Stede thought perhaps … possibly the reason he was so enchanted by Ed was that the man was beautiful. Maybe the most beautiful man he'd ever met. It had been a thrill to learn pirating at the feet of such a man. He was a great pirate, but beyond that it was the gentleness of the man that drew him. It was the loveliness of the man that made something deep inside of Stede's chest go pitter pat.

Maybe it was his heart, maybe it was his soul, but whatever it was it left him almost breathless in the presence of the man. He must love being a pirate, for he had not felt anything like this before. This joy inside of him when he looked at Blackbeard … at Ed lying with his waves of grey hair free and loose across the pillow. They'd slept late, perhaps a bit too late considering all the things he had wanted to do today but ah well, this was worth the loss. Just this here, being beside this man it was … it was a dream. And nothing, no storm, or English navy officer, could hope to break him from this dream. And that was when he finally heard the knocking on his door.

It was probably the crew, they were always knocking for something, particularly now that Ed was here. They probably just wanted to catch a glimpse of him, the great Pirate Blackbeard, but were too shy to say so out loud. So they kept making up ridiculous reasons to come and knock on his door. Out of rope, out of hardtack, we need to stop at the next harbour and restock on all our provisions or we are going to have to start eating rats.

I mean that fit they had all thrown when Roach used up the last of the oranges to make that cake for Stede and Ed. They acted like it was Stede who had done it, Stede's fault that the poor Swede's teeth had fallen out. It was clearly a matter of Roach's bad shopping habits, he hadn't planned for Ed never having eaten an orange cake before. Forty Oranges in the glaze alone and it barely tasted of the fruit. Much too much sugar. Really, sometimes Stede couldn't help but feel like Roach's cooking abilities were a bit over stated by the crew.

He was good, but Stede's cook back at his plantation could have made a thirty orange cake and have it taste like a fifty orange cake. Perhaps in hindsight he shouldn't have said this to the cook, he had taken on a somewhat demented look after Stede had let that slip. And he had held his meat cleaver just a tad too tightly, so tightly the metal almost vibrated under his grip. Stede was certain Roach was thinking of cutting something of Stede's off then, and it wasn't his nose, so he had beat a quick retreat back to his cabin.

God, if this knocking was Roach coming to finish him off at last well … well Stede would scream and wake Ed up if he had to. But he didn't want to, so he really hoped it wasn't Roach after.

He opened the door, gradually, just in case anyway. It was not in fact his angry cook, but who it actually was, was almost worse.

Izzy Hands.

It was amazing that such an angry, bristling, little fellow could ever be considered of the race of hobbits.

It was not true that Stede Bonnet knew nothing about hobbits. He, in fact knew quite a bit … it had just all come from books before now. And the hobbits of his books, the soft round cheeked cherubs that more often than not led the hero of the tale to their secret treasure in an underground pool - he didn't know why it was always specifically an underground pool, but there you go - were nothing like Izzy Hands.

Izzy Hands had a beard for one thing, well something very much resembling a beard anyway. And he looked a great deal older than the giggling, child like creatures of the children's picture books. He was also not particularly pleasant either - he was a bitter little thing. Always blowing up at Stede's crew for seemingly no reason at all.

Just a few months back he had almost killed poor Frenchie by throwing him out of the Crow's nest, Ed had had to step in to discipline the feral creature, not that that did much good in the long run. After only a week, of somewhat polite stiffness from the horrible little gremlin he had tried to stab poor Lucius. Stede had told Ed at the time that the hobbit was an arsehole and he didn't know why Ed, such a kind and really caring man as was Ed, kept him around at all. Really at this point it would just be easier to throw Izzy off the ship than spend or rather waste, the amount of time needed to retrain his First Mate for sensible company.

Ed had just smiled at that, and patted Stede's cheek. He hadn't answered of course, he never answered when it came to Izzy. Never even told Stede how they had met or came to sail with one another, even though Stede was certain it must have been quite a story.

I mean sailing with a hobbit, even a sad second rate hobbit, as was Izzy Hands, had to be quite a high sailing adventure. None of the stories mentioned it, mainly because none of the stories ever mentioned that Izzy Hands was a hobbit at all. Ed didn't really want to talk about it and Stede supposed he should respect that, after all he didn't really want to talk about … Mary and the kids.

"Is Blackbeard awake, I need to talk to him."

It was a demand, not a question. As if Izzy Hands found the notion that he had to ask Stede Bonnet about Blackbeard's whereabouts to be not only humiliating, but absolutely ridiculous. Something about that tone, that sneering little tone out of the hobbit, riled Stede up more than anything else today had. More than Roach and his meat cleaver, more than the crew and their oranges. He hated Izzy Hands right then, hated him more than he had ever hated anyone. Even his childhood bullies paled in comparison to the hate he felt right then, looking at that angry hobbit's face.

Which probably went a long way to explaining why he said what he said next.

"No, he's not awake right now. And quite frankly Izzy, when it comes to you, he's never awake. Please leave and find something else to occupy your time. Maybe swab the deck, it's looking filthy."

And then he slammed the door right in Izzy Hands' face.

Stede was almost certain that Izzy Hands was stalking him.

Everywhere he turned lately he was confronted with the hobbit, the hobbit and his unnerving stare. In fact if he was being truly honest with himself he found almost everything about Izzy Hands kind of unnerving. Not simply because he was a violent pirate where one would expect to find a peace loving creature of the earth and the soil. No, Stede left his comfortable life to become a pirate Captain, he was not quite so easily spooked as all that. It was something beyond that, something felt wrong with Izzy Hands. Something like … maybe demonic possession.

No, no, he refused to believe in possession.

Besides, it would simply be too easy an answer. Of course Izzy was possessed, I mean how else do you explain how he was always there watching? No matter what part of the ship Stede happened to be at the time. Always standing there, just an arms length out of reach, watching as Stede talked to the crew, as he trotted across his deck, as he made orders for his and Ed's midday meals. It was well … it was damn annoying was what it really was, but maybe a little bit creepy as well. I mean didn't the hobbit have anything better to do with his time than glare at Stede all day?

Okay, so he had slammed that door in his face and had been so far successfully keeping Ed from having to even look at that nasty little gremlin anymore, but still you'd think he could just get over it. Ed had never said he and Izzy were lovers so, no harm. He was … he was just his first mate, and one that was a tad too clingy even by first mate standards. Maybe Izzy wanted more, maybe he felt more for Ed than that but it all amounted to naught. Ed did not want Izzy, so maybe Izzy should just put them all out of their misery and move the fuck on.

It was better to focus on his anger, his own injured pride, than come to grips by just how scared of the hobbit he'd become.

Maybe it was his walk, ghostly in its silence - allowing for the strange first mate to easily sneak up upon his targets of scorn without any warning . Or perhaps it was his temper, again he had almost stabbed poor Lucius a few weeks back over less than nothing. Or possibly it could be the strength, the strength such a small person should never possess - how else could you explain how he was able to hurl Frenchie from the crow's nest. A miracle the man hadn't been killed, really. And of course there was the kind of hypnotic control he retained over Ed's original crew. It was the only way Stede could explain the strange kind of loyalty that remained in even sensible people like Fang. Put altogether and you were left with a feeling of wrongness in your gut. He was almost certain the crew, his crew, felt the same.

They didn't show it, bless them, but he was certain they must see it too. I mean this couldn't all just be in Stede's head, and if it was what did that say about him? Was he really such a coward? He didn't think so, not … not in the way that he would make up reasons to be afraid of something. If he was afraid of something it was because it damn well deserved to be afraid of.

If he dwelled on it any longer he was going to have a panic attack - he needed something to distract himself.

You know all of this reminded him of a story he read to the children once. About a hobbit that was not a hobbit anymore, because … because he had been corrupted by greed, symbolised by a gold ring in the story anyway. He lived in a pool too, if memory served. Stede was certain he had that book on the ship, somewhere. The crew might like that, they must be getting pretty sick of the story about the wooden boy.

That night Stede Bonnet read to the crew. He didn't read the story about the puppet who became a real boy - didn't a read a story of blue fairies or judgmental ghost crickets. Instead he read a story of deep caves and long forgotten pools. A story of evil rings, and jealousy that gnawed down to the bone. The story he read them was 'The Cave Hobbit and the Magic Ring'.

"And what is a Cave Hobbit, you ask? Why it's a magical creature that lives only in a cave." Said the Captain, in theory addressing the entire crew but in actuality his eyes remained locked on Ed's face. Ed looked back at him with a dreamy kind of wonder. As if he had never seen anything as wonderful as Stede Bonnet was at that moment, sitting on a box reading to his crew by the light of a flickering candle. It was an intoxicating feeling to be the centre of somebody's … anybody's world.

Even if it didn't last, even if the very next day Ed packed up and left him - a thought that made something twist and convulse inside his chest - it was something just to have felt that once. Back in his family's home he had never had that. Not as a child forced to stand off to the side and watch as his father slaughtered animal upon animal. Not that he wanted to be slaughtering the animals himself, he just wanted to go back inside and read his story books. Maybe even just not have blood splattered all over his face. And then he had grown up, married Mary, they'd had the kids and you would think having a family of his own, even one who he had never really wanted in the first place, he could be the centre of attention at least once.

But no, once again he was shunted off to the side - stuck at the other end of the table, and cut out of the conversation entirely. Well, at least on the ship that couldn't happen, he was the Captain, people had to listen to him. People had to stop pretending he didn't matter.

All the while as he was spiralling down this rather depressing line of thought he had been speaking. Speaking about something that had almost nothing to do with the small boy with blood all over his face, or the husband who could barely mention his favourite horse without getting dirty looks from his family. He spoke about magic, the old kind of magic that used to exist in the world before men built their stone houses, and their towns and cities, and stomped all the life out of it. The kind of magic you could only really find in a ring.

"Once upon a time," began the story. "In a land we can't find anymore, there lived a hobbit. And like most hobbits he lived underground, but unlike his neighbours he didn't live in a nice round, warm hobbit hole. No this hobbit didn't really live in a hole in the ground at all, he lived in a cave."

And from there he expanded, told them all about the hobbit who lived in a cave - how he had run away from home because his Mummy and Daddy hadn't loved him enough. He always skipped over the line that claimed that of course his Mummy and Daddy had loved him a whole a lot and were terribly worried when he ran away, because it had never really resonated as true for Stede. Besides the story only got really good once you were past the backstory and moved on to the finding of the magic ring. Which the little grey hobbit found in a pool at the edge of his cave.

Of course this ring wasn't just a magic ring, oh no, it was an evil magic ring. That granted wishes. But of course being an evil magic ring, those wishes would always end up slightly screwed up. Like once he wished for eggs to suck, and a bird laid an egg right on top of his head. He wished for a new waistcoat, and it turned out to be itchy and really made of straw. He said he wanted a fish and a fire to cook it on and was almost burned alive. Eventually even the little grey hobbit realised that making wishes on the ring was not something that would grant him a long and happy life, and despite living in a cave and unable to see the sky at all, he still wanted to live. Wanted to continue not dying thank you very much.

So eventually he gave up wishing, placed the ring in his loincloth and decided to just keep living … without wishing. He didn't need sunshine or company, or cooked fish - he just needed the ring, and for a long while that was enough for the little hobbit who had became old even by the counting of hobbits. He lost all his hair, and his eyes grew as round as saucer plates. His bones become frail and everything became harder, but still he knew that he must never wish on the ring because that would just make everything so much worse.

And he kept that promise to himself, day after pathetic day. And then one day many years later he was sitting by his pool, waiting to pounce and catch his fish dinner when he heard a strange sound. It almost … it almost sounded like music, No more than that even, it almost sounded like some one whistling.

It was, it was some one whistling. Someone in his cave, whistling. And that whistling, why that whistling was getting louder and louder. It was so loud that it was making the poor little grey hobbit's ears ring. So he hid himself behind a rock and watched the stranger approach.

It was a beautiful hobbit, the most beautiful hobbit he had ever seen - with a shiny buttons of gold alone the middle of his aquamarine waistcoat and a jacket made of silver pure and true. And a white cravat wrapped around his throat. Surely this glorious sight must be that great and mythical being, a Gentleman. A Gentlehobbit if you would.

Such a fine fellow as that poor, sad little creature had never seen before - not even when he was young and still yet lived up above, in the sun. And staring at him from his spot behind the rock, that sad little grey thing was filled with a sort of wishful sadness then.

Oh how he … how he wished that he could be as fine as fellow as that gentlehobbit who stood by that pool now, staring at the fish below its surface. How he wished that he wasn't as he was now, that he could stand under the sun with those softly bouncing curls upon his head and have all the love that must surely come to such a lovely fellow as that. And maybe that fine gentleman might know what it was to be him, to know what it was like to live your whole life in the darkness. Never to see the sun again even when you felt like the blackness of the cave was going to drive you mad. Oh, how he wished. And you see that was the mistake there, for the ring in his pocket was always listening, always waiting for that one magic phrase to work its will.

It was a horrible thing to watch, the sight of that great gentlehobbit twisting and turning and screaming as he slowly morphed into an exact copy of the ugly, smelly, grey hobbit. Loincloth as all. And it probably would have been quite awful to watch the same happen to the little grey hobbit. To watch him twist and turn and scream until he looked nothing like himself anymore. Until he looked instead like the fine, upstanding gentlehobbit he so wished he had always been.

The creature now at the edge of the pool let out a great wail then, it was a pitiful sound. The gentlehobbit crouching behind the rock couldn't help but sneer at it. What a terrible beast, he thought with contempt, quite having forgotten that he had never thought such a thing before in his life. Quite having forgotten that such a beast had been him not seconds ago. I must go and alert the villagers, and we shall run this creature out of town.

And that my dear reader, is exactly what the young gentlehobbit with the magic ring did.

Stede looked up from the story book to meet the faces of the fairly unimpressed crew.

"Can we hear the one about the little wooden boy again?" Said Wee John, with that quite recognisable whiny burr in his voice. The others joined in with a chorus of agreement, and Stede sighed and went to go get the other story book. Every night the same God damned story, even the children hadn't been this stubborn in their devotion to their favourite stories.

And then just as he was getting up to do so, he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye.

He saw two figures standing a little way away from the rest of the crew, one was clearly Ed, beautiful Ed, lovely even in only shadow. And the other, was a hobbit … so it was obviously Izzy Hands.

Ed looked like he was telling Hands about something and Izzy Hands looked really … really annoyed. He almost looked betrayed. It was a strange look on that alien hobbit face. He wandered what that was about. Maybe … maybe the hobbit was offended by the story, like some of the crew had tried to claim he was with Pete's Blackbeard tale. Maybe Ed was telling him to calm down.

Or maybe … maybe it was something more … maybe … but Stede didn't have time to stand there and guess because suddenly he was being elbowed aside by Jim of all people.

"Out of the way, Bonnet," they growled at him.

Oluwande then squeezed past Stede, a look of worry on his young, round face.

"You don't want to hear the wooden boy story, with the others?" Stede yelled at their backs when he recovered himself enough from the start to speak again. And from the depths of the ship Jim's voice rose high, laced with more hate than he had ever heard in it before.

"I've had enough of your fucking stories for one night."