The Pirate King Ch. 17

I pressed a hand to my face to stop my torrent of thought, pressed from my body by the weight of family so close by.Family I thought, now with more than a hint of sourness. I had not meant to become so riled by the mere question of the prophecy, but I had worn those words on my skin since my father had found me adrift at sea and they were perhaps more tied to my sense of self than I allowed myself to admit. If no one brought up those words to me ever again I would be happy. If I never had to hear about the stupid prophecy I could live out my death in peace.

"I want to leave it behind," I told the Captain now, unable to see how he might have reacted to this tirade with my hand over my eyes. "I want to be allowed to exist without the strings of others' words, just once. Just once."

I felt the Captain's hand tugging at my arm but I resisted, unsure and still feeling raw. It was only when he became more insistent, my name added to the velocity of his movements, that I allowed him to lower my arm and restore my sight. I still did not look down at him, my eyes steadfast across the room.

"Come here." He spoke softly and it was not a command but a wish, and I don't know who's wish it was, mine or his but I followed it instantly, my body sinking into his arms and he held me in the safety of his arms and whispered the stories of the ocean, children's stories, pub talk, incredible tales had drawn my scorn, my ire, my annoyance and amusement, that I had lived once and heard a thousand times over but I had never heard them like that. Never like that, spaced out in the cracks of a world that wouldn't let me die.

I didn't say another word the rest of the night, just laid in the arms of the man I loved as he took my past into his mouth and made it ours.

***

Natch had been warned not to sail into the atoll that was my family's shelter. For one, it was too shallow for our ship; for another, the cracks of the world might splinter under the load of all that we carried.

He came down in the morning to find the Captain and I still awake, the Captain sitting at his desk writing in the kind of frustration the latent energy of this place brought on, and I, sitting on the floor at his side, shaking with quiet emotion that no words could describe. I simply was. The world here understood that, and it made it so, so much worse.

Natch stepped back when he saw us, a moment of surprise on his face. Perhaps even fear. He was smart, that boy, understood the ways of the world and more importantly the energy of spaces. He knew that we were operating in a different way that we usually did; he saw the sharpening of our cores even as our edges blurred with the speed of our vibrations.

"We're here," he told us, voice hesitant. The Captain waved his hand and he moved on without a fuss. We knew. I think he understood that. "They're putting down the boat now, you can leave whenever you want."

The Captain stood up immediately. "Then let's go."

I moved more slowly, feeling the way my limbs held echoes of themselves in the promises this place whispered. I silently handed the Captain the knife I had been holding, one of the many blades he wore at his waist, then nodded. My quiet assent was all the Captain needed.

"Good. We're off."

"Will you be taking -"

"Wait for us for three days," the Captain told him, not seeming to notice he'd cut off the blonde's question. "If we're not back by then, head back into the Ephretes for three days, then return." We'd discussed this and decided three days was as long as the ship could stay here safely, especially with beings such as Sneg and Ichor on board. I did not mention Alan and the protections he was weaving; there was no need, and my silence had been asked of me. If it became something the Captain needed to know, I would tell him. For now, Alan's secret was safe.

Natch nodded his understanding as we moved through the halls. I saw Ichor leaning in a doorway, arms crossed. He nodded at me as I passed; my chin dipped down in return.

"Do you need supplies?" Natch was asking. The Captain ignored him. I'm not sure he even heard him in the swirl of everything else that was existing, spreading, crashing down. The world had never seemed so loud. The universe had never demanded so much. I spared a moment to wonder if it was my connection to this man that made me so much more sensitive than I had been before, or if perhaps the world was truly cracking for real, the ancient mystics proven right, their vindication found in endless darkness as the sea fell through the holes of reality.

"Ready?" I came back to this world, to this reality, to see the Captain standing by the ropes that lead down to a small boat. I had once carried him back to the ship, drunk and loving, in a boat like this.

"Of course," I told him. We were going home.

"You first." He motioned for me to climb down.

I took a look down the rope ladder. It would take a long, long time to arrive at the boat in that way.

I smiled at the Captain, placed a hand on his shoulder, and jumped.

When the Captain met me in the boat some time later, he was grumbling. "Have to be so fucking dramatic," I heard him mutter. I could have said the same thing for him, replacing dramatic with slow, but I chose instead to concentrate on disentangling our ropes from that of the main ship and getting us on our way.

I rowed, setting our pace at a tranquil version of determined, knowing our direction without having to turn and look. The Captain sat across from me, eyes hard on our destination. I know what he saw but not how he saw it; I had seen this so many times, had taken it in as home, as safety. What must it look like for the first time? It had been so long I could no longer remember. Had I ever not known this place?

"Do you like it?" I asked quietly as I rowed.

"How could I not?" His eyes were roving the beach. I saw them stop at a certain point and travel up and down and knew he had come to my home, to the boards I had helped erect, the structure my hands had created. "It feels so much like you."

I let myself smile for a moment before concentrating on the task at hand. Surprisingly, the press of everything seemed to lessen the closer we got to the shore; perhaps we had been in a crossroads, a strange slipstream. I hoped those on board who could feel such things would be alright.

Soon we reached the sandbar, the boat sliding up against the crunching sand with intent and a sigh. "This is as far as we can go," I told the Captain, already climbing over the side. He took my hand and followed my lead, eyes dark and careful, mouth pressed tight like he was afraid of swallowing the things this place could make you.

"There's smoke from the house." I didn't turn to see what he was speaking of. It was to be expected that someone would be home. I had not bothered to warn Val of our arrival, but the ocean would have carried my tidings faster than any missive could have and Val would have known I was coming. I pulled the dinghy further onto the sandbar; it was high tide, and where I settled it I knew it would stay. I asked the sea to care for it just in case. "How old did you say your daughter was?"

I hadn't. "Eight."

"Ah." He paused for a moment. "Light brown skin, curly hair like Cass?"

I whirled just in time to see Sybil splashing towards us, laughing, her little legs struggling to churn their way through the water. "Pappa!"

I smiled and spread my arms, only to watch the small blur rocket right past me to latch onto the Captain's legs. I turned to take in his shocked body, muscles tight and face frozen, and tried my best not to laugh.

"Sybil." My amusement caused her name to sound anything but stern. "That isn't his name."

Her reply was muffled by the Captain's thigh. "He said it was okay."

"He did say, or he will say?"

No response. The Captain stared at me helplessly, his hands still held up as if he were surrendering to an enemy. Well, he might well have been. I tried to hide my smile at the expression on his face.

"You can't just will something into the present because you wish it to be true, little one."

"I'm not." She turned her face to look up at the Captain with a smile that I knew was dangerous. "Am I?"

Those arms slowly fell, the shock on his body melting in the face of Sybil. "No. She's right, it's okay."

Syb turned back to me, beaming her triumph. "See?"

I sighed, but there was nothing but happiness in the motion. "You can't say something from the future to make it happen in the present."

"Why not?"

"It." It seemed dangerous. But then again, what did I know? Instead of answering the child, I looked up to the Captain. "Are you alright?"

"I think so." He still looked a bit shocked.

"There are things that are set," Sybil was saying, "and things that are shifty. This was shifty, and I wanted it shifted." She beamed up at the Captain, garnering a wary smile in response. "Shifty things are more fun."

"Who taught you this?" I asked, genuinely curious. Cass had never mentioned anything like this before.

Syb huffed as if I had just asked the most ridiculous question in the world, then grabbed the Captain's hand. "Come on. Uvu is making fish for dinner. He'll burn it, but he's making enough cuz I told him you'd be here. I told him that last night, too," she confided in the Captain, "cuz he was making my favorite and I wanted lots." She paused, then looked back at me, a sheepish expression on her face. "Sorry for me eating all of it because now you didn't get any."

I smiled and tousled her curls, flipping her smile back effectively and causing her to lurch forward again, the Captain's hand still tight in hers. "Did you forget I couldn't have any even though I wasn't there yet?"

"No, I did not, I just." She let out a little puff of annoyance, her brows drawn down in annoyance. "Maybe? But youare there, Da." Those big eyes looked up to me imploringly. "You're there but you didn't get any of the food because you're here instead."

"Jesus," I heard the Captain mutter. "She's your daughter alright." I turned to frown at him, not sure what he meant, but in the momentary lack of concentration I nearly went down in a hole so I went back to focusing on on my feet.

Val met us at the beach, his arms crossed. "You could have fucking -" he started, looking annoyed, but I cut him off with a raised hand.

"Your fish."

Val's face fell open from mild annoyance into full-blown panic, his hands flying up and his scarves streaming back as he turned on his heel and raced back into the house.

"Not in time," Sybil informed us sadly. I shrugged and followed Val into the house.

The smell of smoke greeted me as I entered the main room, small wisps drifting from the kitchen telling me that Val had burned the fish quite badly. The room was much the same as the last time I was there, down the the cross bolts stuck into the wall. I ran my fingers over the feathered ends. "You left these up."

"Fuck," I could hear from the kitchen. The Captain was hesitating in the doorway behind me, his eyes roving all over the interior of my home. I let him have his moment of indecision, or pause, or inspection. Whatever it was, it was important that he feel safe in this space. In my child's home.

Our family's home.

"Well, that's for shit." Val emerged from the kitchen to lean in the doorway. "I hope you're not starving because it's gonna take me a second to throw something else together."

The Captain's eyes had slipped from the wall of crossbow bolts and moved to the mechanism that fired them, leaning up against the wall. "So you're the one who shoots trespassers," he murmured, almost to himself.

"It's more dangerous for them to be alive here," Val returned without emotion. The Captain's head shot up like he'd forgot Val was there, then he looked over at me as if looking for my opinion on the matter. I merely shrugged. What Val had said was true. "And it's a good deterrent, the story."

"It is a good story," the Captain acceded. "The crossbow man, the fucking Worm. Christ." He ran a hand through his hair, his eyes roving the room again. He didn't seem to notice how Val had gone stiff at the mention of the name. "Are you just every one of my boogeymen, Val? The impetus for all my foolish nightmares?"

I think he meant it as a joke, perhaps, or a simple observation, but there was something about the way he said it. A sharpness. And in this space, in all the ways the world was acting and not allowing us to do the same, in all the different spaces Val and the Captain had found themselves interacting before this moment, his words were no simple anything.

Val drew himself up. "I don't know," he responded, his voice the wrong kind of joking. A return of all the sharpness the Captain had sent his way, tenfold. A hundred fold. Cold. "Do your nightmares also contain beautiful men fucking you? Because I'll have you know, that's about the only threat I pose."

But the Captain didn't even look at him. "They do, actually," he responded. His eyes continued to take in every inch of my home. "Usually beating me as well." He finally allowed his eyes to rest on Val; my brother was standing stock still, the ghosts of his indignation melting at his feet. "I can cook if you don't want to. I'm not the best, but you shouldn't have to make two meals in one night, especially since it was our arrival that ruined the first one."

Val was still staring at the Captain, unsure what to say. I gently moved over and took the Captain's hand in mine, feeling the way he was tense, so tense.

"Papa." I looked down. "No, Da. Notyou." Sybil sighed as if my attention was causing her a major inconvenience. "I said Papa." When the Captain didn't respond, she tugged gently at his sleeve. "That's you."

He looked down at her almost mechanically.

"We gotta talk," she told him solemnly.

He looked out of place, out of time. Out of focus. I wanted to pull him tight to me until he found himself in the pieces he'd given me for safekeeping, but I wasn't sure he was ready for my touch with the way he held himself so tight, so stiff. "Now?"

I headed off that line of thought before Sybil could take it and run. "It's best just to do what she says when she says it. She doesn't operate in timelines like we do, my love." He was staring at me with a look that did not make me confident he was hearing anything I had said. I carefully drew him towards me until his hands brushed my hipbones. He let them rest there, his eyes pointing towards my chest but seeing something else entirely.

"Papa," Sybil repeated.

The Captain ignored her. "I don't want to be gone from you." His fingers found the briefest purchase on my hips, one hand twining into my shirt. "I don't want to be separate."

"My love," I murmured, my hands over his.

"I don't trust...time...in this place." He said it like he wasn't sure it was the right thing to say. He said it like he couldn't say anything else. "Every since we got here I feel like the past is so much closer than it has any right to be. Like its just one step away, one fucking. I don't know." He glanced behind me as if he was looking for something. "It feels like it could be here," he whispered.

My hands squeezed on his. "It can't," I assured him. "It isn't."

"But what if it could be?" I heard him whisper.

"Sybil is the only one who can travel like that, and she brings none of it with her."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"Captain-sir-papa," Sybil said impatiently. I looked down at her, one brow raised. "We gotta gonow."

The Captain hesitated. I could feel it on his body, in my soul. "Go," I told him gently. "I'll be right here." I meant in the room, in the house, but I also meant at his side. In his soul. Wherever he needed me, whenever he needed me. My lips dropped gently to the top of his head to seal the promise.

He sighed, once. Lightly. Then he turned and was gone, moving with an air of confidence that I knew to be nothing but smoke.

Val watched him head out the door, hand in hand with my daughter. He pressed a hand to his face, causing his multicolored scarf to flutter. "That was insensitive of me."

"You couldn't have known."

"I should have." Val sighed. "I did."

I frowned at him. I hadn't even known, not so clearly - I had seen the Captain flinch at words, at actions, had watched the way he sometimes drew into himself like he needed space from those around him. I knew what that could mean. What it had meant it men I had met before. So I had an idea, a possibility, and the Captain had spoken words to me about his past, yes, and then there had been the night he had been drunk, but even then, even now I did notknow. "How?"

"There is." Val frowned like he wasn't sure how much he was supposed to say, then gave a small, graceful shrug and continued as if he hadn't paused at all. "A certain type of person who knows my reputation. The bad one, the Worm one. And that type of person doesn't have a rainbow and sunshine kind of life. That type of person is the type that someone needed scared. The type someone didn't want running off to find me, a person who could have helped them get out."

"Get out," I repeated. "Out of the industry. The side of the industry that you don't run." At Val's nod I leaned back on the doorframe, crossing my arms as the full weight of what Val was insinuating settled on my body. "You're saying he sold himself."

"More likely that someone sold him. I'm just saying -" Val paused, hands up, at the sight of my face. "I'm saying," he continued, words very careful, "that he must have at least been industry adjacent. That doesn't mean he was a worker. He could have been a mule, or a seller, or a bodyguard. Or a really good friend of any of those people. But he was tapped into the industry, and tapped in deep to have reacted that viscerally to just the sight of me." He took a moment, his eyes searching mine. "Do you know how he might have gotten out?"

"Does it matter?" I knew it did not. If it was, the Captain would have already told me. None of this mattered past how the Captain wore it on his body, past how I could gather the worst parts of it, push it away, and make sure he never went back to that place again. My fingers tapped at my leg as I imagined killing slavers and wondered why the Captain had never wished for his own revenge, why he had never directed us to kill any man.

"No, it's just." Val did a small head bobble as he thought about what he wanted to say next. "It's hard to get out of that life style. You're usually bought out of it, and the price is steep. To go from working - or knowing someone who worked, because even then in that section of the world, they don't let you leave, you know too much shit - to sailing, and not just sailing, but captaining a pirate ship, and under Dreyfus no less, the man who ran that part of the world..." Val shook his head.

Something was tasting like metal on my tongue. Like pain. Like confluences that I didn't want to see. Currents that should never touch. My fingers tapped faster.

The Captain had asked for the death of exactly one man.

"He knew Dreyfus," I voiced. Far from me, in a spot on the sea that I never truly ever stopped paying attention to, two waves hit so hard it sounded like thunder.

"We all knew Dreyfus. Everyone fucking knew Dreyfus. He's kind of hard to miss, with all the -" Val froze. "Knew knew, likeknew, or knew?"

"He repeats his words sometimes." I didn't want to make the conclusions that I was making, so instead I focused on giving the information to Val and hoped he would come to different ones. The waves were growing. The sky would be dark. "He knows the way he thinks, the names of the men he kept at his side."

Val cursed. He leaned up against the wall, his hand worrying at the end of his braid. "You don't think - you know how he was with -"