Antonia grinned widely at the captain's call, waving to her lovely man before stepping back in the crow's nest to crouch down from sight. She clapped her hands quickly over her ears, her entire face squinched in anticipation for the cannon's report. Away up in the sky, in the near inviolate privacy of her sanctuary, she could afford an honest expression, an anticipatory grimace; though she'd always understood the need, nothing could ever make Antonia love the belly-rumbling rolls, the explosions of the cannons.
Thomas might know this, though more likely not - no matter. Antonia had learned long ago, that no honest expression of her thoughts ever went unpunished anyway.
When the Skate's cannon was fired in response, Antonia popped up once more just as swiftly as you please. The small walnut lapdesk was already tucked neatly beneath blanket and tarp - not that anyone would dare the trip up here to take it, much less to take it from her. But she slipped the small desk key, laced on a thin silver chin, back beneath her shirt nonetheless - a token of sorts, a talisman that what soul she had managed to keep, would remain intact and whole and untouched.
Her blades... Oh, Antonia carried nothing like the grand, deadly steel the new First Mate wielded to such astounding effect. As swiftly as a lady to her toilette, she strapped the daggers to her waist, slipping stockings over her feet and then her old work boots before the small boot daggers found their home - and then carefully lifting her tongue, pulling her cheek aside with her fingers as she slipped the smallest of them all to its proper place. She smiled once, twice, ensuring its placement as much as savoring the familiar metallic taste as the cool steel warmed in her mouth.
Her pack over one shoulder, she lifted herself lightly as a leaf in the wind over the edge of the crow's nest. All the grace of a grand spider in her web, the young woman whirled, skittered to the deck along the rigging, landing without so much as a whisper to mark her passage, despite the heavy, hobnail boots. She ascended the steps toward the tiller swiftly.
"Silver Fish," she said with a most cordially mocking bow - not a curtsy - her thick Creole accent warming the air about them further still with a spice and promise all its own. Antonia's grey eyes peered up at the captain, beside the new helmsman.
Jozua was his name, though he preferred to be called Jax. Before too long, Antonia would know more of this man than his own sweet Maman ever did. That was, after all, why her lovely man kept her about. To find things. To read men. To sniff out the dangers both near and far, to keep his back blessedly free of daggers, and the Dusk Skate and its crew whole and mightily prosperous.
Antonia found his refusal to so much as look at her brought its own sort of amusement, spicing the already intoxicating mix of anticipation and grim purpose she felt this day, and Antonia simply couldn't help the wicked little smirk on her face. Ah well, it was all for the better really, bless his precious, superstitious heart. The last crew member to dare touch her without her leave had lost his hand, after all.
Slowly.
Agonizingly.
One blackened finger after the other, not a thing the ship's former surgeon could have done to save the limb. There was never a word that could be said against her, of course, but whispers spread as whispers will - and in the end he'd only ever had it coming anyway, hadn't he? Damned fool to touch that voudon woman anyway - as dumb as killing an albatross. She might be a woman, but she brought her own breath of good fortune from the moment the captain brought her on board, and had never shirked a moment's work.
Good enough for Captain Lightfoot? Good enough for the rest of the crew - and that fool was damn lucky his hand had been the only thing he'd lost.
The young woman's eyes flicked briefly toward the helmsman, Perhaps Jax had heard the story? Antonia did hope so.
"I'll be below deck a while longer," she continued as she stood straight once more. "Preparing. Same as ever this evening, lovely man?"
I remain amused, for all time, at your "take away!"