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It had only been a few hours since Gillion had left the undersea (not by his own volition, of course). He sat on the deck of the Big Chipper, the sun-warmed wood on his scales was a new feeling, one he enjoyed. The two captains of this ship were staring at him quizzically, though he couldn’t care less, as each second a new and wonderful sight, sound, or feeling graced him.
The sky was so bright his eyes burned no matter which way he looked, his undersea sight not built for anything nearly this vibrant or glowing. Once he got over that, he noticed his breathing. Air transferred into a set of lungs that he didn’t know he had, and had never been used. It was a strange sensation, oxygen going into his nose rather than his gills. The open sea was noisy as well. Waves crashing against the boat, some kind of shrieking flying fish, and the various sounds of ship maintenance coming from whatever the humans were doing to the boat. He hadn’t decided if he liked the loudness or not when his thoughts were interrupted.
“So, where are you from?” The brunette boy repeated. He had asked several times, though Gillion only heard the final one. He had none of the malice in his voice that Gill had expected from a human, rather, he spoke with genuine curiosity of Gillion's home.
“I come from the undersea.” Gillion said. He was glad he learned Common during his training, though the reason for the lessons were less about communicating with humans than they were for spying on them and threatening them.
“No duh,” laughed the girl. Her hair was a vibrant orange, a colour Gill had never seen before. Well, he had seen something similar in the undersea, though it was muted and dark from the low-light levels underwater. He wondered if she was… No, it was just a coincidence.
The group talked for quite some time, their conversation mostly consisting of a back and forth of questions. Gillion had learned that the girl was named Jay Ferin, and the boy’s was Chip. Upon asking, Chip explained that he had no last name. Gillion then stated his full list of titles.
“Wow, that’s not very many names,” Chip said, which caught Gillion off guard. “Pretty unimpressive if you ask me.”
“Perhaps I shall gain more titles over the course of this adventure.” Gillion stated. He thought he had plenty already, but maybe it was customary for oversea creatures to have many more. It didn’t seem Chip’s place to judge however, as he had only one measly name.
Jay laughed at Gillion's sincerity. “He was joking,” she explained. “Sarcasm, you know?”
Gillion wrinkled his nose in confusion. Sarcasm? He had never heard that word before, it must have been left out of his lessons on Common. “What is sarcasm?” he quizzed.
“It’s a joke you make where you don’t say… well you.. uh…” Chip struggled to elaborate.
“It’s saying the opposite of what you mean. To be funny.” Jay explained.
Gillion didn’t see how lying could be very funny, but he was determined to learn more about these humans. So he could exploit their weaknesses and destroy them, he told himself. These humans were just as bad as the rest of their terrible species.
Chip offered an example. “It’s like me saying, “I like your shirt” to Jay. It’s funny, because her shirt is actually very ugly.” Chip was immediately shoved off of the barrel he was sitting on, falling with a crash. Gillion didn’t really understand, but nodded like he did.
The sun began to dip in the sky, which was now an orange colour, much like Jay’s hair. Gillion watched as the ball of light began to disappear, and saw the moon take its place watching over the world of Mana. Little white specks revealed themselves in the sky, like pinpricks in fabric. Gillion found himself transfixed by them, the gorgeous patterns emerged, leaving him hypnotized. Jay and Chip both went inside the hull of the ship to sleep, but Gillion stayed on the deck, staring up at the night. He wondered if Lunadais was there, watching over him. He wondered if he was doing good, if this was really his destiny, to be on this ship, to have been exiled from his home. The stars twinkled unhelpfully in response. He checked the glass bottle tied to his hip and held it in his hands. He stared at the small pink creature that lived in the bottle, Pretzel, the one thing he kept from his home. He realized he hadn’t even told the other two about his destiny, how he was the chosen one. Maybe it was because he didn’t think he was worthy of that anymore. He was too tired to care. Curled up on the deck of a strange ship with a frogtopus between his claws, Gillion fell asleep.
The sun woke up just as soon as Gillion did, the jarring brightness once again overtaking his sensitive eyes. The pirates (that was what they called themselves) emerged from the belly of the ship, ready for another day on sea. They had also realized that they had no clue what to do with Gillion. He had heard them muttering about their next course of action all night, some ideas were more favorable towards him than others.
Chip approached Gillion, and without even a “good morning”, began a spiel advertising “the pirate life”, which really just sounded like living on a boat. One word caught Gill's attention however, which was Chip’s mention of thievery. He may be a battle trained war machine, but Gillion was no thief, and he would not abide by any stealing happening in his presence.
“Theft? Theft brings no honour, it is a disgrace.” Gillion was parroting the words spoken to him by The Elders. Honour, disgrace; both were used vehemently in the castle, so he decided to try them out himself. He liked them, he felt a bit powerful saying them. “The true glory comes from battle, not th-” He was cut off.
“Did I say thievery ? Gods, what an idiot I am sometimes!” Chip laughed, smacking his face, maybe a bit harder than he meant to. “I meant relieving . We will relieve people of their possessions, the ones they don’t need or want anymore! It’s a service all pirates do, really.” Jay nodded in agreement.
Gill squinted, he wasn’t supposed to trust humans, but most people in the undersea had never met a human, so perhaps they were more trustworthy than he was taught. After all, Chip knew more about pirates than Gillion did. Besides, it sounded like a very heroic thing to do, helping citizens remove their unwanted goods. A deal was made, and Gill decided to join their crew. It might offer a distraction from his exile.
After that, Gill was given a tour of the ship, and was taught how all the mechanisms and sails worked. Jay tried to teach him how to tie a knot, but the webbing between his claws made it incredibly difficult to do. Jay decided that knotting wasn’t the best job for him, and he agreed.
As he stared over the edge of the boat at the water down below– an angle of his home he had never before seen– Gill heard his stomach growl. He hadn’t eaten in a day, and even then, the last meal he ate was only a handful of seaweed. He turned to the captains, and asked if they had any food. A shiny red object was chucked at his head, which he skewered with his claw midair, stopping its flight. Removing the item from his claw, he stared at it. It was round-ish, a red-orange mix with some kind of stem coming from the top. He sniffed it, and it didn’t smell like anything. After deducing that it was safe to eat, he bit into the soft flesh of the fruit with his jagged teeth and was immediately shocked by the flavour. It was sweet and crunchy, with a sourness he hadn’t tasted before. Food in the undersea was all the same. Fish or seaweed, take your pick. There was never this .
“What is this?” Gillion asked with his mouth full.
Jay raised an eyebrow. “It’s an apple.”
Gillion nodded. “Apple.” He repeated.
Gillion continued eating the apple in big, messy bites. Jay and Chip teased him when he bit straight into the hard, unpleasant centre that he did not expect. He chewed on one of the small, teardrop shaped seeds, only to find that it tasted even worse than the core, and spat them out over the side of the boat. He tried feeding some pieces of apple to Pretzel, but she didn’t seem to care for them.
The boat sailed on, cutting a not-so-straight line through the ocean. Winds were fast, which moved the boat quickly, almost as quickly as Gillion could swim. Gill was sprawled on the deck, soaking up the sun into his scales, which were a much more vibrant blue-green colour on land than they looked underwater. A webbed hand dangled over the boat, just barely submerged. The water rushed against his hands, a steady torrent that comforted him in some strange way. Staring upwards, Gill watched the sky darken as the clouds blotted out the sun. A low rumble sounded in the distance, and the air smelled slightly different. Chip sighed as he readjusted the sails to match the new winds.
Gillion continued to stare up at the sky, his eyes wide with awe over this new part of the world he had never seen before. As he admired the sky, he felt something drop into his eyeball suddenly, and he quickly blinked it out. Then, he felt something land on his hand, then his cheek, then his chest, then sure enough, there was a steady downpour of water falling from the sky. Gillion stood up and felt it wash over him, his mouth agape. Jay must have noticed his awestruck face, because she walked over to him.
“Is this your first time seeing the rain?” She asked, her voluminous orange curls darkening and flattening under the wetness. He nodded. Rain. Sounded like a fitting word for the phenomenon.
“It’s like the ocean and land at the same time.” Gill remarked. Chip laughed a bit, showing a missing tooth in his smile. On second glance, no, not a missing tooth, it looked a bit more like a chipped tooth. Maybe that was where he got his name, Gillion thought.
“I guess that’s a good way of describing it. Ocean and land.” Chip leaned on the side of the ship, his hand slipping for a moment on the water slick wood ledge. “It’s not great for us though, a storm is never good for ships.”
Gillion wondered how it could ever be a bad thing. It seemed so magical and beautiful, to treat it like a hindrance would be doing it complete injustice. He opened his mouth and stuck his tongue out, catching the raindrops on his tongue. They tasted clean, not salty like the water he had known his whole life. Chip seemed taken aback by Gill's sharp-toothed maw, and his eyes widened in what looked like fear. Gill immediately shut his mouth, feeling bad about scaring Chip.
But… Why?
He was supposed to scare humans, he was supposed to hurt them, to fight them, to destroy them, but here he was, sitting with them on a boat, part of their crew, talking about rain. He was supposed to hate them. Why didn’t he hate them?
Because they were kind to him, he answered himself. They took him in, gave him food and a boat and friends.
He looked down at the sea, imagining the cities underneath, The Elders living their lives in the castle, his parents in their home doing their jobs, his sister living in the castle without him. He remembered something Edyn said to him years ago. “Find people who care about you , Gillion. Not your destiny.” He found them, he’s pretty sure. He hoped that Edyn wouldn’t mind if he stayed here for a while.
She wouldn’t.