Breathing. He was supposed to do that. Breathe. Right. In and out, just like he always did.

Except he couldn’t. 

The great beast’s head loomed closer. Closer. Closer. It’s mouth opened and all he could think of was the wet crunch sound those two points of its beak would make as they liberated his torso from his legs. He didn’t think he’d die today, he really thought that would happen later in some kind of battle or a freak accident falling from the shrouds on a stormy night, not like this. 

[I] Oh sweet Tevira don’t let it drag on, don’t let it hurt too bad, don’t—[/I]

The turtle laughed. While Uban wasn’t convinced that was a good sign, he also knew that the turtle wasn’t eating them alive in a single snap, so that was something to be thankful for. But then the great turtle relented and proffered up the information they came for, and Uban finally became aware of the fact that he was gripping the sides of the little boat with such force that his fingers were stiff and unwilling to move as he pried them away. Whew. They’d survived the encounter and, reaching for the oars again, he could finally—

Oh, not again. 

The thing’s head moved closer to him, closer, closer, until he felt the hard, smooth beak on his cheek and the back of his jaw. For how big and powerful the creature was, he was surprised by how gentle the contact was. How controlled.  It whispered something to him, something he didn’t understand but made a forceful effort to commit it to memory for later pondering when his heart wasn’t in his mouth. Only one word, the last, was intelligible to him. Death. Some logical part of him decided that couldn’t be anything good, but at the moment he had other things to think about.

And then it was gone.

Uban stared after it, unmoving, mouth still open. He sat like that for a long time before he blinked and found his voice again. He looked at Pieter, wide eyed. “The hell…?” A few more stunned breaths and then, “I offered up a fucking song? A giant drunk beast of the marine underworld demands a secret from me and I give him [I]William fucking Taylor??[/I] AND YOU LET ME?” He gave a loud, very nervous laugh. “Good grief, Pieter, warn me next time! I mean, what am…what did…you gotta start teaching me what to do in situations like this. I mean….sun and stars…” He put his head in his hands, still chuckling. As he ran his hands over his hair, a little tiny bolt of static jumped out from between his fingers like snake fighting to escape them. His eyes remained bright gold.  ‘I think I’m just happy to be alive. Confused, definitely. But still breathing.” He put his hands down on his knees and another arc leapt up, buzzing for a half second before popping out of existence.  Noticing, he shook his hands like trying to get water off them and said, “Sorry, sorry, ack! I sometimes start sparking when I’m uh, you know, really really nervous. Like a bloody wool blanket in winter, damn.” 

He grabbed the oars again, this time actually managing to plant them in the water and get some force behind them. The effort felt good; it gave somewhere for his nervous energy to go. “So um…..you gonna tell me what that was..?”

—

Berlin paced a little, pretending to check the level of oil in the nearest deck lamp just to give him something to do. It was an unsatisfying action so instead he pulled out his flask from his vest and took a hearty pull from it. He hated waiting. Especially now the he felt like cleaving heads for once. He didn’t usually feel the urge, and that seemed to be his trademark among pirates. When he’d been a young bosun on pirate captain Torvold’s ship [I]Chance’s Folly[/I] many years ago, Torvold had once said, “Berlin? Aye, the one who could tear a man in half but don’t want to. That’s him there.” 

Except this time he did want to. Berlin didn’t know all of Wheel’s story and he never pressed, but he knew the man had experience with the Barizians and he guessed not all of it was good. Uban, too, had narrowly avoided being sold off to them, saving himself only by escaping from the prison that specialized in taking those of magical blood, and who had an ongoing relationship with slavers of all sorts. And Rohaan…  It was enough to make him truly angry. The fact that they not only destroyed a humble fishing town and took captives, captives that were likely being slaughtered as they waited, and that they had marked the majority of his crew in one way or another made him furious. Nobody touched his crew and got away with it.  

Nobody.

—

Wheel’s words were of some comfort to Rohaan, though deep down he was still fighting the lurking anxiety of having to face his enemy again. They would try. Many people in the world had. He’d been captured, beaten, starved, and when he’d escaped he’d been kicked at, almost stabbed once, clobbered, trampled, swatted.....the list went on. And even under Berlin’s care he’d been battered a bit in fights and, more recently, shot. The world had tried to kill him and it wouldn’t stop. He knew. And there was no way he’d let that happen.

After shaking out his limp muscles he struggled one item at a time to put the gear away, and then slunk away like an injured dog to lick his wounds. He swiped a bit of salt pork from the foodstores and, not feeling up to climbing the ropes to his own hammock up in the crow’s nest, he settled on Uban’s hammock and lay there, spread eagle like he’d died. He felt like he had. Though through the fear and anxiety he did feel a measure of pride for what he’d done. He was horrible with a shield and equally so with a sword, but at least he was decent with a knife. 

Everything felt loose, like the fibers holding his body together had come undone. And now that the adrenaline had passed, he felt every single one of Wheel’s “lessons” on his arms and ribs and legs. He’d be a mass of pallid bruises by tomorrow, and some of the earlier ones were already beginning to show through hot pale welts. Unlike humans, bruises on him showed as white and  sometimes ugly green or yellow around the edges, not black and blue. As the ship rocked slowly the hammock also swayed with it, back and forth. It made him feel like he was floating. He lit no lamp down in the crew’s quarters but was content to lay in the darkness and listen to the gentle sound of creaking timbers.