a maddening breath
@syharper
somewhere on board the firefly class spaceship named serenity, there is a baby crying.
it’s not a sound endymion ever thought he’d hear on the supposedly terrifying pirate ship, especially not after the tales and stories saito has told him about his own travels on the ship in a past life, his history long and complicated, his knowledge of the verse and planets skewed interestingly in twisted, secret ways. saito knew a lot of different things about a lot of different kinds of people and places and laws, but the princeling wonders if he’d have any sort of experience dealing with the situation endymion is currently faced with. namely, the sobs and whines of a fussy child.
jaewon had to let him out from his designated room at some point, despite his obvious hesitancy with it, if only to let endymion eat and wash himself, which he supposes the doctor would have him think is a mercy he should be grateful for. the captain still won’t speak with him though, won’t even entertain him-- the guy just walks out of every room endymion enters and locks himself up inside his navigation room, or the bridge to fly the ship, and won’t open up no matter what endymion threatens or promises. every time they land somewhere, captain yang bolts the zephyran inside his room and leaves him there until they take off again, as though endymion isn’t even trustworthy enough to set foot on another planet, as though he’s ready to run given the slightest chance. which isn’t necessarily wrong, but it’s insulting nevertheless.
so he finds himself wondering quite a bit while they fly, trying to bother henry as little as possible, occasionally sitting with galiad and reciting the prayers and hymns he still remembers, which admittedly, embarrassingly, are only a few. his sister melliandre would be ashamed of him; he can already hear the kinds of scolding she’d dole out on him. he would butcher all the stars in the sky just to hear her again, to get that opportunity again, to be spoken to by her even if it’s in anger. as long as she’s still alive to do it, he wouldn’t care.
he hasn’t heard anything about zephyr at all, and it’s driving him crazy, but what’s maddening even worse in the immediately sense, is that there’s an extremely unhappy child on board, and if there’s anything endymion knows how to do well, with thirty-four of his own siblings at home, it’s deal with children. he finds the source of the noise in the mess hall, another passenger cradling the wriggling creature as best she can while trying to make up a bottle. it looks like she’s juggling several things at once, so endymion hurries over. “here, can i help?” he touches the bottle lightly, not trying to take it from her, just making a note. “this might be too cold. can i heat it for you?”