39
Truths like fists
Captain Calico Pierce
T wo days.
Or had it been five?
Seven? Ten?
Uncountable days in this pit of stone and rot, where the only light came from the crack between the iron bars. No windows. No air. No sea. Just the stench of sweat, blood, and damp earth. The kind of place that suffocated you from the inside out, wrapping its fingers around your throat until you forgot what it was like to breathe. Until you forgot the smell of the ocean.
Uncountable days since I drank from the glasses. Poison thick on my tongue, coating my throat until it stole my voice.
Uncountable days of fists slamming into my ribs, boots kicking at my legs, of questions I didn’t have the answers to.
Uncountable days of wondering why they hadn’t just killed me already, wondering what was keeping me alive in this hell .
But mostly—uncountable days of her scream, tearing through me even more with each second that passed. Uncountable days of that howl of heartbreak that the winds would carry forever, crashing against my soul every time a breeze hit me in the face. Uncountable days of the sound that would haunt me like the endless tides.
Uncountable days of prayers and begging to the winds to take her far away.
And then, after uncountable days, the bars of the cell cracked open.
I lifted my head, vision blurry with blood and sweat. A body was thrown in, limp, barely recognizable. But as soon as the door slammed shut and I saw the face—the twisted mess of his once sharp features—my blood boiled.
Alastair.
And before I could think, before I could stop myself, I was on him. Wanting to do what I had dreamed of during all these countless days.
I grabbed him by the collar and slammed him into the ground, the sound of bone against stone echoing in the walls.
My fist came down hard—once, twice—flesh splitting under my knuckles as I drove every bit of rage into him.
“You told me she needed to wear that dress!” I yelled between punches, my voice hoarse but alive again, fury pulling it from the depths.
Another punch. Blood spattered across the floor, but I didn’t stop. “You gave me the bloody dress! ”
His head snapped back with each blow, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t stop. “It was you who gave me the dress!” Another one. Increasingly stronger. “You let him lie to her!” Punch. “I didn’t make any bloody deal! And you let him talk!” Punch. “And talk!” Punch. “And talk!” Punch. “You knew I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t answer her!” My voice cracked. “You knew about the glasses.”
And suddenly, I felt tears running down my eyes. “I couldn’t give her an answer. I couldn’t talk.”
I stumbled back with my voice. “Knowing the truth… and you let him lie.”
All that anger repressed for days, now in his face, in every swollen cut I put there.
“You lied to her,” I whispered.
“You did too, my captain.”
And with those broken words, a tear fell, and I closed my eyes to hold on to the only thing I had left. The memory.
Because it was true. I lied to her. About everything.
I lied about how painfully aware I had been of her existence since Ventus put her in my every thought. How all I had been able to hear since I was a boy were the winds whispering about some Lady of Love. About how every night I’ve had dreams about Lady Love. Nightmares about her too. About how just because of that I got sent away, banished alone, how they made an orphan out of that little boy. About how it was true that I found a family aboard a ship, in the sea, with him, Captain Tristan Pierce.
About how the day I turned twenty-one and became captain, the winds gave me those sails, and how I kept asking myself why. About how then, the very same winds that propelled those sails began to whisper a name too. Tidia.
About how I followed the sails, the winds, and the whispers, to those shores.
About how I found her there.
About how after so many years of hearing whispers about her, of dreaming about the concept of her, I could finally put a face to what had been my torment and ruin for so many years.
About how the first thing I thought when I saw her on those shores, was that I had never seen anything more beautiful in my miserable life. About how I had studied and stole every masterpiece, every marble statue, every painting kissed by the hand of a genius, and how nothing I had ever laid eyes on compared to her. About how the first thing I thought when I saw her, was how selfish I felt for being sad because I understood that no artist could ever capture the way she moved and the way she breathed, and therefore her true essence and beauty could never be portrayed in history justly. About how the first thing I thought was that she was beyond anything I had ever known, beyond art itself.
About how I would have gotten down on my knees in that instant and given her the Nine Seas if she had just asked for them. About how I thought that after seeing her face for the first time, every torment that little boy once felt, had been worth it .
About how every night, there she was, the same girl dipping her feet in the water and muttering something to the sea… Always whispering to the waves that Lady Love.
About how I must have looked like a madman, visiting those shores every night for years trying to comprehend what the winds might want from me and this Lady Love of his.
About how one of those nights, Duke told me about Dara. About how from all the nights we visited Tidia’s port in secret, he met a woman who worked in the palace and maybe could help us find some information about The Vile Phantom. Of how I forgot all about that bloody ship, because for the first time in my life, revenge wasn’t the only thing in my mind.
About how I lied to Dara too. How I told her about a map that I needed to find that ship, how I needed for her to look in the palace for a map… but I really didn’t want it. I needed to know about this Lady Love who I had watched for so many nights laughing at the law, sneaking out of that palace to just come to the shores and talk to the ocean and the moon.
About how my heart ached every night I watched that knight take her hand and help her break the law.
How he was always there. Between us.
And about how when a couple of years passed and Dara started to sense my lie, I had to tell her everything. Every detail.
About how I begged her to bring me my Lady of Love.