[IC] Tides of Dusk: A Piratical Tale of Fantasy

[AmongHeroes]

Thomas smirked at Jax, the gesture making his swollen cheek smart painfully. “Aye, I had a feeling my luck was to change, so I suppose I should thank the brigand,” He said, kicking at the corpse at his feet. “That doesn’t mean I won’t make you suffer for every peso you swindle from me, sea-artist. Another time indeed.”

The helmsman walked off, leaving Thomas alone beneath the hawkish stare of Commander Murray. The soldier moved to stand beside the pirate captain, and joined Thomas in viewing the body.

“Your penchant for bringing trouble will be the death of you, Thomas,” Murray whispered, not looking up.

“Perhaps.”

“With utmost certainty, you mean. Providence has only granted you so many pardons my friend. Will you not save any for a life beyond sailing beneath black sails?”

Thomas gave the soldier a sideways glance. He had fought beside Thomas several times during Spanish attacks against Port Royal, and had even sailed with the man once during an expedition for the legendary Henry Morgan. Murray was the antithesis to Thomas in many ways, and in truth they should’ve been bitter enemies. In spite of their differences, it was their similarities that had proven to be more paramount to the nature of their association. They were both rigorously loyal, and though their individual definitions were most often opposing, they both lived by a code of honor. Or in Thomas’ case, some semblance of one.

“I pray,” Thomas replied. “That I will never have a life without the wind in my face, and the yearning press of adventure in my gut.”

Murray nodded sagely, conceding the discussion. The soldier noticed the approach of a man whose elegant dress and attractive countenance brought a furrow of confusion to his brow. “You keep strange bedfellows, Thomas Lightfoot.”

As Murray slipped away to return to his men, Thomas spoke after him in a soft voice. “You have no idea.”

Antonia, or the man who the rogue was pretending to be, spoke his name and came to stand beside him. Thomas nodded his acknowledgement about the meeting at the Parakeet. Her mention of the First Mate wiping the floor with him in gleek brought a smile to his face that once again morphed into a wince.

“Your concern is ever appreciated, my good man,” he said with a twinkle in his chestnut eyes.

She turned to leave, and Thomas hand shot out to clutch her by the wrist. Her attention returned to him fractionally, and in that moment he slipped the stiletto knife into a pocket of her lavish coat.

”I thank you,” he spoke to her in buccaneer French, ”For everything.” The import of his meaning was plain, and he needed no more words to express his gratitude. Such sentiment was an unusual thing for Thomas, and even as he dwelled upon that, he realized that Nicolette also deserved such attentions. The women amongst his crew were proving to have inestimable worth.

He released her hand, and watched Antonia walk away to join with the woman Madeliene. Thomas looked about the Black Boar and saw that both his First Mate and the sea-artist were preoccupied with their own tasks, so he resolved to use the time before he was to meet them at the Parakeet to take care of some of his own.

Thomas gave Murray a slight nod as he departed the tavern. Turning towards the waterfront, and the North Docks beyond, he began to reload and prime his spent pistols. He was a pirate captain walking the streets of Port Royal alone after having killed several members of a rival crew, and though Thomas was not fearful, he was ever mindful of the reality of the world in which he lived.

With his pistols reloaded and stowed once again in their holsters, Thomas wound his way through the stinking alleys and rough streets until he was at the wharf where the Dusk Skate was moored. The sentries guarding the great ship instantly stepped aside to let him pass, and Thomas climbed the gangway onto the main deck. The ship was mostly empty, save for several more sentries that patrolled the fore and aft castles, and those amongst the crew that had no desire to lay their head in the port. It was one of these men that Thomas sought.

He found the man snoring loudly in a hammock suspended between two cannon on the gun deck. Thomas whistled lightly, and the man awoke instantly.

“Cap’n?” the man said, blinking the sleep from his eyes.

“Aye, Dujo. I have work for you.”

Dujo sat up. “Name it.”

Thomas nodded to the Dusk Skate’s quartermaster. Dujo, a short man of only five foot two, was the progeny of a French rascal and a whore of Carib Indian descent. His appearance reflected his mixed parentage, as his skin was a reddish-brown, while his hair was a matted tangle of bright blond strands set into broad dreadlocks, and interwoven with sea-shells and turtle bones. Through his sharp nose was set a ring of jade, and his ears were pierced with the small beaks of a sparrow. The man’s voice was a high mix of French and Carib inflections, and his eyes were dark and deep-set into a face with high cheek bones.

“We must prepare to sail, within the next two days.” Thomas said to Dujo.

“Two days?” Dujo whispered excitedly. “So soon Cap’n? Grim work, will it be?”

“Aye, but the prize is too great to miss.”

Dujo nodded, his jaw setting and unsetting as he thought. “Shall I prepare the Skate for iron, sir?” The man indicated the need to outfit the ship for the possibility of a rough sea engagement.

Thomas nodded. “We will be poking the Don most stringently, Dujo. Make her ready for such.”

“With pleasure, Cap’n.” The quartermaster’s ebony eyes narrowed. “There will be questions, and much excitement in the town. You know I cannot keep such preparations silent for long.”

Thomas shrugged. “There is nothing for it, and all the more reason for haste. Time is not on our side in this venture, Dujo. I trust that you will have her ready by the day after next.”

“Ne’er you worry, Cap’n. She’ll be ready with bells on ‘er toes.”

With that, Dujo stalked off to begin his work, leaving Thomas alone with the cannon. For several minutes he set next to the massive bronze instruments of destruction, his mind wandering over the voyage to come. It would be a great miracle to find the lost Spanish galleon, and even if they found nothing, the journey into such a heavily traveled Spanish sea lane bordered on insanity. Thomas scratched at his beard and sighed, thinking back to Murray’s words about him tempting Providence. “’Tis the way of things,” he said to himself.

Thomas stood, resolved to tell his compatriots at the Parakeet of the coming adventure, and made his way once again into the fetid avenues of Port Royal. As he stepped into the dim tavern for the second time that night, he looked about for the figures of his First Mate, the sea-artist, or the rogue Antonia.

[tirgesfu]

His first thought was damn he didn’t fool her at all with his fake face and show of the bottle. Eagle witch eyes this one, even if her voice fell over his ears like melted sugar. The eyes drilled. But for some reason he couldn’t look away from Nicolette until the voice of some strange hat swordsman began to boss things around and broke the spell. Who the hell was he? Jax thought he saw the guy flash around the fight but why did he pick their side? Maybe the first mate's lover? No, he didn’t look at her that way. But he did dangle cards, coins and conversation this strange fish. And was Jax mistaken or did his Captain just grab hold of that squirmy sea creature’s hand? Might be more to learn than who in this crew could play cards.

Jax was quick to look back to Mademoiselle Beauchamp still holding his hand against his chest. He tried a smile again. Was she sending him a challenge. “I can listen to gut wound screams for as long as you like.” He pulled his arms away from his stomach and hefted his chest so she could marvel at his fit form. He took a few deep breaths for her to watch. Jax stuck his chest out and flexed all the muscle he could. Feast your eyes, witch. She was wrong and he wanted to point that out, again.

The bottle that was tucked under his arm slipped and he moved as his wrapped arm caught it before his mind warned him. His face did not hide the pain that shot through as he juggled the bottle and quickly put it in his unwrapped not bloody hand. He shook his other arm a few times trying to stop the pulsing pain that ran up his arm. He spun his back to her. Jax was sure she saw. Maybe she didn’t care. Why should she? Most likely better for her if he was off the Dusk Skate.

Taking a big breath he spun back around to face her. “Seems they think you are some master at games, at gleek and others I am sure.” He smiled and slowly held his hand out sure she would not take it or uncover the hidden wound. “Good thing I am not in top form just now. I don’t fall for the tête dur act.”

“I am a shark at cards.” Jax announced with a broad big smile. "Le petit poisson." Of course when he said the phrase it sounded nothing like French.

[Lillian Thorne]

It was the eyes that did it, grey and irreverent, one could not hide such eyes as that and Nicolette wondered that more people didn’t catch on. But then typically this one had charms on display that kept eyes well away from such distinguishing features as eyes. But those charms were not on display just then, were they? And she so carelessly dropped her little endearment where anyone with ears could hear it, Silver Fish, no one else called the captain that. It seemed careless, but Nicki wondered. For all her irreverence the lookout did not strike her as careless. There had been a reason for everything, Nicki just needed to find it. This too was a change, changes weren’t in and of themselves bad, but they could make her skin prickle in unease until she saw which way the winds would blow.

She let the woman walk away, her absurd hat shading those eyes and then turned back to the helmsman who so kindly pointed out her mistake. Nicki felt conflicted at the mistake, relief that there was no gut wound to worry about and angry that she’d jumped to conclusions and so publically. Mistakes were deadly, they made people doubt and she needed every one of the crew to have faith in a few things. They needed to believe that Nicki could keep them alive, they needed to believe that if they laid a hand on her unwillingly she would make them bleed. If they started doubting her efficacy then they might begin to doubt everything and she would have to reapply some convincing. She hated that, it was messy, it was unpredictable and it got harder each time. But this one was new, this one hadn’t believed in the first place and so perhaps nothing was lost in this exchange. Only time would tell, time and the placement of hands.

She let him put on his little display and if she were moved by such things she might have admitted, if only to herself that it was an impressive display. This one, for all his debauchery and irreverent talk took care of himself. His teeth in that grin were white and even, strong. Which spoke of good eating and an attention to hygiene, something not often found in pirates. His body was fit and strong, not muscled with a coating of fat from an excess in living and lack of activity. No it was taut and worthy of an anatomist’s sketch book. Not that she sketched, not any more. And not that she would ask this one to let her draw his lines, his bones, his swells of muscle as they wove together under his skin to form a perfect specimen.

Quickly she slipped her eyes to the side, as if annoyed, lest he think he had moved her with his display. As if she were some dim-plumaged female to be impressed by such displays. She was further spared embarrassment when the bottle he had so proudly displayed slipped and his instinctive move to save it gave her the answer for the question she had not yet asked. His hand. Before he spun like a little boy hiding something from his mother she saw the bandage on his hand. Her nose crinkled in disgust at the filthy rag and at the stubborn need to hide his injury from her. What did he think she was there for? To be posed at? Leered at? No she was there to mend, to direct and he was about to get a full dose of both.

She reached for his shoulder, ready to spin him to face her when he spun back which left her with her hand raised up plaintively and a tight, stubborn expression on her face. She rolled her eyes.

“I do not know why they persist in this insistence. I am not one to play cards, so they have no reason to think me a master.” She couldn’t bring herself to say she was bad at cards, she wasn’t and her pride wouldn’t let her give voice to the lie. She was very good in fact. But that didn’t mean she had any intention of displaying such.

“So you need not fear I will walk away with any of your booty this night, if you even have any left at this point.” She sniffed and took the bottle from him, her warm honeyed voice dripping with annoyance.

“Now you will march with me back to the ship so that I may put you back together as is my job on the ship so that you might continue at your job. Then, le paon, we will meet the Captain at this Parakeet as we have been ordered. And you may have the satisfaction of fleecing me at cards.”

[Igraine]

The man's ruddy face turned toward the backdoors to the tavern's kitchens as it opened, the two smaller figures entering the back of the Parakeet earning a wide, bright if slightly surprised smile beneath those thick, dark blonde beard and moustaches. "Ah, it seems my faithless wife and her fly-by-night lover have returned!" he said in a surprisingly soft, deep bass voice, setting down the barrel of rum he'd had perched easily on one massive shoulder, and then holding his arms wide open.

Madeleine laughed, warm, rich music dancing its way between them as she released that purple-clad arm readily and all but leapt into her husband's arms, kissing him wildly. By the door, Antonia lowered her eyes with a small smile of her own, the jaunty little hat tossed to the side as she slipped easily from the man's coat. The velvet cloth over one arm, her grey eyes fell almost demurely to the floor while husband and wife shared a reunion kiss that might have said months apart, not mere hours.

"I'm going to go change - and you do know the two of you make me a touch ill to my stomach, don't you?" she said with a grin, moving past them toward the back stairs, to the tavern's private living quarters.

The big man only guffawed a little while his wife somehow, even with that mahogany skin of hers somehow managed the seeming of a blush. "Luc's abed, Antonia," he said over his wife's head.

"But not sleeping?"

"Aye, you know 'e's not," James replied with a chuckle, one eyebrow cocked in amusement, as if even having to answer such a silly question tickled him. "I think the lad's waiting on a story, from his beloved Tante 'Tonia."

Antonia's face lifted to look to James', the strangest mixture of genuine affection and gratefulness, a great number of deep matters once spoken and now no longer, flashed across her features, a most enigmatic emotion to be found there as she flitted swiftly toward the stairs.

**********

Just as she'd known would happen, Édouard's tight braids, all undone, had left her own hair a wild ebony lion's mane about her head and down her back. She left it down, pulled back from her face with a thick band of ivory silk tied widely over her forehead and then at the nape of her neck. The dress she wore now was a simple linen, a dove grey that mirrored her eyes, ivory lace about the sleeves and bodice. Antonia knew the way to the small back room well, watching the pale orangey glow flicker just beneath the door with a small, knowing smile. She slipped inside the still unlatched door silently, nothing more than a whisper of skirts and petticoats as she entered, and knelt beside the small pallet bed. The small tallow candle still burned in the capstan-shaped candle holder, warming all within with its faint, gentle glow.

Antonia knelt by the boy's bed in her skirts, letting her chin fall to her folded her arms as she rested against the surprisingly dear feather mattress. "Bonjour, Luc," she whispered, one hand running lightly along the soft, olive skin of his cheek.

"Bonjour Tante Antonia," the boy whispered, doing his level best to pretend as if he was only just waking up, just such a sleepy little thing though Antonia knew very well he had done no such thing. He rolled toward the young woman, thick dark curls framing his face like an ebony nimbus. His small fingers crawled over the sheets toward the young woman, reaching to touch the wild softness of her thick hair before he spoke again, running a tendril carefully in what was obviously a long familiar gesture as he played.

Antonia never tired of the realization, the relief, that somehow, some way, Luc was simply so... Perfect. Ten fingers, and ten toes. She knew this very well, she'd counted them over and over again when he was tiny enough to fit so well in her arms. He was no monster, neither tainted nor cursed as she'd feared - only a beautiful baby; a sweet, smart and beautiful boy.

No, she never tired of this realization. Not to her dying day, would she.

"Did Maman tell you I earned a whole gold piece today?"

Antonia's smile widened as she nodded her head just a little. "Aye, she did."

"She took it away," he pouted.

"Only because she wanted to see it spent on something wondrous, not half a ship's worth of penny candies! Do you know what your Maman and Papa are going to do, Luc? They're going to give you the stars! An instructor to show you how to read the constellations, how to chart and plot and navigate a ship even!"

The little boy's eyes widened with surprise, even a little awe. He didn't have his mother's eyes, Luc didn't, nor even his father's. He had his grandmother's eyes, a rich chocolate brown flecked with amber, like the fairy light of dancing fireflies, and Antonia was content that this be so. "Truly? The heavens, Antonia?" he said with a laugh, a little too loud to keep the pretense he was only just waking. "Where God and the angels live?"

Antonia snickered softly, shaking her head as her traced the outline of his. "Perhaps not quite so far as the Throne of God, sweetling. Though if you should rather be a priest- ?"

"Maman says you're like an angel, always looking out for us," he said swiftly, darting from one thought to the next with all a child's swiftness of mind.

Antonia blinked quickly, eyes wide, and then she laughed. "Oh no, mon petit chou-chou, your Tante Antonia is nothing of the sort! Perhaps better to say, oh... Say... " Her grey eyes darted upward, with a small little smirk. "I am more like a spider in the rafters really. I'm always looking over you, nonetheless."

Luc's nose wrinkled up quickly, those dark eyes crinkled suspiciously. "I don't like spiders," the little boy said with all the certainty a child could muster.

"Don't like spiders?" Antonia asked, eyes wide with smiling incredulity.

"No. Some of them are poisonous, says Master Andrews. And they can even eat their mates! They've too many eyes, and far too many legs!"

Antonia laughed. "True, all true... And yet, do you like flies, Luc? Or mosquitoes?"

The little boy's brow furrowed in confusion. "Well... No. But I don't understand- "

"Why If it weren't for spiders, the world should be crawling and buzzing in flies and mosquitoes! And did you know too, that true, there are the ones that bite, and the ones that eat their own - but they are far, far fewer that do the same among the children of men. Many spiders? Why, the mother will carry her whole brood upon her back for so long as every least one of her babies will need!" Antonia began softly at first, her voice only just beginning that upward spiral Luc knew so well, the warming up to the story yet to come.

"They've so many eyes, because God wanted them to see far and wide, and so many legs that they should move swiftly. Why, spiders were the world's first and greatest weavers as well, and taught men their arts when men were helpless to think up such genius themselves."

One of Antonia's hands ran lightly over the little boy's fingers, tracing a tiny starfish of sorts about his hand as she spoke, the cant of her words falling easily into a soothing lullaby of words turned images in the candlelight. "Have I never told you before, Luc, the tale of the cunning and wise Anansi the Spider?" she asked, her grey eyes searching that precious face as Luc shook his head 'no.'

"Why, what in the world have I ever been thinking, not to tell you of him before? Aye!" She knocked herself swiftly in the forehead with her palm, rewarded by Luc's giggles at the sight. "Such an oversight! But never worry, we shall fix that egregious mistake this very moment! Now! Because without Anansi the spider, there would be no stories at all to tell, in all the world! You see, they were all hoarded up by the sky loa Nyame, who would not sell them to the great Anansi without a very steep price... "

**********

"This way, lovely man." Antonia's voice lingered on the dark, thick air of the tavern like a spicy perfume. She knew him very well, this Captain Lightfoot, where he would wish to sit for the best vantage point, ready in an instant - no matter the time or place - for the unexpected. She stood from the seat she knew very well he would wish for his own, pulling the seat to the side for him with a smile.

"Well, mostly lovely now, I'm afraid," she said with a small teasing smile, her gaze falling over the darkening bruise of his face. "That does look... Painful. Though it will heal, I'm sure, eventually - which is more than could be said for that once-lovely purple jacket. You really might have cleaned the throwing knife a bit more thoroughly, before returning it. Blood is hell to get out of velvet, you know."

[tirgesfu]

Somehow when she said booty and fleecing it sounded different to Jax. First mate doctor lady Beauchamp had a voice that lapped at his ears like the waves along side. Lurling and easy, rhythmic and fresh, Jax wondered how she had ever managed to be the sharp edged crew master she was with that sweet soothing tone. But then he had heard her yell commands. This must be her off the ship doctor tone. It was that sound that made him smile a genuine rise of his lips and his legs to march.

March he did bringing his knees up with a salute to add to his joke. “MIght be they add the master to somethin’ because you play master at others.” He shook his head knowing she might not like his dig so he added quickly. “Not a bad thing to be judged as a master. Might make your seat at that table more…” He let his face show his enjoyment as he paused, then added on, “mysterious. Nothin’ like holding cards with a player who is unconventional.”

He marched to the door and opened it because he just could not resist. Something in the back of his head was screaming that he best be careful how far he pushed this if he wanted to keep his spot with his new love Dusk Skate. Thing is he was enjoying that edge, that fine line, and he meant to find it, and walk it. Could be he just wanted to listen to those melodious sounds.

“I will be honest here and say,” He stood at the door and glanced to his hand. “I am usually not so keen on the whole fix me up idea. I take care and heal fine. But if you could just snap this bone back in place. I am thinking I might not have the mobility to do so on my own.”

He looked out into the night, from the light of the battle worn Inn to the crisp cool night air. “I need my hand, the feel of it. To move her right, to guide her.” There was a softer longing in the sudden change of his voice.

Jax snapped out of it quick enough and looked back to Nicki, “After I sit and play good lad for Lady Doctor Beauchamp, then follow orders to some minic bird place to finish off this night, I want to hear you say my name. Just once. Call me Jax. Then when I do manage to take any of your…” He smiled, “booty tell me I can say a name other than First Mate or Doc or Beauchamp.”

He didn’t wait long not needing her answer right there right now. In fact he was sure he could enjoy the night stroll back to his ship, yes she was his as much as anyones in Jax’s mind, almost more if the Doctor didn’t grace him with an answer to anything. Well, he would miss those soft waves that tickled his ears and shivered his spine. But he now knew they were there and that made Jax smile.

[Lillian Thorne]

He was mocking her, she thought as she strode past him out of the ruined tavern into the night that had not yet faced such a fate. Mocking or perhaps trying to play nice? She wasn’t certain and cast a look over her shoulder at him, feeling confused and unsettled by the white flash of his grin in the night. She felt unsettled. She was not one who relished uncertainty and the feeling made her skin crawl. Yet she was very cognizant of her position and did not wish to seem weak or uncertain so she turned back towards where she walked and held her honeyed tongue until he brought up his finger and his need for it in his work.

She looked at him again and nodded sagely as the cobbled streets turned into the wood of the docks as they approached where the Dusk Skated waited for them, the unlucky men who drew watch attentive along her railings. She lifted a hand in greeting and received a call in kind.

“Hands are invaluable and irreplaceable. They are one of the things that elevate us above animals.” Her voice made the lecturing words slippery and sweet. “The things we have done with these hands are astonishing, breathtaking.” She held up her own hands, once polished and pampered and now rougher with life and work but still graceful in their every line. Doctor’s hands. Hands that healed and hurt as needed.

“That is why it is foolish that you thought to hide it from me. What do you think I am here for if not to keep the handpicked crew of the Skate in working order?” She strode up the gangplank with furious strides. Her night had not gone as she’d wished and she was feeling more than a little peeved about it and there was yet cards to be tortured with. That she was about to bring an irreverent man with an unsettling grin into her cabin did not please her. Especially not with how she had flushed when he asked to hear her say his name and requested such liberties as he name. She could not do so, would not do so but she had no quick answer for him and so just scowled, the expression would have been fearsome on a face less made for sunshine and warmth.

“Please have a seat.” She said instead making no promises or comments about the name but letting it roll around in her head, Jax. What kind of name was that? Was there a story behind it? Was it real or an affectation?

Her room was tiny as all ships cabins were, but it was her own. Which was one of the reasons she’d risen so high in the ranks. She needed her space, needed a door to keep the nightmare contained when they came. It was neat though with shelves high on the walls with netting rigged about them to keep their load of books put when the seas took to rocking the ship about. The latest read, a study in the native flora and fauna in the Americas was laying on the pillow of her perfectly made bed. She gestured towards a chair and moved to light the lamp that hung over the table and once lit, took a seat and gestured imperiously for his hand.

“Let me see it.” Monsieur Jax, she added mentally.

[AmongHeroes]

Thomas smiled and rubbed a hand over his injured cheek. As he passed the empty bar, guided by the dreamy voice of Antonia, he leaned across and withdrew a bottle of wine and two pottery mugs.

“Well, my apologies for soiling the velvet,” he said, “I must say that I am unaccustomed to you in such dress, and it failed to cross my mind. You make a much more lasting impression in lace and skirts.”

His eyes wandered up and down her figure before he spun on his heels to sit heavily into the chair Antonia had selected. Thomas set the wine upon the table, and shrugged with another sideways grin, smarting his cheek painfully.

“I will say, however, that you do fill out a man’s breeches with finesse, Antonia.” He looked back to her over his shoulder. “You should be mindful, or you’ll be drawing the attentions of men of a very different persuasion.”

As his jest hung in the damp, dark interior of the Parakeet, Thomas reached forward and uncorked the wine bottle. He poured an equal helping in both mugs, eyed the level of the crimson liquid, and then with a purse to his lips added a great deal more. Satisfied, he slid a mug across the table for the caramel-skinned rogue.

“Now, I won’t hear of you not drinking your fill tonight…” Thomas brought his own cup to his mouth and drank, his eyes looking to Antonia over the earthen rim. “You have earned your reprieve from vigilance.” Once more he let his words linger, an unspoken thanks, and the note of something more profound ringing dully in the sound of his speech.

And besides,” Thomas continued, his copper eyes gleaming in the candlelight, “we must drink to our next endeavor. Why, even now Dujo has begun preparations. We sail on the day after next. ”

[Igraine]

"Between corset strings and blood-stained velvet Thomas? Aye, you'll have to increase my share of our bounty, just to cover the costs of mending, washing and replacing my wardrobe. Coin well spent though, never fear! After all, what good is a spider to you, if she can't blend into shadows when she must?"

Despite her words, Antonia's wide smile was all approval for the man who'd known very well to forego the grog when he truly wanted a drink and a toast with his rogue. She liked the light in those coppery eyes, the gratitude spoken, the acknowledgement unspoken, and despite the fact that Édouard had likely seen his last night in Port Royal? Antonia didn't really mind so much, so long as she could rest comfortably with her lovely man, banter and drink their fill of wine, and then speak as equals beneath the stars on the best of nights, of matters both great and small. Like all her masks, Édouard had served his purpose, and would be replaced eventually with any one of a cast of thousands Antonia kept tucked away in her storyteller's imagination.

And though she did take up her own surprisingly full mug of wine, sipping off the top to keep it from spilling over the edges as she moved, Antonia didn't quite take her seat beside the Captain yet. Instead she returned to the bar - not for more wine, of course, but stepping lightly behind it, knowing very well neither James nor Madeleine would care in the least.

"And frankly Thomas," she continued as she knelt down, pulling a dark bottle of ale from the solution of water and saltpeter in the bucket where it was being kept cool, "Why you bother telling me lies after all this time, I'll never know. I'm far better at it than you are, and I can still see yours coming from some ten leagues at least... "

Antonia set the bottle up on the bar with a *clunk* of clay and solid wood, and then went about the task of finding the cleanest bit of linen she could before standing once more with a smile. "You know damn well there's no 'men of a different persuasion' you'd worry about sniffing after your dear rogue. You truly just fear my endless charms will steal all the attention of your women too - and the humiliation of that would be simply endless... "

She winked at him coyly, chuckling under her breath, as she wrapped the linen about the cool class of the bottle, tucking it all under her arm for a moment as she retrieved her mug of wine and returned to the table. Antonia took a long drink of her own wine before setting the mug down beside Thomas' own.

"Here now," she said softly, standing beside him now as she offered to press the cool clay of the bottle against his poor, aching face, "I'll grant you, I'm no grand surgeon like your First Mate? But my own Maman taught me nothing works to help the swelling like the touch of something cool - though I'll let you do it yourself there - even your Antonia's not that cruel."

She slid easily into the seat beside Thomas, taking up her own mug once more and raising it up with a wide grin. "To our next endeavor then! And if Dujo says it can be done, this swift turn-around in port? Oh, I'm feeling the winds of fortune whispering to me this very moment! But never fear - don't believe for an instant, I'll leave all things to the capricious whims of chance... And to think, your Mademoiselle Beauchamp and Monsieur Xander likely believe they are being hounded this night, all for a round gleek and the unspeakable joy of their incomparable company!"

[AmongHeroes]

Collab with Igraine and AmongHeroes

“Ah, you’ve got me there,” Thomas said, leaning back into the wooden chair. “There’s no greater injury than losing the affections of a woman to another woman. Even more so when the woman is playing as a man.” He chuckled lightly, watching Antonia maneuver around the bar area. Thomas propped his chin upon his arm, his fingers lightly tapping at his uninjured cheek.

“My reputation would be irrevocably stained,” he said almost to himself. “They’d say ‘There goes Thomas Lightfoot, the buccaneer captain that couldn’t court a proper woman, and thusly lost his ship in a fit of melancholy.’”

Antonia offered him the mug of cold ale, and he thanked her before gingerly pressing it against his face. “God’s wounds,” he breathed, “that bastard gave me a proper hook.” For several moments he just sat there, quietly relishing the sensation of the cool clay against his face. A smile slowly replaced the expression, and a devilish gleam came to his eyes. “Though I dare say, I think the stinking cur was the worse for it.”

Thomas took a long drink of the wine as Antonia spoke of the First Mate and the sea- artist. He shrugged and once again sat back into his seat. “I trust them to be in good spirits, in spite of tonight’s exercises. Or perhaps not?” He conceded, tilting his hair to the side. The move prompted a hazel-blond lock of hair to fall across his eyes, and he shooed it away. For a time he said nothing, merely thinking and enjoying the rogue’s company. When at last he spoke again, his eyes were affixed upon her grey gaze.

“Tell me truly, was I too barbaric, too quick to draw blood in the Boar?” His eyes narrowed. “I have my own opinion on the matter, of course, but I shall not shift your words just yet with my own.”

Antonia’s dark brow lifted curiously, the young woman obviously taken aback for a moment by the question. She’d known Thomas Lightfoot as few did, their private conversations revealing a man far more circumspect than most any would credit an already infamous pirate captain, but this line of thought caught her off guard. “He had a blade to your back, Thomas,” she said finally, perhaps a bit incredulously. “What in any sane world else were you supposed to do? Smile blithely while he gave you the blood eagle? If your pistol hadn’t taken him in the face, if I’d been just a little closer… “

Her voice trailed off softly for a moment, the sudden scowl on her face masking the true depths of the still-lingering fury that she hadn’t been that much closer, that she’d failed so miserably, to foresee the knife at his back.

“Suffice it to say, that your bullet may have been the quickest mercy he could have ever prayed to receive. Why do you ask such a thing, lovely man? What is going on in that head of yours?”

Thomas waved her admonition away, understanding her confusion. “I wasn’t referring to the bastard with the knife to my back. He accused me of cheating, and thusly he had already sealed his fate, not to mention the blade at my gut. I was speaking to the others. I fired the second pistol ball into the gang from the Feather, and it was I who precipitated the death of several of these men.”

His voice trailed off, and he looked about the Parakeet as if to watch his words drift lazily in the eddies of calm air. Antonia knew him better than anyone alive, and even with that there was still much that both of them held as mystery. Truthfully he could not say why exactly he had asked after the rogue’s opinion on his deadly incursion, not one that fit into words anyway. It was more a feeling, nothing like guilt, but something wispy and intangible that tugged upon his thoughts more and more in the past days and weeks.

“I suppose,” Thomas began, looking back to Antonia, “that I fear that the pursuit in defense of my own honor and prestige will pass into something beyond mere swift reprisal, and move simply into nothing more than a lust for murder.” At the word murder his face contorted into a scowl. Thomas brought the mug to his lips, and drank.

Antonia kept her silence for several long moments, letting his words, their import, what was said and what was not, linger in her own thoughts. “I’m no man’s conscience, Thomas,” she said finally, taking another long drink of her own wine before she continued. “God Himself knows I’ve done things that would taint even the sweet light of day. But if you’re going to begin a life of senseless murder and mayhem, probably best to start among the innocents - say, massacre an entire orphanage perhaps? Or cut down a church congregation come together at Sunday Mass? Because no man with so much as an ounce of sense is going to weep for the loss of the crew of the Crimson Feather.”

“Think, Thomas. Just for a moment longer at least, without a guilty eye to your own vast well of sins, would you? Do you think those corsairs would have been contented to simply continue drinking their grog, playing their cards - when you shot one of their crewmen?”

“Oh, Heaven above knows I’m uncannily fond of my Silver Fish, but you know me well enough to know I’ll tell you straight when you’ve done something mightily stupid. And Heaven knows just as well, you’ve done many a breathtakingly dumb thing. But this night at least, you acted rightly on your instincts. Best to claim the high ground, take the offensive position than to sit back and let your crew be taken unawares. Would you have preferred seeing your own laid to waste there in the Boar, all because some drunken, murderous piece of offal felt cheated at cards?”

Thomas smiled to Antonia. It was a slow smile, and one that was rare upon his features. Her words rained upon him like a welcome and cleansing cascade. He thought of his own words, and several times he began to reply to her, but every time he found himself at a loss for witty speech. The words fluttered within his mind, coalescing into retorts or counterpoints, and all seeming completely ineffectual beneath the empathetic gaze of the rogue.

Finally, he looked to her in a way Thomas Lightfoot had never looked at anyone. Then, lost in that moment, he found his words.

“At sea we trust the stars, the great beings in the sky, to guide us and show us the way when we have nothing but the indifferent waters churning beneath us. You know that above all we trust one star, one singular point in the inky night that ushers us with unwavering vigilance.” He paused, the words welling in his throat happily and genuinely. “I have found that it is not the only star the cosmos sends to guide us. Some,” he said, “are lucky enough to get a star that walks beside them, and in quiet moments of doubt, guides them ever homeward, and where they truly belong.”

Antonia listened to those lovely words from her lovely man, her own slow, slightly incredulous smile growing by the moment as she watched the truth in those incomparable copper eyes shining. There was nothing she wouldn't have given at that moment, to be alone with her lovely man in the crow's nest of the Skate, with the vast dark ceiling of midnight stars above them.

But here in the relative quiet of the tavern, in the shadows, Antonia could at least pretend to be the star Thomas seemed to think she was, and that smile shone brightly on her face as she reached to his face, letting the backs of her fingertips run softly along the length of his unhurt cheek. "How fortunate for you," she said with a small, sweet laugh that gave just the tiniest hint that once, somewhere, there may have been an innocent, happy young girl beneath the roguish spider, "Not everyone has two Home Stars in their world, looking over them."

[tirgesfu]

Jax almost fell into the seat only because his eyes were glued to the shelves of this small cabin. Books? He felt the wind knocked out for just a second and he struggled to keep his jaw from dropping. He hid his shock with a thrust of his hand toward her. She might not see his uncovered awe. Books. Jax traveled very light, He kept almost nothing because he had too often moved from ship to ship so quickly the only things he took was what he could hold. He didn’t need things. But that didn’t stop him from appreciating something as mystical and magical as books. She had books.

Suddenly his wasn't hiding his hand any longer. Let her think her speech about her job convinced him. Fix me, his fingers wiggled. But his eyes stayed on her netted shelves. He longingly looked at each shelf not being close enough to read any titles or even see what language they might be in. After he counted each book he could see on each filled shelf he turned his head just a bit to see the book on her bed. That one he could figure because it was open. Plants. Flowers. Something a witch would read of course and still he leaned toward it.

He looked back to her quick hoping she had missed the emotions that slid over his face. Just the hand, ma’am. Something changed for Jax. He began to realize he might need to amend his approach with this sea witch.

He held his breath as she worked her magic, her spells, her transformation of all those mysterious words and pictures from parchment of wizardry right to his bone. He made not a sound or a moan no acknowledgement of pain. Instead he let his eyes and thoughts take in the rows and rows of books.

When he thought she might be near the end, he looked to his hand and then to her. He had no way to judge her work or her job she was so quick to claim. But he had a stich or two. Hers were neater and more exact than any he had seen.

Jax gave her a grin. In a very soft voice with his smile returning he let his breath out and whispered, “This game of cards, this fleecing and booty, I am rethinking.” Still soft as if too loud in this small cabin would be a sin, “I would like to ride more on this game tonight. If I win I will take not one of your coins, not a single gold piece at all. If I do kiss luck and show skill and win.” He stood up and swept his arm. “I want to borrow a book, maybe two.” He watched her face not sure how she would take his request.

Then he raised his bandaged hand, “And when I return it in the condition I borrowed you might call me Jax” He opened the door of her cabin as wide as his grin. “That is when I win. And what of you? If stars be fair and shine on you, do want more than just my coins?” .

[Lillian Thorne]

It was a messy think this rupturing of flesh with jagged bone. Not a clean cut such as a knife would make, but jagged, messy with shredded flesh that would not want to be put back together but must, lest it go necrotic and they lose, by all rights, a very good pilot. She did not see his reaction to her books, no her attention was on her tools, the small circle of useful light from above and the damaged flesh she would have to make whole. Her nose wrinkled in consternation but she said nothing, just gently bathed the wound in more alcohol, distilled stuff she bought for the purpose and then slid the bottle towards him, if he wished to take the edge off the pain.

Tweezers, good eye and a tiny little knife of razor sharpness to cut away the flesh that was too small to be saved. She pulled out a few small bits of detritus which may have been filth and may have been bits of bone. When she was reasonably certain that all that should not be there was no longer there she pulled and popped the bone back into place. She did it quickly and not unkindly, supposing that swift efficiency was much kinder than slow gentleness. The flesh helped, wanting to be back where it belonged and though she digit was swollen from the trauma she was certain it was lined up to heal well. She stitched then, with the same swift efficiency and soon the ragged bits of his flesh were held together with some neat stitches that would have done any surgeon proud. She slathered the wound with a paste of garlic and honey. Bandaging came next, and she wound the damaged pinky in soft cloth and then bound it to its mate which she then bound to a stick. Both she wound further in cloth, but kept it moderately tight and not too bulky lest he grow annoyed and remove all bandaging as so many patients who were not skilled at being patients did.

It was then he spoke and she looked up from her work, confusion on her face which furrowed her smooth brow and lowered her golden brows. Her books? She looked over her shoulder at her greatest possessions and then back at the pilot with his unsettling grin and even more confusing request. Her books, even the loan of them would not be the stakes at cards. It simply was not going to happen. But something in his tone made her pause and tilt her head to look at him, as if a different angle would give her a view inside him, to clear up his motives. It did not help.

“My books are never to be stakes at anything.” She said in her stern yet honeyed voice as she tucked away the last fold on his bandage. She put her needle, her knife and tools into a small bowl of the alcohol and stood. Turning to regard the shelves, she strode the two steps away the small space would allow and pulled down a brown leather bound volume, her hand running over the embossed cover and then placed it on the table in front of him.

“I will lend you them just because knowledge does no one any good in unread books. You have promised to return them in the same condition you have borrowed them, I will hold you to it. I will call you by your name when you return it thus if that will further motivate you to have a care.”

The book was a slim volume of Jesuit Astronomy written while at the Chinese imperial court and dealt with the numbers that moved the starts and other heavenly bodies. It was entertainingly written, or rather she thought so and hoped that it might be of interest to him in his profession.

[tirgesfu]

Jax had offered the Firstmate Doctor Seawitch a wager. She declined. In a way Jax was sure he would evaluate more than a few times she had just placed a book to borrow on her table. Not in his hands not saying his name, her stiff language - knowledge does no one good in unread books- made him lower his eyes and shake his head. Even her kindness felt chilly.

“Suit yourself.” He reached for the book and held it in both hands. For a few minutes he studied the cover. With two fingers he felt the leather and almost began to open the book. Stars, he was drawn. But Jax stopped. No, this book would be enjoyed and savored in his own privacy. Not in front of the sea witch. “You’re mistaken if you think these torturous acts of goodwill I force you through will lessen my bite when I,” Jax looked up at her and let a sly smile unfold, “hold cards.”

He gestured toward the door. “You missed your opportunity to arrange for your mercy.” He waited for her leave her cabin first and then waited for her to close the door behind them. He pulled a rather clean kerchief which he never wrapped around his hand because he valued the cloth, and quickly covered the book. Keep it clean and unseen.

“Or” with the book wrapped and tucked under his arm Jax threw his shoulders back in the crisp dark sea air and walked beside her. “Or, do you save your needs for mercy to be played upon and satisfied by the good Captain?” Jax snorted a laugh. “Perhaps he is the type that does not like to lose and all his fair charges,” he glanced to her as he kept a quick pace down the dock and back to the streets , “know well their place around his table if not his ship.” He felt light and his feet showed it. In his mind the night had been grand, his pocket filled with coins a few swigs of rum, a victorious rumble, and a surprise never expected, a book. Now he was off to play games with this new odd and strangely interesting crew. It was a good night.

“I am very curious to find out,” he looked to her his eyes teasing, “because of course knowledge does me no good unread.”

[Igraine]

Collaboration with AmongHeroes and Igraine

Thomas relished the brush of Antonia’s fingertips. Her gesture sent a cool shiver up his spine that prompted him to lightly laugh.

“And to think, I trust you so, after how we met?” Thomas looked up to the dark ceiling, remembering that night with fond clarity. He ran a hand through his hair before his fingers landed absently where Antonia’s own had touched just moments before. “Fate was certainly watching out for me that night,” Thomas narrowed his eyes and raised a brow at Antonia, “though fate demanded quite a bit of silver as payment.”

He laughed at his own joke, and slid his now empty mug towards her. “Would you mind?”

Antonia nodded, laughing softly to herself as she reached for the bottle of wine, almost before the words left Thomas’ lips. She poured a generous amount, to the rim, the way he liked it, before setting the bottle down once more. “Oh, listen to you grousing about your poor, lost silver,” she teased. “I think you gained far more than you ever lost that day - don’t you? A nickname to stump most every crewman, dear Silver Fish - and don’t think I haven’t heard their wild speculations what that could possibly mean! It’s all I can do, not to burst out in laughter and give the whole game away. Ah! The strange things bored sailors will conjure in their heads.”

“You gained a lovely crimson kiss to match that lovely snoring face, and you’ve gained a rogue all of your very own. As if that weren’t enough, well... Only God Himself knows how much gold has found its way to the Skate’s hold, and the coffers of every last man on that ship because of it! Oh, and that’s no meager boast, and you do know it,” she added with another coy wink, though her expression slowly grew pensive, some unaccustomed thought, a honest desire to speak something of a truth for once raising its tentative head.

Almost as an afterthought, Antonia reached for the bottle of wine again, and topped off her own mug as well. “Should you like to know, Thomas,” she said, inscrutable grey eyes searching his poor, hurt - yet smiling - face, “Why it is I chose to follow after you, the day you finally found me?”

Thomas grunted his assent. “Aye, there suffers no room for debate that my investment of silver has been most lucrative to all the men, and women,” he smiled anew, “aboard the Skate.” His tone was sincere, but dulled pleasurably with the first softened edges provided by the wine and the night’s earlier spirits.

He had leaned back in his chair to listen to Antonia’s words, but her final query brought him right back to lean against the scored and scratched table. His eyes looked to her, seeking for the intent of her asking. Never before had the subject been broached, and Thomas had never truly thought of pursuing it. He was certainly curious, and though Thomas had never been bashful about questioning Antonia, he was yet mindful of her privacy.

“I would be most pleased to know,” Thomas said at last, his voice low and quiet, as if his words could break the trance of her sudden transparency.

Antonia wrapped both hands about her mug, lifting it to her lips slowly, taking a long drink before she spoke. It would have been a lie - one among hundreds, untold thousands in her lifetime - to say there was no small amount of regret on her face at her strange impetuosity, though only the slow working of ivory teeth on the inside of her lip might have given that away.

She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, before looking up to meet those drink-softened copper eyes with a little half-smile. “You’d have been well within your rights that day, if you’d shot the thief who plied you with drink, with sweet promises for the night - the swindler who added just a touch of something ‘special’ to your grog as well, knowing you’d be sleeping like a wee babe long past morning light - and far, far lighter by a great deal of silver when you finally woke.”

The young woman laughed softly, and then shrugged with a soft sigh. “And I think that very thought might have crossed your mind when you scared off my next mark. I’m near certain I saw it in your eyes. But for whatever reason… You did not. No… No wait, that’s not quite what I mean… “

The tip of her finger tapped lightly against the clay of her wine mug, as if rapping against the stores of thought in her head, wheedling out the truth she wished to say so much harder it seemed than the lies that ran from her tongue so freely, like roiling river waters. “I mean, I think I know why you didn’t shoot the thief… Risk. Danger. You do invite it, lovely man. You always have. But the reason I followed you out that door?”

“You turned your back to me when you made to leave. Wide open, and it was no mistake on your part, no thoughtless move. If I’d a mind, I could have slipped a dagger easily between your ribs and been done with you, the one and only man in this world who had ever been able to find me again, to track me down when I’d left him in the night. But you didn’t simply invite danger in that moment. You actually gave me a measure of trust… “

Antonia’s smile felt awkward, strangely forced on her face, but she gave it to Thomas anyway, for it was really all she had. “A second chance to do something… Differently. No one had ever done that before.” Her voice trailed off for a moment, before she spoke again, her voice firmer, far surer. “That was no small thing.”

Thomas nodded, and his eyes fell to the mug of wine in his hands. Antonia’s sincerity struck a chord within him that was both pleasant and foreign. He knew that it had not been easy for her to admit all she had, and that fact alone buoyed his spirit in ways she would probably never understand. The rogue was the first person he desired to truly know since his adoptive savior, the pirate Lightfoot, had passed seemingly a lifetime ago.

He looked back to her, his expression bemused in the shadowy flicker of the candlelight. Thomas viewed himself as a sharp, intelligent, and daring man. One who was determined to make the first and last move of every game of life, and throughout his time in the Caribbean he had been wildly successful at such. But she--the caramel-skinned rogue with eyes of steel, the bite of a snake, the mystery of a leopard, and the wit of a fox--had disarmed him.

“I would say,” Thomas said with a soft, but serious air, “that when it comes to you, Antonia…” He paused for a time with his brow knit as if searching for words in a language yet foreign, “…and I, that there exists no such thing as a trifling moment.” He looked deeply into her eyes, “And it is I who must thank you for that trust.”

Her first inclination was to throw a mask back over her features - some mask, any mask at all would have done at that moment. Let something flippant or coy, irritatingly distracting or even shockingly bawdy dance off her lips, play in her eyes like a fae, false wisp of swamp light, to put some distance, a thousand leagues distancel, between herself and that beautiful copper gaze.

But Antonia fought every last hard-won instinct she’d ever honed in nigh on a decade of the shadowed life she’d chosen, and forced herself to keep her gaze with Thomas’. After one long moment, maybe two… Or ten, perhaps? Surprisingly enough, she found her ease as a certain strange, not entirely unwelcome realization came to her. The long, slender fingers or her hand reached across the short distance between their chairs, to find and then lightly brush his own.

“You can thank me tonight then, when all is said and done. There are a skyful of stars yet, I still do not know near so well as I would like. What say you, Thomas?”

Thomas’ lips curled into a smile at the same moment his hand reached beneath her own. His fingers curled up her palm until his hand encircled her small, but deadly hand. There was a bubble of elation advancing steadily up from the tips of his toes that at last popped euphorically into his mind, and it made him laugh aloud with happiness. He stifled the laugh quickly, hoping she did not confuse his mirth for something else.

“I would say that the stars will be our theater as long as you should desire.”

He pulled her hand gently to his lips, and kissed her chocolate skin. It was a gesture that would have been strange to most; a man kissing the hand of a woman who had just killed with the same hands not hours before. But that was what Thomas found so enthralling about the moment. Antonia was cut from the same cloth as he, although she had been woven upon a loom of a much different kind. It was a notion that made Thomas kiss upon her hand once more.

His eyes followed her own as he lifted his head, and she could perceive a thought pass behind the copper irises. A smile soon followed, broad and impish. Thomas stood, not relinquishing Antonia’s hand.

“Shall we?” he said, sweeping to the doorway with his free hand. Thomas anticipated her concern. “I know we have guests soon to arrive, but I believe the roof will afford us both a pristine view of the stars above, and provide us with a means to see them approach.” He bent down then, his smiling face level with her own. At this distance he could smell the spice of perfume, and the lingering scent of wine upon her lips. “What say you, Antonia?”

“I say let’s,” she whispered, leaning forward just enough to close the distance between them, brushing her lips oh-so-gently against his, a dear, tender touch not near enough to pain that purpling welt rising along his cheek, already spreading its red-black fingers up the side of his temple. She stood then, entwining her fingers in his, gathering the lengths of her dove grey skirts in her free hand as she pulled him toward the back of the tavern, toward the kitchens.

The light in her eyes said adventure, and laughter, and the delight of a strangely innocent, almost childlike thrill of doing something they really ought not. “Come with me then, I know the fastest way up. No guarantees I shan’t need a hand though! I’ve never tried it in skirts, might need a bit of a lift? Or even a push up? Oh, but that shameless look in your eyes tells me, you’d not mind that so much… ”

[Lillian Thorne]

The reverence with which he handled her book was gratifying and reassuring. At the sight of that something in Nicki momentarily loosened and something like a smile tugged at the corners of her lips. Her book was in good hands. She approved of the way his hands had danced across the cover and the teasing way he’d begun to open it and then closed it, as if to keep something contained. It made her feel… warm… soft? She wasn’t sure how it made her feel, but it didn’t matter. The feeling didn’t linger long, not in the presence of this exasperating, confusing man with his unsettling smile. She left before him at his gesture and nodded to the watchman as she walked toward the gangplank.

He kept talking, his tone light and teasing and she felt herself flushed and irritated all over again. Why did she always feel that he was mocking her in everything? Then in turn she would feel foolish for her paranoia. Why did she care? She knew who she was, she knew what she’d been through to get there, why did it matter that this man with his bright smile and laughing eyes thought he knew her well enough to pick at her? But it mattered. It was too much, especially when his words came that suggested that she knew her place at the captain’s table and on his ship.

She stopped mid-step, so abruptly that he might have walked into her. She didn’t turn but she did close her eyes and clench her fists at her side, trying to reign in her temper. She was aware that so many of the crew were certain that she was the captain’s whore. That she was never seen coming from his cabin, nor he from hers meant nothing to them. It was simply inconceivable to most, even the ones who had kissed the deck after she’d put them down, that she might have earned her place through merit. No, they seemed to tell themselves, it must be the work of her quim and not her mind or her skills.

She was already put out about the whole prospect of this card game in the first place and in a moment of pique she was almost ready to toss aside her plans and wipe the floor with them, take them for everything so they never ask her along again. But no, she needed to control her temper, to not let it get the better of her hard won good sense. She had paid a dear price for it, she needed to use it.

“I don’t appreciate your implications, Sir.” She said through clenched teeth, a growl making her honeyed voice no less sweet for all the controlled anger that it held. “I am no one’s charge. I am my own person in an office I hold through merit. If I win or lose at cards it will be by my own design.”

With that she set off, her pace a little less leisurely as if she wanted the insulation of company between her and the unsettling helmsman. She held her tongue and walked, navigating the streets to the Parakeet with care and precision. Though she had not been there before she had made a point of knowing the major haunts of the captain should an emergency happen while in port. It was the walk of but a few minutes at the pace she set. She paused at the door of the tavern to pull it open and gesture him in, in a manner that mirrored his earlier gesture, though she did not grin with the radiance of his smile.

[tirgesfu]

Jax didn’t mind that this second in command, bookreader and fixer of hands walked slightly in front of him. She couldn’t walk beside him really. She held her own gawd damn merit that was for sure and Jax had no problem seeing she thought it was way above his. But she did a fine job on his hand and he had a book so if she had anything stuck high up her ass was of no concern of his. Besides, from just a step behind he could appreciate the view of it.

She couldn’t see his snicker, which was a good thing. But he could see the tension in her neck, the way her jaw tightened and her shoulders pulled back. He hit a nerve for sure. In Jax’s quick assessment he believed it might be raw not as a defence, maybe she hadn’t shared the Captain’s bed, but more as a constant battle to prove her innocence. Ha, not innocence but truth. She was not on the Dusk Skate for anyone’s bed covers. Maybe. Maybe. Jax was still not totally convinced. Why risk a woman if not for more than a hot tongue and a cold shoulder? And this fine piece of work knew how to use both. The thing Jax had to admit was her sizzling words dripped with warm sugar. She had a very enticing tone even when she was commanding, and scolding.

As she opened the door and gestured to him his little mirth exploded to glee as he curtsied to match her gentlemen manner. “Here’s hoping that your design fits mine, M’Lady.” He could not help but smile at her solemn face. He let the tease swim in his own head sure that it could mean so much more than cards. But as he slid through the door, almost a skip added because he could not help feeling silly, he realized that the card game would be exciting. She could take his purse or he his, it did almost not matter. Right now he just wanted to sit across from her and let his eyes and smile tease her.

So he was ready, for a table of cards set. As he looked around he let his light smile fall. He didn’t see the Captain, or a waiting game of gleek. This was the right Inn, where was the promised fun? The thought that he might have to wait, drink, and pull some conversation from the First Mate did not sit so well.

But he managed to shrug, “Wasn’t there rum offered?” He spun back around and asked.

[Lillian Thorne]

Her vexation knew no bounds. She’d been needled the whole walk over and before by this smiling man. She couldn’t say just how, but she knew, just knew she’d been mocked in many ways and that unsettled her. She put great stock in her knowledge, her information and to have it shown so clearly how little help that was unsettled her. Oh years before when she was young and foolish she’d had her innocence ripped from her, literally. But since then she’d learned, she’d grown worldly or so she thought.

But just in a few moments company with this smiling man she began to doubt herself. She didn’t like it, not one bit and her instinct was to grow angry, to lash out and snap with the authority that was rightfully hers. But she didn’t because she sensed that somehow that would be weakness. To have been pushed, goaded to action by nothing but words, tossed her way in a tone she wasn’t certain of was failure. She would not deserve her post if she let her temper slip. So when she followed him into the Parakeet for this game of cards she had not wanted she felt the last few threads of her control begin to fray.

But not at him. Somehow she convinced herself that was ok, it wasn’t failure. He hadn’t goaded her.

Even in her head her voice spoke its lies with honeyed tones.

“I do not know where they are.” She said, her words thick with displeasure. “They commanded us to be here and here we are and yet they are not.”

She looked around and spotted the table where the two had sat, a bottle and two wet rings where condensation had marked their mugs. She strode over and touched the wet sots, rubbing the water between her fingers, her lips pursed.

“They were here and they have gone. The question is do we wait or go? They knew what we were about but perhaps they think the fixing of a finger is but a moment’s work. I do not know.”

She huffed and strode over to the bar, peeved enough that she wanted a drink despite her better judgment. She strode around it confidently and pulled up a bottle of local rum, strong stuff and nearly as sweet as her voice. She didn’t bother with a mug, just pulled the cork, tossed it and took a long pull and then offered him the bottle.

“You wished rum, well there is plenty.”

[AmongHeroes]

Collaboration with Igraine and AmongHeroes

Antonia hauled herself easily over the edge of the Parakeet’s roof, twisting about as quickly as she could in these blasted skirts. On her hands and knees on the tiles, she peered over the ledge and gutter with a grin, thick black hair falling down about her shoulders like an ebony waterfall. She reached down to offer Thomas a hand, waving her fingers just a touch impatiently. “Here now… No no, not your hand, Silver Fish! The wine!”

She had, after all, had to run and retrieve the nearly-forgotten bottle just as they’d been about halfway up the exterior wall. And though Thomas was already well in his cups this night, Antonia had only just gotten her reprieve from that eternal vigilance, and she meant to make very good use of it. Well, Thomas may not have appreciated being left to cling to the inches-wide ledge of the roof for some moments while she clambered back down and dashed back inside the Parakeet.

But she felt confident that even if he weren’t in an entirely appreciative mood? Oh, somewhere deep in his soul, he might understand. Or at least, forgive her a night’s frivolous silliness? Or maybe she’d just get him drunk enough to forget? Well, that was always an option too.

“Bloody hell,” Thomas grunted as he gripped at the roof’s edge once more. Balancing precariously, he managed to hand Antonia the bottle of wine. He swung his leg up, and managed to lever himself onto the warm tiles of the Parakeet’s rooftop.

“I see the damned liquor is more important than my neck!” He said to her, laughing with the catalyst of drink and the headiness of her company. As she ascended up towards the peak of the roof, he couldn’t help but reach out and tug at her skirts, pulling her back slightly on the slick masonry tiles. His laughter was uncontrollable, and he used his newfound momentum to pluck the wine bottle from her grip, and jog past her.

“How much is it worth to you, rogue?” Thomas said between snorts of drunken, silly laughter.

Antonia’s eyes widened, jaw dropping as she kicked her useless leather mules to the side, the hard leather soles clattering on the tiles. She tried swatting at him as he ran past, somehow managing to miss him utterly - to her own eternal surprise. Even quite drunk, giddy with laughter like the naughty little child he was being, and balancing precariously on unfamiliar roof tiles? God in heaven, but the man’s natural grace was a wonder.

“Oh, you are a brave slippery Fish!” she growled with a small snarl of a laugh, hopping after him first on one foot, and then another, as graceless as she ever got as she pulled off her stockings. Barefoot now, handfuls of her skirts hiked up in one hand, Antonia sprinted after Thomas, leaping for his retreating back.

In a fit of laughter, Thomas stumbled to the roof’s peak as Antonia latched onto his back. With a deftness that belied his state of sobriety, he managed to lift the wine bottle up and twist his body, saving it from shattering against the tiles. With his laughter subsiding into mere breaths of happiness, Thomas moved the bottle for Antonia to take.

“You have bested me,” he said, smiling with his face pressed against the roof. “I raise the white flag, and the day is yours.”

He rolled beneath Antonia so his back was now to the roof, and his copper eyes shone up at her. It took him a moment to perceive the position he had put the pair in, and the realization prompted another snort of laughter.

“God’s bones,” he said, “last time you had me this way I lost my weight in silver! Well, you’ll have no such luck this time, rogue. My coins have all been spent!” Thomas gave her a look of victory, though truly it was perhaps more for the fact of being straddled by a beautiful woman than saving his bullion from theft. Thomas surmised that Antonia was keen enough to know which.

Antonia simply rolled her eyes, as if she were truly remotely exasperated.

She most assuredly was not.

From her perch atop the pirate captain, she reached to pluck her prize, the offered wine bottle - still somehow blessedly safe and whole - from his grip and set it an arm’s length away against a conveniently close ridge of fascia. The small, victorious grin worked its way to her lips as she bent low, her long hair falling about his face and shoulders like a second, soft and starless curtain of night.

“Your coin is all spent, lovely man?” she asked him with a smirk, resting her folded arms across his chest. “Quel dommage! I’m afraid this will be all the worse for you then! It seems all that is left for me to strip from you, after handily relieving you at various times of your coin, your drink, and obviously your dignity?”

Antonia sighed oh-so-dramatically, as if deeply grieved to be the bearer of such burdensome tidings to the beleaguered buccaneer captain trapped between her legs. Shaking her head as she sat back atop him, she shrugged her shoulders, palms upward and wide-eyed with feigned helplessness. “Yes Thomas, I’m afraid I must now take all you have left in the world.”

“I must now relieve you of your virtue as well… ”

She bit her lip, hard, before bursting into sweet, childlike laughter and rolling to one side, closest to the wine, easily sliding herself against the length of his body as she looked up to the sky, her head nestling snugly to his shoulder. “What ever was I thinking?” she murmured with a soft whisper of a laugh in his ear, “You’ve precious little of that too! Well then, I will simply settle for the stars above, Thomas.”

Thomas laughed heartily, “Virtue? Indeed I say that Lucifer himself may have more shreds of it than I.”

He was silenced by the press of Antonia’s body against his own. Even through his drunkenness the moment cut him to his core like a tree root through stone. A seemingly impregnable shell pierced by the soft press of something yet more powerful than mere might could ever hope to be.

With that revelation warming his flesh more completely than the wine in his belly, Thomas in turn rested his own cheek against Antonia’s ebony hair.

“The stars, yes the stars. That is what I have to offer.” He said quietly, his lips barely moving.

With that same trancelike voice he spoke to her of Cassiopeia, Sagittarius, Scorpius, Libra, Arcturus, Draco, and almost reverently he pointed her to Polaris, the Home Star. Their Home Star. Thomas could not have said how long they had spent this way, staring up to the heavens, and admiring the dance of gods and heroes of old across the inky tapestry.

When he could show her no more, Thomas tilted his face to hers. He saw those stars and the night reflected in the cool grey pools of her eyes, and impulsively he raised a hand to push a stray lock of hair from her brow. They should name a constellation for her, Thomas thought, mark a place in the sky for all to view and be kept on course.

Slowly Thomas withdrew his arm from beneath Antonia’s head, and rolled himself so he was suspended above her. His face hung inches from her own, and though the stars were now blocked from her eyes, Thomas thought them no less resplendent. He closed the distance between their lips with fevered slowness, his heart pounding in his chest, bounding and leaping in great pulses of uncertain happiness and fear.

As his lips hovered before hers, with his copper eyes affixed into the depths of hers, he whispered. “Do the waves not oft lead to paradises both unknown and unexpected?”

His eyes drifted shut, and he moved to close that last final distance between them, a span seemingly as far as the sun and the moon, but no less as bright or radiant. Then he heard the voices.

Thomas froze, and his eyes opened at the sound. The voices were as distinct as songbirds in the still night air, and they carried to his ears like the unwelcome herald of the rooster’s crow.

He scoffed lightly as the fragile moment drifted free. The corners of his mouth curled slightly in a conciliatory smile. “The gods are so cruel, are they not?” He whispered to Antonia. Thomas moved up to kiss the beautiful rogue gently upon the forehead. “Another night,” he said as he lifted himself free from her delicious, gravitic pull, “we shall have to admire the heavens again.”

“Let’s go make them pay for the interruption with their coin,” he said over his shoulder to her as he slid down the tile, and with a finesse of a man born upon the seas, swung into the open window.

Though thoroughly annoyed at the interruption, Thomas could not shake the lingering glow of Antonia’s proximity, and as he descended the steps into the drinking hall of the Parakeet, he could not force the smile from his face.

As expected, both Nicolette and Jax were alone in the room, drinking rum and waiting somewhat awkwardly to his eyes. Thomas smirked, and he hoped that Antonia was not far behind him. He moved towards the pair, picking up a deck of cards as he did.

“Ah, welcome, welcome. I apologize for leaving you to wait, but the view was too amazing to miss.” A playful smile broadened upon his face, “And the stars were not bad either.”

“Shall we play?”

[tirgesfu]

Jax took the bottle of course, from the First Mates hands. There was something slightly fascinating about the way she gracefully, easily, toss the bottle back and drank. It was rough and tough even a full swig and yet Jax could not help but notice the curve of her neck, the swirl of her wrist, the shape of her lips as she slipped her tongue out to catch the lingering rum.

For the first time ever Jax thought about his own form as he aimed the bottle to his mouth. Would she watch him? Most likely not. She was irritated. She didn’t want his company and to be stranded here with him was not at all how she dreamed of a night off duty. Tough break sea witch, Jax thought as he took two drinks. The first was very slow , tilting the bottle only slightly, and then in exaggeration slurping the rum. He lowered the bottle and then took another tip, fast and hard more like the one she took before she offered.

“Off duty of course, as two sailors is all, two …” He almost said men and he smiled as he paused, “waiting with rum what is it you do when you feel the warmth of a good drink and a fair night to let go, to let loose? What do you do for fun, Doctor Beauchamp?” He did not give her wide grin as he handed the bottle back. He did not expect her to really answer him. Still he did want to know. And try as he might he made his question not carry all the tease and innuendo usually smartly laced inside. He tilted is head and tried to imagine her in some pose of real relaxations.

But just as he was thinking of that boots thumped down steps and before Jax could lift his eyes from his drinking mates face, the sound of their Captain filled the silent room. All of the sincere atmosphere Jax had worked to place shattered into a grim as their commander tossed about his own well placed tantalizing words of views and stars.

“Well,” Jax snickered, “Pull those pants back up and get ready to lose them again, my man.” He gestured to the table with a grin. “But let it be known, in my many sit arounds, it is the one with the keen eyes and straight lips,” Jax nodded his head toward the first mate, “who often leave with the rewards.” He looked back to her and smiled with a tease again, “Maybe not the fun, I know I will have, but the rewards none the less.”

[Lillian Thorne]

Watch him she did. Covertly and with great intensity. Her eyes were half-lidded, heavy with irritation but they watched him, sliding over the play of muscles under his tanned skin, the way the tendons stretched and pulled at skin in such a simple act as taking a drink. She watched him and told herself it was with a scientist curiosity. An interest in anatomy that made her eyes follow him and modesty that made her hide her watching. Modesty and sense. She didn’t want this exasperating man to think more of her look than was truly there.

He took a second swig and she didn’t mind, didn’t protest because it allowed her to watch more. But then he was speaking and grinning and that quiet moment of peace when his mouth was otherwise occupied was gone and her irritation and unsettled mood returned as she took the bottle from him, her fingers brushing his lightly as she took the bottle from him. She paid it and the resulting tingle no mine and drowned them out with a big, almost defiant mouthful of rum as she wondered how to answer his question.

Fun, what was fun? She was out in the world, making her way on her own terms. She could study and learn whatever she liked, she could go to the places she’d only read about and sketch the specimens she could only admire in other people’s books. Maybe, just maybe there would be a book of her own one day, with a pen-name of course. But was that fun?

“I don’t typically have fun.” She said before she meant to and regretted it. She looked away and flushed, the brand on her cheek florid as her embarrassment colored her flesh. She didn’t want to be a stuck up-ice-sculpture but it was armor and she needed that. She’d been without before and she didn’t care to ever be so again.

The Captain saved her, coming in, with more sheets to the wind than he had been before which soured her mood. For all that she didn’t let it cross her features, simply moved toward the table and chairs, the slight lifting of her chin the only response Jax would get for his goad. She sat down in the chair with all the grace and dignity of someone wearing full skirts for all that she was simply wearing well fitted breaches and a rather nice frock-coat that did nothing to hide the curves of her body despite that it was a man’s garment. She put the rum on the table where Jax could reach it but not so close to the inebriated captain. She pulled out a purse of coin, carefully counted for what she could afford to lose and plunked it down not far from the rum.

“Captain, I wonder if you would you do me a great kindness and explain to me how this game, Gleet is played? It is Gleet isn’t it?” Innocent confusion dripped from her honeyed voice as her surgeon’s fingers traced idly over the coin in her purse.

[Igraine]

Almost, Antonia had been perfectly content. This night, she'd had the stars with her lovely man, his touch, that low, hypnotic voice as much comforting lullaby as an invitation to the paradise he'd whispered of, a sweet promise found on the waves, somewhere beneath their Home Star. But for that one lost kiss, she truly was content. Antonia knew herself well enough to know that even in this delightful disappointment, this ache of anticipation, Thomas Lightfoot had somehow led the woman behind all those masks far closer to a genuine happiness, a joy she hadn't known from the time she'd been a small, innocent and much-loved child.

And so when he heard the voices below, announcing the untimely approach of the first mate and the helmsman, she let Thomas go with a warm giggle, a guileless woman’s laughter who somehow trusted the words of a pirate captain above all others. There truly would be another night, just as he had said. With a small smile and utterly without complaint, she snatched up her stockings and her shoes, slipping them on quickly before she moved to join him. And then she snapped her fingers with an exasperated roll of her eyes, turning to snatch up the nearly-abandoned wine bottle in one hand.

Thomas had already leapt back into the open window just beneath them. Antonia waited ‘til she was sure he was well out of the way, and then simply stepped off the roof, skirts billowing as she twisted lithely in midair to grab the roof’s ledge with one hand. Light as a falling leaf, she dropped silently into the hallway as Thomas strode away. Antonia was in no hurry really, gleek being a three-man game after all, and so she was only just coming down the stairs behind him. Turning toward the kitchens instead of the main tavern she missed utterly Thomas’ quip concerning the loveliness of the view (which would have pleased her), and Jax’s crack concerning the pirate captain pulling his pants back up (which would certainly not).

Probably for the better, really.

That precious, half-filled wine bottle still in hand, Antonia let herself into the pantry, moving straight for the covered loaves of bread and fresh butter, a large hunk of cheese and whole tropical fruits neatly ripened, lovely just-soft mangos and limes, sweet papayas and tangerines, a large knife and a few wooden plates. All these she arranged neatly on a wide tray along with the wine, and made her way back to the tavern proper.

One dark eyebrow arched in amusement, though her caramel-skinned face remained passive as the walls about them as she walked in, and heard Mademoiselle Beauchamp’s protestations of ignorance concerning… ”Gleet,” was it? Really, it was all Antonia could do not to chuckle to herself, and somehow keep the mirth from her face as she approached the table, only the soft silken rustle of her dove grey skirts to mark her arrival.

Oh, whatever game the First Mate had up her sleeve, Antonia was only too glad to give the woman a wide berth and watch the fun. Was she about to make the helmsman pay with every coin he had, for whatever words may have tripped lightly from that utterly unconquerable tongue of his? Or was dear Silver Fish about to find himself stripped bare – in more ways than one – by yet another woman he never saw coming?

The anticipation was simply delicious, and it honestly did not occur to Antonia that she should warn Thomas of a single thing to come. He wanted the full measure of his crew, of those men and women closest to him? Oh, it seemed he was about to get that and more in spades and, since it likely involved nothing more dangerous than a great deal of fun and only a negligible loss of dignity, entirely without a hint of bare steel at that lovely, well-muscled back of his?

There was simply no downside that she could see.

Besides, Antonia honestly had to admit to herself – the idea of finally seeing the First Mate truly enjoy herself, in anticipation of an honest laugh from the woman? Oh, that would be worth most Thomas’ coin without a doubt! If Mademoiselle Beauchamp handily relieved him of every last copper, she might even consider loaning him some of her own, just to keep the spectacle ongoing.

“Good evening Mademoiselle Beauchamp, Monsieur Jozua,” she said easily in her warm, thick Creole accent as she set the tray to the side of the table. She turned to Thomas with a wink, setting another empty mug before him, pouring it to the rim – just as he liked – with the deep red wine.

“Please, do help yourselves if you’re hungry, or thirsty – my tab is always open here at the Parakeet. Though let’s just keep this between us, hmm? My friends may not appreciate being overrun utterly with the crew of the Skate. So… “

Antonia poured herself a cup of wine, raising the rim to her lips and taking a long sip before she settled gracefully into a chair at the table. “Was there an explanation forthcoming then, for our Mademoiselle Beauchamp?”