Moonlight shone across the ocean as the Splitstream cruised noiselessly across its surface, with only the wind to accompany Angela as she stood with her knees pressed against the ship's edge as if bracing herself, her hands too busy to hold onto the logged railing if she were to sway forward too far. The salty air that she'd enjoyed smelling so much was now blind to her, having been within its wafting breaths all day, which she'd taken as a slightly adolescent way of being acquainted enough with this lifestyle, though after having been taken all around the ship and shone the ropes, she had grown at least more aware of the daily goings-on, and a new appreciation for it all had already dawned on her, much in the way the moon had crested over the horizon like a pale white sun.
Angela stood at the bow of the ship, her hands muffled by the use of the sextant that Lena had left her, though with more pressing issues, in the way of sleep for instance, the newcomer had been left with little more than a rudimentary knowledge of the device after something that might be described as an 'introductory' course, though such a description might offend any seafarer, Angela concluded silently. Still, she'd had a book with her that gave detailed instructions for many of a ship's activities, though even its instruction was rather outside her grasp of understanding, this all leaving her trying her hardest to come away from this experience with something, anything, to further prove her worth or, really, her own feeling of belonging here.
With only a single eye open, she peered down the sextant's sighting scope, trying her best to make out where the dark sky ended and the farthest reach of the ocean began, then attempting to find "Pale Walrus", which Lena had described as the brightest star in the sky, leaving Angela with nothing more to go on when it came to finding it. Still, she persevered, even moving around the ship's deck in case it might be elsewhere, coming up with very little until simply choosing a random star for practice.
She would then carefully turn the index arm, trying to line up the star with the horizon in between the gentle rocking of the ship and her own body's shivering from the breezy winds that surrounded her. After that, she would lock the index arm in place, but that was as far as she went, having gained little from either Lena or her compendium, and she was left with little else but fiddling with the device in her hand, bringing it down from her face at times to try and make sense of the numbers that ran down its arched arm like a bent ruler of sorts.
In the middle of her celestial observance, she heard heavy footsteps approaching her from behind, the unmistakable sound of her father's thick boots, leaving her to remain busy as Jack watched her with curiosity, quite surprised that she'd already been handed such a thing. Angela remained quiet, knowing her father was more than likely waiting to instruct her, though she was so far in by herself that she was too resilient to accept help, wanting to prove herself to the man who's so long kept her held back from this life.
Jack scraggly voice emerged quiet and warm in the cold air, sending a cozy twinge down the back of Angela's neck, "I usually train crewmen with the sextant a bit further in."
"Well, none of them were me. I've got this," Angela assured him confidently, hoping her father would call her bluff, at least not immediately.
The Captain only smiled at her confidence, dropping his shoulders back as his coat slid down his arms, allowing him to open it and drape it over his daughter's shoulders as best he could with her arms up along the sextant, leaving him to fix the topmost button around her neck to keep it from falling. He then stood beside her, shoving his hands into his pockets as he watched the dark horizon himself, taking sidelong stares toward Angela as he tried his best to sneak glances to appraise her ability.
"Nice night, besides the chill anyway," Jack muttered.
Angela pulled her head back to stare at him, "What?"
He grinned, "Are we not supposed to make small talk anymore?"
"No, just- The first words out of your mouth had nothing to do with telling me how to do this properly," Angela frowned, caught between seeking instruction and independence, "Are you losing your touch or something?"
A boyish grin came across her father's face, his eyes still peering along the horizon, "You're a big girl now; I wouldn't dare force help on another adult without their asking."
Angela suddenly frowned, recognizing her father's game. He wanted his spirited, headstrong daughter to ask for help? She wouldn't dare recuse herself to such a state of helplessness…even if she'd been out here in the cold for hours, and the large coat around her had already begun to subdue her into a state of longing for a cozy bunk. With her boy surrounded by warmth, her face suddenly grew more aware of the frigid air, Angela's mind immediately wondering if this had been a ploy from the start.
"How's the Splitstream treating you?" Jack suddenly asked, still staring out into the still waters, "One day in and you haven't stuck on your floaties and swam back home; I'd say that's a good sign."
Her pithy eyes glanced toward him with a frown, "How old do you think I am again? I'll have you know, I've had my head inside a cannon today so I could clean it out!"
"You'll be a sea dog soon enough, I suppose," Jack replied, cracking a grin, "There's more to it than cleaning and navigating, but for a first voyage, I can't say you're not exceeding expectations. Most of my newcomers have already puked off the stern by now."
Angela's eyes dropped, "They're not going easy on my, are they?"
Suddenly chuckling, Jack finally turned to his daughter with a childish face, "What, because you're my daughter? or because you're a woman? Are you wanting to throw up on the regular?"
"No," Angela frowned, crossing her arms as the sextant in her hand disappeared beneath her father's coat, "I just don't want anything hidden from me. I spent enough years with you shielding me from everything out here; I want to experience what you experience out here. See why you keep returning to the ocean; it can't be much more than trying to-"
Her eyes flashed with a breathless gasp, stopping herself from continuing, knowing she was inadvertently trailing into territory she hadn't wanted to explore. Still, her father seemed to gather what she was about to insinuate, his body slowly turning around as he leaned against the bow, his crossed arms sinking along his stomach as he stared down toward the deck with young eyes.
"You're not trying to be a seafarer just because your mother was, are you?" he asked with a gentle voice.
Angela bit her lip, suddenly regretting having spoken at all, though she knew she was in too deep at this point, "I-… I mean, maybe at first, but the more I read and the more I heard from you, I just- I don't know, maybe it's just in me because of you two; I kind of feel at home out here."
She sighed, not wanting to offend her father as she muttered along, "That's why it felt so much like I was being imprisoned back home. I just wanted to be with my father; it was sort of my ticket to being closer to mom as well, all things considered."
"What's all these things?" Jack asked curiously, his warm face turning to confusion.
Angela shrugged absently, "You know, I mean it's kind of obvious, isn't it?"
She chuckled nervously, her eyes shifting away as she spoke, "All the stuff you do for this ship, it's kind of like your memorial to mom."
Her father's face turned in curiosity as she said that, his brow lowering as he peered out across the deck. Angela's shoulders slowly pulled in as her father's silence suddenly made her restless, unsure as to whether or not she'd upset him. She rolled her tongue along her teeth as she quickly wanted the conversation to either end or radically change direction, never much a fan of silent tension, though her ears perked as she heard him push himself to his feet.
"Well, your mother was quite the navigator, so I suppose we oughta get you familiar with that thing," he spoke up warmly, standing behind his daughter while his hands fell onto her shoulders, "I'm sure Lena wasn't too thorough; she hasn't the ability to stand still for more than a second or two."
Angela smiled amusedly as she pulled the sextant back up to her face, her father instructing her warmly as he bent his head down as close as he could to the side of her head, trying to peek down the instruments' sights himself, "Okay, see? You've already got the the horizon on this mirror, and you've-"
"I got that?" Angela asked in shock, "It took me forever and I still wasn't sure I'd found the horizon!"
Jack hummed behind closed lips as he nodded in reassurance, "Mmm hmm, you've definitely got it. It can be tricky at night, but you can just make it out, especially with a full moon. Speaking of… yep, you're not measuring by the moon it seems."
"I just picked a star; Lena didn't show me how to find Pole…" she suddenly trailed off, immediately noticing how silly she was about to sound.
"Polaris?" Jack finished with a chuckle, "I used to tell your mother I was jealous that she only had eyes for a star. That's just the North Star; just draw a line from the outside edge of the plough constellation and you'll find it."
Angela's head tilted around ever so gently as she attempted to spot either the star or the constellation, Jack going no further in the way of assistance, though he did continue to speak, "You don't want to measure by the moon, since it's so close it moves pretty fast in astrological time. Polaris never moves, though. Aei phanēs; 'always visible'. Unwavering. You might learn a bit of Ancient Greek if you're aboard as well; it was just something I picked up when-"
"How's this?!" Angela shot loudly, whipping her head around to seek out her father's reaction.
"Hmm…" he mused with a light tone, lowering his head further, noticing his daughter's lining up of the horizon and the moon, "Looks like you've got it. Remember to lock the arm in place, though, so we can record it."
A warm tingle shot down Angela's spine as her father patted her shoulder in praise, lifting himself and taking a step to her side, pulling out a notebook as she locked the arm in place along the arc of the instrument, reciting the readings as her father nodded, scribbling the results down for her.
"Alright, you're halfway there," Jack pointed out with a smirk, "You need to take these results and account for various errors that are simply basic to navigating with the instrument, right? Assuming Lena had you determine the index error from the start, you still need to work out the errors in dip, refraction of light through the atmosphere; and if you're using the moon or sun, the parallax and semi-diameter need accounting for. Hana should have some charts in with her, so if you ever need to-"
He paused as he noticed his daughter's sinking eyelids, the hours of working the sextant out beginning to catch up with her, and her body even began to sway before she corrected herself, standing up with a jolt and assuring her father, "I'm okay; I'm good."
"How long have you been out here?" he asked with paternal zeal, swiftly stepping forward to steady her as Angela went for another bout of swaying.
She thought lazily, "No big deal. Few hours."
"Angela…" he quickly snapped, softly, sighing with a disapproving shake of the head, "You'll get a cold if you stay out here too long. Come on, we can finish this up tomorrow, okay?"
"Mmmm…" Angela groaned in complaint as Jack began directing her toward the entryway that led into the ship, "You wouldn't do this for just any old sailor… It's just becau-aaaaaah- because I'm your daughter."
Jack smiled weakly, "Actually, I was a third mate myself a long time ago. There's nothing more dangerous than a tired crewman; I had to drag many sailors to their bunks. So, no, I'm not treating you any different, Angela."
He eyed her, speaking with a sarcastic air, though unable to hide a teasing smirk, "I know that's important to you, deck-sweeper."
His daughter's indifference signaled to him how far along she was toward sleep, having expected at least something of a teasing reply in turn, though receiving no such thing. He silently marveled at the extent of his little girl's devotion to her age, to the point where he wondered whether he should be thinking of her as such. He couldn't help it, he knew; there had been so much lost time between the two of them. Every time he saw her, it was almost as though he were desperately trying to revert to the first time he'd left his daughter at home; trying to make up for all the playing he had missed, all the first words she'd had. All the moments he hadn't a single memory of.
As her feet began to drag, he sighed, more for Angela's sake, knowing she would normally give him hell for such a thing, though he still bent his body down, grappling an arm around her legs and pulling her body into his arms, worried she'd collapse then and there. Sure enough, even in her tire, Angela still wiggled her shoulders as if trying to break free, though her effort was mostly for naught. She pouted beneath closed eyes, leaving Jack unafraid to show his smile at such a sight.
"Sto-aaaaah-op," Angela managed through a yawn.
He forced back a laugh as he explained easily, "Okay, maybe this is only something I'd do for my daughter."
His daughter grumbled in his arms, though as his coat and arms began to warm her up from the cold, lulling her further into sleep, her already useless complaints began to fall by the wayside, her head eventually turning up to rest in the nook between his chest and arm as her freedom came second to her sleep. She still grumbled inaudibly, as if merely resigning herself quietly, leading to another grin from her father as he crossed the deck.
"Your talking did it," she mumbled distantly, "When you two were home, mother would call you out of my room to let me sleep. but you always wanted to stay. So you'd get down so close, and I'd have to cover my mouth so I wouldn't start laughing, sitting your chin on my pillow and whispering bedtimes stories in my ear so mom wouldn't hear us. I used to feel fuzzy in the back of my neck listening to you, like how I felt back there; it'd just put me to sleep… every time…"
Jack slowly turned his head down to watch his daughter, a look of melancholy crossing over his face for just a brief moment before having to take his eyes off of her to carry her into the ship, though his mind was still left on her short, tired tale. A pang of guilt gripped at his heart- in all the travels he had taken, all the hardships, all the paperwork, all the sales, all the adventures; somewhere in all that, he failed to remember those nights with his daughter. The side of his tongue pulled beneath his teeth as he bit down, biting back a tear as he made his way toward the bunks, quietly, having noticed his entire crew having already fallen asleep.
He stepped quietly, however unnecessary it was, given a small chorus of snores that surrounded the two of them, and he gently placed his daughter into the last bunk, her voice grumbling once again at the sudden disturbance. As her hand slid down her father's arm, it clutched at his wrist for the briefest of moments, tugging at Jack's heart far more than it ever might have at his hand, before it fell onto Angela's stomach while she twisted and turned atop the creaking mattress. Jack dared to watch for just a moment before reaching down for her blanket, pulling it over her and tucking her in, his heart feeling some sort of warmth at the recollection of the same action seventeen years ago. He recognized just how much more work was required to tuck her in, now, in her adult frame.
He stood up, a look of sadness cast over his face, showing freely with his daughter's closed eyes, until he perked up at Angela's soft voice, "What was mom like on the ship?"
Jack managed a meager sort of smile, turning toward the snore-filled crew before working his way down to his knees, leaning over his daughter's pillow and readying his bedtime story, working up the courage to create new memories, even if only to replace the ones he'd lost. For all the time he spent warding off visions of that dark and stormy night, he would often think little of his wife, though now, he tried his best to come up with something, anything, that might please his daughter.
"Well," his voice shook for a moment before he quietly cleared his throat, "Well, uh, the was a tremendous navigator. All that math stuff I mentioned, she could do it in her head; she'd stare off into that thing for a handful of minutes and have a rough location, day or night."
A quiet chuckle escaped him, his hand flying up to his mouth to catch him before he awoke the others, "There was one time, she forgot the shade before calculating from the sun, she really hurt her eye- couldn't open it for days. That woman was so headstrong; I had to carry her out on deck so she could hear the readings and figure everything out in her head, even with such a nasty injury. I wonder where you get it from sometimes…"
He slid his hand away to reveal a boyish smile at his sarcastic quip, shaking his head, "She only had an eye for Polaris. I would tell her, all the time, how jealous I was…"
His voice softened, his eyes trailing off as his mind wandered in thought, "She would say…she saved both eyes to be trained onto me."
A greyness covered his eyes as he peered into the nether, his mind lost, surrendered to the visions of his beloved. His heart sank as he inevitably returned to that evil night when she was stripped from his life, leaving him broken.
"Any captain would'a sent her…" he reminded himself of that dark fact, as if in perpetual guilt, eternally forced to reason with himself the decision to send her out into the storm, "Any captain… Even me…"
Angela's body shifted, curling up beneath the blankets restlessly as she let out another yawn, not totally awake, yet not fully asleep. Jack's eyes wandered to meet her face, lost in the twilight between the two, finding every bit of his wife that he could in her cheeks, in her nose.
"That's why…" Angela murmured from a sleepless voice, "You do all this…for her."
Jack watched her for a moment, mulling over her words, before surrendering his final link to his wife to sleep, working his way back to his feet, holding a steady hand gripping along the bunk above her as he watched her silently. His head slowly turned upward to the ceiling, examining its wooden craftsmanship, taking in the Splitstream as he recalled his daughter's distant words from just a second ago.
With his daughter still in service of his coat, Jack stepped away, loosening his collar as he turned toward his own quarters, determined to leave his troubles behind the door as he stepped into the small room, shutting off his contact with the outside world as he did so. It was a practice he'd nearly perfected by now. His crew, his ship, they couldn't afford him to be troubled. His job required him to leave everything to the side.
Even his daughter, he thought, his heart set atremble by the worrisome idea.