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The first time Fabian’s life was threatened, he’d only been in the world for a few weeks.
Bill had expected his son to be in danger often. The life of a pirate wasn’t an easy one, after all, and some of Bill’s earliest memories were of trying to dodge the slaver’s whip. Danger built character and taught a man to be strong enough to survive any storm.
Still, he hadn’t expected his son’s first brush with death to come courtesy of his lovely wife.
He’d just finished off the last member of his crew’s latest mutineers when he opened the cabin doors to find Hallariel poised over Fabian’s bassinet, a pillow in her hands and tears streaking down her face.
“Hallariel!” Bill cried, rushing towards the two of them. “What’re ye doing? That’s our boy!”
“I know!” Hallariel wailed, throwing the pillow to the floor and herself into Bill’s arms. “It just kept telling me, ‘Kill him, keep him safe, let him go’! I can’t make it stop!”
“What? Who was telling you those things?”
Hallariel stared at him, her face ashen. She had lost a lot of blood birthing Fabian and was still struggling even now. Bill knew she was exhausted; they both were. Hells, his first mate got the jump on him during the mutiny because Bill was half-dead on his feet from staying with Fabian the night before.
Still, the shadows under his wife’s eyes reminded him who was having the more challenging time with a baby in the picture. He didn’t think Hallariel had slept more than an hour at a time since Fabian’s birth despite how much blood she’d lost. Her glassy, vacant stare sent shivers down his spine as he gave her a little shake to regain her attention.
“Hallariel, love, who did you hear? Was someone sending you a message?”
Hallariel slowly, dazedly, shook her head. “No… Bill, I think the sea was speaking to me.”
Bill felt the hair on the back of his neck take notice. The Voice of the Sea was a terrifying legend, to be sure, though… Bill had never heard anything about Her speaking about babies.
“Are you certain, darling?” Bill asked, trying to get his wife to look into his remaining eye. “Are you sure it couldn’t have been anything else? I know you haven’t been sleeping much, caring for our darling boy.”
Hallariel swayed, her eyes closed momentarily before blinking back to alertness. Suddenly, Bill was looking at the Silver Siren, the woman who’d taken his eye and given him his child.
“You must be right, of course,” she said, shaking her arms and standing up to meet his height again. “I suppose I just haven’t slept enough to mix messages with legends like that.”
“Let’s get you some rest, then,” Bill told her, heading to their liquor chest to get something to help her sleep. “You can just have some of this and sleep however long you need. There’s no one here to cause any trouble now, so I can take care of Fabian as long as you need.”
His wife nodded, taking a hefty swig of brandy. “As long as you’re certain, darling,” she said, pulling their blankets down.
“Of course, my love,” he replied, picking up his sleepy, fussing baby and his blankets. “Little Fabian and I will just have some time to ourselves, nothing to worry about.”
“Alright…” Hallariel’s voice trailed away. She’d fallen asleep as soon as she’d laid down; full sleep, not a trance. She must truly have been exhausted.
“Looks like it’s just us lads, Fabian,” he whispered to his son, slipping out of their cabin onto the deck. It would take a while for the stains and scent of blood to wash away, but at least there weren’t any bodies left on deck. His remaining crew worked fast; they must not have wanted to be next.
That was good. Bill was confident in his balance with his new peg leg, but he didn’t want to step over bodies while holding his tiny son.
~ * ~
Having an infant on a pirate ship was a mistake.
Even once the whispers telling her to kill Fabian had faded, it was still evident that having a baby had put her and Bill in danger.
She respected Bill for his iron hold over his crew. When mutinies happened, they were swiftly and brutally ended, leaving Bill covered in the viscera of traitors. Hallariel was nearly certain Fabian had been conceived after one such occasion where she rode her husband into the blood-soaked deck for all to see.
But now, Bill’s hold over his crew was slipping. With both of them exhausted from caring for the baby, the crew had gotten bolder by the day. Just this morning, Bill had taken a knife in the kidney because he was too tired and unaware to prevent it.
That was not the man she married; she wasn’t the terror of the seas she’d been born to be. They were both too consumed by Fabian’s neediness. Babies were so… useless, so wholly helpless, taking everything their parents had and then demanding more.
The situation was simply untenable. If Hallariel and Bill were to return to glory, something would need to be done about the boy. He had to become more manageable and capable; perhaps, in doing so, he would become easier to love.
As it was, it was hard to imagine loving him as a mother should. Once he was worthy of her pride and capable of carrying the weight of Bill’s legacy, she was sure her feelings toward him would change.
With this in mind, Hallariel summoned a messenger hawk to bring a letter to an old friend of hers. Karandil would know how to find someone capable of making her boy strong enough to fend for himself.
All she needed to do then was ensure they survived until help arrived.
~ * ~
There was no question that Bill Seacaster loved his son. Lack of love, money, or food would never be an issue for his darling boy. Fabian would never want for anything; Bill would tear the world apart to ensure it.
Theirs would be a legacy to span the ages. Bill and his darling boy may not live as long as Bill’s lovely wife, but they’d make sure she would remember them for centuries to come.
Fatherhood agreed with him, he thought. He loved every moment of it (except for nappy changing, but he was sure no parent in the world could enjoy that horror.) Still, he knew caring for Fabian meant his ability to intimidate his crew into obedience was at risk.
He was starting to worry that Fabian would never make it far enough to forge his own glory; it seemed a ship wasn’t as fit a place to raise a child as Bill had hoped. His boy had grown more slowly than Bill expected and was only just starting to crawl at eight months old, which had only made things more complicated for his parents.
Bill dreamed of the days when he could show little Fabian how to sail a ship, fight like a man, and carve the Seacaster name into the face of the world far after Bill was dead and gone.
He could only do that if Fabian survived his infancy, though. During a stretch of choppy water that morning, his little bassinet had nearly rolled right off the ship.
Hallariel hadn’t recovered enough from giving birth to be of much help, making caring for Fabian that much harder. Bill understood; pregnancy was difficult for elven women, high elves in particular, and when the father was a man as large and sturdy as Bill, it made sense that his wife was recovering even now.
He’d never forget how much blood Hallariel had lost giving birth to Fabian. He’d honestly thought he’d lose her before their gnomish midwife gave them the all-clear.
Even though he understood, it was hard not to be frustrated. With Hallariel still in her post-birth slump and Bill captaining a ship full of pirates through fear alone, there were times when they simply couldn’t watch over Fabian.
If Bill wanted his darling boy to survive, Fabian couldn’t be on a ship alone with them until he was big enough to keep his feet.
Another man might have looked at this problem and decided to beach himself or his wife on the land until the lad grew strong enough to survive the seas, but not Bill. He’d die before leaving the ocean before his time, and his time it was not.
No. No, that wasn’t the way Bill Seacaster did things. He didn’t bend to the whims of the world; if he needed something done, he’d see it done himself.
With that in mind, Bill turned his ship away from its current heading and killed the men who complained they wouldn’t have enough supplies to make it to the new destination, handily fixing that problem before it could start. If a solution were to be found, Leviathan would be the place to find it.
~ * ~
Hallariel had always found Leviathan to be disgusting. It masqueraded as a city with a thin veneer of officiality, but ultimately, it was nothing more than a floating cesspool of rotting ships and filthy pirates.
One of Hallariel’s conditions for marrying Bill was that he and his crew maintained a civilized standard of cleanliness. She may have left Fallinel, but she wouldn’t stoop to the lows of an average pirate.
The newly established Gold Gardens finally made visiting Leviathan tolerable. When Bill had learned of it, he’d practically begged her to see, just in case she found it acceptable to stay in while Bill gambled, murdered, and whored his way through the so-called city.
Part of what made her agree was that the Gold Gardens had a cleric on hand to ensure that whatever Bill caught from the locals never touched her. She didn’t care if his desires took him from her for a time, but there was no world in which she’d let him bring his trash into their bedroom.
Now, the Gold Gardens meant a safe place to leave her child while she handled her business. Leviathan’s slavers wouldn’t hesitate to snatch up a wayward child, even one as young as Fabian, and Hallariel absolutely would not have that.
Leaving her infant and a hefty stack of coins with one of the tidier-looking whores, Hallariel left the Gardens to meet her old crewmate to see what they’d found to answer her problems.
Karandil may have abandoned her for a ship of their own once she’d agreed to marry Bill, but they’d yet to fail her when she came calling for favors.
~ * ~
“I cannot stress how illegal these potions are, captain,” Karandil told her, keeping Hallariel from just taking them. “Obtaining them was nearly impossible, and it’s only likely to get harder.”
“Yes, yes, Karan. I understand; I’ll pay whatever you need to keep procuring them for me. I simply cannot have this child so vulnerable for any longer than necessary.” Hallariel shook her head in agitation. “You’re certain you can’t source the instantaneous potions?”
Karandil huffed in a way that would have had Hallariel strike them down when she was their captain. If she hadn’t needed their services so badly, she’d have done so regardless.
“Yes, Captain,” they said, an unfortunate note of disrespect in their voice. Hallariel had to remind herself yet again that she needed their ability to source nearly anything given enough coin. “The slaving guild keeps the instant aging potions under guard for use on only the most prodigious bloodlines. They’re expensive and leave the subject without any useful improvement in brain function. At least with these potions, your brat will advance mentally and physically at the same time. You don’t want to deal with a simple child, and besides, surely your husband would notice if your child grew up stupid.”
“You might be surprised,” Hallariel said, sighing. “I certainly didn’t marry him for his wit.”
“Of course not, Hallariel,” Karandil said dryly. “Anyone who’s spent more than five minutes with the man has seen firsthand the size of his dick. I certainly won’t critique your tastes.”
Hallariel smirked, feeling a surge of old desire for gossip with her oldest friend. “You have no idea,” she told them. “He’s a shower and a grower, as that disgusting phrase goes.”
The other elf laughed, and for a moment, Hallariel felt like she was back in Kei Lumennura, spitting out the grapes her father gave her and fooling around with teens from all over Fallinel. She didn’t miss her father strangling the joy out of everything, but running amuck under his nose had been fun.
“Back to the subject at hand,” said Karandil, blowing Hallariel out of her memories. Damn them for always being so pragmatic. “You’ll want to dilute these, Hallariel, at a ratio of one to three or one to two at most. Otherwise, you’ll have to deal with an infant that can walk, but that’s still mentally dependent on you in every way.”
Grimacing, Hallariel held her hand out for the potions. “I understand, Karan. You’re right; Bill would notice if Fabian were to grow three years in a month.”
This time, Karandil let her take the bottles. There were a dozen of them; she’d space them out over twelve months so Fabian would learn to walk and talk properly within a year. It wasn’t her preference to have him clinging to her for so long, but she was sure she could survive.
~ * ~
Leviathan hadn’t been the goldmine of answers he’d hoped for, but Bill had at least been able to hire a maid to take with them when they next set sail. She seemed perfectly amenable to taking his coin for babysitting instead of more pleasurable activities.
It was a shame she wouldn’t provide both on their next voyage, but he’d promised Hallariel he’d keep his other exploits out of their bed and off their ship.
It would be worth it to have someone to watch over Fabian. Katasha was one of Garthy O’Brien’s women, and all of Leviathan knew they picked the best, most trustworthy, most caring people for their Gold Gardens. If Garthy had hired her, he wouldn’t have to worry about keeping her under control through fear; if he kept her comfortable and her pockets full, she’d be just as pliant as she was when Bill had hired her for other activities.
It was a shame he couldn’t use her other skills. The things that woman could do with her tongue…
Well, they certainly wouldn’t be helpful to little Fabian just yet.
Regardless, Bill now had someone to watch over Fabian so he could start preparing for his next voyage.
The day Bill and Hallariel could start his training couldn’t come quickly enough.
~ * ~
Several months after meeting with Karandil, Hallariel was seriously considering dumping the remaining potions into a single dose and forcing it down her son’s throat.
Apparently, it was acceptable for infants to nurse for up to two years after birth, and Bill had practically begged her to continue well past the six months she’d felt appropriate.
If it weren’t for his greedy eyes on her and the incredible sex after breastfeeding, she’d have stopped at nine months, even with his histrionics. The aging potions meant that Fabian’s teeth grew in faster, and she was beyond tired of constantly chapped, sore nipples.
Fabian had been in the world for less than a year, yet Bill was desperate for another child. Hallariel certainly enjoyed all the attention, but under no circumstances would she go through pregnancy again.
Thankfully, she’d also been able to take care of that on their trip to Leviathan. Between the fertility-dampening talisman and the naturally low birth rate among high elves, she wouldn’t have to worry about going through that indignity again. Once was more than enough.
Bill hadn’t noticed anything about Fabian’s accelerated growth, which meant she could continue with the potions. Unfortunately, she’d had to kill their maid, who had realized and whom Hallariel had deemed a traitor as soon as the idiot had opened her mouth.
The search for a new maid was ongoing. There was little overlap between people willing to live as pirates and people willing to deal with messy, demanding children. Hallariel couldn’t say she blamed them since babies seemed to be no reward all around, but surely, given enough gold, she’d be able to find someone to take over.
Given how Fabian could now stumble and crawl around and cause her even more trouble, Hallariel was ready to pay quite handsomely indeed.
It was regrettable that the people with enough knowledge to care for children were the same ones who knew how quickly those children should grow. Killing and replacing a maid every few months was hardly economical, and at some point, Bill would start asking her why she did it.
That was another problem Hallariel needed to address, and it explained why she agreed to return to Leviathan barely six months after they’d last visited.
Bill may have been uneducated, but he was not a stupid man. If she hired a maid who thought her child was older than his actual age, Bill would be suspicious, so she needed to ensure that his memories matched her plans.
Fortunately, it was just shy of a year since Fabian’s birth, so finding someone capable of altering her husband’s memory wouldn’t be too difficult. It wouldn’t be the first time Hallariel had ensured Bill didn’t ask questions she didn’t wish to answer, and she doubted it would be the last.
You’re asking me to find someone to cast a powerful memory-modifying spell and obtain the quick-aging potions , Karandil replied to her Message spell. It won’t be cheap, Hallariel .
Hallariel stifled a sigh. Karandil wouldn’t dare overcharge her, of course, but powerful wizards didn’t bother with customers unable to pay significant sums. So many of them were from Fallinel, and while they were perfectly willing to modify memories without asking questions, the habits of their home country meant they charged exorbitant sums.
Hallariel would have to include a significant expenditure into the memories she’d have placed in Bill’s mind. Their coffers could take the hit, but Bill kept a tight rein on their spending. She could dip into the funds her father had provided, but why would she do that when she didn’t have to? She might need those funds after Bill died, so she’d leave them aside until she had no choice.
~ * ~
“Hallariel,” Karandil greeted, arching an eyebrow. “I see we’re mucking about in your boy toy’s mind again. Isn’t it just full of holes by now?”
“Does it matter?” Hallariel countered. “He’s just as fit and enjoyable as he’s ever been, and I certainly didn’t marry him for his great feats of memory. He’s the same as he’s always been, just without the questions I don’t want to answer.”
“That’s fair, I suppose,” they drawled. “His main attractions have always been fucking and fighting, yes?”
Hallariel made a sound torn between a giggle and a scoff. What Karan said was true, but she had started noticing other things about the man she’d married on impulse nearly a decade earlier.
“As it happens,” she said, sniffing and pursing her lips. “He’s quite an attentive father, as well.”
“Is he?” Karan asked. “And you, Hallariel? How are you finding motherhood?”
She paused, thinking about the question. Truthfully, she still felt as if she hadn’t fully recovered from giving birth. Hallariel had known that carrying a half-human child would be more challenging than if she’d mated a full elf, but it had been nearly a year, and her hips and back still ached. She slept more than tranced now; even when awake, she often felt detached from the things happening around her.
The only things that felt like they used to were fighting and drinking. Childbirth did have one thing going for it: the sex since giving birth had been incredible. It didn’t compensate for the aches, pains, and constant dragging exhaustion, but it was a high point.
And then there was Fabian. Hallariel loved him absolutely, but in an abstract way that, despite her hopes, had yet to improve as he got older. She hoped that the love in her heart, whenever she thought of him, would translate to love she could share once he started talking more coherently and gaining independence. Surely, it must happen at some point, she thought.
“Hallariel?” Karan’s voice broke her away from her drifting thoughts.
“Yes, of course,” Hallariel replied instinctively, barely remembering the earlier questions. “Motherhood suits me just fine, I believe.”
Though she tried to forget it, Karan’s doubtful face haunted her for months.
~ * ~
Though Bill had sailed the Hangman to Leviathan upon Hallariel’s request, his attention split when he reached the city. Hallariel had brought her friend Karandil to visit, and he could only muster so much interest in his wife’s catty girlhood friend.
Hallariel also needed to see Karan during the visit to pick up another set of ‘supplements’ for Fabian.
Bill didn’t claim to know what those were about, but Karandil was intelligent and loyal, so he had no worries that they had Fabian’s best interests in mind.
If Karan’s visits had anything going for them, it was that they always included enough fine elven wine to make him forget the more tedious parts of spending time with his wife’s oldest friend.
The afternoon after the morning after that whole debacle, Bill dragged himself down to the bar at the Gold Gardens to listen to the day’s gossip. It was incredible what he could learn from the most meaningless conversations.
If Bill also liked to swap gossip with Garthy O’Brien, that was just a side benefit.
It took Garthy about an hour to get to Bill; even in the middle of the afternoon, the Gold Gardens was busy.
“Captain Bill Seacaster!” Garthy crowed as they slid behind the bar in front of Bill. “What’s washed you up to my shores this time, lovey?”
“Ah, you know the wife, Garthy. She wouldn’t come to Leviathan for anything until you got this place up and running, and now she wants to come all the time!”
“Ah, well,” Garthy said, adopting a tinge of their signature flirtatiousness. There were days when Bill truly regretted his policy of not mixing business and pleasure. The entanglements would never end for him if he did, sadly. Much like with Garthy. “I’m glad the missus enjoys it; your investments are returning in more ways than one now, hmm?”
“Aye, they certainly are,” Bill replied, grinning. The Gold Gardens were arguably the riskiest business proposition Bill had ever touched, especially since he’d essentially given Garthy a hefty sum without more than the most basic loan strings attached. It had paid off, though; Garthy ensured it was easy for him to come to Leviathan without Hallariel making his life miserable. As a bonus, Bill got all the choicest pieces of information that Garthy collected outside of ‘client confidence.’
“Your employee screening might still need some work, though,” Bill continued. “The lass we hired away from you as a maid turned traitor on us. Hallariel caught her tryin’ ta poison my boy.”
The air between them shifted, Garthy’s eyes narrowing as Bill let his anger darken his part of the bar.
Garthy broke first. “I’m sorry to hear that, Captain Seacaster,” they said formally. “I’m afraid I only vetted her for her duties here; I would never have thought she’d be any threat to a child, but I can’t say I checked her for her childcare abilities. We keep that sort of thing close to the chest here, yeah?”
Bill kept his hard stare on the other for a few more seconds before judging their words as truthful and dropping his intimidation. “Aye, I’m sure you do,” he said, smirking. “There's nothing like a babe to bring down the revelry, is there?”
“It does tend to put a damper on the drinking, smoking, and snorting, yes,” Garthy replied with a knowing grin. They’d been raising Ayda’s new incarnation for a few years, so if anyone could commiserate with Bill regarding childcare, it would be them. They briefly rummaged under the bar’s counter before bringing up what Bill recognized as a tin of excellent snuff powder. “All the more reason to cut loose when you can, isn’t it?”
Bill felt sorely tempted, but business came before pleasure, always. He didn’t get where he was by acting a fool. “Later, my friend. First, tell me, what’s the news on Leviathan?”
Garthy smiled, slipping the tin into one of their many pockets. The half-orc’s clothes baffled Bill; how they could have so many places to hide things and yet appear insubstantial was utterly beyond him.
“Well, as I’m sure you’d expect, the King’s been about as lovely as he ever is,” Garthy told him. The Gold Gardens might be a rare area of peace for Leviathan, but going so far as to disparage the King while surrounded by his people would be suicide, even for Garthy O’Brien.
“What’s different, and what I think will interest you, Bill, is that someone has been going after His Majesty’s slaving operations these last few months.”
That was interesting. “And they’re still alive?” Bill demanded, incredulous. “Going against one of his operations on Leviathan is suicide!”
“That’s the thing,” Garthy said, leaning forward and dropping any hint of their seductive air. “This woman, she didn’t start here. She went after one of his ships first, and since then, she’s been using the ships she takes to build herself an armada.”
“And who is this ‘she?’” Bill asked. “Why would she take so much risk? And who in the Nine Hells did she convince to help her?”
“You know Captain Ceíli, the merchant captain?” The question was rhetorical; everyone knew about the pirate fleet that had gone legitimate, watched over by the wily old eyes of Temere Ceíli. The man may not be a proper pirate any longer, but he knew the seas and the business well enough to be well-respected as an elder of Leviathan.
Bill nodded curtly. “Well, his daughter,” Garthy continued. “Cathilda Ceíli, she hadn’t made a name for herself as she’d been mostly Leviathan-based, working the clothier business side of things.”
Bill waved his hand, impatient for Garthy to get to the point.
“Some damned fool slaver stole her youngest right out of their house about two months ago,” Garthy told Bill. “Right from Leviathan’s merchant district. They wounded her son, too, and no one could help because the blade put the King’s Curse on the lad.”
Bill winced. He’d seen the effects of the King’s Curse himself, and they were ugly. The curse had been designed to kill, obviously, but the festering infection it left in its wake made for long, agonizing days before death finally claimed its victims.
The worst thing about it was its random mercy. Now and then, not often, but frequently enough to give victims hope, the curse would leave off before it killed. It was impossible to say for sure whether any one person would survive, so mercy killings to end a cursed person’s suffering were rare.
Bill couldn’t imagine watching Fabian suffer and fade away like that. He shuddered, nausea sweeping through him.
Empathy was an emotion he’d done his best to stamp away as a younger man, but thinking about what it must have been like watching a child waste away like that… Whatever this woman had planned, he thought to himself, he’d do what he could to aid her.
“After the boy passed, Cathilda, her husband, and the family went to war. They took Ceíli’s flagship, the Lazy Fae, and ran down the slaver ship the girl was sent away on. When they didn’t find the girl alive, they killed the crew, freed the slaves, and took the ship to hunt down the next ship and the next. They’re still going, and word is their fleet’s nearly thirty strong now.”
Bill leaned back, stroking his beard. “Thirty is a good amount of ships,” he mused.
“It is,” Garthy agreed, looking solemnly at Bill. “It’s not just stolen slavers and Ceíli’s merchant fleet, either. There’ve been people here who’ve left to join her cause.”
“Does she have a cause?” Bill asked. “Or is she just out for blood?”
Garthy shrugged, leaning closer. “Does it matter?” they asked, keeping their voice low. “Even if she were only at it for vengeance’s sake, the King will be coming for her, either way. She’s as against the King as any we’ve seen yet, and she’s sympathetic.”
Gods knew Bill felt for her. Even if it weren’t for the pure rage the idea of slavers touching his boy sent boiling through his veins, Bill had spent enough of his childhood enslaved to be ready to attack the operation given a moment’s opportunity.
Bill could hear what Garthy wasn’t saying about how long they’d all been waiting for the right time to move against the King. Bill was sure they both wished it could have come during Ayda’s previous lifetime. A wizard’s help would certainly have made things easier.
Still, it wasn’t every day that an armada of ships assembled out of the blue to take on one of the King’s most important lines of business. Bill would have to be stupid to ignore an opportunity like that to finally stick it to the bastard who’d made the latter half of his childhood a living hell.
It wasn’t typical fare for the Hangman, killing slavers and freeing slaves, but it sounded to Bill like an excellent way to spend a few years.
Sailing in an armada would undoubtedly have its benefits. Having other ships to take damage in battle would help keep Fabian safe, making it worthwhile even if he wouldn’t normally fight alongside people outside his command.
Groups of ships tended to sail in calmer waters, which could also be a boon. Fabian was walking with purpose, now; Bill had no memory of being that small, so he hadn’t considered how difficult it might be to get his sea legs when he’d only just figured out walking in the first place. It was a problem, given the number of crew members he’d had to throw into the ocean for letting his darling boy nearly fall off the deck.
Some calmer water might do the boy well. Having so many people around to replace incompetent crew members wouldn’t hurt, either.
~ * ~
Hallariel hired another maid before they’d left Leviathan. She had another year’s worth of aging potions from Karandil and someone to help care for her boy while her mind looped over Karan’s question over and over again.
Did she enjoy motherhood?
She knew she hadn’t enjoyed it when Fabian was a baby, but he was beginning to speak and move about independently. With the aging potions she’d just secured, he’d be getting more mobile, more eloquent, and more able to respond to her… but would that make her enjoy his presence more? Babies were uninteresting, certainly, but her son hadn’t been a baby for months, and yet it still felt like time dragged on intolerably whenever she was alone with him.
She was losing hope that her love for him would become anything more than abstract, and the longer she thought about it, the more she wondered if that might be for the best. Fabian was half-human, after all.
Should she really try so hard to love her son when he’d be gone in what would amount to a blink of an eye for her people?
What she had with Bill was different. They were partners in piracy, and by the goddess, the sexual chemistry was incredible, but she’d gone into their marriage knowing it was temporary.
Hallariel hadn’t given it a moment’s thought when she’d realized she was pregnant, but now, a year into her son’s life, she realized that if she came to love Fabian the way she’d dreamed, it would only hurt that much more when she had to bury him next to his father.
Caught between regret and gratefulness for her apparent inability to love her child like she imagined a mother should, she withdrew more and more over the months, leaving her son to his father and their maid.
Her mind wandered, and she let it, aiding its flights of fancy with the wondrous array of vices available to her again now that Fabian no longer needed to be breastfed.
The new freedom felt like flying as long as she didn’t look down to see the reality underneath.
~ * ~
After months of chasing Cathilda the Black across the Celestine Sea, they’d finally caught up to the black-sailed fleet of ships she’d rallied around her cause. As Bill walked across the boarding plank between the two ships, he felt hopeful that between their vessels, they’d be able to finally take down the operation that had stolen many of Bill’s younger years.
If Bill got a chance to put a dagger through the bastard king’s tongue, well, that was just icing on the cake.
Cathilda the Black was certainly on-brand for her moniker, dressed in a full black gown with the skirts pulled up for mobility and a black mourning shroud attached to her tricorn captain’s hat. She was new to the captain’s world; her father had passed in one of the recent skirmishes her fleet had fielded against the King’s own.
Bill would never have guessed it if he hadn’t already known. Cathilda held herself like any of the dozens of experienced captains he’d met in his life and did it with more authority in her stance and compassion in her eyes than he’d seen in anyone.
She might be someone who could help bring the King down for good.
“Captain Bill Seacaster,” the halfling woman said in a ringing, clear tone. “You’ve been following us a while, haven’t you? Why is that, if I may ask?”
That she could speak such polite words and still appear formidable was impressive. If she’d challenged Bill to a duel and cut his eye out before he’d met Hallariel, he might have been proposing marriage to her instead.
Bill shook himself, bringing his mind back to the matter at hand. “I understand you take issue with the Pirate King and his slaving operations, Captain Ceíli. We have that in common; I’ve been thinking we might work to bring him to his knees together.”
Cathilda’s eyes shuttered, a bleak look crossing her face for the barest moment. “I’m not after the King, Seacaster. I’m just planning to put as many of his slavers into the depths as I can a’fore my time comes calling.”
“And if you could put them all in the deep locker, what then? The King can make any man a slaver with enough coin and leverage.”
The bleak look on her face vanished, replaced by an icy rage that made Bill stand up just a hair taller. There was a fire in Ceíli’s eyes now that he wanted to match.
“Aye, that is the truth,” the other captain said, bringing her hand away from the hilt of her sword. “Come aboard, Captain Seacaster, let’s talk.”
~ * ~
Two years, seven months, three weeks, and five days after Maybelle’s death, Cathilda the Black had finally run out of blood to spill in her daughter’s name. She’d left a smoking crater where Leviathan’s slavers docked, and insofar as Leviathan had laws, they’d made a new one banning all slavers' ships from their ports.
She’d met up with Bill Seacaster during her rampage, and he’d taken the Pirate King’s head while she’d gutted the man’s slaving operations. Bill had spent some time as a child slave himself, it turned out, and he’d been more than ready to destroy that system.
It was through working with Bill that Cathilda met his little boy, Fabian. Fabian was a sweet, shy child who smiled wider than even Cathilda’s son Stefan could have managed when he tasted her cookies for the first time. Her heart was weary and bloodied, but there was something so much younger than five in Fabian’s gaze, and it made Cathilda want to wrap him in blankets and never let him go.
“I miss when he was a babe,” Bill lamented. It was the evening after their bid to remake Leviathan bore fruit, and now they sat in the captain’s office with a partially full decanter of robust rum between them. “You know he could fit in one hand when he was born?”
“Mine were the same.” Cathilda quirked her lips as she stared into her latest glass of amber liquid. “For Damien, at least. They were big for me but still so tiny for him.”
“Right,” Bill mused. “Your Damien, he was human Aasimar, yes?”
“That he was,” Cathilda replied, sighing. She’d spent ages memorizing the golden lines tracked over her husband’s dark skin. They’d followed his blood to their children, though all three of her babies had had much fainter marks than their father.
“I’m sorry I never got to meet him,” Bill told her in a rare show of genuine sympathy. Nearly everything the man did was loud and boisterous; the quiet respect he’d shown her tonight was a precious gift, and she wasn’t about to forget that.
“You would have hated him, I think,” Cathilda replied. “He was too good for pirates, at least until the end. I think he’d hate me, too.”
“Here now,” Bill said, leaning forward. “Everything ye’ve done, ye’ve done for yer children. No man could begrudge ye that, especially no father worth his salt.”
Cathilda laughed bitterly. “You may be right, Bill,” she said. “You may be right, but then he never cared for pirates. When push came to shove, he could tolerate slavers, but for whatever reason, he hated pirates right up until the day I introduced him to his maker.”
“I still can’t understand how a man like that could sell out one of his own,” Bill said, echoing the thought Cathilda had been having for months. “By all accounts, he seemed honorable, but selling his child to the slaver’s guild to save his own skin… I don’t know how any father could do that, though I suppose mine did the same.”
For all that Bill liked to play the obnoxious, unlearned sea bastard, Cathilda thought, he could be surprisingly introspective.
“I suppose I’ll ask him why he did it when I'm dead and gone," Cathilda mused. "I’m sure he’ll have something to say to me once all is said and done.”
“Best make sure that day comes far in the future, Cathi,” Bill said, looking serious. “Fabian loves ye like family, and the poor lad’d be heartbroken if ye left him.”
Even colored by the hated nickname, Cathilda knew what Bill was trying to tell her. Fabian did need her; there was no denying that, but she knew the boy wasn’t the only one who considered her family. If anyone needed an older sister, it was Bill Seacaster.
Despite how it felt like her family called to her from the depths, she knew not one of them would forgive her for leaving this world too early. She would fight to stay for them and these two boys who needed her care, who were becoming family despite every effort she’d made to prevent herself from feeling it.
She’d begun life as the daughter of a captain and a maid, and after all the grief and bloodshed her years as a captain had wrought, she thought it fitting that she should end things as a maid. Bill was a busy man, and goddesses knew Hallariel would never get it together in time to be a mother. Cathilda wasn’t sure that woman even knew how long a human childhood lasted. For all she knew, Fabian would be dead from old age before Hallariel understood what a gift a child was.
Fabian wasn’t Cathilda’s blood and he would never replace any of her children, but she would make sure he never thought he needed to. He didn’t need her blood to be her boy.