1 June; Stargazing

Upside-down? Terry gaped at the sailor. "You mean... how d'you mean, 'zackly?" he asked, leaning forward a little, curious.

"You know. Ain'tee ever seen one o' them map globes? I bet the captain's got one somewheres, least a pocket one. The world's like a ball. Or the world's like my fist, see?" He curled his hand and held it up. "And this is north," he explained, pointing at a knuckle on the top. Then his voice became cheerfully ominous. "And this is south!"

Terry looked at Barrow's fist and frowned. "So... it's all back'ards there? You bin there?" He shifted to sit cross-legged and leaned forwards, resting his elbows on his knees. "What's it like?"

"Wildest winds on earth. And cold, too. Hoy, Tide!" he called, hailing the quartermaster. "I just been telling these lads about the south seas, how everything's upside-down and backwards there."

The South seas? Tide grinned, then glanced at the officer of the watch. Technically, he wasn't supposed to hold shouted conversations across the deck. Technically.

"Aye, that's so," he called back, after checking the compass briefly. "Easy's pie gettin' lost down there, 'cause of it."

"And gotta be careful you don't fall off the world," Billy added. "You gotta sail by kedging 'long the anchor the whole way." He winked at Chase and reached for his tobacco pouch.

"Yes, but... but what's it like?" he persisted. What he wanted was a yarn, but he was still nervous after what had happened earlier in the day. "Are there... mermaids an' stuff?" He vaguely recalled someone speaking about mermaids a while back, but he hadn't been involved in that conversation and hadn't wanted to get caught earwigging. "You ever knowed a ship to fall off?"

Tide checked the set of the sails and adjusted the wheel a touch. "Aye, I heard of a whaler what done that. Sailed too far outta the way an' fell clean off the world."

There was a chuckle from Chase, who was still lying sprawled on the deck. "S'what you get, bein' on the far side of the world!"

"Oh aye," Billy answered. "That's how I lost me first ship. Because why? Because a mermaid size of a whale done stove in the hull with a smack of her tail, and sent us flying inna the sky."

Terry's eyes were round. "They get that big?" he asked, wishing he dared ask for the whole story.

Tobias huffed a slight laugh around the stem of his pipe. The awed look on young Button's face was entertainment for the night right there.

"Wha's tha tellin' th'lad lies far?" he asked, eyes twinkling. "Tha knaws tha' a mermeid as can thraw a boat 'asta be larger 'an a whale."

"Not one o' them blue finner whales," Billy retorted. "They're massive. Bigger'n a ship o' the line, they are."

"Take a whole school of mermaids to match up one'a them," Tide agreed.

"The normal size ones, aye. The northern ones. But them southern mermaids is big."

Terry was looking from one sailor to another, not quite believing their words... yet unable to dismiss them as foolery. "I... I thought they was s'posed to be right pretty," he ventured.

"Aye," Tobias agreed. "Luvley as anythin'. Jist verreh large."

"Oh aye," Tide answered, smirking. He checked the compass again and shrugged. "They're better when they ain't carryin' lads off to their deaths."

"Carryin'...?" He twisted around to look up at Mister Evans. "What's that about, then, Mister Evans?" he asked, feeling more comfortable with the quartermaster, after the events of earlier, than with the others, which was something he couldn't explain, even to himself.

Tide nodded wisely, his smirk seeming to shrink. "Late at night is mermaids' favourite time. S'when they come 'round, singin' to ships an' their sailors. An' snares whoever they can, for draggin' down to the black depths."

Terry shivered a little, looking out across the dark water. "There ain't any round 'ere, are there?"

"Only small ones, size of you 'n me," Billy reassured him. "Them huge ones is all down in the south seas, on account of they're too heavy to come up to the top of the world, like."

"Ones up 'ere is luvley as sin," Tobias said, "an' 'as voices lahk ye've nivver heard. But they cannae git ye fram way doon ther, long as yer wary."

"They're 'feared of the cap'n, too," Chase said. "An' rightly so! Don't reckon we'll have no trouble from the likes of them, while we're 'board any ship he's commandin'."

Tide chuckled quietly and glanced at the officer of the watch. "Wind's freshenin' some, sir," he told the officer in an undertone.

Terry could understand them being afraid of the captain - after all, he was, too, and he'd spoken with him, in the Great Cabin. And it made sense that they couldn't get up here from down there, not the big ones.

He pulled his shirt a little closer around himself; the wind was getting up a bit. "What else is there down there, 'part from them big mermaids?" he asked, despite himself.

"Some other things, aye. Fish-men an' the like. Fearsome creatures, them." Chase pointed at the sky. "Things like the Dragon, too."

The current running past the rudder had strengthened, the barest bit. Tide's previously-loose grip on the spokes tightened slightly. Odds were this was only a late-night breeze that would slacken back to its regular steady course, but one could never be completely sure out here.