Of Saltwater and Pirates and Messy Braids
Leo smelled the world before he saw it.
It was salty and crisp, and, having been leading a crew on a flying ship, he instantly recognized the smell of the ocean. And booze. It reeked of alcohol. He could see it all, then. Dark oak wood and peeling wallpaper, like a shittier version of the Burlesque parlor. He could hear voices emitting from a nearby room. He would have to put on stealth mode.
This is the last world, he reminded himself, you’ve got this.
He gripped onto Forky, perhaps for more reassurance or just to regain his composure, and took a step forward. The floorboard beneath him creaked obnoxiously loud and the voices in the other room stopped instantly.
Well.
Shit.
“Nico?” called a female voice, “you can come out here for a drink if you’d like, love.”
Leo glanced at the hallway behind himself before setting his sights ahead and starting forward.
There were three pairs of eyes on him when he got into the main room. A bar, he guessed, which would explain the overpowering aroma of alcohol. The lady was behind the bar, Piper, he guessed, dark beachwavey hair spilling over her shoulders and questioning eyes trained on him. Her breasts were almost popping out of her top, something that looked sort of like a corset over a low-cut white undershirt trimmed with frills or something.
The two men that sat at the bar, one seat apart, were who he could only guess were him and Jason. They both looked to be drinking and dressed down, both sporting similar outfits of dirty white undershirts, work pants, and heavy boots.
Jason stepped up as unsheathed some sort of sword as Leo came into view, Other Leo not taking his out but readying himself. Piper laid hands on either of their shoulders and they shared a collective look. Leo took a cautious step forward.
“He’s just a kid, sit down,” she told them when he had gotten close enough, and Jason reluctantly sheathed his sword as Other Leo relaxed, though the two of them shared a glance.
“Ummm…” Leo started intelligently, “Hello?”
“Are you looking for someone, dear?” she inquired, leaning over the bar in a way that made Leo unsure if she was intentionally showing off her, well… personalities.
“Sorry, not really, I’m…” Piper was the only one of the three people staring at him that actually looked approachable. He cleared his throat, “Yes.”
“Who then, love?” she pressed and he blinked a few times.
“I think someone sent him,” Jason chimed in, taking a sip from his mug of what looked to be beer and glaring at Leo critically, “Jackson’s been making an awful lot of threats lately.” Other Leo made a show of tapping the handle of his sheathed blade.
“Oh, hush it,” Piper hissed and swatted at Jason, who set his drink back on the bar with a murmured “alright, fine.”
Before he was forced to answer a question he didn’t know how to, the door swung open. Eyes were off him them, to his great relief. The person who had stepped through the door was tall. She looked similar to Piper, but much less frilly, and much less contained with a corset. Her worn and dull red overcoat fell just past her hips, buttoned from her stomach up, and she wore fading black pants with heavy boots. Her sword was hanging unceremoniously from a hip holster. She took off her hat, and carded a hand through her hair, further messing an already messy braid.
Reyna.
It gave Leo great suspicions of whose world this was, but he feared Atë wasn’t about to cut him any more slack on guesses. He’d have to wait until he was absolutely sure.
Or at least slightly more sure.
The room was silent, save for the steps that Reyna took. She sat at the bar a few seats down from Other him and Jason.
Piper made her way over to where she sat, and asked, “Can I get you something?”
“Whatever it is that blondie’s having,” Reyna requested, gesturing carelessly to the pair of men further down the bar.
“So you’re real, huh?” Other Leo asked. It was strange, almost, how fast the focus shifted off him. He stepped aside a little.
“About as real as anything else,” she said, “I thought your crew raped and pillaged enough, is it really in your best interest to be stopping at whore house?”
Piper didn’t say anything, but she looked visibly stiff and resentful when she sat Reyna’s drink down. Reyna took a sip, obviously waiting for some kind of retaliation. Leo knew he wasn’t invisible, but he might as well have been. He swayed, slightly bored if anything, but he froze when he caught Jason staring at him. He looked back at Reyna and spoke.
“You say that like you’re not one of us,” Jason’s voice was calm, like the calm before the storm.
“Oh, I never said I wasn’t,” she told him, “but I know how you men get on ships. I put up with them, you know.”
“They put up with you, more like,” Other Leo snorted, “No self-respecting man would let a woman captain their ship.”
Well, that was sexist. What year was it anyways? What year were pirates around in?
“Oh, please, you two might as well let one captain yours,” she rolled her eyes, “Barmaid, switch of drink if I may ask it of you. Give me what the other one is having.”
As soon as Piper stepped over to fulfill her request, Reyna had hiked up her already cut-short skirts to pull a small blade holstered on her thigh to hold it at Piper’s throat, her other hand grabbing a fistful of her hair to hold her in place. Jason and Other Leo were on their feet, weapons drawn, before Leo even knew what had happened. He straightened up a little, surprised.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jason demanded, “Let her go!”
“What was that about not having women captain your ships?” she asked, voice tinged with a laugh, “I might as well have the two of you by your bollocks. She controls you. Perhaps she’s not giving orders, but she’s certainly the thing you value and protect most. Just like a captain. And she’s but a whore, isn’t she?” She pulled the knife back and Piper’s hand immediately went to her throat, eyes wide as she staggered back.
“What is stopping us from killing you right now?” Other Leo growled.
“My crew will wipe yours out in seconds,” she re-sheathed the blade on her thigh.
“I don’t really believe that.”
“Do you want to test it?” she asked, but before she got an answer, she was staring across the room at Leo, scoping him out, “Well, who is that fine young man?”
“We’re not sure,” Piper answered, a frightened tone in her voice as she stepped away from Reyna, “He was looking for someone.”
“Hmm. Who?”
Leo panicked and didn’t know what to say. For whatever reason, though, Reyna covered for him.
“You could not possibly be Eliza’s, could you?”
He found himself nodding for some reason or another.
“Perfect. Well, then, I think I’ll be taking him with me.”
Reyna pulled a couple of dollars from her coat pocket, beckoning Piper over, who came nervously. “I’m sorry for scaring you, darling,” Reyna told her gently, “Take the extra, please. I’ll make sure my men know that our enemies ladies are not our enemies.”
Then she leaned over the bar to leave a quick kiss on Piper’s cheek. Piper counted the money she’d been given, bringing a hand up to her cheek and staring at Reyna in disbelief.
“So it’s true what they say about you and women?” Other Leo asked as Reyna turned her book, motioning for Leo to follow.
She didn’t respond or even turn around. She only said, “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” and walked out. Leo spared a last glance at the trio before rushing after Reyna.
The streetlife he was greeted with was a port city, it seemed, and he could see the ocean past the boardwalk. He found his place at Reyna’s side and coughed to get her attention. She looked down and over at him with a raised eyebrow.
“I don’t know Eliza.”
“I know,” she told him, “But you know me.”
“I do, don’t I?” he murmured, “Thank you for that.”
She shrugged. “You can go whenever you’d like.”
“How do you know-?”
She shook her head, effectively cutting him off. “That’s for me to know and you to wonder about. Let us just say that I happen to know a girl who has quite the psychic eye, and I’ve been told that doing this will give me good karma.”
“Hazel,” he guessed, and she laughed.
“Well, maybe there’s more than one psychic around these parts, huh?”
He stopped suddenly, and she didn’t even hesitate. Reyna just kept walking. He called another quick ‘thank you!’ after her before murmuring her name under his breath.
He was done.