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Excerpt from the Journal of Cyril Monroe

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Xavier found it first, and by the gods, how did we miss this? I can hardly contain my excitement! It's in the ink! It's in the water itself. How did we miss this?

The lump of fungus we found: the brick in the wooden box. It wasn't what we thought it was. It was a journal from Captain Oswald Renault himself. I don't know what inspired him to do so, but he had the pages sealed. If I had to guess, I'd say it would be to prserve them, but that's a different topic for when I'm not borrowing someone else's ink.

Speculation is all we really have at this point. That and an army of notes, I suppose. I cannot guess the motives ofa gent who's been dead for nearly two-hundred years now, can I? Or at least, not yet. Perhaps those gray shores would let us speak with him again. Who knows?

I must digress, or I'll ramble into lunacy.

Xavier found a solution in the lumps of fungus. Using a stroping knife (or a shiving knife... one of those tanning kinds of things; that hyena, Gnarrok had it with him?) and more precision than I ever gave him credit for, he began to shave the fungus back, layers at a time.

But as it carved back, the original shapes of the mushrooms began to give way. Layer by layer, the roots began to fall into patterns. Nearly twenty sheets, each one as thin as a butterfly wing and we were able to start seeing the shapes of equations s if the mushrooms themselves were growing them. As if they'd sprouted out of the ink itself.

I hope that isn't the case. A nasty jump last night caused me to spill the bottle all the way down the side of my bunk. I'll need to inform the captain, so I don't end up sleeping in it for too long. Gods only knows what it'd do--

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PROLOGUE: BEARINGS

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“What the hell did I just read…?” Captain Nathaniel Locke accepted the flask. He stared at it, turning it over in his palm for a moment before sighing aloud. The wolf’s nip from it was longer than either he or his First Mate intended.

Rum had always been the fastest way to get his brain to stop keeping secrets from the rest of himself. A nip became a pull. A pull became a mouthful. Then another. Every drop brought him closer to the clarity that only the bottom of the bottle could provide.

How did the saying go? The gent takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes the gent? Whatever sly poem the barmaid stabbed him with on that night his son had to pick him up off the ground in a bar. Had the lad only been fourteen, or was he fifteen at the time?

Fourteen. He’d just turned fourteen that spring; just barely too old to be a nipper. Damn himself that Nathaniel had taken the worst year of any lad’s life—the years of mismatched teeth, cracking voices and uncertain new feelings—and forced Theodore to grow up too fast. That was years ago by now. Gods, Nathaniel didn’t even remember that night anymore: but he remembered that glare, and that sigh of disappointment in his ear as he was dragged out of the tavern over his son's shoulder.

It had been the first time Theodore hadn’t woken Nathaniel up with that impish grin of his. Instead, the morning had been a kind of quiet that hadn’t ever suited either of them. Theodore had made what easily the worst cup of coffee Nathaniel had ever tasted and didn’t look him in the eyes until deep into the afternoon.

That day, he’d done more than just make a promise to Theodore that the drinking would stop: he’d given his Word.

An oath between a father and a son which he violated with each desperate slurp out of a tin that wasn't even his.

It proved harder to get the flask out of his muzzle than it had to divorce his wife. He tried to disguise effort with flourish that was more dramatic than it had to be; Nathaniel's entire torso followed the drink to the desk's hardwood top. The tin vibrated in a way that made his teeth rattle along with it; only then was the captain uncomfortable enough to dislodge from the flasks' neck. Nathaniel slid his tongue over his teeth, searching for the first drops of drink that had passed his tongue in nearly twelve years. Theodore would see these pages. Theodore would understand.

Maybe even forgive him, if there was any forgiveness to be had for such a sin.

Self control and decorum were slow to return. Alcohol reintroduced itself by grabbing the sides of the old sea dog's brain, and shaking him like it was the last beast in the world he would have ever listened to for sense.

He was Nathaniel Locke. The beasts that stomped across the decks above him would swear their allegiance to him over a king. Hells, Prichard and Heracos had done exactly that. The whole crew respected him enough to abandon the quarterdeck entirely when he’d called for his First Mate’s company. Even though everybeast aboard flinched when the ship physician had been disinvited, any who’d even tried to raise their voice in concern were quickly shut down by others. Gods bless Carlisle, that poor sawbones, he enough to deal with without being made to translate the eager insanity.

Nathaniel wiped the back of his palm against his mouth again, shaking it free of rum and spit only to scowl at his carelessness. Incidental droplets which scattered across the papers that stared back at him; He'd given his Word and broken it. There was already a penance owed, and there was no dignity in licking anything off of the wheel of pages before him.

Who knew what would have tried to crawl down his throat if he did?

There was a joke somewhere about the ‘science’ the chittering scribbles spoke about, and how it needed just as much alcohol as he did. Give the alcohol a few more moments, and maybe the text would rearrange itself into something that made sense?

The rum was already beginning to hit him; must have been stronger than he'd anticipated, or his body just missed it that much. It was unlocking those forgotten parts of his brain, making him more… dammit… what was the word? Artistic? Pedantic? Something with a ‘p’… –Poetic! That was it. Making him more poetic. Maybe even more of an ornery bastard, too. Maybe he could pull a beast aside, and punish them with his sense of humor—he was the Captain, after all! What beast aboard could deny him; if he wanted turned this problem into a joke, it wouldn't be a problem anymore, and there'd be a loyal beast who he'd make for damned sure obliged him.

But where would the joke be? The drawings of eyeballs that stared, and followed him as if they'd been designed to make his fur bristle. The notes about stitching, and layers of tissue made his skin crawl beneath his pelt, and his knee ache the way that told him rain was coming. Every gruesome, heat-of-the-moment bark about wearing 'guts for garters' didn't make him as uneasy as that picture of a stomach, pulled from its natural place inside of a beast under the guise of a 'study', and suggest how to clean it. Then there was whatever-the-hell that was—the bastard child of an ice cream scoop and scissors, dreamed up in Hell and inflicted upon the world without warning. He purposefully covered the picture with a corner of a different page to spare himself the view. Tools like that shouldn't have blades, or serrations. Fever dreams like that should only be kept to oneself, rather than an anatomist's journal page in such close proximity to a detailed drawing of an eye.

The pictures made Nathaniel's very guts hurt with raw force of empathy. What were these notes about degrees, or pulling? Carlisle would have to translate, then explain this shit if Nathaniel had anything to say about it. He'd have to watch Carlisle's reaction though. Any hint of excitement, and maybe Nathaniel didn't need a doctor aboard after all. Not if all of them could be like this.

Maybe something else about how this anatomist’s entire journal was written like it was intended to be read; who the hell talks like that, much less talks to themselves like that?

Nathaniel fought the urge to turn to the windows behind him and cast the pages into the ocean. No good would come of this kind of studying. He'd helped run cadavers for these anatomists before—but this was different. This is what their work was all about. The part of Nathaniel's brain that was in control of both his temper, and the fist that curled tighter around the flask ordered him to action. Drag them up by the neck—if the gods were willing to forgive this perversion of science, the rope would snap. If not, justice would be done.

He forced himself calm, though. The spark of youth that rage gave him had to be stifled. He didn't know one way or another. His immaturity would risk hanging an innocent beast, who'd then testify against him when it was his time to be judged by the gods. Rash thinking invited too many ways to dishonor of the missing or dead; it was bad luck to piss on the reputation of a missing gent. He couldn’t let himself fall into the trap that superstition had laid out. Nathaniel's karmic balances were already bad enough from running the dead bodies across the Meridian Strait for the sake of the sciences.

He shouldn't have fished the satchel out of the sea. But it had been trapped on the rudder—steering was harder. The half dozen beasts in the infirmary weren't a punishment; even the Bitch Queen Herself wasn't that monstrous. If these pages, and everything that had been found with them was truly that heretical, and damnable, sure the gods wouldn't have let him find it? But if he hadn't been intended to find it, and it was instead forced back by whatever evils the pages tried to conjure… It was something to think about, but made him shift in his chair that he was an unwitting accomplice to something so unholy.

Was that why there were so many suffering? For their sake, he couldn’t antagonize the Bitch Queen of Karma any further. Amateur as the solution was, and much to Carlisle's protests, Nathaniel had even ordered the muzzles of every beast in the infirmary stuffed and belted unless they needed to eat or drink. He couldn't let their whimpering scare the other sailors about the things that lived in the shadows, or reached from the dark corners that the seams of the ship created.

Their plight reminded him that rum wasn't the answer, especially for a gent who already was such a bad judge of things. The crew needed their captain's brain unhampered by alcohol. Nathaniel needed to keep his Word to Theodore. Dammit again that today made him a liar, even by two mouthfuls.

Gods above and below, smile on me. Nathaniel offered his prayer to no god in particular, repeating it in his head like a mantra, instead of raising the flask and tipping it back for one last pull.

Not accounting for his vice, the wolf was a proud example of his species. His stature was tall and boasted strength uncommon to his age. There wasn’t any bend in his back, and he was up on two feet without any kind of cane or support. The ever-present graying of his muzzle, and the slow sinking of his features were at odds with the alertness that was usually in his eyes. Dark grays and white fur layered into each other in a simple pattern that was common to most Nurhaldian wolves. But today eyestrain and paperwork had taken an obvious toll, slumping his shoulders under a heave of fatigue. The shades of storm gray lost their lightning.

Good beasts worked every part of the ship from fore to aft. Provisions were low, but they usually were this late into a voyage–meats especially, but that was always the case in a crew of mostly canines. At least nothing was rotting.

Tempers weren’t sour. Winds were favorable. Sun was bright and there were just enough clouds to keep the glare off the water without there being a threat of storms. If the weather held, Basinport was within an easy day’s sail. But the danger was already aboard the ship.

Mental notes cascaded against the back of his tongue, and Nathaniel fought the urge to go over them again with his First Mate. Carlisle insisted that mercury poisoning would do the worst of the damage he'd seen—but there'd been no nets cast, and Nathaniel hadn't ever heard of anybeast getting fish fever from eating beef or chicken, even out of tins. There were those other doctors aboard the ship now, too. If it were anybeast who knew what was going on, it'd have been those three cagey beasts; they'd been friends with the gent who was now missing, after all.

He must have worn his thoughts on his face again. Either that, or Mendonca had read his mind, and decided it was time to save the captain from himself.

“You look like shit,” his First muttered. The interruption of silence was enough to make Nathaniel jump slightly. If that hadn't been enough to return his senses more totally to the world around him, it was the effort of Nick Mendonca, his First Mate, to retrieve the flask from the Captain. Their eyes met in the midst of a troubled silence, and Mendonca's straightened his back dutifully as soon as the flask was returned. “You look like shit, Sir,” he added as if that would soothe the Captain’s temper. Nathaniel hadn’t even realized his gaze had narrowed into a glare.

He studied the other beast for a moment. Mendonca, despite his commanding demeanor, was delicately built. Soft and gentle features met the typical monochrome of sled dogs in Nurhald to create the type of First Mate that Nathaniel loved to have.

Unassuming. Easy to underestimate. But Nathaniel knew better; the steel in the wee beast's soul could be seen in his eyes, if a captain knew where to look. Even though he’d only been along for a few voyages now, the thought of this gent one day captaining this ship was a small comfort. He fought the smile that tugged on the corners of his mouth, but as his gaze fell back to the reality of his present, the thoughts of the eventual future of these old timbers faded away again. The old sea dog had learned a long time ago that it was best to hit a beast in the expectations, if the wallet, morals or jaw weren’t options.

Mendonca could throw such a blow if he needed, and Nathaniel could see it in how he carried himself. He'd make a fine captain, one day.

But Nathaniel wasn’t retired yet.

He reclined as far as his chair would allow, sighing into his palms at the ceiling of his quarters. The musty scents of the papers he'd been tossing about earlier soaked into his fingers, and reminded him vaguely of fungus, or some other poetic kind of decay. At least the rum was working still, yet he groaned into his palms all the same. Wonderful, he thought to himself bitterly. You're making excuses to drink more.

The moaning of settling wood surrounded the pair, reaching inward to them past the high bookshelves and delicately organized nautical maps. The room felt suffocating, owed to the size of the desk Nathaniel insisted on, and the simple fact that the captain's quarters were built for only one beast to be mulling around back here.

There wasn’t any beast alive who wanted to have a disappearance on their shoulders. So much less so a captain at sea.

“Fifty-three beasts are aboard this ship as of this morning: we’re down a passenger. The watch confirmed the numbers with me again, and all crew’s here,” Nathaniel announced his report. “All rafts accounted for. Twenty beasts managing the rigging, and another twenty in the below decks. Doctor Carlisle has four in his care under restraint and muzzle due to what he insists is mercury poisoning and stale air, on account of the beasts having been assigned previously to the hold of the ship. Nightwatches didn’t report anybeast overboard. His private effects were all present in his cabin. And I was praying against all hopes that this–” He nodded toward the unholy sprawl of information in front of him. “–would have done something to shed light on our concerns.”

Mendonca glanced down. “But, judging your expression, it didn’t,” he intuited.

Nathaniel gave a curt nod. Straightening his back, the wolf exhaled sharply over the diagrams in front of him. Circles and figures of organs and body parts wheeled outward. Blue ink scribbled lines of insane ramblings up and down pages, in margins and between other words, referring to documents that weren’t present–or maybe they were? Astra? Terra? Infernum? Every one of the beast’s most mushroom-addled fantasies fought for dominance all at once on every page. That still didn't include the shit from the satchel—which was an entire second and separate mess of unholiness. Candles? Bloodied rags? Half burnt, water-sopped papers?

Nathaniel wasn’t cut out for this kind of nattering shit. As far as he was concerned this was a map without a legend.

“Do we have a name for the missing beast?” Mendonca pressed, sliding the flask back into his vest.

“Cyril Monroe.” Nathaniel sighed at his First’s blank expression. It reminded him of just how few voyages they'd been together, that Mendonca wouldn't recognize the occasional, but recurring customer. “College type. Coal-feathered Avian gent? Works out of the Charinthossian Tertiary Institute?” He offered, tapping the pages as if that would mean something to the canine.

“So, a lawyer? What’s wrong with another one of them gone?” Mendonca’s joke almost got Nathaniel to chuckle. But, frustratingly, it did show that the gent didn’t know who he was talking about.

“Medical gent. The beast we ran cadavers for–” the realization snapped across Mendonca’s features, and his jaw went slack. “Yes–that Cyril-fucking-Monroe.”

The canine’s fingers traced the outline of the flask in his pocket, and his tongue ran over his teeth in a nervous gesture. Mendonca looked ready for a swig himself, but Nathaniel interrupted it with a meaningful clearing of his throat.

"So, we have bloodied rags, candles, pages we can't read, pages we can't understand, and a world-renown occultist that is just up and missing?" Mendonca's ears splayed.

“That, and whatever this… ‘shape of equations’ shit is.” Nathaniel picked the page up and squinted over its contents. He spat as he tossed it back to the pile of rabid hallucinations. He fought for words through a series of expressions and shakes of his head before settling on the only one that came to mind. “Fuck.” He slumped back in his chair.

Mendonca stayed quiet. The gent took his time to inhale around the threads of thought that settled between the clouds of dust and disgust. Nathaniel hated himself in part for it–but the beast was as perceptive as he needed to be. “Are you saying that he’s killed himself, or that there’s been a murder aboard this ship?”

The captain desperately wished he could avoid the question, but answered it before he could stop himself. “There are letters in one of theses stacks that means it wasn’t any kind of suicide, lad. The parts that aren’t repetitive gibbering are aggressive insanity, or pining for his wife.” Nathaniel rose from his chair, snatching the front of his shirt and tugging it flat against himself once more. He drew a deep breath. Gods forgive him for surprising his crew like this. “We’re changing ports.”

Any other sailor would have straightened their back and saluted. Mendonca raised an eyebrow, and tilted his head with every bit of ire that such a call would make. “Sir? We're expected in Basinport. We have cargo for Basinport.”

“I said what I fucking said," Nathaniel's voice boiled dangerously. "We dodge Basinport for Charinthosse; because this shit—” he jabbed a finger into the papers to punctuate his orders. "—is out of my depth, and I will not allow my poor judgment to endanger this crew further."

"Are you drunk after half a flask?" Mendonca demanded, ignoring the withering stare from the captain. "Let's ignore the brutal irony of you saying 'poor judgment' for only a moment; it’s three days with favorable winds and engines going to Charinthosse. We’re already scraping old tins and low on petrol; not to mention the delivery to Basinport are chemicals. Even if the crew were willing, the dodge would mean they miss not one, but two rounds of pay; I don't need to tell you how much those barrels are worth. First from the spurned delivery to Basinport, and then the carry from there to Charinthosse as intended. Beyond willingness, there’s the matter of supplies. The castanets have rotted–and gods only know that a dozen rods would have to do to feed feed this crew!”

Nathaniel was already moving, shoving the papers together once again to stack them, then fan them out in what he assumed was their proper order. “We cut rations to make it work. Nobeast goes to bed with a full belly; me least of all. And you can forward their wages out of what your family are fixing to pay for the ship,” he shook his head at the thought, but continued. The vague idea of seeing his son sooner wasn’t an awful thing either; Theodore always seemed to enjoy his visits. Stopping by Charinthosse first would put them a week ahead of schedule.

At least there was still time to sober up. Nathaniel sighed, and in the face of Mendonca's irritation, shook his head. “Basinport magisters are entitled fucks. We land there, and we rot for weeks and risk nothing being done. We’re all missing pay either way. Charinthosse would have us loaded and underway in half the time we would be waiting in Basinport, and I trust Arbiter Sybil’s judgment. I’ve never known her to be wrong about anybeast she’s ever hanged.”

Mendonca scowled, and—if Nathaniel knew him right—fought the urge to snarl. “And how would you like me to do that, when you haven't maintained the radio? It's 1926, Captain," Mendonca spat quietly. "This ship wouldn't need to be sold if you stopped punching the tides, and changed with the times."

"Watch. Your. Tone." Nathaniel enunciated carefully. He'd slid around the desk with a predatory grace, standing nearly chest to chest with the smaller gent, his head tilted down ever so slightly to accentuate both his taller, broader stature as well as his authority. Nathaniel's hard stare was finally enough to make Mendonca look away, and the wolf felt his throat boil one last time as he issued his final order. "I will issue the order myself, and risk the mutiny that follows. They'll know who is missing, and they will understand."

Mendonca allowed himself just enough rebellion to snort at the captain, retreating a half step with a sarcastic bow. "By your orders, Captain Locke."

Nathaniel pushed his way around his First Mate with a deliberate, ill-intentioned shove. Breath was dragged to the deepest parts of his lungs as he began to bay his commands—"All arms, main deck!" He howled the commands into the sudden rush of motion. His tone was enough to get everybeast aboard moving; his crew could be trusted to not waste any of his time. The diabolic papers were rolled into a tight scroll, and he searched the crowd for whomever was moving slow enough to justify striking them with it. He found his culprits immediately; a trio of forms shuffling close together, doing their best to lag behind and exchange furtive glances as if they thought they wouldn't be noticed. His passengers.

Cyril's companions. Doctors lifted directly out of stereotypes. The made to measure attires of professors and intellectuals—from silken black vests to white cotton shirt, and soft trousers. They'd even accessorized themselves with pocket watches and cuff links. Impatience and nervousness stormed around them as the trio kept their silent conversations going through the adjustments of a sleeve, or tapping against their pocket watches. Nathaniel's orders were ignored until he was within an arm's reach of them, his fingers tightening in obvious frustration as he was admonished by the obvious elder of the group; an otter with gracelessly graying fur on his muzzle, and thick glasses to cover an ugly, horizontal scar across both his eyes.

"What is the meaning of this?" The otter—Kendall Whitaker, if Nathaniel remembered correctly—demanded with enough authority that the captain had to pause. The outburst of undue disrespect was quickly stifled by a combination of two wolves raising an eyebrow at the shorter beast. Nathaniel didn't need the professor's wolf companion to offer such a withering glare alongside his own, but it was nice to know that at least one of his passengers understood decorum. The otter's companion, Doctor Douglas LaRauxe, exhaled forcefully to disrupt whatever violent impulses the captain's slight snarl betrayed.

"Forgive him, Captain. Otters know more about etiquette in the deltas than the tides. Is there an emergency?" The wolf asked softly, trying his obvious best to be the diplomat between the scarred professor and captain.

"Fucking strange question, from you," Nathaniel scoffed before he could stop himself. "You tell me; where's Cyril? The Amnesty's sixty three strides from stern to bow, and that's if you shorten your gait and take the long way. You haven't seen the beast who's set to be paying me and my crew for transporting you lot, have you?"

The trio fell silent until Victor Delagalle, the younger of the two otters spoke up. "Captain, Cyril isn't known well to keep us all company. Have you checked his quarters?"

"All arms. Main deck," Nathaniel commanded through a bite at the air. "You plead your case before the crew, or you keep your yapper shut."

He ignored them until they they sensed and understood his dismissal, joining the tail end of the scurry upwards. Nathaniel couldn't help but to feel he was corralling the three of them alongside Mendonca, who finally joined his side.

The day was just as beautiful as Nathaniel could have ever described it to be. Barely any clouds, a stiff breeze that filled the sails and shot them north-northeast. Beasts had already lined up in an uncomfortable drill and ceremony that each sailor remembered, but this crew rarely used. Columns and rows of shoulder to shoulder gents made a hallway down the main deck from the mouth of the stairs, connecting to the main mast. The doctors slid away to some neglected corner outside of the Captain's vision, and away from as much of the hateful staring that their presence seemed to suddenly invoke. The crew truly was an extension of Nathaniel—it was why he trusted them as much as he did. It was his honor, and duty to know them; they reflected that back by picking up on his incredible disgust with their passengers.

"First Mate Mendonca and I have confirmed by head count, and nightswatch, that a beast is now missing," Nathaniel barked over the heads of his crew. "I gave you, and our passengers my word that all feet aboard thi

“What the hell did I just read…?” Captain Nathaniel Locke accepted the flask. He stared at it, turning it over in his palm for a moment before sighing aloud. The wolf’s nip from it was longer than either he or his First Mate intended.

Rum had always been the fastest way to get his brain to stop keeping secrets from the rest of himself. A nip became a pull. A pull became a mouthful. Then another. Every drop brought him closer to the clarity that only the bottom of the bottle could provide.

How did the saying go? The gent takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes the gent? Whatever sly poem the barmaid stabbed him with on that night his son had to pick him up off the ground in a bar. Had the lad only been fourteen, or was he fifteen at the time?

Fourteen. He’d just turned fourteen that spring; just barely too old to be a nipper. Damn himself that Nathaniel had taken the worst year of any lad’s life—the years of mismatched teeth, cracking voices and uncertain new feelings—and forced Theodore to grow up too fast. That was years ago by now. Gods, Nathaniel didn’t even remember that night anymore: but he remembered that glare, and that sigh of disappointment in his ear as he was dragged out of the tavern over his son's shoulder.

It had been the first time Theodore hadn’t woken Nathaniel up with that impish grin of his. Instead, the morning had been a kind of quiet that hadn’t ever suited either of them. Theodore had made what easily the worst cup of coffee Nathaniel had ever tasted and didn’t look him in the eyes until deep into the afternoon.

That day, he’d done more than just make a promise to Theodore that the drinking would stop: he’d given his Word.

An oath between a father and a son which he violated with each desperate slurp out of a tin that wasn't even his.

It proved harder to get the flask out of his muzzle than it had to divorce his wife. He tried to disguise effort with flourish that was more dramatic than it had to be; Nathaniel's entire torso followed the drink to the desk's hardwood top. The tin vibrated in a way that made his teeth rattle along with it; only then was the captain uncomfortable enough to dislodge from the flasks' neck. Nathaniel slid his tongue over his teeth, searching for the first drops of drink that had passed his tongue in nearly twelve years. Theodore would see these pages. Theodore would understand.

Maybe even forgive him, if there was any forgiveness to be had for such a sin.

Self control and decorum were slow to return. Alcohol reintroduced itself by grabbing the sides of the old sea dog's brain, and shaking him like it was the last beast in the world he would have ever listened to for sense.

He was Nathaniel Locke. The beasts that stomped across the decks above him would swear their allegiance to him over a king. Hells, Prichard and Heracos had done exactly that. The whole crew respected him enough to abandon the quarterdeck entirely when he’d called for his First Mate’s company. Even though everybeast aboard flinched when the ship physician had been disinvited, any who’d even tried to raise their voice in concern were quickly shut down by others. Gods bless Carlisle, that poor sawbones, he enough to deal with without being made to translate the eager insanity.

Nathaniel wiped the back of his palm against his mouth again, shaking it free of rum and spit only to scowl at his carelessness. Incidental droplets which scattered across the papers that stared back at him; He'd given his Word and broken it. There was already a penance owed, and there was no dignity in licking anything off of the wheel of pages before him.

Who knew what would have tried to crawl down his throat if he did?

There was a joke somewhere about the ‘science’ the chittering scribbles spoke about, and how it needed just as much alcohol as he did. Give the alcohol a few more moments, and maybe the text would rearrange itself into something that made sense?

The rum was already beginning to hit him; must have been stronger than he'd anticipated, or his body just missed it that much. It was unlocking those forgotten parts of his brain, making him more… dammit… what was the word? Artistic? Pedantic? Something with a ‘p’… –Poetic! That was it. Making him more poetic. Maybe even more of an ornery bastard, too. Maybe he could pull a beast aside, and punish them with his sense of humor—he was the Captain, after all! What beast aboard could deny him; if he wanted turned this problem into a joke, it wouldn't be a problem anymore, and there'd be a loyal beast who he'd make for damned sure obliged him.

But where would the joke be? The drawings of eyeballs that stared, and followed him as if they'd been designed to make his fur bristle. The notes about stitching, and layers of tissue made his skin crawl beneath his pelt, and his knee ache the way that told him rain was coming. Every gruesome, heat-of-the-moment bark about wearing 'guts for garters' didn't make him as uneasy as that picture of a stomach, pulled from its natural place inside of a beast under the guise of a 'study', and suggest how to clean it. Then there was whatever-the-hell that was—the bastard child of an ice cream scoop and scissors, dreamed up in Hell and inflicted upon the world without warning. He purposefully covered the picture with a corner of a different page to spare himself the view. Tools like that shouldn't have blades, or serrations. Fever dreams like that should only be kept to oneself, rather than an anatomist's journal page in such close proximity to a detailed drawing of an eye.

The pictures made Nathaniel's very guts hurt with raw force of empathy. What were these notes about degrees, or pulling? Carlisle would have to translate, then explain this shit if Nathaniel had anything to say about it. He'd have to watch Carlisle's reaction though. Any hint of excitement, and maybe Nathaniel didn't need a doctor aboard after all. Not if all of them could be like this.

Maybe something else about how this anatomist’s entire journal was written like it was intended to be read; who the hell talks like that, much less talks to themselves like that?

Nathaniel fought the urge to turn to the windows behind him and cast the pages into the ocean. No good would come of this kind of studying. He'd helped run cadavers for these anatomists before—but this was different. This is what their work was all about. The part of Nathaniel's brain that was in control of both his temper, and the fist that curled tighter around the flask ordered him to action. Drag them up by the neck—if the gods were willing to forgive this perversion of science, the rope would snap. If not, justice would be done.

He forced himself calm, though. The spark of youth that rage gave him had to be stifled. He didn't know one way or another. His immaturity would risk hanging an innocent beast, who'd then testify against him when it was his time to be judged by the gods. Rash thinking invited too many ways to dishonor of the missing or dead; it was bad luck to piss on the reputation of a missing gent. He couldn’t let himself fall into the trap that superstition had laid out. Nathaniel's karmic balances were already bad enough from running the dead bodies across the Meridian Strait for the sake of the sciences.

He shouldn't have fished the satchel out of the sea. But it had been trapped on the rudder—steering was harder. The half dozen beasts in the infirmary weren't a punishment; even the Bitch Queen Herself wasn't that monstrous. If these pages, and everything that had been found with them was truly that heretical, and damnable, sure the gods wouldn't have let him find it? But if he hadn't been intended to find it, and it was instead forced back by whatever evils the pages tried to conjure… It was something to think about, but made him shift in his chair that he was an unwitting accomplice to something so unholy.

Was that why there were so many suffering? For their sake, he couldn’t antagonize the Bitch Queen of Karma any further. Amateur as the solution was, and much to Carlisle's protests, Nathaniel had even ordered the muzzles of every beast in the infirmary stuffed and belted unless they needed to eat or drink. He couldn't let their whimpering scare the other sailors about the things that lived in the shadows, or reached from the dark corners that the seams of the ship created.

Their plight reminded him that rum wasn't the answer, especially for a gent who already was such a bad judge of things. The crew needed their captain's brain unhampered by alcohol. Nathaniel needed to keep his Word to Theodore. Dammit again that today made him a liar, even by two mouthfuls.

Gods above and below, smile on me. Nathaniel offered his prayer to no god in particular, repeating it in his head like a mantra, instead of raising the flask and tipping it back for one last pull.

Not accounting for his vice, the wolf was a proud example of his species. His stature was tall and boasted strength uncommon to his age. There wasn’t any bend in his back, and he was up on two feet without any kind of cane or support. The ever-present graying of his muzzle, and the slow sinking of his features were at odds with the alertness that was usually in his eyes. Dark grays and white fur layered into each other in a simple pattern that was common to most Nurhaldian wolves. But today eyestrain and paperwork had taken an obvious toll, slumping his shoulders under a heave of fatigue. The shades of storm gray lost their lightning.

Good beasts worked every part of the ship from fore to aft. Provisions were low, but they usually were this late into a voyage–meats especially, but that was always the case in a crew of mostly canines. At least nothing was rotting.

Tempers weren’t sour. Winds were favorable. Sun was bright and there were just enough clouds to keep the glare off the water without there being a threat of storms. If the weather held, Basinport was within an easy day’s sail. But the danger was already aboard the ship.

Mental notes cascaded against the back of his tongue, and Nathaniel fought the urge to go over them again with his First Mate. Carlisle insisted that mercury poisoning would do the worst of the damage he'd seen—but there'd been no nets cast, and Nathaniel hadn't ever heard of anybeast getting fish fever from eating beef or chicken, even out of tins. There were those other doctors aboard the ship now, too. If it were anybeast who knew what was going on, it'd have been those three cagey beasts; they'd been friends with the gent who was now missing, after all.

He must have worn his thoughts on his face again. Either that, or Mendonca had read his mind, and decided it was time to save the captain from himself.

“You look like shit,” his First muttered. The interruption of silence was enough to make Nathaniel jump slightly. If that hadn't been enough to return his senses more totally to the world around him, it was the effort of Nick Mendonca, his First Mate, to retrieve the flask from the Captain. Their eyes met in the midst of a troubled silence, and Mendonca's straightened his back dutifully as soon as the flask was returned. “You look like shit, Sir,” he added as if that would soothe the Captain’s temper. Nathaniel hadn’t even realized his gaze had narrowed into a glare.

He studied the other beast for a moment. Mendonca, despite his commanding demeanor, was delicately built. Soft and gentle features met the typical monochrome of sled dogs in Nurhald to create the type of First Mate that Nathaniel loved to have.

Unassuming. Easy to underestimate. But Nathaniel knew better; the steel in the wee beast's soul could be seen in his eyes, if a captain knew where to look. Even though he’d only been along for a few voyages now, the thought of this gent one day captaining this ship was a small comfort. He fought the smile that tugged on the corners of his mouth, but as his gaze fell back to the reality of his present, the thoughts of the eventual future of these old timbers faded away again. The old sea dog had learned a long time ago that it was best to hit a beast in the expectations, if the wallet, morals or jaw weren’t options.

Mendonca could throw such a blow if he needed, and Nathaniel could see it in how he carried himself. He'd make a fine captain, one day.

But Nathaniel wasn’t retired yet.

He reclined as far as his chair would allow, sighing into his palms at the ceiling of his quarters. The musty scents of the papers he'd been tossing about earlier soaked into his fingers, and reminded him vaguely of fungus, or some other poetic kind of decay. At least the rum was working still, yet he groaned into his palms all the same. Wonderful, he thought to himself bitterly. You're making excuses to drink more.

The moaning of settling wood surrounded the pair, reaching inward to them past the high bookshelves and delicately organized nautical maps. The room felt suffocating, owed to the size of the desk Nathaniel insisted on, and the simple fact that the captain's quarters were built for only one beast to be mulling around back here.

There wasn’t any beast alive who wanted to have a disappearance on their shoulders. So much less so a captain at sea.

“Fifty-three beasts are aboard this ship as of this morning: we’re down a passenger. The watch confirmed the numbers with me again, and all crew’s here,” Nathaniel announced his report. “All rafts accounted for. Twenty beasts managing the rigging, and another twenty in the below decks. Doctor Carlisle has four in his care under restraint and muzzle due to what he insists is mercury poisoning and stale air, on account of the beasts having been assigned previously to the hold of the ship. Nightwatches didn’t report anybeast overboard. His private effects were all present in his cabin. And I was praying against all hopes that this–” He nodded toward the unholy sprawl of information in front of him. “–would have done something to shed light on our concerns.”

Mendonca glanced down. “But, judging your expression, it didn’t,” he intuited.

Nathaniel gave a curt nod. Straightening his back, the wolf exhaled sharply over the diagrams in front of him. Circles and figures of organs and body parts wheeled outward. Blue ink scribbled lines of insane ramblings up and down pages, in margins and between other words, referring to documents that weren’t present–or maybe they were? Astra? Terra? Infernum? Every one of the beast’s most mushroom-addled fantasies fought for dominance all at once on every page. That still didn't include the shit from the satchel—which was an entire second and separate mess of unholiness. Candles? Bloodied rags? Half burnt, water-sopped papers?

Nathaniel wasn’t cut out for this kind of nattering shit. As far as he was concerned this was a map without a legend.

“Do we have a name for the missing beast?” Mendonca pressed, sliding the flask back into his vest.

“Cyril Monroe.” Nathaniel sighed at his First’s blank expression. It reminded him of just how few voyages they'd been together, that Mendonca wouldn't recognize the occasional, but recurring customer. “College type. Coal-feathered Avian gent? Works out of the Charinthossian Tertiary Institute?” He offered, tapping the pages as if that would mean something to the canine.

“So, a lawyer? What’s wrong with another one of them gone?” Mendonca’s joke almost got Nathaniel to chuckle. But, frustratingly, it did show that the gent didn’t know who he was talking about.

“Medical gent. The beast we ran cadavers for–” the realization snapped across Mendonca’s features, and his jaw went slack. “Yes–that Cyril-fucking-Monroe.”

The canine’s fingers traced the outline of the flask in his pocket, and his tongue ran over his teeth in a nervous gesture. Mendonca looked ready for a swig himself, but Nathaniel interrupted it with a meaningful clearing of his throat.

"So, we have bloodied rags, candles, pages we can't read, pages we can't understand, and a world-renown occultist that is just up and missing?" Mendonca's ears splayed.

“That, and whatever this… ‘shape of equations’ shit is.” Nathaniel picked the page up and squinted over its contents. He spat as he tossed it back to the pile of rabid hallucinations. He fought for words through a series of expressions and shakes of his head before settling on the only one that came to mind. “Fuck.” He slumped back in his chair.

Mendonca stayed quiet. The gent took his time to inhale around the threads of thought that settled between the clouds of dust and disgust. Nathaniel hated himself in part for it–but the beast was as perceptive as he needed to be. “Are you saying that he’s killed himself, or that there’s been a murder aboard this ship?”

The captain desperately wished he could avoid the question, but answered it before he could stop himself. “There are letters in one of theses stacks that means it wasn’t any kind of suicide, lad. The parts that aren’t repetitive gibbering are aggressive insanity, or pining for his wife.” Nathaniel rose from his chair, snatching the front of his shirt and tugging it flat against himself once more. He drew a deep breath. Gods forgive him for surprising his crew like this. “We’re changing ports.”

Any other sailor would have straightened their back and saluted. Mendonca raised an eyebrow, and tilted his head with every bit of ire that such a call would make. “Sir? We're expected in Basinport. We have cargo for Basinport.”

“I said what I fucking said," Nathaniel's voice boiled dangerously. "We dodge Basinport for Charinthosse; because this shit—” he jabbed a finger into the papers to punctuate his orders. "—is out of my depth, and I will not allow my poor judgment to endanger this crew further."

"Are you drunk after half a flask?" Mendonca demanded, ignoring the withering stare from the captain. "Let's ignore the brutal irony of you saying 'poor judgment' for only a moment; it’s three days with favorable winds and engines going to Charinthosse. We’re already scraping old tins and low on petrol; not to mention the delivery to Basinport are chemicals. Even if the crew were willing, the dodge would mean they miss not one, but two rounds of pay; I don't need to tell you how much those barrels are worth. First from the spurned delivery to Basinport, and then the carry from there to Charinthosse as intended. Beyond willingness, there’s the matter of supplies. The castanets have rotted–and gods only know that a dozen rods would have to do to feed feed this crew!”

Nathaniel was already moving, shoving the papers together once again to stack them, then fan them out in what he assumed was their proper order. “We cut rations to make it work. Nobeast goes to bed with a full belly; me least of all. And you can forward their wages out of what your family are fixing to pay for the ship,” he shook his head at the thought, but continued. The vague idea of seeing his son sooner wasn’t an awful thing either; Theodore always seemed to enjoy his visits. Stopping by Charinthosse first would put them a week ahead of schedule.

At least there was still time to sober up. Nathaniel sighed, and in the face of Mendonca's irritation, shook his head. “Basinport magisters are entitled fucks. We land there, and we rot for weeks and risk nothing being done. We’re all missing pay either way. Charinthosse would have us loaded and underway in half the time we would be waiting in Basinport, and I trust Arbiter Sybil’s judgment. I’ve never known her to be wrong about anybeast she’s ever hanged.”

Mendonca scowled, and—if Nathaniel knew him right—fought the urge to snarl. “And how would you like me to do that, when you haven't maintained the radio? It's 1926, Captain," Mendonca spat quietly. "This ship wouldn't need to be sold if you stopped punching the tides, and changed with the times."

"Watch. Your. Tone." Nathaniel enunciated carefully. He'd slid around the desk with a predatory grace, standing nearly chest to chest with the smaller gent, his head tilted down ever so slightly to accentuate both his taller, broader stature as well as his authority. Nathaniel's hard stare was finally enough to make Mendonca look away, and the wolf felt his throat boil one last time as he issued his final order. "I will issue the order myself, and risk the mutiny that follows. They'll know who is missing, and they will understand."

Mendonca allowed himself just enough rebellion to snort at the captain, retreating a half step with a sarcastic bow. "By your orders, Captain Locke."

Nathaniel pushed his way around his First Mate with a deliberate, ill-intentioned shove. Breath was dragged to the deepest parts of his lungs as he began to bay his commands—"All arms, main deck!" He howled the commands into the sudden rush of motion. His tone was enough to get everybeast aboard moving; his crew could be trusted to not waste any of his time. The diabolic papers were rolled into a tight scroll, and he searched the crowd for whomever was moving slow enough to justify striking them with it. He found his culprits immediately; a trio of forms shuffling close together, doing their best to lag behind and exchange furtive glances as if they thought they wouldn't be noticed. His passengers.

Cyril's companions. Doctors lifted directly out of stereotypes. The made to measure attires of professors and intellectuals—from silken black vests to white cotton shirt, and soft trousers. They'd even accessorized themselves with pocket watches and cuff links. Impatience and nervousness stormed around them as the trio kept their silent conversations going through the adjustments of a sleeve, or tapping against their pocket watches. Nathaniel's orders were ignored until he was within an arm's reach of them, his fingers tightening in obvious frustration as he was admonished by the obvious elder of the group; an otter with gracelessly graying fur on his muzzle, and thick glasses to cover an ugly, horizontal scar across both his eyes.

"What is the meaning of this?" The otter—Kendall Whitaker, if Nathaniel remembered correctly—demanded with enough authority that the captain had to pause. The outburst of undue disrespect was quickly stifled by a combination of two wolves raising an eyebrow at the shorter beast. Nathaniel didn't need the professor's wolf companion to offer such a withering glare alongside his own, but it was nice to know that at least one of his passengers understood decorum. The otter's companion, Doctor Douglas LaRauxe, exhaled forcefully to disrupt whatever violent impulses the captain's slight snarl betrayed.

"Forgive him, Captain. Otters know more about etiquette in the deltas than the tides. Is there an emergency?" The wolf asked softly, trying his obvious best to be the diplomat between the scarred professor and captain.

"Fucking strange question, from you," Nathaniel scoffed before he could stop himself. "You tell me; where's Cyril? The Amnesty's sixty three strides from stern to bow, and that's if you shorten your gait and take the long way. You haven't seen the beast who's set to be paying me and my crew for transporting you lot, have you?"

The trio fell silent until Victor Delagalle, the younger of the two otters spoke up. "Captain, Cyril isn't known well to keep us all company. Have you checked his quarters?"

"All arms. Main deck," Nathaniel commanded through a bite at the air. "You plead your case before the crew, or you keep your yapper shut."

He ignored them until they they sensed and understood his dismissal, joining the tail end of the scurry upwards. Nathaniel couldn't help but to feel he was corralling the three of them alongside Mendonca, who finally joined his side.

The day was just as beautiful as Nathaniel could have ever described it to be. Barely any clouds, a stiff breeze that filled the sails and shot them north-northeast. Beasts had already lined up in an uncomfortable drill and ceremony that each sailor remembered, but this crew rarely used. Columns and rows of shoulder to shoulder gents made a hallway down the main deck from the mouth of the stairs, connecting to the main mast. The doctors slid away to some neglected corner outside of the Captain's vision, and away from as much of the hateful staring that their presence seemed to suddenly invoke. The crew truly was an extension of Nathaniel—it was why he trusted them as much as he did. It was his honor, and duty to know them; they reflected that back by picking up on his incredible disgust with their passengers.

"First Mate Mendonca and I have confirmed by hea

s vessel would find shores. That word stands, but we need to know what happened to the avian gent, Cyril Monroe."

Any other crew would have broken out of rank, and into gossip, but not this one. Instead, all eyes silently turned toward the trio of doctors that huddled so close to one another in the far corner of the main deck. Nathaniel had to clear his throat to call their attention back, and unrolled the pages from his fist. "Now, one and all, I would understand and forgive the murder of Cyril Monroe if you step forward now, and make it known. If you do not, then I will do what I must as captain."

More silence.

More fidgeting.

More staring.

But no beast came forward.

Nathaniel exchanged glances with Mendonca, whose head lowered with a small, distressed swallow. Nathaniel closed his eyes, and inhaled around the final order he'd give, before the gods took this into their own arms. "Any beast who touches our passengers will hang. Medonca, fetch my compass. We're changing heading.”