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

JACK

Jack snuffs out the flame with the same fingertips he uses to accept the cigarette, lifting it to his lips to draw the smoke deeply into his lungs. His head tips back a fraction so as to direct his exhale into the air rather than at her, and he passes it back with a scoff under his breath. "If we go," he agrees, "it might not even be a tall tale, knowin' his luck. Hak Etme's no King's End or Torchline - there'll be more'n enough wild out there still by the time next Deepfrost comes."

Leaving her at the desk, he rolls back to his feet to prop a boot on a nearby trunk to start unlacing it, glancing over his shoulder with a raised brow as the shape of her unless forms in her mind before it ever leaves her lips. As a telepath, Jack does not often find himself surprised, but the idea of riding the straight and narrow, even if only for a little, has a bark of laughter punching out of him. He straightens, grinning and raising his eyebrows at her as if to ask what his reputation has done to deserve such a sudden kicking.

"No business is enough to turn me honest, love," he drawls. "But if you want me to make an honest ship outta you, I could prob'ly arrange that." Finishing with his boot and following with the other, Jack sets them down beside the trunk and returns to the desk, leaning his elbows on it and nodding at his stack of correspondence. "The transport contracts are to fill a gap left by a ledger I was waitin' on," he says. "Buried it in the Fingers over a year ago - it's got the location of some caches of goods that were too hot to handle until enough time passed."

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 sound of Jack’s laughter warms the waters of The Ark’s mind further still, the choppy drag left by the cold easing into something darker and more languid as she grins up at him, jackal-sharp and entirely pleased. She draws deeply on the cigarette when it comes back to her, holding the smoke for a moment before letting it leave in a slow whorl that twists into the fire-red spill of her hair and vanishes there. "Well, that wouldn’t be much fun for either of us," she says, easy as a shrug, though the look she gives him makes plain that an honest ship paired with a captain who refuses the same would leave nothing between them worth crossing. Just a broad, dull spill of water, flat enough to rot on.

As he moves back to the desk and leans against it, she shifts in his chair, brushing a few pieces of correspondence aside to glance at what lies beneath. "All I was saying," she continues, glancing up through the fall of her curls, "was that if these were the sorts of contracts you wanted to take more often, I wouldn’t fight you on it."  She can carry crates as readily as contraband, can let Hak Etme make them respectable for a while if that is what he wants from the shape of their future. He was immortal after all, it wasn't so surprising to expect periods of relative peace from him.

But then her expression goes casual in a way that doesn’t quite reach the deepening dark of her thoughts, the sea of them growing still and expectant beneath the surface. She taps ash into the tray beside the papers, blue eyes staying on Jack’s. "But," she says, soft enough to make the word feel like a hook sliding beneath the water, "if you did want something else other than hauling cargo crates across the continent in the meantime, I might have an idea."

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

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

JACK

"Then I guess we'll just have keep goin' on our dishonest way with each other, won't we?" Jack says with a wolfish smile. "Though you do make a good point. It's easy sailin', the work up an' down to Hak Etme. But it's also likely to be a much more rough'n tumble region than the likes of here or Halo. Wouldn't be a bad thing, for people to think we're runnin' straight for a bit." While they use the cover to make even more lucrative deals under the table, he means.

But it seems he's not the only one with ideas, and the Captain tilts his head to listen readily to whatever his ship has to say on the matter. He feels the way her mind grows still and deep and dark, and he's sure whatever rises to the surface will come with the potential to grow teeth. "Don't leave me in suspense, love," he drawls, reaching for the cigarette again and giving over the proverbial floor.

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

"What do you make of Colt so far as a leader?" The Ark asks it lightly enough, though her brow lifts as she turns the question over between them. Her mind supplies the pieces without invitation: the goats the rancher had tried to bring aboard, all startled hooves and poor sense on Colt's part; the strange crate of hobby horses; and Vesper, whose footsteps had grown heavier and heavier across her boards the more time he’d spent in Colt’s orbit. None of it is proof of anything on its own, perhaps, but together it leaves an unpleasant shape in the water.

She passes the cigarette over with a smirk that shows a hint of white teeth. "As if I ever could," she says before pulling in a breath. The waters of her mind grow cold then, unusually so, not turbulent but glassy and frigid beneath the surface, at odds with the warmth she usually guards so closely. "Unless your reports are wrong...I haven’t seen much mageglass coming out of the Eurybia." Her oceanic gaze falls pointedly on Jack, holding his for a moment before she continues. "The waters around the Crag are rough. It might be that regular ships can’t get close enough to anchor, much less get their crews onto the island."

Reaching for another rolling paper and the pouch of tobacco, she begins to arrange the next cigarette between practiced fingers, her expression almost idle despite the anticipation gathering beneath it. "But it’d be easy for me to anchor above the island," she says. "And maybe easier still for... oh, I don’t know. A small crew of you, whoever needs a KQ that new thief of yours, and maybe one of the girls to get in and out before anyone even notices you’re there?" Whether Jack would keep the mageglass or take advantage of its rarity and sell it for an exorbitant amount, both had their merits of course, the choice of which would largely depend on whether the Captain wanted to keep pretending at honesty a while longer while the waters were still smooth, or to get back to his roots and make waves.

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

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

JACK

"Ain't seen enough of it to say for sure," Jack says simply, straightening up to perch on the edge of the desk opposite where she sits, placing the cigarette back between his lips. "It was smart, tryin' to involve us in movin' Dreamdust early on," he considers. "But it was dumb as fuck to abandon the region two seconds after claimin' it, all 'cause of a little darkness." And in between, the port under construction at the Spillwave had seemed serviceable but in its infancy; all much of a muchness to the Captain. That aside, her leadership is separate to the role she plays in Vesper's life, so Jack leaves it that way for now. "Why?"

The Eurybia has his eyebrows raising as he reaches out to tap more ash into the tray, Jack not having expected The Ark to entertain the thought of Caido's chilliest ocean a second after talking about desert leadership. "If my reports are wrong, their sources don't know they're wrong," he says; the information he receives is truthful, but of course that doesn't make it correct.

He's quiet in the wake of her suggestion, rising the surf in her mind as if trying to decide where it might lead and what he might do with it. "Long trip for one piece of mageglass," he says slowly. "...But I've made longer trips for less." A smirk kicks up the side of his mouth. "Why the fuck not? Ain't like anyone else is goin' there."

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 listens without interrupting, the stillness in her holding save for the small movements of her hands as she finishes the cigarette between her fingers. When it’s rolled, she lifts it towards Jack without looking away from him, expecting the flame with the same quiet certainty she'd taken his hand when coming aboard. "I’ve heard the crew talk about her," she says with a light shrug once the end catches, drawing the cigarette back to her mouth for a slow drag. Smoke gathers between them before she lets it drift out again, pale against the warmer dark of the cabin. "The general consensus seems to be that she’s got grit and a good head on her shoulders, but her temper and her emotions get the better of her more often than not." Her mouth curves faintly around the thought, not unkindly, though there’s nothing particularly charitable in it either. "I was just trying to get a read on how long I ought to expect all this to last before she does something that isn’t worth sticking around for."

It isn’t quite a question, and it isn’t only about Dreamdust or ports or the thin beginnings of a region that might yet grow into something solid. Still, she doesn’t linger over it, her gaze dropping briefly to the papers spread across the desk before returning to him through her lashes. "If we’re biding time until that ledger resurfaces, I’d rather spend it doing something." The words are casual, but the dark water of her mind has begun to move again beneath them, not restless exactly, but eager for a current with purpose. She isn’t some luxury vessel made to sit prettily at anchor while the world passes by; isn’t a yacht meant for calm harbours and idle afternoons with nowhere to be. Gods knew there had been enough of that lately, enough waiting in docks and watching routes become routine, when there were still places in the world no one else could reach and things worth taking from them once they did. 

Then she rises from the chair and moves into the space between Jack’s knees, close enough that the heat of him reaches her through the loosened fabric of his shirt. It slips from one shoulder as she shifts her weight, red hair falling forward with it, though there’s none of the practiced pull of a siren in the way she looks at him now. The Ark peers at him as something older and stronger than seduction, something made to cross black water and weather storms, something that has been growing restless beneath too many quiet docks and too many days spent waiting for a reason to move. "Here, or the desert, or Torchline.." she says, her voice low and steady, "it isn’t about where." Her blue eyes stay on his, daring and imploring all at once, an impossible question on her lips. "What do you want to do, Jack?"

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

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

JACK

"I only agreed to ferry a few crates," Jack says, smirking around his cigarette and reaching out to light the new one The Ark has rolled for herself. "Ain't like I tied my banner to Colt's bridle and told her to lead the way." Whether the desert region does or doesn't make anything of itself is none of the Captain's concern; the work offered will give him more of an opportunity to see what the place does without needing to make up a reason to go there, and in the meantime it isn't as though his business ventures in King's End are dead in the water.

The restless churn of her mind has him raising his eyebrows, reaching out to stub the cigarette out in the tray just as she rises to her feet. "Keep that up an' I'll give you somethin' to do," he says, the warning the sort that promises kindling a very different kind of heat to keep them warm. He adjusts to let her stand between his knees as if she was always meant to fit there, catching a lock of fiery hair around his finger and letting his brows slowly come together in a frown.

"You ask as though I'm some lost soul drownin' in his own indecision," he says, and if the words come out curt it's because he intends them to be. "I ain't. I wanna do what I've always wanted to do - be the thing that makes the world go round. Sometimes the world spins slower while dust settles an' leaders change an' ledgers go missin'. But it always speeds up again soon enough."

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 nods slowly, letting his answer settle through her as the smoke from their cigarettes threads lazily upward into the warmth of the cabin. "I was only trying to figure out whether establishing ourselves as more than a glorified cargo ship might be worth our time," she says with a small shrug.

His warning has one brow lifting, and something low and primal stirs beneath the surface of her thoughts, dark water warming under the pressure of something with teeth. The Ark’s mouth curves, slow and just challenging enough to promise she understands the kind of heat he means. "Is that a fact?" she asks, the words soft as smoke and no less dangerous for it.

The curtness in his voice doesn’t cut against her, if anything, her smile turns faintly apologetic beneath its wry edge, and she sets the cigarette carefully in the ashtray before looping her arms around his neck. There is no one else in the world who could stand this close to her and have it feel like the natural shape of things, and while Jack has always known how to handle her as a vessel, how to give her direction when she needs it and room when she doesn’t, this is newer. This body is newer. The ability to voice the tension rather than simply carry it beneath everyone else’s feet is newer still. "You might not be," she says as her head tips slightly, the red of her hair slipping further forward as her expression turns more openly wry. "But I haven’t even been this for a year."

One hand unloops from his neck, fingers combing gently through his hair to draw it away from his face. Her gaze trails over the unmarked lines of him, the familiar shape of his features held steady by magic even as years and weather and everything else keeps moving around them, before settling again in the too-blue of his eyes. "All these years, you’ve made me patient when you wanted me to be," she continues. "The difference now is that I can tell you when I don’t want to be." For all her opinions, all the ways she has always needed to be listened to and handled with care as a galleon, she is still fresh in this particular way of living, not having yet made a full circle around the sun. She has not yet learned how to sit through the slower seasons with the same practiced endurance Jack has gathered over the years, how to let a quiet stretch remain quiet without beginning to feel the stillness turn stale around her. Her mind has been restless because she is restless, not because she doubts him, and there is a difference sharp enough that she needs him to understand it.

"But I can be," she says at last, quieter now, blue eyes holding his. "If that’s the course we’re on."

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

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