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The legends about Blackbeard run wild and wide. Tales of ferocious raids and blood-curling hauntings, of glowing eyes and a head made of nothing but smoke. But the most terrifying of all the rumors is this: he is a man without a soul. Without a daemon.
This, of course, is a complete fallacy. Edward has a daemon, same as anyone else.
Charlotte is a long, lithe serpent, with smoke-dark scales and beady black eyes. She inspires fear when she has to, but that’s less often than one might assume. Edward and Charlotte both carefully cultivated Blackbeard’s horrifying image as a scourge on the seven seas, but the process has more to do with trickery than bloodshed.
They worked it out a while ago: Edward leans on his theatrics and a well-devised fuckery, while his daemon uses the smoke as cover on the deck of the ships they raided, her black scales practically disappearing under the cover of night. From there, she strikes when least expected, maiming a few good daemons in her own right.
(She never delivers the killing blow. She squeezes, tighter and tighter, long enough to incapacitate both the enemy daemon and the human tied to it, but he doesn't feel that final crack in the spine of any of her prey. Not since it was their father’s daemon struggling under her hold. She doubts she’ll ever forget how that snap of bones felt against her scales as she settled into her permanent serpentine form.)
When not terrifying mercenaries and soldiers alike, the two of them have gotten into the habit of keeping some distance between them. Edward’s feelings for his daemon are as complicated as her feelings for him. Charlotte has always been the more secretive of the two, and she considers her human more boisterous and loudmouthed than is reasonable in their line of work. Charlotte is the one who tries to keep their hides intact, which Edward pushes back against more and more as the years go on, racketing up the tension between them. And she’s not foolish enough to assume that Ed doesn’t sometimes look at her and see their father’s pale corpse laid out on an abandoned dock, his daemon turning to dust.
But regardless, there’s still affection, still trust. Edward wears her tattooed likeness on his skin like a badge of pride, as if unable to keep himself from showing Charlotte off to the world at large. And when the sun is high and the wind is right, Ed will skim his fingers over her scales and smile. He confessed to her once, a very long time ago, that he loves the way they turn from glossy black to an incandescent violet when she moves under the sun.
He’s never brought up the fact that Lottie’s belly is the same shade as red as the scrap of fabric their mother gave them all those years ago. Everyone knows that if you want to kill a creature, you turn them belly-up. Make them vulnerable, exposed. That will never happen to them again. Charlotte won’t allow it.
On very rare occasions, when it's just the two of them, Lottie will lounge on Ed’s shoulder, as if she’s a luxurious piece of fabric to be shown off to the world. Lottie feels so loved in those precious snippets of time. Of course, it never lasts. When facing the crew and on deck, she’s always the one slithering between the men’s feet, keeping them in order, inspiring just the right amount of respect and fear. It’s an old routine.
Time goes on. Ed’s knee gives out on a bad raid, and Lottie becomes less than viper-quick, less than limber. Edward collects his myriad of scars and Charlotte’s scales collect their own, dulling their shine. She gets caught between the panels below deck more often, and Edward refuses to help her out. The reason why is obvious: it’s all a matter of pride. Still, she doesn’t like the sting of his pointed absence when she thrashes about, trying her best not to get spotted. It’s a toll on her dignity, and she’s trying her best to keep enough for the both of them, especially since Edward cares about such matters less and less as the years drag on. Afterward, Charlotte puts a bit more distance between them, and they both pretend it doesn’t hurt.
Days turn into weeks, weeks into years, and still, everything stays the same. Edward is going out of his mind with boredom, and even though she considers herself the more sensible of the two of them, she can’t help but agree. There’s an irritating drollness digging around under her skin. She’s less likely to hide in the smoke during their raids, because what’s the point of it? The game has lost its edge. They don’t even have to try. Blackbeard’s name is enough to win any battle, so they do so. Their victories feel hollow, their adventures meaningless.
Then, they hear about a new pirate on the scene, one that refuses Blackbeard's call, and they jump at the chance to meet him.
The Gentleman Pirate doesn’t offer the challenge they expect, what with him hanging from a noose and bleeding all over the place. But after the man’s crew bandages his wounds and gets him and his daemon to bed – a rabbit, Izzy wasn’t fucking kidding – Edward wanders through his cabins and watches him sleep and wonders if this mystery of a man doesn’t offer something else, instead.
The man’s daemon is a furry little thing, almost absurdly round, her fur a sandy shade of brown that’s starting to grey on some parts of her scruff. Her ears are long and flat against her back. She twitches her nose as her human sweats off an infection in his sleep. This creature looks so vulnerable. Yet, it belongs to the only pirate in years who, in so many words, told Blackbeard to fuck himself. Absolutely fascinating.
Surprises keep coming when Stede wakes up. Both sets of eyes are wide with panic until Ed assures them that their crew is safe, first and foremost. If nothing else, this man cares. What a rare quality to have on the open sea.
Then, the rabbit tilts her head and asks, with pure curiosity and not an ounce of fear: “Where’s your daemon?”
It occurs to them then that this Gentleman Pirate has absolutely no clue who they are.
Too puzzled to answer himself, Edward watches quietly as Charlotte slides forward on the bedsheets, and the rabbit’s ears immediately perk up at the sight of her. Lottie looks for the signs of apprehension in the little creature, for the stiff tension down her spine that signals terror, and she’s properly surprised when she doesn’t find any. Instead, the rabbit sits up, prim and proper as you like, and says in a high, melodic voice:
“Oh, aren’t you a beauty?”
Those words freeze Lottie’s lithe form to the spot. A beauty. Charlotte has been called many things over the decades. Vicious, slimy, terrifying. Never— that.
Edward has no idea what to make of it, either. Charlotte can feel her human’s ears turn warm, but he pushes it aside to stretch out his hand and introduce himself simply as Ed. The other man – Stede – takes it right away.
“I’m Estella,” the rabbit says brightly, standing on her hind legs. Lottie wrestles with the strangest urge to hide under the bed, and replies in kind:
“Charlotte. I’m... Lottie.”
No one calls her Lottie, nobody but Ed. What compels her to offer it now, she has no idea. But when Estella’s tiny mouth turns upward into a smile, she finds that she doesn’t regret it.
Everything that follows is rather insane. It’s all rather wonderful too if Lottie’s being honest. When they switch clothes and present themselves to the crew, watching Estella puff out her chest in an attempt to appear intimidating as “Blackbeard’s” daemon gets an honest-to-God giggle out of her. Christ above, when’s the last time either of them laughed, much less giggled like school children? And when the reckoning comes - because the reckoning always comes - they somehow maneuver their way through the sticky situation and come out alive on the other side.
Actually, it’s the most alive Lottie has felt in a very long time.
There are other events that muddy the waters: a disastrous dinner party that mocks everything they ever hoped they could be, a frankly pathetic murder attempt on their best and only friend, a duel that ends with Stede stuck to a mast and Izzy and his daemon, Riv, exiled to a dinghy. But at the end of it all, there they are: Stede and Stella. A ridiculous, impossible pair. And somehow, despite choosing to live a life of piracy, they remain insistently and stubbornly polite.
No, more than that, Lottie thinks, remembering the way manicured hands carefully folded a dirty piece of silk and tucked it, like a jewel, into Ed’s breast pocket. They’re kind.
Lottie wasn’t made to be kind. She was molded from the dirt and grime of a penniless and loveless home, built to strike and strangle and subdue, to protect Edward the only way she knows how. But Estella sits beside her for hours at a time, not a care or suspicion in the world, and all of a sudden, Charlotte wants to learn how to be kind, too.
In order to do this, however, Charlotte has to change her habits and actually stick around. Instead of slithering across the ship as she usually would, she rests on Edward’s shoulders, quietly delighted by the way the Stede always puts Stella on higher banisters and shelves so that she can match Charlotte’s height. The two of them don’t speak as much as Edward and Stede do, but theirs is a comfortable, companionable silence. Stella grooms herself, lightly flapping her ears in her contentment, and Charlotte coils around herself and watches. Lottie tries her best not to stare outright, but every so often she slips up and gets lost in imagining how soft Stella’s fur must be, how it might feel if she curled her tail around her fuzzy body. Would Stella even intepret such behavior as predatory? Lottie doubts it; the creature has trembled in fear plenty while upon the Revenge, but almost never around Lottie. And hopefully, Charlotte doesn’t imagine the way Estella’s ears perk up when she and Edward come around.
Lottie considers Stella to be very brave, if in her own way. There probably aren't many daemons on earth who are confident enough to order pirates’ daemons about, and certainly not but one of them is a rabbit.
“Bunny Bonnet,” Edward mutters once, the fondness in his voice obvious, but Stella’s ears immediately droop at the words. Stede makes some polite but frenzied excuse to get some fresh air, and Charlotte’s struck by a familiar pain: the kind she usually only feels when Edward gets stabbed.
Edward stumbles over an apology while Stede assures him there’s no need. Still, neither of them calls Estella by that name again.
Lottie knows better now than to call Stella fragile – the mad thing had tried to scold a piranha daemon, for fuck’s sake – but there’s something precious about her, all the same. Charlotte wonders, sometimes, why she lets her coil so close, almost to the point of touching, but she knows better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. Besides, she’s – happy. She’s pretended not to exist for such a long time now, it had almost gotten easier to feel detached, apathetic to the world around her. But now, she gets to see the world through Estella’s eyes, and it’s so much brighter than she ever remembers it being. And Estella expresses every emotion, practically a furry badge on Stede’s sleeve: hopping all around when they’re delighted, ears twitching rapidly when they’re curious. Estella is so open, so sincere, the opposite of everything Charlotte trained herself to be, and Lottie loves it. Lottie loves—
Sometimes, in the dead of night, Charlotte wonders what Stede’s fingers would feel like if they ran over her scales. If he would handle her with the same gentle attention and care he does everything else he possesses. The very idea is mutinous. To what, exactly, she doesn’t know, but it’s definitely a betrayal of… something. Maybe everything they stand for. And Lottie keeps imagining it, anyway.
“Oh, we’re fucked,” Ed whispers, arm thrown dramatically over his forehead as he lounges on Stede’s chaise.
“So fucked,” Lottie acquiesces, curling in tighter around herself.
It’s a tepid afternoon, and the feeling of… whatever the fuck is going on in Ed’s chest is leaving her restless. Ed and Stede talk amiably in the captain’s quarters, sipping tea. Ed does a decent job of hiding their mess of feelings, but Lottie fights the urge to crawl out of her skin the longer she sits. Watching Stella sit primly and look beautiful beside her is its own kind of torture, sometimes. To look at, never to touch. So, she eventually slides beneath an askew panel on the wall and sets out on her journey.
This isn’t unusual; when Charlotte isn’t wrapped around Ed’s shoulders or staring at Estella like some kind of idiot, she’s taken to exploring the Revenge by herself. She can’t stray too far from Ed, of course, but she can still cover some decent ground. Admittedly, her main ambition is to find more of those secret passageways Stede built into the ship, “just for fun” – absolutely insane, and Lottie hisses to herself, pleased when she discovers more tight, winding passages, as if Stede had built them just for her to find.
She ends up in the auxiliary closet, of course. That’s usually where she ends up when she’s done wandering, to be honest: curled in a corner of a shelf, eyes wide as they take in the finery around her. All of these unreachable, fine things, sitting right in front of her.
Lottie doesn’t know why she tortures herself like this. Edward hates being distracted from his conversations with Stede, and it’s not like Charlotte can just reach out and touch. Except for the fact that – yes, she can.
“We’re just not those kinds of people.”
It’s ridiculous. Stede has offered Edward access to his closet, more than once, and they know that if Edward asks, Stede will gladly let them wear whatever they’d like. Still, to ask feels like admitting something. Lottie’s not sure if they’re brave enough to do that.
So, she slinks on the edge of the high shelf instead, hidden from the world. Old habits urge her to hide, but she knows she can’t bring herself to stay tucked in here forever, no matter how this odd nook makes her feel safe and warm. Maybe it’s because of all the absurd finery that surrounds her, or maybe it’s because the whole place feels undeniably like Stede.
Lottie takes a moment to enjoy the comfort of this space in a silence that doesn’t feel oppressive. She scans the room lazily until a bright flash of color catches her eye. It’s tucked away in the corner, only an inch of a sleeve exposed, but it stands out like a sunrise among Stede’s cotton shirts and pale trousers. Lottie is immediately drawn to it like a moth to a flame.
She slides closer on her belly until she’s close enough to get a proper look. It’s some kind of robe, like the pale orange one Stede wears sometimes, but it’s so much brighter than anything they had ever seen him wear before. There are dark patterns on it, some kind of florals or plants. From a crack in the wall, the sunlight streams in, a single beam illuminating the fabric. The way the light dances on the material gives its richness away, and Lottie is immediately entranced.
Before she realizes what she’s doing, she reaches out. Light as a summer breeze, she presses her nose against the fabric of the sleeve - and then she melts.
Her common sense is well and truly gone: she has to feel more of it. Her head digs into the sleeve, more and more of her body slipping through, delighting in the way the silk slides against her scales, and she keeps going, hissing out, more, more—
Then, she crawls just a little too far, losing her precarious balance, and she goes crashing to the floor.
“What was that?” She can hear Stede’s muffled voice behind the door, and absolute mortification quickly swamps her very being, chasing her elation away to the hills. She’s tangled in the sleeve of the robe, fuck, and she can’t find her way out before she hears the door open.
“Fucking hell,” Edward growls, and she can feel the fury of his embarrassment in his chest as he marches over, boots landing heavily on the ground. Charlotte finally manages to get her head out just in time to see Edward’s hand coming toward her.
“Stede – mate, I’m so sorry—” His hands are clumsy, but still rough with anger when he grabs Lottie’s neck, and Lottie lashes out immediately, tensing her spine and baring her teeth. She has no reservations about biting when provoked, even when it’s Ed. Maybe especially when it’s Ed.
Their flustered rage ricochets between the two of them as they stare each other down. The moment is long and tense and threatens to break open in an ugly way.
“Oh!” Estella breaks the silence, hopping over to Charlotte and the tossed robe, completely unbothered by the fact that every inch of Lottie is poised to strike. “Stede, I’d forgotten you packed this one.”
“It was… an impulsive purchase,” Stede explains, his face red with an embarrassment of his own. “I admit it’s rather loud–”
“It’s perfect,” Lottie insists, just a little too loudly. Three pairs of eyes stare at her, and she immediately goes to hide her head under her tail.
“No need for that,” Estella whispers, giving Lottie the tiniest little nudge. The shock of it immediately races down the length of Charlotte’s entire spine. “You’re right, it’s lovely. I’m glad you like it too.”
Lottie peaks her snout out from her bundle of coils and looks at Stella. Her expression is so earnest, it almost hurts to look at. She’s not mocking her. She’s pretty sure neither Stede nor Stella would do that. Not to them.
Suddenly, Stella sits up on her hind legs, having that rod-straight posture she always gets when she’s about to give an order. “Stede, put the robe over on the ledge, by the window.”
“It’s not a throw rug, you know,” says Stede somewhat petulantly, but goes to comply as Stella slithers out of the way.
“It’s not like you were using it,” Stella replies tartly, then shoots Lottie a sly little grin, and Jesus Christ, she’s so far gone for this fucking rabbit. Lottie immediately hisses gently in return, the sound bubbling up from somewhere deep within her, within them.
Edward looks over at his daemon as Stede walks away with their – his robe, for God’s sake. They’re both still tense, on edge, but Lottie’s defenses have already been thoroughly destroyed by that pink-nosed bastard sitting over by Stede. So, marginally, they relax.
“Fuckin’ idiot,” Edward mutters. She glides over one of his leather boots as she moves past him to meet Estella by the window, and Ed’s hand is there to help her up on the ledge when she gets there.
“Here now, isn’t this lovely?” Stella’s already nestled into the robe, ears flat on her back, happy as a clam. “Come sit by me, we can watch the water as those two finish their conversation.”
The feel of the silk on Lottie’s belly is goddamn magical, but it can’t compare to how it feels when she brushes her tail carefully up against Stella’s fur. Stella neither comes closer nor flinches away, but still, Lottie can hear a happy hum from her, and that’s more than enough to get her to stay.
The afternoon fades into evening, and the two daemons sit quietly as they watch the sunset over the horizon together, their humans affably chatting between themselves again. And suddenly, it’s easy for Lottie to lay in the silence, awash in the evening glow.
If she spends more time flicking her eyes toward the rabbit framed by the sunlight, well – nobody needs to know.