Osrik is a character from Emu777's story Guardian. I have his personal permission to use Osrik, and have his approval on the interpretation of the character.

Chapter Fourteen

Memory of the Siren

As Yura walked with Cynthia to the docks he felt very satisfied with himself. He had removed a tyrannical manager from one of his places of investment, and elevated deserving individuals as a result. At least, he hoped they were deserving. He'd check back in a few months just to be sure.

In addition to that, he was impressed that he had managed to keep his Yoki completely suppressed, despite getting so worked up by Gerald.

Come to think of it, he also managed to keep his Yoki hidden despite still using his shape-shifted wings as a substitute coat.

Though he had quickly come to maintain their form like that habitually, it wasn't a natural shape for them to be in. Having them mimic natural skin texture was easy, but giving them the appearance of cloth had taken constant focus at first. He would also have a problem if he were ever asked to remove the "coat", as it was still firmly connected to his back.

He was amazed that he had managed to let his wings keep that form while fully suppressing his Yoki, but he was glad that he could. The alternative was getting into a life or death struggle with at least three Claymores, maybe four depending on how Clare decided to involve herself.

Deciding that it was better than risking a slip, Yura committed to buying a new coat here and putting his wings away.

While he and Cynthia had been walking, the young lady had been telling him about the fishery, the income, work schedules and so on. Though he had mostly been paying attention to his own thoughts, a part of him had been listening.

They arrived at the docks and saw a ship resting on wooden struts raised out of the water. It was a three-masted ship with white sails and dark brown, nearly black paint.

There were reels visible above the railing. From Yura's knowledge of ships, each was meant to loose a net. There were five such structures on the side of the ship facing Yura and Cynthia. This was more than on most ships, hence the name Ocean Spider.

In the middle, where one should have been, was a section of unpainted wood. It was odd, but there would be time to deal with that later.

"So the only ship available to us right now is the Ocean Spider? There are no other ships coming in soon?"

"No sir. The other ships are netting fish in the bay. The Spider is in dry dock right now, so it is available."

"Why is it in dry dock?" Yura asked, thinking back to the off colour siding. "Is something wrong with it?"

"Nothing serious. A net caught on some rocks and the reel that the net gets attached to ripped off. It took a good chunk of hull with it, and a support beam below deck cracked and needed replacing. The net is still out of service, but the hull and support are fixed. The Ocean Spider is as sea worthy as it will ever be.

The paint will be taken care of by the time you get going. It's necessary to seal it from water."

"That's fine then. I was hoping for something smaller." Though still small enough to manoeuvre easily in the bay, it was a sizable vessel. The minimum crew to manage the entire thing was a dozen good men. Yura was going to have to make it work with just six, four of which had no experience with sailing to speak of.

Sensing his concern, Cynthia spoke up. "If you're worried about running the ship, I can probably convince some of the people here to get on board with the mission."

"No Cynthia. If any of them volunteer on their own, that's one thing, but I'm not going to ask anyone to go. This is going to be dangerous, and I won't have their deaths on my conscience."

"All right, sir. There is one more problem I should tell you about."

"And what's that?"

"The Spider has no provisions on it. All of the supplies are on the other ships. We can get barrels of fresh water, but you'll have to get things like food and lamp oil from town. If you want, I can at least get a few people to help out."

"That would be perfect. I think we can buy it from the other fisheries, if they're not using it. That will save us the trouble of boxing it before loading it up."

"Great. I'll get Edward and Harry on it right away." Yura nodded at Cynthia and the two headed out to find the two men. She was settling into her new job very nicely.

The group had arrived back at the Bridge and Thorn inn, and were packing their gear for the mission. There were tarps to conceal their swords, and heavy cloaks, meant to stave off the cold ocean spray, as well as to hide their identities.

With this Awakened Being having proven very elusive so far, it might not show itself if it saw the warriors. If it was even still around. It may have moved on already with the pickings being as slim as they were on the sea currently.

"I think Yura handled the situation quite admirably," Osrik said, making small talk.

"Yeah. Who would have guessed the old goat would be so nice to his workers." Helen tossed her stuffed pack on the bed and took a sip of water directly from the pitcher they had been provided. She put the pitcher back down on the dresser and lay down on the bed. "Most businessmen are complete jerks, especially when they get older."

"Yura is a very unusual person" Clare said offhandedly. She was just stuffing her cloak into her already overfull backpack. "I haven't spent much time with him, but nothing about him is quite what you might expect at first glance."

Clare was personally grateful that no one had uncovered Yura's identity as a Yoma yet. He was very good at hiding his Yoki, so she wasn't very worried about him being discovered, but she still worried about what she would have to do if it came down to choosing sides.

Deneve, who was standing in a corner with her arms crossed, looked over at the group. "I don't trust him. I can't explain it, but something doesn't feel right about him."

"I agree. I can't place it, but something about his presence unsettles me." Miria had just been staring out the window, looking out at the sea.

"Really?" Osrik said. "I've always felt very comfortable around him."

"Same here." Helen sat up and looked around at her comrades. "He seems like a real nice guy. He is kind of weird though."

"Yes Helen. He seems very 'weird' indeed." Deneve looked at Miria. "Has Osrik told you how he met Yura?"

"He told me of the encounter with the Yoma shortly after it happened, but a name was not mentioned in the telling."

Nodding her head, Deneve continued. "The fact that he even survived a brief time in a fight against a Yoma is suspicious, even with Osrik's help. His level of participation in killing it makes him seem even more suspicious."

Helen shrugged and lay back down. She wondered how long Raki was going to be in the kitchen. He's gone downstairs for chow quite a while ago. It wasn't so much that she was actually hungry, but more that she was bored and eating gave her something to do.

"What about you Clare?" Miria turned and looked her sharply in the eye. "Have you noticed anything suspicious about Yura while you've been travelling with him?"

How best for her to answer this question? "As I said, he is a very unusual person, but I haven't seen any reason for us to distrust him." And she did trust Yura at this point, so she wasn't really lying.

Miria looked back out the window, hoping to catch some sense of what awaited them. She was not totally convinced about Yura's trustworthiness, but she was satisfied for the moment.

The door creaked open and Raki walked through the door carrying a sizeable platter of food.

"Alright," Helen said, swinging her legs over the bed to face Raki. "Chow time."

As expected, the harbour was almost deserted. The fishery buildings were almost all abandoned, though there were a few that still had a small amount of activity going on inside.

Apparently the Water Sword fishery wasn't the only one exploiting the bay, even though they were doing the best job of it.

Yura approached what seemed a particularly lively one, closely followed by two burly men pulling a large cart, Edward and Harry.

The two men were brothers. They shared broad faces and proportionately broad shoulders. There were some differences between them, such as eye and hair colour, but otherwise they might easily have been twins.

Harry had slicked-back blonde hair and his brother shoulder-length hair that was nearly black. Between the two of them, they were likely as strong as any ox, judging by the look of them.

Yura had them park the cart out in front of the large main doors and proceeded inside. He quickly spotted the man in charge. In addition to looking very depressed, he was the only one there not wearing a work apron. Rather, the man wore a simple grey suit that set off his thin salt-and-pepper beard.

Much as in the Water Sword fishery, there were people cleaning and packaging fish at wooden tables, but there were far fewer open cleaning stations here.

Yura approached the manager. "Hello, sir. My name's Yura. I own the Water Sword fishery." He shook hands with the heavyset man. "I need a little bit of help with something."

"I'm Simon. I'm not sure I can do anything with the sorry state things are in here, and I'm also not sure I can afford to give out help."

"I think you might be able to manage this. I've offered my services to the warriors who came to slay the Yoma. I have a ship for them to use, but it doesn't have any food stores.

Judging by the number of ships you have docked, I would guess that you aren't using many of them and I was wondering if you would consider selling some of your surplus provision crates."

Simon nodded thoughtfully and stroked his beard. "I think I can do that. The stuff was going to start going bad soon anyway. How much do you need?"

Yura pointed to the doors. "I have a cart out there. The crew of the ship is going to be pretty small, and the warriors don't eat very much, so a cartload ought to do."

"Alright. I'll get it loaded, and the two of us will work out the payment."

Yura bowed gently and swept his arm in front of himself theatrically. "Lead the way."

A short time later, the ox cart was loaded with crates of ship provisions, and Harry and Edward were struggling to pull it back to the fishery. Yura turned and noted the sweat streaming down their faces and thought his estimation of their combined strength might have been a little generous.

Not wanting to trouble them too much, Yura called out "Take a bit of a break. There's no need to kill yourselves here." The burly men pulled the cart a little further so it wasn't in the middle of the road and immediately sat down with their backs to a stack of empty crates.

Yura pondered his next course of action for a moment. "You two rest here. I would like to pick up a few things in town. I'll be back shortly and then we'll get back to work." The men nodded their heads in understanding. Yura scooped them each a cup of water from a nearby rain barrel and headed off towards the market.

It took a while, but Yura managed to locate a clothier among the sparsely populated marketplace. It had apparently once been quite fancy, and likely produced high quality goods. Now, though the stone structure was still quite well tended, simple workers cloths were all that adorned the windows.

Still, it was the best Yura could do right now for a store. Maybe they still had some of their better wares stored in the back or something. He pushed open the door and went inside.

Upon seeing the well dressed customer, the lanky man who leaned over the desk sat straight, and practically drooled as he heard the money bag jingle on Yura's belt. "Hello good sir." The dark-haired clerk's tone reminded Yura unhappily of Gerald's tone as he tried kissing up. "What can I do for you today?"

Still, Yura could hardly blame the man if the times were hard, so Yura kept a cheerful face as he said "I need a new coat, if you don't mind. This one has a few stitches in the back, and I would like it replaced."

The clerk examined the apparently fine quality of Yura's coat, and enthusiastically said "yes, sir. I have some things in the back room. There aren't many people interested in fine wares these days, but I have some leftover from before the market declined."

Within minutes, the man came out from the back with at least a dozen coats draped over his body. It was amazing that the scrawny man didn't collapse from the weight of the fabric.

In another minute they were laid out on the counter. Yura didn't take long to pick. He grabbed two, as he thought it might be a good idea to have a spare. He tried them on. One was a green vest that ended at the waist, and the other was a long, royal blue trench coat with light blue embroidery. The vest fit perfectly, and the blue coat was meant to be a bit loose, so they were good enough.

He paid what the clerk asked and headed swiftly out the door. Now he had to find somewhere to change. "Literally", he chuckled to himself. He felt confident he could do it without releasing his Yoki to any detectable degree.

He found a dark and reasonably clean-looking alley and walked in. He headed for the middle and looked out either end before beginning. Careful to contain his Yoki within his wings, not letting an ounce leak out, they expanded away from his body, and quickly receded through the slits in his shirt and into his back.

He threw the blue coat on, the hem hanging elegantly down to his knees. Yura nodded, satisfied, and prepared to head out of the alley. Unexpectedly, a grubby hand clutched at his sleeve. "Spare some money sir?"

Now focusing on his surroundings rather than on containing his Yoki, Yura was swiftly engulfed in the stench of stale liquor. He looked over and saw a grey, wrinkled old man wearing filthy rags.

The deep creases in his face and the grime engrained into every one of those suggested that this had been a way of life for a long time, living in filth and drowning in alcohol. Yura figured any money was likely to just be spent on more liquor, so he turned to leave.

The man just grabbed harder at Yura's sleeve. "Just enough for some food, sir. I'm dead broke," he slurred.

"Fine." Frustrated and in a hurry, Yura pulled a few low-value copper pieces and handed them to the man. "Now, if you don't mind, I have a ship to catch."

Life bloomed in the man's grey eyes. "Ship? You got a ship? You going on the ocean?"

Intrigued by the man's interest, Yura replied "yes, I am. I am escorting a number of the warriors known as Claymore to kill the Yoma that's been plaguing this place. What of it?" He only used the term Claymore to clarify himself. Few people knew the warrior women as anything else.

The man dropped to his knees and took Yura's hand pleadingly. "Take me with you. I b-beg you, let me go back on the sea."

Yura was truly perplexed now. With the slurring of his voice decreased, yet the man making so little sense, it was hard to tell how drunk he really was. "Did you hear me? I said I'll have Claymores on board, and we're going to kill a Yoma. Do you have any idea how dangerous this will be?"

"I don't care sir." The drunkard started blubbering as he clutched Yura's hand, tears streaming down into his unkempt beard. "I have to hear it again."

"It?"

"The Siren. A few months back, I was sailing, sir. Out a nowhere, this beautiful song came out a the water. Most beautiful thing I ever heard. It was Siren Song.

I listened to it for a long time, sir. Then it stopped, and I looked around and several folk were dead and gutted. I think She was warning us bout the Yoma."

"Are you sure it was warning you? Could the sound have come from the thing that attacked you?"

The man shook his head, and released and uncontrolled belch, loosing another wave of liquor stench. "No, sir. Nothing that sounds so beautiful could be evil. I told the other guys about it, but none a them remember a thing. The guys on shore said I was old and nuts. But I gotta hear it again, I gotta. I've dreamed of that song every night since then."

Yura thought long and hard about this. "Fine then." Yura tossed the man some more money. "Meet me at the Water Sword fisheries in two hours. Use the money to bathe and get some decent clothing. Do your best to sober up in that time. If it smells like you've had even another sip of alcohol, you're staying ashore."

The old man stood up, as straight as his inebriation would allow. "Thank you sir. You won't regret it."

The two parted ways, and Yura thought he may have just found a clue about just what they'd be facing out on the open ocean.