Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It is an ancient Mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three.

'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,

Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,

And I am next of kin;

The guests are met, the feast is set:

May'st hear the merry din.'

-The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“Psst, Jay,” Chip whispered, cupping one hand around his mouth to slightly muffle his words as he tried to get the other co-captain’s attention.  

He was just beginning to stomp back up the gangplank of their ship, coat hanging open and whipping in the wind as it tugged his hair in front of his face.  He hooked his hands around the railing and pulled himself the rest of the way up, searching for where he had just seen Jay disappear.

“Jay,” He called again, knowing that he had just seen the redhead walk by.  He kept his shoulders low, body crouched as if he were sneaking onto a ship that didn’t belong to him.  He swiveled his head back and forth, glancing around the top deck like he was trying to avoid something.  Or someone.

“What?” Jay hissed, peeking her head out from the kitchen door,  her hair tied back in a messy, frizzy ponytail.  She furrowed her eyebrows and glared at Chip a bit, seemingly annoyed by his distraction.

Chip hurried over to her, his boots tapping quietly across the wooden floorboards expertly in the way that he had practiced pretty much his entire life.  He all but shoved Jay back into the kitchen, quickly slamming the door shut behind the both of them.  Jay stumbled, grabbing onto Chip for support as they both tripped over each other's feet and nearly got sent sprawling.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Jay exclaimed, wrestling out of Chip’s grasp, “What’s gotten into you?”

Chip looked around the kitchen to ensure that they were the only two inside the room.  Then he stood up on his tiptoes and peered out the small window in the kitchen door to glance out at the deck, once again making sure they were alone.

“Where’s Gillion?” Chip whispered, pulling on Jay’s shirt and getting her to bend down to his height, knocking his forehead against hers.

Jay furrowed her eyebrows and frowned, pulling away a little bit, “I think he went with Ollie and Gryphon out in the town.  What are you doing back so early anyway?”

Chip let out a sigh of relief and wiped his brow dramatically.  He nodded slowly in understanding of what Jay had just told him and then wiped his hands off on the front of his coat.

“Look what I found,” Chip said, sliding his tongue over his lips as he reached into his pocket to curl his fingers around the mysterious object in question.  Jay raised an eyebrow, taking a step away from Chip so he couldn’t grab her again, watching him produce what seemed to be some piece of jewelry out of his coat.

It was a necklace.  One with a thin, shiny golden chain that dangled from Chip’s fingers as he produced it, the rattling of the beads making a satisfying sound as it unfurled.  There were pearls beaded into the links, odd, slightly deformed white spheres nestled neatly between pieces of an opalescent shiny gemstone as well as other similarly colored pearls.  In the middle, hanging lowest of the entire necklace and providing most of the weight, was a large opal.  It was wrapped in golden wire and looped delicately to the chain.

Jay’s eyes widened, and she reached out with one hand to place behind the opal, lifting it up into the light and examining it every which way. “Wow… Where did you find the money to buy something like this?”

“It was washed up on the beach,” Chip said, rocking back and forth on his heels.  He lifted the necklace up to his eye level and examined it proudly, thumbing through the pearls and feeling the texture of the chain.  “It’s pretty isn’t it, it immediately caught my eye.”

“How the hell did something like this wash up on a beach?” Jay shook her head in disbelief, “And in such good shape?”

“I don’t know, but I’m certainly not going to look a gift fish in the mouth,” A smile spread across Chip’s face, “It’s beautiful.”

“Mhm,” Jay nodded in agreement, hesitating to agree with Chip when she couldn’t tell what was going on inside his head.  Gears were turning inside his brain, anyone who knew Chip for more than a day could tell, but Jay just couldn’t figure out what.  She examined Chip’s expression closely, staring at the small twitch of his lips or the way that his eyes were scrunched up mischievously.  “What on Mana do you have planned?”

“Nothing bad, I promise,” Chip held up his other hand in a placating gesture and shook his head lightly, “It’s for Gillion.”

Jay’s eyes widened significantly at that, a playful smile immediately taking over her entire face as she had to hold back her string of laughter.  She bounced a little on her feet, placing her palms together playfully.  “It’s for Gillion?”

“Not like that!” Chip immediately countered, pulling the necklace back close to his chest and shoving Jay lightly on her shoulder, “It’s not like that!”  Jay laughed at that, allowing herself to stumble a bit as her chest rose and fell with breathy, almost incredulous laughter.  Chip’s face immediately flushed a dark red, a blush creeping all the way up his cheeks.

“What else is it supposed to be?” Jay asked.

“It’s just a gift…” Chip shook his head slowly, staring down at the necklace in his hand.

Jay reached out and lifted up the pendant once more, the chain trailing delicately over her fingers, “Mhm… Just a beautiful, very expensive-looking necklace.  With pearls, shiny gold, and other shiny gems.  A necklace that you just so happened to find washed up on the beach.”  She laughed at Chip again and Chip snatched the necklace away from her.

“I’m being serious about that part, I did find it on the beach,” Chip narrowed his eyes at her, “And I was thinking it should be a gift from both of us.”

Jay raised one eyebrow at Chip, placing a hand on her hip, “So you can conveniently hide your massive crush—”

“It’s a gift from the both of us!” Chip cut her off, frantically reaching out to cover her mouth with his palm, his face going even redder than before.  Jay licked his hand and he recoiled with a yelp, trembling a bit where he stood as he tried to fan his face to hide the fact that there were flames steadily creeping up his neck.

“Okay, okay,” Jay held her hands up in front of herself in a placating gesture, shaking her head lightly, “It’s a gift from both of us… How come?”

“I mean… I saw it and I thought he would like it,” Chip looked away, glancing down at his feet as he absently toed at the ground, “He always looks at the pearl necklaces in the windows of jewelry shops like he wants to buy one but every time he convinces himself not to right at the last second.  I thought this would just be something nice for him.  Especially considering it just happened to be washed up on the beach looking good as new.”

“Mhm,” Jay chewed on the inside of her mouth and stared at the necklace in Chip’s hand, watching the colors of the opal swirl as it swung lightly back and forth from the chain.  The light reflected a million different shades of opalescence on the surface of the gem, enough that the swirling patterns managed to catch Jay’s eye.  “He’s definitely going to love it.”

“That’s what I thought, too,” Chip gathered the chain in his palm, allowing the string of pearls to rest over the side of his hand as he cradled the gem.  He wrinkled his nose a little bit and let out a sigh as if he were coming up with an image in his head, “It’ll look really pretty on him.”

“Mhm,” Jay agreed, “You might wanna come up with some other excuse other than it washed up on the beach, I don’t think he’s going to believe that.”

“It’s the truth!” Chip insisted, closing his fist around the necklace and stuffing it into his coat pocket, “I told Gillion I wouldn’t lie to him and I’m not.  It was on the beach a few blocks down from the dock!  I swear it on your life.”

“Why would you swear on my life!” Jay exclaimed, shoving Chip’s shoulders, “That just makes me believe you less!”

Chip laughed and ducked away from Jay’s hands, “I’m being serious!” He caught Jay’s wrists and squeezed a little bit, shaking her arms and jostling her a bit.  “Okay, okay, okay, that’s not important right now, we’ll give it to him after dinner, okay?”

“Sure,” Jay agreed while shaking her head sarcastically, Chip narrowed his eyes at her. “Yes! That sounds good! Right before we go to bed.”

“Yes,” Chip slid his tongue across his lips and sucked in a long breath, “We’re gonna be out on the ocean by tonight?”

“If everyone gets back in time, yes, that’s what Alphonse and I were planning on at least,” Jay shifted so that she could wrap her hands around Chip’s forearms while he was still holding onto her arms.  He let go as soon as she tried to grab him back, shaking her one last time for good measure.

“Okay,” Chip nodded mostly to himself, shifting his weight from foot to foot.  He furrowed his eyebrows and Jay could tell that he was thinking long and hard about something.   “Should we just give it to him or should I try and find something to put it in, or should I—”

“Let’s just give it to him,” Jay interrupted, not wanting to get too roped up in one of his elaborate schemes.  She didn’t have the time to deal with some sort of absurd plan.  

“I’m sure that he’ll appreciate it whatever way we give it to him.  So don’t overthink it.”

Chip blew a long raspberry and rolled his eyes, “You’re no fun.”

Jay raised an eyebrow and looked at him suspiciously, “You’re just gonna end up stressing yourself out more than you need to, it’s just a casual gift, it doesn’t matter how you give it to him.”

Chip hated to admit when Jay was right, so he just crossed his arms in front of his chest and huffed, turning away from Jay with his chin tilted upwards.  His hair fell in front of his face when he tilted his head down and he made no move to brush it away.  Jay let out a breathy laugh and rolled her eyes, shaking her head lightly at his childish antics. 

“I’m gonna go at least find something nice to put it in,” Chip muttered under his breath, still keeping his arms crossed over his chest as he walked away.  Jay watched him go without saying anything else, still trying to hold back her laughter, one hand covering her mouth to muffle the sounds.

The door slammed shut behind Chip as he walked away, leaving the plan and secret gift to hang between the two of them in secret until after dinner.

After searching around the ship for a few hours, helping Jay work on dinner, and then doing a little more searching in a rushed frenzy, the only thing that Chip was able to scrounge up to hide the necklace in was an old tinderbox that had been stuffed in one of the drawers in Jay’s desk.  

Chip had cleaned it out a little bit, he blew out the dust and wiped it off with his sleeve so that when he placed the necklace inside, it hopefully wouldn’t get dirty.

The chain clattered a little bit against the metal sides and Chip only had a brief thought to find something to cushion it with.  He added a few scraps of fabric to hopefully keep the necklace from bumping around inside the tin for a while until he was able to give it to Gillion.  

Then, he tucked it back into his coat pocket and went about the rest of his business of the day, feeling a soft fluttery feeling settle in the pit of his chest.  Chip couldn’t tell if it was excitement or apprehension at giving Gillion a gift.

Chip was sure that Gillion would like it, but a part of Chip couldn’t help but worry.  What if Gillion didn’t like it, what if he thought that Chip was a fool for considering that it would be something he liked?  What if Gillion hated it so much that he would never forgive Chip for such an insult?  What if giving gifts like this was seen as a sign of disrespect in the undersea and Gillion took offense to it?

Chip swallowed thickly and felt the tin in his pocket, smoothing his fingers across the tinderbox, tempted to slip the necklace out of the box and hide it somewhere on his side of the room.  He didn’t know what he would do if Gillion ended up not liking it.  Gillion might be so disgusted at the gift that he would never talk to Chip again because of the awful attempt at doing something nice.

Gillion liked pearls, Chip knew that.  He liked the shiny iridescence of shells and pearls and the nacreous colors that always reminded him of the undersea.  Anytime they walked by some sort of jewelry store, Gillion would linger by the pearl necklaces, staring longingly at the beautiful strings and lovely arrangements.  But if Chip or Jay asked, he would deny it and continue walking.

Maybe Chip had misread the long glances that Gillion gave.  Maybe they were looks of sadness or such painful nostalgia that having such a necklace with pearls and all things shiny on it would hurt Gillion more than it would make him happy.  It might remind him too much of his home (something that Gillion could never go back to).  It was too much added salt to the wound that Gillion didn’t deserve.

Pacing the floor in their sleeping quarters, Chip had all but convinced himself that giving Gillion the necklace was an awful idea by the time they had set sail from town the sun was just starting to sink below the horizon and it was getting time for dinner.  Thankfully Jay was the one to come fetch him when everything was ready.

“You’re going to put a hole in the floor,” Jay deadpanned as soon as she opened the door, watching the way Chip paced around for a few moments.  “What is your problem?”

“What if he doesn’t like it?” Chip blurted out, whipping his head up to look at Jay, his hand still in his pocket clutching the tinderbox that he had put the necklace in.  He could feel it practically burning in his coat, the flames of his tattoos curling and sparking across his skin.  “What if he hates me for it?”

“Why would he hate you for it?” Jay asked incredulously, shaking her head as if she could hardly believe what Chip was saying, “What are you talking about?”

“Maybe we were misreading his thoughts all those times,” Chip shrugged, hiking his shoulders all the way up to his ears, popping his collar to hide behind the familiar fabric, “What if it reminds him so much of his home that it’s painful.  We might just be hurting him more by giving him something like this.”

“I don’t think that’s the case,” Jay stepped forward and caught Chip’s arms before he could start pacing again, squeezing his biceps gently, “He loves these kinds of things.  He has an entire collection of shiny rocks and gems, how could he not love something like this?  It’s like his entire thing.”

“It might be insensitive… considering he got… well…” Exiled is what Chip didn’t want to say.  It was a sensitive subject for Gillion to even talk about, and even the few details that they managed to get out of the Triton were vague.  Talking about his exile behind his back felt wrong.  But Jay understood what Chip meant.

“It’ll be a reminder of his home, something he can connect to,” Jay reassured Chip, reaching up to brush some imaginary dirt off his shoulder, readjusting his collar, “I don’t think it’ll hurt him, I think he’s going to love it.”

Chip sucked in a deep breath but nodded slowly, still not fully believing Jay, but wanting to at least listen to her a little bit.  He could still feel the clutches of anxiety coiled around his chest like a snake, making it hard for him to think logically about the situation at hand.

He had a gift for Gillion, a necklace that he had found washed up on the beach (would even that be an insult to the Triton?).  And even if he knew logically that Gillion would enjoy the gift since he liked anything that the two of them got him, that still didn’t chase away the fear.

Maybe it was just the anxiety of being rejected (not that Chip was actually asking Gillion anything, it was just a friendly gift because he was thinking of Gillion) that was making Chip overthink everything.  He wasn’t really one for giving gifts, so it was always a nerve-wracking moment whenever he found something for one of his crew mates.  Chip just wanted to make sure Gillion liked it.

Jay squinted at Chip suspiciously, “Come on, it’s time for dinner.”  She rolled her eyes and took hold of Chip’s arm.

“Right,” Chip shook his head slowly, trying to rid his mind of all the negative thoughts.  Jay continued to stare at him for a few seconds, looking deadpan as if she were tired of dealing with him and his antics.  Chip was sure that she was.  He definitely wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case.

Chip wrung his hands nervously, but he followed Jay up the stairs towards the kitchen where the rest of the crew had already gathered.

Dinner went by rather uneventfully.  Chip found himself nervously tracing his hand along the edge of the tinderbox that he had placed the necklace in, worry eating away at his stomach and killing his appetite.  But since Jay made the stew, he forced himself to eat at least his first serving to avoid her wrath.  He would wake up hungry in the middle of the night if he didn’t eat anything anyway.

It was hard to focus on the current conversation when all Chip could think about was the necklace in his pocket as he anxiously waited for everyone to be done so that they could call it a day  Gillion sat right next to Chip, his leg pressing against Chip’s thigh, occasionally bouncing as he idly fidgeted in his chair.  

The Triton kept leaning against Chip’s side whenever he spoke as if he were waiting for Chip to respond (which he only managed a few halfhearted responses.  His nerves were too shot to come up with anything else).  Gillion smiled and leaned forward, laughing along with Jay or Ollie as they joked about the day.  Chip could practically hear Gillion’s voice go right through him as he considered the weight of the gift in his pocket.

He kept reassuring himself that it would be fine, Gillion was going to love it because he loved anything that they gave him.  That was just who he was as a person.  Gillion wasn’t used to receiving any sort of gift, so anything that even remotely considered to be a gift, he cherished thoroughly.  And the necklace was sure to be no different.

That didn’t stop Chip from choking every time he thought about giving Gillion the necklace.  Gillion smiled at Chip and he felt his heart skip a beat, immediately making Chip look away in embarrassment, heat creeping up his face as his tattoos swirled across his neck.

After everyone finished eating, Chip had to painstakingly help clean up the kitchen, washing the dishes and making sure the counter was clear for the morning.  Gillion continued to idly chat about whatever was on his mind at the time, smiling at Jay and Gillion, big teeth poking out from behind his lips.

“I think tomorrow will be a nice day for training,” Gillion admitted, his tail wagging back and forth lightly, ears twitching in both Chip and Jay’s direction, guiding the conversation, “We will just have days of sailing ahead of us and it is good to keep up with our bodies.”

“You and Chip can train,” Jay said, almost immediately throwing Chip under the bus, “I have some stuff to work on tomorrow.”

Chip jolted at his name being mentioned and he looked over at Gillion and Jay, his hands elbow-deep in soapy water, “Right…” He muttered, thinking long and hard about the situation at hand, trying to figure out what the correct answer would be.  He didn’t want to make Gillion or Jay upset in fear of what might happen if he said something wrong.  Obviously agreeing with Gillion would make both of them happy.  So he did just that.  “Sure, Gill.  We can train tomorrow if you want.”

Gillion’s face lit up and he wagged his tail harder, shifting his weight from foot to foot and practically bouncing on the balls of his feet.  He nodded fervently and made a small chirp from the back of his throat.

“Perfect, we will start first thing in the morning,” Gillion clapped his hands together, a little bit of water splashing from where he was still rinsing off the dishes. 

“Maybe let a few of us wake up first before you get going with your training,” Jay waved her hand dismissively and shook her head a little bit, “Not everyone gets up as early as you do, Gill.”

“Right,” Gillion’s ears drooped a little bit, “First thing after breakfast?”  He looked back and forth between Jay and Chip for confirmation.  Jay gave a thumbs up and smiled.

“Sounds perfect,” Chip agreed with a small, hesitant smile, his lips twitching a bit as he looked away.  Gillion’s smile widened and he just let out another happy trill, gills fluttering with the vocalization.

After that agreement, the three of them finished doing the dishes and simply left the remaining ones out on the counter to dry in time for breakfast.  Since nothing was made of glass or porcelain, they didn’t have to worry about something breaking in the middle of the night by falling off the counter, it would just be a bit of a mess to pick up in the morning.  Nothing that they had to deal with at the moment, and nothing that they wouldn’t be opposed to dealing with in the morning.

When they finally managed to get down to the sleeping quarters to turn in for the night, Chip was just about bouncing off the walls with his own anxiety.  He tried to think of when would be a good time to present the gift to Gillion.  He had to act soon before the Triton got settled in his barrel to go to bed, waiting for his turn at watch (Jay had the first shift).  

The tinderbox weighed heavily in his pocket as he took his coat off to fold neatly for the morning, the fabric bunching up in his hands.  Chip removed the small box and held it in his palm, staring down at it as if it were some sort of terrifying insect.  He couldn’t bring himself to present it to Gillion, even as he could hear him removing his heavy armor and getting more comfortable to sleep.

He debated just putting it back in his pocket and hiding it somewhere in the room for a later date.  Maybe when it was actually a special occasion and gifts would be expected (When was Gillion’s birthday?  Chip didn’t even know).  Was it weird to just give a random gift out of nowhere?  Gillion might even feel obligated to give something back to Chip or Jay, which definitely wasn’t the point, and Chip didn’t want him to feel like that.

But Chip didn’t get the chance to decide before Jay cleared her throat, lounging casually on her bed.  That got the two boys in the room to look over at her curiously, Chip looked like a fish caught in a net as he clutched his fingers tighter around the tinderbox.

“Gill,” Jay started, smoothing her hands over the top of her bedspread as she squared her shoulders, “Chip and I got you something.”

Gillion’s eyes widened significantly and he looked back and forth between Chip and Jay a little nervously.  He frowned.

“You got me something?” Gillion’s tail twitched and he seemed both a little curious but apprehensive.  He made a noise from the back of his throat, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he held his hands around the edge of his barrel like he was just about to get in.  “You two did not need to do that…”

Jay smiled softly and shrugged her shoulders, “It was Chip’s idea, he was the mastermind behind it all.”

Gillion looked over at Chip now, his gaze intense as he stared at the man intently.  He slid his tongue across his lips while Chip nearly wilted underneath his gaze, his heart pounding so hard against his rib cage that he was afraid it might burst right out of his chest.  He sucked in a sharp breath and tried to get some semblance of air in his lungs while he actively felt like he was suffocating.  His hands were shaking around the tinderbox holding the necklace.

“I saw this… and…” Chip hesitated, staring down at the metal box in his hands nervously, he could practically imagine the necklace inside.  All shiny gold and beautiful pearls and opals.  The colors would match perfectly with Gillion’s skin, and he knew that the Triton loved pearls and anything nacreous in color.  “And I figured that you would like it.”

“You didn’t have to do anything of the sort,” Gillion laughed hesitantly and held his hands up in front of himself in a placating gesture, he smiled politely, “I have done nothing to deserve a gift.”

“It’s just a nice gift from a friend,” Jay reassured him with a wave of her hand, still sitting on her bed and watching the way this played out.  She licked her lips and grinned, nodding in Chip’s direction, then to the object very obviously held in his hands.  Chip’s stomach did dangerous flips.

“Right…” Chip shook his head slowly to clear his mind, trying to find his senses again, “It made me think of you so I thought you’d like it…”  He stepped forward on shaking knees, feeling very much like a newborn deer as he struggled to cross the room to where Gillion was standing.

As Chip approached, Gillion barely backed up a little bit, starting to hold his hands up in front of himself in a placating gesture.  He already didn’t like the gift and Chip hadn’t even presented it yet.  He should have known this would happen.  Gillion was never one to comfortably accept gifts, Chip didn’t know why he thought this time would be any different.  Gillion surely wouldn’t like the necklace.  

And if Chip tried, maybe he could get himself out of this situation without any harm done.  He could secretly slip the necklace out of the tinderbox before handing it over and then when Gillion opened up the box it would just be some sort of joke.  A harmless joke between friends…

An image of an ice arena burned in the back of Chip’s mind.

He was already standing in front of Gillion, the gift shaking in his hands as he struggled to gulp each breath down his throat, filling his lungs with desperate, shameful gasps.  Jay cleared her throat again, clearly fed up with all of Chip’s anxious antics.  She probably wanted to get on with this entire thing so she could go upstairs and take the first watch.  She was still fully clothed after all.

Gillion had taken notice of the small box in Chip’s hand and he was eyeing it nervously, as if something might spring out at him if he opened it.  Chip hadn’t handed it over yet.  He felt frozen.  Unable to move.

It was as if the mere presence of the necklace itself was preventing Chip from handing it over.  That odd sense of anxiety and insecurity bubbled up so high in his throat that it made Chip want to spill out a million apologies and quickly hide away somewhere else on the ship where he wouldn’t have to face Gillion or the disappointed, angry expression that he was sure to wear.

“Uhm…” Gillion shifted uncomfortably, backing up another pace as he stared up at Chip with worry causing his eyebrows to furrow.  His tail twitched and he tucked it close to his legs.

Chip was making him uncomfortable.  What an awful friend he was being at the moment.  Gillion certainly wasn’t going to like the gift after Chip made such a big deal about it like this, making it seem like it was the worst thing in the world.

Shaking himself to his senses once again, Chip practically shoved the box into Gillion’s arms, jerking back like the metal burned his palms.  He moved jerkily like a puppet tugged on inexperienced strings as he forced the Triton to take hold of the box.  

Gillion made a small yelp and grabbed at the tin before it could clatter to the ground, his claws scrambling for purchase around the smooth, polished metal.  Chip swallowed audibly and backed up a few steps, curling his arms around his waist as it felt like an insurmountable weight had just been lifted off his shoulders at the passage of ownership.

“It’s inside the box,” Jay chimed in, covering her mouth as she yawned, still glancing back and forth between Chip and Gillion, her gaze lingering on the former for a bit longer than what Chip deemed comfortable.  She was looking at him suspiciously as if he had done something wrong.  Chip swallowed thickly and shook his head a little bit, forcing a soft smile on his face.

“Are you sure?” Gillion asked, still looking worriedly up at Chip.  He frowned and his ears drooped a little bit, as if he wanted to give the box back to Chip before he had even opened it.

“Go on, open it,” Chip insisted, waving his hand in Gillion’s direction, finding his voice coming back to him easier and easier now that he had actually gotten it over with and given Gillion the gift.  He just had to wait and see how Gillion was going to react.  The hardest part of the entire situation was over, now Chip just had to wait.

He just had to wait and pray that Gillion didn’t hate him for this, or that he didn’t completely hate the gift, disgusted that Chip would have even thought it was a good idea to give him something like this.

But Gillion, soft, kind Gillion, just smiled bashfully, as if he didn’t know what to do with his expression.  His ears flared out around his head, twitching back and forth with embarrassment.

Gillion hooked his fingers around the edge of the tinderbox, the object looking almost comical in his massive claws.  He dug his nail into the seam between the two sections and very gingerly peeled it apart like he was shucking an oyster for the meat inside.  The pads of his fingers slid underneath the top lip of the metal box and he peered into the gold-covered maw.

Throughout the time that it had been in Chip’s pocket, the scraps of fabric had gotten a little tangled with the chain of the necklace, wrapping it all up in a way that Chip had tried to avoid.  But Gillion pulled it out thoughtfully, balancing the tin underneath his elbow while he detangled the fabric and metal.  His eyes widened minutely, but Chip could almost tell that he was trying not to get too excited.

Chip wrung his hands nervously, watching Gillion intently as the Triton tried not to give any significant reaction.  He kept his lips firmly pressed together, jaw clenched and cheeks slightly sucked in like he was chewing on the inside of his mouth.  His ears twitched a little bit, constantly shifting in different directions as he worked with the chain, easily pulling the fabric scraps away from it, revealing the beautiful opal gems and the shimmering nacre pearls.

Gillion’s tail wagged lightly and he sucked in a sharp breath as he held the necklace up in front of his face.  When he opened his mouth to say something, the smallest hint of a smile gave him away. 

“Chip…” Gillion breathed, barely able to keep his voice steady as he ran his fingers down the length of the golden chain, running his thumb over each individual pearl as if testing their authenticity.  “Jay…” He looked over at Jay as well, who was smiling softly and looking vaguely amused at the situation.

“Well?” Jay tilted her head to the side and nodded in Gillion’s direction, “What do you think?”

“Oh it’s beautiful,” Gillion continued to stare at the necklace, twisting the pendant back and forth, feeling the golden wire that held the large opal in place.  His ears flared out around his head, drooping a little bit near his face.  He gave a soft, polite smile, trying to hold back his excitement.  “Why though…?  Why get this for me?”

“Because we’re your friends,” Jay said firmly, “And we care about you and want you to have nice things.”

“Plus…” Chip added, swallowing down the shake in his tone as he stepped closer to Gillion, gently plucking the necklace from Gillion’s hand who let it go easily so he could unlatch it.  The metal was cold in Chip’s warm hands.  “You always look longingly at the pearl necklaces in the shops, so I figured you’d like it.” 

Gillion’s eyes widened and he watched Chip’s movements carefully, he opened and closed his mouth dumbly a few times, trying to come up with something to say to that.  Chip, building up the courage and shaking off the previous bouts of insecurity, leaned forward, curling his arms delicately around Gillion’s shoulders.  He brought his hands behind Gillion’s neck, the necklace pressing against his throat while Chip worked to latch it.

He was close enough to Gillion that he could feel the Triton’s breath on his face, hear the way that his chest rattled with each inhale.  Chip focused on the necklace in his hands, quickly attaching the metal clasp to the chain, and latching it neatly around Gillion’s neck.

When he pulled back, Chip allowed his fingers to trail along the line of gold, dragging the necklace up a little bit to feel the texture of the metal before letting it fall against Gillion’s collar without so much as a sound.  The pendant settled just a bit below the top of his sternum, the opalescent colors reflecting in the low light of the sleeping quarters, the flickering yellow glow of the lanterns causing the colors to swirl.  Gillion’s shoulders drooped and he let out a slow breath.

Chip looked up and for what couldn’t be any longer than a few seconds, their eyes met and Chip had a hard time remembering how to breathe when he saw the way Gillion’s intense gaze bore into his skull.  His electric blue eyes swirled with that same wave-like hue that always seemed to put him in motion.  Chip swallowed thickly and tried not to blush as he looked away.

“Thank you…” Gillion whispered, barely loud enough for Chip to hear. It seemed like he wanted to say so many things, but that was the only thing that came out.  Chip could practically see the gears in his head turning, he didn’t want to imagine all the worried thoughts going through Gillion’s brain at being presented with something nice.  He reached up with one hand, curling his fingers around the opal as if he was making sure it was still there and not some elaborate trick.  

“Hey, hey, lemme see,” Jay waved her hand in Chip and Gillion’s direction, a wide, unapologetic smile spreading across her face.  She leaned forward, her legs dangling over the edge of her cot as she placed her hands in her lap.

Gillion turned to face her, a dark blue blush creeping up his face at the attention, “How does it look?”

“It looks beautiful on you, Gill,” Jay clapped her hands together excitedly, her smile only growing wider.  Gillion looked down at himself and his lips twitched and pulled back to expose his sharp teeth in a wide grin.

“Thank you, both of you,” Gillion said a bit louder this time, looking back and forth between the two humans in the room.  His hand came to rest over the large gem of the pendant, fingers twisting the pearls,  “I will find a way to repay you for such a wonderful gift.”

“Gill,” Chip reached out to put his hands on Gillion’s shoulders, “Gifts aren’t meant to be repaid.  It’s just a gift for you.”

Gillion pressed his lips together in a thin line, “Are you sure, it’s such a fancy necklace, it had to have been difficult to acquire…”

“Nope, super easy,” Chip shook Gillion’s shoulders a bit, “And it looks amazing on you, really wonderful, beautiful even, super pretty” Chip cut himself off with a cough.

The necklace did look beautiful on Gillion, the opalescent colors looking like they belonged there the entire time around Gillion’s throat.  It hung nicely down his chest in a place that hopefully wouldn’t get in the way of anything, but it wasn’t so short that it was inconvenient to wear.  It complimented his skin, and with the way that Gillion kept running his fingers along the length of the pearls, it seemed to be a comfort.  Something to remind him of home when he could never go back.

The swirling colors matched every impression that Chip could have of the Triton, so many different colors to him, constantly introducing something new that Chip would have to process.  It went well with his eyes, not that Gillion would be focused on that.

“Thank you, Chip.”  And then Gillion pulled Chip into a hug, practically crushing the man in his strong grip, squeezing him so tight that Chip let out a small gasp.  His face buried into the crook of Chip’s neck, his cold nose causing him to shiver.

But Chip leaned into the hug, curling his arms around Gillion’s back and hugging him back as hard as he could.  It wasn’t as strong as Gillion’s embrace, but it was enough for the Triton, who chirped and chittered in Chip’s ear, his tail wagging back and forth excitedly as he no longer seemed to hide his excitement.

“Well, I should get upstairs,” Jay smiled and laughed a little bit, pushing herself up to her feet and stretching her arms above her head, “I’m glad that you like the gift Gillion.”

Gillion pulled away from Chip just in time for Jay to lean down and give him a chaste kiss on the cheek, her palm lingering on his jaw.  Gillion pulled her into an embrace as well, practically toppling her over due to the height difference.  But Jay chuckled again and rubbed his back, allowing him to nearly squeeze the air out of her with his excited hug.  He chirped happily.

Jay patted his shoulders, hesitating for a second to examine the necklace closer now that Gillion was actually wearing it.  She readjusted it a bit, making sure that it was hanging correctly and not irritating his skin or anything.

“You deserve something nice,” Jay insisted, speaking firmly and leaving no room for Gillion to argue, “Every once in a while.  You can indulge in something that you might think has no use.  Because it looks beautiful, and you look beautiful.  And if it makes you happy, that’s what matters.”

Gillion’s ears drooped, “I am very happy.”

“Good,” She kissed his other cheek this time, “I’ll be taking my shift then.”  Jay stepped away from Gillion and shook out her shoulders, grabbing her jacket from where it was lying on the edge of her bed.  The end of Gillion’s tail thumped against the floor when he wagged it.

“Goodnight, Jay,” Gillion smiled a full, toothy grin, the tip of his tongue poking out from between his crooked, shark-like teeth, “Thank you both so very much.”

“Of course, Gill,” Jay held up her hand in a half wave, “Night Chip, I’ll wake you up for your shift.”

“No kiss for me?” Chip asked, sticking out his bottom lip in a pout and staring at Jay sadly.  Jay rolled her eyes and let out a long sigh, almost like a groan.  Then she leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek.

“Night,” She ruffled Chip’s hair and stepped away before he could retaliate.  Chip squawked in surprise and tried to fix his hair, placing his hand on the top of his head.

Jay laughed to herself, muffling her chuckles with one hand as she crossed the room.  She slipped through the half-open door and allowed it to shut behind her, and then she was gone to the top decks to take the first watch.

Chip backed up a few steps and flopped down on his cot, letting out a massive sigh of relief.  He smiled and sank against the mattress, a yawn pulling from his lips.

“Chip,” Gillion said softly, approaching Chip’s cot tentatively.  Chip looked up just as Gillion sat down on the edge of the bed, his weight causing the bed to creak.  The fin of his tail smacked against the wall as he tried to situate himself with the massive heavy limb.  He pulled his shoulders back and let out a low rumble deep from within his chest, one that Chip had learned meant at least something pleasant.

“What’s up, Gill?” Chip asked, raising one eyebrow and wedging his arm underneath himself to sit up slightly.  He scrunched up his face in a small smile, holding back his yawn.

Gillion held his hands in his lap, picking at the skin around his claws as he idly fidgeted.  Then, he leaned down to press a very quick, chaste kiss to Chip’s cheek, his nose pressing against the warm skin of Chip’s face and making him shiver.

“Thank you for the gift,” Gillion held his face close to Chip’s, allowing his eyes to slip shut for a second as he held his forehead nearly pressed against Chip’s.  He sighed softly and his shoulders drooped, the pendant dangling between them, swinging like a pendulum as he leaned forward.  It reflected in the dim light, immediately catching Chip’s eye.

“Of course, Gill,” Chip responded, sliding his hands across Gillion’s shoulder to hold his hand at the back of Gillion’s neck, his fingers buried into the small baby hairs behind his head.  “You deserve to have some nice things every once in a while.”

Gillion smiled politely as if he could barely believe what Chip was saying, but instead of saying anything, he just slowly nodded hesitantly, sliding his tongue over his lips.  His tail thumped lightly against the mattress of Chip’s cot and he shifted a little bit.

He leaned forward minutely, their faces remaining impossibly close together, Chip could see each of the individual drops of water beading on the ends of Gillion’s curls and across his skin.  He could feel the Triton’s breath on his face, feel the intensity of his gaze, feel each small touch as if they were sparks of electricity. 

For a moment, Chip debated closing the gap between them with a kiss, his heart hammering so hard in his chest that he could hear the blood rushing in his ears.

He never got that chance before Gillion pulled away with a polite, almost awkward cough, “We should get to bed.”  He reached up to curl his fingers around the gem, thumbing across the beads almost nervously.  

“Right,” Chip swallowed thickly and pulled back as well, sliding his fingers through his hair, his frizzy brown bangs falling right back in front of his forehead.  He coughed awkwardly and gave Gillion a small smile.

Then Gillion was standing up, fully extracting himself from their almost embrace, if his touch lingered, Chip couldn’t tell.  The markings across his body glowed faintly in the dim lighting, just enough that they rippled when he moved, catching Chip’s eye.  He nodded once to Chip and then shuffled across the room to his barrel, easily pulling his body over the edge and sinking into the lightly shifting water with little effort.

His tail flicked up and over the edge for a few seconds as a few steady streams spilled over the rim of the barrel while he got situated, the barrel rattling with the effort of his movement.  He peeked up over the surface of the water just long enough to retrieve the lid of his barrel, eyes darting over to where Chip was half-laying on his bed.

“Goodnight, Chip,” Gillion smiled warmly, another happy trill vibrating in his throat.

“Night, Gill,” Chip shifted so that he could wiggle his way underneath the covers.  He turned away from Gillion’s barrel right as he heard the thump of him replacing the lid on the surface, the wood grinding against wood for a moment before he settled.

Their sleeping quarters settled into silence after that, the only sounds being the crashing of the waves against the side of the Albatross as they rocked back and forth and the sloshing of water in Gillion’s barrel.  If Chip focused, he could barely make out the sound of Jay’s boots thumping against the top deck as she paced across the ship during her watch.

Knowing that Jay would be back below decks in a couple hours to switch shifts with Chip, and then after that, Chip would wake Gillion for the last bit of the night until morning.  So Chip allowed his eyes to slip shut, wanting to get as much sleep as possible before he would be forced out of his warm comfortable bed.

Happy that his gift had been well received, unsure why he had even been so panicky over the subject in the first place, Chip drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Text

With sloping masts and dipping prow,

As who pursued with yell and blow

Still treads the shadow of his foe,

And forward bends his head,

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,

And southward aye we fled.

And now there came both mist and snow,

And it grew wondrous cold:

And ice, mast-high, came floating by,

As green as emerald.

-The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

When Gillion opened his eyes, still a bit groggy from sleep and exhausted in more ways than just physical, it took him a long time to understand where he was, as if he couldn’t remember anything else up until this point.  

His vision was dark, and even with his heightened eyesight, he couldn’t see anything around him, as if any form of light had gotten sucked out of existence, or at least sucked out of the space that Gillion was currently in, rendering him near blind.  However, he could feel pressure all around him whenever he moved, a familiar resistance dragging on his limbs if he tried to lift his hands to his face.  

Water.  

At the very least, he could tell that he was underwater.  That much was obvious enough.

It took him another second to understand that when he moved, he easily hit the inside walls of a small container, barely able to fit him fully without being in a tight squeeze.  He breathed deeply, gills fluttering and easily filtering the water around him in a way that felt much easier than using his lungs.

He blinked, his tail pushed against the walls of his container and he struggled to twist around to see if he might be able to spot anything.  He was in the water, that was good at least, the water was as familiar and comfortable to him as it was for Chip and Jay to breathe air.

Gillion made a mental list of the things that he currently knew just from his attempts to observe his surroundings: First, he was underwater, which was good, at least that meant he didn’t have to worry too hard about breathing.  Second, he was in a tight space just barely big enough for him to wiggle around and maneuver himself, it wasn’t uncomfortable, but it certainly wasn’t ideal.  And third, it was very, very dark, dark enough that his well-adapted eyes couldn’t even see the walls of the container that he was in.

He swallowed thickly and spit out a mouthful of bubbles, moving his tail around in the water and finding the bottom of his cage.   There was no reason for him to panic at the moment, he was sure that even though his mind was a bit fuzzy, he would certainly be able to tell where he was and what was going on.  He had to take stock of the situation first, batting his finned tail against the bottom.

Then, after gulping down a mouthful of water and spitting it out in what could be assumed to be an exhale, Gillion began to slide his hands up and down the walls around him.  His fingers hooked against strips of wood, claws dragging over the thick material as he hummed deep from in his chest, allowing his eyes to slip shut since his vision was useless now.

He groped blindly around the edges, feeling the texture of the wood and hoping that he might find something that would give him a bit more insight as to what was going on.  He needed to stay calm, there was no reason to panic when there was surely a reasonable explanation.

Gillion moved his hands all the way up above his head, pushing with his feet to see how high the cage went, thinking it possible that he had somehow got into the pipework of someplace that he wasn’t supposed to be in.  He remembered all the nooks and crannies back at the palace in the trench, how he would always burrow himself as deep as possible into whatever odd crevice he could find at the time.  It was always much more comforting to him than having to sleep in an empty stone room, sometimes not even a bed to rest on.

So Gillion wasn’t a stranger to waking up in small enclosed spaces, too groggy and too tired to really remember what had happened (most of the time had either gotten into such places in his sleep or when he was so exhausted after training that he just didn’t remember where he was going or what he was doing).

When Gillion moved his hands above his head, fully prepared to have to swim a little bit to reach the top of wherever he was, Gillion was a bit surprised that his palms almost immediately met with more wood.  But this time, when Gillion pressed on it, it moved, easily pushing out of place.  

As he continued to push it upwards, the wooden object slipped out of his hands, falling off to the side and landing somewhere with such a loud clatter that Gillion nearly jumped out of his skin, the noise echoing around the walls of his container making him jerk as it hit against his sensitive ears.

When Gillion pushed himself up to pull his head up and over the top of his container, he suddenly felt very, very silly for how he could have possibly not known where he was.

Water dripped from his face as he pulled his head above the surface, gills flaring as a steady stream began to drain from them, his chest heavy with all the water.  Gillion coughed and shook his head a little bit, hair falling in front of his face as it flattened to his forehead.

He was in his barrel in the captain’s quarters on the Albatross.  How he hadn’t originally noticed was beyond him, the last time he had woken up that disoriented was when he first got the barrel on the ship and he kept forgetting where he was since it was so different.

Even as Gillion took in the very familiar environment around him, the light finally reached his eyes as he now had a small basis to go off of.  No light usually reached into his barrel at night, which explained why he couldn’t see anything (that didn’t explain why the glow of his skin markings didn’t help, but Gillion wasn’t going to look into it too much).  

But now that he was staring out into the sleeping quarters, he could make out the rest of the room.  He could see where he had accidentally dropped the lid of the barrel on the floor (surprised at how neither of his co-captains had woken up at the noise, if it was loud for Gillion, it had to have been loud for them too).  There was a small stream of moonlight spilling in from the porthole window right above Jay’s cot that coated the room in a soft blueish glow that caused the rest of the colors in the room to shift as it traced out a pattern on the floor.

Surprisingly, both Chip and Jay’s cots were empty, the beds made with the covers neatly pulled up to the top and tucked underneath the pillows.  The room was also a lot cleaner than Gillion remembered.  

There was none of Chip’s usual messiness or his claim over his side of the room thrown about, accented by different articles of clothing and small trinkets that he had picked up over their travels.  It appeared that he had tucked everything away inside the chest at the foot of his cot, or possibly moved it somewhere that would be out of sight from the rest of the crew. 

In fact, Gillion had a hard time even distinguishing the two sides from each other.  It was similar to right when they had first gotten the Albatross, the room neatly laid out so that they each had their individual corner of the room, equal in every way except that Jay and Gillion had to share one side of the room, which made their half a bit smaller (which was then combated by the fact that their shared desk was also placed on Chip’s “side” of the room so that the fourth corner turned into neutral territory).

It reminded Gillion a lot of that moment several months ago when he had first set foot on the fresh ship, not a single voyage to paint across its hull.  There was nothing, no image of either of his co-captains in their shared quarters.  Jay’s side was just as empty as Chip’s.  

Her bow was no longer hanging on the wall where she had been storing it for the time being.  The wanted posters that she had proudly tacked above her bed were gone as well as the other pictures and drawings from Ollie that had been placed all around the room.  The few bits of decoration that they had gathered over their months of traveling together (mostly picked up by Jay) had all pretty much vanished without a trace.

Chip’s swords were nowhere to be found, their books settled on their closed bookshelf were gone (the shelf itself was empty), the few empty bottles of alcohol that had accumulated on Chip’s side of the room were gone as well as whatever few bits of trash or leftover dishes that hadn’t gotten cleaned up yet were gone.

Most alarmingly, the desk across from Gillion’s barrel, which was normally strewn with papers, books, blueprints, tools, barely closed inkwells, pens, rulers, screws, and a lot of other things that Gillion didn’t remember off the top of his head, was completely empty.  It was pristine.  Not a single ink stain that Gillion could see blemishing its surface.  There were no scuff marks or knife wounds where Chip had many times before jabbed the tip of his dagger into the wood.

It was just… A normal, well-crafted, strong wooden desk, with none of the personality and scars that it had gained over their many months of travel.

Gillion furrowed his eyebrows, pressing his lips into a thin line as he surveyed the room, trying to comprehend the scene before him and scrape his memory raw for something that might explain the strange room that he was currently seeing.  Water dribbled down his neck from his gills and he sucked in a sharp breath through his nose, feeling the way that his lungs inflated.

If he had been groggy before, Gillion was most certainly awake now, both a spike of confusion and alarm swirling together inside his chest in a way that Gillion couldn’t possibly understand.  He took another deep breath and steadied himself on the edge of his barrel, feeling the waves push the ship back and forth, the water around him sloshing lightly.  It didn’t move enough to spill up and over the edge, but enough that Gillion swayed a little bit.

Slowly, and with the caution of someone stepping into a room with a sleeping dragon, Gillion eased himself out of his barrel, using the wall as his guide so that he didn’t accidentally trip and fall on his face.  He placed one tentative foot on the ground, dragging his toes across the wood in a wide arc as if he were checking for some sort of trap or trickery.  A break in some sort of illusion perhaps, something that he could wedge his senses into and pull until it revealed the sleeping quarters that Gillion knew were supposed to be there.

When he leaned his weight on that foot, he was almost surprised that the floor held his weight.  A part of Gillion expected it to give out from right underneath him, sending him sinking into the murky depths of the ocean below, sending him spiraling into the abyss of a place that he could never again call his home.

Then, he shifted and lifted his other leg out of the barrel, the entire object wobbled a little bit, and the sound of the bottom of the barrel rattling against the wooden floorboards made Gillion freeze as it slowly settled.  It was just then that he noticed how silent the quarters were.  He could scarcely hear the sound of the waves pushing against their ship even though he could feel the waves rocking him back and forth.

There was no wind, no possible rain or thunder, or some other weather condition that he might be able to hear from their sleeping quarters.  He could no longer hear the thumping of boots from whoever was on the top deck taking their shift at watch, a sound of which normally reassured Gillion that they were safe and well protected.  The familiar sound of the waves had somehow managed to get drowned out by the impenetrable silence of the rest of the room.

Even the slightly annoying and a little grating sound of the lanterns thumping against whatever posts they were hung up on was missing.  Even if Gillion could see the lantern in the room moving and swaying enough that it should be at least creaking, at most he should be able to hear the sound it made when it hit against the wall.

It was as if the sleeping quarters had been closed off in some sort of vacuum, just like how the light had gotten sucked up by his barrel of water, it seemed as if all the sound in the room had gotten sucked up by something.  Gillion had no idea how to break the spell this time, and he had even less idea how to process the perfectly clean (practically un-lived in room).

The end of his tail slapped against the wooden floor with such a loud sound that it seemed to echo without the buffer of all the other ambient noise of the ship.  Gillion’s ears pinned back against his head and he frowned, glancing around the room with his eyebrows furrowed and his lip twitching faintly.

He almost didn’t want to make a sound himself, hating the way that the silence was so thick it was practically suffocating, making Gillion self-conscious of every breath that rattled around in his lungs.  But he swallowed down his growing anxiety, trying to calm the racing in his heart by tugging on the webbing between his fingers, lightly massaging the flap of skin.

“Jay?” Gillion called, his voice slightly hoarse and gravely with the water still draining from his throat, he could hear it vibrate against his vocal cords, his gills twitching, “Chip?”

The echo of his voice bounced back to him and Gillion realized with disdain how shaky his tone was.  He shook his head lightly and slid his fingers through his hair which was already starting to dry as the water easily slid down the strands and added to the growing puddle of water beneath him.  

Gillion stepped forward tentatively, his footsteps splattering against the ground as he went, the unavoidably wet sounds of every movement he made sounding as loud as gunshots.  He crossed the room slowly, hesitating every few steps to stop and listen to see if maybe the sound had resumed, only to be disappointed each time.

He stopped in front of Jay’s empty cot, reaching out with a shaking hand to feel the texture of the sheets beneath his fingers.  It was smooth and soft, not yet rough with the many nights of sleep and the countless amounts of rough washes only to be dried with salty ocean air.  It was crisp and clean, almost freshly woven.

If Gillion could frown deeper, he certainly managed to.  His teeth poked out from behind his lips as he practically grimaced, feeling his hand up and down the top sheet, resting his palm on top of the bedpost, and even going so far as to look underneath the cot to see if maybe Jay and Chip were playing some elaborate prank on him.  

He knew that Jay had magic, and might even have the ability to cast illusions, so perhaps this was one of her tricks.  Not that Gillion thought she would ever cast such magic against him without good reason.  Perhaps there was some sort of enemy approaching and they wanted to make the ship seem abandoned or like no one had ever been on it at all, and the threat had come on so suddenly that she hadn’t had the time to wake Gillion and explain the situation.

Surely they wouldn’t do something like this without incredibly good reason or without a solid explanation.  This was too far for even one of Chip’s pranks (which he had been including Gillion in the planning of more and more lately, making a subtle pact with the Triton in whatever way he knew how to prove to Gillion that he wasn’t going to lie to him anymore).

So of course, it had to be some sort of illusion, something that would come in handy if they were being approached by an enemy.  And Gillion should most certainly be there to help out wherever he could, even if at the moment it seemed like they had settled into hiding.

Gillion whirled around to face his corner of the room again, fully expecting to see his sword and armor resting where he had carefully placed both items in their proper spot before going to bed.  His sword hung from a hook nailed into the wall, and his armor would be neatly arranged on top of his allotted chest for items, waiting for him to put it on in the morning.

But instead of seeing any of that, Gillion’s corner of the room was empty.

Well, there was a third cot that had never been used and had been quickly relinquished to Ollie when the boy joined the ship.  But that cot hadn’t been in the sleeping quarters for quite some time, at least a few months. 

His barrel was gone.  His chest of items had been moved to sit at the end of the cot, the sheets pulled up and tucked just as neatly as all the other ones.  All the things that Gillion had decorated his corner of the room with (the things that he had very, very slowly built up the confidence to own over time) were gone.  The rocks, the sea glass, the shells, the trinkets, the posters on the walls, all his things were gone.

And most alarmingly, his armor was gone, and so was his sword.

Gillion stopped dead in his tracks, freezing up instantly as he stared at his corner of the room with his jaw half dropped.  His eyes darted back and forth, trying to spot the deception or some other hint that it was an illusion, or maybe some clue if he was stuck in another one of his training simulations.  Clearly, this wasn’t right, this had to be some trick.

And there was always a way to spot the holes in those tricks.  Gillion had gotten good at picking out the errors in an illusion, or the spot where a simulation seemed a bit too hazy and blurred out.

Frantically, his eyes swept across the room, he didn’t dare move an inch besides swiveling his head back and forth, hands clenched into fists at his sides as he nearly worked himself up into a panic.  Gillion’s chest squeezed with the effort of each breath, and he could feel his gills flaring across his neck as he tried to get in whatever oxygen his body thought he needed.

He couldn’t figure out where the illusion ended, he didn’t know where the simulation started, he didn’t know what part of this was real or what had to be all part of some sick joke.  Chip and Jay would never do this to him, he thought he knew them better to trust that they wouldn’t mess with him like this.  Not this severe.  Not this cruel.

Gillion took a shaky step forward, once again finding his voice, “Chip?  Jay?”

His throat warbled with a nervous vocalization, and his tail tucked close to his body as he tried to make himself as small as possible.  He didn’t want to touch anything, he couldn’t move anything or manipulate how everything was.  Everything needed to stay the same, maybe he would be able to find what was wrong and break down the entire illusion.

Gillion’s hand itched for his sword.  He felt something unpleasant bubble up from deep in his stomach, a panicked, frightened, defensive urge to at the very least take hold of his weapon if the need arose for him to use it.  He wanted to break everything in this room but at the same time scrub his hands raw at the mere thought of touching anything else here.  He was revolted by it.

As he stood there, unmoving, unwavering, with panic wrapping around his throat like a snake, Gillion found his attention suddenly pulled towards the door where movement caught his eye.  His hand instinctively moved to his hip where normally he would have Destiny’s blade protectively clipped at his side.  But he was in nothing but his pajamas.  No armor, no weapon, no equipment.  Just a scared little fish all alone and without any of his friends.

As he stared, the door very slowly began to creep open, the hinges squealing like the dying cry of some great beast.  The noise bore deep into Gillion’s skull, forcing him to pin his ears back towards his head as if he were trying to hide from it, his face scrunching up into a grimace at the high-pitched nature.

But the sound quickly faded away and Gillion was left to face the gaping maw of the open door to the rest of the ship.  The light from the porthole window reflected only barely out into the hallway, causing a trail of light to distort the colors of the lower decks.

It was still silent, eerily calm, and empty.  From what Gillion could make out with his dark vision, the lower decks were just as empty as the captain’s quarters were.  Gillion very hesitantly crept over towards the door as if it were an evil monster beginning to swallow him whole.

The entire time he kept his hand hovering near his waist where his weapon would normally be, as if in a moment he would draw it and defend himself from whatever being had taken over their ship.  Gillion knew that there was really nothing there, but that didn’t stop him from holding himself in the familiar, comforting form, knowing that he might at least be able to hold his own relatively well with his magic.

Gillion barely even picked up his foot with each step, knowing that stealth wasn’t one of his strong suits, but he followed the actions that he had vaguely seen Chip perform whenever he would sneak off somewhere in the darkness.  He held himself low, shuffling forward with his feet barely lifting the ground, quieting the sound of each step as much as he could.

“Hello?” Gillion called, hating the way that his voice trembled with anxiety, his heart hammering so hard against his chest that it made it hard for him to hear anything else except the sound of blood rushing in his ears.  He slid his tongue across his lips and chewed on the inside of his mouth, holding back all the chirps and anxious chitters that threatened to bubble up in the back of his throat.

No response.  

Gillion kept getting closer to the door, reaching out with one hand as he approached the doorframe.  His fingers met with the wood of the frame and he very gingerly slid them across the wall, searching for anything that might help him, or something that might make the entire situation make more sense to him.  

His claws dragged against the wood, and Gillion used that as an anchor to pull himself forward, using the wall to steady himself when his knees began to shake. 

What was wrong with him?  He was supposed to be much braver than this, much harder to frighten, much stronger, and with so much more confidence that he would barely even hesitate before rushing out to confront whatever danger he might find.

But maybe it was because he had no weapon.  He had no armor.  And he had no friends that needed his protection. There was no one to back up Gillion if he fell, and no one for him to have a reason to pick his head up from the ground when he was knocked down.  He had no reason to pretend to be brave when he was such a scared little guppy.

Gillion swallowed down a nervous chirp and shook his head slowly to clear his thoughts.  He took a deep breath and stepped forward, toeing carefully over the floor and crossing the threshold of the hallway.

Almost as soon as Gillion’s body passed through the door frame, it was as if he were stepping on nothing, his body falling forward into an inky black negative space.  He felt weightless, arms flailing without his control as he stumbled down some unseen drop, bumbling through the air as if he were a bird that had never learned how to fly.

He wasn’t sure if he screamed or if anything at all came out of his mouth the moment that he stepped off the edge and into the abyss.  He might not have said anything, and he probably didn’t even react at all besides his eyes widening minutely.

Gillion felt himself falling, falling, falling, his body dropping for an unknown amount of time, it could’ve been only a few seconds or a few hours.  He couldn’t tell, not with the darkness around him or the wind whipping in his hair and roaring in his ears.  It disoriented his senses enough that he couldn’t even tell how far he had fallen.

It hurt to breathe, it hurt to open his mouth, it hurt to open his eyes or move his head or try to get his bearings at least somewhat while he fell.

Then, Gillion hit water with such a hard splash that it sent tingles of pins and needles all the way down his body, his skin prickling with pain from the surface tension of the water cutting into his flesh.  Out of instinct, he sucked in a big breath as shock coursed through his system, water immediately invading his lungs in a way that it certainly wasn’t supposed to.

A sharp sting of agony erupted in his throat as Gillion coughed, the water surrounding him and pulling him snugly into its freezing-cold embrace.  All around him, it seemed to swell and move in a constant whirlpool, pushing against his skin and knocking him back and forth.  It took Gillion a few seconds to remember himself, his tail moving sluggishly as he struggled to breathe, suffocating in his own natural element.

He couldn’t get the water out of his lungs, he couldn’t get his gills to work, he couldn’t get himself to think straight about what he was doing or where he was going.  He screwed his eyes shut and wheezed, hands grasping at nothing in the water as the webbing between his fingers caught with the tension and he was very sluggishly able to pull himself through the water.

Where he was going, he didn’t know.  Gillion was unable to see or able to tell where he was.  He coughed and his chest spasmed, his entire body twitching in his attempts to breathe.  Gillion’s mouth opened and closed dumbly like a fish out of water.

He fought and clawed and battled against the roaring current around him, waves pushing and pulling at him, nudging him in every direction before slamming against him and sending him nearly prone.  Gillion’s claws grappled for something to hold onto, knowing that there would be nothing for him to find.  Bubbles spilled past his lips, more water infiltrating his chest, more than he could ever filter with his gills in such a short time, more than he could even swallow with the harsh sting of salt in his sensitive trachea.

It was as if his tail had gone numb, the limb working sluggishly and with little understanding of what Gillion was trying to tell it to do.  As if he had forgotten how to swim, how to propel himself forward and keep himself stable in the water.  As if he had forgotten the very first thing that he was instinctually born with, how to swim.

Gillion dug at the water, claws slicing through the foamy waves that crashed against him, and finally after fighting and fighting, he was able to pull his head above the surface, water, spit, and bile spilling from his lips as he coughed hard enough that he felt like he was going to tear his throat open.  The waves continued to crash against him like he was a rock on the edge of a sandy beach.

Above him, the storm was crackling with an electric rage, thunder and lightning booming across the endlessly dark sky, clouds tumbling against each other with the wind that nearly flipped Gillion over.  He pulled at the surface desperately, fins pulling with the drag of the water as he tried to flick his tail in order to keep his head above the water.

It didn’t help with the rough sees pounding against his gills, making it hard for Gillion to choose which set of lungs to use when both were so bombarded with water and air.  Agony rippled down his throat from the horrible mix of about a million sensations at once, his sinuses full of water.

He coughed and spit up something else that burned as it came up more than all the other things.  Rain pelted his head like a hammer, crashing against him and making it impossible for him to see.

Gillion could feel sparks of electricity bouncing across the tips of his coral, his fingers buzzing with an odd sort of energy that he could only ever associate with the roaring of a storm.  He cried out, barely able to be heard over all the sounds around him, constantly thrown about, head dipping above and below the surface too fast for Gillion to ever keep up.

It was too fast for him to spit the water out of his lungs, too fast for him to blink the film over his eyes, too fast for him to remember to use his gills or his fins or his tail, too much for him to understand the situation around him enough to question it and think “How did I get here?” When there were so many sensations that he couldn’t even think about anything but trying to survive.

Gillion might have been crying at one point, but there was so much water and salt around him that it all blurred together.  He gasped and pulled his head above the waves again, mouth opening to cough and spit out more infectious water, but instead, all that came out was a watery bubbling of black ink.  He gargled on it, choking and rasping while it dribbled down his chin and soaked into the ocean around him.

The water was already black with darkness, not a single ounce of moonlight allowing him to see where he was, and his dark vision offered nothing when he could barely keep his eyes open long enough to see what was going on.  The only light came from the occasional crack of lighting, but by that point, the electricity in Gillion’s head was so demanding that he could do nothing but freeze up and allow the sparks and shock to course through his body like a lightning rod sprung up on the top of a building.

In hindsight, Gillion could have probably recognized the simple solution to his problem being to dip deeper underwater where the storm couldn’t reach him.  But he wasn’t thinking rationally enough for that.  The only thing that he could focus on was the feeling of his lungs burning in his chest and his entire body aching so badly that it made it hard for him to even swim, his arms not wanting to move or his legs not wanting to kick.

He gargled and spit up more black ink, desperately searching around him through squinted, sore eyes to hope that there might be something nearby that he could hold onto or someone that would come as his saving grace.  

The acrid taste of black goo on his tongue made him gag, the ocean crashing against him and sending waves of salt water down his throat.  Gillion had swallowed so much that he felt as if his stomach was going to burst with all the water.

As he searched desperately, barely able to move any further in one direction without being whipped around by the wind and aggressive waves, Gillion found himself noticing a faint light in the distance.  

It was just enough that he could make out over the constant flashing of lightning, but far enough away that Gillion couldn’t tell what it was.  Possibly the warm, yellowish light of a lantern, possibly a ship.  Hopefully a ship.

Gillion braced himself and swam towards it like a deep sea fish towards the maw of a great angler.  He panted and couldn’t tell if there was sweat or just plain water running down his face.  His body protested each movement that he made, limbs sore and so tired of the swimming that he seemed particularly fond of the idea of allowing himself to just float aimlessly and probably drown in the raging waters.

But he pulled himself forward, his head dipping underneath the surface for a few moments, long enough that he managed to get turned around and lose sight of the light that he had originally been following.  Gillion whined and a crack of thunder caused him to flinch, the large white cap of a wave bombarding him like a cartridge of bullets raining down on him.  He coughed and spat out just as much water as he swallowed, gills flaring constantly and diaphragm moving up and down with the effort of inhaling when he really shouldn’t be.

Gillion found his light once more and pulled himself in that direction.  His arms pushed and pulled, the webbing between his fingers stretching as he tried to get as much surface area as possible, feeling as if he were wading through the thickest molasses that he had ever felt.

It seemed like the light wasn’t getting any closer.  He swam as hard as he could, desperately pulling himself through the water with actions and movements that should, in theory, come as natural to him as blinking and swallowing.  He gagged on something in his throat and didn’t even look to see what he had spit up, not wanting to take the time to investigate what he probably already knew.

While the light wasn’t getting any closer, it did seem to be getting brighter, glowing more and more apparent as he swam closer.  The waves crashed around him and lightning flashed, seeming to hit against the surface of the water right next to him, electric sparks rolling down his spine like shocks of static on a dry carpet.  The thunder that followed caused him to pin his ears closer to his skull, the sound penetrating deep within his very being as he tried not to shy away.

He still couldn’t make out the source of the light, whether it was a ship or better yet, some sort of remote island in the middle of the ocean.  Anything to get out of the raging, relentless storm.

Gillion swam for hours.  He choked and swallowed so much ocean water that he felt like he was going to throw up.  He gasped and wheezed, barely able to suck in panicked gulps of breath as his gills refused to work.  He forced his tail to move even though it felt like it was made of lead, barely wanting to aid Gillion in traveling toward the only thing that he could see in the endlessly storming ocean.

His arms were growing tired.  He was beginning to fear that he would never make it to whatever tantalizing light was on the horizon, even if he felt deep within his heart that it would ensure safety.  That would be his saving grace.  The light that he needed to get himself out of the storm and someplace safer so he wasn’t actively fighting for his life at every moment possible.

But he was so tired.  His body was exhausted and achy all over, and his chest burned with the weight of all the salt and water.  He cried and Gillion’s voice was so hoarse that he could barely make any sound louder than a whisper, let alone anything that might carry over the roaring of the waves.

Each kick of his legs became weaker and weaker, and the pull of his arms through the freezing cold water became less and less as he struggled to comb his fingers through the ocean.  Waves crashed against him and his head fell below the surface more and more times, taking longer for Gillion to regain his posture.

He wasn’t going to make it.  He knew that.

Deep in his soul, Gillion knew that whatever happened, he wasn’t going to make it to that light.  It was too far away and the storm was too heavy for him to keep going like this long enough to reach the saving grace.

Maybe it was a ship.  Or maybe it was an island.  Or maybe it was nothing at all except for a trick of the lights and some sort of odd illusion messing with Gillion’s mind.  He knew that the ocean often did strange tricks, putting on strange performances with the light that reflected off the surface.  Gillion reasoned that there had to be something there.

But he would never find out.  Not when each breath became harder for him to gulp down his aching and impossibly raw throat.  Not when he felt himself slipping below the surface with little effort from his gills to pick up the slack at his head going underwater.

Gillion reached out desperately, hoping and praying that maybe, someone or something would take pity on him and notice his blue form in the impenetrably dark waters.

He gasped and choked and coughed, and then his head sunk below for one last time, the sound of faint knocking filling his ears, the thunder rumbling all around him and practically rattling his skull.  His body failed him, muscles and strength finally going out as he listened to the aggressive cacophony of noises rage around him, his senses starting to fade away.

Gillion found himself falling once again, this time drifting down into the endless depths of the ocean with nothing but the sound of knocking in his ears.

Chapter Text

And then Gillion woke up to that same sound rattling his entire body.  A steady thump thump thump that echoed all around him, filling the space he was in and boring through his skull.

He jerked his eyes open, mouth opening and closing dumbly as he could still taste the burning sting of saltwater down his throat.  He reached up to his neck, palming at his gills and feeling the way that they fluttered against his hand, the sensation of him touching the incredibly sensitive lips made him jerk and twitch, a startled noise getting lost in the water that surrounded him.

He didn’t breathe in or gulp down the water fervently in an attempt to get some sort of oxygen.  The water was calm, his mind supplied very, very distantly that he was in his barrel, the bioluminescent light of his scales refracting off the inside edge of the container.  It sloshed lightly around him with the waves and every time he shifted, hands combing through the water.

Gillion sat there for a few moments, his tail rippling with pins and needles after having been wedged in an uncomfortable position beneath him, pinned to both the bottom and side of the barrel.  His legs were in a similar state of numbness while he tried to adjust himself.

He could still hear the crackle of thunder around him, the buzzing and popping of lightning and electricity against his coral.  The exhaustion that came with having swum so far, and so hard against the current, that it was a monumental effort just to move his body now that he was awake.

That wooden thumping was still there, pounding pounding pounding, like something being dropped against the lid of his barrel, pattering and echoing in the watery chamber.

Almost as if trying to block the sound, Gillion reached up to pull his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes shut and letting a small whimper get lost in the water.  But when his elbow thudded against the side of the barrel, mimicking the same tone and sound he heard overhead, he realized what was going on.

Someone was knocking on the lid of the barrel.  It was time to wake up, even if that message was hard to hear through a buffer of water.

Gillion blinked, shaking his head to clear his thoughts and hopefully come back to his senses.  He bit down hard on the inside of his mouth and shifted a bit inside his barrel so he could reach up and press his palms to the underside of the lid. 

Carefully, Gillion pushed it upwards, the knocking immediately ceasing with that subtle movement.  He grimaced as he stepped out, oddly sore and stiff from being curled up for so long in one position even though Gillion didn’t normally experience that issue.

As the faint light from the rest of the room filtered into Gillion’s pupils, he pulled himself up and over the surface of the water, a kind hand taking the lid of his barrel from him before he could accidentally drop it.  His now free claws curled around the edge of the wood, using that as an anchor to get his head above the water.

He coughed, the odd feeling of water draining from his gills and sliding all the way down his neck as if he had swallowed a large bit of mucus.  Gillion shuddered, brain working sluggishly as he still had to shake off the dregs of his dream (nightmare?  Gillion couldn’t tell what that was supposed to be).

Gillion glanced around through nervous and slightly unseeing eyes.  He almost expected to see the sleeping quarters around him in the same state as what he had seen in his dreams.  Or he expected to see something worse, the entire ship in ruins, water filling pooling on the floor from a leak sprung in the hole, his barrel trapped somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.

Instead, everything was normal, just as he remembered it before going to bed.  Gillion sucked in a gargled breath, his lungs rattling with the effort, his chest aching just at the action of breathing after going so long just using his gills.  Somehow, he was sore all over, something heavy weighing against his chest while he tried to breathe and catch his bearings.

“Hello~ Chip to Gillion,” A face leaned into Gillion’s line of sight, the moonlight curving easily across his features as he knelt down in front of the barrel.  Gillion flinched back instinctively as if it were some sort of monster trying to attack him.  His coral sparked and the crack resounded in the room as Gillion’s eyes widened, claws digging gouges into the side of his barrel.

He sucked in a shaky breath, eyes darting around for a second or two before settling on the form in front of him.

“Chip…” Gillion whispered, his voice barely audible over the crashing of waves against the side of the Albatross, rocking their ship back and forth in what would normally be a comforting rhythm.  But at the moment, it just sent stabs of anxiety in his chest.  He couldn’t help but hear the sounds of the thunder rumbling in the back of his mind and the rain pattering against his skin.

“Hey, you okay?” Chip asked, the flames of his tattoos flickering against his skin, creeping up his neck slowly.  He almost puffed out a small laugh, leaning his elbows on the edge of Gillion’s barrel to sink down to eye level with the Triton. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Gillion opened and closed his mouth dumbly, thoughts working slowly in order to digest what Chip had just said to him.  He was having a hard time pulling himself out of that dream, still stuck in the fight or flight survival instinct, trying to understand what was going on or searching for where something was wrong.

Hesitantly, Gillion reached out with a clawed hand to curl around Chip’s forearm.  He used that as an anchor to pull himself up further out of the water while he tried to stretch out his legs and to cling onto some semblance of reality.  His nails dug into the skin of Chip’s arm as he pulled himself up.

“Fine…” Gillion bit out, his voice slightly hoarse, throat burning with the vocalization.  He swallowed thickly and spit out a mouthful of water, shaking his head lightly as his hair fell in front of his face.  He groaned and slid his tongue across his lips, eyes squeezing shut for a moment.

“Woah,” Chip held out his other hand, taking Gillion’s arm and helping him stand on unsteady feet.  The Albatross rocked back and forth with the motion of the water, as well as the water in Gillion’s barrel pushing against his hips and causing him to stumble slightly. 

“I’m okay,” Gillion insisted, forcing his voice to work when his throat burned at the effort.  He gripped Chip’s arms like a lifeline, stumbling a little bit.

“Were you dreaming about something?” Chip asked, raising an eyebrow as he practically pulled Gillion up and out of the barrel. “You took a while to wake up.”  He slid his tongue across his lips and stared at Gillion curiously, studying the Triton.

Gillion leaned forward the pendant necklace around his neck swinging when he nearly tripped over himself in his attempt to get out of the barrel.  It hit against his sternum with a very faint thump as he leaned against Chip, the pearls rattling around his throat.

“My legs are numb,” Gillion admitted pointedly changing the subject as he held himself stiff in order to not immediately collapse with how shaky his legs were.  He didn’t want to tell Chip about his dream, it meant nothing and there was no point in bringing it up when there was nothing Chip would get from it.  His tail hit against the floor with a wet slap as it pulled over the edge of the barrel, dragging water with him.  He stood in a puddle of water as it dripped off his form.

“Oh,” Chip nodded in understanding, “Is your barrel too small for you now, we can get you something bigger if you need it so you aren’t waking up with numb legs every day.”

“No, no,” Gillon shook his head slowly, “It is alright, I must have been sitting wrong.” He wagged his tail experimentally to try and shake the feeling back into the limb as he shivered in the cold air of the room.  He reached up with one hand to curl around the large opal attached to his necklace, twisting the beads between his fingers idly as if it had, in such a short time, become a nervous habit.

Chip’s gaze fell to Gillion’s hand for a second, and Gillion quickly dropped it from the necklace in embarrassment, not wanting Chip to see his fidgeting.  But Chip just smiled tiredly and said nothing about it, sparing Gillion the shame.

“Well, if you get the feeling back in your legs, it’s your shift,” Chip reached out with a small shrug, placing his hand on Gillion’s shoulder and squeezing gently.

“Right, of course,” Gillion slid his tongue across his lips and curled his arms around himself.  Chip yawned and reached up to stretch his arms above his head before crossing to his side of the room where his cot was.

“Night, Gill,” Chip mumbled, rubbing his eyes and sliding his fingers through his hair.  

“Goodnight, Chip, sleep well,” Gillion responded with a small nod, forcing a hesitant smile when Chip looked back over his shoulder at him.  Chip winked as if he had just told some sort of joke, then gave Gillion a mock salute.

He toed off his boots and left them right where he stood, practically dropping his items like a doll falling apart at the joints.  He hung his swords up where they were supposed to go, dropping his coat to the floor and slipping out of his socks.  He undid the bandana around his head and his hair cascaded across his shoulders, fluffing up around his head before settling into frizzy, messy waves.

Gillion followed his movement for a few seconds, eyes tracing across the familiar look of the room, the small pile of dirty clothes that Chip had dropped in the corner near his bed, the clothes that were just now being added to it as Chip frantically pulled his shirt and shorts off to crawl into bed.  He observed the swords hanging on the wall precariously close to Chip’s bed and the posters that he had plastered to the wood. 

Chip’s corner of the room was so full of personality that Gillion was more than relieved to see the normalcy.  It was so Chip.  And there was no doubt about it that Chip belonged in that corner of the room.  His rumpled sheets became even more crumpled up as Chip unceremoniously flopped on top of it with a small groan.  He stuffed his face into the pillow and let out a small sigh, practically deflating.  The immature show of theatrics almost made Gillion laugh, but he swallowed it down and tried not to make any noise.

Gillion heard Jay mumble something in her sleep and shift a little bit, rolling over to her other side as the covers shuffled.  She talked a lot in her sleep according to Chip, but Gillion never heard since he was in his barrel all night.  She was still mumbling even after she had settled, useless words that Gillion couldn’t even understand.

As the silence settled back over the room like a cloud of dust, Gillion allowed his shoulders to slump and that tense, forced perfectly straight posture to settle just a little bit.  He reached up with one hand and dragged his palm down his face, rubbing his eyes to get the sleep out of them. 

He took a step forward, stretching his legs and shaking the feeling back into them the same way that he did for his tail.  He shook his entire body out, shaking his head, his shoulders, his arms, his hands, his feet.  When he shook his shoulders, he could feel the necklace thumping against his sternum, a weird sensation that he had not felt before.  

Gillion wasn’t used to having such a heavy (or at least heavier than his other necklace that he kept tucked into his shirt) pendant hanging from his throat.  He reached up again and curled his fingers around the opal as he did a short pace of the room, trying to get rid of the pins and needles.

The opal of the necklace fit nicely between his pointer and middle finger, fitting right underneath the webbing between them and allowing itself to be hugged by the flap of tissue.  And when he placed his thumb along the golden chain, he could feel the beads beneath his palm, silently mouthing the number in his head as he thumbed across each one.

There were three pearls on each side as well as two smaller opals.  Gillion could feel the difference between the two materials, the pearls always feeling right against his skin. 

Idly fidgeting with the necklace with his left hand, Gillion picked up his sword from where he had placed it before going to bed.  He leaned it up against his barrel for a moment, his hip pressing against the wood so that the sword had something to lean against in case it slid because of the waves.  Then, he wrapped his belt around his hips, buckling it tightly and making sure that it wouldn’t slip down when he moved.

He placed his sword at his belt and decided to skip putting on his armor tonight.  The waves were calm and Gillion figured he wouldn’t need it, it would just be a waste of time and energy to have to deal with strapping up the heavy metal plate mail.

All he needed was his sword at the very least, he could hold his own in a fight pretty well without it, and if not, he knew that he just had to wake up the rest of the crew if something went wrong.  Not that he figured anything would, it was a pretty calm night.  

Gillion’s ear twitched slightly as he listened to the sound of the waves pushing against the side of the Albatross, the ship rocking lightly.  Enough that Gillion could already hear Chip snoring from his side of the room, easily putting the man to sleep.  And since Chip knew conditions much worse than these, Gillion had to assume that his ease at falling asleep meant there was nothing to worry about.

Even if Gillion wasn’t as familiar with the conditions of the surface as he was with the conditions at the bottom of the trench, he knew that Chip and Jay were.  So when Gillion was nervous over the waves getting a bit too rough for his comfort, he could always check to see if Chip or Jay seemed to be getting a little stressed.  And if it looked like they were fine, or weren’t reacting at all to the massive waves thrashing their ship, Gillion knew there was nothing to be worried about.

Gillion did that now, using Chip and Jay’s calm as a way to reassure him, a comforting feeling spreading throughout the center of his chest as he thought about how the two of them seemed very calm at the moment.  Their breathing was even and the only sounds that filled the room were Chip’s snoring and Jay’s quiet mumbling.  It was nice.  It was a relaxing scene that Gillion often found himself drifting off to, or listening to just to calm the racing in his heart after a particularly nasty dream.

Reaching up, Gillion tugged at the necklace around his throat once again, taking a deep breath and feeling the weight of the opal settle against his sternum as he shuffled across the sleeping room towards the door.  He swallowed thickly and shook any last bits of anxiety out of his body, shaking the nightmare out of his head and forcing himself to think of the task at hand rather than lingering on false images he saw in his dream.

Not wanting to leave the top deck unattended for too long when they were trying to sleep, Gillion hastily made his way up the stairs the moment that he had exited the sleeping quarters (not needing to worry about being quiet so as to not wake the rest of the crew).  

His wet footsteps slapped against the wooden planks of the stairs as Gillion ascended them.  Destiny’s blade hit against his legs with every step that he took, the sheathed hilt bumping against his skin and providing a familiar and comforting weight to his belt, something that Gillion knew would be able to protect him if the need ever arose.  Gillion nodded to himself and placed his hand near his hip, tracing his fingers along the soft but slightly worn leather grip, feeling the familiar textures.

As soon as Gillion pushed out of the door that led to the top deck, he could feel a warm late night/early breeze hit against his face, the smell of salt filling his nose the moment that he stepped up onto the deck.  He smiled up at the sky where the moon was getting dangerously close to the horizon, feeling the warmth of its light against his skin.

The door swung shut behind him and he was left alone on the top deck with nothing but the sounds around him and his thoughts to fill the time.  Gillion slid his tongue across his lips and took a few steps forward, getting himself out into the open, quickly casting a few glances back and forth to either side of the ship and the horizon.

All he could see with his heightened night vision was the long stretch of endless black ocean, occasionally splattered with white speckles of stars or the white caps of waves that reflected with the moonlight.  It was like the sky had decided to fall down to Mana and coat the world in its glory.  

Gillion loved the look of a clear night sky like this one, especially when the waves were calm and would easily allow them to coast with just the faint wind in their sails and a vague destination in mind.  They knew what their goals were supposed to be, but whatever they found along the way would always come for them and give them something new to mess around with for a bit.  

Whatever came with the morning sun would set with it too.

Gillion placed his hand on the handle of his sword, palm pressing into the neat engraving near the grip, his fingers lightly tracing the patterns with his claws digging deep into the grooves.  Almost deep enough that Gillion carved them more pronounced, the feeling of metal against his skin refreshing, especially when it came from the blade that he knew and trusted.

He was happy that having to sit and watch didn’t require much, it was mostly that Gillion just sat above deck for a few hours just to make sure that no one would sneak up on them in the middle of the night.  Or that the conditions didn’t suddenly become dangerous with the unpredictability of the ocean life.  Or that some monster didn’t rise out of the depths.

Gillion would be glad to make sure that none of that stuff didn’t happen, but he had to admit that standing up on the top deck in the middle of the night was rather boring.  There was nothing he could do by himself, not without getting bored of the act pretty quickly.  He could train or sometimes when he had an earlier shift, he would call Caspian and they would train together.  

But having such a late shift meant that there was nothing for Gillion to do except sit and wait for the sun to rise, or occasionally swing his sword experimentally in the air, trying to master a new special move.  He didn’t want to do too much in case he might wake Chip or Jay or someone else who didn’t need to be woken up this early in the night.

In the meantime, while he waited for the sun to rise, Gillion paced up and down the length of the ship, holding his back straight and his chin pointed forward,  ears flared out around his head to listen to all the sounds around him.  And like a perfect soldier, Gillion walked the Albatross back and forth, making sure that no one would approach them from any direction.

He walked around the port side near the railing, footsteps lightly pattering against the deck as he crossed the length, following the natural curve of the top deck until he reached the bow.  Then he circled around and followed the length of the starboard side, his head occasionally swiveling out towards the water to make sure there was nothing on the horizon.

It was easier with his dark vision, it meant that he had an advantage when it was so dark.  He could see other ships faster than they could see the Albatross.

Though it would be easier if Gillion had an earlier shift, perhaps he and Chip should switch.  Then it would be the most advantageous for them with Gillion standing out during the darkest part of the night.  

But Chip and Jay still didn’t trust him to not take a longer shift than necessary and in turn, deprive himself of much-needed sleep.  It wasn’t Gillion’s fault that he lost track of time (though it was his fault that he purposely neglected to keep track of the hours as they passed).  He figured that he would be better about that now with his current mindset.  But he hadn’t brought up the idea of changing shifts to the other two captains.

Gillion considered that as he paced up and down the deck.  In the morning he’ll bring up the idea and see if they’re receptive to it, then they can plan something out.  That seemed like a good idea.  Gillion nodded to himself in acknowledgement, patting the sword at his hip.  His tail wagged behind him lightly with each step, and he just smiled to himself, proud that he had come to such a good conclusion.

He continued to pace the deck like a soldier doing drills, filling the silence of the night with his idle chirps and quiet footsteps, trying to occupy his mind so he didn’t lose it out of boredom.

With each step, the necklace hanging from his throat jumped against his sternum, falling back with a loud thump against the solid heavy bone.  Gillion was constantly aware of the new weight, still unused to its presence on his collar.  It was heavier than the necklace that Aslana had given him, which Gillion always kept tucked beneath the collar of his shirt.

Maybe it was because the majority of it was metal (compared to the lighter twine and beads that Aslana had used), or the heavy stone pendant in the center that made the weight much more significant to Gillion.  He could feel its weight against the back of his neck, the tug as the chain pressed against his skin, hanging in just the right way so that it avoided getting stuck in his gills.

Gillion fidgeted with it with his right hand, running his thumb along the texture of each bead, counting them in his head.  It was a lovely gift, one that Gillion cherished greatly.  He couldn’t help the pangs of fondness that swelled in his chest every time he thought about the origin of the necklace.  It was never something Gillion would get for himself (Gillion didn’t allow himself to indulge in such vanities), but the nacre-iridescence of the item made him think of his home.

The pearls reflected the light of the moon, shining in whatever light they were given and making them practically glow, mimicked by the beautiful shine of the opals, a slightly pinkish-blue in the dim night.  Gillion smiled at the item, feeling the chill of the opal press against the pads of his fingers as he traced his claws over it.

When he moved the stone back and forth, he could see the way that the light shifted, refracting different colors and patterns across the surface.  It reminded him of the undersea.  Maybe not of the trench, which was always so dark and full of bioluminescence that he really wasn’t used to seeing such pure glittering lights in so many colors, but the beautiful buildings he had seen closer to the surface.

It reminded him of the coral reefs that Edyn used to take him to when he was a very, very young guppy and hadn’t yet been taken for his duties as the chosen one.  Gillion barely remembered what they looked like, but he remembered all the colors and life and energy that would flow through the beautiful reefs.  

And the people there were so decorated with pearls and shells and everything painted in nacre that when the sun refracted from the crashing waves down on the surfaces below, it created an entire light show of glitter and colors.  It was breathtaking, even if Gillion only saw it once when he was younger, it had captivated him enough that the mere thought of it stuck with him.

Edyn used to wear pearls whenever she would visit Gillion, the beads easily shifting beneath Gillion’s hands as she held him tight while he soaked up as much of her comfort as he physically could.  She would weave them into his hair, and decorate his room with shells and colors as much as she could.  She would leave him strings of pearls that the elders would eventually cast away and destroy.  

So Gillion told her to stop bringing them because he didn’t like them (even though they were probably the only other item that Gillion could ever say he “loved” back then).  He couldn’t stand to see any more of her gifts tossed aside and destroyed, her money, her care, her attention, and thought to give him something nice thrown away with a flick of a wrist, or ground to dust.

Gillion hadn’t seen such shimmering pearls since he had left the undersea.  And even then, those pearls had been wrapped around the throats of the ones who had cast him out.  At that time, the iridescence shining from their baroque forms were accusatory eyes staring into his soul, condemning him to the worst damnation that he ever could have considered.

He hadn’t found as much solace in the items as he did when he was a kid after that.  

But in the oversea, pearls were much different.  Their meaning was different in the sense that they almost seemed to have less meaning here than in the undersea.

Rich people wore them for their status, they would sell at jewelry shops for way more gold than Gillion had ever seen.  Only the most special and glamorous people would possess them just to show off their own fortune since they could own such beautiful (and rare, according to Jay) pieces of nature.

They were a commodity that Gillion could never afford in the oversea.  Because they were a luxury item.  And Gillion could never (in good faith) allow himself such vanities.  They were something that was supposed to show off someone's fortune just because they could. 

It was almost heartbreaking to see every time Gillion noticed a string of them in the windows of shops.  Their price would be outrageous.  Something that would often be handmade for loved ones from the care and dedication of spoiling the ones closest to them would sell for more money than Gillion was ever allowed to hold on his person.  It would have horrified him if he had a better understanding of how the oversea money worked.  (Jay tried to teach him, but the conversion and math required went way over his head.  It was much simpler for him to understand in the undersea).

But now… Gillion stared at the necklace around his throat, stopping his incessant pacing across the length of the deck to admire it.  It wasn’t an entire string of pearls, since there were only about six total pearls attached to the chain.  But it was enough that the variety reminded him more of the jewelry constructed in the undersea rather than the novelty items worn by oversea people.

It reminded him of the necklaces he would see Edyn wear or the ones worn by his mother (a memory that bubbled up to the surface from so deep in the trenches of Gillion’s subconscious.  He couldn’t even remember the last time he saw his mother, but the shine of her pearls had stuck in his tiny guppy brain, captivated by the lights and colors).  It reminded him of that time that Edyn took him to see the reefs and all the colorful, exuberant people there.

It reminded him of a home that wasn’t in the castle with the elders, one that Gillion could actually look back to fondly as he was comforted by the smooth stones beneath his thumbs.

How Chip and Jay had managed to find something like this was absolutely beyond Gillion.  It had to be the work of some expert craftsman or at least someone from the undersea.  And finding places that sold anything from the undersea was just about as rare as finding someone else with the same skin color as Gillion in a normal town.  Things like that just didn’t happen often enough for Chip to be able to find that under the radar.

Which meant that it had to be some chance encounter.  Perhaps he had seen it at some shop that for some reason didn’t know the value of the necklace that they had.  Maybe there was some sort of shop selling undersea trinkets (which Gillion almost hoped wasn’t the case, because that would mean Chip had kept something like that from Gillion despite knowing how important that part of his culture would be).  

Or maybe (and Gillion really hoped this wasn’t the case, because he would have no choice but to promptly return the gift), Chip had paid quite the expensive sum needed to receive a necklace of this variety.

Gillion frowned slightly and looked down at the gem in his hands.  He sure hoped that Chip didn’t spend a lot trying to get something for Gillion, he didn’t deserve something that expensive.  There was too much risk for Gillion to break it or to lose it, or for something else to go wrong to prove that Gillion shouldn’t have such nice things.

If Gillion tried to dissect all of Chip and Jay’s motivations for the gift, he might lose his mind just thinking about it.  So he shook his head, a pit of something unpleasant settling in the center of his chest, steadily sinking deeper and making it uncomfortable for him to think.  Maybe it was guilt or insecurity, possibly something else.  He’d inquire about the necklace tomorrow in order to know what to do with it.  He couldn’t, in good faith, take such an expensive gift.

Gillion sucked in a sharp breath and nodded to himself, tracing out a solid plan in his head.  When Jay and Chip woke for the day, he would inquire about switching shifts with Chip as well as the origins of the necklace that he had given Gillion.  That seemed like a solid few things to talk about, and then he could get any miscommunication out of the water.

Proud of himself for coming up with such a good plan for the day so far, Gillion nodded and patted the hilt of his sword, resuming his pacing across the deck.  He let out a quiet trill, ears flicking back and forth to listen to the sound of the waves pushing against the side of the Albatross, gently rocking the ship back and forth while the wind whipped in the sails.

As he neared the bow of the ship, Gillion felt a small temptation tugging in the pit of his stomach to climb his way up to the figurehead (a place he often liked to perch at).  His tail wagged back and forth behind him, the fin flicking slightly.

It started with a quiet, nagging feeling, an urge almost like whenever Gillion got that itch in his gut that he needed to go out and spar with someone to get out some nervous energy.  Something that Gillion would probably benefit from at the moment, he was bored, a little tired, and definitely needed the adrenaline boost to wake himself up.

Gillion stared at the top of the figurehead just peeking up over the railing at the bow and he found that it was hard to pull his gaze away, that tugging sensation in his stomach getting worse the longer that he stood there doing nothing.  He didn’t want to continue his pacing around the ship anymore, it was boring and he was tired of it.  But sitting around doing nothing seemed just as boring, if not a waste of time if he were just sitting there.

But Gillion reasoned with himself that the bow of the ship would probably give him a better vantage point than his current one.  He could see everything that they were sailing towards without the obstruction of the sails or the rigging or the mast.  He would be able to see just the open ocean as they approached it.

He could just go up to the crow’s nest, that was pretty much what the area was designed for (according to Jay, when Gillion had inquired about it), but Gillion never really liked climbing all the way up there to sit.  The height made him nervous, and Gillion wasn’t as used to being so high up in the oversea when gravity and falling actually had weight and danger to them.  So that kind of stuff made him a little nervous.

Gillion swallowed thickly and slid his tongue across his lips.  He looked over either shoulder at the deck around him, almost a little insecure about the urge that he wanted to indulge in, as if Chip or Jay would promptly stomp up the stairs and demand to know why he was slacking off with his duties.  Even if he knew that both his co-captains were asleep, it didn’t stop him from fretting.

That feeling in his stomach weighed deep in his gut, sinking deeper and deeper and filling his entire torso with lead.  Gillion fidgeted with the necklace around his throat, and then carefully crept closer to the edge of the ship, his footsteps lightly shuffling across the deck as he did his best to be quiet.  He hoped that the dripping of water droplets from his form would be unheard below decks.

Gillion scarcely breathed as he approached the bow of the ship, the railing close enough for him to grab onto with shaking clawed hands.  He swallowed again past the lump in his throat and felt his gills flaring on the sides of his neck.  He shivered with a sudden gust of wind and once again looked over his shoulder and around the quiet, empty deck.

Since he had better night vision than the rest of the crew, Gillion hadn’t lit the lantern near the staircase to the lower decks like Chip and Jay often did.  He had no use for the trivial item and actually found that it hurt his eyes less if he didn’t have the flame lit.  But right now, that only seemed to make the shadows of the Albatross stretch and warp in ways that made Gillion almost paranoid. 

He could see shadows moving behind a barrel, something skittering in the darkness as it quickly darted behind the realm of cover.  He could see what almost looked like a figure bouncing back and forth across the width of the ship in a jaunty but taunting waltz.  

And when the wind whipped, the moon hiding behind a stretch of clouds, everything seemed to darken significantly, the sound of the sails whipping and chortling almost making Gillion think of wolves howling (a sound that he had only heard once more and found very disturbing).

Gillion pulled his shoulders up to his ears and sucked in a sharp breath, eyes darting across the deck of the Albatross as if he knew something was waiting in the darkness to pounce at him.  He reached out with his right hand and wrapped it around the hilt of Destiny’s blade, the familiar worn patches of the leather grip fitting the curve and pressure of his hands.

He narrowed his eyes, pupils blown wide as he struggled to see in the pitch darkness, the moon obscured by the clouds.  It was darker than what he could normally see, or maybe Gillion just thought it was darker and his eyes were playing tricks on him.  

He spread his legs and lowered himself into a fighting stance, his tail maneuvering to adjust for the switch in balance, ready to spring at any sudden movement.  His fins flicked and he listened back and forth, head tilting to each side with his finned ears fanning out around his face to judge where each sound was coming from.

Gillion listened.  And he waited.  And he stared at the deck around him, waiting for something to happen.

The shadows continued to move.  The moon popped out from behind the clouds and dropped shimmering pools of light across the wooden floorboards of the deck, caressing each object in a familiar, reassuring glow, one that Gillion took great solace in.  He let out a sigh, figuring that the movement of the shadows came from the way that the sails flicked and whipped back and forth with the unruly gusts of wind that occasionally would coast by.

He relaxed his shoulders and released his grip on his sword, reaching up with one hand to smooth his fingers through his bangs, feeling quite foolish at the sudden bout of fear.  

There was nothing to be afraid of, and there certainly wasn’t anything that could get on the ship that Gillion Tidestrider wouldn’t be able to best in combat.  He had been brought up to be a champion, a warrior, a hero (a weapon), and he had the strength and skills to prove it.  Even if his dexterity and balance on the oversea were limited tremendously by his inexperience with gravity and maneuvering on land.

He shook his head slowly and chastised himself for being frightened by nothing.  Then, he turned back to the bow of the ship where the figurehead stood just as proud as ever.

A shiver ran down Gillion’s spine at a sudden gust of cold air that blew his hair in front of his face.  He sucked in a sharp breath and moved his bangs away, ears flicking in protest when his hand brushed the sensitive ears.  He trembled unwillingly as he hooked his hands around the railing, nails digging so deep into the wood that he was sure that gouges would be formed.

Slowly, and very hesitantly, Gillion hoisted himself up and over the railing of the Albatross, his tail swinging side to side to account for the shift in balance.  He chewed on the inside of his mouth and furrowed his eyebrows, sliding his hands across the wooden railing and finding purchase on the closest anchor point that he could grab onto.

Then, he crawled down on his hands and knees with his palms hooking around the expertly carved wood and the very heavy statue of Pretzel that had been placed at the front of the Albatross.  He felt the wind shudder against his back, threatening to throw him off balance as his heavy tail dragged a bit against the wood and then suddenly dropped from the railing that it was balanced on with no warning, nearly taking Gillion with it.  

He held back a yelp of surprise, unsure why he was suddenly so shaky about being this far over the railing, knowing that he had sat here many times before without so much of an issue besides Jay fretting over him and telling him to get down.  Gillion shook his head slowly to try and rid any scared or insecure thoughts, he was stronger now and had a bit more grasp on how to balance on the overseas.  There weren’t as many risks to his impromptu perch as there were before.

Gillion slid his tongue across his lips, feeling the sharp point of his teeth pressing into the blue flesh.  He swung his leg on either side of the frontmost portion of the ship, straddling the beam with his hands outstretched to curl around it so that he didn’t lose his balance.  Then, when he was sure that he was held on properly (going so far as to painstakingly wrap the end of his tail around the railing behind him), he braved a look out into the horizon.

Just like Gillion had reasoned with himself before, the view from the bow of the ship was much nicer than he ever could have gained from the top deck of the ship.  It was unobstructed by any ropes or fabric from the sails and he had a very clear view of whatever they were approaching from the front and a limited but still pretty wide view of everything around them.

If Gillion continued to swivel his head back and forth, he could continue his watch pretty much the exact same as before with little interruption, only that now he didn’t have to walk up and down the length of the ship.  Gillion smiled to himself and nodded, happy at his current perch and glad that he had given into the sudden urge to clamber up here.

He could feel the breeze in his hair, the air combing against his fins and causing him to shake a little bit with the familiar and friendly crispness of the morning air as the moon sank deeper and deeper into the horizon.  He couldn’t yet see the small peek of the sun from its place in the sky, but he relished in the early part of the morning when it was still dark and chilly.

Gillion sucked in deep breath after deep breath, feeling the air in his lungs and feeling the way that his chest would rise and fall, his heart hammering at a steady rhythm against his rib cage.  He shook out his hair and shifted a bit where he sat, scooting just a bit further out onto the board that he was sitting on, unsure of how sturdy it would hold his weight, but knowing that he had survived sitting up here before. 

(Not to mention it wouldn’t be a big deal if Gillion did end up falling off the ship, considering he jumped off the side of it willingly often enough).

As the minutes stretched into hours, Gillion found himself relaxed at the gentle feeling of the waves pushing against the side of the Albatross, the sound filling his ears as the white caps burst against the hull, curling over each other and sinking into the ocean with a splatter of white foam.  He traced the line of the horizon with his eyes, finding that his vision failed him so far out, but it was enough that he could see anything within alarming distance of them.

Thankfully there was nothing.  His watch went by, as most of them did, slowly and boring with little interruption.

Destiny’s blade rattled at his hip when the wind blew against him too hard, and Gillion tightened his belt with one hand, the other still wrapped around the wooden board that he had sat on.  He pulled his shoulders back and stuck his tongue out from between his teeth, struggling to yank on the strap to make sure that his belt (and consequently his sword) didn’t tumble into the ocean.  That would be unfortunate, Gillion had already lost one sword, he didn’t need to prove how irresponsible he would be with a second.

He tightened his belt and went back to watching the horizon.  Gillion chewed on the inside of his mouth and hummed a small tune to himself, a simple song that he had heard Jay humming underneath her breath whenever she worked.  He didn’t know what it was called or how it was actually supposed to go, but he was always fond of whenever Jay would hum or sing, he found her voice entrancing.

Gillion nodded his head softly to the beat of the song and drummed his fingers on the wooden board, the end of his tail flicking happily with his content as he stared out at the ocean.

Sometimes it was nice to just sit and watch the water when there was no one else around and he knew that there was nothing else that he should be doing but watching the water.  He didn’t feel guilty not participating in the proper activities when really, this was the best place that he could sit.

It was relaxing.  Gillion was enjoying himself.

The moon crept deeper towards the water, almost the faintest bit of pink caressing the water on the lip of the horizon.  If Gillion had to take a guess based on what he remembered from Jay teaching him how time worked in the oversea, it had to be around four or five in the morning.  

Gillion patted his pockets and thought about the watch that Jay always held in the inside pocket of her coat.  Perhaps it would be a good idea to pass it around during shifts so they all would be able to accurately tell when they were supposed to switch.  He could add that to the list of other things he wanted to bring up to Chip and Jay when everyone woke up.

While Gillion was distracted thinking about the time and watches and all the things that he wanted to talk about with Chip and Jay when they woke up, he must have missed the sound of footsteps on the deck approaching him.  He blamed the fact that he was tired and not fully aware of his surroundings to his lapse in observation.

But as Gillion sat above the figurehead, far past the railing on the Albatross, he felt a pair of cold hands slide against his shoulders, the unmistakable sensation of a shove causing him to jolt.  A small yelp pulled from his lips and he wrapped his tail tighter around the railing behind him, nails digging into the wood.  

The feeling was light enough that it could have almost passed off as a joke, but solid enough that Gillion felt it on his back.  If he were not holding on so well to the board that he was currently sitting on, he certainly would have tumbled off the front of the ship into the ocean.

Gillion held on, a laugh bubbling in the back of his throat as he turned to face his prankster.  He could almost hear the sound of Chip’s choked snorts as he laughed over his lap at the current joke he had decided to play on Gillion.  He smiled while he looked back, ears flaring out around his face expectantly, judging the sounds around him.

Behind him, Gillion stared at the empty deck with any sounds dying on his tongue.  His smile dropped and Gillion pulled his shoulders back in defense as he stared at the completely desolate space around him.  

There was no one there.  No Chip, no Jay, not even Ollie who was prone to a prank or two (no doubt because of Chip’s influence).

Gillion was alone.  It was still too early for anyone on the crew to reasonably be awake.  Gillion was the only one awake.

Despite that, he found himself calling out, “Chip?”

No response.  

Gillion’s voice seemed to rattle across the top deck, causing his ears to twitch back and forth as he listened to every possible sound.  

He tried to filter out the sound of the waves, the wind, the sails snapping into place, and all the sounds that might dissuade him from being able to hear anyone on the top deck.  He listened for movement or breathing or anything that might tell him he wasn’t alone.

Because he couldn’t be alone, right?  He had felt hands on his back, felt the light shove towards the open ocean.  Gillion knew there had to be someone there.  He wasn’t just imagining sensations that weren’t real, there was no way that his brain would come up with something like that.

“I don’t find this joke funny,” Gillion said, barely loud enough for his voice to carry across the deck.  His heart hammered in his chest as he darted his eyes across the deck, fervently looking for some evidence of a prank or proof that he wasn’t just imagining things in the middle of the night.

Still, there was nothing.  No sound to indicate that anyone had heard him call out, or the sounds of other life on the top deck of the ship.  Gillion was alone and everything was silent.  Silent enough that Gillion could feel his ears ringing with the strain to listen into something, his mind rattled a bit.

The end of his tail flicked nervously, and Gillion reached up to curl his fingers around the chain of his necklace, running the metal between his fingers as he held himself stiff as a board.  Now, with the feeling of phantom sensations tingling across his skin, body shivering in response to the cold hands that had been placed on his back, he felt on edge, no longer calmed by the feeling of the wind.

Each breeze felt hostile and oppressive as if something were trying to knock Gillion off the edge of the ship to send him tumbling into the depths below.  As if there were someone out to get him.  Someone wanting to do him harm.

It certainly didn’t help that Gillion felt a bit unsteady now, he normally would let Ollie or Chip indulge in whatever prank that they felt would be the most satisfying at the time.  Gillion had gotten pushed off the railing of the ship several times, he knew that he would be fine from the fall and could swim comfortably beside the ship for a few moments before climbing back aboard.  But why did the sensation now feel so much worse than all the other times one of his crew members had playfully sent him tumbling?

Gillion slid his tongue across his lip, dropping his hand from fidgeting with the necklace in favor of getting a better grip on the board that he was sitting on.  He hesitantly and very slowly began to creep a bit forward, pulling himself closer to the railing with his tail still coiled tightly around the wood, his fins flicking back and forth.

He tried to listen for something that might give him a clue as to what was going on.  What joke he was missing out on or what important thing he was missing.  But as he tried to focus his hearing, it seemed as if, for a moment, everything had gone silent.  Not even the sound of the waves registered in Gillion’s mind, filtered out beyond all the static in order to focus on what he needed to hear.

Maybe the person was hiding underneath the railing where Gillion was unable to see.  He would jump down from the figurehead and they would pop out excitedly with a boo! Or something else that was supposed to scare Gillion.  And then he would yelp and throw his hands up and put on a funny reaction because that’s what they were looking for.

Gillion pulled himself closer to the edge of the railing, his arms were shaking and he could still feel hands and fingers skirting across his back, ghosting against his skin and poking at him.  The sensation was weird.  As if the feeling had lingered with little phantom tingles of pins and needles that left him shivering and trembling.

He swung one leg over the right side of the railing and sat it down on the deck, his feet meeting the wood easily as he leaned his weight on that side.  With all the movement, his sword clattered a bit at his hip, hitting against the railing while he climbed over it, placing himself firmly on the deck of the Albatross as if he had never left the top deck in the first place.

Slowly, he allowed his tail to uncurl from the railing and dropped his shoulders from their tense, raised position.  He sucked in a deep breath and felt the way that his chest expanded at the movement.

The moment that he set foot back on the deck of the ship, it was like a swell of noise and sensations.  As if when he had set foot back on the Albatross, at the same time, Gillion had stepped back into himself, unsure when it had started to feel like he was away, but knowing that now he was back.

Everything around him felt like so much now after the initial vacuum of silence had been breached and Gillion was left to take in all the sounds around the Albatross.  The waves were so loud they practically crashed against his ears.  The wind snapped in the sails and Gillion flinched, hand twitching in the direction of his sword.  Their ship creaked and rocked with the ocean, the lantern thumped against its post and Gillion could hear the idle groaning of everything on the ship.

He swallowed thickly past the lump in his throat, holding his hand at the hilt of his sword.  Gillion could feel eyes on the back of his neck, causing him to shiver and for his heart to hammer aggressively against his rib cage like a bloodhound sniffing out something awful and begging to be released to find it.

Gillion decided to do a sweep of the top deck.  That would calm his nerves and prove to him that there was no one else awake at the time and he was just imagining things in his exhaustion and distraction.  It must have been the wind brushing against his back, or the way that his shirt sat weirdly against his dorsal fin playing tricks on his mind.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.

But that didn’t stop all the paranoid thoughts from roaring around in Gillion’s mind, the threats of intruders or enemies forcing his hand and urging him forward.  He walked along the port side of the ship toward the stern, stopping to check behind each and every barrel or crate that he saw, lifting the unsecured lids of a few of them to glance inside with just as much suspicion as a police officer looking for an escaped convict.

He worked thoroughly, checking every nook and cranny and listening for some sign of life, human or not.  He sniffed the air, searching for something, and only got the scent of the saltwater all around him, filling his nose with a reassuring scent that almost calmed his nerves at the thought of his home and the place where he still held an agonizing amount of devotion.

When he reached the stairs to the lower decks, Gillion crossed the width of the ship and walked along the starboard side, doing the same thing that he had done on the other.  The entire time, his hand was curled firmly around the hilt of his sword, making him almost a bit twitchy, like there was a fight bound to happen somewhere, but Gillion hadn’t gotten to it yet.  

He felt like there needed to be something for him to fight.  Some sort of enemy that would make his fears tangible.  It would prove that he wasn’t losing his mind or just allowing his brain to play tricks on him in the middle of the night.  That way he could pat himself on the back and congratulate himself on being so observant and able to tell such minuscule things apart on the ship.

If there was nothing there?  Gillion would be a fool for nothing, scaring himself at the mere sensation of something unknown on his back.

And as it seemed, after pacing the deck twice, thrice, four times, Gillion concluded that there was nothing there.  No one else was on the top deck, and the rest of the crew was asleep.

Gillion chastised himself for being scared of nothing but maybe a bit of wind and shook his head slowly, taking deep breaths to calm his nerves.

He was more than certain that he had felt something on his back earlier, freezing cold hands colder than Chip’s hands could ever be (how Gillion could have assumed such cold hands were Chip’s was beyond him).  They had tried to push Gillion off the edge of the ship.  He was sure of that.  

He had felt it after all, and Gillion didn’t doubt his own senses like that.

But he also trusted his eyes, his sense of smell, and his hearing.  And all three of those senses told him that there was no one there but himself.  Even after he continued to pace the deck, looking for something that might be wrong or out of place.  The entire time, he kept his hand firmly wrapped around the hilt of his sword, ears flared around his head in high alert.

By the time he could see the full circle of the sun rising over the horizon, Gillion had all but convinced himself that he had imagined the entire situation in a moment of exhaustion and lack of sleep from being awake so early.  There was no one there.

He fidgeted with the necklace around his throat, careful not to drag the chain over his gills as he passed the beads between his fingers and twisted the pearls.  He squeezed the opal in his palm and used the smooth sensation of it to calm his nerves, watching the sky shift from the darkened black to a few shades of orange and red, and then to the soft easy blue of the day.

In the light of the sun, even if it hurt his eyes more than the moon, Gillion could take solace in the fact that it was much harder to hide on an open deck when there weren’t as many shadows to twist and warp and make Gillion see things that weren’t there.  

As the sun warmed his skin and the sound of Jay’s gentle footsteps approached from the lower decks, Gillion put everything that he had felt last night behind him, trying to push it to the back of his mind with a deep breath.  It was nothing and had never been anything of note, definitely nothing to get himself all worked up about.

Gillion’s watch was over and the day was starting as Jay sleepily pushed open the door to greet the morning air, breaking the spell that had settled over the top deck like a wet blanket.

Chapter Text

Jay yawned as she stepped through the door to the top deck,  rubbing her eyes with one hand as she tried to shake herself from the grasps of sleep that had taken hold of her.  She allowed the door to swing shut behind her, the wind immediately blowing her frizzy hair in front of her face unceremoniously, and Jay barely made a move to brush it away.

Her boots thumped against the wooden deck in the familiar way that Gillion was used to, her footsteps distinct and audible enough that he could specifically focus on where she was on the ship.  Gillion’s ear twitched and he allowed his hand to drop from the hilt of his sword, his shoulders drooping a little bit in relief that he was no longer alone.  The end of his tail twitched, the fins lightly slapping against the ground.

Jay was dressed in normal everyday clothes, having already gotten dressed for the day before she had even woken up fully, evident in the way that her eyelids drooped tiredly.  She wore a pair of pants (that may have at one point started in Chip’s wardrobe) cinched tightly around the waist as they sagged a bit in the crotch and around the legs, a faint striped pattern long faded into the fabric.  They were covered in patches and rips and places that had needed a ton of needlework just to get to fit again. 

She also wore a puffy white shirt with a frilled lacy collar that puffed up underneath her chin and rustled in the wind, the sleeves bunching up around her wrist.  The fabric had faded into a faint cream color over time, but Gillion knew that it was supposed to be white.  He could see the stitches and creases where Jay had needed to stitch up the garment after a lot of wear and tear of the old clothes.

As she stepped up to the top deck, stopping just in front of the door, she was just getting around to lacing up the half corset she had cinched over the top of her shirt, her fingers working easily with the strings, a small hum buzzing in the back of her throat.  She sniffed and tucked the laces behind the top of the corset, adjusting it so that it sat right on her waist. 

She looked up at Gillion with a tired smile, reaching up to rub her face, “G’morning Gill.”

“Good morning, Jay,” Gillion nodded to her, sliding his tongue across his lips, he crossed the length of the ship to greet her.  She pushed her hair away from her face and turned her head to glance at the horizon where the sun was still in the process of rising.

“How was your watch?” Jay asked, bumping her shoulder against Gillion’s, causing him to lurch a little bit.  Gillion smiled awkwardly and flicked his ear in Jay’s direction, still trying to shake the unease from last night.  Jay sucked in a deep breath and leaned back to stretch her arms high above her head with a small groan.

Gillion chewed on the inside of his mouth, his sharp teeth digging into the inside lining of his cheeks.  He considered admitting to Jay what he thought he had felt, but then there was a voice in the back of his mind telling him that she would think he was crazy.  He had already convinced himself that it didn’t actually happen and was just part of his imagination.  There was no use getting Jay worked up over nothing.

So, with hesitation in his tone, he told her, “It was uneventful…”

Jay clicked her tongue and nodded, “Yeah, that’s good at least, it was pretty boring when I was up here too,” she waved her hand in a loose circular gesture, “but I mean it’s good to have nothing happen then get attacked in the middle of the night.  That’s never fun.”  She laughed at that, and Gillion picked up that it was a joke he was supposed to laugh at as well, so he gave a faint, nervous chuckle.  Jay was satisfied with that reaction.

She glanced at Gillion with another faint smile and crossed the ship to the railing to lean her arms on the top of it.  She tilted her chin up towards the sky and let the wind comb through her hair, feeling the salty breeze drain the sleepy exhaustion from her face.  Her fingers traced the grain of the wood as she stared out into the horizon.

“It’s going to be a pretty nice day out, what do you think?” Jay looked over her shoulder at Gillion who was still standing a few feet away near the door.  He blinked and reached up to curl his hands around the opal of his necklace, idly messing with it.  Jay’s eyes darted toward his hand, immediately noticing his movement, but he couldn’t feel the judgement in her gaze.  He still dropped the fidgeting anyway.

“It is nice out already,” Gillion forced himself to move, his tail lightly swishing back and forth behind him as he walked, the fin at the end of it twitching with each step.  The wind whipped in the sails, causing them to snap into place as it coasted them along the surface of the ocean.  The scent of salt filled the air from a steady mist that gathered near the railings from the waves that caused their ship to rock back and forth.

He settled next to Jay at the railing, his hands hesitantly reaching out in order to curl his fingers around the wooden bar.  He shifted his weight from foot to foot, unsure whether he should look over at Jay or follow her gaze out into the horizon.  When he did end up glancing over at her expression, she wore a faint smile, her eyes crinkled at the sides, frizzy bangs falling in front of her forehead.

Jay promptly stretched her arm out straight, splaying her palm towards the horizon where the oranges were shifting and fading into hesitant blues.  There were no clouds in the sky at the moment, all of them clearing and fading away as they traveled further and further towards whatever destination decided to put itself in their path.  But that left the open sky and the open sea for them to explore while they sailed.

“Clear blue skies, open sun, steady breeze,” Jay shut one eye and tilted her head, appearing to measure something with the distance between her hand and something on the horizon.  But Gillion didn’t know what she was doing, she didn’t offer an explanation, so Gillion didn’t ask.  “Wind in our sails and not a single other ship in sight, we’ll be sailing well today.”

Jay patted her hips where she had tightened her tool belt after getting dressed, her fingers combing around the items that she had belted and stuffed in the many pockets.  Gillion watched her hands move across the front of her hips to find where she had clipped her spyglass.  She found it and with a deft motion, unclipped it and unfolded it just as quickly.

She lifted it to her eye and stared out at the horizon, leaning her stomach against the railing and letting the wood press into her torso.  Gillion watched as she stuck her tongue out between her lips in her focus, still observing and measuring something.  It almost looked like she was mouthing something under her breath, words that Gillion couldn’t hear forming on her lips.

Gillion watched her for a few seconds, squinting out into the distance to try and possibly spot what Jay might be seeing with her spyglass.  He let out a hesitant trill, the sound bubbling up from the back of his throat faster than he would be able to swallow it down.

Jay jumped at the noise, her shoulders pulling back a bit as she seemed to remember that Gillion was there.  She took a step back and turned towards him, the spyglass still held up to her eye as she pointed it directly at Gillion’s face.  Gillion leaned back, holding onto the railing for balance as his tail slapped against the top deck.

He could see Jay’s eye magnified through the wrong end of the spyglass, her eye wide while the blue iris seemed to reflect in the darkness of the end that she was looking into.  She held him in an awkward case of singular eye contact for a few seconds, her other eye squeezed shut with her lips twitched into an odd sort of smile.

When Gillion tried to look away first, Jay broke out into a fit of giggles, pulling the spyglass away from her face.  She doubled over herself as if it were the funniest thing in the world.  Gillion didn’t fully get what the point of the joke was, but perhaps it had something to do with the spyglass being used to see things from far away… and admittedly looking at Gillion (who was right next to her) would defeat the purpose of the glass.

But her smile was practically contagious as Gillion managed even the most hesitant grin with a just as nervous chuckle.  His ear flicked in her direction while she calmed herself down, fanning her face as she shook her head a little bit.  She leaned her elbow on the railing of the ship and lifted her head enough to glance at Gillion through half-lidded eyes, her entire face scrunched up in a wide grin.

With one hand, she reached up to tuck some of her bangs away from her face, using her other to press the wide end of the spyglass against her stomach, the weight of that just serving to collapse it against herself so she could clip it back to her belt.  Jay slid her tongue over her lips and her giggling settled to just a few more chuckles before she had completely worn out whatever joke she had made.

Gillion awkwardly shifted his weight from foot to foot, listening to the sound of the waves crashing against the side of the Albatross and feeling each breeze brush against him.  Every time the wind hit against his back, Gillion could swear that he felt the ghosting presence of hands skittering across his shoulders, threatening to push harder this time, threatening to get him when he was off balance.  He could almost imagine the presence behind him, the freezing cold touch of another unknown being.

Gillion spared a glance over his shoulder, digging his nails deeper into the railing just next to him.  The only thing behind him was the empty deck.  That was almost the most unsettling part of it all.

Now that the sun had at least partially risen, most of the morning still left for the sleeping crew, it almost felt like there should be more activity.  Or at least Gillion wished that there was more activity so he could shake off the dregs of unease that left the Albatross feeling like a ghost ship in his mind.  Gillion knew that many of the other members of the crew—Chip especially—would not wake until much later in the morning when the sun had pretty much finished its ascent to the early afternoon.

But the ship felt empty, like although he knew that everyone else was still asleep, they should be awake.  They should be up and about with more activity than Gillion could keep up with sometimes.  Alphonse would be up first at the helm before anyone else besides Gillion and Jay had woken up.  He would greet the both of him with the tip of his hat and a welcome good morning and then he would relatively quietly slip off to man the wheel.  Sometimes they would chat more, but Alphonse was often a quiet presence aboard the ship.

Then Ollie would wake up and start bouncing around the ship to make up for the time lost after Chip had sent him to bed early.  He would get into everything that he could, entertaining himself with Jay and Gillion (often the only ones awake at the time besides Alphonse), or would sit himself down to fish off the side of the ship.  Sometimes, early enough in the morning, Gillion would take to teaching Ollie how to fight, training him with wooden swords in the gentle way that Gillion wished he had been treated when he was younger.  And Ollie would excitedly follow along with his teaching, occasionally asking to take a break because he was bored.

Then Earl would painstakingly get himself out of bed to yell at them all for being too loud so early in the morning, even though at that point it wouldn’t be that early anymore.  Gryphon would take a position on the top deck, wandering around the ship to find things to do, and usually ended up getting involved with whatever Ollie was going to do.  Often encouraging the younger boy in his endeavors or egging him on in the odd way that Gryphon liked to get entertainment out of Ollie.

At this point, depending on how late in the morning it was getting, Jay would continue to check her pocket watch regularly, slamming it shut with an irritated click as if she were upset with the passage of time.  Then, after long enough she would stomp down the stairs to drag Chip out of bed, not wanting him to sleep in too long since he was a captain too and needed to be doing things.

Queen would then come above with their instrument and would flit between Alphonse at the helm or participating in whatever Gryphon was doing at the moment.  But they would always fill the air with chatter or song or just music from their instrument.  It was enough to keep the ship from getting too quiet (although there was never really quiet aboard the Albatross).

Then Drey and Finn would be up and about some time after that, getting in and out of bed depending on how the day would go, Drey making much more appearances than Finn who often liked to stay below decks right now.  But those two would often wander about as they liked, appearing or disappearing at the most random times.

That was the routine that Gillion was used to.  He was used to the ship being so full of energy that there were so many things for him to do so he would never get bored or tired of his current tasks.  But it seemed that the events of his watch had short-circuited his brain and made it so that the morning seemed to speed up exponentially, making him feel that it should be much later in the day than it was.

As Gillion stared over his shoulder, worrying at his lower lip at how the day was going to go; Jay, following his gaze, seemed to take a different interpretation, her eyes falling on the closed door to the lower decks.  She furrowed her eyebrows and sucked her cheeks in to bite on the flesh on the inside of her mouth.

She clicked her tongue and Gillion immediately pulled his gaze back to her face, finding that keeping eye contact with her today was much more difficult than it usually was.  Gillion’s ears drooped a little bit and he rubbed his arm awkwardly, a pit of something unpleasant weighing in his stomach.

Jay reached into her pocket and pulled out her pocket watch, the small golden embellished item fitting snugly in her palm as she flicked it open with a satisfying click.  She regarded the face of the watch with her eyebrows slightly furrowed, thoughts that Gillion didn’t know how to decipher flashing across her face.  Gillion’s eyes drifted towards the object and he remembered what he wanted to bring up with Jay while he was on shift.

He opened his mouth to say something, his voice catching in his throat before he could even start to form the words on his tongue.  A pit of doubt opened in the center of his chest, causing him to clam up as he thought about suggesting something to change their routine.

“I’m giving Chip an hour,” Jay interrupted, not seeming to notice Gillion’s pathetic attempt to bring up the topic of her watch as she slid her tongue across her lips.  She squinted at the watch in her hand before snapping it shut and stuffing it back in her pocket like it was the most carefree motion in the world.  

As the watch disappeared into the depths of her pocket, so did Gillion’s wavering confidence to start up a conversation.  He swallowed thickly and wrung his hands nervously, staring down at Jay’s pockets.  A feeling that Gillion didn’t know how to define welled up in space behind his ribs, making his chest tighten.

Gillion knew that Jay’s watch was important to her, it was something that she always kept on her person.  She didn’t seem to enjoy parting with it, always a bit fidgety whenever Chip would borrow it from her to make his plans or do whatever he needed the time for.  She was protective over it, Gillion was protective enough over his own items that he knew what it looked like from someone else.

So maybe it was selfish of Gillion to ask Jay to give up her watch for something as trivial as keeping shift.  Their system was good enough as it was, there was nothing broken about it so there was no need to fix it.  Jay always woke Chip on time, and Chip always woke Gillion when it was late enough into the night for them to switch.  Although Chip was better at telling time with the night sky than Gillion was, so maybe it was a good thing that he had the last shift.

He realized now that last night’s considerations were just a bunch of exhausted thoughts that shouldn’t have any meaning to Gillion now in the morning.  It was worthless to him.  They weren’t good ideas anyway.

It was almost as if Jay could sense the spiraling thoughts spinning through Gillion’s mind, the countless amount of “what ifs” and conflicting situations that made him less conversational than normal.  She reached out with one hand, playing it gingerly on Gillion’s shoulder and breaking him out of his thoughts.

He blinked and turned his attention back to Jay, who wore a much softer smile now, her eyes crinkled up in the corner.  She tilted her head to the side and squeezed his arm, leaving her hand on him for a bit longer.  It was nothing more than a friendly touch between co-captains.  Between friends.  And yet the small connection between their two forms made Gillion’s skin crawl.

Gillion pulled away before he could even think about what he was doing, jerking his shoulder out of her grasp so fast that her nails lightly scraped against his skin.  He bit back a hiss of surprise, swallowing the sound as if it were a nasty pill, his throat bobbing with the effort.  The place where Jay’s hand had just been burned.

Jay dropped her hand, a flash of some sort of emotion crossing across her face for less than a second before she brought her lips back into that small smile.  Gillion suddenly wished that he understood human emotions better than he did, his heart hammering in his chest at the thought that Jay was upset.

And Gillion admittedly didn’t know why he pulled away from Jay so sharply.  It was as if his body moved without his own knowledge of what he was doing.  Like it was something he did out of a deep unconscious flicker of instinct that Gillion had long since forced down over years of training.  Something he hadn’t ever been allowed to indulge in.

But Jay didn’t bring attention to it.  She just stuffed her hands back in her pocket and stepped away, pulling her shoulders back and puffing up her chest.  That small smile hadn’t left her face for more than a few moments, and even now she was still smiling at Gillion, as if Gillion hadn’t just reacted like a feral animal at a small touch.

She looked like she wanted to say something, even going so far as to open her mouth to speak, eyes darting across Gillion’s face with a scrutinizing gaze.  Jay didn’t move to touch Gillion again, but Gillion backed away from her anyway, feeling a shiver roll down his spine at her stare.

He felt flayed open and exposed, his heart hammering in his chest the longer she stared at him.  Gillion bit back the urge to snap at her, uncomfortable at her searching eyes, as if she were looking for something obvious inside Gillion that might help her understand his odd behavior this morning.  

Gillion tucked his tail between his legs and backed up, pulling his lips back in the threat of a snarl.  Jay slumped her shoulders and held her hands up in a placating gesture, smiling wide enough that her eyes scrunched up, nearly fully closed, the weight lifting from Gillion’s shoulders the moment that she stopped staring at him.

“Do you want to help me start breakfast?” Jay asked, pointedly not bringing up anything she may have noticed in the last few minutes of their conversation.  Gillion swallowed thickly and tried to shake away the anxiety that rattled in his chest, the prickling feeling that tingled underneath his skin, making it feel like there was something crawling all over his body.  

Gillion sucked in a sharp breath, his gills flaring at his neck as he reached up to rub his thumb over the beaded pearls on the golden chain.  Jay ignored the motion, focusing her gaze on Gillion’s face.

“Sure…” Gillion said slowly, breathing the word as if he were chewing through the letters.  The sound felt almost awkward in his mouth despite the fact that he’d been working through learning common for at least a year and a few months now.  It felt foreign to him, a different tongue that he didn’t fully understand popping into the back of his head instead of either of the ones that he knew.

His throat begged to warble out the unfamiliar syllables, his tongue pressing against the roof of his mouth, almost in the formation of words that Gillion didn’t even know.  His lips moved, pulling away from his teeth to shape out the letters.  Instead of the proper sounds to whatever language it was, a strangled chirp bubbled up from his throat, spilling from his mouth before he could even think about what he was doing.

If Jay noticed his internal struggle, her face betrayed nothing.  She just continued to smile and nodded her head in the direction of the kitchen.  When she started to move in that direction, Gillion was expected to follow.  He did.

Gillion curled his arms around his stomach, hunching his shoulders as he silently followed Jay, tail dragging behind him with only the occasional twitch of his fins.  He frowned slightly and furrowed his eyebrows, staring intently at Jay’s back, as if he were afraid that she might suddenly turn around and attack him.  Each twitch of her hands or odd movement of her shoulder set Gillion on edge, his heart hammering in his chest.

His eyes darted toward her belt, tracing across the line of her waist and the items that she had at her hips.  Gillion searched for her gun or any other visual weapons that he knew Jay kept on her.  The holster at her left hip was empty, but that sight only made Gillion more nervous.  He instinctively placed his hand on the hilt of Destiny’s blade.

Jay shouldered open the kitchen door and held it for Gillion to slip in past her.  Gillion’s ears twitched and he flared his fins out around his face, but he walked in front of her to enter the room, dropping his hand from his sword so as to not arouse any suspicion from Jay.

As soon as Gillion crossed the threshold, Jay followed him further into the kitchen, allowing the door to swing shut behind them both, the hinges squealing.  The growing sunlight from the porthole windows spilled into the kitchen, providing almost enough natural light for them to get by on that alone.  But it must not have been sufficient enough since Jay took a few moments to flit about the room and light the lanterns that were hanging up on the wall.

Gillion watched her movements carefully, shuffling into the room as if he were a stranger, his feet sliding across the floor while his tail trailed behind him.  He sucked in a deep breath and held it, hunching his shoulders and curling his hands in front of himself.  One hand he kept curled around the necklace at his throat, holding onto the stone and making his way over to the counters. 

Jay walked by, that same small smile causing the corners of her lips to twitch as she held a matchbox in her hands.  She clutched her fingers around the box and hummed to herself, paying no mind to Gillion as she made her way around the room and opened it up for the day.

The windows that opened easily, she shoved them open and allowed the fresh ocean breeze to spill into the room and chase away the musty, warm smell that always seemed to gather in the rooms of the Albatross when they were locked up for too long.  She lit the lanterns and filled the room with enough light that Gillion almost had to squint like he was outside, eyes slowly getting adjusted to the change. 

He slid his tongue across his lip and found himself humming back in response to Jay’s humming, the noise filling the room with a comfortable, obvious sign of life.  Jay began to rifle through the cabinets and pantry around the kitchen, searching for something that they could make for the entire crew for breakfast since it was just the two of them awake.

Gillion watched her with a cautious gaze, following her movements and only occasionally following to look over her shoulder whenever she asked for his opinion on the ingredients they had.  Gillion’s ears twitched and he occasionally swished his tail back and forth curiously, following her lead in searching for ideas of what they could make with the things they had.

Admittedly there wasn’t a lot.  And admittedly, Gillion had no idea of any common breakfast foods that people ate in the oversea.  Where Gillion grew up in the Trench, there wasn’t much of a concept of “breakfast food” in general.  Any food was eaten at any time of day, even when there was very little way to tell time so deep in the ocean.

So whatever Jay talked herself through out loud,  Gillion tried his best to follow her thoughts, unsure what each item or ingredient might be for.  She talked about different kinds of food that they could make, toast, eggs (Gillion shuddered at the thought, and Jay moved on), yogurt (which they didn’t have), french toast (Gillion liked the sound of that, it was like toast but different he assumed), sausage (which they also didn’t have), oatmeal (Gillion quite enjoyed what Jay called oatmeal) and a bunch of other dishes that Gillion didn’t even have a clue which what they were.

Jay then excitedly suggested pancakes.  Gillion could only vaguely remember what that was, but he agreed anyway because of how happy Jay seemed.  It was a curious name to which Gillion almost laughed at, finding his humor coming back to him slowly.

While they gathered ingredients, Jay’s constant chatter filled the room, her voice breaking the silence and keeping Gillion from sinking into his own head for too long.  She talked about what they were going to do today, bringing up Gillion’s training with Chip (which Gillion had completely forgotten about over the course of the night), as well as the things that needed to get done around the ship.  She talked about the remnants of a dream that she had and Gillion neglected to share the details of his (which he vividly remembered).

All the while, the room was filled with joyful and energetic life.  Jay bounced around the room like a rabbit bounding through a field, never in one place for too long.  It seemed that by now, Jay had found her energy and had broken away from the final grasp of sleep that made her a bit more sluggish in the morning.  She was up and about and excited for the day.

And as the sun rose higher into the morning sky, Gillion was able to shake away his own dregs of discomfort.  It seemed that the memories of last night had—at least for now—gotten pushed to the very back of his mind for Gillion to think about later when it might matter more.  But his cranky, slightly paranoid mood had shifted to match Jay’s energy, falling right back into the rhythm he normally had with his other captain.

He felt much more conversational as he seemed to wake himself up as well.  Although he had woken up many hours ago, it felt that he was just now coming back to himself, settling into his body and proper self comfortably and with little change.  Gillion was enjoying the morning much more now that he could shake away the thoughts of his dreams and what he may have felt while on his shift.

Though Gillion was sure that Jay’s high energy of the morning was a lot to blame for his easy shift in mood.  Her presence was calming to him, enough that he found it easy to follow along and match the tone that she set in the room.  In a way, it was grounding.  Not that Gillion fully knew what he needed to be grounded from, only that he felt much more like himself than he did an hour ago.

That was enough for Gillion to smile at Jay when she looked over at him while holding up the pan used for the pancakes with both hands like a sword.  The gesture must have had a different meaning, for Jay then laughed at herself as she set the pan down.  She set it down and did a short whistle, the same three notes that Gillion often heard her sing out whenever she was happy.

Jay told a joke, trying to make it so Gillion would understand, and he found the humor in it and gave a laugh in order to signal to Jay that he thought it was funny.  And then she smiled and moved on in the conversation and Gillion felt the warmth of her smile spread over his form.  His tail wagged happily while he helped her make pancakes.

Jay always made it easier for Gillion to feel like himself.  She was so completely and wholly Jay that Gillion didn’t think that he could possibly be anything else but Gillion around her.

“My mom makes the best pancakes,” Jay said, moving her shoulders in a way that looked like she was going to bump them against Gillion, but she pulled back before they ever touched.  Gillion almost missed the friendly gesture.  “I don’t know what she used to make them but they weren’t like normal pancakes.  They were so good.”

There was a moment of silence in which Jay seemed to drop into her thoughts.  Then she added in a smaller, less confident voice: “Maybe… Maybe I’ll ask her the next time we see each other.”

The moment of hesitation lasted longer than Gillion deemed comfortable.  He shifted awkwardly, standing there while Jay held a wooden bowl to her chest, the ingredients laid out on the counter in front of them.  She stared down at the counter for a few moments, deep in thought with her eyebrows furrowed, a curious look on her face.  It almost looked like she was dealing with some sort of internal conflict, a wide range of emotions flashing in her eyes.

Then she blinked and shook her head, “But that doesn’t matter right now,” she laughed, but this time it sounded more forced and dismissive rather than a genuine show of joy.  “We have our pancakes to make.”  She slid her tongue across her lips and gave a nervous smile.

Gillion nodded firmly in agreement, his tail flicking back and forth behind him.  Jay’s eyes darted to the movement, but after another second or two of hesitation, she pulled her gaze back to the counter where everything had been laid out.  She placed the bowl down with a small clatter and cleared her throat.

Gillion saddled up next to her, their shoulders within a hair's width apart from touching.  Jay said nothing about the closeness, but she once again went back to flitting about the kitchen—although with much less fervor than before—this time looking for the proper utensils needed to make pancakes.  Measuring cups, spoons, a spatula, and the other things that she needed besides just the ingredients.

When she finished finding all the tools that they might need to make their breakfast, Jay began explaining to Gillion everything they had to do.  She used that soft, gentle tone that she always did whenever she was explaining something to Gillion and she knew that it might take him a little bit to understand what was going on.

She explained the amounts needed for each of the ingredients, pointing out which one was which.  (“That’s flour, sugar, you know what that is, baking powder, butter, what I really am hoping is enough milk, and we need an egg too but I can take care of that.”)  It seemed like she took great joy in going through everything and what they were going to have to do to make what she called pancakes.

Jay was always so patient with him that Gillion could scarcely believe that he ever deserved this amount of patience Chip and Jay both showed him. They waited when he took a little bit to catch up because his legs were hurting due to the pressure in the oversea.  They explained things to him twice, thrice, four times whenever he didn’t understand and did their best to word it in ways that he would understand. 

Jay took the time and effort to tell him how to measure out the right amount of what she called flour (Gillion didn’t know what to make of the fluffy white powder, it was soft in his hands but distinctly a powder).  She showed him how to hold the measuring cup and how to level it off with a knife.

And then when Gillion managed to spill flour everywhere, she didn’t get upset.  Even when the front of both their clothes were covered in white.

She just laughed softly, leaning back with her hand wrapped against the counter to keep herself balanced.  Her breath came out in a small, breathy wheeze and her face scrunched up in that large happy smile that she always had when she laughed that hard.  Her tone was light and airy and Gillion wasn’t embarrassed at being laughed at (Jay never actually laughed at him), he was just glad that she found good humor in his mix-up rather than getting upset.

When she was able to catch her breath, she moved to grab a washcloth from their water bucket near the sink, dipping it in and wringing it out with a quick twist of her wrist.  A few droplets spilled onto the floor when she crossed the kitchen to where Gillion was standing. 

She reached out to help Gillion wipe it away from his gills so none of it accidentally got into the very sensitive openings.  Her hand brushed against his shoulder as she stood curiously in front of him.

“Here, tilt your head back,” Jay placed her two fingers underneath his chin and guided him to look up towards the ceiling so she had better access to his neck.  Gillion swallowed thickly and hoped that she didn’t see the way his throat bobbed. “It’s better if you don’t really squeeze the bag since flour likes to get everywhere you don’t want it to.”

Gillion hummed and felt his heart hammering in his chest at the closeness, Jay’s gaze trained firmly on his throat.  She dropped her touch from his chin now that she had guided Gillion where to look.

With a gentle hand and a wet cloth, Jay began wiping the flour away from his skin, her other hand reaching up to pull the chain of the necklace away from his neck so that it was sitting better against his chest.  

Gillion’s heart leapt to his throat at her hand brushing against the necklace, almost as if he were afraid that she was suddenly going to take it from him.  As if even though she had also given it to him, she might yank it away in just as swift of a motion.

Her fingers rattled against the pearlescent beads and Gillion’s ears twitched at the noise, lips pulling away from his teeth with a low warning sound.  He held his breath and waited with fear evident in his eyes.

Her hand slid against the golden chain, following the length of it up towards his neck to pull it away from his gills, the cloth still working in the sensitive area around his neck.  It was cold and damp and caused droplets of slightly thick water to roll down Gillion’s throat.  

Jay’s fingers continued to travel along the length of the necklace, working distractedly at her current task.  She reached towards the back where he knew the clasp was, constantly moving it around so that she had an easier time cleaning him off.  Gillion’s heart hammered.

He could hear her breath, and feel the warmth radiating from her skin.  He could feel the closeness and the beating of her heart.  She was so close to him, so close to the necklace.

The beads rattled.  Jay hooked her fingers around the chain near his neck.  She swiped the cloth down the smooth side of his gills.  

Her breath was against his throat.  Gillion’s heart pounded against his ribs.  She moved slowly, carefully.

She hummed softly.  The noise grated on Gillion’s ears.  He could hear the beads rattling and the clinking of chain links.

And then Jay’s hand touched the back of his neck, fingers dancing across the clasp of the chain, almost as if she was going to take the necklace off of him.

Gillion snapped his hand around her wrist faster than Jay could even blink. 

He suddenly lashed out, trying to jerk away from her as if the contact had burned him.  Her fingers slipped and pulled on the necklace, the chain slipping and digging into his skin painfully.  Gillion hissed in pain.

Jay made a noise of surprise and tried to wiggle her arm out of Gillion’s grasp, tugging at his hand with increasing anxiety.  Gillion could feel the tensing of her muscles beneath her skin, the shifting of her bones as she tried to twist out of his grasp.

A growl instinctively spilled from Gillion’s lips, a surge of anger overtaking his rational thoughts.  He pulled his lips back to expose razor-sharp teeth, his ears pinned back against his skull.

“Hey, sorry, sorry,” Jay squeaked out, her eyes wide with fear and her other hand held up in a placating gesture.  Gillion could feel her pulse against her wrist as her heart fluttered like a startled rabbit.  “Did I irritate your gills?” 

Jay’s eyes were wide and she darted her eyes all around, searching for something in Gillion’s expression that might give away what had gone wrong.  Her eyebrows furrowed and she sucked in a panicked breath.

The fear on her face was enough to drop Gillion back into himself like a rock getting thrown into a body of water.  He sucked in a sharp breath and hissed slowly, forcing himself to relax.

Gillion dropped her wrist and took a step away.  

Embarrassment flooded his face, causing his chest to tighten and his face to flush a dark turquoise.  He had lashed out without even thinking about it, not entirely sure why he had done that in the first place anyway.  

The fact that he had gotten so jumpy at Jay messing with his necklace should have made his face darken on its own with shame, it was just a trinket, it didn’t matter that much.  Not enough to get so worked up about.

“I’m sorry,” Gillion said, truly meaning it, “I didn’t mean to react that way.”

Jay nodded slowly.  Her eyes darted across Gillion’s face, examining his expression closely.  It was as if she was studying him, looking for something that might give a hint as to what was wrong with him.  Gillion certainly felt that there was something wrong with him.

“Are you…” Jay slid her tongue over her lips, a hesitant smile slipping out, “Are you okay?”

“You startled me is all,” Gillion admitted, not sure if he was lying or not.  He looked down at Jay’s arm and felt guilt swell in the pit of his chest at the sight of his claw marks on her skin.  

His nails had left deep indents in her skin causing red bubbles of irritation to flood up to the surface.  He hadn’t drawn blood but he could see the small pricks of cuts and the deeper tissue underneath where he had sliced open her skin just on the surface level.

Jay rubbed her forearm and sucked in a sharp breath through her nose, held it for a second, and then let it out.  She thought for a few seconds, gears turning in her head as she averted eye contact.  Looking somewhere off to the side away from Gillion’s face.

“Sorry,” she said again, “I should have been more careful.”  Jay smiled and started patting the front of her shirt down with the damp cloth, trying to wipe most of the flour off of her clothes.  

She didn’t try to continue with wiping down Gillion’s neck, her movement shaky and her hands trembling as she worked on herself.

Gillion kept his distance, immediately noticing Jay’s hesitancy.  He stepped up to the counter with his tail tucked between his legs and his ears drooping.  He hadn’t meant to snap at Jay like that—a part of Gillion still didn’t even understand why he had reacted so suddenly.

Maybe she had accidentally brushed against his gills in a way that caused him to jerk out of instinct.  Maybe her nails had nicked against his skin or the necklace had gotten caught in the flap of his gills.  Maybe he just hadn’t expected the closeness or the coolness of the water or a hundred other reasons that Gillion could have startled so quickly.  Maybe her touch was overwhelming and the feeling of her warm breath was too much for Gillion.

Gillion himself wasn’t fully aware why he had lashed out at her like that, enough to grab her so violently that he left a mark.  He certainly didn’t miss the growl that slipped past his lips before he could think about it, a low, animalistic sound that didn’t even feel like it had come from his own throat.

But Jay said nothing more on the topic.  

She cleared her throat and took another deep breath, staring down at the mess of flour on the counter and the abandoned measuring cup that Gillion had dropped onto the wood in his surprise at the cloud of white powder that had poofed up the moment he grabbed the bag. 

Jay dropped the washcloth back into the bucket of water near the sink and began chewing at her lower lip, her shoulders pulled back in a defensive way.  Gillion frowned slightly and looked away, avoiding touching her as if she was the issue originally and the problem wasn’t just that Gillion didn’t know how to control his own instincts.  It wasn’t her fault.  But Gillion didn’t trust himself.

He told himself that it was still just a remnant of his jumpiness from before.  Maybe Gillion was still on edge after what happened and needed a bit to calm down and come back to himself.

That had to be it.  

It was just his instincts going haywire at anything his brain deemed as a threat.

Wordlessly and with a bit more caution than before, Jay took up the job of making pancakes.

She measured out the amount of flour needed instead of allowing Gillion another attempt.  Her previous energy and excitement now drained like water getting sucked into a whirlpool.  Normally she was much more excited to get to teach Gillion something like this, and Gillion was more than happy to learn.  

But after Gillion's previous display, the mood in the room turned sour.  As if a wet blanket had suddenly settled over the kitchen, the shadows cast by the light spilling in through the windows seemed to stretch and darken.  Gillion twisted the chain of his necklace around his fingers in anxiety.

Jay continued making breakfast while Gillion hovered awkwardly nearby, not entirely sure what he should be doing now that Jay had settled into silence, no longer seeming to be in a talkative mood.

He didn’t know what to do with his body, whether he should continue standing next to her to observe what she was doing or if he had made the situation so unpleasant that he should just leave.  

Should he offer his help again and risk upsetting Jay if she didn’t want his help?  Should he try to set the table for breakfast even though breakfast wasn’t close to being finished?  Should he leave and try to occupy his time in a more productive way?

He couldn’t tell if he was making Jay uncomfortable by watching over her shoulder.  Her movements were stiff and shaky as she measured out each ingredient, mixing them together in one bowl.  The marks on her arm were still red and sore, her arm clutched almost protectively near her torso.

She said nothing, made no noise besides the movement of her utensils, and paid no mind to Gillion as he stood next to her with a foot or so between them for distance.  His tail was tucked between his legs and Gillion tried to make himself as small as possible.  He watched her measure out each ingredient, crack an egg, and add the last bit of milk that they were able to keep on the ship.

Jay stirred the mixture, a thick but runny substance coming together with the addition of the milk and eggs.  Her hands clutched against the rim of the bowl to keep it in place near her chest, the other working to stir it with the spoon.

When the mixture was apparently complete, Jay set the bowl on the counter, allowing the spoon to rest against the lip.  She frowned with a deep-set expression on her lips as she practically glared down at the bowl.  Gillion couldn’t read her face, unsure what was going on inside her head.

With one palm placed against the counter, Jay dug around in her pockets for a moment, pulling out her watch as easily and casually as she could.  She flicked it open and stared down at the watch face, counting the minutes in her head, lips mouthing the sound of numbers.

“It’s been long enough,” Jay finally said, the sound startling Gillion who had gotten used to the silence.  “Do you want to go wake Chip and I’ll finish making breakfast?”

Distantly, Gillion recognized the easy excuse, his brain latching onto her words and rattling them around in his mind.  She was trying to get rid of him.  That was easy enough to tell even when Gillion wasn’t good at distinguishing tone or hidden meanings.  This one was clear enough to understand.

She wanted him to leave.  She was still upset with him.  He had lashed out at her and Jay was justifiably uncomfortable.  Especially since Gillion didn’t fully know why he had reacted so strongly.

“Right,” Gillion’s voice sounded odd coming from his throat, almost too formal and stiff.  He nodded at Jay and wrapped his arms around his torso, “Of course.”

Jay smiled at him but it almost seemed forced, her lips twitching hesitantly.  Gillion forced himself to smile back, his ears flaring out around his face as he tried to get himself to relax to the best of his ability.  He sucked in a deep breath and took a step back, the end of his tail twitching and hitting against the floor, the limb once again seeming to spark with pins and needles.

“Breakfast should be ready by the time you get him out of bed,” Jay joked, turning her attention back to the bowl on the counter as she shuffled over towards the oven to light the fire.  Gillion watched her move for a few seconds, doing his best to shake out any odd feelings in his limbs.

Then, when he figured that Jay had nothing else to say, Gillion turned—still with his tail tucked close to his body—and made his way out of the kitchen to go wake up Chip.

Chapter Text

The door to the kitchen swung shut behind Gillion as he pushed his way through the opening, his hand sliding against the wooden frame for a second.  He flicked his tail from side to side, trying to get rid of the tingly feeling in the limb.  He flexed his fins and tried to clear his thoughts, not wanting to dwell too long over what he had done so he didn’t accidentally work himself up into a spiral.

Gillion slid his fingers through his hair, shaking his head and letting out a long breath, trying to clear his mind with the fresh scent of the salty air.  A small bit of mist sprayed over the railing from the waves, enough that Gillion was able to feel it against his skin when he passed nearby to get to the stairs.

He hesitated at the railing for a few moments, his hands curling against the wooden railing while he looked out into the ocean.  The sun was at that height in the sky that all the orange and red remnants of sunrise had faded away into the steady blue of the day, signaling that their day had officially started (in terms of the solar bodies in the sky, the day wouldn’t fully start until after breakfast).

Gillion watched the waves for a moment, staring at the foamy white caps as they spilled over each other, their ship kicking up enough foam in the waters to leave a long trail behind them that Gillion sometimes enjoyed watching.  A part of him in the back of his mind considered that maybe he could take a dip in the ocean for a bit later today when there was nothing else to do.

He could ask Chip to join him, or he could work with Ollie to teach the boy how to swim.  Any more reason just to get Gillion in the water where he knew that the liquid would provide a refreshing change from the sure-to-be-hot weather of the sun.

The fact that there were barely any clouds in the sky at the moment was enough of a testament that it was going to get hot today.  Gillion just had to hope that it wouldn’t be so bad that he could barely stand being on the top deck without risk of drying out or getting heat stroke (something that Jay had to explain to him what it was after he had nearly passed out after working too hard).

With that thought fresh in his mind, and the happy consideration of being so close to the water on a nice, bright, and sunny day, Gillion felt that he would be able to better face his other co-captain now that he had re-found his energy.  Gillion swiped his hands down the front of his shirt, where there were still stains of flower on his black top.  He couldn’t ignore the pang of guilt that nearly caused him to choke at the reminder, but he forced it down as much as he could.

Then, with a small swipe of his fingers through his hair, Gillion pushed away from the railing and made his way to the stairs to the lower decks.  His tail swished back and forth comfortably behind him, no longer affected by the pins and needles that had to have been from the way he had it tucked between his legs.  Gillion’s ears fanned out around his face, and he could feel his hair brushing against his sensitive fins.  

He sniffled and shook his head, using one hand to slide against the wall for balance while he descended the stairs, still fiddling with his hair and trying to get the thick, frizzy curls to lie right against his face.  

It was one of those days when the salt and all the grime from the past few days had gotten trapped in his hair and caused the strands to get sticky and matted.  Not even his own moisture and the hydration of his hair could save him from the same fate that poor Jay had to deal with her frizzy curls.

Deciding that he couldn’t get much done with his hair until later, after his swim, Gillion focused on stomping his way down the stairs, each footstep creaking against the rickety wood with a wet plop.  His tail dragged behind him on the stairs, the odd elevation making it hard for him to pick up the long limb, which normally would trail behind him an inch or two off the ground.  

Gillion hooked his hand around the corner, using the downward momentum from the stairs to make a sharp turn in the direction of their sleeping quarters, the door still closed after Jay had woken up.  That must have meant Chip was still asleep, since normally the door was propped open unless someone was already inside.

Gillion swallowed thickly and sucked in a deep breath, making one last lazy attempt to push his hair out of his face before he gave up.

With a deft movement—really only for politeness—Gillion rapped his knuckles against the surface of the door, the hard wood thudding against his bones.  The noise seemed to rattle in  Gillion’s brain, echoing in the empty corridor below the top deck of their ship.  

In his head, Gillion waited until the count of five just to make sure Chip hadn’t already woken up and was trying to get dressed or anything.  Chip and Jay had both explained to him on numerous occasions that nudity had a lot more weight in the oversea than it did in the undersea.  So Gillion was patient, not wanting to walk in on Chip with his “pants down”—a phrase that, while could be literal, Gillion was told also had other meanings.

When it was deemed long enough, Gillion twisted the handle and shouldered open the door, peeking his head in first for one last courtesy check.

The room was dark, the porthole windows not having yet been propped open to let in the morning sun in the way that Jay had done for the kitchen.  And the sheet that Chip had painstakingly plastered over the window was still up (since he often complained of the morning sun shining right in his eyes, and since he had the middle shift, he liked to sleep in as long as he could).

Remembering what Jay had done when they had first entered the kitchen and wanting to open up their sleeping quarters for the day, Gillion crossed the room to Jay’s corner.  Her bed was made neatly, and the sheets were tucked underneath the pillow with her extra blanket that she had made some time ago, folded over the pillow.  

The string of beads tied on the bedpost rattled a bit as Gillion brushed by, and he saw the different shapes and sizes of them out of the corner of his eye.  The movement almost sounded like the clinking of bones together for a moment, enough to startle Gillion at first.

He shook those sounds out of his head and tried to ignore them.  He was getting himself paranoid for no reason.

Trying to be extra careful not mess up anything on Jay’s side of the room, Gillion leaned against her mattress just enough so that he could reach up and pull the sheet down from the window, unhooking it from the nails that had been hammered into the walls.  

His fingers dug into the fabric, and he nearly lost his balance with the rocking of the waves and his shoddy, polite perch on Jay’s bed.  But he managed to pull it down without ruining anything.

Immediately, a bright stream of light spilled in from the window, the sun directly to the side of their ship in the right way.  The light traced against the floor, rocking and swaying a bit as the ship was pushed back and forth by each wave.  It was like a long snake that slithered silently towards Chip, flashing right above his head and just barely keeping out of his eyes.

Thinking that they wouldn’t need the lantern on for quite some time (at least Gillion didn’t need it), Gillion didn’t bother finding the matchbox somewhere in the drawers of their shared desk.  He just stepped down from Jay’s bed and crossed the room to where Chip was still snoring loudly.

Some time in the night, after Chip had gone back to sleep, he had managed to lose his covers through all the tossing and turning.  One blanket was completely tangled around his legs, while the others had gotten tossed off the edge of the bed.  

Chip’s face was halfway pressed into the pillow, his arm tucked underneath the fluffy item and practically hugging it to his form.  His other arm was wedged underneath his torso in a way that couldn’t possibly be comfortable for a human.

His hair was a mess, the light from the sun just enough to cause spools of golden thread to sprinkle throughout his messy brown curls, the frizz from the salt and humidity also taking hold of his ratty bedhead.  Chip’s bed creaked with the movement of the ship and his occasional twitch in his sleep, but Chip himself was fast asleep, no clank or commotion enough to rouse him.

His chest rose and fell softly with each breath, the dip of his sternum visible from underneath the collar of his shirt.  Gillion could see the bits of scar tissue over his shoulders, the way that the different marks carved across his skin and left raised marks on his shoulders and chest.

In his sleep, he looked peaceful.  A soft, calm expression settled across his face without any of the excitement or mischief of the day.  There was no stress or worry or anything that might get Chip up in a frenzy.  Just the faint breath on his lips and his hair falling in front of his eyes.

Gillion stood there for a few moments, hovering above Chip’s sleeping form, not entirely sure what he should do to wake him up.  

If he was sleeping in his hammock, Jay had the habit of trying to flip him out of it in the morning when she was feeling particularly mischievous, but Chip hadn’t used the hammock in a long time.  He really only reclined in it during the day or when he was trying to relax.

Chip had a bad habit of falling out of his hammock in the middle of the night due to how fervently he moved and thrashed about in the sheets.  And Gillion and Jay had been startled by one too many loud thumps and shouts in the middle of the night for Chip to keep sleeping in the hammock just because he thought it was cool.  

Gillion couldn’t see how it might be more comfortable than a cot, though Gillion wasn’t much of a fan of any dry ways of sleeping.

Making up his mind, Gillion reached out hesitantly, almost touching his shoulder to shake him, but not quite.  He stopped before his hand made contact with the soft, bare part of his shoulder.

He could see the shape of his claws curled dangerously.  His nails were razor sharp, enough to tear flesh from bone, enough to defend himself against hardened predators, to destroy and rip apart the thick skin of tough prey.

They were made for violence and danger.  They were formed just for protection and for Gillion to be able to kill whenever he needed to.  And in the undersea during his training, they had tried to bind his hands, file down his claws, stuff his mouth full of fabric and gags to keep him from biting.  They had limited the use of his natural weapons to shape him into one that was more cooperative with being controlled. 

But Gillion wasn’t bound anymore.  His hands were free, and his mouth was open to bare his razor-sharp teeth.  Chip and Jay hadn’t the intelligent thought that he needed to be kept bound and leashed up.  Maybe they didn’t realize just how dangerous Gillion was, just how much of a hazard he was to be on the ship.

If Gillion really wanted, he could dig his claws deep into Chip’s throat as he was unaware and sleeping, and Chip probably wouldn’t have the time to react before he was dead.  

Or at least there wouldn’t be time to shout out before Gillion could rip his throat out.

He could lean down and sink his teeth into the warm, soft part in the crook of his neck.  He could lean his full weight on Chip, and the poor man wouldn’t be able to push him off if Gillion pinned his arms.  He could dig his claws into his wrists, tear open his veins, and let him bleed out and taste the warm blood himself.

His hand curled closer to Chip’s shoulder, going so far as to touch him.  The tips of his claws dug into Chip’s skin, and he could feel the warmth of the other man radiating from him.  The crackling, flickering flames of his tattoos only move as a slow, sluggish wave with idle sounds and movement.

When Gillion realized what he was doing, he jerked his hand away, pulling it back towards his chest, the thought startling him.  His breath caught in his throat, and for a moment, it felt like he couldn’t breathe at all, his throat constricting painfully and his chest aching with a deep burning feeling.

A whine spilled from his lips before he could stop himself, a wave of guilt crashing down on him and freezing him in place.  He stared at Chip’s sleeping form with wide eyes, forcing his muscles to tense up to keep him from moving.

He bit down hard on his lower lip, feeling his teeth sinking into the flesh, hard enough to draw blood.  Gillion wrapped both arms around his torso, squeezing tightly and digging his own claws into his sides. He took a step back, trying to put distance between himself and Chip with a terrified squeak.

What was he thinking?  Where did those thoughts come from?  How suddenly had he gone from appreciating Chip’s sleeping form to thinking of killing the man?

No.  

Gillion didn’t think of killing Chip.  

He would never consider that thought in a million years, not even if Chip did something horrible.  Gillion could never think of killing his friend (partner?).  He could never let himself consider that for one second.  Never anything serious.

They had talked about how powerful Gillion was before.  Chip would hold his palm against Gillion’s and compare the sizes of their hands, or the length of their nails, or the strength of their grips.  

Chip would arm wrestle with Gillion and whine and whimper at the strength with which Gillion squeezed Chip’s hand, begging him to ease up a little bit before he broke Chip’s arm.  Gillion always gave up then, not wanting to actually injure his best friend.

They had looked at all the claw marks on the ship, Jay had studied the way Gillion’s claws were, and how they were shaped or how strong they were.  They were both on the receiving end of so many accidental scratches from Gillion, trying to be gentle but unintentionally getting too excited or too aggressive.

Gillion knew as much as Chip and Jay did about how easy it would be for him to kill them.  Not just with his claws, but with his teeth or his magic or his strength.  So many different ways that he overpowered them in just hand-to-hand combat, not even including a weapon.

And yet… Gillion hated to admit the fact that that thought had crossed his mind more than once.  

But it was always late at night when Gillion could feel the inklings of his well trained out instincts starting to bubble up with the lack of sleep and proper eating.  Whenever he worked himself too hard, he could always feel that hint of aggression threatening to surface with his own exhaustion.

Gillion shook his head to try to rid himself of those thoughts.  Then, when he wasn’t sure that it had worked the first time, he did it again.  He reached up and tugged at his hair and let out a low growl, angry at himself for thinking such awful things, and he shook his head again.

He shook himself until he was dizzy, and then he had to catch his balance on the bedpost of Chip’s cot.  He needed those thoughts out of his head, and even if he was sure that shaking himself about the room did nothing, it was the idea that helped reassure Gillion.  

At least he got his body moving and got rid of that dangerous energy that made his hands twitch with unregulated aggression.

All the while, Chip slept peacefully, completely unaware of the risk that Gillion posed to his life, or the amount of shaking and wiggling around the room that Gillion was doing to get his energy out.  Gillion stopped in the middle of the room with his head in his hands, his tail swinging back and forth behind him.

He took a deep breath and felt his chest rattle with the action.  Then he held it for a few seconds before letting it out slowly.  Gillion slid his hands down his face, scrubbing at his eyes and pulling at his cheeks until he felt like he could be himself again.  He rubbed his arm and wrung his hands, forcing all the feeling and conscious thought into his body and making sure that he wouldn’t think those thoughts again.

Without looking down at his hands, Gillion once again approached Chip’s cot and reached out towards Chip’s sleeping form.  He placed his palm on Chip’s shoulder, squeezing just enough that he could feel the texture of his skin against his fingers.

He shook Chip’s shoulder with a quick movement, immediately pulling his hand back the moment that he had done so.  He clutched his hands to his chest and bent over near Chip’s face, staring at the man to see his movement.

Chip groaned in his sleep and scrunched up his face, trying to roll over to his other side to avoid having to wake up for the day.  He made a dismissive motion with his hand as if he were trying to shoo Gillion away, his mouth working to make sounds that probably were supposed to be words, but they were incomprehensible to Gillion.  

Gillion frowned and clicked his tongue, still swallowing down any anxious noises that threatened to surface in the back of his throat.  

“Chip, it is time for breakfast,” Gillion tried, once again shaking Chip’s shoulder and attempting to rouse him.  Chip groaned something once again incomprehensible and covered his face with his arm.  

When he moved his head further back on the pillow, the light streaming in from the porthole shone right in his face.  Chip hissed through his teeth at the light and tried to hide from it, still refusing to open his eyes and pretending to be asleep.

“I know you are awake,” Gillion admitted, keeping his voice level as he stared at Chip’s closed eyes and his neutral expression, even though he had scrunched up his nose and eyes to avoid the sun that was shining in his face.  He whined again at Gillion’s words and tried to swat him away whenever Gillion shook his shoulder.

Gillion frowned, knowing that Chip was awake and that he needed to get up to start the rest of the day.  But Chip seemed keen to want to stay in bed all day, even though they had responsibilities to attend to.  A low growl spilled from Gillion’s tongue, and he had to jerk his hand back before he accidentally dug his claws into Chip’s skin.

Trying to think of a better way to get Chip out of bed without getting too worked up about it, Gillion looked down at the tangled mess of blankets that were coiled around Chip’s legs.  He considered it for only a moment before hooking his fingers around the fabric.  He got a good grip on the edge of one of the blankets and tugged as hard as he felt that he needed to to detangle the mess.

Chip nearly stumbled off the bed in surprise at his blankets being yanked away (even if they weren’t really covering him at all).  He yelped and tried to grab his blankets back from Gillion, wanting to burrow back underneath the sheets to get a bit more sleep in.

“Gill, c’mon, man,” Chip whined, curling his knees up to his chest and lying on his side with his face buried in the pillow.  He let out a sigh and tried to cover his face to get out of the light of the room, as well as burrowing into the mattress to escape from the cold that seemed to radiate from Gillion.

“Jay has made breakfast,” Gillion said, and then, as if the thought had suddenly popped back into his mind, “And you told me that you would train with me today.  You would not go back on your word with a promise like that—”

Chip groaned loudly, cutting Gillion off from the soon-to-be rant about honor and not lying to friends and all that.  Chip ran his hands down his face, peeking one eye open to stare at Gillion as if he could hardly believe what he was hearing.  He sighed and dropped his head back to the pillow, eyes blankly staring up at the ceiling.

“Okay, okay, okay, fine,” Chip waved his hands in a dismissive but placating gesture, “I’m up, I’m up, give me a minute.”

“I’m sure that breakfast will be finished any minute now,” Gillion insisted, still holding Chip’s blanket in his hands.  He crumpled up the fabric into a ball so that he could better clutch it to his chest, his nails digging into the soft bundle with much more force than he realized he was using.

“I gotta get dressed,” Chip sighed and pressed his fingers to his temples.  He pushed himself up to a sitting position with another noise of protest, making an attempt to grab his blankets back from Gillion so he could at least place them on his cot for later.  Gillion released the items, noticing a few holes where his claws had dug into the fabric.

Chip either didn’t notice or chose not to mention the new puncture wounds that would certainly need to be patched up later before they got worse.  He just leaned down to pick up the blanket that had dropped to the floor and plopped it on the mattress at the foot of his bed.  He wasn’t like Jay, who made her bed every morning and instead left all his sheets crumpled up at the foot of his bed for later.

Gillion slid his tongue across his lips and took a step back, sliding his feet across the wooden floor with the fins of his tail hitting against the ground.  He moved it to the side as he backed up, giving Chip plenty of room to sit up with his legs hanging over the edge of the bed.  

He yawned loudly, stretching his arms high above his head, enough that a sliver of the tan skin on his belly was exposed from underneath the hem of his shirt.  Gillion looked away and bit down on the inside of his mouth, choosing not to say anything.

“I’ll meet you guys upstairs in a bit,” Chip hooked his hand around the bedpost and used that as an anchor to pull himself up to his feet.  Gillion nodded once, but then hesitated as if there was something else to be gained out of the conversation.

“You will join us for breakfast?” Gillion asked, the words slipping from his lips before he could stop himself, the words were meaningless coming from his mouth.  He didn’t know why he had asked it, but again, his voice seemed to work faster than his brain when he added onto that question with: “And then we will train?”

“Yeah, Gill,” Chip nodded and pulled his shoulders back a bit, still stretching and trying to shake the morning exhaustion out of his limbs.  He yawned again, cracking his back with a sharp twist.  “Breakfast and then training.  But maybe a bit of a break between breakfast, because I might still need a bit to wake up.”

“Breakfast and then training,” Gillion parroted with a nod.  He moved and felt the opal of his necklace hit against his sternum when he jolted.  Gillion reached up with one hand and curled his fingers around the stone, rubbing the smooth surface with his thumb.  He took a step away from  Chip and twitched his ear in the man's direction to prove that he was still listening.

Chip didn’t bother trying to correct Gillion or add anything to his statement.  He just sighed and nodded, rubbing his face.

“Okay, I gotta get dressed,” Chip made a small shooing motion with his hand at Gillion, urging the Triton out of the room so he could engage in his morning routine.

Another nod, and then Gillion was making his way out of the room, his tail nearly getting caught in the door when he tried to close it behind him.  Gillion could hear Chip already bumbling about the room, the thump from the lid of his chest hitting against the frame of his cot resounded loud enough that even without Gillion’s sensitive hearing, he was sure that he would be able to hear it with the door closed.  

All the hinges on the ship were loud enough that pretty much any door opening or closing could be heard from somewhere nearby.  The hinges of their chests were no different.

Deciding not to linger near the door to their sleeping quarters (since Chip might find that weird), Gillion continued down the same hallway, choosing to check on Ollie and the rest of the crew who may or may not still be sleeping at the moment.  

The door to the crew’s quarters was closed, and Gillion gave a short knock before peeking in.

Ollie’s cot was empty, and the sheets were made, as well as a set of clothes folded on the top of the blankets for tonight.  It was good that he followed in Jay’s footsteps by keeping his space tidy, although there was quite a bit of a mess in his section of the room.  Ollie had wooden swords and parts of different outfits as well as trinkets scattered around the room, staking his claim in the corner.  

On the same side of the room, Queen was still asleep, tucked away in bed underneath their covers.  The blankets were pulled up to their chin so that only the top of their head was visible on the pillow.  They made no noise, but it was easy to tell that they were asleep.  

Gryphon and Earl’s cots were empty; they must have slipped past the captain’s quarters while Gillion was trying to wake Chip, and Gillion had been too distracted to notice.  Gillion figured that Earl would be badgering and scolding Jay for messing up his kitchen without his permission.  

Drey was asleep as well, snoring almost louder than Chip (which had to be impressive at this point).  And Gillion was sure that Finn would be as well if he moved to where his grandfather slept.

With a short but louder rap on the frame of the door, Gillion’s knuckles tapping against the wood, Queen began to stir with a soft hum and a groan.  Gillion smiled softly and knocked again on the door frame, a little louder this time.

“Good morning, Queen,” Gillion called, not fully waiting for Queen to wake up before speaking, “Jay has made breakfast.”

Queen mumbled something that may have been an affirmative or some sort of protest to being disturbed.  They reached up and rubbed at their face, pulling the blanket away just enough that Gillion could see their eyes squinting at him in the dim room.

But Gillion moved on, at least letting Queen know that breakfast would be soon, so that they could wake up a bit more and get ready for the day in whatever way they needed.  Gillion didn’t know what Queen’s daily routine was, but he would let them do that at their own pace, and they could join the rest of the crew for breakfast whenever they were ready.

Gillion felt that that was one of his proper duties as captain (co-captain) and nodded to himself in satisfaction that he had done what he was supposed to do.  He fidgeted with his necklace as he walked, twisting the chain around his fingers, not really paying attention to his surroundings.

His tail dragged against the floor behind him, feeling the smoothness of the opal against his fingers and taking comfort in the texture.  Gillion twitched his ears in each direction around him, listening but not fully processing whatever sounds bounced around the lower decks of the ship.  

A thumping noise from above, a higher-pitched groan-like noise, more thumping from closer to Gillion’s side, the sound of a hollow, light thud every few seconds.

He didn’t bother trying to decipher what each of the sounds actually was, but he just tucked them away for later in case they might become relevant to him.  But normally, Gillion didn’t have to worry about any sort of threat on board the Albatross.  The occasional attack or encounter with something hostile was few and far between, especially after they had developed a better system for keeping watch above decks.

The steady thumping sound to Gillion’s side got closer and closer, until a sudden burst of a high-pitched sound echoed right next to Gillion’s ear, making him instinctively grab the hilt of his sword in preparation to draw it.  His heart leapt to his throat, and Gillion barely bit down on his tongue before he could let out an instinctual growl.

He turned, ears pinned back against his skull with his fingers twitching around the leather grip of Destiny’s blade, squeezing tight enough that he could feel his claws digging into the palm of his hand.  He took a deep breath and held it, narrowing his eyes as they slowly came into focus to take in what had just happened.

Seeming just as surprised as Gillion, Chip stood in the open doorway to their sleeping quarters, his eyes wide and mouth agape as he stared at Gillion’s defensive position.  He had automatically pulled his hands up in front of himself, palms in Gillion’s direction in a placating gesture.  The shining of his platinum ring caught Gillion’s attention, and he was aware of the matching ring on his own finger as the chilling metal pressed into his skin.

Chip was dressed up in a normal everyday outfit with baggy reddish brown pants and a fluffy white shirt with an open, exposed collar.  Most of his chest was revealed, the scars from Kuba Kenta still slightly reddened, although entirely healed.  His flame tattoos flickered occasionally, the fire curling against the side of his neck and beginning to creep up towards his chin.  They were constantly moving, not audible at the moment but still shifting back and forth.

He had a sash of black fabric cinched tightly around his waist, as well as another thin leather belt keeping his pants up, and was hooked with a small cloth bag as well as a dagger.  The belt was for his supplies, the sash was just for looks.  The loops that his swords often hung from were empty, but who knew what other weapons Chip had concealed, or what other items he carried on his person.  

A string of beads rattled on Chip’s wrist as he took a step away from Gillion, the bracelets he wore clinking together and shifting.

They both stared at each other for a few seconds without moving, without speaking, without even acknowledging a truce between the tense positions.  Gillion kept his hand wrapped firmly around his sword, tail poised a few inches off the ground to give him room for any sudden movement if he so needed.  Even his ears were twitching back and forth, now hyper-aware of everything going on around him and listening for some other threat.

It took Gillion a few seconds longer to realize that he had pulled his lips back into a snarl, his large shark-like teeth bared to Chip, who was probably terrified at the lasting display.  Chip certainly looked paler than normal, his face frozen in an expression of surprise.

When Gillion realized the glare that he had directed at Chip, he had to make a conscious effort to relax his face, placing his lips together in a thin line to hide his sharpened teeth.  He pulled his shoulders back, uncrouching and standing at his full height (which admittedly wasn’t very much), and dropped his hand from Destiny’s blade.

Only then did the spell between the two captains release, and Chip allowed himself to relax as well.  His surprised expression melted into an almost awkward smile as his lips wavered a bit, his tongue pressing against the back of his front teeth.  He chuckled and scrunched up his eyes, shaking his hands a bit before dropping them down to his sides.

“Sorry…” Chip muttered, trying to keep his tone light and to play off the situation as if nothing were wrong, “Didn’t mean to uh… Scare you… Didn’t know you’d be right outside the door.”  He moved one hand up to his face slowly and combed his fingers through his bangs, adjusting the bandana that he had tied around his hair.  Chip stepped forward into the hallway and let the door to the sleeping quarters swing shut.

“My apologies,” Gillion swiped his hands down the front of his shirt, feeling an ounce of shame once again bubbling up from the back of his throat, “I was not paying attention to my surroundings.  The door is very loud.”

Chip looked over his shoulder at the now closed door.  His eyes traced along the long side of the opening, and he nodded absently in agreement.

“The hinges aren’t a big fan of the open sea,” Chip slid his tongue across his lips and let out another awkward chuckle.  He reached out with one hand, almost as if to pat Gillion on the back, but then he stopped and dropped his arm again.  Gillion followed the movement carefully with his eyes, his ears pinned back against his skull.

“Are they supposed to be this noisy?” Gillion continued to sweep his hands down the front of his shirt as if he were trying to clean himself off.  He was aware now that he still had a bit of flour on the fabric.  His fingers brushed against the low-hanging opal on his necklace, and the item jostled against his throat with his sharp movements.

“No, not normally,” Chip began to move forward, walking stiffly with his hands stuffed in his pockets.  He looked hesitantly over his shoulder to make sure Gillion was following—he was.  “It might be all the salt in the air that’s making them so squeaky.  Maybe Jay or Alphonse might know.”

Gillion hummed, following Chip in the same direction that he had already been going.  He kept his eyes trained on the man’s back, watching the curve of his shoulders beneath the fluffy fabric of his shirt.  Gillion didn’t know where Chip’s coat was or why he wasn’t wearing the prized garment at the moment, but he figured that since the day appeared to be a hot one, maybe Chip had decided not to wear it for that reason.  Gillion furrowed his eyebrows and licked his lips.

“Perhaps…” Gillion agreed when he realized that he had left the conversation hanging.  Chip took another glance over his shoulders with a curious look, only lingering for a second before he pulled his gaze back towards the hallway in front of him.

Gillion felt the weight of Destiny’s blade pressing against his hip, the blade occasionally bumping against the side of his leg as Gillion shifted to pull himself up the stairs.  His hand curled around the railing for balance, his tail dragging behind him and hitting against each individual wooden plank.  

Gillion kept his shoulders squared and his eyes narrowed at Chip’s back, almost as if he were holding the man at swordpoint, urging him forward.  Chip was either unaware of this or was trying to ignore it; either way, he stopped looking over his shoulder every few seconds when he could hear the audible slapping of Gillion’s fins on the floor.  But his posture was tense, and he seemed to hold his hands in front of himself guiltily.

They walked in silence the short length of the stairs as well as the path towards the kitchen.  Chip did his best to ignore that Gillion was following behind him, and Gillion ignored the fact that he felt as if Chip were supposed to be guilty for something.  There was something nagging in the back of his mind that told him to be suspicious, but there was no evidence anywhere else that told Gillion of any discrepancies in Chip’s behavior.

Perhaps it was just the fact that Chip had startled Gillion so dramatically that it put Gillion on edge, still waiting for some sort of threat to pop up behind one of the barrels on the top deck of the ship.  It still felt as if there were eyes dragging across the back of his neck, judging him, scrutinizing him, waiting for him to show a weak link in his armor to dig into.  Gillion shivered and held onto the gemstone of his necklace for comfort.

As Gillion turned his head to the rest of the deck, his eyes quickly darted across the piles of crates or barrels that had been expertly tied down by Chip or Jay.  He turned towards the spot where he had perched last night, right at the front railing just above the figurehead.  From here, Gillion could only see the top of the carving peeking up from over the bow of the ship.

But along with that—and only for a moment—Gillion thought that he saw some sort of humanoid figure sitting on the railing in the same spot that Gillion had been just a few hours prior.  

However, as soon as Gillion blinked, the shape was gone, and he was left shaking his head and rubbing his eyes in order to figure out if the thing that he had just seen was real or not.  He swallowed thickly and made a noise from deep in the back of his throat, one akin to a whine or a keen, but hopefully not loud enough to alert Chip just a few feet in front of him.

Chip didn’t react to the noise, and Gillion curled his shoulders in, staring at that spot for a long time after the apparition appeared, daring something else to appear that might explain it.  

He stopped in his tracks and stared.  Gillion fanned his ears out around his head, focusing on the deck of the ship with as much suspicion as a guard looking for an escaped convict.  His tail twitched, and he felt a shiver roll down his spine with the chill of the wind.

The Albatross rocked back and forth, back and forth with the pressure of the waves against her hull.  It caused Gillion to sway as well, his bangs falling in front of his face with the refreshing sting of saltwater on his skin.  He curled his hands into fists and dug his nails into his palms, once again searching for some sort of trick.

“Gill?” Chip asked, snapping Gillion out of his thoughts.  He realized that Chip had already made his way into the kitchen and was peeking his head out of the doorway as if he had just now realized that Gillion wasn’t following.  His brown bangs blew with the wind and exposed the scar on his jaw with more light.

Chip smiled softly, almost a bit awkwardly, at Gillion and clicked his tongue.  “You coming?”

Gillion didn’t know how long he had stopped there for.  It had either only been a few seconds or a couple of minutes, but he was sure that Chip would have noticed much sooner than a minute or two that Gillion had not followed.

Nodding his head slowly, Gillion forced his limbs to move, his body feeling heavy all of a sudden, as if he had been standing there his entire life.  His joints were sore and stiff, and his knee popped when he placed pressure on it, not enough that it hurt, but loud enough that even Chip winced at the sound.

“Don’t worry, my legs do that too,” Chip nudged the door open the rest of the way with his foot and held it open for Gillion to slip through.  

Gillion didn’t like the pang of unease that weighed in his stomach at the feeling of being so close to Chip as he had to squeeze by the man to get through the door.  It was as if he were trapped in an awkward hold that he didn’t want to participate in, even if Chip hadn’t touched him at all.

Jay, Ollie, Earl, and Gryphon were already seated at the table tucked in the corner of the room.  The rest of the seats were open, and plates were set down in their spots, but no food had been served to the chairs without people in them.  A stack of pancakes sat in the middle of the table on a large serving plate, as well as the container of syrup that had to be carefully rationed during times like this.  

Ollie was talking about his plans for the day, a conversation that Gillion only caught the tail end of as his mind was elsewhere.  It seemed that the young boy was excited about something, possibly a fun adventure in his daily plans, or training to help the other members.  His tail wagged excitedly behind him, the small tuft of fur sticking out from behind the back of his chair as he shifted and moved around.

Ollie moved around enough that as Gillion passed by his steadily rocking chair, Gillion placed his hand on the back of it to steady him with the rocking of the waves, pushing all four legs of it down on the floor.  Ollie looked up with surprise and merely smiled at Gillion with that lopsided grin that always exposed only one half of his teeth.  Gillion mimicked the expression the best he could.

He followed Chip the rest of the way to the table, squeezing in behind Jay to the other side of the table, pressed against the wall.  Chip first and then Gillion.  The rest of the crew that was awake at the moment didn’t even bat an eye at the addition of two more members.

Breakfast was always a bit chaotic on the ship, the coming and going of different people was always understandable.  Queen or Chip always woke up pretty late and would join the breakfast table at different times.  Or Jay would suddenly remember something from last night that she had to attend to so early in the morning and would jump up from the table with her half-finished plate in hand and rush off to do it.  Or Ollie would finish before all the others and excitedly bounce up to start his day.

As Chip settled at one of the empty seats with a plate set in front of it, Gillion found himself wedged between both of his co-captains.  Jay on his right and Chip on his left.

Jay looked over and smiled at Gillion as he settled, struggling to sit right in the high-backed chair with his thick tail.  It was easier for Ollie to slip his small tail through the openings in the design on the back of the chair, but Gillion’s was much too big for that.

“Do you want to switch?” Jay asked, putting her hand on the table right next to where  Gillion had grabbed the edge of it for balance.  He startled at being suddenly spoken to, eyes widening as he looked over at Jay.

“Huh?” Gillion muttered dumbly, not fully understanding what she was talking about.

It wasn't until Gillion actually looked over fully to see that Jay had perched on one of the stools that had been brought up from the lower decks.  They only occasionally brought extra chairs to their table in the kitchen, if only to make sure everyone could eat at the same time.  But they didn’t always eat all together as a crew, so that wasn’t always necessary.

But the stool had no back to it and was much easier for Gillion to situate on since he didn’t have to find a way that he could orient his tail without crushing the fins or bending it in an odd way that would give him pins and needles.

Jay’s lips pulled back into a small smile, and her eyes scrunched up in the corners.  There was still a bit of flour on her face that she hadn’t noticed. Gillion stared at the spot to avoid looking her in the eyes.

“Oh… Uhm…” Gillion slid his tongue over his lips and hesitated, “That would be ideal…”

Jay nodded in agreement and stood up, helping Gillion switch the chairs around so that the stool would be in his spot and she could take the chair that he had been trying to adjust to fit into.  As Gillion stood, he bumped a bit into Chip, who was sitting way too close for comfort.

Chip said nothing at the contact, but Gillion nearly jumped out of his skin at the feeling of another person right next to him, not expecting Chip to be that near.  He pulled his tail as close to his body as possible, tucking the limb between his legs and trying not to do that again.  The base of his tail burned from where he had nearly tripped over Chip, his heart pounding in his chest.

It was a tight squeeze, one that probably would’ve been solved more easily by them just switching the place that they were sitting.  But Jay liked her spot by the edge of the table, and Gillion didn’t think about that soon enough to bring up the suggestion.  So Jay painstakingly decided to lift the stool up over her head, hands curled around the wooden legs, while Gillion shoved the chair as far underneath the table as he could.

Jay stepped back, her back pressing against the wall in the small area that they had between the table and the wall, and tried not to smash Chip in the head with the legs of the stool while she set it down in the place that Gillion’s chair had originally been.  Chip yelped in surprise and leaned back, trying to grab pancakes for himself while at the same time avoiding getting battered in their stumbling around.

For merely a second, their hands brushed while Gillion was passing the chair to Jay and Jay was doing her best to balance the stool on her shoulder and help Gillion pull it over.  Gillion once again found himself jerking away before he even knew what he was doing, his arm tingling like he had just hit his elbow in the wrong way.

Jay said nothing about Gillion’s odd behavior, and neither she nor Chip pointed out the very strange turn of his touch aversion today.  Gillion sucked in a sharp breath and tried to keep his heartbeat under control, hating the way that he could feel it hammering hard against his rib cage, making it difficult for him to breathe without feeling like he was suffocating.  Gillion swallowed thickly past the lump in his throat.

At this point, Gryphon probably muttered something sarcastic under his breath, maybe a correction to their plan or a better idea that would’ve worked better.  Whatever it was, Gillion didn’t catch any of it besides the gruff tone of his voice and what could be interpreted as laughter.

Jay glared at him and let out a huff, rolling her eyes.  She pulled the chair back into her spot and positioned it in a way that she liked before plopping down on the wooden surface.  She glared at Gryphon and muttered something about how they had it under control and that they knew what they were doing.

Gillion said nothing, and when Gryphon looked over at him with an expectant look, he just smiled politely and laughed awkwardly as if he knew what was going on.  Hopefully, it wasn’t a question that he was supposed to answer, and that Gillion was just supposed to play along instead.

He pulled the stool closer to the table and sat down, satisfied that he didn’t have to spend a while adjusting or sitting awkwardly on his fins.  They always seemed to have at least one stool up in the kitchen for that reason.  But Jay must have expected Gillion to take a while longer, or she had expected her breakfast to not take as long, so she had taken the stool.

Or maybe she hadn’t expected Gillion to reappear in the first place, as if she had tried to shoo him away for good, expecting him to stay away for long enough that she could eat breakfast in peace.  

Maybe she hadn’t wanted him here in the first place.  Maybe she had been sitting so far back to try to bar Gillion from entering the side of the table that he always liked to sit on.  Maybe this entire thing had been set up to try to get rid of Gillion, and because he never seemed to get the hint, he didn’t notice.

Gillion stared down at his still-empty place with a heavy feeling in his stomach.  As he perched on the stool, he wondered whether Jay had offered to switch seats out of her own concern, or just out of obligation, since she hadn’t expected Gillion to show up for breakfast and now had to admit that she had taken his normal seat.

She probably still wanted him gone after he had snapped at him.  He was sure that she might still be shaken up at his outburst, and Chip probably was as well.  Gillion had lashed out at both of them already today, and they had barely even started the morning.  They were probably tired of him at this point, tired of the fact that he kept lashing out without warning and without even knowing what he was lashing out for and why.

That thought nearly drained Gillion’s entire appetite, something unpleasant settling right behind his rib cage, making his heartbeats almost ache.  He swallowed thickly and took a deep breath to stop himself from making a noise.  He just hunched his shoulders, suddenly a bit insecure at the fact that since the stool was taller than all the other chairs, he sat higher than Chip and Jay on either side of him.

He only pulled a few pancakes onto his plate because he knew that otherwise Jay or Chip would have asked him if something was wrong (if they cared enough to notice).  He didn’t want them to ask because Gillion couldn’t lie, and he didn’t want to bother them with whatever trivial problems were going through his head at the moment. 

The thing that he thought he felt last night?  It was baseless and probably just the wind.  There was nothing to get Chip or Jay all worked up about because it didn’t matter.  With any of his insecurities about them being upset with him, if they weren’t already upset with him before, they were certainly going to be upset with him now for thinking such things. 

Either way, him telling them what was wrong would just get them upset for no reason.  It wasn’t a big deal, and really, it didn’t matter all that much.  He didn’t want to be a bother with issues that he didn’t even fully understand.

So Gillion bit his tongue and said nothing, not really paying attention to the current conversation that Jay and Chip were engaged in with the other half of the table.  Gillion stared down at his plate and tried to make himself as small as possible.

He pulled his fins back to pin against his head, hunching his shoulders and trying to make it seem like he wasn’t sitting on the tallest stool at the table.  He wrapped the end of his tail around the leg of the stool and felt it wobble with the weight shift, the rocking of the ship being incredibly unhelpful with trying to keep his balance. 

Silently, Gillion ate the few pancakes that he had pulled onto his plate, using his hands to tear the soft, fluffy cake apart and stuffing pieces into his mouth.  He didn’t use the syrup or butter that had been placed on the table and just ate them dry with his hands.  

They were light and fluffy and slightly sweet as Gillion chewed thoughtfully.  Jay had cooked them well, as she always did, and the flavor was familiar to Gillion, who realized that he must have had them before since he recognized them so well.  His teeth tore through the fragile yet thick crumb of the pancakes, and he chewed as if he didn’t really know what to do with his mouth.

Gillion kept glancing side to side at Chip and Jay next to him while he ate, trying not to catch their eye but just silently observing the way that they moved and interacted with each other.  Jay would laugh and twitch her fingers around the fork in her left hand, leaning forward some on her elbows and shifting with the waves, her hair tied back but still falling in front of her face.

And then Chip would shift in his seat, moving to tuck his legs underneath him or stretch them out whenever that position got sore.  He never sat still at the table or any other place that he was sitting down for too long.  He was always squirming or fidgeting, enough that each movement sent a jolt of alarm down Gillion’s spine when Chip’s hand always strayed too close to Gillion’s arm.

Whatever they were saying went in one ear and right out the other as he wasn’t exactly paying attention to what was going on without him.  He told himself that he didn’t belong in whatever conversation they were discussing and that he should sit in his chair as quietly as possible.

A part of Gillion felt like he didn’t belong here.  He didn’t belong with the rest of the crew, who seemed to connect so well, talking and laughing (loud enough that it almost made  Gillion flinch when Chip barked out an obnoxiously loud laugh right next to him).  Whatever they were saying made no sense to Gillion, and he didn’t like being squeezed between Chip and Jay at the table.

The voices of the crew practically washed over him.  Ollie, Gryphon, Earl, Chip, and Jay.  At one point, Gillion distantly thought he heard Queen’s voice as well or even Drey, but he kept his head ducked and his shoulders hunched, and he pretended like he didn’t stick out like a sore thumb in between Chip and Jay.  

He ate his fill of the pancakes (his appetite mostly ruined by the thoughts running through his head), but found that there were still a couple more on his plate.  And since he had already taken up enough time and resources just by being at the table with the others, he couldn’t let the pancakes he had already taken go to waste.  So even though Gillion was no longer hungry, he pulled pieces of the remaining pancakes off and stuffed them into his mouth long after they had cooled to an uncomfortable temperature.

Suddenly and without warning, Jay leaned over and nudged Gillion with her elbow, poking him in the soft part of his side and causing him to flinch.  Gillion nearly jumped out of his skin, biting down on his tongue to keep from growling as he ripped one of his pancakes in half out of surprise, the two pieces nearly melting in his hands as he clenched his hands into fists.  

He turned to look at Jay, forcing his expression to remain neutral and not wanting to give her any more reason to be angry or upset with him.  Gillion swallowed thickly and sucked in a deep gulp of air, relaxing his shoulders and allowing his ears to flare out around his face (knowing that Jay was keenly aware of his normal body language at this point).  She smiled at him as if it were the most casual thing in the world, leaning back in her chair and pushing the two front legs off the floor so she could lean back even more.

Gillion forced a smile and tilted his head to the side, unsure whether or not he should say something to Jay or not.  Jay nodded her head in Gillion’s direction, still looking at him expectantly.

“What was that?” Gillion finally asked when he realized Jay had probably said something and was waiting with anticipation for him to respond.  Gillion felt a pang of awkwardness in the center of his chest, counterbalanced by the weight of his necklace as it thumped against his sternum when he jerked forward.

“I said that you’re gonna have to go easy on Chip today when you’re training,” Jay smiled and expected Gillion to understand the joke that she was getting at.

Instead of knowing what she was talking about, Gillion just looked over at Chip with his eyebrows furrowed, trying to see if maybe.  He laughed awkwardly and felt his tail twitch, the end of it hitting against the leg of his stool.  Chip rolled his eyes and leaned his elbow on the table, shaking his head in disbelief at Jay’s antics.

“She says I’m weak,” Chip hissed under his breath, shaking his head again and looking over at Gillion.  He curled his hand into a fist and flexed his bicep, still leaning forward on the table.  “I don’t need anyone to go easy on me.”

Jay reached over Gillion (who nearly toppled off the stool with how quickly he jerked back) to poke Chip in the side.  Jay’s elbow knocked against her plate in front of her, causing her fork to clatter off the edge of the plate, and the legs of Gillion’s stool stomped against the floor when he frantically scooted back with surprise.  Chip yelped and swatted Jay’s hand away, also jerking away as she continued to try to assault his side with pokes.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Chip jumped up to his feet, swatting at Jay with both of his hands.  He also leaned over Gillion to get back at her, trying to yank her off the chair she was sitting on. 

“You’re gonna need extra training if you keep skipping out on it,” Jay teased, grabbing Chip’s wrist and holding him in place so he couldn’t try to pull her or anything.  She dug her heels into the ground to keep herself in place, sitting on the edge of her chair with the back two legs slightly off the floor.  Chip just continued to try to yank his hand out of her grasp, but Jay dug her nails into his skin, her lips pulled back into a grimace.

“You’re the one who never does any training,” Chip insisted, using his other hand to intertwine his fingers with Jay, shoving her fingers back to try to get her to back down, bending them in the wrong direction.

“I don’t use swords,” Jay yanked her hand away from Chip, and reached down to her belt where her gun was normally holstered.  Gillion felt a spark of alarm in the center of his chest at the sudden movement, his own hand twitching towards his sword.  Gillion knew that Jay had no weapon on her, but she threatened to search for it anyway.  “And I don’t think you want me to practice skeet shooting on board.”

Gillion’s heart pounded against his rib cage as the two of them wrestled over him. Chip suddenly yanked his head away from Jay, causing her to accidentally elbow Gillion in the chest.  A sharp jolt of pain thudded against Gillion’s ribs, and he jumped back as if he had been shot, her arm slamming the stone of his necklace against his sternum in a way that sent a wave of pain against his skin.  He bit back a low growl, the end of it clipping past his throat.

Gillion stood so suddenly that the legs of his stool skittered across the ground with a deafening screech.  The main part of the seat slammed against the wall behind him, and Gillion flinched, his ears pulling back to his skull.  Chip and Jay immediately stopped, and Jay hurried back to her own seat, staring up at Gillion with an apologetic expression.

The silence that fell for a few seconds afterwards was practically palpable.  The other members of the crew sitting across from the three captains went silent as well, staring back and forth with wide eyes.  Gillion forced himself to relax his expression, his heart pounding in his chest and his ribs aching from where Jay had accidentally elbowed him, the necklace twitching against his sternum.

“Sorry, Gill,” Jay reached out to touch Gillion’s arm, stopping when Gillion jerked away before her hand could make contact.  She frowned and wrung her hands bashfully.

“I will go prepare for our training, Chip,” Gillion forced out, his lips pulling back into what almost felt like a snarl.  He couldn’t help the shake in his voice, the slightly unrestrained agitation that made his throat tighten.  His tail twitched, and the end of it whipped back and forth like an agitated stingray.  He furrowed his eyebrows and pushed behind Jay to squeeze out from behind the table.

No one said anything as Gillion left.  The tension that had suddenly manifested in the room was thick enough that Gillion would be able to cut through it with Destiny’s blade.  Ollie was staring at him.  So was Gryphon and Earl.  But neither of them said anything.

It was as if a spell had been cast, silencing every sound in the room, every clink of utensils, every excited laugh or playful joke.  No one seemed to want to move either, frozen and just staring at Gillion with their eyes, looking awkward and slightly confused.

Jay scooted her chair in enough that Gillion had room to get out without having to duck and squeeze.  The end of his tail smacked against the wall with a loud enough slap that Jay flinched as if Gillion had hit her.

Gillion’s body moved without him even thinking about it.  Each leg pushed him forward.  His hands were clenched into fists at his side, and the feeling of Destiny’s blade at his hip nearly made him wrap his fingers protectively around the hilt.  He clenched his jaw and pulled his lips back into a snarl, stalking across the room like a guard on patrol.

As soon as Gillion reached the door and pushed himself through the wooden opening, it was as if he had just walked through a vacuum, the suction of tension in the room lifting a weight from his shoulders as he stepped onto the top deck.  His fins shook, and he trembled, a gust of salty air blowing against his face and pushing his hair in front of his eyes.

He couldn’t help but grab onto the hilt of his sword, the grip worn just in the shape that matched his fingers.  Carefully, he drew his sword and held it in front of himself, feeling the weight sway in his hands as he rocked his hands back and forth to see the way the sun reflected off the slightly pearlescent blade.

A low growl spilled from his lips, and Gillion slowly shook his head, dropping his sword to his side and whirling around to make sure there was no one behind him.  He spun in a slow circle, scanning the top deck to make sure that he was alone and that no one could sneak up on him.

A part of him still didn’t fully believe that he had been alone last night, nor did he believe that there wasn’t secretly someone stashed away on the ship trying to harm them.  They could be hiding anywhere.

So while he waited for Chip to join him after they all finished with breakfast, Gillion paced the top deck in a similar fashion to how he was on his shift.  He overturned crates and pulled bundles of barrels apart, undoing the knots with his nail, digging into the main part of it.  He lifted the lids and peered inside, trying to see as best he could in the shadow of the barrel.  

It was mostly supplies.  Gunpowder, pieces of rope, and white fabric that Gillion assumed might be for the sails or something left over.

But some were empty with places to hide in.

There were bits of crumbs or small scraps, but otherwise, the barrel was pretty much hollow.  There were places that Gillion knew Chip would hide in sometimes when he was waiting to scare whoever would walk by (although he hadn’t done such a trick in a while after Gryphon nearly put a bullet between his eyes).

It was all the same: a hiding place.

And that knowledge just made Gillion even more uneasy.

Gillion walked down the length of the ship, back and forth, back and forth, trying to find where someone might be able to hide when no one was looking.  The top deck wasn’t full of too many hiding spots, it was mostly the barrels or perhaps up in the crow’s nest.

But one look up towards the tall, intimidating mast told Gillion that there was no way he was climbing all the way up there.  A shiver ran down his spine, and a spike of fear caused his stomach to churn at the thought of how high the crow’s nest sat.  There couldn’t be anyone up there… No one in their right mind would willingly spend time so high up.

Not fully satisfied, but not wanting to tear up the entire top deck looking for something he couldn’t find (besides, he didn’t want Chip or Jay to catch on that there was something wrong.  They would think he was crazy), Gillion stopped near the bow of the ship.  But this time, instead of facing out into the water and foolishly leaving his back exposed, Gillion placed himself right in the crook where the two sides of the railing met up.

He stuck the end of his tail through the wooden bars and curled it around one of the poles.  Gillion made it so that it would be impossible for someone to sneak up on him, his dorsal fin squished uncomfortably against the wooden corner as he peered out at the top deck, eyes continuously moving to glance at all the hiding spots that he had now discovered.

Gillion placed the tip of Destiny’s blade against the floor, leaning his palms on the pommel.  He stood poised like a soldier, the wind combing through his hair as he glared, teeth bared, and ears fanned out around his head to listen for sounds. 

There was no use in tearing up the deck while he waited. Gillion just had to watch and observe, not letting anything slip behind him and trip him up.  From where he perched, he would be able to see nearly everything with the exception of whatever was directly behind the masts.

With the thought of his armor slipping from his mind, Gillion decided to stand at attention and wait for Chip to come up to the top deck for the training that Gillion had nearly forgotten about in the chaos of the morning.

Chapter Text

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, 

It perched for vespers nine; 

Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, 

Glimmered the white Moon-shine.' 

'God save thee, ancient Mariner! 

From the fiends, that plague thee thus!— 

Why look'st thou so?'—With my cross-bow 

I shot the Albatross.

-The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

When Chip finally finished breakfast and was just beginning to make his way out of the kitchen, Gillion’s tail was going numb from how it was pressed between the bars of the railing, and the exhaustion from poor sleep was getting to him.  It was also possible that the stress of the morning was beginning to wear on him, the range of emotions that had flashed through his mind too fast for him to comprehend sapping all his energy before noon.

Gillion leaned most of his weight against his sword, using it to keep himself standing.  With his other hand, he idly fidgeted with the necklace around his throat, glaring at the top deck with his eyebrows furrowed.  Each creak of the ship or the whip of his sails caused his ears to twitch and his heart to leap to his throat at the sudden noise.

It felt like Gillion waited there for hours, but without a watch or other timekeeper, Gillion would never be sure.  His feet were falling asleep, and his hips ached from standing so long.  He was practically itching for something to get him to move, some sort of action that would spur him into motion.

The sensation of some strange presence on the ship never went away, but after long enough of Gillion’s searches coming empty-handed, he began to doubt the uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Not enough to shove it away completely, but enough that Gillion forced himself not to act on any suspicions.  He bit down on his tongue and held himself steady at the bow of the ship, waiting intently for his and Chip’s training to begin.

His fingers twitched at the hilt of his sword, and he let out a long stream of breath that pulled from his throat like the exhale of some great beast.  Then, he pulled his shoulders back and made sure he was standing up straight, not wanting Chip or Jay to catch him slouching, unsure how that might affect their perception of him.

A few minutes passed.  Then a few more.  Then Gillion found that he quickly lost track of the time, his eyes struggling to focus with the brightness of the sun steadily rising overhead.  The sound of the waves crashing against the side of the Albatross filled his ears and made his senses almost blurry.  Like he was staring through the murky water at the bottom of a lake, everything else was muffled by the boredom of standing in one place for long enough.

After however long it had been, the slamming open of the kitchen door was enough to make Gillion startle, eyelids blinking open as if he had been asleep (although he had no recollection of dozing off).

“You ready, Gill?” Chip shouted, his voice (as usual) carrying across the ship.  Loud enough that Gillion was sure that anyone else who hadn’t woken up yet would now be awake.  He was cheerful, energetic in the way that Chip always was, but the noise startled Gillion, whose sensitive ears were ringing.

Gillion turned to face the kitchen door, his mouth opening and closing dumbly like a beached fish.  A tingling sensation was just beginning to fade from his fingers and the palms of his hands.  Like he had just been electrocuted by something, and the energy was still coursing through his body.

He was no longer standing at the bow of the ship, and now appeared a few yards away as if he had been sleepwalking (something that was not implausible).  Gillion blinked and shook his head to reorient, realizing that he was still leaning up against the railing, his hands tightly curled around the wood.

There were new gouges dug into the railing from Gillion’s claws raking across them, and there were pieces of wood shavings under his nails.  Gillion distantly recognized a burning ache in his tail from about halfway down to the tip of his fins, but he didn’t remember getting injured.  His sword was missing from his hands and no longer attached to his belt.

A quick turn revealed that Destiny’s blade had been dropped to the ground a few feet away, back where Gillion used to be standing.  The ribbons at the end of the hilt fluttered lightly in the wind, and the item almost looked desolate at being left alone.  Gillion couldn’t help but think that the weapon looked abandoned, as if he had dropped it there without a care for what might happen to it (although Gillion knew that wasn’t the case since he took such good care of his weapon).

Gillion didn’t remember dropping it.  He didn’t remember falling asleep.  And he certainly didn’t remember leaving his perch at the front of the ship.  And he had no idea how long he had been standing there on the top deck.

“Gill?” Chip was right next to him now.  A hand was placed on his shoulder, and Gillion flinched.  He didn’t even hear Chip approach. The sound of his footsteps and the scratchy, lilted sound of his accent barely filtered in through his mind. 

The dry palm against his skin burned, and Gillion yanked his arm away as if Chip had started their training early, using his magic on Gillion while he was unprepared.  Gillion whipped around with his eyes wide and his teeth bared, frantic confusion making his heart pound rapidly against his rib cage.  He struggled to reorient himself, his body felt strange, and there was an odd lingering feeling that something was wrong.

“Whoa,” Chip held his hands up in front of himself in a placating gesture and smiled, scrunching up his face and squinting his eyes. “You okay, man?  You look frazzled.”

“I am alright,” Gillion pushed his bangs away from his face and leaned forward a bit over the railing, letting out another breath—this one more of a relieved sigh.  Chip’s eyes darted towards the necklace Gillion wore, and an odd sense of insecurity flashed in Gillion’s face.  He reached up to curl his fingers around the stone pendant, hiding it from view as if he was worried that Chip might think to take the gift back.

“Didn’t sleep well last night?” Chip asked, taking a step away from Gillion to begin stretching.  He pulled his arms up over his shoulders, his fingers intertwined with each other as he bent his torso to either side.

Gillion stood up straight, unconsciously tucking his necklace behind the collar of his shirt, allowing the cool stone to press against the bare skin of his sternum, hiding it from the world.  Chip didn’t acknowledge the quick movement.  Either he didn’t see it, or he just didn’t want to point it out.

“Not well, no,” Gillion agreed with a short nod.  He slid his tongue across his lips and pushed himself away from the railing, forcing his hands to relax in order to let go of his stony grip on the wooden beam.

“Same,” Chip agreed, bending forward at the hips so that he could press his palms to the floor.  “It’s hard to get good sleep when my shift is right in the middle of the night.” He was practically speaking to the floor with the way that he was stretching.  Gillion watched curiously as Chip bent himself in different positions.

Gillion’s eyebrows raised slightly, and he hovered a few feet away from where Chip stood on the deck.  It made sense that Chip wouldn’t enjoy the watch that he was given.  It was right in the middle of his sleep cycle, waking him so abruptly couldn’t be healthy for a human.  Gillion figured that it would be easier for him to take a shift like that since the undersea didn’t have daylight cycles like the oversea did.  So, in theory, Gillion would have a better time being woken up abruptly like that.

He opened his mouth to speak.  Closed it.  And then opened it again, struggling to figure out how to word the question that he remembered that he wanted to ask Chip.

“Perhaps… We could switch shifts…” Gillion started, narrowing his eyebrows and trying to gauge what Chip’s reaction would be.  He hesitated and wrung his hands nervously, the end of his tail twitching.

Chip hummed softly in acknowledgement of Gillion’s suggestion.  He stood up straight with his hands placed on his hips.  One eyebrow raised as he glanced over at Gillion with a curious expression, silently encouraging Gillion to continue.

“You want to switch?” Chip prompted, sliding his tongue across his lips, “How come?”

“Well…” Gillion found it hard to chew through his words, his brain working sluggishly to dredge up all the justifications that he had come up with last night.  “I suppose it would be more beneficial to the crew—with my vision—if I took the darker part of the night.  And you wouldn’t have to wake up in the middle of the night.”

Chip hummed again and nodded, “I guess that’s true,” He bounced from foot to foot, still stretching and getting warmed up for their training.  It seemed that for once, Chip was taking the event more seriously than Gillion (although Gillion was still reeling from his disorientation).  “Sure, if you want to switch, we can talk to Jay afterwards.  I’m fine with that.”

Gillion nodded, clenching and unclenching his hands into a fist, feeling his claws digging into his palms.  He nodded to himself and then nodded at Chip.

“Right, yes,” Gillion slid his tongue across his lips, “We’ll talk to Jay about it.”

Chip crossed his arm across his chest and hooked his hand near his elbow to stretch his shoulder.  He smiled playfully at Gillion, scrunching up his expression into a mischievous look.

“That settles that then,” Chip said, “So how do you want to do this today? Swords? Armor?” He looked Gillion up and down, seemingly noticing the lack of armor and weapons that Gillion currently had on him.  His eyes bounced across Gillion’s form like a flighty insect, taking in his appearance like a predator observing prey.

Gillion tried to think about Chip’s question to decide what he wanted out of this training session.  But his mouth moved faster than his brain did, “No weapons.  No armor.  No magic.”

Chip seemed taken aback at that decision at first, his face morphing into that of surprise, and then something that almost seemed like suspicion, and then confusion.  But all that happened within just a few seconds, not even long enough for Gillion to catch everything that flashed across Chip’s face.  Chip managed to steel himself with a short nod, bouncing his weight from foot to foot the same way that a boxer might.

“Okay, just a dog fight?” Chip asked, holding his fists up to his jaw, shadow boxing to the side, not facing Gillion, “Just plain ol’ raw muscle?”

Gillion swallowed thickly and nodded, “Yes, just a normal ‘dog fight’... whatever that term entails…” Chip gave no indication that he was alarmed or suspicious of Gillion’s selection.  He quickly steeled his expression and nodded in agreement, but still, Gillion felt as if he had to justify his slip of the tongue with something that sounded a lot more reasonable.

So he added awkwardly after a second of silence: “Perhaps it would be good for both of us to practice hand-to-hand combat in case the situation arises…” He slid his tongue across his lips.  Chip threw another fake punch in the air and bounced from foot to foot, his shoes tapping against the wood of the deck. 

“You might need it, but I’m expertly trained in hand-to-hand combat,” Chip gave a small laugh that almost sounded like overconfidence.  He tilted his head to the side, still with his fists near his jaw, and shot a wink at Gillion, who was unsure what that gesture was supposed to mean.  “You won’t be able to keep up when we’re just fighting raw with no tricks.”

“Perhaps not…” Gillion thought to play along with Chip’s confidence, but he didn’t have as much energy as normal to go with his jokes.  “It will be a tough match.”

Chip laughed to himself and shook the hair out of his eyes, the wind blowing his frizzy brown curls in front of his face with sharp whips of movement.  He seemed to have a lot more energy now than he did before, slowly working himself up to the morning.  Chip had eaten breakfast and probably gotten some coffee as well, depending on whether they had any left.

He was back to shadow boxing, bouncing back and forth with his stance wide and his hands near his face.  Chip huffed out a sharp breath, barely paying any attention to Gillion, focused on whatever warmups he thought he needed right now.

Gillion watched his movements carefully, his electric blue eyes darting across Chip’s form.  He watched the curve of his muscles, the contour of his arms, and the way that his elbow seemed to snap out whenever he would throw a fake punch.  There was a faint, almost unnoticeable smile spreading across his lips, his tongue poking out from between his teeth just enough that Gillion could see the soft pink between his closed mouth.

They were standing a few feet away from each other, just enough space that Chip could easily reach out to touch Gillion if he decided he wanted to.  But not so close that Gillion was at risk of getting caught in the crossfire of whatever fidgeting and bouncing around that Chip was currently doing.

“Don’t you need to get warmed up or anything?” Chip asked, raising one eyebrow as he rocked back and forth on the heels of his feet, rolling his weight all the way from his toes to his heels.  He dropped his arms to his side, swinging them exaggeratedly with the rocking of the ship and the movement of the rest of his body.

“Right…” Gillion gave a short nod and took a step backwards, nearly stepping on the fins of his tails as he tried to put space between himself and Chip.  His tail swished back and forth to keep his balance, and he took a few minutes to stretch as well, watching Chip carefully as he did so.

The man barely paid any attention to what Gillion was actually doing.  He went back to throwing fake punches in the air and bouncing his weight from foot to foot.  Gillion pulled his arm in front of his chest, holding his hand at his elbow and pulling his arm forward to stretch his shoulders.

He did this a few times, stretching his arms and legs and mimicking some of the things that he saw Chip do, all the while making sure that the man didn’t get too close.  Gillion knew that he would have to get close to Chip for their training, but he was still trying to get himself adjusted to the thought of it, his brain for some reason making him uneasy at the thought of touch.

Gillion told himself that this was going to be different.  They were just training.  There was nothing else behind each touch that might set Gillion’s paranoia off.  No hands on his back to push him off the ship, or an angry fist wrapped tightly around his arm to drag him away from the shameful mistake that he had just committed.  There were no angry hands to reprimand him.  No fingers poking and prodding and examining him in ways that made his skin crawl at the mere idea of being touched again.

It was just a normal sparring match between friends (partners, maybe… Gillion still couldn’t be sure what he considered Chip and Jay to be to him).

When Gillion figured that he had stretched enough, he pulled himself back to stand up straight, raising his hands to his jaw to hold in the same form that Chip had shown him a while back.  He clenched his jaws and stared intently at Chip, who noticed Gillion getting into the proper stance quickly, his eyebrows raising and his own feet shifting to match Gillion’s wide stance.

No weapons.  No armor.  No magic.

A “dog fight,” as Chip called it.  Gillion didn’t know what he would call a match like this, knowing that neither of them would probably stick with proper fighting styles or techniques.  Once neither of them had their weapons and they were fighting hand-to-hand, there were no rules or set fighting styles that would confine them.

“Standard rules?” Chip asked, his lip twitching into what looked like a smile, “First one pinned loses?”

“Right,” Gillion nodded in response, unable to help himself from baring his teeth at Chip.  His lips pulled back into what almost seemed to be a snarl, a breathy growl bubbling up from the back of his throat as his hands twitched.  Gillion dug his claws into his palms and felt the sting of pain rattle down his wrists.

“Okay, ready?”

“On three?” Gillion knew the drill.  They had been doing this often enough that they both had developed a rhythm for these kinds of things.  They knew how to start a match and to end one.  Whatever happened in the in-between was completely up to fate and whoever had the upper hand.

“One,” Chip nodded excitedly, his hands twitching as he rocked himself idly in the boxer's stance that he had learned and tried to teach Gillion, who was clumsy and bulky on his feet.

“Two,” Gillion followed, ear twitching in Chip’s direction as the sound of the wind nearly threw him off.  It made his hearing ring and the hair on the back of his neck stand up.  (He almost felt the ghost of hands tracing across his shoulders).

“Three!” Chip barely waited for half the word to come out of his mouth before he surged forward, feigning a punch to Gillion’s face and startling him right away.

Gillion brought one arm up to block the punch, unable to dodge as well as he should, considering all the training that he had gone through as a child.  But he knew enough how to tank a hit, blocking Chip’s swing.  Chip’s other hand came forward, landing a weak punch to Gillion’s stomach.  

It wasn’t hard, but the unexpectedness of it made Gillion wheeze as Chip’s fist sank into the soft part of his stomach.  He jolted back and tried to catch Chip’s wrist with his claws bared, but Chip had already pulled his hand away, keeping them up by his face to protect his jaw.

His ear twitched, and he felt the bubbling of energy churning in his stomach, all his previous doubts and worries settling into only the instinctual progression of the battle.  His tail swept out in order to hit Chip in the legs, hopefully sweeping his knees.  He twisted his hip in accommodation for the massive, heavy limb, and nearly would have taken Chip out in one swing if not for Chip’s fancy footwork.

He jumped back a few paces, still with his hands pulled up to his face to block his jaw, and his shoes skittering across the deck.  He smiled with his tongue peeking out from behind his lips and winked at Gillion almost tauntingly.  Chip mimed another punch, not fully extending his arm to Gillion, but just enough that Gillion nearly flinched, instinctively throwing his arms up to catch it.

Chip swung another punch, a right hook with the intended target being Gillion’s jaw.  But in order to get there, he had to bounce over Gillion’s tail, which left a barrier between the two.  

His maneuver took just enough time that Gillion was able to sweep out his left hand, catching Chip’s wrist and pulling the man to the side with the intention of throwing him to the ground, his tail swishing back and forth in its normal position behind him.  Chip yelped and stumbled, kicking one leg out to try to hit Gillion in the back of the knees.

Gillion slammed his tail down, narrowly missing where Chip’s leg had just been, the limb rattling the deck with a nearly deafening thud with the amount of force that Gillion put behind the swing.  Chip was lucky that he missed.  

Gillion did the same thing again, lunging forward to try and grab Chip and catch him off guard, already ditching the organized way of hand-to-hand combat that Chip had taught him.  Chip scrambled out of the way, his palms skittering across the deck as he pulled himself back, a yelp pulling from his throat as Gillion’s tail once again landed on the deck with a rattling smack.

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Chip jumped back up to his feet, only momentarily caught on the ground from Gillion pulling him forward.  Not long enough for Gillion to get him pinned, and certainly not long enough for Gillion to land a hit on him with his tail (a blow that would certainly put Chip in bed for the rest of the day).  

This time, Gillion threw a punch, his fist curled in a way that the blow turned into halfway between a punch and a slash with his claws.  His nails met Chip’s shoulders, and Gillion leaned as much momentum as he could into the attack, slashing into Chip’s skin and shoving him back a few steps as well with the force.  Chip hissed and brought his hands up to block another possible attack.

He shoved Gillion’s arm away, knocking it down with much more force than he needed to, trying to get his footwork back after being thrown off.  A little bit of blood bubbled to the surface from where Gillion’s claws had dug into his flesh.  Chip said nothing about the odd surge of violence, but instead tried to brush it off with a quick shake of his shoulders and a few feet of distance for a second to compose himself.

Gillion watched each of Chip’s movements carefully, his eyes darting back and forth as the man hopped from foot to foot.  A bead of sweat rolled down Chip’s brow. He was good at dodging and bouncing away from any swing that Gillion threw, but most of his hits did nothing to Gillion, who knew how to tank quite a few before falling.  Chip scrunched up his face and practically glared at Gillion. 

Gillion knew the expression wasn’t serious, but he couldn’t help the pang of aggression from flaring in his chest at being stared at like that.  Chip slid his tongue across his lips and sucked in a deep breath, his chest rising and falling with his exhale.

With a loud step forward, his tail swishing behind him to balance at the shift in weight, Gillion threw his fist out, once again loosely clasped, aiming for Chip’s jaw with his right hand.  Chip ducked with a yelp, hand reaching up in an attempt to catch Gillion’s wrist, but he only managed to scrape his nails along the sensitive fins on the outside of Gillion’s forearm.

A sharp hiss of pain spilled from Gillion’s lips at the sudden electric jolt that ran down his arm where Chip had scraped against his fins.  He immediately lashed out with a lot more force, grabbing Chip’s forearm with his claws, digging into his skin.  He growled and yanked Chip towards him, trying to throw him to the ground with a deep burst of strength.

Chip did indeed go flying to the ground, Gillion’s feet skittered across the deck to adjust his balance, stepping to the side as his claws tore into Chip’s skin.  As he let go of the man’s arm, forcing him forward with the momentum and weight of gravity fighting against him, his nails tore into Chip’s arm and left gouges much more fierce than the ones Chip had left on Gillion.

Chip hit the ground with a thud, tripping over his feet and caught on the edge of Gillion’s tail.  His back slammed against the deck with a rattle, and Chip wheezed as if the breath had just been knocked out of him.  He held his injured arm to his chest protectively for no more than a second, struggling to catch his breath and get his bearings after being slammed down.

However, he moved out of the way before Gillion could get on top of him and pin him easily.  He breathed heavily and panted, scuttling away and kicking at Gillion’s legs, trying to bring him down to the ground as well.

Gillion did nearly trip at that.  The heel of Chip’s boot connected with the side of Gillion’s calf and nearly caused his leg to give out.  But for once, Gillion kept his balance, the swaying of the ship launching him to the side as he stumbled and scrambled to keep standing.

He growled, pain still flaring from his fins, and a deep instinctual urge forcing a churning feeling in his gut at the injury to his fins.  His ears twitched in Chip’s direction, constantly flicking back and forth as if searching for the presence of another enemy that might join the fight.

Chip got to his feet with a wince, blood running down his arm at a slow but not alarming speed.  He shook himself off with his jaw clenched.  A little bit of blood dribbled down his fingers and onto the deck, but Chip just wiped his hands off on the front of his shirt, smearing red all over himself.

“I thought we said no weapons,” Chip tried to joke, voice thick with his heavy breathing as he still struggled to pull each breath into his lungs after getting the wind partially knocked out of him.  “Pretty sure your claws should count as a weapon on their own.”

“Not once did I say you were not allowed to use yours,” Gillion retorted, forcing his voice level instead of barking out a snappy response.  He took a deep breath and furrowed his eyebrows, the end of his tail dragging against the ground as he stepped forward, barely giving Chip the chance to recover before he went to attack again.

Chip scoffed at his incredibly dull nails, grabbing Gillion’s arms as he lunged forward, his claws inches away from connecting with his shoulders.  Gillion growled, leaning his weight into the attack, trying to knock Chip down with just his strength.  Both their arms trembled, and Chip widened his stance, clenching his jaw and gritting his teeth.

He ducked down, allowing Gillion to get a grip on his shoulders, shoving him forward with his nails, tearing into Chip’s skin once again.  But apparently, this was a calculated risk, since Chip used that momentum not to allow himself to fall, but instead, hooked his foot behind Gillion’s ankle.  And when Gillion tried to knock Chip down, Chip pulled his foot forward, taking Gillion’s ankle out from beneath him.

This time, Gillion’s luck didn’t hold up, and he lost his balance, his knee buckling at the jerked movement.  But since he was still holding onto Chip, his sudden topple to the deck brought Chip down with him.  

Gillion landed on the deck with a loud slam, enough to rattle the deck with his weight and the sudden momentum.  Chip landed on top of him, his elbow slamming against Gillion’s chest and his hand landing on the deck right next to Gillion’s throat.

Gillion landed on his tail, which sent a shockwave of pins and needles down the limb.  Enough that it rolled all the way down his spine, causing his fingers to twitch, his breathing stuttering. 

A wheeze-like yelp spilled from his lips as his back hit the ground.  His gills fluttered on the side of his throat, and for a moment, Gillion couldn’t breathe.  His lungs ached, and the feeling of Chip on top of him didn’t help at all, the man’s weight pressing on his stomach as Chip wasted no time in straddling Gillion’s hips right on top of his stomach.

He grabbed at Gillion’s arms, trying to pin them to the ground as his fingers slipped on Gillion’s wet skin.  He dug his dull nails into the side of Gillion’s forearms as Gillion tried to keep his arms out of the man’s grasp, yanking them away and retaliating with his hands going towards Chip’s exposed stomach.

Chip batted them away and kept himself planted firmly on top of Gillion, breathing heavy with his hair falling in front of his face.  Sweat rolled down his face from the heat of the day and the exertion of the battle.  He slammed his weight against Gillion’s stomach and leaned forward with enough weight that he managed to get a loose grip on his arms.

With his hips pinned to the deck, it was impossible for Gillion to jerk to the side to throw Chip off.  Especially with the way that his thick tail had gotten pinned beneath him, a constant wave of pain rolled down his spine from the uncomfortable position.  And with his arms occupied with both trying to avoid getting grabbed and trying to grab Chip as well, they were temporarily in a stalemate.

A distant part of Gillion knew that if he relented to Chip or admitted that the way that he had fallen had injured his tail (which would probably be sore for a few days after this), Chip would easily get up, and the battle would be finished.  

But that would be admitting defeat, and Gillion Tidestrider wasn’t supposed to go down without a fight.

Gillion Tidestrider didn’t back down from a fight until he was physically too injured to stand or too exhausted to do anything else.  He didn’t cede to a fight that he knew he could easily win.  Because he knew that in part, Chip would never fight with his full energy or power, he wouldn’t fight to the death or fight to gravely injure.  And even if he did, Gillion overpowered him in raw strength by a long shot.  

But right now, they were just training.  It was just a friendly, casual match between co-captains.  No harm, no foul.  No need to win, no obligation to fight until collapse.

But still, Gillion growled a sharp warning noise that was unfamiliar to even him, his teeth bared to the sky as he gulped down a pained breath of air.  His lungs protested the movement, but Gillion forced himself to breathe, gills flexing and twitching while his ears pinned back towards his skull.

They were too close together, the contact of their skin causing Gillion’s body to burn as his chest rose and fell rapidly with his panicked breathing.  Chip was on top of him, and he wasn’t moving, and Gillion was unable to throw him off.  He felt claustrophobic, helpless beneath Chip’s hands, and only able to keep him away from any vital parts of Gillion’s throat.

He wrenched his arms out of Chip’s grasp, his wet skin working to his advantage since it made it harder for Chip to get a consistent grasp without digging his short nails into Gillion’s skin.  He grabbed at Chip’s forearms, unable to stop himself from digging into the soft flesh of his wrists while his flame tattoos flickered with alarm.  

Gillion could feel the heat against his palms and knew that this magic was as unconscious as whenever Gillion’s coral sparked during a storm.  There was no need to call it out when Gillion knew he didn’t control the movement of his tattoos or the heat that radiated off his skin, almost hot enough to burn Gillion when it got too much.

Chip’s body was warm, his skin was hot as Gillion grabbed onto him.  It certainly didn’t help the sweltering heat of the sun as it was beginning to take its place at the top of the sky.  Gillion panted hard, his chest rising and falling desperately as he struggled beneath Chip.

The idea of being pinned set Gillion’s heart fluttering with panic.  His ears twitched all around to hear what was going on.  Chip tried to wrestle his arms out of Gillion’s grasp, his knee digging into the Triton’s stomach while he still had the upper hand.  Gillion growled again, his throat rumbling and his gills flaring with the odd vocalization that he had picked up from who knows where.

Gillion was pinned.  He couldn’t move much more than his arms in an attempt to grapple Chip back.

He couldn't move.  He was trapped.

Chip was above him, surprisingly well at keeping Gillion down.

They had no weapons, no armor, no magic, and Gillion was trapped.  Trapped with nothing to defend himself while he couldn’t get out from underneath Chip. 

His breathing was stunted.  Sharp gasps of air tore from his throat as he wheezed with the accent of a growl dripping from his tongue.  The scent of blood and sweat filled the air, filling Gillion’s mouth until it was the only thing that he could taste.  His face was hot with effort, and his head practically bursting.

Chip pressed down on Gillion’s sternum, his hand causing the stone of his necklace to dig painfully into his chest.  Gillion grunted at the sharp sting of pain, a spike of alarm warming his chest.  Their legs tangled together in Gillion’s attempt to get out from underneath Chip, the feeling of his hand so close to the necklace that Gillion had developed an odd protection made his chest ache.

His tail was still pinned, making it impossible for Gillion to defend himself while his hands were occupied trying to wrench Chip off of him.  He tried to claw at Chip’s arms, his hands scrambling for purchase around Gillion’s wrists.

They writhed on the floor, Chip on top of Gillion and Gillion trying and struggling to throw Chip off before he could get effectively pinned, not wanting to lose the battle after such a short amount of time.  He growled and scraped at Chip’s arms, grabbing on for purchase wherever he could reach, not caring about the way that his nails carved gouges into Chip’s flesh.

Chip pushed down on Gillion’s arms, trying to get them up and over his head so that he could pin Gillion to the deck.  Gillion’s muscles strained with the effort, his heart pounding in his chest loud enough that he could feel it in the side of his neck where his arteries pulsed.  He grit his teeth, wishing that he at least hadn’t landed on his tail, which had gone numb from the constant pressure.

It made his movement feel sluggish, as if he were wading through molasses with his strength limited.

“Do you—” Chip yelped as Gillion’s nails dug into his arms, wrenching his hips to the side to try and knock Chip off.  “Do you yield?”  His hands were so close to Gillion’s face that Gillion’s muscles trembled and twitched with the effort of keeping Chip’s hands away from his neck or wrists.  He squirmed and tried to move his legs, his feet sliding against the wooden boards of the deck.

Instead of responding, Gillion just snarled an animalistic sound with alarm spiking in his chest.  It would be so easy for Chip to slip his fingers around Gillion’s neck, dig his fingers into his gills, or press down on his trachea so hard that he wouldn’t be able to breathe, no matter if they were in the water or above it.

Gillion pressed back against Chip’s hands, but they were both sweating (well, Gillion was naturally wet, so it was a little different), which made Chip’s skin almost just as hard to grip onto as Gillion’s was normally.

A particularly large wave hit the side of the Albatross, which caused the ship to lurch aggressively to the side.  Chip’s hand slipped against Gillion’s, and Chip fell forward with their hands splitting apart.  Gillion’s claws sliced against the side of Chip’s neck, right where his shoulders met his neck.  Almost as soon as the flesh tore, blood began to gush much faster from this wound than all the others that Chip had sustained.

At the same time, Chip’s hand slammed down on the deck next to Gillion’s throat.  His fingers caught around the chain of Gillion’s necklace, which he had tucked into his shirt.  The golden chain slipped across the lip of Gillion’s gills just enough that he could feel it as it sent a jolt of white-hot pain down Gillion’s neck.  Enough that black spots filled Gillion’s vision for a few seconds.

The pain in his gills, the warm body pressed way too close to Gillion’s, the panic swelling in his chest.  It was so hot, they were so close, Gillion’s tail was pinned, which prevented him from having a full range of movement, and the smell of blood and sweat in the air was almost overwhelming to Gillion’s heightened senses.

Gillion’s entire body tingled, mouth opening and closing pathetically with each desperate breath that he sucked into his lungs.  Chip had reeled back as well, hand pawing at the dripping wound on his shoulder as he muttered words that didn’t register at all in Gillion’s mind.  It was just more useless chatter in the echoing chamber around them.

Chip moved, mouth still moving as he tried to speak to Gillion.  He began to lift himself from Gillion’s hips, releasing the pressure that had his tail pinned to the ground and his movement restrained.  He held his other hand up in a placating gesture, babbling on and on.  Useless chatter.  Useless noise.  Useless words that made no sense to Gillion, who growled out of lack of understanding.

Just as soon as Chip shifted, Gillion’s ears flattened against his skull, and he instinctively lashed out with his claws before he could even think about what he was doing.  With Chip thrown off balance and more focused on stopping the bleeding from his shoulder, it was easy for Gillion to grab Chip and knock him off.

He curled one hand around Chip’s arm, using the other to place at his waist for more momentum so he could throw Chip off his hips.  Gillion’s claws ripped the fabric of his shirt, tearing gouges into the previously white fabric, which was now stained red.  If Gillion’s nails met flesh, he couldn’t exactly tell, but he heard the tear of the thread as Chip skittered a few feet away with the strength and momentum that Gillion used.

Chip landed with a heavy thud and a strangled noise that sounded only vaguely like a gasp.  His fingers twitched, and he wheezed.  He pawed at the wounds on his shoulder and one apparently on his stomach, his back to the deck.

“Hey, hey, hey…” He choked out, sweat rolling down his face and blood smeared across his cheek.  There was blood on the deck, and Gillion could smell it so strongly in the air, which made his heart pound.   “Gill, I’m sorry, we’re done, okay?  I give up.”

Gillion barely processed the words, his mind buzzing so loud that he could barely hear himself think over everything around him.  Every noise, every smell, every single thing that filled his senses making it impossible for him to really listen to what Chip was saying.

His brain screamed at him.  Thoughts of danger, of death, of being trapped and suffocating with no escape because he was pinned.  Chip’s hands at his throat.  Chip’s hands around his gills.  Chip’s blood under his claws.  Chip’s voice saying words that he didn’t understand.

Gillion could feel hands skittering across his back.  The touch of another being carding through his hair, touching his shoulders, touching his back.  A shove in one direction, his claws being pulled, his sensitive fins bruised and irritated from something continuously brushing against them.

He could still feel hands around his throat, around his gills, cutting him off from the one source of oxygen that he could get until he couldn’t breathe.  Black spots dotted around the edges of his vision, and Gillion felt like he couldn’t breathe. 

The feeling of Chip’s hands around his neck still caused his heart to clench with panic, the phantom sensations of touch against all his limbs.

Chip was dangerous.  He was trying to kill Gillion.  Their battle had turned into something much more than just a friendly training session.  Gillion should have known this was going to happen.  The thoughts in his head and the rancid stench in the air mixed with the flavor of blood.

Words were still being spoken to deaf ears.  Gillion could barely see through the black spots in his vision, but he could feel his body moving.  He could feel the texture of wood beneath his hands, his claws dragging across the floorboards as if he were scratching into the flesh of a beast (of an enemy trying to kill him).  His vocal cords throbbed with the effort of each growl that tore from his lips, the sound unfamiliar to him.

Before Gillion could really even process what was going on, his body moved faster than his thoughts did.  His tail dragged along the ground behind him like a dead snake, and Gillion found himself crossing the few feet of distance in which he knew that he threw Chip.  

His claws met soft, warm flesh, and Gillion smelled the stench of blood all around him.  There were hands at his wrists, warm, tangible hands that dug nails into the spot where his fins protruded from the skin.  The sound of his name being shouted, syllables that jumbled together and made the formations of words that Gillion was sure he was supposed to understand.

He didn’t know where he was digging into, but he could feel Chip’s body beneath him as he writhed and clawed at Gillion’s arms.  His stomach pulsed with each breath, and Gillion could feel the movement against his legs, the heavy weight of his tail pinning Chip’s thighs.  Warm blood spilled out over his palms, a burning warmth that simmered against Gillion’s hands.  Everywhere he touched burned.

Chip’s hands on his arms, his nails raking across Gillion’s forearms and tearing against his fins.  Hands reaching out higher and higher, clawing for his heart, his lungs, his throat, his gills.  Gillion wasn’t going to let that happen.

All around him, noise rattled like the clamoring of a horrible army.  Voices, many voices, the waves, the wind, the sound of his own snarls pouring from his lips like a waterfall.  With his ears pinned to his skull, it was as if the noise swelled, blanketing him in an overwhelming tangle of sensory stimulation.

There were hands on his shoulders, nails, fingers, palms.  They raked across his biceps or the curve of his scapulas, trying to pull him away.  He was being yanked backwards at the same time as the form beneath him was trying to wrench him off, shifting and writhing in the same way that Gillion had done before.  He whipped his arm backwards, connecting with something solid, which immediately caused the thing to retreat.

Gillion could taste the warm flavor of blood on his tongue, with how strongly the smell lingered in the air.  He refused to move, refused to relent, refused to allow himself to be put in danger by the enemy in front of him.  Gillion had the upper hand right now.  He couldn’t relinquish that.

A shout so loud and so close to his ear made Gillion flinch, agony rippling down his head as the entire world seemed to split off into a violent afterimage of sound and a few flashes of shapes and colors.  It seemed to echo in his brain, rattling around enough that it damaged everything that it touched inside his mind.  And the lights of the sun, or maybe something else, flashed across his eyes, brown hair, blood, flames flickering, pale hands, red hair.

And then a much larger hand than before grabbed Gillion, or maybe it wasn’t a hand at all but the oversized claw of another beast.  Gillion growled, throwing his own attack at the tangible creature behind him.  But with how disoriented he was, he only met air.

It grabbed Gillion by the back of the shirt to pull him back enough that they could adjust their grip, and then moved so that it gripped Gillion’s arm so tightly that he was sure that the skin would blossom in dark purple bruises.  Nails dug into his skin, the gruff exhale of someone so familiar yet unknown to Gillion registered in his brain.

Then Gillion was yanked so violently that when he hit the ground an unknown distance away, he was momentarily stunned so fiercely that he couldn’t breathe.  He gasped for the air that spewed from his lungs as his back hit the ground, dorsal fin being crushed beneath his weight as pain rippled through every area of his body.

He was jolted back into awareness like being dunked into a pool of ice water without bracing himself first.  Gillion gasped, his fingers dragging across the deck as he painfully rolled over to his side to cough.  He curled in on himself, chest stuttering and spasming each time he tried to get a full breath in his lungs.

His body felt like after a twelve-hour-long training session back in the undersea.  Gillion vaguely registered that he was bleeding in a few spots, but with the soreness in his muscles and the pins and needles that were tingling through his tail.  His fins twitched pathetically, and he gasped and coughed.

Just as slowly as the pain started to register in his mind, so did the rest of his senses clear up.  The sound of the waves crashing against the side of the Albatross was magnified by the way Gillion had his ear pressed against the deck.  But on top of that, he could hear the voices of his crew on the top deck around him as well.

Jay and Chip spoke in frantic voices, Ollie nearby as well, Earl too.  Even Gryphon’s gruff tone could be heard so close to Gillion that the Triton nearly jumped out of his skin at the proximity.

There was blood underneath his claws.  Warm, red blood that was steadily cooling in the air.  

Human blood.

The realization of what Gillion had just done hit him like a building collapsing around him.  He scrambled to sit up, arms contorting in whatever way he could get them wedged underneath him.

Even though his vision was slightly blurry—Gillion still had to blink black spots out of his vision, which wasn’t helped by the lack of oxygen in his lungs—he could make out the rough scene around him. 

Chip was on the floor, still, but just barely sitting up with Jay behind him, helping him reorient himself.  He palmed at a gash on his side, trying to stop the sluggish bleeding as it soaked into his shirt, similar claw marks scratched across his shoulders and neck.  He was breathing heavily, leaning on Jay for support, but at the same time shoving her hands away whenever she would try to help him.  

Ollie was next to Chip, chattering worriedly and asking a million questions that Gillion didn’t catch.  Chip said nothing.  He tried to keep Ollie from getting too close.

Gillion let out a groan of pain as he painfully pushed himself up to his hands and knees, attempting to stand.  He needed to help.  He needed to fix what he had done.  He needed to do something, anything except sit there and wallow in his own pain because Chip was hurting.  Chip was hurting because of him.

A large figure stopped him from getting any closer to where Chip and Jay were.  White and black patterned fur, an oversized green cloak wrapped around thick shoulders.  And then there was a black paw in front of his vision, which caused him to look up, staring into the disgruntled face of Gryphon.

He said nothing except for a deep warning huff, urging Gillion not to get closer. Gillion withered under his gaze, his eyebrows furrowed and his teeth barely poking out from behind thin lips.  Gillion pulled back, drooping his ears and trying to make himself as small as possible, knowing that he had just done something unforgivable. 

He had attacked Chip.  Sure, they were training, but Gillion knew that he had gone too far.  And for what reason?  Gillion didn’t even know what set him off into something like that.  If he tried to trace the battle back in his memory, he wasn’t even sure at what point the battle had become something other than their friendly training session.

If they weren’t angry at him from before, Gillion knew that there was no going back from what had just happened.  He would be lucky if he was allowed to stay on the ship long enough for them to get to the next island, so they could drop Gillion off and never see him again.  He was a danger to the entire crew.  If he had attacked Chip with no warning, who’s to say that he wouldn’t do it again with someone else?

What if it had been Jay or Ollie or Alphonse or Earl?  What if it had been anyone else on the crew?

Gillion couldn’t hear what anyone else was saying around him.  Gryphon might have said something that he completely missed.  Chip’s voice was hoarse.  Jay’s filled with concern.

None of their words registered in Gillion’s mind.  His thoughts were racing with guilt and anxiety at what had happened, knowing that there had to be some sort of punishment or consequences for this.  Gillion didn’t just make mistakes like this and get off with nothing but a warning, an angry look from Gryphon, or the inability to get closer to help.  He didn’t get off with a light scolding or something being taken away.

This is what got Gillion exiled in the first place.

Since Gryphon wouldn’t allow Gillion to get any closer to Chip or Jay to help, Gillion figured that the best thing for him to do would be to get out of the way.

Scrambling away with his hands skittering across the floor, Gillion backed away, and the moment that he felt that he would be able to get to his feet, Gillion ran.  He tucked his tail between his legs, the pins and needles still poking into his tail as he made his way to the stairs to the lower decks in search of a place to hide.  Somewhere where he wouldn’t be a danger to the rest of the crew.

Chapter Text

Jay dropped to the deck next to Chip.  Her vision was swimming, and she had to spit blood out of her mouth to avoid coughing on it, the taste bitter on her tongue as her nose ached.  She hooked her arm around his shoulders to help him into a sitting position as he struggled to pull himself up.  His back arched, and his fingers moved jerkily over the wooden floorboards as if he were trying to grab onto something but couldn’t find anything.  

The entire time, Chip was muttering halfway under his breath as he palmed at various wounds in different stages of clotting: “It’s fine.  I’m fine… I’m okay…”  But the toothy grimace he wore was enough for Jay to understand how much pain he was in.

His chest rose and fell rapidly like the pumping of a steam engine, and blood soaked into the collar of his shirt from the claw marks on his shoulders.  As Jay pulled him to sit up more, she could feel the wetness of his side and the way that the fabric was torn in several places.  Her fingers slipped right through one of the holes, probing Chip in the side by accident and causing him to hiss.

“What happened?” Jay spluttered, her own face throbbing from where Gillion had elbowed her in the nose (hopefully not breaking it, although it didn’t feel broken).  Thick blood rolled freely down her chin like a faucet, getting into her mouth and making her voice thick as she tried and struggled to spit it out while it partially slid down her throat if she looked up too fast.  She coughed and wiped the back of her arm across her face, bracing Chip against her chest.

Chip shook his head and groaned, “I don’t… know…” He grabbed onto Jay’s arm and pulled himself further against her, smearing blood on her shirt.  He grimaced and clenched his jaw tight enough that Jay was sure he would break his teeth.

“Gill?” Jay tried to shout, halfway projecting her voice across the ship and halfway choking on the blood running down her face.  She spat another mouthful off to the side and tried to wipe her face on the back of her hand. 

Gryphon was standing in front of them, his back turned to Jay as he watched and waited to see if Gillion was going to make any sudden movements.  But for a while, he lay where Gryphon had tossed him after pulling him off of Chip.  His body language wasn’t hostile, but it seemed like he was on edge, unnerved at the sight that Jay had called him above decks to see.

No one wanted to move.  Jay wished she had the courage to ask Gryphon to make sure Gillion was okay, but with Chip in her arms, bloodied and beaten up, a part of her was nervous to ask any of them to get nearer.  She didn’t know what had set Gillion off or what might set him off again.  

But Gillion didn’t get up.  He was barely moving, save for the occasional twitching of his arms and hands as he clawed at the deck.  His ears twitched back and forth, and he barely managed to pull each wheezing breath into his lips.  It was scary to watch as he hissed and groaned, not even bothering to try to get up or move himself into a more comfortable position.

What if he was hurt too?  What if they both had just gotten a little too into the fight and neither of them realized that the line had been crossed several feet back?  What if it was just a misunderstanding because Jay couldn’t possibly believe that Gillion would purposely try to hurt them unless there was some other reason behind it?

Jay’s lips moved uselessly in order to say something, but nothing came out.  And if she tried to move to check on Gillion to make sure he was okay, she would be leaving Chip, who was very visibly hurt.  Jay looked back and forth between the two, silently begging for Gillion to push himself up or to show some sign of recognition and consciousness in his small form.

Clearly, something had happened.  Gillion didn’t just go off like that.  He didn’t slash at a downed enemy or a downed companion.  He didn’t normally use his claws during training sessions, and usually held back most of his strength whenever he sparred with Chip or Jay.  He certainly didn’t attack Chip like that, completely unprovoked, even needing Gryphon to pull him away because Jay wasn’t strong enough to pull him off.

It was never like this.  It was never needed for anyone to get involved in the first place to pull the two of them apart.  And Chip wasn’t even fighting back.  He was just trying to get Gillion off of him, pushing and scraping at his arms and doing what he felt he needed to do to avoid getting slashed into pieces by Gillion’s sharp claws.

The sound of footsteps approaching from behind them put Jay on edge.  She didn’t want any more of the crew to get involved.  It was bad enough that she needed to call for extra help to make sure Gillion didn’t accidentally kill Chip.  It would be easier if it were just the three of them.  The fewer people, the easier it might be to get Gillion to calm down if he was still stuck in whatever instinctual mindset he had fallen into.

Jay’s brain scrambled for answers, trying to come up with theories or possible explanations for what might have happened.  The only other times that something similar to this has happened were when something would happen that would remind Gillion of his training in the undersea, and he would revert to that same defensive mode that he always used to be in.  But it was never this extreme.

Jay’s hands brushed across Chip’s form, trying to figure out what she could possibly do to help this situation while Chip kept trying to push her hands away from him.  He groaned and tried to sit up more on his own, waving his hand dismissively and continuing to mutter that he was fine despite clearly not being fine.

She tried to heal him just enough to close up the bleeding so he didn’t bleed out all over the deck before she got a chance to take him below decks and look closer at his wounds.  If something was broken or out of place, her healing might do more harm than good, and she couldn’t fully get a good look at Chip at the moment.  But he kept batting her away, stubborn as can be and shaking his head.

“What happened?  What’s going on?” Ollie shouted, clambering out of the kitchen as if he were a newborn deer, his hands scrambling for balance on the edge of the doorframe.  His small tail whipped back and forth behind him, the tuft at the end puffed up nearly all the way.

“It’s okay, Ollie, everything’s okay,” Jay tried to reassure him, holding Chip closer to her chest to maybe attempt to hide him from the smaller boy.  If Ollie saw that Chip was injured, that would get him in even more of a tizzy.

“Chip!” Ollie clearly noticed Chip bleeding.  He hurried over, his boots thumping loudly on the wooden floorboards, “What happened?  Are you okay?  Why are you bleeding?  Did something happen?”  

“I’m okay… Gill won,” Chip sucked in a sharp breath and sat up a bit straighter, trying to puff out his chest in a way that made him look less pathetic and downed, “... Sparring.”

Ollie himself looked close to panicking at the sight of Chip.  Jay had no idea how to reassure him.

Before she could even get a chance to do so, the sound of Gryphon chuffing alerted her, his movement catching her eye.  She turned, her grip tightening protectively around Chip while he groaned and hissed, trying to shift away from her and her dotting, overbearing care (in his words as he complained).

Gryphon had shifted almost defensively, his arm extended outwards as Gillion (who had been lying prone) dragged himself up to his hands and knees.  His tail dragged behind him limply, and his ears were barely twitching out in either direction to judge the scene around him.  His eyes were darting back and forth, odd, unknown noises spilling from his lips.

He tried to move closer, claws scraping threateningly across the wooden floorboards as he barely managed to pull himself forward, body moving with odd, jerky motions.  It wasn’t like how Gillion normally moved, and with the look on his face, slightly dazed and eyes slightly blurred, he wasn’t completely back to himself either.  

And Jay wanted nothing more than to reach out to help, but she couldn’t help but fear what might happen if she did get closer.  Gillion had attacked Chip, and he still didn’t look like he was all the way calmed down from whatever had set him off, or at least not fully back to himself.  Jay didn’t think it was a good idea to leave Chip and get closer.

Besides, Gryphon kept himself firmly planted between the two groups, when Gillion moved forward with clicks and chirps spilling from his lips—noises that sounded so familiar from Gillion but just slightly off enough that it alerted Jay—Gryphon stepped forward to block his path, arm outstretched to block him.

“Gryphon—” Jay started, coughing as another glob of blood spilled into her mouth from her nose. She swiped it away with the back of her hand, realizing with dismay that her shirt was beginning to get stained in multiple places.  “It—It’s okay.” 

Gryphon huffed and made a rumbling noise similar to a growl from deep in his throat.  His ear twitched, and he sighed heavily, seeming to relax at Jay’s reassurance, allowing himself to stand more casually rather than waiting for Gillion to attack again.

“If you wanted to start a mutiny, should’ve just asked me,” He muttered under his breath, almost as if he were talking to Gillion but trying not to let Jay and Chip hear as well.  If the situation were not what it was, Jay may have even laughed at the joke, but at the moment, it seemed in poor taste.  She sucked in a sharp breath and spat a mouthful of blood to the side.

Gryphon started to back away from where he blocked Gillion from getting any closer, allowing his arms to rest idly at his side.  But Gillion didn’t seem to notice.  He was already scrambling back on all fours, tripping over his arms and legs and trying to make himself look as small as possible.

A guttural noise similar to a whine or some sort of sob spilled from his lips, and Gillion tried to make himself as small as possible.  He kept backing away, tripping over his tail, which twitched oddly on the floor like some sort of lifeless eel.  His fins were curled slightly as if they had been crushed and folded oddly.

He had bruises and scratches on him as well, but much less severe than Chip's were.  He just looked a bit shaken up.

“Gill?” Jay tried to call, projecting her voice loud enough that Gillion would be able to hear her even with the distance between them.  Gillion didn’t react to her voice, only flinched and shied away more.

Before Jay could say anything else, Gillion seemed to come to some sort of understanding, his expression showing more clarity than it had all morning since Gryphon had pulled him off of Chip.  His eyes seemed to meet Jay’s for a moment, but before anyone could do anything, he had barely managed to scramble to all fours, halfway sprinting and halfway dragging himself across the deck.

“Hey!  Gill!” Jay tried to shout, instinctively moving to follow, trying to push herself up to her feet as well.  She only stopped when she realized that Chip was still leaning against her, and her sudden movement had jostled his still sluggishly bleeding injuries enough to cause him to shout in pain.

He turned and ran in the other direction, his knees bent and back arched with his hurry to get away from them all.  He didn’t even take the effort to straighten his posture all the way, clamoring to the stairs and all but falling down the several wooden steps just to get away from them.  The sound of his thumping footsteps descended and slowly faded away until neither of them could hear where Gillion had disappeared to.

Jay sat there stunned for a few seconds, only brought back into the scene when Chip tried to move.  His hands gripped tightly to her arm while he made an attempt to maneuver himself into a sitting position that wasn’t leaning so heavily on her.

“Do you need help?” Ollie tried to ask, his hands moving in different gestures as he tried to figure out if there was any way that he would be able to help.  He put a hand on Chip’s bicep and then pulled away, looking up in the direction that Gillion had disappeared.  “Should someone go find Gill?” 

“No,” Jay hooked her arm around Chip’s shoulder, hopefully pressing where there wouldn’t be any injuries (it didn’t seem like his back was very injured despite some bruising from being slammed against the deck).  She sucked in a deep breath and wiped her face again on the back of her arm, glad to note that her nose had mostly stopped bleeding.  

“No… I think we should give him some time to calm down before we try to approach.  Ollie, you definitely should stay away as well. I don’t want you getting hurt if Gillion still isn’t himself.  We can handle things from here.”

Then, upon remembering the respect and politeness that she had to demonstrate the same for the crew, she added, “Thank you for your concern, everything is okay.”

“Do you need help with… uhm…” Ollie chewed on his lower lip, wringing his hands nervously, “I can get you some supplies.”

“I think Earl would rather you help him finish cleaning up the kitchen,” Jay tried to give Ollie a reassuring smile, even though she figured it wouldn’t exactly have its desired effect, considering there was blood running down her face and staining her collar.  “I promise we have it from here. If we need any help, you will be the first I’ll let know.”

“Okay,” Ollie nodded slowly, and then added a few short, quick nods as if he were trying to convince himself of something, “Kitchen.  Okay.  Yes, sir—er… ma’am.” He gave Jay a wrong-handed salute (which Jay wasn’t bothered enough to point out) and scampered off back towards the kitchen with his tail fluttering behind him with a few light twitches.

With Ollie gone, that left just Gryphon, Chip, and Jay on the top deck.  She was glad that the scuffle didn’t attract as much attention as it could have.  With the other fights Chip and Gillion have had, she didn’t need a repeat of the attention that their other, much more emotional brawls had brought up.

“Come on, can you stand?” Jay asked, still keeping her arm wrapped around Chip’s shoulders.  She pulled his arm up over her own shoulder for more support, bracing him underneath the elbow in preparation to pull him up to his feet.

“I got it,” Chip groaned, but he let Jay help him up to his feet, wobbling dangerously as the ship bobbed back and forth from the movement of the waves.  He hissed in pain at the sudden jostling of his injuries, mostly the one on his side, which looked like it hurt the most.  But his legs, for the most part, seemed to be uninjured.

He sucked in a sharp breath and shook his head slowly as if to clear his thoughts, reenergized at the little bit of healing that Jay had given him, but still barely able to pull himself to his feet on his own with Jay’s help.

Jay still needed to check on his injuries first before she decided what to do with him.  It had stopped the bleeding for the most part, but they needed to be cleaned (especially if it was from Gillion’s claws).  Chip continued to lean his weight against Jay, leaning his head against hers.

Jay’s attention turned to Gryphon, who was still standing nearby but much closer to the railings as if just hanging out above decks casually.  Jay noticed a bit of blood on his fur near his wrist, which hadn’t completely wiped off when he tried to clean himself up.  

“Thank you, Gryphon, for the assistance,” She nodded her head towards him with a soft smile, hoping that it came across as genuine as it felt.  Gryphon’s nose twitched, and he pulled back the corner of his lips to expose some of the sharp, pointed teeth in his jaw.  It almost looked like a smile, but Gryphon didn’t smile often, certainly not at something like this.

“Don’t mention it,” He looked away, avoiding eye contact with Jay, “Help’s to have a second muscle around the ship.  Don’t know what you guys ever did without me.”

“You’re not giving me enough credit,” Jay laughed softly, lifting her free arm to flex her bicep to show off her admittedly pathetic muscles (at least compared to Gryphon).  “I’m stronger than I look, just not enough to manhandle Gillion.”

Gryphon actually laughed at that, and if Jay weren’t trying to make him chuckle, she almost would’ve been offended.  “Of course, Captain.”  He shook his head in disbelief, seeming to chew on something invisible in his mouth for a second.

“I’m going to get Chip patched up, keep an eye around the ship for me, would you?” Jay asked, shifting her weight from foot to foot, feeling the blood on her collar beginning to dry and crust uncomfortably against her skin.

Gryphon huffed out a long sigh, but he nodded with a firm shake of his head.  “Sure.”

“Thank you,” Jay slid her tongue across her lips, tasting the sharp tang of blood that spread across her face.  She adjusted so she had a better grip on Chip, holding him around the hip with her other hand grabbing onto his arm, which was draped over her shoulders.

With her confidence placed in the fact that she knew Gryphon would at the very least adhere a little bit to what Jay asked of him, Jay began to help Chip down the stairs towards the small bathroom they had so she could take care of his injuries.  He stumbled a bit when he walked, his chest rising and falling rapidly with each rattled breath, or occasionally winced whenever he stepped wrong and jostled his side.

“What did you do?” Jay asked, pushing her shoulder underneath Chip’s armpit so he could lean more of his weight against her while going down the stairs.  He grit his teeth and clenched his jaw hard, holding onto the railing as if his life depended on it.

“What makes you think… I did something?” He spat out with his lips barely parted enough to speak.  Beads of sweat rolled down his face from his forehead, carving a small gouge into the dried blood that stuck to his cheek.

“Because Gillion doesn’t do things like that unless you provoked him or something,” Jay shook her head in disbelief.  Her own breathing was still slightly shaky, her heart just beginning to slow down from the adrenaline and fear of the previous situation.  She squeezed Chip’s wrist as it draped over her opposite shoulder, his hip bumping against hers while they walked.

“I don’t know…” Chip hissed, palming at his side and doing his best to recount the fight while the pain was blotting his thoughts, “We were fighting fine and then… He just kinda… Went off.”

Once at the bottom of the stairs, it was easier to maneuver without the changing incline, but still, the swaying of the ship caused Chip to stumble.  He groaned and pawed at the wound on his side, his fingers curling around and squeezing the soaked fabric.  A little bit of blood slid down his arm from the cut on his shoulder, leaving a suspicious trail of red behind them.

The swaying of the ship caused Chip to stumble, and since Jay was holding onto him, she did her best not to trip over his feet or lose her balance from the waves.  Chip hissed through his teeth and sucked in a sharp breath, sticking his tongue out from between his lips.  

His hands were bloodied, and he ended up smearing it all over Jay’s shirt as he leaned against her, but Jay’s collar was already bloody enough from her nose that she didn’t care about what Chip got on her.  They had been covered in each other’s blood one too many times for any of them to be truly alarmed or grossed out by it.

“He doesn’t normally use his claws when training,” Jay said, pulling Chip into the makeshift bathroom near the sleeping quarters.  The door nearly swung shut on both of them with the swaying of the ship.  “Right?  He… He normally tries to be more careful with us?”

Chip swallowed thickly, sitting down hard on the stool in the bathroom.  He groaned and let his head thump against the wall behind him.  His hair fell in front of his face, bangs sticky with sweat.

“He set the rules… No weapons… No armor… No magic…” Chip rested for only a few seconds with his chin tilted towards the ceiling, then he added, “That’s not how he normally likes to train…” 

“No,” Jay agreed with a small shake of her head, “He’s not one for hand-to-hand combat.  He’s been trying to get me to use a sword for months.”  Chip made a noise from the back of his throat in confirmation.

Before allowing himself to get too comfortable with the position he was currently in, Chip sat forward just enough that he could tug his shirt off over his head.  As he jostled his shoulder, he cried out in pain from the sudden jolt that ran down the open wound.  Jay rushed forward to help him out of his shirt, holding onto his wrist to help detangle his injured arm from the sticky fabric. 

Of course, the one day he actually decided to wear a shirt, he bled all over it.

“You’re okay, it’s okay,” Jay found herself muttering out of instinct, reminiscent of the times that she would help patch either one of them up after a battle.  

At least this time, Chip was still conscious and coherent enough to know what was going on.  He wasn’t so hurt and exhausted that she needed to tug him this way and that.  He just needed some help with the things that his injuries wouldn’t allow.  Like getting his bloodied shirt off.

“Gods…” Chip muttered as he peeled his palm away from the gash on the side, revealing the torn and mangled flesh, flaps of skin hanging down from where they were split.  Jay’s initial healing had stopped a good amount of the bleeding, but it was still lightly trickling, the occasional spurt bubbling up to the surface and spilling from the claw marks.

It dribbled down his side, the soft part of his stomach twitching and spasming with each shaky breath that he forced into his lungs.  It didn’t help that the skin there was so soft, it was easy to injure and vulnerable.

Jay couldn’t help but think about the fact that if Gillion had cut a little more towards the center, Chip might not have survived the night.  If he had clawed open his abdominal cavity or injured any of his vital organs, there was only so much magic could have done to stop internal bleeding or to heal damage like that.  

“He… uh… got me good,” Chip bit down on his lower lip, staring at the slash on his side with concern.  Thick, sticky blood dribbled down his side, running across his skin and staining his flesh a dark shade of red.  His face was pale, and Jay worried that he might pass out.

Jay put a hand on his uninjured shoulder to steady him as he swayed, using her foot to drag the other stool over so that she could sit down in front of him.  She wiped her face on the back of her hand and noticed that it seemed like her nose had stopped bleeding, or at least it had slowed down significantly.  She sniffled and tasted the sharp, metallic sting of blood on her tongue.

“Yeah, he did,” Jay agreed, reaching out to grab the first aid kit that they kept near the sink, just barely in reach where the two of them were sitting.  “Why did he just want a bare fight?  Did he say anything beforehand?  Even that’s weird for Gill.”

“I don’t know,” Chip shook his head and then groaned loudly, bringing his hand up to his face to pinch the bridge of his nose, sucking a deep breath in through his teeth.  “I think he uh… I think he said something about us needing to work on hand-to-hand combat… something like that.  It made sense to me.”

“You didn’t think to question it?” Jay furrowed her eyebrows as she went to work, trying to clean his wounds and see how badly everything really was, the bottle of alcohol shaking in her hands as she doused a clean cloth in it.

“I mean, I did!” Chip winced as he raised his voice, pawing at the claw marks on his shoulder.  He hissed sharply as Jay pressed the soaking cloth to his side, squirming and flinching away from the sharp sting of alcohol.  “I just… I—I don’t know what I was thinking… I thought it was just gonna be a normal fight…”

“Stop squirming,” Jay bit out and put her other hand on Chip’s waist, trying to keep him from flinching away while she cleaned the deepest claw marks, “Go through the whole fight, what happened?”

Chip continued to wiggle and cry out in pain, not at all trying to hide the fact that it hurt, and Jay certainly wasn’t being easy on his open wounds.  She dug into his sides with the cloth coated in alcohol and tried to make sure there were no bits of thread or cloth stuck in the flaps of skin that would cause it to get infected.  Claw marks got infected easily, not as much as bite marks, but they had to be careful.

“It was… It was fine when we started…” Chip mumbled, hissing and sucking in sharp gasps of breath whenever Jay pressed too hard, the gash on his side beginning to trickle a sluggish stream of blood.  “He was kind of aggressive… and the way he fought was unusual, but I didn’t think too much of it… I don’t know why, but I just… I just thought he might be a bit more wound up…”

Jay hummed in acknowledgement, urging him to go on without saying anything.

“We both got a few good hits in… he scratched me a bit with his claws…” There were marks all the way up Chip’s arms.  They weren’t as deep as the ones that Gillion had purposely (as unconscious or conscious as Gillion was, they were still purposeful), but there were beads of blood pooling to the surface of his skin up his forearms.  “He didn’t really dodge any of my hits… he just kind of blew them off or tanked them…”

That wasn’t incredibly unusual for Gillion.  Jay noticed that he sometimes spent a few “rounds” of combat tanking hits until he saw an opening for a rough blow on his opponent.  Dodging put too much momentum in the combat, and when he needed to get a quick, devastating hit, sometimes he decided to tank a few hits from the other person first.

“He kept trying to hit me with his tail—” Chip let out a sharp cry, louder than before when Jay pressed too hard and too roughly with the cloth.  She apologized softly and tried to be a bit more gentle.  “Gods, be a little nicer, would you, act like you like me… I think I’m gonna faint.”

Jay gave him a momentary break from her tending to his injuries, she pulled a cloth down from the hook that it was hanging on, and dunked it in the bucket of water that they used for a sink.  She rang it out and held it to his face, patting it against his forehead and cheeks, sweeping away blood and sweat as it rolled down his face in heavy droplets.  Chip panted and squeezed his eyes shut, one hand clinging to the edge of the stool he was sitting on, the other still palming at his bleeding shoulder.

“Breathe,” Jay urged, sweeping his hair out of his eyes with a gentle hand.  “I’ll try to be gentle.”

Chip growled through his teeth and tilted his head back, sucking in desperate gulps of air into his lungs.

“You are the worst nurse,” Chip snapped, glaring at Jay through heavy-lidded eyes.

“I’m sorry, I’m trying to be thorough.”

“Less thorough, more gentle unless you want me passing out on you!”

“Okay, okay,” Jay held her hand up in a placating gesture, “Just keep talking, I’ll be gentle.”

Chip glared at her for a second longer, taking a few more deep breaths to steady himself.  He swallowed thickly and squeezed his eyes shut, not looking when Jay eventually pressed the cloth back to his side, not directly on the wound, but cleaning the blood from the skin around it, presumably so she could bandage it.

“I’m really glad I kept dodging his tail…” Chip grimaced and grit his teeth, “You know how strong that thing is.  He doesn’t usually attack like that…”

“No…” Jay agreed, knowing that with the two of them, Gillion only ever tried to use his tail if he was trying to sweep their feet.  Never to hit them, especially not repeatedly.  She worried at her lower lip, still tasting the tang of blood in her mouth as she stared intensely at Chip’s side.

The wound was still trickling blood, but it had slowed.  And thankfully, with all the blood cleaned away and a little bit of healing.  It didn’t look too bad.

“I managed to sweep him, and I got him pinned under me and he… kind of freaked out at that, I think…” Chip paused for a moment and furrowed his eyebrows like he was deep in thought.  “I think that’s when it started going badly… he uh… he was thrashing and… and trying to get me off of him, but I… I think he fell wrong… on his tail or on his fins, and I think that set him off.”

Jay nodded solemnly.  They both knew firsthand how sensitive Gillion was about his fins, not that they ever judged him for it, but that they both had some pretty close calls with his claws and an accidental brush on the arm.

“I… I should’ve noticed something was wrong…” Chip squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, “He landed on his back, and I was on top of him, I know he doesn’t like being on his back…”

Jay remained silent, listening intensely with her own thoughts swirling around inside her brain.  She pulled out a roll of bandages from their first aid kit and began bandaging the gash on Chip’s side while he spoke, thankfully distracted enough not to wince and squirm as she pulled the bandages taut so that they hopefully would stay.

“I think the boat lurched, or maybe my hand slipped… I don’t really know how it happened, but my hand slipped by his neck, and I think I must have got his gills or something…” Chip shook his head and winced.  “That’s when he really freaked out… I pulled away and tried to calm him down, but he just attacked me… not like we were sparring, but like he was really trying to hurt me.”

He shivered. Jay pulled his hand away from the gash on his shoulder so she could clean that one, too.  He was reluctant to do so, but she managed to untangle his fingers from digging into the skin on the back of his neck.  Chip let out a watery sigh and a cough.

“I… I’ve never seen him like that…” Chip shook his head slowly, “I mean… I have.  But never directed at me… he didn’t look like himself at all… His eyes were… I don’t know… There was something weird in his eyes.”  Chip swallowed thickly and dug his nails into his thighs, trying not to squirm at the sharp sting of alcohol on his wounds.

“I heard you shouting, and when I came out of the kitchen, that was when he was on top of you…” Jay confirmed, her mind replaying the scene.  

“I tried to surrender to get him off of me… I didn’t know what was happening if I had… if I had triggered some sort of bad memory or—or something or… or if he was still trying to win our spar…” Chip’s voice started to shake, and Jay could feel him trembling when she held her palm to his shoulder to steady him while she tried to clean his wound.  He let out what almost sounded like a mix between a whine and a sob, both from the mix of emotions going through his mind and the feeling of Jay prodding at his open wounds.  “Gods… what if it was some memory from when he was in the undersea?”

“You couldn’t have known…” Jay muttered, although she knew the guilt all too well.  They all had their fair share of slip-ups and blunders when it came to the other’s bad memories.  “It was a mistake… I don’t think Gill meant it at all… He must’ve gotten scared or… or thought that something else was happening.”

“I would never hurt him like that,” Chip swore, staring down at his hands where a mix of blue and red blood was starting to form a bruise-like purple.  “I’ve never seen him so aggressive like that… I can’t imagine what someone would have done for him to react like that…”

“I don’t know…” Jay shook her head slowly, wiping the blood from Chip’s stained skin, “It had to be bad…”

“Yeah…” Chip tried to roll his shoulder for emphasis on how bad it was, but he ended up wincing and crying out in pain instead.  Jay placed her hand on his shoulder to keep him from moving.  “I feel bad. I didn’t mean to freak him out like that. Of course, he lashed out.”

“You didn’t know,” Jay pressed down a little too hard, and Chip flinched.  “We… we couldn’t have known what he doesn’t want to tell us.”

She shook her head slowly, eyebrows furrowed, and lips pulled into a small frown.  She went to work bandaging Chip’s shoulder, pulling the roll of bandages underneath his armpit to fit it snugly over the wound.  He grimaced and squirmed on the stool.

“I want to go… like… say something…” Chip shook his head a little bit and squeezed his eyes closed.  “Apologize or something.”

“It’s probably best to give him some space right now…” Jay pointed out, switching to the claw marks on the other side of his neck, going through the same motions that she’s been working with this entire time.  “He needs some time to calm down, and we might make it worse if we try to approach him too soon.”

Chip went silent, staring down at his lap with a tired expression.  Jay noticed the bags under his eyes and the small frown that tugged at the corners of his lips. 

“Yeah…” he sighed, shoulders drooping only for a moment before Jay’s prodding at his wounds caused him to flinch and tense up again.  “I just… wish there was some way we could help.”

“I think we just need to give him space,” Jay said with a sigh that told Chip she wasn’t happy about that idea either.  But they both logically recognized the reality in that statement.  

If Chip had triggered bad memories from Gillion’s training or any other millions of bad experiences the poor Triton had gone through, he would need a chance to calm down away from the two of them so he could come to his senses.  

It hurt to know that Gillion was hurting right now, and there was nothing they could do about it.  The two of them would do anything it took to help him feel better after something freaked him out.  But really, the only thing they could do was to sit and wait for Gillion to calm down and come back out from wherever he had hidden.

Maybe Jay could check up on him a bit later, after she got everything cleaned up.  The deck was splattered with Chip’s blood (again… why was it always him bleeding out on the feck), and both their clothes might be beyond saving, but Jay would give them a good soak in soapy water and hope the blood would come out. 

“He was acting weird all morning…” Chip muttered, fidgeting with his hands, Gillion’s blood under his nails from all his thrashing and attempts to get Gillion off of him.

“Yeah…” Jay chewed on the inside of her mouth, nodding in agreement and switching to bandaging his other shoulder once all the blood had been cleaned.  “Maybe he didn’t sleep well or… or something happened during his shift.”

“He asked to switch shifts with me,” Chip blurted, suddenly remembering the conversation they had had before sparring.

“What?”

“He wanted to switch shifts… said that it might benefit the crew better because he can see in the dark,” Chip frowned and thought hard about the previous conversation with Gillion as if he could dissect it and figure out what may have been wrong. 

“That’s… strange?” Jay sat back a little bit on her stool, resting her hands in her lap now that the worst of Chip’s injuries had been cleaned and bandaged.  It would be a good idea to wrap up his forearms, but they weren’t so badly messed up that Jay pausing for a moment would have caused any complications.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment.  The taste of blood on her tongue filled her senses.

“It’s strange,” Chip agreed, rocking where he sat on the stool and nodding.  “I agreed, but still… It’s weird… he’s been fine with the schedule up until this point.  Do you think something changed?”

“Maybe something happened during his watch that he’s not telling us,” Jay suggested, dunking the cloth that she had been using to wipe down Chip’s skin in the bucket of water next to them.  She rinsed out all the blood (or as much as she could) and wrung it out, going back to wiping the blood from his arms.  “We should ask about it later… maybe tomorrow when he’s calmed down a bit.”

“Yeah…” Chip sighed, staring at his lap as Jay cleaned and bandaged his arms.  “I wish he would tell us what was wrong.”

“It’s Gillion,” Jay said, as if that explained everything.  Which it did.  They were sure that Gillion admitting when something was wrong with him might actually kill the poor Triton, who had gone so long hiding whenever there was any sort of issue long enough that it ended up bubbling up into something serious.

“I know…”

“It’s this crew,” Jay heaved a sigh and gripped Chip’s wrists tightly as she coiled a roll of bandage around his forearm.  The cuts there were fine, the bandage was just a cursory security.

“That’s true,” Chip agreed, squirming in his seat a little bit.  

None of them were immune to hiding their injuries or problems until they had turned into something much worse than they originally were.  Jay was starting to think that it was a requirement to join the crew at this point.  As frustrating as it was, it just meant that they couldn’t really judge Gillion for it, especially when the two of them were often the culprits of the same issue.

“Any other injuries I don’t know about?” Jay asked, dunking the cloth back into the water one last time to wring out as much blood as she could.  She used a different rag to clean all the blood from her face and neck.  Her nose had finally completely stopped bleeding, but the collar of her shirt was completely ruined unless she managed to get all the blood out of it.

“I think that’s all of them,” Chip picked at his nails, trying to get as much of Gillion’s blood out from underneath them.  “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Jay leaned over the bucket of water and used a relatively clean cloth to wipe the blood from her face and neck.  She scrubbed aggressively at her skin, wishing she had something to wash the blood out of her mouth.

“What happened to you?” Chip asked, pushing his stool back so he could lean against the wall, chin tilted up towards the ceiling.  “I didn’t see what happened.”

“He elbowed me in the face,” Jay muttered between handfuls of water that she splashed on her face, “My fault for trying to grab him like that.”

“Broken?”

Jay touched the bridge of her nose where the skin was tender and sore, but she could poke and prod at it without that typical white-hot pain of a broken bone.  She hissed softly but released her hand after a moment.

“No… Not broken,” She concluded, “Thankfully.”

“Good,” Chip nodded with his eyes closed.  His skin was pale and a little ashen with blood loss.  He definitely needed some food in him after something like that.

“How’s it look?” Jay leaned back, still scrubbing at the blood on her neck, feeling the stickiness clinging to her skin and wanting it off.  She felt so gross and dirty.  Her face felt swollen and hot, and her sinuses felt stuffed with cotton.  She was honestly surprised her nose wasn’t broken.

Chip peeled his eyes open to stare at her, pupils wide and exhausted, “The circus is calling, they’re missing a clown.”

“Thanks,” Jay rolled her eyes and prodded at her face. She could feel a bruise beginning to form, blooming across the bridge of her nose and across her cheekbones.  She let out a heavy sigh and grimaced.

“Of course.” That got Chip to smile a little bit, a stupidly proud grin spreading across his face.  At least he had a bit of his humor back.

Jay picked Chip’s bloodied shirt off the floor, dunking both rags that she had used into the bucket of water.  She stood slowly, hip jolting with pain as she moved, grabbing the handle of the wooden bucket, the water inside the same color of rust from both their blood. 

“I’m gonna try to wash the blood out of our stuff,” Jay said, leaning against the counter with exhaustion, “Try to get some rest, and try not to bleed over everything else, please.  I don’t want to be washing blood out of everything all day.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, captain,” Chip muttered, propping his hand on the edge of the counter and using that to push himself up to his feet.  He wobbled dangerously, but Jay’s hands were full, so she just had to hope that he would be able to get up to his feet on his own. 

“Give Gill some time to calm down. We can talk to him tomorrow when he’s feeling better,” Jay said one last time, gathering all the things that she needed to clean out.  She turned to the door, not even looking over at Chip.  She didn’t need to look at him to see his guilty expression.

“Yeah, I will,” Chip muttered, barely loud enough for Jay to hear, “I’m gonna go take a nap.”

“M’kay,” Jay opened the bathroom door, hauling the bucket of bloody water between her legs, “Sleep well.”

Using the wall as a crutch, Chip worked his way out of the bathroom while Jay turned to the stairs to the top deck, both to check up on the rest of the crew and to clean up all the blood.  She heard the door to their sleeping quarters slam. At least he made it inside.

Jay sighed, casting one final glance down the hallway where she knew the door to the storage room was.  She could imagine the heavy wooden door shut tight and barricaded from the inside.  She was almost certain that Gillion had locked himself away in the storage room.  That’s where they all went when they were upset and needed a chance to calm down away from everyone else.

A part of her wanted to approach him.  The raw, deep part of Jay’s mind wanted to check up on Gillion to make sure that he was alright.  She wasn’t able to properly survey him to see if he had gotten hurt from the fight too and knowing him, he wouldn’t use any of his healing magic on fixing himself either.

She wanted to make sure that he wasn’t hurt.  She wanted to reassure him that he was safe here and that none of them would ever do anything to hurt him as long as they could help it.  She wanted to fix what was wrong so the lingering tension across the ship would go away.

But Jay had told Chip that he needed to give Gillion some space to calm down.  She couldn’t tell him that and then go and bother Gillion anyway.

Gillion was the type of person who needed space when he was upset.  He needed to take some time to come to his senses and allow himself the safety to calm down away from everyone else and away from whatever set him off.  Jay would give him space.

She would deal with her and Chip’s clothes and make sure all the blood on the top deck got cleaned up.  Then maybe she would take a bath to make sure she got all the blood and sweat off at the end of the day.  She still had to do her normal chores around the ship, making sure they were still on course, checking their maps and compass, doing her double check of the sails and rigging, and helping prepare lunch.

They could talk to Gillion about what happened tomorrow.

Right now, Jay would give him as much space as he needed to come back to himself.

As worried as she was, the only thing that she and Chip could do at the moment was wait for Gillion to allow them to approach.  So Jay had to wait… unfortunately.

Chapter Text

Gillion barely managed to stumble into the storage room before his legs collapsed underneath him.  

His claws scraped against the walls and floors as he pulled himself down the hallway, crouched like a monster stalking the ship, not having the time to bring himself to his full height to escape.  His ears were pinned back against his skull and tail tucked at his ankles, pins and needles still rolling down the limb like he had gotten electrocuted. 

Gillion could barely feel his tail, his fins, or his ears.  The pain from getting slammed hard into the deck still radiated all the way down his back like a bruise that was certainly going to be blooming later today, but the electric stinging of his fins getting flattened was just numb tingles.

He stumbled.  The boat shifted, and Gillion slammed his shoulder into the wall in his effort to get somewhere safe and secluded.  Somewhere out of sight.  Somewhere where he wouldn’t be a danger to the rest of the crew.  

Everywhere he went, the stench of blood filled his nose, so strong that he could taste it.  Human blood.  It was on his hands, under his claws, in his teeth.  He growled and trembled, body and mind going wild with guilt and disorientation while he struggled to get a hold of himself.

He was dizzy.  The floor underneath him swayed and dipped, and Gillion couldn’t tell if it was from the waves or from his own head spinning.  His brain felt like it was stuffed with seaweed.

All over, he could feel the ghost of hands touching his shoulders, his back, his arms, his tail.  He could feel something grabbing him, fingers sliding through his head and tugging on his limbs, trying to pull him back the way he came.  His ears were ringing so loudly that the only other thing he could hear was the sound of his own labored breathing. 

His body was stiff.  He stumbled and moved as if he had never learned how to walk.  Never learned how to move.  It was like he was a newborn guppy, forced into the big world all alone with no one to guide him or tell him how to do… anything.

The sound of scraping wood filled his ears, and Gillion realized that he had been dragging his claws across the floor of the ship, using that momentum to pull himself forward.  He dug his claws into the ground and urged himself to keep moving as much as his body wanted to freeze and curl up where he stood.  Gillion growled and squeezed his eyes shut, running forward blindly.

Eventually, he managed to find the door to the storage room among the many other similar-looking doors, despite his blurred vision.  He must have hit his head when he hit the deck, which would explain the double and shaking vision.

He was shaking so badly that the door handle slipped out of his sweaty palms.  The rocking of the ship definitely didn’t help the fact that he was already trembling badly enough that he could barely stand. Gillion felt hot tears streaming down his face, but no sobs bubbled in the back of his throat.

His heart pounded against his ribs, hard enough that it made his head spin and his vision to blur around the edges.  He whined, chirps and clicks spilling from his lips before he could even think about what he was doing as he pushed his way into the storage closet, shutting the heavy door behind him with a slam so loud it caused the walls to shake.

The fins of his tail nearly got slammed in the door when Gillion rushed to shut it, the Albatross rocking aggressively with the waves.  It was like the ocean itself had decided to turn against all of them, noticing the distress of the crew and deciding to act accordingly.  Gillion’s knees trembled and eventually gave out before Gillion could even press himself into his usual corner in the room.

He curled up in the smallest ball that he could manage in the middle of the floor, burying his face in his knees and allowing the tears to fall.  Unbridled sobs tore from his throat, mixed with animalistic sounds that Gillion couldn’t tell whether they were growls or whines.  He tangled his claws in his hair, tugging on the green curls so hard that he felt the sting of pain so sharply it caused black spots to blot his vision.

He could have killed Chip.

The smell of human blood was sweet in his nose, and Gillion hated the fact that he liked the taste.

The red mixed with the blue of his own blood from the various cuts and bruises that he had sustained from the fight.  Chip had scratched hard at him in his attempts to throw Gillion off of himself, he had scraped and fought as dirty as he could.

Self-defense.

Desperate self-defense.

The self-defense of a man who had nothing else to save him besides his own dull nails and a will to live.  A desperate man who had to use anything he could to get the beast of his friend off of him in the middle of what was supposed to be a friendly, lighthearted sparring session.

What was Gillion thinking?  What was he doing?

What was wrong with him?

Gillion could have killed him.  He had him pinned to the ground, claws and teeth so close to all his vital organs.  Chip was already injured and exhausted, so much so that if Gillion had been allowed a few more moments, Chip would have died.

Gillion tugged on his hair, he could still feel Gryphon’s hand on his shoulder, yanking him back with such force that the fall had knocked the wind out of him.  His lungs still felt bruised, like he was gasping and choking for air, all his internal organs shutting down from all the stress and getting battered around.

He had hurt his crew.  He hurt Chip, he hurt Jay.  And it wasn’t even the first time today.

He had snapped at both of them earlier.  He almost hurt Chip in his sleep, and he almost snapped at Jay just for getting too close.  

Gillion was a danger to the crew.  He was a monster.  No one ever wanted him around because he was violent and unorthodox.  He was a danger to everyone he was around.  The elders knew that he was too dangerous and unruly, he was too stupid, too violent, too hard to control.  He caused more damage than he was ever worth.

Chip and Jay never should have picked him up out of the ocean.  They should have known the type of curse that Gillion was.  He was a burden, a monster, a danger to everyone, including himself.  It was a miracle that Gillion was still alive after spending so long by himself trying to find his way out of the Undersea (not even able to tell one direction from the other).

It was always his fault.  Always him causing the pain and injuries.  He always got them into situations that got any of them hurt.  He was always causing the injuries himself.  He was dangerous, and they shouldn’t be around him.  If he wasn’t the one hurting others, he brought enough bad luck onto the ship that it was pretty much his fault anyway.

His claws were sharp, his teeth pointed, and his jaw so strong that he could break their bones easily if he tried.  He was strong.  His magic was volatile and easy to set off when he didn’t want it to.  The sparking of his coral was dangerous, Jay and Chip had both gotten some pretty nasty shocks.  

He could bite, tear, and slash, and they wouldn’t be able to do much about it to stop him.  And still Gillion felt the urge bubbling in the pit of his stomach.

He felt like he needed to be on edge.  Like, at any moment, something or someone was going to jump out of the shadows to attack him.  Chip’s hands had been so close to his throat, so close to his gills, so close to the necklace that dangled just behind the fabric of his shirt.  Gillion curled in on himself, shivering in pain and panic at the feeling of hands all over his body.

A part of him could still feel Chip’s nails raking across his skin, his hands so close to his gills, the chain of his necklace caught in Chip’s fingers.  Skilled hands, slipping it from Gillion’s neck before he could even realize what was happening.

Gillion growled and hid his face in his knees, bringing his hands above his head to hide deeper in the darkness of his legs.  He protected the back of his head with his palms, coral sparking with agitation.  He hissed through his teeth and chirped, vocalizations Gillion didn’t even know that he had the vocal cords to make bubbled up in the back of his throat.

He was guilty.  It was his fault.  It was always his fault when something went wrong, and Gillion knew that.  He was guilty, and he knew that the moment he came out of the storage closet, the others were going to kick him off the ship.  If not for anything else that he had done today, he knew that they were going to get angry at him for something like this.

It wasn’t even provoked by something in particular.  Gillion had gotten hurt like that before, sparring sessions turning into something a bit too intense when Chip hit a place just too close to one of Gillion’s scars, or his hands got too close to his fins when he threw a punch.  Gillion would snap at him and hit Chip back a little too hard.  But it was never like that.

Gillion had never lost control of himself like that.  Enough that he needed Gryphon to pull him off Chip.

That scared Gillion.  He didn’t know how or why he had lost control so badly.  It was the overwhelming mix of hands all over his body, blood and sweat from the heat of the day, and the feeling of Chip pressing down on him, forcing him onto his tail and crushing his fins.  It was too much.

And then Chip’s hands near his throat.  Near his gills.  Near the necklace.

Gillion shivered despite the hot air that pressed down on him like a wet blanket in the storage closet.  He sucked in shaky breath after shaky breath, holding air in his lungs long enough that he felt his face heat up and his vision shake.  

Gillion was also angry.  He didn’t even know what he was angry about, only that he knew the emotion was swirling around in his stomach like tumultuous clouds right before a storm.  Like a spoiled meal rupturing in his gut, wanting to come up in a show of aggression and violence.

It felt like something was almost taken from him, like he had acted out of self-defense.  But Gillion didn’t know what he was actually defending against.  Only that it felt like something was at risk.  He had been in danger, and he acted accordingly.

Even if logically, Gillion had no right to be angry and had no right to act on that aggression, that didn’t stop the emotion from rearing its ugly head in his brain.

He was angry, scared, and guilty.  An unfortunate mix of emotions made him nauseous with the intensity of it all.

He removed one hand from his hair to pull the necklace out of his shirt, where he had tucked it before the fight.  The chain had gotten pulled out of his shirt during the scuffle, but the stone remained lodged behind the fabric.  Gillion untangled it with his claws, scraping gently across the golden chain, feeling the beaded pearls as they ran down the length of the necklace.

Carefully, he pulled the pendant from his shirt, the texture of the opalescent stone on his palm allowing a weight to lift from his shoulders.  He rubbed the pearls between his fingers, claws scraping lightly against them as he moved his fingers, running his hand up and down the length of the chain as if he could calm himself down just from the motion itself.

The blood thankfully had dried enough against Gillion’s skin that, despite the filth, it didn’t dirty the creamy white pearls or the gemstone wrapped so neatly in wire.  Gillion imagined that he felt a soft humming from the stone, the colors swirling in the low light of the storage room.  Gillion didn’t need the light to see, but he ran his thumb over the surface of the opal, finding comfort in the smooth texture and the shimmering colors.

A breath that he didn’t even know he had been holding slid tenderly from his throat, and Gillion relaxed his shoulders, burying his face back into his knees.  He shivered, and the room suddenly felt cold all around.  Even if the cold was as familiar to Gillion as breathing through his gills, it still caused him to shiver.

Or maybe he was just shaking.  Maybe it wasn’t the cold of the room or anything else.  Maybe it was just the tears that pooled in the corners of Gillion’s eyes, or the anxiety and fear that hammered in his chest, making it hard for him to breathe, but easy to let each breath from his lungs like it didn’t belong there.

He started to rationalize in his mind what he was going to do when Chip and Jay eventually kicked him off the ship.  When they had patched themselves up enough that they could stand the argument that was sure to follow.  Although Gillion wouldn’t argue.  If they told him to leave, he would leave, no questions asked.  He knew what he did, and he knew that what he had done was unforgivable.

He deserved it.  He deserved to be kicked off the crew.  Abandoned at the next island they stopped at, or just kicked right off the boat in the middle of the ocean.  They didn’t need to worry about Gillion surviving.  He had survived on his own in the ocean for much longer than he had been on the crew, as painful and risky as it was, Gillion knew that he would be able to do it again.

Now, Gillion wasn’t all too familiar with the pirate culture in the Oversea, but he was sure that this was some sort of monumental slip-up, even if, in practice, the three captains all had the same power over the rest of the crew.  The word “mutiny” came to mind, and Gillion grimaced.  This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.

But, well, it was deserved.  A captain shouldn’t be a danger to the rest of the crew.  And that’s what Gillion was, just like how he always was.  A danger, a liability.

A monster.

Gillion squirmed at that thought.  The pressure behind his ribs worsened, and he let out a breath, body twitching and shifting uncomfortably when the position that he was curled into became too uncomfortable for him to sit in.  Gillion grimaced.

You’re a monster.  A danger to the rest of the crew.  They shouldn’t have you around when you can’t even control your own claws.

Gillion squeezed his hands into fists, one hand around the necklace in his palm, the other tangled in his frizzy green curls, tugging hard enough that the pain blocked out the sounds of his own thoughts.  Tangled strands of foamy green ripped out between his fingers.

See what you did?  It’s all your fault.  They never should have picked you out of the water.  They would have been better off if they ignored you and left you to die.

Gillion remembered floating in the water before they had found him.  He was hungry, tired, and very, very scared.  He was floating on his back, his face to the sun, eyes closed, and allowing the waves to take him wherever they saw fit.  His skin was blistered and aching from hours, days, weeks in the sun, floating aimlessly with little motivation to survive.  He had nothing else to live for, no purpose, no destiny, no instruction on what to do or where to go, only that he couldn’t go home (did he even have a home?).

The sun was so hot on his skin, and the sound of the waves filled his ears, crashing against his body and filling his senses until it was the only thing that he could hear over the sound of his breathing.  It was a gurgled mix of his throat struggling to pull oxygen into his lungs, and his gills fluttering to keep up with the water that splashed against them.  Sometimes his gills would close for a while, and Gillion would suffocate with the feeling of water in his lungs.

It was painful.  So, so painful.

Floating on the surface of the water was probably the stupidest thing that he could have done.  He was surprised that he didn’t drown. 

How pathetic would it have been?  A Triton drowned in the surface of the ocean, foamy waves hitting so hard against his gills that they couldn’t filter any of the oxygen, and his mouth so full of water that when he tried to breathe through his lungs, he could only cough.

Gillion floated like that for a long time.  His memory of it was fuzzy, and all the nights and days blended together until he was unsure whether he had been found during the day or night.  His vision was already spotty from staring up at the sun for so long, sensitive pupils aching at the brightness of the Oversea.  Everything was so bright up there.  It was so different from the trenches, where even with Gillion’s dark vision, he could barely see sometimes.

When the shadow passed above him, Gillion didn’t even open his eyes at first.  He just assumed that the sun had fallen once again and the moon had taken its place.  There was no need to open his eyes.  He was used to it.  The strange day/night cycle that he had noticed in the oversea had long since faded into the background of everything else that Gillion had gone through.

But an odd sound began to filter into his ears over the sound of the crashing waves.  A different sound than all the ones of the ocean that he had gotten used to.  It sounded like a voice, far too muffled and distant for Gillion to make out the words, if it was even a language that he understood.

Gillion barely peeled his eyes open to look, immediately blinded by the ring of the sun in the sky above him, shadowing a large object above him.  He saw the frame of another person, the sun behind their head like a halo.  And then he saw a hand extended to him.

There were black spots in his vision, Gillion was delirious from hunger and exhaustion, and he was so stiff from not moving for so long, only allowing the waves to move him, barely managing to float in one place.  If he sank below the waves, it meant nothing to him.

But here, right now, he was above the surface.  And he was too tired to even think about what he was doing until he was already moving.

His ears rang as he reached up and took the hand that extended towards him.  And then Gillion was being pulled out of the water, his body fully drained of the saltwater that had been cradling him for weeks.  He wobbled, stumbled, and nearly fell right back to where he came from.  But then another hand grasped onto his arm, and he was yanked onto a solid surface, the feeling of movement rocking him back and forth.

For a while, he couldn’t understand what was going on around him.  There were voices, movement, and conversation.  Gillion’s arm was grabbed again, and he was pulled back to his feet, an arm hooked around his shoulder to support him as he was led somewhere else.  His feet barely wanted to stay underneath him, and it took everything that he had left not to collapse right there.

Just staying afloat took more energy than Gillion was willing to admit, and it seemed like maybe he could sleep here without having to focus all of his attention on keeping himself above the water, or making sure that nothing tried to kill him (not that Gillion was too concerned about that right now, since he had taken the hand of some stranger without even knowing what he was agreed to).

Gillion was urged to lie down on something soft and cushioned under his head, more comfortable than any of the stone slabs that he had been forced to sleep on through his childhood and late teen years.

After that, Gillion slept for a long time.  Maybe a few days, maybe just a few hours.  He couldn’t be certain, everything blended together the first week or so that he spent on board Chip and Jay’s boat.  Gillion knew that if he asked, they would tell him what really happened, but a part of Gillion didn’t want to know any more about that week than he already did.  That was one of his lowest points.  But they kept him.

For some reason that Gillion never would be able to understand, they kept him around.  Let him use their resources, sleep on their beds underneath their blankets, they gave him water and food, and were patient enough not to throw him back out into the ocean when he took a long time to regain his strength to even talk.

And then he blew up the ship.  And then he led them on some heroic quest neither of them wanted to get involved in.  And then he dragged them from one place to the next.

He got them into trouble, he pulled them off course, he started fights, and he hurt them.  They hurt him.

And they kept him around.

Why?

He didn’t deserve it.  He didn’t deserve any of this.  Their kindness should be given to someone who actually deserves to be taken care of, not a monster that keeps dragging them into messes that keep getting increasingly harder to clean up and getting them hurt.

And now this?

Attacking Chip unprovoked.

It had to be the last line.  No matter what Gillion tried to do, he knew that this was it, this was when they kicked him off the ship for sure.  He went too far, he knew he had gone too far.

And yet a deep, deep part of Gillion still felt like he was acting in self-defense, like Chip was the one trying to attack him and he was just defending himself when Chip got too close to his gills.  His gills were sensitive, vulnerable, and an easy target to any enemy smart enough to aim a weapon.

Chip knew that his gills were sensitive.  And Gillion knew it was an innocent mistake.

A mess of swirling emotions coiled around Gillion’s head.  It was so confusing, so frustrating, so upsetting.  He didn’t know what to think, and he didn’t know how to react.

He tried to prepare some sort of response when they eventually approached him on the topic.  He tried to think of the way he would apologize, what he would say in response when they came to him with the conclusion that they were kicking him off the crew.  He was upset, of course he was upset, the idea of being out on his own again in this massive world sent spikes of pure, white-hot panic all the way down his back.

Gillion didn’t want to be alone again.  He had gotten a taste of what it was like to be alone, and he hated every second of it.  It nearly killed him.  Tritons were social creatures.  And Gillion had never been taught how to survive on his own.  He didn’t know how to hunt, as much as he tried, and his instincts tried to guide him when they were getting low on food on the few days before they managed to stop at an island.  He knew that if he remained in the Oversea, he would certainly be killed by some enemy much bigger and smarter than he was.

He was never taught how to make relationships with people, how to properly buy and sell things, how to make money, how to find shelter, food, water, or any of the things that he would need to live on his own.

He was essentially useless.

Just another reason why they didn’t need him on the ship.

He was aggressive and dangerous, and not to mention, he brought nothing to the crew in terms of skills or knowledge.  

Chip knew how to be a pirate and was experienced in the cunning craft of deception and stealth.  He knew his way around the underground and had an extensive realm of knowledge of all sorts of cultural things that Gillion would never be able to wrap his mind around it all.

Jay was intelligent, crafty, and charismatic.  She also had experience dealing with more… formal relations with people and could put on a good act when it was needed.  She was good with a bow and an excellent shot, better than Gillion had ever seen before (not that Gillion had really seen any guns before coming to the Oversea, but Jay had to be the best that he had ever seen).

All Gillion could do was hit an enemy hard and bring down the crew when he missed.  And he missed a lot.  Just like all his years of training.  He swung and missed and swung and missed.  And he got them all into trouble in the process.

Impulsive.  Stupid.  Violent.   That’s what he was.  That’s all he was ever good for.

It’s why they exiled him in the first place.  And it was why he was going to be exiled again.  Because Gillion could never stay in one place for too long before people got tired of him.

Gillion peeled his eyes open, rubbing away the thick film that had gathered.  His tears had dried on his cheeks, crusting over his scales and making his face feel stiff when he tried to move it.  Gillion sniffled, not knowing how long he had been curled up in the storage room or how long he had been crying (more so, how long he hadn’t been crying).  But when he stretched his legs out in front of himself, everything hurt.

The bruises that he had sustained from the fight bloomed across his skin, and all the dried blood on his hands flaked off and crumbled to the ground.  His back was sore, and every breath he took felt like he was burning from the inside out.  Gillion grimaced and hissed through his teeth.  It felt like he had been sleeping for days, but it really couldn’t have been that long.

When he tried to peer out the small porthole window, mostly covered by the crowded mass of netted things they had in the storage room, the sky was orange and red with the setting sun.  Filling the window with a glow so intense that it filled the space with a soft red glow.  

Had he been in here all day?  Gillion couldn’t believe that it had been that long.  Their fight was earlier that morning, if it was even the same day (and that Gillion was starting to doubt the longer that he looked out the window).

Gillion had no watch, no calendar, no map or compass, or anything that might aid in helping him tell how long it had been.  Only the feeling of deep ache in his bones and the gnawing hunger deep in the pit of his stomach.  When his stomach rumbled, Gillion realized just how hungry he was.  It was like a pit had opened up in the middle of his gut, aching and growling like an angry beast.

He winced and sucked in a sharp breath, joints cracking every time he tried to move.  Everything was stiff.  His feet stung with pins and needles from how long he had been sitting on them, and his tail was asleep behind him, the end of it just barely twitching softly when he tried to move it.

His eyes were dry, and it seemed like he had lost an entire sheen of moisture over his skin in the time that he had been hiding in the storage closet.  The rocking of the Albatross made him nauseous as he tried to stand, and his body felt like it weighed a million pounds.

If not for the sight of the setting sun out the window, Gillion’s aching body would be enough to tell him that he had been sitting down here for hours.  He had no memory of how much time had passed, as if there was a gap in his mind where all that time should have been.

Did he fall asleep?  Wear himself out to exhaustion that he ended up passing out where he was sitting?  Or was he just so deep in his own thoughts of self-loathing that he didn’t realize how much time was passing?

Gillion blinked and scrubbed at his face.  He surely didn’t feel well-rested at all.  If anything, he felt more exhausted than before.

He shuffled toward the closed door to the storage room, pressing his ear to the wood to make out any sounds nearby, trying to gauge where the rest of the crew was on the ship.  His fins twitched, and he pressed his palms flat to the wood, his fingers sore and stiff from grasping his curls for so long.

Everything around him felt slightly muffled, as if Gillion were still underwater, looking up into the surface and trying to join in with the fun that everyone was having up above.  His ears were ringing, and it made it so hard to strain to listen, even with his sensitive hearing.

But ever so faintly, Gillion heard the sound of footsteps walking down the hallway, not approaching the storage room, but walking away from it.  They were light enough that he could tell it wasn’t Jay, they were soft, careful, calculated.  It was hard to hear over the ringing in his ears, but Gillion pressed the side of his head closer to the wood of the door and furrowed his eyebrows, squeezing his eyes shut as if they would help.

By the lack of creaking floorboards, Gillion figured it wasn’t Ollie, who walked lightly just naturally, from being smaller and lighter than the rest of the crew.  The only other person who walked that carefully was Chip.

Gillion really hoped it wasn’t Chip.

Gillion sucked in a deep breath and held it for a few seconds, keeping his ear pressed to the door with his hand searching for the door handle.  His claws trembled, and the sticky dried blood on his fingers made him squirm.  He wanted to wash himself off, maybe change into a different shirt, one that wasn’t soaked with red and still slightly dripping from his own moisture.

But Gillion also didn’t want to get caught.  He didn’t want to have to face the other crew members when he knew that him just being here was a ticking time bomb.  The longer that he hid in the storage closet, the longer that he knew that he had a roof over his head.  If he left, they were going to yell at him, kick him off the ship, and tell him to pack his stuff and leave (if they even gave him the chance to get his things).

Gillion’s stomach rumbled again, causing him to jerk away from the door as if anyone on the other side would hear the sound and realize that he was still here.

As long as he was out of sight, out of the way, out of mind, then he couldn’t hurt anyone else.  Then maybe, just maybe, he could stay on the ship long enough for them to reach an island so that he could safely depart somewhere that he could at least theoretically get food and water.

He was so hungry.  Thirsty too.  And he was tired.  All Gillion really wanted was just to get something to eat and crawl into bed, maybe wash himself off too.  The dried blood was uncomfortable.  It made him squirm.

Gillion chewed on the inside of his mouth, conflicted between what he really, really wanted, versus what he knew he should do.  He knew he should stay put where he was to make sure he stayed out of the way of everyone else.  He didn’t want to cause any more trouble, and with how shaky his hands were, Gillion wasn’t entirely sure that he would be able to keep the simmering aggression from bubbling up again.

Gillion lifted one hand to his sternum, twisting his fingers around the golden chain and pressing the stone between two fingers, using that to soothe himself.

He was so lost in his own raucous thoughts, continuing to debate in his mind what he wanted to do with himself, that Gillion completely missed the sound of very loud footsteps approaching the storage room. 

Once he noticed it, it was too late for him to jerk away from the door in time before a steady knock reverberated through his skull, ear still pressed to the wood.  Gillion flinched away, slapping his hand over his mouth to stop himself from making a sound.  He took a deep breath and whined quietly, hoping that whoever was on the other side wouldn’t hear and would just go away, maybe thinking that he had fallen asleep.

“Hey, Gillion.” 

It was Jay.  Her voice was soft and unassuming, tone gentle and cautious, as if she were approaching an injured animal as she audibly fidgeted on the other side of the door.  Her fingertips tapped on the surface of the door, loud enough that Gillion could make out the soft drumming sound.

Gillion said nothing.  He pulled away from the door as quietly as he could muster, body beginning to shake again as he cowered, tail tucked tightly between his legs.  He folded his ears to his skull and hunched his shoulders.

“I… I know you want some space, but uh…” Jay sounded a little awkward as she spoke, fumbling over her words like she didn’t know what to say.  She coughed softly, and Gillion heard the floorboards creak loudly when she shifted.  “I… I brought you some dinner, okay?  You must be hungry.”

She tapped on the door again like she was trying to elicit a response out of Gillion.

It was a trap.  He knew it was a trap.  It was just a way for Jay to lure him to the door so she could yell at him and kick him out.  Maybe they were trying to get him to lower his guard, get Gryphon to man-handle him again, and throw him off the side of the ship.

“No one’s mad at you… Chip’s fine, I’m fine,” Jay continued to ramble on the other side of the door.  She sounded sad and a little anxious.  “We more so just want to make sure you’re okay… Chip thinks he gave you a bit of a scare with your gills or… or your fins…”

Gillion paused, furrowing his eyebrows and frowning deeply, ducking his head so that he was staring at the ground, no longer glaring at the door like Jay was about to bust in and try to attack him.  He curled his arms around himself and let out a small, shaky breath.  His ears drooped.

Jay hesitated for a few seconds and fell silent.  But Gillion could tell that she was still there by the way that he never heard her footsteps walking away from the door.  Gillion said nothing in response, and he didn’t dare approach.

Jay tapped on the door again, not fully knocking, but just enough to alert Gillion to the sound, causing his ear to twitch in that direction.  He frowned.

“It’s some leftover stew from the other night,” Jay said softly, and Gillion heard the sound of a spoon clinking against what he assumed was a wooden bowl.  Jay sighed softly.  “It would make all of us feel a bit better if we knew that you ate something.  I don’t want you going hungry.”

As she said that, Gillion’s stomach chose that time to growl loudly, loud enough that Gillion would honestly be surprised if Jay hadn’t heard it through the door, even if she didn’t have Gillion’s heightened hearing.  He felt his cheeks darken in shame at that, and he tried to curl his hands around his stomach as if he could muffle the sounds of his own hunger.

He was exhausted and hungry.  And the idea of leftover stew sounded really nice after Gillion had locked himself in the storage closet all day.  It would warm the chill in the center of his chest and maybe get some moisture in him.

If Gillion were to choose one thing from the Oversea to bring back to the trench, it would be warm food.

Especially Jay’s cooking.

While Gillion’s brain screamed at him that he should say nothing and stay in the storage closet… his hunger ultimately won over the small, scared part in his brain.  His mind screamed at him that it was a trap, and Jay was trying to lull him into a false sense of security by making him think that they weren’t mad at him and that they had come with an offering of food.  There was no way that they weren’t mad at him.  Not when he pulled something like that.

But as mad as they were, they were at least pretending to offer him food.  And Gillion was a hungry animal.  And even the most scared ones would come out for food.

Which is what Gillion did, slowly, hesitantly, and very uncertain of what might happen when he opened the door.  But he did.

He curled his hand into a fist around the cold metal door handle, every part of his body shaking with his tail tucked so tightly between his legs he almost tripped on it when he shuffled forward.  Gillion tried to make himself as small as possible, his mind screaming at him the entire time that he was in danger and that he needed to hide, or that this was a trap and he was going to get hurt, they were going to kick him off the ship. 

What if the food was poisoned?

Gillion shivered and gulped at that.  But his hand was already around the door handle, and he was already pulling it open, his stomach rumbling loudly.

He was met face to face with Jay, who seemed shocked that Gillion had actually opened the door.  Her hair was falling in front of her face, no longer pulled back into the ponytail that she normally kept it in.  Maybe she was starting to get ready for bed, too, or cleaning up for the night to get comfortable.

Her eyes widened as Gillion peeked through a small crack in the door, not stupid enough to open it all the way before he could be certain that it was just Jay on the other side.

In her hands was, like she promised, a bowl of steaming stew, chunks of meat and vegetables that Gillion couldn’t name, floating in the thick, salty broth.  Jay’s hands curled around the edge, holding onto the spoon with her thumb so it didn’t slide around or fall deeper into the bowl.  Her hands trembled lightly.  But that wasn’t unusual.  They were all shaky on this ship.

“Hey,” Jay spoke softly, her voice warm and gentle, much softer than Gillion was ever used to hearing.  She softened her expression and pulled her lips into the faintest smile, her eyes scrunching around the corners.  Her nose was red and swollen, and Gillion knew in his chest that he was the cause of that.  He vaguely remembered someone else grabbing him before Gryphon did, and him lashing out, elbow connecting with something.  “You okay?”

Gillion said nothing, his tongue felt heavy in his mouth and so, so dry.  He swallowed thickly, but there was nothing to swallow.

He was far from okay.  He was guilty, angry, ashamed, scared, and all sorts of other emotions that tightened around his chest and made it harder to breathe.  But Jay didn’t need to know that.  She didn’t care, not really.  She was just asking to be polite.  

So Gillion nodded.

Jay’s shoulders visibly relaxed at his answer, and Gillion decided he had picked the correct one for this situation.  He let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding, and after casting another cursory glance around the hallway behind and around Jay, tentatively pulled the door open a little wider.

When Gillion opened the door, Jay took a small step back, giving him some space to exit the storage room.  He hunched his shoulders and tentatively crept out, shuffling his feet forward and barely picking them up from the ground.

Jay extended the bowl of soup to him, smiling softly and hoping that it came across as reassuring.  Gillion hesitantly took the bowl, the warmth of the stew soaking through the wood of the bowl, seeping into his chilled fingers.

“Everyone else is upstairs in the kitchen,” Jay muttered, shifting her weight from foot to foot while she examined Gillion closely, her eyes darting over his form like a flighty fish trying to hide from predators.  She curled her arms around her torso and chewed on the inside of her mouth, saying nothing for a moment.

“Thank you…” Gillion croaked, voice hoarse and throat sore from lack of use.  He coughed into his elbow and took a raspy breath that felt like knives going all the way down his throat.  The spoon clinked against the edge of the bowl when he shifted, trying to get a better grip on the object so he didn’t spill it when the rocking of the waves caused him to stumble.

“If you want to uh… join us… you can…” Jay offered, still sounding awkward when she spoke, like she wasn’t completely sure what she should or should not say around Gillion at the moment.  She frowned and furrowed her eyebrows, her red, swollen nose making her look odd.  “I know Chip would like that if you came up to eat with us… but if you still need some space alone, that’s fine.  I just thought I’d bring you some food anyway.”

Gillion froze at the thought of facing Chip.  Despite Jay’s reassurances that no one was mad, he didn’t trust that for a second.  It was plausible that she was lying, or even that she didn’t even know herself at how angry Chip really was.  Maybe he was hiding it from Jay so that she would go down and try to reassure Gillion to lure him out of the storage room, so he could yell at Gillion.

He needed to apologize.  Gillion needed to make his mistake right.  But he didn’t think that he could show his face in front of Chip any time soon.  At least not without a lot of buffer between them.

Gillion didn’t realize how long he had been silent for.  But it appeared long enough that Jay took his silence as an answer.

“That’s alright if you don’t want to join,” Jay nodded, mostly to herself, and looked down at the floor between them.  “Just make sure you eat, okay?  Do you want me to bring you anything else, some juice? Water?” 

Gillion shook his head and slid his tongue over his lips.  He was thirsty, yes, but he didn’t want Jay to bring him anything else.  A part of him still didn’t trust the stew that he had been given, so he didn’t fully trust anything that Jay might give him.  It was the perfect opportunity for them to poison him, or worse.  Whatever the worst option was.

“Okay…” Jay looked around the hallway, looking like she very much wished that she could be anywhere else right now.  Even Gillion, as dense as he was, could pick up on that.

“Thank you,” Gillion repeated, hoping that it might signal the end of the conversation and Jay would leave.  His stomach growled, but he didn’t want to start eating in front of Jay.  His skin crawled the longer that she stared at him, and Gillion could still feel the ghosts of hands crawling along his back.  His ears twitched, and he flicked the end of his tail, shuffling away from her.

“Okay,” Jay nodded and slid her tongue across her lips, “Okay, yeah, let me know if you need anything, okay?  No one is mad at what happened earlier, we just want to make sure you’re okay and that you feel safe here.”

Gillion said nothing.  But after a few moments of him staring silently at Jay, she got the hint.

She attempted another small smile, but there was something else behind her look that Gillion couldn’t decipher.  Anxiety?  Worry?  Anger?  Gillion had no idea, he was never good at being able to judge facial expressions anyway, especially not humans.  

But before Gillion had a chance to look further into her expression, Jay turned away and began walking off down the hallway, leaving Gillion and his rapidly cooling bowl of stew alone for him to ruminate over what happened.