Jaehwan followed Krystal to the middle deck where she turned to face him. "We'll start with the basics, okay?" she told him, then reached out to grab his hands. "Here, raise your hands up, no don't close your fists, you want them open. There you go."

He followed her directions closely, moving one leg back and at an angle, his hands brought up, one toward her and one level with his chest. She taught with a critical eye and a patient manner, her demeanor telling him that she had done this before, and only when she was satisfied with how he stood did she nod and step back.

"First things first is to know how to block. It really doesn't matter how hard you can hit someone if you can't block their strikes. There are only a few basic kinds of blocking in all manner of fighting: inward, outward, above or below. It can come from your arm or your leg but it's always one of those. Inward will be," and she swung her arm in a slow, lazy arc toward his face, reaching between his two hands. There she paused and used her other hand to guide his arm down to strike her attacking fist, pushing it out and away from his face. "Like that."

"But I pushed your hand out," he argued, and Krystal shook her head with a smile.

"No, my attack was in the middle, you pushed it from the inside attack to be on the outside. Outside would be the opposite, like it I were to attack from outside your hands. You would block me by swinging your hand further away from you, pushing mine away. Understood?"

Kind of, but he didn't want to admit that he wasn't perfectly catching on. Instead he nodded, and she continued with the lesson. Downward and upward were easy, and as her strikes came faster and his reactions quicker, he began to forget about the classifications and just react. The smile that came over her face after a good half hour told him that he was doing well, and when she finally backed off, he realized that they had a small audience.

Jessica and Daniel stood nearby, Jessica watching with a pensive expression on her beautiful face while Daniel stood looking at papers in hand. "Krys," the Captain called as she noticed the halt in tthe lesson.

Krystal turned to her sister with a smile, though it faded quickly as she took in the older woman's face. She wiped sweat from her brow with the back of her arm, the physical activity pulling it from both her and Jaehwan even in the late fall air, and stepped closer to her. "A message? Is it ransom?" she asked, her vooice suddenly urgent.

Jessica's lips tightened and she looked past Krystal at Jaehwan. The taller woman paused before turning to follow her sister's gaze, and though she seemed like she might say he could stay, she shook her head minutely at him. 

"Thank you," he told Krystal with another low bow, which pulled a small smile from her, then he turned and entered the cabin at the back of the main deck. This was where the officer's cabins were, including where he was currently staying, and he made his way to his bunk with the intention of finding a towel to clean himself with.

He found better, though: laying on top of the blankets on his bed were his clothing from before, as well as a dark brown coat and two soft towels. He ran his fingers over one of the towels before lifting his shirt to inspect it. Whoever had cleaned it had done a good job; the grime was gone and the scent of filthy bilges replaced by the clean, crisp scent of the sea. 

A pang of homesickness struck him then: his soft brown shirt had been a hand-me-down from his older brother Jaejoong's closet. Jaehwan shook his head roughly to remind himself that he was okay, he was alive, and he swiftly folded the shirt to place it in one of the locking drawers. The pants and coat were folded and put away as well as one of the towels, and eh took the other up on the taller deck to see if he could find some water.

What he did find was Sohee, standing along the railing with her gaze toward the west. He paused, unsure if he ought to interrupt her, but she must have noticed his presence because she turned to look at him. "Hello, wanderer," she said criptically.

For a moment he froze, wondering if in her magic she had seen something about him, then he saw the teasing smile on her red painted lips and realized she was making a jest. "Amusing," he told her, stepping up next to her to lean on the railing as well. 

"I thought it was!" she laughed, tossing her hair out of her eyes and looking back over the ocean. There was a crease in her brow and he thought that below the self-assured magician's face, she looked worried. He had the urge to ask if she was alright, but after Krystal's reaction to the words...

"What's out there?" he asked instead, motioning vaguely to the direction they were facing.

"The ocean, " she said immediately, though once again she smiled at her joke. She continued before he could clarify. "Obarsan. The land of monsters and men and if rumors are true... never mind." She turned and motioned to the other side, the southeast, and said, "Over there is Arisan, and there, Kelsar." This last was a motion to the northeast. "And our destination, I think."

"You think?" he said before he could check himself. 

The magician didn't seem to mind, though, and merely nodded. "Yes, we think out quarry is in Kelsar. We will find out in a few days time. I saw you were training with Krystal on the maindeck," she changed the subject suddenly, giving him a shrewd look. "How old are you?"

"Uh, twenty three? Why does that matter?" he asked, thrown by her sudden shift in subjects. "Wait, why is that the main deck? Isn't this the main deck?"

The large smile that came over Sohee's face then made the magician seem far younger than he had assumed she was. "You know absolutely nothing of sailing, do you?" He was saved from having to answer as she turned to climb the stairs onto the tallest deck at the back of the ship. There was a large ships wheel there, standing alone in the middle. The wind hit strongly here and Jaehwan shivered, wishing briefly that he had brought the coat with him until he noticed that Sohee didn't even react to the chill. 

"This is th