#gotta get a little ahistorical beauty and the beast in first

[the-moon-loves-the-sea]

We’re almost there! We’re getting them all the way to plotting matelotage now! Plus a little more found-family Disney movie story time. Chapter 5/6!

The Lighthouse

Chapter Five

The first time Ed joins them for story time, he comes quietly; steps into the pool of lamplight and sits down by Stede’s side, almost in his shadow. But Lucius beams at him across the circle, and the Swede, nearest him, says happily, “Hello, Edward!”, and Ed breaks into a smile; settles in.

“Hi,” he says back to the Swede, and then, “Go on, Stede, I wanna hear the story,” so Stede goes on, with a warmth in his heart.

Two weeks later, when Belle confesses her love through tears over the unconscious Beast’s broken body, Stede has to stop more than once to clear his throat before he can continue; but a look round the circle at everyone’s faces clears his embarrassment; Fang’s mouth is open in concern, Wee John has hidden his face, and Tommy’s holding Ginger’s hands tightly in her own.

“A light,” Stede says, and if his voice wobbles a bit it’s only right, “breaks from the Beast’s heart; and Belle feels a change begin under her hands as she weeps. Something’s undone.”

“The magic,” Frenchie murmurs, bright-eyed, and Stede nods.

“Love broke the curse,” he says.

“I knew it!” says Pete, and smacks Lucius’ shoulder when he laughs.

“The Beast was becoming human again,” says Stede, and has to give a long look up at the river of stars overhead, to stop the tears from coming. But when he looks back down they’re all beaming at him, as happy as he is, and he can laugh at himself instead. “And so were they all. In loving her, he’d freed them.”

*

One month from when Ed began to come on deck again, when his shoulder has pretty well healed and his knee’s a bit more functional, they move Ed’s pufferfish, the mancala board, the maps, and a chest of clothes into the room that was once Izzy Hands’. Ed stands in the center of it for a bit with a strange look on his face; but once Stede has hung a length of silk for a bed-curtain, and piled the lavender-scented pillows onto the bed, and lit a candle in a silver holder on the little table, he begins to smile. He sets up the pufferfish on the table, facing them; spreads his cards out beside it, and begins a game of Solitaire. Stede lets him be; goes to see how Oluwande and Jim are liking the captain’s quarters, passing Wee John and Frenchie settling back into their room, and finds half the crew hanging round the captain’s cabin, watching them unpack. Ginger has brought in the djembe from the jam room (Fang and Ivan have claimed the hammocks in it) and is playing it meditatively in the corner. Stede tries not to notice how many knives Jim is stowing in the bookshelves; watches instead as Oluwande climbs into the window bed and takes in the view of the horizon, the light pouring through the window into his happy face.

Read the rest here; or read from the beginning!

More incredible art by @galacticjonah that made me YELL ALOUD and picture who they're becoming in this chapter: