The ocean was hell and heaven, and the air was filled with desperate screams, sailors wounded, dead, and the water stained red was what they found when they approached the ships. A shipwreck.
Uma watched the scene unfolding before them with impatient eyes. The crew very still, just waiting. Harry could feel the tension in the air, vibrating in the broken dawn breeze.
"She's waiting to be called," Gil told Harry in a whisper. "She never gets close if they don't. They have to pronounce her name, so she will help those who are still alive, and she will take care of the dead".
The world was suspended in an eternal instant of cobalt blue sky, with the moon alight above them and the North Star, the guiding star of sailors, shining brightly. The wind was cold and refreshing, even in the humid heat of the sea...
Uma waited intently, twisting her index finger into her braids, one foot drumming impatiently. And Harry couldn't help but see her, that turquoise and tobacco color that belonged to the hues of the vastness below them.
"Gil, Harry," Uma said suddenly, her voice confident and powerful. And Harry felt her heart skip when he heard his name on her lips, as if she had already said it more than a million times and in more than a million ways. "Make room for one".
With nimble movements, Uma climbed up the rope and then dropped into the water. A whirlpool of water began to form around her, her necklace gleaming brightly, and then exploded in breeze and storm. The next moment, Uma was a sea witch in all her splendor, big, and a tentacle reached up to touch Harry's face mischievously.
Harry let out a gasp as he leaned closer to her touch, and a mad smile formed on his face. Uma was even more beautiful, imposing, and impossibly powerful than she had seemed to him before, even if he didn't think that was possible. The cascade of braids had come loose, and her curls were floating in the wind. She stopped playing with Harry, remembering that she had a job to do, and she swam towards the wreck.
Gil patted Harry on the back, who hadn't realized he was leaning over the gunwale.
"You have it really bad, mate," he laughed. Harry noticed the crew behind them giggling. He didn't care. He was never going to be ashamed of his devotion to Uma. How could he? If she wanted to crush him with her tentacles, smother him until there was nothing left of him, Harry would gladly offer himself.
However, he knew that Uma would never hurt him. That she would protect him, always... Just like he wanted to do at that moment, when he saw her go through the fire set in the floating pieces of wood, and the ship she was heading to exploded again, sending splinters everywhere, and Harry heard more yells of sailors, and the smell of burning meat filled the air.
Some pieces of wood flew near the Lost Revenge, Uma ducked into the water, sinking to avoid being hit by one, and Gil cursed, and Harry felt his heart leap from his throat. In that tiny, eternal instant, fear, nauseating and painful, hit him harder than it had ever hit him in his entire life.
"No", Gil stopped him, and Harry realized that he had been about to throw himself overboard to help her, to protect her... "Uma won't let you do it, and besides, she's going to get mad if she thinks you think she can't achieve it".
"She can be very stubborn when she wants to," Gonzo agreed, with the crew seconding him. "And her character is... somewhat explosive".
Jonas laughed.
"Euphemism".
Harry knew it, but that didn't stop him from feeling panic rushing through his veins. He calmed down a bit when he saw Uma come out from the other side of the flames, extended one of her tentacles to grab a person, and then wrapped the rest of them around the larger pieces of the ship, pulling it down, plunging it into the sea.
And that was something so beautiful to see, so broken and longing. Something in this told Harry that Uma could also be cruel, like ocean currents, but every sailor who gave himself up to the sea volunteered to that cruelty, let go of his fate, and put himself at the mercy of the most frightening and savage of all immensities. Vertigo and adrenaline. And Harry felt it in that moment, running through his veins.
Only until they saw her swim back to Revenge Lost, safe, did Gil and Harry scramble to bring up some blankets, some rum to revive the wounded, and dusted off an extra hammock. Uma deposited the injured man on the deck and then the whirlpool re-formed around her, exploding in a salty rain where every drop was like a tiny pearl, and Harry was drawn into that instant of chaos. When he breathed again, Uma was already on the deck, standing dry, her braids falling back down her back.
They shared a brief glance, imperceptible to the others, and Harry was beside her the next moment, where was his place. She took his shoulder with her steady hand, slid it into a grateful caress, and something about it told Harry that she knew how scared he had been to see her in the fire. Then contact broke, though the two stayed close together, and Uma turned her attention to the castaway.
"Give him heat," he ordered. Gonzo and Bonny rushed to wrap the blankets around the man. The castaway had honey-colored hair, an excessively kind face, and wore a blue and yellow uniform. Bonny took his hand and examined his fingers.
"He is royalty of Auradon," she said.
Uma nodded.
"He is the king of Auradon," she confirmed. "He has not suffered so many injuries and the magic of the ship will heal him. After that, he will disembark at the nearest port".
Her crew nodded, and those who did not attend to the king continued their work. Uma turned to Harry and raised her hand to ruffle his hair, her brown eyes fixed on him, deep and abysmal. Behind her, Harry saw Gil wink at him knowingly.
Uma's gaze was apparently calm, but Harry sensed that she was trying to hide something. She was, for some reason, upset.
"Was it something I did or said?" He asked in a whisper.
Uma looked surprised for a moment, then relaxed.
"I have waited for you for so long that sometimes I forget how well you know me," she confessed. And it was nonsense, it was devoid of all logic, but Harry knew what she meant. Uma sighed and turned away from him, stomping toward the gunwale. Harry followed her. "I need you to take over the ship for a little while".
Because she trusted him. Because Harry was her first mate.
She didn't have to wait for his answer to know that he would. In the next blink, Uma had become a breeze and was everywhere, between the ship sails, giving them strength and impulse, and then Harry felt her in the waves of the sea; the wind picked up and the water rocked the nearby ships violently. Uma wasn't kidding when she said she was the storm, because she churned the water with such vigor that she splashed everything on the deck and made the crew hold onto the rope to keep from falling.
As the morning progressed, the ship sailed rapidly through the waters. Harry loved feeling the sun burning his skin, although he wasn't sure how tangible and living things could touch him. The work left his back sore, but it relaxed him just as much.
With his hook dangling from his pants as he knotted ropes, lowered sails, and fulfilled his first mate duties, Harry felt happier than he had ever been. He was joking with Gil, and it was like they had been the best of friends ever. Somehow the emotion of all this, so unknown and familiar, was not at odds with a strange peace that had settled in his heart.
When night fell, misty, magical, and new, the Lost Revenge lit up with ghostly lights and the party began. The ship was full of sailors, some prisoners who had been captured during the day because the Revenge could not be seen without Uma's consent, and whoever dared was dragged up to it and made to work as one more member of the crew.
The rum flowed freely between everyone's lips, and loud laughter rose like ghostly echoes in the air.
The night was lost between dream and reality, and it was until dawn that Uma returned in her human form to the deck. Most of them were asleep by now, satisfied with the hot food and drink (Lost Revenge made the most delicious rum punch Harry had ever tasted), but he was waiting for her, leaning against the wall near the rudder.
Uma tossed her braids back haughtily.
"Do you want to talk?" Harry asked, frowning.
Uma sighed and sat next to him on the deck floor. Harry dropped down next to her, and Uma rested her head on his shoulder. They stayed like this for a long time, just feeling the ship sway, listening to the creak of the wood, until Uma spoke.
"I know you wanted to protect me," she told him. "I've done this a million times though. It's my job. They can't hurt me. It's just that I've been alone a long time, you know. Gil is my best friend, and he cares a lot, but it's different with you. You are Harry, completely insane, willing to kill for me, willing to do anything for me… I guess I was just a little overwhelmed by the feeling, I think. It's not that I don't like that you want to protect me, it's new and… I like it".
Harry nodded calmly. He knew that Uma could handle herself alone, but that didn't mean she had to. He could tell how hard it was for her to talk about her feelings and yet she was doing it.
"You've only been alone a long time," he repeated. "But no more".
A fallen goddess, a pirate captain with her first mate. In the dead of night, in the silence of dawn, Uma hugged Harry around his waist with one arm, and they stood there in silence for a long, long time.
