Chapter Text
After… well, after, a lot of what was going on around him was more than a bit blurry. Damn that fucking Bluster, and damn those inbred sons of spineless jellyfish that were the royals. And that witch Batterbie for being right once again. He should have listened to Sarah. A thought that didn't help as his head was still ringing from the blow as he had hid the ground, and then being rifle-butted by a fucking Foot Soldier because apparently someone in charge of them fuckers had decided that he was the easiest one to arrest and blame for.. something.
As much as he had sometimes tried to claim otherwise, being thrown in Prison was not a new experience for Captain Crow. Just another thing that came with his trade, really, even though at the time he had imagined his stay to be a rather short one that would end with one last wagon ride to the executioner’s dock. Because people like him, they either died out at sea or because they had finally snapped and stabbed an asshole too important to be ignored. Or fed a navy ship to a beast, or something.
Right now, Crow didn’t even know why, exactly, he was kept in a cell. Property Damage? Unlikely, the Royals had other problems. Same with the so-called crime of insulting someone important. Being uncomfortable at a time when the nobility in their pretty white castles were sent scrambling after that kid’s - Jacob’s kid’s - speech had made it to the newspapers across the Empire, no matter how much said nobles wanted it not to? More likely. Not like anyone told him anything in here. The news, he only knew because the guards liked to bitch to each other about the outside being a right fucking mess. But it could be worse, so he kept his mouth shut. He got food and water once a day, and the guards left him alone otherwise, apparently having some brain left inside their hollow skulls that told them that picking a fight with him wouldn't go well.
The lack of any natural light made time run past incredibly slow and too fast at the same time. He stopped being able to tell where the sun was supposed to be at what he thought might have been roughly the end of the first week. But it could've also been just three days, or ten.
It didn't matter. They gave him food, and water, and left him alone.
A few - many - years earlier, he might've provoked a fight and stolen a sword and bled for his way out. But now? There was nothing to return to. The Inevitable had met her inevitable end as the Bluster had sunk her.
Maybe someone of the crew had made it out and appreciated the irony. Maybe, in a few years, he would do so himself.
Crow doubted that he'd live that long.
He had started to count the stones in the walls first. Then the bits of lichen that grew on them and gave off a faint glow. Then the nails in the door.
Maybe talking about retirement had been tempting fate. Hunters didn't retire, they died. Retirement was a pretty white lie told to a spouse or kid on land, or a pipe dream shared with one of the pretty things you could find in every tavern and pay to share your bed for a night or three. And yet, after so many years at sea, after so-called heroic acts had become routine, he had dared to dream. Had dared to plan, to put coin aside, while he repeated speeches about the importance of their hunts, that honestly had been a load of morale-boosting bullshit. Hunting beasts was a job, a well-paid and bloody one for those who society didn't like - or who just plain didn't fit. Jacob had still believed in their cause, then, while Crow had stopped doing so decades ago, once the novelty of being celebrated as a hero had worn off. And still, he kept going out. Not for the coin, but for the freedom that came with sailing in places humans were not more or less of a beast than the ones they hunted. But even that craving had worn off with time, had been replaced by a bone-deep exhaustion that he took care to hide from everyone. Especially Jacob, all the while preparing him to take over the ship.
The Bluster had been a nice opportunity to end things. Revenge for the eye, when the memory of the day he lost it had gotten mixed up with the memories of many fights, many wounds. Either he would have died a good death, or made it and taken home a good bit of coin, his share enough to comfortably retire. One last job, one last kill, before he would fade into the void of history. It was supposed to be straight-forward. Not easy, because their jobs never were, but routine, in a way. Just another dead beast to add to all the blood he had spilled, tinting the seas red.
Of course that hadn't worked. Of fucking course had his plans been shattered by fate.
Fate in the shape of one little girl, that he couldn't even hate if he tried. Because Jacob was his son, and even after all that he had done, Crow still felt proud of him for sending those aristocratic bastards running for the hills. And the girl was Jacob's kid. He had recognized it watching him carry her down to the surgeon. A brave kid, really. Would've made a good sailor. A good hunter.
He just hoped that no matter what, he had showed Jacob what was needed to be a great father.
More time passed.
Crow thought it was the third time that he was counting the lichens on the ceiling that he could see from where he laid on that bag of damp straw that passed for a bed.
The guards still weren't talking to him, but at least they seemed to be somewhat invested into keeping him alive, as the daily routine of being given food and water kept repeating.
He had figured out early on that the cells closest to his weren't occupied, yet still a guard with a lantern patrolled the hallway somewhat regularly.
He only noticed that it had been something helping him keep track of time when one day, the patrol didn't come. When the steps outside were far more quiet, and irregular, as if… His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a key being turned in the lock to his cell.
Crow frowned as he got up, mentally cursing the way his back ached and cracked. If he was to be taken somewhere, it would be on his own damn feet.
"Oh seas be damned.."
He had expected a guard, maybe a priest, if he was heading for the execution dock. Not Sarah Sharpe pushing the heavy door open, the keys to his cell dangling from her hand, looking extremely smug. The other hand held out to him, a familiar gesture that had it feel even more like some fever dream.
"Come on, Old Man. Unless you want to wait for the guards to figure out why their friends ain't reporting back."
And, seas be damned, Crow took that hand.