Olysa, Olysa, let me leave your shore.

O no, my dear Captain, sing just one song more.

I'd rather your men dance and play on the strings

Than to see your ship leaving, and hear sirens sing.

Dear Captain, dear Captain, will you stay with me?

O no, my fair Olysa, that never can be.

I've a wife back in Sheyflie and my son's only three.

And a wife and a Goddess may be too much for me.

- from the journal of Captain Amard

He sat with Giersa for a while until he realize he really ought to get down and find Alez. A part of him hoped that Giersa would come along and act as a mediator because if he could barely understand Giersa then how would he ever had a hope of finding out how to convince Alez to disembark at the nearest port? But Giersa, the bastard, claimed that they'd had too many bottles of rum, and that the morning sun would be all that was needed to cure the headache. Which was a flimsy excuse, Jori thought, fuming. Giersa wanted him to talk to Alez, because Giersa liked dancing and talking in circles and was now too drunk to do either. Fine, he didn't need Giersa's help. Now, where would Giersa advise someone to go to who didn't want to interact with any of the men on board? He smiled at his brilliance and swiped Giersa's copy of the keys to his larder.

Normally the door to it was guarded by Goatsby, but she had been irritable and snappish of late, probably due to the smell of the other animals, she was a pampered pet and no doubt hated the competition. But Goatsby was safely penned, away from the other animals and under heavy lock and key that not even her best attempts could chew through. Jori was rather proud of his little room. There were wheels of cheese and barrels of cider, and his attempts at pickling. Not to mention all the spices that he'd laboriously collected through the years, though he knew better than to keep them all here. No, it was best to have at least three on his own person, and several hidden in his own hammock. That way he was ready to spice the under-cooked meals when appropriate.

Though to say Jori was merely proud of his larder would be lying, Jori was extremely delighted with his larder, because he was better than all the other fool captains who didn't know that to store food properly one needed to have proper airflow through the storage space. It kept the rot away, except for the vermin, which were the cats' job. This was the only place where he truly felt at home on the Plucky. A recreation of what he'd like to do on land. Though he doubted he'd like cleaning the floors of a tavern than the one here. It was a relaxing task, especially on days when he really wanted to ponder what on earth his father was writing in those journals of his. Ralphye had remarked that it was easy to tell how 'agitated' Jori was by the state of the floors. To which Jori had asked him how acquainted he was with clean floors and the man could not give an answer. But no matter that, the floors had been spotless when he'd last set foot there, and it was pristine now as well.

But today he did not find himself alone, as he'd expected, the unwanted stowaway was there. Alez, to his credit, or perhaps Giersa's, was seated on a folded blanket in a corner, keeping himself away from the shelves and the barrels. He was wearing Giersa's second best trousers and shirt, and Jori knew this because they'd kept waiting. There were little blue birds stitched along the sleeves and Giersa had been entirely too fond of the thing for it to be any normal Giersa-encounter. Though any time he'd asked, Giersa had simply given a new excuse and he'd decided to forget the entire matter. No doubt it was some sexual escapade, and this was some souvenir, or worst, a gift.

"Sorry," Alez said quickly. The words came flooding out of his lips like a flood. One hand fiddled with the scarf he tied around his head. "I didn't mean to, you know, read anything, I just thought the Captain would come in at any time and when no one came I just didn't know what to do and well, there wasn't much to do, and I had to keep myself quiet otherwise I'd start counting all the whirls on the wood so I figure that—"

Alez was worse than the time Perre thought a parrot would make a great companion. "Stop," he said and Alez flinched. "I'm going to ask you one question, and I want you to be honest with me. The man you killed, is anyone going to come looking for you as the culprit?"

"Maybe?" Alez's voice was very small.

The other man should take off that ridiculous bandana on his head, it made him look like a nosy grandmother. "Listen, I just want to know if I should look out for anyone—" he paused, no need to be telling Alez what he was doing. Alez could be a spy, for all he knew, "— if you tell me where you want to go I can see if that's on the table." There, that was diplomatic and fair.

Alez brightened, and a hesitant smile crept onto his face. He had entirely too many teeth to be on the Plucky. "My father's house," said Alez, "Byhill? Have you been there? I thought maybe I could visit my sisters, I'm sure they would—"

There was no need for the other man to finish his sentence. He sounded too hopeful for his own good, Jori had seen nobles disown each other for less. A murder of a husband? The absolute scandal and dishonor on the family. But who was he to dash hopes and dreams? "Are you certain your sisters would take you in?"

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Alez took too long to answer, and the nod that he gave Jori was more hesitant than sure. "You could drop me off at the next port?" Alez suggested, sounding hopeful. "It wouldn't take too long to get there, would it? And I don't— you don't have to worry about me eating—"

There had been a few times the crew had nearly run out of rations, though those were thankfully far and few between. Not to mention Jori would be the first to confess that he liked experimenting with cooking food more than he ought to, but the implications had him bristling. "You think I'm the type of man to starve a person?"

"No! I mean, I just meant, I don't eat that much, so you don't have to worry too much about feeding me and I'm sure I can do something around the… the ship, The Plucky." Alez gestured and it looked more like begging than a suggestion. Those hands were too prim and proper to do any work on a ship.

"Have you ever greased anything?" At Alez's bewildered head shake, Jori continued, "Oiled? Varnished? Scrubbed? Painted?" He went through the lists of tasks and finally settled on what he thought Alez might faintly know, "Mend? Have you ever mended clothes?" He stopped at mending sails, and then had a strong suspicion that the needles the sailors used wouldn't be quite what Alez might be familiar with.

"No?"

Jori let out an irritated huff, and when Alez—what on earth was wrong with the man— shook and curled back onto himself, decided to walk over where the wheels of cheese were kept to cut himself a slice. Goat cheese, courtesy of Goatsby. It was tart and buttery when he bit into it, exactly as he liked it except maybe it needed some more time to deepen the flavor.

"Do you want one?" he said, holding out the slice to Alez. Maybe he was being harsh, but how else do you tell someone their suggestion was quite...implausible?

Alez took it, and stared at the slice as if Jori himself handed him a gun. But he closed his eyes briefly and a half-smile flickered across his face. Just briefly, like a mirage on water, before it was gone. Well, he should appreciate Jori's cheese, no one could rival him. Perhaps the Sun King's cook but then again, the Sun King's cook did not age his cheese on a ship, so that wasn't a fair playing field. Perhaps it would taste even better with olives, but they've run out of them some weeks ago, and Jori knew the merchants on this particular side of the sea wouldn't part with their stock that easily. Though maybe they could be persuaded with a trade? Or a forced bargain, that was also possible.

"Giersa said you were a good cook."

"Hm?" Jori startled out of his thoughts. "Just good?" Jori muttered darkly. What table has Giersa dined at that was better than his? He'd been with Giersa on most misadventures, he could swear Giersa had complimented him on his taste.

"Maybe she said great?" said Alez, hesitantly.

"Oh, it's she for you then," Jori rolled his eyes. Why did Giersa subject him to that earlier speech then? "Unbelievable. Wait, no, believable," he cut himself another slice of cheese.

"I… could help you look for Olysa?"

The cheese fell from Jori's hand and he had a moment of regret, before deciding he'll just pick it up and eat it again, his larder floors were clean enough. "What?"

Alez was fiddling with his hands nervously, having pulled the scarf clean out of his hair as they talked. He would have had quite nice curls, Jori thought, no doubt Alez would be the envy of any ball. "I read your father's notes? He was looking for Olysa? Things of hers? Pieces? Like what people made of her? Statues? Lockets? Is that what he was looking for? Is he like a collector?"

The hopefulness in Alez's voice sounded almost like what Jori told his mother ten years ago. No doubt Alez wore the same look on his face. He decided instantly that Alez could not be a spy as no spy worth their salt would ever have such naïveté.

"You could read it?"

"Well," Alez paused, fiddling with the buttons on his shirt. Thankfully on the buttons, he supposed Giersa would blow a fuse if those little blue birds were harmed. "only a little. Your father had some sort of code? It was difficult to read the later pages."

He thought of the spinning diagrams that stretched from page to page and his father's spindly song verses between them. At least the words were legible, there were also pieced together pages full of numbers that made no sense to Jori whatsoever. Neither did it make sense to his mother when they'd both looked at it.

'The cursed Olysa drove your father mad,' his mother had shouted, 'and look, she's taken you as well!' She had her hands on both his shoulders, shaking him. 'Please, Jori, don't look for him!'

But amid all the words and numbers he had found some reason behind the madness. He had pursued it and it was a glorious day when he took the map from the dead man's hand and the black ink had moved to show him the coordinates of the next thief he should find and serve to them justice. For what do you call people who took pieces of a Goddess?

"They're not pieces of things people made of her, or things she owned," Jori began, resisting the urge to pace back and forth. The larder was too cramped and he didn't want to risk toppling the shelves by waving his arms in agitation. So he cross his arms and leaned against the door. "They're pieces of her. Her heart. Her lungs. Her eyes. That sort of thing."

The shocked look on Alez's face, the wide eyes, the open mouth, and the pallor that wasn't from being a precious, doted shut-in, was the same one that the trusted members of the crew wore when they saw the map in the moonlight for what it was. It looked like a map, felt like a map to anyone under the sun. But when the moon was at its fullest it was a pulsating heart. Not a complete heart, no, that would be a clean sort of death. Only half of it.

He had not fault anyone from fainting, vomiting or jumping off the boat then. No one did the latter but there were plenty of meals being lost overboard. The Goddess's heart was blue with green veins and it passed by his ear as he sat down in shock with it still in his hands, he swore he could hear his father's voice singing. So he gave Alez a look, the same look he'd given his men. To his surprise Alez stood up and met his gaze steadily.

"I think that's a noble task."

Jori scoffed. "Noble? The nobles did it the first place!"

"The idea of noble then."

So he had a philosopher onboard. Brilliant. "If you say so."

"I can stay?"

"I will see if we can visit your sisters in Byhill."

The last person that had given Jori such a sunny smile ran off after pocketing his very expensive spices.