Meera sighed deeply.
She was slouched over the tavern bar, a leather pouch of gold lying open on the sticky wood right next to her cup of ale.
Her eyes, however, were fixed blankly on the gold coins brimming from the pouch.
It was certainly an enticing sight. The tavern owner swallowed hard every time he looked at it, briefly entertaining the fantasy of snatching it and running off to start a new life. But then he would raise his gaze slightly, see the familiar blue-haired captain, and immediately abandon the impossible dream.
She was not someone to be trifled with.
He preferred to stay in her good graces, just like everyone else.
She was one hell of a gorgeous woman, yet no one ever tried to make a pass at her, at least, no one who knew her, or who had learned about her the painful way.
She was like a queen here in Grayhaven.
Though she dressed in pirate-like attire, she wasn't actually a pirate. She operated more as an expert merchant and a highly successful scavenger of the sea.
People whispered that she was blessed by the Goddess of Fortune, or perhaps that she was the Goddess of Fortune herself because every time she left the shores, she returned with a hold full of treasure.
Goddess of Fortune.
Barton, the gruff man who owned the tavern and tended the bar, couldn't help but agree with the sentiment as he watched her.
Even now, she sat with a fortune in gold sitting casually in front of her. Anyone else would be over the moon to possess so much wealth, yet Meera wore a lost, almost upset expression.
The morning returning from the sea after a long week, though no one knew exactly where she had been, she had came into the tavern, adopted this exact slouched position, dropped the pouch on the table, and just stared at it, lost in thought.
"Hey, Meera. What's with the depressed face?" Barton finally asked. "You're making everyone around you miserable with that look. Aren't you usually the one grinning, smiling, and actually enjoying life?"
"Hmm." She offered nothing more than a dull hum in response.
The source of her deeply sour mood was, obviously, Ulrich.
Perhaps it was because she had still been slightly drunk when she had sailed him to his death, but ever since she had sobered up, and despite the vast amount of gold she had received, she felt strangely upset about the entire ordeal.
Why would he do such a thing?
Come back every day to look for me, he had said.
It already took a full day of travel just to reach the drop-off point, after she had returned after dropping him to come back again!
And he had spoken with such certainty, as if anyone could actually return from an abyssal scar torn into the ocean a thousand years ago during a mythical battle between a Human God and a Demon God.
It was absurd.
And Meera felt upset.
He was handsome and he seemed highly intelligent, so why on earth had he thrown his life away like that?
She had forced her ship to drop anchor at a safe distance from the Maelstrom, holding their position for an entire week so they could check the waters every single night. But nothing had happened, and on the seventh day, she had finally returned to port with a thoroughly exhausted crew.
None of them dared complain, of course. Firstly, because Meera was their captain and would gladly beat their asses into the deck, and secondly, because they had already been paid handsomely in gold.
"If you don't know what to do with all that money, couldn't you share a bit with this old man?" Barton tried.
He received a sharp glare in return.
"Got it, got it," he quickly raised his hands in surrender.
Meera stared at the pouch for another second before snatching it up and turning away.
"Hey! Meera! You need to pay—"
Before Barton could even finish the sentence, Meera flicked a gold coin back over her shoulder. It landed perfectly, smacking him square in the forehead.
Barton grunted in pain, but the moment he caught the gold coin in his palm, he grinned widely, flashing his rotted front teeth.
Meera walked straight to the harbour. A large section of the docks was permanently reserved exclusively for her ship; she paid an exorbitant rent just to ensure she always had the best berth available.
Her crew was milling about the deck, though a few were slouched on the pier below, drinking.
"Get off your asses. We're setting sail to the Scar," she said.
"What?!"
"No, wait, Captain!"
"Not back to that cursed place! I swear I heard the Leviathan out there last night, Captain!"
"We're gonna die if we go back, Captain!"
"Shut your mouths!" Meera snarled. "Listen up, you idiots! We are checking again because we are a crew of honour! We keep our word!"
"But we did keep it, Captain! For a whole week!"
"I am not counting the day it took us to travel back here," she replied, fixing them with a deadpan stare.
"No way!!"
"I am not a liar! So we are doing this one last time to find the very handsome, red-haired hottie with the beautiful red eyes! Understood, idiots?!" She shouted raising her fist to rile them up.
Her entire crew however stared back at her speechless.
"She just wants to make out with him."
"Definitely."
Incidentally, two of the crew members suddenly found themselves entirely incapable of setting the sails correctly, and were promptly sent below deck to 'rest'.
Soon enough, the Blue Wind set sail once more.
Hours passed, and surprisingly, Meera didn't touch a single drop of alcohol the entire time.
After hours of travel, she stared up at the night sky, idly toying with a pendant around her neck. A beautifully carved blue coin hung from it, and she rolled it between her fingers as she watched the stars.
"This is your last chance, handsome."
Thinking that, she slouched back against the deck rail. A few hours later, she was called over by Edmar, her second-in-command, a tall, burly man with a weathered face.
"Captain, we can't get any closer," he said.
Meera yawned and stood up.
"Give me the spyglass," she ordered, and Edmar handed her the heavy brass telescope.
She walked to the bow of the ship, climbed onto the railing, and stood precariously atop it. Extending the telescope, she pressed it to her eye.
It was pitch dark, but Meera could still make out the surface of the sea.
She scanned the horizon, sweeping back and forth, until she suddenly froze.
Far in the distance, the black water possessed a distinct, glowing purplish hue.
"Hey, morons! Keep going!"
"Are you serious, Captain?! We'll get swept right into the Scar!"
"Shut up and do as I say!"
The crew reluctantly obeyed, and the ship slowly crept forward.
Meera kept the spyglass locked on the horizon, a smirk spreading across her lips.
"Is this your doing, hottie?"
The ship pressed onward, slowly being caught in the relentless, sweeping pull of the Scar. Meera kept driving them forward, ignoring the crew's desperate attempts to dissuade her as they warned they were on the verge of losing complete control of the vessel.
"Stop!!" She shouted suddenly, throwing a hand up.
She pressed the spyglass back to her eye.
"W—What the...?"
She could hardly believe what she was seeing.
Something was floating on the surface of the sea.
It was a body, she could just make out the shock of dark red hair, but what truly stunned her was that it was being pulled away from the Scar, fighting directly against the current that was currently dragging her ship in.
It looked entirely unreal.
And the body seemed to be smoking, giving off a faint, dark haze that was either deep red or purple; in the dark, she could hardly distinguish the colour.
"It's him!" She shouted, jumping down from the bow to track the trajectory of Ulrich's drifting body.
"Turn the ship! Follow him! We have to catch him!"
"Captain, there is no way he's alive..."
"Do as I say."
They reluctantly complied, bringing the ship around, but they were fighting against the pull of the vortex and progressing agonizingly slowly.
"What in the hell...?" Meera narrowed her eyes, and suddenly, she understood.
It wasn't some kind of complex spell pulling Ulrich away from the Scar's gravity. There was a massive, creeping shadow moving beneath the water, and Ulrich was lying directly on top of it.
"We have to jump in and get him," she said, her voice dead serious.
Every single man on the deck shuddered.
Jumping into the water this close to the Scar?
It was a death sentence.
Meera looked around at her terrified crew and clicked her tongue in disgust.
"Bunch of wimps."
"We just wanna live to see another damn day, Captain!"
"Ain't no one wishing to live would jump in the water this close to the Scar, Captain!"
"Yeah, yeah, I heard you, you bunch of losers. Just watch and learn," Meera said. She rapidly stripped off her heavy coat, boots, unbuckled her cutlass, tossed her hat aside, and began tying a thick rope securely around her waist. "You had better hold onto this, or I swear I will come back and haunt every single one of you until I drag you all down here with me."
They all flinched.
"We'd never abandon you, Captain!"
"Yeah!"
"You're our Captain!"
"Much better," Meera smirked, and without a second thought, she vaulted over the rail and plunged into the sea.
The terrifying current of the Scar grabbed her instantly, and several men on the deck had to haul back on the rope just to keep her from being swept away.
But underwater, Meera's eyes suddenly flared with a bright, luminous aqua blue light. She thrust her arm forward, reaching out into the sea.
The moment her glowing hand struck the water, the violent waves and the lethal current immediately began to slow and soften in a tight radius around her body. Taking advantage of the sudden calm, she swam rapidly toward Ulrich.
The closer she got, the stronger she felt the presence of whatever colossal thing was slithering beneath the surface. It sent freezing chills directly down her spine, but she kept swimming.
Just as she reached him, she felt the massive creature beneath him shift, plunging deep into the abyss and abandoning Ulrich to the surface.
Without the creature carrying him, Ulrich was instantly caught by the Scar's current once more but he was swept directly toward her.
Meera grabbed him tight, wrapping one arm securely around his chest, and screamed toward the ship.
"Pull, you dumbasses!!"