Even with the light having disappeared, Fareeha had been so caught up in her thoughts that she hadn't noticed that night had fallen until the bitter chill of the cold wood at her back had bitten her skin, sending a frown across her face as she adjusted herself, hiding the exposed portions of her skin behind her coat. Her hand curled into a fist as she pushed herself further upright, getting further comfortable with a groan before returning her fist to her lap, opening her fingers as she stared instantly at the small vial that hung at the end of her necklace, thinking of a lost love.

Her thumb ran along its corken lid, forming a subtle groove within her skin long it's sudden edge, her finger swirling absently as her mind wandered further. For all the nights she'd spent on any one side of Thalia, she knew all to well that the vial in her hand held the truest from of love Fareeha had ever expressed to any one person, a thought that, at once, comforted and frightened her.

Lifting the empty bottle in front of her face, she shook it ever so slightly, earning nothing from its non-existent contents, though at the same time, it somehow allowed a slight wave of calm along Fareeha, though her face remained with a slight sadness to it.

"You okay?" came a sincerely feminine sort of voice from nearby, yanking Fareeha from her spell as she quickly snagged the vial into her hand and flew her fist into her pocket, noticing Angela with a start.

"The- Why do you keep doing that?!" Fareeha asked, more in nervousness than anything.

Almost offended at the insinuation, Angela crossed her arms with a flurious spurt of incredulity, "Hey, you were looking right at me. I was just doing my duty as a host and making sure you hadn't gone stir-crazy or anything down here. I don't need to know much about anybody to know that kind of look on their face."

"What look..?" Fareeha questioned, burying her head toward her chest as she shoved her necklace back into her pocket, trying to hide her sullen expression.

Carefully, Angela took a moment of silence to attempt to ascertain her stowaway's mood, debating whether or not to make a case out of this, though she merely spoke quietly, taking the chance for heartfelt conversation, "I dunno; kind of sad almost."

Fareeha rolled her eyes, her head still hidden, though more due to Angela's accuracy than her being incorrect, "Just-…"

She trailed off, leaving Angela to drop her arms and walk on over toward Fareeha, dropping into a cross-legged spot in front of the former captain as if she were wanting to study her. She brought her hands into her lap, holding onto something that Fareeha couldn't make out between Angela's two sets of fingers, though the captain's daughter spoke up soon enough, leaving Fareeha unable to make out the object's shape.

"Did you get that necklace for her?" Angela asked quietly.

Fareeha smushed her lips together in disinterest, much rather preferring to bark back in reply and drive this woman away, though she couldn't help but feel a tug at her chest at such a thought. Somewhere between Angela's sincerity and their prior experiences together, Fareeha found some space to open up, if only slightly.

"If you must know, then yes, sort of," Fareeha answered with slight defiance.

Angela's eyes went crooked, "Sort of?"

"Look, you wanna make a case out of it?" Fareeha accused, "I answered the question for you, what else do you want to know?"

Angela shrugged, "Nothing, really. I suspected as much already, but- Had I known it meant so much to you, I wouldn't have toyed with it like I did."

A pull came to her lips as she apologized, "I mean, I'm sorry to have used it like some trifling thing."

Fareeha's downcast eyes lifted just enough to catch Angela's own distant face, the woman sighing as she replied warmer than she had been, "It's nothing. You didn't know; I didn't tell you."

"But it is," Angela suddenly retorted, "Had I a clue you had somebody else, I wouldn't've-"

"Angela," Fareeha interrupted forcefully, "There is no Thalia. Not anymore. You have nothing to feel guilty about."

Her face having opened up in a shocked expression, Angela retorted, "What?!"

"Thalia died," Fareeha confirmed, somberly, "I guess I forgot to mention that last time."

"You think?!"

Fareeha shrugged, "I told you I'm loyal. So long as there's nobody to be loyal to, I haven't a care upon whom I kiss, or where I do so. What kind of woman did you think I was?"

Still slightly reeling from the sudden news, Angela asked, "H- What happened to her?"

Groaning with impatience, Fareeha rolled her eyes, "Look, as much as I'd love to regale you with such stories, I've got books to read down here. Better stories than I have to offer, at that."

She reached over toward the stack of books that sat in the lantern-light, picking them one by one to show them off as she rattled off the titles, "Let's see, there's Eliot Tidson's 'Dodger's Jolt'. I've got Fieldmann's 'Geraldina & the Crow'. Even some of Laura's Vicham's 'Guides to English Reading Comprehension'- I got it all. Now, if you'd allow me to read these in peace, this voyage will be far more-"

Fareeha suddenly paused, unable to decipher the strange look upon Angela's face, her own eyes curling suspiciously, "…what?"

"Reading?" Angela asked with a subtle smirk on her face.

Fareeha rolled her eyes, "Shut up. and get on outta here; you know you're not supposed to be down here in the first place."

"Hasn't stopped me before," Angela muttered with a glibly childish tone.

"Yeah, but-," Fareeha paused, raising her head over Angela's shoulders to examine the entrance before giving a cursory glance up toward the floor above, "-I think, this time, your captain means it. I was about to have a heart attack when he told me he knew you were-"

"He what?!" Angela nearly shouted, recoiling in horror.

Fareeha nodded a serious face, "He came down here, basically telling me that he knows you're sneaking down here and that you kind of have to shut that shit down, alright? Seriously, I don't need a fuckin' drowning."

She quickly began to grasp for another package of blini, waving it at arm's length in front of Angela's face, "Now shoo! Get outta here!"

At Angela's impotent movement, Fareeha grumbled, sticking a hand into the sack and tossing a flurry of the flat cakes toward the entryway, the lot of them landing with little more than a poof, "Go on! Get!"

"Why would he leave you down here, then…" Angela wondered aloud, her voice nearly a whisper.

Fareeha quickly shrugged, "Well I kinda saved your life; that alone gives me some points, but I'm not trying to expel them all! Have you any idea what he'd do to me if he found out what we've-"

"But he was so insistent early on…" Angela murmured once again.

"He was also a bit drunk!" Fareeha explained, rather desperately, "I'm shocked I don't have glass in my skull from him pelting me with that bottle of his!"

Angela's eyes lit up, "Hold on- drunk? This was on mother's… Oh."

"Yeah!" Fareeha went on, "And I don't-!"

"You think he even remembers?"

"Angela!" Fareeha pleaded, yanking her wrist against her bounds, "That- Man- Controls- My- Fate! I'm not trying to piss him off!"

With a wry grin, Angela shrugged, "You weren't this insistent before…"

"Well, one, I took you at your word that you'd be good at hiding out meetings. How the fuck did he find out?" Fareeha chided before her voice suddenly grew lower, "And, two, that was kind of before we fucked!"

Angela pouted, "So? I'm an adult; I can be with whomever I want."

"Not on your father's boat you can't!"

Crossing her arms, Angela suddenly explained, "Okay, so we just ignore that. What's that- You're trying to learn to read? Let's just say I decide to help teach you in exchange for you saving my life?"

Fareeha frowned, "How thin are you wanting his patience drawn?"

"Come on," Angela concluded alone, scooting closer and taking ahold of the comprehension book Fareeha had presented earlier, "You're not going anywhere. We've got the votes, remember? Besides, father's not going to overboard the woman who saved his daughter. That's not who he is."

Groaning with a pained expression, Fareeha uttered unsurely, "Are you absolutely positive..?"

Angela's eyes went wide in confusion, "I'd like to think my life is worth saving in my father's eyes!"

"That's not what I- You know what, do with me as you will; I'm just tired of worrying about my life," Fareeha sighed, shaking her head begrudgingly, "Just make sure it's quick and painless."

A soft, near-hidden giggle escaped Angela as she pushed herself toward the hull to prop herself up, opening up the book, "I don't know about that if you're trying to learn how to write in English. Most everybody I come across says it's pretty difficult compared to other languages."

"Lovely."

Angela skimmed through the early pages, murmuring, "How'd you learn one and not the other, anyway?"

"I've picked up a little of a lot of languages- that's just what happens when you sail with everybody under the sun. Some crews speak English, others Spanish, Italian; you just pick it up soon enough. usually starting with the curse words," Fareeha explained, rubbing her two hands up and down her face, "I can't believe you know I can barely read."

"Hey, I didn't know how to read once," Angela assured with a smile.

Eyes rolling, Fareeha shot back, "Yeah, what, when you were six years old?"

"I'll have you know, I'm rather proud of my rabble-rousing," Angela maintained with a haughty voice, "I wouldn't sit still at that age, and my tutors had a ghastly time trying to teach me much of anything. It didn't help that they wanted me reading Latin junk, as if that would help me learn English. Ms. Forster hadn't a clue that English has about as much Greek in it than Latin, and she spoke it!"

"Greek?" Fareeha asked, "Then katalavéno."

Unamused, Angela turned to her stowaway, "Now don't you start. Look here-"

She found a nearby pencil, scraping off the sharp end with her fingernail just to give it a finer point, and carefully wrote on one of the book's margins, "See, here's 'pharmacy'- you know, those chemists? That has 'ph' making the 'f' sound; that's from the Greek letter 'phi', the circle with the vertical-"

"I know what 'phi' is," Fareeha interrupted, drolly, though still unable to hide her interest as she leaned closer to watch Angela write down the word 'pharmakeia', "Hold up. It's that simple?"

"Only in so few cases," Angela explained with a shrug, "English is still a hodge-podge of everything, really. But you might have a grasp on a bit of it just by knowing Greek."

Fareeha nodded in understanding, leaving Angela to turn her head, trying to eye an empty sheet of paper lying around, "I, of course, have learned from my life experience. I won't leave you reading boring stuff like-"

She reached for a nearby book, catching its title, "Chaucer? C'mon."

"Thalia gave me that book…" Fareeha muttered in reply.

"Like I said, a great read!" Angela clarified in a rush, carefully returning the book to its rightful spot, "In any case, I'll make sure you have the proper reading material to learn from. Pertinent phrases, important words to look out for, all that. You have anything in mind you'd like to know in advance?"

"Moira."

Angela's head rose quick in surprise, her eyes narrowed as she gazed at Fareeha in confusion. She knew it to be a name, not a word, though she hadn't recalled a single instance where Fareeha might have revealed the person's identity. At the sudden intrusion of some other bit of Fareeha's past, Angela was left slightly dumbfounded, earning an impatient stare from her new student.

"How would I see 'Moira' written?" Fareeha clarified, as though Angela hadn't caught it the first time.

"O-Oh," Angela stammered, returning her attention to the book's margin at the absence of a loose sheet of paper, "Uh, like this."

She wrote the name out, much to Fareeha's interest, her tanned hand reaching over to pull the book closer so as to give her a better look. She critiqued it for a few moments, her eyes gradually squinting with focus until, finally, she relinquished her hold on the book, sighing with slight relief, confusing Angela all the more.

"I don't recall ever seeing that before," Fareeha explained, completely oblivious to her own ambiguity that immediately caught Angela's curiosity.

"Is that…good? or bad?" Angela asked.

Fareeha nodded, "It's good."

At that, Fareeha went quiet, leaving Angela to focus on writing down sentences, though she couldn't help but steal glances toward the woman beside her. For all the progress she'd made toward understanding this woman, she was just now realizing just how truly vast her history was, a fact that more upset Angela than anything else, knowing she wasn't making much progress when it came to understanding Fareeha. Still, Angela remained diligent, the very idea of her helping Fareeha with anything, much less one of her embarrassing faults, bringing some sense of closeness to this person that so captivated much of Angela's thoughts since the two of them had met.

"You've been down here for weeks, reading," Angela pointed out absently as she remained writing as neatly as she could, "How've you gotten through so much?"

Fareeha shrugged, "I read what I can. Everything else, I have dictionaries and stuff."

She went on with a smarmy sort of grin, "Never underestimate self-sufficient people. We get stuff done without others even knowing it."

"I suppose," Angela replied half-heartedly, "I mean, I could've helped if you'd asked. I guess you were busy making my ventures down here as infuriating as possible at that point in time."

Fareeha grinned, "You make it sound so miserable. I happened to have had a fun time with it all. Besides, considering where it all lead, at that pent up frustration-"

"It led to me discovering your illiteracy and teaching you to read?" Angela mused with a smirk, catching Fareeha's stare with a sense of pride, "Hey, you started it."

"I also ended it," Fareeha replied with a quick lick at her lips, though Angela seemed unfazed by the action, simply returning to her writing, leaving Fareeha unsatisfied, "Hey!"

Angela shrugged, barely managing to conceal her own upturned lips, "I haven't a clue what you mean. That is, I understand that you're the sort of woman that hates for your prolonged work to go unappreciated, or worse, unknown. Perhaps I just haven't noticed."

Catching Angela's attempts at baiting her, Fareeha kept herself composed, "I bet you think you're so smart, huh, Princess?"

"Who's teaching whom?" Angela retorted.

Biting her lip, Fareeha was taken aback by the response, ultimately groaning, "Fine. I happen to be rather proud of the things I am good at. There's not much of 'em to begin with. So what?"

"You're certainly good enough at keeping secrets," Angela muttered, catching Fareeha off guard, "Are you proud of them?"

"Pfft," Fareeha scoffed, "I hardly know you. Were you wanting my whole life story? I already told you about Thalia, which is crazy enough of me to begin with. What, were you wanting the tale of my first lost tooth? My first time on a boat? Maybe-"

She had turned toward Angela in her incredulity, though he eyes trailed down Angela's arms toward the book in her lap, catching the name 'Moira' still exposed where Angela had written it down, leaving Fareeha aghast with humor, "Wait, you think- Are you jealous?!"

"Jealous?!" Angela questioned, "Of what, some lover from your past? Why, because hers was the first thing you wanted to know how to write down?"

Fareeha chuckled with awe, "You really have no idea, Princess."

Such condescension only increased Angela's frustration, her hands quickly shutting the book and dropping at at her side before she stood up in a huff, shaking her head angrily, "I just can't believe you."

"It's not my fault you've such thin skin," Fareeha shrugged, "If you weren't so cute while angry, I wouldn't bother teasing you so much."

Angela didn't halt her exit, stomping across the hold as Fareeha sighed, making her subtle plea, "Alright, alright. I'm sorry. Come on; I truly do appreciate your help."

Pausing, Angela turned around to reveal a frown, her eyes like daggers upon Fareeha as she spoke up cooly, "Moira or that necklace. You want me to help, you have to tell me the story about one of those things."

Fareeha's bright face quickly darkened, her lips disappearing as they pulled inward in suspense, her mind suddenly railing, legitimately weighing the idea of refusing and sending Angela off. Angela knew she was wading into dangerous waters, especially given Fareeha's being taken aback, though she was legitimately curious, and after having been rebuffed for so long, she was prepared to push the issue. It wasn't as if her stowaway were going anywhere soon.

After a thickeningly tense silence, Fareeha finally acquiesced with a heavy breath from her nose, shaking her head while her hand disappeared into her pocket, muttering to herself all the while with an annoyed voice, "I swear… I warned the little-"

"Okay," Fareeha interrupted herself with a start, holding up the small vial strung up on the chain of a necklace, "There's no turning back if I tell you about this."

Angela nearly pouted at Fareeha's implication that she might not be ready to hear this, replying sullenly, "I've come down here how many times without turning back while on the way?"

"Just warning you," Fareeha shrugged, lowering her head toward her necklace, her eyes gazing through the empty vial.

With bated breath, Angela watched Fareeha tinker with the tiny bottle, a sad expression crossing her face as her breathes slowed the more in thought she fell, "Do you believe in the supernatural?"

Angela's eyes narrowed in suspicion as Fareeha's fingers closed in around the end of her necklace, her eyes slowly crawling up to meet Angela's own pair.

"Thalia's in here," Fareeha muttered quietly.