A/N: This is based on a song by The Cog is Dead called 'The Depths Below'. I do not own the lyrics from this song used in the dialogue.
Eridan sighed in uncontained relief as the sound of the enormous clock in the center of town striking five o' clock reached his ears through the methodic clicking and scream of released steam all around him. "Alright boys, pack out!" The voice of the Master Cogsmith, just barely audible, gruff and unpolished. Still, Eridan was not one to complain about the smoothness of the voice telling him he was free for the night. As he passed through the mudroom, he discarded his uniform's hat and retrieved his worn and tattered scarf from the unkempt pile of the other boys' meager possessions. Then, before any of the other boys could reach the room, he looked around quickly and made a wild dash for the door, exiting and running for the shelter of home.
When he reached the small house at the end of the street, Eridan wasted no time at all in sliding the various gears and pistons into place to unlock the door. Taking another look around the block, he skulked into the darkness of refuge, the heavy door shifting into place behind him and the gears shifting back out of order into their locked state. Inside, the heavily tinted windows let in only a little light, allowing Eridan neither to see nor be seen by the other townsfolk. He liked it that way; it saved him just that much more trouble.
Eridan quickly changed out of the atrocious grey and copper fatigues required at his factory and into his prefered clothes. They were not as simple as one might expect out of a small boy living alone in such a hovel, just another reason that he was hated. Still, he insisted on wearing the white dress shirt and black vest fastened with copper buttons, black dress pants, and tall black boots that many of the children and all of the adults would have killed to own had they not been so terrified of him. Over all of this he wore a faded purple overcoat that still smelled faintly of salt even from all those years ago. Eridan finished the look with a top hat of the same faded purple and a black cane topped with a silver ornamental ship. It was that ship that was the reason for the terror in the eyes, the hatred. It was that ship that caused them to confine him to the removed hovel he now lived in, where they would not have to see him any more than necessary. And it was that ship that he clung to most dearly out of all of his possessions.
A knock on one of the windows snapped him out of his reverie. Eridan's eyes widened with fear, and he curled up in the farthest possible corner, trying desperately not to cry as the urchins on the street taunted him again.
"Hey Eridan!"
"Guess what we heard!"
"Another pirate ship was taken down by Master-Captain Richardson again!"
"Think it was yours, ya rotten pirate?"
"Pirate, pirate, Eridan's a pirate!"
"It will be your ship someday, ya know. Someday they're gonna take down a ship and find out the captain looks just like you! Because he's your dad. Won't that be the day!"
Eridan couldn't make his voice loud enough to hear. "Go aw-way," he wanted to tell them. "Leawe me alone." But he knew they wouldn't. He knew from horrible, painful experience.
"Pirate, pirate, Eridan's a pirate! Bloody, rotten pirate! Thieving, scheming pirate! Ought to be hung, a pirate! Watch his blood run, a pirate!" they screamed in their horrible sing-song. Eridan could do nothing but cry silently, the fabric covering his knees soaking up his futile tears as the children continued their mad song, laughing and banging on the windows. Testing to see if any of them were loose, to see if they could get in. At last their obscene song ended and they ran through the streets once more, shrieking and laughing.
Eridan waited until the last of their wild howls had died before slowly standing. As he did, he clutched the silver ship atop his cane to his heart. The deep mechanical whirring of the clock striking six o'clock in town rumbled softly through his very being. Eridan wiped his tears away with a stark determination, but then paused, biting his lip indecisively. Maybe I shouldn't go tonight...what if they catch me?
Nonsense. You've gone countless times before and never been caught. Why should tonight be any different? Carefully he pressed one ear to the door, listening for anyone. There was nothing. He deftly constructed the unlocking mechanism on this side of the door and waited as the powerful pulley system shifted the door out of his way. Then, making sure his outfit was in perfect order, he closed the door behind him and disappeared into the alley, snaking his way to the town square.
As he neared it, the quiet hubbub of awed and nervous townsfolk reached his ears. Eridan just barely allowed himself to enter the half-lit area at the end of the alley, giving himself exactly the angle needed to see the old, weathered sea captain around which the people had congregated. He sat on a small dais, and his eyes were shut not as if he was sleeping, but as if everything he had ever lived for and every dream he had ever had had vanished into the ocean mist, never to be seen again. His whole posture was that of a broken, defeated man. Eridan found him absolutely fascinating.
Some unseen force must have instilled movement into the motionless man, for his eyes opened slowly. His stormy grey eyes looked haunted, and his face took on its normal look of slight residual terror from the thousands of voyages he had experienced. As soon as he sat up, the people hushed, leaning in with baited breath to hear tonight's tale.
The man's head bowed in resignation. He did not pride himself on his tales, nor the audiences that he accumulated, but his stories had a life of their own. They were the kind of tale that did not sit quietly in the slowly rotting mind of an old timer. He began to speak, his deep salt-tempered voice sending shivers through Eridan.
"There is an ancient legend. An oceanic tale, if you will." He coughed, grimacing. "It speaks of an underwater monster, neither fish nor whale, creature nor machine. Many call it myth," he paused to take a deep breath, his chest visibly inflating as his shoulders sagged, "but I assure you that it is real. It waits, lurking in the darkness for prey, for a ship to sail overhead. And you won't know what hit you 'til you hear your crewmen scream." His body was wracked with a cough once more. The crowd held its breath as they waited for him to continue. "Usually, it sleeps peacefully beneath the ocean. But when there's a storm brewing..." he trailed off, his eyes widening as he relived the horror.
"When the waves come rolling in and lightning fills the sky, all the sailors know that the Leviathan is nigh." He swept a terrified eye over the crowd. "If he grabs onto your boat, he'll never let you go! Soon you'll join the thousand ships he's sent to Davy Jones! To the depths below!" His breathing became more rapid as his panic spread. "Its tentacles...massive! And its teeth! Made of steel! Stronger than the best!" He leaned forward to stand, but before he could, whatever unseen magic that had breathed life into him left, and he collapsed backward into his chair once more, eyes closed, face lined with the horrors he had seen.
The people stared for a moment, hoping for more, then sighed in disappointment before shuffling back to their homes. Soon, the square was empty save for Eridan lurking in the dark and the old sea captain plagued by his nightmares. A sudden, wild idea seized upon Eridan, too tempting to resist. Casting his eyes around the square a final time to assure his solitude, he crept into the light and up to the dais. The old man did not move. Eridan stepped up onto the dais, and in a single, impossibly swift motion the old man's eyes had flicked open and he had caught hold of Eridan's shirt.
"You have the look of a Seagoer. Be ye a Seagoer?"
Eridan stammered out a response. "No...w-well, maybe...once...I was found...by the sea."
"A foundling Seagoer who bears the accent of the Sea? You must feel terribly alone. Out of place." The man looked him up and down, scrutinizing him.
Eridan's eyes widened in shock. "Yes! I feel like I'm in the w-wrong place. Like I don't belong here."
The captain's eyes glittered with insanity. "Yes, I feel it too. The sea calls to me, but I can't answer. I'm trapped here...trapped..." The fire in his eyes left, and he gazed down at the two stumps that had once been his legs. "The monster...it got my..." His eyes shut in pain.
Eridan swallowed as the hand clutching his shirt relaxed. "That's w-why I plan to go to sea. To search for w-where I came from. And for adwenture."
The man seemed to take on his former panic, tightening his grip on Eridan. "Ye can't! A body made of metal, with a living brain! It'll tear your ship apart!"
Eridan shook his head burying the terror that the man instilled in him. "You can't stop me. I'we made up my mind." He lifted his hands to disentangle himself from the old sailor's grip. The man's gaze fell on his cane, and he released Eridan with a gasp of recognition.
"You bear the Mark! The Mark of the Pirate Guild!" The man made a sign of warding in the air before him.
Eridan looked to the silver ship cresting his cane. His resolve hardened. "I don't care if I'm a pirate. I'm goin' out to sea, and nothin' you say can stop me."
The old man's face curved into a twisted smile. "If that be your aim, then heed me: stay always on your guard, or you may wind up lifeless when that monster hits you hard. He'll wrap himself around you...you'll wish that you weren't born! So if the beast attack you, don't say that you weren't warned!" The man was seized once more in a fit of coughing, and he leaned back into his seat and remained motionless.
Eridan clutched at his chest, gasping for breath. Swifter than humanly possible, he had disappeared into the dark safety of the alley and was furtively making his silent way back to the inner sanctum of his small hovel.