The boy stood on the blood-soaked ground of the battlefield, sword in one hand and shield in the other. He cut down anyone who dared stand in opposition to him. The enemy would fall at his feet. These barbarians had committed an unforgivable crime and they would face unavoidable consequences.

Around him his companions fought. Around him his companions died. Life was short, death was quick. Blood stained his weapon, his clothes, his hands. Blood stained his mind and he couldn't wash it off. He had been changed and he would never be the same again.

Some days were cloudy. He was quiet and repressed. He slept in all day and got nothing done. Some days were stormy. He was easily excitable and quick to anger. He stayed up all night and got into trouble. Some days he couldn't remember anything from other days.

Although nobody could wield cold steel the way he could, the boy was not fit for the duty of a soldier. And so he left the battlefield behind him, his past drowned in blood and still no future to speak of. He had nothing left to live for and now nothing he could die for either.

He took his sword and he took his shield and he disappeared.


Introduction - Are We There Yet?

Three updates three days in a row? Inconceivable!

This one is shorter than the others, but I think it's all right!

I'm too tired to think of anything to say right now.


Chapter III - Under Full Sail

The Sun hung bright and warm over the horizon, dangling in the sky among the fluffy white clouds. The Atlantic reflected its rays like a mirror of liquid crystal. A gentle breeze began to pick up, providing reprieve from the Sun's undying warmth and compelling the still surface of the ocean to move.

Katya stood in the bow of Magalhães and tried to keep her balance as the moving waters caused it to rock from side to side. Noé didn't even seem to notice the deck was moving under his feet as he stood next to her, quiet and still. Fernanda seemed like she was on the verge of cracking up.

"We haven't even left the pier yet!" the fairy said. "If you can't stand up straight here, you'll be flat on your back on the high seas!" Noticing Noé's silence, Fernanda tried to get him to speak up. "Isn't that right, Noé?"

"Er, yeah." Switching to Portuguese, Noé continued. "High seas? Are we going somewhere? And is she coming with us?"

Katya seemed to catch on to the same implication. "High seas? Are you going somewhere? Can I come with you?" This was perfect! She had been wanting to continue onwards in her travels and she needed someone to take her across the ocean. Plus, she had never been at sea before. It seemed like such an exciting adventure!

"Yeah sure, why not!" Fernanda said in English, always eager to set sail to any place for any reason.

Still in Portuguese, Noé said "We don't even know who she is..."

"She's an adventurer, like us! Come on, it'll be fun." She kept speaking in English, despite Noé's attempts at starting a private conversation with her. "Where ya wanna go, girl?"

Katya already knew where she wanted to go—it was a place she had always wanted to visit and one of the main destinations she had planned from the beginning, ever since she left Russia. "I want to go to America!"

"All right!" Fernanda said. "You heard her Noé, we're going to America! Capitã's orders. You think you can get us there, Navegador?"

"Ha ha, very funny," Noé said, speaking English finally. "Of course I can. It's just...west." He reached under his coat and pulled a compass out of a pouch hanging from one of his belts. He flipped open the lid to the brass case and idly examined the face of the compass. Noé was well known for his enthusiasm for navigation but not so much for his navigation, so to speak.

"All right, well I have to go get things prepared so we can leave!" Fernanda said, a hint of fey craftiness in her tiny little voice.

"Like what?" Noé asked, a hint of incredulity marking his voice. He was used to Fernanda and her cunning.

The fairy hesitated for a moment and then said "Stuff, just stuff. You know."

"No I don't. What do you have to do that you can't do here?"

"Oh, you know, check the stores, general preparation, that sort of thing..."

"Wait," Noé said, "we're not leaving tonight are we?"

"Why not? I love sailing by starlight!" With that, the fairy jumped out of Noé's hat and flew off towards the stern of the ship, leaving Noé and Katya alone. Just like Fernanda, to put Noé in a situation where he'd have to socialize. She was always trying to get him to work on his poor people skills, no matter how often Noé insisted he just wasn't a people person.

For a moment the two just stood there in silence, Noé examining his compass again and Katya still trying to figure out how to keep her balance when the floor was rocking back and forth beneath her feet. Finally, Noé summoned up all his courage, snapped his compass shut, and broke the silence. "So...what's with the axe?"

"Hm? Oh, you mean this!" Katya grabbed the weapon that was hanging from her back and held it in front of her. "It's a bardiche, traditional Russian weapon. Been passed down in my family for ages."

"Looks...dangerous." Noé cautiously took a step back—Katya looked like she might topple over at any moment and then who knew what might happen with that thing.

"Yeah, that's the idea!" She deftly spun the bardiche like a top in her hands—Katya liked to show off. "That's a sword you got there, right?"

Noé looked down at his cutlass. "Uh, yeah, mostly." He drew the sword from its black leather scabbard. As a cutlass, the sword had a short and broad single-edged blade with a slight curve and clipped point. The steel blade used to be shiny and bear intricate engravings, but age had scratched and roughened the metal. The brass hilt of the sword had a fancy basket design to protect his hand.

There was more to the sword than that, however. "What's that thing on the side there?" Katya asked. Lying flat against the left side of the blade was a long rectangular object, made from the same engraved steel as the sword. At the base of the object, right next to the hilt, was a cylinder.

"It's a gun," Noé said. "Just in case, you know." He had never really used the gun before, as he wasn't much of a fighter, but it was always nice to know it was there if he needed it.

Katya's eyes widened. "A gun? Built into a sword? That is the most awesome thing—" Before she could finish talking, a shout interrupted their conversation.

"Hail Magalhães!" Noé and Katya walked over to the port side of the ship, which was up against the pier. Standing on the dock was a group of six people; the bandana-wearing swindler and his five henchmen, Katya recognized, including the one who had chased her down to the pier earlier. She waved politely to them, smiling.

"Aha!" the swindler said when he could see the two of them. "The Navigator! I thought this was your ship. What a chance encounter!"

"Lazare, I should have guessed. Just like you to try stealing from the tourists," Noé called back. He was familiar with Lazare. Hailing from France, Lazare and his crew spent a lot of time in Matosinhos, either gambling or swindling people out of their money. He wasn't a very pleasant man.

"Hey now, I didn't steal from nobody! We were just playin' a game! Your girl there though, she cheats. I'm just here to get back what she took from me," Lazare said.

"Well that's not going to happen, Lazare. Go on, get out of here." Noé waved his cutlass at him.

"Rémy," Lazare said, nodding at one of his men. Rémy, who was wearing a black sleeveless shirt to show off his muscular and tattooed arms, grunted and grabbed a gangplank from one of the other ships, moving it to Magalhães.

"Great," Noé said under his breath. "Let me deal with this," he told Katya. She just shrugged her shoulders and leaned against her bardiche, at least until the deck shifted in the other direction and threw off her balance again. Although he wasn't much of a fighter, Noé wasn't about to let either Lazare or Katya know that.

Lazare climbed the gangplank alone, leaving his men on the pier. When he made it to the deck of the ship, Noé stood his ground and pointed his cutlass at the trespasser. "Come on!" Lazare said. "Just give me my two hundred euro back. You ain't really gonna use that thing on me, are ya Navegador?"

Lazare slowly stepped forward, forcing Noé to step back and prove that he wasn't really prepared to use the sword. "That's what I thought. Put it away, kid, ain't nobody need to get hurt here." Noé frowned but refused to lower the blade, instead just standing there feeling useless.

Turning to face Katya, who was getting a little better at balancing on the deck using the bardiche as an aid, Lazare said "You too, put that thing away, what are you a gladiator?"

Katya smirked and let out a short snicker. "You're right, I don't need this thing." She tossed it aside and it slid across the deck. "I can take you with my bare hands." She held her hands out, palms up, as a challenge.

Her confidence took Lazare by surprise. "You're kidding right? Come on, you're just a girl, I gotta be at least a decade older than you." He was also much bigger.

"Shame," Katya said. "Life just goes by so fast..."

Lazare just stared at her for a moment, a blank look on his face. "Don't be ridiculous. Look, I ain't gonna fi—" His sentence was cut off by a gasp as Katya's gloved fist flew into his kidney. Before he could react her foot swept his legs out from under him and he tumbled over onto his back.

Katya stood there next to him with her hands on her hips as he rolled over onto his hands and knees and slowly made his way back to his feet. He glanced over his shoulder at Katya with a pained look on his face and then looked over at Noé and whispered "How does she move so fast?" Shaking his head, he climbed back down the gangplank.

"Just so you know," he called back up to them from the dock, "if I wanted to, I could force you to give me that money. But I'm a nice guy, don't you forget it!" With that, Lazare and his crew left.

"I deal with it," Katya said, devilish grin on her face. Noé just stared at her, not sure what to say.

Somewhere behind them a door slammed and a tiny little voice said "Hey, what's all the commotion out here?" Capitã Fernanda asked, perching on Noé's head.

"Ugh, just Lazare and his clowns, it's been dealt with." Noé sheathed his sword. "We about ready to leave yet, Capitã?"

"Sure are, Navegador! Bring us up to the bridge!" Noé walked over to the aft of the ship and climbed the stairs up onto the raised bridge deck. Katya followed behind him, carefully.

"You know," Katya said, "I said I never been on a ship before, but don't you need...I don't know, more people?"

"What's that?" Despite all his skill with languages, Noé was finding Katya's accent difficult to understand sometimes. "People?" he said, stepping behind the steering wheel. "Nah, just watch."

Fernanda hopped down from Noé's head, landing on the post in front of the wheel. She pulled out her needle and thrust it out towards the rest of the ship. Suddenly, Magalhães came to life. Ropes started moving all on their own, the sails began to unfurl, the anchor raised itself from the water. Katya watched the whole event in amazement as the ship began to slowly leave the pier (causing the stolen gangplank to splash into the sea).

A few minutes later and they had left the harbor. The ship was under full sail, well on its way across the Atlantic and to the New World. Katya was holding onto the railing, overlooking the rest of the ship, her ponytail flapping in the wind. Noé was standing with his hands on the wheel, not really steering so much as just enjoying the start of another adventure at sea.

Fernanda was sitting cross-legged on top of the steering post, resting her tiny little chin on her tiny little hands. Speaking in Portuguese, she said "This should be fun, yeah? We don't usually bring guests with us, mostly it's just you and me."

"I dunno, Fern," Noé replied. "I kind of like it when it's just us. We hardly know who this girl is."

"Well, we have plenty of time to find out!" Fernanda said.

"Yeah."

"Besides, she's nice."

"Yeah."

"And pretty too!"

"Y—er...I guess."

Fernanda just chuckled.


Notes - Italics

It's magic!