The salt-crusted wood of the dock creaked softly under Bō-Zak's weight as he pressed his back against a stack of weathered crab cages. The mingled smells of low tide—rotting seaweed, fish guts, and the faint sweetness of fermenting chicha from a nearby warehouse—filled his nostrils. He counted the beats of his own heart, slow and steady now, watching the last traces of Casper's ridiculous bowl-cut disappear into the mist-shrouded path up the cliff.
One hundred. Two hundred. Three.
The gulls had returned to their pilings. A fisherman's wife had come out to shake a rug from her second-story window, the thwump-thwump a comforting rhythm of ordinary life. Somewhere down the dock, a cat yowled at another cat, and a barrel of something rolled loose against a mooring line.
Five hundred.
Bō-Zak let out a long, slow breath, the tension bleeding from his shoulders. He reached for his gourd, took a pull of chicha that burned warm going down, and tapped his pipe against his heel just to hear the familiar clink.
"Bloody monks," he muttered to the condor in his shadow. "Think they can just... drag a man to his own petrification like it's a dinner invitation."
The condor didn't respond. It never did. But he felt its presence shift, a weight against his soul that meant watchful.
He turned to face the dock proper, ready to find a quiet corner of Willka-Marka to disappear into until the ritual panic died down.
And stopped.
Because walking toward him—not twenty meters away, past the fishing boats and the stacked nets and the old woman still shaking her rug—was the strangest collection of people he had ever laid eyes on.
And Bō-Zak had seen some strange things in his thirty-seven years.
"Well, well, well," he breathed, the words slipping out on a curl of pipe smoke. "What do we have here?"
---
The group moved like a flock of birds that hadn't quite decided if they were migrating together or just happened to be flying in the same direction.
At the front, a young woman with raven-black hair and a leather jacket bearing an insignia Bō-Zak didn't recognize walked with the loose-limbed grace of someone who knew exactly where her sword was at all times. The blade on her back—black, with a hilt stood out like a declaration—pulsed faintly, and Bō-Zak's trained eye caught the way her fingers twitched toward it every few seconds, checking, confirming, releasing. Her golden eyes swept the dock with calm assessment, missing nothing.
Beside her, a tall man with an exceptionally long neck and sharp green eyes was muttering something under his breath while sketching on a piece of slate with a fish-bone stylus. His companion—a Mink with rust-red fur and blue eyes that crackled faintly with suppressed Electro—kept glancing at the sketch and shaking his head.
"You're drawing the wrong current pattern," the Mink said, his voice carrying that particular tone of someone who enjoyed pointing out errors. "The eddy wraps around the pillar, not through it."
"The eddy does wrap through it, you overgrown housecat." The long-necked man didn't look up from his slate. "I measured it twice."
"You measured it badly."
"Atlas, I will wrap your fur around those ridiculous maces of yours."
"Promises, promises, Spaghetti Neck."
Bō-Zak's eyebrow climbed toward his hairline. Spaghetti Neck? That was a new one.
Behind them, a bouncing blue gelatinous creature with a tiny red bandana was doing... something... with a stack of fish crates. It had reshaped one of its hands into a sort of paddle and was using it to gently tap each crate, as if checking for doneness.
"Bloop! These ones are sleepy! These ones are extra sleepy! This one is thinking about its life choices!"
A woman with a full afro and large golden hoop earrings walked beside the bouncing creature, her head tilted in that particular way that meant she was listening to something no one else could hear. Her hand kept drifting to her forehead, where a stylish headscarf covered... something. She scratched at the fabric absently, frowning.
"The wind here's got a funny taste," she said, her accent rolling and warm. "Like old stones and older secrets. And me forehead's itchin' somethin' fierce."
Another woman—young, with long rainbow-colored hair and a guitar case on her back—spun in a slow circle, taking in the port with wide violet eyes. "Oh! Oh! This is amazing! The architecture! The colors! The—" She stopped, sniffing the air. "Is that quinoa roasting? I've read about quinoa! They toast it with salt and—"
"Vesta." The woman in the leather jacket didn't turn around. "Breathe."
"Right! Breathing! I can do that!" The rainbow-haired woman took an exaggerated breath, then immediately started bouncing on her heels. "But the quinoa—"
A small, frizzy-haired girl with a chef's jacket and a smudge of flour on her cheek tugged at the leather-jacket woman's sleeve. "Marya, the fish here are different. Look at their scales! They've got these spiral patterns, see? That means the water is—"
"I see them, Eliane."
"And the herbs growing between the dock planks! That's Hierochloe—sweetgrass! Someone's been tending it! Can we find out who? I bet they'd trade recipes!"
A boy of about eight with a mop of red hair and eyebrows far too heavy for his face walked with the careful, deliberate steps of someone who found the entire world beneath his notice. He was sucking on a lollipop and wearing a miniature parka over what were clearly very expensive clothes.
"This is all so... rustic," he said, the word dripping with affected disdain. "The structural integrity of these docks is questionable at best. I've seen better craftsmanship in a child's sandcastle."
A woman in black tactical attire with long silver hair walked slightly apart from the group, her hand resting on the hilt of a blade at her hip. Her steel-gray eyes swept the dock with the focus of a predator, and Bō-Zak noted the way she positioned herself to see every angle, every possible approach. A warrior, then. A good one.
Next to her, a woman in grease-stained overalls (worn open over what looked like silk) was already poking at a fishing boat's engine with a multitool, muttering to herself.
"Like, the compression ratio on this is wild. Like, who designed this? Did they, like, just guess? Was it, like, a vibe? Because I'm, like, getting very strong 'vibes-only' engineering from, like, this whole situation."
A man in a vintage pith helmet and khaki shorts was frantically scribbling in a notebook, his round wire-framed glasses fogging in the humid air. "Ahem! The architectural parallels to pre-coastal settlements are staggering! The stonework alone—the fit is immaculate! No mortar, and yet—"
"Charlie." The silver-haired woman's voice was quiet, but it cut through the chatter like a blade. "Later."
"But Aurélie—"
"Later."
And at the back of the group, a small figure with neon-pink hair in space buns walked with her eyes fixed on something in the distance. Her mismatched eyes—one icy blue, one gold—were wide, unblinking. She clutched a charred plush rabbit to her chest, and her lips moved soundlessly, forming words only she could hear.
The woman with the rainbow hair—Vesta—kept glancing back at her, concern flickering across her expressive face.
"Ember? You okay?"
No response.
"Ember?"
The pink-haired woman's eyes didn't move from whatever she was seeing. Her grip on the rabbit tightened.
---
Bō-Zak watched all of this in the space of perhaps thirty seconds, and a slow grin spread across his face.
Now this was interesting.
The monks wanted him to participate in a ritual. The island wanted him to be its proper, obedient guardian. The world wanted him to fit into whatever box it had prepared for his soul.
But here—right here, walking toward him on a salt-bleached dock in the middle of the Florian Triangle—was a group of people who looked like they'd never fit into any box anyone had ever built.
A bouncing jellyfish. A muttering cartographer with a neck like a snake. A bickering Mink and long-neck who called each other names like children. A woman who heard things in the wind. A musician who couldn't stop noticing the world. A little chef with flour on her face. A tiny aristocrat who judged everything. A silver-haired warrior with poetry in her soul and violence in her stance. An engineer who communicated in "like"s and probably saw the universe as one big machine to be improved. A scholar who couldn't stop cataloging. And a broken girl clutching a burned rabbit, seeing ghosts in the mist.
Bō-Zak pushed himself off the crab cages, stretched his arms over his head until his spine popped, and straightened his tattered awayo shawl.
The condor in his shadow stirred, curious.
"Yeah," he murmured, tapping his pipe clean against his heel one more time. "Think I need to introduce myself."
---
The group had reached the main stretch of the dock, where fishermen were hawking their morning catches and old women sat behind tables piled with woven textiles and clay pots. The smells of grilled fish, fresh bread, and something spicy that made Vesta's eyes go wide filled the air.
Marya stopped at the edge of the market, her golden eyes scanning the crowd with the automatic assessment of someone who had learned young that danger could come from anywhere. The others fanned out around her—not consciously, but with the unconscious coordination of people who had learned to move together.
Atlas and Galit had already started arguing about something involving the angle of the sun and the direction of the current. Jelly had found a pile of old nets and was attempting to "befriend" them by gently patting each knot. Jannali's head was on a swivel, her third eye itching so badly now that she had to resist the urge to tear off her headscarf and scratch.
"Something's watchin' us," she said quietly, her accent thickening with unease. "Not hostile, but... watchin'. Like the land itself got eyes."
"It does," Charlie said, adjusting his pith helmet with great importance. "Ahem! The framework of this island would naturally create a sort of—how shall I put this—sentient resonance within the spiritual ecology."
"Charlie." Aurélie's voice again. Flat. Final.
"Right. Later. Cataloging later."
Eliane had already wandered toward a food stall, her nose twitching at the smells. The woman running it—broad-shouldered, with braided gray hair and a face like cracked leather—watched the little chef approach with the expression of someone who had seen many strange things and long ago stopped being surprised.
"You like food, little one?" the woman asked, her voice rough as sea salt.
"I love food!" Eliane beamed. "Is that ocopa? With the huacatay sauce? My grandmother used to make something similar, but she used different nuts—"
Sanza, meanwhile, had found a crate to stand on so he could survey the crowd from a slightly higher vantage point. He sucked on his lollipop with the air of a king observing his peasants.
"The quality of the textiles here is... acceptable," he announced to no one in particular. "The weaving technique shows potential, which is quaint. I suppose."
Bianca had already befriended three fishermen by complimenting their boat's engine and was now elbow-deep in its guts, explaining something about "like, torque distribution and why your prop shaft is, like, crying for help."
Vesta had her guitar case open and was gently running her fingers over Mikasi's strings, the living instrument humming softly in response. "What do you think, Mikasi? Good crowd? Should we do a set later?"
The guitar's strings vibrated in what might have been agreement or might have been amusement. With Mikasi, it was hard to tell.
And Ember stood at the edge of the group, still staring at something in the distance, her lips still moving. The charred rabbit hung from her belt, one button eye catching the weak light.
---
Bō-Zak approached from the direction of the fish market, moving with that same languid grace that had carried him down the Salt-Stair Path hours earlier. He made no effort to be quiet—his straw sandals scraped against the wood, his gourd sloshed with each step, his pipe sent up lazy curls of smoke.
But somehow, despite all that, he was simply there before anyone noticed him.
Marya's hand went to Nisshoku's hilt. Aurélie's eyes snapped to his face. Jannali's itching stopped dead, replaced by a sudden, profound stillness.
"G'day," Bō-Zak said, his voice warm and amused, carrying that unplaceable cadence that was part monastery, part mountain, part something else entirely. He leaned against a piling, took a long pull from his gourd, and grinned at them over the rim. "Beautiful morning for a stroll through the most hidden island in the world, isn't it? Lovely mist we're having. Really sets the mood."
No one spoke for a long moment.
Jelly, naturally, was the first to break the silence.
"Bloop! You're wobbly!" The gelatinous creature bounced forward, one hand morphing into a sort of waving appendage. "I'm wobbly too! We should be wobbly together! I'm Jelly! What's your name? Do you like fish? I don't eat fish but I love watching them! They're so swishy!"
Bō-Zak's grin widened. "Bō-Zak. And I like most things that swim, fly, or walk, provided they don't try to kill me." He glanced at the sword on Marya's back. "Though I make exceptions for interesting company."
Marya's golden eyes studied him with the same intensity he'd been studying them. "You knew we were coming."
"Knew someone was coming. Didn't know it would be quite so..." He gestured vaguely at the group. "Colorful. You're not from the World Government, that's clear. Not merchants—too many weapons, not enough cargo. Not pirates, exactly—no Jolly Roger I can see, and you move like a crew but don't feel like one." He tapped his temple. "Perks of the job. I read people."
"Read this, noodle-neck," Atlas muttered, but there was no real heat in it. His Electro was crackling, though—low and warning.
Bō-Zak's eyes flicked to the Mink, then to Galit, and he let out a short laugh. "Noodle-neck. I like that. Your friend there called you Spaghetti Neck earlier? You two have a theme going?"
Galit's neck coiled slightly—not aggressively, but with the unconscious movement of someone caught off-guard. "We have a rivalry."
"You have a routine. There's a difference." Bō-Zak pushed off the piling and took a step closer, casual, unhurried. "Relax, all of you. If I wanted to cause trouble, you'd know it. I'm just... curious. Strangers don't wash up on Tawantin. The mist doesn't allow it. So either you're very lost, or something brought you here."
He let the words hang, watching their faces.
Charlie cleared his throat. "Ahem! As a matter of fact, our arrival was facilitated by—"
"Charlie." Aurélie's voice cut through again, but this time Charlie pressed on, too excited to be stopped.
"—by the unique gravitational anomalies of the Florian Triangle, which, when combined with our submarine's calibrated descent profile, allowed us to—"
"Charlie, mate." Jannali put a hand on his arm. "He didn't ask for yer life story."
Charlie blinked, deflating slightly. "Oh. Right. Of course. Ahem. My apologies."
Bō-Zak's eyes lingered on Jannali, noting the way her hand kept drifting toward her forehead, the slight tension in her jaw. "You're Three-Eye Tribe," he said quietly. "Aren't you?"
The dock went very still.
Jannali's hand dropped to her side, but her expression didn't change. "What makes you say that?"
"Lucky guess." Bō-Zak tapped his pipe against his heel, the clink loud in the sudden silence. "Also, I've met a few in my time. Well. One. But she had the same way of listening to things that weren't there." He shrugged. "Don't worry. Your secret's safe. The monks up there"—he jerked his thumb toward the cliffs—"have bigger things to worry about than who can read what."
Marya's eyes narrowed. "What kind of bigger things?"
And there it was. The question Bō-Zak had been waiting for. The one that would tell him whether this group was worth his time, his trust, or at least his continued interest.
He looked at them—really looked. At the warrior with the cursed sword and the guarded eyes. At the bickering rivals who covered their bond with insults. At the bouncing creature who saw the world as a playground. At the woman who heard voices in the wind. At the musician who couldn't contain her joy. At the little chef with flour on her face and fire in her blood. At the tiny aristocrat who judged everything to hide his fear of being judged. At the engineer who spoke in "like"s and saw machinery as living things. At the scholar who couldn't stop cataloging long enough to see the danger. At the silver-haired warrior with poetry in her soul and death at her hip. At the broken girl clutching a burned rabbit, seeing ghosts in the mist.
A group of misfits. A collection of runaways, outcasts, searchers. People who didn't fit.
People a lot like him.
Bō-Zak took a long pull from his gourd, savoring the burn, and let the silence stretch just long enough to feel uncomfortable.
Then he smiled—a real smile, not the smirk, not the cynic's twist of the lips, but something warmer underneath.
"Well," he said, "that depends on what you're here for. But I've got a feeling..." He looked at Marya, at the sword on her back, at the weight in her golden eyes. "I've got a feeling you're not here for the scenery."
He held out his hand, the one not holding the gourd.
"Bō-Zak Kaminosukei. The monks call me a lot of things, most of them rude. The islanders call me trouble." He waited, hand extended. "And you?"
Marya studied his face for a long moment. Then, slowly, she reached out and clasped his forearm in the traditional way of warriors acknowledging each other.
"Marya." She didn't offer more. She didn't have to.
Bō-Zak's grin returned, wider now. "Marya. Just Marya? No title? No epithet?"
"Just Marya."
"Fair enough. Just Marya it is." He released her arm and turned to the others, spreading his arms wide in a gesture that took in the whole dock, the whole island, the whole mist-shrouded world. "Well, just Marya and company, welcome to Tawantin. The drinks are strong, the food is spicy, the monks are annoying, and the secrets are very old. Try not to break anything important, and we'll get along fine."
Jelly bounced up to him, starry-eyed. "Can I be your friend? I'm great at being friends! I can bounce things for you! And I'm very good at listening, even if I forget what you said five seconds later!"
Bō-Zak laughed—a real laugh, surprised out of him. "Kid, I think I could use a friend who bounces."
Ember, still standing apart, still staring at the mist, finally spoke.
"I know this place."
The words were quiet, barely audible over the sounds of the dock. But everyone heard them.
Bō-Zak's eyes went to her—to the neon-pink hair, the mismatched eyes, the charred rabbit, the thousand-yard stare.
"Yeah?" His voice was soft now, stripped of its usual teasing edge. "How?"
Ember's lips moved, but no sound came out. Then, after a long moment: "Fire. Smoke. My family—" She stopped, her jaw tightening.
Eliane moved toward her, small hand reaching out. "Ember—"
"I'm fine." The words were automatic, hollow. "I'm always fine."
But she wasn't. Anyone with eyes could see that.
Bō-Zak watched her for a long moment, something shifting in his expression. Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out a small leather pouch, and tossed it to her.
She caught it reflexively, staring at it.
"What's this?"
"Herbs. Grown in the cliffs above. Good for... settling the mind." He shrugged, looking away. "Monks use 'em for meditation. I use 'em when the past gets too loud." He tapped his gourd. "That, or this. But you look like you could use something gentler than chicha."
Ember stared at the pouch, her gold eye catching the light in a way that made it seem almost liquid.
"Why?"
It was a small word. A simple word. But it carried the weight of everything—every betrayal, every loss, every moment of being told she was too much, too broken, too wrong.
Bō-Zak met her mismatched gaze.
"Because you looked at this island like it hurt you," he said quietly. "And I know that look. I wear it every day."
No one spoke.
The mist swirled around the dock, carrying the smell of salt and stone and something older, something that pressed against the edges of awareness like a half-remembered dream.
Then Sanza, who had been watching this exchange with the expression of someone observing particularly dull insects, cleared his throat loudly.
"This is all very touching," he said, his posh accent cutting through the moment like a knife. "But I, for one, would like to know where one can acquire proper refreshments on this backwater island. I've been sucking on this lollipop for hours."
The tension broke like a soap bubble.
Bianca snorted. "Like, really? That's your takeaway?"
"My takeaway, as you so crudely put it, is that I am a child of noble lineage and I require sustenance befitting my station." Sanza sniffed. "If that's too complex a concept for your grease-stained brain to process, I can draw you a diagram."
"Oh, I'll give you a diagram—"
"Children." Aurélie's voice cut through, quiet but absolute. Both Bianca and Sanza fell silent, though Sanza's expression made it clear he was only complying out of necessity.
Bō-Zak watched it all with growing delight. Oh, these people were wonderful. A complete disaster, every single one of them. And somehow, impossibly, they'd found each other.
He thought of the monks, still searching the cliffs above. He thought of the ritual, waiting for him like a tomb. He thought of the weight on his shoulders, the fear in his heart.
Then he looked at this group—this beautiful, chaotic, broken, wonderful group—and made a decision.
"Alright." He clapped his hands together, the sound sharp in the misty air. "Here's the deal. You're strangers in a place that doesn't get strangers. The monks are looking for me—long story, don't ask—and they'll probably find you eventually. But until then..." He grinned, and this time it was pure mischief, pure invitation, pure come and see. "How about I show you around? Real Tawantin, not the temple tours. The good food, the strong drink, the views that'll make you forget why you're sad." His eyes flicked to Ember, then back to Marya. "And maybe, if you're willing to share why you're really here, I can help with that too."
Marya studied him for a long moment. Then, slowly, the corner of her mouth twitched upward—not quite a smile, but close.
"Why?"
It was the same question Ember had asked. The same weight behind it.
Bō-Zak shrugged, taking another pull from his gourd.
"Because I'm hiding from my problems, and you look like a much more interesting way to do that than sitting alone on a dock feeling sorry for myself." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Also, I'm curious. And curiosity's about the only sin the monks haven't managed to beat out of me."
Jelly bounced up again, waving his morphing hand. "I vote yes! Yes yes yes! Adventure with new friend! Bloop!"
Vesta was already nodding, her guitar humming in agreement. "The opportunities alone—"
Charlie was adjusting his pith helmet. "Ahem! The archaeological implications of a native guide—"
Eliane was tugging at Marya's sleeve. "He knows where the good food is, Marya. The good food. Please?"
Marya looked at her crew—her strange, wonderful, impossible crew—and something softened in her golden eyes.
She looked back at Bō-Zak.
"Show us."
Bō-Zak's grin could have lit up the Florian Triangle.
"My pleasure."
He turned, gesturing grandly toward the winding streets of Willka-Marka, the smoke rising from cooking fires, the cliffs disappearing into mist, the secrets waiting in every shadow.
"Welcome to Tawantin, misfits. Try to keep up."
And as he led them into the heart of the island, the condor in his shadow spread its wings just slightly—not flying, not yet. Just... watching.
Waiting.
Wondering, perhaps, if this was the beginning of something new.
Behind them, high on the cliffs, three figures stood at the edge of the Salt-Stair Path, looking down at the dock.
Casper Saul's bowl-cut caught the weak light. Trizzy Mo-Sin's frizzy hair stirred in the breeze. Rayan Bin-Jahiya's bald head gleamed.
"Well," Casper said quietly. "That's new."
Trizzy tilted his head, listening to something only he could hear. "They're... singing. Not with voices. With something else."
Rayan bounced on his heels. "Ooh! Ooh! New people! Can we play with them? Can we play?"
Casper watched the strange group disappear into the streets of Willka-Marka, following the man who was supposed to be preparing for the most important ritual of his life.
"Not yet," he said. "But soon."
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