Mabel decided not to waste words as response to MacNichols's drinking. She'd jump overboard before she'd figure a pirate would do anything [i]but[/i] drink on his time off. She listened to the sailor speak some more, clearly at wit's end about what to do to preserve the peace among the split crew. Mabel crossed her arms tightly, making the overlarge shoulders of her jerkin rise up a bit. She looked out into the busy port they left behind. They didn't have much height over the tops of the slanted, splintered buildings, but something about the distance and the way the nighttime was starting to digest the orange-pink complexion of Nassau made her feel... separated, almost safely so, if only she weren't there because of threats. "I think this is where our meeting place ought to be," she decided, motioning to the nothingness around them. There were no trees here, no brush or buildings or boulders for anyone to hide behind. They were out in the open, impossible to attack without their knowing. Or as close as they could get.

Douglas wanted to know what Mabel's grand plan was. Truthfully, she had expended all she had premeditated by recruiting him. The only reasonable thing she knew to do was to get MacNichols in on the situation. He was honorable enough and well-liked by the crew. It would be futile for Mabel to try to use her own popularity to win anyone over. Douglas, on the other hand, had a chance. She didn't know him to cause problems or for anyone aboard to have any particular issue with him. A likable fellow was what the captain needed, and Mabel needed the captain. Getting on a ship was a strenuous mission for her, not just because she was a woman but because of her ties to the port, specifically her ties to her deceased fence husband. Mabel and Brailham shared a secret about her coming aboard the [i]Trident[/i], and Brailham was one entity she had counted on to keep her out of the crewmen's clutches. It amazed her, really, that Brailham had extended his protection of her for so long; she had feared he might permit, maybe even encourage the crew to abuse her once they were out on the open ocean. It was his loyalty to her that made Mabel count herself a recipient of luck, even in the wake of the devastations that had brought her aboard. The woman knew her chances of survival aboard a ship would splinter away if the captain was usurped, and she wasn't about to go running back to the life of tavern service or wifehood.

She eyed the bottle in MacNichols's rough hands. He was trying to abstain from the liquor. Figuring she'd do them both a favor, she swiped the drink out of his hands and brought it up to her own lips. She hoped taking the nervousness out of her might help her mental acuity some, but mostly she was just looking for some relief from the stress of the prospects at hand. After taking a wash of drink, she dropped her arm to the side, wringing out the neck of the bottle with her anxious fingers. Her other wrist wiped the saliva off her lips, leaving behind one of her characteristic deep-thought grimaces: lips thin and opened lopsidedly, revealing the teeth around her canines. "All I know is we have to walk this right," she grumbled, looking out into the dim opal glow of Nassau, with the moonlight on the impenetrable ocean skittering ashore, blending with the coral burnish of torches and tavern candles. She could hear some whore's fake laugh from all the way out where she stood, and she wondered for the umpteenth time what state the women she had known growing up were in these days. She was as afraid to know as she was to care. With a voice detached like an untied skiff sliding away from shore, she said, "You have to be ready to scrub the mutiny out of the shipboards if it comes to that, Scotsman." Subconsciously, her fingers slithered way up to the handle of her rapier. As if there were some innate core connecting her to it, the touch brought flashes of violence to her mind's eye, iniquities committed by hands that were not her own, hands that she had not seen but rather heard emanating from the hill on which once stood Augustus Blake's estate. She had found the intestinal coils of rope on the doorstep three days later, when she deemed it safe enough to venture out of hiding. It was charred and blood-crispened. Mabel's eyes were rooted to the distant town still, but she seemed to be looking straight into the beast's jaws. Her snarl deformed into something even more misshapen, but somehow made her look less like the bristly serpent she had become and more like the young lady she once pretended to be.

((I swear I was going to wait a few more posts before things got psychological. Or was I? ))