Herbert, though forced to journey as a passenger, also rose and entered his chair to join Edward on the weather deck. He looked a touch more refreshed than Edward did, but it was clear that he too had trouble sleeping on the foreign ship.
John jumped down to the sole of the deck, fresh and ready to go with energy only youth could muster. Even with only a few hours of sleep, he seemed to not need any more. Though if Edward could place a wager, he had a feeling that before long, John would lag behind the more experienced crewmates.
The three headed towards the ladder leading to the weather deck, and Herbert and Edward went into motion with a practiced efficiency of long years together. Herbert jumped off his chair and climbed up the ladder as swift as a snake. Edward, after a few breaths and repositioning to not reopen his wounds, and declining help from John, lifted the chair overhead. Balancing it with one hand, and with the other holding to a rope leading up the steep ladder, he climbed to the weather deck. After another moment's respite to catch his breath, he took the chair further up some steps to the quarterdeck where guests were meant to stay.
After gingerly placing the chair down, Herbert climbed in. "Are you well?" he asked Edward, keeping his voice low.
Edward nodded, though he knew his breathing would say otherwise. He also caught himself leaning on the handle of Herbert's chair for support and stopped himself.
"You haven't been sleeping well, I notice." Herbert left a second question unuttered.
Edward decided to sidestep Herbert's undertone with a retort. "Neither have you," he said, not looking at Herbert directly.
Herbert frowned. "Come now, we're in…" Herbert's gaze flitted to the other crewmates already on watch, and the closest few near the helm. He lowered his volume again. "We're alone here. We need to be together here more than ever. If you need help, you need to tell me."
Edward's everything itched at the conversation. He wanted to be away from it more than anything. He clenched his fist and levelled a steely gaze at Herbert. "And how exactly can you help me here?" he snarled. "How can you when you can't even rig a ship in that chair of yours?" Edward rose to his full height as Herbert's expression turned from brows raised to furrowed, with a side of clenched jaw.
"That was unnecessary," Herbert replied with bared teeth.
Edward knew that what he'd said was wrong, but he was too tired for remorse. "I'm sorry," he said hastily, too hastily for sincerity, "but I can handle myself, and it would behoove you not to place more of a burden on me with your incessant questions." Edward rubbed the sleep from his eyes, hoping to catch some of the frustration in between his thumb and forefinger at the same time. "I've got work to do," he said as he walked away.
Throughout the night, Edward was tasked with securing rigging, keeping watch and relaying navigational information to the helmsman, making minor repairs to the spare sails in the quarterdeck cabin, and when that was exhausted, he had to swab the deck.
All the while, the crew were taking every opportunity to make his job harder than it had to be. From outstretched feet trying to send him tumbling to 'accidental' drops of tools to the sole of the deck, to creating the messes they forced him to clean, the crew united in a passive-aggressive battle to break him.
And, to make it just that much worse, when Edward had a chance to look up from his work and wipe the sweat from his brow, he took notice of the other crewmates on night watch lounging and not even working a third as hard as he.
If this were any other ship, he would have taken issue with the disparity, and at that moment, as irritable as he was, he felt such rage over it he could have slit someone's throat. On this ship, and with the smirks the other crewmates were giving him, his hardship was by design, the silent architects of his misfortune being the captain's declaration that he does the work of several men to make up for Herbert's presence, and upheld by the mate in charge and the crew.
At the end of several hours of that backbreaking work, and the leering crew watching, it was finally time for a change of crew on deck. Herbert told Edward he would stay on deck to observe for the rest of the night, so Edward headed towards the ladder below deck.
The mate in charge stopped him. "Hold there," he said. "You're to stay working."
Edward's hand twitched, the itch to grab the man by the throat almost overpowering his reason. He said nothing, just stared down at the man while breathing hard from the exertion.
Something about Edward's silence, his towering height above the mate, and his crazed look seemed to give the man pause, and he backed up half a step. "Captain's orders," he stammered.
Edward felt too exhausted to even speak a response. He simply grunted as he pushed past the mate and went to the quarterdeck, all the way to the stern behind some rigging and storage, to rest before the new crewmates arrived to start working again.
John was on Edward's heels just as he turned around to flop onto the deck. "What happened?"
Edward took several deep breaths before answering. "It seems," he paused for another breath, "I am to do the work of several men in the most literal of senses. Not only am I working while others gawk like some beggar freak in the street, but I cannot even rest as a normal crewmate would." John didn't know how to respond and stammered a few words, which Edward paid little attention to. The stammering reminded Edward of his dead crewmate with the same name. "Get out of here before I take out my frustration on you."
John looked like he
