come_sailaway | We didn't choose the pirate life

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We didn't choose the pirate life

Who: Stede Bonnet, Edward "Blackbeard" Teach, Lucius Spriggs, Skulduggery, John Watson, Darcy LeJeune, Diana York, Ava, Yuri Lowell, Clarke Griffin, Beetlejuice, Jinx, Jim Jimenez and Hiram
What: Pirate Crew Meet & Greet
When: 5/27
Where: Bellona Theater
Warnings None yet

Everyone at some point will get an invite to the theater, either pressed into their hand or shoved under their door. The stage is set with black curtains hanging in the background and on each seat there will be a little gift basket with a black ribbon, a name, a candy bar and a black pen with a little spiral notebook.

In each notebook, Stede has written a little note of encouragement. He will wait for them all to find their seats before he begins.

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So far nobody has disagreed with his criticisms of England. Makes a man feel at home, really.

"Oh, yes, the pick pocketing--" he starts and has the good grace to look a little sheepish. He didn't actually steal from her person directly, but hers is the only thing he intended to keep. "You don't mind if I...keep that drawing, do you?

"It's just that it's quite good, very usual. I don't see art like that often so, when it crops up...I like to...steal it."

An awkward way to put that, but not incorrect. He grimaces apologetically but does not append the statement.

Anything decent that they have, they stole not so politely as they pretend to be. So there's that.

"You're... welcome to it," Ava says with the sort of hesitant confusion of somebody wanting her crumpled up trash. "I'm not really patient enough for drawing anything realistic, my hands don't exactly cooperate." Most things she tries to doodle ends up looking a mess.

But she knows historically, art really was limited to those that could afford the time and the supplies, and that what constituted good art was so narrowly defined. "But I'm guessing I don't get to keep this sword." She gives it a little twirl.

"No, that I have to give back," Lucius laments. "If I hadn't pissed Blackbeard off, personally, more times than I can count on one hand....well...."

He probably still wouldn't just leave it there, honestly, but he'd be less careful about it. He holds out a hand and grimaces. He really. Is not one for swords on a good day and this is not the best day.

"But I have, and needs must," he adds with a sigh.

"Do you draw a lot?" he asks, his tone carefully cultivated in that way that people do when they really, really want to see the rest of someone's art.

She pouts slightly, that Lucius already has his hand out for it. At least give her a moment or two to enjoy it! Ava attempts a few little swings and fancy jabs at the air that she watched demonstrated. It's probably quite obvious that swords aren't something she's been trained in, but there's also a fluidity to her movements that suggest she's a skilled fighter.

And then she offers it back over, reluctantly. She doesn't want to get on the bad side of the crew, there's only so many people that put up with her.

"No, not really. Just maps of the place," which are worthless really, now that she has a fairly decent mental map of the ship's layout instead. "Haven't really had the supplies. Or motivation. But... it was therapeutic, in a way. To get that out." Which means yeah, you could absolutely encourage her to do more.

Lucius has no objection to her playing with it--it's not as if she's more or less likely to break the damn thing than he is. He'd say it even looks fun, swishing it around, but he's long since gotten over the novelty of swords. When she finally hands it back, he takes it and...realizes he has nowhere to put it, anyway, so it ends up tip down and resting against the stage.

"Do you...want the other supplies? I have them all stacked up," Lucius gestures back to the tables and the piles on them. "I was going to take them but I mostly do pencil drawings."

The offer catches her by surprise, figuring somebody else had claim to them. But accepting might come with the obligation of doing something with the supplies. Something worthwhile, and something that Lucius might ask to see. Ava ponders it quietly.

"Yes. Actually, that would be nice. To have." And if it turns out awful she'll just have to be more careful in disposing.

She picks her basket back up, swinging it a bit awkwardly. "So. Um... that wasn't just me, right? The... co-captains? They're... involved?" Because the tension is quite obvious, and yet. She has no idea what to make of it. "I thought he was married."

He smiles as she accepts, glad someone will put them to more use than he will. Now that he's got the sword out (she got the sword out) he moves to the edge of the stage and sits. He's quite done jumping down, but shimmying is fine. Though, once he sits down, it's actually quite comfortable.

"He is," Lucius says with a sigh. "And they are...sort of. I think they both want to be but, well, he's married?"

Seems like a silly problem to him, and the boldfaced derision in his tone indicates as much, but it's the nearest thing to an answer that he has. He leans back and gestures to the edge of the stage next to him. Come pull up a...stage?

"The rough part about all that," he gestures at the stage behind him. "Is they're actually extremely good together with Captaining. They're clever like the Devil himself when they're focused on the same thing. I could be standing on the gallows with a rope around my neck and if I knew those two were working on it? I wouldn't be worried a bit."

Oh. Well, standing over him is a bit awkward, so she takes a seat next to Lucius, legs dangling over the side and basket in her lap.

He's married. And suddenly her perspective shifts, her understanding of the situation. That it's not happening despite Stede being married, but that it's not happening because he is. Well that's unfortunate. "But he's away at sea. Hasn't he technically already left her? And being here..." Ava doubts he'll ever see his wife again. Which had originally seemed sad when he told her of what he left back home, now not so much. Although. If this place does enjoy making them suffer.

"Relationships seem far too complicated," Ava sighs out, lonely but always sort of glad she's never been caught up in one. She already has enough of her own issues to sort through.

She listens to Lucius, his view on how the captains work together. He knows them far better, knows them out in their own world, so she trusts his perspective to be true. "Sure, but would they have been the ones that got your neck in that noose in the first place?" she teases.

A confused shrug is the only answer he has about Stede's wife, whether he's actually left her, and whether any of that matters with regards to Blackbeard. He simultaneously wishes he knew and wants absolutely nothing to do with the whole situation, it's a tough tightrope walk. Her comment about relationships does get a scoff.

"They're not usually like this," he tells her. "Mine certainly aren't...er...weren't. Oh, that's depressing."

He grimaces and shakes it off.

"As for the noose, well, maybe. Probably even. They certainly have a penchant for pissing off naval officers and the authorities on the high sea...but I was a pirate before them, I'll be a pirate after...assuming I don't die here for real.

"All I know is that...well, if we have to be in purgatory, I would rather have those two standing between me and the Devil than anyone else, yeah?"

"I know it's not really my business, their personal lives. I guess... well, it's just Stede's the one that I went to for relationship advice. With all his flyers up around the ship. And then I see he's just as helpless as the rest of us, huh."

But she gives him a quiet, sympathetic look. Whether the past tense is because they've now been separated, or if Lucius is yet another with a dead lover, Ava doesn't want to ask. Because yes, either way it's depressing.

"Yeah," she echoes at the end of his statement. "I can see how they inspire so much loyalty. Stede really does go out of his way to make everyone feel... special, valued. I've never had much of that in my life. Well, the wrong sorts of special and valued." For her abilities, never really her. "How'd you wind up, doing all this?"

"Oh god, please, don't take relationship advice from Stede Bonnet," Lucius cautions. He says that before answering her question, before anything else. He knows about the flyers, saw them, said nothing, but he's not met anyone who actually attended that.

"If you want advice, I'm not a terrible person to ask, but do not listen to a word Stede Bonnet has to say about any of that. I cannot stress that enough."

He needs to be sure you understand, Ava. He's certain you can guess why, given what you witnessed here today. Once he's positive that clear message has sunk in, his alarm fades a bit and he shrugs. He looks a little sheepish and grimaces again--his expression has a certain fondness to it, though, despite himself.

"Would you believe I signed up voluntarily?" Lucius asks. "He was...hiring. With flyers and everything. Most pirates just press-gang, unless you're very good at something, or especially if you're very good at something. I was tired of...well...to say it was unpleasant is an understatement.

"Then, here comes this odd little wealthy man, hiring a full crew, offering up a salary, even asking for pirates specifically. On a flyer. Which none of them could read. I felt like I was having a stroke as I went to meet him, it was the most bizarre experience I've ever had, including being here, but he paid well and only really needed me to take notes and dictation? Then he was...himself for a while.

"I fall a little in love with every man I meet, it's a personal problem, but not him. Not exactly. I was actually onboard to mutiny against him for a while...but then I woke up one day after he'd read everyone a bedtime story and realized, oh god, I would risk my actual life for Stede Bonnet.

"So...here I am. It's very odd, he is very odd, but I really trust him."

"He just seemed so... confident about it. And I've never talked to anyone about that sort of thing before," Ava tries to defend herself, that she clearly had no way of knowing better until the demonstration. But yes, she gets it now. She places her head in her hands, groans lightly.

But it does make her feel better to see that Lucius apparently fell for one of the all too inviting flyers as well. And then snorts with the fact that... yeah, none of them could read. She couldn't imagine piracy being the sort of profession that attracted the well educated, but more the desperate and those looking to escape something worse. "So he's a bit out of touch. A salary though, hell even I never got paid."

She finds it all rather endearing though, as Lucius retells his change of heart. Because Stede's read her a bedtime story as well, even if the experience of Watership Down seemed to disturb him a bit.

"It is odd," she agrees. "But I stayed for... whatever this whole thing was. Because I want to do right by him too."

"Welcome to the crew," he says with a resigned but moderately pleased sigh. He would clap her on the shoulder but he'd watched her evade a bullet. He's fairly certain she could kill him if she wanted...which put her in line with most of the crew, really.

"Some of this is nonsense," he says and gestures with his head to the table they'd drawn flags at and the snacks in the back. He looks pointedly at her gift basket. "But I'm glad we did it. I met a bunch of very scary people who are technically obliged to save my life. Which is great because I am very shit at protecting my own life. Just awful at it.

"Also I stole some art and didn't get stabbed. Today is a win, really."

She sighs as well. She still really has no idea what she's gotten herself into here, what any of this is going to accomplish. Especially when several (younger) members of the crew clearly don't like her. And the actual fucking Captain of this vessel lurking around. Which, fine, it's his ship and who is going to stop him. (And thankfully she's just unaware of whatever the fuck occurred with that sign up sheet at the end.)

"It is nonsense, but, I liked that," Ava admits, squeezes the gift basket lightly. "And maybe when I'm, you know, properly recovered from this experience. I'll take you up on that offer for advice."

"Whenever you like. I'm here until we sink or Stede and Blackbeard figure out something insane," Lucius says and shrugs. "Oh! I did learn how to text if you want to find me. Did you know there's little faces that you can put in to represent emotions?"

He's absolutely tickled by this, but he guesses she might know.

With a heavy sigh he shimmies the rest of the way off the stage, Blackbeard's sword in hand, and makes his way to the stacks of stuff on the tables. He gestures with the sword to the stack of art things.

"Those are all yours, by the way."

It's not that Ava is unaware there's a texting feature on the phones.

But nobody has ever used it to contact her. Nobody's asked. And it's fine, back home all she had were burners. Meant to be untraceable. She's not in the habit of social media addiction, defining her life by notifications that she eagerly checks for, measures her value by. So the lack of alerts are what she's used to.

But. Well. She sees other people on their phones. And it is just another awareness of how alone she feels, and then immediately squashes right back down because what a pathetic thing to be jealous over.

"There are?" she does know about emojis, but... well, if it gives Lucius an excuse to message her. She'll take it.

She follows to gather up the extra art supplies into her basket, wondering when she'll be able to work up the inspiration to do anything with them.

"Yeah--instant messaging, no ink or birds required, and the little faces and symbols to make it faster! Honestly, if I ever have to go back to longhand I might just pretend I died and stop writing letters altogether," he says with casual certainty as he gathers up everything else that he can carry.

"The number we need is room number and passenger, I think." Both Darcy and Skulduggery had explained this to him. Repeatedly. He's still not used to the idea of needing numbers to find people but he's coming around. "My room is 117, but I can't remember the other. If you get Skulduggery, ask him and he'll give you mine."

He's from 1717, this is an impressive amount of tech savvy, all things considered.

"And do tell me if you want to draw. All I do is work. The Captains will survive without me for a few drawing parties."

But, as much as he wants to put it off, he really should get all this back, organized, and try to figure out where the hell Blackbeard was so he could return this sword. He sighs and waves a quick goodbye until his hands are summarily filled with nonsense.

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We didn't choose the pirate life

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