Here is the list of things that lives under all the others: What happens when they return to Nassau? What happens once the men realize that they have half a ship at best, have no ransom money, no Spanish gold, have nothing but the pleasure of having razed a piece of the colonies? There will be a fort to repair, hard labor, and debts to repay. A partnership alone, some change in the arrangement of who wants to throttle who, isn't enough to change that. It is in everyone's interest not to remind anyone of that this is what they're going back to. The last thing any of them need is a reminder of how many times they will be dividing nothing between them.
And here is what he knows, the sizzling tide that rises any time his mind turns toward questions of semantics: fuck that. Fuck all of it. And fuck anyone who can't see the point in using this moment to exert all that pressure to make a blade to hack England's head off with. It's the thought that swallows. He is standing over it and can see what it looks like from above better than he can those rocks below them now in the dark. Drown him in that.
"I got two." Anne knows how this works, if only from watching other negotiations. It ain't supposed to be this easy. Especially not with a captain known for being hard, especially not when it means he's agreeing to have a woman among his crew.
Might be the stories of his island witch have some basis in fact--not the shit about magic, but his being run by some woman's voice in his ear. Or his need for a good knife or two on his side outweighs whatever backtalk his quartermaster'll give him over bringing on a crew-killer. (Or he just don't know what you did to that bastard up with the whore. That's why he ain't said no.)
She can't guess, looking at the dark shape of his features, which it is. She can't remember ever being stuck in the same room as him before, not without someone else there to do the talking; she's going to have to learn how to tell one of Flint's faces from the next. (Simultaneously, she misses Jack and hates him, little curls of both sensations tangling up together.) Which all means she has to ask it straight out, little though she wants to. "You expecting trouble?"
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And here is what he knows, the sizzling tide that rises any time his mind turns toward questions of semantics: fuck that. Fuck all of it. And fuck anyone who can't see the point in using this moment to exert all that pressure to make a blade to hack England's head off with. It's the thought that swallows. He is standing over it and can see what it looks like from above better than he can those rocks below them now in the dark. Drown him in that.
"I could use a good knife," he says.
no subject
Might be the stories of his island witch have some basis in fact--not the shit about magic, but his being run by some woman's voice in his ear. Or his need for a good knife or two on his side outweighs whatever backtalk his quartermaster'll give him over bringing on a crew-killer. (Or he just don't know what you did to that bastard up with the whore. That's why he ain't said no.)
She can't guess, looking at the dark shape of his features, which it is. She can't remember ever being stuck in the same room as him before, not without someone else there to do the talking; she's going to have to learn how to tell one of Flint's faces from the next. (Simultaneously, she misses Jack and hates him, little curls of both sensations tangling up together.) Which all means she has to ask it straight out, little though she wants to. "You expecting trouble?"
no subject
"I aim to create it."
And if little else can be said about Anne Bonny's reputation, no one would deny her talent for that.