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spookyspaghettisundae · 4 years

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To Earn the End of the World

The wind howled through hallways made up entirely of printed paper and cardboard. Damp, the smell of rotten pulp and running ink and mold hung heavy in the air and stung in Kim’s nostrils. Her head stayed on a constant swivel as she progressed with slow, tentative steps.

Every time her combat boots touched the ground, it squelched in a way appropriate to soggy cardboard, having soaked up every tear of joy and disappointment and despair, and torrents of rain.

Old newspapers from throughout the ages plastered these soft walls and floors, sealing the seams with information of all things past and all that could have been. The maze made of rejected paper and cardboard trash wobbled rhythmically. Shuddered.

Something sharp and glass-like crunched under the treads of her boot. She stopped and lifted her foot to see what lay there, and found it to be a broken light bulb. The dim illumination throughout the cardboard maze had no light source, but now it flickered.

Then the light went out.

“Will you even be you when you make it out of here?” asked the Glass King. His voice echoed through these strange corridors. “Will you even make it out of here?”

Kim gave no reply. Instead, she pressed on. By sense of touch, her trembling fingers grazed and skidded along the wet walls. In some places, it felt like touching a sponge. Other times, the tears and rain had not quite drenched the cardboard or newspaper, making the blind sensation on her hand a more abrasive one. She could feel the ink rubbing off, blackening her fingertips.

“Not that I wouldn’t mind if you lost yourself in here like so many others,” sang the Glass King in a strange and unfamiliar melody. “So many lost, never to leave again. But you do remember this is no dream, right?”

Pausing to see if she could fathom where his imperious voice was coming from, she clamped her eyelids shut so hard that it almost became painful. But the cardboard and paper swallowed the echoes quickly and she had focused on it too late before he fell silent again.

She grinded her teeth together before she found the right words and said, “You can’t stop change. Everything—”

He just laughed over it all.

“You’re afraid of it. Everything changes,” she said, trying to outmatch his volume. But the laughter only continued and she added, “That’s all you’re really afraid of, isn’t it?”

The Glass King’s roaring mirth stopped. Clipped.

No human eyes could see her in that darkness yet she smirked, filled with new confidence.

“Guess you’re a wimp after all,” she shouted.

Then her face fell, for it dawned on her that the Glass King and his minions might locate her in this maze by following her voice.

She kept her mouth shut and continued moving, a trembling hand feeling the uneven lengths of the walls. Bumpy, lumpy, damp, wet, dry, flaking, tumorous. Dead and alive at the same time. Inching her way down the pitch-black corridor.

When Kim’s groped thin air where the wall gave way to a soft corner and sharp left turn, she felt her way to the opposite side and found that it also took a sharp right turn. A junction where the path split at least two ways. Realizing this, her heart skipped a beat.

Navigating a maze was bad enough, doing so in complete darkness was daunting, and outrunning a self-proclaimed god and his army of cosmic rejects while doing all that?

She could feel the blood drain from her face. Her palms turned clammy and the cold sweat began to ooze from her pores. She had no sense of how long she had been straying from her goal in this place—minutes, hours, or days. But she had to get out of this maze as quickly as possible.

It had already made her forget small things, like the last thing she ate, the name “Theodore”, and her favorite color. Echoes of thoughts emerged from the walls, threatening to drown her identity in their seductive whispers, clouding the back of her mind. As the House always did to every person who dared visit it.

A sharp sting of pain pulled her back into the present and centered her. She pricked her palm with a safety pin and withdrew it. She sucked on the tiny injury and tasted that iron taste. It, too, helped her loop her mind back onto who she was. On who she wanted to be.

The walls shuddered and rustled. The House judged not. It only tested one’s resolve.

“You never answered my question,” said the Glass King. Much closer now. “You fear the answer, don’t you?”

Brightness permeated the black screen of her eyelids. They fluttered open and she was no longer in the maze of cardboard and newspapers. Instead, the walls were lined with rows upon rows of skulls and bones, like one of those old European ossuaries. A macabre place, but bright with light and strangely comforting. A faint sweet smell hung in the air, like incense. Or rotten fruit.

“I have no fear. All of us who oppose you, we have a sense of self that transcends what anybody can even see on the surface. An inner being—a strong soul—that rejects the yoke that others willingly bend and bow to,” she told the Glass King.

No response. But she instantly regretted that spike of expressing her pride. It may have sent waves through the House, allowing the covetous and vengeful “god” to follow her from one place to the next.

She continued walking, picking up the pace. The soft light came from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Not a single lantern, bulb, or torch hung anywhere. Just a sea of bones, covering every surface.

Something rattled. Clicked. Kim froze.

Some things. Grinded and rattled some more. Clacked.

She looked over her shoulder. Thousands of empty sockets stared back at her. All skulls had shifted and they now faced her. Hollow and forgotten, a testament to those who had come to this place and lost their minds along the way. These were no mere skulls. Soulful and envious, they stared, even without the jelly and blood and brains that made up eyeballs that could see.

Just dark, hungry voids. And she felt watched by that emptiness. Kim began to see herself in them and wondered if anybody would be able to tell which one she was if her own skull took its place among these rows.

The sharp sting of pain from the pin’s pointy tip returned because she pricked herself again, though not as deep this time. Nothing changed, but the skulls were only skulls. They shuffled and scratched and whispered but always only behind her back, and never in tongues meant for human ears.

The weight of her duffel bag weighed her down and its presence made itself clearer now. The strap supporting it chafed against her shoulder with every turn and step. She picked up the pace and continued wandering through this maze of skulls with their accusatory empty eyes. Envious that she had yet to fail like they had.

Whenever she let her gaze wander, the skulls that came into sight had shifted to stare at her. When she turned again, knowing what direction to wander in despite this place being another maze, the corridors had gotten tighter. Narrower.

She had to walk so closely by the skulls that she could see the emptiness in their eye sockets up close. There was truly nothing there. She bit her tongue as soon as she caught herself pondering if they were truly manifestations of lost souls, or something else.

Because that’s how they got you. Once you lost your mind in this maze, it absorbed you. Made you part of it.

Ate you up and stored you in the fat of the multiverse’s underbelly while the world you came from thought you went missing and eventually forgot about you.

Stinging pain, once more. That safety pin hurt, but it helped center her. She had taken it for this exact purpose, anointed it in the blood of a dying king so the House could not easily erode it—prepared for the House’s merciless and devouring nature.

“Everything you think and say rings hollow,” said the Glass King. It was Michael’s voice, but something else had latched onto his being. Something warbling or ever so slightly garbled, warping it like a twisted and malevolent machine.

Kim recognized Michael’s voice in there, replete with his charming southern drawl. But whatever had taken him and formed the Glass King was in charge now.

The barely perceptible sound of it—riding on every syllable and hiding behind each word—it was not human. It sounded sharper but like someone lying through their teeth, like a blade wrapped in softest velvet.

“Superficial horseshit,” said the Glass King. His voice echoed through these skull-faced walls. “You are unhappy with the hand life has dealt you, like everybody else. But you rebel against it, delude yourself into thinking that anybody has ever made any meaningful change before you. You just want to feel better about yourself.”

Kim gritted her teeth and wandered like that until her jaw began to hurt from the pressure. She looked back to see if the man in the long black duster had caught up to her, for his voice sounded so much closer. But due to the nature of the House, it was impossible to determine any distances. Here, every distance proved to be relative, and every presence a hostile tendril of supernal forces, slithering out and stumbling the people ensnared in its bowels.

She finally replied, “No. I want to be myself. So does Kevin. And all the others who have fought, bled, gone insane, and died to see what lies hidden in the secret heart of the world. To bring it to the light and reveal it so all may see. That is the only way for us to feel truly better about ourselves.”

Next she looked over her shoulder, the walls had converged, leaving only an opening small enough to reach through but not climb through. The skulls all stared at her, and through that opening, she saw the man in the duster.

The Glass King stared at her through that hole. Shaded spectacles shielded the stalker’s eyes, concealing wherever exactly he looked. The diffuse light refracted in strange ways from the silver rims of those sunglasses. He budged not one bit, did not run like the predator that he was. But she felt her pursuer’s gaze burning a hole right into her soul.

“You are ready to burn down the world for your petty desires?” he asked.

His lips barely moved but his voice boomed and chilled her to the bone. Dust rained from the skulls on the ceiling that stared at them. The House hungered not only for her, it hungered for his soul as well. His souls—whatever Michael had become. The Glass King was not one, but many. And his power, as infinite as it may have seemed in the world she hailed from, was dwarfed by this ravenous place.

She set her jaw and answered, enunciating every syllable with trembling anger, “You are not?”

He rammed a fist into the pocket of his long coat and she turned tail and ran. No time to lose and too afraid to find out what was in there, she fled. Brushing past the skulls on the walls, leaving only enough space for her to sidestep through the narrowest spots, they scraped any exposed skin and the dust burned in those little scratched spots.

Good. She welcomed that pain, like the safety pin’s needle pricks focusing her. She had already rounded several corners, uncaring about where her path led her now.

No more guilt. No more second-guessing.

The next corner she turned, she tripped over a skull jutting out from the wall. Or had it shot out there to trip her? Kim tumbled, and the world spun around her. With growing dread did she realize she had lost the safety pin as she fell and tossed and turned. Like a dreaming person, restless in bed, with reality fading in and out, light and darkness clashing and colliding.

The warm, indeterminable light of the ossuary made way to a dull gray twilight and she slammed against something hard and rocky, bringing her rolling fall to a sudden and painful stop. She welcomed that pain again.

Not only was she battling the Glass King, she was defying the House. But the House’s overwhelming force was so much greater than either of them.

A nexus on the edge of reality. An intersection between worlds.

Greater than all people combined. Greater than anything that fancied itself a god and attempted to rival such power. Greater than the whole of several worlds put together.

As she regained her bearings, she saw she had hit a piece of rubble. Smoldering heat surrounded her, rising from the scorched ruins of a burnt down building. Bright red and yellow embers rose, trailing skywards around plumes of thick smoke. Fog enveloped this place and snow gently drifted everywhere in soft, fuzzy flurries.

The cold wintry air began to bite every patch of exposed skin as soon as she rose to her feet again and patted some of the ashes from her black leather jacket and black jeans. The house’s wood and stone, now charcoal, crunched underneath her boots as she approached the single only doorframe standing on this island, deprived of the walls that once encased it.

Standing out in the middle of this husk like a beacon, left over from the destruction of some lesser home.

With its door intact, jutting out from the remains of this destroyed house, she saw it as her only means of egress from this place. Sometimes, a thought sufficed to transition from one place to another, from one state of being to another. Other times, it took the shape of a tangible portal, like this one.

A lonesome lake’s waves lapped at the shores all around her, and a half-sunken rowboat tied to a dock lazily and rhythmically thumped against the old rotten wood. It made her pause and her sweeping gaze then spotted a small shed, just beyond a garden ravaged by time and an infinite winter’s unforgiving cold.

The shed also featured a door, but her heart began to race as she looked upon it. It was just a simple wooden door, but behind it lurked an overpowering darkness. One she grew to know better with every passing second.

The forlorn door amidst the rubble of the larger house led to some place uncertain. It frightened her, but in the way that unknowing fills people with fear.

And that was better than whatever opened the shed’s door.

The man in the black duster and silvery shades emerged from its darkness, peeling out from the shadows. He rose to full height after climbing out of the shed’s door. Gravel and frost crunched underneath his shoes as he approached, his pace slow but certain.

He grinned, from ear to ear. The wider it grew, the clearer it was: it was no human grin. Michael’s facial muscles and flesh should not have allowed such a grin. No human’s skull had that many teeth. This was the thing inside of him, altering the fabric of his body with every passing second.

No—the thing he had merged with.

A demon, she figured. But there was no way to know for sure unless they deigned to share.

Together, they formed the Glass King.

“Spare me your fucking speeches,” she spat at them. She backed up towards the door leading nowhere while she continued to taunt them, “Just a load of crock, all big talk for someone who pretends to be defending some old crusty world. You’ll only go as far as that same world is willing to serve you. The moment it doesn’t suit you, you’d burn it down in a heartbeat.”

They never stopped grinning at her when the Glass King answered, “I was once where you are now. Full of piss and vinegar, and ready to change. Change everythi—”

“Shut up—”

“So? What changed?” asked the Glass King. “I taste the questions burning on your tongue. I can smell your thoughts. I can feel your uncertainty, tickling the living flames in my veins.”

Without turning, she pawed at where the door’s handle was. Started twisting the knob.

“Nothing. Nothing changed, Kimmy. That’s exactly the thing. You might think of the rebirth of the world as something earth-shattering. Something cataclysmic. But it was subtle. Most people don’t even—”

“Maybe you didn’t change it enough.”

Something clicked, and she shoved the door open by leaning into it, pushing it with all her weight and stumbling blindly through it, falling backwards.

Clicking. Flashes of bright white light that filled her vision with black spots and blinding, dazing stars. Obfuscating the transition from one place to the next. She tripped over something hard, like hitting the curb and staggering onto a paved sidewalk. Buzzing, clicking, more flashing, everywhere. Excited voices.

Haphazardly, she shielded her eyes with a raised hand and glimpsed between her splayed fingers a whole mob of photographers, all clustered around her and beleaguering her like a celebrity surrounded by paparazzi thirsty for the perfect shot.

Kim bit her tongue until she tasted blood again and that helped dispel the presence somewhat, lessening the number of flashes flaring up around her. But the House smelled how close to the brink she had gotten. It refused to ease up. Thus, neither did the crowd give her any quarter.

The footsteps of the Glass King followed her, rapping against the sidewalk. Those sounds thundered, piercing through voices of the crowd, sending streaks of pain that shot through her skull and blotted out coherent thoughts.

“Maybe we changed it too much,” he said.

She pushed her way through this crowd of illusions. Brushing by fabric and flesh that felt all too real. Fingers, not quite grasping, just sliding off of her as she violently shoved past them. Lenses that greedily reflected and captured her image. And the cameras of the mob continued to flash, robbing her of any chance of catching a solid glimpse of her surroundings.

Some dreary city sidewalk. Umbrellas in all sorts of garish colors. Foggy, too, but with the tiny pinpricks of rain hanging in the air and stinging as she stumbled through the crowd. Nothing grounded her anymore and when she thought of the safety pin she had lost—one of the few connections she still had to the world she came from—she thought of something else—

“Doesn’t matter,” said the Glass King, mere steps behind her, muffled by the cacophony around them. For he had to push through the crowd as well. “There’s no going back. Just like there’s no way out for you. Give up and you won’t suffer.”

Her only sliver of hope was that the House hungered as much for the Glass King as it did for her.

And the realization, finally sinking in: the Glass King was desperate. Possibly more so than she was. Desperate to stop her. The certainty in his stride, the cocky tone and the arrogant air all a charade, played out to intimidate her. Used to dub that despair.

“And Kevin?” she breathed.

Kim unzipped the top of her duffel bag and reached into it until her hands found purchase on the smooth cardboard surface of a white box in there.

“Oh, I’ll make him suffer, alright. Make him suffer real good,” the Glass King said.

He chuckled and it grew into laughter until it drowned out the clipped and incomprehensible voices of the House’s crowd of ghosts surrounding and engulfing them.

“So no deal,” Kim said, her confidence growing.

That cardboard box was her nuclear option. The things inside of it thumped against their confinement in anticipation, making its walls bend outwards. Through gritted teeth, now grinning herself—but a grin of hope and madness blending together—she spoke, “Here’s my offer to you, you sack o’ shit. You have this one chance to walk away.”

The laughter died down but the echo lingered and the crowd went silent. The clicking and flashing continued, brighter than before. Kim turned to see the Glass King right behind her. His arm already outstretched, his fingertips just inches away from connecting to her face. She pushed farther away from him and he followed.

“You know I won’t. I can’t,” he said. All the pompous air deflated.

Did he sense what was about to happen? They continued to shove through the crowd, through the ocean of flashing, blinding lights. The crowd did not stop them. It only slowed them.

“Oh, you can quit just fine, but you won’t. Don’t lie. Is it your ego? You feeding on someone? Or is this some sorta favor for someone else? You somebody’s bitch, Michael?”

She didn’t give a damn about his answer and ripped the box out of her bag. It still always appeared and looked like a cute little gift box, like the kind you’d expect to contain a cake or pastries. She squeezed it and felt something mushy inside push back. Then its lid exploded.

A cloud of black fog accompanied that explosion growing and roiling and churning. The Glass King gasped and backed away a step, as did the crowd, muttering their words that sounded like someone speaking in reverse. The dark cloud spread in every direction and looked like oil on water.

It flooded and engulfed everything and everyone in mere instants until Kim only saw darkness, spreading like a flood. The bottomless pit kept releasing the deranged jackals from another world that Kevin had trapped inside of it, pouring out from the tiny white box. She could not see the destruction it wrought. She could only hear the screams of the House’s tulpas everywhere.

Mouths. Eyes. Cackling, gibbering, and gnashing of millions of tiny little teeth. The creatures had found a bountiful feast.

Blood and giblets and tiny bits of bone exploded from the tulpas as the swarm slashed everybody around Kim to ribbons.

The Glass King screamed. An ear-piercing, blood-curdling sound, comprised not only of a human shrieking, but also something gurgling and covered in thorny bristles and shuddering with sinister force, amplified to a volume of a legion of evil incarnate.

She dropped the box and ran, pushing through the horde of humanoid bodies. All of them disintegrating around her, being melted and ripped apart by the living flood. She kept her eyes shut, not only to block out the horrors she might otherwise witness, but to keep all the splattering blood from blinding her.

Only when she bumped into a solid flat surface, all hard and cold, did she stop. The screaming stopped and the world had gone silent. The blood on her hands squeaked as her fingertips trailed down the length of whatever had stopped her escape.

She opened her eyes like a newborn and the blurriness of her vision began to clear. She was no longer on that street amidst a crowd of human-looking ghosts with their soul-draining cameras.

Kim stood in front of a tall mirror, now smeared with blood from where she had bumped into it and touched it. In it, she saw her own reflection, dressed up like Kevin. The musician’s clothing was torn and frayed around the edges. Her entire appearance was bathed in gore, the makeup on her face smeared and her hair a mess.

All around her, leading up to this mirror, was a maze of brick-walled corridors, all overgrown with vines and moss. No roof overhead, just a drizzle raining down from a pitch-black, starless sky. Instead of a cold breeze, the air that blew through here was warm and damp, at odds with the rest of this place’s current guise.

No Glass King, no tulpas, no dark cloud of hungry horrors.

She sensed just how close she had gotten. The Heart of the House thrummed around her.

The walls breathed. As if the House had stopped trying to stop her. As if it grew excited. Eager to see a new world birthed from her defiance.

She left the mirror behind her and discarded the duffel bag. Kim had emptied it and the weight of a doomed world hidden in that small white box had been her last means of survival here.

The open roof tempted her to climb up and look out above the maze, but she felt how close she was and how perilous the sights might be.

She knew the stories from those occultists and alchemists and necromancers who had visited the House and lived to tell of it. She knew better. Many a man had lost his mind by just looking into the wrong place of the House’s bowels.

You can’t taste infinity and walk away with your mind intact.

No, she focused and followed that warmth. The breeze—the breathing of the House. The sounds of footsteps echoing. Her digits tingled like they were falling asleep and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, but she knew those footsteps were not the Glass King’s. If she hurried, he would not be able to harry her any longer.

She trembled all over when she found a massive oaken door around the next curve of the corridors.

This was it.

Kim approached the door and opened it and stepped into the bright room beyond it.

Here, everything that made sense decided to cease doing so. Her injuries stopped hurting. The door behind her quietly clicked as it closed itself behind her and the breeze ceased, shut out. The thrum of the House turned soft and then vanished. A dead silence filled this place.

There was something oddly familiar about the checkered marble floor but she could not yet place it. Or her mind kept pushing it back into its darkest recesses before she could grasp it.

The eye of the storm.

A man sat on a simple stool at the end of this room. In his sixties, bald, with silver stubble on his face, dressed in jeans and a verdant green sweater. Stoic, unmoving. Staring at Kim from the opposite end of the chamber.

It took her a dozen or a thousand steps to traverse the windowless room, from one door to the next. The man sitting there next to the next door stared at her the whole time, awaiting her arrival with eerie patience.

But that man was no mere man. Like the mob of tulpa cameramen crowding her in the streets without names, this thing was another agent of the House.

The final agent of the House.

Kim had gotten this far, just like Kevin. But unlike him, she knew exactly what awaited her. She had shed every last shackle of confusion and she walked the final steps.

Those dozen steps that it took to cross through this room instead felt like one thousand. The room seemed less like a room, and more like a corridor, stretching infinitely to unsettle any visitors.

Any but her, for this journey had reached its end. And a new one awaited, yearning to begin after that final wrap.

Her footsteps tapped loudly against the marble floor, echoes that pierced an otherwise deafening silence. Each of them a little knife, plunged into the back of her head, piercing and painful and reminding her of every little thing that had tried to stop her on her way here.

Of every sacrifice that she and others had made to get here, to reshape the world. With clarity, she knew the end of the corridor to be the gateway to her ascension. Of how hard Michael and the Glass King and their strange army of braindead zombies had tried to prevent this.

Kim finally arrived by the man on the stool. The mysterious man never budged. Never blinked. Just stared at her approaching him all the while.

“You will need these,” said the man on the stool in a silky and soft voice. Kim had expected something gravelly, or burly. But it was higher and cheerier than anticipated.

The man on the stool did nothing to follow up on that. He just sat there, motionlessly. As if waiting for Kim to act first. She shifted her weight uncomfortably, waiting for the man to do something else. Anything.

“No, I have all I need,” she told the man on the stool.

He held out his hand expectantly, like a bellboy expecting a tip.

“I gave every thing I have left to give and have found what lies at the heart of the unseen world. Now, I only have words for you,” she said.

The old man nodded and straightened his sweater jacket. He licked his lips and pursed them, then leaned forward, awaiting what Kim had to say.

“I spent long enough in the House and now is my time to emerge from its depths, naked and content,” she said, the volume of her voice growing as her confidence swelled with each word. “I hereby leave the House, having found my true self. Who I once was shall be buried in the past, and only those of dark hearts will insist on speaking the name I wish to forget. I am Kim, and when I step through these doors, a new world is born.”

“The world of our dreams,” whispered the old man, nodding again.

“No,” she protested. “The real world, reshaped by our dreams, and I will face its every challenge.”

She stepped towards the set of double doors, stopping again and standing next to the old man.

Kim knew not what to expect once she opened these doors and stepped through. She had rescued Kevin from the House by burying him. She was now thoroughly Kim. Stronger for it. The Glass King was not defeated—never would be entirely—but he could not longer prevent her ascension.

She ripped the doors open and walked into the blinding light beyond it. Warm and inviting. She transitioned from one world to the next.

The world ended. Sheer will gave birth to the next.

A horror to some, but a hard-earned victory to others.

—Submitted by Wratts

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queerwalrus · 7 years

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Responsible For Your Fractured Heart And It's Wounded Beat

The sequel to You Can’t Shake The Devil Tree And Expect An Angel To Fall Out (aka the Bastard Hamilton fic - AO3 / Tumblr )

Read on AO3

“What do you want with Thomas Hamilton?” asks one of the men near the door.

“I want to take him away from this place and see him free.” says John, and then realizes that there is no need to obfuscate. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, will you just tell me if you’ve seen my brother or not?”

There is a certain kind of ringing clash that comes only from the blades of two swords meeting in opposition, and it is a sound that James Flint is intensely familiar with hearing from a close distance. He’s also familiar with the look of Charles Vane’s face, covered in blood and soot, at much the same kind of distance, twisted into the familiar smirk he always wore while fighting.

They disengage, and Vane steps back, panting a little. There’s less noise than James was expecting from the pitched battle for the ship, but he supposes he’s so focused on staying alive in order that he might find Thomas that he doesn’t hear it.

“You seem more desperate than usual.” taunts Vane.

“I have somewhere to be.” James snaps back, and steps forward to attack once more.

“Captain!”

James freezes mid-swing, the authority and familiarity of the tone hitting something in his subconscious that makes him obey without question.

“The day has been won, Captain.” says John Silver, gun hanging from loose fingers at his side. Behind him, Miranda clutches at the bloody sword they used to kill Peter, eyes hard, hands covered in dripping red, and Abigail stares in amazement at her hands and the diary they still hold, a man slumped at her feet. “You can stand down.”

“Of course, Lord Hamilton.” says James, the address coming from that same point in his subconscious as his obedience. John looks - taken aback, to say the least, but Miranda is smiling that small, maliciously delighted smile that danced its way across her face whenever something panned out just as she’d thought.

“Lord Hamilton?” asks Vane, in a tone of voice that could have been described as a shriek in a lesser man.

“That - what - fucking fuck, please don’t call me that.” says John, a little weakly. “Thomas is Lord Hamilton, not me.”

James wipes his sword clean and sheathes it, and then his shoulders bounce in a small shrug.

“Until I have seen him in person, until I have held him, I must assume he is dead.” says James. “And that means that you are Lord Hamilton.”

“There are two whole brothers between Thomas and I.” says John. “Surely that means I am safe from ever suffering to bear the yoke of that title.”

“One died in the Spanish War.” says James. “And the other ran off with a tavern maid, which was somehow the smallest scandal your family has produced. So you remain Lord Hamilton.”

“I don’t want to be Lord Hamilton!” says John, with an absurd pout.

James bites back the words ‘tough luck’.

“What the fuck is happening on this ship?” demands Vane. “And why is she still here?”

Abigail attempts to hide behind John, which would have been a far more successful endeavour had she not been a good inch taller than him.

“Miss Ashe remains with us of her own volition, given that her father has proven to be -” James pauses, plainly trying to divine the right words.

“A traitorous backstabbing bastard?” offers Abigail.

“Yes, yes, precisely that.” says James.

John buries his face in his hands.

“Was he always like this?” he asks of Miranda.

“Just wait until you see the two of them together.” she replies. “They are so much worse.”

John looks up again.

“If you get my brother killed -” he starts, and Miranda lays a hand on his arm.

“If anything, Johnny,” she says, “Thomas will be the one to get James killed.”

“We’re going to rescue my brother from highly illegal slavery, and the first thing I’m going to have to say to him is that I’ll trounce him if he gets my Captain killed.” says John, and then he looks up at the sky through the rigging. “What did I do to deserve this?”

“You stole my schedule.” says James, matter-of-fact. “Mister De Groot, Mister Bones, it is imperative that we get underway.”

“May I ask why?” says De Groot, who has a slowly blooming black eye.

“Because there is only so much time before the citizens of Charleston realize we murdered their Governor.” says John. “Might I suggest we hurry?”

***

The journey to Savannah takes two days. Two long and arduous days - not because of dread weather conditions, or due to harassment by naval vessels, but instead because the crew would not stop asking questions.

“So the man we are coming to rescue -” asks Billy, as soon as Charleston has fallen behind the horizon.

“Is Silver’s brother and my lover, yes.” says James.

“And the place he’s being held -” starts Vane.

“Is a penal plantation used to hide aristocratic rebels.” John puts in, waving in the air the collection of papers they had smuggled out in Abigail’s diary in order that no one know where to follow them.

“And the man on the Maria Alleyne was Mister Silver’s father?” De Groot clarifies.

“And Thomas’, yes.” says Miranda, nodding.

“And Miss Ashe is still with us because she helped you kill her father.” says Billy.

“Yes.” says Abigail.

Joji throws his hands up in the air and stomps off to the railing.

James expected this first wave of questioning, but the issue was that it just kept happening. It was as if no one on the crew could believe that they finally had the truth of what drove their complex and charismatic captain to do what he did. Dooley, and Logan, and Muldoon, and then Doctor Howell with rum and a pitying expression (although that ended quite unexpectedly with James and he drunk on the quarterdeck belting old Navy drinking songs and alternately complaining and lewdly reminiscing about men they had both served under) - the men just kept coming.

James is almost grateful when they spot Savannah on the horizon, if only because it will mean Billy will stop asking him for details about the first time Thomas kissed him.

There’s low grey clouds hovering on the horizon beyond the city, and the wind isn’t cold but instead carries the promise of rain in the future, heavy with possibility. John stands at the rail with James to his left and Vane to his right, studying the port through a spyglass.

“It won’t take us long to make it to Oglethorpe’s plantation.” says James. “It’s an easy trip.”

“Getting out is going to be the difficult part.” says Vane. “Once they know our purpose and where we are, they will muster in force to stop us.”

“They are all desperately trying to convince themselves that they have nothing to be afraid of, even while we evade capture at their hands and kill their leaders.” says James.

“And what are you suggesting?” asks Vane.

“That we remind them they were right to be afraid.” says James, and John reaches out with the hand not wrapped around the spyglass, linking their fingers together. Vane grins, wicked and delighted, the kind of expression that belongs amongst slaughter and righteous death.

***

It doesn’t take them long to find the plantation, in that regard James was right. And when they do find it, it is the work of mere minutes to seize control - there are just enough guards to keep the workers - the slaves, thinks John, and it is a painful thought - and none of them are prepared or armed enough to take on two crews of pirates with a vendetta. John leaves the sacking of the plantation house to James and Vane, and goes looking for any other place they may have housed the prisoners while the attack took place.

“Silver!” calls Billy, from further down the field. “Silver! They’re in here!”

Muldoon follows at John’s shoulder, a silent and reliable bodyguard, someone to keep him from being shot in the back. John is grateful for it, having become used to James in the position over the last four days. Billy and Joshua break the door down with ease, their last strike lifting it right off its hinges and accompanied by a strangled cry of fear from inside.

“There is no need to be afraid.” says John, and then he steps into the doorway. “You have nothing to fear as long as you can tell me where Thomas Hamilton is.”

There is a moment in which no one in the hut says anything, and John feels as though he may be sick. If this is the last of Peter Ashe’s lies, if Thomas isn’t here, he doesn’t know what he will do. The silence drags on, and a voice in the back of his head that sounds a little like Miranda starts whispering about how this will just destroy James.

“What do you want with Thomas Hamilton?” asks one of the men near the door.

In the darkness in the back of the hut, someone gasps, and then there’s someone rushing forward. Out of the corner of his eye, John can see Billy raising his sword.

“Put that down, Billy.” he says, and then he’s swept off his feet.

“Johnny, Johnny, Johnny!” Thomas is chanting, and John wraps his arms tight around his neck and holds on while Thomas digs his fingers into the back of John’s shirt and doesn’t let go, and doesn’t let go, and doesn’t let go.

“Thomas.” sighs John.

“God, look at you!” says Thomas. “They brought me no news of you beyond that Father had withdrawn your funding and forced you to resign your place at Oxford, and that you had then disappeared. Look at you! What on earth have you done with your hair? You look like a poet, or a philosopher, or a highwayman. Or a pirate.”

He grins, bright like sunshine, like always, and John finds himself laughing.

“How did you manage to keep that hair in the Navy?” Thomas asks.

“I didn’t.” says John, still laughing. “You were, surprisingly, utterly correct in that last assumption.”

“You’re - you’re a pirate?” says Thomas. “You?”

“I’m just as surprised as you are. Blame your James. He’s really quite obscenely charismatic.”

“And you stole the schedule we needed to steal five million in Spanish Gold.” says Billy. “Right out of the Captain’s hands.”

John shrugs.

“I stayed because of the Captain.” says John, and then he looks back at Thomas. “Obscenely charismatic. I was honestly distraught when I figured out who it was - I was going to make a play myself, but no, instead the gorgeous man’s tortured past is that he’s still in love with my fucking older brother.” John throws his hands into the air. “Honestly.”

Thomas is laughing. Thomas is laughing and for a moment, none of the pain of the last ten years is resting in John’s bones.

“I always knew you’d like him.” says Thomas.

“No, you wanted to rub it in my face that you’d found the most ridiculously attractive man in London. His thighs are obscene, I hate you. Also, he’s somehow even more of a romantic than you - he turned himself into the most feared pirate in the Caribbean in order to get revenge for what happened to you.”

Thomas’ eyes go soft, disbelieving.

“He loves you so much, Thomas.” says John. “It really is wonderful.”

Thomas’ smile is watery, now, and he clutches John back to his chest, twisting the fabric of John’s shirt with the strength of his fingers.

“Also,” says John, muffled by the coarse fabric of Thomas’ shirt, “your wife is terrifying. I love her.”

Thomas is actually crying, John can feel it in the way Thomas’ body is shaking against his own, and it’s still the best thing he has felt in years.

“You’re alive, all of you.” says Thomas. “And I’m not dreaming.”

“No, Thomas,” says John, “you’re not dreaming.”

They haven’t been at sea for a day but he can taste salt on his own lips, and he doesn’t care what that means.

***

They stagger their way back to the Plantation House, not because of pain or injury but rather because John is a good four inches shorter than Thomas and neither of them is willing to let go of the other. The combined efforts of John’s crewmates and Vane’s crew have shut the place down - the few guards left alive have surrendered, and are under careful guard. Those who aren’t looting or keeping watch back slowly away from John and Thomas as they walk, wide-eyed and staring without shame as they pass. The whispers are loud enough to hear, delighted and intrigued - that is Captain Flint’s lover, they say, that is Silver’s brother, that is the man who has caused all this.

“They fear me.” says Thomas, confused.

“They fear James.” says John. “They fear you as a consequence.”

The men fall into step behind them - a mix of pirates and freed men from the hut, a procession back towards the house and then the ship. Thomas and John are on the veranda at the front of the house when a man comes crashing through it, landing on his back. He’s been beaten to hell, and barely tries to stand up after he lands. James and Vane walk through the doors shoulder to shoulder, bloody swords in hand, blood smeared across their faces, James’ sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and James hears Thomas inhale sharply. Upon closer inspection, Thomas’ eyes are blown, pupils huge, face ever-so-slightly flushed.

“Of fucking course you think this is attractive.” says John, under his breath. “You fucking romantic.”

Thomas lifts his hand from John’s shoulder to cuff him upside the head, and then drops it back.

“It’s satisfying to watch Oglethorpe hurting.” says Thomas, inclining his head to the man on the ground.

“Sure.” says John, knowingly.

James raises his sword again, and John takes half a step forward.

“James, stop!”

James halts in place, sword a few inches from Oglethorpe’s neck. His eyes drag up to the two of them, to John and Thomas still wrapped tight around each other, and then he drops the sword, lets it fall from his hand to the planking, and takes three long strides across the veranda.

“What -” starts Oglethorpe.

“Shut up.” hisses Vane. “We’ve all been waiting for this.”

“Thomas.” James breathes, hands coming up to frame Thomas’ face.

“James.” Thomas replies, in the same tone, and then he fists his free hand in James’ bloodstained shirt and pulls him in, hauls him so close their noses crush against each other’s faces when they kiss.

A cheer erupts from the assembled crew of the Walrus, and James is laughing when they part - if separating their mouths and letting their foreheads rest together counts as parting. John rests his head against Thomas’ shoulder, lets James move one of his hands from Thomas’ neck to around John’s waist so that the three of them are wrapped close.

“Miranda is safe on the ship.” James says. “With Abigail Ashe. Well, Abigail McGraw, now.”

“Peter’s daughter?” Thomas asks.

“She was the one to discover your whereabouts. And she correctly deduced that her father was responsible for our separation.” says James.

“Honestly, James.” says Thomas, pitching his voice to carry. “I leave you alone for ten years and you corrupt my baby brother, partially bankrupt England, and adopt a daughter. Whatever am I supposed to do with you?”

Over the scattered laughter, James replies.

“Never leave me again?” he says, and someone in the assembled crowd makes a noise like they have just been presented with the most adorable kitten ever to become a ship’s cat.

“Never.” Thomas promises.

“Good.” says James.

“As it should be.” says John.

“Can we leave now, before the militia arrives?” says Billy.

“For fuck’s sake, William, let them have their moment.” says Vane, but he’s already heading towards the gate they entered by, and to the road beyond that will lead them back to the ship.

***

They get three blissful days. Three days after Miranda all-but screams Thomas’ name and throws herself into his arms, three days during which the crew throws around enough innuendo regarding the pleas for more and harder that drift out of the captain’s cabin at night and who exactly is making them for them all to discover that James Flint can blush redder than sunburn under the right circumstances, three days of Abigail and Thomas and John arguing about the English school curriculum and its gendered differences, three days of sunshine and good winds, three days of peace. One to get to where the Urca’s treasure had been left and to load up the ship - and the screaming argument between John and James about the former’s lying had only ended when Thomas threw them both out of the cabin and refused to open the door until they had resolved the matter - and then two more to return to Nassau.

Well, two more to make part of the return journey to Nassau, before they are confronted by Hornigold promising pardons, a battle, and a storm. They struggle through the pouring rain, fight through the starvation and the dehydration brought on by the doldrums - Thomas tries to make a joke of it, says he’s used to the lack of food, that Bedlam conditioned him for such things. Nobody laughs. The men become - softer around him, for want of a better phrase. They have all suffered, and there is something about the carelessness of the telling that makes them understand how deeply Thomas’ scars run, how much like all of them he truly is. John and James kill a shark, kill two sharks, feed the men, and the wind rises slow and soft across the rippling water, and Thomas kisses James right there on the deck surrounded by the crew, and Miranda flings her arms around John’s waist, and Billy swings Abigail up and around off her feet and she clings to his forearms and laughs, her hair blowing in the salt-scented breeze.

They stop at the first island they encounter. John sits on the sandbank and James brings him water, and John quietly puts forward his conclusions regarding the true nature of the number of pardons, and James nods and tells him he’s likely right, and says they must tell Thomas and Miranda.

Which is, naturally, when they are all captured by Maroons.

Thomas and James switch off helping John cover the rugged terrain, providing support, and James drops back to hug Abigail to his side whenever he isn’t helping John, just as Thomas clutches Miranda’s hand. The Queen of the Maroons asks for their captain and their quartermaster, and James and John and Vane all step forward, and Thomas looks like he might be ill at the thought of losing them again, clings to James after they are all tossed in the cage together. Miranda and John pass their days watching the people of the village, wondering about what else they can do. James holds Thomas tight and the two of them encircle Abigail in their arms and James plans an escape for everyone but himself and Thomas tells him that cannot be an option and, and Miranda plans, and John plans, and James tells John to stay away from the dark and not to follow the same paths as he did, and the crew, patient and believing, waits.

They take Miranda in the middle of the night, and she returns after anxious hours with a smug smirk on her face and her hair askew.

“They will hear us out.” she says.

“How can you be sure?” demands Billy. His face is creased in concern, and his arms are folded.

“The Queen’s daughter is going to put a good word in for us.” says Miranda.

“You slept with her.” says Thomas, suddenly. “I remember that look - you fucked the Queen’s daughter.”

Miranda’s smirk widens, and she shrugs.

“Her name is Madi. She believes in our cause, in our fight for freedom.”

“And you fucked her.” says John, shaking his head.

“And I fucked her.” Miranda admits. “I walked in and she quoted Horace, you’re going to love her. Stop looking at me like that.”

“You’re all insane.” says Billy. “Every last one of you.”

Thomas flinches at the word.

***

They sail back to Nassau with the promise of a war to come, with Madi on the ship right alongside them and the gold buried in the island’s earth as collateral. Miranda was right, and all of her boys do love the Princess.

(The men have taken to referring to John, James, and Thomas collectively as “Lady Hamilton’s Boys”. They think they are doing so subtly. They are not. All three men love it too much to complain, so this assumption has not been corrected.)

Madi is clever, and forward-thinking, and she spends her waking hours during their voyage talking with Thomas and James and Charles about diplomacy and tactics and philosophy, and her nights curled up in a hammock with Miranda. John complains of being the last one without company at nights and James reels him in by the sleeve of him coat and plants a kiss on his cheek that leaves John speechless, a fact the crew will not let him forget.

They have a council of war in James’ cabin - in their cabin - and it is agreed that John ought to be the one to share the story of their miraculous resurrection, to provide the pirates of Nassau with a ghost to haunt them until they remember their desire to be free.

Abigail insists on accompanying him.

It is the first fight they have had, all of them. It is resolved by Charles throwing a tankard to the floor to create enough noise to distract them, and declaring that someone ought to ensure Abigail knows how to use a sword before she goes ashore. Miranda joins the lessons, and John, watching, tells Thomas that James is a good teacher, is good with Abigail.

“He would make a wonderful father.” says Thomas, quietly.

“He is a wonderful father.” says John.

“You can love him too.” says Thomas. “He has room in his heart for so much love.”

John feels winded, and resolves not to think about it until later. Thomas hugs him desperately before they go ashore, makes Billy promise to protect him, and John can feel his eyes all the way to shore.

(He can feel James’ too, but he refuses to think about that. He needs his focus.)

Abigail squeezes his hand, and when she climbs out of the longboat in her borrowed breeches and coat, and Madi does the same before she departs - she smiles at him, fragile, and he smiles back, soft, and this is the woman his sister-in-law has chosen, and John finds himself hugging her before she has time to leave.

“Come back to us safely.” he says. “You’re family too.”

She nods, and turns again, casting one more cautious look over her shoulder.

“Insane, all of you.” says Billy, and John punches him in the arm.

The tavern is the same as it ever is, and John waves the pardon rolls around and swears that men will die or live in fear if they do not honor their oaths, and right as he’s hitting the climax of the speech, Dufresne stands up and interrupts with insults.

“I know enough of you to know that even whole, you were unworthy of half the attention we paid you.” he says, and John was intending to leave this place without bloodshed, but he certainly isn’t now.

“And now,” Dufresne continues, “as a God damned invalid -”

John can see Abigail crossing the floor behind Dufresne’s turned back with a murderous expression he’s only ever seen her newly adopted father wear turning her face into a snarling mask.

“You expect that to change?” scoffs Dufresne, and Abigail hits him over the head with a tankard from the table at her hip, hard enough to send Dufresne tumbling to the floor.

She steps back as soon as he stumbles, leaving the floor open.

“Fuck him up, Uncle John.”

John stands utterly still for just a moment, just enough grin at her, something vicious and hard that comes from the pain he has suffered, that Thomas suffered, that Miranda suffered, that James suffered.

And then he draws the sword from his belt and cuts down.

***

“And then there was blood everywhere and it was incredible!” Abigail tells the assembled crew. “And his head went rolling slowly across the floor and Uncle John squared his shoulders and stood up all straight like Father does when he’s about to convince you all to do something suicidal -”

John and James both learnt that stance off Thomas, but John won’t interrupt the retelling to correct Abigail on that.

“And then he said -” starts Abigail, and she assumes the stance and repeats the words back.

“My name is John Hamilton, and I’ve got a long fucking memory.”

There are whoops from the crew, and Dooley leans over to clap him on the back a few times. Abigail gets swept off by the crew - she’s one of them now, and both she and they are happy about it - and John turns back to the cabin and James and Thomas.

“You didn’t tell me it would feel like this.” he says as soon as he opens the door, and then he slams it behind him.

“That what would feel like what?” asks James, with a certain amount of heat that John wasn’t expecting. James is, John realizes belatedly, sitting in Thomas’ lap where Thomas is slouched in the Captain’s chair. Neither of them is wearing a shirt.

“This path to darkness you told me to avoid.” says John. “You didn’t tell me it would feel good.”

Thomas clicks his tongue.

“Corrupting our Johnny even further?” he says. “Shame on you, James, truly.”

James laughs, and it’s a dark sound, dark enough to match the shiver down John’s spine when Thomas called him ‘their Johnny’. James slips from Thomas’ lap and crosses the room so he can frame John’s face the same way he had framed Thomas’, and John gasps in a breath

“I think we’re expanding beyond pairs, Thomas.” says James.

John looks over at Thomas, who’s just grinning, with alarm.

“Go on, Johnny.” he says. “Bite the apple.”

“Sink a little deeper, Lord Hamilton.” purrs James, and for the first time John feels a thrill of pride at the title.

He takes a deep breath, and -

Apples never tasted as sweet as this.

***

The next morning finds them gathered at the rail, peering through spyglasses at the tent the Governor has set up on the beach.

“He is using their shame to keep them away.” says James.

“Luckily, we have none of that.” says Thomas, grinning at John.

John, who still has James’ teeth marks in his neck, grins back.

James, between them, goes red.

“If you three are quite done.” Miranda teases, and just like that the mood is somber once more.

“What’s the play, then?” asks Charles. “We won’t have much time. Two hours, maybe three.”

Behind him, Anne Bonny looks serious and Jack Rackham is shading his eyes with his hand, squinting at the beach. The Colonial Dawn bobs behind the man of war, fully crewed and ready.

“We need Max.” says Anne.

“Yes, sure, Max.” says James, and then he looks sideways at John and rather frantically mouths ‘who the fuck is Max’.

“I’m sure she’ll make it to the rendezvous.” says John.

“I’m going to go ashore and talk to him.” says James.

“James, no.” says John.

“That is a terrible idea, James.” says Miranda.

“No, we should see what he wants.” says Madi. Miranda glares at her, and Madi grins and presses kisses to her cheek until she cracks a smile.

“I’ll come with you.” says Thomas.

“For fuck’s sake!” says John, and James grins, roguish and disarming, and they’re off, the both of them, with Joji in a longboat, before he can blink.

“Must you encourage them, Madi?” he asks.

“Things get done when we do it their way.” says Madi, and John glowers at her smirk as she tows Miranda away to the solitude of the cabin.

They are back sooner than anyone on the ship expected, Max climbing aboard ahead of either James or Thomas.

“What happened?” John demands.

“I shot the Governor.” says Thomas, breathless.

“You did fucking what?” yells Charles. Anne looks impressed, and Jack appears to be checking on Max.

“I shot the Governor. The plan was that I would stay with the boat and far enough away that he wouldn’t recognize me, but then he started talking, and he was using my supposed death against James, I could hardly stand for that -”

“Damn fucking right!” Abigail chips in, and rolls her eyes when James scolds her for her language and then pretends not to notice the supportive gestures she gets from Muldoon and Dooley, who undoubtedly taught her to swear.

“So I walked up to the table and I called him by name and said I was delighted to finally meet him and then I suggested that England and her representatives could go fuck themselves, and I shot him in the face.”

He sounds pleased with himself, and there’s a faint smile on his face.

“I see what you meant about the darkness, Johnny.” he says. “It is so - warm. Welcoming.”

“Thomas,” says James, “are you alright?”

“I rather think I might be a pirate now.” says Thomas.

“Fucking right you are!” yells Dooley. Thomas beams at him.

“Maybe you ought to sit down.” says John.

“Maybe I shan’t.” says Thomas, more to be contrary than out of any real objection, and then he sits right down where he is on the deck. The assembled leadership of the fight against England stares at him.

“I think we ought to leave Captain Vane, Captain Rackham, Miss Bonny, and their crew here.” says Madi. “Let them reclaim the island while we fetch my people and the gold.”

“I think that sounds like a plan.” says James, now on his knees with an arm wrapped around Thomas. “Billy, would you stay to help them?”

Billy stays. The man of war leaves.

When they return to Nassau, the fort flies Rackham’s banner and the people await the return of their leader, of Madi, the Queen of the Free Pirates of Nassau. Billy beams with pride as he tells Madi of the men they killed to destabilize what remained of the English forces, the traitor captains and slavers they murdered in her name, and she smiles and stands on a chair to kiss his forehead, and takes her place as the face of their rebellion as if she were born for it.

Within the week, the harbor is full.

***

The ships belong to Maroons who raid slavers, to pirates from Nantucket and Virginia, to smugglers and criminals of all kinds. They all arrive with a singular purpose, and relate that purpose with a similar script. We are here to pledge our support to those who took back Nassau for us, they say, we are here to fight for the Brethren, for freedom, for our way of life.

Each man swears his loyalty to Madi, who sits enthroned halfway up the central staircase of the former Governor’s mansion, every inch a queen, with Miranda looking regal at her right shoulder. John and Thomas and James rotate who stands at her left, and when it is his turn John focuses all his thought on the man joining their cause, because if he doesn’t he will be forced to remember that he unintentionally walked in on Madi sitting on that throne with her head thrown back while Miranda knelt at her feet, Madi’s hands twisting in her hair. When he complains of this to James, the other man just laughs, walks John back and back until John is pressed against the wall, calls him by his title, and then slides downwards to his own knees. John - doesn’t do much complaining after that, although he does tell Thomas that he’s developed a rather lewd reaction to hearing the title they share, which sends Thomas into fits of laughter followed by an amused agreement.

All thoughts of James at his feet calling him ‘my lord’ aside, a plan is forming. James has his heart set on Saint Anne’s Bay in Barbados as a first strike, and he sits on the stairs in front of Madi’s throne with his hands steepled as he waits for the two captains who had been there the most recently to agree on the size of the defenses.

“There are two ten pound guns on the beach.” the Maroon captain informs him, at length. “And at least eighty men at arms. At most, one hundred.”

“One hundred?” James says, disbelieving. “I had reckoned twice that. With a force on the ground of say - three times that number, we could take the town in a week.”

John, at Madi’s left hand, reaches down until she takes his hand in hers.

“If you do that,” says the other captain, “you would starve Bridgetown. They wouldn’t last a month.”

“And just like that, we take Barbados.” says Thomas, striding through the crowd to take his place against the banister closest to James.

“How many of your people could we muster to the mainland, your Majesty?” James asks.

“Seven hundred?” Madi offers. “Eight, perhaps?”

“And of the slaves in Barbados, how many do you think would fight with us?”

“One in two?” she guesses.

“Two in three.” says Charles. “Evens out to about twelve hundred men.”

“With a force like that we could land anywhere.” says James. “Fuck, we could sack Boston.”

There is a gasp from the collected captains.

“Boston?” says John, certain he has not heard correctly.

“Boston.” purrs Miranda, sounding pleased.

“Boston!” gasps Abigail, swatting at Muldoon’s arm in her excitement.

“Boston.” echoes Max, eyes distant as she thinks of the possibilities.

“Boston.” says Madi, turning the word over in her mouth, tasting it on her tongue.

Three months later, James walks down the gangplank and sets his feet on the shore of Boston harbor with something of a swagger, casting a dismissive glance at the group of scared officials and nervous militiamen gathered beneath the white flag. At the rail, Madi surveys the land they have taken, Miranda still at her side, a hand around her waist, face pressed into Madi’s neck.

“Are you Captain Flint?” asks one of the men he has come to meet.

“I am.” James replies.

“Are we to negotiate with you, then?”

James looks up at the man, affronted.

“Of course not.” he says. “I’m a tactician, not a diplomat.”

“Then who are we speaking to?”

James ignores the question, and turns back to the gangplank, extending his hand to ease disembarking.

“Lord Hamilton.” he says, and half-bows over his hand, when it is taken.

#my fic #flinthamilton #silverflint #madi/miranda #black sails

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actual-lich-queen · 7 years

Text

Queen of Cups Chapter 1: We All Come from Somewhere

Exploring an alternate choice for the Inquisitor’s background for Dragon Age: Inquisition. Chapter One takes place before the events at the Temple for the Urn of Sacred Ashes and introduces our heroine, her family, and a lays out a few of the relevant details of the Origins timeline.

The evening sounds of the Denerim alienage accompanied Ayla Adalen on her walk home. Her mostly empty basket of lavender sachets swung beside her, occasionally bouncing off a knee. She had already begun fantasizing about what her mother had made for dinner. Probably soup. It was usually soup. But there wasn’t any other soup quite like it in Denerim, her mother had been raised dalish and had their sensibilities about spicing food. Meaning that unlike most Ferelden soups, it was actually good. Her stomach rumbled as she approached the Adalen family home, the smell of dinner wafting through the open window.

“Mamae! I’m home!” Ayla announced as she closed the door behind her and set her basket down.

“Aneth ara, lethallan” Rosha rose from the hearth, “How was it today?”

“Not bad, I’ll have to go out in the fields again tomorrow. Most of what is left has been crushed. It won’t sell.” Ayla untied her apron, hanging it on a peg by the door, “It smells good, what’s for dinner?”

Ayla crossed the small hovel and gave her mother kiss on the temple.

“Potato stew with mutton.” Rosha made a face, “Well...more like a dream of mutton. Any less meat and I might as well baa at the pot for all the good it does.”

“My favorite.” Ayla took two wooden bowls and spoons from off the mantle and set the table. She picked up the earthen water jug and gave it a shake, empty. “I’ll go get more water from the well while you finish up.”

“Aye.” Rosha acknowledged, returning to tending the stew, “Be quick, da’len, it’s almost ready.”

Ayla fetched the buckets and yoke and made her way to the alienage well. The evening crowd was already gathered and she joined them to wait her turn for water.

“Spoon!” A young elf approached her, waving and carrying his own bucket.

“Sammen!” Ayla replied, “How was work at the docks?”

“Not the worst day, no major injuries and I only got called knife-ear a couple dozen times.” Sammen replied, setting his bucket down next to her.

“Are they actually going to pay you this time?”

“After last time I got half up front, at least. So there’s that.” Sammen frowned, “But this foreman seems at least halfway honest. And he has family here. So he’s not going to disappear over the horizon without paying the dockhands.”

“So you can learn.” Ayla teased.

“Keep talking like that and Haren Shianni will never be able to make you a match.”

“What? I have a darling personality.” She took mock offence, “I thought it was because I look like a shem.”

“True. You’d almost be pretty if you hadn’t inherited your da’s ears.” Sammen slung his arm around Ayla’s neck and mussed her hair.

“Ah! No! Stop!” Ayla laughed as she wiggled out of Sammen’s hold, “And you’d almost be handsome if you could just do something about your face.”

“Shall I paint it like a dalish elf?” Sammen wriggled his fingers under his eyes, imitating Rosha’s vallaslin.

“What, Mythal’s like mamae’s?” Ayla shook her head while smiling, “Patron of motherhood and justice?”

“Eugh...maybe not that one. Not a justice kinda guy. Too much work.” Sammen stuck his tongue out, “What’s the one that had all the fun?”

“Fun?”

“You know. Ran around tricking everyone at parties, giving people what they asked for but not what they expected. The fun one. Thenril or something.”

“Fen’Harel? The Dread Wolf?”

“Yeah! That’s the one. I bet his face thingy looks awesome.”

“I don’t think he has a vallaslin. Not that mamae has told me. Besides, he hates elves.”

“Pfff. He’s clearly met them. No offence to your mum, she’s nice, but the dalish I ran into when I ran that message over to Lothering called me ‘flat ear’ and shot arrows at my feet. Said I was trespassing in their woods.”

“Sure. We’ll just discount how they helped fight off the darkspawn then.”

“Well, obviously I don’t mean them either.” Sammen crossed his arms, “Just the ones who shoot at poor innocent messengers like myself.”

“A fair point.” Ayla stepped forward towards the well to fill her buckets, “But you’ve met enough dalish to know they’re not all like that.”

“Yeah, yeah. First impressions die hard.” Sammen took Ayla’s buckets from her and filled them for her, “Particularly when they’re the murder-y sort of impressions.”

“Hey, thanks.” Ayla dipped lower so Sammen could hook the buckets onto her yoke, “See you later tonight, tell you da I said ‘hi’.”

“Yeah, same to your ma!” Sammen waved as Ayla walked away, “Come by and visit sometime. He says you make tea better than me anyways.”

“That’s because I don’t let it steep so long the spoon can stand up in it.” Alya laughed as she walked away.

“That’s how you know it’s done!” Sammen called back.

Ayla opened the front door with her foot to find that she and her mother apparently had company for dinner. Rosha’s face was buried in the shoulder of an elf woman she was hugging so tightly Ayla wondered how they were managing to breath. The stranger wore a the blue and purple robes of a mage. King Alistair had granted the Ferelden circle greater autonomy, but it was still strange seeing a mage outside the tower. There was friction between the royal decree and the official stance of the Chantry. Some felt King Alistair was in his rights as king to grant more freedom to the Ferelden mages, while others said that mages and the circles were part of the Chantry and he had no authority over them. It was a subject best avoided at dinner parties if one hoped to have a pleasant evening.

“I’ve got the water, who’s our guest?” Ayla asked, setting the buckets down and carefully filling the jug on the table from one.

“Ayla, don’t you recognize her?” Rosha looked up teary eyed, releasing her hugging victim. Ayla was able to get a good look, there was something familiar about the woman’s face… Suddenly it clicked and Ayla realized the last time she’d seen the woman was as a girl sixteen years ago.

“Myathilen! Sister!” She shouted as she launched herself at the woman, hugging her tight.

“I go by Mary now.” the mage laughed, hugging her sister back, “No one at the circle could pronounce Myathilen.”

“Mary then, if that’s what you prefer.” Ayla corrected herself.

“It is.” Mary affirmed with a smile.

“I don’t see what’s so hard about ‘Myathilen’.” Rosha pursed her lips, “But I’m glad to have you home, regardless.”

“But what are you doing here? Are there...you know…” Ayla’s eyes darted around the room nervously and her voice dropped to a low whisper, “...templars?”

“No.” Mary’s voice also fell to a whisper, “They said the circle of enchanters voted to disband after what happened in Val Royeaux, and the Ferelden circle rebelled. Most of the mages left for Andoral’s Reach after the battle with the templars, but I just wanted to come home. I don’t think news of the rebellion has reached Denerim yet.”

“I haven’t heard anything about it at the Gnawed Noble.” Ayla shrugged, “Nothing solid anyways. Of course there are rumors.”

“There are always rumors.” Rosha shook her head, “But come, eat. Mage politics will not rob me of having both my daughters home.”

“For another hour at least, I have to get changed and over to the Gnawed Noble.” Ayla said as she laid out another place setting and served the stew.

“Can’t you take tonight off? It’s not everyday your sister comes home.” Rosha sighed.

“Not if we want to keep calling this shack home I can’t.” Ayla was already shoveling stew in her mouth.

“Lethallan, please.” Rosha said in that voice all mothers have when their children forget their table manners.

Ayla finished chewing carefully and swallowed before speaking again, “Sorry, mamae.”

“It’s been sixteen years, but you haven’t changed a bit.” Mary laughed as she joined them at the table.

“I’m slightly taller.” Ayla defended.

“Slightly.” Mary emphasized, “It’s nice not being the shortest person in the room, for once.”

Ayla stuck her tongue out before cramming more stew in her mouth.

“Girls.” Rosha chided, but she was smiling. It was like she had never lost one of her daughters to the circle.

“What do you do at the Gnawed Noble?” Mary asked as she delicately ate her stew.

“I perform. Archery tricks mostly, but sometimes I juggle.” Ayla said between bites, “I’m better with the bow than the pins though.”

“I thought you sold flowers?” Mary’s brow knit as she searched her memory, “At least that was the impression I got from your letters.”

“I do that too, but after da…” Ayla choked on her words, letting the rest of the sentence hang, “Mamae and I needed money so one of da’s old contacts got me a job performing at The Pearl. Not like...you know. But stupid parlor tricks to keep the customers entertained while they waited for the whores.”

“Weren’t you twelve when Graham-” Mary was interrupted by a look Ayla shot her followed by Ayla’s eyes pointedly looking over at their mother. Rosha was visibly upset by the mention of her husband’s name.

“Yeah, that’s why it was shooting arrows and not...you know.” Ayla concluded, spooning the last of her dinner into her mouth and rising from the table, “You could come with me tonight, if you like.”

“That sounds fun, but maybe I should stay with mother?” Mary looked at their mother.

“You should go, I can finish the washing and get Arl Eamon’s table linens back to Nigella early.” Rosha answered as she began clearing away dinner.

“I have something you can wear.” Ayla’s voice was muffled by her dress, she was already stripping out of her day clothes, “Not as fancy as what you’ve got on, but at least it won’t scream ‘Hey, I’m a mage!’ at the top of it’s lungs.”

“Alright, I’m convinced.” Mary decided.

“Great! Here.” Ayla thrust the dress she had just been wearing into Mary’s hands.

“You can’t be serious.”

“As a blight.” Ayla opened a trunk and pulled out the chest-piece of Rosha’s old dalish armor and a pair of trousers, “I have one other dress, but it’s for helping mamae with on bleaching days and it’s mostly holes at this point.”

“Mother?” Mary turned to Rosha for help.

“My other dress has more holes than Ayla’s. Just wear your sister’s. We’ll see about finding you something of your own tomorrow.”

“Fine.” Mary sighed, pulling her robes over her head.

The top of the hour found the sisters inside the Gnawed Noble. It was a sizable crowd for a weeknight. Ayla scanned the room, reading the people. No one stood out as a danger, at least, not to them. There were the usual nobles and merchants sitting where they could see and be seen. Some of the less reputable patrons hovered in the darker corners.

The Gnawed Noble’s proprietor, Edwina, encouraged this. Said it gave the place ‘flavor.’ As long as they weren’t injured, some of the nobles seemed to actually enjoy being able to tell their friends about the time they got piss drunk and robbed. This only served to feed Ayla’s opinion that nobles were weird.

“Do you want anything? I have to check in with the bartender and then get set up.” Ayla asked Mary.

“Oh...um… an ale might be nice.” Mary was scanning the tavern herself, but clearly coming to a different conclusion.

“Don’t worry. The nobles want something exciting to write home about and the disreputable types stick to the purses that won’t miss it.” Ayla assured her, “It’s sort of the unspoken rule here. Break it and you’re not welcome anymore. Edwina makes sure of it. Fighting is okay, pick-pocketing is okay, but scaring off the customers or the entertainment who bring the customers in isn’t.”

“I see…” Mary did not look convinced.

“Relax, you keep looking that tense and someone’s going to think you’re a mark.” Ayla squeezed her sister’s shoulders and guided her to a booth, “Here. Wait here and I’ll get you that ale.”

She felt a little guilty about leaving Mary sitting alone. Her sister was clearly not used to the atmosphere and she sat stiffly in what she probably thought was a relaxed position. Ayla’s lip twitched. Her mother would kill her if she let anything happen to Mary on her first night back.

“Who’s the lady?” the bartender asked as Ayla approached.

“That’s my sister, and she’d like an ale.” Ayla leaned on the counter.

“Why’s she got knife-ears when yours are normal?”

“Mary’s got elf ears because we don’t have the same da.” Ayla gently corrected, “You getting that ale or not?”

“Sure, kid.” The bartender fished out a clean jack and filled it, “Edwina says you can set up in the usual spot by the fire. I’ll let ‘em know the twitchy one is kin. Sammen can be here anytime with his drum.”

“Thanks.” Ayla traded three coppers for the jack and returned to Mary, who was looking about as comfortable as a Chantry Mother in a brothel.

“Here, the ale’s actually pretty decent at the Noble.” Ayla pressed the jack into Mary’s hands, “As long as you stay on the bartender’s good side.”

“Thanks.” Mary nervously gulped down most of the drink, “Wait, aren’t you thirsty?”

“I’ll have some after, I have to be able to shoot straight enough not to perforate anyone.” Ayla smiled, “At least not anyone important.”

“Ah.” Mary picked at the stitching on the jack, “Um...about before. When I used your father’s name.”

“Mamae still doesn’t like talking about it.” Ayla pressed her lips together in a thin line, “I don’t much like discussing it either.”

“Oh, sorry.” Mary stared at the table.

“Don’t be. You couldn’t know. Not really.” Ayla laid her hand on her sister’s, “I know mamae didn’t write about it and I...I couldn’t fit it into words.”

“I had heard about the slavers in the alienage during the blight. Some of the older mages talked about it when they got back. But they said they only were taking elves and Graham was elf-blooded. He looked human enough.”

“Yeah, but da was pretty, is pretty.” Ayla corrected herself, “And experienced in the way that makes pretty slaves expensive. They ransacked the orphanage during the alienage purge to get rid of all the noble bastards like da. No one was going to be up in arms about one of them getting sold off to Tevinter.”

“I’m sorry.” Mary looked horrified, “I didn’t think about how things were back home. I mean, not how they really were. Just those happy golden childhood memories of what home was like…”

They sat for a moment. Ayla traced graffiti on the table with her finger. A clever but not at all reverent epithet about King Cailan was carved into the wood. Mary fiddled with the stitching on her jack some more.

“Do you think Graham is still alive?” Mary broke the awkward silence.

“We hope.” Ayla shrugged with a sad smile, “King Alistair and Queen Cousland have managed to secure the return of some of the elves that got sold off when Teyrn Loghain took power. Most of the alienage hopes that someday it’ll be someone they lost. Because between the purge, the plague, the slavers, and the battle of Denerim, there isn’t anyone who hasn’t lost someone.”

“I-I shouldn’t have brought it up. And right before you have to perform. Sorry.”

“No, it’s probably better that you asked here instead of where mamae might have heard. And you have a right to know.” Ayla paused to wave at Sammen who finally came bustling in, “I’ve got to start, here’s a few more coppers if you want another when you finish that one. We can talk more when I’m done.”

Ayla left the booth and met Sammen by the fire where they began setting up for their performance.

“Hey, who’s that with you?” Sammen asked, taking the felted cover off his drum and giving the skin a soft thump with his knuckle.

“Remember Myathilen? Except she goes by Mary now.”

“Your sister?” Sammen’s eyes went wide and snapped to where Mary was finishing her jack, “Isn’t she supposed to be in the tower?”

“Shhh!” Ayla looked around to see if anyone had heard him, “She said the circles dissolved. The news doesn’t seem to have come this far yet, but if Mary is here it can’t be far behind.”

“So what are you gonna do?”

“For now? Get set up and hopefully make enough tonight to feed the extra mouth.”

“Practical.”

“Someone has to be. Join us for a drink after?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.” Sammen winked at Mary. She responded with a confused look. Ayla laughed.

“Go easy on her. She’s been in that tower for sixteen years.”

“So you’re saying I have a chance.” Sammen grinned.

“Ass.”

Ayla and Sammen set up a target by the fire, casually making conversation with the tavern patrons they were dislodging. With everything ready, Sammen began playing his drum.

The beat was slow and heavy at first, gathering the attention of the patrons, then moved into an occasional trill as Ayla began her routine. Her first shot was straight with the only mildly impressive thing being that the arrow thudded into the target in time with the beat. The next shot was standing on one leg, then spinning, then twisting, until Ayla was dancing and striking the bullseye still in time with the drum. Her body contorted into shapes that seemed impossible, flexibility hard earned from years of training, and still the arrows struck the target. Each shot more impossible than the last until they had the undivided attention of the Noble’s patrons. Sammen’s drumming ended when the quiver at Ayla’s side was empty. The tavern broke into applause as she began pulling her arrows from the target.

“Challenge the archer! A copper a shot.” Sammen announced, “If she can’t make it, we’ll pay you two!”

The patrons began calling out shots, waving coppers in the air. Sammen walked around collecting coins, announcing the challenge loud enough for the whole tavern to hear. Ayla shot through rings, around mugs, blindfolded, upside-down, using only one hand. At one point she shot the flame off a candle, to much cheering. Sammen didn’t once have to pay out on a challenge, even the ones that got rather sadistic.

“Thank you!” Sammen announced when the purse was fat with coin, “We have one last trick for you tonight, we’re going to need those of you standing from here to the bar to clear some space. Thank you for coming out, and thank you for your coin!”

The audience laughed and clapped as Sammen retrieved his drum. Ayla took her position in front of the target and waited for the path back to the bar to clear. The barkeep placed a jack of ale on the counter and gave her a nod. She nodded to him and then to Sammen. He began playing his drum. There was no easing into the beat this time, it began fast paced and moved into frantic. Ayla matched it with flips and leaps, punctuated with arrows slamming into the target. Sweat poured from her brow but she was grinning from ear to ear. It wasn’t until there was one arrow left that there was any relief from the driving beat of the drum. Sammen played a trill as Ayla found her position directly in front of the target again, and then he fell silent. It was Ayla’s turn to pick up the beat. There were three quick successive thuds from her footfalls as she took a running start and then a musical series of thumps created by a combination of backflips and cartwheels from target to the bar. The gymnastic rhythm had a brief rest as Ayla sprung somersaulting into the air and landed with a final bang on the counter, her last arrow thudding into the target at the same time. Alya took her bow to the sound of applause. She bent down to pick up the jack and continued to roll her body like a poem until her feet alighted once more on the floor, not a single drop spilled. This caused a second surge of applause and whistles from the crowd.

The performance over, a few of tavern patrons pushed forward to speak with Ayla and Sammen, buying them drinks or asking if they were available for hire. Ayla was all smiles as she chatted away, answering questions and deflecting come ons. Slowly the crowds returned to their drinks and she was able to order three more jacks of ale from the barkeep and made her way back to Mary. Sammen was already stowing their things at the table and asking those polite getting-reacquainted-with-you questions.

“Favorite color?”

“Blue, yours?” Mary seemed to have finally relaxed, although the empty jack in front of her probably had something to do with that.

“Same. Did they let you have pets?”

“No, did you have pets?”

“There was a rat I tried to tame once, but he bit my face.”

“I remember that!” Ayla slid in next to Mary, distributing their drinks, “Blood everywhere. And we thought it was going to get infected and we’d have to cut off your nose.”

“Didn’t you see a healer? Rat bites can be dangerous.” Mary asked.

“With what coin?” Sammen laughed, “Da told me to rub mud in it and it came out fine. Eventually.”

“Mud?!” Mary’s eyes were wide.

“Well it worked, didn’t it?” Sammen was grinning, “Or do you not like my nose?”

“No...it’s a fine nose. I just-” Mary stammered.

“Oh! The lady thinks I have a fine nose!” Sammen crowed, “Did you hear, Spoon? A fine nose!”

“I heard, we should tell the chantry. It’s a miracle.” Ayla smirked into her cup as she drank.

“I didn’t mean - you do have a fine nose - but that’s not-” Mary’s face progressed from rosy pink to the darker shades of scarlet as she tried to undig her hole.

“Sammen’s just teasing.” Ayla snorted, throwing her arm around her sister’s shoulders.

“I was catching on to that.” Mary hid her face with her jack and sipped her ale.

“Not used to the attention?” Sammen waggled his eyebrows at Mary over the top of his drink.

“No, we had...fraternization at the tower.” Mary defended herself.

“Fancy word, that. Fraternization.” Sammen tried it on for size, “Frat-er-niz-ation.”

“I’d say not everyone is as bad as Sammen, but we don’t get new faces in the alienage very often. At least not without them already being promised to someone.” Ayla shook her head.

“Yes, the arranged marriages. I remember.” Mary sighed, “I wasn’t that young when the templars took me to the tower. Are you two promised to anyone?”

“Not yet. Don’t have the coin for it. Da hasn’t been able to work in years so it’s just been me keeping our heads above water.” Sammen shook his head.

“And the elf-blooded daughter of a dalish hunter and a whore is generally considered ‘scrapping the bottom of the barrel’ for most.” Ayla scrunched up her nose, “The archery doesn’t help. Things are better under King Alistair, but families still want to avoid ‘troublemakers’. Not every noble in Ferelden has gotten the message that elves are people yet.”

“Did you hear about Edgehall?” Sammen leaned across the table, “Arl Gell burned down their Vhenadahl.”

“I heard that he tried to stop the elves from planting a new one, they were going to revolt.” Ayla placed her elbows on the table and rested her weight on them.

“What happened?” Mary whispered, leaning in.

“King Alistair sent a knight to ease tensions and let Arl Gell know in no uncertain terms that the Vhenadahl were protected by the crown.” Ayla answered.

“He’s one of the good ones.” Sammen raised his jack.

“To the good ones.” Ayla raised hers in agreement.

“Aye.” Mary raised her jack and all three took a solemn pull of ale.

“I met him, and the queen. When they came to the tower.” Mary added.

“Really?” Ayla said a little louder than she had meant, “They came to the alienage too, and got rid of the Tevinter slavers, but mamae wouldn’t let me leave the house at that point.”

“Really. They worked with Wynne, one of the senior enchanters, to deal with the abominations that took over the tower after another senior enchanter, Uldred, tried start a rebellion.” Mary nodded, clearly feeling the full effects of the ale now, “They saved our lives. And a bunch of us were giggling over how handsome Alistair was for weeks. He came back a few times to speak with the first enchanter and we were always finding excuses to be in his way.”

Ayla laughed so hard she snorted ale out of her nose, which set Sammen off. Their laughter fed each other until the whole table was having a giggle fit.

“Well he wasn’t king then, was he?” Mary said still grinning, “Just a handsome grey warden in shining armor that sorted the tower out.”

“I saw him once in a parade. He’s not a bad looking fellow by any stretch of the imagination.” Sammen conceded with a smile, “I wouldn’t kick him out of bed in the morning.”

“And in what world are you having a one night with the king?” Ayla was still wiping tears of mirth from her eyes.

“The best one.” Sammen answered, chuckling.

“I like your optimism.” Mary fiddled with the hair on the back of her neck.

“If I’m going to rot away in the alienage, at the very least I can dream about the stars.” Sammen winked, finishing his drink, “How’s your ale, Ayla?”

“Empty, but I’ve got to make a run to the fields tomorrow before the market gets busy.” She stood, gathering her things.

“Are we leaving already?” Mary stirred, sounding disappointed.

“Yeah, already?” Sammen echoed.

“You don’t have to come with me.” Ayla said, “I’m sure Sammen will see you safely back to the alienage.”

“Sure, no problem.” Sammen smiled...but then added nervously, “I mean, if Mary wants to stay.”

“You don’t think mother will be upset?” Mary fretted, “Only it’s been so long since I’ve just been able to...relax.”

“I’ll tell her you’re with Sammen. It’ll be fine.” Ayla smiled at them gently, “Just make sure he doesn’t stay too late either, he has to be at the docks in the morning.”

Ayla dropped the empty jacks off at the counter and left the Gnawed Noble. The night streets of Denerim were quiet, and fairly peaceful if you knew how to mind your own business. Of course the bow slung over her shoulder didn’t hurt Ayla’s uneventful walk back to the alienage. Rosha had left a candle glowing in the window of their home. As quietly as she could, Ayla opened the door to the hovel.

“Aneth ara, lethallan” Rosha greeted, seated at the table working on the mending, “Where is Myathilen?”

“She stayed later with Sammen.” Ayla answered, “He promised to walk her home. Did you finish the table linens?”

“Aye. I’ve moved on to widow Baern’s mending. I stopped in to visit her today and she was up to her ear-points dealing with the twins so I just took it. Those poor boys have been running around in knee-less pants for too long.”

Ayla picked up a pair of the aforementioned pants and held them up to the candle light. They were filthy, but it seemed like the mud might have been all that was holding them together.

“Pass a needle?” Ayla asked as she sat down, gently brushing dirt away from the hole so she could add a patch. Rosha pushed the pincushion across the table to her.

“How was tonight?” Rosha asked.

“It went well, Sammen and I managed to pull a fat purse. Arl Bryland is apparently hosting a feast next month so their seneschal asked if we could perform.” Ayla took a measure of thread and licked the end, stringing a needle.

“That would be well. We’ll need the extra coin now that Myathilen is home. It might be awhile before she can find work.”

“If the circles are really disbanded then maybe she could earn with her magic?”

“There’s a difference between mages being free and mages being accepted.” Rosha frowned, “We know that better than anyone.”

“You’re right, mamae.” Ayla sighed, “It’s probably better Mary keeps her magic under wraps until we find out which way the wind is going to blow.”

“‘Mary’ banal las halamshir var vhen.” Rosha’s frown deepened.

“Mamae!” Ayla cried in surprise, “Don’t be rude. Next you’ll be calling her ‘flat ear’. It’s not her fault she was raised in the tower. Besides, she still thinks of this as home. She is still my sister and your daughter no matter what she’s called.”

“I’m glad she came home. I just not glad she changed her name. To a shem’lin name of all things.”

“At least she doesn’t look like a shem.” Ayla gave a small smile.

“Ir abalas.” Rosha put down her mending and looked across the table at her daughter, “That was thoughtless of me, lethallan. I love my daughters. For all I complain I love living in the alienage. If I hadn’t left my clan I would have never met Graham or had you, and I treasure the few extra years living here gave me with Myathilen. But it is bittersweet to have my daughter returned to me a stranger after all these years. ‘Myathilen’ was my mother’s name and I feel I have lost my clan all over again.”

“You should tell her that.” Ayla reached across the table to hold her mother’s hands.

“You are right, Ayla.” Rosha smiled and squeezed her hands before returning to the mending, “Did Mya-Mary have fun tonight?”

“I think so. She was nervous at first, her letters always made things sound very posh in the circle. But Sammen puts everyone at ease if they give him half a chance.” The corner of Ayla’s mouth twitched with a satisfied smile when she recalled the eyes her sister and best friend had been making at each other.

“He is a good boy.” Rosha nodded.

“Most of the time.” Ayla agreed.

They finished their sewing and went to bed. There was only one in the hovel and they curled against each other, mother and daughter, as they had for years. When Mary stumbled in sometime later, Ayla helped her to bed. Rosha and Mary tossed around for a few moments, trying to find how they fit together in the narrow cot before settling in to sleep. Ayla suspected that if their mother had been less tired and Mary less drunk, it would have taken longer for them to find comfortable sleeping positions. She yawned and lay out on the floor under a cloak-turned-makeshift-blanket.

Author Notes:

A few speculative liberties were taken, such as the tension between the Ferelden Crown and the Chantry as to who actually has control over the circles. Thinking about this also has me wondering exactly what the Chantry meant to do with all those mages? Because other than ‘studying magic until I die’ the only other option for a mage is ‘run away and become a grey warden and/or apostate’.

I also considered what actual reasoning would be for Arl Howe killing off an entire orphanage beyond needing the square in ‘bad guy cliche bingo’. I figured given that we know from the alienage warden origin, nobles used a somehow even grosser version of “Lord’s Right of the First Night” with elves. There would be a lot of unwanted bastards in the alienage who would have noble blood. Howe wouldn’t leave them running about all willy-nilly in case one of them got it in their heads to make a legitimate claim on his seat of power. Graham is also the product of such a union because it’s all well and good to have terrible ideas, but the actual repercussions of some of the plot points in Dragon Age would have greater world consequences than get explored in game. I wanted to explore those consequences a little.

I selected character names based on their personal stories:

Ayla - means oak, the codex mentions that most venadahl are oak trees. Ayla may look human, but her community and by extension - sense of self - comes from the alienage. Her name was a point of a lot of debate between Rosha and Graham. Rosha wanting to give her a more traditional dalish name and Graham being painfully aware that being the elf-blooded child of a dalish elf was going to make his daughter’s life hard enough. The name Ayla was their compromise, she is actually named after the Denerim venadahl.

Myathilen - from the Project Elvhen Book of Names means Many honored sacrifices. Rosha put Myathilen ahead of her clan, having been from one of the clans that kick mages out. I couldn’t see a caring mother leaving her six year old daughter to fend for herself. Rosha left the clan to be with Myathilen.

Mary - often cited as bitter, or sea of bitterness, but the true meaning has been lost to time. The ‘but’ part is the reason that I chose Mary. In many cases, dominate cultures force other cultures to assimilate by encouraging or enforcing a name change. Such as in Japan occupied Korea. I thought that Myathilen was much to ‘elfy’ a name (as Sera might put it) to survive in a Chantry controlled tower. Mary did chose the name herself because she wanted to fit in better, although it was probably gently encouraged by the Chantry mothers. By rights Mary should be some Keeper’s First, but instead circumstances made her a circle mage. A meaning lost to time.

Rosha - also from the Project Elvhen Book of Names means enduring happiness. Rosha could have become a very bitter woman, leaving her clan, living in the alienage, losing her daughter that she left her clan for, and then her husband. She is not, and her optimism has shaped Ayla.

Graham - means gravelly place. Graham is Ayla’s father and Rosha’s husband. An elf-blooded bastard born in the Denerim alienage - a pretty gravelly place. He was raised in the orphanage and I did a lot of research in to how orphans were named. I decided he would have a fairly common name and selected from a list of common Gaelic names since that seems to be where most Ferelden names come from.

Sammen - a riff off of Samwise, the character I named him after. Sammen enjoys being in the thick of it with friends and is defined by his loyalty.

Thank you for reading! There are a few ways that I chose to relate information that I am not certain are clear, so critiques and suggestions are welcome. Questions are also encouraged. A tutorial on how to write interesting summaries is greatly needed.

Next Chapters: 2, 3, 4, 5

#Dragon Age #fanfic #Queen of Cups #Everyone Comes From Somewhere #Chapter 1

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