Azra'il - POV
Departure, in theory, comprises grand and emotional events. Poems are written, sad songs are sung, handkerchiefs are waved on windswept piers. in practice, however, a departure is mostly logistics. And, for me, a logistics that was almost entirely digital and invisible.
Three days had passed since the night I convinced Morgana to agree to my "detour" to Bilgewater. In those three days, 'The Last Cup' had hummed with a quiet tension. I had spent most of my time in my cellar, not creating, but archiving. The process was simple and efficient. I would touch an object and mentally whisper,
[Item catalogued: "Out-of-Tune Musical Kettle, Model 2". Added to category "Sentimental Failures".]
[Item catalogued: Box of Targon's Moon-Herbs. Rare. Added to category "Keep Away from Explosive Children".]
[Item catalogued: Notebook on Vastayan physiology. Incomplete. Added to category "Future Research".]
Rare herbs, forbidden books, the money we had accumulated, my brackern study crystals, even a few prototypes and bits of junk I wasn't willing to abandon… everything vanished from physical reality, transferred into the dimensional subspace that was my 'inventory'. My travel pack, for all intents and purposes, contained only a few changes of clothes, some snacks, and a few alchemical utensils.
The only item that defied this convenience was the guitar.
I could have stored it just as easily. But the image of Morgana's expression if I simply made a precious Ionian wooden instrument disappear into thin air… that was a conversation I was in no mood to have. It was an object given with love, a tangible gift. And to maintain the delicate facade of a "mysterious but still human child prodigy" that I cultivated for her, the guitar had to be carried. Physically. It was a logistical inconvenience. An inconvenience that, to my surprise, I was willing to endure.
And so, finally, the morning of our departure arrived. Waking before the sun, making sure my boots were laced tight, and checking for the tenth time not if I had forgotten anything, but if the guitar case was securely closed. The rest was safe. The life of an interdimensional traveller, reduced to a light pack and a heavy instrument.
There was no grand farewell ceremony. We left before the shop opened, while the bridge was still shrouded in the grey silence of dawn. We had left the accounts book and a list of suppliers with Rixa the night before. The act was anticlimactic, a simple handover. The machine we had built would keep running, with or without its creators. It was a success. A dreadfully depressing success.
Walking towards the port, carrying our modest travel packs, and me, with my guitar slung over my back it felt strangely heavy with the weight of Morgana's gesture the contrast between our starting point and our destination was stark. The bridge was our small bubble of neutrality, of contained chaos. The port of Piltover… well, just like on the first day we arrived two years ago, it was still the apotheosis of the city's organised arrogance.
"So much light…" Morgana murmured beside me. Her voice held no admiration. It was the hollow, weary sound of someone looking at an extravagantly decorated mausoleum. "So much energy spent to move so little."
She was not looking at the grandeur of the machines. Her eyes were fixed on the pulsing blue energy cores at the heart of each crane. I knew what she saw: not the gleam of progress, but the ghostly glow of a silent graveyard whose imprisoned souls fuelled a city's vanity.
"It's absurdly redundant," I retorted, agreeing with her logic, even if my perspective was more technical. "With half this energy and a third of the ostentation, the inventors in Zaun could build more efficient cranes…"
Morgana's gaze was distant. "It's like using tombstones to build a ballroom," she said, her voice low and filled with a quiet revulsion. "And they dance and toast, completely oblivious to the ground they stand on."
We followed Cassandra's instructions, navigating the ordered chaos to the designated dock. And then, we saw it. Our ship. It was not one of the colossal, steel-plated warships that sometimes anchored here, but an elegant, three-masted merchant vessel, designed as much for speed as for cargo. On the dark, polished hull, golden letters gleamed softly in the morning light, proclaiming its name: The Drowned Moon.
At the foot of the gangplank, a figure was waiting, and his presence made the brawny dockworkers around him look like children playing.
He was colossal. Easily over seven feet tall, with shoulders so broad they looked to have been carved for breaking the hulls of smaller ships. His humanoid body was thick and powerful, covered by a custom-tailored captain's greatcoat that barely contained his massive frame. His skin, where visible at the wrists and neck, had the rough, greyish texture of a shark's hide, marked by a web of white scars histories of harpoons, blades, and violence written in flesh.
But it was his head that silenced any rational thought. It was not humanoid. It was the head of a great white shark, with a strong snout, flared nostrils, and small, black, incredibly intelligent eyes. There were no lips to mask the row of serrated, triangular teeth that rested in his jaw. A deep scar ran from the top of his head, down the side of his snout, and disappeared under the collar of his greatcoat. Rising stiffly from the back of his coat, the tip of a large dorsal fin was unmistakable. A Shimon Vastayan. A shark. Perfect.
[Alert. Specimen analysis. Shimon Vastayan (Anthropomorphised Great White). Cranial structure indicates an apex predator. Intelligence in eyes indicates something far, far more dangerous. Probability of him being a 'sane man' who skirts Bilgewater: effectively 0%.]
His appearance was that of a nightmare from the depths of the ocean, a sea-monster from horror tales that had decided to wear clothes and captain a ship. But his behaviour… his behaviour was the most disconcerting part. As we approached, this leviathan of scars and teeth gave a bow, a surprisingly graceful movement for a being of his size and predatory lineage.
"Ladies," his voice was a deep, gravelly baritone. "Welcome aboard The Drowned Moon. I am Captain Mahr'Lokk Sangremar." His tone was formal, that of a man performing a duty with the utmost professionalism. "Lady Cassandra informed me of your passage. Any friend of Matriarch Kiramman is treated as royalty on this ship. It is an honour."
The way he pronounced 'Matriarch Kiramman', with an almost reverent deference, did not escape my notice. This was not just the respect of an employee for a distant employer. There was a deeper current there, something personal. Loyalty. Perhaps even a debt. Interesting. That made the captain an even more complex puzzle. And it made my little plan a bit more complicated.
"The honour is ours, Captain Sangremar," Morgana replied, completely unfazed.
As he led us across the deck, the same deference was present. He stopped before two cabin doors.
"These are your quarters. The finest on the ship, at Lady Cassandra's express request," he informed us. "Supper will be served after we set sail. Make yourselves comfortable, but I ask that you avoid the stern during manoeuvres. My orders from the Matriarch are to ensure your total safety, and I take my orders very seriously."
"We thank you for your hospitality, Captain," I said with my most innocent smile. "We're certain we'll be perfectly safe under your command."
He nodded, perhaps a little surprised by my apparent docility, and took his leave, his heavy footfalls echoing on the wooden deck. I waited until he had rounded the corner and then quickly entered Morgana's cabin, closing the door behind me.
The cabin was spacious and surprisingly luxurious, with dark wood panelling and a large stern window that looked out over the port. Morgana was already by the window, observing the ordered chaos outside.
"He's interesting," she said, more to herself. "There is a depth to him. I sense a history of great pain."
"He's an obstacle," I retorted, tossing my pack onto a dark green velvet armchair. "A seven-foot obstacle with a shark's head, teeth that could shred steel, and a near-fanatical loyalty to Cassandra Kiramman."
"You noticed as well," she stated, turning to face me, the light from the window framing her silhouette.
"It would be hard not to," I said, beginning to pace the cabin, the nervous energy already consuming me. "He mentioned her at least three times in a two-minute conversation. The man practically genuflects when he says her name. He is not an employee, Morgana. He is a loyal servant. That terribly complicates 'Operation Bilgewater'."
Morgana raised an eyebrow, the first sign of amusement on her serious face. "'Operation Bilgewater'?"
"It's the project's working title," I said impatiently. "Please, keep up. His loyalty means he will not simply agree to a detour out of curiosity, not even for a generous amount of coin. His honour is tied to following Cassandra's orders to the letter. Any proposal must appeal to something deeper… or at the very least, be presented in a way that does not seem like a direct violation of his mission."
"What exactly are you planning, Azra'il?" Morgana's voice was calm, but I knew the tone. It was the same one she used when she saw me fiddling with particularly volatile chemicals in the cellar.
"A plan, obviously," I said. "Judging by the ship's name, 'The Drowned Moon', and his own, 'Sangremar', it is clear he doesn't just know Bilgewater, he was born of it. He understands its currents, its dangers. And that," I said, a slow smile forming, "is our key."
"Elaborate," Morgana said, taking a seat.
"An ordinary Piltovan captain would see a request to go to Bilgewater as suicidal madness. He would lack the contacts, the knowledge of the safe waters, or the reputation to navigate that environment. He would refuse out of sheer ignorance and fear. But Mahr'Lokk is different. He does not fear the place; he knows it. If he refuses, it will not be from fear of the unknown, but from responsibility for the known. He has been charged with protecting us, the precious guests of his matron."
"Correct, but incomplete," I countered. "Our mission at supper will be to convince him that our presence under his protection does not pose an unacceptable risk to his mission. We are not going to propose chaos. We are going to propose a scientific expedition, carefully planned and supervised by the greatest expert on Bilgewater we could possibly find: himself. We will appeal to his pride, his expertise, and his ability to fulfil the order to keep us safe under any circumstances."
I stopped and faced her. "At supper, you create the atmosphere of trust. And I will present the plan as the most logical and safest thing in the world. A team."
Morgana sighed, a sound of resignation. "I have a terrible feeling that this 'Operation Bilgewater' is going to end with far more trouble than sociological research."
"That is just a possible and exciting side effect," I said. "Think of the data we'll collect!"
The deep sound of the horn echoed through the port, a metallic announcement that the ties to the land were being cut. The ship shuddered gently beneath our feet, a slow awakening of a slumbering creature, as the anchor chains were raised with a rhythmic, heavy grinding. Outside our window, the orderly landscape of the Piltover docks began to move, sliding past in a silent procession. The departure from Piltover had been anticlimactic, the farewell to the shop and our children, bittersweet. But the journey… and the game we were about to begin… they had just been born.
The next few hours unfolded with the characteristic slowness of a sea voyage. We unpacked our small bags. I found a perfect spot for my guitar, nestled between two dark wooden cabinets where it would be safe and protected from the sea air. Morgana remained for a long time in her own cabin, likely in meditation, feeling the shift of energies from the solid stone of the city to the restless fluidity of the ocean.
I, on the other hand, could not stay still. I left the cabin and went up to the main deck. The crew moved with a silent efficiency, adjusting sails, checking rigging, each man a cog in a well-oiled machine. There was a discipline here that the city, with all its ostentation of order, did not possess. It was the discipline born not of laws, but of the need to survive a far more ruthless master: the sea.
I went to the bow, the foremost point of the ship, feeling the salty wind whip my face and hair. The scent was clean, primal. Ahead of us, the ocean stretched out like a blue, infinite promise. Behind us, the silhouette of Piltover and Zaun began to shrink, the golden towers and the greenish fissure becoming ever smaller, less significant. Our little bridge, with 'The Last Cup' nestled in its centre, was now no more than a line, a pencil stroke on the horizon. And then, it vanished.
I thought, a strange emptiness settling in my chest.
As the sun began to set, tinting the sky with hues of orange and purple, a crew member came to call for us. "The captain awaits you for supper in his cabin."
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💬 Author's Note
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Attention, Portuguese-speaking readers:
yes, today I come bearing good news. You may lower the pitchforks.
As some of you already know (or pretend you do), I write my chapters first in Portuguese, and only then they go through the mystical ritual known as translation with my editor, a process that involves time, coffee, and a reasonable amount of collective suffering.
That said…
YES, there is now a Portuguese version of the fanfic, and it's slightly ahead of the English one. Don't panic. No crimes have been committed. The difference is only 2–3 chapters, because while I love my Portuguese readers, I also love my English readers and I'm not trying to start an international comment-section war.
For now, the Portuguese version is available on Webnovel, but in the future I plan to unleash this organized chaos on Spirit or maybe even Wattpad. The fanfic multiverse is expanding.
Enjoy it, read it, scream internally (or externally), and as always:
thank you for being here 💙