small_gifts | Fic: A Tragedy (in Seven Parts of a Duck Egg Quiche) for Dustmouth (Reply)

Title: A Tragedy (in Seven Parts of a Duck Egg Quiche)
Author: damascened
Recipient: dustmouth
Rating: PG
Contents or warnings (highlight to view): *character death *
Word count: 1,148 words
Summary: A recipe for a quiche in guise of a pirate AU
Notes: Thank you very much to Emma for the beta (especially at such short notice); you are truly magnificent. Other than that, I do hope you enjoy it, dustmouth, even though it probably turned up very different from what you (and I, to be honest) were expecting.

We begin with the eggs. Not small pale eggs, like you might get from a chicken; no, not these. These are duck eggs, large and delicate and speckled. Likewise, our story is equally delicate and oddly freckled with vain metaphors and strange turns of phrase. It begins on a long forgotten island, and somewhat more importantly (for now), with a foolish, yet charming, pirate.

As you may have already guessed, our young pirate friend goes by the name of Sirius Black. He has sailed the seven seas, seen armies fall and mountains rise, watched the Equatorial sun turn ghostly green like a rotten yolk before disappearing over the curve of the earth. Currently he is meandering before the drifting sea, idly considering that perhaps his crew are the only human visitors to this little, unmarked island in hundreds or thousands of years—perhaps in forever.

Which is, of course, when he feels the knife at his throat.

“You will come with me.” That is all. A man. His voice is rough, lilting. It sounds unused. It sounds scared.

But Sirius, being far too curious for his own good isn’t about to start fighting when things are getting interesting. He follows.

Next comes the salt. There are pots of it, it splays out onto the floor, gritty flakes trailing under the door. The room is perhaps the oddest he’s ever been it—it looks like it’s made from the debris from a million shipwrecks, which is probably the case. The wood is definitely from some form of boat, and inside, the astrolabe and compasses and coils of rope and books and hooks and rags and pots and jars arranged haphazardly make him think of some kind of queer menagerie.

The man himself somehow a lot like his odd—well, Sirius must suppose it’s his house. He is gangly, and unsure, and trying desperately to hide it behind his knife. He has a big nose and freckles across the bridge, like grains of sand from the beach, and his hands are ridiculously large. His are the pale yellow of egg yolk while the inside of his arms are the whites. He looks like he isn’t supposed to happen, and yet somehow he does.

He backs Sirius up against the back wall, and Sirius almost wants to laugh because he is Captain Sirius Black and he could turn that blade around and slash him in an instant, what with that grip and how painfully clear it is that he hasn’t the foggiest idea what he’s doing. But Sirius would love to find out.

“You’re trespassing on my island.”

“Your island?”

“Exactly what I said. This is my island, and unless you want me to slit your throat, you’re going to take me with you on your ship back to Tereza.”

Shipwrecked, then—he’d suspected something of the sort. He could see the silver tip trembling slightly, detected the light unevenness of his voice, and suddenly, in a room full of sea salt, he couldn’t quite bring himself to be bothered arguing.

“Oh, put the blade down. You’re bluffing. You know it. I know it. It isn’t your island, you were shipwrecked, you need a way off. Come on, put it down, I’ll take you somewhere—no promises about Tereza, though. We’re heading East. You could have just asked, you know.”

As they walk back to down to the ship the first stars dot the horizon, like grains of salt against the dusk.

III

His name is Remus. He doesn’t seem to mind where they go. Not really, Sirius remarks. He simply wanted to be free. The rest of the crew are wary, and he doesn’t blame them for it. Madmen hail from deserted islands. Madmen and sorcerers and lost men who want their freedom.

As for the man himself, he spends most of his time up in the Crow’s nest, looking up at the milky sky as it combines with watery blue. Sirius wonders what he’s thinking up there, sometimes, in the drowsy moments before he falls into sleep. Perhaps nothing at all, or maybe of pirates and shipwrecks. Perhaps he is considering the world at large or a recipe for quiche. Perhaps it is none of Sirius’s business.

He’d never thought the tales of sea-monsters real—he, the great Sirius Black. At least, not monsters like this. Not serpents with leaf-green scales and fangs as long as his arm, the body so long it’s wrapped around The Marauder twice, like gargantuan leaves of spinacia oleracea. In the moonlight, he can almost convince himself it is all a very strange dream.

He fires three bullets; he misses his mark three times. Icy water engulfs him as the beast thrashes and engulfs half the deck. Somehow, mercifully, they don’t go under. The tip of the mast cracks like a beanstalk and nearly crushes him when it falls—it’s Kingsley who’s there, pulling him up even as he’s trying to shoot at it.

A bang, and an inhuman screech. Straight in the eye. James’s doing. Blood dribbles down the serpent and the other end of the ship is submerged momentarily as it screams.

Another bang and it’s over. The heart, courtesy of Remus Lupin. It sinks without a trace. Were it not for the damage it would almost be as if nothing had happened. Sirius laughed, manically, ridiculously, because he was terrified and tomorrow he is certain they will all be convinced it is but a figment of their collective imaginations.

They run out of pepper far too soon. Remus begins to spend nearly every waking moment by Sirius’s side. These two facts are not connected in the least; it is merely coincidence and nothing more.

The city is farther than anywhere Sirius has been before; the language is verging on unfamiliar and strange islands bloom on the horizon to the east, like ink blots on paper. They are going to explore them one by one, learn their tongue and customs, perhaps even scrape a living somehow. They will travel further than the horizon if need be, onwards to places they can’t even imagine.

But Sirius has kept his word as far as Remus is concerned.

They wander around the streets until the sun goes down, and Remus tells him an odd story about wild thyme. Sirius never asks where he learnt it. They walk past a butcher’s, a cemetery, an orchard, a small child with one green eye and one blue. They walk under a pearly clouded sky and between cracks in the pavement.

“Listen, Remus. You needn’t...”

And Remus kisses him then. He never finishes that sentence—but then, did he really need to?

(VII

They drown on the third day after, under the purple sky of a storm as lightening crashes and rain swirls dizzily about them; needless to say, this is the bitter aftertaste.)