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Alice Jones had first procured the ring when she’d realised her illness wasn’t going away, when she’d noticed it settling deep into her bones and refusing to budge.
It had cost the little money she’d had left in her possession and all the remaining energy stored up in in her body to sneak out and purchase it, but for the promise that this ring was enchanted with magic that would keep her mysterious disease from killing her, it was worth it.
Anything was worth it for more time with her boys.
The protection ring, as she took to calling it, sustained her with the powerful enchantment within it, and every night Alice prayed to the gods, expressing her gratitude for their allowing her to have this blessing.
If her life had been even slightly different, she might have left it completely up to fate, but Alice had long since learnt that luck was never on her side.
She’d ended up with Brennan Jones, after all, dirt poor from his constant trading their money away for drink and she didn’t want to think what else.
Alice was careful to wear the ring hung around a chain on her neck, wanting to keep it hidden from Brennan. If he knew its power, he’d sell it and the coins would end up in the barkeep’s pocket like the rest of his wages did.
At first, the ring was worth its price tenfold: allowing her to continue with some minimal work, just enough to tide them over.
At first, Alice thought the ring had saved her.
It took a year for her to realise the loophole in the protection charm.
Once she was too weak to get out of bed in the morning, she began to understand with sickening certainty that the ring would keep her just short of death, and no more than that.
The earlier rejuvenation had been a result of her own mettle, nothing more, and if Alice didn’t remove the ring, she would remain a burden on her family forever, and she couldn’t do that.
The sicker she got, the anger Brennan grew, and the more and more likely it was that he’d turn his blows to his sons, and Alice could not, would not have that.
At least, with her gone, her boys stood a chance when it came to keeping him satisfied. A notion that was naïve, but well-meaning. It would be the last time her sons were regarded with such good intent for a very long time.
One evening, when Brennan was out drinking away his sorrows at the tavern and her youngest son, Killian, was curled up in the corner of their shared bedroom, fast asleep, she called her eldest, Liam, over to her.
“Liam, I have a gift for you,” she whispered, drinking in his animated expression in the low light of the candle.
He beamed up at her, his front two teeth missing and leaving a gap in his smile. “What is it, Mama?”
Her fingers closed around the ring. “It’s a… family heirloom. It has the power to protect you, darling, but you have to promise you’ll keep it a secret, okay? Your father can’t know about it.”
He’d nodded eagerly and taken the ring carefully from her neck.
“It’ll keep you safe, Liam, just promise me you’ll wear it,” she insisted. The unsaid as long as you wear it, I’ll be with you, lingered between them, audible only to Alice.
“I promise,” Liam saluted.
She pressed a kiss into his hair. “Good boy.”
Alice passed peacefully in her sleep the next night.
—
No matter how hard things got, Liam never gave up his mother’s ring.
Years of scrubbing decks, taking orders, facing reprimands, but he’d held onto the ring, nonetheless.
His hands were red and raw, his face black and bruised, but the ring was still silver and shining under his shirt.
No one had got their hands on it yet, and no one would.
It was the last relic Liam’s mother had given him, and although he could hardly bring her voice to mind or picture her soft smile anymore, what he could do was hold onto this, this tangible, elusive ring.
It gave him hope, too, because despite everything life as an indentured servant threw at them, Liam knew they’d survive this as long as he had their mother’s ring.
Killian found himself in trouble so often that Liam worried the wounds on his brother’s back would never heal, but he didn’t give up on his belief.
He couldn’t, not when it had meant so much to his mother.
The oath she’d made to him had to come true one day. One day, they’d be saved.
Liam never took the ring off once, not since the day he first got it, until all of a sudden, they were caught in that awful storm, and he’d made that damning deal with Hades: the lives of the men on board for the survival of him and his brother.
Hades had even thrown in the jewel they were sure to find if Liam did what he asked to sweeten the bitter taste of guilt burning the roof of his mouth, but the problem was that upholding his end of the bargain hinged on Killian helping him get through the sea and to the eye of the storm, and his brother was giving up.
For the first time in his life, Killian’s faith in Liam was waning.
So, Liam did what he had to do to survive.
He gave his brother the ring to prove he believed they’d make it through this, and it worked.
He didn’t tell Killian the full story of where he’d got it (after all, he’d promised Mama he wouldn’t) but he told him enough.
With the ring around his brother’s neck, they made it out of the storm and into the next chapter of their lives.
Liam died from dreamshade poisoning less than a year later while his brother watched on, somehow instinctually being able to identify the danger in the poisonous plant.
—
No matter how many centuries passed, Killian would always vividly remember how Liam believed joining the Navy would keep them from the clutches of death, but in the end, the naval status protected neither of them. If anything, it condemned them both.
His brother was in the ocean, and Killian…
For someone so shrouded in bad luck, Killian had managed to survive an unreasonable amount. Taking into account the mutiny against a powerful empire, several run ins with the Dark One, centuries as one of Pan’s minions, being allied with Cora in the aftermath of the Dark Curse and just about every situation loving Emma Swan had dragged him into, Killian really should have died by now.
It was some cruel trick of fate that Killian was able to reap the rewards of his brother’s hard work, especially since he hadn’t prayed to the gods since he was a child on the rough seas under Captain Silver and drank like it was his only vice.
He found himself getting into the habit of fiddling with his brother’s old ring when he felt like he was being torn apart and he needed grounding. In an odd way, it made him feel like he was by his brother’s side again, just for a moment, and by Liam’s side, he could do anything, even pretend that Liam would forgive him for his many transgressions.
Killian had never dreamed of giving the ring away until the Dark One curse threatened Emma Swan.
Sailors were superstitious men, but the moment she was in danger, giving it to her hadn’t even been a question.
Of course it was hers.
Anything to keep his Swan alive.
He gave a poetic speech, waxing lyrical about how the ring was responsible for his survival all these years, and Emma welcomed its luck.
She recognised how sacred this was, knew how much the simple piece of jewellery meant to him.
Killian died two days later from a fatal cut to his neck by Excalibur.
(Emma Swan was rid of the Dark One curse and managed to find a way to survive the un-winnable Final Battle.)