————— Triss

The fall into the dark pit was short. Tris could count the minutes it took to go through the tunnel on one hand, but she felt as if she had experienced a century of darkness. She wished she could live that long and be that old.

The air attacked her skin and clothes for getting in their way. Triss clung tight to the grip of her bow, her quiver flipping against the air, about to slip out of her shoulder. Tic wasn’t holding onto her anymore. They got separated in the middle of the way but remained given each other.

The sudden exposure to natural light blinded her, signaling the end of her journey through the dark tunnel. Upon closing and opening her eyes with a crack, she realized that she was at an absurd height, where wishing to be alive after a conspicuous landing would be pure stupidity.

At the start: With her head turned toward the bottom, she counted down the minutes until she reached the end of her life. But something sparked hope inside of her. The radiant liquid, like a pale blue moonlight, filled the big stoned arc that was occupied by a gigantic watercraft of a ship.

“Triss!”

She glanced over at Tic, trying to swim his way over to her.

“What are we going to do?”

“Aim for the water!”

They both yelled at each other like bickering. If their volumes were any lower than they were, it would look like they were miming.

“Aim for the water!”

Triss repeated his words. The gap between the edge of the arc and the ship was ‌small to fit through with precision. But as she was squinting to aim for the gap, over the edge, two figures were walking above a big wooden plank onto the ship. One had a gun, keeping the other at hostage.

Triss prepared to take a leap of faith, diving into the water, the sea, and hoping for there to be something to grab onto because swimming didn’t belong in her skill set. But…

Triss was half a distance away from the dark tunnel to the water. It was expected that her journey falling would be precarious, but she stopped. In the middle of the air. She couldn’t make out anything at first and thought she was still falling, but someone scraped a shovel into the tender surface of her brain. But no. No. She looked up above her, and a red-feathered bird with a pair of goggles was holding her up with his feet wrapped around her arms.

“It’s you!”

Lloyd’s bird!

She apologized to herself not remembering the bird’s name, but also thanked herself for having arms small enough for the claws not stabbing into her fleshes. Then, out of her surprise, Tic continued to dive below her and she noticed his upcoming landing wasn’t anywhere near the water. His trajectory shot right into the center of the ship.

“Lloyd’s bird! Go save him!”

Triss pointed at Tic falling and spoke the words like a command. It was a strict command that left no room for errors. Any screwed-ups happen and there will be rotten nutrition for the wild vultures.

————— Lloyd

Sending Roc to save two people falling open in the air was a risk, and Lloyd couldn’t decide if it was worth taking or not. But he took it. His gun stayed high, aiming at the marine as they strode slowly on the wooden plank. The plank’s size provided secureness for their safety. Lloyd had a feeling it would break because of unusual circumstances. What kind of circumstances? Lloyd didn’t know, but it was cautious.

Then his brain got shocked as Roc lost the grip of Triss and dived into Tic, who was getting closer and closer to the deck of the ship.

What are you doing?

Lloyd visualized the image of Roc getting a grip on Tic, stabbing into his arms, and Triss never being saved and going on to become a hunter in the afterlife. It was too morbid for Lloyd’s good.

But Roc pulled a stunt he never anticipated. Instead of grabbing Tic, Roc sped up his dive toward him, like a bullet a size of a cannonball. She was aiming for the trajectory toward the water, and before the impact, she turned her head down and avoided her beak from impaling Tic. She hit him with the force of a hammer and knocked him near the edge and right into the gap. Lloyd held his breath the whole duration and sighed in relief as he heard and then saw a splash of water on the other side.

Roc made her way toward Triss with ease, grabbing her in time before the fatal impact with the deck. Lloyd sighed while holding the gun at the marine.

“Roc, I want to applaud you for pulling that stunt.”

It was almost a celebration, then Lloyd heard a gunshot swoosh by the side of his ear, feathers falling, and Roc dropped onto the deck with a loud and painful shriek. Triss fell alongside her, knocking her shoulder on the hard surface, Lloyd heard a crack in the muscle, and Triss was whining, holding her shoulder.

“Drop your weapon!” It was one voice. A young but powerful voice emitted from above the dock. Lloyd turned toward it, and a man was aiming a flintlock gun at him, in the same manner Lloyd was aiming a gun at his fellow peer.

“You shouldn’t have shot first before saying that.”

“You shouldn’t have threatened a marine. Ash!”

The hostage marine quickly looked over at the calling of his name and smiled at seeing a familiar face.

“Tash! You’re alive!”

“I didn’t tell you to move.”

Lloyd sweats heavier than before. It was miles out of his tricks to threaten any living beings, and he couldn’t figure out where in his guts made him dare enough to threaten the life of a marine.

They both finally stepped onto the deck. Lloyd’s shoes rattled against the hard surface, and Ash’s shoes created a creaking sound you would occasionally hear from aged wooden surfaces.

Lloyd stared back at Tash. He was reloading his gun with no worry. A few pints of gunpowder slipped from his hand. The bullet was rounded and polished for brightness, and Lloyd didn’t know how to stop him.

“Stop!” A bellowed voice, deeper but gaunter than Tash, filled the place.

Behind Tash, a gaunt old man treaded in with a group of armed marines striding with him, forming around the edge, with positions ready to shoot. Lloyd was on the verge of an overwhelming attack. Triss finally stood up still holding her shoulder, still mumbling behind the pain. Tic took a while to climb up the ladder attached near the bow of the ship, moist with seawater and coughing himself.

————— Tash

“Why are we stopping?”

Tash delayed the reloading, staring down toward the ship while Ash had a gun against his head. Any moment now, any mistakes and his friend would be dead on the ground. Tash believed the man holding the gun wasn’t the kind to pull a gun without knowing how to use it, but wasn’t the kind to kill without remorse.

“We have to let them go,” Ingram spoke, striding to the side of Tash.

“We are having at hold right now.”

“We have to let them go. Lower the gun, Tash.”

Tash dwelt in the honor of being on duty, the honor of being in service, the honor of serving for the good of the people, but Ingram could have his honor now by preventing him from saving his comrade.

But Tash’s ponder convinced him to lower the gun, but not down.

“Are you going to let Ash go with them?”

“I don’t trust Ash to follow through with our thinking. If we negotiate, he may think we are giving him a chance to act recklessly and will take a risk not worth taking.”

“What if they are the ones who attacked us?”

“What if they are not the ones who attacked us? I’ll say with certainty the ones who attacked us are more powerful.”

Tash glared at the ship, noticing a familiar man soaked by the seawater climbed up from the ladder by the bow. It was him. The man they talked with at the table. Cadet Tic.

“Hey!” Tash screamed from above the edge, hoping it was loud enough to reach the ears of those on the ships.

Everyone on deck jerked their heads to stare at him, beside the girl who was holding her shoulder and grimacing with her mouth.

“You over there. Cadet Tic?”

The man Tash assumed to be Tic flicked back at him.

“Yes! General Tash. I’m sorry I lied to you.”

General Tash didn’t think to count how many lies would come into Tic, but he swept all to the side and focused on the important.

“Hugo is dead!”

————— Tic

Hugo is dead!

The general’s words rang hard in Tic’s head. The ringing shrieked like the shooting of a silver bullet, and Tic was sick in the stomach. Hugo died. Died from the crushing of the piles of garbage. Concretes. Tic couldn’t believe it.

Tic wanted to say something to reassure himself. To reassure General Tash he did have sympathy for the loss of the man. An honorary and worth respected man. But he couldn’t find any words to genuinely convey his grotesque emotions. Any words now would only bring dull echoes to the melancholy.

So he remained quiet, but he gave a nod with certainty, wanting to give General Tash a confirmation that his feelings were with him, and they were both mourned in silence to the death of a man. A man who didn’t deserve it.

Vic lost his balance as the ship suddenly shifted forward, before being moved by the waves of the sea. The ship dropped out of the dock and splashed the smooth surface of the underlying sea.

Tic looked back at the edges where all the marines were lining up, instead their guns were down now. He didn’t know what they felt about the deadly attack or the fact that they were leaving the place not in good deed with marines.

“Tic.”

Lloyd called him from behind.

“Tie him up.”

Lloyd flicked his gun at the marine, and Tic sighed a long and tired one.

————— Triss

The tingling and fracturing of her shoulder muscle brought Triss a shot of blood dreading, but holding her shoulder up didn’t have much closure to that. Roc was lying with her belly down beside Triss, not bleeding out, but her left wing left a hole by its rear. Her feathers scattered across the maple wooden deck.

Triss bowed her head as she was standing up, then tilled up to see the marine tied with a rope around the bottom of the crow’s nest column.

“You are less resisting than I expected you to be.”

“Tash could have killed all of you with his shots, and he didn’t.”

Lloyd stepped in between them, cutting the eye contact.

“You were held at hostage,” Lloyd said.

“I trust you to not shoot me in the head.”

Triss nodded. Lloyd was the type to never kill anyone by himself. He did plan for Triss to do the killings, and that required another kind of guts. People followed their guts in their daily lives. Those usually turned out to be quite real.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“At least I trust you not to do anything to me.”

“But you didn’t resist us from taking you. That’s odd, even more for a friend of a general. Frankly, I was expecting you to run, or attack me, and I was planning on making you run. My life would be easier.” Lloyd spoke with clarity, then collapsed onto the deck, gasping like a dying ape.

“What’s your name?” Lloyd said.

“Ash. Captain Ash.”

“Pleasure to have you on board,” Lloyd spoke while Ash was tied to the column, legs straightened flat on the deck.

“Where’s Tic?” Triss tapped on Lloyd’s shoulder.

“He wants a rest inside the cabin. Don’t disturb him at the moment.”

Everyone was having a bad day. Today could be the worst day in each person’s life… or the best.

Triss’ bad days at the sea kept collecting more every week she was still alive. Her life couldn’t have gotten any worse than this. Right?

She felt something flew into her eyes, wanting to scratch them, but her shoulder gave her more pain. If she moved it, she may not be of use anymore, and that was a better reality. Triss blinked rapidly, the flapping rhythm escalated and became peculiar each second. Her head spun into a whirl of light, and the beatings of the brain began to attack her head. Triss held her best, but then fell onto her knees, breathing heavily with her eyesight declining into a blur. The breathing slowly ascended into a scream. Her heart bled into her mind, and Triss only saw the shoes of Lloyd before everything came to an end.

Triss thought some sickness was gripping her and her luck was down to oblivion. She was dying on her way down to meet her people. She believed so. And Her beliefs didn’t always ring true.

————— Waid

“Who is doing these things?”

“What?”

“These drawings of mermaids and cravens. It doesn’t say who drew them.”

Waid gripped the pages he was holding over the Thane. They were parchments aged by the oil of people’s hands - goldenrod with a hint of the decomposing smell. Not to Waid’s standards in terms of books being kept in pristine condition.

The feel of the paperback stood heavy in Waid’s grip. He could break a juvenile’s neck with a stomp of this monster.

“They probably dug them out of piles of sand and became disappointed realizing the artists didn’t sign their name.”

Waid was gleefully flipping the pages in front of Thane, legs crossing to make way for the Fyes below his chair. Living or staying in a place occupied by different kinds of intelligences, Waid learned you going to pay the need to train your spatial awareness, because the chance you got thrown into jail by fatally stepping on a life was absurdly high. They couldn’t rule it as an accident that one time, it was a hassle of a case. Frankly, Waid will never forget it, even though he told himself he wanted to.

“These are beautiful. Works of a master migrate into the forgotten.”

Nonetheless, Waid was glad they took a stop at the generational library built along the Queenways, right down the street from the building. Thane and Waid were still waiting for a plausible meeting.

How long was the wait supposed to be? Hours? How long has it been? Almost hours?

“Do you think they will show up?” Waid yawned like a wolf howling. The book glowed in the pale of light, there will still be light. Waid shook his head not knowing why did he yawn, it was still the time of the day when people were slowly getting burned by a maestro of the sun.

“I despise the presence of them, seeing them face to face gives me damned illness, but I can swear on my mother’s blood they are not the kinds to break their words.”

Waid ponderously nodded, seeing a lizardfolk in his declining years limping down the walkway with a cane. He seemed generous and didn’t care about the world besides his will to live. Waid contemplated for the day he descended into the same state, with cane tapping, frowning at the thought. He would never pour his strength enough to live that far. It would be a fortune if he could witness how the world would move on beyond him.

“Speak of the devils. Or rather, gods.”

Thane stood with a glint. The light shined on him, reflecting against the tender surface of his clothes, even though they were not supposed to. Maybe Waid was seeing it differently. Nonetheless, their guests finally showed up and did not do much to impress Waid.

At least, not yet.

—————

The horde Waid thought to be their guests turned out announcing the real arrival of their real guests. And they still haven’t stepped their foot down onto the dock yet. The wind was meddling with the overcoats of Waid. Then stood there by his side, mouth opened and hands held tight on the rails around the balcony of the building.

The dock was filled with hordes of folks greeting the ship like a king just arrived back at his kingdom. The sight lightened Waid. He smiled seeing the people running out, some tripped and fell into the sea, some get pushed aside and then run over. A nightmare wouldn’t to the absurdity of this crowd.

“Do you expect them to remember their meeting? I don’t see them as the kinds to care.”

Waid squinted to see the silhouettes of the people on the ship, waving their arms at the crowd. Waid could see one of them smile.

“They’ll never break their words.”

Waid held his attention at the ship, it was still a fair distance away before getting docked, and he couldn’t how they would fit the ship into the gap, it was a a tad bigger than Waid’s ship, big enough to store a dragon on the deck.

He closed and opened his eyes with a crack, and suddenly, he heard a ghastly impact and flinched into stepping back. His eyes didn’t keep up with what was happening.

What?

Waid blinked, and the ship was lit up with spreading fire. The main mast cracked and fell into the sea. He saw the man in the crow’s nest screaming something. His face was horrified.

What?

His skin tingled with the wavy heat omitting from the distance. The fire rose higher and darker than hell could wish. The ship hovered above the water, closer and closer to the dock. Fire emerged from the ship like a torch, lighting up the place in the warm color of burning. Waid stood by the steel rails ten strides away from the balcony’s door, holding tight onto them.

“I saw nothing.”

“I saw nothing.”

I saw nothing.

Waid repeated Thane’s words, glazing across the horizon of the sea, looking for any hints of a silhouette, any hints of a shadow lurking behind the fire. Nothing again.

Waid blinked with a crack, the ship was drifting with ease peacefully nearing the dock, then a blink of an eye happened, the ship burned into a whirlwind of bright fire. Big and monstrous fire. Waid blinked again, not trusting his eyes to convey the reality.

“I saw the cannonballs. I saw where they came from.” Waid was muttering as he saw Thane strode down the way toward the exit, where the others were hurrying.

“But it was empty! Nothing on the sea!”

Thane nodded at Waid, seemingly thinking in the length as Waid, baffling by the truths that though he demised the existence of his guild council, seeing it happened, not in a way that brought satisfaction, bittered him.

“I’m sure it was a cannonball that hit them. This is not magic.” Thane jogged down the stairs, avoiding the horde of people rushing down. The whole place smelled of sweat and spit. Waid almost got left behind because of the dragging, he felt hard to breathe for a second, crushed by the crowd.

At the last steps of the stairs, they both burst into the vast open space of the hall, though the air was thickened, making breathing a hassle to waddle through. Waid shuffled through the stepping of the crowd, trying his best to keep Thane in his view. Thane didn’t care about Waid keeping up or what. The matters at his hands were bigger than caring about the wellness of his friend.

Waid gagged, pushing his way through the fitted entrance, falling onto the ground, getting stepped over by the crowd, not caring about anything besides arriving at the incident.

Waid saw a glimpse of the warming sea. The wind blew most dreadfully, and the sea crackled like a continuous flame.

He blinked rapidly, eyes getting drier and drier, and still couldn’t believe what was happening.

————— Triss

Triss opened her eyes with a crack, inhaling a deep one to keep her lungs alive. This was not hell. This was not heaven. Triss frowned, staring at the peak white ceiling. Where was she?

The place blinded her with its brightness. The whiteness of it gave her rash feelings. Everything is pitch white. Walls. Floor. Corners. Triss couldn't tell if it was big or small. She felt like she was standing in an infinite space of time. Maybe she did die, and this was the afterworld. If so, the afterworld fell below expectations, even beyond Triss’ expectations.

Fortunately, it was not the afterworld. The wall to Triss’ right cricketed someone was pounding and pumping on it. Because of the whiteness of it, the perception of it moving gave Triss frosty nausea, like that one time she was holding the tip of her arrow close to the center of her nose, and forcing her eyes to dwell close to each other using the tip as a point. It gave her brain a dose of repulsion.

Close enough. Triss walked toward it, not knowing where the endpoint it, afraid she would break her nose like an idiot.

A small gap in the wall, formed of a long and narrow rickety rectangle, slid to the side. A pair of eyes, round and big, of a man stared at Triss. For the first few seconds, he was nonchalant without any appeal, but then he raised his eyebrows, blinking rapidly. He vanished into the distance, and the sliding rectangle fell back into its place, bringing back the peculiar brightness. Triss wondered what about her was so special.

She wandered around the place, expecting herself to descend into madness, but it hadn’t happened yet. Did she move through space in an instant to get here? Or is it a hallucination now? Maybe this was all an odd dream.

————— Lloyd

What's in the—

“You puny rattling insects! I’m going to kill you all!”

The little shit Lloyd thought was Triss launched at him like a force of nature, and using its claws carved into his skin, burning the flesh and vessels. Lloyd’s shoulders and biceps were the victims. He screamed into madness, right and left hands formed into fists, decking the thing with no restraint. Lloyd didn’t care if it was Triss or not. The only thing that mattered was that he was being scarred into oblivion, and his future was not bright with his appearance.

Lloyd lost balance on his tips, tumbling down with his back. Triss still wrecked him like a toy.

“Cut the ropes now!”

Ash shrieked into his ears with his scream, and without hesitation, Lloyd hurled Triss at Ash, hoping her sharp claws would cut the rope.

“What are you doing?!”

Ash didn’t have time to continue having Triss crawling over him, but luck was on his side. If you count luck as receiving scars for being released from a prisoner’s tie.

Ash, finally free from repression, pushed Triss flying strides away from him, then using all of his speed wrapped his arms around her, using all momentum as he was lifting her and slammed Triss onto the deck. Lloyd grimaced at the impact sound, thought he was hearing a few bones crack.

“Hold her down!” Ash struggled to use his weight. Triss was too eccentric to contain.

“I’m going to kill you all!” Triss’ voice bellowed like a demon. It was a voice you wouldn’t want to hear when you’ve gone to hell.

Lloyd jumped in and held Triss’ arms down, avoiding the long claws. She was stronger than she was normally. Lloyd had to use his whole body to keep one arm down, while the other wiggled back and forward.

“What are we gonna do with her?” Lloyd asked the captain only in the title. Ash was not the captain of this ship. Lloyd wouldn’t let that happen.

“Either until she turned back into a normal human being, or she will die from exhaustion before us. You know how to fix this?”

“No!”

“You travel with her! Right?”

“This is the first time I’ve ever seen anything like this.”

Lloyd was surprised they could hold this conversation while struggling to contain the monster clawing them over here. Is Tic still sleeping?

Triss’ energy drained out over time, getting less and less eccentric. But something was wrong. Her palms were facing the smooth surface of the deck, clinging to the woods, although there were no gaps.

What is the one thing Triss is known for? It is magic? Can this creature use it too?

Oh… no.

A trail of green and purple particles formed out of Triss’ palms, spreading all over the woods.

“Run!” Lloyd screamed.

It was too late of a warning. But instead of the usual explosions Lloyd expected, the woods of the deck broke apart into pieces and splinters, creating a big gap in the ship. A shipwright would die of a stroke seeing a ship falling apart like this. It was stable enough to continue sailing on the sea. No sinking yet. No one died of drowning yet.

Lloyd thought about all of this in a flash of his life falling into the below cabin, with all the cannons and nets and hammocks. Tic was sleeping in the captain’s cabin. Right. How lucky for him. Lloyd wished he had gone to the North. The South’s name gave him a sour taste now.

His life couldn’t have got any worse, isn’t it?

————— Tash

The wind was rattling against his burned clothes, black spots disfigured the white shirt, and Tash sat by the edge with nothing to say. Nothing to be heard from him at the moment. He wanted complete silence, but the marines running around broke the quiet. He wanted to do his best and help the people being terrified by the attack, but his best interests weren’t with the people. His heart didn’t know how to deal with the loss of Hugo, and now possibly, the loss of Ash.

“Go back to your duty.”

Ingram walked up to Tash. His subconscious wanted to not hear what the old man had to say, a vice-admiral compared to a general. Tash wished he could see the difference between the ranks. Maybe only in the titles.

“Where are we going after this?”

“Who was this Hugo?” Ingram stared out to the sun as it was crossing the horizon.

“He… he was someone worth remembering. At least as far as I know of him.” Tash didn’t know a lot. The talks were, unfortunately, interrupted. He deemed himself lucky to be alive. Lucky to not die slowly and painfully having his organs crushed by piles of concrete.

“Did you find the body?” Ingram said.

“We found it. Then another hit happened, and we lost track of everything afterwards. But we confirmed he didn’t make it… I confirmed he didn’t make it. His death was with no dignity.”

Ingram was nodding, hands behind his back and face covered in concrete specks of dust. Tash stood straighten up, dusting his shirt and pants. Some got caught in his throat and he didn’t know what to do about them.

He treaded toward the door leading to the exteriors, light on his steps, afraid of causing more damage to the building. It was fragile beyond repair. Ingram rushed to join alongside him, striding side by side.

“I need you to go back to the headquarters with me.”

“I’m planning to go by myself. I’m not leaving my crew here.”

“Then your crew will go with me.”

“We are not leaving our ship here.”

“Your ship will be taken care of. I guarantee. I promise.”

They greeted a few cadets running along, helping clean up the remains of the collapse. They were approaching the oak stairs, and painted patterns ran down the stairway, cloaking with the earthy smell of olive now covered by the perilous burning scent.

Tash let Ingram tread down first, then followed him with precaution. This was a precarious walk.

“Are you planning on telling them about the girl? They were looking for her in… forever.”

“I would before the attack happened. Fortunate in a way, that falls into my favor because I don’t want to tell them about the girl. I hope they forget.”

“They won’t. Do you have any people in mind who could be the culprits except the girl’s crew?”

“Not yet. General, I may take this as because of supernatural. If only one didn’t see the enemy, that’s an exception. If everyone didn’t see the enemy, who just shot two big explosives at a marine base, that’s an intention.”

“I’m trusting anything you said. Deception and trickery are meaningless to me. If I can’t explain it, then it’s not science.”