Chapter 20: An Unfinished Song
The water, once a realm of intimacy, turned practical. The chill seeped into human bones faster than siren blood could ignore. Leona shivered, a full-body shudder that broke the silent communion between them.
“You’re turning blue,” Vil observed, his fingers tracing a vein in Leona’s wrist. “A rather unattractive shade.”
“And you’re part fish. Out we go.” Leona’s teeth didn’t chatter, but it was a near thing. He swam the short distance to the ship’s hull, the rope ladder cold and slimy under his grasp. He hauled himself up, muscles protesting the sudden gravity. Leaning over, he extended a hand. “Come on. Up you get.”
Vil eyed the ladder with distaste. “It’s inelegant.”
“You can shimmer and sing men to their doom, but a rope ladder’s a challenge?” Leona’s grin was sharp in the moonlight. “Need me to carry you?”
“Don’t be absurd.” Vil grasped the ropes. The transformation back had already begun; he needed to be out of the water for it to complete fully. With a graceful, powerful twist of his tail, he propelled himself halfway up, catching the next rung with ease. His tail shimmered, the scales seeming to melt and recede as he climbed, the water sluicing off him. By the time he reached the rail, his legs were back, pale and bare. Leona grabbed a blanket from the deck and wrapped it around his shoulders, then another around his own waist.
The main deck was deserted, littered with empty cups and the fading scent of gunpowder from the fireworks. A single lantern still glowed by the helm. They moved through the quiet, their footsteps soft on the worn wood, a world apart from the raucous celebration of hours before.
The captain’s quarters welcomed them with the familiar scent of salt-polished wood, old parchment, and the residual warmth from the earlier fire in the small grate. Leona barred the door behind them, sealing them in the cozy, cluttered space. Maps of unfamiliar coastlines were pinned to one wall, next to a rack of well-kept cutlasses. A large, scarred desk was heaped with ledgers and navigational instruments. And in the corner, beside the wide bed, sat the copper bathtub.
It looked ludicrous. A domestic object in the heart of a pirate’s den.
Leona went to the tub first. “Right,” he muttered, more to himself than to Vil. He dragged it a few inches from the wall, the metal screeching against the floorboards. He then moved to a sea chest, rummaging past spare pistols and rolled charts to pull out every spare blanket, sheet, and scrap of sailcloth he could find.
Vil watched from the center of the room, the blanket held tight around his shoulders. He was dripping onto the rug. “What are you doing?”
“Making it less of a miserable tin coffin,” Leona grunted, layering the fabrics into the tub. He folded a thick wool blanket for the bottom, then arranged softer linens over it, creating a padded nest. It was lumpy and uneven, but it was a vast improvement over bare, cold copper. He stood back, frowning at his work. “It’s not a pearl-lined grotto.”
“It’s… thoughtful,” Vil said, his voice quiet.
“It’s necessary. You’ll shrivel up like a barnacle if you spend all night in a bed. The bath’s the only thing that’ll hold enough water.” Leona walked to a large ceramic water jug and lifted it. “Cold, I’m afraid. The galley fire’s out.”
“Cold is fine.” Vil let the blanket drop and stepped toward the tub. The lamplight gilded his skin, highlighting the subtle, powerful lines of his body. He moved with an unconscious grace that made the utilitarian act of climbing into a bathtub look like a ritual.
Leona poured the water carefully, the sound loud in the quiet room. It covered Vil’s feet, then his calves as he sat down, drawing his knees up. Leona fetched another jug, and another, until the water reached Vil’s mid-thigh. He’d need to shift to wet his tail entirely when it returned, but it would sustain him through the night.
Vil settled into the makeshift nest, arranging the linen around him. He looked absurdly regal, like a deposed king in a makeshift throne. He looked beautiful. Leona felt a sharp, sweet ache in his chest.
“Comfortable?” The word came out rougher than he intended.
“As one can be in a metal bucket,” Vil replied, but he leaned his head back against the folded edge, a sigh of relief escaping him as the water embraced his skin. The tension of the day—the battle, the healing, the emotional upheaval—seemed to leach out of him into the still water.
Leona busied himself drying off properly and pulling on clean, soft trousers. The silence wasn’t awkward; it was dense, full of the promises they’d just made in the dark sea. He banked the last embers in the grate, then walked to the tub. He crouched beside it, eye-level with Vil.
“Tomorrow,” Leona said, his voice low. “We start looking. For that cove.”
Vil’s amethyst eyes were heavy-lidded but alert. “Somewhere with a deep channel close to shore. Sheltered. Freshwater nearby would be ideal.”
“I know what we need.” Leona reached out and brushed a strand of damp, blonde hair from Vil’s forehead. The gesture was so simple, so domestic, it felt more profound than any kiss. “We’ll find it. We’ve got a ship full of excellent thieves and scouts. And a siren who can probably sweet-talk the fish into giving us directions.”
A faint smile touched Vil’s lips. “Perhaps.”
Leona leaned in and kissed him. It was a soft, closed-mouth kiss, a seal on a pact. “Goodnight, Vil.”
He stood and turned toward his bed, but Vil’s voice stopped him. “Leona.”
He looked back.
Vil was watching him, his expression unreadable in the dim light. “You will… you will be right there? In the bed?”
“Where else would I be?” Leona asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I just… I haven’t slept apart from you since…” Vil trailed off, his pride clearly wrestling with the admission.
Since the storm. Since they began sharing the bed. Since he started falling asleep to the sound of Leona’s breathing.
Leona understood. The space between the tub and the bed felt like a canyon. “I’m three feet away,” he said, his tone gentler than usual. “I snore. You’ll hear me.”
He blew out the last lantern, plunging the room into darkness broken only by the sliver of moonlight through the window. He could hear the soft slosh of water as Vil adjusted his position. He climbed into his own bed, the sheets cool and empty. It felt wrong. For weeks now, the bed had been a tangle of limbs and warmth, Vil’s hair fanned across the pillows, his cool skin a contrast to Leona’s heat. Now, there was only space.
He stared at the ceiling, listening to the rhythmic creak of the ship and the quieter, occasional movement of water from the tub. His mind, usually so quick to quiet into lazy indifference, was a riot.
A siren. A human. A pirate captain and a creature of the deep. A child that was both and neither, growing in a body meant for saltwater. How in the seven hells did you build a life from that?
He thought of land. Solid ground. A house? The idea was laughable. He’d been born in a palace and had chosen the deck of a ship. Stability was a rocking hull, not a foundation of stone. But Vil needed it. The baby would need it. A place where Vil could slip into the sea at dawn and return at dusk. A place with a door Leona could walk through.
He thought of his crew. Ruggie, Jack, Epel, Rook. They were his. But they were pirates. They craved the open sea, the chase, the plunder. Would they accept a life half on shore? Would they follow him into domesticity? The thought of Ruggie tending a garden instead of picking pockets was almost as absurd as the bathtub in the corner.
But then he remembered Ruggie whispering to Rook by the firelight. Jack laughing as he danced with Epel. They had changed, too. The ship was no longer just a vessel for theft; it had become a home for strays. Perhaps it could stretch to include a real one.
His thoughts spiraled, a tangle of logistics and impossibilities. But through every thread, one truth burned clear and steady: he loved Vil. He loved him with a ferocity that frightened him. He loved his sharp tongue and his secret kindness, his devastating beauty and his stubborn pride. He loved the life growing inside him, a tiny, unknown thing that was part of them both.
That was the only foundation he had. That love. It was more solid than any rock, more navigable than any sea chart. Everything else was just… details. Problems to be solved. He was good at solving problems. He’d stolen a crown prince’s treasure from under his nose. He could figure out how to build a hatch door that led from a house to a deep-water cove.
From the tub, he heard a whisper. “Leona?”
“Mm?”
“Are you awake?”
“No. I’m sleep-talking.”
A soft splash. “I can feel you thinking from over here. It’s loud.”
Leona smiled in the dark. “Go to sleep.”
“I can’t. The water’s getting cold.”
“Complain to the galley in the morning.”
Silence fell again. Then, “Do you think it will know?”
“Know what?”
“The baby. Will it know me? Will it be… frightened of what I am?”
The raw vulnerability in Vil’s voice lanced through Leona. He sat up on one elbow, peering through the gloom toward the tub. “It’ll know you’re its mother. And you’re not frightening. You’re annoying.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” Leona lay back down. “It’ll know your voice. It’ll know the songs you sing when you think I’m asleep. It’ll know you’re the most beautiful thing it’s ever seen. It’ll probably be a vain little terror, just like you.”
He heard a shaky exhale from the tub. It might have been a laugh.
“It will be perfect,” Leona stated, his voice leaving no room for argument. “And it will be ours. That’s all that matters.”
This time, the silence that followed was peaceful. Leona listened until Vil’s breathing evened out into the slow, deep rhythm of sleep. Only then did he allow his own eyes to close. The last thing he was aware of was the scent of saltwater and clean linen, and the soft, steady sound of his love breathing in the dark, three feet away.
The last thing he was aware of was the scent of saltwater and clean linen, and the soft, steady sound of his love breathing in the dark, three feet away. Dawn was a gray intrusion, a slow seep of light that revealed Vil asleep, curled in the copper tub, his hair floating like spun gold in the cloudy water. Leona watched the steady rise and fall of his chest, the perfect face relaxed in slumber, and the canyon between the bed and the tub felt wider than the sea.
He rose silently, moving through his morning routine with a focused intensity that was rare before coffee. The problem sat in the corner of his room. Six hours was a miser’s bargain. It was breakfast, a walk on deck, and an argument before the sun even hit its peak. It wasn’t a life. It was scheduled visits.
“We’re putting in at Port Serein,” Leona announced later that morning, his boot propped on the map table. The crew, variously hungover, looked up. “We need fresh victuals. Citrus. And nails. Lots of nails.”
Ruggie squinted, massaging his temple. “Nails? Since when do you care about carpentry?”
“Since now. We’re going to be building things.” Leona’s gaze flickered to Vil, who was perched on a barrel, his human legs dangling. He had two hours left. “A shore party. Me, Vil, Ruggie, Jack. Epel and Rook, you have the deck. Don’t burn it down.”
Port Serein was a bustling, bawdy stain on the coastline, a labyrinth of steep, muddy streets reeking of fish, forge-smoke, and fermenting garbage. Leona navigated it with a prowler’s ease, Vil a step behind, his expression one of profound aesthetic offense. “It smells like a tavern floor died,” Vil muttered, deftly avoiding a puddle of dubious origin.
“That’s the charm,” Leona said, his eyes scanning the crowded market stalls not for fruit or nails, but for something else entirely. He saw herb-sellers, bone-charmers, vendors of dubious tonics. Too obvious. He needed the real grime.
He found it in an alley that smelled of wet stone and spoiled herbs. The sign was a sun-bleached bird skull hanging above a curtain of beaded seaweed. A witch doctor. Not the forest-dwelling kind from stories, but a coastal pragmatist. The woman inside was all sinew and shrewd eyes, her hands stained with dye and something that looked like old blood.
“We need to talk,” Leona said, dropping a heavy purse on her cluttered workbench. The coins clinked, a universal language.
Her eyes, the color of storm-clouds, moved from Leona’s face to Vil’s. She didn’t seem surprised. Port towns saw everything. “The pretty one’s not from around here,” she stated, her voice a dry rustle.
“He’s got a scheduling problem,” Leona said, ignoring Vil’s sharp glare. “Six hours of legs a day. Needs more.”
The woman laughed, a short, barking sound. “You want a love potion? I sell those. They work on fishwives, not fish-men.”
Leona didn’t blink. “I don’t want a love potion. I want a time potion. Something that lets him keep this form. Longer.”
She was quiet for a long moment, her gaze assessing Vil with clinical curiosity. “The change is in the blood. Deep magic. To stretch time… you don’t alter the magic. You nourish the vessel that holds it.” She turned, rummaging in a shelf of cracked jars. She pulled down a vial of something that glowed with a faint, internal amber light. “This is concentrated sea-wyrm bile. Mixed with dawn-kelp nectar and a binder of moon-tide silt. It fortifies the physical form against the metaphysical pull. Like strengthening a wineskin.”
Vil leaned forward, his amethyst eyes critical. “What are the side effects?”
“Dry skin,” she said with a shrug. “A slight luminescence at night for a few hours after taking it. Nothing dire. It’s not a permanent fix. A single vial will extend your time by… maybe six more hours. Twelve total. For one day. Then it’s gone.”
“How many do you have?” Leona’s voice was tight.
“Three.”
“We’ll take them all.”
The witch doctor’s price was steep. It cleaned out the purse and required the silver buttons from Leona’s coat. He paid without hesitation, palming the three warm vials. They felt dangerously fragile.
Back on the cobbled street, Vil caught his arm. The market noise swirled around them. “This is alchemy, Leona. Not science.”
“It’s a solution.” Leona stopped, turning to face him. The desperation he’d been tamping down since the night before flickered in his eyes. “I need more than six hours with you. I need to fall asleep with you in my bed and wake up with you still there. Is that clear?”
Vil’s protest died. He gave a single, sharp nod. “When do we try it?”
“Tonight.”
The word hung between them on the crowded street, a pact sealed in the smell of rotten fish and forge smoke. Leona’s hand clenched around the vials in his pocket, the glass warm against his thigh.
Back aboard the Savanaclaw, the ordinary rhythm of the day felt like a lie. Leona barked orders about stowing supplies, his mind elsewhere. Vil stayed at the rail, watching the receding shore, his six-hour clock ticking down inside him. The crew noticed the tension but wisely kept to their tasks, the memory of their captain’s recent brush with death still too fresh for casual ribbing.
Nightfall came too quickly. The captain’s quarters felt like a laboratory.
Vil held the first vial up to a candle. The amber liquid glowed, swirling with tiny, phosphorescent specks. “Dry skin and luminescence. Charming.”
“Just drink it,” Leona said, his voice strained. He leaned against the desk, arms crossed, trying to look indifferent. His knuckles were white.
Vil uncorked it and swallowed. He grimaced. “It tastes of rancid honey and deep water.”
“You’re a poet.” Leona watched him, every sense screaming for a change, a sign. For a long minute, nothing happened. Then Vil shuddered, a full-body convulsion that made Leona lurch forward. A soft, golden light emanated from Vil’s skin, fading from his fingertips inward, lingering for a moment around his lips and eyes before winking out.
Vil looked down at his own hands, turning them over. He took a cautious step, then another. The usual pull, the deep ache that heralded the sea’s claim, was absent. It was just… him. In his body. He met Leona’s gaze, wonder breaking through his porcelain composure. “It’s quiet.”
Leona let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He closed the distance between them in two strides. His hands came up to frame Vil’s face, his thumbs stroking the high cheekbones. “Okay?”
“It’s… okay.” Vil leaned into the touch, his eyes fluttering shut for a second. When they opened, they held a new, unguarded warmth. The artificial extension of time felt like a stolen gift, a space to breathe.
Leona’s gaze drifted down, past the sharp line of Vil’s jaw, down the column of his throat. It snagged on the smooth plane of his stomach, visible where his shirt had ridden up. There, just below his navel, was a subtle, firm curve. It wasn’t much, just a slight rounding that disrupted the flawless, flat perfection Vil usually maintained. It was undeniable. Real.
Leona’s breath hitched. He’d felt it under his hands in the water, but seeing it was different. His hand slid down from Vil’s cheek, over his shoulder, coming to rest, palm flat, against that small, new swell. The warmth of Vil’s skin seeped into his hand. Life, their life, was physically reshaping the man he loved.
Vil watched his face, a flicker of self-consciousness in his amethyst eyes. “It’s begun to show.”
“I see that.” Leona’s voice was rough. He kept his hand there, as if he could feel the tiny heartbeat beneath. Then he remembered the other thing in his pocket, tucked away beside the remaining vials. He pulled it out.
It was a necklace, a simple chain of finely braided silver, from which hung a teardrop of polished abalone shell. It caught the candlelight, shimmering with a galaxy of blues, purples, and greens. He’d bought it from a silent old jeweller in a shadowed corner of Port Serein, trading the last of his good pistol flints for it.
“Here,” he said, the word oddly gruff. He didn’t offer an explanation. He just lifted the chain and fastened it around Vil’s neck. The abalone teardrop came to rest in the hollow of his throat, its colours shifting with every breath.
Vil looked down at it, then back up at Leona, his expression softening into something unbearably tender. He didn’t thank him. He just reached up and pulled Leona down into a kiss.
This kiss was a slow, deep exploration. It tasted of the sea-potions and shared promises. Leona walked him backward toward the bed, their mouths never parting, until the backs of Vil’s knees hit the mattress. They tumbled down together in a tangle of limbs, the world narrowing to the feel of linen, the sound of ragged breathing, and the new, profound reality of Vil’s body beneath his.
Leona took his time. He mapped every inch of revealed skin with his lips and tongue, worshipping the arc of a hip, the sensitive dip of a waist, the fascinating, firm curve of his stomach. He laid his head there for a moment, listening, before continuing his journey. The abalone shell on Vil’s necklace clicked softly against his teeth as he kissed a trail back up to Vil’s mouth.
When they joined, it was with a desperate, reverent slowness. Leona braced himself above Vil, looking down into his face, which was flushed and open. He moved with a rhythm that was pure feeling, each roll of his hips a wordless vow. The necklace brushed Vil’s collarbone with every thrust.
“The first time I saw you,” Leona began, his voice a raw whisper against Vil’s ear, “on that rock, singing in the storm… you looked like madness made beautiful. I thought you’d be the death of me.” He pressed a soft kiss to the corner of Vil’s mouth. “I was right. You just didn’t kill me the way I expected.”
Vil’s hands tightened on his back, his nails scoring lightly. “You looked at me like I was a problem to be solved.”
“You were.” Leona dipped his head, catching Vil’s lips again, swallowing his gasp. “The most captivating problem I’d ever seen. All that power, that voice, wrapped in…” he nipped at Vil’s lower lip, “this. I was entranced. I just hid it behind being an ass.”
His movements became more deliberate, deeper, seeking that place that made Vil’s back arch off the bed. The candlelight danced over them, over the sweat-sheened skin and the silver chain. “When I asked you to stay. To keep me company personally.” He let out a shaky breath, his rhythm faltering for a second with the weight of the memory. “I felt like a selfish bastard. I knew what I was asking. I knew the power I was playing with. I just wanted you so much I didn’t care.”
He stilled, buried deep inside Vil, and looked directly into his eyes. The green of his own was dark, stripped bare. “If I did anything… in those first days, in that cabin… if I took anything you didn’t want to give… I’m sorry.” The apology was blunt, unadorned, and it cost him something to say it. “I was a pirate claiming treasure. I didn’t know yet that you were a person to be loved.”
Vil’s eyes glistened. He pulled Leona down, crushing their mouths together in a kiss that was all salt and forgiveness. “You took nothing,” he breathed against his lips when they broke apart, his own voice wrecked. “I gave it. Arrogantly. I thought I was the one in control, luring you in. We were both fools.”
Leona laughed, a choked, breathless sound, and began to move again, the pace building, a tidal wave of sensation pulling them both under. The potion held. Vil’s legs stayed wrapped around his waist, human and strong. The small bump of their child pressed between them, a solid reminder of the future they were forging with every touch.
Their climax was a silent, shuddering convulsion that seemed to last forever, a flash of white-hot light behind their closed eyelids. Leona collapsed beside Vil, pulling him instantly into his arms, their hearts pounding a frantic, synchronized tattoo against each other’s chests.
In the heavy, spent silence, Vil traced the edge of the abalone shell at his throat. “You bought me a trinket.”
“Shut up,” Leona murmured into his hair, his body already heavy with the pull of sleep, the profound relief of Vil still being there, solid and warm in the circle of his arms. The candle guttered, but the necklace caught the last of the light, a tiny, shimmering promise against Vil’s skin in the dark.