Darlington sat alone.
His eyes were closed, but he saw everything. The battles on the Infinite Sea the monsters, the ships, the pirates and navy men locked in eternal combat all of it played out behind his eyelids like a theater of blood and fire. He watched it all. Cataloged it all. Hated it all.
He raised his hand.
For a moment, he held it there suspended in the void, weightless, meaningless. Then he took a deep breath and let it out.
He heard the words of William Hannam Henderson.
"We shall attain immortality. No matter what. We will not die."
"Imprint yourself on the enemy so deep that they will live to remember you."
"Impact on a life."
Darlington's face twisted.
"What useless thoughts to have." His voice was quiet, but sharp a blade wrapped in silk. "You should just accept the fate that you have. Trying to make something out of nothing."
He shook his head.
"Giving hope to those around you..."
He frowned, anger rising in his chest like bile, like fire, like something that had been sleeping and was now awake.
"Why are you so similar?"
He pressed his hands against his head fingers digging into his scalp, twisting in his curly hair, pulling at the roots. The pain was grounding. The pain was nothing.
"Why are you and Hyacinth similar?"
He laughed a short, bitter, broken sound.
"It's not as if you look the same." His voice softened, almost tender. "That bastard..."
He paused.
"...was all fat and ugly."
He smiled a thin, wistful expression that did not reach his eyes.
"You don't even sound the same. But within your words..." He touched his chest over his heart. "...your feeling..."
His voice cracked.
"Why are they like that? Why do you have that kind of mentality?"
Darlington began to shed tears.
They came without warning hot, silent, endless. They traced paths down his cheeks, dripped from his chin, fell into the void below. He bent his head, his shoulders slumping, his body curling in on itself as emotions flooded into his head like water through a broken dam.
He became like a light paper that could be blown away.
Fragile.
Weightless.
Lost.
He said, as he asked himself, the words barely a whisper.
"What is the true meaning of life?"
He smiled.
"I once asked myself this question."
He looked at the grey void at the nothing that surrounded him, at the gods who did not care, at the answers that never came.
"I can't believe the stupid answer that fat fool gave me that time." He laughed again softer now, almost fond. "What a dick friend."
He turned away from the brothers.
His attention shifted dragging itself away from William, Reginald, and Frank, away from their dreams of immortality and impact, away from the echoes of Hyacinth that haunted their words.
He focused on the battle between Gareth and the gunmen.
His eyes those observer's eyes tracked every movement, every breath, every choice. Gareth held both guns now the pistols he had taken from the fallen, the weapons he had claimed as his own.
He threw them in the air.
It was strategic.
A diversion. A trick. The guns spun end over end, gleaming in the storm-light drawing the eyes of the enemy, capturing their attention, creating an opening.
Gareth grabbed them.
And fired.
But what he didn't realize perhaps his mistake in this battle was that he was fighting against people who knew how to use the weapon better than him.
He made the mistake of not knowing his enemy.
He only knew himself.
At least, that's what he wanted to show. To deceive the enemy he was fighting.
Darlington watched.
His tears had stopped. His face was calm. His eyes were cold.
He said nothing.
Just watched.
Gareth fired.
Darlington watched.
And the Infinite Sea churned.