Character Profile: Pax

Name: Pascal Tiberius Naoton Quimbell Haeverine anNatalie, Pascal Seaworthy (Modern AU)

Aliases/AKAs: Archibald Two-Toe, Birdseed, Knifebunny, Dormouse, Fuck-Up, Goblin Threeleg, Henry of House Arkhewer, Hugo the Hungry, Bandit King of the North, Hyensavar the Dragon, Jarvis, Jugg Strongleg, King of All Pansyflies, Kitten, Lady Cordelia DeThane of Bright Harbour, Lizard the Sailor Boy, Loptr of Bethel’s Frontier, Patrick of Haven, Patrick Obern Nevell III, Pax, Prince Gavin ven Sancte of Dolovai, Princess Geneviva Yesmerine of Casmaria, Silver-Tongued Pax, Squeaky, Sven the Ninth, Tall Pax, Tentpole, Tripwire, Truthful Pax, Xaddeus Ironhair, Ziggaur the Fig-Eater, Zeke of Three Hills

Title(s): Acting First Mate, Coral Witch; Cabin Boy, Sparkling Wind; He Who Rises From the Winds; Kohovi Village Council Headman; Lord of Interior Dalti; One Without Dying; President, Endwan Birdwatching Society; Quartermaster, Sparkling Wind; Scion of the Starlight; Standard-Bearer of the Mektri Goblin Clan; Theologian-In-Residence, Teown’s Sound Seminary

Hair Colour: Brown, but in a mysterious way that allows him to blend into any group of people

Eye Colour: A classified shade of blue

Favourite Colour: The colour the sky turns thirty seconds before dawn

Height: 162 cm (in boots, on toes, hair spiked up, hat on), 157 cm (barefoot, hair down, no hat), 189 cm (mentally)

Weight: 70 kg (reported, based on the one scale he trusted three years ago), 78 kg (actual), 1.5 kg (brain)

Favourite Food: Eggs, and not just because they let him consume his enemies

Build: Fat, sturdy, still growing

Gait: Light as a cloud, swaying swagger

Distinguishing Marks: Star-shaped birthmark under his right arm, numerous small scars

Dick Size: Large, but only by human standards

Knife Collection Size: He’s a grow-er, not a show-er

Number of Testicles: Currently two

Relationships (Romantic and/or Sexual): Nate anNadya (fiance), Denver (best friend/knifebrother/sometimes body lender)

Family Relationships: Callie, Cyrus, Matthias, Dee, Ignatius, Robin, Roberta, Jacob (siblings), Abner (caretaker, deceased), Dominic (caretaker/employer/father figure), Natalie anNadya (captain/mother figure), Sharon/Sheheren Janaj He’Sseri (friend/cool big sister/mother figure’s girlfriend), Rawen Janaj He’Matke (future brother-in-law/information source), Louis (favourite dragon/knifebrother-in-law), Alse Nonth-Mel (knifebrother-in-law), Cedric (sagacious cook), Pig, Joel, Jade, Pick, John, etc. (crew/minions), Sylvester/Alec (mentor), the Coral Witch (boat), the Sparkling Wind (boat, deceased), Persephone (pelican/archnemesis), the Sea King (fiance’s body-stealer), Tongue (pet lizard, deceased), Mektri clan goblins (adopted clan),

Wanted in: Sixteen major cities, forty-two towns, three kingdoms, none under his real name or with an accurate description of his appearance

Sexuality: Gay, if you must put a label on his capacious and exclusive interest in men sexually speaking

Preferred Positions: Ones of authority (preferably holding a clipboard or standing at the helm of a ship), crouched in windows, perched dramatically on rooves

Preferred Positions (sexual): Missionary, on top

Kinks: Praise, body worship, semi-public sex (secretly)

Orgies Attended: The Raqvel Syndicate’s Monthly Orgy, The Lower Malt Orgy of Excellence, The Great Pelican Bay Orgy, The Stag Keep Orgy

Weaknesses: Birds, trees, jungles, snakes, peas, insects except for blackflies, trout, excessive heat and sunlight, sand, evil ocean wizards who want to steal his boyfriend, wind, coriander, horses, lavender, birds again, kelp, neo-classical architecture, tight clothing, lava, onions

Bio: Left for the birds in High Haven at a young age, Pax grew up with his adopted siblings being taught petty thievery under a man named Abner, who then died. He then learned less petty thievery from another man named Dominic, who saw his potential and had him trained in a great many other things. Pax was separated from his siblings at sent hither and yon for jobs and training, during which time he picked up more and more skills until he became, in his opinion (the only relevant opinion), the most skilled individual on Menechit. Devoid of any solid reason to use those skills for a noble cause, Pax did every job assigned to him with aplomb if, perhaps, too much flair on occasion. From everyday heists to complex diplomatic negotiations to strange foreign rituals to feats of both acrobatics and mathematics to theology for pontiffs to learning the behavioural patterns of cats, he did it all and he did it all successfully until Dominic made a series of bad business decisions that led to Pax making a series of good business decisions culminating in his obtaining gainful employment in nautical commerce, which is working out pretty well for him so far.

Notes:

• Pax’s earliest memory is of hiding under a small piece of wood to protect himself from the rain, waiting for his parents to come back
• Pax’s discomfort with almost all things nature-themed began when he was very small, and his specific fear of birds has been innate since he was old enough to recognize a bird
• As a young child Pax tended to struggle with things his siblings didn’t, often simply because he was younger than them, and so grew up feeling inadequate in comparison to them
• Pax’s weight has always been an issue for him, he’s never been able to lose what he sees as extra weight no matter how much he tries, he’s sure he’s cursed
• For all that Pax likes to talk about his fictional families as part of his cover, he never thinks about his biological parents unprompted. He does, however, occasionally wonder if he has biological siblings
• Pax’s biggest regret in life is letting Dominic split him and his siblings up
• Pax is fluent in five languages, knowledgeable about two dozen others, knows six kinds of martial arts, three mathematical systems, nine branches of philosophy and five of theology, is theoretically familiar with all major forms of magic, knows about both strands of alchemical thinking, can cook and bake in the tradition of seven countries, knows the steps to six dozen dances, can navigate by sea or land using any mapping system in the known world, and had pseudonymously written three full treatises on history that are widely read. He insists on saying he is smart out loud as often as he can in the hopes that someday he will feel it is true
• Pax’s skills in thievery tend towards large heists and dramatic escapes
• His love of knives is longstanding and even he cannot fully explain it
• Pax has always preferred everything around him to be in good order, follow clear schedules, be well organized, be as clean as possible, and so forth
• No matter the position he ends up in, Pax always takes on more responsibility than is reasonable and overwhelms himself with it

Quotes:

• “I’m under a protection spell! Whoever kills me will be under a curse for the rest of his life!”
• “A quick mouth isn’t worth as much as a purse of silver, as it turns out.”
• “They used to beat me. All the time. You know, like for fun and stuff. I had to sleep with the dogs and eat pigeons.”
• “You’re going to need to learn some social niceties if we’re going to be working together. Like wearing pants. Pants are an important part of the wardrobe for any man of today, you know.”
• “It’s a nervous habit. But I’m not nervous right now. I’m actually very calm, but I’m a very empathetic person and I can tell that I’m making you nervous, which happens a lot because a lot of people find me intimidating, and your nervousness is projecting onto me and making me babble a little bit. You should really calm down. I’m not going to bite you.”
• “Kittens are very small. If you’re sexually attracted to kittens I urge you to seek help. Kittens are very small and you will hurt them. Besides, cats have barbed genitalia and I don’t expect you would enjoy that particularly. Genitalia is your penis, in case you didn’t know. You seem like you might not have known that.”
• “I’m always truthful! They used to call me Truthful Pax back home, but I made them stop because that’s a dumb name. I wanted to be Tall Pax but I couldn’t because that would have been a lie.”
• “You know, just because you live on a boat doesn’t mean you need to go out of your way to employ trite nautical metaphors. You could have said I look like a tomato, or an angry pimple or a hot pepper anything else that’s red.”
• “Why wouldn’t I have a knife?”
• “I’m stuck here on this ship for months now, which is much longer than I wanted to be here, and I’m going to be late getting to White Cape and it’s not your fault at all because it’s completely my fault and I’m not mad at you because I’m mad at myself for being such a fuck-up and I just…I’m going to fucking…Get mad at you because it’s easier than being mad at myself.”
• “Please. That was ten or eleven fictional lives ago. Honestly, you’re the captain, I expect you to keep up with these things.”
• “You shouldn’t interrupt me when I’m trying to open up to you about my past. You’re always on my case about telling you about my life and when I finally try you interrupt me with something stupid.”
• “Everything I say is true! I’m the most truthful person you’ve ever met. I used to be called Silver-Tongued Pax, but it was an ironic thing because that’s something you usually call liars, which I’m not.”
• “She obviously doesn’t understand the duties of a cabin boy. I’m not an island boy. I’m so far away from the cabin that my title is a laughable conceit.”
• “Where I’m from this is the week of standing—we’re not allowed to sit down or else it’s bad luck and embarrassing boils for an entire year.”
• “This is embarrassing enough for me without you making fun. I can’t help the way my body is shaped. Just because I’m not tall and…”
• “I was born without tear ducts, it’s a tragic birth defect that arises sometimes when too many deer are present at your birth.”
• “Magic isn’t fair.”
• “Nate, you have to learn to get through life without me. I can’t always swoop in and save you from whatever trouble you’ve gotten into.”
• “What can I say? I was born talented.”
• “You—you’re lucky I won’t tell her about this; she’d make you walk the plank. Is that a real thing? Do people really do that? Do we have a plank?”
• “I want to drive the ship. Teach me how to drive the ship.”
• “I’m sick of the tropics. I hate the tropics. It’s all terrifying centipedes and islands with jungles on them. Jungles aren’t supposed to be on islands. In fact I’m not sure jungles are supposed to be anywhere. Who decided we should have jungles anyway?”
• “Well time is an illusion and days are a lie told to children to make them go to bed when in reality all of creation is one endless snacktime, so I think it’s unfair to make temporal claims about…”
• “If we slow down I’ll start thinking and if I do that I’ll start coming up with reasons to stop and I don’t want to stop, Nate. I don’t want to stop yet.”
• “Well, it goes without saying that I’ve a greater knowledge of nautical mythologies than you.”
• “I’m not going to be outsmarted by the ocean.”
• “When we get to White Cape I’m leaving the ship.”
• “I’m really tired, Nate. I’m so tired.”
• “On this we will have to disagree. But only because you are wrong. Otherwise I would never be so disagreeable. I’m generally a very agreeable person.”
• “Yes, you are. Because I’ve deduced that you are, which means you are because even if you weren’t as soon as I knew it to be true it became such. Now’s probably the time for me to tell you that I’m actually a reality-altering eggplant, given human form because my powers in my true form were such that the fabric of the cosmos was tearing apart, so in consultation with a mystical elephant, I…”
• “Why do you always interrupt when I get to the elephant?”
• “Centipedes. Sand. Sunburn. And jungles, but that isn’t alliterative. Though I guess centipedes technically aren’t either.”
• “No. I can’t. I want to be sad now, Nate. I’ve been pretending not to be sad for weeks and I can’t anymore. I want to be sad because I’m going to miss you and I…wanted to make sure I told you that before I leave.”
• “I got a little waylaid. Weird word, ‘waylaid.’ To be laid by the way. I wonder who thought that made sense. This was a stupid plan. You can tell it was stupid because it wasn’t my plan and all plans that aren’t my plans are stupid.”
• “The boss is stupid.”
• “Dominic’s already written me off. He’s not going to miss me any more than he already does.”
• “Sorry for the lack of formality, if that’s your thing. It’s not really my thing, but I don’t normally make deliveries in person. There were some circumstances this time that led to me doing it this way.”
• “I haven’t decided yet. Probably. I mean, I wouldn’t say I have no other skills, because I’m very good at a lot of things, and really I could have any job I wanted, not to mention I’ve made a lot of money and probably if I use it wisely I could even retire, or maybe buy a farm or something and raise chickens that I’d have to eat, but really thievery is what I’m best at, so I guess I’ll probably do more of it. There’s just a lot of stuff in the world that needs to be stolen, you know?”
• “I mean, you have a lot of money and I like to steal things, and if you’re willing to pay me to steal things I guess that would be pretty neat.”
• “Stupid thieves don’t last long.”
• “Um. Permission to come aboard, Captain?”
• “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Nate. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry.”
• “I’m sorry. And I’m a liar and I lied about so many things but I’m not lying about this. I’m really, really sorry.”
• “I hope you meant it when you said you loved me, Nate. Because I think I love you too and I’m never, ever, ever going to leave again.”
• “I promise that I’ll be your first mate, when you have your own ship.”
• “If I can’t tell you the truth about this, how can I expect you to trust me about anything else?”
• “When I was little, three or four, maybe, my parents, um…they abandoned me. Or maybe they died, I don’t know. I don’t remember them. I remember that I didn’t have a place to live, and I was hungry. Even then, I probably didn’t know why. All I knew was that my name was Patrick and I was hungry.”
• “Have you ever said something that you know you’re going to regret for the rest of your life?”
• “I might. But it’s hot there too and then who will I talk to in order to pass the endless hours? Heat really slows down the progression of time, you know. It’s a well-studied fact, there’s a good treatise on it written by this mime and if you’ve never read anything written by a mime, well, you’re not missing anything, Nate, because they’re incomprehensible.”
• I’ve got a lot of self-control but that self-control has one weak point and I’m pretty sure you’re it, so you should just take responsibility for that and wear pants when there are people.”
• “This ship isn’t a tyrannical dictatorship. Well…I guess it technically is, but the captain is pretty okay and I’m here to mitigate her more autocratical tendencies anyway, so you’ll all be fine.”
• “I’ve found it does a lot for one’s overall mood. The being happy thing.”
• “I can’t believe you brought someone all the way up here when you had a perfectly good cabin. There are birds up here, you know.”
• “I have a sex drive too, Nate, I don’t think I’d be surprised. I lost my virginity in a barn.”
• “I’m all about making other people’s jobs easier,”
• “I’ve never been here before, Nate, how can I be wanted here? I mean, I’m impressive, but that would be pushing it a bit, don’t you think?”
• “I like knives—not in a creepy way, promise—but when it comes to the ones I’m going to have tucked in my clothes for self-defence I’m looking for something very specific.”
• “The anchor…The anchor made me think of you. Because…because you’re my anchor, Nate. You’re what keeps me in place. You’re how I know what’s real and what’s important.”
• “I’m ahead of schedule. But they’ll wait for me if I’m late and even if they don’t, it wouldn’t be the first time I swam after them.”
• “I know what running away is like. All you want is for it to stop, but it never does, because even if you can’t see who’s chasing you, you always know that they’re still there. And you can’t do it forever. Not by yourself.”
• “The Sparkling Wind is the safest place I’ve ever been in my life. Promise.”
• “Yes, east is a weird direction for us to head. Not us specifically, but us generally, like humans. I feel like we’re recreating the departure from the Gated Land and you know, that didn’t really work out for us for the first time. I mean, some theologians would argue that it did, since without it we wouldn’t have really been human in the way that we understand it and really it was our free will and ability to express our impatience through poor decision making that made us human in the first place, but if we hadn’t decided to head east at first we could have been angels and had awesome wings and shit. On the other hand, that would basically make us birds, and I’m not okay with that. And you can say all you want about the non-anthropomorphism of angels and the necessity for us to disassociate from heretical presuppositions about the form of the divine, but angels are always depicted with wings in art and so I think that means they probably have wings, and I refuse to be a bird person even if I do get a flaming sword, what would I do with a flaming sword anyway. Kill birds with it, I guess.”
• “That’s not how hierarchies work. You can’t just name me second officer because you don’t want to do it. I’ll make the captain promote someone to the position appropriately.”
• “It just goes on forever. It makes it feel like it’s just us, sailing through eternity.”
• “I think that denying reality to the tangible world abdicates our responsibility to make it better by deferring expectations to a transcendental hypothesis that doesn’t actually help anyone.”
• “Being alone is hard. And most things get easier the longer you do them. That’s not one of those things.”
• “Everyone’s friendly. Except for the people who aren’t, but I think they’re only unfriendly with me because they’re jealous of my seafaring superiority.”
• “Hey, first of all, I’m very emotionally fragile and suffer from low self-esteem, I need all the compliments I can get. Second, the assumption that I would talk in an excessive way is slanderous and I won’t hear it.”
• “It’s only heresy if there’s a priest around when you say it.”
• “So there’s nothing to worry about by recognizing the objective fact that the world is governed by ambivalent manifestations of nature that all hate me.”
• “Why would I do that? I trust all of you not to poison us all with worms that will take over our intestines and use them to move us around like puppets.”
• “Dying of dehydration is one of the worst ways that I personally have ever died, you know, so I speak from experience when I say that it’s a fate we’d rather save the rest of our friends from.”
• “They’re not my friends, Nate, necromancers don’t have friends. They just owe me some favours after I helped them capture the hoard of undead wombats they accidentally unleashed on a few unsuspecting towns.”
• “Don’t give me a domain. I’ll institute order of law as I see fit down there.”
• “Shut up. I’m not scared. Just concerned about my soul being stolen or something.”
• “This is what they wanted. I stole it in Merket and brought it onboard. I didn’t know what it was.”
• “Mutiny is bad for the complexion, Nate. Just suck it up and we can cuddle in an hour when I’m done keeping an eye out for krakens and evil jewelry.”
• “We have to get them off the ship. Right now.”
• “No. No. Nate. Please take that crown off. It’s dangerous.”
• “Nate, no! Don’t. Don’t! This is your home! This is our home! Don’t do this!”
• “She’s alive. I know it. She has to be.”
• “Sorry…sorry it took me so long to come get you. You really should have…used a, you should have used a better wood that would produce a higher v-volume of smoke so I’d see the signal, and…”
• “You’re expecting me to do the impossible, and that’s hardly fair when I’ve already got three different kinds of ghost hanging on me expecting even worse. It seems like the least you can do show some human solidarity and not expect the impossible of me in this trying time, you know?”
• “Age is a bit of a testy subject since I don’t know when I was born, being an orphan and all, but a nice old lady on the side of the road told me I was nine a while ago, so I’m going with that until a better option presents itself…woah!”
• “I’m not the type of person to be compelled.”
• “What the bell?”
• “Why? Why do you want me to be in the harbour? This isn’t a good strategy for killing me. There are fish I can eat and fish you can eat. None of this makes sense. This is a bad plan. As expected from a bird. I’m going to give you ten seconds to get out of the way and then I’m going to throw knives at you until you die.”
• “Your brilliant plan is about to get us all blown up.”
• “Sorry. I got chased by a bird. That bird, actually.”
• “We’re going to fight the Sea King, right? We know what to call her.”
• “I’ve never died yet, I don’t see why I’d start today. I mean I got chased by a pelican for miles and I’m fine, so I might actually be immortal. I’m willing to risk it. I’ll see you in a bit.”
• “Time to stab people.”
• “It’ll be fun. Like a strategy game where everyone dies if you lose.”
• “I have a soft spot for stowaways.”
• “That was very manipulative of you and I approve.”
• “Because if you’d tried to break my skin an ancient mosquito-shade would have risen from the depths of a hell dimension to curse you and your offspring for all time on account of nobody’s allowed to spill my blood except her thanks to a poorly-worded pact made by my aunt as she dipped me in the river of the damned. Also I outrank you and I’m older than you, which definitely means I win.”
• “I’m very good at not getting distracted, you know,”
• “You should hate the thing you’re worshipping. Because inevitably you’ll start to blame everything on it and take its name in vain and it’s better if you don’t like it when that happens.”
• “Listen, I’m looking for someone. Few years older than me, this tall, western, very pretty. Kind of evil and wearing a lot of coral jewelry. Name of Nate, but he’s in an edgy phase and asking everyone to call him the Sea King, which we’re respecting on the condition that he doesn’t kill us all, which he is about to try and do. Have you seen him?”
• “I’m scared too. Nate’s the first person who ever loved me aside from my siblings. And I’m the one who brought the Crown onboard the ship and got him possessed. I was raised to be a thief and he’s the only reason I’m not still one. If I can’t get him back I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m scared too and I’m distracting myself from it by just focusing on what I’m doing right this minute. Usually I chatter endlessly about nothing. But I’m too scared even to do that.”
• “Stop reading my mind, Nate, that’s an invasion of my right to privacy.”
• “I’m taking Nate with me. Because I know he’s your son and all but he’s my boyfriend and I think I can safely speak for him when I say that he’d rather sleep with me than you.”
• “We’re probably all going to tell our friends and family and they’ll tell their friends and family and at some point someone will tell a bard and that will be that. You can’t trust bards, they’ll turn anything into a song.”
• “Okay…you know, bottling up your emotions isn’t a good idea. Emotions aren’t liquids, they’re not made to go in bottles, even metaphorical bottles that are just made of other emotions, because you can’t really contain something in something that’s made of the same something, because it all just explodes at some point and then you end up hiding in storerooms and crying because you’re too afraid to tell people you care about that you don’t want to leave the ship but you’re going to because someone you love told you that you had to. I really can’t say as I suggest any of that. It just hurts.”
• “Sleight of hand isn’t about your hands.”
• “I’m considered trustworthy by nine out of ten horses,”
• “Be yourself, even if it’s different from us. You know what’s right for you.”
• “Um. Good morning. I’m normally a lot more dressed than this in the mornings, but I’ve had a brief lapse in something.”
• “What? Birds? The devil likes birds?”
• “If you ever need a High Presbyter or anything, I already have a job, but I could recommend some people.”
• “Shut up, birds are confirmed to be evil and I don’t care how many people see me naked now that that’s happened.”
• “I have to write several treatises on theology to account for the divine revelation I had this morning, it’s going to be a busy day.”
• “I do have a job and a life outside of rescuing you, you know.”
• “I was just thinking that it’s only been a year and I couldn’t imagine my life without you in it. You and the ship and everything. It’s not just that I love you. I do, but it’s not just that. You’re a part of me now. All of you. And not just because you live in my head either”
• “They’re revolutionizing military technology as we speak, which is vaguely terrifying but that’s progress for you.”
• “I’m charming and lovable, I’ll have you know.”
• “I took time off once. I didn’t like it much.”
• “I also like fancy knives as long as they’re not secretly cursed or otherwise disadvantageously magical. I’ve had rather enough of that in my life lately.”
• “I wasn’t afraid of you, I was afraid you’d think I was incompetent.”
• “Then I guess it’s too bad I find cheating to be an attractive quality.”
• “In this particular case I feel that it’s morally imperative that I break the law and also probably for the greater good of the whole world or something.”
• “I just don’t think that’s this is the best time to be taking the criminal virginity of three people at once.”
• “I think that went well. Nobody got arrested or anything.”
• “We don’t play devious games with the fate of the world where I’m from, it’s considered rude.”
• “I won’t bother telling you not to conspire about how to get me to the orgy; just make sure that whatever you come up with is worthy of me.”
• “I’ll accept that for the platitude it is and refuse on principle to return it.”
• “The Sorcerer King is trying to collect five magical stones—including the one you had me steal in Bright Harbour—and use them to resurrect the old gods. Even if he fails at that, the old gods are trying to resurrect themselves. There’s a demon made of centipedes that’s trying to eat the world. Also, God’s a nice guy, but he hates us and might try to kill us all if we’re not careful.”
• “Whatever you’re trying to sell, I don’t need it on my plate, because I didn’t mention the Sea King or the devil or the synod of angels and demons or any number of other things that are also happening. So do me a favour and go away. Ever since I went freelance I’ve found myself with more work than I expected and I’m really very busy.”
• “And you know that I’m not really comfortable with vulgarity, but I am a sailor now and it’s important to speak in the local vernacular. Go fuck yourself, Dominic.”
• “Trust me as someone who’s attended orgies before, there’s really no room for subterfuge at them, it’s mostly just sex.”
• “I’ll have you know that I’m a world-certified expert in sex and happen to have won the last several sex-athletics contests held in Aergyre, which are distinct from gladiatorial fights because the sex isn’t buried under a pretence of fighting. And that notwithstanding, I can promise that if you and I were to engage in a sexual encounter, you would very definitively be beneath me.”
• “Which is why you should never trust a dog to read directions.”
• “Anyway, glad we had this talk, and also this sex.”
• “Have you or any demon you know ever turned into a bird, used birds to spy on people, forcibly or consensually turned someone else into a bird, talked to a bird or otherwise interacted generally with birds?”
• “I’m still not sold on this higher demon business. If there’s one that’s a crowd of centipedes, how much do you want to bet that there’s one that’s a flock of birds? Probably hummingbirds.”
• “That’s unethical. And I don’t stand for unethical behaviour, except, of course, when I’m the one perpetrating it and only when I really feel like it.”
• “I swear to Cal, Cyrus, I put up with meeting you at an orgy because that’s just how life works sometimes, but if you’re giving me the gift of sex toys, I’m going to really have to start reconsidering where you fall on the favourite brother list.”
• “Hello, you seem lost. This ship is private property. If you were looking for an island of terrifying centipedes, it’s somewhat to the southwest of here.”
• “You continually give me additional reasons to stab you.”
• “I don’t feel we have to give him low-hanging knives, is all.”
• “Well, I suppose we could do that, but it seems like a profound waste of resources, plus if our quartermaster were here, he would tell you there isn’t enough netting on the ship to accommodate the amount of fish that we’d need to feed a whole colony of dragons…”
• Okay, class, it’s time for the twenty-second part of our lecture on the avian menace and how to effectively combat it. Today’s lecture is on the beadiness of the bird’s eye and how to avoid being captured by its horrific glow…”
• “Excuse me, I have to go remind our new hire that none of us like him before he tries to start feeling welcome.”
• “Hello, you’re many days early, we aren’t leaving yet. Please feel free to continue not being here until we’re ready to leave, I wouldn’t want to intrude on your busy schedule of being somewhere that isn’t here.”
• “Money is just money. Friends are…something I don’t have many of.”
• “Right. So, most humans like flavours other than charcoal.”
• “I’ll have you know that I won second place in Yassar’s annual knot-untying competition the last four years in a row, and the only reason I didn’t place first any of those times was because the first-place winner was a werewolf who untied everything with his teeth and everyone thought it was cute, which it admittedly was, though I also think he cheated.”
• “There’s this one athlete in the empire who’s really good at throwing things. Throwing Throm, they call him, which is apparently because he was born in the midst of a wrestling match that his mother threw to win money from a loan shark to pay for his schooling. The wind is always on his side and I think it’s because it’s afraid he’ll throw javelins at it, but also I think it likes him.”
• “No, that’s because of an evil ocean wizard who lives in some tacky jewelry. But it’s okay, we’re going to kill him and we hired an evil necromancer who’s not really that evil to help us fight him. Also a dragon and a fire goddess. And Denver. And me, and a pelican. In ascending order of danger. What have you been up to?”
• “You know, I feel obliged to say that as far as my friends go, you are by far the most inappropriate and shameless one I’ve ever had, and indeed the most inappropriate and shameless person I’ve ever met.”
• “Of course I know how to do it. It’s just something that’s really best figured out on your own, sort of like a sexual rite of passage, though really most rites of passage have sexual elements to them, so it’s actually just a regular rite of passage. In fact, in the isolated nation of Roak on the Aergyre continent, sucking one’s own dick is a rite of passage that signifies fitness to serve in the financial sector, which I did for a few weeks when it was necessary for me to commit fraud and embezzlement to prevent a usurping stable boy from becoming the ruler of the nation by virtue of his being hung like a horse.”
• “I don’t personally feel this is one of them. There are indeed many unsolvable mysteries out there that were designed not to be solved, such as why trees are such jerks and why camels have toes, but I feel that most mysteries were put on the world by Cal for us to solve, which is probably why so many of the solutions end up being below eye-level when they’re found, and why they come in so many frustrating fragments, so the demand for skills like his stays high. It’s just a matter of knowing the right information is out there, and never giving up, is all.”
• “Liar. You think I don’t recognize an untruth when I hear one? I once trained under a collective of sentient moss that was dedicated to hearing all the lies in the world, a craft which I found quite a bit easier than they did on account of I have ears and so on, and though I rarely use the full breadth of the powers they instilled in me because who in the world wants to spend all their time hearing strangers explain that they were just in the river or that this isn’t normally a problem? I prefer to use my own local talents instead of supernatural ones given to me by non-vascular plants, because I’m mildly suspicious of anything without vessels on account of their inability to make blood pacts, but even without the power of the bloodless, I’m generally able to discern lies and that definitely was a lie just then, not only because you inject far too much false innocence into your voice when half as much would do and because you go very slack and curl your toes when you lie, but also because the only times I sleep naked are when someone undresses me in or just before my sleep, which I didn’t do and Nate didn’t do, which leaves only two suspects and Louis isn’t sneaky enough for that.”
• “It’s not your fault the laws of reality don’t align with our specific needs, don’t worry about it.”
• “You’re an enemy of the Sea King. That’s very interesting, considering we don’t know much about you, including, up until very recently, that you existed. Considering you have substantial magical power and could have helped us in our various confrontations with him.”
• “If foreign diplomats saw the portal ring, they’d get the wrong impression and assume that I needed artificial restraints to control my reactions.”
• “It will be a good opportunity to get our agreement in writing as well. That’s how humans like to make agreements, and since we’re doing so much of this on your terms, I think it only reasonable to do this one thing on ours. I hope this question doesn’t offend, but you have ink for writing and not just self-defence down here, right? Underwater ink, I presume.”
• “Yes, we can have underwater sex if you like.”
• “Hey, th-that’s not fair or anatomically possible…”
• “Hello. I see you’ve come into my room, which is technically one of Kein’s rooms, but still. That’s considered a breach of privacy among my people, though I admit that there may be a difference between human and shark conceptions of modesty.”
• “You seem very friendly for an apex predator. I can relate. Have you seen my smallclothes? I took them off last night for human reasons that I don’t anticipate you’d understand and they don’t seem to be where I left them.”
• “All I want is for you to treat Denver and Louis well. If you do that I’ll be very happy.”
• “This is more important than smallclothes.”
• “Should is a very dangerous word when we’re talking about potential suffocation and sudden crushing by immense oceanic pressure. I would really prefer a great deal more confidence than should. Like will, for example.”
• “I’m not naked, I’m wearing culturally appropriate body paint.”
• “Thank you for getting married at this exact time, it caused me to reunite with two more of my brothers.”
• “I apologize, there was an impromptu party and time isn’t real.”
• “I’m very happy to exchange information. This is fascinating. I would love to make a copy of it if that’s okay. I’ll get you a map of our landmasses in exchange; we can put them together and make a detailed map of the whole world.”
• “We…don’t. You’re sure there’s a landmass there?”
• “Nate, when we have a boat, we’re going here.”
• “It’s not uncommon for humans to experience multiple kinds of excitement simultaneously. I’m excited by the prospect of discovery, and my body confused that for a different kind of excitement. It’s very normal.”
• “There’s, uh…no need for that. Nate and I are content to help you with your research if you’re content to help me with mine. My book of course has a chapter on reproductive biology, so…”
• “Research isn’t viable unless you can repeat the results.”
• “As much as I appreciate not sinking and therefore the mereconomy’s lack of reliance on random bits of metal, I also feel like it’s not genuinely equivalent for me to take goods provided by an artisan in exchange for mentioning them at supper, and I suspect that sort of exchange is very much rooted in an older, perhaps fading, class system in which rich people could just take whatever they wanted from everyone else.”
• “Yeah. I mostly hate that he’s right. I shouldn’t make small things into big things. I wish I knew the trick to that. You don’t make small things into big things. How do you do that?”
• “The first thing you need to understand is that your lives under the ocean are inherently superior to ours on the surface. We don’t have trybba, and we do have this class of creatures called birds.”
• “Yes, I am. Really, I’m just chilly. And I’m getting dressed because it’s the socially appropriate thing to do on a civilized ship such as ours. But I’m not uncomfortable, which is surprising. I guess all that time under the sea really did help. I would however appreciate a lack of sexualized commentary at this time, as I don’t feel that would be conducive to my continued comfort with the subject.”
• “We were not going to do that because it is daytime and we agreed to only have sex at the helm at night or when we lose to Pig at cards, and I’m speaking aloud, so that’s unfortunate. Nate says hi and we hope you’re well. How have you been?”
• “Well, I am known for having few and sparse opinions that are nonetheless always correct, because of course quality is more important than quantity and I therefore only speak up when it’s critically important that I be right. What would you like to know about?”
• “I’m very truthful and as my brother you should take me at my solemn word, because as you know I would never lie about something as important to Nate as me being naked, and also it’s very cold at the moment, so that seems unnecessary.”
• “I’m unpredictable like that. You never know when the new me is going to do something wacky like pull my pants down outside in the middle of a very cold winter. You may now pull down your pants to complete the exposure circle and satisfy everyone’s ego.”
• “But we can’t turn down a literal embossed invitation that was hand delivered to me on soft, expensive paper and written in gold ink. This is the fanciest event I’ve ever been invited to and I don’t even need to steal a new outfit to wear.”
• “This is not the pre-orgy tone I’d hoped to set. Spooky abandoned ships are really more of a post-orgy activity, though I suppose as these things are measured, one could make the argument that we are still in the post-coital period from the last orgy.”
• “Hello, Captain. Nate and I were just discussing appropriate tonality, which is a challenge to achieve when one doesn’t exactly know what’s going to happen in the future and therefore what tone is appropriate. Once I was blessed with the ability to always know the correct tone, which it turns out is nearly always windchimes in G minor, but the elk who gave me the ability decided she wanted it back on account of she was composing a song about eating seals and was quite reasonably struggling with it as a lifelong vegetarian, and she therefore chose quite unreasonably to hunt me down and forcibly excise the ability from my sternum rather than simply asking for it back like a civilized cervid. Really, the worst part of the surgery wasn’t the excruciating pain so much as it was that her surgical instruments were all tuned in G major, which…”
• “Don’t say that where he can hear you, it’ll increase his ego until it doesn’t fit in the medallion anymore and then I’ll have to put him in something bigger, like a hat.”
• “The portals work by turning a regular door into a door to something else, but the thing is, the asshole is pretty much the doorway to the body. And the dick is the handle, of course.”
• “That’s of course your prerogative, as nobody is required to remain at an orgy if they’re not enjoying themselves. Far be it for me to tell you your own emotional state, but you seem upset.”
• “Ah, what the fuck? You know I prefer to avoid unwanted sexual contact with both birds and women. And of course everyone, being that that is the definition of ‘unwanted,’ but you also know what I mean.”
• “That is a mischaracterization of our relationship, which is largely fraternal and, as you know, Matthias, I am as a rule not sexually active with my brothers.”
• “Robin. It’s you.”
• “Long story. If I were to novelize it for you, there’d be at least eighty-three chapters. Ninety-nine if I don’t skip the sex scenes.”
• “It was a month ago, and I’ve been there. Remember when I disappeared for those two weeks when I was little? You all thought I’d gone to the moon, but I was actually in that strange city with the stacked buildings and none of you ever believed me? I think that must have been where I was.”
• “That’s what you get for appearing so late in the narrative, you missed all the orgies, sorry.”
• “The best thing about being the main character is that I can do whatever I want.”

Trivia:

• Pax’s first experience with an otherworldly force was with a blood spirit that tried to lick him two hours after he was born
• Pax does not remember a time in his life when he wasn’t able to pick a lock, though he does remember a time when he wasn’t able to jump safely from a roof
• Though not as enthusiastically as others, Pax did fool around regularly with many of his siblings (later just his brothers), usually just with hands. He spent two weeks once working up the nerve to ask Robin for a blowjob, only to be separated from him the day he’d finally decided to do it
• Pax has met a slightly unrealistic number of talking animals, including a chatty elk who explained puberty to him when he was ten
• Pax’s eyes adjust to darkness almost immediately
• Pax has always been shy about his body, nervous about sex and hesitant to express affection, but he has also gone undercover in roles that require him to have sex with a cute boy more times than has been strictly necessary in his career, and has also attended two orgies, one of which where he didn’t know anyone
• At various times, Pax has gotten tattoos, including a dragon on his arm, a mysterious script on his thigh, hands on his feet, the moon on the back of his neck, an octopus reaching up both buttcheeks, a poem across his chest, and an apotropaic flock of birds on his shoulders. None of them lasted more than two months and all were removed with magic that he paid someone to perform
• Pax has spent a cumulative nineteen days and four hours shapeshifted into various animals, including a goat, a cow, two cats, a butterfly, a giraffe, a gorilla, a python and, most terrifyingly of all, a penguin
• At the moment that Pax lost his virginity, a large, ceremonial hourglass held in a museum on a mountain in southern Aergyre ran out of sand
• Pax has the ability to tell people apart without knowing them well just by tasting their semen. He has not, however, had cause to learn he has this ability
• During Pax’s brief tenure as a student at the mages academy, he was considered a star pupil and, despite not being a mage, was seriously considered for an apprenticeship under his favourite history teacher Yancy
• Pax has a distinct memory of losing a hand at seven years old. When he woke up, his hand was fine
• Pax waxes his body hair off once a month
• Pax is immune to most poisons
• Pax rarely plans out his rants, speeches or stories. They are all off the cuff
• Pax is one of the only non-natives to have been to the continent of Djyekkan and returned. He does not realize that this is where that portal led. He was six years old and remembers liking the food there
• Nearly every time Pax takes off his clothes in a public or semi-public place, an animal, usually a bird, steals his pants or smallclothes
• Pax was once offered a boon from a spirit to make him his preferred weight, but he turned it down because the payment was that he’d never be allowed to wear a shirt again
• When he was thirteen, Pax was held hostage by harpies for three weeks and only freed because he promised them his third-born daughter. He didn’t feel it was important to share his lack of sexual interest in women with the harpies
• Pax once accidentally ingested a powerful hallucinogenic drug and spent two days having an elaborate vision that showed him the truth of the world as a complex fiction created to satisfy the whims of a capricious penguin god
• Everywhere he goes, Pax puts out feelers to see if any of his siblings, especially Robin, are there

Modern AU: Modern Pax is also a retired career criminal, who now works as an administrative assistant at a small, family-run shipping company, though he focuses more on the ‘administrative’ part of that than the ‘assistant’ part. Having started attending public school, he can’t say he likes it much, but he has talked most of his teachers into letting him test out of the classes he doesn’t like and he has procured from somewhere a medical note getting him out of gym forever. Pax is learning to drive multiple vehicles simultaneously, wondering how his criminal upbringing overlooked this crucial skill. He is also learning to navigate the internet for non-criminal purposes such as participating in far too many fandoms with a great deal more attention than he should have time for, and playing a lot of video games that Nate likes because Nate likes them, which are one of the things he’s legitimately not very good at. Between that and spending time reconnecting with his siblings and maintaining more friendships than he thought he’d ever have, Pax still seems to have plenty of time to use his crime powers for good by influencing donations to charities, helping good politicians get elected and ensuring that schools and youth centres have good programming and staff in place.