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She comes, and she goes, but she always comes back, so why is Lizzie so worried? It could be because she’s a pirate, and Ava is navy, but it’s never been a problem before. Or it’s because she wants to tell her about Shadowbeard’s hideout, but she wouldn’t tell a soul.
And then she is not alone, and her worries leave just as fast as they arrived. Ava’s mouth moves with a sentence, and Lizzie responds, but she hears none of it; as she is too enraptured by the beauty in front of her. Her hair is tied back into a big ponytail, framing her head like a halo of holy fire; the sun shines through it, illuminating her smile of wonder that is painted across her face by the steadiest hand. She takes a minute to stare just a little, take in every tiny detail from the freckles dotted across her face as intricate as the constellations themselves, the little gap between her front teeth that makes her melt every time, and the lips shaded just a little more red than usual, and she is reminded of every time those lips had met hers, spreading a carefully applied lipstick to her face as well.
Her voice sounds worried, tripping over little syllables that she’d usually glide over with ease. And Ava’s face twisting into concern, worried that something is wrong makes her even more frightened; even though she knows that there isn’t a need to be scared. She is as welcoming as a warm hug and a blanket, as gentle as can be, she is home.
“I want you to meet Shadowbeard. He’d love you.”
“Of course I will, darling. Tomorrow?”
“I’d like that.”
She has no reason to fear, because they’ll be careful.
What they cannot predict, though, is that they are followed.
It is perfect, the sun shines down on the little boat they take, rocking gently in the waves, another boat following behind them, and another, and another. They are allowed a while of respite, and Shadowbeard smiles at the girl he sees like a daughter, and at the girl he does not know, but the way she looks at Lizzie disproves any suspicions he had. They sit and drink and laugh, and shout about how they have all the time in the world; and they choose to ignore the fact they are on opposite sides, how Ava’s shoulders are still covered with that captain's jacket. It adorns her like a weight, it stops her moving as gracefully as she could, and it says in big letters what she is to the pirates: an enemy.
She is not an opponent, until she is forced to be.
The two of them lay on the grasses that surround the coasts, Lizzie’s hands tangled lazily in Ava’s hair, braiding aimlessly. They do not see them coming. They are humming some swooping song that Lizzie learned with the crew, they do not hear them until it is too late. Ava’s shackle of a jacket has been laid out on the ground next to them, she looks just like the rest of them until she is recognised.
“Captain Ferin? What are you doing? You should be fighting!”
By that point, Lizzie has taken up her arms and is fighting for her home. And Ava is given no choice but to fight against her. The second she fires off a shot and takes out a pirate, she regrets not hiding out and taking the fall, because this pirate had a name, and a story, and she knew it. He had a wife and two twin children he wanted to get home to, and she took that from them. It’s as she hesitates after watching this man fall that she encounters Lizzie. She grits her teeth as she is forced to play the part of the brutal navy captain her father has made her. Her thoughts battle each other, Lizzie’s face pressed against hers, her father’s approval if she took her out. It all culminates in a cold gun barrel pressed to her forehead, but she does not pull the trigger, the chaos leaves them isolated; Ava’s crew knowing to leave her to her business.
“Ava, please! You don’t have to do this! It’s not worth whatever the navy could give you!”
“Lizzie, it’ll be okay, okay? I’m going to pretend to pull this. And you’re going to play dead. Then I'll come back for you, alright? I prom-”
Her words of protection are broken with words that cut through the gunfire and the thud of fallen men: “Open fire! Take out them both if you have to!”
The gunfire is much closer, so much closer, as loud as a thousand cannons, and the barrel is no longer against her head, its owner on top of her; her hands grasp around Ava’s shoulders to be met with the slick of blood.
Immediately, she does what she was told. She plays dead. Whispering just enough for Ava to hear her.
“We’ll get you out, okay? You’ll be okay..”
“Elizabeth, I need to leave me, alright? You can get out of here, you’re strong. I’ll only slow you down, get to Caspian if he’s still here, get far away. I’ll be okay, I promise.”
“No, you won’t be okay, I'm not going to leave you!”
“You must, Lizzie. If you’re going to live, you have to let me stay here.”
The navy squad’s attention elsewhere, Lizzie forces herself to stand, Whispering a last “I love you” as she does. And then she is running and is gone. What she doesn’t see is Ava grasping at her injuries, evaluating if they will be fatal. She takes up her dropped pistol, and joins the fray again, fighting off old comrades in favour of new ones. Her hands are stained red from the blood of old friends, and yet she smiles as the bullets leave, she does not shoot to kill. But to remind the navy that she’s a damn good soldier. And now, a damn good pirate. White uniforms turn crimson with each blow flowering an injury, and she pushes them back to the shores every step of the way. By then, the pistol has fallen from her hand, but it does not matter, her very presence turned against them sends them running with their tails between their legs.
Once they are on their ships, and safely in the other direction, she lets herself rest. But she is not alone. There are hands here to help, admittedly, not many, as most of the Pirates are gone or dead, but there are healer’s hands.
Each day that passes on the ship they fled on, affectionately named the Crescent Moon, Lizzie cries. She cries out wails of despair that discourage those with her to go near. But Caspian is not put off, each morning and night he brings her a roll and some of the extra food they have, and feeds it to the fish when she does not eat. He stays up with her in the nights, saying he has to keep watch, which he does, but the ocean is not the only thing he keeps an eye on. He talks with her, more at her for the first few days, about a cool fish he saw, or about the clouds, then about Ava.
“I loved her more than anything, you know? More than fucking anything. And she’s gone, taken from me. Why is it so unfair?”
“Life works that way, I’m sorry. It’s cruel and twisted in its ways. Do you want to talk about her?”
She does, for hours on end she talks about every little thing. From the way she giggled to herself when the admirals made a joke by accident, to the way she tied her boots up funny and they’d laughed about it together. She speaks more to the ocean than to him, perhaps hoping the motions would take her love across the waves to her.
It takes a few more days, but the fish stop getting rolls, and other people start taking night watches. She doesn’t leave her place on the bow of the ship, sheltering under a little lip in the rain. She starts to keep a little stash, a pile of the food she doesn’t finish, a pouch filled with the change she had in her pockets the day of the massacre. She doesn’t move when they dock at an island, just requesting Caspian grab her little things, handing him a few gold. Eventually she doesn’t need to ask, as a bag appears at her feet after she’d forgotten to ask.
A few wandering eyes start a rumour that she’s the ghost of the Crescent Moon, and in a way, they’re right. She’d left her life and soul on Shadowbeard’s hideout, and effectively haunted the ship, a husk of the great Elizabeth Lafayette.
Eventually, mail piles up, too. All of it unopened. “They’d find me if they wanted to talk.” she’d say. Sixth months worth of papers that she does not touch. Though the dolphin’s delivery is different this time, they seem to linger more than usual, as if waiting for her to open it.
“Fine. Once.” she mutters to the creatures, who are just a bit too sentient for her liking.
She tears the envelope, first seeing the wanted posters for Caspian and a few of the pirates on the ship that she had not caught the names of. But she does not see her own. Perhaps the rumour that she’s a ghost had worked in her favour, convincing the navy she died in the battle. And then there is the letter, scrawled across a piece of ripped parchment in quick handwriting.
“Lizzie,
I don’t know who you are, but the patient I've been caring for keeps asking for you. I hope this gets to the right Lizzie. I don’t even know her name. Every time I ask she just asks for you. I keep telling her I'll send for you, but this is the first time I've gotten my shit together enough to.
Come to this island, I marked it on the map I'm sending with this letter.”
Shadowbeard’s hideout.
“Caspian! Where are we going right now?”
“Edison Kingdom! Why?”
“Not anymore! We’ve got to go back to the Hideout!”
“Why? There’s nothing there anymore!”
“Ava’s alive.”
she doesn’t believe the words as they come out of her mouth. But she shouts them anyway, because if she can make the world hear it, maybe she will, too.
They do turn around, almost immediately, make sail for the hideout, and the Ghost of the Crescent Moon isn’t so ghostly. She paces up and down the decks, checking the constellations in the nights for their location. Until it is in view.
When the little island crawls over the horizon, it is almost unnoticeable, but Lizzie’s eyes have been trailing the line for this speck, and it’s beautiful. She urges the waves to carry them forward, encourages the wind to fill their sails and force them through the water, back to the place of the massacre, back to her.
They hit the banks on the island not long after, and she practically launches over the railings the moment they do; she runs one foot in front of the other, her hair bouncing with the sudden motion and the wind. The door of the little hideout could have fallen off its hinges with how hard she flung it open, tears falling already.
And there she is.
She lays slumped against a wall, shoulder wrapped tightly in gauze and dressings, her discarded navy uniform crumpled up in a corner. The light from the door startles her just a bit, pushing her grown out unkempt hair from her eyes, as they focus on the figure in the door and fill with tears as well.
“Lizzie.. My Lizzie. Oh I didn't think you’d come back for me.” she says gently, standing on unsteady legs. In an instant she is wrapped in Lizzie’s arms.
“I would never, i’d always come back to you, love.” she says into her tunic, “I thought you were gone.”
“I always thought you’d get out, I had to get you out. You wouldn’t have left if you thought I could come with you. It would have just led them to you.”
“Never do that again, okay? But I'll always come back for you. Always.”
And for a moment, a martyr and a ghost held each other, and the martyr came back with a new cause, and the ghost had her soul returned.