Chapter Text
When Susan is thirteen she makes a deal with a boy she barely knows. He is tall and awkward and full of unearned confidence, like anyone fifteen, and when he swears he can save her she believes him.
And he does.
At thirteen Susan leaves home, escapes the certain death overtaking Haven, clinging to their stolen boat as a storm tries to succeed where the plague failed. Like a curse, lightning strikes, and when she wakes up gasping, choking on seawater, it's Dave who hauls her out of the ocean. The tiny boat nearly capsizes as lightning strikes again, nearby, and somehow through the deafening crash of thunder, she hears him.
"Don't worry, I got you. I got you, come on, I got you. Just hold on."
At thirteen, Susan passes out in the arms of a boy she barely knows, a boy who is tall and awkward and full of unearned confidence, a boy who has promised to keep her safe.
When she wakes up on an unfamiliar pirate ship, it's Dave that is vouching for her to a skeptical captain, a captain who seems to tower over them with broad shoulders and a hat that casts an icy shadow.
"...the Arrowsmith family, I'm sure she can fix weapons. A powder monkey, maybe?"
Susan tries to stand and nearly fails as the whole world moves under her feet, and Dave catches her with a grace no fifteen-year-old should have, a grace that keeps her upright without showing a hint of weakness. And then, Susan can vouch for herself.
She shows her crossbow, starts explaining enough technical detail to prove her worth, and she and Dave are unceremoniously shoved into a single room, with one hammock-cot, and neither of them have time to even think before they are fast asleep.
When Susan is fourteen her birthday passes without note or celebration, except that she nearly blows her hand off when someone else mis-loads a cannon, and when she starts tearing the errant crewmember apart it's Dave that steps in to smooth hackles and make amends before Susan can further alienate them from the crew.
It's easy for him, and if Susan was paying attention she might envy him for it, but she just wants to tune her crossbow, to keep the ballistas in working order, to have her well-oiled machine keep moving at perfect efficiency.
Dave is busy greasing other wheels, working the kitchens, carrying easy conversation and drinks with the rest of the crew. He keeps his past close to his chest, but Susan can feel it between them when they fall asleep together in the hammock meant for one. It is a weapon, she assumes, some sort of small rod or staff kept in the inner pockets of his jacket, but he has never drawn it, and Susan says nothing.
The captain takes a shine to him. Captain Gaerich Telalin, a towering Goliath who carries a broadsword taller than Dave and a mighty greatbow taller than themself, is an older pirate, old enough to remember the times before complex ballistas and the rising tide of the Schwerecross navy. They say Dave resembles themself, in their younger days, full of confidence and raw talent. They give Dave an old rapier, and Dave proves himself by keeping up in a duel for a full forty-five seconds before Captain Telalin bests him. Susan watches as Dave flushes red in embarrassment, but easily laughs it off, asking for another round. He lasts an extra ten seconds, but Telalin is impressed either way.
At fourteen, only having been on the ship for eight months, Susan kills for the first time.
She awakens with a start, rolling out of the hammock on instinct at the sound of the alarm, reaching for her crossbow. Dave does the same, reaching inside his jacket. They have practiced this. They have known since they arrived that battle would be a part of their life. Dave is already familiar with the narrow hallway combat of a ship's lower deck, but when he opens their door there is no time to react as a halfling with a blade jumps him.
Susan does not think. She simply exhales, squeezes the trigger, and a bolt thicker than her thumb goes through the eye and halfway out the back of the attacker's skull.
Dave stands frozen, one hand tentatively coming up to brush his ear.
"That was… close."
"I don't miss," Susan says simply, sparing a brief glance for the collapsed halfling, boxing away the nausea and horror, and they move on.
It's up exactly one flight of stairs that Susan feels a hand wrap around her neck and pull backwards.
It's only sheer luck and one uneven stair that keep her from getting a knife to the kidney. She and the fire genasi both stumble, but his hand remains firm around her neck, and all she can do is choke and flail for the knife that should be tied to her thigh but instead is in his hands.
And then, suddenly, she smells the ocean.
Like a crashing wave a flash of blue lashes out and strikes him and Susan takes an unsteady step backwards as the arm around her neck releases. The rod in Dave's hand crackles with blue-white energy, and she feels a chill as the Ocean Flail passes a handspan from her face, and then Dave is there, pulling her by the arm to stand between them, but the genasi is already down, clutching at a deep wound in his chest which appears to steam in the dim light of the corridor. He gasps, and then his head rolls back, thunking against the wooden paneling.
"Thanks," Susan says quietly, and Dave simply nods, clasping her arm for a moment, and then letting go without a word.
It is a short raid, and the two advance scouts they killed are looted and tossed off the ship without ceremony. It was a mistake to try to plunder Captain Gaerich Telalin, even in the dead of night, with two mages casting Darkness on the main deck. There isn't much loot to be had, but for the first time, Susan and Dave are counted in. Two silvers apiece.
"I just made weapons," Susan whispers in the dead of night. She is curled in close to Dave out of necessity, out of habit, not out of any desire for comfort. "I've never used them on a person before. I didn't think I ever would."
"It gets easier," Dave whispers back, and he pulls out his arm from where it is trapped between them, just to keep it from going numb. The only place he can keep it is resting behind Susan's head, around her shoulders. It is a small hammock, for two people.
When Dave tells the story of Susan's sharp reflexes and deadeye aim around the bar table, the crew gives a cheer. "First blood, aye! We'd all thought ye'd killed before," a carapacian gunner says, gesturing at the curling black lightning scar on Susan's left eye. She gives an unsure smile, seeing Dave's encouragement from the corner.
"Drinks on me for the first blood!" A satyr riggerman calls, and at fourteen, Susan has her first drink.
It burns like fire and hits her empty stomach with instant nausea, and the crew laughs as she turns green. But she keeps it down and offers an even bolder grin.
"Did ye turn like that when ye saw the blood? The braaaains?"
"She was stone cold," Dave cuts in, with the glint in his eye that he always gets when he's telling a tale. "One through the eye, and she didn't even hesitate. Dead-eye Susan."
"Black-Eyed Susan, more like," the carapacian grins, and the crew cheers again, sliding her another drink, which she downs with less hesitation. Dave himself hands her a third, an ale instead of a spirit, and as they have their own quiet toast, she feels as if perhaps she will be able to make a new home here.