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Y'know, these things are nice and all, but where's the fuckin' internet when you need it? Not that the service in my last place was great. ( Mostly relegated to what exists in the Underworld - definitely no real connection to the living and definitely not the Internet in all its glory like she's heard about, but better than these communication devices that stick to an even more limited amount of connection.

She is clutching a post on the top of a pirate ship to keep from falling over. )

I've got at least three questions to ask, and so I guess I'll use ya'll as my google.

1. How do I stop the entire damn ship from making me feel like I'm gonna puke my guts out and there is no ground?

2. What's the top 3 rules of traveling in the multiverse?

3. What are some unique, clever come backs for misogynist pirates? I'm running out

Hit me up or don't.

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"Gods?" The thought makes the hand gripping her sword handle slacken, leaving Fei glancing around them, momentarily baffled and intrigued. She's never seen a god face to face before, but she's confident if she ends up having to cross swords with one, it'll work out absolutely fine.

When the younger woman doesn't wait for a more definitive response, instead charging a head to mention her seasickness, Fei looks back at her, frowning.

"Nauseous? The pole won't help you. Come. Press your feet down hard when you walk. Don't let the boat move you. Move with it."

Does she know if it'll work? No. If nothing else, maybe the girl will focus on trying to move with the ship instead of her queasiness. While she waits to see if the stranger lets the pole she's clutching onto go, Fei brings a loosely balled fist up, letting it meet her open palm before she leans forward in a fast, curt little bow.

"My name is not Badass Lady."

Though, that would be badass. "I am Zhou Fei, from 48 Strongholds." The full introduction might not be necessary under the circumstances, but Fei wants to see if the name of her home brings out even a slight spark of recognition on the young woman's face. Despite all evidence suggesting otherwise, she has yet to be completely convinced that she can't just walk home if she tries, if this girl knows the strongholds, it might help prove to herself that that's so.

Those sure are a lot of words that Badass Lady is saying.

Red doesn't process all of that though. She only processes the badass lady with the weapon is standing so fucking strong, introducing herself like it's nothing. Red stares at her in awe, in surprise, in goddamn apology for the display of her body velcro-ing to a wooden pole-

Then she leaps away from the wood over to the woman instead. Her arms reach out, and she stops herself from latching hold like some goddamn leach. The ship moves against the wood, and she steadies herself with difficulty.

"Sorry."

She frowns. There's no recognition.

"Zhou Fei from the 48 Strongholds who is also fuckin' badass as fuck, I'm sorry, but you're standing there like that-" She swallows and makes a face, stares down at the wood beneath her feet. "Move with the ship, huh?"

It's a question as she changes the subject.

Not expecting to be jumped at like that, the best Fei can do is offer an arm for the other woman to steady herself on when she springs away from the pole, shaking her head at her while she settles again.

"Move with it," Fei does her best to emphasize the way she adjusts her posture along with the ship when it rocks, taking a few steps backward as she leads the girl away from the pole, trying to encourage her to walk it off.

"Old Madam Wang showed me what acupoint it was that makes your stomach calm down when I was a child. I can try it on you?" Without waiting for a response Fei gestures at the inside of her wrist, at a spot just a few inches away from where one might feel for a pulse. "Press there, keep moving."

Red stares at her as she walks away from the pole, following where she leads. She speaks of something that might calm the child- Is that how she sees her? It's not like it's entirely inaccurate with how sick Red feels, but Fei is-

She's so fucking beautiful.

Red swallows that up though - swallows up that reaction as if it never existed, and she stumbles after Fei with a tiny smile.

"Yeah?" She stretches her arm out toward her, seeing the spot Fei indicates at the inside of her wrist. "Okay. I can do that." Her other hand reaches out to wrap around that spot - thumb pressing against the places where she- where she indicated before. Her eyes close, and she breathes in and out until some part of her settles. Then her gaze opens once more.

"...Madam Wang?"

Not dropping her arm while the young woman presses down on her acupoint and tries to steady herself, Fei looks on, remaining ready to brace her if need be.

"Is it better?" She sounds almost hesitant when she asks. There's usually someone more nurturing around, but she's not going to leave this poor stranger unattended, even if looking after the sick isn't her strongest suit. If she can find a way to help, she will.

"Old Madam Wang, an elder from the strongholds" Fei nods before her eyes narrow slightly, realizing she's forgotten something very important.

"Who are you?"

Red nods after a moment in answer to the question. Her legs feel steadier than they did when she realized she was suddenly on a vessel that wasn't settled on some type of ground. Going from existing in the Underworld to being popped up on top of a ship rocking back and forth is one helluva change.

The more human-mortal body too is probably not helping with this drastic change.

"Yeah. Thanks. Feels way better."

Her stomach's kind of settling too.

"Oh. Red's my name. ...I'm new, but that was probably fuckin' obvious."

"You don't look so pale anymore," Fei nods in approval before letting her arms fall back to her sides, confident the young woman isn't on the verge of losing her footing and pitching forward, too disturbed by the rock of the ship to stay steady.

"Red," Fei gives another curt nod, though she can't help but eye the other woman curiously afterward. It's an interesting name. She's known martial artists with colors in their titles, but never a person using one as a name. It's an interesting thing she'll puzzle over later.

"New? You do not know anyone here?" Though her expression stays as even as ever, her eyes narrow slightly, wincing her way through a pang of disappointment.

"I am looking for someone, but I am stuck here, and you're the first person I've seen in a long time that wasn't one of those putrid sailors." Fei huffs, annoyed at herself for getting even the slightest bit ruffled over her circumstances, enervating as they are.

"Not a soul," Red confirms as she scans the deck of the ship- the pirate ship that she finds herself on. She certainly doesn't recognize anyone from the Underworld nor does she see her friends within the crowd. They must have remained in the world they escaped to, which is-

It's probably for the best. There's a pang of regret in her chest, a pang of yearning for the only people who've ever given a shit about her, but she buries it.

She lifts her eyebrows in interest though the confusion is likely clear on her expression. Searching for someone, putrid sailors. She wants to know about both but she starts with the one that's likely far more important to the Badass Lady in front of her.

"...who are you looking for?"

It's not consoling to hear that the only other person she's met apart from the crew is as clueless as she is about where they are and what they're doing. It doesn't give her much hope that she'll find who she's looking for - and not for the first time in her life Fei wonders if she wasn't better off not staying on the mountain.

Still, she doesn't know everything about where she is, and she isn't going to rule out the chance that Red might come across her wayward husband in the future. It's that thought that makes her reach for the carefully rolled piece of parchment she's tucked into the pack slung over one shoulder. With a sigh she hands it over to the girl to unroll and have a look at.

"If you see him, come and tell me. Alright?" In truth Fei isn't sure she's going to let this young woman out of her sight for it to matter. She doesn't even have a sword!

Red leans over to look at the parchment all rolled up? She takes it, unrolls it slowly, and looks at it. This reminds her of ancient times - vaguely anyway. Her memory of that time is hazy at best given she was a giant three headed dog guarding a gate without much humanity at all.

Now she's used to seeing pictures on phones so it's a very different venue.

"Yep. I can do that for ya. Least I can do after your help, and like you, I've only seen misogynistic sailors around so. We should stick together." She examines the face, committing him to memory so she'd recognize him if she sees him at some point later. Guess if she falls through here there's no reason someone else from her world can't too. "Who is it? You think he's here?"

Once the parchment is unrolled it reveals a simple ink and brush portrait of a man who appears to be around the same age as Fei.

"His name is Xie Yun, and if he isn't here," her shoulders sag with the force of a weighty sigh and Fei looks around the empty deck and towards the water, frowning when her eyes return to Red. "Then I am trapped here for nothing."

Whatever gentleness might have slipped through while her thoughts hovered on the topic of Xie Yun hardened when Red called the sailors to mind.

"We are going to stay together until we're someplace that is safe," Red didn't need to bring up the idea of sticking together really, it was already a done deal in Fei's mind.

"I will guard you with my life." It's not the first time she's played bodyguard, and it probably won't be the last either. Protecting people is part of what she does and who she is, just because she's far from home doesn't mean she intends to break the rules of her sect.

Edited 2022-07-22 23:20 (UTC)

"You've been looking for him for awhile."

It's part question but part not at the same time. She commits the visual to memory and then rolls the portrait back up to hand back to her. She'll need it if she intends to keep looking for him. If he's here, there's gonna be a lot of people to ask. It's not like it appears there's any internet out here in the middle of the sa.

She does frown though, straightening abruptly as she rejects this idea entirely from the moment it's voiced.

"Shit. No. Hey, seriously, not with your life. That's- That's a fucking lot, and your life's important, okay?"

And she's already lived a long time. Kinda. Live might not be the right word - existed though? Yep.

"Thousands of miles," she affirms, exhaustion creeping into her voice. She'll continue to travel and seek him out if she ever gets off this weird, stupid boat.

The other woman will obviously have to come along if nowhere safe can be found, but that's an issue for another time.

"Neither my life nor yours will be in jeopardy. There is nothing on this boat that could endanger either of us." Not because Fei thinks it's a safe place to be, but because she's confident anyone or anything seeking to harm them would find themselves perilously outmatched. In many ways, Fei's boasting helps her cope with the situation - she's acted superior to every foe she's ever crossed swords with, whether she was or not. It's a tactic that's served her well so far, and in a strange place like this one, it's an old habit that's easy to fall back on.

"Do you know how to sail? We can take the boat over."

Red frowns with some mild concern at the sound of her exhaustion, sliding a hand behind the back of her neck as she surveys the deck.

"You sound really confident about our total safety here, which y'know, I can appreciate the pure don't-fuck-with-me energy you're giving off. But also I feel like we've really only begun to scratch the surface of what is actually a threat in this world so let's just say I'm at medium confidence myself. No offense." And Red actually has to pay attention to what can potentially be a threat, because she's no longer a guard in the afterlife but a living, human flesh-being. Ew, never using the term flesh-being again ever even in her thoughts. Nope.

And Zeus' tits. She knows how to navigate the River Styx but not an actual fucking ocean with a boat. Her afterlife skills are one hundred percent not coming in handy.

"...no. I've also got about zero clue where we actually are or how to get to somewhere not-in-the-middle of the ocean. Do you? We could steal a map from the misogynists that'd be probably useful."

Choosing to ignore Red's lack of confidence in their safety, Fei decides it's more efficient to prove the other woman wrong if the occasion arises to do so. Instead, the prospect of stealing a map makes her brows raise, and her hand settle on the pommel of her sword. It's a good idea, and productive as a map would, at minimum give them a better idea of where they are.

"We should. We need to find where they're kept, and we need to find a place to hide once we take it." Fei looks around them, her eyes seeking out the places where there's a light burning.

"How are you with moving silently?" Gathering information as a plan slowly begins to form in her mind Fei tilts her chin towards a door fitted with a porthole, the orange glow of lantern light warming the interior just beyond. "It looks better kept than any of the other doors on this ship, doesn't it?"

Red's choosing not to answer that question, because the truth is she doesn't know how she is at moving silently. In the Underworld, she could, but she was part of it - the environment answered her call, made her steps as soft as needed to keep souls in line. So she'll just try to be quiet here too and hope that it's not too much of a change now that she's in a new, mortal, breathing body.

"Yeah, if they're keeping maps anywhere, it has to be there."

She listens - a lot of changes are happening now that she's out of the Underworld, out of Purgatory High, but her super heightened senses aren't one of them.

"Sounds like someone's inside - two people."

Pleasantly surprised by the revelation that her new traveling companion possesses such a useful ability, Fei nods at Red's assessment approvingly while she continues to quietly stare at the door, considering the possibilities.

"We have to lure them out or go in attacking," she begins quietly, her dark eyes darting to Red, trying to read her expression. "If we go in, they'll know our faces, if we knock and draw them out we can attack from behind."

Fei's usually inclined to charge in first and cover her tracks later, but she's acquired at least a little bit of foresight in her travels. Acting impulsively while trapped on a boat with an unarmed woman and no way out was a dangerous gamble to make. Sometimes, sneaky was better.

Red's face shifts into something like consideration, something like brief panic at the scenario being held out in front of her. This is a whole new playing field where she is not a powerful monster on a chain for a god but a fucking mortal with absolutely no actual training in how to engage in combat as a mortal. Her hand slides behind her neck as she glances over at her badass companion, because obviously they should-

This is-

She releases a breath, shoving down her complete lack of knowledge when it comes to any of this shit. She doesn't want to seem stupid or incapable. Damn teenage hormones. Her shoulders square backward.

"Drawing them out is probably smarter, right?"

"We shouldn't kill them. Throwing the bodies overboard will alert the rest. It's better to knock them out and tie them up."

Handling this isn't the hard part, but handling it right - while on a strange boat with no exit that's filled with guys like the ones probably waiting beyond that door - that's where Fei wants to feel certain before she proceeds.

"Do you know how to fight?"

Red doesn't strike her as a martial artist, but she doesn't strike her as a cherished lady who's never scuffed the toe of a boot before either. Though the younger woman is unarmed, Fei knows weapons aren't everything.

"If you don't, you can keep watch," she continues decisively. "If you do, we knock them out together and drag them in with us."

Edited 2022-07-29 02:24 (UTC)

"I haven't been formerly trained."

Not in this current mortal form especially - the form that's so new to her, flesh and blood that it is. It doesn't seem like a good time to see if she can even transform into the Cerberus part of her still - right here in the middle of the deck. It's more likely to bring more attention than it's worth. She's seen a lot of warriors in her time - tore their souls apart and forced them back where they belong when she was all Cerberus and not like she has been since Purgatory High became a Thing.

Shit, that's a whole lot though so instead she just smirks at her partner in crime here.

"So looks like we'll have to lead the badassery up to you, Warrior Queen. But I've got your back."

And she will try to transform if it seems like it's necessary, but well, Fei seems really confident regardless of what threats might lay before them, and it seems like two run-of-the-mill sailors inside.

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