"Yo-ho, beauty, the name be Blagden," said a rather older-looking, skinny man with graying hair.
"Wyck." Another muscled pirate, one with a very deep voice and dark hair, and a nasty scar on his nose. He looked tough.
"The name be Jagger." An average-looking man...except for the pink bandanna around his head...raised his arm...that had no hand. Just a hook. How does he put the pink bandanna on with a hook? And why was that the first thing you thought of?
"Hi..." you said quietly.
Blagden, finding an inspirational thought, smiled. "She be more shy than Wyck's mama." Blagden muttered, the comment, sounding misplaced, was directed to rile someone else. He had been saving that one, waiting to use that one for a while.
Wyck immediately turned purple in the face, and hissed, "Don't you be talkin' about my mama like that!"
"Note, Anika," Jagger said. "There be more fire in a dead fish than in Wyck."
"You vise, but no more sight than a dead puppy," Wyck retorted.
"Excuse that gruff?"
"Arrr, what you be callin' that thing around your head? What color it be?"
"It be manly! Red, it used to be, red as yer blood!"
"It be manly as your mama."
"Belay that gruff a' my mama! And I be not a fireless fish!"
"When you mother be involved, you a'be meat for the sharks."
"Yarrr, Jagger, Wyck, bones is what you'll be, you're putting a bad impression on Anika!" Knoll interjected.
You looked like you pretty much wanted to curl up in the corner and die.
"So you squires be gettin' some salty conversation topics besides Wyck's mom?" Knoll asked his crewmates.
"You never even be meetin' my mother!" Wyck snapped. "Not funny, it be!"
"Funny, I think it be," Blagden snickered.
"Guys, we be past that. Anybody wanta be tellin' Anika where you be from?" he asked.
Silence.
"Alright, I guess I a'be going first," Knoll shrugged. "I bin 'ere for three years, and be one of the first ones hired by the Cap'n. I be from Tristram."
You tensed at hearing the name Tristram. That was the country that belonged to that idiot of a prince you were supposed to marry. Your betrothed's name was Gaspar. Prince Gaspar of Tristram. And the dude was an absolute idiot.
"I be just a pickup from Pirate's Bay. Bin 'ere a year," Blagden said.
"I done owed the Captain a favor two years ago, so I a'joined the Scurvy Raider," Jagger said.
"The...Scurvy Raider?" you asked tentatively.
"That be the name of the ship," Blagden said. "Ay, Wyck, where you be from?"
He didn't answer.
"Harrr, now he be all mad. Ah well. Where you be from, Ankia?"
"Uh..." You didn't think it would be a very good idea for you to say. At all. "Tristram," you said immediately, it being the first thing that popped in your head.
"Huh, you don't be soundin' or lookin' like it. Well, where the Cap'n's from, that be, and he don't be soundin' like it either." Knoll shrugged. "A lot of us be from there. Many great salty sea-dogs be a'comin' out of Tristram!"
So there were a lot of pirates from there? That didn't sound very promising. But the Captain had seemed so...secretive. Along with the fact of how young he looked, a bit too young to be a ship's Captain. "You know where the Captain's from?"
"Yeah," he said flippantly. "Everyone be knowin'."
Why did that seem so important? Well, probably it was that shroud of secrecy that always seemed to follow him. It was your second day, and you could already sense it. You wondered if anybody even knew his name; they all just called him 'Captain.' "Of course, sorry."
"No, it be a very good question," Blagden noted. "Only guess he be from there, we do. The brown hair, brown eyes, and good pirateer he got, and Tristram be the only place he don't feel comfortable docking at."
"He looks so...young," you said aloud, feeling increasingly more friendly with the crew. "How did he ever become your Captain?"
"He 'ad a nice ship and a plunder a' gold to hire mercenaries," Jagger said. "Got the best pirates on the dock, he did, bought them onto his ship. He be startin' doing other ships favors after that, he be. Every favor 'e can. Every ship in Pirate's Bay be owin' him a favor by now. 'E sails close to the islands, 'e does, just close enough to spot if anyone be shipwrecked or marooned there. Bounties a' dozens a' pirates owe 'im their lives, and that be 'is strategy. Favors. Owes him a favor, near everyone does. He 'as an entire army behind him, if he be needin' it. It be almost scary. You don't want to get on the wrong side of the Cap'n of the Scurvy Raider."
You nodded slowly. "But he can't older than nineteen or his early twenties. How in the world did he get to..." you trailed off by the horrified look on their faces. "...what?"
"Nineteen?!" Wyck exclaimed, startled out of his anger. "You loose-lipped wench, he's twenty-seven!"
"No salty dog be servin' a young Jim lad!" Blagden spat, dropping an insult out of surprise. "You you call that a head on yee booty, or a blessed dead eye?" He didn't sound mean, just very taken aback.
"I'm sorry!" you gasped. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything!" Apparently that was a very serious suggestion.
They hadn't meant to sound rude to you, but that was just their language. Words like 'wench' and 'dog' were clearly an attempt at complement or casual language, the rest was just thrown in for outrage. They'd been raised under the Captain's wing for a few years to never oppress, never fight back at him, never defy his word. And for his precious new servant to do so, they were shocked.
They exchanged glances. Jagger lowered his voice. "Here, Anika, listenin' you be. If hears that you suggested things about him behind his back, he does, besides the Tristram thing, he be havin' you scrubbing that deck fer weeks!" Jagger sputtered.
Knoll spoke up. "Secretive, he might be, but he be no stranger. He be me hearty. The best swordsman we ever be meetin', he be. An' the finest pirate Cap'n. You can't be achievin' that in just nineteen years a' sea."
"Yes, I understand, sorry sir," you said, ashamed and scared.
Knoll suddenly looked reproachful. "Anika, callin' me, or anyone else here, well, besides the Cap'n himself, 'sir,' you don't gotta be doin'. Declared you to be a 'guest,' not a slave, the Cap'n has. And whatever the Cap'n says, goes. Everyone here would be followin' a Cap'n like 'im to the end of the sea."
"Of course, sorry...sir-- er, Knoll...but I'm still just a...a servant, aren't I?"
"Arrr, by the look the Cap'n gives you, I doubt it be for long," Blagden chuckled quietly.
"Wait, what?"
"That soft look he be gettin' in his eyes whenever he be lookin' you up. Never seein' him do it before, I be," Blagden shrugged. "He be lookin' you up and down like you be 'is breakfast." Jagger elbowed him hard.
"Don't you be messin' with the poor land wench, Blagden," Knoll said disapprovingly. So wench was not an insult.... Okay then.... "She just be gettin' here yesterday. Sorry Anika, he be tellin' that to anyone. He just wanna be seein' yer reaction."
"Oh, yeah. Right."
They all glanced at you, then suddenly busied themselves with their food, which they were eating with their fingers.
"But...do any of you know...the Captain's...name?"
Blagden dropped his chicken leg, his mouth left open just before a bite.
Knoll started choking on his food, and was coughing deeply.
Jagger was looking rather pale, as if he'd seen a ghost.
Wyck, on the other hand, turned his shameful purple and muttered, "oh mother..."
"My name is the Captain, and that is all you need to know," the Captain said over your shoulder, close enough to almost be hissing in your ear. He sounded a bit tense, and maybe a bit disappointed.
You jumped so high, you squealed and fell off the bench. The Captain looked rather surprised at your startled reaction, and crossed his arms, looking at you disapprovingly, while you were sprawled on the floor, your elbow on fire. But he was trying to contain a slight bit of laughter, you saw it leak through a twinkle in his eye.
"I assume if you have time for such conversation, specifically conversation of me, you are finished eating?" He raised an eyebrow, peering down at you. He didn't look at all pleased you'd been speaking of him behind his back, and you could tell the crew was utterly stunned the Captain hadn't hit you or beaten you in some way.
He seriously looks like a teenager though! "No sir, Captain! Sorry sir!" You jumped up to your feet and weren't quite sure what to do beside stand there. Salute? Bow? You'd never bowed to anyone before, and the thought of doing it to a pirate didn't seem very good to you, because you only actually bowed to higher royalty...
The smile in the Captain's eyes fell, and he gave you an irritated, reproachful look that you didn't do any kind of recognition of superiority. "I could ask you to kiss my feet right now, and you'd have to do it," he warned. "Of course...I wouldn't ask that of you, beautiful, but I am still allowed to ask of you as I please."
"Curtsy," Knoll hissed to you.
But.... You sighed on the inside. You'd never curtsied to anyone but Kings and Queens. You gave him an awkward curtsy.
"That's better." He untensed, but still was disappointed in you. He liked his cloud of secrecy. And talking behind his back about his personal life was not one of his well-appreciated pastimes. "Now go finish the deck. You can take the apple with you. You already missed your chance for something else."
He said it gently, like he didn't want to punish you for only speaking, but knowing he shouldn't show favor to you over his crew. But no matter how nicely he said it, you felt like you were going to cry. He was very calm and cool, his face expressionless from what you could tell.
You gave another slight curtsy and dashed up the stairs and back to your scrubbing bucket, the crew, their jaws dropped, completely stunned that you'd just gotten off so lightly.
And you didn't realize how much your hands really hurt, and how much you really hated scrubbing, until you had to pick that brush up again.
You were so relieved when it was time to eat dinner that night; and you got to eat whatever you wanted. You actually got the first choice at food on the table. The Captain had you sit down at the bench, right next to him, and where he sat at the end, at the head of the table. Everyone sat along the long sides, plenty of elbow room, except for you and him, who sat shoulder-to-shoulder.
And when the pirates that once looked so scary to you gave you a smiling toast, (including the Captain, who couldn't stay upset with you for long) even if they ate it all with their fingers, they started to look a little less like kidnappers and foes, and...more like...more like friends.