The Pirate King Ch. 16

"No." His answer to that question was just as immediate. "I like it here." He sighed and looked out the small window. "It just becomes hard, to not belong anywhere."

I understood what he was saying. I had brought him back to a place where he should have been comfortable; instead he was ostracized, different. And he had such a perfect view of the ocean, a place where he had found a home for the briefest time, but now that home had been taken from him as well. He was a being stuck in an inbetween, a perpetual outsider. At least when I had brought others back, there had been more like them.

Ichor was alone.

I placed my hand on his shoulder and he sighed. "It'll be better in time," I told him, not sure it was true.

He accepted my lie with grace. "He's watching this ship," he told me. I knew he was talking about Dave. I had known it before he had told me, couldn't not know it. Dave was always watching any ship that carried men that used to belong to him, doubly so when those ships also carried me. "He'll never stop looking."

"I know." I shrugged. "I wouldn't expect him to."

***

I asked Cookie that evening if there was anything to be done about Dave's watchfulness.

"You're speaking of spells," he said incredulously. "You want me to do spells againsthim."

I shrugged. "There are ways to keep him at bay." I had seen Minnie do it.

"Aye, boy, but if you know those spells then you know they are by natureviolent. Violent and malicious." Cookie shook his head. "And not on my end, either. You're askin' me to get the attention of a lot of nefarious beings, there, a lot of very nasty fellas just so you feel better sleeping at night. It isn't well done. It ain't smart."

"I didn't ask if it was smart," I told him. "I asked if it could be done."

He stared at me, silent, for a long time.

"Aye," he finally said. "Aye, I could do it, but it would bring more attention to you than before. He couldn't see you, but he'd be searching then. Searchin' and more likely to take action when he found you, since you used his children the way you did."

I sighed. I knew what the spells would call for. "Have you ever done the spells before?"

Cookie crossed his arms.

"Could you do them again?"

"No."

"Alan, I'm not asking you to, I'm just asking -"

"Boy," Cookie hissed, shooting a glance behind me toward the open door. Men were beginning to filter in for dinner. "I said no. That's final. I'm not that man anymore."

"Aren't you?" He stared at me, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. "You don't change who you are when you change your name," I reminded him quietly.

He rolled his eyes with a scoff. "Aye, boy. And you're one to talk with that." He turned away and began getting the bowls ready for the men.

***

It was the fourth night on the Ephretes that we found the ship.

I was sleeping soundly, the Captain wrapped in my arms, when Natch burst into our room. He didn't care that we were naked. He didn't seem to notice the bite marks decorating my ribs and neck.

"Yarrick," he said.

I was out of bed in moments.

It was good that we found them in the night. We slid past them silently, no flag flying. They flew the King's flag, the mainland King. The Captain told me that as we passed them, the man on watch actually waved.

I didn't see. I was already in the water.

I did this ghost alone. I knew the ship the best after Natch and Sneg, and their memories were so strong there was no guarantee that it would hinder as much as help once they were aboard. I had no such issues. It was only two hours past the moment I slipped into the water from our own anchor line that I emerged on Yarrick's deck, body covered in nothing but bloody tally marks and victory, holding the head of the man who had sold me as if I were chattel. His body had already sunk into the sea.

It would take his soul years to find it's way to Dave, if it ever did. I hoped his ghost wandered eternal. I sent no metal down with him to aid his path, stripping his body of valuables and pulling his earrings from his ears before dropping it on a pile of rope. His men scattered before me, but I paid them no heed. Any man I recognized from my time on the ship was already dead.

The Captain and his ship pulled up alongside with the rising sun. I stood waiting for them, blood drying on my body and making me feel like I would crack. I watched the Captain take in my naked form, the tally marks that showed how many I had killed lined up on my chest like pride, like shame, like nothing but numbers. It was a ritual to me. It was something I did to strike fear into the hearts of men, nothing more. I did not know what it meant to the Captain to see those red marks mingled with the ones he had placed on me so few hours ago.

He frowned, eyes glancing past me to the carnage that spread across the deck. "You made a mess," he stated drily.

I shrugged. Did he expect vengeance to be clean?

"Well." He turned back to me briskly. "Are we done here?"

"Almost." I looked behind him and found Sneg, waiting. Hovering. "Where's Natch."

"Fucking puking." They strode past me onto the deck, carrying their memories on their body in a false nothing that was so violent, so painful to watch. "I told you this would fuck him up."

I said nothing, just watched as they made their way below deck.

"What are they doing?" the Captain asked me.

"What needs to be done." I didn't know what that was. Sneg would know. Sneg would make it happen.

For a long time there was nothing but silence and the creaking of the ships. Then screams began to work their way up from below deck. The Captain shot me a worried look.

"They know what their doing," I told him. I trusted Sneg.

"This isn't the way we do things," he told me softly. I knew what he was saying; his men would have questions. This looked like slaughter. This was slaughter. And I might trust Sneg and he might trust me and his men might trust him, but through how many iterations can trust pass before it's stretched too thin?

I didn't have answers. I could speak to my own vengeance; I couldn't answer for Sneg and Natch's. I wouldn't, not without their permission.

"Cap." Finn was at our elbows. "What are we doing?"

It was at that moment that the first of the children ran from below deck.

There was no reason to have children on your ship, not a ship like that. Family ships, ones that held men and women and entire groups of life, those had children. The ships in the south that were entire villages, or the ones in the east that seemed to be all one extended family.

This was no family ship. There should not have been children. Finn knew it. The Captain knew it. He reached out to me and took my hand, his eyes hard on the way the small bodies ducked as they rushed through the door like they were sure the sunlight would hurt. At first Finn swore each time another would rush into the light, blinking and skinny and afraid, but he ran out of curses. Or maybe out of heart.

There were too many children.

Sneg followed them up, their white clothes stained with blood, a girl no older than thirteen at her side. The girl held a blade that was also covered in blood.

"Listen to me," Sneg shouted, their voice carrying with the help of the things they carried within. The men on the deck cowered. "Every single one of you is complicit in this. Every fucking one. I see you. We know you. The only reason you aren't dead is because I didn't know you when I was here." They pointed at the child at their side. "But she knows you, she knows you here and now. And if she points to you." Their eyes flashed. The sea in me quivered in response. "You die."

There were no questions. There was no argument. The girl pointed to man after man and they stood silent, or ran, or plead, but Sneg was not a being of compassion or perhaps no longer even a being and they died, one after another, and we stood and watched them silently.

When Sneg was finished, there were still enough men to run the ship.

Just.

The children were now armed and understood their power. Sneg had gathered them all to them, had brought each and every one to a conference at their feet and I watched, satisfied, as the things within them spread out over those small charges and promised protection and watchfulness.

As I watched so, too, did the men that were left. They did not look satisfied so much as terrified. When Sneg was finished with their task, I took a man who looked vaguely competent aside and gave him his instructions. He was to take his charges to Hyrun where they were to seek out Donar. Donar would find them a place to live, shelter and food and families. Donar was solid; he had shown that to me when he had refused to be afraid of the sea.

The man nodded unhappily. I did not bother to tell him what would happen if he did not follow my instructions. The carnage on the deck made that clear.

Sneg walked over to the pile of rope where I had let the head from the body that used to be Yarrick fall. They picked it up, inspecting it as if looking for some shred of understanding, some closure. I stood back and let them be.

"Bastard," they finally said, walked over to the side of the ship, and then he was gone into the unforgiving sea.

***

I made my way first to the Captain as our ship pulled away from the bounty ship. I didn't know what this would have meant to him. It had not been his vengeance. It had not been his violence. I wanted to touch him, to make sure he still understood that I was safe, that I was real, that whatever else I might be I was his, his forever.

Those eyebrows slammed down as I came towards him, causing my stomach to drop with anxiety. But he merely sniffed and shook his head. "Bathe. You smell like blood."

I nodded, suddenly afraid that my show of brutality had shaken something loose in the things we had become. My hands shook as I headed below decks. Never, never before had I reacted like this to a fight. Not since I was a child and killing was first introduced to me had I wondered what death might mean to those around me; I killed, and those that decided to exist in my periphery took that as they would. It was part of my life. It was my way.

But the Captain was my world. And if he did not accept my life, if he took exception to the way I existed? I would be split in two.

"Ghost." I froze at the sound of my name; my eyes were still adjusting to the dark. My head swung slowly towards the source of the sound, letting my pupils grow until they took in enough light and I saw Natch crouched at the end of a small hallway.

"Natch."

"I didn't. I couldn't." His arms were wrapped up tight around each other. I had never seen him so affected by something before, never seen him allow himself to appear so emotional. It brought my attention to him with a clarity that surprised me. "Is that his blood?"

Natch knew that I marked mens' deaths on my skin. I had told him as much when I taught him how to ghost; it was a part of that. I pointed to the final tally that marred my chest. He drew in a breath.

"So he's dead."

"Sneg dropped his head into the sea," I told him. "He went in with no silver, not even lead."

"Fuck." I watched the small blonde collapse in on himself. "Thank you, Ghost."

I was uncomfortable with his thanks, didn't like the way it sat in front of me like I had earned some prize for doing what I would have done anyway, and told him as much. "It was my vengeance. He wronged me."

He didn't seem to hear me. "I couldn't do it. I fucking froze, I wasn't strong enough and." He shook his head.

Sneg's words were harsh in my ear and on my soul as I saw the ways this has broken Natch. I took a breath. "You weren't expected to. You never should have had to. This was something that was for me, Natch. Your strength came in surviving, it comes in the fact that you're still alive and he is not." His eyes slowly came up to mine. I hoped I was saying the right words. I hoped Sneg would say better ones to him later. "It doesn't take strength to kill those that wrong you, Natch. That is just the way I am, it has nothing to do with my strength. That is simply a truth. An extension of my being." I tried to see if this was having any effect on him and could not tell. "You're a different being. You should not do the same things I do; it wouldn't be right."

"I can't do the things you do," he was quick to say.

"I wouldn't expect you to," I told him. "You aren't me."

He took a deep breath, thinking through my words for the entirety of the inhale. When he let it out he also allowed some of the tension to leave his body, his arms and shoulders slowly falling with his chest. "Okay." I don't know that he was talking to me. "Okay."

Then; "Oh, fuck. You're naked."

I was. And covered in blood. "I was just on my way to get cleaned up."

"I should let you go." He stood there, arms relaxed, hands and face and being still so tense. I wondered what kind of damage I had done to his soul with my existence. "Yeah."

I turned to go.

"Ghost?" I paused mid-turn. "Thank you."

The thanks still felt wrong. I accepted it anyway. "Aye, Natch. Of course."

***

The Captain found me in his room, hauling my body back through the window with the aid of a rope I had tied to his bed frame.

He laughed to see me, dripping and frozen half-in and half-out of his window. "Now you'll smell of the sea."

"I needed to wash," I muttered and finished my entrance. At least he wasn't acting like my actions earlier had driven something between us. I was still cautious as I moved around him to find a towel.

The Captain was not. He grabbed me around my waist, toppling us onto the bed. "I'll get you wet," I pretended to complain. My arms were already wrapped around his neck, his waist.

He wrapped his legs around me in response and smiled. "Good." His nose slid across my neck. "I want to be whatever you are. If you're wet and smell like the ocean, then I want to be wet and smell like the ocean."

I carefully ran my hand down his back, my words forming slowly in my mind around the grains of sand he had slipped there earlier. "What if I smell of blood?"

He pulled back to give me a look, one eyebrow raised. "Then I'll smell of blood."

I hummed a soft acceptance but still didn't feel content, somehow. My fingers slowly traced over his back, looking for something I didn't know how to find.

"Sailor." He sat up, looking down at me. "What's on your mind?"

I didn't answer, merely continued to pull currents over his shoulders. He was here, he was in my arms. This was good. I didn't want to mess this up with my worries.

He was staring me down, his eyes taking in every inch of my scarred body. I didn't let his eyes land on mine for long. "Something's bothering you."

I shrugged. Something was, but I had never been the most verbose individual even in my joy. Bringing this up seemed superfluous.

"Hey." He pulled my chin toward him until our eyes met. "Talk to me."

It wasn't a command. I could have not spoken, if that was what I wanted.

I found that I didn't.

It was hard, still, to speak to him. To speak to anyone. Not like this. And so at first I merely reached up and grabbed hold of him, pulling him into my chest so that I could hold him tight. I wanted him to just know, I wanted things to just be right.

But the world was rarely so easy, even when love was involved. And so I nestled his head beneath my chin and took a breath.

"I was." How to put it? What were the right words to say? "I was so violent."

He stirred slightly in my arms. I held him tight, not wanting to lose him. Afraid of what this might bring up.

"Of course you were." His voice worked its way up from my neck, tickled up past my chin and into my ear. "You're the sea."

He said it like I existed it, like it was. Simple. Easy. Accepted.

How could I have ever believed he would react like any other man? He was the Captain; he was the sky. He held my truths, eternal and endless and ephemeral, and still there was room for so much more. I sighed deeply in content, in relief, and settled myself around him like flowing water.

"Were you worried?" I nodded. "About me seeing you like that?" I nodded again. "I suppose, I mean there's knowing and there's seeing. I knew you were the ghost of the North, and that you did that shit with the blood. And there's hearing the rumors and then there's seeing the actual fucking being, standing tall and real and fucking terrifying, covering in the blood of enemies. Our enemies." He dropped a kiss on my collarbone and my waters rippled. "But I always knew you were like this, love. Even before you told me you were the ghost. You're the sea. Sometimes you'll be calm and beautiful and safe, and the next moment you'll take down islands." There was a perfect mixture of awe and mundanity in that statement; this is how it is. It's incredible. It is our life. Isn't it amazing? "Seeing you like that isn't a surprise, and it doesn't scare me."

I buried my face into his thick black hair and wondered how I had gotten so lucky.

"Besides, that wasn't all you can do. Right? You can go much, much more violent than that." He pushed away from me until he could search my face. "I'm right, aren't I? That was nothing. That was. Mortal."

I brought my hand to his face and slid it along his cheek. Mortal, I thought. There is nothing mortal about our love.

Instead of answering his question, I addressed something he had said earlier. "You didn't always know."

He frowned up at me, trying to figure out what I was talking about.

"You used to believe I was no different than the other men," I chastised him softly. A smile began playing at my lips as I saw indignance spread over his expressive eyebrows. "You believed I could be a prisoner. You thought ropes could keep me."

He flipped me so that he straddled my hips as I laughed, his face now easy and amused. "And can't they?" He caught my wrists in his hands, bringing them above his head. He leaned down close to my face, a grin soft and sharp and violent in its love. "Don't my knots keep you, my love?"

"You keep me," I murmured into his lips. "I'd stay forever for you."

He kissed me then, long and deep and dark. I tasted promises on his lips and wondered what they were. I felt love between his teeth and knew it was all for me, only for me.

"Forever?" he asked when he pulled away. I met his eyes and saw them so dark.

Uh-oh, I had time to think before there was a knock on the door.

"Ah, fuck." He sighed as he swung himself away from me. "You'd think they'd have this shit figured out by now. What?" he snapped as he opened the door.

I smiled, feeling his touch sink past my skin and become part of my soul, and then I too made my way from the bed in search of clothes.

***

Cookie was getting more and more nervous the closer we got to to my home.

"You know I don't like this," he said as he made his way back into the kitchen for dinner on the fourth day. He had been sneaking around the ship, placing protections where he thought they would be most needed. I had told him there was no need to hide, that the Captain would understand, but he wasn't ready to reveal his identity just yet.

"I got my place on this ship because I was a nobody," he told me. "I wanna stay that way. If they knew who I'd sailed with, who I'd trained under -"

"The Captain sailed under the King," I reminded him. "Most of these men come from the King's fleet."

"Aye," Cookie responded hotly. "But there's a difference between sailing under and sailing with, boy."

I shrugged. I wasn't so sure that the Captain hadn't sailed with the King, not with the way he carried his words so personally. I was, however, sure that Cookie had not sailed with the King. "I'm sure the Captain would understand. Besides, I doubt they even still tell the stories of how your ship -"