Page 71 of Garden of Poisoned Delights

In the Age of Princes, water was a precious commodity. Sailors would have consumed beer with water to cut down bacteria.

“We knew how to filter water,” Dex said, frowning. “It’s the same way they’ve been doing it for— Where are you going?”

“Somewhere more interesting,” Arwyn called, heading past the boring, mundane relics of a life too tedious to care about. He had never been a common anything, human, sailor, or pirate. Cups and tables and trinkets were fine, but he wanted to see something more personal.

The next room delivered exactly that, and Arwyn clapped as he saw the depiction of a wyvern in a pen, the words Wyvern-Riders in the Age of Princes above a very long, informational sign that had mostly incorrect information about wyverns and those who used to fly them. They weren’t common on pirate ships, but the plaque seemed to think that they were.

In a roped-off section near the entrance of the room was the wyvern pen, recreated from what had been found in the wreckage. In the corner was a pile of hay and rocks, and the sign proclaimed, ship wyverns traditionally hoarded pebbles and sea glass, as recreated here.

“Not our girl,” Arwyn said fondly. “She liked paste jewels.”

“And me,” Declan said, and shook his head. “You bastard. It was hundreds of years ago, and I still remember how mad I was when I realized you’d left and taken Stella with you.”

“Are you waiting for me to apologize?” Arwyn asked, curious.

“Of course not,” Dex scoffed. “You never have.”

“I am nothing if not predictable,” Arwyn said, which was true, in its way, even if it made Dex scoff and roll his eyes. “Besides, you stole her from me when you went gallivanting off to try and prove me wrong and ended up whipped down to the spine in an orange grove.”

Declan was quiet for a moment, and then he said, softly, “Your eyes, Shadow.”

In the glint of the glass case, Arwyn could see his eyes glowing a pale red.

“It was a long time ago,” Declan said, which was both trite and placating, two things Arwyn hated. “And he’s dead, remembered as a folk legend about failure and greed. We couldn’t have asked for a better ending.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Arwyn said begrudgingly. His eyes gradually lost their reddish glow. “Oh, look, here’s that golden phallus I liked to fuck you with, remember? How funny, they call it a pestle with a missing mortar.”

Declan blushed and leaned in. He snickered. “It was certainly used by a pest.”

“I’m choosing to ignore that,” Arwyn informed him. He considered stealing it, but he liked having it on display too much to want to remove, even if they had the use all wrong. Besides, he had any number of them at home. “How do they not know what this is? There are plenty of shops on this very island that sell phalluses like this, and no one is stupid enough to think they’re for crushing up herbs.”

“People forget the past isn’t only made up of practical things, I think,” Declan said. “They forget real people were on this ship, and that people back then weren’t so different from people now. People fucked on the ship just like people fuck now.”

“What an astute observation. You should consider a career as a historian. At least you’d write far more entertaining plaques.” Arwyn considered this as they continued to peruse the exhibit. Declan was right. There was a collection of toys used entirely for submissives and dominants, but they were referenced as tools for keeping order on board. While there was some truth to that—ensuring sailors could indulge their biological urges to submit or dominate was important for morale—it was decidedly odd that no one considered that maybe they were simply used for fun.

“Imagine what they’ll say about that fucking machine we have at home in Kallistos,” Arwyn said. “Probably that it’s some sort of elaborate contraption used by a valet to press clothes.”

“That’s entirely possible, given how many times you use it as a glorified hanger when you don’t have me strapped into it,” Declan agreed.

All in all, the exhibit was mostly as dull as Arwyn expected—correct when it came to the technical aspects of the ship itself, mostly correct when it came to the day-to-day life on board, and wrong about literally everything else.

The recreation of his old captain’s quarters was mostly wrong, but then again, he’d taken what he wanted from the ship before giving it to Iola. There was very little of Arwyn or Declan there, though he did note the silver basin where he used to pour water and summon his hoard from his Well, or toss a shell to summon Leviathan. He considered stealing that, too, as there was only a simple rope keeping them out, but where on earth would he hide a silver bowl?

He consoled himself by stealing a jeweled hat pin that had been his, which wasn’t stealing so much as finding something he’d lost a few hundred years ago. Maybe that sign outside the museum wasn’t all that wrong, after all.

Then he remembered King Cadoc, dead in the waters of his Well, fingers clenched around a rusted, worthless crown that had cost him his life. His legacy was a cautionary tale against greed, and no one knew the name of his ships or his wives or that he’d ever been a real person, much less a king. All the children he’d had and murdered for power, all for a kingdom and a legacy that most regarded as a myth. He thought of Nyx’s former empire, slumbering beneath Arktos, the perfidious emperor who’d betrayed Nyx turned to whitened bones in the sand.

Maybe a better sign would be, All is not lost, merely waiting to be found…and if it isn’t, maybe it just doesn’t deserve to be.

He’d have to leave that on the suggestion card, along with a very simple explanation of why that wasn’t a pestle, perhaps with a diagram. He was no God of Art, but he could render the basics easily enough.

“Let’s see what else they’ve gotten wrong about our ship, Dex,” Arwyn said, cheerfully, and hooked his arm in Declan’s. “Maybe we’ll find those nipple clamps you liked so much in an exhibit of ways to hang laundry to dry in the sun.”

* * *

It was odd, seeing his own life behind glass.

Declan sometimes wondered if the other companions to the gods remembered their early lives so vividly. He knew mortal minds couldn’t hold onto details, letting them go vague and indistinct, but perhaps being part of Arwyn’s hoard meant he remembered everything. He could even recall the way the air smelled at night, when the smoke from cookfires on the islands made the sky hazy. It had looked like the islands were wreathed in smoke sometimes, which, according to one of the plaques, was a possible reason for the name Diabolos.

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