Moths ablaze
A character sketch of a man of habit
I can’t even bear to look at you anymore.
The ship creaks in the wind, the full moon lighting my window as I sit in silence and find my way to the bottom of a bottle of rotgut I managed to pilfer from rations. I turn the cup over in my hands, snuck from your quarters when you hadn’t been paying attention — or at least humored me by pretending not to. A patina has settled into the dent you put in it all those years ago, after a particularly festive night we spent together. The celebration of when you were… promoted… to captain. Not that the last guy could have told you no, from the bottom of the sea.
It was perhaps out of pity you let me aboard your ship when I rode back into town nearly two months ago, my luck having finally run out. Or perhaps you enjoyed ordering me around as repayment for all the trouble I’ve caused you over the years. One couldn’t blame you.
Therai. If I hire you, you are my crew. Nothing more. That’s behind us. Do you understand?
Hope springs eternal.
The bottle runs empty, but my mind is full. I know you hate me when I’m like this. Because this is when I can’t stop myself…
Before I could think better of it, I stand, swaying with the hull, and meander from my room towards the light from your doorway like a moth to flame, the eyes of the watchmen following me. I arrive, full-body hugging the door, tapping on the splintered wood.
It swings open as you answer, and I catch myself on the frame just in time not to land on top of you. I can’t look you in the face, but I don’t need to. I can feel your displeasure at the state of me.
“Therai—“
“Please. Please, just give me a moment.”
I stumble into your quarters before you can protest, hand gliding along the wall as the heat from your stare settles upon me.
“You stink of booze.” Your voice is flat, a million miles away.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
“What do you want?”
The silence between us is deafening. I didn’t come here with an answer to that. What do I want? To turn back time? To be a different person than the one that you can clearly see that I am? To be someone you can stand to look at?
My fist tightens against the wall, and for all my liquid courage, I struggle to turn to face you.
When I finally do, what few words I had fail me.
The resentment radiates off of you, your body stiffened with a barely-restrained urge to send me to the bottom of the sea with all the rest. But your eyes — your eyes take my breath away.
I haven’t seen tears in your eyes since we were children. Not from you, blood queen of the sea. Even when you sent me away for the last time, your expression never broke.
I know I am only proving you right. I know I will accomplish nothing but adding another stupid mistake the endless ledger of your mistrust. I know all of that.
But I can’t stop myself.
I rush to close the space between us, my unsteady hand meeting your chin and turning your face towards mine. “Please look at me,” I beg, and before you can answer, my lips are on yours.
For a moment, your voice stifled, your body drawing into mine despite yourself, I know that somewhere inside you is still a place for me. For just a moment, I remember you, and you remember me.
But as fast as it began, the moment is gone. My addled mind dancing with fantasies of true love’s kiss comes crashing back to earth as something slams the side of my face, ears ringing like a banshee’s scream.
My already precarious balance is lost and I stumble back to the floor, hitting the wall on my way down. I look up at you, your spike-knuckled fist still frozen in mid-air as you stare down at me, in disgust, in betrayal, in sadness, in desire, in hatred.
“Get out,” you hiss between tightly clenched teeth, barely a whisper, yet threatening as a knife.
“Get out!”
I scramble to my knees, leaning on the wall as I fight to get back up onto my feet, black spots still invading the left periphery of my vision as I try to find my balance and your door.
What have I done?
Stumbling back through the lit doorway, the moth burned by its destructive obsession, you slam the door shut behind me.
I stand in the moonlight, giving myself a moment to refind my sea legs and assess the state of my face as blood drips down my jaw, when I hear it.
The soft thud of your weight dropping to the deck, and a tightly suppressed, wracked breath, forcing itself from your body in waves.
The only thing I ever wanted was to not hurt you, and yet I can’t seem to stop.
My own tears join the blood flowing down my face, as I press my forehead to your door, hoping that, maybe somehow, you can feel my regret. As if that would mean anything to you now.
But I know that you’re not like me. You’ll get over it, and the blood queen of the sea will return to her mantle come daybreak. You just need a little time.
Backing away from the door, I finally drop my gaze from the light that draws me in, understanding now that there is only one thing left I can do for you.
All eyes on me, I hum, as my staggered gait echos down the slumbering galley on my way to empty my quarters, not bothering to wipe the blood from my cheek. I sing drunkenly, hearing the disapproving tuttering of the watchmen as I toss my few belongings onto the dock with a bang. The first streaks of dawn snake across the water as I alight the ship in an undignified, clambering hobble. May your absence go unnoticed, in the chaos of my departure.
The least I can do, in all the ways I have done the least by you, is let the spectacle of my foolishness spare you from any more trouble.