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Night on Windrow Island was quiet, a rare calm after the storm of recent days. The wind moved through the trees like a low hymn, their leaves whispering a lullaby to the weary. By the campfire sat two figures: Iris, the anomaly, and the captain, a king killer still bound in bandages after the brutal clash with King Calvus of Ravenna. Between them stretched an easy silence, punctuated only by the faint snores of their companions in the tents nearby.
From the shadows, a third figure emerged. Neither Iris nor the captain stirred in alarm, they knew the sound of those footsteps by heart. They welcomed him with smiles: hers weary, the captain’s laced with quiet affection, as they shifted on the log to make room. The quartermaster returned the gesture, his own smile tired but warm, and dipped his head toward Iris in greeting.
“How are things on the ship?” the captain asked, patting the seat beside them.
“All is well, Captain,” Edward replied as he sat, stretching his hands toward the flames. The heat seeped into his skin, a welcome guest against the chill of the night.
For a while, the fire was their only voice. Embers rose and vanished on the wind, and the three drifted into their own thoughts. Iris wrestled with the loss of her father, tempered only by the knowledge that the tyrant who ordered his death was gone. Edward’s mind lingered on the ship and its crew, the weight of responsibility pressing down, heavy but worth bearing. And the captain… their thoughts were a tangle of worries, too many to name, too great to confess. Tonight, they focused only on keeping their friends and comrades safe.
It was Iris who broke the silence.
“If we want the fire to last until morning,” she murmured, “we’ll need more wood.” She shifted as if to rise, but her eyes betrayed her. She had no strength left for an errand.
The captain saw it. Despite their wounds, they pushed to their feet with sudden energy. They winced, stumbled briefly, but refused to let pain show. Rest was a luxury they hadn’t known in days, yet still they moved, driven by one instinct alone: to protect the people they loved, even if it meant walking into the dark woods alone.
“Ah! I’ll go instead!”
The abruptness of it startled both Iris and Edward. Iris slumped back into her seat, relief softening her features. She felt she should have protested, normally, she would have, but her exhaustion weighed too heavy. She suspected she’d fall asleep in the first halfway-comfortable bush she found.
“Well, if you insist,” she sighed, resting her chin in her hand.
“I’d better come along,” Edward said, rising as his eyes flicked to the captain’s bandaged frame. His voice was firm, though threaded with concern.
The captain only smiled, warmth in their gaze that refused to be hidden. Edward caught it, turned quickly away, and cleared his throat with a muttered, “Let’s go.” His eyes fixed on the tree line, the dark swallowing his expression.
The captain bent to offer Iris a soft well-wish, answered only with a tired hum, before moving to match Edward’s stride. The same adoring smile lingered on their face, unshaken. Edward kept his eyes ahead, silently praying the woods were dark enough to shield him from the captain’s gaze. Those eyes, filled with such open devotion, made his own feelings all the harder to ignore.
—
The campfire’s glow was little more than a faint shimmer between the trees when the captain crouched to gather a sturdy, dry branch, adding it to the bundle already in their arms. Fortune had been kind of late. Clear skies, steady winds, and dry ground made everything easier, from sailing to setting camp. Even the forest seemed to offer itself willingly tonight, its floor littered with crisp branches perfect for kindling.
“It’s calm out here,” they remarked, their voice carrying a rare, unguarded ease. “A welcome change of pace.”
A low chuckle answered from a short distance away. Edward emerged from the shadows, arms full of wood. Despite the captain’s tone, he kept sharp, watchful eyes on the treeline. The bandits who prowled this island had already tested their luck once, they’d been sent scattering easily enough, but Edward wasn’t about to risk finding his captain ambushed and bleeding in the dark. Not while he still drew breath.
“Aside from the bandits?” he said.
“Well, the bandits aren’t much trouble now, are they?” the captain quipped, a wry smile coloring their tone. Whatever dangers lurked here were nothing compared to what they had already endured.
Straightening, the captain shifted their gaze toward him, expression softening. “Oh, I meant to ask earlier. What of those Ravennian deserters we picked up on the shore? Are they adjusting well?”
Of course they would ask. Of course they would care. To the captain, there was no distinction between deserter and veteran, stranger and crew. The moment a man set foot on their ship, he was under the protection of both captain and quartermaster. Discipline and morale were the twin pillars of their command, and both required attention.
Edward considered his reply. He thought back to the day spent guiding the new men across the deck of the ship while the captain and their comrades secured the camp. He remembered the haunted eyes of the deserters, dulled by fatigue but lit again with something fragile: hope. Hope in a purpose that did not demand blind slaughter for a tyrant’s cause.
“It may take some time before they’re fully used to the ways of your ship,” Edward admitted, stooping to gather a few more sticks before rising again. “But it won’t be long. By the time we set sail, they’ll know their place among the crew.”
The captain crouched again, but their hand lingered in the dirt, tracing absent shapes while their thoughts drifted. Their eyes lifted from the earth, past the canopy, up into the stars that scattered the night sky. As if the moon herself might offer clarity.
“I can’t help but think about them,” they murmured. “They left their families behind, all because they refused to kill for a cause they never believed in, never even knew of…” Their sigh was heavy, shaped by unspoken memories arising once more. After a pause, their voice dropped to a softer timbre. “It reminds me of you.”
Edward stepped closer through the shadows and lowered himself onto a mossy rock beside them. He set the firewood down at his feet and leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, settling in for a conversation he knew would not be idle. Not that he would ever mind. Time alone with the captain was rare, precious even. He treasured it like something fragile, fleeting.
“Did you have a family when you deserted from the Grand Navy?” the captain asked at last. Their tone carried no judgment, only quiet curiosity, a yearning to know the man they trusted above all others.
“I did not,” Edward answered simply. There was no hesitation, no shield between him and the truth. He had never intended to hide his past from them. Not now. Not ever.
“But it wouldn’t have mattered,” Edward said, voice steady. “I would have left regardless.”
The captain had expected that answer. Edward never killed without cause; it was one of the many reasons they adored him. Men like him were rare in the War Seas. They thought, briefly and silently, how small the chain of chances had been that brought them together. If they hadn’t wandered onto that island, none of this would have happened. Fate had a way of handing them blessings in odd packages, and both of them were quietly grateful.
“Did you ever think about settling down?” the captain asked after a beat, then softened it. “I mean, actually settling. A home, a family?”
Edward shook his head. “Not really.” He sighed, eyes going inward as years unspooled in his mind: the eager youth who enlisted, the steady weight of command later on. “Sometimes someone would catch my eye,” he allowed with a wry edge, “but it never stuck. They were tied to port, I was tied to sea.” A small, bittersweet smile touched his lips. Goodbyes had once been unbearable, now they felt inconsequential. “Hazard of the job, I suppose.”
“And now?” the captain pressed, casual curiosity coloring the question. It landed like a pebble in still water, simple, but with ripples. Edward felt the catch beneath it, an easy trap that could expose something private. The captain’s grin widened, light and teasing.
Edward opened his mouth, then closed it. The admission felt dangerous in the quiet between them. The captain laughed. Not cruelly, but delighted, at how a childish question could unsettle such a steady man. Moonlight sifted through leaves and caught the bright edges of their joyful tears as they spilled into the night. Edward cleared his throat. “What would you have done, when placed in the position of the Ravennian deserters?” he asked, steering the conversation away from himself.
The captain grew thoughtful, smile softening into something more complex. “I don’t remember having a family, or much of a past, really.” Their eyes tracked the rustling branches above as if the leaves might offer answers. Then their voice hardened into a calm resolve. “If it came to it now,” they said, looking back at Edward, “I would kill them.”
“The innocents?” Edward asked, disbelief softening his voice.
“No.” The captain’s gaze stayed on the canopy overhead. “The ones who threaten the innocents, my family, the people.” Then they turned, meeting Edward’s wide eyes. The topic was heavy but not unpleasant, it felt intimate, a private world shared between them. The captain added, quietly, “Like the king of Ravenna.” The rest, how they had taken his life, went unspoken.
A corrupted tyrant who sent innocents to their deaths for his ambitions had been reduced to nothing by someone who remembered neither past nor purpose. Now an enemy of an empire sat before Edward, bandages hiding deep wounds, mind and heart bared in a rare moment of vulnerability. Protector of the people, bringer of balance, yet who would protect the captain in return?
“Do you remember,” the captain said, voice low, “at the shore before we sailed, when we met the deserters?” Their fingers traced idle patterns in the dirt, picking at the grass as the memory settled. “Prince Revon ambushed us.” Edward remembered the moment well, how they’d all braced for a fight to the death, adrenaline and pain the only things keeping them moving. The captain had ended it quickly, disarming the prince and pinning him to the sand before he could strike.
“I didn’t kill him,” the captain continued. “Because I understood him.” Their voice softened. “He loved his brother more than anything and saw him as greatness incarnate. In taking that illusion away, I took everything he believed in.”
Misplaced adoration turned to rage and grief, but to the prince it had been utterly real. If someone had taken the life of the person the captain cherished most, and then declared that person wicked and deserving of death, the captain knew they would feel the same. They would, above all else, trust their friends and crew before believing a stranger who had stolen everything from them.
“I was simply lucky he had no true combat experience,” they finished, erasing the pattern in the dirt with a single, decisive sweep.
Silence settled between them once more, broken only by the soft whisper of leaves overhead, the world narrowed to a quiet, lulling song. One sat on the ground, the other on a moss covered rock, watching the shadows of moonlight weave and shift through the branches above. At last, the captain lifted their gaze from the dirt, shifted closer, and rested their head lightly against Edward’s knee. He stilled, fighting the urge to let his fingers drift through their hair.
“If the roles had been reversed,” the captain said at last, each word measured, “if it had been me on that shore, avenging your death…” They paused, the air tightened around the promise that followed. “Ravenna would be nothing but a memory.”
The quiet broke with the captain’s soft laugh as they lifted their head, meeting Edward’s eyes with a smile light and untroubled, carefree, as if they hadn’t just vowed to tear an empire apart for his sake. As if such a promise were nothing at all, when in truth it was the opposite. They were fierce in their need to protect, relentless in their will to heal and save. To turn a healer into a destroyer would demand nothing less than the weight of the world itself.
“But luckily, there was no need for that,” they said, voice light and free of the weight it had carried moments before.
Edward let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. How could anyone respond to a confession like that? Where worry should have taken root in his chest, there was only warmth, and a sharp, unshakable admiration for the person beside him. A thousand things pressed at the back of his tongue, too many truths he longed to give voice to, but none of them felt safe. Not if he still meant to guard the feelings he only ever managed to bury halfway.
“We should head back,” the captain murmured, rising and gathering their pile of wood.
“Yeah…” Edward answered, a quick nod, and rose as well. He took the captain’s offered hand, not from necessity, but as courtesy, and as a quiet excuse to be nearer.
—
They returned to the camp to find Iris crouched by the dying fire, her magic coaxing the last embers into life. “What kept you two so long?” she grumbled as they approached. The captain’s hands were smudged with dirt, grit caught under their nails. Iris’s expression softened a fraction. “Bandits?” she asked, eyes flicking between Edward and the captain.
Edward moved to answer, but the captain was quicker. “A few,” they said with a shrug. “Not many. No harm done.” They tossed a stick on the flames, which flared up gratefully. Iris let go of her hold on the fire and exhaled, but her gaze lingered on the captain with a suspicious crease. “I didn’t hear any fighting,” she said, narrowing her eyes.
“We were quiet,” the captain replied easily. “Didn’t want to wake anyone.” Edward could see Iris didn’t quite buy it, but exhaustion won out, she gave a distracted huff. “I’m heading to bed,” she declared, climbing into her tent. “If you get tired, wake Neviro or something,” she muttered before vanishing into the canvas.
Left by the now sturdy blaze, the two sat in companionable silence. The crackle of burning wood was steady and soothing. Edward couldn’t tell the hour, only that night had deepened and dawn would come soon. The captain watched the flames, their face soft in the light, and old words returned to Edward’s mind. Words of vengeance and protection. The thought of what the captain had said would not, must not, go unanswered.
“About what you said in the woods,” he began, voice uncertain as he tried to grasp for the right shape of his feelings. “If anyone ever took your life,” He paused, then finished, “they wouldn’t live long enough to regret it.”
The captain looked startled for a beat, then a gentle smile spread. They reached for Edward’s hand, bringing it toward their lips but stopping short, their breath warmed his knuckles and Edward felt the urge to lean closer, to close the small distance between them. The firelight reddened his face, and he was grateful for its shade.
The captain paid his conflicted silence no mind. “Edward Kenton,” they said, the name falling formal but feather light, full of something like reverence and a promise. “As long as I am your captain, you will never have to bear the burden of revenge.”
The words settled between them, simple, absolute. Edward felt them as both shield and gift, and in the hush that followed, the two of them sat a little closer, the night folding around them like an ally.