light_mischief | [come sail away] ic inbox (season 1)

"No," Skulduggery quickly replies, a knee-jerk reaction more than an honest response. After a beat, he repeats the word more firmly, a little more sure of himself. "No. I don't think so. Even when my family was killed, even after Serpine killed me, I... I just wanted revenge. I didn't want... all of this."

But, of course, he had wanted power. He'd needed power. He'd needed to be able to crush the people in his way. Even when he'd forgotten who his rage was supposed to be for, he'd wanted to be stronger. Every mountain has a summit.

"It's not always about choice, though. Sometimes, things... escalate. You don't notice what's happening until it's already too late to stop it."

She listens intently, a growing sense of concern unable to be masked on her face.

"What... do you mean?"

It's a non-sequitur, she doesn't understand why he'd connect himself to the Captain like this, and she doesn't like the vague shapes her mind is grasping at to fill in the gap.

"I- what? You're nothing like the Captain, of course you wouldn't want this."

"No, no. Of course I wouldn't." He doesn't like boats, for one thing. Doesn't like water at all. "I'm only saying, if he was a man to begin with, he might not have started down this path with all of this in mind."

He really, really doesn't know. All the information is out there -- but he keeps making stupid mistakes, asking the wrong questions, never pressing hard enough. Like he's afraid of some kind of consequence.

"I'm nothing like the captain," he adds. It feels necessary to point out -- and he doesn't like that necessity. "I would never trap people for my own entertainment."

"Well, good."

There's... something here. Some tension, some evasiveness that she feels deep in her gut. Like picking up on subtle tells before someone's about to strike, something instinctive. And because she knows him, knows he's slippery and doesn't like saying things bluntly. But she's got nothing to actually pin him on, and like always Darcy wishes she was more clever. If it were the other way around, Skulduggery would've found some way in and flayed her open by now, pulling secrets like teeth from her. She hated feeling like she wasn't on the same footing as the people around her.

"What reason would anyone have to do this? Even if he didn't think it would end up like this exactly, I can't... understand it."

"Neither can I." At least he's sure of that. "I thought the whole point was to drive us mad and then kill us to harvest the energy. But that's not it at all."

If it was, he would have poisoned the lobster or encouraged somebody to set fire to the room. He would have killed Darcy, taken something from her. Maybe give them a display of his ability to reanimate their corpses after being torn apart.

"I have no idea what he's doing," Skulduggery admits. "I genuinely thought he would have done something to us at the dinner. I thought..." He tilts his head, remembering something Darcy had said just a minute ago. "You said he offered you a bargain, right? What kind of bargain?"

"Once he had my sword stuck in him, he... asked what it was worth to me. Why I should get it back. I offered... a week of solitary confinement, and all he wanted was for me to beg and say please. And don't get me wrong, it fucking sucked, but I don't get it. Why wouldn't he take the thing that would hurt me more?"

"Who knows," Skulduggery groans, tilting his head back briefly towards the ceiling. "Maybe he thought begging would be worse? Maybe... instant gratification?" That one feels a little more realistic, at least.

"You being stuck in your room all week would have been boring. Having you beg in front of everybody for your sword back was more fun. It could be as simple as that." That's been the only standard that's held true so far, anyway.

"It's not a fucking holiday, and it wouldn't have been boring for him. Have you been locked somewhere with only your own thoughts for a week? It's fucking hell. So either-"

Darcy's indignation at the idea of her own suffering being boring simmered down a little.

"Either he's not as omnipotent on the ship as we think he is, or he doesn't want to just see us relive shit we've already been through."

He leans heavily on his elbows, rolling both options over. "If it were about repeating trauma, then it would stand to reason that no two excursions going forward will be the same." At least that would mean they'd be less likely to be forced to kill one another.

"He can travel around the ship, be anywhere he wants whenever he wants, but maybe that's it. He'd have to be near you to enjoy the fruits of your torment." He thinks that over a little more and realizes, well, obviously. There's already one thing Skulduggery knows about the ship that the captain seemingly doesn't...

He stands abruptly and goes over to the dresser, pulling open the third drawer to reveal the pictures, his second gun, the ammunition and, tucked neatly away beside his holsters, the lei he'd been given at the muster drill.

"He didn't know about this," he says, lifting the thing up between his fingers. Not bringing it out of the drawer, though -- the paranoia's set in deep, unfortunately, but maybe right now caution is best.

She nods along with what he's saying, and then when he seems to... fiddle with something in the drawer without taking it out, she stands up from the couch to get a look at it.

"Okay- I'm going to ask about why you have a bunch of us in your drawer in a bit, but what do you mean he didn't know about this? I thought Friday gave them to us, why wouldn't he...?"

He tilts his head very slightly upward, his own way of rolling his eyes. But she's right, the pictures can wait.

"When I first spoke to him, I was asking about the resurrection process. I was convinced it had something to do with the leis, you see -- maybe they bound our spirits, somehow, or otherwise kept us impervious to actual death. But when I asked about them, he didn't know what I was talking about."

He doesn't answer her trailing question, because frankly, he doesn't know. "I don't remember anything special about it at the time."

She gives him a small bump on the arm with her elbow, because fuck you Skulduggery don't roll your orbitals at her.

Still, Darcy had barely paid attention to her lei when she first got it. She was too fuming with outrage to even entertain looking at it, and now seeing it again was... weird. Had there always been lotus seeds on them? And what about the white disks?

Failing any other method of investigation, she leans into the drawer and attempts to put one of the white disks between her teeth.

You know who does have some idea of what those white disks might be? It's the same guy who's currently staring at Darcy like she's a manaic.

"What on Earth are you doing?" He's definitely trying to swat it away from her mouth. "Are you a toddler?"

It doesn't stay in her mouth for very long- she might not know bone by sight but the mix of the feeling of it between her teeth and it sticking to her tongue has her removing it just as Skulduggery tries to swat it away from her.

"Hey!-" she hisses at his accusation of being a toddler- "I was trying to work out what it was and if it did anything- don't fucking-"

She batted at his hand in retaliation.

"By biting it," he exclaims, "You tried to work out what it did by biting it!"

He's acting like he hasn't done stupid shit like this before. I guarantee this guy has stuck some weird shit in his mouth before and after he had a tongue for it to stick to.

"A mysterious magical artifact of unknown origin and purpose, and you chew on it like a teething ring..."

Edited 2022-05-25 00:22 (UTC)

"It's something people wouldn't think to do!" she argued back, "and I didn't fucking chew on it! I just tested it- fuck me for trying to help, ehn?!"

This was also not the first time Darcy had put something in her mouth for the sake of working out what it is. Ever had to try and work out if something is water or blood or ectoplasm in a dark building without turning a light on?

"And what would you have done if it did activate with spit or pressure or heat, fucker?"

"Well, I still have teeth, and I literally summon fire with a snap of my fingers, so..." He's honestly just teasing her at this point. She can handle it, he figures! She's tough enough and they've established that he's not trying to humiliate her.

"Now we know it doesn't in fact, do anything when you lick it." Actually, you know what, good question, it bears asking. "You... didn't feel anything, did you? Nothing tingly, or fizzy, or particularly acidic?"

"Oh so now you want to know if there's anything weird about how it tastes," she's going to take this moment to be superior in the face of his teasing.

"But no, it didn't taste weird, it just tasted like bone. Which we wouldn't have known, if I didn't put it in my mouth."

"Well, good. Now we know it's bone. And lotus pods, and... feathers." He's not really a bird guy, and he's definitely not a charms guy. The only people he could think of who would know what to do with this aren't here, and he's not hoping to see them any time soon.

"There's a man aboard named Palamedes who I plan to take this to." He shrugs. "He's supposed to be good with items. It's not my focus, so we'll have to rely on his abilities." He hesitates, then adds, "We can't let the captain know about these until we understand what they're for and who they're from. They're obviously not from him, which means they're not likely from Friday..."

"Oh- nerd with the glasses, ehn? The necromancer? I met him, apparently I remind him of his totally-not-girlfriend from back in his world. Because of the sword thing."

Darcy retreated from the offending lei to place herself back down on the couch.

"I'll work out where I dumped mine. Maybe we should do some experiments on it, see what happens if you take something off them?"

Another orbital-roll head-tilt. He imagines it wasn't her charming personality that struck a nostalgic chord...

Skulduggery weighs the offending object in his hand, briefly fiddling with a lotus pod before deciding not to be quite so impulsive as the teenager he just reprimanded. Instead, he sets the lei carefully back in beside the traced photos, shutting the drawer with his foot.

"We can't rush anything, but you're right. We'll have to do some tests." He hums briefly in thought. "The bone was why I thought it might have something to do with the resurrection process. The feathers, I've got nothing. The only thing that comes to mind for lotuses is the Odyssey." And they aren't exactly harbingering good things in that story.

C'mon Skully, you know you want to bite it.

"The Odyssey?" She asks, quickly clarifying- "I know what it is, don't give me the whole fucking story, but I've never actually read it, and I don't know where the lotuses come in."

He chuckles. Well, okay, fine, you caught him there. "It's been a while since I read it myself, but... In the story, they come across an island of peaceful people who offered them seeds from the lotus flower. When they ate them, they would forget about their homes, their loved ones... and they would never want to leave the island."

A beat.

"Again, it's been a while." But the story has some... unsettling connections with their situation, even if only superficially.

"Is it too late for you to not tell me that?" she jokes reflexively, rubbing her arm with her hand. It was... unsettling, the idea of losing every memory of home, but it also hadn't exactly happened yet. She still remembers cooking for her mother and singing along badly to the Spice Girls and BTS on the way to fencing competitions, her life back home retains richness and reality that hasn't faded yet, even with the circumstances.

"It doesn't have to mean that's what the thingies are trying to do. It could be a warning. Maybe we should find some of Homo's other works, see if there's anything about roosters or bone disks in them."

"Homer," he corrects, utterly deadpan. "And I agree, I don't think that's the case here. It could be that the leis use the lotus as protection against losing our memories. Sort of like the hair of the dog that bit you."

[come sail away] ic inbox (season 1)

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