After a simple night of sleep, each in a different room, Symone wakes up pretty late in the morning, he looks around and notices that Ywain is not here anymore, the carriage and the donkey are gone too. The faun certainly went on his way back to his city, called Hooves Village, leaving Symone and the other one alone.

The elf looks at the demon who is laying down next to where the fire was, he is still sleeping in order to get more energy to heal his injuries. The elf finally decides to get up, he takes some steps around the improvised camp before finding near the ashes, halfway under a rock, a note written by Ywain on an old piece of paper. What's written in this note is briefly :

"Hello Symone,

This is where our paths separate but I hope we will meet again. I must now leave for Hooves Village. I miss my wife a lot.

Now it's up to you to finish your journey by yourself, you'll have to go East for a few moments again before reaching Golden Hook. But when you arrive there you have to be careful about you and your friend, people there may be aggressive because of the lack of care given by the King.

See you soon, Ywain."

After quietly reading this note, Symone approaches Vek and wakes him up by gently shaking one of his arms. It works, the demon slowly opens their eyes, their eyes first end up on the dead fire, then they move to Symone’s arm and go up to the half-elf’s face. His cheeks slightly turn even more red before sitting properly, getting ready to fully get up.

The demon is still a bit in pain but now he can stand up and walk by himself. The elf waits a bit before telling Vek that they have to go East for now, so he can take time to fully wake up.

***

After a few times spent by simply walking in silence and admiring the pines again and again, a smell tickles Vek's nostrils so his stomach starts gurgling as if a beast was following them, it has been a long time since he ate. A sneer appears on the elf's face, he is amused. By the way, the green elf is absolutely not scared to be eaten by that demon, some stories say that demons do eat people but it doesn't seem to be true at all.

They really soon both see a wooden arch decorated with some shells and dry algae, it is one of the entries of the pirate city, Golden Hook. Vek can't wait to finally eat something so he doesn't hesitate to go through this arch. Meanwhile Symone is a bit disgusted because of the strong smell it has.

The more they are walking in this city, the more pirates are staring at them. Despite a great diversity in this city, all of the pirate's eyes are attracted by the expensive outfit Symone is wearing, the majority of them must be wondering why such a rich person would come in here.

A little farther in the city, Symone perceives a quite rustic inn, he offers Vek to go there to rest and fill their stomachs. The latter accepts without losing time, forgetting about his own injuries. On the frontage of this inn the two adventurers can see a painting of an old pirate, eyebrows frowned and a chest full of gold. This is a quite good representation of the customers here, old grumpy pirates looking for big treasures.

Now that the two new friends have gained some more energy with a fish based dish, Vek has to go heal his abdomen really fast before an infection contracts. They walk a few seconds before arriving in front of a doctor's office, they enter and see that the place is really messy and several patients are already waiting for their turn. The demon grins seeing how dirty this waiting room is, he can't even imagine how the doctor's office is, so he decides to go outside of this place, saying nothing.

Symone goes after the demon, slightly concerned by this behaviour. Why would the demon go away if he desperately needs professional help to get his wounds healed ? Symone follows Vek in the streets of the pirate city. Then the elf asks :

-"Why did you get out ? You must be healed." He tries to stop the red one.

Vek says nothing and just walks to a calm alley, he doesn't answer to the half-elf for the moment. Arriving in this alley, Vek tears apart the very few pieces of cloth covering his upper body, it is all covered in dry odorant blood. He sighs :

-"Too bad I have to throw away my favourite dress..."

So the demon lets their red skin and demonic tattoos be revealed to the world. He lowers his head down to look at his own injuries after getting rid of the bandages he sighs then mutters some strange sentences with his fingers placed on the wound and eyes closed to concentrate even more. Symone is surprised then he waits for Vek to finish before asking :

-"Is this... magic ?"

-"....I lived by myself for a long time. I know how to do things by myself."

After a flood of questions from Symone, the demon softly cuts him off and tries to answer each of his questions as best as he can, still in the alley.

-"I master some magic spells because demons know how to manipulate them. And I haven't done that before because.. I didn't want to do it in front of Ywain, that's all."

The demon doesn't seem to tell all the truth but for now Symone doesn't care that much because first he knows absolutely nothing about demons, then because he really wants to know what this pirate city looks like in detail.

-"I'd love to know more about demons but I want to go see more about the city as well."

-"You can go. I can tell more about demons later." Vek says that as if he is sure they'll stay friends for a long time. By the way it seems like he wouldn't have told that to just anyone.

Symone thanks Vek before walking away, stars in the eyes and curiously looking everywhere, Vek discreetly and slightly smiles seeing Symone's reaction to the outside world. Then he decides to walk away from the alley to go to the dock, situated a few streets away. Arriving on the wooden pontoon, Vek looks in detail at the beautiful vessels present in this huge dock, he sees sloops, galleons, brigantines and a lot more other ships.

On his side, Symone is gone for a walk on the streets of this pirate city, a lot of people are observing him indiscreetly, those people especially look at his outfit more than anything else. In fact, he still has the same outfit as when he left the capital. So he is wearing expensive clothes as said before, which is rather frowned upon here from the pirates point of view because there's a mutual hatred between the people of the capital and the pirates, since the king hates pirates as well, since they are initially poor.

The half-elf keeps going on his way without giving much importance to people but after only few seconds a pirate approaches him, looking innocent, the pirate says :

-"Can I ask you something ?"

Symone answers positively thinking he can help someone, then he is led to a more discreet place, as a request from the pirate, explaining to the elf that he does not feel comfortable when too many people are around him. So they both end up in a smaller street similar to where Symone was with Vek, the pirate approaches the elf, a hand hidden in one of his pockets, he orders :

-"Now give me your money."

***

Back at the dock, after observing some of the boats, Vek arrives at a big sign, on which are placed dozens of pieces of paper, like announcements. He looks at some and sees that it is almost all about captains looking for pirate crews. He attentively observes those but sees that to be part of most of them people need experience on sea and most of all they need to really well know the different types of ships.

He softly sighs, starting to lose hope for Symone's dream of becoming a pirate, it would be sad for the half-elf to not do what he wants. A young pirate calls the demon, he asks :

-"Hey, I'm Amber. I see that you are interested in the ads, want to be part of a pirate crew ?"

Vek takes a really short time before answering to Amber the blond pirate, he hesitates while talking :

-"Yes, it's just that I am with a friend. Is it possible to come as two ?"

Amber answers positively and asks the demon where his friend he talks about is. By the way, the blond guy with blue eyes does not react while seeing he is in front of a demon. Indeed, the city of Golden Hook is really welcoming with the physical and ethnical differences, the city is full of people and creatures from everywhere.

Talking about different creatures, Vek never sees any demons other than him at the capital, so he’ll maybe meet some here, who knows ? Anyway, the demon answers the pirate question about Vek’s friend’s location :

-"I don't really know where my friend is. I think he's gone to know more about this city." Vek answers, looking around and scratching the back of his head.

The pirate frowns his blond eyebrows, thinking about what he could say but right before being able to tell something a yell coming from the centre of the city is heard to the dock. Vek startles, wondering what it is. Amber finally asks, without really giving attention to that yell as if he is  used to that kind of thing. Of course he is used to that, pirate cities are always loud and full of life :

-"Do you and your friend come from here ? You seem lost."

-"No, we are from the capital."

Amber opens his eyes wide right after hearing the other one's answer and says to Vek to quickly find back his friend before something bad happens to him. On their way Amber explains that people from the capital are not welcomed in Golden Hook at all.

After a few minutes searching, they hear another yell but less loud and coming from an alley. A mysterious person runs away from the alley where the yell came from, not that far from here. Curious, Vek takes a look at this place, then exclaims unexpectedly and not as he is used to :

-"Symone !"

The poor green elf is halfway laying down near some trash, the face damaged by a punch and slightly crying because of the pain but luckily no other injuries are visible. So the demon helps Symone to get up, despite the fact that he is not usually tactile.

Amber wants to help them as well but he doesn't know how to do it, so he has an idea, he takes the two friends to an inn and books a room for the two of them for the night. Amber is weirdly generous and nice for a pirate, this is what Vek thinks but he has more important things to do for the moment.

Vek and Symone finally get in a room, it is pretty small, there's some simple wooden furniture, the room is lit up with a dirty window and some weak candles. By the way, when entering the room and after a quick look, Vek notices that there is only one bed in this room but he is quickly relieved to see that he can easily fit in the dusty sofa. He wouldn't make the elf uncomfortable by sleeping with him in that old bed.

After closing the door, the demon goes to sit the elf on the sofa, in fact the demon has lost trust in everyone first when he started living by himself in the capital but even more after what happened today to the green one. He sits next to Symone, preparing himself to heal his new friend while asking :

-"Why have you been attacked ?"

Symone frowns an eyebrow, not really understanding that question because there is absolutely no reason to be attacked or to attack someone but he answers :

-"I don't know. He just ran away with my expensive things before you arrived."

Vek finds a tissue made of fabric in the booked room, so he decides to moisten it with some water found in the bedroom as well. He cleans Symone's beautiful light green face from all the blood he got when the pirate punched him but the green one starts to grimace out of pain, holding his belly and his thigh. He has, indeed, a cut on one of his thighs, nothing serious.

Vek lets the other one take off his own shirt despite the elf being a bit embarrassed to show a part of his body naked to someone. Symone simply unties his shirt after taking off his expensive jacket to let in sight a wound covered in blood done by a small knife, the demon wipes it in order to see better. This action hurts the half-elf at the wound, he growls of pain but the demon doesn’t really care about it, he is more concerned by the wound itself.

The wound is indeed pretty deep and really dangerous for Symone since the latter had never been exposed to diverse illness and bacteria. So Vek exclaims, almost yelling, as opposite of what they are used to :

-"What ? Why didn't you show this to me earlier ?!"

Symone mutters some words taking out the very few energy he still has, which is not enough to do things by himself, he also grimaces :

-"I.. I didn't want to worry you."

The healer sighs before getting concentrated on the other's injury, he puts two of his fingers directly on the wound, which causes an unbearable pain to Symone due to the demon's claws almost piercing his green skin. Then the demon mutters some ancient demonic sentences, so the elf's wound ends up slowly healing and closing itself.

Vek takes some time to heal his new friend with his own energy, so he'll be slightly exhausted as well after finishing. Symone suddenly asks why Vek left the capital and most of all, why he was hiding his identity for so long. The demon answers sincerely without losing any more time :

-"That's because I'm a demon, nobody could or should accept me in Ahulia. Not even the king.. who is, erm.. my father. He is a demon too. I don't even know why I am opening up to you like that.. I shouldn't." It seems like the demon actually wants to talk about personal things from his past.

-"Keep going, I want to hear more. Please."

Vek hesitates a short time, then continues because he feels like he has to take all of it out of him after so long keeping everything as a secret :

-"Well. A really long time ago, he stole the real king's place as well by killing him and raised me to be as demonic as him. Which worked quite well for some times. Then I left the castle because I realised how bad he is, even for his own people. At this moment he directed the royal guards to capture me if they eventually come to meet me, to bring me to my father and to kill me. That's the only way demons can die, killed by one of them.."

The elf looks at Vek's hands and decides to take them, without warning the other one, he doesn't know what to do after hearing all of that so he just looks at the demon’s hands. Because of the lack of energy, Symone does not take too long to fall asleep on one of Vek's naked and warm shoulders. He goes into a deep sleep really fast, so it is impossible for the demon to wake him up.

The latter decides to take Symone to the bed, by the way, Vek struggles a bit to transport a man way taller than him, so it takes a few minutes. He then puts the elf in the bed but Symone doesn't want to let go of the other one. So after a long hesitation, the demon decides to sleep right next to the elf.