Chapter Two—Outset
"Miss Tetra?"
As every morning, one of her men had come to her room to check on her. He knocked on the door, and waited for her to call that she was fine. The answer didn't come.
"Miss Tetra!"
Now he was beginning to panic. If something had happened to her, her father would kill them all in the next world.
"Miss Tetra, are you okay? I'm coming in!"
Pushing open the door, he saw that the room looked untouched. There was no sign Tetra or any of her belongings, nor any sign of a struggle. As fear swelled within him, he spotted the note on the neatly made bed, and grabbed it, recognizing her handwriting instantly.
Sorry. I just had to get out of here.
"Miss Tetra!"
Jack, upon seeing his newest shipmate when she arrived at the dock, smiled widely. She carried a single bag, wore a scimitar at her waist, and gave him a short smile in greeting.
"Morning, Jack," she greeted him when she had come closer. Looking over the men who were the readying the Black Pearl to embark, she commented, "So this is your crew…and this is your ship."
He saw her eyes pause on the ominous black sails, but chose merely to say, "That it is. Welcome aboard the Black Pearl, love."
She shot him a glare, reminding him how much she hated that nickname, then hiked her bag up further on her shoulder and said, "All right, then. This is home. And call me Tetra."
Without another word, she boarded. Jack followed.
"Come on, then!" he shouted forcefully. "Get over here, everyone, come on!"
Tying up the loose ends of their work, the sailors scurried over at their captain's command, gathering around to hear what he had to say. Of course, they all thought they knew; Mr Gibbs had started a rumour about a woman joining their ranks. Many hadn't believed it, but as their eyes now fell on the blonde at Jack's side, they exchanged surprised glances. Apparently Mr Gibbs' words hadn't just been the ale talking.
"Men," Jack said to them as a whole, "this is Tetra. She's joining our ship, and we're going to help her on a little quest. That means you obey her second only to me, savvy?"
All eyes were upon the young woman, who didn't appear at all intimidated.
"Let's go!" Jack hollered abruptly. "We're setting off in five minutes, heading east! Move!"
Even as he ordered them, Jack's crew was already hurrying off to do his bidding. He watched them go just long enough to ensure that each man was attending his proper respective duty, then waved for Tetra to follow him. "I'll show you to your quarters. They used to belong to the other woman who sailed with us, Anamaria."
"Can I assume she's the only other woman that's ever set foot in this ship?" Tetra inquired.
"No," Jack replied. "There was another—Elizabeth. Damsel in distress, kidnapped while trying to save her town… Not much like you," he concluded, passing a small grin Tetra's way, but noticing as he did how much she seemed to have stiffened. Curious, he added, "Of course, she turned out to be a fighter, that one. Fought for her love. So maybe she is like you, then, aye?"
He was expecting to incite an angry reaction, but Tetra replied as if his suggestion was an honest mistake. "No, Link and I aren't in love. Just very good friends."
Jack nodded, almost disappointed by her indifferent reaction. "Right."
They said nothing else until the arrived at the cabin, the door to which Jack pushed open.
"Here you are," he said, "your own domain."
Tetra looked around the space critically, and Jack felt a twinge of something like defensiveness at the idea that she felt the need to inspect a ship of such calibre as the Black Pearl. Apparently she found it to her liking, though, as she smiled politely at Jack and said, "Thank you. It's very nice."
"One more thing, though," Jack spoke up.
Tetra looked back at him and frowned. "What's that?"
"You haven't given us much direction on where we're going to look for this Link fellow of yours."
Tetra relaxed. "Oh. Well, I told you, I don't know exactly where he is, but it's a safe bet he's east of Tortuga. So we just explore, really, and ask around. And, of course, we plunder where we can," she added, grinning, "within the code of honour."
It was the second time she'd used the phrase "code of honour," and Jack had a feeling this was no coincidence. Whatever standards of behaviour she subscribed to were evidently different from the code he knew.
"What would that be?" he asked, tilting his head and leaning against the doorframe.
"What would what be?"
"The code of honour."
Tetra blinked and shifted uncomfortably. "You don't know it?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"Oh. I see." Nodding slowly, Tetra chewed on her lip and considered this. Well…I guess I'll have to teach it to you, then," she concluded decisively.
"Aye, I guess you will," Jack agreed, nodding right back at her. "And I'll teach you a thing or two about ours."
"Your what?" Tetra asked blankly.
"Our code, love, what else?"
"But…if you don't have the code of honour—"
"Honour's not the only thing that needs a set of rules," Jack interrupted swiftly, "or guidelines."
Tetra said nothing, but simply watched him with a calculating expression. "I see," she said again evenly. "In that case, what does your 'code' regulate?"
"Piracy."
Folding her arms, she pointed out shortly, "You know, you're really not good at giving straight answers."
Jack chuckled. "Aye, I've heard that before. But what better way to keep the men under my control than to talk like I know better than them, to make them think that I do?"
"Does that mean you don't?"
"That means whatever you think it means, love. You said yourself, I don't give a straight answer. Of course, that might not be all the time. Who's to say if I'm that predictable? It's up to you whether or not I'm honest."
For several seconds, she considered him again, and he rather thought she could almost see through him.
"Well," she said finally, a smile crossing her face, "if I know you, which I don't, I'll bet there's some way to predict what you're going to do or say, and what you mean. And I bet no one's ever figured it out."
Jack said nothing, either to confirm or deny her suspicion, but she hadn't really suspected that he would.
"I've got a surprise for you, though," she spoke up presently.
"Is that so?"
"Oh, yes." She smirked. "No one's ever figured me out, either. Now," she went on, without giving him a chance to evaluate her statement, "we've been dancing around the issue here."
"You mean our respective codes?"
"Exactly. I don't plan to pull any tricks with you, so—What?" She interrupted herself when she saw him frown.
"Nothing," he said quickly. "Just…most people don't try to be hard to predict and at the same time not pull any tricks."
Tetra shrugged. "The two aren't mutually exclusive. The difficulty happens when people think they are, and even then it only happens to people who think they are. Now, as I was saying, my code is simple. Here's the basics."
She began to count off on her fingers. "First off, obey your captain 'til death."
"Couldn't agree more," Jack spoke up.
"If something's not well enough guarded to prevent people from stealing it," Tetra went on steadily, "then the people who own it should be expecting it to be stolen." A smile flickered on her face before she added her next points.
"Don't hurt the innocent. That is, anyone who's never tried to hurt you. Those who try to do you harm, however, are fair game.
"Giving up is not an option. Die fighting if you have to, just don't stop fighting.
"Outsiders stay on the outside. They don't get involved in the good or the bad.
"Crew is family. Leaving a man behind constitutes betrayal, and there's no room for that on a good ship.
"Organization is key, and the key to organization is this—punish your traitors, reward your helpers." Having finished, she said, "There's more, of course, but those are the rules that come up the most."
"That's interesting," Jack decided thoughtfully; at least one of those rules held his curiosity. "Now let me share a few of our values."
Like her, he counted off. "It starts simple. Take what you can, give nothing back."
Tetra gave a short laugh of approval.
"And, like you said, obey your captain at all costs."
Tetra nodded.
"Anyone who gets in the way is fair game. If they're not your crew, they're no one."
Tetra stopped nodding, and a crease appeared in her brow.
"And lastly…anyone who falls behind, gets left behind."
Now Tetra was definitely scowling. As soon as the words left Jack's mouth, she said bluntly, "I don't like your code. It's too brutal. It's things like that which give pirates such a bad name."
"Perhaps," Jack conceded, "but now that we've all started living up to that bad name, we've got to stick to it to survive."
His fellow captain did not look appeased. "I've gone twenty years without following those rules, and somehow I've survived," she told him harshly. "Maybe this is news to you, Jack…but there is honour among thieves. At least," she added in a voice nearing a growl, "among any thieves who want to consider themselves allies with me."
"Well," Jack said evenly, "you could argue that, but I think a more effective argument is that I'm not allied with you—You're allied with me. Which means you'll have to follow my rules. After all, both of our codes call for loyalty to the captain.
"And," he went on, before she could give the incensed retort he saw written all over her face, "and even better argument is this one: What matters most isn't anyone's code, no matter what anyone says, even me. The only thing that matters, the thing that all the codes in the world exist in order to control, is what a man can and can't do. So I'll leave it to your discretion."
Tetra nodded. "I'm sure you're right," she conceded, "to a certain degree. But there's a crucial point you're missing."
"Aye? And what would that be?"
"I'm not a man. I'm a woman. And what a woman can and can't do is very different from what a man can and can't do." Pointing an almost accusatory finger at him, she warned, "You'd do well to remember that, Jack. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to unpack and settle myself in before I get to work."
She looked at him pointedly, and he took the hint. With a short bow, he said quietly, "Of course," and left her to herself.
After listening to his footsteps fade away, Tetra let out her breath in a long, low sigh. The first and most important thing to do in any new living quarters, in her opinion, was to test out the bed. For that reason, she beamed happily, flung herself up onto her bunk and stretched out luxuriously. It was as comfortable as any place she'd ever laid her head, possibly more so, because here she had regained the freedom she had lost, and obtained the key to even more.
Closing her eyes, she listened to the gentle sounds of the water outside lapping against the hull, of the wooden planks creaking as they rocked gently, of the wind billowing in the sails… The music that was the anthem of her life.
But other music stimulated her memory, too. Real music. Songs the wind played when a boy dressed in green awakened it.
She opened her eyes, biting her lip and staring straight up without seeing what was before her. She had to keep busy, to keep from dwelling on such thoughts. Yes, she was looking for Link, but that was no excuse to wallow in herself and her memories; that would only result in useless, weak self-pity.
There was undoubtedly work to be done on the ship, so Tetra sat up and swung her legs over the edge of her bunk, hopping to her feet and heading up to earn her keep aboard Jack's vessel, as well as to feel the sea air on her face.
Hard work and physical labour felt good on muscles too long inactive, and Tetra found a familiar joy in the task of keeping the Black Pearl moving steadily east, even if she was primarily delegating tasks rather than executing them. She knew that she would soon have to determine more specifically which direction would lead them to Link, but for the time being, she stood by the assertion that due east was good enough, especially since the wind was blowing that way.
Of course, fair weather and steady course meant that there was also time to spend sitting around, looking at the scenery, and so she was to be found in the early afternoon at the prow of the ship, leaning out over the water and breathing the salt air. When she looked down at the spray and the waves they churned up, the water curling over itself endlessly, she found she had to fight the urge to just jump in. It always looked like such fun…
Shaking her head, she leaned back and looked up, sighing. Jumping into the ocean would not be a good idea.
"I don't think you want to kill yourself, love."
Tetra laughed. "You read my mind, Jack."
"You mean the urge to jump? Written all over your face. Why was that, I wonder?"
Tetra shrugged. "No reason. Just…it looks like fun, swimming in the ocean alongside the ship. Besides," she added, turning to him with a grin, "haven't you ever wondered what's at the bottom of the ocean?"
"Oh, aye," Jack agreed. "Once or twice, but more often when I was younger. I wanted to invent a ship that could go underwater, actually, to see what was down there. That used to be what I would think about when I had nothing better to be doing. When I was very young, see, the captain of the ship I was on wouldn't really trust me with much responsibility, although that may have been because I smuggled myself aboard…what's the word for…right, stowaway. I was a stowaway. And I didn't have much of an attention span, as far as he could see. Really, though, I did, and I would have gladly learned anything he was willing to teach me, but I had to learn from the other sailors instead because he had no tolerance for me. It was mostly because back then I used to go off on these digressions, thinking about nothing, or talking about nothing if someone asked me what was on my mind—"
"Good thing you broke that habit."
Jack laughed good-naturedly. "That it is, love." He fell silent, but only for a few long seconds, before he resumed his original topic.
"It was endlessly amusing to me back then, imagining the sorts of things that were under that ocean, things that I could have been seeing and enjoying. Stuff that no man has imagined before, I'm sure. And, of course, the stock characters and artefacts like mermaids and—"
"Sunken civilizations?"
Jack raised a curious eyebrow. "Is that what you think is under there?"
"It's a theory," she answered evasively. "And there has to be more to the world than just what we see, don't you think?"
Jack was about to answer that he couldn't have agreed more when footsteps interrupted him. Both he and Tetra looked in time to see Mr Gibbs approaching and saying quickly, "Captain, sir, there's a ship just behind us."
Frowning, Jack asked, "Who is it?"
"We don't know, captain, but they're following us."
Jack gave a sigh; it wasn't much of a surprise. Since the Black Pearl had returned to her former glory, there had been more than one lesser ship trying to catch her just for the glory of being able to say that they'd done so. Usually sailors who had turned pirate and were captaining a ship for the first time were the ones who succumbed to this temptation of glory.
"Our fellow pirates, probably," he muttered, "someone trying to conquer the legendary Black Pearl. Let's go, we'll likely have to fight them."
When he waved for Tetra to follow him, he noticed that she had gone stiff and pale, and was staring straight ahead.
"What's wrong?" he asked. "You know how to fight, don't you?"
"Oh…yes," she replied distractedly. Blinking, she snapped herself back to the present and said with a slight nervous laugh, "Sorry, I was just, uh…thinking about something else. I'll go get armed," she concluded, pointing vaguely in the direction of the stairs that led to her cabin before making for that destination.
To Mr Gibbs, who was watching Tetra go with an expression of bewilderment, Jack said, "Let's go."
"Captain Kaizo is going to kill us."
"He's dead."
"He'll rise from the grave to kill us for letting something like this happen to Miss Tetra."
No one in her crew laughed; the situation was far too serious. They merely stared into their pints, and each knew that all the others were imagining the look that would have been on their former captain's face if he could have heard what had happened to his daughter.
Never had a group of men in a Tortuga pub been so silent and sombre.
"She wanted to leave," spoke up one momentarily, hesitantly. "It's not like someone kidnapped her."
"But—"
"That's worse, isn't it? I mean, why did she want to leave?"
"Did we do something?"
"She said she wanted some space."
"We gave her all the space she wanted."
"Too much space, apparently."
"No, I mean… She wanted to leave Tortuga. With or without us"
"'Course she did."
"I know, this isn't her type of place. But we couldn't let her just up and leave."
"'Course we couldn't."
"Shoulda known she'd find a way."
"Doesn't she always?"
A few fleeting smiles crossed over the men's faces as they exchanged reminiscent glances.
"That's our Miss Tetra. That's why she's the captain, isn't it?"
"Nobody can tell her what to do."
One or two men made noises of mild disagreement.
"All right, there was one that could," amended the sailor who had just spoken.
"Once he got her to pull back her claws and trust him," laughed a second, leaning back; a few of the others chuckled along as well, but the good humour was short lived, and quickly fell back to concerned silence, punctuated with resigned sighs.
It was nearly five minutes before one of them said what they had all been thinking since they had first learned she had left them.
"I think we've lost her forever, boys."
"She'll come back," another spoke up immediately, looking around for someone to support him. "She'll have to."
A few heads shook, a few hung in disappointment.
"Nope… She's gone for good now."
"All we can do is hope she's all right."
When Tetra returned, Jack approvingly took in the scimitar at her waist, but his did a slight double take at the sight of the bow her in hand and quiver on her back.
"What?" she asked. "You've never seen a bow before?"
To judge by the look on his face, he hadn't. She supposed she should have expected this; from what she had gleaned in Tortuga, in this day and age, no one used bows anymore. Pistols, muskets and other firearms had made such ancient technology obsolete.
"Let's go," Jack said by way of answer.
Tetra followed, and stood impatiently next to him at the stern as he peered through his telescope at the vessel following them. It certainly looked like a pirate ship from her vantage point.
With a thoughtful noise in his throat, Jack lowered the telescope and summarized his findings. "She's a new ship, it looks like. New captain and crew, like usual."
"Should we attack, captain?" asked Mr Gibbs, who was standing with them.
Jack opened his mouth, and Tetra thought she saw him mentally stumble before answering; she was willing to bet that such behaviour was not characteristic of him. "We'll leave them, unless they attack first," he concluded. "No sense putting ourselves in harm's way when we don't need to. Have the guns loaded, though," he added as an afterthought.
Mr Gibbs looked puzzled, confirming Tetra's suspicion that this was an atypical course of action. All he said, however, was, "Aye, captain," before walking away to deliver the order.
"That's not like you," Tetra said, when Mr Gibbs was gone.
"What's that, love?"
"I don't think it's like you to leave another ship alone, and Mr Gibbs apparently agrees with me," she elaborated, nodding towards the sailor who had just left them. "It's not in your code to leave anyone in peace. Have you so quickly switched to mine?"
The grin he flashed her immediately negated any suspicion to that effect which she might have had. "Don't flatter yourself," he said. "It's the element of surprise. They'll be expecting us to attack first, and when we don't, they will. Don't worry," he assured her, strolling away from the prow to take his place by the wheel, "there's definitely going to be a battle."
Despite herself, Tetra couldn't help smiling. It had been a long time since she had been able to flex her muscles in real combat, something other than a bar fight against a drunk who thought he could engage her in something other than a conversation. It would be nice to get a chance to use a sword, a bow, and some real moves. And it would give her a chance to show Jack that he hadn't been wrong in taking her along. Not that she thought he regretted it, but she did suspect that he thought she was a bit insane. Well, people tended to think that about her, just because she didn't lay out her every thought, and so sometimes appeared to act without motivation. But how could she explain herself fully to anyone? No one knew what she had been through. No one even knew who she was.
Except Link.
That was why she talked to the stars as well. She loved and missed her parents, and though she knew that they weren't literally inhabiting the constellations, as her men had more than once asked her to confirm, it was much more spiritually fulfilling to imagine that she had access to the heavens than it was to think of the sky as an empty void scattered with cold points of indifferent, insubstantial light. There was divinity in the world; that was a reality she had faced more intimately than any other.
But that was another world, another lifetime, another side of her identity. She had other things to think about now.
And she was infinitely more relieved that this was just a rival pirate ship than she had let on.
Even as a smile at this thought curled her lips, it was jolted away by a sudden, loud splash.
"FIRE!"
Turning sharply, Tetra saw that the other ship had drawn level with them; there was no doubt in her mind that Jack had slowed down to allow for this. The other pirates had fired a cannon shot on them, which had fortunately landed well short of its target to drop harmlessly into the water, and so the Black Pearl now had every justification to fight back. Tetra felt the familiar surge of adrenaline heat her blood as she heard their own cannons fire back.
Drawing her sword in her right hand, armed with her bow in her left, Tetra ran across the deck towards Jack, shouting to him. "Captain! Are we going to board for hands-on combat?"
"As soon as we can," Jack replied without hesitation, his eyes fixed on their opponents. "But we'll weaken them with a longer distance assault first… FIRE AT WILL!"
Tetra reluctantly sheathed her weapon, but knew the order was a sound one; there was no sense in boarding while they could still do damage from their ship. While she was waiting for an opportunity for swordplay, however, she could practice her other skills.
There were of course a great number of skilled archers on land, but shooting arrows while at sea was an entirely different ability. Few people could boast any sort of proficiency at it, and even fewer mastery. In fact, most believed it required more than natural or mortal talents. So Tetra considered herself lucky that such boundaries didn't restrain her.
She ran down to the lower decks of the ship, where some of the Black Pearl's men were loading and firing the cannons in quick succession, as per Jack's orders. A few stared in surprise to see her push past them and stand next to a cannon itself, from which vantage point she could look across the water between the two ships and see the sailors on the other side, readying their own cannons.
It was in no way a surprise to Tetra to see how her opponents reacted to her; there was laughing, jeering, and of course a few crude gestures. In answer, she simply pulled her bowstring taut, and took aim.
They didn't seem to be any more intimidated by her weapon than they had been by her. After all, a young woman armed with outdated and difficult to use equipment could hardly be considered a threat. Naturally, Tetra didn't mind if they thought so—In fact, she rather preferred if they did.
The arrow she released flew swiftly, mysteriously unaffected by the buffeting winds, and lodged directly in the throat of one of her mockers; he gave a strangled, guttural choking noise and collapsed.
The laughter likewise died instantly. One of the men ordered something to another, shoving him away, and the sailor stumbled over himself in his apparent haste to obey. The other two who crowded around the cannon were trying to take refuge behind it when they saw Tetra once again bending her bow. Unfortunately for them, she was a good shot, and one of the cowering pirates took the arrow to the eye, howling in pain.
She would have fired again, but she could see that the ships were drawing closer together, and if she left now she could be on deck and ready to cross to the other vessel as soon as such a thing was possible. Therefore she switched her weapons, slinging her bow onto her back and drawing her scimitar in its place, and ran.
The instant she reached the deck, she spotted Jack standing at the helm, pointing as he gave orders that she couldn't hear over the commotion of fighting and gunfire. She did, however, catch his eye; he pointed to her, then to the other ship, and his meaning was perfectly clear. She nodded to show that she understood.
Even as she grabbed the nearest rope, barely taking time to acknowledge that it wasn't anchoring anything important, she was running straight ahead as quickly as she could, and shouting, "To me, men! Prepare to board!"
A few who heard her obeyed, but she didn't take time to acknowledge them; she took off with a vociferous battle cry, soaring fearlessly over the open water between the Black Pearl and her enemy.
Unsurprisingly, she was immediately set upon by at least half a dozen men, all with naked blades in their hands. None of them had drawn their pistols, but this also wasn't a surprise; after all, a woman would be much more use to them alive than dead. They were only fighting to wound, and so Tetra automatically had the upper hand.
Her advantage was augmented immediately when several of her allies dropped onto the deck around her, ready to fight, and willing to kill.
She began to fight without having to think to do so. Her steel flashed effortlessly, her muscles moved with practiced swiftness, and her body and mind felt as sharp as if she had been training just the day before. It was true that she had kept herself well-practiced during her sojourn in Tortuga, but nothing compared to the surge of excitement she got from taking on three men at once. One fell when she sliced across his neck, another crumbled into unconsciousness when she delivered a powerful uppercut that broke his jaw, and though the third kept her occupied much longer, she finally managed to wind him with an elbow to the gut before driving the hilt of her sword against the top of his head.
Having dealt with them, she looked around quickly, scanning for the signs that would tell her who was the captain. She didn't manage to determine the answer to her question before another two sailors were upon her, one reaching around her waist from behind as the other swung back to deliver a blow to her head that would incapacitate her. Without pausing to wonder just how little they thought of her skills, she thrust her elbow back into the face of the man who held her; the other looked so startled by this that he was momentarily stunned, giving her time to run him through. He had barely hit the deck before she was leaping nimbly over him to run forward and continue her search for the captain.
Once again, she had only been free for a few short seconds before she was assaulted again. This attacker came alone, and seized her sword arm by the wrist in a fierce grip, whipping her around to face him. With a cry of aggression, she tried to wrench herself free, but his strength was such that she thought he could break her arm with his bare hands. Unfazed, she roared out and swung one of her legs out in a high kick that contacted with his ribs; he grunted in pain, but still didn't relinquish his hold on her. On the contrary, he took hold of her other arm as well.
"You're not getting away, bitch," he snarled angrily, leaning in closer to her.
Glaring narrowly at him, she responded by thrusting her knee up with all her strength into his groin. The man doubled over in pain, and though he didn't let her go, his grip was sufficiently weakened that she could twist out of it.
She was about to turn back to the fight when she heard a voice she recognized; being that of the only parrot between the crews of both ships, it was quite distinct.
"Squawk! Hard a-port!"
One of the most useful parts of having a parrot that spoke in obscure codes was that opponents never knew what it meant; one of the downsides was that allies didn't always, either, and Tetra was utterly lost by this shout. She looked around wildly, trying to determine by the behaviours of her shipmates what it meant, and it didn't take her long to realize that others were shouting the same order: "Back to the ship!"
Everyone was returning to the Pearl. Disappointed, but not foolhardy enough to question, Tetra followed suit. She aimed to land near Jack, so that she would be able to speak to him quickly.
"What's going on?" she demanded. "Why are we retreating so soon?"
"We're not," he replied shortly. "They are."
Tetra glanced back and saw that he was right; their opponents were hurrying back to their own vessel, and quickly pulling away. Those men who weren't making the leap were dropping into the water, and it didn't seem their captain was terribly concerned. He must have abided by the same code Jack did.
"Oh," Tetra said, slumping slightly and casting Jack a faint grin. "I barely even get the chance to show off."
Jack chuckled. "Neither did I, love. Don't worry, there's going to be other fights."
"Don't call me that. And there's always a fight to be had on a pirate ship," she agreed. "Why did they attack us anyway?"
"Because we're the Black Pearl," Jack guessed. "That's what I'm assuming, anyway. But if that's not it, we'll find out soon enough."
He nodded to where the largest man on the Pearl's crew, a man called simply Chris, was carrying over his shoulder a skinny, pale sailor with white blond hair splayed over his head.
"A captive?" Tetra inquired.
"What else? We'll interrogate him later. In the meantime…" Raising his voice to address the crew in general, he hollered, "Victory party! Drinks all around!"
This was greeted with enthusiastic consent, and Tetra was certainly not the quietest among those cheering.
