Boney took to the ship like, well, like a fish. Bargrl was close behind her everywhere they went, until it was bedtime. I tried to give them privacy, but since Aena insisted on knowing, I kept an eye on their progress.
After a week of peacefully sleeping next to/on top of each other, I decided to ask how to explain the whole thing. Captain Pierce was a smart young man with several children, so I figured he and Captain Wristine would know.
“Is that something you have to explain?” The Lady Captain asked, her husband looked at me equally confused. “We have pets, and the sea animals aren’t shy about audiences either, so they see the cause and effect pretty regularly.”
“I guess I overthought it.” I gave up asking others. I’d already taught him other medical lessons, I should just treat this like one of those.
Walking back to where Vel was trying to ignore the swaying ship in his room below deck, I passed the Rip guy and his ice toad. It was rare to see them outside of the ice caps, but this one looked pretty happy despite the warmer climate. Maybe it was a mutant.
I smelled a bit of rot coming from the man. Aena was up in the nest chatting with the lookout. Reluctantly, I decided to stop the man and look at his badly reattached arm.
“Arm.” I grumbled. He looked at me blankly for a moment, before I pointed at it. He used his left hand to move it, a bad sign.
We were in a relatively covered area, so I didn’t have to worry much about the sea spray getting into the wound. I unwrapped it, and found the wound was infected, but not yet dead thankfully.
“Wow, she must really hate you.” I admired the work. Rather than cut, it looked like it had been crushed and ripped off, fittingly. Considering that, the doctor had done a remarkable job putting it back on. It was just the post-op care had been neglected and some smaller bits of bone were probably missed.
“…wasn’t my fault it liked me better.” He said sadly, and remarkably clearly considering how his brother talks. Maybe it was just a personal thing.
“Maritimes were the primary predators of ice toads just a few centuries back, so as a species they probably feel afraid of them.” I explained, “Let’s get to the med room so I can get this cleaned up before it rots off.”
“Rots off?” Rip turned even paler than before, but since he was a dark-ash color already, just meant it looked more ash-black-and-blue.
“Yes.” I poked it, causing him to break into a cold sweat and a little puss to seep out of the wound. “This is not normal healing. So, move.”
“Yes, sir.”
The med room was on the 2nd deck, close to the back stairwell for easy access. The doctor threw Vel and I out the second day after we started poking around his tank.
“What the h-“ The doctor changed his choice of words after seeing me entering behind him. “heaven, did you do to your arm after all the work I did to stamp the da-darn thing on!?”
“The kid’s not here, you can swear.” I pulled out my surgical kit out. “I don’t have anesthesia for werewolves, can I borrow something?”
“…Wris has been on my case anyway.” He muttered about his sister. “They don’t like being knocked out, he’s tough so don’t bother wasting anything on him.”
“Actually I-“ Rip nervously tried to stop us.
“Great, that works for me.” I pulled out my carving- I mean, surgical, knife.
“Please…” The man was close to tears, but the resident doctor had spoken and we don’t contradict a doctor in their own operating room.
Besides, he fainted before the knife touched him anyway.
“Whimp.” Wrisly mocked the patient from his tank before hauling himself out and flopping over to help. “Can his arm still be saved at this point?”
Nodding, I explained as I opened an incision to drain and clean the wound. “It hasn’t rotted yet and it is circulating, so as long as the infection gets cleaned out it should be fine. You did a really good job getting that put back together, how long have you been practicing?”
“Around 150 years.” He stabbed the wolf with a needle to keep him out. “What about you?”
I thought about it, “My mother started teaching me necromancy at 2, which has a lot of the same principles, so about 2,000 years.”
I felt his eyes on me, gauging whether that was a joke.
“…so do you have any tricks for locating bone fragments?” Dr. Wrisly turned back to the patient.
“Yes, actually. You just-“
After a nice conversation and familiarly sewing up an arm, I resumed my walk to find Vel and explain how babies are made. And how his mother/grandmother/co-abductor wanted grandchildren.
Duke Quenloc, Diplomates Pelk and Olven, General Lyciel, and Tavliel sat together in a pile of rubble that their old generals called home for roughly 2 months before running off.
“More threats have been made by the conservatives and the rebels.” Pelk set the death threats and various limbs on the table. They had already had lunch, so the table was otherwise clean. “The arm was from one of the diplomatic corp, who was just excited to get an excuse to retire. He was reassigned to desk duty since we do not believe in ableism.”
“That must have come as a disappointment to him.” Tavliel sighed, sympathetic to the unknown man.
“There was a fuss about how anti-discrimination was ruining the work-force, but we promised days off so that calmed down rather quickly.” Pelk nodded before moving on, “Since the old generals have shown their support for the truce, both militaries are on board. The Lords started griping about the generals and have made plans to meet up and complain more about how their childhoods got ruined, so that’s going well. Not to mention the young Lords organized a hunting trip, which we successfully blocked since they wanted to hunt several sentient or endangered creatures.”
“Which leaves the old ones who never leave their houses and the young ones who listen to them and-“ Tavliel, a would-be hermit if he could get a replacement, commented.
“-never leave their houses. Yes, but they are not the ones sending body parts.” Lyciel rolled his eyes as he finished the sentence. Shifting through the various limbs, and an ear or two, he didn’t see a pattern. They were pretty evenly both angel and demon parts, and which limb or body parts they were seemed to be random.
“Whoever they are, there were tears by each of the victims in both heaven and hell if your reports show the same as ours?” Quenloc asked, and Lyciel nodded in response. ” They can create and control space enough to go where they want.”
They all paused as they thought of the same two, no, make that four, people.
“…I mean, the younger old monsters wouldn’t, would the-?” Olven asked, quietly as possible.
“If an old monster’s old monster wanted chaos, we’d all be dead.” Tavliel, the oldest and the only one to have lived under both old monsters, firmly shut that down.
“So, we have no idea who Traitor Xen is working for, in other words?” Pelk calmly summarized.
“Not yet, but we can assume they have something planned.” Quenloc grinned. Life was always more fun with a surprise (that wasn’t his teacher) waiting around the corner.
Meanwhile, a metaphorical storm was brewing on a pirate ship that was finishing the 3rd (failed)coup of the week. The captain was a stubborn man with muttonchop sideburns that looked like they might flow onto his shoulders. Thankfully, he tended to wear shirts with tall necks so that remained unconfirmed.
He had picked up three men from a space distortion a few days prior, and they paid well enough for a safe travel.
His life was very valuable after all. Besides, with the recent truce between the glorified bird people, neither side was paying for half-breeds now. Not to mention, the leader really was a beautiful young man. Charming, captivating, even if he did spend 3 hours monologuing about a plan. He had a wonderful voice.
