Lucian looked up from his journals, the sound of whooshing flames piquing his interest. He was seated cross-legged on the deck in front of the ship’s wheel, a quill in hand as he underlined choice passages.
Esau and Kane flew over the railing and landed on the deck, the two of them stumbling to a stop. Kane’s eyes went wide as Lucian was forced to take in all of his manhood, before either of them had a moment to react.
Kane quickly covered himself with his hands and turned away, his face turning an unflattering shade of red.
But Lucian simply looked from Kane to Esau, then Esau to Kane, then finally narrowed his eyes at Esau in particular.
“I knew it,” he muttered, returning his gaze to his papers.
“It’s not what it looks like!” Kane managed to say, while Esau ran to grab a sheet for Kane to cover himself up with.
“You likely couldn’t even begin to describe what it does look like,” Lucian said, eyes dancing over pages. “And I don’t blame you. This Sea can be a lonely place, and sometimes a man simply has to—”
“Can it,” Esau ordered as he pointed a finger Lucian’s way. He passed Kane the tarp he’d found, and Kane put it on around his waist like a towel. “We’ve got big news.”
Lucian smirked, clearly unwilling to let this go. “Oh, there must be. I love love.”
Esau flipped the bird at the captain. “I don’t even know where to start. First of all, we need to wake up Tal. We’ve got a catch.”
At long last, Lucian finally seemed to take something seriously. “Another grave chest?”
Esau grinned, rubbing his hands together. “Even better! Broiled torrafin.”
Lucian took a moment to process this information. A now-covered-up Kane walked away from the railing, pulling up a barrel beside the man. The captain’s little setup consisted of several books spread around, pinned down by stacks of coins and various knickknacks.
“You went out and killed a torrafin?” Lucian asked, slowly.
The chef puffed out his chest, positively beaming. “We did. Well, I can’t actually take all the credit, ‘cause it turns out that Ka—”
“Are you MAD?!”
Both Esau and Kane flinched as the captain raised his voice out of nowhere, a total 180 from his usual strong, melodic tone. Kane had never heard Lucian shout before.
Lucian had gotten to his feet, storming straight towards Esau. “How stupid do you have to be to go out and try to kill one of those things?” he barked, jabbing his index into Esau’s chest to punctuate his speech. “And you brought Kane along with you? Are you serious?”
“We— we were just going fishing,” Esau stammered, raising his hands beside him in a pantomime of innocence. “We weren’t in any danger at all.”
A big, fat lie. One Lucian saw right through.
The man rubbed at his temples. “Oh, I’m really going to fucking deal with you,” he muttered in a low voice, as if he didn’t truly intend for them to hear it. The captain then whirled on Kane. “And you? You were stupid enough to join him?”
Kane wasn’t necessarily in the mood to mince words, nor was he in the mood to bend at the knee and take Lucian’s browbeating. “The stupidity of the crew must be rubbing off on me,” he said with a deadpan expression, his mood totally ruined.
The elation he had felt when he and Esau had crested the ship railing had all but dissipated now. Not only was he still alive, but he had somehow killed the torrafin using some sort of power. And he had been so excited to relay the news to Lucian and pull the half-cooked supershark aboard and get straight to learning magic, since he wouldn’t even need knifefighting training if he had powers. But Lucian had not only seen him naked, dealing Kane unprecedented levels of psychic damage, but the man had immediately — and perhaps deservedly — gone off on them.
Lucian now fixed Kane with a dangerous gaze, as if he were actually pissed about this instance of petty insubordination. But then he dismissed the matter with the wave of a hand and a frustrated grunt. “Kane, come with me. Get washed up and put on some new clothes. I’ll grab Tal. Esau, ensure the torrafin doesn’t float away — I don’t want you to have killed it for nothing.”
Esau nodded once, a reluctant frown etched onto his face, and he did a frontflip over the ship’s railing, plummeting down below towards the dead fish.
Lucian began to march towards the stern, Kane following in close tow. They made their way down into the ship in silence, Lucian striding into the captain’s quarters as Kane made his way towards the crew’s quarters.
Given there was no running water, there wasn’t really a shower. However, the galley chest was able to give out large bottles of water, which the crew had kept in reserve and boiled for drinking or poured into buckets for other purposes. It had caused Kane to wonder why they didn’t keep more of the chest’s offerings out in the galley or a pantry of some kind.
Maybe it would get mad, he thought idly as he entered the bathroom. He snatched up two covered wooden buckets filled with freezing-cold water and emptied them into the wooden tub. Kane doubted that the ship had come with a tub, given pirates likely didn’t typically shower or bathe, meaning someone on the crew would have had to put it together.
So after Kane had worked up the nerve to step into the freezing water and began to wash himself clean of crimson, coppery blood, he took some time to reflect on what the hell had just occurred.
He might have been fooling himself, but Esau seemed to agree: Kane had finished off that torrafin. Sure, perhaps Esau had some power up his sleeve and had somehow caused all the water below Kane to evaporate whilst also not harming him. But that was too many hoops to jump through: how had he done so without using a lick of flame? How had he not hurt Kane? And why had it felt like Kane himself was doing it?
By Occam’s Razor — the simplest explanation was likely the right one — it was basically undeniable: he’d heated himself up enough to evaporate all the bloodwater around him instantaneously, creating a vacuum for more of it to flow into. The heat hadn’t hurt him, inside or out, but it was able to finish off the supershark in mere moments.
So yeah, heat powers. Maybe.
It didn’t really make any sense. Was this the same power as Esau’s? A shoddier version of it? Kane had been hoping for something original. Was it a more common power, or was he mistaking something?
Kane promptly climbed out of the tub and dried himself off with a surprisingly fine cotton towel that had been folded in a nearby cabinet. Fortunately, Lucian had left a fresh set of clothes on Kane’s hammock. In the stack he found his own jacket and t-shirt, freshly washed and dried, accompanied by a new pair of dark trousers, a pair of boxers, and firm-looking black boots.
Kane threw everything on, being careful not to wake up Saul, who was still asleep in his hammock, curled up and facing the wall.
He climbed up to the deck, where Tal stood just in front of the doorway, rubbing sleep from his eyes like a child in the early morning. Lucian was over by the railing, leaning over and presumably watching Esau keep the fish pressed up near the ship.
“We need to cut it up,” Lucian called down below to Esau. He turned around and crossed his arms. “Where’s Saul when you need him?”
“Should I get him?” Kane asked, feeling refreshed after the cold bath. His announcing his presence surprised Tal, who jumped, and suddenly Kane found himself pressed backwards against the wall beside the stern door.
“Oh. It’s just you.” Tal dismissed the effect of his power, and Kane fell to the deck in a heap. “Don’t do that again,” he said with a yawn.
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“Duly noted,” Kane said, brushing off his clothes. Lucian was still ignoring the two of them, apparently issuing commands to Esau on how best to cut up the torrafin using his fire. So he set his sights on Tal. “How’d you sleep?”
Tal let out a long-suffering sigh. “About as well as you make conversation.”
“That was unnecessary.”
“Neither was approaching me.”
Kane wasn’t going to let some run-of-the-mill sleepy grumpiness stop him from getting answers. “Why do you sleep so much?” he asked, cutting to the chase.
Tal frowned, stalking over to a pair of barrels and laying back across them. “Because I’m tired.”
“And why are you tired?”
He pursed his lips, seemingly in thought. “Life is hard, Kane.”
Kane marched up to him. “So you’re not going to tell me? Wouldn’t it be more beneficial to the group as a whole for me to know how exactly your power works?”
“So you think it’s related to my power?”
“Clearly.” It was obvious, but it helped to be sure. Perhaps in order to get his own potential power to work, Kane just needed to sleep more. “Just tell me how it works, so I can make mine work faster.”
Tal quirked a brow. “Your power?”
Kane grinned darkly, teeth showing and all. “Oh, so now we’re eager to share information with each other?”
Tal sat straight up, seemingly having had enough of this. “Oh, no! One side effect of my power is that it repels me from idiots!” He allowed his power to take hold of him and drag him to the side, falling away from Kane and towards Lucian.
Kane clicked his tongue in disapproval. What a drama queen.
—
It took the better part of an hour to get the desired parts of the torrafin up onto the ship and stored away. Esau had cut out the belly, back, fins, and filets, and Tal had hoisted them onto deck where Lucian and Kane stored them away in the galley.
Their storage methods definitely weren’t up to code — given they had no ice on board — and Esau had simply waved a hand, saying “The galley chest will give us ice later today, trust.”
Ultimately, it had meant they had to dispose of most of the shark, leaving it floating throughout the Sea, since it would only be good for three or so days. Esau would likely be eating most of the portion they’d kept.
However, it didn’t take long for Kane to realize that Esau had lied to him. The man had claimed to have fished in the Sea before, but clearly, this catch was new to him. Sure, he’d fought off sea creatures before, but that wasn’t exactly fishing.
Esau had never eaten or prepared torrafin before. “Pfft,” he’d said dismissively when confronted. “I’ve gone fishing back on Earth. I’ve cooked fish back on Earth. How different could it be?”
Suddenly, Kane was unsure if he wanted to partake in their dinner tonight.
Once they were done with their task, Lucian dusted off his hands and took a look around. “Perfect. Now we can get back to today’s programming.”
Kane, who was laying flat splayed out on the deck, looking up at the peculiar stalactite-like clouds, perked up. “Magic?”
“You know that wasn’t the plan.”
Kane sighed. “I don’t want to deal with Saul.”
Lucian nudged Kane’s shoulder with the toe of his boot. “That ray of sunshine? You’ll have more fun than you know!”
Kane’s gut sank at the prospect.
—
In the crew’s quarters, Saul brandished his scimitar, a wicked grin on his face.
Kane stood slouched across from him, entirely unenthusiastic, the dagger in his hand loose in his grip.
They’d cleared out a small section of the room for extra space. It hadn’t been too hard; all the hammocks and furniture generally were further into the room.
“Are we really doing this?” Kane asked, not believing what seemed to be happening. Saul’s scimitars made it look like he was compensating for something. The man couldn’t even fully raise his hands, lest he cut into the ceiling above.
Saul quirked a brow. “You thought we were going to fight?” He chuckled, as if the prospect was ridiculous. Which it was.
It was then that Esau popped his head into the doorway. “Special delivery,” he called, lumbering into the room with a dummy made of burlap sacks and a bucket all balanced upon a wooden pole with four supports. “You’ve ordered… one particularly punchable-looking bastard? I think this is him… Sign here, Mister Saul.”
Saul pointed to the side with his sword dismissively. “Yes, yes, leave my delivery by the door. Don’t expect a tip.” Both Esau and Kane exchanged a look with each other. Had Saul just… played along with a joke?
He frowned as he caught onto their reactions. “What? I’m in a good mood. I finally have someone to practice sword fighting with.”
Kane nodded, as if coming to the realization that if Saul were in a good mood, then this little training session might not be so bad after all.
“OK, but I do require that tip,” Esau said, leaning against the inside of the doorway and crossing his arms. “We lost your fingers when catching the torrafin, so I’ll need you to chop some more off when you get the chance.”
Saul bit his lip, blinking twice. “All of them?” Esau scrunched up his lips in a weary affirmation. “That’s… idiotic.” Saul then looked down, nodding to himself, as if this is what he expected. “We’ll handle that later.”
Kane took a step back. “So he wasn’t joking? Those were all actually your fingers?”
Saul tilted his head at the man, brows furrowing cheekily. “Yeah! Who knows — maybe next time, we can use yours.”
Psychopaths. Lunatics. Madmen. Many more disparaging nouns came to mind, and the reality that he was truly stuck with them sunk deeper and deeper by the minute. “Can we just get to training?”
Saul quickly acquiesced, shooing Esau away. He placed down his scimitars, took hold of the dummy, and dragged it to the center of their room.
He stood back, hands on his hips, taking a look around to ensure they had enough space. “Alright, Kane. You’ve been here a day. Have you figured out what my power is yet?”
The younger man was in the midst of stretching out his arms, one crossed across his torso. “Super strength, right?”
Saul smirked, clearly knowing something Kane didn’t. “What makes you think that?”
Kane dropped his hands to his sides. “The massive swords you carry around are clearly connected to your power somehow. You sharpen them all the time. You were able to jump into the kraken’s mouth and cut it up from the inside. And you’re able to push nails into wood like butter.”
The man strolled over to his where his hammock and bedside table were. Kane had never taken a moment to look at Saul’s area before. Of course, there were carvings the man had etched into all the wall and ceiling around them, marks that Kane had never ascribed meaning to before.
But upon closer inspection, there seemed to be a lot more to it than he’d thought. Orderly patterns of slashes, fanciful sketches, and even scribbles of writing.
Unlike him or Esau, Saul actually had two bedside tables, although one was a barrel. The barrel had its top surface entirely covered by a low, box-like device that looked centuries more modern than anything else in the room. But Kane hadn’t quite paid attention closely enough until now.
Saul reached behind the barrel and pulled out a vinyl, lifting the record player’s clear plastic lid and sliding the record on. He placed down the needle, and a blues song from the 70s came on with a scratch, startling Kane to life.
When was the last time he had heard music?
The tune rang clean and clear — bassline, guitar, a man’s low, mellow vocals — through the room as Saul wandered over to the actual bedside table, which held a Swiss Army Knife, a pack of hardtack, and a bowl of gold coins. Instead of reaching inside, however, he lifted the bowl, underneath which one coin in particular hid. He picked it up, holding it in the air between himself and Kane.
This coin glinted gold in the lighting of the crew’s quarters, its surface seeming to glimmer as if it were a coin worth thrice as much.
Kane peered at it, leaning in. On the face was a figure, one he naturally couldn’t identify. It might have been a president, royalty, or any sort of ruler. It sort of looked like… everyone. Every leader ever.
On a whim, Saul spun it around. Now Kane was facing its tails side. On it were a series on concentric circles that he couldn’t quite seem to count; whenever he got to the center, another one seemed to appear, and soon he was feeling dizzy, losing focus, losing balance and—
Saul shut his fist around the coin with a hollow snap.
Kane exhaled through his nose, recovering from whatever the hell had happened there. Was it hypnosis? Magic? That coin surely wasn’t obeying the rules of physics or Euclidean geometry or whatever. Sort of like the painting of the shadow figure in the dining room.
“Are all coins down here like that?” He hadn’t quite noticed.
Saul twisted his wrist, and the coin began to spin on the tip of his index. “No, but that’s not the point.” He marched up to Kane and pinched the coin in its spin, then held out his own palm. “Watch.”
It happened in an instant. Saul drew the edge of the coin across his palm in the two brief strokes of an X, and thin golden lines flashed in a trail behind his movements shortly before blood began to seep through the resulting cuts.
Saul looked up at Kane, a grin on his face. “Did you catch that?”
Kane frowned, unsure of what exactly had just happened. Saul snatched up Kane’s hand and pressed the coin into his pried-open palm.
The younger man was hesitant, lifting the coin to the light — the face side towards him, of course. “Did you sharpen this thing?” But the edges were dull as anything else.
Saul shook his head. “Stupid questions are no fun. Try to cut yourself with it.”
Kane, after a moment of deliberating, stupidly did as told. But the coin’s edge was cold, hard, and blunt on his palm. It could never cut anything.
The swordmaster snatched the coin from him, strolling up to the dummy and looking it up and down with bravado.
He bit his lip and drew the coin in a diagonal slash, inhumanly fast.
The dummy’s bisected bucket head fell two separate ways.