Chapter Text
“Molly! How’s day one of being captain of your own ship? Also, how are Caleb and Essek and Verin? Beau and Yasha say hi.”
“Jester! I’ve already overturned a mutiny, and wrenched gold from the clutches of a kraken.” Molly looked up at the helm, where Caleb kept the helmsman they’d hired on funds they didn’t have (yet) on course to Darktow. Verin had taken to pacing the lower decks, upset about the fact he’d been spirited away from his original mission. Essek only came outside at night, and spoke to no one but the three of them. The rest of the crew had avoided the drow. “Our friends are singing sea shanties as we speak. Hello Yasha.”
Of course it wasn’t going to go perfectly. But a few weeks, a few drinking games, and a bit of team building via collaborative piracy, and everything would be in cobbled-together shape.
And if that didn’t work out, he’d find something that did.
“Molly! We’ve reached Port Damali. About to go explain ourselves to Beau’s coworkers and get beds until we get a ship. Any updates?”
“Jester!” A few of the deckhands around jumped at his exclamation before getting back to their work. After two weeks, there wasn’t a soul on board that didn’t know their captain got daily Sendings. “You are speaking to the lauded captain of the Nein Heroez, named courtesy of our redheaded magic man and yours truly. All compliments accepted.”
“Oooh, sounds cool! Why nine, though?”
“That would be our Zemnian friend’s word for no. We are simultaneously many heroes, and none at all. It’s perfectly confusing.”
Caleb waited patiently for Molly to be done, strands of escaped hair fluttering in his face. It was kind of funny, the way he seemed not to care, and rather cute for such a serious man.
“Only a guilty man has reason to hide,” he reassured the wizard again.
“We are very guilty of kidnapping the Dynasty’s Taskhand,” Caleb said flatly.
“On contraire, I feel no remorse.” Molly shaded his eyes to squint at the tiny, jagged island piercing out of the water. “Besides, what’re the odds they’ll still be there?”
Caleb crossed his arms. “You should ask that to Essek.”
“I think our Shadowhand would’ve said something by now if he thought we were walking into danger, don’t you?”
Caleb didn’t look happy about it, but Caleb didn’t look happy most of the time. Molly missed his smiles, even when they were fake.
“On to Darktow!” Molly announced. “Make sure we make spec-tacular first impressions, everyone!”
Caleb reminded him, “We have already been there.”
“Why Caleb, Darktow has met Molly, but I couldn’t deprive it the pleasure of meeting Captain Mollymauk of the Nein Heroez could I?”
“Molly! I’m a mom!
“Congratulations.”
It said something that the crew no longer paid attention when he spoke to no one out of the blue. Caleb and Verin did look at him, though.
When the Sending spell faded, Molly burst out laughing. Surely, surely Fjord didn’t. The man was way too responsible; which meant Jester meant something else entirely, but man did Jester know how to share information.
He couldn’t let her efforts go to waste.
“Our friend Jester’s a mother!”
The dichotomy of surprise, then worry from Verin and the utter lack of reaction from Caleb had Molly doubled over the rail of the ship cackling.
“Meaning?” Caleb asked.
“I think … she was pretty straight forward.” Molly fought to catch his breath.
“Well, congratulations,” Verin finally replied, shaking his head. “We can talk about that another time. The gundeck is ready.”
“Right, right, of course.” Molly was still giggling. “Remember, no fire, no giant black holes until we’ve recovered any prisoners. Gab! We’re giving chase!”
“Tell that to the people manning the sails!” their new helmswoman shouted back.
“You heard the woman!” Molly whirled, the crew already running to pre-arranged positions for their first gamble at raiding a ship. Molly found himself instinctively searching for black hair with white roots, and stopped himself there. “I hope you’re all hungry, ‘cause we’re having that ship for breakfast.”
“I am sure they could do without the theatrics.” Even as Caleb chided him, Molly didn’t miss the nervous glance he gave their target.
Verin turned to Caleb, all gaiety gone. “Show me you can show mercy, soldier,” he said, and Molly couldn’t help but wince.
Caleb took a moment before he responded. “I would prefer you did not call me that. I am no longer a servant of the Empire.”
“I know you say that. You need to prove it.”
“Hey, now.” Molly patted Verin on the shoulder, drawing the man’s attention. He had already donned the pieces of piecemeal they scrounged up for him in Darktow to replace his too recognizable ornamental armor. “My Quartermaster can’t be starting fights. What example would that set for my crew? Caleb will prove just that in time. Push a man into a corner and he’ll bear his claws, you know.”
Molly pressed his claws slightly into Verin’s unarmored shoulder playfully to prove his point, which was enough to get the hostile air to dissipate and crack a cocky smirk from the drow. “I’ve kept my soldiers in line by picking fights. The job’s no fun if no one uses claws.”
Molly’s tail flicked, and he stretched up to the ear peeking out of long white hair, purring loud enough not to feel private, “I can use my claws whenever you’d like.”
“Maybe we should reconsider our timing,” Caleb began dryly, “if you would rather bed your Quartermaster.”
Molly retracted, and Verin let him go, letting the subject drop and leaving to help with the ropes. “Just lightening the mood. If I could get a smile out of you, it’d be a total success.” Molly waited. Caleb held his stare, deadpan. “Ah well, still mostly a success.” He patted Caleb’s chest. The man must always be hot, with all the long sleeves he wore. “Come on now, don’t sink our ship. There’s work to be done!”
Jester’s message woke him up the next morning.
“Molly! We named them Mycil. Caduceus was making this really cool analogy about mushrooms and how we’re all connected and it was fate that Mycil—”
Molly’s head throbbed, the result of the prior night’s celebration of their first successful fight. He laid, eyes closed, and tried to parse what she was saying, but she cast again before he could say anything in reply.
“—That Mycil got picked up by Nott, and, OH! I have to tell her, too! Anyway, mycelium didn’t really sound good so I changed it.”
Wait, so there was actually a child? Picked up by Nott? Did Nott rejoin them already?
Jester cast a third time before he could put his questions into words. “Isn’t it cute? Mycil Don Jade Lavorre. The Don was Fjord’s idea. I can’t wait for you to meet them!”
Molly sat up with gritted teeth, slumped over his legs with his head hung. If he didn’t have a crew to run, he’d grab a bottle of vodka to get rid of this pounding headache. “A splendid name,” he groaned. Ugh, his tail was pinned under his butt, but he didn’t want to move. “But how did you get a kid?”
Maybe she’d used too many demanding spells, maybe she got distracted, but Jester didn’t respond. Whatever. Maybe she meant an animal or something.
Molly fell back onto his pillow. He tried not to let the rocking of the ship make him seasick. At least he’d been able to sleep for once.
A little more information trickled through the next night.
“Remember that egg we took from those snake people? It hatched! And like, a little snake person came out! They are so cute, but they—”
Did that mean Jester was seriously a mom? Molly’s first reaction was to worry, because there were so many reasons it was terrible for Jester to be towing around a baby right now, but in the end they weren’t traveling together anymore, and it was none of his business. If no one else, Yasha loved cute things. She’d make sure it was taken care of.
“A message from Jester?” Essek had stopped writing, looking up over his shoulder expectantly.
Molly gave Jester the obligatory reply and promised everyone was doing great before leaning over to see Essek’s work. It looked pretty good to him, but Caleb was the ultimate judge, being the only one who had seen an actual Nicordranas docking permit.
Essek handed it to Caleb, who held it close to the candlelight to look it over, before pointing out a number of flaws. Essek took it back with professional apathy to the criticism and began yet another draft.
Molly had begun to nod off on Essek’s glorious bed when Caleb finally gave the forgery his seal of approval. Molly stretched out on his belly in an attempt to wake back up. “Man am I glad to be working with villains.” He hopped up, ignoring Essek’s disapproving look, and plucked the paper from Caleb’s hands to look at it. “Thank you. You two make my life so much easier.”
“It is the least I can do when you’ve offered me relative safety in my situation,” Essek replied.
“It is indeed.” He pocketed the document. “Now I’ll get out of your room, since I know you’re too polite to ask.”
Essek raised an eyebrow. “Thank you for the consideration. Yes, please get out.”
Of course, Essek didn’t ask Caleb to leave, but Molly took no offense when he was the intruder on their nerdy evening together. He sank down the floatway to his room the level below, to sleep in his own lavish bedroom he had all to himself.
Time didn’t exist on the open ocean the way it did on land. The sun rose and sank, night fell, and still the waves rolled, and the wind blew. Clouds came and went, and so did seabirds and dolphins. Sometimes the sea was gray, sometimes blue, and other times green, but it was hard to tell when it stopped being one color and became another. Eventually the nights became chilled, but then, it was forgotten that nights were ever warm. And when the nights regained their warmth, it was like they had never gone cold. Their stops in Nicodranas and Darktow were like entering a separate world that moved at a different speed. They never stayed long.
Caleb, Essek, and Verin never left the ship on the mainland, and even Molly felt a twinge of guilt in returning to a world they couldn’t. Forester, one of the shiphands, asked Molly about it one night while they were causing a ruckus at the Chateau (something the Ruby of the Sea permitted once every time they made landfall, and not again until they returned). Molly spun up a tale of how the three had been important pillars in an organization out of the infamous Shady Creek Run, and had had to run away when another gang moved in and ate theirs alive. Forester bought the bullshit well enough, and that became the rumor circulating among the crew, although multiple people had expressed doubt to Molly since. He stuck with it, though, and Verin even started to play along, and pretty soon Molly had named the non-existent group, and there were other imaginary members, and an epic weave of drama he continued to elaborate on anytime someone brought it up. Every now and again, Verin would find Molly and give him an update on the new development in his supposed past.
The three never talked about the truth. Not even to Molly.
The Nein Heroez became the name of a new ship when, during their fourth raid as pirates, the original ship they sailed became a little too porous to keep floating. Caleb was integral to ensuring everyone made it off the sinking ship and onto the one they were actively fighting to take, but three of their people were lost in the fight for control.
In the three raids before that, Molly had taken a shiphand or two who surrendered into his own crew. No one survived on the fourth ship.
Luckily soon after, Marion gave Molly a tip about a smuggler shipping goods a little more alive than usual, and weren’t exotic pets. The new vessel, much larger than the first Nein Heroez, proved enough to withstand the battle against the armed criminals, and Molly led the charge himself with Caleb, Essek, and Verin with him.
And so Molly offered each of the captives the option to join his crew and cause, and his crew easily reached the number that was needed to actually man such a big ship. The rest sang his praises as he dropped them off just outside of Nicodranas under the cover of night, though persuaded not to publicize the fake name he gave them.
It would be suffocating to have a target on his back, after all.
Molly was thriving. It was almost like being in the circus again, his crew the performers, the raids the show. He was free with the birds to go where he wished, could steer the ship to whatever goal. Down time was filled with drinking and cards and gossip. He regularly did card readings for his crew, cheating more often than not to mess with the ones he knew were superstitious.
With the abundance of gold gained from shady merchant vessels and the occasional fellow pirate, every stop on land brought an influx of high quality booze, silk clothes, and the occasional suude trip when they were safely docked. His only complaint was the lack of sex that came with being on a ship. One night stands were for people who didn’t see each other every day, and between entertaining his crew and actually making sure the ship was ready to set out again, he didn’t have an abundance of time to look for that kind of fun when they were ashore. Some of his crew got their kicks through prostitutes, but, although Molly had an abundance of respect for the Ruby of the Sea and her business enterprise, he disliked the idea of buying someone’s body.
Good for those who took advantage of their assets, especially when they were as shrewd as Marion. But he preferred the sharing of bodies to treating his partner like a thing to be used.
That was why he had trouble sleeping at night. He could have some entertainment of his own, but no matter how into it he got, it wasn’t the thrill of getting it on with someone else. The nightmares were only a symptom of being pent-up.
Jester’s daily check-in’s gradually turned into every other day, sometimes every three days, but never longer. The contents of their Sendings also turned from updates on himself and Caleb to gossip sessions about their crews. Though Jester had never met any of his, she had enough knowledge of most of them she could write a book if she wanted. It would probably be deranged, considering Molly exaggerated and Jester was equally tasteful, and Molly would read it.
Time, in its non-existence, passed, and nights once again grew cold, and the day-wind took on a subtle bite that was nothing compared to the winters Molly had spent in the Empire. While most of his crew took to layers, Molly’s infernal blood always ran him hot, and so he strode around the deck in his usual technicolor coat, always the brightest splash of color on board. The chains on his horns clinked in the wind, half of his accessories actual gold now. He kept half fake still, because it was always handy to have the tools to fool someone on a dime. The day was overcast, gusty, and the coldest of late when Jester’s Sending came to him.
“Molly! So like, I have a huge favor to ask. Can you take Mycil?”