#space pirate blorbos well one blorbo the rest to be revealed later and poetry smash

[aflamethatneverdies]

Wrote the nichest of crossovers for the dearest of friends! Happy Birthday dear Autumn @midautumnnightdream

Am really pleased about all the Romantic references I managed to squeeze in this so putting it here too, because why not.

There was a knock at the door to the captain’s cabin. The flourishing strokes of the pen on the paper cease. The ship, which was a rather large Frigate, was equipped as such, except, it would perhaps surprise the readers a little that it was floating in space. The stars stretched out across, as guiding lights, where lighthouses would have served that purpose on the rough seas. 

“Enter.” The captain’s tone was brusque. 

“Captain,” the boatswain began hurriedly, before the cook moved forward. 

“Look what we found, stowing away. A little bilge rat.” The cook held up a small struggling child by the scruff of his collar. “Want me to throw him out into space?” he grinned looking at the child’s face which turned pale. 

“I may be a rat, but you’re a pig, the way you give the entire crew so little grub and keep the rest of the ingredients to sell at the nearest ports for ready money.” the child retorted. 

“Captain, we can’t have a child onboard the ship,” the boatswain said, ignoring this remark and the cook’s look of outrage. “What should we do about this?” The captain paused and chuckled a little, “Young man, I don’t know how many ships you’ve been on but the number one rule is to never antagonise the ship’s cook.”

“I like you.” the child said, still struggling in the air and trying to free his collar. 

“What’s your name?” 

The child paused to consider, “Why should I tell you that? What’s yours?”

The captain for his part laughed loudly, “Oh, put him down, Berric.”

The child stood tall and brushed his dark blue cape with his hands, in the background the dark expanse of space was visible from the porthole while the wooden interior was brightly lit. 

The captain smirked, “Leave us Berric and Laron. I want to have a discussion with this young man.”

The child grinned as he looked at the disgruntled faces of the boatswain and the cook, who nodded and then closed the door. 

“Jehan, I want to know your opinion on this matter too.” the captain turned round and addressed the air languidly. With a shock the child saw an apparition emerge in a sailor’s coat and he was left stunned for a moment. 

“What?” the child whispered to himself looking around in confusion. 

The apparition or the strange figure, who had an intensely sorrowful look in his eyes was dressed in a long frock coat which was perhaps more maroon than red and a doublet or a vest of a bright purple colour and long sailor's boots; this would have made him stand out everywhere and he attracted attention here too, and a feeling like he had walked out of a play or a medieval pirating expedition.  

“He reminds me of Gavroche,” the captain sighed, stroking his beard and gazing far away into the depths of an unknown past, it seemed to the child, “I’m inclined to keep him around. But the crew–”

He is certainly very interesting as a study,” Prouvaire whipped out his magnifying glass to observe the small child who was gazing at him defiantly, hands folded across his chest. 

“Ah! This locket is very charming. And perhaps very old. A family heirloom?” Prouvaire asked. 

“Don’t touch this!” the child retorted loudly glaring at Prouvaire, his face scrunched up in irritation, and then tried to gauge the captain’s face and see if this would make him throw him out. Prouvaire seemed delighted by this response. 

“I think we should keep him, Bahorel.” Prouvaire said. “We can be the guardians of this unfortunate child.”

“We don’t know anything about him. Besides, he looks far too young to even be a cabin boy.” 

“I’m not. I’m–” the child searched around for an age he could give and settled on seventeen because that seemed to him a large enough number in human years (he assumed they were humans from a backwater planet Earth he had heard about, they did not seem to belong to any of the regions of space he was familiar with). Twenty was also the limit to which he could count currently, his space faring people relying on a mixture of mathematics and music to gauge distances, “I’m seventeen.” 

“No you’re not, I’m sure of that.” Bahorel grinned, “Though I appreciate the lie. And won’t ask how old you are.”

“I can do the work on ships, I'm used to it.” The child looks at them defiantly, “And the name’s Marvelous by the way.”

“Well, you have put me in the second serious situation. With your age and us being pirates against the Zangyack now.”

“What was the first?” The child was sneaking glances at this captain. 

“Oh, dying I suppose. More than twice at least in the span of two hundred or so years. Wouldn’t recommend it especially, but old wounds now, eh Jehan?” Bahorel placed his hand on his friend’s shoulder. 

The ghost-like figure had tears in his eyes, which he finally let flow, making the child, Marvelous, shift a little, feeling sorry for the ghost he had met. He moved forward to pet the translucent figure’s hand and the bird-like ghost acknowledged it from his seat near the window, holding Marvelous’ hand in his. 

“It makes one weary– this living and dying on this mortal coil. This loss of the most beloved of friends.” The ghost gave a sniffle as his mind drifted to a hot June morning, the 5th to be precise, of the year 1832 and to a particular gathering of friends in Corinthe (we will learn later why), and then went back to being cheerful, “I am Prouvaire by the way, Jean Prouvaire, sometimes known as Jehan among those of a poetic disposition.”

Bahorel laughed and translated, “Jehan is a poet so he adds an affectation to his name.”

“It’s not just poets who do that. Marvelous is quite a name. Tell me where did you find it?” Prouvaire turned his gaze to the child. Marvelous grinned, “It fell from space.” He wasn't sure if he should as yet share that he had chosen it as his space pirate identity deliberately.

Prouvaire nodded approvingly at this response, it seemed if not completely poetic then at least mysterious and he appreciated that quality in a pirate recruit, “Tell me young space pirate, have you ever visited the moon? I have some affection for it, such that I am writing an epithet in its honour. Two more verses and then my agonies will have ended, until a new beauty captures my heart.”

Bahorel laughed, “Jehan, Marvelous will not care for your poetry about the newly discovered moons of Planet Eistla.”

"Why not? To think they are always discovering new moons and different phenomena, even almost 200 years after the first time we died. It makes you excited and almost makes the Immortality worth it."

Bahorel turned towards the boy, “Why were you stowing away so dangerously on this ship? You could have died. Do you really not have any place to go?” He walked over to the porthole and looked beyond the deck, “I suppose not, for you wouldn’t be here in this way, hiding in between our-- the crew's possessions.”

Marvelous tried to make his voice seem casual, but he couldn’t help the quiver that was visible, “The Zangyack burned our ship. I snuck into a freight ship and they burned that too.” He looked ahead, a hollowness present in his eyes that made Bahorel’s heartache fiercely and his voice want to howl against the miseries. 

“So I’m here.” Marvelous shrugged his shoulders. 

“Palsambleu! Those bastards do seem to get around a lot across the Universe, taking over everything that doesn't belong to them. Colonising every planet.” Bahorel nodded sympathetically.

“Which is why we seem to have acquired a pirate ship and are apparently wanted pirates, eh, Jehan.” He placed his hands on his hips. "There are posters of course with our names and faces plastered all over several planets. I must say it makes for quite an adventure requisitioning a ship and being known as pirates. Much better than the skeleton prank we once pulled in Paris."

“I’m also a pirate to make a fashion statement, Fashion being political of course and nothing more political than being a rebel pirate against the Zangyack Empire, right now.” Prouvaire said, turning around and showcasing his long dagger which he unsheathed from its case, his eyeliner and several earrings, rings and bracelets. The young Marvelous’ eyes shone with excitement at Prouvaire’s look. 

“I’ve never seen someone look so much like a pirate. Like how I would like to be one.” He said, admiring Prouvaire’s look and moving around him. “I want to be a pirate in search of treasure and to fight the Empire.”

“You shouldn’t really be a pirate.” Bahorel placed his hand on the child’s head and shook it a little playfully. 

“Well, I am,” the kid puffed up his chest. “They are calling all the rebels as such from now on to stop anyone from supporting us. You should know if you are one.” For a moment, Bahorel and Prouvaire appear distracted thinking of the reports they have heard from spies and smugglers and groups of anarchist rebels working against the Empire.

“Oh no you don’t,” Prouvaire said running after the child, “Give me back my gun.”

“I saw you,” Marvelous said looking Bahorel straight in the eye, “In the market town of the trading post GJ-148 down below, tearing up posters and picking a fight with the Goumin and Sugoumin on the planet to save people from being killed by the Zangyack, so I followed your ship. I want to fight with you all.”

Bahorel grinned, the child knew how to flatter him. Also he was holding Prouvaire’s large (for Marvelous) gun. 

“Tell me young Marvelous, do you know how to fight?” Bahorel asked, his feet casually on the table, the dagger in his hand, waving in the air lightly away from him.

Marvelous held up the gun, adopting a posture he had seen and taken several times before and shot the dagger cleanly out of Bahorel’s hand. 

“Not bad. Could do with some improvements but not bad.” Bahorel said, patting him on the back. “Where did you learn to shoot?”

‘With another group of rebels. They were arrested and executed by the Zangyack.”

This time there were tears in Marvelous’ eyes. Bahorel walked to comfort him and Marvelous grabbed his long pirate coat and hugged it tightly to him, his lanky body shaking a little. 

“Well, I guess, he will just have to stay.” Bahorel said, hugging the small child back. Considering how many younger brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews he had helped raise or rather spoil, he was hoping that one pirate rebel would be easy enough to show the ropes. Relatively. 

“We did say we were working on gathering a new crew.” Prouvaire pointed out holding his flower pot in his hand and contemplating the small petals it had sprouted even in space.

“And there are a lot of unsavoury privateers along many spaceports.”

They watched the child the next couple of weeks, Marvelous as he called himself dart and run across the ship’s length, never more at home that when on the deck of their Corinthe, taking flight everywhere; he had even made up with the cook and now they seemed to be on good terms. He had managed to make purser bend to his will. He was boisterous, helping the boatswain with the checking of the knots, or the navigator to spy on the open darkness that lasted as far as the eye could observe. The Navigator had warned him from looking at the stars with the telescope when they were close to them.   

His sense of justice Bahorel had noted, was pretty strongly tilted against the Zangack due to circumstances, he had seen so much earlier in his life and in favour of the wretched and the planets that had been destroyed or colonised across the galaxy.

He had seen Marvelous fight because he didn’t like how a poor family was being treated and knocked around by space authorities, when they made port to pick up a few supplies and had quickly intervened on his behalf along with Prouvaire who loved the thrill of the fight and who even now in his ghost like state was smashing street lamps wherever he found them- more out of old habit. 

Slowly Marvelous was opening up, he had never been to school, he told Bahorel. He had never seen the necessity of it. School had been spending time with his family and their crew and the crew's children who were all treated equally as him.

School had been learning how to navigate using the spacefarer’s songs and melodies. Bahorel felt a sense of pride at how much he knew about navigating ships and he ruffled the kid’s hair. Marvelous for his part loved spending time with Bahorel.

Bahorel took him and his concerns seriously and did not dismiss them for coming from a child. Bahorel had given Marvelous lessons too. His sabre handling wasn’t nearly as sharp and clean as his pistol shots and Bahorel showed him the right way to hold his sword, the footwork he should use, the thrusts and parries that should be part of his arsenal when he was planning to attack a Zangyack. 

Prouvaire amused Marvelous with his many eccentricities and his recitations on board the ship. “I am memorable at least.” He murmured one day, sitting on the bow of the ship casually. The boy climbed up to follow him. 

“What are you doing, Marvelous, you scamp?” the quartermaster yelled, but the kid focused his attention on the narrow edge of the bow and kept walking, his balance precise and calculated. He made it to the edge to observe the comet that Prouvaire wanted to show him, its icy green tail causing him to become mesmerised for a while. 

After some moments he jumped down. 

“I have jumped onto the masts before too, to raise and lower sails,” he grinned as he reassured the quartermaster who shook his head and went inside his cabin, where half the crew were playing cards and drinking rum.

An off-tune melody was struck and Marvelous too joined, his boyish voice mixing in well with the rest of the crew’s baritone, bass and tenor voices. Marvelous was wearing the vest and several more necklaces and rings that Prouvaire had lent him. He smiled at the Captain and Bahorel ruffled his hair a little again, while Marvelous with his cat like grin leaned against Bahorel's large coat, watching the card game till he fell asleep with the rocking movements of their spaceship.