Assassin's Creed Drabbles

↳ not just silver and gold

Edward Kenway fishes you out of the Atlantic and finds treasure that's not just silver and gold.

THE NORTH ATLANTIC is quiet and still. A midmorning fog clings to the inky water—a nigh impenetrable wall making it difficult for Edward Kenway and his crew to see much farther than the tip of the Jackdaw's bowsprit. It's been two weeks since they set off from Great Inagua's cove on the word of Henry Jennings about a convoy of Spanish merchant ships heading back to Spain from the Yucatán, passing north of Cuba and then onto open water—laden with silver and jewels and ripe for plundering.

Only after a week of searching and patrolling shipping lanes, there is naught but schooners and brigs flying Saint George's Cross, not worth the notoriety that would come from attacking them. And then, as if punishment for their greed and pride from Neptune himself, a squall blew them too close to the Spanish shores of La Florida. Ereyesterday, Captain Kenway could tell his crew was growing discontent with their ill-fortunes, and now he's determined to make berth with something to show for this blunder, even if it's not the promised riches they set out to pirate.

The scent of burning pitch and tar cuts the air, but there's a whiff of something acrid and sulfurous, too. It sets the crew at unease. And then the sea is no longer empty, and on either side of the Jackdaw is a scattered and burning wreckage. Flames rise from the shell of a broken hull—split in two but yet to sink. "Merchant ship, most likely," Edward tells his quartermaster. An English ship, by the looks of it, and given the uniforms of the drowned crew mixed with the flotsam. There are crates and barrels still bobbing on the water's surface—not much, but it's something. "Salvage what you can!" The captain orders, and slowly, the crew begins shuffling around on the main deck, scouting their pitiful bounty.

"Cap'n!" Thom shouts, straying from his post at the swivel gun to look over the gunwale. Edward gives the helm to Adéwalé and joins the four men gathered at the rails, staring down at the water and wreckage. "There." The deckhand points at one of the pieces of floating debris, lying half on the carvel panel and half in the water is a woman, slowly drifting away from the ship.

Instinct kicks in just as if there'd been a man overboard. Edward tosses his pistols to Billy and drops his sword belt, diving into the wreckage below, and swimming out before she slips too far away. He thinks there's a pulse—faint against the rise and fall of the sea, but enough to keep you from joining the other poor souls in Davy Jones's Locker. Pulling you into the water, Edward starts back toward the Jackdaw, fighting the weight of the layers of your soaked frock to keep your head above the water. The crew tosses a rope down and Edward grips it, hooking his arm beneath yours, as they haul you both onto the Jackdaw.

Edward leans over you on the deck—he can feel your slow, uneven breaths on his damp cheek. "Still breathing," he announces to the crew, easing his hand to cradle the back of your head. Some of the men back away, muttering a woman aboard will bring them bad luck—more than they've already had these last weeks—while others just stare.

Slowly, Edward starts to sit you up and air comes rushing back, displacing the water filling your mouth and lungs in a heave of salty bile. You twist in your savior's arms, heaving up the contents of your belly onto the deck. "Easy there," Edward soothes. The saltwater stings your eyes, and the chill bites through the soaked fabric clinging to your skin, but the solid oak deck is an anchor to a world threatening to slip away.

"S'alright, lass," he tells you, his voice rough—barely above a whisper, but it cuts through the rushing blood in your ears. Eyes burning and sight hazy, you look around at the seafarers, and then at the man kneeling at your side. His face is a mask of concentration mixed with relief, framed by straw blond hair dripping with seawater.