The Pirate Ing

This is part of an ongoing series - if you find yourself here, confused, head on back and read from the beginning. I promise we'll still be here when you get back :)

Whoohoo, double digits! Thanks to everyone who's made it this far with me; this story wouldn't be here without the support of everyone who has left comments, or sent feedback, or rated. Honestly. It means the world.

A quick reminder; this is the second installment of the Islands interlude, which means no sex scenes. We'll be back to our reg scheduled program soon. Had trouble coming up with an alternate title for this one; let me know what you guys would have called it! :)

As always, comments and feedback greatly appreciated. Peace, love, stay safe and all of that.

*****

"Hyrun," I said, trying to keep my voice blank.

I suppose more of my emotion must have slipped into my word than I intended, because Val reached up and rested a hand on my shoulder. "You'll never be out of sight of the sea."

I nodded miserably. It had taken us five days to reach this place, five days of constant misery and frustration. Val had insisted that we find passage and had refused to let me do it, saying that we needed to keep a low profile. I had argued with him, reminding him that I was not in hiding, merely dead, but he had booked our passage on a small fishing vessel headed to Hyrun to drop off her load.

A fishing vessel.

To add insult to the injury, we were taken on as passengers, (Me! A passenger! "The last time I was on a ship and was not sailing it, it was because I was in irons," I had muttered angrily to Val, and he had shushed me with a hurried smile at the men around us), and Val had insisted that we pay for our passage (Imagine it! Paying to traverse the sea!). I managed to stay somewhat sane for the first three days, until one of the men mis-tied a knot as the Captain made an incorrect reading and it starting looking like I'd have to spend another day on that godforsaken contraption, and I muscled the sailor out of the way and tied the knot proper, better, while snapping at the Captain the correct bearing and Val couldn't help but laugh. "God damn land boys," I told him, and he merely laughed again and waved his scarf noncommittally.

With my help, we made it to Hyrun quicker than the Captain had expected, giving us time to stop by at the traveler's docks, a much preferable first step than the fishing wharfs. That was where we were when Val tried to comfort me, when I realized what was ahead of me; Hyrun.

Hyrun was massive.

I could see the terraced city rising up above us, could see the houses built sturdy on rock and stone.

Never out of sight of the sea

, I thought, eyeing the way each street rose up higher on the mountain than the last, how the roofs of one row of houses only covered the first floor windows of the next.

It wouldn't be enough.

I sighed, and Val patted my arm comfortingly. "Come on," he said, moving forward along the dock.

When he hit land I actually stumbled, feeling the sudden absence of sea beneath me like a loss of gravity. Val pretended not to be affected but I saw how white his knuckles were, his fingers woven tight through the silk of his scarf.

"How do people live like this," I grumbled, ignoring the strange looks I was getting from a group of well-dressed travelers.

"Most people aren't as big of babies as you," Val shot back, but I noticed that he still hadn't let go of his scarf. He looked up to me, his eyes hiding concern behind mock frustration. He knew exactly what I was going through. He felt the same pieces of his soul keening. "Are you quite ready?"

I shrugged. I would never be ready for this.

"Baby," he muttered, and moved forward and up the island.

The first thing I noticed was how uncomfortable I was. The last time I had been on land so solid had been my purgatory; this was raising memories for me that were best left behind, in dark holes and darker souls. Loud noises made me jump; I raised my hand in expectation of a strike at shadows.

I could feel Val watching me carefully. I wondered what he must have thought, seeing me jump at such innocuous things. He was used to seeing me so sure, so calm. Confident. Dangerous. And I was, still, I would never not be dangerous, but I had spent nearly three years in hell and the sea had left me there. There, I had been without even the basest part of my soul and to be here, to stand on this earth I could not help but hold fear in my stomach that at any moment that emptiness would become my reality again. That it was my reality, that it always had been, that everything in the past few months had been nothing but a fluke. A mistake. That the sea did not want me back, that she would leave me again.

It was a very small fear, and an irrational one. I was the sea; I had not stopped being myself when I could not hear the ocean's call in my bones. But small things have a way of slipping through your fingers when you try to pin them down, and irrational fears are so very difficult to reason away.

The same, I'm sure Val was thinking as my eyes tracked a pickpocket, cold and easy. I flinched as a smith brought his hammer down on iron close to us, and Val flinched with me, flinched at me. The same, and so different.

He was able to watch me, because he wasn't thinking about himself. Not like I needed to, not like how my brain kept starting and stopping because the first thought would always seem to be a check that the ocean was there. It was so hard to get through thoughts unhindered, I was so distracted by the increasing distance of the ocean. But Val? That was the second thing I noticed, once I was able to get a handle on my own body. Val was comfortable. Val looked like he belonged.

I mentioned this to him, and perhaps there was a hint of accusation in my voice, but I was tired and and frustrated that I could not convince my body that not every shadow held a mine guard, a raised staff, a whip. Val seemed to understand this, and wasn't upset by the sting in my voice. He came here a lot, he explained. This was one of the major brothel centers, and he needed to stay informed and connected.

"That's why I needed us to come over here my way," he told me. "I needed them to know I was coming. That's how I always do it. They would be looking for me that way."

"I thought we needed to stay low," I challenged him, but he shook his head.

"This is staying low. Deviating from the regular pattern is asking for additional attention.

Stealing a fully armed sloop

," which had been my plan to get here, "is asking for additional attention."

I merely grumbled. He knew it wasn't stealing. It was my goddamn ship anyway.

"And where the fuck were you even going to dock it," I heard him mutter. "I mean, seriously. A

sloop

."

It was a quick walk to our first stop, and I was glad, because that kept us close to the sea. I could always feel where it was, the waves, felt them tugging at me with each step I took further away from them, heard them singing, felt them slipping away. I gritted my teeth and followed my brother's steps, watching his comfortable pace, wishing, for once, that I could be a little bit less or perhaps wishing, cruelly, unfairly, that Val could be a little bit more.

He came to a stop before a stucco building, the white walls gleaming in the sun. Bright silk banners hung from the open windows, catching in the breeze and lazily wandering through the air with grace and a carelessness that reminded me of my brother. Hm, I thought, watching them twist and twirl. I bet this is where Val learned his fashion habits.

"Brother," Val called, and I turned my body and followed him through the door.

We were immediately met with a gaggle of excited men and women, laughing and pressing up against Val who smiled and shook hands and received kisses on his cheek like this was normal. I immediately melted back to find a wall against which I could lean, hoping that would keep me from having to touch anybody. It worked for the moment, but I could feel their eyes on me, curious and confused. Who could I be, that Val would bring me here? I'm sure some of them thought I might be a new worker; I'm sure some of them wondered if I might be some sort of new patron. I know I looked like neither. I met all of their gazes steadily, seeing the questions in their eyes and daring them to voice them aloud.

Not a single person stepped towards me.

"Baby!" I snapped my head toward Val and found a red-haired man scooping him up, spinning him around. I raised an eyebrow as Val, laughing, wrapped his arms around his neck even as his legs wrapped around his waist. I had met some of Val's other partners, but this man was new to me.

I watched the man murmur something against Val's neck, saw how it made Val smile and the way he swatted at his shoulder with genuine affection and something in me churned, and I'm not sure that it was the sea. Where was the man who would make me smile like that? Where were the words that pressed up against my skin, that commanded me to pleasure, that drove me to love?

I knew where. I knew exactly where, always knew where, would always know where. I couldn't not. My body would never let me forget, my soul always painfully, sharply aware of just how far he was still was from me. I looked away before it became too much, but the churning feeling stayed.

"Brother." Val was before me, sounding breathless from laughter and joy. There was a man who could make me sound like that. There was a man... "I want you to meet Donar."

Donar. I looked up into green eyes and watched him take me in, saw in his reaction all the things he understood and didn't. I frowned. "He's from the mainland."

I saw the big redhead frown back, but if was going to say something it was lost in the sharpness of Val's response. "What of it?"

I looked down to the brown eyes that looked up at me, saw in it the glint of the sea, watched a storm begin to grow. Val was of the sea. Val was my fucking brother, and I would not lose him like this, watch him dry up against rock and disappear into the arms of men who did not understand him. I barely even noticed as the sea pulled up within me, it had been so close to my skin already. I know my eyes must have been hard against Val's, disapproving. "He knows nothing of the sea."

"And that matters why?"

I stared at Val. How could he not get this? How could someone know him, how could someone love him, without understanding first the ocean, her tides and rhythms, the way she rocked and roiled and the dangers she held, the awe that was held in each droplet of her spray? We were the sea. We were nothing without the sea. He should have been nothing without the sea; why had it been so fucking easy for him? Why was it always so easy for him to turn his back on me?

"I'm sorry," Donar interrupted, and I shot him a look that should have made him quail, but he was from the mainland and he didn't know to be terrified of the things I held in my soul. That did not mean he could not see them, he simply lacked the experience, the sense, to know what they meant. I watched him take in all the storms in my eyes before turning to Val. "Did you say brother?"

Val winced as I repeated, "Nothing." A nobody. Worse than a nobody.

"Yes," Val told Donar, and Donar immediately looked back up to me. He met my eyes with suspicion, and I felt my anger rising. He was suspicious of

me

? I was family here; I was the ocean, and he was a nobody. What right did he have to look at me that way, to take in each part of me except the parts that connected my soul to Val's? "Which brother," he asked quietly, and I noticed him putting his body between mine and Val's, a subtle and ultimately fruitless motion. If he thought his flesh could stop any man who had been sea born...

"Supposed to be the better one," Val said blandly. His voice belied the things that he held in his chest, the things that I could hear and see and taste and that this man, this man would never understand. He had his arms crossed, the arctic storm inside now at full gale. Where I had always raged hot and fast, Val could storm cold and long until you gave up all hope. The kind of storm that had men burning their very ships in attempts to survive, in pleas for abatement. Not that the storm would care. Not the Val would even notice. "Not that he's acting like it now."

I heard the temperature of Val's voice now and crossed my own arms against the directed cold.

"I thought he was dead," Donar continued, unaware of the danger he was in. The other people around us, islanders, men and woman and people who had spent time near the sea, on the sea, had long since backed away and given us our space.

"What could you know of me," I told him quietly, while Val settled for a much more succinct, "He is."

I glared at Val as he glared at me.

"How is that possible?" Donar was still talking, still trying. How could he not see the gathering storms? I thought I heard thunder crack and saw some of the gathered onlookers flinch.

"You wouldn't understand," I told him. Commanded him.

He did not back down. If anything, he looked more determined. "So, what? You're just back now?"

I stared at him.

"Like nothing has changed?"

"Nothing has changed." Who was this land boy to tell me what my actions had been? What did he understand? What did he know of my life, my death? What did he know of my family?

What did he know of the sea?

"Donar." Val's voice might have held a warning, then, but he wasn't listening to it, and neither was I.

"Do you have any idea what you did, disappearing for all those years? The kind of damage you wrought?"

The mines pressed up against my skin, and the sea screamed just on the other side. "You know not what you speak of."

"I think I do." Val put a hand on his shoulder, but he merely took it in his and forged on. "Seeing as I was actually here when you abandoned your brother, your daughter, while you were off gallivanting -"

Lightning hit the street just outside of the brothel, flashing white and hot and I didn't jump, but Donar did.

"Brother," Val hissed. "You go too far."

"Don't bring this to my door," I hissed back, my eye hard on the man before me. He was staring out at the storm, his eyes big and his mouth slightly open. "This is just as much you as it is me." He was lucky he had not spoken Sybil's name; even Val's love could not have saved him then. He had no idea how close it had come, didn't understand the things I held, still, directed at his body before me. I pointed at him. "Does he even know? Did you even tell him, the things you wear just under you skin?"

"Oh, and you told your lover?" Val shot back, as hail began to fall outside.

"No!" I heard myself roar, and the sea roared back, voiced the pain I felt at being without with a clap of thunder that shook the building. "I had no need to, because my love isn't blind and can see it for himself!"

"Sir." I jumped at the word; I know Val saw, and his eyes flashed dark and mean for just a moment before they looked away. I turned my eyes towards the sound and found a man kneeling at my feet. "Please, stop this."

I frowned. It felt unnatural to have this man bowing before me. "Get up."

He hesitated. "...sir..."

"Get up," I said, and my voice held the sea and he scrambled to stand. I sighed, hearing the anger in my breath even as it escaped my body. Why was I so angry? Why had I been wearing the sea so close to my skin ever since we'd arrived here? I felt the mines press against my outside again and had my answer; even here, even now, they held power over me. That tiny fear, the nagging idea that I might yet lose the sea, it had found it's way into my lungs and had turned me into this. Angry. Fearful. Lashing out at Val.

Val, who I was just as afraid of losing. Val, who had walked away from the ocean and loved a man who would never understand him. Val, my brother, who I loved, and knew, and who knew me, and I knew that he was right in this, and that I had gone too far.

This, I thought, this is what it is to have gone to hell. To have come back from purgatory, rather than passing on to whatever lay beyond. You get all the nightmares, all the punishment, and none of the resolution. I passed a hand over my face. "It is what it is," I told the room, only half commenting on the gale.

"Brother," Val said again, and I shot him a look so full of the oceans that even he stepped back.

I blinked to try and make myself softer. Fuck, why was I like this right now? It was more than just the memories of the mines, it was more than being away from the sea. There was a pit in my stomach that I didn't understand, that I didn't like. I put it from my mind to answer Val. "You know it's true. I can't command the sea."

"You are the sea," he expressed, as if I needed reminding.

"That does not mean I command it," I returned. I sighed again. The air around me felt toxic with my anger. I had done this. I was always doing this. I had thought, maybe, that after my death. I would be tempered, that this would have... "Let's go see what damage is being done." I knew there were open windows upstairs, had seen them when we had come in. I knew they faced the sea. I needed to see the water right now, needed to just know it was still there. My body moved purposefully through space, scattering nobodies before me like droplets of oil against my ocean.

The storm felt good against my skin. The product of my anger, of my intent, splashed against my body and I let it, tried to get this fresh water to do all the things that I used salt water to do, tried to become truly clean. I knew it would never be enough.

But it was close.

I stared out into the pouring rain and let my eyes drop to the sea. I had chosen this window because it overlooked the coast - I knew it would. I always know where the ocean lies. It calls to me, sings in my bones and lungs and the base of my spine, a tickling feeling when I am so far away. A light electricity, humming in my core.

I felt it then, felt it so deep within me I couldn't believe I had ever thought I would lose it. But I had, my brain tried, and I pushed that thought away. I had died. I had been in purgatory. Those times were over; I had done my years. Now I was back, and the sea was here, and she would never leave me.

How could she? After all, I am the oceans incarnate. I am the sea; I am the storm swells that rocked against the shore, and the spray that reached towards the gulls whirling in the eddies and currents of the breeze. I am what I am, and there was nothing that could take that away from me.

I took a deep breath and let the sea fall from my skin, let it's ebb drop from behind my eyes and within my ears where I had kept it captive, had pinned it to me in fear. I felt it drain from my body and held my breath.

There was a warm thrum in the base of my spine. I smiled, gently, out towards the waves. I did not thank the gods, did not even think to at the time, because there was nothing to thank for. Things were merely as they should be; there is no need to say give thanks for things that are simply truth.

Val joined me in the window in time. I saw the way he looked out into the rain and tried to keep my face neutral. This had never been easy on him; he'd gone to great lengths to avoid it, even when we were children.

'It's only natural," I said, hoping to ease his guilt, "for the ocean to become upset when her children argue."

"Don't give me that shit." He settled beside me. I was surprised to see Donar standing close by, his eyes never leaving my brother's form. "You know this was all us."

I shrugged. Val was right. Had I not said the same thing just moments ago?

He looked out onto the docks and sighed. "Been a long time since I was angry enough for this shit. You're really fucking up my life."