Moriah continued to be a bright light for Arlo on his new voyage. There was not much else he could really find to do other than lie in bed and look forward to his meals, or read his one and only book. Once he’d exhausted his research into the Law of Dualities; fascinating though it was in the end, Arlo could only really pace in his cabin or emerge onto the weatherdeck to pace in the weather. For a few days he didn’t even really want to do this much, mainly out of fear of running into Dragil Khan and getting his other leg pulled on. He salved the humiliation of that by reminding himself it was even less fun to limp up a shipladder than it was to pace with that ache in his knee. So his entire day for good or ill was wrapped up in his tiny five-minute interactions with Moriah, even though he couldn’t tell if she was actually enjoying his company or just toying with a tourist. Some days she seemed to have extra time enough to sit on the edge of his desk and watch him eat, and she always seemed to enjoy it but something about her playful smirk made him feel like she had slipped something into his food. The other crewmembers who shared a corridor with him did not seem to ever take notice of him. Some he had not even seen, only heard them open their door to take their food and again later to leave their mess kits in the hall. Once, when the swell was particularly high, the trays and tins had all made an awful din in the middle of the night clanking and scraping along the floor as they were shunted down the hall. Arlo had emerged from his room and found himself helping a little person with black talon-like hands and leathery bat wings collect them. He tried speaking to the creature, who had blinked up at him through incredibly thick-lensed spectacles, but it just sort of mutely stared at him while they piled up the mess kits in a basket it had brought from its quarters.
After the first week, he had taken to strolling on the deck in the earliest hours of the morning once he’d finished whatever breakfast Moriah had abandoned him with. It was not entirely beyond satisfaction to watch from the bowsprit as the Blood Moon diminished in the western sky and gave way to the magnificent golden light of the sun rising from the south. Sometimes he would stay on deck until the pink in the sky turned fully blue. On a few occasions, he was joined by a crewmate who had no apparent mutation other than the same wormtail as Skavenfoot, and the two would lean on the taffrail in silence sharing a cigarette. Silence seemed to be the preferred language of the beastfolk crew. He wasn’t sure how many of them even knew who he was or why he was aboard, but none of them were hostile to him. The single time he even passed by Dragil on his way back down, the bear had growled a short greeting to him– much to his surprise.
It was the middle of the second month when Arlo was awakened by the sounding of the fog horn. He came up on deck blinking beneath the light of the full Jade Moon with the whole sky alight in a gentle green glow that unfortunately seemed to fill even the fog around the ship. Just barely squinting he could see pinpricks of tiny red lights off the larboard bow. The Lemur was moving faster now than he’d ever noticed it before, with thick columns of exhaust spewing from the funnel stacks at the back of the vessel and pouring up to join the pale green fog all around them. Arlo had been tracing it with his eyes when he was startled to hear a knock beside him. Through the window of the wheelhouse he could see Dragil looking back at him. The huge furry man beckoned with one claw that made Arlo point at himself in question, remembering his charge to stay out of the wheelhouse. When Dragil seemed to get frustrated and beckon harder, he ducked in through the narrow door and entered the ship’s bridge. A bank of consoles greeted him on either side of the ship’s wheel, mostly gauges with notepads and lights feeding various information up from the engine room below. The wheel itself was being held by the pad-footed Skrivens, who seemed to be doing an admirable enough job despite not being able to see out the front window. Dragil was posted up to the left of the wheel at a map station displaying a faded chart of some small archipelago, this filling up the corner between the wheel and a radio station where Arlo saw the bat-winged person from before hunched over the receiver with its head tilted sideways.
“Mister Khan? You wanted me?” asked the young man nervously, one hand still pointing at his own chest. “Was I blocking Mister Skavenfoot’s view?”
“Just looked cold.” Dragil answered tersely, barely glancing up from the map. “Even though your fur growing out, Dragil see you still look cold.”
Arlo reached up to feel his beard, by now a wild mass of black shrubbery he had come to forget about. The last time he’d shaved it had been over a marble sink at the seafort that was practically a different world from the one he lived in now. He could at least turn a green knob in the head and wash himself with all the seawater and washing powder he wanted. Eventually, he looked down at his shabby bare feet and decided to not cherish the concern of the bear too much.
“What’s amiss?” he dared to ask, approaching Skrivens and trying to gauge just how well the rat man could possibly see being so short. He couldn’t make out exactly how the little man was navigating, other than through a large windowed rectangular compass hanging from the ceiling and showing their heading with a helpful little notch.
For the first time, Dragil Khan seemed to smile. “We get captain tonight. Him waiting for us here in this port.”
Arlo found himself smiling as well, though mostly it was amusement that the prospect of the homecoming seemed to even thaw the hard-hearted Dragil a great deal. “You seem in very high spirits for the event.”
Dragil closed one claw and pounded himself in the chest for emphasis while saying, “Captain Bloodfang is heart-brother to Dragil!”
“So, I have heard,” replied Arlo, still amused and chuckling. He decided to also show off his courtly manner by remembering the various titles Dragil had fed him forty days before. “And what did our beloved captain do to earn the heart-brotherhood of the mighty Dragil Khan, Son of the great Ursula Khan who is Grand Warden of the Fisher Dog Tribe?”
Earnestly and without a hint of guile or complication, Dragil smiled as wide as he could and answered, “Best friend from always! Just love him!”
Arlo couldn’t say better than that, and shrugged as good-naturedly as he could. The prospect of finally meeting the captain of the beastfolk ship did excite him enough that Arlo slipped into a seat at one of the consoles and watched with interest while Skrivens steered the ship. Soon, shapes began to form in the fog. They were close to an island, and by the looks of things it was small. What few buildings could be made out through the mist were little things and of very primitive construction. All of them had a bright red lantern hanging from one window facing the sea, and Arlo supposed this was to keep ships from smashing into them in the fog. Soon, they drew even closer still, Dragil sidled over to the con and gently eased Skrivens to one side so he could take over as they seemed to pass into a narrow pilot channel between two huts.
“Skavenfoot, go wake Moriah, tell to put steak on grill for captain.” he ordered, practically vibrating with expectation. Arlo found himself impressed to watch the big claw-tipped hands deftly working the wheel while they coasted through the pilot channel at such a high speed in such a thick fog. A peek out the back window showed a mighty wake splashing against the lower trees and shrubbery on both sides of the channel. In another moment, they were joined by the sound of a buzzing engine. Arlo had to press his face up against the glass and squint to see it, but on one side of the channel he could see a cone of golden light bouncing up and down in the fog.
“Is that…?” he asked.
“That him.” Dragil confirmed, “Watch close, very good, you like. You like.”
Arlo obeyed as they powered through the channel. Ahead the gap seemed to be widening, so he wasn’t sure how much longer they’d even be able to wait. At the end of the channel, it seemed to open up into another bay on the other side of the island. A simple wooden drawbridge crossed over the mouth of the channel, seemingly left raised at all times until it was needed. Arlo watched as the headlight in the fog bounced out of view briefly and then his eyes widened when it appeared again on the still-raised bridge. Then, in a flash of yellow it was pointed right at them for a split second before vanishing. Arlo blinked and smooshed himself more tightly against the glass, then jumped when a roaring methcycle came peeling out of the fog and landed on the deck, wheels-down.
The rider of the buzzing bike raised a gloved fist and swung the thing around in a wide circle on the deck before coming to something of an awkward stop almost two-thirds of the way back to the bow. Arlo could hear him laughing out there as he lowered the kickstand, and he could feel the pride radiating from Dragil like a burning aura.
“That’s him, then.” Arlo figured, trying to sound nonchalant instead of the ambivalence of being incredibly impressed and also entirely sure the fellow was a lunatic. “Bit of a show-off, isn’t he?”
Dragil playfully gave Arlo a punch that would leave a bruise, “Oh, silly man-person. You like, you like.”
A flare of a match lit up the night when the headlight turned off and Arlo saw the shape of a wolven snout silhouetted against the fog while the captain lit a fat cigar. His stance and height was much like that of a man, a very tall one at that. He seemed to have the correct amount of fingers, five human fingers in brown leather gauntlets. But every inch of his wolf-snouted face and head was covered in black and grey fur. He was entirely a timber-wolf from the chest up for sure, perhaps aside from the pair of wide goggles strapped to his head. He was strikingly dressed, as well. A fine batik shirt depicted beautiful red and pink hibiscus flowers on a gold background and was tucked into a pair of brown riding jeans belted with a violet sash to match Dragil’s own. The centerpiece of the attire was a thigh-length cruiser jacket in marbled cognac-colored leather with quilted lapels. The captain seemed to know he was being observed, because he raised his fist again like he had before and gave a sharp, wolfish grin that showed off two brilliant pearly rows of white fangs.
As soon as he came into the wheelhouse, he clapped a hand on Arlo’s shoulder as though they were already friends and asked in a surprisingly soft and gentle voice, “Wasn’t that just the neatest?”
Without waiting for a reply he called to Dragil, “Great piloting, bud! I gotta say, I thought for sure I was gonna come through these windows this time, but you let me nail it!”
Skrivens had since returned from the galley and now he was happy to take the wheel so Dragil could cross the gap and take his captain into his arms. They both laughed as they embraced, with Dragil lifting the captain off the floor and the captain tousling the fur on his friend’s head. When Dragil returned his captain to the deck, the wolfman turned on his heel and smiled at Arlo again while he removed a glove and extended a furry hand to shake.
“Name’s J’zan Bloodfang. It’s a real pleasure. Some folks call me Jazz, and you are welcome to as well if you’d like, but you don’t gotta.” he said by way of introduction, and when Arlo clasped his wrist he added his free hand to clasp Arlo’s in both and shake him good and hearty. Arlo found himself liking this captain, despite himself. J’zan spoke gently and kindly, and he smelled less like a wet dog and more like a freshly shampooed housecat with a touch of leather.
“I am Arlo, sir, Arlo Haradin-Harkon.” Arlo said while he was still being rattled up and down by the captain, “I’m happy to meet you, too. Your ex-oh has said much about you.”
“Talkin’ me up, the lunk.” J’zan shot back, then gave a playful jab to Dragil before reaching up to tousle his head again. “I’m only half as bad as they say, Arlo. Now, is that Haradin part of your name got to do with the ‘House Haradin’ Haradins?”
Arlo nodded sharply. “It does, sir. Though I am only thirty-ninth in line to inherit. I’m traveling aboard your ship even now to meet my Clannarch.”
“That’s great news, Arlo, I hope we can getcha there safe and sound.” came a very sincere reply. “Will you dine with me? Moriah grills a killer steak. Have you met her?”
“I have!” Arlo replied instantly, swept up in the positivity of Bloodfang’s attitude, “Talking to her is my favorite part of every day!”
“Right!?” J’zan seemed to agree, “She’s gorgeous and sweet! I bet if you ask real nice, she’ll let you give her a kiss, too.”
Suddenly, Arlo froze. This seemed just a little too forward for someone he’d just met. He leaned back a little bit with one eyebrow cocked, and passed his eyes over Dragil, Skrivens, and the radio operator. None of them seemed to think anything one way or the other about the captain’s comment. J’zan was still smiling, however, so Arlo just murmured half-heartedly, “I don’t think she likes me like that, sir, but thank you for saying so.”
J’zan only laughed, a raspy but kindhearted laugh that put Arlo a little bit at ease. They descended a ladder from inside the wheelhouse and Arlo found himself in the rear half of the ship for the first time. Something like a dining hall or a common area had once been here beneath the bridge at the bottom of a wide staircase, but now the wide open room was packed full of crates and shelves with piles of things here and there. Everything that wasn’t in a crate had a net cast over it and tied down to keep it from falling all over the place. A banner of wood and gold decorated an arch over a set of double doors beneath a split in the stairs that read ‘UFT LEMUR’ in a flowing elegant script. J’zan threw open these doors and walked inside a grand and exquisite stateroom. He had a fabulous queen-sized bed with plush velvet cushions in one corner of the room and a huge mahogany desk on the opposite wall from it. A row of decanters were embedded along the wall above behind a silken strap with a golden buckle and J’zan retrieved one while he puffed away at his cigar so he could pour a couple of lowballers full of its contents and take them to a lovely table for two by the entrance to a private restroom.
“Your quarters are resplendent, Captain Bloodfang,” Arlo commented as he slid into one of the tall leather wing-back chairs at the table and gratefully took his lowballer so he could sniff and guess the contents.
“Brandywine.” J’zan informed him while digging out a crystal ashtray from his desk. He downed his first glass all at once and refilled it before Arlo had even taken a sip. Now, he was falling into his chair and peeling off his goggles to massage the matted fur beneath the strap. It also allowed him to tilt and turn his pointy cropped ears on top of his head while he massaged behind them as well.
“I’d apologize for petting myself in front of you,” he panned, “But I’m sure you understand.”
Arlo nodded, still mostly taken up with just looking around. He was especially interested in the bank of books he saw in little shelves built into the nightstands on either side of the cushy bed.
“So, Arlo, how is it you come to my Lemur? Seems like an odd ship for a clanner to ride, if you’ll pardon my probe.” J’zan said once he was done relaxing his face, “I’d have expected you to be better-dressed and taking a Wallrunner out to see the old man.”
“Well, I have run into a patch of misfortune, it seems.” Arlo admitted less shamefully than he thought he would. “I was in charge of a seafort that fell, and its falling meant that no other ships than the Lemur were bloodbound, since my seafort wasn’t around to repel the hostile folks who patrolled those waters.”
Sensing that J’zan might be offended at being the only choice, Arlo sat up straighter and leaned forward to say in his most endearing voice, “But actually, I’m glad I ended up here. I have learned much about beastfolk. I read an entire book on the Dualities, and I flatter myself by saying I have made a real friend in Moriah. I hope she will consent to my writing her when I am away once more.”
This brought a soft smile to the captain’s face, but he didn’t comment much on those things. “I’m not really into my people’s religion, to be frank. I’m actually more into you guys’ stuff. Human things are what I get excited for. Maybe we can have a bit of a cultural exchange?”
“Oh?” Arlo felt taken aback. Moriah seemed proud that he was learning what he had, and though he hadn’t talked much with any others, he detected a distinct dislike for humans. “What would you like to know, Captain? A well-traveled man such as yourself surely has seen more than a young man like me.”
For once, for probably the first and last time in his life, Arlo got to use his knowledge of Imperial art and history. J’zan had got him started by asking about the Cathedral of Saint Silvandra, and Arlo had just happened to know it. Nearly fifteen minutes into a detailed description of its construction, the doors to the cabin opened and Moriah appeared with her tray. J’zan graciously stamped out his cigar and happily set out forks and knives for both himself and Arlo. Meals at the captain’s table, it appeared, did not rate the tin mess kits that meals in other cabins did. Instead, they were presented with fine silver service beneath polished cloche engraved with scrawling vines. It was somewhat unsettling when J’zan licked his chops as Moriah whipped off their covers with her customary, “Tada!”
But Arlo could hardly blame him, for the steak laid out on the plate before them was thick and succulent with a perfect crust. Arlo noticed while carving it, of course, that there was nothing else but the steak– though it was surely big enough to fill him up and then some. Moriah seemed highly amused at the way his eyes boggled, but mostly seemed focused on J’zan.
“First meal back to your liking, my Captain?” she asked sweetly, clearly expecting an affirmative and a dismissal.
Unlike Arlo, J’zan hadn’t even dug in yet, however. He was turning the plate in front of him as if to admire a sculpture and he didn’t even look up to meet her eyes as he responded, “It’s beautiful, Moriah. Say, answer me something, would ya?”
Moriah nodded once and extended a hand towards him expectantly. But instead of continuing in that line, J’zan stood from his seat and unzipped his leather jacket to remove it and drape it over the back of his seat, first explaining to Arlo, “When I eat this much steak, I get meat pants, it’s embarrassing. Anyway, Moriah…”
Next, J’zan stretched and groaned really loudly, further delaying the question while he unbuttoned the top few snaps of his batik shirt. Finally, after he was seated and cutting his steak, he asked, “If Arlo here asked you to kiss him, would you?”
Arlo began to cough. His eyes were almost as big as the steak while he wheezed and pounded his chest, then snatched the brandywine and used it to chase down his mouthful of steak. It burned his throat as he swallowed and he coughed more while his eyes began to water. Moriah, for once, did not seem amused.
“Jazz.” she said in a gentle, but firm tone, “Don’t be like that.”
J’zan smiled at her like she’d said something else. “I think he likes you. He said talking to you was his favorite part of the day!”
Arlo was still coughing, but now it was dainty little squeaks instead of full-on throaty bursts. He sipped gingerly at his brandywine with the tears running down his cheeks, feeling it was novel that he seemed to be crying as part of some reflex instead of actual misery this time. He covered his mouth as best he could and watched Moriah, trying to gauge how displeased or uncomfortable she was while he calculated what he would say. He felt he could just as easily offend her by saying he did want to kiss her as assuring her she had nothing to worry about.
“It is my favorite part of the day.” Arlo eventually managed, his voice raspy from how much abuse his throat had suffered. Moriah met his eye, though her expression was tense neutrality. He continued, “Imperial culture is somewhat matriarchal. I would never presume to make advances on you, because in my culture it is women who choose men to lie with, and it’s based on how their progeny would turn out.”
“You don’t have to flatter me, Arlo. I know Imps have whores and lovers, too.” Moriah spat back, though when she saw how hurt Arlo seemed to be upon hearing it, her features did soften a little.
J’zan had sliced off a humongous strip of steak and shoved it into his gullet during this exchange, and now he chewed it while he watched the two of them with amusement shining in his yellow eyes. As soon as he swallowed the meat, he stuck his figurative spoon in the pot and stirred it up again, with a suggestive, “I bet you’ve thought about it, haven’t you, Arlo? Morbid curiosity. You gotta’ve. All alone on the ship, and she’s a real pretty gal, of course. But then, you probably wonder… ‘What if I bend her over on the bed and she stabs me with those spikes?’”
At this J’zan began to laugh even more forcefully than before, and while he laughed, he added, “Or what if you put her on her back and she tears up the mattress!?”
Moriah flushed at this in a telling way, and gave J’zan a malevolent glare. Arlo wasn’t really sure what was even happening, but he felt extremely sad. Surely, the captain couldn’t just do this all the time, or she wouldn’t stay on the ship. Had the two of them been lovers, and Arlo’s apparent flirtation with her caused this as a display of dominance or jealousy? Or was J’zan directly competing with Moriah… over him? Arlo gulped audibly even though he didn’t have any steak in his mouth and rattled out, “Well, of course, I- Ah, I am sure… I th-th-think Miss Moriah would, at her age, what she- um- Sir, what she–”
Seeing Arlo stumble over it made Moriah roll her eyes, and she put a firm hand on his shoulder and explained it to both of them, though she was sure J’zan already knew from just growing up with other Beastfolk exactly what people like her did. “If I want to be with a man, I can lie on my side and pull up my knees, or I can get up on top. That should satisfy the morbid curiosity. And while I’m answering questions human sailors like to ask, the fur on my legs is soft, not itchy. Like the belly-fur on a goat. And yes, Arlo, we beastfolk keep real animals. You haven’t just been eating the last bull or pigman to piss me off all month.”
“I didn’t think that.” Arlo protested, now looking absolutely crushed, “And I did think it was probably soft.”
Moriah rolled her eyes again and looked back at J’zan, “Is there anything else, Captain Agitator?”
J’zan sighed and sliced himself another thick strip of meat while shaking his head, “Not at all, my lovely steward. Thank you so much for indulging me as long as you did. I really love this steak.”
“Good night, sir.” was all else Moriah would say before flashing a brief searching glance at Arlo but displaying no readable emotion as she wheeled her tray out of the room. When she had closed the door, Arlo looked down at his steak and sliced another little strip from it with much less heart and relish than he had his first. J’zan refilled his brandywine but seemed content to chew along in silence for a while.
When Arlo had finished a few more strips of steak, he found himself staring down at the meal in abject misery. Moriah had made it for the both of them, and while he was sure she was following orders, he felt like he didn’t deserve to eat it after J’zan had (if he chose to forgive himself for the pun) hounded her. He looked up at J’zan and was surprised to see the wolfman had almost completely finished his massive steak. Still, he felt the need to say, “I don’t think it was very nice to talk that way to Miss Moriah, sir.”
Bloodfang nodded like Arlo made a decent point, but after swallowing his next humongous bite he said, “She’s a big girl. We do a bit of good-natured needling on the Lemur every now and then, heh, no pun intended. I think she’ll get her revenge somehow.”
This didn’t satisfy Arlo. “Sir, did I accidentally offend you by speaking highly of her? Are or were the two of you involved at some point and did I seem to presume too much? If so, I’d be overjoyed to apologize for the pain I caused.”
J’zan flashed that wolf grin of his and said, “Not at all, champ. You’re presuming too much right now. I just heard you say talking to her was your favorite part of the day, and that’s where my mind went. Actually, I have a human fetish.”
“You do!?” Arlo couldn’t hide how taken aback he was, as though his worst fears were suddenly realized and he was going to have the captain who could no doubt easily overpower him chasing him all over the ship for the next however-many-weeks.
“Yeah!” J’zan merrily agreed, “I love those human women! Especially the ones who love me! It’s a shame I couldn’t join the crew on Viola, they got some great girls over there.”
“Were there no women here where we picked you up?” Arlo shot back, more curious than anything else about how this whole thing worked– especially in that it didn’t seem to make J’zan anywhere near as uncomfortable as it had made Moriah. “Presumably, while you were conducting whatever business kept you away from Viola, you could dine with a local girl or two.”
“Nah, none of the ones here are into what I’ve got to give them. Trust me, I partied almost every night at the best tavern in town. They knew how much money I had.”
Arlo felt his brow furrowing now. “But if you were just there to party, why not come to Viola anyway?”
J’zan had a pitying look as he took up his napkin and cleaned his jowls. He wrinkled his wet black nose and shook his head slightly. “Because, my friend, and I tell you this in only the best faith and hopes that you will understand I am absolutely of no harm to you: I am wanted dead or alive in that port and every other major Imperial port in this region.”
“You’re a pirate!?” It was obvious that the good faith and hopes of forbearance had little helpful effect on Arlo, who had dropped his knife in surprise.
“Now, now,” J’zan warned, holding up a warding claw, “That’s not a very nice word. I prefer the terms ‘mandatory ensalvagement’ or ‘pre-reclamation’. And I want you to think of me less as a pirate, but more as a rogueishly charming scoundrel type. Who robs only the most evil pricks imaginable, and almost never kills anybody who didn’t start it.”
“So you think you can just put on a leather jacket and now you’re a sort of swashbuckling anti-hero?”
J’zan perked up at this, and with his ears standing up straight he turned to grab the jacket off the back of his chair and show it off. “So you like the coat, then? I think it’s very stylish. I think it’s virgin manskin.”
“Virgin… manskin?” Arlo quavered, “You know it is illegal in Imperial waters to wear a pelt made from beastfolk or any creature who can speak for itself.”
“Khaldonite cultists do it all the time, Arlo,” argued the captain with his unmoving smile, “They don’t think we’re people. Why, they don’t think you’re people, and you’re people!”
“I think you’re people.” Arlo said, almost hurt as he imagined how it felt to be the person who’d been turned into J’zan’s jacket. “And you can’t have been defending yourself if you knew that person well enough to know they were a virgin.”
J’zan shrugged a little and then flattened his ears and made a weedling expression, “Well… I don’t know if it’s a virgin manskin per se– but the guy looked like he didn’t get out much. Plus he was blubberball turkey huge! I mean to say, I know some girls are into that sort of thing but I just don’t think he was giving out the knot, if you know what I’m saying.”
Now Arlo just sat in rumpled silence, merely toying with his steak and trying to forget that he was trapped in the room with somebody who was probably a pirate and probably had hurt innocent people; trapped on said somebody’s ship for weeks with them. J’zan didn’t seem to notice, however, and just went on candidly, “I gave the guy to Skrivens. Skrivens is a fantastic flayer. I mean top-notch. He can skin anything. So I tells him, I says, ‘flay me up this human and tan his skin for me so I can have it made into a coat’. Lo and behold, I forget all about it– silly me– and next time the cold season rolls around he presents me with this jacket and tells me he had it made for me from money out of his own pocket! Can you beat that? That’s a loyal crewman!”
Eventually, Arlo could at least squeeze one final compliment out of himself. “It is a fine coat. But I hope you will permit me to think it is wrong of you to wear it, sir, even if you do look quite dashing in it.”
“Of course!” J’zan magnanimously agreed, spreading his arms as though to receive a hug, “I think it’s great that you’ve got principles like that, bud. I really do. If every human was like you, I’d sign up with your Empire or the Guild tomorrow morning. I love you for it, I really do. And one day, if you’re ever in trouble and I’m nearby, I promise you I’ll trust you enough to come and help you.”
Arlo thanked him with little sincerity and the two of them sat in what could at least be called amiable silence for a while longer. Eventually, J’zan tried to strike up another conversation about ‘human stuff’, and though Arlo had in fact heard the concerto the captain was asking about he could not bring himself to talk about it with any luster like he had before. The two made rather poor conversation for some time before at last J’zan poured the last of the brandywine and sent Arlo on his way with a few books for his cabin.
Arlo walked the drippy, dimly lit halls of the ship for a while, unsure of how to navigate back to his room after being turned around so many times on the way to the captain’s table. He didn’t mind, so long as Dragil wasn’t about to leap out of the shadows and then presumably down his throat for being in the wrong compartment of the ship; but he had a sneaking suspicion that dining at the captain’s table had given him something of a temporary pass to the rear compartments. The pacing gave him time to think about J’zan and decide how to handle the captain moving forward. It also gave him time to feel ashamed of how he’d handled Moriah. He felt awkward even thinking of her as a potential lover– not because he wasn’t attracted to her but because he felt that in his present state he was not fit for man nor beast; nor beastfolk either. He would have, he eventually admitted to himself, loved to go out and see a show with her and return to some enchanting boarding house overlooking a river where she would kiss him and invite him into the bedroom. He would have dressed in his finest suit for the evening, to show her how worthy he was of her; perhaps drawn a flower from the shop to show how gentle he could be or worn his sabre to show how he could protect her.
These days Arlo didn’t feel like he could protect a hook from a fish.
He was a bramble of beard, barefoot, with a twinging knee, and wearing the plainest clothes he’d ever owned with nothing to his name except a fake coin, a bottle of wine, and a turnip watch on a rotting piece of cord he’d found on the floor of the head and tied around the bow of his watch in a clove-hitch knot. If Moriah would even condescend to bed a human in the first place, he doubted she would be interested in one such as he. Besides, she surely had free time and the only times they ever talked were when she brought him his food every day. If she had wanted to see him, she could’ve. So, he decided she had not.
