come_sailaway | That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed

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That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed

CHARACTERS: Darcy, Skulduggery, Ava, Undine, and YOU?
DATE: Late May/Early June, post-pirate gathering but pre-shore excursion.
LOCATION: Various
SITUATION: Some swords, some levitation, some martial arts movies
WARNINGS: Will probably veer into the usual topics of death and associates

Does any one know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours? (Meta)

It’s been a productive couple of weeks since the party. The pirate get-together was mostly fine, with no singalongs, a fight narrowly avoided, and some interesting information gleaned from the captain. Lucius had delivered her a drawing of Undine as promised, which is sitting neatly in her notebook for safe-keeping. She had Kael’s martial arts movies now from the store for some reason. Considering she was still on an evil cruise ship, things were coming up Darcy.

Then her thoughts in meditation turned to Skulduggery’s powers, the air he manipulated seemingly almost without thinking. She mused on the sky, the still air atop the bridge, the span of the horizon and the imperceivable barrier keeping them stuck here. Discursive meditation was something she’d been introduced to back home by Terre Mère, the idea of turning your attention solely to something in order to understand it. It was usually boring and uncomfortable, but something kept her stuck on it this time.

When she returned to her cabin to brush her teeth and prepare for an evening patrol, the mirror presented her with a girl who looked like she’d been strangled to death. Face red, blood vessels in her eyes burst, and a thin angry scar that traced the circumference of her neck. After the initial panic, she recognized what it meant. The scar on her neck to go with the scar on her tongue from biting through it, the salt scars inside her lungs, and her broken heart from the pact she made. A new kind of hurt, and a new kind of power from it.

She tied the black ribbon Stede had given her around her throat to hide the scar, quietly thanked God that he hadn’t picked green, and set off to see what else she could do.

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound (Closed to Skulduggery)

It’s his turn to come across someone practicing on the pool, this time.

Levitation had been the first of her new powers she’d discovered, and she’d taken to it unsteadily, but by the time Skulduggery gets to her, she’s starting to get the hang of it. She traces spiralling fractals into the surface of the water, as if the pool beneath her were frozen and she were simply ice skating. There’s a grace to it that betrays her usual gruffness, the way she normally holds herself like a sledgehammer waiting to find a wall. It’s beautiful, and she’s… laughing to herself in delight as she showboats for nobody at all.

And every man knew, as the captain did too (OTA)

There’s a change in how Darcy trains, since the pirate meeting. She seems less angry while she’s working, less laser-like focus on it, as if her swordsmanship was the only thing between herself and death. She seems to be remembering the joy of it as she practices flourishes and moves her coaches definitely did not teach her. If anyone cares for a lesson, or a friendly bout, now’s a good time to approach her.

T'was the witch of November come stealin' (closed to Ava and Undine)

No time like the present to actually give Undine the present she’d asked Lucius to do. Which is why she’s totally not stalling by fixing up her outfit outside Undine’s door before they go get boba. She managed to brave the damn Tommy Bahama store long enough to find a nice black pair of jeans, so she’s not in sweatpants, paired with the button-up and turtleneck she was given for the party. Eventually after combing her hair for the third time since she got up this morning, she knocks on the door.

The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait (OTA)

Being in possession of Kael’s white boy martial arts movies meant one thing; Darcy had something to do with herself again. The USB made it complicated, she couldn’t exactly plug it into her phone, but Rin had suggested she use the screen at the adult pool. So, from after dinner until the wee hours of the morning one night, lacking anything else to do with herself, she set up a movie marathon. All the perennial favourites; Enter the Dragon, Hero, Rush Hour, Kung Fu Hustle, Five Deadly Venoms. She would probably kill you if you accused her of enjoying herself, but there’s an odd nostalgia to actually seeing the movies that Kael never shut up about. There’s plenty of seats, join her if you want.

When the gales of November came slashin'

(Wildcard, go nuts)

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"So... what, we made the Captain?"

Darcy huffed, pushing her hair back. It'd started getting floppy in the month or so since she arrived, she probably needed to pick up some bobby pins. And then work out how to use them.

"I hate that it makes sense. Like... if we were just all on the ship without someone to blame, we'd go fucking nuts. And I don't know, godhood is just vague and pointless enough that he can keep working towards it forever and it never matters that he doesn't make any progress on it. To keep up the appearance that this... means something."

"All of this is starting to sound awfully similar to something Max mentioned to me a few days ago..." He doesn't want to say it and potentially let the theory get away from them, but it bears repeating now. "He suggested that, theoretically, there could be something... bigger than the captain entirely. I don't know how to feel about it, but at this point, we ought to consider every angle.

"So, either the captain has been doing this for so long that it's become a hollow, meaningless routine, or he's doing this hollow, meaningless routine because something else needs appeasement. Or, the third option... He's an egotistical sorcerer who dug himself a hole and he's too proud to stop digging."

"Well, that second one is terrifying."

Better the devil they knew than some potentially larger, more frightening foe they had yet to encounter.

"I guess the question is, assuming one and three... how do we get him to stop? What can we offer him, that's better than godhood? Or how do we get him to give it up? He doesn't care about us. If he did, someone would've stopped him by now."

"No, he doesn't care about us." That much is true. He's fascinated and entertained by their antics, and certainly, he finds some of them more fun to poke than others, but it's all out of selfish desire. "But he does care about himself. And it's clear to me that it bothers him, not knowing who he really is. It would bother me, too. I wouldn't be able to rest until I rediscovered myself."

Which makes the solution clear, even if it's still an impossible feat. "Maybe, if he has to face up to who he actually is, he won't want to continue this way. If we're very lucky, maybe we could find whatever soul he was meant to have and force it back." He's been without one for far too long.

"Oh sure, that sounds easy. I'll just crack open the underworld for us and we'll go looking in the lost and found department for his soul."

A small affectionate eye-roll, but it's not like it was a dumb idea. The difficulty was going to be in actually finding it.

"Either that or Captain Bonnet suggested we hug him until he lets us go. Just in case we can't find his wallet and ID."

"My guess was Rumplestiltskin, so I'm afraid we're starting from the absolute bottom, here." Of course, that had been a joke. The suggestion that the captain's soul might've been stolen or sold off by his family had been just slightly less so.

He finds himself laughing and adding, "I suppose we were always circling back around to friendship being magic, weren't we? Although, I wouldn't recommend grabbing him. He... did not react well when I touched him the other night."

Why was he touching the captain? That's irrelevant. Who cares!

"Hey, it's a good as guess as anything. Maybe we just go down the list- Koschei the deathless, Bluebeard, the Devil, the Devil but again-" she chuckled, adding- "I read too many fucking fairy tales trying to work out the feather thing. The Devil shows up so much."

But that piqued her interest, and she squints at him.

"Why were you manhandling the Captain?"

"Why does everyone insist on using the worst possible descriptors?" Seriously, it was hardly a manhandle. It was barely even a grip!

He cannot possibly dodge the question without turning the conversation toward the first part of his talk with the captain. That doesn't mean he won't try, of course. "There wasn't a reason for it. I sat in front of him because I'm taller than him and it would be funny, he poked me in the neck, I grabbed his hand --" Ugh, "For a moment, and he... didn't react the way I would have expected."

There had been a lot less bone-breaking than he'd anticipated, for one thing.

"Because it's funny, obviously."

All of it seemed in line with Darcy's experience with the Captain; disliked people in his personal space, liable to annoy.

"How did he react?"

"He froze up. It was immediate; his expression dropped, his body tensed..." He lifts his hand, contemplating it briefly. "His skin was buzzing like an engine casing." He hums thoughtfully and drops his hand back down. "I think the only thing that was more surprising than that was when he asked to be let go. Surprisingly courteous, given he could have just taken my hand."

"He seems big into manners. But... it's weird that he let you touch him, right? Although- maybe he can only do that with weapons, or something that isn't us, since I could punch him without phasing through him. We should experiment, it'd be a good use of those gauntlets, see if just the outside would go through and not your hands inside them."

"You aren't going to --" Go punching the captain, is what Skulduggery is about to say, before the words are abruptly taken from him. For a brief moment, his usual stillness goes unusually rigid, and the dull ache returns to the back of his head. It's fine, of course. Just the remnants of some long-forgotten stress. He can deal with it. It's fine.

His voice is calm but strangely clipped after just a second or two long pause. "What are you talking about?"

"The... gauntlets, that were in your drawer with the lei and your guns."

Well, she's never seen him do that before, and in true teenage 'got busted in the liquor cabinet' style, she's got a running stream of excuses before she can consider that excuses might get her deeper in the shit.

"I- I was showing Lucius the lei, because I figured he'd know if it was like, a pirate superstition, I didn't touch them or anything, and I figured it was okay because you already showed me inside the drawer?"

Darcy's seen Skulduggery mad once, and she really doesn't want a repeat of the party, ensuing fight and all.

"You --"

The sentence gets strangled before he can even form it. He grips the chair like he might stand. Does he want to stand? Can he even do that now, his body locked into place like it is? If he stands, what next? What will he do, what is he going to do?

Darcy knows about the gauntlets. She knows about them, and she'll pry and needle until some form of the truth comes out. Lucius, he won't ask, he won't care, even if he does he'll accept any answer as the truth, but Darcy won't. And the more he has to think about it, the more likely the captain will get exactly what he wants out of Lord Vile. All of this, and Valkyrie doesn't even know yet.

He's standing, his body moving before he can think, rising in one quick movement to his feet. "You figured wrong. He has his own goddamn lei, Darcy, you didn't need to go digging around in my belongings."

She knows she's fucked up. This isn't 'not angry, disappointed', this is angry. She retreats into herself, keeping wary eyes on Skulduggery as she folds her arms defensively. Instinct says to go invisible, to let his anger cool off, but there's every chance that it won't, and her avoidance will just escalate the situation.

"I wasn't digging, honestly, I showed him the lei and then I shut it again- I was trying to show him without needing to say the name of it in case he heard us, but I guess we're just saying it now,"

But clearly there's something up with the gauntlets, if he's so defensive about them.

"I'm sorry, okay? I didn't think it was a big deal, I won't go near them again. I don't even know why you're so upset."

He has to calm down. He has to calm down -- but the anger swells past reason, past common sense. He's going to make a scene that will only make her more determined to know what he's hiding, unless he somehow finds that knife's edge of calm once again.

"I have one spot on the entire ship I'm meant to trust to be secure, and you wonder why I'm upset." He can't help the hard, mean edge to his voice. Doesn't, frankly, want to. He's too distracted by the thought that he has no choice but to throw the things into the ocean and hope they don't come back.

"Yes, because you didn't say you didn't want me in it," she snaps back. Because she really did think she was an exception, that the secrecy he exercised around others didn't extend to her. It's the wrong time to be hurt but Darcy's timing has never been good, and the tight circle she's hugging herself with only stokes this anger. She was trying to help him, why wasn't he seeing that?

"Well, like I said, I'm fucking sorry, I saw them and you're mad, what do you want me to do? Un-see them? I can't do that. What do you want me to do?"

Her apologies on serve to remind Skulduggery that this anger of his has been seething ever since the package arrived for him at the sundries shop. He's been tense and distracted in equal turn, trying to avoid the same impulsive anger that sentenced him to a watery grave.

"I don't want you to do anything," he snaps, biting off more angry words before they can form. He desperately needs to be calm, but how is he supposed to manage that when he feels like he's frantically on the defense? "I would have liked my privacy to be respected, but that's apparently out of the question. As if there's any possibility of privacy on this damn ship."

How can the captain know nothing about himself and still know so much about all of them? And how could Skulduggery let the bastard get under his skin with a lifeless piece of armor and one simple comment? How has he still not learned to keep his anger in check?

The tension and anger here isn't being defused by her apology, but neither is it heightening, forcing one of them to say something they'll regret. Darcy feels caught between staying and leaving, and even since getting a better handle on her abilities here, she feels the prickle of Stillness at her extremities. All of this would be so much easier if she hid away and stayed silent and did nothing. Then Skulduggery wouldn't be mad at her, and the tangled feeling of her own anger and hurt mingling with knowing she'd disappointed him would abate.

"You showed me what was in the drawer," she states again, circling back to facts, her voice low and tense, "what is it about these fucking gauntlets anyway?"

Darcy's going to needle and prod until she gets an answer or he snaps, and the jury's out on which she thinks will come first.

Shut up, he wants to shout. He never wants to hear her speak of them again, wants to pretend she hadn't brought it up at all. He wants it to be nothing more than his bruised pride and compromised privacy.

"There's nothing about them," he says, which is a half-truth that doesn't cover what's unspoken. "It's -- personal, and it has nothing to do with you, and I wasn't planning on acknowledging the captain's meaningless taunt until you brought it up."

"Really, it's so meaningless that it's gotten you this mad. Is that why you ended up touching him? Because he taunted you with them?"

It's insulting, the idea that anything is truly personal aboard this ship. Like she hadn't already been forced to spill about her deepest secrets already, like the people here didn't have ways of getting in everyone's business and extracting shit from them like pulling teeth. Worse that he was so clearly lying to her face and expecting her to believe that something that made him this touchy was meaningless. Skulduggery, who had joked about death as easily as some joked about laundry and taxes, so flippant and even-keeled with even her worst tales of horror from her life. Darcy knew him better than that. Or she thought she did, anyway.

"Would you just fucking talk to me?! I can't help if I don't know what's wrong," she says to Avery, here and back in that moment, "does the Captain have something on you to do with the gauntlets? Is this blackmail? Was it a bargain with him? What? What's going on?"

"You can't help, period." He grinds the words out; even coming this close to addressing the truth feels like pulling teeth. No. It feels like taking a punch to the back of the head. But there's nothing to be done. The gauntlets hold no power, and likely never will. Their only purpose is to be a painful reminder of things he'd buried long ago, things he's been working to repent over.

"There is nothing to talk about. It --" He shifts abruptly, as if he might run, but his feet remain planted at the last second. "It is an upsetting reminder of a dark time, and quite frankly, Darcy, I haven't even told Valkyrie about it. I'm not --" Ready to tell, "-- able to tell you."

For a moment, she's going to fight harder. Press further, make damn certain she wasn't going to lose another friend to his darkness. But then the name Valkyrie re-emerges, and the ice under her feet cracks, plunging her into cold, cold anger. Of course. Of course, he hasn't even told Valkyrie yet, why would he tell her? The replacement. The person who's only here at his side because she wasn't dragged along with him. Reality dawns on her sharp as the steel on her belt. They were two virtual strangers who just happened to be stuck in the same hell. It meant nothing. He wasn't a ghost in need of a solution to his issue. He was just a person. They owed each other nothing.

"Fine."

Her voice is more choked than she anticipated, and she lets the Stillness wash over her, removing herself from his sight. She walks herself to the other side of the pool and sits on one of the deck chairs, waiting for him to leave so she can put herself back under the water again.

He knows immediately by the sound of her voice that he well and truly messed up, and it's confirmed when she disappears from sight. But what else could he do? He can't even deny she took it the wrong way because she hadn't, had she? He'd meant it exactly as he'd said it -- he can't tell a stranger from another reality something he's been carrying in secret for hundreds of years. He can't bear the thought of saying the words aloud.

The more pathetic truth is that he's been happy to pretend none of it mattered. Nobody here knew about the War, or Mevolent, or Lord Vile. They don't know about the Death Bringer, or the Faceless Ones, and they don't even care! Now comes the possibility that they might find out, that they will find out, and he finds himself desperate to avoid ruining the fantasy. Because as soon as Darcy knows, as soon as everybody knows...

Stupid. Short-sighted and stupid.

He has no idea where Darcy's gone to. She might not have even left. His paranoia dictates that she's probably watching, waiting for him to let something slip to indicate the truth he's not ready to own up to. He clenches his fists against the thought and loses track of how long he stands there, unmoving until his anger breaks or subsides. In the end, it's a rough break, as he throws an irritated arm wide and scatters the row of chairs next to him with a sharp, angry gust of air.

It doesn't help. Nor will running away, but Skulduggery gives it a shot nonetheless.

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That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed

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