It was not food he was thinking of, nor was it the idea of a nice hot meal that had him all but licking his chops. No, indeed.

Claude took a sharp breath and held it, let it out again slow, the same as a good steady draw on a pipe. Settled the nerves and tempered hotter, more primal humours.

He could see, now, that he'd given the lad a solid fright: his fins wavered at their full extent, and even slitted in wrath his eyes darted ceaselessly, trying to watch all of them at once as he wriggled against the net. Claude snorted, quiet, and considered that. In the first place, he wouldn't force attention on the unwilling--though of course his captive had no way of knowing that. And in the second, they had an audience: or he did, and one that counted on him for their lives and their livelihood.

"Steady." A reminder to himself, and reassurance to his catch--a tempting dish in any sense, even still trying to skewer him with a chilly gaze. "Steady, lad. The man that'd make su-chii out of you has more money than sense, and that'd be a poor sale."

Though to hear his hope of a fortune in miracle blood so neatly unraveled--did knock some wind out of his proverbial sails.

"Unfortunate," gruffly. "That is a loss: not to grant a child sight by cutting your thumb, no worse than the slip of a hook, nor spare his poor mother an early grave." His free hand tapped his chin, tugged thoughtfully at a beard gold as carrots in the sun. "Suppose'n there's no such thing as perfect medicine."

But the merman had said several other odd things, besides.

"...Silt...?" Claude squinted, thought. "Oh, that. Some as were celebratin' early. Caught you right enough, though, snootful or no."

"Captain? Uh, sir?" Jarvis hesitated. He always did, except in battle, all arms and legs and gander-pale no matter how he sunburned.

Claude twisted in place, exasperated, and slid him a look that near enough made the man's knees rattle. "Well?"

"Sir." Clearing his throat, the stork of a man gangled his way into Claude's personal space--and as near the strange, enthralling creature on their decks as he quite dared. "Your bawth is ready."

A ransom originally, Jarvis had a sharp head for sums, meticulous organizational skill, and that fancy, too-good accent like an orchestrated yawn.

"Perfect," was Claude's sole summation of this news.

Jarvis cleared his throat. "Our--" hot-eyed, with an envious pinch of the pale, pale mouth, "guest seems, perhaps, overburdened with his ordeal, and quite weighted down with tackle that's not necessarily his own, originally. You are, therefore, naturally within right of," he paused, and one could half watch his mental dictionary flittering through its officious little pages, "...restitution."

Claude huffed a laugh. "In English english, Quartermaster?"

"Hmm." Jarvis rolled his tongue in search of shorter words and arrived at: "...Plunder, sir."

That one little case? The lad's arm was wound tight around it, as though it held the universe's very secrets. And he had mentioned pearls.

However justified Claude's claim might not be, hesitation never won a man anything. He fair swaggered into place, smirking down at his captive.

"Any more tricks?" He moved decisively, to keep the knife neat and straight in his hand. "Y'gonna curse me? Sing me a storm, or a pod of killer whales to smash my ship? Hold still, now--" He cut without touching his guest or the net itself, cleaner than a close shave. "...There."

Might made right, and just like that the satchel was his.

"Shall I," Jarvis paused, not quite reaching, "analyze it, sir?"

"No!" perhaps too sharp, gruff and too quick, "No, thankee. The lad'll want it with him, I'm sure, or at least close by." And louder, for the assembly: "You'll all have your share, soon as it's due."

For this, there was a collective exhale, their first return to something like normal order--and an abrupt, group shiver of coarse laughter. After this long at sea, there was not a clean mind among or between them.

Certainly his own wandered more than he might wish.

"Understood, sir," Jarvis tutted, some hardly readable and longsuffering expression plastered stiff on his face. "Very good. I'll see you're--" a pause, flick of the eyes up and down, "not disturbed?"

"Good man!" barked Claude, with a rusty laugh of his own. "Now, then--"

There was a trick to lifting with the knees, and not with the back, and it made the turn of the net easier. With one great haul he at last had an armful of merman, slung headfirst over Claude's shoulder and not at all quiet about it, fins flashing to cut, hands thumping good and hard with a yell.

Insults rained bitterly on his back.

"If ye bite me," Claude snarled, tilting hard under their matched weight, "I'll leave y'for the gulls--" He gasped, sharpish, and dropped his voice. His teeth were gritted. But not from pain. "Don't wriggle so, lad!"

In response, the great golden tail gave one wicked, awful thrash, but they were too close together for it to drub him, and he was too well-braced to be pulled down. His men scattered like ninepins, or like crows, flowing together around the commotion in a lumpish cloud of rough jesting.

"I mean it!" Low, urgent into the heaving flanks of his thrashing, wondrous catch. "Will you hold still--"

Of course he didn't.

They made it through the narrow cabin door just the same. Somehow, somehow, he got the net loose and his wonderful, irate gilded prize into the washtub with only a moderate thrashing.

His everything was askew; they'd knocked into everything there was to bump over or nudge against. His lip was cut, by net or fins. He could taste the salt of his own blood.

The merman glared up at him with pure affront, seething fit to murder, but for some wonder held his tongue.

"Welcome," panted Claude, thoroughly discombobulated, "aboard."