Seeing as we're still in the chapters I had recently deleted and have been working to rewrite, I thought it was worth mentioning that the first half of this chapter is brand, spankin' new. The second half is not because it was fine as is.

Chapter 7: Katrine

Since his arrival, Gascon had wandered past Lari's harbor countless times on his usual rounds. Every morning, the vast myriad of fishing vessels would leave for the day, their sizes ranging from tiny boats that couldn't have housed more than two or three crew members to far larger ones that could almost be mistaken for modest-sized pirate ships, had the nets hanging over their sides not hinted at a far less nefarious purpose.

It was the most effective means of making a living here in Lari, as the former prince had been told more times than he cared to count. Nearly every time he asked a shopkeeper or tradesman if they had an opening for him, he would be informed with no shortage of brusqueness that the ready availability of fishing jobs left him with no excuse for his current state of unemployment.

He would have very much appreciated it if they could have just answered him with a simple yes or no.

And though he'd fail to heed their advice time and time again, he'd find himself watching with inevitable regularity as the last of the ships returned every evening just before sundown, wriggling fish with dull, glassy eyes no doubt in tow. It made Gascon's skin crawl just thinking about it. He was quite fine with eating fish. (Well, quite frankly, he was already growing rather bored of it when it was the only thing he had eaten as of late, fish being one of the cheaper options available to him.) But he was not so fond of the sight of live fish nor could he abide the smell. The soap they provided at the inn was hardly even sufficient for creating suds. He just didn't think it would be up to the task of driving off a stench of such magnitude.

The longer work continued to elude him, however, the closer Gascon strayed to the harbor, watching from a distance as the men, along with a handful of boys roughly his age, or sometimes even younger, prepared for the long day ahead of them. Nevertheless, by the time he managed to navigate Lari's terraced streets and reach the docks on the town's lowest level, the fishing boats would already be gone, more often than not.

It was a shame, really. His internal clock didn't wake him up that early. And what, honestly, was he to do about it if that's just the way he was?

This particular morning was clearly an anomaly, as Gascon had found himself all the way down by the edge of the docks far earlier than he normally was, a mere stone's throw from where the fishing vessels were typically tied up overnight. For once, the boats hadn't quite left yet, not all of them anyway. It seemed the time for excuses was over. Releasing a long sigh, he forced himself forward, dragging his feet even as the distance between himself and his target grew ever shorter.

If fate really wished for him to become a fisherman, then they wouldn't leave without him, now would they?

The boards of the dock creaked beneath his feet, decades of salty sea air leaving the timbers to prematurely decay. One would get a nasty splinter if they weren't careful. Water lapped at the dock's underside, bringing back memories of his not-so-distant sea sickness.

Coming to a seaside town, he now regretted never learning how to swim. But how could he? There weren't exactly lakes or rivers in Hamelin. The great fountain in the palace courtyard had certainly never been deep enough, not even for Marcassin. His little brother had fallen in once (through no fault of Gascon's, mind you). At even his meager height, the water still didn't quite reach his waist.

Gascon stopped a short distance from one of the smaller fishing boats, where an old man and two younger sailors were busy untangling a stretch of fishing net.

"Oi," Gascon shoved his hands in his pockets, "I'm new in town, and I was wondering if you needed-"

The older man didn't even bother sparing him so much as a glance. "Do I look like I need anyone else? Ya shoulda gotten here before the bigger boats left."

No one could say he hadn't tried. Gascon was just in the middle of marching away with an enthusiasm he had failed to display earlier when he was stopped dead in his tracks by a gruff voice calling out to him over the sound of the ocean. "Boy, get o'er here! One o' my men fell ill last night. So it looks like yer in luck."

Yeah. Luck. He supposed that was one way of looking at it.

The source of the voice was a burly sort of man with a scruffy beard, his bare chest riddled with tattoos, the identities of which were no longer distinguishable beneath the scars. He was standing before the gangplank of a much larger fishing vessel one dock over. Seeing Gascon's bewildered stare, the man waved him over.

"So, ya got any experience on a fishin' boat, boyo?" the captain asked at the teen's reluctant approach.

"I was…a deckhand for a short time, you see, on the boat that goes between here and Hamelin. The…Lonesome Albatross." Well, it certainly wasn't a lie to say that he had been on that boat. And he had spent a fair amount of time during the voyage watching the sailors work. If you combined all that with catching fish, it couldn't be too complicated, could it?

"Workin' on a fishin' boat ain't the same as swabbin' the deck. Ya sure yer up fer the task?"

Gascon was just now considering whether or not he ought to admit that he definitely was not when the man patted his shoulder with enough force that he feared he might have heard an audible crunch. "Well, if yer gonna live in Lari, ya best get used to it. Fishin's what's we best known for. Now or never, eh, boyo? Welcome to the crew!"

The man turned away and headed up the gangplank, calling out to his crew that the time to leave was upon them. His fate sealed, Gascon trudged after the captain with a sigh, rubbing his wounded shoulder with one hand. On the bright side, he reckoned this would be good practice did he ever become a pirate. Ha, as if swashbuckling on the high seas would ever impress his father.

Though, was working on a fishing boat really any better?

It turned out that Gascon had no need to dwell on whether or not his current position would make his father proud because it became painfully obvious that he made a lousy fisherman. He knew nothing about sailing a boat. No matter how many times the captain bellowed orders at him, there was little he could do when he hadn't the foggiest notion of what the man was going on about. What in the world was a mizzen mast? There was nothing intuitive about the name at all.

And when the time came for actual fishing, he had never before realized how truly feeble he was. Chalk it up to living the last fifteen years of his life in a palace, where the most physical labor he had ever been forced to endure was light combat training when his father wasn't too busy with ruling an entire empire. Apparently that was, in no uncertain terms, not sufficient preparation for helping to lift a massive net filled to the brim with several hundred squirming fish. Who bloody knew?

When the captain's preteen son, who was on board for the purposes of learning his father's trade, had no choice but to step in and pick up the slack on Gascon's behalf, the former prince knew his fishing days were numbered. More specifically, he could count those days on the fingers of one hand.

Blimey, he might as well use his nose for counting. He had about as many of those as there were days the captain was going to tolerate his inadequacies.

By the end of the day, Gascon's arms, which he now understood were apparently about as frail as a girl's (scratch that, perhaps comparing his strength to that of an elderly woman was more fitting), were quivering from exhaustion, and all he had to show for it were the disgruntled glares from the crew he had so thoroughly let down. Of course, there was little they could really do about his shortcomings. The captain, on the other hand…

As the ship made its way back to land that evening, Gascon had retreated below deck as soon as the captain began heading in his direction, hoping against hope the man had not noticed the look of expectant dread in the boy's eyes when their gazes had inadvertently locked from across the deck. He already knew what the man had to say.

If he had a guilder for every time he was told he was not good enough, he'd have accumulated enough wealth to rival that of even Hamelin's treasury. At least in this instance, it wasn't as if he really wanted to be associated with a bunch of lowlife fishermen anyway. He used to be royalty, after all. Let this be a lesson that he needn't lower his standards so drastically next time.

He managed to elude the captain by slinking down behind a wooden support beam amongst an assortment of barrels containing drinking water in the corner of the ship's cargo hold. It wasn't as if it was lost on him just how humiliating it would be if he was to be caught hiding like an unruly child from their parent. But he couldn't say it was much different from the instinct that drove children to lie about spoiling their supper with cookies when the evidence to the contrary was clear upon their faces, if only to delay the inevitable punishment for even a single moment longer.

He only dared emerge above deck once the ship had arrived back at the dock just before nightfall and the crew was hard at work unloading their catch. Casting a sweeping glance about his surroundings to check for any telltale signs of his would-be assailant, he made his way across the deck with the stiff alertness of a rabbit leaving the safety of a thicket of brambles. He had just made it nearly to the gangplank, and freedom, when the man he had been so keen to avoid stepped out from amidst the throng of sailors, as if he had been awaiting the perfect opportunity to strike when his victim least expected it.

If Gascon had any desire to make a run for it, he was stopped when the musclebound captain grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, effectively barring any hope for escape. The man could have easily lifted him if he so chose. Instead, Gascon simply had to settle for craning his neck as the man towered over him.

"Where da ya think yer goin'?"

Gascon swallowed around the lump that had formed in his throat. "I-I was just going to help the crew unload." Just give him several more years to develop the muscles for it. He'd get there eventually.

"Sure ya was! Yer the worst fisherman I've ever seen, and ya won't be seein' a single guilder fer yer trouble!"

Gascon blurted out his next words with hardly a thought for the consequences. "I-it's not like I did nothing. Can't you at least pay me for what I did do?"

The teen regretted his words the moment the captain's teeth bared in a disgusted snarl. The next thing he knew, his assessment of the man's capabilities were confirmed when his feet lost contact with the deck, and he was thrown bodily over the side of the boat. Gascon only had enough time to release a strangled yelp in comprehension before he hit the cold water below. He floundered to the surface and gasped for breath the moment his head breached the water. He might not have made for a very good fisherman. But he supposed now was as good a time as any to learn how to swim.

It took Gascon under a month to learn his way around the port town of Lari almost as well as those born here. He suspected it was all thanks to his prior experience navigating the city of his birth that made finding the hidden passages and shortcuts of the cliff side village as easy as putting on shoes in comparison. The former prince knew which shopkeepers could be more easily persuaded to lower their prices and which walkways had fewer potholes for him to trip over. He was also privy to the fact that there was a house on the third terrace that stored a ladder in the neighboring alley, which served as the perfect shortcut to the street above. It was only a shame there was no place for such talents in the world of common laborers, or else he'd be the best of his trade.

Nevertheless, it took him the better part of two weeks to find her again, and when he did finally spot the girl with the hazel curls from across the town square one muggy afternoon, it was only the thought of losing track of her again that forced him to approach her.

She had, upon closer inspection, been shopping for goods in the marketplace, for her arms were weighed down with baskets she managed to carry with grace and poise despite their bulk. He caught her attention with a raised hand, and his heart almost crawled up into his throat at the initial incomprehension her face bore at his arrival. Whatever Gascon had meant to say fled from him at that moment, but he was saved the trouble of trying to recall it when she smiled.

"I can't afford t' pay ya for anythin' else," were her first words upon their reunion, and he knew he spotted a sparkle in her eye that suggested the cunning of a fox. "Of course," she swayed this way and that so that her simple blue skirt, the only detail a line of tiny pink ribbons just above the hem, swung about her ankles, "a proper gentleman really doesn't make a lady pay for favors."

He scratched his head. "I'm not sure I ever said I was a gentleman."

"Well, I'm at least a lady, am I not?"

"You tell me."

She nudged her head in the direction she had previously been heading, and he walked with her down the nearest cobblestoned street. He could blame its narrow width, a feature of all streets in this town, for any close proximity to her, had she decided to mention it. She didn't.

"You're…new in town," she began and glanced his way. "I mean, I assume. 'Cause Lari's a small place, and I don't recall seein' ya around before."

"Yes, I…moved here…with my father, just about a month ago." He caught her gaze dart downwards, and when he followed its path, he remembered the load in her arms. "Do you…" he pointed to the basket closest to him, "want me to carry anything?" He flashed her a crooked grin. "Free of charge, of course."

"I'd been waitin' for ya t' ask the entire time."

"What kind of a gentleman would I be if I hadn't? And it took me less than five minutes."

"That's probably a record in certain parts o' the world."

Gascon's eyebrows rose on his forehead at this statement, but he was spared the chance to ponder over her meaning for much longer when she handed him the entirety of her goods. He could claim it was flattering she didn't suspect he might steal the lot of it, but it was more likely she was only confident due to the fact that moving at any increased speed was impossible with such a load.

"Is he a fisherman?" she asked, straightening her dress with a few downward tugs now that her arms were free. "'Tis pretty much the way of everyone here, so that's why I ask, y'see."

He hefted a basket packed with turnips in an effort to get a better grip on the handle. "Yeah."

"Times are tough right now, with…y'know…" her voice fell to a whisper, "the Dark Djinn an' all." She clasped her hands together, her stride reduced to the slow, meandering fashion of one who was in no hurry to get where they were going. Her pace, he had noticed, had changed as soon as the one doing the carrying had switched. "My mother worries so, even when I remind her time an' time again that we're probably safer than most. Why would he bother with us when there are entire cities t' pester? At least, that's how I look at it."

"Mmm." He gave an absent nod in reply.

"'Tisn't good for her t' fret so, especially with her health the way it is, but…" She laughed and ran a hand through her hair. "I'm sorry. I'm probably borin' ya. No one wants t' hear about someone else's problems when they have plenty of their own."

Gascon shook his head. "It's fine, I really don't mind." A particularly strong gust of wind swept in from over the ocean, and he had to plant his feet in place to prevent himself from getting blown over. She, on the other hand, appeared completely unmoved. Her steadiness could only be due to practice. They had no wind in Hamelin.

He turned to better study the ocean below them. "Your village…it has a nice view, doesn't it?" When she failed to answer, he looked over, "Or do you disagree?"

"Well, personally…" she drew closer to stand beside him, "I hate the ocean. I hate seein' it each day I look out my window."

"Really? A lot of people wish they lived near the ocean."

"A lotta people don't understand how cruel it can be. I can't count how many men the sea has taken over the years, my own father among them."

"Oh, well, I…I didn't mean…"

"I know. And you? Do you like the ocean, that is?"

Gascon drew in a long breath through his nose as the breeze ruffled his hair. "I've often thought about becoming a pirate. Does that answer your question?"

"Yes, I suppose it does. It tells me a few other things, as well," she added, but when his gaze left the sea to turn back to her, she looked away. Even from this angle, however, he thought he still detected evidence of a smile.

They continued down the street, stray flurries of wind continuing to play with their clothes, though he seemed to be the only one having a difficult time remaining upright. Even the gulls overhead merely allowed the wind to guide their flight rather than hinder it. With his gaze directed skyward, he nearly walked into a building before realizing she had stopped, and whether or not she had noticed, he was at least grateful she failed to address his near blunder.

"Well, here I am. I need t' make my mother lunch, but…" she tapped a finger to her cheek, "I just realized…I've forgotten t' ask your name."

Gascon's heart stopped. In his short time here, he hadn't yet had any need to provide anyone with his name. He had always planned on coming up with a new one, for if he was going to shed his title of prince and give up the nicer things in life that went along with it, it only made sense to change the name of his birth, as well.

Under the warmth of her smile, he was finding it impossible to think straight at the moment.

He delayed answering in favor of licking his lips, well aware of how it might look if he failed to answer such a simple question. "M-Mar…" he began and cursed himself at once for being so foolish as to consider taking on his little brother's name as his own. She blinked at him and tilted her head, a clear indication that he was running out of time.

"G-Gaston," he said, the butchering of his own name thanks to his sudden inability to speak. He was an idiot, and he would have slapped a hand to his forehead had he not already made himself look like a proper nutter. Or if even one of his hands had been free.

"Gaston?" she repeated, though the slow manner in which she said it suggested she was about as unsure as he was.

"Gascon. I…I said Gascon. That's…what my name is." It was a blessing he was still holding her groceries. Otherwise he might have cut his losses and ran for it.

"Gascon," she said, even more carefully this time in her pronunciation. "Did I get that right?"

He nodded once he realized his jaw was glued shut.

"Well, I'm Katrine. It's been very nice talkin' t' ya. We'll…see each other again some time. Right?"

He nodded again. "Yeah."

"Wonderful. Uh, can I have my things back now?"

"Sure." Uncertain as to what she was asking due to the recent whistling he had developed in his ears, he made no move to return her possessions. It was only after she reached for them herself that he relinquished his grip. Now he was free to run. Straight into the ocean.

"I-it was nice meeting you, too" he said over her "thank you" and turned to march away in a far stiffer manner than he intended.

"Gascon," she said, and he jerked to a stop before he had gone more than ten feet.

"Yeah?" he asked and turned back to face her.

"If you're still havin' trouble findin' work, I know just the man t' talk to. Jameson. He employs my brother, as well, and he can use more workers from time to time. You can find 'im…"

A shrill female voice broke in over her from inside the house. "Kat? Kat, is that you?"

"Yeah, Mama, 'tis me!" she called through the open front door. Returning her attention to him, she went on, "I hafta go. Just ask around. I'm sure someone can point ya in the right direction."

By the time Gascon could develop the courage to thank her, she had already gone inside.

Yeah, so the scene with Gascon's failed attempts at becoming a fisherman is completely new. I figured a prince wouldn't be nearly as well-suited for manual labor as regular folks his age who had probably been working since they were young.

Random note: Katrine's name was somewhat inspired by the word kittiwake, a species of seabird in the seagull family, Laridae. Now isn't that neato? Please review, my dears.