act18d3

The tall woman carries Specter. The one Abyssal Hunter that Skadi understands to have survived the past several years, Specter, now lies on Gladiia's shoulder, dreaming another uncharacteristically tranquil dream.

The instant Specter's leader let slip a word, the singing vanished.

Skadi is dazed for a spell. From the port window rushes arid winds that only dry land could blow, brushing past Skadi's cheeks, almost dry themselves. She thinks to herself—this hunter is still alive, Gladiia is alive. Skadi has finally found another of her own.

No. It is Gladiia who found them. Yet...

I thought you were dead. You staked your lives to let us pass. I thought you were all dead.

Life is a precious thing. I am very happy to see that you, too, are alive.

Given Specter was still alive, I'd always been wondering whether or not any more of the Second could have made it...

How did you find this place? Specter... she's still better off staying in the ward.

One of the fiercest hunters in all of Skadi's mind chooses, at this juncture, to say nothing.

In Skadi's heart, doubt burgeons.

She's changed a lot. She may not necessarily recognize you now. Her body is still feeble.

Feeble? A hunter could not be feeble.

How long have you been on dry land?

Disease of the land, of a special kind, has hollowed her body out. The people aboard this ship can stabilize her condition.

In all these years, she's never come back to sanity. The current Specter is another person entirely. I don't know what it was that made her like this.

Gladiia does not speak, and the breeze blows through, her hair drifting in its wakes, covering her eye.

Skadi has realized where the problem lies.

Gladiia. Yes, you're Gladiia. There is no mistake. But what do you intend to do?

Where are you planning to take her?

I believed that upon dry land, the hunters were free. Have I misunderstood something?

No, Gladiia... she's still asleep. You never asked her... whether or not she wants to go.

You want to take her away from here.

You seem to show a great deal of interest in these new colleagues of yours. Do they not treat you too in kind? It would be but a passing motion for you to pinch their spines to dust, yet how is it you do not instill dread in them?

For these people of dry land to treat us with enmity is normal, but not for the ones aboard this ship. The ones I have met would not.

I still cannot fathom why you drop your guard.

No... I don't want to get them mixed up in this matter. The problem doesn't lie with me, nor them.

The problem lies in you.

Skadi takes a step toward.

What is your intent in doing this? You had best explain.

Hunter Skadi.

—On dry land, I will not constrain you with my rank of Consul.

Hm...

Yet neither do I have any obligation to explain myself to you.

I simply believe that I should have you know. It was I who took her, a member of my own company. This suffices.

Why?

You need not know the reason yet this evening.

But Specter!

—(Two Iberian words)—

Before the name fully reaches Skadi's ears, Gladiia has already slipped from the ship's window into the moonlight outside, Specter's limp body disappearing with her.

Skadi does not reach out. She does not even move.

She knows well that if Gladiia wants to leave, she has no hope of ever catching her; yet, if Gladiia only wanted to escape, then she would not have left any information behind.

She was seeking help, or she was hoodwinking herself. Skadi half-believes it, half doesn't, yet has no other alternative. At the least, she did not order Skadi to do anything, or not to do anything.

'Sal Viento.'

That is what Gladiia said.

Skadi cannot help but go.

Sal Viento.

This is far too unmoving a reunion.

What are you doing here?

Hey, isn't that Skadi?

She looks familiar. A little like the picture.

Ah! Haha, that didn't take any effort at all...

It's Skadi for sure. We hid in the right spot.

Hm?

Hey, see, she responded... and look at her face. That really is Skadi!

Still remember the 'Captain,' Skadi? We've got his money, and now we're gonna avenge him with your life!

You crackbrained idiot... you crackbrained idiot! I said this was a rotten idea!

Didn't we say using his money to run some cons would be enough?! Avenge my ass, bounty my ass! What chance in hell?!

Remember the rumors! If that's really her, you think there's a single cent in this for us? It'll cost our lives!

We'd better scram before it's too late! Grab your dumb scrap and run!

Pah.

You go crawling back to your shitheap bed cuddling burdenbeast piss and yelling mamá. You lose your nerve the moment a single long-haired girl says something to you. You want ME to go home empty-handed? No goddamn way!

You're right! Even if she really is Skadi, even if, what the hell can she do? She's all alone right now, isn't she?

We've got one, two... yeah, a bunch of guys!

But all those powerhouse bounty hunters are rotting in the ground, aren't they? She was alone then too!

And think about it, every time you say you have so many guys, does anything good ever come of it?

And who saw that? If you ask me, those guys? Maybe they just got drunk off their asses one night and all went into the same pretty little Kuranta's room.

Then she got her crossbows out her pants, went free-for-all, blew their brains to mush.

That's what rumors are! If all those wandering singers or whoever went around singing and playing without puffing their stories up a little, you think they'd make enough money to eat?

Splitting fifty mountains with a single sword, yeah, right... and I can punch a hole straight through Londinium with one fist!

Listen to me, brothers! If you wanna eat, come with me!

Skadi, Schmadi, we can put her down right here, and nobody can pinch our gold after! Add the bounty the others put on her head, we'll be set for the rest of our lives plus retirement!

I'll give you a choice. Run now, and you can live. I have no time to waste with you people.

Charge! Kill her dead!

(Ægirian) It's the rotted seagrass that clings most to one's leg.

I never thought it would be the annoyance of worthless bounty hunters that remained ever unchanging.

Skadi.

You've fallen, Skadi. The old you could've made chunks out of them with just a touch.

Mister José, I am not that bloody.

Hard to say. You've changed, then. You even gave them a chance to escape.

Possibly.

What wind blew you back here again? Why were they waiting to spring you—something to do with me?

I don't know.

I hear you're not in our line of work anymore. Joined some... pharma company? What are you shirking good, decent work for to tromp around these rundown outskirts again?

You're well-informed, Mister José. This time I need you to help me out.

The old man licks his rolling paper, and pulls out some second-rate tobacco from his pouch.

Several years have come and gone. Here I thought you'd folded, seeing as you went through plenty of Kazimierz bounty hunters. This far out from Kazimierz, and I could still hear word of what you'd been up to.

Always thought you only knew how to make big ruckuses.

But you've been quiet as this now.

You came roadrollering in all the way from Minos country like a tow truck, just to find me? Go on, then, tell me what you want.

I need to get to Sal Viento.

Sal... Viento?

Don't tell me. Even you've never heard of the place?

No, I've heard. Out of all us information peddlers, only I must've heard. The question's you—what makes you want to go there?

There's nothing there anymore. Few decades ago... close to nothing left after.

So close to such a vast patch of ocean, and you think anything'd be left? No better than bare frames left, letting the wind and all through.

Many bounty hunters wanting to get up to those abandoned cities, just like beastlings pouncing on a rotting burdenbeast corpse.

All of them thinking there's still meat they can pick off. They don't know whatever they swallow there might as well be a batch of poison.

Iberia. All of them think this unspeaking Iberia's just like Kazimierz and Gaul, treasure all over the map.

Hah, there's nothing there at all. When a place has nothing at all, it's likelier than all it could have anything.

So do you tell those bounty hunters anything?