***
Sehyun Han and Aeryn Branche
November 3, 1800

"This is some incredible nonsense," said Han, sipping the soup with an expression nastier than what lay on his spoon. "Dead chickens probably taste better."

"All meat is dead, Captain. It's hard for you to eat disgusting meat, so every dead animal you've consumed is tasty as per your standards. Obviously, this tastes horrible. It's a blend of your least favourite ingredients." 

Suzy sighed, trying hard to ignore the expression Sehyun wore. Had Sehyun looked like a normal adult rather than a seventeen-year-old child, Suzy would have not gone through the hassle of preparing the soup and begging him to drink it. Had he acted and appeared as an adult rather than an adolescent, she wouldn't have been reminded of a younger brother every time they had a non-work-related conversation. 

Sehyun's leg started to bounce under his desk to take his attention away from the horrid smell of the broth. His butt hurt from sitting so long, his nose could no longer take the reek, he was sweaty, and he was too uncomfortable. He wished these problems were easy to solve aboard a pirate ship. 

His eyes dashed around his room, looking for a distraction. All he saw was how much he needed to tidy up, but he never ran out of excuses. 

"This is for your health, Captain. I found the recipe in one of your medical books, so I don't know why you're complaining," she said exasperated. She too was uncomfortable having to witness Han's stubbornness and messy room. She wanted to bring it up, but she knew his being ill would allow him to simply say no. 

"I wrote that without the expectations of drinking such a monstrosity. Besides, my body can fix itself."

Suzy grabbed her forehead. "But you said it works to cure some of your symptoms in the footnotes, so think positive and gulp it down."

Han dropped the spoon into the bowl, scowling at it as if it had murdered a loved one. "No."

She tapped the side of her thigh, thinking of a way to get him to comply. "I won't let you meet Marty when we arrive at the port."

Immediately, after a glance of betrayal, Han took the bowl, clogged his nose, and downed the contents. "If I puke, you're cleaning it up."

"I would have done that regardless, but sure."

Sehyun snatched the glass of water from Suzy's hand, the one meant for Aeryn who had a sore throat. The one meant for the ex-captain who lay asleep in Han's top bunk—the only one who'd come in his room and not comment on the mess. 

The only redeeming quality she had in Han's eyes. 

"Captain, you mustn't—"

He'd already finished the water.

"In your book, you clearly wrote that nothing is to be consumed afterwards."

Sehyun cracked a smile because it was the only thing he was brave enough to do. He couldn't bring himself to say, Suzy, that's precisely why I took it. He couldn't risk having to drink another bowl.  

The quartermaster sighed once again and decided to change the subject. If only Han wasn't so childish. "We'll arrive at Marty's pick-up location within three hours approximately."

"So in the morning?"

"Yes. I suggest you get some sleep, Captain, otherwise your day will go by groggy." Suzy collected the empty dishes and made to leave Han's room.

"Stay for a while," he said, neither sleepy nor entertained at the moment. Suzy's company would be better than nothing until the waves lulled him to sleep.

"I have to fetch Miss Branche another glass of water since you drank hers," Suzy said, gesturing at the sleeping former captain of the White Crow on Han's top bunk.

The poor soul had been sleeping in and out for two days straight. She woke only to eat, sleep, and relieve herself, and she kept her conversation limited to Suzy in the form of "Thank you," or "Can you please..." 

Aeryn tried to engage small talk once and learned she was to never do that again in either Suzy's or Han's presence. 

But what truly set Sehyun back was Aeryn's lack of emotional response to what had happened. Only he was allowed to do that. That was his thing. And Suzy's thing. He never took Aeryn for someone so emotionally distant.

He'd assumed that everyone on the ship died, including the only sensible member of the ship, Erel. So why did she show no signs of any vulnerability? Was she in denial? Was she weak-minded? Was she being careful around Sehyun and his crew? Or above all, did she not remember?

Aeryn had once mentioned something about a child named Brooks before the attack and he'd met the child with wondrous eyes and freckles. He must've died too. 

Yet Aeryn didn't look like someone who felt the absence of a child. 

What caused her immunity to such a large event?

Han needed to know in case he ever admitted to himself that emotions and feelings aren't villains in his story. 

Suzy left after pushing most of the mess to a corner of the room, the click of the door snapping both Han and Aeryn to their senses.

Aeryn groaned. 

Han's first instinct was to ask her to shut her mouth and be quiet—a habit he hadn't been able to rub off even after limited communication with his brother who'd been the cause—but currently, he was her physician before anything else. 

He observed Aeryn as she shifted around in the sheets, uncomfortable either in her dream or her body. Sehyun didn't want to approach her, afraid she might catch his illness—why this thought came to him confused him—so he called for Suzy instead.

Suzy didn't hear him and returned much after with a second glass of water. Seeing Han staring at her upon her entrance, she wanted to throw the glass at his face and ask him why exactly she was running errands for him when her position in the ship was above that. Why it didn't bother her as much as she thought it would.

"What is it, Captain?" she asked, her brows rising in concern, but her eyes remained stagnant. The only sign that Suzy wasn't capable of emotions. She did very well in understanding them, using them to her advantage, but around Han she put in a half-hearted effort, knowing Sehyun wouldn't care if she cried and comforted rather than solve problems and search for solutions. He actually preferred the latter.

"Check to see if she's alright."

As if on cue, Aeryn sat up, her hands already fixing her hair and her eyes darting around to scan her surroundings. "Where am I?"

"The same place you were in last time," Sehyun replied rather annoyed. Just seeing her face reminded him of how loud she'd snored at night. He'd gone as far as to sleep in the barracks with the crew, but that was worse. He'd roamed the deck of the Black Egret, striking up a conversation with Owly and the night crew to keep himself awake. Anything to avoid her snores. The mere memory of the sound sent chills up his spine.

Now, every time he blinked, his eyes burned with exhaustion, and he wished he'd simply woken her up rather than allow her to slumber. 

Suzy offered a more pleasant voice and answered Aeryn's question with ease. "You're on the Black Egret."

Aeryn looked around the room. When her shoulders dropped, recognizing the room as Han's, she asked, "Can I have some water, please?"

Sehyun mocked her words, mouthing them much like a toddler. "'Can I have some water, please?' she says." It reminded him of Jaehyun Han. That little monster had everything handed to him on a silver platter. But what bothered him most was when Sehyun asked for some water, he was told to fetch it himself, but when Jaehyun asked, he was given the choice of juice as well. 

"Captain, you're not helping." Suzy then handed the auburn-haired, heavily dishevelled former captain the water and helped her down from the bunk.

"Do you plan on actually staying awake this time?" Han taunted. 

Aeryn scowled at him. It was so natural it seemed more of a reflex than anything else. "I don't know. It truly depends on how bad my doctor is--" she coughed heavily, the expression fake but enough to convince Suzy.

Han dropped his jaw. the audacity Aeryn had far outweighed every other living being. 

The quartermaster rubbed her back, smiling once Aeryn subsided her fake-coughing. "Is there anything else you need, Aeryn?"

She shook her head. 

Han tightened the blanket around him. "Find another room to sleep in, Aeryn. I haven't slept in weeks because of you and the pig living up your nose."

Offended, Aeryn spoke in a higher pitch. "Are you suggesting I snore?"

"Suggesting? I'm stating."

"Isn't it a doctor's duty to keep their patient their top priority?"

"Not when the doctor isn't licensed or free of any oath."

Aeryn scoffed. "Do you take pride in that?"

"Do you take pride in looking like a bird's nest?" He smiled. "I must say, it's a much better look than your captain's hat--" He bit his tongue to cut off his sentence, but the damage had been done. That statement was offensive in a way that took the fun out of their banter.

She'd lost everything dear to her, and he'd just made a joke about it. He was so used to joking about his own troubles that he'd forgotten that jokes could be offensive. 

Not that he would ever show he actually cared. Han would never show anyone anything other than a smile, smirk, or an intense gaze of focus. Anything else and he would lose his reputation.

Aeryn balled her fist before following Suzy's lead to the dining room. Trying to lighten the mood, Suzy said, "I asked the chef to make lighter foods for you, Aeryn."

Sehyun raised a brow. "You said you asked the chef to make lighter foods for me."

"Yes, of course, Captain."

Suzy escorted Aeryn of the room, leaving behind a cranky Han who wanted his food solely to be his.

"How did you even know she was going to wake up tonight?" he asked at no one in particular, hoping Suzy had heard somehow. "This is nonsense."

Sehyun looked at the space next to him. "Don't you think it's unfair that I have to do everything? I saved her—not once, but twice—and I got a second dot on my face in doing so. I saved the life of someone I was supposed to kill, and now I've been suffering from this," he gestured at his red nose and puffy eyes, "because of that."

The second dot, courtesy of whoever was giving out curses to pirate captains. Every time a captain went against the instructions of the curse, they would receive a mark somewhere on their face, and after three strikes, death followed. Sehyun's mark was black dots under the tail of his eyes. He would've been angrier if they were ugly. 

Had Suzy or Aeryn been watching Sehyun complain, they would have assumed he was talking to a ghost.

He was actually speaking to nothing. Speaking with himself—speaking with the Han he imagined standing over there. It was a habit he'd grown into after no one opened their ears to listen to him. It was a behaviour he'd adapted the day he realized that the only one who listened to him and cared for him was himself.

And occasionally his younger brother, but Sehyun hadn't met Jaehyun in years. He'd probably grown a thought process and opinions of his own, and they couldn't have been any different from everyone else's view on the world.

The only thing Han could do was wish he would stay alive to see the day where his opinions were accepted or at least considered before being shut down.

Suddenly frustrated, Sehyun blew out every candle and left a sign on the door asking no one to come in before they arrived at their destination and slid into his bottom bunk.

Falling asleep after many minutes of unnecessary thinking was the hardest thing Sehyun had done that day, even with his body begging for rest the entirety of the morning.

***

As soon as dawn broke, the Black Egret arrived at Belises Port. Rather, one of their smaller boats did.

On the boat was Suzy, Han with a blanket around his shoulders and a hot mug of tea in his hands, and a few crew members to row the boat.

Aeryn had opted to stay in bed for another day before starting any crucial activities. She took his apathetic advice to rest a bit too seriously when it was obviously sarcastic. 

Aeryn had not provided a reason as to why. She simply stared at Han's desk oddly. She'd done it multiple times a day because Aeryn had picked up on Sehyun's worry. 

Ever since Sehyun received a letter from Juele that sent him into worry, Han couldn't make his stress more visible—which was saying something considering the man was calm as a swan when Kronos and Cronas showed up.

Sehyun had spent the morning pacing back and forth, twirling his pen around, and reading the letter over and over again.

Aeryn didn't bother asking what was on it. It was better if she didn't.

But her curiosity got the best of her.

Once Han and his quartermaster left to retrieve Marty—Sehyun had gone as far as to cross his fingers, hoping Marty hung around the area—Aeryn's first movement was to reach for Juele's letter on Han's desk.

To Sehyun,

I'd rather clean horse excrement than spend another day in Auber's castle, to be very honest. I apologize for the vulgar analogy, but I could not think of anything else.

I'm nearly positive you'll meet Maya or Illorin or Reyna or Iona around the time you receive this letter, so I'll let them do most of the explaining. The situation is a little difficult to explain on paper, but when we meet two months from now on New Year, I'll be sure to provide an answer to every one of your questions.

Before I forget, please tell Aeryn I am sorry for her losses. Thank you for letting me know what happened on your end. Also, inform me when Aeryn wakes up. I have something to tell her. If she doesn't want to hear any of it, tell her it's about Ytger. She'll know. 

Furthermore, you asked me what the situation was in Auber. Allow me to tell you that it's as bad as it can get without an actual war occurring. I've tried and tried again, but I am unable to convince the council and the king. They want to exact revenge on Tereline by reclaiming the land they lost during the last war and by taking even more. It's planned in a way that's more genocide than a plan for vengeance. Simply hearing of what advances and dirty tricks they wish to use is disturbing.

Also, I hope you can recall the lady during the attack on the engagement party. The one who was shot by her supposed comrades. She's not dead, much to my dismay, but I hope to get an answer out of her as to why she did what she did. 

That's all I have to say for now.

Regards,

Jules.

Simply reading over Jules' exquisite script made Aeryn stumble backwards as she recalled her memories with him. Before the conflict between his father and her parents occurred and before the conflict between Princess Ytger and Dain, her older brother.

Ever since she'd woken up on Han's ship for the first time, the memories that used to play in her head on repeat became easy to forget. They become tiny clippings she forgot she had, and anything even remotely related reminded her of the pain.

It was why she rarely left Han's room. It was built so differently that it felt more like a library than a room on a pirate ship.

Sehyun's room's walls were lined with bookshelves, notebooks, and drawings. It was a detail she never paid attention to before she encountered Kronos, but when she looked closely at his room, peered into his quirks and mannerisms, the more and more Han became a normal person. He wasn't some antagonist in her path.

If anything, Sehyun Han had become her ally. An irritating one but that was better than none. At least she was on a ship, alive, and not kept as a prisoner.

Most of his drawings were of dogs and cats, but she seldom came across the drawn image of an older woman in her late forties. A woman whose eyes held the weight of wisdom and age and skin that shined even through the drawings.

Her eyes were as feline as Sehyun's and her nose was just as sharp as well. But when Han had a sharp jawline and high cheekbones, the woman had a rounder, softer face.

Was she Sehyun's mother?

It didn't seem like he hated her from the way he drew her. It was like he missed the warmth she could no longer provide him. 

It couldn't be. Aeryn had heard nothing but complaints when it came to his family or personal life.

Perhaps that was his strategy to get her to change the topic. It did seem as though talking about anything other than facts and conspiracies physically pained him. And whenever he was forced to have small talk, he made it look as if he'd been tortured for decades, but with a face much younger than his age, he just looked like a child complaining about having to greet a distant relative. 

Aeryn turned her attention to the rest of the sketches Sehyun had pinned to his shelves. 

It was almost like he could do everything. He knew enough about medicine to save a life, he knew how to fight, he knew how to draw, he could speak more than two languages, he was above average in mathematics, he'd nearly mastered calligraphy (despite having a script worse than hers), he was exceptional at poker, he could sing (she'd heard him hum melodies when he thought she was asleep), he could read books at lightning speed, he could write poetry so beautiful it felt unreal, and above all, he could captain a ship even with that many hobbies. 

The man was unreal, just like the effortless lines in his drawings. 

One sketch was of a man Aeryn assumed to be Marty and another was of Maya with a dog in her lap. Everyone beamed through the pictures in a way that made her jealous. It made Aeryn's heart clench to see such happiness in the people Han drew. He'd even drawn Suzy with a perfect grin and she'd picked up on the quartermaster's eyeless expressions.

But beyond those pieces, Aeryn's eyes clung to a crumpled piece of paper laying on a nameless book. The only one in his entire collection that was bent, torn, and ruined.

She unravelled the page, revealing a single word written on the page.

ME.

She stared at the word and the scribbles around it, and all it did was cause her to shrivel up.

Aeryn knew all too well what it felt to be "ME."

A knock echoed through the room.

Hadn't Suzy and Sehyun left?

"Is Aeryn Branche inside?"

***
WORD COUNT: 3200

Sorry, not sorry for the long chapter.