She did smile upon waking or rather the soft smile that had been on her lips when she fell asleep and had inexplicably never left them, grew as the sun warmed the sky to the east. When the kiss of its light was too much on her eyelids they fluttered and she woke. She opened her eyes to a smile that was as unsettling as it was welcome. White teeth in a broad smile all contained in a sun-kissed face she found strangely interesting. It was a face she wanted to study with eyes and fingers, tracing laugh lines and scars alike. Her fingers twitched to do so but she held them back. This was new, what had passed. He had gotten her to relax, something she never allowed herself. He had made her smile, she had enjoyed his company. He had disarmed her. She wasn’t certain what it was or why it was but it left her feeling warm and less unsettled. Her eyes, slow to wake said as much in a slow, languid blink. That is until he opened his mouth to do other than simply smile. 

The words that came made her smile falter but not vanish. She was a sailor, a pirate. If she were a wilting flower she would not be where she was. As it was she routinely witnessed men pissing off the sides of the ship, pausing in their duty to take care of bodily needs. It wasn’t her favorite part of the job by any means but she endured and accepted that aspect of things. They weren’t pissing on the deck at least.

What had her confused was the fading dreams overlaying the reality of waking up. She couldn’t recall her dream fully, the only ones she could ever recall were ones she wished with all her might that she could forget. Those ones came in painful detail. This one was something else. She knew little but that it had been pleasant, warm and fun and it had featured such a smile as she’d woken up too. She woke open and hopeful, treacherous, hazardous emotions. So to hear those words upon waking threw her. Without a word in reply she watched him walk away with that same faltered smile on her face as she tried to catch up to the moment. 

Uncertain, she stood, brushing back hair that had fallen over her forehead. She stretched her lush body and then with eyes skimming over the now closed buds of the Night Blooms she began to un-pin her hair to hide the damage a night outside had done to her coiffeur. She froze when she heard his latest offering of words from deep within the sugarcane. The softness she’d gained from a night of sweet dreams and a sense of strange safety in the arms of someone who might have become a friend vanished in an instant. She stood like a stature, hands deep in her blonde locks as she took in his words and measured them against her own reality. 

Fool.

Idiot

Whore.

The lingering smile died an instant death, her face smoothing over into her customary cold mask. Like the frost that creeps over a field in late autumn so coldness crept over her. Not even the warm Caribbean sun could melt that crust of ice. She cast one look back at the Night Blooms, no, she cast one last look at the [i]Nymphaea Antares[/i] before turning and walking briskly up the path without another word. 

She was a fool.