I couldn't sleep. I kept twisting and turning and my headache wouldn't go away. My body ached and my shoulder insisted to remind me of how stupid it was to bang against the door several hours after I'd stopped.

Castor had gone to his hammocks hours ago, and everyone around me was at least pretending to sleep more than I was. I stared up at the ceiling in the room, then at the several lamps that kept burning all the time. Then I turned to stare at a lamp on the other wall.

My father had a strategy for falling asleep at night. He always said he pictured his home town, and he never had to say it, but my mother from before everything. I'd never been able to picture him not on a pirate ship or her not in the sea no matter how many stories he told me to the contrary.

I tried to imagine the room as my father's cabin. It had the same gentle lull of the ship. The hammock was courser, but it had the same gentle swing to it.

I closed my eyes and squeezed them shut.

I'd barely had my eyes shut when I woke up to the boat rocking violently. I was out of my hammock in a moment.

Habit had taken over before I remember one simple fact. I was locked in. The ship was going to operate without me.

I felt strangely disconnected as the ship violently pitched with me still below deck. Everyone was getting up, most of them with the same initial urgency as me, then the realization hit, leading to the group of us awkwardly sauntering back to our respective hammocks.

I kept my feet firmly planted on the floor to keep myself from flying into a wall.

I wrapped my hands around the edge of the hammock. I wouldn't drown. I couldn't drown. But if the ship sank, no one else had my advantage.

I rocked myself nervously. I hated not being at the center of everything. I half-imagined barging through the door and... and... I wouldn't be able to get anywhere up there.

Castor was standing next to me. I looked up, still rocking, and slid over.

"You ok?" He asked.

"I'm fine."

"Y-O-U W-O-R-K-E-D O-N A S-H-I-P?"

So he'd seen my reaction. I nodded. "M-Y D-A-D H-A-S A S-H-I-P."

"F-I-S-H-I-N-G?"

I could've lied. I could've let him think my father was a simple fisherman who only minded his own business.

"P-I-R-A-T-I-N-G."

His face was suddenly paler.

"T-H-A-T-S I-L-L-E-G-A-L."

I nodded, still rocking, but Castor sat rigidly so I didn't move as much as before.

"P-I-R-A-T-E-S A-R-E M-U-R-D-E-R-E-R-S."

I didn't have the energy to spell out anything more. I just shook my head.

"T-H-E-Y A-R-E." He insisted.

I stared at him and he held my gaze.

"A-N-D T-H-E N-A-V-Y I-S-N-T?"

He looked at me. He looked down.

"W-E-R-E N-O-T L-A-W-L-E-S-S."

But he'd gotten my point. He'd recognized his loss. He didn't try to start up a conversation again.

No one slept again. Even after the boat had stopped rocking, we all kept sitting up. I picked at my pants, the thought crossing my head the stolen ones had been destroyed in the transformation. I didn't want to think of the implications of that.

A feeling of companionship had grown sometime during the sleepless night. Even the awkwardness between me and Castor had numbed.

The peacefulness was interrupted when the single door swung open and several men, the two from the shore among them stepped in. The younger one had started yelling. I was never good at speechreading yelling. The mouth got too overexaggerated for me to keep up with.

Castor tapped my shoulder and started to translate. He was slow and clumsy, but he got the general point across. We were going to be paraded up to the deck.

We all bristled as the Kiserites moved in amongst us, jerking people to their feet seemingly at random. By the time one got close to me, I stood up and strode away, leaving Castor to get shoved after me.

The older man from the booth in the sea was glaring at me. Right when I was about to walk out of the room behind several other men, he jerked and grabbed my arm.

Several other people gave me sidelong looks and passed by me. Castor was putting up a good fight, only attracting the attention of other Kiserites. By the time everyone else had shuffled out of the room, he had about ten men around him and he was decidedly losing.

The man gripped my arm and stared disdainfully at the writhing cluster with Castor at its center. He wasn't on his feet anymore, essentially getting dragged across the floor. I felt bad, but by the time it occurred to me to help him, he was already outnumbered.

The man turned to me when he was sure Castor was subdued. He had practically non-existant lips and he spat a little when he talked. I closed my eyes and scrunched my face to try to protect myself from the flying droplets. That meant I saw very little of what he said.

I tentatively looked when I was sure he'd finished and he raised his eyebrows as if to say "Well? What do you have to say to that?"

"I don't understand you," I signed, my finger flicking up and my head shaking.

He was angry. I waited for him to start talking again, but his attention suddenly snapped away from me. He was talking to Castor, looking from him to me.

He gave his fellow Kiserites a sharp look and they backed away from Castor. He sat back up like nothing had happened.

He kept talking to the man, and then they both turned to me.

"H-E S-A-Y-S N-O S-I-N-G-I-N-G."

I smiled to myself. There's something satisfying about someone being afraid of you.

I raised my eyebrows and Castor looked like he was struggling not to smile.

The man next to me barked something else and Castor's face fell.

There was a moment of stillness, and then the men all drew guns that I hadn't noticed were tucked into their pants. One Kiserite cocked it and pressed it against Castor's head. I was vaguely aware another one had made its way into the jungle of my hair.