It was the middle of the night, the air cold and biting when Rose felt the nudge on her shoulder. She woke with a groggy hand to the eyes, the stars shone bright, but the small fire at the center of their makeshift camp shone even brighter in the blues of the atmosphere. 

It was Deadeye who nudged her while whispering “Rose come here I need to tell you something” his face was sullen and sunken but at least most of the color had returned. Slumping against a box, the captain grunted as he shifted his stump in a makeshift sling “sit down girl I need to tell you some things about this world, and about what happened.” 

The two sat across from each other, the flickering of the fiery center drowning their conversation as Deadeye continued. 

“Rose, do you know why we live in the sky? Or perhaps, did you know that we used to live upon the surface of what was known as Earth?” Rose shook her head, unaware of anything historical. 

“Well,” continued Deadeye “we humans used to live below on the surface of the Earth, it was, so I am told, a paradise, where the land and sky met, waters ran clear, and life was prosperous. The legend is that long ago, humans lived on the surface in relative harmony with nature, the animals, and thus the universe itself. Although the humans were brash and violent at some points, they still together with the other inhabitants. The collective minds, spirits, and souls of all those that lived, died, and were birthed upon the surface of the earth manifested, or perhaps summoned, greater beings, beings that some would consider Gods. Animal-Gods that were the very heart of the planet. These beings were called Perrions, they touched down and gave all those that lived atop the crust of the land, various gifts, including the humans. Life on earth was good for a time, until wars broke out, some humans did not believe their gifts were worth that of another, or thought they deserved more than what they were given. Although the fighting was not uncommon, eventually the humans got so deranged, that they decided to hunt the very beings that gave them these gifts in the first place. They hunted the great creatures, using the abilities they had bestowed upon them, and in the end humanity managed to kill the Gods. As their mighty bodies fell to the crust of the earth, their very death cursed the land, a curse to make the Earth itself, a paradise that the humans could never return too, and to all those who had gifts, the gifts became a curse, an infection, causing all those of weak will and heart to be consumed by their prizes, transforming them into something… else. The great beings' bodies decomposed and mutated the land, their hate and pain leaching out like a sickness. Causing the Earth to become a lush green wonderland, filled with creatures that hated humanity more than anything. So, with this threat, the humans fled to the skies and the highest peaks, living in their terraces, floating islands, ships, and cities. The very gifts they gained, marred by a mark on flesh and bone, those who cannot control their gift, turn to one of the creatures that still walk the earth below… Therefore us, the marked ones, the magi, are hated, our powers are hated. The humans fear us and the creatures that we could one day become.” 

       Sighing Deadeye leaned back massaging his jaw with his remaining hand, “that is what we are, that is what our mark means, to be feared, for what we wield and the threat we possess” a silent pause ripped through the softly wind lapped camp “gifts? Powers? What do you mean?” Rose spit out softly as she watched the dancing flames, soaking in all that Deadeye had presented. 

The captain lifted his hand pointing to his dormant left eye, “this eye is more than just a party trick, it is the unique power I possess, gained from the monstrous muta within me, everyone's gift is unique and the more powerful the muta one possess, the more powerful the gift can be” he took a drag from a slow burning cigar, exhaling a lungful “however the mutas within will always vie for control, its sole goal being to turn you into your true…” the captain made quotation marks with his one arm “monstrous form, a form filled with pure hate for everything human, if that happens you will be lost forever… the more power you borrow, the harder it is to keep the beast tamed inside.” 

He blew out another cloud, shrugging his coat over himself like a blanket “the bag Nan had found, contained the helmsman's body, and he told something to the boy before he died… Rosa I’m going to need you to take a deep breath” Rose looked up confused “what, why? Is everything ok?” the captain looked away as he spoke “it seems that the night of the storm, the helmsman had a run in… with your muta.”

            The face that took her’s was that of horror, Rose felt her heart sink into the cold mottled dirt of the land itself. 

“What…” a soft coo was all she could manage, her mind and body frozen in place. “It seems my child” Deadeye stood grunting, limping over to the child, where he sat next to her resting his left arm on her back “that your muta is a very powerful one… the helmsman was… uh, influenced by the words of your muta and it caused… the ship to enter Devil's teeth” Rose choked, spinning place as she wretched her whole stomach over into a pile of rubble behind them. 

The captain kept his hand on her back as he hung his head low. The girl puked until nothing was left, and then she did it again, tears streaming down her already puffy face, struggling to come to terms with what “she” had done “it's not your fault my child, there is now way we could have known… and now we are more concerned for your safety more than ever… it seems your muta is very smart and actively working to take control.” 

The girl slammed her fist into a nearby spire, she choked back letting out shrill cries into the cold night air. Angie’s hands came out of nowhere and slipped around Rose’s shaking body as she held her, setting her head on the girl's shoulder. A few minutes passed by, and the agony was cut short by a loud snore from Nan, which set the rest of the woken party into a slight laughing fit. 

“What was it?” the words were labored from Rose’s mouth, “What?” the captain said eyeing the girl. 

“What sort of monster is my muta, you said they are monstrous beings… did they see what mine looked like” the captain looked at her more intently “they did see it briefly on deck, but I don’t know…” Rose interjected “I must know please… I must know what is in me” sighing for the hundredth time that day the captain begrudgingly opened his mouth “a beautiful woman adorned with six feathery wings… with the lower body of a massive skittering centipede” he said as Angie helped him light another cigar. 

            A cold seeping dread filled the child’s body as the realization set in, the realization that since the beginning this thing within her has been influencing, watching, trying to sabotage her very existence. Rose choked again, tears raining, as the captain wrapped his arm around the distraught girl. Rose tried to push him away with all her might, but it was in vain, he held her tightly, more tremors wracking through her body. 

“I… I killed the crew” said Rose slowly “I killed my family” said the girl raising her head from her hands with wide eyes and an empty gaze. 

“No no” the captain started “Yes I did” Rose broke into a hysterical laughing fit that filled the midnight air with an even deeper chill, other crew members started to stir, and the glint of their eyes was visible in the moonlight, like a pack of wild dogs stalking broken prey. 

“No, you didn’t!” the captain shouted, rousing the others, as his left eye burned brighter than ever before. Its ruby beauty burned into Rose, as she sat back down a little further from the captain, mesmerized by the searing red, it seemed like the eye could see to her very soul, and that ethereal probing held her in place, mentally and physically. 

“It was not your fault… you did not do it… Don't say that!” the voice of the captain was a low growl, as the flame of his eye grew frantic, “we are all monsters, sooner or later all magi find that out, but you are not defined by what is within you, you are defined by your actions, and who you are to yourself and to others” his face was stoic, “this here” he lifted his hand to the burning eye “this is my curse, to see all around me, and to not be able to save those I love… we all have to deal with these monsters… the best thing you can do is use the beast to save others like you” finished the captain “and let them die like everyone else” Rose said monotone as she stared openly at the moon. 

“No” Deadeye whispered with pure anger “No” he waved his hand, signaling the others to go back to sleep as he stayed with the girl till the sun broke the heavens.

            There was a fire burning within the girl, not a fire of hatred or lust. Not a fire of rage or anger, not even a fire of determination, but a small sad flame, a small little dark thing that ate and ate, until everything was consumed, and all was turned to ash and smoke. She did not sleep that night, Rose sat motionless under a shredded tarp, staring at the stars as they passed by, imagining they were her crew, her family, all watching her through glassy eyes. The tears dried on her face, leaving ditches in the dirt and soot that caked them. Displaced, they all slept in a circle surrounding the once lit fire, surrounded by their sea of shattered metal and amenities strewn about like a shin high ocean of chaos, a true junkyard compromised of their livelihood, behind which the gutted visage of the galleon stood watch.

            A peek of morning light poked its way through the cloth sky, while the same words kept flowing through Rose’s mind, “the beast within you, the muta, their… disposition and… form is based off, the environment you grew up in… and the conditions of your birth” a notion the captain had mentioned after her midnight tirade, a notion the man had barely let go of, perhaps believing it might solve some of the many problems the girl had, or satiate the wailing of her heart. 

He did not know why he told her, or why he originally left it out, but the thought bugged his mind for some time. Still, Rose wondered, “was she evil? Were her parents evil? Who were her parents? What type of darkness was fostered inside her soul” she pondered, the air still dark and damp in smell. 

She knew now that how she grew up was… no less than horrible but she was not horrible… right? “Are you done crying over the ones we killed?'' Rose bolted upright as the song-like voice was ripped from the air all around her. 

“You are vile, we are vileeeeeee” a skittering sound accompanied the notes as the atmosphere grew darker “you have always been such a worthless… thing but I can make you whole” the air was permeated with cold “get out of me!” Rose shouted her breath leaving a cloud of frosty steam. 

“What do you want!” she stole a scream into the morning air, the others beginning to stir. There was a pause of silence broken by rustling then silence again, “for you to remember…'' The voice cackled in a song-like manner, like a miss-tuned instrument, in a symphony of bones, the laughter cut through the girl, leaving Rose gasping for air as sweat poured down her brow. The guilt screamed at her heart, her nails dug into the earth, through all of which she made a choice. Surveying her family as they laid asleep and exhausted around camp, she sat up, and tied her tarp into a makeshift pack.

            Rose waded through the wreckage, making it to where she emerged, and found the gear she had been so graciously given for the raid that was doomed to happen now. Donning the coat and pants, stashing the fli-gun and ammunition along with some things she had found from her room, pocket money, trinkets, clothes. All fitting into a small sack, the girl climbed her way into the belly of the ship, crossing to the sideways ruins of the hangar where she knew “it” would be. 

Hanging there in the darkness, attached to tubes and railing, swinging softly in the dry air, was Nan’s sky skiff, well technically her’s, but she had let him borrow it for hunting, and fishing. Releasing the series of levers and dials, the single sail, single engine skiff fell to the metal wall which now made up the current floor. It was pitted, turbines bent, and sail torn, but that was no problem for the girl. Rose lugged the triangle of steel through the shadowed wreckage, the sun beginning to peek its fingers over the cloud tops, her dragging was accompanied by a loud screeching as the skiff was drug a fair distance through the rubble and out onto the mesa top. Laying it into the hard rocky dirt, she began to patch the sail, bend the metal, and repair the lightly damaged rig. Rose could have fixed it with her eyes closed, being nearly connected with this machine throughout the years, and in less than an hour as the dull light began to flourish, she was finished.

            Standing stone faced and stoic the girl placed herself on the very edge of the shattered mesa, which dropped down to the cloud layer miles below, and even further than that to the earth below. She stared out across that cloud layer and the jagged broken spires of Devil’s Teeth, which look surprisingly beautiful in the clear morning sun, bathed in atmospheric light with brilliant blues and yellows that danced around every object. The air smelt cool and clean; Rose decided to steal a look back at her sleeping companions, still forming the circle around their camp. 

With that final gaze, she jumped, dragging the anchor of a contraption over with her, and for a moment the girl closed her eyes, limbs splayed, hand around the cold metal of the sail as she plummeted, the wind rushing violently past her face. She fell, growing closer to the clouds, until finally she pulled herself onto the falling skiff, kicking the starter, shifting into gear, and revving the engine causing it to roar as it propelled them forward, rocketing into the sky as the turbine whined and the sail grew taught.