She ignored the soldiers, or rather she shot them a cool glance that dared them to stop her and then she moved through the crowd of downed men, stooping and checking to see what needed seeing to, regardless of crew. Perhaps it would be seen as disloyal, but she didn’t care. The battle was done, the victors clear. She passed by the dead and dying, there was nothing to be done for a gut wound, but all in all the fatalities were minimal and the injuries not too dire.

One man, from the enemy ship took her kneeling at his side to be an invitation and took the opportunity to grope her. As his hand reached up, filthy, bloody fingers taking a hold of her breast, fingers restlessly searching for something to tweak she calmly pulled back her arm and delivered a careful blow that broke his nose with a sigh of long suffering. He screamed and released his grip leaving behind a bloody hand print on her shirt and the upper swell of her breast. She knelt by him impassibly until the screams turned into curses. The as she stood she said to him,

“Do not mistake kindness for weakness. You will live but your face will be marred with your inner ugliness.” 

She gently touched her cheek where her own blackness was displayed and moved onto the next man. It wasn’t much longer before she was done, having shooed off the crew of the Skate, all of whom were mobile. She was just ready to turn to leave when someone bumped into her. She turned, her face still that calm mask that it wore in the face of chaos and she let her eyebrow rise as she faced the helmsman. She narrowed her eyes as she looked at him, something was off. That smile of his was in place broad and bright, but was it too bright? She looked him over, the lines around his eyes were deep, etched into his skin from the wind and sun but they looked deeper, tighter. They spoke of pain, pain the bright smile was trying to hide. She drew herself up and stepped back, her eyes sweeping over him in appraisal, though not of the sort he would likely appreciate. 

He thought himself clever when he lifted his coat to show her the rum but it revealed a good deal more. She caught sight of the rag, filthy and grimy pressed to his side and winced. This was not good, but the fact that he was upright made her think it might not be so bad. But she still wanted to see it, to know that her crew, even one as flippant as this one, was well and had not lost something as valuable as his life in this absurd little skirmish. 

“Show me.” She said, her honeyed voice commanding. 

He was crew and it was her job to keep the crew inline and in one piece. She didn’t like that he hid his wound from her, as if he didn’t trust her to take care of it. He was new so perhaps she hadn’t made her point clear enough with him yet. She had fought this fight before, to prove her place on the crew as not just an officer but as a Doctor. So many of the crew at first would not come to her with illnesses, embarrassed or disbelieving. She would admit she wasn’t thrilled when she had to treat her crew for the various things they picked up in brothels but she did because it was her job and the ones who thought to cover their embarrassment and discomfort with lewdness and crude jokes found themselves with a flux from the medicines she gave them, the ones who behaved did not. But in the end, they all wound up clean. 

“Do not make me pull your hand off of that wound.” She said misunderstanding what it was he was hiding but implacable nevertheless. “Do you know what a gut wound does to a man? We can stay here and listen to him scream.” She said and pointed to the man who was beginning to stir restlessly on the ground, his feet shifting weakly against the floorboards as his shit mingled with his insides.