#noangstnov day 30: Snow
#steddyhands TW: Character Death
Since it's the last day of the month and the last entry for No angst November, it's a SAD one. Or maybe just bittersweet.
1/16 Edward Teach, Born on a Beach, had been granted more lives than a cat. His favorite was the life he lived with Stede and Izzy. It took a while to settle, for apologies to be said and accepted, for anger to fade in the face of love.
2/16 False starts, and steps backward and forward again, over and over until the three of them finally decided that life together was worth the work, worth all the strife they caused for each other.
3/16 Giving in granted them happiness, and if only they’d done it sooner they could have had more time.
As the years passed, the three wanted to share more and more of their pasts together. Their futures, they knew, were already shared.
4/16 They sailed to England so Izzy could show them where he grew up, the good and the bad. Stede got to see snow for the first time and the excited red of his cold cheeks was worth the cold of an English winter on the sea.
5/16 Edward brought them to Aotearoa and the grave of his mother, smiling tearfully as he introduced his mates. And Stede’s children had more fathers than maybe anyone in history before.
6/16 Izzy was continually surprised by how much he loved the kids, and Ed by how much Alma and Louis loved them back.
7/16 They had a good 15 years together before they lost Izzy. They made the trip north one last time and committed his body to the cold waters of his home. The crew gathered together respectfully as snow fell on the North Sea to say their final goodbyes to the first mate.
8/16 There were more tears on faces than Izzy would have predicted, and Stede and Edward mourned him as if a piece of their souls was lost. A puzzle with too many pieces missing. Edward in particular had a hard time adjusting to life without Izzy.
9/16 He was a partner and friend, his right hand for years before Stede and before their triad was settled. And he was now gone. For weeks he called for him, held out a hand to touch him, expected to wake up with him in his arms, taking the night watch, having a black coffee…
10/16 ...and everywhere he felt his absence.
Stede supported him through the pain, shared in it to ease the transition. Their old souls missed him, but they persisted on as a pirate does.
11/16 Stede followed seven years later, slipping away in his sleep on a quiet night. He’d said “I love you” to Edward as they drifted into sleep and just didn’t wake in the morning.
12/16 And Ed was left alone. The sea held no more beauty with Stede and Izzy gone, so he retreated to the land he gave up so many lives ago. He lived his last years quietly and slowly as Ed the Fisherman.
13/16 The nearby town never knew that he was the fabled Blackbeard, but their children knew he was good for a story about pirates more fearsome and fantastic than they could even imagine.
14/16 His crew checked in on him from time to time, and he loved when they came by to share an ale and their memories of the best time in his life.
15/16
On one of those nights, Jim and Olu, the co-captains of Queen Anne’s Revenge found him gone.
16/16
Edward Teach, born on a beach and died on a beach. His last thoughts of the men that showed him how loved and happy a person can be.
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