Realm of Heat

Year 765 Manuk Soulstone

Four days out at sea with no land in sight, the sun beat down even stronger on the crew. It is Manuk's time to shine the brightest, bearing down on every surface with all his power. Few clouds dot the sky, to shroud some of that might. Even the deck of Nightmare Maiden dried up in mere breaths. The extreme weather change brought out the worst side of people. Any excuse was enough to complain and the first complaint that often left their maws had something to do with one unfazed female Krax. Rhea finds comfort in the heat, soaking in the sunlight whenever she can. She never sweat and felt the most comfort outside the shade. Though she must be careful because the heat of Manuk's generous power stirs her internal mana to the point that small plumes of fire sprout random sections on her.

To mitigate this, she often finds peculiar places to break her sun exposure and protect others. Secluded and fire resistant are the two things she will look for shelter. This meant her crew mates will often find her where she shouldn't be resting on or in. The second night on this ship, she crawled into something cavernous and metal on the surface. The chill of the metal felt so perfect on her skin and calmed the fires. A great sleeping area for a mage brim with mana in her core.

Maybe even better than sharing a bunk with this young boy named Ruffin who she suspects is spying on her because the captain asked him to. His spying is certainly making her nervous, being extra careful with her fire use. No one on this ship knows that she is a mage yet and she will keep it that way.

Back to the second night in a cavernous metal. A short-in-stature man with blond locks and goggles fogged up from working constantly found her and passed out at the sight of her. This unconscious gentleman turns out to be Iggy, the ship's trusty repairer. This one gets spooked easily but Rhea doesn’t realize that out until she braved to get Connor involved, in the middle of the night no less. Turns out the thing she was snoozing in was something called a mortar cannon. Connor certainly wasted no time to chastise her. It had something to do with how unsafe it was to sleep inside of cannons and to stop scaring the crew, sounds just like her father when she did something unsafe. Same words too, always starting with her name and ending with a 'no'. The middle is forms of whatever strange thing she had ever done.

The list is long considering that it had only been a few measly days. It is unfair to her that Connor hadn't lost his voice from all the yelling when she is starting to lose her hearing.

There was one more strange incident where she attempted to hunt down the gullians. Connor stopped her with the excuse being that the flying creatures were filled with parasites.

Hah! Jokes on him, nothing can survive in 8my stomach! Even so, Rhea wouldn't openly eat anything that could have them. The thought of worms even trying to sabotage her meal made her angry to no end, meaning she dropped trying to eat the avian creatures just out of spite of the parasites.

There is one other incident that happens on the fourth day. This is exceptionally sweltering day. Captain Connor had insisted on shorter shifts for everyone. He rotates these shifts the best that he can. Eventually, instead of teaching Rhea another hour of map reading- Thank the gods- he ends up having to man the helm for the next four hours. Too many breaths to count, all to herself to do whatever she wants. In the few days of living under his guidance, it had been training after training. There is no room for her to breathe without him saying she is even breathing wrong.

Captain Connor might have commanded that she stay out of trouble, but that had nothing to do with her going around the ship to get even more familiar with the crew sharing this space. Rhea felt her plans are completely fool proof, dressing in the clothes that the captain scrounged up from the mixture of unclaimed clothes in his trunk and another trunk stationed in the belly of the ship.

The clothes that the captain insisted she wear are to fix the crew's perspective on her. He claims something about the clothes she wore being too revealing, and she tried to argue about it, but the stares she sometimes felt are too hard to ignore. This is a temporary fix; the next harbor town should provide her with more options. Nothing weird about wearing the captain's old clothes. Even with the adjustments, the white blouse hung on her loose, the missing top buttons exposing her banded chest. She rolls it up at the tail end and wrap a thick reddened waistband to tighten the looseness of the cloth. The long sleeves had to be rolled up to her elbows to wear them, without this step it made her look like she had flippers instead of hands.

The captain had a pair of pants that fit someone shorter than him and never wore them for obvious reasons. The man is too tall for his own good. These are the pair that she wore, black pin-striped trousers that are too long still and cover her toes when she first tried them. She ends up cutting the pant legs to the knees and fixing her gait. Her leather bindings wrap around her calves to cover up more of her skin, a blade strapped under the wrap. Shoes are found in the collection of things this crew had stolen in the past months; a pair of black slip-ons is chosen for her. However, she had often toss them aside feeling more comfortable on her toes.

Today she chose to wear them, trying to get used to the concept of shoes. On a ship's surface like this, it's best to protect your feet from unfortunate hanging splinters or loose nails. That isn’t one of her many troubling incidents and she isn’t willing to find out if it ever will be. Healing be damned, she still had the sensation of pain. She dresses like this, fighting with her wild reddened curls then kept it back with a fabric over her hairline. It should keep her hair away from her face.

"You know. You could try brushing your hair?" A young voice pierce through the curtain of the top bunk.

Rhea nearly jumps at the voice, forgetting every time that Ruffin-Captain's cabin boy-shared this room with her. She turns on her half-inch heels to glare at the fabric that hid this boy, rights herself since she isn’t accustomed to shoes with thick heels on them.

"Hah! Easy for you to say." Rhea hates the idea of trying to fix her hair in any way, settling that her hair will take too long to even try. Last she tried; it frizzed out at every strand. Her grooming usually just consists of her separating the curls with her fingers.

The boy pokes his head out of the white curtains that hang around his bed bunk, releasing a big old yawn. "It's too hot to be this energetic Rhea. Why are you even up?"

"Wrong! This is perfect weather to go on an adventure! Everyone is trying to hide from the afternoon blaze and Mister Captain is occupied." Rhea finds her bow and quiver resting against the wall.

"Just captain...You know he told you specifically to stay out of trouble." Ruffin is one thing, a loyal cabin boy ready to correct her behavior if she gets too daring. Already he is edging off the top bunk, only wearing his trousers. The rest of his clothes are hanging by a rope near their bed station.

This room is small, but thankfully, neither of them need a lot of space to live together. It is one of the few rooms, including Gash's and Connor's room, that had its own door to lock. Everyone else live in large bay areas with rows of hammocks and bunks on the second floor down from them.

Rhea will have to thank Connor's generosity here someday. She can imagine how it will be tough to dress around a bunch of men. The lecherous stares or comments are kept to a minimum on this ship, due to Connor's zero- Keelhaul time- tolerance on the matter. It is still mortal nature to crave those things after days without them and some change in personality the more time away from human touch is what the captain explained. Rhea can never relate. Since there had just never been anyone that can stir enough interest in her to even act on her nature. Plus, the layer of trauma that freezes up any lewd fantasy didn’t really help. It is best to accept the safety of celibacy. Fewer people get hurt this way. Ruffin didn’t even comment on her appearance like that, maybe just out of respect alone. At least that is what she thought, he glares at her with those sleepy green eyes.

"Fine! Let me get ready crazy lady."

"Stay in bed!" Rhea snaps, donning her gear on her back.

"And get in trouble? No thanks." Ruffin hops off from the top bunk, landing on his naked feet. His height is about as high as her chest, a tiny frame and frail so that it is hard to believe he is even eleven-birth moons' old. Ruffin only acts nervous around the captain. With Rhea, he lashes her with every corrective word he must have thought of on the spot. "You are like a sponge, absorbing every bad and dangerous thing. If I leave you alone to dry with all the gross stuff, then you become useless."

Ouch. "I am no sponge!" Rhea juts out her bottom lip, grabbing his shirt from where it hangs. They share a room together, and Rhea lost her distrust of him a long time ago. He still didn’t know her secret, but she will at least remain friendly. Plus, he is just a kid underneath all the high articulate words and his association with the captain.

"Well, I promised the captain…to keep an eye on you. I don't plan to stop." He is blunt, grabbing his shirt from her hands and thanking her under his breath, he starts to be more honest with her as of late. A pleasant change of dynamic if there is anything she can do with that information.

Connor had every right to make sure she is acclimating to the environment; this is his ship after all. Does not mean she had to like his methods.

"Never mind that, Ruffin. Just get dressed already." Rhea lost her patience, moving towards their door and open it wide to walk right out. There is no need to delve any further into this conversation, any mention of Captain Connor sours her mood anyway.

The boy dresses quick, running out of the room after her. She ignores every little gripe thrown her way, not seeing anything wrong with what she had done. This is typical, he is like a carbon copy of the captain in some parts of his personality. She will have thought of them as brothers if it isn’t for the difference in hair color, eyes, and face shape. From what Gash kindly told her is that Connor recruited Ruffin at the early age of seven moons. Connor raised this lad, the only thing that is putting a barrier up is Ruffin. This boy will never say why.

The first place they choose to venture out to is the cafeteria, which can serve and sit about fifteen sailors at a time. Many just opt out to eat in their rooms or on the deck. Four tables and all the chairs are neatly station in a rectangle formation, the chairs drastically varied in color and style. Every furniture must have been stolen from other ships.

The ship cook station himself behind a bench, looming over a giant pot . There is never any deviation out in the sea and food products go through the process of drying to last longer. Thankfully, the cook tries his damnest to cook something flavorful. The cook is the father of Cid. This is the man that Cid gets all the half-giant traits. The only stark difference is this man did not focus on any physical strength.

The signs of his lack of effort towards his physique are shown by his extended gut, and his arms are thicker. His energy is always in the food he prepares. Taller than Cid by a fraction, he dwarfs the bench he works on and had to hunch over a lot to cut up the fish meat and vegetables.

He only had one leg, the other is a wooden peg. That isn’t the only thing lost, having only one eye that works. The other eye is beneath an eyepatch, a large deep scar ran beneath it from his hair line to his cheek line, it deforms the wrinkly skin around the scar tissue. His white hair swept into a hairnet and his face is clean shaven; he even wore gloves and a big apron while he works diligently. Even his clothes are only meant for the profession he had here.

This individual is known as Vaphicus or Vaph, as some will fondly call him. Rhea is in no state of friendliness with the cook to call him so, his one working brown eye already home in on her and that just-shaven jaw clenches at the sight of her. The first words that came out of his mouth are to bellow, making his jowls tremble.

"I got me eye on ye wee lass, yer won't be sneakin' off with the rations this time!"

Oh...no...

The old cook's yelling causes the few people that are queueing for food to turn their heads towards her. The faces include two people she can confidently recognize: Cid and Trevor. They are sitting by themselves at a table. Cid is holding back a laugh out of respect for Rhea.

Trevor only watches her with that unchanging apathetic expression she starts to hate increasingly. This man is loyal to Connor underneath all that apathetic aura, black shaggy hair with eyes just as dark. His stare made her skin crawl, remembering what he told her in confidence the first time they met.

"I don't trust you."