I watched Blackie escort that one poor child below deck from the look out. Spel had made it her personal mission to take care of me, so she took over look-out from one of her younger siblings. Apparently, she had over 30 since both of her parents were getting close to 200.

                It had been over a week into our journey, and Spel must have felt that we had gotten close enough for her to finally ask what she had been worrying about since she had seen the leash. She had even gone through the trouble of ditching Bar-girl somewhere. Most likely the mess.

                “Is Black keeping you captive?” The dear girl was looking at me with sincerity that was remarkably rare. Though her word choice was poor. I debated very briefly messing with her. Sadly, wolf-folk were notorious for missing jokes, and I wasn’t sure if she had enough mer-blood in her to take one. Spel, for all her charming traits, was a female version of her father who could talk legibly.

                “No, he is my husband,” for all intents and purposes except legal, “and he was just worried that I would cause trouble in the port.” I smiled reassuringly at her.

                “He doesn’t hit you, or call you names or anything, does he? Even if he is your husband, he doesn’t have the right to hurt or restrict you.” Spel spoke softly, as if afraid of scaring me off.

                “Oh, my dear, I know. Partners are equal and should never demean the other.” I avoided the actual question, “I appreciate your concern, but should he ever hurt me, it’s hard to say which of us would end up dead.” I patted her hand, which confused her greatly as she measured my body temperature.

                “Do you have a fever?” Her concern was promptly redirected.

                “Is that a pirate ship?” I avoided the actual question with my whole heart.

                “Pirates don’t take this- Oh ****** ******”

                Thankfully, it was.

                Lady Wris and Captain Mumble Mumble stood next to the helmsmen, their son #24 (think his name was Steve) as battle preparations caused the whole crew to rush about like water in a well-oiled pan. Vel got quite a few little burns that day, but he learned a good lesson about cooking. And got to apply the burn treatments he’d learned.

                As for Blackie and I, we were at the prow. Not because we were excited. It was for a very good reason. A perfectly valid, and reasonable reason. We were at the front because… we were the shortest of the combatants and we wanted to be able to see.

                Sadly, we liked these giants with questionable career choices so we couldn’t cut them down at the knees.

                It was the ship I had seen off the port, black sails with a painted skeleton. It was a hanged skeleton, now that it was getting closer, I could see they even went through the trouble of making the neck vertebrate extended and disjointed like an actual hanged victim.

                “The angle is a bit off on some of them, irregular sizing on the bones and they just ignored or merged some of the smaller ones, but overall, not the worst drawing of a skeleton.” Blackie rated the design fairly high.

                “Do you like drawing bones?” I asked casually, ignoring the odd stares from the crew. In my peripheral vision, I could see one or two start drooling.

                “Not specifically, but it helps when you need to reconstruct a body and you need to review what bones or limbs you need to substitute and get sizing right.”  He muttered, distracted. “Have you seen that guy before?” He pointed to one child hanging on the bow of the pirate ship. “Or that one?” He pointed to one pretty looking fellow next to the enemy captain, distinguished by the sillily large hat and holding a fluffy grey and white cat.

                “Nope. I might have seen that one though,” I pointed to a third child in the nest, “he was one of the competitors at that silly tournament thing.”

                “...Xen?” Blackie squinted at the kid. “I remember him, he landed a blow on me once so I heard they made him General after I retired.

                The child by the captain cleared his throat and began speaking. Blackie and I could hear him, but the crew around us clearly could not. This went on for around half an hour as the ship got closer and closer, they were trying not to get too close to fast to give him time to ramble…or for us to fall asleep. Honestly, if it were the latter, that was a pretty good plan. For any other crew.

                “What is he on about?” One of the uncles whispered.

                “I think he said we need to surrender our fleece.” One of the aunts responded to her brother, or cousin, I wasn’t entirely sure who everyone was.

                “Now he’s saying we’ll get pie!” One of the children, maybe #31 or 33, she was close to Pear’s age, bounced onto someone’s shoulders for a look at the pie.

                “He said a bunch about the glory of the demon race,” That was the half an hour part, “and then he said, ‘Or die!’”

                “…no pie?” The poor girl wilted, the effect of her large puppy dog eyes slightly decreased by the sideburns and neck thicker than Vel’s thigh. Her uncle, or one of the old-older brothers, again not all of the introductions stuck when the vast majority of them had beards that covered 90% of their face and in very similar colors, whoever’s shoulders she was riding on patted her knee sadly.

                “We can always raid their kitchen to see if they have any hiding!” I reassured her, already planning on having Babaris making one for her anyway and pretending to find it on board. I felt Blackie grumble, so he probably understood my hint.

                “Yes!” She cheered, pumping her fist down and elbowing the guy she was on, in the head. Neither of them seemed to notice or care, even though I swear it rang like a bell.

                We both bit down hard not to comment. You don’t make fun of werewolves when you’re in the middle of their pack. And they’re your ride. It’s not polite.