PIRACY chapter 4
His face was indeed young, very young, younger than Percy even. His eyes were dark like blown light bulbs with only the barest hint of life in them. His face followed the shape of his skull with no meat on it. He almost looked like he was starving. His nose was small and for some reason looked defiant to Percy, small and slightly pert. His mouth was thin and dark also. Shadows clung to him like cobwebs and crept on his face from odd angles. Any light that touched him seemed to dim slightly.
"You're the…the captain?" Percy asked, finding that surprising. Here was a kid younger than him controlling a shipful of full grown Italian bloodlusts. Though, he did give off an unmistakable atmosphere of power.
"Yes," he said, his eyes flashing dangerously. Percy figured it wouldn't be wise to ask his age.
The captain looked back at the horizon. His eyes seemed to send out shadows.
Percy didn't know what to say. The captain saved him from the task of sying something.
"What's your name?" he looked back up into my face, and I was irresistibly reminded of a younger curious child asking and older person a childish question.
"Percy. I'm Percy Jackson," I said, staring into those eyes. They looked so dead, so done. As if they had seen things that no child should ever see.
The captain nodded. "You fight well," he said unexpectedly.
Percy shrugged. "I've been training for a while."
The captain scowled and his shoulders tensed, suddenly annoyed. "Can't you just accept the compliment?" he asked irritably.
I blinked. Maybe he was having an early-teens mood swing.
"Sorry," I said uncertainly.
His shoulders relaxed a bit but the scowl remained. "You should get back to the sick room."
A rope inside Percy writhed around, pulling and twisting. Back into that dusty room? When the ocean was right there?
The captain glared at him. Percy guessed that it was not so much as a suggestion, more an order.
"Okay," I said moving away from the railing. "I go."
I started walking glumly back to the sick room.
"Wait," he said. I looked back. He seemed to be struggling intensely with something inside himself, but when he saw Percy looking, he blanked his expression.
"Yes?"
His eyes glinted darkly, with some threads of anger. "You will address me as 'sir', or 'captain'. Is that clear?"
He looked defiant, angry and annoyed. I wondered what I had done. He still looked so young, just a kid with a lot of responsibility.
"Yes…sir," I said, and despite the situation, I hid a smile.
The captain stared at me for a moment with strange intensity, then turned back to the horizon, a clear dismissal.