Casca heard those words but none of the words that followed if there were any.

"You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?"

She'd heard similar before, there had been other instances.

She'd be a liar if she were to believe they'd all always been loyal, they'd all always believed he wasn't just a man.

Others before had tried similar, too and she had been there to stop them. So had Judeau, and Pippin, and Rickert.

They had stopped themselves after Guts joined their ranks, though it was always a breath away in the tongues of some of them, in whispers that died as soon as she walked by, but still there. It existed. Those three years and countless battles in which Guts was—and they could all tell—the favorite, the favored one, none had tried but she knew many more than before bore it in mind. It grew in kind.

She wouldn't have faulted them for trying then. Against Guts. Rebelling against the treatment. Not that she thought they might succeed. It was vastly different, though, the way Griffith favored Guts, and plain to see, and even she had considered it, though not against Griffith. She'd tried too, had been the only one to get remotely close to it. She'd failed but there was some reward in that failure. She'd accomplished something.

The heads of those who had tried their hand and luck in defiance against Griffith's post as their general had served their purpose. They crumbled and decayed, a reminder as to why he was their leader, him and no one else, the one they followed. He was the one whose dream they'd all lit a pyre for, a funeral for their own.

She heard the words and found the wooden door that led to the captain's, Griffith's room, stuck, immoveable. Swollen and split in some places on account of the weather or the passing of time or something else, and it was keeping her away. A piece of wood stood between her and Guts and Griffith and whatever was happening in that room. She couldn't pry it open but could hear Guts on the other side: not his words but the sound of him, of his sword, and the viscous rumor of flesh torn open, of bone being sawed in half like a log in winter, the crunching of cartilage and small bones like boots on hard snow.

At the campsite during that whole year in which it was winter every day (it seemed to her) they had discussed it many times over: if Griffith returned to lead them in battle again they would gladly do it all over again, their Midland lives a painful memory, distant, a half-forgotten dream they'd grown tired of dreaming. At the end of that long journey into a winter's night was the promise of more battles and more campfires and other summer nights under veiled starry skies to tell tall tales and drink till blackout or sunup or frostbite. The unspoken pact, Griffith's end of the deal, was that he had to remain as he'd been, and lead them once more, or chop off their heads for ever questioning that he wouldn't, burn their bodies in a large pyre while the rest of them watched on and remembered and were reminded that he was the one they were to follow.

At the campsite, their end of the deal was to chop off Griffith's head if he couldn't deliver on the pact they'd all secretly signed, burn his human body with the remains of their dream and never speak of him or the White Hawks again.

She repeatedly threw her body against the door trying to pry it open. She slammed at it, kicked at its base, punched at the slightly splintered jamb to get the door of its large, rusted hinges, clawed at the hinges and the splinters and the boards that were more swollen, and still there was no budging and no purchase and no center to attack. Here she was powerless and kept apart from the picture as if she didn't exist, a falconer that cannot see nor hear its bird of prey, trapped in a world of its own making and waiting on a resolution that will not include it, when the falcon returns either with its prey or without it. This was not her story. She'd realized long before—it was none of theirs, never had been, until Guts had come along and disrupted the idea. Here was someone whose story could also be this one and all of them who'd come before had meant nothing, perhaps. He'd hated him. Again, she wouldn't have faulted them if they'd tried their hand at mutiny and rebellion in the face of Guts being the favorite, but none of them did. None was brave enough.

Perhaps if he'd never shown up no one would've ever known otherwise. This wouldn't be happening.

She slammed the side of her body against the door once more, desperate. As desperate as she felt when she tried explaining something and had no words for it and no one would listen or understand or care and she felt her sanity escaping her—am I the only living person on Earth? Was this what it meant to be a woman?

She knew if they succeeded, if their pirates' mutiny came to fruition, they'd eat him limb by limb. They needed their revenge to serve as climax to the whole ordeal, closure to the tall tales they'd been weaving round campfires for years and years. They needed for it to end and that ending had to satisfy their urge. They would boil his bones and gnaw on them for any ounce of flesh still clinging desperately to them and they would eat his unseasoned meat with bitter resentment. They'd check and see if there was a way whatever it was he had, even if it was all illusion, to be eaten along with him, to be passed on to them through the stomach. They'd eat his flesh before he was even dead while he was still being held down by their many hands, their many nails digging into his paper-thin skin, tearing off his clothes and bandages to suck at his wounds and bite into them, and then they'd boil and suck on his bones and stick his head on a spike so he could watch them do it before they burned it. Somehow she knew. Somehow she could see all of this happening. Where was Guts in this scene? What had they done to him?

They would turn against her then, in that scene, her stomach unable to hold down any food, she'd just be done throwing up at the sight of Griffith's head, veins and flesh and dried blood hanging like tendrils, like fish guts, like the insides of a rat she stepped on, from his open neck, and coiled around the spike where it'd been set. They would turn against her then.

It wouldn't be the first time they humiliated her. Wouldn't be the first time they reminded her she was different. A different body of different flesh.

She knew somehow because she could understand the resentment they felt towards Griffith. It was similar to the one she felt. He should've given them all but all that was left was the wiry body and pathetic chirping of a weak physique, skinned down to its barest. Hardly any flesh left to suck off his bones.

The door opened almost as if by miracle once she'd turned away from it to get her sword to hack at its center.

There, inside the room, Griffith clung to Guts' back, his right arm, broken and bandaged clumsily, clinging pathetically while Guts' left hand was folded towards his back to keep Griffith in place. This was as bad as it had been leaving that tower when he'd clung onto Pippin's back. But not so, for these were his own men.

He knows how you feel, the fairy said. It smiled.

"Wh-what's going on?"

Isn't it obvious?

Griffith looked small and vulnerable on Guts' back as Guts swung his sword against Mislav whose shoulder had already been struck more than once, whose left leg limped sadly, whose teeth were gritted trying to bear it.

"Get outta here!"

Once she'd been second only to Griffith in the battlefield. She grit her own teeth.

He didn't just abandon you, you know, she'd thought of telling him. He abandoned me too. And you once forced me to sleep naked next to him.

Once she'd been second only to Griffith.

She stopped Guts' downward swing with her sword, placed its blade between him and Mislav who breathed shakily and shook his head violently.

"No one toldja ta help me, ya bitch!"

"Enough!" she turned her sword towards him, the point of her blade on the wound of his shoulder. "What's goin' on?"

"There's no way we're lettin' ya go off like this! There's nothin' left!"

"Captain!" Gaston could be heard, either right outside the door or in the companionway that led to the wheel. "Captain!"

It was followed not by silence but the familiar metal on metal shock of swords clashing, rusted edges scraping each other, and feet shuffling on wood. Other voices came forth too but Casca could not make out what they were trying to say.

No one said the words, not the fairy at least, but somehow she knew.

Griffith wanted Mislav dead.

Before she left the captain's cabin towards the other voices and battles, she had this task to complete.

She was his knight.

He was to brandish his sword.

She broke Mislav's nose with the hilt of her sword, pretended she didn't hear the insults thrown at her (they would never let her forget she was a woman) and in the same motion put her sword back in its hilt.

"We'll make an example out of him."

She felt she owed Griffith at least that much, an explanation.

Guts had placed Griffith back on his bed and helped her tie Mislav's hands to his back. She felt one of Mislav's bones (perhaps in his shoulder) crack like a log in flames but he didn't say anything other than a grunt.

"You stay here. With him," she told Guts.

He knows what you think of him, you know?

"Ya can't go alone, Casca."

"This is my shield," she said and tugged at Mislav's hands tied behind his back, forced him to move towards the door. This time he did scream.

Mislav stepped over Sam's corpse on the companionway, spat to one side to signal his respects.

Surely they must've known more lives would be lost, more than the ones they could've kept if they'd let Griffith go without any revenge.

She pushed him to walk faster.

The mock fight they'd had so long ago and her anger then seemed ridiculous now. She'd attacked Judeau not in play but in earnestness, Judeau whose only fault was that he wanted to take him with her, make of her something she never wished to be, put her to one side and have her at the table with a child who'd learn from him the art of dagger throwing and jokes. An unforgivable fault.

She pushed Mislav again, with more emphasis this time, wanting to hear the cracking of bones again.

"Ya fuckin'-"

And Casca shoved him against a wall, his broken nose slamming the wood harshly. Something cracked, wood or bone, and she was satisfied.

There was no one at the wheel but traces of battle, one on one if the dead had been lucky, but not so fair if she went by the way the blood had splattered across the walls, on the floor, seeped into crevices.

"Y'know y'brought this on yerselves," Mislav said in a nasal voice, the one you can hear of flu victims in the deep of winter.

They made their way to deck and she made sure Mislav hit his head against it before emerging. A small comfort.

By the mainmast, under the shade of the sail, she saw Emil defending against Nikol's attacks, his short blade horizontal, only on defense, as he walked backwards, delaying the inevitable.

Casca kicked Mislav in the stomach and didn't watch him topple over and fall on his back, legs bent like an overturned cockroach before she rushed to Emil's side, pushed him out of the way and received Nikol's blow with her own sword.

"What is this, Nikol?"

"Ya know what it is," he said and charged again, this time lower and to the side, and aided by a swift kick to her stomach she narrowly escaped, but dodging the kick left her open for a slash on her upper shoulder, the dull blade less a cutting force and more a blow that threatened to paralyze her muscles.

Casca kicked at him back and though her sword felt suddenly heavier she was able to skewer his lower abdomen. On his face she recognized the look of someone who's been caught by surprise. She knew he wouldn't die, she knew enough about killing to know when she hadn't, but suddenly the weight of futility dawned upon her. Even if she didn't kill them now, Nikol and Mislav and Sanses and the others, they'd have to kill them later. Make an example out of them. Out of all of them. An example for herself and Guts and whoever else remained.

It was because of that that she didn't sense Arnet coming behind her, his sword lifted high above his head, brandished with both hands, aimed straight at the crown of her head, a deadly blow if any, deadly if Pippin hadn't come up behind him and delivered his own with his large hammer.

Arnet's body dropped with a loud thud at her feet, at the feet of Emil who had just gotten back up from where his exhaustion and Casca's push had shoved him.

"Are you okay?" he asked of Casca and Pippin.

They both nodded.

"Tie him up," Casca signaled towards Nikol with her head. "And thank you, Pippin."

"I should bandage him, the wound's pretty-"

"Tie him up, Emil. There's the rope," she pointed to excess rope that held sails and nets.

Casca rubbed her shoulder and cracked her neck. Then she walked towards Mislav who had already gotten back up and dragged him by his tied hands to the main mast where him and Nikol were tied by Emil, on their feet, the privilege to sit reserved for those who hadn't mutinied.

"Where are the others?" Casca asked Pippin.

"Gaston went down after Sam and Caynn," Pippin spoke slowly and calmly as if there was no rush. "Lav went to the galley, make sure Rickert was okay. Kim took Judeau to the hold. And Balan is dead."

"Why did he take Judeau to the hold?"

"He was with them," Emil answered for Pippin. "But against killing you, or Griffith, or Guts. He'd be safer there."

"And Sanses? And Roug?"

"There."

Pippin pointed towards Roug, rising from the belly of the ship, the corners of his mouth bloodied, dripping down to his neck, and a smirk on his face.

Casca had to hold onto Pippin's side for support. She could see Roug biting down on Griffith's flesh, hitting bone immediately, without even having to try, and sucking at his easily ripped skin, drinking his blood which trickled down Roug's neck.

"No," she whispered and no one heard.

Roug climbed his way out onto deck and Kim came up behind him, he was propping him up. Kim's hand was bloodied too. When Casca came into his line of view, Kim looked away, sheepish and contrite.

"Captain," he started, "I-"

"He stabbed me," Roug said, then coughed.

"Bring him here. Emil, check his wounds. If he'll make it, tie him up with the others."

"But Casca-"

"I'll go down. Pippin, you watch over them."

Without any of their voices ringing out, in battle or merriment, the ship appeared abandoned. She could hear the waves, the creaking, the splintering wood, the gulls overhead. She traced her fingers over the wood as she walked through the corridors and passageways beneath the ship. If she closed her eyes she could pretend there was no one aboard with her and this was Griffith's kingdom, and she the knight, the sword who looked after it. She'd failed but still there was peace in that certainty. A splinter pricked her finger's skin and lodged itself deeply, drawing blood, so she had to open her eyes, suck her finger clean of her own blood. Stupid, she told herself, you're so stupid.

From the galley, like a mouse, Rickert came out to find her, probably heard her talking to herself, and asked after Kim.

"I heard Roug sneak up to him. Lav said-"

Lav came into sight himself.

"I told Rickert to stay behind."

Casca nodded at both of them, studied their wounds—none on Rickert, some cuts on Lav.

"He's on deck. You should join him. Pippin's there as well."

"Y-yeah."

"Did you hear or see anyone else?"

"No. Kim put Judeau in the hold when it kicked off. He told me to hide, took him there, and came back. He was almost here when Roug snuck up behind him, I, I couldn't even warn him, I'm so sorry. It all happened so fast."

"I know, Rickert. It's not your fault."

Casca didn't trace the wooden sides of the ship anymore and kept her eyes open as she made her way to the hold. She climbed down the ladder and tried to hear out for something but there were no sounds except those she'd learned to tune out at sea and the flapping of loose sails in the wind.

The door to the hold was unlocked, shut but readily opened. Maybe Kim didn't think a lock would be necessary, maybe Judeau had picked it himself, kept at the ready in case he was needed as was his way.

"Judeau," she called, no sign of a question. She was commanding him to show himself. The ship swayed ever so slightly and she lost her balance for only a second. She saw Judeau then, on a makeshift chair he'd probably built himself the second Kim left him in the hold, and sleeping, mouth wide open as usual. How can he be so calm at a time like this?

"Hey, Judeau," she called out more loudly. "Hey," she said and kicked at his makeshift chair.

Judeau, so peaceful, sleeping there, fell limply, emptily, to his side, his hand hanging to one side, his mouth now wider.

"No! No," she said, her voice growing quieter and more erratic. "No, no, no. This can't be," she shook his body by the shoulder, "Judeau, no, Judeau," she was whispering now. The movement tilted his head and opened a wide cut on his throat. His shirt, red, was covered in whatever was left of his own blood which bubbled out, no longer hot and rhythmic. "No." She noticed the pool of blood beneath him, covered by his chair. "No."

"So the bitch has a heart, huh?"

Casca turned in a second, her sword drawn with the quickness she'd practiced in battle for years, forged herself to be one with its steel, and when the blade hit the target she saw it was Guts' hand, cut open completely, blood from his palm dripping down to the hilt, to her own hands. Behind Guts' hand, behind her sword, was Caynn, looking at the two of them, alternating between them.

"Why'd ya do that!" Casca drew back her sword, sheathed it, and watched Caynn bolt out of the hold, close the door behind himself.

Both her and Guts ran after him. There was no lock so she ducked under Guts' arm reached out to open the door and grabbed Caynn by the ankle, dragged him to the floor—his chin hit the floorboards before his palms could—took the dagger from his waist and straddled him as he laid on his back, twisted his arm backwards.

"Hand me some rope!"

"Rope?" Guts stood under the threshold and looked around himself.

"In the hold, ya idiot, there's rope in the hold. Give it to me."

It was only a second—her falling back into old patterns of being exasperated at Guts' own helplessness—but it was enough for Caynn to wrestle himself free, knocking Casca to her side on the floor, and bolting upwards towards the deck.

She could tell Guts was hesitating between running after him or helping her up. He settled on the second option and she felt herself grow angrier. The others would surely catch Caynn on deck now that he was unarmed so she turned and shoved Guts' shoulder.

"You left him alone?"

"Nah, I blocked the door. An' tha' bug's with 'im."

Casca breathed in and out.

"Are y'okay?"

"Don't touch me!" she recoiled away from Guts, retreated unto herself, arms over her stomach. "I'm fine. I'm fine," she said softly after a while. "Just don't come near me," she hugged herself, trying to fend off the cold now that her sweat was quickly freezing, trying to keep her body from shivering. It was so cold in there, so cold, like that night Judeau-No, no. She turned away again, away from whatever it was, held herself tighter.

Footsteps hitting floorboards interrupted whatever thought she was trying desperately to form. It sounded like only one person but she was too tired and too cold—when had it become so cold in here, she'd just been so warm, and now was so so so cold—to look farther up than their feet. She knew it was Rickert for he wore boots Judeau had given him. She clenched her fists around her arms and felt the weight of her body—her so cold body—become unbearable.

"Guts, Casca," Rickert caught his breath. "You're uh, something's happened-"

"Is Griffith okay?" Guts' voice on edge, about to spill over with secrets Casca thought she knew. She didn't want to know them anymore.

"Um, y-yeah? Wasn't he with you?"

"What happened, Rickert? What is it that ya wanna tell us?" Casca sighed, long and drawn out. Maybe this was all a dream. They'd all gone mad before. "Griffith's alright."

"Caynn he uh... jumped off the ship he um... you should come see."

Guts followed after Rickert immediately.

She watched them go. She watched their feet go. She tried looking back inside the hold, maybe she'd catch sight of the sole of his shoes. She didn't. Maybe it hadn't really happened. She'd hallucinated things before. Nothing on this journey had been as it seemed. Nothing would ever be. If his soles weren't there maybe he never had, either. The door wasn't locked. Maybe Kim never led him there. Maybe.

She followed after Guts and Rickert because they turned to call to her. She didn't know how long they'd been calling but they looked as if it'd been a year.

On deck all of Griffith's men were looking out starboard. All of the men who were no longer Griffith's, tied to the mast and bandaged hastily, were trying desperately to set themselves free of their bindings, talking over each other with questions no one wanted to listen to.

When Casca, Guts, and Rickert came on deck, Kim turned round—his face so disfigured, Casca had never seen it like that, contorted and pale, almost ridiculous—and walked towards them, slowly.

"It's just as the kallawaya said, just as she said, she knew-"

"The what? What's-"

Casca didn't stop her movements towards the edge of the ship to ask Kim what he meant. She too looked over.

I told you, she could hear not as a voice but everywhere.

Down there, where the water met land and just some ways away from where their ship was stalled, was a huge pile of what looked like ash. The remains of a funeral pyre.

Pippin didn't look at her—he probably couldn't look away from the pile of ash—when he said,

"As soon as his feet touched land, soon as he was out the water-"

She didn't hear the rest.

She undid her steps and picked up her pace, ran down the stairs—it'd gotten so cold, out on deck, down inside the ship, there was no escaping it.

I told you, almost with a smile.

Inside the hold it was colder still. She stopped just after crossing the threshold and walked slowly to where Judeau slept without sleeping. A funeral pyre. When she went to pick him up two large hands took hold of her shoulders and turned her around.

"What're ya doin'?"

She looked at Guts but couldn't see his face. There was nothing on it, no features, no lines. His hands were so warm though, how could he be so warm in all this cold, in all this winter?

I told you.

"What're ya doin'?" she heard him ask again.

She shook her head.

"He'll turn to ash too."

She tried wrestling away from Guts but he held her close to his chest.

I told you, everywhere and everywhen and everything said again, they'd be forever sinking and never more touching land. Followed by Puck's laughter, childish mischief, childish cruelty and ignorance.

"There won't even be bones left of the rest of us," she whispered softly into Guts' chest, letting out a long sigh of finality. It felt like it to her. She was unsure if he could hear or understand the words she'd remembered from the woman. Her breathing was even and rhythmical and her words steady but maybe too soft for his ears.

Not long passed but it could've been forever, hearing herself breathing softly and calmly and Guts' heartbeat a reminder of days now lost.

"Why're ya here?" she heard Guts ask loudly, felt the voice echoing inside his ribcage. His hold on her tightened as he spoke, enough to hurt.

I was bored. I wanted to see what ya were up ta, Puck said, mimicking Guts accent.

"Ya left 'im alone?"

Somehow Casca knew.

At the very least she should've expected it.

But when Guts let her go and ran off she still lost balance, her knees buckled under her own weight, and, with her back turned to Judeau, she finally started crying.