pirate AU/edging
“My tremendous intuitive sense of the female form tells me that you are troubled.”
The captain, as they all called her, was striding towards the top deck where Hermione sat, staring listlessly over the railing into the endless ocean.
“I should've been married by now. I’m so ready to be married.”
An unexpected benefit of being someone’s long term captive was that you were in no way obligated to hold back your thoughts or feelings out of politeness. She knew that the captain would cringe at the sentiment, and took a special pleasure in making her wince in discomfort. It also made for an interesting character study, all this time on a ship with only two other souls whom she could rightfully consider her peers - the Captain herself, and her pet parrot, Malfoy. Malfoy was a better conversationalist, but the Captain was a better singer.
“Here, have a drink.” As expected. “You know, I am the captain of a ship - and, being the captain of that ship, I could perform a marriage, right now, right here on this deck. Take your pick of the crew.”
At first, the Captain had terrified Hermione to her core: taken prisoner by a notorious pirate and spirited away on a ship that sailed out of sight of land for days at a time, with no idea of what might become of her at the hands of such nefarious criminals. After 6 months at sea, however, Hermione knew that the Captain’s bark was much worse than her bite (although Malfoy’s bite was formidable), and when she wasn’t in doldrums about her lost life, or diverted by some beautiful new horizon, she was mostly just bored aboard the Salty Sea Wench.
“No thanks.”
“Why not? What’s so desirable about this MrWeasely, anyhow? From what I can make out, it’s not like you’ve spent enough time together to have any idea what kind of man he is – and anyway, he’s a ginger. They’re cursed, you know, I won’t even let one aboard.” Their eyes both glanced towards Charlie the First Mate, who sported a bright orange mop and a big bushy beard to match.
“He leans towards auburn.” The Captain pushed onward, unabashed as ever. “You and I, on the other hand, have spent a lifetime together on this fine vessel and I think it’s become clear that we’re very much alike, you and I.”
“Except for any sense of decency or honor, or a moral center. And I don’t tend towards monologue...”
“Are those really the qualities you think you see in your Weasley, or are you distracted from his actual shit nature by that fat pile of gold that just landed on him after the loss of his dear dowager Aunt Muriel the Marquise? Because that is exactly what I like about him as well - in fact, it’s why we’re both here. See? We have so much in common, you and I. You will come over to my way of seeing things. I know it.”
“You seem awfully certain.”
“One word, love. Curiosity. You long for the freedom that this life gives you. You long to do what you want to do, because you want to do it. To act on selfish impulse – You want to know what it feels like. And one of these days you won’t be able to resist.”
She’s all talk when it comes to me and my life, but what about hers? It’s not exactly the perfect picture she’s painting for me now. “Why doesn’t your compass work? It’s supposed to tell you what you want, isn’t it? Could it be that it doesn’t know, because you have no idea what you want?” She’ll be indignant now, Hermione saw with satisfaction. She always gets that crinkle in her nose when she thinks I have the upper hand.
“My compass works fine.” The Captain palmed the object in her hand, as if reassuring it, before flipping it open in a practiced gesture. The needle pointed straight through Hermione, due North by Northwest - precisely the direction they had just come from.
She turned an arched eyebrow towards the Captain pointedly. “You’d think a pirate would be a better liar. Do you want to know why your compass isn’t working? It’s because you and I are alike. And there will come a moment when you slip up and show it.”
Their time at sea together had, indeed, given her great insight into the Captain’s character. For all her pomp and acidity, for all her talk of cold, calculated savagery, she had yet to see the Captain do anything that truly appalled her. Coarse and criminal she may be, but wicked she was not.
“I love those moments. I like to wave at them as they pass by.” The Captain was losing her flippant air. Their proximity always had a disarming effect on the woman, and when they were this close Hermione could see little glimpses of who she really was, past the pirate to the little orphaned girl cowering behind the cutlass.
“You’ll have a chance to do something courageous, and when you do, you’ll discover something. That you think of yourself as a ‘bad guy’, but actually you’re what they call a ‘good man’.”
“All evidence to the contrary, including the ‘man’.”
She would bristle now, as Hermione knew she would. Her shoulders slid back and her jaw set, making her look taller, more angular, more fearsome. But not to Hermione. Hermione could feel the Captain drawn like a magnet to her conversation, her company: she knew that even now she was in control.
“Oh, I have faith in you. Do you want to know why?”
“Do tell.”
“Curiosity. You’re going to want it. A chance to be admired, and reap the rewards that follow. You won’t be able to resist. You’re going to want to know what it tastes like.” She leaned forward and spoke the end of her sentence in a throaty whisper that would tickle the Captain’s lips as her breath hissed past.
“I do want to know what it tastes like.”
“But, seeing as you’re a ‘good man’, I know you would never put me in a position which would compromise my honor…”
“Your words, not mine.”
“Take me home to my husband to be, Captain, and I can assure you that you will reap the benefits you seek - monetarily, once we’ve arrived, but also in the meantime … “