#valme

 “...well...”

When she raked her hand through her hair, she was at once surprised to realize she even had the capability to do so. It distracted her for a moment, and when she looked around once more, she wondered just... exactly what had happened. 

“It’s confusing, I know.”

 The voice was low and rough, sounding as if the woman speaking had spent a lifetime smoking, with a strangely soothing tone. When she turned, the pirate had to blink once at the sight of the diminutive redhead standing behind her. Large amethyst eyes looked up at Valme and the oddly doll-like face twisted into a smile that looked unnaturally jaded. “Being dead tends to be one of those things that doesn’t make sense.”

 “...last I checked, I was on the shore when I ate a bullet,” Valme growled, looking around again at the oddly monochrome forest that surrounded them. 

 “And I did myself in while sitting in a tomb.” The tiny woman shrugged, flexing her small hands. “Like I said, being dead doesn’t make sense.”

 “Who the fuck ‘re you, anyway?” 

    Rather than answer, the small redhead moved closer and extended her left arm. A scar... no, a brand was visible on her pale flesh. As Valme examined it, she felt a strange pang twist her heart. It was a stylized fox’s face, small and clearly burned into the skin. Sea blue met clear violet, and the two women stared at each other for a moment. 

  “So you’re the wife.”

  “I was.” Ruby Red Fox shrugged again as she shook her blood-red hair back and put her hands on her hips, turning to look out at the forest.

  “He’s still carryin’ a torch for you.” Valme patted herself down and almost laughed when she realized she was searching for her hip flask. Her hands fell to her sides. “Said a lot ‘bout how I was like you.”

  “I know.” Ruby smirked, another expression which was at strong variance with her demure appearance.

  “What, you hauntin’ him so you hear everythin’?” 

  “No, but I... Huh, I haven’t tried explaining this to anyone. Even the crazy redhead he was with before didn’t ask questions like this.”

  “...another crazy redhead? The fuck? How many women has he got?” Valme glanced around, brow furrowing. “She going to pop up, too?”

 “No, she didn’t kill herself. She just died.” Ruby snorted. “Lucky bitch.”

 “...fuckin’ gods, does he just put the kiss of death on women?”

 The small woman rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet as she crossed her arms over her stomach. “...no idea,” Ruby said finally, shaking her hair out of her eyes. It was odd how she was the only vividly coloured spot in ...wherever they were. “Garret’s just got a thing for redheads,” she continued, reaching up to give her hair a yank. “He died on me, but I guess that didn’t change.”

  “He di- Right. Doll... thing. Whatever the fuck’s goin’ on with that.” Valme sighed heavily, 

  “Yeah.” Ruby chuckled, tilting her head back to stare overhead at the shapeless grey fog. “Gets himself killed protecting Aria, haunts her and then comes back and ends up still chasing her.”

  Valme could almost hear her own frown. “That Aria. He went off to see her, I think. Got a letter from her.”

  “She calls, he’ll come,” the small woman said, shrugging yet again. “Just... how it’s always been. Pretty sure no one’s ever going to mean to him what she does.”

  “...so he was lying when he said he cared about... any of us,” the pirate snarled. 

  Ruby paced in a small circle, shuffling through a layer of damp, brackish leaves. “Not really. Just... He didn’t love me more than he did her.” She paused, looking back up to the dim sky. “Pretty much nobody he loves more than her, even if he did marry me.”

  “Motherfuckin’ scum-suckin’ whelp! I’d break his gods damned face if I could!” Valme spun, the rage rising into a crimson haze, and slammed her fist against the nearest tree. There was no warning flare of pain when her knuckles connected, and she hit it again and again... and again, punching the rough bark repeatedly as wet leaves showered down about her. 

  Ruby made no move to stop her. With her slender arms crossed, the other redhead watched mutely, waiting out the explosion of temper. Only after Valme’s hand dropped and she stood with shoulders hanging did the smaller woman step closer and turn that incongruous grin up to her. “Yeah, I know. Felt about the same when I figured out he wasn’t coming to me but he’d decided to stay and haunt the baker.”

  “Why?” There was more pain in the outcry than Valme had intended to express, but her throat was tight and she couldn’t control the tone. 

  “...we just didn’t matter as much,” Ruby said with a wry twist to her rosebud mouth. She gave the taller woman a slight nudge with her shoulder before turning away, moving with light steps over the wet leaves. 

 It was the most familiar sound in the world to her. Soothing, constant and without meaning, the lap of water against the shore, the crash of waves across boulders... It had been with her most of her life, and as Valme kept her balance easily on the loose, wet sand, it filled her ears and covered the click of the hammer as she cocked her revolver. 

 “I love ya, Val.”

 Was it fear that had kept Tulvar from telling her that, all these years? ...maybe... If she’d known... If there had been a reason to... 

  The redhead laughed, a humourless, dry sound, and she turned to face the ocean. All her life, she’d wanted the freedom to make her own decisions. Other desires, other... hopes... Those she had ignored, crushed, kept silent lest she appear weak in a profession where weakness was your death. 

  Ironic, that. 

 As she stroked the revolver’s barrel along her jaw, the metal cold against her skin, Valme kept her gaze on the ever moving water. Memories rose, trying to play through her mind, and with the willpower that had kept her going despite everything that had tripped her up, the redhead shoved them back down. 

  Had she known she was killing herself when she pulled the trigger, despite the fact that the aim had been on the witch? 

  Did it even matter now?

  “...fair winds and smooth seas, Captain,” she said quietly, almost smiling as she set the barrel between her teeth. Valme’s wrist adjusted the angle as her gloved index finger set on the trigger, and she didn’t close her eyes. It was her last gift to the Captain she loved and the pirate who loved her- neither of them would have a hand in her death. 

  No. This... This she did all on her own. 

 ...she’d never admit it, but she was downright scared. 

As Valme paced the sands, she cast surreptitious glances across the water to the outline of the Maiden’s Mark. Still in harbor, still unmoving, with the flags giving only lackluster attempts at flying in the early morning breeze, it seemed to ... mock her.

The only home she’d really known, and she didn’t even feel it was hers. 

Everything that the crew of the Maiden’s Mark had now was due to that blonde bitch, and it rankled Valme enough to drive her from the ship, into the arms of a deranged masked man, onto land and away from where she felt her heart truly lay. The witch had bought them the ship, had outfitted it and the crew- a gift beyond measure, and so none of the crew begrudged her the captain’s heart. 

...save Valme. 

Pacing was only so helpful for working out the anger that built every time she looked towards the ship, and kicking the odd crab that wandered along the shore did nothing to vent what was boiling in her veins. Incoherent plans of revenge, of sinking a blade right through that swamp rat’s heart, of shooting Eiji in the smirking face all tumbled through her mind. None of them were clear enough for her to decide on a course of action, but this was the only time she had to herself to think. 

Valme’s jaw clenched as she glanced down at the scar on her forearm. The stylized fox’s face looked back at her, as mocking as the ship in the harbor. She was his, he said. And he was hers. Ah, but where was he now? Valme had seen the empty house, seen the sweet-smelling letter left on the kitchen table, abandoned in haste. 

They’d laid claim to each other, but it wasn’t her he’d gone running to when a single finger was lifted. Had Valme the chance, she would’ve hunted this ‘Aria’ down and put a blade right through her eye. Without a return address- obviously Fox knew precisely where his precious Aria was- there was no chance of that, and in her heart, the pirate knew he’d never tell her where the woman was. 

...second best, if that. 

Her teeth ground together. 

It seemed that her life had been a series of poor choices, one after another, and all of those had led to this- standing on a beach with no one she could call her own, no home she could call a haven, no reason to not make yet another poor choice out of the anger that had driven her through mending nets, sleeping in a patched canoe, fighting her way through life to reach a point where she thought that just this once it would turn out the way she wanted. 

“So be it,” she growled between clenched teeth. Let it all fall apart. She’d make sure that if she lost, everyone else would lose along with her. Valme’s sea-coloured eyes narrowed as she caught the distinct glint of sunlight on blonde hair across the water. 

The witch was on deck. 

...in clear view.

And she happened to have the rifle of the Lionsguard she’d killed to have this beach to herself. 

 Drunk.

They were both completely and utterly soused.

It was evident in how Eiji hung onto the railing of the deck and how Valme laughed unrestrainedly as she staggered along after him. Fresh into port after a season on the open sea was always a time of abandoned celebration, and this was no different. The redhead threw her arms wide and laughed again as she staggered. “Any more money we spend, Capt’n, we’re gonna be fresh out b’fore we even resupply,” she said, hiccuping a bit before reaching down to retrieve the bottle set between her feet. 

“Aye, and so what? We can always get more money,” he replied, lolling against the railing with that cocky grin that never failed to draw approving eyes from the women he turned it to. Valme’s sea-coloured gaze was no exception; she paused in taking another sip of the outrageously expensive rum and chuckled, holding the bottle out. 

“Have a slug o’ somethin’ you’ll really like,” she chuckled.