Chapter 1

Note: This fic was originally posted first on Ao3 on the 1st of December 2022.

Above a gorge flew a ship with an large shark-inspired balloon along the area, that had a large abyss, that led down to a river heading to a valley.

Inside the ship, the crew consisted of a few pirate men and a younger adult woman standing behind the wheel dressed in a red coat, blue pants, and a lighter blue headband. She had in sight their route along with the teammates working along the board with taking care of its load. The captain named Alfida took out her binoculars to analyze the route along the canyon to recognize down by the river a partition, therefore, she opened her map to analyze the way.

"We're going in the right direction," Commented Alfida with a smile, then looked down at her team to see a brunette man with beard cleaning the ground by the stairs. "Inkbeard, I need your eyes at the bow," Ordered the raven-haired woman watching the man put the broom aside and ran aside from the boat to get to the front. Alfida took a look around the ship to check for her teammates and noticed, that someone seemed to be missing. "Where Rollan?" Questioned Alfida furrowing her brows in wonder at the Spaniard's absence.

Rollan was inside the cabin standing in front of a mirror with the signature of master Vegard's mirror store seeing himself in the mirror. He was readjusting the lapels of his shirt, then took a closer look on the mirror to see his own face. Rollan smiled seeing everything was fine, afterward he walked to the barrel between the two hammocks to grab from a standing box with cookies in it and took one out to take a bite of it and moved forward to the door, which was plastered with images of his and Alfida's common friends. In one of them, Rollan stood together with his girlfriend Gerda, where they stood somewhere by the fjords together. Gerda had her hands placed against his chest, while Rollan had his right arm behind her back and looked along with the girl with a smile plastered on their face at the fourth wall. Most of the images were in black and white, also contained in the corner the signature of King Harald and his son Prince Anders. The original creators of the image. Little known fact, those so-called pictures aren't any sort of drawing. They're called snapshots and according to the king, it's made by a device he created along with his son to make instantly an image of a person instead of painting it in a long process of time. To spare time and money for certain people, this is the quickest option villagers around would have to have a memory of something or someone. Out of all the available pictures, that one was Rollan's favorite. Both were shown in their most comfortable position together and there was no need of extras to make it look authentic.

Before opening the door, Rollan pecked the image with his lips and placed his hands on the door handle before opening it.

"Hasta lluego, mi amor," Rollan left the cabin, then moved to a pirate, which was washing a shirt inside a barrel filled with rainwater. Rollan glimpsed at the man's work, then the pirate stared at the brown-eyed boy.

"You're not here to help me, aight?" The pirate asked, then the pirate captain whistled calling Rollan's attention. Alfida waved at Rollan, ordering him to come upstairs to see her.

"I gotta go," Announced Rollan running upstairs to the raven-haired girl, then saluted at her. "What do you need?"

"Razorbeard has the map for the tomb. You go along with him in there. The tomb is narrow and you two are the shortest and flexible ones out of the crew. Is that clear?"

"It's clear," Responded Rollan making Alfida nod. Rollan got down to encounter the thin man, which stood on the other side of the boat analyzing the route into the tomb. "Found anything specific on the map?"

"The X, that tags the treasure, hopefully," Responded Razorbeard making Rollan nod.

"You think, that will bring us much gold?" Questioned Rollan making the pirate nod.

"Hopefully! If it's another empty chest as the last time at the tomb of g'uur, I will explode,"

"Well, I couldn't wait another month to look for another treasure again. I've been postponing this one special gift, because of our bad lucks," Mentioned Rollan making the pirate nod.

"We will have better luck this time. I promise you," Announced the pirate looking out of the ship along with the Spaniard to see their ship sink towards the river to follow it to the end, until they found it going in two directions and turned the ship to follow the left path. The crew followed the path, as on the front Inkbeard used his binoculars to observe the walls for anything suspicious. The man moved his device up to call Alfida's attention, which sank the ship down and stopped with it in midair.

"Down there by the bushes is a strange hole on the ground. This might be a clue," The man announced making Alfida nod and look at Rollan and Razorbeard, which nodded and Rollan used along with the pirate a rope to tie it to the pole on the ship's side, then both slid it down at the ground, afterward approached the bush.

"They meant that, I believe," Commented Rollan moving his foot there at the hole to see, there was nothing and he stepped the feet in there to feel a step under him. Rollan moved his second leg and recognized that behind the bushes was a staircase, that would lead into a different area. "Those are stairs," Rollan told Razorbeard, which nodded and took out his knife and handed it out to Rollan, which used it to cut a few branches to be able to go through it easier and walked it down, followed by the pirate.

The duo stared into the dark corridor lit by several torches, that were placed on the walls and both exchanged looks, then made their way across the corridor. Razorbeard took out the map to take a look at it, then held it down to focus on the path.

"We're going right. so far I know," Commented the pirate making the Spaniard nod.

After a while, they reached an empty room seeing nothing, but a stone-made chest in the middle of the room, making the look at each other bewildered.

"Will you go?" Questioned both men at the same time, then both stood there quiet for a moment and had an idea, then began to play rock, paper, scissors. "Rock, paper, scissors!" Both shouted and Rollan had his hand open, while the man had the his hand formed into a fist.

"I won!" Announced the pirate making Rollan frown.

"Paper wins actually," Corrected Rollan making the pirate shake his head.

"No. Stone wins. If you throw a stone against a piece of paper, it breaks the paper,"

"Yeah I know, but… never mind, I'll go," Rollan gave up instantly, knowing it wasn't worth discussing with the pirate, then looked at the ground leading to the treasure chest. Rollan began to sneak slowly above the flagstones, praying that he wouldn't release any terrifying trap to put him or his teammate in danger.

Rollan got closer to the chest, then opened it carefully, while backing down with his head to avoid any sudden attack coming from the inside of the chest. Upon opening the chest, Rollan glimpsed into it carefully and widened his eyes to see just a small amount of coins inside the chest, making him sight.

"At least, we can't go out here with empty hands," Finished Rollan making the pirate curious.

"What's in there?" Questioned the pirate watching Rollan pull out a bag from his pant's pocket, then watched Rollan bow down to collect it.

"Coins, but not the amount, we expected," Answered Rollan making the pirate sigh.

"All this work for nothing?" Asked the pirate making Rollan chuckle.

"We barely did anything," Commented Rollan looking back at the pirate, which sighed about their luck and stepped aside, while Rollan finished his task. In the meanwhile, the pirate had accidentally tapped with his feet on something strange and he looked down to see, he had pressed on a loose slab, then observed the area, listening to a strange trigger sound.

„Did you hear that?" Asked the pirate watching Rollan lift up his head to look around the area and dropped his mouth as he saw a small wooden hammer swung towards Rollan making him jump back to avoid the hammer and watched it disappear up on the top.

„Woah, that was a close call," Commented Rollan relieved, then pressed with his feet on a stone slab awaking another sound, and looked around to see, where another trap had gotten released. The pirate looked as well, then spotted at a darker area a sign with an exclamation mark and a vector shape of an animal resembling a wolf.

„Have you noticed the wall there moving?" Asked the pirate making Rollan look at the sign and recognize the animal on it.

„Is that a canis lupus?"

„Canis what?"

„Lobo….the wild dog…..you know…...a-whooo!" Rollan faked a wolf's howl making the pirate look at the man confused.

„You mean a wolf, right?" Questioned the pirate making the Spaniard nod. „You know the legend of King Agnarr said, he owned a wolf named Lupus to scare away intruders by the castle and the castle used to be around here somewhere," Mentioned the pirate making Rollan nod. „Legend says, his wolf had been taken down by one his enemy's soldier and the wolf's ghost would still remain in the tomb here,"

„I don't believe, that legend is true," Commented Rollan watching the wall move down into the ground to reveal an empty room with a coffin at the end of the room and a skeleton of a dog standing in the middle of the room. „Oh look, there's the...wolf," Mentioned Rollan approaching the room carefully over the slab to avoid releasing another trap.

„Awooo!" A somber-sounding howl rang across the tomb, shrieking Rollan, which jumped behind the treasure in panic. Afterward, the pirate began to laugh, making Rollan frown and get up to stamp toward the man, not paying attention to the slab. He pressed on one by mistake, then felt the entire ground shake and begin to sink down into the ground, shrieking Rollan and the pirate, which ran together out of the area heading towards the exit.

„Honestly, if you didn't play a joke on me, we could have avoided this!" Complained Rollan making the pirate sigh.

„Boy, Alfida's right. You really don't take jokes,"

„Not the ones, that put me under the earth!" Deflected Rollan getting to the stairs along with Razorbeard and both jumped out at the grass landing near the boat of their captain. Rollan groaned and rolled aside getting off the bag filled with coins and placing his hands between his legs. „Caramba,"

From up the ship, Alfida looked down to see the two lying there and shook her head.

After a while, the pirates had gotten reunited on deck to watch Alfida split out the score between all of them and saw, that only two coins remained, which she wasn't able to split out fair.

„Okay, at least we've got 75 dinar for everyone, which isn't as bad as it seemed," Commented Alfida making the group nod. „Get back into your position, we're going back home," Announced Alfida walking away along with one of the oldest pirates, while the rest gazed at their score a little disappointed with the exception of Rollan, which still seemed happy about the score.

„What's with your face?" Questioned Inkbeard watching Rollan shrug his shoulders.

„I'm thinking about what I'm going to buy with it," Answered Rollan. „I'm hoping to make her happy with it," Commented the raven-haired man making the pirate look questioningly at the young man, while Rollan smiled in serenity at his earning.

Gerda held a mirror toward a woman, which observed herself in the mirror to see herself receive on the mirror a facial makeup painting making the woman smile enamored about how she looked like.

"Wow, that suggestion is splendid. What sort of makeup would you suggest to a wedding as the maid of honor?" Questioned the woman watching the reflection vanish and reappear with a different sort of makeup making the woman smile. "I like it, Gerda. Tell your dad he did a great job on it,"

"I will," Assured Gerda making the woman smile, then saw her opening her hand-made purse. "Aww cute little purse, did that make your daughter?" Questioned Gerda watching the woman shake her head.

"My mother-in-law actually. It's her hobby at the moment. How much does it cost? 20 dinar you said?"

"Exactly!" Answered Gerda watching the woman take out the coins to count and handed them out to the blonde girl. "Gracias……I mean thank you,"

"I didn't know you speak Spanish," Commented the woman making Gerda grin.

"Not really. I learned a couple of words from Rollan, my boyfriend," Mentioned Gerda observing the woman look at the wall, which contained pictures of friends and family members from the owners of the craft shop.

"I think I found him. It's that boy over there, right?" Asked the woman tipping at an image of Gerda and Rollan hugging each other by the fjords.

"Exactly, that's Rollan," Commented Gerda getting around the counter to look at the images as well. "We've been together for three years and it's amazing how well he gets along with my parents after such a short time we have all gotten together after what happened with the Snow Queen,"

„That's great. I have to go, Gerda. I need to go and meet my sister to go look with her for dresses. Have a nice day," The woman wished making her way towards the door watching Gerda wave at the woman, which left the place. Gerda smiled, then returned to the counter to open the register under the counter's table to drop the coins into the box, which was half filled with other coins, used for their payment.

„This week seems to be going well so far," Gerda commented, then heard the bell ring as another guest stepped in earning Gerda's attention, which recognized her brother Kai, which was walking into the place.

„Guess what Gerda. I made 40 dinars out of that one painting of a goat nibbling a fox's ear," Announced Kai making Gerda smile.

„Cool and why a goat and a fox?" Questioned Gerda making the younger brother shrug his shoulders.

„I don't know. The man actually asked for something called Kitsune, but I had no idea, what that was, so this was his third suggestion. I accepted 40 dinars. I would have even gotten 80, if I had known, what a kitsune was,"

„I'm certain, you'll get to figure out, what that is someday," Commented Gerda watching Kai hand out the small money bag to the blonde.

„Here put it in our family's box," Asked Kai earning a nod from Gerda, which took it to store it.

By the door, that led to the workshop, Una got out to spot Kai by the counter, then smiled and got to embrace him.

„You're back, son," Spoke Una followed by receiving a peck from her son on the cheek. „How did the man like the painting?"

„He paid 40 dinars. Gerda just stored it in our box," Spoke Kai glad earning a nod from Gerda.

„I also made with that mirror from dad 20 dinars and about an hour ago 6 dinars for a hand mirror,"

„Wow, that's great. We could almost get us a turkey like last month," Mentioned Una making the kids nod.

„I think Alfida and Rollan should arrive at the harbor tonight. We could invite them for dinner, what do you think?" Asked Gerda making Una nod.

„It's a good idea," Responded Una.

„If dad arrives back early he can guide the store to the end of the time and I will help you out with the dinner," Suggested the daughter making Kai nod.

„I could go and get the turkey and anything else, if you want," Offered the younger brother of Gerda.

„Thank you for the offer. I think for now on we're early. I will go and check out, what I can do for dinner and notice down, what we need,"The brunette woman said making the siblings nod.