“Do you think it’s too late to get them back, Amias?” Polaris asked, gazing back at the receding view of the Irish coast.

“For the tenth time, we’re not getting them back” the Captain growled. His eyes were fixed on the horizon ahead of them, targeting the furthest point they could travel to. He gripped the wheel hard, his knuckles protruding white underneath his tanned skin. “Understand, Polaris, it’s for their own good-“

“Here we go again” Polaris sighed, “the hero’s common mistake. Giving away everyone he or she cares for, for the sake of ‘their’ betterment. Oh, Please!”

“It’s true!” Amias insisted, “You’d rather have them running around aimlessly, breaking the law and getting killed because of me?!”

“You’d rather them learn never to trust another loving person ever again in their lives?” Polaris countered, “They’ll be alone in the world, Amias. Always vulnerable, thinking that everyone around them will turn on them sooner or later…” Amias grew silent. The day kept turning for the worst and Amias concluded that everyday going forward will only go darker. Becoming a pirate, adopting children, unknowingly turning them into future law-breakers- all because he let his heart do the talking: it was all his fault. He wished he had a chance to start it all over from the beginning, he would have never run away from that awful orphanage, someday he would have got taken in by someone, completed his education, become a smart well-dressed aristocrat, marry a dainty woman and had children of his own. Growling, he shook the Captain’s wheel violently.

“Amias.” Polaris said, outing hid hand on the Captain’s shoulder, “I know you want-“

“I DON’T!!” Amias snapped. He saw Polaris’s lip whimper slightly as he was taken aback yet he felt no remorse. “Polaris,…leave them! They’re better off where they are.”

For the first time, a sour scowl drew itself over Polaris’s rather neutral face. His pale, thin fingers slipped off of Amias’s shoulder and dug into his pocket. He sighed, giving the Captain a disapproving look. His sliver curls bounced around his hollow cheeks as he stared out into the horizon. For days h had been in pain, his body rotting from the inside every waking moment, and still, he had endured- for them, for the people who had given him love since she had left a thousand years ago. The day he had met the pirates, he had wondered whether she had truly loved him in the first place. Maybe she had been using him. However, they hadn’t been and he had fallen for their leader. Maybe not anymore.

“I thought you were someone else, Amias” Polaris mumbled.

Amias didn’t meet the White-Man’s eye, “I don’t know what you’re on about”

“I thought you cared”

Amias finally turned around, his force throwing the gust of oncoming wind behind him. His eyes were blood shot red and bags were sagging from his eyes. “Polaris, I told you more than once already! Don’t be such an INCOMPETENT, DIMWITTED FOOL!”    A flash of white blew across the ship with a loud bang and the Captain was thrown across the upper deck. He gasped. Before him was a man in white, his eyes and skin glowing brighter than a thousand moons. What seemed like silvery glitter and star dust seemed to originate from his hands, swirling like tycoons around his palms.

“I’m a fool to you, human?” his voice boomed and echoed.

“The-“ Amias gasped, “You’re the North Star?” he recalled quickly as the spirit drew closer, “That story you told us… it was all about you!”. Amias felt his pirate-nature kicking in as his initial shock subsided, he wanted to rebel, he wanted to fight. Clutching his still smoldering shirt, he got up and leaned in on Polaris, a dirty grin pulling from ear to ear.

“You are a fool, Polaris” he said bluntly, “You trusted you’re heart, fell for some girl who left you, and look where you are now” he chuckled, “Alone wandering the sky. It’s pathetic, honestly” he spat at the North Stars face, feeling for the sword at his hip. This was about to get interesting. Polaris let out a deep guttural roar, firing a rally of burning shots of star dust at the Captain who avoided them nimbly. He laughed rudely at the Star’s face. They fought mercilessly, ripping the ship apart bit by bit. The more he fought, the more Polaris seemed to be breaking down, Amias caught the details: he was getting wrinkly in spots, his flesh slowly rotting in bits of putrid purple. As Polaris turned around,, his face was mostly a skull illuminated in ghostly white. The Captain raised his sword.

Suddenly, the world went dark and the wind grew colder, carrying with it a villainous laughter.

“I must say”, the voice materialized itself to form a disc like head on a flowing black body- the Moon, “You put yourself out much faster than I thought you would, Polaris”. The skull-faced Star spirit faced the dastardly creature in fear. He looked at Amias like a wounded puppy begging for help.

“Love isn’t all it seems like it is” the Moon cooed, “Isn’t it, Pol? What a pity indeed”

She hovered closer to the Captain who stood frozen in confusion, “I never should have sent Malachi to kill you.” She confessed,

“Malachi?” Amias gasped, “He’s responsible?”

“Yes. Although, it seems you two are good at doing the killing all by yourself” she giggled before turning back to the decaying Lord of the Stars, “I’m sorry, Polaris. You failed to find someone in time. Love’s hard.” She clapped her hands, “Now… time to lend yourself to me”

Polaris’s droopy eyelids closed in defeat.

In that moment, Amias caught himself off guard. A fury of memories and thoughts rushed through his minds making him rethink everything he had thought of all day. All his past decisions had been made by him because he cared, although it might not have lead him to the best results, his sentiment was always for the betterment of others- his children- even giving them away and slowly descending into madness over the course of the night. He knocked at his chest and asked himself about everything he’d felt since he’d first gotten to know Polaris.

“Don’t be absurd you bilge-sucking carouser” Amias yodeled, “He found me!”