Tam shuffled his way to his cabin after being sewn up by Eli, wondering if perhaps he should have accepted her help in getting there as the ship started to a rock a little more violently beneath his feet.

By the time he finally reached the end of the passage, his hand resting on the door handle. The future duke was forced to swallow down the bile that burned the back of his throat, and hoped the sheen of sweat over his forehead wasn’t all that noticeable in the dim light of the night.

His mental preparations were interrupted, however, when the door to his cabin swung open, and there stood Luca, breathing hard, and tears already falling down his face.

Tam blinked down at him, caught by surprise, but when the child saw his father standing before him, burst out into fresh sobs.

Instantly forgetting about his pain and nausea, Tam hurriedly stepped forward, knelt, and hugged Luca.

He could feel the boy’s tears soaking through his tunic as he held him, and he could smell the wind in Luca’s tangled black hair from having spent most of his time outside that day…

“I’m alright,” Tam murmured with a grand attempt at sounding comforting.

Luca still couldn’t bring himself to speak, and so Tam didn’t release him from the embrace. He simply allowed his son to cry as long as he wished, though the longer it did carry on, the more uncomfortable Tam’s right knee became, and thus it began wobbling on the wooden planks of the deck.

Just as he was about to gently tell his son he really needed to lie or sit down, Luca pulled away, hastily wiping his tears from his face with the sleeve of his tunic.

“S-Sorry for crying, Tam,” Luca managed while sniffling.

Tam tousled the lad’s hair and gave a half smile he hoped didn’t betray any of the pain he was feeling from his injury or his knee… Or the fact that he was moderately inebriated…

“You have nothing to be sorry about. It was frightening. Even I wasn’t sure what would happen.”

Luca’s hands gripped his own pant legs as his brows stroked downward to a frown. “Why didn’t the captain take care of them on his own?”

The future duke pushed himself back up to a standing position, doing his best to make his expression appear pensive rather than anguished from the action.

“That’s because I’m a lord, and as the highest ranking person on this ship, I should be responsible for everyone. Especially because I’m the whole reason they’re here.”

“My Uncle Liam said you don’t have a title yet, but that you’ll be a duke one day,” the boy recalled offhandedly.

Tam pursed his lips while guiding Luca to the table and chairs in his cabin. “The first born sons in noble families are still lords. They don’t have official titles until they inherit, but… There you have it. And I might just be a viscount. Not a duke.”

“Why’s that?” Luca asked while plunking himself down in the chair across from Tam while giving his nose another cursory wipe with the back of his sleeve.

“Mm, that’s a bit complicated to explain right now.” Tam’s head was already hurting, making his thoughts sluggish thanks to his need for sleep. Despite this, he knew he had to address one particular thing before going to bed. “Luca, in the future, I need you to swear to me that you’ll listen if myself or Eli tell you to stay put. You could have been hurt today, or seen things you shouldn’t have.”

At this, Luca’s shoulders widened, and his chest rose as he locked eyes with his father. “A man doesn’t back down when his family is in a fight.”

Tam didn’t respond straight away.

Instead, he pondered this reaction…

He thought back to Rosaline’s brother, Liam… He had been all about family loyalty, so it did make sense that he would have hammered in a principle like that one. But it still didn’t add up that he wouldn’t have even named Rosealine’s child the more he thought about it…

But, that was a problem for a sober, rested, Tam to figure out…

And so, Tam looked at his son levelly, and said. “Promise me, Luca. Or I’ll have to find a way to send you back to Daxaria without me. I’m sorry, but I can’t have you putting yourself in danger. I’ll be too worried. Then again, maybe you’d prefer going back. I can arrange for you to be received by my father, Duke Finlay Ashowan, and he will take care of you until I return.”

As Tam spoke, he wearily rubbed his left eye as his mind stumbled through everything he would need to do to arrange for Luca to make safe passage home… Perhaps he would send Eli back with him. That wouldn’t be an issue either, and she would probably prefer staying out of the kingdom that had given her nothing but pain…

Then the sound of Luca’s rapid breaths through his nose reached Tam’s ears and registered in his clouded mind.

Looking up, Tam saw that Luca’s eyes were shining once more with tears.

“I’m sorry,” Luca croaked, his hands fidgeting under the table. “I-I promise I won’t get in the way again– I’m sorry I-I-I didn’t listen, I’ll be better, I promise, I’ll–”

Tam stood, even though it made the sharp agony bite hard into his flesh, rounded the table, and crouched down to be eye level with his son. He was relatively certain he broke a stitch doing it, but he didn’t care.

“I want to be with you, Luca. I only just got to meet you, and I’ve loved having our nightly meetings where we get to stargaze. But that also means that I hate the thought of something happening to you. You scared me today more than you could ever imagine when I saw that you came up when those pirates were on board.”

Luca didn’t stop fidgeting, nor was successful in preventing a fresh wave of tears, but at least his anguished expression had eased a little…

“I thought you were gonna die today,” Luca confessed, his nose already dripping again, prompting Tam to reach over with the sleeve of his own tunic and wipe Luca’s face.

“I’m not going to die today, and I don’t plan on dying tomorrow either, and most importantly, I don’t want you dying today, tomorrow, next month, or even in twenty years. You have to live until you’re a hunched over old man. The kind of old man that farts without knowing it, and even if he did? He wouldn’t care.”

At this, Luca let out a burbling laugh.

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Tam smiled encouragingly at the reaction. Fart jokes always went over well with his nephews, he was glad it seemed to be the same way for Luca.

“So, you promise me that you’re going to listen if I tell you to hide?”

Luca’s mouth flattened and he looked down with obvious displeasure. “Okay.”

“Thank you.” Tam squeezed Luca’s upper left arm. “It’d be a shame to not get to spend as much time as possible together, don’t you think?”

All troubling feelings that had moved across Luca’s face during their conversation melted away then, as he nodded with a smile already sprouting, the left corner of his mouth lifting first, followed by a brief pursing, as though he weren’t sure he were allowed to grin.

Seeing this, Tam smiled blatantly, reached up and rested his hand on top of Luca’s hair, and said, “How about we go to sleep for tonight, and tomorrow… What do you think about cutting your hair?”

Luca paused, staring at him. “My… My mother said my eyes scared people.”

Tam had to fight off the alarmed and agitated reaction he was having to the news, and decided to not try and make the lad feel bad in any way about his upbringing.

“Well, they don’t scare me. Or Eli. We all have brown eyes, isn’t that interesting?”

“My mother had dark blue eyes.”

Nodding, Tam stood back up. “That she did. I remember when I met her they reminded me of dark sapphires.”

Luca leaned forward. “She says you had a nice voice and she didn’t expect it.”

Tam chuckled while also subtly gesturing Luca toward his own hammock that had been added the first day he’d been discovered in the corner close to Tam’s bed.

“She wouldn’t have been the first person to say that about me.”

“Did you love her?” While Luca may have wondered the question using an easygoing tone, there was a fragility in his face that told Tam it was far from casual. And so he prayed to the Goddess that his drunken mind could come up with an appropriate response.

“I… I really liked Rosaline. And I think she really liked me, but your mother is very committed to running her business– as she should be! She’s wonderful at it, and I was young at the time, she was a bit older, and it just wasn’t meant to be more.”

Luca climbed into his hammock, an earnest glint in his eyes when he said, “If she wasn’t as focused on her business, would you two have loved each other then?”

Tam felt his insides curling and writhing. A mixture of guilt and empathetic hurt for his son not knowing the same happy, wholesome upbringing he had had wrangled any notion that he should be judgmental of how Rosaline parented Luca

“I’m not sure, Luca, but… I will say… regardless of how we ended, I’m glad you exist.”

Luca froze. Foreign emotionlessness taking over him as he stared blankly at Tam.

“Luca…? Luca are you alright?”

Then just as abruptly as it had come on, it ended, Luca blinked and stared up at Tam with the same nervous adoration he had from the very first day they had met.

“Yeah, everything’s fine… Do you think there’ll be any more pirates though?”

Tam chuckled and almost flinched from the clawing sensation he felt in his abdomen. “I sure hope not. Let’s cross our fingers that we have a peaceful time throughout the rest of our trip.”

“Eli says crossing our fingers isn’t good because it confuses fate on whether it should give you good or bad luck.”

Tam balked. “As in… She thinks fate is a person…?”

Luca shrugged. “I don’t know, but she got upset about it when I said the same thing! Also!” Luca dropped his voice to a whisper. “Aren’t we supposed to keep saying Eli’s a boy?”

Fighting off a smile at the mention of such a funny superstition, Tam nodded, and lowered his voice to match Luca’s. “Yes. You’re absolutely right.”

“Why does she want to pretend to be a boy though?” Luca proceeded to whisper even more quietly.

“She feels safer pretending to be a man than being a woman.”

“Oh…” Luca paused thoughtfully, then nodded to himself as he reasoned out how practical it was. “Are you and Eli in love?”

Tam’s eyes bulged and his mouth went taut at the surprise turn in questions.

“No we are not, why do you ask?” he forced out calmly.

“Because you are always together, you keep secrets for each other… And… And you smile more when she’s around.”

This observation succeeded in stunning the future duke. Fortunately for him, Luca was already turning over in his hammock preparing to go to sleep. When Tam eventually returned to his senses enough to notice he was standing staring at the cabin wall, he turned around and proceeded to his own bed, snuffing out the candles and lanterns as he did so, his thoughts fluttering around aimlessly.

The longer Tam found himself on the ship with Eli and Luca, the more mysteries cropped up.

What creature was terrorizing Zinfera’s ships? What had happened to Luca earlier that had him react so bizarrely when Tam had said he was happy he existed? Why was Luca so fixated on love? And lastly… Why in the world was Tam finding himself smiling more and more around Eli?

Laying down in his bed without bothering to turn down the covers, Tam stared at the ceiling above, and with a breathy laugh out his nose, turned over the most obvious of reasons.

Maybe I’m getting a little more interested in Eli because I know she’s a woman and maybe it’s because I haven’t been this close to someone… well… ever.

Tam closed his eyes with a sigh, and fought off a louder laugh.

I might be getting a crush because I’m in a lot of new situations and am needing someone to rely on. Or because I’ve been thinking about marriage a lot more with Luca being around. It makes sense that it’d happen, but… I’m sure I’ll get over it.