Chapter Text
The beginning of the race is always hectic, and Ed’s been through it way too many times by now.
It’s always just tears in the crew’s eyes when saying goodbye to their loved ones, and excitement on their faces the moment Queen Anne sails off, and then they’re always talking too much and not doing anything helpful, just sorta standing there for several hours with their mouths wide open and their phones constantly filming. It always makes the first day of the first leg the most exhausting of them all, never mind the fact they’ve got hundreds of those ahead.
There are too many new faces for Ed to remember their names, so he gives them nicknames in his own head instead: Moustache, iPhone Guy, Ginger, and so on. It’s easier this way; half of them drop out after the first leg and get replaced with new faces, new nicknames. They’re all as good as amateurs can get, but they get only four weeks of training before they are deemed ready to sail off, which is, in Ed’s honest opinion, never even near enough. So they learn the ropes on the way, making it all so. infuriatingly. slow.
There are always other professionals on board alongside him and Iz, those who maintain vital jobs, like communication, media, provisions, engineers, and whatnot. Those are mostly the same ones year in, year out, and Ed’s happy to see some of those trustworthy oldies among the masses of new people. Fang, their team coordinator, and Ivan, their bosun, have been with him almost from the very beginning. Jim, in charge of sail repair and safety checks, and Frenchie, responsible for provisions, have both returned for their third races. This year Jim’s not alone — they brought Archie, their partner and a very capable engineer. Despite the fact that Archie’s technically the newbie, she certainly knows what she’s doing. Archie’s from Aotearoa, too, and it’s always a pleasure to see someone from home, let alone someone that skillful.
Then, of course, there’s Izzy. Always Izzy, back to 1998, earlier, if you think, doing it as long as Ed himself. Izzy’s great at sailing, the best First Mate to ever mate, if Ed has a say. Izzy is perfectly precise, always focussed, always approaching his work with the most serious look on his face. Izzy is what Ed sometimes calls the opposite of fun — just to tease him, just to see that vein popping at his temple.
Ed could never ask for a more reliable First Mate than Izzy.
Ed also, ironically, can’t stand Izzy most of those days.
“We’re five hours behind the Red Flag,” Izzy tells him that morning.
Queen Anne is going at full speed, her sails billowing in the wind, and the crew, salt-sprayed head-to-toe, keeps grinning, changing places with one another on the ropes under Fang’s attentive command. They’re doing great, following the plan with precision. It’s still not enough for Izzy.
Nothing is ever fucking enough for Izzy nowadays.
Ed sighs. “We’ll catch up on them tomorrow. You know how it’ll go — we’ll cut near the coast where the current’s the strongest.”
Izzy grits his teeth. “What if the wind changes?”
Ed fights the urge to roll his eyes. Typical Izzy, always thinking three steps ahead. It’s not a bad trait for a sailor, but at some point in their lives it became so fucking irritating and oppressing. “So be it. We’ll still have enough points to beat them. It’s just the first leg, Iz, relax.”
Izzy clasps his hands tighter in front of himself, fingers white and pruned from water. Everything’s always soaking wet on the sea: hands sodden through, skin taut with salt, hair never getting even close to dry. It used to be exciting. Now it just seems like a never-ending chore.
“Edward—” Izzy starts, voice raspy.
Ed just shakes his head and waves him away. “Leave it, Iz. Go check the weather or something. You know the drill.”
Izzy leaves Ed alone. He keeps on looking at the place where Izzy was standing for a few more seconds. The water’s splashing against the hull, rocking them like an empty walnut shell.
Ed keenly feels like he’s that shell.
*
The first stopover is in Puerto Sherry, Spain. It’s just under a week-long break, to let the crew stretch their legs on solid ground, drink some good Spanish wine, and visit the closest big city, El Puerto de Santa María. It’s warm and sunny in Spain. It has colours, it’s bright and vibrant, pleasing to the eye after endless stretches of blue water and blue sky. And it’s certainly better than dull, grey Plymouth they started from.
Ed spends most of the time on board, not even bothering to check in at the hotel. He’s drinking more than might be considered reasonable, catching Izzy’s foul eye more than once. Izzy doesn’t say anything. He knows Ed can’t sleep without emptying at least half a bottle these days. It became better after— After. Didn’t last long, though. Relief never lasts long nowadays.
He’s happy to finally sail off. Next stop: Punta del Este, Uruguay. The end of leg one.
First part of the plan executed. On to the next…
After that? He’ll see.
*
They make it first in the end — of course they do — with Zheng breathing down their necks and a couple of points behind. She doesn’t know the waters of the Southern Atlantic as well as Ed does, and got caught in the whirlpool of current just off the coast of Brazil. Just as Ed thought she would. Everything goes according to plan, much to Izzy’s petty joy.
Zheng nods at Ed curtly in port, pushing past the journalists. He knows Zheng hates it when she loses.
He wishes it was different this time. But that’s the whole point of his existence by now — Blackbeard doesn’t lose, he can’t lose. He doesn’t even need to do anything, just enter the race, do the regular shit: come up with strategy, with a plan, execute the plan, win the race. Easy-peasy, and all that.
Why is it so fucking boring then?
*
They greet new faces in Uruguay. Same stuff as that first time — shiny eyes, excited faces, mouths hanging open, phones ready, filming it all, filming Ed, baring him at his most vulnerable to the rest of the world.
He plays the Blackbeard role perfectly. Winks into the phone camera of Pretty Blonde, a new one. Shakes hands with another one Big Exec.
Moustache stays. He’s their fundraising coordinator, and they send some of those every race. They’re always willing to make some really big money by snatching a piece of Blackbeard for their own charity needs. Like there are many of those pieces left anyway.
IPhone Guy stays, too. He’s a household name among the youth, YouTuber or something. Chronically online wherever there’s signal. Always muttering something to his subscribers. Catching every word from Ed’s mouth, phone held out. Ed smiles and plays the role. Blackbeard is confident, calm, radiating professionalism. Blackbeard always knows what he’s doing, always has a trick up his sleeve to pull out at the very last moment, much to everybody’s awe.
Ed has a plan this time, too. He just needs to wait for the right moment to execute it. One last performance before he’s finally free.
*
Ed decides when he’s gotta do it. The second leg is one of the shortest and among the easiest ones, too. The South Atlantic is rough this time of year, but they always sail in the vicinity of at least two of the other ten Clippers, and the course is relatively easy, basically a straight line. Ed thinks he sees Zheng’s telltale red sails on the horizon a couple of times, but it might be just the setting sun reflected from the grey, churny waters.
So it means it’s got to happen between Cape Town, South Africa and Fremantle, Australia, during leg three. They’re going to dip down below 40° south to cover that leg. Everyone who’s ever sailed down the west coast of Africa and round the Cape of Good Hope knows what they’re about to witness — the Roaring Forties. Back in the 17th century, the Dutch were the first to discover the way to harness those strong air currents, and Ed totally gets why. Here, the naturally strong winds blow west to east and the warm Agulhas Current meets the cold Antarctic Current at full force, creating huge waves and unpredictable weather conditions, yes, but also helping to reduce speed travel times at least in half, if you’re an experienced enough sailor.
But even if you are, Ed thinks, watching Izzy and several more members of the crew take down the spinnaker for the night, even if you are an experienced sailor, you can’t predict and avoid all the accidents.
And Ed, after almost thirty years at sea, happens to be experienced enough to make anything look like an accident.
*
Finally knowing how it will happen (not knowing when yet, of course; he’ll have to keep both eyes open not to miss the right moment) makes Ed feel… lighter. The best he’s felt in months, maybe years, if he thinks back further.
It was as if this huge weight was lifted off his shoulders when he first thought of it, but the intimidating number of questions he asked himself, the mere need to think all the details through properly to make it look just right were bringing him down nonetheless. This made his already unbearable existence even harder, fuck. Now he’s finally calm and confident. He’s breathing with his full chest again, and he gulps fresh sea air greedily, catching up on the years of being able to take only what felt like very shallow breaths, barely enough to keep him from suffocating.
Ed even finds it in himself to get closer to the crew. He finds out that the iPhone Guy is called Harry, and he’s not so irritating once you get to know him, and the Pretty Blonde — Sarah — who he first thought of as too much of a lightweight turned out to be one of the best amateur sailors he’s ever sailed with. She smiles at him when he shows her how to secure the running rigging of the topsail properly, and his heart lurches in his chest a bit. Ed looks at her, looks properly, and notices for the first time that she’s actually pretty, green-eyed, freckled cheeks, pleasant smile, baring her slightly crooked teeth. This thought makes him want to laugh out loud. He hasn’t thought of other people as attractive in, what, a decade? Now seems like the most ironic time ever, and he gets it, he does — this is fate, shoving her middle finger right into his face.
Still, it doesn’t change anything, and he just pats Sarah on the shoulder and leaves her be.
*
Cape Town is terrific this time of the year. It’s just the beginning of tourist season, and that means sparse crowds, apart from those who are there to follow the Clipper Race, of course. But Ed knows how to dodge those crowds when he finishes with his share of accepting congratulations and telling the journalists about their accomplishment (they came first again, much to Zheng’s displeasure; she doesn’t know yet, but she’ll get her victory in the end) like it’s something worth bragging about. Like he’s not the fucking best, hasn’t been that for so long he doesn’t remember how to be something else.
Cape Town brings back certain memories, and they are as pleasant as they are depressing. He remembers the day he first saw Cape Town in 1998, when he entered the Clipper Race for the first time, just a young no-one from Wellington, a scrawny brown kid with a bunch of sailing skills and a sharp brain. It was in Cape Town where he and Izzy first thought it was actually possible for them to come if not second, but at least third, which was not bad considering he was the youngest Skipper of them all. Back then, he and Iz were so full of life, inebriated on the mere thought of achieving something in a world that had kept kicking them in the arses all their short lives.
Back then, it all made sense, and it was in Cape Town when he first dared think that he might be something else, something bigger than pretty much everyone kept telling him he would be.
The city has changed a lot in twenty-five years, but so has Ed, right?
By some miracle, he finds the bar they were drinking that day and orders the same beer, Castle Milk Stout. It tastes just the way he remembers, caramel with a slight bitterness to it — that joy of excitement you get to taste only when you’re young and full of hope. He finishes his beer and leaves the bar, throwing one last look back to say goodbye.
Ed walks around the city for several hours. Cape Town is buzzing with life, unlike him, but, surprisingly, he doesn’t feel sad or regretful, just this nostalgic aftertaste of the stout and the person he used to be.
He’s ready now, he thinks, looking at the murky waters of the bay and Queen Anne lulled gently by the waves, all her lights down except that distant yellow one on top of her mainsail.
Soon, girl, he thinks, soon we’ll part ways forever.
*
They finally sail off, and this leg is non-stop work from day one. The weather doesn’t spoil them, the sky is heavy and leaden, the clouds passing in a blur, driven by the most insane winds Ed’s ever seen during his whole career at sea. Waves throw Queen Anne from side to side easily like she weighs nothing. At times, she heels so much it feels like railing becomes their deck, and they stay pressed like that for a few seconds, unable to move until she heels to the other side, making them all skid a little until they grab the rigging or the jackline to stop moving. All of them have their sailing harnesses on, which are attached securely by tethers to some fixed point of the yacht, but it’s still terrifying, and Ed sees horror mixed with determination in their eyes and in all their frantic movements.
It takes a lot of energy to exist on a yacht in such weather conditions, and they take turns on their deck duties, changing each other every few hours.
Ed stays the longest, ignoring Izzy and Fang’s displeasure. Physical exhaustion doesn’t bother him, and being constantly wet and cold doesn’t make him uncomfortable. Here on board, fighting the elements in their untamed force, facing their pristine beauty, Ed feels the most alive he’s felt in years.
“What’s gotten into you, Edward?!” Izzy yells over the roaring of waves and the flapping of sails. He’s clutching at the rigging, his hair sodden wet, rivulets of water running down his face. “You’re gonna get yourself killed!”
“I’m with Izzy at this one, boss!” Fang yelps and grabs Ed’s shoulder heavily to regain balance when Queen Anne suddenly lurches heavily to starboard. “You gotta ease off now! You been up here for too long!”
Ed just laughs and exposes his face to the icy cold gusts of wind and droplets of salty waves and rain. “Nah, I’m good.”
“Edward, for fucks’s sake!” Izzy roars. “What’re you trying to prove this time?”
Ed grins and shakes his head. Izzy doesn’t understand — never understood him. ‘You’re just moping, get yourself together’, was the exact thing he told Ed years ago when Ed first tried talking to him, his closest friend. He learned his lesson that day — whatever he tells Izzy, it’ll just make him look weak, and weak is not the state Izzy tolerates in anyone, let alone Ed.
“Just trying to live it while it lasts!” Ed yells in response, and he thinks he sees Izzy’s eyes widen in realization for a fraction of a second. The moment doesn’t last long enough for him to get it as the next wave, a particularly nasty one, distracts their attention for the next ten minutes or so when they try to save their mainmast.
“You had enough, Ed,” Jim, who just came above deck to start their shift, tells Ed when it’s all over. “You gotta get down and get some sleep. We fucking need you here fully functional! We depend on you, bastardito.”
Ed looks at them for a full minute. The rolling motions of Queen Anne now noticeably subsided as compared to those half an hour ago. Seems like they’ve passed the epicenter of the storm. Now Ed has to wait for the next one.
His shoulders sag, and fatigue hits him all at once. “Fine,” he mutters and slowly gets below the deck.
He doesn’t get even a full minute alone with his thoughts, just manages to get out of his wet clothes and dry-towel his hair and beard when Izzy catches up with him.
“What the fuck was that?!” he demands, standing in the door of the wet locker room, water dripping from him and gathering at his feet in small puddles.
Ed stays silent, getting on his dry change of clothes with his back to Izzy.
“Edward.”
“It’s fine, Iz.”
“It’s fucking not! I don’t recognise you in this race! What’s gotten into you? You’ve never been that reckless before!”
Ed smiles bitterly to himself, still facing away from Izzy and struggling to get his leg into the pants with the ship constantly on the move. He doesn’t answer, and he hears Izzy sigh over the patter of water against the hull and the howl of the wind.
“Get yourself together, Ed. We gotta do the job properly — for ourselves and for all those people. And we gotta take back our title of the winner at least this year, since you were too soft for it in 2018 and 2021.”
Ed listens to Izzy get back to the main deck. He doesn’t think he’ll get that well-needed rest now. Izzy’s always been like that, with his itch to be the first, the best, to always win. What he doesn’t know is that Ed doesn’t give a shit about winning or most of the people aboard Queen Anne.
Hasn’t given a shit about any of this for years now.
*
After that nasty spell, they get a few days of calm sea and only moderate winds and waves. It’s a necessary respite, too — the crew’s exhausted by the leg, and they stretch out on the deck when the job’s all done and let the sun warm their aching bodies.
Ed is restless, as he is always when there’s not much to do. He becomes suspicious, too, and can’t shake off the feeling that everyone somehow knows what he’s up to. He regrets not having finished it when he had a chance.
He’s at the helm on one of those calmer days, overlooking the horizon when he notices a bird. It’s too far away to tell for sure, but by the way it keeps gliding just above the waves, its magnificent, huge wings barely moving, Ed recognizes the bird as the wandering albatross.
Neither of the crew has noticed it yet, and Ed has a moment of solitude to admire the bird. It’s a big one, the only bird for miles to see. It’s soaring effortlessly, with the ease Ed can only dream of. Ed knows they mate for life, and he can’t help thinking if there’s someone waiting for it back in their nest, or is it just as lonely as he is.
The thought makes his eyes prickle, and he blinks furiously, casting them up to the cloudy sky. He hopes with sudden fervor that the bird has someone to return to, unlike him. He’s been lonely all his life, that bone-deep, complete loneliness hiding in the corners of his empty house and below the deck of his little yacht moored home in Wellington, in all the places that are supposed to bring joy, but which he dreads coming back to every time. The truth is, he’s never felt fully at home anywhere in the world but at sea.
Ed wishes, keenly, that he were that albatross, soaring above the waves at daytime and returning back to its mate at nightfall. He wonders, absent-mindedly, whether his life would have made more sense that way.
Deep down in his soul, he knows it’s not true. He’s just like that — everyone admires him, but no one is capable of loving him, him, with all his empty corners and rotten dreams.
“Hey, Fangie,” he calls in a voice that doesn’t sound like him — too cheerful, too alive. “Look over there, at that bird. Not often we see those nowadays, right?”
It brings the intended reaction among the crew, and Ed mentally salutes the albatross. Enjoy your moment of fame, brother, he thinks and grabs the wheel tightly with both hands, forcing himself to look straight ahead where the masses of clouds bulk up on the horizon with the promise of an inevitable change of weather.
*
The storm breaks out in the middle of the night, while some newbies are on duty, and Ivan wakes him up with a whispered apology, saying he’s needed up there.
Ed can tell the storm is a big one the moment he gets out of his bunk. The deck below his bare feet is vibrating with the force of the gale raging outside. He barely manages to get into his gear with the way the yacht rocks massively. He has to stall for a minute with his harness to do the thing he was thinking of doing for quite some time now, because somehow, without even stepping on the main deck, he already knows — this is it.
The waves are huge, the ocean raging around them wherever he glances. Queen Anne is just a tiny sliver of life abandoned to its fate, alone and so fragile. The crew looks pale but determined. Ed sees Jim and Archie fighting to put up a bright red storm jib, while Fang and Ivan try to reef the mainsail, and Izzy struggles to steer the ship.
Ed knows immediately what he’s got to do. He has to deploy the storm drogue off the stern to keep Queen Anne from surfing and make it easier to steer her in the storm. After that, he’ll make sure his crew will be fine without him, and finally, finally he can put it all to an end.
The thought makes adrenaline pump in his veins, and he throws himself into action.
It’s not the most difficult task, and normally it takes several minutes to deal with the drogue, but today it’s almost impossible with the way the ocean rages around them and the waves throw them up and down easily as if they weigh nothing.
The ship lurches when Ed finally deploys the drogue. Izzy throws a quick look at him over the shoulder, both hands on the wheel now that Queen Anne is easier to steer.
“All good?” Ed asks, and Izzy nods.
Ed grabs the rigging with his free hand and gets up at the railing, one leg in the air above the sea. From this angle, he can see only part of his crew, Jim and Archie, now finished with the storm jib, taking care of securing the ropes. They look tiny from where he stands. He watches Archie fall down on the next wave, back first, Jim trying to catch her by the arm to save her from falling overboard. They manage, but only at the very last moment. Jim hauls Archie to their chest, and both of them stay like that for a few seconds — two figures intertwined so closely they seem as one.
Ed feels the familiar pang in his chest and remembers the albatross from yesterday. Right now, he keenly feels how lonely he is. The thought is almost unbearable, the pain in his chest making each breath a struggle, the burden too heavy to carry anymore. He needs this to stop.
Ed shrugs off his safety jacket.
“Ed?” Izzy calls him from below, his voice shaking.
Ed ignores him and reaches down to his tether. The harness has to stay on, but he yanks at one of the thinner straps, already barely holding as it is, and it comes off easily, the tether hook and the strap remaining attached to the tether. This way, it’ll look like an accident — he hasn’t checked the harness properly in a hurry, and the strap has come off when he was yanked by a particularly large wave. He lets go of the tether, and it falls down to the deck, immediately sliding away on its wet surface.
With the way the boat rocks constantly, he has to grab the rigging hard, as it’s the only thing that keeps him on board now, preventing him from falling overboard before he’s ready.
“Edward…”
Ed finally looks down at Izzy. With the way Izzy has to grab the wheel with both hands, he can’t do much, just glance at him over his shoulder with eyes wide and full of horror.
In this single look, Ed tries to pass Izzy everything he couldn’t tell with words over almost thirty years they’ve known each other. This is a goodbye and an apology, and he wants Izzy to know it.
“Don’t…” Izzy whispers, and Ed thinks he sees tears running down his cheeks.
But then again, with where they are? It must be just rain and salt water spray.
Ed tries smiling at Izzy and fails. So he just lets go of the rigging.
It’s his easiest decision in years.
*
The impact with water is softer than he expected, as if the waves themselves, those same waves that are trying to drag Queen Anne below water at this very moment, opened up their arms to welcome him in their embrace.
This is the right thing to do, he thinks while he quickly sinks lower. This is the only way he can go.
Ed looks up, his eyes burning with all the salt water as he tries to keep them open. Queen Anne from down here is just a shadow, barely darker against the rest of the sea.
Ed lets it go.
The ocean around him is pitch black and so quiet. He thinks he can hear the patter of the rain against its surface, but it must be simply the trick of his mind. The only thing he can truly hear is the rush of blood in his ears as he goes lower, and the atmospheric pressure around him increases, ready to squeeze the life out of him, if the lack of oxygen doesn’t do it faster. He’s a strong diver, but he already feels the telltale burn in his chest.
His vision starts growing dark around the edges. The ringing in his ears slips away, the wave-like rush of blood slowly being replaced with cotton-thick silence. He thinks he notices something dark slipping along the bottom of the ocean, but he can’t peer; everything is too blurry.
His eyelids flutter closed once, twice. Ed struggles to keep his eyes open. Suddenly, he keenly wants to see land once again, and the realization that he will never admire its greenery fills him with something close to panic. This panic releases the rush of adrenaline in his blood, and his body tenses in one final struggle before the end.
Ed forces his eyes open. His vision is still fuzzy and quickly darkening, but he swears there’s something gold glowing in the darkness of the ocean depth. He thinks, detached, with his dying brain, that this gold light is human-shaped and moving towards him.
So this is what salvation looks like, is his final thought before he blacks out, and it makes him smile.
* * *
Stede is excited.
This is the first time they’ve had a new person aboard since Lucius! And it’s been over thirty years since Lucius became part of the crew anyway, so they’ve lost any connection with the outer world, which makes the appearance of a new person aboard even more exciting!
Stede’s hands, while he’s taking off his heavy diving suit, are shaking with anticipation, and Lucius, who’s helping him to get undressed, surely notices it.
“Nervous, Captain?” he asks with his typical all-knowing smirk. Stede huffs.
“Nervous? Not at all! I’m looking forward to meeting him, Lucius! It’s not often we get a chance to contact someone from the outside world these days, let alone have them as part of the crew!”
Lucius shakes his head. “Yeah, I kinda noticed that, Stede. I’m just saying, you have to be prepared for the possibility that he won’t want to speak to you.”
Stede freezes with his heavy waistcoat half taken off. “Nonsense! Why wouldn’t he do that, Lucius?”
Lucius gestures for him to stretch out his arms and helps him take the waistcoat the rest of the way off. Next go the trousers with the lead-soled boots, and when they’re off, Stede gets out of the seamless drysuit he’s been wearing underneath. He straightens his own clothes and hurries to the mirror to have a look at the disaster his hair is now.
Lucius behind his back sighs, fixing the parts of the heavy garment in their places on the walls. “Do I even need to say that, Stede? Apart from the obvious shock, he might be—”
“We saved his life!” Stede exclaims, exasperated, trying to make his hair look at least somewhat decent. “He doesn’t have any reason not to trust us.”
Stede doesn’t even need to look at Lucius to know the boy’s rolling his eyes. “Suit yourself then, Captain.”
“Captain!” Roach bursts into the arsenal before Stede has a chance to answer. He immediately forgets about Lucius upon seeing Roach’s face.
“Roach! Is he okay?” Stede asks, clenching and unclenching his fingers to channel at least some of his excitement.
Roach grins. “He will be. He’s in the cabin adjoining yours, Captain, just as you ordered. Still unconscious, but I expect he’ll come round any minute now.”
Stede barely restrains himself from rocking on the balls of his feet. “Ah! Guess this is my cue, then.”
The cabin is dull, the lights dimmed so as not to disturb the man in it. He’s in bed, covered up to his waist with a blanket. Roach and Pete changed him from his sodden clothes into the comfortable dark garments most of the crew wear aboard, but his hair is still wet, laying in beautiful black and silver waves around his head on the pillow. His short beard is almost dry by now, lighter than his hair, more salt-and-pepper than black.
Stede approaches the man and sits down on the chair next to the bed. The stranger — Stede’s heart lurches in his chest at the thought that soon he will no longer be that, but part of the crew, a friend — exhales deeply, his chest moving steadily, eyelashes fluttering against his slightly pale cheeks. He’s beautiful, Stede thinks, studying his delicate features, relaxed in sleep.
It’s been a while since Stede last let himself look at someone that beautiful.
The man stirs, a deep frown creasing his forehead. He sighs again, this time more audible, a soft moan rather than an exhale, his fingers flexing the soft fabric covering his belly.
Stede holds out his hand and lets it hover for a second, hesitant, before covering the back of his hand. The man visibly startles under the touch, his eyelids fluttering open but shutting a second later. Stede notices that his irises are brown, a warm hue that complements his golden skin.
“Hey,” Stede calls softly and squeezes his hand. The man moans again, his head lulling to the side. He’s now facing Stede fully, but he’s still half asleep. “Shh, don’t worry. You’re safe now.”
The man opens his eyes, unfocused, but his gaze immediately lands on Stede’s face. Stede smiles encouragingly.
“Amidead? ” the man mutters, and it takes Stede a few seconds to decipher what it is that he’s just said.
“You’re safe now,” Stede repeats, rubbing his thumb against the soft skin of the man’s hand in a soothing pattern. “What’s your name?” he asks, letting the excitement slip into his voice and immediately regretting it. This man here needs his encouragement, not his curiosity.
“Ed,” he mumbles and licks his lips. Stede watches the movement of his tongue, transfixed, ashamed of himself for being unable to look away and give him — Ed! His name is Ed! — some privacy.
He squeezes Ed’s hand shortly. “Hi, Ed. I’m Stede.”
Ed hums and closes his eyes.
Stede waits for him to say something else, but Ed stays unmoved, his breathing slowing and deepening. He must be asleep again. Stede moves to take his hand away, but Ed suddenly gasps, his eyes flying open, frantic and on the verge of panic.
“Don’t go,” he mumbles quickly, searching for Stede’s face. His chest is heaving. “Please stay.”
Stede puts his hand back and squeezes Ed’s wrist to reassure him. “I won’t, I promise.”
Ed’s eyelids immediately become leaden, the movement of his chest steady and deep. Stede keeps rubbing his thumb, back and forth, back and forth, a small soothing pattern that manages to lull him into some trance-like state. He doesn’t know how much time passes. Time here has always been strange, but right now, next to Ed, it loses the final shreds of meaning.
Stede starts counting Ed’s breaths and tries to follow them with the strokes of his thumb, tracing the shape of his snake tattoo. The ship gently moves, sailing on her steady way. He wonders where they are now, but it’s merely a distant thought. He doesn’t need to worry about it much as long as Buttons is steering her.
A loud, resounding knock on the cabin door snaps Stede out of this state. He clears his throat and drags his look away from Ed with some difficulty.
“Captain!” Roach says loudly the moment he enters the cabin upon Stede’s answer. Stede shushes him. Roach frowns, glancing between him and Ed. “Sorry! Is he still out?”
Stede feels strangely protective about Ed. “He’s been through a lot, Roach, give him some time!”
Roach just shrugs. “Do I serve you breakfast here or in the dining room?”
Stede frowns. Is it already meal time? How long exactly has he been here? “Where are we now?”
“Buttons says we’re not far from the coast of Australia. He wants to know what our next move is.”
Stede frowns. “Right. Yes. We have to… have to make a plan, right?”
Roach shrugs again, utterly unbothered by the need to decide on the route of their never-ending journey. Stede sighs and throws one last regretful look at Ed before standing up. He wishes he could stay, but he has responsibilities as the Captain of this vessel.
“Send someone to look after him, will you? Let me know the moment he wakes up. We have to do a lot of talking.”
*
It takes him hours before he can go check on Ed again. After long discussion with Buttons and the rest of the crew, they decide on the route of the journey (it hasn’t caused the levels of delight Stede was counting on; yet again, he can’t expect that from them after they’ve seen it all at least three dozen times, right? There are not many things left that can surprise his crew, but maybe Ed will show proper levels of emotional outburst their adventure deserves!). They come up once to renew the level of oxygen. It’s becoming trickier with each year, especially in densely populated areas around the continents; there are just too many vessels to Stede’s liking; everyone nowadays goes to sea whenever they want.
It’s well past noon when he finally hurries to Ed’s cabin after Olu tells him the man’s about to wake up. Stede closes the door firmly behind him and slides to his previous place on the chair next to the bed.
Stede’s beaming when Ed finally opens his eyes, much more focused and sharp than before. His smile drops very soon because Ed—
“What the fuuck!” Ed yells and starts kicking his legs, blanket tangled around his feet, in an attempt to… What is it exactly he’s trying to do anyway? Stede frowns. Ed freezes in the corner of the bed furthest from Stede, back pressed to the wall, arms hugging his body protectively. “What the fuck!”
“Okay, first of all — rude,” Stede says, and Ed’s eyes grow even bigger. “Second — what’s gotten into you, Ed?”
Ed opens and closes his mouth several times, studying Stede head to toe with a somewhat frantic look. “Are you a ghost?”
Stede gasps in indignation. “What?! Ed! I’m not a ghost!”
“Y-you’re glowing, mate!”
Ah. Right. It’s funny how fast you actually forget this… oddity after a couple of centuries aboard. Stede studies his own hand, glowing warm gold in the dim light of the cabin, as if this is the first time he’s seen it. In a way, it is. And however shocked Ed’s initial reaction was, it’s refreshing to have a chance to look at himself through Ed’s eyes.
“That’s it, then,” Ed says, defeated, having interpreted Stede’s silence in his own way. “I’m dead. Am I a ghost now, too? Why am I not glowing, then? Man, what the fuck, why I can’t even glow proper—”
“You’re not a ghost, Ed,” Stede interrupts him firmly. “And neither am I. Here, look. You can touch me.”
He stretches his hand out and waits for hesitant Ed to touch his skin with his fingertips, tentative at first, but then, as Ed’s eyes grow impossibly big, with more certainty.
“You’re warm…”
“And solid, yes.” Stede smiles and puts his hand back on his lap. “The glowing is just a… side effect. Of being here.”
Ed’s glance immediately darts up, alert and sharp. “Of being where, exactly?”
Stede bites his lip in frustration. Well, this is definitely not going as smoothly as he wanted it to.
“Would you mind if I started from the very beginning, Ed?”
Ed frowns. “How d’you know my name?”
“What? You told me yourself! You… don’t remember?”
Ed shakes his head slowly. “Thought it was a dream. Or some… weird afterlife shit, with me being dead and all.”
Stede huffs. “I think we’ve cleared this up already. You’re not a ghost, same as me and everyone else on the crew.”
Curiosity flashes across Ed’s face. “Crew? So you’re saying I’m on a ship of some kind?”
“Yes, exactly.” Stede beams and holds out his hand to introduce himself properly this time. “Stede Bonnet, captain of this vessel. We call it the Revenge.”
Ed shakes his hand, his grip firm and warm, sending a shiver of excitement down Stede’s spine. “Edward Teach. And how exactly are you saying I got on your ship?”
Stede wiggles in his place in excitement. “We saved you!”
A series of complicated expressions passes over Ed’s face, too fast for Stede to even try to catch any of them. His eyes are wary when he looks at Stede again, his lips pursed and his shoulders tense.
“Izzy didn’t come looking for me, then?”
Stede tilts his head to the side and frowns, puzzled. “Who’s that, Izzy?”
Ed hums thoughtfully but doesn’t answer. “Gonna show me around your ship, Stede?” he asks instead, and Stede falls for it easily. This is actually the next part of this speech, which he didn’t know how to bring the conversation around to. How convenient that Ed is the first to touch upon it!
“With great pleasure!”
He leaps to his feet and offers Ed a hand. Ed studies it with an odd expression on his face for a second or two before accepting it somewhat hesitantly. Stede hurries to unclasp their hands the moment he makes sure Ed’s steady on his feet, not wanting to overwhelm him with the whole glowing thing.
Stede takes Ed along the narrow passage to the salon. The windows are closed, just as he ordered — he wants the revelation to be most effective and in its due time, which is not now. Ed turns his head in all directions, open-mouthed, an awed expression on his face. Stede chuckles and looks around the salon too, probably for the first time in years.
It’s a splendid room, long and wide, with two huge round windows on the opposite sides, closed by the panels now. The walls are lined with paintings and marble and bronze figurines; the piano occupies the furthest wall; glass cases withhold all kinds of marine specimen: fish, molluscs, sponges, sea-stars, corals, shells, and, Stede’s personal favourites, pearls, of all colours, shapes, and sizes, starting with tiny beads of delicate pink pearls to the ones size of a pigeon egg. In the middle of the room there’s a fountain which falls into a gigantic tridacna shell no less than six metres in diameter. The water in it gurgles softly in the otherwise silent room. The ship is on the move, but its movement can be barely felt here, in the heart of it.
“What is this place?” Ed mutters, turning to him.
Stede beams. “This is the pride and joy of this vessel, the salon, or, as we sometimes call it, the drawing room.”
Ed looks around the room again, his gaze sliding over the somewhat slanted walls and corners of the room, his lips moving as if he’s calculating something.
“Stede,” Ed finally says in a very different tone. “This place is no less than ten metres long. It can’t simply fit… I don’t know any modern private yacht that can fit this size of a single room unless you’re a—” He trails off, throwing an odd glance at Stede, and makes a sweeping gesture around the room. “Plus the corridor? And the cabin? And there were several more doors along our way…”
Stede smiles and winks at him conspiratorially. He’s positively buzzing with delight. It took Ed mere minutes to crack the vessel’s biggest secret, so it no longer makes sense to keep it away from him.
Stede approaches the intercom on the wall and presses on the button, giving a short command to Olu, who’s waiting for his word.
The lights in the drawing room go out. They don’t stay in the darkness for long, though, as the panels on both sides of the room start their slow movement, revealing the windows. They’re not too deep, just about fifty metres below surface, and daylight filtering through the water brightens the room immediately.
The ocean outside the vessel is turquoise blue, shimmering constantly as it refracts the sun rays. Weird shadows dance on the walls and on Ed’s awe-struck face. He rushes, blindly, to the window, crashing into one of the chaise longues on his way. Tentatively, Ed touches the thick glass — the only thing separating them from masses of water beyond the ship.
Hundreds of colourful fish, curious as to what is this strange vessel that has breached their domain, scurry past the windows. Ed studies them, wide-eyed, his fingers twitching against the glass pane.
“We’re… we’re underwater,” he mumbles without turning away from the view.
Stede approaches him, making as much noise as he can so as not to startle him, and stands shoulder to shoulder next to Ed, hands folded behind his back. He watches the disturbed fauna for a little while.
“I never get tired of this view,” he admits softly as one particular decisive Pagrus auratus, simply known as Australian snapper, with delicate pink back and silver belly, shimmering iridescent in its movements, pecks the window before the Revenge outruns it and leaves it behind.
Ed throws a quick, sideways glance at him. “Stede… What is this place?”
“Ah.” Stede rubs his hands together in anticipation. “Would you mind moving this conversation to the dining room, maybe? Lunch is waiting for us there.”
Ed hesitates, looking around the room, eyes lingering on the window for a little longer. He licks his lips. “Could we… eat here?”
Stede’s cheeks are about to hurt with how much he’s been smiling so far. “Just give me a moment, I’ll arrange everything.”
He has to leave Ed alone for some time, but he’s calm about it. Not that Ed could go anywhere from the Revenge, even if they weren’t currently fifty metres under the ocean, going at a speed of fifteen knots. Once aboard, he’s part of the crew.
When he returns, Ed’s sitting on the chaise longue next to the window, both hands primly on his lap, looking far too innocent. Stede throws a surreptitious glance around the salon, but doesn’t notice that anything’s wrong.
Stede smiles at him, and Ed gives him a much smaller, much more tentative smile back. They stay silent while Roach, the Swede, and Lucius bring food over from the dining room, making the salon much brighter with the way all four of them, including Stede, are glowing. Ed studies them, wide-eyed and curious, not even trying to hide it, his head turning from one to another. They, in return, keep throwing no less curious glances at Ed but, thankfully, refrain from any comments. However, with the way Lucius’s eyes are glistening, Stede knows he won’t avoid further interrogations from the crew.
“What is this food?” Ed asks the moment there’s just the two of them, considering the dishes suspiciously.
“Oh, those are all very good, don’t worry.” Stede shrugs. “We take as much as we can from the sea.”
“I know seafood, mate,” Ed says without much enthusiasm, stabbing the closest to him dish with a fork. “But what’s this?”
“It’s Holothuria edulis, also known as edible sea cucumber,” Stede clarifies, and can’t help the little giggle at the sight of utter disgust on Ed’s face. “It’s absolutely splendid, I assure you! Mind you, it might take you some time to get accustomed to the taste, but it’s as nourishing as anything you’ve ever eaten.”
“Yeah, okay,” Ed mumbles but prefers to stay away from the sea cucumber, choosing tuna steaks instead. This dish, however, he seems to recognise, and after sniffing it, he takes a hefty bite. Stede watches him chew with his breath held back and proceeds with his own dish only when Ed swallows and hums his appreciation.
“So, I get it, this is a submarine,” Ed says, waving his fork around the room. The scenery over the window has changed gradually — they’re now swimming past the underwater forest of branching corals and sea plants, slowly swaying in the current and stretching up towards the sun, almost perfectly parallel to the ocean bottom.
“Oh, the Revenge is so much more than a submarine,” Stede says softly. “It’s something else, and you’ll understand it very soon.”
Ed doesn’t respond to that, but he doesn’t need to; his face speaks volumes with its expression of mixed scepticism and intrigue. He keeps twisting the fork in his hands, watching it catch the light of the electrical lamps overhead.
“Is it a military vessel?” he asks finally, choosing particularly large shrimps from his ragout.
Stede snorts. “It is very much not a military vessel, Ed, no.”
Ed studies him sharply. “Civilian, then. How does it run? All nuclear?”
Stede slowly shakes his head. “It runs on electricity, Ed. Electricity is—”
“I know what electricity is, mate.”
Stede pouts and can’t help his snarky remark, “Well, don’t you know everything nowadays.”
Ed’s expression changes, softens somehow, and his lips twitch like he’s holding back a smile or maybe a smirk. It’s fascinating, the way his face changes and betrays everything he’s thinking, his eyebrows always on the move, his lips quivering up and down quickly, the short, silvery beard not quite keeping it a secret what’s happening with the lower part of his face. Stede’s too sulky to let that improve his mood.
“I’m sorry, Stede,” Ed finally says when the pause becomes too long. “Please, go on. Tell me more.”
Stede sighs and tries to remember everything he’s learned about how exactly the Revenge works. Truth be told, he still has little understanding of all those processes, even though he’s learned so much over the years, but honestly? He’s always been more interested in all the potential of the underwater vessel than the technicalities of its functioning.
“Well, we produce electricity using the energy of all the water around us. And by that I mean all the underwater currents and even—”
“Storms?” Ed finishes for him, eyes shining with excitement. Stede grins and nods. “Fascinating, mate. But how exactly does it work? As far as I know, you must have one hell of a water pump to create the height difference.”
Stede leans over the table, unwillingly cutting the distance between them. He’s forgotten his minute offence, now sharing Ed’s enthusiasm instead. Ed seems to be impossible to resist, doesn’t he?
“Oh no, we don’t really need them. We use the hydrokinetic energy harnessed from waves and tides themselves, as well as temperature differences and salinity gradients,” he says with both eyebrows raised emphatically. Ed laughs, a sort of belly-deep, delighted giggle, his whole face crinkled with it.
“Yeah, yeah, of course. So the more you move, the more energy you draw from all the water flowing around the ship.”
Stede beams and nods. “That’s right. And as we happen to always be on the move, we get all the electricity we need.” He taps a finger against the words engraved on the fork. “Mobilis in mobili — it means ‘moving within a moving element’. It’s the motto of this vessel. Oh Ed, you should see the way turbines in the engine room are whirling when we catch the power of the storm — it’s spectacular. It’s amazing how much you can extract from the ocean without harming it. But I’m sure you’ll see everything yourself very soon, Ed, since you’re now part of the crew.”
He, probably, has said something wrong, because Ed’s face falls momentarily, his smile melting away from his face, his eyes acquiring a distant, melancholy look. Stede bites at his lip and mentally returns to what he’s said, thinking frantically of the ways to unwind it.
“Tell me, Stede,” Ed says softly, eyes firmly on his fork. “Am I your prisoner now?”
This single sentence makes Stede’s brain halt momentarily. A memory he hasn’t thought of in centuries pops into his head, so vivid he actually feels everything he felt back then just as keenly as if it’s happening right now.
*
The lights overhead are unnaturally white, and Stede doesn’t understand how they work no matter how long he looks at them. The room is big enough to let all five of them stretch out on the benches along the wall. The lights are two bulbs in the ceiling in the opposite corners of the room. They emit a steady light, like nothing he’s ever seen either from candles or the oil lamps he’s used to.
The lights keep bothering him, and the thought prevents him from sleeping for hours even as his crew finally manages to fall asleep. Just the four of them with him in this room, presumably the only survivors of the shipwreck. Stede doesn’t know the fate of the rest of them. He tries not to think too much about it, because it makes his eyes burn and prickle at the corners, salty tears trying to find a way out. He doesn’t need that: his skin is already taut with salt.
God, he’d kill for a bath right now. His skin is itchy with all the salt having dried off and crystallized in tiny particles, each of them perfectly visible in those goddamn unnatural white lights. His clothes are stiff, his fine silk waistcoat and jacket ruined. His stockings are torn and stained. He’s lost one shoe in the water, and he mourns it. It was the pair of his most comfortable shoes, and now one of them is lost forever, resting on the bottom of the ocean, just for fish to see it. Fish won’t appreciate the fine craftsmanship of his favourite shoe, that’s for sure.
His hair must be a total mess. Stede doesn’t want to think of his hair, afraid it’ll only add insult to injury. Just this morning he coiffed it, got it just perfect, the way it never seems to stay long at sea…
Or wait a minute, was it yesterday morning? Is it nightfall already?
Stede doesn’t know. The lights overhead shine mercilessly, unblinking, unchanging, eerie even.
He’s so tired; his whole body is aching as if all his joints have been turned inside out. No one tells you staying afloat and alive while your ship’s slowly sinking is such a physical activity. They should give some warning before letting one go to sea, shouldn’t they?
His eyelids grow impossibly heavy. The soft, rhythmical breathing of his crew facilitates it, slowly lulling him to sleep.
Stede lets his eyes fall shut. It’s just for a second, just to let them rest from those lights.
The Revenge is creaking and moaning while she’s slowly going down. Something crackles, like a spine getting broken, and her mainmast of Brazil’s finest cherry wood folds in half like it’s made of parchment. Someone yells, but it stops abruptly. Stede feels himself whimper, his lips quivering either from cold water or from barely held back tears.
Stede gasps and sits up abruptly, shaking off the remnants of sleep. His gut is churning unpleasantly; yet again, it might be hunger or all the seawater he’d gulped when his heavy clothes finally soaked through and started pulling him down, down, down, his beloved turquoise garments becoming his own death trap underwater.
“Cannae sleep, aye, Cap’n?” someone says in the eerie silence of the room, and Stede yelps in surprise. He’s forgotten he’s not alone in his quarters, but in one room with the remnants of his crew, on some vessel he’s not sure how they got on. Stede catches Mr. Buttons’s calm blue eyes, swallows, and tries to smile. He feels it comes out more like a grimace.
“Too many thoughts, I’m afraid.”
Buttons bangs his head against the metal wall — metal! It’s solid metal! — with a thud. “Aye. Willnae be long now.”
Stede frowns and opens his mouth to ask what he means when the only door in the room finally opens. They’ve been trying to open it for hours, all attempts pointless — the door’s absolutely smooth from the inside, no sign of a handle or hinges. Just a plain metal surface, cool to touch, absolutely sealed from all sides, not even a hair-width crack.
Roach immediately sits up, rubbing at his eyes, and elbows Olu, who’s blinking slowly. Wee John doesn’t get up at once. The poor man’s back has been in so much pain since they got here. Olu and Roach both take him by the hands, slowly pulling him up.
Stede gets up to move closer to the door. He barely makes two steps towards when someone blocks the passage.
This someone is tall, taller than anyone in the room, even Roach — their head is almost touching the upper part of the doorway. Their skin is bronze, glowing soft gold, but their eyes are blue, unnaturally so. There are odd lines on their face, thin and barely seen against their skin, but making up intricate patterns of smooth lines and soft curves, like a tattoo, but much more delicate. Their hair is black, their clothes dark, their hands clasped behind their back.
The newcomer is absolutely, decidedly not human, and for the first time since they woke up in this room Stede feels the wave of nauseating fear.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Wee John mumbles and crosses himself. Roach, wide-eyed, clumsily repeats the gesture and spits three times over his shoulder. Stede hears Olu swallow thickly.
The newcomer — can they be called a person? Nonsense, of course they can be called a person, they’re not that much different from Stede himself, or Olu, or Roach, or Wee John, or Buttons — looks at them in turns, their blue eyes cold and sharp, their head cocked to the side.
Buttons suddenly gets up from his bench and bows.
“Sea god,” he says with reverence, eyes cast downwards respectfully.
The person shakes their head. “No need for that,” they say in perfect English with a condescending gesture. Their voice is low and rumbling.
Buttons straightens and nods curtly.
Stede balls his fists decisively. Well, since they speak English, it’s time to get some long awaited answers.
“Excuse me,” he says, stepping up.
“No, Captain!”
“Get back, ye!”
“Don’t do anything stupid, Captain!”
Stede waves Roach, Wee John and Olu off. “Gentlemen, please, keep yourselves under control.”
The person’s attention is now fully on him, unblinking and eerie. Stede clears his throat and looks them directly in the eyes.
“Are you the Captain of this vessel?” The person nods, and Stede takes a deep breath. “Splendid. Because you’ve got to give us some answers now, since we’re finally done with waiting for your attention. Starting with, why on earth has your— your vessel attacked my ship? And why—”
“You’re Stede Bonnet, Captain of the Revenge, I assume,” the person interrupts him mid-word.
“Indeed I am,” Stede says, having now found his courage and not intending to stand back. “And I—”
“You will come with me, Captain Bonnet.”
Well, that’s enough.
“With all due respect — I will not,” Stede snaps. “I won’t leave my crew — or what’s left of it — here alone. We’ve been on your ship for hours now, and you haven’t even bothered checking on us. We’re hungry, exhausted, and one of my men is in terrible pain—” The person’s eyes leave Stede’s face to land on, presumably, Wee John behind his back. Stede steps to the side to block their view and catches their eyes again. He hears Wee John let out a long sigh. “And now you come here ready to demand something without giving us your name first, which I believe is not the way things are done.”
Apparently, the person finds this last phrase extremely hilarious, much to Stede’s dismay. They throw their head back, laughing heartily into the ceiling, their whole body shaking with it. Stede is lost for words, so he just keeps staring, open-mouthed, at them, feeling indignation boiling inside.
“I can’t believe it,” the person finally says, their voice full of mirth and something bitter. “You, humans, haven’t changed in the least. You want to know my name? I’m afraid it’s too complicated for your human ears, Captain Bonnet. You might call me Thallum, as this is the closest approximation of it you can pronounce.”
Stede swallows under Captain Thallum’s sudden glare.
“As for the rest of your complaints, Captain Bonnet, I admit my fault. I haven’t yet got used to the way things are in your world, and I might have seemed a surly host. I’ll personally make sure your people are fed, treated and transferred to better accommodations. You have my word. Will you accompany me now?”
Stede looks back at his crew, his companions. Roach, Olu and Wee John shake their heads vigorously and gesture, obviously trying to talk him out of it. Stede catches Mr. Buttons’ calm eyes. The man nods once, firmly, and Stede immediately understands — he doesn’t have any choice.
Stede looks away from them and straightens his once gorgeous, now ruined silk jacket.
“Lead the way, Captain Thallum.”
Their faces, when the door slides silently closed behind Stede, are lost and forlorn, and only Buttons keeps smiling in his typical mysterious way. Stede swallows once he’s alone with Captain Thallum in a narrow, brightly lit passage. Thallum gestures for him to go forward.
“Tell me one thing, Captain Thallum,” Stede says some time later, while they get down solid metal stairs. “Are we your prisoners now?”
Captain Thallum smiles, and it’s a cold smile which doesn’t quite reach his unnaturally blue eyes. “That, Mr. Bonnet, depends on whether I’ll find you and your men useful enough.”
*
“Stede, mate?” Ed calls him softly, and Stede starts and returns to here and now.
“No, Ed,” he says firmly, gripping his fork until his knuckles turn white. “You’re not a prisoner, and you will never be a prisoner while I’m the Captain here. You’re my guest.”
Ed tilts his head to the side and narrows his eyes. “That means I’m free to go wherever I want? I looked at your navigation instruments on that wall. They’re pretty outdated, but I’ve been at sea for almost thirty years now, so I know a thing or two about how to determine coordinates. And I certainly recognise some of those fish and corals, so I guess — and I’m ninety percent sure I’m right, Stede, so don’t try lying to me — we’re just off the west coast of Australia, going south-east, probably to go around the continent. Is that so?”
Stede throws one single look at all the instruments on the furthest wall of the drawing room — the same set of instruments as he has in his cabin, allowing him to know the exact location, speed, and depth of the Revenge, as well as the time of the day and any slightest changes in weather.
“Yes, Ed, you’re quite right. We’re going around Australia with a short stopover in one fascinating place I’d like to show you.”
“And, at some point, we’ll be passing the inhabited coast, right?” Ed says quickly. “And, say, if I asked you to drop me off at that coast, you’d do that, Stede, won’t you? As I’m your guest, not a prisoner, you told that yourself. A guest who, unlike a prisoner, has the right to leave your ship at any moment, is that so?”
Stede smiles sadly at him and shakes his head. “Oh, Ed. You still have to learn so many things about the Revenge.”
Ed licks his lips, eyes boring holes in Stede’s face. “What things? Tell me, mate, I’m all ears.”
Stede sighs and proceeds with his meal, his heart heavy. “Once you get aboard the Revenge, Ed,” he says slowly after he finished chewing his mouthful, “you can’t leave this vessel. This is why we glow — me and my crew. You see, we’re not ghosts of his ship. But we, its crew, and now you, also part of the crew, can never leave it. You don’t get old, you don’t get sick, you don’t die, but you simply can’t leave it, Ed. This is what we call here Thallum’s curse.”