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[st-riley-the-brave]

The G+G One-Shot Challenge|Day 10

Ghost+Grave 25: My Constable the Pirate

[Very lengthy one-shot in which Riley reflects on Audergine “Anthony” Wright. Based on this very prompt and told from Riley’s point of view. Person A: Riley. Person B: Audergine. Trigger warning: Suicide note and pre-action. Other warnings: Some language involved.

For @worldoftheskeptic –thank you again.]

So… recently, I came around to making a sort of memory book. For me and Audergine. Not the most original of ideas but, perhaps, it is what it is. You see, Audergine… or Anthony… he and I, go back a very long time. Back to when m’Father was still alive.

You see, once upon a time… Audergine was a sky pirate. Very loyal to Victor Rotham, who at the time of my childhood and teenage years was the mayor of Stormy Oaks. Rotham and Father were rivals for m’Mother’s love and affections… but Rotham was also a sky pirate. He was a blaigeard, really. And Mother really fell for Father… got married. Rotham was mad t’all hell.

A couple of years after I was born, there was a war not too far, near the Scottish border. Rotham had the men of the city enlist for the militia… Father included. But Father was singled out for a particular mission. Audergine was responsible for making sure Father didn’t get home alive.

Mother was devastated… so much so, that Uncle Eli left Dublin, in Ireland, and moved in with her to help take care of me. But we never really heard the truth about who really killed Father. Not for a long time anyway… not for years. But the times I did face Audergine, he was a real mhac na galla. We didn’t get along at all–I bloody hated him! –no, not as much as I hated Rotham, but still.

As I go through my memory book, there are old patches he wore when he was a pirate… starting at age 15, when he ran away from home. When he became a pirate. Was in charge of the flying ship’s cannons. Led many a skirmish successfully. Killed the Cranston patriarch. The book is not a very big one… maybe 7 inches by 7? And not a lot of pages. But they all tell a story.

One page in particular, holds a note that was given to Mother, in his handwriting: “Forgive me for serving that idiot man. This life holds nothing more for me–not if it risks your heart broken all over again.” After Mother died, Uncle Eli gave it to me. I treasured it since then… I treasure it now. Hell, I cry sometimes when I read it. This happened after I was kidnapped… after he helped in rescuing me.

He risked his own life… for mine. How the hell.

There is one page, in which he wrote down his entire confession to the Lord Magistrate–about serving Rotham. About killing my Father. About turning his back on his pirate days, risking his life to save me. I remember that day… he pleaded guilty for his crimes. And he would have been sentenced to a permanent sentence of death had… had I not intervened. Pleaded for his life to be spared. Asked the Lord Magistrate and the Judge for his acquittal.

Audergine’s life changed because of me.

The next thing I know, he’s training to be a Constable. Helping out throughout the city. The target of orphaned kids wanting to hug Uncle Anthony the Constable because they wanted to be like him. A Constable. I still remember the day he changed his name to Anthony… his old name reminded him of his old life.

But nevertheless he always took the time to visit me.

As the years went by, and Mother died… and Uncle Eli died… Audergine remained as my only mainstay. Bless that crazy pirate’s heart… but he took his job as Constable seriously. I’ve often considered asking the Lord Magistrate if he could be promoted, but I was told that he would always, humbly, deny the opportunity for any sort of promotion.

A page is full of special documents… his certificate of recognition as Constable of the Night’s Watch. An article in the local town paper about him. My attempt at trying to find him a suitable wife because damnit, that son of a bitch deserved it. (To this day, ladies, he’s still single.)

There’s this one page in which he wrote a lengthy letter to me for my birthday one year…

Aurelia,

I don’t know if I ever told you, but I hope you realise how much you changed my life. Thank you for being a better anchor than Rotham ever was. You have been a constant within Stormy Oaks and really, I don’t know how the town could have gone on without you.

Happy Birthday, my dear little one.

- Anthony

I have a hard time trying not to cry every time I come across it.

Only recently has he found himself more than comfortable with his birth name once again. But there were times when he would act distant towards me. Sure, he was aware of my love-hate friendship with Constable Smith. But he never put his two cents in when it wasn’t needed. And sometimes… I worried. He was trying to be stoic, brave, help me keep the Night’s Watch at the Graveyard.

I never knew though, how tormented he really was… not until I came across his note, which means that I’ve reached the end of the memory book…

���Egon…?”

“Yes, love?”

“Can y’get this laminated for me?”

“Sure… what is it?”

“…Audergine’s suicide note.”

When I first told Egon about it, he was shocked. He had no idea how tormented Audergine was either… but sure enough, the Pirate Constable had considered taking his own life. It broke my heart really. To this day, I cry reading what he’d written to me…

Aurelia, dear heart…

I don’t know if, or how, this will get to you. But by the time you read this, I will have taken a bullet to myself. And I know this is not how you’d want to remember me… I know.

Whenever I see you, I see your Mother’s heart, your Father’s courage. Your Mother’s hair. Your Father’s eyes. Their blessed smile. Their wisdom, their knowledge. All of that manifested in you.

I watched as the darkness tried to swallow you up. I watched as Phantasmagoria brought you back from that. I watched as you fought in defense of both the quick and the dead. I watched… I couldn’t step in. I wasn’t worthy… I still feel… guilty… after everything I had put you through.

You are the most beautiful soul I have ever met. And I know how much your heart would break if you knew I did this to myself. And… sometimes… I feel as if it’d be better this way. If you were better off without my presence. Even though we had developed a far stronger bond than I had imagined when I first saw you as a little girl. You have become like a daughter to me and… and… and I am not worthy of that love you have extended to me.

I am a man unworthy to be in your presence.

I hope that when I’m standing before St. Peter, perhaps by your pleading as before… he’ll let me in. You are too good of a person to not heed the pleas and tears of.

And lastly, little one… thank you. For changing my life.

I love you, little courage. Goodbye…

- Audergine Thomas Wright

I found Audergine crying before my family’s graves, the pistol near him. He… would have done it. But he was pleading one last time for their forgiveness and I, the only survivor, was more than willing to bestow it to him. And I did… putting the pistol aside. Pulling him into my arms so he could cry and know that he was loved, that he was forgiven. That he was family.

The dynamic of our friendship changed forever that evening.

To this day he still struggles with the guilt of his past actions, but he doesn’t let it destroy him as it once almost did. In fact, he’s helping to make sure others don’t end their own lives as well as the occasion allows him. But he particularly enjoys being there for those in mourning who enter the Graveyard during the Night’s Watch. And I get to watch as he’s turned other lives around for the better…

Right now however, Audergine is sleeping in an open coffin in the Underground Parlor of my House’oleum, resting after an exhausting Night’s Watch. He’s worked a long night, and who could blame him? Placing the Memory Book back in the Kitchen-Trinket Room, I go to tuck the good man in, and make my way to take a quick bath and visit Egon at the Firehouse. Audergine won’t be alarmed if he finds I’m not in the House’oleum… he knows who I’m visiting and spending time with. Hell, he asks if we’re married yet!

…actually, he also doesn’t know I’m engaged. Yet.