Lightning crackled in the sky like a shattered crystal, wind whipping the sails of the ship in a million different directions as rain pelted the deck till it was too slick to walk on. Waves and clouds shook in fury and the sea below twirled and danced to its angry tone, a mass of liquid blackness. Shadows thickened and grew like the spindly figures of death.

Thalia Fen Trovestone stirred in her sleep, pulling on the thick sheets to muffle the howls of the winds and the sails. It didn't work.

She stood and reached for her slippers. They often eluded her, and the chaos of the night didn't make it any better. She walked out of her cabin. Bare feet slapping against slick wooden boards. She shuffled up to the desk and squinted her eyes in the dim light of the night sky.

"Captain Lort" She called. Lort was a hulking man in a ruffled shirt, knee-length coat and tough boots. He picked at an itch in his beard with a saber as long as an arm as he scoured the deck for the voice.

"Ain't never had such a dainty one in ma crew." He said, spittle flying through the rain. Then he spotted the insignia on her glove and cursed, "For Varin's sake, why do I have a Trovestone on my ship?!"

Only then did Thalia realize that she hadn't taken off the ball gown that she had worn to sneak onto the boat.

"Captain, thought we'd make a few extra shillings on the hunt," His deputy said with a rough salute. A rough looking woman with sharp brown eyes, "The little lady wanted to see if the stories of the ravagers were real."

Thunder rumbled in the sky and she shook.

"Did you now?" He said and walked up to the lady- Thalia had never caught her name- then he took her by the arm and dragged her close, the point of his saber fearfully close to her neck, "Now we're stuck in the middle of a blighted storm with a Trovestone aboard, Cherise. Everyone to Friya's Gulf and back would think us wanted criminals." Then he turned on Thalia and ripped the glove off her left hand. "There aren't no Trovestones on my ship, right there aren't."

"Understood, Captain." She gave a salute with a soft voice and flushed cheeks.

"Thought Trovestones were supposed to be the smart ones." He huffed and began to walk, then said, "Now stop standing there like a frozen squidling and hoist the excess cargo of the ship for Varin's sake."

Thalia raised an eyebrow.

"It's a last resort." The captain's deputy, Cherise, whispered, then she wacked Thalia on the back of her head. "That means get to work, Trovestone. Get down to the east wing."

The water crashed against the side of the ship on the east wing. A cold gust of wind bit into her cheek and blew a lock of bright crimson hair into her eyes. She watched as heavy men heaved even heavier boxes and cargo into harrowing depths. The splash as they met water was a muffled, distant sound in her ears. A crack of lightning flared brightly accross the sky.

"Get out the way, " A voice from behind startled her.

She swirled her head till she was eye to eye with a short, beefy, graying man in blue overalls.

He dropped the box he was carrying and shoved her out of the way. "Got rocks for brains or what?" He muttered as he trotted on. "Captain dont' like freeloaders, right he dont'."

"Oh really?" She said and fell into step behind him, lifting a box from the pile, "and what would he do if he finds one?"

She wasn't terribly interested in the exploits of Captain Lort, and he wasn't a particularly decorated sailor either, but she found that small talk kept the fear of the storm from crushing her. She wasn't meant to be here. She could die here. But she had to be here. She had to know if the ravagers were real.

"He'd fling you off the ship and leave your fate to the ravagers." A chilliness crept into his voice as he said that, and then he threw the cargo off the side of the ship.

"Ravagers aren't real." She probed, hoping to get some kind of response.

"And how would you know princessling." He replied.

"Of course, I would," She dropped the box down and it nearly crushed her toe, then she pulled at the collar of her dress, grinned and said, "I'm a Trovestone." She'd never been good at listening to instructions.

"I suppose there's meant to be a badge o' recognition there." He said and walked the length of the deck to get more boxes. She stood there searching her pockets for her gold badge, cheeks slightly flushed.

"I swear to Varin it was right there."

"I'm s'prised a gold badge even made it to the ship."

"Guess Penny's port is afraid of the ravagers-"

"The ravagers aren't gods princessling. They're chaos, destruction. They are death." He cut in.

"They aren't real." She lifted a box off the ground, "Nothing but a ploy to boost a sailor's glory. We've never seen the body of a Ravager, and yet you expect us to believe you? 'They disappear.' Varin's tongue! might be the most convenient thing I've ever heard."

"And the men that have died to them?" He asked as they rounded the cabins.

"Wouldn't be wise to end a lie half way, would it?" She knew she shouldn't have said that the moment it left her lips.

He fell into silence.

"You talk too much for one of the crew."

Then he was lost in a maze of men and boxes.

She got lost in its rhythm: walk, pick, throw. She worked until she was a ragged mess; and gulped for air. Thalia leaned against the walls of a cabin and slurped water from a rough leather water skin. The boat still rocked and turned. She sighed and slid down the walls of the ship, pulling her knees up to her chest.

It wasn't what she had expected. Sailors were meant to be a tough but free-spirited bunch. It had all been a lie.

Yes, like the ravagers. Maybe she was just in the wrong crew.

Her parents used to say she had terrible luck. On making it to her 15th solstice, and earning a spot with the Trovestones she realized she didn't quite believe many things her parents had said.

The Captain had passed her -still sitting down- a few times by now, his eyes growing tighter each time. So she stood and walked the length of the cabin, looking for something to do.

He'd fling you off the ship and leave you to the ravagers. She remembered, and shuddered.

Thalia found herself strolling back to the starboard side of the ship, where the men were still heaving boxes. And she began to wonder what these people were heaving off the ship. When she had carried the boxes earlier, they hadn't feel as heavy as regular cargo. At least, she found that, she still thought like a Trovestone.

She walked up to one and tried to force open the lid, it was jammed. So she begged one of the men for a crowbar. He was a faint thing, wispy frame, pale skin. He held out his hand, open palm facing the thundering sky.

"I'm one of the crew for Valor's sake."

He shook his outstretched arm.

She pulled out a small coin and gave it to him. Then he gave a gap-toothed smile and looked away.

She turned back toward the crate and pried it open. A damp smell came from it. But inside she saw food: dewberries, torfrit. She gagged. Thalia hated  torfrit. They were flavorless, dry little red things, more ration than food, in her opinion.

Rations.

Her eyes widened as she stepped away from the crates and stared aghast, at the crates being hoisted off the side of the ship. This wasn't cargo. This was their food. And in that moment of deafening silence a voice whispered at the back of her mind, like a ghostly caress.

We are all going to die.

She scrambled away and started screaming for them to stop throwing the boxes. They didn't listen but she continued anyway, till her voice was a raspy note. Then she ran for Captain Lort, he was the only one the men would listen to.

She found him scribbling away at a map and arguing with his deputy at the lip of the quarterdeck. He turned to her and frowned. Varin's toes... what an intense frown it was.

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"Captain" She said with a small salute, her voice was little more than a whisper, "You have to stop them. They'll kill us all. Please stop them."

"What in the seven graves are you talking about, Trovestone." She nearly slapped herself for her lack of articulacy.

"The men aren't throwing cargo off the ship, Captain." She said pointing below, "Those are rations down on the deck."

His eyes widened in horror, as he ran off to the starboard.

Lort's deputy lingered for a second before she chased after him.

Thalia slumped down on the quarterdeck. Rain peppering her face with tiny icy pinpricks. The storm had lost some of its earlier vigor but it didn't look like it would pacify any time soon. She stared down glassy eyed, suddenly extremely unmotivated to do anything. They were all going to die. And she couldn't do anything about it.

This was not how things were supposed to go. She wasn't meant to be stuck at sea during a storm. She was meant to go out and come back safely. She was meant to prove once and for all that the ravagers didn't exist. She was not meant to go out and die, a slow, lethargic death. She whimpered and cried. Tears streamed down her face. Melanie would have chastised her, Trovestone Ladies weren't meant to sit with such horrible, marring posture. They weren't meant to cry either. They were the very definition of poise, knowledge and power.

But she couldn't be a Trovestone right now, not even if she wanted to. So she allowed herself the moment of reprieve. She wept, till her eyes ached, and her throat felt less sore.

She looked up bleary-eyed and found the Captain. Back in his earlier position although his deputy was nowhere to be found. Strange. She tended to orbit him.

"Pull yourself together, Landlubber." Firm hands held her and pulled her up. She met his eyes. Swirling pools of amethyst. "The Widows Quiver has been through hundreds of storms before, And it'll face a hundred more after this one. We ain't goin' nowhere."

"Never would've imagined the day I'd get saved by a Trovestone, though" He gripped her hand "Aren't you lot meant to be like leaves in the wind?"

"Well I'm still here Captain." She sniffled. He bellowed a laugh, it thawed her like a rising sun.

"I could use more saving." He cocked his head toward the mismatched crew on the deck. "If you wouldn't mind Lady..."

"Thalia" She said, blushing. She would have to take care of that soon.

"Thank you." He gave her a warm smile, but he couldn't hide the desperation. The fear. Then he nudged her forward. "Perhaps we could use more of that Trovestone magic, ay?"

He spoke with an  desperation, one that pushed her, moved her to do something. So she went down to the deck to take stock of how much food was left. The men rarely took notice of her, so she wasn't disturbed as she categorized the boxes according to type, weight and content. She compared the results with their initial stock of rations, and found that the situation wasn't nearly as bad as she had presumed. They'd lost nearly half their rations, but they could make it back to Penny's Port couldn't they?

She told the Captain, and he grunted. It was one of his good ones.  The storm had even passed by then.

The first three days after the storms passed were peaceful, with gentle waves, and clear skies. The air was moist and humid, but it felt fresh. Natural. She walked round the ship taking notes of the ration expenditure, the number of people on the ship, people out of commission...

The men shifted as she moved. They treated her with a sharp, implacable respect. Almost reverence. She shivered, but she understood, she had saved their lives. She tracked down the captain who was still scribbling away at that map, except this time he was alone. Where had that deputy gone?

"Captain" He grunted, "The rations won't last any more than 3 days."

He grunted.

"Sir we have to be back to Penny's port in three days."

The map had him entranced, so she tugged on his saber's hilt. His hand blurred forward and seized her wrists. She winced.

"Sir that's nearly fifteen thousand nautical miles away," She whispered, "we can't make it."

"No." He said and let go of her wrist, "We can. And we will."

He had an infectious determination. Her worries melted before his immolating intensity. What had she been worried about earlier?

The day flowed by, like a gentle breeze, night creeping up the horizon, it swept in like a graceful silk cloth.

She sat up against the mast of the ship eating the torfrit with a stubborn grimace. Basking in starlight, her back ached from work, and her eyelids felt heavy. She took a sip of the water in the leather pouch and nearly spat it out. It was stale, but she couldn't waste purified water out here... in the endless sea. Salt water could kill, her mother had said it, the Trovestones had said it. That was a warning.

Something caught her attention at the edge of her vision. A twinkling. Like the flash of gleaming metal in sunlight. Then the nightmarish rumble reached her. She scrambled for her rations and pouch, before making for the captain.

The fourth day had come, and it brought with it a storm.

The captain's roars were lost to the winds and the thumping of boots across the deck. The crew moved in a chaotic routine: steering the ship, dropping the anchor, pouring soap powder into those treacherous depths. Soap powder? She blinked. Well... she hadn't been a sailor for long.

She moved through the crowd, with a profane grace. Or perhaps that was just the crew's deference. They moved like a rushing tide, she saw Grouters, with their rocky skin, and perpetually bloodshot eyes. Cretens, with their wings, and feline movement. Why hadn't they flown away yet?

She saw humans, but she was already accustomed to them, so their sight didn't draw her as much as the others. All except one she saw kneeling in the light of a sputtering oil lamp, hands clasped before his leathery face. Almost like he was praying. What in the seven graves was he doing?

"Who do you pray to?" She said, using an arm to shield her eyes from the rain. "The gods are dead."

He glanced toward her, with muted, gray eyes and raised eyebrows. As if surprised that anyone had registered him.

"And yet we must continue to pray." He said. Lightning struck and he shifted back into his former position. "For the gods must awaken to a world of devotees. Not one filled with their faithless creations, and ceaseless ravagers."

"The ravagers aren't real." She started again toward the quarterdeck tired of the conversation, but he grabbed her by the forearm.

"If the ravagers aren't real..." His voice was a low, gravely breath. She turned toward him, wet hair pulled back in the wind, nearly fixing him with a glare but the sight of him. Oh Valor's fingers...it was one for the bards. The world seemed to freeze around the two, and the wind stilled. The oil lamp finally winked out but lightning flashed once again, illuminating his face like a ghastly apparition, with blistering warts, and an incomplete, manic smile"...then what killed the gods?"

She grimaced, and pulled out of his grip. Valor's teeth, he'd nearly bruised her with that hold. Her mind was already a mess, she didn't need more to worry about. Especially not now.

Much like the rest of the ship, the quarterdeck was too slick to walk on comfortably so she hardly spent time up there, even if there were railings to keep her from falling. She found his deputy - Cherise- seated against the railings, back to the sea, with a canteen of alcohol next to her.

"Deputy" She called, saluted, and winced. Perhaps the crazy old man had bruised her "We are down to an eighth of our rations." Then she looked around, "Where's the captain?"

Cherise stared at her with dead eyes, and took a swig. She thumbed backwards. To the sea.

No.

"He jumped, Trovestone." She said then burped, and giggled "Coward."

No! A distant fury possessed her. Had Cherise just called Lort a coward?

"And what does that make you?" Thalia spat, and fixed Cherise with a wicked glare, "Drowned in alcohol and misery."

Cherise glanced down at herself, "I dont know?" She said finally.

"You let him do this Cherise." Thalia turned back toward the sea, "How long ago did he jump?"

Cherise's eyes widened, a strain of lucidity erupting from deep within her.

"No Thalia, you can't do that." She groaned.

"He's our only chance out of here Cherise, you know it." She said, then gestured toward the people on the deck, "They all know it."

"You'll die."

"We'll all die without him." Thalia remembered those immovable purple eyes, the unending determination, as she climbed up the railings. She remembered her fear during the first storm, and how he had washed it all away. He was a hero.

"We will make it," she remembered him saying.

Cherise stood up and searched her eyes, then winced at what she found, "No you'll die without him."

Thalia paused looking down at the towering waves and the unreachable depths. Her heart caught for a fraction of a second. She hesitated. Then she remembered. That was why she needed him.

"Then so be it." She said, and jumped off the railings of the quarterdeck. The sea swallowed her.

It was a rush of bubbles, screaming and suffocating, as she strayed closer and closer to the darkness within. The saltiness of the wet hair in her mouth made her stomach lurch and her eyes burned through her skull. Her heart beat like the wings of a dying pigeon.

Ba-dump.

Her hair floated about her in a crimson mess, unpacked and unadorned. Very un-Trovestone. Like little streams of blood.

Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

She opened her eyes to the darkness and the acrid water rushed in. She forced them to stay open in spite of it, for she needed to see. She needed to find him.

Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

The water below was like a different world. It held her in a muted bubble, only the rumbling of thunder in the distant sky broke the silence, a reminder of her mortality.

Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

Her lungs began to burn, and she nearly screamed. But she swam into the blinding darkness below, like the maw of a beast. Her Trovestone dress, fluttering behind her.

Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

Wait. What had moved there? She swiveled and turned only to find a cargo box, in the lonely waters. Then she relaxed and accidentally let her breath go. She turned back to the surface for more air, then felt the darkness below shift, and froze.

Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

It was so vast, grand, profane. Jet black scales as big as houses curled around her in an endless cycle, like it had become her world, a slithering whisper. She shivered

Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

It had a long serpentine body, as long as the world itself, as wide as ships. She got the haunting impression that she wasn't seeing the whole thing. Her throat became dry like the outside of a torfrit.

Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

Elongated, swiveling, malicious head. Fangs as long as towers. They gleamed in the darkness. It had a nose as broad as lakes. It breathed in. A rush of bubbles and ship bits and cargo and her. She paled. A tongue, like a river of bleeding carnage, flickered out, toward the surface;.

Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

And then those eyes. Like cities of amethyst, they shone in the darkness with a feral intellect.

Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

No! She screamed and bubbles escaped her figure. In the depths of the sea, alone with an eternal monstrosity. He was no hero.

The old man's voice whispered, somewhere deep in her mind.

If the ravagers aren't real...

Her toes curled and she closed her eyes but it was still there. Haunting, beautiful, majestic, profane. Unholy. No, Divine.

..then who killed the gods?

She dared to open her eyes, and it was gone. He was gone.

The ravagers were real...

Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump

She looked up, the ship above little more than splinters and cloth, not even corpses marked the passage of that beast. It was a terrifying sight.

...and they lived among men. She thought. The world must know.