The prow of the Unaffiliated Free Trader Lemur was clad in a swooping wooden plow-shaped arch that had to be purely for decoration, though it looked to be a ram from a ship of another age. It had been joyfully painted to look like a snout with a bulging eye and a lolling pink tongue on the larboard side of the otherwise rust-colored vessel. A pair of narrow funnel stacks rose from the back with little curling wisps of exhaust from the idling methsel engine humming in the rear compartment of the little corvette. Or rather, corvette would’ve been its military classification if it were possible for it to have one. Some systems may have considered it a naval trawler; and it was impossible to tell what it had started life as. Somewhere between a small luxury liner or an even smaller freighter, there was no chance it displaced even a thousand tons, and its only armament was a single snub-barreled smasher of a considerable bore but on the most pitiful open-top turret sat out right on the weatherdeck. Even if she had been low in the water (and she wasn’t) there was no way she could have more than a single deck of accommodations and still have room for a deck to act as cargo hold and fuel bunker for the copious amount of methsel they’d burn on their journey. It was a pitiable little ship, all told, with the paint flaking from its fittings which were corroded everywhere they were exposed to the elements. Its deck was dark from neglect by the stone. The expanse of grey and green, permanently wet boards was at least clear for a great breadth beyond the horrible turret where there were only air intakes and hatches before a tall wheelhouse rose up in the back of the ship between two funnels. After spending much of his childhood at sea, Arlo had crossed out to Lost Pip from his last collegiate accommodation the year before in a similar vessel and he’d spent nearly the first two weeks with his stomach perpetually empty while he became inured to the sea for the first time since travelling with his mother throughout his childhood.
But this time he had the weight of his experience aboard the Sea Haven Foamer as an apprentice rope-monkey for seventeen and a half days as well as some occasions of piloting his personal cabin-cruiser on the waters around Lost Pip. He had also skipped lunch, and finally if he did manage to gulp deep enough to bring up the mushy peas from breakfast he had at least changed into much cheaper clothes to ruin.
That is to say, they were his only clothes by now as he had followed Holomar’s advice in a way by selling his clothes at the pawnbroker. He had sold the frock coat, waistcoat, and trousers for quite a hefty sum; they being of a very fine quality from a luxury atelier who was known to supply members of high society on the mainland. He had also parted with his revolver, though it made him nervous to do so because it left him with little to defend himself other than the broken half of decorative spadroon in his satchel. Finally, he’d parted with every bauble he could spare from his pockets: some gold and silver rings, a gold necklace with a pendant of some dubious material, and his fine silk cravat. The pawnbroker had no use for the toy boat from Holomar’s Trinket game and Arlo would’ve felt bad parting with it anyhow. This he kept, along with his broken sword, his garrison belt, the clothes made for him by the Havenites, his pocket watch, fine cuffed boots, and his mother’s old tortoiseshell comb. What he wasn’t wearing was stuffed into the tubular satchel with the scabbard that had the pieces of his broken sword and the small collection of vittles he’d been sent off with by the Havenites. His one expense along the way to the dock was to buy a bottle of wine he hoped would ingratiate him to the ship’s captain.
When he arrived at the top of the gangway, Arlo was somewhat surprised to see that the two present crewmen were Beastfolk. Then he remembered why no other ships were heading west and realized that this was possibly the only ship on Viola capable of flagrantly sailing past marauding Guilders. The two crewmen in question consisted of a man who was almost entirely human, though his sideburns resolved into whisker-like spines and he had a worm-like tail threaded through some slit in the back of his greasy black and blue trousers; as well as one who was almost entirely bear. In fact, Arlo had to spend a long time looking at the huge fuzzy thing to decide whether or not it was actually a person at all and not simply an unusual ships’ pet. But the cold intelligence in the red-gold eye that tracked him as he appeared on the grimy deck did more than the vibrant violet sash, the thick-barrelled autoloader pistol, and the serrated curving sickle sword in an open frog to confirm that this was more than just a mass of brown fluff with a penchant for fish and berries. The bear’s snout mouth was so close to the real thing that its owner had something of a speech impediment with human language as he addressed Arlo in a guttural drawl.
“Man-person.” it began, clearly irritated by the intrusion as it had seemingly been about to roar its rat companion if the other crewman’s trembling was anything to go by. “What is business you have with Lemur?”
Arlo bowed as gracefully as he could manage before rising to dig into his satchel under one arm for the bottle of wine. “Greetings, sir… or, uh, madame? I am Arlo Haradin-Harkon, of House Haradin, late of Lost Pip’s Rock. I had come to present my compliments to the captain along with this bottle of Astermoth White and a business proposition.”
The bear grunted at this explanation before replying, “There is no captain right now. Him gone on other island. We leave to get him on next tide.”
Arlo frowned at this, but held out the wine bottle anyway. “Then perhaps the executive officer?”
The bear walked forward and loomed over him. “I am executive officer. I am Dragil Khan, Son of Ursula Khan, who is Grand Warden of Fisher-Dog Tribe.”
“What an excellent-sounding complement of titles, Mister Khan.” Arlo confessed nervously, though he had no clue who Ursula Khan was or what a Grand Warden was and very little notion of any of the Beastfolk tribes. Nonetheless, he tried again offering the bottle of wine by prodding the air with its neck a few times, adding, “I am honored to meet such an eminent person. Is your captain also of such a grand provenance?”
“Keep bottle, tastes terrible to Dragil.” urged the bear with a shove that nearly caused Arlo to drop it. “Captain is J’zan Bloodfang, bastard child of Hunter-Dog Tribe. Do not be fooled by low birth, for him also is heart-brother to Dragil Khan, Son of Ursula Khan.”
“Considering the great and terrible Ursula Khan is Grand Warden of the Fisher-Dog Tribe, this must mean our esteemed captain is a man of some parts.” panned Arlo with his eyebrows dancing. Dragil seemed unfazed by the joke.
“That is right.” agreed the beast with a firm nod. “What is business you have with Lemur?”
Seeing that direct action was best when dealing with Mister Khan, Arlo stowed his bottle of wine and produced instead a cheap little purse, the remains of a busted waterskin containing all of his money. “I have three and a half gold moons, one silver half-moon, and two sickles in here. Could you be persuaded to take me West with you in exchange for some of it? I’m looking to head to Peppernuts and I’m told you are headed that way as well. The Cee-Hache-Ess Dawnstorm is moored there and I must get to it. I don’t need much space, a cot or hammock with a little water and gruel would suffice for accommodations.”
Some sort of internal math seemed to be calculating inside the massive beastman’s mind for a short while, and then in a single easy motion he stuck out a set of long clawed fingers and took the whole bag at once. He didn’t open it or count the money, instead just tucking it directly into his sash and turning to the little rat man he had been looming over earlier.
“Skrivens Skavenfoot, bastard son of Worm-tail Tribe will show you where you sleep in second spare cabin.” Dragil told Arlo before turning again to point at the wheelhouse while he gave the terms of Arlo’s voluntary imprisonment aboard the Lemur. “You must never enter bridge, or space below bridge, or cargo hold. Only rooms in front of ship, or weather deck. You must never touch gun turret or even sit on seat in gun turret. You found touching wrong things, you locked in room. You escape from locked in room, you thrown overboard.”
There was no space for questions, no asking if he understood. Dragil simply dumped the rules on him and left, trusting to the beady-eyed Skavenfoot to handle the rest. Arlo nervously tracked the retreating form of the hulking bear man with a worried expression, disappointed to see all of his money go when he’d hoped to negotiate the price down somewhat after getting a sea captain drunk on good wine.
“Mister Arlo, sir,” Skrivens was saying in a nasally little voice while tugging at his waistcoat. “Come with me, please, I have other things to do, too.”
The smaller man led the way, and as they descended the ship-ladder Arlo saw that instead of normal feet in shoes or boots the man had long and narrow paws with three thick white-furred toes on the end and a ball of a heel. He watched Skrivens dismount from the bottom rung and practically scamper on those feet up the hall to a pocket door on the starboard side with a smiling cartoon armadillo painted on its surface. Arlo wondered vaguely if this was meant to be a cartoon animal or a crude portrait of the room’s last occupant while Skrivens jiggled an iron key in the lock and slid the door open. Inside the room there was only a narrow bed and a desk, and the quality of the linen on said bed was more akin to a tarp while the mattress seemed to be essentially a burlap sack full of springs and sawdust. Arlo couldn’t have imagined before how he’d be pining for his hammock on the Foamer, but despite how he was missing his little room in the sand locker in the brig’s orlop, he was still glad to have an actual bed. As he sat on it, he set down his satchel and looked at Skrivens to ask, “Have I offended Mister Khan in some way I can avoid in the future, Mister Skavenfoot? He seems to dislike me.”
“Mister Khan doesn’t hate you, he feels nothing towards you. Trust me.” replied the little man with a sad smirk, “If you mind your business and keep to yourself, it will be an easy voyage for you. Once Captain Bloodfang rejoins us, he will like you a lot, sir. He likes people who talk like you.”
Arlo nodded, somewhat grateful to hear it. At least someone might appreciate him. Skrivens tried to make his smirk a little less sad, and failed. The mousey little rat man shrugged a bit and then stammered, “A-anyhow, the head is at the end of the hall. Use the larboard side, the starboard side is for Dragil-sized crewmen and you could fall in.”
Arlo nodded again, “Thank you, Mister Skavenfoot. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Skrivens nodded back. “And in the morning Moriah, our steward, will bring you a bowl of something warm to eat. Do you eat meat, greens, or grains?”
“I would prefer a third-share of each if it’s reasonable to ask; but I suppose meat if it’s not.”
Instead of saying whether it was, Skrivens simply slid the door shut and bounded off down the hall. Arlo figured that maybe Beastfolk didn’t say goodbye and moved to the desk to inspect it as he settled into the berth. It was a fairly simple thing, wood top on a metal frame bolted to the bulkhead, with two fat box drawers on either side of the little metal chair.
Arlo opened both. Inside one were two tins of biscuits that Arlo recognized as a somewhat well-loved brand of Imperial dog treats which he took to suit the tastes of the room’s previous occupant. He took one out of curiosity and bit into it. The flavor was as though someone had made cookie dough from bone broth instead of water, and it was not altogether unpleasant if it was a bit unusual and off-putting. Arlo amused himself by crunching on it as he pulled open the other drawer. Inside was a book, a rather hefty one at that. It was titled ‘The Law of Dualities’ with yellow paint on a blue backing, and a casual look through it made it seem to be some sort of religious primer. The interior of the first page was a short handwritten note which read, ‘Hello, Traveller! This book is a gift to all Waywards volunteering for service in Beastfolk waters. It is a guide to their shared religion and how you can interact with them and show them the path of The Trampled Rose. Please read it and use it to do Her work, and please give it to other members of your flock if you finish with it! Yours in faith, Chapelmaster Roan of Saint Roan, Saint Roan’s Chapel, Corovos’
It was also signed by this Roan, the man at the end of what seemed to be a long list of things named after each other, and stamped with a red hellebore shape. The Imperial government had always maintained that citizenship and service was more than enough to constitute proper worship of Her Most Divine Majesty, and so Arlo had never entered a chapel in his life. He had not a single notion of what The Divine Orderhood of The Trampled Rose even did or what they stood for other than that they claimed without dispute to be the spiritual wing of The Jade Queen’s dominion. He’d seen the monks in their robes, the priests in their fancier robes, and the Oathkeepers in their way-too-many-killing-implements-for-just-praying. He’d seen parishioners flocking in and out of chapels on some larger islands. He’d even occasionally been on a ship with a chaplain. Come to think of it, a chaplain of some sort had manned a tiny shrine on Lost Pip but the only time they’d met was when they were introduced and then never spoke again.
Well, a book of any kind was better than lying in bed and thinking of lost love, anyhow.
The first chapter went down better than the dog treat, though the second was more of a tranquilizer than any drug Arlo had ever taken. Still, the voyage ahead promised to be so long that Arlo wanted to avoid using any of his more entertaining vittles such as the wine or the tea until at least they’d gone underway. So he studiously put away his things under the bed and tried to force himself to finish the second chapter of this book on Beastfolk religion from the perspective of a Man religion he didn’t entirely understand while resisting the siren call of his wine and snacks as the day turned closer to night and the sky began to take on the customary green glow of the Life Watch.
He was halfway through his second dog treat when the pocket door to his cabin slid open so quickly that it made a loud crack smacking into the end of its rail. He whipped his head to the side with wide eyes, a deer-in-the-gaslamps look at the hulking, snarling form of Dragil Khan in the doorway. The bear man stomped into the room and easily grasped Arlo with both hands to press him up against the wall. The air was being wrung out of his chest and his shoulder blades protested as they were crushed against the rigid rivets or bolts on the bulkhead behind him. He tried to wheeze out a greeting of some kind, but could only really make a small peep.
“You give fake coin to Dragil Khan!” spat the bear man.
Arlo desperately shook his head, swearing with his eyes that he did not because he could not make his mouth create any sound whatsoever.
“Yes you do!” argued Dragil, now tossing Arlo bodily onto the bed where he would crawl backwards into the corner of the room with his legs drawn up to his chest. Dragil dumped some of the bag he’d taken from Arlo earlier into an open hand, selected one of the silvery half-moons and tossed it onto the bed between Arlo’s feet. “Is magnet sticking-to! Pewter or sterling, fake either way!”
“I didn’t know!” Arlo cried, “I got it from the pawnbroker in town! I sold everything I have! I needed to get to the Dawnstorm!”
“You make it up!” Dragil roared, “You give! You give!”
With one hand he pinned Arlo by his chest up against the bulkhead. Arlo slammed his eyes shut and shook his head, groaning miserably and begging Dragil not to hurt him. Heedless, the giant beastman grabbed one ankle and tugged hard enough that Arlo’s knee popped somewhere inside. The instant sprain made Arlo yelp girlishly, and frustrated Dragil, who commanded, “Take off boots! Give boots, nice boots worth good coin!”
Wincing with pain, Arlo rushed to slide his feet out of the cuffed black boots and offered them up to Dragil, who snatched them instantly before pointing down to the watch chain peeking out of Arlo’s waistcoat. “Give watch! You give!”
Arlo desperately shook his head and begged, “Please, not the watch, just turn me off the ship, my watch is dear to me, it was-”
Instead of asking again, Dragil grasped the chain and yanked it free, taking a button from the waistcoat along with it. He held the watch up and looked it over for half a second, then furrowed his brow and held it up to one pointy ear as he discovered just how loud the ticking was. Then, he turned it over and saw an elegant but roughly-engraved moon and star with a few thick swooping lines on the back of the case rather than the fine etched scrollwork and monogram script he expected from a rich man’s watch.
“Eugh! Is worthless pin-set turnip!” roared Dragil, who tore the chain from the watch, breaking the clasp rather than unclipping it. The watch was tossed back onto the bed and Arlo instantly hungrily grabbed it up with both hands and held it close to his chest while Dragil tested a link of the chain between two fangs before deciding, “At least chain is gold. Worth more than you owe, but you pay extra now for fake coin lie!”
Arlo didn’t say anything, just trembled and nodded on the bed while he held his watch tight to his chest in a white knuckled grip. Dragil made a feinting lunge towards him to make sure he was still scared and when he saw that it had good effect, he turned and left the cabin without closing the door behind him. Arlo left it open, but did at least pull the starchy blanket onto his knees and sink back into the corner on the bed. He held his watch out in front of him and petted the surface of the crystal before flipping it over and tracing a pinkie along the engraving. If he was permitted to leave his cabin once they were underway he would surely find a roll of string somewhere aboard the ship. Every ship seemed to use tons of the stuff, and he’d spent more than the last two weeks learning how to tie knots, splice rope, and braid. He could make something new to hold his watch on, and if it looked plain maybe it wouldn’t get stolen.
Arlo finally didn’t cry in response to his terror, after each horrible thing that had transpired had brought him to shameful tears he seemed to finally be dried out. Instead, he just listened to the comforting ticking of his watch while he sat in bed and tried to think pleasant thoughts. First he thought of what had happened if he’d returned to the Foamer. He thought of Millie casting off her wrap when she was warm to dip it in sea water, and wondered if she might be his lover even though he was too young for her. The thought of an older woman led him to Gromlaw, who’d given everything to preserve him and was older still. He’d never paid attention to her before, but would she have been able to advise him to avert the crisis he’d invited if they were behind closed doors, nose to nose in each other’s arms where her advice couldn’t shame him? Thoughts of his bed on the island led his mind deeper to thoughts of his lover Valentena; how her laugh seemed to bubble up slowly and how she always seemed surprised that he’d been able to get it out of her. How, even though his heart ached at the betrayal of her stealing his yacht and all of his possessions to strand him on Lost Pip during the attack, he missed her and wished he could just have her kneel by the bed and pet him in this horrible moment.
He thought of the girls he’d known at university, then a cousin he’d met on vacation once. Soon his thoughts became only of his college friends, and then his family. He was thinking of his mother’s face, trying to remember what it looked like on the day he picked out his watch with her as a boy. They showed him all the finest watches, made by the greatest craftsmen on the Stone. Some were all the way from the mainland. Some had beautiful little exposed skeletonized movements with shining ruby and emerald jewels. One even had a Holy Eye as the jewel to bear its balance wheel, and when the movement flipped over from seven-fifty-nine in the Day Watch to the first minute of the Life Watch, a little door would open up to reveal the glowing green orb full of swirling light.
But little Arlo, no taller than the counter, didn’t like any of them. He held them up one after another to his face and then his ear. He had to practically press the nicest ones into his ear to hear their ticking. He had told the man behind the counter that he thought watches were supposed to tick like a drummer in a marching band. His mother had pet his head while the jeweler explained that these watches were nice, they had pretty engravings, and men who liked nice watches spent all their moons on the ones with the most jewels which were the quietest.
He had even presented a cheap watch for Arlo to understand. It was unremarkable, a gold or brassy case with no markings. Simple numbers one through eight around the dial with a little sweep hand at the bottom to mark the seconds. The man wound it up for Arlo and it came to life. Tick-tick-tick-tick! Two stiff marching clicks every second in perfect rhythm loud enough to hear faintly from across the room. Seeing how much her son lit up, Arlo’s mother had instantly decided to get the cheap watch. He could have a nice one as a graduation present when he finished school, she had told the attendant, children wanted the strangest things and wasn’t it better to make them smile?
Arlo admitted he had liked the pretty engravings on the nicer watches, but he liked hearing his watch tick-tick-ticking even more! He held the ticking watch in both hands in the bench seat of their private car on the train, his knees hugged against him back then just like they were now. And just like back then, he drifted off to sleep.
He had no notion of the Lemur leaving port. Absent the trill of the bosun’s pipe or any calls of crewmen, the ship would’ve at least sounded a horn when piloting through the mire. But whatever the case, Arlo had slept through it all. He awakened with a horrible pain in his neck and a pair of red circles on his forehead from leaning against his own knees. Blinking away the pain in his eyes and his head was like clearing away the fog preventing him from feeling the pain in his knee, which had swollen slightly in the night. He moaned softly as he straightened it out on the bed before turning to peer out the porthole above the bed. A dim burgundy glow had supplanted the green of earlier and it was reflected as tiny pink polygons glimmering in the endless expanse of choppy water on the horizon. Dawn was a couple hours out still, but the sounds of activity down the hall showed that at least some of the ship’s company were awake. Dimly, while rubbing his eyes and getting to his obligately bare feet Arlo wondered if beastfolk were more comfortable keeping the hours of their animal counterparts, or if the mutants were still essentially men in that way. As he limped to the desk and procured himself another dog treat, Arlo wondered if even this was just his way of hoping to meet a night owl in the literal sense rather than the literary one.
He chewed contemplatively as he limped down the hall to the head, and conducted his business there with some thoughts of his lovely clawfoot tub that had no doubt found a home at the bottom of the sea or in some Guilder’s head instead by now. He splashed water on his face and took his hair out of the sailcloth long enough to comb it and put it back in before beginning his limp back to the room. In the passageway he saw a lovely woman pushing a rolling cart laden with ugly, poorly cared-for mess kits that were all oozing steam in an inviting way. The smell spoke of plain faire that had been at least kissed by a smoker but little else. Maybe it was his sad mood, or maybe it was just a good distraction from the pain in his knee, but either way Arlo felt his spirits rise as he limped towards the cart coming up the corridor.
The woman pushing it was most unusual at first glance, for at first she seemed to be wearing an apron that covered more than it should have and then she seemed to be wearing nothing but the apron. As Arlo got closer, however, he finally understood what he was looking at.
“Good morning,” greeted the woman cheerfully, seemingly unaware that Arlo had been assaulted the night before or that she had any cause to be concerned about him. Her face was human enough, in fact it was one he found quite pretty. Bright cheeks with high dimples that gave her flashing buck-toothed rictus grin an infectious quality made for boon companions to freckles and a swooping nose ending in a perfect little button shape. Her eyes were like Dragil’s, however, red-gold and almost devoid of visible sclera. Her hair, too, was unusual. From a distance it looked like wild points swept back, but up close he could see she was covered in real spines, sharp quills that continued down her neck and back. When she turned to set a mess kit on the floor next to a closed door, Arlo saw that they continued down her back almost to her rump and this was what accounted for her unusual dress which was half-apron, half-skirt.
“Are you Miss Moriah?” Arlo asked when he managed to finally drag himself to her.
“I am!” she replied instantly with another flash of her bright smile.
“Should I…” Arlo began nervously, leaning against the bulkhead to take the weight off his knee and scratching the back of his head, “Ah, am I supposed to ask what tribe you’re from? Mister Khan seemed to introduce everybody that way yesterday.”
“I was born on a Council ship, so I’m not a member of any tribe,” came Moriah’s helpful explanation, “But if I wanted to settle down and whelp a litter, I’d probably need…” Here, she tapped her chin thoughtfully and seemed to wiggle her head between two choices, before eventually just laying them out as though Arlo might recognize them, “Rockdweller or Truffletail Tribes.”
“You have to join a tribe if you want to get married?” asked Arlo at this, somewhat concerned by the thought.
Moriah laughed and put a hand on his shoulder to guide him around her cart. “No, silly. It’s how new beastfolk are made. The more traits any two of us have in common, the more likely we will be able to have children with one-another.”
She helped Arlo further into his room, noticing his limp and letting him hang from her arm somewhat until he could get into the little chair at his desk, all the while continuing her lesson. “So, if I found myself a man with furry legs–which I have under this dress and you’re welcome for my telling you so– we would be an alright match. But if I found a guy who had fur and quills, I’d probably be in business.”
Arlo instinctively looked down to see Moriah’s feet upon hearing that she was supposed to have furry legs and found himself blushing in spite of himself when, on her way back to the doorway she mockingly flicked up the hem of her skirt to reveal a pair of shapely calves with a thin coat of silky brown fur. She giggled merrily at the discomfort it seemed to cause him and dipped out of the room, only to return a moment later with a steaming mess kit to place on his desk. As though she were a chef at a fine restaurant on the high street, Moriah pinched the wooden handle on the round tin and whisked it away with an energetic, “Tada! Roast pork and cracked wheat for our pure-human guest. I can’t believe you were willing to sail on a beastfolk ship and didn’t even know about the tribes.”
Arlo felt bashful, not just because he’d been caught looking at Moriah’s legs but also because he was ashamed to know so little. The most recent events in his life had highlighted that in ways he didn’t care to think about.
“Well, I– I know other things.” he stammered, “At university I learned the dates of each notable event in the Secession of House Pelzer and the Corovokian Tea House. I also memorized several of the poetic works of Saint Baltheon, and I learned how to fence with the sabre and play the chordonian in a courtly manner.”
Moriah patted Arlo’s head a little too hard and then leaned forward to plant a motherly kiss on it, saying, “Don’t worry, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you. Actually, I’m proud of you, even if you’re a stranger. It takes a lot of courage to put yourself in a strange place like this.”
At this, Arlo laughed bitterly and confessed with a shake of his head, “Alas, it’s not as though I had much choice. But thank you for thinking so. You lifted my glum spirits, Miss Moriah.”
She closed the door behind herself when she left, though before she did so she quickly, playfully showed him her tongue and flicked her skirt up again. When she was gone, Arlo could still hear her down the hall rolling the cart. He stared down at his mess kit, golden beads of grain with cubes of red meat piled on top of it. Not a bad meal, certainly quite hardy though it did seem a touch dry. He considered uncorking his wine bottle, but let it go after the first spoonful seemed fit enough. He could hear Moriah talking to somebody else in another room, and then one last time on the other side of the passage before the wheels of her cart left him.
