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The seas are much calmer after sailing away from Joaldo. The Grandberry Pirates and the crew aboard the Albatross managed to escape the chaos, bringing many of the sick and wounded along with them. Jay knew that RAFT was planning to exert more influence over the seas, but she never expected to be caught in the crossfire. Or maybe she did.
A violent battle between pirates and the navy was exactly how Jay lost her sister, Ava. She could never bring herself to believe what happened, so she had to find the truth. She had to find the filthy pirate who killed her, find out why they did it, and put a bullet through their head too, just for good measure. But this was never part of her official responsibilities as a spy. The criminal investigation for her sister's death was already considered done years ago. The only thing she was required to do was collect useful intelligence from pirate crews and submit reports.
Jay was in the middle of writing a letter to her mother before being so rudely interrupted by the navy attack. Right now, Chip, Gillion, Ollie, and Earl all seem to be asleep, so it's safe to take the letter out again. She reads it over, but at this point, it's nothing worth sending. She tears up the plain sheet of paper and sets the scraps aside to burn later. You can never be too careful, even with personal correspondence unrelated to work.
Jay looks around again just to be absolutely certain that nobody is watching. In the worst case scenario, Lizzie could hop onto the Albatross and put a gun to her head again. But from where Jay is sitting, she can easily see or hear anyone walking around the deck of their ship. Once she feels safe, she takes out a different sheet of paper, this time printed with RAFT's letterhead across the top of the page.
There used to be something comforting about seeing letters from RAFT. Growing up, the sight of an official RAFT letter meant a message from family. Faraway relatives would greet Jay's family on holidays or birthdays, sometimes even including gifts. When it was still uncommon for Jay's father to be away from home, he always made sure to send letters as soon as possible. He even left a stack of blank RAFT letters at home so that they could send replies with express delivery. Because of these letters, members of the Ferin family never felt far away, even if they were scattered across the world.
Jay especially treasured letters from Ava after she joined the navy. It was exciting for her to become an officer, a captain of her own naval battleship. Jay wanted nothing more than to follow in her footsteps, to be together like they had always been, in spite of her father's desire to keep at least one of his daughters safely at home. The closest she could get was through the letters they constantly sent back and forth. Eventually, there were so many that someone would've noticed this misuse of RAFT's delivery network. Her father made her switch to the slower standard postal service instead.
The last letter Jay received from Ava wasn't written by her. The wax seal was black, indicating bad news, so Jay knew she'd have to sit down for this one. Maybe Ava lost one of her subordinates in a battle against pirates. Jay expected to read tearful words in Ava's familiar handwriting. Not the cold condolences of a typewriter.
It didn't feel real, and it was never going to feel real. Even with the texture of the embossed RAFT letterhead beneath her fingertips, and teardrops soaking into the paper. Even when her father had to suddenly come home from his own deployment to plan the funeral. Even when Jay got measured for a black dress to be made. It felt the least real when she sat in the funeral home, surrounded by all of the Ferins paying their respects to a lost relative, and all the navy soldiers wanting to honor their beloved captain. None of this was supposed to happen. It was too soon. She wasn't supposed to be dead. She wasn't supposed to be gone.
The funeral was a flurry of activity that felt less like something that was actually happening, and more like a fever dream. Once Jay went home with her mother, it was exactly as ordinary as it always had been. Ava wasn't there, but she hadn't been there for the past several months either due to work. Jay just kept going through life day by day as if nothing had changed, without a damn choice to be swept along by the onward march of time. She didn't want to think about how the clock wasn't ticking for Ava anymore. How she'd never get to hear about what Jay was doing next.
So Jay kept writing letters, the same as she always had. She kept documenting the events of her life, not like logs in a diary, but as if she was sharing them with Ava. She got her own RAFT letter paper after joining the navy herself, and her father wasn't there to stop her from using it. Not that she would ever send these letters. In her childhood home, she playfully slipped those letters under the door of Ava's room, even if it was only her urn on the other side. Ava rested there while her family waited for the temple of the sun goddess to finish building a new columbarium.
On the Albatross, Jay stuffed the letters into her personal chest. Despite all of her effort to maintain secrecy and security with other documents, she couldn't bring herself to destroy these letters. It didn't feel right. Those letters belonged to Ava, and getting rid of them felt like getting rid of her. It felt like saying that she didn't deserve to know what Jay was getting up to, that she didn't matter, that she should be forgotten. It's not like anyone was going to look through Jay's things anyway.
Except that, a few days later, someone does try to open up the chest. Chip laments that they've run out of alcohol to drink after Gillion used up everything for treating the wounded on the Grandberry Pirates' ship. He figures that Jay is probably hiding her own secret stash and picks the lock open. Sure enough, there is a bottle of rum, but he finds the letters too. All with the official RAFT letterhead. All addressed to a "Captain Ava Ferin" and signed by an "Officer Jay Ferin".
There are too many letters for them to be easily hidden under Jay's other belongings. Chip skims through them, finding that she's written about every single place they've been and everything that's happened. Lifting the curse on Loffinlot. Escaping the Royale Blue Casino. Performing their hit single on the Isle of Desire. Winning the Paramount Tournament on Joaldo. No fucking wonder the navy knew exactly where to attack.
Chip stuffs a handful of letters into his pocket, taking those and the bottle of rum with him to the Crescent Moon. Of course Lizzie didn't trust Jay. It all makes sense now.
"LIZZIE!" Chip yells, hopping across the plank to the deck of the other ship. He can't see her around, so he barges straight into the captain's quarters. "Lizzie, this is important."
Lizzie rolls over in bed and groans. "Are you sure this can't wait until morning?"
"You were right. Jay's a fucking traitor," Chip says, taking the crumpled letters out of his pocket and putting them on the table. He sets down the bottle too.
"What?" Lizzie bolts out of bed and joins Chip at the table.
"Look, these are all letters to the navy! She was a spy all along." He points out where the letters were addressed to Captain Ava Ferin.
Lizzie picks up one of the other letters and starts reading through it. Her expression shifts from furious and vindicated to something a lot more somber.
"See what I mean? I thought I could trust her," Chip says, still angry. "How am I supposed to deal with her?"
"Chip," Lizzie starts, taking a deep breath. But she doesn't quite speak yet. Instead, she opens the bottle of rum and takes a swig. She tries to make sure that Chip can't see her crying, but the sniffle could easily give it away. "Chip, these are for her sister."
"Her sister is in the navy?" Chip asks.
"Was," Lizzie corrects.
"She became a pirate?"
"Shut the fuck up and listen," Lizzie shouts, disguising the shakiness of her voice. "Ava's gone. She's already dead."
"Oh shit," Chip says quietly.
"Just think about it. If Jay really was reporting to the navy, how come the letters are still here?" Lizzie points out.
"I wasn't really thinking," Chip admits.
"Of course not." Lizzie puts her head in one hand, still trying to sound more annoyed than upset. "I'm keeping the bottle. Gods know I need it."
"So... You knew her sister?" Chip asks cautiously.
"Yeah. Now get out of here and go back to your ship," Lizzie demands.
"Okay, okay, I'm going," Chip says, backing out of the room and running back over to the Albatross.
The next morning, Chip is awoken very suddenly by Jay flipping his hammock over to dump him on the floor.
"OW!" he yelps.
"You didn't even bother closing the chest again after you decided to loot my things," Jay says darkly. "Explain yourself."
"I was just... Looking for something to drink," Chip says, which was half true.
"Yeah, I saw that. Did you take any of my underwear?"
"Ew, why the hell would I want your stinky underwear?"
"It does not stink! I wash it!" Jay retorts.
"So you admit that you're wasting our drinking water?" Chip teases while getting up from the floor.
"I'm not wasting it, we can use magic to- that's besides the point. So you just took my rum?"
"Yeah, well, not really, but, mainly yeah, sorta," Chip stutters, unable to come up with a coherent excuse. He gives up when Jay continues glaring at him. "I saw the letters. I'm sorry."
Jay tries to read Chip's expression. There's a part of her that's still afraid of him kicking her out of the crew for writing what looks like letters to the navy. She can't tell how much Chip knows about the entire situation. But as far as she can tell, he's at least sorry about going through her things. "And?" she says expectantly.
"At first I thought, y'know, you were selling us out," Chip explains. "I tried asking Lizzie for advice on what to do as a captain, but she told me. I'm sorry about your sister."
Jay is a little surprised that Elizabeth knew about Ava. But her sister had mentioned encounters with pirates in past letters, so perhaps it was the Grandberry Pirates after all. She'll have to talk to Lizzie at some point. But at least Chip knows what happened, so Jay won't need to spell it out herself.
"Writing those letters helps," Jay says with a soft sigh. "I swear, I'm not sending them off to anyone. It just reminds me of her. Makes it feel like she's still around."
"Yeah," Chip says, sitting down in his hammock again. "There's been so many times I wished I could've told Arlin what was going on. Maybe I'll try writing letters too."
Jay finally manages to relax. Thank the gods Chip actually understands. "If you buy me a few more bottles of rum, I'll help you with your handwriting," she offers.
"Hey, what's wrong with my handwriting?" Chip asks.
"You still think he's out there, right? I want your letters to be readable when you give them to him."