Harry woke up in a hammock on the deck. He was at the Lost Revenge, he had no doubt about it, but he wondered if the party had been just a dream. He didn't remember anything much further after the goddess vanished in a breeze, flooding everything, stormy and magnificent. He didn't remember when he had gone to sleep.

The sky was purplish blue, indicating that they must be passing the hours that led to the early morning after night. Almost no stars, but still no sun. And it was a cool, vivid morning that made Harry squirm to snuggle better in his hammock, hungry for the feel of the waves rocking the ship. He closed his eyes...

And then a voice made him fall from the hammock. There, leaning on the board, was Uma.

"Don't get too comfortable, pirate. Soon it will be time to start work". She laughed, reaching out to offer him a hand. He took it and she pulled him hard enough to lift him up. Uma had a playful expression, a slightly wicked smile, and some restless in her eyes. "Good Morning".

Harry swallowed hard.

"Good morning, Captain", he replied. "Were you... were you watching me sleep?"

She did not say anything. She began to walk towards the rudder with strong, confident steps, and Harry followed her, thinking that she looked more fearsome than many pirate captains he had ever met in his life. She headed the ship, but it seemed to Harry that it was not actually operated by a mechanism, but by something else, perhaps her own will.

"We will be touching port in no time", she warned him, keeping her eyes on the horizon. Then she slid her hand across the wood, stroking the boat tenderly and lovingly. She smiled and Harry saw her expression soften. "This is my favorite part of the day, when the mist clears and the sailors are still sleepy... then their breath escapes in steam when they see the Lost Revenge, like a spectrum in the distance, just a light, an illusion that is oneself with the sea. They don't know me, but their instincts tell them they must fear me. Are you afraid of me, Harry?"

He should… maybe he feared her a little, but not in the way sailors feared wraiths. She caused Harry another kind of fear, the kind that provokes the madness that is craved at the same time, because he had never seen her before and yet he felt that he knew her, as if she had always been with him. He wanted to give her all what he was if he was still more than a ghost. If he was afraid of her, it was not a fear that she would harm him. It was fear of being pushed away from her side.

"Yes and no," he told her honestly, not realizing that he was leaning a little to be on the same level as Uma. His blue eyes swept over her, wishing he could keep her in his memory forever. "Not like you think. I am not afraid of your ship, and I am not afraid of your magic".

But he couldn't explain his feeling exactly. There were few things pirates feared, and death was not one of them. They were always aware that it could arrive at the least expected moment. To the immensity of the sea, either. It was their home. And Harry could be sure that he felt privileged to have given his death to the goddess.

Did that make him insane?

Uma raised an eyebrow defiantly.

"You should," she said scathingly. "Nobody is happy to meet me. I am a goddess, a sea queen, of a cruel nature. My uncle, King Triton, stripped me of what is rightfully mine. My mother was exiled from his kingdom long before I was born, and he thought he would humiliate me by giving me a job he thought unworthy: shipwrecks, helping the castaways if they are still alive, taking them on my ship if they have died. But I was born from one of the most fearsome storms that have hit the sea. He does not know that I am the tempest. My breath is the gale that breaks the sails, and my dance can sink ships to the bottom of the ocean. I'll ask you one more time, aren't you afraid of me, Harry?"

Harry leaned to her, wanting to smell her once more.

"No," he repeated, sure. And his blue eyes sparkled with a contained chaos that desperately needed an outlet. "You see the beauty in the fire that is consumed by the breeze, right? I have seen the storms; they have drenched me from head to toe in waves like mountains. And I laughed, because I had never felt freer."

Uma waved her blue braids thoughtfully. She motioned for him to stand up.

"You decided to stay, I gave you options. You could go, but you decided to stay". She mused, speaking to herself. "You also know it. You feel it too, right?"

"Because this is your place, Harry, next to me" she had said the night before. And Harry didn't know how, he didn't know why, that didn't make sense... but Uma was right. That was his place.

"As your first mate," he murmured, a little unsure.

Uma smiled pleased.

"I was waiting for you to claim it".

And the morning was just as she had described it, mist that came from the ship itself, and they were a maritime light, hardly a dream. The sky didn't seem as immense as the sea, and it was flat and transparent compared to the shimmering waves, to the depths that called out to the darkest part of his heart.

Soon the other members of the crew awoke, and no one protested the place Harry had just taken among them. It was as if everyone knew, as if they had been waiting for him. As if the crew was finally complete.


Gil asked him for help to lower some goods to the port when they moored. It was a bright day and Harry suspected that not everyone could see them but could feel them. They had to deliver barrels of sugar to the port of Auradon, some flamboyant-looking people bowed respectfully to the Lost Revenge or panicked and made protective gestures if they were dignified and lucky enough to see the figure of Uma strolling by the deck.

"We make deals with people whose veins the magic runs through," Gil explained, loading a couple of barrels toward the port. He received payment from a person that Harry did not remember very well afterwards. "There are also those who worship her, and she sends them gifts and fortune. Everyone believes that Uma only takes away, but she always, always gives."

He pointed to some of the barrels they had arranged, and Harry couldn't help but be surprised at what he saw. The sugar had turned into gold, into shells and starfish, into treasures he could not have imagined. They gave off the scent of her, albeit in a lighter way. Just the hint of an aroma.

Perhaps this was why they called her The Queen of Eternal Treasures.

The crew was now carrying a cargo on board, but Gil smiled at Harry.

"Uma doesn't mind us having fun for a bit. I'll show you something, let's go".

They went into the port towards the market. Harry saw Gil take some eggs from a stall without paying and decided that he definitely liked this boy.

"Pirate or honored sailor?" He asked mockingly, remembering that the Lost Revenge welcomed both equally, with the sole condition of having been dead at sea.

Gil carefully tucked the loot into his bag.

"Pirate, just like you." He kept walking among the people, who turned when they passed as if they felt someone's presence, but who never, never looked them in the face. As if they just couldn't see them.

"They can see us?" Harry asked.

"No, if Uma doesn't want it," Gil replied. "Anyway, there are those who try. They turn into pieces of wood if they make her angry".

They took what they wanted, sturdy boots, chains, bottles of the best rum. When they returned to the Lost Revenge, Gil handed Uma the payment he had received for the barrels, and she inspected it before throwing it into the sea. Harry sensed a change in the air, as if an invisible force was pulling the ship back into the ocean.

"Time to go," she said, stroking the ropes with light fingers. The crew began work immediately and soon the ship was far from the dock.


Later, when the sun that had caressed his skin in the morning threatened to sink forever, Harry discovered that she had become his obsession.

See her steer the ship, hear her powerful and demanding voice giving orders, even feel through the wood of the deck her impatient footsteps.

And to see her when she leaned over the stern, closing her eyes, and feeling the air rush over her face.

And watch her raise the waves like endless swirls.

And hear her laughter fade, become one with the foam.

And even when Harry couldn't see her anymore, but could feel her, being the wind that propelled the Lost Revenge, being the mocking breeze that splashed the entire crew as they worked, and then the impeccable rhythm of the rocking ship.

When night fell, the Lost Revenge nearly flew across the sea, emerging from the mist, and Harry saw ships in the distance.