“A stowaway,” the captain hummed thoughtfully, seated behind the bolted down table in his cabin. He had said the same phrase, and only that phrase, repeatedly since he first laid eyes on her. Practically chanting it on the way from galley to captain’s quarters, excitedly showing her off to the sailors they passed on deck. They rolled their eyes or gave quick chuckles, but there was no hostility. When they spotted Ram again, he winked at her, and she thought, so long as her hair was covered, it wouldn’t hurt to wave back.
Ed, unalarmed, followed gamely after him, so she did, too, if a bit more bemused. She wasn’t entirely sure if she regrets, of all the ships in the port, choosing this one to sneak aboard.
“Now go on, stowaway, tell me your tale,” the captain, a rather tall and thin man, gangly he could be described, commanded, propping his elbows on the table and setting his face in his hands; an eager boy waiting for story time.
She hesitated, glancing at him, then at Ed, gaze flickering back and forth.
“Did you want Ed to leave?” Delano asked softly, his own gaze moving from her to Ed.
She shook her head swiftly, not wanting to isolate her first ally, but still dithered.
“Let’s start with your name, lass,” the sailor suggested from where he stood beside the table.
Suddenly her hands were the most fascinating thing to look at.
“Not even your name, huh?” Delano murmured, fingers drumming against his cheek, “And a headscarf despite the summer heat.”
She flushed at the reminder.
“Let me see your hands,” the captain held out one of his own toward her indolently, head still propped in the other.
Surely, there were only so many times she could refuse before they kicked her off the ship. Warily, she held out her hands.
Slowly, Delano held one and brought it closer to his face, inspecting the nails thoroughly, before releasing.
“Unless you’re a priestess from the western mountain tribes, the only reason you’re wearing a headscarf is to hide something. It’s not your face, as I can see it plain as day, so it must be your hair. Or you’re bald and you’re trying to hide that, but no, it must be something about your hair. What would be so noticeable about your hair that you’d need to hide it? The color, perhaps?” He asked rhetorically, confident in his extrapolation.
Reluctantly, she pulled the hood down.
“Let me guess… faint traces of polish on your nails, blue most likely, combined with your red hair and your attempt to stowaway… a servant from the Court, who caught the unwanted attention of one of the nobles, and is now trying to flee the kingdom by way of sea. Yes?” The captain looked so pleased with himself, despite how clichéd such a tale was, a Court scandal was still intriguing.
“No,” she said, finally breaking her silence to correct him. The indignity of having herself and her past reduced to such a trite guessing game–her hands clenched into fists, still lightly stained fingernails biting into her palm, “No,” she repeated, “I was a green polish, not blue. Scholar, not servant.”
“Ah,” Delano said, voice dropping to flatly unamused, “a runaway noble–”
“No,” she interrupted, “I was the first. I was the only… commoner,” she spat out, hating having to use the epithet so often hurled at her like an insult, “among the scholars.”
“My apologies,” the captain said, interest recovered, though thankfully not the flippancy.
The silence felt heavy, ringing in her ears.
“There’s more to it than that,” Ed’s gravelly voice said, reminding them of his presence.
“You can stay, if you tell us. No matter what you did or what was done to you. You have sanctuary here,” Delano offers, back straight and hands pressed flat to the table.
“Yes,” she sighed, in relief and resignation both, “yes, there more to it than that.”
~
A/N: Direct continuation to this drabble here. And, I guess, the ~expository dialogue~ will be in the next segment.
I am now considering actually telling the full story in this way as a sort of flashback of what led narrator to this point. I mean, it’s a pretty good set up which I hadn’t even thought of originally.
JackSGreyson Says 