Sum of Memories.
Chapter 5: Confusion.
"How can shits like them confuse and infuriate me all in one go?"
June 26, 1715.
"Sometimes, I wonder if he just can't help himself." A sigh, and Connor raised a sympathetic eyebrow at the sound of his companion's low-register "boy" voice.
Rhian pursed her lips as she firmly screwed in a peg on her violin, tuning for the fourth song of the evening. She had walked away briefly to take a small break and enjoy the first sips of her pint of ale; the other, she had put in front of Connor, who was sitting at a table near her corner. The man in question had not so much as touched the drink. Rhian could not honestly say she was surprised. Of course, when she came back, she found that the A string peg on her violin had slipped, sending the string in question skewing wildly out of tune. Hence, why she was re-tuning.
"The man's a pig," she continued, drawing her bow across the A string for a gauge of the new note. "It's not a wonder he's not married, anymore."
For some reason, Connor looked up, at that. Curiosity was prevalent in his features as he frowned at his companion.
"He was married before his sailing career?" he questioned. Rhian glanced up at him, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, yes," she replied. "It's obvious, if you know what to look for."
Connor pursed his lips.
"I do not know what to look for," he admitted softly, and looked down at his folded hands. "I have never been married, myself, nor have I truly observed anyone whom has… lost their spouse."
Rhian studied him for a moment, and then she shrugged.
"Well, firstly, he's got a very small portrait of himself with a young woman on the wall above his cot in his cabin," she explained, tweaking the peg a little more. "Judging by the fact that the pair of them wear matching rings on their fingers in the image, one can conclude that the woman was his wife."
She paused again, frowning when the peg refused to stay. Growling, she lowered the instrument from her shoulder and took a firmer grip on the peg, corkscrewing it into the peg box determinedly.
"Secondly," she grunted, plucking the string repeatedly with the thumb of her left hand as she raised the pitch back up, "he no longer wears the ring, and there is a rather obvious lack of any correspondence that may have come from home. Thus, he is no longer married to her, and it's likely that the marriage ended on a bad note, otherwise she would keep him updated about their finances, or about life at home."
She swore vehemently as the peg slipped a second time. Finally, she reached down into her violin case and drew out a small nugget of white chalk, which she proceeded to rub on the stubborn peg after freeing it slightly from its hole. Afterwards, she readjusted the string again with all the firm-but-gentle patience she had always displayed with the precious instrument.
"Lastly, he has moments where he'll look at something, or mention something, and a wistful look will come to his face," she concluded, and Connor watched her frown down at the violin, tweaking the string a little to change its pitch just slightly. "Thus, somewhere in his heart, he still longs for the far shores of home. Therefore, one can conclude that his wife was the one who made it official, most likely after he first left to go to sea."
Rhian finally looked up at Connor again, satisfied that her violin's A string was in tune, and raised an eyebrow at him.
"Well?" she questioned. "What do you think?"
Connor did not know what to think, honestly, so he remained silent. They were quiet a moment.
"I think he does it to try to forget." Rhian's musing was soft as she plucked absently at the strings, running her fingertips across them thoughtfully. Connor looked up at her, finding her staring wistfully out the smoke-stained windowpane. "Fornicating, that is. Most men do, it seems. They do it to forget their loneliness, to find a purpose, to forget that they've left their loved ones behind."
She paused, and then huffed wryly. "It's either that, or he's just got one hell of an appetite for the carnal acts."
Connor grunted in disgust, and she was shocked to see him lift the tankard to his lips and take a large gulp of it. He shuddered visibly, but swallowed with some apparent difficulty before he turned a glare on her.
"I would appreciate it if you did not speak of… that, to me," he coughed. Rhian stared at him for a second. Then she laughed.
"Boy, you think that ale's strong?" she asked, grinning. He shook his head.
"I told you before, I do not drink," he reminded her, even as he lifted the tankard to his mouth for another, albeit smaller, drink. She smirked at him knowingly, to which he replied with a grimace. "Again, I would ask that you not speak to me about Edward Kenway's sexual encounters, whether real or hypothetical."
"Why not?" Rhian reached over for her own tankard, and took a sip of her own before she frowned and started re-tuning her E string. Connor sighed and bowed his head, absently swirling his ale around in his mug.
"I just would prefer not to hear about his… exploits."
Rhian gave him a calculating glance, her seafoam-green gaze sweeping across his face. Then she frowned and paused before setting her violin aside and leaning forward, studying him closely. She watched Connor swallow, tawny eyes darting away from her face so that he could look around the room.
It was as his face turned away from her that she noticed it.
Connor and Edward had the same nose. The same cheekbones. Same curve of the lips.
"You're related to him," she observed, and Connor's mouth tightened. She propped her chin on her hand and tilted her head to the side. "So? How is it? Brothers? Half-brothers? Your da get around a bit? He a sailor? That how the two of you look so much alike?" Rhian tilted her head the other way. "Or are you cousins?"
Connor opened his mouth to reply, but then he shut it as the door to the tavern opened to admit the captain about whom they were speaking. He was staggering slightly, and laughing as the dark-haired prostitute on his arm tittered at something he had said prior to entering.
As his gaze swept the room, perhaps on habit, he locked eyes with Rhian, and paused. Rhian stared back unflinchingly for a moment. Then, as the whore on his arm giggled again, Rhian's lip curled in disgust, and she shook her head, turning back to Connor with a disdainful snort. Neither of them looked up as Edward staggered to a table with his companion and ordered a drink for them both.
Rhian snorted in disgust and took a rather large swallow of her ale before she gave Connor a dry look and picked up her violin again. Closing her eyes, she set her bow to the A string, and using her smallest finger to hit an E note, began to play "Take, O Take Those Lips Away." While the murmur of conversation died down briefly with the first few measures of the song, it soon resumed. Without a singer to accompany her, the song just sounded plain and faded into the background.
So it was that, when she paused between the first round of it and the second round and opened her eyes, she was surprised to see both Edward and Connor staring at her, the looks in their eyes and the expressions on their faces so similar that any hint of doubt in her mind vanished.
They were definitely related.
"Take, oh! take those lips away…" Rhian almost jumped at the sound of Connor's voice, her seafoam-green gaze flicking over to land on him as he continued in time with her violin. "That so sweetly were forsworn… And those eyes the break of day… Lights that do mislead the morn…"
Rhian's stare flicked back over to Edward, finding that he was frowning contemplatively over at them, chin propped on his hand, fingers tapping against his tankard. His blue gaze was distant, expression melancholy and wistful. Connor, too, looked like his thoughts were far away from the present.
Rhian took the opportunity that the break in the song provided to improvise a little, starting with an ascending arpeggio and then flowing seamlessly into a series that sent her fingers skittering high up the E string, the notes pure and clear and so, so sweet. When she finished with a descending arpeggio and ritardando, she glanced back over to Connor to find that a small smile had quirked his lips.
She began the second half of the song.
"But my kisses bring again," Connor continued, voice a little stronger than it was before, "Seals of love, though sealed in vain. But my kisses bring again, Seals of love, though sealed in… vain."
As Rhian brought the song to a close, the sound fading off into silence, she smiled gently at Connor, who returned it. The sound of clapping met their ears. Rhian blinked and turned to the rest of the tavern, finding that every person in there was staring at the two of them. Some were grinning, others were misty-eyed, and still more were sighing happily. Rhian ducked her head and took a drink of her ale. She tried to ignore the way both of the Kenway men were staring at her, even as she felt the tips of her ears begin to heat.
She turned to Connor, feeling a little calmer.
"You have a nice voice," she stated, to which he chuckled, his own cheeks ruddy beneath his tan as he took a drink from his tankard.
"Thank you," he replied, his gaze boring into her own. Rhian found her cheeks heating under the intense stare, and took another gulp of ale to hide that fact. When she still felt his eyes on her after a moment, she looked up at him.
"Why are you staring at me like that?" she asked. Connor quirked a smile and looked down at his mug. At first, she was not sure that he would answer her. In fact, she had just picked up her violin to play a reel when his soft chuckle met her ears.
"I like you."
The statement made her blink. "Come again?"
Tawny eyes met seafoam green. "I like you." He took another sip of his ale, without grimacing this time. "You remind me very much of a dear friend of mine."
Rhian raised an eyebrow.
"That so?" she asked, and lifted the bow to the string for a hornpipe. The jig only took a few minutes to complete, but by the time she was halfway into the second round, people were laughing and clapping in time to the music, stomping their feet and grinning. Even Edward looked like he was beginning to relax.
As Rhian finished with a flourish, she grinned at the applause and turned back to Connor.
"Which old friend are you referring to?" she asked. Connor chuckled and slumped into his chair, relaxing bonelessly against its solid back. Rhian was surprised to realize that her friend was halfway drunk already.
"Her name is Cosette Delacroix," he replied, sighing wistfully. Rhian's eyebrows shot up.
That was a surname she was, unfortunately, familiar with, thanks to her Assassin mentor.
"Oh?" She leaned forward, interested and inwardly concerned. "A lover?"
"What?" Connor looked shocked, and perhaps a little defensive. "No, no! Of course not!" He settled a bit. Lowered his voice. "She is simply… a good friend. My best friend."
Rhian took a moment to study his expression. Connor probably did not realize it, but his features had softened at the mention of this friend of his, and a small smile had quirked his lips. She found her expression mirroring his as he returned his gaze to hers.
Rhian slowly shook her head, not breaking their stare. "Connor, I think you're in love."
"No," he repeated stubbornly, but it was half-hearted at best. "She is often my partner on missions… and she saved my life, once. But she is not my lover."
"You don't have to be lovers to be in love, Connor," Rhian chuckled, sighing wistfully. They gazed at each other for a moment. Then she shook her head again with a smile, propping her chin on her hand. "Well, you're no good to me, now. Here I was hoping that you weren't taken, so that I could bed you."
Connor jerked upright in his seat, face and ears flaring red, and Rhian laughed out loud as he choked and sputtered on the sip of ale he had just taken. When he looked at her with wide eyes a second later, her laughter redoubled until her stitches pulled and her stomach and sides hurt, and tears were streaming down her face.
"Y-You-!" He gaped at her, lost for words, as Rhian cackled and clutched her stomach.
"Your face!" she gasped, calming just enough to begin feeling the pain, and then she hissed and grimaced, groaning slightly though she was still chuckling. As she looked back up at Connor, she gave him a strained grin. "I'm sorry, but your expression was just far too worth seeing."
Connor sighed and shot her a glare for her impudence, to which she simply grinned.
"I am afraid that I do not understand your humor," he grouched, to which she simply raised her tankard in salute, grinning before she took a swig and raised her arm, motioning for another. The barkeep arrived a second later with a new tankard, and she grinned up at the man.
"So?" she asked him, and he gave her an annoyed look. "How has my presence affected your business?"
The man glared at her half-heartedly. "Enough that this ale's been paid for already. Courtesy of the gentleman over there."
Rhian frowned in confusion and followed his gaze to where a dark-haired man was sitting against the far wall. He tipped his hat at her, a lewd grin on his face. Rhian fought down a shudder of revulsion and thanked the man with a strained smile. Her eyes drifted to the clock on the wall. It was about eleven-thirty in the evening, give or take a few minutes. So, as she turned back to Connor with a smile, she lifted the new tankard to her lips and drank deeply.
The ale in it was sweet, sweeter than normal. Rhian frowned and grimaced as she swallowed, gaze darting with alarm back over to the stranger at the wall. He was smirking slightly. Rhian gulped.
She could not refuse the drink, for doing so would be to rudely refuse the man's hospitality, to the point that it might start a fight. In her condition, she could not afford to get into a fistfight, and Connor was little better. But she could not afford for some arse to try to drug, seduce, and sodomize her. Rhian thought quickly even as she felt her face to begin to flush slightly.
She would have to tell Connor. That was her only option.
"Connor," she hissed as the barkeep briskly walked away. She was already beginning to slip into her native Welsh accent. Soon, her control over her vocal pitch would begin to go. "Connor, I'm goin' to need your help."
Connor looked slightly surprised by the accent, but he frowned and leaned forward. Rhian took a shaky breath.
"The drink is laced with somethin'," she whispered, plucking anxiously at her violin strings. Connor's eyes widened with alarm. Rhian swallowed, glancing away. "I can't tell exactly what it is, but if I don't drink it, it'll insult the man and cause a fight. So I have to drink it."
Connor had gone pale beneath the flush of alcohol in his cheeks. Rhian's eyelids fluttered. Her breathing was getting slightly heavier. Connor slowly turned around, his gaze questing for the man who had drugged his companion, but he was no longer there. Instead, Connor looked over to Edward, only to find that the man was quickly becoming rather involved with the whore with whom he had arrived. Connor said something, softly, in what must have been his native language; it sounded like an oath or a curse.
"Connor," Rhian called again. The word came out as a slight groan, this time. As she shifted in her seat, she felt a tingle run up her spine from where her breeches clung snugly to her thighs and groin, and she knew exactly the kind of drug with which her drink was laced. "Connor, it's an aphrodisiac of some kind. And it's having a bad reaction with the alcohol."
He swore softly again and turned back to her, concern in his gaze as he scanned her face. She swallowed and turned a pinched expression on him.
"Will you be all right?" he asked softly. Rhian shook her head even as she lifted her violin back to her shoulder.
"Nah," she replied, voice equally soft. "I'd be fine if I didn't have to drink this, but as it is, I've already had too much, and it'd be an affront if I didn't drink this, too." She shuddered slightly, and realized that the man who had bought the drink was now leaning against the bar. "Neither you nor I can afford a fight in our current conditions."
She took a deep breath. "I'll play a last set. You go collect our earnings from the barkeep now, and we'll leave after I'm done. If I manage to throw it all up soon enough, it might not affect me as strongly. You think you can get us back to the Jackdaw without gettin' us killed?"
Connor nodded, eyes lucid, and got up to go to the bar. Rhian relaxed back into her chair and drew her bow across the string for a last set of popular songs: O'Sullivan's March would be the first, followed by Mary Scott, then Drowsy Maggie, and Mad Moll would finish the piece. If she could keep her fingers steady and her head straight long enough to get through the song without too many problems, it was sure to get the establishment stomping and clapping.
Sure enough, by the time she was halfway through the set two minutes later, the crowd was really getting involved. Connor had returned, by that time, tucking a hefty purse into the front of his shirt, and quietly set to gathering up her violin case and its canvas sack, preparing it to receive the instrument in question. Glancing hazily down at him, she noticed him testing the tension of the wires connected to the rings on his fingers and realized that he was preparing to use them if required.
Not for the first time, Rhian absently wished that she had her own pair of hidden blades, if only for her own self-defense.
As soon as she finished the set to much applause and some cheering, Rhian clumsily set to work packing up her instrument. Her bow was loosened, her violin placed in its case and padded with the small cushion she kept in the box for that express purpose. The bow, she slid into its own sheath. Then Connor took the lot of it from her and packed it efficiently into the canvas bag.
It was then that Rhian turned to her tankard and, with one last, rueful and slightly scared glance to Connor, she drained the entire thing.
The sickly-sweet flavor choked her, and she nearly gagged before she managed to get it all down. Vanilla. She tasted vanilla, and cowhage, both of which were powerful aphrodisiacs. Slamming the tankard home, she reached out and grabbed onto Connor's arm, allowing him to pull her to her feet. Rhian leaned on him heavily, her head spinning, cold sweat breaking out on her forehead. As he urgently pulled her to the door, Rhian looked over in Edward's direction. The Jackdaw's captain was staring at her even as the prostitute he had arrived with ran her hands down his chest to his belt buckle, palms brushing over the man's crotch.
Their eyes met.
A pang of agony stabbed through Rhian's belly, and she folded in on herself with a sharp, barely bitten-off cry of pain. If not for Connor's steady grip on her, she would have fallen. Gasping through the burning in her belly, she allowed him to pull her to the door, stumbling heavily. The barkeep met them there. Rhian felt her mouth moving and making their excuses, but even later, she could never recall what they were. All she knew was that Connor shoved past the barkeep without any preamble, dragging her out into the humid night air.
Rhian gasped for breath as they stumbled out into the street. The dizziness was worsening. She groaned, tugging Connor towards the docks, knowing even in her growing delirium that it was not safe to stay in the town any longer. Not with that arse waiting somewhere for them to break away from any crowds, waiting to get them alone so that he could bugger her like the young boy she appeared to be.
Thankfully, they made it to the docks without incident. Not so thankfully, the Jackdaw's gangplank had been stowed. The two of them stood there for a long second, staring up at the ship, the dilemma racing through their heads. Then Rhian groaned and tugged Connor over to the water.
"Are you all right?" he asked, not for the first time that evening. Rhian shook her head, gasping and shaking and sweating.
"Help me kneel," she wheezed, her stomach aching again. Connor helped her kneel at the water's edge. Rhian gripped the edge of the dock, leaned out over the water, and, glancing fearfully at her companion, reached up with her right hand and shoved her fingers down her throat.
The reaction was immediate. Rhian's gag reflex kicked in, and she desperately grabbed at the side of the dock as she lurched out over the water, stomach clenching, and heaved out the majority of the alcohol she had consumed in the past half-hour or so. Connor was wonderful, steadying her as she choked and retched, tears streaming down her cheeks, her nose running and belly on fire.
It was a full five minutes before she settled again, and then Rhian stuck her fingers down her throat for a second time. This induced heaves that brought up a mix of yellow bile and a little more alcohol; after that, she was reduced to dry-heaving. By the time it finally died off, Rhian was on the verge of passing out from pain, exhaustion, and the drugs and alcohol that she had already digested.
As she coughed and gasped, she distantly heard Connor growl, a stream of unfamiliar words rattling from his mouth. She looked up, panting and blinking sweat out of her eyes, when his hands disappeared from her shoulders. The dark man from the tavern was approaching them, a smirk on his face and a swagger in his step. Flanking him were three other men, all with lewd grins on their faces.
Rhian's blood ran cold when she saw the pistols in their hands.
"Leave now," Connor ordered firmly, carefully depositing the sack with her violin in it onto the dock beside her. Rhian shook slightly, weakly twisting to face them, heedless of the vomit on her chin and the snot and tears on her face. Agony shot through her at the slightest motion, and more tears rolled down her cheeks; she was nothing if not brave, however, and she knew that she would rather face her enemies than have them stab her in the back.
She had to admit it, though: when she had pictured her death, she had never pictured herself dying curled over her stomach on the dock, barely able to move for pain and unwanted poisoning, and buggered up the arse by four blokes who had decided she looked like a cute boy. Her hand slipped to the small of her back, where a dagger was sheathed in the waistband of her breeches.
Rhian would die before she allowed them to take her.
The dark man was smirking.
"Nah, dun' think we will," he replied easily, cocking the hammer of his pistol and leveling it at Connor's chest. "Give us tha' boy, and we'll think about lettin' ya go free."
Connor's hands twitched at his sides. Rhian heard the faint snickt of his hidden blades sliding out of their sheathes, saw his fingers curl towards his palms, saw him rotate at least one blade to hold it in a backwards grip. Idly, she mused that she had never seen a rotating hidden blade, before.
"I do not think so," Connor replied evenly. "If you depart now, you will not be shot by the crew of this ship." Rhian blinked, trying to ignore the way her vision was beginning to blur and haze, and glanced up at Connor's face. "You see, this boy is very well-liked by our crew. If you try to hurt him in any way, not only will I take two of you down with me in protecting him, but the rest of you will face retribution for my death and for his kidnapping." His tawny gaze narrowed. "Make your choice."
Rhian's eyes flicked back towards their aggressors even as the agony in her belly and the dizziness in her head redoubled, making her slump with a hiss to the planks beneath her. For just an instant, she watched doubt flicker across the men's faces. Then the leader scoffed.
Rhian gathered her legs beneath her as the leader pulled the trigger.
Even as Connor dodged to the side, Rhian surged to her feet, roaring her defiance, and charged in unison with her companion towards the men. The shock that spread across their faces at the action was absolutely beautiful. Also gorgeous was the pain that blossomed across the leader's face as Rhian buried her dagger in his throat a second later, stabbing in just to the right of his windpipe and tearing the blade out to the side. The slice severed both his jugular vein and carotid artery; it would be a quick death, thankfully. Blood sprayed, scalding hot and vivid red, across her face and clothing.
But Rhian was utterly spent.
She collapsed to the dock in agony as Connor proceeded to eviscerate two of the others. The last fumbled with his pistol, now shaking in his boots as he backtracked hastily, and Connor stooped to pick up one of the dead men's guns. Rhian had no doubt in her mind that he would use it to end the last man's life.
However, he never got the chance.
The man jerked to a halt all of a sudden, a choked whimper gurgling out of his throat. Then he dropped face-down onto the dock, stone dead. He was bleeding from a stab wound in the base of his skull. Rhian's eyes lingered on the corpse for just a second. Then she slowly looked up.
Edward was standing there, expression stony and ice-cold. As soon as he was sure that the dead man was really dead, he looked up, first at Connor, and then, after making sure that the darker man was all right, Edward looked to Rhian. Rhian stared back, vision skewing and hazing, cold sweat beading across her blood-splattered forehead.
Her breathing was constricted.
As Rhian felt strong hands grip her shoulders, she shuddered and slumped to her side, unable to handle the pain any longer. Her eyelids fell to half-mast. The damage to her abdomen had only worsened with her desperate bid for life, and now it had become utterly unbearable. Connor's voice met her ears, low and questioning. Rhian was vaguely aware of her numb lips murmuring a reply of some kind, but it was getting too difficult to breathe.
Dimly, she realized that she was shaking violently.
Her head spun, and she groaned as strong hands hoisted her into strong arms. She got the vague impression that it was not Connor holding her; instead of smelling of leather, pine, and woodsmoke, the person holding her smelled of sandalwood, sweat, sex, and the sea. The scent was strangely comforting, she thought distantly. Rhian dimly registered the feeling of cotton against her nose, and realized that she had turned her face into his shoulder.
A shiver wracked her body. Her belly was on fire. She could not breathe.
"E-Edward," she gasped faintly.
The world went black.
Edward felt Drystan go limp in his arms, and swallowed thickly, turning to watch as Connor nimbly scaled the hawser so that he could lower the gangplank. At this point, the dark man was more sober than Edward was. The Welshman himself had just barely been able to keep his feet under him as he had followed his newest crewmembers to the docks; as it was, Drystan's dead weight was enough to make him stagger slightly.
Back in the tavern, Edward had seen the flash of pain that had gone through Drystan's face just before she crumpled to the floor. Slightly alarmed, he had watched as Connor had shoved past the barkeep, Drystan mumbling some half-coherent excuse or another as they passed. After that, it had only taken about three seconds before Edward had realized that any and all desire that he had had for the whore he had hired had disappeared entirely. Swearing a blue streak, he had dismissed her from his presence and, paying for the two tankards of ale he had consumed since he had arrived at the tavern, he had stumbled out the door, determined to follow Connor and Drystan, if only to make sure they were all right. If nothing else, he figured he owed them that much for helping him and Gregson sell the schooner, earlier.
It had taken him a second to realize where the pair had gone, and even then, he had to use his Sight to do so. Still, he had tailed them to the docks.
He had lurched in his steps as he had neared the Jackdaw, and had barely caught himself against a crane on the dock. It had been then that he had spotted Connor standing over Drystan, who was kneeling at the edge of the dock, and the four men who had advanced upon them. Edward had been too far away to hear their words clearly. However, the meaning had been made clear by the four pistols pointing at Connor and the way the large man was standing protectively over his smaller shipmate.
As the shot rang out and Connor and Drystan both burst into motion, Edward had seen red.
His feet had moved before he even realized what he was doing, and in only half a second, he had come up behind the only man left alive. His hidden blade had finished the job easily enough. After that, he had scanned Connor for any newly-acquired wounds; finding him unharmed, Edward had turned to regard Drystan. The girl had been all but drenched in blood from whatever blow she had dealt her assailant, and her eyes had been dilated. Even as Edward rushed forward, she had groaned and slumped to the side. Only Connor's hands on her shoulders had kept her from falling into the guts and blood on the pier.
"Drystan?" Connor had questioned as Edward had staggered towards them. "Drystan, can you hear me?"
Drystan's eyelids had fluttered hazily, half-closed. She had been positively grey.
"Dim," Drystan had murmured. "Ydw i… Brifa…"
Edward had been alarmed to realize that her lips were turning blue. Drystan had begun trembling violently. Edward had wasted little time in kneeling down and scooping her into his arms, feeling it as her head lolled limply against his shoulder. Drystan had groaned at the motion.
"Get on that ship and lower the gangplank," Edward had ordered Connor. Connor had gone to do as he had been told, and it was then that Edward had looked down at Drystan, feeling her turn her face into his shoulder. He had been in time to hear her gasp his name before her eyes closed and she slumped in his arms, unconscious.
Which brought them to the current moment.
Edward swallowed as he gazed down at Drystan's slack face, the blood, vomit, tears, and snot staining it dripping slowly onto his sleeve. Not for the first time since he had begun tailing them, he wondered what had happened. But he pushed that thought aside and looked up as the thud of the gangplank hitting the dock met his ears.
Connor was staring down at him from the deck. Edward wasted no time in making his way up the gangplank, staggering slightly under Drystan's dead weight. Glancing around the deck, he realized that Gibbs was ashore for the night. The three of them were the only ones on the ship aside from the skeleton crew, and none of them would have any experience with whatever it was that had happened to Drystan.
"All right," Edward muttered to himself, and headed for his cabin. "Grab her violin, and get some stitching supplies from Gibbs's stores, and meet me in my cabin." He grunted, adjusting his grip on her as he felt her begin to slip. "And bring water and a cloth, so we can clean her up."
Connor departed to do as he had been told, and Edward crossed the deck to his cabin. It was already unlocked, as he had left it so earlier that evening; all he had to do was press down on the latch and shoulder it open, stumbling slightly as he overbalanced. Thankfully, he managed to recover before he slammed her head into the wall. Edward grunted as his own back hit the wall instead, and stood there a second, regaining both his breath and his bearings, before he moved over to his desk. Carelessly sweeping everything on it to the floor, he laid Drystan gently upon the oak surface, heedless of the maps and charts he was standing on.
Edward was still for a moment after he laid her down, trying to stop his head from spinning. He leaned heavily against the desk. After a second, he reopened eyes he had not realized that he had closed, and found himself staring down into a dazed, seafoam-green gaze. Drystan's features were pinched with pain, tendrils of wavy auburn hair sticking to the sweat on her cheeks, and her breathing was shallow, labored, and slow. In fact, her lips were beginning to look a little blue. She looked terrified.
It was alarming, to say the least.
The sound of the door opening told him that Connor had arrived, his arms full of supplies.
"Has she woken?" he asked, to which Edward nodded and hummed. As Connor came over and set his armload on the desk beside Drystan's waist, he eyed the mess around them, the pale blue of Drystan's lips, and the small splotch of red forming on her shirt above her belly.
"Seems her wound's either reopened, or her stitches've torn," Edward commented, blinking himself back to the present. His nimble fingers reached out and began to undo the first button of her trousers. "Start taking her waistcoat off, would you?"
Connor did as he was told, deftly undoing the buttons of Drystan's waistcoat before he slipped it off of her. Underneath was the white shirt she so favored; Edward tugged it out of the waistband of her breeches and shoved it upwards towards her breasts, revealing the heavy bandaging about her otherwise trim middle, which was splotched with red.
Edward looked up at Drystan and, when he saw that she was still awake, he gave her a wry smile.
"And here I half-expected you to be wearing a stay underneath all that," he quipped, but it was lost on the girl, whose eyelids were fluttering more rapidly than before. As he pressed lightly against the splotched section of her bandages, Drystan groaned softly, features pinching in pain. Edward swore quietly and shook his head, pulling his hand back and ejecting his hidden blade. Then he began to carefully cut away the bandages.
When they fell away a few minutes later, stained red and yellow with blood and pus, Edward inhaled shakily, looking at the wound in her stomach.
He had not really known, before, how far it extended. Now, however, he could see that it started nearly at her navel and ended nearly at her ribcage, most likely due to how she had slumped on him upon the initial stab. For the first time, he was struck by how easily she had forgiven him for the injury. She could easily have held a grudge and made his life a living hell, but she had not. In fact, she tended to avoid him more often than not; looking back, Edward realized that it was most likely because of his own attitude towards her.
Well, he mused, he might just have to reevaluate the way he acted towards her from now on. Her tenacity and strength were something to be admired.
At any rate, her stitches had been torn, and badly at that. Edward sighed and straightened, crossing over to his sea chest and pulling out a bottle of whiskey. As he went back over to the other Assassin and their charge, Connor frowned at the bottle in Edward's hand.
"I do not think that this is the time to be drinking more than you already have," Connor murmured, putting a reassuring hand on Drystan's shoulder as she groaned and closed her eyes. Edward gave the darker man a dry look.
"I know that," he replied. "It's for her wound."
Connor went silent a moment, staring at Edward. Then he nodded slowly. He stepped away, and let Edward work.
Cleaning the wound took little time, and repairing the damage done took even less, but it was still obviously painful for Drystan. Even though the wound was partially healed already, Edward still had to sew up the torn stitches. Every time he pushed the needle through the raw, inflamed flesh of the wound in her abdomen, she groaned a little louder and grabbed more firmly onto Connor's forearms where the dark man was holding her down. Thankfully, she did not struggle overly much.
Once the deed was done and Drystan's belly had been rewrapped, Edward straightened, stretched the kinks out of his spine, and exchanged a weary smile with Connor. Drystan, herself, was slack against the desktop, eyes closed and breathing steady if labored. She opened her eyes as Edward put his hand on her shoulder. Her expression was still pinched with pain and fear, and her eyes were dilated, but she looked a little lucid.
"How ya feeling?" Edward asked. Her lips parted, and she gasped for air a couple of times.
The words that slurred out of her lips were barely comprehensible, and Edward would not have understood them if Welsh was not his first language. Thankfully, however, he was able to translate what she had managed to get out.
Not so thankfully, the news was not good.
"She says she's having to make a real effort to breathe," he relayed, frowning, and then looked over at Connor. "What happened, anyway?"
Connor shook his head.
"One of the men we killed was in the tavern with us," he replied. "I do not know exactly what happened, but he must have planned to seduce her, not knowing about her wound." Connor nodded to the bottle of whiskey still sitting on the desk. "He ordered a tankard of ale for her, and had the barkeep lace it with an aphrodisiac of some kind." Edward gritted his teeth. "Drystan knew that if she refused the drink, it would probably cause a fight, which neither of us was in the shape to have."
The Welshman's teeth ground a bit harder.
"And neither of you thought to get my help?"
Connor leveled a dark look at Edward.
"Would you have believed her?" the darker Assassin asked. "Or would you have told us to go about our business as you enjoyed your companion's touch?"
The question made Edward blink, and then he frowned and opened his mouth to snap a vicious retort. However, the motion of Drystan turning her head away from them caught his eye, and he looked down to see her staring at the bookshelf, features still pinched. He watched her lay there, struggling to breathe, watched the undulation of her slender throat, watched her squeeze her eyes shut. A single tear escaped the corner of her left eye, pooling at the bridge of her nose before her breath hitched, tipping it over.
And suddenly, Edward knew.
"You didn't think I'd help you," he realized, and frowned. "Have I ever given you the impression that I would leave you to fight your battles alone? Ever?"
Both of them were silent. Edward growled and spun away, snagging the bottle of whiskey as he crossed over to his cot and dropped down upon it, taking a swig of the strong alcohol and then sitting there with his head cradled in his hands.
"You… left us… this- this afternoon." The small, rasping voice drew Edward's gaze back up to the girl on the table. Connor hushed Drystan softly, quietly telling her to save her breath. Edward, for his part, felt his temper flare.
"How was I supposed to know that you wanted my help?" he demanded, shooting to his feet. Restless, he began pacing. "I don' read minds, lass! I can't know when you want my help unless you signal for it!"
"Do not push the blame for this upon her!" Connor snapped, straightening. "Anyone with eyes could easily have seen that she was in pain, earlier, and yet you walked away."
Edward opened his mouth to refute that, but again, one look at Drystan's face told him that he had nothing with which to refute the statement. Absolutely nothing.
It stung a bit.
Edward turned away, unable to look at either of them. For a long moment, they were silent. He finally went over to the windows at the back of the aftcastle, bracing his hands against the sill so that he could lean heavily against it.
"I'm no hero." The admission was quiet, and Edward was startled by his own honesty. Swallowing, he blurted, "My only loyalty is to myself and my men, and most of what I do is to ensure their safety. Why would you look up to me as though I was someone to be respected?"
"Because you are." Drystan's voice rasped, and slurred terribly, but the words got out nonetheless. Edward bowed his head as her labored breathing turned to gasps. "To me… to… your men… To… To everyone… whom you h-have… s… saved… You're…" She groaned weakly.
"A hero."
Compulsory and Standard Disclaimer: I do not own Assassin's Creed in any of its forms, save for the copies I have of each game but Liberation. Assassin's Creed belongs in its entirety to Ubisoft.
Welsh Translations:
Cach - Shit (this is becoming standard for my translations sections...)
Dim... Ydw i… Brifa… - No... I... It hurts...
Vanilla is an aphrodesiac, and cowhage was thought to be an aphrodesiac, most likely due to its phallic shape. Cowhage has antidepressant properties, which never mix well with alcohol. Though, it would not have affected Rhian as it did had she not already been so injured...
A note on Caroline: In Edward's bio, it states that his first wife's name was Caroline, and that their marriage, though passionate by all accounts, fell apart due to his irresponsibility. His going to sea was the clincher. He actually appears to have been at sea already by the time their daughter, Jenny, was born in 1713, unless the dates are wrong. Which means that Edward's a dad prior to this story's beginning.
Brought this over from my Tumblr (RevenantAvenger90) and DeviantART (ElvenWhiteMage) accounts.
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-Scribe