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Alistair

"That fog was quite strange."

I turned my head to Snips, giving him a nod in acknowledgment as he cleared the last few steps and joined me on the top deck tonight. The air was getting warmer, its colors painting the sky beautifully for the sun to rise into. I hadn't found sleep tonight. I hadn't even bothered to look for her.

Instead I had stayed up, watching as my men piled body after body on top of each other, creating piles of the deceased that would be easier for disposing come morning. I released them shortly ago, allowing the crew to return to their previously interrupted sleep. The bodies would be here for them come sunrise, there was no rush now.

"Aye." I told one of my most loyal. "I believe someone may have been tracking the whereabouts of this ship. Cael is working on uncovering more."

Snips nodded, stretching his arms out to the wooden rail in front of us as he did. "Did you place a concealment spell on the ship?" He asked. I nodded in return.

"The crew need rest now. Come sunrise, we'll start with the bodies, then move to the bloody floorboards."

Snips nodded again, but he had this far off look in his eyes as he peered ahead. Like he was only partially present for this conversation.

"The men," I heard him start, "they're... they're a bit uneasy tonight. Many haven't found rest yet."

I turned my head to Snips again, but he was still looking on ahead as he spoke. He rarely ever failed to meet my gaze. "I've spent the better half of this night assuring them that whatever that slave is, proves no threat... but Captain-"

"I know." I nodded to him. My men were starting to fear something they hadn't in a long time, other than in regards to me. It was fear itself. Something my men wouldn't fair well with.

"You're the only one. The only one we've ever seen use magic like that."

"I know." I nodded once more, justifying the things Snips was too hesitant to fully say to me.

"But I've..." Snips trailed off, not finishing that thought as he sat with his words a moment. "Well, I've spent the day with the man, and I don't think he bears any threat to anyone besides himself. Even tonight..."

Snips was still looking on ahead. I allowed his mind to process whatever was next, because Snips was almost never this specific with his words.

"I agree," I told him, watching as he finally turned to me. "Cael and I are working to uncover who he is, I give you my word. If he really can use magic, that just makes whatever potential bounty that's out there for him, all the more plentiful."

Snips nodded agin, agreeing with Cael and I's line of thought when it came to this unexpected situation we've now found ourselves in.

Anyone who didn't know this ship may assume that Snips was our loose cannon. A man who couldn't be restrained. The most blood thirsty of us all. And while that assumption held some weight, especially when his lips stretched to his ears at the sheer feel of warm blood coating his skin, Snips meant so much more to me than that.

He was the bridge between me and my men. The first person who followed me blindly into the depths of hell, making a similar sinister deal with the devil himself. And the first to convince my men of my leadership if they were to join me as he had. We were naive young pirates back then, those now twenty something years ago, when I thought that the price of the sea would be my heart.

Not my soul.

Not my men's either.

It was a price I was willing to pay— my heart, that was. Yet I should've known better. I should've known that for a man to gain this power at that magnitude, it would ask for something that scrapes one bare. That hollows a soul out.

Now my crew were caught in a whirlwind of chaos, something they were drawn to like a moth to a flame once they joined me. Or rather, like a shark to blood.

We were all cursed with an unquenchable thirst for violence. The need to spill blood, and the want for ear deafening screams. Cries. Desperation as we strung the enemy's last life to a string, and played it like a fiddle. The only man who fully accepted this unfortunate curse was Snips, and my respect could never be more profound for him.

"Do you regret it?" I asked suddenly into the cool air, producing a question I never once asked him before. Not even as he and I both conquered death itself, waking up to realize that there were still some who refused to let me walk through anything alone. Snips eyes narrowed at me.

"For every sacrifice you think I've made, keep in mind that I know all the ones you did. The sacrifices you still make, then pretend as if you didn't. And the men know it too. They always have." Snips took a shallow breath. "I would gladly follow you into the depths of hell itself, Captain."

I felt my lips curl up into a smile. A genuine one. One I more often kept for this man, for he was the one person on this ship who had known me the longest.

"I've already asked you to do such a thing."

Snips returned that smile with a genuine one of his own. "And when the next moment presents itself Captain, you won't need to... Ask, that is."

I felt my own smile grow, before my gaze cast from his back on to the few men who were making their way up on deck. "I thought I told you lot to rest?" I looked to Snips again, who had slipped a wrapped roll of cloth out from his trousers pockets. 

"Some of us," Snips replied, unrolling the fabric with his thick, worked fingers, before slowly wrapping his hands for the dirtying task soon at hand. "Some us prefer to keep our Captain company. Regardless of whether we've been ordered to or not."

Before I could reply to Snips, I felt the floorboards stir again. Cael emerged from the back end of the ship down below, turning the corner before ascending up the wooden steps. Snips glanced down at Cael, then back over to me, offering me another smile.

"The sky is clear enough to read, if only for a little while longer. And it takes a crew to run a ship, does it not?"

I felt my own smile widen at Snip's words "Aye." I nodded.

"Then let's start breakfast for the fishes a little early." I watched him takes those steps quickly, passing Cael as he joined the other men that hastily took on the tedious task of throwing bodies overboard.

Cael managed to make it to my side not too long after, replacing where Snips stood.

"I thought you were taking rest." I told him.

"When was the last time you did?" He countered. I refused to meet his gaze with those words.

"You know we are not made of the same."

Cael laughed immediately after, his voice bringing a smile to my own lips. "And yet our minds are. Made of the same, that is."

I refused to let Cael gain so many high winds on this night.

"You look to the stars." I reminded him, watching as his dark skin mirrored the beauty of the slowly brightening sky.

"And you look to the sea." He reminded me. "Are they not alike?"

My eyebrows furrowed a bit. "How so?"

Cael pointed to the clearing above us. "The stars tell a story. A repetitive one, sure. One that holds very little variances." Then Cael's hand slowly fell, pointing past my ship to the crashing waves. "As does the tides. Both worlds lead to land."

I watched as the tumultuous waves smashed against the wooden vessel, feeling the air engulf in the sails, pulling us forward.

"I may read the stars, but you've mastered the wind." Cael added. "There is no shore you cannot find. No tide you do not will."

I sighed a slow deep sigh, feeling that same breeze pass between both myself and my Navigator. "I suppose." I said finally. "What has got your mind stirring tonight then?"

Cael's large hands nestled in the wooden rail as he leant forward. "I gathered enough information from one of the dying pirates before he passed."

My head turned back to Cael.

"Anything of use?"

Cael chuckled a moment. "Sounds like you've got a bit of competition on the sea. His captain used some amateur magic to conjure the fog. I was surprised to uncover that they didn't even know exactly what you are. They pursued us in hopes of improving their reputation at sea. All they heard was that you were a big fish on these waters."

"Well," I turned back to my ship. "Times sure are changing."

Cael laughed lightly at that. "The most unfortunate of information was learning that their captain wasn't even on the ship you blew to smithereens."

My lip twitched slightly in disgust. "A fucking coward. Who sends their men to battle without its men's own leadership aboard?"

Cael nodded. "A suicide mission, had he known more. Or really anything at all."

"Did you find his location?" My hands stretched forward, grabbing the same wooden rail Cael had. He gave me another nod.

"The man didn't say much, besides the fact that his men and their captain parted ways near Gatvia, another close island called Sicoria. I wanted to see what the stars had to say tonight considering that fog ruined most of my clarity."

I gave Cael a nod, watching as his deep brown eyes grew darker as he studied the wonders above us. Those tattoos across and down his broad arms started to glow white slightly, which always pulled my attention there. To the art that covered his body. It was the ink of a legendary giant squid that flowed through each tattoo of his, amplifying his own extraordinary power.

"I say we start there. Coop would most likely appreciate visiting his family in Gatvia. Especially with his newfound injury."

My fingers lightly tapped the wooden rail, urging me to think a moment about this. On one hand, this would derail our expectancy for arrival in Azul... yet on the other, Coop's job went hand in hand with my own. And my happiness, given the rum. A favor such as this could have him overlook the fact that he was hit by the enemy's warning shot.

"Aye," I nodded. "I'll set us on course for Gatvia and Sicoria. Inform Coop we'll be docking there."

This worked out in our favor— or at the very least mine, considering Gatvia made some incredible rum. And Coop's family always had my men in good spirits after. He had about twelve sisters, all of which at least one of my men had fallen madly in love with over the years, and they're only moment to see these fine ladies was whenever we docked.

That didn't happen often considering our ties to the sea.

Coop's family always welcomed us with open hands, especially due in fact to our more mannered skills while on land. I didn't have the heart to tell them that practically every last one of their daughters had, too, fallen madly in love with a blood thirsty pirate of mine. Coop's mother and father were knocking on deaths door regardless, there was no reason to further stress them.

"How is he?" I asked Cael.

"Well," the large man replied, "it's quite safe to say that we more than likely needed a surgeon over two moons ago, but Von is doing his best."

"Our poor dear carpenter." I chuckled. Von was going to chew my ear off about this come daybreak. "Surgeons are hard to come by at the moment." I found myself further explaining, to which Cael nodded in agreeance.

"Aye. My assumption is you want to foster this one organically."

I nodded at his words. "A surgeon as a slave is complicated business. I would like one to willingly follow me. To pledge their allegiance. I don't have the time for negotiations during the heat of a battle, or when one of my men's life is hanging in the balance."

"Aye." Cael agreed, further encouraging my own thoughts. This man didn't dictate my choices, but he too fell into the same predicament that Snips and the rest of my men had. He was now on my ship, and I valued his stance on anything as I did the rest of my men. Whenever he and I agreed, I knew I had somehow found myself on the right side of the discussion.

I just wished I found myself there more often.

"Coop visiting home should improve his spirits, as will the rest of the men. They're—"

"Unsettled?" I offered, remembering Snips's words. Cael nodded.

"I think you should work out a way to explain Caspian to them. This will require you to actually figure out who this man is, however."

"And what of you?" I countered.

"I'm still occupied with trying to work out who wants you dead. The list is forever lengthening itself."

That coerced a chuckle from me. He wasn't wrong.

"Did you check on Caspian earlier?" I asked him.

"Aye," Cael replied. "You fucked up his nose. I awoke him a moment to help straighten it, before his head melted back into his hands, and he rested his head on the table. I left him there."

The ship swayed slightly, correcting the force of the sea. Cael and I held the wooden rail tight to steady ourselves.

"Thank you." I found myself replying with. Cael was good at cleaning the messes I constantly managed to overlook, which were many.

"I'll treasure those words as long as you can promise me that rage of yours can be managed. You may just find yourself granting this man's very wishes, which is death itself."

"Aye." I agreed, keeping my eyes set on the sea.

I wanted that bounty, whatever it was set as.

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