"Shooting?!" Param asked as the spout spray hazed through the air. "At us?!"

Still the great fin aimed towards the dingy. Param could see it beneath the cloudshadow. The horrible S of the beast beneath, beating the waters with each stroke of its terrible tail. The wave rocked the dingy, and Param braced himself against the seat. Eyes caught the flicker of the mirror message.

"Salt save us," he said breathless. Blood drained from his face. "They want us to draw it nearer!" He set the oars to dip. Set one to pull. To cut and stroke, again and again with all he could put behind it and turn their little vessel towards the beast. "Jens!" he cried out. "Come on old timer, sure you got something huh?!" he half grinned mad. "Some secret to the Wreckhounds heart?!" he laughed as their boat sat idle in the chop. Rose and fell, whilst the monster swam toward them.

Another boom for the chaser rings. A purpled bolt of shroudfire scorched overhead. Crackled and hissed wicked fore it struck. Splashed into the waves with a plume of super-heated water blooming up.

Param scraped the insides of his gull-ridden brain. Body aflame with the pain of desperate life hungry work.

"Fuck it," he cursed his luck. He set to the oars. Fell. Pulled. Pushed. Rose. Fell. The dingy cut forward.

The beast grew the closer, and Param could feel the shift in the waves. The swell of something massive, fast to the near surface.
 
“ Fuck no! “ He responded, face full of shocked disbelief like he’d just been told to cut off his own cock and eat it. “ Am not in the business of courting seamonsters — Why don’t you go ask the fucker what it wants? “

The fact that the lad was laughing didn’t help any of his indignation, only dipping the presently unfolding string of events from extremely unfortunate to outright absurd. He’d never felt this stupid in his life, nor been caught in a stupider situation, on the stupidest little boat whilst being shot at by the largest idiot of a Captain this side of the Unicorn Bay. He hadn’t planned dying this way, but a man who enjoyed living hardly made such plans at all now, did he?

The disappearingly small vessel was jerking forwards, gathering speed against what impending doom drew nigh. The insatiable hunger of a curse roused from its slumber, unconditional. The rational truth of a spell not made for failsaves. No argument would debate it, no will but that of its maker would stop it and he sure as damn wasn’t powerful enough to end it. The shroudfire could, but—

Defeat inched into the fibers of his body, similar to relief, mellowing out the panic that’d made him clutch the side of the boat, as if that would’ve saved him. It wouldn’t. All too calm of a sudden, he watched the gunports of the chasers ripple with brilliant light in the distance. Another low boom tore the atmosphere and then, shortly after, water. It misted the air, shimmering with prismatic colour.

Much like a glass chandelier would with the glare of the Sun in its many facets, spun by a gentle midday breeze. Glancing over at the huff of waves In the boat’s wake, he watched the dark surface toss. It bubbled, made foam as it gave way to sharp teeth, rows of them jutting from a jaw that’d opened. Ready to devour. His face twisted with something resembling rage in an instant as he picked himself up and leaped to the stern to meet the beast.

“ Fuck me sideways! No— “ The boathook struck out like a spear, his arm straining as the metal point made contact with a blunt snout. The boat accelerated as he pushed off it, further so as the beast’s great weight begun sinking away again, many a red eye taking in their small company. This was nothing to it.

“ Pieces of shit! “ He yelled, at everyone and everything, observing as the great fin made underwater. The next round of shroudfire missed it by seconds.

“ Hey— “ At the bow of the boat, one finally roused in a groan to the noise, untangling herself from the awkward and majorly uncomfortable position she’d fallen into.

“ What the fuck? “
 
Last edited:
There was a ringing in Param's ears. The hot sizzle of air there in between his skull, made him to feel all dizzy and set to spin.

His eyes wide, his hands steady. While the shroudfire bolts bloomed into spouts of steam not a moment after. The salvo near enough to lift the water beneath the dingy. Set the little boat to tilt. Param grit his teeth and slammed his weight toward the swell. Dug one oar into the wake and lift the other.

Not a sound in his ears save the pound his own heart. Not a feeling in the world, save the rush of his blood. His teeth bared with a mad delight.

"Hang back!" he called to the others. Didn't know if they could hear him, could only feel it clear in his gut, how loud he had called it. His own weight thrown back, to try and lift the nose of their craft as the hull skate down the roiling slope of the swell that rose behind them.

Another blink of red and purple from the chaser rings. Param's eyes went wide. "Bail out!"

Behind the wall of water broke. Maw wide, teeth flared and ready to snatch about their prey, as so many eyes locked to the dingy.
 
The lad gave order and Jens heeded, crouched low at the stern and watching as Delilah scrambled over the oarsman’s bench, throwing herself on the floor next to him. She held onto his arm that he’d extended to secure his own balance by the side of the boat, fangs bared in a grimace as the dinghy tilted and gathered speed by the force of the sea and her creature and the magic that’d seek to kill it.

“ I found it, by the way. “ She said, only half-yelling, one hand on the swell of her satchel that she’d secured about her lap. Glancing at her, he was the perfect image of whomever hadn’t the faintest idea of what she meant.

“ You fucking what? “ Was about as much as he managed, purely on instinct, before there was a call to something rather final. The distant ship’s chasers gave their kaleidoscopic signals of light, but none of them staid to watch.

Beneath the waves, for a couple seconds, was terribly quiet. The din of the wind and the waves was gone, replaced by a hurried slosh as he kicked away from the boat. A great dark shape was there somewhere, a clatter in its throat and a swish in its fins as it kept on, mouth hinged open. Hazarding a glance past his shoulder, he caught the exact second their boat was no more, reduced to mere splinters of its materials in the snap of a jaw. There was victory in it, how the shape of the beast curled and span, to sink a tooth in every last bit.

Then, to the maelstrom of bubbles and debris, landed a red flash. Agonized squirm and blood like black smoke took the water, but Captain Albright’s old broad wasn’t done yet — nay, she struck again. A whip of shroudfire boomed above the surface in sequence, locked on the mark with terrifying accuracy.

The best money and some sleight of hand could buy, on these waters anyway. So that’s where the bastard had spent it all, neglecting all else - including everyone’s damn pay. Distracted by his newly kindled rage he made to surface, breaking into the soundscape of perfect pandemonium. Water splashed and roared like a current, making it effort enough that man keep mind of where ever he was in relation to the center of it all.

“ Param!? “ He called out, eye searching. “ Delilah!? “
 
Last edited:
Beneath the waves, the sun's warmth turned colder in the crush. Param blinked as curtains of silvered air bubbled and blinded him and the currents pulled at him. Swept him towards the curl of the horrid fish as it twist and snapped its jaws round the end of Beth, the dingy. Muted as the crunch was through the water.

All the world a whirl.

A pull. A piece of debris come knock against horns, slam against shoulder and bone to set him reeling through the drink as flashes of purple and red bloomed across the edges of his vision. The slams of power shook through his bones. Again, and again.

Param swam. Up, and up, as the currents of the Wreckhound tugged him towards it all the more. His legs kicked and his arms stroked a frantic measure matched by the violent bleed of shroudfire painted across the fractal fluctuations of waves, ripples, and splashes that coursed across the surface.

A break through the churn. Param drew desperate breath into his lungs. Felt water rush down the wrong pipe. Garbled all wrong as hands and feet tried to keep enough rhythm through the pain.

Zips of violet bolts. Booms against sizzled flesh and gouged scales. The scent of it thick in the air. Param choked, horked and spat. "Here!" he rasped. "Here!" he cried out as the waters thrashed.
 
His face scrunched up against the sharp splashes of airborne water, attention perking to the voices beneath the din. And there it was, the lad’s horned head poking out from the restless sea. Not too far, but with a none too secure look about him.

“ Hold on! “

A large fin stirred the waves yet, flashing a brilliant red and orange in the sliver of sun that would beam upon the death throes, like a marker beget by an unrelenting firmament. The power of concentrated shroudfire tore again, the smell of ozone floating alongside those of salt, copper, seafloor and wet timber. The shroud was beginning to coalesce on the surface, crackling with latent flame that turned to steam all water that it would touch.

A vibrant afterimage that held all the colours and yet none, reflecting the world and spinning.

There’d be nothing left of the damn beast. Not one fragment of woven skin or willbent bone that would remember, regenerate and return. Though it was but a tall tale, that wreckhounds could come back from the dead and thenon haunt whomever should’ve stolen from them, he was hardly one to have any whichfeeling towards any which brutality inflicted upon it. No matter how disproportionate it was beginning to get.

He dove the rest of the way, to close out the dying and the forces that would rip apart the fabric of air itself. No sooner did he surface but in the immediate vicinity of the young man, concern and relief upon him.

“ We’ll have to get further away, immediately. Captain Albright is— “

“ The idiot! “ It was Delilah, come spawning from the waves like a she-shark for a kill. “ If he doesn’t stop shooting, there’ll be an event of some proportion— The spells— “

“ I figured. We’ve time yet. “ He retorted, offering his shoulder for Param to hold onto as they made away.
“ Not much. “

Though to his mind she could’ve exercised some healthy optimism once in a while, there was a comforting balance in how harshly she snapped. What was more, she was gathering speed, himself having to extend larger effort just to stay abreast. She’d chosen direction towards the ship, routing an arch through the safety of the shallows.

“ You alright, Param? “ He asked, voice elevated so he need not turn to meet eyes. “ Looked a little nasty there, for a second. “
 
Clawed hand held tight, as legs pumped with kicks, and lungs pushed out brine and stench breath after hard breath. "Alive Jens," he said through eyes sealed shut. The crackle and hiss about the impact of the shroudshot beating against the drums of his ear with press and rolls. Turned his stomach. Set his vision to spin. He shook it away.

"One pull after the other, aye?" he said through a forced smile. Glad to have the big man there to hold on to. His weight so steady against all the chop they two moved against.

So set the Wreckhound to stir, as gouts of woven steam spout in technicolor haze. How they bled away to grey. Their horrid smell so familiar to the Deva who shut his eyes all the tighter against the memories. Breathed all the harder as they swam. The waters about them spooled to vortex as the fiend beast whipped its neck in wild S. Its tail thrash the waves behind it, as its un-life leaked in wakes about it.

Snout like a terror bird's beak aimed for Albright's ship, the half-boiled wreckhound willed itself toward its nemesis with slow push and strong pull of its tail. Faster and faster it dragged, as the its black blood bubbled and oozed from all it could.
 
“ Alive is good. “ He said, a smile in his tone. “ And yeah, one at a time. No other way about it. “

It was commonplace chatter, nothing none of them hadn’t heard before, but it felt good to say. To speak at all, with their backs turned to the noise and the virulent eye of a storm. At the edge of his vision Delilah spat seawater and hissed, her paddling suddenly gaining a different rhythm. By just a glance, he realized she slowed down not from weariness.

“ Well, shit. “

Unrelenting was met in kind, the beast leaving but a swirling wake as it charged, fast as a killer whale despite all it’d been put through. There was hell to pay and it was quickly befalling Captain Albright to take on the cheque.



aboard Vellamo, Captain Albright’s frigate​


“ Captain! It’s coming! “
“ I can bloody well see it, believe you me. How fast? “
“ Above thirty knots, sir. “

Henrik Johannes Albright, having turned down marrying a perfectly nice girl and therein his inheritance back home, as the move hadn’t pleased his affluent father very much, ground his jaw and stared into the waves he’d done it all for. The quarterdeck rattled as another vibrant bolt of force was launched from the compartment within it, for the seamonster and missing as it swerved. Almost cleverly.

He waited a couple seconds in the ensuing silence just to realize another didn’t follow it. The chasers shot as a team, one right after the other, so the lull was nigh uncanny. The bitter smell of soot and heated metal had him glance down at his feet, to see black smoke blooming past the floorboards.

“ Blasted abomination— Why have we stopped shooting!? “

Miss Kurkela made return in quick succession, the red heels of her shoes playing an urgent if authoritarian rhythm on the deck.

“ It’s the new chasers, sir — They can’t take the strain, it’s— “
“ Bollocks. Last I checked you were the shroudsmaster on board, not an engineer. “ He responded, not looking at her. He knew she was standing right there at the end of the stairs, proud and unrattled as ever. The feline eyes behind her spectacles blinked twice, narrowset as if out of boredom.
“ No, sir. But by my purely empirical assessment— “
“ There are cracks on the barrel. It’ll be ruined. I’ve seen it happen. “ The chief carpenter, having been in charge of securing the damn things on board, chimed in from behind her shoulder. The crow’s nest called again.

“ The monster— Sir! “
“ Right. Start the engines and begin evasive maneuver! “ We’ll never be fast enough. “ And the chasers keep shooting, Miss Kurkela. I’d rather ruin the pair than have the monster take them in perfect working condition, along with the whole ship. “

She said nothing, just nodded. The chief carpented had already hassled away, shouting orders onward. The Captain drew in breath, taking to the edge of the deck and peering at the aghast crew.

“ The rest of you, brace for impact! “
 
In the Waters, the great beast closed on the Vellamo. Its tattered fin raised high as it sliced through the surf. Closer it swam. Closer. With every breath of lung and pump of heart.

The shroudengines chugged. Hissed. Their hammers slow to strike. Their rings maligned as the air in the engine room grew stale. The taste of copper thick in the air as the light of oil lamps dulled. The engineer looked on, wide eyed as the color within the room washed out and turned to monotonous grey.

Again, the chaser rings heated their spells. Again, the light about their barrel snouts gathered and swirled, like so much paint poured down a drain. All muddied and lost in the clash of vibrancies that seemed pulled from the world itself. Shot, after shot. Fired fast from the chaser rings. One struck true, only to have the next go wide.

Whilst the great wheels churned slow.

"Shroud is thinning Captain!" Came the cry from the runner. "Engine crystals have hardly any power to draw from!"

The rings from the chasers grew stranger and stranger with each successive shot. A Ringer fell limp beside their weapon. Body set to seize from the strain of the salvos. Miss Kurkela's eyes followed the man down to the ground. A harsh dissonance. Sharp as broken glass. Her eyes flicked to the chaser, the air about it set to waver and dance as the wood around it smoked. One of the runed metal rings cracked.

Kick. Stroke. Pull. Kick. Stroke. Pull. A wave came up and splashed across the young Deva's face. He shook his head away.

Some false sense of nobility panged in his thoughts. To tell them to leave him. To tell them to let him go so that they might be further from the terror that cut through the wake beyond them. The whole world darker for it all. Greyer, though no storm clouds gathered above them. The sound of gulls far distant. The sound of waves, muted. Just the eerie pull of the distant clash.

Chasers and engine versus Wreckhound.

Some part of him pretended he was noble enough to spare them the trouble of pulling his sorry ass from the water. His hand, however, held on. His arm, desperate as he stuck onto Jens.

Kick. Stroke. Pull.

He wouldn't stop until it was over. One way or the other.
 
“ How are you about swimming all the way back to Kharsaga? “ Delilah spoke betwixt the swing of her arms, swimming despite her tone that grew despirited. Her direction too had shifted, indecisive as the initial idea of returning to the ship grew less attractive.
“ I’ll do just that and drag both of you along if I need to, that’s for damn sure. “ Jens promised, much too readily for how serious he was with it. Boat gone, ship gone— naught but that little sliver of sand to shelter their sorry arses, if it came to it.

“ Fuck this. “ He spat out, anger flaring.
“ Fuck this. “ Delilah repeated, upping the venom.
“ I’m going to shore. Hold on, kid. “

With that, he steered for the tiny beach and kicked more speed.

*​

Aboard Vellamo was an organized mess. Things were being tied down, rolled indoors, closed belowdeck, even thrown overboard as if it mattered. The verdict was clear — technology had failed and wasn’t no discarded bucket and mop going to change a damn part of it. Captain Albright stifled his curses watching the crew make short work of his orders, standing next to the helm like any gentleman only mildly inconvenienced. He may as well have been waiting to be called in for delayed dinner.

Shroud is thinning. Like fuck it was — He’d just been sold good for nothing crystals, as far as he was concerned.

“ Miss Kurkela! “

For the first time in her life, Miss Kurkela didn’t budge to the call of her superior. Through her spectacles, she spied too much to do so — be it the strained metal, the curious shimmer about the room or the lifeless form of another, hitting the floor. She realized she hadn’t a name to put on the face — always too high and mighty as she was to remember such things, a word assigned to signify a mere individual amongst many. There were multiple by the same name on this very ship, she could’ve bet, let alone the world.

But the shroud, she knew every part of it and their names, even as they shifted by the moons and the sun. Singular and unique and undying. Limitless. Kaleidoscopic.

Damn right she was high and mighty. All too much for this damn ship and it’s idiot Captain who, for the second time, called for her. Above her head, she could hear the steps stir, leaving where one should’ve patiently stood until now. She took a step too, the slashed hem and officer’s gold rope about her coat alive as she turned on red heel and ground it down, facing the backs of the chasers. Bracing against the smoke and the suffocating coppery stench, she drew in a breath and brought her gloved hands before her, palms forward.

Like the legs of a dying spider, her fingers drew together. Backwards. And opened. Forwards. She repeated the motion and the metal and the wood and the air itself twisted, the fibers about her fingers and the heart deep in her chest living with it. Her body died for a moment, skipping a beat that felt like a year, shaved off. The shroud was undone and rewoven, the clauses of the runes spoken in reverse and etched to the back of her eyelids with a branding iron. More air. In.

Her hands snapped into fists, fingernails digging to palms through soft leather as her arms bowed towards her chest. Chain tore as the chasers seemed to shoot themselves out through the stern wall, pulverizing it on impact. The smoke and stench in the room dissipated in an instant and she quickly found herself face down on the floor in a yelp, a chorus of it ringing through the ship as the whole vessel jolted like a horse willed to gallop by a switch.

She bit her teeth together, arms straining to lift her off the floor as she stared into the waves behind the ship. Beneath the purring of the engines, it'd grown terribly quiet.

*​


Far behind who would yet paddle on, water floated above surface in slow-motion. A globe of shroud swam with particles of the sea and the destroyed boat, diffusing sunlight like so much mist, until suddenly it grew still as if all time should’ve stopped. When it moved again, it was with explosive force, the sphere expanding and catching fire as it did, burning the atmosphere.

Not just heat, but force pulsed out. Something electric that’d travel through most matter, arrogant towards earth and air and unkind to mortal flesh. It murmured like a flock of starlings on its way.
 
Out flew the chasers. Invaluable tools turned to brutal missiles that struck against the wreck-hounds knife-pointed skull. One struck first. Ripped a hole through the bone. Tore away at scales and chunks of flesh that hissed and steamed fresh gouts of greys and black. The second struck just as close. A thwack so hard it sounded like the Sailor themself had reached down from the sea of stars to slap the water.

What life had been left in the shroud woven creature. Gone. Pulverized and blended to bits.

Yet momentum still carried its bulk. Its mass. Set to crash against the Vellamo.

Washed onto the shore of the sand bar, Param coughed up sea-water as he found his feet in the shallows. Jens' mass a beam of support beside him, Delilah all hiss and scowl and curse as she trudged through the silt and sand.

What she was saying was lost on Param. Who but forced a smile as his world set to tilt and whirl betwixt pained breath and tired limb. Adrenaline bled away, and with it, the color of the distant sky. Far beyond the Vellamo and Captain Albright.

A wobble step, after a wobble step sank into the sand beneath the water he knew was meant to be a clear blue.

So why was it all so grey? The sand he had seen not this morning. A distant scar of pale gold, like the distant grains he would sometimes spy off the coast of fertile farm lands.

Kharsagan he was, the sea his home, but how he ached for that warm gold, and all the smells it promised. Dust and wheat in the summer wind. The scent of sun baked stone.

Even the cry of gulls felt but a distant memory. Yet there on the wind he heard the clatter and chirp. "Birds?" he asked. Coughed. Turned, and saw the wave that came for them. Eyes wide as fish, desperate for a pull of water through its gills. "Run!" he warned, hobble stepping through the water and up the beach. "Run!!!" he cried as he turned away and ran from the crackling crash of anomalous energies. Arms flailing as legs pumped desperate to get over a sand bank.

Every hair on his body stood on end.

Whatever that was. He wanted no part of it. Though some part of him knew he hand no say in the matter.

He would delay it, for as long as he could.
 
Miss Kurkela lay yet on the floor when a voice tugged at her attention. Unbidden and unwelcome, barking something like a question. Her ears were ringing and she roused as someone moved hastily into the room, but not for her. Without her spectacles she saw but a swimming blur and the sides of fine boots, a sliver of hem belongst to a Captain’s coat.

His discordant yelling was cut off suddenly as the ship jolted again, this time by impact from outside. Miss Kurkela felt herself sliding along the floor, tossed, but none so forcefully as whom had remained standing beside her. Holding her breath against the flipping of her stomach, she watched expressionlessly as the vessel tilted and threw the Captain off his feet, his figure flailing amidst loose debris.

The hole in the stern was a great yawning maw that seemed to breathe him in. Bright sunlight caught the gold rope and brilliant colour of his coat, making it almost a beautiful sight as he fell. Through open air and into the sea.


*​


The lad had been the first to run. Jens didn’t have to be told twice and even Delilah, bless her constant scepticism, had allowed herself but a second’s confusion before she too moved. A line of three specks they were, gracelessly scrambling on the fine sand, frustratingly sapped of momentum by the sinking of every step when it mattered most.

With his long strides, Jens leaped behind the dune that ran the entire length of the beach like a spine on a beast, arm extended to pull the lad along by the scruff of his shirt. Delilah made the rest of the way up the bank on all fours, claws digging, face twisted up into an ugly grimace with the effort. Despite how much she wanted to glance behind past her shoulder at what grew noisier as it approached, she didn’t stop at the crest either, sliding down a whole two yards before her residual hurry finally let up.

The flaming sword of force swiped the top of the sand bank clean off, so sharp the air shimmered around it as it cut its very atoms in half. And it did it silently, without resistance, but the swish of dust and confused particles in its wake as it sliced, burning oxygen. It passed the beach and tapered off not long after, leaving in its wake a fading trail of distorted colour and a smell of burning. Of rock heated to melting and an all too warm sea air.

Jens, having pressed his back against the sand to merely stare up at what’d almost hit the lot of them, let his chest deflate in an exhale. He tapped Param on the shoulder, half to untense his own nerves, and rose to a seat to watch Delilah right herself as if in a burst of fury. She cursed beneath her breath and begun to dig in the sand, claws scraping.

“ I think it’s over, Lila. We don’t need a trench— “
“ I know it’s fucking over. “ She snapped, voice reduced to an angry hiss as she glared at him. “ But if you think for one second I’m giving anything to those people after this— “ She pointed past the sand where she had to figure the ship was. “ Think again. “

“ Suppose I concur. “ Jens hummed, digging in his satchel for the blue bottle. By some miracle, probably by the fact it was yet full, it hadn’t shattered. In a smile, he glanced at Param sidelong.
“ Found your brother some colourful glass. I imagine we’d ought to empty the bottle first though. “ He added, offering it to the younger sailor.

“ Want to do the honours? Perhaps it’s still good. “
 
Heart half in his throat, Param pant, pant, pant as he laid back unto the sand. The world's colors coming back to be as that horrid wave went off. Wherever it was that such things went.

A touch at his shoulder pulled him out of the wide eyed stare. Brought him back to the strange stink of that thing that had slice so clean through the sand bank. To call it a hot knife through wax would not do it justice. It was like the teeth of some great sea monster, come perfectly across a single minnow. And even that was too many words for it.

There was a steady scrape, scrape as Delilah went on digging.

"What in all the hells did we just get out of," the young sailor asked aloud. When the question came, and the bottle shone, Param stared at it a long moment. "Oh," he said hapless as he saw how the sun's light gleamed around the bottle, still so blue. He smiled true and snatched it up. "You better believe it," sat up and uncorked it with a pull and a pop. Took a drink.

Eyes near popped out of his skull, and his tail sprang bolt straight behind him. He pulled the bottle away and coughed. Laughed as he wiped away the spirit from his lips and handed it over to Jens.

"It's fucking awful!" he said between coughs. "All orange and bite!" he said between teers.
 
What in the hells—

“ Death, dear lad. More than Death. “ Proper blown to the winds as red mist sort of deal. There’d be naught left of any of us to bury. But he wouldn’t say that much and even the part he did, was in a smile. He’d choose to be cheerful rather than needlessly bleak every time, in presence of such good company anyway.

His grin grew only wider as the young man was sent reeling by the drink. He barked out a laugh, a loud ha at the sight of it, slapping Param on the back twice over for his coughing.

“ Don’t choke on it now. Whatever would your brother say when I gave him the news. “ I killed him. Yeah, bad drink, sorry about that. No, I think he suffered quite a bit, actually.

“ Much obliged. “ He continued, accepting the bottle in turn. The depth of his draught suggested he’d learned nothing from his fellow sailor’s reaction to the drink, or just chose to not heed it. His face twisted something ugly, cheeks puffing out as he struggled to swallow.

“ Fucking Hell. “ He cursed breathlessly, sounding decades older. “ And a thousand hairy little demons. “ With that he shoved the bottle back to the lad’s hands, slinging his weight forward to lean a forearm against his knee. The slosh of sand had quieted down and Delilah was sat on her folded legs, appraising the dig before her. Had to be about, elbowdeep?

From her satchel she produced a rectangle of fine wood, lacquer and gold bushings shining in the sun. The carvings were complicated, layered like peonies. She ran a claw over them, oblivious to Jens’ stare until he spoke.

“ That it? “
“ I think so. “ She said, looking up. “ Figure it’s worth a lot? “
“ Don’t know. But based on them fancy clothes on that new Shroud Master— “
“ Uppity cunt. “ She snarled and rammed the thing into the hole at once.
“ It won’t do you any good out here either. “
“ We’ll have to come back for it, obviously. “

He hummed at that, glancing at Param as if indecisive as to what they ought do.

“ We? ”
“ I want out of this ship, Jens. You— “ She pointed at him, so full of bile she may as well have been accusing him of a crime. “ You want out of this ship. And Param? “

Clawed hands on her hips and chin inclined, her eye fell on the other Deva. Jens’ head keeled to spy him in tune.
 
The drink had sagged in Param's hand. The fine blue bottle, refracted and warped all the world that passed through its sea colored glass. Doubly so as the the clear spirit inside shift and wobbled until it settled again.

Half caught between smile and utter confusion.

Did he want off the ship? Where else would he go. It was his first ship. well, his first real ship. His first real crew. He had been aboard sloops and dinghies, cutters and whalers. Proper boats, one and all. But the Vellamo was the first real ship, outside the flotilla.

"Off the ship," he thought out loud. The sound full in the air again as his tail swished from left to right, right to left. Wave of the sea come crash against the sand of the bank. A muted churn that turned to trickling thunder but a moment later.

A trick of the shroud? The metallic tang of death still coating his tongue.

The youth licked his lips. Looked to Jens with a nod. "We get off this fucking ship," he threw in his mutinous lot.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom