Fuming with anger, Jeremy slumped into the chair of his room, his chest still tight from the altercation.

Karl was with the doc, still unconscious, and Jonah remained loitering outside of the meeting room where the captain and the men of house El were having their secret conversation; that just pissed him off even more.

None of it made sense: the sudden behaviour change, the rehearsed nature of the truce, how Greg kicked them out of the room — and it seemed as though he was the only one bothered by it; Delia wasn’t, busy tidying up the scattered maps and scrolls laying on his desk. It was a collection of months of futile attempts to determine their whereabouts.

"What the fuck was that about?" Jeremy exclaimed, venting his frustration.

"Language," she inattentively reprimanded.

Upon clearing the items, she revealed a large green tome embossed with images of mythical creatures in gold. “My bestiary, when did you take this?”

Jeremy ignored her question. "Language? They almost fucking killed us! And for what? Because an old man scared them?" He clenched his fists into balls, hands turning white. "I should have punched one of those fuckers for knocking Karl out."

“You know you wouldn’t have,” she said, rolling out the scribbled parchment. “And can you give me a clean sheet, please?"

“Fucking pieces of crap, doing whatever the fuck they want,” he mumbled.

Though Jeremy knew she was correct, it only served to stoke his rage. He continued his stream of curses directed at the trio, leaning down beneath the desk to retrieve the few plain papers from the cabinet. Once he had them in hand, he turned his attention back to Delia. "Do you honestly believe those assholes?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Believe what?"

"Everything! Reds, Yellows, fucking Sirens!"

“Jeremy, seriously. Language.” She sounded exasperated. “Why do you have to keep swearing?"

"Your boyfriend's not here, and even if he was, he can't hear. He's deaf, remember?"

“This has nothing to do with Jonah and everything to do with your fragile ego!” she snapped. “If you were so worried about Karl, maybe you would have done something instead of sitting there pissing your pants.”

“We’re not all freaks of nature, Delia.”

“We’re not all cowards either!” She spat out the words in a biting tone. “Shelby wasn't twiddling his thumbs and Gavin wasn’t petrified by Medusa's henchmen.”

"You think you're so smart, don't you? Then explain why the fuck they wanted to kill us all as soon as Greg walked in,” he snarled. “He's hiding something that almost got us fucking killed."

"Don't you dare talk about Pa like that."

"You know I’m fucking right. He almost got my men killed!" The second mate was practically shouting now, and though he knew Delia didn't deserve it, his rage was a tidal wave and he was but a small boat, drowning in it.

"They are his men! You are his man. He is still your captain and he can hide whatever he wants. Don't pretend you don't hide stuff from the rest of us. Did you tell the crew how you stood there as still as a scarecrow as Jonah killed the kraken, huh?"

"Jonah didn't kill shit! That Kraken was as good as dead."

"It didn't seem dead when it was dragging us to hell."

"You know fuck all Delia. That Kraken was halfway to the underworld, carved inside out by Athena knows what. Did you not wonder why it only had four fucking hands?"

She stuttered for a second, flinching almost as if caught in a lie. "H-he still saved us. You think it would have died before killing us with it?"

Did she know? Did Jonah know? Jeremy hadn’t spoken about the fight with Jonah, unsure of how to broach the subject, and wary of listening ears, but he too went below the water — perhaps he saw the floating carcass before he even dived in. It would make sense.

“Exactly,” Delia said, taking his silence as affirmation. “If Jonah didn’t fight that thing off, we would be all as good as dead. Don’t give me your shitty attitude or talk about Pa as though you think he’s to blame.”

Delia was right. She was right this whole time. Jeremy wasn't angry at the captain for hiding something. He was angry at himself as once again, he could do nothing whilst his friends faced a more significant threat.

He took in a deep breath, exhaling the residual tension away.

"Jonah gambled, and he won,” he said, quietly. “It was luck. If that thing wasn’t half dead, it would have mauled the ship."

"So what should we have done? Run away?"

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Yes, run away!" He raised his hands in frustration. "It was a fucking damn Kraken. Why have all of you guys just accepted a fucking damn Kraken as a thing?"

“Because they are, Jeremy!” She sounded like a pleading child now, the earlier coldness gone. “We all saw it. I watched the Sirens descend and you smelt the aftermath of our skirmish. And we all saw how those guys from house El would have wiped the floor with us. So yes, I believe them.”

“You’re not crazed by all this madness, but my swearing pushes you over the edge?” he said lightly.

“Because it’s unnecessary and unbefitting. You sound like a pirate, not a merchant.”

“Sailors swear all the time! It’s what we’re known for. That, and drinking.”

“Bounty hunters and pirates. It’s also vulgar and rude.”

“Can’t I at least swear on my own ship? I’ll do it less on land.”

She sighed in defeat, adding in a quiet voice, “No, because you rub off on Jonah.”

He gave a humourless laugh. “So it was about your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“You… didn’t say anything to him? Even after he came back from the maw of death?”

Delia looked him in the eyes, her own glazed with water and her voice thick with emotions. “What am I supposed to say?”

That you love him? You want to go out with him? It didn’t seem that complicated. The chemistry between Jonah and Delia was undeniable; anyone could tell they were both interested in each other, even a mile away, yet the two seemed to be in an everlasting dance, avoiding each other's advances.

Jeremy paused as he carefully searched for the right words. She was clearly distraught about the matter, not that he knew what or why.

“You know, Jo–”

Delia let out a snort of laughter, sparing Jeremy from an awkward conversation. "Save your breath," she said. "He can't hear me anyway, and I'm not about to make any confessions. Not especially when he’ll have to lip-read it. Besides, I don't need any love advice from you."

Jeremy clutched his chest in mock offence. "You wound me, not with a Cupid's arrow, but with venom."

Delia rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. I'm sure you'll live." She turned her attention back to the parchments spread across the desk. "Now that you've had your fun and let that out of your system, want to help me piece this stuff together?"

***

By the time they had rewritten the minutes, it was sunrise. Karl had visited them half an hour after the fight before returning to his room to sleep off his headache. He was on the receiving end of a quick blow to the chin, rattling his brain enough to put him to sleep. It was quick enough that Jeremy had barely seen it, and precise enough to leave a small dot of a purple bruise right at the tip of his chin.

No Sirens assaulted their vessels during the night, and the captain and the men of house El were still in the meeting room.

“What do you think they’re discussing?” Jeremy asked.

Delia shrugged. “Stuff they don’t want us to know about.”

“Any guesses?”

“I can speculate, but what’s the point? If Pa wanted us to know, he would have let us stay in the room.”

Jeremy grunted in agreement. Whatever the captain was hiding, it was for their benefit. It didn’t quell his annoyance in the matter, but he trusted Greg to reveal it when appropriate. There was already so much to reveal: Calgur's departure, Greg's retirement, and the likelihood of Raijin flying in the distance.

“You started calling him Pa, I noticed,” Jeremy said, shifting his thoughts. “More freely, I mean.”

“You started calling him Greg, I noticed.”

Jeremy laughed. “Touche. Greg told me to call him that”

“Is that so…” She said, trailing off and casting a curious gaze in his direction, beckoning him to elaborate.

Jeremy paused, considering how to approach the topic of Greg's retirement. He couldn't help but wonder if she already knew. She did say something about how Greg was still his captain. He was more so curious if she planned on departing with him. The Flightless Owl was her home, but what was a home without family?

He doubted Jonah would stay if both she and Greg decided to leave. The recent departure of Calgur had already taken a toll on Jonah, and if he was being truthful, it had caused him some pain as well.

Jeremy had put down Calgur leaving as an impulse of youth, wanting to take rein immediately. He would have become the captain within a few more years if he had stayed, though it was good that he left; otherwise, he would’ve been in the doldrums with them.

As his mind lingered on Calgur, Jeremy rose from his chair.

“I can’t wait to reach land,” he said, stretching his legs. “Eat some good grub and sleep in a warm bed. What about you?”

“I haven’t thought much about it,” she said. “We don’t even know what the land is going to be like, or how close it even is.”

“Inia Tele, was it? I’m sure it's close by. Khaleel and his ship weren’t big enough to have large reserves of food. They probably make regular pit stops on land, so it has to be close.”

“Yes, but they also have fewer mouths to feed,” she said. “They don’t need as much food as us.”

“Just because we only saw five of them doesn’t mean that's their entire crew,” Jeremy said, pacing around the room.

“True, but they’re also yellow.” Her fingers tapped on the oak desk as she listed out each counterpoint. “Maybe they need to eat less than us. Maybe they have high calorific feed on board and they ration. Maybe they capture food from the waters. They certainly don’t have more than half our crew. Point is, there are too many unknown variables, and being optimistic will only harm us.”

“What a wet blanket,” he murmured. “Fine. Assuming we eventually find land, and considering our schedules are completely out the window, any place you want to visit next?”

“I’m not sure. It feels like forever since we could have a casual conversation and think about the future.” She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. Got to wait for Jonah to recover, and Cass said we need to find a decent doctor on land first.”

“Jonah will be fine. He is Jonah, after all. The pirate punisher has more pirates to punish.”

“You know he doesn’t like that name.”

He shrugged. “And? It doesn’t mean I’ll stop using it. It has a nice ring to it.”

“Kraken Killer sounds better.”

“Kraken Killer…” he repeated, letting the words roll off his tongue. Jeremy paused his pacing and turned to her, face serious. “The kraken. Have you spoken to Jonah about it?”