here's the countdown

JACK

Pointedly saying nothing, despite both of them being well aware of Flora's feelings in the silence that stretches between them, it isn't so much that Jack disbelieves it (it's impossible given the nature of his magic) so much that he doesn't understand it enough to be able to appreciate it at more than face value right now. Still, the thoughts wrap around him like a thick blanket on a Deepfrost morning, and despite the comparative chill from the peppermint and wintergreen, he starts to feel a little warmer.

What was his mother like, though? Tensing, because no one has ever asked him that, the captain has to give it some actual thought before he responds. "All I know about her is what I read from my old man's mind," he says slowly. "I was about thirteen by then, an' she was more like an idol to him than anythin' else at that point. She fixed fishin' nets to get by, and I think she liked to sing. I found out her name was Lucy. Everythin' else is just..." Gross and garbled and warped by grief that had been nurtured for far too long, and so Jack shrugs.

"Shame our clever little fountain didn't exist back then, huh." He scoffs, taking a long drink of rum.

when I look at something, I see it for what it could be
when I look at something, I see how it ends

Code stolen from Queen Sky