I brushed aside the miscellaneous…treasures, that Blackie managed to stuff in his body so I could sit next to him on the bed.

                “Careful, don’t lose that. I’ve been looking for it for ages.” He cautiously grabbed a cookie cutter in the shape of an armored angel. When I raised an eyebrow in amusement, he got defensive. “What? They’re popular. You get to look it in the eye and bite the head off.”

                On the other side, his hand was gripping his sword handle. I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination, but the chunks of flesh seemed smaller than before.

                “This is Noxious, it does dissolve dead flesh.” This man was entirely too happy for getting stabbed and dissected.

                “Baris.” I smiled, “Do you have anything to say?”

                His half-a-millimeter smile faded, I felt a little bad taking his rare expression of joy, but considering the scare I got…

                The mills rolled along as he thought about what I wanted to hear. That was the problem with this man. He worried too much about what he thought would disgust or discourage me. He thought he had to scheme to make me stay.

                “Be honest.” I pulled his cheeks…or tried to. They were very stiff. “…just to be sure, you are currently alive right?” I mean, if he was a lich to begin with, that might explain a few things. I glanced at the small pile of crap we pulled out of his chest cavity.

                “Yes, I am alive.” He rolled his eyes. “I was just a very curious kid. With a lot of knives and necromancy training.”

                We sat for a moment, listening to Wrisly’s bubbling and the lich’s head reconstructing. It’d looked like a deflated grape when I came in, but the auto repair was working a lot better than whatever prevented it from hurting Blackie.

                “Baris.”

                “I apologize for getting stabbed?” He asked.

                “Nope.” I laughed.

                “Four is my max.”

                “Let’s try three first.” I leaned in, slowly lowering to rest next to him on the new, clean bed we’d moved him to after finishing the sutures. The med bay only had 3 quarantine tanks and 2 beds remaining after one got used as a murder weapon and one had more demon blood in it than Blackie currently had in him.

                “You can keep the dragon blood?”

                I’d already pocketed it when he was glaring at Rip. “Not that either.”

                “I heal fast, but even I need a nap after getting cored like an apple.” Blackie surrendered.

                “I love you, my dear.” I whispered into his ear and covered his eyes.

                “…me too.” And soon, we were asleep.

                “Three!” Vel yelled over the chaos of a pack of injured wolves and their even more annoying uninjured family members who wanted to hover.

                “Bargrl! My Na-” She rush over and around several whimpering, lightly scratched puppies.

                “Unless that arm is falling off, get back down there and take the rest of the minor cases with you!” He ignored her to snap at Rip who just walked onto the deck.

                “Actually, I brought bandages and painkillers...” He showed off a large box with a frog on top of it, “Your parents and the doc are recovering from surgery so no one can go in there right now.”

                Vel went pale. “Surgery?”

                “Yeah!” Rip stretched his face into a warm, reassuring smile, “We found a bunch of rocks and knives.”

                …The kid decisively swiped the box and moved on. “Who normally organizes them after battles?” He glared at the Captain and Lady who were cooing over Pear. He lost a finger and there was a mess with people trying to find it. Velris was busy trying to slap a poultice on a wolf who didn’t want to be poulticed.

                “Dr. Wrisly or Spel.” Rip used his height to look around. “Ah yep, looks like Spel got knocked out, that’ll be why.”

                “Who’s next in command?” Vel trickily distracted the hundred-year-old wolf and slapped it onto the slash wound.

                “…Miss Sparkle.” Rip morosely mentioned the woman who nearly killed him.

                “Get to it. Next!” Vel roared.

                “This guy’s missing a leg!” Bargrl yell from somewhere in the forest of giants.

                “Was he already missing it before the fight started?” He got up and was already moving towards her voice. Bargrl was considered trustworthy, but he’d been surrounded by idiots before, and this was starting to bring back old memories.

                 After a moment of her double checking, as she had been taught, she yelled back, “No, but he found it so he’s good.”

                Vel moved faster.

                Rip held the ice toad in front of him, letting it dangle off the port railing for a moment before carefully moving his head over it to peer into the dark waters below. A few of the merfolk were moving in and out of their resting spot below the ship’s waterline. The ones with open injuries, all two of them, had been lifted to the deck while those with minor bruises were handled there.

                They were mostly hurt by falling debris and stray shot as their role was to throw javelins or crawl up the sides to pull cannoneers out through the windows.

                He didn’t see her, and she wasn’t one of those already on the deck.

                “…Miss Sparkle?” He yelled at the top of the barest of whispers. After a second of no response, “Well, I tried. Maybe we can wake Spel up.”

                “Spel’s out?” A beautiful woman pulled herself up the railing to grab his toad. “No wonder it still looks like that.”

                The mass of the whole crew being on board and trying to help looked like a colony of black moss covering every inch of floorboard. Normally they’d have finished by now since it’d been several hours since the battle, and it wasn’t a particularly hard one.

                “Where Ly?” Sparine looked for someone holding her capable older brother.

                “Dr. Wrisly had a major surgery.” Rip explained, backing away from the edge.

                She narrowed her eyes. Not seeing anyone she could tolerate nearby, “Lend me you shoulder.”

                “You already almost got my arm, why would I give you a shoulder?!” Rip, who just spent the past hour watching as they removed several internal organs that did not originally belong to the person they were pulling them out of, might’ve gotten a bit of trauma. They put most of them back.

                She snarled at him, scaring the toad to dive into Rip’s shirt. “Do you want me to help or not?”

                “Yes ma’am.” He slumped and offered his back.

                With the terrifying and strict woman successfully locked and loaded, Vel immediately felt the pressure reduce as the unhelpful dogs were removed from the kitchen deck.

                Thankfully, besides one lost leg and a few fingers, the rest were shallow. The two masterminds were locked in the brig, and the pirate ship was striped for any valuables or materials they needed.

                Rip chimed in, “Grab some bedframes for med bay. And mattresses. We ‘ah, we need some new ones now.”