Shout out to Cardfigher by Maple, Guest, Guest, Canadaorbust, Phantom Ice, WriterGreenReads, BakaKurokamiShoujo, Whiskey Bloodsbane Pincher, and Noire Knightmare!

Alright, ladies and gents, this is it! Final chapter, aka epilogue. After this I will be focusing on other works, and maybe I can't get a few done without disappearing in the middle of them. :P And with any luck, y'all will enjoy them as much as you did 'Hoist the Colors High'!

Enjoy! :D

10 Years Later

Lovina hefted a tray up to shoulder level, snagging five empty tankards by the handles with practiced ease as she made her way back to the kitchens. She dropped off the tray, then went behind the counter to start refilling the tankards. Glancing at the bar, she called, "Maria! Where's your brother?"

When she didn't get a response, she frowned, looking around the tavern. "Oi! Maria!" Lovina paused, listening. Still nothing. Her frown deepening, she bellowed, "Romano!" Still nothing. She didn't even bother calling for Alejandro. The four year old was Maria's shadow these days.

Her frown turned to a scowl when the three children were nowhere to be seen. Huffing, she stalked to the bar, working on the refills herself. Honestly, it wasn't like Antonio was one of those who were gone more than they were here. These days the trips he made were short, done because he wanted to, not for the money. Technically, he'd never had to work in the first place. Like Arthur and Gilbert, he'd acquired quite a horde from his raiding days.

As Lovina had suspected, within half an hour Maria came running back through the main door, a wide smile on her face. The girl was only eight years old, but it was already obvious she'd be taking after her father. Not only was her temperament bright enough to light up whichever room she bounded into, but she had Antonio's chocolate colored loose ringlets, his bright emerald eyes, wide smile, and olive toned skin. Her elder brother was her exact opposite. Nearly ten years old, he was whipcord lean and already up to Lovina's shoulder, with dark green eyes and reddish brown hair. Antonio insisted he had his mothers scowl. Alejandro, at least, seemed to be a mix of both parents.

"Papa's back!" Maria was calling, skidding to a stop in front of Lovina. "He's back!"

Propping her hands on her hips, Lovina informed her, "I'm well aware of that. Now what have I told you about running off like that?"

Maria pouted. "I was just following Romano."

"Who is in trouble of his own for leaving me here," Lovina informed her, biting her tongue to keep from swearing. It was something of an effort, even now.

"Sorry," mumbled Maria, still pouting.

Sighing wearily, Lovina turned her attention passed Maria. She stepped around the bar as the tavern door opened, two more people coming inside and shutting the heavy door against the chilled winds as quickly as possible. Antonio, hair ruffled and cheeks flushed, had a wide smile on his face, axe in one hand and travel bag in the other. He stooped low under the doorframe, careful of the child currently perched on his shoulders. Alejandro giggled, reaching up to tag the frame before Romano heaved the door shut.

"Lovi!" called Antonio, a wide smile on his face. Cheeks flushed with cold, laugh lines crinkling, he looked like the happiest man in the world. Just as he did every time he came back from a trip. Lovina had long since stopped hovering around the docks when he was expected back, but their three children were prone to disappearing at the first word of their father's ship in harbor. He only went out a few times a year, and never for more than a few weeks at a time, but it was always good to have him back.

Not that Lovina let him know it right off the bat. Ever. She stood before him, folding her arms over her chest as she demanded, "Why do you insist on steeling my children right in the middle of-

Antonio, accustomed to this sort of greeting, handed off his bag to Romano so he could kiss his wife. Alejandro protested loudly from his shoulders, but he went ignored. Lovina even reached up to stick a tomato into his mouth. The child silenced immediately, as she knew he would, nibbling on his favorite snack.

As he straightened, ignoring the wolf whistles from the patrons and still smiling broadly, Antonio asked innocently, "Why is it they're mine when they're being bad, but when you need them they're yours?"

Face flushed, she informed him tartly, "Because that's how it works, idiota."

Antonio hummed thoughtfully, but didn't argue as he leaned his axe against a nearby ceiling brace. Then he reached up, lifting Alejandro down from his shoulders. Once he had lowered the child onto his own two feet, he straightened and ruffled Romano's hair. Ignoring the protests as his eldest son jerked back out of reach, straightening the ruffled locks, Antonio said, "Alright then, back to work. It looks like your mother needs it."

Grumbling still, customary scowl set in place, Romano made his way behind the bar. Lovina knew a number of local women who frowned upon her letting her children work in the tavern, but she had long since ignored them. They were easily trained, efficient workers, and she didn't have to pay them. Besides, it had taken a few years before she'd mastered the art of biting back her foul language. By the time he was seven Romano could already swear fluently in several languages. Working at the bar didn't expose him to anything he didn't already know. Maria ran food and collected dishes, and spent most of the time in the kitchens. Lovina spent as much time in the kitchen as she did up front, and was content with the balance. When he was home Antonio helped as well, meaning she was able to stay in the kitchen as much as she pleased.

"Come upstairs with me, Lovi? I need to speak with you," said Antonio, picking up his axe.

Lovina frowned, but nodded. Antonio took a step forward, but then stopped and looked down. Following his gaze, Lovina noticed Alejandro tugging at his father's long coat. Having finished his tomato, he asked, "Presents?"

Antonio cracked a smile. "Tonight, bambino. Remember? You have to be patient."

Alejandro stuck his lip out, but nodded his head. It was an unofficial tradition in the Carriedo household. Even if it was a routine trip that lasted five days, Antonio always brought something back for each of them. In Lovina's opinion he was prone to spoiling them, but since he also made a point to bring back a few crates of tomatoes she didn't do more than grumble.

Once freed, Antonio made his way towards the back of the tavern, climbing the stairs to the upper levels. Rather than rent it out, they'd decided to simply live in the floors above. It worked out quite well, each of the children having a room of their own with space to spare. After Alejandro was born Antonio had idly mentioned that they still had two extra rooms. Lovina had thrown a pot at his head and told him that if there were any more children they wouldn't be actively conceived. Besides, they used those rooms when people came to visit.

Lovina trailed him to their bedroom, shutting the door behind him. "What is it?"

Antonio didn't answer right away. He put his axe in the corner, were it resided between trips. He put his bag on the bed, took off his hat and tossed it atop the wardrobe. When he finally turned to look at his wife, he said, "I spoke with Roma. That was my last sail, Lovi."

Lovina went still. Since Ludwig had officially taken over the business, Roma had taken to sailing on his ships for a bit of adventure every now and then. She'd known he sometimes sailed with Antonio, but she hadn't known they'd been discussing this. "Why? You love the sea."

"Sì, I do. But I love you and los niños more. I can still sail if need be, Lovi, I just won't be captain anymore."

Lovina was thrilled. Of course she was. Antonio would stay here with them, without disappearing for weeks at a time in waters where enemies still sometimes liked to try their hand at the aging former pirate. But she knew it wasn't something he'd easily give up. "Why? You've stayed a captain this long, why quit now?"

"I loved my father, Lovi, but I never saw him much until my mother died. I know I'm here more than he was, but I want to be here all the time. Maybe they won't grow up so fast then. I'm not young anymore, Lovi. I don't need to work, I never did. It's time I stopped."

The bit about not being young was true, about both of them. Still, Lovina smiled wryly. "It's about time, pomodoro bastardo. They don't slow down, we speed up. Do you have any idea how fast my hair started changing after Maria was born?"

Okay, so it was only partially true. In Lovina's opinion Antonio was aging much better than she was. His face was becoming weathered, lined, but the deepest were the laugh lines. A year ago she'd noticed a few gray hairs amongst the chocolate ones, but only a few. Nothing compared to the faint streak she was now sporting. The few lines in her own face weren't so graceful, either.

The Spaniard laughed, but then came forward to embrace her, and sweep her in a circle. "Ah, silly Lovi. You're still the most beautiful wife a man could ask for. Besides, things are better aged sì?"

Lovina fought to keep a scowl on her face as she demanded, "Like what?"

"Preserves, cheese, wine...you."

The Italian's mouth fell open. She started to protest, but it was cut off in a kiss. Lovina relaxed, reaching up to put her arms around his neck, returning the kiss. The tavern could live a few extra minutes without her, she decided. A distant curse followed by a bang indicated Romano had dealt with an attempted walk-out. Antonio's mouth curled into a smile against hers.

"If he wasn't a boy I'd say he was you," he commented when they came up for air.

Lovina tangled her fingers in his hair and yanked him back. She was fully aware of that fact, of course. Quite proud of it, in fact. She'd never admit it out loud, but there were four things she loved dearly. She took pride in them, in every curse, in every smile, in every laugh. Lovina had never considered herself the motherly type, but she liked to think she'd done the best she could with her three children.

A bustling business and a warm home. Three wonderful children who didn't make her want to strangle them every single day. (There was occasional temptation, just not every day.) An equally wonderful husband who still adored her. Feelings that were still mutual. Yes, Lovina was happy. Very, very happy.

It still amazed her that it had all started with a kidnapping pirate.

BREAK/BREAK\BREAK

"A-Apple. B-B-Bone. Cat. D-Dog."

Arthur, a proud smile on his face, nodded. "Brilliant . Now, on to E." Moving farther down the slate, he etched out the next word in chalk, reciting the letters as he went. "E-M-I-L-Y."

The girl perched on his lap chewed her lip, brow furrowing cutely as she stared at the letters. Sounding each one out carefully, as she'd been taught, she said slowly, "Em...i...ly. Emily. Emily! That's me!"

Arthur chuckled softly. "Yes, poppet, that's you."

Emily turned on her perch, beaming up at him. She was only five years old, but she was learning in leaps and bounds. Emily gulped up any lesson her parents could concoct for her, in any subject. Amelia was teaching her math, though she'd been content to let Arthur teaching her how to read, for which he was glad. He didn't play favorites between the two children, but Emily was his baby girl.

The recent arrangement he had with Amelia was that she took this time to teach Peter how to ride while he sat at their kitchen table with Emily, a period that lasted an hour or so every day. If he was being honest it was the hour he looked forward to the most. The two rowdy members of their family were out blowing off steam on horseback, and he got one-on-one time with his daughter.

"I want another E word," she urged, tugging at the hand still holding the chalk.

"You know how this works, you have to find one yourself. Pick a word that you know starts with E, and I'll write it out for you."

Emily chewed her lip thoughtfully. She was quite adorable, and if it wasn't for her green eyes she'd be the spitting image of her mother. She also shared her mother's tenacity, but Arthur went out of his way to funnel it into constructive activates.

Twisting to look up at him again, Emily reached up, small fingertips tapping the edge of his black eye patch. "Eye patch! Is eye patch a long word?"

"It's two words, poppet. Let's stick with 'eye' for now."

"But that's an I word," she said, pointing to her chest.

"No, there's two. I, one letter. Then there's eye, the body part. That's three letters, see? How'd you know that anyway?"

"I saw mom write 'fix Artie's eye patch' on her list once. I asked her to read it to me so I could see what the words looked like. Is fish an f word?"

Biting back a chuckle, he told her it was and wrote them both out. Why fixing his eye patch had been on Amelia's list he had no idea. He was the one who did it, after all, and he didn't need a list. That said, getting her parents to read things allowed while she had written words to look at seemed to do wonders for Emily's fast growing ability to read.

As his daughter started making the 'g' sound repeatedly, frowning as she tried to decide on a word, Arthur's smile turned a little rueful. He adored his children, more than he ever thought he would. The feeling seemed to be mutual, Peter following him around like a puppy and begging to go with him whenever Arthur had to make a trip down the coast. These days he seemed to be branching out more, something that Arthur took with a grain of salt. As nice as it was to see Peter playing with children his own age, and as annoying as he could be sometimes, Arthur had liked having him around so much. Emily still liked to go with him, wherever it may be. She was a ball of sunshine, and he had yet to meet a person who didn't like her.

The same couldn't be said for him. They lived in a small port town these days, with their own house a quarter of a mile from the docks. Arthur was fully aware his reputation had preceded him, but considering he brought in tax-free goods and hadn't made trouble, the townsfolk left him be. He knew they still told stories, though. Knew the other children were afraid of him. It mattered not how often they saw him in normal clothes, walking through the streets with Emily and Peter. The younger ones ran and hid, sometimes the older ones threw things, but children of all ages watched him as he passed.

Arthur might have been able to shed his old skin completely, if not for the eye patch. Frankly he was fond of it by now, proud even. It stung a bit, the effect it had sometimes, but his own children didn't seem to care, still loved him. They had told Peter of his past some time ago, but rather than get upset or worse, he'd been fascinated, proud in fact. Arthur hadn't had the heart to tell Emily yet, though.

He was writing out 'goat' on the slate when the kitchen door was thrown open. Three green eyes lifted to it as two people came striding through, both with wide grins on their faces.

Flopping down on the bench across from them Amelia whooped and said, "He almost beat me today, Artie. Can you believe that?"

Plopping down next to his mother, Peter protested, "I would have if you hadn't cheated."

"It's not cheating. It's creative racing."

"You threw an apple at Sea Wind! You know she loves apples!"

Arthur sighed, gently moving Emily to the bench so he could stand and put away the slate. Once they returned he knew there would be no getting her to focus. Had it really been an hour already?

"A! A-P-P-L-E! Apple!" declared Emily happily.

Amelia grinned. "Perfect. How'd it go, Artie?"

Sighing, returning to his previous seat, Arthur informed her, "It was going quite well until we were rudely interrupted.

His wife didn't look at all bothered, but Peter seemed a little chastened. He was the reverse of Emily in appearances, which Arthur had found odd but hadn't complained about. His son looked exactly like him, down to the eyebrows, save for his blue eyes. If it wasn't for his loud, rowdy nature there would have been little else to indicate he was in fact his mother's son.

"B. B-O-N-E. Bone. C. C-A-T. Cat."

As Emily started reciting her lessons back carefully, Arthur met Amelia's eyes across the table. She beamed, and he felt a returning smile tug at his face. Was it what he'd had in mind when he'd asked his mother to sign the documents that would allow him to join the Royal Navy a year early? No. Was it a future he saw when he abandoned his hard-earned admiral status? Far from it. Was it something remotely similar to what he'd pictured when he'd decided to woo the American lioness? Not exactly.

But was it his new idea of contented happiness? Absolutely.

BREAK/BREAK\BREAK

"Is this the last of them?"

Gilbert, grim faced, stared down at the body lying at his feet. He knew that they were lucky, by all accounts. Pirates, and various other criminals, made themselves busy with most other ports and islands in the Caribbean. But Isle Zucker had been spared trouble for the most part. Germania had run a tight ship with even tighter security. Since he'd retired five years ago, Ludwig already gone to Port Diego to help Roma with his business, Gilbert had been running things himself. His reputation seemed to work well enough to steer away anyone who might consider the change of hands a choice time to strike.

Until tonight, anyway.

"Don't ask me. Take your men, search everywhere. Now! Und wo ist Birdie?"

The captain of the guard turned to leave, but his eyes widened, "My lord-!"

Gilbert swung around as two resounding bangs went off behind him, eyes widening and jaw dropping.

There had been, it seemed, one of the gang of thieves/murders left. Or at least that was what Gilbert gathered from the arm protruding from the mess of shattered wood and glass. When he looked up towards the walkway passing across the main foyer, he decided it must have been the china cabinet that had been residing there, empty for transport down the stairs in the morning. Where it had been sitting was now marked by a few feet of broken railing and cracked rungs.

Behind that, Madeline stood, face flushed, hair tumbling from its nightly braid, catching her breath. In a loud voice she declared irately, "Birdie, is upstairs. One got past you, by the way. Someone needs to come and get him before I let the children out. Alright, alright, hush, I'm sorry but it had to be done."

The last sentence was directed behind her as she hurriedly untied the cloth sling with practiced ease. It only took a few seconds before she was stepping away from the hole in the railing, gently jostling the infant as she tried to sooth him. Gilbert took the stairs two at a time, but came to an abrupt halt a few feet from his wife, hesitating.

"Madeline...?"

She gave him a grim look as she patted Sven soothingly on the back, calming him down. "I'm fine. Go check on them. I serious about that body."

"I'm sorry, Birdie. I know you don't like...killing. I shouldn't have-

Madeline glared at him. "Whose fault it is doesn't matter at this point, Gil. Besides, this time I was glad to do it. That piece of garbage broke into my house and was trying to come after my children."

Gilbert smiled wearily. He kissed her forehead, then Sven's blond tuft of hair as his fussing started to subside, before trotting down the hallway. He soon found the nursery where Madeline had barricaded the twins, if not because of the heavy bookcase that had been propped against the door than the loud protests that were emitting from behind it. The dead man also helped.

After dragging the reeking lump of dead pirate well away from the door, and finding a spare sheet to toss over it, he went to work on the bookcase. He decided not to be gentle, simply dumping it over with a crash and shoving up the bar that blocked the door. It was thrown wide, the white haired twins tumbled out.

Gilbert hadn't realized just how worried he'd been, despite knowing Madeline had had plenty of time to get them somewhere safe. The only reason Sven hadn't been with them was because he'd been in a different part of the house at the time. A maid tending to him while Madeline put the twins to bed for the night. Either way, Gilbert felt a massive surge of relief as he dropped down to one knee, yanking the twins into his arms.

"What's going on?"

"What was all that noise?"

"Where's Mutter?"

"Why's your sword bloody?"

Cracking a weary smile, Gilbert pulled back, a hand on each of their shoulders. Unlike Sven, who had pink skin, lavender eyes, and blond hair, the twins had taken after their father. White hair, white skin, and ruby irises. Much to Madeline's chagrin, Anika and Anton were just as rambunctious and obstinate as their father. More than once she had marched into his office, a toddler under each arm, demanding he exert some sort of control on his children. She still did that, actually. Only now she usually had them each by an ear, protesting all the way.

At eight years old, they were still roughly the same in size and build. Only Anika's skirt and long hair told them apart. Gilbert took a second, looking them both over before straightening, taking care to guide them well away from the dead man under the sheet. "Some bad men attacked, but they're gone now. That was all the noise. Your Mutter is fine, so is Sven. Go to her, now. You're going to stay with her in our bedroom while we...take care of the bad men."

"But-

"No buts, get going. Jetzt."

The twins took off down the hall. Gilbert watched them go, smiling tiredly. Letting pirates invade was not awesome. He wasn't sure what bit deeper, that it had happened or that they'd gotten so close to his family. They were fine, but it had been close. Too close.

Turning to regard the lump under the sheet, ruby eyes turned cold. "Let's see how many of your friends are alive, Schwein. The Awesome me is going to make examples before I work on security."

It wasn't something he normally took pleasure in, much like his wife. But then Gilbert also took special exception to those who targeted his family. It had been something of a fascination to those closest to him what having children had done for the albino. These days declarations of 'the Awesome me' and other 'awesomeness' were few and far between. Madeline had been the first person he ranked higher than himself. After two more people were born who took that spot, an odd humbling effect had reached Gilbert. He was still awesome, thank you very much, but now there was enough awesomeness in his life to balance things out.

"Papa! Mutter broke the china cabinet!"

Gilbert sighed wearily. No doubt Anton was enjoying the fact that their straight-laced mother had done the very thing she'd warned them many times not to do. So many warnings to be careful had been drilled into their skulls. Even though he could make out Madeline's voice, in its best scolding tone, he still started down the hall.

He was the Awesome me. As such he was obligated to be an awesome husband and an awesome father. He would not be any sort of awesome if he let his children gang up on his awesome wife.

los niños - the children

Und wo ist Birdie?- and where is Birdie?

Jetzt- now

Schwein- pig

[]

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