The sound of swords clanked under the hot sun. Sweat that dripped into the eyes was wiped onto the floor with one hand while the other one lunged with the sword. Legs felt heavy and lungs were threatening to burst. The intense duel was in the final act.

“Come on Tori!” Baise chanted.

The rest of the crew was on the upper deck watching the duel between the two women. Baise was sitting on the wooden box swinging his legs in the air and waving his arms up in the air. The more excited ones, Maes, Alzono, and Julius, were standing on the boxes, jumping so hard that the box was cracking on the sides. Yuto was leaning against the smaller mast with arms crossed across his chest and his sword tucked in there. The more weak stomach members hid behind their hands.

It had been four days since Victorian began training with Elena. She was learning from Baise at first before Elena found out that he was skipping his chores causing the end of that tutor.

“Get up.”

Elena kicked Victorian’s sword back to her. Elena cracked her neck while she waited for Victorian to get up from the ground. She rotated her wrist as warm up and even though she preferred two knives, she was very skilled with a sword.

Victorian got up from the ground and picked up the sword. She combed her hair back, forgetting that most of it was gone, and prepared to try again.

She swung to attack aimed for Elena’s neck but it was easily blocked, at least the sword wasn’t knocked out of her hand this time around. Victorian used the momentum to spin around and just barely block Elena’s attack. Elena dropped down to the floor when Victorian stumbled and knocked her down with a swift kick. The duel ended with Elena stepping on Victorian pointing a sword at her neck without even breaking a sweat.

“We’ll continue tomorrow. L’Roux you’re next.”

L’Roux turned out to be both a great and horrible instructor as while his teaching allowed Victorian to shoot ten bullseye in a row, his lack of a presence made it hard to learn for more than two minutes at a time.

Just in time for a late lunch, Victorian arrived to Julius plating her dish. It wasn’t as fancy as the dishes she had back in Alphenrose but it tasted ten times better.

“Miss Tori, how is your training going?”

“It’s easier to tell you what doesn’t hurt than what does.”

“You’ll get used to it soon Miss Tori. Give yourself a few more weeks. How do you like your new hair?”

“A lot. It’s a lot easier to move around when I don’t have to worry about it attracting attention. I do think Lane isn’t fond of it since hers has been getting longer.”

“She hasn’t had time to cut it.”

“She can just use one of her knives when she isn’t too busy beating me up. Can we take it easy for today’s spar?”

“Of course Miss Tori.”

Victorian wiped her plate clean and washed it in the sink. After taking her time to make sure it was clean, she slowly made her way to the deck to where Thomas was. Since she still wasn’t sure what she was good at, her crewmates took it as their job to help her try everything, and they meant everything, until she found something. Everything was very painful.

Kiyiya became Victorian’s saving grace. Not only were his medical lessons a piece of cake, he also helped her from losing an arm and a leg. Unfortunately her medical lessons were placed last as Elena believed it was better to patch her up once than waste material patching her up multiple times throughout the day.

“Now apply the herb ointment and bandage it and you should be fine. Unless you use the wrong herbs but don’t worry, only two of the five choices are poisonous.”

“That’s good.”

“The other two are deadly since they’ll counteract the previous ointment. If you die, may I harvest your eyes? Kekekekeke.” Kiyiya asked with a smile that was just a bit too bright for Victorian’s liking.

Victorian gave a weak smile and focused her attention onto the five choices in front of her. They were similar in colour and each shared at least one property with another. One and four smelt the same, two and three had the same consistency, five and two were the same shade, and so on.

“It’s not two, the smell is wrong. It can’t be three because it’s too thin. One is. One is.”

“One is?”

“Wrong?”

“Wrong?” Kiyiya echoed holding back a joke about death since he saw Elena walk around the corner.

In the end, Victorian picked ointment number five, the second darkest in shade with a sweet scent and thin consistency. She applied it and wrapped it, since there was no burning or freezing sensation, Victorian considered it a success.

“No joke about death or losing a limb?”

“Well.”

“Lane walked by?” Kiyiya nodded.

The lesson ended and Victorian was finally free for the next few hours. She headed outside onto the deck to admire the night sky. Even though she saw the night sky before, somehow, on Going Sunny with the crew, everything seemed better. The stars shone brighter, the air was cleaner, and life was happier.

Up on the upper deck on top of a few crates Baise stretched his arms up and took another sip of rum. In the bow, Yuto was meditating and next to him Maes, Julius, and Alzono were playing cards and probably betting on the side.

Baise was the first one to notice Victorian. He silently waved her over and tossed her the bottle of rum. The two quietly sat on the crate and enjoyed the rum and stars. As usual Baise stared at the sky and Victorian joined him. The two enjoyed the night sky as the ship sailed off to Ahnemone well at least until Elena woke up for her shift and got everyone to go to work.