Sea Reaper: The Legend of the Black-Eyed “Boy”

Victor was convinced he must've owed Nick a lifetime's worth of debt in a previous life—so much that even someone as tough in spirit and skin as him was tempted to jump into the sea and end it all. He thought back to the past, back when he'd been cast out of his Florentine noble family and forced to shave beards on the street. Never once did he regret or fear anything.

But now? He regretted everything—regretted ever getting tangled up with this damned little rascal.

"Please… just put your pants back on…" Victor crouched in the corner of the infirmary, clutching his head in despair, mourning his tragic fate.

"What? You're always going on about verifying science through hands-on experience. Don't you want to check it out?" Nick stood in the middle of the medical bay, trousers in one hand, belt in the other, completely unfazed.

"Does your lower abdomen hurt badly?"

"Not really. Just feels kind of bloated."

"Happens once a month?"

"Hell no!"

"Well, fifteen years old... That's late. Your development's quite behind…" Victor finally looked up, voice wilted. "Congratulations. You're officially a woman now."

Nick stood frozen, completely unprepared for the leap from "man's man" to "real woman."

"Menstruation is a sign of physical maturity for females. It means you're capable of pregnancy now. If you're lucky, it'll happen every month, like clockwork. Lasts two to seven days. You'll need to keep warm and stay hygienic during that time…" Victor's tone drifted like a choir boy reciting scripture, totally disinterested. Teaching girls about puberty wasn't his job—it was a mother's role. He'd much rather be dissecting a pubescent corpse than explaining periods.

Nick looked confused, quietly fastening her belt again. "Every month? That can't be right… I thought you only bled the first time…"

"That's from the hymen tearing during first intercourse. Completely unrelated," Victor replied, adjusting his shirt, then immediately frowned. "You know that… but you don't know about menstrual blood?"

He regretted the question the moment it escaped his mouth.

There were far too many perverts who preyed on children in this era—especially those wearing church robes. Victor had heard enough about it to feel sick. Some starving orphan gets lured into a chapel with bread and ends up in a cardinal's bed. Pope Boniface VIII was notorious for it, but he was far from the only one.

And some of them preyed on girls before they even got their first period…

Victor winced when he noticed how pale Nick looked from the blood loss. For once, he genuinely regretted opening his mouth.

"Ahem, what I meant was… your guardian seems strange. Teaches you the wrong things and skips the right ones…" the ship doctor stammered, scrambling to change the subject.

Nick, now fully dressed, lifted her chin. Her face showed no pain—only calm pride. "Of course I know. Prices vary from region to region, but virgins always go for more. Some dumb guys will pay up the moment you shove in half-coagulated chicken blood. I always thought Sera faked her bleeding that way."

She grinned mischievously, clearly proud of this con game. But then her expression darkened. "If it happens every month, though, that's really inconvenient. What if I'm in the middle of a deal? That'll mess things up... not to mention compensation costs."

While Nick was crunching the numbers like the sharp little trader she was, Victor was visibly trembling.

"Get out," he whispered.

"Huh?"

"I said GET OUT!"

A silver scalpel whizzed past her ear and embedded itself in the doorframe. A skull-shaped paperweight shattered on the wall behind her. Nick scrambled out, completely lost as to what she'd said to make the doctor blow a gasket.

Confused and slightly insulted, Nick decided to take her complaint to the captain. After all, she wouldn't have started bleeding if he hadn't kicked her the day before. This was his fault—he owed her.

When she knocked on the captain's door, she immediately spotted her golden vest on the table. The glittering metal distracted her.

Barbarossa paused, sniffing the air as if he'd caught a strange scent. His brows furrowed. Nick was used to reading faces and recognized the subtle shift in mood—he wasn't pleased. She couldn't figure out why. It was just a minor issue, wasn't it?

Determined to get ahead of the situation, Nick stood tall and declared, "Captain, you need to take responsibility."

"For what?" Barbarossa looked like he'd just hallucinated her words.

"You kicked me yesterday. And today I... got sick." Nick tried to be vague, assuming the seasoned captain would understand. After all, he'd lived among palace women before. Better not go into details—it might cost her the payout.

"Our contract includes injury compensation," she added. "Even for lost limbs."

Barbarossa's grip on her golden vest tightened. Several coins bent under his fingers with a loud metallic crack.

Nick hesitated. Even at full strength, she might not match the captain in a fight. And now, in her 'weakened' state, she was definitely pushing her luck. So she backtracked slightly, her voice softening. "I mean, just a minor injury... We can count it like losing a finger or something…"

"So... you're saying I kicked you yesterday, and today you got your period, and now you want me to compensate you for that?" he asked slowly, his expression eerily calm, though his face had gone pale and tense.

"Uh… how did you know?" Nick blinked, caught off guard.

"Oh, haven't you heard? Your dear captain has a special ability. I can smell weather changes in the sea wind—and I can sniff out what someone's worth the moment I see them." His icy blue eyes narrowed. "You think I can't smell blood from ten meters away?"

He was smiling—but it was the kind of smile that made your skin crawl. Nick instinctively took a step back.

Sensing her hesitation, Barbarossa stepped forward, his presence overpowering. "Let's talk numbers. First, you fell overboard. I pulled you out. What's a life worth, huh?"

He closed the distance, towering over her, one arm braced beside her head, the other lightly gripping her neck. His voice dropped, dangerously calm:

"Second, I let you stay on this ship despite being a girl. The deal was—don't disrupt business. But now you'll bleed every month and need rest days. How many deals will that cost us, huh?"

Nick froze, heart pounding, retreating until her back hit the door. She instinctively reached for the dagger on her thigh.

Barbarossa let her go, patted her cheek gently, and said with infuriating softness, "You're paid thirty gold coins a month. From now on, every day you're bleeding, I deduct one. Starting today."

Nick stumbled out of the captain's quarters like a soul freshly disemboweled.

Down in the hallway, Karl appeared out of nowhere, his face flushed with worry. "Are you okay? You look awful! I heard you went to the doctor—did you get sick? If it's from falling in the water, you might get pneumonia…"

Nick stared at his radiant blond head, despair flooding her again.

She hadn't even gotten her gold vest back—and now her pay was being docked. No wonder sailors called menstruation cursed. And now it was happening to her, every month—like a self-inflicted tax.

Damn it.

Karl was still talking about pneumonia, but Nick didn't hear a word. She staggered into her room and collapsed facedown on the bed.

She slept straight through to morning.

The shock had wiped her out so completely, she'd even missed dinner. Hunger woke her. When she opened her eyes, she found Karl sitting by the bed, beaming through red-rimmed eyes like a father at his daughter's wedding.

"You've grown up," he said with soft awe.

Nick looked at him like he'd lost his mind, then started patting herself down in panic. Aside from sore breasts, nothing had changed.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

She threw back the covers—only to find she'd been swaddled in two heavy blankets. It was late spring. No wonder she'd been sweating like a pig in her dreams.

"The doctor said to keep warm," Karl explained. "I left food in the kitchen. I'll go heat it up for you."

"No, don't! I'll lose my appetite!" she said quickly, only to feel a sudden warm trickle between her legs. She looked down and saw blood soaking her pants and the sheets.

Great. Another deduction coming.

She rummaged through the supply chest for a solution. Coins? Wrong shape. Pebbles? Too hard. Ah—maybe this carved wooden soldier…

"Nick?"

"Don't bother me! I'm trying to find something to plug it!"

Karl saw the toy soldier and nearly fainted. "No! The doctor said it has to be hygienic!"

"Hah. And he says humans came from monkeys. You actually believe him?"

"Health stuff is different! That you gotta trust!"

Nick stood, blood trailing down her leg. "Then what should I do? Just stand here and let it drip?"

Karl, mortified, handed her a cloth bundle and looked away. "I… I don't really know… I just made these… hope they're okay…"

Inside the bundle were ten or so long, soft cloth pads. Nick poked one—squishy, with loose seams and raw cotton sticking out.

The cloth was fine Egyptian cotton, nothing rare. But the outer linen was brand-new and clearly repurposed. One of the pads had obviously been cut from a shirt sleeve.

"Karl… did you tear up your new clothes for this?"

Freshwater was rare at sea, let alone laundry water. Most sailors either stayed dirty or had several changes of clothes. Nick remembered buying him two new shirts as a parting gift when he joined the crew. He was now wearing his oldest, threadbare one.

And his eyes—maybe red from tears, maybe from a sleepless night sewing unfamiliar things by hand.

"I know it's not proper… but the doctor said it had to be clean… I'm sorry if it's uncomfortable…"

Karl fled the room, slamming his head into the low doorframe in his hurry.

Nick stared after him, then slowly peeled off her soiled pants, cleaned herself, and tied one of the pads around her waist with a string.

It was soft.

She was hungry. But she knew someone would bring her food soon.

That was… nice.

For some reason, the fleet stopped business for three days. The official reason was "unstable currents," but word got around: Nick was sick.

Some claimed she'd been fine the day before but came out of the captain's quarters white as a ghost. Some said she hadn't eaten in days. One sailor swore he saw Karl sneaking out of her cabin late at night, tossing bloody rags into the sea.

No one dared guess what really happened behind the closed doors of the captain's office.

The crew's gaze toward Barbarossa carried a new, uneasy fear.

Nick lay in bed for three days—not from cramps or weakness. She'd worked through worse.

She was just… heartbroken.

What she bled wasn't blood—it was gold. A coin a day, gone without even putting up a fight.

And for some reason… she didn't feel like going out.

Karl said she'd "grown up." Victor called her a "woman."

Nick always knew her real gender, but never really thought about what it meant. To her, women were soft, scared creatures with big breasts and wide hips, afraid to hold knives and constantly crying.

People adored them and hated them. They were sacred and shameful at once—mothers and whores, witches and saints.

Ships were named after women: Siren, Elizabeth, Venus. But women weren't welcome aboard. And their blood—men feared it like death.

Nick wasn't ready. She didn't expect becoming a woman would feel like this. Victor now ignored her. The captain looked distant. Karl wanted to keep her safe and clean, like porcelain.

Everyone thought her growing up would be a burden. Even Nick thought so.

"Nicki, if only you were a boy…" she remembered Uncle Asa saying that once. He adored her—always saved the best food and clothes for her. He even liked watching her twirl around in little dresses. But once in a while, when dark news came from afar, his smile would dim.

"If you were a boy… you could go back and face them…"

Nick pulled the blanket over her head.

Asa taught her to read, taught her manners. But he never mentioned blood or pain or hunger that gnawed harder than a broken leg. He never spoke of the kind of evil that slithered through this world like smoke.

In the end, he only taught her one thing:

"Survive."