Patty found a fallen coconut beside the lake and broke it open to ferry water. After over an hour of slowly bringing water over to Maya, the captain was finally was mostly free of the blood and grime that had been plaguing her.

“I think it actually feels better to be clean than to have gotten the thing we came here for in the first place,” Maya groaned, squeezing water out of her hair.

Patty washed herself off too, but it took much less effort as the grime washed off her hard skin easily. Maya watched her jealously.

“I wish it was that easy for me,” the captain grumbled. Patty flashed her a grin.

“Did the new Life-spark work?” Patty asked. “You don’t seem any different.”

“Oh crap,” Maya said, reaching into her pocket and pulling the Heart out. “I was so caught up with getting clean that I sort of forgot about it…”

The orb sat innocently in Maya’s hands. It was slightly warm to the touch, but its rough surface certainly didn’t strike either of them as a legendary artifact or anything of the sort. For an instant, Maya wondered if the god was messing with them.

“He wouldn’t bother,” Patty said, reading Maya’s expression. “We aren’t important enough for him to mess with. I highly doubt he’s lied to you about it. You just have to figure out how to use it.”

Maya pursed her lips and turned the Heart over in her hand. It glimmered slightly, but that was it. She tilted her head quizzically, lifting it up towards the sunlight above them. As it passed her chest, the orb pulled towards her slightly.

The pirate captain paused. She inched her hand towards her chest. The Heart’s suction towards her seemed to increase.

“I think it’s pulling itself towards me,” Maya said nervously.

“You wanted it, didn’t you?” Patty asked.

“I suppose so, I just didn’t think it would feel so…alive,” Maya muttered.

The Heart lurched against her fingers. She tightened her grip to stop it from escaping her grasp. She stared at the blue orb for a few moments. Then she sighed, carefully bringing it closer to her chest.

The orb started to vibrate. By the time Maya’s hand drew close to her chest, her hand was shaking faster than her eye could catch. The Heart leapt out of her hand before she could stop it, shooting into Maya’s chest and disappearing. Maya staggered backwards with a cry of pain. She doubled over and Patty rushed to her side.

“What happened?” Patty asked, grabbing Maya’s shoulders and peering at where the orb had struck her. There was no sign of it.

Maya groaned. A deep stormy blue replaced the whites of her eyes and the lake beside them started to churn. There was a pop as the air pressure abruptly changed. A pillar of water erupted around Maya, throwing Patty backwards. She landed on her feet, skidding backwards from the force of the blow.

A heavy fog swam out from the surface of the lake, casting the day into shadows within moments. It quickly grew so thick that Patty could barely tell where Maya was. If it wasn’t for the pulsating blue energy steadily growing around her captain, the puppet would have lost track of her.

“Maya?” Patty called again.

There was no response. As the puppet scanned the fog for signs of her captain, it started to rain.

Maya stood in the center of a storming sea. It stretched on into the horizon, waves the size of cities crashing all around her. A small ring of calm water, no more than five feet in radius, surrounded her. When the waves crashed against the invisible barrier, they dispersed harmlessly.

Across from her, a brown skinned man with a long, knotted black beard sat on the ground. The beard covered his entire face and went down to his chest. His eyes were a startling dark green.

“Where am I?” Maya asked. A strange sense of calm pervaded her mind. It was almost as if she wasn’t being allowed to be scared.

“Within the Heart of the Sea,” the man replied. His voice carried invisible force behind it, each word falling like a giant’s footstep. “We are currently attuning. It is a bit of a violent and painful process, so I have drawn your consciousness within me for the duration.”

“Ah,” Maya said. “I suppose this wouldn’t be the first time something like that happened. Cyll brought me into his head to train me.”

Maya pressed her lips together. Why was she being so open? The man noticed her expression and smiled, revealing disturbingly flat and wide teeth.

“There are no secrets within my soul. You’ll learn to control yourself soon enough. Until then, I’m afraid you’ll find yourself rather loose-lipped.”

“I see,” Maya said, frowning. She opened her mouth to say something else, but the man spoke before she could.

“I know you have many questions. However, we don’t have much time together. We don’t have enough Essence to communicate like this often. Fusing with you is going to take up almost all of my reserves, so keep your questions limited to what you really need to know.”

Maya pursed her lips.

“Fine. How is the Heart different from my Life-spark? I can’t imagine they work the same way.”

“You are correct. You will never activate your original ability. That was tied to your Life-spark, and it is gone. Instead, you will receive my ability,” he said.

“Which is?”

The man raised his hand. The churning ocean surrounding them slammed to a halt. Waves froze mid crash and foam seized its movement in the middle of the air.

“Domination of the seas and everything within them,” the Heart replied with a savage grin. “But not yet. Probably not for a while. You don’t have nearly enough Essence for that. As it stands, our bonding might permit you to do a few parlor tricks.”

“So once I get more Essence, I’ll be able to control more of your abilities?” Maya asked.

“And then some. It is likely that they will manifest for you with slight differences. I can’t say what they are, though,” the man said.

The stormy clouds above them started to fade as thin beams of sunlight tore their way to freedom. The Heart glanced up and frowned, tugging on his thick beard.

“Our time is up. We were more compatible than I previously thought. I need to rest. We can speak again once you collect enough Essence to wake me.”

The man flicked his hand. The barrier surrounding the two of them vanished and the sea roared back to life. An enormous wave crashed down over Maya, swallowing her and forcing the woman deeper into the dark depths of the ocean.