Fourth, final and oh-so-very-late fic of Wicked Wednesdays;and this one is a staple classic mash-up of mine: Edgar Allan Poe (specifically The Masque of the Red Death) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (by way of Pirates of the Caribbean, which takes a lot of inspiration from Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner). There's also a little bit of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid, too, in addition to some very teeny-tiny influences from Peter Pan, The Last Unicorn and The Princess and the Frog.

This story, though the idea has been in the works for longer than a year, has ended up very different from the original conception. It was initially a multi-chapter swashbuckler more in the adventure/romance genre and had loads of characters; but I got to thinking that some of the ideas in the fic (which we will come to) were potentially a little bit horrifying (in some ways, it is the "other side" of a ghost story...?) and so here we are:

A USUK-only one-shot much more in the horror/tragedy genre. I couldn't really say which way of approaching it was better since the original multi-chapter swashbuckler would have ended up being a very different kind of story. I hope you will all enjoy this truncated version nonetheless! :3

Albatross

A storm always brought the beasts to the surface. With the Prospero tilting dangerously forward, her bow submerged and her battered masts creaking, Captain Kirkland didn't have much time to waste until the thing broke his ship's back and dragged her to her death.

Alfred, then, was his main concern; and always was, he was all the kraken wanted. Merfolk were rare delicacies to these monsters. The rain lashed bitterly and seawater swept over the bending deck as he wrestled the merman from being curled tightly around the mast.

"Let me go in the water!" Alfred begged breathlessly, writhing wetly in his arms. "I can outswim it!"

"No you can't," Arthur replied icily, fighting to keep his grip on him. "I cannot protect you, besides, unless you are on board this ship." He stood, hauling Alfred with him. "Come, I shall... lock you in the brig...!"

But Alfred writhed, terrified, and the ship buckled and Arthur suddenly lost his grip on him; Alfred fell back to the swollen deck with a heavy thud and started to slither away, his hands flailing against the wet wood as he made for the side of the ship. At the bow, the crew were hauling forth their cannons and keeping sliding grasps on them as they fired point-blank at the monstrous kraken pulling the ship down into the depths of the ocean, the gargantuan tentacles wrapping around the Prospero's body and breaking it like a wooden toy. At this rate, the Prospero would surely sink and they would all be in the water.

With a piercing whistle over the howling wind, Arthur caught the attention of one of his officers.

"Cut the mast!" he ordered, pointing to the foremost beam; gravity, he hoped, would bring it down on the beast, crushing it.

The officer - who, as always, was silent - gave a salute and clattered obediently with three others and a loaded cannon in tow. The rest of the crew were barely making a dent in the massive kraken, which had already made short work of quite a few of them, leaving their old bones scattered in the frothing water beneath.

Arthur scrambled after Alfred, seizing him at the Prospero's heaving side; the young merman was quite mad with fear, thrashing in panic. Arthur held him tightly by his drenched shirt, having no hope of grasping his slithering tail.

"Alfred, calm yourself," he hissed, taking the creature's face. "I will not let it harm you!"

Alfred gave a whine, his pointed ears flicking in distress. The kraken, breaking through the defence line of long-dead sailors and soaked cannons, hoisted a gargantuan tentacle up the deck, grasping madly for them; it scraped on the wood, sharply-encrusted with barnacles like a jewelled shell. Dragging Alfred behind him - that he might act as his shield - Arthur drew his cutlass and swung it down, all of his body behind the blow so that the blade seared through the limb with little resistance. The kraken drew back the severed tentacle with an unearthly screech, black blood flurrying over the deck in it wake.

"Come, come!" Arthur, his sword still drawn, bent to seize Alfred around the waist, dragging him up as much as he could with one arm. "You will be safe in the brig!"

He started up against the tilt of the deck, Alfred's dead weight pulling on him; and this, it seemed, the kraken was not ignorant to, for its grasp on the Prospero's bow grew more severe and it pulled, upending gravity and sending everyone off their feet. The bow broke beneath the creature's vast weight, the ship shuddering violently, and half of the cannons and crew went into the sea. Arthur slid down the deck, finding little foothold on the wet wood, and he lost his grasp on Alfred, who hit the water first. With a flip and twist of silver scale he was gone, darting down through the fissure in the bow and out into the sea. The kraken went wildly after him, tentacles flailing in all directions, this one hitting the sails and tearing them from their moorings, this one smashing against the half-severed mast and snapping it. It fell to its purpose, bludgeoning the kraken on the shoulder and pinning two tentacles to the ship, but it had not burst open the creature's head as Arthur had been hoping.

Arthur grabbed one of the snapped ropes in his descent, stopping himself before he went into the water; he put his sword between his teeth and used both hands to drag himself up onto the pillar of wood, crouching there for a moment to get his breath back. Standing then, taking his cutlass back into his hand and pushing back his hat, he glanced wildly about in the furious waters for a glimpse of silver tail, though he saw none. It was possible that Alfred had dived deep to escape; and Arthur's heart raced in terror at the thought at having, ah, misplaced him.

The kraken, of course, was still very much an issue, heaving at the mast in an attempt to free itself and go after its rare prey; keeping his balance as his foothold rolled and shuddered (the Prospero's stern clear out of the water by now, her spine cracking under the waterlogged weight), Arthur held out his sword, the honed point mere inches from the creature's massive black, gleaming eye.

"You," he said, more for self-satisfaction than anything (since there was no-one to listen), "get off my bloody ship this instant."

The kraken gave a sudden tilt, seeming to go very still; and Arthur paused uncertainly, calculating whether or not it was a good idea to perhaps back up (given how very close he was). Suddenly a tentacle came aloft, bursting out of the water, and in its thick grasp was Alfred, his tail twisting, one arm trapped so that he had but one free with which to claw futilely at his captive.

"Stupid boy," Arthur muttered; and though he was relieved to see him pulled from the ocean's most murky depths, relief would not remain much longer if he allowed the beast to eat what was rightfully his and so he neatly plunged his cutlass into the glassy eye before him.

The beast reared with an ungodly screech, louder still than the roll of thunder, and Arthur was sluiced down with a spectacular spurt of bloodied black fluid from the blinding. He wiped his face, scrambling back as the thing twisted and heaved in agony; and the great arm holding Alfred came slamming back down to the deck. The merman, though dazed, attempted to squirm free, scrabbling madly at the wettened wood. Arthur hopped off the mast and slid to him, wrapping his arms around him and hauling. It was to little avail, however, for the kraken held fast amidst its agonised shuddering. Alfred grabbed desperately at him, his hands twisting wildly into Arthur's red coat.

"Don't let it eat me!" he wailed, scrabbling hard enough at Arthur's neck to draw blood.

"Heh." Amidst this most dire situation, Arthur still had it in him to grin. "As if I would ever allow a single hair on your head to be harmed."

He drew back his cutlass and plunged it into the tentacle wrapped around Alfred's writhing form, sawing away with the intent to hack right through it; and the kraken gave a sudden lurch forward, giant maw breaking violently over the Prospero's shattered bow. It hauled back with its arm and they went, Arthur, Alfred and cutlass besides, tumbling and sliding into the beast's massive mouth. There was no respite: it went dark and Alfred scrambled for a hold on Arthur as they were neatly swallowed and slid a short way into the beast's belly.

"Well, bollocks," Arthur huffed, prying Alfred off. There wasn't much room to spare between the heaving slimy walls, especially not with the merman wrapped grim death around him. "That could have gone better. Where's my sword, Alfred?"

"I know not!" Alfred sounded very cross. "If you had let me swim away to begin with, we would not be in this fine mess!"

"Give over, brat. Honestly, you've no adventure about you." Arthur grunted and felt about in the dark for his sword; all his fingers came to meet with were slithering innards, old bones and the tense coil of Alfred's tail. "Ha - I do believe I have mislaid it."

In the manner of merfolk, Alfred could be wild-tempered at times and this was no exception.

"How like you to make a joke of this!" he said angrily from somewhere near Arthur's chest - indeed, it was too dark to see him. "After you promised you would not allow it to eat me - yet here we are both with no way out!"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Arthur replied boredly. "Not least if the beast is foolish enough to swallow me whole and still living."

Alfred gave a sulky groan and buried his face in Arthur's chest.

"I suppose we'll have to wait it out, then," he said gloomily.

"I shouldn't have thought it will be long." Arthur stretched as much as he might - which wasn't far, though he made sure to scrape his bootsoles against the kraken's stomach lining as he was forced to fold his legs again. "Cheer up, Alfred - this is a break from our usual routine."

Alfred gave a disgusted groan.

"Is our way of life so dull to you," he muttered, "that you find adventure in being devoured?"

"Huh." Arthur closed his eyes. "I do wonder."

The beast gave a heave, then, and shuddered mightily; the cracking of the Prospero thundered through its body and it seemed to lurch in the waters before a shot of storm-blackened night suddenly appeared. The Prospero had fallen forward and lanced right through the beast, her battered stern out of the water as the point tore the bleeding creature in half. Alfred unfurled at once and seized Arthur by the wrist, bringing them both slithering through the tear and into the churning waters; Arthur holding his breath as they arched underneath the ship's bent bow and resurfaced a few feet away to watch the kraken's demise.

In the manner of all living creatures which had the misfortune to come into contact with Arthur Kirkland, the monstrous kraken was bleeding from the eyes and mouth, from the skin in great gobules, and this alone had allowed the Prospero to cut her assailant in half. The beast, if it was even still living, clearly had the strength to swim no more and it folded beneath the churning waters, its massive clinging limbs taking the Prospero down with it with an almighty groaning and swell of canvas and flailing wood. All that remained withal was a massive cloud of black blood spreading like oil on the fierce waters.

"Poor old Prospero," Arthur mused calmly as Alfred swam him to a chunk of bobbing mast. "She does go through the mill."

Alfred looked at him with some impatience.

"How long until sunrise?" he asked, flopping over the wood himself.

"Ah." Arthur fished one-handed underwater in his coat, taking out his pocket watch. "About three hours."

Alfred snorted.

"I shall locate your sword." He glanced at Arthur's plastered-down hair. "And your hat."

"That would be most kind. As usual, don't fret about the crew. I'm sure they'll wash ashore eventually."

Alfred gave a nod and dived, silver fin flashing out of the water like a flake of foam on the overturning waves. Arthur sighed and folded his arms over the mast, shivering a bit. These were warm Caribbean waters, it was true, but this wasn't the most pleasant night to spend in the sea.

Still, it was a bit of a change of pace and that was welcome enough.

Merfolk were as old as the oceans themselves, immortal and rare and very beautiful to human eyes. Alfred was no exception; for a merman, he was young, perhaps just over two hundred years old, and he had hair like the sun and eyes as blue as the deepest of jewelled Caribbean seas. He had, of course, a long tail of bright silver scales with a froth of blue fin at the end and two smaller ones, this same electric shade, at his hips. The scales on his belly were paler, pearlescent and pinkish, and he had webbed fingers and pointed ears and sharp teeth. For all his wild moods, it had to be said of him that there was no loyaler creature the world over.

He was Arthur's most prized possession; and, indeed, he was truly Arthur's possession, for Arthur had long ago sold his soul in exchange for complete ownershop of a merbeing. This was a steep price, even for a man so foolish as to strike a deal with fairies, and condemned Arthur to Hell on the event of his death, it was true - not that his death was ever weighted too terribly upon his mind. In owning a merman, Arthur too was rendered immortal, wearing the gemstone heart of his prize on a chain around his neck and beneath his clothing for safekeeping. Together they had ruled these waters for well over a century aboard the long-suffering Prospero, Alfred a satisfying partner in all manners of worthkeeping.

After all, he was the only creature who, immune to the fatal sickness, did not fall dead at Arthur's feet with blood running out of his every last pore. Arthur had been called the "Red Death" long before the name became imbued upon the illness he bore; but all these years later, his reputation had faded and only the the disease preceded him. His immortality, naturally, prevented him from dying but all living creatures who came into his presence were soon avictimed to his bloody plague. His crew, once a ragtag band of pirate scoundrels out of London and Bristol and Liverpool, were naught but animated bones to work his orders; and his beloved Prospero too was decimated but undying.

The years had not been kind in the end.

"I think we will go ashore tonight," Arthur said. "The storms may have brought the beasts in this direction."

Alfred nodded, his blue eyes fixed on the sight of the sea vomiting the Prospero back up; her broken back splintered back together, her sails rose and unfurled, her masts straightened. As the sun fell upon her, so time and all damage to her became undone, much in the manner of merfolk and all that they bewitched. Time had no hold on them.

In terms of merfolk, Alfred was a baby, which offered sastisfactory explanation for his wide-eyed wonder at even those things which he engineered. Arthur, by contrast, was an old man in an ageless body and he was sick of everything, even the spectacular sight of time sliding off a sunken ship as she proudly rose herself to the surface world once more. As she made her final adjustments, a great many of the skeleton crew bobbed up from the gold depths of dawn-blushed tropical waters and began to crawl and clamber up her sides to return to their posts.

With no mast to cling to, Arthur had his arms around Alfred's shoulders. He leaned back to look up at the sky, clear and scarlet-touched with ribbons of pink and gold. The sea was so very calm now, of course.

"Must we go ashore?" Alfred asked at length.

"I think it best." Arthur pushed back his hat a little to look at him. "I shall carry you."

Alfred gave a snort and looked away.

"You think it best," he drawled, his blue eyes very bright. "And yet you have such very poor judgement."

Leaving the Prospero moored alone at the rotting dockside, they made their way by moonlight through the thick overgrowth, Arthur ahead with his sword drawn to cut aside their path. Alfred's feet bled as he picked his obedient way behind him; he was light of foot on land but every step was agony to him. In human form he was still unearthly, resembling the fae to which Arthur had sold his soul, much their kin in many ways.

This had once been a small, thriving dockside town right in the heart of the Caribbean trading route, British-run and buzzing. It had had warm air spiced with the sweetness of stolen sugar and hoarded rum, dashed through with the deadly uncurrent of gunpowder, the telltale perfume of pirates and privateers and their pursuers. The Prospero, back then, had not been alone by night; and, while the crew revelled in one night's freedom, Arthur and Alfred had often spent the night in one of the taverns, taking one of the rooms. It had been boisterous, a raucous and dangerous way of life, but it had been theirs and they had enjoyed it.

Arthur hacked away the last of the vines and stood back, beckoning Alfred through. Alfred skipped ahead through the gap and into the empty town square, stretching out his arms. There was no sound to be heard at all but the faint rushing of the sea. The town, long since abandoned, was in disrepair, with roofs fallen inwards and windows blacked out and broken in. The mermaid statue once in the middle of the square was headless and Alfred hopped up onto her plinth to sadly run his fingertipes over her severed neck. The stone was very weathered.

Arthur slid his sword away and folded his arms, closing his eyes for a moment; and, behind them, he saw the township as it had been years before, abuzz with activity, illegal and otherwise. He would stride to the tavern, perhaps The King's Head or The Black Lion, and seep comfortably into the shadowy world therein, greeted by men whose throats he might later cut. Alfred would glow on his arm like a prize and all would know, of course, what he was. The rumours far preceded the Red Death, after all; that he had sold his soul to the Devil for immortality. It was a rumour, of couse, and not exactly right - but he would bask in the attention in passing through before heading to one of the back rooms for privacy (and so, also, that everyone else might not drop dead). It had been a lonely existence even back then, he supposed, but there had been that delightful background noise, the feeling that nonetheless they were not alone in this mad, dirty world.

Now they had nothing.

Of course, one had to keep up certain appearances: Captain Arthur Kirkland still looked every inch the part. His sword, curved and jewelled and Arabic, was cared for to perfection; and though he carried a pistol, he rarely used it, thinking it ungainly and a hassle. Certainly he was traditional in these manners, for he wore an eyepatch on board the ship for ease of loading the cannons in the dark and had one ear pierced, a tiny gold skull with ruby eyes flashing in it. His hat, a ribboned velvet tricorner, was in black with gold lacing and thick plumes of feathers trailing over one shoulder and the glint and gleam of stringed jewels and glass beads and glossed wooden pebbles. His coat, in bloodiest scarlet, was in the buccaneer style with gold buttons and fringing on the epaulettes, so long that it trailed after him on the ground and gave its hem a ragged edge. His clothes, indeed, were of a fashion no longer followed - a frothed cravat secured with a gem, a sash about his waist, breeches and high buckled boots, this was almost a costume by now. He was the sole survivor of a world now confined to history books; a ghost encased in flesh and blood and bone.

Arthur opened his eyes and exhaled through his nose. The air was cold and smelt of nothing but the woody tropics of the overgrowth. There had not been life here for a great many decades.

"Come, Alfred," he called; and he strode briskly towards The King's Head. "Let's get inside for the night."

Alfred followed obediently, though he was beginning to stumble, his nimble-footedness failing him. He left a weaving line of bloody footprints across the square and all but fell into Arthur's waiting arms, struggling a little as he was lifted.

"I can walk myself!" he insisted.

"Still, perhaps you would rest them," Arthur replied, carrying him to the old inn and booting the door open. It swung back with a loud creak, dust clouding in the blackness, broken cobwebs fraying in the wind. They had not been back here in a few years and the place had that musty, unlived-in smell.

Arthur kicked the door shut behind them and put Alfred down, feeling him sink to the floorboards. Searching in his pocket, he lit a match to cast a small circle of light over the inn, taking it to the first of the candle bracket lamps at the wall (though there was only a small stump of wax and wick left). The little flame gleamed through the grime as he lit a few more, slipping a gossamer veil of light over the room.

It was clear that they had not been the last people in the room, for it was not in the state they had last left it; several of the old worm-eaten tables were overturned and there were footprints in the thick layers of dust.

"They have been hunting you again," Alfred sighed from the floor.

"So I see," Arthur replied wearily, taking off his hat and tossing it onto one of the tables. "Well, I suppose it's a bit of sport for them, these modern men - searching for the spectre of the Red Death." He grinned humourlessly. "I cannot deny that this is my haunt."

"I do wonder what they would do were they to come across you at long last," Alfred said as Arthur came back to him and helped him up, half-carrying him to the moth-eaten fainting couch, pilfered by some long-dead pirate from a grand house. It was balding in places, the stuffing bleeding out, and of course it sent up a cloud of dust when Alfred's weight settled on it - but he seemed grateful, flopping along the length of it. He looked up at Arthur expectantly. "Well?"

Arthur snorted, kneeling at the couch's side to take up the end of his coat and wipe Alfred's bloodied feet clean.

"Drop their implements and flee in terror, I suspect," he said crisply. "What does one do when one encounters a ghost?"

"But you are not a ghost."

"Aren't I?" Arthur asked absently. "I would beg to differ."

"Not I," Alfred said smugly. "I think you are more of a relic."

"How kind."

Alfred sobered at this, sitting up and leaning close to Arthur.

"Am I such a millstone?" he asked crossly; there was a curious, angry flare in his blue eyes.

"Of course not." Arthur's tone was gracious. "I could not consider any treasure that I traded my very soul for to be any sort of burden."

Alfred leaned back again haughtily, pulling his raw feet away.

"I grow less convinced of that every day." He glanced away. "Of course, it is natural for humans to tire of living. That is why they die."

Arthur snorted.

"In terms of your kind, you are in your infancy," he said dismissively, "so I shan't listen to you wax poetic about things that you don't understand."

"Regardless," Alfred countered calmly, looking at him, "I am right. You are tired, Arthur. You regret."

Although Alfred was beautiful even in his clumsy human form, he did not hold Arthur's interest as he once had. Arthur loved him, naturally, but in the manner of an old marriage; fondness remained, indeed, but passion and desire did not. This was the way of humans, of course, and Arthur accepted that even Alfred's ageless glory was no longer the novelty it had once been. It had been over a century, after all.

He and Alfred were prisoners both to the timelessness which befell merfolk and their lovers. On further shores, human life had long since moved on from swashbuckling and sugar heists - the seas, he had heard, were no longer the fastest mode of transport. They had great steam-powered machines called trains which ran between cities, or so he had read, and things called photographs. Fashion had changed, of course, and so had literature and popular music; but alas, this was an advanced world denied to them. Arthur's immortality, that which he had coveted enough at the height of his power and youth to trade his soul for, was confined to a single time plane which he could not emerge from. Thus, his faithful crew had become bones, his ship a floating wreck and his only living companion a merman who felt no sorrow at being left behind.

In the tarnished row of mirrors behind the bar, the old world they had once been part of occupied a ghost realm beyond the glass. There was no sound but, between the patches of speckled blackness, barmaids in low-cut shirts moved between crowds of seamen in their feathers and bright stolen coats. Ale sloshed and cards were dealt and swords were drawn and punches were thrown. He ached to step through, even for a single moment before the Red Death began to cut them all down, but when he put his had to the glass it did not give way. The world beyond did not flutter at his attempt to enter and he remained steadfastly on the wrong side.

Alfred was asleep on the fainting couch under Arthur's coat. Arthur sat at the groaning bar and rested his chin on his hands, watching their old world pass by without them. He had never considered that immortality would be like this.

Reaching under his half-unbuttoned shirt, he pulled out Alfred's heart on its chain and slipped it off over his head, watching it swing and glitter in the flickering light. It was bright blue like the ocean-shade of his eyes and Arthur's protection against the bargain he had made not with the Devil, as the rumours told, but with fairies.

He set it down on the bar and at once the ghost world beyond the mirrors vanished. A sudden rush of cold air seemed to sweep through the decimated room and Arthur's back straightened with a shiver as the low flames of the candles flickered violently to cast up sudden ugly and twisted shadows around the walls. Given life, these began to seethe on their own, bubbling into the grotesque shapes of all manner of monsters, three-headed serpents and tall clawed specimens and great beasts with four legs and bent backs. They writhed within the confines of the walls, stayed as Arthur took up the blue jewel again and held it fast within his palm. His heart thudded, panic rising at their nearness.

"I... I would speak with you," he said, forcing firmness into his voice.

There was silence for a long moment; and in its duress, Arthur watched from the corner of his eye the twisting creatures all vying for that step closer, for the opportunity to be the first to seize him and drag him into the black realm he had promised himself to.

Then there was a rustling and, across the dusty room, Alfred sat up. His eyes were wide open and blank and the thick coil of his tail was visible beneath Arthur's scarlet coat.

"The merchild, our kin, is correct," Alfred said dully, looking at Arthur; he was not awake, naturally, his body being used by the fae to communicate with Arthur. They never showed themselves if they could help it. "You are, at last, tired of living - the condition of humans."

Arthur turned on the creaking bar stool, crossing one leg over the other. Alfred's heart was still clutched tightly in his fist.

"I am tired," he said wearily, "of this life. We spend months at sea with nothing to do and nowhere to go, with "excitement" injected only by the scarce appearance of a kraken or some such monster." He coughed out an angry sigh. "...I fear I shall go mad."

"It is not our fault," Alfred relayed, "if you were ignorant of the repercussions of this sort of immortality. Humans are predisposed to tire of living. You ought to have considered that at your tender age."

"Such considerations are rare in men as young as I was," Arthur answered bitterly. "Especially those afflicted with the Red Death. I was but twenty-three years old. Of course I did not want to die."

"But now you do."

Arthur looked up at the ceiling.

"What else is for me?" he sighed. "The human world leaves us further behind every day - and even if I were allowed to walk amongst them, I should be nothing but the incubator of the Red Death anyway. It has, as I understand, been wiped out. I am the sole carrier of the sickness."

Alfred leaned forward on the couch.

"Then you wish to turn over your soul and be eased of your torment?" he asked. "If this is so, give the merchild back his heart and we shall hence with your soul to our realm."

Here, Arthur looked again at the shuddering monsters curling about each other at the walls. They were horrifying, the mere sight of them enough to make his skin prickle with fear, his blood freeze still in his veins - but he knew, in his desperation, no other option. Even krakens attacking his ship brought him no thrill any longer. There was no danger in it; his ship would not sink and he would not die. He was, indeed, in a purgatory designed by his own adventure.

"Very well," he said briskly, stepping up before he could change his mind; and he crossed to Alfred, pulling open the chain about his fingers to put it over the merman's head. Here he leaned in, kissing Alfred on the forehead.

"You have been good and loyal," he said, "and now you are free to return to the sea."

He stepped back; and Alfred went very still, the presence of the fae leaving his body so that he slumped back against the couch. Arthur stood in the middle of the old inn and let out a breath, clenching his fists as the fairy beasts at last slipped through the cracks between the boards and slithered along the floor towards him. Despite himself, a spike of panic shot through him and and he drew his sword out of instinct, holding it out before him. The shadow creatures had encircled him now, merging into one so that he might not tell where they would strike, and his heart hammered in rising terror as their blackness seeped ever closer.

One lashed up at him with a sudden motion and he swung blindly with his cutlass; it deftly split in two before the blade even touched it, wrapping around the hilt and tearing the sword from his hand and sending it clattering away into the dust. Panic burst in his body then, a common and too-late renege of a decision, and he backed up only to have his ankles caught up in the beasts at his back. He was seized by the throat by another and dragged to the floorboards with a heavy thud. He twisted, coughing on the dust he sent up, and the serpent around his neck slithered off to give way for the monstrous creature which now stepped over him. It had the shape of a massive dog with a bowed back like a mountain and a long gaping jaw and crooked, spindly legs.

He couldn't move, only look up at it in silenced horror. It, too, was a fairy, the carrier of souls; and here he had no escape. He let out a shaky breath and closed his eyes, resigning himself to the fate he had brought on himself in a whimsy of boredom, in an act of desperation over a century ago. His fists clenched in the dust.

The creature, after a moment's respite, suddenly plunged its maw into his chest; there was no blood, for it had all the consistency of air itself, but it was accompanied with a searing pain nonetheless as phantom teeth took ahold of his soul and began to tear it from his body. He cried out in pain, his arms at once shooting up to shove at the monster - they went right through it - and in his enduring terror and agony he kicked wildly, his boots scraping at the floorboards-

A hand suddenly grabbed the creature by the back of its neck and shook it free, shoving it aside. Arthur opened his eyes with a gasp, finding Alfred over him with all of his muscles taut beneath his pearly skin. In his hand was his heart, glowing blue between his fingers, and this he slammed down on Arthur's chest as he stared down the beast, which had rolled on its spidery limbs and turned again with a low growl.

"Alfred," Arthur said breathlessly, feeling the merman's tail curl protectively around him.

The creature skittered one way but Alfred followed it, blocking its path; he was quick and graceful in his true form, even on land, and the fear which had pervaded him at the sight of the kraken was nowhere to be seen against the minions of the fae. The mere presence of his possessed heart on Arthur's chest was enough, it seemed, to make all the other beasts draw back to the walls, leaving only the dog-like monster to Alfred's mercy.

It turned its course and flittered grotesquely the other way; here Alfred headed it off again, his tail lashing threateningly at it, and it grew impatient and lunged forth at him. He took its great maw on his forearm, not even flinching. Arthur sat up, taking Alfred's heart in his palm, though the beast still refused to retreat, having now tasted his soul; it shook free of Alfred's arm and swept past him, going once more for Arthur-

Alfred twisted his body and his powerful tail slammed straight through the monster, causing it to shatter and vanish with a hideous howl. Barely pausing, he turned to Arthur, snatched the gem from his hand and forcefully put it back around his neck; and the candlelight flickered and the shadows were gone.

Arthur panted, Alfred's heart bouncing against his breastbone, and he met the young merman's gaze as it was at last turned on him. Alfred's eyes were in equal parts angry and sad. He said nothing, only curled closer to Arthur and rested his chin on his shoulder.

Arthur did not thank him - for it was difficult for him to know whether he would truly mean it - but he ran his fingertips up and down Alfred's spine in a gentle manner, soothing him. The merman's tail again wound around him, this time more possessively.

"Do you expect me to return to the sea now?" he asked in a low voice, nuzzling against Arthur's neck. "I am not like the rest of my kind now, Arthur. You have ruined me. You cannot cast me off because it pleases you to do so."

"Heh." Arthur's breath was still shaky. "And here I thought you saved me because you loved me."

Alfred gave a little snort.

"You know I don't know what that is," he said softly. "But all the same... I don't want you to leave me."

"Ha." Arthur worked his hand up into Alfred's soft hair, mussing it fondly. "Even though I'm a selfish bastard?"

"I knew that already. You are immortal at my expense."

"And I am untouched by time at yours."

Alfred exhaled, his dry fin flicking against Arthur's hip.

"Let's go back to the Prospero," he said pleadingly.

"Yes, we'll go." Arthur gave him a reassuring pat and Alfred at last unfurled, allowing him to stand.

Dusting himself down, Arthur slipped the jewelled heart back inside his shirt and buttoned it back up as he crossed to the fainting couch to retrieve his coat. He slung it back on and went to get his hat from the hook. In the mirror, the ghost tavern was in full swing; watching it for a moment, Arthur at last firmly turned his back on it, putting his hat on. Alfred blinked up at him from the middle of the floor, his silver tail glittering in the candlelight.

"Come along, then," Arthur said, crouching at Alfred's level so that the merman could put his arms around his neck to be lifted. "Let us return to where we belong."

Alfred smiled wanly at him as he was lifted under his back and tail.

"We belong nowhere, Arthur," he said as they stepped out into the Caribbean night, "but with each other."

tl;dr: Arthur has the Heart of the Ocean. XD

Arthur's ship, the Prospero, is named in part for Shakespeare's Prospero, the lead in The Tempest, and in part for Prince Prospero, the arrogant royal in Poe's The Masque of the Red Death.

It's been a week since Halloween and much too long for me to still be dragging this out! My apologies. This one in particular got a bit out of control!

Updates on the second halves of earlier Wicked Wednesdays fics, To New Mutiny and Dreadful, will hopefully be before the new year. ^^;

Thank you all for your patience!

RR xXx