She is the price for his soul. She is the final payment, the last life he has to take and then his debt to Davy Jones will be closed. She is a hard target though, fast, skilled and powerful, and followed by a strange old woman who never pulls down a hood of her well-worn robes. So to find a weak spot and a right moment, Atton joins her crew.
Ebon Hawk is the fastest ship in the Outer Seas, but in good hands - hands that know what they're doing with a steering wheel, his hands, - it's the fastest one in the whole ocean, and it's a good thing too, because everyone on this ship seems to be running from something. Except for maybe old Kreia, who seems to be on a hunt, but Atton cannot figure out for what. Everyone else is running - from the memory of war, the memory of the dead worlds, the consequences of the old betrayals and lies, and most of all, they're running from themselves. Exile is running from something stranger than others though - from the void within herself.
It's hard to notice in everyday routines, under the busy daylight. She is a lot to take in as it is. She's graceful and silver, she wears dark grey coat with silver buttons with sleeves always cuffed very high to reveal layers of silver bracelets of all forms and black leather fingerless gloves. Her black unruly hair is held - mostly unsuccessfully - under the headscarf with a map of the place he can't recognize embroidered on it. It's more obvious in a fight if you pay attention and look beyond the strikes of fast silver-embossed rapier - the stifling tension around her, thin air vibrating slightly like a heat wave or mirage haze, the echoes of the distant ocean waves that you can feel if you press your ear to a seashell. The echoes of strange chthonic powers that she shares with the old woman who doesn't even care to pretend she that doesn't read minds.
It's easier after sunsets.
Her eyes are dark and opaque like obsidian, and at nights, when unknown strange creatures swim restlessly under the ship, their eerie azure glow light up in Exile's eyes like half-remembered stars. The shimmering elusive constellations that don't look like reflections, but more as if the shining of deepsea monsters revealed a glimpse of what was always hidden in the void.
Their days are restless chain of fussy tasks, questions asked and battles fought, something that could be called a treasure hunt or a adventure by someone less bitter. Scalding heat of blazing sun, cheap rum because the water is too dirty and memories are too persistent, creaky planks of the ship, worn leather and sand that gets everywhere and becomes sticky and brown when you spill blood over it. Atton prefers pistols and projectiles to close combat - in truth, he'd prefer traps and well-thought out ambushes, but it won't work with this crew fighting style. Exile's gives him soft knowing smirk as answer to his cocksure grins, and Atton licks his lips and gets back to cleaning his pistols, very carefully thinking of cards.
It's easier after sunsets.
She traces lines on his palms like it's a treasure map, and the forces of the storm winds awaken in his bones, signing in rhythm with the sea. The sharp tense pulse that he called "luck", "sense of tide", "hunch" all his life finally takes it's true name that echoes through his breath. "Calypso".
He looks into Exile's eyes and sees the void, deep as the night skies and hungry.
She has a void within herself, but he has no soul, so it's only fitting. Their kiss tastes like whiskey, gunpowder and starlight, like sea salt of the ancient power hidden in his own veins. The headscarf softly falls on the wooden desk, spilling silver lines of a map he'll follow to the end of the world.
She is the price of his soul and Atton pays it, when he blocks the path of a white-eyed man who looks like he's falling apart and wants to take the whole world with him. He holds a long jagged sabre, but it's more of a formality, because power leaks through the cracks in his grey skin, like a stone that was fractured from within from a force that is too strong to hold inside. He calls Atton "fool" and, well, it's hard to argue at this point. Who, if not a fool, would give his life for a target that was supposed to free him. He has no doubts and no regrets though.
She has a void within herself, obsidian and deep, but he can see that it is full of stars.