🏴‍☠️ IC contact; Duplicity

[calicoat]

INBOX text / audio / video / action "Captain Jack Rackham. Leave a message, or speak to me face to face like an adult." code credit

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[trigeminalheadache]

Good spirits really do help. With most of what ails someone.

[ it's easy enough to shift gears a little, offer commisseration and an ear. ]

Trouble with the city, I take it?

[calicoat]

Is that what people call it? “City troubles”, when your loyalty is punished and those closest to you disappear in the night?

[ It’s nice to finally hear a voice. But it’s much harder to distract himself with silly flirtation this way, his actual mood coming through in his voice. ]

[trigeminalheadache]

[ she can hear it, his actual mood. now she feels a bit bad that a message sent out turned into flirtation when he's feeling this way. but she's happy to offer a distraction. ]

No. Generally, that's called "complete bullshit," "unfair," and "painful." I'm sorry you've lost someone. I know what that feels like. I'm very familiar with it.

[ aside from hope and qi'ra, she's lost every dom and potential dom she's had, in addition to others. ]

Punished. Realignment?

[calicoat]

“Complete bullshit” was closer to my line of thinking, yes.

[ No need for her to feel bad about it, as Jack sees it. It’s a pleasant little distraction, more productive than guzzling rum and less exhausting than hassling Navy boys. ]

Indeed. I arrived here alongside my partner, but they made us both Dominants, to...inspire us to find new partners, I suppose. They’ve drugged us with something so that we can’t touch one another, or we’ll be struck with physical illness.

[trigeminalheadache]

God.

[ she breathes out the word, every bit of it filled with frustration and anger. ]

I think I hate that law the most out of any other. It's like it just exists to give them something to punish people for. And they like to get creative with their punishments. Or cruel. Or both.

[calicoat]

I've seen some shit, on the network. Suppose some men might count themselves lucky, in my position, to be punished in private.

How long have you been here, Miss Snow?

[trigeminalheadache]

Yeah. Yeah, I know about shit being posted on the network.

[ she doesn't expect this to hit her. but it's almost the anniversary of it. why wouldn't it? her voice gives tiny hints of possible personal experience with such things. ]

It's three years this month.

[calicoat]

Three years...Christ.

[ The weight of Jack's sigh is obvious. Three years. Nassau could be a proper fucking colony by then for all he knows. A lot can change in a week away, much less years. ]

Does it feel like home, yet?

[trigeminalheadache]

I don't know if I'd say it feels like home. But it's comfortable.

[ still, she hates the way it sounds when she says it. she should still be fighting against all of this, shouldn't she? ]

It's as close to like home as it'll get, I think.

[calicoat]

After a certain point, I suppose you've got to treat it like home. I don't intend to sit around and wait until they tire of me.

[trigeminalheadache]

It's hard to imagine being settled here. And there are plenty of people who will treat you like you're wrong and part of the problem if you're even a little bit comfortable here.

[calicoat]

Oh, I have no intention of getting comfortable, dear. Quite the opposite.

[trigeminalheadache]

It sounds like you have a plan.

[calicoat]

I'm getting there. And, if I might do so in a roundabout way, I'd like to ask you, as a longtime resident of this rotten hole in the universe - what do you know about a ghost ship?

[trigeminalheadache]

That was...

[ there's a pause as she thinks. ]

Close to two years ago? There was a weird bloom of red algae, and we were all voluntold to clean up the beach or the lighthouse. The ship appeared not too long after. People were drawn to board it, and then they went some form of crazy. Killing each other.

[calicoat]

[ Checks out with what he was told before. Jack's a rational man, of course, not as susceptible to superstition and drunk pirate tales as many sailors, but he’s not immune entirely. If his little project is going to succeed, that’s a set of sails he’d like to avoid. ]

And you don’t know where it came from, or where it went?

[trigeminalheadache]

No, I don’t. As far as I know, no one knows where it came from or where it went.

[ there’s a brief pause, then: ]

You’re going out on the water?

[calicoat]

That's the plan.

[trigeminalheadache]

I don't think I've heard of anyone trying that before. Then again, I think we have more sailors here now than we ever have in the past.

[calicoat]

Do you know more? I have two more from my time, and two Navy boys willing to work with me. I’m prepared to train people, but any experience whatsoever would be better than I am anticipating.

[trigeminalheadache]

[ she pauses a moment, thinking. ]

I can't say that I do. Sorry. Sailing experience or interest isn't something that generally comes up in conversation for me. Not unless they're really good at knots.

[calicoat]

I'd be shocked if there was a man in this city who knows their knots as well as I. If there is, I'd like him on my crew.

[trigeminalheadache]

I'd very much like to see how good your knots are.