Faris needed money.

This wasn’t anything new of course. He’d been lacking since the day he’d washed ashore this strange land, but this had reached a whole new level. With mission on his mind and Krile in tow, it’d turned his usual mercenary jobs into a distraction he couldn’t afford. Not with Bartz’ safety on the line. So they’d coasted by on the funds he’d built up until then, but that could only last them so long.

So what was a pirate to do? Faris chose the obvious route. Pirating.

It felt good to be back to his old ways. Like a fish back to water or a gull back to salty air. He wanted to laugh at the relief of it -- at his pounding heart and the power at his hand. He’d taken to the life of a Warrior as well as anyone could, but his heart had always belonged to the sea. To the sea and the thrill of violent theft.

And so as Faris approached the last gangway at the dock, he did so with the strength and confidence of the captain he’d once been. The crew had already taken to unloading the cargo, and more than a few of them turned hostile eyes towards him, warning of danger if he didn’t get lost. Faris stopped in front of them, back straight and a fire in his eyes. One of the crew straightened to face him.

”What do you want?” The threat was barely veiled behind the ambiguity of his words. Faris smirked.

”I’ll be taking your gold,” he said. The man recoiled in surprise. ”You’re a lot of smugglers and rogues yourself, selling arms to the worst types. So I’ll be taking a cut of your spoils.”

The men darkened at that and every one of them turned to face him. Their eyes promised death. ”And where did you hear that?”

”You meet all kinds skulking in low places. I’ve not said a word about it. All I’m after is gil.”

The man laughed. ”You.” The man’s eyes trailed over Faris from his hairless cheeks to his tunic to his thin stature nearly half a foot shy of them. ”Well that’s the thing. A threat only works if you can carry it through.”

Faris crossed his arms and laughed loudly. ”You’ve got some brass. I’ll give you that.” He shot them a half-grin. ”But it’s more a warning than a threat. I’m no rat -- it’s not my style. But if you lot don’t surrender, I’ll be commandeering it myself.”

Something wary passed his face before he banished it. ”You think we’ll just hand it over?”

”Aye, if you know what’s good for you.”

There was a long pause. Faris could almost see the gears turning. Faris was too confident for a bluff, and his nearly inhuman strength wasn’t uncommon enough not to guess. But of course he didn’t comply. No man worth his salt would agree to being robbed.

”Get lost.” The snarl didn’t quite mask his unease. He turned his attention back to his cargo. Faris grinned.

”There it is then.” Faris pulled his dagger and held it towards them. ”Your final answer?”

Wary eyes met his blade. He saw a few hands reach for their belts. Greeted by only silence, Faris’ grin widened. ”I’ll make you change your tune.”

He called upon his shard of the water crystal, and in a flash of light, he’d transformed. His blue tunic faded. His scarf elongated into a cape behind him and tinted a vibrant red. His bandanna turned to a matching hat with a feather in its cap. At the end of it all, he faced them with a body full of magic and a sword in his hand.

He made short work of them.

With the crew subdued, Faris put his hands to his hips and leaned over them, exhilaration in his eyes. ”Where’s the captain then?”

***

In the end, they didn’t give him what he wanted -- or at least, not without a fight. He knocked down every one of them, and still the captain wouldn’t talk. So he bellowed his demands again, telling the lot of them that no one left until they handed over what he’d come for. At least, until the truce was pierced by a gunshot.

At first, Faris thought it was a cannon firing into the sea, but then came the sharp bite of metal into his shoulder. ”Why you lousy-!” He gasped through gritted teeth and staggered back, clutching at the wound and the seeping blood between his fingers. ”No-good, gutless-!” The rest of them were on him, brandishing swords and daggers and all other kinds of deadly blades. Faris jumped back, pulling his own sword to block them even as his vision swam with the pain. ”Curs!”

But it was him that was lousy. The devils had been smuggling weapons from the north, after all. What a sorry excuse for a Warrior of Light he was.

Faris forced a laugh even as he barely dodged the blows, barely holding off four snarling men by scrambling back and blocking desperately with the dull end of his sword. His crystal stirred in his panic, and he willed it forward with all his might.

’Change already! Change! Change! Change!’

The light engulfed him. The men recoiled in his moment of weakness, and Faris lept back one more time, clutching his shoulder as armor spread across his body in crimson red. His sword elongated into a wicked spear, and his hat twisted into the form of a dragon. In a second, he stood confident and powerful. This was a form he felt more comfortable in. He bore the strength of a wind drake and the ferocity of one too. His mouth soured into a scowl.

”I’d like to see you try that again, you louts!” Then his scowl morphed into a kind of deadly grin. He spun his spear in his hand and started forward again.

Their bullets glanced off his armor -- a sacred relic of a library long lost. He was vaguely aware of the shouts of the other dock workers and of scrambling feet, but he was too lost in his own adrenaline to care. With the wind his hair and weightlessness at his feet, he couldn’t help a laugh at the thrill of it all.

Piracy was one hell of a ride.

When it was all said and done, he stood confident and victorious on the beach. He spun his spear around again and planted the dull side into the sand. ”I’ll tell you one more time!” he shouted up at them. ”I’ll be taking your gold or you’ll have a meeting with the harbor! Now which will it be?”

ulla

Faris was drunk.

He’d promised himself that he wouldn’t drink, not with Krile around and not when they depended on each other, but he’d known deep down that wouldn’t keep him away. Not when his crew was still missing. Not when he’d lost Bartz, and not when he still didn’t know up from down on these shores he’d somehow washed up on. He’d deal with the shame later. Tell Krile something he knew she wouldn’t believe. But for now, the night was a passing mistress bidding him farewell. Or maybe that was just the last rounds of laughter echoing from the other drunkards as he stumbled away from their table.

”Aye! I can get by fine on my own! It’s just-..Just a few paces to the south! I think. A sailor’s guts never fail him! I’ll find it! I’ll-!” Faris let out a bark of laughter as he staggered over a bench he hadn’t seen. His knees throbbed with a dull pain that he didn’t quite notice. ”I’m a Warrior of Light, lads! I can handle myself!” He drew himself up, hands on his hips, and they whooped with applause. Faris grinned.

”You’re a step above the rest! All of you!” He opened the door, blinking sunlight hit him in streams. ”When’d the sun get there?” He shielded his eyes before letting out a slow groan. ”Krile’ll knock me senseless for this!” Faris took a breath and tried his best to steady himself.

He took a few more steps, stopped, regained his balance, and continued on. Was he swaying? He couldn’t be, could he? And what was that in front of him? He squinted into it. A dazzling, gleaming, blaring something glinting gold in the sunlight like a second sun. He opened his mouth to say something, but the second he took his mind off his balance, he found himself toppling sideways.

The golden something turned out to be a man, or rather the hair of one. He felt their bodies meet, felt his momentum topple into the other, heard the solid thud of flesh meeting the ground, and Faris staggered to the side, taking a sharp intake of breath as he muttered a thousand curses overlaid on top of each other.

He wasn’t that drunk, was he?

”You.” A voice came cold and sharp from the bushes. Out of their leaves emerged a man dressed in a way that Faris could only call regal. About a dozen different powders and creams smeared his face in deliberate arches. He wore silken robes accented in gold, and his hair was stringed with honest-to-god jewels. For a moment, Faris could only stare at him, blank and uncomprehending, as the man gathered himself to his feet.

Then the man laughed.

”I see. A drunken bastard too lost in his drink to apologize like a man, but from your looks and smell, it seems you wouldn't know how a proper man would behave."

And suddenly it clicked. Like a match flicked onto dry timber, his blood flared with the heat of a thousand slights all roaring together. ”’A proper man?’” He couldn’t help a step forward, head tilted in challenge. ”From the looks of it, you wouldn’t know a proper man if it knocked you upside the head!”

There was something about the man that rubbed him the wrong way three times over. Something about the way he spoke, the way he carried himself, that little laugh he gave without any humor in it. No, Faris had been wrong on first sight. The man wasn’t regal. He was excessive. Compensating. Faris knew regal, and he knew it carried a certain responsibility and respect. Lenna would never have acted like this.

”Aye, I’ll give you an apology once you wipe that smug look off your face! I might’ve done you wrong, but a proper man’d take it in stride!” Faris scowled at him. ”You self-important lout.”

ulla

”You really are new, aren’t you? Just washed up this morning then?” Faris shook his head. ”Aye, they take gil. Though if it’s the same as you’ve got, I can’t say. How about you see for yourself once we’re both somewhere warm?” Faris pushed his hair back from his bandanna and started ahead of them down the street. ”Stay close behind, lass. I’m not one to lose in a crowd, but I’d not take chances around this lot.”

He led her forward down the busy market street. Everything was complicated here -- a little too loud, a little too busy. The city was alight with machinery that Faris still didn’t know the name of and that was nothing compared to the lands up north. It wasn’t fair to call those lands another world even -- Faris had been to other worlds, after all, and they had nothing on all the flashing lights and metal up there. But Provo, at least, he could understand if he really put his mind to it.

Lenna would have known more what to make of it than him -- or Krile even with all her scholarly intellect. But Faris had a skill that aced both of theirs and that was adaptability. He’d found a way to survive just about anywhere as long as that place wasn’t Sonora.

”You don’t know his name then either? That’s a shame. He’d’ve liked to hear it, I think.” Faris kept his pace slower than usual so she didn’t fall behind. He didn’t trust the types around here -- not lately at least -- and Faris would know. He’d been one of those types more often than not, and he knew an easy target when he saw one. ”One way or the other, you’ll need to get your bearings. I wouldn’t hold your breath for old friends, but going it alone won’t do you much good either. This world’s not the best at welcoming strangers.”

”Have you got any magic? A sword, maybe?” Faris glanced back at her doubtfully. The sword, he thought, was a rough bet but you couldn’t always just by appearances, could you? The crystals meant he could change his look every other hour if he fancied it, and no one would have pegged him as a mage until he donned the robes for it. Of course, he still wasn’t much of a mage even with the crystal’s help, but it was the thought of it that mattered.

”If that’s the way of it then you’ll have a better time. Most of us -- the ones that wash up here, I mean -- we’ve all got something special hidden in our sleeves. And most of us are strong enough to knock a behemoth upside the head if you get my meaning. Not everyone around here’s so thrilled to have us, but it makes us a good sight short of useless.”

Faris stretched his arms out over his head, cracking his neck as he rounded a street corner. ”That’s how it’s been for me anyway. If you want my advice, know your strengths, find a crew, and run with it. But that’s enough of that.” Faris stopped at the tavern door, arms crossed. He nodded towards it. ”Let’s get you taken care of.”

ulla

No one had seen Bartz.

Faris had found his way to Provo on nothing more than a hunch. After he’d woken up in their rented room only to find that Bartz had wandered off, he’d set off into a wrathful search of the city, asking anyone he could find, searching high and low to no prevail. When Torensten turned up nothing, he’d wracked his head for the next best place to look, and that was Provo. So to Provo he went, all on the trail of an empty-headed boy who was more than happy to waltz head first into danger without any idea what he was doing.

”Have you seen a lad around here? About this tall, brown-hair, dressed in blue? His name is Bartz and he’s-...You, lass! Have you seen a man about this tall? Brown hair? Answers to Bartz if you call his name? He’s a bit thick-headed and-!” Faris let out a short, bothered breath as he was once again ignored on the street corner except for a few uncomfortable glances.

Lousy dullards! They wouldn’t stop if a poor lass was getting held up by brigands in the street! Faris scowled to himself and eyed the next few passerby with an almost hateful glower.

It was then that he noticed the girl.

She was a young looking blonde no older than seventeen all dressed up in white robes not too unlike his own as a white mage. She was laden with golden trim, a few ruffles, and a red stone attached to the base of her neck. Faris blinked at her, looking so out of place among the masses, and then noticed the way she moved, staring around with wild head movements and muttering to herself. She looked as lost as Faris had ever seen anyone, and with that innocent, doe-eyed look to her, she’d be a target to a bunch of ruffians by nightfall. Faris sighed watching her. It wasn’t like he was making much progress here anyway.

”Hey, lass! You there!” Faris crossed the street in purposeful strides, head-tilted as he approached her. ”Are you trying to get somewhere or are you just flitting about for the sake of it? I’ve learned these streets like the waves of the sea so I can guide you along if it suits you. Not much of a bother to me either way.”

Faris let out a short breath as he put a hand on his hip, appraising her. ”The name’s Faris. Captain Faris Scherwiz if a name be important to you. I’ve found my way across just about every corner of this world seeking out fiends and devils so if you need a turn in the right direction, I can give you a start.”

ulla