It started with a scream at dawn. It was frightening and loud, very high pitched, obviously a woman's scream. Many woke up to it with their heart beating fast – the sound was so serious, so severe, it was hard not to think that something horrible must have happened.

Arabella was having a nightmare again, so she didn't even realize the scream came from the real world at first, but the startled Chio shook her up.

“Wha? Oh, it's you...” the succubus mumbled.

“Someone just screamed!” the girl whispered. “It mustn't have come from far... what should we do?”

Arabella sat up and rubbed her eyes. Their room was still quite dark, the sun just barely started to come up outside. Chio stood close to their cabin door, listening carefully to what's happening in the passageway. She heard footsteps and people talking, someone yelled something too, then it sounded like they are knocking on one of the other nearby doors.

“I'm going out!” The angel turned the key in their lock.

“Wait!” The redhead put her legs on the floor, stretching her body. “Or... you can go ahead, I'll be there in a moment.”

Chio nodded and walked out.

Several people were standing in the corridor, mostly passengers. It was clear that all of them just got out of their beds: they looked sleepy, confused and worried. Mrs. Clearland's younger child came out of their cabin, crying – his mother ushered him back, and her husband too, telling him to just stay with the kids for now. She herself needed to be present, of course.

As Chio joined the bystanders, she realised the door they are all looking at is none other than Madam Birch's room. An ebony man – another passenger, some rich merchant from Midridge – knocked on the door loudly, calling the widow's name, but there was no answer.

“Are we sure this is where the scream came from?” Chio gulped.

“It has to be,” Mrs. Clearland said with excitement in her eyes.

A group of sailors finally arrived from outside, followed by a yawning, but curious looking Porco. He locked eyes with Chio for a moment, and the girl could tell he was half-expecting that the ruckus has to do with her or Arabella.

“What's going on?” asked the leader of the sailors, an older, grey-bearded dwarf, the same fellow who often ordered the others around while the drunkard captain was absent.

“Seems like something happened to Madam Birch, we heard her scream,” Mrs. Clearland explained eagerly.

The dwarf stepped to the door and banged on it, but he didn't get an answer either. “It's locked from the inside,” he stated after trying to open it.

“Of course it is! An old woman like her traveling alone should keep her door locked, if she has the means to,” Mrs. Clearland argued.

“Maybe she had... what it's called... a heart attack?” asked Chio anxiously. “We should break in!”

“We should?” the dwarf stroke his beard. “We do actually have spare keys. The captain...”

“We shouldn't waste time now!” the angel interrupted him. “Please, it could be a serious matter!”

“Besides, her key might be stuck in the lock from the other side,” the merchant added.

“True,” the sailor conceded, stepping aside to give way to his men. “All right lads, let's get in!”

One of the bigger (non-dwarf) crew members kicked the door a couple of times, then another one took his place, arguing that it should be kicked right below the lock. Still, he had to try it several times too, so Chio almost considered breaking in herself with her supernatural power. But at last, the cabin door gave up.

As everyone curiously gathered close to the opening, Chio and Mrs. Clearland gasped at the same time. Madam Birch was clearly dead – she was lying on her back on one of the beds, her eyes half-open but lifeless, her grey nightgown ripped and soaked in blood. Chio was reminded of the time when she discovered the body of that poor other futa in the Rainbow House. It was a similarly shocking experience.

“Holy shit!” the dwarf cursed, and hesitantly stepped inside, taking a closer look at the woman. “Seems like she was stabbed. A whole bunch of times.”

“W-why is this happening?” Chio muttered. “Who would do such a thing?”

“And how?” the merchant added. “The door was locked. She surely wouldn't do this to herself...”

Porco suddenly got inside the room, and walked past the dumbfounded dwarf, straight to the small, round window. It was slightly open.

“Wait, no!” the sailor looked up. “Y'all should not come in here!”

The young man apologized and turned back. The dwarf followed him out of the room and closed the door behind themselves, asking his fellow seamen to go and wake up Captain Kraus at once. He himself kept watch by the room, telling the passengers not to worry, and that there is nothing for them to see here. As the crowd slowly and uneasily dispersed, Arabella finally arrived, wearing her dark-green dress.

“What's up?”

“Madam Birch was murdered,” the pale Chio replied.

“Murdered? Fuck.”

Porco stood next to them. “I suppose you two know nothing about this,” he said quietly and suspiciously.

“What are you thinking? Of course not!” the angel disapproved in a similarly hushed tone.

“You would be that Porco guy, right?” Arabella asked, looking the man up and down. “Chio told me about you.”

“I'm sure she did.”

“So you're keeping an eye on us, huh? Don't you want a closer look? I have some things to show you,” she winked.

“Arabella!” Chio frowned.

But Porco kept eye-contact with the redhead, and smiled slightly. “We will see,” he said, and he walked away.

Half an hour later, everyone gathered in the lounge. The sailors went around the ship, knocking on every cabin door, telling all the passengers to go there for an emergency meeting. It was still early in the morning, before breakfast was normally served, so the cruisers who's rooms were in the aftercastle were confused, grumpy and sleepy. Their attitude was quick to change though – those who dwelled in the front of the ship pretty much all knew what happened already, and they let the others know too. The atmosphere turned tense, people were chatting restlessly and impatiently. They had to wait for a while until Captain Kraus finally returned from outside, followed by a whole bunch of sailors.

The room became rather crowded. Arabella put her back against the wall near the entrance, and Chio stood in front of her to help making sure no man touches her, not even accidentally. She caught a glimpse of Terry's gaze before the boy drifted towards another corner of the lounge with the crowd.

The cat-man stood in the middle of the room with some papers in hand. He seemed uncertain and irritated, he was probably hungover too. Without giving an explanation, he called out everyone by name, first the sailors, then the cruisers, going through the lists he was holding. Everyone was present, aside from Madam Birch of course.

“What is the meaning of this, Captain?” Friska asked at last. She was somewhere in the opposite side of the room from Chio and Arabella, her voice was easy to recognize.

Kraus cleared his throat. “All right ladies and gents, listen up! Unfortunately, one of our passengers was found deceased in her room. Cause is unknown. That's all. There is absolutely no need to panic, we got things under control.”

“We've got a murderer among us!” Mrs. Clearland yelled dramatically, and with that, the whole crowd began to buzz. People were speaking over each other, demanding answers or actions, arguing, or looking around suspiciously, as if they could just spot the killer if they tried hard enough.

“Enough!” the cat-man roared, and people fell silent. “Let's not lose our heads! Has anyone actually noticed anything strange lately? Someone acting suspiciously? If any of you has something of substance to say, go ahead! Otherwise, for the love of god, try to keep your calm!”

For some long moments, nobody spoke, but then Mrs. Clearland raised her hand. “I noticed something! That man, Porco, he showed up quite quickly at the scene. Even though his cabin is here in the back, as far as I know.”

Faces turned towards the young man, who was a bit taken aback for a moment, but he remained calm. “I couldn't sleep very well, so I got up early to get some fresh air,” he explained. “Bumped into some seamen hurrying to the forecastle, saying that something happened, so I went with them. That's why I was there.”

“Yea, I met him as he walked out the aftercastle, still with sleep in his eyes,” the dwarf-sailor revealed. “That was like a minute after the madam's scream, I think. There is no way it was him.”

“Oh. I just thought that was noteworthy,” Mrs. Clearland apologized, “I didn't mean to...”

“It's fine,” Porco waved dismissively.

“Captain Kraus!” the dark-skinned merchant stepped forward. “Considering these circumstances, don't you think we ought to turn back to Midridge?”

Many of the passengers seemed to approve of the notion, they were nodding along, staring at the cat-man with anticipation.

“You want to turn back now? That's silly!” Friska stated. “We are already halfway through, and the winds are still coming from the north.”

“That's right,” Kraus agreed. “There is no point in turning back now.”

“The way I see it, Ike Lazarus invited us on this journey to prove to us the security and fruitfulness of his new settlement. He failed to ensure our safety before we even got there,” replied the merchant. “There is no point in us continuing.”

“Exactly!” someone yelled.

“Uh-oh, this is bad,” Arabella whispered to Chio, and the girl swallowed hard. For them to go through all the trouble of getting accommodated on this ship, finding their sperm source too in Terry, only to end up back on Midridge anyway would have been a frustrating turn of events. At the same time, the angel understood everyone's concerns very well.

“The fairy is right, the winds are coming from the north,” the cat-man said. “It would take us much longer to get back to Midridge than to get to Newchance.”

“But if we can't catch the killer,” said Mrs. Clearland, “then we would have to travel with him all the way there, and then all the way back too! It makes more sense to turn back now!”

“Exactly!” someone yelled again.

“Enough!” the captain bellowed. “I will not risk turning around and struggling upwind with the resources we currently have. We will continue to Newchance, end of discussion. There is no guarantee there even is a killer, but just to be safe, those of you who stay alone in your cabin, I'll have you all paired up with one another. Everyone should avoid staying alone if they can. We will launch an investigation in the meanwhile, but the most important thing is to stay calm. That's all.”

Captain Kraus' decision was a controversial one, but for now, people accepted it. The incident was still very fresh, it was hard to believe, and many of the passengers had an urge to trust the authority figure, to go along with his judgement. Perhaps things will just be okay then, perhaps it was a one-off occurrence. Maybe just an accident, even.

Neither Porco nor Friska were that naive though. Since both of them were traveling alone, they were asked to move in together, and they both reluctantly agreed. It was the young man who brought his stuff over to the fairy's cabin, just a bag of belongings and his bedsheets.

“You've got an interesting setup there,” he noted, examining the chest and the mini-bed that were fixed to the human-sized bed frame on the left side of the room.

“Yea?” The fairy disappeared behind her chest, pushed its lid shut with her whole body, then she dashed up into the air and landed on the chest, facing the man defiantly. “Look buddy, perhaps we have gotten off on the wrong foot. But if you touch any of my stuff without my permission, I'll bite your head off. And don't get any funny ideas just because you are alone with a woman so much smaller than you!”

“Heh, that's one way to salvage getting off on the wrong foot,” Porco smiled.

“Boo hoo, excuse me for having some concerns sharing a room with a young male ten times my size.”

“Sure. I promise I'll leave you and your stuff alone. Not that I'm attracted to miniature women anyway, that's kind of weird.”

“Of course it is.”

While Porco sat on his bed, Friska sat down on her chest. For a while, they were both quietly lost in thought, digesting the gruesome turn of events. Eventually, Porco said:

“So you are a woman of science. A historian, if I'm not mistaken.”

“That's my main forte,” the fairy replied.

“What do you think of what happened?”

“Well, it was obviously a murder.”

“You have any suspicions?”

Friska was playing with her hair, and she was slow to answer. “Suspicions? Not really. At least not when it comes to this.”

“And outside of it?”

“I have plenty, but that's only natural when one's surrounded by strangers. For example, I suspect you to be a fuckboy.”

“Hmm, is that why you dislike me?”

“Am I wrong though?”

“I have had sex with a couple of different women in my life, and I was never married. If that makes me a bad person in your eyes...”

“Whatever! I don't trust guys like you, but I'll keep that to myself. You do you, I'm not your mother. How about you tell me what you saw this morning? You saw the scene, right? I didn't.”

“It was quite a horrid sight. And it was quite strange too.”

“Is it true that her door was locked from the inside?”

“Yep. And from a quick glance, it seemed like her belongings weren't even taken. Could be that the killer had no time to pick anything up, or their motive was more personal than robbery.”

“But how the hell did the killer disappear?”

“The window of her cabin was open. The culprit is either some sort of magic user, or they climbed out through the window.”

“And what, jumped into the sea?”

“Or flew back around the ship to their own room. Assuming they had wings.”

“Assuming... hold on! Are you suggesting...”

“Relax, I don't really think it was you. Madam Birch might have been a frail old lady, but she was ten times your size too. The way she was massacred, I doubt a fairy could have done that to her.”

“Yea, cause we are the weaklings of the humanoid species...” Friska rolled her eyes. “You better know that if we really want to, we can cause some serious damage. It wasn't me though.”

“I believe you.”

“How about the captain? I mean... he probably couldn't climb out the window, but he seems a bit off, doesn't he?”

“He sure does, but I doubt it was him either.”

The little woman was now walking back and forth on the chest. “He says there is no guarantee there is a killer... he won't risk turning around with the resources we have... it's all bullshit, right? I get that he doesn't want folks to panic, but as far as I know, the ship has plenty of resources still, lots of food is stored beneath deck.”

“Right. He definitely has some secrets of his own, I drank with him once in private. But I don't see why he would murder the madam.”

“You talked to him alone?”

“Yea. He used to be a pirate, did you know?”

“Heh! I had no idea. I can kind of see it.”

“More specifically, what I got out of him is that something is up with his son. It's like he was kidnapped, and now he has to... do something to get him back. He clearly didn't want to talk about it, he just mentioned it briefly as he was getting carried away.”

“Daym. In that case, maybe Madam Birch found out whatever he is hiding. Maybe the captain had her killed, even if he himself didn't do it.”

“Possibly. But I was paying close attention to him, and my intuition tells me he really doesn't know why this happened.”

“Your intuition is yours. I still think he is our best bet... you think I could try drinking with him in private too?”

Porco shrugged. “If you don't mind getting drunk with a male ten times your size...”

Friska stopped moving around, and stared at Porco. “I would rather not, I guess” she admitted. “Listen, I do have one more suspicion. Can you guess who it is, clever boy?”

The young man pulled out a coin and flipped it real quick. It was tails. “Chio. And by the way, if the coin flipped the other way, I would have guessed Arabella.”

“I was mainly thinking of Chio. But now that you mention it...”

“They are quite interconnected, aren't they? But why do you suspect Chio?”

“She is stronger than she looks. Physically.”

“Your chest, right? I saw them carry it up the ship, from the main deck.”

“You were spying on her, weren't you?”

“Looking at someone is not a crime.”

“I guess not.”

“So if she is strong, how did she do it?”

“The most likely way a girl like her could gain such strength is through an enchanted item. Like most forms of magic, it's rare, but some old smith families from her homeland are known for such stunts, for example. As far as I know, a strengthening enchantment is amongst the easier ones to cast, at least a not too drastic one. A short distance teleportation ability is much more surprising, but not unheard of. For all we know, she could be wearing a ring... no, she doesn't wear rings, does she? A toe-ring? Whatever, something that's granting her these abilities.”

“Hmmm. I see your point, it does seem like whoever did it is no ordinary fellow. And if we know she is not ordinary...”

“It's hard to believe though, don't you think?”

“Is it?”

“Dammit man! You made out with her in your room, did you not? I think you did.”

“Wow.”

“Okay, just... what do you think of her?”

Porco hesitated. “I'm not quite sure. She sure seems charming.”

Friska crossed her arms. “It's now my intuition's turn, and it says the killer is not Chio. And by extension, not Arabella. Probably. I trust Chio.”

“I hope you are correct, I really do.”

Meanwhile, Arabella and Chio were back in their cabin, trying to relax. They too brainstormed some ideas of what could have possibly happened, but their discussion was brief. Chio was visibly tense, and the succubus wasn't entirely sure how to handle that, so she mostly just let her be. They were both laying in silence for some long minutes when all of a sudden, the angel jumped on Arabella's bed, and hugged her. The demon sat up and hugged her back, noticing that the girl is shaking and crying.

“Chio... what's wrong?”

“It's... it's happening again,” Chio sobbed, staring up at the succubus' face through her tears. “Things always...” she gulped, “always get fucked up around us. Why?”

“I... guess it's bad luck? But we are gonna be okay! I promise.”

For a while, they just snuggled together. Arabella comforted the girl as best as she could, caressing her, petting her, kissing her arms and forehead gently. She never really kissed someone gently before she met her. She would have never imagined. And now here she was, her heart filled with vibrant love, touching someone like this while struggling against tears herself. Seeing her beloved so heartbroken hurt her too, and while their strong commitment and trust for each other was not a question for either of them, deep down Arabella's heart was also tormented by guilt.

Chio's crying slowly calmed down. At last, she sighed deeply and lay her head on her lover's lap.

“Thanks...” she murmured.

Arabella stroke the girl's hair and stared at her face endearingly. “What happened today is probably not about us. At least I don't think so. Either way, we will be through with this voyage in a week or so. It will be all behind us soon.”

“But whoever the killer is... in case they are found, the two of us could defeat them, right? Whatever wicked beast it was... a succubus and an angel could defeat it, if no one else on the ship could.”

“I guess so. If it comes down to it.”

“I just don't want anyone else to die...”

“Oh, Chio...”

 

Hours later, after a rather tense and anxious lunch, the passengers returned to their cabins in small groups or pairs. The sailors of the ship had their meal too, beneath the main deck, sitting on the ground or on boxes, perhaps in their hammocks. The mood down here wasn't the most carefree either, but the crew didn't act quite so scaredly. It was the macho front of the rough, 100% male workforce of this huge, extravagant, purple-sailed ship. The men who's job was to make Annabelle sail smoothly in every sense of the word. To act as half-acknowledged, half-invisible cogs in the machine. Not that they never interacted with the cruisers, but for the most part, client is client and staff is staff. Additionally, there was the not entirely unreasonable assumption that if anyone is worth murdering on this ship, they must be amongst those who dwell up above.

One fellow – a burly, strong, ill-tempered seaman named Connor – wandered off alone into one of the secluded, dark corridors of the lower parts of Annabelle, smoking a pipe. As he half-expected, a tall figure appeared at the end of the passageway, walking towards him.

“Ay, Goldman!” Connor turned to the newcomer with a toothless smile. “Can you believe it? It really did happen!”

“It did,” the Cesanitian said in a quiet tone.

“After we talked about what an annoying old bitch she is. Yapping about her dead husband all the time, how she loved him, the entitled rich cow. I said to you, I wouldn't mind if she went ahead and fucking died. And then the very next night, boom!” he burst out laughing. “What are the chances, eh?”

Goldman did not answer.

“Hold on,” the sailor puffed on his pipe, then turned to the pale, lanky man. “It was you! Was it?”

The Cesanitian slowly nodded.

Connor laughed again, although this time there was just a pinch of nervousness in his laugh. “You are a real one, Goldman. I respect that. But how the fuck did you do it?”

“Never mind that. I have something else to tell you.”