The Pirate Queen

Chapter 36

For the last leg of their trip home, Ariel's days were filled with navigation, war preparations, and rationing. She helped mend the sails, sharpened the swords, and practiced with the men to keep their skill sharp. She enjoyed spending her time with them, bonding, and keeping up the pretense that despite all the shit that had happened since the Pirate King's island, she was still just their Captain.

Her nights though, her nights were filled with Eric. Eric reading to her in bed, Eric playing the guitar as he promised, Eric teaching her about the stars. There was Eric kissing her like his sole survival depended on it. Like all she was to him was Ariel. Not Captain, not King, not Princess, just Ariel. Just herself. He didn't stay every night, intent on his duties to help Jora in the kitchen for breakfast, but the nights he joined her in bed were the nights she slept the deepest. 

They only made one stop at the supply island, stocking up on everything they needed to finish the trip and unloading the empty crates taking up room. Eric and Seb stayed on board while Ariel, Flounder, and Jora went to shore and they were gone before the sun had set. 

It was a week before they were set to arrive in Farnce that the worry and anxiety Ariel had been pushing off finally began to creep back in. The little wooden box on her bookshelf was a beacon of stress constantly drawing her gaze, something always at the back of her mind. She'd take out the rattle at odd times of the day and night, rolling the perfect golden head in her palm, tracing her name. 

A princess. She was a princess sailing home. But what even was home? Every house she'd ever lived in was either destroyed or covered in too much dust to be livable. The Dauntless was the only place she'd ever truly known, but could a ship be a home if it never stayed in one place? 

"Ariel? What are you thinking?" Eric asked gently. He was sitting on the couch cleaning some of her pistols, a task he'd taken up without her having even asked. 

She shrugged, replacing the rattle and staring at the crown. Even in the low light, the aquamarines shined. "What is a home, Eric?" 

A pistol was placed on the table, the only sound Eric made. "What do you mean?" he asked after a few seconds. 

She forced her gaze away from the box to him sitting calmly on the couch. How are you always so calm? How can I ever be like that? "Am I going home, or am I just going somewhere else? These people are strangers to me, but they're my parents. How- What do I do with that? Is my bedroom mine or just another room in their castle?" 

Eric stood slowly, a concerned look on his face. In all their time sailing, she'd never brought these thoughts to light. Never even hinted at it. Eric, in respect to her privacy, had never prodded about it either. This was coming out of nowhere. 

"It is whatever you want it to be. Whatever you want to make it. You don't need to define it. You don't need to limit it to a single meaning." 

An unwanted tear rolled down her cheek and she hastily brushed it away. How could she tell him about the dreams she had late at night since she was a little girl where she thought she heard a woman's voice singing to her? That she could faintly remember a wall splashed with colors that looked like the sea? That there was some deep part of her that remembered that love and wanted it back, but she didn't know how to let it in?

"Where is home?" She whispered again, looking back to the tiara. 

He approached and reached behind her head, closing the box and forcing her to look at him. "Your home is inside you, Ariel." Eric tapped two fingers to her chest, right over her heart. "It is where you let in the light, and the happiness, and the love. Where you are not alone. Some people will never find it. Some will find it everywhere."