Mariana was perched on the gunwale, looking down towards her crew. It was good for the captain to be standing on an elevated surface.
All humans were such beasts. If they could recognize power beyond their own abilities, they obeyed, whether the source was a tall man or a little lady standing on a platform.
She smiled. A darkness held her heart captive. She was already thinking about all the ways she could hurt Daniel, all those things she would make him accept.
It was just as much about the mental side of things as it was about physically subduing him.
She did want one last touch, though.
Snapping back into the present moment, she cleared her throat.
The men were looking back at her with expressions of curiosity, maybe even delight. There were few things as enchanting as the tale she had told Wolfe to pass along.
Hate and love - what a precious brew!
"Gentlemen!"
It was her speech. This big moment could never be buried under the roar of the western wind. Although it was not too widely known, a woman could scream high enough to drown out any low, rumbling sounds. This was what Mariana, ever the songbird, relied on.
She spoke, and her men heard her.
"Many of us will die."
That was another fact, but everyone knew their fates already: uncertainty, with the only unchanging thing being death.
Aye, at some point in their lives. Of course, everyone hoped to live as long as possible.
The waves whisked some water up to her ear, wetting her perfectly braided hair.
"There is little doubt that I will have to bury many good men," Mariana said.
She was going to be steadfast and resilient when the guns started to blaze. She had buried so many good men already.
She wasn't going to let that sacrifice be in vain.
"Rest assured, I will pay plenty of gold to your families, that famous corpse money, should you succumb to the blades of the pirates. But money isn't what you are here for, right?"
She let the rhetorical question linger in the air.
"No, if you were after some quick gold, you would be on a pirate ship. This is not a ship like that."
"Last chance to bail out, boys!" Wolfe shouted. "You heard her!"
"This is a PRIVATEER VESSEL. We work hard, with diligence and ambition that those wretches have NEVER seen!"
An unanimous "aye" echoed on the high seas. It pumped fresh, hot blood into Mariana's head.
Power was such a sweet intoxicant.
"When we are done with the pirates, they will be forgotten within a generation! They create no nations! They have no foundations, no backbone, and this is why they are the past! WE are the FUTURE! WE will be REMEMBERED for CENTURIES!"
Mariana was screaming now, her throat throbbing with her veins coming to the surface, as if her very blood was dying to burst out of her body to participate in this frenzy.
"In the name of HONOR itself!"
"AYE!"
Their screams split up her ears, the deafening applause, the roar overwhelmed her. Tears of joy came up. She did nothing to stop herself from weeping openly.
"And I, if I should die - bury me not as a lady, although gods know I have tried to be one…"
A poignant silence interrupted the bellowing encouragement, but it was just as powerful as the ruckus had been.
"No; bury me as a sailor, and a captain, if I earn that name. No one gets anything for free, so why should I?"
This alone was enough to make a few men rub their eyes. Mariana marked them in her mind. They were the ones prone to bouts of melancholy and other strong emotions. They could be swayed by the right rhetoric and verbal talent.
Some, though, were simply nodding, like the Wizard and his brother. These men were like her. Hard inside, harder to please, and with good and stable morals that did not change like the winds did. Such men were good to sail with.
There were no individuals with unwanted reactions. Sure, some men did seem eager to get back to work, but that was a good sign.
"All that matters is the hunt," Mariana said, daring to use a normal speaking voice now. "The hunt, the honor, the prize we get as a part of history that others after us will desperately try to repeat."
Solemn nodding ensued. Her speech had been entertaining and fairly compact. She had spoken clearly and with candid honesty.
"I will be greeting everyone in person after I have planned our course according to the clues I have," she said.
This was partially true. She had not told anyone she had met and fought Daniel.
To have their captain losing battles repeatedly would have been degenerating for the spirits of these men.
"Can I get one last AYE?!"
She got what she wanted.
Ocean was her home. Although water did belong to the dead, she had never felt more alive than now.
She climbed down and felt her mood drop as well.
As bad as Daniel was, it was still better to lose him than to gain a suitor of lesser value. He was making her as he undid her from afar, changing her fate.
She would always be someone only in relation to him.
Thankfully, someone brought her a small bag of strong tea and she was able to ride that buzz of being pampered and appreciated. The man said that she was the fairest and the most righteous privateer he had ever seen, perhaps even the best captain altogether.
That felt good.
She found herself glancing out towards the open sea more frequently than she would have liked to. She could always feel Daniel near her. What she didn't know was the ratio of intuition to delusion.
The excitement was real, and probably more accurate than the clue about him hunting treasure galleons near the Karshaan Sea.
Her heart kept on pounding in her chest, that wicked old witchdrum.