Snippet #1319759

Sometimes, Merryweather could really kill someone.

She wasn't what anyone would call violent by nature, and her physique certainly wasn't made for it, either, but sometimes it almost didn't matter. Because sometimes, the first mate had the gall to walk over, easy as you please, call you by your reviled first name that reminded you far too much of the people who'd given it to you and was stupid besides, all while lighting another one of those damn tobacco-laden monstrosities that you were pretty sure you were allergic to, if the way your eyes tended to water was any indication. And then there was the part where he and everyone else who claimed to be running this show had been conspicuously absent for the better part of what could have easily been a complete disaster if you weren't absurdly prepared for eventualities that the lot of them apparently failed to consider.

There was no way she was going to live past thirty. Her humors had to be so far out of balance that she'd keel over and die long before then, and it would all be their fault. "Well, Mr. James, sir, I guess you're just going to have to wait before killing anything, because while we are, in fact, being followed by a British Navy vessel, we have made an adjustment to our course that they will not know to make, and should be out of their view within the hour. They do not appear to have recognized that we are the idiots who stole their bloody Princess, but I'm not quite sure how long that will remain the case. Also, in the absence of any ranking officer of the ship, I decided all of this on my own, because really, who doesn't want to sail on a boat run by a teenager?" Merryweather had no shortage of confidence in her navigation abilities, but making important decisions was something she tried to stay well away from.

"Would this be an adequate status report?" the question was underlain with a substantial amount of sarcasm, but such things were not generally readily-detectable in her tone. She supposed she should be less angry with Atlas than the rest of them, all things considered, but she had not taken this job with the expectation that she would be doing anyone else's, especially not something so important. It had shaken her a fair bit actually, and her petulance was more due to this than disrespect, but then she was trying really hard to make sure nobody knew that. The slight quaking in her limbs wasn't helping her case, and she tried to force it to stop with some modicum of success.