Eizen frowned, as he was studying the maps laid out in front of him. The first mate of the Aifread Pirates was currently sitting in the biggest part of the ship, a huge dining room where usually the captain and the highest ranking crew members would dine, drink and at times have talks together. Currently, the Earth-Malakhim was alone in the room, his only real companion being a sylphjay that had decided to stay on the inside, where it was warmer, rather than flying outside. The bird was doing much, mostly sitting in the corner and preening its own feathers.

Eizen let out a grunt, taking his gaze off the map and looking outside through the huge windows on the back of the ship. Even though the Pirates had lost their compass, he made a mental note to get a few spares, he could still say at least the rough direction they were sailing in. Around midday, the sun was in the south position of the sky and the Van Eltia was sailing with her front side pointed towards the sun, ergo they were currently going south. At least the rough direction, Eizen mentally corrected. Using the sun as a way to determine in which direction you're really going is a last-ditch maneuver, when on the open sea. Because the planet was always moving around the sun, no one could really tell whether they were going southeast, southwest or anything in between. Even worse, without any landmarks (islands, rock formations and so on) to go on, he couldn't even tell where they currently were positioned. Evidently, the storm had thrown the ship around a lot, but they still should be somewhat near Hellawes. After all, that had been their new destination, before the storm hit them anyway. His hope was by going south, they would eventually come close to the mainland, after which it would be easier for the pirates to determine their position and get around.

Focusing his eyes once again on the maps in front of him, Eizen fell in deep thought. Thanks to the sea gate the Abbey erected the places the pirates could sail towards were limited, to say the least. Hellawes was one of those places, but getting to the island without a compass was difficult, if not downright suicidal. The Aifread Pirates only had so many supplies. With no way to tell where the pirates even remotely were, their best bet was to get to the mainland. The question now was where the best place to land would be. Anywhere wasn't really an option, less they risked getting ambushed by the Abbey or worse, landed in an area infested with daemons. Eizen was a capable fighter, but he was alone and could only handle so much at once.

"Let's see…" Eizen muttered to himself. "We could land here," he touched the point of the map he was thinking about with his finger "but there tend to be a lot of patrol ships. On the other hand, if we go here" again, he pointed with his finger "we risk damaging the ship because of all of these reefs. A lot of daemons have been sighted in this area as of late, so that's a no-go from the start. Over here aren't many spots to anchor, but the Abbey isn't as active-"

"What the hell?!"

Eizen found himself interrupted in his musings when he heard a feminine shout coming from the door that led directly to his quarters. He couldn't help but chuckle a little bit at the distress he heard coming from the girl's voice.

"Looks like our guest is awake," the first mate said to himself, rising from his seat. He casually strolled over to the door and when in front of it, he raised his right hand and knocked three times. There wasn't an immediate answer, in fact, there was no answer at all. Eizen guessed that the girl was still in shock from waking up in a new place and possibly traumatized by her experience with the storm. As such, he opened the door after an adequate amount of time had passed and walked into his own room.

He found the girl standing right next to his bunk, the blankets lying discarded on the ground. The girl's red eyes, an unusual color, Eizen mentally noted, were staring in surprise and weariness at the Earth-Malakhim. Her hands were balled into fists and she had them already halfway in the air as if she was ready to take a battle stance. Her legs were already in the appropriate position for that.

"Easy there," Eizen spoke calmly. "We found you shored up on a rock in the middle of the ocean and thought you might want some help."

The girl narrowed her eyes at the pirate. "Rock…? Ocean…?" she said just loud enough for the first mate to hear.

"That's right," he nodded calmly. "Don't you remember the storm yesterday?" he asked, silently wondering if the girl had hit her head somewhere. To the relief of the Malakhim, the girl lowered her arms at least a little bit, her expression turning into one of confusion.

"Storm…?" she wondered. "I was in a storm?" And then all of a sudden her eyes widened. "That's right, now I remember!" she exclaimed. "My brother messed again and then all of the sudden I was…" The girl's voice trailed off, as she looked down at her feet and putting her hand on her forehead.

Eizen raised an eyebrow, wondering just what her brother had messed up exactly, though he didn't spend too much thinking about that, as the girl in front of him looked a little lost.

"Are you okay?" the first mate asked. "Do you maybe need some time alone?"

The girl's gaze shot up in surprise as if she had forgotten for a moment that she wasn't alone in the room. After her brain processed the words spoken to her, she vehemently shook her head, causing her short hair to fly around wildly.

"No, no! Not really," the girl denied, hugging herself with her arms. "Just… getting my thoughts together, y'know? And- whoa!" The girl suddenly let out a shout, as she lost her balance on her feet. She waved wildly with her arms and stumbled a little bit until she managed to support herself on a nearby wall.

"Why the fuck is the ground moving?" she exclaimed, much to Eizen's amusement.

"Forgotten? You're on a ship," he explained with a smirk. "You're on board the Van Eltia, captain Aifread's ship."

The girl, who had been struggling to stand without the need to support herself on the wall, froze up. Her legs still wobbled a little bit, but the distress on her face had disappeared as quickly as it came and was now replaced with a deep frown. "Aifread… Aifread… where have I heard that name before?"

Eizen wasn't even remotely surprised that the girl had heard of his captain. Aifread was arguably the most infamous pirate in these parts of the sea. Even people who lived deep in the mainland had heard the stories of Aifread and his crew.

"Wait a second…" the girl suddenly said, looking at her surroundings. For some reason, she showed a particular interest in Eizen's commode. "That's retro…" she commented and looked around more. There wasn't much in the first mate's room. The only things noteworthy were a shelf filled with books on various topics, a framed, slightly faded picture of the Van Eltia and a bottle of spirits standing on his nightstand. When she was done with her observations, the girl looked back at Eizen, who was waiting patiently for the girl to say anything.

"I'm on Aifread's ship. As in the pirate Aifread, correct?"

Eizen nodded, already guessing what her next reaction would be that of fear and panic. After all, pirates didn't have a bad reputation for nothing. He could already imagine that it would take a lot of convincing to explain to the girl that she wasn't in any danger. The crew would probably have to lock her away for the remainder of her stay, so that she wouldn't endanger herself and/or the crew.

However as it turned out, Eizen was wrong with how the girl would react to this situation. Her expression once again became that of a thoughtful one and she put the palm of her hand on her forehead. "Wasn't the Van Eltia in one of the tales…?" she wondered, confusing Eizen a little bit with her wording. "Yes," the girl nodded to herself. "It was in Eternia. But it looked different…"

Eizen found himself getting a little impatient with the girl, but still, he allowed her to ramble on. Even if the girl had said she was ok, he didn't really believe her. More he thought she did not realize that she needed some alone time to get to terms with everything. He thought about offering her again to let her alone for a bit, but before he could do that, the redhead spoke to him again.

"Hey, what's your name? Are you Aifread by any chance?" she asked, her voice straight.

Usually, Eizen would have been amused by that assumption, but not this time. The way the girl spoke, in this solemn tone, it wasn't how he expected this conversation to go. Still, he kept a straight face and answered her question.

"No, I'm Eizen. I'm the first mate of this ship," he introduced himself.

And once again, the girl's expression did a 180 flip. She now sported a look of surprise and… sorrow? Eizen needed to double check, but yes. There was clearly a hint of sadness in her eyes. Living for as long as he did, he became pretty adequate in reading other people's faces.

"Are you…" the red-haired girl swallowed. "Are you…Edna's sister?"

Now it was the pirate's turn to be surprised. "You know my sister?" he asked with a raised eyebrow, his voice filled with curiosity. If this girl had met Edna and somehow managed to befriend with the younger Malak, then their meeting was one hell of a coincidence. Although usually, Edna didn't talk much about her personal life to strangers. It was pretty rare for her to talk to strangers in the first place.

The redhead in front of him fell back on his bunk. At first, the pirate thought the girl had lost her footing again, but that changed when she gave him that weird smile. It was a mixture of nervousness, anticipation and joy, at least Eizen got those vibes from the girl in front of him.

"Holy fuck." A chortled laugh escaped her mouth. "I suddenly have the wish to hug my little brother, until he suffocates to death, after which I'm going to stuff his body and place it on display in front of my house. Is that weird?" Her question was directed at the first mate, who wasn't sure how to react to her sudden personality shift. This girl was a confusing human, to say the least, and by the time Eizen had gathered his thoughts, the girl had started laughing at his dumbfounded expression.

"Kidding, kidding," she said between chortles. Once she calmed down, she jumped off the bed, landed on her feet, but needed to stretch out her arms, since the ship was still moving to the waves. "Whoa. Right, forgot. This is ship. Ship is move~y and stuff. Anyways!"

The girl clapped her hands together and gave Eizen one big smile. "I'm Cera! And before anything else…" the girl now dubbed Cera started rummaging through her brown bag until she took out a notepad and a ballpoint pen.

"Can I have your autograph?" she almost squealed in a high pitched tone.

Eizen took the notepad and the pen in each of his hands and examined the items with great interest. Somehow, someone had managed to cut the individual papers perfectly to the same size and attached them together on some kind of light metal in the shape of a spring. The first paper was colored red and had in bolt, white letters CES written on it. The first paper also felt completely different from the rest. It was smoother and reflected the light a little. At the end of the stacked up papers was some kind of brown, hard paper that Eizen had no idea what to call it. As for the papers themselves, they were white, but someone had drawn grey vertical and horizontal lines on each of them, resulting in perfectly small squares, each having the same height and width.

Then there was the stick thing that ended in a similar fashion as a writing feather, only the tip was rounder. The small stick itself was white, with just the back tip being colored blue. The Malakhim guessed this was a writing utensil, but how was he supposed to write without any ink? Unknowingly he accidentally had pressed the "stick" on the paper and when he raised the stick, he found a small blue dot on the space he accidentally pressed against. Eizen stared for a couple of seconds at the spot, before he attempted to write his name. To his surprise, it went way more smoothly than with any feather he had ever used. He also realized that all of those squares were helping him write in a straight line.

("The ink must be stored somewhere on the inside. But how does it get out?") Eizen wondered to himself. The first mate was taken off guard, when Cera out of nowhere snatched the notepad and roller pen away, putting both away into her small back.

"Ehh!" The redhead squealed, making a happy dance by moving her upper body left and right. "This is awesome! Awesome~, awesome~, awesome~, awesome~!" the girl sang, causing Eizen to look at her cautiously. He wasn't sure if this girl was just quirky or maybe a little mad.

"Right… how about we sit down somewhere more comfortable?"

XXX

Eizen led Cera into the dining hall, where the maps were still spread across the dining table. The first mate motioned the guest to take a seat on the table. Cera had her eyes on the expensive red carpet and as a result, slammed her body against one of the chairs. The girl grumbled, while Eizen snorted and took his former seat. Cera sat down to his right and looked down at the maps curiously.

"Wow," she said, admiring the custom artwork of a sea serpent on one of the maps.

"Do you need anything?" Eizen asked, getting the redhead's attention. "Food? Some water, maybe?"

"Eh… no thanks. I'm fine," Cera replied.

"Are you sure?" the first mate inquired. "You must have been out in the cold and surrounded by sea water for at least a couple of hours," the blonde argued. "I am surprised you're able to hold a conversation. Especially with a pirate."

"What's my health got to do with you being a pirate?" the redhead asked, tilting her head.

"I don't know." Eizen crossed his hands on the table. "Shouldn't you be scared or at least anxious? You are on a pirate ship, after all, one that has a reputation for even taking on the Abbey."

"The Abbey?" Cera repeated.

"That's right," Eizen confirmed. "Even the exorcists will think twice before challenging us. But enough about that. First and foremost I want to know if you're feeling okay."

"Uh…" Cera shook her head, getting her thoughts sorted out. "Yeah. Why'd you asked? I mean… you're a pirate and all that stick. Shouldn't you be trying to rape me or something? Not that I'm complaining, though I would be too much for you to handle anyways," the girl finished with a smirk.

Eizen shook his head, though an amused smile appeared on his face. "You're either brave or just a foolish girl that has yet to see the world. I think I'll go with the latter for now."

"Hey…!" Cera mock complained putting her arms behind her head. "Seriously though, thanks for getting me off that rock. Never thought I'd be able to meet the infamous captain Aifread in person. This is awesome!" she shouted, pumping a fist into the air.

Eizen did his best to hide his school and luckily the girl was too distracted at that very moment to notice that. He didn't exactly want to explain to a complete stranger that their captain was missing without at least getting some information about the girl.

"Well, if you're in such a good mood, I guess we can go on."

"Good mood is putting it mildly. You don't know the excitement I'm currently suppressing."

The Malakhim once again shook his head. "Anyway, you mentioned my sister earlier. I guess you must have met her then."

"Er…" And suddenly Cera found herself at a loss for words. Technically speaking she knew Eizen's sister. However, that didn't mean that the redhead had personally met the little Seraphim. Yet Cera was all too aware that trying to explain video games would probably end up with her getting into deep trouble. And even though she was pretty sure she could take on a Seraphim or Malakhim as they were called in Berseria, she was even more aware of the strength that dragon Eizen had displayed back in Zestiria. So she figured it was best to bluff her way out of this.

"Yeah, met the little girl. Blonde, green eyes, wears a white dress and for some reason uses an umbrella as a weapon. How does that work, anyway?"

Eizen let out a chuckle.

"That's not to mention the comments she made. 'Hooray, another empty victory.'" Cera made her best Edna impression, which caused the first mate of the Aifread Pirates to laugh out loud.

"That's Edna, alright. You two must be getting along."

"Eh… somewhat," Cera shrugged, looking to the side. "Been a while since I've seen her though…" ("Zestiria was a good game, better than some people give it credit for, but a lot of other Tales games were better. Maybe I'll pick up that game after I'm done with Berseria. And after I get home too.")

"I see…" Eizen nodded. "Good to hear she's doing okay."

"Y-yeah."

"Well, having a chat like this is nice and all, but let's get down to business, shall we?"

Cera became a little nervous at those words. She was used to a lot of weird stuff from back home and as such it was relatively easy for her to keep her composure at the moment. However, she wasn't so sure if she could keep it up if she were bombarded with questions the whole time. Besides, her inner fangirl was currently headbanging against the mental cage she had set-up.

"So, how did you end up on that island?" Eizen asked.

"Oh...that… yeah," Cera crossed her arms and looked to the side uncomfortably. "The storm…" She closed her eyes, took in a deep breath and let it out again. "I… dropped off the ship… I was on."

The Malak nodded, though he found it odd as to how the girl had been stuttering. Maybe the experience had shaken her more up than she let on?"

"I was goddamn lucky to find that rock," she continued. "Though I have no idea where the ship I was on disappeared to. They probably all think I am dead."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Eizen cleared his throat. "Well, if you tell me where you were initially headed, maybe I can arrange something off-" But that was as far as Eizen got with his offer. The first mate found himself interrupted mid-sentence, because of the door getting slammed open and one of the pirates standing under the frame.

"First mate! We're under attack!"

"What?!"

Eizen immediately threw his chair away and ran out of the room. The pirate, who gave Eizen the warning, had already gone ahead. Curious and anxious as to what was happening, Cera followed the two men outside. Usually, the hidden dragon would have marveled at the beauty that was the Van Eltia, but the redhead found herself ever so slightly distracted by the cannonballs impacting in front of the ship, sending torrents of water into the air! The ship shook profoundly, various shouts could be heard as the crew ran back and forth on deck, trying to organize a solid defense. Cera herself was crouched down, almost falling over. But even in her position, she could make out the ship that was attacking the Van Eltia. It looked a lot like the ship from Berseria with which Velvet, Rokurou and Magilou escaped the prison island. The dragon wanted to squeal in joy but never came to it, since another volley of cannonballs barely missed the Van Eltia. This time she did fell over from the shaking.

"Ow…" she groaned, trying to get up as quickly as possible. "Right, been awhile since I have hunted anything. I always wondered how humans actually taste. Let's see… medium or extra crispy?"