Tallahassee was a dump, just like everyone said.

It was a strangely apportioned city. After the Skybreak it had kind of… slid towards the water like some monumental, dirty fish that had beached itself and realized it's mistake a little too late. Originally just a hair too far away from the Delineation to take advantage of the new body of water, it had built not up or out but specifically to the East. It had needed something to do, I supposed, since the Skybreak made it the capitol of a country or… they called them ‘States’ back then... that was no longer there.

The rash of new buildings going up, followed by the new access to the Ocean had drawn survivors and settlers from all over the continent. It had, in my history books, been compared to a gold rush. People were anxious to take a crack at The Ocean, to see what sort of bounty they could find. And despite the dangers, despite the mind shattering terror, unlike the gold rush the rush had never wound down. The Ocean just kept up offering new bounties, new treasures, new resources. It had drawn me, too, a testament to its attraction. We flew to it like moths to flame.

The city itself was one of sailors and transients, but also of businessmen, Blue and White Collars, and those looking to make money off the hard work of others. The old center of Tallahassee was now dominated by high rises and coffee shops. Emanating from it, like a trail of slime where the center had crawled up from the ocean, were storehouses, bars, and low income apartments, culminating in the docks, equal parts gleaming steel, rotting wood and filth that came in both the literal and human variety.

Men and women traversed the docks, the sea front a riot of colors and sound this late at night, neon lights, talking billboards and scantily clad prostitutes all designed to attract the sailors that had gone without the taste of ‘civilization’ for so long, to distract them from the curiously silent black water that lapped at the base of the wooden piers. Here and there Water Folk reveled with one or more uncomfortable looking humans, sure in themselves despite the hostile or fearful crowd of humanity.

I didn’t receive any catcalls. I didn’t look like a sailor or someone who worked at the bar. I carried a big black suitcase and dressed in dark clothing. You didn’t bother people like that on the docks unless you were a particularly brave lawman or a particularly stupid mugger. It hadn’t been my intention to make people avert their eyes, but it was a happy accident. Normally I might have stepped into one of the bars, experienced the pleasantly buzzing nightlife, but I wasn’t in the mood at the moment.

I spotted the ship at the end of the dock. ‘The Befuddled’ it said on the side in red lettering I could read even in the dark.

Ships in The Ocean couldn’t be as big as they could in more normal bodies of water, but this one was small, even by those standards. I wasn’t a sailor, and even if I had been Ocean vessels were nothing like normal ones in anything but shape, but based on its size I would have guessed it capable of holding fifteen people comfortably, maybe. It seemed like such a small thing to attempt the undertaking I was told it was going to.

Sitting on the deck, smoking a cigarette that glowed in the dark like a little orange eye, was a man, slouched in his chair as if dead. The cigarette hung in his mouth, and when he took it in his gloved hand, it was delicately, like he might break it if he held on too hard, or perhaps like he’d break his own fingers.

Sitting next to him was a woman with a cup of something I was willing to bet wasnt water in her hands. She wore a Pan-American Army captains naval uniform, which was strange as the Pan-American army had broken up at least seventy years ago and she looked like she was maybe in her mid forties.

They both looked up at my approach. The woman stood, but the man continued to sit, his limbs held limp, though he did turn his head, cigarette still hanging from his lips.

“We don’t deal with your sort.” The woman said. Even her bearing was crisp, military. Her expression was neutral, but hard.

“I’m not with any of the cartels.”

“Gang man, eh?” The man said laconically,

“Not a gang, either. My names Sam. I’m looking for passage. I was told, er, you were going where I wanted to go.”

The womans face suddenly became a lot less guarded. She grinned widely.

“Ah, you're just a baby now that I look at you. A face like that you couldn’t be in a gang.” She stepped over to the side of the boat and gave me a once over. “Don’t go around dressing like that, son. It’ll make people think the wrong thing.”

She reached over, grabbed my cheek and gave it a yank.

“Ow. Why?”

“Just making sure you aren’t a Pickover.”

“A what?”

“Don’t worry about it.” The man said, exhaling a puff of smoke, cigarette held between his fingers like a piece of fine china.

“You realize we’re going to the Necropolis Islands, Sam?”

“I do.”

She sighed,

“Lost love? Parents? One or both.”

“No.”

“Friend? Maybe looking for an audience with the ancient dead, or some foolish endeavor to bring back some genius you think is going to fix society?”

“I don’t want to bring anyone back.” I said, “That’s impossible.”

The man and the woman looked back at each other.

“If that’s what you were told, sure. Who am I to disagree?”

That gave me pause, but I shook my head.

“I need to give someone something. That’s all.”

“What is it?” The woman said, curious,

“A ring.”

“Why?” The man asked, looking at his cigarette.

“Thats my business, if it's all the same to you.”

He shrugged, as if to say it was.

“Well alright. Sure.” The woman said,

I blinked.

“You’ll take me? Just like that? Aren’t you going to… I don’t know… warn me about the dangers of the Ocean? Or of the Necropolis Islands?”

“You seem like you know what you want and what you’re doing. We’ve got room on the boat. Why shouldn’t we take you? You good at anything?” She asked, motioning me onto the boat and picking her cup back up from where she set it on the floor. “You’ll work. Be part of the crew.”

“I don’t have to pay?” I asked, stepping onto the boat after her, struggling a moment with my suitcase.

“We’ll take whatever money you thought was enough to get you to the Necropolis Islands.” The woman chuckled, “Because however much you thought, it’s not enough. You will probably die on the Necropolis Islands. My crew is good enough to keep you alive on The Ocean as long as you're not a complete idiot, but we plan on skirting the edge of The Islands. Picking up debris. We most certainly do not plan on stepping foot on one.”

“Fine.” I said, a cold thrill racing up my spine. I’d sort of hoped the crew of whatever boat I sailed on would come with me, but I realized that was an unreasonable expectation for a group of total strangers. “And I can cook, in regard to your other question.”

“Nah. We’ve got a cook. Damn good one, too.”

“Eh.” The man shrugged,

“I’ve got a keen eye---”

“I’m the watchman.” The man said, “Don’t go trying to take my job from me.”

I raised an eyebrow. He looked about as watchful as a stump.

“Can you shoot a gun?”

“I mean, I suppose.”

“Perfect! You’ll be the gunner. We don’t actually have a gun, but I’m sure we can find one from somewhere. Oh, this is exciting. We’ll be like one of those bigger ships. We’ve never had a gunner before!”

“I’ve handled them before, mostly on a range, but I’m not an expert--”

She waved a hand,

“It’ll be fine. Mostly we run from things, so you probably won’t have a job to do.”

“‘Cept chore rotation. Every Crew member does chores. We’ll teach you right quick how to be an Ocean Sailor.”

“That goes without saying. And if we do have to shoot something, we’ll call you up and you can get some on the job training.”

“Oh. Well. Uh. Alright.” I just needed to get on the boat. That was my goal. I would work if need be. I’d shoot a gun at whatever they pointed at, so long as they got me to the islands.

“Great. I’m the First Mate, by the way. You can call me First Mate.” For some reason the man rolled his eyes at this. I guess he thought it was rude too. First Mate or not, she could have at least told me her name.

“I’m Hawthorn. Lookout, as I already told you.”

“Three of us are out in town tonight, getting, if I know them, monstrously drunk.”

“And high.” Hawthorn said,

“They’d better not be.” The First Mate said, straightening her uniform. I noticed that the name tag had been stripped off, though she had a number of shiny medals hanging from her chest in its place, though I couldn’t read them in the relative dark. These two were an odd pair. Hawthorn hadn’t moved anything except his head and one arm the whole time we had been speaking, and The First Mate seemed way too willing to take me on, not too mention she wore the naval uniform of a now defunct and rather out of favor military organization. And it was a captain's uniform, too. I suppose you dressed for the job you wanted. The captain should watch out for her.

But it made me cautiously optimistic. When I was looking into chartering an Ocean vessel, one of the things everyone agreed on was that The Ocean made you crazy. So the stranger your crew, the more experience they had. You never went with the normal seeming crew because it meant they were either way crazier than you realized, or they hadn’t been on The Ocean long, and the learning curve in The Ocean was steep.

It seemed like Hawthorn and The First Mate were definitely a little odd. So they probably had a few outings under their belt at least.

“Come on. Let me introduce you to the rest of the crew.” She nodded at Hawthorn. “I’ll be back.”

Hawthorn shrugged, and delicately, carefully, ground out his cigarette in a nearby ashtray.

“So Elma, Melody and Lucas are out right now. You can meet them later.” She led me down a set of steep wooden stairs. They led to a short hallway illuminated by a single flickering bulb hanging from the ceiling.

“We’ll get that fixed before we head out.”

A half dozen doors lined the walls.

“Probably here.” She pushed the door closest to the right open. Behind it was some sort of Rec room. A table bolted to the ground sat in the middle of the room. Actually, now that I looked, everything was bolted down. The couch, the shelves, and a small flat screen television affixed to the wall. Sitting on the couch was a woman younger, even, than me. I didn’t know if she was old enough to even drink. She was playing some sort of racing game, one of the thousands that had cropped up, throwing a bunch of cartoon characters into golf carts and making them throw explosives at each other.

She turned when the door opened, and I noticed that wrapped around her eyes was an old, dirty tan cloth. She was blind.

“Selimy’s our Naviagtor.” First Mate said, then turned to the woman, “Selimy. New crew member. Gunner.”

“Oh. Awesome.” She said, clearly engrossed in her game. I was wondering how she managed to play while blindfolded, and then I realized the answer was… not very well. Her character, a little mouse on a motorcycle, was driving determinedly into a wall. The number at the top left indicated she was in 12th place out of 12. Her expression was intense, however, and she seemed to be hitting buttons as if she saw something on that screen that I did not. “Look, I’m not done with---” She dropped her controler and stood up, ramrod straight. Then she turned to me, and I took a step back. She was actually really tall, at least six foot, but that wasn’t what was bothering me, it was the fact that the lights in the room seemed to dim, and my vision was drawn to her like an ant in a whirlpool.

‘ Sail and Sail and Sail you must,

till the lost are found

Till the horn is sound

Till the days of man have turned to dust

Then she stopped and I blinked. She looked down and then at the TV.

“Well, great. Now I’m in last.” She sighed and scooped up the remote after a few tries.

“A prophecy!” The First Mate clapped her hands together, “That’s a good omen.”

“What?” I said, “That… whatever that was sounded horrible!”

“Yes, well, she said you had to sail, right?” She pointed out, “That means your tenure here will probably work out. It also means you have a future. Look on the bright side, why don’t you?”

“Nice meeting you, uh…”

“Sam.”

“Sam.” The woman identified as Selimy finished. “Hope I didn’t scare you too much. My prophecies don’t exactly give me a heads up when they come. Welcome to the crew. Thatch is in his room, if you wanted to talk to him next.”

She sat back down and began pressing buttons again, seeming almost purposefully unaware that the game had a big ‘GAME OVER’ screen on it and nothing she did seemed to be changing it.

The First Mate stepped back out of the room and I followed her to another door not terribly far away. She knocked and it opened up almost immediately.

“Please make her stop playing that infernal game. I can't be in the room when she---" The… person on the other side of the door said.

“You’re a Patchwork.” I said, surprised, and then felt embarrassed that I’d spoken.

He obviously was, no one here needed me to point that out. It’s just…. I’d never seen one before. They had come after the Skyfall, creatures that didn’t need to eat or sleep, but instead picked up whatever they could find and incorporated it into their bodies to replace the bits that were sloughing away.

I’d heard they could be made of near anything, metal, stone, and you heard horror stories about Patchwork who wanted to be human, killing and stealing parts from men and women only to kill again when those parts rotted away. The Patchwork in front of me, however, was not at all what I imagined. He was shaped like a man, but made out of polished wood and crochet. His face was a mask, literally, and two dull orbs burned inside the eyes of the dark wood carving. His body was comprised mostly of wood, too, at least the parts I could see as he was wearing jeans and a really old ‘Green Day’ T-Shirt. But the palms of his hands, his arms, neck and the top of his head seemed to be made out of crochet of varying colors, though underneath I could see more solid dark wood. He was… strange. Strange but impressive. I saw inside his room what looked like yards of yarn and blocks of uncut wood neatly stacked inside a plastic tupperware container stuffed into a corner. There was no bed, just a rocking chair, bolted down like the other furnishings on the ship, which kind of made it useless as a rocking chair.

“Indeed I am.” He said politely, “And you are a human!”

“I-I’m sorry. I’ve just… never…”

“Never seen a Patchwork before? I understand.” He said, and though his wooden face remained impassive I imagined a smile in his voice. “I’m pleased to be the first. I hope I am a good representative of my kind. My name is Thatch. And you?”

“Oh, Sam. I’m Sam.”

“A pleasure.”

“Likewise.”

“Thatch is our Quartermaster. He keeps track of supplies and such, and he’s basically my--- er---- the captain's second.” She frowned. “Behind me of course.”

I gave her a curious look, but nodded again to Thatch.

“I’ll be the gunner, I suppose.”

“A new crew member!” Thatch said, sounding more surprised than delighted. “Well, I suppose you know what you’re doing, First Mate. Welcome to the crew, Sam.”

“We’re going to go see Quiver next, if you want to come.”

“Oh, no. The fewer people the better, perhaps. Especially if you’re introducing someone new. We wouldn’t want to frighten Quiver.”

“Ok.”

This time First Mate led me to the last door in the hallway, which opened into another short hallway opening into a larger room with a set of stairs going down. A couple of empty metal boxes sat stacked in the corner, and the stairs down descended into darkness.

“We’re going to turn the light on, OK, Quiver? We’ve got someone new for you to meet! He’s going to join the crew!” She turned to me, “This is the cargo hold, by the way. There’s an opening at the back of the boat, too. It’s wider so we can move stuff around. but it’s easier to get in from here.”

“Someone lives in the hold?” I said, suddenly worried about where I would be staying. “I didn’t know you were that tight on space.”

“No, no.” She flipped a heavy duty light switch on the far wall near the stairs. A light below turned on, but it was still dim, as if something was preventing it from growing as bright as it could. “Quiver likes living down here. They picked it.”

We went down the stairs, and I saw that strips of dark cloth covered the lights on the ceiling, casting the entire hold in an odd artificial twilight. There was nothing in the hold except… sitting directly in the middle… what looked to be an enormous sea anemone. Long, heavy tendrils were strewn about the floor, lying inert but originating from the pile of tendrils in the center of the room.

“Don’t touch them. They’re paralytic until Quiver gets used to you.” I wasn’t about to touch them, but I took extra care, now. “Hey, sorry to bother you while you’re sleeping, but we’ve got a new crew member. This is Sam. He’s going to be the gunner. Sam, this is Quiver. Quiver is ‘The Thing That Lives in the Hold’. And I know what you’re thinking, but that is actually a title on an Ocean Vessel. We’re lucky to have someone that can fill the role. Quiver moves boxes around for us, unloads and loads. Stuff like that. And Quiver’s mean in a fight, too.” She gently kicked one of the nearby tendrils. “What the heck are you doing sprawled out like this?”

The pile of tendrils in the middle of the room shivered, and suddenly the tendrils came to life. They began writhing, thrashing this way and that in a way that was a little more violent than I would have liked.

“Oh, for the love of…” First Mate said, “Sam, head upstairs real fast.”

I backpedaled, obeying both First Mate and my initial instincts but something heavy hit me on the shin and sent me sprawling. I landed face first, splitting my lip on my front teeth. I tried scrambling to my feet, but as soon as I put my weight on my left leg I collapsed again. My whole foot and thigh were numb and non-responsive.

“Quiver! Quiver! Calm down! It’s me! Shhhh-Shhhhh.”

I pushed myself up and began scrambling away, but the tendrils seemed to have stopped thrashing as quickly as they had started. They were wrapping themselves around The First Mate, at first aggressively, then almost protectively, like a child holding a beloved teddy bear. A moment later the tendrils in the center of the room lifted up into the air, revealing a relatively tiny, pale figure.

“Oh.” Then it made a tiny sound that would have been cute if it hadn’t just attacked me, like a hiccup. ‘Hic’. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright now, Sam. Quiver is just…” The First Mate sighed, “Drunk. I’m going to kill Elma. Pluck all the scales off her face and stick her in a keg.

“She would like that.” The creature hiccuped.

“I wouldn’t fill it with beer. I’d fill it with drinking water. Sam, come on, meet Quiver.”

“I can’t! My leg isn’t working.”

The tendrils began to shift, and the mass sprouting from the head and back of the tiny figure began shifting towards me, carrying it with them.

“I am sorry. ‘Hic’ Nice to meet you.” Some of the tendrils reached gently out towards me, but then stopped, and retreated. I pushed myself up to sit on my rear.

I looked up at Quiver and felt some of the terror be replaced by awe. The small, pale body was perhaps the size of an adolescent human. Androgenous, with no genitalia to speak of despite being completely naked, but curiously beautiful all the same with, as I saw now, skin that was not just pale, but alabaster, with wide, green eyes in a soft, round face. The tendrils, dark red and deep blue in turn sprouted from Quivers back and head. Quivers feet touched the ground, but I noticed they did only barely. It was held aloft mainly by the tendrils. I noticed, too, that it was holding a mostly empty vodka bottle. First Mate tried to take it, but she was having trouble getting past all of the tendrils still whipping about, albeit in a more focused area directly around Quiver.

“What are you?” I said, realizing that this wasn’t exactly polite, but I had no idea. At least with Thatch I had a guess. I didn’t know what Quiver was at all.

The tendrils around Quiver pulled closer to it, shrouding its body almost completely, all except its face.

“I dunno. ‘Hic’ I don’t know.” it repeated, enunciating this time.

“Shut up.” First Mate whispered. “Sore spot.”

“I can-can hear you.”

“Well, it is. Especially when you’re drunk. Quiver is part of our crew, is what Quiver is. We found them walking on a sand dune we’d accidentally hit one night. Some of our cargo spilled out and Quiver helped us put it back.”

“And then-then ‘hic’ first mate asked me if I wanted to join up. And I-I-I said yes.” Quiver said. “This is much better than being alone.” The tendrils began tightening around Quiver again, and the First Mate made one more desperate attempt to reach the bottle of vodka, the tendrils seemed not to effect her. Finally she snagged it between two fingers and yanked it away from Quiver just before the tendrils closed on the odd being like a cocoon.

“Quiver does not handle alcohol well.” She shook the bottle that was only about a fourth full. “Knowing Quiver’s tolerance levels, and knowing Elma, this probably wasn’t even half full by the time it got passed to Quiver.

“Great.” I said, “Well. Uh. I can’t walk.”

She lifted me to my feet, putting her shoulder under my arm and helped me back up to the deck of the ship.

“It’ll wear off in an hour or… er… four.”

“Great.” I sighed. She lowered me into the chair she had been sitting in when first I’d met her. Hawthorn nodded sleepily at us. The ashtray was filled with another couple cigarettes and there was one in his mouth again.

Hawthorn silently passed me a decanter of something brown and filled with ice. I looked at it, and took a swig.

“That is the worst whiskey I’ve ever had.” I told him.

Hawthorn, surprisingly, laughed.

“Don’t tell Elma that. This is Water Folk Whiskey. She loves the stuff. But yea, you’re right. It’s shit.“

There was a shrill, obviously drunk laugh from farther up the dock.

“Speak of the devil and she shall appear.” The First Mate said,

Down the dock strolled three people, all somehow holding each other up despite not a single one of them seeming capable of standing by themselves.

Eventually the three stumbled onto the boat, one of them nearly pitching into the inky dark water below as they came up the gangplank. The one in the middle, apparently more sober than they appeared, caught them by the collar and pushed them onto the boat with a laugh.

The one who almost fell rolled onto the ship with a giggle. She was a short, round, friendly faced woman with a cheeks as red as an apple, but that might have just been because she was drunk.

“Ah! Hiiiii!” She broke out into another fit of giggling. “First Mate, who is he? He’s cute.”

“This is Melody.” The First Mate said, “She’s our surgeon.”

“And cutting a very professional figure, I’ll note.” Hawthorn said, “I’d certainly trust her to stick me with a scalpel.”

“Hawthorn, my lovely,” Melody giggled again, “I could cut you open and sew you back together with my eyes shut, one hand behind my back and drunk as a skunk. Which, maybe you’ve gathered, I most certainly am.”

“Drunk, not a skunk.” The First Mate clarified. I felt, in light of recent meetings, that the clarification was necessary.

“Exactly! But you haven’t answered me! Who are you, new guy?”

“Sam Bless.” I said, “New, ah, Gunner.”

“Gone for five seconds and we get a new crew member?” Another voice roared. I would have thought it was an almost genial sound if not for the mouth it came out of. Pointed teeth shone in the dim light, and as my eyes fixed themselves on the speaker I noticed that wasn’t all. She wore tight fitting short shorts, a pair of wet towelettes over the gills on her neck, and a bikini top that was just barely decent, showcasing her skin which, on her belly and chest was a pale white slowly shading into a sea green, until finally, on the top of her arms, shoulders and on the ridges of her cheeks her skin turned to blue-green scales. Her eyes were wide and blue, and her hair was a similar sea green to her skin, only darker. Her hands and feet were webbed and tipped with small claws that looked like they had been filed. She was thinner and smaller than I thought her people would be. When her mouth was closed, her pointed teeth hidden, she looked almost delicate. Appearances were deceiving.

I suddenly, desperately wished my leg worked. She was Water Folk. A Sea Cannibal.

“This is Elma.”

“And this insensate idiot is Lucas Park!” The Sea Cannibal said, her voice several octaves louder than I felt it needed to be. She shook the man who was still hanging on her shoulder, he looked decidedly ill. Lucas was an older man, maybe in his late forties. He was a thin, scholarly looking fellow with neat, short hair and a pair of not glasses, but spectacles. I could picture him teaching a class, or sitting in a laboratory, or even showing someone how to dance. The text book picture of what I imagined a teacher to look like. The only thing that interfered with the image was his tattoos. His body, what I could see, was absolutely rife with them. Strange symbols creeped up his arms and neck. A few stray lines of what looked like some sort of formula intruded on his lower face, reaching up to just above his jaw.

“Lucas is our mechanic, and our resident dabbler in the mystic arts. And Elma is the best cook on any Ocean Vessel you care to name.”

“You let a cannibal be the cook?” I said, shocked,

The ship suddenly got very quiet, the only sound Lucas pushing away from Elma and puking his innards over the side of the boat, and Melody singing a song she didn’t know all the words to, apparently not paying attention to the conversation. Come to it, it wasn’t actually that quiet, but the other sober crew members stopped and stared at me.

“We don’t use that slur on this boat.” The First Mate said,

“It’s not a slur! She’s… Her people do that!” I looked over to her, “Have… have you ever…?”

“Yep.” She said, cocking an eyebrow. “When I was a kid I loved human.”

“Sam. If you want to stay on this boat you need to watch your tongue.” First Mate said, and there was a razor sharp edge to her voice. Why? They were cannibals, that's what The Water Folk did. It's why we passing through their waters was so dangerous up until the treaty. They killed and ate anyone they could catch brave or foolish enough to sail through. Even with the treaty in place it wasn’t safe. What could be laughably considered the Water Folk ‘government’ had almost no power to enforce their laws, and killings had only decreased because the hedonists enjoyed the spices and drugs we brought them more than they liked killing humans, and wouldn’t touch ships they thought bore those goods on established shipping lanes. And only on established shipping lanes.

“Hey, he’s right.” Elma shrugged, her smile gone. “We eat people, sure. I’ve eaten people.”

“See? I’m not trying to be rude, I’m just… you don’t still…”

“No.” She said flatly, “It’s illegal now.”

“I know but I heard---”

“I don’t eat people, Sam.” She said, “You don’t need to worry about me. I won’t be putting some bum in your stew. Hey, I’m going to go put Lucas to bed and then crash myself.” She said to the rest of the crew. “Nice meeting you, Sam.”

“Whaaaaat?” Melody cried, “You promised you stay up with me and watch the sunrise! Lucas did too, but the skinny bastard is already asleep!”

“Next time.” She hefted Lucas, asleep on the railing, with surprising strength and hauled him down the stairs with her.

“The only reason you aren’t flat on your face on the docks is because I legitimately don’t believe you realize how incredibly rude you were just now.” The First Mate said, her face a thundercloud.

“And because he said he’d pay you.” Hawthorn said lazily, though his frown had grown even deeper.

“We don’t do any of that racial bullshit on board my vessel.” First Mate said,

“It’s not… I didn’t… They actually eat people!” I said, exasperated.

“Not Elma.” Hawthorn said,

“She literally admitted she did!”

“Not anymore.” He amended, as if that made it better. A reformed cannibal was still a freaking cannibal!

“She’s trying to change, Sam. A lot of the Waterfolk are, now that they’ve actually had contact with humans as something other than dinner.” First Mate said, “You can’t judge her based on what you’ve heard. I’d trust her with my life. Even if I was sitting naked in a stewpot and she was chopping vegetables into it I’d just thank her for drawing me a bath and getting me some snacks.”

“Alright, alright.” I said, putting my hands up. “I didn’t mean any offence.”

“I don’t need you to apologize, I need you to not do it again.”

“I’ll try my hardest.” I said,

First Mate grunted.

“Since we’re already on unsavory topics, let’s move onto another one. How much money did you bring?”

I put my suitcase on the floor and undid it’s clasps. I removed the large wad of bills from a secret compartment in it’s side and handed it over to First Mate.

She whistled low.

“Wow. Alrighty then.” She said, “How’d you put together five hundred thousand Tapers? Might be difficult to find someone to change this much money into Bills. You from Caligon?”

“Yes. Portland, born and raised.”

“Ha! I hear you bunch are all real crazy up in the northern parts of the West Coast.” She grinned,

“Now whose making assumptions about someone?”

“I didn’t say it was true, just that I’d heard it. Are you one of those Sacred Trust people?”

“I won’t apologize for it.” I said more harshly than I meant to.

First Mate put her hands up.

“Hey, no judgement. I think your philosophy is super admirable.”

I relaxed a little.

“Yea. In theory.” Hawthorn said, “In practice? Its nutso bonkers. But everybody on this boat is crazy, so you’re amongst friends.”

“How is keeping promises crazy?” I asked. I wasn’t here because I wanted to get into a philosophical debate, but I couldn’t help myself. People who misunderstood the Sacred Trust made me crazy. At least they hadn’t called it a religion like some people did.

“It’s keeping every promise. Sometimes it’s not worth it, to keep a promise.”

“You’re right and you’re wrong.” I said. Hawthorn had clearly never had a discussion with someone from the Sacred Trust before. Every member had a response to this argument. “First of all, we don’t make promises easily. They’re important to us. I’m not going to ‘promise’ you something if I don’t think I can do it. Or for something stupid or subjective like ‘I promise I’ll never bother you again’.”

“Granted.” Hawthorn nodded, gently exhaling smoke into the night air.

“Second, while perhaps it can be a little self destructive to keep every single promise we make, in the long run, for humanity at large, it’s for the good. People know they can trust us. They can take us at our word. We eliminate the suspicion between peoples, between countries, that’s been the cause of so much conflict in our world.”

“Unless your leadership uses that as a facade to get away with even bigger lies.”

“They would never.”

Hawthorn shrugged,

“Alright. Whatever you say. It’s human nature to break promises kid. They’re only human. No shame in that.”

“They wouldn’t, Hawthorn.” I insisted. “They’re flawed like all leaders are, but they---”

“Alright. Let’s stop right here.” First Mate said.”Everyone here is free to believe whatever they want, Sam. Hawthorn just likes playing the devil's advocate.”

“I’ve usually got nothing better to do with my time. My job is literally just staring at the ocean till I spot something.”

He passed me the decanter of water folk whiskey again as a peace offering, and I took another swig. It was still terrible, but not so terrible as the first sip. I tried passing it to the First Mate but she shook her head and motioned to the cup in her hand.

“I don’t drink swill.” She laughed,

“Well we aren’t so picky.” Hawthorn said as I gave the decanter back to him. We passed the decanter back and forth until it was finished and I was pleasantly buzzed. Whatever the taste of the whiskey, it got you drunk, which is sometimes all you can ask for. We watched the humming, spinning, flashing lights of the docks wink out as morning approached. Watched the crowds disperse, though never completely, as people staggered back to their ships or places of residency. Perhaps it was just a drunken fancy, but the ship we sat on seemed apart from all of that. In a good way. I could go there if I wanted, but out here in the dark, on the water, was a safe space away from the chaos. I stood up.

“Alright. I need to go to bed.” I said, “My thoughts are turning funny.”

“Here, I’ll show you to you room.” First Mate said, and then looked down at the sleeping form of Melody. “And bring her to bed, too.”

My room was identical in shape to the one I saw Thatch in, only this one was completely bare except for a small bed nailed to the floor in the corner. There weren’t even sheets on it yet, but I didn’t care. It had been a long, expensive train ride to get here, and the alcohol was making me tired. I slumped into bed. I was here. I was on the boat. I felt a brief moment of terror that was quickly subsumed by the alcohol humming in my system, and decided not to think about anything for a while.