~Edward~

I'm being held by warm hands. The soul rending pain that was inflicted on me remains fresh in my mind and a dull ache creeps through my body.

As I take in a breath, a smell of blood and salt lingers. As I open my eyes, I find my gaze being drawn to a couple of flickering lights in the corner. My surroundings are dim, it must be night. There is a gentle sussurrus of water and whispers.

Human voices and ocean waves.

It is a familiar and nostalgic sound.

I'm alive! I can feel! I can hear! I can see!

I laugh, but what escapes me is not my voice, but rather, a baby's chuckle. A body of newborn. Well, beggars can't be choosers.

Wait. What is holding me?

Giant hands, correction, normal hands. The perspective of a newborn is foreign to me, but I guess as a baby, even normal sized hands feel like the palms of a giant. They hold me gently, and I feel the sudden urge to cry. A wave of mixed emotions overcome me - joy, relief, shock and sorrow.

Oh thank god.

I look up, and a pair of amber eyes look back at me - A face of a woman I do not recognize. She smiles and tears begin to well up in both our eyes. She holds her gaze, and I nudge myself into her arm.

Is this my mother? Should I smile back? Is it weird just looking at her like this?

Wow. My mom is beautiful. In a past life I would probably have asked her out. Is that strange? Despite the visible fatigue around her eyes and a sweat lined forehead, her features are striking. High cheekbones, full lips, and gentle aquiline nose. Her hair is disheveled but thick and dark as the night, which only accentuated her alabaster skin.

If half of that passed down to me, I'll be pretty handsome too. I wonder how I look like now. Hmm, my skin is red, but I guess all babies are born red.

The warmth from her arms radiate through me, and as she brings me closer to her, I begin to fade in a drowsy haze. She rocks me gently, all whilst singing.

Her voice breaks, but the melody carries. She must have screamed herself hoarse in my birth. Soon, the voices of others join in the tune. I cannot make out the words, but it feels deep and sorrowful, like the memories of a past love now long gone. With the song in my ears, I surrender to a peaceful and dreamless sleep.

Damn it all to hell! Why is the child alive?

Lord Ney paced about his cabin, bellicose and grim, which stood at odds with his figure, for he had neither an ounce of gravitas or presence. He was small in stature, dark of complexion, fair-haired with a bulbous nose and thin lips.

From afar, he was more rat than man. Had you met him on the street, you would've paid him no attention, for he was as forgettable as he was ugly.

But that's only if you didn't notice his eyes, for he, like all in Ney line, had inherited the purple irises of his forebears, unique in the whole kingdom.

The very same eyes could be seen in the child that was just born of the slave girl.

Why didn't the poison take effect? I saw her drink it!

As to why he was so vexed at the birth of his child, he did not see the child as such. To him, the child was evidence of his malfeasance, one that could be punishable by death.

The girl was supposed to arrive unspoiled and untouched. A peerless beauty, even amongst his country's standards. Axum Sunfire, the child's mother, was a gift from one king to another. The moment he received her, she came under the jurisdiction of Acadia - the personal property of the Acadian King.

His Acadian King.

The King was not known to be forgiving.

But the journey was long, and he was so very lonely. It was but a moment of weakness.

Now, it could be a lifetime of regret.

The lower decks of the Fair Lady had been re-purposed to transport slaves. Where it was originally used to store cargo and rations, it now held men in chains. Almost all the cabins had been torn down to free up for space. After all, more space meant more men.

Yet one cabin remained, for within it was one slave of far greater value than the others - a prize, worthy of a king.

Ney entered the hold with small regiment of marines by his side, and they shuffled softly through the mess of slaves chained to floorboards. Thankfully, it was before dawn and most of them were still asleep.

Yet unease never left Ney. Slaves as they may be, they outnumbered the crew ten to one. There was more than five hundred slaves, there were only fifty shipmates. No amount of arms could overcome that advantage.Entering the hold was akin to putting one's head into the mouth of a lion.

The marines by his side were not for show.

Ney slid into the cabin and snatched from Sunfire's arms her child.

The evidence.

The sudden and screeching cries of Sunfire dissipated the fog of silence that had descended upon the slaves as they slept. A few began to rouse, then a few more. Soon the entire hold was abuzz.

Murmurs grew into a cacophony, pierced by the occasional angry shouts. Ney and his marines made haste towards the upper deck. Their path was becoming narrower and narrower. The slaves were closing in.

The chains that were meant to bind them now looked like weapons.

Ney took a blade from a marine beside him and immediately slashed at nearby slave, who promptly collapsed in a heap of spurting blood and anguish.

"DO NOT CROSS ME!", Ney shouted. There was a desperation in his voice.

The slaves were momentarily repressed by his outburst, and Ney pushed them further back with his wild swinging. He then took a defensive formation with the rest of the marines, their backs to each other with their blades facing out. Only then, could they make their way back to the upper deck, newborn in tow.

The problem was that too many people knew. The crew certainly knows, the mother, and of course, the other slaves who were in the hold. Everyone knew, and here in front of him was a piece of corroborating evidence. As it was now, he would be at best exiled from court, at worst stripped of his titles. Even the possibility of being executed entered his mind.

This was a gift from another country, a gift which he personally oversaw If his king knew of his mischief, no doubt he would rather send him to the block than risk a diplomatic faux pas.

He grabbed the child off the bed and held it in front of him. Eye to eye.

"Maybe I can salvage this. If you were gone. I could bribe the crew, I'll buy out the rest of the slaves. No one would know." Ney said to the baby.

The child simply looked at him, with those damned purple eyes. Never before had Lord Ney hated his inheritance more so than now, and his face twists ever so slightly, like a man trying to mask the taste of something bitter. The child simply looked on.

What about the girl, the mother? How could I possibly count on her silence?

He knew what he did. He knew that she probably didn't want it. He was not naive enough to think that she wouldn't turn on him the very chance she got. Her desperate reaction to him taking the boy - he was plenty guilty of many acts, but he never felt more sorry than when he had to kick her away, with her child in his hands.

There is no way out.

He put the child back and began pacing once more.

No! I will not believe it! I crawled my way to court, endured a thousand slights, just to be done in by one small misstep?

Whatever the case, any plan could not start without the elimination of the evidence. That thought which had snaked around in the recesses of his mind had finally been acknowledged and accepted. This child cannot live.

I'll find a way to convince the mother.

Oh god, forgive me.

~Edward~

Oh c'mon. I'm just a fucking baby.

What kind of joke is this? First I get killed by my co-worker, then sent to a place which I didn't want to go in the first place, then betrayed on some other entity/god/asshole's whims, and left for dead or the kind of death that an existence without form would experience.

I finally get a second second chance, or is it third chance, and now I get to be killed again?

Just my fucking luck.

I know that look. He's gonna kill me. I don't understand what he is saying, but he looks like he has resolved himself. He closes his eyes and mutters something... A prayer perhaps?

I want to scream. I want to shout. I want to curse. All I can manage is a glare.

This is such bullshit.

He looks to a basin off to the side. A washbasin? Oh please no, not your goddamn dirty bathwater! He moves gingerly towards it.

He lowers me into it. It is cold and foul.

I begin to panic. This is the worst. What else can I do? I can barely move... anything. Will crying help? I work up a wail. It's louder than anything I've heard, louder than the wood creaking, louder than the wind howling, its louder than the waves crashing.

For a moment it stuns my would be murderer. It is but a moment. Then water engulfs me.

~Ney~

As I lower him into the basin I face less resistance than I expected. He can't cry underwater. Now, he just looks at me.

What am I doing?

My hands grow weak. They tremble. I... I have not taken a life before, and this life - there is no god on this world who would forgive such a sin. I falter. He just looks at me.

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry... You do not deserve this.

But I don't deserve it either. The child, my child grows slack. Yet he still looks at me. I close my eyes. I block off everything. Nothing can reach me, nothing will reach me.

Three furious knocks rouse me from my stupor. Someone is banging on the door. I'm still holding the baby down. The knocks come again, louder. I wait.

"CAPTAIN!"

The knocks now echo with a the sounds of splintering wood and the clashing of steel.

Stop interrupting me!

They do not stop.

I hesitate. Something in me defies my will and quickly I take the baby out.

Is he dead?

The child sputters and coughs. Despite my failure, I'm relieved.

So this child lives.

I place him gently onto the bed and lay my covers over him.

My whole body slumps from exhaustion. The knocks come again, louder now, and I take a deep breath to gather my composure, before opening the door.

"What is it?!"

The bosun towers over me, his eyes bloodshot and frantic.

"Mutiny captain! It is mutiny!"