The damp timber of the quarterdeck groaned beneath us as we lay together, each gasping for breath, his head heavy on my lap. Brushing the dark, lank hair from his still face, I noticed the scar again. Running across his cheek, it had been there since we were children. Though now faded in the twenty years which had since passed, and partially hidden under the matted hair of his beard, I would always remember the day I gave it to him. I permitted myself a smile, despite the grave situation we had faced just a short while earlier.

His hair had always been black, thick and full; the envy of the navy they had joked behind his back. Now, prematurely streaked with silver, belying his relatively young age, it was gradually returning to its youth hue, darkening with the stream of blood escaping his scalp.

The calm water before them now flat like a black mirror, the waves hardly even lapping at the side of the ship, it all seemed like a silent dream. What only seemed like minutes earlier, the cacophonous thunder of cannons drowned out the hollow screams of two thousand men, each fighting for their lives and their flags.

Now, he held his brother tight in his arms, watching as the uniform announcing he was a captain of the kings men, a title he so proudly wore, stopped moving, as the last light left his cold body.

“I love you” he whispered, “and I always did”. Though inseparable in their youth, differing ideologies had pulled them apart years ago, until the day they knew would come and they would be forced to face each other on opposing sides of the battle line.