It was on the tip of his tongue to remind Flint that he did not know a goddamn thing about him – to point out the glaring chasm between them that was formed of Flint’s own fucking ignorance – but instead he simply responded flatly, “The men don’t give a shit about my backbone, but if they did I think you’d find they enjoy sponge cake to rotten garbage, so what’s your complaint? So long as my morals have aligned with yours, you’ve gotten what you wanted have you not?”
You mean aside from the fact I’ve never cooked a day in my life? Silver wondered absently, even as he replied, “Just because the ingredients are simple doesn’t mean the process isn’t complicated.”
If it would not have been absolute suicide to do so, Silver might have spend the next ten minutes dirading this idiot in Spanish, but as it was all he could muster that would not be too revealing was a flat, “How the fuck have you survived up until now?”
{ Iconic Lines }
He honestly couldn’t say what was more alarming. The fact that this man could in fact speak – or that when he chose to do so, it was to lay down something like this. For a moment, he simply stared – then, despite his better judgement, he responded with a frank and full honesty.
“Well, this is English soil. If there were any gods here, they’d have been the first among the slaughtered.”
{ Truth Serum }
Damn that witches’ brew – he ought to have known better than to drink anything offered him by an Obeah woman, least of all one who appeared to be in good spirits with the captain. There was no other reason for him to suddenly feel truth falling from his lips, when within that truth lay secrets and implications that could cut too close to things he never wanted this man to know.
“He was the man in charge of my English indoctrination, and the first person I ever truly feared. Nevertheless his lessons have proved themselves – invaluable.” He opened his eyes, feeling somehow liberated from his compulsion, enough so to inquire wryly, “I take it you ask because his is the only name I have spoken that ties to any history I might have, and I’ve used it twice.”
It was his hope to distract Flint now – if anything could stir him up from this downward slump of his, Silver did not doubt the promise of an enormous purse would do the trick. The less Flint knew of him, even now in his apparent defeat, the better.
{ Truth Serum }
“Because I know what it is like to lose everything.” The answer escapes him without his full consent, and now that it is there, he knows it bears explaining in his own terms before the inquisition turns around on himself.
“I can’t say I ever fought the way you did – I don’t think anyone can really relate to your war, let alone the outcome of finding what you fought for only for it to choose – anything but you. There’s elements though, that I do understand. Enough, at least, to know that you being out here by yourself is a death sentence you’ve chosen. All I can do – “ Why was he saying this? “Is stall the inevitable, and hope that arcane side of you decides it’s time to play phoenix before that comes to pass. I guess – I’m just buying you time, to find yourself again.”
It was astonishing what this man believed himself capable of – and perhaps even more alarming was the amount of times in which he was proven correct in his assumptive actions. For a long moment, Silver was silent as he debated the merits in making his true opinion known.
Vane and his men had murdered Randall – among others – had relieved Silver of his fucking leg – and within what, three hours? Managed wholesale forgiveness from the captain and a fucking allegiance between crews with a history of hating one another for — what? The purpose of war on England and the rest of civilized society in the name of pirates everywhere?
Fuck that shit.
“Let me make myself – perfectly plain to you, as it appears that once again you have come to completely lose track of why I am here.” His tone was clipped, an iron focus the only thing at this point keeping him from slipping forth some brutal obscenities in his mother tongue, “I do not give a shit about the politics here, but if you think I’m going to stick around now that what I am here for has been obtained, and you’ve decided that palling up with a crew of murderous sacks of shit is a good idea all around, I don’t know what to tell you. I am entitled to my share, and I am taking it. Our business, as I have been stating it to be from the beginning of this entire endeavour, is now concluded. So please explain to me why the fuck I should care about being your goddamn quartermaster.”
It is not the first time he is shaken roughly, hauled away from the cacophony of howls that haunted him. ( Unaware, as ever, that the Spanish screams were in fact his own, echoes of a burning manor and repetitions of dying soldiers ) His eyes fall upon the man who has taken everything from him – again, so lost in his own mind he can no more tell the difference between one redhaired demon and the next.
He offers nothing – not daring to speak in his own tongue, the language this man was determined to rip from him even if it meant tearing out his spirit strip by strip. He does not speak the language of these cursed, evil people because every time he does, he feels farther from home than ever – and more afraid that with each passing day, he is becoming more and more like them.
Instead he stares, quiet and angry and full of impotent hatred that means no more to this man than his silence. The devil will have his due, he always does. Jandro does not believe he will succeed in his defiance, but he cannot bring himself to surrender, either. So he waits, his body shivering in the English cold, his mind far afield of the scorching heat of a becalmed ship, and expects an attack that has already come and gone.
@oceanfoamed (from here)
He couldn’t describe what it was that had come over him upon seeing Silver in the state he was in: it was almost like anger. So red-hot and forceful that it had driven all other motive from his mind, replaced by the singular desire to fix it by any means necessary. He had no expectation that dragging Silver off would be received well by him. But if it was a choice between Silver’s wrath and letting him keep pretending he could simply walk off his wounds until it killed him–?
“Not interested in the ship.”
Flint’s voice was gruff and subdued: he didn’t so much as glance at Silver at first, standing across the room from him, hands braced against a wooden counter. It wasn’t surprising in the least for Silver to assume that this was about the Walrus: had Flint still had any kind of purpose left, and therefore any desire to regain his captaincy, he’d have used Silver as leverage in a heartbeat. But now?
All he’d ever wanted was to walk away from the sea and find peace: there was no reason for him to return to it. Nothing left to tie him to a life of violence and danger, no martyr to drive him forwards. With his world so deeply thrown off-balance, and no Miranda to hold onto for stability, all he had were the few people that had–in Flint’s eyes–taken pity on him enough to at least ensure he wasn’t dead each time they made port.
Silver was one of them, shit that he was. And he was going to run himself into the fucking grave if someone didn’t forcibly intervene- and who else would dare?
“I take it you’ve been ignoring Howell’s advice.” Flint–or what was left of him now–turned to him, finally. “Can’t say I’m surprised – though I had hoped that being made captain might shake some fucking sense into you, make you less likely to risk your life by refusing aid.” He looked pointedly at the leg, then glared at Silver, lip twitching. “What the fuck are you trying to achieve, here?”
It was admittedly difficult to concentrate, when all of his body and mind seemed intent upon focusing on the part of him that was broken and in dire need of something – anything – to alleviate it. Now that Flint had hauled him here, Silver supposed there was little point in ignoring what his body most needed at the moment. If nothing else, perhaps alleviating some of his pain might help him better deduce what the fuck Flint could want other than his ship back that would cause him to do something like this.
Leaning down, his hands worked clumsily over the straps that buckled his false leg to the true flesh, hissing through his teeth as the pressure lessened, and needing a moment of distraction when at last he drew the damn thing off. Biting the inside of his cheek was a sore way to go about it, but the new, albeit smaller point of pain was enough to redirect his mind just long enough to keep him from crying out when at last, the false leg fell away from his body and clattered loudly against the floor, a sullen and firm reminder of how real it was. He balanced himself on a wooden peg, and there was nothing he could do to escape that reality.
Opening his eyes, he stared almost unseeingly at the empty space where the rest of his leg ought to be – at the carefully carved wood that filled that area courtesy of the ship’s carpenter and doctor Howell’s wise instruction. His gaze lifted now to his latest source of frustration, praying that he could focus enough through this not to be lead by the nose by this man and his capacity for resetting reality to suit his purposes.
“I didn’t volunteer for the job,” He reminded Flint flatly – the men had voted him in the moment Flint left, he hadn’t been granted a fucking say in the matter and they both knew it. “Or have you forgotten, somewhere in all of this, what I told you before?” It wouldn’t surprise him if the man had – so much had happened since that point. “I do not want to be a pirate. At this point, I simply have no other viable opportunities in which I can survive, thanks to this.”
He didn’t look or gesture at his leg. He simply stared Flint down, knowing the man would understand full well what “this” happened to refer to. “And in case being out here has caused you to forget the realities of piracy, what I hope to achieve remains exactly the same as ever. I intend to survive – and acting like invalid among those folk? Isn’t how I do that.”
{ Truth Serum }
“You must mean aside from a home to return to,” The words cost him, and he wondered for a moment why he would even draw the point, or admit the truth, “I suppose if I forgot the sight and sounds of my home being destroyed, of the men who protected my family being slaughtered, of my mother and grandmother dying on the ground like animals, I might be quite eager to return to Spanish shores. As it is – I can no more forget those things, than I can my real name. There is no home for me in spain, Armando – surely you know this as well as I do. Why press this scar while it is still tender enough to be made a wound?”
Ocean Archive 