Fin stepped out of the captain's quarters and realized the day had slipped by him. The dull grey sky was gone, replaced by a vast canopy of stars—sharp and endless, the kind of sky that made silence feel ancient.
"I wonder if the gods came from the stars," he thought.
He crossed the middeck with his gaze still tilted upward, letting his feet carry him out of habit. When he reached the barracks, something was off.
The moment he opened the door, smoke hit him.
His heart jumped. Training kicked in.
Without thinking, he ran toward the source—every nerve ready for flame, for shouts, for something to fight. But when he kicked open the door to his own bunk room, what he saw knocked the air out of his lungs in a very different way.
"They didn't teach you how to knock at the Academy, huh?"
Harrow stood in the middle of the room, arms crossed, cigarette between his teeth. No fire. Just five soldiers—three men, two women—crowded around a table, playing cards, smoking, and drinking like it was the most normal thing in the world.
Fin stood frozen.
"Cut the poor boy some slack," said one of the men—older, broad-shouldered, a patch where one eye should've been, and arms like ship cables, covered in scars. "He's one of the few new ones who didn't break. And this is his room, right?"
Harrow didn't reply. Just looked away, jaw clenched.
"Yes," Fin finally said, voice low. "Top left."
The older man nodded once, satisfied. "Then that settles it." He pulled out a chair with one thick hand and gestured to it. "Sit down with us, will you?"
Fin contemplated the idea of simply going to bed and try to sleep but he realised quite quickly that it was going to a task close to impossible with all the ruckus they were causing. So instead he just took the man up on his offer.
"What are we playing?" Fin said confidently while sitting
"Poker" said the woman directly in front of him
The older guy next to him started to deal the cards the moment Fin sat down while Harrow reluctantly poured him a drink.
"The name is Fin, by the way."
That earned him a few looks this time—some amused, some indifferent.
Nessa, the woman across from him, raised an eyebrow. "We figured."
Egran chuckled softly. "You stormed in like a cannonball, kid. Could've guessed you were the main character."
Fin smiled, half-embarrassed, half-relieved. Harrow handed him a drink with a slight roll of his eyes, like this whole moment was beneath him, but he did it anyway. The cup was warm from someone else's hands, and the liquid inside smelled like someone had dared the sea to ferment itself.
"Don't sip," Harrow muttered. "Commit."
Fin didn't. He just held it, more focused on the cards Egran was dealing out with practiced ease. It wasn't fancy poker—just whatever scraps of rules they'd agreed on to pass the time. Coins, buttons, a shiny bolt, and what might've been a ration token were all tossed into the middle of the table.
"You win," said one of the twins sitting side to side to Nessa—Fin still hadn't figured out which was which—"you get bragging rights and first dibs on dessert tomorrow."
"There's dessert?" Fin asked, genuinely surprised.
Nessa grinned. "Not really. But it's fun to pretend."
The round started. Fin lost instantly, which was met with a wave of exaggerated sympathy and sarcastic claps. Egran slid the pile of loot toward himself without much ceremony.
"No shame in it," he said. "We've all paid our dues. Rook once lost his boots."
"I didn't lose," the twin said, holding up a finger. "I strategically sacrificed footwear for leverage."
"You limped for three days," said Wren.
"Yeah. Leverage."
The laughter that followed wasn't loud, but it was real. Fin found himself relaxing into it, letting the edges of the day soften. The ship still groaned around them, and somewhere outside, the ocean kept crashing into itself like it was trying to pick a fight—but here in the low light and lazy smoke, none of it reached them.
By the third round, Fin had won a single bolt, half a cigarette even though he didn't smoke, and the right to go second in line for water the next morning—apparently. The rules changed every time someone new joined the table.
Egran chuckled as he leaned back, drink in hand. "You're doing alright, no-name," he said, gathering the cards again. "Could've just gone straight to bed, but you didn't."
"Didn't seem like I'd get much sleep with you lot in here," Fin said with a crooked smile. "And I wasn't about to refuse an invite from a guy with arms bigger than my confidence."
That got a low laugh from the table. Even Harrow cracked the faintest grin.
Egran shook his head, amused. "True enough. I don't have a dreamboat look, but I make up for it in charm."
He took a slow sip, then looked at Fin again—this time more seriously.
"And I hope none of you end up like me. Or worse."
The mood shifted—just slightly. Like the warmth in the room flickered, but didn't quite go out.
"We signed up for this," he said. "We knew the deal. Military life isn't romantic—no matter what the songs say. But you? You didn't choose it. You were handed it. That's a different kind of weight to carry."
Fin didn't know what to say, so he didn't. He just nodded once. Quietly.
Egran didn't press it. He shuffled the deck again and looked at the others. "One more hand?"
Groans followed—half-protest, half-agreement.
"Last one," said Nessa, already grabbing her cigarette again. "And if I lose, I'm setting the whole table on fire."
"You'd be doing the furniture a favor," Harrow muttered.
The game wrapped up not long after, and most of the crew drifted out to their bunks with soft goodnights and yawns that turned into curses when they remembered morning duty. Fin stayed behind a moment, helping gather the scattered coins and ration tokens, if only to have something to do with his hands.
He wasn't tired yet—not really. His mind was too loud. The envelope from Lysander still sat tucked in his pocket like a weight he couldn't ignore.
Once the room quieted, he climbed up to his bunk. The mattress was thin, the air cold, and the bulkhead groaned with the waves below—but for the first time since boarding, it didn't feel so alien. It felt like something he could survive.
He held the mission envelope in both hands for a long minute. Then, finally, he opened it.
Inside was a single page—neat, clipped language, the kind that didn't waste ink.
Assignment: Recon Unit A3:
-Deployment Zone: Western Edge, Forest of Virek.
-Objective: Survey territory for Dominion activity. Avoid engagement.
-Team: Awakened Fin / Awakened Talia Voss / Awakened Calen Dhor
-Departure: 48 hours.
-Escort Officer: Elevated Lysander (initial transport only).
Beneath that, a hand-scrawled note in rough black ink:
Don't die. Bragging rights are reserved for the living. – Harrow
Fin let out a breath that turned into a laugh—short and real.
Then he folded the paper, slid it back into the envelope, and stared at the ceiling until his eyes stopped fighting sleep.
The sea hummed quietly beneath him.
In a few days, the real work would begin.