001 Scarlette and Sabine Down Time
- Scarlette and Sabine converse on the Night Wind: 21 April 1690
After Session 001
It wasn’t hard to figure out why most ships vanished in the triangle, why the Phantom Sea was so feared and avoided at all costs. Yet here they were - a second time even. As if the first time hadn’t been enough of a miracle to survive, why not try again? Scarlette sighed and continued to focus on the project in her hands. Try again, try again, again, and again, never ending. This would not be the story they spoke of her when she died, she would not become a spirit of failure and regret. Once more she pictured the image in her mind and continued working, pouring her concentration into the item in her hands she almost missed it when Sabine walked up to her.
Sabine would come up to the deck to find Scarlette had her back to the main mast, sitting on the deck with her legs crossed working on something in her lap. As casual as ever despite the situation they were in. For whatever reason she appeared to have taken an extra shift, possibly to avoid exposing the rest of the crew to the void outside as much as possible, or to avoid having to sleep. Either one would be pretty on point for her captain.
As soon as Scarlette saw Sabine make her way towards her she gave her a warm smile and gestured with what she would now be able to see was a small dagger in her hand. “What are you doing up here? I don’t think it’s time to change shifts yet.”
Sabine’s boots tapped lightly across the deck, a rhythm that sounded too alive for a place like this. Her eyes flicked to the still waters, dark as oil and just as suffocating. She shivered before forcing her gaze back to Scarlette.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Sabine answered simply, lowering herself onto the deck beside her. She raised a brow at the dagger in Scarlette’s hand. “And now I see you’re up to your usual brand of foolishness.”
Scarlette chuckled, though her grip on the dagger didn’t falter. She turned it so the faint lantern light traced along its edge. “Foolishness keeps us alive, doesn’t it?”
“Foolishness got us here,” Sabine shot back, gesturing to the vast, empty horizon that seemed to swallow sound. “Alive, sure…but I’d like to keep my skin attached to my bones this time.”
Scarlette leaned back against the mast, tilting her head toward her friend with an infuriating, knowing smile. “Worried, bosun?”
“Always,” Sabine admitted, her voice softening. “You just hide it better than the rest of us.”
“Don’t act like you know me so well.” Scarlette smiled as she elbowed Sabine playfully. She let out a deep sigh and rested her head against the mast staring up at the starless sky. “Foolishness this is though, can’t disagree.”
She pursed her lips and after a heartbeat shook her head “Tsk, not foolish, just prideful.”
Another sigh as she casually flipped the dagger between her fingers. “Ah, mon cher. I’m sorry I brought you along. I’m selfish to feel the peace I do having you here with me..”
Scarlette smiled soft and sad.
“I hope you know though that I’ll never let you come to harm.”
As Scarlette set aside the trinket in her hand, she reached across to squeeze Sabines, tearing her gaze from the hopeless void above them. “Never.”
The trinket in her lap forgotten for the moment but with her darkvision Sabine would be able to make out the start of a voodoo doll. An item that Scarlette did not make lightly or often and yet this one was being carved from her rare supply of petrified wood. Resilient and hard to destroy.
Sabine glanced down at their joined hands. For a long moment she didn’t speak, letting the silence of the Phantom Sea weigh between them. When she finally did, her voice was low, steady; the voice she used when storms rose and the crew needed her calm more than her fear.
“You think I don’t know the cost of being at your side?” Sabine said softly. “Mon capitaine, I knew it the first time I swore to follow you. And I’ll pay it a hundred times over if I must.”
Her green eyes flicked toward the trinket abandoned in Scarlette’s lap, the carved edges of the doll catching what little light there was. Her lips pressed into a thin line. “But if you’re carving that, then you’re already thinking of losing. And that… that I won’t forgive.”
She gave Scarlette’s hand a firm squeeze, then leaned in just enough to meet her gaze. “You don’t get to talk of harm and protection in the same breath, Scarlette. Not when I’ve bled, fought, and clawed my way through hell to stand beside you. I am not your burden to shield. I am your blade. Your bosun. Your friend.”
Sabine finally huffed out a laugh, shaking her head. “And if you ever apologize again for wanting me here, I’ll toss you overboard myself. Haunted sea or no haunted sea.”
In the unholy silence where there should be water and life, Scarlette looked at Sabine and again thought how stunning she was. Not just her beauty, not that shallow, no, how ferocious and cunning she was, how kind. She didn’t know what she had done to deserve to have her in her life, but she’d pay that price over again and again in this life and the next.
The thought sent a sinking feeling deep in her gut, like hot lead in oil she felt her too familiar rage begin to surface and bubble making her heart rate tick up and face start to flush. Like a king serpent it rose around her fear and she could feel her composure slipping, her concentration on the spell she had been maintaining fracturing.
No.
She shoved the oil and snake back down into its box, sealing it closed.
Not yet.
The concentration fell back into place and the thread of her spell continued to faintly hum in the back of her minds eye, waiting.
Scarlett laughed and leaned forward to kiss Sabine on the crown of her head. “With your piddly muscles? Tsk, you couldn’t throw a sack of potatoes let alone me. I bite.”
“Je t’aime bien sœur.”
She grabbed the voodoo doll once more and settled back into the post she rested against, flicking the dagger once more between her fingers as she resumed figuring out her spell.
“And you have it wrong by the way,” She smirked not taking her eyes off the doll. “This isn’t because I’m afraid of losing. It’s a gift for after we win.”
