#nedpan

Abel shuddered to think of his men. Those few who had survived the journey. Sick with melancholy and the Lord's hard hand. Healing — if at all — much slower than Abel. For Abel was chosen.

Chosen, just as Emma was. Just as Antonio, and João. As Francis, and Arthur, and Gilbert, and Roderich. Chosen to heal and survive. To die and resurrect.

Chosen to live. Live despite it all.

"I've been told you are a pirate."

The voice spoke again, seething the last word through grit teeth. Blatant disgust for those as seemingly below him as a pirate were. This time Abel lifted his head, peering up at the speaker through loose strands of his blonde hair.

Small.

The man was small.

Abel figured that if he were healthy, if he were standing, then this man would hardly reach his shoulders.

The man was small.

But he stood as if were Goliath. His chest proud, back straight, shoulders squared. Stalwart beneath his purple silk robe. Porcelain skin radiant under the rising sun.

And Abel began to remember why Goliath was killed. Why Sodom was burned. Why God sent The Flood and The Plagues. Why only one of his ships made to the East shores.

Because His will was absolute. Because His power was ultimate. Because divine intervention came for them all, eventually. For all, it seemed, but the chosen.

Abel tensed his jaw and found that the taste on his lips was metallic. He swallowed harshly. His tongue feeling for the bloodied, red, bruises atop his gums. Then he spoke, with all the energy he could muster, to the beautiful Goliath. For whom he did not wish to be David.

"Do you often believe lies?"

The man's brown eyes flashed with a tinge of interest. Warm and round in a manner Abel had not yet known. "No," he answered slowly, "But you Nanban never stop lying."

Abel shifted his weight, allowing his head to lull back. He bit his cheek as he moved, stifling a wince from the reopening cuts and bruises that marred his skin. Fresh blood began to soak through his tattered sleeve, pooling in the linen, and onto his palm as he attempted to grip the wound shut.

In moments, Goliath was by his side. Crouched to meet Abel's eye, his smaller hand placed over Abel's larger. Pale and cold, and soft but calloused. A warrior. But gentle, such that Abel could not pull away if he tried. He attributed that to his illness, and he hoped God believed him.

In truth, Abel simply lacked the power to deny man's beauty.

Goliath sighed, "You cannot lie about blood."

Though his hand moved away, Abel could still feel the lingering presence of his touch. He frowned, and tasted metal once more as he spoke.

"We are ill," Abel admitted to a fact as true as the clear sky's blue, "But we have no intention to harm you."

"We are weary of outsiders," Goliath replied, his back still straightened as he sat atop his knees in front of Abel, small hands laid in his lap, "And you brought weaponry."

"Not intended for you," Abel spoke quickly. But his mind worked quicker. He wondered if this warrior may benefit from such items. "But you may have them if you'd like," Abel added, nodding.

Goliath raised a brow. Slight, hardly a hair's width above normal. A mere second worth of expression before he composed himself once more. "We already seized them," he said, before standing crisply. Without a fumble, or fold out of place.

Abel attempted to sink into the wall behind him as the man bowed, hinged at the hips, in a greeting Abel assumed only warriors performed.

"Nihon," the man introduced himself, "Honda Kiku."

Kiku.

Yes, that suited him much better than Goliath.

"Nederlanden," Abel replied, introducing his nation. He then introduced his human name, too.

Kiku straightened once more, his brown eyes scanning Abel's grounded body. "Your ship—" he started.

"De Liefde." It seemed Abel's mouth was, for once, working faster than his mind.

His ship. The Love. Though that had not always been her name, once sporting that which was the same as Desiderius Erasmus. And though it changed, Abel found that he could not escape those biblical teachings. Each of her sister ships named after a different virtue — Hoop, Geloof, Trouw; Hope, Faith, Loyalty.

None survived but Love.

"It is beyond repair," Kiku concluded.

Ah.

Were Abel healthy, perhaps he would've torn through the walls if his cell. Perhaps he would've marched to the shore, and caused João to regret his meddling in Abel's trade.

But he was ill. And he was bloody. And he mourned his men. Mourned his Hope, his Faith, his Loyalty. Now he mourned his Love.

"It protected you," Kiku said, cutting through Abel's clouded mind, "Protected you and your men till it could get you to shore."

Love as a protector. Abel supposed it was poetic, in its cruel way. The Lord had used His power against their ships. Provided divine intervention in aid of their enemies. And yet… Love persevered. Love protected. Love brought him to Kiku.

"Kiku," Abel finally croaked, "What protects you?"

Once more, the nation did not falter, "I protect myself."

"Not God?"

Finally, Kiku's face shifted, and Abel felt his breath catch in his throat. Kiku's brows creased, brown eyes narrowed, once soft features drifted into that of a frown. "You are just like João," he spat.

"No," Abel held out his hand, warm and red from the blood of his wound, "He doesn't protect me either."

"Your God?"

Abel nodded, "The way I see it, nothing is divine. All that is real is tangible."

"Believing He's not real is easier than believing He doesn't protect you," Kiku narrated, Abel's words serving as nothing more than a story for him to analyze.

"But I understand," he continued, attempting comfort as Abel frowned, "And if you won't force those beliefs on my people, then… There may be mutual benefit here, yet."

Abel nodded, mesmerized by how orange Kiku's eyes shone with the rising sunlight. And how quick he was to read a person's convictions.

"You should be bandaged," Kiku glanced at Abel's blood-soaked sleeve.

Abel nodded again, before rising — slowly — to follow Kiku out of his cell. Weak from sea and sickness, his legs nearly gave out beneath him. Abel caught himself on Kiku's shoulder, the warrior instinctively wrapping his own arm around Abel's waist to prop him up.

And he was small. Hardly reaching Abel's shoulders. But he was strong, and steady. And Abel had much to mourn. He'd been resurrected as God had done before, healing and surviving as only few could understand. And still, De Liefde chose to bring him here. To Kiku.