It had been ten years since the Redeye Pirates set out to sea. Despite being only seven on that day, Roseus remembered it clearly.

They sailed at night, when the waters were most treacherous.

Usually, such a task would be near impossible. Even at night, the navy still sailed the seas, especially in the First Ocean, which was still easy to return from. If not for Redeye’s perfectly put-together crew members, they would not have made it.

Roseus still received letters from his father when he reached the Second Sea. By the time he was setting out for the Third, he had never heard from his father again.

That was six years ago.

How is he returning now?

He wanted to be excited, but he knew that it wasn’t wise to be.

When he looked out into the sea towards the ship, he saw no one aboard, yet somehow it still sailed.

Then, there was the fact that the ship could only be seen through the spyglass.

Am I hallucinating? Or could this be one of those strange magical effect that I’ve heard about?

If it was the latter, he had reason to be worried.

Just as he was about to look through the spyglass again, his door was suddenly pushed open.

His mother came in, cheeks red from drinking.

She squinted at the spyglass in her son’s hand and sighed. She hated that her son had even a slight interest in the oceans.

Yet, she didn’t say anything about it this time. Instead, a sad expression took over her face.

"Your friend is here to see you," was all she said before turning around and heading back out the door.

Roseus only had one friend, so he knew exactly who it was.

He also now knew why his mother had such a sad look on her face.

She hated his friend.

...

Roseus made his way to the door, but found that his friend had already invited themselves in and was sitting around his dining table, drinking from a beer bottle.

It was a young woman with pale skin and long blonde hair. She had a scar over her left eye, claiming it, yet she was still one of the most beautiful women Roseus had ever known. Her lips were pink, and her eyes green like emeralds.

She was dressed in a long-sleeved white buttoned shirt with baggy sleeves, which was tucked into tight-fitting black leather pants. Over the shirt was a black sleeveless waistcoat. She also wore black heeled boots, and a cutlass around one side of her waist.

Her hair was slightly rustled up from where she once wore a hat that had now been placed on the table.

She looked up at Roseus with that confident grin she always had.

Roseus did not feel like smiling at that moment. Judging by the way his friend was dressed, he knew that the day had finally arrived.

"You’re setting sail tonight, aren’t you, Dawn?" he said, with no joy in his voice.

Dawn pouted her lips before taking another swig from the bottle. She winced as the bitter liquid slid down her throat.

She had always hated drinking, and Roseus had always told her she would make a terrible captain for it.

"We are," Dawn’s voice came. "All ten of us. Boats docked and ready, and for some reason, I feel like tonight is a good night for it."

The words hung in the air for a few moments. Then, Roseus nodded his head.

"The ten-year anniversary that our parents set sail. You always planned to wait until this day, didn’t you?"

Dawn laughed quietly into the back of her palm, then shook her head.

"No, Rose. I planned to wait until you changed your mind and decided to join us. I hoped that this special day would do it."

Dawn’s mother was Captain Redeye’s first-mate, making her second in command of the Redeye Pirates. Her name was Stellar, and she was a fearsome woman, from Roseus’s memory.

Naturally, this led to Roseus and Dawn becoming best friends. They both had similar experiences and were drawn to one another.

Both of their parents had been abandoned by their lovers, all because of the hope that the ocean brought.

The only difference between the two best friends was that one of them was prepared to leave their parent behind, whilst the other wasn’t.

"My mother, Dawn... She’s sick. The bottle is taking her. She can’t sleep unless she’s half-drunk. If I was to leave—"

"So what, are you going to be her carer for the rest of your life, Rose? What about your own goals? You love the seas even more than I do. It should be you captaining this ship, not me, we both know this!"

By the time she reached the end of her rant, her voice was filled with anger and frustration.

The words hung in the air for a few moments before she rose to her feet. She looked away from Roseus, trying to hide the fact that there were tears in her eyes.

"Dawn..." was all he could say. He had never been good with his words, and Dawn knew this.

"I don’t want to hear it, Rose. You’re going to make me cry."

She turned and started heading towards the door.

Before she left, she turned and spoke over her shoulder. There was sadness in her voice, and yet a hint of hope rested behind it.

"We set sail at midnight from the BlackRock Pier. If you change your mind, then you will find me there. If not, then... thank you for everything, Rose. You are the best person that I have ever met."

And with that, she left and closed the door behind her.

...

An hour after his conversation with Dawn, Roseus stood outside his house on the hilltop, looking down at the waters below.

He constantly ran over what she had said to him in his mind. It wasn’t the first time they had had this conversation, but the weight of it truly began to settle in now.

In just a few hours, my best friend will be gone...

He thought of what that might mean for him... what it might mean for her.

Then, he heard footsteps approaching behind him.

Assuming that it would be his mother in her drunken stupor, he turned, prepared to tell her that she shouldn’t be so close to the cliff face at night.

Except it was not his mother standing behind him.

It was his father.