Salt and Sealskin Braids
By Pippin's Lady Knight...
Her skin was darkened further by the sun. Unruly hair tamed in dreads and braids, wrapped in bits of odds and ends. Leather, twine, whatever came into her hands. Feathers and shells collected at the ends, making small sounds when she tossed her head.
Small rows of raised tattoos stretched across her cheekbones and below her full bottom lip. Primitive and beautiful they added to the complexity of her face.
With eyes rimmed with heavy smudges of coal she watched ships docking in the bay, feet languidly stirring the warm salty water.
There was one ship in particular she was looking for. On its hull was a mermaid, unclothed and in all the glory of womanhood. An older ship, it had none of the gleam and strut of the ships that settled on the bay, fresh out of the yard. Instead its sides were weathered, scratched from years of battling reefs and clinging ocean life. She was a beautiful ship. Redemption was her name, and it fit her in more ways than one.
She stood, brushing sad and salt and splinters from her ragged skirts, smoothing her blouse, and sighing.
So he hadn't come back. Like he'd promised too. She should have known better, or at least expected it. Never trust the word of a pirate. In this business, it was an unwritten law. And yet, she had broken it with abandon. And for what? Some smooth talking, sauntering, scallywag of a pirate with hair as dark as her own and a wit to rival any man…
She'd sold herself cheap, let him buy her with the last few schillings in his purse, allowing his promise to return and take her away with him to cloud her judgment.
And for that, she had lost the privilege to use the bed when she snagged a customer. That was reserved for those of the women who paid enough for their room and board to warrant some measure of comfort during the long working hours of the night.
Now she found herself propped up against ale barrels, held up, ankles locked around his waist, with only a wall to support her. As it was, she had been picking splinters out of her back for the last three weeks, and the ones she couldn't reach, she had to pay the other girls to remove for her.
But it was no use kicking herself again and again for something she couldn't fix.
And so, walking slowly, putting one bare foot in front of the other, she made her way back to the whore house…trying not to turn and scan the horizon one last time, one last time…before the ocean disappeared from sight.
The winds would blow him back to her someday…