"She WHAT???"
Sarah's messy bangs flew in front of her eyes as she grabbed the edge of her chair in the waiting room, in reaction to what Delbert said. His face looked like he'd washed it tear-free with his sleeves, and simply kept a professional glance over to his friend.
"Cross my heart, Sarah, it's what she said..." Delbert raised a hand out if front of him as if he were conducting a symphony. "'Delbert, I want you to write out my half of the Doppler inheritance over to Mrs. Sarah Hawkins, specifically for the funding of the Benbow Inn.'"
Of course, Delbert was exaggerating, as those last few minutes he had spent with Daisy had made him love his cousin more, with each step he walked on the hospital corridor. That smile in him came out in his words, and as he slowly dried up his tears, he reminded himself that Daisy should be well-rested for the remainder of her time. It's what she wanted. The request regarding Sarah's precious Benbow Inn was the first one Daisy had asked Delbert to take care of, and Delbert agreed it was a wonderful idea. She would be helping a friend fulfill a lifelong dream. Nothing else could commemorate Daisy better.
The homcanid also wondered if telling Sarah the rest of cell conversation would be the best thing to do, but after thinking about it... perhaps the revelation of that story called for a better time. Perhaps when those memories and thoughts of his cousin didn't hurt so much anymore.
"Are you sure that's what she said?"
"Yes!"
"Honestly? Those exact words??"
"Verbatim."
Sarah gasped, spontaneously grabbing the homcanid's coat and shaking it a little with multiple ideas and doubts crossing her mind. She tried to maintain a rational hold of herself by looking into Delbert's torso. "My goodness... oh my goodness..."
"Um, Sarah... would you calm down?" Delbert's spectacles were slipping down his snout from the shaking, and he nervously looked over at the corner of his eye to other hospital visitors. They pretended they weren't staring.
"No, no... this is insane! I can't accept that from her, Delbert. I can't!" Sarah carefully lifted herself and her swollen belly off the cushioned chair, unofficially using Delbert's coat as a crane. "I should go speak to her."
"She's asleep, Sarah, and believe me.. there is no arguing with Daisy about anything." Delbert flattened his coat sleeves back to normal with his fingers, then put his spectacles back in place. He gestured for Sarah to take a seat again, as he did so himself. "And if you think about it... would it really be the most terrible idea in the world? I mean she does want to help you."
"I don't know, Delbert. I... I suppose it would be nice... to have..." Sarah blinked with a beat. "But I wasn't planning to get the Benbow Inn running so soon! Jonathan would probably have a fit if he knew this!"
"There's absolutely no dent to this plan, Sarah!" Delbert tried to keep his excitement down, considering they were still in a hospital and visitors were already giving the pair a strange look. "You can tell Jonathan that Daisy has written out the funding for the Benbow Inn, and like it or not... the Inn will be constructed!" Delbert thought for a moment. "If you want, I'll go and tell him with you."
Sarah raised an eyebrow, and suddenly began to laugh whole-heartedly with disbelief. "I can talk to my husband with enough dilligence myself, thank you."
He raised his hands in a mocking defeat, raising his eyebrows. "Oh I was just saying the offer is here, if you need it."
"Shut up, Delbert."
Sarah made a grunting face in annoyance, and then humorously placed her hands on her side to support her straining back. Delbert simply grinned, massaging the back of his neck in wonderment as he finally seemed to realize how Daisy's spirit would always be there to help him... no matter what ridiculous situations he would put himself through.
At just about this time, at the far corner of Crescentia of the same Inglaterr Galaxy, a crowd gathered inside the torch-lighted second class pub called The Blind Pig, to see the final few seconds of a live arm-wrestling match. It was on the small planet of Tempestad, a place concerned with the refining barrier of nobility and the lower classes, and where the majority of young people trained abroad at the Naval Academy through privilege. They were the lucky ones, able to perceive their future as something located outside of the small planet. Of course, the ones who were left behind in the dark mining grounds or the noisy marketplaces would find their own sense of adventure without that privilege. They would find it in petty theft from wealthy visitors, gambling through games of euchre, and through half-drunken song about troubles they'd fallen into that day.
Tempestad was deeply regarded by many outsiders as a watering hole for galactic pirates, and those who were keen in knowing the liveliness of danger and the rewards of adventure knew exactly where to find their fellow friends.
The Blind Pig was one of those meeting places.
"C'mon, Mel... ye almost got 'im!"
A bulky homfelin with a scruffy beard cheered from a table, narrowing his eyes over his friend's shoulder with a conscious sense of excitement. Many of the visitors were doing the same in their own noisy, table-banging way. The rough-ridden homfelins played the bottom of their pints onto the wooden tables as they watched their fellow kind take on her opponent in the arm-wrestle.
The woman grit her teeth, showing her cat-like fangs without remorse as she put intense power onto her arm, but the opponent - an endurant squid-like creature just about her size - looked like he was at his last inch of strength holding the homfelin's arm. As the squid creature broke into intense sweat, with its nostrils flaring, the female knew it was all a breeze from there, and she managed to get carried away... by lifting her pint of omega rum for a drink with her other arm.
The spectators laughed and kept on banging their tables to cheer for her.
Most of the Blind Pig regulars knew her well... a young woman with long, wavy brown hair, perhaps no older that twenty, with a mature face and torn clothes that seemed to wear themselves out... but those who didn't know her at the Pig would've thought she was clearly in the wrong place. Not many women came into the Blind Pig, for the sake of their dignity, but Amelia "Mel" Smollet knew exactly how to keep her cool in the likes of men. Nobody knew why a young woman her age wanted to live this way... wrestling another man's arm for leisure and a few coins... but it all seemed to be just as amusing to her as it was to be a spectator. And the innkeeper welcomed her because of her charm.
"Almost... almost..." The eyes of the spectators rose higher, trying to zoom in on the centimeters that were between the squid's muscular arm and the wooden table. Amelia growled like a tiger in her arm's final shove towards victory.
"YEAHHH!!!!!!" People erupted with cheer, clapping their arms or multiple tentacles, and some even spilled their drinks from the quaking tables, but nobody seemed to notice.
Amelia slouched on the wresting table and exhaled from that work-out of her arm, closing her jade eyes to take in the victory. When she finally sat back up, she simply brushed the dark hair out of her face with a hand, and eyed the squid creature with her unfailing charm.
"An' that, sir, is how a lady gets her drinks in Tempestad. Ye' owe me another one!"
The pulpoid laughed as he regained himself, and pounded on the table for a waiter.
"Way te' go, Mel!" another large and muscular homfelin jumped into the gap next to the woman, wrapping a tight arm around her shoulder with fondness and support. "Haha... that's me girl... I knew ye' would do our kind proud."
Amelia laughed a little, ignoring the way her admirer's bulky arm curved around her back as she began to massage her arm. "Ah e' guess all the trainin' did help a li'l bit, did it not?" She transfixed her eyes over to her friend, in that teasingly judgemental way.
"Mel, why're ye always so rough with me? I'm a good man!" The large homanid teased, passing her the pint of citrus rum the pulpoid had ordered for her.
"Be'cause, Cassio, you can't take rejection unless i's thrown at you with plasma grenades," she smiled daringly at him.
The homfelins gathering at the table broke into hysterics and laughter, one of them giving Cassio a shaking head of disappointment. They all knew his efforts were there, clearly, but Amelia was a fiesty girl indeed.
"Hehe... mark me' words, Cass, ye sure know how to pick yer lady friends," one of them remarked, moving his black dreadlocks from his eyes to take a drink from his goblet.
Amelia threw a humorous glance across the table, pursing her lips over to Lepido as he commented. His short, stocky frame caved into a shrug, almost like saying he couldn't help but speak the truth, and Amelia rolled her eyes amusingly, cuddling back next to her friend Cassio.
There was live music playing in the back of the pub, then, as a one-man-band Pulpoid began playing a pair of fiddles and a drum. The Blind Pig was returning back to its regular feel of social storytelling and chatter within each table, the waiters washing tables with cloth, and every so often a visitor would come in to unite with his or her respectful friends. The seven homfelins remained in their table, chatting about their uncomfortable jobs and regurgitating their recent encounters with the law.
"Those sentinels keep multiplyin' throughout these parts, e' tell ya, Cass..." the ungracefully thin homfelin sitting on the other side of Amelia bruted in his raspy voice. "sooner 'er later their gonna find what w'been up to and throw us all into th' gutters."
"Oh, don' be daft, Genkin, they're not all that clever..." Amelia muttered, while the rest of the homfelins paused over to her direction, with mixed looks of confusion and amazement. The one named Genkin caught it as well, spilling into a chuckling frenzy from the girl's involuntary twist in lingo. Amelia's green eyes eventually found her mistake too, and she couldn't hide the blushing cheeks even from her long wavy locks.
"Ah ha ha, Mel... what're we gonna do w'you?" Cassio asked rhetorically and grabbed his pitcher of ale, pouring another full pint for himself.
"Well ye' take th' girl ou'a privilege, eh?" The prophet-like Genkin held his mug out for some more ale. "But it won' take th' privilege ou'a th' girl!"
Amelia kept her cheeks glowing pink, as she couldn't hide the fact that Genkin was completely right. She laughed along with them, though, because she owned up to the truth. Even if she could never speak like one of them, it was where she belonged... and she always felt thankful for Cassio for rescuing her from her grief.
As the homfelins surrounding her kept taunting about the woman's lack of perfect low-class speech, Amelia's mind seemed to overlook the interior of the pub, seeing the faces of the visitors who were familiar to her. She located the pulpoid from the wrestling match in one corner, who'd taken up a game of cards with his loyal squid-like friends, and exchanged a smile at him. She found the same old woman with the puffy lips and the crippled arm, trying to flirt with the bartender and fish the slightest laugh out of him. She saw how a pair of young troublemakers trying to poke a curvy homfelin waitress into toppling her tray of drinks, and how that no-nonsense waitress held her own, glaring at the men with all of her dignity.
Amelia was fascinated by this place as far back as she could remember, ever since Cassio invited her there to meet his fellow companions for the first time... the men who'd take a knife to the throat for each other's lives. She loved this feeling of loyalty, and it helped her escape the emotional brutality and unkindness she had felt at home. There were times when that clean, perfect Victorian house on the hills of Tempestad did not even seem like a home for her, and she could never be seen as something more than the little girl in front of her family's eyes. She did not regret running away.
"Blast me, if Hugo Smollet could see 'is darlin' li'l girl now..."
As Amelia overheard Cassio's amused voice, gradually getting her mind back into the conversation at her table, a pair of unfamiliar eyes had caught her square from the other end of the bar. The female homcanid did not think much of this gaze, but as she looked over to the man's eyes, his appearance seemed to both frighten her and fascinate her.
The man was a pyedrad -- a stone-based creature that was not seen so often on this side of Tempestad, and in this case he had not come alone for a drink. While this one was built, square-faced and stern, his pyedrad friend sitting adjacent to him was smaller and more of the chatterbox of the two. The man held his drink in his hands, pretending to have taken a sip, but as he looked at Amelia... it seemed that his interest was not in his thirst, but on a staring contest with her.
All of a sudden, she felt very uncomfortable, and leaped her thoughts back into the conversation with her homfelins.
"...nah, Lep, we shoud'e been quicker with that warnin' shot over at the Brabantium. Ah mean... they sure be still boggling over 'oo took them pearl cargo months ago, but we can' take chances li' that..."
Amelia pretended to listen, while at the same time her concern seemed to settle to her throat, as the stern pyedrad refused to find another gazing interest elsewhere. At the corner of her eye, Amelia felt that he never blinked. Why the damn hell was he keeping his eye at their direction?
"I'say for the coming raid, we shou' get Mel here to make th' diversion, no? She's the fastest one of us..."
"Eh?" Amelia broke that train of panic from hearing the proposition Lepido made in a low voice. If her instincts had told her correctly, he had been asking if this slender homfelin girl could sneak into the upcoming arrival of Grand Orpheum and compose the stealing of their Imperial pearls. It was a raid the crew was looking forward to plot for months... and it would be the most life-threatening one for them yet.
Cassio didn't seem to like the idea right away, his face looking concerned as he gulped another bit of his ale, and turning over to Amelia. He was about to say something, but his look of doubt made Amelia beat him to the speech.
"Ah come off it." Amelia banged her half-drunk pint of rum on the table, giving a small growl to her voice. "I can 'andle any stunt li' that... you recall how swift I was with those tumbles the last time? I demand a promotion!"
"Easy, Mel... I was jus' pullin' yer hair for a bit of fun, no harm..." Cassio looked pleased to see his friend build up a stronger will to herself, and teasingly grabbed a bit of her locks in a fun gesture. "Mark me words, men, this lady'll be bringin' us the next bucket o' sardines with all that loot we'll be gettin', eh? Here here!"
"Here here!" The crew banged their pints with one another's and gulped down their ale joyously. Amelia did the same, smiling and laughing at the challenge Cassio had just offically made for her. The Blind Pig's music seemed to become all the more lively to Amelia, imagining how her first diversion in a piracy raid would be all for the goodness of dangerous excitement.
It was at that moment... when she decided to glance back at that bulky pyedrad man with a bit more fearlessness in her frame... that she noticed he and his friend had disappeared.
