[Indigo]

On the western coast of Desuna, on a beach that was mostly deserted, a few feet away from a boat that wanted to be a ship when it grew up, there was a small argument. It was shared between a tall brown woman with a mane of dark green hair and a nose she probably could have moored the boat to in a pinch, with a glass eye that sparkled purple and gold and didn't even try to look like a real one, and a vibrant yellow leawolf with stubby horns and an unusually muscular tail, who wore a sword longer than her body strapped to her side. The woman, Moss, was dressed like a pirate captain out of a movie, except that her sleeves stopped at the elbow; the leawolf, Arabella, wore a vest covered in pouches and a concerned expression. As it happened, the argument was not about any of these things.

"It's not that I don't trust your judgment," Arabella said—more or less true, in that she didn't know Moss well enough to distrust or trust either way, "but I would've liked to have more practice with the sword first before I had to fight something this much bigger than me."

"I get it, really," Moss said. "I was new once too, and it might have been a long time ago but I'll have you know my memory is excellent. The thing is that this is more of a pursuit mission—we're going to spend most of it traveling, tracking, trying to narrow down where the Leviathan might be. Or whatever it really is. Point being, we'll have plenty of time to work on your skills and see how we can best cover each other's weaknesses and so on."

"You think the captain was lying?"

"Eeeehh...I'd say more exaggerating for effect, to herself as much as us. If you want to feel big and tough then the thing that beats you had better be the biggest, toughest thing around." Moss's smile curved higher on one side than the other, courtesy of the scar that necessitated the glass eye. "It's not the only way to maintain a sense of self-worth, but it's a fast and easy one."

"Hmm." Arabella was familiar with the type, though in less fraught circumstances. When she'd been running the demon-hunting business, before she'd gotten fed up with all the ethical tangles and what-counts-as-a-demon-anyway and made a call to one of her mother's old friends, not a few of the people who hired her had done so with quite a lot of bluster about the fearsomeness of the creature currently occupying their basement/attic/garage/et cetera. Arabella was usually kind enough not to bring this up in the 60% of cases that turned out to be raccoons.

She'd feel better once the paranormal investigators got here. Moss's overwhelming competence and self-confidence should have been reassuring, but they intimidated her more than a little, especially in conjunction with the kind of work Moss did. Having at least one other person closer to her level around would make things easier, hopefully. Well, emotionally easier. The fighting part might be...less so.

[Mousen]

[Jess Croup] [J.P. Makins]

"The train?" The boy asked. He was in his teens, an expensive looking backpack slung over his shoulder. "I mean, it got us here and everything but really? Your plan to get to the middle of nowhere was public transport?" His accent suggested the kind of school where they taught Latin and valued emotional repression. He had a thin, slightly pointed face, an upturned nose, and mop of dark, shoulder-length hair.

The person walking next to him seemed to be a good few years older, and at least a head taller. They looked more like a barista than a paranormal investigator, with their halo of blue curls around their head, a pair of tortoiseshell glasses perched on their nose, and tattoos peaking out of a truly questionable button-down shirt. "I can't drive, Jess. I'm gay."

The boy-- Jess, shot them an unimpressed look. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"Listen, in any queer friend group-- I'm telling you, as you get older you'll understand-- there is exactly one of you functional enough to learn how to drive. It's not me."

"You're functional, J.P." They looked pained. Jess relented. "Well."

J.P. looked around the almost deserted beach. There were no voices here, or if they were they were so old and faint they couldn't make them out over the sound of the waves. They didn't bother to reach out and see, either. There was something distinctly eerie about a watery death, even as ghosts went. Besides, it wasn't what they were there for today anyway. Monsters were apparently the next step for Jess Croup and his team of barely-competent investigators. J.P. was almost hoping they didn't find any. Ghosts they'd grown up with, this was something else, a something else with much sharper teeth, for starters.

"I see them!" Jess called suddenly, pointing to a set of figures not too far in the distance. The boy picked up his pace, and J.P found themselves smiling at the enthusiasm. "Our first monster hunt," he grinned.

J.P. waved as they approached. They had to assume it was them, after all, the beach was empty and they were in the agreed spot. "Excuse me, are you Moss and Arabella?" They were an odd pair, even by J.P's standards and for a moment they found themselves wondering what the hell they'd gotten into. But perhaps this was normal for monster hunters? They weren't exactly the most normal of people themselves. "I'm J.P, and this is Jess. I think it was Vernice that emailed you about us joining your hunt?"

Jess, suddenly a little shy offered a soft "Hi," to the two of them.

[Indigo]

"That's us. Nice to meet you." Moss flashed a grin, and Arabella tried to read into it—were these investigators up to her standards? Did Moss even have standards? She retracted that thought the moment she had it, because while she sometimes found Moss utterly unfathomable it was at least apparent that she harbored some manner of expectations of practically everybody. How often they mapped onto reality, Arabella didn't know her well enough to say.

She'd spent too long thinking about this and forgotten that there were other people here she was supposed to be talking to. If her brother ever found out he'd call this typical; thankfully he hadn't wanted to come. "Oh. Yes. Hello."

"Have either of you ever sailed before?" Moss glanced at the boat. "Metaphorically sailed, that is. This thing has a motor, I don't have the patience for a chase that relies on the wind and my magic friends are all busy this week. And if you haven't, don't worry too much. I don't expect any of you to drive, I just want to know how worried I should be if there's an emergency unrelated to our quarry."

Crisp and efficient, that was how she always started out. There was a good chance some of that would be stripped away by the time they caught up with the monster. Arabella had accompanied the rest of the team on a couple of small-scale hunts before this one, firsthand experience being the best training available for this profession, and she wouldn't claim to be intimately familiar with the other hunters as people, but she had watched Moss leap into a giant snake's open mouth, cackling wildly, and you didn't forget that kind of thing in a hurry.

It was also why she'd agreed to this trip at all. A snake that could swallow a person was one thing, a sea monster that could tear a ship in half quite another, but if anyone could ensure her survival in such a battle it was Moss.

[Mousen]

Jess wrung his hands together for a moment, as if trying to gather together the confidence to speak. "I have, actually," he said. "My dad sometimes takes me during the summers. I can't... sail sail, but... I could probably figure it out?" Jess could figure most things out, given enough time or sufficient urgency.

J.P. wanted to roll their eyes, of course Jess had been sailing before. It was just the kind of thing families like his did. They bet he had a summer home somewhere too. Of course, it wasn't Jess' fault, and goodness knows the boy didn't need any more reason to feel insecure about anything, so they decided to move on. "As a team, we've done a lot of paranormal investigation, had a few run ins with a few other kinds of things too. Monsters are new territory though. Is there anything you'd like to brief us on before we leave?"

Jess seemed to perk up at the prospect of being told things, or perhaps it was simply the mention of monsters. "It hasn't just been ghosts, like J.P said. I've dealt with a few violent poltergeists, some demonic stuff, but monsters are new. I'm mostly good at tech stuff, recording things, dealing with data, researching sightings. J.P.'s the one who can actually talk to the ghosts."

J.P. nodded. "I'm not sure I'm going to be of any real use today." Other than making sure Jess didn't break his neck in some ridiculous stunt to get a better shot of whatever monster they found. The boy's enthusiasm was wonderful, but frequently alarming.

"Sorry, is that a sword?" Jess asked after a moment, pointing the very obvious sword the leawolf wore, and J.P. was already regretting taking a seventeen year old boy on a monster hunting trip.

[Indigo]

"Great! If something does go wrong we'll have some backup," Moss said. "As for briefing...hmm. Monster hunting is kind of a learn by doing line of work, if I'm honest with you, so there's a limit to what I can tell you that'll be useful. Especially since we don't know exactly what we're facing. Our best bet is going to be to gather as much data as we can along the way from whatever it's left behind, any sightings—though the captain wasn't too helpful on that front—and figure out a strategy once we have something to go on that's better than 'big angry wet thing'. Demonic stuff might be good, you never know. Arabella has a background in demon hunting and it's served her pretty well."

"I wouldn't give it that much weight," Arabella said. "Well, mine. I don't know about yours. But my experience with demons is fairly amateurish." She didn't actually enjoy admitting that, but since they were all going after a sea monster together it seemed best to be up front. "I'm not bad at negotiating with supernatural entities, but that...probably isn't going to come up on this job."

Moss nudged her shoulder, an admonishment for underselling herself, but it was the truth; Arabella could handle a sword, sure, but her approach to demons and things that maybe weren't demons, who could say for certain, was to ask questions first and shoot never if she could help it. You couldn't just go into a situation guns blazing without a full understanding of what was going on. Or swords...blazing. In her more whimsical moments she wished her mother had favored a weapon more suited to modern metaphor.

Then again, maybe Moss was nudging her because of some expectation that they'd be able to negotiate with this monster after all; the monster hunters told a lot of stories about their past exploits, and those included a surprising number of hunts that didn't end in fights. They had their own ethical concerns.

But that was the problem with gestures, Arabella had no idea what exactly Moss was trying to convey. A question for later, maybe.

She'd gotten wrapped up enough in this to completely forget the incongruity of her weapon. "Oh. Yeah, it's a sword." She reached around with her tail to draw it partway out of the sheath, revealing a blade swirling with several shades of green, which looked sometimes like carvings and other times like water dancing just below the metal somehow. "It's enchanted, though, I can promise you I wouldn't bring something completely unsuitable into this."

[Mousen]

J.P and Jess nodded. "I think we're better at negotiating than fighting," Jess said. "Although... we've held our own a few times when its been necessary." The set of scars down his back were testament enough to that, although the demon had won the first round, it had eventually become a classic case of "well, you should see the other guy". And what was a few traumatic memories and a pint of blood in the face of scientific advancement?

"If were mostly gathering information on this trip, I can reach out and see if there's any spirits here, and if they might know anything? It'll probably be mostly drowning victims, if there's anyone out there at all, but once we're on board I could give it a go?" J.P. hated reaching out to ocean spirits, if they were being completely honest with themselves. There was something about the deep, dark vastness of the ocean that tended to turn any lingering spirits into very strange creatures indeed.

Jess' eyes lit up as Arabella removed the sword from the sheath. "Oh cool! That's awesome! How does the enchantment work?"

J.P. tried not to smile too much at the boy's enthusiasm. "Shall we put the equipment onto the boat? You can gush about swords later."

[Indigo]

"Negotiators are at least as useful as fighters in this business," Moss said, "so I'm sure between all of us we'll do just fine." She raised her eyebrows at the mention of spirits, for reasons Arabella couldn't figure out, but said, "That's...a good idea. Or I assume it is, I'm not the ghost expert here. If you think it'll be helpful I'll defer to your judgment. Anyway, we should probably get going as soon as we can—big monsters don't usually like to hang around one place for too long, unless they're trying to draw attention. Which happens, but I don't think this is one of those." She shook her head. "The point being: you should load up whatever equipment you've got."

One of the side effects of this little speech was to provide a potential distraction from the subject of the sword, but ignoring the question outright just felt mean, and Arabella couldn't bring herself to be pointlessly mean to a teenager. Not that she'd have a very satisfying answer, but that was a whole separate issue. "I'm not entirely sure how it works. It's older than I am and I haven't been using it very long so I'm figuring it out as I go." Her mother hadn't exactly left instructions.

[Mousen]

J.P. shrugged, picking up one of the bags again and slinging it over their shoulder. "Its probably worth doing. For all we know I might find one of it's victims, if it, uh, has any. Just... the oceans are big and old and sometimes I pick up on things I'd rather not hear from, but that's fine." Reaching out and talking to the dead was their job, as much as the oceans made J.P. uneasy it wasn't going to stop them.

Jess followed suit. "Oh. It's an heirloom then? Is it like a passed down through the family thing?" J.P was sure Jess was imagining generations of monster fighting Leawolves and mythical swords lodged in stones and wizards. "Is there any chance--"

"No investigating the sword, Jess," J.P. hollered down from the boat. "Monsters are enough of a change already without bringing more magic into this."

Jess frowned. "It's still really cool though," he amended, before heading onto the boat himself.

[Indigo]

"Not exactly," Arabella said, although it probably did count as an heirloom now, or would after she died, assuming she did something sensible with it and it didn't wind up in a mysterious ruin underground like last time. But the sword, to the best of her knowledge, had been made specifically for her mother under circumstances that had always been a bit murky. She didn't really want to get into all that with strangers, though.

Moss waited for the investigators to finish loading up their things before following them, leaning over the side and yelling "All aboard!" when Arabella didn't follow right away. Arabella was not actually the world's biggest fan of boats, although it was a little late to say anything about it now. At least this was on the ocean in broad daylight with other people, and not alone in a swamp in the middle of the night. Small favors and all that.

Once Arabella boarded Moss got them started by some arcane method Arabella didn't observe—probably using the mysterious magical power of understanding how boats worked—and they were off in the extremely general direction of the area indicated by the pirate. She watched the shore recede with some apprehension.

[Mousen]

Jess looked like they rather enjoyed being out at sea. Certainly he already had some experience of sailing, open water probably wasn't as daunting an experience for him as it was for them. J.P. had some vague memories of being dragged onto a sightseeing river cruise at some point during their teens, but other than a few piers, they'd stuck to keeping their feet on dry land.

J.P. felt unsteady, less in a seasick way than an apprehensive one. Of course they'd known that sea monster hunting would involve sailing-- they weren't stupid, but it was one thing knowing it and another feeling the wind ruffling their hair.

Sshhhh... Shhhh

"Are you alright, Jay?"

J.P nodded, shaken out of their reverie. "Yeah. I just... thought I heard something."

Jess tilted their head to the side. "I'm just setting up. Do you think Moss would mind if I had a quick peek at the ships navigational equipment?"

"Provided you don't touch anything I'm sure it'll be fine, but ask."

Shhh...

"Moss?" Jess called.

[Indigo]

Moss had come back over to stand by Arabella, squinting into the water as if she expected the monster to come up from below them at any moment despite her earlier reassurances. She was in the process of making Arabella feel slightly worse about the whole being at sea thing, although that was almost certainly not her intention. "I've seen some weird things out here a time or two. Eels that come too close to the surface and have too many teeth, things that are shaped like people but aren't really, stuff like that. Not even things we'd come out here to find. They're just there. The ocean's like that." Her voice took on an edge of regret. "Once I thought I saw an old friend down there. I probably should've gone and checked, but I was in a hurry and now I'll never know if it was really him."

Fortunately, this was the moment Jess chose to call for Moss's attention, rescuing Arabella from having to ask her mentor what the fuck? It was the kind of thing Arabella tried very hard not to say except in extremis, but this was getting pretty close.

Moss loped over to where Jess was setting things up, casting her eye over equipment that Arabella was willing to bet she knew nothing about—not really a judgment since neither did Arabella—and said, "What's up?"

[Mousen]

Jess' posture stiffened as Moss walked over, casting her gaze over the equipment he was setting up. Almost as if he still expected to be told off, or that he wasn't doing it right. Or else, it was just Moss herself that Jess found faintly intimidating. "Can I check the navigational equipment please? I just want to make some notes for my records. Is that okay?"

Sshhh...

J.P turned around suddenly. It sounded like the waves, which they were surrounded by and should not have been unusual, except it was closer somehow. Like being whispered in their ear.

J.P. wandered over to where Arabella was stood, cleared a space on the floor of the boat, and sat down. It was dry enough, and allowed J.P to be more at her eye-level. "I can hear something," J.P. said, aware that they sounded ominous. They were quiet for a moment or two, their blue curls blowing gently around their face. "I think I'm going to have to try and see if it wants to talk. would you just... keep an eye on me? It's not, um, really dangerous for me anymore," They were aware this was not very convincing. "It'll be fine, just. If anything spooky and unsettling happens if you could just give me a shake? I should just snap out of it."  

[Indigo]

"Oh, sure!" Moss often seemed sort of oblivious to her tendency to intimidate, or maybe she was just trying to override it by being intensely relaxed at all times; Arabella could never quite be sure. "Here, come with me, I have some obscure wards up on this boat and you have to walk around some of them a certain way in order to see where you're going."

Arabella was not unaccustomed to ominous statements. Her brief demon-hunting career had involved far too many of them to count or have patience for, and the other hunters occasionally came out with them, although sometimes that was just because they were referencing things she'd been absent for. But, in any case, vaguely spooky comments from paranormal investigators were to be expected, she felt.

"Of course," she said. She was no stranger to this kind of thing, though typically encountered in less voluntary conditions. "Do I need to be worried about any...weird manifestations, or anything like that? I know you said it's not dangerous but people do sometimes overestimate their skill with things. Not to cast aspersions. It's just a pattern I've noticed, among people as a whole."

[Mousen]

Jess nodded, the look on his face suggesting that he definitely wanted to ask more about those wards, preferably with an opportunity for note-taking. "Thank you."

"I've been a trance medium my whole life," Also a trans medium, they thought to themselves, trying not to smile at the pun. "I understand where you're coming from but its... uh... where most people have a wall in their mind, and where some psychics have windows, I have a door. Or really I had a doorway until I managed to work out how to build a door. And no, no weird manifestations. Ideally."

They took a moment, resting their hands in their lap. They could hear the sea, the waves lapping at the side of the boat, Moss and Jess speaking inside and distantly, the cries of some gulls. They reached out further, looking for the sound they heard before--

Ssshhhh... Shhh...

There! It was always difficult for J.P. to describe what they saw when they were like this, images, feelings and sounds tended to blend into something that wasn't quite any of them, or all of them, or something. One moment there'd been the sounds of the sea, and a faint whisper, then all of a sudden J.P felt the push of a storm and the freezing air and wet clothes, something about loosing the cargo and shouts that were barely audible over waves and realising just too late they meant "look out!" Then falling, and darkness, and darkness.

J.P.'s eyes flew open, and they spluttered, clutching their chest and coughing. "That was deeply--" J.P broke off, hacking. "Fucking unnecessary!  Bitch."

They caught their breath a little, resting a hand on their chest. "Sorry. I'm fine. Poltergeist. It was a poltergeist, I think? Or it's just been down there a long time. Most spirits are nicer than trying to make you relive their deaths. Ugh. Sea ghosts are the worst."

[Indigo]

Arabella had only rarely encountered mediums—media?—in her life, and most of them had been passing acquaintances of her father's who had barely spoken to her, much less told her anything about the work they did; and Silas could speak with the dead, sure, but his was...a different way of communicating. This metaphor about doors felt simultaneously well-worn and new to her, as if she could have heard it a hundred times, because it worked, but until now she never had.

It was not quite enough to distract her from ideally. She kept her tail in position to draw the sword, just in case.

She watched in only slightly troubled silence and jumped back when J.P. suddenly moved, not quite drawing the sword still, because coughing didn't seem to pose an existential threat. Well. Not one a sword would be useful against. "Are you—are you sure you're fine? Wait. How often have you dealt with sea ghosts before?"

[Wild Pet Found]