That night, Viliant confronted Fia below deck. I saw you running around with that small human. Did you… stay out of trouble? The stream of his thoughts faltered as he tried to suspend judgment. As much as Viliant disliked her associating with the human girl, he did not want his strict standards to stop Fia from listening to him altogether.

Yeah! We had fun… Fia lost her train of thought as she gasped. The pink dragonette squirmed around, shying away from Viliant as she curled into a ball. Fia peeked beneath her wing to look at his emotionless stance. You're not mad at me?

It'd be better if you distanced yourself from the humans, Viliant maintained. Everytime that he spotted her with humans, Viliant intended to remind her of this fact. Their current ferry seemed small enough and the crew tame enough that they posed no immediate threat. If Fia had not adopted good habits by the time that they reached the ocean and changed ships, then Viliant would set her straight. For now, he avoided coming across like a hypocrite. I have to associate with the men for work. You shouldn't do it just for fun.

I know, but look at these! Fia used her tail to slide a pile of seeds in front of Viliant. We can turn them into tops like this one. She spun the already finished one that she had kept from earlier. Fia hummed in Viliant's ears to match the tone.

Quiet. Viliant hissed and thwacked the top over with his tail. There's other people down here aside from just us. Even though the dragons had the corner to themselves and he did not care about being considerate toward the humans, Viliant would use any excuse to avoid playing.

Fia lowered her chin against her claws as she pouted. Her tail flicked out of irritation while she racked her brain. The mischievous dragonette wanted a way to guilt Viliant into making his own top, so she buried her true intent behind a veneer of mock sadness. Oh no, she cried. It's broken! The dragonette deliberately gave the top a weak spin. Now I'm sad!

No, it isn't. Here. Since Viliant no longer blocked Fia out of his head every time that she annoyed him, he needed another way to make her stop whining. The black dragonet picked up the top between two talons. Viliant squinted at it before he tried to toss it into a spin. The top rolled around on its side instead of its base. Hm. Viliant glared at it until some inky shadows bubbled up from the floor and bobbled the top around. See? I fixed it.

It's not making the sound. It's supposed to be a singing top. Fia shoved a seed between Viliant's paws. Let's make a new one! Sitting at his side, she showed him the craft that she had learned earlier today.

Viliant half-heartedly poked his larger claws into the sizable seed. To humor Fia, he carefully copied her method of turning the seed into a top. He only wanted to do this once. Done, he sneered, but he could not get his to spin. I… might've messed up.

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You're spinning it wrong. Do it like this! Fia demonstrated with her own. Her newest top completed one rotation before a subtle bump of the boards threw it off balance.

"Ha!" Viliant snorted. Yours doesn't work either.

"Hey!" Fia fussed. No fair. The boat rocked and messed it up. Once the tremor through the hull of the ship had calmed, she gave her top another toss. Fia showed Viliant the technique to spin his top next, impressed that the one made by him spun faster and sang higher than hers. Wow, Viliant! Nice job. It took me a bunch of tries to get one this good.

As Viliant's pupils flitted side to side, watching his creation twirl, he leaned back smugly. Yeah? That's what I'd expect. I'm good with my claws.

I'm good at…. A giggle escaped Fia. She could hardly conceal her true intentions from Viliant any longer. I'm good at teasing you! You never broke my top. Fia flipped the original top into a spin so that they had three different notes, all going at once. While the additional top spinning and singing made Fia that much happier, its pitch clashed with the other two. The dissonant top let out a low, ominous hum.

Before Viliant could stop the one which irritated his eardrums, all the tops fell over at once. The sturdy boards lurched beneath them. The ship careened upward on the water, making Fia bounce in the air and Viliant jump to his feet. The crash of waves splashed along the exterior of the ship. Their surroundings settled back down, unlike Viliant's racing heart. I sense something in the water, he shared with Fia: shadow magic.

"Huh?" Before she could ask him for more details, Viliant slunk up the ladder. Wait for me!

Fia chased after his black tail which had slipped past the hatch. She clambered onto the deck with Viliant, and the rest of the sailors jogged toward the ladder. The sudden bump in the night had alerted more than just Fia and Viliant. Soon, all hands were on deck. The sailors raced into position to scan the waters and defend the ship.

"Over here!" Viliant balanced his foreclaws on the railing. His green eyes leered into the disturbed water below.

Fia raced over to join him. She poked her head through the slats, and her eyes widened with awe.

By the dim light of the moon and stars, the gray scales of an aquatic beast shimmered. Its red, anterior dorsal fin sliced through the water like a scythe might cleave through blades of grass. Fia could count the pulses of her heart as the water whispered past the monstrous fish. Its fin seemed to never end. How big is it? she wondered, only able to imagine how much of it swam in those dark waters where her eyes could not see. Both the fish and the ship would not fit side by side, if they had not been lucky enough to cross paths at the widest berth of the river.

Captain Ulatu's low voice uttered, "It's the accursed, ghost pirarucu."

A group of sailors worked together to turn a device which looked like a leaner version of Syene's ballistae, except its tip was angled to the water. They loaded a metal spear with a barbed tip into the contraption. Everyone waited with bated breath. The crew had no desire to aggravate the river's bane, but if they must act, they prayed that their captain's command would come before the pirarucu's strike.