Mishka: Out of My Mind

The fight was going pretty badly.

Mishka thought it was just a merchant ship, but it turned out real fucking well-defended. Apparently it was a passenger vessel, and one of the passengers happened to be a powerful bard. Fucking bards.

The bard in question was a woman with long, curling ginger hair and an excess of gold jewelry. Mishka didn’t want to blow a hole in the ship-- no point in murdering everyone when it was entirely avoidable-- but he needed to stop the bard. She kept casting really fucking annoying spells… dominating Corven, heating up Hansel’s armor, and casting some sort’ve loud screeching spell that gave him a stabbing headache.

So he cracked over to the opposite deck alone.

“Mikhail fucking Haeth!” Hansel roared from the other deck. “What’d I fuckin’ tell you!”

It was almost sweet.

Mishka ignored him. Hansel could be mad at him later. The fucking bard kept heating up Hansel’s armor and hurting him. That wasn’t allowed. Hansel could be angry at him once he’d assassinated her. It would only take a second, and then Mishka would crack back. It’d be fine.

The bard looked surprised to see him. Her eyes focused on him, and she opened her mouth to shout a second too late. Mishka drew his rapier and drove it into her chest.

The bard gasped for air, grasping the blade like she could stop it.

Mishka smiled, satisfied. Now she couldn’t hurt Hansel or his crew anymore.

She reached out for Mishka, touching him with the last of her magic. “Feeblemind,” she whispered with the last of her breath, and the yellow light sank into Mishka.

Then Miska collapsed, and the man on the deck of the other ship screamed in impotent rage and fear, but it was funny: Mishka could no longer who he was or why the man was screaming.

--

For a moment, it felt like reality shifted. He couldn’t remember who he was. He couldn’t remember how to speak, or what he was doing.

He blinked dimly around him. Dead woman on the ground. He was in the middle of the sea on a boat. That was neat. What was he doing?

There were people around him shouting. Why were they shouting? Mishka shrank back. There was fighting going on. He made a distressed noise and tried to hide his head.

“Mishka!” someone on the opposite ship screamed again.

Mishka bolted inside the ship.

Frightened people all around him. Too much stimulation. Had to hide. For some reason that thought stuck with him: he always found a small hidey hole when he was upset. Mishka found a cabinet in the kitchen, crammed himself into it, and shut the door behind him, then just sat there and hid, breathing hard in the dark.

—

It took them several hours to find him.

Mishka watched from a crack as strange armed men stormed the ship. Eventually, one of them found him. It was the big man again. The one who’d been on the deck of the ship, screaming at him. He gently pried open the cabinet door. His face went slack with relief when he saw Mishka hiding in the back corner.

The man was enormous. Covered in weapons. Soaked in blood. Tusks instead of teeth. Mishka whimpered.

“Hey, Captain,” he said gently. “You okay?”

Mishka shrank back, curling deeper into the cabinet. He scrambled to move past pots and pans.

“Hey, hey,” the man whispered. His face was very pale. “Sh, sh, don’t do that. ‘S okay. ‘S okay, Mishka.” He held up his hands and didn’t move any closer. “Don’t crack away, love. I got you. You’re all safe, right? We got all the passengers hostage, all the guards dead. I cut off all their heads for you and threw ‘em in the water for shark-bait. Why are you scared, ahuvi? What’d she fucking do to you? I’ll protect you.”

Mishka whined softly. His head ached, and the man’s voice was low and comforting.

He wanted to come out. He wanted to crawl into the man’s arms and hide in his jacket. But it was bright out there, and there were noises like people moving around, and it was safe and dark inside the cabinet.

The man looked distressed when Mishka just sat there silently. “Hey,” he barked at someone nearby. “Don’t just stand there lollygaggin’, swabbie. Go get Serena. Yeah, don’t look at me like that. Yes, the cleric. Tell her I found the captain but there’s something wrong with ‘im.”

Then he turned back to Mishka, who stared at him, wide-eyed and alarmed. “Hey, hey, no, I wasn’t shouting at you, motek. Shh, it’s okay. Just stay there. No cracking.”

A few minutes passed, and Mishka settled down. The big man didn’t try to drag him out of his hiding spot, just sat there guarding the cabinet. Good.

Eventually, footsteps approached. “Cap’n?” a female voice said uncertainly. “You, uh, fuckin’ okay in there?”

Mishka hissed.

“Your boyfriend just hissed at me,” the woman told the big man.

“Don’t fuckin’ talk to him, then,” the man grumbled.

“He’s hiding on a cabinet in an enemy ship,” said a new, lighter female voice.

“Our ship now. Can you fix him? What’s— what’s wrong with him? Why won’t he talk to me?” The big man sounded upset. There was an edge of panic in his voice.

There was a thoughtful silence. Then a fair-skinned woman with pointed ears bent down to peer inside the cabinet. Mishka retreated farther into the dark, and the big man made a disgruntled sound. “If I had to guess, something must have affected his mind,” she said drily. “I’ve only seen this spell once before… I think he’s been feeble-minded.”

“Feeble-minded? The fuck is that? What’d that bard fucking do to him?”

“She lowered his intelligence,” the woman said bluntly. “He’s dumber than a common housecat now. I doubt he can even understand us. It gives most people an animal-like intelligence, but Mishka…. well. Combined with his paranoia…” She gestured to the cabinet. “Apparently he’s hiding. Granger, he will be fine. He’s simply stupid and alarmed. He’s not answering you because he is now too dim-witted to speak. I can heal him, but will need time overnight, however, to pray to my goddess for the power to heal his mind.”

“What if he cracks off?” Another voice. The first woman.

“He should not be able to cast spells like this. Should we drag him out and confine him to his quarters…?”

“Hey, fuck off. He doesn’t wanna come out,” the big man said. “You keep fuckin’ scaring him. Stop peering at him.”

There was a pause. Then all three of them considered Mishka, still hiding in the cabinet.

The first woman spoke up. “I’ll tell Corven she’s captain for the night.”

—

The people left him alone after that. The women left, and the man settled down outside the cabinet and was quiet for a long time. Sometimes there was a rustling noise. Mishka peeked out a few times and saw him reading a book.

Mishka dozed for a while. Then he woke up, and it was quiet and dark. And outside, Mishka heard the faint sound of snoring.

Mishka crawled out of hiding.

The room was empty except for the big man dozing next to the cabinet. Big trident clasped in his hand. The cabinet creaked when Mishka crawled out, and the big man startled awake.

The big man held still, barely breathing. Mishka stared at him, frozen.

“Hey,” the man said in a low, soft voice. “Hey.”

Mishka shifted closer.

“There y’go,” Hansel said. “You feeling better, beautiful? It’s okay.”

Mishka sat in his lap and slid into his jacket. He pressed his ear against Hansel’s chest and closed his eyes. Hansel made a small sound of relief and crushed Mishka against his chest. “You’re gonna be so fucking embarrassed when Serena heals you,” Hansel muttered against his hair. He kissed Mishka all over.

Mishka hummed contentedly and fell fast asleep in his arms.