He lowered his head, "Yeah, you're right. I thought maybe an adventure would be good."

"Then a pirate s.h.i.+p might be perfect for you." I laughed before adding, "Trust me, plenty of adventure."

He thought about it for a moment, even looked at the s.h.i.+p, before someone knocked right into both of us from behind.

"Ah, good. Roberts, I was wondering when you were going to come out of the shadows, you're just in time to help me set sail." Bonny said as she pa.s.sed by us and turned around to make sure the rest of her pirate troupe were straggling along up the steps well enough.

I watched them all go, then glanced back to Bonny. She had known Roberts was following the entire time and just let him be?

I pushed the boy toward the eye patch wearing woman and nodded to him. "Go ahead."

He glanced back at me with brilliant wide eyes before turning to look at Bonny and lowering his head quickly. "Uh, whatever you are doing for Gnidori, I want to help."

Okay, so... that was not quite what I had been expecting him to say, but it worked.

Bonny stepped down the plank and leaned in to glare at him with her one visible eye. "Gnidori told you, didn't she?"

Roberts nodded sheepishly.

The Pirate King sighed and pulled back. "Well it's no easy task being a pirate, especially on my s.h.i.+p. Are you sure you are up to it?"

He quickly pulled himself straight and saluted her. "Y-yes, Captain."

She shook her head a few times. "I want to see you, Roberts. If you don't keep your individuality on a pirate s.h.i.+p then you just become another one of the crew. It's life or death here. If you can't handle that, then you aren't a pirate. Can you, Roberts?"

He was still stiff but he took a deep breath and the words poured out of him firmly, "To avenge Ashley, I'll do anything. And Gnidori was right, traveling would do me better than orders I never wanted. Besides, I've wanted the underworld t.i.tle of dread pirate, ever since I'd heard about it as a kid."

Bonny smiled then bowed her head and showed off her s.h.i.+p with a wave of her hand. "Then welcome aboard the Siren's Song, Future Dread Pirate Roberts."

Twenty-Two.

Waterworks The lack of warmth at my side stirred me awake and into a dreamy stupor as I sat up on my cot. The rock of the s.h.i.+p on the ocean waves was almost soothing enough to make me fall back over if it hadn't been so cold. I could hear Bonny sleeping in the bed near me as she made quiet, happy noises.

My head spun as I stood up, the sea taking a dive at my senses, which forced me awake far too quickly. I looked around Bonny's cabin to find the cot, pulled up next to mine, was empty except for my cloak laying on it.

Now I knew why the warmth had vanished; Ashe must have taken Reynard with her. Or maybe he just didn't like sharing the bed with me and left to explore or follow my new travel partner.

What am I saying? He's a three day old fox.

I ran my hand over my face as I sat back down. My nose was freezing, but that's expected at night on the sea with nothing more than Ashe's undergarments covering me. It must not have reached midnight yet.

I looked down; realizing I still had my former charge's body then jumped up quickly before my mind went anywhere else. There was no way I would be getting to sleep now, I didn't want to think of the dreams I'd have.

So I threw on the dress I was forced to wear, since Ashe would only agree to change with me if I wore one, and snapped up my cloak to throw around me before emerging from Bonny's cabin.

Almost immediately the sea knocked me on my a.s.s with the strong scent of salt and the minor traces of magic. But I recovered and followed the sounds of battle to the upper deck stairs.

Reynard couldn't have gotten his tiny paws up here, which meant Ashe must have taken him.

My bare feet trembled against the cold and wet wood as I ascended, but a voice sent me ducking to just look over the top of the stairs.

"You're getting better already." Roberts exclaimed as he held a rapier in front of him. He paced the wood with gentle steps before continuing. "I'm surprised Gnidori never taught you to fight. From all the tales about her, even the non-legend ones, she doesn't seem like the type to hold someone back."

He lunged forward multiple lengths but Ashe side-stepped and swung an axe to push the blade out and away from her. "She's more about freedom than anything. She never wanted to force anything on me, but it also meant sometimes..."

Ashe gritted her teeth hard as she ducked under a swipe of Roberts' blade and took a sweep with the axe, which Roberts jumped back from.

"Sometimes she wouldn't give me the choice to decide for myself. Like she was protecting me. But I don't want her to, I just want to be next to her, not behind her or far away from her. Next to her." Ashe finished as she stood back up and wiped some sweat from her forehead. The red hair, she currently had, clung to her from all the moisture around.

It was strange seeing my body fight when it wasn't me. It was even more bizarre to hear Ashe's opinions of me. Was I wrong to be eavesdropping on them?

"I can understand that. Ashley used to be the same way. Never giving me a choice except on the rare occasion; just always deciding things for me. Like the military." Roberts replied while wiping the sweat from his eyes. They both seemed to be taking a break, but still stood like they were ready to strike at any moment.

Ashe frowned with sympathy. "I'm sorry about him. He still sounded like the kind of person that would have gotten along with Gnidori. And don't be hard on yourself, if something happened to Gnidori I would be out for revenge too."

He? Ashley was a he?

"Yeah well... it doesn't stop me from missing him. I never even got a goodbye. I said my goodbye to a pile of guts. I would have broken down in tears if Gnidori hadn't been there."

"That's what scares me the most about Gnidori traveling. One day, months after leaving, I'd suddenly get one of her friends coming to see me to tell me she isn't alive anymore." Ashe sighed and added, "The first week she leaves, I never get any sleep since I'm so worried about her."

My mouth fell open. Ashe had really been keeping all of this in? I never even knew. So the worrying wasn't new; I just never saw it before.

"How long were you two together?" My former charge asked as she swiped one of my hatchets through the air a few times.

"We knew each other all of our lives, but a month from now would have been our fourth year anniversary." Roberts explained as his head fell sullenly.

Ashe stopped in mid-swing and stepped forward to lay a hand on Roberts' shoulder. She tried forcing a smile but it came out just as sad. "You'll find someone else to ease the pain. And if it wasn't for what happened you'd never be here, having an adventure you wanted, living your life as you chose."

He smiled and looked up at Ashe. "I'll find someone else on a boat full of women?"

Ashe giggled and shrugged. "You never know. Besides I saw at least one cute boy in the crew."

Both their smiles softened as Roberts replied, "Maybe."

Ashe nodded curtly, "I know you will. You have a good heart, I can feel it. And someone else will too."

"Thanks." Roberts concluded with a sniffle, and wiping at his eyes again. Probably sweat again.

I s.h.i.+fted with my seat on the stairs, feeling my body numb from the cold. I adjusted my position and wrapped my cloak tighter around me, before looking back to Ashe and Roberts.

Between the two of them, over the stern of the s.h.i.+p, was a ma.s.sive wave of water closing in, which shouldn't have been there...

Midnight Magic...

"Get Over here!" I yelled to the two of them as I stood up on the steps. They both turned to me with a mix of confusion and surprise. I pointed behind them before motioning for them to head to me.

It was too late though.

The wave crashed down and I gripped the railing as I watched Ashe and Roberts look to it then start running to the nearest thing they could grab as the water gushed over them.

Had I just lost Ashe to the sea on our first real journey together?

The torrential flow ripped across me, nearly yanking me from the hold I had. I was submerged instantly, feeling the current drag me one way while I resisted.

It was then that I saw them... not Ashe and Roberts, but faces in the water that lit with a gentle illumination.

Hundreds of Ondine were the cause of the wave. Annoying little elemental wraiths of the sea; made mostly of water.

It took until that moment, drowning underwater, to realize what the sylph attack had been on the s.h.i.+p last time. It was obvious, yet I had been so focused on Gabbi.

Sylph and Ondine, along with the Salamanders and Gnomes, were elemental beings often controlled by powerful wielders of those elements. Gabbi had a special control over the Sylph with a power I didn't know, but she wasn't the only one who could use them. I knew a faerie in the academy once whom managed to produce control over the creatures.

These were the faerie attacks, using the literal elements against me.

I pulled a hand free from the railing just as the flow direction hung at a pause, getting ready to recede. I reached out through the water and focused on each one of the glowing faces I could see in the water.

A rainbow pulse rippled from my hand, through the water, catching each of the faces and lighting them up more brightly before they solidified.

The icy bodies of the Ondine started to float to the surface as I snapped my hand back to the rail to hold against the recoiling wave.

I gasped for air as the water lowered to the point of being able to hear the rus.h.i.+ng current pour over the sides of the s.h.i.+p. Three ma.s.sive ice cubes sat in the middle of the s.h.i.+p with terrifying faces etched into them.

I stumbled to pull myself up from the stairs and dashed up the steps to look for Ashe.

"Ashe!" I screamed, even if I knew it was probably pointless. Both of them had to be washed out in the pitch black sea by now like most of the ice-body Ondine had been.

That wouldn't stop me though. I splashed through the puddles on the s.h.i.+p, s.h.i.+vering as I ran around it looking for any area they could have hung on.

I was just about to break down into begging that they were okay when I heard the sound of an axe chopping into wood.

Then it came again.

I ran about the s.h.i.+p frantically, the feeling in my feet completely gone, trying to find the source of the sound as more chops continued. Finally I followed the noise to the bow of the s.h.i.+p and leaned over to see faint movement in the darkness.

A glint of silver appeared before another chop resounded.

"Ashe? Roberts?" I cried over the railing. All I could hear back was the splas.h.i.+ng of waves and another chop.

Someone was definitely there. But there was no response. It could have been anyone, especially someone that didn't want to give themselves away.

I had to take the chance though.

My leg wrapped around the wooden railing as I leaned over the side of the s.h.i.+p and spread my fingers and hand out toward the person in the darkness.

The energy gathered between my fingers before pus.h.i.+ng out toward the individual like tendrils reaching down. The iridescent hue of colors flickered in and out as they reached into the darkness.

Then they started to pull back up to me. They weren't reaching. The problem wasn't the spell though. I yanked my hand back and rubbed my fingers together before slamming my fist in to the railing. I couldn't feel them.

The combination of performing such a ma.s.sive spell to freeze all those Ondine along with the cold causing my body to shut down left me with very little magical power to access. I probably couldn't even perform a simple color changing spell at this point.

So I vaulted over the railing completely and wrapped my cloak around at the base of it, tying it off. I couldn't live with myself if this was Ashe and I just left her to die while clinging to the s.h.i.+p's hull.

I tore clumsily at the dress fabric, trying at least four times before I managed to actually get a tear in it, then tied it off to my cloak and leaned down off the side of the s.h.i.+p to draw in closer to the person in the darkness.

"Ashe? Roberts?" I called again before the numbness would be taking my lips from me as well. I wrapped the cloth from the dress around my freezing limb and lowered down further, walking down the side of the s.h.i.+p. I reached my other hand out toward the moving shadow.

An axe swung through the s.p.a.ces between my fingers and dug into the side of the s.h.i.+p. I could make out a hand clinging to it, even though my vision was starting to blur as well.

"Ashe?" I cried as I reached my hand as low as possible, touching the axe. Another hatchet crashed into the side of the s.h.i.+p just below that one before the gloved hand from the hatchet shot up to grasp my frozen fingers.

I pulled with all my strength left in me, even pus.h.i.+ng what magical energy I could into my arms and legs, slowly stepping back up the s.h.i.+p.

Finally as I pulled on the arm, I realized there was even more weight than I'd been expecting. I heard a splash hit the waves before a voice broke over the cras.h.i.+ng water. "Gnidori? Is that you?"

My heart was pounding fiercely and I felt a heat burn through me as I heard Ashe's voice. The heat got stuck in my throat and I choked tears out as my body shook with trying to hold on to her. "Yes. Yes, It is. You climbed all the way up?"

As I made one more step up the side of the s.h.i.+p I could start to make out Ashe's face and arm through the blurriness filling my eyes. She was smiling softly, her brunette hair with a slight twinge of red clung to her face everywhere.

"Yes" she said just barely over the waves as the red faded from her hair completely.

That moment made my heart sink worse than I'd ever imagined. It must have reached midnight.

I tightened my grip around the gloved hand I held, feeling my legs shrink and my body adjust to my old form. I felt our weight s.h.i.+ft all at once, as the spell energy helping me to keep moving up the side of the s.h.i.+p had vacated me completely. I was stuck still too far to reach for the railing, and I had to adjust my hand again to grip Ashe better, as I realized her smaller hands were slipping through my gloves.

"Gnidori, I can't hold on." She cried as her hand slipped from the glove completely and I reached out to s.n.a.t.c.h at her again, but missed.

So I did the most ridiculous thing possible. I let go of the cloth and jumped after her head first. I snagged her hand as I realized she had been holding on to Roberts with her other hand.

Just as I thought we were going to descend together in the dark depths, my body and face slammed into the side of the s.h.i.+p hard. I shook my head and glanced up to see Bonny holding both of my feet.

"Pull!" She yelled with her booming voice, though I wasn't sure if she was talking to me. Instantly I felt my body sc.r.a.pe against the hull of the Siren's Song as we were dragged up.

I tried to form a smile as I glanced down to Ashe, but my lips wouldn't move. I could hardly even see anything either with the darkness and blurriness in my eyes.

The only thing I could really feel was the sting of the tears in my eyes as we were dragged back up to the top of the s.h.i.+p by my feet.

And all I could focus on was making sure I had a firm grip on Ashe. I wasn't going to lose her.

Even when I was almost sure I overheard Bonny complaining under her breath. "You almost ruined everything."