62 Days B.N.D
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.
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