Chapter Text
Everything he knew fit inside a bottle. Narrow at the neck, not much else other than what he’d been trapped with could get inside. A grand ship hidden behind thick glass, one he had earned as much as he had been gifted. But rarely did he find he needed much more. On the water, nothing else mattered but that single bottle; a glass ceiling, glass floor, and glass walls. The knowledge you could fit within it and the iron-first with which you wielded said knowledge. That was what made you powerful— feared. He knew not to ask for more; that asking would have made him selfish. And selfishness would not be tolerated.
The knives in his gut told him as much. As did the rush of cold water when his back broke the surface of the waves. Salt water dragged him deeper into that cold dark, one he once found alluring and comforting, but now brought him nothing but the promise of his own death. No glass bottle could have taught this kind of pain. This wasn’t something passed down through generations— a battered star compass well-worn with use instead of love— but rather learned through experience. No one could understand how sharp the water’s bite was until it swallowed you whole. Until you drowned in it and watched your blood turn the water red.
His glass bottle shattered the moment he fell from that ship. But he would build it again. Because when all you knew was trapped within that little bottle, you had no choice but to collect the pieces and put them back together again.
ꕀ
If you had asked Scar, he would have said it wasn’t that bad.
The bounty posters were nothing but a great exaggeration, but they captured his likeness in a way he couldn’t help but stop and admire. So for now, he allowed it. He stole the copy off the tavern’s wall, for his own personal collection. It wasn’t every day a man received his first bounty. Truly, it was one milestone of many towards achieving notoriety as a pirate. He was already well on his way; the pride nearly impossible to contain in his grin alone.
“Awful smiley for a man with a target on his back,” said the young barkeep, his eyes red as fire and hair the same gold as the thin bars pinned to his lapel. An old friend, really; Scar was more well acquainted with a particular stool in Tek’s Tavern than the mast of his own ship.
Baby steps, he always said.
Scar approached the bar and took his usual place on his usual stool. “Oh, Tango Tek. Good friend. How I’ve missed you.” He pulled the bounty poster from his jacket, unfolding it and spreading it proudly for Tango to see. The gorgeous likeness stared back at Scar; he found he couldn’t look away. Not yet anyway. Just give him a moment.
“Isn’t it just beautiful?”
Tango leaned across the bartop, but his face told Scar he wasn’t nearly as impressed as Scar wanted him to be. It was historically quite difficult to surprise Tango Tek. Not many things could phase a man who ran a tavern along the busy coast. “Five diamonds, huh? Sure is a… steep price.”
“I can’t expect a Watcher level bounty over-night,” Scar chided, raising the poster to the lantern hanging above the bar. The parchment was thick; not poor quality either. Whoever created them had a few gold or iron ingots to spare. There was only room for growth from here; only one direction— up. Five diamonds would turn into ten, which would become fifteen. Then, the whole dowry.
Tango busied himself with preparing a jug for Scar— his usual concoction of ale and coconut that really was mainly coconut with a drop or two of ale in it. “Just to make sure we’re on the same page,” he said. “We want a higher bounty? This piece of paper is a good thing?”
“Oh, Tango Tek. Tango. My boy.” Scar can’t fault the poor lad. A tavern-keeper’s knowledge is nothing to be scoffed at, but he doesn’t know the way of the sea. The path of success paved for pirates and aspiring ones alike. “It’s only an official seal of approval in piracy. A right of passage, you could say. Every worthy pirate has a bounty on his head at some point.”
“What did you even do?” Tango asked.
“I called it diplomacy. Others may have called it swindling. Really, what’s the real difference besides a few different letters? It’s semantics,” Scar said, recalling the anger in the boy’s tearful face the moment he realized Scar swindled him out of his goods on his own family’s ship. The quiver in his voice when he had blubbered, but that’s mine! The rich were always the easiest to scam. Not that he minded any; it always made him richer in the end and what was a pirate without his loot?
“I feel like there’s a big difference,” Tango said to himself, such mutterings falling flat on Scar’s unattentive ears.
Tango slid Scar’s drink to him across the bartop and leaned in after it, trying to catch a better glimpse at the wanted poster. Leaning as if he wanted to know more but was afraid of burning his hand on a flame. “Who did you swindle? Gotta be some hot-shot if they put a couple of diamonds on your head.”
“Someone who could certainly spare the loss.” Scar hid away the wanted poster before Tango could read it. Some things were best kept a secret from friends if you wanted to keep them that way, and shared between enemies when you wanted to change the tides. Friends (and secrets), like gold, were a valuable currency when you knew how to play the game.
The sweetness of the coconut drink warmed Scar’s belly. He drank it in one go, slamming the mug back down on the wooden countertop and offering Tango a golden nugget for his trouble. “Absolutely delicious, my friend. As always. I always know I can count on you.”
Tango picked up the nugget from the counter, eyes tired yet unsurprised. “It costs two golden nuggets.”
“Oh, but surely it’s half off for a good friend,” Scar hopped up from his stool and glimpsed the clock above Tango’s head. “It’s past noon already? I better head back. ‘Til next time, Tango!”
Scar pulled his coat over his shoulders. It was a few sizes too large for him, but no matter. After a few successful lootings he’d look as much as he felt the part. Certain things only required patience. One did not become so successful overnight, though Scar certainly knew how to cut a corner or two.
The sun’s rays beat mercilessly on the pebbled path returning to the docks. Folks of all different walks of life occupied the small island’s shores, bartering whatever wares they’d come across in their adventures. Other pirates selling valuable loot: a princess’ jewelry, rumored siren’s scales, an old man’s wooden tooth. Scar, personally, struggled to find the appeal in the last one. But to each his own as Scar carried on towards his ship.
No one on these shores knew Scar’s name. Aside from Tango, of course. No one feared the humble, white-sailed ship docked on the south side of the port. Not important enough for its own spot at the harbor. This, like the tides, would eventually change with time. They would know his name soon enough. The greatest pirates all rose from humble beginnings like a phoenix from ashes. Scar was no different from them; that much he was sure of. And it would not take him long to prove it. He placed a hand over the rolled bounty poster in his pocket.
Everything he had, he earned. Everything he earned, he built from the ground. He deserved it just as the ocean deserved a ship; it was an inherent partnership between the two. The ship meant for the great blue, Scar meant for the salty air. Nothing could have touched these happy thoughts. For others. The ceiling was glass, but for Scar it was nonexistent. There was nowhere to go but up. And up he would carry until the oxygen grew thin and then…
Well, Scar hadn’t planned that far ahead.
So he carried himself with ease to the shore. Dock space was limited so his ship found a small space further south, where the wooden strips were mostly rotten and fallen away. He carefully picked his way across it. Not a soul lingered this far down the dock. No merchant dared to settle this far down, should he condemn himself to a day without a single golden nugget in hand.
Scar didn’t mind quite so much. Nor would he come to mind the odd little discovery this little, abandoned corner of the island had to offer him. An island full of treasures, indeed. Special ones, if you knew where to look.
A man was hunched with his back to Scar, half-tucked behind a collection of sleek boulders further down the shore. Had Scar been the more superstitious type, he’d thought maybe the boy was a siren. Huddled so close to the water, light hair clinging to his forehead, he certainly looked the part. Only sirens were meant to be graceful, their voices so lovely you couldn’t help but dunk your head beneath the waves to keep hearing that beautiful sound.
But the stranger was nothing like that. There was hardly anything graceful about the way he wrestled with a soaked coat, peeling it from his arms and letting it fall in a heap in the sand. But the sunlight hit him in just a way that had Scar wanting to lean in for a closer look. Perhaps the sirens knew Scar better than he knew himself.
Grace wasn’t always the most alluring. Mystery, intrigue; these were the hooks in Scar’s cheek.
He drew closer, despite himself, and stepped carefully through the sand and rocks towards the man tucked away from sight. He watched as the man pressed something to his midriff and pulled a light-weight linen vest from a bag at his feet. He pulled it over his shoulders, slowly and as if each movement pained him in some way. Scar wouldn’t dare deny his interest had been piqued. It wasn’t everyday he discovered a modern enigma on a beach. Most monsters and creatures were tales of myths, magic, and drunken sailors.
There was no magic here; only a man and Scar’s innate ability to get himself into trouble at every turn. Because that was what this man reeked of the second Scar drew close enough to smell it: trouble. And it excited him more than any bounty could have; potential was one hell of a drug.
“Trouble, sailor?” Scar asked as he leaned against one of the midnight rocks.
The stranger turned; his eyes, made of the color of seawater, widened into great big pools that Scar thought he might fall into. There was nothing unguarded about the man’s expression. He wore his face like knights wore suits, shiny and new and faithfully impenetrable. Yet this man was no knight; he had yet to encounter any knight or soldier alike who carried himself like this— something that wanted to disappear.
“No trouble,” said the stranger. His eyes never left Scar’s; Scar’s never left his. “You can be on your way.”
Blood started to seep through the stomach of the man’s shirt. The red speckled, and Scar saw it despite the man’s best attempts at hiding it, a hand clamped over whatever wounds lay beneath.
“Are you a criminal?” Scar had the gall to ask. He wasn’t afraid of most things these days, and a wounded boy by the beach certainly didn’t have him shaking at the knees. But maybe that was what was so dangerous about him. He lured you into thinking he was something other than he was. A true siren, then.
Ah, there went his imagination, drifting away from him again. Forgive him.
The man scoffed. “That’s one way to put it.”
Nothing about the man screamed a life of crime, aside from the mysterious wounds and shifty gaze. He studied Scar with an intensity he only knew from jewelers searching for a real diamond— only he lacked the magnifying monocle and grubby, greedy fingers.
“And what are you supposed to be?” The man gestures to Scar’s oversized coat, his wooden leg. “I thought the traveling theater was on the eastern islands this time of year.”
“You haven’t heard of me, The Good Time Pirate?” Scar outstretched his arms in a display, because if he was good at any one thing, it was presentation. The core of any con and the crux of any pirate worth skindering.
The man’s lips twitched. It wasn’t the sort of reaction Scar wanted exactly, but it was far from unwelcome. Warmth spread through him, the sight as silly as it was annoying.
He echoed, “The Good Time Pirate?” with the same incredulity as many others before him. Somehow the question never lost its novelty; nor did it hurt any less upon the hundredth time hearing it. Ignorance was a great blinder, Scar would remind himself in the face of it. They’d laugh at him now, but they wouldn’t stay laughing for long.
“A working title,” Scar dismissed.
The stranger turned away from him. “A ridiculous one.”
Ignorance was easier to forgive than outright disrespect. He would’ve liked to call the flash of heat that punched through him anger, but Scar knew himself well enough to call it what it was— embarrassment. The kind you only felt when the school teacher pulled you up in front of the class and underlined your name in a fat line of chalk.
“Oh? And what would you know about pirating?” Scar sneered.
“Quite a lot, actually,” said the stranger with his nose in the air. He stood from his hunched position on the rock, and even then Scar peered down at him at his height. Had his smart mouth not been so irritating— and a tad bruising to his ego— Scar would have found him cute.
Most of the objects of Scar’s possessions vexed him just as they enthralled him. Perhaps the stranger was better suited for his collection than he initially thought.
The man turned his back to Scar again once he deemed Scar’s silence boring. He hunched as he buried his boots in the sand, an arm protectively draped around his middle. He moved as if breathing hurt; Scar couldn’t blame him with all that blood. Nor could he tame his curiosities for what had poked the lad full of holes to begin with.
“It doesn’t look like it to me,” Scar taunted. He blocked the sun from his eyes and scanned the horizon.“I see no ship. No wares, no crew. Just a boy stranded on a beach.”
He pointed to his own ship, several yards up the shore. It was a humble vessel made of high quality wood (he had pretended to be a prominent merchant to get a discount) and a plethora of white sails layered on top of each other.
Scar watched the stranger’s face as he gazed upon the ship. His eyes widened with the wonder of something far more innocent than a castaway. The ocean shone in those eyes, a color Scar couldn’t decide was more blue or green. There was wanting, a tangible type that Scar remembered so well he was still holding onto it. Still glimpsed it when he passed a mirror.
He smirked at having caught the man with such a face. “Like what you see?”
The stranger turned his head, denying himself of the sight and the promise. It pained him to turn away. Scar pitied the man, for he too understood the pain. A ship was always most enticing behind the glass walls of a bottle; the one you couldn’t put your hands on. Maybe this man, too, had been cursed to look and never touch.
Fortunately for him, there always came a time to break the glass.
“I have clothes aboard,” Scar told the stranger, not out of kindness. “You can change and dry off, should you wish.
“At what cost?” Rightfully asked the man.
Life as a business man taught Scar to set a proper price. Not always in gold, iron, or diamonds. Other things, such as information, were just as powerful. Though Scar couldn’t deny a few extra diamonds in his coat pocket wouldn’t be nice. In time, he reminded himself.
“An introduction,” Scar decided. He reached for the man with one calloused hand. “The Good Time Pirate can be a mouthful, so how about Scar for now? Or Captain, should you feel so inclined.”
With a scowl, the stranger accepted Scar’s hand and gave it a firm shake. “I’m Grian.”
Names had power, Scar believed. Gods supposedly changed tides at their mentions in idle conversation among bored sailors. Decks of hardened pirates cowered at the name of a fearsome crew like the Watchers. Grian’s name wouldn’t be invoking the will or wrath of Gods (or so he hoped), but it was a modest power at least. It suited him: the unlikeness of it.
Scar led Grian up the shore, to his ship. Grian followed him with restraint, clutching his damp coat to his chest and eyes carefully trained on the bustling barterting dock further up the shore.
“Behold: Jellie’s Revenge!” Scar strode across the deck and adored the ship from the mast. The sails fluttered in the temperamental wind, the bow croaking quietly with the rock of the waves against the dock’s pillars. A man’s soul rested with his ship. It was evident in the way a ship sailed, the way his knowledge and hand parted the sea.
Grian followed Scar across the deck. His study of the ship was less awe and more precision work. His practiced hands wandered over the mahogany railings, tugged at any spare rope that hung low enough. It seemed for him impossible to keep his hands to himself. Knowledge, Scar guessed, was not something this stranger lacked in the least. He seemed true to his word; he knew a thing or two of sailing.
Scar thought to chide him for it— those wandering hands— but found he couldn’t. The deck had been empty for so long. His excitement to finally share it, however briefly, was damn near impossible to bottle up. It threatened to crack the glass, but few things could shatter this joy. He was glad not to be alone, even if his company wasn’t the kindest. Scar always liked things that bit him back, anyway.
“Jellie’s Revenge? What kind of name is that?” Said company asked. “Another working title?”
“A great name,” Scar said. All great pirates named their ships after something inspiring; whether that thing inspired fear, joy, or anger was up to them.
Grian’s scoff was telling of his disapproval, but Scar paid him no mind. Rather he led Grian below deck. The quarters were small, given the limited size of his ship, but it was cozy nonetheless. Scar’s bunk occupied most of the space below, saved for a small storage bay that doubled as potential crew bunks, should he ever find the time to acquire said crew. Tucked in the corner of his quarters was an ornately-carved wooden trunk.
Most of these clothes were ones he traded for (or one’s he stole and had yet to barter). Turns out, not many pirates were in the clothes-trading business. No matter. At least these would have some use afterall. He gathered the smallest shirt and pants he could find among the pile and handed them to Grian.
“You can change here,” Scar said. “I’ll be on the deck. Don’t even think about stealing anything.”
Grian smiled impishly at him, his gaze sweeping across the room. “There’s nothing worth my effort in here. Don’t worry.”
“Come back up once you’ve finished changing and insulting my things.” Scar backed out of the room. Sure, Grian hadn’t been wrong to insist there was nothing worthwhile picking up. Everything valuable (which wasn’t much at the moment) he carried on his person, in his oversized pockets. Another lesson he learned the hard way.
Scar shut the door to his quarters and returned to the deck. The sky began to turn all sorts of colors: ones that reminded Scar of a dying fire or the shimmer of golden fish freshly pulled from the water. He leaned against the railing to admire it, the soft bustle of the island carrying with the wind.
How he loved his little ship in a bottle, but Scar had learned a valuable lesson from years of watching through the warped glass. A harbored ship— though a safe one— would never find the ocean. This was one of the things Scar knew but couldn’t find the gall to listen to. How many more days would he stay docked here, hiding in sparse victories and Tango’s coconut mixes?
A soft clatter announced Grian’s return to the deck. Scar knew he should turn; there was no telling what the stranger would plan for a man with his back turned. But Scar always had a strange sort of confidence in dice-rolls and gambling. He had been willing to bet his odds on a blind whim. He’d be willing to bet on a stranger— on Grian.
“Where is your crew?” Grian asked once he reached Scar’s side at the railing. He wore a red cloak clasped with a copper broach. “You do have one, don’t you?”
Seems the troublesome man already found a decided sore spot. No matter, Scar was particularly skilled at shaking off the hurt. The emptiness of his deck and hull couldn’t be missed by anyone. Great pirates often had crews, yes, but Scar would be an exception. He’d be something greater, beyond the grain rather than against it. He’d be a first. The original was impossible to forget.
He said as much to Grian, who only sneered at his vivid imagination. “You call yourself a pirate? What, with no crew, no spoils, and no blood stains on your precious mahogany? I see this for what it is: a pathetic man playing pretend on his empty ship.”
Only such ugly works could spark such a genius idea; a brilliant one, he’d dare to say (Scar had always been the more boastful sort). His smirk was wicked and excited.
“What if you joined this pathetic man and his ship?” Scar asked with the confidence he asked most things; the same confidence he wielded taking those goods from that poor rich boy’s ship and the same confidence that spurred unwilling generosity.
“Why would I do that?” Grian turned his face away from the tempting sea and regarded Scar with a look of which hundreds of men had regarded him before.
“The ship wouldn’t be so empty anymore,” Scar said as he stretched his hands over the railing. “But I sense the potential for a deal between us. An equal trade, as all things should be.”
“I give you labor and you give me what, exactly? I don’t want your money. Or your clothes.” Grian plucked at the frilly neckline of his shirt beneath the red cloak. He may have been dissatisfied with it, but Scar couldn’t help but think how well it suited him in the low light of the tired sun.
“How about a rightful place on a ship? Food in your belly? A hammock to sleep in at night and a new destination each morning. Nothing but salt air and open sea.” Scar lifted an eyebrow and smiled; for he had trapped Grian in that glass bottle he tried so desperately to peer through. His need for the sea— for freedom— was tangible, as was Scar’s. It had been evident in Grian’s steady, wandering hands and the slight gap of his lips.
Robbed of a witty retort, Grian stared at Scar. His eyes screamed with distrust; he was a stone’s throw away from hauling himself overboard. So Scar waited; he waited for Grian to convince himself of it. Because they all did in the end. All Scar needed was patience, and maybe something to entertain him in the interim.
“Do I have to call you Captain?” Grian’s convincing took little time, it seemed. His hands tightened on the railing, knuckles white with the desperation to hold onto what was in front of him.
“Not until you think I’ve earned it,” Scar said. He extended his hand. “Deal?”
Scar conjured a grin he knew well, one he practiced many times, yet the power of it was beyond him on this specific evening. No longer was it a cool farce, but rather It was a riptide beneath the surface that demanded your attention, the type that swept you under the surface before you could breathe. The type that was armed to kill.
When Grian’s reluctant, uncertain hand accepted Scar’s sure one, the wickedness only grew.
“Deal.”
ꕀ
The soft roar of the ocean’s waves had awoken Scar, had driven him from his quarters and out onto the deck where he was greeted by the salty spray. The sun hadn’t quite risen. The sky, rather, was basked in a faint purple glow that resembled a priceless painting more so than any feat of nature.
He scrubbed the sleep from his eyes to catch a glimpse of the silhouette behind the wooden wheel. How odd it was, no longer occupying a ghost ship. Many parts of it were still clumsy; Scar never realized just how much space he took up before he was forced to share it. Grian’s temper often flashed, but Scar let it. A sharp tongue was more comforting than any silence ever was, and Scar was tired of pretending otherwise.
It was all of this— the sky’s darkness against the rising sun, the practiced ease of Grian’s hands on the wheel, and the warmth of another body on his deck— that made it damn near impossible to regret his decision. To regret this deal. Call him soft, but Scar knew what he wanted. And he didn’t stop until it was his.
So he approached the quarter deck and said, “It’s a beautiful morning. You’re up early.”
Grian didn’t look his way. He turned his face to the foggy morning and smiled at it. It was small— maybe he hadn’t realized Scar could see— but Scar savored the sight. It gleamed like victory.
“The deal was I was part of your crew, wasn’t it? Someone’s gotta do the hard work around here,” Grian said, adjusting the wheel’s trajectory. The sails fluttered as he did, the wind catching the stark sheets of white. They cut through the air like an angel’s wings.
Scar couldn’t tell which of the two sights was more captivating. He supposed it didn’t matter, because he was the only other pair of greedy eyes on this deck. The sights were saved for him and him alone.
“How are you wounds?” Of course Scar hadn’t forgotten. At times he may be foolish but he was no idiot. Grian did not carry himself like a man wounded anymore, but Scar had remembered the blood.
Grian wrestled with his surprise, the barest flicker of his brow any indication he had heard Scar at all. “Fine,” he said, voice tight as the shrouds that held the mast upright. “They’re not really any of your concern.”
“If you’d like, I could take a look at them,” Scar offered, because he was a kind Captain and a gracious host.
Grian’s grimace was true this time, as if he saved such expressions for only the most special of occasions. “Thanks, but no thanks. I can take care of myself.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Scar said with a curious tilt of his head, the kind that told someone he wanted to know more before he asked a single question. “Are you going to tell me where you came from? Or how you learned how to sail like this?”
Grian clicked his tongue with finality. “Nope. That wasn’t part of the deal, now was it?”
Alas, defeat. He expected as much, but you couldn’t blame him for trying. Scar was stubborn but he knew when he faced an unmoving wall, one that would cave in and crush him had he tried to tunnel straight through it. But luckily for him (and unluckily for Grian), Scar was a patient man. He knew to find the back paths to come up on a man’s blind spot. He would learn the truth soon enough; for now as long as Grian sailed well and made true on his deal, Scar supposed it didn’t matter where the stranger had come from.
Scar moved past Grian to the deck behind them to look over the back of the ship as it carved a path through the dark sea.
Mornings like this were often the greatest. With no clear path or expectations, just open sea and the endless possibilities that it offered. It was too easy, really, to idly steer and wait for prey to swim by. After all, this had been Scar’s approach since he began this escapade; it had yet to fail him. Patience was a virtue, not only with man, but on the sea as well. And by those terms, you could call Scar a saint.
But was Grian a patient man? That was the more interesting question; and perhaps even more intriguing was the itch beneath Scar’s skin to show Grian what the Good Time Pirate was truly capable of. His skepticism stunk the ship like rotting fruit. Scar was prepared to put those sharp teeth to use and make him eat it. Patience be damned, he had something to prove.
“My turn to ask questions,” Grian said. The ship straightened out in its course, a steady line through the vast sea. Grian stepped away from the wheel and joined Scar to overlook the rudder.
“I’m an open book,” Scar beamed in the newborn sunrise. “Fire away, sailor.”
“Why don’t you have a crew?” Grian stared at the side of Scar’s face with the same, cold analysis he had used upon first boarding Jellie’s Revenge; a face trained in finding weak points.
Maybe Scar would let him find one. “I have one now—“
“That’s not what I mean and you know it.” Grian’s brow furrowed and Scar imagined he did so whenever he was particularly frustrated or faced with a puzzle he couldn’t solve.
With a sigh, Scar relented. “I just never had one. Not for lack of trying,” he admitted with a sheepish grin. “Handy crew members are a commodity nowadays. The competition is fierce, you must understand.”
“Not many around keen on fighting alongside the Good Time Pirate, I take it?” Grian teased, and his smile was a malicious one that distracted Scar from the sunrise along the eastern horizon. It proved difficult to look away from him. Not that Scar wanted to.
Scar’s shrug was half-hearted. “It’s their own loss, if you ask me. And your gain.”
“I’m brimming with gratitude. Sailing upon Jellie’s Revenge. My dream-come-true.” Grian said in a particularly unkind deadpan. “What’s with the name anyway? Who is Jellie?”
Mourning his first ship— and the stray cat it had been named after— hadn’t gotten any easier over the years. His first ship, a humble rough draft of Jellie's Revenge as he knew it today, had been his pride and joy. The cat was no different. Maybe he would’ve considered that silly cat part of his crew; she was a fierce rodent hunter and owner of the title of Resident Ration Protector.
And the ship had been stripped from him in a flurry of flames and wicked laughter. Scar had no choice but to sit on his rickety tender and watch the fire dance in the reflection of the midnight water. Scar told Grian as much, walked through the details of that night, the shrouded faces of the men who had struck the match, the debris of his ship drifting lifelessly across a still ocean.
It was a story usually reserved for himself. But forget giving Grian an inch; Scar would offer him miles if that’s what it took. To gain trust you had to give it, like lying your neck ready for a blade with a smile and closing your eyes.
“I was able to save some pieces of the original ship,” Scar said, his voice drowned in his rage and melancholy: an incendiary combination. “The wheel, some pieces of the railing. The tender, a few several hundred feet of rope.” The rest sat in the bottom of the ocean somewhere.
“And I take it you’re out for revenge,” Grian said without any question. It was a bit obvious, Scar would give him that. But he supposed the simpler things had the most impact. Answering the what, but leaving the when and how a mystery.
“And it will be glorious when I do.” It was more than a promise; it was destiny.
Scar waited, with glee, for the day he stumbled upon those masked pirates once again. Until he could see how they looked as they watched their own ship burn to nothing and return as ashes to the sea. He could see the flames if he took a moment to close his eyes and imagine.
Grian hummed, the sound soft and low and nearly lost in the song of the water beneath them. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Oh, he would. Scar would see to it. For he had something to prove, and this time, not just to himself and his empty ship. This was bigger, better, greater. All things Scar was starved for, and he would have his fill. For he was nothing but greedy and selfish and hungry.
“It’s kinda messed up that they killed your cat, though,” Grian remarked after a moment, his mouth twisted in a sad little frown that intrigued Scar. “I’m sorry.”
Scar blinked. “Oh, they didn’t kill Jellie. She’s still alive. I leave her with Tango at the tavern to keep her safe. But it’s a matter of principle, Grian. You can’t just burn a man’s ship and get away with it!”
Grian grimaced. “Dude, I thought they killed your cat. Maybe lead with that next time.”
“But it was one hell of a story though, wasn’t it?” Scar smirked, but as soon as Grian shot him a deadly glare, one made of knives, he laughed and raised his hands above his head. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I’ll keep that in mind.”
ꕀ
Eventually, the sun broke the horizon and Jellie’s Revenge tore through the water as the wind carried her west. Scar wasn’t waiting for anything in particular; the best scores often found you when you weren’t looking too hard. So he meandered on the deck and waited for such an opportunity to land upon him. Grian didn’t speak much after the sun had risen, and Scar had granted him the little space he’d put between them across the small expanse of the ship’s deck. Patience, Scar tried to remind himself time and again. But for the first time in a while he was entirely too impatient to sit still, to wait for Grian to come to him and nudge in his open palm.
He needed something fierce. Something so valiant and impressive even Grian couldn’t tear his eyes away from it. He waited. He circled the deck like a bird of prey, spyglass clutched in his hands. By midday his head was aching from all the pacing and squinting. His throat burned with thirst. But he didn’t stop.
Grian sat perched in the crow’s nest, lying in silent watch over the glinting ocean. It looked as if he belonged up there, a stone statue overlooking the entrances to those grand cathedrals and castles Scar remembered from the mainland. Armed with watchful eyes and precise hands. It was nice for Scar to have something new to stare at. To appreciate. Had he not been so preoccupied with preserving his pride, perhaps he’d spend the rest of the evening relishing the sights.
But he had a job to do. Best not be distracted by the views the ocean had to offer, no matter how tempting they were.
There were great strides to be made if Scar stood a chance of making a name for himself, of gaining footing alongside notorious pirates and ships alike. The chasm was wide and ever-growing, but Scar need not be afraid. He could do anything he set his mind to, catch anything he sunk his teeth into deep enough. This dream would be no exception.
Time passed quietly, as it tended to do on the deck of Jellie’s Revenge. But it was far less lonely this time. Scar scanned the horizons in all four directions with Grian’s silent presence above him. He took one lap around the ship, then another, and then a third. But it was not until the sun was starting to sink in the second half of the day that he saw it: a dark speck in the southern horizon. There was no land mapped in this direction for another couple hundred miles, so unless Scar was about to stumble upon undiscovered isles (which would not be unwelcomed, per say), this was something else entirely. Something moving. A dark silhouette that turned into towering mainmasts and crimson red sails that seemed to flicker like flames in the low sunlight.
Scar collapsed his spyglass with a painfully large grin.
“You see it?” Scar yelled to the wind, up the ratline. He grabbed onto the ropes and gave them a hard tug. Once. Twice. The crow’s nest rattled. As if startled from some type of trance, Grian flinched and looked down upon him.
Scar pointed to their next target. His grin never faltered, for Grian needed to know just how serious and gleeful the Good Time Pirate could be. This was their shot, Scar’s chance, and he’d be nothing but a fool if he fumbled it.
Grian’s darkened gaze followed Scar’s gesture out to sea. He squinted against the sun’s reflection on the water, one hand cupped over his eyes. But he saw it. Scar knew he saw it, because his shoulders went rigid and his entire body moved as if tied by a single string. All at once, he was upright.
Quickly he shimmied down the ratline until he was at Scar’s side again. He barrelled past Scar to lean over the railing, as if it’d give him a better vantage than what he had seen on the crow’s nest. Or maybe he just hadn’t believed what he had seen. Scar had heard the tales of crewmates who’d gone half mad after their heads had baked in the sun all afternoon.
“You said you’d believe it when you saw it?” Scar taunted, hooking his chin over Grian’s shoulder, closing the narrow gap between them. Grian smelled like the salt of seawater; it dampened his hair and caused it to fray and curl. “Consider this the appetizer.”
So much for baby steps.
“You want to raid a military ship?” Grian balked at him. He stared at Scar like he was the madmen they both knew him to be. “No wonder you don’t have a crew. You’ve killed them all with stupid plans like this.”
“You’re scared of a few military losers?” Scar barked a laugh, tasted the salt on his tongue. “You didn’t strike me as the type.”
“I’m not afraid of them, I’m afraid of you.” Grian’s bluntness could still cut like a knife. “Have you ever even raided another ship before?”
Oh, Scar hoped he’d ask that. He scoffed victoriously and produced a folded bit of parchment from his jacket. He slapped it atop the barrel between them. “I know a thing or two about being a wanted man,” Scar said through his lopsided grin.
Grian side-eyed him and reached for the wanted poster. The crease down the middle cut Scar’s face in two. He flattened the image between his thumbs, appraising Scar’s bounty with a twisted expression. Scar waited for revelation (or awe, whichever came first) to overcome Grian’s face. Yet it never came. Instead Grian wordlessly returned the poster to the barrel and turned his gaze to the military ship on the horizon.
“You think stealing a few diamonds from a rich man’s ship is the same as challenging the military? The military, who have guns and many men, and— oh, I don’t know— guns!” Grian’s hands jerked above his head, wide eyes pinning Scar with their disbelief.
“I thought you said you weren’t afraid of them.” Scar raised an eyebrow at Grian, whose mouth snapped shut. “I have a very simple philosophy, Grian: Go big or go home. Do you want to go home?”
That sparked the reaction Scar had so desperately craved, like a man dying of thirst in a desert. Grian’s back went rigid, the curve of his posture gone as if someone had stuck him between the shoulder blades with a sewing needle (it’s what his own parents would have done, had he been slouching at the dinner table). The color drained from his face, not out of any sort of fear, but with the certainty of a man who knew— and despised— the next few words about to come from his mouth.
“No.” The answer was firm but reluctant. Not that Scar cared. Because it meant Grian was with him, no matter what, and for whatever reason. Scar didn’t need a reason, not yet anyway. His presence was enough for now.
But then Grian turned to him, his face gaunt and tired. “At least tell me you have some sort of plan,” he all but pleaded. “You’re not thinking of charging in blind, right?”
Scar returned his hungry gaze to the military ship. Certainly they had the numbers. And the weapons. On paper it was a hard sell at best, an impossible one at worst. But Scar never liked to bet on the worst odds. They tended to be a bit of a buzzkill, and that was not in the best interest of the Good Time Pirate. Listen to the name for Gods’ sake!
“They can be outsmarted, certainly. Right?” He lifted a shoulder in a casual shrug. “I outsmarted those rich sailors. It can’t be that hard. I have a plan. Of course I have a plan.”
A moment of silence overcame them: nothing but the dull roar of the waves rocking them back and forth and the brimming promise of their raid sailing along the southern horizon. Grian rested his hand on the parchment atop the barrel, as if it could read the potential there. As if his arms were a scale to weigh Scar’s deeds and his capability. As if by his hand and his hand alone he could measure the tides of this fight and know the outcome.
His fingers twitched. He traced the drawn curve of Scar’s cheek. Over one of the scars. If Scar had been a more naive man, he would have said the touch was tender. But Scar wasn’t naive. Not in the ways that mattered most.
But what surprised Scar the most, had been when Grian said, “I think I have an idea too,” in a quiet yet assured voice. One that had Scar grinning ear-to-ear before he could think better of it.