Mariana had not heard of a skill called watersight. She assumed that it was a method of scrying.
She was right. Apparently, she was supposed to use it all the time in order to be aware of their surroundings. She wasn't comfortable doing any witchcraft, and she liked the idea of using water in magic even less, because water was the realm of the dead and she had already had an unpleasant encounter with the Mother of Worms.
She asked Daniel to show her how it was done, but he was too busy.
"Ask the witch," he grunted. "I have duties, you can't expect me to hold your hand through every mundane task."
To her, scrying was not mundane, but there was little she could do if he was not in the mood to help.
She locked herself in the cabin, with a paper full of instructions from the weather witch and a large bowl of sea water.
She had to stick two precious gems up her nostrils and dunk her head in the water for long enough that she would have to breathe. Then she had to draw in a lungful through her nostrils; these gems, respiradotes, were supposedly magically potent and could allow her to breathe underwater, like a fish.
This all sounded so hard to believe, but then again, the same could be said about the hydra, or the monster with hundreds of limbs.
Mariana cleaned the table so that she could pay her respects to the Mother. It was simply good manners to offer a small sacrifice of some kind. She gave some tea leaves to the statue of a pretty lady in a robe.
The statue did not accurately describe the scariness of the goddess of death and water. The thing had a little piece of expensive fabric folded on its shoulders, it had big eyes made out of sapphires that were always looking down with an expression that was kind of shy, it was all around a very beautiful item.
Mariana nodded towards the statue. Then she stuck the green gems up her nose.
She tied her hair back and put her head into the cold water.
It felt refreshing and oppressive at the same time. The overwhelming feeling of drowning came quickly, though, she was surrounded by wet darkness and the water was going into her ears.
She waited until the pressure in her chest was too much and drew in a breath through her nostrils.
She got a lungful of air. That was pretty amazing. The respiradotes really worked.
She opened her eyes.
She saw light pouring into her field of view, the blue sea, and the Good Wife.
She frowned. She looked around, and it was like she was flying - she soon saw that the Good Wife was close to Daniel and her. She came back to her former ship to see what her old crew was doing.
The deck was empty, except for Wolfe, who was tied to the mast, badly beaten or mauled, bleeding. It didn't look like he had any way of freeing himself from the ropes.
Mariana would have wanted to check what was happening under the deck, but she felt a force behind her eyes pulling her back like she could have pulled a dog on a leash.
She drew her head back from the water.
She sneezed the gems out and cleaned them.
The Mother of Worms was sitting in her chair.
Mariana screamed.
"You did go back to him after all," the goddess said with her kind voice. The Mother looked a bit different now. She was not as unsettling - or perhaps Mariana knew what to expect now.
"What do you want from me?" the she-pirate asked.
"Are you satisfied with what you got from me?"
Mariana weighed her heart with her mind.
"Aye," she finally whispered. "We are together. But it doesn't feel like he considers me worth worshiping as a goddess."
"Have patience, young lady," the death goddess said with softness. "Things will turn out just fine, but you will have to go through hell to get there. I am warning you…look behind you."
Mariana spun around to see absolutely nothing.
When she turned back towards the Mother, the goddess was gone.
The pirate captain sighed and unlocked the cabin door.
She tried to find Daniel to present her findings to him.
They prepared some tea - again - and proceeded to have a diplomatic conversation.
"I know you don't want to see your former crew dying in a battle," the pirate king said, stirring his cup without a single clink.
"Mm-hmm. I don't. You're absolutely correct."
"But you know they will defend the dice to their last breath." Daniel glared at her and let out a deep, exhausted sigh. "I want to have it, because…"
"Yes? Are you going to tell me whether you are a demon or not?" Mariana could not tiptoe around the topic any longer. She had to ask him before this moment would pass, she had to break the surface tension.
"I am."
It all made sense now. That had been him with the glowing eyes. He was a superdogormic demon with the power to travel on the astral plane whenever he liked, except if someone summoned him with the dice - and that was a bit of a problem for him.
"It's not as simple as me simply having fun and making life difficult for others." He drew in a deep, sharp breath. "I have to guard this world from beings that are far more terrifying than anything you have ever seen, or imagined, for that matter."
Leaning back, he pulled out a pipe from his drawer and stuffed it full of northern tobacco.
"I don't smoke, except now, because right now I am thinking about the most stressful thing that I know of."
Mariana reached across the table to hold his hand. He pulled it an inch or two away from her, but then, as if hesitating somehow, he put it on her shoulder, gently brushing her curled hair away, touching her like she was a delicate porcelain cup.