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Two years ago, Captain Alva called out to me while I drifted from stall to stall alongside Harbourside Bazaar. "Vulper," she said with a voice that the captain had never used again, "come here."

She had not been the first Welk I'd ever talked to, but gods, she was the most impressive. Maybe it was her confident stance combined with that rough-and-tumble look that she had about her, with those scars that marred her fur, and the eyepatch that told stories I'd never hear, and that damned cocky and self-assured grin. With the crescent arms of the Isle of Ronald stretching out behind her, Captain Alva looked like the physical manifestation of a living deity.

"What's your name, Vulper?"

"My name, Madame?"

"Madame! Hah! Ahahaha!" Her cackling laughter rolled on, and on, and on. It was a sharp, booming, tumultuous thing that instantly drew the eyes of those around us. "Alva will do just fine. Are you busy?" She had not even given me a moment to introduce myself. Already had an arm wrapped around my shoulder, walking me along the docks. I was... How could I have pulled away from her? Not that I wanted to, at the time.

I swallowed down the sudden ball of nerves I'd felt in my throat and ignored the shock to my system that came from the familial affection she showed, then said, "Not particularly busy, no," as I struggled to keep pace with her large strides, "but, could I ask why?"

"You look like you know your way around town," explained Captain Alva as her voice took on a deeper tone that was very near identical to most male Welks, "and I need a strong drink."

"Well, there's-"

She squeezed tight on my shoulder as her fingers spread to envelop the whole of it. "No, no, no no no NO." I shuddered as we stopped just along the edge of the harbour. The sea lapped away at wooden columns with every push and pull of the waves. "Where I come from, nobody drinks alone. It's bad manners. You're not bad mannered, are ya, Vulper?"

"No," I whispered, finding myself drawn to her charm.

"Good." Her grin was wide, so comforting, and so refreshing to see amidst the endless sea that was Port Roanld, simply because hers, at the very least, seemed genuine. "Come on then, Vulper. Let's drink the night away."

And we drank.

We drank, and we ate, and we shared stories, and then we drank some more. Captain Alva regaled me with tales of the sea while I listened to the best of my ability, cradling close to my chest one of my first ever cups of whiskey. She ate as if she hadn't had a proper meal in years, told me that I was too skinny for a Vulper, and thus fed me exactly the same as she was having. Seafood had never tasted good in my life. She pointed at me with a blunted onyx claw, asked what my story was, and the next thing I knew I was drunkenly pouring my heart out to her. She listened, nodded, and remained quiet as I spoke of things I'd never told anyone in my life. Captain Alva was a good listener, or so I believed. We stumbled out, I far more drunk than her. I doubled over and vomited into the sea while she rubbed my back and told me that it was just my body making space for more. The thought made me laugh in between gouts of bile, but the next thing I knew was that I was aboard her ship drinking from her private reserve.

Her cabin was exactly as I remembered it today -- that's to say, it was an unruly mess, but well lived-in. She'd spent years here by herself, according to her, although I found that hard to believe. How could one person crew an entire ship. That was a tall order, even for Welk. But all the Captain did was sneer as she had a look about her cabin before telling me that, "I have my ways."

"But the work is getting a little... over my head." It sounded almost like an admission of guilt, as if she had done wrong by taking on so many tasks by her lonesome. Her eyes narrowed down as she cast them to the floor between her boots and said to me, "I've been trying to find hired help but, as you can probably guess, nobody has met my expectations."

"And," I slurred, paused, and tried really hard to get myself sober enough to talk, "what are your ex-pec-tations."

"Simple," she replied as claws tapped away at the chipped crystal of her now-empty glass of whiskey, "loyalty."

Loyalty.

Two years ago, after the best night of my life, when I thought I had nothing else to live for, I swore my loyalty to Captain Alva. And for the next two years, I lived.

As much as I wanted to, I couldn't go back to how I felt. It would kill me to pretend like there was nothing wrong in the relationship that I shared with Captain Alva. I couldn't keep taking the fall for the things I hadn't done, nor could I keep pretending like everything was going to be better when I knew, deep down, that it wouldn't. Knowing that I had turned my back on her tore my heart out; in turn, she always had her back turned to me, and that hurt just that much more.

Now, as I stood on the deck of her ship, I knew that there was no turning back. And, despite everything, I still waited for just a moment, for a sign, for a miracle that would fix all of the problems that I'd found myself wrapped around in. I waited because I knew that, once this was over, I--

... I would have nothing.

I slammed my knuckles against her door and listened, heart in my throat, as she shifted around inside. I heard her curse something under her breath, then something fell over and shattered -- glass. Another string of expletives left her mouth before it all fell to a sudden and dead silence that was broken only by the thumping of her boots. I heard her sniff the air because I knew that she'd be sniffing for a scent once she got to the door, and in that short amount of time between now and us seeing one another I asked myself, what was I going to tell her?

Each latch of her door's many locks came undone one by one with the sort of carelessness that I always associated with Captain Alva; it was as if she was trying to rip the locks from their hinges with every forceful shove. One rattled loose, the next had to be wriggled free with some effort, and the final one peeled itself apart with little complaint. Everything shook -- even I did -- as the door slowly pulled away from the threshold.

What met me wasn't Captain Alva's indifferent stare, but rather the barrel of her flintlock, a weapon as long as my forearm. I lost the semblance of keeping whatever conversation there was going to be under control as my eyes focused on the centre of that dark barrel, in which I knew there was a round lead ball primed and ready to fire. She held it so steady; as steady as the finger which hovered a mere centimetre from the trigger.

Beautiful weapon. Silver and black and gold. So many little fine and intricate details carved onto the surface of metal and wood, some of it professionally done while the rest had been hand-crafted with the pointed end of a knife. It was polished to an almost-reflective shine, glistening under what little sunlight managed to hit it while she held it up to my head. It -

"Vulper?" she exclaimed, surprised and... annoyed? "Hah... it's just you." The weapon had been dropped in the next moment, but she still held it tight to the side of her body, with that finger continuously pressed against the trigger. It, along with her behaviour, did not alleviate my nerves. More than anything, I found myself at a complete lack of words. She looked nervous -- dare I say, she almost looked afraid. Fear. In Captain Alva? Never had I seen the day, and yet looking at her now I couldn't help but feel some small sense of pity for her.

It was short lived.

"Get inside, you Vulper. Now." I was dragged in and very nearly thrown to the floor by the end of my collar. Barely got the time to see that Captain Alva had given her surroundings a cautionary glance before closing the door to her cabin. With every lock that clanked into place, I felt myself increasingly trapped inside this room, until at last I stared on at the captain with a wordless expression of dubious curiosity.

I could see now, her hands twitching, arms trembling, eyes darting left and right before grounding themselves on me. She sniffed loudly and rubbed the back of her hand under her nose, jumped at nothing, looked to the door and pressed her ear against its surface to listen, before again looking back at me, her hand's grip on that flintlock tighter yet.

"Captain I..." I could smell it on. Tell-tale scent of something that didn't belong. Something she shouldn't be taking. I still felt the need to ask because I knew, from experience, that Captain Alva shouldn't have been taking, "Spice? Is that -- were you taking Spice?"

"And what if I have?" she snapped at me loudy, her teeth clamping down so hard I was afraid they'd shatter in that instant. "And what if I have?! Huh! A-Answer me, Vulper!"

"N-Nothing! Nothing! I..." Even the fur under her nose was stained that colour of the dusty drug. I thought back to the Sommerian at the Golden Trident, knowing that Spice affected everyone differently, wondering why she couldn't have been more like him. More... controlled. She shouldn't have taken it, but gods forbid I told her that.

She was nervous. Didn't resort to Spice unless something really got under her skin. Two times, other than today, when I'd seen her take it, and each time--

I shouldn't have come.

"You have all your affairs in order, right Vulp?" She gave me no chance to respond. "Good. Good. Yes, good. You did well. You always do well, Vulper."

"Captain?" I held onto myself. This room... even this ship felt alien to me now. Back like the first time she brought me on board. Only now -- I couldn't stop staring at the gun. The way she was waving it around whenever she spoke, well it was far too careless, even for her. I almost found myself ducking whenever the barrel was inadvertently aimed at my head. The gun, and the Spice on under her nose, and... "C-Captain, what are you-"

"They. Them. Those. The people. Imperials." The more she talked the faster she got. The more her tail flicked. The more her one good eye would visibly throb. The more her nose flared wide as she took erratic breaths of air. "Service. The Service, you stupid Vulp! Hounds. Hounds after blood. My blood. They know. Hounds have the scent, Vulper. Hounds know where I am. I-"

"Captain!" I exclaimed, finding my own nerves growing increasingly frayed with every other word out of her mouth. Should I even be trying to do anything? After all she did to -- but she was afraid. So very afraid, in her own strange way. "Please, Captain! Tell me what-" I took a step to her and stopped when she leveled the flintlock at my head and told me, in no complicated words, to not take another step closer.

"They came after you left. You knew, didn't you? You knew!"

"W-What are you talking about?! Captain... Captain please put the gun down. Whatever you think I did, I swear-" I swear. Always swore. Always gave her my word but it never got me anywhere and now here we were. "I. Did. Not. Do. It."

"Explain yourself!" She screamed, and my one ear rang for it. I tried to talk but that gun -- I couldn't focus with her waving it around like that. Nothing but a dry nervous cough, that's all I could say to her before I tried to repeat what I'd wanted to say. But she pounced on the opening; she must have taken it as some admission of guilt because, as she spoke, I saw her finger nervously twitch on the trigger. "Talk! Or I swear I will put a bullet between your eyes, Vulper, and I promise you... I promise you that I won't miss."

"You kicked me out, remember?" I stammered, and at my words she wavered for a moment, her one eye briefly widening as she seemed to remember what had occurred earlier in the day, "You told me to leave and come to my senses. R-Right? I left at your behest, Captain. Whatever happened afterward, it had nothing to do with me."

"Nothing," she echoed, "nothing at all?"

"Captain, I'm not lying to you." Carefully, very slowly, I raised my hands in the air to show that I was no threat, then locked eyes with her again, and took yet another careful step in her direction. Captain Alva's flintlock shuddered as I stepped out of the way of her gun and wrapped my hands around her tense wrist. "You know that I'm not lying to you, Captain Alva. You can always tell, right? You-You always know when I'm lying."

"Always know," she said, her arm stiff, though now she aimed at nothing but the far wall of her cabin. Now I could see just how dangerously close she'd been to firing -- that finger; just one more twitch and the pistol would have gone off.

I swallowed it all down -- the fears and anxieties and dread at what was to come, formed out of knowing that my task had just become so much harder than it would have been -- and slowly did my best to ease her hand down. "Come now, Captain. Please. Calm down. Tell me what happened."

"Calm. I'm calm," she growled, then snapped at me with a loud gnashing of teeth, "I'm calm!"

"I-I know! I know! Yes, yes you're calm, Captain. You're very calm." I gritted my teeth and continued to pull her arm down despite her outwardly aggressive behaviour. "Whatever happened after I left -- it's over now, Captain. There was nobody else aboard the ship. There was nobody just outside your ship. In fact, on my walk back, I didn't see anything that could be considered out of the ordinary. Come, Captain. Sit down. I'll get you -- you can get yourself something to drink."

Her pupil was as wide as a saucer. She was almost unrecognizable and entirely inconsolable. The Spice wasn't helping. It never helped her.

Not that it was my job to calm her down any longer. Not now, and especially not after tonight. She wasn't so far from the truth, in all honesty. They were coming for her, and-

"We need to go."

"Captain?"

"What? What part of that did you not understand, you stupid Vulp?" She threaded a hand through the fur of her neck, hooked a finger into the collar of her shirt and tugged until it almost ripped at its seams, then again brushed her fingers through the thicker coating of fur. She didn't know what to do with her hands. "We need to go. Now. Tonight. Before the end of tonight."

"Wait, wait. But..." I took a step back, glancing about her cabin once again, seeing that nothing was as out-of-place as it usually was. Nothing other than the sea charts she usually had laying out on her writing desk. These weren't of Port Ronald or the Eastern Isles, but rather the mainland. She... she wanted to go to the mainland? "I thought you said-"

"Whatever you're about to say," she said to me with a dangerous snarl, "shut it, and listen to me." I'd not have done as she asked had Alva not lazily aimed her flintlock at me again. "I am not spending another day in this port, and neither are you. We are leaving right now. This instant. You have all your affairs in order so there's nothing that -- don't look at me like that, Vulper. You know that I'm right. Things are ending one of two ways: we leave on our terms or theirs. I am not going to leave on their terms. I am not going to be caged for months at sea. I refuse to-"

"You..." I cut in, tasting blood, feeling pain along the insides of my hands as I scratched, and scratched, and scratched myself raw, "You told me that... you told me that we wouldn't leave."

"That's ridiculous," murmured Alva, "I've never said such things."

"You said it yesterday, Alva."

"That's Captain Alva, you Vulper."

"Captain," I spat, and saw her tighten at the tone of my voice, "you told me that we wouldn't be leaving Port Ronald, much less the Eastern Isles. You said it. I remember. You... And now you want to leave?"

"They're coming after me, Vulper."

"Oh, yes. Yes! Of course." Something odd formed in me. Laughter. Laughter? And... pain. And exasperation. And- "The Imperial Service is coming after you, is it? They want your head. So suddenly it is extremely convenient that we set sail for... for wherever the hell you want to go, is it?"

"Of course," she said matter-of-factly, "Good. I don't have to explain myself to you. Smart Vulper. But don't much care for the tone of your voice so-"

"I asked, yesterday, if we could leave, and you shut me down."

"Vulper, I swear..."

"I practically begged for you to take the ship and set sail for somewhere else -- anywhere else! And you shut me down."

"Shut. Up."

"Because when my life is in danger, none of it matters, right Captain?" I pointed a finger much in the same way as she pointed her flintlock at me. Trembling. Terrified. So very... "But then the truth comes out, and they know that I wasn't the one who killed the Sommerian and the Perenisian because it is IMPOSSIBLE, Captain Alva! IMPOSSIBLE for me to have killed them! Because you tore them apart like a god damned ANIMAL! That's when it's okay to-"

The end of her gun came down on me fast, hard, with a sickening thump as the hard wooden butt of it came down on my head with the full force of a backhanded slap.

"Shut up!" She screamed as I stumbled back, hand to my head to hold the wound closed while I held my forearm across my face for protection. "Shut up!" she screamed again, closing the gap, pushing me back to a wall, striking me again, and again, until she'd split the skin of my forearm apart -- until she'd battered me down to the ground, where instead of a strike with the end of her weapon I got a kick to the shins with the sturdy end of her heavy boot. "Who in hells do you think you are."

"I didn't..." So much blood. Could feel it pulsing with every rapid beat of my heart. Got into my eyes, and my nose, and between my lips.

"Apologize."

"... kill. I didn't kill them." It hurt. Everything hurt. And yet I still forced myself to look up at her towering frame; to stare her in the eyes and say, "You killed them. And still, I took the blame. For you. I did-I did it for you. I-I took the fall and all I asked... all I wanted was for you to keep me safe. W-We are a team, right? And I did everything. And I tried so hard. And I ignored so much. But you... You couldn't even - ARGH!" She struck me again, harder, and backed off as I doubled over onto my hands and knees, desperate for air that wasn't there, gasping at nothing as my lungs collapsed on themselves over and over again. I could hear it -- boots pacing around the room, aggravated and anxious, as heavy breaths filled the air between my saliva-clogged coughs -- but I couldn't see her anymore. Just my hands; my two trembling hands covered in my own blood.

I sat back on my knees, head rolling on my neck, as I stared up to the ceiling to finally catch my breath. Panting like a dog. Careful to not breathe too hard because the blood would get into my nose and it... it would be uncomfortable, and... I didn't want to feel uncomfortable right now. I just wanted...

"You are -- you are rotten, Captain Alva." Licked my lips and swallowed my blood and coughed once more. "Rotten to the core. Just care about yourself. Nobody -- nobody but yourself. I-"

"Get up." She ordered it while aiming her pistol at me. "UP!"

And I did as she said, glaring as best I could, fighting through the pain and doing my best to ignore the amount of blood I felt like I'd lost. It wasn't... it couldn't have been much, but the wound on my head just kept spilling, and my forearm had opened up once more, and...

"We are leaving," she said as her hand -- the entirety of her arm -- trembled, as if she were diseased, "together. Now."

"I am not going. I am-"

"That is not up for debate, Vulper. You're coming with me."

"I am not going anywhere with you, Ca- Alva."

"What."

"I'm not going!" I yelled. "What do you want me to -- ignore all this? You want me to pretend like this didn't - I mean are you - are you listening to yourself?!"

"Stop yelling!" she snarled.

"I'm not coming with you! I-I quit! I'm not going to do anything for you anymore! I'm done! WE are done!"

"No... no, quit?" Brows furrowed tight. I could see blood dribbling from between her lips; blood and drool as I caught a wild look in her eye. She paced sideways, always staring at me, flintlock trained on my head, till her back was to the door. "No, no, no no no NO. No, Vulper. No, you're not quitting. You're not... You can't leave."

"I... I am," I stammered while wiping blood away from my eyes, "I can't stay. You can't keep me in here."

"You're not going anywhere."

"I'm not staying!"

"And who says you have a choice?!" she yelled, giving me pause when she shook the gun enough to make my heart jump against my chest. "You leave when I say you can leave, Vulper! It's how things are. It's how things have always been. It's how it will always be. Do you understand that?"

"That's not-" Not fair. It wasn't fair. But she didn't play by the rules. She'd never played by the rules. "You can't keep me in here, Captain Alva. They'll... They'll come for you, and you know it. They'll find me, and you, and they're going to take you-"

"Which is why we leave!" she cut in, loudly, spraying spit and blood from the inside of her bottom lip or her cheeks or... somewhere -- it came from somewhere, "Now! The mainland. What was it that you said? Y-You said it, yesterday! The place, where you lot come from."

"I'm not going."

"Gallaecia! You said it, right? You wanted to go to Gallaecia. So we'll go. Now. Go, Vulper. I'll look past this all. Get the ship ready to."

"I'm. Not. Going!"

She narrowed her eyes and spat, "You think you have a choice on the matter?"

"If I don't," I said, voice threatening to crack, as I held myself as tall as I could, "then I guess you're just going to have to... you'll have to..."

"Go on," she whispered as best she could while dipping that massive head of hers lower, as if to get on my level, but I knew she was just mocking me, "say it, you stupid Vulp."

"Kill me. I'm not going to help you anymore, so if -- shoot me, if that's what it takes. Good luck getting out of port without the Service getting to you first."

"Kill you?" She moved to me. I backed off. Every step of hers was a bounding leap, each of mine nothing but the terrified scurrying of a Vulper that had bitten more than he could chew. I'd meant it, all of it. If she wasn't going to let me go, then Captain Alva would have to -- I didn't want to die. A hand grabbed me tight by the throat as she pinned me to the wall, while the other held the flintlock right up to the side of my head. Buried the barrel into my temple, threatening to crush my skull. Burned -- it burned with how cold the barrel of her pistol was. "You think... you think I'm going to kill you, Vulper?"

I'd have stammered out a reply, had she not held me so tight. I could just barely breathe, but it burned. It ached. Like some was stuffing rocks down my throat. She squeezed, and relaxed, and squeezed again. It hurt to breathe.

"I'm not going to kill you, Vulper. No... no no, no." She shook her head with every word to emphasize the point as her eye... Captain Alva was practically swallowing me up with her stare. "No, Vulper. Killing you would be easy. I... So much defiance. I don't know what's gotten into you but I-I-I am going to tear it out of you. I'm going to break you."

"C-Ca-"

"Now. Clearly, I didn't do a good enough job over the last two years. Thought I had you well enough under control but... No. Now," with a trembling pistol still held to my head, and with hitched breath, a lick of her lips, and a hard huff of air, she said, "strip."

"Captain," I gasped, feeling that familiar and uncomfortable burn in my eyes. Burn from blood that got into them. Burn from tears that I already knew I wouldn't be able to stop. This... why couldn't she just... "Just let me leave. Please."

"Another word out of you," the gun fell from my head; she aimed it at my groin, "and I take your prick like I did your ear. Now, strip, before I lose my damned patience with you."

I felt sick -- the way she looked at me, like I was nothing to her. Not even a living person. Something to be manhandled and treated however she wanted, with no regard to my own opinions. Not much different from the last two years, but now... now I just...

Every part of me trembled as I slowly began to undo my trousers, feeling like any false move would set her off to do something I'd permanently regret. I shouldn't have even confronted her; should have just let Natél deal with her, but I needed that closure. I was... I was a damned fool.

She was right about one thing -- I'd lost my damned mind.

"Where's all that courage now, Vulper?" she spoke as I stood in nothing but my undergarments, feeling so suddenly cold despite the odd warmth of her cabin. "Gone, is it? Of course it is. Short-lived, like everything else you do. Take it all off, you stupid Vulp... like that, yes."

I backed up against the wall, tail between my legs, as she once again pressed the barrel of her pistol against my head. Captain Alva leaned down and took a deep breath, exhaling just moments after with a disgusting lick of her lips while she said, "You smell of fear, Vulper. Good. At least you know your place."

That large left hand came down on my groin, covering my sheath and tightly cradling my balls in a clasp that left me slightly breathless, while claws pushed against the sensitive skin of my taint as if to tear into it. Nothing would have stopped her. I pressed my hands to her chest and tried, desperately yet futilely, to push her away.

All she did was laugh as her hand started to squeeze. As fingers pushed into that tender flesh. As I felt a pain I couldn't aptly describe, and a regret I wished I'd never experienced.

"I should have taken these instead of your ear." Her tongue fell on my cheek and I... everything about me crawled with disgust as I whimpered a pathetic plea for her to stop. "Maybe then you wouldn't be getting so many funny ideas, Vulper. But that's alright -- we've use for them yet."

"Stop," I said as I tried to move my head away, tried to get away from that tongue that pushed into my space and slobbered all over me -- hot and sticky and large and wet and... I hated it. I hated it. I hated this. I wanted it to stop. "Please. S-Stop."

"...not stopping anything," she huffed as her tongue dragged across my head. She was tasting me, I knew. My sweat. My dirt. My blood. So much blood. She held her tongue to my open wound and groaned. Groaned as she lapped away at it, savouring the taste of my blood, swallowing it down like she would her collection of liquors. Groaned as she groped me harder yet, causing pain that numbed my mind and made me squirm as claws pushed against skin, fondling me against my will, forcing me to feel things I didn't want to feel now. Pain. Pleasure. I didn't want to feel pleasure. I didn't want to -- I wasn't enjoying this. I couldn't enjoy this. I couldn't-

"P-Please, Captain," but at the sound of my voice she just dug the barrel of her pistol into my head hard enough for it to hurt, shutting me up without her ever having said a thing. Message was clear -- I wasn't allowed to talk. Not now. Not ever. Not while she took what she wanted.

Taking what she wanted. Always taking. Never asking. Never-

"Getting hard, are you, Vulper?"

I hated it.

"Cry all you want, I know you're enjoying this. I'm enjoying it too. Should have done this to you years ago. Should have brought you aboard and fucked you senseless. Was a fool. Thought you'd learned your place." She almost moaned as her tongue fell on my wound again. More of my blood, more of my sweat, and even some of my tears now that she was licking those as well. Tongue almost got into my eye -- I had to close my eyes tight, and hold my breath, because seeing her and smelling her almost made me lose my stomach. "But you know it now, don't you? Say it. Let me hear you say it."

All I did was whimper before a gasp was forcefully drawn from my throat. Her finger, one of those long Welkish fingers, pushed between my cheeks to tease at my backdoor while the rough palm of her hand roughly massaged the crown of my tapered cock. I couldn't stop myself, I just... Why couldn't I stop myself?

"Good enough," she breathed as her tongue followed a trail of blood that ran down the bridge of my snout, till it fell flat and wide over my nose so that all I could breathe was that awful stench of tobacco and meat and blood that now lingered on her tongue. Everything about her was so...

Overwhelming.

Overpowering.

Everything. She was everywhere. All over me. Slobbering and touching and huffing. Massaging and groping and prodding with claws. Teasing me apart. Making me feel what I didn't want to feel. Captain Alva knew what she was doing to me. Knew that I couldn't stop her. Knew that I couldn't stop myself from wanting this -- feeling disgusted with her for how she touched me, and feeling disgusted with myself for wanting more, and more. Fighting with myself even as I struggled to pull away, to earn that little bit of space that she quickly took away from me by pressing herself so hard against my body that I could hardly breathe.

Her tongue fell atop of my head as she buried my face into her chest. That large tuft of fur -- like sticking needles into my eyes. I openly groaned as her hand fell around the slick length of my cock. Stroking me, hard and fast, with little care to how much it hurt nor how good it felt. I could feel it swell under her grasp, twitch, throb, precum spilling onto her waiting fingers as my knot grew inside my sheath.

Gun to the side of my neck now. Now to my cheek. Now to the snub where an ear once was. Now to the underside of my jaw, where it pushed itself up so force my head up, so that I could see the underside of her chin -- so that our eyes would meet, so that Captain Alva would glare at me with that victorious smirk before her mouth fell around mine.

Huge maw. My whole snout could have fit inside it. Her blood-soaked tongue forced itself into my mouth, spreading my lips apart and battering down my tongue as she explored the innermost depths of my throat. I gagged, and choked, as slobber drooled from between my open lips, as I tasted myself on her tongue. As I shuddered. As I felt my skin crawling. As I wished for it to stop and -

She moaned. I moaned. Locked in that eternal and never-ending kiss. I'd lost my breath and I couldn't get it back. My throat tightened around her tongue like it would a cock, and all she did was roll it against those clenching walls, prying me apart, before she filled my mouth with the whole of her writhing muscle to make me taste the depths of myself on her. Things I'd never tasted before. That blood -- gods it tasted so good.

This was so wrong. I pressed my claws to her sides and I pushed, but all it did was earn what almost sounded to me like a growl of approval as Captain Alva redoubled her efforts to choke me out with that beast of a muscle.

As I breathed into her and she breathed into me, I felt my sheath start to spread apart. Her finger. No, two fingers. I whimpered in pain, groaning, silently begging for her to stop as a third finger pushed into my sheath, around my knot, holding it in place just at the rim of it as she squeezed down on that sensitive ball of flesh. It itched and burned, her fingers inside my sheath -- too big; too tight.

I sucked on her tongue as it once again dove into the depths of my now-open throat. My hips bucked against her in a repeated shallow thrusting as those fingers explored around the inside of my sheath, painfully spreading me apart wider than I'd ever been spread before, rubbing at my most sensitive spots as if she'd always known exactly where to touch me, as I felt a growing pressure at my core.

Like fire. Like ice. Like a thousand frustrations and anxieties and hopes and fears all bottled up into that one pinprick of pressure just behind my knot. My knot, which spread my sheath as her fingers dove out of its depths, before suddenly sliding free with a final throb and twitch of my dick.

It was then that she finally withdrew her tongue from my maw. Inch after inch. So much tongue. I could only stare, wide-eyed, terrified at how much she'd buried into me, trembling in with... pleasure? Was it pleasure? How could I find myself enjoying this, when it was her tongue that I felt scraping along the insides of my slightly-bulged throat while she slowly eased it out of my body. How could I-

I sobbed right after I took that first painful breath of air that she'd been denying me for nothing but a few seconds. That's all it'd been -- seconds. But it felt like minutes, and those minutes felt like hours. Seconds was all it took for my body to betray me. I felt like... like an outsider within myself. Like I didn't belong in my own skin anymore, because now she owned this skin of mine. This body. She owned it all, all of me. I was just...

"See," she said -- I could feel her massive heart hammering against my chest as she squeezed against me, forcing my twitching erection between her thighs, rubbing painfully against the fabric of her trousers. But that warmth... how could I pull away from that warmth? I'd have tried, if only I had the room to breathe.

No, not even with that. If I had the space, I'd have been drawn to her. Not me -- my body. This wasn't me. This wasn't me!

It wasn't me...

"You're enjoying this, so why are you still crying?" I didn't answer. Just stood as still as I could, closing my eyes when her tongue fell under them again. She lapped, over and over, till my fur was slick with her saliva. "Gods, they taste good. Did you know that? I know why you're crying, Vulper. I know." She grinned while tapping on the side of my head with the end of her flintlock. I-

It would take one slip-up for this to end. Right here. It could end. Her finger was still on the trigger. If she just... if she just twitched. If she just...

"You're crying because you've realized just how wrong you really were, hm?" She almost laughed. Almost. That chuckle, the one she'd used so many times over the last two years, felt entirely disingenuous to me now. So fake and forced and... "Good. Cry then, if it makes you feel any better. Now... now... now, what to do with you. I..." She turned the gun to my head and commanded, "turn around."

When I didn't immediately jump at her command, Captain Alva grabbed me by the shoulder and spun me where I stood. Our bodies were still tight to one another, yet now she squeezed my face against the wall, pushing splinters past the fur and into my skin, while she grinded up against my backside. Her entire body easily wrapped around my own, as if I was made to be cradled against her. I wheezed with every rough thrust of her hips against my ass and gasped when I felt teeth fall around my ear.

Never quite biting -- a nip and a lick and a threat that she could take my ear with nothing more than a dirty bite against the base of it. I trembled, chill down my spine, as her tongue pushed into the inside of my ear. Even as I clenched tight fists and dug claws into my wrists, I couldn't stop my arms from shaking. I couldn't stop myself from feeling that warm muscle sneaking into places where it didn't belong.

Reached around to grab me by the cock, which was so tightly pressed against the wall and my abdomen that it felt raw. Tight, iron-like grip, as if she wanted to tear it right from my body with every shallow up-and-down stroke. With the tip of her tongue still exploring the depths of my ear, she said to me, "You're going to cum, aren't you Vulper?"

"N-No!" I groaned -- it was all the fight I had left in me because I... I had no chance of standing up to her. Not when she was like this. She'd never been like this. Why couldn't she just let me go? Why'd she have to... why couldn't she just...

"Yes you are. You are, and there's no stopping it. You're loving it." Teeth on the tip of my ear. I screamed as I felt them dig into my flesh -- a wordless, dry, desperate scream because even words refused to leave my body. More like a gasp that only encouraged her but I knew, I knew, that it was a scream. For anyone. For anything. For a sweet and sudden release as the pistol was jammed painfully between my ribs. "Say it. Say you love it."

"I-I..." With a sob, half-choked by a dirty cough, I whimpered, "... hate it. Hate you! I hate... hate this. Stop. Please stop. P-"

Her hand came over my snout. Tight grasp. Keeping it shut entirely. I could smell my own musk on her hand and it was... I throbbed at the smell of myself, and I also felt my stomach turn over into a thousand knots. So close to losing my stomach again.

"Works for me, you stupid Vulper," she exclaimed with a laugh as -- I felt my heart sink when I heard the clattering of metal against wood. Careless, it'd been so careless of her to drop a loaded weapon like that. Why couldn't she have been careless with it while holding it to my head. No chance for the quick exit. No chance for this to stop so suddenly. Not when. "F-Fuck. That feels good. Feels so good! Doesn't it!"

I closed my eyes tight as she panted and drooled into my ear. Her hand was between us, undoubtedly rubbing it against herself. I felt her pleasure through the way in which she'd lick up and down the inside of my ear before stammering something about how close she was, and how good it felt to dominate me, and how, "This is where you belong, Vulper. N-Now you understand? You understand. You better understand, else... else I... F-Fuck!"

Hand back from my snout to my cock. Painfully hard; I hurt so much, and it felt so good. Felt wonderful when those fingers teased the underside of my head, spreading precum across my shaft, banging against my knot while scratching at my balls. Rough and careless and so driven with a lust I'd never felt from anyone before. No love. No care. Just pleasure; unfiltered and primal.

Felt so good. "Please!" I moaned, and yet I didn't know if it was because I wanted her to stop or I wanted this to go on forever. "Please. Please. Please!" Over and over again and she loved it. Sang my praise. Called me a good Vulper who'd finally learned his place. Told me I was going to get my reward -- that we were both going to get our reward together. Said to me that she was going to teach me a lesson over the next few days, further putting me in my place. That she was willing to overlook this. That she was going to keep making me feel good for as long as I did as she said. As long as I gave myself to her. As long as I was entirely hers. Body, mind, soul.

"Hear that, Vulper?" She'd pushed her hand into her trousers. I knew because... I could feel it. Feel her hand rubbing up and down the length of her soaked labia. Could hear the sound of her fingers pushing into her entrance over and over again. The way she'd take a deep breath of me. How she twitched and while continuously grinding against my backside as if she had a cock of her own to penetrate me with.

Without so much as a word of warning she pushed her juice-soaked fingers into my maw. I should have bit her fingers off. Spat it out. Vomited what she was tainting my body with and yet -- bitter and sour. It was vile. Why couldn't I do as I thought? Why did my body -- I closed my eyes and moaned, sucking on her fingers, swallowing the thick strands of excitement that she'd forced on me as balls tightened, knot swelled, and cock twitched in her hand.

My one exclamation, my one warning, was the painful cry of pain and pleasure and sadness that I moaned into her fingers as I shot my load, so painful that my dick ached uncomfortably with every pulse. Hot, sticky, sickening. All over the wall. Against my stomach, Coating my shaft and sliding across my balls.

She yelled into my ear -- I could hear nothing now but a painful ringing -- as she reached her own climax. Hard, powerful thing. Her teeth came down on my shoulder, yet I couldn't even bring myself to scream as blood gushed into her waiting maw. Felt her tongue lap it up. Groaned as her teeth found their mark on my other shoulder. More blood. More pain. I could feel nothing. Nothing except myself, my insides all burning up with--

I hated myself.

"Fuck... Fuck... Gods be damned, I haven't felt so alive since..." I could almost feel her grin on the back of my head as she nuzzled her snout against my body. Her tongue lapped away, soaked in my blood, and I couldn't help but be reminded of the days when I was a pup, when I had a mother, and when she'd hold me in her arms to lick away till I fell asleep in her -- "... since I killed those two, I guess. And you, Vulper?"

"I..." Without her body and her hands to hold me up, I found that I had no strength to stand on my own two legs. I collapsed like my lungs would collapse whenever Captain Alva had choked, left on my knees, staring at my trembling hands, breathless, confused, unsure of what just transpired.

These hands. This skin. The muscle underneath, and the bone inside that muscle. It wasn't mine. It was... it wasn't mine.

"You..."

"You enjoyed it," she spat dismissively. With every step she took, I found it easier to breathe. Her chair creaked under the weight of her body. She groaned. Said something else to me; words that didn't quite reach my ears. Just background noise now. Noise to the ringing in my ear. The ringing in my head. The numbing of my brain and the total loss of all thoughts except --

What she did to me. What she'd done to me. What she could do to me again. And then... she wasn't going to let me go, was she? She wasn't...

"Vulper." Her voice took on a much darker, serious, and mildly concerned tone of voice, "Put. It. Down."

It? I... gun. Flintlock pistol. So impossibly heavy and large in my hands. Beautiful piece, even in spite of the amateurish carvings that Alva had stained it with. Expert craftsmanship. I knew that she didn't buy this weapon, nor had it ever been gifted to her. Scavenged, like the rest of her things, or stolen. Maybe she even killed for it. It was...

How did it get into my hands?

"You fucking..."

"Vulper..." She still didn't get up from the chair. Didn't take me seriously? Didn't think I'd do it? I aimed it at her -- had to hold the thing with both hands, so big it was, and even then I struggled to keep the thing upright from the weight of it -- and firmly pressed my finger against the trigger. Not enough to fire, but close enough that a twitch... it was just like she'd done to me. "If you know what's best for you..."

"... vile. Disgusting. ANIMAL!" And as I screamed, I felt fresh tears well up and break in my eyes. They streamed down my cheeks, mixing with blood that yet poured from the wound on my head. "I. Hate. You."

"You don't-"

"I hate you! Everything about you, I..." Swallowed hard. Somehow found the strength to get back up on my legs. All the pain... I still didn't feel it, but I knew it was there. I'd become so numb to it all. So numb to... to everything. But it hurt so much. "I-I'm leaving."

"You..." she scoffed, even laughed in my face, and said, "aren't going anywhere, Vulper. I thought I got that into your head. You can't leave me. You're not allowed-"

"I am not yours to do as you want. I-I'm leaving!" She stood, stretching out so tall that she could touch the ceiling of her cabin. I aimed the gun right at her head, or at least I hope that I did, but she did not so much as flinch. "I-I'm going to leave. I want... I want nothing to do with you, Alva. Nothing! I just..."

"What are you going to do, Vulper?" she asked while taking a single step to me. "Are you going to shoot me?" Disbelief in her voice. I could see it in her eye too. A Vulper shooting her? The thought must have been preposterous. "Put that down and kick it over to me."

"I'm not-"

"Put it down!"

"N-No!"

I backed away as she took another step to me. Back to the wall. I could feel my cum I'd sprayed on the wall scrubbing against the fur on my back. She took another step and I just...

"I'm going to shoot you, Alva! I-"

"Do it!" She screamed, defying me, trying to make me believe that I wouldn't do it. Never believed in me. Never thought I'd follow through with the things that I wanted to do. Always putting me down. Always- "You don't have the balls, you stupid-"

She froze entirely, audibly gasping as I turned the gun on the only other person in this room. For the first time I saw concern in her eye. The genuine fear struck me because she... she'd never looked at me like that before. I hooked my thumb around the trigger and pressed the barrel up against my chest. Before she could even stammer something, I said to her:

"Y-You're right, Captain. I can't -- I won't shoot you. I can't. But I..."

"Vulper, whatever you're thinking -- put it down!" She didn't take another step in my direction, but Alva did cautiously raise a hand, palm turned upward, as if asking me to gently give her back the gun.

"Y-You won't let me go," I whimpered.

"I don't want you to leave, Vulper."

"You're not giving me a choice! I don't want to - I can't do this anymore!"

"V-Vulper, wait, WAIT!" She almost jumped when I turned it on my head, pressing the barrel to the underside of my chin, right up against the tender flesh that ached as I swallowed a nervous ball of sticky saliva that didn't do anything to alleviate the dryness in my throat. "You don't have to-"

"I'll do it!" I screamed, "I'll fucking-" Turned the gun back around on her, "I'll shoot! I'll end it! If you won't let me go I'll," then turned it back on myself, then her, then myself. The gun audibly rattled in my hands as I struggled to make up my mind. She'd relax whenever it was trained on her and got all tense and wound-up whenever I put it to my head. She didn't care. Why'd she have to keep pretending like-

"Please," she said in an almost-whimper, "don't do this."

"Please? Oh, now you-you say please?" I scoffed in between another half-sob. Only now did I realize that my face was dirtied with a trail of snot that poured from my nose. I sniffed hard, felt that phlegm sit near the back of my throat, and swallowed. "Are you even listening to yourself?!"

"Vulp, I-"

"You used me!" I cut in, briefly letting the gun fall. My arms ached. It was too heavy. She took the chance to come closer and instantly I turned it on myself again. It kept her back -- kept her afraid, so very afraid for reasons I'd never understand. "You hurt me! You... You treated me like actual trash, Alva, for two years. I gave you everything, and you couldn't so much as give me - give me half of that!"

"I never hur-" she stopped herself. I caught it; caught her dirty lie; "- never would kill you."

"No, no. Of course not. Of COURSE NOT! What use is a dead Vulper to you, huh? That's what this is about. Pretending like you still care. Acting like-"

"I do care!"

"Shut up! Shut up! Just shut up shut up!" Aimed it at her. My finger -- I was ready to pull the trigger. It kept twitching and throbbing without my consent. My body just... it wouldn't listen to me. "Don't ever say that!"

"It's the truth!"

"You're fucked up, Alva!"

"For telling the truth?!"

"You're lying to me! Y-You're-"

"Look at me in the eye and tell me that I'm not telling you the truth!"

"You can't-"

"I would never let anything bad happen to you."

"But you just..."

"Why do you think I want to leave The Port now? If I go down -- Vulper, please stop pointing that pistol at yourself -- if I go down... who will take care of you?"

"W-What are you...?"

"Who will take you out to the seas? Who will..." She had to stop and think. I could see it in her eye. Captain Alva was struggling to find the right words. Mouth would open, lips would move, tongue would waggle inside her maw, but there was nothing except the sight of a Welk at a desperate loss of words. "... I need you in my life."

"S-Stop."

"I can't let you go, because I need you in my life, Vulper. Don't you see it?"

"It's not-"

"The things I did to you, I did because-"

"You hate me."

"I don't hate you. I never hated you. I trust you. I respect you. I think you're-" I held the pistol to my neck; less of a strain to my arms. Now, though, I didn't keep my thumb on the trigger. Now... now I was thinking, and... "I do the things that I do because I don't want anyone else to treat you badly."

"You fucking... you... I told you to - I told you... told you to stop, Captain. I didn't want-"

"I'm sorry. There. Is that what you wanted me to say?"

"Why didn't you stop?"

"You were enjoying yourself!"

"I hate it!" I cried. "And I hate you! I just wanted to go! I-I didn't even have to come here. I could have just left, but I wanted my closure with you! I wanted to say goodbye, and instead you just-"

"I'm sorry! Okay?! I'm sorry!"

"And despite all that... despite it all, you still won't let me go, will you?"

"I..." She was chewing on her lower lip. Her lack of response at my question was all the answer that I needed out of her. I knew... I knew she wouldn't let me go.

"Just let me leave, Captain. I-I'm tired. I just want to go. I want to... I just want to leave."

"I..." she shook her head and moved closer. She was bigger now. So much bigger. So intimidating. So... I put the pistol to the side of my head, once more giving her a reason to stop dead in her tracks. "We can... you want to talk? Fine. We can talk. We'll talk this through, just like you wanted. But I just... I can't let you go, Vulper. I care too much about you. Let's just work it out, hm?" Another step. Hand out to me. Had I not felt the shivers running down my spine, I would have fooled myself into believing her. "Give me the gun."

"I'm not giving it to you." Licked my dry lips. The strings of saliva criss-crossed across the inside of my mouth, clinging to skin like wet, yet dry, ropes of sand that felt uncomfortable in my maw. "I'm leaving this ship one way or another. Either I-"

"You won't kill me," she challenged, and... I nodded.

I nodded and said, "N-No... No, I won't kill you, but I can off myself."

"Vulper, wait."

"Just like that." My lips twitched into the slightest smile. "I'll be gone. Out of this ship. Out of your life forever. Just have to... you won't stop me. Won't be able to stop me."

"You can't do that to yourself," she said, gritting her teeth, clenching her jaw like she did her fists, before finishing off with a confident yet cautious, "I know that you don't want to die."

"N-No... No, I don't want to die. I just want to live. Why is that so hard, Captain Alva?"

"Vulper..."

"I just want to live."

"... I'm going to take a step to you, okay?"

"I feel awful, Captain."

"And I'm going to take that pistol from your hands and... we-you -- we can talk this through together. We'll move past this. Just don't... don't do this."

"I want it to end."

"We'll make it end!" she exclaimed. Fake attempt at a smile. Fake... fake everything. Even how she held herself, as warm and inviting as Captain Alva had ever been. Like a friend. Like a sister. Like a lover. "But together, hm?"

"Sorry Captain," I said, with a shake of my head, and a smile, "not together."

Closed my eyes, tight, tight, till I saw stars in the darkness. Barrel to my mouth until I choked. Breathed deep. Laughed, and -

Told my body to squeeze the trigger. Squeeze the trigger! I felt my finger twitch. Felt my body tense up. Waited for what I hoped was a sudden and quick pang of pain through my skull. Patiently... I waited so patiently. Why wasn't my finger moving? I breathed hard, so hard, it almost felt like no air was getting into my lungs. Opened my eyes and saw her staring at me with a shocked look of expression, waiting, watching, curious and cautious and terrified that I'd-

"FUCK!" Slipped it out of my mouth, doubling over, hands on my knees. I could feel a sudden buildup of saliva on the roof of my tongue. Swallowing it made me sick to my stomach. Made me feel acid burn the back of my throat. Tears in my eyes as I wretched, and coughed, and heaved, finally spilling the contents of my insides in a sudden yet weak stream of sickly green. Coughed, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, caught that awful stench of death in the air, and again vomited between my feet. It smelled like burnt alcohol. Rotten, all of it so fucking rotten. "I can't fucking... I can't..." Loud gasp of air. Breathe deep. Breathe hard. World was spinning around me -- Alva kept moving back and forth across my vision. My hands wouldn't stop shifting. I couldn't focus on anything.

"Are you finished?" she asked me and, weakly, I nodded. "Give me the pistol, Vulper."

"Just let..." I felt weak. My body ached, but I... Somehow, I found myself capable of standing upright again. Looking her in the eye. Even with how disgusting I felt, I still wanted to- "Let me go, or I'll kill you." An empty threat, I knew, even as I aimed the pistol at her.

"You can't do that."

"I'll do it," I hummed again. I'll..."

"You can't do that, Vulper." The gap narrowed, even while I aimed it at her. She was bold, or stupid, or maybe she was right. I couldn't even... couldn't even harm myself? Felt blood trickling into my eye from the wound on my head but I couldn't be bothered to wipe it away any longer. Still tasted like vomit on my tongue. "We both know that you aren't a killer."

Not a killer. She thought I wasn't a killer. She thought that...

She'd convinced me that I was.

I convinced myself that I was.

I did everything for her.

"You would have let them take me, Alva."

"That's not-"

"Hah! And you'd fucking deny it too?! You think I... You think I'm stupid?! You think I need to stay with you because they'll take me too? No, no... no, Captain, I... I'm safe!" I grinned wide at her, so wide, and happy, because I could see the expression of shock in her eye, and the dawning realization of what I was telling her. "I'm safe, and you're not! I'm free, Captain Alva. They'll come for you, and take you, and torture you, and fucking kill you, and I won't have to suffer you anymore!"

Her eyes narrowed, that caring tone of voice fell away to something primal and dangerous, and she said to me, "You ratted me out."

And I nodded, and grinned, and pointed with the end of the pistol, "I did! I fucking did! But you know what? You know what's hilarious, Captain Alva? They're not even going to get to you, because I want to leave this room, and we both know that you won't let me. So..." I shook my head and waggled the pistol and pressed my finger to the trigger, "guess I... I'm going to shoot you."

"If you shoot me, I am going to make sure you're torn limb from limb."

"You won't get to me." The wall behind me was all the support I needed. That wall, where she'd hung all her strange keepsakes. Charts and... "I... Either unlock the doors and move out of the way, or I'll shoot."

"You ratted me out," she echoed again, "and you think I'm just going to let you go?"

"You-"

"I extended you a hand, Vulper. Don't say I didn't try. Because I tried. Tried getting through to your head. Tried to help you. Tried to make you better. I was a fucking fool. You fucking-"

I tasted it in the air: gunpowder. It burned my fingers. It filled my vision with a thick and hazy smoke that burned my eyes. It hurt, it fucking hurt. Like all of the sudden a million needles had been pushed into my hands. The whole thing rattled out of my grasp and fell between my feet as-

Then... then came the sound. A deafening roar of thunder. A thunderous explosion that had to have permanently deafened me. Louder than Alva's yelling. Louder than distant cannon fire. Louder even than my screams when, once upon a time, Alva had taken my ear.

She looked down at herself. It was... I couldn't tell at first. Not with how dark her fur was. But then, not but a second later, I saw it. The darkening of black to a... it was like the shadow of a shadow that slowly slid down her chest. She just stared down at it, gasping as she touched at it with her finger to test, to see, if I'd actually... Was she in pain? Did she even feel it? She must have.

"You shot me..." Her words were laced with anger, shock, and disbelief. Her fingers threaded into the fur over her wound and came back out soaked in blood, her blood, for the first time. Not my own. "You shot me!"

"C-Captain... Captain, I-"

"You think that... you think that's going to kill me, Vulper? Huh? You think that's going to kill me?! I... FUCK!" She gritted her teeth and pressed a hand to the wound in some desperate way of controlling the bleeding. It didn't do much good. That blood... such a dark colour. It pooled around her feet like a shadow.

"I swear I didn't... I didn't mean to!" I had... Why did I shoot her? She hadn't even attacked me. She was just... she was just standing there. Why did I... "I'm sorry! C-Captain, please, I'm sorry!"

"You're sorry? Vulper I am going to..."

"I just wanted to -- I just wanted to go. I just wanted to leave. I..."

"You're not going anywhere, Vulper. You're..."

Instinct. It had to be instinct, or luck, or a combination of those two along with my anxieties. I saw her clench her first and I... it swung overhead as I ducked under, just below her arm, around her body, backing away to the cabin's door as I heard the sickening crunch of bone against wood. The BANG of her fist against the wall was nearly as loud as the gunshot. And her screams... she screamed the loudest I'd ever heard her do so in my life.

The pain of it all must have gotten to her. Or she was angry. Or-

"I'm going to kill you, Vulper!"

Alva charged at me like an ox, single-minded and hell-bent on tearing me apart limb by limb. I knew it would happen if she got her hands on me. It would... I ran. I ran to the first place I could find, out to the right, to her bed, which I jumped over before hastily grabbing at the first thing that got to my hands. I didn't realize what it was -- didn't know what I was doing until I turned to defend myself. I didn't want to die. I didn't want to...

She didn't stop herself in time. Maybe she saw it and tried desperately to turn away. Maybe she was so focused on me, and only me, that she didn't see the spear, much like I'd been so focused on her that I hadn't even realized that I'd grabbed it from the wall. We both didn't know what I'd done until she came to a sudden halt, the force of which knocked me back.

Alva gasped, grasped at herself, mouth agape in a silent scream as she clawed first to her stomach, then her chest, and finally the shaft of a spear whose serrated head had sliced cleanly between her ribs. She tugged, arms shaking, but muscles must have clamped around it too tightly. The teeth-like edges carved up her insides with every little movement. Even she couldn't stop herself from screaming out in pain. Even she couldn't keep the tears from her own eyes.

I crawled away from her, terrified, still unsure at what I'd done as the first few streams of blood spilled from between her lips. Like vomiting ink. Then she shook her head, and laughed, sickeningly gurgled on her own blood, and coughed a spray that landed on my face, my lips, my chest... the whole of my bare body was showered in her blood and spit and... and something sickly black.

"You--" She lost her words. Too much blood in her throat. Captain Alva choked as she swallowed it down both holes -- down to her stomach; down to her lungs. I knew. I knew what was happening. Knew I could try to help her. Knew there was no point in helping her. Another cough. Another spray of blood. Another weak and hopeless tug of her hands on the shaft of the spear she'd so loved to keep displayed on her wall.

Her mouth moved, but there were no words. Her tongue slid from between her lips; a sickening funnel of muscle for her blood to curl inside of. She almost... Captain Alva almost looked like she was savouring the moment. Savouring her end.

And as quick as it began, it was over. She was just... on her knees. Didn't fall over like I thought she would. Didn't move another muscle. Just stared down at herself, and at the spear, watching the pool of blood grow under her. She didn't even look at me. What thoughts ran through her mind? Regrets? Hopes? Fears? Was she religious? Did she believe in an afterlife, or reincarnation, or did she merely conform to the idea of nothing on the other end.

Was she thinking of me?

It took a few minutes. Raspy, pained breathing. Every inhale gurgled with blood. Every exhale released a new flood of her life-giving liquid. I moved to her, and I touched her leg, and looked her in the eye even though she refused to look at me, and I told her... "I'm sorry."

I spoke those words, watched her chest swell, listened to her groan in pain, before her eye flicked to me as a smile spread across her lips, and she said, lowly, the lowest I'd ever heard her say, "Murderer."

And finally... finally, Captain Alva drew her final breath.

"Captain."

"Captain Alva."

"H-Hey... Captain Alva."

I crawled to her, touched her cheek, brushed her fur. Looked down at her wounds. Looked up at that lifeless eye. That permanent half-grin burned to her face. That... she was warm. Very, very warm. Like... as if she were alive. Like a fire. Scalding hot. All of her. Every bit of her hot.

"I need to go, Captain," I whispered to her while taking a glance down at her wounds once more. She didn't move. I'd expected her to move. She didn't say anything either. She was... she was letting me go? "I need to... I have an... there's someone I need to see. You know -- you know. An appointment. Can't be late. You taught me -- Okay, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yes... yes, o-okay. I'm just going to..." I stood, brushed bloody hands against bloody fur, only smearing more of it on myself than I had cleaned off, and said, "... I'll just... I'll let you rest."

***

I had an appointment.

Someone that I needed to see.

Everyone looked at me like... everyone was terrified of me. I could see it in their eyes. They were... they'd gasp, and point. A couple of them followed me for a little bit as I wandered through the streets of Port Ronald. Others stumbled back away from me. One even went so far as to reach out to me, touch my fur, before exclaiming in a hushed tone, "Blood!"

They left me alone by the time I made it to the church. Maybe they didn't want to know what was going to happen to me. Maybe they'd gone off to report me -- I know at least one person had. Maybe they just... lost interest. It's the best I could hope for. In the end, I wanted no distractions. Nothing to take my attention away from -

The doors to the Church of Penance groaned under my touch. I could see it now, the way it'd been neglected for so long. Not something I took notice of as much my first time around. But now it made sense. Sister Ada's words rang in my head, the things she'd told me of people simply forgetting and moving on, and of how the church had simply fallen out of favour. She'd looked sad while telling me all of that, but I couldn't exactly blame her either. I'd be sad too.

It was always so dark and cool inside the church. All that commotion of the outside world -- it all fell away as soon as the doors closed. It was like stepping into another life, one in which the worries and anxieties and problems fell away into nothingness. It was just me, and the empty silent walls that towered so high overhead, the empty dusty pews, the long and spindly candlesticks, a chandelier, a red rug, that stained glass painting directly in front of me, and her.

She'd turned with that little smile of hers and it... it killed me. I watched her smile die and it just... it did me in. I couldn't stop myself. I couldn't...

Wooden sandals clopped against the cold stone underneath. She screamed something to me, I wasn't really sure what, and stopped just a few paces short of reaching me. It must have finally hit her, the overwhelming scent of blood and vomit and fear and death. It must have been awful. I should have washed up a little.

"Sorry."

She stammered, stopped herself, tried again, stopped herself again. It took her touching my fur to finally draw words from her lips. I tried, for her sake, not to flinch. It wasn't her fault, I knew. I wasn't about to punish her for something she didn't do. But that touch... I wanted to just-just scratch away the feeling of it till my skin turned pink and red and raw.

"What happened to you," whimpered the Perenisian nun as her fingers drew up to my cheek.

"Please be careful," I mumbled, "it's... dirty."

"What are you -- n-no, no. Who did this to you? We need to-"

"I wouldn't... I wouldn't worry about that anymore, Sister Ada." Her eyes turned up to mine. Golden eyes. Slitted pupils. Pools of honey, I remember calling them. Still an apt description. Endearing, intoxicating and... I could have fallen into them, endlessly, for the rest of eternity that was time. If only I had more time. "It's done."

"Done? What do you..." She stopped herself from saying more, having laid a strip of cloth over my shoulders, trying to urge me into the depths of the church. I didn't budge. "Come with me, please?"

"I can't, Sister."

"Vulp, I... come inside. Come inside, and talk to me. Something happened. What happened?"

"I proved you wrong, I guess." I took a deep breath, glanced around the church, and said to her, "I... I really don't belong here, Sister Ada."

"You do. Everyone belongs here. Please, allow me the chance to-"

"Not something you can help me with this time." Without thinking I brushed her touch away from my shoulder, and I took that strip of cloth and let it fall to the ground. Didn't want her bloodying her hands with me anymore than she had, even though... "I am a liar, Sister Ada. From the moment I came to this church, all I did was lie to you. I... I'd been lying to myself too, but I thought I was doing it for the right reasons."

She settled in standing in front of me, looking into my eyes. I noticed it, even though I said nothing of the matter -- the way in which she just looked at me, and not everything else that currently made me. She could have very easily kept her eyes on my open wounds, my naked, shivering body, or all the vile substances I was dripping all across her dirt-layered stone floor. Instead she looked at me, through me, past me, into places I didn't think anyone else had even tried to see.

For a small moment, as small as it was, she made me smile, and Sister Ada caught it, because despite the sight before her, she smiled at me too.

Then she said, "I was right, I wasn't I?" and when I nodded she didn't scream, or frown, or reprimand me for the lie, but rather she simply continued in a soft-spoken voice, "I understand there are... reasons why people do the things they do. I don't plan to hold it against you, Vulp."

"Well," I replied softly, the first to turn his eyes away from one another. I just looked at the ground and said, "maybe you should, considering that... I -- You really did waste your time, didn't you?"

"Waste my time? Oh, no, on the contrary I think that..." She licked her thin lips, turned her eyes down, and sighed. At a loss of words -- it's the sentiment that counts.

"I understand. You... ah... I just... I-I don't know how much time I have left." Glanced over my shoulder to the closed door. Something... Something told me that they were coming for me. He was coming for me, wasn't he? "And I just wanted to come here and apologize."

"Why?"

"Because you were wrong about me, Sister Ada. You really did believe that I didn't kill anyone. You really did think that I wasn't capable of doing it. For a moment -- for a day; for a few hours, in all honesty -- I believed it too. You were wrong about me."

"Vulp, please..."

"You were wrong. And I'm... I'm so fucking sorry."

"You don't have to-"

I sniffed, somehow managing to keep the tears in check. Didn't need more of them. Didn't need Sister Ada to see them. I wanted her to -- who was I kidding? Wanted her to see me strong? With how I looked. With how I acted? I was at my worst, and this... this would be the last she'd see of me. This would be her only memory of me, wouldn't it? Murderous Vulper, naked and shivering, terrified of the unknown, covered in blood that was his and now his own. This was how she'd remember me.

Best if she forgot me forever.

"If it makes you feel any better," I cut in, feeling guilty for having done so, but knowing that it was better than listening to what she had to say. I didn't want her to waste her time on me any more than was necessary, even if she wanted to try to help. It was just in her nature, helping people, but I felt myself beyond any form of redemption, "you really did help me. Even if it was short-lived, and even if things didn't really end... I... what I mean to say is -- you did a very good job, Sister Ada. And you should be proud of yourself."

I could see something in her eyes I'd never seen before. A twinkle in the darkness. Sadness? She didn't have to be sad. She just-

"You... you won't be staying in Port Ronald for much longer, are you, Ada?"

She shook her head.

"I hear that Gallaecia is nice this time of the year." I tried to add some... some emotion to my voice. Something other than impending dread. I hoped that it would come across for her. "Do you think you might find yourself there?"

"I..." She laughed, oddly enough. Very slight chuckle. "... yes. I've always wanted to go back."

"Would you go to the Capital?"

"I think I would, yes."

"Then... could you do me a favour, if you'd please?"

"Of course." She held my hands now. She didn't care if they were bloody. She threaded her fingers between mine and squeezed. I didn't feel so disgusted when she did that. This... this was genuine.

"There's a pastry shop across from... I think it was a bank, although I don't remember which one. It's called Rel's Fix. The owner, her name's Rel. A Vulper, a-although I guess that's a given? Anyway she sells these-these incredible little berry pastries. They're... really light and airy on the inside. The flaky sort, hm? But they have a..." I licked my lips. Could almost taste it, actually. Tasted so... "sour and bitter on the inside, but so, so sweet on top. It... trust me, it sounds odd, but it tastes so good. I've never seen them anywhere else, and I was so young the last time I had them I don't really remember if... well, who knows if Rel's still kicking it out there. But if she's there, and if she's still selling those pastries, would you have one for me?"

Pulled away from her hands. I could hear them at the doors. Ada looked above my shoulder as she heard the bang of a fist against the wood.

"I don't think I'm going to get the chance of ever tasting them again."

"Vulp, I'm-"

"Don't look, Ada!"

They were rough. I panicked because... this isn't the last I wanted her to see of me. Sommerians and Perenisians yelling for me to get down on the ground, swords to my neck, one of them grabbing me by the shoulder, pushing me to the stone, pinning me down while another bound my arms together.

"D-Don't look! Please! A-And I'm sorry, Ada! I'm sorry!"

***

I was brought aboard their ship, he said to me, "I'll keep you safe."

They had me in irons, clasps that bound my wrists together and kept my feet firmly locked to one another. Those two Sommerians that had stormed into the bar earlier today flanked me at either side, their arms hooked into mine as one last measure against my escape. It wasn't necessary. Just protocol, according to him, and yet... part of me didn't quite believe it. Maybe he did think I was going to try to run; maybe he thought I'd try something against him instead.

"When we get to the mainland, I'll keep you safe." At least they let me dress. Being covered in layers and layers of dry blood was better than walking out there naked for all to see. I just wished that they'd at least let me wash my face with some water -- the smell of it all, the smell of Captain Alva, was driving me insane. "I won't let them hurt you, Vulp. Got strings I can pull, favours I can call in, influence I can exert. It'll be a long trip, but I'll have something figured out by the end of the month."

We stopped at the ramp that moved up to the upper deck of his ship. Everyone was watching, from his crew to the crowd that had gathered just by the docks, kept at bay by a couple other officers of the Service. I looked at him with something resembling mild indifference as he told the two Sommerians to leave us alone, and then said in no uncertain terms, "You are making a lot of promises."

"Promises that I intend to keep," spoke the tall, handsome, and dangerous Welk as he set a hand on my shoulder. I visibly flinched, turned my head away, but with how bound I was I could do no more than feel physically uncomfortable at his touch. He got the message, as silent as it was, and quickly withdrew his hand from me. "What did she do to you?"

"Do you really want to know?"

He nodded after a moment. I caught the hesitation, saw it as plainly as I did the fear in his eyes when he first stumbled into Captain Alva's cabin with his two Sommerian officers that always stuck to his side. He couldn't believe his eyes at what he was seeing. The dead Welk, shot and with a spear through her chest, while I cradled myself in a pool of her own blood and mine. He must have seen something terrifying in my eyes.

Enough to warrant these chains, at least.

"She used me, Natél." Didn't even try to lower my voice. Whoever wanted to listen could listen. It was all over for me anyway. One of the Sommerians turned halfway up the ship. A Perenisian that'd been lingering on the deck peeked over the railing to look at us. Behind me I could hear the shuffling of feet and the quieting of the crowd's murmuring. "First she hit me, then she kicked me, then she forced me to strip at gunpoint, and finally she molested me." His ears fell flat; I could see physical pain in his eyes. I should have apologized to Natél, but what had that gotten me before? "Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"No," he said truthfully, "it doesn't make me happy to know that you suffered the way you did. I should have-"

"What? Gone to her earlier? Not allowed me to say goodbye? Taken action when you thought you should have?" I shrugged. "What would that have gotten you?"

"You wouldn't be here right now."

"No," I admitted while glancing down at the chains around my wrists, "maybe I wouldn't. Maybe I'd be somewhere better. Maybe I'd be somewhere worse. Do you have an answer for that, Natél?"

"I..." I saw the swell of his throat as he nervously swallowed. He didn't like the way I was looking at him -- I knew this because he wasn't making eye-contact with me as much as he usually did. I think he still felt guilty over what he did to me, as he should.

I really should forgive him.

"Don't answer that. I get it. What's done is done. And besides, I was the one who told you to hold off. I was the one that -- I did this to myself, so if you're going to feel guilty over something then don't let it be this because you had nothing to do with it." Amazing how steady I kept my voice. I was dying on the inside. Port Ronald's humid evening was physically and mentally exhausting. "Hey, do me a favour. Get this thing off my neck." He looked down at my collar. "I'm tired of it."

His hands fell around my neck. He was... careful was an understatement. Like handling a frail work of ceramic art. He barely touched me with the tips of his fingers, but even that was enough to make me feel sick to my stomach. Not like I was going to vomit, but rather an uncomfortable sensation at the pit of my being that I couldn't rightfully ignore. I swallowed once, feeling that uncomfortable collar tightening around my neck, before it suddenly came loose.

"Keep it," I whispered, "or toss, or burn it, or... whatever. I don't want to see that thing again."

"It'll..." he rolled it around in his hands, "we'll make use of it, to help your case."

"Right. Right." I glanced over my shoulder, back to The Port, and the people, and the stalls, and... I was never going to see this place again, was I? "Just stop making promises if you can't keep them."

"I'm a murderer," I said. "The Empire's going to skin me alive and you know it. You're not going to risk your career for me and you know it." He said nothing. Stiff as a board. So tight-lipped -- looks like I struck a nerve. "So please drop the act, Natél, and simply be honest with me for once in your life because I am tired of all the lies."

"Vulp, I-"

"And please, stop calling me that-that name. Vulp. That's not my name."

"What's your real name, then?"

I thought for a second, sucking on my bottom lip, nibbling, thinking, eating away my thoughts, thinking some more, then said to him with a carefree shrug, "I don't know. She took that from me as well. I... I don't remember my name."

"I'm not going to give you a name like she did."

"Then just call me a Vulper," I replied somewhat coldly and distant, "until I figure something out."

"I don't like that."

"Then don't call me anything." Was I hurting him? I wanted to apologize to him; I couldn't bring myself to do so. In my head, then. I'm sorry, Natél. He didn't deserve this treatment, even if he did. "Can we go now?"

"Yes." After a minute of silence, the Welk straightened out and barked to the rest of his crew, "We're leaving!" The two Sommerians came back to either side of me, and I was taken to my temporary prison.

Or so I thought. I didn't think that they were going to keep me in here for very long. It was far too comfortable of a room. It had a bed, and a writing table, ink and paper and a pen to write with. There were an assortment of books stacked one corner of the small room, and there was a chest at the foot of the bed where people could store things. It seemed well lived-in, and smelled of... wine, and pines, and the sweet pastries that one could buy at many markets of Port Ronald.

While I waited I looked through the selection of books: The Nine Rights of Welkish Men. Imperial Provinces, and all Her Territories. The Economics of Modern Gallaecia, Fifth Edition. So on and so forth; no fiction save for a couple of books I'd never heard of. One of them was about a man who travelled from one end of the continent to the other on an eight-year journey, the other was presented as an account of a Vulper's insights into the Empire's criminal underworld. There might have been a grain of truth in it, but I-

"Is he in here?"

I closed my eyes and whispered to myself, "Him again?" but I already the answer when the other, a Sommerian officer, approved.

"He's in there." Then, "Just warning you, he's not going to be happy."

I didn't turn to look at them because right now I just wanted to focus on nothing but these books. Although it was hard to pretend like I could ignore them too because they smelled so... Why was I still so attracted to their scents? And the sound of their breathing. And their voices -- sweet, careful, controlled voices.

"Did you not let him wash?"asked Natél.

"He refused. Almost got violent. You told us not to -- we didn't force him."

"Good. Leave us alone." His voice was now directed at me. "Hey... Are you comfortable?"

I shrugged, and turned, and looked at him, and saw nothing but a vaguely familiar stranger.

"Listen," he began, but I just shook my head and said;

"No, no... you don't have to explain yourself to me. Just doing your job, hm?"

Natél spoke up. "Come on. Don't do this to me."

"What am I doing to you?"

"Trying to hurt me."

"You have no idea," I whispered, "how fucking hard I want to scream right now."

He was visibly uncomfortable.

"Why are you here?"

He shifted a little, and sat at the edge of the bed. I turned my attention back to those books "Reintroducing myself formally, since I'm handling your case."

I sighed, rolling my eyes, and said to them, "Again with this..."

"I can help you," said Natél, "but I need you to help me."

"What do you want from me?"

"Anything," Natél said as he motioned with a nudge of his head to the bed. "Please, sit?"

"This is your room, isn't it?"

"It is."

"Then I'd rather stand." I looked at his tidy bed. The sheets were clean. "Don't want to dirty your belongings."

"Really," Natél began, "it's-"

"I'll stand."

"Fine... Fine. Okay. Yes. You can stand. I just want you to be comfortable."

"You can start with these?" I lifted my hands, listening to the rattling of chains, "Or... or maybe not. I get it. Protocol. Have to be careful around the murderer, hm?"

"Don't call yourself that," said the Welk.

"It's the truth. Isn't it, Natél?" He didn't reply. "Haaah... so, what? What do you need from me, exactly?"

"Your story. If you're comfortable with sharing it," continued Natél, "we don't wish to force you to-"

"You want the truth from me, don't you?" He nodded. "First I want the truth out of you. Think you can do that for me, Natél?"

"Anything," he said.

I whispered, "If I hate you so much, then why do I still find myself caring about what you think?" I swallowed to quell the nervous pit in my stomach and continued with a quiver to my voice, "Because I fucking hate you right now, but gods I just keep thinking to myself, 'I must look like absolute garbage to him right now.' I mean... I smell rancid, don't I?" We exchanged a strange glance that almost made me laugh. "Y-You must think I'm insane. No, wait... don't answer that. I don't want to know."

I slumped back against the wall, bent my knees, and slowly slid to the floor. I buried my face into the open space between my legs and hummed a muffled and exhausted groan. Natél put a gentle hand against my knee.

"We found this," he said to me lightly as I pulled away from his touch, curling into as tight of a ball as I could, "in Alva's ship. I'm assuming it's yours, right?" In his hand he held that image of me. Two ears. Big grin. Clueless as I'd ever been in my life. "You looked really happy then."

"I was," I said to him.

"Would you like to keep this portrait?"

"No," I replied very quickly. "It hurts."

"What hurts you exactly?"

"Everything," I said. There it was again. I was going to cry again. I was... Deep breath. It didn't help, but at least I'd tried. "I fucking... I loved her. I did everything for her. I... to the very end. I knew she was lying to me when she said that we could go, and that she cared, and that we could start new again, but I was so tempted to take her on that offer. Almost fell for that trap. But... even then, even when I stuck a spear to her, I... I still loved her. I still wanted her to respect me. I-I hate this. I hate what she did to me. And yet, I still apologized. You know what she said to me? You know what her last words were?"

I leaned up to him, staring at the Welk dead in the eyes, and whispered, "'Murderer.' She called me a murderer, and..." I shook my head and finished off with a single, empty, sad, "I hate this."

The Welk stuffed the image back from where he found it in her pocket and said, softly, "She used you."

"Like the rest of you did."

"But we want to help you now," he continued, not even trying to deny my accusation because he knew I was right, "Please, let us help you."

"Not like I have," a choice... No, I did have a choice, I felt. Would I be doing myself any favours simply by not being cooperative. I would be here, on this ship, for a while anyway. At least... My heart ached as I said, "I'm sorry. I guess... I guess I'm not being very kind to you, am I?"

"Don't apologize," said Natél, "it is understandable."

"It is," I said, and nodded, while resting my head back to the wall so I could stare up at the ceiling. Didn't want to look him in the eyes as I spoke. Didn't want to see how he'd react to the things I was about to tell him.

Captain Alva... she'd done so much to me. I ignored so much.

I fucking hated her.

I fucking missed her.

Licked my lips. Swallowed my nerves. Tasted Natél on the tip of my tongue and immersed myself in his almost-aromatic scent. I closed my eyes, thought back to that first day, and-

"It all started two years ago..."