The Pirate King Ch. 04

"They said, 'Cap the way he is'."

"Aye," said Natch.

I looked at him, waiting. Eventually he sighed. "Cap's nameless, Ghost."

I nodded. I knew this. Natch didn't seem willing to continue, so I prompted him. "And that keeps the King away?"

"Yeah." He crossed his arms. "There's this prophecy."

I nodded again. "I know it."

"You do?" He looked over, surprised for a moment, then leaned back into his supports. "Of course you do."

I frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, just." He shook his head. "Need to remember not to be surprised by you, is all."

I gave him a hard look for that, but he didn't seem to notice, continuing to explain instead. "If you know the prophecy, you should understand why, so long as Cap remains nameless, the King will leave us alone."

"The nameless one will kill the Pirate King," I sighed. I hated that fucking prophecy. For the moment, I put my own feelings aside and forged ahead. "The current king believes it so deeply that he won't even come close to one who is nameless?"

Natch shrugged. "Been working for us so far."

We lay there, watching the stars come out above us. I thought about what Natch had told me. To become willingly nameless, to give up so much of yourself just to protect yourself from a man. I imagined it, going from named to nameless. I had done it. I had done it violently, without choice. My name had been ripped from my lungs by the sea, and although I trusted it's reasons, it had still hurt. "It's terrible," I told the sky quietly, "to live without a name."

"Not just a name," Natch responded, although I hadn't been talking to him, and I wasn't sure I was talking about the Captain. "He can't have anything that names him at all. No tattoos, no objects that he can hold onto." He looked over at me. "No lovers."

I shifted, uncomfortable with the sudden sideways accusation.

"It's why a lot of the men don't like you, you know. They're afraid you could name him."

I looked away across the endless sea. As if he cared enough about me for that. Natch continued, ignoring my sudden change in demeanor.

"He has to live as any man could, as a replaceable. In a way that he could be switched out, and it wouldn't matter. That's how it was explained to me, at least."

That explanation of namelessness had never made sense to me, but I held my tongue. "He must be very afraid of this man," I said instead, "to give up all of that."

Beside me, I heard the ropes creak as Natch shifted. "You must not have met our King."

***

"I need a new place to sleep," I told Cookie on my fourth morning as I slid in through the window. I hadn't slept the night before, staring instead at the still form of the Captain on the bed. He had slept so fitfully, waking me each time I closed my eyes, his whimpers like daggers to my heart. It had taken everything I had to keep myself from leaping up and comforting him, to lie beside him and take him in my arms.

He doesn't care about you, I reminded myself. He is only scared of the King, and needs some form of comfort. He will take you if you offer it, because you are there. Then I called myself weak as my hands almost reduced the arms of the chair to sawdust.

Cookie didn't say anything at first, so shocked was he at seeing my large body appear from the outside rather than the doorway. But the Captain had still been sleeping when I had left, and I hadn't wanted to leave the door unlocked on my way out. "This had seemed simpler," I explained.

"Scaling the outside of the ship seemed simpler."

I shrugged. I could pick locks, but it took time and I had wanted the exercise.

Cookie sighed. "You'd best get used to the arrangements. Cap says that you're to sleep in his room, and that's law 'round here." And he set me to mincing garlic for that lunch's stew. I stewed myself, angry at still being controlled.

"Don't work yourself to the bone, boy. The lads'll be late."

I frowned up at Cookie, looking for an explanation. Being late for food was not something that usually happened on this ship.

He just shrugged. "It's a meetin' day."

Ah. A ships meeting, usually weekly or bi-weekly. They would be next door, then, discussing goals and routes, grievances and matters of the ship. Matters like what to do with me.

Despite Cookie's words, I doubled my chopping speed.

By the time the men filtered back into the mess hall, I had already finished prepping everything for breakfast and lunch, and had already started cleaning tools around the slightly bemused and concerned Cookie.

I already knew it wouldn't be good news for me. None of the sailors would look me in the eye; something must have happened. I ladled out their soup and tried to keep myself looking unaffected. I was doing a decent job of it until the Captain stepped forward, already in his cloak for a day on the deck.

"Your face." I couldn't keep the concern from my voice, and found myself reaching reflexively towards the diagonal cut that slid across his previously immaculate chin. My stomach dropped to see him injured. I wanted to gather him up and keep him safe, to kill anyone who had touched him with steel, who had even dared to let that thought pass unhindered through their mind.

He stopped my hand's motion by pressing his bowl to it. I was thankful for that, amazed at my slip up. I had almost touched him; imagine it. But he seemed not to care, his body language nothing like the day before, or even hours before in the morning. "Breakfast, sailor." He also wouldn't look at me, but this was not the same shameful avoidance the other men had - this was cold. "Make it fast."

I took the bowl and filled it. The room watched us as I put the bowl on the counter, as our ritual demanded. He snatched it up and whipped from the room, cloak ends snapping from the force of his movements.

I took a bowl of my own. My hands were shaking; I willed them to be still. In the time that the Captain had been coming to get his food from me, he had not ceased to have a terrible and immediate effect on me, but somehow this time had been worse. He had not even seen me, it had seemed. Not even registered my presence. Was I invisible to him? Was I truly the dead being I had always believed myself to be?

I sat down with Finn and Natch.

"I'm sorry about your fate, boy," Finn told me.

"My fate?" I parroted. And what was my fate, exactly? Was it to linger as a ghost after already being killed? Or was Finn referring to the part of my fate where I found my way here, only to realize it was a diversion from the only way to get to where I needed to be? That the man I loved could have been killed the same way I was? Or that the man I loved didn't love me back? I searched the faces of the men before me for a clue, exhausted and pissed as fuck at fate.

"We took a vote," Natch explained, uncharacteristically quiet.

"Ah." So that was it. They had decided; the Captain had no more use of me. "Am I to die, then?"

"What?" Both men's heads snapped up. Finn looked genuinely shocked that I would say such a thing. "No, boy. Christ."

"Though half the ship did demand it."

"They demanded marooning on a deserted isle. That isn't death, it's just -" Finn shrugged.

"Wicky's half the ship," I stated.

"Aye," Natch confirmed, although I had needed none. He was still so quiet.

"We voted for you to stay. You can fight, and sail."

Natch leaned back and crossed his arms. "Not a popular opinion."

"And the Captain?"

Silence. I didn't bother to try to meet their eyes, staring down at my porridge. "What did the Captain vote."

"Ghost..." Natch sounded uncomfortable, or sad, or maybe both, but Finn rescued him.

"Marooned," he told me. "But he's to pick the island."

The Captain would have me back on land. At that thought, all reason rushed from my body. I almost ran to the kitchen then and leapt then into the sea, swam for it, rather than let this man have control over me, let him hurt me in this way. I let him hurt me again, I thought. The coldness over the porridge suddenly made much more sense. He wants me off his ship, he wants me gone and over with, he never wanted me to begin with except perhaps my hands on his, my lips for his own, but what of my soul, what was my soul supposed to do without his, my breath was dying but Finn's hand landed on my shoulder and somehow air entered my world again. I gasped.

"Lad," he said softly. "It was the best he could do in the face of it."

Face, I thought. I remembered the cut on the Captain's. Now there was a place I could direct my pain, my growing rage, a way to make myself productive. I liked productivity. It helped me move forward. "Who hurt him?"

"There was a disagreement," Finn said quietly. "Some members thought that you were making him too soft."

"Human," Natch said, and he meant named. "You make him too human, and that is dangerous for all of us."

"It's a reasonable reaction to fear."

"It is not," I told them. Natch reached out to me, but I pulled away. "Tell me who hurt him."

"Don't do anything rash," he murmured, but I was the sea at full moon, I was a monsoon that had been held too long, how many other ways could I find to say that I was everything crashing into the world and grinding it into sand and oblivion and rash was only a word that applied to actions that had consequences. Mine didn't have consequences - mine had results.

But Wicky saved me. How strange, to say that. He certainly didn't mean to, and in fact probably meant to humiliate me, but he forced me to cool down a bit by striding into the hall and announcing that a ship had been sighted and he needed everyone up on deck. "Except you," he'd snarled, and I'd had to stay put in the kitchen, taking out my anger on dirt and vegetables.

The vessel turned out to be another pirate ship, seeking parlay with the Captain specifically. He headed over to their deck and spoke at length with their captain, disappearing below into quarters for privacy. The intimacy of the visit, being alone with each other in private spaces, meant they must have known each other. Otherwise fear of attack would have kept them above decks. Should I have been a Captain to keep his interest? I felt myself think. Should I have been a king, made him fear me as well?

The thought was unkind and I felt bad immediately after it slipped through my brain.

I thought about ghosting to discover what they were speaking of, but there was no guarantee how long the ships would spend in proximity, and I didn't want to end up naked and marooned on a pirate ship.

I'd made that mistake before.

The Captain didn't come to lunch. I told myself it had to do with the meeting he had just had, and nothing to do with the morning's events. I returned to the decks and attacked my duties with a fervor that actually scared Hams. He ran out of tasks before the day was done and sent me back to Cookie, who refused to give me any knives and instead made me clean out the bins for rotted food.

I didn't wait to see if the Captain came to dinner. As soon as I had all the crew served, I made my way up to the decks and hid away in the riggings.

Natch caught sight of me as the training group made their way to their usual spot. I sighed and made a land sailor's descent, making it look like it took effort. There was more grumbling than usual as I landed my feet, but I paid it no attention as I grabbed practice knives and squared up. I was looking forward to pushing my muscles into becoming mush, even if it would take hours against these mediocre fighters. At least it was something. At least I could have some violence, some vague form of results.

My third partner that evening was Ichor. I was only half paying attention, my eyes on the bow of the ship trying to decide where we were going, where they might dump me off like refuse, when I felt a very real cut land on my arm.

I yanked back, surprised. There should be no knives at practice; the rules of sparring were all but sacred. Ichor palmed the small blade he'd used the land the strike. "You're not so special, big boy," he hissed.

Ichor was one of Wicky's men and had made no secret about it. "You want me dead," I said evenly. I settled into a defensive stance and watched him, waiting to see what he would do next. I hoped he would strike again; I hoped he would give me a reason to kill him. Anger coursed through me, the sea threatening to rise as it had been all day, and I was sick of holding it back.

"Just want you off my boat." He took the time to spit. Arrogant, I thought. Arrogant and foolish and soon to be nothing but empty flesh. "Be glad," he told me, his voice low and close. It pressed against me like dock slime, stagnant and clinging to my flesh, "that you're under Cap's protection. Else you'd be -"

He didn't get to finish his statement, because I already had him on the ground. He scrambled for his blade but it was no use, I had him pinned firmly against the wood of the deck. I pulled the blade out for him, ran it against his skin.

I could have killed him, then. Would have in any other circumstance. But as much as I wanted to, as much as my body shivered to press the blade into his soft spots and twist, or pull, to spill his blood and make him watch me do it, I knew that would be the end. If I killed this man, this sailor who worked on this ship, the Captain's ship, I would never, ever, have a chance to be with the Captain again.

And I couldn't do that. Wouldn't do that. Even if the chance I had was so slight it was nothing, even if all I had was a dream, to kill it with this man, over this nobody, that would be the same as killing me.

So I didn't press the blade past his shivering, fearful skin, as much as I dreamed of it, as much as I let myself imagine my body finishing the motion. I held him there, letting him feel my want and how close I came, and only when he shook beneath me did I make myself back off. It was hard, to get my body to listen, but I found a compromise, letting my anger become a blade and slipped that into his ribs in lieu of the physical one that I held back in my fist. It was not as satisfying, but it was a result, a victory, and I took it in my teeth and held it tight.

But I wanted him to understand exactly what had happened here before I let him go. He needed to know where we stood. "I don't need anyone's protection," I explained to him. I kept my voice low, quiet, occupying only the space between our bodies. When I had taken him down all practice had stopped, and there was now a ring of men around us, watching to see what would happen. But I wanted this to be between us.

He whimpered as I twisted his hand in my hold. "I am the sea incarnate; there is nothing that can hurt me. I could have taken this ship a thousand times over, killed each and every one of you in your sleep. Make no mistake; I could have killed you all awake, could have pulled your souls from your bodies and left you nothing but the shells you deserve to be. I could have had you whenever I wanted; it is by my lack of interest only that you are still alive. You are boring; you bore me. You are nothing. I have no need for protection." I sat up as I slid his knife into my belt, my interest already sliding from his frame. I watched the people around us, unwilling to interfere. "You, on the other hand."

I pushed off of him and stood. He stayed where he was, a whimpering sack on the deck, become the nothing I had taught him that he was. He ignored the hand that I extended towards him, calm and cold. The others around us began to whisper.

I used my foot to nudge him. "Stand up, man. They're watching."

He rolled over and stared at my hand outstretched towards him. He knew it wasn't any kind of peace offering, but he also knew that he didn't have a choice. In time, he reached up and took it. I yanked him to his feet, pulling him close enough that I could whisper into his ear.

"Be glad you have the Captain's protection," I hissed. As I pushed him away I saw his face crease with fear. I felt nothing towards this man, this coward who had attacked me during training. He was nothing, already fading from my focus. "Or," I finished, loosening my grip as I turned away. "Try harder next time."

He pushed away from me, and I let him go. The crowd parted to let him move back, putting as much space between him and I as he could without fully retreating. I picked up the practice knife I had dropped when I had taken his blade, twirling it so it sat properly in my hands for the first time in these men's gaze. I saw faces shift as they recognized my show of skill, slight as it was.

My eyes skimmed the gathered faces. I tried to make eye contact with as many as I could; most would not meet my gaze. "Anyone else?" I asked quietly. When there was no response, I let the storm that was inside of me rip out of my chest, let myself scream for the first time in months. "Anyone fucking else?"

No one moved.

"Yeah. That's what I thought." I stalked over to Natch, who had been watching the entire thing with a mixture of amusement and carefully hidden fear, tucked in the looseness of his limbs and the casual smile he so precisely held on his face.

I didn't want Natch to fear me. He was one of the few men on the ship who had no reason to fear me. He and the Captain and Cookie, and perhaps Finn. I scowled to see him hold himself so carefully at my approach, fingers unhindered in case he needed to go for a knife.

I handed him Ichor's. "Your fingers are looking for this."

Natch said nothing, but took the knife from my hand.

But the sea demanded more, pounded against my chest relentlessly. "Spar with me."

"What? Hell no."

"Then make one of the others. I want to fucking fight." I scanned the crowd behind us. Nobodies, I thought. Useless. "Who's your best fighter?"

"Ghost." He looked like he wanted to laugh. "No one is going to fight you after that."

I stood there and waited. The sea crashed against my chest. I could taste the salt in my mouth.

He sighed. "You have to promise not to hurt them."

I pointed to my arm, showed him the red line that Ichor had drawn. "Tell them not to hurt me."

Natch winced.

"It's sparring, Natch. I know how far to go and when to stop." I walked away back to my spot, throwing over my shoulder for those around him to hear, "You'd do well to teach your men the same."

After a brief conference, in which there was much hand waving and harsh whispers and pointed glances, the put me against a man they called Thron. He was the one technically in charge of these practice sessions. I had never sparred him before because he was considered above my skill level.

In the first two moves, I threw him to the ground.

"Get up," I told him. His lack of skill frustrated me; I wanted him to be better. "Your stance was too tight, and you carry your weight too high. Try it again."

"Who the fuck are you to -"

I walked away before he finished the sentence. I was in no mood for this shit. If he wouldn't fight me, someone else would.

That day I fought every man that came to training, and some more than once. The ones that listened to me lasted longer. The ones that didn't, didn't. Around me, the men half-heartedly sparred and pretended to concentrate on their bouts, but all eyes were on me as I systematically wiped the floor with every single fighter they had available.

It wasn't enough.

"Again," I told Thron the fourth time I took him down. He had sucked up his ego and come back, settling his weight when he did. It made him almost a contender. "And watch your fucking footwork."

"Ghost," he said panting, "I'm done. We're all done. How are you not done?"

I looked around me at the worn out men. I was not done - my muscles did not hurt as much as they could, as much as I needed them to. I felt frustration grow within me and did the only thing I could think of. I looked up at the rope above me, and leapt. When my hand caught I finally climbed like I was meant to.