Special thanks to Damsel-in-stress for all of your lovely reviews and thank you also to Nytd, Stutley Constable and Buffycorvin for yours.
Alright, so this chapter will have a few flash backs in it, they are in italic so you'll know. This is meant as a filler of sorts, but it's still part of the storyline. Enjoy!
The guards depart in clusters, the head guard sending them back to their posts before running off along one of the streets connected to the square, the back of him fading quickly into the fog that came after the rain.
I look at the doors. Two heavy wooden barricades, scraped up and with many dents near the bottom. Someone must have put up a big fight at some point. The problem is that I have no idea what sort of asylum this is. Is it open to the public? Is it used to actually help the inmates? I don't know which would be better, or which one would be easier.
Deciding to figure this all out before I jump towards any set plan, I emerge from the shadows of the street I've been hiding on and cautiously approach the doors. Something screams at me that this place is not somewhere I want to be. But the tiny voice slipping underneath that loud one tells me that I need to go up those steps, I need to knock on that hideous door.
The sound of my knuckles on the rough surface makes me flinch and I realize that over the years, I've learned fear.
Silence sits with me, holding my hand as I wait. The right door is opened with one fast, jerky movement. It swings inwards and a tall, thin man steps forward, his black hair curly and his moustache giving him a very pompous air. He stares down at me with annoyed and piercing blue eyes, the left corner of his mouth turned down disapprovingly.
"Tuesdays, we are open Tuesdays. Come back then sir," he says haughtily, stepping back and beginning to close the door.
"Wait, I need to see one of the patients. She just came in. There's been a mistake."
The man looks down his nose at me, one level higher than I am, me being on the last step and he being on the main floor of the building.
"Tuesday!" he exclaims once more and slams the door shut in my face, dust falling off the walls beside it from the force.
Sighing in frustration, I turn away. With a quick once-over of the asylum, I know there is no back door. I will have to wait until Tuesday, or wait for a better opportunity to make an entrance. Accepting that I've done what I can for now, I turn my back on the stone building and continue on down the street to my left, planning on making my way home.
My step falters as I hear the beginning of shouts from behind, far off at the prison. Apparently, they have discovered my taking of leave. Let them fight about it; I have no patience for going back there. They won't be finding me.
The small cottage on the sand looks lonely in the heavy blanket of fog, a dark wood figure that can't say anything, yet she shouts out to me that she is sad and lonely. Empty.
Everything means something. When you've been around for as long as I have, loneliness becomes a part of every breath. In that loneliness you have time for observation, the understanding of things. Every piece of this world sends a message. Because when the people you trust yourself with become so few, you learn to read the rest. The things that don't speak out loud yet are sometimes the loudest of everything around are the things that don't fade. You get to know them.
Not wanting to bear the emptiness of her walls, I turn away from the old cottage. I will go see my ship. I don't think she will last much longer and I want to see her one last time before she goes. I want to remember how she was all that time ago, when she had a purpose.
I brush my feet along the surface of the sand as I approach from the beach, kicking it up into the heavy air. The hiss is comforting and familiar, but it's too quiet with only one pair of boots moving it.
There she is, tied at the end of the dock. The noise following me changes to a clunking underfoot. I'm almost there. I can smell the sea stronger, as I'm above it. I can smell wet wood. I can smell her. Finally, I reach the point of the dock where the ladder hangs down, the rope a greenish colour from the sea and weather.
Extending a hand, I grab it and test its strength. It will hold. Slowly, to make sure that the rope doesn't break, I climb my way up to her deck. When both feet are planted, I stop. Reaching out, I gently touch the railing next to me. It's covered in grime. Bits of dirt and fungus brush off onto the deck below.
I look to the mast. The planks of wood surrounding her shoot up in different odd angles, as the tall pole has sunk down over time, pushing its way through the deck, pushing the boards up and out of the way. But it isn't completely through yet. She's holding up as best as she can.
The stairs to the quarterdeck are intact from the obvious lack of use. Seeing those stairs, the ones my father and my crew used to walk up adds another touch of abandonment to this vessel. Her time has passed.
"Free?" The crew echoed, their voices sounding strange, testing the word on their ruined lips. "But where do we go? What is there left?"
I don't have an answer. Twenty nine years is not what I expected. Though it is a long time, I was expecting an eternity. And now, I will go home. I will find my wife. I will see my son, now nineteen. I haven't seen him since he was nine. For the first time in a long time, I feel truly happy. I can almost feel the texture of her hair in my hand, her soft skin tinted from the sun...
"Son," my father's voice interrupts my reverie and I snap to, finding his face. The rest of them move away, discussing the future. Some are excited; the light shines in their eyes unmistakeably. Some are confused, not knowing where they will go, what they will do. "It's been long years sailing with ye. And now, I think this must be goodbye."
My happiness does not fade or leave, but it moves to the back of my mind for this moment.
"I suppose it is," I pause, really looking at him. "What will you do?"
"I'm guessing not many of us have much time left. Maybe relatively young now, but only the captain is truly immortal, his heart locked away. I still have the rest of this short life. I'll stay at sea, find a ship, do some pirating."
I feel that happiness come forward again. He'll be fine. They'll all live their lives, however that may be.
An empty deck of gray and green stretching pitifully before me, I see it again.
Shabby and broken, she is different. It's the same deck from those memories, but with a heavier sky above her and the truth of desertion already worked through her frame.
She's no longer a Flying anything. She's sinking. I thought names were one of the things that lived on. Does anything truly live on aside from me?
I knock on the old Woldrey's cottage door, Elizabeth's door. The lush garden on either side of a pretty stone path up to the front door is a good sign to me. I can hear quick footsteps on the other side, the turning of a lock soon after. The door swings open and there she is, my perfection.
Her feet are bare, her hair loose around her face as she looks up at me. Her pretty light pink dress flutters in the gentle breeze. Her eyes go wide, showing me those brown depths of warmth and surprise.
"You're early," she smiles sweetly yet sadly, looking up to me as if she's expecting a denial.
"I'm home forever," I whisper and reach for her, taking her in my arms. She's so warm, so familiar. She smells of that scent that's always been there, a sweet aroma that I've never put a name to.
She pulls away to look into my eyes again, and she kisses me. Her hair flutters in the wind, a ribbon of beige satin tied in a bow, waving a welcome.
A tattered sail blows in the wind, reaching out to the sea to save her, not take her down. It's not the wind of my memories, this one is hollow and harsh, an unforgiving breath.
I step forward, away from the crumbling railing. The boards creak under my feet, but they don't give. Carefully, I walk to her stairs. This rail is much sturdier, but covered in black spots of rot. The quarterdeck lies before me.
The helm looks fine. A few broken spokes acquired over the years of use is nothing. I cover the last few strides to its shape and grab it in my hand, feeling those rough grains press into my palm in a way that once would have been comforting. Now I just feel like I'm trying to hold onto her, to the whole ship.
"I'm sorry," I whisper to her, because I know that I can hold onto her as hard as I want, but I can't save her.
"I'm sorry," the voice comes from behind me and I turn around, still holding her in my arms. "I didn't know you had guests. I'll just..." and the man turns to leave, back down the stone path towards the sandy beach.
"William, come back."
The man turns his head and looks at me apologetically. "Wouldn't you rather see your visitor alone?"
"William?" I ask, stepping towards him and away from Elizabeth.
"Father?" he asks, confused.
"You look different," I say.
"And you look... like you might have survived a hurricane," he says. Then he steps forward to get a better look at me and smiles, "But you're the same, from what I remember."
A metal pulley clangs gently against the mast as a rope from the sail blows back and forth. There is nothing left for me to see here, nothing left to do.
Reluctantly, I release my hold on the helm and it rotates a tiny bit to the right, then back to its original place. I retrace my steps to the ladder, taking in every detail of this part of my life.
When I reach the gap in the railing, I lower myself expertly onto the rope rungs and look once more across the expanse of deck.
Goodbye, my love.
When I'm halfway up the dock, no noise could have drowned out the large cracking noise of splintering wood as the mast falls through to the hold and further. No amount of cannon fire could have masked the sound of the snapping lines, the creaking and groaning wood. And without looking, I know she's drowning in her sea.
Adieu, mon amour.
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