A/N: I meant to have this up ages (and ages) ago. Blaming illness and life for that. Thank you to everyone who reviewed you are so sweet and your messages mean everything to me
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Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for a secret, never to be told
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That night never really leaves him.
It plays as familiar in his recesses as the stories, a sonorous pierce like the violin, words of warning humming in their resonance. It is the thrum of a chord expertly hit – a danger foretold, a memory rewound and replayed.
He should have taken more caution, more heed, less abandon, he shouldn't have gone to the lake.
Beware the bathing swans.
But he cannot stop thinking of it, and although it stays with him, it never really does so with any accuracy.
If you asked Killian, he would have said that the rain never made any noise at all, that the thick mud had not drenched through his boots leaving with it a chill that lasted for days. No nervous beating heart, no mute and violent lightning.
No cruel confusion.
He remembers the scream, though.
The way it strangled and bubbled black, cutting through wind and water – and everything else.
Well, almost everything else.
He remembers Emma.
There is a painful clarity with which he can still feel her fingers holding on to him, taut and just upon his chest, holding him still in his disbelief. Every night on the ship, old and creaking, the canvas of his hammock ripples and pulls down the sides of his arms and it's almost like a phantom grip. It makes it worse, it holds the memory to him.
If he had anyone to explain it to, about the feelings raging within him, it would be difficult. (He's not sure Liam would understand). It's not like he's never seen a man die before; it's not as though someone he believed in has never let him down; it's not as though he's never been lied to.
Not that Emma has ever lied to him – she has never been direct enough with him for that, each clue and hint so vague that it never gave enough away to even be a concocted half-truth.
She is not a lie, not a half-truth, at best she is a white lie – deceit by omission – wrapped in the shade itself, but never maliciously; never harmful trickery.
Something about it clings to him and he doesn't know why – he has seen worse horrors, seen plenty of bodies slip underneath the waves, either in the throes of life or the memory of it.
The sea air helps Killian, the whip of wind in the crow's nest numbs the feeling a little, yet it doesn't matter how many times his hands callous, how many nights he stands watch with nothing but the hum of his brother-come-captain echoing around him, the end result is the same.
That night never leaves him.
He blames the magic, the myth, the little boy in him that built his own meaning into the stories from a heavy heart and a lacking home.
He never once blames her.
He remembers the way she'd turned from him with nothing but whispered contrition, offering nothing but her receding figure for the pinch of his confused brow. Killian remembers the way she left him without another word, water running down and over the bridge of his nose and into his open mouth.
He remembers it every night when for twelve moons the full moon shines without her.
And on the thirteenth he takes his leave on land with the others, shipmates crawling into the taverns and arms of willing partners, but he travels the few miles from ship to childhood glen.
Ship to black-lake shore.
There's a small part of Killian that wishes he could leave this full-mooned night to his past, tuck it away somewhere in the teenage years he'd rather not recall, the swan he cannot see with the parents he cannot either.
And there is an element of frustration, wishing that he could simply be carefree and indulge as his friends do with their lads and lasses, but there are the ghosts of her hands, the edge of nails creeping as they card through the back of his hair that he cannot shake. He cannot scratch it away – doesn't really want to try – cannot free himself from where she's touched.
(Physically and otherwise.)
–
Five for silver…
He takes it to antagonise her.
Well, he takes it to break down as many illusions as he can, shatter as many myth-laden rhymes that still ring in his ears as possible. Truthfully, the only way he can think of getting those answers is to irritate them out of her.
In part he resents the secrecy, resents that the things that he thought he understood, but were really just as false as the myths themselves.
The irony is not lost on him either, he is well aware of the fact that it had been exactly that that had drawn him in in the first place with young fingers clenched upon a wading rock, his fingers clenched upon a feathered cape.
So, he's a little later in getting to the lake the next year. He doesn't dawdle through the markets, but Killian does stop and purchase something from one of the stalls, faded memories of Emma spinning with him as he passes through.
He has formulated another plan.
It's less simple than the last one he'd had (– wait, grab, run –) but just as dependent upon the whims of Emma, and once the glimmer of silver catches his eye he knows it will spark the reaction he wants, knows it will spark her ire.
He is eager to get to the bottom of this.
(Eager to see her again.)
Killian reaches the oak tree long before he realises, his thoughts having eaten away at his travel time, and as he steps out from the shadows into the moonlight, the fingers of his left hand curl anxiously around the silver item in his pocket, sharp edges digging into his palm.
(He might be gripping it too tightly, too nervously.)
Once again the weather matches the stillness of the lake, no ripple through water or air, trees and tension hanging limply.
They're in the lake already, always in the same spot, smiling and calm, appearances once more deceiving. Except Emma. She is not there, she is not floating far out with the others, not over on the shoreline. He can't see her anywhere, and the flickering feeling of hope he had, of desire and yearning, kicks at him even harder, almost punishing him for having the feeling in the first place.
But he does have the feeling – all tied up in hope and yearning – and it is what keeps him there, waiting for some time.
"I should've known it was you."
The violent kick of his heart is because he's been startled, although that is not the only reason. Spinning on his heels, pebbles chinking beneath him, he watches as Emma slinks out from the treeline and into the moonlight towards him.
He had the same thought last time, and the time before that – a year is a long time, and it's too long to miss someone you barely know. Too long to miss Emma. Because every time he sees her she is more beautiful, growing into her cheekbones more with every moon and he doubts he is the only man who has looked at her and inwardly cursed.
A knot catches in his throat at the sight of her, rough and tight, and it's unpleasant but not nearly as unpleasant as the look on her face. She almost looks disappointed to see him, confused and weary – as though not seeing him would have been easier.
The knot turns to bitterness, matching her own physical tone, and he enacts his plan, speaking with a sour tongue.
"And what would you have done if it wasn't?"
Emma looks as though she doesn't know what to say. She halts her steps towards him, disappointment still on her face. She's unimpressed. She's glaring at him through narrow eyes now, reading his own puffed-up stance, the thumbs in his belt loops, with immense dissatisfaction.
And it's exactly what he wanted.
"So, you've come here for what, exactly?" Her delivery dry and off-hand, and he meets it syllable to syllable.
"Answers. All I want is your honesty, Emma, you have to tell me something."
He watches her gaze flicker towards the other swans as though wary of how their conversation might carry, their harsh quiet a risk she's not willing to take.
"No, I don't. I don't have to tell you anything."
Without another glance at him, she disappears back into the trees that she came from, the length of her cape whispering behind her along the ground, not even snagging on the sticks beneath it.
And of course, Killian follows her.
He ups the volume of his voice and his own ire a little, now safely between denser woods – she simply walks, under low branches and seemingly unfazed by his ensuing.
She is determined to give him nothing.
("I watched – no passively stood by – while a man drowned. Surely that deserves some sort of explanation?" )
And he is determined to push. He's determined to match her attitude, her feigned indifference, with his own – but he's not doing a very good job of it, he knows that. His voice sounds far too imploring to truly sound angry.
She doesn't turn back to him.
"Emma."
Until he calls after her with her name. Only at the sound of her name does she stop, swirling on the spot, her feathers moving with her a little but not enough, the pale skin beneath once more a thing to avert his eyes from.
Instead of repeating himself, he rips the silver from his pocket.
The silver swan, its neck curved in a semi figure-eight, does not shine in the dark but it catches Emma's eye all the same.
"Do I even want to know why you brought that with you?"
She recognises it for sure, the superstitious talisman hung from their doors, their protection, their security against evil lurking swans. The shape of it is (ironically and intentionally) bestial, cruel, the neck so contorted that the swan looks in pain and crippled. The stalls and stalls of them that he walked her through all those years ago had clung to her curiosity, the memory of her touching and running her fingertips along them, along the silver.
The silver that was supposed to repel them. The silver that was supposed to keep their men safe and sound in their beds.
The silver that she touched with ease.
(Another fabled lie.)
"Most likely not, but perhaps I'll need it."
She looks at him with disbelief, seeing the taunt, seeing his lie.
But there's a flicker of something else in her eyes, that if it is hurt it burns into something else almost too quickly for Killian to catch. It turns into a fire, creates cinders from the emotion and that irritation flashes into something deeper.
She is cursing him through the squinch of her eyes.
(But that was his intention.)
"Who was he, love, why did he deserve such a bitter end?"
Emma waves her head a little in frustration, not quite quick enough for a shake, but one that says she is stuck in this conversation against her wishes. She's committed to arguing with him now, and she stalks forward a little, a warning in her look, strength in her voice.
"Don't, okay, he was just a man, just like every other man – a heartless, greedy, lying –"
"Just how many men have you met?"
Another curse spat through her gaze, another step forwards.
"I've met enough."
"Aye, and how many live to tell the tale?"
At this distance there is more than just stubborn secretiveness on her face and the evidence of his provocation, there is hesitation, an uncomfortable fear the size of the knot in his throat.
There is no softness in her delivery, it's snapped, palpable like the moment itself, splintering like the word inside him.
"One."
Oh, but there is softness in her meaning.
She says it too quickly, taking a deep breath afterwards to fill the instant awkwardness she feels, too late to do anything about it but swallow.
It's Killian's turn to not know what to say. He simply stands there, shock and affection flickering onto his face.
And they are still.
Until she does once more what he is still too unsure of himself to do, the move he still feels he has no right to make – she kisses him.
Her lips meet his at the same time her hands reach his face, but it isn't the slow climb to a kiss that there was last time, there isn't the light heart to pull her onto her toes. He feels it low in his stomach first, an unfamiliar lurch that yanks his heart with him, his gravity off centre.
And all this he feels in the millisecond before he kisses her back.
It is so different to last time.
Her lips pull more at his, more desperate for contact, less content with a curious touch, a timid want, anger still dimly present in the feel of her. And her skin – her skin – is pressed almost bare against him, no corset this time to provide a barrier, no full skirts. Nothing. Nothing but feathers, and the further she presses into him the more the cloak pulls apart and Killian has no idea where to touch. At first, at least, when his mind is thinking too much. He settles on her hair, her feathered waist, settles into the pulling of her lips with his, the tongue between them, the tip of her nose following the warm patterns of his cheeks.
And it is so like last time.
For starters, he is falling.
The feelings overwhelm him in just the same way and he doesn't want to stop kissing her, and like last time, he ignores the way his lungs sting angrily for air. She leans away briefly to breathe, but he chases after her, the palm of his hand feeling the flush of her cheek then her neck, feeling the race of her own pulse mirroring the one pounding through him.
He has wasted too much time. Killian has wasted two years since they last kissed wanting her, missing her, wasted it denying the emotion that curses and courses through him.
He is definitely caught in a trap.
Their anger infused adrenalin fades with each chase of each others lips, their breathlessness making them more languid, their hands softer, their kisses a long deliberate apology instead.
And like last time, it is their breathlessness that stops them. Their lips give up, though their noses linger and bump, their foreheads leaning for support, her lungs puffing and stealing the air from around him.
(Like she steals the gravity from the ground.)
"Killian, why did you bring the silver?"
Emma's voice is softer than he was expecting, hushed against his lips. Her quiet whisper could be because she's out of breath, clutching to his shirt for support. Though, Killian is pretty certain it's because she's nervous about his answer.
He regrets that she feels the need to be.
He leans back, to watch her as he traces his fingertips from the nape of her neck to the apple of her cheek. He whispers back, showing her all of his sincerity as he shakes his head.
"The problem isn't that I don't trust you, it's that I do."
She sighs against his lips, heavily, and he only waits for her response before capturing her breath in his again, feathers beneath fingers.
("I know how you feel.")
–
Killian never does get the answer he was after.
He gets a different one instead.
One that tells him that thing that he was hoping for is not one-sided.
(And truth about myths become less and less important.)
–
He misses the moon the next year.
He misses it reflected on the black lake, and his mood is foul because of it. The shape still hangs in the sky, bright and white and crisp, but instead its image ripples on an unsettled ocean surface.
He has never hated a storm more than he does the one that delayed them, putting them two weeks behind schedule.
Killian is still stuck at sea, and the feeling of longing is more potent in his chest than it should be. It makes him feel sick.
Liam has left him to his own machinations all day, left him to wallow in the things he will not say. There is nothing to do about it, not really. So he stands on deck, hands held together behind his back, standing and staring out at the poorly lit darkness.
It's not a quiet night either, the crew's laughter dulled but clear enough from deep within the ship, happy once more to have smoother waters.
But even with the noise, and the rustle and flap of sails above his head, Killian hears the song with perfect clarity.
He never thought he'd hear the words out here.
But Liam sings them, muttered beneath his breath, a muddle of right notes and wrong ones. His brother always did have a problem carrying a tune. Whenever he did sing, it was a hapless combination of sloppiness and enthusiasm – wanting to do it, but never caring very much for how well.
It's still a tune he would recognise anywhere.
It makes the muscles in his shoulders tense, his hearing pricked for only it as it echoes sharply across the deck.
It warns him about the swans.
Do not go to the lake, they will lure you underneath.
Liam stops beside Killian, his heavy boots kicking the bottom of the railing as he does, leaning over the edge beside him, staring out at nothing in particular.
"Reminds me of home, that one. Although, I never can remember the words properly, there are always so many different versions of the damn thing," Liam says beside him, turning to face Killian, who does not turn to face him back.
He waits for what he knows is coming, has seen it coming all day with each furtive glance.
"There's a girl, isn't there?"
Killian sighs in response, fingers rubbing distractedly along the stubble he has grown into, sighing because he should have known there was no avoiding this conversation.
His elder brother is not a fool.
"Something like that."
"Figured as much. I couldn't think of anything else that would make you brood quite so intensely."
"I'm not brooding, brother.
It's the only lie he tells him.
He wishes he could be more forthcoming with him about Emma, tell him all the things that he feels and fears. Liam is his brother, and he loves him more than he knows how to say, but he has never been the type to believe myth and nonsense, always far more headstrong and logical.
And there is nothing logical about Emma.
They are each from this world of magic and legend, and he's sure his brother believes the stories to a certain extent, sure he knows something – but he fears Liam would simply dismiss Killian's truth in much the same manner their father had.
(A jovial pat on the shoulder, a well-meaning but dismissive chuckle.)
"Come on, what's the matter then? Does she not feel the same way? Disapproving parents? Promised to someone else?"
None of the above.
Killian picks his words carefully.
"Aye, disapproving is one word for it. We are each from different worlds, I suppose you could say."
He is intentionally vague, and intentionally leads Liam down a safer path.
"Ah, so she's above your station." The comment is followed by a ridiculous wink, one that twitches both eyes shut and Killian resists the urge to mock him for it. "That would explain that one night of the year where when we dock you sneak off with no explanation. Don't look at me like that, little brother, I'm not an idiot. Especially when you come back looking like you haven't slept a wink."
He's thankful that that is as far as Liam prods and pokes, thankful that the questions are followed by a more physical prod – the push of him down below deck to join the others.
It barely distracts him, even Liam's efforts do little to help. In every intentional inclusion and jest Liam throws his way, Killian sees both the affection from his brother, but also the reason behind it; the attempt to distract him from the girl on his mind. It is accidentally self-defeating
And so he cannot escape.
Cannot escape the thoughts of her lips seeking his, the way her voice had sounded. Not the way it had sounded wrought in agitation, caught in his search for explanations, but the way it had sounded afterwards, turmoil long-kissed from her lips. The way that she had spoken, low and calm and croaking in the hours till dawn.
It doesn't matter that he can't remember what they talked about – her clan politics, his naval ones – all he can recall is the way she sounded, the way she felt, his hand in hers.
The longing makes him want.
And he worries the wanting makes him greedy.
He trusts Emma, Killian doubts he could be persuaded otherwise at this point, but he always hears the accursed warnings in his head – lust, and curiosity, and greed.
The distance makes him think more about the fluidity of her cloak, of the way that she twists and turns and does not always take the feathers with her. His mind wanders to the thoughts of her skin, of wondering how closely he could pull her to him. How much longer will they have these chances between them, how many more years will he be left to think of her far more often than he sees her.
He wonders many things.
Like where the line is.
If he wants too much, will the other swans come for him; if he thinks too long and hard about where he wants his touch to move to when they kiss, will the lust – and the curiosity and the greed – will it be his downfall?
There is one part of the song that Liam had not forgotten.
Not all treasure is silver and gold,
Sometimes it's a girl, sometimes it's what hidden.
Do not go to the lake, even when bidden.
–
Six for gold…
He's late again. Late and heart heavy again.
(Knows his heart will be until he sees her.)
The sun has been set for hours and still the stickiness of the day seems to linger as an unbearable heat, dizzy in the ground itself, making plants and people and the night air shrink in on itself until all that is left is the humidity. It is humid, and the trek he makes from port to town seems longer for it. He misses the sea breeze almost instantly.
It's an auspice.
This night, its weather, it always means something.
There is another kind of tale, from a realm far away, in which old men were said to have watched the birds to predict the future. (More tales of men watching with vested interest the movements of birds). It was said that the way they flew, the way they talked, the time of day, were all in themselves an augury to those who knew how to listen.
Killian wished he knew how to listen.
It was said that different birds told different things, from farmyard poultry to birds of prey. An unkindness of ravens flying low in the fields, the time of the woodpecker, the lone eagle on a clear Summer's day could mean anything, could mean nothing.
But he wished he knew what the omens read for a swan on a humid Spring night.
It is hotter and thicker and more miserable the closer he gets to the water, the trees seem to radiate the feeling, bouncing between bramble until he feels as though he is swimming through the air. The beads of sweat that trickle down his neck do nothing to quench the feeling. And the feeling stresses him – foreboding meaning aside – the feeling is muggy and the feeling is unwelcome and the owls about him barely hoot, eyes closed deep in the branches.
The weather feels miserable.
(Perhaps he is listening.)
She's not there again, not in that same old oak-shaded clearing. There are no other swans around. He cannot see them on the shoreline, cannot hear them splash amongst each other.
But he can see their cloaks upon the pebbles.
That in itself is an ill omen.
Killian's stomach sinks to the ground.
There is the unmistakable sound of feet behind him – the crunch, the rustle – until before he knows it, before he's had time register much more than curiosity, two figures burst through the line of trees.
It never occurred to Killian to move, to hide, to run.
It never occurred to him that Emma might burst through the trees before him, a man hot on her heels.
A man who stumbles into her when she stills in place, frozen at the sight of Killian.
The look of panic creeps onto her face, shock and a million other ideas stringing through her mind in the time it takes him to simply stare and say and do nothing at all. She also says nothing, but her eyes say a mumbled apology, an uttered guilt.
They are both too busy staring at one another, that they jump when the other man speaks.
"What do you think you're looking at, sailor? This doesn't involve you," spoken with an unsurprising lewdness, his hand yanking Emma into him by her waist.
She does nothing but stare at Killian, unnaturally still, a warning in her eyes.
Killian's not sure what he thought the man would say, he doesn't look too much older than him, but there's an unnatural sleekness to his hair, a fineness to the weave of his clothes – and a calmness to his tone that does nothing but make Killian's blood boil.
He cocks his head at the stranger, chin-strong and sure, arrogance bleeding into Killian's image as a different kind of awareness of the situation breaks through the shock.
The sensation prickles through him uncomfortably, draining and dragging his eyes from the man back to Emma. It's not jealousy, and it's not anger, it's not horror, but it's not a foreign feeling.
It's protectiveness.
Emma cannot seem to stop staring at Killian. He has never seen her like this, still and almost unfamiliar in the way her face looks hollow. She does not look as small as her frame however, does not cower beneath the hands of the stranger. She looks dangerous, and calculated. The blonde of her hair seems to melt into her cloak, just as the menace of her intentions melt into the softness of her face.
He should be scared.
And he isn't.
She turns back to the victim at her side, curls a careful hand into his and turning to smile something as cruel and soft as she looks.
"Ignore him, he wants what he can't have," her voice is rich and seductive and it almost echoes, heavy like the thickness of the air around them. Her tone is almost familiar, the low tease, the flirtation is something she's used on him before – but it is not like this. This is something with a different depth, as though she is speaking one voice on top of the other. It is alluring to be sure.
But he's definitely happy that she's never spoken to him like that.
"He wants what you have – me."
He knows what she's doing, still the ironic truth it stings a little. Emma drags the other man by his hand, past Killian and past the oak tree. He must stand there for only a few seconds, staring at the place where she was standing, clenching his right hand in and out of a ball.
But Killian does what he always does – he follows Emma's lead and runs after her.
"Emma stop, you can't do this."
She's not far down the shore, smiling smartly at the well-dressed stranger, luring him down the bank towards the place where their cloaks lie.
The whole façade drops, magic smile disappearing, when she notices Killian running after them well beyond the security of their little cove.
"Go back, Killian."
She's pleading with him this time, face scanning the still water. But he can't – or won't – and he skids a little on the pebbles. He doesn't stop till he reaches her, finding her other hand with his and ignoring the other man completely.
"Please, love, I know this isn't you, I know this isn't what you want."
She rips her hands from both of theirs, and pushes Killian back, back with a soft force that holds little violence, and only desperation. There is a desperation in the way that she argues and pushes, but largely she still appears calm, only the wavering in her eyes and her tone giving her away.
("It is me, it's complicated, you don't understand." "Then help me to understand.")
There is another push at his chest, but it isn't Emma this time, it's the other man.
"The woman said to leave, so I'd really suggest that's what you do."
It's probably a rash move, but Killian actually laughs at this man's nerve, a snark curling at his own lips as Killian pulls his sword out. The shing of it has barely finished ringing before it is pointed quickly at the stranger's throat.
It's almost like a switch, the way his stance turns from soft and pleading, to his well-practiced form. Well, less of the practice and more so experience, five years now of battle and exercise and his wits are as sharp as his blade.
"Don't test me," Killian sneers the words, hisses them quietly, and although it is quietly it is no less threatening.
And the man certainly looks threatened. He looks a coward, all arrogance cut from his face with the simple swing of a blade and he looks younger in the realisation that, with Killian, he is out of his depth.
"What the hell are you doing?" It's Emma, she's hissing back at him, clearly surprised by his impulsiveness. Surprised, but mostly impatient.
He makes to turn back to her, the intention to utter her name and convince her against what she thinks she must do.
But someone else says her name first.
"Emma?"
The voice comes from behind him, calm, and easy – seductive.
Sort of.
He's sure it should be seductive but Killian is more terrified than anything, of the way it hums, and the lure of her voice does nothing but send a shiver down his spine even in the heat.
He turns to meet it anyway, only to be met by a woman much older than Emma, also with blonde hair, completely without her white cloak. She's dripping with water, her hair shaped down the back of her head, down the length of her neck and down the naked exposure of her back.
Perhaps, he is too aware, too conscious and too disenchanted to be drawn in by her. He can see the way the other man's gaze drifts out of the corner of his eye and down her body, looking at the way the wet tendrils curve down her fuller form.
The stories definitely tried to prepare him for this.
For the shiver of fear that trickles down his back, for the way his sword feels heavy in his arm (barely upright, still pointed threateningly, but losing its conviction). He runs through what he knows in his head – the cloaks, the silver, the weapons – but none of that helps him now. They never told him what to do when it gets this far, too focused upon keeping people away from the water in the first place.
What do you do when you're caught between fearing someone, fearing for someone, and fearing for yourself?
"I'm sorry, Ingrid, I've got it covered."
"There's no reason why they can't both come."
Killian hears the sweetness in the woman's voice, the dulcet inflection – the gentle savagery underlying everything.
And he hears the harsh terror in the meaning of her words.
He tries not to focus on it, watching sharply for the way she walks over the ground towards the three of them, her feet as docile as the guise of her voice. Killian notes with discomfort how she eyes them, his heart racing in what feels like slow motion; a galloping terror that seems to take forever.
"Why have you chosen them?"
She says it in plural, but veers towards the stranger first, eyeing him up and down, just as he eyes her back – hungrily and curiously.
"Greed."
Killian is surprised Emma's voice is so strong, the control and nerve with which she speaks. She'd moved to stand in front of Killian, perhaps under the impression of keeping the two men from fighting one another, but Killian can see her anxiety, her hands fidgeting nervously in the sleeves of her cape. It's not the first time tonight he acts impulsively, but this time he reaches out for her hand, hidden by the block of her body. His fingers graze hers gently, noticing her start a little at the gesture. But he squeezes, tightly, to try and comfort her, to stop her from shaking.
To his relief she squeezes back.
But Ingrid turns slowly, back towards the two of them and Emma breaks their hold in an instant.
"And what about him?"
"Nothing."
"Come now, every man has a crime."
Ingrid stares and steps closer to him as Emma reluctantly steps aside, glancing back at him nervously from over the older woman's shoulder.
Killian spares a look at the other man, suddenly wondering why on earth he still stands there, but he is almost entirely frozen in place, entranced and eyeing over the curves of their bodies. The woman, Ingrid, her skin almost shines with it in the moonlight, sleek and wet and terrible. But all he can see of Emma is the glimpse of a thigh, the shape of the cape as it tapers down over her torso and creates a little pocket of shadow between breast and stomach.
He can't for the life of him understand why the man doesn't move, why the conversation between the two women doesn't make him run. Surely none of this makes sense, surely he's heard of the stories and knows what's coming.
And the only thing he can think of to explain it all is the magic.
But he also has no idea why he is not bewitched the same way.
"Nothing," there is more assurance in Emma's tone this time, and suddenly he's not sure if she's being truthful, or lying to save his skin. "He was in the woods when we got here."
Killian grips the hilt of his sword a little tighter, feeling a little like his control is slipping, the sweat and the moisture in the air getting worse with every second. The humidity builds in the gaps between his fingers and the handle of his sword, causing his grip to slip like his nerves.
(But not his composure, that remains sure and still.)
He tries to keep a neutral expression as he stares this woman down, tries to do the same as the other man, to be as she expects – but his jaw is twitching, and Emma is looking at him so nervously now that it's difficult. Killian almost wishes Emma was not in his line of sight, because it is so difficult to not focus on her in all this.
Greed, Emma had said, that was why the other man was here. Greed, she had said the last time he asked, when the boy had drowned and his reality had shaken. Greed the stories told him time and time again.
The other man looks well-dressed enough for it, it is true, clearly the sort of man more intent on obtaining gold and trinkets than honour or morality. But that wasn't the kind of greed Killian was worried about.
He wonders if Ingrid is seeing greed on his face, seeing the want and lust he feels, but additionally the way his heart wishes for something more. Surely the want and his pursuit for love was just as visible upon his face as desire was on anyone else's.
Surely his need for Emma would be his undoing.
"Send him home, Emma, he'll just think it was all a strange dream."
He almost doesn't hear the words.
They slip through his mind as he waits for the 'but', the 'and', the watery death sentence.
When the confusion finally blinks onto his face, fortunately Ingrid has already turned and disappeared.
And Killian is confused.
There is the grabbing of his hand, the pulling of him back into and through their safe spot, further into dense wood. But Killian's head is still in a daze, trying to make sense of everything that just happened, to understand why, traipsing over logs and sticks trying to grapple with his relief as well as his balance as Emma speeds him through the trees.
Killian's not even sure if the other man is still there, in the clearing, gaping like a wanton fish.
He doesn't fully come to until Emma lets go of his hand, throwing her arms around his shoulders in a desperate hug. His arms go around her instinctively, fingers finding themselves in a mess of her hair and her feathers.
She is a welcome and very real weight in his arms. Two years is a long time to miss Emma the swan-girl.
His heart is still racing, the air is still thick, but every time she breathes, chest moving against his, he feels himself calm. The softness of the hair tingling against his stubble soothes him impossibly. (But none of this is impossible and unbelievable anymore.)
"I can't believe how stupid you are," she mutters into his shoulder.
And Killian actually chuckles.
"At least that's not a punishable offence in your world."
"In your case it should be."
(The scream, the bubbling terrible scream does not make it into the trees. Like last time, the weather and the magic keep it at bay, keep it by the water. But the blue shock of lightning rings silently above them in the sky, and all it does is make Emma grip him more tightly.
And when Emma finally lets his shoulders go, it's only to move her hands into his.)
–
A lot happens the year Killian turns twenty-three.
–
Seven for a secret, never to be told…
There is a problem with living in a world of magic.
And it's not simply the lack of sense, the indistinguishable difference between reason and misunderstanding. However, at the same time, that is exactly the problem. It is easier to be confused, easier to be gullible, it is easier to be cynical.
It is easier to be tricked.
It's a whole twelve moons later and as much as things change, things stay the same. His head is in a daze again, heart pounding out in slow motion again. Emma in his thoughts again.
This time the moon coincides with more than just an empty home, more than just his ship docking nearby, and far more than that one night the swans come out to play.
But it is still perfectly timed with the breaking heart of the boy inside Killian.
He thought coming here would help, that he could hold Emma's hand, bite his lip as he smiled at her, sway into her space and let her tell him how to orbit around himself again, find his centre of gravity again.
He doesn't even make it to the lake before any chance of that goes to hell.
The streets are bitter to him now, too many memories on every street corner, each cobble he trips over as he runs he curses a personal vendetta against. His pain is too new, the emotional gash still wide open and bleeding, and Killian would swear it is that that is making him winded, surely it is that that feels like a stitch in his side as he turns another corner, and not that he's out of shape.
(Couldn't possibly be out of shape, he's only twenty-three.)
He bumps one or two strangers drinking heavily as he passes a stall filled with rosemary decorated pies, not even pausing to apologise. Killian can't stop, can't pause for even a moment. His eyes have been too busy chasing white and black shadows to look away. He might lose them at any moment, and his curiosity is piqued just as it always has been.
With the added bonus of panic.
He knows they come up here, has gathered as much, they must meet the men somehow.
But they are too close to the chaos of the town and it all feels wrong.
All it took was the flicker of a hem disappearing around a corner and he was off, racing through town, not even entirely certain of why.
(Honour, protectiveness, curiosity. The usual causes.)
He can hear a woman yelling, but he catalogues it away as definitely not Emma, and he jolts into a sprint as he rounds a path out of town and not one in the direction of the lake.
Killian isn't sure who he is following, or what for, and as he dashes around another corner, he certainly does not expect what he does find.
The girl is shaking, even in the night he can tell that, her hair falling in dark waves over her black body – but she's not wearing a stitch.
The only stitch she owns is in the hands of the boy.
And maybe he's a boy only a few years younger looking than himself, but there is no naivety in his posture or his face, he knows exactly what he's holding, he knows the value of it.
He knows what the cape of black feathers in his hands mean.
How can he not, the entire town is abuzz with it, singing and dancing and not seeing the stories slip through the street shadows beside them, too drunk on myth and hearsay to see truth. He wonders if they simply assume they are local girls in costume.
And he wastes no time in peering at them, acting promptly with the guise he wears. They both stare at him as he approaches, confusion and hesitation in their stances, Killian's heels scuffing little night clouds on the dirt path.
"What do we have here, then?" The lieutenant's coat around his shoulders feels uncomfortable, like a lie, and still his voice comes out as authoritative as it always did on deck. He's glad for it in a way, his voice is stronger than the shaking in his heart and he blames the starch stiffness in his jacket, blames it for his manner (and a range of other things).
The boy is younger than Killian, but his arrogance is well-aged and mature, taking Killian's tone as a personal slight as he puffs himself up, stands even taller, a cruel sneer sliding onto his face.
"Don't even think about it, pretty boy, I caught her fair and square."
It reminds him of last time, the attitude thrown at him, of the way that the man had eyed Emma, sneered possessively with lust and greed in his eyes. Only this time, the look is different – it is more in control, possessive.
He may still have doubts about his own feelings, his own greed and selfishness, but he knows the difference between protection and possession.
So does the girl beside him, her eyes wide and pleading. She's not sure whether Killian is a threat or not, that much is evident, but he can tell she's waiting for a distraction to steal her feathers back before slipping away.
And apparently Killian is that distraction.
It's then than he wonders how the boy got it at all. He remembers that day, dumbstruck and still with Emma's cloak gripped tightly in his hands, and just how easily she took it back from him. No begging, no pleading eyes, no chasing him through the streets in nothing but her skin.
No, this girl seems to stand a few metres away from him as though unable to touch, anxiously running her hand through her hair. Until something changes in her eyes, and Killian sees it, the moment she thinks of seducing him into doing her will.
The coquettish look is unbecoming, not for any reason other than the fact that she is not Emma, but she sways towards him, a smile on her lips that does not reach her eyes.
"Don't listen to him," her voice is sweet, not the sort of abrasive softness of the older woman he encountered last year, but innocent and far too harmless; it does not carry much threat, no shiver down his spine. "I can't be caught, but I can reward you handsomely for taking back what he has stolen."
Killian feels as though he is at a strange sort of advantage, being so clued into the game, far ahead of the other players. He feels like he knows what to expect, knows her moves certainly, and expects the other man to act as stupidly as all men in lust do.
And it is with a bitter gripe that he still falls for it.
It's not that he'd been that preoccupied with the girl, not really. She is beautiful and graceful though he is not drawn, but he was watching cautiously the way she had been slinking towards him, too closely, and that is his downfall.
It only takes one moment.
And Killian curses under his breath as a knife swiftly and silently appears under his jaw.
"Is this what they're training you in the military these days? I don't much fancy your chances in battle." The words are spat in his ear, foul and distasteful and there's something in his heart, a shard of something that hardens and cracks at his words.
He tries to ignore it.
"This isn't a wise move for you, mate," Killian is half-mocking, half-cruel in his delivery.
"I'll be the judge of that, just go back where you came from, go get drunk with the rest of this stinking village, none of this involves you. Find your own swan."
Something else in him hardens at the words – the irony, the truth and the inaccuracy of his words. This night, it perfectly coincides this year with everything, and he is suddenly struck with the thought that tomorrow night he does not know what he will find, or where he will find himself. He has found Emma, but he can only find her one night of the year, and it is cruel, and it makes him angry (for both their sakes).
He would find her and stay, if he could.
And the jacket around his shoulders is a lie.
The girl has abandoned her attempt at charming either of them, eyeing her feathers, forlorn, seemingly unaware of the fact that she is standing on the outskirts of town utterly naked.
It makes no sense. Her inability to act in contrast to Emma's agency, the frantic chasing of the boy to the lust-drunk stumbling of the other two men he'd seen, and the fact that Killian seems to be somewhere between the two, head over heels, but still with lucid thought over magic.
He must be missing something.
Something Emma is keeping close to her chest, another secret, another myth she still doesn't want him to know. And he's not mad at her, not really, but he is so in the dark, tricked by magic, so constantly at a loss for an explanation – about her, about his mother, his father.
About Liam.
The sounds of running feet, trample the ground behind them, dull little bare-foot thuds against the ground, heavy breathing following their padding. And once more the other two turn to see who has interrupted them in their struggle for power.
Only, Killian doesn't follow where they look.
This time he is not the distraction. And Killian has one of his own.
His mind is too clouded, dazed in the things that continue to elude him, the power over his own life he struggles to hold, like the way the feathers of Emma's cloak slip through his fingers when he tries to hold on too tightly. Killian feels his jaw twitching as the frustration and the mourning bubble inside him, each bubble rising up his throat and bursting against the roof of his mouth, letting loose a range of feelings that curse and overwhelm him. They were never very well concealed emotions, to be honest. And the approaching feet do not distract him from the feeling.
It tastes sour on his tongue, the way the boy insults him, the shaking of the girl, naked and terrified in front of him, the cruel way logic seems to be just beyond his reach. The way that Killian loses everything.
And so, instead, he uses the opportunity to snap and bend the wrist at his throat, and it's audible, the crack, the boy yelping loudly and angrily, far too focused on the pain to notice as Killian grabs the knife before it clatters to the dirt beneath them.
And far too focused on the pain to notice as Killian plunges the knife into the boy's chest.
Everyone stops moving.
All pairs of feet are halted, no night birds – swan or owl – making any noise at all.
It's probably a bad auspice.
And the silence is deafening, the way there is nothing to distract from what he's just done, the knife still in his hand. His heart has been racing all night, side-by-side with his feelings, stringing pain and adrenalin into every beat. And it's the only thing he can hear.
Well, almost everything.
Everything except the boy. He gurgles, a look of shock and fear etched onto every line of his face, twitching and surprised as the blood leaks and seeps through his lungs.
Killian regrets it almost instantly.
There is too much horror in the boy's eyes, too much silence in the night around him, too much coughing and hacking, bubbling black in the dark.
Too much blood dripping down Killian's hand.
And the eyes stare at him – death and shadow and shock – and it reminds him of Liam.
He lets go, and as the boy sinks to the ground he is struck with the uncomfortable realisation. He wasn't thinking. Or more accurately he was thinking too much, anger and rage and sadness clouding him so that the twist of the knife had felt like going through the motions.
A familiar move, an unfamiliar target.
He has killed him in cold blood.
(Cold blood, hot head, heavy heart.)
Killian is still staring at the scene on the ground before him, watching the boy heave, the girl take back her feathers, letting the blood drip down his forearm, staining his shirt. It trickles thickly, staining the white of his skin far too quickly for how he feels, how the world feels stilled, slow and in shock. He holds his hands out in front of him, staring at them with a morbid acceptance, when two hands enclose around his.
He should have known it would be her.
"Killian, come on, we need to go."
Emma's hands are small around his, cold and soft, prying the knife from his grip before throwing it to the ground, coating her own hands in blood. It leaves little finger prints on his skin, tiny ripples and smears of her fingers across his skin and he can't help but bore a hole into the marks with his eyes.
And when he does look up from his hands at last, it is to see concern and panic on her face.
(Concern where he feels there should be judgement.)
She's not alone. There is another white swan with her, young and thin and consoling the frazzled black one. They are caught in their own scare, trying to calm their nerves, but not too busy to eye Emma and Killian suspiciously.
But he's not wholly paying attention to them, he's watching the way the blood stains her hands, and how she doesn't care, too busy waiting for him to respond to her whispers that they need to get going.
Her hands – just like last time – hold his and pull him through the woods, taking a long detour back to the lake, avoiding the town altogether. And just like last time he is in a daze.
However, it is different. He feels guilt, and a darkness linger over him, and the daze is not his consciousness but his heart. He feels everything so clearly, a painful comprehension of where they are, of each tree trunk, each fallen leaf.
The daze is in his heart. It feels coated and thick, like the blood had felt trickling down his arms, but he can't quite put his finger on how he feels. He cannot tell if he feels nothing or too much, numb or overwhelmed, restless or immovable.
Killian always feared his emotions would be his undoing. They made him hurt, they made him want.
But wanting and greed was not his sin. The swans were never going to come for him for that. Greed was never going to drag him beneath the black lake, never going to drag him down.
Murder, on the other hand…
