As Tazaro took a momentary break from shaving down the ship's handrails, he leaned against a section of railing that he'd already finished and watched Captain Burke as he checked a compass and compared it to a map. Nothing much was said between the two, which mildly unnerved Tazaro despite Sheeva insistence that he "not worry" since, once they docked in Rascal's Cove, it would be the last they would probably see of the captain and his crew.

  Perhaps he was only worried because the captain might think less of him thanks to Bartholomew, who tarnished their good reputation by disappearing at random, sometimes for hours.

  Captain Burke flagged down Lenus with a wide wave of his hand. The warmly dressed man hurried down from the ship's bow, across the deck, and up the stairs to the helm. His boots thudded as he stopped, awaiting whatever instruction Captain Burke was about to bestow.

  "Aye, sir?" He asked beneath a scarf wrapped around his head so completely that the only thing anyone could see was the first mate's ready blue eyes beneath spectacles framed by bushy red eyebrows.

  "We need to sail quietly. Tell the men to kill the power and unfurl the sails. Don't let on that we're in dangerous waters." The captain murmured, though whether or not it was intentionally loud enough that Tazaro could overhear, Tazaro couldn't help but wonder.

  He stole a glance at the cuffs of his jacket, relieved at the Tyrj-Laerso pin he habitually fixed to the thick leather sleeves of his newly tailored-for-flight jacket that they'd had to replace in Agonia after their jailbreak. Wanting more information about what could lie hidden in the seas, he pushed himself off the rail and approached Captain Burke's side.

  "Dangerous waters, hm?" Tazaro murmured, turning his back to the now bustling crew as they climbed the ladders and nets Tazaro helped tie in his spare time. He didn't want any of them reading his lips or seeing his now hardened, wary stare.

  Captain Burke tilted his head, flipped a switch to lock the wheel in place, pursed his lips together in a thin line, then reached in his coat pocket for the favored oakwood pipe he would smoke from. With the strike and light of a match and a quick puff, the wad of tobacco lit and smoldered as he drew in a long drag and slowly exhaled heavily.

  “Before I explain, answer me something, willya?” He grunted, lifting his piercing blue eyes to lock onto Tazaro’s citrines, conveying unspoken suspicion that made Tazaro’s gut drop. He immediately began to wonder if they were at risk of being tossed overboard.

  Still, Tazaro steeled himself.

  “Sure. Shoot.” He agreed.

  “If it comes down to it, can you help us fight off anything that dares to show its face?” He asked.

  Tazaro blinked, surprised, and hoped the man didn’t notice the relaxed slouch of his shoulders or the slow release of the nervous breath he held.

  “Of-of course! I think Sheeva would have a field day with that.” He blurted, chuckling at his nervous spike. "I think she's been feeling cooped up, considering how ruthless she was during our spar this morning," He commented, prodding his jawline with a gentle finger. The spot she had delivered a punch to was no longer sore.

  “Heh. That doesn’t surprise me!” Captain Burke grunted with a curl in the corner of his mouth as he clenched the pipe between his teeth.

  “So, what’s out there besides fish?” Tazaro asked. He crossed his arms and fidgeted with the hem of his jacket.

  “Sahagins, mostly,” caused Tazaro to scoff and roll his eyes, earning a brief pause, sideways glance, and curling sneer from the Captian.

  “Other than those spit-slinging bastards, there’s talk of an Ice Basiliska dwelling in the deep.”

  This snared Tazaro’s attention, and he blinked a couple of times as the potential threat registered.

  Unlike the Great Basiliska, born of whatever powerful soul there had been when the deal for even more power was made with Abraxas, legend had it that the Ice Basiliska–that Tazaro mistakenly thought roamed the southwestern coast–was purely spawned out of Giovina’s hatred of Abraxas for ignoring the unrequited love Tova held towards him.

  Tazaro wondered what the creature looked like and if it shared the rumored legendary serpent’s visage with scaly skin and deep, greenish hue. Maybe, it had a mouth full of teeth and could wind itself around massive ships to pull them down into the depths below.

  Tazaro didn’t get the opportunity to muse for long, distracted by a distant rumble as the air became close and thick with tension. He cast a sideways glance at the waves, noticing a suspicious ripple from afar that circled out and rocked the boat.

  From the deep, nature’s fury arose, and as a giant head and snake-like body breached the surface, a massive wave forcefully shook the boat. Tazaro managed to keep his footing, despite staring in terrified awe at the row of sharp, piercing fangs jutting out from the top jaw of the sea serpent's mouth. He blurted out a startled, unnerved "bah!" as the creature drew in a long breath and let out a bellowed screech that caused the folks on board to clap their hands to their ears.

  Sheeva winced as her hip banged against the corner of the table when a sudden shift of the boat caused her to topple over. The container of yams she had just meticulously peeled and chopped crashed to the floor, and as she steadied herself with a sprawled stance and grasp of the poorly-placed support beam in the kitchens, Sheeva clapped her hands to her ears as an earsplitting screech rang out.

  “What the hell is going on out there?” She barked, looking for Rory, who’d caught himself on the countertop before he could barrel into the kettle and become a part of a stew.

  He righted himself, looking towards the ceiling as many footsteps began to sound out, pitter-pattering in alarm at the events outside.

  “Dunno, but judgin’ by that horrendous screech, that weren’t a normal wave, lass!” He called back, eyes wide with fear.

  Fearing that Tazaro was alone in whatever was attacking them, Sheeva ripped her apron from her body and tossed it aside. She retrieved Abraxas from the chain around her neck with a flourish and cast her resizing spell. Abraxas grew to its normal size from something the size of a small pendant, and she hurried to tie the scabbard to her waist.

  Upon hearing Rory’s astonished tok za vilg from afar, Sheeva halted before rushing out the door, shot him an apologetic look.

  "Stay here!" she commanded, then paused. "Unless we sink!" She added.

  Satisfied with his dumbfounded nod, Sheeva rushed through the double doors and to the right, slipping between the other men scrambling to get below deck in their white-faced panic. She ignored their cries of warning about the monster that would eat her if she went outside and burst through the door to the deck.

  Sheeva skidded to a halt on the wet deck, amazed at the creature towering above their ship as it hissed and stared at them like they were a scrumptious meal.

  Upon hearing Tazaro’s voice directing other sailors to safety, she turned to look for the voice; he was towards the back of the ship. Along with Bartholomew, who deflected a spittle spray from a deep-blue hued, bright-green finned Sahagin with a raised arm over his face, the first-mate, Lenus, was attempting to stab at the eerie, two-legged fish with a harpoon; likely the only weapon a fishing vessel had at its disposal aside from a filleting knife.

  She looked for Captain Burke and found him at the helm, desperately trying to steer the ship away from the gargantuan sea creature. Too focused in his battle with the unrelenting wheel as the rudders fought the current, he didn’t notice the slithering, slimy, blue, yellow-ringed octopus inching toward him.

  Sheeva pulled Abraxas out and charged at the captain, barking for him to duck.

  As the eight-legged, highly-poisonous creature reared back and showed its gnarly, five-toothed beak, Sheeva hacked and slashed, using a booted foot to kick the chopped remains off the side of the ship.

  “Th-thank you!” Captain Burke blurted between a death-grip clench of his teeth around the stalk of his pipe as it threatened to fall from his mouth. Sheeva helped him to his feet then ushered him towards the lower deck.

  “Get inside and stay there!” She ordered.

  Bartholomew had seemed to have the same idea, guiding the now-limping Lenus towards the doors, who seemed too discombobulated to notice the slow fade of Bartholomew's disguising spell as blue fur and scales replaced tan skin and he seemed to grow several inches taller with each step while a prehensile tail grew from the split in his pants. As they neared, she saw the glistening viscous goo of Sahagin spit splayed across Lenus’s eyes.

  As though for retribution, Tazaro was busy fending off another couple of Sahagin, and as one threw a glob of spit at him, he barked out a well-timed command for a barrier spell, allowing him to fully focus on the creature at his right.

  Sheeva stooped, touched a puddle of water, and formed an icicle, which she launched across the way. Aim true, the spear shot through the Sahagin at Tazaro’s left and knocked it back, leaving him free to move elsewhere.

  He was more shocked that Sheeva had decided to use magic rather than weapons in the face of the others, but as he saw that Bartholomew’s disguise had completely fallen, Tazaro supposed there was no point in holding up the charade any longer.

  “What the-what the hell?” Captain Burke blubbered, staring in confusion.

  “Captain,” Sheeva called, grasping the collar of his coat to shake him to clarity. He blinked and grunted out a stupefied “hrm?” barely able to support Lenus leaning on him in a drugged, drooling stupor.

  “No matter what you see or hear from here on, you will not throw us off the ship until we reach Rascal’s Cove. Is that clear?” She insisted, hoping he would have the scruples to understand her request and the honor to hold to his word.

  With an even more confused stare, Jensen Burke stiffly nodded, then blinked in surprise as the door shut in his face, leaving them in the dimly-lit hallways of below deck.

  Sheeva pressed her hand to the oakwood door and ignited a sigil that would deter any smaller intruders that might make their way from the deep, then kicked at a Sobferros running at them from the ship's rail. It whelped in pain and backed away, its long fishtail tucked between its legs before circling around them.

  “See if you can take care of the Ice Basiliska. I’ve got this.” Bartholomew insisted, puffing himself up as he stood tall and stared down the ugly soba-fish. It growled back, bared its teeth, and flattened its pointed ears back against its head in a show of force.

  Bartholomew’s scales flattened against his skin and interlaced, and as he reached behind to retrieve his sword and armor, the creature bound. With a swift side-step, Bartholomew whacked the Sobferros against the side of its head, grasped the handle of his claymore, and swung at the creature’s laurels.

  It was a near miss that proved to be a mistake; as soon as the edge of his blade was to the deck's floor, the Sobferros whipped around on its fishlike tail, rebound, and leaped towards Bartholomew’s face. Bartholomew raised an arm to shield himself from the yellowing, slobber-glistening fangs, ready to face the injury to his arm.

  He fell back, stumbling over the long, blue Sobferros tail. As he felt nails scraping against his pauldron and chest armor, he looked down, surprised not to hear angered growls but frightened whimpers.

  What luck to find that his gauntlet had formed itself in great timing, causing the Sobferros’s jowls to become locked around the golden metal. Claymore beyond his reach, Bartholomew brandished his claw and dug into the side of the Sobferros’s ribs, ignoring the rush of blood out of vertical gills that stretched alongside the creature’s neck. The Sobferros whined and scratched with futile efforts, and as Bartholomew continued to maul it with a blood-soaked claw, the creature eventually stilled and lay slack against his chest.

  He had enough time to stumble to his feet before he was lurched back onto his knees by a violent thrash of the boat, thanks to a head bash into the hull from the basiliska.

  Sheeva bore her wings first, leaped up onto the ship's rail, then kicked off as she glided toward their giant foe over the waves. Tazaro followed suit, thankful that both had the ability at their disposal, learning the previous week that their feathers had completely grown back upon a curious checkup.

  He was grateful that they seemed to have speed on their side, but as Tazaro slashed at the creature's scaled belly, a discouraging, dull scrape met his ears. He pushed himself away and circled up the massive, round body, searching for a weak, soft spot.

  Amid scales as large as boulders, it didn't seem there was a hole in the dense armor, and Tazaro spiraled out of the way as the creature snapped at him with a mouth as big as a cave. The large, yellowed fangs reminded him of sharp, pointy stalactites.

  He watched as a Sheeva landed on the thing’s head and pressed a glowing hand to the back of its skull. A magnificent glow brightened her face, and a shrill crackle sounded in her ears, but as she pulled her hand away to view her work, she found the freezing spell had barely breached the surface of the creature’s thick, blue scales.

  “Well, that was fucking pointless!” She grunted to herself in frustration.

  She cried out in surprise and grasped one of its slimy whiskers as it thrashed its head around to fling her off. With a violent shake of its head, the whisker she desperately held onto slipped through her hand and sent her flying. Tazaro hurried to catch her, then dove as it jumped for them, threatening to crush them in its giant maw. While they rolled off its back, the beast fell into the sea with a widespread splash that rippled and shook the boat.

  Frightful eyes scoured the waters below for the creature’s massive shadow, and as Tazaro briefly considered casting a net around the creature to slow it down, he decided against it, not keen on being dragged into the depths below and to his icy, painful death.

  The Ice Basiliska popped its head out from beneath the surface on the opposite side of the ship, eyeing it sinisterly as it wrapped a long fishtail around the middle of the boat.

  Thinking fast, three blazing, hot-as-hellfire spheres shot from Sheeva's outstretched palms and sailed through the air. Hoping it was effective, Tazaro followed the massive things with unblinking eyes, terrified further when, after the first one missed by inches, the basiliska simply ate the second one. It emitted a smoldering hiss of steam as the flame extinguished, then bowed its head to take on the last. It seemed to roll off its forehead and left the tiniest of scorch marks, a blackened blemish on otherwise sturdy blue and grey scales.

  The long tail unraveled from around the boat’s middle, and the basiliska pushed it away in disinterest as its attention fixed on the two flying around in the air.

  Seeming to snicker at them derisively, a long, forked tongue flickered at the air as it drew in a long breath of air. Sheeva watched as a bright light collected at the creature's mouth, then dove out of the way as a blast of light shot forth towards where she'd just been. The blast met an innocent flock of gullwings, and they plummeted towards the sea, immobile and frozen solid.

  “Sheeva, keep him busy. I will try that thing I did with the behemoth’s arm.” Tazaro cued.

  “Shall I bring him to you?” She asked, pausing a few feet away from him.

  Tazaro caught himself in a smile, pleased to find how readily supportive she was.

  “No, but keep his focus off of me.”

  After receiving a curt nod and watching her charge into the fray, Tazaro closed his eyes and began to focus, trying to remember the particulars of the spell when he first toyed with it.

  He’d succeeded in exploding a few eggs, surprised to find their contents hard or soft-boiled depending on the size. Cluckatrice eggs yielded easily but could still withstand quite a bit of force, whereas the rare opportunity he’d had to experiment on a roc’s egg required him to pour a massive amount of focus and had left him disoriented for nearly a day. Given the creature’s massive size, the spell might not do much, but maybe, if they could create a dent in the dense scales, he, Sheeva, or Bartholomew might succeed in breaking through to the less-stalwart innards.

  Sheeva zig-zagged around the basiliska’s head as it snapped at the air, futile and frustrated at the near-misses with the bird scrapping at its face. She barked out in surprise as something rose up out of the water and grunted out a pained “oof!” as she collided with the fins of the fish-tail.

  Knocked off course, she felt herself tumble in the air for a moment, then cried out in fear as the rugged, grey roof of the creature’s mouth appeared over her head. Thousands of sharp, pointy teeth that seemed to be moving made her skin crawl, and as she registered the cold and fleshy tongue she landed on, Sheeva pushed herself up in disgust.

  “Bereich!” She cried out seconds before the jaw clamped shut.

  Two beveled honeycomb shields formed in front of both her hands, creating a small, safe bubble that she could only crouch in. Trapped, she looked around in pure awe, then shuddered as she saw the rear-fangs flexing out and wiggling, as though trying to shovel prey towards the tunnel of its throat. Sheeva desperately looked back towards the cloudy grey skies she could see through the crack of its snout, only kept open thanks to her last-minute shields.

  As the jaw clenched tighter, Sheeva fell backward and felt herself become further sandwiched between her shields. The crackle that spider-webbed across the blue honeycomb further terrified her, and she tried in vain to wiggle her way towards freedom. As the shields shifted closer together once again, Sheeva stilled, finding she could not move for the risk of losing one or both of the only things keeping her from being squished into mince-meat.

  “Sheeva, get out of there!” Bartholomew called out, bravely reaching a claw into the basilisk’s mouth.

  “I can’t! I’m pinned!” She responded, choking on the stench of rotten fish and saliva.

  Bartholomew wedged his feet into the small space and grabbed for a couple of small fangs in an attempt to wrench the creature’s jaw open. He was surprised to find how sternly the basiliska’s jaw was locked after it didn’t seem to unhinge even after the two fangs he’d grabbed were ripped out–despite the creature's pained screech and flailing. He tried again, digging his claws into the fresh, open wounds from the missing teeth, and as the thing shrieked with rage and thrashed its head about, Bartholomew jabbed his tail-blade into the pink gums for more stability.

  Sheeva was deafened by the piercing cry and felt herself slide closer towards the back of the basiliska’s throat and could see, in disgusted amazement, the throb of the mandibular muscle keeping the creature’s jaw closed so tightly around her.

  As she heard another crack, this time in the shield beneath her, Sheeva squeezed her eyes shut.

  In a last-ditch effort, she drew in as deep a breath as possible, suffocated by musty, rotten air. With a sharp exhale, she directed a ball of fire toward the thick columnar muscle. When it proved futile, Sheeva resorted to kicking at the thing.

  Bartholomew twisted his tail out of the gums and began to slash at the small space of open maw and felt the jaw shift, creating a little give. The space was now about three feet long, almost as tall as his tibia, and he hoped it would be enough space for Sheeva to crawl out from.

  Thanks to Sheeva’s last-ditch effort, her shields finally gave, freeing her hands. She ripped her weaponized tail-blade from its sheath and drove it into the gummy flesh beneath her, preventing her slip into the basiliska’s gullet. Her other hand tore Abraxas from his scabbard and slashed at the now charred muscle, effectively severing the band. The severed muscle shot towards the roof like an unloaded spring.

  She focused once more and channeled energy through her blade, slashing at the band on the other side of the creature’s mouth. With a brilliant ray of light that swiped from right to left across the back of the basiliska’s throat, Sheeva felt herself roll backward and towards fresh air.

  Bartholomew cried in surprise as he lurched forward as the Basiliska’s mouth yanked wide-open with a sickening crunch. Sheeva came tumbling out, covered in blood and drool, falling mercilessly to the sea below.

  He managed one last strike of the snake’s mouth with his tail, then pushed himself away and dove to catch Sheeva. Carefully, he grasped onto her leather armor, still wary of crushing her delicate Sferran body, then beelined for the ship to drop her off on it. He rested her against the wall next to the door leading below deck.

  Tazaro, feeling the full ripple effect of energy as it pulled from his toes and collected in his hands, opened his eyes to find the sea-serpent. He wondered what had taken place as he was channeling the spell, surprised to see its jaw hung open, unnaturally slack as blood poured from gashes in its cheeks. The long forked tongue spasmed as it flicked at the salty sea air.

  Before losing his concentration, he charged for the giant beast and slapped his palm to the roof of the creature’s bloody, charred mouth, delivering the net that spread over the basiliska’s skin. It rapidly unfolded to cover the entire head, and as it locked into place with a flash, Tazaro held a matching, white sphere in his hands.

  As he squeezed the sphere, the resistance it gave was far greater than it had been with even the tough, inch-thick shell of the roc’s egg, but he pressed on. The basiliska screeched again and thrashed around as a giant dent appeared in the middle of its horned forehead. When Tazaro fought to push his palms closer together, the dent deepened almost instantly, pulling the creature’s skull into an unnatural bend as the bone began to break.

  With a mistaken twist of his right hand, Tazaro was horrified to witness the violent, skull-shattering twist of the right side of the creature’s face as the snout bent upward.

  Now was a good time as any to go through with the suggestion that Sheeva had given him, and Tazaro took a deep breath, then blew a steady, desperate stream of fire into the sphere he held between his hands.

  He never imagined that snake eyes could widen, but they did in pain and fury as the basiliska screeched and thrashed about wildly. It dove beneath the ocean's surface, then resurfaced as it leaped and sailed over the ship, crashing into the side of a glacier. A thick, giant spear of ice landed in the vulnerable space of its large, red gills, and as steam spewed from the bleeding cracks in its head, Tazaro understood what had happened to the thing.

  Like a crustacean dropped in a vat of boiling water, the Ice Basiliska had been boiled, though from the inside.

  It made him shudder briefly before the spell faltered, and his hands clapped together in sudden force. As the rapid aftermath of his spellcasting sapped him of his strength, Tazaro’s shoulders slouched as he struggled to fly back towards the ship in an off-kilter flap.

  He didn’t make it far before his blurry world rolled over and over in a haze of deep-blue sea and light-blue skies.

  Bartholomew watched Tazaro fly sloppily towards the ship, then plummet towards the water. Calling the others inside for help, Bartholomew bounded on all fours toward the rail, then leaped over the side to dive. He swam to where Tazaro had sunk, then dove, squinting hard amid the darkness of the sea.

  Tazaro hadn’t sunk far, and Bartholomew grabbed at Tazaro’s arm. He kicked with all his might for the surface, thankful for the gasp of fresh air that graced his lungs. As something hit the water nearby with a smack, Bartholomew looked. A bright green life ring bobbed and weaved with the waves. He headed for it, then looped it over Tazaro’s unconscious form.

  The sailors hurried to reel them in, and despite their winged state and Bartholomew’s scaly, demonic appearance, the sailors hurried to pull them onto the ship's deck from over the freshly shaved railing.

  “Check on him,” Bartholomew grunted, pushing himself to his hands and knees and maintaining the strength he needed to point blindly in Tazaro’s direction. “Forget about me, just make sure he’s–

  –He’s alright, Bartholomew.” Sheeva shushed, covered with a thick, warm blanket. He sat back on his haunches and looked at her in surprise, grateful that she seemed to be well, considering she’d almost been a giant serpent’s lunch. He looked to Tazaro, who was already being tended to by the medic, Dr. Lucille Sivvers.

  The woman’s vibrant red hair burned in Bartholomew’s otherwise dulled, nearly-black-and-white visage as she helped the now conscious, coughing man sit up and wrap a blanket around his wet wings and shoulders.

  Sheeva wheeled around sharply as she heard someone blurt out a frightened, lowly-uttered question of what she, Tazaro, and Bartholomew were. Standing tall, she boldly stepped between the crowd and the two sopping wet patrons on the floor. Her feathers peeked out from beneath the brown wool blanket.

  “We’re–” She began in futile defense, cut off by the red-haired doctor behind her as she stepped to Sheeva’s side and set a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  “Coming to the medical bay, I should hope. You all need medical attention.” She insisted, pointing at two men and pointing towards Tazaro, then three others to help Bartholomew.

  With an arm draped around two men’s shoulders and the third picking up Bartholomew’s long tail, they staggered below deck and past the kitchens, following the red-haired doctor as she led the way, an arm wrapped around Sheeva’s shoulders for assurance. Tazaro was also guided in, too worn-out to want to say anything.

  Tazaro supposed it was better for the three of them to be getting led below deck than be thrown overboard, considering he felt as though he’d been run over by a herd of stampeding Sleipnir and doubted his ability to swim. As the two men helped him to the side of a bed, he resisted the urge to collapse into it and huffed an airless, pitied chuckle as they nervously angled his wings back as he lay on his side.

  Bartholomew insisted they not worry about how to place him in one of the beds, instead opting to sprawl out face-down on the comfortable mattress. He blinked sluggishly at a peculiar mark on the side of the nightstand, slowly recognized it as one of his own claw-marks, then snickered to himself as he remembered how it had gotten there.

  While Dr. Sivvers ushered the other sailors out of the room, Sheeva sat down in a chair between the two beds. Softly and with a comforting hand, she urged Tazaro to retract his wings, then lay on his back. With a skillful trace and wave, she tapped Tazaro on the forehead and pulled out the red text.

  He was fine, though just as worn out from fighting and wild spell casting as she was.

  With another trace and wave of a spell, she tapped his shoulder and dried him off, then took his hand to bring it to her lips and kiss it gently.

  “I watched your spell take place. It’s quite a powerful thing.” She whispered, moving a few strands of his hair out of his face as they stuck to his cheek. “Though, if you’re to cast something of that caliber and faint, how about keeping your feet on the ground next time, hm?” She smiled.

  He felt his cheeks burn and gave a soft, modest pfft!

  “No kidding!” He agreed with a cheeky grin that faded into a tired curl. “I wasn’t expecting it to be so, uh, detrimental. The damage to the basiliska's head was nasty.” He admitted with a slight frown of disgust.

  They looked over and up as Dr. Sivvers approached the other side of the bed, a tray filled with water for both of them and a chunk of green pain medicine.

  “I don’t know what that string of signs was, but considering that you’re up and talking well, all is well.” She greeted.

  “We are fine, so long as Captain Burke holds his promise to not throw us off the ship until we reach Cruinia,” Sheeva answered, eyeing the waters with a careful look.

  Dr. Sivvers grasped a glass and took a sip of one, then the other.

  “It’s just water, though I can understand your caution. Considering…what I am looking at, you three must have been put through quite the ordeal.” She assured, turning to set the tray on the nightstand. Tazaro plucked a glass off the tray, handed it to Sheeva, and took the other.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “As for Captain Burke, I’m sure he’s, uh, frazzled, but he’ll come round.” She waved the matter off with a dismissive hand. “If not, you can hide in here.”

  She turned to look at a fourth occupant in the room, snoozing away in a bed with a loud, guttural snore.

  “I’m grateful Lenus is asleep. The last thing he needs is to see the three of you in this state under his ill-fated hallucinations.” She sighed, pulling the blanket back up to the sleeping man’s chin and tucking him in. She drew the curtain around his bed to shield him from the rest of the others should he wake early from sedation.

  As she turned back to face Tazaro, Sheeva, and Bart, Dr. Sivvers paused, staring at them and wondering…simply…how.

  How could they have wings one second and not the next? How had Sheeva created a fancy sigil to pull a string of words out of Tazaro’s forehead, and how did such an incredible thing not phase nor hurt the otherwise sturdy man? How was there now a creature, in Bart’s clothes, that now looked nothing like–nor sounded like–the “Bart” the crew had come to know?

  Dr. Lucille Sivvers swallowed past a dry throat as she realized that “Bart” could easily shred her to bits with the massive claws or run her through with the blade on an eighth appendage. The shining, lacquered scales contoured an even larger set of muscles, and as she tilted her head in confusion at the fact that his legs dangled quite far off the foot of the bed, she felt the brief, barely-there tickle of a surprised and intrigued “huh.”

  This caught the three people’s attention, and they all turned to look at her expectantly. Bartholomew righted himself and sat on the bed, letting loose a gravelly sigh as he dropped his gaze to the floor and propped himself on elbows in a forward lean. With the extreme height of his legs, it appeared to be more of a fetal curl rather than a lean, but Dr. Sivvers didn’t have the wherewithal to think about that as she wondered more about the elongated tail he had. It had to be an awkward feeling for him, with him practically sitting on and crimping the thing, and her eyes widened as she saw the tan, bony blade at the end of his blue-scaled tail.

  Bartholomew avoided eye contact with Lucille as she stared at him from the foot of the bed, arms crossed and a thoughtful look on her face. With a tsk of her teeth and an awkward purse of her lips, she waved her hand at something, retrieved a box of medical supplies, and wheeled the nearby chair over to the side of his bed.

  “You’re injured, Bartholomew–assuming that is your name.” She muttered, wringing out a cloth and dabbing at a gash on his arm. Whether it was from the Sobferros or from the Basiliska’s teeth, he wasn’t sure but was painfully aware of the sting that shot up his arm from it. He hissed and flattened his ears back against his head.

  “It…is, I suppose,” He started hesitantly. “Ah, you really don’t have to tend to–

  –It’s my duty. I swore an oath, and I have a reputation to uphold.” She insisted, rinsing and dabbing at the wound again. She took a moment to stare at the black blood staining the white cloth, then shook her head at the anomaly to focus on continuing her care.

  “You have black blood.” She stated, as though verbally confirming such a fact would help the anomaly to stick in her brain. “And, you ‘suppose’ your name is Bartholomew.”

  Bartholomew sighed, then looked at the other two occupants, who seemed to have been paying enough attention to gather that perhaps the two of them needed some privacy since they were already halfway towards the door.

  "We'll go face the firing squad, Bartholomew. Talk them down from, uh, throwing you overboard." Tazaro announced with a small chuckle at the quip that, while surely meant to be assuring, did little to ease Bartholomew's worries.

  Sheeva followed, urging Tazaro through the door with a not-so-subtle push.

  Bartholomew's spacey gaze lingered on Lucille's smooth, black-stained fingers as she tugged a thread through the sides of the gash on his arm, then pulled the slack tight to bring the wound closed.

  "Lucille, I…" He mumbled, trailing off, unsure of where to begin.

  At least Sheeva had some background knowledge about Ta'hal and how they came to be before he dropped a tome's worth of information on her. Lucille likely had no idea, despite her fierce calm that shadowed her trembling hands as they expertly wrapped clean gauze and medical tape around his forearm.

  He chuckled at the fright she would have if she were to check his heartbeat and discover the second, smaller heart, bridged to the main pulsing muscle by a thick, secondary aorta.

  "What?" She gasped, drawing her hand back sharply.

  "Does this hurt?" She asked, fully concerned. "You were so quiet, and still, I thought that maybe it didn't–

  –I can still feel pain, Luce…ille," He finished her name, unsure if he was still granted permission to call her by the nickname she'd "allowed," despite her claiming she disliked it.

  When she finished washing her hands, Lucille sat back down across from Bartholomew and leaned back in her chair, sighed, then leaned forward.

  “So…what are you, if not Sferran?” She asked cautiously, a strange unfamiliarity with the words she’d just uttered.

  Bartholomew took a deep breath and sighed to brace himself. Suppose that, after a few thousand years, the reality of ta’hal had faded to a point where they’d truly become things of legend and fairy-tales. He fought the squiggly, awkward smile that threatened to span his face as he wrestled with the sudden feeling of displacement.

  “I’m a ta’hal. Have been for, uh, a couple of millennia. Suppose we’re all forgotten, now.” He mumbled, staring at his claws. He clenched and unclenched his fists, then sighed and dropped his head again.

  Oh, how he couldn’t wait to die.

  “A ta’hal,” Lucille repeated, giving him a long, hard stare as she looked him up and down. She clicked her tongue and held a hand to her mouth in disbelief. “It’s, it’s insane.” She mumbled.

  Bartholomew listened to the agonizing tick of the clock on the wall, thoughts rampant as he fought to pick something to say. For all the quick-witted responses he could have come up with, nothing sounded good, nor were they appropriate for the tender woman. To satiate his yearning hearts, he lifted his gaze to look at her face once again, if only to memorize it for something to recall in the future–or, at least, until time made him forget it.

  “I, I guess I’m...” She began, then tsked at herself, confused. “I got used to you looking, uh, Sferran.” She blurted, then shook her head at herself. She stood sharply and paced a few steps around the room, clapping her hands to her cheeks and rummaging her fingers through her hair.

  “By the gods, what am I saying?” She snorted, hugging one arm across her middle and tersely biting a thumbnail between her front teeth.

  Bartholomew cleared his throat and stood, then moved to the edge of the bed. He hadn’t seen her in this light yet, with his towering, ten-foot stature, but he gave her as apologetic of a smile as he could with the limited expressions of his toothy jowls.

  “Lucille, here.” He stated, offering her a hand to take.

  She wheeled around, then uttered a frightened squeak that caused Bartholomew to cringe and freeze.

  His tail dropped to the floor in shock as a warm, slender hand slipped across his outstretched palm. When Lucille’s fingers clasped around his hand, his fingers came to life and returned the trusting gesture with a gentle caress of his thumb over the back of her knuckles. With a gentle tug, he urged her closer, eager to challenge himself with opening up as he desperately found himself wanting to.

  When her other hand reached out to press against his chest experimentally, his hearts skipped a beat and jostled their way into his throat.

  “I won’t hurt you, Luce. I, I don’t want to.” He ushered, reaching his other claw to rest it against her waist. He hoped the sharp, still-bloody things didn’t prod into her back, but as they rustled against her lab coat, the vibrations sent a tingle up his arm that filled him with courage.

  Less ceremoniously than he’d intended, he pressed her close to his chest and encased her in as gentle a hug as he could manage, her “oof” of surprise muffled between the scales lining his pectorals.

  “Sorry. I’m not used to…embracing in this form. Uh, at all, really, but especially in this–

  –it’s, it’s ok.” She whispered, trembling. He looked down at the top of her head, radiant red locks crumpled against his chest and flowing over her shoulders. Warmth filled his being as he saw the tiny fist against his chest relax, and as the fingers fanned out to give another experimental squeeze, Bartholomew couldn’t help the pleased purr that rumbled within.

  “You-you purr?” She asked in a hushed whisper, looking up at him with astonishment.

  He frowned and pursed his lips in a hum of disapproval.

  “It’s not like I have a choice.”

  To distract her from the annoying fact, Bartholomew angled his tail to wrap around her waist and push her closer, then stretched out his wings to loop them around her shoulders. Curiously, she reached up a hand to touch the limb of the sixth and seventh appendages embedded in his shoulders.

  Lucille previously imagined the leathery, fuzzy wings to be cold but instead felt a warmth in them, along with a steady pulse of heartbeats and the curve of supporting fingers. She sighed, then slightly pulled away from him.

  “You said a ‘couple of millennia.’ Are you immortal?” She questioned, then gasped and jerked her head towards a grumbling sound from Lenus’s curtained bed. She listened hard, and as Bartholomew listened, too, he huffed.

  “He’s just talking in his sleep.” He assured, then cleared his throat. “But, to answer you: Yes, to a point. I can…survive most things.”

  Lucille hummed in thought, then broke away to look at him again.

  “Most things?”

  Bartholomew stilled, then cleared his throat.

  “Before I get into that, I want to apologize for leading you on. It’s…it had been such a long time since I’ve been close to someone, let alone be intimate. There are things that I must do and things that I’ve made someone promise me. A few millennia lived has been a few millennia too long, and I, I’m…tired.”

  Lucille swallowed past a dry throat as her stomach dropped at his implications.

  “You mean that you wish to die?”

  Resolved, Bartholomew nodded, though unable to meet her eye.

  “After treasured people die and their faces become forgotten, or cherished memories warped from wishful thinking or new perceptions, I find that I…no longer have the zest for life as I once did. So, yes. I have wanted to die for a long time.”

  He waved a clawed hand at himself and crossed his arms.

  “That aside, while it was a momentary blip in my time, I appreciate your friendship, your comforts, and your willingness to associate with me–er, Bart. It has certainly helped to quell the blind rage I’ve been running myself to death with. I’m…truly sorry.”

  Lucille blinked a few times while she absorbed his statements, then offered him a smile as she felt a warmth pool behind her eyes.

  “Bart. Bartholomew. Whatever you call yourself, it’s still you.”

  She stepped toward him and attempted to lean up to place a peck on his cheek but settled for a kiss on his chest instead.

  “Heh, I didn’t realize just how tall you are.”

  Baffled, Bartholomew looked down at the top of her head as she wrapped her arms around his middle and squeezed tightly.

  “I can don my disguise if you want me–

  –that’s not necessary, Bartholomew.” She murmured against his chest, turning her head to rest her cheek on his chest as she raised her hands along his spine to more firmly hold him. The pads of her fingers stroked the smoothness of his scales and massaged into the tense muscles that surprisingly kept him upright in the face of overwhelming tranquility.

  Bartholomew felt the swarm of tenderness ripple through his body so quickly that it gave him goosebumps, and as his scales moved like waves, he returned the hug. One claw pressed her torso to his stomach as the other weaved through her hair, and he closed his eyes as he relished in their closeness in his pacified swoon.

  Ah, Belias…is this how you felt when Marina welcomed you as the ta’hal you were? He wondered before whispering a barely audible “thank you” to the woman cradled in his arms.

  Sheeva and Tazaro stared at the shiny blue scales they’d collected from the foamy waves. A bountiful heap piled on the deck of the S.S. Hafez, glimmering with a sheen from the setting sun. She had to admit, she was grateful that the rest of the sailors hadn’t strapped the two of them to whiskey barrels and tossed them overboard as soon as they stepped out from below deck. But, Sheeva supposed, with the promise of riches from what they’d managed from the giant sea-beast, neither party would further acknowledge her and her husband’s super-Sferran states.

  They’d “obtained” a split of the spoils to keep for themselves–in which Lenus and Rory took a mildly larger share than the rest, shuffled them into a stack, and shoved an indiscriminate armful of pieces into their hands. Sheeva had braced herself to carry such weighty-looking things, but as she didn’t seem to need to put much effort into her stance after receiving her bounty, she looked down at the round, rhomboid scales. Her mouth hung open in surprise, and, judging by the slack-jawed expression on Tazaro’s, he’d come to the same realization.

  For as much external physical and magical damage as the Ice Basiliska could withstand, its scales hadn’t weighed it down one iota.

  Sheeva carefully set the pile down at her feet, picked up an individual scale that was as big as her torso, and bounced it in her hands. They were incredibly light, easily likened to a large scroll of parchment or a hefty tome with a page count in the hundreds, unlike even the sturdiest metal-alloy she had come across during the merchant’s faire in Vivroa’s Capital, Raynak.

  “I, I can’t believe this.” Sheeva heard Tazaro mumble as he squinted quizzically at the underside of one of the scales. He picked at the fleshy strip along the straight edge of the scale, where it had once been connected to the serpent’s long, lithe body, and curled his lip in distaste as slimy red blood slicked between the pads of his fingertips.

  The underside of the blue scale was much darker, dense towards the middle, and thin towards the edges, much like a fingernail or the rigid petal of a healthy, well-fed, cabbage-like Ragora.

  “You tried to freeze the sucker. You pelted it with fireballs. I still can’t believe that it didn’t do anything, but,” Tazaro continued, curiosity growing as he gripped the scale as hard as he could in his hands. “Here’s proof, I guess?” He grasped one edge, then the other, and tried to bend the unyielding thing in half, surprised when it didn’t budge. He even resorted to instilling a foot at a focal point for more pressure, and it simply resulted in the scale slipping from his fingers and being kicked across the way hard enough that the tip of the scale stuck into the mast of the ship and stayed there.

  “Hey! Stop destroying mah ship, ya asshole!” Captain Burke barked, though turning to hide the brief, impressed look on his face.

  Tazaro winced, offered a quick apology, and rushed over to the mast of the ship, frustrated that he’d just created more work for himself in need to repair the giant cut now chopped into the three-foot thick pole.

  As he walked back towards her from prying the scale out of the woodwork, Tazaro’s astonished look mixed with thrill and excitement made Sheeva smile.

  Already, he was on the way to becoming a great scavenger, and by the thoughtful look on his face, they would be in for a long night of drafting ideas for how they might be able to use their bounties, if not scrutinizing the things under a microscope and further pelting them with magical and physical onslaught.

  “Hm. Wonder what I could do with this.”

  Sheeva looked up at Tazaro at his comment, previously inspecting one of the long whiskers she’d desperately tried to hold onto. No wonder she couldn’t get a grip; the thing was as smooth as a baby’s skin and as pliable as rope.

  The proverbial candle lit above his head, and he gasped with thrill and almost stomped his feet with childish glee.

  “I could turn this thing into a fuckin’ shield!” He boasted, holding it at its sides and measuring its coverage against his torso. He grinned even harder and began to cackle.

  “Yeah! Just deflect an attack from some sucker, raise my shield, and–bam! Break his nose with a scale!”

  Sheeva smiled at him and turned back to whatever she had moved on to, the now apparent whisker coiled and wrapped like a whip. He grimaced and looked away as she began to peel a layer of skin off of a chunk of the creature, unwilling to know what body part it once had been a part of.

  “I half-expected you to say you would turn that into a sled,” Sheeva admitted.

  Though he hadn’t thought of it, it seemed that turning it into a sled would be a great source of fun. Tazaro gave a sheepish huff and offered a mocking, innocent aversion of his eyes.

  “No, I would never.”

  “Hm,” Sheeva replied, now inspecting a large, yellowed fang. She sized up the root with the torn end of the whisker, found they meshed well together, and set the two things aside to fashion into a whip. “Sadly, there’s no snow on Cruinia.”

  She paused and thought for a moment.

  “At least, not along the shoreline. There might be some on the outback,” She corrected, then shrugged.

  “At any rate, we can go sledding once we get back to Vivroa.” She suggested.

  Tazaro tilted his head and picked up what looked like the ragged remains of a Sobferros paw. With a flick of his switchblade, he nicked the long, sharp claw from the digit’s first knuckle, then tossed the goods into the pile for what he assumed Sheeva intended to turn into a whip, figuring it would make a good whip-tip.

  “You know,” He paused, knelt to sit next to her with a gravelly, comical sigh, then positioned his pile of scales to his left. “When I first met you, I didn’t take you for a girl who plays in the snow.”

  “Feh!” Sheeva huffed with a smile, recalling the days when she would team up with Cassie or Kyle and pelt other–no, perhaps just Hasch, she corrected herself–with carefully-crafted snowballs. “I was a child for a short time, too!”

  Tazaro raised his eyebrows in playfulness as he gave her a sidelong glance that she pretended not to see as she picked at something on a scale, though with the reticent curl on the corner of her mouth, he knew the silent “Oh, really?” did not go unnoticed. He grabbed another darker scale and rested it in his lap as he examined it.

  It was oddly black, and he wondered why, but as he swiped his finger with the grain of the scale, a clear streak formed. He rubbed his fingers together, pretty sure it happened to be a scale from the creature’s head. The residue was grainy and smelled sooty, and he grabbed his handkerchief from his coat pocket and began to wipe the scale clean. Other than a light scorching, there wasn’t much else in the way of damage done, and the thick, light blue keratin beneath was nearly pristine.

  How many fireballs had they thrown at it? Two? Three?

  Tazaro shook his head, correcting himself. It had definitely been three, one of which had been simply eaten and the other two taken head-on.

  “I still can’t believe fire didn’t do anything.” He grunted, grabbing his switchblade once more to scrape the scale’s barbule clean of the fleshy, connective tissues that held the massive plate on the creature’s body.

  "Maybe next time, we–" He paused, grunting as he snapped at what seemed to be a joint. As he met a piece of cartilage with his blade, he pulled the joint apart to allow him to slice through the grey matter with ease. "Argh! Zap the fucker with a good–" He stopped again at the sickening crunch as one of the bony prongs broke off into his hand.

  "Ew, gross," He groaned, wiping his hand on his pants.

  "Anyway, we zap the fucker with a lightning spell." He suggested. Sheeva gave a complimentary hah!

  "What are we to do, charge in with a thunderstorm at our beck and call?" She asked, then silenced, humbled. Perhaps, it was a good idea after all.

  Sheeva shook her head.

  “My apologies. That may actually work." She replied. He shrugged it off, the apology unnecessary and her skepticism warranted, considering they threw everything they had at the bastard. "But, I dunno...my freezing spell didn’t touch it, either, though I suppose it makes sense; this water is freezing cold as it is.” She grumbled, disappointed that her efforts had been ineffective.

  “Maybe it’s just as cold inside as the water around it,” Tazaro suggested, setting aside the cleaned scale into a pile. He picked up another and tsked at the state of it. This one was cracked nearly in half and bleeding. Still, wanting to be resourceful, he rested it in his lap and began to clean it, scraping at the gummy insides with his trusty knife. As he raised the thing to look at the integrity of the rest of the scale, he noticed it was about the same width as his arm, if not a bit bigger.

  He put the piece aside with a mental note to consider turning it into either a gauntlet, vanguard, or cuisse.

  “Mm, just about,” She replied, suddenly uncomfortable as she recalled the cold, slimy inside of its mouth at her backside. She shifted around, then scooted to sit back-to-back with him, then pulled her pile close by to continue working the remains clean. His warm torso relieved her of her chills.

  Tazaro paused, thinking. As far as he knew, there weren’t many water-dwelling basiliska on Vivroa. He shook his head. No, there were none at all, and they had apparently vanquished the only one in existence.

  “Hold on, how do you know–

  –damn thing almost swallowed me whole.” Sheeva interrupted, digging her knife into the hollow space of the pronged barbule to cut enough flesh that she could grasp it and peel the sinews from the scale as easily as peeling the succulent drake fruits they'd devour in the training grounds. The brief homesickness was quickly overshadowed by his growing concerns.

  Tazaro turned to look at her as well as he could from his cross-legged position, surprised. She didn’t look back at him and instead kept focused on her work, harshly grabbing a bloody chunk of flesh and jerking it clean off the bony prongs.

  “What happened?” He asked.

  Even though she flinched, she didn’t turn to him. After a moment of silence, she gave a soft, forced chuckle.

  “Pfft! Come on! Y-You told me to keep it ‘busy,’ didn’t you?” She joked with an unmistakable, nervous waver to her voice. His frown deepened to a scowl.

  Normally, the retort would give him a laugh, but he couldn’t quite appreciate it, chilled to the bone at the thought that, if she had still been in the Ice Basiliska’s mouth when he delivered his spell, she could have easily been crushed.

  “Well I didn’t mean–He began, then stopped himself. Technically, yes, he’d said exactly that.

  “Alright, I said that, yes,” He shamelessly admitted. “But–but that’s not what I…” He trailed off, still stunned.

  Was that how the creature’s jaw had been broken?

  “In all seriousness, what exactly happened while I was focusing my spell?”

  The slow, trembling breath Sheeva took dug its hooks in his attention, and he fully turned to her. He considered reaching out to comfort her, but as she leaned forward to hug her knees to herself, decided against it for the moment.

  “I spun out when I tried to use its whiskers as a set of reins. It knocked me off course with its tail, used me as a shuttlecock, then tried to eat me. I cast shields on either side of me before it could clamp its jaws shut.” She explained. As the unnerving sight of the Basiliska’s wiggling teeth as they tried to scoop her into its gullet surfaced, Sheeva shuddered and brushed at her arms as though to shake herself free of her heebie-jeebies.

  “It’s…really thanks to Bartholomew that I was able to get out. He slashed at the gums and tongue while I severed the band of muscle keeping its maws closed. I barely remember rolling out of its broken jaws. I think Bartholomew caught me before I hit the waves and carried me to the deck of the ship.”

  Tazaro, amazed and sickened, reached for her hand. The wedding band he’d crafted for her was still snug around her finger, and he thumbed it before bringing her hand to his mouth to peck the back of it tenderly.

  “I could have killed you.” He murmured guiltily, citrine eyes downcast and lips in a forlorn pout.

  A gentle hand on his cheek caused him to raise his eyes, and as the serene, ruby eyes and curling smile registered in his view, her peace left him confused.

  “Ah, but you didn’t, moya Zvezdayu.” Sheeva smiled. “Besides, it could be worse.”

  Her smile faded, and the light behind her eyes darkened slowly as they darted back and forth. Tazaro frowned, puzzled and not even remotely convinced that she was indeed ok.

  “Worse? What could possibly be worse than–

  –You could have failed to kill the beast and been killed by it yourself. I could have been dissolving in the stomach acid of a beast swimming around at twenty-thousand leagues under the sea.” She grunted unceremoniously as she tried to brush off the chill running up her back once more. “We could both be dead." She finished with a sigh. Sheeva curled into herself once more at a jarring thought.

  "Which, death might still be better than what Zakaraia will do to us if we fail to kill him.” She added as an afterthought.

  Tazaro felt his nerves constrict his chest and felt the ice course through his limbs and the fear stab into his guts. Sure, who knew what Zakaraia might throw at them during their next fateful encounter? Would the bastard have the guts to run Tazaro through instead of disabling his shoulder as he had during their last fight? Would the last thing he saw happen to be a terrifying, two-foot, bony tail-blade fatally stab Sheeva, Bartholomew, or–gods forbid–would he struggle for his own life only to see the bloody thing sticking out his own chest?

  “Vilg sa,” He swore, caving in upon himself as he hugged his knees to his chest.

  When he cringed in harsh recoil at Sheeva’s shudder, it brought back a flightiness and worry he hadn’t felt since before they’d left the temple. Driving each other’s worries into massively blown-up proportions was something they hadn’t done in a while, maintaining a decent focus on assuaging their worries instead. Of course, it wasn’t every day that they found themselves fighting a legendary sea beast that could also give them such a hard time.

  “Hey, Sheeva, come here.” He offered, scooting closer to her to shuffle her into his lap. He pecked her temple, chilled by sea air and salty from the wave that crashed over the deck of the boat upon the Ice Basiliska’s appearance, then traced the sigils in the air for their warming spell.

  She sunk into his chest as the spell shot through her skin to cover her, as though she’d just stepped into a steamy bath.

  “We’re doing it again. Feeding each other’s fears.” He muttered, staring at the iceberg that the Basiliska Corpse had crashed into. The body was still bleeding, trickling red, fresh blood into the green, crystalline waters.

  “I…I know.” She sighed, taking his hand to intertwine their fingers.

  “Mm-hmm. We can’t be doing that. What happened, happened. We’re alive, and we should be grateful. I’m certainly grateful.”

  He chuckled at a memory.

  “I’m still around to babble nonsense in my sleep, whether you like it or not.” He threatened.

  Sheeva smiled and lay her head in the crane of his neck.

  “And I’ll still kick you in mine. Maybe, even harder.”

  He grimaced mockingly and tutted.

  “If you start doing so, I hope our first kid kicks you as often as you kick me,” He grunted. “And, just as hard.”

  Sheeva’s astonished, concerned “Wow!” was pleasing to his ears, but he still pecked her cheek and murmured words of assurance.

  “No, of course, I don’t mean it.”

  She settled back in his lap as his promise sunk in and gave such a heavy sigh that made Tazaro believe that the brief taste they’d had of pregnancy had left her feeling bitter. He swallowed back his own sourness to cling to the shred of hope and cheer in his chest, now fleeting and wispy.

  How long would it be before the bleak reminder of their miscarriage stopped being so hurtful?

  “I know I said my gratitudes when we held our small funeral, but I want to thank you again. It helped a lot to…say goodbye. It’s a strange thing; to say goodbye to someone I’ve never met. And, though I know the miscarriage wasn’t either one of our faults, I feel…forgiven.” She mused, leaning up to peck his cheek. It was somewhat out of reach, so she settled for his neck instead.

  He let out his own heavy sigh and hung his head.

  “Yeah.” He agreed, pleased with how much attention to detail and effort he’d poured into crafting the tiny maple coffin for their attempt at recovery.

  The rings in the wood were so close together they appeared as a marble blend of dark and light striations, causing the final product to be magnificently balanced in color. Any chips or knots had been carefully shaven down and smoothed with as tender touch as he could manage, and the layers of wax he’d polished into the wood were so dutifully buffed that the casket and lid were velveteen to the touch.

  Even the combination of his quaternary knots and Sheeva’s Malboros Vines, with the elegant addition of a makeshift family crest, contained so much of himself that he almost couldn’t bear to part with it when they let it out upon the tides to float on and eventually sink beneath the calm, nighttime waves. Crafting in order to release his emotional pain burned such a fire in his chest that he hadn’t even uttered a whimper after smashing his thumb between the handle of his chisel and his mallet, B.A.B.E.

  He drew in a deep breath, a ripple of serenity coursing through his body as his hands tingled. How easily the patterns and procedures of his past profession helped break through the noise in his head–those terrible whispers insisting that he’d failed in being supportive. That there could have been more he should have done, that maybe, he could have healed her somehow or shielded her better from the behemoth's ambush…that he wasn’t enough as a husband and therefore, wouldn’t be enough as a father. The beautiful symmetry of the gold trimmings on the edges of the casket lid fueled him with a liberating flow of inspiration, and before he knew it, a wistful, bittersweet smile was plastered on his face while tears streamed from blurry eyes and down his cheeks to blot and warp the blueprint for the harrowing project.

  It filled the void within, and as he held the finished masterpiece in his palm, the crushing weight of self-forgiveness he could finally allow himself to feel brought him to his knees as he wept in a sweaty, sawdust-covered heap by the workbench.

  Still, a coffin–much less a child’s coffin–wasn’t something he had ever built before, and to have built one for his own family left him with a deep-rooted fear he couldn’t logic away. Fearing that some unfortunate day in the future he might need to build another became a new source of sleepless nights.

  He swallowed back the worried knot in his throat and reminded himself that keeping his wife and future family safe was the reason they were so hell-bent on taking Zakaraia out.

  “You know, I…” He paused, hesitant to broach the subject, then forced his thoughts anyway. “I was excited to see how you’d handle it–being a mother. Being pregnant. I think you’d be great. Graceful. Gorgeous.” He began, a warm smile buzzing on his cheeks and curling in his eyes. He chuckled shyly, suddenly aware of the other crewmen on board pretending to be busy with their tasks and bounties while eavesdropping on the two of them.

  “They say expecting fathers gain sympathy fat, and I wonder if I would, too. I wonder what other odd things you would crave and whether or not I can finally get you to like water chestnuts or even croutons in your salads–because salads are so much better with ‘seasoned chunks of stale bread’ in them. I want to know all the little things, especially what it’s like to feel a baby kick. I’m curious to know if your belly will move like a, uh…” He paused to remember what he’d thought of the first time. It had been the perfect word.

  “Custard? Gelatin?” He mumbled.

  “Hm, maybe gelatin.” Sheeva decided with a giggle.

  “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds better,” Tazaro agreed.

  An evil snicker rumbled in his chest, and he wiggled his fingers across her belly.

  “Maybe, it’ll look like some weird fuckin’ alien moving around and–

  –Tazaro, no!” She cried in horror as she swatted his hand away. He feigned hurt when she roughly smacked his arm.

  “Just for that, maybe it’ll be a man-eating bug!” She threatened, causing Tazaro to cringe and tense up in disgust.

  “Ugh, really, Sheeva?” He groaned, his lip curled in distaste at the disturbing idea.

  “You started it!” She accused with a triumphant grin.

  He hummed in defeat and listened to the waves dancing along the hull as the ship’s sturdy, oakwood bow speared through the ocean. An eventide glow began to form as the last of the sun’s rays disappeared beyond the horizon, and he looked up toward the skies. It wasn’t dark enough for the stars, yet, and he dropped his head to rest his chin on her shoulder, basking in their shameless embrace as he pulled her closer.

  “Heh. You wanna know what I look forward to the most?” He asked mirthfully.

  “Oh, dear…” Sheeva replied, unsure if she really wanted to know. “What?” She asked, certain he’d have something to say about how she might cry over every little thing, or sometimes for no reason at all. She snorted at herself in embarrassment as she recalled how she’d seen a horned nidoru with hilariously floppy ears and soft fur that left her in tears at “how cute it was!”

  Considering how hard she’d fought to maintain her composure, she wasn’t quite sure if she was mentally ready for that.

  “How many times I can piss you off just by looking in your direction.” He laughed, throwing his head back and shaking with ferocity. “Because I absolutely love the look you get when you’re ticked! Especially when you want to be mad, but I can see the little smile you’re fighting.”

  He giggled some more, then settled with a happy sigh.

  “Yeah…it’s fantastic. Even if it makes you want to kill me, I’ll continue to bother you, from one end of the fogs to the other.”