Tetra mocks them a bit, then welcomes them aboard.

The journey will be a day and a half, and then they'll probably have to wait another half a day unless they feel like making a raft and floating up towards probably a bunch of cannons and lots of various monsters.

"I have a clever plan to get you in. Fufufu..."

The twins practise their sword fighting a bit.

Gren definitely joins them. And practice-fights any pirates who want to do that.

Tetra's up for a spar. She fights Gren to a standstill at first, then gets bored and effortlessly puts Gren on her back and her practice sword flying end over end towards the back of the ship.

After that, Tabitha steps up.

Tetra quickly drops the showoffy swagger, looking kind of annoyed that it's necessary.

She's tricky. She doesn't fight dirty, in fact it looks like she's actively holding back from doing so, like she starts moving to poke Tabby's eyes or throw pepper at her face and then stops herself. During a lull, "You are annoyingly good at fighting!"

"We used to be really, really, really good."

"Well-" And she's on the attack again, pressing the slight advantage the surprise gives her.

It's not that much of a surprise, vampires are good at reading body language.

And pirates are good at hiding it, but let's just see who ends up winning...

Neither of them, really. Tetra has skill on her side, but Tabby has strength and endurance.

Eventually she calls a stop, panting from the exertion. "Call it a draw? Whatever kinda not human you are it's pretty sweet. What are the inevitable drawbacks that most weird magic seems to have?"

"Um, Deku took most of them away."

"Sounds like a good guy to know! Too bad we stole a tree from that place a couple of years ago."

"How do you steal a tree? ...Why do you steal a tree?"

"Rope! And because someone paid us to, and it was an interesting enough request that we did it even though we could have just robbed him."

"Why would you steal from Deku? He's nice! Like a tree-dad!"

"We're pirates, bucko! And it was just one tree. He has thousands of 'em."

"But it's still mean!"

"Does the word pirate not mean anything to you? We may keep our promises, but never forget that we look after ourselves first and usually only. I've got to go handle the charts, see you later scrubbies."

"SCRUBBIES?"

"Scrubbies means 'not pirates!'" Aaaand she's gone.

"Then being a scrubbie is a good thing," Gren opines. "It means we're not mean and selfish."

"I don't trust her. She's not the good kind of sneaky."

"Quill, the post bird, did say she always keeps her promises at least. But yeah. We shouldn't tell her anything useful in case she gets steal-y ideas about it."

"Definitely," says Tabby. Though she doubts Deku would let Tetra what she's really thinking about.

"I want to visit Mr. Deku some time."

Some of the pirates draft the three into some chores. Gren goes along with it - chores are chores, wherever you are, and at least everyone's doing something, even Tetra.