^^ Adrian ^^

— Ben —

The route through the Gate, -Gibraltar,- was once one of the most dangerous, and most rewarding, of all the seas I'd sailed. A never-ending supply of pirates plagued the waters, from the West Indies, Portugal, Greece, and the Barbary Coast, the worst of them all; they made the way unsafe, which meant people paid more money to have their goods delivered by that path. That, in turn, meant the traveling merchants had more money and rarer goods, which meant more pirates were lured in, which made a vicious cycle for around 400 years of nearly unchecked piracy, a streak that was broken by the efforts of the Mediterranean Fleet and the Royal Navy in 1835, some twenty years ago, now.

During my tenure as a Navigator aboard the HMS Duke of Wellington, -the largest and finest of the four first-rate 131-gun ships-of-the-line in the British Royal Navy,- I had seen any number of pirates smashed and broken by the hulls of ships or a falling mast, or hung, branded, and beheaded.

During the last pushes to destroy the Barbary Pirates of the southern Mediterranean coast, I'd even seen them slaughtered by the sword, whole-sale, chopped into pieces, and thrown into the sea to feed the sharks; sharks who are even to this day the largest and most savage sharks in the world, True Man-Eaters.

But never before had I seen an entire ship of nearly 450 men burned alive.

The shock of the sums of riches was gone almost immediately, though I'm sure the others didn't think so, as I kept reliving the screams. The sight of that man, leaping off the ship into what should have been a cold, briny death, instead being consumed by fire even beneath the waves. To have been both burnt alive and drowned, with a weapon in his hands, I wondered if Hel, Odin, and Thor were all fighting over his soul even now? Or was he a Christian, and summarily bound for Hell either way?

I stared at the roof of my cabin, laying in my hanging cot, and rubbed my face slowly. "I wish I hadn't seen that, Cleo... now it is a weight upon my mind and soul, like the first man I killed."

She huffed softly, and turned her large leopard head towards me from her place upon my boudoir, the highest place she could steal. "A weight you do not bear, nor one that matters. Cast aside doubt, as it is useless to you. The man was a pirate, they all were. Thieves, rapists; murdering savages who take what they want and do as they please, that deserve quite truly to be sent violently to meet that Sea Demon of yours, Old Salt Jack. They are arrogant fools, riding the coattails of real pirates, successful entrepreneurs who turned to crime and discovered they quite liked it; those men were destroyed on the Barbary Coast twenty years ago, Benjamin. You remember, don't you? After all... It's where we met."

I chuckled at the memory of running from the sight of the men being fed to the sharks, and instead finding a small kitten, barely a day old, sitting amongst the bones of what must've been a thousand people, spread around like an elephant's graveyard. "Indeed... it still plagues my mind... I wonder what his religion was? Where he went, when he died?"

She hummed. "I have various ideas about that, but no proof... I believe when I devour things, I take of them their essence, as well as their flesh. In this way, perhaps his soul is within my stomach? Or perhaps it is already dissolved and destroyed, fuel for the furnace of my soul? I do not know the answers to these questions, Benjamin; I am the last of my kind that I am aware of, after all."

"Right, I guess you don't have much of a reference... tell me again of this god who claimed you owed allegiance to someone?" I diverted the subject away from my horrible thoughts.

She grumbled a moment, before answering. "Anubis, God of Death, and Last Rights. He seems to believe I am the 'Cloud of Ra', the Chariot by which Ra Pulls the sun and the rain across Egypt. Ridiculous, of course; the earth orbits the sun, after all, and requires no pulling. Gods have a tendency to claim they've created everything; I suppose in a way it is successful at making people worship them, which in turn increases their power... either way, he believes I belong in a temple in Egypt, and that you keeping me as a Pet is an insult to the Gods. Hmph! Presumptuous Dog."

I chuckled. "Yes, that does sound rather rude of him to say. You are no one's property, and you belong wherever you please."

"Indeed." She purred, and perked up, ears standing tall.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Hear for yourself..." she hummed, and my ears suddenly itched, as sound poured in from all around the ship, and the ever-present storm outside. Now, though, the storm seemed to have weakened, growing louder but losing substance, with more thunder and rain, rather than wind and waves. "The Storm is different here... it has been Tamed, leashed, almost, like an attack dog waiting for a target. It is likely the work of Poseidon, the Greek God of the Sea and Storm. The arrogance..." she growled, sounding offended by the notion.

I sighed, transferring her large form to my cot and petting her as I watched the moonlight peek through the clouds now and again, showing spots of stars. "It is nice, though, to see the stars after twenty years." I hummed.

She glanced at them, and her eyes widened slowly. "I have never seen them at all... they are exquisite."

"One day I'll climb an especially tall mountain with you, and we can look at the stars with no clouds above us at all, if you like. I hear tell of a mountain in China that is the tallest of them all, so tall that men cannot breath upon its summit." I smiled as she was distracted by the subject.

"Yes... I will help you breath, then, and we will climb this mountain. Has it a name?"

"They call it 'Ever Rest'. The Gods' Boneyard." I smirked at her widening eyes, and she purred contentedly, curling up on my chest. I was thankful for my new strength, as she weighed what I was sure was enough to crush a lesser man.

My abilities had been explained to me by Reginald relatively easily; my connection with Cleo gave me a special energy, a magic, that defused through my body and mind, allowing me to borrow her abilities, to an extent. As I got stronger, the abilities expanded, to make me a better Hunter. Combining those abilities with knowledge of demons and some alchemical know how was how most hunters tracked and killed their quarries.

Thus, while my abilities were gained directly from a source, -unlike most, who gained them through magically-infused bloodlines,- they were still developing normally, according to Reginald, and I would soon be a full-blooded Hunter, ready to hunt beside him and kill the most dangerous of creatures.

Others, -such as Reginald would have liked to be, I thought,- devoted their lives to creating weapons and armaments that would assist other Hunters, and researching the various types of demons and beasts, in order to find out their weaknesses and teach others, should they ever hunt the same type of creature. They acted much the same as any other reputable scientific research society, making the Hunters the men who learned the guides and used them to successfully hunt Big Game.

Some others took Cloth Oaths, and became actual Priests, using the power of God -or Gods, as some were, to my surprise, Pagan Priests, even some of my faith, that of Valhalla and the Old Ones,- to assist the Hunters and Healers against things that required Faith, not just Blades, such as exorcisms and demon banishments.

Still more did instead True medicine and healing, as well as protection of the wounded, and the like; these were the ones known all over Europe and the Med, the men given leave to go anywhere, anytime, to cross any border or no-man's-land, and collect the wounded. Famous healers, easily the most respected men in the entire United Kingdom and Europe both.

Apparently, instead of doing one of the less rough Trades, -which he would much rather,- my unthinking and instinctual interference in his trial had cost Reginald the choice of positions within the Order, and instead he was forced to be a Hunter, and follow with me on the ship, living out of noble society and made into a Rough Man, the type disdained by all but the Lords and Gentlemen in the Navy, who were themselves partially Rough Men, or come from them.

I knew he was a Nobleman, borne to a life of demons and murder, shrouded by faith and secrecy. His life was an endless stream of pressure and learning; no good way to raise a man, in my opinion. I also knew he thought no one had noticed his drooling over Mehmed, for which I did not blame him; Mehmed was a tall drink of water, no matter what sex you preferred. His love of his own kind would likely have been publicly disastrous, -due to the public outcry against buggery, for some reason or other I'd never understood,- but as his order held many Pagans, I knew it would not privately affect his rank or anything else, as it would in the Navy or so-called 'Polite Society'; a term which the Doctor and I agreed was representative of nothing more than a den of cruel, evil, villainous snakes, who loved nothing more than someone important or nice to tear down and apart.

I picked up one of the books that Reginald had given me, -translated to English as my Latin was only progressing as swiftly as it was because of my early learning,- and tried to read it by the light of the moon and lightning, as I could not sleep.

This one spoke of various types of materials for weapons, and the beasts they harmed or conversely who was immune to them. The black dog was listed, being vulnerable to Gold and blessed metals, and immune to all else beyond its own kind; namely, it's own teeth and bones.

The knife I'd been given by Reginald was listed as well, as Elder-Demon Bone, and it could harm just about anything, though killing was different. Killing these beasts almost always required some sort of special ritual, such as burying the creature's heart in a patch of dirt, or slaying the beast whilst a full moon rose overhead, or they would rise up again, healed of all hurts.

I'd not gotten more than a few pages in when I felt a pain in my hands and feet, which was instantly so intense as to steal my voice from me. I curled slowly into myself, taking deep, horribly painful shedding breaths, and felt each bone in my body crack, stretch, pull, and shift, and a deep-seated need to eat scratched at the insides of my belly and throat.

I looked to Cleo for help, reaching slowly, to find her staring at me, tail lashing impatiently. "I will bring you food... you will need a lot of it." She turned and pounced out of the room, leaving me confused and saddened by her departure. My mind was too overtaken by the pain to work properly on a solution, or an explanation, so I curled up, moaning pitiably when my voice would work, screaming silently when it would not.

She returned a few seconds or minutes or hours later, I couldn't tell which, and deposited a pile of still-squirming rats in front of me, then a mako-shark nearly the size of the room, somehow. "You will need to feast upon the flesh of other creatures, to regain your strength and feed that pit in your stomach. Eat, dearest, I command it!"

I meant to refuse, even my addled mind recoiling at the though of eating a living shark or a rat, but instead, my body moved on its own, and my teeth were tearing the head off a rat before I could think. A flavor, unexplainable and nigh-orgasmic, filled my mouth, and what little reason or restraint there was left in me fled.

I found myself silently pouncing across the room quite like a cat, hunting the rats in what should have been awkward and ridiculous, but instead was sinuous and fluid in both grace and balance; the shark, when it attempted to bite me as I got close, went still, it's jaws wrapped ineffectually around my leg, and then I was tearing its throat out, ripping long strips of flesh and scale off at a time. The scales crunched like fresh celery, offering my mouth and throat not even a scratch of challenge, though I knew they were sharp enough to turn most men's skin to mince with a single pass.

I came back to myself, and found myself swallowing the crushed bone of the creature's spine; the rest was gone, but for the jaws and the blood that splashed all over the floor and one of the walls of the cabin, like a slaughterhouse or the deck after a naval action.

The bone gave even less protest than the scales, and I frowned at the soft gurgle of my stomach; impossibly, I was still hungry. The door creaked open as I ripped a piece of the skull off, chewing it. I glanced up, and Adrian stood in front of a pair of men, one of whom was covered in blood: likely the man whose berthing was under this cabin.

Adrian nodded slowly, seeing the size of the jaws in my hand, and waved the men away silently. When they were gone, she closed the door and knelt carefully outside the circle of bloody planks. "Are you in your right mind, Ben? Benjamin?" She asked softly.

A croak was all my throat could manage, but I nodded slowly, and took another bite of the bones, which were delicious, without breaking eye contact.

"Good... Good... do you need another?" She gestured at the bone in my hand, as it disappeared into my mouth.

My stomach answered her, gurgling loudly, and I shivered, collapsing and curling into it as it began to hurt again. The pain had stopped, while I'd glutted myself, but now it was back, with a vengeance; I'd fed the beast, and now it wanted more. The blood on the planks seemed to suffice for a moment, then I took a tentative bite of the wood, to see what would happen.

"None of that!" Instantly, a hand gripped the back of my neck, and Adrian carried me out of the room with no effort at all, like a scruffed kitten. Once on deck, she whistled at the men who were busy removing the fat from a whale they'd likely fished out when it came up to see the moon, as they sometimes did, I'd been told. I'd never seen it happen, and now the moon entranced me, too; big and beautiful and bright, another sight I'd never seen, not since I was a boy of twelve, aboard the HMS Duke of Wellington.

Then my face was turned forcefully to the whale's carcass, and I felt the urge to rip into it, from the inside. A few minutes later, the leather was stripped away by the seemingly amused sailors, and they laughed, finding only the bones remained inside, and I was enjoying a kidney, it seemed, though my knowledge of whale anatomy was nearly nonexistent.

The leather and blubber had been left alone, not on any conscious effort of mind, but rather an animalistic sense; the blubber was odd, needing to be chewed for several seconds before swallowing, so it was avoided, and the leather was attached to the blubber. The bones kept the leather from falling on me, and were also left alone.

Once the leather was stripped away, I gnawed on the bones, eating until I sat in a puddle of blood again, stomach barely distended; but the horrible pain had stopped, and didn't seem inclined to start again, just yet.

A scent caught my attention; a different scent from the rats or shark or whale. More... robust. Like a fine whiskey, compared to the mulled cider I'd been having. I made to follow it, confused, and found myself in the Brig, suddenly. I didn't quite remember moving there. The scent was coming from the cells, it seemed, and I got closer, sniffing loudly to find the source.

Adrian appeared again, and placed her hand on my shoulder; I recognized her scent instantly, to my surprise. "I will give you all the whales of the world, Benjamin, but I will not let you eat of Man-Flesh, no matter how tempting." She said quietly.

I was confused, until I looked in the cells, and found the huddled, terrified pirates, with bloody bandages the source of the smell. I recoiled, now in control of my own self for a moment, and stood up fully, where before I'd crawled like some sort of wastrel. My head slammed the overhead, then my shoulders brushed against it as I hunched back down a bit, again confusing me, and the Doctor and Adrian were both so very short, now. "Doc-... Father... What is happening?" I asked, my throat scratching and rumbling unnaturally, and I belatedly recognized it as Cleo's voice, almost; just through a very male filter, perhaps.

He patted my hip, level with his shoulder now. "It's alright, Ben. You have never seen the Moon, is all, and our kind respond in this manner when it is visible."

I frowned. "Our kind?"

Adrian nodded. "Of course, dear; the Children of the Moon. Didn't he tell you?"

I stared at them for a few moments, breathing deeply to center myself so I did not swipe at them with my claws, which extended from my -now slightly furred- hands.