Title: Safekeeping
Fandom: Pirates of Dark Water
Rating: Gen
Length: 600 words
Summary: The sea was in his blood, whether he knew it or not.



Jenna looked out over the bay, methodically taking stock of the weather (a sky clear of clouds, sun shining brightly, and a slight wind out of the south) and the sea (calm, for once). She was more interested in the boy who was currently picking his way along the shore below, investigating the leavings of the last tide.

That was Ren: always curious, always busy. He wanted to know everything about the sea, about the creatures that lived in it and the people that sailed upon it, though he tried to keep that curiosity from Jenna because he knew she would worry. And so when he thought she was busy, he would often go poke around the shore or risk a swim in spite of the dangerous currents that swirled just offshore. Jenna knew what he was about, of course, but she indulged him because this was the one way she could indulge him. (And because she knew he was a strong swimmer despite his mere fourteen years.)

Life at the lighthouse should have been lonely for a boy like Ren. They had everything they needed, but there was little money and less time for recreation. There was simply too much to be done, and only the two of them to do it. All alone, with only Jenna and the occasional trader for company, he should have chafed at the responsibility of tending the light night after night. At least, it seemed to Jenna that he ought to have chafed more.

Because it was lonely at the lighthouse, but Ren hardly seemed to mind the solitude and he certainly didn't seem to find the isolation unusual. But then, Jenna thought ruefully, this was all he had known in his entire life.

In spite of all that, the boy had turned out all right. He was kindhearted and friendly, loyal almost to a fault, occasionally willful, and sometimes reckless when it came to his own safety. (She would never forget the day he learned how to drop down from the lighthouse through a series of acrobatic maneuvers instead of using the ladders and nearly scared her to death in the process.) He had a good heart and had learned the value of hard work, and even from a very young age he could be trusted to do his duty.

But the sea was in his blood, whether he knew it or not. The life of a lighthouse keeper was not the life for Ren. He was not meant to be tied to the land, watching ever-vigilant over just this tiny part of the world. There was more waiting out there for Ren, though he might have to cross the seas of Mer a hundred times to find it.

Octopon was waiting, and thirteen treasures lost long ago.

One day, Jenna knew he would – no, must – leave the lighthouse to seek that destiny.

But until that day, she would keep him safe. She would teach him what she knew of kindness and valor and honor. She would prepare him, in the small ways that she knew how, to face whatever the future might lead him to.

When the time came, she would do her duty, too, though her heart ached at the thought of letting him go. She would give him the information she'd held secret in her heart for all these years, bestow upon him the knowledge of his true lineage and the future meant for him as the only son of King Primus, and she would let him loose to fly.

And she had to hope that would be enough.