::A/N:: Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.

Thank you so much for your patience! Shit gets real in this chapter, and the actual plot, the one I've been hinting at for far too long now, is finally coming to fruition. The dialogue between characters might be confusing, but that is its nature.

Enjoy

Kirkland spins on his heel and takes the deck in deep strides, eyes roving the span of the gray sea all about him. He's harried and anxious, adding intangible figures and calculating losses I daren't think about, not now, not with land still miles away. The crew seems to mirror their first in command; fear hides behind shaking fingers and agitated activity. They apparently understand the gravity of the situation, yet I do not.

"What?! What do you mean 'his Witch'?" I gasp, keeping pace with Kirkland only at a half-jog. "Who is Carriedo? How can he sail without wind?" I glance over my shoulder once more and indeed, the looming monster is only closer. It is witchcraft; it must be, for how else could a ship fly with not a lick of breeze? The sky is dead silent, hung heavy with fog, yet this enemy approaches without fail. "Kirkland!"

He rounds on me, eyes flashing. "Does now look like a bloody righteous time to explain things?!" he shouts, startling the silence that has befallen the rigorously laboring crew. "I cannot attend to my duties with you trailing at my coattails!"

"But-!"

"Victoire," he hisses, clasping my shoulder in an iron grip. He uses my name, my real name, not an insulting derogation, not a butchered English equivalent. It freezes me in place. "Trust me and be quiet, for the love of whatever heathen God you hold dear, or so help me we will all go down with this useless scrap of wood."

I nod blindly and he steps away.

"Men!" he bellows, drawing the eyes of everybody on deck. "We are at an inopportune disadvantage. The winds do not blow and we cannot turn. I sympathize with your fear, and yet I urge you to behoove yourselves and remember your responsibilities as seafaring gentlemen! You will not fire until we are in range, you will not fire until there is a clean shot, or may you die at the hands of a smarter enemy. Your guns are only as accurate as your wits, your swords only as sharp as your minds. There will be silence until Carriedo has said his piece. Do I make myself perfectly understood?"

There is unanimous confirmation.

"Keep your arms at the ready. Carriedo does not enter my waters unless he has an agenda. He will be invited on our deck, he will bring his ship dangerously close, and when I make myself clear, he will be taken out."

I shudder, stepping as far back as I dare, pressing my body against the walls of the deck, my shoulder blades cushioned by cascading ropes. Whatever is taking place, whatever malevolence has its hand in our fate, I cannot understand it. I leave the confines of Kirkland's cabin for mere minutes, and already our lives are in danger. If this is the way of the pirate, I have no pretenses for grandeur any more. Not when they are like ravenous beasts that roam an endless forest, only meeting to slaughter and steal. I do not understand it.

And it seems I will not, for this enemy, this 'Carriedo', is less than minutes away. The lines that are strung between his masts become clearer, dark hatch marks against the slate gray fog. The men on board, all browned and fierce, thick-browed and burly, heave the ropes and steady a rusted-iron anchor. Yet as far as I can discern, as much as I understand about the art of sailing, this ship moves as if by magic, creating a wake of foaming water impossible in these still winds. It chills me to the very bone.

The enemy figurehead is indeed that of a bull. The face, whittled out of pine, is heavily sanded down, and only the barest of features are still visible. Its eyes are narrowed, the teeth were once bared in a terrible snarl, and the chips in the cheeks make the animal look emaciated. A terrible harbinger, it glides in a perfectly silent trajectory straight for Kirkland's stern, until it veers violently to the left, the bull's horns narrowly missing the Captain's cabin windows.

The men on our decks grow eerily silent, the only rhythm a dull slap of rope on wood, of line on sail. Kirkland strides through the center, eyes hard, mouth a thin line. Do his men already know this drill? Have they lived through this before? Does a pirate captain often attack another?

Clearly, I fear. The faces of this enemy hull brush dangerously near; edge into what is painfully evident to be too-close, too brazen a distance. What fool plays his hand so recklessly? He could sink us both. Yet, this Spanish ship, (its name, El Toro Canta, betrays its nationality), has no sense of self-preservation. They have come with purpose, and only Kirkland seems to know what it might be.

Now that the enemy is close enough to read his lips, they are upturned in a half-smirk. His shoulders are stiff, but his knees bend, a sailor's knees, and it gives the would-be impression of relaxation. I press myself further back, further in the shadows, my own legs shaking, legs that scratch against barrels of rum in their scramble for safety.

As quickly as it caught up to us, the ship suddenly stops. The crew does not throw down the anchor, and they do not need to, for this ghost vessel is frozen, like a giant hand holds it still. Their deck is no taller than ours, and I peer over the gunnel for a clearer view. The men on board are more frightening up close, mouths in a snarling line. Swords gleam at their belts and pistols in their pockets, and I am suddenly struck by how overwhelmingly under-armed I really am. Should they come aboard, should a fight break out now, there is nothing that stands between me and one of these thieves but a barrel of rum.

"Carriedo!" Kirkland bellows, striding forward to lean over the edge of our ship. "Where the bloody hell are you?"

At the sound of easy footsteps, my line of vision snaps upward. Walking down the stairs from the wheel of the adjacent ship is none other than perhaps the most light-hearted looking man I have ever seen. His hair is long and utterly wild, tied back loosely into a ponytail and tucked into the collar of his carmine coat. His skin is as dark as the earth, but his eyes, his eyes are as bright as the sun, if the sun shone a hummingbird green. He smiles, a remarkable feat it seems for a pirate of the seven seas, and takes his deck in familiar strides. "I was manning my own ship," he laughs, "something you really must brush up on, friend."

Kirkland seems perfectly unaffected by Carriedo's butter-voice. "As though you can claim anything of the sort when your personal whore does all the work for you. He even sews your wind."

I raise my eyebrow. The smile doesn't leave Carriedo's face. "Say what you will, Kirkland, your tongue has gotten you shot at more than once before."

"As has yours."

Carriedo shrugs, and a breeze I do not feel runs through his hair. "You might want to actually allow a parlay to take place tonight, Brit, before you insult your way into the Locker. I believe I have something you will take interest in."

Kirkland snaps his fingers, and two members of our crew rush forward, a gangplank between them. "Come aboard, then, and let us parlay," he purrs, superfluously removing his feathered hat and sweeping it into a mocking bow.

Turning back briefly to his men, Carriedo mutters something, a garbled something, before nodding assent. "I suppose etiquette allows me that this is an honor."

"Won't your whore accompany you?" Kirkland asks, with virtual disinterest, but the manic spark in his eyes alludes to something deeper, more personal. The rivalry between the two men is so solid it could serve as its own gangplank.

"So you can shoot him again?" Carrideo counters, a vein jumping at his temple.

"Oh shut the fuck up."

Carriedo turns as if he's been stung, and I follow his line of sight to another man, a new man, crossing El Toro's deck, a second, confident, easy, character who eyes us as though we are nothing, who eyes Kirkland as though he is less.

"Lovino," the Spanish Captain hisses, and for the first time he loses his façade. There is fear there now, palpable and ominous.

"For Godssake," Kirkland laughs, tickled by this display the likes of which I have never seen before between two men. All eyes follow this lean red amber frame – for this coarse-spoken sailor with the flyaway curl is all reds and browns and subtle golds – but Carriedo's do so in a way that reveals too much devotion. "Hasn't your Witch earned his place yet? Has your scar faded yet, Sorcerer?"

My stomach flip-flops. This is the spell-caster? This is the controller of the seas and of the winds? He is so brazen, so uninterestedly available that I feel as though we are foolish prey. For why else does the hunter reveal himself if not in recognition of an easy slaughter?

"No," Lovino says shortly, crossing the gangplank in front of his captain. "Has yours?"

Kirkland growls. "Hardly."

"Like mine, it never will." Lovino's face is impassive, but Kirkland is bristling, and I wonder how this can be about broken skin, about ugly marring.

Carriedo finally drops onto our deck as well, his expression much stonier than it was earlier, his posture much less at ease. "Are you prepared to listen to me? Because your alternative is significantly bloodier than your barbed words."

"I know why you have come," Kirkland replies, flippantly donning his hat. "It is about Francis."

My blood runs cold. Francis? Papa? Is it the same man? Does Carriedo know him as well?

Nodding assent, the Spaniard waves his hand airily into the fog. "We both know what he has… recently set out to acquire."

"We do."

"And he has found it, in case you were unawares."

Kirkland growls, "No, I was quite under the impression that the whole world knew."

"As it may be, I have… interests concerning the nature of his document." Lovino shifts beside him, a twitch in his brow. "And I know you have interests concerning the nature of your … grudge."

Kirkland's expression is sardonic, and his foots taps an impatient tune. "How clever you must think you are."

Lovino opens his mouth, but a hand from his captain seals his lips shut again. "I want what he has, and you want him not to have it anymore. I see potential to coordinate our desires."

"You would," Kirkland snorts, and for the first time, he relaxes. "You do realize you play a dangerous game, Carriedo. You tend to lose allies with an ace up both sleeves."

"I have the most powerful ally on the sea."

"I suppose. Unless I shoot him again." When Carriedo takes a menacing step forward to cover the Witch with his own body, Arthur only laughs. "You think I am so foolish as to trust you? You have every desire to end me, as I have every desire to make amends to those I have lost. Yet neither is possible. It shall be a cold day in hell when I allow you on the same ship as me, Carriedo."

"You're awfully confident for a poor man."

"You would be in my shoes."

"Is the negro girl your lucky hand?" Carriedo asks, grin dancing around his mouth again. "Thought that was a big secret?"

I have never been so afraid, quite so exposed as I feel being discussed on the tongue of this man who has bewitched a magician, of this man who can sail without wind. Whatever it was I believed about my purpose here before, it has been expounded now, shattered and built greater. These men are the kings of the sea, and the knowledge that I am of any consequence to them is terrifying indeed.

The roses of Kirkland's pale face are now bleached in fear. Whatever my role to play on this ship, it was to be one hidden, one that Kirkland could play at any given moment. Now this man Carriedo has usurped us – yes us, for even unwilling I have been bid to participate-, and I do not know of whom I am more afraid.

"You cannot possibly think that with her, I would ally myself with you," Kirkland argues, knuckles clenching. His men have sensed his unease, all of our hearts have been touched by this understanding, and I wonder when the tables turned.

Carriedo shrugs, stepping backwards towards his own ship, dancing eyes flicking from face to English face. "I thought it was more polite to give you a chance. Lovino almost didn't let me, you know. Though I dearly hoped you would refuse me, friend. And now you have."

"What gain is it to you?" Kirkland challenges, following him across the deck, stride for stride. "You will take the girl? Use my spoils as a stolen bargaining chip?"

"Hardly," Antonio grins, halting his retreat to meet Kirkland head on. "I will kill her, and I will kill you, and I will be so terribly heartbroken to have to bring the news to my dearest friend that his daughter has been slaughtered at the hand of his greatest enemy, but that I took just retribution for it."

Kirkland sneers, inches away from Carriedo's face. "And you expect him to just give his spoils to you? To believe your story?"

"Well, what use will that document be to him if his only reason for living is gone? You should understand that well enough, Arthur."

Kirkland reacts so fast, we hardly see it happen. One minute his face is that of a broken man, reminiscent to the moments after he wakes from his night terrors, and then the next, the knife at his waist is in Carriedo's side. Lovino is yelling, the crews of both ships are scrambling, Carriedo is hitting the deck, and Kirkland is whipping out his pistol, eyes on fire and head aloft. He leaves Carriedo bleeding out on his knees to steady the men and position what firepower I know he must own.

Wrenching the hilt of the blade from between his own ribs, Antonio yells, "Lovino, go."

A spasm of indecision flashes across Lovino's face. He has one foot on the ship's rails, the other on the deck, and he looks desperately like he wants to forget everything, whatever plan they had set, and pull his captain to safety.

Carriedo seems to sense this, and with an agonizing effort, he heaves himself to his feet, and bellows once more, "GO!"

Once the Spaniard takes his first stumbling steps across the gangplank, when one of the other crew members rushes to his aid, only then does Lovino push himself up onto the railing… and out into the black ocean.

Chaos has descended upon both ships. The Englishmen are firing, though in all the smoke and fog, it is impossible to tell how accurate they are. Either way, it creates panicked confusion, and I duck as low as I dare behind the rum barrels, terrified by the idea that I have no weapon with which to protect myself, that as a female prisoner I mean next to nothing, that I may never see my beloved island again, and that I may never be given the chance to wrap my arms around Francis and thank him for all he has ever done for me.

The first cataclysmic explosion rips through the air, and I can't tell who fired and who's been hit. The sound of splintering wood and screaming men deafen my ears to everything. Members of El Toro have come aboard Kirkland's vessel. Swords are flashing; guns are thrown to the side, and even caught in my corner I know blood is being spilled, is staining the wooden deck a sickly brown that will never wash away.

The floor beneath my feet shakes, and the entire ship is thrown to the side. We've been hit, I cannot bear to think about it, not as I am thrown from my hiding place and left in the open. The rum barrels bounce past me and smash free against the masts and the gunnel, releasing amber alcohol that burns the wounds of the fallen.

Scrambling up from my hands and knees, I rip an abandoned sword out of the chest of one of these corpses (one of ours, I recognize him as the ginger drunkard who pushed me into the sea) and assess just what is taking place.

Skirmishes have erupted all across our deck, men are fighting, yielding, dying. Kirkland is nowhere to be seen, not in this anarchy.

A third crack breaks the silence. At first, at first I assume it to be another cannon ball, another crippling blow dealt to the side of our hull. But then, by some divinely cruel entity, I realize that the sky has darkened, that the fog has been replaced by clouds as thick as burlap. Lightning and thunder make such a bright crescendo. Everything is surreal, each howling man lit up for the briefest of seconds before everything fades again. The wind whips through our sails, yet it comes from all directions. The sea boils, waves suddenly springing from nothing, and they crash mercilessly, endlessly into bow and stern. Water floods across the floor, dislodging my feet, and I slip, hands landing in a puddle of diluted blood. My stomach curdles.

I am blind by the will of the water, I submit to the scalding lash of the wind. I hear panicked yelling that this is the work of the Witch. That we will never again see the sun, not as long as his lover bleeds to death in their marriage bed.

There is a terrible, earth-shattering groaning over the drums of thunder, and in front of my very eyes, under my trembling hands, the entire ship splits in two, trenches that drop straight into the sea radiate from the center mast. I am screaming, I must be, and when everything falls away, when I tumble desperately into the mouth of the beast, into the vengeful stomach of a man losing what he loves, my last thought is of Francis, is of Arthur.

When I hit the water there is nothing but crushing silence, and for that I am thankful.

El Toro Canta (Spanish) - The Bull Sings

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