#yes bill is basically a quasi-will turner even if he's in the clergy and charlie's the blacksmith

[carewyncromwell]

[POTC AU] Captain Orion Amari of the pirate ship Artemis and Captain “Carey Weasley” (Carewyn Cromwell) of the HMS Robin Moodboard

x~x~x~x

“Captain,” said Skye rather sharply, “are you sure about this?”

Orion didn’t answer. He was keeping an eye on the incapacitated HMS Robin through his naval telescope as his own white-and-gray painted ship, the Artemis, sailed away from it.

“Their crew won’t be able to come after us, while they’re stuck on that sandbar,” pointed out the first mate, McNully. “And even if they were able to lighten the load enough to get off of it, there’s only a 12% chance they’d decide to fire on us, while we have their Captain aboard.”

“It’s their Captain I don’t trust,” Skye said irritably.

“Captain Weasley surrendered himself to us honorably,” said Orion calmly. He lowered the telescope, tucking it away in the inside of his long olive suede jacket, and strolled past the helm. “We can afford to show him a bit of courtesy in return, considering how much easier he’s made things for all of us...”

“But tying him up and throwing him in your cabin?” demanded Skye, as she pursued Orion down the stairs to the main deck. “He should be locked in irons in the brig -- he’s our prisoner -- ”

“‘Prisoner?’” Orion repeated airily, raising an eyebrow. "I believe I called him a guest, when I first ordered you to take him aboard.”

“Most guests don’t require being tied up, Orion,” McNully pointed out amusedly. Given that he was missing both legs, he transported himself down from the helm by lifting himself up into some loose ropes in the rigging and then swinging and climbing down to his rolling chair left at the base of the stairs.

Skye, however, still persisted. “Captain, I’m serious about this. Something’s off about this Captain Weasley, I can feel it. He’s not acting like the other officers we’ve taken. He was way too calm, way too...nice.”

“I don’t know if I’d say ‘nice’ is the right word, considering he initially cut off one of my wooden legs, when I first arrived on the deck of his ship,” said McNully. “But he has been very civil since he surrendered to us, I have to admit.”

“Of course,” said Orion. “He cares about the safety of his crew, and the terms of our accord were that we take him and spare his crew and ship, was it not? It’s in his best interest to submit to our authority, at least in the interim.”

“There is a 64% chance he’ll fight back as soon as the HMS Robin is out of range of our cannons, though,” McNully warned him. “Perhaps we should break out some manacles, just in case...”

Orion seemed perfectly disinterested in the suggestion. He’d turned his focus to the sailors in the rigging.

“Set a course southwest, helmsman!” he called. “Heave to and full sail! We’ll make a quick stop in Tortuga for supplies on our way to drop off our cargo...”

Skye barreled in front of Orion to stop him from walking any further.

“Tortuga?! Captain, are you mad!?”

“Thanks to Captain Weasley trying and failing to lighten the load of his ship and escape the sand bar, our plunder was underwhelming,” Orion said patiently. “We still need soap and rum before we travel much longer.”

“But if we make port, then that Weasley could escape!”

McNully couldn’t bite back a laugh. “Escape? A Captain of the British Navy, escaping onto an island full of pirates? There’s not even a one percent chance of that happening.”

“Don’t underestimate him,” growled Skye. She snatched something out from the inside of her shirt. “I found this ‘round his neck, when I tied him up -- ”

She held out a gold chain -- dangling on the end was a round gold medallion engraved with a sinister-looking skull.

Orion’s shoulders stiffened noticeably. He held out his hand so that Skye could give the necklace to him.

“Dunno where it’s from, but it’s definitely a pirate medallion,” Skye said under her breath suspiciously. “That ‘Carey Weasley’ may be a Navy stooge, but he’s got links to piracy too, mark my words.”

McNully rolled himself around to get a better look at the medallion too.

“It looks to be solid gold,” he murmured. “Whichever pirate he got that from -- or stole it from, there’s about a 45 percent chance of that -- was likely one of the wealthier ones...”

Orion’s thumb ran over the medallion absently as he stared at it, his dark eyes rippling with a bizarre, indecipherable emotion. Then, after a long moment, he pocketed the medallion inside his olive coat and turned on his heel.

“Stay on course for Tortuga, McNully,” he said quietly. “I should have a private word with our ‘guest.’”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

Orion swept toward his cabin door at the back of the ship, just under the helm. His dark eyes lingered on the doorknob for a short, palpable moment, before he twisted it and pushed the door open.

Sitting in the center of the room was a short young man dressed in a navy blue and white Navy uniform bound to a chair with thick ropes. His ponytail was a shocking ginger red and his blue almond-shaped eyes were focused on the floor in front of his tall black boots rather than on Orion as he entered.

The pirate captain considered the Naval captain carefully for a moment as he slid the door closed behind him with a soft snap. After a moment, he spoke very levelly.

“...Greetings, Captain.”

The red-haired officer smiled in dark amusement.

“Good of you to remember to speak first,” he said coolly. “It’s bad enough luck to have a ginger on board your ship at all, isn’t it?”

His voice was a bit high, which like his perfectly clean face could hint to a very young man, but that voice still echoed with experience and intelligence.

Orion raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t take you for a superstitious sort.”

“I’m not. But I’m Captain of a ship, and I’m more than used to that particular wives tale. Every sailor with red hair becomes very used to letting everyone else initiate any conversations.”

“Must be difficult when there are two of you,” said Orion amusedly. “Like your Lieutenant. Percy, was it?”

Captain Weasley’s eyes narrowed upon the floor without looking up.

“Yes,” he said very coldly.

Orion’s eyes swept around the room, narrowing on a spot on the far wall. He’d had a pair of decorative swords hung up there...

Turning his gaze back to Weasley, he took a few slow, leisurely steps forward, his hand running along the scabbard attached to his belt.

“...How do you like the accommodations?”

“I don’t much care for being tied up,” said the Captain dryly.

“I suppose anyone else would feel similarly...” said Orion very solemnly, “...if they were tied up.”

CLANG!

In an instant, Orion had to bring up his sword to block a blow from another cutlass. The ropes had fallen completely lax and cut open to the floor, and Weasley had leapt to her feet, holding both of the ornate decorative swords that had been on Orion’s wall in his bleeding hands. He must’ve been able to move his chair enough to knock them off the wall and use them to cut his bindings, but catching the blades with his bare hands made him also cut open his palms.

Orion blocked again as the Naval Captain slashed and parried with both swords, beating him backward.

“You used my swords to cut yourself free, then?” asked Orion. “I’m surprised you were able to move enough to reach them, with how tightly Skye must have bound you...”

“I was captured by the Spanish five times, during the War,” the Captain shot back coldly. “I’ve had more than enough experience being tied up -- ”

Once he’d beaten Orion back into a corner, Weasley made a break for the door, but Orion quickly bent down and yanked the rug out from under him.

“AH!”

Weasley felt flat on his face. Orion lunged forward, and Weasley rolled over, blocking his cutlass with both swords.

“Five times?” said Orion, his eyebrows raised in interest. “And you presumably escaped every time? Impressive. I know full well how difficult it can be, to evade the Spanish.”

“Ha!” Weasley gave a very cool laugh. “I’m sure you do!”

Orion and Weasley crossed swords, slashing at the air and slamming their blades against each other in dangerous shings. Weasley kept trying to break for the door, but Orion stubbornly tried to force him back -- he was not going to let him get away.

“You’re very talented with a sword, Captain,” said Orion.

“I don’t need your flattery,” Weasley shot back sardonically.

“And I don’t need you running out onto the deck and causing a scene,” Orion said very gravely, his dark eyes narrowing upon the other Captain’s face. “You’d be surrounded within minutes, once you left my cabin -- ”

Weasley shot her leg out, kicking Orion right in the shin. Orion fell back with a grunt of pain -- within seconds, Weasley had crossed both of his swords against the pirate captain’s neck.

“Not if I have a hostage of my own,” said Weasley softly.

Orion’s dark eyes were wide for only a moment before his face relaxed again.

“A Naval officer resorting to blackmail? And after my crew and I showed you hospitality...I thought you were an honorable sort, Captain.”

Weasley’s eyes flashed dangerously. “You’re in no place to question my honor, Captain -- I know full well that all of the ‘hospitality’ you’ve shown me is only skin-deep.”

Orion raised an eyebrow.

“Oh?” he said, and his level voice betrayed a bit of edge despite himself.

“The Artemis has been capturing and marooning Naval officers up and down British shipping routes for months now,” said Weasley. “It’s terrified the British Navy and the common man alike. People don’t think it’s safe to travel, because they’re afraid that pirates will pillage and plunder any ship they might board -- and the Navy is finding fewer and fewer officers willing to sail those routes, for fear they might be next.”

“As intended,” said Orion placidly. “Less Navy officers on the route means less pirates hunted down like wild beasts.”

“And less people to protect civilians and merchants from those pirates who act like wild beasts.”

Weasley urged Orion up onto his feet, his blue eyes very cold upon the pirate’s face as he walked behind him, ushering him across the cabin toward the door. Blood dripped from his still bleeding palms down the blades of his two swords. 

“I don’t intend to be another statistic that can be used to strike fear into the hearts of others,” he murmured coldly. “I don’t care how gentlemanly you seem -- I don’t abide bullies, no matter who they are.”

“A shame you work alongside an entire Navy of them, then,” said Orion very softly.

He abruptly slammed his head backward right into the Naval Captain’s forehead.

“Augh!”

Weasley was stunned just enough for Orion to duck out from under his swords. Dashing back just enough to grab his sword back up off the floor, he prevented Weasley from again reaching the door by slamming his blade against both of the other Captain’s and pushing him back.

“Since when do you defend the Navy so passionately?” Orion challenged him.

Weasley’s blue eyes narrowed suspiciously. “‘Since when -- ?’ All of the Weasleys -- all of us, who are of age, were seamen, if we’re not still!”

Orion’s lips spread into a bizarre, detached sort of smile. “...Then ‘Weasley’ isn’t just a name you’ve borrowed: it’s a family you’ve found...”

Weasley looked oddly stricken. “What...?”

His eyes then narrowed as he slammed his right sword against Orion’s to push him back and then slashed at his shoulder with his left. Orion just barely avoided the blow, which swept through his long dark hair.

“I seem to recall you weren’t always so cold toward pirates,” said Orion lightly. “May have even harbored one or two, right under the Navy’s nose...”

Weasley’s face had gone very white, but he refused to show any fear.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he spat.

CLANG. SHING. Orion and Weasley leapt and spiraled around each other as if they were in a highly choreographed sword dance.

“Your sentiment was very much the same, back then, if memory serves me,” Orion plowed on, his voice remaining rather detached but going lower in his throat. “‘I don’t like bullies, no matter who they are.’ Except back then, that sentiment was directed toward the Navy -- ”

“Don’t patronize me!”

Weasley threw his left sword against Orion’s with another CLANG -- Orion managed to grab the Naval Captain’s right arm and twist his wrist.

“ACK!”

The blood-stained right sword fell to the floor with a clatter. Orion looped Weasley’s right arm behind his back, trying to restrain him.

“What changed you?” Orion whispered in the Captain’s ear. “What’s filled you with such hatred?”

Weasley tried to wrench out of Orion’s grip. Upon not being able to, he stomped on Orion’s foot and used the distraction to pull away and put some distance between them again. The Naval Captain was breathing hard, his blue eyes boring into Orion’s face critically, analyzing him.

“I don’t hate pirates,” said Weasley very softly. “But most pirates aren’t as gentlemanly as you, Captain Amari. Most, when they capture innocent people, don’t just let them go unharmed. Even you don’t drop them off anywhere inhabited -- even you follow the Pirate Code and leave them on deserted islands -- ”

“Along rum-runner routes,” Orion said softly. “They’re always found alive.”

“Even if that were true, you don’t give them back to their families!” Weasley shot back, and his voice for the first time sounded righteously angry. “You still rip them away from their lives, terrify them and their crews, and make them wait around, not knowing if they’ll ever see home again!”

“Those officers were not our enemy, nor are you. We don’t harm anyone who hasn’t given us a reason to.”

“You clearly do, by roping innocent people into this! You don’t think I know this is all to get back at the East India Trading Company, for pressuring the British Navy into hunting down pirates?”

“You don’t think I have reason, to want to protect my crew from people who have sold their souls to the Devil purely out of blind loyalty?” said Orion, and his voice and dark eyes rippled with a faintly icy edge for the first time.

“‘Blind loyalty!’” spat Weasley. “‘Blind’ -- I may be an officer, but my loyalty is not blind. The Company may think that they can buy our service, but they cannot buy any part of me. My loyalty is mine to bestow, upon the deserving.”

The Naval Captain’s blue eyes seared with a vengeful, painful kind of fire.

“The British Navy may be flawed, but it’s where I’ve made a life for myself -- and I don’t care how much you hate the Company, you have no right to separate good men from their families!”

Orion’s dark eyes widened slightly upon the Captain’s face. Then they softened, gaining a darker, almost sadder glint.

“Your brother,” he whispered.

Weasley stiffened sharply. He took a step to the side, which Orion mirrored -- soon they were circling each other, their swords at their sides as they considered each other.

“I have many brothers,” he said coldly.

“Only one blood one, if I’m not mistaken,” said Orion softly. “An older one -- a smart and talented man, who raised you after you both lost your parents...”

Weasley’s blue eyes darted over his face, narrowing almost to slits.

“...Who are you?” he whispered at last.

“You already know who I am. I’m Captain Orion Amari.”

“And yet I don’t recall colliding with an ‘Orion Amari’ previously, however many stories I’ve heard about him.”

Orion smiled slightly, but the expression didn’t quite touch his eyes. He sheathed his cutlass, holding his hands out with the fingers slightly spread, to showcase he wasn’t armed.

“I wouldn’t expect you to. It was a very long time ago -- it took me a while to recognize you, as well, after ten years. But this...”

He reached into the interior pocket of his olive coat and withdrew the gold medallion, dangling it in front of him by its chain. Weasley made a subconscious move as if thinking to grab it back, but he resisted.

“...I remember it very well,” murmured Orion.

His dark eyes drifted down to the medallion as it bobbed back and forth in mid-air.

“You showed it to me, to reassure me that you meant me no harm. Said your brother stole it from your grandfather’s cabin, before he stowed away with you in a jollyboat and you both escaped. Said your grandfather was a pirate too, but a much meaner one...Captain Charles Cromwell, of the ship Revenge.”

He could still see the gentleness that had been in those blue eyes -- feel the soft hand reaching out to touch his cheek, to try to comfort him when he was shaking from head to toe...

“...Soon after, the Navy caught up with me, and you hid me in a hole under a loose set of floorboards under your bed. You were able to charm the soldiers enough to persuade them you hadn’t seen me. Even your own brother believed you, until you came to get me, long after the soldiers were gone -- and immediately after you pulled the carpet up and helped me out, you -- ”

“Insisted you stay for dinner.”

Orion looked up, startled.

Weasley’s face was very white as he stared at Orion, his almond-shaped blue eyes very wide and alight with emotion.

“You were really thin and you weren’t very clean,” he murmured, “so I refused to let you leave until I took care of you properly. You were too scared to sleep at first, so I sat up and held your hand and sang songs to you until you fell asleep. And when I asked your name, all you would tell Jacob or me was -- ”

“‘Smithy,’” finished Orion, his voice oddly hushed.

His face didn’t break into a full smile, but his dark eyes had welled up with an intense, rippling, admiring kind of softness -- the kind more appropriate to see on the face of a man in love.

The Captain called “Weasley” stared at Orion for a long moment, his blue eyes rippling in amazement and disbelief. Then he dropped the remaining sword in his left hand to the floor with a clatter and swept right up to Orion, his arms encircling the pirate in a full embrace.

“It’s you,” he whispered incredulously, a smile rippling through every word. “After all this time...you’re alive...you’re here...?”

Orion had stiffened very slightly when the Naval Captain had reached him, but within seconds he’d tentatively brought his arms around him in return. Gradually, slowly, his grip tightened, his soot-blackened fingers digging into the fabric of the officer’s blue Navy coat and his chin resting on the other’s shoulder.

“...You believed me dead?”

“Well, you refused Jacob’s and my help -- we knew you had to be a fugitive, for you to give us a fake name, and when you left that night without a word and never resurfaced again...well...we feared the worst. I reassured Jacob for ages that you seemed resourceful, and that you might’ve had a way out of Port Royal, but...Jacob and I had only managed to get away from Grandfather because we could tag team to steal the jollyboat and then take turns rowing until we finally reached land. As far as we knew...you were alone. And no sailor can sail off an island alone.”

“I was fortunate enough to be able to stowaway on a merchant ship until it reached Portobello. I then enlisted with another crew, once I reached Tortuga.”

“That was the other part of it. With the Company demanding such brutal action against pirates...if you had somehow survived...”

“Weasley” exhaled.

“...all I’d hoped was that you’d somehow been able to go straight, so you wouldn’t end up a target.”

“You know full well how hard that is,” said Orion very solemnly.

“...I know.”

The Captain’s soft voice echoed with sorrow and compassion -- just as it had, when they’d first met...

Orion closed his eyes absently, breathing in slowly. He could smell rosemary...soap, no doubt.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” murmured the Naval Captain.

Orion slowly opened his eyes. “...I’m glad that that knowledge doesn’t disappoint you, Carewyn.”

The Captain called “Carey Weasley” -- in truth Carewyn Cromwell -- finally pulled away enough to look him in the face.

“Of course it doesn’t disappoint me,” she said severely. “I may be an officer of the Navy and I might have to march lock-step with the East India Trading Company sometimes, but I’m not that terrible.”

“I suppose with your family history, I couldn’t expect you to feel no sympathy, for our plight,” said Orion, “but with your brother having been taken by pirates...I admit, I wasn’t sure.”

Carewyn’s almond-shaped blue eyes were very solemn.

“Jacob joined a ship as their navigator, so as to earn enough money to support us,” she explained. “On the way back from Africa, however, his ship was attacked by a pirate captain named Howell Davis. Most of the ship’s crew made it out alive, but the pirates took all of their cargo...and Jacob along with it.”

Orion’s eyes narrowed. “Did they know Captain Cromwell?”

“I don’t think so. Even if they did, they probably wouldn’t have made a connection, since Jacob was using the name ‘Roberts’ at the time. But after he vanished, I had to find a way on my own...so I disguised myself as a boy and joined the Navy. It was there that I met Bill Weasley, who sort of looked after me, since we were the only two gingers in the ranks at the time. Then he figured out I was really a girl, and he decided I should use his last name so as to better hide my identity, since everyone in England knows the Weasley family is full of sons. Soon Bill’s brother Charlie joined up too, and since Charlie’s the same age as me, we played it off that we were twin brothers. Percy joined right after the War was over, after Bill joined the church and Charlie took up a blacksmith’s apprenticeship in Port Royal.”

“And you became a Captain yourself.”

“I didn’t have much of a choice. I don’t have any sort of dowry or money to my name, but Navy captains at least earn a better salary. And while I’m at sea, people won’t question why I’m not married and haven’t started a family yet...for now, anyway. I’ve already had to try to dissuade Governor Farrier from trying to matchmake me with his daughter so that I’d have a reason to stay near Port Royal and help him in his anti-pirate crusade...”

“It’s good to know that you don’t kowtow completely to your new masters, at least,” said Orion.

Despite the faint wryness in his smile, his eyes and voice were incredibly sincere. He felt so...so very happy, knowing that.

He reached out and took both of her hands in his. They were still bleeding from the cuts on her palms.

“Now then,” he said softly, “we should tend to those straight away. Your hands should never be stained with blood -- even your own.”

Carewyn smiled slightly as Orion led her to sit down on his bed before bustling over to find some bandages.

“Orion...”

The pirate captain’s shoulders tensed slightly.

“Yes?” he said as levelly as he could without turning around.

Carewyn laughed quietly. “I’m sorry...I just never knew your real name before. ...It is your real name, isn’t it? Orion?”

His heart gave a light flutter at her saying his name again. Her smile seemed to echo in every syllable...

Orion swallowed back the lump in his throat.

“...Yes,” he said softly. “It is.”

“Orion Amari,” Carewyn murmured to herself, almost like she was tasting it. “...It is really a very handsome name.”

“...Mm...”

Orion suddenly felt very shaky on his feet, and for once, it wasn’t due to the back-and-forth swaying movement of the Artemis.

“...much better than ‘Smithy,’ I suppose,” he said as airily as he could.

Carewyn giggled behind her hand. “I don’t know. I reckon ‘Captain Smithy’ could still catch on, if one were to put in the effort.”