[After she pulled Charles from the gallows - well, it wasn't that simple, but if she's asked that's how she'll describe it - and brought him home, to India, to the tiny nation (and it is, tiny) that she rules, wedged between the jungle and the mountains and the sea, she had to spend too much time convincing her family that it was going to be okay.
It helped that Charles was a feral thing, too, that he wasn't afraid of her cousins or her grandmother or afraid of bringing up the fact that Daphne herself, their queen by blood and right and strength, was as much a foreigner with her Spanish and Native mother as she was them. It helped more that he understood their issues: they needed money, and strength, and power, to keep the Portuguese and the English and the Mughals from trying to take their small, prosperous little area.
The fact that he didn't mind - or that he respected - that they were a complicated network of shifters and kin and people who washed up from the sea helped. Piracy was always in demand, he found, and captaincy and the ocean was in his blood.
So Daphne knew that months at sea were part of the deal. That actually was the deal: she could continue to rule the land, but the sea was his domain, and she ceded to his will there. It was a good system, because it kept her family happy, and it kept the men he brought with him happy, and the shifters who wanted to go to sea could understand it. On the ship, they lived and died by his will. On the ocean, they were his.
On land, it was the opposite.
But the second that one of the little boys came running to announce that the ship had been spotted, Daphne was already making her way down to the beach, her hair bound up, wearing the kind of blue silk she knows that he thinks shows off wealth and power. More than that, it was obvious against the white of the beach and the green of the jungle behind her.
She doesn't pace as she watches the men unload. Instead one of the boats comes onshore and she watches them pull chest after chest of luxury onto the beach, and she gets on to row back out.
His terrain. His kingdom. The men are still very careful, because she's his woman, and because she could slice the balls off any of them and no one would blink an eyelid, as they haul her up, so she's sitting on the edge of the ship itself, her legs dangling in her skirts towards the sea.]
What pretty thing did you bring me?
[She always asks that first, and when she sees him striding up the deck, she asks that even though what she wants is to kiss him, to pull him into her arms and hold him there, tightly, without saying a word.]
[ Never has he captained a ship that ran so smoothly at sea. Not physically - although the craftsmanship of ships in these waters certainly does not leave him wanting - but for the operations of the crew. Charles knows that his own legend has grown exponentially since the wild escape from Nassau, but he'd bet his own haul that it's the Khan who've brought such dazzling order. Though Daphne's people drink, argue, and fight with his own men as well as any decent pirate, they nevertheless possess a haunting power that is swiftly preceding them as more of a ghost story than a legend.
The first time he boarded a treasure galleon flanked by real life tigers, he watched a grown man faint dead away, and from that moment they've been virtually unstoppable.
Unfortunately, the more terrifying their reputation becomes, the wider a berth is given to the territory they claim, forcing him to hunt further from home each time. And the longer he's away, the more she takes up his thoughts, so that by the time they're close enough to spy the flash of blue on the shore, Daphne has become the only thing he can think about.
It sends a thrill through his blood that she chooses to meet him in his territory, instead of waiting for him in hers.
In fact, he's been keeping her present close to him this time; he'll save the best textiles for her, the best jewels, the most curious oddities that he is sure she'll appreciate, but this one is rather special even among the rest. So he leans onto the gunwale right beside where she's perched, and pulls something from an inner pocket of his coat. ]
These are called 'tiger's eye'.
[ Maybe she's heard of them. He hadn't, until now. It's a long, layered necklace strung with amber-colored beads, struck with light vertically through the middle, rather like the eye of a cat. At the base of the longest strand hangs a gold pendant bearing the likeness of a roaring tiger. Not the most beautiful thing he's ever brought her, or even the most unique, but it's the first of its kind in being so clearly intended for them. ]
We took a merchant vessel whose captain carried this - as tribute. [ He offers it to her. ] He brought it with him in the hopes that it would ensure we spared his life, should our paths have crossed. As they obviously did.
[She wants to breathe in the smell of him, even though it's unwashed smell, at sea smell. She knows he takes care when they come in close, when the navigator tells him they're close, to clean up as much as possible, but he's been on a ship with a small army of men, with little access to fresh water, and certainly no care for bathing. But it doesn't matter. She's dreamed of this smell, the way he looks at her, like she's spun of gold.
She leans in a little.]
Tiger's eye.
[She takes the string of gems carefully, not touching his skin, and the roaring tiger, and holds them in her hands for a moment. She hadn't ever seen anything like this; this strange gem with its changing colors, pretty, and maybe not like the rubies and diamonds he might bring, the kind she wears when she fucks him in her - their - bed. She shifts her eyes, just a little, when she puts them on, just to be cheeky.]
I like your eyes better, when they're on me.
[She swings her legs around, so that she's straddling her perch now, her peacock blue ghagra disguising her legs.]
Are you going to kiss me where the men can see me or are you going to spirit me away to a cabin and do it there?
[She doesn't care, and she knows he doesn't either. But it's a game she plays, to see how long he can go without touching her.]
[ His men can make their own way to shore, find those they left behind or someone willing to keep them company. Let them leave with the knowledge that their sea king and their Tiger Queen remain united against the world beyond the bay.
That little shift brings a smile to his hips, and if she doesn't have any desire to spare the men the sight of their affection, then neither does he. But there's still one thing he has to ask her first. ]
[She presses her fingers, delicate and soft, to the smooth stones. She lifts them just a little bit, and her smile brightens. Her eyes turn dark again, and she looks nothing more like a feral thing that they both know she still is. She looks at him like he's the sun and she's the moon, and everything he sees is just a reflection of his light.]
Thank you.
[She says it as the men walk by them, at work, too busy to really pay attention to them.
She lifts her skirts a little, and her bare feet flash, and she's kicking her other leg up over the gunwale, her feet hovering just over the wood but not touching. Silver bells around her ankles chime.]
[ She is radiant, even more so for the absence (and the constant presence of other filthy men). With a smirk, Charles reaches out to take her by the waist and lift her up, just to set her down lightly. ]
But that's not what I meant.
[ He doesn't let go of her, and he won't, now that he's touching her again. So much in him wants to wrench her forward and kiss the air out of her lungs, and he's not going to wait to get her back to shore, he's going to carry her belowdecks to the captain's cabin and see if they can't ruin the bed together. There are times he's craved her so badly that he's given serious thought to fucking her right out in the open, on the decks of his ship or on the very beach she prowls to wait for him. But she's still a queen, after all. ]
[She doesn't. She takes a breath, and moves to her tiptoes, her hands on his forearms. They play this formal game, even though they're king and queen of places with almost no formalities, except that they're absolute, that they don't get challenged, because challengers die.
But she presses close to him, so her mouth is up near his ear.]
I missed you. The last two weeks I couldn't go a night without pressing my nose to your shirts and pretending you were right there with me.
I missed you, Charles. Every moment. Did the sea love you as well as I did?
[ That's all he wanted to hear. It's worth the silly little game just to hear her admit out loud that she thought about him so well while he was gone. ]
Of course not. Nothing ever does.
[ Speaking of no formalities - he proceeds to grab her by the legs and toss her bodily over one shoulder, because she may be the queen and he may be the king but they are wild things nonetheless. He hasn't even kissed her yet. If he does that here, then he really will fuck her on the desk.
Assuming she lets him, of course, he's going to carry her straight to his quarters, setting her on her feet only when the door slams behind them. That's when he pulls her sharply into his arms and claims her mouth in a ravenous kiss. ]
[She squeals, but she's not fighting. Everyone around them - anyone who looks over and see their captain carrying off his woman - knows that she can fight back if she wants to, and they know that she doesn't want to.
His quarters are the usual mess, and she doesn't care, she's not paying attention. The door closes and she's responding just as her feet touch the ground and her hands are in his hair, tugging down at the same time he's pulling her up. He's kissing her like she she's air and he's drowning, and she responds with the same intense need, tugging him back as she tries to find the mess of blankets and the thin mattress he calls a bed when he's at sea.]
I missed you-
[She says it as she pulls.]
Three fingers isn't enough. Those pretty jade cocks you brought back from the east aren't enough. I know, I tried.
[She threw things, went into a rage, stormed a mountain down, practically.]
[In another couple of days, the bullet wounds are healed completely; the color has returned to her skin, and she's been thoroughly pampered by both Charles and her family. The wound on her shoulder is almost healed too, just the line of it marring her tattoo, which she's already whined about having to get touched up.
She's been doing work in bed, when Charles comes back from wherever he went - to talk to his men, to erect a border of hunters heads, to get drunk, she doesn't know because when he left she was already writing letters with her good arm and was barely distracted by his goodbye kiss.
Now he's back, and he's stalking in like he has a plan. She barely looks up when she's suddenly in his arms, yelping a bit.]
Well hello to you too, lion.
[She moves her healing arm to grip his shirt; she's fully aware she hasn't been bathed since she came back from the jungle.]
[ Purpose indeed - he marches with her straight from her bedroom to the long adjoining bath. He'd sent a request ahead of him, had it freshly heated and scented with sandalwood and water lilies.]
I can still smell your kill on you, tigress.
[ He gives her a teasing smirk, and a fond kiss. ]
It's time I took care of that for you.
[ The smooth wooden bench at the edge of the pool already has two towels resting on the edge of it, and Charles carries Daphne over and sets her down beside them. Then he starts to strip her of the loose clothes she's been wearing in bed. ]
[She doesn't struggle or fight, because she really has been needing a bath and because she didn't lie when she said she liked it when he carried her. She lets him take the loose shirt and trousers - his clothes - off her, and underneath she's naked and still smelling like jungle.]
Are you telling me I smell bad?
[She laughs, bright.]
You plan on cleaning off too?
[She isn't aware that someone is stripping the bed now that no one is in it, cleaning the room while Charles does this.]
Imagine the tales they would tell of Charles Vane of Nassau, concerned with bathing.
If they knew what your body looks like, they'd be sick with envy.
[ He smirks at her, as he straightens up and pulls his own shirt off over his head by way of an answer. Boots and pants are next. ]
But... [ He scoops her into his arms again. ] I really don't give a fuck what they think.
[ He steps down into the bath with her, the water warm enough to make him hiss and then sigh as his body heats up all at once. He brings Daphne in slower. ]
You'd gouge out the eyes of anyone who saw my body without my consent.
[That's the important part - her consent. He doesn't own her body and they both know it, even if he could growl and snarl at anyone who spent too much time looking at her. The first time one of his men touched her without her permission she broke their fingers.
That was before she and Charles had wound their way around each other. After that, none of his men touched her. They all knew better.
She gasps just a little, the warmth of the water catching up with her, and puts his hands on his chest as she lowers into the water. She tugs her hair out of the easy sloppy bun it's in.]
[ Charles lowers them just shy of letting the wound at her shoulder touch the water, because even healing wounds can go angry when the water's too hot. Instead he eases her to one of the raised seats along the edge.
He sets her down on the seat carefully, and steps back like he's admiring her. For a moment, he does. Then he submerges, and comes up shaking water from his head, pushing his long hair back. ]
You're mine in moments like this, tigress. On land or at sea, you're mine, and I'm yours.
[ Then he slides close again, fitting himself firmly between her legs as he presses her mouth open for a deep kiss. ]
[ He makes a wordless sound of complete agreement, before he kisses her again and slides his wet hands up her back, and into her hair. He does it again, scooping up handfuls of water, because he likes the feeling of her hair going from soft to slick under his touch. ]
Does anything still hurt?
[ Even as he says it, he's kissing her again, and his hands slide down her back to her hips, pulling her more firmly against him. His rough fingertips follow the stripes on her back, like he's massaging the last few days off her skin. ]
When she says it all, she means the disaster of what happened to the Ranger. Watched the way that one minute they had power and prestige and value, and the next minute Jack Rackham lost a bag of pearls more valuable than he should have even had on his person, watched Charles dissolve into distilled emotion and opium. Watched him fuck his whores and watched him fuck Eleanor, too.
They could have been something, Charles and Eleanor. Daphne knows it. She’s still the strange savage woman that the Ranger brought back from a ship almost six months ago, who came dripping in jewels, who almost killed a man who tried to take her by force, and certainly bit a chunk of his dick off.
But she would like to think that she’s Charles’ friend, too. Maybe. She likes him, his savageness. She learned English next to him, his patience in translating to her in his sleek Spanish. He helped her establish herself - a woman who is not a whore and not a merchant, but who does valuable odd things. Her skills in determining the value of items, a proper appraisal of luxury, he helped her leverage it.
So when the Ranger goes belly up - well, no. When the crew does what crews do and abandon Charles for Eleanor’s threats, she watches, dark eyed and considering. She watches as Jack takes over the whorehouse, and then one day Charles is gone and Daphne can’t help but wonder-
-well.
She’s at the whorehouse when he comes back, not to peruse but to appraise a very badly forged gold bracelet some enterprising criminal gave one of the girls, and watches him withdraw his blessing from Jack Rackham.
There he is.
That’s the man she knew, the one who had lain eyes on her when she was a feral, raving thing. The one who she wants, even though she can hear her grandmother’s voice in her head. That man is not for you. That man belongs to another woman.
Eleanor doesn’t want him.
He still want Eleanor, she thinks. Still.
She slips out of the brothel; it’s been weeks since she saw him, but around here that doesn’t always mean much. She’s taken to dressing like the local women, which is infuriating - there are too many layers. She misses her cool choli and gaghra.
She’s stopped by one of his new men as she comes by.]
[ The last thing he wants to deal with right now is literally anything else. Charles Vane is in war mode, and he's already wondering if he'll regret not dragging Jack and Anne out into the streets to have a proper example made of them, while fully prepared to fight anyone who questions his decision on the matter.
The only thing he's regretting is that Jack made it necessary to choose in the first place.
He hears his men stop someone, and then recognizes the voice calling his name. Daphne has adapted well, and quickly, to life in Nassau, and her fast friendship with Charles made her less of an other among the pirates and the whores. Eleanor doesn't like her. He finds that to be an attractive detail, at the moment. ]
Let her through.
[ He stops to wait, but only half-turned toward her, one hand still resting on his pistol. He's not letting his guard down in the street. ]
Something I can help you with?
[ She'd better not ask him about Jack. He'd really hate to have to make an example out of her, but if she forces him, he will. ]
[She has to resist pushing the man who stopped her aside, has to resist watching him fall to the ground. She's been acting like a human ever since she was fished out of the ship, and barely done a thing to make anyone suspect she might be anything outside of a normal woman.
Being friends with Charles Vane doesn't exactly make a normal woman.
While her English is acceptable; she's a quick study, especially where her life is on the line, she switches to quick Spanish to speak to him, banking that of the men surrounding him, only a percentage will be able to follow along.]
You don't have time for a hello anymore?
[He never really had time for a hello in the first place - well. No, not time. Time wasn't the issue. It was always temperament.]
You disappeared. After Eleanor put that ban on your head. Have you found a way around that?
[ He sighs, but obliges the Spanish; she has yet to betray him, so there's enough reason to indulge her for a short while. ]
My men hold the fort. Therefore, my men control the bay.
[ He is the future of Nassau. Him, and men like him, and anyone prepared to acknowledge it; he said it in the brothel, and it can undoubtedly still be heard in his voice: he's less worried about perception than he used to be. ]
So I don't think Miss Guthrie has much fucking say in the matter. Do you?
[She refuses to call her Miss Guthrie; she can only barely get away with it, making excuses that she's not used to titles, or some bullshit like that. As if there's no equivalent in the language that she uses at home, or even in one of the more well-known languages.
There is.
She just doesn't give two shits about her, so. Petty as it might be.]
Are you courting war?
[Her eyes are dark, and fixed on him. If war is what he wants, then war is what he's going to get; she knows that look. Hell. She's had that look.]
I think it matters, if you took the fort to prove to her you could, or because this is your island and you're finally taking it.
[Not many people have the balls to talk to Charles like that, especially women. Daphne does. Daphne isn't afraid of him.]
[ His eyes narrow at her. More often than not, he's relieved by the frank way she talks to him, although Spanish may not be quite the buffer with this crew that it has been, since many of them bloodied their blades on the Spanish Main.
But they're drawing quite a crowd as it is. ]
If I thought it was your business, I still wouldn't tell you in the middle of the fucking street.
[ Most people in Nassau don't even bother to pretend they're not eavesdropping, particularly around the whorehouse. He's already spared Jack's life for a grievous offense; having Daphne interrogate him in Spanish in full view of just about everyone who already witnessed one act of mercy will swiftly put him in a position to either commit, or forego, a second one. ]
Come up to the fort.
[ He casts a glance at his men, who are watching the two of them with great interest, and then looks at her again, still guarded, almost insolent. ]
They might let you in.
[ Then he strides off down the street toward the hill, with his new crew in step behind him. ]
[She watches him go, and she doesn't follow; there's enough of dismissal in his words when he says those things. There are appreciative glances from the men who walk by her, appraising, the kind of look she gives a bracelet or a piece of silver.
She doesn't remark.
Instead she takes her time. Goes back, finishes her day out. Does not go back to the whorehouse, where Jack is undoubtedly trying to figure out his next move and discover if it's at the bottom of a bottle.
She makes her way up to the fort before sunset. She considers just slipping in, finding a shadow to hide her and sliding her way past the men, but ultimately decides not to. She is not a penitent. She raps on the door, and smiles her way in, all charming feline grace and teasing words. These men are not easily charmed, but these men also seem baffled by her, which works to her advantage.
Finding Charles, after that, is easy. There's someone guarding his door, some man who is missing a pair of teeth, and for that particular move she knows charm won't work. She just looks at him, flatly. The man leers. She sidesteps, quickly, and opens the door, moving so fast that he had no chance to catch her before she's inside and closing the door behind her.]
Why, Captain Vane, you look like a man recently rescued from a sinking ship.
[ He's been at the window, getting a very thorough sense of what can be seen from this vantage point at different hours, because it's supposed to have the most thorough view of the bay. When his door suddenly opens, he turns quickly, and has just enough time to roll his eyes before the door bursts open again.
"Cap'n, I tried to stop her! She slipped right past me!" ]
Do you think I can't see that?
[ If it were anyone else but Daphne, he'd have the man flayed and tossed over the wall of the fort just for letting someone walk right into his room, but he knows Daphne well enough to be sure that there was very little that poor bastard could have done to stop her from getting in here. At least there's no blood.
He comes down the steps from the window, ignoring Daphne for the moment and glowering at his sentry instead. ]
You're lucky I invited her myself. Now get the hell out of here, and send down someone who knows how to guard a fucking door.
[ A muttered 'yes, sir' and a sullen, mistrustful glance cast toward this sneaky woman later, the door closes one last time, leaving the two of them alone. Charles finally turns to her, with some exasperation. ]
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cribellate2022-02-27 11:31 am
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It helped that Charles was a feral thing, too, that he wasn't afraid of her cousins or her grandmother or afraid of bringing up the fact that Daphne herself, their queen by blood and right and strength, was as much a foreigner with her Spanish and Native mother as she was them. It helped more that he understood their issues: they needed money, and strength, and power, to keep the Portuguese and the English and the Mughals from trying to take their small, prosperous little area.
The fact that he didn't mind - or that he respected - that they were a complicated network of shifters and kin and people who washed up from the sea helped. Piracy was always in demand, he found, and captaincy and the ocean was in his blood.
So Daphne knew that months at sea were part of the deal. That actually was the deal: she could continue to rule the land, but the sea was his domain, and she ceded to his will there. It was a good system, because it kept her family happy, and it kept the men he brought with him happy, and the shifters who wanted to go to sea could understand it. On the ship, they lived and died by his will. On the ocean, they were his.
On land, it was the opposite.
But the second that one of the little boys came running to announce that the ship had been spotted, Daphne was already making her way down to the beach, her hair bound up, wearing the kind of blue silk she knows that he thinks shows off wealth and power. More than that, it was obvious against the white of the beach and the green of the jungle behind her.
She doesn't pace as she watches the men unload. Instead one of the boats comes onshore and she watches them pull chest after chest of luxury onto the beach, and she gets on to row back out.
His terrain. His kingdom. The men are still very careful, because she's his woman, and because she could slice the balls off any of them and no one would blink an eyelid, as they haul her up, so she's sitting on the edge of the ship itself, her legs dangling in her skirts towards the sea.]
What pretty thing did you bring me?
[She always asks that first, and when she sees him striding up the deck, she asks that even though what she wants is to kiss him, to pull him into her arms and hold him there, tightly, without saying a word.]
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The first time he boarded a treasure galleon flanked by real life tigers, he watched a grown man faint dead away, and from that moment they've been virtually unstoppable.
Unfortunately, the more terrifying their reputation becomes, the wider a berth is given to the territory they claim, forcing him to hunt further from home each time. And the longer he's away, the more she takes up his thoughts, so that by the time they're close enough to spy the flash of blue on the shore, Daphne has become the only thing he can think about.
It sends a thrill through his blood that she chooses to meet him in his territory, instead of waiting for him in hers.
In fact, he's been keeping her present close to him this time; he'll save the best textiles for her, the best jewels, the most curious oddities that he is sure she'll appreciate, but this one is rather special even among the rest. So he leans onto the gunwale right beside where she's perched, and pulls something from an inner pocket of his coat. ]
These are called 'tiger's eye'.
[ Maybe she's heard of them. He hadn't, until now. It's a long, layered necklace strung with amber-colored beads, struck with light vertically through the middle, rather like the eye of a cat. At the base of the longest strand hangs a gold pendant bearing the likeness of a roaring tiger. Not the most beautiful thing he's ever brought her, or even the most unique, but it's the first of its kind in being so clearly intended for them. ]
We took a merchant vessel whose captain carried this - as tribute. [ He offers it to her. ] He brought it with him in the hopes that it would ensure we spared his life, should our paths have crossed. As they obviously did.
no subject
She leans in a little.]
Tiger's eye.
[She takes the string of gems carefully, not touching his skin, and the roaring tiger, and holds them in her hands for a moment. She hadn't ever seen anything like this; this strange gem with its changing colors, pretty, and maybe not like the rubies and diamonds he might bring, the kind she wears when she fucks him in her - their - bed. She shifts her eyes, just a little, when she puts them on, just to be cheeky.]
I like your eyes better, when they're on me.
[She swings her legs around, so that she's straddling her perch now, her peacock blue ghagra disguising her legs.]
Are you going to kiss me where the men can see me or are you going to spirit me away to a cabin and do it there?
[She doesn't care, and she knows he doesn't either. But it's a game she plays, to see how long he can go without touching her.]
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That little shift brings a smile to his hips, and if she doesn't have any desire to spare the men the sight of their affection, then neither does he. But there's still one thing he has to ask her first. ]
Aren't you going to say it?
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Thank you.
[She says it as the men walk by them, at work, too busy to really pay attention to them.
She lifts her skirts a little, and her bare feet flash, and she's kicking her other leg up over the gunwale, her feet hovering just over the wood but not touching. Silver bells around her ankles chime.]
Do I have permission to board?
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[ She is radiant, even more so for the absence (and the constant presence of other filthy men). With a smirk, Charles reaches out to take her by the waist and lift her up, just to set her down lightly. ]
But that's not what I meant.
[ He doesn't let go of her, and he won't, now that he's touching her again. So much in him wants to wrench her forward and kiss the air out of her lungs, and he's not going to wait to get her back to shore, he's going to carry her belowdecks to the captain's cabin and see if they can't ruin the bed together. There are times he's craved her so badly that he's given serious thought to fucking her right out in the open, on the decks of his ship or on the very beach she prowls to wait for him. But she's still a queen, after all. ]
You still need to tell me that you missed me.
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Maybe I want to hear it first.
[She doesn't. She takes a breath, and moves to her tiptoes, her hands on his forearms. They play this formal game, even though they're king and queen of places with almost no formalities, except that they're absolute, that they don't get challenged, because challengers die.
But she presses close to him, so her mouth is up near his ear.]
I missed you. The last two weeks I couldn't go a night without pressing my nose to your shirts and pretending you were right there with me.
I missed you, Charles. Every moment. Did the sea love you as well as I did?
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Of course not. Nothing ever does.
[ Speaking of no formalities - he proceeds to grab her by the legs and toss her bodily over one shoulder, because she may be the queen and he may be the king but they are wild things nonetheless. He hasn't even kissed her yet. If he does that here, then he really will fuck her on the desk.
Assuming she lets him, of course, he's going to carry her straight to his quarters, setting her on her feet only when the door slams behind them. That's when he pulls her sharply into his arms and claims her mouth in a ravenous kiss. ]
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His quarters are the usual mess, and she doesn't care, she's not paying attention. The door closes and she's responding just as her feet touch the ground and her hands are in his hair, tugging down at the same time he's pulling her up. He's kissing her like she she's air and he's drowning, and she responds with the same intense need, tugging him back as she tries to find the mess of blankets and the thin mattress he calls a bed when he's at sea.]
I missed you-
[She says it as she pulls.]
Three fingers isn't enough. Those pretty jade cocks you brought back from the east aren't enough. I know, I tried.
[She threw things, went into a rage, stormed a mountain down, practically.]
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She's been doing work in bed, when Charles comes back from wherever he went - to talk to his men, to erect a border of hunters heads, to get drunk, she doesn't know because when he left she was already writing letters with her good arm and was barely distracted by his goodbye kiss.
Now he's back, and he's stalking in like he has a plan. She barely looks up when she's suddenly in his arms, yelping a bit.]
Well hello to you too, lion.
[She moves her healing arm to grip his shirt; she's fully aware she hasn't been bathed since she came back from the jungle.]
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I can still smell your kill on you, tigress.
[ He gives her a teasing smirk, and a fond kiss. ]
It's time I took care of that for you.
[ The smooth wooden bench at the edge of the pool already has two towels resting on the edge of it, and Charles carries Daphne over and sets her down beside them. Then he starts to strip her of the loose clothes she's been wearing in bed. ]
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Are you telling me I smell bad?
[She laughs, bright.]
You plan on cleaning off too?
[She isn't aware that someone is stripping the bed now that no one is in it, cleaning the room while Charles does this.]
Imagine the tales they would tell of Charles Vane of Nassau, concerned with bathing.
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[ He smirks at her, as he straightens up and pulls his own shirt off over his head by way of an answer. Boots and pants are next. ]
But... [ He scoops her into his arms again. ] I really don't give a fuck what they think.
[ He steps down into the bath with her, the water warm enough to make him hiss and then sigh as his body heats up all at once. He brings Daphne in slower. ]
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[That's the important part - her consent. He doesn't own her body and they both know it, even if he could growl and snarl at anyone who spent too much time looking at her. The first time one of his men touched her without her permission she broke their fingers.
That was before she and Charles had wound their way around each other. After that, none of his men touched her. They all knew better.
She gasps just a little, the warmth of the water catching up with her, and puts his hands on his chest as she lowers into the water. She tugs her hair out of the easy sloppy bun it's in.]
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He sets her down on the seat carefully, and steps back like he's admiring her. For a moment, he does. Then he submerges, and comes up shaking water from his head, pushing his long hair back. ]
You're mine in moments like this, tigress. On land or at sea, you're mine, and I'm yours.
[ Then he slides close again, fitting himself firmly between her legs as he presses her mouth open for a deep kiss. ]
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I'm always yours.
[It's important he remembers that. Land, sea, moments like this or any moment at all. When they're apart or together.
She pulls him in so that she's pressed up against him, one leg coming to hook behind his, hands on his face.]
I want your hands on me. All of me.
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Does anything still hurt?
[ Even as he says it, he's kissing her again, and his hands slide down her back to her hips, pulling her more firmly against him. His rough fingertips follow the stripes on her back, like he's massaging the last few days off her skin. ]
I need to know if I have to treat you gently.
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not me like OH BITCH???
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Nassau;
When she says it all, she means the disaster of what happened to the Ranger. Watched the way that one minute they had power and prestige and value, and the next minute Jack Rackham lost a bag of pearls more valuable than he should have even had on his person, watched Charles dissolve into distilled emotion and opium. Watched him fuck his whores and watched him fuck Eleanor, too.
They could have been something, Charles and Eleanor. Daphne knows it. She’s still the strange savage woman that the Ranger brought back from a ship almost six months ago, who came dripping in jewels, who almost killed a man who tried to take her by force, and certainly bit a chunk of his dick off.
But she would like to think that she’s Charles’ friend, too. Maybe. She likes him, his savageness. She learned English next to him, his patience in translating to her in his sleek Spanish. He helped her establish herself - a woman who is not a whore and not a merchant, but who does valuable odd things. Her skills in determining the value of items, a proper appraisal of luxury, he helped her leverage it.
So when the Ranger goes belly up - well, no. When the crew does what crews do and abandon Charles for Eleanor’s threats, she watches, dark eyed and considering. She watches as Jack takes over the whorehouse, and then one day Charles is gone and Daphne can’t help but wonder-
-well.
She’s at the whorehouse when he comes back, not to peruse but to appraise a very badly forged gold bracelet some enterprising criminal gave one of the girls, and watches him withdraw his blessing from Jack Rackham.
There he is.
That’s the man she knew, the one who had lain eyes on her when she was a feral, raving thing. The one who she wants, even though she can hear her grandmother’s voice in her head. That man is not for you. That man belongs to another woman.
Eleanor doesn’t want him.
He still want Eleanor, she thinks. Still.
She slips out of the brothel; it’s been weeks since she saw him, but around here that doesn’t always mean much. She’s taken to dressing like the local women, which is infuriating - there are too many layers. She misses her cool choli and gaghra.
She’s stopped by one of his new men as she comes by.]
Do I look like an assassin?
[She rolls her eyes.]
Charles!
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The only thing he's regretting is that Jack made it necessary to choose in the first place.
He hears his men stop someone, and then recognizes the voice calling his name. Daphne has adapted well, and quickly, to life in Nassau, and her fast friendship with Charles made her less of an other among the pirates and the whores. Eleanor doesn't like her. He finds that to be an attractive detail, at the moment. ]
Let her through.
[ He stops to wait, but only half-turned toward her, one hand still resting on his pistol. He's not letting his guard down in the street. ]
Something I can help you with?
[ She'd better not ask him about Jack. He'd really hate to have to make an example out of her, but if she forces him, he will. ]
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Being friends with Charles Vane doesn't exactly make a normal woman.
While her English is acceptable; she's a quick study, especially where her life is on the line, she switches to quick Spanish to speak to him, banking that of the men surrounding him, only a percentage will be able to follow along.]
You don't have time for a hello anymore?
[He never really had time for a hello in the first place - well. No, not time. Time wasn't the issue. It was always temperament.]
You disappeared. After Eleanor put that ban on your head. Have you found a way around that?
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My men hold the fort. Therefore, my men control the bay.
[ He is the future of Nassau. Him, and men like him, and anyone prepared to acknowledge it; he said it in the brothel, and it can undoubtedly still be heard in his voice: he's less worried about perception than he used to be. ]
So I don't think Miss Guthrie has much fucking say in the matter. Do you?
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There is.
She just doesn't give two shits about her, so. Petty as it might be.]
Are you courting war?
[Her eyes are dark, and fixed on him. If war is what he wants, then war is what he's going to get; she knows that look. Hell. She's had that look.]
I think it matters, if you took the fort to prove to her you could, or because this is your island and you're finally taking it.
[Not many people have the balls to talk to Charles like that, especially women. Daphne does. Daphne isn't afraid of him.]
Which one is it?
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But they're drawing quite a crowd as it is. ]
If I thought it was your business, I still wouldn't tell you in the middle of the fucking street.
[ Most people in Nassau don't even bother to pretend they're not eavesdropping, particularly around the whorehouse. He's already spared Jack's life for a grievous offense; having Daphne interrogate him in Spanish in full view of just about everyone who already witnessed one act of mercy will swiftly put him in a position to either commit, or forego, a second one. ]
Come up to the fort.
[ He casts a glance at his men, who are watching the two of them with great interest, and then looks at her again, still guarded, almost insolent. ]
They might let you in.
[ Then he strides off down the street toward the hill, with his new crew in step behind him. ]
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She doesn't remark.
Instead she takes her time. Goes back, finishes her day out. Does not go back to the whorehouse, where Jack is undoubtedly trying to figure out his next move and discover if it's at the bottom of a bottle.
She makes her way up to the fort before sunset. She considers just slipping in, finding a shadow to hide her and sliding her way past the men, but ultimately decides not to. She is not a penitent. She raps on the door, and smiles her way in, all charming feline grace and teasing words. These men are not easily charmed, but these men also seem baffled by her, which works to her advantage.
Finding Charles, after that, is easy. There's someone guarding his door, some man who is missing a pair of teeth, and for that particular move she knows charm won't work. She just looks at him, flatly. The man leers. She sidesteps, quickly, and opens the door, moving so fast that he had no chance to catch her before she's inside and closing the door behind her.]
Why, Captain Vane, you look like a man recently rescued from a sinking ship.
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"Cap'n, I tried to stop her! She slipped right past me!" ]
Do you think I can't see that?
[ If it were anyone else but Daphne, he'd have the man flayed and tossed over the wall of the fort just for letting someone walk right into his room, but he knows Daphne well enough to be sure that there was very little that poor bastard could have done to stop her from getting in here. At least there's no blood.
He comes down the steps from the window, ignoring Daphne for the moment and glowering at his sentry instead. ]
You're lucky I invited her myself. Now get the hell out of here, and send down someone who knows how to guard a fucking door.
[ A muttered 'yes, sir' and a sullen, mistrustful glance cast toward this sneaky woman later, the door closes one last time, leaving the two of them alone. Charles finally turns to her, with some exasperation. ]
You're pushing your luck, Daphne.
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