Fear grasped Elijah's chest as he heard the warning of the bell right before arrows rained across the deck in a real life game of battleship. He hated combat, it was a gamble. It didn't matter how talented you were, how brilliant, if you were unlucky? You were dead.

Then Jon grabbed the pitch pot and lantern, charging into unnecessary danger. Even Fuss thought it was a bad idea by how he stared after Jon's silky clothing, billowing ridiculously behind him as he shouted, "Make a hole!" only to toss a weeks worth of wages for the average crewmember - just in copper shavings, as well as the lantern and pot, right into the water. He missed completely.

Then Jon got shot.

"Awooo!" Fuss howled as Elijah grabbed his long tail, holding him back, "Stay here, Fuss! You know what he'll do if you get hurt!"

"Ruff." Fuss said, and this time Elijah could almost understand the barks, or maybe he was imagining it? "Ruff ruff!" Jon! Jon! Help Jon!

Screams echoed across the water, a shout of triumph going up by the crew of Dawnlight, who now all had crossbows raised, firing as fast as they could reload.

"We've got them now, Boys!" Captain Bry shouted, "Don't pity their plight, kill them all!"

So Jon had done something... the enemy firing had paused.

Still, Elijah bundled his jacket over his neck and head, giving himself some protection from a kill shot, and cautiously began to low crawl to where Jon had collapsed, bleeding from an arrow in his chest. Elijah carefully rolled Jon, checked to see if the arrow had gone through, before dragging Jon behind the cover of the Captain's Cabin.

Elijah tried to focus on the injury but every twang, every shout caused him to tense, had him wanting to turn to the violence, to see what was happening. Hands shaking, he removed Jon's shirt and saw where the arrow had entered him. Lung Shot. The bubbles of bloody air at the base of the shaft were an obvious sign of his injury. Was the arrow barbed? Elijah looked around, then scurried across the deck to look at another arrow. The head was small and stone, not larger then his thumb with no obvious signs of poison...

Jon was immune to poison anyway.

Returning, Elijah wrapped both hands around the shaft causing Jon to moan, his body to shudder. Hands slick with nervous sweat, he yanked, opposite to the arrows entry and the shaft came out like a wet reed in sloppy soil. Blood splasheed across Elijah's face, Fuss howled, and Jon convulsed, his head thunking back against the deck.

Jon's face was pale-blue now, his breathing turbid, each struggling pull of air dribbled blood down his face. Worse, Elijah looked at the smooth shaft in front of him; the arrow head missing. He looked down at the hole in Jon's chest leaking blood.

"Oops." Elijah whispered as Fuss looked to him, Elijah tossed the empty shaft behind him into the river, holding his hands out, empty, "We need to stop the bleeding, Fuss."

Jon would heal. If combat ended fast enough. Elijah had heard thousands of stories of combat vets living into their nineties filled with shrapnel, this was no different and maybe even serve as a lesson? If it ached a bit when it was cold, or when Jon exerted himself too vigorously? Jon could learn to not throw himself into danger so casually, forcing Elijah to risk his own neck to drag him back to safety.

"You dummy." Elijah accused Jon, rolling him on his right side, keeping his left lung clear and encouraging the blood to drain. Elijah kept his hand on Jon's blue chest, plugging the hole to keep suction when Jon breathed in, removing his hand as he exhaled to let the blood push out.

But it was Gimp that secured Jon's life, with just a slap of his hand, eyes closed. Elijah heard Jon's wound sizzle, smelled flesh cooking, "Just burns it shut." Gimp explained, "Nothing fancy, but it'll keep him from bleeding out." Then he moved off to help others.

"Owwww." Jon groaned eventually, eyes blinking, breath wheezing, "This game is terrible, Eli. Why does it hurt so bad?"

"It's not a game, Jon." Elijah whispered automatically, "You weren't offered pain immunity for your free Ability?"

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"Yeah, but Fuss wouldn't be here if I took that." Jon whispered, cringing as his hand floated protectively over where the arrow had entered him, his other hand stroking Fuss "Did you take it?"

Jon finished with a cough, blood misting from his mouth, Elijah grimaced.

"No, Jon, that's only for your first Build. But there are potions and items, a few magics that can do the same that we can look into."

"Hell of a thing!" Captain Bry shouted, making his way over to Jon as he tugged his beard in excitement, his crossbow still held in his left hand, "Those bandit bastards were already pissing themselves when I pinned that whelps skull to his buddies chest, and then Ugly hopped right up on the rail!"

"Did you see their faces?" Gimp crooned, twisting his face in terror, an expression likely similar to Elijah's own when he'd first seen Jon, "I bet the river got a span deeper with how much they were pissin themselves."

The crew roared.

"What is this idiot doing? So I thought," Bry gestured at Jon, "First you throw my lantern at them, then my pot, missing completely! And I was bout ready to throw you at them until I heard their screams!"

"It was like a swarm of fire hornets got 'em!" A crew-mate added to more laughter as he danced about, slapping at himself as if he was on fire, "Hard to aim when you got a ball of burning pitch on your pecker!"

"It was like shooting fish in a barrel once they jumped in. Just wait for 'em to pop up for a lil air, and -" *Twang*

"Bring out the beer, Sooty." Captain Bry shouted, "And we'll quaff a brew to Ugly here, for giving that bunch a lizard lickers exactly what they needed!"

"Hooray!" The crew cheered as they laughed, this time along with Jon instead of at him.

"And another round, for the finest crew to sail the Shan'di. Taking double their number in an ambush without losing a man, not leaving a boat afloat to bother another honest soul. To Victory!" Bry shouted the last, his mouth wide and beard blowing, crossbow waving in the air - and wasn't it grand?

Captain Bry had presence, and Jon was looking up to him grinning just as wide, hand already reaching out for that promised beer - a few of the crew grasped and shook it, patting Jon on the head or bare chest, causing him to grunt in pain, to cough blood, but his color was back and his eyes were smiling.

How did Jon make it look so easy? Elijah wondered. In just a couple days Jon had made friends with every man aboard. All while being hideous and completely new to this culture, his first time on a sailing ship. Now the men were celebrating him, congratulating him, toasting him.

And there was Elijah, practically ignored. Even though he'd worked non-stop these last few days on making the ship worth more. When done, he would increase the amount every one of these monkeys would earn for the rest of their dull lives; yet it was like he wasn't even there, nobody passed him a beer, nobody cared as he walked off to a corner of the ship to continue his work.

"Here, Eli." Jon said, holding out a mug full of beer and pulling Elijah out of his carving, "Thanks for saving me. It was an...ignorant thing for me to do."

Elijah looked at the wooden mug, filthy and stained, perhaps never washed, "Thank you, Jon. But you know how I favor wine." Still, he accepted it after Jon didn't pull it back, and took a small taste, "Ugh, this is horrible...So you leveled?"

Jon nodded, "Ignorance is Bliss. Passive. Ignore all pain."

Elijah could only grunt, he was past being surprised when it came to their Destinies, but he couldn't help but assume how Jon had gotten the level.

"You didn't know the pitch would do that...you were just trying to hit them with the pot? And the lantern? You didn't know it would happen that way?"

Jon just gave his special smile, and Elijah shivered.

"Life doesn't work that way, Jon. It shouldn't work that way. We've been lucky so far but it's going to run out, you very nearly died."

Jon nodded.

"Which is why you have to start being realistic. I know you've locked onto this idea - your Class. And you think it's all just going to work itself out, but it's not. A Broken Class doesn't level, Jon, it devolves. Maybe not today, or tomorrow - at best you may have a few months if you're working hard, but inevitably?"

"But don't you want to try, Eli?" Jon asked, "Isn't this what you're after? A kingdom? Isn't this what you really want from the Real(m), is there anything better to work toward?"

"Of course I want it, Jon, but just wanting something isn't enough. You have to have a way of achieving it. Do you even know what you'd need to fix your Class?"

Elijah looked into his friends face, and found only that easy expression, a growing smile as Jon nodded, "I have everything I need."

"Oh, really? So you have land and a holding? A treasury? A Court and a Flag, and...and who know's what else?"

Jon shook his head, and Elijah was already rolling his eyes.

"Then how can you pretend that everything is -"

"I have something better than all that."

Better? That was impossible. But Jon's nose didn't grow, "What, Jon? What could you have that's better than all that?"

"You," Jon said, "I have you, Eli."

And wasn't it amazing? Wasn't it absolutely incredible? Elijah felt his face warm, his heart melt, like his whole body was covered in a honeyed hug - to see how much esteem Jon held him in, how much Jon believed in him. Which made it all that much harder to turn to his best friend and disappoint him.

"Oh, Jon." Elijah frowned, looking down and shaking his head, "If only I could, but not even I can do that. I'm not that capable or clever, I wouldn't even know where to start, I'm serious, Jon. Jon. Why are you smiling? Stop, this is serious, you can't expect me to pull a kingdom out of my ass and just give it to - Jon! Why are you laughing?"

"Because," Jon said, leaning back with a smug smile, "Your nose is growing."