After catching enough fish to trade in for alcohol to have a proper guys’ night, Fenrir and Rao head back to The Shoebill with their wagon loaded up.

Corwin and Oleander have completed their jobs in preparing, too.

All that is left is to convince one more member to help them.

Even if said member is a girl, how important she is to their plan justifies her being allowed to come.

“Are you sure she’s going to help us, Fenny?” Oleander asks as Fenrir and Rao unload the wagon.

“Yeah. She likes me more than Nell. I think,” Fenrir says, looking out to the water.

They haven’t seen their favorite serpent friend in a while, but Fenrir has been able to feel her presence as much as ever.

Now, all he has to do is try to bring her to the shore so that he can communicate his request to her. She may be able to feel his emotions and understand basic thoughts such as when he wants to see her, but that’s it. Complex ideas still need to be relayed face-to-face.

“See?” Fenrir says, looking over his shoulder to the others while pointing to the water.

The serpent’s head can be seen poking out of the water and looking their way.

“Being able to communicate with animals just makes you even more of a furry, bro,” Rao says.

“Damn it, Rao, we’ve had this conversation. I’m not a furry,” Fenrir says. “Besides, I’m communicating with a giant serpent, not some animal.”

“Then wouldn’t that make you uhh… what’re they called? The people into scaled animals instead of furry ones?”

“Scalies,” Oleander says.

“Bro, why would you know that?” Rao asks Oleander.

“Why would you know that there’s a difference?” Oleander asks back.

“Anyways, bro,” Rao looks at Fenrir, “you do you.”

With a sigh, Fenrir looks back at the serpent and waves his hands to try and beckon her to come over.

“Good luck with that, bro. Have fun talking to animals,” Rao says.

Fenrir looks back at him again, expecting to see a mocking expression on Rao’s face, but Rao looks friendlier than that. He’s just smiling and even winks.

“Stop comparing him to Bone, onii-wan,” Saya thinks to Fenrir.

“I know. I just keep on taking him seriously when he says stuff like that and… keep thinking that he means it to be a dick like Bone would have. But, he’s just being stupid and messing around instead of actually making fun of me,” Fenrir thinks back.

“This is what happens when you keep on thinking of him as a replacement for Bone.”

“I don’t mean to. I wouldn’t ever want to be seen as a replacement for somebody, so I don’t want to treat him like a replacement. But… you’re right. I kind of have been treating him that way.”

“Do you miss him, onii-wan?”

“You already know the answer to that.”

“You’re so weird for missing somebody who you barely got along with.”

“That’s how us humans are. Besides, if I miss him, then that means you probably do, too.”

“Hmph. Only because I’m part you. I really don’t like him myself.”

“Either way, you know why I feel the way that I do. We were friends for years.”

“Now you can be friends with Rao for years! And your girlfriends! A-and me! No-not that I’d want to be your friend for that long or anything, ba-baka onii-wan.”

“Thanks for the fanservice.”

“Perverted baka onii-wan.”

“Adorable little not-blood-related sister.”

“Technically, we kind of are blood-related.”

“We’re just brain related.”

“Yeah, but there’s blood in the brain, isn’t there?”

A few moments of awkward silence pass.

“W-we are blood-related,” Saya says.

“That makes you even better,” Fenrir thinks back to her.

“You’re the worst. You really are the worst, onii-wan.”

“Says the blood-related little sister who’s still calling me onii-wan despite knowing how horrible I am.”

“Bye.”

“Later, blood-related lil sis’.”

The serpent slides up into the shallow water of the coast and looks down at Fenrir.

“Hey there,” Fenrir says. “Been a while since we’ve seen each other up close. You haven’t been eating any rowboats, have you?”

The serpent shows him memories of her trying to find some rowboats to snack on but, unfortunately, all of her hunts were unsuccessful.

One such memory includes a quick glimpse of something else far larger and more powerful than a rowboat.

“H-hey! Wait, what was that you just showed me?” Fenrir asks.

The serpent turns her head to the side and goes through the memories again, conveniently leaving out the memory that Fenrir is curious about.

“No, that one where it was really dark and there was something glowing,” Fenrir says.

The serpent turns her head the other way and goes through the memories again.

She still fails to show him the memory that he’s talking about.

“Are you hiding something from me?” Fenrir asks.

He doesn’t get a response.

“Anyways… I need your help. I should have asked you sooner, but I’m doing it now. Think you could help me and the guys with our operation?”

A new memory gets shown to him this time. It’s a memory of… Nell already asking the serpent for help and telling her not to listen to anything that Fenrir says while Tabitha stands in the background with a smug smile and arms crossed over her chest.

“She’s… way too smart. Seriously? How’d she even predict I’d come to you?” Fenrir asks himself. “We are definitely going to surprise them all now. I refuse to let her get ahead of us.”

While Fenrir talks to himself, the serpent spits some water at him which—despite just being “spit” at him—completely drenches him from the tips of his ears down to his toes.

“Really?” Fenrir asks. “Come on, you don’t even know what our plan is yet!”

The serpent lowers her head so that she’s right in front of Fenrir now.

“Alright, thank you. I promise that it’s a good plan and probably better than whatever Tabitha is thinking.”

While Fenrir goes over their plan to try and convince the serpent to help them, Rao looks over the job that Oleander and Corwin did.

“It looks good. This should work fine. Good job,” Rao tells them.

“We made it exactly to your specifications,” Corwin says.

“Yep! We made it as perfect as possible!” Oleander says.

“All we need now is for bro to convince the serpent to help us,” Rao says.

“I’m still disappointed our plan relies on a girl. This is supposed to be guys’ night and guys’ plan. I’m supposed to be the only girl allowed to join,” Oleander says and sighs.