Ved Leske.

As he spoke about the beasts as one might describe a lover, Lyra’s suspicions peaked. This guy wasn’t on their side at all, the way he described them sounded like he wanted to be one. Or like he already was. “So you would’ve liked Jax to wax poetic about the nature of the beast as we were in the heat of battle? Fuck, you’re an idiot. Thank god you’re not in charge, or we’d have been dead a long time ago.” She didn’t usually get snippy with the crew, but Ved was being particularly dense right now, and from his outburst back in the woods, it was only too clear he thought he ought to be in charge. She didn’t care about his sappy descriptions of the things that wanted them dead, she only cared about getting her crew, her family, to safety, no matter what laws they may have broken or who they might’ve scared. The fact that Ved had other priorities didn’t sit well with her.

“Right now? I think you’re out to get all of us killed. You’ve always had a death wish, I just didn’t think it extended to the rest of us until now.” She answered bluntly, not revealing the extent of her suspicions, she turned around and walked away. 

All Ved could really do, with that, was stare. What would he have liked? As if this had shit all to do with that. She’d know what he would’ve liked, if she’d listened, in the fuckin’ forest. If any of them had. As if she’d come around to hear his end of things, in the first place. No, the storyteller in her had picked a damn side, as all storytellers did. Meaning she wouldn’t give a shit what he had to say. The story was told, wasn’t it, as far as Lyra was concerned? He was the bad one. The problem. A handful of years on that ship, and she thought she knew. It’d be funny, if it weren’t so damn insulting. 

The listening, though. The failure of it. Was that something she’d caught from Jax, lately? Or - hell, was it her, rubbing off on the captain? Something looped and knotted in his guts, at the thought. Perhaps they’d never really run too close together, him and Harper, but... Jax wasn’t so easy to bend, was he? Wouldn’t have expected that. 

He shook his head, eyes rolling away, letting her get whatever this was off her chest. Lyra, she’d just wanted something to hiss at, hadn’t she? A cat in a corner. Fine. Let her. Let her go on, and on, putting words in his mouth, and blame on his name, and... finally. As she stalked off, Ved spat in the dirt. To get the taste of that little chat out of his mouth. To hell with the bard. There was trouble, in her. None he needed. None they needed. Jax would come to his damn senses, and see that. Soon enough. 

“ Silver burns them? “ The information Ved was telling him about the possible way to at least weaken the werewolves was truly fascinating in Magni’s mind. Even if he knew they had a little chance against them, even with the knowledge of their weakness. The werewolves are stronger than the pirates and faster, besides where would they be able to get their hands on silver weapons in a village full of werewolves anyways? “ That’s interesting, but utterly useless right now, unfortunately. “ Just like Ved, Magni knew they would eventually be forced to fight their captors. The trial would never be fair against them and allow them to leave the island without punishment, so they would have to figure out another way to get off this island alive, and it was clear it would require fighting.  “ I reckon most of us can fight, at least somewhat, everyone except the badly wounded must fight if we want to leave this cursed island… But you’ve got to tell me since you know so much about these werewolves, do you think we will stand a chance against them in a fight? “

“Knowing’s never useless,” Ved half-muttered, then... didn’t add the obvious. That if they’d just known a little more, this could all have gone very differently. If Jax had known. If he’d remembered. If Bradway had known. But he wasn’t around to tell them shit, anymore, and they had what they had, and they’d wound up where they were. Chasing the old man’s dreams, right into this mess. He shook his head, cracked his neck. Stiff, from the weight and drag of the manacles. 

Most of them. In that case, it might be a matter of who was still able to raise arms. Even then... he started circling, again. Thinking. What could they hope for, and what did they have? To have any shot, at all, they’d need to be armed, and... far from here. Not in the village. Or the woods, obviously, where the pack had every advantage. The beach, maybe, or somewhere else where the crew could see them coming. They’d have to move fast, to get there - and their odds would get better, if they had the pack distracted, properly... 

Something twisted, tight in his chest, turning him away from saying any of it, from thinking on the implications. Every answer to this was ugly. Ved’s eyes strayed across the barnyard, the houses beyond. Then back to the dusty earth, winding around that post at the end of his chain. “Not especially. Doesn’t much matter, though, does it? What I think.” A crooked smirk pushed over his face. He’d learned his fuckin’ lesson, hadn’t he? “Fight’s coming, one way or another. I’ll be in it, same as you. Odds only matter if you’ve got options. Far as I can see, we don’t. Saves us worrying about our chances, at least.” 

He must know what it meant, to admit that name in this place. “Welcome home, Arved,” she said, with almost hushed tones. Something within her wanted that secret put back, locked away, where it couldn’t do any harm. For the sake of that boy she’d known, who’d once been innocent. But she knew it now, and the moment she walked away, the Pack must be told. Then it would be out of her hands. 

“A wife and and two children,” she told him. She couldn’t keep the feeling from her voice. The trial and her duties kept her occupied, hadn’t allowed a moment to mourn. “He was young, yet. Well loved among us.” 

She exhaled, swayed by a wave of regret. For them all. For all that had happened, and all that would. “Welcome home,” she repeated. “If only you’d stayed away.”

A welcome, of any sort; more than he’d expected. More than he’d been told to expect. Ved nodded, barely, cautious. Remembering his mother’s warnings, murkily. How he’d be torn apart, like his father, if he ever washed up on those shores again. And instead, he’d killed his own kind, blood-mad for the sake of a crew that... well, in the end, they were all out here for the stones. Weren’t they? Most of them, at least. Chasing down a whole lot of trouble. For what, really? In the end?

Wife. Two children. He swallowed that. Wasn’t as if he hadn’t taken fathers and husbands, young and well-loved, before. How many, over the years? Couldn’t guess. Just one more, now. No; not any one. A first. First werewolf. In all his life. That made it different. Made it stick, like the blood on his coat. 

“I didn’t know.” Ved took a deep, steady breath, shaking his head. Not an excuse. Not a lie. “Neither did they. Nobody on that crew thought there’d be anyone out here. I’ll swear that, for what my word’s worth. They didn’t come looking for any of you.” 

She didn’t want to see vulnerability. That only made her job more complicated. It was better if he were remorseless, callous. He should be repeating that line, variations echoing around his crew. Of course we fought back. She didn’t want to see the humanity in the murderer, sure to be found guilty in a few short days. Yet there it was. 

No lies, so far. She could tell when people lied. But there was still something he wasn’t saying. Reya shook her head, thoughts swirling. Family resemblance, Eden had said. Could it be? She examined the man’s face, searching for the child she’d known so long ago, the one who’d vanished into the outside world. The world was unkind; she’d assumed the worst. Had he managed not only to survive, but to find his way home? 

“Answers for answers,” Reya finally responded. “Tell me your name. Your full name.”

There it was. A chance to lie; a chance to tell a truth that would fuck him sideways, maybe twice over. With the pack and the coven. With the crew, if this witch drew the lines he suspected she might. But - if that was the case, well. Hadn’t she got halfway there, already? To ask? To ask like that. 

Ved hesitated, knowing, even as he did - knowing like a hunting thing knows - that hesitation’s a killer. Then he drew up, straight. Not proud. Honest. “Arved Leske.” There. A name that might get his throat cut, faster. But. If they could take his, they were welcome to it. A neck for a neck. His chin lifted, eyebrows, too. Waiting. “Answers for answers. The one I killed. Who lost him?” 

Lyra had never known Ved to be particularly empathetic, and it made her wonder that he went to so much trouble to get inside the heads of these things. It didn’t sound like he was describing someone else’s experiences. She didn’t bother to point that out, though, she was good at collecting secrets. He didn’t need to know about her suspicions. “Okay, so we’re not going to let you make our case in this trial, then.” She scoffed, rolling her eyes.

“I didn’t ask what the difference was, I asked for a better description. So unless you can describe to me what a wolf is without referencing dogs at all, you’re only proving that Jax explained it pretty damn well.” She rolled her eyes, he was really only reinforcing what Lyra suspected, that he had more in common with the creatures here than he did with the crew. “And I’ve never tried to pet any of the feral dogs by the docks, so I don’t see why I’d try it with a wolf.” The only dogs she’d ever seen were working dogs, for herding animals or attacking people, or the mean, feral dogs that roamed the port towns where they’d stopped. None of them struck Lyra as particularly friendly creatures. 

Jokes. Now she sounded like a bard. Couldn’t tell him he was wrong, though. Because he wasn’t. Even if she didn’t want to see it. “Oh, don’t fret. Sure someone will be ready to spin a horseshit story, for our sakes. Make us sound so hapless and well-meant as you’d like us to.” He chuckled, hoarsely. Their case. That would be on Jax, now, wouldn’t it? All this was on him, in the end. 

Poor bastard. 

As if he could’ve seen it coming. Even Bradway hadn’t. Even Ved hadn’t, and this... this was home. A long time ago, so long he’d forgotten. But home, once. And he was starting to see it, the past, under everything. Wouldn’t say he liked it, though. Not at all. 

Extremely protective. Ved sniffed, dragging on his chain a little. Still needed some work. “They’re wild things. Entirely. Won’t stand for being kenneled away, or living off human scraps.” A start. He turned, trying that chain from another angle, where he could push into his better shoulder a bit more. “Wolves are every bit the family creatures humans are. Or say they are, at any rate. Only, in a pack, nobody goes hungry, or cold... they live together, or they die together. A family. Beyond pride, or power, or profit, or... glory, any of it. They make the best of all their strengths, and they make do, for their weaknesses. As one thing.” And that’s what Harper seemed to be fucking missing, in general. Useless, trying to tell her. The hell did pirates really know about all that, anyway? Scott, Ved was realizing, had been a real exception. And so the crew of the Serpent had been an exception, when the old captain had it in hand.

What the fuck was it, now?

Tossing his hair, Ved shook those flies away again. And leveled a solid, straight look Lyra’s way. No anger. None at all. Just... something like humour, if you’d wrung all the actual mirth out of it. “You really do think I’m out to fuckin’ get him, don’t you?” 

“It’s not like we knew it was their home. They’d could’ve just said, hey, we live here! Instead of siccing a damn sea monster on us. And we didn’t attack any of them until they started snatching people!” Lyra didn’t know why she had to defend them against a member of their own crew, but it made her trust the man less and less. No matter if he could empathize with these creatures, his first loyalty should be to the crew. She scoffed. “Sure seem like animals to me.”

She rolled her eyes as he questioned how she’d never heard of werewolves, Lyra usually played dumb when she messed up things like that, and no one expected much of her. But when he brought Jax into it, she glared at him. “Well how would you explain it, then? They sure looked like big, nasty dogs to me.” She had no patience for him undermining the captain right now.

No, apparently. It didn’t make any sense, at all, to someone like Lyra, that safety could be this damn desperate a cause. Shouldn’t have hoped it would. “Put it this way,” he winced, as that shoulder twitched. Healing. Slowly. Too slowly. “You’re afraid of the world. Because it’s never done fuck all but hurt you. So you get yourself a place in the middle of nowhere, to be. With your family. And you put the foulest beast you can find between you and everything else. Then, out of nowhere, somebody comes along, and tears it apart. When they shouldn’t have any idea where you are, in the first place. No reason to be there. At all. Then they start coming closer, to you, your children, your old ones. They’re pirates. Armed. Very possibly the sort of people who’d be happy to sell your fuckin’ skins, to make rugs for rich men.” Could only hope his point was making itself, by now. “So you protect your family. That sound like an animal, to you? Or good fuckin’ sense? Yeah, we didn’t know. Doesn’t change how it looked, to them.”  

As for why they didn’t know... well, that wasn’t a conversation he at all wanted to have, with her. With anyone. For Jax’s sake, and his own. 

That had sounded downright protective. Didn’t it? They had been spending a lot of time together, hadn’t they? Jax and Lyra. Head tilting, curiously, Ved... shelved that, for later. “Wolves kept everything dogs lost, when they took a spot by the fire. They’re hunters. Live rough. Together, in a pack. Where they take care of each other, fight for each other.” Something else a human might not get. Not really. He sighed; tired, aching, not prepared, for all this... talking. “You really want to know the damn difference? Try petting one.” 

Uncertainty flickered across her features before her expression hardened. She was silent for a moment, appraising him before choosing her words. She hadn’t expected the question; not from one who’d done what he had. Anger, aggression, threats, those were normal, boring, easily brushed off. This caught her attention.

“What answer would you prefer?” she asked, mocking. “No one, so that your conscience is eased in destroying only one life? Or would you rather write letters of sympathy to his loved ones, beg for forgiveness you haven’t earned?” She locked eyes, seeking to read his motives. “Or perhaps it’s something else. Morbid curiosity? What’s a dead monster to you?”

He took that, unflinching; the snap, the scorn. To be expected. Warranted. Didn’t mean it didn’t burn, cold as a lashing rain. His conscience. A quiet thing, these days. There it was, though, whimpering at the back of his skull, like a lost pup. 

“Well - can’t write. So, letters are out.” Ved admitted, guileless. There wasn’t any joke to that. None. “Not one to plead for anything I know ain’t gonna come, anyway. And nobody’s ever accused me of being the curious type.” Forgiveness. What a thought. No, he didn’t imagine that. Never had, before. Wasn’t about to start. What did he want, then? Wincing - at the knitting of his ribs, at that last cut, there, a gut wound she didn’t even know she’d opened - Ved shrugged, painfully. “I don’t know, yet. A dead father?” Like his own. “Dead brother, dead son? You tell me. Or don’t. Only answer I’m after is the truth, I suppose.” 

“ You’ve been dealin’ with a lot of werewolves throughout your life? “ Magni couldn’t contain the mischievous grin that gradually made it’s way across his face when he got this reaction out of Ved. Even if originally he hadn’t meant any harm by his questions, he would never be able to deny how delightful he found it whenever he was able to get under his skin. Of course, he realised he shouldn’t be astounded about the realisation of the existence of werewolves or if Ved had any knowledge of them. When most people wouldn’t even believe in his existence, then who is he to say what other supernatural or even mythical beings aren’t real? “  

To keep up with the other man during his stride across the village, Magni had to nearly jog after him, but that didn’t stop him from accompanying him during his walk. “ Well, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a werewolf until now, so I wouldn’t have recognised them or known how poisonous silver is to them, that was pretty clever, by the way. “

That - that burned off some of the seething, nerve-wracked haze. Had to guard that secret of his, more than ever, now. “Enough,” Ved answered, dully. And jerked, coming to the end of his damn chain. He tested the strength of it, that post. Quietly. Almost there. Almost. Which... raised more questions, really. If the pack had figured him out, realized what he was - wouldn’t they have found a surer way to hold him? The uncertainty didn’t sit well. At all. 

Clever. No, none of this felt clever; telling your crew how to kill you. But. They’d never fucking know. And, in the meantime, they had to survive. Their chances were best together. Better still, if he could make sure they understood what they needed to, if they were going to have any shot at all. “Burns, yeah,” Ved explained, half-under his breath, turning, the heavy irons clinking, chafing at his wrists. “Keeps them from healing so fast, too. If you cut them with a silvered blade. Gives you time, at least.” Magni seemed to have come through the woods in decent shape; they’d need all the strong arms they had. “How many of us could fight, you think? When it comes to that?” Not if. When. Ved hadn’t seen all of them, couldn’t, from his leash. How bad off were they? 

“Guilty of defending ourselves, maybe. They attacked us first,” she shrugged, she doubted their captors would see it that way. “But why even bother with a trial then? If the plan is to kill us, it would make more sense to just do it.” She knew that as long as they were alive, they had a chance to escape. She wasn’t giving up on that. She shrugged when he asked how she didn’t know what a werewolf was. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know I was supposed to know every story in the world. I’ve always lived by the sea, the stories people told were about sea monsters, not werewolves.”

Ved had to stare. “Because we stormed their home.” Didn’t that make sense? Even to a human? “A home they went to a lot of fuckin’ trouble to find, and keep hidden, so that they could live as they liked. Safe. Left alone.” With their children. Like he’d been. And their elders. Like he’d... lost. “And we’ll have a trial because they’re not animals. They’ve laws of their own.” That had some bite to it. Not kind laws, no, but. They’d learned from the worst, hadn’t they? No, werewolves weren’t beasts any more than the people of Port Royal, or the rest of the harbours they passed through. As if those good, law-abiding citizens wouldn’t come down and crow at a fine, legal hanging.

The stories, though. That was fair. Perhaps. All the same. “Wouldn’t call werewolves too fuckin’ obscure,” he sighed, but the snap had dulled. No point wasting himself on this. Had to be sharp, and ready. They all did. For whatever came next. There’d be an opportunity. Somewhere. “Wolves, neither.” As if he hadn’t heard that, too. Big, nasty dogs. Ved chuffed, shaking his head. “Just so you know, a wolf’s no damn dog. The captain's steering you wrong, there.” As for the rest of them? Well, that remained to be seen.