Note: Lament of the Asphodels was written as part of Captain Swan Big Bang 2016. Check back every Tuesday for two (2) new chapters.

Lament of the Asphodels
Chapter 21: An Insult to the Nereids

The Survivor hid in her chamber, simultaneously struggling to remember and endeavoring to forget. When she kissed the Keeper, there was a blazing moment where she discerned this life from the past without confusion, and everything fell into place.

Moments later, a shadow fell over her, and that clarity vanished as memories blurred together. She spent hours ruminating on the cause, considering everything from grief over her son to lust for the Keeper, yet no theory seemed sound. With no hope for progress, she turned to another question: what had brought such transparency to her memories?

What began the restoration of her memories? The past few months had been tumultuous, and so many things had changed that it was impossible to pick out a single enlightening event. To her, it had been a tumbling cascade of forfeiture and failure with moments of beautiful and terrible reprieve, followed by a blissful quarter year, which ended with the coming of the Stormbringer.

Had she remembered her past life because she faced her fear of the ocean in the worst possible way? Had she recalled her son because they had defeated the so-called Northmost King? Or had their partnership inspired the return of those lost days?

Or was it the kiss?

It was often said in the old tales that True Love's Kiss could break any curse, but those stories weren't real. At least, not like the ones about the battle between Heracles and Antaeus. She had never heard of a kiss saving anyone's life, yet the words True Love's Kiss haunted her every thought.

So, what then? She and the Keeper shared a kiss borne of True Love, breaking the terrible curse that had taken their memories, only for the magical remedy to fail mere seconds later? Or had a new curse taken root? Did that mean that she needed to kiss the Keeper again?

She laughed out loud. It was ridiculous. Every time, no matter the arc or the shape of the thought, her mind circled back to her connection with the Keeper, as if all her thinking conspired to invent yet another reason to touch him. But she wouldn't, for she had resolved to know her own son's name before she spent time in the Keeper's company, no matter the duration.

Thus, her mind went round and round in circles, and she had no recourse but to follow, seeking illumination on a past that seemed destined for nothing but the shadows. Hunger, pain, and fatigue all vanished, leaving her in a daze of half-awareness, her thoughts so all-consuming that her body became foreign to her.

But then something happened that she could not ignore. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, and her entire being became alert, aware, and awake. Something drew her out of her chamber, for everything at Stagrock had become as familiar to her as the beating of her own heart and yet this curious thing escaped her reckoning. She left the loft and went out on the topmost parapet in time to hear a ferocious roar. Seeing no beast before her, she raced around the lighthouse until her eyes fell upon the Keeper rowing madly toward the dock. An ominous, dark shape was in the water around him.

"Keeper," she whispered. "Killian."

She ran back inside for a weapon, and finding none, she raced down the stairs to the midline to the kitchen, which she knew was stocked with knives. She had grabbed the block before she recognized her folly. She was unpracticed at knife throwing, and whatever creature assailed them was under water. The only way she could help the Keeper was to distract the beast, and to that end, she need not deprive them of their cutlery.

So she collected as much firewood as she could carry and dragged it out to the main parapet. Her heart sank when she saw the serpent's head above the capsized boat, and she scanned the choppy waters for any sign of the Keeper. She screamed in fury when she found that there was only the beast and the upturned rowboat.

Her shout drew its attention, for the monster gradually turned its eyes to her.

Then she began pelting it with firewood.

She struck the beast's neck first, but the wood bounced off with no sign of ill effect upon the serpent. Her next throw landed squarely on its nose. The creature shook its head a few times but remained unharmed. She continued hurling the firewood while shouting and screaming, and it glared at her as a snake would a mouse, its eyes attempting to ensnare her with enchantment. Her wrath served as a shield, for the long, cold stare only enraged her further.

The beast shifted, raising its great neck up out of the water, but though its size was monstrous, its head could not reach the midline of the lighthouse.

The Survivor feared that the Keeper may well have perished - crushed or bled or drown - during this creature's pursuit, and the notion put her in a rage the likes of which she had never before known. Her hand absentmindedly went to her pocket, where she kept her large folding blade, which she kept razor sharp for its myriad tasks.

She didn't think on her actions. It was as if some unconscious element of herself decided for her and set things in motion, leaving her more the witness than the perpetrator. But, once the serpent's head had reached its maximum height, her hand closed around the familiar tool, jerked it out of her pocket, and opened it with a flick of the wrist. She took hold of the sharpened end, and then, with a single swooping overhand, she loosed the blade on the monster.

A horrifying shriek erupted from the beast as it flailed uselessly and crashed into the water. Redness flowed to the surface, and for a moment, she wondered if she had somehow managed to kill it. But then it reared up again, hissing and spitting like a wounded dog, thrashing so wildly that its wake slapped hard against the shore of Stagrock. That was when she saw that she had put out one of the serpent's enormous eyes.

The hissing became howling, and then all went silent as the beast became still as stone. She looked down and saw its single-eye focused entirely on her. She held its vile stare for several pregnant moments as the serpent calmly and slowly sank back into the ocean, its eye never leaving its mark till the waves covered its face.

Once it dipped is bleeding head beneath the waves, it went south, diving so deep that she could no longer see its shape moving under the water from the midline. She circled the lighthouse, searching for any sign of the Keeper, but all she saw was the capsized boat floating in bloodied water.

She descended the inner stairs so swiftly she nearly fell down the last three. She regained her footing, angling for the door, before she crashed headlong into something.

"Bloody hell!"

His words were more startled than angry, though she detected a hoarseness in his voice that only existed in the presence of pain.

"Keeper?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

"Aye, lass," he replied. "Killian will do."

"But the sea serpent, it... it..."

"Capsized my vessel," he replied shortly. "The bloody thing fixated on me. I should've been carrying a harpoon..."

So great was her surprise at finding him alive and well that she forgot how to move and speak properly, for from the moment she saw him in a quivering heap on the basement floor, she wanted nothing more than to gather him up in her arms. Yet it wasn't until he rose to his feet, grumbling about his lack of preparedness, that she threw herself onto him. She didn't even mind that he was soaked through nor that her own garments swiftly became drenched from their prolonged embrace.

"Did you miss me?" he asked, his sudden witty banter a foreign yet oddly delightful sound to her ear.

"When I couldn't find you, I... I..."

"Thought that beast had gotten the better of me?" he asked.

"The sea serpent did get the better of you," she chided. "It knocked you into the water."

"Aye, but it failed to swallow me," he replied. "Though, I must admit, my escape was facilitated by a rather well-timed distraction."

"I didn't see you," she said.

"I was under the boat, relying on the pocket of air," he explained. "Luckily, someone started screaming and, from what I could see as I swam to the dock, pitched rocks at its head."

"It was wood."

"You mean to tell me you wasted our bloody firewood?" he asked, his chastisement undercut by the amusement in his voice.

"Is there something in here you'd rather me pelt at a sea serpent?"

"Of course not, love," he replied. "I can always haul more from Cellar Island. It's the least I can do in return for saving my life."

He pulled her into another embrace, nestling his nose into the crook of her neck. She squeezed him tighter, the relief of his still-beating heart canceling out the cold until a single drop of water dripped from his hair down her back.

The effect was immediate and startling. She went from euphoric to despondent with a single shiver, and the misery that had haunted her every waking hour before the serpent caught her attention returned in full force.

She swallowed it. The Keeper might've survived the beast, but hypothermia was a lurking predator that could easily snatch away his life.

"We need to get you warm and dry," she said.

"Though it may surprise you to hear, I have dealt with this before," he said, his voice buoyant and playful.

She turned away from him to hide her reaction. Nothing aided recovery like high spirits, so she would do nothing to douse his. She took his arm to lead him up the stairs, but he dallied at the bottom.

"Is the serpent gone?" he asked.

"It went south."

"We need to recover the boat," he said. "Otherwise, the tide will take it. Your raft is a fine thing, but - "

"It can't take bad weather," she said, finishing his thought. "Can you get up the stairs by yourself?"

"Why would I do that?"

"Because you need to get dry," she replied.

"And you'll need someone to keep watch," he pointed out. "I won't let you risk your life while I wait inside by the fire."

"No, you'll be watching from the midline," she said with authority. "You freezing on the dock wouldn't be nearly as helpful."

"Aye, but - "

"Good, then it's settled."

She relinquished his arm and went to the far side of the basement. About a month ago, she had built an installation over the wall to stow everyday tools. The Keeper previously hauled everything upstairs to the bottommost storage closet, lest a storm flood his most valuable possessions. It was a tedious business to carry every item up the narrow stairs, especially when most required no special care or maintenance, only storage, often for a but single night.

Unwilling to continue the tradition of needless tedium, she devised a solution that enabled them to hang key tools in the basement high above the floor, where no flood could reach them. It wasn't a particularly aesthetic creation, as it required additional re-enforcement of the wall and a large number of pegs that jutted out at ugly angles, but even she could not lament its function nor underestimate its value.

She easily found an improvised grappling extension arm, which the Keeper had modified from old fishermen's gear. It was essentially two long poles that augmented a hooked end, which made it perfect for grabbing material otherwise out of reach. She likewise found their best net.

Killian waited at the foot of the stairs, hesitating. He watched as she selected all the right tools to aid in the recovery of the boat, and while he was proud of how fine a sailor she was these days, he detested leaving the salvage to her, especially with a dangerous sea beast so near.

"You realize it won't be safe for me to start until you're upstairs," she said.

He bit his lip. She was right, of course, but he would give anything in this or any other realm to be the one on the ground. It seemed so foolish a thing, risking Emma's life for a boat, but it was their only true means of transport to Cellar Island or the mainland.

"Aye," he replied. "I'll call down when the coast is clear."

She nodded, and he started up the stairs. Once he passed the basement door, the beautiful warmth of the lighthouse washed over him. He ducked into the first storage room stocked with spare clothes and hastily dried himself, though only enough that he might continue without sullying the lighthouse. He selected the two heaviest coats available and threw them over his arm before he continued directly to the midline.

His foot fell heavily and with haste, for he had the sneaking suspicion that Emma wasn't waiting for him to call the all-clear. She was probably outside at this very moment, unaware of any nearby dangers.

That thought spurred him onward and upward, despite the numb ache in his body. He had the presence of mind to toss another piece of wood on the fire before he went out on the main parapet, where the wind cut him to the bone.

He donned the jackets. Though they barely warmed him, they kept the cursed wind from stealing what little heat he had, and for now, that was enough.

He quickly assessed the area and saw nothing of the serpent, save for what seemed to be blood in the water. How the devil did she make such a creature bleed? He smiled. Who else would be able to fight off a serpent with scales so tough that even the sharpest of harpoons snapped upon strike?

That was when he spotted a crown of blonde hair on the dock, leaning out over the water. The rowboat was upside-down and slightly out of reach. She had already captured it with the net.

He grimaced at the realization that she had started without the all-clear, but the anger he thought would flare up didn't come. She was a maddeningly stubborn woman, fiercely independent, and infinitely capable.

At this very moment, he witnessed her singlehandedly haul the rowboat to the dock. Had he been the one to handle its recovery, he would've righted the vessel first, as all seafarers were wont to do, which would've forced him to waste precious time bailing it out before dragging it onto the dock. Emma was too clever a lass to make that particular mistake.

She shouldered the vessel with a single grunt, and guilt surged hard in his gut. There was no point in racing to her aid; not only was she more than able to finish the task at hand, but by his arrival, she would surely have the boat stowed.

Still, he kept watch from his perch above till long after she and the vessel disappeared into the lighthouse. There was no sign of the serpent, but he hardly expected it to return. The monsters of the sea rarely came so close to land, and when injured, they retreated to a place of strength. He doubted they'd ever see its like again. For some reason, that disappointed him.

"Keeper?" Emma called from within.

"I told you, love, it's Killian," he replied loudly.

"I'll call you whatever you want if you come inside."

She was right. He should be warming himself by the fire. He should've started once she was safely inside. It was foolish, lingering out in the cold, yet he found himself willfully ignoring his better judgment.

"I'll hold you to it," he said briskly.

He stepped off the balcony with a wide, brimming smile. Before the Survivor could reply, Killian's legs gave way. The last thing he recalled before the swallowing darkness was crashing hard to the floor.

The Survivor assumed the worst when the Keeper collapsed. She checked for injuries, and discovering none, her hand came to rest over his heart, where she felt a steady but weak tempo. His skin was deathly cold to the touch, despite the many layers he wore to insulate himself.

She wanted to curse him and his stubbornness. Why was he so foolish, standing in the cold while still covered in salt water? He had tended this lighthouse long enough to know better, yet here he was, sprawled on the floor and in complete pallor.

She stripped his outer garments and dried his still-damp skin and hair before laying him out by the fire and covering him with countless quilts and blankets.

And then she waited.

The sun was going down when his eyes opened again. He was still pale, but some faint color returned to his cheeks.

"Bloody hell," he muttered. "What happened?"

"You are an idiot," she said harshly. "That's what happened."

Killian picked up on her tone immediately, so he responded with an appropriately rueful attitude. She plied him with hot soup and tea, then demanded he remain by the fire until the next morning. Being in no position to argue, he agreed without hesitation or question.

He had planned to speak with her, to remind her of who he was, but he felt too weak from the day's events. So he ate his soup and drank his tea before sinking back into the warm paradise of blankets.

"Thank you, Swan," he said.

"What did you call me?"

"Swan," he repeated, not alert enough to register the concern in her voice. "You always seemed to like it when I called you that."

"You've never called me that before," she said. Then, as an afterthought, she added, "Killian."

"Not in this life, Swan," he said fondly before he fell into a dreamless sleep.

The Survivor stayed with the Keeper through the night, ensuring that the fire burned high and hot, but for all her efforts, her mind remained fixated on that fateful night aboard The Yellow Bug.

She tried to remember her son's name. Unfortunately, all she recalled was an image of his kind face and his big brown eyes alight with a curious smile before the hideous events of the storm swallowing up everything in a long, dark eclipse.

Perhaps he never existed in this life, though she could scarcely convince herself that that was any more than wishful thinking, for while she'd loath a life without him, it would be better than knowing that beautiful smile was snuffed out by a raging tempest.

When the sun came up, the Keeper's complexion had returned to normal, but he slept on despite the sunlight filling the room. That was when she realized that there wasn't enough firewood to keep the fire burning all day.

Worried that he may yet be foolhardy, she scribbled a quick note warning him to remain in the living room until her return. Then she stepped onto the balcony to search for any sign of danger, but there was nothing. The sky was clear and the water, placid.

Perfect weather for her raft.

It wasn't ideal for transporting loads, but her mind became set on it as soon as she pondered it. So she descended to the basement, loosed her raft, and tied down a pair of oars for her journey.

Something about the harshness of her task on a cold, bleak morning cleared her head. Her trip to Cellar Island was uneventful, as was loading the firewood and securing it to the raft, though she earned many new blisters for her trouble. The wind and waves picked up on her return to Stagrock but nary enough to jostle her.

The high morning sun beat down on her when she moored the raft. She began unloading the oars and then firewood by the armful, taking as little as she could carry without feeling foolish, for the sweltering heat and the work gave her a short but blissful freedom from her misery. She wished she had brought a larger stock to extend her reprieve.

She let her mind wander as she continued the work like an automaton, her mind awash with brown eyes and bright, warm smiles as she went.

Then the sky turned black.

It was especially bizarre because there had been no sign of an oncoming storm. In an attempt to discern the immediate state of the weather, she cast her eyes up to the clouds, but all she saw was a hulking mass that blotted out the sun. As soon as she spotted it, it was as if the world fell under a blanket of silence, for the only sound that escaped the muffling of her ear was a low, hissing breath infused with the foul stench of rotting flesh.

It came back, she thought to herself.

Indeed, though the stillness made it difficult to verify, she had no doubt that the sea serpent from the day previous loomed before her. Fear rooted her to the spot, and she forgot all good sense as the beast shifted, splattering the dock with water and blood.

It roared, and its putrid breath spurred her into action. She flung the wood in her arms - taking no notice when it fell short of its mark - and ran for the open basement door.

The serpent's pursuit was announced with an enormous thumping crunch, but she dared not waste even a moment by glancing back to see what ruin the beast had wrought. The Survivor leaped for the threshold while inelegantly grabbing at the inner handle of the opened door, hoping she could yank it shut behind her. It was then that curiosity finally made her a proper fool as she stole a peek at the monster chasing her.

Pain radiate from her right arm as the enormous mass that was the one-eyed sea serpent brought its jaws across the door. It screeched as bits of dislodged wood impaled the soft flesh around its teeth, rearing back in surprise. The thickness of the door and the angle at which she held it spared her arm from its lower jaw, but several monstrous teeth scrapped her forearm, leaving four deep gashes.

She almost lost her hold on the handle, but she augmented her grip with the other arm and slammed it shut. She hastily barred it and struggled to secure the storm door as the beast battered against the flimsy wooden barrier.

Once barred and sealed inside, she turned to her freely bleeding arm. Some of her skin covered the wounds, hanging jagged and loose. The salt water amplified the deep stinging throb, and every move she tried with her hand or fingers earned her a deep, burning pain.

As worried as she was about her arm, it wasn't enough to distract her from the snarling, snapping, and cracking that emanated from the other side of the door.

She stumbled up the stairs, abandoning the newest cache of firewood. She couldn't be certain that the storm door would keep the serpent at bay. From the amount of splintering that was echoing from outside, it didn't seem like it could take much more.

As she scrambled up the stairs, her mind began to catalogue all the oddities of the past two days. Why would a sea serpent attack a tower of near-solid stone? Why would it return before it healed? Why had it ventured so close to the mainland? Weren't they monsters of the deep ocean?

The pain in her arm slowed her progress and eventually strained her balance, so much so that she alternated crashing into the bannister and smashing against the wall.

"Swan?"

She looked up to see the Keeper leaning over the stairs from the midline, his eyes as wide as the ocean against his pale face.

"I can make it!" she shouted, knowing his first instinct would be to run down to her. "Get the med kit ready!"

Killian had no intention of dallying with some medical supplies while Emma struggled up the bloody staircase, but when he stepped toward the stairs, a whirl of dizziness struck. It vanished as swiftly as it set upon him, yet he knew that other spells were waiting to pounce when he was most vulnerable. There would be nothing he could do if his arms were unsteady, let alone if he fell unconscious.

Thus, he calmly gathered any remedy stored on the midline and carried it into the living room. His task completed, he waited.

He didn't have to ask what transpired, for the raging, spitting hiss of the sea serpent carried high and far. Why a beast of the deepest fathoms would return to so shallow a place was beyond his knowledge and, at this particular moment, beyond his care. There were but two things he wished to know about the monster outside. Why did it attack Emma, and how could he kill it?

He focused on those two questions as he idled, lest he rise from his seat and attempt to lead her up the stairs again. He needed to conserve his strength, no matter how much he loathed the eons of stillness.

Finally, he heard her approach, and he went to assist her to her seat. He no sooner reached the entryway than she collided with him, and he grimaced at the feeling of her hot blood. He wrapped one arm around her waist and took as much of her weight as she would allow, and he didn't care that he swayed under another wave of vertigo for his efforts.

"Where are you hurt?" he asked as he grabbed several clean dressing rags from the table.

"It's just my arm," she replied.

She tried to hold out the injured appendage, but her arms shaking with fatigue. He scrambled for anything that might assist him, including the empty dinner tray and a stack of pillows. He layered them on the arm of the chair and added the tray on top before tentatively reaching for her arm.

She nodded her head, yes, before she relinquished her arm and let him take its weight. For so small and wonderful a thing, it was disproportionately heavy.

He rolled away what remained of her sleeve and revealed deep, dark gouges in her flesh. He wetted one of the rags and wiped way the red, hoping to discover that simply appeared worse than it was. Only the faintest edges of the wound still yet bled, but there was much work to be done to save her arm. Even if entirely successful, she would permanently bare the scars of this day.

He placed dry rags over the wound, but before he could rise to the thread and needle, her good arm darted out. She grabbed his hook.

"Don't worry about me. Hand me the rest of those rags and I'll be fine - "

"You bloody will not!"

"Listen to me," she insisted. "That thing outside has been battering the doors, and I don't know how much longer they'll hold."

"Even if I could reinforce them, you'd bleed to death before I returned."

"No, that wouldn't work anyway," she replied. "Distract it."

"Distract it?"

"Yell, scream, anything," she continued. "Just lure it away from the basement doors."

He glanced down at the dressings on her wounds, and his stomach dropped when he saw her blood rising through. It was worse than he surmised.

It was then that an idea came to him. It was ridiculous and almost certain to fail, but it could lure the monster.

"Don't pass out on me, Swan," he warned as he gathered her bloodied dressings.

"Go," she urged.

Worried he might lose his footing, he went to the balcony doors with measured haste. As soon as he set foot upon the parapet, he heard its untainted roar, followed immediately by splintering wood.

"Stop attacking my bloody lighthouse!" he shouted.

He raised his voice and continued to goad the beast, but it did nothing but create a few pauses in the serpent's attack. So he balled up one of the bloodied rags and threw to the south of the lighthouse with all the strength he could muster. Unfortunately, the wind did him no favors, so it landed not far from the southern edge of Stagrock.

But this time, the pause between shrieks was much longer. Any man who journeyed on a ship heard the legend that sea serpents were the bloodhounds of the ocean, and though he never considered it of import before, today could be the day Killian Jones proved that tale a fact.

"Ah, smell that do you?" he yelled.

He bunched up the next clothe and waited for the wind to die down before he lobbed it into the air. He continued to toss each one in, angling slightly west, until all five were beneath the waves.

He wasn't entirely sure when the serpent ceased its cried, but it wasn't long after he disposed of the final rag that the monster erupted from the surface, splattering water as high as the parapet, taking him by surprise.

"Bloody hell!"

Perhaps the events of the previous day had instilled a new aversion to his garments becoming doused, for in all his days as a seafaring man, he never once felt so embittered by an abrupt splash of salt water.

He stepped back from the edge a few paces, only to discover that the insult of salt and water on his face was the only attack that the monster could hope to land, for its head fell well short of the midline. Despite its lack of reach, it screeched and snapped its ferocious jaws, wafting the hideous scent of decay. That was when he noticed the enormous, gapping hole where its eye should have been.

Killian wanted to remain steadfast, distracting the monster as long as possible, but between the stench of its breath and its miserable screaming, his knees barely tolerated standing. What good was he out here, with no weapon to harm the beast? Perhaps Emma could put out its other eye.

You bloody fool!

Emma was inside, bleeding freely from her injuries. How he had lost sight of that - even for a moment - was entirely beyond him. Without delay, he left the parapet for the living room. When he shuttered the door, it scarcely muffled the creature's sounds, but it did provide ample barrier for the smell, which was more than enough reprieve for him.

He glanced over at Emma, and he didn't like what he saw.

"Swan?" he asked.

He was at her side in an instant. She had wrapped her arm in layers of rags, then tightly compressed the worst of the bleeding with her belt and an old sea rope. On the one hand, it seemed as if the bleeding had stopped, but on the other, her eyes were shut, and her head was cast to one side.

"Swan, can you hear me?"

Her eyes opened slowly.

"Shhhh," she replied, her voice weak. "Not so loud."

"I need to stitch up these wounds," he said, lowering his voice. "And I can't stop every five minutes to distract that bloody serpent outside."

"Don't have to," she whispered. "I..."

Her eyes closed, and for a moment he worried he'd lost her, but when he put his hand on her chest, he felt the steady tempo of her heartbeat.

He went to the kitchen for a fresh bowl of water from their reserve, and when he returned, he threaded two needles - one short and one long - for the task ahead. He cursed himself for wasting so much bloody time on something so simple, but even when quieted through a door, the echoing shrieks attracted an undue measure of his concentration.

Killian blocked out the sounds of the beast with a single long, focused breath. Let the bloody thing destroy everything they had in the basement. All of it together wasn't worth a single strand of her hair.

Minutes, hours, and eons passed as Killian stitched her arm, and the task so absorbed him that it was as if none of the world beyond this one room existed, as if the sun and moon were but fairy stories whispered in the wind as magical delights of the unseen world.

He did not recognize the exact moment when the serpent fell silent as if struck mute, nor did he register the continued quietness thereafter. Neither the wind nor the rising slaps of the waves against the shore garnered his attention, for nothing in this realm or any other was worthy of his mindfulness, save for the woman bleeding before him.

There had been many a time that Captain Hook had been at odds with himself, his actions challenged by his emotions or his feelings condemned entirely by his choices. The persistence of defeat and doubt - doubt that she would survive, doubt that her arm would recover, doubt that she would forgive him for his shoddy sewing skills - threatened him, a constant distraction on his periphery. Allowing that fear any kind of edge was dangerous, so he marshaled total inner silence, quelling his demons as much as his conscience.

In a way, it made those hours seem empty and hollow, like a particularly abysmal vigil of the damned, and the work failed to distract him from the ache. How did they end up here, marooned at the edge of the world and at the mercy of an enraged sea monster?

He supposed there was some small victory in that they were here together.

He discarded the needle and examined his handiwork, loathed though he was to regard it as such. He had staunched the flow of blood and stitched her wounds closed, but there was considerable swelling from the sutures, a hazy red to contrast the black, blue, and purple bruises covering her arm.

He carefully covered the irritated skin with healing ointment before wrapping it in a single, thick dressing, which he covered with cold-soaked sponges to reduce the inflammation.

He hissed as his hand cramped abruptly, the muscles contracting viciously, protesting the prolonged hours with the needle and spurred on by the shock of cold sponges. He rarely encountered this before, but when he had, a deep breath of salt air always hastened his recovery.

After one last check on Emma, he went outside to the main parapet in hopes of loosening his hand. As always, fresh air invigorated him, and the innervation immediately quelled the knots in his hand, though the soreness refused to abate. He closed his eyes as he rolled his wrist counter-clockwise and then clockwise, reveling in the numerous pops and crackles that alleviated his strained ligaments.

His eyes snapped open when a hissing gargle erupted from below. There was no question as to the origin of the noise, for though he had forgotten the lurking beast while the intricacies of suturing consumed his focus, he knew of nothing else on land or sea that antagonized its prey with the sounds of steam.

Nevertheless, he leaned over the rail to see the creature glowering at him, its head barely under the waves. The orb of one eye swiveled to follow his every movement while the cavernous socket that once housed its perfect twin remained eerily inactive, as if it canceled the motion of the tide and winds alike.

He stepped away from the railing as a thousand ignored questions descended upon him like nagging kites. Why was the sea serpent still here? Had it been waiting on his return? Why hadn't it resumed its assault on the cellar?

And why the bloody hell was it staring at him?

Then he remembered an old legend Liam had told him, a bedtime story of sorts. Once upon a time, the Queen boasted that her daughter Andromeda was more beautiful than the Nereids. In retribution, Poseidon sent the sea monster Cetus to terrorize the kingdom. As with all such legends, the Queen discovered that the beast would not relent until she dearly paid for her insult, and the only fitting sacrifice for her repentance was her daughter's life.

Mere months ago, he would've dismissed the tale as an old story to scare children, but his recent encounter with the Stormbringer gave him pause. Perhaps the serpent wasn't acting on its own will but on that of a deity or demi-god.

Like Peter Pan.

In the life where he was called Peter Pan, he had no control over sea monsters, but in this realm, he had taken up the mantle of the Stormbringer, a titan. Killian couldn't put it past the little demon to task some hapless pet with revenge, should he fail to return and countermand that particular order.

How had Cetus been defeated? For the one thing he knew about the story's end was that Andromeda had lived to tell the tale. Some hero had swept in and slain the beast. No, Cetus was turned to stone with the severed head of the gorgon Medusa.

Having no such weapon at his disposal, he had no hope of leveraging Cetus's demise against his current foe.

But that doesn't mean other tales won't provide insight.

Clearly the creature had no intention of departing, so Killian retired inside. He checked on Emma, covering her with a quilt, before he went to search his collection of seafaring lore.

The Survivor stood on a sandy beach with a fragile structure comprised of wood, and not nearly enough of it. Yet, though it provided no shelter, it held a special importance. It was their place. Hers and her son's. He hid his book here, his storybook. It was his most prized possession, and they shared it here.

Her son loved stories. They gave him a singular joy. His eyes lit up with every page turn and every picture. And this... this was their castle.

She woke up in the old arm chair with her most recent dream fixed in her mind. Her arm felt like it was simultaneously numb and on fire. Gnawing pain in her stomach informed her that she hadn't eaten for hours, and her good arm automatically reacted, her fingers searching the edge of the chair to the side table, where she knew the Keeper would've left provisions.

She groaned when she felt the soft edge of what must have been their last loaf of bread. She tore at it gracelessly, the voracity of her hunger overpowering her manners and form.

The paltry chunk she seized so eagerly elicited immediate regret, for it extenuated the dry ache inside her mouth that, moments earlier, had been entirely overshadowed by the pain of her arm. The sweet, soft taste rapidly depleted as she stubbornly masticated, unwilling to yield a scrap of the sustenance her stomach demanded.

She reluctantly forced her eyes wide and her mind, alert, for there was no doubt that the Keeper provided her with more than bread. The water was set out on the table in front of her; four glasses poured and ready. She gritted her teeth against the bread as she shifted forward, and her arm and back protested every millimeter. It seemed an eternity between seeing the glass and grasping it, and then another between lifting it and bringing it to her lips.

The first great gulp relieved the dryness of her mouth and eased the bread down. She measured her next sips, drinking till she emptied the glass.

Darkness had fallen, which meant she slept the day away, yet she was utterly exhausted. The fire still burned, so the Keeper couldn't be far. Her lips curled when she realized that there was no sound of the serpent's attack. Stagrock Light had survived.

She smiled and began to call to him, her mind and heart far lighter than they had been in weeks, but halfway through speaking, she stopped, remembering her promise to refer to him by his born name. It seemed too strange a custom to adopt, and she wondered if she would forever haltingly address him with an awkward combination of his title and his born name.

"Keep-Killian?"

There was no response, but if he were in the basement or outside, he wouldn't have heard her. She ate the bread and cheese before she dared to rise from her chair. Her arm was oddly cooperative, so long as she kept it in close with her elbow bent.

"Killian?" she shouted over the stairs.

She stumbled to one side suddenly, clutching the wall to steady herself form the impending dizziness. Her legs trembled violently.

She winced when a burst of sunlight cascaded inside. The beam of illumination revealed that it wasn't her legs that were shaking; no, it was all of Stagrock.

A shadow cut through the light, tempering its brightness just enough for her to discern a shape outside the window. A long, sinuous body curled diagonally across, its flesh always moving, always shifting, till it again blotted out the daylight.

The serpent is wrapped around the lighthouse.

The thought was ice in her veins, freezing her mind and heart alike. So, without either, she ran up the stairs as if tuned into some great cosmic script. As she ascended, she heard a blood-curdling roar.

"Killian," she whispered.

By the time she reached the ladder in the Keeper's quarters, she was frantic, and her worries only intensified when she stepped into the too-dim viewing level, where the once-clear windows were smeared with blood and slime. She nigh flew up the lengths to the hatch to the roof, her stomach taut with knots and her hands slippery with sweat.

She threw herself into the harsh afternoon sunlight, only to see the silhouette of the serpent's neck and head rearing up over the eastern wall, its fangs visible as it expelled a wave of sludge from its maw at the Keeper, who was retreating in due haste. Then he turned to the beast and brandished the double-bladed axe before he launched it toward the monster's remaining good eye.

For a fleeting moment, a perfect tableaux appeared before her eyes: the valiant knight battling the terrifying dragon. It was like something out of one of Henry's storybooks.

Henry.

Her son's name - and everything else about him - came back to her in a rush, a wordless cacophony of events that revolved around a small town in another land, a town her son brought her to, a town her son helped her save. Storybrooke.

"You're here because it's your destiny," Henry said. "You're gonna bring back the happy endings."

And just like that, she knew what to do. Keeping the image of Henry's beaming smile fixed in her mind's eye, she planted her feet and raised her hands, despite the pulling pain of her injured arm. A golden glow erupted from her fingertips as energy radiated from her palms.

Everything slowed, or perhaps it was she, her senses, gaining the momentum of lightning. Killian caught sight of her, and his face morphed gradually until it conveyed both confusion and surprise as the axe collided with the serpent's snout, the metal striking so hard against scale that a spark erupted, but it otherwise had no effect on the monster as it ricocheted off and spiraled dramatically to the stone roof. It all transpired in a matter of seconds.

The monster redoubled its attack, its jaws widened to reveal another torrent of sludge bursting from its maw, not unlike how its landlocked counterparts exhaled flame. And just then, in the instant that its poison erupted from its roaring mouth, everything stopped.

The serpent's head was high above the roof, and its thick body encircled the lighthouse in layered rings that hugged so closed they appeared to be cut from the same clothe, or rather, shaped from the same stone. The creature's great teeth and vile torrent were likewise unmoving, so it appeared that Stagrock had always been home to the grotesque statue of the sea beast, who would surely be called in every fable hence the serpent who guarded the Sole Beacon of Northedge.

"Bloody hell."

His voice brought her back to the undeniable here and now, where she and the Keeper - she and Killian - stood beneath the afternoon sky marred only by the serpent of stone above their heads. Her hands, still held out before her, had returned to normal with no sign of the power she had just wielded and no golden glow to mark the occasion. She brought them in for closer inspection, as if they contained a secret kept from her, though she knew all too well what she had done and the means by which she had achieved it: magic. Her magic.

Before she could reach out to Killian, a horrible stench distracted her, for though she had turned the sea serpent to stone, the sludge it had previously spewed remained in slippery piles along the roof.

"Swan?" Killian asked tentatively. "Was that... did you just use magic?"

"Yeah," she replied breathlessly. "Did you try to kill a sea serpent with an axe?"

"Only as a last resort."

She looked about the roof for any other weapon that the monster may have parried, but all she saw was the sludge it left in its wake, still fuming in the afternoon air. It was possible that whatever the plan Killian had enacted had been buried under the foul-smelling stuff.

He answered her unspoken question, "I meant to poison the beast."

"Poison?"

"Aye," he replied as he raised his right forearm to reveal a long cut. "I wrapped a number of unsavory things with dried meat and my blood to entice it. Threw them off the highest parapet. I watched as it gobbled each one up. I had rather hoped it would die and sink to the bottom of the ocean."

"Instead it attacked?" she asked.

"Aye," he said. "It climbed the lighthouse and vomited up half its stomach."

"So you went to the roof with an axe," she said playfully.

"The serpent decided the battleground," he replied defensively. "Besides, the bloody thing attacked my bloody lighthouse, and - "

He stopped abruptly when he caught sight of her wry smile. It caught him entirely off-guard, more so than her sudden ability to wield magic from another lifetime. She seemed... amused.

Truth be told, Emma struggled to suppress the laugher budding inside her. It was borne from the mental image of Killian battling a vomiting sea serpent. When she realized that her glee had not gone unnoticed, the urge to laugh out loud only grew the stronger for it.

"Are you laughing at my expense, Swan?"

The mock indignation of his voice was like a match struck aflame, igniting her mirth, which unleashed an old tension in her body inspired by a whole lifetime forgotten and remembered all over again. Soon she was doubled over with laughter so deep that she could hardly breathe, which only added to her euphoria.

"What is so bloody funny?"

She couldn't reply, and in concern, Killian knelt down beside her and put his hand to her forehead.

"Perhaps the monster's vomit is affecting you," he suggested.

"No, no," she replied haltingly, the soreness of her cheeks slowing her words. "I thought... it was spitting poison... but it was - was - "

"Aye," he said curtly, cottoning on. "What's gotten into you, Swan?"

He was loathed to ask her, for the very last thing he wanted was to snuff out her newfound joy. But between the serpent-turned-statue and his failed attempt to poison the beast, he found no humor, only relief.

"Henry," she replied.

"Henry..."

"My son, Henry."

How could he have forgotten the lad? For as soon as he heard her speak his name, all those moments he shared with Henry surged: explaining how to navigate by the stars, helping him to evade flying monkeys, and the old Wookie prisoner gag, whatever the bloody hell that was.

"Killian."

His name on her lips brought him back to the tenuous here and now. She had gotten so close to him when he was lost in his memories that he could feel her breath on his skin ever so faintly. He found the proximity exhilarating. Somehow, she blotted out the ugliness around him, eclipsing even the sun.

She touched his left arm above the holster that held his hook in place, and he felt a power pass between them as she raised the other arm and waved it dramatically.

A great shining wind swirled around the serpent's sick piles, vanishing them in an instant.

"You're bloody incredible, Swan," he mumbled quietly.

She touched his face, and a tingling sensation graced his cheeks, a tiny remnant of her magic lingering on her fingertips. She looked into his eyes and saw him - truly saw him - for the first time since they met in this life. He could see the hope and wonderment in her as well as the painful revelation, the panic, and the desperate desire to run.

What's more, he could see her fight those negative impulses with everything she had.

Unwilling to wait another second, she pulled him into a deep, long kiss that started as a soft rain and grew into a roaring fire. All he could do was bring her closer and return her passion in equal and rising measure.

Thus, the wind swept over Killian Jones and Emma Swan as they embraced atop Stagrock Light.

End-of-chapter-notes: Nereids were the fifty daughters of Nereus and Doris. They represent the beauty of the sea, and often, they were friendly and even aided sailors.

Author's notes: My apologies for this chapter being a week late. I've been sick, so proofing and posting chapters is taking me much longer than usual. I will do my best to post at least one chapter a week, though I hope to get back on track with posting two chapters each week.