Captain Astoria's PoV
As the sun begins to set I hand the wheel over to Andreas, my first mate, so that he can keep us on corse while I sleep. Normally, I would tie the wheel for the night but we are still too close to Oneiro for my comfort. Better safe than sorry, in my opinion. Draen never left the railing as we sailed. I watch as he picks up the bag he had dropped at his feet, I had a crew member bring mine to my cabin earlier. We walk down the stairs together, I turn to the door of my cabin and see the prince turn to the trap door that leads to the crews quarters.
"Where do you plan to sleep?" I ask, raising an eyebrow at him. Draen looks, dare I say, sheepish when I implore.
"The brig," he says, the end of his sentence turning upward like a question. I chuckle at it slightly, thinking it is a joke.
"Really?"
"I guess you could say that old habits die hard," he says with a half shrug. He continues toward the ladder, actually serious about staying in the brig. I sigh and walk over to him, grabbing his bag from him and then back to my door. He cocks his head at me.
"You're not staying in the brig," I say with a frown. "And there is no room below deck with the crew."
"Oh? And where do you propose I sleep?" Draen asks in a somewhat suggestive tone, almost playfully. I smirk at the prince.
"You can sleep in my cabin or you can sleep out here," I say with a shrug before spinning on my heel and walking into my private rooms. Draen laughs darkly as he follows me, the door swinging shut behind us. I navigate my way through the dining room, tossing Draen an apple from a bowl on the table as I go by. I grab one for myself and begin munching on it. The apples are fresh from our time at port, the juice runs down my chin and swarms my tongue.
I enter the bedroom portion which doubles as my office space and I cringe slightly at the papers strewn about. I refuse to apologize, though. This is my space after all and Draen is only here on my good graces.
"We can share the bed, I don't necessarily care," I say flippantly. If I know one thing, it's that I am not sleeping on the floor on my own ship. I unlace my boots quickly and place them by the door. Rubbing my neck, I sit myself at the desk. I sift through papers and pick up a pen. Squinting at the setting sun, I pull a small oil lamp out to provide some light. I hear the groan of the bed where I assume Draen is sitting. My pen scratches along the papers as I add sums together. The majority of my work is math. I rarely correspond with anyone aside from my own people and sometimes hidden holdings within the archipelago. I make a point to use the places to smuggle people out, so long as they know where to look. I do what I can.
"You just got on board. What could you possibly be doing?" The prince asks with a small laugh.
"Work," I mutter in response. I can practically feel him rolling his eyes at me behind my back. The question causing me to lose my place in the math sequence and forcing my to go back to the beginning.
"Yes, I assumed as much. I meant what kind of work?" He groans.
I am half way down the page now, or was it a quarter? No. It was half. I think. The last number was 54, yes that seems right or was it 45? I sigh through my nose sharply and glare up from my work. I tap my foot on the floor impatiently. "Finances, sums, correspondences, the usual captain work."
The prince gets up from the bed, I hear his feet pad over to me. His breath tickles my ear as he leans over my shoulder and scans the number sheet I'm working with. "Do you mind?" Draen asks, gesturing to the page. I raise an eyebrow, a quizzical expression playing over my face.
"Feel free," I respond, bemused. I hand the paper over my shoulder and pick up another. The prince comes around the desk and sits across from me before he picks up a pen. I glance up at Draen, utterly confused. Why would anyone want to do math, especially if they don't have to? The prince looks up and I snap my gaze back to the numbers. He has a little smile on his face that I can see out of the corner of my eye. I wear a scowl.
Draen finishes his page and sets it aside. I feel him awkwardly sitting there, waiting for me to finish. He looks anywhere but at me. His hands fidget in his lap. After a few minutes of the uncomfortable behavior, I finally just hand him the pile of sums that need to be done and move to correspondences and the list of trade ship routes. I start first with my responses to the holding I own in the archipelago, I'll drop them off during my raid on Roltem. For a while, the only sound in the room is the echo of waves and pen running across paper. Pages turn and I nearly want to speed myself up, as if this is a competition.
The night wears on. The work in not nearly done, it's never done really, but the oil in the lamp thinks otherwise as it begins to sputter and finally dies. Draen gently places his pen down on top of his finished stack of papers. I toss mine down on an unorganized pile of letters and push myself away from the table. He slowly rises and walks over to the bed. I hear Draen curse under his breath along with the thud of him running into something. I shake my head and attempt to suppress a laugh. I rub my eyes and cover my mouth when a yawn forces its way out.
The crisp sheets wrap around my body as I lay down on the right side of the bed. The mattress dips as the prince lays himself down. I turn my back to him and shut my eyes, letting the gentle rocking of the sea lull me to sleep while a gentle breeze fills the room with cool air. Even with the creaking of the ship and the waves knocking against the hull, it still seems too quiet -- too cramped even in the large bed.
<•> <•> <•>
I know what time it is without even opening my eyes, without having a way to measure I can tell. At sea, I don't seem to need a time piece. My mind and body hardwired to wake up for my shift. It also ensures that I'm already at the wheel when the majority of the crew starts milling about. I want them to see me up before the sun and out until the moon. That way they know I work just as hard for them as they do for me. They respect me more. I can remember getting new crew members, the scoff when they found out I am a woman. Then the look in their eyes as the saw me day after day working longer than I had to. The respect that works its way into their eyes. The satisfaction of proving that I am the most feared, the most cruel, the best. The satisfaction of being a woman in that position.
When my eyes flutter open, the world comes into focus. I notice the very faint light coming in from the window, signifying the approaching dawn. I notice the cool sea air that gives the morning a brisk bite. I also notice the lack of that bite against my skin. I notice heat at my back. I notice a weight around my waist. swallowing, I look over my shoulder to be met with the sleeping face of Draen, whose chest I have been pressed against at some point in the night. Very carefully, I begin to detach myself from the cage of arms around me. I don't want to disturb the sleeping prince. The arms tighten slightly and I freeze, my heart rate speeding up. I renew my efforts once Draen seems to settle again. I make it free this time and spring from the bed.
I throw my coat and hat on after slashing some water on my face. I stride over to the secret passage from my room to the wheel, the one I had put in during the construction of the ship. I peek back at the prince to see his still sleeping face, a rush of air escapes my lungs noticing that I didn't wake him. But then I remember the position I woke up in and I frown a little. The wood bites into my hands as I begin climbing up the small corridor. I find, the more that I think about it, that I don't know what I feel about it.
I push the small square of planks out of the way and am greeted with the blue grey sky of early morning. The girl who ran away from a forced marriage and her kingdom for the promise of freedom would have been enraged at it... but she was only 14.
I push myself out of the very small opening and dust my hands off. Using the toe of my boot, I slide the cover back into place and glance about, the sun it due to begin its rise any second now. A gust of wind whips my coat about me and I clamp my hand down on my hat. The girl who hunted down the man who harmed her friend would have scoffed at a man anywhere near her bed... but she was only 17.
I relieve Andreas from the wheel with a pat on his shoulder. I watch as he lumbers down the stairs and disappears to the below decks for a few hours of rest. When the door opens for him to go under, the majority of my crew streams out to begin work. I try and pass around the dead mans shift so that everyone has to take it, but Andreas never seems to sleep -- always insisting he take dead mans. It's a good thing, too, because he is the only one I trust to keep us on corse. The girl who now captains this ship is now 22 and doesn't think she minded.
And I don't know if that should bother me or not.