Chapter 259: STALL... and that WEIRD TAIL

Calvyn finally extracted herself from the fishing platform crowd, waving goodbye to like 6 or 7 people simultaneously, and crossed toward us with the kinetic energy of someone who had not slowed down at any point in the last several hours and was not planning to start now.

"Ahoy~! Hi guys!" She raised one hand as she approached. "So listen, before we go up— do you want to hear about the time we encountered a seven-tentacled— "

"Weren't you supposed to show us to our rooms?" Jisoo said. "Kaia mentioned it."

Calvyn blinked.

Then looked guilty about the fact that she made us wait, which told me everything about how long she'd been planning the tentacle story. "Oh. Yes. Sorry, sorry— it's just been a really long time since I talked to people from an actual… you know what, you're right. Follow me. Sorry for the wait."

She turned and walked back toward the plank, and we fell in behind her.

"Calvyn, right?" I said.

"Calvyn Reed, officially." She said it with the rhythm of someone who'd introduced themselves this way many times. "But just Cal is fine. Weird name, I know. The captain gave it to me when she adopted me, so."

"Oh," I said.

Then, because it seemed like the thing to do: "Si Hon. Kim Si Hon."

"Park Jisoo," Jisoo said.

"Alex," said Alex.

Cal looked back at all three of us while still walking, managing not to trip over anything, which was impressive given the bridge we were crossing. "Nice to meet you— Jisoo, Alex— and, hi, Hon."

A small color appeared in her face, just at her cheeks. "Wow. That feels weird to say. Kind of like calling someone my… husband— okay never mind, just Hon, got it—"

"It's Si Hon," I said. "Si. Hon. Two words."

She paused mid-step. "Oh."

"Si, with an S and an I."

"So— SiHon?"

"No, Si. And then Hon. They're separate."

"Si... Hon." She tried it. Nodded. Looked back at me. "Okay, nevermind, you have a weird name too. We're the same."

"We're not—"

Only Cal laughed at that, but she laughed enough for the three of us, and Jisoo, for exactly one second, was trying not to.

***

The plank.

Cal went up first, got to the top, turned and offered her hand back down in the easy way of someone who did this regularly.

I moved to take it first— then felt Jisoo's grip on my arm tighten very specific about that.

I'm not dumb so, "Nah," I said to Cal. "I'm good."

She nodded, not pushing it, and started to pull her hand back.

Alex was already reaching past me.

"I'll take it, actually," Alex said. "I need the help."

Cal but helped her up, looking faintly confused, and I followed on my own, Jisoo right behind me, and then we were on the deck and I stopped.

The ship was enormous from this angle. Not in the distant way it had been enormous when I was looking at it from the vine platform— enormous around me, the deck stretching in every direction, the scale of it something you felt rather than… oh my god I forgot the word.

I looked down at the edge.

The hull creaked under the water far below. The masts rose high enough that I had to tilt my head back to see the top of them.

The whole thing smelled like rain and salt and something I couldn't identify that, that was probably whatever monsters smelled like after you'd washed them off enough times.

Oh… and everyone here? It was busy.

3 people crossed in front of us, hauling a crate between them, not breaking stride, navigating around us without looking.

On the far railing… someone was scrubbing at something dark and viscous with a brush and a bucket, working at it in the way you worked at something that needed serious attention or probably not… and he's just doing it for the love of the game.

2 crew members were bent over a map spread across a barrel top, one pointing at something and the other shaking their head, both of them gesturing with an intensity of people who had been disagreeing about this for a while and planned to continue.

A kid— maybe 12, maybe younger— ran past us carrying three full loaves of bread stacked in both arms, entirely focused on not dropping them.

Somewhere below deck: CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.

Steady. Purposeful. Metal on metal, rhythm of work.

I stood there for a moment taking it in.

"It's lively," Jisoo said, beside me.

"I like it," Alex said, from my other side.

"We haven't even seen the inside," I said.

Cal was already moving. "Come on, I'll take you through the market deck first— it's faster than going around— and then we'll get you set up."

We reached it in just a few minutes.

The market deck was built into a wide section of the mid-ship, lower than the main working deck, accessed by a short staircase that opened out into something that I hadn't expected from the outside at all.

Permanent stalls, nailed directly to the ship's structure, bolted and braced for movement— not flimsy, not temporary, but genuinely fixed in place, each one occupying its spot with settled confidence of something that had been there long enough to become part of the ship.

Lanterns hung between them at intervals, the light was warmer here… for no reasons, and the sounds of the main deck faded into a different texture of noise— lower, more concentrated.

People moved between the stalls. Not browsing exactly, more like trading, exchanges happening in a quick practical way of people who knew each other and knew what they had.

We passed a stall where someone was repairing nets, fingers moving without looking, eyes somewhere else. Beside it, dried things hanging on hooks that I chose not to look at.

Past that—

"Oh," Alex said.

[The Bonewright stall….]

I didn't have another name for it yet, but it was the right name for me.

The person behind it was compact, weathered, with hands that worked with material that pushed back.

The surface in front of them was covered in items, all of them made from something that wasn't wood or metal but had the weight of both— bone, I realized, looking closer.

Monster bone, processed and shaped and finished into usable things. Hooks that curved in ways standard hooks didn't, the material denser, catching the light differently.

Handles for tools, fitted and carved, some of them still showing the original texture of whatever creature they'd come from.

Fishing needles, thin and strong, arranged in a row.

Buckles reinforced at the pin point with the same material, things that wouldn't fail under weight. Small pendants and charms in a box, each one different— some carved into shapes, some left near-natural.

And then, hanging separately at the back of the stall, displayed with a care of something that wasn't quite merchandise: A tail.

Long. Scaled. The scales were not fish scales— larger, more complex, overlapping in a pattern that shifted color slightly depending on the angle of the lantern light, green to blue to something in between.

The bone structure beneath the scales had been preserved in whatever process this stall used, and it gave the whole thing a shape that was both natural and uncanny. Not made. Found. Kept.

"What is tha—" I started.

"Mermaid," the stall owner said, without looking up from what they were working on. "Found, not hunted. Drifted up near the eastern edge about three months back." A pause. "Not for sale…. This is so valuable, oki?"

"Why do you have it out, then?" Alex asked.

They looked up. The expression wasn't unfriendly, just direct. "So people know what's in the water."

Jisoo looked at the tail for a moment then to me, and back to the tail.

"I see," she said.

We kept walking.