The first time you followed the ship, Zayne thought you were a trick of light.

Moon on water. Phosphorescence shaped by exhaustion. He had been awake too long, hands raw from rope, blood humming with the pressure shift he felt before the sky admitted it. From the stern, he watched the sea breathe and something beneath it keep pace without effort.

When you surfaced, slow and careful, hair slicked dark against your shoulders, eyes too bright to belong to anything human, he did not reach for a blade.

That alone should have warned him.

He never told anyone. There was no one to tell. The Mishibijiw did not gossip. They obeyed. Amphibious panthers beneath the hull, all muscle and myth, cutting through water like air, surfacing when they pleased, eyes gleaming with old intelligence. They felt you before he did, a ripple that carried no fear. Curious, they murmured in their low, thunder-boned way.

Not prey.

So he let you follow.

At first, you kept your distance. A flick of tail in foam. Fingers breaking the surface, then gone. Sometimes a face, barely there, watching him like a puzzle unfinished. He told himself storms made men see things.

But you kept coming back.

He began to leave things. Rope. A spare knife. Once, a cracked tin cup. Each time, it vanished. Each time, something replaced it. Sea-glass. A smooth black stone. A bone charm knotted with kelp.

Trade.

He should have driven you away. He knew what men did to wonders, how awe turned into profit, into chains, into blood on a deck. Even alone, even with beasts bound to him, he knew better than to invite softness aboard.

And yet.

The night he cut the hole in the floor, rain slanted hard and he told himself it was practical. A place for you to surface unseen. He did not think about how it felt to imagine you there.

Your quarters were barely a room. Four walls, salt-stained wood, a lantern hook. The hole rough at first, then smoothed by his hands. Blankets appeared. Then a chest. Then a mirror that had survived fire and storms.

You learned quickly.

You learned how to knock from below. You learned his pacing, his silences. You asked endless questions. About knots. About songs. About why humans stared at the horizon like it owed them something.

Your innocence unsettled him more than fear ever could.

The Mishibijiw liked you. That sealed it. Great feline shapes rose when you came close, slick backs slicing the surface, heads breaching just enough for your hand to rest against scaled brows. When clouds gathered wrong, one loosed a sound not quite thunder, and the sea listened. They tolerated no one else like that.

He told himself he was protecting his crew.

The storm announced itself hours before the sky broke. Pressure dropped. Wind twisted wrong. Zayne battened the hatches, then went below one last time.

That was when he saw the light.

It leaked under your door, steady despite the ship’s roll. He moved without thinking, boots silent on worn wood.

Your door was ajar. You stood there. Standing.

Thin purple cloth draped over you, clinging where it should not, sheer in the lanternlight. Scales glimmered faintly along your hips. Your legs were braced awkwardly, learning balance meant for deck-plank sway.

Zayne stopped short and looked away.

The wall. The floor. Anywhere else.

“…That isn’t possible.”

Below, the water shifted. The Mishibijiw stirred, bodies circling closer beneath the boards, a low warning pressing against his awareness.

You turned, beaming. “Look,” you said, breathless. “I can do it. I fall sometimes, but less now.”

Thunder rolled overhead. The ship creaked. Water sloshed through the hole in the floor.

“You shouldn’t be able to stand,” he said, flat.

“I know. But I wanted to try.”

He glanced once and snapped his eyes away again, hand lifting uncertainly between you and the doorframe. “You should put something thicker on.”

You blinked, puzzled. “Is this not enough?”

“It’s… fine,” he said, jaw tight. “Just not appropriate for standing.”

Zayne swallowed, eyes averted, unsure whether the greater danger was the sea or you.