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moonsugar-and-spice · 2 years

Note

I am gently begging u. Write Lu Da as the dad and give him a temporary child. I would read the shit out of that.

This fic is dedicated to you, dear Anon. I hope you like it!

Or, The Morally Grey Pirate's Guide to Being a Dad.

Summary: Lu Da—thief, mercenary pirate, and privateer to the Fire Nation—was good at a lot of things. But on the list of men fit to play father figure, he surely made the bottom.

On one unsuspecting night, the universe laughs as he finds himself in possession of a young boy, reluctantly accepting payment to stow him away for protection and sail him quietly overseas. He tells himself the kid is only eight, how much trouble can he be?

Unless the universe, in its infinite humor, were to go and hand him a mirror...

In which case the answer would be, a lot.

Chapter One: The Province of Fools and the Dead

(Read on AO3)

+++

It was a common school of thought among the soft and well-heeled that rogues and thieves kept mostly to slums.

Any outlaw worth his wanted posters knew that such thieves would be fools. For one, the poor kept up their guards, held tight to their treasures, and desperate people could be a dangerous lot.

The wealthy, on the other hand, strutted and flaunted and assumed they’d be safe, so long as they stayed in the good parts of town.

But Lu Da knew there were no good parts. Only smart parts and stupid parts, and he’d had been at this long enough to know which one to play.

The pirate—privateer, he corrected—stopped across from The Blushing Concubine, a raucous chorus already leaking out from inside, and withdrew the jade pendant from his pocket. Just far enough for the late afternoon sunlight to gild and gleam, admiring the stone’s polished shine.

He’d pinched the pendant off a gentleman on his way from the palace to the city’s underbelly. A clumsy collision on a bustling street that had led to a prompt apology, a hand on the shoulder distracting from a hand in the cloak. Lu Da might not be of money, but he’d stolen enough over the years from those who were to copy their manners and their mannerisms. A flash of a grin and a pleasant good evening, and he was the proud new owner of a statement piece, and the other guy was on his way and none the wiser.

A delicious aftershock of thrill ran through him, spurred on by the earlier brush with danger. It was risky, picking pockets here by anything but night—Broody Brow would be far from tickled were he caught—but it was the risk that gave him a buzz, kept him sharp.

Immoral, chided Ta Ming’s voice in his head. But Lu Da only smiled, stuffing the trinket back into his pocket. That guy had been the sort who could afford to buy another pendant, and besides, he rather liked the cool weight of it in his pocket. It sang of finesse, added swagger to his step. Not that he needed it.

Crossing the street, he hopped over a pothole, reached the tavern’s door, and stepped inside.

With the whoosh of the backswing, he was plunged into the companionable sea of dark wood and bodies and smoke. The Blushing Concubine was a place where everyone knew everyone, for better or worse. A place that cultivated a sense of comradery, made you feel like you mattered to someone in the world. When you were given a nickname, that was a great day, for most. Your golden ticket, your welcome to us card.

“Dirty Hands!” surged the refrain, faces lighting up along a spectrum from enthusiasm to gutting-you-with-my-eyes.

Of course they had opted to recycle the nickname Lu Da had come with that first night, some spitting the moniker like bad kimchi, others thrilled to share drinks with the subject of such infamy. He doubted most of them knew much more than the surface of how he’d gotten it, but the way they repeated it, like an accolade, like its beveled edges might catch the sunlight and glint, forced a greasy slick of shame through his gut.

Yet, as ever, Lu Da grinned and spread his arms, shrugging off the weight of it like a waterlogged cloak. They didn’t know how he hated it, and they couldn’t; that was too dangerous a risk to entertain, even for him. And in any case, he hadn't come here to wallow or brood. Tonight, he was hellbent on a good time.

He zigzagged toward a table filled with a mixed bag of ruffians, the kind who promised good company. One of them, a meaty guy named Jimshu, tossed him a nod and pushed a chair out for him.

“Where’s that stick-up-the-ass soldier ward of yours this evening?” he asked as Lu Da clapped him on the back, sliding in beside him. “Fire Lord Ozai seems to be letting you off the leash these days.”

“Come on, Jimi, everyone knows that leash was for the privateer’s protection…” crowed Fen, an impish twinkle in his wide-set eyes, “as much as anyone else’s.”

The crowd of men barked a laugh.

Lu Da’s mouth twitched up crookedly. “Ta Ming’s idea of fun is a night in, reciting her national oath, so.” He gave a half-hearted shrug.

“Oof, turned you down again, huh? Whatd’ya say we get you something cold for that burn.”

He snarked a laugh as Jimshu waved over a passing serving girl. A copper tumbler was set before the pirate with a thud, liquor sloshing over the rim.

The flood of light and subsequent slam brought more faces to the table, and before long the tavern was a maelstrom of drunken voices competing with each other, punctuated by a scuffle, a brawl

Lu Da had finished his first drink and was halfway through his second, absently surveying the dimly-lit room, when his gaze tripped on a woman in a corner booth.

Had she been there when he walked in?

No, he was sure she hadn’t. He would have noticed.

It wasn’t that women didn’t haunt the local taverns; the ratio was hardly even, but plenty of ladies who could hold their own came out to mingle. But even in The Blushing Concubine, whose belly filled each night with a motley crew, this woman struck him as out of place.

It was hard to put his finger on in the low light, but the pirate was almost certain she radiated… Mom energy. And not the fun kind, to be clear, but very much the standard, vanilla kind. Which hardly seemed the type to patronize a joint like this.

Lu Da knew well how to play a part, how to disappear into a role, had trained to read subtle tells that might slip under the radar of others. And despite the grit she wore like an ill-fitting armor, there was something else that defied it, underneath. In the stiffness of her back, not quite resting against the seat, in the tight-knit press of her knees, the occasional turn of her hand around the cup. The woman was nervous.

And she seemed to be watching him.

Barring the bold and forward few, most of her kind were quick to look away when he caught them. But every time Lu Da’s gaze would stray and snag on hers, there was a moment, just a beat too long, when her eyes would hold fast before sliding askance or down to her drink.

The first time, he’d chocked it up to the usual variety of intrigue or contempt.

By the third and fourth, his gut started whispering that something else was afoot, and years of thieving and assassining and beating the game of survival had taught him to listen when it spoke.

Lu Da’s eyes narrowed.

Why are you here?

A boisterous billow of voices snapped him back just as Jimshu’s elbow found his side.

“You’re gonna take them to town,” he said with a wicked snicker.

“Huh?”

Chairs scraped as their occupants repositioned at the table and he realized he had missed an entire conversation.

“Whatd’ya mean, ‘huh.’ Where ya been? We’re firing up a game of Fame and Fortune, and a few of these cranks had the balls to bring some mighty fine swags, too. C’mon,” Jimi guffawed, “I wanna watch you clean ’em out.”

Fame and Fortune was a game of reading your opponent, and above all, being a good liar. Cards were dealt evenly, and the first player would make a claim about their hand. The opponent across from them would decide whether to claim they had a better hand or accuse the other of lying. If the accused was lying, the first player lost the hand, and the winner pocketed their opponent’s valuables, whatever they’d chosen to gamble.

The game lasted until only two players were left standing. The champion of the final hand walked away with the entire evening’s loot, and the losers left grumbling and their pockets a little lighter.

Lu Da had wagered the stolen jade pendant, tossing it onto the table in front of him.

He held onto it.

And then he claimed the rest of the divested fortunes.

The tavern exploded with roars of protests and laughter, the sorest among them calling for the pirate’s debarring from any future matches. Lu Da was jostled in the eddy of testosterone, Jimshu’s arm around his neck and Fen’s good-natured shove to his head.

Later, as he cinched shut his near-to-bursting bag and readied to head out, his eyes slid again to the corner and the solitary booth.

The woman was gone.

+++ +++ +++

The spoils rattled in Lu Da’s bag, a pleasant weight, as he made his way back toward the harbor. Twilight was slowly staining the sky a canvas of lilac, edged with pink and orange.

As he strolled, Lu Da began going down the list he kept in his head of things he could use the winnings for. Perhaps more specifically of late, debts that needed settling. One name in particular had been scratching at the back of his mind for a while now, and ever more insistently since the letter a few weeks back.

Shiro. Most people in his line of work knew him simply as Drudge.

Drudge was a fairly jovial guy, as far as criminal bigwigs went. He was charismatic, congenial, even generous if you stayed on his good side, with a reputation for the loud and long jamborees he was fond of throwing.

And he was absolutely insane.

Frequent misuse and miscombining of too many drugs, the rumors had it, leaving him with a host of deep-seated mental issues. There was often no telling what he might do, or why, or when, and no matter what he said or did, he was never kidding.

As far as his generosity, and ensuing patience, that too slid on a continuum as it suited him. You never knew where or how far that scale might slide at any given moment, when he might skip from one extreme to the other.

Lu Da had gone out of his way to avoid him for the most part, until he’d found himself backed into a situation in which Shiro was the only way out. So far, he’d managed to toe the better side of Drudge’s mood swings. But no one liked to mess with crazy, or worse, be indebted to. And the letter he had received on the man’s behalf had made it clear that said patience was wearing dangerously thin.

Lu Da had replied that time was the object, that he simply hadn’t had the opportunity. A grain of truth, as his fortuitous encounter and subsequent employment under then-Fire Prince Ozai had swiftly consumed his idle time, and the now-Fire Lord had kept him especially busy in the year since his coronation. A detour to Sao Tong in the Earth Kingdom wasn’t exactly convenient, most of the time. But he’d be lying to say a part of him hadn’t been putting it off, and for far too long.

A goatdog barked. Lu Da glanced over his shoulder. The furry dolt was watching him from the post it was tied to, its owner assumedly having dipped into an adjacent bathhouse. As he was turning back around, another form caught in his periphery and sent a little jolt through his limbs.

The woman from the tavern.

She was a short distance behind, just enough that to anyone else she was merely headed the same way, paying him no heed. But now there was no doubt in his mind.

Lu Da retrained his eyes on the road ahead and pretended not to notice.

Sorry, sweetheart, you’re not my type.

But no hint of irony touched the lines of his face. He didn’t think it was that at all. What he did know was that he was being followed by what ranked among the most unexpected of shadows he’d had to date. The “harmless mom” shtick, that was new. Possibly a ruse meant to lower his guard, and full marks for creativity there. But the burning question gnawing at his guts was why.

The mutt barked with greater zeal, its sharp sound ricocheting off buildings as a dragon moose pulling a cart down the road clomped toward them, dust curling up in its wake.

Risking another backward glance, Lu Da spotted the woman drawing to a stop beside the goatdog. Her cagey eyes flitted, one hand extended as though to pet the animal, who gave her an eager sniff. The other alighted furtively upon the post where the rope was tied just as the dragon moose and coach rumbled past, cutting her off from view.

Several things happened then at once. The yapping became a full-blown bray as a streak of grey-brown trailing a length of rope barreled into the street, in front of the coach. The dragon moose shrieked and reared up, the goatdog snapping at its enormous hooves. Its driver was swiftly losing control of the reins, and nearby guards and onlookers were rushing to his aid, but all too late. The coach teetered dangerously, and then toppled onto its side with a thunderous crash.

A fog of dust filled the street, the ruckus commanding all eyes in the vicinity, and Lu Da had only an instant to realize the woman was nowhere in sight before a forceful tug on his cloak dragged him backward, toward the nearest alleyway.

He went from being pulled to shoving the assailant into the shadows, and his blade was drawn before he’d even pinned them to the wall.

“No, wait, please,” came the harried whisper, feminine breath catching at the cold kiss of steel.

Lu Da blinked, his blade’s bite easing a fraction beneath the woman’s chin as her raised hands trembled.

“I mean no harm, but I don’t have much time, and I need your help.”

He kept his guard up, his thoughts a kaleidoscope, shifting and writing over each other in turns.

“My help?”

“I know who you are—”

“And who are you?” he demanded. “Why the stealth and secrecy? Could’ve introduced yourself in the tavern like any normal person.”

“I would have, but no one can see me speaking to you.” Her timorous voice lowered further, her eyes cutting sideward. “I’m being watched. If the guards find out, they’ll suspect something, and they can’t know I know.”

“Know what? Explain.”

“My husband—” She flinched as a man ran past the alley, shouting orders. “They told me he was going on business for a while, but I know better. I know they’ve taken him, because Tensai never left to go anywhere without telling me. I’ve let them think I believe their lies, but it’s only a matter of time before they come for me, too.”

“And why would they do that?”

“Because my husband’s papers are a forgery. He’s not Fire Nation. He’s an earthbender.” She paused, her gaze deepening against his, as if he shared in the same secret about his lineage. “We got by on the ruse for so long we got complacent, didn’t think they’d ever discover it, but now they’ll surely execute him, if they haven’t already, and then they’ll do the same to me.”

“Heart-wrenching story,” he interrupted, compelling her to slow her down, “but any chance you’re getting to the point?”

“My son.” She swallowed thickly. “He’s only eight, his father and I are all he has. If he loses us, he’ll be left on the streets, or worse.”

Lu Da blew out a breath and turned his head, glimpsing a slice of the commotion from outside. He was increasingly certain he didn’t like where this was headed.

“And… dare I ask where you think I come into this?”

“You’re the Fire Lord’s privateer. You come and go often, you’d have the ability to get my son out of here without notice. My husband has family in the Earth Kingdom, in Taichun, where Hiteo would be safe and could start a new life.”

A beat passed as she held her breath and Lu Da studied her face in the shadows.

“What’s your name?”

She wavered, and then answered, “Umi.”

“Well, Umi, if you know who I am, then you realize I could report you for this after leaving here, directly to the Fire Lord.”

Her body tightened palpably with the hitch in her breath, her mousy eyes widening.

“But, for entertainment’s sake, let’s say I didn’t. This stays our little secret. You must have also heard what they say about me. You would hand over your child not only to the likes of a pirate, but one with such a reputation.”

Her throat dipped.

“I’ve heard what they say, yes, what they call you, and I can use my imagination as to why.” She paused, deliberating, and then added, “I also don’t think it’s something you like to be called.”

His face hardened.

“Exactly how long have you been watching me?”

“You’re a man who gets things done,” she barreled on, skirting the mistake. “The way I see it, better the dirty hands of a pirate, who might still give him a chance, than the unforgiving clutches of fate. And of course, I’ll pay you.”

Sheepishly, Umi withdrew a sack of coin and held it up. Even before he took it, Lu Da could tell that it was laughably light and small for what she was asking him to do, the likes of which could get him tangled in a web of trouble. And from the look on her face, she knew it.

One thick brow lifted as he met her eyes again, a vague mixture of amusement and sympathy.

“Look, lady. I’m real sorry for your troubles, I am. But even if I wanted to, I’m currently occupied with business for Fire Lord Ozai.”

At the same time, the pirate was reminded of his affair in need of righting. Sao Tong happened to lie just south of Taichun. It wouldn’t be convenient—it never was—but feasibly, he could take a detour to knock out this personal matter, then drop off the kid on the way to his next Ozai-ordained assignment. Assuming his employer would be indulgent with the time. But even so, this was hardly a short passage she was asking him to make for next to no compensation, and a kid was the last thing he wanted to be saddled with for that length of time.

She seemed to read as much on his face.

“Please, Lu Da, sir…”

Sir. The corner of his mouth pinched against the upward twitch.

“I’m sorry. My sympathies, truly. But I can’t. Trust me, you really want to find someone else to help you.”

And with a nod of finality, he pushed away from the wall and put his back to her, starting toward the main road.

“I– I know the money’s not enough,” she fumbled out, walking briskly after him. “I know you’re not a philanthropist. My husband’s family, they could pay you more… if you would just…”

The plea guttered as it became clear he wasn’t swayed, was not slowing down.

The hastening scuff of footsteps, and suddenly Lu Da was caught mid-stride by a hand clamped daringly around his bicep.

The pirate did stop then, did turn to her, and a spark of fear skittered behind her eyes. She appeared to shrink, as though reminded at once of who he was, suddenly aware of his bulk, his bearing, the hard mound of muscle beneath her palm.

Any average person with a lick of good sense would have let go, taken several steps back, given him a wide berth in the first place. But she didn’t. A woman with nothing to lose.

Her voice was hoarse with desperation, the sheen of strangled tears in her eyes.

“Please. I’ll do anything.” She swallowed again, the slender fingers clasping tighter around his arm, and he could hear the tremor in her breath. “Anything you want.”

The insinuation hung in the air between them.

Lu Da held her gaze before releasing a sigh through his nose, taking her hand gently and removing it from his arm.

“Go home,” he said, softer than he expected, and let her hand fall back to her side as he started away again.

“Think of your own mother,” she choked out behind him. “Your father. The things they must have done to protect you.”

A huff of a laugh glanced off the alley walls as he spun on his heel, walking backward to face her.

“You obviously never met my parents. Go be a better one to your son, we’re done here.”

Her hand pawed at her bosom, and just before he got to the exit, the woman reached toward him and hissed, “Wait!”

Against his better judgment, he stalled as she fished a locket from out of her dress, the polished gold studded with modest red jewels.

“Maybe you’ll accept this.”

She clicked open the delicate latch as he stepped closer. Inside, he could just make out an inscription, starting on one half and finishing on the other: I crossed the world for you… now you are my world, with four names engraved below.

Maybe he didn’t have the most formal education, but Lu Da was pretty sure Wife plus Husband plus Son equaled three.

He was wondering what might have become of the fourth when she said, “It’s all I have to offer. But it’s yours, if you’ll help me. I’m begging you.”

A memory flashed, flickers of another life. A young boy, homeless and alone, starving on the Earth Kingdom streets. If it hadn’t been for Po Jiang, the willingness of a stranger to put his neck on the line for a worthless kid, one who’d robbed him to boot, there was no telling what might have become of him. But he did know that life as he knew it would have turned out very different, and likely much shorter.

Still, in his line of business, a functioning conscience was the province of fools and the dead, the two of which were not far removed.

Lu Da’s eyes rolled closed on an exhale. His mind flooded with feral blasphemy.

“Alright.”

“Oh,” she breathed thickly, her chin trembling. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

The woman extended the locket, waiting for his open palm. Instead, he shook his head and closed her hand back around it, his own dwarfing hers.

“Keep it.”

The welling tears spilled over then. “Bless you.” Slipping it back into her dress, she held out the meager bag of coin. “Take this, at least.”

That much he could accept, and he did. Lu Da secured it away in his bag with the rest of the night’s plunder, waiting a few minutes between the woman’s and his furtive exits.

Doing this was going to give him all the good karma he’d need for the rest of his life. Well, if he died within the next two weeks. He had far too many demons for that. But maybe this would expiate at least one of them.

+++ +++ +++

The well-kept gate whispered shut behind him. Lu Da took the footpath in large strides, washed to dark violet in the dusk, and rapped briskly on the door of the modest house. He could smell noodles cooking before it even opened.

A lock scraped, a latch clicked, and then Ta Ming stood in its frame, still in her red soldier’s uniform, sans mantel, holding a pair of chopsticks. The warm backlight rendered her almost a silhouette, setting the edges of her russet hair on fire.

She blinked rapidly. “Oh.”

“Hi.” He shifted, ran a tattooed hand through his mohawk. “Got a minute?”

“Um,” she dithered, “well I was just in the middle of making dinner. Did you need something?”

Lu Da held both hands up, feigning a step back. “Just a friend, but if that’s—”

“Oh, no, sorry, it’s just that you look a little…”

“Flummoxed? Bamboozled?”

“…Perturbed,” she finished, arching a brow, and then stepped back, holding the door open. “Come in.”

He toed the door shut behind him and dropped his bag as Ta Ming gave a quick toss of the stir-fry, turning back to him.

“Is everything all right?” she asked.

“No, Ta Ming, everything is not all right,” he said, flinging his cloak off onto a chest. “Figures you weren’t there tonight, some of the weirdest shit happens when you’re not there.”

She groaned quietly and turned back to cooking. “Not sure I even want to know.”

“Well, you’re about to. I might have agreed to take custody of a kid.”

Ta Ming spun back around so fast she almost took out the wok of noodles.

“What? Wait a minute, whose kid? Not…” she fumbled, chopsticks gesturing, “yours?”

“No, not mine, and just temporarily. But still.”

He went on to tell her about the woman in the alley and her husband and her plea for help. It could be a gamble, of course, letting a loyal servant of the Fire Nation in on the whole ordeal. But Lu Da felt confident enough in knowing the soldier now, in the friendship that had sprouted in the oddest of places, to know that while Ta Ming may be a terrible liar outright, she could do so well enough by omission, if it ever came to that. And he didn’t think she would willingly out him over it. Not to mention, her own mixed heritage, regardless of how she felt about it.

“Any chance I could convince you to take him, find the kid a way to the Earth Kingdom?” he asked at the end.

Ta Ming gave the noodles one last toss, tapping the chopsticks on the edge of the wok, and gave him the look. “You know I can’t do that. Besides, a woman entrusted her son to you, it would be wrong to hand him off.”

“Maybe someone at the brothel,” he pressed on. “Jhu Lin or Ayame, or anyone who might know a client going that direction?”

A long, withering stare was her final answer, and Lu Da had already known it to be a lost cause.

“Dammit, this sucks,” he exhaled, dropping himself onto one of the two pillows on either side of her table. “Sucks greasy hog monkey balls.”

Two bamboo bowls were set on the table, a third larger bowl heaped with steaming, fragrant stir-fry in the center as Ta Ming came to kneel across from him, long legs folded underneath her.

For a long moment, he waited for to say something, and when she didn’t, he baited with, “Aren’t you gonna tell me how I’m terrible and treasonous and shoulda just made short work of it, ratted them all out?”

She took another moment to reflect, but finally answered, “You agreed to help a desperate mother save her child. Circumstances aside, I’m proud of you. That’s a worthy thing to do. And who knows,” she added, beginning to fill his bowl, and then her own, “it might not be so bad. You might learn something from each other.”

Lu Da rolled his eyes. “This isn’t one of those three-hanky Ember Island stage dramas, Ta Ming. It’s real life.” He groaned and plucked up a mouthful, leaning against the table to massage above one brow as he chewed. “What am I supposed to do with an eight-year-old boy for the next couple weeks?”

“Why are you asking me?” she asked, taking a bite. “You were an eight-year-old boy once.”

“And I’ve blocked the experience from my memory.”

Ta Ming reached across the table to place a hand on his arm. “You’ll be fine,” she insisted. Then, sitting back, gestured to his scarcely touched food. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

“Wish I had time, but I gotta get back,” he said, forcing himself to his feet and shouldering his effects, “set up a place for the runt to stay on the trip.”

“Well, here.” The soldier rose after him and topped the bowl off, covering it with a linen cloth. “Take it to go then.”

Their eyes met as she placed the bowl into his hands.

“Thanks.” A warm feeling expanded through his chest, like he’d just eaten a handful of fire flakes too quickly. “Not sure I’ve ever told you, Pointy Boots, but you’re pretty damn okay in my book.”

Ta Ming smiled. “Take care, Pirate King.”

Light spilled onto the walkway as she stood in the door, and he gestured with the bowl in his hand.

“I’ll bring it back next time I’m around. You sure you wanna keep giving me reasons to drop by?”

She scoffed softly. “You, waiting to be given a reason? Anyhow, that happens to be my only extra bowl, so at least once more.”

He grinned, opening the gate, and her lips pinched as if to stifle some wayward pleasure. “I look forward to hearing the stories when you return.”

+++ +++ +++

Darkness was complete when he returned to his ship.

The crew was a buzz of questions and opinions and arguments about their imminent young stowaway, but Rizo mostly dug for details on the alley encounter, waggling an eyebrow.

“Did she swoon and throw herself into your big strong arms, beg you to take her right there? ‘Oh, my swashbuckling hero, you may be bad, but you're so g—’”

The last word evanesced to a wheeze as Lu Da's fist found his stomach. He kept certain details vague; toss a tiger shark a morsel and it only went gunning for more.

“Rizo, consider laying off the sleazy romance scrolls for a while,” said Marik.

Marikkituq was his full given name, though anyone who ever called him that never did so twice. His strong brow line had a habit of buckling into a scowl whenever he was thinking. If he could have somehow masked his Water Tribe lineage, the Thinking Face would rat him out every time.

He stood there now, arms crossed, brow buckled. Marik abstained from joining the futile arguments, and when Lu Da finally wielded his Captain's voice to break up the squall, Marik suggested the boy take up residence in one of their rooms. On further suggestion that Lu Da be the appointed one, the captain laughed at first.

When he realized Marik was serious, he frowned.

“To keep a curious mind from sneaking out to rove the ship at all hours,” Marik maintained. “Besides, you’re the one here being paid to babysit, and the kid’s young, they get scared, and yours is the roomiest of our quarters.”

“Of the lot of us, Marik, I’d say you’re best suited as his roommate,” Lu Da argued. “You’re the only one here, far as we know, who’s an actual father with some semblance of experience.”

“Yeah. ‘Cause a baby daddy showing up in his daughter’s life a few times a year is the glowing paragon,” he soured.

Marik loved to sell himself short, a symptom of how it chafed him in quiet. But the truth was, and Lu Da had seen it, the guy was stupid head over heels for that little girl.

It had thrown them all for a loop, most of all Marik, who had been too lost in the sauce that night six years ago to remember basic biology. One very off-brand, drunken romp and ten months later, while in the same port, he’d bumped into the girl again, a little extra baggage in tow.

There’d been no use denying the paternity, the dusky skin, the slant of the nose, but to his credit, Marik didn’t try.

The first year, whenever they’d make port in Kiyocheok, he would disappear just long enough to drop off coin with an awkward hello-goodbye. Which was more than could be said for many in his shoes. But gradually, his visits had grown lengthier, the drag in his step a little lighter, and now there lived an unspoken understanding that, barring emergencies, their brother-in-arms would be considered off duty for a few hours.

Sure, there was no love lost in his liaison with the mother, but it turned out they were compatible enough as friends and more or less made it work.

And that was how fatherhood had come to fit Lu Da’s second-in-command like a worn-in pair of boots.

And why the captain now couldn’t much argue the veracity of his advice on the matter at hand.

Tromping across the deck and up the stairs, Lu Da grumbled his way to his quarters, partitioning off a section along the farthest wall with a folding screen he kept in the corner. Threw together a makeshift bed—a few crates pushed together and piled with blankets—and an hour later, he was lurking in the shadows of the lonelier harbor limits.

It wasn’t long before a silhouette materialized. Even though the likelihood of it being someone else was slim, Lu Da still held in a breath until Umi’s cloaked face caught in a slant of moonlight.

The hushed exchange was tearful, but brief. The boy—Hiteo, whispered his mother—sniffled and nodded but didn’t say a word. Not as his mother said goodbye, nor on the winding walk back. Not a word when they embarked the ship and met some of the crew, nor when Lu Da showed him to his cabin, or even when he saw him into bed and snuffed out the light with an awkward goodnight. Lu Da half wondered whether the boy might actually be mute.

Maybe this would turn out to be a piece of mooncake after all.

+++

(Chapter Two)

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