Almost a year prior...Mordred bolted upright in his bed screaming out for his godmother. His mother was by his side in an instant, wiping the cold sweat from his ashen skin. She asked him what he had dreamt about and the boy refused to say but did comment that he needed to leave Camelot by morning, that if he didn't then the Captain of the Jolly Roger would never know that he still had a heart. What he didn't say was that worse still, the man known as James Hook would never understand what his godmother felt for her Captain because he would not have the assurance of where her true loyalties lied, having been betrayed both by a corrupt king and a traitorous woman.
His mother simply replied that she knew. She possessed the gift of sight after all and she was The Seeress of the Blood Guard. The year to come was in flux, constantly shifting within her sight. Her son's gift was different than her own...while she saw countless possible futures to better maintain her Ladyship's time line, her son's gift as of now only occurred while asleep and anything he sees within those dreams were fixed as in a fixed set of events that could never be altered. Mordred having a vision in his sleep had now solidified the future and she could see it clearly, the shifting images falling into a single path. She honestly wished that it didn't have to be that way, but to save the Blood Guard then Artz needed to be saved in the future which requires three very specific individuals that cannot be replaced...it must be them or all is lost.
That morning the boy set out for the Jolly Roger's next target, specifically crossing paths with one Simeon Black knowing that the man hated his godmother and would take him to her Captain. He stood there, watching his godmother shatter to pieces as her Captain ordered her to kill him, but he knew...he knew that the dark captain would stop his wench because he had seen it in his dream, but it also gave Hook the answer he was looking for and revealed that his heart was still there before promptly being stolen by his godmother.
During the next year, the Druid boy did his best to make that year wonderful and full of joy, knowing exactly how it would end. He used his pranking as an excuse to get into parts of the ship that he would normally not be granted access to and it was in one of the darker and harder to reach storage rooms where he found evidence of what appeared to be a rudimentary chemistry station specifically tailored towards the dilution of something.
That was the one thing he didn't know...what was being diluted? He knew the who, the why, the when and technically the how, just not the what. The who was obvious...there was only one person on board with the skills and knowledge to build and utilize a chemistry station effectively and that was the master of the galley, Mister Hawthorne. Delivery of the what was easily handled by the supposedly clutzy Mister Jefferson who was a lot smarter than people thought, but he did possess a defect within his inner ears that caused him to be slightly unsteady but would not result in the theatrical behavior he oftentimes exhibited.
Then there was the one behind it all, their leader and commanding officer, Admiral Simeon Black. Upon Torrin's death, the title of admiral was passed to his second in command which was Black whom he had sent undercover aboard The Jewel of the Realm. When Captain Liam Jones was killed, he was to assume control of the ship because he was its commander but due to the crew siding with Killian Jones, he was forced to remain as a simple commander.
He did manage to inform his superior, the Butcher of the Royal Navy, Augustus Torrin, about what had occurred. The admiral promoted him to captain and ordered him to find a means in which to murder Killian Jones without drawing attention to himself, even better if he could get the crew to turn on their captain. Black knew that the crew would never turn against Killian so he paid a visit to Mister Hawthorne for a solution. Mister Jefferson had fulfilled a personal request of Hawthorne's while they had been within a certain realm and procured a specific item of great worth. It would take time to dilute its potency but if administered over time, it would drive the Captain mad, making the crew turn on him or cause his heart to stop and seemingly appear as a natural death.
It took years to dilute it, its lethal viscosity almost impossible to dissipate. By the time they were ready to begin, they hit a snag in the form of Silver Jones, appointed chef by the Captain and saw to his food and drink personally, which prevented any attempts at implementing their plan. To make matters worse, the Captain declared the Star Child and her Guard would always be welcome aboard his ship, that she should be treated with respect as The Lady of the Jolly Roger, and that should his life be taken, this ship and its crew were to declare loyalty and fealty to the Blood Guard.
This had royally pissed off the commander because unlike the others, he had met the Star Child. He knew what she looked like so when she was brought on board after capturing her ship, he neglected to mention her true identity to the slowly being poisoned Captain. He loved watching her being worked to exhaustion, then later to hear her cry out in either pleasure or pain as she was bedded or beaten by the Scourge of the Sea, but the circumstances changed and James Hook was somehow regaining his sanity. It took about another month to realize why. The Captain mentioned in a passing jest that he was never going to get his evening wine back because his wench kept drinking it.
Hearing this, Black had never been so happy in his life because it meant that she was intentionally poisoning herself to protect Hook, thereby weakening herself. He informed Hawthorne in a change of plans and to up the dosage in the wine, the master of the galley initially refused but soon did as requested after learning that the Captain's new wench was the Star Child and knew that the Captain was being poisoned so she drank it herself to protect him.
After a year of drinking the higher dosage, Black was finally able to do what he has always wanted and that was to make the Star Child his bitch. She didn't have much choice in the matter because she was too weak to use her powers and if she did, the strain on her body would kill her which would leave her Captain defenseless. Every time the Captain was away, Black raped her and in time, both Hawthorne and Jefferson joined him...she was completely at their mercy, but the tide turned once more when the Captain lessened her workload and started bedding her more frequently until it finally reached the point where she never left his side which was extremely annoying. It left Black having to service himself with his left hand, using his memories of their activities to gratify himself.
It was just shy of four years of the wench being on board that Black crossed paths with a druid boy with very similar physical characteristics of the sorcerer that had barged onto their ship. Upon learning the boy's name, he smirked inwardly...the gods had smiled upon him for this boy was the godson of his bitch. Admittedly it was a gamble because he was a child and the destruction of Port Rhianna was still very much felt amongst the crew, but he brought the boy to the Captain and said Captain used the boy as a test of loyalty.
The look on her face had actually made him come in his own trousers, creating quite a mess, but he was startled back into reality when she actually tried to fulfill her Captain's orders to kill the boy. She was a monster and if she hadn't been one before, she would be after she cleaved her godson's head from the rest of his body. This was bad...very, very bad. Breaking her was one thing but according to history, pushing the Star Child too far resulted in an emotionless state that transformed her into fearsome demon with an unquenchable bloodlust with nothing but death in her wake.
Fortunately the Captain of the Jolly Roger had stopped his wench but she still tried to fulfill his orders and attempted to kill the boy again. By the gods, what has he done? He never imagined that her loyalty to the bastard was so resolute that she would shatter her entire being for the man heralded as The Scourge of the Sea. Again the Captain managed to halt the woman's assault, rescinding his order to kill the boy at the same time. Said boy having just stood there, hadn't bothered to run away, almost like...like he knew what was going to happen.
He took a closer look at the boy as he walked by, the boy's eyes glancing at him briefly with a brief flash of gold that only he saw. Magic...the boy has magic. In that moment, it made sense...he knew why the boy had seemed so familiar to him. The boy's name was Mordred as in Mordred Pendragon; son of Morgana Pendragon, the currently reigning Queen of the kingdom of Camelot, the High Priestess of the Old Religion and the Seeress of the Blood Guard and then there was her husband and the boy's father, the most powerful warlock to have ever lived, the Dragonlord and the Archmage of the Blood Guard, Merlin of Ealdor...more commonly known as Yuel and Noel.
He was not at all surprised when he was stripped of his rank and duties, but losing his dominant hand came as a bit of a shock and he barely managed to tie it off to staunch the blood loss. Then that idiotic moron fully aligned himself to his wench and as Black picked up his severed hand, his eyes met Hawthorne's and the man blinked once before turning on his heel and walking away in a dignified manner as if scorning the former first mate, but in reality, he was nonverbally telling the now one handed officer that he agreed to his plan of action and would up the dosage immediately.
Black steered clear of the child and did not go anywhere near where he, Hawthorne, and Jefferson had been conducting their affairs with the Star Child which was not far from the hidden alcove where the Hawthorne's instruments resided. Jefferson, his idiot son that no one knew about, would constantly glare at her or trip and seemingly fall, only to bowl her over and sending her crashing into the wood rather harshly. He had been close enough a few times to actually hear bones breaking...which meant that she would be dead in under a year.
Hawthorne, on the other hand, was becoming far too paranoid about the brat and was actually calling attention to himself by disturbing Hook while he was bedding the wench...definitely not a good idea. Fortunately the Star Child kept the dark haired captain occupied, making certain that his attention rarely wavered from her. He had no doubt that it was to prevent him and his associates from forcing her to submit to them or they would simply find another way to kill her beloved Captain; however, the Druid boy was incredibly clever, cunning like his mother and gifted with his father's knowledge and magic, but he also had his godmother's persistence and stubborn will.
Through pranking, the child had successfully discovered the chemistry station and absconded with it, attempting to ascertain what was being diluted. Mordred honestly believed that if he could work out what kind of poison or venom was being used then he could save his godmother. Thus the reason why he had been constantly checking up on her, noting any changes in her condition to narrow down the list. He was close...so very close to having the answer, but will it be in time to save her, to spare her Captain such terrible pain?
The problem was that his godmother was showing symptoms from several different kinds of neurotoxins and poisonous herbs while the chemistry equipment was definitely used for only one toxin, herb, or venom...many of which his godmother already held an immunity to. In fact, she has been poisoned so many times and in so many ways that her body has actually learned, with proper food and rest, how to metabolize a vast majority of them. She showed symptoms from tetradotoxin, Ageratina altissima more commonly known as White Snakeroot, Oleandor, Rhododendron, aconite more commonly known as monkshood or wolf's bane, the rosary pea, and Atropa Belladonna.
After much deliberation and inconclusive experiments, he decided to ask Mister Smee for help. There was something he was missing, something vital, something so important, but for the life of him, he just couldn't see it because there were too many conflicting symptoms and not enough information. He showed Smee the instruments and the first mate frowned slightly while picking up a small and currently empty container. He told Mordred that he recognized it and that it had once been in Mister Jefferson's possession during their mission to Neverland.
The druid boy paled, all color draining from his skin and his eyes wide in alarm. He immediately grabbed his notes and starting rifling through them, making Mister Smee ask what was wrong. What was wrong was that Mordred did forget something...time. He forgot to factor in time, specifically the amount of time that Black, Jefferson, and Hawthorne had been on board and he knew for a fact that those three had been poisoning his godmother for years. That meant that they held some modicum of patience and when factored with Jefferson's supposed stupidity, Hawthorne's intellect, and Black's ambition... there was only thing it could be.
The papers slipped from his hands fluttering to the floor as tears rolled down his face. William Smee, to his credit, tried to remain calm but he had never seen little Morrie cry before. His godmother literally walking up to him to cut off his head or impale him with a sword...no problem. Hostile crew members with hidden agendas...no problem. So what was causing the boy that never cried to shed silent tears, his eyes filled with grief and guilt? Why? He got his answer the next morning when his captain shouted for the boy to be brought to him at once.
Mordred entered the Captain's quarters but he already knew what he was going to find because he had felt it when it happened. There stood the Scourge of the Sea, barely dressed in a shirt and trousers, with tears streaming down his face.
'Morrie...'
'I know. I felt it...last night, about an hour after midnight.'
About an hour after midnight was a less than ten minutes after the Captain of the Jolly Roger had confessed his love for his wench, his beloved Alice. He honestly didn't know how to feel because his mother had died young as well...had he cursed his wench with his mother's fate?
'It's not your fault, Captain, and no, you did not curse my godmother.'
'Did you just read my mind?'
'Of course. You're one of us now and you haven't been taught how to close your mind yet.'
'What do you mean by one of us?'
Mordred walked over to his godmother ...his dead godmother. Her body simply couldn't cope with the strain any longer. It was actually a good thing that the Captain had been bedding her so much. It had kept her alive long enough for her Captain to be claimed as one their own and one step closer to securing the timeline of the Star Child.
'What do you see, Captain, when you look at her? How does she appear to you?'
The dark captain looked at the lifeless corpse in his bed, but it didn't make any sense. She still looked the same way as she did when he first captured her ship and took her to his bed. He told the boy that her hair was a vibrant crimson, her skin held a healthy tan and she had all the right curves in all the right places. The boy took his left hand and held it, a soft silver glow coming from the back of his hand.
'Look at her now and tell me what you see.'
He did so and he was shocked, actually taking a step back but the child would not allow him to go any further. The woman currently in his bed looked nothing like the woman he had been with the last five years. Her hair was so dark that it was almost brown, a few highlights of dark auburn here and there, but it was dull, thin and brittle. There was a significant loss in weight as well and he could see a good portion of her bones quite clearly. Her skin was a sickly white color and countless deep bruises littered her body.
Him...he had caused those bruises and they were piled up on top of each other, meaning that he had made new ones every time he had bedded her. His legs gave out and he sagged to the floor. He would have just let himself curl up into a ball on the floor and let the whole bloody universe pass him by but he could still feel the child's hand holding his. He looked up at the boy then noticed the glowing mark on the back of his left hand, the silver hook within the prism.
'The Prismatic star...that's the mark of the Prismata, The Prism of the Blood Guard. Why would I have such a mark? I'm not Blood Guard nor have I met the Star Child.'
'You have always been Blood Guard...even before she ever created the Blood Guard. She loves you very much and she waited such a long time...just to see you again. You were granted your mark when you accepted your name and who you are to her.'
'I don't understand.'
'Fourth Captain of the Blood Guard, Captain of the Jolly Roger, The Scourge of the Sea. You are Hook of the Prism Guard and you are her captain.'
The captain's head whipped towards his wench, staring at her body in a state of shock and denial. He ripped his hand away from the boy's, the mark fading away and once again, he saw the vivacious and vibrant vixen that he had wanted to break so badly, only to fall in love with her...only to lose her and to learn that she was the Star Child. He reached out to her, his hands roaming over her and brushing through her hair.
It wasn't supposed to be this way! This was supposed to be her home! A place of refuge, a sanctuary, a place where she belonged and was respected, treated fairly with people that genuinely cared! He killed her...he killed his wench, his very soul lay dead before him, and then it hit him and hit him hard...he brutally beat, raped, and murdered the mother of Silver Jones...the young man that had never feared him, that he considered to be a dear friend...he really was a monster.
'Stop that. My godmother would slap you into the next century for even thinking that you're a monster. For starters...monsters don't cry and you're making your own damn sea. Secondly, those bruises were not caused by you. Do you have an idea how many times she has been bowled over intentionally on this bloody ship?! That's what caused and not you!
You took excellent care of her and you didn't even know that you were. Your subconscious mind knew something was wrong so your body reacted and always saw to her needs which is why you started having sex with her almost constantly. Why because it's a highly intensive form exercise that helps my godmother metabolize any pollutants within her body...in this case, poison.'
'What? What poison? We shared everything together. I would be dead too if that were the case.'
'Not everything. You said it yourself...that you would never get it back and you were being poisoned but it wasn't enough to cause any kind of permanent damage...at least not yet...another few months and it would have been. My godmother has the ability to gain immunity to almost every toxin, venom, herb, poison, and chemical in existence. It's how so many lives have been saved because an antidote could always be produced from my godmother's blood, but only with proper food and rest.
In order to metabolize the more lethal varieties, she has to keep ingesting it and have an insane amount of exercise. By you taking her to your bed all the time, she was actually being saved from the very poison that was meant for you. The reason why she's dead is because the dosage had been significantly increased.'
He stared at the boy, his mouth open and his mind going in circles. The boy walked over to the table where the remnants of the evening meal were still present and grabbed the wine cup. He dumped the contents of a plate into another so he could pour the remaining fluid out. The Captain stood, slowly walking over to the table. His eyes held confusion because the normally red tinted wine was an eery purple tinged in a sickly green. That kind of coloring he had only seen once...on the arm Liam Jones had cut with a certain poisonous barbed plant.
'Morrie...is that what I think it is?'
'Dreamshade and at its purest form. The reason she died last night was because certain individuals got tired of waiting for the diluted form to work, knowing that if she stayed alive long enough, she would forever gain immunity to it...and one day create an inoculation that would render dreamshade completely useless.'
'Who, Mordred? Who is responsible for this?'
'You won't find them, Captain.'
The Scourge of the Sea looked behind him but nothing was there. He felt a hand gently take hold of his ankle...a rather familiar looking gloved hand as he looked down. He was met by the rather creepy and glowing red eyes of the suited man that had prevented the Archmage from using magic against him. The figure removed his hand and it retreated back into the shadows.
'The three men responsible for my mistress's premature demise are currently in the care of myself and my two associates. I can assure you, Captain, that there are fates worse than death and they will most certainly wish for death...but it will never be granted. *turns his attention to the Druid boy* Young Master, your mother is waiting at the nearest port to Camelot. She will be taking custody of your godmother so that the extraction process may begin. She will need you to keep her Ladyship stabilized until the Dreamshade has been fully purged from her body.'
'She can be saved?'
'Yes, Captain, but only because of your efforts and the joining of our ranks. She has gained a resistance to Dreamshade but will not be able to gain immunity to it. Any amount will inflame the permanent damage left behind and die in a matter of minutes, but aside from that, she can and will be successfully revived. Lady Yuel has foreseen this as has the Young Master. Now if you'll excuse me. My associates would like very much to give a proper welcome to our guests; Mister Simeon Black, Mister Lawrence Hawthorne, and Mister Paul Jefferson.'
The captain's shadow lightened as the red eyes vanished, but he was very far away from sanity or stability at that moment...Black, Hawthorne, Jefferson...these three were the ones that the wench had railed against the most. Looking back, he could see it. The reason why she had practically hung onto him all the time, not wanting him to leave without her...she was afraid of them. He spoke briefly to his first mate, telling him to make for the nearest port to Camelot which was a two and half day journey if the winds stayed in their favor.
When he turned around, he noticed that his wench was now on her back and was dressed in white that faded into a steel blue color at the ends, the style similar to the outfits worn by and an order known as the Confessors. It was a surprisingly good look for her though he hadn't kept much of a wardrobe for her in the first place. He had kept ripping her clothes off all the time until this past year where she rarely wore clothes at all because he was pounding into her on his bed.
He looked down at himself and realized that he should probably get cleaned up and dressed. He wandered about his usual routine of getting bathed and clothed, having to stop himself from trying to speak to someone who could not hear him any longer. By the time he was done, he was crying again but this time he was engulfed by rage, a blind rage at that because when he came back to himself, the entirety of the wall mirror along with a majority of glassware and liquor bottles had been shattered. Blood dripped from his left hand, glass shards embedded deeply in the skin, his hand was definitely broken as was his wrist, and it was throbbing like a bitch, but it paled in comparison to losing her.
He looked as a gold flash caught his eye, the pain in his hand easing away. The druid boy stood next to him and he realized that little Morrie had used magic to heal him. He watched the boy's eyes flash again and the damage he had done to the environment reset itself.
'I was right. You are Noel's son.'
'Yes, Captain. I am the child of the Seeress and the Archmage of the Blood Guard, Yuel and Noel, but you might know them by their birth names, Morgana and Merlin.'
Hook blinked at that because he had basically ordered his wench to kill, not only her godson, but the Crown Prince of Camelot. He swallowed when he realized that he and his ship were heading to the port where the boy's mother was waiting. He was about to have an upfront and close encounter with the bloody Queen of Camelot.
'You don't have to worry, Captain. My mother would never kill one of our own, but more importantly, she wouldn't kill my godfather...well one of them anyways.'
'Godfather...after...I don't deserve that title. I don't deserve anything except a very long a tortuous death. Everything I touch dies, Mordred...dies or leaves or breaks or was never there at all.'
'Sounds to me like you could use a vacation.'
'*bitter chuckle* I can't just stop existing, Mordred. It doesn't work like that.'
'Stop...no, but you can let him take control. Though it will be a bitch to come back out again.'
Him? Who was the boy talking about? His mind flashed to a dream he had shortly after Silver's departure from the Jolly Roger. In that weird seascape, there had been two of him but the other waa nothing more than a fragment...was it strong enough to take control?
'Not before, no, but you having constant contact with my godmother...a mirror once shattered has been made a new. He sleeps inside of you...the one known as Killian Jones...waiting to awaken.'
'But if the mirror has been reformed then what does that make me? An echo, a memory, the darkness...is that who I am? The darkness of Killian Jones; all his wickedness and cruelty, his lust and bloodlust, his rage and his hatred?'
'No...you are James Hook and you have a mirror of your own. You and Killian Jones are two separate beings trapped within the same body. You slept for a long time and became molded to his shape. Now that he has been remade, he must step into your shoes so that he may understand both you and himself.'
Hook glanced at the prone and still form of the woman that had claimed his blackened heart and had become the very light of his soul. She died for him. All of this pain and suffering just to try and protect him and he realized that if he did this, if he relinquished control to the brat...he didn't want to come back out. She died to keep him safe so he will gladly bury himself inside the brat's mind and never breach the surface again. He would protect her from himself but also from herself.
Two and a half days later, the Jolly Roger docked at the port and the Queen of Camelot boarded the ship, along with a bed of flowers. The Scourge of the Sea appeared above deck with the body of his wench and gently placed her onto it. He leaned down and kissed her goodbye, knowing that even if she returned, he would not be the one she would find but she would find the brat, one Killian Jones. He had spent the journey to the port editing his memories so that the boy would think the absolute worst of him and recoil away from Hook to become a different person entirely.
He stepped back as his eyes descended to the wooden flooring of the deck. He mildly surprised when the druid boy hugged him and saying that he loved him which caused the captain's jaw to clench as he fought the tears trying to flood his eyes. He did manage to hug the boy back and to stay in plenty of trouble...this earned a snort of amusement from his mother.
'Who do you think is always saving that idiot brother of mine and his so called elite knights? They would be dead a thousand times over were it not for my son or my husband saving them all the time.
*To her son* Gwaine has volunteered himself to ride with you. He has been saving up all of his notes on the new pranking ideas so off you go to get your head crammed full of ideas that I fully expect to be implemented once Her Ladyship has been confined to bed rest. She'll go mad otherwise.'
'Ya know, Mum, you could have just said Go away, Morrie, while I stay and watch your godfather have an identity crisis.'
His mother's eyes narrowed at her son before her eyes flashed gold, making the boy yelp in pain and rubbing the back of his head like he had just been Gibbs smacked. The child smirked, completely unrepentant before saying his final goodbyes to Mister Smee and the crew.
The High Priestess of the Old Religion regarded the man known as The Scourge of the Sea...more like he wanted to drop into the sea and never come back up. The man before her was broken, splintered, but he had yet to shatter though that would change one day. The way he was looking at her, his eyes black eyes dull and clouded, like he was waiting for her judgment or perhaps to pass sentence on him. Sweet Menti Celesti...these people were hard work young and there was just so much...angst and emo bullshit.
'If you are looking for condemnation, James, then I suggest you seek it elsewhere because I have none to give. I bear you no ill will, no misfortune, nor do I carry any rage or hatred in my heart for you. In fact, my heart breaks for you. You are not the first she has died for and you most certainly will not be the last. I would ask you to change your course but I have already foreseen that you won't.
There is something I wish to give to you. You are the only person with the exception of her doctor and her truest believer that she would entrust it with. *walks over to Artz and removes her pendant then walks over to the silently crying pirate who doesn't even realize that he's crying.*
You may not wish to ever return, but the same cannot be said of her. The exact moment is in flux but she will call out to you, crying and pleading for you to come back. I know that you love her, that she is your soul, so when that day comes, don't ignore her, don't hesitate, and this pendant will be your guide. *places the Tardis pendant around his neck* It is a physical manifestation of her soul and it's light will be a guiding star. She's not called the Star Child for shits and giggles.'
This comment made the captain let out a short bark of choked and wet laughter. Yuel gave him a small smile as she placed both hands on his face, cupping his cheeks and wiping away the steady stream of tears.
'Everything be alright...eventually but I know you're tired so I'm going to sing you a lullaby to make it easier for you to sail the land of dreams.'
Artz: And...CUT!!!
Light: Are you using Sleepsong for this one?
Artz: How the hell should I know? I haven't even picked out Yuel's or Noel's personal theme tunes either.
Light: But you did settle on mine, right?
Artz: Yep. Now enough jabber jawwing! We're literally stuck at a between stage where neither Hook or Poseidon technically exist or haven't you noticed that they haven't suddenly butted into this article?
Light: *blinks a few* Fuck me.
Artz: Must you always have sex on the brain, Light?
Light: It was a figure of speech but now that you mentioned it...
Artz: *punts him out of the article* Goodbye! Right then, back to work then I'll be posting this beaut asap.
Loved this post! Thanks for writing it! :)
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