"Pull him in, grab the ropes... throw them!" And the man was pulled in. After firmly grabbing the cables and being lifted onto the ship, the man appeared exhausted. He wore only a black cloth shorts with a dozen longitudinal cuts on his right thigh and pointed brown leather shoes, seemingly made of the same material as the captain's boots. The man's pectoral muscles bulged like a bull; his chest and face were lined with black hair, his wet, black hair dripping over his pale forehead. At a glance, he seemed to be just a warrior. He appeared to be in perfect condition, if not for the tears in his leg, wounds that exposed pieces of wood embedded in his flesh. The man was leaned against a corner, and the oars resumed attacking the water.
"This isn't right, Captain. They killed many of our own," said Two-Tongues, a mariner who had severed his own tongue into two parts when he discovered the woman he had loved his whole life kissing another man. The sailor was one of the most loyal to the captain but treated everyone with his deadly acerbity.
"Shut up and get back to rowing, Two-Tongues!" roared Berne from the other side of the boat. The old man, like Two-Tongues, had little more than forty years of life.
Two-Tongues stopped rowing for a second, then in one leap crossed the boat over the bodies that blocked the main path of the vessel and lunged with both hands on Berne's neck. Madness turned into commotion as all the men left the oars to separate the two brawlers. The captain held each of them by the shoulders and pushed them apart, having earned the respect of his sailors not only for being the owner of the ship but also for his strength, which proved useful when he needed to remind the insolent ones of who was in charge.
"Are you all joking with me?" nearby, two fireballs in flames collided and roared in the ocean. Far away, the dragon continued to breathe fire at the enemies. "This is madness, you will kill us all." Two-Tongues and Berne looked at each other as they caught their breath, and the captain gave the order for them to return to the oars, and the ship resumed gliding through the water. The captain turned to his new crew member. "You, what is your name?"
The castaway expressed the pain caused by those pieces of wood in his body. He said nothing.
"Do you understand me? If you don't answer, you'll go back into the water." Pangeia's serenity had ensured peace throughout the captain's life. His problems were with the winds when they blew against his caravel and with the sea when it was violent. He rarely needed to be merciless with others. He knew he wouldn't condemn that man to drowning, but he couldn't be inflexible in that situation.
Blood flowed from the man's wound as he sat on the ship's floor. He didn't say a word until he noticed the captain's face did not carry good words, so he opened his mouth.
"Saos sossiso essesses soseses," he replied with difficulty. The entire crew exchanged glances.
"We can't keep him," muttered Parrot from the corner where he was.
"He's the one who will end up killing all of us!" shouted another voice from the back of the ship.
The captain didn't know what to do. When he looked around, he realized that the Curious Lord was already out of the battle line, a bit distant from the last yellow warship. At his feet, men lay with their entrails exposed, blood streaming across the deck. Perhaps he should leave the castaway where he found him; the yellow ships could rescue him. But there weren't as many yellow ships now, the dragon was still alive and decimating the colorful fleet. Fire was seen throughout the ocean, and smoke already covered the entire sky on the left side of the old ship. Letting him go back into the sea would be like stabbing him in the chest with an arrow.
"Parrot, bring him inside, he'll come back with us," the direct order shocked the young lad, but Parrot had never dared to disobey an order from his captain.
As Parrot approached the castaway to take him to a cabin, a sudden yellow flash passed through the vessel and struck him in the back. The lightning was swift. In the blink of an eye, a golden coating stretched from the lad's back to his entire body, crystallizing every strand of hair and ending in the contours of his shoes. His wide-open mouth seemed to have been internally painted with the yellow of the sun. Parrot had turned to gold.