Chapter Text
The Unicorn is a strange name for an inn.
Stranger still are the two men who run it: one bright as the sun and one silver as moonlight. Both equipped with dramatic and exaggerated personalities that seem to fill whatever room they’re in. They dress in simple clothes but carry themselves as leaders; learned men with experience far beyond the borders of their simple inn.
Speaking of the inn itself, it’s a hodgepodge thing. Those who remember the shack on the stretch of beach before know it was hardly a building worth acknowledging. Over time additions have been made, elevating the ramshackle structure to something… slightly less ramshackle. The inn is styled in a bizarre mishmash of opulent and simple, handmade decorations packed wall to wall and with repeated visits, one could steadily see the collection grow.
The most unique inclusion to The Unicorn is, perhaps, the library. A little middle of nowhere inn should have no need for a library and yet, it has one of the most extensive collections of books found anywhere in the Caribbean. Books are packed into floor to ceiling shelves and accessible to guests – those who can read, anyway.
The only room that rivals the library in size is the dining hall. It’s hardly the largest taphouse one could find in an inn but it’s cozy, filled with tables and warm lighting and soft fabrics. There’s passable food and decent drink to be had, and for a place that so often invites unsavory types, surprisingly little stabbing.
The lodgings are better than one would expect from both the exterior and potentially flighty behaviour of the innkeepers. Like the dining hall, the –
Thunk!
Lucius puts down his quill and rubs at his eyes, turning away from the writing desk to look behind him. Long shadows stretch across the room at his back, the oil lamp on the desk doing little to break up the darkness of the midnight hour. The full moon shining in through the single window of his inn accommodations only accentuates the blackness of the far side of the room.
Pete lies in bed, dead to the world and snoring softly, and Lucius allows himself a smile. It’s been a long couple of years, but he could imagine no better companion through it all than his husband.
The seas are more tumultuous than ever, politics and a certain asshole prince making true pirating almost impossible. The old ways are dead, and it’s an adjustment for all seafaring folks to operate with more caution than ever before.
The Unicorn has become sort of a home away from the ocean for most of the crew of The Revenge; Stede and Ed have proved themselves surprisingly capable innkeepers. Despite a few hiccups over the first six months, they manage to run a successful business, catering to the last of the pirates.
Not that she would ever admit it, but Lucius knows Spanish Jackie is… if not proud, then at least comfortable with the ex-captains taking on the new mantle of ‘Owners of the inn where all the pirates go’.
The Unicorn has been blessed with shockingly good luck overall. It’s avoided both attacks and detection from the British in particular, but from all foreign navy notice in general.
Rumor has it Prince Asshole is running himself ragged trying to clean up the mess he created with Stede and Ed in Nassau, but so long as their inn remains a mystery location, he’ll have to continue doing nothing but attacking the few free pirates his military manages to find on the seas.
Lucius smirks to himself at that, turning back to his paper. Stede had asked Lucius to write something on his inn, claiming he couldn’t do it justice on his own, but –
Thunk!
Another sound from behind.
Lucius spins again, getting up from his chair. Late night thumping isn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence within The Unicorn’s walls; God knows he and Pete are responsible for several incidents themselves, but repeated sounds that seem to come from right outside their door just would not do! Pete shouldn’t be woken up by some prick making a ruckus.
Slinking toward the door, Lucius squints against the darkness. He reaches for the door handle, slowly puling it open. It occurs to him then; the oil lamp might have been a good companion.
The door opens into more darkness, the exterior windows sparse in this area of the inn. He swings his head both directions down the hallway, seeing nothing but closed doors and candles with embers barely warming the air around them.
“Hello?” Lucius calls, a whisper into the darkness.
There’s no response.
He scoffs to himself. Why would there be? He couldn’t see anyone and it’s not so dark that Lucius can’t trust his own eyes.
He does one more sweep down the hallway when he spots it.
There, in the middle of the carpeted floor, is a feather. Lucius frowns, making his way toward it. He bends down to pick it up, the shape and colouration familiar even in darkness.
“A seagull? How did this get in here?” He murmurs. A push to the shoulder is what he gets in response.
Lucius squeaks, tipping over with the shove. He scrambles to his feet, heart pumping and breathing heavily, feather clutched in his hand. Looking around the hallway, there’s still… nothing there. Even in the darkness, Lucius can see no evidence of another person, especially not one who could escape so quickly. The hallway is long, with no curves or exits.
“Hello?” He hisses out, still scanning the hallway from end to end. “You’re a real bastard for that, you know? What the hell are you doing, pushing people over in the middle of the night?”
There’s still no response.
Lucius figures enough is enough. He walks back toward his and Pete’s room, feather still clutched in hand.
“Right, you prick, I’m going to sleep,” Lucius says, turning around in the doorway. “I better not hear any more thumping around out here, you hear me?” He says, slightly louder now. He nods to himself, shutting the door and making sure to lock it. The feather is left on top of his journal as he slides into the bed beside his love.
The last thing he notices before drifting off to sleep is the odd scent of leather and gunpowder in the air.
xxx
Morning at The Unicorn is often a boisterous affair. Ed and Stede are often up just before the sun, working on something for guests to eat in the kitchen.
Lucius, for all he loves to sleep in on the ship, can hardly catch a bloody wink on land these days, too used to the rocking of the seas to rest properly on a disappointingly still bed. He often finds himself in the dining hall shortly after the old captains, nursing a coffee (when available) or tea (when not) and catching up.
It’s the quietest part of the day for them, without question. Running an inn is, by Stede’s account, terribly difficult work. He never really acclimated to the long, physical days of running a ship, and it shows in his day-to-day exhaustion with the inn.
Usually, Lucius wouldn’t do much to disturb the two lovebirds so early, just banter and chat idly, but last night’s excitement has him a little out of sorts.
With a thick robe draped over his shoulders, feather clutched in one hand and coffee in the other, he clears his throat at the entrance to the kitchen. Stede looks up from his cutting board and smiles.
“Ah, Lucius! I thought you’d be around soon. How did you sleep?” Stede asks. Lucius wrinkles his nose.
“Was a bit shit if I’m being honest. It wasn’t so much the sleeping as this,” he says, holding out the feather. Ed perks up from the stove, craning his head to get a better look at Lucius’s find.
“Is that… from a seagull? What would you be doing with that, my boy? They hardly make acceptable quills,” Stede says. Ed drifts closer, a strange look on his face.
“God no, nothing like that. I found it out in the hallway, by my room.” Lucius hesitates as Ed plucks the feather from his fingers. Lucius looks to Stede and then at Ed, who gestures for him to continue.
“Okay, right… well, I heard these weird… thumps, I guess? While I was writing, from out in the hall. After the second one I thought, better check it out. There was nothing out there but this, though.”
“That can’t be the only thing to put you so out of sorts, Lucius. It’s just a little feather,” Stede says, tilting his head. Ed seems to only be paying half attention; most of it is on spinning the feather carefully, delicately with his fingers.
“No, of course not. I bent down to pick up the feather, right? Well, some prick pushed me over! When I got up there was no one there, though. I’m not so slow I wouldn’t see someone going around the corner, and none of the other doors were open. It was a little freaky, really. How the hell did I get knocked over with absolutely nothing around?” Lucius asks, a little hysterical with the last few words. Stede looks confused, but Edward… well.
“You’re sure there was no one around that could have done it, mate? Ed questions. He’s got that look in his eye; one Lucius hasn’t seen since before they left the captains and sailed off with the Revenge. Lucius wants to take a step back, but he’s stronger than that now. He nods.
“Fucks sake Stede, I told you I wasn’t lying!” Ed shouts, the words exploding out of the man. He’s practically vibrating where he stands. Lucius does take a step back as Stede rounds on his love, unwilling to get involved in one of their spats.
“Well, it’s hardly my fault I didn’t believe you, Edward,” Stede scoffs. Lucius gulps. This is going to be a rough one. “I mean really, It’s awfully far fetched that someone just happened to grab you while you were coming in from outside, or while you were bathing, or –“
“It doesn’t matter if it’s far fetched! I’ve been telling you it’s been happening, and you can’t be arsed to believe me? You’re supposed to trust me! We’re lovers! That’s literally the most important part of the whole ‘loving you’ thing!” Ed sounds near hysterics himself. Lucius has to say something. He hates it when these two fight. It always leaves his ears ringing for hours afterward.
“Wait Ed, wait. Are you saying this has been happening for a while now? And have you found any more feathers?” He asks. Stede and Ed turn from each other to look back at Lucius, like they suddenly remembered he was in the room.
Wordlessly, Ed reaches into the lining of his loose vest. He pulls out three more long, pristine seagull feathers.
Breakfast burns on the stovetop.
xxx
Often, people speak equally of the beauty and terror of the sea. It is tumultuous, unpredictable as often as it is calm and serene.
The sea is neither of those things.
At its core, the sea just is. Humans being incapable of surviving on it on its best and worst days is neither the responsibility nor fault of the water below them. It is not a victim when ships are sunk into its depths, it is not the villain when storms are whipped up out of nowhere, growing thirty-foot waves.
Sailors are taught early on to respect the sea. To fear it because of what it can do. However, every good sailor able to survive through their first rainy season understands the reality of the sea below them: it is the fault of those that brave the waters when something goes wrong. It is the fault of the navigator, a poorly tied rope, a sloppily maintained deck sending men overboard.
The sea is the beginning and end. It is life and death through no fault of its own.
Those born on the sea are said to understand this innately. It is not a lesson they are taught; not in the way many must learn in those early seasons.
In exchange for their understanding, their service, those born on the sea are given gifts by the waters that birthed them.
It is a little-known fact that Israel Basilica Hands was born on the sea. His father was a sailor, his mother on a ship by accident, surviving a grueling pregnancy and birth while returning to England from the colonies.
Israel may hail from Somerset, but he is of the sea.
xxx
The first thing Israel knows is the calming rocking of waves. It is familiar, welcoming when casting his mind to his memory draws naught but a blank. He is naked, and the sun above is warm against his salt-slicked skin. A bird screeches overhead and he resists the urge to sigh, to disrupt the serenity he floats in.
His body feels weightless, cradled by water. Each limb feels like an extension of the blue around him, his missing leg no different from the functional one; his fingers bleeding into the waters that cradle them.
Again, a bird squawks from overhead. Israel furrows his brow and cracks one eye open. The sun is blinding. He does not know how long it has been since he last opened his eyes, but with the shocking, almost offensive brightness of the sun, it feels like it could be the very first time.
Through the dark spots in his vision, watery eyes blurring the image even further, a seagull makes loops in the sky, just inside his field of view. It is close enough to see the dark tips of its wings, close enough to see the orange of its legs pressed against its body.
The gull, like the water, is familiar. Israel does not know enough to know why, but the gull is an old friend.
The bird loops again, and Israel begins to separate himself from the sea surrounding him. He wiggles his toes, his fingers. He feels his knee and elbows. He is aware of the breeze that blows across his skin, the texture of it different from the calming waves that still rock with his body. Israel drops out of his float to tread in the sea. He hears the gull again, the bird somehow, inexplicably, sounding pleased with its squawk.
He takes stock of his surroundings then. Mostly, there is miles and miles of sea. The blue stretches as far as the eye can see. Once, Israel might have been afraid of that much water, but instead he is comforted by the familiar blue.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spots a small land mass. It’s a rock, really. Protruding from the ocean just enough for the tip to be bone dry in the midday sun despite the waves that lap against its shore. The gull has settled there, and Israel feels compelled to follow. He cuts through the water with precision and confidence, the current helping him along to his destination.
As he heaves his naked body onto the rock’s surface, he is able to take in his own appearance for the first time.
There is an unfamiliar scar on his abdomen, and his hair feels long and heavy now that it is not supported by the water. His leg, or what remains of it, is still cradled by the sea. Peculiarly, the water seems to be shaped differently around his leg. Israel reaches out to the strange surface and finds it resistant to the pressure of his hand.
He wiggles his leg, and the water moves with it. It’s almost as if it is his leg, but that hardly makes sense. That would be –
“Magic?” A voice with a thick Scottish accent calls from behind. Israel turns away from his leg and finds a man.
“I suppose that’s one word for it,” Israel replies. The man nods.
“Aye.”
They sit there for several long minutes, taking stock of one another. Israel has few words to fill the silence, and the man seems content to wait for… something.
“The sea gives back that which was lost, Israel Hands,” the man says. It is a cryptic phrase.
“…Right,” Israel says.
“The sea could return you as well, if that was something you wished for.” That… was slightly more information, Israel supposes.
“Where would I be returned to?” He asks. Feels a reasonable question. The man raises a hand to scratch at his beard.
“Where you are, naturally. Not when you remember, though. Much time has passed, and the world will certainly look different. If that’s what you choose to do,” the man says.
“I remember little, so I suppose it’s not much of a loss for things to be different from how they were before.” The man nods.
“Aye, that’s true. Not so much time has passed that you’ll be left adrift on your own. There will be familiar faces to help you understand what you’ve missed. They’ll need your help as well; they’re a little useless on their own, you see.” Israel does not see, but he understands being helpful.
He remembers the vague shape of a memory. A shadow, or was he the shadow? They were two and one and three and two, figures blending together, overlapping in his mind. There is a sense of loss there, of incomplete and unresolved feelings. Many words must have been left unsaid. The man clears his throat and Israel looks up from his musings.
“You dinnae have to decide right now. You can technically stay here forever if you’d like. I should warn ye though, the longer you wait, the more time passes. I cannae say for certain if time is the same here and there.” Israel nods.
“Probably best to get it over with then, right?” He asks, and the man inclines his head. “Right well, I’ll miss it here, but I suppose I should go back to… where I was.” Israel feels a sense of finality as he says the words. The sea does not seem to disagree with his decision though; the sunlight does not dim, and the waves do not become rough.
“So be it. Let’s get you back then,” the man says. He holds out a hand for Israel. “For the record, I’m glad you’re going back. They’ve been useless without you. Now, close your eyes.”
Israel takes the offered hand and does as he’s asked. Then he knows nothing.
xxx
Izzy wakes on the shore, smelling of seaweed and salt. He aches and he’s cold but he breathes and that alone feels like a miracle. A familiar gull flies overhead, calling out as the morning sun begins to peek out over the water.
The gull lands nearby, bringing Izzy’s attention to a bundle left in the sand. He crawls toward it, thankful he’s far enough out of the water that he doesn’t have to add waterlogged to his list of gripes. He reaches the bundle and the gull hops some steps away, allowing Izzy to sort through the package.
A black shirt and trousers are folded neatly together, along with a boot and glove. There’s a thin, aged ring that looks to small for any of his fingers, and most curiously, a prosthetic leg unlike any he has seen before.
Izzy takes stock of his naked body and notices the familiar scars from… before. His memories of the water are hazy, the ones before even hazier, but something pulls him toward the items in the pile.
He starts with the trousers, sliding them up his legs. They’re a soft cotton and considerably shorter on the left side, designed to tuck neatly into the prosthetic. Next comes the shirt, then the glove and ring. The ring he tucks into the palm of the glove for now, unwilling to lose it to a poorly constructed pocket.
As he dresses, it is like the fabric holds the secrets from before. He begins to remember as each piece goes on; people and faces revealed to him as fabric covers more of his body. He remembers The Revenge and its endearingly awful crew, he remembers the Republic of Pirates, remembers Stede and their ridiculous first meetings in those god-awful outfits.
He remembers Ed. All the complicated emotions wrapped around that dreadful, wonderful man. The legend they created together and all the years in service to it. He remembers dying, the legend dying with him.
Blackbeard is no more, but with any luck, Edward got to live.
Izzy looks down toward the one remaining item. The prosthetic is nothing like the unicorn leg he was gifted by the crew of The Revenge. In its place is a piece of the sea.
It is wood, well-worn by ocean currents, inlaid with something that shimmers in the early morning light. He runs his hands over it reverently, feeling pearls and scales and sea glass along its length.
Its foot is tipped with metal, something sturdy and dangerous that makes Izzy smile slightly. The top is a well-constructed brace, something easy to strap to his leg that looks comfortable enough for long wear. It’s not an improvement over the unicorn – something shockingly stable for how comical it may have looked – rather it’s a limb that represents something new.
He is of the sea. Now everyone will know what boon he was granted for his service to it.
As his leg is secured, Izzy directs his attention back to the bird. ‘Buttons’, his mind seems to say, and he catches wisps of memories as they float by.
“Mr. Buttons,” he says, and the bird tilts his head. “I understand I have you to thank for facilitating my return.” The gull looks out toward the sea.
“Not me you should thank, Mr. Hands. I’m just the ferryman,” The gull… well, it doesn’t talk, but Izzy hears the words just the same.
Izzy turns toward the sea and bows his head.
He won’t squander the opportunity he’s been given, even if the sea cares not either way.