Work Text:
Edward walked with long un-careful strides through the thick of the woods, lantern in hand. The stretch of time between landing on the shores of Barbados and now were lost to him, nothing but a blinding light in the inky darkness that blurred and shook despite himself. It wasn’t until he reached his destination did Ed realize he’d been using the branches to steady himself, stumbling head first into the cool air as his aid was abruptly taken. As he fell the fire swung dangerously close. The flash of orange burned bright in his vision before melting to softer shapes he was sure he deserved to forget.
“Careful of your face-“
“YES!! *SHHHH- shut up shut up!* oh shit- shit!- *yeeess!!* *we fucking did it!!*”
The trees shouted whispers of triumph as the light beamed in the dark and lifted its arms to reciprocate some long forgotten affection. He saw again how Stede looked dressed in his clothes, half way holding his guts in place with the dust of death’s door still on his boot: clean and bright and growing. Ed’s fingernails dug into the ink of his crossed arms as he remembered how he couldn’t contain the urge to hold this precious thing, to shake it like a pearl homesick for the crashing waves of its ocean as his heart swelled. After all, he was going to live.
Ed simply stood still at the edge of the woods for a moment before emerging from the memory like summer warmed seas, limbs heavy, eyes stinging. He tried in vain to wipe away a hellish mixture of salt and kohl with his sleeve, and somehow the childishness of this placed him back in his body again for the first time in weeks. He returned to it like a widow entered her own locked bedroom.
All he could do was move forward.
The graveyard was bigger than he’d expected, most likely because Stede’s home was smaller than expected. When they sat together in the rig, dangling their feet over the wine dark sea talking for hours into the night, he’d made it seem colossal. Ed would listen as his friend’s chipper tone grew somber, continuing then like a long confession. Afterwards Stede would take a breath, smile almost apologetically, and announce quietly that it’s getting late with relief in his voice. It was good to admit how even the silence would swallow him whole back home. Edward remembered how in those moments all he wanted to do was make his world small, snug enough to fit in the marmalade jar they’d just finished off.
He walked past dozens of stones, some ornate affaires sporting full body angels, others a barely marked slab of grey earth. The sky sported only its stars tonight, the warm glow of Ed’s lantern dancing uninterrupted on the graves as he moved. It occurred to him suddenly he wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking for, having an almost desperate resolve in his stomach that he’d “know it when he sees it.” But after several minutes of increasingly pointed examining, nothing stood out
Footsteps quickening, his heart seemed to pound and sink all at once. He swung the lantern more and more recklessly, scribbling the air as he began illuminating every dark shape his searching eyes could catch, longing for anything of meaning. Out of all the frankly pretentious statues, there were none of him. No lighthouses, or even the rock piles they’d sit on, no endearingly ridiculous ships with only half a set of sails, no oranges, marmalade, tea-no food at all. Nothing warm, nothing worth adoring. He wondered for a moment if any of these dead could be loved at all with such infuriatingly cold, unoriginal, and stupid objects adorning them.
Hot tears sprung annoyingly to his still ore caked eyes before he abruptly stopped and dropped his arm, angry and stuck. The lantern clanged unceremoniously. He wanted to not be himself again, he hated how badly it ached. Ed winced as he dropped to his knees and picked whatever stone happened to be in front of him for a last ditch resort. His breath stilled as he stared hard at the letters, trying as hard as humanly possible to form a mental image of Stede’s signature. But both the lilting cursive and blunt print continued to allude him. He shifted frenziedly to another, then another, giving up quicker and quicker with each before finally just standing up and breaking that damned boundless silence.
“Fuck… FUCK!” Ed shouted, burying his head in his hands and turning the cracks in his voice to sharp cliff sides. If he couldn’t leave his own heart behind in the grass like he wanted, he could at least scream away the lump in his throat while he had the luxury of being alone. A guttural sound rushed from him for its own sake before making demands to the dark. The ink down his face a poor imitation of the Kraken he tried to crawl back into.
“FUCKING SHIT FUCK- WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!!”
And just like that… this explosion dried to smoke and everything stopped. Edward stilled with the nature of a Jack rabbit as even the wind fell mute. There, pressed somewhat shakily into the small of his back, was the point of a knife.
He wasn’t surprised by the sudden threat of attack. After all, he’d come to expect it like he expected his bones to hold up his body. At worst his preparedness was only unnecessary, a sword readied awkwardly against a pile of fallen pots, but it was a small price to pay for rarely again being caught unawares. He had to ignore a great deal of detail for this narrative to work, but Ed was doing quite a lot of that now a days. He was, however, surprised when he whirled around to gain the upper hand… and found himself holding the wrist of a ten year old girl. The child drew a sharp breath and froze, determination mixed with panic in her wide eyes as she clutched a parring knife tighter still. For a moment Edward felt sick, thinking of how easily he could’ve decided to combat the attacker instead of merely disarming them. She may as well’ve been alive because of a coin toss.
Moments later Ed released her, processing now that she was clearly never the threat in this equation. “I’m not gonna hurt you. There’s no need to hurt me.” He said, calmly and simply. As a show of truce he sat on the ground with his legs crossed, allowing the girl to loom in safety above him. This seemed to dissipate her reluctance to disengage, and she slowly lowered her makeshift weapon.
“Then why were you yelling?” She asked with the accusatory manner befitting of someone who’s been frightened for no reason, but the genuine curiosity mixed in suggested this may just be the way she talks. Ed looked straight ahead, unsure how to answer her. Eventually the child sat on the ground beside him with a deep sigh. Something about her almost… concerned Ed. She carried herself like someone wanting badly to be an adult, like life had already aged her and the benefits of such things at least were owed. That kind of anger and confusion stung you right back and left a mark. Edward saw that more than ever when she drew her knees close, her smallness at odds with the strange shadows the yellow light drew on her face. The night being profoundly dark, he could only imagine what his own must look like to her. They sat together like that for a moment, nothing but two odd fractals cast on a large gravestone Ed wished to read, and Alma Bonnet wished she couldn’t see.
After a while she finally spoke.
“I’m sorry I almost stabbed you. I’m always alone when I come here.” She reached out to touch the slab of rock in front of her, tracing the letters idly with one small finger before mumbling to the ground. “Mm sorry ‘bout whoever you lost.”
Something about the gesture softened Ed beyond his control. More and more the safety of legend melted away till he was nothing more than someone who just wanted badly to see a loved one again. A familiar pain entered his chest, and a warning ran rampant in his ears, but somehow he wanted to fight for this right. The right to be a ridiculously dressed middle aged man sitting on the ground blinking back tears instead of smoke.
“Thanks” he said quietly, turning away to wipe his eyes and seeing the heel of his gloved hand suddenly glisten with kohl. Something about this scared him and he collected himself quickly, unwilling to break the shield completely.
“Who’s is that?” Ed deflected, nodding towards her own stone. The girl cast a puzzled glance towards him. “Don’t know how read.” He explained. She gave a light nod and dropped her tracing arm unceremoniously, her answer coming out just as blunt. “My father’s.”
Now she really had Edward’s attention. His eyes widened for a moment and he suddenly felt awkward, which he knew was silly. “Why else would a child be lingering around a graveyard?” He thought, as Alma rubbed one eye in a way that told him she still had a bed time. “Not for her health, that’s for sure.”
Ed was unsure what possessed him to pry further. Perhaps it was simply to keep the conversation going, or maybe he’d wished someone extended the same invitation to him as a rope burned boy filling his lungs with heaping gasps of sea salt air. But he did nonetheless. “You can… you can talk about him if you’d like-“
“He was fine I guess. Who are you here to see? What were they like? If it’s painful to talk about tell me about something else. Tell me about anything.”
The girl spoke as if she was reciting difficult sums and becoming irked with herself with each imperfection, furrowing her brow and concentrating straight ahead on her father’s name. The questions came quick, disarming, clearly a cruder trick of the trade in terms of diversion. And yet, despite how he succeeded in deceiving the world and himself, Edward sensed there’d be no fooling this one tired child. He closed his eyes and took a small but slow breath, the kind that felt like a settling house. Orange light danced and burned behind his shut eyelids as he struggled to find a truthful response. When he opened his eyes again they were damp. “My friend.” He whispered, feeling compelled to give it the reverence their language lacked. “Someone very dear to me.”
The girl tilted her head which was still resting on hugged knees and glanced at him curiously. Ed peered out from under his curtaining hair to look back, maybe even check if she was still there. It was the first time he’d looked at her, really looked at her. She said nothing, her raised eyebrows prompting him to continue. He realized then, with almost a sense of alarm, that he’d seen that face before. It’s as if it were the same artwork done by a different painter, in different periods. Ed’s breath caught in his throat and it was then and there he had a suspicion, but didn’t dare let himself believe it. Nonetheless, any bitterness that could’ve remained in the face of never seeing him again was shucked away like the rind of sweet fruit.
Edward angled himself towards the girl and smiled warmly as she sat crisscross and settled her chin on cupped hands in response. The fire flickered homily between them the same as it had on the revenge, when he relayed legends to his crew. Later one of those nights, Stede was anxious his children may think lowly of him, that they’d be right to do so. He admitted he wished he could tell them one more bed time story, that he had told many at all when he had the chance.
Ed would sit on a barrel, his eyes wide and mischievous as he spun tales of monsters and world weathered lore, weaving it all out in the air with his hands. He’d glance down frequently just to see one enthralled face by his side, and that was all that Ed needed. He remembered this simple pleasure, how he was allowed to think small.
Alma blinked slowly then twitched her head, fighting the sleepy glow in the summer night. Edward thought of Stede’s worry, and how it just wouldn’t do. He began, and resolved to try once again loving some littler things.
“Have you ever heard… of the gentleman pirate?”