dazing in the dark

JACK

It has started to snow again by the time they return to The Ark, though with the sky a solid slab of darkness overhead, it's difficult to tell whether they are in for a blizzard or a mere sprinkling of fresh cold. Jack has no intention of lingering out in it regardless, his footsteps quick and decisive as they leave the magical signpost and weave through the Castaway Exchange towards the galleon's blacker-than-black silhouette. "I figured Bassian'd stay," he's saying as they approach the gangplank. "Gonna be placin' bets as to whether I need to replace him come sun-up."

He wouldn't put it past the big man to freeze to death under the banner of fun, but given that some of his crew are heading back to sleep - and more yet are heading out to New Haven - he's sure someone will be around to keep an eye. It won't be Jack, though.

"Let me know if you have an insatiable urge to be social again." He smirks over his shoulder as he steps aboard, turning to hold a hand out should she want it. The ice that had started to form on the ship's lacquered boards is already beginning to thaw and disappear, banished by the Captain himself, and though it will be tiring work, the same treatment will follow everywhere he goes above deck.

no more than I was or than I want to be
when you fall on me like night, I wanna kill the lights

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

her fight and fury's fiery, oh but she loves like sleep to the freezing

The Ark laughs softly under her breath as they cut through the snow, the sound quiet beneath the wind and the muffled crunch of their steps. "If he does manage to make it back, I imagine the story he tells will be as tall as he is." There’s no real concern in her voice, only the expectation that the sailor will either return with all his limbs attached and a heroic account of his own endurance, or require someone to haul him out of a snowbank before morning. Perhaps both.

The cold has worked its way into her more deeply than she’s let on; it has turned the water of her thoughts choppy and close, her human body stiff beneath its layers while the larger part of her waits in the dock with frost worrying at her boards, her rigging, the dark curve of her hull. She hasn’t complained, of course, and when Jack looks back at her over his shoulder she only gives him a crooked smile and reaches to take the hand he offers, letting him guide her aboard as though the quickness of her step has nothing to do with the warmth waiting belowdecks.

Still, she feels him as he moves across her deck, feels the ice surrender beneath the touch of his magic, the small cruel grip of it loosening from lacquered wood and railings and rope. Appreciation runs through her in a warm, tidal current, and though she doesn't speak it out loud, her fingers tighten briefly around his before she lets him go. Jack knows better than anyone what the cold does to her, knows where frost can settle and turn dangerous, and that he busies himself with easing the snow from her before himself has her quietly grateful.

With a small shrug beneath her coat, The Ark tips her head back towards the darkness beyond the gangplank, where distant light from New Haven barely catches against the falling snow. "It’s strange," she says, already moving towards his cabin and the warmth within, "to see everyone acting as though all the LongNight activities are so quaint when they could’ve been enjoying themselves in exactly the same way while the sun was up."

sweet and right and merciful, all but washed in the tide of her breathing

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

JACK

"As tall as he is an' just as dumb," Jack agrees of the tale with a scoff of laughter that might be mistaken for fond to those who know him well. His fingers close around The Ark's with an ease that can't be found anywhere else in his life, the cold continuing to wick from sails and deck and rigging as they head for his cabin. He can't reach all the way across the ship within his range of magic, but he strips the bite of Deepfrost away wherever he can, reaching out to unlock his cabin door with his free hand before stepping aside for the redhead to enter first.

With her thoughts still choppy and half-frozen he doesn't try for anything more than small-talk, but as he follows her into the cabin he's already condensing his magic within it to take the chill from the air, to warm the space to something comfortable and lived-in and to ease the ice from her mind. "Some things seem more quaint when it's dark," he says with a shrug. "Especially if there's a lot of shit that can't be done without the sun. Ain't gonna be seein' many fishin' boats or skyships."

Not with the risk of collision out in the black of the sky or sea.

"Why, did you want to go sleddin'? You should've said, love," Jack drawls, smirking.

no more than I was or than I want to be
when you fall on me like night, I wanna kill the lights

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

her fight and fury's fiery, oh but she loves like sleep to the freezing

The Ark laughs with him, low and fond. Despite how she scolded Bassian for stomping too hard across her deck or spilling something sticky over her boards because he’s too far into his cups to find his mouth properly, the irritation never runs deep. The crew are hers in an old, uncomplicated way, held close beneath the curve of her care whether they’re graceful or reckless or too stubborn to know when they ought to come in from the cold.

She rolls one shoulder as she steps into the cabin, as though the stiffness running through her might be shaken loose as easily as a chill caught beneath cloth, though there’s a larger ache below it that belongs to black water and a hull held too long beneath ice. The warmth Jack draws into the room begins to work through her almost at once, loosening the close, brittle pressure of the cold from the air and from the tide of her mind, and she gives no more sign of how keenly she’s wanted it than the unhurried way she shrugs out of her thick coat; beneath it, she’s wearing one of Jack’s shirts over fitted leather pants.

Sinking down at his desk, her fingers find the rolling papers and pouch of tobacco, beginning the quiet work of arranging both between her hands as she turns a dry look over her shoulder at him. "How did you know?" she asks, all false surprise and lazy amusement. "It’s like you read my mind." Amusement aside, as the thought of it forms behind her eyes, she shudders lightly and returns her attention to the cigarette taking shape between her fingers, the motion careful despite the lingering stiffness in them. "We’re already going to need to do a few repairs to my hull from all this ice before we start our runs to Hak Etme," she says, smoothing the tobacco into place and rolling the paper shut with a practiced pass of her thumb. "The last thing we need is to add broken bones."

sweet and right and merciful, all but washed in the tide of her breathing

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

JACK

"Lucky guess," Jack drawls, grinning and accepting the coat she shrugs out of as though it's a dance they're both performing. He slings both of their garments onto a hook against the wall, tugging off his gloves to stuff them in a pocket as well. The amusement lingers on his face as he heads for the desk where she's sitting, the Captain perching on the edge of it and reaching out a hand ready for when she's done rolling her cigarette. The teardrop flame that sits suspended above his fingertips is only small, innocuous and contained, but it adds to the warmth building in the room all the same.

His brow furrows, though, at the prospect of repairs, Jack humming quiet agreement; it isn't the first time and it won't be the last, but with the lady herself here to comment on it now it feels all the more personal, like an oversight on his part. He isn't a fan of oversights.

"Maybe this time next year we'll spend Longnight in the Spillwave," he suggests with a raise of an eyebrow. If their runs up and down from Hak Etme prove profitable, he can't see why they wouldn't protect her from the snow and ice. "Or Torchline," he adds, head tilting a fraction as if to test those waters too. "I know you prefer her waves to anywhere else."

no more than I was or than I want to be
when you fall on me like night, I wanna kill the lights

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

her fight and fury's fiery, oh but she loves like sleep to the freezing

They move around one another with the ease of long practice, Captain and vessel finding the spaces the other leaves without needing to look for them. Whatever old wariness lives in The Ark around flame has no purchase here; the little teardrop above Jack’s fingers is his, shaped and held and made harmless by the same hands she put her faith in every day. She places the cigarette between her lips and leans forward without hesitation, letting its end catch before she draws back again, the first pull of smoke settling warmly through her chest and easing her shoulders down another fraction.

When she offers the cigarette up to him, it’s done without ceremony, a familiar sharing more than an invitation. Her gaze stays on him, though, blue and knowing beneath the loosened spill of red hair, because she can feel the unease in the small furrow of his brow without the need to read his thoughts. Repairs aren’t new. Ice, damaged boards, the tedious work of keeping her seaworthy through weather that wants to take pieces from her—none of it is new. But she knows how he takes every imperfection personally, how quickly practical work can become a private failure in the quiet storm behind his eyes.

Boring as the Spillwave was, it was warm, and the Ark's smile grows crooked as smoke slips between her lips. "I’ll bet you right now that Bassian comes out of LongNight with a story about wrestling a landshark, if we go." Meaning of Torchline changes something subtler in her, with the Ark raising a brow, her head tipping just enough that red curls spill over one shoulder, and for a quiet moment she only regards Jack. She knows he’d berth her there in an instant if she asked it of him, old ghosts and old grudges be damned, because that is the shape of his devotion: not loud, not clean, but absolute where it counts. But neither of them has ever demanded a course of the other simply because they could. Their wants have always had to be worth the cost to them both.

"We could," she says casually, though the words rest softer than they sound, before tilting her head again and fixing him with that steady blue stare. "Unless, of course, you were planning on making an honest ship out of me with all these transport contracts you’ve picked up recently." The curve of her mouth is almost teasing, but the offer beneath it is real enough: if the business in Hak Etme was lucrative enough to turn him honest, at least for a time, she'd be right there with him.

sweet and right and merciful, all but washed in the tide of her breathing

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3