Darkos’s feet crashed over the docks as he tore through the shipyard, arms overflowing with schematics. He felt really good about this latest batch. Didn’t know jack all about boats but he was just getting some really good vibes here. Geela also knew jack all about boats but she seemed to have a problem with every single one he’d brought before her. They’d toured half a dozen shipyards as they made their way up the eastern seaboard of the First Mountainous Region. This shipyard, however, was the biggest and best in all of Flavianport, the capital of the region. Darkos had a good feeling he was starting to whittle down Geela’s resistances towards all things boats. And he had an even feeling that the ship she’d pick was currently bundled up in his arms right now.

After all, one of the boats had a dragon figurehead. Not even Geela could say no to dragons, right?

--

“Nooooo not dragons. Didn’t I tell you why I stopped raising dragons?” Geela flopped on her side, her hammock rocking dramatically with her.

Darkos sighed and looked over the mess that covered their rented suite. Schematics, model ships, and blueprints covered every surface, including Jane’s hammock, which was the least fancy of the three. Actually, on closer examination, the sheets of paper might be covering Jane herself. It was hard to tell, underneath all the parchment, whether Darkos was looking at his woebegone minion or just a lumpy pile of blankets

“I… no. I thought you would have liked the dragon.” He went back to his dwindling piles, his good vibes sufficiently shattered.

“I used to raise dragons for all of a few years before I gifted them to an ally.” Geela sniffed before rolling to face Darkos. Her golden locks framed her delicately wrought face, which glared at him in dismay. “I then shattered our alliance and never saw her again.”

This sounded more like a Geela problem than a dragon problem, but there would be no fighting her. She seemed to be looking for fault. When he found one that was big enough for her, fast, strong, and magic compatible, it wasn’t fancy enough. He found a fancy, zippy boat with a glorious paint job and some killer cannons but that one did have a fancy enough captain’s quarters. When he’d found the vessel with the fanciest accommodations this side of the main continent, Geela had pouted about its lack of a figurehead.

Now the figurehead wasn’t the right species. Geela had a shortlist of exactly one, and Darkos was pretty sure that it was only on there because of its name: The Unsinkable. It inspired confidence.

However, she still hadn’t set foot on it, and Darkos was starting to despair of ever getting on with their journey. He’d grow old here, probably. Flavianport wasn’t too bad of a city, really. Bustling, exciting enough. Maybe Darkos would make some friends at the pub. They’d ask what he did for a living and he’d feed them a string of lies to keep them from learning that he served the world’s most powerful overlord, Geela Scilatia. He’d meet the sister of one of his new pals and she’d beat him in an arm wrestle, walk him home to his newfound home at the Opulent Oyster Inn, and just when he wasn’t sure if she liked him back, he’d wake one night to her serenading outside his window. He’d learn, from his snickering friends who knew all along, that she’d been charmed by his wit and his skill with a lute. Their courtship would last six months before they married. Geela would be his best man. Jane would be the flower girl but would oversleep and miss her role in the ceremony. They’d have their share of fights over the years but would always make up. Darkos would bring her a cup of lavender tea or a bowl of clam stew (her favorite) or she’d write him a little poem or whip up a nut and fruit sandwich, and they’d never go to bed angry.

Honestly, if it weren’t for the fact that Darkos was a godforsaken void spawn whose continued innocence was a mystery that baffled even Geela, it might not be that bad of a life. But unfortunately, the whole ‘evil void fiend parentage’ bit probably would have reared its ugly head in the middle of the wedding reception. Either the void fiend itself, Noirela, would burst from Darkos’s chest or Darkos would just turn evil. Either way, there was no chance the wedding wouldn’t end with the guests, preacher, and cake all eaten.

No, they had to stop Noire, which meant they had to stop Noire’s other children, Darkos’s damned sorta-siblings.

Which was what they were doing at Flavianport. Or rather, what they were supposed to be doing. Geela seemed to have forgotten, opting instead for a month-long window shopping spree of every boat designed in the past century.

“It’s not that the dragon is badly made.” Geela wasn’t really talking to him. Rather she stared at the ceiling of their room, a pensive look on her face. “It’s just… dragons.”

“The guy had other boats with other figureheads?” The one with the dragon had been the best made of all the old shipwright’s designs, but maybe if he could pitch one with a cool enough sculpture, she’d cave. “It was mostly dark and evil stuff, which I thought was bad luck…”

“Dear, you know I love dark and evil.” With this, she pulled herself to a sit and slipped out the hammock. Darkos darted forward to steady her. It was only in the past few days that’d she’d managed to get out of the hammock without breaking anything at all. He was scared to see her on a boat. “And bad luck, actually.”

He held her arm as she slipped her feet into the leather sandals that were all the rage in the port cities. “Really?” he asked.

“Of course.” Her lips curled into a smirk. “When you fit 90% of the criteria for bad luck itself, you start to develop an affection for the concept.” She held out a hand and Darkos grabbed her linen robe, slipping it over her thin shoulders. “I’m in a different league. Some people worry about what fate luck will bring. Me? I’m the fate that the superstitious hide from. Old wives tell their children not to spit on mirrors at night, but I’m the distorted reflection they see back. A nervous priest might warn his parish about a hooded figure that beckons by wells on misty mornings, when I’m really the one under the cloak. Maybe your father always warned you about a glass that was knocked over, seemingly by nothing, but I am the one who knock—” Just as her monologue reached its crescendo, her slipper snagged on the carpet and she went sprawling.

“Uh,” Darkos said.

“Not a word.” Geela lay on the ground, eyes closed, the picture of perfect misery for a second longer before she sat up. “I’m the one who knocked the bloody glass over. That’s… that’s all.”

Darkos both absolutely believed her and also felt a little bad as he helped her up. To add insult to injury, a faint clap sounded from the dingy net hammock.

“I thought it was a very good speech, mistress,” came a thin voice as Jane emerged from underneath the map schematics. The waiflike woman fixed Geela admiringly with large, pale blue eyes.

Geela just sniffed. “Jane. You’re going out tonight.”

“I am?” Those eyes now darted nervously to Darkos.

“Uh,” he said again.

“Yes.’ She sliced a hand through the air and Jane flinched. “Until I can handle your presence. Now come, Darkos. I’m hungry and it’s dinner time.”

It was 3 PM but Geela was a better dictator of mealtimes than any paltry clock could be, so the two set out to find a restaurant that had transitioned to its evening menu (Geela would not be served a lunch menu when she wanted dinner).

“I can’t believe how long this is taking,” Geela said. She eyed the ships in the harbor as they walked through the sunny port city. “So many cities and barely a seaworthy boat.”

Darkos couldn’t exactly say what was at play here. There was, of course, the fact that Geela knew very little about boats. There was also her flat out refusal to step foot on a single vessel, even on the rare occurrence that she liked a boat enough to see it in person. Finally, there was the way she tensed whenever a dock shifted or bobbed underfoot.

Darkos valued too much about his body and all his limbs working in full order to ever suggest that Geela might be afraid of boats. That would simply be ludicrous. He just wished she’d take the shipwright’s words that there was science to how they floated and it wasn’t just a form of poorly understood magic.

It was this unspoken fear that had inspired her very small, very sad shortlist. Darkos did like the name of the boat but he was afraid that the boat might be sold before Geela made up her mind. After all, the ship owners operated Titanic Hulls, a very well known and reputable shipyard. Such a grand boat would go quickly if he couldn’t get her on board, literally or otherwise.

“Have we eaten here yet?” he asked as the two came to a stop in front of a rustic restaurant named The Bouncing Barnacle. The sign above the door had an adorable drawing of a barnacle on it, complete with a little baby’s bonnet.

“Hmm. How twee.” Geela’s lips betrayed a distaste of cute but the menu out front was a dinner menu, so the two stepped in.

She must have been hungry because it only took about three to six minutes of arguing with the waitstaff before Geela allowed them to be seated. Her major complaint, the smell of fishiness, had been met with helplessly blank stares from the hostess and Darkos just gave a quiet laugh and assured them she was joking.

“I wasn’t joking,” Geela said, as the waiter sprinted off with their drinks orders. “I would have liked a table where it wasn’t so fishy smelling.” She shook out her napkin with a flourish and placed it on her lap.

“Well, fortunately once we get out of Flavianport, we won’t have to deal too much with fish,” Darkos said.

She opened her mouth before pausing, catching what he said. Her eyes narrowed. “Alright Snarkos, I don’t have time for your lip. Besides, that’s my thing. We do need to come up with a plan to get out of here, though. Terra and Hari likely know that we’re heading their way, since Fairy was quite the little penpal. I’m not sure if they know she’s dead but they may still be preparing.”

Fairy, short for Nefaria, had been the latest in Darkos’s sinisterly-named void siblings. The first, Sinistrina, they’d taken down during her plan to shut down the Volcanic Region (that had been Darkos’s first kill, accidentally caused by a sandwich he’d tried to feed her). The second, Malevalo, had been the eldest of the six, and had been responsible for Darkos’s unwitting childhood as a cultist. Darkos himself had only escaped sacrifice because Noire had sensed he’d still had power left in him. What Noire hadn’t known was that the reason Darkos’s life force hadn’t been entirely eroded was because Darkos was secretly Noire’s sixth child.

There appeared to be some holes in what Noire, and its children, could and couldn’t see. Fairy, who’d been working in disguise as a clerk at the Celestial Academy, had known they were coming, however. Geela had, once, told Darkos through tight lips that she knew how Fairy had expected their arrival but hadn’t elaborated. Suffice to say, it was safe to assume the last two children of Noire, the twins only a few years Darkos’s elder, were likely expecting them too.

“If we leave too soon, they’ll definitely expect us,” Geela continued. “Can’t be predictable. But I think it’s high time we shake the dust of this dusty little port.”

The port in question was neither dusty nor little, but it was heartening to hear Geela had grown bored with it.

“Right,” Darkos said. “Did you… were you interested in checking out the rest of the ships designed by the man who made the bad-luck, creepy, ghouly figureheads?” For some extra good luck, to balance out the promised ill fortune, Darkos crossed his fingers under the table.

Geela inhaled deeply. She held out a hand to her side, a move that baffled Darkos and, apparently, the waiter who was precisely two feet behind Geela. He jumped just a tad, before placing the cup in Geela’s outstretched hand.

Without looking at him, Geela retracted her arm and sipped thoughtfully at the steaming drink, an emerald latte, if Darkos wasn’t much mistaken. Geela had been quite into lattes recently.

As Darkos retrieved his own drink, water with two slices of lemon, Geela rattled off quite the complex order. Sometimes Darkos wasn’t sure if she was just being difficult to make sure the waiters were listening or if, after over seventy years, Geela had just developed particular tastes. Darkos’s request was less complicated. Breaded chicken bites with a sweetened tomato sauce.

“Yes,” she finally said as the waiter hurried off to fulfill their wishes. “We should visit the shipwright. I think it’ll do wonders to my mindset, remind me of what’s really important in life.”

“Spooky wood carvings?”

Geela plonked her mug down with disdainful force. “Appearances and decorum, Darkos. Really, keep up.” She sighed. “I need to feel like myself again after so long of being someone else.”

This, at least, Darkos did understand. For the bulk of their time in the Celestial City, they’d gone under pseudonyms. While that worked fine for Darkos, Geela had felt stifled. Name and reputation had been everything and she’d had to mostly cloak hers in favor of anonymity. It hadn’t been until the end, converting a bulk of the Church of Celeste to, at least briefly, worship her, that some of the spark had returned to her eye.

Then they’d fled, screaming and firing lightning bolts, from the city. Neither had been sure if Celeste would hunt them down so they’d handled the situation best they could by not talking about it.

Darkos would like to see a bit more spark return to Geela’s eyes, so he nodded. “Yeah, sounds good. I think his shop closes at eight, so we could even stop by tonight.”

“Excellent.”

The two put their scheming aside as their meals showed up. Darkos ate heartily, convinced that maybe this time, she’d find something she liked.

—

Darkos’s good feeling had, once again, flagged somewhat as the two approached the shipyard. Geela had dragged her heels through finishing dinner and walking all the way down, and it was looking as though, once again, she’d probably enter this with a bad attitude.

The shipyard itself didn’t inspire confidence. It was foggy and looked all the gloomier with the setting sun shrouding areas of it from light. The boats themselves groaned and dipped in the water, almost moaning occasionally in a way that made Darkos shudder.

“Ahhh, welcome to Captain Creak’s shipyard,” came the voice of the shipwright, who all but materialized out of the mist. The ancient man was missing a front tooth and probably an eye, but he was no less lively and spry as he bounded towards them. “I recognize ye, lad. Ye be the man who took my dragon print. Could this be the lovely lass you were hoping to impress?”

Darkos sighed. With her blue linen robe and bouncing blond curls, Geela didn’t exactly look like the dragon type and now even Captain Creak was gonna make fun of him.

“Ah, ye were a fool, Darkos.” The alleged captain approached, giving Geela an almost too close once over. “This be not a dragon gal. She wants something far more unsightly, methinks. Something ghastly from the dips. Am I right?”

Geela’s lips twisted in a wry way that betrayed she was biting down a smile. “Perhaps. You have something that would suit my tastes?”

“Aye, let me show you about me ships.” He grinned broadly. “Each comes with a tale, of course. A past or a history, something daring, dark, or tragic. Think that might be something ye’d like?”

It was as if the crusty old sailor pumped some life back into Geela’s step and Darkos dared to hope as the three set out among the docks. They twisted their way around worn, old boats that dipped in the almost sludgelike water of the shipyard. Captain Creak was even able to convince her to step onto his penultimate boat, a dilapidated ship with an enormous hydra figurehead.

Unfortunately, this backfired when the ship gave a mighty moan as soon as she put weight on it. Geela gave a shriek and toppled backwards, arms flailing.

“Nope nope nope nope.” She clutched Darkos, who stood a few feet behind on the gangplank. “Nope. Nope. We’re leaving.”

“But Geela—”

“Nope.”

“But the hydra—”

“Don’t care.”

“But Noire—”

“Can burn in hell.”

“Nowt without us bringing it there!”

But there was nothing for it and Darkos had to carry the quivering mistress of the void down the gangplank and back to the dock.

Once on semi-solid ground, Geela attempted to compose herself, but Captain Creak looked rattled.

“Could be the sea ain’t the place for such a delicate lady.” He picked at his teeth with what looked like a bone, but his hands were shaking. “Perhaps ye should leave.”

Geela’s eyebrows contorted dark over her face. “Did you say delicate? Darkos, perhaps you can help me, I seem to have misheard. It sounded as if he said delicate.”

“He’s shaking a lot for a man calling you delicate,” Darkos observed.

Geela’s nose wrinkled. “My henchman does raise a good point. You’re practically quivering. I won’t take an insult from such a weak man. Show us your last boat!”

Captain Creak swallowed hard. “Aye, that might not be wise. That boat has a storied past and not a good one. Its figurehead bears the resemblance to a foul hag I once saw with my own eyes. One whom many have not survived the visage of.”

Geela snorted. “A gorgon? I’ve seen worse.” She started down the pier towards a solitary dock several feet away with a single ship tethered to it. “Are you scared of your own boat?”

“I fear not my own ship, nor the face I carved on it.” He scrambled after her, hobbling and limping. “It’s the memories.”

Darkos followed after him, his even step matching the frenzied pace of the old sailor. “The boat brings back traumatizing memories? Seems rough to have around.” He patted the man on the back.

“Twasn’t the ship,” he said, glaring at Darkos as they hurried down the pier. “Only the scream she gave, which brought me back to that fateful voyage. I felt it in my bones and saw, for just a moment, the very sea before me vanish into the maw of that vile witch.”

“She drank the sea?” Now it was Darkos’s turn to peer at the man.

“She did! The vile sorceress engulfed the entire Eighth Sea—”

Both men stumbled to a halt, almost running into Geela who had stopped, a few paces from the boat, jaw dropped open.

“Geela?” Darkos asked. When she didn’t respond, he looked from her to the boat. Then he honed in on the figurehead. Most of the being was covered in a robe made of snakes, which was horrifying enough to turn Darkos’s stomach. The figure’s hair was also replaced by snakes and covered most of her face.

The only features that really showed through was her mouth, open in a fanged snarl, and glowing green eyes.

“I’ll never forget that day,” whispered the captain. “The day I stared into the face of Dark Sorceress and lived. I named this vessel the Scilatia, with the hopes that paying homage to such a fearsome monster would save her from further destruction.”

Geela rounded on them, an elated, maniacal gleam in her eyes.

"We're taking it."