Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A prologue of sorts. Set some decade or so before the events of Moby-Dick, on Ahab and Starbuck’s second voyage together. Ahab is the Captain of the Pequod, and Starbuck the Second Mate.

The wound was deep.

Starbuck, whom had christened herself as Nathaniel when she was 16 and never looked back, was no doctor; she was a whale-killer, a man of the harpoon and lance and line, a Quaker by birth and by Faith, and the Second Mate aboard a handsome, enviable Nantucket ship: The Pequod.

She was no doctor, but she knew blood, and she knew death, and she knew that her wound was deep.

Darkness spotted across her vision; wetness clung to the garments wrapped around her— her armor of masculinity, the shrouds burying the girl her father had raised. They were torn now, and red where she could see their edges.

The spare harpoon of their whaleboat had wrestled itself free among the tossing of the sleighride their whale pulled them on, and by some miracle, managed to dodge her hands in her futile attempt to grasp it, and had instead smote itself lengthwise across her chest, cutting through layers of cloth to bite into muscle and fat beneath. Her cry must have been a clear one, as her men had all swung their heads around to witness her injury as one.

Starbuck was learned in the healing ways of Christ, but she did not see His hands reaching for her now the way they had to Saul, the way they had to every sick and dying He had touched. No, it was instead the hands of the crew, her oarsmen who carried her to salvation.

She was grateful that none tried to treat her thoroughly in the boat; they had simply pressed a cloth to her wound, cut the line, and began to heave the boat back to her ship.

She hardly remembered being thrust from hand to hand once they reached the Pequod, so intent was her focus on minimizing her pain, gritting her teeth as the crew clamored for the aid of their captain. She closed her eyes to the jostle and waited for a break in the crowd, for her balance to stop spinning.

It was then, amidst the chaos, that Captain Ahab was upon her.

She was a tall, muscularly fat, handsome woman, the tenure of her leadership writ across her bronze skin in every wrinkle and scar, from the small tick in her eyebrow to the lightning mark that carved across her body from crown to heel.

She was every inch a captain, every inch a force of nature, every inch Ahab .

The Captain had looked over the scene with a ready, calculating eye, catching herself up to speed as the crew rattled on, explaining her state. Ahab stared into Starbuck the way she always did - as if she could see clear through the him of her presentation and directly into the raw her beneath.

The Captain was a woman in her own right, certainly and openly – far more open than Starbuck dared to be – and perhaps inclined to understand her position, but more than their similar backgrounds, Ahab was Starbuck's Captain, her superior, and Starbuck had lied to her.

Starbuck whimpered through the pain at the thought of losing Ahab's hard won favor due to the circumstances of her birth.

"Let me handle him," Ahab had commanded her crew, voice resounding like a church bell, like a gavel, "the First Mate is occupied."

And so Ahab had led Starbuck belowdecks, one hand pressed to her wound, cutting through her shirt.

Starbuck wished she had lost enough blood to not care about her secrets now. Oh, how she wished.

"Captain, I–" the register of her voice slipped and she bit her tongue, hoping the nature of her pain would conceal the higher octave. It was a weak excuse, and one she would not be able to cling to for long.

"Hush, Starbuck. Don't hurt thyself further, man." Ahab didn't look at her as they descended the steps to the Captain's quarters, and her stateroom.

Starbuck swallowed.

Ahab helped her sit back against the stateroom couch and then, to Starbuck's dismay, sat beside her and reached out to assist in disrobing her herself. Her rough fingers barely grazed Nathaniel's sleeve before she caught the wrist in her hand, her sapping strength rising out of panic. “Please, Captain,” she wheezed. "Don't. I can do it. Leave me be.”

Ahab frowned at the comment. When she had seen the severity of Starbuck's injury, the way it had bowed a man as uncomplaining and steadfast as he, she had assumed that he would be quite willing to receive treatment, given how ardently it was needed. She had not expected this resistance, and baffled, she pushed against it.

Ahab met her second mate's stubborn eyes sternly. “ Canst thou,” she bit out sarcastically. “I would certainly love to see thee try in this state.”

Starbuck squirmed, unconvinced. “I implore thee–”

“ Starbuck , I am not going to leave thee with a festering wound. Thou likely need'st stitching–” but Nathaniel was shaking his head as she spoke. Ahab's brow furrowed, confused. “What is wrong with ye, man?”

His eyes were wide and terrified. “Captain, please .”

There it was again, that out of character fear, and that pitch to his voice.

Ahab pulled back, scowling, and took his shoulder firmly, beginning to think this had less to do with adrenaline and more to do with the irritating modesty of Quakers.

"Nathaniel," she commanded, and his eyes locked on to hers desperately, "I know thou wert raised a Starbuck, and it is nigh impossible to unlearn thee from all thou hast been taught. But I do not treat my injured crew any less than I would myself. Allow thyself to be cared for, stubborn fool. Aren't ye all about undeserving Grace? Cans't not accept that from a woman's hands? Canst not escape the damnation of undressing even if thou dost it to save thy own life?"

Starbuck's mouth gaped, words seeming to fail him. He reached one hand to grasp around her own, bloodied fingers encircling her wrist and clinging tightly, as if to a lifeline.

"Oh, my Captain," there were tears in his eyes now, and that was an unsettling sight indeed. "That is not my shame. Tis something deeper, and far less noble."

Ahab raised an eyebrow. "Out with it then, man. I cannot contend with what I know not."

Starbuck shrunk into himself, suddenly seeming much smaller than Ahab's hand on his shoulder.

“Please forgive me,” he whispered, not looking at her. “Please.”

“Out with it,” Ahab repeated, and promised nothing more.

It took a long moment for Starbuck to gather his wits enough to whisper the words, and when he spoke, they were not what Ahab had expected.

"I am no man, Captain."

Ahab continued to look at him, eyebrow unmoving from its questioning pose. "Meaning?"

"I have lied to thee. I have lied to everyone." He blinked at the ground, brow furrowed and eyes red and gleaming. "I am no man, Captain, because I am like thee."

Starbuck's hand fell away from the bloody wound at his chest then, and Ahab could see the cloth beneath the clothing, recognized bindings meant to mask the protrusion of breasts.

"Oh," Ahab murmured, shock befalling her for a moment.

In many ways this revelation made sense; there had been whispers of a great scandal in the Starbuck family some years back, followed by the sudden appearance of a new son. There was the gentle age that touched Nathaniel's eyes and mouth, incongruent with the apparent youth that filled those cheeks, the pitch to his voice that came out under duress, or excitement, the light mustache under the nose that never seemed to thicken; it all slotted into place.

She struggled to fathom that this was a Starbuck facing such a conundrum, that the man who sat before her was not only a woman, but a woman who had chosen to shoulder quite the suffocating legacy. It was well known how interchangeable the Starbucks were: more a brand than a family, and deeply, cloyingly pious.

To some of that pious type, cross-dressing was as cruel a sin as sodomy, and Ahab herself had certainly been scorned for both.

Furthermore, Ahab had known Starbuck's predecessor personally, and had little affection for the man. He favored a leadership punctuated by the kick of his boots as often as possible, and men like that, Ahab knew, often carried such iron fists into their homes as well as their work. She wondered if Nathaniel knew the taste of that same heel that Ahab had known under his captainage.

"Well, that is nothing to forgive," Ahab murmured, a new respect dawning on her for her second mate. "How wonderful to not be alone here. Thy father's spontaneous son."

"Yes," Starbuck breathed, eyes falling. “But, please, none can know.”

"Oh, I would not dream of confessing thy secrets,” Ahab reassured. “How long hast thou kept this disguise?”

“Nearly ten years now,” the mate whispered.

“Extraordinary,” Ahab studied his– her face with new intrigue, with new awareness, and then remembered herself, drawing back. “Well, that revelation aside. May I treat thee, Starbuck?”

Starbuck seemed to process the words on a delay, brow furrowing. "Sir— Thou knowest me not in this body.”

Ahab scoffed. "I don't need to. I would know thy stubbornness in any form.”

Starbuck snorted at that, and then winced painfully.

“It matters not what I find under these clothes other than the source of thy bleeding,” Ahab continued, moving to sit even closer, voice low and comforting. “Thy God will forgive thy immodesty, and I have already forgiven thy secrets. Let me treat thee. Thou art no good to thyself, thy trade, thy legacy, dead of a curable wound.

“I am thy Captain. I have guided thee through gale and hurricane and the bloody violence of this fishery. Thou hast trusted me with far more than this." Her hand returned to Starbuck's sleeve. "We need to stop thy bleeding."

Starbuck seemed to gather her courage, then raised her gaze to stare as deeply into her Captain's eyes as she could. She tested the steadfastness there, the conviction, and found it true.

Slowly, so slowly, she nodded.

Ahab sighed in relief, tension bleeding out from her shoulders, grasped Starbuck's bicep in answer, and began to help her out of the tatters of her layers.

Fortunately the damage to her clothes seemed repairable – to have to remake the garments entirely out here would be quite the hassle – and Ahab was careful to set her belongings to the side, keeping them close by. They could be mended later, when the risks were not so steep.

First her waistcoat and cravat Ahab pulled away, then her dress shirt, the underclothes beneath, and finally they were looking down at Starbuck's naked, bloody chest, concealed only by cloth bindings wrapped around it.

The bindings themselves were torn also, and soaked through with that life crimson, and Ahab began to peel what remained of those away as well. She could see Starbuck watching her face closely, and Ahab ignored her, undoing the twists of the wrapping methodically, going slowly to account for any sudden causings of pain.

"I had something like this once," Ahab mumbled to herself as she worked. "In my youth. My first years of the fishery, I was just as much a man as thou art, my chest just as hidden under the restraints."

Starbuck tilted her head, listening. “Why dost thou not still do it?”

Ahab tsk'ed. “I am the god of my ship, thou wilt know. I excel at my station; I am indispensable. To remove me from the fishery would be to cost the owners a great deal of profit, and knowing that makes me care a great deal less about the upkeep of my image. It is far more comfortable for me to live this way. Arms up.”

Starbuck responded, adjusting her body. “I have always held a great respect for thee and how thou present'st thyself, Captain. It has… become more comfortable for me to remain in the lie, but I am awed by thy freedom.”

“Is it more comfortable for thee, Starbuck, or for thy family?”

“The difference is not so distinct as thou wouldst think.”

Ahab hummed, and then Starbuck’s chest was fully revealed, the wound along with it.

Fortunately, it seemed that the steady pressure Starbuck had been applying to the wound had been effective in causing a good amount of the bleeding to slow, so that it did not immediately pulse from the wound now that the binding was removed; instead, it trickled weakly over her stomach. Ahab replaced a cloth of pressure against the wound, but was relieved; this was far more manageable.

Ahab shifted back, taking in the cut of the iron; it had pierced through the fabric to the skin at the base of her right breast, cutting deeply through the underside of the tissue there, and then sliced its way out up towards her left shoulder, nicking her chin on exit.

Ahab inhaled; she had been right: this would need stitches. She patted Starbuck's shoulder, tugged closer the ship's medical kit, and began to pull out bandages, needle and thread, and a flask of whiskey, which she passed off to Starbuck to drink.

“Stay with me now; this will take some time to repair. Hold still, if thou canst, and stay awake.”

Starbuck nodded, downing most of the drink in earnest, and saving the rest for Ahab to pour over her wound.

Once the whiskey had its numbing grips in Starbuck, Ahab set to work. She cleaned the blood from the wound and set about stitching the gap closed as neatly as she could, taking care to hold Starbuck's shoulder in place back against the couch as she flinched, hissing against the sting.

In an attempt to distract her from the pain, as well as keep her lucid, and admittedly satisfy Ahab's own curiosity, Ahab spoke. “Starbuck, knowing thy sex, I must ask. What of thy marriage?”

Starbuck made a noise through her teeth, too distracted by her treatment to understand the question. “What?”

Ahab tugged a stitch closed, frowning in sympathy at the squeak of pain it incurred.

“Thy union to that woman ashore, are ye–”

“Ah, Mary,” Starbuck interrupted, her voice heavy with the cotton of drink and the disillusionment of pain. “‘Tis a marriage of appearance, nothing more. She was – is a dear friend of mine, and both of us were looking to have the whole of Nantucket off our backs.”

Ahab hummed, intrigued. “I see. And thy family has no quarrel with this?”

“As I said, it is a marriage of convenience, not… not anything else.” There was an odd wistful tilt to her voice then, and Ahab wondered at it. “They have no reason to quarrel with it.”

“I see,” she repeated, and then thankfully finished her stitching. Ahab leaned in to break the end of the thread with her teeth and tie it off, before using the other bandages to wrap the stitching firmly in place.

She moved to Starbuck’s chin then, doing her best to be gentle as she gripped her chin steady, holding it firmly still as her needle closed the smaller cut. Starbuck set her teeth as she worked, staring off into the distance as she measured her flinches against Ahab’s fingers.

Thankfully, this laceration took far less time to close, and Ahab was tying off and severing the thread only a few moments later, releasing her jaw from her hold. Satisfied with her work, she inhaled and sat back.

“There! Thou hast survived my treatment.”

Starbuck's head leaned back against the couch, exhaling heavily in relief, eyes squeezed shut, jaw twitching. “Thank you, Captain.”

Ahab patted her thigh as she backed away, packaging up her supplies. “We will need to change thy bandaging every few days or so until it heals. Given thy circumstance, thou art welcome to my quarters as thy wound closes.”

Ahab moved further, retreating to the mouth of her cabin as she spoke, retrieving a flask of water for Starbuck.

Starbuck blinked at her words, glassy, exhausted eyes visibly fighting back an adrenaline crash. She lifted her head from the back of the couch as Ahab returned. “I beg thy pardon?”

“Here, drink,” Ahab extended the flask to her, and then sat once more after Starbuck had accepted it. “Thou shouldst not be binding thy chest for the moment, Starbuck, and thou art currently sharing cabinspace with Mr. Jones, the other mate. Should thou need'st more privacy at this time, I am offering this space to thee.”

Starbuck blinked, eyes wide and half-focused with anguished delirium. Ahab would probably need to repeat her words once Starbuck had some rest in her. “I… Thank thee, Captain. Thou art too kind.”

Ahab waved a hand, “Tis the least I can do for a fellow lady,” she smirked, knowing both of them were anything but.

Starbuck snorted, head dropping back against the couch, hand weakly offering the flask of water back. “Please, call me Nathaniel. That's a title I've earned, at least.”

Ahab smiled, taking the water and then shifting Starbuck's position, laying her lengthwise on the couch, back propped up by a few pillows. “Alright then,” she leaned over her mate and patted her upper chest gingerly with a smile, cautious to avoid the injury. “Nathaniel.”

Starbuck smiled, a rare and gentle thing, and Ahab found herself smiling as well, even though Starbuck was too far gone to see it. What a wonder to have found another in a situation so similar to her own, and amongst her own crew! She had sailed with this Starbuck once before, and liked him well enough; the boy was far kinder than his predecessors, truly loyal, and sharply keen with a lance.

Any Captain would be lucky to have him aboard; he was climbing the ranks fast with good reason, and now, to know that beneath all of that demeanor was the same determination, the same resistance, the same fear, yes, and joy that Ahab had defined herself by…

She watched now as Starbuck drifted off to sleep, head lolling as the adrenaline wore off completely, and smiled to herself.

What a life of chances hers was.

Leaning aside, Ahab retrieved Starbuck's blazer, smoothed out the wrinkles and rips, and laid it across her second mate's shoulders.

“Get some rest, Mr. Starbuck,” she whispered to the still room.

Chapter Text

An interlude. Set throughout the history of the Starbuck couple, spanning from childhood to the present. 

The first time Nathaniel Starbuck met Mary, the woman she would eventually wed, they were not yet twelve years old, and Starbuck was on her knees.

It was a simple Sunday after a Meeting, the children playing and studying as the Friends busied themselves with politics and organizations and gossip, and Starbuck had her hands clasped around a Bible, tracing something around the pages, breathing in the paper scent of repentance.

As simple as grace beside her had knelt another member of her youth.

Starbuck had been given the name Chastity as a girl, and she hadn't minded it for a long time; it was a good Quaker name, a good Starbuck name, and she was certainly as chaste as she was pious, and devout to all aspects of her faith and family. It brought her father pride for many years.

However, once she turned her heart to the waves, she found that no boy was ever named Chastity (although, she sometimes thought some might be bettered by such a name), and the name was too girlish and too tempting to employ upon a whaleship.

That day when Starbuck preoccupied herself in The Word, Mary – although she called herself a different name in her youth as well – had knelt beside her in the grass and flashed her a shy smile.

In that old Spring, the woman who would become Mary Starbuck had been a young boy, curly haired and dark eyed and soft as she had shaken Starbuck's hand.

They had become fast friends, as swift as a spray of seasalt catches the unexpecting eye.

Chastity often found herself too rough for the girls of her age, and young Mary found herself too soft for the boys, and thus they took a liking to each other; wide eyes and eager curiosities and the whole of Nantucket set before them as a playground.

The days of their youth were hazy with fondness, of clambering about dinghies and private smiles shared as they studied after Meetings and exuberant hands clasped as they walked in the warmth and happiness of a seaside Sunday. Joy and laughter and faith were theirs for several blissful, sunkissed summers.

Although youthful friendships can oftentimes flicker into life and then fade with the suddenness of a match burned, it would still soon pain Starbuck to see her dear, fast friend of youth all but disappear from her life as they neared adolescence.

The growing habits and responsibilities of maturity can separate even the closest of friendships, even amidst the most tight-knit communities, and soon after, Chastity was born into herself as Nathaniel, and set adrift a'whaling, and had no means to check up on her old acquaintance.

In many cases of life, this would have been the end of the two youngsters and their friendship, but sometimes, God smiles upon a pair of hearts, and the red string of fate is not so swiftly severed.

Some would say that Nathaniel's birth was an ugly one, but others will remember that no life enters this world but through blood.

Fleeing the confines of a future as a Starbuck wife, Chastity severed herself from her family name, shipping out only as Nathaniel , nameless and green, and subject to the full brutality of a whaleship unmasked. Her father's hand had prepared her for some of it; the well-traveled Captain was as much a force on the seas as he was in his home, but cut off from her sisters, her home and her life, the sting of the officers' boots was keener than any she had felt afore.

But a Starbuck was a Starbuck, she thought with gritted teeth, and she would soon return triumphant, a harpoon in her hand and the songs of a whale skewered at her feet following her all the way back to the shores of Nantucket.

A greenhand turned successful harpooner on a first voyage? Oh, how the pride of her family's blood had sung through her, even as her boots hit the shore and her father's eyes were cold upon her disembarkment, as he watched her commit a betrayal he could not reverse.

Of course he's a Starbuck, the ship-owners had clapped her father on the back with glee once the resemblance was claimed. Why didst not tell us of this son! Never seen a greenhand so bred for the sea. Thy family remains as indispensable as ever! So proud thou must be!

She remembered her father’s fists clenched tight at his sides.

Thus, Nathaniel was born, all joy, all violence, all pride, and none of Nantucket could tell her otherwise.

She shipped out soon after, again and again, and after her third voyage, whence she was christened a Third Mate, returned back to that same church of her youth, all the Sundays she could.

It was, in a similar fashion to their first meeting, years later when Nathaniel was once again employed to her knees after a Meeting, and found that a woman of her same age had come to kneel beside her.

"Mary," she had introduced herself, and her voice was warm and her eyes were deep and Starbuck had felt something flutter so deep inside it felt like it came from a previous life.

Do I know thee? her heart had asked. Her pulse jumped.

"Nathaniel," she introduced herself, her voice just a pitch too high for her disguise, and she saw that Mary's bonnet tie was lopsided beneath her chin, and she instinctively reached out a hand to adjust it.

The touch was warm, grounding, and both of them jumped from it.

"Forgive me-" Starbuck had hastily scrambled to his feet – for out in public, dressed up as she was, Starbuck was surely a he to all but herself, and her disguise was as paramount to her safety ashore as it was beyond – "It is not half proper for a man such as myself to touch a woman like that. Before the Lord, no less. Forgive me."

"Easy there." Mary's eyes sparkled. "Thou art forgiven."

Nathaniel looked up at her with wide eyes, and something in Mary's forgiveness brought her heart even further to recollection.

"I... know thee, don't I?"

"Thy sister believes thou dost," Mary had smiled, folding her hands in her lap. "I was once very close to one of thy kin; a young Chastity, she was called. Know’st where I may find her?"

Starbuck stood at that, looking down at her in surprise. "Art certain it is she thou lookest for?"

"I am," Mary watched her closely. "I would not forget my dearest friend of youth."

Nathaniel reached out then, clasping Mary's hand in his own, overcome by some strange emotion. "I'm afraid our Chastity is no longer with us. I am all that remains of she now. Thou must try and find thy memory of her in me. Forgive me if it is a poor recollection."

Mary had taken her hand with a soft smile. "Thou wilt suffice. Come, Nathaniel, was it? Such a name suits thee. I ask that thou walk with me."

Starbuck had gaped at her, eyes wide, the compliment warm in her chest. He helped her to her feet and extended his arm for her to take; the very picture of a gentleman. Mary put her arm in his with gladness, and Starbuck could feel a chapter of her life turning, made anew by this wonderful woman reentering her life.

They set off upon the town, arm in arm, feet in rhythm with their hearts.

Their walk was thrilling as it was enlightening, sparking the kindling of their childhood rapport just as easily as dried wood. They did not travel far – could not sneak off alone without risking impropriety and shame, but nonetheless, their shared words and hearts were for them alone: a cozy, loving pair.

"Art truly the same as my friend from my childhood?" Mary had finally asked courageously, looking Nathaniel over. "I remember so clearly eyes like thine... thy sisters' are not quite the same."

Nathaniel had blushed, smiling, the confirmation of what they both felt warm in her breast. "So it is thee... My dear friend. I am the very same, but different."

"How we both have changed," Mary whispered to her, her hands delicately poised around her arm, the very picture of elegance. "This life suits you."

"And you," Nathaniel was nearly breathless with rekindled friendship, with connections thought long lost. "Thou art beautiful like I never thought real."

"How much dost remember about me, Nathaniel-Chastity?" Her tone was teasing, and Nathaniel could've drowned in it.

Still, she shook her head. "There is hardly room for Chastity at sea."

Realizing quickly the crude implication of her words, she hastily rectified: "I mean— no space for girlhood, for my-self as I was. Not... not..." Shaking her head, she adjusted topics, veering back to the one Mary had first asked of her. "Of thyself , my lady, I remember thine eyes, thy softness, thy boyish charm."

Mary chuckled, shaking her head. "Such has long faded, much like thy chastity."

Starbuck's face flushed in a strange, happy embarrassment. "Indeed."

Their conversing continued, and their hearts were aglow with it, with this rediscovery in new bodies, new images, new names.

It is said that when one is born in the Lord, they are born anew, but for the first time now did Starbuck see someone so physically reshaped with divinity.

Mary carried womanhood with such an ease that Starbuck had never been able to muster; always too rough or too curious for blood, always too anxious with the path her feet tread, forever dirtying her boots. The girlhood that ran through Starbuck was the hunter's kind.

Mary moved with such grace as a songbird, natural, melodic, as if she hardly cast a thought to such things.

It was a brilliance to witness, a magic, and one that burrowed deep into Starbuck's heart.

For the first time, her disguise of Nathaniel felt spurned into reality. Seeing Mary beside her, walking as she was, radiant as she was, brought out a deep need to meet her in contuitous comparison; she yearned to stand beside Mary's womanhood with her own manhood.

All her life, the character of Nathaniel had been a tool for achieving status, freedom, finances, and now she looked at Mary, who had undergone such a similar transformation for none of the social gain, only her own joy. Such freedom did Mary hold within herself that Starbuck longed to taste, and for the first time found her own joy lying deep within in her own disguise.

Their walks became a regular occurrence, became longer and longer conversations, became shared lunches and tea at a pavilion, and their lives, though slowly revealed,  became more and more thoroughly entangled.

"Hast yet found a husband?" Starbuck asked one day, unprompted and curious, when they were sitting together in a garden, in view of their Friends, but far enough to fear not that they might be heard.

Mary's eyes had flashed with a queer interest. "Why Nathaniel," she had murmured in that beautiful tenor of hers. "I am shocked. It is not appropriate for a man to ask a woman such a thing without intent to act upon it."

Starbuck cleared her throat. "That is fair; knowest not my intentions, my good lady."

"No, but I should keenly like to." Mary cupped her chin in her hand. "I have not yet found a husband. I am in a... peculiar circumstance of courtship, thou understandest. It has not been a priority as of late. Nor am I entirely convinced of the safety of it."

"A shame indeed," Nathaniel had exhaled. "Thou art the very image of the perfect woman. It is a wonder that all of Nantucket is not clamoring for thy hand."

"I am cautious of whom I allow to take it." Mary was watching her cautiously, brown eyes heavy on her. She leaned in then, whispering. "Why dost thou ask, Nathaniel?"

Starbuck exhaled under that gaze, studied his jacket hem, and with her breath followed the truth. "I sail to the Atlantic in a little over a fortnight. I have been thinking, as of late, of what will be awaiting me after the next year when I return."

She sighed, turning her face to the Meeting Place, and the pulpit within. "I... have had little hopes of marriage, ever since I donned this name, this life. I know not what our God thinks of me. I cannot imagine how He wouldst think of me should I take a husband in this form. And - not even to mention! would I be resigned to the life I risked everything to flee? Would I be stripped of my rank, unable to work? No, no, I can scarcely imagine a husband in my future. But, lo, as I was saying, if I were to take a wife..." She sighed. "Nantucket might approve, but surely such an action would make me a sodomite to His eyes."

"I know thy meaning," Mary murmured, a hand gentle upon her arm. "And yet, Nantucket knows nothing of God's would-be judgment. They urge that I marry, and know not what stays my heart. Is it a greater sin to disobey Him, or His followers, dost thou think?"

Starbuck inhaled. "Such is the question I have been pondering as of late. And I have perhaps been thinking of some sort of solution."

"Oh?"

"Mary," Starbuck turned to her, placing her hand over hers, a sudden courage stealing over her. "What if we were to wed? As friends, in the eyes of our Lord together? The whole of Nantucket would think of us well, and our God could not fault us for our companionship."

Mary blinked, eyes wide with interest.

"I..." She hesitated suddenly. "Forgive my forwardness, Nathaniel, but I must ask; dost thou love me so? Wouldst that not still be the Sin thou describest?"

Nathaniel shook her head. "I do love thee, Mary, as my first and dearest friend. But I have no sinful inclinations towards thee, and I would not posit this to thee as such if I did. I wish not to see thee damned."

"Damned we very well may already be," Mary said quietly, seriously. "Have we not already defied His will?"

Starbuck hesitated, worrying at her lip. "I choose to believe He understands us. The truth and purity of our hearts, of our situations. I... cannot understand myself in a world without His favor near to me."

Mary hummed. "It is not our circumstances that trouble me, but how it falls to us to maintain them. The lies we must tell our peers, for fear of rebuke."

Nathaniel nodded solemnly. "To live in truth, we must cut a new mold for which we have no knife."

"Exactly," Mary sighed. “But of ourselves, I am certain we are in His heart. Dost thou know; it was first a vision of His that set me to the path I am on now?" She looked off into the middle distance as she spoke now, quiet and full of wonder. "Amidst a Meeting, I saw The Lord calling me up to Him, taking my hand. I wept at His touch, the nails in His palms..." Her face lifted, the beauty of the dream shining out from her eyes like holy light. "And He called me His daughter. Canst imagine that?"

Starbuck stared, a gasp on her lips, bewildered.

""My daughter,"" Mary continued. "He said to me: "Come to me, my daughter.""

Nathaniel listened, as rapturously as she did when sat at the pulpit, eyes wide.

"He spoke this to thee?"

"As clearly as thou art speaking to me now."

"Oh, Mary..."

"So, I do not believe this path for me to be one of Sin. How can it? My family knows my truth, my life, and support me they still do. But if they did not? I would be caught between my God and my kin, having to choose whom I carry with me. And yet, even for all my family's love, I must still lie to much of my community."

"Tis a lie of necessity," Starbuck nudged her arm with her own. "If thy kin will not accept what thou knowest to be God's will for thee, then one must use all the tools at thy disposal to follow Him."

Mary's lips tugged into a smile at that.

"How true thou art, my Starbuck."

"Yes," Starbuck murmured, but was not yet moved from her earlier query. "But, as I had asked earlier; if thou wouldst like, if thou wouldst be willing, I should… I should very much like to extend that invitation of oneness with thee."

Mary squeezed Nathaniel's hand, looked at her closely. "Oh, Nathaniel. I would like nothing else. But, please understand, thou art offering me a great deal more than thou thinkest, Starbuck. Not only in flesh is a pair wedded, but also in finance, in family. Thy legacy–"

"Thou canst have it. My family, my work, all of it. I could see thee safe , Mary."

"And what if thou findest another on thy travels? Or I, in thy absence?"

"We would find a way! Our situation would lend itself to flexibility, methinks."

Mary thought deeply, hand subconsciously rubbing against Nathaniel's, caught in her own, her eyes warm and wide upon his. "Allow me to speak to my father first," she whispered. “But if I have his approval, then yes. I would happily be thine.”

"Oh, my Mary," Nathaniel nodded, hastily, her heart all but thudding in her chest at the almost-promise, and continued to look out upon the garden in silence, thinking privately of all the ways the pair of them could create a garden of their own. "Of course, thou may’st have all of the time in the world. And I would just as happily be thine.”

In time, Mary’s father imparted upon her approval, and she accepted Starbuck’s unique proposal with a smile like springtime and a dependable, sure hand, and the two were to be wedded, quietly and modestly, as was the Quaker way, before their Lord.

There was great joy, but no ritual kiss, no luxuries, just two people knelt silently on the floor of their Meeting Place, their small community of Friends as their witness, a Friend to officiate, and their God.

Starbuck clenched her hands in her prayers, begging, asking that God understand and honor them in their union, and when the pair of them finished their prayers and once again stood, they were pronounced, with honor and happiness: Husband and Wife. Mary and Nathaniel Starbuck.

That night, they lay beside each other in their marriage-bed, silent and still, and with no small amount of awkwardness.

There would be no consummation shared, but the bed had to be, for appearance’s sake.

“So,” Starbuck had finally cleared her throat, staring up at the ceiling, hands folded over her stomach. “How fares thine author? That Miss Austen?”

Mary had turned to her with a budding smile then. “Art sure thou wishest to hear it? It is quite the tale of romance.”

“I do not disdain romance,” Starbuck responded in mock-offense. “I cannot believe thou wouldst imply such a thing, in our wedding bed of all places.”

Mary laughed then, loud and clear as a song, and soon Starbuck was seized by the same bubbling joy, until the pair of them were lost in laughter.

“What a husband I have chosen,” Mary finally composed herself enough to say. “Art sure thou wouldst like to hear of Miss Austen? She passed some years ago now, but her final novel was one Persuasion .”

“What a wife of mine!” Starbuck responded in equal mirth. “But yes, I wouldst. Tell me of what thou lovest, that I may see thy joy in it.”

And thus their first night together carried on, full of smiles and laughter and conversation as the wedded couple passed their first night in camaraderie.

The flicker of connection between them did not just connect them by heart, it seems, for upon the next morning, Nathaniel would find herself curled up around Mary, chin on her shoulder, arms round her waist in the most loving embrace, as if, in unconsciousness, that flicker of connection sought to manifest itself in the pairing of their embrace as well as their laughter.

Starbuck divested herself of the embrace quickly as she woke, of course – it would not do for a woman to hold another like so – but the warmth of it lingered under her ribs, like a small glowing star.

Soon enough, however, Nathaniel was shipped out once more to sea, and was made to leave his loving wife behind for the first time since their rekindling.

Mary found the life of independence and community and economics and agency of a whaler's wife fulfilling in her absence, but no greater rejoicing was there but at their reunion once Nathaniel finally returned to her after so many long months.

Such it went like this, for a time, with each parting more sorrowful, and each reunion more joyous than the last.

When together, married life treated them well. It was a delight to spend such time together as friends, to learn of each other's interests and curiosities and passions and professions.

Nathaniel came to know of the seams Mary most preferred to sew, of the mathematics she employed in her day to day, of the girls she chatted with and cared for, of the seemingly endless novels she read, of her favorite bread, and her favorite way to knead the dough alongside her husband.

Likewise Mary came to know of Nathaniel's ache for the sea, her poor repair stitchwork, the cut of scrimshaw into whalebone, the script of her handwriting, the long patience of her profession, the new Captain that Starbuck sailed under whomst bravely dared to exist as herself; a woman upon the waves.

They learned and learned of each other, and found themselves always leaning in to drink of more, always happier to know another detail of the tapestry that made up each other's life.

They say distance makes the heart grow fonder, and the Starbucks certainly knew their share of distance, but it was in their closeness that true adoration flourished.

It was amidst one such reunion when Nathaniel began to realize something shifting within herself about her Mary, something she had promised never to shift.

Perhaps that inkling of manhood within herself had begun to flourish, and with it, the desire to care further for her wife. Perhaps her feelings for Mary had always been of a less noble sort, beneath her notice. Perhaps her conversation with the new Captain Ahab had stirred something within her in her injured delirium. Ahab had asked about Starbuck's wife, and Starbuck had yearned, though she had not spoken it aloud.

Perhaps it was something else entirely; perhaps she simply found herself suddenly loving the woman she was wedded to.

Whatever the matter, when she returned home to Nantucket that crisp Autumn day, and Mary had thrown her arms around her neck in joy, Starbuck's heart had nearly leapt from its cavity in romance.

They pulled back from one another, beaming, and, to her further shock, Nathaniel felt herself staring at her Mary with eyes anew; taking in every line and curve of her face, her beautiful hair swept beneath her bonnet, her eyes warm like the earth Nathaniel had been so long separated from, the sweet smile of her lips…

For a moment, Nathaniel had to stop herself from leaning in to kiss Mary right there on the docks, before the whole of Nantucket.

As quickly as the urge had struck her, doubt rushed in and Starbuck found herself terrified of what had become of her.

To think of Mary in such a way…

Had such folly been festering inside her all along? What would become of herself, of this safety for Mary if she could not reign herself in? Had her single moment of doubt already damned them both?

Seeming to notice no ill, Mary led her home by the arm, beaming like the dawn, and Starbuck followed numbly, her heart and stomach tumultuous in her gut.

Nathaniel had promised her. She had promised her God . This wasn't supposed to happen.

“Come in , dear,” Mary was laughing as Starbuck lingered just outside the threshold of their home. “In we go.”

Once the door had shut behind them in their cozy home, Mary cupped her cheek and looked over Nathaniel's face, brushing her hair behind her ears, a small smile still on her lips.

“What troubles thee, my dear?”

Nathaniel's heart drummed in her chest, speechless at the touch. “I…” She managed, a quiet thing.

Mary’s face sobered slightly, her hand falling to clasp Starbuck’s arm. “Nathaniel? Is something wrong?”

Starbuck’s breath quivered. “Mary, I… it is good to see you.”

Mary squeezed her arm, stepped closer. “Come, let me make us some tea. Give thee some time to collect thyself.”

Starbuck let herself be led back to the kitchen, to sit as Mary flitted about preparing them something warm to drink. She watched her hands over the kettle, tugging open spices, the whistle of steam. She tried her hardest to treasure this moment, this mundane moment, praying that it would not be their last.

“There we are,” Mary had finished her preparations and joined Nathaniel at the table, reaching out to cover her hand with her own. “What troubles thee, my dear?”

Nathaniel swallowed, drew the steaming cup of tea close to her chest and looked down into it. “Mary… when we first– when I first offered this life to thee, I made thee a promise. A promise that I fear I may… I may have unwittingly broken.”

Mary frowned and leaned closer, her hand on her arm. “What dost thou mean?”

Starbuck sighed, a heavy sound. “I promised I wouldst keep thee from Sin, from turmoil. I promised that I should not love thee. And I fear I have failed.”

Mary went quiet, her hand on her arm still. “Is that so?”

Starbuck nodded, pressed her face into her hands. “I fear so. But thou- thou art my only safe space, my friend, my love. I do not want to lose thee, nor take this safety from thy heart. We are like husband and wife, yes, but... in the eyes of our Lord...." She sighed, tears misting her eyes, unable to even look at her wife. “What are we to do?”

“Oh, Starbuck,” Mary exhaled. “Is that all?” 

Starbuck paused, blinked up at her with hurting eyes. “What? Mary. Dost not understand? I have hurt us, I have damned us both. I–”

“Oh, thou overthinker.” Mary reached out firmly to take Starbuck's hand, cutting her off mid-sentence. "Thou art my husband , Nathaniel. I am forever overjoyed at the opportunity to be thine, however that looks. And, Nathaniel, thou couldst never damn me. I have loved thee long enough to do that myself.”

Starbuck felt her face flush downright hot. “Meanst…?” Her voice nearly squeaked.

Mary laughed, shaking her head. “My pretty boy, my handsome girl. Didst truly never know?”

“Dost mean…?” Starbuck nearly gasped.

Mary laughed once more, and with a previously unknown and altogether unexpected passion, Mary reached out her hands and kissed her husband wholeheartedly upon the lips.

Starbuck's eyes flew wide at the touch, at such unrestrained desire, freezing against the suddenness of the first kiss she had ever tasted. She resisted for a moment, pressed a hand to Mary's shoulder, but then Mary pulled back and smiled at her and Nathaniel found herself quickly overcome with a rush of immense comfort, and succumbed to losing herself in the sweetness of Mary's mouth to hers, of that kindness and beauty and joy and home pressed up against her in the same space as her breathing, filling her heart and mind and taste with the same warmth as a welcoming hearth.

After a long, breathless moment that felt like all the distance between the stars themselves, Starbuck drew back, eyes shut, but surely beaming like the sun.

"My divine Mary, thou art the very hand of God."

“Let me be so for thee, Nathaniel,” she breathed, happy and warm against her cheek. “Let us not fear. Let me be thine.”

And in this manner, Starbuck found herself terrified and yet overjoyed, lost and yet found, married, and in love, and laughing against her wife's lips for the first time after nearly a decade of their time together.

For a moment, she could nearly let herself believe this; that she could have Mary without fear, without question, and trust her God to uplift her.

Starbuck's heart was also clenched in its certainty that Mary, her Mary, could never be wrong , could never be against their God. After all, it was He who had called her to the life she now lived, He who had blessed their marriage and their life with good fortune, with opportunity, with community and peace.

If Nathaniel could find faith in anything, perhaps she could find faith in this, that the woman she looked up to had already spoken to the Great I Am, and not found herself wanting.

Perhaps, in some strange, ineffable way, He wanted this for them.

Was it more acceptable to Him because of Nathaniel's performance? Her disguise that some days felt like the truth? Perhaps Mary was so divinely ordained that it eclipsed Starbuck's own sins. Perhaps God simply knew of their intent to protect each other, to live as much as they could.

Nathaniel Starbuck was not sure. She would fall asleep that night wrapped in the embrace of her wife, buzzing with love, satisfied of a long sleeping hunger, and so, so utterly lost at how she had found herself worthy of such a gift.

Starbuck squeezed her eyes shut in the dark that night and prayed, as deep and sincere as the marrow in her bones, as the rocks which cry out to the Lord.

Please protect us. Protect Mary and I. Thy daughter and girl-son. This life we choose, this life we live, let all of it be in Thy honor. Know my heart, O God. Know I mean not to turn from Thee.

I beg of Thee. I only wish to keep her safe. I love her, honorably and truly, and she loves me the same. I beg of Thee to understand us. 

Starbuck turned her face into the pillow she slept upon, the whole of her heart pounding in prayer.

I beg of Thee, Father: do not punish us for this love.

Thunder rumbled in the night outside, a promise of rain and flood and fear, but beside her, Mary shifted nearer, arms pulling her close in her sleep.

Starbuck succumbed to her pull, rolled into her side and guided Mary to rest her head upon her shoulder, safe and close and warm. She brushed a lock of hair past her sleeping ear, and Mary's mouth twitched like a smile.

Let me keep this , Starbuck begged the night sky, heart so full of love she could burst. Whatever may happen, let me keep this .

Chapter Text

We now fast forward through the timeline to the start of the novel Moby-Dick. In the interim: Captain Ahab has lost her leg on a voyage which Starbuck was absent from. It is a few weeks after Captain Ahab's return to Nantucket, freshly dismasted, with the unjust treatment by her former crewmates revealed in full. After entreating the owners to allow her to sail again, they agreed, even after Captain Ahab fell upon yet another serious injury. Now, the Pequod has set sail for a new voyage, but her wounds have yet to close. 

Starbuck closed the door behind her with an exhale that rang through the wooden cathedral of the stateroom like Judgement.

“Captain Ahab. Permission to enter?”

A loud scoff came from the adjoining room to the cabin.

“Thou hast already done so, it seems.”

Starbuck sighed, removed her hat and hung it beneath her arm. “My apologies, Captain. We have left port.”

“Come in, Starbuck. Thou needest not shout.”

Nodding, Starbuck stepped away from the door, marching deeper in, feeling like a doubtful patron alone in a church. Was Ahab's cabin to be the pulpit of her simile? Or perhaps the humble adjoining room where the Pastor prepared their sermons? Nevertheless, Starbuck sought her out, like a sinner seeking God.

Ahab’s face emerged as Starbuck breached the door to her cabin, and her chest tightened with both the fondness of being near to her old friend once more, and the concern for seeing her aboard.

“Captain Ahab.”

“Mr. Starbuck,” Ahab answered dryly. She was laid up in her bed, a blanket over her legs, lying back against the headboard. Her face was pale, its usual healthy brown color now blotchy and desaturated, her lightning scar distinct on her skin.

She was still feeling ill, then, whether or not she was willing to admit it. The fact made Starbuck's chest twinge.

Starbuck remembered how Ahab had looked when she had last seen her: just a week past, lying prone on the street, her pegleg having snapped and smitten her stakewise through the abdomen.

Starbuck remembered how she had found her lying there – delirious, agonized, with blood staining her clothes. It had been a horrible sight.

The doctors had taken Ahab from Starbuck's terrified arms, assured that they could save her, but the fear had followed Starbuck regardless. She had yet to put it down entirely.

A horrible injury, following a horrible dismasting at the hands of a vicious whale, and a horrible mutiny to boot. And Ahab seemed unhealed from all.

Not for the first time did Starbuck curse her absence from Ahab's last voyage; she had signed onto a different ship for a change in hunting grounds, and in her absence, the worst fears of their trade had befallen her friend.

The memory of those officers boasting of their victory over their mad, crippled Captain’s demons still brought anger to Starbuck's cheeks.

And yet, horrors aside, Captain Ahab lay before her now, awaiting her report.

Starbuck cleared her throat, shaking herself out of her thoughts.

“We have left port today, Captain. The men are settling in to the first watches, and we are holding steady at eight knots.”

“On course to round the Cape of Good Hope?”

“Yes, Sir. As requested.” She raised her chin. “Main and fore tops’ls are flown, with the mizzensail to be set with the changing of the wind.”

“Good,” Ahab nodded. “All very good. What of the crew?”

“A fine collection. Admittedly, a rather heathen bunch, but –”

“Aha!” she laughed, “A crew of the same cut as old Ahab, then.”

Starbuck’s face flushed, although she could not deny that Ahab was right. “Perhaps. We will certainly have ample time to learn. But,” she shook her head, “a fine enough conglomerate. I have my eyes set upon a harpooner already, one with a certain kindness in his demeanor.”

Ahab nodded. “Excellent, excellent. Anything else thou hast to report?”

“I… just one more thing, Captain,” Starbuck shifted, debating how hard she wanted to push– how hard Ahab would allow her to push. “How art thou faring today, with thy injury?”

Ahab’s nostrils flared. “Just as well as I can be. My limb has not unmade me yet.”

“Let me see,” Starbuck moved closer, pulling a chair to the side of the cot. “Thy doctor noted it would need re-dressing.”

Ahab barked a dry laugh. “I can handle that well enough on my own.”

Starbuck's gaze was gentle, undemanding, as she seized her chance. “And yet, thy bandaging has not been changed.”

She reached for the small undisturbed stock of bandages in a pile on the cabinets nearby and quickly tore off a section with her teeth. She did not meet Ahab's eyes as she added in a quiet voice: “Thou bandagedst my injury once, allow me to do the same for thee.”

Ahab relented, though not without serious consideration.

Her eyes lingered long on Starbuck's own before deliberately adjusting herself, removing the blanket from her lap and tugging away the loose clothing that harbored the wound, revealing the slow-healing angry flesh near the under-abdomen, just having narrowly missed the groin.

It was a lucky wound still; were Ahab a slender woman, the stake of her snapped prosthetic would have simply pierced through her stomach, her liver, all manner of things, but her stoutness had saved her life, catching and diverting the puncture to the less vital of her functions. It was still a deep and agonizing wound, but at least she was alive to feel such pain, thank God.

Starbuck moved in close and inhaled as the clothes came away to reveal the bandages covering the puncture. She reached forward quickly, making careful, but short work of divesting the wound of its used bandages, trying not to turn her nose at the color and odor of what lay underneath. The exposed sight was far yellower than when she had seen it last, and she hoped it wasn't… well, she feared…

“Ahab, is this infected?”

“No, certainly not. Any infection cannot survive in my body; these veins would boil it out of me! Just ask my leg, if thou doubtest.”

Starbuck met her eyes with concern, her Captain’s sarcasm not touching her. “Captain…”

Ahab scoffed, waved a hand dismissively, although she did not meet Starbuck's eyes. “Art thou going to dress that wound or have I no need for thee?”

Starbuck sighed at the defensiveness, turned her attention back to the gauze. “Hold still.” Using a wet cloth, alcohol, and no small quantity of patience, she did her best to clean the area in preparation for the new cover, applying some salve they had been given for its recovery.

She dressed and re-bandaged the wound in silence, each woman lost in her own thoughts, only once broken by Starbuck's request for Ahab to shift so that she could wrap the gauze around Ahab's middle.

Starbuck signaled her completion with a satisfied “There,” and a gentle, lingering touch to Ahab's leg. Ahab shifted to look down at herself, and seemingly satisfied with the treatment, nodded with a small, affirming noise.

Starbuck pulled back to let her re-dress, gathering the used supplies.

“As steady as ever, thy hands are,” Ahab hummed as Starbuck turned away to dispose of the old gauze. “I may weather this yet.”

The comment rang somewhere hollow in Starbuck's chest, and she inhaled, her need to pry rising to the surface.

“Captain… if I may, why art thou here?” Starbuck breathed, facing away, fingertips stained with traces of Ahab's wound. “Thou hast just faced such bloody violence, and unhealed from this one yet.” She chanced a look back, locked eyes as Ahab frowned. “What is there to gain from this?”

She watched the wrinkles on Ahab's face turn inward, twisting into a concerned distrustfulness.

“Dost thou have designs upon my command, Starbuck?” Ahab’s voice was low, dangerous.

“What? No–”

“Dost imagine The Pequod under thy name?” she continued, her voice measured, but her eyes glinting in warning. “Dost look fondly upon my retirement for thine own gain, eh, Starbuck? The glory of thy family name finally within reach?”

“Is thy fever so demanding that thou forget'st even thy friend?” Starbuck retorted. “May I not care for my Captain's health?”

“Is that what thou wouldst call it? A mutiny of mercy?”

“No!” Starbuck felt her voice raise. “I am concerned for thee, old fool. It was I who found thee in the street, lying as still as death! It was my hands that touched thy blood and now do so again! I know thy injury, Captain, and the injury that preceded it. I am not thy officers from afore.”

At that mention, Ahab flinched, her gaze redirecting sharply to the side.

Starbuck felt the need to make herself smaller in the face of the memory she had summoned, and found herself kneeling beside the cot, looking up at that cold face. “Thou art human. I know the owners gave thee the opportunity to remain ashore.”

“Then thou must know why I had to refuse.” Ahab's voice was hard, unflinching, filling the room. Even though she lay bedbound, her power still permeated the very air, like the gathering clouds of a thunderstorm. “They would have kept me there waiting all the years it took for my ship to return.”

“Would that have been so bad, Captain, after all thou hast suffered—”

“I am not a fragile maiden in need of coddling, Nathaniel,” Ahab's gaze returned in full force, her lips curled around the words in distaste. “Look at me, at all I have survived.” She gestured to her scars; the childhood break of her nose, the lightning arcing down her whole self, the fallen spar's burn across her shoulder.

“I have not done it all to be discharged as a madwoman, a feeble crone in need of a nursemaid. I would not stand to have my ship reassigned while I still live to command her! Dost thou truly believe those precious owners would not look for another cog to fill their machine? Dost truly believe me to be irreplaceable to the fishery?”

“Thou art,” Starbuck said quietly. “Thou believed it thyself once, thou saidst it.”

“I was young and foolish then.”

“I believe it still,” Starbuck entreated, her hand creeping forward to rest on the bed beside Ahab's, not daring to take her hand, but clear in her wishing to. “There is no better Captain.”

Ahab sighed. “It is because of that loyalty that I had hoped I would be spared from this heckling. But I suppose even the best dogs must bark at their masters.”

Starbuck felt her face heat with anger, hand fisting against the sheets. “Heed my concern or don't. It matters not to me. But I will not be called a traitor for the sin of fearing for thy life.”

“Perhaps. But thou ought to take thy fear up with thy God instead of me. Let Him grant you that all-sustaining peace He promises. Rid thyself of this concern before I see you again, man, and be sure of it.”

Starbuck closed her eyes, sensing defeat approaching. “Captain–”

“Thou art dismissed, Starbuck.”

Starbuck sighed, but stood to attention nonetheless. “Shall I return to change thy bandages again tomorrow, Sir?”

Ahab waved a hand dismissively. “I shall send for thee.”

Starbuck nodded, and made her way to the door, pausing only then to turn back, and speak.

“I do not wish to take thy command, Captain. To be thy servant is my purpose.”

“A Starbuck satisfied to remain a servant?” Ahab snorted. “The blood of thy family runs through thee, man. How art thou certain thou can stand against it? None of the men in thy family could.”

“I am not the men of my family,” Starbuck said, voice quiet, but ringing with entreaty. “Goodnight, my Captain.”

Chapter Text

Some weeks later. Now, getting her legs beneath her once again, Ahab ventures to visit the stowaway crew she brought on board for the purpose of later providing her an extra crew to chase down Moby-Dick.

Ahab busied herself quickly with the hatch to the hold, doing her best to minimize suspicion of the night watch, and swiftly slipped down the dark ladder that descended into the belly of the ship, venturing to be as much of a shadow as the contents inside.

The Pequod's crew questioned not her habits, as odd as they might be – she had a reputation for being a little queer – but caution was still a tool she kept at hand, for too many repeat ventures could possibly spark curiosity, and she had no interest in exposing her secrets before she was ready. 

Her control over this situation was paramount, as more lives than her own hung in the balance.

Inside the hold, the room appeared dark and empty, the sprawling stomach of the Pequod filled only with empty barrels and spare rations, yet to be touched in the early days of her voyage.

"At ease," Ahab spoke clearly to the emptiness, knocked once, twice, thrice against the wooden walls of the hold in a particular pattern, and at once, the darkness came alive, familiar faces emerging from behind and within the barrels. Light emerged as well, and soon, five members of her secret, stowaway crew had emerged from the darkness.

Of the five, there was the man, Mr. Bascos, an old friend, nearly as old as Ahab herself, his three children, all grown now, and–

"Ahab," Ahab's favorite greeted her warmly, a short, lithe woman wrapped in a veil of white, her clothes swishing over the floor as she approached swiftly to stand on her tiptoes and kiss the Captain on both cheeks. "Thou art tardy."

"Fedallah," Ahab smiled, melting bodily into the embrace she offered, resting her cheek atop Fedallah's head. "Thou must forgive me; I'm afraid my injuries have kept me under greater scrutiny than I had hoped."

Fedallah hummed, pulling back to fondly look Ahab over. "With good reason. As much as I am glad to see thee, I doubt that thy stitches are as pleased. Perhaps Fleece ought to bring us thy share in the eve instead of thee."

Ahab huffed, but turned around to procure supper for the rowers, provided by Fleece nonetheless. It was nothing fancy, just stew and dried rations, but after some weeks of hardtack and left-overs, she imagined it would be a welcome change.

She would forever be grateful to the old cook and his easy agreement to assist her in housing and harboring the stowaways; with her blasted injury, it would have been an impossible task to complete alone.

"Since I am here, would ye care to join me?"

Fedallah nodded with a smile, and the Bascos were just as eager to sit around the meager feast with her.

"Excellent," Ahab smiled, moving to sit atop a crate, and added, in Tagalog, the first tongue of much of this crew: "Help yourselves."

Mr. Bascos laughed, shaking his head in amusement as they all began to happily dig in.

Fedallah nudged her with a smile as the small crew ate. "Thy Tagalog accent needs work."

Ahab nudged her back, shaking her head. "Well, thou couldst help with that, couldn't ye, polyglot?"

Fedallah laughed, a bright, clear sound, and then bit into her hardtack. "If I wanted, true."

"Don't pay her no mind," Bascos laughed, "It isn't near as bad as it was twenty years ago."

The room chuckled, shaking their heads.

"How fares the deck?" Bascos's eldest son spoke up, a warm grin on his face.

Ahab reclined, crossing her arms. "Well enough. This crew seems a good natured bunch; there are yet to be any serious squabbles."

"And what of the mates?"

The youngest piped in. "The tall one seems a little severe."

Ahab laughed at that. "Ah, do not worry about that one. Tightly wound is he, but no more harm than judgment will befall ye there. That one is mine, and he keeps himself straight as an arrow," she shook her head, amused by the idea of Starbuck as intimidating. "Of all them, the pipe-wielder is the most careless. I would be cautious of he, if any. But, remember this: I am thy protector, and any one of them would have to cross me to reach any of ye."

The boys nodded. "Thank you, Captain."

“How much longer, do you think?” Mr. Bascos asked. “Down here?”

“I hope not too much longer,” Ahab hummed. “We should be in whale waters ‘ere long.”

Bascos chuckled, sipping a spoonful of broth. “Back when we first sailed ‘round this path, ye barely had to take half the journey to bring home a whole hold's worth of sperm. Now look at us; weeks off Nantucket and not a single one of ‘em has been raised.”

“Tis a harder market these days,” Fedallah mused. “The greed of white men knows not when to cease.”

“It couldn't possibly just be that, could it?” the middle son spoke up, chin resting on his curled up knees. “If you ask me, most of them have just got smarter over the years– moved out to deeper seas.”

“I hope that's it,” Mr. Bascos was shaking his head at his meal. “And nothing further.”

They fell into a comfortable silence after that, eating, until Fedallah leaned over, speaking to Ahab in Farsi, a language just for their ears alone.

"Captain, how is your injury? Your mate..."

"Growing fainter every day, aziz," Ahab assured her, perhaps a little too quickly. "My body will not hold me down forever."

Her friend hummed. "Well, the color is back in your face, more than it was last I saw you. Whatever doctor's orders you have, they seem to be aiding you."

"Hm," Ahab mused. "Mr. Starbuck has been helpful in ensuring they are met."

Fedallah raised an eyebrow at that. "Why sound so put off? I thought he was your most trusted?"

"I said he is mine , for now." Ahab felt her scowl return.

Truthfully, Starbuck's healing had been welcome, and that fact frightened her more than even her initial injury. To be dependent on another's kindness and loyalty, features that could be so easily revoked, made her nearly nauseous. She had fallen to the cruelty of her mates once before, and to be now treated by one, having to look into those caring eyes, day in and day out, to see such concern there, to see herself known ...

Ahab would much rather be treated as a tool, as a cog in the machine they served, and would rather be treated by another tool than have intimate awareness of what gentleness felt like from the hands of someone who could wrench her life away in an instant.

She sighed. "I simply wish this damn thing would be a memory already. I despise this vulnerability I am shackled to."

Fedallah's hand brushed her arm. "Your armor will return in time. Fear not."

"Time is not a luxury I carry, Fedallah."

"It is not always a luxury at all, Ahab."

Ahab took her hand and squeezed it, sighing, and itching to change the topic. She switched back to English as she addressed the room.

"How has the hold treated all of ye? Has Fleece come to see ye?"

"On occasion, yes," Mr. Bascos said between bites.

"Not sure I like him," the middle son mused, sucking on a spoon. "A bit obstinate around the edges, he is, like dad."

"Oh, please." Mr. Bascos rolled his eyes. "You're young, you have yet to learn that that's the greatest charm of living long. Once you reach my age, you’ll call that pettiness the wise mark of a man who’s tried all the offerings of life and ain’t keen to be doubted for it.”

The room laughed at that, their amusement seeming to fill the light of the lantern on the floor, even as the comment continued into a good-natured argument between the men. Fedallah was warm against Ahab's side as she shook with amusement, and Ahab found herself smiling around at all of them, more at ease than she had felt in weeks, months, even; perhaps since even before losing her leg. The soft affection of friendship with those known long, the comfort of people who could laugh together on even ground, the warmth and safety of her Fedallah against her side, it was grounding, refreshing, fortifying.

She needed this, she thought, and with all luck and the wind on their side, the Pequod's first whalehunt would not be far off, and her men could emerge to join the crew proper then, and she would be able to have this connection as regularly as she wanted.

For now, though, it was a welcome respite to feel safe , far away from the woes and fears and perils of her station and crew. For now, it was enough to lean back into Fedallah’s arms and sing the night away with old friends as if they had never parted.

Chapter Text

After the slow, arduous recovery from her injuries, Ahab is well enough to regularly go up on deck again. This, however, brings with it the livening of some tormented horrors lurking within her. Her body may be healed, but her mind still blisters, and it, like many horrors, is felt most potently at night.

Would that her wound have been the end of it. Even after that hated, nearly unmaking puncture in her abdomen had sewn itself over, even after Ahab was once again able to right herself with utmost confidence that her face should not flush with the strain of gravity upon her sutures, all was not yet mended.

It was as if—she felt at times—that the poison of her infection had abandoned her abdomen and instead shot itself up to her brain, heating her mind with anguishes in vivid saturation, vivid memory. She found herself tormented by all that had caused her to bleed so ferociously and by all that had not bled in its own deserved response, and in those fits of feverless fever, of haunted aliveness, found herself embarking upon a design to revenge.

There was a creature surfacing within her; as Ahab felt herself unbecoming, it was birthing itself, made from every part of Ahab that was dying.

Oh, what could set aside her torment! What could render her sleep peaceful once more! What more could free her from the grip of violence against her eyelids, from the animal scars that belonged not in a person; the knowledge of what it was to be broken in, to suffer, and in her suffering, to be molded, screaming, into submission.

It had taken violence—the violence of her then mates—to break her into that straitjacket, and it would take violence once more to break her free of it.

See her now, see how that phantom straitjacket yet binds her free limbs. See how vivid her nightmares art, see her twist and turn with the exhaustion of that whole, wretched torment borne up into her brain as clearly as if it were happening now. See her now, see her sleep with clenched hands, and wake with her own bloody nails in her palms.

See how she must steal away from sleep and, with violent intensity, fling herself from her bed as if it were aflame with the very fires of Hell that she dreamt of, that the Hell in herself had opened up a yawning maw beneath where she slept and swallowed her whole!

In such moments, a wild cry would be heard through the ship, and with glaring eyes Ahab would burst from her stateroom.

“Am I crazed,” Ahab would mutter to herself these nights, “to run from such mundane comforts; the sum of all earthly spoils I have left! What is a man but where she sleeps? Oh, would that my comforts comfort me. Would that such soft light endeavor to light my soul as it once did. The shroud of night is no greater comfort than a tomb, and I cannot bear to be locked within mine own coffin.”

It was on nights such as these, whence so violently displaced from her own sleep, that Ahab would propel herself to her deck to pace about and loosen the holds of horror on her mind. Rarely would she stomp about the deck, but, conscious of her sleeping crewmates not six inches beneath her ivory heel, Ahab would endeavor to tread with all caution available to her.

In this manner, she seemed to be almost more ghost than Captain aboard her ship, and perhaps in these times, she was.

But, one night, after having been so violently displaced from her slumber, Ahab took to the deck with a careless stomping, her ivory heel marking its way along the roof of the cabin steerage.

“It's bad luck having a woman aboard a ship, Mr. Flask,” the Second Mate grumbled then, after finding himself awoken by the Captain's agonized cry and gait. “Had I known her sex while signing on, never would I have signed. To lower for a woman! There's a subservience to that I don't right like, you hear. What do you think of that, Flask?”

“I don't know,” answered the Third Mate, still half asleep and not interested in discussing anything in the slightest. “It doesn't matter to me. A dead fin is a dead fin.”

“Hmph,” Stubb harrumphed. “Well I think her a queer old woman. Mark my words, she'll be the end of us, as certain as a good cut of whale is fine as the finest steak. Notice here, Flask, how unbeaten our sailors go? Surely it must be that cowardly sex that prevents the natural state of a whaleship.” Stubb grit his teeth, missing his usual pipe between them. “There's gotta be some blood ‘fore the voyage is done. The foc'sle never tames itself.”

“Good night, Mr. Stubb.”

But Stubb stayed awake and tossed and turned and harrumphed a while longer, all to the persistent percussion of Ahab's leg hard against the deck over his head. Finally, having had quite enough of his inability to return to that good and proper sleep, Stubb threw himself out of his cot and made his way out of the steerage.

Quickly spotting and hailing the captain, Stubb carved his way over to her, stood like the devil herself atop that bone-death leg and her bone-deep weariness. She eyed the approaching mate with such a queer expression; Stubb couldn't rightly decipher it. A woman had certainly never looked at him that way before, and it unsettled and irritated him further. 

“How now, ma'am!” Stubb ventured, a laugh prepared on his breath. “Tis a lovely night for a stroll, I see, and a lovely night for a dream, if one can rest enough to dream, and I'm quite keen on mine; she's a sweet rose left behind on the shores of Nantucket.

“Truly, if you wish to measure the Pequod by heel all a night, let none aboard venture to stop you, but hm, hm,” he swayed back and forth, “if there were such a way as to muffle the sound, such as a gum of wax, or a rubber stop, then we might all have a merry night. Thinks ye, miss?”

Ahab, however, had none to say in response to Stubb’s comedy but a raised brow. She looked down on him—and a woman so tall as she, wasn't that queer in itself! ha!—her face still that impassive mask, concealing some mad crucifixion. 

“Am I a cannon-ball, Stubb,” said Ahab cooly, “that thou wouldst wad me so?” Stubb scoffed, but Ahab continued, her demeanor heavy, but agreeable. She waved a hand in dismissal. “But thy sleep is thy grave. Go about thy ways below; I had forgot.”

“Miss—” Stubb opened his mouth, and perhaps sensing his imminent disobedience, Ahab robbed him of the opportunity to protest, having been seized by some devil as she turned on him and snarled, her teeth flashing: “—Down, dog , and to thy kennel!”

Stubb was speechless for a moment at the unforeseen concluding exclamation. A dog ! Why, if either of them were the dog here—

“I am not used to being spoken to in that way, miss!” he crowed, raising his chin. “I do but less than half like it.”

“Avast!” gritted Ahab between set teeth, and dismissing him once again with a sharp wave of her dark hand.

“No, miss; not yet,” said Stubb, emboldened, stepping forward and furrowing his brow. He was an officer of this ship, damn her, and high above this dark woman's station in all but rank on paper. How dare she? “I will not tamely be called a dog.”

Ahab rounded on him then, her voice a growl. “Then be called ten times a donkey , and a swine , and an ass, and begone, or I’ll clear the world of thee!” She stepped forward with such looming threat that for all the world, it appeared that lightning from all the squalls of the sea flashed in her eyes. 

“That will be ‘ YES , CAPTAIN’.”

Her command clapped like thunder, and Stubb flinched away, obediently down like a scolded mutt.

All of his haughty air exited his lungs at the flash of command and left him deflated, scrambling to submission. “Yes, Captain, Sir,” Stubb found himself muttering as he turned to descend away to the cabin-scuttle, head bowed.

Ahab watched as the mate retreated at last, her irritation for the disrespect nearly outweighing the tumultuous visions that led her to her pacing so harshly.

Mr. Stubb would survive her tongue—if she had to wager, far too few had lashed him with it before—and his wounded pride would heal and be forgotten. After all, there was little could befall him that did not end in laughter. She scoffed—would that she could laugh away her own demons—but ignorance and forced glee were a white man's weapons, and Stubb was as white as he was a coward.

Ahab had known men to scorn her leadership before, and, excluding the deep horrors that had befallen her in her time of injury, all eventually laid down before her efficaciousness and believed that she stood atop her quarter-deck with a purpose. She made believers out of men, and shone in front of them all as a bellwether, a god. And gods had nothing to fear from the dogs beneath them. Not this time, at least.

Such a trifling disagreement as Stubb was below her purpose here. Captain Ahab adjusted her path of pacing to spare the sleep of her mates, and reset her gaze high amongst the stars, bearing no further thought to the men beneath her heel.

“I was never served so before without giving a hard blow for it,” Stubb was muttering to himself as he descended away, once certain he was out of earshot from his Captain. “It’s very queer. Here I stop on my cabin-scuttle, and I don’t well know whether to go back and strike her, or—what’s that?—down here on my knees and pray? Yes, that was the thought coming up in me; but it would be the first time I ever did pray.” He shook his head. “It’s queer; very queer; and she’s queer too; aye, take her fore and aft, she’s about the queerest sailor Stubb ever sailed with, not even accounting her sex, and that is the queerest trait of all! How she flashed at me!—her eyes like powder-pans! is she mad? She must be, for no woman I’ve ever seen would behave in such a manner—I dare well think it impossible.”

Below-deck in his grave-cot, Stubb grumbled to himself still, tossing and turning awake in the night beneath the footsteps of the Captain. “She has somehow captured the owners in her reverie and myself along with them—no matter how unnaturally the thought feels. Certainly the crew shall see her queerness clear enough when she comes aboard the deck to call commands. Surely to see her fiery foolish sex set as an idol, the others will shake off their complacency and hear my laughter, and Stubb will not be the fool for standing up to a woman.

“Ha! that would be a sight. Ha ha, the queer nature of her madness revealed. Oh, what a day that shall be, and I intend to live to see it. Hm, hm, tonight I abide my time and go to my grave as instructed, but tomorrow—who can know it? Perhaps some distant morrow we will all see who the dog of this ship truly is, and I won't be barked down again.”

Chapter Text

The next day. Ahab has prepared a speech for her crew.

(Enter Ahab: Then, all.)

“Send everybody aft.”

“Captain–”

“Everybody. Mast-heads! come down!”

Captain Ahab's command rang clear across the ship. Her passions and fixations had been growing in her like a festering wound, and finally, it had grown ripe for lancing.

Starbuck repeated the command for those who needed further nudging. Captain Ahab grasped a shroud as the entire ship's company gathered together, muttering amongst themselves at the queer order – to command even the mastheads down for some meeting was rarely ordered except in scarce, extraordinary cases – and looked up at her with eyes as curious as they were uncertain.

Starbuck shared in the uncertainty, watching her dear Captain command regality about her. She had no idea what Ahab meant to preach to them about, and felt herself on the brink of a new chapter of this voyage. There was a freshness to it, despite the fear, and she looked towards it with a quiet, apprehensive eagerness.

Ahab watched her crew assemble with as much fervor as they watched her, although the nature of her thoughts was inscrutable across her face. When all were gathered and focused upon her, Ahab set herself to pacing along the Quarter-Deck, her ivory leg ringing out with every step.

Starbuck watched her cautiously, thinking Ahab looked much like a stormcloud rearing to become a squall.

All of a sudden, Captain Ahab cried:

“What do ye do when ye see a whale, men?”

“Sing out for him!” was the song of the company.

“Good!” Ahab approved, wholeheartedly pleased by the immediacy and unity of the reply. “And what do ye next, men?”

“Lower away, and after him!” came the louder, and even heartier reply.

“And what tune is it ye pull to?”

“A dead whale or a stove boat!”

“That's it, men!” Ahab crowed in triumph, eyes glinting in keen gladness.

The crowd buzzed with aliveness, having been brought to such enthusiastic attention under the call of their captain, only now first felt upon the waves. For two somber months had the ship sailed with no overt leadership of her Captain, and her presence upon the Quarter-Deck brought an excitement to them as if she had only just sailed from port.

Energized by the company’s enthusiasm, Ahab turned fast and produced a coin from her pocket.

“For some time now, all ye mast-headers have heard me speak of a white whale adrift on the seas: to sing for him, should he fan-tail. Now look ye to this! See this Spanish ounce of gold?”

In her hand, she held up a broad bright coin to the sun. The crew broke out into excited murmurs.

“It is a sixteen dollar piece, men.” She paused to grin. “D’ye see it here? Mr. Starbuck– hand me yon top-maul.”

Starbuck was quick to snatch up the tool from its place of use upon the deck and procure it.

Ahab advanced then towards the main-mast with the hammer and gold, both held to the Sun in parade, in prophecy.

“Hear this! Whosoever of ye raises me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw; whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three holes punctured in his starboard fluke—he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!”

The crew cheered something raucous as Ahab made a show of nailing her gold to the main-mast, central and tempting for all to circle and covet. Attainable to all, and yet to none.

“It’s a white whale, I say,” continued Ahab, as she finished her task and grinned, tossing aside the top-maul to Starbuck. “White as a shroud over your heads. Skin your eyes for him, for he is a noble prize indeed, and I intend to have him.”

As Ahab spoke, the three harpooneers of The Pequod had been listening intently, and now, each seemed touched by recollection, thought solemnly into past voyages they had each sprung as individuals. All three glanced amongst one another, disbelieving of their coincidental encounters with fate.

“Captain Ahab,” called out Tashtego, their voice clear as any summer's day as Ahab turned her head to them, “is this white whale the same that some call Moby Dick?”

A hush stole over the deck then, the name ringing clear.

“Moby Dick!” cried Ahab, unswerved by the silence, a glow lighting in her eyes. “That name is known only to those who have seen him, who whisper of his coming. Do ye know this white whale, Tash?”

Tashtego hesitated, a caution on their tongue. They asked: “Does he fan-tail a little curious, sir, before he goes down?”

“And has he a curious spout, too,” interjected Daggoo, eyes alight with that same recognition, that same concern. “Very bushy, even for a parmacetty, and mighty quick, Captain Ahab?”

“And a good many iron in his hide, too, Captain,” added Queequeg as well, “those irons all twisted about like– like–” Flustered, Queequeg faltered for the English word, and pantomimed, screwing his hand round and round as though uncorking a bottle—“like a—”

“Corkscrew!” cried Ahab, clapping a hand to Queequeg’s shoulder and beamed when he nodded. “Exactly the same! Aye, aye, Queequeg, many lost harpoons lie twisted in him; aye, Daggoo, his spout is a big one, and white as a pile of Nantucket wool after the great annual sheep-shearing; aye, Tashtego, he fan-tails like a split jib in a squall. Death and devils! Good fellows, it is Moby Dick ye have seen—our prize in shrouded white! What prayer– what stroke of luck to sail with three brave hearts who have seen Moby Dick and lived to tell the tale!”

“Captain Ahab,” said Starbuck, who, with the other mates, had been watching this scene play with mounting confusion and surprise, but now seemed vexed by a sudden realization or thought. “Captain Ahab, was it this Moby Dick that took off thy leg?”

The crew silenced at once as Ahab looked back to her mates with a slow sternness, silent and disapproving, her called-attention-to leg marking its ivory place upon the pivot-hole of the Quarter-Deck.

“Who told ye that, Mr. Starbuck?”

Starbuck's face was tight-lipped, his chin high, and Ahab sighed to the crew good humoredly. “The gossip of Nantucket is never far behind a woman, I see.” Captain Ahab paused as a chuckle went up, gathering herself.

“Aye, Starbuck; aye, my hearties all round; it was Moby Dick that dismasted me; Moby Dick that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now; who razed me and left me to replace my flesh with no more than a trophy of his brother's bone.”

She grasped the nearby shroud once more and kicked her good leg up to step upon it, raising herself even higher above her crew, raising their spirits alongside her. “And I'll let him no forgiveness for it! I'll chase him round Good Hope, and the Norway Maelstrom, and perdition before I give him up.”

She dropped from the shroud at that, booted foot landing alongside ivory heel with a hard thud .

“ This is what ye have shipped for, men! to chase that white whale over all the earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out. Moby Dick is a demon amongst the whales, say the legends, the rumors, yes, yes. But hark! I think ye look brave.”

The crew murmured in assent and Ahab raised her voice.

“Do ye look brave?”

The crew cheered at that, raising their fists to the air.

“We are not so easily felled by demons, are we, men?!”

The crowd roared, defiant and earnest.

Captain Ahab raised a hand, as if elevating the uproar. “I thought no!! Mark ye well; should we fell the beast that is Moby Dick, ye shall not only go home rich men, but noble ones as well. What say ye, men, will ye follow me?”

“Aye, aye!” cheered the harpooneers and seamen, crowded closer to their excited old Captain: “A sharp eye for the white whale; a sharp lance for Moby Dick!”

“God bless ye,” Ahab crowed, triumphant. “God bless ye, men.”

But, amidst the wild excitement of the crew, Captain Ahab turned to see her first mate scowling something terrible, seemingly unaffected by the joys that had overtaken the rest of her audience.

The gears and dials in Ahab's head began to turn: if Starbuck – prestigious, respected, white, famous-by-blood-and-feats Starbuck – were to publicly stand against her for this, she could lose the whole of the crew in an instant. It became her utmost priority, then, to secure her colleague's support here, in front of everyone watching.

Loudly continuing in her cheer, she spoke and extended a hand in the direction of her friend. “But what’s this long face about, Mr. Starbuck! wilt thou not chase the white whale? art not game for Moby Dick?”

Mr. Starbuck shifted, lips pursed as the rowdy attention fell to his direction. “I am game for his crooked jaw,” he admitted carefully, “and for the jaws of Death too, Captain Ahab, should we fairly come across it; but I came here to hunt whales, Sir, not my commander’s vengeance. Sir, I ask thou to consider: how many barrels will thy vengeance yield even if thou gettest it, Captain Ahab? It will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market.”

“Nantucket market. Hah!” Captain Ahab laughed, clear and loud, but swung herself down from her perch nonetheless, made her way over to her chief officer.

“Ah, Starbuck; thou requirest a little lower layer.” She put a hand efficaciously upon his shoulder. “If money’s to be the measurer, know that thy purse will not run dry. For Moby Dick–” she turned to call to the crew, “is as large as a parmacetty comes, right, men!”

“Larger, even!” cried Daggoo.

“Indeed! Our voyage will ring with coin ‘ere long, thou shalt see us flense many whales from the sea, and my vengeance will be the rubies we pile atop our gold!”

“She smites her chest,” whispered Stubb to Flask beside him, “methinks it rings vast, but hollow.”

“Vengeance on a dumb brute!” cried Starbuck, unswerved, pushing off the Captain’s hand and grasping her shoulder with his own, “that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! To be enraged with a thing, Captain, it seems so certainly blasphemous.”

“Starbuck–” Ahab sighed, and now steered the mate away from the growing raucousness of the crew, a hand firm upon his elbow. “Look ye upon a map of the world, as marks of penmanship scrawl over it. Symbols they draw, masks they are, representing a much deeper truth than their ink. Much like the artist, does God present us these figureheads of such concepts.

“There is a malice which pursues me, Starbuck, pursues all of us through life, and for us as men to strike at it, we must first strike through the mask which it wears! That white whale is such a mask to me, inscrutable as it is! That which hides behind the mask is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him.”

“Captain Ahab–”

“Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other! Hah!” Her teeth flashed in the bright sun; a hunter’s maw. “But come, come, listen.”

Ahab curled her arm back round the mate's shoulders, drawing her near as they walked the Quarter-Deck to the bulwarks, away from earshot and looked back to the crew from the distance. “See how merry such a purpose befalls the men! See the laughter, the camaraderie, the jubilee! Such a quest as this has brought our men together for a great purpose. Vengeance or not, see how they dance to think of it! Such merriment is no fool's gold.

“And– atop it all, look ye: tis no wondrous feat for a Starbuck to strike a fin, no?” She good-naturedly flicked up his chin. “What is it more? From this one poor hunt, then, the great young Starbuck, the sharpest lance of all Nantucket, surely he will not hang back, when every foremast-hand has clutched a whetstone?”

Starbuck pursed her lips, her brow still a thing of discontent, but upon this urging, found no words with which to argue her discomfort. She submitted in silence, and swallowed the bitter taste with a nod.

Ahab withdrew her arm to clap him heartily upon the shoulder once more. “Aye! Thy silence then voices thee.”

As the mirth of the crew sang out around them, Ahab privately sung of her triumph, as Starbuck sung of her fear.

“Starbuck now is mine;” Ahab whispered to herself in relief, “cannot oppose me now, without rebellion.”

Starbuck stepped away from her and watched, some deep, unknowable dread blooming in her ribs, even though she could not name it. “God keep me—keep us all,” was her murmur.

Ahab rejoined the merriment of the crew with a hoot, summoned grog enough for the lot of them, and cheered as they drank and danced in the bright sunshine.

“Drink, ye sailors, enough for us all!” she cheered, earning a hearty cheer from the deck. “drink and swear, ye men—Death to Moby Dick! God hunt us all, if we do not hunt Moby Dick!”

Chapter Text

Some time after Ahab's speech, after The Pequod has lowered for her first whale. Amidst the lowering, Ahab revealed herself to have smuggled another boat crew aboard the Pequod . Ultimately, the whale was lost, and Starbuck's boat was separated from the ship during a gale. They were only reunited after the storm ended, where by sheer luck they were close enough to be seen by the ship and rescued. Now, shaken from the reveal of the Captain's secrecy and her own turmoil, Starbuck reports to her Captain.

“Art thou trying to be decommissioned?”

Ahab did not turn away from where she stood at the window, looking out at the sea, keeping her relief at hearing Starbuck's voice again on a tight leash.

“Welcome back, Mr. Starbuck. I see thy boat finally returned to us after that squall.”

Starbuck huffed a tight sigh, so frustrated it nearly sounded like a growl.

Her crew’s vanishing into that storm had indeed been tremulous; and truthfully it was Starbuck's own persistence that led them into the fog. The poor greenhand oarsman in her boat had been terrified, but she had not allowed herself to be. Her crew survived, they were all safely back, she had hardly paused to think Ahab might have been concerned for her absence.

“Yes. Thanks to thy keen eye, I’m told.”

“Aye. I shiver to think of losing thee to such an avoidable peril.”

“Oh, spare me that bullshit.” Starbuck clenched her hands, the chill of the open ocean catching up to her voice. “You won't avoid this by transferring thy blame.”

“No? How shall I avoid it, then?”

“ Captain ,” Starbuck’s voice barked out. 

Ahab turned then, and snapped her eyes to her, laid the full weight of her gaze on her in warning, daring Starbuck to take that tone with her again.

Starbuck faltered, visibly re-collecting herself, closing her still burning eyes. “I am grateful for thy rescue, truly and sincerely. But, Captain Ahab, who are those people thou filledst thy boat with?”

Ahab sighed in annoyance, turned away again.

“Why go to such lengths to secure thyself a boat? Why even sail at all? Thy leg–”

“My body and what I choose to do with it are none of thy concern,” Ahab cut her off. She had foreseen this question coming – Starbuck had never been subtle about her anxieties – but its arrival was no less exhausting than she had anticipated.

“Captain–”

“ Remember thyself, Nathaniel,” Ahab hissed sharply. “I will not remind thee again.”

Starbuck's lips twisted, but she begrudgingly submitted. “Understood, Captain.”

Ahab turned to her charts, folding her hands behind her back, steeling herself to actually answer the question. She had placated Starbuck for now, but she knew it would not last forever, and not without good reason. The concern for her actions was founded, she did see that.

“Fedallah is the name of my harpooner,” Ahab began, eyes closed. “She and her oarsmen are here under my protection. I trust them. I trust her.”

“Trust them? Then why–”

“Hide them in the hold for these long weeks? Perhaps because I do not trust the people aboard this ship. Perhaps, Starbuck, because I do not trust thee. ”

The comment was sharp, intended to stab, and stab it did. She watched as something in Starbuck's face crumpled, the admission stinging deep.

“Captain…”

Ahab shook her head, disallowing her emotions from interfering. “Thou wantedst to keep me ashore like the others. I knew thou wouldst not lend me thy crew, might even oppose me taking another’s. I needed someone on my side.”

“I wouldn’t… I would not have stopped thee from sailing out again. I didn’t ,” Starbuck said pointedly.

“No? Thou hast done little to prove me otherwise,” Ahab turned to face her more fully then, expression softening somewhat. “Am I to believe that thou wouldst offer me thy harpooneer, thy oarsmen? Nathaniel, if I am to sail after that great white whale, I need thee by my side. But I also want a crew from which I can stab at him myself.”

Starbuck seemed to wrestle with herself for a moment, but swallowed her hurt, and nodded quietly. “But, I must ask,” her voice lowered, a new query shifting her priorities. “Another woman? How canst ensure her safety here? Her crew, perhaps shall escape harm, but this Parsee has none of thy status. Where will she–”

Ahab was nodding. “Now that is a useful question. Fedallah has been offered the spare cabin atop the deck. There she will sleep alone, much the same as you or I.”

“So exposed to the elements?”

“Tis no cosmetic addition to our ship, Ms. Starbuck, thou knowest that. Prior to Fedallah’s residence there, twas secure enough that some barrels of oil were set to be stored there. But, if even that fails, she is welcome to join me in my stateroom.”

“Join thee ?” The shock in her voice was palpable. “Thou canst not be so certain of her–”

Ahab stifled a laugh at the ignorant incredulity on her face, allowed herself a tight smile. Oh, how little Starbuck knew of her history with this woman. “I am quite certain. There is much thou knowest not about me. I have known, have trusted Fedallah for nearly as long as I have been captain of this ship. She has sought refuge in my stateroom before, much like thee, when thou wert in injury.” Still seeing Starbuck's rigid, nearly trembling composure, Ahab reached over to clap her on the shoulder. “Thou need'st slack thy stays, man, before something sprains. She is as trustworthy a companion as thee.”

Starbuck did not relax, instead her face grew a great deal redder. Was it anger and distrust that Ahab saw sweeping through her? Some strange jealousy? Or perhaps some mix of both?

“Captain,” her voice had quieted some, but still strung through with that unknown emotion, “what of the owners?”

“The owners. Hah!” Ahab pointed at Starbuck. “Those owners are not here, and will be satisfied so long as we turn them a profit. And a profit we will turn them – and tenfold, with the prize I seek! Worry not for their concerns.”

“Captain Ahab,” Starbuck stepped closer to her, secretive, eyes intense. “They nearly forced thee to return once. This could endanger thy life – thy curated trust, thy career, thy very freedom.”

Ahab shook her head, looking straight ahead at nothing. This was a tenuous game she played, one that left her exposed and perilous, she knew, and she could not risk Starbuck's harbored disapproval.

“I don’t need them.” She turned her head slightly towards Starbuck, the sight of such naked concern there gripping her chest suddenly, caving her to her more vulnerable notions. “I just need thee . I need thee with me. I had thought that – of anyone, thou wouldst understand.”

Starbuck shivered under the admission, eyes wide.

“I–”

“Thou who betrayed thy father, lied to thy owners, because thou knewest there would be no other chance for a life away from shore, for the freedom thou knowest now. Thy body haunted thee like a ghost cut from thy own flesh, like the name thou cast off. Thou knewest of the necessity of the lie. Thou art still lying to thy crew now.”

Starbuck lowered her head, caving.

“I know, Ahab, I understand. To whatever end this recklessness leads, even though I fear I may see it, I am with thee. But even so, I just wish that thou… wouldst exercise caution.”

Ahab turned to her fully then, drew close, and patted a hand on her shoulder, solidifying the return of her magnet to Starbuck's brain.

“This life we have chosen does not employ caution, Starbuck. I will not ask thee to avoid the gales we face, only to survive them.”

She moved past, leaving Starbuck behind to look at the maps, and the paths marking their prey.

“Then permit me to ask the same of thee, Captain,” Starbuck spoke quietly. “If I may.”

Ahab turned back a fraction, listening.

“Whatever thou dost, I ask that thou survive it.”

Ahab felt the corners of her mouth twist in a smile. “Good man, Starbuck. I shall do my best for thee.”

Chapter Text

Some months later, after a particular lowering, the aft oarsmen of the Second Mate's boat is injured and unable to row, and the cabin boy Pip is commanded to take his place. On Pip's first lowering, however, he startles upon a brush with a whale and jumps from the boat. Infuriated at the inconvenience of a Black child Stubb deems less valuable than his hunt, Stubb threatens that should he jump from the boat again, he will be left there to drown. But we are all in the hands of God, as Ishmael laments, and Pip jumps again.

Hours later, a call is raised.

“Man overboard!” Daggoo sang out from a masthead, splitting the day with his voice, clear as a ringing bell.

The crew raced to the braces, staring over the edge to see what he had sung out, and found a small, dark face bobbing against in the waves. The boy splashed helplessly in the water, waving to and fro in the currents, seemingly too exhausted to raise his hand or shout out.

“My God,” Starbuck breathed, recognizing the missing cabin boy in that face far below. “Helmsman, hold her straight. Men, fish him out!”

The crew broke out into cries of distress, speaking amongst themselves and all moving like some great, disjointed creature. Queequeg was the swiftest; he nearly vaulted over to the side, seizing a boat to lower to Pip. Daggoo raced down the mast, men pointed and shouted and pushed all around Starbuck so that she had to climb a shroud to keep an eye on that lonely, drowning face.

The rowers let Queequeg down in haste, as graceful as he was swift, and in several clamoring, breathless moments, he and the small boy were saved, mercifully back on the ship.

Pip could be seen clearly now, shaking and shivering, but otherwise with no visible injuries. 

The crowd gathered closely around the two crew members, murmuring and rumbling and surely overwhelming.

“Come now, give them some room.” Starbuck hissed to the crew, fighting her way forward through the crowd, having to shout to be heard. “Give them room!”

One of the Captain’s oarsmen – the fatherly Bascos – helped to nudge a few men out of the way so Starbuck could reach the circle’s center, and then there was Queequeg and there was Pip, and poor little Pip’s strength was so spent he could not even cling to Queequeg’s arms.

His little chest heaved up and down and Queequeg was holding him like a son, keeping him upright enough to breathe and close enough to draw warmth from his chest.

Starbuck murmured a prayer and then kneeled beside them, reaching to place a hand to Pip’s forehead.

“Pip, canst thou hear me?”

Starbuck only realized then that Pip was muttering to himself, over and over. His wide, wild eyes met hers and she leaned in to hear his whispers more clearly.

“Pip drowned. Pip, where? Left alone at the bottom of the sea. He’s alone. Have you seen him? He drowned. He’s drowned.”

Starbuck drew back, looked to Queequeg.

“Did he speak to thee?”

“None more than now.” Queequeg’s brow was pinched, his face grave. “He is not well.”

“Aye.” Starbuck bent away from the child to call out to the crowd: “Everyone back away! He needs medical aid.”

“Come with me?” she leaned in to ask Queequeg, who nodded in affirmation, and stood, Pip securely held in his arms. 

The harpooners (including their favorite greenhand) and this boy had taken a liking to each other, Starbuck had noticed; in the months of their voyage, Pip could, at least with some regularity, be seen hovering around one of them, following like an eager shadow, or reading with them, and so on. Starbuck noted now the distressed look on Queequeg’s face, the caution with which he cradled Pip, and was glad to have asked him to assist, for his own sake as much as the boy’s.

“Tashtego!” Queequeg called over his shoulder as they made their way through the crowd, and at once they appeared at his shoulder, their face a mirror of Queequeg’s horror.

Starbuck silently thanked Queequeg for his quick thinking - Tashtego had been the harpooner in Pip’s boat, presumably at the time of his accident. If any further injuries had befallen the boy there, they would certainly know it. 

“What happened to him?” Starbuck asked as they approached the ladder to the steerage and led the way down it.

“Knocked out by a fish,” Queequeg murmured, descending carefully after the mate, one arm on the ladder, the other holding fast to the cabin boy. 

“Left by a shark,” Tashtego echoed, seemingly to themself as they followed. “Sir, does he need bandaging?”

“I don’t think so,” Starbuck admitted. “We shall soon see.”

She reached the door to her cabin and spared an eye at the two harpooners beside her. The room could squeeze two, perhaps, with discomfort, but three persons and a teen-aged boy would be a stretch. She instead withdrew a trunk of medicinal supplies from beneath the bed and retreated back to the table where the mates ate. Still a small room, but much more accommodating to their numbers.

“Here, ye can set him down here.”

Queequeg obliged, helping Pip to take a seat atop the table.

The boy had begun shivering during their journey – not even the warmth of Queequeg’s arms could entirely block out the chill – and now, removed from his only source of heat, his rattling was as evident as a loose sail in a storm. 

Starbuck was swift to retrieve a blanket and tuck it around the boy's shoulders, rubbing over his arms and back to try and mince some of the chill. Pip was still clinging to Queequeg’s hand, and he allowed it, keeping close and in reach.

“Pip,” Starbuck lowered herself a little in front of him; he was seated atop their table, yes, but she was a tall fellow, and he a small child, made smaller and younger by his fear. “Canst thou hear me?”

Pip's mouth had finally stopped running that mantra of death and drowning in favor of chattering, and he looked up at her now with deep eyes. He nodded.

“Yes, Sir.”

Starbuck shook her head, rubbed a hand over his shoulder once more. “Not now, Pip. I'm no sir to thee now. I only wish to aid thy health. Does anything hurt?”

Pip’s brow did something complicated. “Hurt? Hurt me? No, sirs, no all around. It's Pip that's hurt, Pip that's drowned and lost.”

“Pip?” Starbuck asked, confounded by his words, repeated once more, and clearly now. “I do not understand.”

“Yes, the coward. Pip the coward who jumped from the whaleboat.” He jumped a little in his seat, eyes flashing with something Starbuck had no reference for. “Oh! Don't look for him, Sir, we're better off without him.”

“Pip, I…”

“Do you see him? Do you see where he's gone?” At this, the boy twisted around suddenly, looking every which way around the cabin.

Starbuck's heart sunk as she watched him, as she looked Tashtego and Queequeg in stunned silence beside him. Starbuck was no doctor, but she knew this was something beyond her treatment, surely placed in the hands of God.

“Tashtego, Queequeg?”

“Little Pip,” Queequeg put a hand to Pip's back. “You say far away Pip is hurting. Where so?”

“All over,” Pip shook his head. “All over, you see? And inside and out.”

Queequeg rubbed a small circle over his back. “And where outside? Has he any scraped limbs? Any shark's teeth?”

He looked over Pip's arm as he spoke, inspecting for injuries.

Pip gasped a little. “None, none but his coward's soul.”

“A miracle, that is,” Tashtego murmured, and Starbuck wished she could agree.

“The two of ye, take care of him,” she instructed, her voice commanding but low, and shaken. “I will bring this matter to our Captain’s attention.” Both harpooners nodded. “He trusts ye,” Starbuck elaborated. “If ye need of anything to make him well, I will do my best of it.”

Starbuck turned from the scuttle-room to the deeper steerage, seeking her Captain’s aid.

In all technicality; it was Captain Ahab to whom most medicinal duties lay, although for much of this journey, Starbuck had been the one to see to such ailments. For Captain Ahab's illness and seclusion, the crew had grown to know Mr. Starbuck's remedies and prayer instead. However, in extremities such as this one – and a few notable others along this voyage – Starbuck deferred her expertise to that of her Captain's.

So lost was she in her thoughts that she nearly barreled into her peer exiting his cabin right in front of her.

“Mr. Stubb!”

“What’s this all about now?” The second mate rubbed at his eyes - having gone below to nap after his latest profitable voyage.

Starbuck blinked quickly, composing herself from the near-fall. “There has been a man found overboard. I am going to Captain Ahab.”

“Overboard?” The second mate frowned in confusion. “Who?”

Starbuck's brow furrowed in response. “The cabin boy, Mr. Stubb, and half-drowned.”

“Found? Oh!” He remarked disinterestedly, and began to maneuver past her in the tight hall. “What fun, another mouth we need on board.”

Starbuck paused at the comment, turning her head back. “None more than we prepared this voyage to carry.”

Stubb made a dismissive noise and stretched his arms.

“I think you're forgetting our dear Captain's new hold-rats.” Starbuck's mouth shut at that, and Stubb seized a point of entry. “Yes, I saw you the day they all sprung out; you were no happier than the rest of us.”

Starbuck remembered herself and hissed, pushing back. “Save thy breath, man. It is our Captain thou speakest of. Thou wilt find no conspirator in me.”

Stubb scoffed, accompanied with an ever-jovial roll of the eyes. “Always the Captain's dog, aren't you?”

Starbuck's eyes narrowed, her demeanor growing colder by the moment.

“Does my memory serve me, Mr. Stubb, to recall that little Pip was sent to thy boat for this latest voyage?”

Stubb shrugged once more. “Not the choice of mine. Listen, I meant nothing by it. Someday, Mr. Starbuck, you’ll learn to take a joke, and then maybe you’ll be able to grow out that meager beard of yours.”

Starbuck didn’t think before striking.

In a movement, she had gripped Stubb by the collar and slammed him back against the wall, pinning him beneath her forearm, barricading his throat. “ Foul excuse for a man. I know what thou didst,” she hissed.

The accusation was an estimated one – but whether by negligence or offense, a boy lay ill and wretched on their boat while his superior laughed. She would have no more of his disrespect of their crew and of his disdain for their leadership.

Stubb’s eyes were wide in shock under her elbow. “Jesus, I didn’t take you for a vain one–”

“The boy,” she nearly spat in his face. “Thou hast been so eager to dip thy hands in the blood of this crew since the start, even despite direct orders from thy Captain –”

“The foc’sle never tames itself,” Stubb growled against her arm.

“Thou hast orders. Clearly it is thou who needst taming. Thou shalt not permit gross negligence such as this again. Do not dare so much as touch another man aboard this ship or I shall have thee flogged . Dost thou understand me.”

“You're pacifists,” Stubb sneered. “The lot of you.”

At that, Starbuck well and truly laughed, loud and icy, her father's blood singing through her.

“Mr. Stubb,” her voice was a wicked thing. “Thou hast much to learn of the pacifism of Starbucks.”

Stubb finally, finally had the good sense to look afraid. It was a sliver of an emotion; a minute fracture that repaired itself swiftly, but it was there nonetheless.

He swallowed. “You need the Captain's authority for that.”

“I thought I was her dog ?” Starbuck sneered. The laughter slipped off her face as she leaned in close, teeth bared. “Try me. ”

That did it.

“Alright—!” Stubb flinched. “I’ll leave it be. Just don't blame me if you're tasting blood from rows before week's out.”

“God as my witness,” Starbuck unhanded him as roughly as she had first grabbed him. “I won't.”

He shuddered as he stole away, nearly running into Queequeg as he reentered the steerage. Starbuck watched Stubb hesitate a moment as Queequeg greeted him, and then brushed past the harpooner without a word of response.

Queequeg followed his absence with a confused, curious eye, but did not stop him.

Starbuck was breathing deeply, re-centering herself to the situation that actually mattered before her.

“How is he?”

Queequeg hesitated.

“There was a sound of striking.”

Starbuck exhaled and swept a hand into her hair, smoothing it back. As much as anger still boiled on the tip of her tongue, the mates were, as ever, to present as a unified front, and to divulge an altercation between them could lead swiftly to disaster. She took a measured breath.

“Nothing of concern, Queequeg.” She swallowed her anger once and for all, and repeated herself. “How is he?”

Queequeg eyed her, but did not press. “Little Pip says he drowned. Him need as much care as we can offer to him.”

“What are we to do with him?” Starbuck murmured. “I have not seen an affliction such as this before. His body alive and his soul so split from himself.”

Queequeg's face flashed with concern, and something deeper.

“He will need time.”

“Can time heal him from death?”

“Death can be a journey, like we are on. For Pip, maybe we will catch up to his journey. Find him soul again.”

“Perhaps,” Starbuck sighed.

The hall suddenly creaked from the other side, announcing a new visitor, and Starbuck turned to see Captain Ahab standing there.

“Sir!”

“Stubb saidst that thou wert looking for me,” Ahab's voice was a deep and curious rumble.

Starbuck tasted a stray growl in her throat, despite herself. “ Didst he?”

“Not in as many words, but aye.” Captain Ahab looked at her closely. “What vexes thee so, Starbuck? Thou lookest half mad.”

Starbuck inhaled, let the air out through her teeth. “It is our cabin boy, sir. Pip. He is injured. Went overboard amidst a hunt.”

“Oh.” Ahab's brow pinched in thought. “Thy anger is not for he, is it?”

“No, Sir.” Starbuck cast half a glance to the harpooner beside her. “A different conversation simply affected my mood. It matters not. Pip must be the subject of our attention. The poor child is mad.”

“Mad?” Ahab frowned at the word. “What say you, mad? Mad like so many call his Captain, aye?”

“Thou wilt have to see for thyself," Starbuck murmured, and turned to lead her back into the ship.