I forgot to note - Rhys' song is from Longest Johns "Bones in the Ocean" and my Davey was planned long before there was a DMC I debated just changing the name of the ship but the flying dutchman is just so obviously a phantom ship i couldn't give it up.

Blood of Avalon Chapter 44 Draigs, I HATE You!

Norrington snarled a curse, grabbed my belt knife, and sliced his palm all the way to the bone before going after Rhys. He caught up with him halfway to the rail planting a bleeding palm in the middle of his chest. Rhys reached up and healed it. You could see the railing through his torso but where his hand wrapped around Norrington's it was nearly solid.

"You didn't need to do that"

"I rather think I did. You swore friendship as long as Blood endures. Don't tell me you would ever leave a friend like this without trying move heaven and earth to make it better. Don't ask me to."

He sighed. Oh hell if there was anything from this world that breathed hitch, hitch, normal breath, hitch, hitch, hitch, normal, normal repeat I'd never seen it. Rhys had trapped the Malevolence, Jack had dispelled the Ill-Wish and yet it felt like we were sinking ever deeper into their schemes.

"I'm…wrong" Rhys whispered half-turning his head towards us. I could have done without another look at one of sucking black pits in his face. "It's all so dark."

"Then come back into the light."

"What light? There is no light. Ashes, nothing but ashes" he went even fainter on the side away from Norrington.

Norrington tightened his grip to the point it had to have hurt them both "I'm in the light. You are in the light. This is the Malevolence. You can't let it win. You have to fight." For a moment I thought he had him. Rhys took two quick panting breaths before slumping against Norrington. "I'm so tired, I'm so tired, I'm so tired, I'm TIRED." But the entire arm in Norrington's grip was now solid as was a slender line where they made contact and when he dropped his head to rest against Norrington's shoulder it shimmered back into solidity too. "Doesn't matter" he muttered into Norrington's shirt "it's isn't ever going to get better, deserved it, all of it, my fault." The hand not locked in Norrington's grip reached up to rip at his ear. Norrington tried to catch it with his free had but he was faded on that side and it simply swept through his grasp. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I should have been better, never had a chance. Not one."

"You have to fight this" Norrington jostled him a little "Rhys, please. Stop letting that thing beat you."

"Tired" was the only hollowed out reply. He tugged half-heartedly trying to get his hand away from Norrington but he made no move to straighten and if he'd really wanted free Norrington would never have been able to hold him. While Norrington kept trying to get Rhys to do – anything - Henri planted himself in front of Jack and stomped.

"I take it ye'd like te speak te me brother" Jack said "and if I trusted not te make matters wors" Henri stomped on his foot this time – hard. "I'm pretty sure I deserve that but it doesn't change me brother never whispered even a hint of Grochymyn in those lessons. I don't know" Henri pulled his foot back up letting it hang in the air "Point taken" Jack laid his hands on Henri's chest and said "Speak" with a grand flourish and nothing else. Jack yelped as Henri stomped again. He gathered himself this time and I could feel the whisper of his draig "speak" the word was softly spoken but it thrummed with power.

"Gabriel!" Henri's call was desperate. While I'd been watching Jack and Henri Rhys had slipped away from Norrington though he'd only taken a single step. He gave no sign of hearing Henri at all. He was so still it was hard to pick out the faint outline

A green flash lit up the sky.

"Is that the Pride?" Elizabeth asked.

"Captain Jones of the Dutchman and his Lady Called to parley."

"I thought they weren't coming" Norrington muttered.

"She changed her mind" Rhys' voice sounded like it was coming from across a great gulf. An ethereal shoulder lifted in a shrug "Women."

"Will ye be" Jack started before the Pearl pitched as something lit up that entire side of the ship in the same green light.

"Get out here" a female voice hissed.

"Now, dear" a man's voice started only for a second harder strike causing a boom louder than any cannon.

"Perhaps" he began.

"I'm just rap i tap tapping." She sing songed "There's no way you missed that. GET OUT HERE!"

Rhys hadn't so much as twitched.

"My sweet while they lack his usual finesse the Work seems very sol" another boom against the Pearl's wards was loud enough to leave my head ringing and blinking away spots like I had looked at the sun "id perhaps we should just agree to parley."

"If I agree to parley I can't beat some sense into his royal highness" she snapped back.

Jack glanced at the ghostly outline of Rhys and said "Welcome aboard."

Norrington turned to glare at Jack while I tried not to gawk at the Dutchman's lady. Seven feet tall if she was an inch and muscled like one of Rhys beloved war horses. Her hair pulsed, never the same color or pattern from one second to next, instead of cat slits like an Ellyllon her pupils were u shaped and they swept the Pearl's deck clearly seeking Rhys. She was one very, very angry lady. Honestly given a choice I might prefer to face a mardeth.

"By the draigs what do you think you're doing?" she tried to grab him but her hands simply went through him "STOP IT!" she barked at him "Avalon is FALLING. There have been two earthquakes in the last half hour and the headlands at Land's End, the Lizard, and Deadman's Point have slid into the sea, Cornwall is cracking"

Until Culliford made a strangled sound I hadn't even realized he hadn't left the Pearl. Rhys on the other hand gave no sign he'd heard her at all.

She cursed and spun her hair undulating like seaweed in a current – or did it have a mind of its own? Her eyes narrowed as she spotted Jack who rapidly retreated but Pearl's deck really isn't that big especially when you're being pursued by a giantess but just before she could lay a hand on him Rhys swung between them using a length of chain to block some of her forward motion kicking a knee out from under her before rolling away. He almost made it but she snatched his headscarf which he slithered out of dancing back himself at an angle to Jack with her in full pursuit of him.

"Now that I have your attention" she snarled.

Rhys eyes, and thank god eyes, not the pits, narrowed and his ears flattened tight to his skull as he drew back his hand fingers curling to throw a fire ball and nothing happened. He just stopped staring at his right hand.

"Trouble getting your draig up?" the giantess purred. Rhys flicked his hand back and nothing. Sea had failed him on Shamatiri I had a sinking felling Fire just had as well. She snatched him up while he was still staring at his hands, smacked his back into the mizzenmast and then shook him like a terrier with a rat. "Now you listen" He coughed. It was a wet ugly thing. She dropped him in surprise and he retched up something that started eating through the Pearl's deck. At first I thought it was the time bomb near his heart but his right elbow was pressed tight to the bottom of his ribs on his right side while his left arm supported his weight.

"What IS that?"

"I presume it's a parting gift from the Melovolance" he was panting again rather than the hitch, hitch of that thing.

"It's eating a hole in my ship" Jack snapped.

"I'm fair certain it's eating him from the inside out" the giantess barked back but she crafted a green bubble around the stuff lifting it from the Pearl's deck. "Drop your Shadow."

She drew a sharp breath as the more wasted version of Rhys swam into view. It wasn't his usual clean drop the lines flared and blurred before settling "You're riddled with it. Why didn't you do something about it before it got this bad?!"

"Didn't notice" he panted head hanging like it was too heavy to lift.

"It's EATING you. You are the best Ellyllon healer ever born. You have to be in AGONY how do MISS that?" She was even louder than Jayme – did Rhys drive people to shouting in frustration or did he just have a thing for cursing the obnoxiously loud?

He still hadn't bothered to lift his head "Look at me. Do you think I've drawn a single breath in decades that WASN'T in agony?" It isn't easy to shrug on your knees with one hand bracing your weight and the other pressed tight to your side but he managed "I just didn't notice."

"Because you really are fading that wasn't just you being dramatic. Only you could manage to be physically, magically, and mentally failing all at once. You are spent. Nothing left to draw from to brace the other. Without help you aren't going to see dawn and you're going to take Avalon with you."

That got his attention. He rocked back onto his haunches and finally lifted his head "What the hell are you whittering on about? HE"

"Is a usurper. Draigs I forget sometimes how ignorant" he winced at that "everyone has kept you. There's a reason anyone not under his thumb calls him the Usurper. The land itself chooses which Penthalion is its liege lord. It utterly rejected him and chose your mother. But your grandfather wouldn't allow Avalon to have its first ruling Queen. When your mother drew her last breath" he shivered and visibly flinched "in what I can only assume was sheer desperation it accepted you. In every way that truly matters you have been Avalon's King since 1604. Except the Usurper wrenched out your Earth Mastery by its roots. A King starved for his Land. The Land starved for Her King. Little wonder you are both failing and you HAVE NO HEIR. In the last hour no less than five headlands have crashed into the sea and a third earthquake just rocked England."

His eyes rounded in horror. He tried to surge back up. You cloud see him reach and come up utterly empty. He couldn't even get to his feet. And he tried. Truly tried. How much of anything he'd said up until now had been to placate us versus truly changing his mind I couldn't even guess. Faced with the possibility of the entirety of the British Isles much of northern France, and most of the Netherlands disappearing under the sea not hypothetically maybe at some point in the future but right NOW he tried. Hard. And failed.

"Damn it all" the giantess rumbled "I'm going to have to save you."

Rhys huffed.

"You find something in this disaster amusing?"

"Just savoring the irony that after five solid decades of trying to kill me you're going to have to ride to my rescue" he panted.

"Just think if I succeed how I'll remind you daily you owe me your life" she cooed

They glared at each other for a breath before simultaneously saying "Draigs, I HATE you."

Rhys sighed "Speaking of trying to kill me given I'm my mother's sole surviving heir why were you Mrs. I love Avalon trying to off its last hope."

"Meleri was still of bearing age. I was hoping if you were gone we'd get a better last hope since we couldn't possibly do much worse." He dropped his head again curling up on Pearl's dark planks with his right hand tight to the base of his right lung.

"Hand Revenge off to Corwin."

"You found the Horseman and his Lady" it sort of sounded like there was a sigh of relief in the panting.

"I think we've established whatever it did to you is effecting your magic. They're fine. They're on their way. We both know Corwin has commanded Revenge when you were too busy with whatever else you were doing and we don't need him running wild on top of everything else."

"It won't hold for long" he coughed again and then shivered violently.

"Draigs" the giantess swore "It's FEEDING off your magic. Every time you use it it's tightening its hold and sinking in deeper." Sweet Jesus Rhys had done NOTHING but magic since. I swallowed hard. Since he'd risen off that beach to save me. "Don't do ANYTHING. Don't bespeak Wind, Sea, or the ships. The only thing keeping you alive is your healing and it's chewed well into that. DAWSON!" she thundered.

He tried again to regain his feet making it to his knees. He curled his head away as Jayme cleared the rail somehow more embarrassed to be seen beaten by Jayme than by the giantess.

"Laddie?" horrified then he drew his sabre on the giantess who spread her hands "He's the one that Summoned a Malevolence and is paying the price."

"I didn't Summon the bitch I fought her for more than a decade and trapped her."

"A DECADE, TRAPPED?" she pinched the bridge of her nose "Never mind, it's you. I'd congratulate you on surviving yet another impossible feat but at the moment that looks a bit premature."

"About that, I seem te recall ye saying ye were going te do somewhat about the situation"

Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Jack "If he didn't Summon it then it must have been you."

"I'd say focusing on the matter hand might be a bit more pressing than laying blame as it were."

She looked down at Rhys and then back up at us. I was certain she didn't know how to save him either. After a beat she barked down at Rhys "EAT SOMETHING. Bad enough your healing magic has to contend with whatever the Malevolence did don't make it have to support you physically too" she snarled at him as if he was an idiot.

"You don't just put food in a stomach that's seen nothing for more than a year. At least not with everything else."

She pinched the bridge of her nose rather than asking and looked to Jayme "Fetch the Crone with every bit of speed that curse of yours can muster. And Althea from the villa. Best bring Cog too."

"I know you hate me but there's no need to drag 'Thea here to watch this when there's nothing she can do about it."

"I'm not being needlessly cruel this time" I had to wonder about last time. Odd that if these two had been at each other's throats for over fifty years we hadn't seen it in the journal but we'd skipped far more than we read so either this feud had had no bearing on what was wrong with him or we were going to find out here and now. "I know in your overweening arrogance you can't imagine how Avalon's second best healer might be any help at all but she has CENTURIES more experience and she's actually trained" she didn't say unlike you but you could still hear it "but she isn't nearly as strong as you used to be so good odds my little cripple you're going to need a nursemaid and you almost trust Althea."

Rhys flushed and muttered something I didn't catch but the giantess laugh was brutally mocking and despite what she said plenty cruel "I think we've established you're far too ill to get your draig up and even if you could a hundred and seventeen years is a long, long time to an adhil. Althea is no longer your fresh faced student I doubt even healthy your draig would notice."

"'Thea is going to want to know symptoms and what you need" Jayme breathed softly.

"Severe shortness of breath" was all Rhys admitted to – while panting like hard run horse.

When he didn't continue Norrington spoke up "Extreme enervating exhaustion coupled with a numbness as if nothing could ever matter again with a hollowness like a vessel from which everything has been emptied." If I hadn't read the journal and KNOWN every word was true I wouldn't have believed it looking at the absolutely venomous glare Rhys was directing at Norrington. And to my shame I was very, very glad I hadn't been the one to tell her.

"Oh laddie what did that thing do te ye that yer fading?" Jayme reached out but Rhys put out a forestalling hand.

"We don't know if this is con" he whipped his head toward me and then paused. "I did a deep healing on young Mr. Turner would you be so kind as to check him."

The giantess didn't even glance in my direction "What does it matter? You can't do anything about it."

"Cairene" he drew a deep breath and it rattled like death "please"

She blinked and then smiled like I imagined a shark scenting blood in the water might "I know you aren't a mind healer but you've tried to figure out how to help with possets and potions. So you have a patient with an extreme case of melancholy bordering on catatonic but with an active inclination to slitting their own wrists if they don't have someone watching every second because that's how fading as profound as your pet just described shows up in a human what do you give them?"

"Some things you can't fix, Cairene. I WILL HOLD. You want to help if it's as bad as you say coward that He is he's fled Avalon and in his haste I'm sure he was sloppy. You slip in, find me a high born lady inclined to try being Avalon's first ever regent, you get your Crone heal me just enough to get my draig up so I can get you that Heir you need and I will cheerfully let you slit my wrists after. Do we have an accord?"

"The Crone is no more a mind healer than you are – what would you dose a patient like that with?"

"Sometimes a cure isn't a cure and it's worse than the disease. Nothing I wouldn't prefer dying to taking. Again Cairene I. WILL. HOLD."

"Not good enough. Cornwall CRACKED. We're going to need time. You slip even a little and it goes. You tell Jayme what Althea needs to dose you with and I'll go find you a bonny lass."

He just glared bloody and messy murder at her.

"You're wasting time neither you nor Avalon has."

"I hate you" he hissed "red cabinet third drawer second cubby. Blue cabinet second drawer all of it. Green curio bottom shelf far left." He shuddered eyes closed and whispered "go."

Jayme passed him the goblet filled to the brim from that jeweled bottle he'd brought from the villa "Ye kept down the lachwr earlier."

Rhys accepted the goblet and took a deep swallow.

"Bring every drop Althea has" Cairene ordered "and get back here with every scrap of speed you can muster." I'd expected him to scramble down the ladder instead he faded but not before I got a very good look at his brawny skeleton.

"Now will you check Mr. Turner?"

I held my ground as it felt like thousands of little suction cups grabbed me and pinched hard.

"You didn't need to hurt him" Rhys growled from the deck.

"Either you can't transfer it or he got lucky. Your pet is clean."

Rhys slumped a little in relief.

"Draigs, I hate you"

He rocked back so he could crane his neck up at her "What did I do this time?" he sounded genuinely confused.

"You will move heaven and earth and do no less than three impossible things before breakfast for one of your precious pets but you won't do it for your KINGDOM!"

"When was I ever given the chance?"

She threw up her massive hands but didn't argue the point before focusing on Jack.

"Don't you dare, Cairene."

"There is nothing you could do to stop me."

"I'll die trying" it was a promise not a threat.

"I know you would. Your pets are safe from me. He Summoned a Malevolence which means he has real Power which means he has Work to do since you aren't up to it." She really could not stop twisting the knife "Captain's cabin now." Jack shot a glance back at Rhys who shrugged and started to curl up on the deck.

"What are you doing?"

"Good little invalids take naps."

"Don't sleep. Don't let him sleep" she ordered us. "This far gone if he closes his eyes before the Crone gets here they'll never open again." She hauled him it a sitting position, shredded the shirt off of him, opened her mouth like a snake and spewed something all over him.

Slime dripped off of him in thick chunks. He just blinked up at her "Isn't this a little petty even for you?"

She smiled down at him "All in a good cause."

"This is…gross. It's gooy, and slimy, and sticky. And it itches."

"And it will do a wonderful job helping you stay awake" she shot back over her shoulder as she herded Jack into the captain's cabin.

"Draigs, I HATE that bitch."

Norrington cleared his throat "I can't apologize for telling her but I do regret that it was necessary."

"You regret" Rhys echoed "you have no clue what you have done to me." His voice was little more than a whisper his head down "No one but left but Henri remembers what it means when I say I was the best of Aschem's Arrows. Not Bess, not Jane, and certainly not Ned. Our training so different from Cromwell's politics. We were sculpted to collect knowledge but not merely that, to use it, advance it, redistribute it. By the time I was eighteen I'd charted every coastline on the planet. By twenty one I was fluent in fifty three languages and knew more about the human body and how to repair than any other living soul. Between my eight libraries is found more knowledge than the rest of the world's combined. But when you dig into the nooks and crannies sometimes you learn things no one should learn and find things best left unfound. When you were plundering my past did you happen to See what a healthy brain looks like?"

I shot Norrington a queasy glance. "Not that I recall."

"Pity since it seems I can no longer show you" he sighed before continuing "and how do I paint a picture with words that is not hopelessly inadequate. A waking mind is like being amidst lightening without thunder. An ever changing light show of flash and flare. A dreaming mind is the borealis. The gentle swirl of colors for which there are no names, a slow dance of endlessly shifting beauty. A healthy brain is a glory to behold. But brains aren't always healthy. Since Argellion is the only powerful, trained mind healer I've ever met and since own skills did not run that way" I sucked a quiet breath when he spoke of his magic in the past tense. "I tried to find purely medical ways to treat illness of the mind. I had a number of successes. Althea herself is one. Her madness completely assuaged as long she is diligent in brewing the potion I created for her. It's one of reasons I entrusted the finest of my libraries to her along with many of my most dangerous discoveries. Althea off that brew is quite dangerous and she was hardly the only violently mad patient I took on. Science takes time and I've never like cells and chains even before" he paused a moment and sat on his hands to keep them off his ears "so I created something to be used in only the most desperate of times. When a patient was an uncontainable danger to themselves and others. They aren't cures. They aren't medicines. They are abominations. I've seen what they do to dynol and adhil brains. They fog. They silence. They steal everything special and unique. Thoughtless. Mindless. Numb. I have no wish to be the first Ellyllon they're ever tested on. What I know they do is terrible enough Henri's God's mercy if they do something worse to an Ellyllon."

"Why didn't you just lie?" Norrington looked a little pale.

"I will hold. Now that I know the consequences of failure I will hold" he tucked his hands more firmly under him "I told Mrs. Turner that first night if you want to break a musician threaten his fingers. If you want break a scholar go after his mind. I don't need to be dosed with them" he shifted wrapping his arms around his chest trembling hands on his shoulders and when he lifted his head you could see the fear in his eyes "the threat of them is sufficient should the thought of what would happen to the world if I falter somehow fail. Hopefully I'll be able to convince Althea of that. Hopefully she won't take one look at the wreckage I've become and talk you lot into holding me down while she pours them down my throat. But if she does, Commodore Norrington, please do stop by to visit when I a mindless, thoughtless, drooling thing lying in a puddle my own piss and see just what your indiscretion has cost me."

The silence stretched long before "You really do look like shite."

"Thank you, Davey, nice to see you too. Lovely weather we're having" Rhys tried to glare at Captain Jones but the effect was rather ruined when a chunk of the slime Cairene had spewed over him rolled down his face.

Captain Jones stepped forward. He was nowhere near as tall as his Lady but he towered over Rhys who'd dropped his head down onto his knees likely as much a defense against getting slime in his eyes as an attempt to not look at any of us. Rhys was proud and vain to his core – he had to be mortified. Jones dropped down onto his haunches to be closer to his eye level.

"So, fading what on Earth brought THAT on?"

"For the record not a good topic of conversation when you're trying to keep someone from doing it." Rhys voice was muffled because he was talking into this knees but he was solid if skeletal. The wasted shoulders shrugged "tortured unremittingly, enaid shredded, ill-wished, hunted, tangled with a Malevolence. Take your pick."

"The Malevolence is why you're physically dying. You're you. The day was always going to come when one of those impossible fights finally got you. It was inevitable. But fading? I've gotten to see way too much fading since you disappeared in Avalon. You aren't a fader."

"And yet here we are" Rhys was still talking into his knees. He sighed and whisper chanted.

As the souls of the dead fill the space of my mind
I'll search without sleeping 'til peace I can find
I fear not the weather, I fear not the sea
I remember the fallen, do they think of me?
When their bones in the ocean forever will be

Plot a course in the night to a place I once knew
To a place where my hope died along with my crew
So I swallow my grief and face life's final test
To find promise of peace and the solace of rest

As the songs of the dead fill the space of my ears
Their laughter like children, their beckoning cheers
My heart longs to join them, sing songs of the sea
I remember the fallen, do they think of me?
When their bones in the ocean forever will be

Jones was silent for several breaths. The tentacles on his face definitely had minds of their own. "Whoever it was you lost to the Malevolence I have no doubt you fought like hell and did at least five impossible things trying to save them" he put a hand on the crown of Rhys' head and to my surprise Rhys let him tilt his head back up from resting on his knees "and that if they weren't dead and gone I'm certain sure they'd kick your arse for acting like this."

"Don't pretend we're friends Davey" there was nothing but weary resignation in Rhys whisper "you married a woman who dedicated decades to trying to kill me and you were anything but neutral in the affair."

"You did turn her into a giant squid." Had he turned Mr. Bolger into an ass?

"Only after her fifth attempt on my life. Your lady is a poor assassin and I let you talk me into turning her back, well mostly, a decision she's made certain I heartily regret at every damned opportunity since."

"She's really not a poor assassin. You're just damned hard to kill. And it took me the better part of twenty YEARS to get you to relent."

"And she promptly went back to trying to kill me. Honestly Davey if I was looking for someone to spend my last hours with it wouldn't be you."

"If we're being honest you turning her into a squid had nothing to do with her trying to kill you and everything to do with you being pissed that I married her."

"She's a patriot in her twisted way. You personally betrayed me." I wondered who he was to Rhys that either of them were breathing because there was no way he'd have let them live if Davey wasn't someone important.

"And whose fault was that?"

They glared at each other clearly both entrenched behind well built walls in an old argument "I didn't do a damn thing to your mother."

"You didn't lift a finger to save her either."

Rhys managed to work a sigh into the pitter patter panting he was doing. Honestly I was kind of surprised he was speaking clearly "I was Draco when they came for her. Draco didn't save people."

"Draco saved me" Davey riposted.

"Because as an adhil you might develop useful gifts" a pause to try and catch his breath "You more than anyone know what Draco was like."

"Draco raised me."

"I am really, really sorry about that."

"You may have been hard and cold as artic ice but you were a better guardian than most."

"No, I wasn't"

"You're such a benighted perfectionist. You aren't my father. You kept me alive at risk to yourself. I was better fed, clothed, and educated than most lord's sons. You taught me a trade. Bought me a ship. Made certain I had a future."

"And in your deep gratitude you betrayed me."

"That was political not personal."

"As the one on the receiving end it felt pretty personal."

"I noticed. You cursed me for all of eternity."

Rhys shifted wrapping his arms around his knees and pulling them tight to his chest. "Is there an actual point to this trip down memory lane?" a pause for breath "Because if not I'd just as soon you left." A pause "We don't particularly like each other and never did." A gasp "I had an obligation." panting "I discharged to the best of Draco's limited ability." break "You betrayed me." "I overreacted." "I modified it as much as possible." "Why are we talking?"

"Because you CALLED. I wanted to come the instant I heard it."

"I know. You actually voiced an opinion – it was probably the first time in a hundred and forty years."

"It's not like that."

"Then what is it like, Davey?" He hung his head for several panting breaths "It isn't that you went over to the enemy, though I can't say I'm thrilled about that. You were barely fifteen she was already over five hundred and for all intents and purposes she ate you alive" another long round of trying to catch his breath "and you just keep letting her use you as her own personal rug."

"Have you ever been with a warrior woman? Oh, wait, look, you've never been with any woman so I'll thank you to stay out of my marriage."

"I have eyes, Davey. She doesn't make you happy – she has NEVER made you happy. You FEAR her. If I didn't know for a fact she hasn't bespelled you I'd think you bound by magic because it hell be damned sure isn't love. So you'll pardon me if I'm less than best pleased that as a fifteen year old BOY you entered into a union that has made you nothing but miserable for nearly a century and a half. And since we're being honest I turned her into something without a backbone for twenty years hoping that you might, just possibly, regrow yours." He panted like a horse raced far too hard after that speech.

Davey frowned "Draigs, I knew it was bad the minute I heard that Call. You don't Call. You don't EVER Call."

"There is the small matter of being heavily outnumbered retaking Port Royal."

Davey snorted "It's you. You do three impossible things before breakfast, devour whole fleets for breakfast, destroy the land forces for lunch, heal for afternoon tea, and find some other impossible task for dinner. You don't Call for something as mundane as a French fleet. Maybe you really are so knotted up in grief and self-loathing you truly missed what that thing was doing to you but something inside isn't half as ready to give up as you say. You don't do things by halves. If you really meant to fade nothing and no one could stop you or even slow you down. Pride as deep as the sea, ego as wide as the sky. You don't bloody know how to ask for help." Davey paused to give Rhys a chance to speak but he was still trying to catch his breath from before.

"Bloody hell" Davey reached out to tilt Rhys head up. Rhys tried to pull back but he was too out of breath to do much more than flinch away from contact "I didn't notice with everything else but you haven't aged a damn day since 1603. It's been over a hundred years – nothing to an Ellyllon in their prime but you're not yet. You should have finished growing up."

"Best guess seventy-seven years in a carchar" the panting was getting closer to what it had been "with no food of any kind stunted something."

"Ah. All anyone could tell was you weren't dead. You just vanished. There were all manner of rumors. And after you escaped nothing sent after you ever returned so no one's known anything."

"Totally and utterly alone the first twenty years or so." Watching him try to time his words to the exhales made me think far too much of my mum's last few weeks. "then the difaenaid, the difabyd, the banasheen, the slaugh, the ankou." We'd only read about the first two in the journal – whatever the other three did Davey's face went paler with every name and the little tentacles that made up his mustache and goatee curled as tight as they could flashing red/white/red.

"It was quite the little party. Nowhere to run but I gave them as good a fight as I could locked in a 2x2x2 foot box." A long pause to catch his breath "not sure if it was them or the starving" pause "and the question is sort of academic now but I appear to be….stuck." He looked up and hissed "Don't you DARE pity me."

"Now there's the Rhys I know" Davey's tentacles looked like they were trying to swim away with his face. "You aren't the only one with Ellyllon eyes. Cairene only looked at your heart and lungs and while it's bad" he swallowed hard "your head is worse. Of the too many to tally impossible things I've seen you pull off still being coherent in that, that, that thorn thicket may just be the most impressive. Draigs Rhys it's twined through you and around you to the point if you didn't sort of sound like you I couldn't be sure if it was even you speaking or if there was anything of you left" for a guy who'd spent decades trying to kill Rhys he sounded pretty upset about that.

"Careful, Davey, it almost sounds like you give a damn" Rhys smirked a little.

"You are such an arse."

"All part of my charm."

Davey reached out but Rhys held up a blocking hand "We don't know that this isn't contagious and I'd just as soon not take anyone with me."

"Cursed for ETERNITY" Davey snapped before rolling his eyes "Fine. Then tilt your head. There. Hold just like that." Davey's eyes narrowed "Listen to me."

"When have I not?" Rhys sounded deeply aggrieved.

Half of the tentacles made little fists and the rest looked like they were going to strangle him.

"Disagreeing does NOT mean I didn't listen first."

Davey sighed "Fair enough. You are addled all to fuck Rhys. That bone deep grief is all yours. Along with a boat load of crushing guilt and self-loathing I'm damn sure is for something not your fault. You, draigs, you were fighting a Malevolence – for a decade. The damn things are legend and no one but no one has ever survived even a few days before. The rest of it IS NOT YOU. The despair. The hopelessness. The god damn death wish. IT'S NOT YOU. And something down deep damn well knows it. Knows you're finally in a hole too deep to get out of alone. You CALLED Rhys because something down under what that thing did still wants to live. Is still fighting to survive. Cairene and the others think Avalon shook because you've given up but they don't know you. You are such a damn drama king instead of asking for help like a normal person you shook your entire kingdom and cracked Cornwall in a, a wail, that I'm pretty sure the thrice damn STARS heard."

"I don't wail" Rhys snarled.

"Probably not intentionally" Davey allowed before he drew a deep breath.

"NO" Rhys snapped managing to scuttle back coming to a stop just shy of Theo's shins. When had Theo come aboard? "What the HELL Davey?" that shout had cost him and he curled around his right side before slumping onto the Pearl's dark boards. "What's in your head? If I'm concerned about touch what makes you think magic isn't far more dangerous?" He got an arm under himself and laboriously sat back up. He canted his head, brow furrowed "I'm curious. You aren't a healer – what did you think you could do?"

"Wards – there are a few places it hasn't reached yet. Maybe buy you a little time for Jayme to get back."

"Internal Wards?" A flash of a grin "wouldn't that count as an impossible thing?"

"We'll chalk it up to your terrible influence."

For a split second I thought Rhys was going to genuinely smile despite everything. "Now if we can just figure out"

"No"

Rhys blinked in surprise.

"I am doing this. Contagious or not doesn't matter Rhys. You are Avalon's KING and you are dying without an Heir. You're worried about me when your death could take out every coast on the planet because we both damn well know Sea is going to lash out when you go even if Avalon doesn't really fall. And even if it doesn't join the other two Kingdoms which DID fall when their bloodlines failed if you die without an Heir it's going to mean a bloodbath. So you are going to fucking sit there and let me do anything I can to help because I am not having that blood on my hands if there was anything in my admittedly limited ability to help that I didn't at least try."

"Point, match" Rhys panted softly.

"If you've accepted the logic why does what's left of your magic look like one of those warhorses you loved with its ears back and hind leg cocked to knock me into next Tuesday."

"I am truly trying to relax."

"Try harder."

Rhys muttered something in El'lan as he sat back up.

"You can't" Davey started then shrugged "it's you" He laid both hands on Rhys temples pale lavender light twining before sinking in. Then moved them over his heart and repeating whatever it was he'd done. He collapsed against Rhys who hadn't the strength to support them both but did manage to at least not rap either of their heads against the deck.

Davey blinked back to awareness almost immediately "Rhys! Damn it Rhys open your benighted eyes."

Rhys reply was to draw in a nearly normal breath "You didn't just ward where it wasn't" He drew another breath but made no move to rise from where he was sprawled across Pearl's dark deck.

"I tried to use the wards to push it out of the less damaged areas, concentrate it where it was already worse. Maybe buy you some breathing and thinking room. Did it work?"

Rhys pulled in another breath and you could see him savor not panting "Definitely better. THANK YOU."

Davey reached down and Rhys finally opened his eyes. To my surprise he took Davey's hand letting him pull him back up to sitting. I was positively stunned when he didn't immediately let go but instead pressed his forehead to the back of Davey's hand repeating a very heartfelt "Thank you."

Davey looked away "I didn't do it for you. I did if for everyone who'll suffer if you died without an Heir."

I didn't need to be Ellyllon to know the first statement was a bald faced lie.

Rhys still hadn't let go of Davey's hand "Seventy-seven years in a box gives you a lot of time to reflect. You deserved better of me and I am truly and deeply sorry."

"Draigs don't get maudlin on me."

"I should have fostered you out. Draco had no business raising anyone."

"I'd have ended up dead. I survived because Draco saved me."

"You survive Davey but have you ever actually lived?"

"That thing really, truly beat the hell out of you didn't it?" Davey tugged but Rhys wasn't letting go.

"I never should have let Draco happen" Rhys whispered.

"You were all of five"

"I was twenty-one."

"Which is precisely five to an Ellyllon" Davey snapped "when the shade of a draig thousands of years older than you took advantage of the fact you were reeling from a bond that nev" Davey leaned down then yanked his hand back. The goo Rhys was covered in stretching between them like melted cheese before most of it snapped back at Rhys. "You IDIOT! Draigs! Did you NOT learn your lesson last time?! I KNOW proof positive KNOW you're brilliant so why the BLAZES did you do something that STUPID? AGAIN?!"

Rhys flinched hanging his head.

Davey sniffed the goo stuck to his hand tentacles flashing red/white/red again then dropping down on his haunches before a Rhys who looked like he wanted Pearl to swallow him into her deck. Davey leaned in snuffling from crown to mid chest before Rhys shoved him back eyes wide.

"That doesn't make any sense" he muttered reaching out to tilt his head back again but Rhys knocked his hand aside with way too much white showing around those cat slit eyes. It hadn't really registered until now how much less white Ellyllon eyes had until Rhys really pulled those eyelids back. Davey put both hands out placatingly.

"What doesn't make any sense?" Rhys tone was clipped and cold.

Davey's face went beet red and his tentacles bone white as he looked anywhere but Rhys. "You have heard that male draigs….have a rut right?" Davey sounded mortally embarrassed. But I guess it's not every day you find yourself potentially having to explain how things work to the person who raised you.

"It's pretty impossible to miss."

"But you" Davey managed to go even redder and the tentacles were trying to swim away with his face again.

Rhys tossed his head and growled "I am NOT ruled by my testicles."

Davey rolled his eyes "Your draig isn't just in rut. It's BROODY."

This time Rhys did look confused "You mean like a…chicken?"

Davey snickered "Pretty much if chickens were several hundred feet long violent predators sure, moody, territorial, vicious, nest focused, hens"

Rhys glared messy murder at him.

Davey just looked more amused "But it doesn't make any sense. If you're really stuck at fourteen and it certainly looks that way then your draig shouldn't even be close to first rut."

"The draig is a SHADE" Rhys mused "can a shade starve?"

"Fair point. So then first rut pretty much right on time that doesn't explain BROODY. Draigs don't go broody in first rut or even second broody is usually third or even fourth rut which for a Penthalion is more like 350. Draigs as young as yours don't go broody especially when" Davey's voice trailed off "Oh, hell. I'm sorry, I'm so damn sorry. First rut with a broody draig. No damn wonder you bonded. And it got her and your Nest."

"Stop pitying me"

"It isn't pity."

"I can FEEL it though the wards" Rhys voice wavered.

"It's EMPATHY. Learn the damn difference. And I'm sorry. I really truly am" Davey put a hand on Rhys temple swirling the thumb the same way Jack had when he'd lulled him to sleep a few nights ago. "Though why with a draig in first and a lass willing enough to bond you"

This time Rhys went scarlet all the way to his ear tips "Engaged. We were engaged." His voice cracked three times on the last word and he pulled back into a withdrawn ball on the deck. "Pick a different topic and STOP IT OR I WILL RIP THE DAMN WARDS OUT" he shrilled rocking ever so slightly.

Davey stood and for a blink you could see him want to twist the knife. But he wasn't his Lady "Can't ask for help. Can't even accept it when it's offered." He sighed "You claim you listen to me then hear this. You didn't deserve this. Do you hear me? You didn't deserve this. STOP THINKING YOU DID! We both know you made mistakes but Draigs, Rhys, if there's a thing that could be done the Usurper did it. If there was a price to be paid you paid it then because those eighty years you were in his clutches were worse than the Christian Hell. Penance paid. And quite frankly you didn't deserve those eighty years either and that's from a man that HATED you."

Rhys rocked a couple more times before craning his neck a bit to meet Davey's eyes "You deserve better too."

"Draigs, you are" the tentacles were in complete agreement they wanted to strangle Rhys while flaring orange/black "like a terrier with only one bone. You don't get my marriage. Move on."

"No, I don't. So let me tell you what I do understand. She came when I was away and she told you all about what I used to be like. She told you how I valiantly saved your father. Then she told you what happened with Nimrais and how I became Draco. She told you how left your mother to die" Rhys eyes were firmly on Pearl's deck on that point "how I saved you only so I could use you later. She convinced you Draco had to die" Rhys raised his head "and I have no counter if I'd remained Draco I absolutely needed to be killed. And to make sure of her hold she took your innocence and made sure she was your entire world. Then less than a year later I crawled back out from under Draco. And you HATED me as you had never hated Draco because Draco was a mad dog to be pitied and put down but me? I would have saved your mother. I don't know if we would ever have actually liked each other but I would have at least treated you with kindness. Draco was your guardian but Rhys could have been your godfather. And if I could come back why hadn't I done it sooner? I get why you hated me. I understand the part of you that hates me even now. You were never going to be strong enough to kill me on your own so she stayed your partner. I get that. I do. I don't like it. Draigs know I tried to talk you out of it. But I get it. What I don't get, what I am never going to get is why you let her treat you like she does. We're both a good deal happier when blithely ignoring that the other ever existed so why was your first instinct to come when you thought I was in genuine trouble?"

"Honestly I haven't a clue but I'm fairly certain you're going to enlighten me" Davey groused.

"I've lost count of the number of languages I speak and I don't have a word for the knotted up mess of hate, guilt, and obligation we are to each other but at the end of the day no matter how much we dislike each other we care if a monster rips chunks out of the other, no?"

Davey sighed but his tentacles nodded flashing green and a lone tear slid down his cheek. Rhys turned a little so he could look out at the Dutchman. Smaller than Revenge but bigger than the Pearl. Still sleeker than most but not nearly the grey hound that all three of the ships Rhys had built himself were. More lightly armed than the Pearl or Revenge – 24 guns and they were smaller. The Dutchman wasn't toothless, honestly he was heavily armed for a merchantman but he was no war ship though like Revenge he had a heavy ram. More block and tackle than I'd ever seen on a vessel of his size and for all of the tales of the Flying Dutchman Pearl looked more ominous. Look at him directly and he looked like any other ship but turn your head and something else showed out of the corner of your eyes. I shivered but couldn't actually see why because whatever magic the Dutchman had was only ever a glimmer on the edge of realization.

"I didn't build the Dutchman with my own hands so he'll never be to me what the Peregrine, Revenge, and Pearl are but I bespelled that ship from crow's nest to kneel. Every single solitary one of them keyed to you and only to you. She's stronger than you anywhere else but on that ship you have ALL of the power. Anything she does is because you let her" Rhys studied his hands likely wishing for the nail kit that was probably somewhere in the remains of his shirt not that his perfectly buffed nails needed it. And now that I'd noticed it the contrast of the perfect nails with the wasted hands was pretty creepy. "Sometimes the Dutchman talks to me."

Davey Jones went ghostly pale tentacles hanging limp and utterly still like he'd become a statue.

"Not often but he tells me some of what she does to you. Says to you. Hopefully only the worst. At least I really hope for your sake it's only when it's really bad. I'm not nearly as innocent as you think I am. I know there are people out there that like that sort of thing but you aren't one of them. The Dutchman could stop her. And you aren't Sparrow – you damn well know the Dutchman could stop her." The next was said so softly it was difficult to hear "Do you hate me so much you would rather let her beat you to death with her bare hands than invoke my protection?"

Davey flinched and shook his head "it isn't that bad."

"I cursed you for eternity Davey. The curse doesn't let you die. I was a necromancer. I KNOW when it raises you from the brink. Even in that damn box I knew. Forty-seven times in the last hundred and forty years she has beaten you. To. DEATH. WITH. HER. BARE. HANDS. Given that the rest of my life is likely measured in hours, maybe, just maybe, in days, this isn't going to count for much but look me in the eyes and tell me that makes you happy. That you get some sort of bizarre pleasure from that and I will never say another word about your marriage."

Davey shook his head again tentacles still limp and white "It's. It's not. It's not as bad all that. Sometimes. She just. It isn't always" Rhys face said it was worse. I really wondered why on earth Rhys hadn't just killed her. Davey threw up his hands "Fine. You win. I'm not happy." Rhys blinked in surprise "It doesn't change anything."

"Why not? You aren't Christian all that's required for a divorce is to repudiate her and throw her rampaging arse off of YOUR ship."

"I made vows"

"If til death do part was mentioned it's been fulfilled – Forty. Seven. Times."

Davey grabbed Rhys by the braid yanking his head back. My blade was at this throat before I even really thought about while Norrington's rested at the back of his neck but Davey ignored us "How many times did you tell me knowledge is power and you NEVER GIVE UP POWER. You just revealed a SOURCE."

"I'm tired. I'm so damn tired. I came out of that box exhausted, crippled, and in agony. For twenty six years I've done my level best to soldier on and ignore that I really truly don't even want to move" he snarled "to that I've added dying, grieving and bond broken" he just slumped in Davey's grip when he said it then finished dully "so you'll have to excuse me if I'm less than what you remember but I'd like to keep the scraps of my wits I have left so could you kindly stop banging around in my head?"

Davey pulled back the goo again stretching before snapping back onto Rhys and his shoulders shook. "I hate you" he sobbed "I'm supposed to be happy about this."

"You've done what you can here" Rhys had the hollowed out tone again but he stayed solid "go collect that harpy of yours and find me a lady of the court close enough kin to Neidr that she can claim guest right on the Dutchman."

"Is there nothing else to be done?" Theo asked.

Rhys straightened, looking up in surprise. Just how out of it was Rhys to not notice he'd been at Theo's feet?

"Captain Davey Jones may I present Lt. Theodore Groves" Davey looked confused but held out a slightly gooy hand before looking down at Rhys with his tentacles in question marks. "You've Ellyllon eyes Davey – LOOK and SEE." Davey still looked bemused.

"When I was little my great-great-great grandfather used to tell me stories about how his grandfather was an Ellyllon and his father sailed on a magic ship with a cyhil wife" Theo offered and Davey's eyes went wide, tentacles straight out.

"Blood of my Blood, Bone of my Bone, Flesh of my Flesh." Davey reached out in wonder and Theo let him hug him.

"You saved Jesse" he breathed to Rhys.

"Have you honestly thought all of these years that I let Unben's minions murder your son?"

From the look on Davey's face he had believe exactly that for a very, very long time. While Davey spoke to Theo Rhys had Henri fetch him his journal though he paused to work at de-sliming a hand before removing the last page and rapidly scribbling a list of names and locations on it. "With the Hunts I didn't dare look for any of your descendants but Wind always brought me far more news than I directly sought. Theo will need to review it but this where they were to the best of my knowledge a little over a year ago." He held up the list and Davey took it reverently. "The Blood kin guest clause in the Dutchman's Articles would let you save some of them if Cairene's Crone fails and I take Avalon with me."

Davey bowed pressing the back of Rhys wasted hand to his forehead. Both Davey and Rhys stiffened and a moment later the captain's cabin door was thrown open so violently I could almost feel Pearl groan. Cairene stormed across the deck hair pulsing black/orange with Jack in her wake. Davey went very still, adam's apple bobbing but otherwise motionless.

"Back to the Dutchman" she snapped at him before regarding Jack "Utterly worthless. There's no way that called down a stay breeze never mind a Malevolence. Not like you" an equally scathing glance at Rhys "to not take credit though I suppose if I'd fumbled so badly I'd want to shift blame as well."

"Why, exactly, would he have wanted to do anything for you?" she whirled to glare at Jack in suspicion before turning back to Davey. "What is that?"

"Jesse survived that night."

She blinked at her husband "Of course he survived and I've no doubt to avoid us using him as bait again this one hid him well."

"Us using him as bait?"

"Dearest he was born to be bait. You know how this one is. Well for everyone but you my sweet. He would never have been able to leave Neidr's only grandchild to die. What other reason could I have to bear a child with you? It was an excellent trap. Well baited. Well planned. Nearly flawless."

Rhys rolled his eyes so hard that despite the bigger than human irises all you could see was white. "If I'd been able to find the brat I'd have used him as bait again." Rhys growled softly. "You might have once been impressive but all you are now is a dying cripple. Your only remaining task to sow a little seed before you go" she leaned down "and when your bones lie in the ocean know that I will have your draigonette to mold as I please."

Rhys glared at her in defiance "You aren't the Morrigain – they gave the title to your YOUNGER sister didn't they? So what makes you think when my draigonette is fostered it will be to you?"

"Because I'm going to hold onto your lady until she bears and with the spells you've put on the Dutchman no one will ever be able to rescue your only child from me" she gave him a toothy smile "what a DILEMMA. Refuse and you condemn not just Avalon but your beloved outlands relent and know your only child is delivered into my hands. Game, set, match – mine all mine. I know the Crone. I'm pretty sure she's going to be able to put a little life back in you so I'm going to wait until there's just enough left in you to get the seed sown but not enough left for you to enjoy it."

"You complain I'm unworthy of the throne and the draigs know I've never argued I was but you would be so much worse."

Her face twisted and she pulled him up with one hand by his breeches which I truly hoped she wasn't planning to shred the way she had his shirt. With the height difference even his toes were clear of the deck. I wasn't sure what I expected her to do but a deep throat kiss was definitely not it and from Rhys muffled oomph he was just as startled but he immediately started thrashing and trying to bite down on the invading tongue but she had a thumb wedged in at the back of his jaw while the rest of her huge hand kept him pressed tight. When she pulled back for air he made an adder fast strike sinking his teeth deep into her nose. Interesting that his speed which he'd always insisted wasn't his own seem unaffected.

When she finally pried him off he spat a sizable chunk of her nose into her eye. She grabbed him by the braid and whispered something. He went completely still and when she let go of the front of his breeches he went down on the deck like a puppet with its strings cut. Utterly still. If it hadn't been for the rise and fall of his so thin the flesh dimpled in on each one ribs I would have feared she'd killed him. He lay head down with his face tucked into the crook of his right arm. Even with blood dripping down her face and only half a nose left she was gleefully triumphant. Jack looked as confused as I felt.

"What's this?" she plucked Rhys list from Davey's lax grip. She pulled back a threatening hand "I said what is this?"

"The names and locations of our descendants" Davey was just staring at Rhys. I wondered what his Ellyllon eyes saw or if he was still in the wards. Whatever whichever he clearly didn't like it.

"You mean Neidr's descendants. He's never cared for YOU only for his precious Neidr. If it wasn't for who your sire was he'd never give you a second glance." She looked down at Rhys who still hadn't so much as twitched "Was that the plan? If you withhold your seed we would sail out and save some of your pets?" She ripped up the list letting the piece drift down only Rhys where the stuck in the goo. "Not going to happen" she purred blood dripping off of her chin "but I do promise there'll be quite the little party on the Dutchman to see you off properly" when she turned back around to Davey Rhys finally moved his left hand tapping out something onto Pearl's dark boards.

"That's more than enough" Jack snapped tapping the rigging in what I assumed was a reply "you, Madam, are no longer welcome aboard this vessel. Get. Off. My. Ship. While the Captain of the Dutchman and I confer Captain to Captain as it were. You just toddle off like a good wench." She drew back a hand to hit Jack but she looked at the motionless Rhys and the Pearl. Her eyes narrowed hair flashing even faster before rounding on Davey instead.

"We're your descendants too" Theo challenged. The hair had been such a distraction that I didn't notice until they were practically nose to what was left of nose just how much Theo resembled Cairene. Not nearly as much as my da and I or Rhys and Jack but you could tell they were kin. Theo certainly didn't look a bit like Neidr or Davey.

"Worthless" she spat on him. At some point Davey's hands had balled into fists. "Just like the dung I bore."

Davey slugged her right in the wreckage Rhys had made of her nose before she could straighten from being in Theo's face. She blinked momentarily stunned and then chortled pulling back one of those massive hands to send him to his own Locker.

"She's all yours, love" Jack smirked as green light blasted her to the deck.

"To be fair" he said as we watched as Pearl hit her twice more "I did tell her to leave." When she started to shake it off and rise a rope snaked around her pulling her up and dropping her to the deck several times.

"Don't kill her" at some point Rhys had gotten out of his sprawl though the position had changed. He had been knees up arms wrapped around the outside of legs now it was one leg up the other wrapped around it with arms crossed tight across his chest.

"Why not?" Elizabeth asked as Pearl stopped dropping her face first leaving her swinging above us in a cocoon of rope blood dripping down from her hair.

"You'll start a cyfea war I'd prefer to avoid. Especially now. Trust me if could have killed her without causing a blood bath I'd have done that instead casting curses."

"You might think you accomplished something with this little show but I OWN Davey Jones. You lost him to me when you were Draco and by the time you could care it was far too late. This flicker of defiance won't last. You know it. I know it. He knows it don't you sweety? He'll be crawling back to me by this time tomorrow and when we get back with the lady I chose for you, well, you know what else will be waiting just for you." Rhys leaned back bracing himself with his arms offering up belly and throat. "Been there. Survived that."

She tried to hiss at him but it came out more of a burble then her eyes flicked to Davey "He doesn't even see you, love. All he sees, all he's ever seen, all he ever will see is that you are Neidr's only child. How long was it even after he stopped being Draco that he even thought to look in on you?"

"Captain Sparrow would you be so kind as to loan me a bit of rope and to let her down?"

"Gladly as long as you get her off my ship."

"Wyvern, Quittence." An older man with a world weary expression and a surly faced younger one clamber aboard. "See her to the brig"

"Davey, MAROON her."

"If I'm going to get you that bonny lass in time she has connections I need." Davey snapped "take her to. The. Brig." The men just blinked in stupefied confusion "What is my title?"

"Captain" the elder answered and grinned grabbing the right side of Cairene with a touch of glee. Surly one was far slower and more wary but they led her stumbling away.

Rhys was busy gluing the list back together with the slime she'd spewed all over him when Davey turned back to him "You" Rhys started but Davey cut him off "No. I don't disagree with you in principle. She's dangerous. She picked every crew member but Wyvern. You aren't wrong that it's safer if I maroon her but, but, we both know if this is something you couldn't fix the Crone won't be able to either which means all she's going to do is buy time. I can't get into the Citadel. I'm going to need someone to get that bonny lass to the Dutchman. I maroon her I lose every contact she has. And you bloody well know that. There's a thousand just reasons for her to be in the brig. Hell the Morrigan herself has told me to do it. She isn't dead and she gave you just cause. That will matter which is why you had Capt. Sparrow save her. Now STOP trying to protect every damn one all by yourself and let me do this."

"May I join you as a guest aboard the Dutchman?"

Both Rhys and Davey looked taken aback by Theo's request.

"She is FAR worse than Cavendish" Rhys warned.

"Capt. Jones is going to need assistance he can trust. I'm sworn to protect my country and my king. I may have no gifts but I'm Old Blood and my King sits before me in need of aid. Don't tell me not to help not after last time."

Rhys nodded once then softly started speak

"Wind to thy wings,

Triumph in all life brings,

Abundant prey

To swiftly slay"

"Draigs you are broody as hell" Davey interrupted "I'd tell you to stop getting maudlin on me but I'm fair certain you just can NOT help it. You aren't my father. You aren't his father. Neither of us even HAS a draig."

"Davey" Rhys started.

"Enough. We're leaving. You just keep breathing until we get back."

"Come back whole" Rhys held out the list "both of you be careful."

Davey took the list reverently then bellowed "Wyvern fetch Cairene's library to the Pearl."

Rhys looked aghast "She will NEVER forgive you that."

"I'm pretty sure it isn't the only thing she isn't going to forgive me for" Davey's mouth twisted "it took you more than a hundred and forty years but you finally destroyed my marriage. And just so we're clear I still don't like you and you're a complete, total, and utter arse." He laid a hand on Rhys wasted shoulder "but you didn't deserve what happened in Avalon"

"Stop pitying me" Rhys countered even as he rested his head against Davey's arm.

"Em-path-y. I know there's still some wits left in there even after every damn thing you've been through puzzle out the difference. Now look at me. I swear on my life's Blood and last breath what she threatened you with will NOT happen to you. Not on my ship. Not on my watch."

Rhys went utterly still as Wyvern and another member of the Dutchman's crew thumped about twenty large books down in front of him and Dutchman vanished in a flash of green light. Only then when they were long gone did Rhys lower his face into the crook of his right arm and softly keen.