The North's Galleon

Chapter 20: The Human Elemental

"Edward?" Denise's voice cracked.

Gunther whipped around. "Marie?!" His boot slipped on the wet deck, and he fell hard onto his side.

"Ope, there he goes." Paul chuckled.

"Every time he starts to look cool, he just ends up flat on his face." Lawrence grinned.

Denise swallowed hard as the red-headed first mate got back on his feet. She'd been too caught up in how much older he looked, and the eyepatch changed his face shape, but there was no doubt now. Twenty generations of weak or non-existent magic in the royal family, having been bred out by common blood, and a similar problem with red hair, a chain only broken by a prince born during a particularly nasty mana storm, making him a human body possessed by a fire elemental. This was her older brother; this was Prince Edward the Firebrand.

"Gods dammit--" he grabbed her by the face, squeezing her cheeks together. "Why are you here?!"

"You're alive?" Denise, Marie, felt tears running down her cheeks, but she couldn't look away from his face.

"Not even gonna try to cover your ass?" Lawrence teased as he leaned on Gunther, Edward's, shoulder.

"She's my sister!" He hissed at Lawrence, who didn't even blink.

"Yes? That's why you wanted to bring her on board, right?" There was a beat of silence. Lawrence's brow furrowed. "You knew that, right?"

"In my defense, the last time I saw her, she was five."

"Everyone else on this ship figured it out instantly, where were you?"

"Nobody told me!"

"Why would I tell you when you break under pressure?!"

"Boys!" North bellowed. "Quit fighting. Edward, maybe you should explain yourself to your poor crying sister."

His face wrinkled up. "Aye, Johnny."

"What did you say to me?"

"I said aye, Johnny!" Gunther snapped. "And if you call me Edward again, I'll skip the banter and go straight to drowning myself!"

He heaved a sigh as thunder rumbled. "I didn't lie, Marie. Not about everything. I couldn't keep getting strangled in the palace, I needed to go out and make some choices for myself. They blocked off all the roads when I went missing, but left the ports open because they assumed a prince who couldn't swim would avoid ships. So I got on the first ship out."

"Lied to me on the dock, telling me he was a very experienced sailor, a former noble who did it for fun..." North remarked.

"And you bought it hook, line, and sinker!" Gunther yelled back. "Well, hook and line anyway. Ol' Johnny decided to test me and have me pretend to be a first mate. If I did a good job, the job was all mine. If I didn't, walk the plank."

"I was gonna drop you on shore. Or at least close enough for you to swim."

"I couldn't swim back then, John."

"I called you Edward once! Keep pushing it, and you'll be swimming to catch the ship!"

"Anyway..."

"Anyway, dumbass doesn't know the first thing about steering a ship, and turns out, he qualifies as a magical creature and is attracted to mana storms!" Lawrence grinned maliciously. "And not just any mana storms, the biggest ones he can find! So he steers us straight into a hagstorm!"

Marie wiped her eyes. "What's a hagstorm again?"

"The kinda mana storm that doesn't dissipate. Usually got a hag in the center of it, she feeds the storm, the storm feeds her. Ends up swarming with sirens too." Paul groaned. "Number one rule of a hagstorm, don't touch the water. You go under, you're siren food, unless you somehow have a stronger will to survive than the hag has a will to eat."

"Her magic makes the water feel thick, it makes you sluggish, makes you question why you're trying to stay alive. Only takes a few seconds before you're thinking about just slipping under the waves and disappearing." Gunther mumbled. "And the whole time you've got sirens singing to you, begging you to come down to them. All that to say, you go under, you don't come back up."

Marie's eyes began to water again.

Gunther pulled his eyepatch off over his forehead, showing the gash under his eye again, but this time there was a flame oozing out of it. "Elementals can hold as much mana as there is in the air. Human bodies have a limit. Back then, I'd run a fever anywhere near a mana storm; inside a hagstorm I was on the verge of bursting into flames. I'll be honest, it's still all foggy to me."

"We'll say it became pretty obvious pretty quick who we were dealing with." Millard chuckled.

"He was horrifically incompetent, sick as a dog, and burning up." Lawrence patted Gunther on the head. "And because hags gain magic from eating magical creatures, a human elemental made a wonderful snack for her."

"The hag got on the ship, and North tackled her off to save Gunther, but went into the ocean doing so." Paul folded his arms. "Lawrence still hadn't learned how to navigate normally, let alone in a storm meant to keep you trapped, so I had to take the wheel, while Lawrence dealt with our beloved prince."

"He locked me in the cabin." Gunther grumbled. "When I finally came to, the ship was empty."

"Sirens sang us right off the ship, and the hag captured us for herself." Jackal sighed. "We didn't stand a chance. She was stupidly powerful for a sea hag."

"It's safe to assume she'd already eaten her fair share of magical creatures." North answered.

Eyes turned back to Gunther. "I cried a lot. Tried to figure out how to sail out of the storm. Passed out a few more times." He was fidgeting with his hands. "But it was too late. I'd already gotten a taste of freedom, and no matter what, I couldn't bring myself to let go of it. I'd never felt more alive than I did while fighting monsters with this crew. So I took the wheel and headed for the heart of the storm." His eyes darted toward his whip. "Fought the hag. Got thrown into the ocean. Decided even death itself wouldn't get to take my freedom away. Crawled back out. Fought the thing again. Popped a mana leak." He chuckled as he picked at the flaming gash under his eye. "But I won."

"Being part of this crew, it's more than being a sailor, or a criminal, or a monster hunter." Paul beamed. "We're a family out here. We have to be. There's no one better to be a first mate than someone who'll throw himself at a hag with nothing but a whip to save his crew. Sure, he's the reason we had the hag to begin with, but making mistakes is just part of the job. I'll take a first mate who'll muck up and then put his life on the line to fix it over a first mate who doesn't mess up any day. And he's a damn good quartermaster now."

"The navigation still needs work." Lawrence teased.

"I do try to warn you all when there's storms. I can't help being drawn to them. North's the one who thinks it's fun to fight a mother leviathan."

North laughed at that. "Don't razz him too much, Lawrence, you drive us in circles. He at least gets us somewhere."

Gunther smiled, but he didn't laugh. His amber eyes focused on Marie as his hand pushed her damp bangs out of her face. "So what about you? Why are you out here?"

Marie grabbed his hand off her face, clinging to it as if she'd been turned into a toddler hanging off her older brother again. "You know full well what's in store for me while the crown prince is missing."

"Presumably a marriage. Even if your husband is the official ruler, being a queen can't be too bad of a prospect."

"They've engaged me to a man twenty years my senior. A man I don't love."

"I'm sure they did. Any bloke with red hair or magic would make a good option."

Marie pursed her lips and turned away. "You really are as selfish as they say."

"That I am." Gunther grinned maliciously. "Aways have been, always will be. Being selfish keeps me alive." His hand landed on her head, mussing up her hair. "Seems you're pretty selfish too, hm? Running away from your kingdom, your royal duties, just because you don't like the man you're engaged to? You'd make a damn good pirate yourself."