A/N: Lyric translation by Defade, with little modification to fit the setting.
You're early.
The other man grunted. He turned his back at the wide open door, fending himself from the sunlight lapping at his eyes. But the captain knew better, chucked the black coat hung loosely near the threshold at his navigator.
Dress yourself and get to the dock before noon. Your belongings too, bring all with you.
Not bothered to voice a trusty consent, the other stayed faithful to his idle state, waved him off dismissively. Understanding this man was one kind of the impossible, the captain gently smirked. As if everything that had happened were a mirage bubbling from his tiring imagination. He silently evaded curiosity, not prying further into this insubstantial maze of individual intricacy, afraid that one step forth would call for one step lost.
More important to him was the ordeal ahead. Loyalty in name of mutiny, mutiny in name of loyalty, short of a poorly written tragicomedy. The sentence had been set in stone since last night. When sun was at the zenith, he was bound to have it happen.
Once again, venial eloquence excused him from the bad name of an astute sinner. Punishment on the ring leaders was brutally efficacious on whoever witnessed; he couldn't help himself from some ilk of cursing delight in the sight of yoked ships scuttled and sinking solemnly to Kraken's crystal embrace.
Someone was late for the spectacle. He reassured his barren concern that the ships had been emptied beforehand, rendering the chance of any mistake absurd. Soon enough to relieve him of worry, the other showed up, apathetic surprise sweeping across his guise before replaced by a distasteful veil of approval.
At that moment, he realised, the devil beneath was real.
.
They made it out alive to the village of Tacuba. Stained in exhaustion, the conquistador hushed up fickle pride of a survivor amongst survivors to get a glance of their bloodied fiasco. How many subjects had he forgone to escape for his sake, treasured or not? Furious with prayers, the valiant general mounted the horse again in dire search of his property.
Hope availed him nothing. Devil take the hindmost, and this is the ground of bloodshed. Boiling with despair, he brayed with a chant of names.
But one of them would never give him his expected answer.
The revelation tore his rationale apart. He retreated to a trunk nearby, finding hot tears trickle down his cheeks. No place for calm, no time for shame. He gave in to woe and pity without resistance.
Not far from his place, a silhouette stood in the shadow, holding dear a doll in his arms. Both were donned purely in black and red, save for the grudging essence of gold lingering on the man's appearance.
This stricken village is just like a graveyard, ufufu…
Elise, fairytales always come from the graveyard.
The doll snuggled up to the man's loving stroke, her silvery laughter joining their listless stride back into the forest's sombre womb. Left behind on the stage of reality was a man sorely lamenting his loss, twice at once, and cursing the name of God for the first time and perhaps, also the last.
.
He breathlessly fought his way out, or at least that was what he attempted to. Dirtied tang of blood and sweats grew rich in the air, arousing his instinct of last minute. But the man was aware that he had one foot ready for the leap of mortality, no better choice but to waltz with his sword until he lost it.
When he remembered, this was a moonless night. She wasn't there, no longer there. Memory returned him to where they had first met, where he had first saw her smile, when he had first mistaken her as his moonlight.
When he awakened, excruciating pain ate into his senses. The arms of enemies meagrely moved his wounded body to somewhere. A fall, almost there. His hand threw one ill-fated clutch at the closest neck, instinct with a holdover of refusing this fey end.
Ignoring whatever the navigator mumbled in his dead breath, they sent him more boots and clouts to do away with this stubborn man the sooner the better. Time marched on to the crisp arrival of dawn. The due was near.
Before they knew it, darkness had taken him from sight.
.
On the morning of February 18th, Governor Veláquez arrived in person to rescind the deputation into Mexican coast led by Captain-General Hernan Cortés. Cortés made a decisive appeal against Veláquez's imperious presence, then dispatched himself and the crew to begin his conquest of greater good despite the grave absence of one of his navigators.
The rest is history.