The light fades behind the little dinghy and despite the feeling of peace in his chest, Liam cannot help but ache from the separation from his brother. Killian is not alive and he is most certainly not well, but he may be well on his way. Emma may be the reason his brother currently resided in the Underworld, but that she chose to make such a journey to retrieve him says more than he initially gave credit for.
Liam may not be entirely satisfied with his brother's chosen mate, but if she makes him happy...
He can find peace in the hereafter, knowing that.
He can find peace while he waits for Killian to join him again.
It's the damndest thing, this life after death.
Liam captains the ragtag crewmen salvaged from the Underworld. Their vessel is not one he's familiar with, but one of the crew calls her a grab. "My first ship, we did trade between Agrabah and Indus," Simon says. "Grabs were common enough in the Indus river delta and along the coast. Fine vessels, grabs. She'll hold for us, Captain Jones."
And there's a title he never thought he'd hear again.
The grab is swift, but with no clear course or objective, Liam finds the adventure lacking. The navigator shows him maps of coastlines that tickle the oldest part of his memory, three hundred years buried, but the ports are unfamiliar and the kingdoms sounding fantastical. They can't even sail for days on end, searching for adventure or a purpose; instead, they make port every few days to restock on supplies - hunger after death is something unexpected. Perhaps the ancients had it right, burying their dead with supplies to carry with them to the world beyond.
He tries not to think on that much, of all the sailors buried at sea with nothing but a shroud and words to carry them safely to the world beyond.
After several weeks - yes, weeks, because time passes even after death - of aimless wandering, Liam orders the navigator to set course for the nearest port. They'll weigh anchor for several days and he will do his best to suss out a purpose.
Surely if the dead hunger, then those in port still do business. Liam has manned worse than a cargo ship of supplies.
The kingdom they sail for has a name in a language no one on board can read. He finds it odd that his afterlife would purposely be so inconvenient or based on a reality he did not know (the coastlines are indeed similar to the seas he knew in his living days, he's long since concluded the changes must be a reflection of the world that has changed in three hundred years). But when they sail into the fjord and make port in the bustling castle village, the people are as kind and friendly as could be. "Must be the capital," Culver, Liam's first mate, mutters as they go in search of the harbormaster. "Look, cap'n, the castle is as grand as any fine palace in our lands."
With such a mountainous land, Liam supposes there was some strategy when placing it. It's much more difficult to sneak up on a palace with a harbor view, and unprepared armies might die in a mountain siege. "Bloody bizarre," Liam says quietly, glancing up at the monstrosity of wood - yes, a wooden castle, when anyone knows that proper homes of the wealthy are made of stone. "Even in the hereafter we find ways to place ourselves above one another."
"Aye, cap'n."
The irony in that is not lost on him.
Where the written language differences construct barriers, there is none in the spoken; the pub that night is overflowing with the common tongue shared between these lands and smatterings of local and foreign dialects. Liam recognizes some, others he swears he knew once but have warped over time to be almost unrecognizable. How utterly bizarre, he thinks, downing his tankard and receiving a new one almost immediately. The barmaid that provided it has a sultry wink for him and an appealing sway to her hips, but he feels no urgent need for company in his bed tonight.
The afterlife is a strange thing indeed.
"Oh, aye, talk to Greis in the morning," an old sailor tells Liam later. His men have moved to dicing and women, regular activities of sailors on shore leave; Liam chooses to talk to the locals, discover the best places to find their new purpose. "Always on the lookout for another cargo captain. Warehouse district, far end of the docks."
With that information in mind, Liam leaves his crew to their activities and turns in for the night.
He leaves early, lines up a job for his crew with Greis easily enough - the man knows how to dicker prices, for certain - and as the sun crests the mountains Liam is at a loss as to how to spend his day.
The cargo will take several days to load, plenty of time for shore leave and for his men to scratch whatever itches the land holds for them. But Liam hasn't been one for the land as of late. Not after three hundred years manning a pub, paying penance for lying to his brother and worrying for his safety. No, he needs the wind in his hair and the sway of a deck under his feet, the spray sea salt crisp on his tongue and the cry of gulls in the air. Three hundred years spent landlocked is torment enough for a sailor of any kind, but if Liam is to pass the time until he sees his brother again, he knows he needs to spend that time on the sea.
The land holds no appeal for him.
He wanders. For the next few days he wanders, checking on the loading of cargo and supplies, doing needless tasks like checking the quality of the water barrels and testing the new lengths of rope. He doesn't climb the rigging and check the sails, but it's a near thing.
Liam Jones is bored. He's not accustomed to boredom and finds he doesn't care for it.
On the fifth day, when he feels like he might scream from this boredom, there's a quiet sort of commotion in the village square.
"Anna."
"Oh, Elsa, relax. It's a flower cart, it'll survive."
"Your Majesty, truly, the princess has done no harm -"
"My apologies, Master Florist, my sister often doesn't know her own strength."
Liam comes close enough to see a small crowd has gathered, gawking at a sheepish-looking young woman straightening flower pots on a florist's cart. The woman with her holds herself rather imperiously, but her eyes and the small frown betray her discomfort with the situation. A small coronet rests in her pale hair, braided up and around her head. "Please, if you find there is any damage, I insist you notify the palace at once for replacements," the blonde woman says, drawing Liam's attention away from the slight way she wrings her hands to her face again.
She's stunning.
"Of course, Your Majesty is gracious," the florist says, bowing slightly; the tips of his ears are pink.
And she's the queen.
The queen seems to notice there's a crowd now and holds up her hands with a nervous smile. "Please, go about your days. My sister and I merely wanted to enjoy the sunshine, we don't meant to disrupt anyone."
The men bow and the women curtsy before obeying. Liam watches with interest as the sisters link arms and begin walking in his direction, easily falling into a soft conversation. He steps to the side so as to allow them a wide berth, but the princess glances his way.
He's absurdly reminded of a hunting dog, the way her focus seems to completely zero in on him. "Hello, you're an unfamiliar face," the princess says, not caring that she's cut off her sister entirely.
Liam blinks, glancing between the royal sisters and realizing with a flush that the queen is also staring intently at him, though her gaze is more cautiously skeptical than the intensely interested one from her sister. This is absurd, he thinks wildly, thinking again of the fact that he is dead and yet there is royalty before him and every bit of decorum drilled into him is screaming because he has yet to formally introduce himself. He bows low at the waist, one arm crossed over his chest. As he straightens, he keeps his gaze lowered out of respect. "Your Majesty, Your Highness. I am Captain Liam Jones. My crew is on shore leave while we restock and take on cargo for delivery."
He sees the queen incline her head in the corner of his vision. "Very well then. Welcome to Arendelle, Captain Jones. We'll leave you to your business."
"Elsa," the princess hisses. "Don't be rude. Apologies, Captain Jones, my sister takes a while to warm up to people."
"Not all of us were born with the gift of making people love you, Anna," Queen Elsa mutters.
There's a faint blush on the queen's otherwise pale face, one that causes Liam to fight the sudden urge to brush his fingers across her cheeks. Then Princess Anna does the most unprincess-like thing Liam has ever seen: she sticks her tongue out. "You just get overwhelmed. We're working on it. Now, Captain Jones, which ship is yours? I haven't come into the village for several days, sometimes I miss the comings and goings."
He blinks; even if he hadn't been preoccupied by the queen, the princess speaks very quickly and it takes a moment for everything to register. "Ah. The Lady Bartholomew is mine. She's a fine grab, if it pleases your ladyship, though smaller than other vessels I have captained."
The sisters trade a look, one that has Liam on edge. "The Lady Bartholomew?" Queen Elsa asks slowly.
"Aye. Is there a problem, my lady?" The last thing he needs is some sort of piracy branding in the hereafter - this is the most unusual afterlife, the priests truly got it entirely wrong. He supposes there's no way to alert them of their errors or else the teachings might be different.
Princess Anna smiles, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "The Lady Bartholomew sank, Captain. It's quite the story."
Liam relaxed slightly. "We sail from Misthaven, Your Highness, perhaps you're thinking of an Arendellan ship." Rarely did ships have the same names, but with so many ports and kingdoms, overlap did occasionally happen.
But the queen is shaking her head, her blue eyes both somber and concerned at once. "No, there's only one Lady Bartholomew, Captain Jones. I believe you should come with us."
Seated at the great table in the hall, Liam learns of the story of the Lady Bartholomew. Though the sinking occurred twenty years prior, it's already something of legend. Bound for Agrabah and caught in a perfect storm, a hurricane of proportions one is lucky to see only once in a lifetime, the Lady Bartholomew sank with fifty hands and carrying some of the finest treasures from Camelot. Sailors spoke of magic leaking into the sea from the bewitched treasures and navigated widely around the sites of the sinking; even mermaids dared not enter the wreckage for pillaging.
He wonders if there's something to the legends of the afterlife, if a grand and terrible sinking such as this one gains more traction than others.
"Afterlife?" Princess Anna asks, her brow scrunched up in confusion.
"Aye," Liam says, wondering if she's gone in the head. "It took me nigh on three hundred years before my unfinished business was resolved and the sea of flame allowed me to pass. Surely you know of it - or did you have no regrets in life?"
The sisters trade another look, this one worried. Liam notices with interest that frost flowers bloom on the arms of the queen's chair. She seems to notice when he does, the frost vanishing as quickly as they arrived. "We need Grand Pabbie," the queen declares, the regal bearing from earlier in the marketplace returning. "Find Kristoff, have him bring Grand Pabbie to the palace as soon as he's able."
Grand Pabbie is a rock troll of all things, and one that does not take kindly to a crew of sailors loudly declaring their confusion at the mere existence of him. Liam orders them to shut it, intensely curious as to what the sisters seem to think is wrong here.
It had taken several hours for the rock troll to be brought to the palace, enough time that Liam could see that he'd said something that deeply disturbed the queen and the princess. They'd invited him to the library to wait while a palace guard gathered his crew. When they spoke to him, it was kindly, but they spent most of it off by themselves, their noses in books and speaking in hushed conversation.
And now a talking, moving rock was waddling between everyone, muttering to himself (itself?) and tossing glittering powder at Liam and his crew.
"Interesting," Grand Pabbie says at length.
"What is?" Liam asks at the same time the princess does.
"These men were dead," the troll declares. "And yet the Lord of the Underworld has seen it fit to restore them to the land of the living."
Liam finds it hard to breathe. He looks at his men, all of them wearing similarly stunned expressions; he then glances at the sisters. The queen catches his gaze and he feels as if she's studying him, taking in everything to figure out the explanation before anyone can answer first.
It's Simon who speaks. "Lord Hades didn't want us to leave. Why would we be restored?"
"He didn't do it though," Culver argues. "It were the fire pit, the one that spat the captain back out acos he was too tough for it."
Liam notes the queen's expression changing to a less intense curiosity and finds himself blushing. "Hardly," he mutters. He'd just forgiven himself, allowing himself to believe that a selfless sacrifice for his brother's sake would be enough to relieve the burden of his sins. The fires couldn't take someone who had been absolved.
"Reincarnation is hardly unheard of," Grand Pabbie says. "Though I must say this is the first time I've seen mortals be returned in the state they were when they last lived."
Alive.
"So the ship," Culver says. "It were returned to the surface for our purpose?"
"It seems to be that way."
They're alive.
"A ghost ship for a ghost crew," Hagred says with a shaky laugh.
Liam needs air. The library is stifling and stuffy and he can't breathe. He mutters an excuse and turns on his heel, stalking out the grand doors and down the hallway, hoping to find some sort of escape.
The queen finds him sulking next to a duck pond.
"Are you alright, captain?" she asks softly. He doesn't hear her sit.
He doesn't know. He's sat here for the better part of an hour, trying to wrap his head around it all. He's alive. The portal didn't send him to an afterlife, it sent him to life.
He can't find it in him to complain, but by all the gods why?
Killian. Could he see Killian again? Could Liam make further amends with him and the new family he's chosen?
Gods, was he even alive again? He didn't know, couldn't know, how Killian and Emma and their family had fared against Hades. If they'd managed to work around his colossal interference, if they'd succeeded.
If Liam had instead doomed his brother and everyone Killian loved to the Underworld for eternity.
How could he be restored to life if that were the case?
"I don't know," he says hoarsely.
There's a rustle of fabric and he imagines the queen has taken a seat on the grass behind him. "I can't imagine how difficult this must be for you," she says.
No, he supposes not. He doesn't know of anyone who has done this, there are no stories of similar tales. "Aye, not many have been dead for three centuries and then on a seeming whim get restored to life," he says, sounding more bitter than he'd intended.
He hears her suck in a breath. "I'm sorry, I've intruded," Queen Elsa says. He hears the fabric of her dress rustle again. "I'll leave you to your thoughts. Please know that you're welcome to dinner if you feel up to it, or the kitchen has orders to give you anything should you desire food later."
She's leaving and he doesn't want to be alone. "Wait," he says softly, turning his head.
The sunlight catches her hair at the right angle, turning it silver. It makes her green and black gown look demure in comparison. She turns her head, waiting for him to speak again. Her profile is striking, classically lovely and it makes his chest tighten. "I'm sorry, your majesty, I didn't mean to imply your presence was unwelcome," Liam says softly. "I'm just... I'm very unused to kind company."
She smiles and it softens her. She turns and comes to sit next to him. "You're in luck," she says, tucking her arms around her bent knees. "I'm not used to any company at all. We can be terrible company to one another."
That makes him laugh and she grins in response; her nose scrunches up rather adorably and she seems to realize it, one hand flying up to cover her mouth and nose as she giggles. Liam can't help himself, forgetting for a moment that she's royalty and he's a newly-restored-to-life common sailor: he reaches out and takes her hand, pulling it away from her mouth. "Pardon my forwardness, but you're quite beautiful when you smile. It seems a shame to cover it up."
Her hand lingers in his for a moment as her smile falls away quickly in shock. She blinks once, then twice, her mouth moving like she wants to say something but the words don't come. Liam can't help but smile at how flustered she gets, his thumb running almost unconsciously along her fingers.
Her very cool fingers.
He glances down and as with her chair earlier in the day, he notices that there appears to be frost growing along the skin of his hand. It's cool, but not unpleasantly so. "You have ice magic," he says softly, and his words seem to snap her out of whatever reverie she'd gone into.
She yanks her hand back and he's interested to note that it's starting to snow around her. Her hands wring together in her lap. "I'm sorry, I normally have better control over it," the queen says, words spilling out of her much more quickly than he's heard her speak before. "It gets out of control when I'm under stress or something upsets me or -"
Liam sits back, putting space between them. "My apologies, your majesty. I didn't mean to upset you."
Her gaze flies back to his, worry marring her features. "No! That is, I mean to say no, you didn't - not in that way - Oh, bother, Anna is much better at this than I am." She huffs and it's endearing, even as the snowfall increases enough that the blades of grass are starting to be coated in the stuff. "I'm not - I'm not angry, captain. I may be a little frightened, but most men - most people - don't dare to be so forward with me. This sort of attention isn't something I'm used to, so you'll forgive me for not knowing how to react."
He inclines his head. It's a shame that no one has paid court to her before, he thinks, for she's truly too lovely to behold. "No apologies needed, your majesty. We were all of us blushing, fumbling newborns at this sort of thing once."
Her ears have turned red and the snow falls even heavier now. "That may be true, but it feels as if a queen should be more dignified in receiving compliments."
"Probably true," Liam agrees, and she glances at him abruptly. He grins to let her know he's teasing. "Has no one told you you're beautiful before?"
"In passing. 'Oh, Your Majesty is as kind as she is beautiful', that sort of nonsense," the queen says and in a lesser woman he would have called her tone annoyed. "I can't let that sort of talk go to my head. And as my sister is married, the line of succession isn't in jeopardy, so my council doesn't feel the need to press any sort of suitors on me."
An interesting detail to let slip, but Liam doesn't comment on it. Instead, he holds out his hand. Queen Elsa stares at it for a long moment, as if it were a serpent that might strike at any moment. She glances up at him warily, and he only smiles. Gingerly, she slips her hand into his; it's still cool to the touch, and even cooler against his lips as he brings her hand up to press a kiss to her knuckles. "Then I may take honor in being the first to compliment you sincerely, your majesty," he says softly.
He holds her gaze and her hand until the snowfall lessens, eventually disappearing altogether save for the light cover of snow on the grass. "I'm sorry," Queen Elsa says finally. "I came to offer you comfort and instead you're forced to comfort me."
Liam smiles and it feels lighter somehow. "Actually, you did help," he admits. "I would have stayed out here brooding well into the night. You provided a welcome distraction from what would most certainly have been an increasingly unhappy thought process."
"I'm sorry I can't offer more help."
"I daresay I'll find a way to resume a life," Liam says. "Truthfully, knowing this makes so many other occurrences of late make sense. For a while I believed a lot of things were some sort of cruel trick. It didn't make sense that I should be hungry while dead, for one thing."
The queen looks down as she smiles this time, but she glances back up when he squeezes her hand. "There's that smile again," he says softly. "You don't have to be shy about hiding it."
"As Anna is fond of saying, we're working on it," she admits.
"You're very lucky to have a sister who cares for you so much," he says, thinking of Killian and hoping he still carries his brother's good favor.
"After everything we've been through... yes, I know," the queen says softly. This time, it's she who squeezes his hand first. "Well, the offer for dinner still stands. It's the least we can offer after tossing such a thorough upheaval into your life - or afterlife, rather."
Liam chuckles. "I happily accept, your majesty, thank you."
"Elsa, please," she says. "I hate formalities with friends."
He glances at her sharply and there's a softness in the way she's looking at him. Liam smiles. "Aye, Elsa then. And I must insist you drop the 'captain', then."
"Liam."
They shake on it with the hands they're already holding and he fights the urge to kiss her fingers again. He's pushed her limits far enough as it is and she's been kind in return. Instead, he gets to his feet with a grunt and helps her to stand, managing not to haul her flush against him despite his better judgement. She shakes out the snow from her skirts and he offers his arm with a short bow - he's a gentleman, after all, and a queen deserves a proper escort to her own dining room. Elsa takes his arm after a short curtsy and allows him to steer her back into the palace.
Until he draws up short.
"Erm," Liam says, glancing left and right. "Apologies, but which way -"
Elsa starts to giggle, pointing to the left while leaving her unabashed grin and her scrunched nose on full display. "This way."
Still arm-in-arm, she takes the lead and Liam falls in step next to her, wondering just how much trouble he's about to find himself with this woman.
I might continue this one day, but this is just something that's been running around my brain for a few weeks and I finally got the details sorted.
