Written in the Stars
Chapter 12.
So now you know my big secret. I remember when I first stepped on board of the Silent Mary, it felt like entering a throne room of some king. It was, truly, a glorious ship and I felt honoured to have the right to be there, and the feeling never quite left me throughout the whole journey. It took us about a week to get to San Juan, and all this time I was begging the ship to slow down, but alas, she was as fast as a sea dragon.
I had a great time on the Silent Mary though, during the time of my stay. I was a sort of a guest of honour, and gosh they treated me almost like a princess, Spanish gentlemen the lot of them. I got to know them, at least some of them well during those few days, and each and every one of them have a place inside my heart now, even after so many years.
There was Lesaro, good, faithful Lesaro, who was always keeping an eye on me when the captain couldn't do so. He always kept this facade of a stern, strict soldier, the keeper of discipline aboard the ship, but at the end of the day he was also the one who would always put the wellbeing of those under him in front of his own, and so the respect he was being treated with was very well deserved. Around me he was always a bit quiet, standing courtly by my side, and I would bother him with my incessant questions until I'd finally see him smile at my curiosity. On the third day, I asked the captain if he would care to teach me some Spanish, as trust me, if you spend some time around people speaking the language, it's very easy to fall in love with it. He was very busy with his duties that day he said, but he still wanted to oblige me, and so it was Lesaro who had the honour to go through all that torture I had prepared for him, unintentionally of course, cause learning Spanish turned out to be a lot more difficult than learning English, which was a language that followed me around all my life. Still he tried, which made me admire his bravery, and he did manage to teach me something, though there were many times when I wanted to mumble the frustrated Madre de Dios along with him. We would of course laugh about it later though, and I'm pretty sure those were the moments that allowed him to become a lot more relaxed in my presence.
Then there was officer Santos, he told me his name was Miguel, and he has become one of my best friends on the Silent Mary. He was, perhaps, the youngest of the crew, still a mere boy compared to most of the other officers, and as such he seemed a little out of place here, but he never seemed to mind. He was a cheerful, friendly soul, always wearing a smile on his face. A smart young man with a brilliant future in front of him, if fate had been kinder. He was also a lot more observant than the others, it would seem. The first evening, as the ship set out from the harbour and I was sitting up there on the deck when most of the sailor have already went to sleep, I heard the soft approach of his steps as he came to sit next to me. All afternoon he was throwing glances my way, obviously eager to tell me something, so I was curious what was on his mind. Well it turned out that the weasel has seen me in the harbour, and he's clearly seen the way I was staring at his captain. I remember that by the time he got to that point, I was already red with embarrassment, which caused him to laugh, saying that my secret was safe with him. Still, ever since then, he would, occasionally, when no one could hear it, make fun of me because of it, but I'm pretty sure he only did it to make me smile.
Last but certainly not least, there were officers Magda and Moss. They seemed to be especially good friends with one another and would mostly spend time together when they could. Often I would hear them bickering over this and that, and they would always fall silent when I passed by them, as if they were worried I will tell on them to the captain. I would always smile as if I didn't hear anything, and walk away, listening carefully as they continued their argument, their voices hushed. They were always the ones who cheered most loudly when I sang for the crew, and I did so quite often. Well, most of the time I was just singing for myself, which couldn't be helped really, I always sing when I am really happy, and I was really happy on this ship. It wasn't exactly what you would consider beneficial for the crew's morale, as many of them would take it as a cue to stop their work and stare at me, and the poor lieutenant had his hands full keeping order around the ship, but it always certainly improved their mood. And though the captain would often look at me sternly for disturbing the crew's work, he too would always come out, rewarding me with the silent clapping of his hands and the softest of smiles on his amused face.
Oh yes, the captain. He was often needed on the deck to watch over the ship's progress, and in those times I would leave him alone, but whenever he could, he was always happy to spend time with me, and I… I was grateful for every minute he was able to spare. Salazar was a brilliant man and I truly loved our conversations. He told me about his early life, and the beautiful andalusian shores where he was born, of his beginnings in the navy and how he climbed through the ranks until he became a captain of his first ship, making his father truly proud of his son. Soon after that though, his father was killed, murdered by pirates on the high seas in a short and bloody battle, his ship utterly destroyed and his body never recovered from the depths, just as it was with his father before him. It was then when the young Salazar decided to follow in his father's footsteps, and in his anger and hunger for revenge, he managed to achieve a great success in hunting the scum that destroyed his family. And so, only a few years after he cried over an empty grave he was given the command of a brand new spanish vessel, the most powerful that was ever built, the one I was standing on right now, and I could clearly see as his eyes lit up with pride as he spoke of the spoke of the Silent Mary, and the bitterness in his voice dissolved into something else as he recalled the carnage they caused in the seemingly endless lines of pirate ships over the Caribbean, where pirates were spreading like rats at that time. It was a passion verging on obsession, and it got me worried that one day this obsession was going to drive him straight into an early grave.
He on the other hand was curious about me too, and that was when I found myself in a bit of a dilemma. I never told anyone, well, any human who I was, what I was, and as much as I wanted to I couldn't find in myself the courage to tell him. He didn't seem like a man who would believe in fairy tales and I was worried that if I made him that he would never accept me for more than the creature I am. I was after all a predator on these seas, and while I certainly wasn't as evil as those many other things that lurked both in the deep and on dry land, I was surely not innocent either. Staring in his eyes I never failed to see his desire to protect, his will to make these seas safe for the people like me, the way he stared at me as if to reassure me that I would never suffer because of the filth that stalked the seas like hungry wolves ready to devour everything in their path, that I couldn't bring myself to tell him the truth in fear that he would hate me if I did. I couldn't stand the though of that. And so I made up a story of me being a merchant's daughter who lost her parents in an accident a while ago, who inherited a small fortune and was now just enjoying a quick holiday before she would have to find a way to earn a living, or something silly as that, I don't really remember, but he seemed to believe it. Sometimes though, I wonder if it was the right decision, and whether or not I would have saved him if only I opened his eyes to the supernatural, if me sacrificing the friendship that was growing between us would give him perhaps the insight not to do the same mistakes as he did, but thinking back on it all, I don't think anything could've changed his decisions about Jack Sparrow, not when his hatred was stronger that his reason. And still, it took me many years before I was able to put this heavy cloak of guilt aside and find true happiness in my memories.
