Gahhhdayum, another long one cause now I'm just tryna get this ending all in there. I think 57 chapters has been my lucky number right?
Also I know I've been consistently alternating between Alistair and Caspian...
But I feel like the ending will flow better if I switch that up a bit again. I hope y'all rock with it
Also also it's like 2am so I'm sorry if we got errors in this mf lol
Words were starting to look like hieroglyphics at a certain point.
Anyways,
Enjoy lovelies!
xoxo

Alistair

"So he's..."

"Aye."

...

"And we..."

"Aye."

...

"And now you two are..."

"Aye." I nodded once more to Cael, whose large fingers had been deeply massaging the indents of his temples so terribly hard for too long, that I believed he was making those slight indents larger.

"This is..."

"Unexpected." I nodded.

"Absolutely horrendously bad." Cael corrected, to which I released one awfully unexpected chuckle. The look Cael sent me made that chuckle dry out quickly.

"Alistair, you took the rightful heir to the throne as your slave."

I let out a deep sigh of my own. "The alternative was death, which he so happily welcomed at the time. I'd like to think I saved the rightful heir to the throne."

Cael was just about ready to draw his sword. "There are people, you-... I hear whispers, Alistair. There are many now who long for the old ways, and what they were. What they had done for these people. And now you just..."

I glanced past Cael and his mindless yapping, to the window of our study, analyzing the darkness that would soon bear light as daybreak steadily approached us.

I hadn't slept well this night... or really rather at all. When the crew saw that I had returned without Caspian, the uneasiness quickly settled amongst my men. I could still hear many now, working their tasks much earlier than needed as they found something to fill the restless time that sleep couldn't.

After perhaps my fourth round around the main deck, Cael requested I join him in the study. He looked like he had fought his way to sleep, and yet she still wouldn't openly embrace him... and so I used this time we had as we waiting for the morning to settle, to discuss just what I had discovered about Caspian.

I decided not to tell my crew just yet, however Cael was an exception. Considering he had put in the effort to both place an inquiry on this white haired man, and pull it once I decided we wouldn't sell Caspian, he deserve to know why we could never inquire about the identity of him again.

Ever.

That was for Caspian's protection.

"How is it," Cael sighed, pausing a moment to collect himself. "How is it you manage to find the worst pieces of trouble, and still seek out to collect them like rubies?"

I cast my gaze from the window back to my Navigator who sat in the seat I usually sat in, across from me. The direction of our conversations could usually be tied to who occupied that very seat. Tonight, Cael was leading this inquisition.

"Trouble finds me." I put it simply, though those words had brought me back to the words Gaia had said to me back on that island...

"You, Alistair Melek, are incredibly consistent in falling into holes you shouldn't."

...Perhaps she was right.

Perhaps I was.

I once thought it was I who intentionally jumped right into those holes upon having gauged the depth of them completely... but this one? Well, for this one I had irrevocably fallen head first into its deep abyss. And perhaps I was still falling.

"Well tell it to go apply for work elsewhere because the consistency in which you give me a headache from all this unexpectedness is causing me to lose my mind." Cael grumbled in return. "How is it I lose sleep when you and Caspian are together... and now I'm losing sleep when you two are for once apart? You are, with no doubt in my mind, the devil reincarnated."

I couldn't stop the laughter that slipped past my lips at that, although Cael's continued glare brought that down to a smirk playing at these very same lips. "I couldn't sleep either." I reminded him.

"Something I'm sure you'll come to regret later. We have a long trip back to Sicoria. One that still involves a stop for the ship's maintenance."

That made my smile disappear completely. "I have half the heart to let Finnik wait a little longer. Sicoria is such a tedious task to both port and set sail from, I don't necessarily want to do that again any time soon."

"You gave your word," Cael reminded me. "And I'm sure he could meet us somewhere on the shoreline."

Will he though is the real question, I thought to myself.

That awfully short man seemed a little too excited to force myself and my men into his small, cramped little tunnel. He wouldn't pass up on the thought to do it again, should the situation present itself.

And this was indeed a situation that had indeed presented itself.

Cale and I sat across from each other, discussing the situation we had since found ourselves in. And we sat like this until the first signs of daylight shined through that very same window.

I had told Cael that I was to return to Dreska come dawn. He asked me if I needed any assistance, to which at first I had said no... but then my mind pondered it a moment, and I eventually requested Hobbs and Gilly.

These two men had returned to my ship the night before practically soaked in blood shortly after I had, but I didn't ask any questions. Whatever business they attended to was their own, and I knew these two men well enough now to know that nothing would lead back to us. Nothing with them ever had, unless I sent them out myself and requested our mark be known.

That was the beauty of their efficiency.

Finn and Simon had returned with essentially everything the rest of my pirates had requested, which I thanked and paid them heftily for. Simon had even found those ridiculous instruments he spoke of, to which he had promised I wouldn't find to be such as ridiculous once he mastered their tune.

Whatever pleased my men, pleased me. And they loved a good chantey, so all I did was nod to him as he loaded up more cargo onto this ship. I was personally excited about the food Finn had found and brought aboard.

My cook looked to me funny when I returned with oranges, which I didn't understand until he retrieved from a crate he brought aboard, a fresh bag of his own. My smile only widened when he soon after admitted he had kept Caspian in mind while at the markets, regardless of the list he brought. I believe his exact words were "I finally have someone aboard with working tastebuds." An insult I let go given the circumstances, for he had picked up on Caspian's tastes much like I had.

Snips and Cael even proved fruitful working together. They retrieved everything needed for the maintenance of Ol' Bess, whilst having made sure we kept reasonably within budget. I wasn't one to hound my men about our spending, but there were things I still wanted to acquire on this journey. Things that came with a price that would dip into our reservoir.

And more importantly, things I couldn't steal.

When I finally returned to Dreska's home with Hobbs and Gilly following closely behind me, I was surprised to find just Dreska there.

"Where's Caspian?" I asked the man. He was still wiping sleep from his eyes, which only irritated me further once I heard his shit reply.

"He didn't return to me." Dreska said. "I believe he and Hodrus had a disagreement."

My men had found no sleep at the absence of Caspian, and yet this groggy imbecile had. Once he caught sight of the men that had accompanied me, I watched as he took a step back through his doorway.

"Who are these two?" He asked me, even though his eyes remained on them. His uneasiness lessened my irritation.

"They're what I like to call my efficiency." I responded with, stepping back to allow these two men to stand at either side of me. The look of Hobbs and Gilly terrified almost all who cast their gave upon them, and yet I somehow found it comforting how little Caspian cared. As time progressed, he had pulled more words from these two than I believe they had ever shared on deck. "I asked you a question before I took my leave, and I'm here to see whether you still understood it."

That made Dreska's black as night brows furrow against his slightly sun touched skin.

"You asked me quite a few." He replied with. I chuckled at that response. He wasn't wrong.

"The one in question is when I asked you who you'd serve. Who you would be loyal to when the time came to decide what the people of Azul truly needed... and where your loyalist laid if it was proven that no leader should lead this land." Dreska's face held confusion, and yet his eyes hardened some at my words. He now understood. "These men are here to see to it that you really are a man of your word."

And those were the last words I left Dreska with before I stepped further back away from my men, allowing them to push past Dreska much to the short man's protest and enter his small home.

My journey back to the ship felt longer without Hobbs and Gilly at my side. They spoke such little words to both each other, and I, but the information I had relayed to them had brought smiles to their own faces. I had apologized to them for I knew they hadn't found sleep either, but they assured me that of all the tasks I could've sent them on, this one was worth the additional lack of sleep.

I followed the same path we had took, to return to my ship. I kept my hood down to cover practically all of my face, but I noticed as I walked down this busy street, that even less faces looked my way. The people had been even quieter and more reserved after the selection process that happened the previous day. Zirion was officially declared the lead advisor of The Holy Men so I was told, which made this whole debacle all the more humorous having understood more of who this man was thanks to Caspian.

The Holy Men were in for one long, turbulent few years ahead of them. And I was to make sure of it if I was given the go ahead by Caspian. If he felt my actions to be justified.

By the time I returned to the ship however, Caspian still hadn't arrived.

"Do you think him to be lost?" Cael asked, separating his hand from mine after he hoisted me up into the ship from the otherwise vacant dock we had since ported.

"I'm not sure," I replied with. "I don't know if he has chosen to stay... or really how his meeting with his brother went as a whole. I've since developed a new task for Hobbs and Gilly which occupied the time I would've otherwise spent interrogating Dreska of what he perhaps knows."

"You're worried," Cael noted practically immediately, "and yet you still returned to this ship. I would've thought you to burn this entire land in an effort to find that man."

I dusted off my long black trench coat once my feet touched these sweet familiar floorboards, before I finally looked to my Navigator again. "You've seen him fight, have you not?"

Cael slowly nodded once my words were somewhat understood. It wasn't the question he was expecting.

"I have faith that even against his own brother, Caspian can hold his own. He has a leverage on both The Holy Men, and his brother himself. Zirion would never jeopardize his newly found power if it was power he's truly sought out... and Caspian doesn't just hold the key to his demise... he is the key. The Holy Men are even more a pillar built on straws than I had once thought them to be."

Cael studied me a moment further before he found himself nodding again.

"We must set sail soon, however."  He reminded me.

"And we will." I assured him. "However Caspian is old enough to make his own decisions. Upon seeing the way Dreska belittled his growth, I refuse to do the same."

That made Cael's eyebrows arch slightly. "Are you prepared to lose him if he wants to stay?" It was the very question that had inadvertently kept me up this very night.

I felt the edges of my lips pull up into a slight smile when my final thoughts fully developed themselves into words. "I'm prepared to do whatever it is that makes that man happy. I would've preferred a formal goodbye, however I promised that man life. If this is what he sees fit to appease that vacancy buried so deeply inside of him, I would do our union a disservice, however fleeting it had felt, to attest it."

Cael looked taken back by my response, but I watched as his lips curled up into a smile himself. "You really truly do want the best for him." Those words were nothing but genuine.

"Aye," I nodded in response. "And only he knows what that is."

And so Cael allowed it as my men prepared to set sail.

This ship was already strapped down and ready for whatever winds hit it, for the work most of my men had carried on during the night, had prepared her long before we'd need to pull in our anchor and unstrap the ship from the dock itself.

I found myself doing my final rounds with my crew, but as each moment passed with no Caspian in sight, their own high spirits had quickly started to dwindle.

"We can't leave him." Snips spoke to me, to which all I could do was offer a small smile.

"We don't own him either. I could never love someone who I equated to as that of a piece on a chessboard. He has his own reasons, Snips."

This fiery shorter pirate of mine understood my words, but that didn't put his own wariness to rest. I was quickly beginning to understand that it wasn't just I who would have preferred a more formal goodbye.

It was my men, too.

Their own sentiments didn't fall upon deaf ears for they simply didn't allow it to. I felt their detest of our current situation.

I was just ready to untie this rope that was now the only thing still keeping us to its dock, yet before I could. I heard Coop call from his nest up above that he spotted the rest of my men. I by this time only expected to see Hobbs and Gilly, for this was in due time for the task I sent them on... yet it was who they led behind them that made my feet swiftly carry themselves from the top deck to the side of the ship that remained ported. I could see three men in thick hooded cloaks quickly approaching this vessel.

Hobbs was the first to push his thick hood back and reveal that scarred face. There was no blood on any of them from what I could tell, which brought me even greater joy. Once Hobbs was close to the side of the ship, I anchored myself off the side with my left hand, and used my right to stretch outwards to him. The darker skin of his own hand connected with mine, before I hoisted him up onto the main deck.

Then I stretched my hand again, doing the same for Gilly who hadn't been too far behind. He took the hand offered to him gratefully before I pulled him onto this vessel to join his brother.

The man that approached me last, the very same man that had finally pushed his hood back to reveal his pale features, and paler hair, didn't move with as much speed as Gilly and Hobbs had. I found myself hesitating before I could so willingly extended that same hand.

"My apologies for my tardiness." Was the very first thing he said to me when his eyes met mine. I saw the tiredness in them immediately.

"All is forgiven," I replied with a gentle care to my tone. "I wasn't sure if you had decided to stay."

Caspian's eyes held mine, his face growing a tad bit flushed as he asked "would you have let me?"

That forced a smile upon my lips. One that was genuine as I found myself saying aye. "It's not too late, either." I reminded him. "As of now, you are no longer property of mine. You can choose what life you see fit to live past this dock, whether that be towards the sea, or towards the place you once called home."

I watched as Caspian's clearly exhausted features spread the emotion of surprise across them. Whatever this night had brought upon, had kept him awake perhaps as long as it did both my ship and my crew.

"If I am..." Caspian trailed off slowly. His words had sounded so delicate, I imagined he would choose these next ones carefully. "If I am not to board this ship again as a slave, then what am I to board it as?"

That question alone only made my smile widen further, for it brought warmth to places of myself that had all too swiftly grown accustomed to the cold. I find my right hand stretching down to him finally.

"You would board this ship as a pirate," I explained to this white haired man. "And I will grant you the same clean slate I have granted any man who chooses to sail with me beneath these blood red sails."

That question made Caspian's brows crease in some confusion, but I made sure my words were clear this time. The most clear enough for him to understand.

"The life you led before is now behind you. I will do no further questioning. I will make no additional inquiries. All I ask is your loyalty. Loyalty to both the direction in which I captain this ship... and to the loyalty of the men that once accepted this very oath before you."

Caspian's eyes had slowly widened to those words. These were the very words I had asked my own men when faced with this very same proposition.

"What say ye?" I asked suddenly, turning my head to my meddling crew who were now trying to find something, anything, to keep themselves on this main deck, and near to this conversation at hand. In unison, I heard the cries of my men answer as they turned their gaze up from their tasks to I.

"Aye!"

That word rung across the main deck with glee. My men had given their final answer, and it was something I was willing to heed when I finally turned to Caspian again.

"And what say you?" I had asked... but I felt Caspian slip his hand into mine before he answered with a word that only echoed that of my crew.

"Aye." He slowly nodded, clasping those strong fingers around my own. And to that, I pulled him up, bringing his body aboard this ship then to mine with ease.

••