Chapter 1.
The day was a bleak as any other he had had the displeasure of viewing. He meandered out from the Captain's Quarter's below to the empty deck, delighted as ever by the complete absence of people around. With a wave of his hand, the mainsail dropped as the rigging fixed itself into its new position. He took time to assess the beauty of the rising sun, which is what had called him up from his chambers, as it did every morning. And as with every other morning, he rolled his eyes at himself for thinking he would be able to see anything beautiful at all. He had lost the ability to perceive that sort of thing with his senses a long time ago.
He turned his back to the sunrise with a scoff, ambling up to the helm, releasing the magic that had locked it on course eastward during the night. He ran his palms across the smooth wood, and waited in vain for his ship to respond to his caress, to the loving touch of her captain. And like every other morning, she didn't. The planks of wood that once sang to him no longer made their music and the lady who had danced under his lead through many a storm now sat silent. And he, as in every other bloody day since he had achieved his goal, knew why she no longer savored his touch.
It was her silent rebuke of his choices. A part of him, the small sliver that was not yet consumed by the throbbing darkness within him, was proud of his old girl. For all the power he now wielded, he was being told off by his own bloody boat. She had never agreed with his decision to finish the mission he had started so long ago aboard her decks. And once his hand had finally done the deed, slaying the vile thing in his cell where their majesties thought they could hide him, and he returned, born anew, to triumphantly sail away. But his efforts were thwarted when she refused to lower her gangplank to him. Something that had never happened before. And ever since then, she had refused to do anything he asked, and once his crew had fled in fear of his new found position, he was forced to use his power to manager her.
And he hated it. Hated that the one thing that had never left him in all his time failing, had so easily abandoned him once he had achieved his ultimate success.
And just like every other morning, the fury that always boiled just below his skin flared up at this consideration, and he yanked up his hook, ready to score untold damage into her decks, when, as always, the sight of a compass rose, making out port and starboard, scratched out in a fit of rage, stayed his hand. It was the only time he had ever intentionally done damage to her wood, and every time he had looked on it afterward, he felt the same clenching in his gut as he had when he felt her whimper of pain.
So he lowered his hook with a sigh, before settling himself behind the helm and taking full control of his vessel, allowing her to chase the sunrise. He had nothing better to do than to allow his ship to sail, and wait for some poor pathetic soul to conjure him.
It was only a matter of time. It always was.