“‘Second, what is this form you have adopted? So white and pink and red and… dressed. Animal and unfitting of the remembered nature at once.’

  ‘Swallowing your utmost enemy endowed me with knowledge of our makers, and I have adopted the shape of one of their eidolons of beauty. Way better than your mishmash of poochies, Fourth.’”

  —Either a Dirofil and a Lyssav, or a Shadiran and a Desmodus.

  Flew open the hatch of the Corship, the response of the Flame being to lean forward, anxious to see what would emerge, but refraining from approaching. A ten-clawed hand came out the dark hole first. Charred nostrils flared wide, empty orbits seemed to quiver under red-to-blue flames. When the horns came out, the Flame erupted, illuminating the endless abyss with their excitement. And then it hit them: as the body of Parvov emerged from the ship, it wasn’t moving like his father. It lacked the characteristic flair of Parvov, the theatricals in his step, the fire in the glances. But to definitively bury his doubts, from the Captain’s every joint and hole erupted tendrils of soul.

  “It’s not with pleasure that we meet again, Flame,” Morbilliv opened as he drew closer to a mutant dog five times Parvov’s size.

  “Morbilliv, why do you wear my maker’s body?”

  The Flame trembled, And Morbilliv kept his distance. His interlocutor seemed unstable. “Splinter of Shadiran, go back inside.”

  Seloma flipped him the bird and lay on the back of the Corship like she was catching some rays. “The ship is too cold. I was born next to the blazing core. The burny buddy reminds me of home,” she explained, leisurely gesturing with a hand that didn’t seem excited to do its job as a limb.

  “Maker, where is, answer!” The Flame demanded, sending wisps of fire flying in every direction, as an exploding firework would.

  “Go inside the ship or I will throw you inside the ship, Splinter!” Morbilliv addressed the insolent one, whipping the metal of the Corship’s exterior with the threads of his left hands.

  Ouch.

  Pardon me, Corship. It takes effort getting used to everything of you being… alive.

  “Now, Flame, regarding you: Your maker, my brother, is gone. The creature we call Reaper caught us, and he detonated his self to save me. If you wish to battle me to honor his memory, it can be arranged.” With his back straight and his upper hands slung over the other’s shoulder, letting the threads that from them were born fall like ribbons over his back, Morbilliv stayed impervious in the face of the twitches and sparks of the demon in front of him.

  “Dirofil was not lying…” The features in the monster’s face took a melancholic air, the heat of its flames waning into a less threatening display. “To battle you would be pointless, Morbilliv. You are not the fifth I wish to clash with.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “I am the fifth that remains, Flame. Time immoral burns brighter and fiercer than you, and not even Parvov could tame its heat. It takes here, in this sea where no bell tolls, where anyone out of sight could be out of life all the same. If Shadiran still thinks, she fears Dirofil may not, and I know my brother fears the same regarding her.”

  Seloma, immune to discipline as she was, lifted herself on the tips of her toes, raising the center of her feet, and tried to raise her arms as much as she could behind Morbilliv, with the sole intent of Bunny-earing him.

  With a practiced tilt of the head, the captain whacked the insolent Splinter with the backwards horn.

  Ouch, empathic.

  Love you corship! Send the thought the Splinter that now sported a fashionable, wedge-shaped groove on the flesh of her head.

  “It seems the crisis has been defused, Splinter, but if you want to be part of the crew, you will need to obey me, or my siblings in my absence. And never affront Lyssav. Not even to obey my orders.”

  The Flame crouched and let his arms support part of his weight as he leaned over. “Which Reaper killed my father, Morbilliv?”

  “The massive shapeshifting creature with blue eyes.”

  “There are several of them lurking around, crossing the Mauling layer up and down. I need to know which one of them, exactly, killed my Father. They robbed me of a unique chance, and I shall rob them of life.”

  “I don’t know, for us they look all the same. But if you find one with my original body trapped in their tangles, be sure that you have found your prey.”

  Without a farewell, without any sort of courtesy, The Flame spread his wings and jumped off the ship, taking air and maneuvering through the Bernese net, firmly decided to find the one responsible for Parvov’s thoughtlessness.

  “Goodbye. Have a good burning,” Morbilliv said, unclasping his upper wrists from his shoulders and contemplated the innocence-feigning Seloma, who had hidden her hands behind her back: a quite senseless act when your body is transparent. “Now, regarding you…. This ocean is warm, tepid, dark, and full of beating hearts. There’s a layer where dogs you cannot ever kill will bite at you and tear every part of your being to pieces, hanging not far above our heads.” Morbilliv flicked a ball of short, black hairs from Seloma’s shoulder, his eyes never leaving her visageless head. “I will never understand how Dirofil can love the form your splintered off of. But we all are a bit ugly on board the Corship. Ugly, cold, and mostly safe. So go inside and do your best to be an addition to the crew, and not a detriment. I am bigger. I am stronger, and you are not Shadiran. There’s not an Original to avenge you if an accident were to happen, got it?”

  Seloma did what no crew member had ever done: she tried to shove the captain away. Failing to move Parvov’s massive frame, The Splinter of Shadiran scurried a few steps away, and standing on all four, her body still facing away from Morbilliv, she said: “I have been lost in this nightmarish sea since before Babesi’s spire fell. I have learned to survive in it, Captain. Now I find a supposed safe haven, and it isn’t home. It isn’t my warm, comfortable palace. It’s cold, demanding, filled with miserable Splinters. It smells like rotten flesh and that, because you cannot know firsthand, is the worst.”

  Morbilliv’s threads rushed ahead and wasted no time coiling around Seloma’s form, restraining every inch of her body in a matter of seconds, and without needing Morbilliv to move a bone. “I understand. I really do. But our homes were outright obliterated. They are not simply out of reach like yours. And you are already part of the crew, so disciplinary actions are due…”

  Morbilliv derived no pleasure from the uncivil act of dragging the struggling ravel back into the ship. Seloma had tested his patience, and a few tides seeing the world from between the legs of the crew would render her obedient, mellow.

  Either that, or into an annoying nightmare. But for providing nightmares there was the sea, and one more, or one less, a difference wouldn’t make.