When she sat, she did not do so primly. Her elbows perched on her knees and her feet pointed in angled directions. She sat as the men of this time sat -- not the great and powdered men, but the men of the sea and of the soil. Men of salt and blood and rocks and iron. She'd lived long pretending to be a man and although the jig had been up for some months, some habits simply never died.

Slayers, on the other hand, died rather often. But she was determined to stave off death for at least another day. And counter to all solid logic, her health seemed only to improve as she sat with her back against the mast and her eyes on the ocean.

Eventually, she piped up: "Did you keep them? Any of them? My men?"