#vicki li | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tortoisesshells · 3 months

Note

Perhaps 'padlock' for the writing prompt?

Kind Anonymous Friend, if you're still here, this is almost certainly not what you were looking for, but there are pirates. I'm temporarily borrowing @widowshill's Dark Sails alternate universe, because the 1960s are nice and all, but golly I miss the 18th century.

She had not thought her life worth much, when the unknown ship raised a flag which signaled there would be no quarter given; the tension aboard the little Sally Jennet thick and suffocating, Victoria Winters had thought it only right to go below, and make her peace in the shabby little box which had been her living quarters these weeks and more. Purdy, who would have been an old man ashore, told her to pray it would be over quick – but the mate! Mister Vaughn had handed her a pistol, and told her to make the best use of it she could. It had been over out of her sight: when, still clutching the pistol in numb hands, she was brought out to the deck, she noted their flag had been hauled down without a shot fired in anger. The Sally Jennet’s captain had weighed their lives heavier than their cargo, and she was grateful for it – only – There was nowhere to go, at sea – save to the devil. And that had been days ago.

She alone of the crew and passengers of the Sally Jennet had been taken aboard the Requital, and though she had been made a prisoner, she was granted the privacy of an airless cabin, with a door that was not locked. Unbolted – but guarded. Victoria could go where she pleased, within reason. A chair was hers, if she wanted it, in the sun – rations were what they were, but poverty ashore was not much different than the deprivations of the sea – the monotony of a merchant ship was, through the light-winded horse latitudes, the same monotony as that suffered by pirates given no quarry to chase and fang. But then – how many of these liberties were the whim of the Requital’s grim captain, instead of right conduct at sea? Those thoughts haunted her, becoming a kind of an iron shackle of their own, the long chain of her fears rattling behind her wherever she turned.

Was this fair? Was she only having these thoughts because she was holding one hesitating fist to the door of the Great Cabin, afraid to make a sound? She had been invited. It had not even been a command – Devlin, the Requital’s master, had issued such invitations before, and waved off her polite refusals with a proud look, and the same remark: Well, you know your own mind, little governess. It had frightened her, and then irritated her, and then, at last, she’d agreed.

Arming herself with these thoughts, she knocked. When Devlin bade her enter, she did – keeping her spine straight and her eyes ahead, the best manners she had – idle curiosity was a fine thing, but not in such circumstances as these. Devlin stood, like a gentleman. His expression was not calculated to allay her fears.

“Little governess,” he started, and Victoria protested that her name was Miss Winters.

Devlin nodded. “Miss Winters, then. I have been wondering how you came to join us.”

“You know that, sir: I have been hired by Mrs. Stoddard, of Collinsport, to instruct her nephew. As I cannot fly, I had to make the journey by sea.”

“You are very young,” he said, helping her to her seat. It startled her – she had only seen it done on the stage, or for Lady Hammond, her benefactress – more things than the law of the realm could be overturned under the black flag, it seemed.

She worried at that thought, and took a sip of the wine. “I have been two years out of school, though I have been an instructor there for that time.”

“Why you?”

“My qualifications are good,” she said, with a certainty she did not feel, “As are my references.”

“There’s dozens of young women who can say the same,” Devlin replied, impatiently, “England having, at present, more bodies than lawful occupation for them.”

“I cannot be any more specific than that. All I know that a position was found for me, through our patroness. It may well be –”

But that was an ungrateful thought, and she tried to put it away unobtrusively – and failed. Devlin, wolfish, leaned forward; Victoria, miserable, trapped, stared down into her own plate, hoping for answers in the stewed mutton. There were none. She forced herself to wear a careful, neutral smile, even as Devlin pushed forward with his query. “It may well be what, Miss Winters?”

“As you say – I am young, and poor. I have nothing to tie me to England. That would make me an ideal candidate for such a far-away place, would it not?”

But this was not so amusing as he had been hoping for. A curious look came over him – a bitter one. “It would,” he replied.

They fell into quiet, for a few notable moments; she listened to the groan of the ship and the noises of the sea, which had been so constant as to constitute silence in the absence of other sounds. England seemed so far away as to have been a dream – dry land, a fancy. Devlin was still watching her, the bitterness of his look lurking in the set of his jaw; she reminded herself that, whatever comforts she had been given, she had first met him with a sword in his hand, and a pistol in her own. She forged on. “Captain Devlin, I would like to know why you ask these things of me.”

“Idle curiosity, Miss Winters. We have been – thrown – together.”

She protested before she could stop herself – if it was not rude, it was a harder position than she had meant to take.

“No, no, speak – by all means.”

“It was only after that I said I was for Collinsport that you took interest in me. I do not think I could call your questions idle, knowing this.”

“I was responsible for the disruption of your voyage. I merely hold myself accountable for the end of it.”

“Captain Devlin –”

“Had you rather go into Nassau or Tortuga, with the rest of them?” There was that wolfish look again; something in the lightlessness of his eyes and the set of his jaw – and then, she thought, if not wolfishness, then some other predatory thing. She had heard, from old Mr. Purdy, watching fins glide by, auguring something strange and terrible beneath, that sharks’ eyes were lifeless. Dark. Devlin, weathered and sea-going, wanted only those fins – by such a standard, at least. Victoria held to her chair a little more tightly, and leaned back. “Surely you’ve heard the stories. They’ve eaten alive hardier men than you.”

She shook her head. “I know to fear those places – and I know to fear this one, too.”

“In general, or in the specific?”

“Sir?”

Devlin repeated himself, and then, leaning forward again, with a particular purpose she could not entirely fathom: “Is it a general fear of piracy, Miss Winters, or a specific fear? Of – of the Requital?”

“I am law-abiding – god-fearing,” she answered, like reciting a catechism she did not particularly believe.

“Given the nature of divine retribution, that may be wise. But what have you to fear among us? We’ve done you no harm, as you have deserved none.”

“And what will become of me when you find those you intend to harm?” Victoria shivered, unintentionally – the heat, even in this place of constant breezes, was trying. “Shot does not distinguish. It is only metal.”

“You will go below,” he shrugged. “The day will be carried, and we will carry on, and you can come back to the air and sun. Pity us, instead, for our red work.”

“You have chosen it.”

Devlin looked at her incredulously – angrily. All that lightless malice of his bitterness was distilled down to a point, a snarl. “Chosen it? Chosen for me, little governess. To be accused of piracy is to be condemned to it – until death, one way, or another.”

“As you say, Captain Devlin,” she said, placatingly, “But –”

“You have no notion of it. None at all.”

“I am only a governess, sir –”

“To Mrs. Stoddard,” he finished, for her. “She is a god-fearing woman, by all accounts – a fearful woman, at any rate. You shall have to ask her about piracy – her, and her brother. They once thought quite highly of the black flag.”

There was no answering that. Victoria pushed her stew around for some time, and then, after a period which she had been taught was polite, excused herself.

#if i had a nickel every time a POV character of mine described a LI as grim; and/or shark-like; i'd have two nickels. which isn't much;#but it's weird it's happened twice now.#fic #my fic #the dark sails au #anyway. burke devlin's immediate realization that vicki's just like him; only 10 years before; in any universe is a thing that can actually #be so personal. and precious. to me.

5 notes · View notes