Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Bilzo sat watching the cell door carefully. It had been a few days since he and the rest of the crew had been locked up, all twenty three of them in one cell. Bilzo wasn't sure how the imperial army had found them, but they had, and they over-power them three to one. It didn't take long for rumors to spread either. Since Tommy had left them to stock up on rations not five minutes before the attack. Or how Johon had apparently seen Tommy watching from a crowd.

It didn't paint a good light for Tommy, and right now it painted an even worse light as distrust loomed over everyone, and as he was the only one trying to clear Tommy's name. Another argument had broken out between some of the younger crew members.

“We should be looking for a way out!” yelled one.

“No, we should wait till tomorrow when we can argue an arrangement!” yelled the other.

“What arrangement can we make? They only have one sentence for pirates.” a third person piped in.

“Even if there was a way to bargain, Tommy probably took it, that's why we’re in this mess-”

Bilzo grabbed the boy by his collar before he could speak any more nonsense, he pushed the brunette against the wall and held him there as the boy scratched at his hands.

“Think before you speak, what has Tommy done to warrant any of this distrust from any of you?” he growled through his teeth. The cell went quiet as the crew hesitantly watched the scene in front of them unfold, distantly they heard the guards start walking away. Shift change.

His glare stayed on the boy in front of him. “I remember you specifically being a stow away that he simply couldn't throw overboard, we had to make an extra stop so we could get more supplies for an extra person.” he drops the kid before backing away and glaring at the others.

“Anessa, didn't he get you out of that arranged marriage that you begged to not happen. Didn't he not only kill that old man but offered you a spot on the ship?” Anessa didn't speak, only turned her head in shame.

Bilzo scanned the room with his eyes. “With how many stories I can tell about how he's helped all of you, you should be ashamed of yourselves with how little trust you give the man who gave you most of what you have now.” Bilzo scoffed. For a good solid minute the room was quiet with nothing but the sound of dripping water and keys jingling.

“Couldn't have said it better in my opinion, but you didn't have to be so mean about it either.” A voice said from the door of the cell. Everyone in the room turned to the opening door to see Tommy opening the cell door, with a lot of struggle. “They also should make these doors lighter in my opinion.” He complains, banging his head against the door.

After a moment of surprise on the crew's half and exhaustion on Tommys half, the blond held his hand up holding a ring of keys. “So is everyone here or do we need to check anyone else out of this shitty hotel?”

With a grin Bilzo walked over to Tommy's side. “What did I say?” he smirked.

The group spent the next while avoiding guards and servants, trying to get out of the large castle. Every time they passed one corner there seemed to be more guards. Tommy hissed as he pushed Bilzo back into his crew to keep them out of sight, he gestured for them to all me quiet.

Seconds felt like hours as they waited for the guards to pass them. Only once Bilzo was sure they were completely gone did he speak up.

“You didn't think to map out where to go when you got in? What were you thinking!”

Tommy wiped his head over to glare.

“I was thinking that you had one day left before court and that I was gonna get caught by that fancy prince!” He hisses before turning the corner. “It really isn't easy trying to blend in as a servant when there's a whole ass hierarchy system, AND when they have their own accent.”

Bilzo just sighed at that. Couldn't really argue with any of it.

It didn't take long for Tommy to stumble onto something he recognized. “Over there!” he whisper shouted.

“We can get to the kitchen that way, it should be empty right now, they have a door for deliveries that we can leave from, it takes us right to town square!”

Bilzo nodded. “What then? they took our ship, not like we can just sail outta here, even if we did they would totally try to capsize us.”

The crew looked nervously at each other as mummers once again started circulating. Fuck that was not Bilzos inteshion. Nonetheless Tommy was still smiling.

“You didn't think I was that unprepared right?” the blond ran over to the kitchen door, using one of the many keys on the ring. Leaving Bilzo to both question what Tommy meant by that, and Tommy's sanity.

Johon slid next to Bilzo as silently as he could, “still think we should trust him”

Bilzo stomped on his foot, and surprisingly it actually shut him up. It didn't take long for Tommy to open the door either, and once he had gotten the door open he had rushed the group into the kitchen, which was empty like he said it would be. Tommy, once making sure the door was locked and shut tight, belined to the counters along the wall, dipping down under the sink he pulled out a bag that looked so full that it would rip any second.

“We’re all similar sizes so it shouldn't matter what anyone wears,” Tommy mutters as he digs through the clothes, tossing them at whoever was closest. “Once everyones changed we are leaving immediately so listen closely.”

Everyone had been given some kind of clothes by then and Tommy was folding up the bag. “In about ten minutes there's a carriage line leaving for town, we are going to be on those carriages, no more than two of us in the same carriage. Once we get into town we are going to split up and act as if we are working, by then the guards will know that you guys got out. Luckily for us what happened with you guys getting arrested has been kept on a low profile, only the guards that apprehended you, a handful of guards and the royal family know you're here for some reason.”

The crew looked around each other. Jack, the boy Bilzo had argued with, was the one who spoke up. “Why would they keep our arrest secret? It was noticeable when it happened, did no one ask questions?”

Tommy thought for a second.

“I don't know, the guards that do know have been acting weird, if i had to guess they were aiming for a different crew, there were several other pirates on the dock, including purple who's helping us right now. They don't know who we are but I think they were trying to bait someone.”

Everyone waited for him to go on.

“Has everyone changed?” Tommy asked, taking a look at a pocket watch. Once he got confirmation from everyone he led them all out. “We have five minutes until we leave once everyone gets to the town square, You have ten minutes to get to the forest eagle, purple, waiting for us there. I was able to get a ship for us, it's not as good as our old one but it'll work.”
He hesitates before continuing.

“If you get caught we cannot go back for you this time, they know what i look like, they know what you look like, and if i had to guess they won't even do a trial, not that it would help. So don't get caught.”

Tommy's voice was hard and curtain, and while harsh, true. Bilzo knew that, and while the crew may be having doubts about him right now they all, probably, understood the situation. Even Johon and Jack.

Getting to the carriages was easy, so was blending in as they got on. They only got a few strange looks. Bilzo was on a carriage with Anessa, the girl was sitting right next to him in the corner of the carriage sandwiched between an older sleeping woman and the wall. Anessa was wearing an almost carbon copy of what the other women were wearing, a long black dress with a blue apron, it looked as if the older the women got the darker the apron got as Anessas apron was a light baby blue that matched her eyes, and the elder woman next to them had a navy blue apron. Both outfits had golden embroidery of the empire's seal.

Looking around the carriage he spots the only other guy in the sectshion, they are wearing a similar uniform, but he's wearing a darker shirt while the guy in front of him seems to be in his 30’s, Bilzos 17 himself. With a breath he turns his head to Anessa.

“Hey, you alright.” the girl slightly jumps at the suddenness of his question.

“Oh yeah I'm alright, it's just really crowded.” she laughs nervously, her voice soft as ever.

Bilzo hums. “It is, isn't it.”

Anessa lowered her voice to barely a whisper, as if her normal tone wasn't quiet already. “Probably cause they have 2 extras now eh?”

Bilzo smiled at her grin. “Probably.”

The two went quiet again before Bilzo started the conversion again.

“I want to apologize for what I said earlier, it wasn't fair of me to bring that up when you didn't even say anything in the argument.”

Anessa made no more to give any indication that she heard him or even that she was interested in having a conversation with Bilzo that wasn't small talk. With a sigh Bilzo went to sit back.

“I understand, Bilzo. If- If Emma was here and it was her in that situation I'd do the same.”

Bilzo winced at the name of the late girl. Emma, Anessas best friend, the crew's shortest lasting member who passed. Not too long ago either.

“Tommy did everything he could for her, I could never doubt his loyalty or skill as a- our captain.” she continued.

“But i don't think you ever told us how you met tommy, all i know is that you two got a ship and picked up a bunch of misfits.” she turned to look at him, her hunched posture which left her long hair in somewhat disarray as she spoke. “It has to be more to the story than that, I'm sure.”

While she didn't outright ask, the question was clear what she wanted to ask.

Bilzo huffed. “You're right.”

Anessa’s smug look made Bilzo almost take back his decision to tell her.

Almost.

“We were in the same cult when we were younger, born into it. every child got placed into this orphanage-like building, and every time a group of kids turned thirteen, three of them would- well they would be separated from the rest while all the other kids got to meet their parents.” Bilzo started. It felt like the carriage got quieter, but the sound of small chit chat was still humming in the background along with loud laughs from one of the girls. Anessa gave him a look of sympathy.

“Oh, im- im sorry to have asked. I didn't mean to-”

“No your alright, I think it's better that someone thats not just Tommy and i know, unless your uncomfortable- I can stop-”

Anessa stopped him from talking by raising her hand. “ I'd like to know what happened if that's okay.”

Bilzo continued. “Well the three kids where, well they were sacrificed to XD, i think you may have heard of him. Me and Tommy Turned 13 around the same time, so we were in the same group. Tommy got to meet his parents that day, I- i think i met my dad, i'll never be sure though. I got picked as one of the three kids, it was me and two girls. I remember they were excited because they were like heavily into everything that was happening there. I was terrified though, I think Tommy could tell. He was religious to XD back then, but apparently not religious enough to stay while I died, so he broke me out the night before. Something went wrong and they had every priest and worker looking for us. We were found, but the guy didnt turn us in. He took us to some sewage system that we used to get out.”

The pair was quiet for a moment.

“You think that man was your dad?”

“Yeah.”

Anessa nodded, looking away. “What happened next?”

“We got a ship and started sailing, we weren't planning on being pirates, but then tommy met purpled when out first ship sunk, he started praying to prime and the rest is as you know it, we started picking up misfits that tommy took a liking too, or that he decided needed an escape.

Anessa laughed as the carriage stopped.

“That sure sounds like Tommy, doesn't it.”

Slowly the carriage started moving to a stop and the ladies started leaving, the one other guy on the carriage didn't make a move to leave. Just as the pair, Bilzo and Anessa started to get off the door shut close with a loud slam. Anessa gasped as Bilzo started knocking on the door, the guard outside gave him a look before locking the door and standing in front of it. At that Bilzo started slamming his fist against the door.

“Hey I know you can see us, there are still people in here!” When he wasn't answered he went to slam his shoulder against the door.

“They know you're here, I told them to keep you here.” Anessa and Bilzo turned to the man who was in the carriage with them.

The man was tall with fluffy brown hair and gold wire glasses that looked lensless, he would know with that one pase that Tommy went through. He took off the jacket and folded it against his arm.

“The names Wilbur, Prince Wilbur if you will.”

Bilzo and Anessa turned to look at eachother, Anessas face filled with fears, Bilzo was sure his face meriored hers.

“Oh don't be too scared of me,” the prince said sitting. Wilburs arm gestures to the seats in front of him. “Why don't you sit where you were before? I have some questions about this Tommy you speak so highly of.”

❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅

It didn't take long for 10 minutes to be up, Bilzo still wasn't here, or Anessa. Tommy started biting his nails in worry. He turned to his crew.

“Who saw Bilzo, and Anessa last?”

The group was silent before Jack and Killa started talking.

“They got on the same carriage when we left,” Jack said.

“I think the carriage they were in was the one that was locked when everyone was getting off,” Killa added.

Tommy paled, they must have been caught. Why else would the carriage be locked, and why they weren't here. Turning back to look at the town, Tommy thought long and hard before shaking his head.

“We’ll have to go without them,” he said, as his voice cracked. “We have an hour to get to the ship before Purpled leaves. We should start now so we don't waste time, we don't wanna be here longer than necessary.” The crew looked back only for a moment after Tommy started walking down the path, before following him. Each step felt like dragging bags of rocks along with him.

Tommy had hoped to avoid losing anyone, especially Bilzo. Tommy had also hoped for a quick and easy trip, but it seems that prison food isn't really nurashing. Luckily Tommy had brought food in case someone needed it, sadly he didn't bring enough food for everyone. He had to keep them going with the promous of food once they got on the ship. A promous he could keep.

Still they needed more breaks then Tommy liked. They had come across a lake when Tommy turned to them. “Get a drink, this is going to be our last stop before we get to the shore. We cant afford losing anymore time without the fucker leaving us here.” Everyone seemed to get the urgency of moving quickly, as they each took time to wash their face or take a drink, Tommy himself took a drink himself. Jack on the other hand seemed to not care as he just sat against a tree.

“Not thirsty?” Tommy asked.

“You're leaving them behind.” Jack said, not answering the question.

Tommys mouth went dry, even though he just drank quite a bit of water.

“Time is important right now.” Jack scoffed.

“They got caught, what do you expect me to do?” Tommy snapped at him.

Jack glared at tommy. “I expect a captain to try to keep his crew together.”

“What do you call this!” Tommy said as his voice raised to almost yelling. “A party or some shit?”

Jack glared at him, just as he opened his mouth, lea, a younger member of the crew spoke up. “Shut up Jack, we all know that Tommy wouldn't leave us behind if he could help it, especially not Bilzo.”

Jack glared at her. “Im just saying-”

“You've said enough, plus Tommy said earlier we wouldn't be able to help if someone got caught, if you're so pissy about getting out of here maybe you should turn yourself in, see how that works for you.”

Jack went quiet at that, and while Tommy didn't think that the “turn yourself in” part was necessary he was too tired to start up another conversation, this could wait until they were safe and off the island. It wasn't long now. As they started walking Tommy noticed Killa continuously looking back towards the town. Now he was looking at a lot of them. It wasn't a secret that Anessa was a lovely person to have on the ship, but also a good medic. And it was very obvious that Tommy and Bilzo were close.

But there was nothing Tommy could do for them anymore, they were in prime hands. Tommy hand reached for his necklace that hung loosely around his neck, he felt the wooden beads and the coolness of the silver against his fingers as he rubbed the charm, he brought the silver to his lips and sent a small prayer to prime. One to keep both Anessa’s and Bilzos' path open to any outcome that could happen. Hopefully not death.

They got to the beach front rather quickly from there, Tommy could see the ship he had gotten through a few favors and gambling anchored to the shore. Purpled was nowhere to be seen though.

Actually as Tommy looked around there seemed to be more signs of life around rather than actual life. As his crew ran forward to the ship Tommy looked around, specifically on the beach.

There were many footprints everywhere, and there was a trail leading towards the ship, and a section of trees.

“NO ONE GETS ON THE SHIP.” Tommy shouted as he noticed people, very poorly hidden between the trees. Guns poked out from behind trunks and footsteps led right words to them. Pulling out his gun, he shoots.

The shot didn't hit anyone, like he had intended. But it spooks one of the soldiers enough to give them away. The crew gasps at seeing the man.

Then everything crashes down. Fifty or so men reveal themselves with their guns drawn but not aimed coming out of the trees and surrounding every exit except the ship. Tommy holds his gun up ready to fire. Some of Tommy’s crew walks closer to him, while some sneak back towards the ship. Just before Tommy can warn others of the possibility of enemies on the ship, the soldiers split, letting none other than the crowned prince walk through them.

“Like your captain said, I wouldn't get on that ship.” the prince says. Tommy takes the chance to look behind him. On the ship he can see another group of soldiers restraining Purpled, who had a gag over his mouth. The soldiers on the ship have their guns aimed unlike the ones between the trees.

Whipping his head back to look at the prince tommy glares.

“What do you want.” he snaps at the smug looking prince. “Just want to get us all out of the picture at the same time or what?”

“Oh no ofcourse not, that's more of my brother's idea of taking care of things. Luckily for you he's not here, on a trip to Essaipimis with my father.”

Tommy isn't the only confused one, a lot of his crew seems to be at a loss for words.

“What- what do you want then?” Tommy asks, bewildered and wondering.

The prince grins, snapping his finger. “A trade sounds nice doesn't it?” From behind him his men separate, letting two men holding two people captive similarly to how purple was being held.

Bilzo and Anessa are brought into the light, hands behind their back and ropes in their mouths, limiting how much they could say.

Tommy goes cold seeing them.

“Me and your friends had a conversion while we waited for you to get here, they weren't very compliant though, at least until the girl got that nasty cut on her arm, Bill, or whatever his name is, started talking a lot more after that.” The prince smirks at seeing Tommy's face twist into horror, his head snaps to scan over Anessas, and while he can't see the girl's arm, she's too pale for comfort.

“What's your point?” Tommy grits out behind tight teeth, his eyes not leaving his friends figures as he looks over them for any more injuries.

“I'll give you your friends and I'll let your crew leave without any fight or chance, we even put more rations in your ship while you were making your way over here.”

Tommy stopped looking at Bilzo and Anessa to give the prince a skeptic look.

“What's in it for you?” he asks.

The prince smiles.

“They leave, you stay here.”

At that Bilzo starts yelling, muffled by his gag, Anessa starts crying, the rest of the crew either stay silent or start yelling in displeasure.

Tommy doesn't say anything, just stares at the prince. After a moment he called for his crew to quiet down.

“What do you want with JUST me?” Tommy asks not to pay attention to any of his crew crying, or Bilzo still yelling and fighting.

“Like I said, I had a conversation with your friends here, and they had quite a few interesting stories about you. I bet you have some interesting stories of your own.”

He wanted a story teller? That didn't make sense, he had his whole kingdom he could ask for stories, or just hire someone from another kingdom. It didn't make sense, but Tommy had a feeling that that's all he was going to get out of the crown prince, even if he dug a little more. He also didn't think he could afford any more questions if he wanted his crew out of here.

If he wanted bilzo out of here.

“You have a deal.”

Immediately his crew started arguing against it, loudly. Tommy let them yell it out for a moment before putting his gun down and raising his hand. Everyone was silent at that, even Bilzo.

“It's the best deal we’re going to get. our plan already failed. This is our best case scenario right now.” Tommy said. “Purpled is in charge until you guys get to the location I gave him, after that Bilzo will be your captain from there, DO NOT try anything rash. Get as far away from here and dont turn back.”

Tommy let the words sink in before walking over to the prince slowly and handing him his gun.

The prince towered over him by two heads making him look up to look him in the eyes.

“How do I know you'll honor your words?” Tommy asked. He could hear Bilzos' fight start up again.

The prince scoffed. “I always keep my deals”

He said as his hands pulled on a chain, “but if you need more reassurance,” he pulled out a pendant from under his shirt. On the pendent there is an engraved symbol of death's emblem. He gestures for one of his grads to walk over, they take Tommy's gun from the prince and replace it with a knife.

The prince took the knife and cut his finger slightly, rubbing the blood that bubbles out of the cut on the pendent, which started glowing as he started talking.

“I, Prince Willbur. Death. Craft. Promous to let the crew of Tommy- uh”

“Innit”

“The crew of Tommy innit leave alive and without chase or warrants as long as he in turn comes with me and lives with the imperial family for the foreseeable future.”

With that the oath was finished on Wilburs half.

“I don't doubt you'll keep your word, so don't feel the need to make an oath either.”

“Wasn't going to”

Wilbur rolled his eyes as Tommy watched Bilzo and Anessa be escorted to the ship.

“Can I say goodbye?” Tommy asks, not looking at the prince.

“As long as you don't go on the ship, I don't see why not.”

Tommy nods belonging to to Bilzo, who was just tossed on the ground.

“BILZO!”

“Tommy, WTF! Why would you take the deal”

Tommy reaches to give Bilzo a hand, which he takes.

“You would do the same, don’t bullshit me right now.” Tommy growls at him.

Bilzo doesn't deny it.

“This is goodbye then?” Bilzo looks two seconds from crying.

“Never” Tommy presses his forehead to Bilzos, his hand reaching to the back of his head, Bilzo mimics this on tommy.

When they split, Tommy takes off his pendent and puts it over Bilzo’s head.

“I think you'll need it more than I will.” Tommy laughs.

“That's debatable.” Bilzos' voice is humorless.

“Take care of the crew while I'm gone?”

“Obviously”

Tommy grins before hugging Bilzo.

“Pigeons are trained to send messages, maybe make use of that” Tommy whispers. He breaks the hug just as quickly as he started it and runs closer to the army by the trees. Turning back he watches as his crew boards the ship, and the soldiers walk off. It's a little longer before the crew is set to leave. Tommy watches the anchor lift and the boat starts moving. Most of the crew isn't actually doing what they usually are supposed to, but instead looking at the shore, where Tommy still is.

Standing next to the prince, surrounded by imperial soldiers. Unable to leave with them.

Surprisingly Jack is the first to do anything, and when he does it's a simple brow salut. As other crew members notice they start joining in, pretty soon they all are saluting as they leave.

And Tommy couldn't leave them hanging could he?

Sadly the prince seemed to get impatient and started to lead Tommy away from the beach and over to a single carriage.

Tommy took one last look towards the water before getting in and letting the door close behind him and the prince.

Chapter Text

Theseus was ready to retire for the night, he had spent most of his day making sure all the preparations for the party his mom planned had been set properly, and making sure he knew everyone on the guest list. The later half of his day was welcoming everyone. And his night was making sure the night was going well. Luckily for him he finished his paper work long before he started his day earlier and the guests were leaving in the morning so he could sleep for a few hours before he would have to get up to work again.

Theseus sighed as he undid his hair. The braid was done tight so it would last, but gods did it give him a headache with how tight it was done. After running his hand through his hair to release the tension out of his scalp he reached over for his brush. A small carved brush made out of wood that his grandmother the late queen had given him, one gift of many but important nonetheless.

Tommy took his time brushing out his mid length hair and carefully not tugging too hard, and pulling part into sections so he could braid it loosely for sleep. He had already changed into sleep wear, puffy pants that shut closed with ribbon at the ankles and a long sleeve shirt that went down to his knee caps. So now that his hair was done all there was left to do was actually head to bed.

As he stood up he turned to see a man in a ridiculous black outfit.

And wooden staff being swung right at his head before he blacked out.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

Bilzo winced as the prince turned, but it was too late to stop the stick from colliding directly with the boy's face.

At least it did the trick? The prince was knocked out, not majorly injured, besides maybe a concussion. Also some bad fucking blisters, Bilzo was fallowing the guy all day and the only times he sat down was during food, or when he went into the garden for some air, and even then he was standing majority of the time in the garden!

Bilzo sat for a lot of it and his feet hurt, probably because he was crouching on rough ceiling tiles.

Bilzo sighed as he picked up the prince by his armpits, he was light for his age. He dragged the boy over to his bed before grabbing the large bag he had brought with him. He had 7 minutes to pack the prince’s things and 13 to scram, with the prince. Without really looking Bilzo threw a bunch of clothes into the bag, as well as two pairs of shoes.

He was going to leave it at that when he saw the boy's desk filled with alot of beauty products?

Lotions, face moisturizer, concealer? Hair spray?

Bilzo rolled his eyes before sweeping a bunch of it into the bag, might as well make this look like a robbery on top of a kidnapping while he can right? He made sure that the brush the prince was using would also go with him.

The boy had a lot of hair, he’d need it.

Once Bilzo was sure he got everything packed up, he opened the window and aimed his grappler out and downwards to a tree a little off the parameter, shift change had just hit so no one would see him.

Once the hook was secured onto the tree Bilzo strapped the bag onto the line and sent it down. While that went on its merry way Bilzo checked on the prince. He was bleeding. Quite a bit.

With a sigh he grabbed a handful of the prince's bed sheets and started wiping the blood off his forehead to get a better look at the injury. Like he thought, the wound was a medium cut going right across his head, it didn't look like it needed stitches but it definitely needed to be covered.

Bilzo looked for a not blooded spot of fabric from the bed sheet he just used to clean the wound and cut out a strip to wrap along the prince's head.

Once the makeshift bandage was tightly in place Bilzo was able to get a good look at the boy's face. Throughout the entire night the kid looked uptight, worried, and not gonna lie kinda stuck up.

Sure he saw a lot of it disappear when the boy thought he was alone, but there was a stark difference between then and now.

For one the boy looked a lot younger, and a lot more at peace, even with the blood still running down his head- okay he might need stitches.

“All the more reason to get moving,” Bilzo thought to himself as he moved the prince to the balcony window.

He quickly set up his body brace and attached it to the grapple line that was now hooked up to a torch holder. Once he was sure it was all set up right and could hold, he reached over and picked up the prince, holding him in a tight bridal carry with his back up straight, and pinned to Blizo’s chest so he wouldn't fall on their way down.

And like that they were off sliding down the line with cold air hitting Bilzo directly in the face.
He had tucked Tommys’ face into his shoulder so he wouldn't have his injury bothered all too much by debris, or by the branches of the trees that were hitting him now.

Karma he guessed.
It took longer than he would have liked for the two to finish getting down but he couldn't complain all too much about it. The bag he had grabbed and sent down earlier was waiting for them at the bottom looking in pretty good shape if not a little roughed up. As Bilzo wiped off the leaves from the bag he wondered if he should undo his grapple or leave it, he had many like it and was instructed to make it known the prince had been kidnapped, but he didn't want to alert anyone too early before the prince was at least on the ship.

But something told him that it wouldn't matter, this whole job felt easy. He had followed the prince the entire day without anyone noticing him. As well as how easy it was to break into the prince's chambers and study. There were much fewer guards posted anywhere the prince would be compared to the King or Queen, Bilzo would go as far as to say the duke was more regarded as well.

He left the grapple in the end. Between carrying the prince over his shoulder and holding the bag in one hand it slowed him down quite a bit, but he had gotten to the inn on time, and with no questions asked.

A job well done he would say. He didn't bother trying to sneak around to the room he would need to go into knowing very well that the inn would be empty as his “employers” had bought out all the rooms. He staggered his way through the main hall and over to the first floor. By the time he was at the door he needed to paint from exhaustion. Placing the bag down he knocked on the door.

“Delivery for a captain craft?” he called out to the occupants in the room.

The door opened at that, allowing him to enter.

“His stuff is out in the hall if you wanna grab that.” Bilzo informed the boy with split hair that had opened the door.

He didn't speak but nodded as he dragged that inside while Bilzo walked in and placed the prince on the twin size bed in front of him.

“You might wanna keep an eye on his head, Fucker turned right as I was knocking him out. Bilzo could see the captain nod his head but not the look on his face that would indicate if he was upset at that or not. He trusted that he wouldn't try and cheap him out of the agreed upon pay based off of other jobs Craft had sent him on.

As long as it was completed without too many mistakes then it was acceptable to say the mission was done.

“You left the note right?” Bilzo grinned.

“Snuck it into the boys' study with a bunch of documents, they should find it while looking for clues or other papers.”

Bilzo didn't say how he needed to knock down a few stacks of paper from the desk just so he could see the wood.

“The rooms are also a mess, so it's a bit obvious it was a kidnapping.”

“Or a burglary.” Technoblade scoffed at the bag that Bilzo had brought with.

“There's more hair products in here then Wilburs bathroom back home-”

“Hey-”

“Boys don't start right now, not in front of our guest at least.” Craft says before turning from what he was looking at through the window.

The man's cold blue eyes immediately singled in on the prince.

“The agreed amount was two bags, was it not?” Craft asks, picking up two pouches from the desk nearby and walking up to Bilzo.

“Sure was, although it feels like I'm cheating you out now. There wasn't as much security surrounding the prince. Felt more like I was grabbing some family hairloom from a mistress's back yard rather than kidnapping the crowned prince of the biggest weapons exporter.” Craft handed him the two bags.

“You think they have something planned?” Craft asks, raising a brow.

“I think whatever your planning is going to fail and the prince is more expendable than you think.” The tension in the room went thick as Bizo took the bags and looked in to make sure he was paid fairly.

He was.

“Either way we have him now, we can make something work.” Wilbur said watching Techno close the prince's bag.

Craft nods. “That right, he probably knows some information we can use.”

“If he doesn't have amnesia.” Techno adds.

That seemed like it was Bilzos' cue to head out as he had been paid and he had no other reason to stay. But looking at the prince it felt wrong to just leave. Especially with how he was still bleeding.
“Do any of you know how to do stitches?” he asked not moving his eyes away from the prince. “‘Cause you probably shouldn't move him without fixing his head first.”

Craft shook his head.

“Our cook Niki and her bunk mate Jack know, but they're back at the ship.”

“You should have time to bring one of them here to fix him up before you head out. I can stick around and help keep the bleeding as little as possible.”

Craft thought about this for a minute before shrugging. “Ranboo do you mind calling Niki over?”

The boy with split hair, now known to Bilzo as Ranboo, shook his head before seemingly just disappearing into nothing.

Bilzo was left to sand in confusion for a moment before Wilbur spoke up.

“Enderian we picked up a while ago. Sweet kid, can't stand water though.”

Bilzo nodded like that explained more than half of what was happening.

When the kid had gotten back he looked deshelfed as if he had run a marathon.

“She's on her way, just needs to dry off.” he paints.

Bilzo was grabbing more towels from Wilbur who was handing them over. Bilzo put the towels over the cut, holding the two sides as close together as he could to keep it as close as he could, but he was starting to get nervous. How hard did he hit the boy?

It took Niki 5 minutes to get to the group. She didn't even knock when she arrived, just opened the door with a box in hand and gloves on.

She slid down next to Bilzo and gently pushed him away.

“I got him from here.” she said as she removed the towels from his head, the bleeding had gone down, but that may have just been blood loss. Niki worked quickly and diligently doing her best to not open the cut while she sewed the wound closed. She wasn't doing anything extra like cleaning it more then she was just wiping the blood off when it was too much to see through.

Once she was done Wilbur had to help her clean up.

“It's not my best work, but it'll have to do for now, we need to head out before the city wakes up, gards seem to be looking for us already.” she says as she throws out the last of the bloodied towels.

“I don't think they know we have the prince, but they certainly know there are pirates nearby, our ship is safe as well.”

Craft nods before talking to Bilzo. “You'll probably want to start heading out too, they'll be after you before they're after us.”

Bilzo hums. “I'll head out after i see your ship leave, Purpled will probably give me a lift out, here's here too.” craft nods as he blows out the candle closest to him, everyone else follows in his steps.

“Let's get going then.”

Phil leads them all out of the inn, taking a back exit in the kitchen to avoid any patrols, they use the forest that surrounds the town to cover themselves. Captain Craft in the front, Wilbur next, holding the prince's bag, Niki holding the first aid kit she came with right after, Technoblade following behind with the prince in a weird koala-like hold, then Bilzo with his hands in his pocket. The Ranboo boy had disappeared once they left the inn.

Bilzo kept his eye on the prince once again, his stare never faltering as he watched the boy sleep peacefully. He was much paler now, and he couldn't help but feel guilty about that. But that was out of his hands now, the boy was breathing and still alive. In a couple months he would probably be back here getting the best care from the best doctors his parents would hire, and the lady death crew would be getting a large paycheck bonus.

Yeah the prince would be fine. He had a reputation of being one of the kinder members of the family. The townspeople thought highly of him, that’s for sure. But Bilzo couldn't shake off the weird feeling that this was too easy. There were no guards by his door, but there were tens at each entrance to the main rooms of the palace where the party was happening, and at least four to the kings and queens bedroom and personal studies, even the library had a guard.

It didn't feel like an ambush, or a set trap, or even bait. It just felt wrong.

Wrong in the way that he felt sorry for the boy. But even past that, the boy himself felt wrong.

He felt farmilure, like Bilzo was being waterboarded with deja vu. Like he knew the kid.

But he didn't know the kid, he had never met the kid and it was impossible for him to have, so Bilzo dropped it from his mind and kept it as far out of his thoughts as he could. He started to focus on getting to the ship as fast as he could and keeping up with the others.

Niki and Wilbur seemed to be having a conversion with each other that kept getting them glares sent by Craft.

Technoblade seemed hyper focused on the boy, just as Bilzo was moments ago.

“Eh, everything okay big guy?”

“Huh?”

Bilzo jests his head over to the boy, “you're staring at the kid quite a bit, what's up?” like bilzo could talk about having a staring problem.

Techno was quiet before speaking. “He has really long hair.”

Bilzo held back a laugh.

“That's it? You have long hair too, longer than his id say.” Techno shook his head.

“I mean he seems to care about his hair alot, which is weird for people here, they all have hair on the shorter side so it doesn't get caught on anything. It is also seen as a symbol of power to have short hair.”

Bilzo nodded at that, “maybe being royalty gives you more freedom for hair? I don't know man, he had a lot of hair stuff, plus a lot of people at that ball-party thing had long hair. Not as long as his, or yours, but pretty long.”

Technoblade nodded.

“Maybe, guess it doesn't really matter. Speaking of his hair products, why'd you put it in his bag?”

Bilzo shrugged.

“He seems to really like his hair, and I kinda just shoved whatever was on his desk into the bag.”

“So it was a burglary” techno huffed amused.

“Yesent- he gets to keep his stuff.”

“True.”

The pair went silent as craft started to give them the same look he was giving Wilbur and niki.

It didn't really matter at that point because they had made it to the ship and Craft was already boarding it and calling his crew to get ready to start heading out. Techno and Niki both said goodbye to Bilzo, Wilbur didn't seem to give a shit about farewells. Not like bilzo cared. The man never did.

Bilzo turned to leave to find Purple's ship when Ranboo was standing right there. He jumped and just as he started to scream the boy slammed his hand on his mouth. “Don't scream! I'm so sorry for scaring you. I just wanted to say bye. Probably shouldn't have teleported behind you though.

Bilzo just gave him a look as if to say; you think? This kid was weird.

The two stood in silence for a moment before Ranboo remembered that he was covering the guy's mouth.

“Sorry!” he whisper shouted as he pulled his hand away.

Bilzo sighed. “No harm no foul kid, dont know why you went through all this trouble today bye though.”

Ranboo hesitated before looking at the ship, then back to bilzo.

“I don't have much time before the others start leaving but I have a job for you I'd like you to consider. I can pay you fairly before you ask and I know you know where our “base” is.”

Bilzo jested for the boy to go on.

Ranboo reaches into his pocket before pulling out a small book. “I'm looking for something, a library. It's said to have books filled with enchantment and torches lit with blue fire-”

“You're looking for the Library of Prime?”

“You know it?”

“I know of it, my brother would read it to me as a bedtime story.”

Ranboo nods.

“I know it's real and there's something I need from it, that I can't tell you, are you willing to take the job?”

Ranboo asks, his eyes lighting up with hope as he stares at the booklet in his hand that he is reaching out to Bilzo.

“I'll think about it.” Bilzo says taking the booklet. “What's this?”

“A copy of my research about the library, it has everything I know in it if you decide to take the job.”

Just then the anchor of the ship started to rise and the pair heard Wilbur call out to ranboo to hurry up.

“You know where to find me when you've made a decision.” Ranboo says, and the next second he's gone.

Bilzo looks around before seeing him on the ship next to Wilbur, the two talk for a second before Wilbur heads elsewhere and Ranboo turns back to look at the docks.

Bilzo stairs as the ship starts departing, Ranboo and him still not making eye contact, but Bilzo knows the boy sees him. With a breaf salute, Bilzo starts to walk away.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

Bilzo spends his time walking looking for Purple's ship thinking about the weird boy he met and the library he's looking for.

He looked so sure that the library was real and that he could find it, Bilzo couldn't help but be curious.

He also thought about the prince. If Bilzo spent a few weeks doing a couple other jobs and doing more research, he should be able to avoid the prince and take the deal, if the research gave the library merrett.

Even if it didn't it sounded fun, and if they found it Bilzo would certainly be getting more then just what Ranboo would pay him.

When Bilzo found Purpleds ship he quickly snuck on, avoiding the crew on the deck and heading right to the captain's chambers. He slammed the door open scaring the ever loving shit out of the guy.

“BILZO WHAT THE FUCK MAN!?”

“One, I just helped kidnap the crowned prince so you probably wanna head out before they block the docks. Two, I need a ride out of here and you owe me a favor.”

Purpled seemed less bothered at being so rudely awakened at that and started calling out to his crew to start waking up.

Before he left his room he turned to Bilzo and pointed. “You are lucky, stay here, do not leave. I want more details.”

And with that he left and closed the door.

Bilzo took his chance and fell back into purpled bed. Fucking ass hat kept all the good stuff to him self. Bilzo got a good half hour of sleep before purpled woke him up.

“I said stay here, not to ruin my sheets.” he said, pushing Bilzo off his bed onto the floor.

Bilzo groaned from the floor. “Come on, I was having such a good dream.” He whined.

“Oh were you now, where you telling why the fuck you kindnaped a PRINCE!?”

Oh yeah, Purpled wanted an explanation for that.

“Oh I got a job from the syndicate, two gold bags for me bringing the prince to them.”

“Did you really get paid?” Bilzo nodded, digging out the two pouches from his pocket and showing them to the other. Purpled snatched the one closest to him. “Hey! I worked for that.”

“Oh shush, I'm just taking 10 pieces for getting your sorry ass out of there and for the food you'll be eating here.” he said, pulling out the pieces and throwing the bag back to Bilzo.

Bilzo grumbled before sighing.

“It was weird though, the guy's library had more security than either of his rooms, I didn't even pass a guard and I was following him the entire day.”

Purpled nodded listening to Bilzo talk. “That explains why I hadn't seen you yesterday. That's also odd- I remember when I got a job to just grab some kind of document from a prince and his area was crawling with guards.”

Bilzo hummed. “ It was weird, that's for sure.”

At that he remembered Ranboo.

“Oh by the way, what do you know about the Library of Prime?”

Purpled looked over at him. “It's a huge library dedicated to Prime, the God of riches, life, and pirates. It's considered a myth, but many, like my brother, consider it to be real. Why?”

“Your brother thinks it's real? Like Punz?”

Purpled held his hand out. “Nope I asked first, why do you want to know about the library, don't tell me you're looking for it?”

Bilzo shrugged.

“One of the syndicates members gave me a job offer, I wanna know more before I take it.”

Purpled sighed, putting his hands in his head. “Of Course you're actually looking into it, this job is right up your alley.”

“A cash grab?”

“Stupid.”

“Oh.”

Purpled sighed. “I already know you're going to take the job whether or not people tell you it's real or not.”

Bilzo shrugged, he was probably right.

“I'm going to think about it, do a couple jobs, wait till the prince gets sent back home. I'm supposed to go to their base and talk with the guy when I decide.”

Purpled sighed once again.

“You'll need more help.”

“Probably.”

“Your going to drag me into it aren't you”

“Definitely.”

“We are getting Punz first then, he knows more about it than I do.”

Bilzo smiled standing to look Purpled right in the eyes.

“Have I told you you are my best friend?”

“I better be, jackass. You woke me up at three in the morning”

Bilzo shrugged. “I got you outta there, didn'tIi?”

“You put us in that situation, my whole crew pissed at me.”

Bilzo had the nerve to look sheepish.

“Well, we should probably help out shouldn't we?”

“No they got themselves handled, they know you're here by the way so Anessa will be bringing in a cot for you.”

“Aw we cant share the bed like we used to?” Bilzo teased. “That hurts, you know, I thought we were close.”

“I wish we were farther away.”

“You don't mean that.” bilzo said, hopping on the bed next to his friend.

Purpled grabbed a pillow. “I do, I really do mean it. Right now, you are so annoying, I should throw you overboard.”

“No-no you shouldn't, there are sharks in these waters!” bilzo said nervously.

“Even better.”

“Don't say that, You'd miss me too much.”

Purpled sighed as he stuffed the pillow in his face.

Bilzo couldn't hear what he said but it suspiciously sounded like a; i would.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing” Purpled voice was still muffled by the pillow but he was speaking louder so Bilzo could hear him.

“Come on, say it louder.”

“Fuck off”

“Na-hey!”

Purpled had thrown the pillow at Bilzo so it hit him in the face. Once Bilzo had moved said pillow so he could see Purpled, threw a second one at him.

“Oh that's it, you are on.” bilzo said, grabbing the pillow from one end and hitting it down on Purpled’s shoulder. Purpled’s smug look on his face turned to one of shock as he started getting attacked by Bilzos' pillow.

It took the blonde a second before he was able to grab the other pillow but once he did, he started to his bilzo back with just as much force, causing feathers to start falling out of the pillows and making a mess on the floor. After a while the pair was interrupted by the door opening.

Anessa stood there with Emma behind her. Anessa seemed nervous while Emma was holding back her laughter. “Uh, I brought the cot you asked for?” she said, timidly raising her hands.

Purpled hit Bilzo one last time with the pillow before going to take the cot from Anessa.

“Thank you anessa, if you could do me one more favor and bring Bilzo here a broom so he can clean this mess.”

“ HEY, you started it-”

“Who?”

“You!”

“Asked?”

Bilzo threw the pillow at the back of Purpleds head.

The boy laughed.

Chapter Text

When Tubbo was called down to the throne room he didn't think it would be for this.

He had just joined the higher ranks of the imperial army under Crown Prince Wilbur's administration a week ago. He didn't expect he would be given a charge for another month or so, especially not for, well, a pirate.

Not that there's anything wrong with being a pirate- well no okay there was plenty wrong with being a pirate, you were an enemy of the state, you probably stole- and maybe killed a few people. You definitely traveled illegally, and you were just morally wrong?

Tubbo didn't want to be rude though. He just didn't want to be incharge of a pirate.

Once the prince was done introducing the- pirate, (apparently his name was Tommy) he started walking the both through the halls.

“Tommy here will be staying with the royal family for the foreseeable future, your job is to make him feel welcomed and to make sure he doest get into anything he's not supposed to while he's here, as well as treat him like you would if he was any other charge you would be assigned to.”
Wilbur said. “But with less privileges for now.”

The trio walked along the path slowly making their way to the west wing of the castle.
“As for you Tommy, for the first week you can let yourself get situated with this wing, and this wing only, meaning this tower, and the garden attached. There is a clear fence around the area letting you know where you can and cannot be, shouldn't be too hard. But if you do leave the boundary, Tubbo has full permission to use as much force as needed to bring you back to your room for the rest of the day. Once my father and brother are back the three of us will start preparing a schedule for you as you do need an education, how old are you again?” he asked, stopping at the doors of the west wing and turning to look at the pirate for the first time since he had started talking.

“I'm sixteen, I thought you wanted a storyteller? Not another scholar, seems to me you have plenty of those.” the pirate scoffed as he rolled his eyes. While Tubbo thought the prince would take offence he just laughed.

“You'd be right about that I do have enough scholars at my disposal, but I still expect any member of the court to be educated, especially my, or my family's court.” Wilbur unlocked the door and handed the key to Tubbo.

“I've had someone grab your stuff. As you are now appointed with a charge you must now stay as close as necessary to him at all times, unless he's in his room, bathroom, or with one of the members of the royal family you are not to let him out of your sights. That means your room will move to the west wing to be closer to Tommy. I assume that won't be an issue?”

Tubbo shook his head. “No sir, it will not.”
Wilbur smiles at that. “Then I'll leave you to it, be sure he gets a good room close to the families. I have some work to be done.”

And with that the prince left. The two boys watched as he turned the corner. Once he had disappeared from sight, Tubbo immediately had to restrain the pirate attempting to jump the fence and run into the woods.

“Come on man, at least try and lure me into a fake sense of safety before you go running off.” Tubbo whined as he pulled the boy back through the door into the west wing main entrance. After a lot of struggle, Tubbo was finally able to find the boy in the building, and the door locked.

And as if the door locking was a switch, the boy stopped fighting and seemed to just fall dead on the floor.

“Oh come on, you were acting just fine moments ago?” Tubbo complained. The pirate just side-eyed Tubbo, not moving. Tubbo sighed looking at the stairs.

“We need to get you a room you know.” Tubbo thought about how he also needed to get a room, and that would have to be close to… the pirate’s room.

The pirate didn't make a move to get up.

“We don't have all day.”

Still nothing.

“I have no problem dragging you up these stairs by your feet, and let me tell you it will not be painless.” Tubbo growled glaring down at the pirate.

the pirate rolled his eyes, finally moving and lifting his upper body. “Is that a promise?”

“Yes.” Tubbo answered as the pirate started to stand. Now that he was paying attention to how the boy looked, messy blond hair up to his shoulders, light blue eyes that were currently glaring, slimmer frame then most people in the palace, and also short, Tubbo started to recognize him.

“Weren't you a part of the kitchen staff just two days ago?” he asked. The boy winced at that.

“Yeah I needed more information about the layout of the place.” the pirate admitted.

“Why?” Tubbo questioned as the two started walking up the stairs.

“I was breaking my crew out of this places dungeon.”

Tubbo looked at him questioningly. “We had pirates in the dungeons? That's weird.”

The pirate started taking the stairs two at a time, “yeah it's a whole thing. Broke them out, got caught right as we were about to leave, made a deal, and whoop-dee-do here I am.”

Tubbo rolled his eyes as he went to match the pirates speed. “How'd you get past the higher ups?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well if I noticed then no shot some of the higher ups did too, kitchen manager, patrols maybe?”

Tommy slowed down his steps allowing Tubbo to match his pace once more. “The castle is really big but most intruders are found within a day, not much room to just fly under the radar.”

“Well I did.” The pirate snapped at Tubbo. Tubbo just hummed.

“Did anyone send you on jobs? Gave you tasks that either kept you in the kitchen or led you right to a manager or even the prince?” Tubbo asked. “Like jobs that didn't make sense compared to the others, maybe bringing apples to the head of gerd to check for quality control?” the boy paused at that, turning to Tubbo and not continuing up the stairs.

“Something like that.”

Tubbo nodded. “They were pointing you out as a person of interest.” Tubbo said as he nudged Tommy up the stairs. The pirate took the hint and started walking.

“If they knew I wasn't a part of the staff why didn't they call me out? Kick me out? Locked me up?” the pirate asked, his words rushed out of his mouth. Tubbo just lagged at him. The pirate didn't appreciate that.

“My apologies for laughing, but the castle doesn't work like that. We get an outsider breaking in at least a few times every two months, if you weren't stealing or if you were simply doing the tasks they gave you then they probably thought you were just trying to get the bonus of working here without applying. You know, room food that's pretty decent, clothes. That's how I joined in anyways.”

The pirate’s interest seemed to pick up at that. “Really?”

“Yep, I ran from my dad when I was twelve and tried to join the army. I was taller than most boys my age so I thought I would be able to blend in as a junior cadet, but it didn't exactly work.” Tubbo said continuing up the stairs, they were getting close as the door was now visible.

“So what? They called you out and just let you join?”

“No you have to be fifteen to be a junior cadet, they called me out and had a home check done on my dad. Old man was drunk as fuck the whole time and failed so they put me with one of their cavalry generals, joined when I was fifteen with his permission, and here I am at seventeen.”

“Wait, you're seventeen? We’re the same age?” Tubbo nodded in response to the boy's question.

“When were you born?” the pirate asked after a solid minute of silence.

“What?”

“I need to make sure I'm older, when were you born?” the pirate pushed some more

“January 17th, 16743.” Tubbo responds, trying not to laugh as the pirate looks devastated.

“You're a few months older?”

“If your birthdays after that, then yeah.” The pirate groaned as the pair stopped moving.

“Well if you're done, we are at the royal hall.” The pirate gave him a look. “The royal hall is where the royal family and their guards sleep, and you as well I guess.” Tubbo stepped after opening the door and holding it to the pirate .

“They couldn't have a more pretentious name?” Asked the pirate in a sarcastic tone.

Tubbo just grit his teeth and followed the pirate inside.

“Either way you'll have to pick a room, most of the rooms should be open except for the first eight, but there should be nine more rooms for us to choose from. the pirate nodded. “You have to take a room next to mine don't you?”

Tubbo nodded watching Tommy open the first door and walk in.

The room he entered was a very spacious room with a balcony opening parallel from the door. Everything in the room looked intricate and delicate. The bed looked like it would break under either of them, not from the mistake of the maker but because the pair went exactly elegant themselves. The sheets looked thin as well,matching with the wall being a strange cream colour coating. There was a gold outline on everything that was obnoxious and stood out. Overall the room looked empty and like if they touched anything it would break.

“I dont assume you like this one do you?” The pirate asked.

“Absolutely not.”Tubbo replied, ushering the pirate out of the door. “Luckily for us we have quite a few more choices to look at before you make a decision .”

The pirate Shrugged. “As long as it's not that fancy weird Really just like that then it should be fine, I don't really care where I'm staying cuz High chance they're not going to keep me here for long. At least I hope they don't.”

Tubbo nodded along with what the pirate was saying. “Why are you here if I may ask? I heard you talking to the prince about, uh, something about stories I think?”

The pirate Shrugged before giving a response. “I'm not quite sure myself, recorded me and my crew when we were heading off and had me make a deal with him so that way they could leave. Apparently he got a hold of two of my crew members and made them tell him about me or something along those lines. and now he thinks I have a bunch of stories he wants me to entertain him with. and now I'm here.”

Tubbo was still confused about this predicament. It was unlike Prince Wilbur to let pirates stay alive. but it was also unlike Prince Wilbur, to kill children no matter what their crime was. so maybe it had something to do with that

“Were you the captain of your crew?” Tubbo asked, looking for more information on the subject.

“Yeah.”

The picture in Tubbo's head started to clear up a little more. If Tommy was the captain of the crew and Tommy was 17 and said his crew couldn't be that much older than him. and Papa's experience older people didn't like to be tossed around but people who are significantly younger than them. Especially not adults so none of the crew members were likely to be above the age of 21 if not 20.

Tubbo was going to start digging more onto whatever information he could get out of the pirate but stopped himself once he saw the pirate's face. He looked sad, like he had just lost his favorite stuffed animal from when he was seven. Which made sense considering he had just lost his entire pirate crew along with his freedom.

Tubbo sighed. “Well why don't we check out some of the other rooms then?” Tubbo asked pulling Tommy along with him Towards the next door and opened it excitedly. The next two rooms look like carbon copies of each other if they were flipped. The first room had the bed on the left side and the second room had the bed on the right. There were desks on the left side of each bed and lamps on the right. These rooms were slightly smaller than the last but that didn't really make a difference or stand out. The rooms both had a balcony entrance that led to the same balcony which was a deal breaker for both boys. while Tubbo wanted as little connection as he could from the pirate. He knew that the shared balcony would help him if the pirate tried to escape via window. But he did not protest when the pirate himself was adamantly against sharing any part of his room with Tubbo.

In fact Tubbo was partially grateful for the pirate’s avoidance and distaste for him. He didn't have to pretend like the two of them were friends.

He would not deny that a part of him was enjoying his time with Tommy. But he also wouldn't say it to him.

The next two rooms seemed like they would work for both boys. The first room matched perfectly with Tubbo. The room had a simple blue carpet flooring that covered most of the room, only the attached bathroom exposed the dark hardwood flooring. It was big enough to hold a large dresser, a desk, a bed, two lamps, and still have half the room open to any additions he may want to add. The bed was made from oakwood and had large green sheets that were perfect for winter, the upcoming season. It seemed to the pair that all the rooms had balconies. Although Tubbo’s balcony didn't extend that far out it extended out far enough to check.

The room next over would be Tommys room, and there were little complaints there. The room was similar to Tubbos as it too had a large carpet covering the entirety of the floor, only this one was red and less fluffy. The room held similar items like the bed, lamp and desk, but instead of a dresser it had two drawers on opposite sides of the room. the pirate turned to Tubbo. “Help me move one of these outta here.”

“What why?” Tubbo asked. The pirate shrugged.

“One, it's an eyesore, two, I don't have that much stuff, actually I don't have anything. I don't need the extra dresser, but I won't complain about extra space.”

In the end Tubbo helped the pirate move the drawer into the hall, then into Tubbos room as he realized he was going to be having his stuff moved here and he would need the extra space. With their rooms set up the pirate fell back on Tubbos bed.

Tubbo kicked at his leg. “Get up, you have your own room to laze around in.” Tubbo says.

“Yeah but I'll get bored. Also, aren't you supposed to stick near me? Make sure I can't run away or something?”

Tubbo rolled his eyes. “Didn't think the pirate who immediately tried to run away would want me sticking around to stop all his future attempts. But you're right. I am supposed to watch you.”

the pirate laughed. “So what's in this building?” The pirate asked curiously.

Tubbo shrugged. “You were in the north building when you were scouting out everything right? I would assume so considering that's where the dungeon is.”

The pirate nodded. “I got lucky when I got in. I had no clue there was only one entrance to the dungeon, and also didn't know that each section was separated from each other.”

Tubbo nodded at that, thinking about how when he had first gotten here, he had no clue where anything was, or about how they separated the troops, so he had just joined a random congregation of younger Cadets.

“I feel like half of your life choices have been lucky.” Replied Tubbo.

the pirate shrugs, that not denying nor confirming Tubbos suggestion. “Probably.”

Tubbo sighed. “Well since you're allowed full access to the west corridors, I may as well just give you the tour. Right now we are in the Royal Hall or the room Hall, as you know. I'm pretty sure I went over this but I'm going to go again. The Royal Hall is where the entirety of the royal family and their guards sleep, and then there's you who will be staying here as well, that part I'm kind of confused about but not my place to say anything." Tommy noded it along to what Tubbo was saying.

“Hey, I'm not going to look a gifted horse in the mouth.” At least the pirate had some sense in him.

“Good, good. Keep it that way.” Tubbo said as he started to walk to the door causing the pirate to stand up.

The two walked out of the room and into the hallway with Tubbo leading. The pair walked over to the door and went out to take the stairs down to the next floor. Tubbo opens the door but blocks the pirate from going in. “While you have full access to the entirety of this Tower I'd rather not waste our time here, this is simply where the royal family keeps its heirlooms.”

“ Actually I should probably talk to the prince about whether you have access here or not.” tubbo adds as he closes the door.

“ yeah that's probably for the best.” the pirate the pirate says turning away.

floor by floor they go down the stairs to the next corridor. Tubbo either opens the door and just vaguely explains whatever is going on in that hall. or the two actually going in and exploring it themselves. turns out trouble had only been in there a handful of times. enough times to know where almost everything was, but not enough times to know the place like the back of his hand.

Once the two were done exploring and getting familiar with the place it was dark and the two headed back to the top floor where crown Prince Wilbur was waiting for them.

“ Ah there you two are I was beginning to think Tommy here had actually gotten out of your hands.” Tubbo avoided biting his tongue.

“ No sir.”

“ I can see, I hope you didn't give you too much trouble.”

Tubbo shook his head. “Not at all sir.”

“Very good, your stuff from schalts house Is waiting for you in your room, take the rest of the day off to unpack your things and retire for the night. Dinner will be sent up shortly.” the prince commanded.

“Yes sir, thank you sir.” Tubbo responded shortly, heading over to his room.

“Goodnight Tubbo.”

“Goodnight sir.”

And like that Tubbo was alone in his room. The boy sighed as he walked over to the three large bags on his bed. On top of them was a white envelope with a yellow wax seal signing it from Shlatt. Gently opening the letter so as to not tear the wax, tubbo fell backwards on his bed to read the letter.

Dear Tubbo.

I got the news from wilbur this morning that he has you as a charge for that pirate boy they seem to be keeping.

Weird if you ask me up I'm not one to judge, either way, i packed up your stuff. Well some of it.

If you decide you have had enough of babysitting some pirate brat just send for me and i'll have him switch you out. No harm in leaving a charge you dont want. But if you are staying there let me know if I missed anything you'd want me to send over.

Don't think this gets you out of christmas either you still need to make appearances, even charges get holidays.

Anyways, I should leave you to it.

-shlat.

Tubbo folded up the note with a laugh as he walked over to his desk. He placed the note in one of the small empty drawers and turned back to his bags to unback.

The first two bags were filled with clothes, so he had filled his dresser with clothes pretty easily, and the dawer from the pirates room did in fact come in handy. His third bag was filled with trinkets he kept.
A box of gears, brewing kit, carving kit, knife set, candles he left around his room, boxes of tea packets for whenever he decided he wanted to make tea instead of positions.

Turbo smiled as he pulled out the last three items in his bag. the first was a photo of him and shlat perfectly framed and a little DIY frame he had made when he was younger. The second item what's a plushie shaped like a cat but he's aunt Pluffy and give them to him. and lastly is adoption certificate from when he was 14 years old. He had been living with shlat for 2 years and while the man didn't usually cry, the moment his adoption was approved by Phil and Kirstain, Aka the king and queen, the man had birsted like a dam. Drowning him in a flood of Tears.

Tubbo would always cherish that memory, and he had a feeling that shlat would too.

Once he was done placing everything where it would need to be, He wants to sit at his desk and write back to shlat.

Picking up the quill and ink that was left on the desk, Tubbo started writing.

Dear dad,

Thank you for packing Rocky in with everything, i dont think I'm missing anything either. I won't lie being put as a pirate charge does kind of shake me a little. He's also set really close to the royal family's rooms. It's weird though, the boy is younger then me but he was apparently the captain?

I mean if he is younger than me then it makes sense as to why he's staying with the royal family, but it still feels weird.

Anyways, I can't wait to see the family for christmas. I'll be sure to keep in touch until then.

Love-

Tubbo.

Tubbo Smiled as he finished writing his letter. He picked up one of the envelopes I had placed in a pile and one of the drawers attached to the bottom of the desk. He quickly places the letter into the envelope and feels it closed with his own seal and one of his candles. He let the green wax solidify by itself before placing the envelope on the corner and preparing for bed. Just as you got into his pajamas he heard a knock on his door.

“ Come in.” he called out to whoever was knocking. The doors slowly open revealing the prince.

“ Can I help you, your majesty?” Asked Tubbo standing a little strater. The prince shrugged.

“Tommy tells me you threaten to drag him up the stairs by his feet earlier.” Tubbo cringed internally.

“He wouldn't get up from laying on the floor, immediately after you left the boy tried to jump the front and run into the forest. so yes I told him if he didn't get up I would drag him up the stairs by his feet.”

the prince laughed at Tubbos' plainess of words.

“I don't know quite what I expected but that seems right.”

the two words by silence after that, Tubbo standing awkwardly wondering when the prince was going to leave. The prince stood tall and silently waited for something it seemed.

“Well I guess I'll leave you for now. But tomorrow I do ask that you join me and Tommy for breakfast in the garden. I'll also be upping the amount of partols there are so you won't have to worry about Tommy trying to leave the premises.” Tubbo nodded at that before speaking up.”Why did you pick me to be the pirate's charge?” Tubbo asked.

“There are certainly more qualified people in the army that can do a much better job than I can. Why not pick any of them.”

the prince sighed before returning back to Tubbo.

“I've known your father for me for many years, and I've known you for quite a few of those years. I'm confident in your ability to do this task. "And Between you and me I'm hoping that you and Tommy can be good friends in the future.” the prince admitted before turning back around. “Plus I don't think I could trust any of the other Soldiers with this job. it's much too close to the family and much too close to power.”

The prince walked towards the door. “ You don't have to keep Tommy as your charge, but I do ask that you try to deal with him, and maybe be a bit more kind, probably don't call him the pirate every chance you get.”

Once the prince had deemed him farewell and left couple went into his bed and laid down. he wasn't sure exactly what he should do. should he just drop the charge and go back to his home? he knows nobody would be disappointed in him for dropping it. from what he was told his father had dropped many charges before being placed with Prince Wilbur.

but something stood out about this church and not that he was in charge of the pirate. the boy himself felt familiar. like they've known each other before. a long time ago maybe, for a test life he just couldn't forget. or he was just delusional. That was an option too. either way he shouldn't worry too much about it. Tubbo let his head hit the back of his pillow and fell asleep.

Tommy on the other hand was having a hard time falling asleep. you missed his friends too much and the small chat he had with the prince outside in the hallway was keeping him up. not that he was paying attention to the prince, but the certain words stuck out with him. like the word execution. It didn't make sense that they would just execute him after putting him so close to the royal family at least physically. but he didn't put it past them to get bored and execute him anyway.

Tommy thought about his friends that were hopefully long gone by now. He thought about Bilzo specifically, And the promise he had made when they were younger made sure nothing would happen while he was around. but he wasn't around anymore and Bilzo was in charge of the ship. With a sigh, Tommy got up and stood by his balcony door looking at the moon. Placing his head on the glass, he prayed.

“Prime, please keep them safe, and me safe. By all hell I need that now. We all do.”

Chapter Text

Tubbo was starting to be worried about the prince that they had picked up. The boy hadn't woken up yet and they were hitting the three day mark. He was debating on trying to shake the kid awake, against what Niki had told him.

Luckily Tubbo didn't have to do anything.

He was sitting on his bunk, reading a book he borrowed from Ranboo, when he heard the boy waking up rather unpleasantly. Leaning over the railing and looking over on the bottom bunk, Tubbo watched the prince turning and held his eyes shut tight. With a groan the boy brought his hand to his temple. “My head is killing me, what-?”

“Yeah, heads tend to do that when you have concussions.”

The prince's eyes shot open and he whipped up into an upright sitting position, or as best of a sitting position as he could with chains on.

Not Tubbos' idea.

“Who the fuck are you?” Questioned the boy glaring at Tubbo as he jumped off the top bunk.

“The name Tubbo, I'm your bunk-mate for now.” Tubbo laughed at The prince's face.

“Bunk-mate?”

Oh yeah, kidnapping.

Tubbo Shrugs. “Yeah, it's a long story.” Tubbo shrugged as he englogated the last syllable of his first word. “but if I had to shorten it down let's just go with…” Tubbo paused, taking a moment to think. “Your parents have something we, the crew of the Lady of Death, want. And you royal people aren't really known for making deals willingly with pirates. So we needed a bargaining tool.”

The prince looked up at Tubbo confused.

“What?”

Tubbo took a moment to wonder if this was really the time to try and explain what was going on or not.

“Know what we'll get to that later, first, why don't you let me take a look at your head?”

The prince looked away from Tubbo, but did not flinch or fight him when he started moving closer, so he continued. As gently as he could he started unwrapping the bandage from the prince’s head. The boy flinched at the blooded tissue stuck to his skin pulling slightly. Tubbo whispered small apologies as he continued working diligently getting the band aid off.

Sadly once it was off Tubbo couldn't really tell what he was seeing because of all the blood that was blocking where the wound was, the most he could pick out was the approximate size and placement as well as the tiny little black pricks from the sutures that Niki had placed in.

“Give me a minute, I'm going to go grab something to wipe off all of the dried blood.” Tubbo said, lifting himself up from a kneeling position, and walking towards the door.

“Uh- don't try to stand up. One; your head is still pretty messed up, you definitely have a concussion and a pretty bad one at that. Two; your chains won't let you get very far. I don't think you could even fully stand up if you wanted to, you could maybe, like, crouch or sit on the floor, but I don't suggest sitting on the floor. It's not that comfortable and we're still moving so we could hit pretty bad and you could hit your head again, which would be really bad for your concussion.” Tubbo said as he walked out the cabin door.

He closed it it's lightly as he could and started walking towards the kitchen. In there he saw Niki slowly stirring a pot of something Tubbo presumed to be soup.

“Oh hey, Tubbo.” Niki greeted with a soft voice. “How is our little guest doing? Still asleep, I'm assuming.”

Tubbo shook his head. “No actually he just woke up.” Tubbo said reaching over towards the counter Niki was leaning on. “I'm checking out his head injury, I need something to clean up all the excess blood, and I might as well take this time to check how bad his concussion is cuz there's no chance he doesn't have one.”

Niki nodded thoughtfully. “Make sure that the sutures are properly in place, if anything looks wrong let me know so that way I can check it when I have some time.”

Tubbo hummed in response to Niki's words.

“Think you could tell the captains for me? I'll be a little too busy with our temporary crew mate.”

“Sure Tubbo, I'll tell them. Can you make sure he doesn't fall asleep before I'm able to check on him?”

Tubbo walked backwards, wet cloth in hand, as he hurried out the door. “You got it doc!” he called out behind him, running down the halls back to his room, not stopping unless it was to talk pleasantries, and even then he didn't stay long.

Once Tubbo had gotten back to his room he opened his door to find almost everything in place and where he left it.

Almost.

The prince was doing, well- something to the chains that had been holding him in place while he was asleep. They were thoroughly deemed useless by Tubbo as the boy seemed to make it float in the air in some kind of water- playdough state. It was very clear it was still metal, but it looked like it had been melted.

Once the prince saw Tubbo standing awestruck in the doorway, the calmness of the room vanished and next thing Tubbo knew he had a large needle poking at his neck.

“You are going to walk in here slowly and not scream.”

Tubbo bit his lip before looking down the hallways that surrounded him on either side, Hannah was walking down the left side while Ranboo, Sam, and Ponk were on the right. Slowly Tubbo walked into the room, closing the door behind him he put his hands on the top of the molded metal-thing in front of him pointed right at his throat.

“So, Big Man, want me to check out your sutures? I can make sure nothing's messed up, plus it needs to be cleaned anyways?” Tubbo stated nervously, trying to push the debris away from his throat.

The prince slowly relaxed his posture and allowed the metal that he was causing to float, to fall softly onto the floor. From what Tubbo could tell, the prince was controlling whatever he had turned the chains into via hand movements. Tubbo slowly approached the prince with his hands out, Painstakingly showing he was only holding the wet rags had gotten from the kitchen. Sitting onto the bed next to the now freed prince, Tubbo was able to clean the blood off of the prince’s Forehead. The prince hissed whenever Tubbo was too rough with the cloth.

He always made sure to apologize then.

The prince himself didn't move all that much. He sat with his back straight up, his head up high, and his hands folded neatly in his lap. His legs were tightly pressed together. He seemed to try and shrink in on himself without changing his posture all that much.

Once Tubbo was done with the damp cloth that was only soaked even more with the prince’s blood, He threw it to the side Not caring where it landed and knowing he could just clean it up later.

not that Tubbo was actually able to see what he was doing. He lightly traced his fingers over the stitches on the prince’s forehead.

They seem to be pretty even and tight enough to do their job.

“I need to check how bad your concussion is, is it okay if I ask you some questions?” Tubbo asked as he retracted his hands from the prince’s head.

The prince nodded slowly.

“Okay, what's your name?”

“I’m Prince Theseus of Pearlesa Arms.”

Tubbo nodded. “Alright, do you know what the day is today?” Tubbo asked.

“September 21st, 16743.”

Tubbo was about to be worried about that answer before remembering the guy was knocked out the past three days.

“Oh uh, you've been unconscious for like three days so while your answers are technically wrong- BUT you're not, well it's not concerning that you got the answer wrong.”

The prince looked nervous at Tubbos rambling so he decided to just stop talking.

“Uh well I dont really-” or maybe fucking not.

“NEXT QUESTION!” He shouted trying to move the subject on. At least the prince looked more concerned than spooked at that.

“Do you remember what happened before you, ya’know- passed out?” Tubbo tried to approach the subject with cushion, but couldn't help eyeing the stitches on his forehead. He wondered what Phil and Techno had actually told the mercenary- Billzo?-, to do. Certainly they didn't want the kid to have his skull bashed in.

The prince seemed to think for a moment looking down at his lap with one hand over his mouth, and the other lightly grasing the cut.

“Staff.”

“Pardon?”

The prince looked up at Tubbo. “I was brushing my hair to go to bed when someone swung a staff at my head with full force.”

Or maybe they did want to give the prince a traumatic brain injury, fucking amazing. That SURE worked out.

“We did tell the guy to do what he thought would be more efficient, we had quite a few sources stating that you were a good fighter so it was assumed you could handle it.” A rough voice said from the doorway. Standing there was Technoblade, leaning against the frame, watching the duo. His eyes were jumping from between Tubbo, the prince, the bed frame, and the giant blobby spike that the prince had turned the chains that were previously holding him into.

At the realization of Technoblades presence the prince tensed up. One hand seemed to reach for the spike without touching it, similarly to how he had done so earlier when he was threatening Tubbo. But after what looked like two tries the prince gave up and went to glare threateningly at Tubbos third captain.

Unless you were part of the death crew, you were under the presumption that captain craft was the only captain who ruled in an authoritarian “my way or the highway” kind of rule. But in all reality there were three captains with captain technoblade being the one who joined most recently. Captain craft came second while captain craft's wife was the owner of the ship, and had final say of who joined the crew.

“That information would be about my older brother.” The prince said as he watched captain techno closely. “He's a general, was never good with paperwork so he works with soldiers.”

“Didn't know there were two princes.”

The prince seemed to remember something at that, then just looked embarrassed.

“I- the castle doesnt tell outsiders to avoid- unfairness in battle.”

Ah- they didn't want the prince in the limelight of danger. That made sense.

Technoblade hummed at that. “But you are the crowned prince? You'll be taking the throne when you're older?” he asked.

The prince nodded slowly.

“Well then you'll be fine.”

The prince hummed.

“Who is the person I can thank for- well this?” asked the boy pointing to the large semi closed gash on his head.

“Oh, just a mercenary we highered, like we said. He dipped once you were on the ship.”

The prince nodded. “So it's you guys I can thank for-” He points to the spike thing. “That?”

Technoblade looked over to the spike, then Tubbo. “I was just going to ask about that actually, last I checked they were chains” Technoblade said, staring at Tubbo with suspicion.

“What!? Do look at me- I didn't do this, he threatened me with that spike!” Tubbo said, pointing at the prince.

“I wouldn't have threatened anyone if i didn't wake up in some random room chained to a bed with a stranger and some weird thing that you probably did to me to make my hands start glowing!”

“What does that have to do with me?!”

“Well you're the one that was here so it's probably your fault!”

“That makes no sense-”

“Enough!” Technoblade interrupted the two as they started to get louder. “Let's get the first thing right, this is your first time doing anythin- magical?”

Immediately the prince nodded. “Of course, and only time! I'm not a sorcerer and I'm not a criminal!” the prince seemed flabbergasted at the suggestion. With how easily he had been doing it before Tubbo had assumed he was an enchanter like Eret. But this just reminded him that not everywhere was friendly when it came to magic.

“Alright, well just in case I'm going to take you to Phil, he should have a charm with a curse of binding that will stop you from pulling any more tricks like that.

The prince nodded before shrinking back, “you're not going to chain me to the bed frame again are you?”

“Not if you behave, we sent in your ransom already so in a few days past you should be all set to go back home.”

The prince hummed at that.

“Tubbo, Ranboos looking for you, but I would like you to stay close to our “guest” here during his stay. So you two come with me, we’ll see Phil then you'll be free to leave. Well Tubbo will be, you are going to have to stick around him." The last bit of his sentence was directed at the prince, but it seemed like there were no verbal complaints there.

The three ended up walking with Techno in the front, the prince in the middle and tubbo at the back.

While Tubbo wasn't the one in the middle here he felt claustrophobic just looking at the prince.

The prince also looked very uncomfortable. Which Tubbo couldn't blame him for. He was literally a hostage from a famous pirate crew that may or may not kill the poor kid. While Tubbo wanted to say he was a kind person he couldn't say he was a good person. Good people don't usually become pirates. But he really hoped he would get to see the kid head home.

It didn't take long for the trio to get to the captains corners, the three not even knocking just heading in. Technoblade held the door open for the two younger kidsTommy was hesitant to walk in looking above the door before fully committing to entry.

Standing by the desk in the middle was Phil, his green suit and fancy shoes were traded in for his more usual dress wear of a loose white shirt, bandana and flat shoes that Tubbo would put money on betting much nicer to actually wear. Sitting at the desk was Kirstin with her usual long black dress with gold lace, her large sun hat was hung on the wall behind him while she wrote with her quill and ink.

Looking up from each other to look at the trio, Kirstan smiled.

“Techno, Tubbo, Little prince.” Tubbo smiled at Kirstan words knowing that they were kind, The prince looked scared shitless but nodded at her anyways.

The door closed softly with Technoblade immediately going to stand in front of it intimidatingly. and Tubbo took a seat by where Phil was standing, while the prince just stood where he was.

“Turns out the prince can do magic.” Technoblade states bluntly.

“I can't, you fu- people did something to me and I want to know what.” The prince snapped at the beginning but then lowered his tone into something more tame and polite. No one called him out on it.

Kirstan stood from her seat and walked around her desk. “Well there are only two people apart from this crew who can do magic here including myself, but I assure you neither of us can give someone magic. At least not yet. We also have hybrids with abilities but I know nothing of hybrids being able to give people abilities.” she says stopping some distance in front of the prince.

“I'm Kirstan.”

“Theseus.”

“Would you like us to refer to you by your title or may we stick with Theseus?”

The prince, or Theseus, shrugged.

“Doesn't really matter here I think.” he mumbled.

Kirstain nodded. “While no one would mind, the crew would definitely tease you for it. Although we don't expect you'll be staying longer than a week.”

“Can we just get a charm to stop him from performing magic to get out of here?” Technoblade asked seemingly bored of the conversion between the prince and the captain.

“Oh, absolutely not! How old are you?” she asks, turning to prince Theseus.

“I'll be 18 next spring,” he answers.

Tubbo mentally calculates how much older he is approximately, he gives up after a bit.

“Hear that Tech? 18! He's much too young to be locked from his powers-”

“Don't have powers,” Theseus interrupted. “Magic is banned in my kingdom, and magic is inherited from family. No one in the royal family has magic.”

“Looks like their might have been some infa-”

Suddenly Phil had slapped his hand over Technoblades mouth, stopping him from speaking.

“Been hidden genetics in your family-”

“I know what an affar is, I've had DNA testing when I was five to be sure I could inherit the kingdom.” Prince Theseus said blatantly.

Phil took a heavy breath in as Techno smiled triumphantly.

“Well whatever is happening, you apparently used magic, and while I'm not going to close your magic and you don't seem to want to use it, we can't have you using it to escape before a deal is made.” Kirstain said, walking over to her jewelry box that sat next to Phil's enchanter. She pulls out a small bracelet with a shell on it and starts working with said enchanter.

“I should be able to make and enchantment that will prevent you from stepping off the boat and from harming anyone on my crew, we can mix that with a lose curse of binding enchantment andddddd-” Kirstain was enveloped by a bright blue light before she turned and showed off the newly enchanted breaklet for prince Theseus.

“Voila! this should do the trick.” she said walking back to Theseus. “Wear this willingly and we can allow you full access to the ship.” she said with a smile.

Prince Theseus didn't even try to argue as he slipped it on.

“You're very calm for someone who's just been kidnaped and is being held hostage by pirates.” Tubbo pointed out.

“Kind of expected it to happen, or, well, succeed one day.”

“You often get people trying to kidnap you?” Tubbo asked.

The four stared at him.

“I'm the prince and heir to the biggest kingdom when it comes to weapons and armour that brings in thousands, if not millions of dollars a week.” Prince Theseus dead paned.

“Yeah I realized that was a stupid question.” Tubbo sulked as he stood from his chair.

“Are we free to leave now? I wanna get him looked at by Niki, I dont think it's good for him to be standing so much. Plus Techno, you said that Ran was looking for me?” Tubbo asked.

Techno nodded before looking at the other two captains.

“Yeah you're free to go, once you're done getting checked out with Niki send her our way.”

“Got it!” Tubbo smiled, grabbing onto prince Theseus’s hand and leading him out of the room. When out of the room Tubbo wasted no time leading him over to the kitchen. “Feeling up to eat?” Tubbo asked Theseus without looking at him. Tubbo didn't hear a response from Theseus, so he turned his head over to look at him.

“Oh uh, I forgot you couldnt see me. Yes, I could go for some food if that's alright.

Tubbo nodded as they entire the kitchen. “Of course! NIKI I BROUGHT THE PATIENT!” Tubbos yelling had spooked the prince, and he felt slightly bad about that.

Niki had appeared from behind the counter turning to look at Tubbo, pale white like a ghost. “Tubbo, do not scare me like that! I could have been holding something hot or heavy.” Nicky said, holding her hand close to her heart.

Tubbo shrunk in on himself before apologizing. “Sorry Niki, but hey, I brought the boy.” Tubbo said, revealing Theseus who seemed to have been hiding behind him.

“Prince Theseus, meet our resident doctor and chef, Niki Nihachu. She makes the best cupcakes.” Tubbo said as he showed off Niki with jazz hands.

Niki smiled her usual kind and welcoming smile as she held her hand out to the prince. “It's been a while since we had a prince on the ship.” Niki says as she skates his hand.

“Uh- sorry?” she laughed as the prince took her handshake.

“Don't be, it's just some pirate humor.” she said before walking Tommy over to her table closer to the door. “Why don't you take a seat?” she asks before going back to her area behind the counter. She starts digging around before pulling a bowl from one of the cohorts. “Do you know if you have any allergies?” she asks, looking at the couple things she seems to have made for the crew. Tommy humms.

“I'm not allergic to anything, but I am a vegetarian.” he says as he starts to pull on his fingers. Niki nods as she reaches for one of her pots.

“I have this carrot soup? I actually haven't tried this recipe before but since Technoblade started that carrot farm back home we have more carrots than we can actually keep up with.” she laughed as she walked back to the boy, grabbing a loaf of bread and bringing it over to the table in front of Theseus.

“Can I try some Niki?” Tubbo asked, looking over at the soup. Niki nodded, walking back to the counter for a second time.

“Take a seat.”

Tubbo sat in front of Theseus watching the boy hesitantly take a bite of the soup, his eyes lighting up as he tasted it.

“This is really good!” Theseus exclaimed as he ate more. Tubbo laughs as Niki returns with another bowl and piece of bread for Tubbo. She smiles.

“I'm glad you like it, looks like this recipe will be sticking around.” Tubbo quickly takes a bite before nodding.

“Nikis food always hits, you've done it again.” Tubbo says ripping off a piece of the bread and dipping it in the soup.

“Why thank you Tubbo.” Niki says pulling up a chair from another table. “But to the other reason why you're here, like Tubbo said, I'm the resident doctor on the ship so once you're done eating I'm just going to do a regular check up before asking you some questions about your head. Is that alright with you?”

Prince Theseus nods shyly as he eats.

Theseus is quiet as Tubbo and Niki talk about small things on the ship, it didn't take long for Theseus to finish his food. Although Tubbo and Niki had gotten sucked up in a conversation about another crew they seemed to be trying to avoid.

Theseus just waited for the two to finish their conversion.

Niki was the one to notice that Theseus had finished eating first soon after he had finished.

“Oh- let me just put these in the sink then.” Niki said taking the bowl and getting up.

Tubbo looked over at the prince who seemed to sink in on himself.

“You okay man?” Theseus looks taken off guard when Tubbo addresses him.

“Oh yeah- uh i was always under the impression that if an enemy kingdom, or rebels, or uh- pirates had “gotten their hands on me” that um-” Theseus used air quote hands when saying: gotten their hands on me.

“You wouldn't see the light of day? Dark wet stingy room for hours without food? Plain old death?” Tubbo asked with a smirk. Theseus flushed before smiling slightly.

“Something like that.”

“Well-” Tubbo started as he smiled. “We pirates get a bad rep if you ask me.” Tubbo was holding back a laugh as he continues.

“You kill a few, rob many and then you're the bad guy? I just don't get it.” Theseu’s face was one of horror and at that point Niki had finished up working in the kitchen and was behind tubbo, allowing her to smack him off the top of the head.

“This is why you don't go on missions anymore.” Tubbo was full on laughing at this point as Niki gave him a half hearted glare.

“No, I don't go on missions anymore because I'm much better at making things.” Tubbo boasts.

“Like those compasses that exploded?”

“Okay not-”

“Or that telescope that makes things look farther away.”

“I just flipped the lens with that one!”

“Oh so the time-”

“Nope that's enough slander to my good name in front of the dear prince Theseus.”

Tubbo said, holding one hand to his heart and the other to his head as he dramatically leaned back into his chair. Niki just laughed before placing a chocolate chip cookie in front of Theseus.

“This should help your blood sugar levels, you can snack on that as we talk.” she said with a smile while Theseus picked it up.

“What! Where's my cookie?” Tubbo asked with a wine to his voice.

“You get a cookie with everyone else later, you'll steal ranboo’s cookie anyways might as well save Theseus a cookie now so you don't steal it later.” Tubbo looked offended as he gasped.

“I would never steal a cookie from Theseus!”

“You didn't deny stealing from Ranboo.”

“‘Cause that parts true, it's Ranboo.” Tubbo said, rolling his eyes.

Niki just sighed holding her head in her hands. “I have no clue how the two of you have stayed friends for so long.”

“Well it's quite simple really-”

“Don't quote Mumbo.”

“Aw, why not?”

Niki rolled her eyes and turned her focus to Theseus. “Let's get started with the examination first and foremost.”

Theseus nodded, listening solely to Niki.

“Well first, I need to know if you have any pre-existing conditions like anemia.”

“I get low blood sugar from time to time, so I faint if I ignore it for too long.”

Niki nods.

“Do you usually deal with the issue immediately?”

Theseus shakes his head.

“I'm usually working when it happens so i'll finish that first.”

“Do those tasks take a long time usually?” Theseus shakes his head.

“Alright, I don't think we will have to worry about that all too much but we will keep an eye on it.”
Niki says, jotting something down on the paper in front of her.

“Have you had any major head injuries before?” she asks.

“Yeah, a couple, none like this though. This ones definitely the worst.”

Tubbo bites his tongue at that, he would definitely talk to the captain about not majorly injured people during a peaceful nigoshiashions. Unless the person turned out to be an ass hole.
But definitely to avoid it before finding that out.

Niki nodded. “Can you tell me more about those injuries, like how recent they are, just to see if there's any more damage than we think there is, the mercenary had claimed that he didn't use any excessive force to knock you out that badly.”

Theseus humed. “ The most recent was five months ago, I got hit in the head with a vase.”

“Well that's a sure place to start-”

Chapter Text

Niki wasn't sure of exactly how she got into this predicament, of Prince Wilbur's latest ward, who was currently trying to sneak through her kitchen. She had known of the boy from before he had actually become Wilbur's ward. But she hadn't met him. She had heard whispers of a boy who had snuck in and tried to blend into the kitchen staff and said actually succeeded for quite a long time compared to others. Finally being able to put the face to the boy, Niki was underwhelmed to say the least. When people had talked about this mysterious kid they made him sound like someone who wouldn't be able to be heard in a completely silent room if he was wearing tap shoes, and tap dancing along a metal floor. This kid was just oblivious to her presence as he attempted to pick the lock to the back door exit.

The kid mumbled through his entire attempt, little curses and tiny noises of discontent. Now Niki knew he wouldn't be able to open the door, even if he was able to get it unlocked. Niki had placed a small charm for privacy to make sure nobody could get in this particular area, and she had done that quite a bit ago meaning this boy had either somehow got him past her charm, or had been there for quite a while. After a good minute of watching the boy struggle Niki got bored and made her presence known.

“That there ain't going to unlock,” she said, startling the boy. Even if it did, I’d just have to go out and bring you back over. I'm also not in the mood to do that because I was trying to have a calm day today.” The boys stayed where he was frozen just watching Niki.

Niki turned around and started digging through her cabinets.

“I also don't feel like leaving right now, and I don't think you want to go anywhere either. At least not yet, so why don't you bake with me for a little?” she asked not turning around to look at him as she grabbed a bunch of bowls from the shelf. She didn't hear a verbal response from the kid. but she assumed that the sound of moving chairs was him taking her up on the offer. With a smile, Niki put the bowls on the table in front of the boy, momentarily looking at him before looking away and leaning down to grab her standing mixer.

Didn't take long for her to finish setting up her equipment. It also didn't take long for the boy to start asking questions.

“What are you making?” He asked, watching her as she started pulling out her ingredients from the fridge.

Niki shrugged. “I was thinking I would make some cookies.” She says pricing the fridge ingredients on the counter, this included a stick of butter, two eggs, baking soda, and vanilla extract. She quickly measured each ingredient and placed them on the counter keeping them separated from each other.

The boy hummed as she started to reach for her higher shelf that held most of the dry ingredients. She pulled out baking powder, salt, chocolate chips, brown sugar, and white sugar.

“Why is the kitchen so empty today?” The boy asked.

“I asked for it to be empty.” Niki hums as she starts to measure out all of her dry ingredients.

“And they just gave it to you? Just like that?” The boy asked, watching her movements closely.

“Yep, it's a perk of being a manager for a kitchen that's rarely used if there's not a huge ball or event coming up.”

The boy was quiet as she placed her dry ingredients back and grabbed a bowl for her flour.

“So, what's your name kid? Everyone just knows you as the new ward, and that's not a fun title to have.”

“Tommy…” the boy says hesitating before giving Niki his name.

“Well Tommy, I'm Niki, think you can mix these together?” she asks, pushing the bowl now filled partially with flour over to him, along with the baking powder, soda, and salt.

The boy, Tommy, nods, taking the bowl in his hands and putting in the salt and baking soda. Niki hands him a wooden spoon before going about mixing her own ingredients in a slightly larger bowl.

The two work quietly, Tommy with his wooden spoon and ingredients that really didn't need as much time as the boy was given, and Niki with her rubber red spatula and hard to mix wet ingredients. Once Niki had settled that the two bowls were mixed thoroughly enough she instructed Tommy to pour his bowl into hers slowly. Which he did.

Once the dry and wet ingredients were in the same bowl, Niki started to mix them, at one point Tommy had asked if he could do the rest of the mixing. Niki let him. She watched over his shoulder at first to make sure the flour wouldn't pop up, but once the flour had all but completely mixed in Niki went to grab some cookie trays.

She quickly supplies non-stick spray to the pans. Once done she turns to Tommy and hands him the bag of chocolate chips.

“Add some of these, mix it a little more then we’ll start rolling them into balls for the oven,” she said, turning away again once Tommy had the bag. She quickly preheated the oven, having been distracted when she first noticed the kid. Turning back around she looked in the bowl that Tommy was happily mixing. She wasn't shocked at the fact that almost half of the dough was just chocolate chips, nor was she mad. The kid would probably eat a third of them before they went in the oven. That would probably even it all out.

Once all the mixing was done, Niki instructed Tommy to wash his hands in the sink next to the oven so he could help her roll them out into the small balls they would need to flatten and bake.

Tommy silently just walked over and did as she asked, only talking to give Niki a small thank you when she handed him a towel to dry his hands with.

After Niki shows Tommy how to prepare the cookies the two are enveloped in silence as they work quietly and diligently. Like Niki had predicted, Tommy was slowly evening out the chocolate chips by sneaking them in his mouth. Once Niki had put the first batch of cookies in the oven, Tommy was done eating stray chocolate chips that fell out and was quietly rolling dough in his palms.

“So how'd you do it?” Niki asked as she continued her own rolling.

“Pardon?”

“How'd you avoid being noticed for so long?” she said, elongating her comment.

Tommy looked sheepish. “Well I don't really know, and I don't think I did that good of a job.”

Niki gave him a confused look.

“What do you mean?” she asked, looking at the second try that was slowly filling up.

“Well from what i was told the palace doesn't really point out when rados join or try to blend in with the staff cause its easter to keep an eye on them that way, wait how’d-”

“Word travels fast during the slower days in the staff, everyone likes gossip.” Niki said, placing the second tray on the counter pulling out a third try. “Also you have been the talk of the staff, yes we don't point out stranglers, but you weren't noticed for a few days, a new record i think.” she laughs.

Tommy watches her as she walks back to where the duo are preparing the dough.

“Well- you guys dont have the best security.” Tommy stambered. Niki shrugged.

“Whatever you say-”

She was interrupted by knocking on the kitchen door. Niki took a deep breath before wiping her hands on her apron.

“Keep working with the cookies, I'm going to deal with this. She pauses before turning the corner.

“If the timer goes off, switch out the trays, wear mittens too, don't burn yourself the ovens hotter than most. Also don't try to pick the back door again.” And like that she turned the corner and headed over to the door. Just as she approached the door whoever was behind it knocked again.

“I'm opening it now, hold your horses.” she groans unlocking the door and opening it. On the other side stood the prince, Wilbur, and Jschlatt’s kid, Tubbo.

“Hey Niki, I know you asked to not be bothered but we have a situation on our hands.” Wilbur stammered out hesitantly as Tubbo himself seemed to be looking at a rather “interesting” spot in the floor.

Niki rolled her eyes. “What's up?”

Now Niki wasn’t dense, she knew ‘what was up.’ The boy was helping her make cookies, and was rather sweet. But she couldn't lie to the prince.

“Well Tubbo’s charge seems to want to explore without someone watching him-” Wilbur tried to beat around the bush, but that just made him sound stupid. Like always.

“Your new ward got away from the guy you assigned to keep an eye on him and you're gonna ask me if I've seen him or if I can locate him for you?” Niki dead panned leaning on the door.

“Well, have you?” Wilbur asked, trying to look into the kitchen from over niki.

“I have.” niki answered, listening to what was going on behind her. She hoped the boy wasn't freaking out.

“Oh that's good, is he here? If he is we can take him off your hands now, I know you wanted a slow-”

“He is here, and I can handle him on my own.” Niki said, turning her head behind her to see Tommys head poking from around the corner.

“That's not ness-”

“Wilbur, it's fine, I got him. When we are done here I'll put him right back into Tubbo’s capable hands.” Niki interrupted him, going to close the door.

“Wait, Niki-”

Wilbur reached over to stop the door from closing, only to be stopped by a transparent pink shimmering wall that surrounded the kitchen, the shimmer spread along the walls. The light was dull, but bright enough for the darker parts of the room to be temporarily illuminated by the glow.

Niki dead panned and stared at him. “Did you really think that would work? You know I always put this up when I'm working. It isn't new.” Wilbur raked his hand through his hair. Just then the alarm Niki setup went off, she made no move to stop it knowing that Tommy could deal with it himself.

“Look, if I were to hand him over now I would need to take off the spell and put it up again and I'm too tired to deal with that now.” Okay, maybe Niki COULD lie to the prince. Yes, she was tired, but magic doesn't take that much energy.

“Fine.” Wilbur huffed, turning to walk down the hall. “Tubbo stays here until the boy comes out and walks him strate to his room, he's not to leave until Phil has a chance to speak with him.” he exclaims not turning to actually look at Tubbo. Niki sighs at Wilburs little tantrum before turning to Tubbo who's still watching Wilbur walk away.

“I'm sorry about this.” Niki apologizes before closing the door and walking back to the kitchen where Tommy is.

Like she had thought Tommy had it handled, the alarm was reset, the cookies were out on a cooling rack, and a new batch was in the oven. Tommy was staring at the pink glow that surrounded the walls as he pressed his hand over an open window that Niki was sure was locked a moment ago.

“You're a sorcerer?” he asked. Niki was sure that even though it was stated as a question it really wasn't. But Tommy seemed to be in awe of the summer that spread around the room. He also hadn't tried to lockpick the door, so he didn't exactly disobey her.

“Yep.” Niki said walking over to the bowl where they had made the dough, she found it empty.

“That's why I wouldn't be able to leave if I got the door opened.” Tommy was still staring at the pink glow as he taped the spell watching the ripples dissipate before going again. Niki nodded even though Tommy wouldn't be able to see her.

“It's pretty.” Tommy said, finally turning his head away from the wall. Niki smiled. “They say a sorcerer's magic is a perfect rendition of their soul.” Tommy tapped the window again looking at the glimmer once more. “Your soul is really pretty.” he muttered.

Niki smiled before waving Tommy over. “Since the cookies are done, why don't we make some bread, buy you some time before I have to send you back.” Tommy grimaced at the idea.

“Yeah I heard the prince, he sounded mad.” Niki sighed, her eyes catched on the dumbwaiter.

“What room do you have?” niki asked softly.

“Uh- 6th room on the left in the royal corridor.” Tommy said as he moved the used tools into the large industrial sink connected to the wall under the window he had picked locked. Niki hummed.

“Well lucky you, our dumbwaiter goes to that direct room.” Niki said with a smirk.

“What?”

“You heard what will be said about you not leaving until the king arrives right?” niki asked, walking over to the dumbwaiter.

Tommy gave a small hum as he watched her hands be placed on the shimer around the room that Tommy only noticed now because it was pointed out. While Niki couldn't see the boy as she worked her magic she knew that his eyes were heavily focused on her hands as they started to pull away at the feld around the room. Soon Niki could open the dumbwaiter and enter it without the field stopping her.

“Well the kind isn't supposed to be here for quite a while and I don't think keeping you held up in that room is going to do any of us any favors.” Niki smiled as she turned on the light and said that the bronze box was still in pretty good condition, the light may need to be replaced and maybe the box would need a good wipe down, but all in all it worked and that's what she needed right now.

“And while I can't disobey the prince, he said nothing to me about making sure you stayed in your room.” niki said, sliding out of the dumb waiter. She took a quick look at her apron before switching it out.

“I mean, I don't think he said anything about just letting me leave with that reasoning.” Tommy said with a sly look on his face. Niki sighed.

“Not in front of you, but we all reserved letters ordering us to keep closer attention to who we let in and out of the summer palace, and specifically not to let a new blue eyed blond boy leave.” Niki said grabbing ingredients so she could get started on baking bread.

Tommy sighed and slumped over to the table in disappointment. “Of course he did, wait, summer palace?”

Niki nodded.”You really think one of the largest and richests countries has only one castle that's not even in our capital?” she asked.

Tommy shuged, “I didn't think royals were that pretentious.”

Niki laughed. “You have a point there.”

Tommy huffed watching Niki walk over to the sink, as she almost forgot to wash her hands, she also forgot to close the dumb waiter and the hole in the charm.

Quickly she shot out a small burst of yellow light through her index finger to both close the door to the dumb waiter and to patch up the hole in her feld. Tommy watched as the small yellow spark became string-like as it sewed itself into the pink shimmer.

“That's so cool, but didnt you tell the prince you would get tired if you took down your spell?” the boy asked.

Niki humed. “I lied, magic doesn't take that much energy out of me unless it's a really heavy spell like a summons or something. The prince knew that too but I don't think he wanted to deal with me today.” Niki started to actually work with her ingredients first working on activating the yeast.

Tommy thought for a second before asking another question. “How'd you start working for the empire?”

Niki thought back to a curtain winged woman teaching her how to make a small pink rose bloom in the dead of winter over pavement cracks after being hit away from a garden by an older woman. She remembers the awe of watching the woman making a large block thorny rose that niki wasn't allowed to touch. She remembers the warm smile of approval after she had made her own rose.

“I was younger and picked up off the streets and offered a job.”

“As a kitchen staff?” Tommy asked, looking puzzled.

“Something like that,” Niki laughed.

“Why'd you become a pirate?” she asks, her yeast is done activating so she starts making her dough. Tommy hesates, he looks like he's thinking before he sighs.

Niki wants to tell him he doesn't have to tell her but she's curious so she keeps that to herself.

“When I was younger, a friend and I had to run from our home. We were really young,and we couldn't stay there. But it was surrounded by water so we ended up stealing a boat and just sailing away. At first it was just us and we weren't exactly pirates- we just stole from time to time cause no one would hire us, and people who would would under pay us. Pretty soon we started picking up more people and it just happened. We didn't plan any of it but that's how it was.” When Tommy is done talking there, a far away look in his eyes as he stares out the window.

Niki nodded and thought about how she may have asked for more than she wanted, but she wasn't going to say anything about her little mistake as she started needing the dough. The duo entered a silence as she continued preparing the bread. Only when the oven timer had gone off did Tommy say anything and that was to tell niki that he could do it while she worked. Tommy was a good worker, who started painting a picture in her head of how he blended in so well when he had first gotten here.

Tommy went back to sitting as Niki remembered the standing mixer that still hadn't been used.

“I'm sorry.” Tommy shakes his head.

“If it's for the fact we had to run, don't be. Might have been the best thing that happened to us.”

Tommy had a small smile on his face as he thought about his past.

“My crew is everything to me, they were my responsibility and I did a damn good job. I like to think that at least.”

“You must have loved them.”

“I do.”

niki continued to knead the dough.

“What were they like?” she asked, staring at the dough.

“Oh they were awesome, Bilzo was my second in command, he's captain now that I'm gone. He was the brains of the whole thing either way though. He wasn't happy when we got new people in the crew but he understood why I was open with who joined." Tommy said, smiling.

“Why was he upset with new people?”
Niki asked before putting the bread in a plastic bag and letting it rest in a freezer.

“We had to steal more, take more risks. More people questioned me and we had to have more communication with the crew. The larger group you have the more you need to do to keep everything together. The more people to protect, you're going to lose people you care about and it's going to hurt. But you still have others to think about.”

Niki stopped as she washed her hand.

“You lost people?”

“In the crew, one. She was this short red head, she wasn't with us long but while she was she made everyone smile. We all knew the risks of being pirates, kinda stupid not too.”

Niki nodded as she finished washing her hands. The pair was once again silent as niki went to boil water. She placed the kettle on the stove as she thought. She was curious to know who this mysterious girl was, but she knew better than to pry.

“Would you like some tea?”

“Yeah.”

She walked back to the table taking a seat and ignoring the standing mixer.

“Did you like being a captain?” niki asked changing the topic, she hoped talking about something else would get tommy off of thinking about the girl.

“Hell yeah, our ship was the best, we named her ossein rax, we thought that it ment fish bones, but turns out they're both just words for bones. Still a badass name.” Tommy laughed. Niki smiled.

Tommy went on to talk about different stories of his crew, stories about storms they went though, people they met, his crew, a few of the stories were about when they would stay on land for longer periods of time before they all got restless and moved on. One story that stuck out to niki was of them going to a mountain they thought was inhabited only to find a whole society of hermits. Apparently they had stayed the longest there because the people were exactly human, each of them had something about them that gave it away. Apparently one was named Mumbo and had fangs, while another had robotic parts that seemed to integrate to his skin like he was born with them.

Niki continued to listen to tommys stories as she prepared the tea, and after as they drank it.

Within this time the cookies were both done baking and Tommy was happily nibbling on one as he continued his story. The duo were interrupted once again by banging on the door.

“NIKI, THERE'S NO WAY YOU AREN’T DONE BAKING!” the prince's voice echoed around the room.

Niki groaned as she buried her hands in her head.

“GIVE ME A SECOND.” she yelled back.

The silence that came afterward was enough for niki to know that he was waiting for her to come out. Niki reached over and pulled Tommy down by his shoulder.

“The dumb waiter will be working by tomorrow, itll be waiting for you at exactly 3:00, don't be late cause after 3 I can't get you here and back on time, okay?” niki asks in a huss huss tone.

Tommy nods as she releases the boy. Niki grabs a small pouch and places ten cookies in it before handing them off to Tommy and walking him to the door.

“Don't let them catch you with this.” she winks before pulling her magic off the walls and into herself. Tommy is once again awestruck and before he can say anything the door is thrown open and the prince is standing in the doorway looking like someone had thrown a raccoon at him. Tubbo once again stood behind him.

Wilbur was staring at Niki with a glare not sparing a glance at anyone or anything else. Niki recipotated his glare.

“Tubbo, escort Tommy to his room. Niki and I need to talk.”

Tubbo and Tommy both looked at eachother hesitantly, neither of them wanting to leave the pair alone. Eventually tubbo started to move, dragging Tommy off with him. Once the two were out of sight Wilbur started talking. “What the fuck where you thinking?”

Niki continued to grae at him as she dragged him into the kitchen.

“I was thinking that I had found a kid that doesn't want to be here.” she hissed as the door closed.

“You undermined my direct order and didn't even tell anyone you had found him beforehand.”

“Since when did you start giving orders, last I checked you didn't even want a crown.”

That's unimportant right now, that boy isn't supposed to leave our sights.”

“That boy is a child who doesn't want to be here.”

“He's a pirate, the only punishment for his kind is death, would you rather I execute him?”

“Of course not, but you can't keep him locked in a room and have someone follow him like a dog on a leash.”

“What would you rather I do? Let him just run off?”

“I can't see why you couldn't place him with a family like we did with Tubbo? And even then you can just have a field put up.”

Wilbur looked like he was ready to break something.

“I am placing him with a family. Do you really think I'd just keep a pirate that I don't know in the royal hall? Do you think I'm dumb? I can't just put a field up and stop everyone from coming in or out of the palace grounds, I'm working on it but it takes time.”

Niki froze.

“You're placing him with the royal family?”

Wilbur nodded.

“That would make him a prince.”

“Exactly, once he's settled in he'll start classes.”

Niki was silent as she looked at wilbur. If she didn't know better she'd say he was pulling her leg. But she did know better. And she knew wilbur.

“You and Techno don't want the crown, so you're going to give it to him.”

Wilbur stayed silent as Niki put the pieces together. After Wilbur realized she wasn't going to say anything else he started talking.

“He's a captain, or he was one. Either way that makes him a leader. A capable one at that, his crew respected him, and he provided for them. He knows what it takes to run a kingdom, we just need to teach him how to run one.”

Niki stared at Wilbur. Just as Wilbur started to leave she spoke.

“Your a fucking coward.” Wilbur turned to look back at her. “You're a coward and weak, you're going to put the pressure of a kingdom and hundreds if not thousands of people on a child that just lost everything.”

She wasn't looking at Wilbur but Wilbur could still see her anger.

“I know you are fully capable of your birth right, I've seen it, but you don't want to deal with it so you're passing it over to the next person you can.” Niki fully turned from Wilbur so he could only see the back of her head.

“This is going to crash around you and you'll get no pity from me. Just know that.”

Niki covered her mouth as she lessened to Wilburs footsteps retract.

Right as the door opened there was a pause in his steps.

“Don't think I don't know you're still going to be around him before Phil gets here. Not a word of this gets to him, I respect you but don't think you are not replaceable.”

With that the door closed and Niki was left to her own thoughts.

Niki knew that Wilbur wasn't bluffing, and she knew that Techno would agree with him, she didn't know what Phil or Kirstan would think of that plan but she did know that the pair would be delighted to have another kid.

Niki shrunk down against the table leg as she fell to her knees slowly.

She couldn't help Tommy, at least with the crown or running.

But she could help him with magic. She just needed to find out if she was right first.

Chapter Text

Niki was off put with how Theseus had started the conversation. But it made her think for a sec.

“Tubbo, do you mind leaving for a bit? I'll send someone to fetch you when we’re done,” she asked, turning to the shorter.

Tubbo, who was also thrown off guard by Theseus’s bluntness, freezes for a second before turning to Niki.

“I was told not to leave him on his own,” he says looking at Nikki woraly.

“Don't worry about that, I'll talk to the higher-ups. Go find Ranboo.” Niki says shooting him off. Tubbo hesitates before getting up and leaving. With Niki and Theseus alone, Niki felt that she could openly conversate with the boy.

“So Theseus, could you tell me a little more about that injury?” Niki asked, looking down at her notebook and jotting down his name. Theseus was silent for a solid minute causing Niki to look up at him.

The boy looked lost in thought as he stared at his hands that rested on the table, his cookie was set to the side.

“Prince Theseus?”

At Niki's voice, Theseus broke out of his little spirit of mental absence.

“Oh yeah um I was trying to assist one of the maids with rearranging the main hall's decorations and when I was picking something off the carriage one of the vas's where not correctly secured and it fell and hit near my frontal bone. It shattered and I had to get stitches.” the boy says lifting up his bands showing a pink scar that looked still unhealed.

“Do you mind if I touch it?” Niki asks, lifting her hand to reach out. When Theseus gives a slight nod, his hand is still holding up his bangs. Niki leans over the table and places her hands on Theseus’s head, perfectly framing the injury. She tilted his head so the single light around them would shine directly on the injury.

“You said this happened five months ago?” Niki asked as she ran her finger lightly over the scar. The skin poked out and looked ripped like someone had grabbed the stitches and pulled.

“Yeah”

Niki hummed moving Theseus’s head to get a better look at the surrounding skin. After a moment Niki let his head go and walked over to one of her shelfs, grabbing her med-kit.

“I would like to cover that for a little. It doesn't look like it's healing right and I won't lie but the ship isn't that sanitary.” Niki says walking back with the kit in hand, able to see Theseus nod at her words.

The boy stayed still and silent as Niki worked. To be fair all Niki was doing was cleaning and covering the wound.

Niki finished disinfecting the cut and quickly covered it with cotton. Once finished Niki’s eyes fell onto the middle right of his head where the stitches she had done not a week before, winching at the sight of it.

“I don't know if you've seen or noticed but, when you got hit last time your forehead split open. You were unconscious for the most part, but I had to give you stitches.” Niki says her fingers going to the newer scab on his head.

“I think I'll have to redo them, probably tomorrow when we stop at the next harbour.”

Nikis eyes and hand traces over the crooked stitches wincing as she saw how bad they were. Somewhere too loose, while others were too tight or too spread out.

“Scratch that I might need to redo them today, I don't want it to heal improperly. I also don't like how spread out they are. While it won't stop it from healing properly, it will allow you to have a pretty nasty scar.” Niki says as she starts digging through her med kit.

“If you don't want me doing them then I can always get our other doctor, Ponk, to take a look at it. I'll probably need to call him in any way for some assistance.” Niki says as she pulls out her materials. she pauses before turning back to Theseus.

“But you are welcome to wait until you're able to go home. This isn't anything life-threatening, so if you would rather get medical treatment back at your home you can wait, I'll just probably ask that you stop by more than I would have you before.”

Theseus shrugged. “ I don't mind you guys doing it, I think this is something I'd rather have done now than wait.”

Niki nods before placing down the rest of her tools.

“Okay then, give me just one second and I'll have to get someone to fetch him.” Niki says walking to the door. She opens it quietly and looks around the hall, the left of the hall was empty, but to the right of the hall niki could see Any Frost walking, his head in a book.

“Hey, Ant! Can you do me a solid over here?” Niki called out. Antfrost looked up to see who was calling him, Niki was halfway out the door waving him over. The man picked up speed to talk to her.

“Niki what's up?” he asked, stopping on the other side of the door.

“I was wondering if you had seen Ponk today. I need his assistance right now.”

Ant frost took a moment to think before giving a response. “Oh yeah Im pretty sure he's hanging out with Sam and Foolish in his room! Want me to grab him?”

“That would be appreciated.” Niki nods. Ant frost returns her nod before turning around and scurrying off with his book held tightly between his arm and ribs.
Niki heads back into the kitchen and watches Theseus finish off his cookie. The prince wasn't very- expressive, but Niki could swear she saw the boy smile for a split second.

“Well now that we are waiting on Ponk, why don't we get to know each other?” Niki asks leaning on the door behind her, her arms held in front of her but not crossed as to avoid seeming intimidating.

“What?” Theseus looked at her matching her posture and pose but as if she were sitting.

“I'm curious, we don't have many outsiders on the ship,” Niki says with a shrug. “And I know that it's already a little different from what you expected from your chat with tubbo, but I don't know what you think of the ship- or what you've seen so far.” Niki lifts herself off the door and goes back to the table so she's sitting in front of Theseus rather than blocking the only visible exit/entrance. “So tell me, what do you think of our humble abode?”

Nikis tone is teasing as she says the last part, her one arm gestures to the room around her while the other stays at her side.

Theseus hesitates. “Well it's- different? I guess. Our ships don't have seperate rooms for everyone to sleep in. we have the captain's quarters than everyone else gets a hammock. The family ship has rooms for the royal family, but everyone else gets a hammock.”

Niki hums. “I didn't think that the royal family would step foot on a regular ship.”

Theseus lit up at that. “Oh my family would never, except my brother if there's a war he's heading to, but other than that i think they'd rather sell their crowns. I love learning about ships though, when I was younger I would sneak onto the docks and draw them, as I got older I started collecting blueprints.”

Niki found what she was looking for.

“Oh, so you like boats? Do you like sailing too or is it more of an invention thing?” she asked.

“It's a sea thing.” Theseus wasnt making eye contact, but his hands were fidgeting with each other, small quizzes between his words and the twisting of his fingers made it obvious that he was nervous.

“During the winter we go further south for warmer weather, the beaches always had shells that I would bring back to the palace.”

“Do you have a large collection?” Niki questioned.

“I used to, when I was crowned my father took it cause it wasnt prince like to keep something so common around.”

Niki thought for a second. “Well I'm no royalty, and I'm certainly not a king but that sounds incorrect.” Niki states crossing her legs. Theseus looks up at her. “How so?” he asks.

“Well we have a crew member on board the ship who used to be a king, and he collects daggers, I'm pretty sure he started when he was nine, and he's old now and his collection grows every month by like five,” Niki exclaims dramatically, waving her hand around. “Now if that's not common I don't know what is.”

Just then the door opened, and where Niki expected to see Ponk she saw Captain Technoblade instead.

“Technoblade, how nice of you to join us,” Niki said with a smile.

“Niki.” techno bowed his head to her. “Tubbo told us you told him to leave the prince unattended,” he states bluntly retaining eye contact with her. Niki rolls her eyes.

“I said he could leave 'cause I had to go over a few medical questions.” Niki huffs.

“Your conversation just now didn't sound medical if I recall.” Niki glared at him.

“And good for that since you were eavesdropping.” The captain at least had the nerve to look guilty.

“It's not like the boys stay long enough for that to be important, plus Tubbo can keep a secret,” Technoblade said. Niki's anger slowly grew as the man talked.

“Oh if that’s all it takes for you to consider your medical history private I can tell Theseus all of yours then? I haven't known him for long but I bet he can keep a secret, plus he's not saying long.” Niki snaps at the man. Technoblade knew that Niki would never do that, she wouldn't even tell Ponk unless it was necessary. And by necessary she meant life threatening. Her job was one she prided on, especially when it came to privacy.

Technoblade still tensed up though, the man was silent as the two glared each other down before Technoblade scoffed at her. “When you're done here make sure he gets back to Tubbo, after that meet me in the debrief room for a chat.” Technoblade then turned to leave, walking past Ponk as he walked. Ponk looked between Technoblade leaving and Niki for a little. Then his eyes fell on Theseus sitting at the table. With a small shake of his head, the man walked into the room.

“Hey Niki, Ant told me you needed me?” Ponk asked.

Niki nods. “Yeah, I wanna redo Theseus’s stitches.” Niki then turned to Theseus.

“Theseus this is Ponk, he's our doctor in training,” she says as Ponk pulls up a chair sitting between the two.

“And I'm learning from the best,” Ponk smiles. Niki smiles as Theseus seems to relax after what happened with Technoblade. Theseus gives Ponk a nod before Niki clears her thoughts to grab the two's attention.

“Well since we can actually see the cut this time, it shouldn't take long, nor should it be as bad as before. But I would still like it if I had more light directly on the spot. So Ponk, if you could grab a flashlight while I undo the stitches he has now?”

Ponk immediately got up to get a flashlight, giving Niki a little “on it” as he moved. Niki turned his chair so she was sitting in front of Theseus.

“Would you like to lay down during this or would you rather stay sitting upright?” Niki asked, attempting to make Theseus feel more comfortable. The boy thought for a moment before speaking up.

“Which one’s easier?” he asked, looking between where Ponk was and Niki.

“They both work for me, I know Ponk finds it easier when people lay down, but that's probably because everyone on board is pretty tall.” Niki laughs as Ponk returns.

“Hey, you can't blame me for them being giants, Technoblade’s six foot something, I don't know.” Ponk laughs placing the flashlight on the table.

Ponk turns to Theseus with a smile. “Don't worry about what's easier, Niki could do it with her eyes closed-” Niki elbowed him lightly in the stomach.

“We are redoing his stitches because I can't do them in low light, let alone in complete darkness.”

“Right, right, I forgot about that.” Ponk chokes as he catches his breath.
Once Ponk is able to breathe normally again he continues chatting like nothing happened.
“You're still in good hands with Niki, she's the best doctor we have.”
Theseus nods shyly. “I would like to stay sitting up then” he says quietly.

Niki smiles.
“Upright it is then.” She reaches for a pair of scissors with long thin handles and short sharp blades on the ends. “I'll cut off the ones you have in now so we can re-apply them, heads up that they will start bleeding once open, but it will lessen once we’re done, and we can cover them up so you don't have to clean it more then once or twice a day.”

Niki gestures for Theseus to lay back as she reaches for another tool. When she finally has her tweezers and scissors in hand she stands up and leans forwards to reach the messy sutures.

“Um, try and stay still for this, I don't want to accidentally cut you.” Niki says as her tweezers pinch the first suture. Slowly she starts making her way through each stitch. Her tweezers hole the sutures up and her scissors cut them, from there she uses her tweezers to pull them out of Theseus’s skin. The bleeding is less than what she thought, and Theseus stays still then she thought he would. The boy is frozen, not moving and flinching only with his face.

Something about it unsettles Niki as she finishes.

A little after she had started Ponk had held the light up for her to work. And just like when she had started, when she had finished the light was turned off without the two sharing any words.

Niki cleans off the tweezers before grabbing a cloth and wetting it with a cup of water she had left on the table. “I'm going to wipe the blood of the injury before we disinfect it and re-add the stitches, this may hurt though” Niki warns Theseus as she shows him the light brown towel.she doesnt move to do anything until Theseus nods, giving her permission too. Only once she has that permission does she start lightly dabbing at the cut directly, she uses a little more force for the blood that trailed down the boy's face but Theseus does not protest when she does so. Once again the boy doesn't move, not even when she accidentally presses a little hard against the cut. Niki apologizes immediately, but the boy just hums in acknowledgement as if he didnt feel it.

Niki continues her work until the blood is completely gone, luckily there wasn't much blood so all the time that was spent on cleaning up his face was done slowly. Once niki is happy with how clean the cut is she grabs her tweezers, a cotton ball, and a small disinfected bottle. She presses the cotten to the top of the bottle and quickly tips it over before straightening the bottle again. She closes said bottle before waning Theseus of the sting.

Theseus closes his eyes as she wipes the cut with the alcohol. For Ponk it must look like the boy isn't affected by the sting, but Niki is close to the prince. She watches Theseus' eyes slightly tighten and loosen over and over. She's distracted, and once again she presses a little too hard on the cut.

This time Theseus does make his pain known by hissing at the pain and flinching back from Niki’s tweezers that were pressing into the skin momentarily.

“Sorry, Sorry” she cried out pulling the cotton and the tweezers away as fast as she could. She set the tools down and picked up the wet towel, right before she could do anything to clean up the cut Ponk stopped her.

“Let me take care of the rest, you seem distracted,” Ponk said as he took the towel from her hands and took her place. Niki was now sitting across the table watching Theseus closely. As Ponk continued Niki’s work, Niki watched Theseus carefully. He was much tencer now that Ponk was the one in front of him. Niki could tell that Ponk noticed too, but he continued working diligently. It wasn't long before Ponk had the needle and tweezers in hand. Niki picked up a pen and handed it out to him.

“Are you forgetting something?” she asked. Ponk froze looking at the pen and then at the prince before putting down the tools and taking the pen from Niki.

“Thank you, Niki, think you could help me mark the points?” he asked. Niki nodded before awkwardly taking the pen back from Ponk and leaning over Theseus, who had noticeably relaxed at Niki’s closeness, and marking the points over the cut that would need to be pulled down. She then did the same for the bottom side of the cut, making points that aligned with the first batch of dots where the skin would need to be pulled up to match. Once she was done she called Ponk back over to check out the marks.

The two had both stated their satisfaction with the marks, and they both agreed that they should probably start as Niki would need to get ready to serve food to the crew and she still needed to talk to the captains.

Ponk started on the sutures, working carefully and organised. Niki was once again watching as the prince tensed each time Ponk’s hands touched his face, not when the needle was going in, or when the sutures were tightened. Ponk had gotten through three of the sutures before Niki noticed tears welling up in Theseus’s eyes and stopped him.

“Hey Ponk, time’s moving faster than I thought and there's a little more I need to talk to Prince Theseus about. Do you think you could take the soup out to serve?” Niki asked passing Ponk a clean wet towel as she walked past the counter to grab the cart with the soup pot on it. Ponk wiped off his hands with a towel before washing his hands in Niki’s sink. Once his hands are thoroughly clean Niki passes over the cart and hands him a bowl of rice and beef.

“This one's for Ranboo specifically, everyone else can have two bowls of soup tonight, I went a little overboard with the carrots.” Niki says sheepishly as Ponk sets the bow on the second row.
on the cart.

“Thanks, Niki, I'm sure we’ll finish it off if not foolish will.” Ponk laughs as he starts to leave. Before he heads out he takes a small bow in Theseus’s direction. “It was nice meeting you, your majesty, I'll be seeing you around.”

At that Theseus turned to look at Ponk, and away from his hands.

“Oh, just call me Theseus. Majesty is for kings and queens. If you wish to call me by a title it would be Highness, or simply prince.” Theseus corrects.

“Hm- i never knew that. I guess you learn something new everyday.” Ponk says as he opens the door to leave.

“Well, I'll catch you two later, bye Niki, prince Theseus.” and with that Ponk was gone, Niki and Theseus where once again left alone.

Theseus turned to look at Niki who was walking up to him. Niki took the tools in her hands and turned to start working.

“Why don't we have a chat while I do this?” Niki offers as the needle starts threading through the prince's skin. Theseus hums at her words. “What about?” he asks.

Once the black wire like string was in place for his skin Niki moved back to shrug for a second before retiring to her work. “Medical history, like who was your practitioner back home?” Niki asked, tying up the suture with the tweezers. Once the structure was tightly held in place on its own, Niki turned to grab the next one.

“His name is Josh, smith,” Theseus says, turning his head away as Niki cut a new suture to her desired length. “Well that's what he has us call him.” Niki nods.

“Yeah that name sounds sketchy, I won't lie.” Niki laughs. “I was wondering if you could tell me about his practices when he's giving you treatment?” Niki asked as her eyes jumped between her work and the scars from past stitches higher on his head.

Theseus was silent long enough for Niki to finish the next suture and start cutting the next one out. “You don't have to tell me, I'd just have some suspicions that the scar you showed me and Tubbo earlier wasn't treated properly.”

Niki continues her work thinking she pushes a little too hard for information. But just as she was threading the needle Theseus spoke up.

“You'd be correct with that theory, uh he doesn't take kindly when having to repeat himself,” Theseus says as Niki gently pushes his chin so he's looking at her. “And he takes it out on his
work?” Niki asked.

What she really wanted to ask was if he took it out on Theseus, but this would give her the same answer. Just not as blunt.

“More or less.” the boy says as Niki starts picking his skin once again.

“He- get- got upset because I kept flinching when he was doing my stitches. He messed them up and took them out,” Theseus informs her hesitantly.

“Took them out,” Niki repeats as she finishes the suture and goes to cut the next and last peace.

“How”

Theseus did not respond at first, once Niki had finished preparing her needle he let out a quiet sigh.

“He just kinda pulled,” Theseus said hesitantly. As Niki turned back to him, her hand pushed his bangs out of her way to see the old cut.

“You mean he ripped them out,” Niki says as she starts inserting the last suture stick into Theseus’s skin. The boy is silent while she works, not saying a word or even making a sound as he breathes. Once she is done with her work and her tools are placed on the table he nods.

“Well, that explains the scarring pattern,” Niki says as she grabs the towel and dabs it gently over the stitches as Theseus takes a breath.

“You won't have to worry about that with Ponk or me, we pride ourselves on our patients being comfortable when seeing us. Are there any other open injuries you'd like to share with me?” Niki asked while grabbing a pouch of seri-straps. Theseus took a moment to think.

“Nothing open, no.” Niki smiles at him as she applies the straps. “Well then, if you need anything at all remember that you're always welcome in my cabin. Even if it's just a break from Tubbo, alright?” Theseus smiled lightly at Niki as she packed up her tools and tossed the bloody towel into a hamper she kept by the door. She washed her hands thoroughly before grabbing the tray of cookies from where they were cooling and gesturing for Theseus to follow her out.

Niki kicked the door open with her foot, she hadn't locked it when Ponk had left so it just swung open, and led Theseus into the hall. “So I'm guessing Tubbo gave you a tour already,” Niki says as she passes the working areas and slowly transitions into the common room area. “Uh- no not yet. I know how to get to the captain's quarters and your kitchen though.”

“Why haven't you been given a tour yet?”

“Um, they wanted me to get my head checked over.”

The way Theseus explained that was uncertain and made Niki think that he either had forgotten or didn't know. Either one was fair game at this point.

“Well once you and Tubbo are done eating be sure that you get a proper tour, actually why don't you take another cookie,” Niki said moving her hands so she was balancing the tray on her one arm and handing it to Theseus. The boy took it from Niki and just looked at it.

“I've already had one though, won't someone else not get one?” Theseus asks looking up at Niki. Niki gave him a mischievous grin before leaning down to whisper to Theseus.

“Don't tell the others, but I always make extra so I can have some when I feel like it.”

When Niki pulls back she's able to see Theseus looking absolutely flabbergasted and shocked. Niki laughs as they walk above deck. “Don't tell anyone okay it'll be our little secret, okay?” Theseus nods quickly before taking a bite out of his cookie.

As the two attempt to walk through the crowd people reach over and grab a cookie from Niki’s tray, giving small thank yous as they pass. Theseus does his best to stick by Niki’s side highing slightly behind her, and Niki won't lie, it looks a little silly to see a boy who's not much shorter then Niki himself hide behind her. But no one mentioned it, and Niki certainly wasn't going to.

It took a short time to get to the table for Niki to place her try down, and once they were at the table half of them had already been nicked by by-passers. Niki quickly picked up five, noting that Theseus had already finished his and led the prince away from the crowd of people enjoying their food.

Tubbo and Ranboo always had their dinner on the quarter deck to “annoy” Jack. In all reality, both sides enjoyed each other's company.

Niki will always remember the time when Tubbo was hit by those fireworks on a job to rid a nearby town from pillagers.

The smell of burning flesh from when Niki was treating him, to the days when Ranboo would do nothing but sit by Tubbos bed. Dinners were spent with Jack on the quarter deck with silence between them as the two boys who made dinner a joyous occasion were not there but below deck.

It was a week before Tubbo was able to do anything besides lay down, and two more after that for him to be able to travel across the ship.

Needless to say, they didn't let Tubbo go on pillager jobs anymore. But the boy hadn't lost his
Love of fireworks so he still messed around with those back home. While Niki and Theseus were walking up the stairs the two could hear Tubbo and Jack bantering loudly. Niki turns and starts walking backwards, she gives Theseus a cookie and a wink before turning back around to see the duo sitting by each other while Jack stood at the weal.

“Tubbo, if you say it's just a little detour one more time, I will kick you off the boat, don't test- oh hey Niki!”

Jack's demeanor switched from annoyed to joyously surprised like a dime being flipped from heads to tails.

“Hey Jack, Tubbo, I'm returning Theseus here to you,” Niki says gesturing to the prince. Tubbo nods.

“Got it, got it. Jack, have you met Theseus yet?” Tubbo asked.

“Tubbo, the kid has been asleep for the past three days, do you think I've met him yet?”

Tubbo just laughs at the man, causing Jack to sigh in defeat.

“Why do I try.”

Niki laughs as Jack backs away from the handle after locking it so it wouldn't tilt and turn the boat off the selected path. Niki hands him a cookie and goes to give Tubbo one too who's looking directly at her, betrayed.

“You gave him a second cookie.” is all Tubbo says with sad puppy dog eyes.

“And you're going to steal Ranboo's the moment I turn away, you'll live you little goblin.” she laughs as Theseus takes his place standing next to Tubbo on the opposite side of where Ranboo is.

To the other side of Theseus is Jack who immediately holds his hand out to the prince.

“Ayup, you're the prince?” Theseus nods, taking Jack's hand firmly.

“Just- call me Theseus. My birthright holds nothing here.” he says as jack shakes his hand before letting go.

“Names Jack, nice to meet you Theseus.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Niki sticks around for a little, making sure Theseus would be right with the group before
Announcing her leave.

“Technoblade wants me down in the captain's quarters, probably shouldn't keep him waiting,” Niki says abruptly, stretching out her arms.

“Alright, hurry up with that this time. I don't wanna be woken up an hour before daylight 'cause you two decided to draw whatever conversions you two have out all night." Jack says abandoning his conversion with Ranboo and Tubbo. Theseus took to staying quiet and just listening. Niki just laughs as she turns around over to the stairs.

“Sure, whatever you say Jack. bye kiddos.” she calls over her shoulder, she gets three replies from that. Two loud and the third timidly quiet. Niki makes her way around the ship, only stopping momentarily to answer a question here and there and to get feedback about the soup.
It takes a good while for Niki to get to where she needs to be. But she doesn't hesitate to knock when she gets there. Her knock is immediately answered with a call to go in. swiftly Niki enters the room. Technoblade and Kirsten are both sitting on the couch on the left side of the room just after the carpet ends.

Kirsten is in her usual outfit of a long black skirt and a dark-coloured embroidered top. Her skirt has small roses blooming from the bottom with long thorny vines crawling up to where her knees would be. In her hand sits a red book with gold lettering on the cover and spine in a language Niki doesn't know. At the sight of Niki Kirsten places the book down between herself and the couch arm.

“Niki!” Kirsten exclames with a smile. “Come join us, Technoblade and I were just talking about Theseus, you treated him correct?”

“Yes I did, I fixed up the stitches I gave him last time,” Niki said as she pulled a chair over and sat in front of the two. Kirsten smiles. “Perfect, Techno tells me you had Tubbo and he split during this?”

“Yes I did, I am giving him the same privacy that I would give any crew member.” Niki says throwing a glare Technoblades way.

“Well while that is what I expect from you, and I don't think I can convince you of anything else, I am going to ask if we could be a little more open with Theseus’s information. Just between the captain-”

“No.”

Niki started with a tone of finality that she never really needed to use, especially not with Kirsten.

The woman raised her hand in defeat. “I thought you might say that, although as your captain I have to put my foot down on certain things we will need to be made aware of.”
Niki stared between the two baffled at the conversion the two were trying to entertain.

“Are you serious?”

Kirtstan nods dutifully.

“Nothing major, and probably won't even be necessary. But if he tells you about any Genetic conditions or maybe a family history that could point at something less- human?”

Niki thinks for a moment before crossing her legs and sitting upright.

“That won't be happening,” Niki says matter-of-factly.

“Niki, we aren't asking,” Techno says, speaking for the first time since Niki had entered the room.

“Whether or not Theseus is some kind of mutant, magic welder, or anything in between is none of anyone's business,” Niki says, not looking at Technoblade.

From Niki’s peripheral vision Niki can tell that Technoblades hair is done up in a braided bun, and his clothes are the same as when she last saw him. A white frilly button-up with brown pants fell tight around his ankles with buttons that shone with a red glow. The only difference is that his cape isn't on, but rather thrown on a hanger that's nailed to the wall behind him.
Kirsten sighed at Niki's response.

“We could just have someone else in charge of his treatment.” Techno suggested, not directed to Niki or Kirstan.

Technoblade probably thought he was being smart but the suggestion just made Niki laugh.

“And who would you have taken over? Ponk? Sam? The two I taught who would do exactly what I'm doing now? Or maybe you'd do it yourself? Cause I don't think that the prince would give you any information, let alone what you're looking for.” Niki bites, now looking over at the pink-haired man.

Techno does nothing more than glare at Niki. Niki turns to address Kirsten.

“Where's Philza, what does he think about this?” Niki asks, pushing her anger aside.

“He's checking to see if we got any word on the ransom that was sent. He’ll be flying back by now.” Kirsten answers.

“And what does he think about this?” Niki asks again.

“He is- undecided on his opinion,” Kirsten says hesitantly.

Niki nods.

“Well when you make a decision let me know, but I assure you whatever you think will happen it won't.”

Niki gets up and starts to walk towards the door, walking with a sharpness in her steps. She makes it halfway to the door when Kirsten calls out to her once more.

“There's no doubt of sorcery ancestry in that boy, I'd suggest you keep that in mind.”

Niki’s steps hesitate momentarily before she continues walking. She leaves the captain's quarters quietly and without a word.

Niki knows dinner is still going currently, and so she walks back to the deck. It's still busy and loud. But noticeably less crowded. Niki is able to get to the soup pot and serve herself both soup, and grab a piece of bread.

Niki makes her way back to the group she had left earlier who are still exactly where she left them.

Okay maybe not exactly where she left them, Jack's hanging off the side of the ship while Tubbo is yelling at him.

But hey they're still on the quarter deck.

As Niki walks up the stairs to the quarter deck her eyes catch on the sight of Theseus, kirstans words echoing in her head.

No doubt of sorcery ancestry in that boy.

A picture was forming in Niki's head, and it wasn't pretty in the slightest.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

Theseus pov.
Theseus was scared of his current predicament. Yes, the pirates were nice now. Niki was especially kind, and Jack was especially funny. Ponk was gentle and understanding from what he could tell. Tubbo and Ranboo were a mystery for now, both opposite of each other yet nice to be around.

But they are still pirates, and people are nice when they want something, and when they get told they can't have it they get violent.

Theseus knew his parents wouldn't care much about getting him back. And he knew that they wouldn't pay pirates even if they did care.

So Theseus had to find a way out of here before the crew found out they weren't getting the payout they wanted.

And the first step for that was getting the bracelet off his wrist without Tubbo waking up above him.

Theseus stared at the offending object with malice. It was pretty, with the decorative shells and the purple shimmer coating it.

Theseus thought back to when he had just woken up, not sure of where he was, or what was going on. The chains that were tightened to his wrists had caused him to panic, but before he could start tugging on them, a similar red shine covered them as they melted off his skin and started floating above his hands. He remembered a distinct warm feeling in his hands when it had happened.

Thinking back to that he grabbed one of his eyeshadow brushes and attempted to feel the same warm feeling directing it to his hands. For a bit he felt nothing, and just as he was about to give up a red glow encompassed his hands. His eyes went wide as the warm feeling returned to his palms. The brush in his hand looked as if it was trying to stay together as something pulled it apart as it floated between his two separated hands.

Theseus thought about it melting trying to turn it into a small ball.

It worked for about a second before snapping into sharp spikes going in all directions. A loud pop echoed around the room suddenly as the warmth and glow dispersed and the brush, of what was a brush, fell into his lap. Theseus had to stop himself from yelping when one of the smaller spikes broke through his sleep pants and stabbed him in the leg.

Theseus bites his tongue as he listens for Tubbo to stir awake and find out what he's doing. To point at him and call him a liar like his parents had done with each other when his magic had come to light when he was young. He hears nothing except Tubbo snorting for a moment before going back to a soft regular breathing.

Theseus wasn't allowed to use his magic, but he still did when he had a busy day back home. No one had to know about him making a plant grow when he was hungry and had no time to eat, or wasn't allowed to eat. But growing plants was all he could do before but at least he had some progress to work on. Even if he didn't know what was going on

Unknowing to our dear Theseus, a brunette stands outside his door. His original objective of getting a late-night snack was disregarded as he stared at the door that was previously glowing. His interest had been peaked by the sight of the red glowing around the younger's hands, but he would stay silent.

For now.

Chapter Text

Philza had no fucking clue what Wilbur was thinking, or even if he was thinking.

While Phil and Technoblade were out picking up Kristin, Wilbur was out picking up PIRATES.

Making deals with them, letting an entire crew leave trial-less and letting their captain stay in the royal quarters with him.

To say Phil was mad would be an understatement. But before he made any assumptions he wanted to know what was going through his son's head.

Phil was fidgety throughout the entire ride over through the kingdom's streets, Technoblade and Kristin were caught up in conversation pretending not to notice Phil’s dissatisfaction. It wasn't long until the carriage was at its destination. Phil was the first to exit the carriage with Kristin following after. Standing at the bottom of the steps that lead up to the main hall of the palace was Wilbur. To anyone else, he looked calm as a cat. To his family, he looked like a man who knew he was cooked.

Phil had no hesitation as he walked up to his son, ignoring everything else.

“Dad, your back-”

“You better have a good explanation for the shit I heard while we were gone or may Lady Death have mercy on your soul Wilbur-” Phil's arm wrapped around Wilbur's side after turning him so they were walking into the palace, where less eyes were watching them. Wilbur took a deep breath as Phil directed him inside.

“I assure you I have two reasons, and I know if the first doesn't work the second will.” he stampers out. Phil glares at him.

“That's a gamble you may not wanna take,” Phil says. He opts to ignore Technoblades laughter behind him.

Once the four of them are in the palace Phil waves off the guards to leave. Phil watches them leave and only once he's sure they're gone does he turn to Wilbur for an explanation.

“So, explain to me how on earth did one week of us being gone and letting you run the country turned into letting pirates not only go unpunished, but letting their captain stay not only in the palace and not in the dungeon, but in our personal quarters that is basically our living area?”
Phils voice was high pitched and squeaky. A tone that commonly appeared when the king was astonished or flabbergasted. In this case, he was both. And a little concerned for wilburs mental sanity.

“Okay first, it's less that im LETTING him stay here…” wilbur drawled out the last e on the here, after that he went silent.

“Go on.” Phil piped, holding out a little more hope for his son than he had started with.

“More than that, he is forced to stay here- as a more or less permanent guest?”

All hope Phil had was squashed by his son's hesitant words. Technoblades laughter had started up again and increased.

“I didn't even fuck up that bad when I was in charge, and I disbanded the army.” Techno gears at Wilbur, who shoots him a dirty look.

“At least I didn't make my brother give up his hard-earned career because he couldn't handle the heat.” Wilbur snaps. Technoblade stops laughing and stands a little taller.

“And what's that supposed to mean?” techno says walking up to stare down at Wilbur.

“You know exactly what-”

“Boys that is enough.” kirstan speaks up for the first time since leaving the carriage.. The room goes silent as she sighs.

“Wilbur, you said you had an explanation?” she asks, her head held up by the tips of her middle finger and index finger pressing onto her forehead.

Wilbur perks up at that, his face shining just a bit brighter.

“Oh yes!” he backs away from Technoblade before turning away from his family. Gesturing for them to follow him. “It's much easier to explain when you can see him, but he's young.”
Phil wasn't one for child abuse, was adamantly against it actually. But Wilbur made him question how against it he really was.

“There are plenty of young pirates in our cells all the time, a pirate is a pirate regardless of age,” Phil says as they follow close behind Wilbur. Technoblade gave a grunt of agreement while Kirtsain was silent. As they walked the sound of Wilburs, and Kirstains heels gave the maids and other workers a noticeable heads up that they were about to pass, allowing them to move what they were doing slightly to not inconvenience them.

“Okay yes- but not with this one” Wilbur says as they continue walking. “Just trust me?”
“No.” Phil and the rest of his family replied unanimously.

Wilbur looks dejected, but not surprised as he just sighs and continues leading them down the halls. It's not long before they are led outside.

They pass by troops out training, not paying mind to any of their appearances so as to not get in trouble with their trainers, although some few brave souls glance or side-eye the small group of four.

They don't spend much time near the troops and in fact, are out of there sooner than Phil expected.

They walk past Kirtsain’s garden, which is still blooming with brightly coloured flowers and growing fruit trees that cover small patches of grass with shade. The rosey smells of the flowers slightly calm Phil down as they walk. Not enough to stop him from grounding Wilbur once this mysterious pirate was dealt with, but still slightly calmer than before.

Once they are out of the garden they are able to view the west wing of the castle, sitting at the bottom is Tubbo looking up, enjoying the sun and the grass. Wilbur walks over to Tubbo, his family watching not far behind.

“Tubbo.” Wilbur greats standing behind the young boy who lets out a yelp before looking behind himself.

“Oh it's just you- hi Wilbur.” the boy says standing up and noting the other company with them.

“Oh, your majestys, Technoblade. I'm glad to see your trip ended safely.”

“It's lovely to see you Tubbo, how's your father?” Phil asks.

“Uh he's doing well, not so happy about my charge but not mad enough to pull me out.” Tubbo shrugs.

“Speaking of your charge, where is-”

“What do you mean you got a charge?” Phil interrupted WIlbur with his high pitched voice once more. Phil's sudeness took Tubbo off guard, the boy looked between the two royals nervously.
Wilbur clears his throat to get Phils attention.

“Well since our guest is staying with us in the west wing, I thought it was only fair that Tubbo got a charge since he was next in line for one, and I thought it would be better to have eyes on him.”

Wilbur was avoiding eye contact with Phil as Technoblades laughter started up again, this time Kirtsain’s giggles joined him in laughing at both Wilburs and Phils current misery.

Before Phil could say anything Wilbur went back to talking with Tubbo.

“Where is Tommy by the way? I thought I told you not to let him out of your sight.”

Tubbo smiles before pointing up towards the side of the tower where there is a figure slowly inching down, although he still has a ways to go.

The figure is a short blond-haired boy in a red shirt and what looks to be Wilbur's old brown pants.

The boy is using a rope made from tied-up pieces of cloth to slide down from after pushing away from the wall and swinging back, always catching himself before slamming into the wall. It was quite comical. Only as the boy jumped could Philza see his face. He couldn't make out much, but what he could make out were deep blue eyes similar to the night sky right before the sun was fully gone.

“How long has he been at this? Kirtsain asked, looking up to where the makeshift rope started, at the top floor where all the other west wing rooms were.

Tubbo shrugs. “A half hour at least. He hasn't noticed me yet, I think he's too scared to look down.”

Phil and the rest of them watch as the boy slowly makes his way down the tower, and the closer the kid gets the more Phil understands what Wilbur meant by “he's young.”

The boy is short and thin, Although Phil wouldn't say starved. But Phil also hasn't been here for the two weeks that the boy had been. And while he was annoyed at Wilbur right now he didn't think his son to be cruel to a child, especially with what he heard on his way back. And also the fact that the boy was staying in a place dedicated to the royal family.

The boy was soon at the bottom of the wall and seemingly unharmed. The boy wasted no time turning around, looking like he was going to make a run for it, only to freeze immediately after seeing the group of people in front of him. While his eyes jumped from person to person, Tommy- if Phil heard correctly- kept his vision mainly focused on Tubbo.

Tommy raises his hand in what looks to be a wave as he nervously greets the small group, once again staring mainly at Tubbo. After a few moments of silent staring the boy points back towards his makeshift escape attempts and goes to climb up the clothes rope.

Only for whatever it was tied on to give up and fell through the balcony rail and down onto the floor in front of him.

Phil has to stop himself from laughing at how mortified the boy looks at his “master plan” falling apart.

Wilbur sighs before leaning over to Tubbo and asking him to bring the boy over. Tubbo nodded and walked over towards the boy snickering.

Once Tubbo was out of earshot Wilbur turned back to his father awkwardly, not speaking.
“His name is Tommy?” Phil asked, watching tubbo talking with the boy. The boy seemed to be trying to convince Tubbo that he was not in fact, trying to run away.
“That's what his crew called him,” Wilbur answered.

“Why did you let his crew leave? I doubt any adult would allow themselves to be led by a 15 year old." Phil was now watching Tubbo drag Tommy over like a cat, Phil had a sneaking suspicion that this was a common occurrence between the two.

“It was a part of the deal I made with him, he stayed with me and his crew got to leave unharmed.” The conversation paused at that, as Tubbo brought Tommy over, the latter struggling to escape Tubbos grasp, and doing so loudly.

“Tubbo! Tubbo put me down. I swear to Prime, I will kick your ass, TUBBO!”
The boy screamed as Tubbo dropped him.
“Oops.”

Tommy glared at him as he stood up and just as the boy looked like he was going to lunge at Tubbo, Wilbur went to collect his attention.

“Tubbo, could you check that nothing in Tommy's quarters is harmed and that the clothes from his attempted escape end up where they are supposed to be?”

Tubbo nodded before giving a final farewell and receiving an official dismissal.
This left Tommy with the royal family.

Alone.

Phil was quick to catch onto Tommy's awkwardness, and also maybe fear.

Once Tubbo was out of sight Wilbur once again broke the silence by nervously clearing his throat.

“Your majesty, this is Tommy. The boy you hear about of your travels, Tommy this-”

“Bruhhhh, we don't need an introduction I don't think.” Wilbur grimaced at Technos complaining, glaring at his brother like he wanted to strangle him.

Before another fight broke out between the two Phil reached his hand out to Tommy with a kind smile.

“Tommy, I've heard much about you, wilburs little stunt sure caused quite the camoshion while I was away.”

Tommy was hesitant to make any move but did extend his hand shaking Phils with a small bow.
“Your majesty.”

Phil smiled at the boy.

“Wilbur, why don't you take your mother and Techno inside? I hope this wasn't the only change you made in our absence.”

Wilbur nodded before hurrying Technoblade towards the house, the two almost immediately getting into an argument. Phil sighed, not noticing Kirstain coming over to lean into his ear and whisper.

“Be nice with this one, I think Wilbur has more explaining to do.” Phil nodded in response and like that, she was gone.

Phil regretted his decision for a split second as the boy in front of him started to look around uncomfortable and wanting for a familiar face. But this conversion couldn't be heard by anyone else if he believed himself right about what Wilbur was intending with this.

“Well Tommy, do you care to join me for a small walk?” Phil asked, gesturing his hand to where his family had originally appeared from earlier.

The two made their way over to the gardens in a tense silence. Well it was probably tense for Tommy. For Phil it was quite relaxing. They were passing rows of yellow and green roses when Tommy cleared his throat to speak.

“May I ask why I'm here, your highness?” the boy asked nervously, holding his hands together in front of him tightly. Phil could see his knuckles turning white.

Phil takes a breath out before continuing to lead Tommy through the garden. “Nothing bad, just wished to have a conversation with you.” Phil could practically feel the nervousness spike at that as he kept leading him through the colourful garden aiming for the middle of the whole thing.
This kid certainly wasn't a trusting one.

In the middle of the garden was a large wooden gazebo with wisteria growing on the sides of the building, crawling up the posts leading to the roof made out of tinted purple glass that matched the flowers around it. The circle table in front of them was up to Phil's waist as he slid into the gazebo. Tommy sat on the opposite side of Phil looking around the garden.

The garden was coloured similarly to a rainbow. The middle, where they are now bright and dark purples decorated most of it, and if you looked close enough past the purple you can see dark blue flowers poking past the bushes of purple roses like tiny little lights, bright enough to shine in a room with no darkness allowing them to truly shine. Tommy tapped his fingers on the seats next to him as he waited for Phil to start the conversation. Meanwhile, Phil stayed silent waiting to see what the boy would do.

The boy cracks after a couple of minutes of silence.

“So what did you wish to speak to me about?” he asked, making eye contact with the king in front of him. Phil had met many pirates in his time as a king, and many before that while he was still a prince working with his father. Usually, Phil was dealing with hostage nigoshashions or executions during those times. But even then none of them shared the speech that Tommy exhibited now. They all shared the same level of uncaringness towards formalities and had an accent that he could never really pinpoint. They also swore like the drunken sailors they were.
And it wasn't like Phil hadn't seen this behaviour from the boy at all, it depended on a person's status though.

Or it could be because Phil could just have him killed at any moment. Phil is lost in thought long enough for the boy to get concerned since the kid calls out to him.

“Your majesty?” he approaches hesitantly, snapping the king out of his thoughts.

“Ah pardon my staring, I was lost in thought for a moment.”

The boy nods, clearly not planning on starting the conversion a third time.

“Well I just have some questions for you. While I'm not happy with Wilburs actshions currently, he still hasn't told me what exactly he's planning.” the boy thinks for a moment before speaking.
“So it's normal for him to not explain anything? Cause I've been stuck in this place for a while and I'm still very confused.”

Phil chuckles before nodding. “Unfortunately yes, he gets it from his mother. This garden is an example of one of her low expansion moments in fact” the king looks back at the blooming garden, his mind going back to a time when it wasnt so bursting with life.

“She bought a few hundred plants one day, dying plants, and insisted that we plant them all in this particular spot.” Phil started, his hand reaching out to one of the wisteria bundles. “I was hesitant at first, while the building itself is off-limits to most, the outside is very public. And we had many people walking in and out of here. I was worried about our image and asked her if we could put it in a different section of the palace grounds, but she refused saying that they needed to be around the gazebo.”

Phil moved his fingers through the leaves of the vine thinking back to just two years ago. Him and Kirsten worked with fragile branches that snapped more often than not and dried roots. Him listening to every order his wife gave him when something was improperly placed.

“She had a whole team working with her on it but she had them removed after a day. Too many mistakes were being made for her liking and she had me help her put them all in. It took weeks with help from our sons but it was worth it in the end. Even if it looked like shit.” Phil laughed, turning back to look at Tommy who was looking at the flowers in awe.

“Did you use magic to make them grow better?” he asked, looking at one particular aluminium closely without actually moving from his seat.

Phil laughed.

“Oh goodness no, Kirtstain took care of the garden after everything was in place and a few weeks later it started to grow beautifully, only Wilbur and I have magic in our family, and Kirstain was insistent that no magic touch them. It's a wonder what we can do with good soil and time.”
Tommy turned away from the light purple flower to give a slightly confused look to the king.
He laughs. “I'm not sure how she did it either.” The boy just nods silently in what the king can only assume is agreement.

“Well that's enough of me being sappy, are you alright with answering some questions now?”
“I guess.”

Phil hums at the response, slyly pulling out a small green stone from his pocket and holding it hidden in his palm.

“Well let's get started then, I don't know much about you besides your name and your- previous job, let's say. So why don't we start with something easy, like your age?”

Phil's hand slightly tightened on the stone as the boy started speaking.

“I'm 18, 19 in a few months.” The boy says, and obvious lie that he doesn't need the stone to tell him, but it vibrates either way calling the boy out without his knowledge. Phil doesn't dig though, he has a feeling he wouldn't get the best reaction if he did.

“And where are you a citizen of? Or what country were you born in?”

The boy's face goes from nervous to cold and stoney.

“It doesn't exist any more, I doubt you would know it anyways.” the boy says.

“Why don't you test me? I'm pretty sure I've been around longer than you, plus I know quite a few kingdoms I may say." Phil says as the stone in his hand stops vibrating, coming to an eerie halt.

Tommy shakes his head.

“They held privacy higher than most things in that place. Unless you were exiled or escaped you never left. And if you were exiled they would cut your tongue out and if you knew how to write then your hands were taken as well. Or they just killed you.”

The stillness of the rock in Phil’s palm made his blood run cold and his throat close up.

“Oh, um yeah why don't we just move on,” Phil said, stumbling over his words while Tommy just nodded.

“So do you have any food allergies?” the boy just blinked at Phil as if he had asked if his mother had three heads.

“Why?”

He asked, looking confuzzled at the question.

“Well i'm hoping that the kitchen has already been informed about any allergies or food restrictions but i would like to know myself.”

The boy is silent for a moment.

“I haven't told anyone about my allergy.” says the boy who still looks kind of stunned.

The stone stays still in Phil's hand.

“Well why don't you tell me now and when I head over to check things out I'll let them know.”

Phil says, pulling out a pen and notepad from his pocket, and subsequently sneaking the stone into his pocket, disregarding it.

“Um well I'm allergic to citrus, so like oranges and lemons are off the table.” Phil nods, jotting it down.

“Well now that's done I just have a few questions about your crew that Wilbur let-”

“I'm not telling you anything about them.” Tommy interrupted him, his voice distorted just a tad.
“Pardon?”

The boy froze as if he didn't think about what he had just said.

“I ment, I made a deal with- wilbur. I stayed here and they got to leave, and while I didn't make the deal with you or anyone else from the royal family, I would like to keep the premises of the deal standing.

Phil nodded. “Yes well, the deal you made with Wilbur is quite loose in nature, no real objective on my son's side and gives you much freedom to work with which is why you've been able to attempt your escape so many times.”

Tommy shrugged. “He should have made a better deal if he had a problem with it.”

Phil knew better than to laugh right now, although he wanted to.

“I guess he should have, shouldn't he?” Phil responds as he starts pulling off one of his bracelets. It's a simple golden chain that Phil had gotten from a cruel man who begged for his mercy. A mercy that he never received, nor had given to anyone.

He gestures for Tommy to hand him his wrist and slips the chain onto the boy's arm. He wraps his hands around the chain and focuses on his magic, directing a portion of it to his palms. Soon the bracelet is glowing a light ice blue colour that shimmers like water turning green momentarily when touched by Phil's fingers inspecting the enchantment he just put in.

“Curse of binding?” Tommy asks after glancing at the bracelet his arm pulls away from phils grasp.

The boy moves his arm inspecting the chain that's now stuck on his arm. Phil wonders how the boy is able to tell the enchantments apart.

“And locating binding. It makes sure you can't leave pre-set boundaries without my permission.”

Tommy seems to go pale at that.

“You're not turning me into some weird garden decoration are you?” the boy asks, pulling at the chain, twisting it as if trying to get it off without making it known.

“What- no! It just stops you from going any farther than the palace walls.” Phil says somewhat insulted at the suggestion.

As the words seem to click in the boy's head, the colours also seem to join as the paleness that was once there slowly melted away.

“Oh- wait, that's not fair!” the boy shouts after the implication sets in. Phil laughs at the delayed response.

“My kingdom isn't really known for being fair.” The king points out, giving Tommy a pointed look. The boy huffed before the two sat in silence. Phil breaks that silence by standing up.

“Well I need to speak to my family, why don't you explore the castle grounds while I deal with some official business?”

By official business, he meant scolding the fuck out of Wilbur.

The boy nodded as he joined Phil in standing. The boy looked around awkwardly before
hesitantly looking up at Phil. “Um, I kinda worked here in the west wing before I was, you know, so I kind of know the layout and all that already.”

Phil humed. “From what I know you haven't been anywhere but the west wing, is that correct?”

Phil inquired looking over towards the palace.

“No sir, I have not.” the boy says following his line of sight to the castle.

“Well, then there's still four other wings you have yet to explore.” Phil smiles, resting a hand on the boy's shoulders and leading him out of the garden.

❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅

30 years earlier.

Phil watched closely from his spot in the corner of the room as his father took his knife out of the man's hand. He lessened to the man's pleas for mercy or death. Neither of which was coming anytime soon, not with his father's blood lust.

Phil looked at the man's face, his veins and arteries leading up to his face were black, and any cuts around said area bled a thick sticky-looking goop that could never be mistaken for blood. The liquid that was carrying oxygen through his body, cause god knows by the smell of the cell they were in the man had no food left in him, was only the purest of withering poison.
Phil had forgotten the man's crime. It could have been petty theft or murder. Neither one called for this punishment.

His father took the knife in his hands and tightened it calling out for Phil. “Philip, come here,” he orders. Phil moves within seconds, making his way over to his father's side. His father grabbed Phil's arm with a bloodied hand and pressed the hilt of the knife into his palm before rearranging Phil's fingers around the knife with his own over it.

“You've been paying attention haven't you boy?” he asks Phil who nods in answer.

“Well speak up boy!” his father yells in dissatisfaction.

“Yes, sir I have been paying attention,” Phil answered verbally.

“Good, then you know what happens next.”

Phil did know what happened next, the scar over his heart showed as much.

Phil's father, the emperor, tightened the grip he had on Phil's hand and led him over to point the knife over the man's chest, not too far off where it had been on his chest less than a month ago.

“Get to it then,” he says as Phil hesitates to push the knife any closer to the man's skin.

“Or do I need to show you how it's done again?”

Phil pushes the knife into the man's chest, dragging the blade down slowly carving the letters XD over the man's heart.

The poison pooled out of the cuts that Phil made, blocking his vision. For better or for worse, Phil didn't need to see the skin to know where to drag the knife.

❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅

Now

Phil found his family gathered in the nesting room at the end of the hall in the royal corridor.
With a smile Phil unclasped his dark blue cloak that hid his massive corvid wings and hung it up on the coat hanger by the door.

“Am I that predictable?” the king asked with a laugh.

Kristen laughed from her spot at the wall, placing her crochet tools down as Phil entered his nest.

“Less predictable and more it's nice to be home,” Techno said from his place in the nest as he read his book in the corner of the nest while Phil made his way to sit next to Kiristain.

“Speak for yourself.” Wilbur scoffs, earning a glare from his father.

“Don't start right now Wilbur.” Phil scolds as he gets comfortable.

“Hey, you cannot tell me that what I did was the end of the world. In fact, I'd say that I solved quite a few of our problems.” wilbur smirks.

“You invited a pirate to the royal family, without his knowledge if I'm correct, and without permission from any of us.”

Wilbur raises his hand in a; wait just a second motion. “I invited him to be a prince, I didn't have any intention of letting him into the family.”

Phil paused momentarily. “Go on.”

“Well I figured out who he was pretty quickly after the staff caught him in places where he shouldn't be, and seeing how young the crew was I decided to just watch-”

“You decided to mess with them.” Technoblade interrupted Wilbur.

“Well yes, but besides the point.” Wilbur said, getting the conversion back to the story.

“I was watching two members of his crew in one of the carriages they were trying to blend into to get out of the palace and down towards the town.and they started talking. So I eased dropped on them.”

“Were you that board without any of us here?” Technoblade said, closing his book.

“I was trying to get information, and if you'd let me continue and get to my point-”
“Yeah yeah go on,” Technoblade says putting his book out of the nest and leaning back, his attention on his brother.

“Thank you, anyways I was listening to their conversion and I think that they were in a cult. Or at least him and his second hand where.”

Phil thought back to his conversion with Tommy in the garden, specifically to when he had asked about his citizenship. Surprisingly, and sadly it made sense.

“I asked him about his citizenship earlier, it would fit with what I gathered from him,” Phil says.
“But what does that have to do with inviting him “to be a royal but not a part of the family.” you know we don't half-ass stuff like that.”

Wilbur shrugged. “The kids, annoying when you get to know him, act like any other pirate I've met. But I can't deny that he's a good leader. He commands respect from them without ordering loyalty. And his main priority isn't gaining more people or gold. It's making sure his crew is alive and healthy.”

Phill listened as Wilbur talked.

“So you wanna give him the title of crowned prince.” Kirsten placed together.

“Yeah,” Wilbur says bluntly.

“That's a stupid idea, put the entire kingdom in the hands of a pirate, and a child I add. Techno points out.

“We would teach him of course.” Wilbur snaps. “And we wouldn't announce it until we were
sure the kid could handle it.”

“And if he doesn't want it?” Technoblade asks, crossing his arms.

“Well it's not like you gave me a choice in the matter when you didn't want it now did you?”

Wilbur shoots back.

“You're a part of this family, he's probably never even thought about ruling a kingdom.”

Before Wilbur could rebuttal Kirstain jumped in. “enough you two, you've been at this all day.”

She sighs, leaning against Phil.

The four of them were enveloped in silence for a while after that.

Phil once again was the one to break the silence.

“Wilbur has a point if what he says about the crew is correct. If Tommy is truly as good of a leader as Wilbur says he is then it would be a shame to not, at least try, to cultivate that talent.”
Phil says, pinching the bridge of his nose for a second. Wilbur gives Technoblade a shit-eating grin before Phil can continue.

“But Technoblade also has a point.”

Wilbur's grin falls.

“We can't force a title on him, especially a title as a prince when the staff knows him as the pirate.”

“He's known as the mouse actually.” Wilbur pipes in once more.

“What?” Phil asks, turning his head over to his son.

“Yeah, he kind of was trying to sneak out through the kitchen while Niki was in there and got stuck while she was baking. I told him he wasn't allowed to leave the room he picked out until you got here to speak with him, but he started sneaking over every morning to the kitchen so the staff started calling him "little mouse” in their native languages.” Will says, shrugging. “They seem to like him, and he still doesn't know what they're calling him.

Kirsten giggled at this new information. “If the staff likes him this might just be easier than we think,” she says with a smile picking up her previously discarded tools.

Phil nods in agreement.

“The staff loves to gossip, so if they spread stories about the kid they might just help in gaining favour in the courts,” Phil says, stretching his back and wings.

“Or to the public.” Kirstain adds on looking over to Phils wings. “When was the last time you pretended your wings dear?” she asks.

Phil moves his wings forward in front of him inspecting the feathers as Will and Technoblade sit up right, both ready to stand up.

“I wanna say three nights ago? It was the night before we packed up to head home.” Phil answered by taking mental note of his son's reactions to his wife's words, he was a curtain she did too.

“I'm too tired to work with them now though, I'll have to do them tomorrow,” Phil says dramatically, falling on his back with his wings out in front of him.

Just once he had fallen back both his sons raced to speak.

“Can I preen them?” from Wilbur, and “I can preen them if you would like?” from Technoblade.

The two boys glared at each other while Phil laughed.

“You can each do a wing,” Phil said before the two could start bickering again.

From a distance, Kirstain watched as her husband messed with their twins as they tried to preen his wings. She closed her eyes and thought about the newest addition to her family, even if her boys didn't know it yet. Kirsten scoured the halls looking for her youngest.
She finds the boy in the east wing walking through the ballroom floor dragging his hand along the wall.

❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅
Meanwhile

Tommy was lost. Which wasn't hard to believe, when the entire property was a huge ass maze. Right now all he was trying to do was get back to the west wing but nothing looked recognizable. Tommy wished he had gotten the blueprints to the place when he had a chance, but it was a little late now.

Tommy turned the corner, closing his eyes as tears collected in them, threatening to spill out at the next inconvenience.

Witch ended up being a direct product of walking with his eyes closed as he ran directly into someone's chest and fell backwards on his ass.

“Oh my goodness I'm so sorry!” a voice said as Tommy opened his eyes and came face to face with what looked to be an enderman of some kind.

The person looked as if they were two people just cut into half and sewn together. His left side with a bright green eye and a fang poking out of that side of his mouth. On the right side, it was all pale white, his eye was red and there was a visual difference of dental work.
The boy reached his hand out to help Tommy up.

Unfortunately for both of them, Tommy has reached his limit and bursts out in heavy sobs as he continues to sit on the floor.

Chapter Text

Whenever Phil was flying, he was always at peace. It usually didn't matter what the problem was, if there was even a problem. The air under his wings and the warm sun on his face always calmed him down and allowed him to think.

This time, though, the air felt cold. As if it's job was to freeze him as he flew, just so he would plunge into the colder depths of the ocean that he called his home. The sun joined in on this task by blinding him and burning his eyes as he looked for his ship so he could finally land.

He had just finished gathering information (also known as spying) on Prince Theseus’s kingdom regarding the ransom they had sent the day they had taken said prince. Today marked the fourth day since the prince should have been marked missing, causing some kind of panic or disarray within the kingdom. Four days of the prince being in his family's personal care. And apparently, no one had noticed the young prince's absence.

Everyone and their mother were fawning over the child's older brother, Dream or something, and his newest victory over pillaging some small village to the north.

It seemed that no one besides Phil had been in the prince's room since Bilzo had kidnapped him. Phil was even able to enter unnoticed and asses the damage that Bilzo had actually done.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

He, Technoblade, and Kirtsain had worked with the younger boy, Bilzo, many times in the past. The boy took the jobs he got seriously and got them done quickly and efficiently.
On his way to land on Theseus’s balcony, Phill could see a mess inside the room through one of the many open windows, one with a noticeable line heading down towards the trees. The mess inside of the room was a large contrast to the outside area surrounding the prince's personal spaces.

Phil lands quietly and unnoticed on the balcony railing before tucking his wings onto his back. The avian looks around as he slides off the balcony railing so he could stand properly on the actual balcony. Most of the palace has bland grey cinder blocks everywhere with only occasional torches and banners decorating its sides.

This one secluded room belonging to Theseus seemed to be the only exception to this. Large vines and plants cover almost every square inch of the wall and most of the balcony leaving minimal walking space. Theseus’s room and the surrounding area were a bright contrast of greens, reds, yellows, pinks, and so many more colours, in comparison to the grey around them.

Most of the plants, aside from the ivy and moss that climbed the wall, reaching and growing into any cracks they could reach, had some kind of colour blooming in the form of either a flower or a fruit.

It was beautiful in Phil's eyes, and he assumed that under regular circumstances the inside would be another reflection of that as well. As he opened the balcony he came to the known conclusion, that this were not regular circumstances.

That was kind of his fault.

As he walked through the room he made mental notes about the damage that Bilzo had supposedly done.

The bed was a mess with sheets tossed around, and a blanket that was tossed on the floor had a very concerning red stain on the end of it that popped out to Phil. There was a mess of papers on the floor along with tiny knick-knacks and trinkets scattered throughout. (Phil ignored the small trail of blood that was most certainly the prince's blood as he made his way over to the ransacked desk.)

It looked as if Bilzo had just taken his arm and pushed all the items on said desk into one of the bags he had brought with him- or stolen from this room. Phil would never know.

Everything was tipped over or on the floor, including a bright orange pill bottle that stood out against the blues, whites and silvers on the floor. Leaning down, Phill picked up the pill bottle and skimmed the label glued to the side of it.

Lamotrigine prescribed for Theseus, Innit, Taken. A heavy mood stabiliser.

Phil sighed as he slipped the almost fully filled bottle into his pocket.

Looking around, the entirety of the room was the same.

Messy and intruded upon. Phill pulled open one of the drawers to find a perfectly organised stack of paper with pens and other writing materials neatly next to it.

Most of the other drawers held similar items with a copycat organisation. All except the middle drawer that held a large black art book and a multitude of art supplies, including a small pack of watercolours, oil pastels, colour pencils, regular pencils, and other tools like erasers and blending stumps.

Phil stared at the book, debating whether he should look through it or not. Just as Phil was about to close the drawer, the sound of knocking came from the door, with a voice following soon after.

“Theseus?” the voice of an older boy called from past the door, and while Theseus wasn't there, Phil sure fucking was.

As quietly as he possibly could, Phil tiptoed over the stuff on the messy floor and made his way over to the bed. If anything went wrong, and by wrong Phil meant if the door opened and he was seen, the area behind the bed would give him the perfect getaway with a clear view of the balcony. If it came to it, Phil could just run out of the said balcony.

(Once again, Phil did his best to ignore the blood on the floor.)

“Theseus I know you're awake, you never sleep in this late.” the voice called out once more when there wasn't a response.

“Tommy please talk to me, I've been home for a week now and I still haven't been able to have an actual conversation alone with you, No one has seen you in the past four days because you've locked yourself in your room again.”

Phil listened to the older prince speaking, waiting for the boy to barge in and demand answers. From what Phil could see via patterns this family didn't seem like a “boundaries and respect people's personal space” kind of family. Honestly, Phil has never met a royal family like that.

“Are you mad at me?” asked the older prince. “Was it something I did?”

The room stayed silent, it wasn't like Phil knew the answer, even if he did he couldn't say
anything without giving himself up. Phil tensed as he heard the prince sigh.

“I've been able to excuse your absence to our mother and father for now, but if they think you're having another episode they're going to start seeking you out, you know how dad gets when you stop taking your meds.” The prince says in a warning tone, one that rings alarm bells in Phil's
head.

There was another long pause of silence between the prince and Phil. Of Course, the prince didn't know that it was Phil he was talking with and not in fact his younger brother Theseus. Phil silently hopes that the “warning” is an actual warning and not a threat. He would like to think that the two brothers were somewhat close and that he spoke to Theseus like this more often than not.

“Moms are having a banquet in a month, If we are unable to see each other before that, I would like you to be the first to know some good news.”

Phil was getting tired of all the pauses that the prince took as he waited for a response that was
never going to come.

“I proposed to the duke found in Kanoko. I'll be announcing our engagement at Mother's banquet.”
It took everything in Phil to not squeak like a bird. He was getting way too much private information, or as Technoblade would call it scandalous gossip, that he did not need or sign up for.

He had simply wanted to know the current status of the ransom they had set after three days of zero contact.

Phil was ready to just give up on hiding and blow his cover just to get out of there. Maybe they would actually check on the young prince. Phil heard the Prince Dream let out a heavy sigh before going to speak once more.

“I'll leave you be, I hope to see you at the announcement. I'll be giving him Grandpa's ruby necklace as an engagement gift. I know it was supposed to be your inheritance but you don't even plan on keeping it anyway so it should be okay.”

Okay, maybe Phil didn't mind the overshare that much if the necklace was what he thought it was. If so the Phil and his crew would need a change of plans.

The letter that they had sent demanding ransom had asked for three specific pieces of the royal family's collection. Once peace is the ruby of fire.

A small red stone is said to make the one with the stone on their person resistant to any sort of fire or burns.

It belonged to the nether-born people originally, people like Technoblade who were born from the fire realm, before it was stolen. And they were going to use it as an engagement gift?!
The thought of it made Phil's blood boil.

“I know you wanted that trade deal with the piglings, but you know George and his gems. I promised him anything he wanted.”

Phil took a deep breath willing himself to calm down.

“Hm thought you would give me a bigger reaction than that, even in one of your little episodes, you always have this thing in your head about 'having more allies' and 'being more free with the rules.” Genuinely, I have no clue why we decided you would be getting the crown. That's just how it goes, I guess.”

Silence settled on the pair for the last time. Not soon after, Phil heard the prince start to walk away. The boy's footsteps echoed along the granite floor. Once Phil was certain that the prince had left, he was able to stand and make his way over to the young prince’s desk.

He yanks the middle drawer open half haphazardly and grabs the art book and art supplies that sat innocently on said desk. He places the tools into his bag that's strapped onto his back.

The young prince was not going to be back for quite a while.

Phil rushed out of the room, onto the balcony and got the fuck out of there.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

Prince Dream watched from a distance as the pirate flew off, the man's large black wings carrying him off into the distance and heading south.

He could probably have his men follow the pirate right then and there if he wanted.

But he didn't; it would just waste resources in the end.

Dream didn't like gardening; he detested it. But he loved planting seeds of doubt.
Plus, it was better if his targets came right to his front door. And if he got his brother back, then
that was a plus. Although he didn't think George would mind being king.

Plus he wouldn't have to worry about Tommy letting those Nether vermin into the country.

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

Phil had completely given up on trying to calm his mind down now. His one and only goal was to get back home. Although it seemed that the tides were acting more in their favour than they had originally thought they would be.

That meant they would be covering more area, and he would have to fly either directly south or head right over to the base. Phil decided he wanted to keep a close eye on his crew and continued to search for the ship. Slowly as searching started to become more and more second nature, Phil's mind started to let his thoughts wander.

From what he gathered, well eavesdropping, the older prince was in charge of much when it came down to public affairs. The elder prince worked with armies. But he already knew that from speaking with the young boy. He just didn't really take it as an actual matter of fact but as a voice to confuse the crew. But maybe there was more truth in that boy than he’d like to believe.
Phil shook the younger prince out of his head. It was the older prince he had to worry about. If he were truly giving the necklace away then they would have to grab it either before or during the exchange. There was one point that Prince Dream had said that echoed in his head.

“I know you wanted that trade deal with the piglings, but you know George and his gems. I promised him anything he wanted.”

It seemed that their guest, Theseus, had a lot more depth to him than an overworked prince.
Phil couldn't wait to pull that out of the boy.

What kind of plans did the boy have?

What kind of trouble was he getting into behind his parents' backs?

The crowned prince Theseus of Pearlesa arms, a kingdom known for hunting down magic users, any non-overworlders, and hybrids out of sheer hate, wanting to trade with nether kingdoms? And using artefacts to get it?

It was most certainly an interesting endeavour for someone like him. Phil sighs as he is unable to find the ship and zooms forward to land on a pile of stones. There he takes a seat and pulls off the bag on his back, he takes out a water bottle and takes a long drink. When he's done catching his breath he spots Theseus’s art book poking out of his bag.
Once again Phil hesitates at the sight of the book, wondering if he should open it or not. He knows that he shouldn't, privacy and all that. Plus it was just an art book. There couldn't be much in it that was important to Phil or his crew. Or anyone who wasn't Theseus really.

But Phil was a nosy kinda man when it came to strange books.

And as Phil picked up the book in front of him he was certain that the book was a strange one.

For one the bottom cover was slightly larger than the top cover. Phil flipped it over to get a better look at said bottom cover.

The notebook had a broken compass and a row of buttons on the top, the sides of the cover had small patterns and the bottom of the cover had some kind of poem.

One to the left, three to the right, then it's out of sight. Three to the right, one to the north, now go forth for it will show.

Phil looked over the cover, messing with the buttons a little before giving up and flipping to the front once more.

Phil lifted the cover and was greeted with a table of contents, two-thirds of which were empty while the first third was filled with dates. Sometimes, time stamps and titles follow after.

Phil flipped over the contents page to the first art piece, which was a landscape colour pencil drawing of a river bank with lily pads and willow trees; there was an unnamed bush along the river.

The background was made up mostly of leaves, with only the top right having any of the blue sky showing. The green droopy leaves of the willow trees drew Phil's attention to the bushes in the middle ground that were shared with the start of the water and the entirety of the visible water line. From there Phil inspected the green water that seemed to have a hint of red scattered around the water. Some of the floating lily pads have large pink lotus blooms on the actual plant. Overall, it's a beautiful piece.

Phil flips over the page and is immediately assaulted with the sight of a gruesome charcoal sketch of a middle-aged woman sewing yarn into her skin.

It's a graphic piece which shows the woman kneeling in a puddle of water, crying as she sticks a needle into her leg.

Momentarily, it looks as if the woman is moving.

Phil immediately closes the book with a snap at that thought.

He did not need any extra fears, no, thank you.

Phil took a deep breath in before shoving all the things he had scattered around back into his bag. Including the sketch book. With a groan, Phil stretches his arms, legs, and wings as much as he can before lying back and closing his eyes, enjoying the lovely sun.

It's not long before his eyes close. And once they are open he is surprised to see the sun almost gone.

And that his ship is currently sailing him away from Esempi.

He must have missed them and flown ahead. And fell asleep when he was resting.

Phil shrugs as he snatches up his bag and glides over to the ship, picking up just enough height so he can grab onto the railing and pull himself up onto the deck easily.

Phil landed on his feet gracefully and without a problem.

Now that he's on his ship, his worries are tenfold.

There aren't many people on the ship deck, but it's still busy with people crossing between the shrouds and the forecastle deck. Phil ignores most people and makes his way over to the hatch that leads to the main inner deck.

It's notably fuller there as people hurry past him from both directions. He watches with a careful eye as some of them notice him as they venture past. Some just nod, while others wave or shout a greeting towards him.

Phil is polite with them, but doesn't try to open a conversation. Everyone's working right now and there most certainly will be time for that later in the day.

Phil planned to head right for the captain's quarters and summon the people he needed there slowly throughout the day after talking with Technoblade and Kirtsian. Although once he sees Niki, he decides to try and save time and see if he could kill two birds with one stone.

“Niki, good morning. I was wondering if we could speak?” Phil says as he approaches her.

Niki looks startled at Phil's voice, or maybe it was how loud he was so early in the morning. He had been flying for a long time. Her hand is outstretched and resting on the door handle to the kitchen.

“Phil, you're here early- we didn't expect you back till evening,” Niki says as her grip tightens on the door as she opens it.

“A stroke of luck, and quite a bit of zoning out if I'm being fully honest,” Phil says nervously as Niki walks in. He's unsure if he should follow her until she holds the door open for him and
waves him in.

“I'll put some water to boil, have a seat.”

Phil nodded, walking in and taking a seat closest to the wall. He could see the entire room from there which is what he always preferred.

Niki sighs as she lets the door close behind her, She walks over to the counter and pulls an apron from the back.

“As much as I love having visitors while I cook, you don't usually come in so early. What did you want to talk about?” Niki asked, getting right to the point.

Phil smiles as the girl turns to wash her hands. Phil never understood how Sam got clean running water in the ship, but he's sure grateful every day.

“You looked over Prince Theseus yesterday didn't you?” Phil asked. A seemingly innocent question to him. But it makes Niki freeze up after she turns the water off.

The girl is silent.

“Niki?”

“If your here to try and make me share his medical information you can go fuck off.”

Niki snapped angrily as she turned around.

“What? No! Why would I need that?” Phil says exasperated and shocked.

Niki's anger seems to soothe at that.

“Oh- well at least one of you has some sense in you,” she says as she grabs one of the kettles and gathers water from the tap with it.

“Technoblade and Kirsten called me into the office to try and get me to give them the results of my medical examination of him. When I refused, they tried to say they could get Ponnus to do my job with Theseus. Like I didn't teach him everything he knows.”

Phil sighs, disappointed as Niki puts the kettle to boil. She digs out a bag of flour from one of her cabinets.

“I'll talk to them, I was actually wondering if you talked to him about his physiological health?”
Phil asked, his hand going to hover over his pocket.

“You mean like mental illness? Not really, why?” Niki asked, looking behind her, her hands full with the bag of flour.

“Do you need help with that?” Phil asked, slightly concerned with how big the bag was. There was no way the bag wasn't heavy.

Niki hummed. “No, but if you wanna help make a few hundred pancakes, feel free to step in,” Niki says cheerfully.

“Why such a time-heavy breakfast today?” Phil asked as he stood. “Is it because of the prince?”

“Ehhh, slightly. I can't get into larger details but the boy needs more calories. I'm gonna make your egg-free ones last so I can get these ones out first." Niki pulls a few cartons of eggs out of their storage as well as milk while Phil puts on his apron and washes his hands. “Plus the milk will go bad soon, might as well get rid of it now.”

Phil nodded as he finished washing his hands. Niki asked him to grab some of the bigger bowls from her shelf. Phil wondered silently to himself if they should switch out the shelf from one big one to two smaller ones. Not to be rude, but Niki was on the shorter side.

From there Niki directed him on what to do. Mix in the flour and milk before adding the egg, then mix again. They made many bowls of batter as they needed many pancakes. 3 cartons of eggs, and who knows how much milk later the two had all their batter made.

Niki only has one pan to actually cook the pancakes so Phil just stands to the side and watches her work.

They spent the next few minutes in silence, the only fraction of sound that wasn't ambience was Niki’s humming as she flipped pancakes.

“So what were you talking about earlier? About a psych check with Theseus?” Niki asked as she placed the first bowl that had pancake batter that was now empty into the sink.

“Where'd that come from?” Niki asked, glancing over to Phil before looking back at her work.
Phil reaches over and places the next bowl within arm's reach for her.

“Well, as it turns out, no one knows that the prince is missing currently,” Phil says looking down. “So I got the chance to go into his room.”

Niki pauses and takes a long shaky breath through her mouth. “How has no one noticed?” she asks, her voice cracking slightly. “A whole person is missing, not a whole child. The prince for god's sake!” Niki’s voice slowly rises, still never going higher than a whisper.

Phil watches her anger slowly rise, there's something behind her anger. More than what she just learned. Something that Phil can only assume she can't tell him but he trusts that if she needed to tell him she would. Niki had proven trustworthy time and time again, not only with keeping confidentiality with and without her job, but in making sure everyone in the crew was safe.

And while Theseus wasn't part of the crew, Phil knew that extended to the young boy.

(and even though he didn't know what Niki knew, he worried for the boy.)

Phil sighed as he dug his hand into his pants pocket and took out the pill bottle he had picked up from Theseus’s room earlier. The pills shake from the container alerting Niki who finishes her current pancake and pours in a new one before turning.

“What's that?” she asks, staring intently at the bottle. Phil hands it to her.

“Lamotrigine,” Phil answers as Niki reads the bottle. “His brother came to the room, he didn't go in or anything but he talked from the outside. Apparently self self-isolation is common for the boy, he said something about “episodes” and their father before he left.”
Phil left out the engagement; he would make sure to speak with Theseus first before telling anyone.

“A mood stabiliser,” Niki says as she reads the label closely. “These are still good to take, as in they aren't expired, but are relatively old. From the instructions they should be about halfway empty right now.” she sighs before handing the bottle back to Phil.

“There isn't a diagnosis on the bottle, I don't think this was normally prescribed, or if it was they are trying to keep it off the records. It's not all that uncommon to do when you have power.” Niki says, turning back to the pancake.

Phil nods silently as he places the bottle back into his pocket.

“I'll give him the meds, I won't enforce that he takes them.”

Niki hums as she thinks. “Good, I heard that high doses of Lamotrigine can cause many health problems if taken incorrectly, or if misdiagnosed, on purpose or not.”

Niki has intention with her last words, an intention that's not lost on Phil. as the two settle in a heavy silence. Niki continues working diligently on her practice knowing her voice had been heard.

The two remain silent, and soon enough all the breakfast is finished. Piles of pancakes stacked on top of each other that honestly astound Phil by the sheer amount. Niki cleans up one of the discarded bowls and washes it out before making one more batch, without eggs.

Once the final batch of pancake batter is all mixed in and cooked, she splits it into two and places them on the table and takes off her apron.

“I'm going to take this over to the deck before I start eating, Feel free to eat here or take your meal elsewhere.” Niki smiles as she discards her apron and starts to push the food cart over to the door.

“Alright, if you see Kirstain and Technoblade, tell them I'll be in our quarters. I need to have a word with them.”

The girl doesn't give any indication that she heard him, but Phil knows she has. Once he was certain that she was far enough away, Phil went over to the sink and started working on the overflowing pile of dishes.

He also took off the kettle that the two had forgotten about as it started screaming.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟..𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

Phil finished cleaning rather quickly, before Niki finished serving breakfast at least. Currently, he was making his way to the captain's quarters with his pancakes and tea that had gotten cold.
He opens the door with a light kick, knowing that Kirstain and Technoblade are both inside.
The two are sitting on the floor, their finished plates stacked up on each other and discarded to the side as a game of chess sits in front of them. Surprisingly Wilbur is also there, he’s observing the two play silently.

All three of them look at Phil as he enters.

“You're back quick” Wilbur says with a grin.

Phil simply nods as he goes to take a seat at the desk that the three share.
“Wasn't much to look for,” Phil says shortly. “Wilbur, I need to speak with Tech and Kirstain
privately, do you mind stepping out?”

Wilburs' head tips up at his father's words.

“Is it about the prince?” he asks, looking over at the board.

Technoblade has abandoned the game (that he was losing) and looked over to Phil.

“Yes, as well as a few other things,” Phil says as he tucks his chair into the desk.

Wilbur hums. “Okay, I'll go bother Quackity,” he responds cheerily before getting up and skipping out the door.

The trio listens to Wilbur's loud footsteps as he departs. Only once they are no more than soft thuds does Phil speak.

“I talked to Niki earlier. Care to explain your thought process?” Phil's voice was emotionless, not giving up any kind of give to either side of the idea that they had “suggested.”

“I'm assuming you're talking about the idea to release the boy's personal health records, or what we have at least,” Technoblade speaks up.

Phil waits for him to continue. Kirstain is the one to speak up, she rests her elbow on her knee and holds her head in her palm by her cheek. “It was my idea, the boy clearly has some kind of magic origin, we just don't know what kind of origin. I thought that if the boy knew what origin he would tell Niki, if he didn't know then he might be more open mouth about hybrid patterns and we could figure out that way,” she explains looking back at the chessboard and placing Technoblade in check.

“And why exactly would we need any of that information? It's not beneficial to our cause, nor is it important.” Phil presses. “Well, I thought we could use it against his parents. You know having a magic-born son in control of the kingdom that strictly bans magic?”

Phil sighs, she made a point but-

“I highly doubt that will work,” Phil says dejectedly.

“He could tell everyone, and anyone that he was magic born and his parents would sweep it under a rug, or get rid of him.”

The three sat thinking to themselves.

“In any case, avoid threatening our best doctor we have on board? Okay?”
The duo nods as Technoblade moves his piece, setting the stage for Kirstain.

“Did you find out any new information?” Techno asks his head not moving to look away from the chessboard.

Phil picks out a stack of files from the corner of the desk, a whole stack of papers with written details of their goal and the plan to achieve it. He sighs before tossing it.

“Yeah, we need a change of plans,” Phil says as he rests his head in his hands.
Kirstain puts Technoblade in checkmate before looking over to Phil.

“They won't pay the ransom?” she asks as Technoblade groans in frustration, not only from losing but from wasted time.

“More like they don't even know the kids are missing.” Phil bites out angrily as he leans back into his chair, his hand rubbing his temple.

Technoblade stands up from his spot on the floor and walks over to the desk. “What do you mean they don't know he's missing?” he asks his voice as steady as usual. “He was in charge of all external affairs, which includes finance. From what I know they haven't put the celebration for the older brother on pause so who's been taking care of that?”

“I don't know, I didn't get much internal information, but what I do know I can't say openly. Apparently, it's normal for the kid to just go mia and no one questions it." Phil thinks back to hiding behind that blood-stained bed and listening in on what should have been a private conversation between two brothers.

“The older prince has the necklace, he plans on giving it away in exactly one month. Apparently, our little Theseus was the inheritor of the necklace.” Phil says, picking out his words carefully.
Kirstain has pulled over two extra chairs by now, one she offers to Technoblade who accepts it gratefully, the other she uses.

“So we are certain, and I mean absolutely certain that they won't find the letter until then?”
She asks, looking between the two. Phil nods solemnly.

“Even if they did, I doubt that it would do anything to help us,” Phil answers his gaze turning to Technoblade.

“Hey Tech, think you could ask your brother about Theseus? Specifically Theseus.”

The younger man looks caught off guard before he nods. “Yeah, sure why?”

Phil shrugs.

“Just a hunch.”

Technoblade simply hums in response. “I'll send him a letter when we get to the caves, should be no longer than a day if I'm correct.”

“You are,” Kirtsain says standing from her seat. “I'll assume we’re going to wait until we are home to plan anything.”

Phil confirms her words with a nod.

“I need to talk to the little prince, alone. Could one of you grab him?”

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆟 𓆞

Theseus wasn't sure why the captain of the ship wanted to talk to him, well he assumed that Phil? Was the captain. He seemed like he was in charge here. But even then the pink-haired one looked powerful, and the lady-

Well, there was something about her that screamed danger. Even though she portrayed herself to be kind. But just because someone was kind didn't mean they weren't dangerous.
Like Niki. If something happened Theseus did not doubt that she could hold her weight. But he had also heard stories about women and poison.

Either way, Tubbo was walking him over to the captain's quarters chatting away with Ranboo and him. Ranboo was sending glances over to Theseus that made him question what exactly was going on in the boy's head.

Once they arrived at the door, tubbo simply opened it without knocking and ushered the other two in.

“His highness is here!” Tubbo exclaims following behind them his left foot says outside though as he hangs from the door frame, his arms outstretched behind him to keep him “standing.”
Phil lets out a small breathy laugh at the boy's antics.

“Thank you Tubbo, you and Ranboo may take your leave now.”

Tubbo did not speak but simply turned and left as Ranboo hesitated.
“Uh, see you later, Theseus,” Ranboo said before he left. Theseus smiled at the boy's nervousness before returning the saying.

Once Theseus and Phil were alone, Phil offered the boy a seat.

“Before we start, would you like anything? Tea? Coffee?”
“Um, I had tea at breakfast. I'll be alright.” Theseus declined politely. “What is it that you wanted to speak about?”

“Right to the point then, I assume you know I was out yesterday doing a check-in at Pearlesa Arms regarding your ransom.” Phil started.

And yes, Theseus was aware that Phil was over there, Niki had told him.
Although he had some questions about- that.

“Yes I was informed about that, I'm quite surprised that you somehow got there and back, without a solid mode of transportation, at least none that I'm aware of.” Theseus wasn't sure if it was rude to ask if they used magic to get there or not. And if they did, why didn't they just use that to get the whole crew over to- wherever they were going? (Did they have a destination?)
Phil stops for a moment, confused, before bursting out in laughter. Which leaves Theseus twice as confused as before.

Phil takes a moment to compose himself before he speaks again.
“Oh, I'm sorry for laughing, it slipped my mind that people outside of the crew don't know.”
Theseus grins nervously.

“It's quite alright?”

Phil takes a breath to clean himself of his laughter, before two large appendages- or rather limbs- make themselves known from behind him.

Massive black wings are raised from behind Phil, the feathers at the ends about as large as Theseus’s arm. The sight of the dark feathers with a purple sheen has Theseus in awe.
Unknown to Theseus, Phil smiles with a sort of pride. Phil moves his left wing towards the boy while lowering the right wing. The boy looks to Phil, asking for permission to examine the wing.

Phil nods.

The boy takes the wing in his hand and looks over the rows and rows of feathers, his hands as gentle as he could possibly be as he moves them. The larger feathers had more colour to them going from a light purple to a pink then to a stunning lapis blue. When Theseus lets go of the wing, Phil returns it to where it originally rested behind his back.

“Many on the ship aren't fully human, me included as you saw,” Phil informs Theseus.

“You're an avian?” he asks, genuine curiosity in his voice.

“Let's go with that, now for what I called you in for.”

At that Theseus’s child-like wonder seemed to shatter like falling china, and turned to stoic attention. It breaks Phil's heart slightly.

“Oh yes um-”

Theseus looks embarrassed and unsure, so Phil takes over the talking.

“So unfortunately I was in your room, and it seems untouched- since the mercenary we hired was in there at least. And while I was there your brother stopped by.” Phil started. Theseus made an effort not to portray much emotion and was attentive to Phil's words.

“It seems that they believe you are, in an episode, to say the least.” Phil continues digging up the pill bottle from his pocket and hands it to Theseus. Theseus visibly tenses at the sight of the bottle but takes it from Phil either way. “I'm no medic, and I'm certainly not in any place to tell you what to and what not to take, so I'll leave that with you to decide what you wish to do. But from what I gathered from, other points of your brother's one-sided conversation, I have a couple of questions”

Theseus could tell that Phil was trying his best not to ramble on so he just shoved the bottle in his pocket and nodded.

“Well firstly, he wanted you to know, we'll be the first to know that he's now engaged to a duke-”
“George?” Theseus perked up at the mention of his brother's engagement.

Phil nodded.

Theseus internally laughed to himself. He knew the pair were smitten with each other.
“Not surprising.” Phil hummed.

“He also mentioned giving a curtain necklace as an engagement gift to his new fiancée.”

Theseus froze. “What necklace?” he asked side side-eyeing Phil.

“It was one of the ransom pieces we asked for, the fire ruby.” Theseus glared at the pirate.

“What would you want with that?” he demanded.

“That's not prevalent to you. Although I believe we have a similar goal.”

Theseus was silent before continuing to question the pirate.

“Is that all you wished to talk to me about?”

“One more thing and you may leave, I don't see why we would need Tubbo escorting you anymore. We can't send you back just yet, or for a while actually. Until we get what we have asked for, you will be staying with us until the foreseeable future.” Phil says, turning from the prince and grabbing the art supplies from his bag.

“I picked these up on my way out, so you'd have something to do.

Theseus’s eyes go wide at the supplies as he grabs them. Once they are in his grasp he nods, and leaves.

Phil is left alone in the captain's quarters. He knows that Kirstain is already making her way over, she always is.