His intentions are unclear, and that's the point.

She's brave, he'll give her that.

"Good. It'll be a long one."

Soon, they'll be out of Hoennian waters and into the unknown, at least to Eris Halla. She's at least spared a trip to Kanto. That was too far even for Gavin, at this stage. This was the red sky of warning, the calm before the storm.

It's a while before he says anything else.

"Why didn't you come to us?"

Gavin turns away from the ocean at last.

His eyes are narrowed but their amber depths are not as cold as they might've been were it anyone other than Eris Halla. She's still a child, still bears the last few dregs of innocence Rocket hasn't managed to rip from her.

For now.

"So your alternative was to sell us out to the League?"

He won't mince words.

"She was upset, she was afraid, but she wasn't hurt, Eris — do you think the League would spare us the same courtesy if your actions brought them to our doorstep? Do you know how much Chu-e Choi cares about you?"

He doesn't yell, doesn't so much as raise his voice, but there's a bitterness in his tone that he doesn't bother to mask.

"Wouldn't he?"

Granted, Gavin doesn't know MATIAS SILPH beyond the burning hatred and the grudge he bears for the other but he'll never trust him because of it.

His demeanour grows colder the more she speaks.

It's when she speaks of what they've taken of her — no, what he's taken, that Gavin proves his differences from Chu-e Choi. If she's going to put this on him, let him show the claws and teeth that Rocket have given him.

"There is so much more that I could take."

He has not gotten where he is through kindness.

They are out on the open ocean, no land in sight of any direction.

No witnesses.

No Rocket boss to overhear what he's about to say.

"Do you want out of Rocket?"

"I've never had a reason to before."

But her actions of late threaten to give him one, threaten to take the choice out of his hands if the wrong information is slipped to the wrong people. Should the orders come down from on high, he might hesitate... but he would ultimately comply.

Perhaps he might act without those orders, in defense of his own family.

"Then you're going to have to make a hard choice, Eris. You don't get to live with your feet in two different worlds. That's how people wind up getting hurt."

He's not talking only about her.

"If you'd given me a reason, we wouldn't be here."

Or he'd be alone, sailing out into the middle of the ocean to dump a body rather than issue a warning.

MATIAS SILPH.

Eva Morales.

Raziel Beckett.

All names he recognizes.

"We're already monsters, Eris." His voice doesn't bear the weight of any guilt. "Rocket isn't good. It will never be good. Those names you mentioned? Two of them our worst enemies, and one of them a traitor."

There is a distant shape on the horizon, a tiny island against a glittering expanse of blue.

"I never claimed to be a complete monster."

Perhaps she's noticed that the warm, tropical sea breeze has given away to bitter winds. One such gale catches in his hair and tears at his clothes, but Gavin doesn't seem bothered. He folds his arms against the chill but persists.

They've told me, how you're evil.

Evil. No. He's met evil.

"I am not, nor will I ever, be as much of a monster as Silas Blackwell. But you're right in that I've destroyed lives."

He'll destroy more before his time is through.

"You're also right to assume that I care."

Do as you will.

The island has grown larger, now, a rocky coastline of cold beach.

"If you're going to stay, Eris, I need to be able to trust you." The captain of the vessel calls out as the anchor is cast. "And I need you to trust me. If not me, then Chu-e."

Eris Halla