*November*
The dim daylight pooling into the lair began pouring into your eyes as you cracked them open. It was almost sharper, and you had to squint your eyelids for a moment to blur the new sting of your pupils adjusting as if they were working for the first time. Your deep intake of air filled you with the enhanced scents of the nearby musky caverns paired with something sweet. There was a dryness in your mouth that took a few swallows to surpass. You did not realize a faint ringing could be heard in your ears momentarily before it faded away. You brought your hands up to rub the sleep from the inner corners of your eyes, stretching your legs out in your laying position beneath the warmth of the covers that embraced you. Dust particles cleared from the air before your vision as you opened your eyes the rest of the way. You glanced around the room, staring up at the ceiling of the bedchamber before trailing your sight down the walls at either side of you. When they fell upon the towering figure standing to your right is when a soft gasp passed your lips.
You sat up in the mattress that you remained in, bringing one of the dark silk sheets up with you to press against the chest of your bare body. The pang of the few bruises dotting your inner thighs and marked shoulders met with a certain soreness in your core from the previous night’s extracurriculars awakened with you (and that was with him holding back). You were not frightened by the sight of him at your side, but rather a fresh rush of adrenaline coursed through your veins at a pace which you could not yet control.
“Easy does it,” Pitch eased. “Your senses will be heightened for a while and your energy may be reaching its peak, but you’ll settle into it.”
You sunk a bit into where you sat in the bed, glancing away. Your mortal future had been expanded infinitely, no longer making you mortal. You were like him now - still human technically - but an immortal like the spirits you knew well; a ghost to those who never knew you. The change had taken to you in your slumber and was now racing through your bloodstream. The ring on your finger to symbolize your matrimony to one of those spirits was the cherry on top of the already delightful treat.
“How do you feel?” Pitch asked. You looked over his way again. It was only then that you registered his full appearance standing at your bedside, wearing nothing but his usual equine britches. A smile was already creeping up on your already flushed face while eyeing his unclothed chest. You stared back up into those hypnotic eclipse-like irises.
“Much better,” you answered softly.
“Better now that you have that information?”
“Better now that I get to wake up like this every morning from now on,” you corrected sweetly. “But that too.”
Pitch’s gaze relaxed. The title of an immortal queen as well as wife both had satisfying ringing sounds to them. You then pursed your lips as the need for a fresher start to the morning struck you, not wanting to be going around with dried sweat and whatever else seeped within your pores.
“Although, I could use a shower.”
“Do try not to be long,” Pitch replied with a familiar sly smirk hinting at him hiding something tugging at his lips. “I may have something more to show you after.”
You study him up and down, impressed. “I thought I had seen it all at this point.”
He began stepping away to make way for you to start getting up while still watching your movements. “Oh, darling, we’re just getting started.”
As you swung your legs over the side of the bed, you wrapped the blanket you held to yourself around you the rest of the way. You then brought yourself to your feet, the coolness of the pale stone sending a chill up your spine while you padded toward the doorway of the bedchamber. The sheet dragged behind you while you walked much like Pitch’s usual robes. After you passed his form that had stepped aside for you, you took a few more steps until you paused at the set of doors. You swung around to meet eyes with the Nightmare King again. You flashed him a puzzled look, knowing silently in your mind that this was your turn to be the tease and put your new status to good use first thing in the morning.
“Well?” You questioned. “Are you coming?”
Pitch’s brows furrowed. “With you?”
You shrugged while maintaining your sureness. “I can’t get any more immortal, can I?” You lured with dribbling sarcasm down your lips. “Where else?”
His expression rose, eyes darkening with approval before he began making his way back toward you to join you. “How could I ever turn down an invitation from you?”
* * *
You gowned yourself in black and silver from the previous day’s event of your crowning, hair loose and free and skin refreshed from your rinse off. Pitch walked at your side to lead the way down through the caverns of the lair into deeper areas you had yet to explore thoroughly due to the lack of light. You were not sure of what to expect when he said to you that he had a surprise for you, but you suspected formality when his choice of attire consisted of a heavy black trench jacket highlighted with the crimson high collar and fabric waistline belt between the gilded buttons that cried Golden Age.
His patience pushed him to remain hand in hand at your side while guiding you down lower into your kingdom at a quickened walk, but that did not stop him from wandering a few steps a few times in internal anticipation. Each time he caught himself with a glance over his shoulder at you, he then slowed his pace for you to catch up. The two of you proceeded further and further into the caverns’ depths where the shadows swallowed you whole and the light from the surface was barely touching any longer. The light silk-like material of your flowing gown picked up where it trained behind you and wavered at the hanging sleeves each time your speed walk skipped into a heightened speed. Every time you dove into complete darkness, you held on tighter to the hand wrapped around yours with trust and reached another patch of light once more.
The echoes of your exchanged murmurs and chuckles to one another faded away with the slowing of your pace when Pitch stopped you several meters from a nearing light-filled opening at the end of the narrow cave where you stood. That’s when he stepped in front of you, and your stare met his when he pivoted around to face you.
“Close your eyes,” he spoke.
“What?”
He cocked his head at your reply. That’s when, without hesitation, he silently maneuvered around your figure until he was behind you. Before you knew it, his palms were set over your vision.
“Why are you -”
“Walk with me.”
You giggled over his words when he ushered for you to move, but you obliged and steadily began moving forward again. With him as your guide, you did not speed ahead and instead kept him close while you continued together down the rest of the cave. Your arms lowered from holding themselves out in front of you to grasping the front of your skirt in bunches to avoid tripping, knowing your king would steer you clear of obstacles.
You could barely tell when you entered the new space at the opening of the cavern into one of the deepest points of the lair where somehow light was beaming in from high above, unknown to your temporary blindness. When he stopped you in your tracks again, you awaited with an awkward smile holding back another wave of laughter at how ridiculous you must have appeared in the moment.
“I have told you before that there are eighty-eight constellations known to Earth…” He whispered from behind you, not yet removing his hands from your eyes.
“Yes,” you responded warily, trying to take guesses now about what he was about to reveal to you. “And?”
“Would you like to see more?”
At the knitting together of your brows, the palms were removed from over your vision. You opened your eyes and gasped with the drop of your jaw.
You stood on a ledge in a clearing outside of the tunnels but still far down into the lair. A wide opening above - one that must have been at least a quarter of a mile up - poured in the afternoon sunlight to awaken the space. Before you, the ledge dipped down into a pit where one of the most complex pieces of architecture you had ever seen rested upon the ground: a galleon.
It could have been centuries old based upon the ancient and unworldly touch of its details. Only one of the most advanced of past civilizations would have been able to ever recreate such a piece, especially one of its massive size. If it could ever pass for a ship that once sailed the Earthly seas in times of pirates, one would be smart to never go near nor cross its path. Its dark wood-like materials shaped with metals in blacks and tainted golds were formed and fused together at various edges and curves that twisted into sharp edges, pointing like an arrow at the stern and the bow. Its masts stood still with dust-coated sails unmoving and awaiting to capture the air at last. In its long-term unused state, it could be passed as a ghost ship.
“Took around…almost a year of repairs?” Pitch’s voice was heard by you again as he came back around to your side to stand at the ledge with you. “But she should be ready now.”
“This is…” You could not take your eyes off of the structure, how its potentially immense weight sat in its pit like a sunken aircraft at the bottom of the ocean. You did not even realize you had dropped the skirt of your dress from your hands to bring your palms over your mouth to cover the awe of your parted lips until you exhaled past your fingertips.
“I did mention that I had a ship, yes?” Pitch wondered aloud over your loss of words.
“You weren’t kidding…” Your words were hushed under your breath, you not looking at his prideful stance with the cross of his arms.
“Come now, there’s still more to see.”
You dropped your hands back to your sides to turn and find the Nightmare King gesturing for you to join him once more. You then proceeded to follow him again as he took the lead at a more easy walking pace to the back of the ledge and then around where the edges of the space surrounding the pit circled the ship. There was enough space on the concrete ledge for you to not have to feel as though you had to keep your body pressed close to the wall to avoid falling. You admittedly cast a few glances down to the bottom pit in an attempt to see if the end could be seen, but it more so appeared as though the galleon was sitting in a pool of shadow.
It was not long before you and Pitch came around to the stern of the ship where it was high up enough and pressed against the stone ledge for you to step on. Pitch set foot upon the highest point of the back of the ship and turned with a hand out to help you on with him. You took it in your hold, reaching one foot out and then the other until finally you both were steadily wandering down to the main deck. When you stopped dead center of the ship, you tilted your chin up to take a full look around and scan the structure from this new point of view of being upon it. The lowered sails hanging on their masts looked even more grim towering above you lifelessly as if you could hear their cries out in pleading to take flight once more. The galleon from what you could see as a whole sent a mix of ghastly fear with sorrowful beauty.
“Does my queen desire a tour?” Pitch offered as he stood beside you at the center of the dock. Your (e/c) eyes flickered down before finding his again to your admiration, grinning when seeing the face of who you called your husband nearby.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” you answered.
With that, both of you headed together to each of the many parts of the ship, you taking on the role of follower a final time for the afternoon. You could probably count your fingers on one hand the amount of times Pitch had ever mentioned his galleon in stories of both his past and his earlier days as King of Nightmares. The image of him sailing was far different than the horsemanship you had become used to seeing from him. Each space below and around the deck broadened the vision for you. There were multiple small cabins below, each with identical necessities for every crewmate that was no longer there and would not be joining you. The captain’s quarters back toward the stern were larger with a bit more bed space as well as a desk. Dust flurried and was swept away from surfaces with the opening of every door and running of your fingertips over the surfaces of room dressings. Both sides of the galleon were also lined with chambers - some empty and some still loaded - with weapons ranging from old canons and harpoons that had not been put to use since the structure had last set sail.
Pitch lastly brought you back up to the main deck nearer to the bow where the head steerage sat. There was a wheel, expectedly and thankfully. However, in front of it sat a wide panel that curved around in a half circle where an arrangement of controls from dials, to buttons, to levers were neatly spread out. Each was labeled with tiny gold engravings in the written language of the Golden Age, some recognizable to you from Pitch’s occasional teachings but most still foreign. When you came to a stand behind the heavy wooden knobs of the wheel, you examined the full setup of the panel and noticed how even with its aged appearance that it was freshly polished unlike the mostly untouched rest of the ship. You reached out with the extension of your arm and glided the tips of your fingers over the tiny indents from the engravings against the smooth metallic material of the control panel. The musky scent of dusted smoke from the few patches of charcoal-like burns alongside bits of the galleon’s exterior were wiped away here into the past and replaced with the scent of the new day.
“Shall we be off then?” Pitch’s voice was heard from behind you. You perked up from your focus and swung around.
“Off where?” Your brows furrowed as he took a step your way.
“You didn’t think I was going to hold you down here forever during such a time of celebration, did you?”
You widened your eyes. “You mean…take this,” you gestured to the wheel and to the rest of the ship, “all of this - out?”
“I didn’t repair it just to sit here.”
The gears in your head were turning again, setting the lightbulb off. Most newlywed couples take off for a week or two to get out of town for a little time to themselves. Then again, you were not most couples. The captain’s quarters may not have been exactly the honeymoon suite of your dreams, but it would certainly live up to being nothing like you had ever seen before. There was no telling how far you were to go or for how long, but you were only on day one as an immortal anyway. This was actually a rather pleasant surprise. And he had taken the time preparing it for you.
Past the warmth spreading within, you then frowned. “But will it work?”
Pitch then began heading the rest of the way toward you. “Let’s see.”
You stepped aside for him to take his place at a comfortable stance in front of the steering wheel and controls. When he stood his ground and reached over to the panel, you tilted your chin to watch his delicate movements from over his shoulder. A few presses of buttons here, some twists of cranking knobs and dials there, a pull of a couple levers. When the advanced Golden Age technology did its work, a silvery glance in anticipation met you from the corner of the Nightmare King’s eye.
The powerful galleon rumbled beneath your feet. You were not sure what you were expecting to happen as you had never seen the ship sail even on sea let alone sky. You adjusted your footing to maintain your balance and threw a hand out to set it upon the king’s arm where you partly leaned. A small jump against gravity, like the lift of an elevator while inside, could be felt radiating up your legs. You bent your knees slightly as if to brace yourself for some kind of impact.
You had not noticed the ship was climbing into a hover above the earthy darkness where it had been resting until you watched how the surrounding walls within this chamber of the lair looked as though they were lowering. Instead, you were rising. Pitch’s galleon was taking a lift off for the first time in countless years, and the first time for you. Decades of collected soil and dust particles were shaken off and fell from the outer structures of the ship as it slowly built its speed and continued up in defiance of the gravity’s pull. You tossed your head back to stare up at the wide opening that was to be cleared through, hoping that it somehow had not shrunk and that you were not going to crash into the earth that made up the lair’s ceiling. Sunlight licked your face as the machinery surrounding you whirred at Pitch’s touch.
Speed picked up, and little by little, the ship inched higher until at last it carried you through the separation point between your kingdom and the planet’s surface. The galleon surpassed the breakthrough and made its way into the open forest air with no damage done. Its sounds grew louder like the starting jets of an aircraft upon takeoff. Over the blare of the systems, the King of Nightmares cast one more glare of prideful assurance to his queen. You returned the expression while still holding onto him before looking out into the open. You almost revealed your curiosity by asking where you were to be headed first, but you held back upon remembering that anywhere with Pitch was where you hoped to be headed.
The galleon that was now just as much yours as it was his finalized its lift off as it gradually quickened up past the evergreen branches of the forest’s trees and to the open skies. Its nose raised higher into the air like it was diving up into the clouds. With no single earthling below aware of Pitch’s, the ship’s, nor your existence, nor were they nearby, your travels into the higher layers of the atmosphere went unseen, cloaked by disbelief. The adrenaline rush of a new immortal raced through your body as you took in a deep inhale of the cool autumn air that sent goosebumps down your limbs while you watched the blue of the sky grow wider and wider as the land below seemed to shrink. When you and Pitch disappeared into the clouds toward the stars together upon the ship was the start of a new journey into forever.
* * *
Will do my best to put some more seggsy time scenes up on the good ol’ ao3 soon, and will try to note when they are out. For now, enjoy your breakfast.