Gabrio frowned. His face like a stone as he sews the wound back, cleaning the blood seeping out of the reopened wound. “You know, I have told you to be careful. As a surgeon, you should know better than to do this kind of stupidity, Zyra.”

“I know,” she said, biting her lower lip. “I honestly forget that I had a wound.”

“Raise your arm,” Gabrio demanded.

Zyra obediently raised her left arm. Her other arm crossed on her chest.

“Lower your right, I don’t want to sew your right arm as well. Goodness, how long have you been a surgeon that you are still embarrassed by this?”

She looked away. “I have no problem with seeing men naked, but being seen is a problem. I am a woman, Gab. You should know this. Or do you not register me as a woman.”

“Nonsense,” Gabrio pulled a basin closer. He took a pale white cloth and rubbed it on her wound. “It is simply unprofessional to do so. Come on, stop being shy and let’s just do this.”

Zyra didn’t answer. She lowered her hand, revealing her bare chest. She looked away with her cheeks reddening. Her mouth mumbling silent words.

“What did you do to open this wound?”

“I tried teaching a spoiled brat about the meaning of respect.”

“Did you at least won?”

“I knocked her out.”

“Good. At least you didn’t waste your blood for nothing.”

She glared. “Sometimes, I think you’re very callous.”

Gabrio pulled the string. Her face crunched in pain as he pulled the string. “I was taught not to care about my patient’s stupidity. Again, you do what you do, but do it with carefulness.”

“I am okay telling you why I am doing this.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Gabrio declared with a heavy tone of voice. “Ignorance is a bliss, and I have a lot of patients to care about.”

“That’s kind of a horrible way to go about it,” she said. “If you know then you might understand why I want to do this. I think that if you learned first-hand, then you’d understand what I am thinking or doing about.”

Gabrio placed a cloth inside a basin. He squeezed the water out of the cloth and rubbed it gently below her wound.

“I don’t know what you think of me, but I am not that much of a thinker. Right now, I am focused on the health of the Galleon, all the others thoughts are thrown outside of the window of my head. My mentor always calls me a single-minded fool who could not multi-task. If I learn of this secret, then it might remove my thoughts on the people of Milostiv. I am sorry. I cannot be part of it. But I am not an idiot who can’t get the gist of what you are doing. If you want to save the world, then do it so. If you are injured come to me, but don’t overdo it. I wouldn’t treat you if you decide to make this a regular thing.”

“I understand, geez, how many times do you have to threaten me with that?”

“I am not kidding. The Ark may have been producing medicine and supplies we can use, but even they cannot sustain the fleet indefinitely. Things do not go always perfect, and it might not be long until we start eating seafood that comes from the monsters we kill.”

“Ouch, can you not try to hit my chest?” she demanded.

“How about you don’t try to move around while I sew the rest of your wounds?”

Gabrio precisely inserted the thin needle across the wound before biting to snap it. She froze as he snorted near his wound. After taking his hands away from the wound, she lowered her arm slowly, reaching out for the towel on the side.

Taking the lamp sitting on the side deck. Gabrio took his tools from the tray and placed them on the sanitizer that was simply a pot of boiling alcohol. Gabrio took the twigs from the boxes and placed them below the boiling pot.

Behind him was the sound of cloth rustling. “I am a mess. I need to get these sheets removed.”

“I’ll take care of it. Just don’t open that wound again.”

“Got it, dad.”

Gabrio looked at her dully before shaking his head. He watched the alcohol boil inside the pot before placing the surgery tools inside the small round tray. Letting the longer tools sit on the mouth of the pot. Gabrio dipped his leather gloves on the water basin just next to the pot.

He took out one of his candy. “Here, have some candy. That’ll take the pain off.”

She caught the candy. “Is this your own recipe?”

“Somewhat, it’s my proudest version of the recipe. Coated in chocolate but has the stung of ten bottles of alcohol.”

Her eyes widened. Head tilted with brows meeting as she said, “And you are feeding this to children and people alike knowing that? Have you thought that maybe they’ll get poisoned by this?”

“The chocolate helps, I assure you.”

“And your proof of that?”

Gabrio smirked. Zyra half-opened her mouth, then threw the candy in her mouth. “Tastes good, hard to think that there’s alcohol and it’s not leaking when I bite it.”

“It’s my lovely recipe. Well, just don’t consume too much. Hard to make it inside this ship and the galley is busy enough.”

“Hmm,” she chewed on the candy. “No wonder the sailors have been talking about magic candy. One you could eat without swinging a bottle.”

“I have noticed that they have been trying to imitate it. Too bad that it needs to be precise.”

“Want me to get a try on it?”

“If you want to stop being a friend, then maybe you shouldn’t.”

“It’s candy, Gab.”

“Oh, it is my candy though.”

Gabrio said teasingly. Zyra rolled her eyes as she then walked to the surgery room where Gabrio was sure she poured a bucket of water over her head. When she come out of the room she was dressed on her usual robes with that sash around her waist rather loose. Instead of heading out, she sat on the bed close to the pot.

“Sorry that you have to do all this. There’s not much that I can do than watch the clinic. I specialize in making sure that people don’t die. You know how they separate us from doctors of death and quacks. Hell, I guess they are finally seeing the good of what a Doctor can do.”

“I don’t think that there is difference. We save people from keeling over. I treat them before they can get worse. While when they get worse, you treat them. I might know surgery, but I do not specialize specifically about Surgery. I might be the ‘student’ of the infamous Butcher of Fort Rava, but I was taught to be a good doctor. So when things are bad and someone’s needs surgery, then I’ll have to ask you. I don’t know what you are dealing with. I don’t even dare to know it, but just don’t let it bother you. I need my surgeon alive and well. I can’t truly become like a surgeon.”

“I thought that this place would allow me to escape. But to think that I would meet something that shouldn’t have happened,” she lamented clearly.

Gabrio shook his head again. He took the tools out of the pot and placed them neatly on the tray. Wiping the tools with the clean cloth he had readied.

“Must be hard managing the boredom of this Galleon. Even Caldor’s young ones are itching for a fight.”

“It’s their fault if they got their asses kick. I am only on that place because they asked me to.”

“Can’t blame them considering how awful the state of the fleet is. We might be living pretty well, but in this kind of seas there are things that bother us more than anything. Do you think this kind of stillness will continue? People spend months inside ships and you don’t hear them complaining. At least they know where the ship is going and when to expect land. But so far we have only met with danger and a dangerous place like that coral atoll. There is uncertainty. There is fear that we might not just reach it. Endless seas without lands. Can you live with that?”

“It is what it is,” Gabrio said sternly. “These are just things that we have no control over. There are three things in life that are absolute: Things that we have control over, things that we have no control over, and the things we have some, but no complete control over. Even if we do somehow stay in this still seas. We just to have accept it, unless you want to go cry about it. I find no reason to care about things that I have no control over.”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” she took the tools and placed them inside a bag. “But I think that sooner or later, if Lady Rosalve is right, then we might need to prepare.”

Gabrio stiffened. He had suspected that there was more to this Lady Rosalve, and hearing it from Zyra made him worry.

“Zyra, I want you to tell me one thing.”

Zyra looked over, waiting for him to speak.

“Does she know if the fleet is approaching a piece of land?”

“Yes.”

“I see,” Gabrio nodded.

“It surprises me that you think that she has the blood. But yes, she knows when there is land coming.”

Gabrio didn’t answer. He had been listening to the tap and click of their voices. It might be alien to the rest of the crew, something they think of as magical, but he could tell that there is a rhythm in those call for the spirits. It was not simply coincidence that they are doing the same rhythm with their voices.