More of pirate captain Victor from “Siren’s Call”, because @lucycamui was talking about how his hair probably becomes wavy from the braids and the damp sea air.
(He’s looking especially soft here because he’s watching his dancing murderbird.)
Victor walked ahead without looking back once — he didn’t need to look to know there would be a sword pointed at his back. He could almost feel it, so certain was its presence. And he could barely make out the steps that silently followed him, but he still did not doubt them: the presence of the Man In Black was as looming as it was unmistakable.
They retraced the steps taken by the trio of mercenaries for a good hour, until they were past the sandy terrain of the Cliffs of the Dead Infanta and walking along the edge of a ravine, with a soft brook bubbling at the bottom. There had been no corpses along the way — no sign of the short mercenary and the blond boy. And yet, there could be no question as to what their ultimate fate had been in; his present captor had killed the smiley man easily and unrepentantly enough, surely he wouldn’t have hesitated to kill the other two.
Unless he’d chucked their corpses down the cliff, on a particularly cruel touch of disdain? Maybe that would be Victor’s fate as well, unless his captor deemed him more valuable alive than dead.
Not that it mattered. Dead or alive, those had been interchangeable for the past five years.
Except for one small detail that was not really small at all: Makkachin. She would still be around their usual route or the palace gardens, looking for any sign of Victor and being heartlessly neglected by all while at it. It was that thought which made Victor suddenly turn on his heels and face the Man In Black in a show of recklessness. He readied himself to find the tip of the sword at his face or his throat — but found nothing other than a pair of surprised brown eyes behind the black mask, and a sword peacefully sheathed away. Huh.
“I demand to know where you’re taking me,” he said, projecting confidence he did not feel, but knew well how to emulate. “Otherwise I shall not take one step further.”
The Man In Black seemed even more surprised than before, staring at Victor with wide eyes. (And what a shame that his eyes were so pretty. Unfairly pretty, actually, and nothing like what a pirate’s should be.)
“I’m taking you to my ship,” he answered at last, looking at him as if it were obvious.
Victor’s heart faltered. Of all the ships in all the world, there was only one he wished to never set foot on. “If you mean the Yu-topia, you better think again. I’m not setting one single foot on that piece of garbage.” The Man In Black opened his mouth, but Victor went on: “If you release me, however, you’ll get whatever you ask for in ransom.”
The pirate hesitated. “Is… that what you wish? To be ransomed and… go back to the palace?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. Ma— someone’s waiting for me,” he answered, his one-track mind fixated on Makka. “I promise you, you’ll get your weight in gold if you take me back.”
He could hear the echo of desperation in his own voice. But Victor had never negotiated his freedom from the hands of pirates before, so he might be excused for the slip.
The Man In Black cocked his head and examined him for one long, quiet moment. Victor did not balk at the examination, choosing instead to look straight into those brown eyes (eyes of an autumnal beauty that awoke painful memories of another such pair.)
Finally, the pirate looked away. “I don’t think your promises hold a lot of weight, Your Highness,” he said, lending a bitter stress to the title he now chose to bestow on his hostage.
Victor bristled at that. How dare a pirate, of all people, accuse him of dishonesty?! And not any pirate: the Dread Pirate Eros himself — for who else could he be, to speak of the one ship that haunted every sailor’s dream as “his ship”? The one man known across the ten seas to never leave survivors in his wake, and the one to have taken Yuuri from him in his path of destruction.
“You’re the one to talk,” he spit back, the haughty politeness of his tone completely abandoned. “Do you think I don’t know who you are? You have no word or honor yourself! And if you don’t take me back now, I can assure you the Princess will find you. There’s no greater huntress in the world than her. And once she captures you,” he added, gleefully, “there’s no telling what her brother will do to you. He is as great a torturer as she is a huntress. Everyone knows that.”
To his dismay, the Man In Black discreetly rolled his eyes — as if trying not to, but still unabe to stop himself. “Right. Your princess. Your dearest love. You’re getting married at the end of the year, are you not?”
Victor scoffed. “She’s not my dearest love, but yes, we are getting married soon, if you must know.”
“So you admit it, then, that you do not love her?”
“She knows I do not.”
With eyes still focused on the horizon rather than on Victor, the pirate said nothing. In fact, he remained so deadly silent for so long, and so motionless, that Victor felt on the verge of uncomfortable, as if he were somehow
— impossibly
—
intruding. Whatever was going through the pirate’s head was distressing enough to render him mute and despondent.
“You do not, and I should not,” he said at last, so quietly Victor would’ve missed it, if there had been any other sound around them. As it was, he did catch it, but he would be damned if he understood it. Maybe he’d misheard it?
The Dread Pirate Eros straightened himself, and looked him in the eye once again, with those hauntingly beautiful eyes. “I’m afraid there’s been a mistake, Your Highness. I shall return to my ship; please feel free to go wherever you wish,” he said with a slight bow. And with that, he turned on his heels and unceremoniously walked away.
Victor stood where he was, lost in shock. “I— I’m free to go?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” said the pirate, briefly pausing in his tracks and looking back at him with a small smile. “I was wrong. Our story does have an end, after all. I should’ve known we were finished before we’d even begun.” He bowed his head and turned away once more.
“The best stories are the ones that never end. So you see, it can’t end here, because we’ve barely begun.”
Victor watched, in a trance, as the pirate walked away, slowly untying his black mask and dropping it on the ground, revealing a mop of unruly black hair Victor hadn’t seen in five years — hair that still framed a pair of brown eyes in Victor’s dreams, sleepless night after sleepless night.
“Yuuri,” he whispered. “Yuuri!!!”
Yuuri had barely looked back at the sound of his name when Victor caught up to him and tackled him; and before either of them could regain their balance, they fell down the ravine — tumbling down on each other, rolling out of control, over rocks and grass, falling hard and fast like they had five years before. But in each other’s arms, like before, and that was all that mattered.
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