Snippet #1348206

"Well," Merryweather muttered rather caustically, "They're all taking this quite well, aren't they?" She knew the Captain and Atlas would be able to hear her, but she was well out of anyone else's earshot. She made no public reply; though she did note the different tones that the others took. Siegfried, she had always thought more savvy than just about anyone on the ship, though there was no simple way to prove it, because everything he did could so easily be the unintentional boon of an idiot. He was either one of the smartest people she'd ever met, or the most foolish, and she couldn't quite tell which.

Either way, his words seemed to break the spellbinding silence over the area, and to her surprise, it was the Princess, wearing someone else's ill-fitting clothes, who chimed next. Well done, Captain, she thought dryly, it seems even the hostage is on your side. Her teeth gritted, though such a small sign of strain would not be easily visible to anyone else. Halfway through Kei's declaration, Merryweather simply left. There was no great show about it, and indeed, she went as unnoticed as possible given her position, taking the side way of the helm area and down onto the main deck. She was behind the rest of the crew and up the rigging to the Crow's nest before any of them noticed, she was almost certain.

There was absolutely nowhere to be alone on the ship if you weren't important enough to have your own cabin as Tok, Atlas and Tiesa were. Up here was as close as she could get; at least Frenchie wasn't the sort to continually pester her or anything. Sometimes, she wondered if she bothered him, but believed truly that he would be blunt enough to say so if such were the case.

How could everyone just believe it like that? Well, okay, she wasn't entirely sure Siegfried believed what they'd been told, but the Princess almost surely did and even Kei seemed to take it seriously enough. Was logic completely beyond them all? It was a Mythical city constructed of bloody gold, for the love of Pythagoras! Didn't they know that chasing fables was how people got marooned in hostile territory and killed? Or how they sailed into storms after phantom gold and drowned? Why was every pirate such an idiot?

Squeezing her eyes shut, Merryweather made a solemn oath to herself. I will not cry. Not for those too foolish to save themselves. She just hoped nobody on the crew had anyone waiting for them anywhere. Not even a tavern wench and her silly little daughter. Because nobody should have to wait forever. Not when they won't come back. Not when you didn't come back.