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Jay hummed to herself as she moved across the deck with a swift motion, hopping up and across the wide plank connecting the Albatross and the Crescent Moon. Her shoes lightly thudded across the board, hollow thunks resounding as the space below rattled and echoed the sound into the churning ocean below.
She hopped off the plank with a small thud, successfully crossing over to the Crescent moon, a steaming bowl of freshly made stew in her hands. The mood almost immediately shifted now that Jay had moved to the other ship, a sense of silence and almost tension spreading across the top deck. Jay huffed, rolled her eyes, and frowned at the immediate atmosphere change.
At least Caspian and John had some sense in them to temporarily join their crew for dinner so they weren't wallowing in the sour mood on their own ship. They had taken Chip’s invitation fervently, excited at the prospect of a warm home-cooked meal. Who knew the last time they had eaten something like a nice hot familiar recipe (courtesy of the Ferin family). So the two more sensible members of the Crescent Moon were excited about the food.
Their Captain, however…?
Jay shivered and held the bowl steady, rocking back and forth with the push of the waves as she made her way toward the captain’s quarters at the stern of the ship. She rolled her eyes at the sight of a warm lantern glow in the window behind the door, a clear sign that Lizzie was inside.
Lizzie couldn’t even take an hour to rest and have a nice warm dinner with the rest of her crew as well as the Albatross’ crew. And as much as Caspian and Chip had tried badgering her and pleading their case to get her to join, she just slammed the door of her quarters and refused to come over. By the looks of it, it seemed that she hadn’t even left the room once in the time that they had all been eating.
Jay was sure she was hungry. And if Caspian’s expression of worry was anything of the truth (and Jay figured it was), she probably hadn’t been sleeping well (if at all) or really taking care of herself much. So no sleep, no food, no rest of any kind in who knows how long certainly couldn’t spell out anything good. Jay was not about to let her pass up some nice warm stew. Especially since it was her own family recipe.
Now Jay wasn’t a traditional family member by any means, but she still took offense to anyone not wanting to join her for a meal. Especially a special family recipe like this. One that Jay had worked hard to make in order to give her crew and Lizzie’s a nice special dinner. A sign of trust. A mutual agreement. A truce of some kind (even though they weren’t fighting). Jay wanted to let them all in as part of her family.
And if Lizzie was going to disregard that hospitality, Jay was just going to have to bring it to her personally.
Jay approached the captain’s quarters, balancing the bowl of stew in one hand, spoon tucked against her palm underneath the flat wooden surface while she saddled up to the door. With as much confidence as she could muster (since Jay figured she had the upper hand in this situation, Lizzie was already at the disadvantage of being rude to Jay by denying her dinner invitation), Jay rapped her knuckles against the heavy wooden door.
“Lizzie!” Jay shouted, leaning her shoulder against the door and listening intently for Lizzie’s response.
“What do you want?” Lizzie shouted back, voice gruff and full of annoyance, clearly peeved at Jay’s intrusion on her definitely very, very important work (Jay couldn’t possibly be more sarcastic).
“Brought you dinner~” Jay sing-songed and shifted her weight from foot to foot and moved the bowl to her other hand so that the heat wouldn’t burn her palm. She tapped on the door again with her knuckles, putting on her most annoyingly sweet voice. “If you don’t accept my food I don’t think I can ever speak to you again.”
There was a moment of silence. Then: “Like I care if we talk.”
Jay was taken aback by that response. She blinked in surprise for a few seconds before she managed to grab her composure, the rocking of their ships nearly causing her to stumble. She frowned and furrowed her eyebrows.
“Don’t need to be all grumpy,” Jay muttered, mostly to herself as she rolled her eyes. Then, she projected her voice a bit louder, “I’m coming in.”
“Go the hell away,” Lizzie snapped, a low growl filling her tone, enough that Jay could even hear it from her position on the other side of the door.
Jay ignored her and curled her hand around the doorknob, digging her shoulder into the door as she pushed it open. She almost expected it to be locked, since Lizzie was so insistent on being left alone. But it swung open easily when Jay pushed on it, the steady creak of the hinges causing her to flinch. A little bit of the broth from the stew sloshed over the edge of the bowl and onto Jay’s hand. She winced at the heat, but it wasn’t enough to cause her any alarm.
“You’re just as annoying as Caspian,” Lizzie hissed, heaving a heavy, frustrated sigh as Jay let herself into the captain’s quarters casually as if she lived here. The door swung shut behind her with a heavy thud as the wind and the rocking of the boat sucked it closed. And now it was just Lizzie and Jay in the room.
Lizzie was hunched over her desk with a pen in one hand, fist tangled in her braids that had been pulled back behind her shoulders as she leaned her head on her other hand for support. She glared at Jay through one heavy-lidded eye, peering past her arm to stare daggers.
Jay was unphased at her aggression, but as she examined Lizzie’s face and the way that she was sitting, it was clear that the stress had been taking its toll. She wasn’t scared of Lizzie, and her sudden anger didn’t affect her, but Jay couldn’t help but worry.
Her skin was slightly ashy, with dark bags underneath her eyes, indicating a lack of sleep (although Jay wasn’t really surprised). When she moved, she seemed to sway much more with the rocking of the ship than what Jay would expect for an experienced pirate captain, it almost seemed like she was drunk. But there was too much exhausted clarity in her one visible eye for Jay to assume that. She was trembling slightly, fingers twitching when she forcefully slammed her pen down on the desk, a spurt of ink getting all over her fingers as she practically growled.
Jay stared Lizzie down intensely, holding the bowl of soup in her hands, cupping it gently in her palms now that she had already stepped inside. It had probably cooled down enough now to comfortably eat it without having to blow on every bite.
“What do you want?” Lizzie hissed after a few more seconds of just staring at each other. When it seemed like her silent attempt to intimidate Jay wasn’t going to work, she shifted to growling sharp, barking words in hopes to push Jay away.
“I told you, I brought you dinner,” Jay looked around the room for any nearby surface that Jay could drag over to Lizzie’s desk and sit down on. She found a stool tucked in the corner and began to push it over with one foot, the bowl still balanced precariously in her hands. “Cas said you haven’t been taking care of yourself.”
Lizzie turned away from Jay, ignoring the fact that Jay sat down on her stool right next to her desk, plopping down like she owned the place. Jay made herself right at home. Lizzie picked up her pen and tried to go back to whatever paperwork or letter she was currently crafting. She moved her hand to the ear that was facing Jay, attempting to cover it with her palm.
“And I worked really hard on making stew for everyone tonight,” Jay continued, completely disregarding Lizzie’s attempt to ignore her, she kicked her feet lightly and stared down at the homemade stew in her hands, “It’s a Ferin family recipe. It’s very important to me and I wanted to make sure everyone had a nice hot meal. We’re pirates, that kind of luxury is hard to come by.”
Lizzie continued to ignore Jay. Jay took that as her invitation to continue.
“You know, in my family, it’s very rude to deny a dinner invitation,” Jay placed the spoon into the bowl and began stirring the cream-colored stew around, “Especially when one goes through all the effort to share their family traditions—”
“I don’t care about your family traditions, Jay,” Lizzie suddenly snapped, whirling around to face Jay head-on, yellow lantern light spreading shadows across her skin, “Maybe you don’t realize because you three are off doing god only knows what, but I have a lot of things I need to do right now. I am trying to prepare for a war and I’m here trying to send dumbed-down, coded letters to pirates who I’m not even sure have the brains to decode it.”
Jay wrinkled her nose and did her best not to show her initial anger on her face. She told herself that Lizzie was stressed, probably overwhelmed, and probably wasn’t going to try and rely on anyone else for help. As much as her first outburst had stung, Jay reassured herself that she probably didn’t mean it, and Jay would leave the moment that Lizzie actually started getting hurtful about it. Jay didn’t need to take it from her, even as much as she wanted to help.
“I have a lot to do and I don’t have enough time to do it. Sorry for not indulging in your silly little dinner party because I have way more important things to deal with.” Lizzie waved her hand in a wild gesture, leaning back slightly in her chair as she stared straight ahead, not even looking at Jay as she just ranted off into the air. Jay sat there silently and listened with one eyebrow raised, waiting for when Lizzie was finished.
“You won’t be able to get a lot done if you push yourself to collapse,” Jay leaned back on her stool and crossed her legs, staring down at the bowl of stew and feeling a bit of remorse at the fact that it was starting to get cold. It wasn’t as good when it wasn’t hot. “I always tell this to Gillion: you’re more useful when you take a moment to recharge rather than work yourself to the brink.”
“I’ll rest when this is all over.”
“And when is that going to be?” Jay asked, not really expecting an answer, “A month? Two months? A year? Maybe ten? You have no idea how long this is going to take Lizzie. You can’t keep running on nothing.”
“Like it’s any of your business what I’m running on,” Lizzie wrinkled her nose and pulled on her braids, reaching back to pull them away from her face, tossing them back over her shoulders, “I don’t need to take this from someone that isn’t even my crew.”
“I can get Caspian,” Jay suggested with a small shrug, “If you want to take this from someone who is your crew.”
“I’m his captain, he has no authority over me,” Lizzie shook her head and stared down at the paper in front of her. She picked up the pen, but her hand didn’t move to continue writing. She just sat there, way too still for Jay’s comfort. It seemed like she was deep in thought, but she didn’t say anything.
“Maybe no actual authority, but he has to have some sort of influence,” Jay insisted, “He cares about you, John does as well, and Rudith. So do Chip and I and even Gillion. So maybe you don’t even have to take an actual break, but I’d appreciate it if you would at least try the stew I worked hard to make. Some warm food does wonders, even though I’m not sure how hot it is anymore.”
Without waiting for Lizzie to agree or disagree, Jay leaned forward and placed the bowl of stew on the desk, ignoring all the things that Lizzie already had on there. The spoon clattered a bit against the wooden side, and she made sure it was steady before letting go and pulling away, staring Lizzie down with an intense expression.
Lizzie almost looked surprised at the sudden intrusion of her space, she blinked at the bowl of stew, then looked over at Jay with a frustrated expression. Then she steeled herself and shook her head to clear her thoughts, a heavy sigh spilling from her lips, almost sounding like an angry bull when she exhaled sharply.
“Will you leave me alone if I do?” Lizzie glared, staring Jay down with such an intense gaze that if Jay were anyone else, she might even be slightly intimidated. But she wasn’t. She stared back just as intensely.
“Yes,” Jay said after a few seconds of staring, the sound spilling carefully from her lips as she spoke earnestly. She would be satisfied as long as Lizzie tried her stew, then she could leave Lizzie alone and she could go back to moping in her Captain’s quarters for the rest of the night if she wanted to. Then at least Jay would get satisfaction out of the situation.
“Fine,” Lizzie growled and shook her head, reaching out to pick up the bowl before the heat could ruin any of her documents. Her hands were shaking minutely and Jay only picked up on due to how closely she was examining Lizzie and the poor state she was currently in. How long had it been since she had eaten a genuine meal?
Jay frowned as she continued to kick her feet against the leg of the stool she was currently perched on. She watched but tried not to stare as Lizzie stirred the stew inquisitively, watching the broth and chunks of potato and meat spin. A new lick of steam danced in the air as she broke the thin layer that had settled over the surface of the stew after sitting for so long, once again opening it back up to the warmth of the stuff below it.
It was a familiar family recipe for Jay. A modified creamy potato stew that Jay had attempted to throw together with whatever ingredients she was able to scrounge up on their ship. It was a shell of the dish that her mother always used to make when she was little, but it was close enough that it tasted relatively similar. It was supposed to have more meat in it, but fresh meat was always hard to come by on a pirate ship, so Jay had to substitute it with more vegetables and broth. But it still tasted how she remembered it.
The stew was one of those personal recipes, one that Jay kept so close to her chest that it had taken her this long to make for the rest of her crew. Let alone for Lizzie’s crew as well. She wanted them to enjoy it. It was important to her.
And even so, maybe this situation was brought on by more than just Lizzie’s rudeness in denying Jay’s dinner invitation and the fact that she had offended Jay. If Jay tried to dig deeper into the root of this entire interaction, she figured it could be something akin to worry. Worry for Lizzie and her poor well-being. Worry for the fact that she wasn’t taking care of herself, a fact that even Caspian had expressed immense concern over. Worry for the fact that Lizzie of all people was denying free food, something that even Chip would never do.
But Jay didn’t want to dissect it. She didn’t want to think about the fact that she probably shared more concern for Lizzie than she tried to let on, enough to personally bring her dinner and badger her about it until she ate something. She could leave it at the tip of the iceberg with the fact that Lizzie had offended her, and Jay was trying to fix that.
Lizzie still hadn’t taken a bite, she just stared at the offered stew with apprehension, almost as if it were going to bite her back. She looked up at the heaps of papers and all the things that she had strewn all over her desk, and Jay could tell she dreaded having to go back to it. She was tired. She looked dead on her feet. Her eyes were sunken and her clothes disheveled. There was a constant tremor to her hands and shoulders and when she reached out to grab her pen, she seemed to take much too long to stare at what she had previously written.
There was some sort of internal battle going on in her mind, one that Jay didn’t belong in, so she stayed out of it.
But Lizzie, stubborn as always, quickly came back to her senses. She let out a sigh and pulled a spoonful of stew up to her lips, pointedly refusing to look over at Jay. Jay smiled, feeling accomplished in her mission as Lizzie tentatively tasted the offered meal.
She took one bite and hesitated, looking down at the bowl of stew in her hands. Jay could hear her stomach growl and tried to hold back a smile.
“What do you think? Pretty good?” Jay tilted her head to the side, and grinned, patting her hands on her thighs, “I’m not the best chef but it’s such an easy recipe you can never go wrong with it.”
“Nothing special about it,” Lizzie grumbled under her breath, refusing to look over at Jay.
“It’s special to me,” Jay countered with a small shrug, not even bothered by her comment. Lizzie looked visibly flustered enough that Jay couldn’t help but assume it was just her trying to overcompensate, “It’s my family’s recipe, at least on my mom’s side. So you don’t have to worry about whatever Navy cooties you might get from it.”
Lizzie fumbled at that, choking on her next bite of the stew, she pulled back and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, staring at Jay with a dumbfounded expression. Jay slid her tongue over her lips and smiled, holding back a small bit of laughter.
“I’m just messing with you,” Jay waved her hand dismissively, “but thank you for indulging in this for me.”
Lizzie looked away and sighed, she traced her finger around the rim of the bowl, “It’s just to get you to leave me alone. I tried your stew, it’s good, you can leave now.”
“Well, that is our bowl,” Jay shrugged lightly and gestured to the bowl with a turn of her wrist, “I gotta make sure I bring it back because we don’t have that many on the ship, so I’ll wait until you finish.”
Lizzie gave a heavy sigh, and pinched the bridge of her nose as if she could hardly believe what Jay was telling her, “You are very, very demanding.”
“It comes with being co-captains with two fools.”
With another sigh, Lizzie pushed her braids back over her shoulder when they fell in front of her face, her bandana doing nothing to keep them behind her head. She just rolled her eyes and stared down at the soup, stirring it absently before occasionally taking another bite, chewing thoroughly on the bits of meat and potatoes, savoring the taste.
Jay tried to think of conversation topics to make the entire situation less awkward so they both weren’t just sitting in silence while Lizzie ate.
Jay turned her head to the desk, noticing all the papers that had been scattered about by the movement of the waves and Lizzie’s frantic work. She figured asking about it might be a bad idea since Lizzie had just seemed to calm down from her previous outburst, Jay didn’t want to make the situation worse. And besides, Jay didn’t need to know what she was working on, that wasn’t any of her business as to what Lizzie was doing.
“Caspian said you like potato stews,” Jay commented lightly, trying to poke at different conversation topics in hopes of starting up some sort of back-and-forth. At least something more than the current stare-down they were experiencing.
Food was always a good conversation topic.
“Easy to make on a ship,” Lizzie responded, taking another bite and staring daggers into the bowl as if had personally offended her or something, “doesn’t take a lot of ingredients, and the ingredients are ones that can be stored for a while. So it’s not hard.”
“This was one of my favorite meals as a child,” Jay fidgeted with a shell bracelet around her wrist that Gillion had made for her, twisting it back and forth across her skin, “She always made it whenever we would have guests over, it was her specialty to share with those she wanted to show hospitality towards.”
“I can see where you got that hospitality from.” It sounded almost sarcastic, but there was something a bit more fond in Lizzie’s tone. One that Jay merely smiled at and nodded, sliding her hands up and down her thighs, trying to pass the time.
“It’s a Ferin family specialty,” Jay insisted with a proud puff of her chest. Lizzie was barely looking over at her out of the corner of her eye, one eyebrow raised the longer Jay went on.
Lizzie sighed softly and leaned back in her chair, raising the bowl to her lips and taking a long sip of the broth. A breath of contentment spilled from her lips and Jay took that as a moment of accomplishment.
“So you like it?” Jay questioned, almost reaching out to poke Lizzie in the side, then thought better of it. She liked having all her fingers. Jay figured that she wasn’t close enough with Lizzie to properly get away with contact like that, especially when she was already a bit peeved and running off of no sleep. Or very little sleep. Whichever one.
Either way, Lizzie wasn’t in very good shape, so probably best not to poke her buttons too much.
“I said it was good,” Lizzie grumbled and rolled her eyes. She crossed her leg over her knee and continued eating slowly as if she were either too tired to eat it fast or was really savoring the food.
“Yeah but just saying it’s good is like… objective, I want to know what you think,” Jay twisted her wrist in a loose circle and shrugged her shoulders back.
She nearly fell off the stool when she leaned back (forgetting there would be no back to her chair) and had to hold back a yelp of surprise as the three-legged stool wobbled and the legs clattered on the floor. Jay held onto the edge of the seat and sat up straight, eyes widening.
Lizzie finally looked over at Jay with what almost seemed like an amused smile. She licked a bit of broth off her lips and Jay made eye contact with her.
“I like it,” Lizzie said simply, a sigh spilling from her lips as she finally relented to Jay’s badgering, “it’s been a while since I’ve had potato stew.”
“Well you’re lucky I’m the best chef around,” Jay pointed her thumb at her chest proudly, tilting her chin back.
“I’d take Caspian’s cooking over yours,” Lizzie shook her head, and if Jay looked close, she could certainly see a smile twitching at the corners of her lips. Jay grinned exponentially wider.
“Maybe I’ll ask him to cook for us, then,” Jay bounced back, following the conversation easily, “tomorrow night? Would that get you to join us for dinner?”
Lizzie’s smile faltered, and she looked away again, bringing the spoon to her mouth mournfully as she chewed on a piece of meat, “I have too much work to do.” She stared down at the desk in front of her as if she had forgotten about all the things she had been working on. Her expression fell, and she tensed her shoulders as if the weight of everything that had previously lifted upon Jay’s distraction finally fell back upon her.
“You can take a break,” Jay said slowly, “You’re working too hard.”
“I have to,” Lizzie continued eating slowly.
“You don’t have to,” Jay reached out and put her hand on Lizzie’s arm, nearly flinching back at the way Lizzie whipped her head around to glare at Jay. “We can pick up some of the slack, you don’t have to do everything yourself.”
Lizzie almost seemed to consider that for a second, then she shook her head.
“At least let Caspian or John help you,” Jay pleaded, “Maybe not me or Chip, or Gillion, but at least your own crew. They want to help.”
“They have their own responsibilities to deal with, this is taking a toll on all of us,” Lizzie waved her hand dismissively, pushing her hair back away from her face, “I’m not the only one burdened.”
“But you can let us lessen the load,” Jay squeezed Lizzie’s arm, surprised to find that Lizzie hadn’t jerked away from her touch, “At least take the time to take care of yourself. When did you sleep last? Your last meal?”
“I’m eating now, doesn’t that make you happy?” Lizzie glared at Jay. Jay shut her eyes for a second and sighed.
“I want you to take a break and rest,” Jay let her hand fall, “You will work more efficiently if you get some good sleep and take the time to rest yourself.”
“I don’t have time .”
“You have time to eat and sleep,” Jay didn’t want to let this conversation drop, trying desperately to get it through Lizzie’s head that it would be better to take the time to rest. This was like trying to convince Gillion of the same thing all over again. “You make the time to take care of yourself. Because who’s going to fight in this war if you burn yourself out to the point of collapse? Then you’ll be useless.”
“I just won’t let that happen,” Lizzie growled, furrowing her eyebrows and finishing off the rest of the bowl of stew. She shoved the empty bowl into Jay’s arms. “I have to keep pushing.”
“But you could at least allow us to help you push, so you aren’t doing it all by yourself,” Jay said, “You might be able to do it by yourself. But it becomes a little more bearable when you let others help.”
Jay let out a small sigh and tried to get Lizzie to look at her again, but she kept her gaze firmly trained on the papers on the desk in front of her. Jay frowned and looked down at the empty bowl in her hands, Lizzie had even drank the broth, she had practically licked it clean. Jay was sure that she had been hungry.
Lizzie grabbed her pen from where it had sat abandoned, bits of ink dripping from the nib and onto the wooden desk to create stains. Her hands were still shaking, she looked even more exhausted than before. She looked so broken, so tired, and beaten down. Jay wished that she had asked Caspian a bit more about how long she had been going on like this so that Jay could judge how much further she needed to push.
“We still have more stew back on our ship, and some bread too,” Jay suggested slowly, figuring that this conversation was going nowhere, she at least wanted to make sure Lizzie was well-fed before she left, “If you’re still hungry…”
Lizzie opened her mouth to respond, almost working on instinct. Then she hesitated and frowned. She turned her head to glance at Jay out of the corner of her eye and then looked away. There was another internal battle going on inside her head. And with the bags underneath her one visible eye that only seemed to be getting deeper as time went on, it looked like Lizzie was losing.
“I think I’m still a little hungry,” Lizzie finally whispered, the words practically spilling from her lips. She sounded defeated.
“Do you want me to bring you some more?” Jay asked, already beginning to stand with the bowl clenched tightly between her fingers. She nudged the stool back a little bit so she didn’t knock it over.
Lizzie held up her hand and sighed deeply. She pushed her own chair back and stood as well with a small hiss and an even more defeated exhale, “I’ll come with.”
Jay smiled wide enough to brighten the entire room, her eyes immediately lighting up, “Okay! Yeah, you can have as much as you want.”
When Lizzie smiled ever so faintly, it didn’t fully reach her eyes, but she just sighed tiredly and nodded. All the previous anger had drained from her body and she just seemed exhausted. Jay was sure that a nice warm meal and a distraction from her work had made her sleepy, it always made Jay tired after a long day. (Especially if she hadn’t slept well the previous night). It was probably not doing wonders for Lizzie who was pushing herself way too far.
Jay reached out and took Lizzie’s hand, surprised at the fact that Lizzie didn’t pull away. Instead, she just allowed Jay to pull her out of the cramped, stuffy captain’s quarters, the mood suddenly shifting into something lighter as she was able to pull herself from her work for the first time in who knows how long.
It was amazing the wonders that a nice warm meal would do for a person. No one could ever say no to some traditional Ferin hospitality.