when you become a memory you can never lose a fight

JACK

Jack expects barbs in return - expects much more than what he gets in truth. He hauls the last of the rope ladder up onto the deck, ensures it's coiled so as not to tangle when it's next needed, and straightens up. "I've been doin' my best not to be dealt with at all, if you ain't noticed for the best part of a year," he says. "If you're a naive idiot, Flora, it's for thinkin' that you live rent-free in my head as much as I do in yours."

As Kai pitches in the Captain raises his hands in mock surrender - blame, asshattery, the Accepted being the bigger person, the better man, the right choice. He's heard it all before in his own voice in his own head plenty of times without needing it fired across a skyship at him. And maybe it might have ended that way, with The Ark and the Sugartide drifting apart in the encroaching night without any further parting shots, until he hears the petty needling from Kaisel across the way.

So it's like that.

"Jack," he recites as he starts to stroll away across the deck, voice carrying loud enough to be heard. "I have loved you for years and will love you always." Scoffing, he glances over his shoulder. "That's the gist of how the letter went, right Flora?"

And then the Captain is gone, whistling sharply through his teeth to set the crew in motion and to get them out of the Maw and back into friendlier waters.

~FIN

we've gone way too fast for way too long
and we were never supposed to make it half this far

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!