Pirate's Life For Me....

So Close

  Flint was putting wood into a hearth while Vane had gotten bored and was fiddling with the keys of a clavichord. Just randomly, every now and then, the man would tap a key. He was like a child trying to occupy himself while his mother was busy.

  "Please, don't touch that." Flint finally said with an edge of irritation in his voice. My captain lazily got to his feet and stepped away from the instrument, but then tapped at some trinkets that were sitting out.

  "All these things....porcelain, books....all so goddamn fragile." He began to wander around Flint's home. "The energy it must take to maintain it all. And for what?" He then picked up some porcelain dish to look at it. "I can understand a woman's desire for domesticity, but a man's? That I can't understand." Vane then set it back down.

  "I can't understand how you cannot understand." Flint slowly looked over his shoulder, then rose to his feet. "You have no instinct towards earning for yourself a life more comfortable?"

  "I don't." Vane strolled into the kitchen, and I simply watched him walk as I was taking a bite from some stale bread. "And had I that instinct, I would resist it with every inch of will I could muster. For that is the single most dangerous weapon they possess, the one they tempt. 'Give us your submission, and we will give you the comfort you need.' No....I can think of no measure of comfort worth that price." Vane spoke lowly as he looked the other captain dead in the eye.

  "I can." Flint replied, and then he glanced toward me. "Have you given any thought about a future with Deana? What if she were pregnant with your child? Is submission still too high a price for their comfort and safety?" I choked on the bread, coughing and having to hit the side of my fist on my chest to allow air to flow back into my lungs. There was a tension-filled silence, and I looked up to see Vane giving me a weird expression.

  "Don't give me that look! I'm not pregnant!" I felt my cheeks flush, and Vane turned back to Flint who only raised his brows.

  "I see that that hasn't even crossed either of your minds." He stated.

  "This is taking too long." Anne grumbled as she came into the house. "No sign of Featherstone's man. No word on what route they'll take Jack across the island. If we wait here any longer, either we're gonna miss him, or someone's gonna find us hiding out here." Vane picked up a teacup while sitting on the edge of the table. He seemed to have some strange habit of fiddling with these things....

  I caught him looking at me from the corner of his eyes, and I felt my cheeks get hot again. That didn't happen very often, but Flint had brought up a subject I honestly had never thought of. What if I did end up pregnant? What would I even do? Could I even raise a healthy child?

  How could I possibly keep my freedom at sea, a place full of dangers that were doubled by my new pirating lifestyle, while raising something so fragile as a baby? ....If I did end up pregnant, what would Vane do?

  "No one will find us because no one's looking for us." Flint replied. "The war has left the island. They all saw it happen." He continued as Anne took a seat at the table. "There are at least half a dozen routes that Rogers could choose to send Jack and the cache to meet the transport ship on the sought coast." Vane seemed to vaguely be paying attention as he dangled the teacup from his pinkie before looking down and realizing his finger was stuck.

  Could that man even help raise a child if he chose to?

  "Can't afford to guess?" Anne said bitterly as my captain managed to twist and yank his finger out of the teacup's small handle without breaking it. "We can't afford not to guess. We miss that caravan, you lose, what? Money? Your war? What I got to lose ain't something so easy to recover from."