15. Adrian
Adrian
Iflopped down on the bed, my back making loud, painful noises. Today had been right shit.
After my argument with Sage this morning, Anne found me and told me one of the ballasts was acting up.
So I spent the early afternoon holding it in place while she mended it.
Then there was a hole punctured in one of the sails.
I always kept extra, but putting one up was tedious, and put us behind at least a day.
Moons, I wasn’t as young as I once was. I remember being a mate; Coltar and I could change a sail on our own and drink into the night as if it never happened.
I took the pocket watch out of my breast pocket where I always kept it.
It was worn and scuffed, definitely in need of a good polish.
When opened, the tick of the time was still strong, if not accurate any longer.
After Tungesten was gone, I just never had the heart to recalibrate it, as if I could use it to hold us in time for a little longer.
I shut it, trying to force away my anger along with it. The two people I’d held most dear slipped away from me within months of each other, for reasons I may never come to know. Thinking about these things never ceased to put me in a foul mood, reminding me control was a fickle as the ocean.
A pounding on my door jolted me, the watch almost slipping from my hands. A groan came from me, almost involuntary. What emergency was there for me to fix now?
I got up and snaked my way over to the door. With how hard the knock was, the ship had better be on fire.
Yet when I opened it, I was met with a very angry princess, one I truly didn’t have the patience for right now.
“Are you trying to kill me?” she accused.
“That would be one way to take the necklace,” I conceded. “But it wasn’t in the current plan.”
My comment didn’t land well, obviously. “I mean you’re trying to starve me.”
I leaned my body against the doorframe. “I’m not starving you. I told you the rules. You’re lucky I didn’t just throw you off, since the rule is you live and sleep if you work.”
“It’s not my fault everyone keeps kicking me out,” she said.
“But I told you I’d assign you something else, and you didn’t listen. There’s a job for everyone.”
That was another thing Tungesten used to say.
Everyone is good at something, and there’s a job for everyone.
He was always taking in strays, giving them a place to work and live, to eat. Sometimes for a short while and sometimes for a lifetime. I did my best to follow those same steps. It had never steered me wrong before.
“You’re just setting me up to fail,” she continued.
“No, I’m setting you up for possible success.”
“I don’t know why you’re being so unreasonable.”
I don’t know why you’re being such a brat.”
She huffed. “Whatever, fine! If you want a dead princess on your hands, that’s on you.”
“Maybe I really will get the necklace then.”
Her hot anger suddenly cooled to something else. Water dotted the corners of her eyes, and it was clear she was holding back tears.
I sighed. “I’m sorry, it was a bad joke.”
“I don’t care,” she snapped.
Sage turned and strode away, muttering about what a prick I was.
And she was probably right, I was being a prick to her then, but she just knew all the right buttons to push.
I shut my door and returned to my bed.
Or made to anyway, before there was a softer, more patient knock. Even still, it pissed me off to hear it. I knew a captain’s work was never done, but couldn’t it at least take a break?
I opened it, and Bramwell was there, his glasses falling down his nose, though he couldn’t fix them with the stack of books he held in his hands.
“Yes, Bramwell?” I said, leaving the door open to him and going to sit on my bed. At least I could get off my tail for a moment.
“I brought the books you asked for,” he said, dropping them down on the edge of my desk.
“Right, thank you. Did you find anything else?”
“Not yet, though I found a few other sources I want to dig into.”
“Okay, and I’ll go through these, let’s check in before we port.”
“Heard, Cap.”
He nodded and left, finally giving me some peace and quiet. At least for a few moments.