Carlos Wayne reached for a piece of fried chicken. “Quite a lovely dinner you've put together, my lord,” he smiled at Eric Goldman.

  “Let's enjoy our meal, then!” the boy raised his mug (he was drinking bck tea).

  Four people were present in this private cabin aboard the Golden Wind, the Goldman family's best ship. Eric was accompanied by Sir Kleid and Marcel Whiterose. Carlos was their guest tonight, for only the second time since they left Scalehide.

  Nobody said a word for a few minutes. Marcel was eating with joyful attention to her food, savoring every bite of her meal – potato sad, fish, chicken, sweetcorn – while humming quietly to herself. She was absent-minded but lively, fidgety. Sir Kleid was emotionless, reserved, keeping an eye on the pirate captain. Carlos was rexed and patient, as if he was waiting for Eric to bring something up. At least Eric felt that way, so eventually, he broke the silence:

  “Captain Carlos, I wanted to ask you about that man who attacked you. Fabio... Taraka?”

  “Araki.”

  “Right. Why exactly did he try to kill you?”

  “Haven't you heard his story? About how his father met his unfortunate end in me?”

  Sir Kleid gave Carlos a side-eye, and raised his mug to his mouth.

  “I have,” said Goldman. “But after he accepted our offer and pretended to join our side...” he gnced at his knight then back at the pirate, “I mean, your side, why would he still risk such a thing? Was his conviction really that immense?”

  “Some people find themselves rather specific causes to live for,” Carlos nodded.

  “Oh, I should know about that,” Marcel sighed. “Being a mage is just another specific cause to live for, and it's not for the faint of heart, let me tell you! But to be so hung op on revenge, that's something else entirely. One's cause in life should be more... astounding than that.”

  “Can't say I disagree,” smiled Carlos.

  “People make do with the hand that's dealt to them,” Sir Kleid spoke for the first time that night. “That's all it is.”

  “Fair,” said Carlos.

  Eric was staring into space with that slight blush he usually had when he was around the white-haired mage girl. It was easy to notice that he was self-conscious around her, but he definitely enjoyed her company too, and she didn't seem to mind him either. They were childhood friends, Marcel's father was a lesser lord under Eric's father in the Cesanitian hierarchy.

  The young lord shook his head and looked at Carlos again. “If that's the mindset of this Fabio, isn't he dangerous? Because from what I heard, you apparently let him walk your ship freely again.”

  Carlos leaned on his elbow, starching his chin. “I believe he won't cause any more trouble. I made a deal with him.”

  “A second deal?”

  “Indeed. But this one is a secret between him and I.”

  “Oh, don't be like that!” Marcel compined. “After all our help, you're still going to keep things from us?”

  “I apologize, but I must. The reason why he made up his mind must not be known by anyone else, simple as that.”

  “Understood,” Eric said.

  “It's not nice, piquing the curiosity of a fair maiden like me only to leave her in suspense,” Marcel fumed. “That man was our enemy! We ought to know what his deal is!”

  “Actually, yea, that's right!” Eric said.

  “Well, it's not like you have to carry him on your ship. He is just another man with a dubious past who joined my crew now. I can assure you, many of my men hold secrets of their own, secrets you would...”

  There was a loud thump that sounded like it came from below, and the whole ship tipped to one side, making their ptes slide to that half of the table. Marcel let out a little shriek as her mug of tea nded on her p.

  Sir Kleid got up and left their cabin quickly to check what happened.

  “Did we hit something?” asked Eric.

  “Or something hit us,” Carlos replied, having a bad feeling. He too was standing up, and the youngsters followed him outside, where men were now yelling.

  And then they heard the screeching. At the end of the passageway in the ship's aftercastle, the door was left open. Carlos was standing there, looking at the beast that climbed up on the side of the ship.

  “Get back, you two!” He yelled at Marcel and Eric, who stopped hesitantly.

  Carlos hurried out onto the deck, taking a sword out of the hand of a rather young and frightened looking member of Golden Wind's crew.

  The manticore stood motionlessly for a long moment, the ship's railing broken behind it, where it was coming from. Hairless, grey body with a human-like torso that was abnormally long. Six limbs, some cwy, some webbed, and rather than wings, a pair of tentacles on its back with spiky purple ends. Its head looked small on its sizeable body. It was a grotesque sight, but Carlos was fairly sure who's head it once was, even though he only ever saw the man once, from the corner of his eye through a magic mirror while he was in the middle of an act.

  “Don't just stare at it, kill it!” yelled Sir Kleid, charging forward. Many of the soldiers followed him, and the manticore shrieked, beginning to hack and ssh. Swords, spikes or halberds did not seem to do a lot of damage to it, but the monster's cws and strikes were devastating to the soldiers. It impaled one, sent two other flying, cut the entire head off yet another. Perhaps they would have been a little better off if they were armored, but of course they weren't ready for the attack, and no soldier or knight wears armor for no reason aboard a ship.

  “Back off!” yelled Carlos. He meant to address the fighting men, not that they needed to be told twice: whoever could still stand was fleeing already. But the manticore stopped in its tracks too, and its little, bald head turned right towards the pirate captain. It shrieked again.

  Carlos saw his own men gather on his new ship, which was still connected to the Golden Wind with a pnk behind the beast's back. His gaze met Fabio's – the half-eastern man was just as perplexed as everyone else. Carlos smiled and raised his sword, positioning himself like a duellist.

  The monster dashed forward, and the pirate captain began his “dance” with it. The nky, pale man's acrobatic abilities were surprising to anyone who hasn't seen him fight before, no, maybe even to those who have seen him. He was not holding back at all, he obviously couldn't afford to. He dodged and jumped and blocked and stroke with his sword as the monster was trying frantically to get him. The soldiers all retreated into the aftercastle, or down beneath deck, and the pnk between the ships was pulled back by someone. Sir Kleid too backed away, pressing one palm on his bleeding face, walking into the aftercastle where Marcel and Eric were still watching from through the open door.

  “W-what is that thing?” asked the pale Eric.

  “Obviously a manticore,” replied Marcel.

  “Sir Kleid, what should we do?”

  “He'll kill it,” the knight said. “If he can't, none of us can.”

  But it didn't seem like Carlos was able to damage the monster meaningfully. As much as he dodged its attacks, his many strikes barely seemed to scratch the monster, and their dance just went on and on.

  “Marcel,” Eric turned to the girl, shaking. “Maybe we should...”

  But she ignored him and stepped out into the open. “Get it in the water!” she yelled. Carlos dropped his sword, jumped and rolled, ending up at the edge of the ship, right where the railing was broken. As the manticore threw itself at him, he leaned backwards, and while the monster did catch onto one of his arms, it still flew over and spshed into the sea below. Carlos somehow managed to hold onto the edge with one arm – his other one was gone.

  And Marcel ran forward, followed by Eric Goldman. The boy was frightened like never before, and yet, his cowardice turned out to be weaker than his dedication. The girl stopped on the edge, looking down at the monster that was already tching onto the side of the ship, about to climb back up. She then slipped and screamed, but Eric grabbed her arm, keeping her on just barely. She didn't hesitate after that, she reached forward with her free arm even as she was half-off the ptform, and she did her trick.

  White and pink, soft and fierce, she was just the prettiest, freest thing. “Free spirited”, that's what Eric's mother once called her, and the term really stuck with him ever since. Marcel Whiterose was simply uncontainable. She was six years old when she first showed signs of her talent.

  There was a hot spring near her family residence, it was said to have a healing, revitalizing effect. They were pying there, several children overlooked by their mothers, out in the open, enjoying the warm, bubbly water beneath a gorgeous autumn sunset. Eric was the same age as her, young enough at the time that neither of them cared about each other's nakedness, and yet, he was already captivated by her being. He remembered loosening up right next to her with his back against the stone bed of the pond, melting in the warm feelings hugging him from all around. He rested his head on her shoulder, and she didn't even react, just continued joking and ughing with a girlfriend of hers. Then for some reason, Eric got self-conscious and pulled back. She turned and asked him what's wrong, he did not remember how he answered. Suddenly, the other girl chocked on some water and got helped out by her mom, getting patted on the back.

  And then the entire pond turned cold. Marcel climbed out quick, and with that, the water was back to normal. The team of mothers figured out that she is the one causing this strange phenomenon, and a week ter, a schor came from the capital to live with the Whiteroses, and teach the girl how to harness her awakened potential. For a child to have such a natural talent of magic was a once in a decade occurrence. And so, she was quick to take pride in her new, very special path.

  Eric loved her so much. No one else compared to her. She even managed to convince Eric's father to lend them two of his ships and a bunch of his soldiers for this endeavour. Eric still didn't understand how exactly. When he talked to him when they got back home after their meeting and agreement with Carlos Wayne, his father didn't even want to hear about this grand pn. But Marcel was quickly on-board, she loved the idea of such an adventure, and she talked to Lord Goldman alone, somehow changing his mind.

  And now here she was, leaning over the sea, letting Eric hold her like it's the most natural thing, and using her magic to defeat this horrible monster. The manticore got frozen in pce against the side of the ship, right at where the waves spshed against the structure. Marcel then lost her strength, Eric almost had her slip out from his grasp, but Carlos (who somehow already climbed back up) too grabbed the girl's dress with his one arm, and the two of them pulled her back.

  “Saltwater... it takes more to freeze it,” the girl panted, leaning on her knees. She looked up, triumphantly turning her gaze at the spectators on the other ship, then to the Goldman soldiers shyly coming out into the open again. All of a sudden, Eric hugged her closely with unexpected passion. “Oh,” Marcel gasped.

  To fully defeat the beast, they had to pull it up in its frozen state, locked in a big cube of ice. Nobody was very keen to do so, but Carlos led the process himself. To everyone's surprise (even most of his own crew), the pirate captain's arm magically regrew just minutes after he lost it, which he shrugged off, saying it's just a secret ability he has. And so he descended next to the beast along with one-eyed Owen, and they cut the ice off the ship's wooden body so it could be raised up with a net.

  Then they pced the ice-block on the middle of the deck of Carlos' ship, and drilled as many spears into it as they could. Marcel was there too, in case her power was still needed. Carlos counted down from three, and his men pushed on the spears with all their force. The ice shattered along with the beast inside it. Its pieces then were gathered and burnt in the iron stove below deck.

  While their causalities were only five dead and three injured (including Sir Kleid who lost an eye to a tentacle's spike), of course this event was utterly shocking and unexpected for everyone. People had questions, and so as all four of their ships sailed on into the night, Carlos decided to answer some of them. He brought all the ever-lit nterns to the main deck of his ship, the ones they got from Ike Lazarus' Annabelle. This ship sailed on the front alongside the Golden Wind, while the other two (another Goldman ship and another one that they got from Fabio's squad) sailed behind. The Golden Wind was close enough that if Carlos talked loud, they could hear what he had to say from there too. And so he yelled over, asking the Goldman crew to go and get Eric and his companions.

  “Everyone!” he started in the ntern-light. “We had a difficult day today! I'm going to be quick and to the point: that monster was a manticore created by Warren Crown, no doubt. Some of you may have recognized its head. It once belonged to none other than Ike Lazarus. That means his town, Newchance, is probably done for – I shudder to imagine what Warren Crown might have done to its inhabitants. Regardless, manticores are created by combining multiple living things together with dark magic. They somewhat obey their master, definitely don't rebel against him, but for the most part, manticores have a singur purpose from the moment of their creation, and it usually has to do with killing someone. In this case, it was clearly sent to get rid of me. I believe Lazarus' hatred towards me was channelled into the monstrosity, which is the only thing that fuelled it. With its instincts, it could find me wherever I was, even right here, in the middle of the ocean.”

  The captain took a bit of break, and many of the listeners began to discuss what they just heard amongst each other. There were many worried and perplexed faces.

  “As for my regrown arm, it's a magical ability. I have exceptional regeneration. I tired to keep it a secret just so it doesn't get widely known, so that I can surprise my opposition with my durability, but you have all witnessed it now, so that no longer matters. The thing is, I'm somewhat of a mage myself. Back before either of us became pirates, Warren Crown and I used to train together, we shared a mentor. That's where I know him from, how I'm connected to him. I'm not going to get into too much detail, but as you can imagine, eventually our differences made our paths diverge. Warren turned quite bad to say the least, and now we are enemies. And to tell you the truth, he is the more powerful of the two of us. This manticore, it's one of the things Warren is capable of, it's a complicated, evil recipe that he mastered. He also has the same regeneration ability as I do, he is not easy to kill. But his true magical talent is controlling lifeless objects, putting together self-working machinations and structures with his sheer will. My crew have seen what contraption he made out of that merchant ship. He broke the vessel apart, created a circle of fire on the sea, pcing that poor abused woman in the middle as a message to me.”

  “So what are we gonna do?” someone yelled.

  “We will work together, and we will try our hardest to defeat him. It will be more complicated than what I hoped for, but we do have Eric Goldman and Marcel Whiterose alongside us, who proved to us once again what a capable magic user she is.”

  To Eric's shock, the girl jumped up on the railing of their ship to tower over the audience, and she bowed theatrically, enjoying the pirate's praise. She stumbled as she stood up straight again, almost falling into the water; her pride and recklessness was much stronger than her sense of bance. Eric helped her back down.

  “Additionally,” Carlos continued, “We can expect to get some help from Murky Bay too. Warren Crown might be strong and dangerous, and he is much more prepared now, unlike when I outpyed him four years ago. But he is still not undefeatable, nor does he have genuine friends. Together, I believe we can take him out. Tonight was a solid victory on our end – even for Warren Crown, just creating a single manticore takes quite a lot of energy and effort. As far as his schemes go, this was a big one. Such a beast is very resilient and tough, and yet, we defeated it with minimum casualties. That, my friends, is a very good sign. We have Marcel Whiterose to thank for it, so let's give her a cheer!”

  And people cheered on both ships, and Marcel once again stood up high to bask in sweet attention, this time on a barrel that some Goldman soldiers brought to her. Everyone felt quite a bit more optimistic than just moments ago. Carlos' speech felt truthful, and it made sense all around. The attack might have been shocking, the monster horrible, but what they had was a real victory. Defeating Warren Crown might very well be possible after all.

  “And for those of us who have fallen today,” Carlos spoke, “let's have a moment of silence!”

  And they did. And yet, Fabio kept staring at Carlos suspiciously.

  “I noticed you haven't been cheering with the rest of us,” Iesha put her hand on the eastern man's shoulder as the crowd began to disperse. “Still having a grudge?”

  “He didn't tell the full truth,” Fabio replied coldly.

  “What you mean?”

  “It's not just a regeneration ability that he has. I don't think so.” He thought about that night when he attacked him. He was certain that he stabbed him right in the heart, and yet... But the details of his attack were only known by him and Carlos himself.

  “Maybe,” Iesha said. “I always knew he likes to keep secrets, and that bugged me at times, not gonna lie. But does it matter that much? I think he was quite fair with what he said just now, and he is a solid guy either way. Even if his morality can be questioned due to being a pirate, as you just saw, Warren Crown is on a whole other level. I told you, man, if anyone is worth dedicating your life against, it's Warren, not Carlos.”

  Why not both? The man thought. But he did not reply, he just walked down the stairs below deck to take a nap in his hammock. His shift was going to start from dawn, and he needed some rest. But still, Iesha followed him, and pulled him aside into the corridor leading to some backrooms. How persistent...

  Most of his new crew mates were kind of distant and distrustful with him, understandably so. But this elf, she still tried to be friendly with him. He found that to be both annoying and reassuring. In his strange predicament, it felt a little nice to have someone around who wasn't just outright cold with him, even if he had a hard time admitting it.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “I just worry for you, man.”

  “Is that all? I thought you might invite me to sleep with you up there in your cabin. But I suppose all that was just an act.”

  “Oh, how cruel of me, you poor innocent thing! Cause we both know that your passion for me was totally pure.”

  “Whatever.”

  “No, it wasn't entirely an act, dumbass,” she said irritably. “The best lies have some truth in them, and all that. I did kind of enjoy my time with you, whether you believe it or not.”

  “I believe it,” the man sighed.

  “Look, if you still feel hostile towards Carlos, if you'll still try to assassinate him, I don't think you will be given another chance. But Warren Crown is the fucking menace of our age! Haven't you just seen? Why not just help us defeat this monster of a man? Are you really so...”

  The man grabbed her shoulders and leaned really close to her – Iesha assumed he is going to kiss her, but that's not what he did, he just whispered in her ear.

  “He promised me I can kill him with my own hands if I help him defeat Warren. That's the deal we made after my failed attempt to get him.”

  “He... really?”

  “I don't think I can trust him on that, but he himself knows that my hate for him isn't really gone, and he still lets me be around. Isn't that strange? For these st two years, I was pnning, fantasizing about having my revenge, I can't just forget that. But that's not all. I really think there is something off about him.” He let go of the woman and took a step back. “However, it is true that Warren Crown is despicable, and I will help you all in this war against him. I guess we will see if Carlos keeps his word. In the meanwhile, I'm keeping my eyes open, that's all.”

  The elf stared at the man for a long moment, thinking.

  “Yo, Iesha! What's up?” Roy, the Orange cat-man yelled at her from the end of the corridor.

  “Just having a bit of a chat,” the woman said, turning her back to Fabio.

  “Why did you hug me like that?” Marcel asked bluntly as she y leisurely on Eric's bed with a book in her hands. Their cabins were right next to each other, and they spent a fair bit of time together – as old friends, of course. Eric was sitting on a chair in the corner of the room, holding a book himself. The girl's question was really unexpected for him, and it made him blush.

  “I just... I was gd you were okay.”

  “Really? Is that all there is to it?”

  “Well, I was happy too. You were so cool, and I just like you a lot. I mean, we know each other since we were little.”

  “Hmm, isn't that right? We have such a strong friendship, don't we? It's wonderful, really! I'm sure it will st until the end of our lives, even after we both get married and make our own families. You think you would get along well with my husband too? And how about your future wife? What kind of woman will she be? One can't help but wonder.”

  “Uhm...”

  “Oh, forgive me for talking about such silly things at a time like this. It was quite the day, wasn't it? What a brutal sight that monster was! And the soldiers who have fallen, poor souls. I can't believe Sir Kleid lost an eye, he was so valiant to lead that initial charge! And... you know, I appreciate you grabbing my arm back there. For a moment, I really though I'm going to fall in the sea next to the manticore. You pyed your part too, really. It's a job well done!” she got up and patted Eric on the head, which made him feel even more embarrassed than the girl's blunt question just a moment ago. Isn't she treating him like... a kid?

  “Marcel, I...” Eric's voice cracked, he cleared his throat. “The truth is, I... love you.”

  “Oh. You finally said it.” Marcel turned around and walked to the cabinet, picking up the book she just put down. “To be in love with Marcel Whiterose... who could bme a man for that? It's fine.”

  “It's... fine?”

  “Yep, I don't mind it. Feel free to love me all you want.” She walked to the door, still avoiding looking at him. “It's getting kind of te. Time to sleep!”

  “But how about...”

  “Good night, Eric!” the girl walked out without looking back.

  How about you?