Author's Notes:

For those not interested in such content, I marked the particular scene that contains sexually explicit content with a triple line so you can skip it if you feel like it. Enjoy the read.

Geert was the first to take over Micha’s watch as they went down the Scheldt. The parrot was able to keep watch despite being injured, though hopping around the bridge on crutches wasn’t the most efficient of methods.

Boris had left the helm to be replaced by a Ukrainian (an osprey/lynx female griffon called Ivan) sailor soon after Micha left. The Dutchman wasn’t too familiar with the former male at the helm save for some discussions they had shared during one of Schmitt briefings for ‘Guys-turned-gals’. That didn’t bother him too much since he’d rather focus on guiding the ship through the somewhat narrow channel of the Scheldt.

Amandine was advancing at a crawl as a matter of precaution, which made the already lengthy process of going down the river excruciatingly long. Calculations estimated that at their whopping speed of five knots, it would take them no less than seven and a half hour to achieve the first stretch of their passage. By commercial standards it was abysmally slow. Then again, considering the usual infrastructure of rescue vessels and tugs was all but gone thanks to the Apocalypse, it was perfectly reasonable to favor more cautious options.

The city of Terneuzen and its canal drifted by on their Port side as the ship slowly moved towards the estuary, but the young Dutchman was more interested in the other city that was looming on their Starboard side: Vlissingen. The very town he used to live in before everything went to shit. From what they had witnessed in Belgium he was pretty sure the city would be completely empty, including the apartment he used to share with his girlfriend.

The parrot’s grip on the edge of his chair tightened when he thought about the blonde girl. She had been by his side ever since he moved there from his hometown in Groningen to study at the maritime academy. Every time he had gone out to sea, she had been the first to greet him either on the quays or at the train station when he got back.

Geert clicked his large beak and ordered a small course correction to the helmsman to ensure they safely passed next to a hidden sandbank before turning to admire the landscape.

Across the somewhat large distance that separated the vessel from the river banks, he could see the dykes which he knew hid marshy terrain and well irrigated fields. A lone windmill dominated the flat countryside, reminiscent of an era where his countrymen relied on wind power to preserve them from a watery annihilation.

Further downstream, he could already see the port of Vlissingen, notably smaller than the one they had left behind in Antwerp with a small marina and a fleet of sailboats that would forever await their owners. The seafront side of the city was built over a tall stone wall to protect it from the North Sea storms that sometimes drifted towards the city. Apartment buildings shared the space on the seafront with some ancient observation towers, lighthouses and the more modern radio masts equipped with radars that allowed the harbor authority to track any traffic that entered the Scheldt estuary.

Geert’s gaze drifted towards one side of the town where he knew his apartment was, hidden from sight by a row of buildings and hotels.

“Homesick?” The helmsman asked, startling the parrot somewhat.

“Not really homesick. It’s just… Now we’re heading for Denmark, and then probably to America. Makes me wonder, am I ever going to see my homeland again after this?” The parrot glanced quickly at the ECDIS. “Starboard five, steer zero-eight-five.”

“Aye, zero-eight-five on starboard. You know, I think you choosing to stay with us did this ship a great service.” The griffon said.

“Care to elaborate? ‘cause to me it didn’t seem too hard of a choice.” He nodded towards the city they were passing, ears drooped. “After all, this city doesn’t look too active.”

“Steady on zero-eight-five. I mean you, being the most recent member of the crew and a fresh-out-of-the-academy cadet, decided it was better to stick with the group rather than go back home, even considering you were like an hour away by car? I may be wrong, but to me you could be the difference between just Ioan leaving us when we arrived in Zeebrugge, and half the crew making off.”

Which would have left Amandine undermanned and unable to continue operating.

“Glad to hear that I guess.” Geert shrugged before turning his head to focus on the helmsman by his side. The female griffon had, not unlike Micha, highlighted feathers on his head. But where Micha’s were green and surrounding his eyes, Ivan’s were more like yellow streaks of feathers on his forehead.

“Would you? I mean, would you have tried to make it back home?”

“You know I somewhat doubt there was a home to go back to in my case, and that was even before the Event.” Ivan snorted.

“Crimea?”

“Nah, Donetsk.” He said with a shake of his head. “You know, before it all went to shit over there I was content with leaving things be. I’m gone most of the time, so it would be great if I had a country to go back to. I don’t suppose you would be particularly happy if after months of sailing around the world you went back to find your hometown reduced to rubble because your khuilo neighbors decided to secede and create a state of their own.” Ivan sighed. “Sorry, caught myself rambling there.”

“No worries. If anything, it makes my own problems sound mild by comparison.” Geert gave one last look towards Vlissingen before the ship finally passed the town, marking the end of their descent of the Scheldt.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what was your stance on what occurred in Ukraine? I know we’re not supposed to talk about it for the sake of crew unity but I always was curious.”

“Hate to disappoint you Officer, but I really don’t have a strong political stance on this. Russian, Ukrainian, I don’t care at all; I speak both languages anyway. What I wanted was a solution that avoided any violence and left me with a home to come back to.” The griffon let out a tired trill. “Guess you don’t always get what you want. Fucking power hungry shitheads…” He muttered.

“That’s… surprisingly sensible. Any idea what the rest of the Ukrainians and Russians on board think about it?”

“Dunno really. We avoid that topic like plague, but I don’t think Vadim really cares. He’s technically from Kiev but everyone knows he’s spent most of his life in Poland so he’s not that involved. As for Artyom, I would have expected a VDV vet to taunt us Ukrainians over it but the guy is surprisingly tame about it. Odd.”

“And Boris?”

“Boris?” Ivan snorted. “Fucking gopnik is only held back by the Captain’s orders not to talk politics otherwise I’m pretty sure he would be talking shit nonstop.”

“Thanks for small mercies then, though I head the gopnik part was just a trick to get Vadim and Micha off his back. Port 5, steer zero-nine-seven.” He ordered.

Having left the Scheldt, Geert and Ivan steered Amandine West through the Belgian sandbanks in order to reach the deep draught channel that marked the traffic lane they wanted to follow. On their Port side they could see hints of the Belgian coast off in the distance, with the tall cranes of the port of Zeebrugge just barely peeking over the horizon.

At this point they were able to speed up to 15 knots, not needing the extra maneuvering capacity in open waters. The engine rumbled and sent vibrations coursing through the hull when the Dutch parrot pushed the throttle, finally able to unleash its gigantic power and propel the two hundred meters long ship onward to her next port of call.

They could have gone faster. Amandine was a decently fast ship, being able to reach the respectable speed of 25 knots and sustain it. The issue was: fuel consumption followed an exponential curve, and even at 15 knots they burned through about 20 tons of heavy fuel oil per day. Pushing her to her limits would have them burning up to 70 tons of fuel per day, and with no working refinery around they’d rather avoid emptying their tanks for no reason.

Soon enough, they passed the anchorage of West Hinder where this whole chain of events had started for them. The place was of no particular interest to the naked eye: it was just a stretch of open water that made for a solid anchoring ground, with only the offshore wind turbines to the North-East visible.

The moment they passed the point of West Hinder was also the moment the cloud cover finally broke into rain, pelting the decks with heavy drops of water and forcing some sailors that had been smoking on the main deck back inside.

Beyond their talk about home and Ukraine, Ivan and Geert didn’t talk too much, both already having a lot on their mind to think about.

By the point they sailed within sight of the English coast and spotted the lighthouse of Ramsgate, they were finally relieved from duty by Alejandro and a new helmsman. Sailing down the Scheldt and out to sea had lasted them until late in the afternoon. Geert was all too glad to be able to go back to his cabin at that point: his still injured hip was aching and he felt like he really needed to lie down for a bit.

The parrot quickly brought Alejandro up to snuff with what was going on with the navigation before handing over the watch and grabbing his crutches. With Ivan in tow, he hobbled off and went back to his cabin.

Down in the engine room, Micha and Aleksei were once again busy with their computer troubles. The Pole had by then finished inputting the data for the pumps in the generator systems and had moved on to the more complicated piping network of the main propulsion. By his side, Aleksei was busy as well, trying to achieve some progress with their radio log converter. The hippogriff had managed to find a rubber band to hold the white feathers of his ‘mane’ behind his head, a noticeable oil stain on the tip of the feathers telling observers the little innovation hadn’t come too soon.

With the main engine active, the temperature in the control room had gone up significantly. It may have only been fifteen degrees outside, but deep down in the bowels of the vessel, the atmosphere heated up to a sweltering thirty degrees despite the best efforts of the ventilation system. Coupled with the rolling of the vessel, the noise and the vibrations, the place made for a rather uncomfortable area if you weren’t used to it.

Aleksei quickly checked the status of the main engine on the control panels, ensuring it was running smoothly and throttling down one of the fuel pumps before focusing back on his computer.

“You know it’s bloody annoying having to do all the work without an online repository to rely on.” Aleksei complained. “I mean, I got my own notes as a base but this shit is hard.”

“Stalling again?” Micha said, looking up from his computer to peek at the lines of code on Aleksei’s.

“You don’t say. I thought I had a lead there but once I tried the converter on a sample file I crashed the whole damn program. That’s a restart from scratch.” He sighed. “How is it going for you?”

“Slow and steady. It’s tedious because of the sheer amount of variables the computer has to check out before adjusting pump rpm but as long as I stick to the manual it’s fine. Want some help?”

“No offence but you wouldn’t know how to go about it.”

“None taken.” The bald eagle griffon hit a key, finishing his work on one particular pump before moving on to the next one. “Say, you heard about what happened with Farkas?”

“The lion pride? Pretty funny if you ask me, I’m all in for nicknaming her Nala. Would be fitting.” The Latvian hippogriff chuckled.

“It’s not only that.” Micha frowned, his tail starting to swing faster behind him. “A rumor from the Chief Cook has it he admitted to being heterosexual.”

“By heterosexual do you mean?”

“Yeah, as in relative to his current gender. Makes me worried you know…” The Pole admitted.

“You haven’t thought about our crew’s gender reversals much yet, have you?” The light green hippogriff asked, with his head cocked to one side, a mischievous smile appearing on his face.

“Have you?” Micha answered back.

“For about a week I’d say. It’s not something that I advertise but…” The Pole blushed. “I am in the same case as our dear Chief Steward. Didn’t dare ask around about it though.”

“So you’re attracted to dudes?”

Aleksei nodded subtly.

“I think you should look into it tonight Micha, for your own sake.” The Latvian said. “I’ll admit, it was a bit of a… harrowing thought to realize this but it’s definitely something you should figure out. Plus there is no harm in just being curious. Doesn’t mean we aren’t trying to find a solution to that particular predicament, am I right?”

The female griffon nodded numbly. He wasn’t too keen on… exploring that particular area of his changes but he did presume something in him had changed beyond what laid between his legs. The way he felt when around Vadim was already a hint of that, particularly when he thought about the accidental teasing he had inflicted on the Ukrainian in front of the gun shop a couple days earlier.

“Back to Farkas.” Micha said. “Have you noticed how people started using ‘she’ to refer to him since the lion incident? Or even how bizarrely clever that male lion was?”

“Clever?”

“I don’t think a regular lion would have had enough wits to figure out the bayonet belonged to Farkas and brought it along all the way from downtown. It’s not human clever but definitely more than it had any right to be.” The Pole explained.

“Can’t tell, only got second hand reports of the incident. On the other hand did you hear what Nguyen told about the seals in the harbor? Sounded kinda similar to the lion thing.”

“In which way?” This time it was Micha’s turn to be curious.

“Apparently once they figured out he was the one throwing food waste in the harbor they started to track him around the docks and asked for food whenever he passed the ship’s ramps. They even ‘explained’ to him using honks and gesture with their flippers how they wanted meat and fish waste.”

“Bizarre indeed…” Micha muttered before being interrupted by the ringing of the interphone.

Making sure his progress on the pump’s automation system was saved; the griffon stood up and picked up the phone which erupted in an angry mix of Dutch and dubious English, courtesy of the newest addition to the crew.

Turns out, trusting an active military guy with the armory meant that even he as an Officer couldn’t get away with leaving his dirty rifle expecting to come back and clean it later. Micha couldn’t understand all the words the unicorn was saying but he sounded pissed alright, telling him to ‘Come clean gun, now’. Micha tried to protest, only to be answered with a ‘you have no watch now, come clean’ before Bart hung up on him.

Behind him, Aleksei snickered, the female hippogriff giving him an amused look.

“Looks like you just got your first taste of military grade weapons discipline. I knew Artyom and the vets had been lax on us with that.” She said with a click of her beak.

“Wait, you knew this would happen?”

“I may not have been in the military but my pa’ was. National Guard; told me a lot about the inner workings.”

“That’s new.” Micha said with a surprised look.

“Not really. I just don’t go around telling my past to everyone. Now go, I get a feeling the Corporal will be calling again if you don’t show up soon.”

Micha resigned himself to get berated over his dirty rifle. He had been planning to clean it, just not that early. With a sigh he wished Aleksei a good evening before making his way up the stairs, out of the engine room and towards the armory.

There was some work going on in the workshop: a couple sailors were working through their fleet of Defenders, applying some much needed modifications to the 4x4’s. The versions they had retrieved from Antwerp were devoid of any useful gear that ought to be considered essential on that kind of vehicle (not unusual since they were brand new). Thankfully, they were built on a pretty modular chassis.

Micha waved to Nikola in passing, the Bulgarian being busy installing snorkel kits on all of their Land Rovers with the help of Thanasis. The gargoyle had been dubious about their decision to choose Defenders over Lada Nivas as their smaller vehicle up until Vadim pointed out to him that Land Rover engine were no longer made by ‘that fucking train wreck of a car manufacturer by the name of British-Leyland’ (according to Vadim).

Unlike Vadim however, Micha wasn’t really a car-guy so he didn’t understand all that was said about it but apparently the former owner of the Land Rover Company had a pretty terrible streak when it came to reliability. Thankfully, their versions were made by the new owner with a much better Td5 diesel engine compared to previous versions. At least that’s what he had overheard.

As long as they ran correctly, this was of no importance to the griffon.

Further behind, the ship’s duo of welders were in the process of putting together some roll cages and bull bars for their vehicles. Now, welding was always a dangerous process on board of ships, what with concerns about ventilation and fires. Such problems had been circumvented by the creation of a dedicated space for welding inside of the workshop, one equipped with separate ventilation and firefighting equipment.

Micha entered the open armory, only to be immediately confronted by an irate unicorn holding his hunting rifle in his telekinesis. Bart made a great show of pointing to the rifle’s dirty action, punctuating his angry rant with a mix of angry Dutch and simple words in English. The Pole was tempted to roll his eyes, but instead just settled for snatching the rifle and going to take a seat at one of the workbenches.

Bart let out a snort before turning back to the weapon cages and moving off to… somewhere. Whatever their new guard/gunsmith spent his time doing in the armory, the Second Officer didn’t know nor care overly much. What he did notice however, were the decorations that had already sprung up on the walls of the armory: car calendars (written in Cyrillic, which ruled out Bart as their owner), gun schematics and even a dart board.

The female griffon clicked his beak and grabbed a cleaning brush before setting to cleaning his rifle.

Shortly after dinner, Dilip was having some small talk around a cup of tea with Schmitt in his office. The orange dragon wasn’t a big fan of the beverage, but decided to entertain the Indian dog since he knew the guy was a sucker for some good tea.

“So how’s Farkas?” Schmitt asked.

“Fine. She was pretty embarrassed and I had her explain herself to Thanasis. But now? She’s fine.”

“Eh, if you say so.” The dragon shrugged before dumping a generous amount of sugar in his cup when Dilip wasn’t looking. “Poor Thanasis was pretty confused once we were done unberthing. ‘I’m sorry sir, but why did the Chief Steward just lick me? And what the fuck was up with that lion?’”

“Yeah, took a while to get Farkas to tell me her reasoning. Completely twisted I must say, but in a weird fashion it makes sense. If you look at it sideways and squint a little.”

Schmitt let out an amused snort, the gesture making a small puff of smoke rise up from his nostrils which Dilip followed with his eyes until it left through the half open window.

“Every time I talk to you or Artyom I’m reminded we have two walking flamethrowers on board. Puts the firefighter in me on edge you know?”

“I get the feeling. No worries though, I spent some time figuring out how to control it and checking out that ‘emotional smoke’. It won’t cause any fires, and unless someone gives me one hell of a sucker punch right in the gut, I won’t torch the ship by accident.” He reassured his superior.

“Glad to hear that.” Dilip said as he sipped his tea. “Say, I was wondering…”

“My sexuality?” The Chief Engineer interrupted him.

“How did you guess?”

“Educated guess. It’s been the topic recently and we were just talking about Farkas.”

“So?”

“Still into gals.” He said. “Sorry to burst your bubble. It doesn’t seem like every female on board was affected by a change in sexuality.” The dragon told, picking at his claws before leveling his muzzle towards the Captain. “I hope you weren’t betting on matching me with Artyom.”

Dilip got a weird look on his muzzle, the dog’s right ear twitching a little.

“Now that would have been weird. I will have you know I think about personalities when I place my bets, you both are so mismatched it could never work.”

“Ahah, so you did think about it!” Schmitt said, pointing an accusatory digit at the seated dog.

“Only briefly I swear, and only because Alej’ mentioned the bet first.”

“Bets, bets, and more bets; that’s all I ever hear around here. You know, for an Indian you’re weirdly into British culture you know?” The dragon said, standing up and pacing around the room for a bit, his tail swishing behind him.

“Fair enough, I’ll admit I did rent a house in Aberdeen before the Event. It’s not always possible to go back to India between contracts you know?”

“Aberdeen uh? Been trying to get into the offshore industry?”

“That was an idea I never got to implement. Admittedly, the most use I got out of that house before the Event was for having two of my kids study at the university there. Bloody expensive too, but that was years ago, they graduated now.” The dog said, thinking back to how proud he had been of his twin sons graduating at the same time. He had a photo of that day in an album inside his cabin.

“Says the guy who makes eight thousand pounds a month.” Schmitt said with a shake of his head.

“Oh, I’m sorry Mr. I-Live-In-Luxembourg-Because-Taxes-Are-Overrated, how is that tax haven going for you?” Dilip replied with a hint of a smile.

“Contrarily to you I was born there.” The dragon countered with a raised brow. “But I do admit the tax and banking systems are a nice plus. There are still taxes just so you know though…” The dragon stopped briefly, a gleam appearing in his eyes. “Hold on a second, didn’t you tell me your wife always stayed in Mumbai? Were you actually avoiding her using Aberdeen as a shield?”

“So much shit I can take from her before I want to be halfway across the world I’ll admit but…” The dog raised a paw in defense. “… It was from an arranged marriage. I did tolerate her enough to put two sons and a daughter in her after all. I still go back to India frequently… when I have to do work for the navy.”

“Poor you.” Schmitt commented ruefully. “Family alliance?”

“Joining businesses a couple decades ago. My father wanted to merge his law cabinet with another, got a lot of profit out of it too. More than enough to send two of his sons to study in the UK.”

“Lemme guess, you were the third one.”

“Bull’s-eye my friend. I got sent to the maritime academy in Mumbai instead.” Dilip drawled after downing the content of his cup and going for a refill.

“Well, look where that got you. Nothing to scoff at I’d say, and you did get to the UK eventually.”

“That’s the way I beat the odds.” The Captain boasted, both of his ears rising up in pride.

Schmitt was about to retort with a snarky comment when the interphone rang, bringing the friendly conversation to a grinding halt. Dilip picked up, listening for a few seconds before uttering a small ‘thank you’ and turning to his computer.

“Something up?”

“We just received a written message from the station in Lyngby that’s what.” Dilip said, starting up his computer and bringing up the inbox folder.

Ahead of the previous messages they had received from the HPI was a single unread message, which Dilip immediately opened. He skimmed past the general data, time of reception, yada yada… and instead focused on the bulk of the message.

Lyngby Coast Radio Station,

GOC operator Sandra Jensen,

Greetings Amandine,

I am very glad to have finally found other survivors. I require assistance as soon as possible: my station is now surrounded by monster dogs made out of wood. I know this doesn’t seem to make much sense but they almost got me when I was out looking for survivors a few days ago.

I am now barricaded inside the radio station but the dogs appear to have tracked down my scent or at least located the area I was in. I do not have a weapon and cannot defend myself so please, if you are able to, send help. I fear the dogs may breach the outer fence soon and I do not know how long my barricades of the main building can hold them off.

Also, have you experienced any change out of the ordinary yourself? I fear telling you more about this might make you think I am crazy.

I am alone in the station and I now have about five days of supplies left if I ration them carefully. Please send a reply if you are coming to assist.

Respectfully,

Dilip and Schmitt stared at each other for a couple seconds.

“’change out of the ordinary?” Schmitt asked.

“In other words she transformed like us. But the monsters…” Dilip trailed off.

“As damaging on living beings and vegetations as wood hounds seem to be I don’t think they could breach a radio station that fast.”

“You’re saying that as if we actually have good intel on those beyond the fact they burn well under dragon fire and outdated pepper spray with a lighter.”

“We don’t, but I think she will last until we get there. Lyngby isn’t far from Copenhagen so as soon as the ramp is lowered we can dispatch a team to save her.” Schmitt said. “And if we put Artyom on that team we can make the hounds regret their life choices by siccing an angry ex-VDV dragon with guns and an integrated flamethrower on them.”

“I guess when you put it that way… Okay, I'm just going to write her an answer immediately.” The Captain said, pulling his keyboard closer.

“As you see fit, I will be hanging out in the Officers’ lounge.” The dragon said before walking out of the office.

Warning: explicit sexual content is present in the next scene

It was four in the morning when Micha locked the door to his cabin, finally done with his day. He was kind of glad they were now running with four deck officers against the usual three before the Event; it gave him extra time for himself in between watches on the bridge.

Being the Chief Officer gave Alejandro the right to determine they would stick to rounds of four hours on the bridge. That choice meant they wouldn’t always keep watch on the same hour every day, but it also meant they could enjoy twelve hours of time to work on their daily tasks or rest between watches.

Micha was still on the fence about that decision, but since this passage was pretty short he didn’t mind the minimal amount of jetlag it would cause. And at this particular moment? It meant the female griffon didn’t have to go up to the bridge until four in the afternoon.

He kicked off his steel-toed safety shoes into a corner of the cabin, which had the same general layout as those of the other Officers and Engineers. The way it differed from the rest was in its owner’s decoration choices: there were a couple posters of heavy metal bands on the walls, as well as one autographed poster of Sabaton just above his bed. The heavy metal posters shared the walls with pictures of wildlife and one advert poster for Husqvarna rifles which he had bought when he had visited the factory in Sweden once.

On the wall facing his desk, Micha had put up some photos of his family, with one of him with his wife and his parents on the day of his wedding. The griffon took off his gloves and sat down on his haunches by the desk, staring at the smiling face of his father, the elderly, crippled, fisherman beaming with pride at his son clad in his dress blues.

The Pole knew that in a drawer of his desk was a small box holding his wedding band. He hadn’t worn it since the Event; in fact he usually didn’t wear it at sea because of safety concerns ingrained into him by his own father.

‘Never disregard safety procedures’ the old man would always say. ‘Look where that got me’ was what he would add, pointing to his left leg which had been mangled by a mooring cable that snapped at an inopportune moment.

The griffon sighed wistfully looking at the picture. He idly wondered how his family would react, hell, how his wife would react if she learned the father of her unborn kid had been turned into a cat-bird female by some weird fur-pocalypse.

Probably badly.

The Pole felt torn. On one claw he was pretty sure that with the amount of survivors they had found (that is: a whopping two) he wouldn’t find anyone should he make his way back to Gdansk but on the other claw… It felt wrong to just move on in spite of the vows he had recited years ago at the altar in front of his wife.

Post-apocalyptic faithfulness to people that may not even exist anymore aside; Micha judged now was the ideal moment to try out Aleksei’s suggestion. The prospect of delving into the change he had made a point of avoiding ever since the Event was enough to make the griffon blush.

He twisted his body to take off his coveralls (which now featured Vadim’s innovation of adding zipper holes for his wings) before moving off to the bathroom to hang them on a peg inside. Micha got a look at his own body in the mirror in passing.

He was a mix of bald eagle on his avian half with the feline half of a wildcat. This made it so that his head was covered in white feathers except for the naturally highlighted green feathers surrounding his yellow raptor eyes. From the four griffons present on board, they had determined females seemed to be the only ones with colored feathers like those, with males being more likely to have crests or extra tufts of down on their head.

The white feathers changed tone around his neck, replaced by dark brown feathers covering his body and wings until they reached his feline half, which was covered in brown-grey fur with dark stripes on his back. This pattern continued to the tip of his decently sized tail which ended in a black tuft of fur. The fur on his belly and nether regions on the other claw, shifted instead to a brighter hue of grey.

Perhaps due to a lack of knowledge on how to properly maintain them, the feathers on his wings were rather messy despite Micha’s best attempts at brushing them with his claws. The result wasn’t catastrophic, but the primaries did lack the sheen they had had the day he had transformed.

Observing the appearance of other griffons had led the Pole to some more conclusions about griffons: his new specie had sexual dimorphism beyond the feathers on their head. Males and females seemed to be about as tall, but females had a wider err… rump shape whereas males were stockier on the front body department. Females also had a slightly longer body and, from comparisons drawn from seeing Vadim’s wings (the Ukrainian had a tendency of airing his wings out whenever the Captain wasn’t around), a larger wingspan too.

Also, griffons didn’t have teats. Logical in a sense: he doubted young griffon chicks (or cubs maybe?) would be able to nurse on their mothers with their beaks.

He willingly ignored the fact he was now technically in the population bracket that was able to become such a mother.

Staring in the mirror, the female griffon brushed a claw against the side of his beak. Last chance to back out on his decision to discover if his sexuality had changed. His gaze drifted back towards his nether regions in hesitation, where what he knew was a mix between a mammalian vagina and an avian cloaca resided; only subtly hidden by his tail and a thick tuft of fur between his legs. That part of his new body had hardly received any scrutiny since the change from the Pole beyond awkwardly cleaning it without looking each time he took a shower or went to the toilet.

Micha walked back to the bedroom and grabbed his laptop on the desk before moving over to his bed. Plopping down on his stomach on the mattress, he opened the laptop to be greeted by a picture of Amandine, taken shortly before the Event by a drone on the Thames. He quickly scrolled through the menus and opened the program that allowed him to access data on the ship’s server via Wi-Fi. Hidden just enough that corporate executives visiting the ship wouldn’t find it was the porn folder, innocently titled ‘draft documents archive’.

Unknowingly to Micha, his thought pattern brought him along the exact same lines as Farkas when the sphinx ‘explored’ his new female hood. He started by putting on something which he usually enjoyed: lesbian porn, while with one claw he reached for his nether regions.

The porn in front of him utterly failed to stir up the griffon’s loins, even when he tentatively prodded between his legs with a single talon. The sensation of a digit intruding inside his body felt…bizarre to the former man, but not entirely unpleasant. He could feel the warmth in that particular area of his body… but no arousal came from witnessing two nubile women go at it on his screen.

Just as he had feared. Still with a bit of hope that he might be wrong, the Pole switched to a more common video of heterosexual sex between two well endowed individuals. That had more effect on his libido, the sight of the male genitalia making his folds moisten slightly around his talon, the bald eagle griffon releasing a muffled moan as heat built up between his furry thighs.

On one hand he wished he could have claimed the transformation had made him a lesbian… but on the other claw the feelings he was getting did feel simply delightful. His tail brushed against the arm he had between his thighs, its sensitive underside sending a pleasant trill up the griffon’s spine whose wings fluttered ever so slightly in pleasure.

But there was an itch in the back of his mind. Something inside him saw something wrong in what was on the screen: ‘not enough fur’ the more primal part of his mind was saying ‘can’t be healthy’. He went back to explore the porn folder, trying to find something to satisfy the arousal he had stirred between his-no, her legs-.

Inside a sub-folder dubbed ‘Roberto’s Special’, the griffon finally found something to satisfy herself: three folders labeled ‘furry’, ‘scaly’ and ‘avian’ respectively.

Oh Roberto you sly cat, blaming Geert for looking up avians when the Internet was still up, and he was the closet furry all along?

The videos were animations but the griffon’s brain didn’t mind, apparently satisfied by more natural (to her primal mind) looking fur-covered genitalia, as should be found on a griffon. She found a video of an anthropomorphic cougar having sex with a female wildcat which had an instantaneous effect on her.

The parallel between the feline halves of two certain griffons on board didn’t cross her mind at the time.

Eyes riveted on the two animated felines on screen, she plunged her talon deeper in her folds, the movement eliciting a quiet moan of pleasure as the moisture between her thighs started to make her fur stick to her legs. Her tail, extended to its full length, swished vigorously behind her slightly raised rump.

Watching the action pick up on screen, she then plunged a second talon inside her, then a third, the sharp but well trimmed digits teasing relentlessly at the walls inside her female hood. A small purr of pleasure rose from her throat, all previous shame of her predicament temporarily pushed aside as she wiggled her talons inside herself, bringing her arousal to new heights.

A surprised trill escaped her when her ‘thumb’ talon brushed against the clitoris just below her now very wet opening, the simple gesture making her legs feel numb from sheer pleasure as the wetness in that area increased twofold. She (back when she was still a he) knew how effective it was on her wife but… experiencing it first claw brought it to a whole new light.

The primal parts of her mind started to feel envious of the female wildcat getting pounded on screen, her curiosity as to how it would feel increasing despite protests from some parts of her brain that screamed at her how utterly wrong this all was.

But thought remained ignored by the griffon at the time. Instead, she finally reached climax at the same time the wildcat on screen did, her own female juices coating the yellowish scales on her forearm as a violent tremor of wild, unabated pleasure coursed through her nervous system and made her fall limp on the mattress, wings spread out on either side of her. A long moan escaped her beak as she felt the muscles of her cloaca contract repeatedly around her talons. The smell of female sex reached the nostrils in her beak, her smell.

Basking in the afterglow of her very first female orgasm, the griffon watched through half-closed eyes as the video came to a halt when both the anthropomorphic felines fell down in each other’s arms, the cougar cradling the female tightly.

As the Pole slowly came to her senses, she glanced down at the drenched mat of fur between her legs, thinking back to what she had thought during her bout of masturbation and how she was now attracted to males… and how one part of her mind had innocently replaced the upper half of the cougar in the video with that of a grey falcon. Micha’s head dropped, the resigned griffon letting out a tired groan.

“Kurwa…” She said before allowing herself to drift off to sleep, her hind legs lying in the middle of a wet stain on her bed sheets.

While things were going on inside, Amandine continued her course towards Copenhagen. Despite them coming close to the offshore installations of the Thames estuary and repeatedly sending messages on all radio channels, nobody picked up their calls, even those sent on HF and MF waves.

They spent most of the night following the Dutch coast, still keeping a sedate pace to save fuel. Most of the time they were out of visual range of the shore, instead trying to pass within range of as many offshore platforms as possible to garner attention on the radio.

The waters close to the Netherlands weren’t deep, but at least they didn’t have the literal maze of sandbanks and shallows that plagued the Belgian shore (and even worse in that particular case: the sandbanks moved gradually with each spring tide, meaning years from now their charts of that area would be as good as toilet paper). This made for some easier navigation; though they still had to make sure they didn’t sail into one of the many platform installations during the night.

To that extent the bridge crew was glad all those platforms on their course were expelling gas through their flare stacks. That made them hard to miss, and their radar helped avoid the other support platforms next to the drill units that lacked a flare to indicate their position.

Not a single message popped up on the waves during the night except for one written message coming straight from Lyngby they had received earlier, which had immediately been forwarded to the Captain. But the rest? The port of Rotterdam they passed? Nothing. The Dutch naval headquarters in Den Helder, near Texel? Zilch, not a single word on the waves; not even from that cesspool of drugs and depravity called Amsterdam. This was supposed to have been one of the busiest waterways in the world before the Event, but now… Only a single grey and white ship with a yellow funnel traversed those waters.

They could still see some lights coming from buoys here and there, as well as others from automatically controlled lighthouses which drew their power from the hundreds of wind turbines that dotted the shoreline. They were even visible from the sea, the top of the tall structures lit by a slowly blinking red light. It was still too soon after the Event for most of the infrastructure to have gone down, but some hints were already there: one buoy that had drifted out of place, one wind turbine ablaze from its circuitry catching fire. Many supposedly charted lights were absent too, those being lighthouses that had not been automated.

Up on the bridge, Geert had taken the second watch for that day, from four to eight in the morning. The scarlet macaw still had some time to go on his watch before the sun even rose above the horizon.

Not that he minded actually. Keeping watch at night always came with an eerie atmosphere. There was something about being up and awake at impossible hours to guide the ship onwards. The only sources of lighting on the bridge at the time came from the dimly lit instrument screens and the ship’s own navigation lights.

With a better weather he might have caught the opportunity to take a look at the stars but the rain from earlier had not let up. Fat droplets of water petered against the bridge’s windows, only to be brushed away seconds later by the wipers. The wind had picked up slightly, rising to a steady 4 Beaufort which rocked the vessel mildly. Weather predictions had them believe the weather would clear up by the time they reached Denmark so he really had no reason to worry about it, instead enjoying the combined feel of the ship rocking from side to side and the constant vibration of the main engine.

Coming back from the rear of the bridge after having jotted down their position on the paper charts (something the Captain insisted on doing every fifteen minutes in case their electronic charts failed), the parrot offered his colleague a cup of coffee before sitting down in the navigator’s chair.

Geert reached for the controls of the radar to adjust its rain clutter. Weather like that sometimes sent false echoes in the receiver and he had no patience to deal with that. After he turned up the control, the large ring of yellow dots from the rain drops around their ship disappeared.

“Quiet watch uh?” Ivan commented.

“Without traffic and fishermen to dodge all the time? That was to be expected.” Geert said, still observing the radar.

He could see some dots at medium range behind them, which coincided with the offshore platforms they knew of, as well as one very large yellow mass on eastern the edge of the radar screen. The mainland.

“I wouldn’t complain you know. “ Geert added. “I’d rather have that kind of watch than a crossing of the Channel. Better for my nerves.”

“Somehow I doubt that one traffic lane would cause as much trouble at the moment.” Ivan said. “What with the lack of ferries to cross your path.”

“You’re right, but I’ll stick to using the Dover Strait as a reference in terms of high traffic, Apocalypse be damned.” The parrot countered. “Present traffic or not you do have to admit mentioning it immediately makes you think of a cluttered sea lane.”

“Fair enough.” The osprey griffon nodded. “But it wasn’t the worst in the world either.”

“It doesn’t or rather didn’t have to be.” Geert halted to take a long swig of his coffee, the hot beverage burning its way down his throat in a half painful-half satisfying manner. “Mention it to any European sailor worth his salt and it will immediately bring memories of difficult maneuvers to life.”

“You never know, maybe for future generations that one difficult area will be somewhere else.”

“Future generations?” Geert scoffed. “Yeah right, as if the world has any future to look forward to.”

“A bit pessimistic don’t you find?”

“Because you see many folks around to justify a society in the future?” Geert drawled.

“There could be. In a way it probably will be up to us to rebuild, and I think us Ratings have a theory you Officers didn’t think of yet.” Ivan said, tapping his gloved talons against the helm.

“I’m all ears dear; by all means feel free to lay out that theory for me.” The Dutchman said, only partially sarcastic.

Eh, sometimes ratings do come up with something brilliant.

“So here’s the thing. We reappeared about nine hours after the Event, and then we know of the Corporal who apparently woke up… I don’t remember but it must have been a day or two. And now? Someone just pops up more than two weeks after us. I got a few shipmates who would back me up on that: people are reappearing at different times after the cataclysm.”

That… was not as ridiculous as he had first thought.

“Are you implying more people will come back as time goes on?” Geert asked, crossing his arms.

“And if we’re anything to go by they will come back with the vehicle they were in at the time of the Event.”

“That could have a big impact on our search for survivors if that’s true… Mind if I bring it up to the Captain on your behalf later?” The parrot said.

“Go ahead; he’ll take you more seriously than a regular Rating.” Ivan said.

“Thanks.” Geert concluded before turning back to the ECDIS screen by his seat.

On the screen, he could see the black arrow symbolizing their ship move along on a northerly course.

Hours later, in the confines of an abandoned German traffic monitoring center, a screen came to life after finally detecting a change in variables. After weeks of inactivity, a set of data appeared on screen, witnessed by none but a single rat nibbling on biscuits left behind by the center’s former operators.

AIS transponder detected:

IMO number: 7125706

Position: N 54° 02’73

E 007° 56’85

Status: ……………………..

Elsewhere in the building, another rat chomped on a cable, ending its life and shorting out the entire building.