Operation Phoenix Chapter 1; you're my one last hope, and kid it's up to you
notes; This begins part 2 and I'm sorry for the delay! Hopefully this chapter will make up for it! Thank you for all the reviews and favs and follows. It is deeply appreciated, as always.
He wakes up with his face buried in his pillow, breathing in the worn cotton covering. Killian has a slight headache, but that is to be expected when you've imbibed as much as he had last night.
That damned poison. That beautiful smile.
Anna. That was her name. He'd wondered if he would ever find that out.
He'd wondered so many things since the beginning when Emmet's voice had cracked and he heard the undercurrent of a person far different than who they presented themselves as. Killian suspected something amiss, in Emmet's clever words and polite manner - in the very name: Emmet Swan, so obviously thought up on the spot. In the hair, recently shorn off with a difficulty that had left his knuckles cut. Soft hands. Too soft for a street urchin.
He'd wondered so much about this younger man with the smile that was too gentle - and then he'd wondered even more when that smile hardened, the muscles wider in a span of a few days.
Killian had wondered whether he was going crazy.
Well, he was going crazy, but in the steady way one does when a person like Emmet falls into their lives and sweeps them off their feet in the most literal of manners.
He'd done more than wonder. He'd sought answers, watched him like a hawk. Had Hawke watch him, although the man had volunteered for the duty unbidden - "You may trust Emmet after him knocking you out cold, but there's something off and I'm going to find out what." Although a real hawk would've been far more suitable, with Emmet's ability to converse with them, some kind of magic he would love to finally get a truthful answer to.
Perhaps after Emmet and Anna become one and the same. As patient as he is and has been, it is difficult not to wish for that moment to come swiftly.
He'll just have to work a little harder at wooing her, listen to those tips she'd offered to give him last night. He laughs to himself, finally lifting his head from his pillow and stretching out his alcohol and sleep numbed limbs.
Killian still considers the line romantic and despite her protests, he'd seen the flush in her cheeks. She'd appreciated the compliment, perhaps. It could have just been the poison she also swallowed down. Or a coffee blush was not unheard of.
He will give credit where credit is due, consider all the possibilities, but shaking the thought that he was the cause is hard when he recalls every other flush of her freckled skin as the boyishly cute Emmet and as the woman he'd suspected her to be so long ago - when she'd demanded to join his crew with such a confidence as to make her fear mostly unnoticeable - who reappeared in Emmet's place when their lips broke apart.
Killian himself reddens at the memory, among other things that even wide awake now as he is, he doesn't quite have the energy to deal with.
He makes a futile effort to get dressed while the remembered feel of her heats his blood, his recent encounter with her womanly features - the freckles that went farther down than he would've guessed even in his wildest dreams, which he has yet to have. Last night he'd been blessed with the blissful dreamless sleep that alcohol always brings. Tonight will be a different story entirely - or maybe not so different. Perhaps, this time, she won't be so scared to kiss him.
Wishful, frustrating thinking.
He's fully dressed when he gets a frantic knocking on his door. Henry with breakfast - the boy has enough energy to power the whole ship. He and Emmet, or Anna as only he gets to refer to her (he was the only one she'd kissed...well, not counting that barmaid but that had been fleeting. Still, he wishes it had been his lips alone. What can he say? He's a selfish man. A stupid one too, goading her into it as if she wouldn't just to spite him.)
The knocking is louder, harder.
Scared.
Killian discards his thoughts, crosses the room and throws open the door.
"What is it, Henry?" he asks sharply, stepping out onto the deck to look about for any of Midas' guards. Had they been under attack, there would've been shouted warnings, but scouts were another worry.
He sees no scouts milling about on the docks or racing off in the distance, only Henry - and Victor, strangely enough.
"Emmet's gone," Henry says.
Oh. Killian looks him over, noting the paleness of his face and the book, Anna's book that he's clutching so tightly to his chest that it'll leave an imprint.
A cool breeze flutters his hair, slapping loose strands across his forehead.
Rubbing his hands together he says, "I imagine he's just at the tavern with his new friend, Red," and tries not to sound jealous as he does so.
She'd come to him, after all.
"No, he isn't. I checked," Henry stresses. His voice breaks; manhood isn't easy on anyone, but Killian can't deny that it's a more fraught sound than the usual.
"Come now, where else would he go?"
Knowing Anna, it could be anywhere. He looks to Victor, but for once, can't seem to read anything on the Doctor's face.
His expression is sober.
"I don't know," Henry says. "He's just...gone."
Before Killian can even begin a protest, call for a search party or do anything, Henry thrusts her book in his hands. Bewildered, he opens it to the torn sheet of parchment peeking out from the pages, reading quickly over the neatly written…
Goodbye.
The loopy letters of her normally neat handwriting speak of an obvious strain while writing it, yet, Killian cannot bring himself to care much about her struggle. Not when he reads her words over again: it was a painful choice, but it was mine to make.
A decision that didn't include any of them.
Had she felt they would have swayed her, or did she simply not care?
He admits that, for a second, all he thinks about is her promise to wait for him, the promise that she would be here when he awoke with a smile perhaps, a secret look before she brushed her fallen strands of hair underneath her cap and looked out towards the sea. He doesn't imagine a kiss, but just the touch of her hand, his name on her lips.
She'd said it with such ease yesterday, joking with him as she always did.
Had she been planning to leave even as she let loose her hair?
Or had it been far longer thought? When they were making their way from Midas' Castle? When she kissed him and broke whatever spell had held the truth at bay for so long? When she told Henry that he could be her brother? Or perhaps even further back, when she stared at his hand, so obviously not at all what he - she - seemed and asked Killian whether he was a pirate.
"Killian," Victor says quietly.
Killian hears the warning in his tone, warning him away from himself. He glances back to the boy. Henry's raw emotions, the pain, the fear, they all play out across his face. Still Killian can't open his fist around the paper or unclench his jaw.
"Come on, Henry," Victor says, prying the book out of Killian's hands. Victor takes Henry's hand to lead him away, which is a bright move, all things considered. Killian simmers just beneath the surface and it would do no good for him to explode in front of the boy.
He still has a bit of sense about him, but it's hard, especially when Henry pulls away from Victor, and chin tilted high like Emmet - Anna - taught him and says, "We're going after him right?"
The words come without thought. "And why would we?"
They surprise Henry as much as they do Killian. The boy's brows dip so low in confusion as to fall off his face completely. Killian swallows a tasteless laugh.
"Why wouldn't we? Emmet's gone, we have to go after him. It doesn't matter what that stupid letter said - something's wrong. He wouldn't have packed up and left in the middle of the night. That isn't like him. He keeps his promises."
"He didn't promise not to leave, Henry," Killian says, trying not to say anything more, not to think of her smile and her words - I'll be waiting - or anything about the way her smaller hands felt in his, like he could hold them forever if she let him. As romantic as any novel. As pathetic as any man in love, without even feeling that way himself.
(That is the truth no matter what his heart says to the contrary.)
"Captain," Henry says and Killian bites back a curse. The boy's on the verge of tears. Killian cannot handle tears right now. "Please. I know we're supposed to sail today but we can't go. We can't."
Killian draws his eyes closed.
If he pushes his feelings aside, he knows he can move on. Feeling aside - he remembers too well the feeling of Anna's lips and he wants to go after her, should go after her if only to know for certain that he hadn't branded her the way she had him.
He just wants to know, but he dashes the thought. If she wanted him to know, she would've stayed. If she felt the same -
I'll be waiting.
If Anna felt as he feels, she would have waited. With her gone, he has no reason to remain.
"Henry," Killian starts. Pauses to clear away the nonsense emotion clogging up his voice. "I need you to get back to work. We'll be off shortly."
He half expects the boy to storm from the ship, ready to run after Emmet, but he just looks as defeated as Killian feels, which is worse. If the boy had run, Killian would've had an excuse to give chase. It was his last hope, he realizes and Henry's hung head chases away the last vestiges of it.
With a turn of his heel, Henry says, "I'll go get your breakfast then."
Victor reaches out a hand to stop Henry but the boy is faster than him, gone in a split second, so Victor turns his gaze on Killian instead.
"Doctor," Killian says, the formal title all the warning he should need to give.
Victor throws his head back. "Are we really leaving?"
"We are."
"I suppose I should go and tell the crew. I'm sure they'll want to know of our lessened size. It'll mean more duties for the rest of them, of course. Emmet could get more done than most of them combined."
"Right," Killian says. If Victor's searching for some hesitation in his stance, he won't find it.
Casual as can be, Victor adds, "And I suppose I should give you this as well. It was left on your door." Killian opens his hand as Victor takes something from his pocket. Dropping it in Killian's hand, he says, "I didn't want Henry to see. He is upset enough as it is."
Killian nods and doesn't look at the doctor, instead staring at the necklace held in his open palm. So, Anna hadn't lost it after all - not that he thought she had. He'd thought that she'd taken it off for him, so he wouldn't find her out. It was too late for that.
Too late for many things.
"No, it would have done no good for Henry to see this, given the circumstances. Thank you for your quick thinking, Doctor. It's much appreciated."
"I bet," Victor says, still too casual, too sober to be the joke it would usually have sounded coming from his mouth.
Killian looks up at him. The man hasn't had a drink since their adventure at Midas, fending off the rest of the crew's attempts to catch him in their drunken revelry as easily as he had previously allowed them to. Killian had noticed it with only minor surprise.
Anna had a way of changing people. He'd known that the moment he let Emmet onto the ship. Killian hadn't brought on anyone new in years, not since Victor, and that he'd done out of a sense of pity, not out of the instant...connection he'd felt with Emmet. There'd been a change in the wind when Emmet stumbled into his life, and now it feels like that wind has gone and he's been left as he was before.
"You know, I had the thought that Emmet's been troubled since we left Midas' castle. I wonder if it was something that happened while we were there that made him decide to go. "
Killian sets his jaw. "Let's leave the wondering for stargazers and fools," he says. "They have more use for it than us." After a breath, he adds, "I hope you have everything you need for the journey, Doctor."
He glares at Victor but that must seem an invitation to the man because he says, "Killian, I know that you've already made your decision, but…" Victor falters as Killian stares him down. "Well, I suppose there are no buts. I'll go let the crew know, as I said."
When Victor follows in Henry's speedy footsteps, Killian finally lets himself consider Victor's words.
Wouldn't that be the bitterest of ironies that in his desire to have her stay, he'd been the one to chase her off? That the kiss that had hooked him, caught him in her spell, had broken whatever had been building between them?
He looks down at the swan necklace in his hand, remembering the line across Anna's neck where her tan had not reached. Had she meant to be so obvious? Had she meant any of it at all?
If they were to leave the wondering to the stargazers and fools then it was good it should be left to him to stand here and wonder. After all, he'd touched the constellation of freckles on her skin, foolishly believing that those stars were meant to guide him somewhere else.
Somewhere better.
He pulls his first mate aside while keeping an eye on the men milling about. Several of them keep an eye on him as well. They try to be surreptitious about it but most of them are used to brash acts of villainy, not subterfuge. They've heard about Emmet and they want to see his reaction.
Killian smiles.
"Smee, is everyone accounted for?" Killian asks.
"Everyone except, well, you know."
Killian turns his head away from the men who've given up pretending not to watch him and looks at Smee. "So, we're ready to ship off?"
Smee frowns deeply. Tilting his head in question, he says, "Ready to ship off? Without Emmet?"
"Emmet left, and we don't search for those who willingly abandon their own crew, do we?"
That they've never had an abandonment like Emmet's doesn't pass Smee by. It contorts Smee's expression, has him opening his mouth wide to voice the words.
"Is this a new rule? And Emmet - he's - are we really going to leave him behind?"
"He left us behind, Mr. Smee," Killian says.
The anger chokes at him for a moment. She'd left them behind. Gone off so suddenly that it's left everyone reeling out to sea.
It's time to pull them back in.
"It's not a new rule," Killian announces loudly. "You abandon the crew and we'll give you the same. So if anyone wants to share in Emmet's departure, the floor is yours."
He waves his hand dramatically, claps Smee on the back when he starts to sputter another protest. Smee coughs on his words.
Ward doesn't.
Leaning over the railing, he spits loudly into the water below and says, "Knew Emmet wasn't cut out for this." He smiles, more bite in his next words than in his missing teeth. "Weak, he was. Fancy words and sword skills won't change that."
Weak. Killian doesn't agree, but a ruthless, angry part of him remembers her words and thinks himself weak instead. Weak to even believe that something good would stay.
He wishes it hadn't even entered his life at all, but can't seem to wish she hadn't. Not yet, at least.
(Not ever, he knows.)
"Emmet wasn't weak, but not all strong men are pirates." Killian smirks. "Some of them are farmers, I'm sure."
Where his words would've drawn echoing laughter a month ago, instead he gets light chuckles and wary gazes instead. It doesn't hurt any worse to see his discontent with Emmet's abandonment reflected in most of his crew's eyes, but it does tease the hurt back out to the surface.
He curses loud enough that Smee straightens quickly.
"Back to work!" Smee calls. "We're headed for brighter horizons."
Killian scoffs. He's being obvious. Too obvious, so he tugs at his shirt opening, stalks across the deck with the purpose of heading to the stern. His purpose is turned away in a heartbeat by a sharp whistling that cuts through the bustle of his crew.
He knows that whistle.
"Aiden, what's wrong?" Killian asks, turning towards the sound because the half-man's appearance - on a stolen royal horse that he half trots up the gangplank - can only mean one thing.
Something is dreadfully wrong, besides the obvious.
"Milah?"
Aiden sets his yellowed gaze on Killian. "She needs you."
"Where?"
Aiden's voice is as flat as always when he says, "In Hades' domain."
Killian curses - is cursed, his whole life just a string of them all bringing him down, but never as far down as that. As far down as Milah has gone.
"Will you travel with us?" Killian asks.
The half-man nods, his eyes blinking sideways. Once, Killian would've found this creepy. Once, Killian was just a boy, plowing his way through ship after ship with no end in sight.
"How long?" he asks, forcing memories aside.
"Only a day's travel."
Killian nods and turns back around. Smee's already waiting behind him, looking unnerved as he stares anywhere but at the green tint of Aiden's face. "Smee, take Aiden and have him set you a course."
His eyes flit across Killian's face, his own red with worry. "For the Underworld?"
Smee knows better than to question him when it comes to Milah, but there is consternation in the look he sets on him. Not fear but -
Killian expects it when Smee scurries closer and quietly says, "Captain, are you certain of leaving Emmet behind? Perhaps something bad took him away."
"I doubt it was something bad, Mr. Smee. If he was looking for bad, he would've stayed at our side. No, he left for something better."
Killian feels this with the same certainty he felt when he touched Anna's hand. Something better, that's what she was, and she took that something with her when she left.
Wherever she brings it, he hopes it's somewhere more deserving than his ship. To someone more deserving than him.
(He hopes that something better never finds a home at all.)
Looking at his tattoo in the dim light, Killian ignores the ink and paper at its side. He'd started to pen a letter to his contact in Arendelle, but it's hard to focus when the darkness falls around him, pressing on him with the very same reminder he always finds when he's alone with nothing but his thoughts and the itch of the oft inked skin. Memories always attack him at night, but they feel heavier this evening.
He shouldn't have spoken of the Black Lands last night. He'd been foolish to bring up his encounter there, foolish to share that part of his history knowing what just speaking of a god can bring - but he couldn't very well tell Anna what he wanted to when her eyes kept flickering to his tattoo with that openly curious gleam in her eyes.
History is doomed to repeat itself. Even with all that he shared with her, Killian couldn't very well bring that history down upon her - but his unfulfilled bargain with the Old God had been easy to detail with the drink in his belly.
Poison.
Perhaps that poison had a source more sinister than Red's cellars.
It's a chilling thought but no more chilling than the memory of her fingers tracing his tattoo, searching the lines that housed the recesses of his soul. Her fingers had been warm, warmer than his own touch could ever be when he knows what those black feathers mean and what fire burns on that sea.
Maybe he should've told her. Maybe if he had her departure would hurt less because she'd know who he truly was and know exactly who she was leaving behind.
Or maybe if he'd told her, she would've changed her mind. Perhaps, she'd have seen beyond that as he'd seen beyond Emmet.
If she'd changed her mind, maybe he could've changed his too because a reminder is what she was. Anna brought forth memories he thought had burned in that sea. Good memories, happier times.
The wings burn tonight, like the green fire that had encircled him within that temple. Hot and oppressive. He scratches at it, even though it'll just end as it always does, his skin clawed open, blood blooming amongst the black.
After all, history is doomed to repeat itself and Anna is as lost to him as the happiness of his past. All he has left is what he had left before: his tattoo and his ship and the memories that tear at him the dark.
"You shouldn't be here."
Killian rolls his eyes. Unwise in the face of a god but Hermes can do no worse than the god already at his back except lead Killian into Set's grasp, and Hermes can't do that with his wand held in Aiden's grasp.
"Did you tell Captain Milah that as well when she stole your wand?"
Hermes lifts his hat to look at Killian and then darts his gaze to Aiden as he waves the wand before the rock wall.
"Careful with that," Hermes says in Aiden's direction. "They bite."
Contrary to his words, the snakes on the wand slither up Aiden's arms, winding around him and hissing. Aiden merely coos at them, an action Killian's seen many times with him and snakes of various sizes and bites.
"I doubt it," Aiden says drily.
Water splashes at Killian's feet, icy cold. He steps a little more towards Aiden but he can do naught more to avoid the cold waves when the island is so small as to be nothing more than a rock in the sea, shrouded by an eternal dusk, the darkened sky still painted with bands of orange, red, and gold.
Killian looks back at his anchored ship and then to Milah's anchored beside it. They both look out of place in this painting, too human, too real. Killian feels less than human in this almost night, which he supposes is how he should feel when entering the land of the dead.
Some spell keeps Milah's ship from rocking back and forth in the dark and crushing waves, probably the same that keeps his tethered. Or perhaps some gift of Poseidon's. He always liked Milah better and with good reason.
"Betraying me for your family?" Hermes says, reverting Killian's attention back to him. Killian tilts his head in confusion until the snakes hiss in Hermes direction and he adds, "I know how that goes."
This look he directs at Aiden.
"I'm sure Milah will return your wand as soon as she is done with it," Killian assures him.
Milah would surely have no use for it after this.
"Are you?" Hermes says. "You seem unsure of a lot things at the moment."
Killian stiffens and glares at the god, an even more unwise move but one he can't help when Hermes peers at him from under his hat with a look too knowledgeable.
Anna's run-in with Hermes' twin siblings springs to mind, a trap waiting to drag him into whatever game Hermes is playing. Toying with him with the same tenacity as the fear that tore at him when he'd awoken in the midst of that night to find Emmet's bed abandoned.
"Do you gods have nothing better to do than to bother my crew with your meddling?" he asks softly. He saves his anger for his memory of yelling at Emmet, angry at him - her - for every thought of his - her - body laid out in pieces by wolves or any manner of creatures that lurked in the dark forest.
"You're not the only ones we bother, but you are the most fun," Hermes says. He flickers for a moment, proving his point when three people appear behind him, each of different ages and skin tones, in different poses, speaking in different languages - and yet all wearing the same wide-brimmed hat.
As Hermes melds back into one being, Killian says, "I suppose that is meant to be a compliment."
"A warning," Hermes corrects. "Not every god walks with as light a step as I."
Killian easily riddles out the meaning in his words and again he thinks of the god at his back, of Poseidon's waves splashing over his feet, and of the gods waiting down below.
"Thank you," Killian says insincerely.
Hermes mouth quirks up at the corners, not quite a smile. The look fades so quickly that it might have been a trick of the light - or just a trick of a light footed god.
A rumbling of the earth makes Killian plant his feet firmly on the ground, holding his hands out to keep himself steady as the rock wall throws itself open. He expects darkness to greet them, but instead what he can see of the passage is smoothed red rock, well-lit by a source that he cannot see.
It isn't particularly foreboding but it is the Underworld, so he places his hand on his sword, readying it for easy access. There are many dead down there that wish the same upon him, and those that would no doubt stoop to any level to succeed.
Anna was right to leave when she had.
Stepping forward, he stops abruptly when Hermes throws a hand up before him.
"I could make a proper guide if you would allow me back my wand," Hermes says, flapping into Killian's view on his winged shoes.
"You could or you could leave us behind in those dark depths to become permanent residents of the Underworld. Trickster god that you are, it would do no good for me to put my faith in you. After all, my family is on the line," Killian says.
Family. He glances back at his anchored ship with Henry Swan pressing on his mind and Anna's necklace burning a hole in his breast pocket.
"Your uncertainty of your path will not help you once you pass the gates. Tread carefully," Hermes says. Killian frowns at the god. This time when he smiles, it's the toothy grin of a child. "And Godspeed to you."
Hermes flickers out of view, leaving a cool gust in his wake. It throws Killian and Aiden forward, into the lightened tunnel and when he catches his balance and whips back around, the wall is sealed behind him.
Killian shrugs. This he'd had no uncertainty about. Once in, there would be no getting out until he found a proper exit. The Gates of Dusk are a good enough entrance to the Underworld, but they never remain open to those wanting to return to the world of the living. As close to Kokytos as they are, it would prove too dangerous. Grief is a heavy burden and many would crack under its weight if given the chance.
Already, Killian feels it pressing on him, but he's used to its weight.
He glances at Aiden. He looks unaffected but there's no way to be sure. Killian has heard stories of those so overcome with grief that they'd cast themselves down in the river or laid down to cry themselves to death at its banks. But then again, these are mere stories and while he is wary, they do beg the question of who is doing the telling if everyone who's met Kokytos has perished with their grief.
Killian is sure there are those like him, survivors who would take their grief to the grave - the grave of others and not their own.
"Shall we move? The snakes tell me that it is a long walk and that we dare not tarry. It would do no good to begin to thirst for the waters or the Queen's fruit."
He says the last part deferentially and Killian jumps back when vines begin to sprout from the walls, flowering with purple fruits that beg him to taste their sweet juices.
They smell like Anna.
"Captain Jones!"
Killian tears his eyes from the walls and at once the vines drop their fruit in loud clumps. They roll against his feet, each one withering before his eyes. The scent is no longer the clean lemon scent of tavern soaps but sickly sweet, enough to make his stomach churn.
Blinking, he meets the light of the wand and lets the snakes' hissing bring his scattered mind back together.
"Be wary," Aiden repeats. "Step with careful feet."
He almost sounds like Hermes. It would be no surprise if he were a descendant of the god himself. His guidance and his trickery had gotten Killian and Milah out of many a situation when Killian still traveled with Milah's crew, before the black phoenix took flight and burned a path across Killian's soul.
Killian grunts his acknowledgement. Watching carefully and keeping a careful watch over his mind, he steps down the passage, following Aiden's slow descent. The air becomes oppressive long before they reach the bottom. It makes Killian and Aiden both step faster, apparently with the same thought in mind.
Milah. She's been down here for hours, having opened the passage before Killian and Aiden arrived. She'd left the wand behind, but had conjured another guide with it before she went.
Killian can only guess what it has done to her to use the very thing that tore her world apart.
He urges Aiden forward when the passage widens out, but rests his other hand on his sword. No telling what they'll find in the chamber below.
His worry proves right because, she waits in the arched doorway.
It's a striking vision, her hair done up in the braided bun she wore when she'd skin the fish she'd caught earlier in the day, not wanting the scent to cling to her dark locks. She drops her gaze on Killian the same way she did when he was small enough to climb into her arms and tickle a smile into her cheeks with his dirty fingers.
If Killian wasn't so sure of their location, he'd think he was already at the base of the Styx, hatred bubbling in his stomach.
But he always knew grief to have the most bitter of tastes.
"Can we bypass your games or must I pretend to entertain the thought that you are really my mother?"
The creature shrugs with a look that his mother only ever gave to his father when he would come back after days away. "I thought this form would be of comfort. My other is less than desirable to mortal eyes, even those that have seen as much darkness as yours."
Killian places his hand on Aiden's back. "And what shape has it taken for you?" he asks, ignoring the creature's curious gaze. Knowing it isn't really his mother doesn't help him from wishing it to be so.
Grief plays many tricks on the mind.
"My sister," Aiden says, keeping his gaze on the light of the wand. "But we need not slay her." He pauses. His gaze falters only momentarily but it is a moment that says enough: not that they even could slay it. "She is harmless."
Killian looks at his "mother."
"Harmless is not what I would ascribe to her," he bites out.
The creature shrugs. "I am but a doorman to welcome you. Only those who do not wish to remain ever concern themselves with my true form, so I shall not keep you. Your path is long and you should hurry."
Killian lifts an eyebrow. "Why?"
For a moment he is comforted by the creature's smile, so much like the one he used to crave more than food on cold nights when he had nothing to cradle him but his own arms.
The comfort does not last when the creature speaks.
"My sisters are not as welcoming."
Killian nods and makes to step around the creature into the chamber, but stops, considering. "I should thank you, then," he says.
"Thank me?"
With a smile that he's sure looks a bit like her own, unreachable by the eyes, Killian answers, "For such a kind welcome."
When the creature disappears, the last thing she does is blow him a kiss, with tears in her eyes as large as the ones that fell from his mother's eyes when the life left her eyes.
"Come on," Aiden says. "Achlys' sadness is not the only grief we must face."
Killian nods and walks past the threshold into the chamber beyond.
If he'd stepped into the room without his hand on Aiden's back he would surely have perished for the light of the tunnel blinks out the moment he touches down on the black soil, the only light that from Hermes' wand. The darkness is more than oppressive now. It is choking.
"I believed Nyx's domain to be farther off," Killian coughs out. His lungs struggle for air. Lifting his hand from his sword, he clutches at his throat.
Aiden sounds much the same when he says, "Maybe she wanted a change of scenery."
The joke lightens the darkness perceptibly and a weight shifts in his chest. Killian keeps his other hand on Aiden, moving it up until he has a grip on the wand as well, but it's not as necessary anymore.
Curious at the change in the air, Killian says, "And she chose to remain in the Underworld? How bad must her former Halls be that she considers this a change of scenery?"
The darkness shifts even more and Killian draws in an easier breath.
"Grief," he murmurs. "Bloody grief."
Aiden twists his head and nods at him. In the dim light, his eyes are the bright yellow of a cat's. He knows that they could cut through any darkness, but Nyx herself?
He is grateful that it was only grief constricting them and nothing more.
Aiden sighs. "And yet, it would've been a bloodless death."
Killian chuckles, the sound smooth now that he can actually breathe. "Which is no better than a bloody one."
The wand pulls them forward, urgent, warning. Killian doesn't take his grip off it. He doesn't trust the momentary lifting of the veil, nor does he trust his ability to keep up the lighthearted jokes, not with his heart as heavy as it is. Thankfully, it isn't so much grief as it is a vicious longing for something that he'll never have. He tries not to think of Anna's face, tries to focus on his goal, on Milah. Milah needs him, not Anna.
Milah needs him.
(Anna's face remains.)
They're dragged forward again, along a path of red soil that cuts through the black. Killian follows that path as far as he can with his eyes and then turns his gaze towards Hell's Heavens, a darkness that reaches forever upward with no end in sight just as the plain before them stretches outward as far as his eyes can see.
He shivers and looks back at the soil. It slips beneath his feet and he stops Aiden, pulling the wand back. The snakes hiss on Aiden's arms, looking at Killian with equally yellow eyes.
"Careful. That soil isn't naturally red," he says.
He steps down hard and blood squelches beneath his feet. From the deepness of the color, it must be gallons of it, and it could be a trick played on their already weakened minds, but Killian doubts it. Achlys did mention her sisters and Killian brushed up on his knowledge of the Underworld as much as he could before they arrived at the Gates of Dusk. Keres - daughters of Nyx, winged women of "violent death." Killian doesn't want to be caught in their clawed grips, especially when he's not just at Death's door, but inside its hallowed halls.
"I thought so. It smells old, but everything smells like that down here. The dryness of death, beyond rot, down to the brittle bone."
"Such imagery," Killian comments.
Aiden looks at him out of the corner of his eye. "The only way is forward. We must follow the guide."
Killian nods and relinquishes his tight hold on the wand, allowing it to pull him whichever way it leads. He tries to speed up his steps, tries not to let his thoughts wander again. Stick to the path. Stick to the goal.
The blood makes it hard. His feet sink into the soil, his boots covered in dirt that will take more than a scrubbing to come clean. He's not sure how he'll manage to feel clean after this at all. Death clings. It sinks into the skin, beyond blood and marrow, down to the brittle bone.
He peers around him again, careful to keep watch for anything approaching. It's quiet around them in the lonely flat landscape of blackened earth, but it isn't the silence of a beast waiting in the wings, poised for an attack. It's the quiet that eats away on its own, leaving you to your own thoughts.
Stick to the path.
The words don't hold the thoughts at bay. Killian tries to speak, to break the silence, but the words die in his throat and instead thoughts bloom. The days he spent in his house before his neighbor came looking, before he was taken from her side and brought to the orphanage. Before that place became too much for him to bear, when he'd rather live on the streets than linger a day longer in that hell of hoping for something more - for his father to come back like he'd promised. For his brother who he could barely remember.
Now, he remembers him far too well. The familiar vision is eager to fill his whole sight, to block out even the path before him. Killian looks to the light of the wand, but even that wanes in the face of his brother's empty gaze.
Killian doesn't find the strength to fight off the vision, but he doesn't have to. He is saved by the flapping of wings and a breath so foul that he can do naught but focus on it, choking for a breath.
"Her sisters," Aiden says, drawing his crossbow from its hook on his side. Specially designed, he only needs one hand to let the arrows fly, but Killian doesn't know if that will be enough against these...beasts.
Killian wraps his fingers around his blade, waiting for the ugly creature to attack, but instead a creaking laughter escapes the festering lips of the winged harpy.
"Our trail of blood shall guide you on, but to what end? Hers?"
Milah.
There too much blood, too much blood for it to be hers spilled across the dirt, but still the thought grabs hold as it watches him with foamy white eyes, flapping its rotting wings.
"You didn't kill her."
"We had no need. She seeks a greater death," another one says. Killian twists his head to look at it. Where its sister is the pale blue of blood drained bodies, this one is a sickly green. It makes Killian nauseous - a power he is sure it holds dear. He ignores the feeling, choking down the bile and releases his blade.
"Aiden, they're not going to attack. Let's move on," he says.
He doesn't quite trust his own words, but what would be the use in attacking him when they seem so certain that they do not need to? Violent death - that isn't in the cards for him.
Or, they see that he is marked already and feel no use in killing him when his day waits on the horizon in a land of soil blacker than that around him, and a river greater than that before him.
The river that had not been before him moments ago.
He looks up, but the Keres are gone. He did not hear their wings take flight, but perhaps they had not been there at all to begin with, another vision sent to scatter the first, to scatter his thoughts even more, and in his confusion, send him hurling into Kokytos unaware. Or perhaps there is no river before him, and that is a trick of his mind.
He drags Aiden forward by the staff of the wand and says, "You see it, too?"
"Yes, and I've seen Milah's been through here."
Killian smiles. At the edge of the river, lying beside the path of blood is Milah's hat, a sign she no doubt left for them to urge them on. "She'll want us to bring it back to her."
Aiden scoffs. "Of course. Milah's style will not be the same without it."
"I'm not sure if you agree with her or whether you're just parroting a line that she's told you too many times," Killian says.
The snakes hiss under their breath, apparently not amused by Killian's poor attempt at a joke. He doesn't blame them, but Aiden takes it in stride and says, "It could be both."
"Aye, it could."
They should have kept speaking because as soon as they stop, as soon as Killian reaches down to grab up Milah's hat, the vision washes over him again, this time in colors brighter than he knows it to have been, his memory dramatized on the stage of the river, waters rising up to play out the scene.
He knows how it goes, he doesn't need to see.
His tattoo burns on his wrist like it never has before. He tears at his wrist but it doesn't soothe, only makes the burning worse. He scratches and stumbles backwards.
The water embraces him, drags him into the scene. Killian isn't the boy on the stage and hasn't been that boy for years, but for a moment he sinks into his role, smiles at his brother like he did before.
Liam smiles back.
The burning begins again and he fights against it, but it's in his eyes. The salt is in his eyes, forcing unwilling tears. He drowns in it, can no more fight the swell of the water than he can fight the memories.
It plays out like the worst of fairytales. Once there was a Captain and a cabin boy. Once there was a sword and a decision.
A sword and a decision made.
And then nothing but the sword.
Killian picks up the bloody blade, tears in his eyes and knows that if he uses it, it'll end his sorrow far better than his useless attempts at it.
They could reunite. His mother, not merely a form taken by a goddess, his brother's smile real and true.
Anna and -
Anna.
Killian drops the blade in the water instead reaching for his pocket. His jacket weights him, but if he can just reach it. He can't see through his tears, but he doesn't need to when his fingers grasp the swan in his hand and break the vision before his eyes.
Once there was a Captain and a cabin boy.
And once there was a woman disguising herself as a man.
There is a Captain and a cabin boy and somewhere there is Anna, living, breathing, smiling maybe, even if it isn't for him.
He breaks the surface, gasping for air and fights the current of the river, swimming against it with the swan clutched so tight in his fist as to leave an imprint behind.
At the shore, Aiden waits and when Killian is close enough, he helps drag him from the water onto the land.
"Idiot," Aiden hisses.
Anna would say the same.
Killian laughs and shakes out the cold water in his hair. It'll no doubt dry soon in this hot climate, he's only thankful that it cleaned the blood from his boots and the salt from his eyes.
"You have her hat?" Killian asks.
Aiden grits his teeth. "Your priorities astound me."
Wiping his wet face on the offered handkerchief, he says, "So, you do have her hat. Let's go."
Aiden peers at him, his yellowed eyes blinking rapidly while one hand clutches the deep blue hat, crushing it in his strong grasp.
"Milah would not have perished here. She's stronger than her grief. If I could do it..."
Aiden sighs. "Of course, she could."
Killian still doesn't quite have the energy to take offense at his words, but he does scoff with as much dramatics as his waterlogged lungs allow.
He takes inventory of his belongings - the rum's gone, but his sword still hangs at his side - and goes to place the necklace back in his pocket. He reconsiders, drops the necklace around his own neck. It falls against his skin, the silver colder than the water in its spot above his heart.
Romantic. Anna would approve. Perhaps. He isn't sure.
The only thing he is sure of is that she'd saved him back there and for a moment, it felt like she'd left more than this trinket behind when she abandoned ship.
His bearings gathered, Killian takes ahold of the wand again. He and Aiden let its pull send them into a full on jog down a clearer path, free of bloody earth.
This side of Kokytos has a view of the next river and to the right of the approaching river, across narrower waters, flint grey stairs, and miles of them, lead down into a darkened vale. Smoke rises from the valley, but there aren't any visible fires, just darkness and a haze that makes his heart sore. Killian shivers just to look at it. The snakes on Aiden's arm shares his mindset, hissing in its direction. Luckily the wand pulls them towards the larger river.
Or unluckily. The closer they get, the more feelings Killian would rather leave buried are dragged to the surface. He realizes he's bleeding only when they're halfway to the black river and his tattoo begins to crawl again.
"Bloody fucking hell," he curses, angry at himself for clawing the damn thing open, angry at the damn thing for existing.
Angry, hateful.
"The Styx is close," Aiden says.
Killian's about to push him away, strangle him for even speaking when Aiden thrusts the wand back into Killian's path. He grabs it merely to keep from tripping over it.
The anger cools immediately.
"Styx, of course," he says. "All that hate in one mighty river."
"Mighty goddess," Aiden corrects.
Killian follows his eye line and swipes a hand over his eyes. His sense of disbelief drowned in Kokytos, and now all he has is his sense of frustration.
Not every god walks with as light a step as I.
Killian thought he had riddled out the truth when, of course, there were several in Hermes' words. The second being that the goddess lying across the river is so large that her shadow could create its own night.
She doesn't seem to see them, and Killian keeps his hand tight on the wand now. This close to her, he'd probably kill Aiden in a split second's slip of his grasp. Bleeding arm or not, he'd much rather have his own blood dripping down his fingers than his friend's.
Sanity, self-preservation, common sense and uncommon sense all would tell him to avoid moving any closer, but he and Aiden keep up their tread towards the River.
Aiden sees the light first, his eyes built more for the dark than Killian's.
"Milah's at the base of the river," Aiden says, which is Killian's cue for them to break into a run. They skid across the black dirt, kicking up dust that turns to smoke in their lungs. Killian struggles to breathe around it - which is an alarmingly common occurrence today - and through the darkness he can see Milah bent by the waters, a blue light casting a glow over her that makes her look almost ghostlike.
Almost - but the ghost beside her does a better job of it, which is good all things considered. He can't do anything to harm her with his incorporeal form, just stand before her and glare.
Killian's never seen the short, crippled man before but instinctively knows that Milah's former husband glowers at her. Killian knew it would be so when Aiden's horse galloped up the gangplank and he revealed Milah's location. As worthless as her husband was, he was her last resort should the worst occur.
Should she not succeed in finding her boy on her own.
Killian should've known what she was up to when she'd leaned into his embrace in Ursula's tavern and rang false laughter in his ears. He should've known when she'd told him "Death would be kinder." But Killian had been distracted with his own thoughts, too involved in his own dreams to notice her darkened ones. He was so used to seeing her determination that the lack of it had completely passed him by.
Killian's observant, but -
Anna's necklace hangs heavy on his neck.
Milah raises a hand when they're yards away from her and says, "Stop. I need to speak with him alone."
"I wouldn't want to get between such a happy reunion…" He trails off, the sarcasm hard to keep going when he's close enough to her now to see that the ghostly glow isn't just the fairy light in her hand. The color is draining from her skin. "I came here to make sure you don't do anything stupid and I can't do that with you so far away, Milah."
Milah snaps her head to the side and fixes him with a gaze so cold that Killian has to move closer, pulling Aiden with him. Her eyes look milky, the blue duller. "The wand, Milah. Placing a hand on it should help with whatever you're feeling."
"If Hermes' wand could help, I would've used it to send me to wherever Bae is," Milah says. Her words burn, steam rising on the river and sweating Killian's skin.
Killian didn't forget her husband, but his voice still draws a surprised shift of his head. "You've yet to find my boy - of course, that's why you came, right? To make sure he hasn't been spending the last few years keeping his father company."
Milah shifts her gaze back to Rumplestiltskin. Despite Killian's words, she doesn't grab the wand and even with it in his own hand, Killian feels a stirring. The river seems to rise a fraction, like an awakening, the sleeping goddess' eyes opening to press her hateful gaze upon them.
"I need to know, Rumplestiltskin. You owe me that."
She raises her cupped hands as she says it, lifting the fairy light towards Rumplestiltskin. He steps closer, eyes so focused on the light for a moment, entranced by it.
Snapping his gaze away, he cackles. "I owe you, Milah?" His voice rises, and the river slaps higher on the bank. "You're the one that left us! You're the one that ran away!"
Milah's anger rises to meet his own. "I couldn't stay. Not like that, not in a village where I couldn't walk to the market without the stares, the whispers, the spitting at my feet - I couldn't stay and you know it. I didn't want my anger to turn to him. You could live like that, but cowardice rests easy with you. It ate away at me and I would not let it eat away at him, too."
Taking a breath, the river slides back down as she says, "Baelfire was better off without me."
Silence follows. Rumplestiltskin starts to move towards the light, standing a little taller. He starts quietly, quiet enough that Killian doesn't hear his first words, but he does hear him when his voice rises as he asks, "Is that why I'm dead and he's lost? Yes, I suppose we were both better off without you. Death has been kinder to me than life with you ever was."
"Liar," Milah gasps.
Tears build in her eyes, fall down her cheeks. Killian isn't stupid enough to think it a trick of the light when her tears begin to streak with blood, just drags Aiden with him so that he's right at Milah's side. They both fall to their knees beside her. Keeping one hand on the wand, he presses his other to Milah's shoulder.
"You have to calm down," Killian says and pulls her closer to him. The river swells, splashing against his knees. Her body shakes in his arm, knotted with the same rage that burns in the black water. Her tears stop but the blood remains.
Gaze still firmly fixed on her husband's shade, she adds, voice croaking, "I need to find Baelfire. Do this for your son."
"Send him back into your loving arms?" When she lifts the light again, his eyes don't even flicker towards it. "Not a chance, Milah. You'd have to pry the secrets of his location from my corpse, and you already tried that. It didn't work out for you then, dearie, and it won't work out for you now."
Milah's control snaps so hard and fast that he nearly drops the wand trying to pull them both back from the swelling river. The water blisters where it touches, urging him to let Milah go, scratch the pain away.
She drops the fairy light into the water. It melts from pale blue to a volcanic red before it dips beneath the surface. Killian keeps pulling her back but the river advances faster than he can and Milah reaches forward instead, grabbing at her husband's shade and only touching air.
With a curse, Killian loses his hold on the wand and uses both hands to grab hold of Milah before she falls into the black river. She thrashes in his grip, one elbow rising towards his face. He tightens his hold. A voice whistles in his ears but he can't hear it over the booming in his head, a giant's heartbeat speeding to life.
Killian could strangle Milah, use her hair as a noose to calm her rage for good. It would be so easy. It's so much harder, holding her back than it is to let her tumble into that river, let her die the way she wants. It's easier to take that from her, and it would be so much more fun to watch the light drain from her eyes so he'd never have to deal with her and her troubles again.
"Yes, join us," Rumplestiltskin cackles. Killian lifts his gaze from Milah's dark curls to see her crippled husband tread in the water. He looks more alive than he did moments before. The hatred of the Styx agrees with him.
"Me and you, Milah, we could be a happy family again."
Milah drags Killian forward even more. Water splashes at her chest and she doesn't even notice, the hateful woman. "I never loved you, and even in death I never would," Milah gasps. Killian jerks her back by her hair and she barely even flinches as strands are yanked from her scalp by his rough grip. He'll just have to pull harder.
The wand slams to the ground before them, pushes back the water. Both Milah and Killian reach at the same time, eager to push the wand out of their paths.
Coming back to himself for the second or third time this day - or this century, for he can't tell anymore whether the hour he feels he's spent down here hasn't been hundreds of years instead - Killian says, "Saving us is all in a day's work, isn't it, mate?" The murderous rage cools in a second, replaced by regret. With one hand still on Milah's back, Killian says, "Sorry about that."
Milah remains mute, her gaze still fixed on where Rumplestiltskin stood only moments before. He disappeared with the crack of the staff. Her shoulders are still lifted high, but the defeat doesn't need to reach the rest of her form for Killian to know it's there.
The blood on her cheeks starts to flake away and the last of it fades when the tears, bloodless ones, leave her eyes. Milah has one hand on the staff but her fingers tremble. Killian watches her hand while rubbing circles into her back and says, "If you let go, you'll never find him and you swore to me that you would."
Milah scoffs, opens her hand but leaves her palm flat to the staff. "I swore to Bae that I would never leave his side and I left. I swore to Rumplestiltskin that I would love him forever, no matter what, and I sent him, knowingly, to his death. I've sworn so much and broken every last one, why would this be any different?"
He stills his hand on her back, prepping himself for grabbing her wrist and forcing her to hold the damn staff. "You swore you wouldn't let me die, and here I am."
Milah laughs this time. Killian relaxes. "That's on you, not me."
"You don't have to be modest with me, darling. Now, please, grab the staff and let's leave this place."
"Grab the staff?" Milah says. If he had any free hands, he'd drag it across his face when she adds, "Is that what you tell all your lovers? Seductive. Romantic."
Teasing is all her words should be but anger flares instead.
...and we can work towards...romance.
Killian tenses, his hand fisting in her shirt. Obvious, but she won't notice, not with her hand rubbing at the water on her cheeks. "Let's just go, Milah."
With each other's help, they make it to their feet. It's hard to stand properly, let alone walk comfortably with the three of them holding the staff. When Milah sighs, the snakes hiss on Aiden's arms and twine up to his shoulders to glare at her.
"We have to make this easier on ourselves," Milah says. "Aiden, ask them if they can transform into another shape."
Aiden shakes his head. "They can hear you and they think you're rude." The snakes hiss again while Milah shrugs. Killian feels much the same. Aiden and the snakes share a 'What can you do?' look and he says, "It'll be easier after we cross Asphodelos."
Bewildered, Killian and Milah look at each other. The wand begins to pull again and as it pulls them forward in an awkward, fumbling shuffle that is frankly embarrassing enough that Killian knows Hermes is watching and laughing, the wand parts the river. Beneath the water isn't soil but sharp volcanic rock that burns at his feet as much as the water had. They speed up their shuffle, Killian eager to get through it with his shoes at least partially intact.
Killian's boots burn away long before they get across and it feels like it's searing the flesh from his skin, almost so unbearable that he'd rather let the water take him.
He catches himself before he lets go of the staff, catches Aiden and Milah too. "Move faster. We are not dying like this."
"Good call," Aiden comments, for the first time sounding like the Underworld is as much of a strain on him as it is on Killian. It makes him feel a little better for being so weak to the press of dark feelings all around him.
When they step onto the opposite bank, the pain ceases. His boots and his feet haven't burned away and now that he is realizing it, the water that had burned so much when he'd been trying to save Milah from herself hasn't left any mark behind either.
(Is this place just one big trick played on those that would dare come here while alive?)
Killian imagines Anna would say so - and it kills him, easier than the Underworld in its many continued attempts, to think of her and not have her by his side.
(He's so in love that it's killing him.)
His feet move on their own across the dull grey fields, his mind moving somewhere else (somewhere better) but still he snaps back to life the second he sees him. Killian could ignore every other shade in here and their cold forms flitting through his body, but this one, the sight ices him over.
And then all it does is burn.
Every's shade approaches slowly, sizing Killian up. "I didn't expect to find you here, although I have been waiting."
"Really?" Killian drawls. Milah and Aiden try to move forward, but Killian plants his feet firmly on the ground, facing the shade of the murdered pirate.
Murdered by him. Killian wishes he could reach out and do it again when the man smiles and bows to Killian. "Of course. A man such as yourself would never make it to Elysium, and they reserve Tartarus for the most awful. Even you and I are not worth that fate." He sighs, lifting his hand to scratch his upper lip. "I don't begrudge you what you did, Mr. Jones."
"It's Captain, now," Killian says.
"Captain Jones. Following in your brother's footsteps?"
His silence speaks for him.
"Or following in mine? Tell me, Killian, how is the post-revenge life working out for you? Is it everything you ever dreamed when you were plotting how to kill me?"
"Better," Killian says.
"You sound bitter," Every says. "Not better."
(A bit of both, to be true.)
"The air in here will do that to the living, I suppose," Killian explains.
"I sensed that there was something wrong about you. Well, I'll see you another day then."
Every is a good liar even in death, but his anger always got the better of him, and it does so again. He steps before Killian and the only thing keeping his ghostly blade from touching Killian is the blinding light of the staff.
Every spits. "I'll keep a spot ready, just for you."
"Your kindness does not go without note," Killian says, and finally let's go of his hold on the ground, ignoring the wave of the pirate's blade, now burning with spectral flames. He follows the path that the light cuts through the field of shades. Where before he could ignore them, now he searches their faces as he passes, the worry gnawing at him.
Liam. He would never end up in the same place as that monster and, yet, Killian worries. The judges of the dead aren't known for truly judging the weight of a person's soul. Every's appearance here is proof of that. Even Tartarus is too kind a place for him. He doesn't belong in the fields.
"Killian," Milah starts.
Aiden judges his mood better. He grunts in Milah's direction and she sighs. "I hate this place."
Looking up at the skies, Aiden murmurs, "I'm sure it feels the same about us."
"Really? Because I believe this is it being welcoming."
Milah manages a laugh at her own joke. Aiden returns it with a smile.
Killian only urges them on faster, still searching and growing more frantic as they get closer to end of the field. On one turn to avoid the larger groups of shades, three men step into their path, unseeing of the living trio, too busy talking to notice.
"...I swear she was a princess."
"Princesses don't fight."
"Now, you're just being idiotic."
"She would've pulled in a proper bounty. Our weight in gold."
The shade's voice is wistful. "Our weight in gold."
Killian's search becomes easier after that. If these are the kind of people that the judges thought deserved the fields, surely Liam had achieved Elysium. Surely he rests there with their mother. The only person he hopes to see here is his father, but as they finally reach the end and start to get pulled towards a pool of clear water, Killian sees nothing more than other unknown shades.
"Ah, Mnemosyne," Aiden says.
Killian starts to ask until the sparkling mist above the pool before them begins to unfold into a vision - Aiden, Milah and Killian aboard Milah's ship, Killian's face buried in Milah's shoulder while she laughs.
"You couldn't hold your drink back then," Milah comments.
"I still can't," Killian says, smiling. It's easy for a moment, he feels less weighted by the darkness around him. As they're pulled closer to the water, the mist parts to reveal a boat.
"Oh look, it has a place for Hermes' wand," Killian points out.
Milah chuckles and it's a sound so sweet that the next vision that unfolds before them is them in her cabin, Killian at her desk while Aiden and she share a drink on the bed, all of them laughing.
"Helpful."
They make sure they're all on the boat before they let go of the wand, Milah placing it in the allotted spot. The snakes stay wound around Aiden's arm - he coos at them as he takes a place at the helm.
The small boat starts to sail on its own and Killian slides down to the floor of the boat, Milah doing the same across from him. Unwilling to be alone with his thoughts, he nods at her. "How did you manage to trick Hermes out of his staff?"
Milah raises an eyebrow. "Did he say that? He gave it to me, Killian."
Killian opens his mouth and closes it when Milah raises her hand. He waits and she continues to explain.
"I was hoping he could guide me to Baelfire. I sacrificed to him…" She trails off and Killian thinks of Anna without meaning to (isn't that how it always is?) Would she think killing to be the answer here, as Milah had? He's not sure he wants the answer because he knows which one he would give.
"He came to me and I asked him and he said the only person who would be able to guide me was in the Underworld. I knew what he meant. He offered his wand and said it would protect me. Guide me to the proper guide."
Killian frowns.
"But you didn't take it with you."
"I made the fairy light with the wand. I thought it would be sufficient. It brought Rumplestiltskin to me. But…"
They fall silent and Killian would love to distract her but his thoughts drift again, memories playing in his mind. His mother. Liam. Every. Ursula. Milah. Aiden. Places far and wide - he journeys through his own memory, a traveler racing from scene to scene.
Victor. Hawke. His crew.
Anna. Henry.
"Why did you come for me?" Milah asks, gaze fixed on Aiden's back. "Killian."
Killian escapes his memory gratefully. He watches as Milah nudges her hat in her lap. He didn't even notice that Aiden had given it back to her. Milah continues to stare at Aiden.
"I swear things too, from time to time, and you've pulled me back from the edge before. I swore I would return the favor," he says.
Quietly, Milah says. "You didn't consider it a favor at the time."
Killian smiles. "I still don't."
Her voice changes, rises in surprise. "Really? What's changed?"
"What do you mean?"
Milah turns to look at him. Her eyes move across his face, brows dipping closer together the longer she stares. Killian lifts his in response.
"I was going to ask you to come with me," she announces. "When I heard you were going to Ursula's island, I raced there to meet you because I knew I would need you for this. But -"
Killian takes in a breath, careful to keep his gaze steady on her when she speaks. He doesn't trust Mnemosyne not to play out his feelings should his gaze drop on the water.
Milah finally says, "But you seemed so much happier. For the first time, you seemed...bright. I couldn't take that away from you. It's why I sent you towards Midas instead. I couldn't take that from you, not after everything, but I suppose I didn't have to."
"Bright? Come now, Milah, that must've been Apollo playing games with your eyes," Killian lies easily.
Milah doesn't say anything more, always so accepting of his lies as he is with hers. At the same time, they turn their gazes towards the water and a vision stirs in the mist, Milah's sword at his throat.
"You know," she says, watching his younger self press his dagger to her stomach. "If you were a bit older, with a bit more hair on your chin, I'd have fallen for you."
Killian smiles. "That's alright. I prefer my women to actually want me."
Milah draws her gaze back to him and it's the only warning Killian gets that she isn't as accepting of his lies as he thought.
"Did she not want you, then?"
Killian fights everything in him not to think of Anna, draws his gaze away from the water as the mist begins to swirl again, but it's too late, Milah's eyes are on the open neck of his shirt where he knows her Swan rests amongst his necklaces and Anna's smile won't leave his head.
"I might've told you differently another day," he says.
He lifts his eyes to Milah. She accepts his plea and instead of pressing him, says, "Another day, then."
Another day passes and another. They spend enough time on the boat that Killian manages to fall asleep. He awakens to Aiden's hand on his shoulder and Hermes' snakes inches away from his face.
"The boat's docked."
Killian stretches and stands. "Do you see an exit?" he asks.
"Not exactly," Aiden says and Killian closes his eyes again. As much as he wants to leave, he has no interest in facing yet another monster or god.
Thankfully - for the god - his interest doesn't matter.
"I admit, milady," Killian says as the black-cloaked woman steps onto the boat. "I do not know who you are."
She drops her hood and Killian laughs. She doesn't need to ask, but she does anyway. "Do you know me now?"
Across her face, lines of magic crawl, some in languages he recognizes, others in languages he could never learn. When she smiles, the lines still into something he can vaguely recognize in the few words of that language he knows.
Door. God.
Swan.
He bites his inner cheek and curses inwardly. Magic. In mockery of his anger, the lines of magic change into hieroglyphs, ones that he remembers all too clearly as swirling in the flames of Set's temple.
The world dims around him. Hecate's cloak becomes part of the darkness that encloses them and all that lights his vision are her eyes, a pale purple, and the magic of her skin.
"Your path only leads to one place," she says firmly.
Killian snaps. Done being polite, he says, "Everyone's does. Mere men do not live forever."
She places her hands palms up. Magic lines melt off her fingertips and drift upwards. Killian would not be able to translate them as words, but they transform into pictures, easy for his eyes to understand. Him, chased by a boy with a smile like a demon's.
"He is going to catch up to you," she says.
"No doubt."
Tell me something I don't know.
She stares at him, too knowing. "It's your choice when and how he does. Whatever you think about where your life has led, the people who have entered it…"
Before her flit many faces. Friends and foes. Lovers.
"...and the people who have exited it..."
Killian tries to find the humor in her words, fighting off rising fury with the fact that she doesn't show Anna there. Liam, his mother, his father, Every: they all appear, but Anna doesn't. He tries not to think too deeply into that, instead focuses on the fact that he was right. Anna is safe, at least from this land of death.
(Safe from him,)
"You're probably wrong," she says.
She quiets. The pictures disappear and the magic drips back down into her fingertips, flowing back over her palms and beneath her cloak.
"Is that so?" Killian asks. "You aren't very helpful, are you?"
Her purple eyes wink. "I can show you the way out, and if you so choose, a way in."
Killian narrows his gaze. "A way in...To what?"
"That is up to you." She shrugs and he recognizes other words flitting across her face, none of them making sense. Door, again. Dragon's flight. Prince.
He shakes his head. "This nonsense is too much for me. Are you putting Aiden and Milah through this as well?"
Hecate flickers as Hermes did, but instead of separate people, her form becomes three identical women melded together. "Sometimes, my natural form comes in handy," she says with another wink.
He grits his teeth and allows space for her to speak. After a while she turns back into one person and says, "Have you decided?"
"I haven't even given your offer any thought."
"I know," she says. "But have you decided?"
Hermes voice comes to him. He's sure it was meant to, after all, Hermes considers Killian's life entertainment. Your uncertainty of your path will not help you...and Hecate has made it no clearer. Still, it doesn't matter. He doesn't need proper thought to give a decision. He would end up coming to the same one even with years of thought on the subject.
...and we can work towards...romance.
He doesn't voice it though because it's a decision that he could never make on his own. Anna's the only one who could give him a way in - a way into her heart. Hecate smiles knowingly and, slowly, the darkness lifts and he can see Milah and Aiden again.
Aiden looks much the same as Killian feels, face scrunched and eyes narrowed, but Milah - her face is brighter than it has been in years. Her smile looks real.
(Was that what she saw when they were in Ursula's tavern?)
"Hermes will like his staff back," Hecate says. When she raises her arm, her cloak lifts and rises - continues to rise higher than her, higher than should be possible, and circles back down to the ground. With a blink of purple light, Hecate disappears leaving the black doorway behind.
Words of magic banner the doorway but it's in a language Killian doesn't know. He looks to Milah and Aiden, and back to the dark doorway. It isn't a question of whether they trust the goddess not to send them anywhere dangerous, merely a question of when to walk through. Milah makes it for them by moving to pull the staff from its hold.
They step through the black doorway in silent unison. The Gates of Dusk seal closed behind them, the rock face becoming flat once again.
Dusk has never looked so beautiful.
Aiden's whistle cuts through the air and sears through Killian's ears. A whistle, less deafening, answers back from Milah's ship.
"They'll send a boat down," Aiden says.
Milah nods when Killian looks at her. "Good, this water is cold."
Killian returns his gaze to the welcome skyline. He wants to question Milah on what Hecate told her, but more, he wants to remain with his own thoughts a little while longer. He had been right. He shouldn't have spoken of Set. It only made his fate more pressing - and perhaps, that pressing fate is what had sent Anna running.
"Killian, you're going to need that to be disinfected," Milah says.
He looks at his arm, the skin torn open from his nails, and then looks at his other hand, blood still beneath his fingernails. It doesn't hurt, but she's right. There's no telling what he could've picked up in the Underworld and he'll need both hands if he's to do anything about the bloody demon. He doesn't have time to learn to live without it, not like the members of his crew that have, although they swear by their hooks being almost better than a hand.
Easier to pick your teeth.
Or gouge your eyes out when Smee forgets to wear his belt and bends over.
Killian finds himself laughing. Milah doesn't look concerned. Aiden, however, fixes him with a look. Killian shrugs and finally says, "You're right, as always, my darling Milah."
"As always," she confirms.
When the boat finally arrives, Killian's boots are soaked through and he almost misses the heat of the Underworld when he takes them off while seated on the floor of the boat. Leaning over the edge, he empties the waters in his boots back into the ocean.
"Bloody hell," Milah says, following suit.
"It was fairly bloodless, I reckon," Killian replies.
This draws a hearty chuckle from her mouth, and then another from Hermes when he blinks into the space beside her, wrapping his arm over her shoulder.
"My wand," he says.
She hands it over to him without protest. He smiles beneath the wide brim of his hat - a different color now...
"Hey?" Killian asks, tapping a hand on Milah's boatman. "How long were we underground?"
"A few days," he says.
"Lovely."
Turning back to Hermes, he says, "Thank you for your warnings."
Hermes lifts his hat to look at Killian. His smile is small, but Killian senses it's more humored than it appears when Hermes says, quite sincerely, "You're very welcome."
"You found your guide," Hermes says.
"I did. Thank you for your hospitality."
Hermes grins and kicks up off the boat floor, rocking it precariously. By the time they regain their bearings, Hermes is gone.
Milah shakes her head as they approach her ship. "Moor beside Captain Jones' ship. I need to speak with him there."
As she's retying her boots, Milah leans into him and says, "Victor has something I need. To find Bae."
Killian nods. "Of course. The goddess told you this?"
"He isn't in this world, and Victor's potion will guide me to the bean I need to travel worlds."
She speaks so fast and her voice so high that Killian barely has a chance to process her words before she's clambering up the rope ladder of his ship. Killian races to tie up his own still wet boots and follow after her.
"But what does Victor have?"
Milah doesn't turn back to look at him, but she shouts down, "Love Potion #9."
"Emmet, gave this to you?" Killian asks while Milah stares at the little pink bottle in her hand.
It's too small for all the faith Milah has placed in it already. Killian wants to pull it away from her, tell her to find another way, he doesn't trust it…
"He did. Said he stole it from Walsh and needed a place to stash it," Victor confirms. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind Milah using it."
Killian nods curtly. Milah looks up at him. "I need to leave now - I can't wait. I'm sorry, Killian, I'd stay longer but...I just can't."
He stands from his seat on his desk and pulls her towards him in a hug. Victor makes a noise like disgust, which helps lessen the emotion of the moment. When he lets Milah go, though, her eyes shine.
"Don't tell Baelfire about me," Killian says.
Milah nods. "I would never."
With a quick step, she takes Victor's arm and drags him out of Killian's cabin, question after question spilling from her lips.
Killian should see her off. He should, but he's tired and Milah is already gone - and he feels lost. Lost in his own thoughts, lost on his own damn ship. Everything looks a little different, a little emptier.
He revealed part of his past to Anna here, with Henry lying beside him on the bed that Killian can't see himself sleeping in at the moment, despite the fatigue in his bones.
"Captain."
Killian looks to Henry. The boy has a tray of food in one hand, and Anna's book in the other. It looks uncomfortable so Killian moves to grab the tray.
Henry's eyes catch on his neck and Killian lets out a weak laugh. "A parting gift from A-Emmet."
He turns around so Henry doesn't see the way his breath catches at the sway of necklace across his neck. Henry doesn't give him much time to regroup.
At least he has the tray resting on his desk when Henry asks, "When you were down there, you didn't find Emmet, right?"
Killian turns sharply. "No, of course not."
Henry nods and his shoulders don't slump with relief, but his chin tilts up. He pulls the book from under his arm, holding it tight in his hands. "Well, I didn't expect that you would. In the letter, Emmet said to fill the book with more adventures for him, you know?"
Killian vaguely remembers that - but her decision is what he spent hours running his mind over, not her request.
Henry goes on. "I've spent some time thinking what adventures we could go on."
"You have?"
Henry nods, and chin still lifted high, he says, "We're going to find Emmet. What could be a better adventure than that?"
Killian opens his mouth to...deny him? He doesn't know. A day ago, well, rather days ago, he'd let Henry's defeat keep him rooted to his ship, and now the boy's suggesting that they go after Emmet on some grand adventure? He looks at Henry. The boy glares back at him, daring Killian to go against him. Killian sits forward in his seat, and Henry steps into him.
Well, he may no longer be pretending at being a prince, but even here, he can hold court with the best of them; Anna taught him well.
"Aye, what could?"
Henry nods. "I'm glad you agree, Captain. Enjoy your meal. Colonel Pain made it special. Emmet's favorite soup." Henry turns around and starts to walk towards the doorway. He stops there and turns back around. "I already checked for hairs. Goodnight, Captain."
Killian laughs until Henry shuts the door behind him. His laughter fades into the night and he twists around to stare at his soup. Emmet's favorite. Was that a truth or something Anna had pretended at, too?
His stomach coils into uncertainty and he leaves the soup on the desk. After a moment of thought, he lifts the necklace off his neck and places it on the desk as well.
Killian doesn't need food. He needs the blissful, dreamless sleep that alcohol brings. He lost his flask in the Underworld, but he has a whole bottle in his closet and by the time he's through with that he won't remember anything he's lost and when he goes to dream, he won't remember anything at all.
