The next day the weather was much the same, worse even. Amanda had her hands full taking over Michael's animal caring duties while Sirius drove the boat and did the rounds, checking on the crew.

The animals were getting restless but Amanda tried to find ways to exercise and entertain them in the tight spaces of the halls. It was dangerous work though. Everything was soaked. Sirius had the crew constantly mopping the inner floors. Normally it would keep them from getting too slippery but with all the wet boots being trooped through constantly Amanda didn't see the point until she realized it was a good way to keep them busy and out of trouble.

It was when she nearly got hit by two men practicing their sword-fighting in the middle of the hallway while walking the puppies that Amanda decided maybe she would take a break from the animals and see if there was any work that needed helping with on the upper deck. She grabbed her coat and headed out to see what she could do. Unfortunately she had little experience with ships, and Shiv, who was currently in charge of deck matters was giving her the side eye again.

She found Neko around the corner of the deck staring out at the sea with a contemplative look.

“Hi Neko, anything I can help with?

“Not really, I’m just trying to decide if we drop the fishing nets or not.”

“What? In that?” Amanda looked out at the ocean. She couldn’t imagine any fish swimming it that, but who knew, maybe once you got far enough down under, the water got contrastingly calm. Maybe the fish had no idea what state the surface of the ocean was in. It must be almost like living in a whole new world. Up here the spray from the ocean and the boat’s movement had her soaked within seconds of stepping outside and she had to keep her back to the bow or her eyes to the deck least she be struck in the face by thousands of watery knives. She was glad the coat Sirius had given her at least kept her dry down to the knees. She had to hold on to the rail to keep from falling over, and every now and again the boat would jolt with so much force that her feet briefly left the deck. It seemed out here one did not need a pegasus to fly.

As she approached Neko however, she felt the spray lessen. Neko also seemed conspicuously dry. As she looked around she realised he was casually using his powers to divert the water around them. Amanda wondered if that would work with her fire powers. Could she keep the rain off by evaporating it away? In any other situation it would have seemed a frivolous use of powers but out here where the water was a weapon she was tempted to try it. Better to test when there weren’t people around though.

“Mmm, well normally we wouldn’t,” Neko replied. “But we’re running low on fish. The animals eat more than expected and because of the storm we haven’t been able to put the nets out.” He shrugged. “We still have a few days but if the storm keeps up or gets worse then it would be better to throw the nets out now.”

Amanda looked out at the waves with him. She had no idea how risky it was and little advice to offer him. Looking further down the deck though she noticed a device whose function she wasn’t sure of. Figuring a few minutes of Neko’s time wouldn’t matter much she asked, “What’s that thing?”

Neko looked where she was pointing and replied, “That’s the fathometer. You drop it into the ocean and it tells you how deep you are. There’s a section we run sometimes with lots of underwater islands. Navigation through that area is by depth checking. You gotta turn the ship at very specific points.”

“Sounds tricky.”

Neko nodded. “It is. But don’t worry. We’re not passing through that way this trip.”

Amanda was about to ask him some other questions when there was a sudden loud yelp from the foredeck followed by an inordinate amount of swearing.

Neko and Amanda rushed around to the front of the boat to see what was happening. Up in the rigging, hanging upside down with his body all tangled up was a crewman known as Brian. Down on the deck Shiv had his hands raised and was swearing at the poor bloke.

It took Amanda a moment to realise that Shiv was telekinetically trying to keep Brian from falling any further and also that Brian had one loop of rope precariously wrapped around his neck. If Shiv let him fall he was a goner.

Down on the deck another crewman was rushing toward the rigging to aid him, but in his hurry he slipped on the wet deck and went sliding fast toward the railing.

Shiv threw out a hand to catch him too but seemed otherwise unable to move from his spot. He spied Neko and Amanda and without hesitation barked, “One of you get up there and cut him down.”

Amanda was already on the move. She was used to climbing ropes. They were much easier than trees. What she wasn’t used to however was how different climbing ropes was on a wet bouncing boat. She got half-way up before she realised exactly how different it was and by that point it wasn’t like she was going to turn around. Thankfully, Neko seemed to be doing his best to keep the spray from hitting her.

A brief glance forward gave her a terrifying view of the ocean. Water washed up and over the front of the bow even though it normally seemed so high up. For brief moments the entire ship itself almost seemed airborne. The ropes were also much thicker than she was used to, not soft and stretchy like a climbing rope but hard and cold and difficult to grip.

She reached Brian and found he was hanging further away from the rigging than he’d initially first seemed too. And even if she could reach the rope to cut it, which bit would be best to cut? Could Shiv hold a man up and lower him safely to the deck? He was so tangled up that cutting the wrong rope could mean putting sudden pressure on a worse location. But speed was of the essence here.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Clinging tightly to the rigging with one hand she reached out as far as she could. She gave a wild grab for Brian’s arm. It was no good, he was too far, but she could see a spare piece of thinner rope, which Brian must have dropped, just a little higher. If she climbed up and grabbed that then she could tie it onto the main rigging and with the angle she could use that to get a little closer to him. She made a decision fast and seeing no other option she made for that rope.

Down below her Shiv yelled, “What are you doing?”

Amanda ignored him. She grabbed the thinner rope and then with monkey like precision and quick fluid movements, she dropped a few rungs down. Deftly she tied this new rope around the thicker rope of the rig. Just a quick and simple rolling hitch knot should do the trick. Then she wrapped this rope around herself in a makeshift belay. Without an actual belay device it was a painful abseil but under the circumstances it would do.

Soon she reached Brian and was once again faced with the decision of where to cut first. By now Neko had joined her on the rigging and even with his longer arms he was also failing to reach Brian from the same spot she had initially tried.

“Swing him in to me if you can,” he called.

Amanda paused. Maybe she should just cut all the ropes. But she didn’t know Shiv’s abilities well enough to know if that was the safer option. She reached down, and grabbing the ropes above Brian, she started to swing him in toward Neko.

At first he only swung a little but with every swing he got closer, until eventually Neko managed to grab him. By that point, Sirius, who had been watching from the bridge, had also climbed up and between him and Neko they managed to orientate Brian and loosen enough of the ropes that Amanda could cut through them.

Sirius and Neko helped Brian back onto the rigging and after a brief rest the man managed to climb back down unharmed.

Now that the urgency was gone Amanda had a moment to take in more of her surroundings and she suddenly realised exactly how far up she was and how tired her arms were. Usually in rock-climbing the wall was angled such that the best technique was to keep your weight over your feet. Only on an overhang would you need to really use your arms. Unfortunately that was exactly what this upper section of the rigging was. The holes in it were too small for her to climb through and going around the sides would take as long as getting down to the non-overhanging bit below the next beam.

Trying not to look down Amanda struggled to get herself back onto the main rigging and once she was there she found she could really use a rest. But as tempting as it was to hang around, even with Neko keeping the spray off her there was still the bitter cold wind which was starting to cause her to lose feeling in the tips of her fingers.

Perhaps a little too quickly she started to scramble back down the rigging. There came one point where she reached for the rope and despite her mind commanding it she found her fingers just couldn’t grip. She slipped.

She found herself hanging by one arm. Sort of. She was still holding onto the rigging with her hand but she couldn’t feel the weight of gravity tugging her down. Beside her the rigging did bounce about precariously though. She glanced down.

“Need a hand?” Shiv called up with a cocky smile.

With a new surge of adrenaline and a determination not to fall in front of Shiv again she clambered back onto the rigging and smoothly made her way back down to the ship’s deck. Her arms ached but she was otherwise fine.

Landing on the deck was a whole different issue as she nearly slipped over. If Sirius hadn’t grabbed her she would have been arse down in front of them all.

“Nice climbing,” Neko remarked from not far away. He seemed to mean it too.

“Looks like the girl could make a rigger after all,” Shiv remarked, but his tone lacked the warmth of Neko’s.

Brian, who still seemed out of breath, gave her a nod of thanks.

Sirius cocked an eyebrow, half impressed, half disapproving. She could tell it was because he’d been worried. She gave him a self-satisfied smile in reply.

A particularly large wave then sent the entire group of them scrambling for purchase and Sirius sprinting back to the wheelhouse to help Sonny.

Amanda made her way back down to her cabin and found herself wishing for the first time that the ship had plumbing and warm water.

----------------------------------------

Sirius returned to the wheelhouse. Shiv followed closely behind.

As Sirius took over the wheel, Shiv gave Sonny a jerk of the head to indicate he should leave. Sonny did as told leaving Sirius and Shiv alone.

Sirius glanced at him. He could feel it coming, another lecture.

“I hope you didn’t mean what you said about giving that girl the pegasus,” said Shiv as he got straight to the point.

“What if I did?” Sirius replied. “We both know it ain’t his.”

“Do you think that really matters? Probably half the stuff we ship don’t belong to the people we ship it for. I did warn you, about her.”

“She hasn’t done anything.”

“No,” Shiv grumbled, “She hasn’t needed to. You’ve done it all for her. Did you sleep with her?”

Sirius kept his eyes on the wave ahead. “That’s none of your business.”

Shiv took a step closer to Sirius. “You put the whole crew in danger for one woman.”

Sirius locked the wheel and spun to face him head on. In a commanding voice he replied, “Shiv, I’m trying to steer.”

Shiv’s expression lost some of it’s anger and he was quiet a moment.

Sirius turned back to the wheel.

A few seconds passed and then with a more even tone Shiv said, “It’s not just her. Michael’s a problem too.”

“Why?”

“Apparently he’s related to Sirena. A cousin of some sorts or the son of a cousin. I don’t know. What I’ve deduced is that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.”

“Well it’s obvious he didn’t grow up in want of anything,” Sirius replied.

“You’re not listening.”

“I am listening.”

Shiv sighed. “He ain’t just some random handler she’s picked. He’s on this boat as a favor for someone. Apparently he thought the sea would be an exciting glorious adventure and despite having no experience handling animals that it would be an easy job.”

“So he wasn’t equipped to do the job he was hired for. I think we already figured that one out, Shiv.”

“No, you’re still not listening.”

“Then get to the point, Shiv.”

“The point is, he’s not some random lackey who will be ignored. He’s someone Sirena might actually listen to, even take favor with.”

“You wheedled all this out by talking to him?”

“A bit of liquor and some truth serum might have helped.”

Sirius bit his lip as they took another wave.

“And here we are treating him like crap, hanging him from the mast, and putting eggs in his boots.” Shiv reminded him.

Sirius kept his eyes on the sea. “He was kind of asking for it. Hell, I think we’ve been pretty tolerant given his behaviour.”

Shiv sighed. “That’s beside the point. As I was saying-”

“Yeah, I get what you are saying Shiv. Whatever Michael tells Sirena might affect how she ends up treating us. But don’t forget she also lied to us. She only told us half of what she was transporting.”

Another sigh. “Usually you’re the one telling me to be diplomatic but it seems to be you already think we’re so far up shit’s creek we might as well throw away all the paddles.”

It was Sirius’ turn to sigh. “What do you want me to do Shiv?” He gave the man a hard look.

Shiv didn’t have an answer to give him.