a/n: This just… happened. It doesn't have a point, exactly, except that I really enjoyed delving into characterization for Sparrow and Princess and Reaver and that it was really fun to write. I might write more in this 'timeline', but if I did it wouldn't be a direct sequel or anything.

Enjoy. I always appreciate reviews.

I know that I am no beauty, but I appreciate beautiful things.

That was why I bought his house. I had lived in it for years following my husband's death. A small, irresistible trophy. The walls smelled of decay and sea air, heavy musk of sex unfaded. But I liked the pretty chandeliers. It came fully furnished, you know. I burnt his diaries upon arrival. I have no interest in his doings. You may not quite understand, but it was a beautiful house, rich for all its years. There was something romantic about it, too, something that touched on my childhood in the streets. It was a pirate home, and, you know, he was a bit of a disappointment as a pirate. Pirate of other things, as they would say, but – you're too young for this. No, by the time you read this, you won't be.

That was why I bought that house. I only lived there briefly. I bought it for the sake of it, really, after Tom and Emmeline, before I married my second husband. Your father. He was a good man. More handsome than I was pretty, but that wasn't saying much, with my towering height and scarred face. It was only my goodness that seemed to attract men, my goodness and my newfound status as a savior. Your father was good. That was the most I can say of him, but it said much.

You visited once. When we gutted it for good. You clung to my skirts, wobbly on your fawn-legs. Your brother strode around like he was already king. Logan and you, my little ghost, who looked so much like Emmeline. She would have been your half-sister. I often wondered what you would have thought of her, of Tom, how you two would have gotten along. You were born with her red cheeks and black hair, dark little changeling eyes. Your brother, he already looked a prince, with his fine features, pale skin, but he had that humanizing, light glint in his eye. He was a good boy, like his father, but with an edge. He always wanted to walk the path of a Hero and you, with your fawn- legs, always danced along after him.

We took the teacups. You love those teacups. The ones with the roses on the sides – yes, they were his. Sometimes I watched you drinking out of those and wondered why we didn't have teacups from Garth, or Hanna. You met Hanna. She was a good woman. Much like your father, much like people viewed me. I never felt particularly good, though, only sorry. The roses reminded me of another one, too. Your aunt. Dead. Dead because of me.

But I digress again. I don't suppose this letter will ever be fit for your eyes, my little ghost.

I want you to watch out for him.

His teacups may be pretty enough, but I kept him away from you for a reason. He disappeared, and for a while I thought I was lucky enough to be rid of him. And then, after you were born, after I thought I had cleared the cobwebs out of Bloodstone and moved on, he invited me for tea.

Of course, I invited him to the castle, where I could have twenty guns aimed at his smug face when he entered.

We had never gotten along. He was short of patience, easily attracted by any glimmering thing. But please don't mistake him for stupid – sometimes he is too lazy and lucky to have to resort to his wiles, but he has them in spades.

He was clean-shaven, then, and dressed to the nines in the style of the year. He had white gloves then, like a lady. Wealth used to impress me. By the time I met him, it no longer did. I suppose when you meet him (and I don't doubt it; I only want to prepare you for it) he will look very different. He is an oil spill, mixing and spreading and fluid, ever-changing. He explained to me – his queen! – that pirating was very well and good but he had hung up his hat and become a respectable man. I would have thought he had the gall to never enter my sight again – he had never cared for me either – but all misgivings were forgiven, patched up, for the sake of his greater scheme.

He sat there sipping from china cups that were once his, looking at the roses with faint interest. He said nothing of the manor in Bloodstone. So much for his promised vengeance. But Reaver has never had interest in vengeance, when newer, more pertinent desires preceded it. I began to fear what he had to tell me.

"How fare your children?" he asked me, moving his eyes from the teacups to me. His voice sounded bored. He shifted in his chair, placing one leg over the other. His movements were spry, attractive, like a cat's. I wondered then if he could face me and kill me. Perhaps he could have. He was a young Hero; I was an old one. It was repulsive and surreal. He sat there taking his tea, smiling at me from across the table, the same creature I had encountered twenty years before. He must have taken great joy in seeing me looking so worn.

"None of your business," I said curtly, though really, you were everyone's business. Everyone wanted a piece of you, of your brother. The servants gave you sweets between meals, and the peasants sometimes tried harder to catch glimpses of you than of me, the last Hero. The last hero of Heroes, anyway.

"Your husband?" he asked, which was a very cruel thing because your father was dead of the filth disease by then and I was certain he knew. So I didn't answer, but you – you cried out, somewhere in the courtyard.

His necked craned, something between a bird of paradise and a vulture.

"I had the pleasure of seeing your lovely daughter on my way in," he said, slower now, and I could tell he was enjoying this. I can remember his exact words – I had the pleasure. He lingered on every one. "But what of your son? I hear he's an independent young man. Perhaps he would like to meet someone of my experience, hm?"

I had no doubt that disciplined Logan would harbor immense distaste for him. My skin prickled with the suggestion.

As for you, you already looked very adult. I hope you aren't embarrassed in my saying, but you were very womanly for your nearly fourteen years. Much prettier than I was – I was always big-boned, even before the muscle twisted me from within. I don't think you take after either me or your father. Maybe somewhere in the family we had a vixen. Maybe somewhere in the family we had a woman shrewd enough to outsmart this fox.

He showed me his papers, then. I read them slowly. I have always been slow with words, slow but careful, as Theresa taught me. I hope you do not meet her. If you do, something dark is upon you.

I turned up to face him. He held his tea cup to his fine lips, which smirked. His whole face was bloated with gloating.

I pushed the paper away from me.

"So be it," I said. There was little I was going to do to get in his way. But I worried, then, for you, with your foil glimmering out in the courtyard sun, and for your brother who buried himself in his study.

Reaver put a finger to his hat, which I suppose must have signified tipping it to me. A snarl tugged at his lips, though, a smile and a smirk at once. He has been nothing but human flaw wrapped in animal means.

"Tatty-bye," he said.

I stayed in my seat, training my wizened face into something useful: stoic, old wisdom. Not that Reaver has much respect for that kind of thing. Anyone who wishes for eternal youth wades eternally in the shallows.

The day was spring; the sun was warm. Suddenly I felt chill. It wasn't Reaver: it was all that he portended.

(Perhaps you would meet Theresa sooner than I thought, my little ghost.)

I trained myself to sit still for ten seconds, then rushed to the window. I caught him tipping his hat to you – a real tip, a grand tip – on his way out the door, though he said nothing. You just stared. Your foil glimmered, but for a moment you saw only his sharp clothes, his high, square shoulders. But Walter – Walter, more than good - shouted something to you and forced your attention back to the fray.

Calmed, I sat back down.

Perhaps you will not need this letter after all, little one.

But please, watch out. Not just for him. But for the darkness. Watch over Walter, and Jasper, if they're still there, and for your brother. For Albion herself, who has been both my mother and my only true lover. I have no doubt that you will be a hero, no matter the blood that flows through your veins.

Love,

Your mother, Lionheart,

-She broke there, allowing her hand a moment to uncramp. Rheumatism, she thought, damning it in her mind. When she sighed, the quiet of the room made it sound loud.

But it was also soft, like the summer breeze she so longed for. It had been a hot summer, a long year and a half. For a moment, she thought of her husband, and the hot summer years before, when the filth disease consumed him.

"Mother?"

A high voice; that could only be her daughter.

"Shouldn't you be off with Elliot?" She had the joy of seeing her daughter flush. There was something magical about raising a happy child. A child with two parents, once, and one still; Walter, now, that counted for something. A child with a living brother, just as good as Rose had ever been to her. A child with food on the table, rosy cheeks, daily joys. A boyfriend. The life that the queen never had.

"The blossoms smell pretty," said her daughter, drifting toward the window. Sparrow smiled at her daughter and covered her letter with her arm. Her eyes glazed as she stared out her window, into the black, textured night.

She suddenly felt morbid, a doomsayer. Why was she writing these letters? She would be around long enough to see Logan into kinghood, long enough to pass on these warnings to her daughter in person. Certainly, if anyone would be able to keep Logan in line, it was his sister. The two didn't speak as they used to, but she was sure affection still remained.

There was a clinking sound. The queen looked up, while her daughter guiltily put her hands behind her back.

"The teacups," she said sheepishly. "They used to be my favorites."

Absently, the queen looked at the china cup. She remembered what had captured her attention.

"Yes," she said, smiling, "I remember that."

She realized that was what the letter had been about in the first place. Remembering. For herself. She looked at her little ghost and thought of Emmeline.

Her daughter smiled back at her, then turned back to the window. "Mother?"

"Yes?"

"Are you… well?"

Sparrow took a moment to answer. No use dropping into melancholy. "Very," she lied, the rheumatism tugging at her. Her scars itched. Even the Will marks, once as familiar as her own birthmarks, strained her skin like curses.

She had never been truly young, but she was older than ever now. She thought of Reaver and how he would smile, smug, to see her grown truly old at last.

Her daughter's face cleared with relief. Before she left the room, she gave her mother a light peck on the head.

"Go on," her mother said, her voice indulgent, "Go and make moony-eyes at your friend. That's what you should be doing on a night like this."

"Mother!"

Sparrow smiled and turned her eyes back down to her letter.

When she heard the door click shut, she pressed the nib of her fountain pen back down to the paper. Black ink pooled and veined through the paper fibers. She glimpsed her scars, but she did not wince. All her wincing happened long ago, when she was still young enough to be vain. Now she only looked upon the hand as her own. At least this time the aging was natural.

Slowly, carefully, as Theresa had taught her, she finished her signature:

Sparrow R.

She waited. When the ink had dried, she folded it and shut it in the back of her drawer, along with all the others.

She remembered the message that Theresa gave her, of her own crown. She remembers the darkness pressing in, as though contained by the thinnest of veils.

She put it out of her mind and instead thought of her daughter's smile. Everything will be right, she assured herself.

It was what she needed to sleep at night.