Private Tales Above Deck

[Gal]

“I thought you weren’t a princess?” Gal drawled out slow-like, half-turning as the girl stalked towards the cabin. Something glinted in those black eyes as she listened, the smirk fading somewhat from her lips.

“Who in the name of all the spirits would go ‘round offing Anir royalty? I like a good fight to get the blood pumping, don’t get me wrong, but you’d have to be suicidal for that.”

 

[Selene]

Selene paused on the stairs, brows half furrowed as she glanced back. “Clearly you are not familiar with Vel Anir affairs. Everyone kills everyone there.”

She moved to step forward, then paused as if to say more.

 

[Gal]

“Right. Every Anirian kills other Anirians,” Gal dragged out as if explaining it to a daft child who hadn’t yet lived to see their fifth summer. “You lot are welcome to gut each other as you like. I’m just happy to relieve the occasional merchant of their goods and move along.”

“You people—” she twirled her finger at Selene, “nobles; shit gets messy when y’all are involved.”

 

[Selene]

Selene pursed her lips, finding no fault in the woman’s accusation.

It was true.

She glanced back over her shoulder, giving Gal a sculptiously look. “And with pirates, they don’t?” It was rhetorical, the woman clutching at the key around her neck and as she turned back around and moved for the cabin below Gal’s feet.

 

[Gal]

“Can’t say nothing about others. I’ve known all sorts. Some I reckon would fit right into your backstabbery and lies.” She had one particular fucker in mind, too. But that was a revenge for another time. Life was too short to spend it burning up in futile rage.

“But with me?” She chuckled and turned her face back into the sun. “Naw. I’m a simple woman.”

 

[Selene]

Selene quickly realized she was moving away from the cabin and gave a little disoriented swirl in place. She caught her bearings, eyes landing on the true door of the cabin, and slowly walked her way back up, pausing as her side line up with Gal’s.

“That’s funny,” she said, tilting her head to look the woman in the eye. “Because I get the feeling there’s nothing simple about you at all.”

 

[Gal]

“Ain’t you a fucking poet.” Gal scoffed and waved her towards the cabin. “Get in there and get dressed before one of them layabouts comes topside. Ain’t much a pirate knows to do with a noble ‘cept how to take that dignity away real quick.”

 

[Selene]

Selene smiled, a brow raised at Gal’s reaction.

She gave a low, mocking curtsy, pulling on the sides of the robe to reveal a hint of thigh before she straightened and walked away.

Huh. Noted.

She did not emerge, though unlike yesterday, this time she remained inside on her own volition.

When Gal did enter, she’d find the woman already sitting at the desk. She had gotten into Gal’s own clothing and now wore pieces of it, looking abruptly like a pirate herself as she wore a hat an all.

She glanced up as the door opened, an expecting grin on her face.

 

[Gal]

She stepped inside.

And stopped.

“You trying on a new look, princess?” Gal sauntered inside with a smirk of her own, latching the door against the gale that had rolled in from the north. Cerano was now lashed to the helm, given a shorter watch for his exhaustive report on the conversation in the bilge. She pitied the poor fuck who’d carry out the night shifts – the wind was only getting worse from here on out.

 

[Selene]

By now Gal would know of her engagement. Or rather, the officiality of it, as those terms were spoken of and set down below in the bilge. Selene had said many things, some unlike herself as she tested out the character of the man before her.

But in the end he prove strangely decent enough. At least at first glance, she felt hope that she was not signing herself up for a marriage of abuse.

“It’s harder to rape a woman in pants,” she said bluntly. “Besides, its as you said-- don’t want to go flashing my knickers in the wind, now do I?” But she was still grinning, the pretense merely that.

 

[Gal]

“As if. It’s a knife that’ll keep those greedy paws away, not that scrap of linen.”

Gal let out an indignant snort and sidestepped the desk – and Selene – to dig her rutter from the chest in the corner of the room. It let out a little hiccup of dust as she dropped it onto the table, hands braced on hips.

She lifted an expectant eyebrow at the occupied chair.

 

[Selene]

Selene raised a brow back, playing dumb. “Yes?”

 

[Gal]

It was a good way to get bodily lifted out of a chair.

Unsurprisingly, this was exactly what followed.

 

[Selene]

Selene yelped, smacking open palmed at Gal’s back. Her legs flailed as she went.

“You put me down, you put me down right this instant!”

 

[Gal]

And so she did – on the bed.

In one swift motion Gal was back in her chair, so sprawled out that it seemed like she’d never left. One knee hooked over the armrest, the pirate unclasped the ledger and rifled through the worn parchment until she reached the most recent page.

But it wasn’t words that filled the paper. The symbols looked nothing like the various alphabets used across the mainland. Gal studied them for a moment before she pulled out the ink and quill from last night, dipping it carefully to add new markings to the bottom of the parchment.

 

[Selene]

Selene huffed and puffed indignantly, sitting up and straightening the hat on her head as she frowned at the woman back at the desk.

“So much for asking nicely,” she shot out, sliding to the edge of the bed to re approach.

 

[Gal]

“It’s my ship,” she replied absently, with a few moments’ delay. “I don’t ask. I give orders.”

 

[Selene]

Selene sighed heavily, this woman playing by a completely different set of rules than she was use to. “You mean to say you play dirty. “

She brought her chair from last night to the other side of the desk, pausing to look over Gal’s shoulder.

She blinked, leaning in. “What is that writing?”

 

[Gal]

“So for me it’s playing dirty,” she blew out a breath and dipped the quill again, “but a noble can give orders all he likes to his men?”

Gal didn’t look up as the other chair scraped against the wood, nor when a wisp of hair tickled her shoulder as Selene leaned forward.

“It’s not writing.”

 

[Selene]

Selene looked on, fascinated. “Yeah, but you do not own me,” she breathed mindlessly, her breath washing onto the paper below.

“....Huh.”

She straightened and continued bringing the chair to the other side, dragging its heavy mass into place.

“What is it then?” She perched on the edge.

 

[Gal]

“It is…” she crossed a few of the lines and returned for ink again, “a map… of stars.” Gal emphasized the last word with a swift jab of the quill, then set the rutter aside to dry.

“And don’t I? Just because you’re not bound in the hold doesn’t mean you’re free, princess.” She brushed the black feather along her pale cheek, a sharp grin to her mouth. “But that can be arranged, if you’d like. Less confusing that way.”

 

[Selene]

Selene merely smiled, more of an edge to her eyes than the night before. The time had done her well in getting her mind straight again, her footing found.

“Yes but then who would talk to you,” she challenged.

 

[Gal]

“The wind and the sea, princess. You can’t survive on a ship without learning to be by yourself.”

If the words on their own might’ve sounded like philosophy, the indecent smirk on her lips assuredly trampled that meaning.

“And we don’t really talk, do we? You demand things and I say no. You ask things and I’m honest, and you go all red in the face. If that’s what passes for talkin’ up in Anir it’s no wonder y’all’d rather stab each other.”

 

[Selene]

Selene’s expression crumbled ever so slightly, a hitch of frustration inside of her.

“What year is it?” She asked with no explanation.

 

[Gal]

“This one?” Her brows climbed a bronze forehead. “The fuck kinda question is that?”