Nobody Likes Fairytale Pirates (14 page)

“That’s not my name!”  Ryle
insisted loudly, oddly latching onto that detail as the most objectionable part
of the man’s statement.  “’Hostage’ is a thing, not a person.”

“Shut up, Swab.”  Ransom ordered
distractedly.

“Whether we’re doing something
sexual or not, when you think my partner might be in the room, you
knock.
” 
Uriah ordered, all traces of his typical joviality gone.  “Am I clear?”

“Whatever.”  Din agreed. 

“You. 
Knock
.”  Uriah
insisted again, driving the point home threateningly, his Grizzwood accent on
full display.

“Fine.  I don’t care.”  Din paused. 
“Do you have my course or not?”

“Dove?”  Uriah prompted.

She reached to carefully write down
the headings.  “Wait until dawn for the final approach to Adithia though.”  She
advised.  “Nighttime is too well patrolled.”

“I don’t know…”  Din sounded unconvinced. 
“Seems like daylight is just going to give us away.  We don’t really have
permission to be docking there, you know.”

“Well, maybe one day, I’ll need to
hire
you
to sail me somewhere, and when that day arrives, you can feel
free to plot whatever
hilarious
course that you wish.”  Uriah’s tone
darkened.  “But until theeeen…”  He elongated the word, trailing off
meaningfully.

“I’m not trying to tell you how to
do your job…” Din explained.

“Good.”  Uriah interrupted.  “Glad
I was just hallucinating that then.  What a relief.  I knew you couldn’t be
that stupid.”

“…it’s just that I can’t imagine
having much success as a pirate if you just sail into port.”  Din continued
unabated.  “During the day.”

The man had a habit of moving his
gaze around the room as he spoke, which messed up the direction his voice was
coming from and made her question if he was still even speaking to her.

Ransom hated it when people did
that.

Uriah was quiet for a moment.  “If
you’re going to talk to my partner, please talk to my partner and not the
bulkhead of this fine vessel.”  Uriah advised.  “She doesn’t…”  He paused. 
“No, on second thought, don’t talk to my partner at all.  Just leave her
alone.”  He started towards the door, rolling up the map again.  “
I’ll
go
deal with the crew, since you seem incapable.”

The pair left, slamming the door
behind them.

Her partner
really
didn’t
like their new client.  Not that he ever really liked any of their clients
overly much, but his hatred for Din was boiling over now.

Or maybe it was just his general
frustration with life.

She couldn’t tell.

“He okay?”  Ryle asked after a
moment.  “Because he just totally left you alone with me.  And that doesn’t
seem like something he’d normally be cool with.”

“He trusts that I won’t hurt you
unless you give me a reason.”  She assured him. 

“Not what I meant.”

“I know.  Doesn’t make it any less
true though.”  She let out a sigh.  “He’s fine.  He… he just doesn’t like
people who are mean to women.”

“Why?”  Ryle sounded confused.

She turned to face him.  “Did you
just seriously ask me that?”

“No, I mean obviously everyone
should have a problem with it… but he’s a pirate, right?”  He still sounded
confused.  “Why would he even care?”

“Because he’s a good man.”

He scoffed.  “You seem like a smart
enough woman, I don’t know why you can’t see that he’s…”  He trailed off,
audibly wincing.  “Shit.  I’m sorry.”

“About?”

“The wording on that was…”  He
swore to himself.  “I’m sorry.”

“It’s a figure of speech.  I use it
too.  You’re fine.”  She waved a dismissive hand.  “Your weird awkwardness around
me is starting to piss me off though.  If you don’t stop it, I’ll toss you out
the porthole and tell Uriah you committed suicide.”

He snorted.  “I don’t think you
have to lie to him.” 

“Well, I’m sure I can cause you
enough pain that you’ll throw
yourself
out the porthole, if you’d
rather.”  She offered.  “Then it wouldn’t be a lie.”

“Again, not my point.”  He assured
her.  “I mean, that in case you haven’t noticed, he’s kind of in…”

“Let’s talk about something else.” 
She cut him off, not wanting to discuss that.

He laughed again, like his captors’
personal lives were merely a play he were watching.  “So… you have amnesia.” 
He summarized.

“Cerebral anoxia.”  She corrected. 
“My brain was deprived of oxygen and if affected my memory.  Uriah took me to a
doctor once who told us all about it.”  She paused.  “Then Uriah robbed him.”

Ryle was quiet for a beat.  “So…
you have amnesia.”  He repeated, apparently failing to see the distinction. 
“And you’ve got…”  He trailed off, apparently nervous about bringing up the
obvious.

“They’re
scars
, Ryle.”  She
sighed in annoyance.  “It’s just discolored damaged skin.  I’m fine.  I’ve
warned
you
about weird awkwardness before.  I’m a big girl, I can take whatever
you want to say to me.”

“Then you won’t mind if I just come
right out and ask if it was Uriah who did it?”

She scoffed.  “No, I
would
mind.  It’d piss me off because it’s
stupid
.”  She announced.  “That’s a
question which makes us all stupider just from listening to it.”

“If you don’t remember, how do you
know
he didn’t do it?”

“Because I know him.”  She shook
her head.  “And I know he’d never hurt me.  Under any circumstances.”

“So you’re not out trying to get
revenge or anything then?  On whoever did that to you?”

“I’m not risking Uriah on revenge
for something I don’t even remember.”  She shook her head.  “Besides, I’m
Adithian.”  She shrugged.  “I don’t dwell.”  She sank down into one of the
chairs, feeling very tired.  “My partner… has more difficulty letting things
go.”

He was silent for a moment.  “Well,
people from the Grizzwood are pretty stubborn sometimes.”

“They’re idiots.”

He laughed.  “See, I was going to
say that, but I was afraid it would come out sounding racist.”

“It’s going to drive him crazy.” 
She shook her head.  “Or get him killed.”

“Soooo,” he drew the word out, as
if thinking something over as he was speaking, “is that the problem then?”

“What problem?”

“The problem which keeps an
intelligent girl from… acknowledging the thing which she doesn’t want to acknowledge,
even though it’s obvious to everyone else.”  His voice softened.  “Because—and
you’ll have to forgive me if I seem a little too personal here, but you’re sort
of forcing me to sit and watch your personal lives—at first I was thinking it
was the amnesia-- sorry ‘cerebral anoxia’-- or the… or the scars…”  He trailed
off again.  “But now I’m confused.”

She didn’t say anything.

The room was silent for several
minutes.

“I… I just…”  She swallowed.  “I
just can’t.”

Ryle made a “Hmm” sound.  “Forgive another
personal question, but is it because the man who did that to your face?  Did
he…”

“Not to my knowledge.”  She shook
her head immediately, cutting him off before he could finish the question. 
“And even if he…
they…
did, I certainly don’t remember it anyway.”  She
paused.  “And mind your own damn business, incidentally.  Even if I
had
survived
that kind of thing, you really think I’d want to talk to my fucking
hostage
about it?”

“I don’t know.”  He told her
softly.  “But we all have to talk to someone, I suppose.”

“
No
.”  She shook her head. 
“As far as I know, nothing like that happened.  I have amnesia…”

“Cerebral anoxia.”  He corrected.

“I have
cerebral anoxia,
so
I’m not saying it couldn’t have.  Maybe it did.  I honestly don’t know.  But
either way, that’s not the reason.”

“Good.”  He leaned back in his
chair, the leather creaking.  “Glad to hear you’ve put the whole thing in your
past then.”

She made a face at him, recognizing
what he was doing.  “Oh, fuck you, Swab.”  She tapped the table with her
fingertip.  “Do I wake up screaming sometimes?  Sure.  Do I wonder who I was
before all this?  Absolutely.”  She began to pick at the cracking wood of the
table.  “I…I could be anyone.  Do you realize that?  I could be someone’s
mother.  My kids could be out there looking for me right now.”

“Um… Ransom?”  Ryle sounded
amused.  “Just how old do you think you
are?
”

“Shut up, Swab.”  She snapped.

“So… is that it then?  That you’re
afraid that there might be something better waiting for you back at whatever home
you used to have?”

“No.”  She snorted in dismissal. 
“I have no interest in even checking on that.”

“You sure?”

“There’s nothing better than what I
have here.”  She assured him, her voice close to breaking.

“Not to sound like a cynic here,
but the power to name something is the power to give it its identity.”  He was
obviously uncomfortable with the words, treading carefully for fear of being
killed.  “Don’t you think it’s entirely possible that the reason why you like
him so much is because you started out as a blank slate and you’ve just spent
the last however many years being turned into his ideal?  I mean, he’s the only
person you spend any time with.  Naturally, you’re going to accept his views,
attitudes and ways of doing things as correct.  He would exert a significant
amount of psychological pressure on you, intentionally or unintentionally, no
matter how much you might not realize it.”

“Swab?  Does he really strike you
as the brains of our outfit?”  She shook her head.  “No, I trust him completely. 
Always have.”  She pulled her knees up to her chest.  “He didn’t create me.  I
know who I
am
.  I’ve only forgotten who I
was
.”  She was silent
for a moment.  “Besides, I think his ‘attitude and way of doing things’ are
stupid,” she paused to consider that, “…so so
stupid
…”  She shook her
head to clear it.  “So if that was his plan, he did a piss-poor job of it.”

“But you’d still rather have,” he
was silent for a moment, evidently gesturing to their surroundings because he
forgot she couldn’t see him, “
this,
then a life somewhere else?”

She considered that.  “Yes.  I
would rather be a broke pirate with Uriah than be anywhere else in the world
without him.”

“If you believe that, then why
don’t you t…”

“
I’m afraid, okay!?!
”  She
snapped at him, feeling annoyed.  “Is that what you want to hear?!?”  She
pounded her fist down on the tabletop.  “I am absolutely fucking
terrified
half the damn time!  I have one thing in my life that I can count on, no matter
how shitty the rest of it might be or how frightened I am about the parts of it
I don’t remember.”  She held up a finger.  “I have
one
goddamned thing
that keeps me from merely being that nameless blind girl with the scars, who
everyone feels sorry for. 
One thing
which makes me feel like a
person
. 
I’ve got
one
friend,
one
partner, and a family which consists of
exactly
one
person and a flying rodent creature.”  She let out a
frustrated breath.  “And if you only have one thing in your life…”

“…you’re not going to want to do
anything to risk it.”  He finished for her.  “You’re going to go out of your
way to keep the status quo.  No matter how much you might like things to grow.”

“Yep.”  She agreed tiredly.  “I’m
not a gambler, Swab.  I’ll keep what I have, thanks.”  She swallowed.  “Do you
have any idea what it’s like to lose everything and end up with only one person
left in the entire world that you care about?”

“Yes.”  He said softly.  “I do.”

They were both quiet for a long
moment, thinking about their lives.

“That’s an interesting problem,
Ransom.”  He finally decided, letting out a long whistle.  “I’m afraid I can’t
solve it right now.”

“There’s a shocker.”  She
deadpanned.  “Given the wonders you’ve done with your own life, I was really
hoping you could work similar magic with mine.”

“Oh, I haven’t done too badly for
myself.  I
am
prince after all.”  He paused, obviously thinking that
over.  “Wait… am I?  I’m a prince, right?”

“Nope.”  She shook her head.

He made an unconcerned sound.  “Well,
I’ve got be
something
.”

She shook her head again.  “Nope.”

“But my sister is the queen!”  He
protested indignantly.

“You sister is the queen, but your
mother wasn’t.  The brother of a queen retains whatever title he’s always
held.  In this case: ‘Swab’ or ‘Hostage’.”

“That’s
not
my name.”  He
proclaimed.  “I’m serious here.  I don’t want that catching on!”

She snorted in dismissal.  “Sure.”

“No, I think I’ve
got
to be
like a Duke or an Earl or something.”

“Only if you change your given name
to ‘Duke’ or ‘Earl’.  And even then, I’m sure not calling you that.”

“Nope, I’m totally royalty.”

“Whatever reality makes you the
happiest, Swab.”  She flipped a dismissive hand at him.  “Live your truth.”

“You’re a real hard person to talk
to, you know that?  Here I am, trying to help you, and you’re attacking me for
it.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way… your
majesty.”

He started laughing.  “Oh, man.” 
His laughter got deeper.  “You are
such
a bitch.  I’m kind of glad I
can’t help you, because you’re just too much fun this way and I’m afraid I’d
hurt your game.”  He gave several more chuckles.  “I will say this though,” he
stood up, “my wife?  She embroidered these little sign looking things for our
daughter when she was born, and she put them all over the house to inspire the
baby or whatever… which was ridiculous, since it’s a baby and babies can’t
read, but she didn’t want to hear that.”  He walked towards the door.  “Anyway,
the one over the crib read: ‘Don’t spend your life looking for things you’ve
already found.’”  He paused meaningfully, then started towards the door again. 
“I always liked that one.”