Mariana let Charlie down, but she couldn't do much better. Daniel had her at gunpoint. What was she to do?
"There is a reason I wear white today, just saying," she breathed.
Daniel raised his eyebrows. "You are hoping to appear cute and innocent?"
Mariana sighed. "I didn't come here looking for trouble. I wish you didn't, either."
"A bit too late for that," he growled.
Callow Charlie seemed thoroughly distressed. The situation had to appear very conflicting to him. There had been a promise of a brawl, and then, all of a sudden, Mariana had thrown her hands in the air and started to treat the villain of their story as an ally.
"I'm sorry," Mariana whispered to him. "Don't provoke him."
"A white flag." Daniel lowered his pistol.
Realistically, Mariana knew that there were dozens more aimed at her, but it just felt so sweet to be out in the open and have him display a morsel of care for her.
They decided to negotiate without anyone's assistance, except for the witch, who swore up and down that he was not partial to any side in this argument.
Mariana hoped that he could act as a sort of a mediator.
Sitting down on the black, stony ground that had once been lava, they started to tell their stories.
Mariana was first.
She considered her options. It wasn't impossible for her to be completely honest, which was jarring to think about at first.
She could leave details out or put them in, or then she could spin a tale that was entirely fictional.
"A ghost wants me to kill you," she blurted out and felt the tears coming to her eyes.
The two men stared blankly at her.
"Firstly, why did you associate with a ghost?" The witch shook his head. "They are too dangerous for the living."
"I know, I shouldn't have summoned him." Mariana didn't want to talk about the dice. Not yet, not like this. She had a strange feeling that they were something Daniel had been looking for.
"Why does the ghost want me dead?" Daniel asked. "Have I killed him in the past? If so, tell him that he isn't anyone special. I have killed lots of people."
Mariana opened up a bit about Dars without saying anything about the cube. Daniel didn't ask any questions that would have revealed his knowledge of the purpose of the dice; he obviously didn't know that they were used for summoning entities.
When the witch doctor interrupted Captain Mariana, the pirate king was staring at her already, with a different shade of hunger in his eyes. He had been listening so closely that his gaze had crept up on her like a spider. Now, he lingered on her lips and it was hard to listen to the witch while he was looking at the curve of her mouth.
"I asked you a question, Captain Adams," the witch said. "It appears to me that you are too enchanted by this man to talk business. Please drag yourself away from his influence."
"Roinar," Daniels said, with a clear warning in his voice. "I will tell you once I am done with her. For now…I am taking her for a walk. You go take a nap in lava, witch."
So, that was what the witch was called. Roinar was a rather common, if a bit Sennitic as a first name, but Mariana could have called the man Whoom Whoom of the Lava Nap Island and felt no different about it. The only interesting thing in her universe was Daniel, a man she loved to hate and hated to love.
The witch grumbled, but the two of them went around the swamp and eased their way into a conversation. It didn't quite feel natural at first, but Mariana tried her best to let him speak his mind.
He looked at her, with that romantic longing briefly visiting her eyes until a cruel burst of sunlight drove it away and he became all iron and cruelty again.
"I don't think anyone has ever hated me without a good reason," he said, turning away like some brooding model of a famous painter, his long coat flowing around in the coastal wind. "Your reasons must be good and as true as the hot blood in your veins. I want you to elaborate on them."
Mariana licked her lips before she could stop her tongue from moving on its own.
"It's about how I left after the surgery, isn't it?"
She blushed. The traumatic experience was not one she intended to share her feelings about. Not now, not ever.
"It is, and also about the surgery itself," she finally said. "But I don't want to talk with you about it. It doesn't feel right."
"You think that I was willing to let you die for nothing at all."
He moved closer to her, she smelled his scent, cocoa and worn leather and oh gods oh gods she could actually sense his heart beating steadily through the air, she had no idea how that was possible but she did. So, he had a heart hidden under that scary facade. It was just slow to react and buried in a pile of dead bodies.
"No, you were willing to let me die for a chance of conceiving," she said, turning her eyes away. She felt like her insides were on fire. "It wasn't for nothing. It was just…just…"
"Speak your mind, wicked woman."
"You were willing to put me through it and to make me suffer so much!" she cried out, not bothering to stop her tears. "You didn't care about me at all! You never did, or else, you would not have made me go through it! They cut me open and -"
She couldn't go on any longer. He made her accept his embrace, his advances as he took her into his arms.
It was the warmest, most comfortable thing to cry into his chest. Although hard labor had hardened his body, he was still so good to hold that she squeezed him closer to her without even intending to do so.
Something inside her forced her eyes open.
He was looming above her, like the mast of a sailing ship guarding its crew.
His lips were so close. This was a perfect opportunity.