scourgeofpiracy | (no subject)

(no subject)

He has a room, above the bar, but he's out of it as much as he is in at present. Either working on the Pearl or, as now, just walking the lakeside and trying to pretend it's a real shoreline, and it's salt water he smells, not fresh.

Sometimes it even almost works.

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"I don't recall seeing curiosity on any standard list of sins", he says, with a touch of amusement in his voice.

"No, but it does tend to be deadly at times," but she's grinning. "Not a large concern of mine, really, but I do tend to it without thinking and then at times suspect I've caused offense."

"In this case, I assure you you haven't."

He did jump on a distraction from the original question awfully readily, though.

So he did, and she lets him, still smiling a bit. "Were you in the Navy for very long?"

"Twenty years", he tells her a little wistfully. "From midshipman to commodore."

"I've never met a commodore before," she says with not a little amount of respect.

Not in London, anyway.

"An honor, then."

He smiles slightly, looking out over the lake.

"A former commodore, at least. But I suppose that's better than nothing."

"Oh. I'm sorry," she says, softly, and looks at her hands.

"It was hardly your fault", he tells her after a moment's silence.

"Well, no," she agrees and smiles over at him. "But I still am."

"And I thank you for it", he says sincerely.

"And how should I best address you now, then?"

He gives that a moment's thought, then smiles.

"I think James would suit, perhaps."

"Far simpler than Commodore, too," she says cheerfully and offers him a hand.

"Simpler and more accurate, it's nothing but advantages."

He takes her hand and bows over it, just slightly.

And she drops a bit of a curtsey--slightly too formal, for a moment, but old habits die hard, harder than old memories, and she laughs.

"For the best, then. Have you been here long, James?"

"I've been in and out for... perhaps a year or more. More recently, just in... a few months, that."

"Do you like it here?"

She likes to find that out.

"It's not a bad place. Though I think I liked it better when I was free to leave."

She has to laug hat that.

"Aye, well, I should like it better that way too."

Or, rather, if she were free to leave for a place she could go and come back from easily.

"Have you ever visited other worlds?" he asks, curious.

"A few. I was born in London, but I've been to--at least one other London, that wasn't my own, and to two or three other worlds. I liked them better than England, really," she says after a moment.

"I always feel badly admitting that."

"I don't think you should", he says thoughtfully. "It's really not so different from moving to another country, except in scale."

"I think it's the feeling of how you should be loyal to King and Country," she laughs.

But then, she is.

Just...different King, different Country, than that she was born to.

"Should be? Perhaps. But when did the whole world do what they 'should'?"