mouth to say something, but closed it slowly. "House sinking. Cool," she said, nodding.

"Do you want to go up before they...?" Bel trailed off, glancing over his shoulder towards the stairs that led up to the deck.

Paimon bit her tongue and looked down. "Yeah."

As she followed Bel up the stairs to the deck, Paimon found herself looking at his back. It was something she'd seen in battle, holding off their enemies who left wounds that Paimon herself had helped treat. It wasn't scary, not to her, not when she knew Bel. But then, what if he wasn't on their side? Paimon had laughed off the possibility right up until Mythica had waved her glove. If Bel wasn't on their side, would she be afraid of him because he was against them? Or was it because he was a tiefling?

The heaviness of it all made Paimon want to laugh. She desperately wanted to tell a joke, anything to push away this awful fear nested in her heart. Still, she kept silent as they emerged into the golden hues of the sunset.

The house was floating off of the stern of the ship, and Paimon could see that it was sinking. Water lapped over the porch, seeping through the door and probably ruining that doormat that her mother loved so much. The iron flowers in the windowsill were wet with the spray. The rope tying it to the ship was slack to the mast, and Spider stood where it was tied, ready to cast it off.

Paimon glanced at Bel. The sunset had cast him in an orange glow, only now Paimon was seeing the sadness in the lines of his face.

"I'm sorry."

Paimon realized she hadn't said anything. Bel turned to her and continued, "I'm sorry about your house."

"No," Paimon said. "That's not--" That's not how this should go, she thought. What do you have to apologize for? Of course it's easy for someone to apologize for something that isn't their fault, I mean, because when it is, it's--

"It's fine," she said finally. "It gave me what I needed. Gave us a week of seafaring, too."

"I know," Bel said softly, staring at the sinking house. "But it was also your home, at least, growing up. And I'm sure it held memories."

It did, Paimon admitted to herself. She'd spent six years running to any place but this house, but this house was still where it all ended up. Even now, she could still feel her mother and father holding her close, collapsed together on their kitchen floor. No matter how many people she'd helped in her journey, it had still taken their arms to feel like she'd been forgiven. But to do that, she'd also needed to face Seir again.

It took me twelve years to properly apologize to my brother, she thought, staring at Bel. The least I can do is break that record now.

As she opened her mouth to speak, her voice felt heavy, as if she were dragging it out of her throat as her tongue rotated forward. "I'm," she began, and searched Bel's face for an answer, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-- no, I should've asked. I'm sorry I hurt you."

Bel didn't turn to look at her right away, and instead kept his gaze on the house until the windows dipped to the waterline.

"Sorry," Bel said quietly. "I'm just... not used to people apologizing."

"I've been getting pretty good at it lately," Paimon said, scratching the back of her head. She tried to smile, but it didn't feel right. "I just don't know what I can do to make it up to you."

"I do forgive you, though," Bel said. "I think... maybe not advertising me as a 'big scary tiefling' is a start."

Paimon nodded. Sure, it was a start. She'd never get the chance to make things right with Seir, but she could do this for Bel.

She cleared her throat. "So, um. Did you get that often in Synua? From people that weren't me."

"Well, normally, I'd get worse," Bel said, looking away. "But it's normal for most people to be wary of me and keep their distance unless they know who I am or are there for business. And most people aren't bold enough to say what they think of me to my face. But I hear it in whispers. I've overheard enough that I get the idea."

Paimon's ribs felt twisted, crushing her organs together. "That's awful," she said. "I'm so sorry."

"Even the people I do business with only respect me for getting them what they need," Bel went on, his voice only loud enough for the two of them to hear. "And a lot of them are really curious. If I had a Gildar for every time someone asked to touch my horns or just tried to touch them without even asking I wouldn't need to be in the smuggling business anymore."

Paimon chuckled, but she could hear the pain in Bel's voice as he cracked the joke. The humor was a bandage, thinly pasted over a wound deep enough to swallow the cloth whole. In her travels, she'd gotten plenty of frosty welcomes, but with Bel, she could see it was different, an inextractable thread that ran through every relationship he had.

"And don't get me started on how many kids and even adults have grabbed my tail like I'm some kind of dog," Bel muttered.

"That's terrible," Paimon said, which felt weak. She wanted to say more, but she couldn't collect the words.

"When--" Bel started to say, but cleared his throat. "Um. When we met, back in Serion, was I the first tiefling you'd ever met?"

Paimon nodded. "Yeah."

Bel nodded back, and there was a small silence that passed between them before Bel spoke again.

"Were you ever scared of me?" Bel asked.

Paimon looked Bel straight in the eye. "When I met you, you were getting your horns stuck in a tree trying to rescue a cat who got down by himself. I literally could not have been less scared of you."

Bel smiled weakly and broke eye contact.

"I... yeah," he said faintly. "That wasn't my proudest moment. Sometimes I don't think through my uh, horns potentially getting caught on things. Like tree branches."

"Yep," Paimon said, and laughed again. "Ever since I met you, you've always put us before yourself. I mean, we'd only just met and you were like that! You're the one who made this all feel like a team instead of some wandering quest."

She paused. "I was never afraid of you, Bel. You're my friend, and I love you. But I think I was afraid, after all. Afraid of the tiefling."

Bel turned his face to her, meeting her eyes once again, but this time with a greater intensity.

"But I am a tiefling," he said. "I can't separate myself from that. I could walk into a city and hide things about who I am. Like my name, or my profession, or my history. I could change the way I dress, or the way I talk. But I'll never be able to change the fact that I am a tiefling. And that's the person everyone's always afraid of. It's me."

"It is you," Paimon agreed, frustrated with her struggle for words. "And you shouldn't have to change anything about it. I'm the one who has to change here."

"Then I want to ask you again," he said firmly, though she could see his adam's apple bob up and down, like he was swallowing down his emotions. "Are you still afraid of me?"

Paimon looked at his face. It was a tiefling face, that much was obvious. She had seen a lot of emotions pass through it, heard its voice telling her that there were people to save, that they would be okay. It was a tiefling heart, Bel's heart, that beat in his chest, that swelled up and encompassed everyone they met, shielding them from harm. And there, she felt safe.

"I don't think I am," she said. "You feel safe to me."

At that, something in Bel's countenance softened, and whatever emotion he'd pushed down started flooding to the surface. His shoulders sagged, tears sprung at the corners of his eyes, and he pressed his lips together tightly, quickly looking away. Paimon moved towards him slowly, tentatively holding her hands out to see if he'd pull away, and when he didn't, she closed her arms around his back and drew him in.

"I don't want to hurt you," Bel said, his voice muffled and shaky. "I don't want to hurt anyone."

"You won't," Paimon said, and believed it too. "You won't."

"But I already have," Bel whispered, lowering his head to her shoulder.

"That was Mythica and her weird glove," Paimon reminded him. "Besides, we know how she'll try to control you now. Soon as she whips that thing out again -- pow! I hit her with the sling, end of story. You don't have to worry about her, not when you've got us around."

Bel didn't reply, but hugged her a little tighter.

"Cutting the line!" Spider called from atop the mast.

Bel pulled away like a wave from shore, rapidly rubbing his eyes and standing a little straighter, looking from Paimon to the house and the rope that tethered it to the ship. Paimon saw the rope slacken and slither into the water as the ship drifted away, leaving a little corrugated roof poking out of the sea behind them.

"I'll be here for you too," Bel said quietly, and out of the corner of her eye she saw him hesitantly reach out his hand before taking hers and giving it a little squeeze.

The sun vanished beneath the waves, taking the house with it.

In the past week, the remaining crew of Captain Spider and the group, through Bel's careful leadership, had gained an alliance with each other. However uneasy as it was, the two groups had fallen into a rhythm of sorts. Elidyr rested, Spider's crew ran the ship, and the rest learned the ropes. Day by day. they followed the sane routine, with the only difference being that Elidyr had recovered well enough to no longer be bedridden. Out of all of them, ironically, Elidyr had the most knowledge on how to sail a ship. So, he fit in quite well, only lagging behind the experienced crew slightly as he was still very much in the recovery process from being tortured. But, all in all, the rhythm went along smoothly. Everyone worked to see the ship reach its destination – wherever that may be.

And Railyn continued avoiding Belxibis.

At this point, he was ruining out of reasons to be not where Belxibis was at any given moment and excuses as to why he was avoiding him. He couldn't even explain it to himself anymore. It was just a feeling that rose from his gut anytime he locked eyes with Belxibis: horrid jitters that made him queasy and filled his head with too many thoughts that resulted in nothing but confusion and pain. And so, Railyn avoided Belxibis at any chance he could, which also meant he poured his energy into side projects aboard the ship, for which there were plenty. It kept him busy, and kept him from having nightmares over and over again. Well, the same nightmare. If he went to sleep exhausted, he could sleep through the night without a night terror. If he was unable to, he would rather pace the deck until he was exhausted once more than actually sit through the same terrible dream over and over again. Valno often took the twilight shift, so he and Railyn could catch up and get to know each other better.

Despite Valno's... chaotic personality, he was quite calming to Railyn. It was like Railyn could forget any horrific details of his night because Valno always had something going on with him, and no matter how small said thing was, it always included a story.

Railyn still hadn't decided if Valno was a habitual liar by nature or if he really did view the world that way. Everything about ratio was so bombastic that Railyn could barely keep up with him. He doubted anyone could keep up with him. the boy was so exciting... Something about him was just so exhilarating, Railyn felt compelled by him anytime he saw him. Railyn didn't quite have words to describe him, but that was okay. He didn't really speak to as one of Spider's crew and he didn't feel like sharing with the others. The only one who he really wanted to talk about Valno to was Ivern, who could read his thoughts anyway.

Well, could.

They had been moving to a rhythm, but that rhythm had been unexpectedly destroyed by none other than Ivern. It happened just the night before, right before they had their break for supper. Railyn had kept to himself for the most part at that point in the day as he was wiped from the grueling work that was included in getting ship to sail, and sail properly. He had knelt and sat in a darkened corner towards the front of the ship, where most of the rest of the dual crew were sitting, with bowls of watered-down stew in their hands. It was a chilly night last night and that continued to this night, but a few of them had commented that they liked seeing the stars at night while they ate. The truth was that the stench of death still seeped through the wood below deck if they stayed there long enough. So, they endured the cold while they ate.

Ivern stomped over to him and plopped his head down warily by Railyn's side. A dragon had plenty to do on a ship, it seemed like, just as much as an experienced sailor. Ivern glanced at Railyn through the corner of his eye and huffed. Railyn couldn't help but chuckle and he scratched the who side of Ivern’s chin. Ivern had been growing immensely within the past week. It seemed like it wouldn't stop, and he was only growing faster. Too much longer, and he might not be able to fit below deck-- unless they opened up the cargo bay doors. At that moment, Railyn realized he didn't really know how large dragons got.

"Large.'' Ivern’s voice resonated within Railyn's mind like a town bell. It was odd, because his voice, even though it was not spoken out loud, had gotten noticeably deeper since the battle at Nua Port. "And dragons do not stop growing when we reach a certain age like most other species." That also surprised Railyn. How big did dragons get then? Neither of them had seen another dragon before, so he had no frame of reference.

"Speaking of that..." Ivan said, and while his voice did it change in Railyn’s mind but Railyn felt something change. Usually Ivern kept his emotions out of Railyn's mind, as it usually overwhelmed him, but Railyn as able to tell something was off.

"What's wrong? "Railyn asked, and Ivern shifted his head away from him. "There's something wrong." It was not a question. Ivern rumbled out a sigh.

"I did not wish for this, but this is the way that things must be."

"I don't like how that was said." Railyn began.

"Neither do I, but please, allow me to say this."

Railyn shut up.

"I have never met another dragon, and I feel them in my dreams, calling to me. I think it is not normal for me to be raised alone. I must go find other dragons, and it is food is scarcer as we leave the coastline. It pains me to say this, but it is getting more and more difficult for me to justify staying here."

Railyn gingerly placed his bowl of shallow, warm stew down to his right. His hand was shaking. He clasped it shut with his other hand. It took him a moment to calm himself enough to collect his thoughts. He steeled his mind, no wanting to let Ivern feel his thoughts or emotions, and not wanting to feel Ivern’s gentle mind touch. It felt too much for him, and he would break.

He said, in a low whisper, “What about me?" Ivern pushed his large snout into Railyn’s clasped hands. His forked tongue flicked in between Railyn's fingers, forcing his hands apart. Railyn couldn't help himself; he absentmindedly grazed his hands over Ivern's scales. Ivern pushed through Railyn's measly mental block. "Oh, My Beloved. You and I are forever intertwined. I will never leave you. But I cannot ignore reality as much as you can your companions."

Railyn looked at Ivern, tears stinging his eyes and blurring his vision. "What do I do...." without you, he desperately waited to add, but he felt that Ivern deduced that anyway.

"You will do as you have been. These people here, they are becoming your family. "Ivern stretched out, relaxing his wings from his body. "You have been holding off on a very important discussion."
Railyn didnt need Ivem to finish his train of thought. He couldn't get himself to say erythmg aloud, but he wanted to male sure that he would get this conversation dealt with.

"Good.'' Ivern rose to his feet, stretching out his back much like Lady would do, and took a single glance back to Railyn before he spread his wings and launched off the ship, rocking it back and forth. Railyn stood up and followed Ivern's silhouette in the sky, watching his form blot out the stars in the night sky, less and less as he traveled further away. Railyn tracked him as long as he could until he could no longer see him. He still stood there, at the edge of the ship, not allowing himself to touch the railing.

He didn't know how long had passed before he could no longer feel Ivern's mind touch, his non-physical presence that existed on the edges of Railyn's thoughts. It had not been there with him for long --only since Nua Port-- but Railyn felt every bit of its absence, almost like he had lost an invisible limb he hadn't realized he was relying on. The weight of what had just occurred had finally settled in like a rock in his stomach. Railyn felt dizzy, and he had to hold on to the railing of the ship to keep himself from falling. He had become accustomed to the, sometimes extreme, movements of the ship, but this feeling brought him back to his first time in the ocean. He was drowning, and there was nobody there to save him this time. He was all alone.

"Railyn?" A masculine voice tenderly reached out to him. He looked up, his vision blurry. For a moment, he thought it was Belxibis who reached out to him. The thought terrified him; he wasn't ready to speak to Bel, not yet. He knew Bel probably realized that, but the man couldn't help himself. He had to help when he saw someone in need. Railyn blinked several times, letting the tears vacate his eyes. No, it wasn’t Bel. It was Elidyr. His brunette hair had been cut short as it had matted while he was recovering and he no longer wore the robes he had donned up to his torture. He must have found some kind of fancy clothing left behind by the boat's previous captain. The owner of those clothes were stockier and, well, healthier than Elidyr, so the several various belts across his waist couldnt keep it from ballooning out in places where it wouldn’t if he was heathy. It kind of looked like Elidyr was wearing bedsheets and was poorly attempting to conceal that fact.

Railyn looked past Elidyr. The rest of the crews had basically all finished eating and some had started the chores afterward. A couple of them, including Valno, were staring up at the night sky. Perhaps they were still looking out for Ivern, waiting for him to return with his catch of the day. Belxibis' eyes were on him, though. Railyn avoided that conversion and instead turned back to Elidyr, who raised an eyebrow. "Are you back with us?"

"What?" Railyn did not understand what Eli was saying.

"You hooked like you were dead asleep on your feet. It’s obvious your mind was elsewhere." Elidyr glanced up. "Ivern?"

Railyn nodded, his mouth too dry to say anything.

Elidyr bowed his head in response. "I don't need to have the bond that you have with Ivern to not feel his presence on my mind anymore."

"He's gone,” Railyn managed out. Saying those words aloud placed weight on the situation that Railyn didn't want there. It made it real. Far, far too real. His hands shook once again, and he no longer felt like he was aboard the ship. Instead, he felt the crushing force of being trapped under the mines of Yse, his home. It was an all too familiar feeling, one that he never wanted to feel again. Trapped. Alone. Isolated. No one to help him. No way out.

A gentle touch on his shoulder dragged him out of it. Elidyr smiled warmly at him. "Let's take a walk."

Railyn scrambled to his feet, and followed Elidyr down the stairs to the belly of the ship, with one last look to the rest of the group. He didn't understand why, but he felt guilty, like everyone who gave him looks as he followed were judging his every move, and decided that he could do no right. It was something he needed to shake, but without Ivern’s guiding voice reassuring him. He was completely lost on how to do that. Just like Belxibis, that was a task for another day. For now, he focused on not tripping down the ship stairs while walking behind Elidyr, who still stepped down as if every step physically pained him. Perhaps they still did, or perhaps Elidyr was being overly cautious because his body was still so fragile.

As they stepped door to the crew quarters, Elidyr turned to Railyn. "How about we take a break in my room?” He asked between drawing breaths. Any color that was previously in his face had been drained completely. Railyn nodded. They passed by a few doors and swinging lanterns before they reached Elidyr’s designated room. He had been given one of the more bearable rooms, away from the rotting bluecough corpses and with a bed that wasn’t as stiff as the wood around it. Elidyr opened the door and walked in first. Railyn followed. They both took the sane positions they did when Railyn looked after Eli while he was recovering, with Elidyr sitting on the bed instead of laying down. The room was bare of any belongings that indicated someone like Elidyr was inhabiting the room. Besides the bed, a chest, a pot and a cup or two, the room was bare.

Elidyr leaned his heed back onto the wall and breathed out a sign of relief, like some kind of pressure had been taken off of him. He opened his eyes and smiled at Railyn. "I'm still not able to keep up with everyone completely. I can fake it for most of the day, but when it gets to around supper time, I struggle." Railyn nodded vacantly, vaguely paying attention to Elidyr, but his train of thought was focused on nothing in particular.

Elidyr cleared his throat and Railyn glanced up. "So..."

"So," Railyn repeated. He did not want to think about Ivern, but he had to, to get over it and because Elidyr needed to know what happened and why. This was one thing that Railyn couldn't keep as a secret. no matter how easier that could have been for him.

"I've noticed that you have been spending a lot of time-" oh no, Railyn thought. He figured they were going to talk about Ivern. He was not wanting to talk about Belxibis. He did promise Ivern he would speak to Bel, but he didn't promise anything with talking about Belxis.- "with Valno recently.”

"...Huh?" That took Railyn off guard. Out of everything they could have talked about, he was most definitely not prepared to talk about Valno of all people. Elidyr flashed a soft, almost knowing smile. "I said, I saw you hanging out with Valno a lot lately."

"What... How-"Railyn stammered. Elidyr pointed to a dark corner, where the shadow resting in that corner opened her eyes and meowed. Railyn had almost forgotten that Lady was there, with them, on the boat. She stretched out her paws onto Eli’s knee, digging her nails in, Elidyr hissed and swatted her away, muttering no doubt some kind of obscenity under his breath.

Elidyr looked at Railyn. "Just because I was in bedrest doesn't mean I'm missing out on any good drama." Railyn felt his face run hot with embarrassment. He knew not why, but he did not enjoy Eli's words. It was as if some kind of shared secret had been spilt. But that was ridiculous. Railyn and Valno had not broken any rules, and it was foolish to think no one knew they talked to each other and got along. So, why then, did he feel the way he did?

Elidyr shifted his back into a different position and sighed. "So, want to tell me what's going between you two?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

Was there something going on between Railyn and Valno? What did that even entail?

"I just... can't sleep a lot and Valno usually takes the night shifts so we talk. Or, he talks mostly and I listen."

Lady chirped before finding herself a comfortable spot on the foot of the bed. Elidyr nodded." Yes, I’ve heard that Valno started volunteering to take the night shifts. I couldnt possibly think of a reason why."

Railyn stared at him, dumbfounded. He had wondered why Valno was always up at night when he had that same nightmare that never failed to shock him awake. He had just guessed Valno wasn't much of a sleeper, at his boundless amounts of energy made Railyn think he had enough sleep, more than Railyn, that's for sure. But, just thinking about the possibility that Valno took those shifts for the opportunity just to see Raillyn.. Railyn leaned back into his chair. He didn't know how to feel about that information. How should he feel? His stomach felt odd, and he realized he left his stew back above deck. It wasn't a feeling of vertigo, just a feeling of nervousness or excitement. It didn’t necessarily feel bad... did Railyn like that Value as looking forward to seeing him? Was he not also looking forward to seeing Valno? To relieve him of his nightmares?

"You’ve been quiet." Elidyr commented.

Railyn frowned. "I've been thinking. I don't know what to say..."

"You don't have to tell me anything." Eli offered. "Although, if I could offer some advice..." Railyn nodded "I think you may like him."

That certainly wasn't what Railyn was expecting. He had never had feelings for anyone before, not like this. He had mainly kept to himself in the mines of Yse, especially after he had lost Ryun. He opened his mouth to speak, and the words came slowly. "I... don't know. I just like being around him. It makes the rough times a little less rough.”

Elidyr nodded knowingly. "You don't need to explain it to me. But, if you have troubles explaining it to yourself, I can always help. I've had my experiences with those things." Railyn shot him a confused look. "Not every man craves the love of a woman."

Railyn had never heard of that before. All the boys he grew up with in the orphanage had all found the girl of their dreams, or they disappeared before they had that choice. Maybe it was an Austrian royalty way of thinking. Élidyr seemed normal enough.
Well, as normal as their group could be. Railyn wanted to say thank you or something explaining what was going on in his head, but nothing would come out, so he just nodded.

Elidyr clapped his hands. "Good. that's all."

"Did you not out to talk about Ivern?"

"Nope."

"Or Belxibis?"

Elidyr chuckled. "Oh, no no. That is something you need to do on your own. And you needed your mind focused on something else." He sighed. "Oh, and I was curious." He pushed himself off of the wall.. "I'm sure Kniss is not happy we’re in here. Gossiping, instead of assisting with the after supper chores." He rested his hands on his knees. "Go on, I 'll goin you in a moment."

With that, Railyn felt like he was dismissed. The conversation was over, and it only left Railyn with more questions, and questions as things he didn't even think about until Elidyr brought them up. Eli was right about one thing, though: he had stopped thinking about Ivern, if just for a moment. The conversation about him and Valno shifted his priorities, and now, when thinking about Ivern, he was able to do so without breaking down. He more so felt numb than anything other feeling.

The nighttime chores went by without any more hitches. Seabirds had feasted on Railyn’s stew while he was gone, so he had no food to return to. Why seabirds were this far from the coast Railyn couldn't explain why. Neither could any of the actual pirates, who were far more knowledgeable about those type of things.

Railyn was stuck on cleaning crew with Marble. Once he had finished with that, he was exhausted. Maybe not physically, but he didn't want to think or feel any more. As he walked down the steep steps below deck, he was hoping he was too exhausted to have nightmares.

A few hours later, and Railyn spared awake, gasping for air. Even as the details of the dream drained from his mind, he rubbed his face and groaned. Slipping his boots on and swinging his outer coat over his underclothes, Railyn stepped out of his room and took the now familiar route to the deck. He didn't know if he was looking forward to the possibility of Valvo being up there or not, but he needed to feel the open air.

As he stepped onto the deck, he noticed a dark silhouette leaning against the railing. As Railyn stepped closer, the silhouette heard his thuds against the wood. It wasn't until Railyn got within a close enough distance that he could differentiate who it was that the silhouette turned to face him.

It was Belxibis. Railyn took a involuntary step back.

Bel spoke first. "Hey, Railyn. Can we talk?"

The waves crashing against the hull felt like they were shouting in the silence that followed.

A week had passed, and Belxibis and Railyn had barely exchanged three words.

Until now.

"Hey, Bel." Railyn's voice barely lifted above the waves below.

This was needed.

Belxibis knew that Railyn had a lot to process. The last month had flipped the whole boy's world upside-down. Railyn had escaped Yse, been exposed to a world outside of it for the first time, and thrown into the company of strangers a part of a prophecy none of them understood. Then he ran for his life from Belxibis in the heat of battle, was tossed into the ocean to escape an army, and was captured by pirates.

To say that was a lot was an understatement.

But if they were going to remain together - if they really were becoming a team, and this was bigger than Yse's freedom, the bluecough pandemic, and Nua Port being held under siege - they couldn't keep avoiding the issue.

Railyn was scared of him. He had every right to be after what happened. Belxibis had been manipulated at that moment in ways beyond his control, but if they never took steps to mend things, he could only see things getting worse.

They were a team. Or, at least, they were becoming one. It was starting to sink in, now, that none of this was temporary. This wasn't something either of them could just brush under the rug.

The fate of the world and the prophecy aside - Belxibis knew Railyn needed it. Even if it was uncomfortable.

Belxibis wasn't exactly looking forward to the conversation either. But he was going to have it anyway.

Bel tilted his head, gesturing with a loose motion of his hand for Railyn to join him by the railing, looking out at the ocean.

After a moment, Railyn stepped forward. Belxibis didn't know if it was hesitation on his part or just pondering his next step. Either was reasonable. The curly-haired boy gripped the railing with two tight fists, leaning his weight away from Bel.

The ship rocked beneath them. Ever since they'd been sailing towards the everlasting storm, the air at night had gotten colder. The cold bit through Belxibis's clothes, but he'd been growing used to it.

Belxibis rested both his hands on the rail and rested his weight on it, watching Railyn out of the corner of his eye.

It didn't make sense to dance around it.

"I know you've been avoiding me," Belxibis said.

He paused. He had a feeling he'd have to be the one to say things outright.

"But we can't keep avoiding interaction forever," Belxibis said. "Are you willing to talk about what happened in Nua Port?"

Because that was what this was all about. It wasn't like Railyn had been dealthly afraid of him before.

"What is there to talk about?" Railyn laughed hollowly, and it dwindled into nothingness.

Bel huffed lightly through his nose. He guessed he should've expected as much.

"I was used as a weapon and could have killed you," Belxibis said, each word feeling heavy like weights falling down into the sea. It should've been a relief to finally voice it. But all he felt was shame.

"If there was anything I could have done differently... I would have done it," Belxibis said. "I know it doesn't change how terrifying it was for you, and I understand it will take time to rebuild trust. But I hope that you know I would never do anything to hurt you. Not... not while I'm myself. Not while I'm under my own control."

"...Stop." Railyn whispered. Belxibis wasn't sure if he heard him right until Railyn shook his head and repeated it. "Stop. Please. Nothing you're saying is something I haven't already told myself to shake this feeling."

Belxibis watched Railyn.

"What feeling?" he asked softly.

"I-- I see you... in my nightmares. It's not you, but it is." Railyn rubbed his face. "I want to move on... or forget, or something. But I can't. Every time I sleep, I'm reminded of it. Of you."

Belxibis knew it wasn't that personal. But something about that cut deep into an already-open wound like it was a confirmation of all his greatest fears, and a confirmation of what he already thought everyone believed about him, deep down.

He wanted to believe he wasn't just some monster. But he had been, to Railyn.

"Are you still afraid of me?" Belxibis asked. Even though he felt he knew the answer.

"Yes... no," Railyn shuddered out. "Sometimes I see you, but sometimes I see... the same thing in my nightmares. And it's becoming difficult to tell what's real and what's... not."

"What did you think of me before Nua Port?" Belxibis asked. "And what happened with Mythica."

A chuckle escaped Railyn. "That was a long time ago."

"It was about two weeks ago," Belxibis said.

"Is it bad that I have trouble remembering what happened before Nua Port?" Railyn sighed out a half-hearted chuckle.

"I don't think it has to be labeled as bad," Belxibis said. "It just is. Your whole life dramatically changed in a matter of weeks. Things are different, now."

"I think -- I remember looking up to you. It's no wonder why Spider looked to you as our leader. Even when we didn't... label things, you did what needed to be done." Railyn smothered his face in his hands. "Now, though. If I look at you too long, I feel my nightmares itching to come forward. Sometimes they feel like they could swallow me whole."

"Have you talked to anyone about them?" Belxibis asked. "...The nightmares?"

"Ivern." Railyn sucked in a breath. "Sometimes I tell Valno when I can't sleep. Mainly he talks."

Belxibis noticed Ivern hadn't returned yet.

"Does that help at all?" Belxibis asked.

"Valno takes my mind off the nightmares."

"Ah," Belxibis said.

So they didn't really talk about his nightmares. It was more that it was a helpful distraction.

"And... avoiding me," Belxibis said. "Has that helped?"

Railyn said nothing for an extended amount of time. "No."

"I can't claim to know what it'll look like for you to recover, after everything that happened," Belxibis said. "But I do wonder if avoiding me less might help. To have more... positive, or at least neutral interactions. To counteract the one that keeps clinging to your memory."

He knew it was possible that could only make things worse if Railyn only ever saw the clawed, orange-eyed demon chasing him when he looked at Bel. But how was that ever going to change if he didn't at least try to see something different?

Belxibis didn't think there was anything he could do to prove himself. He didn't even believe proving himself was necessary. But maybe there was something inside Railyn that needed to be convinced again that Belxibis was trustworthy.

"I don't know what to say. I know what you may want me to say, or what Ivern may have wanted me to say, or even what I think I should say. I just..." Railyn paused. "I'll try."

Belxibis nodded.

That was all any of them could do: try.

"I know you don't seem to want any apologies," Belxibis said, looking down into the water. "So I won't voice them. But I just want you to know that even if our fates weren't irrevocably intertwined by some powerful prophecy... I'm going to protect you. And all of us. No matter what."

There was another stretch of silence between them, filled only by the wind and the waves.

Eventually, Railyn hummed faintly, the sound carried away from him.

"Can we... just stay here, in silence?" Railyn finally spoke. "For a bit? I'm not ready to go back to sleep."

Belxibis finally allowed himself to relax his posture and he leaned down, folding his arms over the railing.

Railyn didn't seem ready to talk about this. Maybe it was that he wasn't ready to talk about it with Belxibis, or maybe he just didn't have language yet to put how he felt to words.

Belxibis could understand that.

The pain was so recent. To expect him to be able to articulate everything a week later wasn't only unrealistic, it was unfair.

Even Belxibis didn't know if he was ready to be honest with Railyn about how he felt about it all.

The guilt still hung around his neck like a yoke of stone. If he fell into the ocean, he wondered if it would pull him under. As long as he was above the waves, he was just waiting for the day it'd choke him.

"Sure," Belxibis said softly.

And so they stood in silence.

Belxibis didn't keep track of how much time had passed. He simply let his eyes travel back and forth over the horizon.

Belxibis didn't know how he'd imagine this conversation going. He'd gone in with very little expectations at all, and now that he looked back, he realized it was probably for the best. They'd exchanged more words than they had in a week, and at least Railyn had been able to express some things honestly.

That was a start. And a start was good enough.

Hopefully, with time, Railyn would come around.

At least, that was where Belxibis hoped things would go. But he found himself doubting if that would ever be possible.

All his life, no one ever seemed to "come around." They came to a conclusion of what he was like before they even met him and they stuck to him.

Railyn said he'd looked up to him. But had that actually been true?

Doubt swirled in his stomach as the silence dragged on, and eventually, Railyn pulled away from the railing.

"I'm getting tired," Railyn said quietly. "I think I'll go to sleep now."

"Goodnight," Belxibis said, watching as Railyn turned to leave. He could still see how Railyn favored his weight on one leg more than the other - the imprints from Nua Port had yet to fade.

And the scars would remain forever.

He turned away, beginning to pace the length of the port side as he rubbed at his shoulder.

He still couldn't remember what happened.

Sighing, Belxibis kept his head up as he walked. He was still on watch. Suddenly, behind him, he heard a thump and turned around to see that Captain Spider had swung down from one of the ropes to land a few feet away from him. He hadn't even known she was up there.

He could only assume she'd seen and heard all of that.

"Oh. Spider," he said with a small, wearied smile.

She walked forward, eyes trained on the sea as she came to stand next to him and leaned against the railing. "Bel," she acknowledged.

Bel wandered over to her but stayed standing, his hands in his pockets.

"Can't sleep?" he asked. She gave a slight smile.

"Can you?"

So her answer was no, then.

"I probably won't be able to for a while," he said. But it felt like a partial truth.

He was exhausted. But he'd been exhausted for weeks, now. Ever since this journey began.

Spider's eyes trailed from the dark water to look at him. It was hard to tell what she was thinking, or if she was thinking about anything other than the slight breeze in the air. It was hard to tell anything about her, really. Being around her made Bel feel awkward somehow, like he was a step behind on something he was expected to know.

"There's showers brewing," she said, looking back at the water. "You can smell it in the air."

"The storm?" Bel asked.

Spider shook her head. "We're close," she said, "but not that close." She leaned forward, the stone on her choker hanging as she extended an arm and pointed into the distance. "The sea's unsettled," she said. "There, in the distance. The waves."

Following her finger, Belxibis could see the pattern of the waves in the distance dancing, more erratic.

He was still learning about the ocean, but he nodded. He'd been trying to soak in everything he was learning over the past week, and the sooner he grasped it, the sooner he could be of use on Spider's ship and be less of a burden to her and her crew.

"Can you tell how rough it'll be?" Bel asked.

Spider tilted her head, watching the waves. "Depends on the wind," she said. "The air is more humid than normal, even though there isn't much heat. It'll be quite a downpour, but whether it'll be destructive or not is a different question."

"Maybe it'll be for the best," Bel said. "To go through a smaller storm before we face the one that never ends."

Spider made a face that suggested she found what he said amusing, but all she did was stand up straight again and say, "Maybe."

"Do you really think it'll work?" Bel asked, finally joining her and leaning on the rail beside her. "Us... helping you face the storm?"

Spider stared silently at the endless expansion of darkness before them. She seemed lost in her own thoughts, before she said, "I don't know."

For once, it felt like Spider was actually being honest, without any quips or quick remarks to dodge the question.

Bel hummed.

"What's out there, anyway?" he asked. "What's in the storm that you're willing to risk going back in there?"

Spider stayed silent, eyes trained in front of her. "You know that feeling--the one where people are staring at you, and they're expecting the worst. And you don't believe them at first, but then you find out what you're capable of, and instead of feeling powerful, getting to feel the thing everyone else experiences when they feel that way, you feel like somehow, you've proven them right?" Her voice was quiet, contemplative.

Belxibis blinked.

Spider completely avoided his question.

And he couldn't help but feel like she wasn't even talking about herself. There was something about her words that felt genuine, but still intentional. She wasn't just being vulnerable for the sake of being vulnerable. She was asking about him.

So she had overheard the conversation.

He couldn't help but feel like she'd asked a question she already knew the answer to.

"Yes," he said, just as quiet.

And before she could take the reins again, he asked gently: "What do you feel like you've proven right?"

Spider glanced at him, seeming to exit some sort of trance. "What do you mean?"

"I assumed you know the feeling too," he said.

Spider watched him, before it seemed to click. She smiled wryly, a small hint of regret on her face. "That I'm dangerous," she said. "Uncontrollable."

Belxibis knew that feeling all too well.

"Why?" he asked. "Just because you're a pirate?"

Spider let out a puff of air, her smile spreading as she turned away to hide her face. Bel realized with a start that she'd laughed, or a small version of one at least. Had he ever seen her do that?

"Captain," she said softly, "being a pirate is the least dangerous thing about me."

"And what's the most?"

She turned back to glance at him. "Let's hope you never know."

Belxibis studied her for a moment. He offered her a small, sad smile.

"Likewise."

She watched him with a level of understanding, though her facial expression gave away little.

Bel broke eye contact first, looking down at his hands. He flexed his fingers, feeling the memory of the bony claws that broke through his skin.

"Do you believe that about yourself?" he asked quietly. "That you're uncontrollable?"

And though he was asking about her, he felt she knew he was also talking about himself.

"Yes," she said honestly. "But I have found ways to control that too."

As Belxibis stared down at his hands, something clicked.

He finally looked back up at her, and he noticed she was absentmindedly playing with her necklace, rubbing the pendant between her fingers as she stared out over the ocean.

Control.

The whole time they'd been on the ship, their magic had been suppressed by something. It was kept under control. They'd all suspected it was because of something the pirates had brought on board since they didn't experience a disconnect with their magic until their appearance.

But what if the reason for an object of that power wasn't just to take away other people's magic?

What if Spider was using it to suppress her own?

"Your necklace," he said. "Is that what it does?"

Spider pulled her hand away from her necklace sharply as if she hadn't realized what she was doing.

"I'm not going to do anything about it," Bel said quickly. "I just... figured it out."

"You haven't figured out anything," Spider said coolly. "It's a token of home, nothing more."

Right.

"Well," Belxibis said slowly. "It's a nice token."

A beat.

"I've never had much of a home," Bel said.

It stayed silent for a long moment, before Spider said, "Home is overrated. Family is what matters."

"True," Bel said. And he looked over at Spider.

He certainly wasn't going to say it out loud, but... Spider felt like family. And it was a strange thought, especially with how little history they had. Maybe it was more accurate to say that somewhere in his gut he believed that they'd become family. And he couldn't say why.

"That's your crew for you," Bel said. "Right?"

Spider tilted her head, and he couldn't tell if it was an acknowledgment or not. "It's your crew for you," she replied, and it wasn't a question.

Belxibis smiled slightly.

"Yeah."

She nodded, falling silent as she stared at the water. Below them, the waves crashed against the side of the ship lightly, as if the ocean wanted to play.

"For the record," he said. "I don't know how useful my magic will be in a storm. But I'll do whatever I can to make sure everyone makes it through this time. For my crew and yours."

Spider said nothing at first, eyes unclear and distant. "The chaos magic of the eternal storm will not be like anything you've ever seen. It feels nearly sentient." She paused for a moment, before she added carefully, "Malicious."

"Then we'll just have to tame it together," Bel said. "And if we can't tame it, well..."

No one had told Spider about the prophecy, and Bel still didn't think it made them immune to the consequences of going into a sentient storm. But if the prophecy was true...

"We won't let it win. We're with you, Spider."

Spider gave another small, dry smile, though she still seemed preoccupied. "Yes," she said. "You are."

Spider stood at the edge of the deck, fingers rubbing the stone around her neck absent-mindedly. It had been several days since her late-night conversation with Belxibis--several restless, quiet, rainy days--and the endless complaining she'd heard from Valno had been enough to nearly drive her crazy. She was sure the entire crew could sense that she was on edge because for the most part, they'd left her alone, and she'd trusted them to fulfill their duties as usual.

It had rained all through the night, and the rope of the railing smelled damp, like mold was just waiting for her to walk away before it began to infest everything. She hadn't been able to sleep, which was unusual for her. She could drop anywhere, even if she was a light sleeper--maybe from nearly two decades of an inconsistent sleep schedule on-board a pirate ship. Last night though, she'd stared at the ceiling in her quarters for nearly two hours, before eventually moving to the deck, relieving Hack of his watch duties and staring out at the darkness instead.

The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon now, taking its sweet time to enter the atmosphere and light up the world. Spider wouldn't generally care how long it was taking, but the buzzing in the air had gotten stronger, more concentrated, over the course of the last hour or so, and she wasn't particularly fond of the idea of bracing the eternal storm in the dark.

Her fingers slipped to her necklace again. Vibrating against her chest, warm and slick with seawater. She could swear sometimes it had a heartbeat in moments like these, overcharged with magic thick in the air. It happened any time she was near the eternal storm, gulping at the endless waterfall of magic falling from the clouds. At one time, she'd worried that it would hold too much and break, but that had been many years ago, and she'd since gotten over the fear. A cup overflowing didn't break, and anyway, the water that was at the bottom of the cup would stay there regardless. That was all that mattered in the end.

"Spider," Kniss said. She could hear her approaching, knew the sound of her boots on the wood. She knew the sound of everyone who walked aboard her ship, she'd been with them long enough. She'd begun to recognize the difference between the new group too, though it didn't sink to the core of her bones like Kniss' footsteps did. Spider heard her stop, pause behind her in hesitation. She could picture her brown eyes watching Spider thoughtfully, narrowed a little, maybe tilting her head and letting her braids fall to one side. Spider kept her eyes on the sea.

"It's close," Spider said quietly.

Kniss sighed and walked the few extra steps to stand beside her, leaning against the railing. "How are you feeling?"

Spider stayed silent. She could feel Kniss' eyes on her, could almost feel through the air the shift of her weight as she leaned on her right leg to study Spider better.

"Well," Kniss said dryly, "That sounds marvellous. I'm doing alright, myself."

Spider did not laugh. She could not even bring herself to give a wry smile. "You know what you'll have to do."

Kniss let out a slow breath, eyes trailing to the water. "Yes."

"It will try to fight back." The necklace thrummed against her throat.

"I know."

Spider finally looked at her. "Idra," she said softly. She startled, and glanced at her bemusedly.

"Haven't heard that from you in a while," she mused. Spider could tell she was paying attention though: to Spider's body language, to the fear behind her eyes. Her fingers, seemingly glued to the necklace around her neck. "Hey," she said, nudging her with her elbow. "Come on, take a load off. Hardly the first time we've faced the storm."

"Not with magic," Spider said.

Kniss rolled her eyes and looked back at the sea. "Yeah, don't get why we're doing that."

"We aren't just trying to survive it. We're trying to go through it," Spider said, eyebrows pulled deep in a troubled frown.

Several people laughed as they made their way up the ladder, and Kniss glanced back to watch them rise from below deck. "I don't know why we had to keep them," she murmured, then glanced back at Spider. "Then again, you always were soft."

Spider didn't respond, just stared mindlessly at the waves.

Kniss sighed. "Spi." She placed a hand over Spider's and gently but firmly pulled it away from the necklace to rest on the wooden post of the railing. The tips of her fingers barely whispered against Spider's. "It'll be okay. I'll stop you, and then everything will be fine. And we'll be on the other side of it all."

"Maybe," she replied. She allowed herself another moment to breathe and watch the waves, to focus on the rising and falling as the pulse at her throat began to speed. Kniss' other hand raised, fingers brushing against the edges of Spider's jaw as she turned Spider's face towards hers.

"We'll make it through," she said firmly. "You know we will. It will all be fine."

A lump rose in Spider's throat, and she turned away. Kniss pulled her hand back, her other hand entwining fingers with Spider's on the railing. Squeezing, like reassurance. They'd been together a long time like this. Years and years of knowing each other, the insecurities and flaws and the unspoken promise that they would die for each other. But death wasn't what Spider feared. She glanced at Kniss, whose eyes were focused on the sea, the whole world crystalized behind them. Focused on her braids, light brown hair trailing behind her shoulders. What would she look like, dead? What would she look like, dead because of her? Spider forced her eyes away before she could dwell on the thought, but she found she couldn't ignore it completely. Finally, when the sand stone at her neck was a constant thrumming, a call to the wilderness and the approaching storm, she pushed herself off the railing and straightened her posture. She had to prepare herself. Kniss did the same, gently untwining their fingers and turning to face the rest of the deck.

"We really do change ourselves, don't we?" Kniss mused under her breath, eyes scanning to make sure all the crew were accounted for. They didn't focus on anything in particular, dirt hazy through a mist. "I didn't used to act like this before I was first mate. I didn't used to be so..." She trailed off, an absently-troubled expression on her face.

Spider did not answer the question. She let it hang in the air for a moment, settling, then wished it away. She had more important things to worry about right now. She took in one final breath to steady her heartbeat, then squared her shoulders and grimaced. "It's time."



Spider watched the chaos rapidly unfolding on deck. The blind woman and the annoying one were having a heated discussion over a scroll, the one with the cat stood beside them looking at another one, and the one with the dragon stood by staring not so secretly at Valno, who was currently climbing his way up the mast. The rest of her crew was hard at work, save for Kniss, who stood next to her. The only person unaccounted for was...

Spider took in a deep breath as she watched Belxibis walk towards her. She'd asked him to talk, but it had been clear it wasn't really a question. As he approached she noticed he looked a little unkempt. She could see cat claw marks lining his hands and arms and his hair was pulled back in a small, messy bun. Curls fell out around his horns.

He offered her a weak smile.

"Hey," he said, scratching behind his neck. "You said you wanted to talk?"

Kniss gave Spider a look, like she was saying, "You don't have to do this. I can handle it on my own." And maybe Kniss thought she could--but Spider knew she couldn't. Not when it had been nearly a decade, and everything was so pent up that even with the choker still on, she could feel the explosion coming.

"I have to ask you a favor," Spider said, meeting Bel's eyes. "And I don't say that lightly."

Bel's smile fell, his face turning serious as he nodded.

Spider suppressed a shudder running up her spine as she turned out towards the ocean. It had already started to drizzle. It would only get worse from here. "I need--" She faltered. She took a steadying breath, and could feel Kniss' eyes on her. Bel's, too. She turned to face him again. "When the necklace comes off," she said slowly, forcing each word individually, "I need you to force it back on."

Bel blinked slowly for a moment, like he was taking in the full implications of what she was saying.

"Right away?" he asked.

Spider held her head high and tried not to let herself tremble. Keep a grip. "Yes."

Bel nodded once, firmly.

"I can do that," he said lowly.

"It won't be easy," Spider said.

"I know," he answered.

"I won't be able to control it," Spider said quietly, eyes drifting around to make sure nobody but Bel and Kniss could hear her. "I'll be fighting back. You're going to have to restrain me so Kniss can put it on me."

Bel nodded again, not even saying a word as he simply agreed.

"This isn't an order. I'm asking you. You shouldn't do this unless you're certain," Spider warned.

"I'm certain," he said.

Spider watched him for a moment and tried not to crumble. It was taking all her willpower to keep herself together for this. The only thing that truly terrified her, and she was about to do it in the middle of the eternal storm. Had she gone insane? Maybe she should have Dr. Gibs check her head.

"Are you alright, Spider?" Bel asked softly after a few beats of silence.

She couldn't bring herself to answer. She felt like if she said a single word, everything would fall apart.

Bel's expression softened into one of compassion, and he gently - hesitantly - reached out to rest his hand on her shoulder.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked even quieter, meeting her eyes.

She tried to steady her breath. "We won't make it through if I don't."

Bel offered her a small, comforting smile.

"Alright," he said with a level-headed confidence. "Then we'll do it together."

Spider didn't feel the need to correct him. She was the one who would feel it, but he was the one who would have to restrain a monster. Asking something like that of someone she had known for less than a month--but there wasn't any other way. Kniss would need the help, and as much as she cared for the rest of her crew, none of them would be able to do it. Or maybe it wasn't that they wouldn't be able to do it, but that they wouldn't be able to understand it. That terror. And it seemed like Belxibis could.

"You're going to make a great captain one day," she said, studying him seriously, barely fighting the urge to hold onto her necklace for dear life.

"Thought I already was," Bel said, his smile growing.

Spider smiled faintly, and though it only lasted a moment, it was real.

"Just let me know when," Bel said, finally pulling his hand away.

Spider chuckled, but it turned into a grimace. "You'll know," she said quietly. She glanced at Kniss, who nodded reassuringly.

"Then I'll be ready," he said.

Spider nodded. "You can go." He would need to help the others prepare, and the light drizzle was quickly turning into a downpour.

Bel dipped his head, and without another word, departed to go help his own crew - who sorely needed it.

And suddenly the storm wall approached. All pirates knew that storms could be deceiving and to keep one's distance, if not be fully prepared to be in the storm immediately at any moment's notice. Some storms had a clear wall of rain that could their navigator and scout could keep an eye on so they ride with the wind. Some storms tricked eyes and hid their full force before bearing it down on unsuspecting ships.

No matter how much this motly mix of two crews prepared, they would never have been prepared enough to enter this storm. Nobody was ever prepared to enter this storm, that's why it was an unofficial rite of passage. If you survived it, you had already proven you were enough.

"Keep it steady!" Spider yelled out as hail began to fall. "Watch your heads, watch your heads!"

"Steady course!" Kniss echoed, falling suddenly and completely into her role as first mate. "Head on, head on!"

A piece of hail rammed straight into Spider's chest, and she stumbled backwards; the rain was falling sideways, like the storm was some sentient being, reaching for them, pummeling into them instead of the ocean. This was the only storm Spider had ever been in where there wasn't a distinct beginning, a wall of rain to enter. You went from being outside the storm to being in the middle of it--there was no easing into it. Gods, she hated it. She hated knowing what she was about to do in a place like this.

"Are you okay?" Kniss said, screaming to be heard over the downpour. Torrential winds shook the ship, rocking them back and forth as easily as a mother holding her baby. Maybe that was the wrong comparison; it was more like holding someone in a choke-hold, shaking the life out of them--and the ship was certainly trying to do that. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Zefra, trying desperately to hold the sails steady, get hit with a blast of wind and go flying through the air, her stomach hitting the railing full-force. She collapsed in a heap, soggy and uncontrolled, like a marionette doll with the strings cut.

"Doctor!" Spider shouted, just as a huge wave rocked the boat and sprayed everyone. She pointed to Zefra, and Dr. Gibs nodded, somehow managing to move steadily through the shakiness of the boat towards Zefra. The last thing they wanted was for her to slip through the rail and go overboard.

Another wave, larger, fuller, rose up into the gray sky. The winds made it impossible to tell what was rainwater and what was ocean spray. Kniss' eyes went wide. "Hold your place!" She screamed, "Hold your place, brace yourself!"

The crash swept Spider off her feet. If she hadn't been holding onto the railing, she would've gone flying off the deck into the ocean, likely to never be seen again. Behind her, she heard people coughing and sputtering, trying to breathe in air and cough out the water they'd inhaled. The boat groaned forward, and her legs slid across the wood towards the pull of gravity, towards the bow. Supplies rained down over their heads, boxes sliding until they either smacked into someone or careened off the deck. Pulling herself to her feet felt more like a pull-up than standing, and staying in the upright position was even harder until, after several seconds, the boat finally evened out.

"Keep steady!" Spider called. "All okay?"

"All okay!" Crew members shouted back, some delayed, some voices not heard at all. She tried not to think about that because there was nothing to be done now. She had to hope they had just gotten knocked below deck, or hadn't heard her over the rain. In front of them, stretching on endlessly, was nothing but gray, gray splattered with hail and rain and ocean. The clouds were so low she was sure they were in them. The gray wasn't a natural fog, not the type that rolled out under a storm and blanketed the ocean in a mist; it was overwhelming and all-encompassing. Her heart sped, ached a little at the raw panic of what was about to happen. It was time.

"Hold your ground!" She yelled. "Hold your ground for the sigil!" Immediately, everyone was in even more chaos than before. Crew members doubled down, trying desperately to keep them from veering off-course or destroying the ship in the storm. The newcomers all moved frantically. The boy with the dragon stood next to the blind woman, both tied with rope to the mast of the ship to keep them from being flung overboard. Spider focused on them as they prepared, trying not to let her morbid curiosity of the magic take over her other duties. The two of them held hands tightly, and the tattoos on the boy's forearms burned a bright red, almost like they were on fire. The duo had painstakingly chalked in a large white sigil onto the deck earlier in the day. It flared to life, a spark of white magical fury that began behind them and encircled them like a clock. The sigil itself was struggling to stay on the deck with the rain.

With every drop of rain, it sparked and more chalk fell away. Spider was surprised it hadn't been swept away by the storm entirely; somehow though, what the two newcomers were doing was working, regardless of how little chalk was actually left. It glowed a bright yellow, pulsing, randomly exerting waves of energy that sent rainwater splattering in a circle around it. Above them, the gray sky sickened, sliding like nausea into an ugly green. Spider watched as the green leaked, blood in the water, and began to branch outwards farther into the sky and the storm, turning more and more to a pale, angry green.

The sigil glowed brighter, and Spider ducked to narrowly avoid the hail that started bouncing away from it and back towards the ocean. It was like a forcefield of some kind, pushing the rain and hail farther and farther from the center of the sigil. "Keep steady!" Spider called out, and found to her surprise that she could actually somewhat hear her voice above the wind. It was like they had begun to leave the storm, except they hadn't changed course. The wood beneath her hand glowed yellow, and she watched as that same yellow shot forward, slowly but surely cocooning more and more of the ship, until the glow shown across the entire ship, acting as a sort of barrier.

The necklace at her throat hummed, and the yellow under her fingers wilted, shying away. While the rest of the crew started to recover, checking on one another in the brief break of the storm, it still pelted her. She flung her hair out of her face, pushing back stray braids and panting. Water droplets clung to her eyelashes. As the ship began to fight back against the storm, it seemed to push more and more of its reserves onto her. She was not welcome here. Her no-magic was not welcome here. Her heart raced and she clung onto her chest. She didn't have time to panic over this. She had to focus on not going overboard and drowning in a sea of furious magic.

"Split the wave!" Kniss called out, and Spider's eyes went immediately to her, her stern, serious face, her outstretched hand pointing ahead of them. She looked at Belxibis, who, despite the panic of the storm, seemed to be staying calm. Could she trust them? Could she trust either of them to take on such a monumental task? Her breaths quickened, shorter, less time in-between, inhaling water and choking on them. She couldn't do this. What the fuck was she thinking?

Ahead of them, a massive wave rose from the graveyard of fallen rain, higher and higher and higher. Spider couldn't breathe. She shouldn't have agreed to do this; when they saw this crew of newcomers, they should've turned and ran. She never should've opened up about her choker, about how it was choking her, about how she was choking on rain and air and she couldn't breathe.

"Steady! Stay steady, buckle down! Buckle down for the water!" Kniss screamed.

It rose higher and higher before crashing, beating down towards the ship--only it didn't hit the ship. The yellow met it, bright and high in the sky beneath the clouds, and Spider watched as the wave passed over the ship, swept over it like it wasn't there--except for her.

"Captain!" Kniss yelled. Spider hit the deck hard, smashed against the wood by the water. She barely managed to grab the railing, body shaking with the force of the wave and the work. Her legs slipped through, dangling over the open ocean. The wood was so slippery, and hail hit her arms. She couldn't do this, she couldn't do this!

Marble ran towards her, slipping and nearly sliding off the deck himself with the water. He braced himself, grabbing her and pulling her back on. She coughed out the mouthful of water she'd gotten, tried to pull in air. In front of them, another wave began to swell.

"I can't do it," Spider cried out to Kniss, feeling her leadership--her bravery--crack entirely. "I can't do this, I can't do this."

The wave hit, and this time, the yellow dimmed, cramped under the pressure. The water soaked Spider again, and she sputtered, trying to push herself off the ground.

"You can," Kniss argued. "Don't you lie, you can do it, can't you? You can hold on a little longer," she said firmly. "Spi, you can do it. Come on, don't be lazy now, get up."

Spider nodded despite herself, despite the knot in her throat and her chest, despite the fact that the air didn't feel like it was going into her body how it was supposed to. Marble kept a steady arm on her, helping her raise to her feet. The sigil was breaking. Pieces of it broke off from the deck and floated towards the edge, past Spider, fizzled and fell over the edge to the ocean like a waterfall. She knew what was happening, even without being told. Her necklace was still inhibiting it, even though she was as far away as possible. Maybe without her necklace it would be enough, but with the necklace, the sigil was draining more magic than it took to repair it.

Spider felt the panic rise in her, matched by the winds tearing at the ship, the people around her, her hair. She could barely see through the onslaught of rain beating down on the deck, and she could tell that they were struggling to maintain the sigil. She knew what she had to do, but felt herself choking. What if she could think of another way? They could turn around, hope to escape the storm instead of plunging ahead to the middle of it. Even as she thought it though, she knew it wasn't an option. The storm felt her, felt the no-magic of her. It wanted her gone, it wanted her gone. There was no other option. It was the only way they would get through the storm. The only way. Spider pushed back a desperate sob as she lifted her hands towards her neck.

"Belxibis!" Kniss screamed to be heard over the storm, nodding towards Spider. "It's time!" She made eye contact with Spider. "Come on, Spi, you can do it. You can do it."

Running through the rain, through the wind and the hail, Bel came rushing towards her.

The rain blinded Spider, clung to her braids and eyelashes like it wanted to freeze them, drown them, and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to get a hold of herself. She never acted like this--this out of control. She could feel herself hyperventilating. "You have to get it back on," she shouted desperately. "Promise me you'll get it back on!"

"I will!" he shouted through the storm.

Spider nodded. "Okay," she said, even though she couldn't tell if the water on her face was the rain or her tears. "I trust you," she said, and found that, strangely enough, she meant it. She did trust him--there was no other way this could go. She had to do it. She shuddered, shaking with another sob before she reached behind her neck. She couldn't push it off any longer--they were getting desperate, and she'd already lost one ship to the storm. She couldn't afford another, not when there was nowhere to go.

With a final, shuddering breath, she unclipped the necklace. The moment it stopped touching her skin, the world around her exploded. The sigil on deck turned so bright, it blinded her completely, a pure, pulsing white that radiated through every inch of her body. The storm around them spun, shooting out like the rain had ran into an invisible wall. In an instant, the entire deck dried as lightning crackled and struck against the sigil. Spider could hear screams as sparks flew, the humid air sizzling with heat. Her body convulsed, controlled by something horrible, twisted, crawling under her skin like ants and burrowing into her soul and eating her alive. The monster.

Only it wasn't a monster. She exhaled, a breath of pure bliss. She didn't ever want to let go of this feeling, the burning through her body and the lightning in the air. The power. Deep inside her, she felt the primal urge, the raw panic, rising at the thought of locking this feeling up. She had to get the necklace away from her, had to stop them from putting it back on her. She had to throw it overboard, destroy it! Stomp it underfoot and strike it with lightening.

The storm around her pulsed and hummed, no longer angry, but warm. It was so warm, like a mother's arms. Embracing her, taking what she had and giving what it had in return. What had she been thinking? She couldn't let them stop this. It was alive, pulsing and flowing and so, so powerful. Yellow bolts streaked downwards, dangerously close to the masts of the ship. Several more people screamed. She was so free. She gasped like taking her first breath, like she hadn't been able to breathe in so long, and opened her eyes. She extended her arms, and the electricity grazed against her body, ran up and down her arms, made her shiver. Alive. This was what it meant to be alive.

Two strong hands clasped around her wrists, pulling them together with force, and she screamed in outrage. She felt shocks run from her body into his, and Bel jolted, but he held on.

"This isn't how it's meant to be," His voice carried like a booming thunder by her ear, full of authority, but an underlying gentleness and sorrow she had heard before.

"No!" She yelled, yanking with her whole body to get away from him. His grip didn't budge. "No, you can't!"

He pressed both of her hands to the ground as someone else drew nearer.

Before it even touched her skin, she could feel it. It was the necklace, already reaching in to rip the magic out of her body. To restrain her again. It was being brought closer.

She thrashed against his grasp, shrieking and sobbing and doing everything in her power to try to pull out of his grasp. Why had she told him to do this? She screamed, pulling harder, and lightning arched again, but it barely flickered across the sky this time. "Betrayer," she sobbed. "Betrayer!"

His grip on her tightened, and he pinned her to the ground. The boards of the ship beneath them quivered as the energy inside of her was briefly trapped between them. There was a horrible, sickening feeling as Kniss's hands found their way to her neck, and Spider could feel the power leaving her; getting trapped away in the stone. It was like a part of her was getting swallowed up. Stolen, and tucked away. The boards beneath her cracked and splintered with the energy buzzing in the air.

In one last act of defiance, Spider tried to wring her hands from Bel's grasp, to pull away and stop them from locking her up, but his hands were like cuffs, rigid and uncompromising. It was too late. She would never be free. She cried out in pain, fully bawling and shaking.

The clasp clicked into place behind her neck, and everything stiffened, energy popping and fizzing and imploding as it traveled to her chest, past her collarbone, into her throat, choking her as it swirled its way into the stone. Spider couldn't breathe, couldn't scream, couldn't think. Everything that had been infinite had now turned into a pitch-black nothingness, surrounding and filling her so fully that she slumped completely against the boards underneath her, head making an audible thump as it hit the wood--gone. She was gone. No, she was back. She was back.

When her vision finally returned, it was spotty, and she found herself staring up at the faces of Bel and Kniss, looking down at her. Both of them were kneeling on either side. She was no longer being restrained by anything but the necklace and the thoughts suffocating in her head. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, and nausea swarmed in her stomach like bees.

"It's over," Bel said.

For a moment, his eyes seemed orange. When she blinked, they returned to their usual golden hue. His brows furrowed in concern.

Spider stared senselessly upward at them, shivering, her entire body trembling. Her head hurt from where she'd hit it, and pounded from the inside like the magic was knocking at a door inside her skull. Everything spun around her in a fuzzy mess, and she closed her eyes again to try to hold back the urge to retch.

"Did I kill anyone?" She gasped, still out of air as she finally tried to push herself up. "Did the lightning kill anyone?"

A pause.

"No," Kniss answered.

Spider sighed breathlessly, then felt herself begin to cry again, tears streaming down her face. She'd made it through. They'd gotten the necklace back on and stopped her. He'd kept his word.

"We made it through the storm," Bel said softly. "Your plan worked."

She shuddered, still crying. She began to laugh but it just turned into another sob as she nodded wordlessly.

"I told you," Kniss said quietly, bending down towards Spider and whispering it in her ear. "I told you we'd make it through."

Bel reached down and took Spider's hand, pressing what felt like a piece of cloth into it.

"For your tears," he muttered faintly.

Spider took it without a word. She had to compose herself; crews fell apart seeing their captains vulnerable like this. They sunk into the ocean and never surfaced again. And there would be questions now--loads of them. Where the extra energy had come from, and why Belxibis and Kniss had both stood by Spider, rather than manning the ship during the storm. And how could she answer those questions? Honestly? Spin some sort of tale that made more sense than this one? She couldn't lie to her crew, but she didn't know if they could handle the truth either.

She shook her head. It didn't matter right now. What mattered was that all of them were alive. That was enough to dwell on. She pushed her braids back--several had fallen out of the hairband keeping them out of her face--and took another deep, shaky breath. They had made it through the storm. She had made it. She hadn't known she could do that.

"Thank you," she said to Bel, grabbing onto his wrist before he had a chance to move away. "You didn't betray me. You didn't."

Bel hesitated then nodded, offering her a small smile. "I know," he said faintly.

Spider watched him as he walked away, as the crew began to prepare for what was next, for the end of it all. She didn't know if he believed her.

Once upon a time in the living room that was now beneath the sea, Seir and the sister who would kill him sat crosslegs at the coffee table. They both leaned up onto their ankles to see down into the rectangular baking pan as a thin drizzle of batter descended from their father's spoon.

"I imagine it this way, Berry," Azazel said, his goggles glinting from the sunlight through the window behind him. "Time creates our physical plane. Everything we do, everything that results, happens because of something moving through time."

"And if you toss a fish to a surgeon hawk, it'll rain blood. I'm familiar with cause and effect." Berith was sitting on the couch, just outside of the window's light. "Physical consequences are my entire line of work."

Seir put his nose close to the line of batter and took in the sweet, rich scent. His sister walked her fingers casually around the edge of the pan.

Azazel went on. "That time doesn't just exist in place, though. It moves forward, leaves a trail." He hovered the spoon over the baking pan, drawing rows that seeped together and formed a layer of golden cream.

Seir marveled. "The time makes a real plane! And you can put magic on top of it!"

Azazel beamed. "That's right! The River is said to exist outside of our own plane."

The sister sulked, tapping her finger into the batter. "Yeah, well. Time isn't in a baking pan."

"It might not be," Azazel admitted, dipping his spoon back into his bowl and doling out more batter. "But we can say for certain that it began. And for us, it ends."

"Azazel," Berith scolded. "It's a little early to bring that up."

"Not for me," Seir boasted. "I saw Mr. Fisher twist a cod's head clean off once."

He made the motion with his hands. "One day, that'll happen to me too."

"Nobody's going to do that to you," Azazel assured him. "In any case, if we can imagine beginnings and endings, then who's to say that these boundaries couldn't form one big baking pan instead? Maybe we just haven't oozed out to the borders yet."

He moved the spoon back over the pan. "When that happens, our whole plane might fill up with time, looping back over itself. It might have already. So when you're dipping your finger in, Paimon, you're not just tasting a moment, but all of the moments that spilled beneath it."

"Mmmm." The sister put her finger in her mouth. "Tastes like metaphor."

"Hey, I want some!" Seir protested.

"It'll taste better when it's done," Berith said pointedly. "And when will it be done, Azazel?"

"Just a moment." Azazel filled in the corners, smoothing out the top of the cream. "So yes, if time is confined to a plane, its shape within that plane could be anything at all. But you'd only be able to observe that with magic. And even then, you'd need another reference point to describe time's shape. If you can divide reality into planes -- no, if you could divide another plane from reality itself, then you could traverse time. Maybe even mold it."

Grinning, he set the batter-covered spoon down on the coffee table. The sister, who'd been enduring his speech for this moment, quickly snatched it up and ran off. Seir got up and ran behind her, begging for a taste. Berith sighed and got up to shut the window as Azazel carried the baking pan back into the kitchen.

"Of course, no matter how many layers time makes with itself, it'll always move forward," he said.

As the sister ran through the house, spoon held high, she felt the batter ooze down her arm all the way to her ankles, until she was sloshing through it. Then that layer loosened, and suddenly the water had reached her knees. Her house filled with seawater, and as Paimon turned her head back to see if her brother was still coming after her, all she saw was the runic golem, melting away into a final layer of light.

Paimon snapped to from the daydream. The smell of seawater was still all around her, of course, soaked into the deckboards from the storm they'd passed through.

Behind them in the sky was the violent corral of clouds, still close enough that the thunder reached them in faint ripples. There was a noticeable curve to the clouds' grouping; the storm formed a hollow ring, and they were sailing for its center.

Now that Railyn and Tyri (and Spider, somehow) had carved their path through the storm, the crew had set about preparing for calm seas. Even smooth sailing had a lot of work involved; the deck was alive with hustle as Marble quickly mopped past her legs. Hack and Bel were leaning back to pull a rope for the sail hoist; they dug their heels in until their backs were parallel to the ground. Valno leapt across the rigging nets, tying on the sail as it billowed with each new fastening.

Geida was running barrels and cannonballs across the deck to counterbalance a wooden cantilever, which dangled Zefra over the side of the ship as she slathered pitch over a repair plug. The carpenter was taking it slow as per the doctor's orders, but she'd insisted on fixing the ship as quickly as possible. Kniss was carrying around a spare bucket and mop. She hadn't noticed Paimon yet, but it was clear the tools would be intended for her if she did.

Paimon took a deep breath of sea air and tried to focus up. It wasn't like her to space out while sober. But then again, she'd stayed up all of last night working on her contribution to the crew.

She walked up the ship until she was at the bow. There, she pulled a cloth-wrapped baton from her shirt and held it aloft like a batter spoon, letting the winds spill it open.

The flag furled out behind her in a stunning display. The letters, burned in with sticks of warmweed, outlined their quest, while smudged splashes of half-dried pitch served as an insignia. Paimon put her foot up on the prow, in imitation of the famous fisherman paintings of Nua Port. She declared their purpose into the blue horizon. "We will...!"

It suddenly occurred to her that their only objective had already been reached. The old man in the cave (cave? or was it some sort of dungeon?) had told them to meet each other and flee Synilas. Certainly they'd run into some obstacles along the way, but they'd managed it with flying colors and all of their fingers. They were even up by one cat.

But looking back, it hadn't felt like enough. The Synua Royal Guard had destroyed Serion Village, caging the villagers for what they knew now were the Idora's cruel experiments. They hadn't found a proper supply for hybroth, either, and bluecough was due to spread through Nua Port just like it had with Syna. They had been able to beat Mythica at the sea fort, but what had that truly accomplished? The Idora's forces were as vast as the kingdom, and even wiping out their fleet had been a hollow victory.

Maybe everything would have been different if they'd managed to save Lettie.

Paimon had tried to put the whole situation out of her head. After all, it was better to focus on making sure there were still people around to apologize to. Time, regardless of its baking pan limits, had to keep flowing. But this had been gnawing at her ever since that talk with her mother on the back porch.

Gosh, her mom. The architect of so much of Paimon's life, her mentor and tormentor. Deep down, she still hadn't forgiven her. Her mother had only begun to respect her because of her conviction, but she could just as easily let her down again. Paimon couldn't even ask her to apologize until she proved her wrong: This prophecy wasn't just about clinging to purpose for self-esteem, like Berith had said. It was about becoming something new, something capable of helping others.

Deep down, Paimon wondered when the purpose would come. She wondered if this time, she could make a difference. Or maybe she was still trapped in a baking pan, living moments looped back onto themselves.

"What are you doing?" Paimon turned around to see Spider standing behind her. The captain had been blown about the most by the storm, but had made quick work rallying the crew to preparations. Those who had exhausted their magic in the storm were recuperating belowdecks, attended by Gibs and Eli. That left one slacker standing at the bow of the ship.

Paimon held out the flag as though it were self-explanatory. "I made this."

Some of the crew members had stopped their work, wandering over curiously. Spider regarded the homemade flag, nonplussed. "You made this?"

"Yes captain, scavenged the materials myself," Paimon said mock-dutifully.

Marble glanced ruefully at the end of his foreshortened mop handle. "So that's where it went."

"Seeing as we're about to be making land soon, I thought it'd be appropriate to plant a symbol of our quest. We've been all around Synilas, but nobody really knows who we are yet! We have all this magic, but what good is that if nobody knows they can count on us? I figured this way, they'd have something to look up to."

Half of what she was saying was just salesmanship, but she wouldn't mind if they also managed to inspire anyone. It certainly wouldn't be Spider, who sighed a bit as some of the pitch came off on her fingers. Strangely, she didn't seem that annoyed about it either.

"It's a nice sentiment, but you'd also be claiming the land by putting your flag down on it. It might give off the wrong impression." Spider studied it for a moment, then sighed again. "Then again, it's not like we can reattach the mop handle now. Marmar," she said, tossing the flag baton to the boatswain, "have Valno hang this somewhere high. And out of the way."

Marble shrugged. "If you're sure."

Across the ship, Idra locked eyes with Paimon and began zeroing in on her, mop and bucket in hand. Paimon quickly readdressed Spider. "Well, captain, if that's all, I'd best be returning to my duty now."

Spider raised an eyebrow. "And what would that be?"

"Substitute lookout, of course."

Spider now gathered her brow in her thumb and forefinger. "We don't need one of those at the moment. We're all due to spot land any minute now."

"Yes, but someone has to actually do it," Paimon said. "Or else we'll be sailing forever. So just leave it to me, captain."

Spider, at a loss for words, just stared at her for a moment, before glancing over Paimon's shoulder. She then coughed and gestured for Paimon to turn around.

Paimon whirled on the spot. Pressed like a leaf between the horizon, a faint line of green could be seen over miles of sea.

Eyes filled with excited tears, she turned back to Spider, who reluctantly nodded permission.

Paimon thrust her arm forth, pointing out to their final destination, shouting triumphantly, "Land ho!"

A resounding cry went up from the crew as they paused momentarily, taking in the sight of the island within a day's journey. Then they returned to their work, leaving Paimon in the same pose, Spider behind her, arms folded. Kniss now loomed over them both, Paimon quickly shrinking in the first mate's shadow.

"Substitute lookout," Spider said, "I congratulate you on a job well done and hereby discharge you from service with honors. Just--don't get in anyone's way." Spider glanced over at Kniss, who watched her with a steady gaze. Spider spun on her heel and walked away. "We make land in two hours. That, I guarantee."



It was slow sailing, as to the storm's pressure warped air outwards to the ring. Hack and Valno changed tack every twenty minutes, angling the sail back into the wind. Paimon had plenty of time to get acquainted to her woefully short mop (after stowing her flag, Marble had wordlessly swapped their implements).

More and more of her friends emerged from the depths of the ship: first Elidyr came to relieve Marble of the mop, telling Paimon that Railyn and Tyri were already fully recovered. The pair in question were the next to appear on the deck, bringing Marble's bean stew and seabiscuit. Tyri carefully set down a mess table and populated it with dishes that Gibs was bringing up from below. Railyn ran a bowl over to Valno, who insisted they eat while sitting on the sail boom together. Paimon made a mental note to grill him about it at an inopportune moment.

They were now far enough from the storm that the winds had gone quiet, and they could float along without risk of being sucked back into the maelstrom. Paimon finished coating the deck and idled by the table, waiting for the others to congregate.

"Lady's excited to be on solid ground again," Elidyr said as the winged cat climbed his interior sleeve. "She's been complaining nonstop about the smell."

"Really?" Paimon put her hands on her hips and leaned down to the cat's eye level. "I haven't heard anything about that."

In response, Lady daintily reached out with one paw and slapped Paimon across the face. Paimon rubbed her cheek and drew back. "She's more of a cat of action than words."

"Tabby's curled up in some sailcloth downstairs," Tyri mentioned. "He thinks he runs the place now."

They chuckled. It had been a while since they'd had this sense of ease. Paimon squinted at Tyri. "So are you able to see a little better?"

"It comes and goes. Below decks is generally better, but I think that's because I'm farther away."

Elidyr raised an eyebrow. "Farther away from Spider?"

Tyri nodded wordlessly.

Deprived of their magic this past week and a half, Paimon hadn't been sure how to feel. She'd spent over half of her life running from magic, and now that it was finally under her control, it suddenly stopped existing. And now they were no closer to helping anyone.

She knew it was much harder for Tyri and Railyn, whose magic connected them to the world and their companions. Her own experience with magic had been isolating, and it seemed that the captain was the same way.

Of course they'd all seen what happened during the storm. Gnarled silver lightning had burst up from Spider, and yet it had just been splashback from whatever force had crashed down into her and made her its conduit. It was clear now that the anti-magic stone she wore wasn't to keep the magic out -- it was to keep the magic in. And now, the ebb of its absorption was at an all time low. Bel and Kniss had just barely managed to contain her. Would they have to unleash her again to leave the storm? If they did, what would happen if they couldn't bring her back?

Bel knew more about this than any of them, and now he was walking over with a smile on his face after helping pull Zefra back up over the railing. Paimon decided that it didn't matter what Spider Monkey was hiding. After all, they were both placing their trust in the same tiefling.

"Hel-lo, sailor!" Paimon called, invoking generations of Nua Port flirting culture with her inflection.

Bel immediately broke down laughing. "Stop that."

"We saved you the seat of honor," Paimon continued, patting the seat next to her. "Head of the ship."

"I don't think that's what the head is," Eli said slyly.

Bel plunked down between them and tossed his biscuit into the soup like a log into fire. "Here's to weather well weathered," he said, echoing an old roadman's phrase.

"And to whether we'll weather well," Tyri recited. They clunked their bowls together.

"Weather? I hardly know her!"

Paimon realized that that last rejoinder hadn't come from her mouth, so she looked up to see Valno standing over them, grinning like he'd solved a sphinx's riddle. Railyn was standing next to him, looking embarrassed.

"Mind if I take a seat?" he asked, plopping down next to Elidyr. "Don't tell Spider, but I was thinking I'd join up with the Synua Royal Fleet, finally go straight-edge. Piracy's just too dull!"

"I suppose you won't be needing your bunk, then." Geida was walking behind him, nonchalantly looking for a place to sit. "I could use the extra room now, in fact."

Paimon scooted to make a space between her and Tyri, but Geida purposefully skipped over it and sat on Tyri's other side, grunting a hello to no one in particular. Paimon supposed that relations between her and Spider's crew could never be perfect, but this was a good start.

Hack and Gibs were next in line, putting their bowls down next to Geida and eating in exhausted silence. Marble filled in the gap between Paimon and Tyri, fidgeting as he waited for someone to make a comment about the soup. Soon multiple conversations were circulating the mess table, eddying into laughter at half-heard jokes. They'd made it to the heart of the sea, weathered the storm that had slicked them all together.

Zefra was one of the last to join. "There's a split in the boom," she reported cheerlessly as she sat down next to Hack. "I've already used up all our lumber just to keep the hull tight."

"We're about to run up on the Synua Royal Fleet," Gibs pointed out. "Play your cards right, and you could have an even bigger ship to maintain."

Zefra shuddered. "No thank you."

Hack chewed his biscuit thoughtfully. "You know, my uncle had a ship as long as the Larnevi Bay. You could get in and start walking, cross the sea in an hour."

Geida rolled her eyes. "Is this the same uncle that sewed a dragon's stomach into himself so he could breathe fire?"

"Nah. That one's on my mother's side," Hack deadpanned.

Gradually, the conversations grew to a din. Paimon finished her food and laced her fingers together, snatching bits of reaction from each of the joined crews. Her eyes landed on Railyn, who was staring down into his bowl.

And to Railyn's side, opposite Valno, was an empty space where Railyn set his bowl down, only barely pecked at. Where a certain dragon would have been. In the midst of the general commotion, Railyn's eyes were vacant and distant.

Marble tried to catch his eye. "Is everything alright with your soup?"

Railyn smiled sheepishly. "It's good. I'm just not hungry."

"Not hungry." Marble nodded, but his frown seemed to conduct the storm of possible criticisms inside his head.

Gibs side-eyed the boatswain, then tilted her head back, noisily slurping her soup. "Beans are nice and pulpy, the seasoning's subtle and economic. I'd rate this soup nine tails out of nine. Kniss, what say you?"

The first mate stared darkly into her own bowl. Eventually, she looked up and across the table to Marble. "It's a good soup. As good as Ferrul's."

At the mention of this name, a pall came over Spider's crew. Valno leaned back on his palms and stared up at the sky. Geida blew out a long sigh. Marble knuckled his brow and thumbed tears out of his eyes.

Paimon leaned over to Bel. "Who's Ferrul?" she whispered.

Bel's eyes were far away. "Someone we never got to meet," he murmured.

"There's a sentence I often hear at the ends of fairytales." Kniss had stood up. "'And they returned home, all journeys ventured, all fortunes gained.' For some, the best thing you can do is go home at the end of it all."

Paimon thought of her childhood home, at the bottom of the ocean.

Kniss hesitated for a second, glancing at Spider before deferring to words. "But that's what makes the sea so terrifying, isn't it? Because it can take you, and you will be nowhere, and you will return nowhere."

Paimon saw Spider, sitting quietly with her eyes fixated on some unseen point out in the water. Paimon looked at her necklace, her face--the storm behind her eyes. It was unnerving, really. She didn't know how someone could look so serious pretty much all the time, like the life had been sucked out of them. But in this moment, it felt like it had been sucked out of all of them, everyone onboard. Silent and somber.

"Welly-" --A muted sob from Marble-- "-always hated the phrase, 'lost at sea.' She said she'd never get lost, not even if she died."

Paimon chuckled awkwardly. When Hack glanced over at her, she looked away, ashamed.

"Now that she and the others have passed on," Kniss said, "I'm inclined to believe her. None of them were lost at sea. They did not die far from their home, because like us, the sea was their home, as was our adventure, as were we."

She raised her bowl. "So as we continue on this adventure, they are with us still. They are at this table, and so I raise this meal to Ferrul. To Welly. To Cricket. To Jinero."

The crew raised their bowls, their heads bowed as Kniss continued. "To Kaslin. To Medhi. To Rock."

Bel met Spider's gaze and raised his bowl as well. Kniss turned to Spider, who finally raised her own bowl. Her voice was gravelly, quiet. "To Berkoda," Spider said. "To Fold." Her eyes trailed around the group, and there was still the storm, but it felt soft somehow--connected.

"To Gambear," Gibs said.

"To Bessamir." Hack nodded firmly saying the name, but his arm trembled.

"To Hendel," Zefra whispered.

"To Captain Darrot," Spider said, "who used to say he could swim so well, the sea would part in his path."

Kniss chuckled a little, then turned away, wiping her eyes against her sleeve. "He was so annoying with that, but damn, was he right. Best swimmer in the whole fucking place."

"He gave all of us a chance," Spider said. "Even if we didn't deserve it. We're together because of him."

"He always said he loved the sound of the ocean," Marble said softly. "He said it always lulled him to sleep."

Slowly, the rest of their group lifted their bowls in solidarity. Paimon was torn. On one hand, she had no respect for Spider's greed, the treasure hunt that had resulted in their conscription. On the other hand, here was someone with absolute conviction, someone who was able to transmute loss into sacrifice. Could she do that for anyone they couldn't save? For her family? For Seir?

Paimon could hear the names still, but they kept slipping from her head, made incorporeal by an absence of memory. They'd never met these people, and never would. Although the dead were still here, it was precious few that got to keep them. Paimon looked at her companions and wondered who would keep her. She'd come so close to losing them, so many times. And the painful part, always, was having to go on, knowing that not only the prophecy but she too was forever incomplete.

Paimon thought of time, the trail of batter put behind her and yet filling the pan anyways, omnipresent. It would keep going for as long as she was holding the spoon. What was it all for? Was that her decision, alone?

She raised her bowl, defeated. It had more purpose than a flag ever could.

"To each one, once more." Spider brought the bowl to her lips, as everyone else did the same. Hers was empty, however, so it was as though she were blowing into the shell, playing an instrument. With this simple action, she called back the dead.

She remained standing for a while longer as the crew returned to eating, her eyes locked on the horizon and her shoulders caving with its weight. Eventually, she spoke. "Chew soft and listen. We're drifting into rowing range of the shore right now. I'm going to have us drop anchor and put out the lifeboat."

Paimon turned and looked over her shoulder. The coastline had come into sharp focus while everyone was talking. Its color was steely gray, though its texture was far more nebulous from this distance. What drew her attention much more was the fate of the Synua Royal Fleet.

The proud ships sat with their chins propped up onto the beach, like the children who would dangle from the Nua Port pier. A few of them were rolled over, their barnacled hulls slow-fried by the sun. The peaceful vessels spelled a grim tale for their inhabitants.

"Kniss is in charge here until we return," Spider continued. "I'll be leading the landing party, the names of whom I'll be reading off now."

"Tyri." The mage stiffened. Of course she was an obvious pick for scouting the dangers ahead, but being in range of Spider's anti-magic put her at risk even more.

"Railyn." The young man looked up hollowly. Might as well bring both mages to the party.

"Elidyr." Paimon's dear mobster looked gravely to the island. If there was anyone still alive on that shore, he had a shot at bringing them back.

"You." Spider still couldn't really say Paimon's name. But their eyes met, and Paimon offered a shrug of understanding. She'd already made up her mind to go, but it was nice to have some government approval.

"Captain Belxibis." Bel was already rising from his seat. He made for the rowboat, ready to lower it into the sea and start their mission.

Spider nodded. "That will be all."

The rest of her crew sat in stunned silence for a moment before the protests began.

"Absolutely not," Kniss said. "No, Spider. I don't care how useful they were-"

"Useful might be an overstatement," Spider replied. "But this way, we separate the means to get through the storm wall from the means to sail to it. They won't try anything as long as you all remain here."

"But what about you?" Gibs asked.

Spider thumbed her necklace. "You'll know if something happens."

The group went silent again. Paimon could imagine the coastline lighting up with grey lightning, like a thundercloud detonating at a fog's range. She sensed that sarcastically promising Spider Monkey that they would not kill her would only make things worse.

Instead, Bel was the one to speak. "Don't let us come back without her." His eyes were resolute. "We're all in this together, and if that doesn't mean anything, then neither do we."

Valno whistled. "Well now I want to go."

For once, no one checked him. The crew made preparations to drop the anchor.

Paimon stepped into the rowboat and felt it sway from the hooks. She immediately dropped low until her legs stopped wobbling, and then reached back up for Tyri. "I'm right down here," she said. "Women and children first."

Railyn and Elidyr climbed in next, and Elidyr had to scoot a bit so that Bel could walk over him to the back of the boat. Spider climbed in last, and remained standing to steady the rowboat against the ropes as they descended. Hitting the water felt like putting their feet in glue. Bel and Spider nocked the oars to their locks, dipping them into the water to pull forward. They managed to swing themselves away from the hull of their old ship, the new vessel rising up with the waves that made for the grey shore.

As they went, Paimon looked back up at the ship. Her homemade flag billowed from the top of the crow's nest, barely a speck against the midday sky. She'd made it much too small. Still she swelled with pride as she began to row. If Spider had noticed her mood or the reason for it, she didn't bring it up. Each one of them had an oar, but the back of the boat did most of the heavy lifting. Soon Paimon could see the sand shoals beneath them; where there should have been brushwoods of wavering kelp housing fish the size of fingernail clippings, there was nothing but a steely gradient, the land getting closer and closer beneath them.

Paimon thought they had run aground for a full minute before they did. "Everyone out," Spider said. "Let's push it up onto the beach."

Stepping into the ocean after such a long voyage was the oddest feeling Paimon had ever experienced. Even though the sand met her feet just below the water, the return of solidity was almost too much for her to bear. She set a shoulder to the boat and greedily dug for purchase in the sand, relishing the weight of the world pushing back on her.

They dropped the boat onto the sand and hunched over for a second, reconciling the strength of their knees. Despite looking sharp, the gray sand was actually fine to the point of pillowy softness, with some granular darkness mixed in between. The darkness permeated the sand further up the shore, forming rocky outcroppings whose faces shone pale purple in the daylight. It slanted upwards with quadratic intensity, pushing into a near vertical cliff face towering over them. Veins of calcic red rock glossed over the sharp glints of violet beneath, gemstones embedded fifty feet up.

Paimon nudged Railyn. "Think Ivern would want any of those for a hoard?"

"I've never asked," Railyn admitted. The sight of the crystals seemed to bring back memories for him.

Spider had already picked her way to the cliff face, examining it for a way up or around. "There's a cave," she called back to them. "It's got some running water, so I think it connects somewhere further up."

Once more, the captain had intentionally put herself at a distance from them. Paimon understood the practical reason, but also that it would really suck if something happened to her while they weren't looking and they had to explain that to her crew. Still, there was work to be done on this beach, a task for the seer of prophecy.

Tyri was standing on the crest of a hill where the sand had banked up against a boulder. She steadied herself against the rock, her back turned to the rest of the group. Her Primal Sense was cast outwards, grasping for any trace of life.

Paimon walked up behind her, and as she did, she had to keep craning her neck back. From the sea, it was easy to minimize the navy fleet ships as boats in the distance, stilled by indifferent nature. But now, she could see just how grand these behemoths were, how terrible the force that had thrust them aground.

Their great wooden beams had twanged back like lute strings, their prows cutting deep furrows in the beach, erupting the ground like a divine shovel as they keeled to the side. The impact of one's fall had flattened it against the ground, bursting it into pieces on the sand.

Paimon saw the rune sphere sticking out of the ground in front of her. It too was a thing meant to shatter with incredible force, returning to its quiet form after the devastation had ceased. She picked it up, and held it in her hand, clutching it so tight she might crush it.

Time draped over itself, the present filling in the past.

"Is there anyone left?" she asked.

Tears pocked the sand beneath Tyri's feet. "No," she said.

Paimon looked again to the grand ships of Synua. Then she hugged Tyri tight, leaning their shoulders into one another, and the two of them cried and cried but did not fall.

The air was heavy with the sobriety of hundreds of lives lost and forgotten on a sandy shore. No soul remained on the island beside theirs, and the evidence left behind - the sheer number of vessels lost - was more than Bel could take in. It left them with more questions than answers, not just about the eternal storm, or the island under their feet, but just how many people were waiting back home to hear back from loved ones who would never return.

Surviving this was a feat, but Bel determined to take no pride in their luck.

Moving forward, they had to do better: work as a team, play to each other's strengths, and look out for one another. If they couldn't learn that, they weren't going to make it very far.

Not that they knew exactly where they were going, but even as they searched for answers, they needed to learn.

Paimon and Tyri's long embrace finally broke as they dried their tears. Spider didn't climb down from her perch, but she hopped down a ledge, drawing an inch closer, which was probably to the level of empathy she had the emotional energy to show currently.

Ever since the storm, there'd been a storm in her eyes. Fear of her own power kept her at bay, and he wished he knew how to tame it for her. Unfortunately, they were both in the same boat: they would have to learn how to make their powers work for them, and how to trust themselves with it.

Gods knew he was still learning how to trust himself with his.

He looked up at the sun.

"We'll need to investigate the island," Bel said, speaking up after the respectful pause ran its course. "But we'll cover more ground if we split into groups. I think we should check the cave Spider spotted as well as the wrecks. The latter may be more treacherous since we don't know how stable the wreckage will be."

"I'm in no state to go climbing over the wreckage," Elidyr muttered, glancing about at the group.

"Which is why I think you should go with Tyri to the cave," Bel said. Elidyr nodded as if to say that was a fair assessment. "Railyn, would you be up for joining them?"

Railyn nodded, his eyes seemingly staring past Bel like he was focused on something far off in the distance. Bel briefly pouted in worry, but he would have to check on Railyn later.

Spider shot Paimon a disappointed glare from the side of the cliff, likely from the realization that they would be stuck together with Bel in this arrangement.

"What?" Paimon sniffled back the last of her snot in defiance. "You were the one who found the cave. You've got only yourself to blame here."

Spider looked to Bel blankly instead, effectively ignoring Paimon. Bel caught a glimpse of Elidyr rolling his eyes.

"When do we set out, Captain?" Spider asked.

Bel glanced at the others. There really was no use in waiting.

"Now," he answered. "Tyri, if you run into any trouble, would you be able to send up a magical flare?"

Dabbing her cheeks dry, Tyri nodded. "I could do that," she said, more confidently. "Or something of the sort."

Bel smiled softly. "Good. We'll keep an eye out and come as quickly as we can if needed. If we run into trouble--" he turned, looking to Paimon. "Is there something you could manage with your rune sphere?"

"Provided Miss No Fun Allowed is far enough away," Paimon replied, indicating Spider's necklace. Spider didn't even glance her way. She was trying not to show it, but Bel could tell she was completely exhausted by the day's events already, and while she wouldn't like to sit something out, she could probably use it.

"I think we could manage that if needed," Bel said. "It's settled then: we'll keep our eyes and ears open, but first and foremost look after those in your party. We'll meet back here when we're all done, but if we don't hear from either party in a few hours -- go searching."

"Aye, Captain," Spider said.

Tyri offered a meager salute. Elidyr nodded again, raising one hand to keep Lady balanced on his shoulder. Bel briefly reached over and gave Lady a fond scratch under her chin. She leaned into the touch, purring softly.

"All else fails," he murmured to the cat. Lady nodded, or Bel thought she did. She seemed a little distracted. "You fly over and find me. Got it?"

"What, I don't get a pet?" Paimon asked.

Bel laughed, turning around and patting her head teasingly.

"There," he said.

Paimon cast a smug glance at Lady. Lady was already not paying attention, turning her head away with a sniff. Bel just chuckled, walking to the right, westward on the shore.

"The cave is ground level, right?" he asked, looking up to Spider, who was waiting for the group to scatter before climbing down.

"Yes," she answered. "Should be walkable." She pointed again in its direction.

Elidyr murmured to Tyri about directions, and they quickly worked out that they would lead the way together. Railyn followed behind them, and the three headed off eastward, beyond the cliff face.

Lady, still perched on Elidyr's shoulder, turned around to look back at Bel, blinking slowly. He flashed her a faint smile and a wave, watching as the trio made enough distance for Spider to hop down. Knowing that Spider still planned to keep her distance, Bel only waited for her to touch the sand before waving to Paimon to follow him at his side.

And, almost immediately, Paimon opened her mouth.

"How's the breeze back at the helm, captain?" she called. "Give that rudder a good yank if you want us to walk somewhere."

Spider, without an ounce of emotion in her voice, said, "I will put my axe through your spine."

In response, Paimon's hand went to her waist, swishing her coat aside to reveal a belt with a hexagonal gem. She twisted it in sections, and an eerie blue light cinched her torso inwards until her waist was the size of a coin. She looked smugly back at Spider and put her hands on her hips, which was basically clapping.

Honestly, Bel stared at her waist longer than he was proud of, mostly out of horror. The unnatural size was absurdly jarring for his mind to comprehend, and he wasn't sure if the magical item she wore was based on transmutation magic or illusory. Either way, it was a disturbing sight, even if Paimon did it solely for a joke.

Bel glanced back at Spider, who just stared with an exhausted look that made it clear that even though she had absolutely no expectations for Paimon, she was still somehow disappointed.

"Cool trick," Bel said without enthusiasm. "Can you make your waist normal again, please?"

"Once we get to the ship," Paimon replied. "I want to make a good first impression."

Bel blinked. "On whom?" he asked.

Paimon didn't answer and sauntered off while humming, her spine moving up and down like an accordion. From behind him, Spider said dryly, "Whoever it is, she is going to fail."

And that seemed the end of it, for the time being.

The walk over was longer than expected, and by the time they made it to the edge of the wreckage, sand caked their legs up to their knees. Bel paused at the foot of a caved-in hull, staring up at the exposed half of the ship, the other half lost to the water, and how it towered over them, pointing to the sky. A crater in its center showed a splintered entrance to a room within what remained of its walls, but getting there would be a challenge.

He didn't really want to climb a ship with his claws again. He began to walk around, in search of another way in that wasn't twenty feet up.

Out by the water, the air felt dry - like the storm had not only left the ships lifeless but even the air devoid of moisture. Bel's skin itched as the hot sun beat down on them and they moved out of the ship's shadow.

Ah. There it was.

On the opposite end, there was another hole, where missing floorboards gave way to a sideways storage room at the base, where the bottom of the ship's lopsided half met the sand.

A low water level began to trickle in, and the slow-moving waves stopped short of his feet, pulling back into the ship's base.

"Over here!" he called.

Paimon broke off from speaking and tilted her head til her ear faced the ground. "Odd little hideyhole," she commented. "Who's up first?"

"If anything breaks under my weight, it won't hold under yours," Bel said. "So, I can go first."

"You should be careful," Spider said. "That wood is rotted. If you don't walk like you're on ice, you'll fall."

"I don't have much experience with ice," Bel said, looking back at her.

Spider watched him a moment, like trying to decide how much she wanted to do before she sighed. "Alright, you want your center of gravity to be above your hips. See?" She demonstrated, changing the way she was standing and drawing her feet closer together. "When you're taking steps, you want them to be small and almost like--scoots, instead of fully lifted steps. Does that make sense?"

Bel looked down at his feet, trying to imitate the movement described. He looked to Spider for approval.

Spider nodded. "Yep."

Great. Sounded like it was time to enter a rotting death trap.

"Give me some space, but follow after me," Bel said, approaching the splintered entrance.

He ducked to the side to avoid hitting a horn on the low clearance. The moment he stepped inside, he was hit with the pungent smell of sitting water and rotting wood. Something else more sour, but familiar, filled the air, like this space had yet to be disturbed by any outside hands. With how the ship was turned, the room was tilted on its side and anything that wasn't bolted or tied down had been tossed about, crushed against the wall that was now Bel's floor.

Most of what was piled at his feet looked like broken crates or barrels, confirming his suspicion that it had been a storage room in the lower belly of the ship. Cautious, he stepped into several inches of water, hearing the slosh around his boots as the water soaked through.

He inched forward, unable to see through the dark water at his feet. Some rotted shards of wood, metals, and other unidentifiable parts floated up with his movements. He had to wade around a pile of crates, bracing himself against what used to be the floor since the room was tilted to the side.

So far, so good.

"Seems secure," he called back, inching to the other end of the room, where the exit door hung shut, but loose on its hinges.

They'd have to push it open and climb through.

Paimon came in first, and when Bel pushed the door open, it fell off the hinges with no more than a shove. He caught it, and though it hit his fingers at an uncomfortable angle, he managed to carefully set it to the side, leaving the way out as a door-sized hole.

Looking down at what was a hall leading through the ship was a bit dizzying, with everything on its side. They'd have to crawl more than walk.

He glanced back at Paimon, who was already halfway across the room. Spider poked her head into the entryway, still keeping her distance. Assured they were both close behind, Bel climbed up into the doorway, unpleasantly met with a rotting piece of wood squelching under his hands.

He frowned to himself, scooting across the hall wall as he held his head to the side, displeased that whoever designed this hallway made it narrow, meaning there was little room to hold his head up with its dimensions turned the other way.

Craning his head back around to Paimon and Spider took more effort, but he managed to curl around and offer Paimon his hand to pull her up.

"Rotten wood, there," he said, so Paimon wouldn't have to grab it.

"I've got a pill for that," she muttered as she took his hand and climbed.

Bel let go of her hand when she was up.

"Spider, you on your way?" he called, unable to see her.

"Yes," she called back. "I'm following."

"Careful, it's sticky," he warned, starting the crawl forward on his elbows and knees.

"Better than slippery," she said. "You seeing anything so far?"

"Just some twee interior design," Paimon responded, staring down the upturned hall. Her mood had dampened with the air.

Bel passed a door - this one was above him. It was shut, so he had to reach up and push it open. Relieved to be able to sit up for a moment, he poked his head in and looked around.

Sailor's sleeping quarters. Just a bunch of empty hammocks and dirty clothes. He closed the door and kept crawling.

The next door, below him, he didn't have to push open, because it wasn't there. Crawling over the hole, he peered down into a waterlogged kitchen. Whatever remained of it was under deep, dark water, and pots and pans floated at the edge of the room.

It smelled like something died in there, though.

"Don't fall in," he said, continuing to the next door.

This one was gone as well, but the door was above them. Bel sat up again, looking into a much smaller, cramped room. But this one was full of...

Bel tilted his head.

Paimon's face thumped against his back. She wormed her way around his shoulder, trying to see past him. "What gives? ...Oh."

Gold. This was a treasure room, and one of the chests had been split open. Hundreds of gold coins spilled out over the wall - more gold than he'd ever seen in one place in his life, and it shone in the sun that spilled through the porthole, the shattered glass leaving it gaping.

Paimon crouched over the gold, the coins reflecting a dozen disease-like sun spots into her face. For once, she had nothing to say.

"I don't think this is what we're looking for," Bel said distractedly, scanning the room.

A fallen silver statue of some elven figure laid atop another large chest, this one ornately adorned with gold at its seams, and face-down. It looked heavy, and behind it were several paintings wrapped in torn paper and cloths, looking damaged. Some had been punched through.

"What is it?" Spider called from behind, her voice echoing in the hallway as she drew closer.

Bel hesitated. When he wasn't looking, Paimon had orbited over to an ornate pearl necklace, each sphere a lustrous spiral. She picked it up and thumbed it warily. Spider pulled herself through the doorway and froze, her breath catching in her throat. Bel glanced at her and saw her eyes taking in every single gold coin, every single valuable. They were glinting.

They'd found the treasure room. If Bel wasn't here looking for information, he might've been more inclined to take advantage of it. That said, he didn't want to figure out a way to get all of this back to shore.

He knew he'd end up carrying most of it.

"We should keep looking," he said.

"You sure that's what the captain wants?" Paimon tossed the pearls up and down in her clutch. "She had her own reasons for coming here, didn't she?"

Spider tilted her head, and her eyes had a dangerous gleam behind them, reflecting the gold in the room. "So what if I did?" She said. "I got you here all the same."

"I amend my former suggestion," Bel said. "Let's not spend too much time in here. I'm sure they've hidden valuables in here, but I doubt we'll find records in here. I think that will be most useful to us."

"Oh, but the captain doesn't need any of that. She barely needed us, after all. Popped that pretty thing off and suddenly the storm was no problem." Paimon's eyes had narrowed to the stone in Spider's choker.

Spider's eyes flared in return. "Did the lightning singe you? I was almost hoping it would do more."

Paimon let the pearls clatter to the floor. She'd unstrung them one by one. "Much as I've loved being held hostage to your insecurity, I think I speak for everyone when I say I wish you'd figured this out the first time you followed the ship. Would have saved all of us a lot of trouble."

What didn't need to be said was now sinking in: If Spider had succeeded the first time, half of her crew would still be alive.

Spider charged at Paimon, tackling her, both of them sliding backward as gold coins tumbled and shifted on the ground. The clatter of the gold coincided with their thumps against the wall, which creaked under their weight.

Bel quickly pulled himself over the doorway's edge, climbing over to them. This was too much, even for them. Paimon had overstepped, and Spider lost her temper, and the last thing he needed was them biting each other's heads off before they made it back to the ship they sailed in on, which he was really hoping they'd get to do.

At least he'd left the squabbling children in his care, so Tyri or Elidyr didn't have to deal with their explosive immaturity.

"This is what you wanted, right?" Paimon said, spear-arming Spider's shoulder off from on top of her. "Does it feel like it's worth it now?" Her head bucked back as blood arced from her lip.

Spider didn't say anything, her face a picture of pure fury, and her only response was to grab Paimon's shirt with one hand, before using the other to punch her again.

Bel finally made his way over, pulling Spider off of Paimon.

"Pai--" however, was all he got to say.

The wood underneath them groaned loudly, and it snapped under his weight. As if the wood turned to dust, it caved beneath them unceremoniously, and the three of them crashed not through one wall: but two. The hall wall gave just as easily, and they fell further, wood, gold, and splinters flying.

Bel landed on his back, somehow ending up at the bottom of the dogpile.

Whatever room they landed in, it was dark, damp, and smelly. That was about all Bel could process with his head spinning and two bodies piled on top of him, one of which was currently crushing his windpipe with their...

Oh. That was Paimon's shoe.

Bel grunted, pulling his arm out from under a wooden board to push Paimon's foot away.

That hadn't been his brightest moment, adding his weight to theirs. But at least it got them to stop fighting.

Or so he thought. Paimon scooped up a switch of rotted wood that had fallen in with them. But instead of going for Spider, she smashed it against the wall, looking anguished as it snapped in her hand. She scoured for another thing to hit, and when she ran out of sticks, she put her fists through the rotten wood, bleeding with each splinter. Papers scattered from an overturned desk, sticking to the wet spots on the wall. She threw an inkwell, cracking it on the ground in a familiar motion.

"Paimon..." Bel wheezed, sitting up slowly.

From beside him, Spider groaned softly and pushed herself upwards, the wood groaning in turn beneath her.

"What have we been doing all this time?" Paimon's hair was ragged in her eyes. "We fight, we run, we fight, and we leave behind everything, everyone. Who have we saved? Other than saving Spider a few thousand Gildar." She stamped angrily, the brittle wood carrying her impact.

"Can we even save them?" Her blood dripped over a trembling lip. "How do we stop another Serion from happening, Bel? Another Lettie?"

Bel got to his feet with heavy footfalls, wary, now, of the boards beneath him, soaked through under three inches of water.

Lettie.

The room looked like it had once been the captain's quarters. A desk sat on its side, pressed against the wall, now their floor. A few of the drawers hung ajar, some emptied out onto the watery floor. But whatever else remained of the office didn't register, because now all he could think about was the little girl he failed.

They failed to save her town. They failed to save her family. He was her last hope, and he failed to find a cure.

And what hurt the most was that she'd died alone.

He should've been there when he was the only one who could.

"Paimon..." Bel said, softer, as realization sunk in.

This wasn't about Spider. This was weeks of pent-up turmoil, exploding inside of a beached ship. The wood in Paimon's hands was falling apart just as much as she was.

"Let's say we find out what the Idoras want. Let's say we find out what Synua wants. How is that going to matter when anyone we take that information to, dies for their trouble? We keep finding the truth, and the truth is that we can't change anything! Why," she seethed, "Why did it have to be us?"

"It doesn't have to be," Spider said softly, head tilted up and eyes staring at the room they had just left. "You could walk away. Leave it all behind." She rubbed the stone on her choker absent-mindedly, face blank and distant.

Bel pinched his eyes shut and rubbed the bridge of his nose, then dropped his hand to his side. He let out a heavy sigh because Spider was right.

It didn't have to be them. Even with this prophecy and these powers, they still had a choice.

"None of us asked for this," he said lowly. "And these last weeks have been a whirlwind. I know, right now, it feels hopeless."

A thin reed of light cut through the hull boards and flashed on Paimon's eye. Around it, her face contorted in darkness. "I know this wasn't what any of us could've imagined, but Bel -- didn't it ever feel like we could have made a difference? What happened to us?"

It was hard to say, considering there hadn't been an "us" not too long ago. Everything that had happened since that first bell had come so quickly, and it felt like their time on Spider's ship was spent reflecting, with no answers to come by. But Bel refused to believe that the power they'd been given was without a purpose.

"We still can," Bel said softly. "All of this isn't over yet."

A bitter laugh. Without seeing Paimon's mouth move, it felt like it was coming from the ship itself. "We were just supposed to leave Synilas. That's all the old man asked of us. And he hasn't asked anything since. At first," she said, glaring at Spider, "I thought it was just this vulture's rock, blocking the magic from reaching us. But I stepped out of her range the moment we got onto this island, and it's still just -- silent."

"There's still time," Bel said.

"Six days."

Bel blinked. "What?"

"Six days. Eight, if care is sufficient. That's how long bluecough takes to kill the average adult." Paimon had taken on a factual tone, ringing at the nadir of her exhaustion. "So many people have already run out of time because of us, Bel. And I can't give that back to them now."

Pained, Bel couldn't bring himself to retort her right away, because he felt it too. There was a weighty guilt - a sense of responsibility, for having power in the midst of an outbreak, but no power to stop it. He wanted to blame himself for it, too. But hearing it out of Paimon's mouth suddenly felt like hearing his own heart echo back at him, and he realized how dissonant it sounded.

It wasn't like they'd caused bluecough, or been responsible for its spread. Yes, their efforts hadn't worked, but at least they'd tried something, unlike the Idoras, who hogged the cure for themselves.

It had to be possible to bear responsibility without bearing it all.

"None of it feels worth it," Spider said suddenly. "You get close to people, and then..." She fell silent for a moment. "There doesn't seem much point in it when you're just going to hurt them anyway, does there? It almost seems a service to pull away. That way, at least if you get attached, they don't. They can leave with no regrets at all." She shrugged, seeming hopeless. "And they should. It would be better for them to leave."

Bel turned to look at Spider, feeling his heart drop for her sake.

Did everyone feel this way? That all their efforts were for nothing? He'd known Paimon felt it, having seen the destruction of Serion and Nua Port. He hadn't realized just how deeply Spider was affected by the loss of over half her crew - but he should've. She put on a brave face for the few that remained, but now, her true feelings showed.

They all felt hopeless, and Bel didn't want it to stay that way. They couldn't stay that way.

"How do we make sure, then?" Paimon's eyes flickered between the two of them. "That they didn't go in vain?"

An answer came out of the depths of Bel's being.

"We do better," Bel said. "And we keep moving forward."

Turning to Spider, Bel extended a hand to help her up. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet.

"The people we've lost and the pain that we share -- that's something we'll carry forever. But we can't change what's already happened. All we can do is commit to do better and try again. None of us have all the answers. We have more questions to offer than anything, but I know it won't always be that way. I'm committed to seeing this through until we find them, and we're going to find them together."

He turned to meet Paimon's eyes. "And I'm committed to doing it with you," he said, then turned to look at Spider. "And you. All of us. There's something going on that's bigger than all of us... and I can't promise to make sense of it all. But I can promise that you won't be in it alone."

He bowed his head, looking at Spider in particular.

"That's why we can't pull away. The only way we're getting through this is by coming together."

Paimon laughed, still in that place where it was easier to laugh than sob, to sob than breathe. "You've got a good speaking voice, you know that? You, you should be an actor."

She walked back to them, her carefree gait the same tempo at cut time.

"I mean it," Bel said, wishing that Paimon didn't have to brush off every authentic thought with a joke when it got uncomfortable. "I'm not leaving you guys. The old man who 'called us' may have forgotten us, but I don't plan on doing the same."

Spider shook her head. "Your optimism feels naive, sometimes." When he looked at her though, she was watching him with--it wasn't quite a smile, but it felt something like... respect? Approval? Admiration? He couldn't place it, but it felt new and it felt different.

He'd take it.

With a sigh, he shifted his weight to one leg, intending to look for a way up and out of this room. What he got instead was a dramatic creak from the board under him and an abrupt bang as a drawer in the desk behind them slid open, and a book of papers began to fall out of it.

Under some strange compulsion, Bel instinctually reached out to spare the book from its watery fate. Barely catching it before it met the water's surface, Bel ended up banging his horns into the desk loudly, painfully scraping them against the wooden surface and angling his head back uncomfortably.

He stood in the strange, bent-over position for half a second before he straightened up, looking at the book in his hands with idle curiosity to see what he'd saved. He expected it to be something inconsequential, but as he brushed his hand over the leather binding, he saw that the front was engraved in golden lettering.

It seemed... important.

He paused, leaning over to look back in the sideways drawer that had fallen open. The wall beneath him creaked again but didn't give.

There were some writing utensils spilled over the inner lining, and a small notepad at the back leaned just against the side of the drawer. Pulling it out, it looked like the notepad was mostly scrawled with unintelligible notes - random words and sequences of numbers, here and there. One page looked like it might've been used to keep score of something.

Unable to actually read any of it, though, those were just his speculations.

Suddenly, Paimon was right beside him, looking over his shoulder.

"Whatchya got there?" she asked.

Bel offered her the book. "You tell me."

Paimon cleared her throat obnoxiously loud, and he could hear the tear-produced phlegm leaving her nasal passages in more clarity than he would've preferred. Spider stood back a few feet, crossing her arms as she looked at the book now in Paimon's hands.

"Captain's Log," Paimon narrated in a performatively deep voice. "That's what the front says."

"The contents are what we need," Spider said, reaching over and snatching the log from Paimon's hands.

Paimon was quick to protest and reach back, but Bel stopped her arm from shooting out, amazed at how quickly Spider and Paimon returned to behaving like children. Fortunately, Paimon was appeased when Bel handed her the notepad, which she began to flip through.

Bel watched Spider begin to scan the contents of the log's pages.

"Wow," Paimon said. "Someone really sucked at Spades."

"This ship was part of a fleet headed for Synua," Spider said gravely, causing Paimon's head to snap up at attention.

"They had a ship sent for Nua Port to spread the word about bluecough," Spider continued, flipping through the pages with an increased sense of severity on her features. "But bluecough spread on their ships like a wildfire."

Bel stood still as he let that sink in. That made more sense of things. The ship they sailed in on had to have been part of the fleet. It was why Spider must've been able to seize it so quickly: all of the crew were already dead.

"So they died at sea," he murmured.

"It says something about important cargo," Spider said, flipping through the pages like she was searching for more information. "From the deep south, below Synilas."

"The cure?" Paimon asked.

"Doesn't say," Spider said, furrowing her brows as she quickly scanned the pages.

"What if the ship your crew found was the one meant for Nua Port?" Paimon said quietly.

Spider paused and stared at the book blankly. "Then it didn't make it," she said calmly. "They were already dead."

"But bluecough made it to Nua Port," Paimon said.

"Then there must've been another boat," Spider argued. "They were dead by the time we boarded."

"A lifeboat could've been sent out," Bel hypothesized. "They might've tried to make it there to escape the spread."

"And brought it with them," Paimon said.

"Any mention of the Idoras?" Bel asked.

"The fleet was part of the royal navy," Spider retorted. "Of course there's mentions of the Idoras, those two families are practically in-bred." She began flipping through the pages, searching for some mention of the Idoras.

Bel knew that the Idoras and royal family were intertwined, but, it didn't hurt to ask. There might still be hope that they could unravel the Idora's plot.

"The important cargo is probably what we found above us," Bel said, looking up through the cavern of broken wood vaguely shaped like their collective bodies. "But what we really need are tools to repair your ship, Spider."

Whether she was leaving it entirely to Kniss or intended to return to it, the ship was hanging on by a thread.

"Maybe we can find something to make a better flag," Paimon suggested.

"We've gotta find more wood. Some that isn't rotted, preferably." She stared up at the tilted ship they were inside as if she could see the outside of it from here. "And we should steal the sails, if they aren't ripped."

"Sounds like a lot more climbing," Bel hummed, following her line of sight.

As they both were looking up, Paimon snatched the log out of Spider's hands. Ready to chide her, Bel looked down with a sigh.

But he didn't get a chance to say anything. Instead, there was a flash of light.

Elidyr kept his arm linked with Tyri's until they got far enough away from Spider and her charm. Once she could see again, Elidyr let her go and she moved ahead of them. He cast a look towards Railyn, reaching up to pet Lady almost absently. He didn't like splitting up, but...if it meant Tyri could see, he'd deal with it.

Railyn had his eyes set distantly to the shore and the massive ships that were wrecked upon its beach. Even with as far away as they were, the ships were still a sight to behold, and their wrecked mess took up a large chunk of the horizon.

Elidyr didn't need to be able to read minds to tell Railyn's thoughts were far away from this beach they were on.

Lady bumped her head into Eli's fingers, purring ferociously as he pet her. Elidyr never really had experience with dragons, but if they had even the fraction of the bond he and Lady had? He could relate to the pain of being apart. Perhaps it was closer to seeing one's child leave the house to face the world on their own for the first time. Either way, it was not an enviable position to be in.

Railyn shifted his eyes to Elidyr and they exchanged a knowing glance before Railyn quickened his pace to catch up to them. "Found anything interesting yet?" He piped up, attempting to clear the air, or maybe clear his thoughts.

"Not yet," Eli muttered, gaze drifting back towards the ships. "It's beautiful, though."

Tyri was lightly scraping her hand against the sheer cliff wall, rubbing her fingers softly against the purple crystals that peaked out from the maroon rocks when he turned back. "I'm not seeing anything, either. Well... anything alive. But, this whole place is like being near Spider."

"A lot of magic here," Railyn said, finishing Tyri's thoughts.

"Exactly. But it's not overwhelming."

Elidyr could feel the magic, too, even if those aspects of his senses were burnt numb from the whole ordeal at Nua Port. He hummed and glanced down at Lady, then back at Tyri and Railyn. "It's like...." He shook his head. "Nevermind..."

Railyn gave him an odd look. "Like what?"

He shook his head again and turned away, pressing his lips together. "It's nothing," he muttered, glancing down at Lady, frowning. "Forget I said anything..."

"Eli?"

It's like it can feel us, he thought, not wanting to mention how alive the magic on the island felt, how it seemed to be watching them. Well, as much as an island could watch them. It was creepy. Eli shook his head, sighed and turned his attention back to the cliff and the beach as they wandered along slowly.

It was only a few moments later that Eli spotted the first body. And then a second, and then another and another. And another, trailing across the sand like shells. They littered the beach like the driftwood and debris that had washed up with the ships they'd seen wrecked back behind them.

"Shit," he whispered, eyes widening.

"What?" Tyri asked, head turning towards them. "What is it?"

There was a beat where he and Railyn just stared at the beach for a long moment before Railyn cleared his throat. "Bodies," he said, glancing towards Eli, who avoided looking directly at him. "Lots of them."

Eli went to the first one and crouched by it, examining it carefully without touching it. "This..." He had to stop and swallow thickly before finishing the thought. "This looks like bluecough...."

Railyn helped steer Tyri around the body, and he and Eli shared a glance. Instictively, Eli stepped back as well, even though he knew he was safe where he stood. The wounds of the last bluecough exposure still bled openly.

Tyri frowned. "Are you sure?"

"The signs track. Just worse than what we've seen before." Railyn muttered as a shiver ran through his body.

"I just... can't see them." Tyri began.

Elidyr stared back down at the body, searching for some kind of explanation. This body looked blistered, the flesh twisted and rotting and-- Eli gagged a little, looking away. That was horrible. It had clearly been there a while, but he did spot the telltale signs of bluecough; the blue veins, the pale skin, the...discharge. He grimaced and covered his mouth, finding Railyn staring at him. He didn't want to look too closely at the others.

"Some of these have been here for...a while," he said, and Railyn nodded.

"I can tell," Railyn muttered, grimacing before he turned to look at Tyri. "Tyri, surely you can smell this, even if you can't see it?"

Tyri shook her head. "I can't smell anything past the ocean and ourselves."

"Huh."

"Is it because of the magic?" Elidyr finally hypothesized. "Maybe it is washing your senses out."

"I can see the surroundings just fine. But the body, it's like it doesn't exist." Tyri said with a deep frown.

Railyn sheltered his eyes from the sun and looked down the horizon. "There's a long line of bodies, Tyri. Can't see any of them?" Railyn guided her hand to the direction he was speaking about.

"No, nothing but rocks and sand." Tyri affirmed. "I'll stick close to you."

"Yeah," Eli muttered, eyeing the bodies warily. "Let's try not to...step in anything..."

Together, they picked they way around and through the bodies, trying very hard not to accidentally step in anything...gooey. It was a slow process, especially with Railyn guiding Tyri. Elidyr resorted to scouting ahead a little, letting Lady sweep out over the beach before she came back and gave him updates on how the bodies were spread out. It was clear that they'd washed up on the wash, probably from multiple shipwrecks. Which was...oddly disturbing.

Eventually, Eli spotted an opening, all jagged teeth and looming darkness. He stopped short, eyes narrowed. There was a little trickle of water winding its way down the beach to the sea from the entrance. Lady was perched on his shoulder, wings spread out behind his head as she, too, perked up. He studied it for a moment before he turned to look back at Railyn and Tyri several feet behind him. Lady wobbled and squeaked a protest, but didn't leave her perch.

"There's a cave up ahead."

"What?"

"A cave?" Tyri asked, perking up a little.

Eli swallowed and glanced back. Oh, of course there were more bodies leading up to the cave. Ugh. "Yes," he replied, glowering in the direction of the cave. "And there's more bodies leading up to the entrance."

Tyri sighed. "Of course there's more bodies..."

Railyn sighed. "Maybe there's some answers, too. Don't worry. I'll guide you around them."

Elidyr snorted and turned back towards the cave. "Do try not to step in them. I don't want to clean decomposition off my shoes later." He didn't want for a response and started making his way towards the cave.



The cave was damp and dark--which was not unusual for a cave. But the weird blue vines that were crawling along the walls and around the various stalactites was unusual. Eli had never seen anything like it, and they weren't that far into it yet. About halfway, if he had to guess--apparently the cave wasn't that deep. The crash of waves against the shore was loud and had a bit of an echo as they slowly went deeper. Combined with the soft dripping of water, it was probably hard for Tyri to hear much beyond whatever they said. Distracting, too.

"I don't like the look of that....vine," Eli said, pointing it out to Railyn, who made a confused, questioning noise.

"Well, that's creepy."

"No shit, Railyn."

"You two know I can't see it, right?" Tyri hissed, and they both turned to look at her.

"Sorry, Tyri," Eli told her, giving Railyn a narrow-eyed look. "It's a blue vine that's crawling over the walls and along the stalactites. Looks like it's coming from further in."

"A vine?" she asked. "Odd that I can't see it." Tyri titled her head and let go of Railyn's arm to step towards the wall, hand outstretched. Eli took an abortive move towards the wall.

"I wouldn't touch it--"

Too late. Tyri's hand made contact with the wall, inches from the nearest vine. Eli held his breath as she ran her hands over the wall, fingers twitching as they hit the vine in question. He exchanged a worried look with Railyn when she made an odd little noise.

"Oh, that is odd... Why can't I see it?"

"Tyri..."

"I'm not sure you should be touching the vines," Eli muttered, watching the exact same concern he had for her bloom on Railyn's face. "They could be dangerous."

"We should keep moving," Railyn said, turning back towards Tyri.

"Magic is so odd here," Tyri said, but she pulled away from the wall--and the vine--to rejoin them. She took Railyn's offered arm again and gripped it tightly. "It's so strange that I can't see these bodies...or these vines."

Elidyr swallowed thickly and looked away. "Let's keep moving," he suggested and started walking again. "I don't want to be here any longer than we need to be."

He didn't look back to see if they followed him. Eli just kept going. He heard soft conversation behind him and ignored it, focusing on the path in front. Which was a little dark, but as his eyes slowly adjusted, Eli spotted another disintergrating body he nearly stepped in and carefully moved to the left a little more.

"Careful," he called back, "there's a body right in the middle of the path. Might want to move left a bit."

"Okay," Railyn replied.

He huffed and crept around the gooey pool of previously-body, eyeing it with distaste. Eli was starting to regret this journey. But he couldn't regret meeting his friends.

As he finally escaped the disintegrating body and then rounded the corner, he spotted another body. This one looked more skeletal than the others, rotting and gooey flesh pooled beneath the bones leaning back against a rock. One skeletal hand rested on the rock, the fingers curled over something sitting on it which looked like a bundle of fabric. Eli stopped, eyes narrowing.

"We have another body here," he called out and crouched down, frowning. "Looks older than the others." He grimaced at gooey pool. "Basically skeletal... God, this is horrible.." He tilted his head. "I think it's holding something?"

"There's more? Of course there's more."

"Eli? You said it's holding something?" Tyri asked.

Apparently they were both ignoring Railyn. "Yeah. You want to take a look?"

Tyri snorted, appearing beside him. There was muck clinging to the hem of skirt. Eli tried not to look too closely at it. "With my hands, sure."

He shrugged and let her move ahead of him, directing her to the rock and the bundle of cloth on it. Railyn joined him a moment later and together they watched Tyri run her hands all over the rock and the bones, and the bundle of fabric.

"There's something in here."

"Really?" Eli asked, perking up. "The skeleton looks like it was guarding it."

"Pirates," Railyn muttered, sounding partly amused and partly annoyed.

Eli rolled his eyes and rose from his crouch as carefully as he could. Lady wobbled on his shoulder and then hopped off, moving until she was by the Tyri at the rock, opposite the skeleton. He was still a bit tender from earlier, but at least he was mostly recovered. Eli moved to the side a little so he could get a better look at what Tyri was doing--which was unwrapping the bundle of cloth after easing it from beneath the skeletal hand.

As she pulled the cloth back, Eli caught sight of gold and some kind of delicate carving. He blinked once, twice. "Oh, it's a box."

"A box?" Railyn murmured, moving to join Eli and watch.

"Yeah."

Tyri paused in her unwrapping, head cocked. "Huh. That's interesting."

"Tyri? I don't think--" Eli started to call out but she was already reaching to touch the box.

As soon as Tyri touched the delicately carved golden box, time seemed to freeze around them, although they could still move. The absence of sound was the first thing Railyn noticed. He couldn't hear the echoes of water dripping throughout the cave or the quiet sloshes of waves crashing onto the short outside. Railyn and Elidyr glanced at each other, and they both stepped forward to Tyri, who had not moved. Careful not to step on the decaying bodies, Railyn teetered around the edge and looked at Tyri. Her eyes were glowing an intense white and her mouth was muttering silently. Railyn couldn't make out what she was saying.

Then he heard an all too horribly familiar sound, and, if he was honest with himself, one that he never thought he would hear again.

Dong.

One ear-shattering, never-ending bell gong cracked through the air all around him, and he couldn't help but collapse and cover his ears. It did nothing to help, though, as the screeching sound continued. He shouted at Tyri to STOP, but he couldn't even hear his own voice. He tried to reach for her, but it felt like he was back in the storm, with a torrent of wind keeping him from making any action.

And, then, a CRACK!, and this all felt too sickenly familiar to Railyn, like that wretched feeling of oi-de-va, experiencing the same thing twice. He cracked open one eye, and, sure enough, he was in the same room he was in when he first heard about this blasted prophecy that ruined his life in extremely short order. But, thankfully, the ringing of the bell had finally silenced, although his ears were still ringing from the memories of it.

Railyn scanned the area, and he saw the usual suspects there with him: Tyri right in front of him --no longer silently screaming unintellible things, and she looked just as confused as he felt--, Elidyr, who scrambled to his feet --he must have collapsed like Railyn had--, Belxibis who was now across the room from them instead of wherever he was beforehand, as was Paimon, and... Spider?

Spider reacted first out of all of them and brandished her sword, one hand trying to find something at her throat that was obviously not there anymore. "What have you all done?" She said, venom in her voice.

"Hold on," Bel said steadily. "This is familiar. This was what brought us together."

"It wasn't them, Captain Spider," a shaky voice cleared the air, and everyone turned their vision to the middle of the room. In this entire altercation, it seemed every single one of them had missed what was going on in the middle of the room. It was the same old man that had given that prophecy and doomed them to begin with.

But, he was in the middle of being stabbed with a large scimitar, right in his midsection. Right behind him was a being made entirely of sand, but not regular sand. Black and gray sand, like it was molten. But the soldier didn't move; the soldier's scimitar didn't move. In fact, everything in the room was unmoving... besides them. Them and the old man's face, who must have noticed everyone was staring at the large blade in his stomach instead of him, and he glanced down. "Oh, this? Don't worry about this, it has already happened. No use dwelling on the past!" He chuckled at his own joke. No one else did, with them all on high alert. He snapped his fingers and a pale, translucent blue form of himself exited his body. All the lights in the room flickered and dimmed, to the point that the main source of light was the old man himself.

And, it was then that Railyn took his time to look around the room itself. It was in absolute disarray, far worse than he remembered when they were last in there. It was as if a tornado had literally just gone through the room mere moments before they were teleported into it.

"Come, come, rest with me a moment." The old man snapped his fingers again and they all phased out of their bodies, now in the same form as he. Railyn glanced back at his own self, and noticed he was slowly falling. So incredibly slowly, he had to stare for more than a few moments to confirm it wasn't just his mind playing tricks on him.

"What is this? Speak now, or I'll end you," Spider seethed out. Railyn had never seen her so outwardly angry before, even in the worst moments.

"What, with that sword?" The man guffawed. "That's already happened, my dear," he added with a pointed finger to his gut's innards frozen in mid-disembowelment. "Please, relax. I only have so much time before this spell breaks."

Captain Spider lowered her sword, clearly still on edge. The old man sighed contentedly. "Thank you. I am... well, my name does not matter. Even if I said it, you would forget it again."

"You never told us your name," Paimon interjected. "I have a good memory."

The old man offered a sad smile as solace. "I have no doubt you do, young one. But, just as prophecy dictates your powers and role in this story, so too does it mine. It is, unfortunately, a lonely one. I am The Prophet, doomed to know the future and guide it but be forgotten in all other ways elsewise. I have told you my name before, in our first meeting. Now! You may address me as Prophet, if you have any questions."

Paimon raised her hand like they were all school children in a classroom. The Prophet lost his train of thought and muttered, "But, I would prefer if all questions were saved until the end." With a long frown, Paimon put her hand back down.

"Good, good. Now, where to begin..."

"How about starting with why we're here," Spider interrupted shortly.

The Prophet nodded as if that was wise advice from an old friend and not from, well, Spider. "Yes, that necklace of yours kept you from our first meeting, The Stolen. This time was different, thanks to that boxed you touched," The Prophet indicated, gesturing to Tyri. "You're a part of something larger than you or your crew. You're in a prophecy to save the world--"

"No."

"...Pardon?"

"No," Spider repeated flatly. "Let me out."

The Prophet flashed a knowing smile. "You can keep running, captain Spider... or you can save your questions until the end."

Spider said nothing in return. However, she did relent, to Railyn's surprise. And, judging by the looks of the others, by basically everyone else's surprise, as well. Railyn noted that only Belxibis hid his emotions on his face. If anything, he looked sullen. Railyn couldn't bear to continue looking at him for long.

"That case Tyri touched contains a remnant of the ancient God, Aether. You all also contain remnants of her through the prophecy. That connection brought you together and brought you to me.

"And I know, 'Prophecy' this and 'prophecy' that... What does this mean? To put it simply, you must save the world and fulfill this prophecy. Long before any of us were born, a prophecy was created that ordained all of us to have a role in the end of the world. Just as I am The Prophet, doomed to know the end but, despite my best efforts, unable to change the outcome or any role in it, you all have roles as well."

First, he turned his attention to Paimon, who went wide eyed at the attention being on her all of a sudden. "The Spear. An arrow poised to the future, drawn from the past."

"And, The Seer, ah." The Prophet gestured to Tyri. "You and I have the most in common, I think. Like myself, you are doomed to see things differently. To not see what most do, and to see what most do not. I emphasize." Tyri looked away, and Railyn could see a tear form on her pale face, even through the magic.

"And, the Judge, of course." He turned his attention to Elidyr this time." To be one who controls the balance, but to always have yourself on one scale. Is it you who truly tips it one way or the other?"

"And The Forsaken... doomed to lead those who never truly follow. History will be kinder to you than reality, my friend." The man spoke this to Belxibis. Railyn couldn't help but feel that he was responsible for part of this. He knew Belxibis was the soundest minded out of all of them, but... every time he looked to Bel, he saw that face, those claws, tearing away at Ivern like it was tearing through Railyn himself. Railyn looked away, not wanting to see Bel's reaction.

"And our newest guest. The Stolen. You have had your life ripped away from you from the very start. And everything you do must be stolen from fate. Your truth has yet to be discovered, and it will not give easily." Captain Spider had her arms crossed, like she didn't believe a word he said.

"And you." The man pointed to Railyn, and he realized it was his time to get dug into by some stupid prophecy. "The Imbued. Never truly yourself... like a cup that's not quite full. Like a river split. Like you are alive but haunted by the truth that's always just out of your reach. Potential stunted."

They're all silent.

"It's not fair, but you've all known your lives weren't quite fair. Something always felt off... or missing, or perhaps I'm reaching." The man chuckled to himself at that non-joke. No one reciprocated that. "That is all because you're a part of something larger than yourselves. Like it or not, this is the truth. Nothing any of us can do will change what destiny ordained for you. What you decide to do past this point, with all the cards laid out for you... well, that is up to you, prophecy or not."

The Prophet waved his hand, and smoke and sand that was previously almost frozen around them whirled to life in vibrant and simultaneously pale blues and yellows.

"In the time before us, the world was only one realm." The sand and smoke swirled around each other, mixing to beautiful colors that sparked and ignited in some kind of mythical dance. "The physical and spiritual were bound in one harmonic truth. Back then, the world was ruled by two twin Gods, Aether and Nether.

"But, the balance was disrupted when Nether sought more power. In the end, Aether sacrificed herself to bury both of them deep within the Spiritual Realm. In doing so, she split the world into three." The Prophet plucked out a strand of sand and the rest followed his motions begrudgingly as he extracted it from the smoke. The colors dulled, the brilliant blue on top and the vibrant yellow on bottom muddled together in a dirty green in the middle. "In sacrificing herself, Aether ripped the realms apart. The Physical, as we all know now as the world," he pointed to the blue smoke at the top, "the Spiritual, where the souls of Aether and Nether reside," he said, gesturing to the yellow sand, "and the Magical Plane, which holds the remnants of the old world, and acts as a barrier between the Physical and Spiritual." The Prophet waved his hand through the green mixture, letting it swirl as the sand and smoke mixed, but this was no dance. It was not beautiful. It was muted.

The Prophet sighed. "Over time, the boundaries Aether created with her sacrifice have weakened, and more now than ever, the lines between the three realms are blurred. Nether has taken advantage of this. Somehow, in some way, people found the resting place of Aether and has disrupted her remains, scattering them across the world. That box you touched, Seer, is her Heart. There are five more pieces of her body out there. You must collect them all and return them to Shurima in the south, to her grave. Only then can the barrier between worlds return to their original state."

The Prophet coughed, a deep and disturbing sound that Railyn had heard before in the mines. It was the rattle just before death. He washed away the smoke and sand, and it settled back down to the still cacophony around them. "Not only that, but you must stop any and all advances of Nether's forces, to slow his return. Soldiers come from Shurima and long dead lich beasts disrupt the north. Assassins go for prominent figures, and that nasty sickness goes for the rest. But, you can stop it all."

"All of this falls upon you now, my Prophets. You are not alone, know this. With Aether's Heart now in your possession, you can recruit people to your side, using your blood. Aether's Blood. You will need an army to stop this. To fail is to watch the world... as we know... fall to ruin."

"And, now you see the whole picture, prophets," the old man whispered, his voice shaky and, for the first time since they were all summoned there, he sounded tired.

"Now, according to my calculations, you all have roughly... fifty days before Nether Resurrects. And I must make myself extremely clear. You must not let that happen. Nether must die."

Something in the atmosphere of the room shifted, and the old man glanced to nothing in particular, like he was lost in thought, or heard something they all couldn't. "Ah, it's time. I had hoped to steal a bit more time, but I fear Aether has spared me all the time she could. With this, I leave the world and it's future to you six. Find the others. Lead the charge--"

Before he could continue, they were all snapped back to their physical bodies. Railyn and the others watched as the scimitar finished its journey through the old man's body and back out, and he fell to the floor in a clumped pile of blood and cloth. They were then, in the blink of Railyn's eye, back in the cave.



"I didn't even get to ask him my questions," Paimon said with a pout.

"We know, Paimon. You've mentioned it multiple times." Belxibis muttered as he spread out a map on the wide table before them.

"Well, the others didn't know," Paimon countered, gesturing to Tyri, Eli, and Railyn. Elidyr scoffed as Railyn grabbed a weight and placed it on one corner of the map.

"Thanks," Belxibis said, and Railyn nodded.

Captain Spider entered the room, and for a brief moment Railyn and she locked eyes before he avoided her gaze. He had felt horribly exposed by what the old man said of him in that meeting, and he could only imagine just how exposed she felt by his speech. He was somewhat surprised she didn't remove them all from the ship right then and there. Then again, he didn't really know her at all, by her design. The fact that she was going through with all this nonsense spoke more about her than almost anything he saw since they met. He knew he had almost given up this multiple times previously.

Spider lit the lanterns around the cabin and shut the door to the rest of the ship. She turned to the rest of them. "My crew won't bother us." She sounded like she was still ruminating on whether or not that was a good idea.

Paimon nodded. "Good idea. Can't save the world with distractions constantly. Like that Valno, eh, Railyn?"

Railyn felt heat suddenly rush to his cheeks. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't worry, that was super subtle." Paimon said, winking.

Tyri heaved the chest they had carried back from the cave to the coast onto the table. That was the only thing they were able to scavenge from the bluecough-ridden cave, and the others weren't much more successful. They got a leather-bound journal that looked important. Other than that, they didn't get much that could explain what happened there.

Elidyr peered his nose up at the chest from where he sat. "So, Aether's Heart is in this, then?" Lady, who had found her way in the supposedly super-secret meeting, hopped onto the table and sniffed at the container.

Paimon shooed Lady away, who swatted back at her with a hiss before finally jumping onto Elidyr's lap. "Well, let's open it up." She said.

"You want to open up a chest containing a dead god's heart?" Elidyr asked.

"Sure, why not?"

"Clearly, you've never dealt with cursed artifacts before." Elidyr muttered.

"I agree, we should see what's inside," Spider interjected.

Paimon looked shellshocked. "Okay, I'm with him now," she said, pointing her thumb at Eli.

"This is why we're all here. We're far past apprehension." Spider stepped forward and before any of them could say a word in rebuttal, she unlocked the clasp and the chest lurched open.

They all crowded around it... or well, as close as they dared to be around Spider.

Tyri, of all of them, spoke first. "How curious."

Railyn peered into the chest. In the middle of it, surrounded by a pure white pillow, was a small spherical object. It was bronze in color, and looked more like a sophisticated gear or cog in one of the machines back from his home. Several small spindle-y pieces wrapped around one corner of the sphere, and he could see a gear. There was a darker part in the middle, like maybe a hole?

Tyri hovered her hand closer and closer to the heart, and as she reached into the box, the sphere reacted to her. The spindle-y parts seemed to move to her hand, as if they were attracted to it. Belxibis yanked her hand out of the box before she could get closer, and it felt like an unspoken tension that clouded the room had been lifted.

"That was odd," Paimon said, speaking aloud what Railyn was thinking.

"Let's keep that to the side before we can understand it better," Belxibis advised, and without any confirmation from the others, he clasped it back shut. No one opposed him.

"Wait a second, I think I saw this before." Paimon exclaimed, making Railyn and Lady alike jump as she cut through the silence. She shuffled and pulled out the book they got from one of the ships. "I was perusing through this, as you do, and, look." She opened the book and tugged at one of the pages. It unfurled once, and then twice. She laid the book down on top of the map. On the page, around an insane amount of tiny scribbling and what were most likely notes that he couldn't discern from where he was, were six illustrations.

"The Heart." Paimon pointed with her finger at some kind of scribbling. She traced over to one of the images. It did kind of look like what was in the chest, Aether's Heart.

"The Skull, The Claw, The Heel, The Cage, and The Coffin, it says."

"That claw." Belxibis and Elidyr both said at the same time. Railyn looked closer at that drawing. That looked... just like what Mythica was using at Nua Port.

"Right, I noticed that. And, look at this here. It says how they were transported. Apparently 'The Claw' was sent on foot first, with, you guessed it, Mythica," Paimon said.

It was like their entire journey had been unconnected dots before this point, but they had come together in a sickening way.

"It looks like one went through to Draconis," Paimon continued, looking up to the map, and pointed to a location in the middle of it. "Most went through to Synua."

Railyn had stopped paying attention as his mind went inwards. If they were... destined, or prophesized, or whatever the hell it was, to meet Mythica in Nua Port. Were they also destined to come across bluecough? To meet up with each other? Was he destined to find Ivern's egg so young with his best friend. Was he destined to kill Ryun all those years ago, for the sake of some stupid greater good?

He wanted answers. No, he needed answers, for himself. World be damned.

"Railyn."

"Hmm?" Railyn suddenly noticed all eyes were on him, and he met eyes with Belxibis. "We're trying to come up with a plan."

"A plan?" The words sounded foreign to him.

"For what comes next." Belxibis met his confused gazed with a calm, almost knowing look, like he could read his mind and see all the troubles he had deep within, and still viewed him as equal.

Railyn glanced down at the map. It was strange, and like he was nowhere to be seen on there.

Railyn locked back in on Bel's gaze, and felt a cold steel settle in his heart. He didn't know what the future held for him, or anyone in the room for that matter, but he knew what he said was what his heart needed.

"I'm going to find my dragon."