Give the girl a shot of whiskey/Set the pirate lady free

[phrynefisher]

How it was that the wind, salt-sharp and quick as a whip as it swept around her did not tear the hat, broad-brimmed and worn, from her head, only philosophers and quantum physicists might be able to say.

Perhaps the rumors of her being a witch were true after all. Certainly she had never done anything to hush up the whispers of exactly that when she had heard them. (She had, in fact, laughed hard enough to nearly upset her glass when she'd first overheard someone informing their friend that the captain of the Thetis was some kind of sea witch). Rumors abounded around any woman who walked in the world of men, she had expected nothing less. Whether she was witch, fallen noblewoman, madwoman or whore, every man had his favorite story to tell of the woman who would dare to captain a pirate ship.

Phryne turned her head from the warmth of the sun to smile at her crew. "The wind is with us!" she called from her perch, standing as she was high up among the topmast sails. She took little note of the precariousness of her position, leaning far out from the safety of the solid wooden braces, kept safe only by the hand she kept wrapped around a rope nearby. "Prepare yourselves, we shall be on them by sunset!"

The Thetis was crewed by a mixture of sailors and strays, a strange combination of men and (shockingly) several women who came from all corners of the world. They were known for nothing more than for their captain's love of hunting slavers as they attempted to return to Europe newly heavy with profit, of the chaos they wreaked in taverns they frequented and the promise that all would share equally in the spoils they tore from merchants' hands before the goods could be traded for new stocks of slaves. What the crew made of their captain was up to each on their own, but were to Phryne more family than those she'd known by blood.

She all but danced down the rigging and masts until she stood on deck once more, eyes returning to the shape on the far horizon as she spoke to the figure nearest her, "Copper and cloth, you think?" Her lips curved, gaze turning to the one she spoke to, "Or might we hope for rum enough to refill our stock?"

Comments

[praiseandglory]

"That certainly wouldn't go amiss," Porthos remarked with a half smile, but she would know by now how little he truly cared what their hold contained, as long as they took whatever it was from the slavers. Unless, of course, they were on their way to the Americas with their holds full of people, and those were the times the crew they attacked most regretted their position on their ship.

It was the first time, since he'd first come to the hotel, that he had gone through this door and actually joined a pirate ship, but when he had found the lovely Phryne with a crew of her own, and favouring such targets, his mind had instantly been made. The violence was welcome, too, as he had recently returned from Paris, and still felt oddly unsettled after the truth about his father had been revealed.

Making slavers pay for their crimes was the perfect way to deal with his inner turmoil, clearly.

Now, this one they had been chasing for over a day now, and he was looking forward to catching up with her. "By sunset, you say?"