It was down by Sheyflie docks

one May morning I strayed

A-viewing of the sailor lads

I saw a winsome maid.

She turned and sent a smile my way

And my feet took me right down

I thought she was bonny Olysa,

the lass of Sheyflie town.

- from the journals of Captain Amard

"Pss! Get up!"

There little house by the seaside was one-story with a loft where Jori slept. In the winter it was where they would store the jams, hang the dried meats and pickled vegetables. But in the summer it was his place to to as he wish, and as they were not farmers, he often slept late into the morning, only waking by the sound of his mother's voice or the smell of freshly baking bread. The fire by the kitchen would be warm and inviting, and if Amard was there, he would see his father seated at the head of the table and tipping his cup in Jori's directly.

"Get up!"

As soon as his bleary eyes caught sight the wooden beams of the Plucky he knew it had been a dream. First of all it was not a summer morning but dusk, and it was not his loft he was clambering down but a hammock swaying with the motion of the Plucky; and whoever it was that was shook him. He fumbled for the walls of the ship. "What, I'm awake, what happened?"

Giersa was leaning over him, and he smelled left-over rum and stew. "I don't do crying," Giersa whispered, "I don't do crying or comforting. Gives me hives. You go and talk with Alez."

He smelled cider, sweat and probably guilt, but it wasn't his place to solve Giersa's life problems. "No," he reached for the blanket to pull it over his head. Giersa had managed to climb down from the crow's nest, they were entirely capable of their mental capacities to deal with Alez.

"You want to fish him out the sea when he jumps?"

That would delay the Plucky yes, because as much as he hated the new stowaway he did not want anyone to die while onboard the Plucky. At least, he didn't want anyone to die that he could do something about it. Curse Giersa and their ability to just pull on his heart strings and the promise he made when he first took control of the ship.

Jori let out a groan and pulled himself out of his hammock, "What prevents you from helping huh? I thought you two had an understanding."

"In my state, I will only tempt him to do so," Giersa responded. They helpfully handed Jori his boots, which Jori snatched with an irate grunt.

That sounded like a threat, and Jori scowled, getting up to push past Giersa with more force than necessary. He was rewarded with a drunken chuckle, and as he made his way up the stairs he heard a soft thud and cursing. Served Giersa right, he thought.

He waved half-heartedly to the nightwatch, which comprised of Perre and some other sailor he was training. Jori could hear Perre cursing the other man's stupidity, something along the lines of Goatsby making for a better sailor. But it was unlikely that the other man understood him, when Perre was agitated his accent would swing back to his mother tongue. Jori paused for a moment and admired how creative the man could be then went back to his task. Alez wasn't hard to find, for someone Giersa was convinced would throw themself off a boat. He gave Jori a hesitant, strained smile from where he leaned against the bow of the ship.

"Did you… you weren't asleep were you?"

In the Sun King's palace there hung many underappreciated paintings and one that Jori found fascinating was of a drowning woman. The artist was supposedly recreating Olysa, even though he had clearly never seen the ocean or the Goddess in question. Olysa did not look human, and the woman that the artist had painted was mortal, not immortal. She had been dressed in a nightgown and in her hand was a dozen white daisies and pansies. They were edible, those flowers, and seeing the painting had turned him off cooking with them entirely. That was all he thought about when he first saw the portrait. In the years of his fruitless search for his father, her expression kept coming back to him, there was just something about her expression that he could recognize in himself. The memory of her face had slowly faded with time and each successful find, though now looking at Alez's face, he supposed Alez could very well be the model for that painting.

At a lost of what to say he settled for a lie that would spare Alez's feelings. "No."

"Ah," Alez turned away, hugging himself with both hands.

How did Alez even summon up the courage to board the Plucky, Jori thought, bewildered. His earlier contemplation were gone, replaced with a familiar irritation. "I heard what you told Hari. Why are you embarrassed?" Jori said, bluntly, "It's a rather common wish, like Hari said." Easily fulfilled, thought it was a bit harder when you were married to a sailor. His mother hadn't complained from what he recalled, but he was quite young then, maybe she did say a few words to her friends that he was not privy to.

"It's not about what I told Hari! I said I wanted to go home," Alez muttered, "but then you asked if I was sure my sisters would take me back and I don't know if they would. And I don't know…" he sounded hopeful. "Maybe I can find work with a merchant?"

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He half-wondered what kind of bejewelled cage Alez spent his time in at Port Regate to not know that a merchant would not be hiring or taking on Alez for whatever skill Hari might have seen in him. Alez may be older than they'd like but any entrepreneur can find a place for Alez. Probably at those houses with the red doors and lanterns, the ones where distinguished gentlemen went through to gamble away their coin. There they would indulge in worldly pleasures that they would not admit to in polite company. No doubt they would squabble amongst themselves to auction such a prize, shouting louder than gulls. If Alez had been someone like Giersa then he would feel no guilt when his feet left Plucky, but as it was… Jori liked eating lamb well enough, but he was above sending a lamb to slaughter.

"What kind of merchant are you looking for?" he queried, cheerfully. This he was good at, the poker face and the bright voice that betrayed none of his conflicted thoughts.

Instead of looking reassured, Alez's brows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

So Alez wasn't half as stupid as he looked. But then again, the rich women spent their time poisonously throwing insults about so perhaps Alez wasn't completely deaf or blind. After all Jori's poker face was an aristocratic wave of the hand or the fan.

"I will be honest with you and say no merchant would take you abroad with pure intentions. Not around here at least." Nor anywhere. If they did then their partners would sooner abduct Alez and sail off with him before the merchant could do anything about it.

"And you are honest."

He wondered if he'd passed some sort of test, but shrugged. "Yes," if he had a hat, one decorated with peacock feathers, he'd tipped it in Alez's direction.

"How long will this Olysa quest take?" There was a pause as Alez fidgeted with his sleeve and Jori was tempted to hold his hand to keep him from driving Jori to distraction with it.

He didn't like frayed sleeves, it got caught everywhere and no one liked having threads in their meals. But now was not the time for meals and recipes. "As long as it's needed." As long as it took for his father to return home. Which was looking more and more like a very long time.

Alez turned his back to Jori and leaned against the railing of the Plucky, the wind blowing what hair that wasn't tied back wildly. "I went to a soothsayer once, when I was a child, and she said that I'll never have a child with a man who makes his living on land."

"A classic," Jori agreed, rolling his eyes. These lines were so vague as to mean anything.

"But she said he would be honest! So I thought it meant something when Ed— he came to court me, because he's from a naval family and that meant something—"

Jori frowned, "A naval family? Who exactly did you marry?" When Alez shook his head, either frightened or bewildered, he continued, "if I'm being pursued by some officer hellbent on revenge for his son or honor or whatever, I would prefer to know." Though more likely the old man would put a bounty on Alez's head. But it would be all for naught, the posters would depict a pale waif and two weeks at sea does wonders to one's complexion.

Sometimes he wondered if he needed to look wilder, to braid bones or seaweed in his beard to get faster answers. But think of the smell, he told himself, how could one cook if one smelled so foul? He shuddered, you needed cleanliness to cook, otherwise it would spoil the food and the flavors. But he was thinking of food again, either he was hungry or he needed sleep. Though he couldn't sleep until he kept Alez from doing something he'll regret, so he came to stand by the other man.

"Edmund Wyne," said Alez finally.

There were several times Jori's heart had beaten furiously in his chest. Several of them were related to the precise timing of food and ovens. But this one was entirely something else. Wyne. He struggled to contain his excitement. He could see the crumpled pages of the diary, and the particular one with the name Wyne. Edmund Wyne the Elder, he thought, it tasted like sweet revenge and destiny.

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Wyne rots like the horn he keeps about his person, his father had written, and whatever hand he played to obtain said horn no doubt poisoned Edmund the Second as well. He was right in his suspicions on Port Regate's sudden prosperity. Edmund Wyne may have been a useless captain but his father certainly was not. An idea occurred to him, to fetch two birds with one stone, as one might say.

"Maybe we could sail past Byhill, just to check in on your siblings?" he said, pleasantly. "Perhaps they'd like to see you. You needn't stay with them," he held out a hand towards Alez. "You're welcomed abroad the Plucky, Alez."

Alez's hand was warm in his, and maybe his smile was very charming, Jori had to admit. But his mind was more fixed on Wyne. Captain Wyne, and the horn he stole fro Olysa. Now what kind of horn was Amard referring to? That was what they needed to find out... probably during a break-in. Alez was too sweet and hesitant to ever be included into the attempt but Jori knew several in his crew who were not above such tactics. But his thoughts scattered when Alez threw his arms around Jori in a hug.

"Thank you," he said, and Jori was taken aback by how handsome it made him look.

Maybe he really was sleep deprived. Or he was getting old, he'd heard enough complains from Hari about joints and insomnia to last a lifetime.

"You should go back," said Jori, waving a hand at the nightwatch and indicating he wanted to talk to them. "I'll join you later." He made certain Alez was headed in the right direction, made sure he saw the dark head of hair disappear into the sleeping quarters before leaning over the side of the ship. The water was dark, the light of the moon casting eerie shadows upon it, and Jori could swear that he heard whispers beneath its surface. "I will return the horn to you, Olysa," Jori said softly.

He didn't expect to hear a response, but when he stood upright there came surprised shouts from the watch.

"Whale sighted!"

It was too far south for a narwhale, but it was close enough, "We sail for Byhill with the morning tide!" Jori hollered back.

She may be capricious, and she may or may not have kidnapped his father but Olysa could hear a sailor's promise from anywhere at sea. He took a deep steadying breath. Hopefully he was on the right path, hopefully she approved of his plan. Every time she tested his resolve he wanted to sail back home and return to the dreams he left on shore. He had turned the house into a tavern, with its cellar filled with barrel and jars of preserved food. It would have been the best tavern around, driven all the others to shame. Except on the day he opened it the Plucky had sailed into the harbor, unmanned. All its sailors had stumbled back into Jori's tavern one by one and all claimed that they had seen things on board the ship. He did not care for their ramblings except for Giersa who had stared at him with eyes that had seen things.

By now he knew Giersa drank as a way to summon their thoughts from where they'd locked them away. But that was older Giersa, back then they had been Jori's age and the words spilled out. From the confusion, Jori had gathered that there had been a fierce storm, and the Goddess had just appeared and everyone had thought it was their doom to be swallowed along with the Plucky deep into the sea. But then Jori's father had stepped up to her and she'd taken him into her hand. Then everyone had the same shared memory, that the seas had calmed and that they had all woken up at port, not on board the Plucky, and had all beheld the ship sailing in, unmanned.

'Your father said something to the Goddess and—' Giersa had gulped, and the dark circles under their eyes made them look even more haunted than usual. "—and she took him. And we were gone."

"But now we're here," Robaus had butted in. Unlike the others he was calm, and his hands were steady where everyone's shook, "— and we're going to help you find him. Captain."

"What? I'm no Cap—" He looked around wildly, but the sailors gathered were nodding their agreement.

"He saved all our lives, boy, we own him one." Hari grinned toothlessly. "Or at least, several attempts."

Maybe it was lucky that Jori never drew up a contract with the sailors on how many attempts there would be to recover his father. If he had, he would have no doubt be sailing an empty ship, everyone would have abandoned it in the first couple of years when Jori was chasing nothing but rumors in the wind.