Author's Note - I shall forever sing the praises of a properly made croissant and a piping mug of jasmine green tea.
Sixteen
As dawn broke over the island in the same way that it had before and that it surely would again, Jack Sparrow was to be found -
"All right, love! That's enough! Just forget it!"
Umm ... pardon me?
"Look darling, we're no good to you without Will, are we? So you just rewind that bit and start again, and make sure Will saves us so we can play a decent part in this story! Savvy?"
Uh ... okay. Savvy.
Then, um, then I guess we'll try this again? Okay.
Ahem. Here we go.
Sixteen
Dana and Jones strolled down the street. It's very easy to say simply that, but in truth, there was much more to it.
The street was a street in Tortuga, and as such, it is possible to make several - and most likely correct - assumptions. Firstly, it can be assumed that Dana and Jones were not alone in the street. That assumption is an accurate one, because there were, in fact, many other people in the street. There were rather a lot of them.
A second assumption might be that, in keeping with the nature of Tortuga, the alcohol was flowing freely. As such, mugs were clapping together in cheers and brandy was wetting lips and beards and these many (many) people were becoming very (very) drunk.
Lastly, these numerous merry people were all of them displaying the correct attitude and demeanor recommended by Tortuga: they were all yelling and they were all breaking something. It can then be inferred that those people were in a rather rough mood that evening - though it wouldn't really have made much difference if it had been any other evening. So perhaps it would have been much more true to say that Dana and Jones fought their way down the street through a teeming, cursing, drunken mass of people.
Keeping all of that in mind, it's really not surprising what happened.
Jones was excited about showing Dana the bar where he had been employed when he was younger ("Ppffftttt ... younger," Dana snorted) and so Jones was threading a path to the door of the Bag End pub when he was stopped. A slim brunette had slunk into his way with clearly amorous intentions, then did a double-take and squealed with delight when she saw him.
"Jones!" she, well, squealed and threw her arms around his neck. "I can't believe it's you, darling!" And before Jones - or the bewildered Dana - could protest, she kissed him, long and hard, on the mouth.
Blue eyes wide, Jones grabbed hold of her upper arms in order to detach her from his face. At the same time, a large (aren't they always?) pot-bellied man with a wild shock of hair that seemed to have crept onto his face and formed a beard, appeared. He laid his watery, bloodshot eyes on the spectacle of his - another very probably correct assumption - lady smooching another man. Another short-and-easily-squashable man.
"Oi!" he bellowed, and Dana would have allowed herself to be rocked back on her heels by the force of his voice if she hadn't seen the glint of gun metal at his belt. Quicker than quick, she realized the direction this encounter might take, and she slipped the angry man's gun from his belt with the finely polished motion of a thief. There, she thought: if this should turn ugly, three guns for Dana and zero for the poorly groomed gentleman.
"What're ya doin' wif me girl?" he boomed, and swept the spluttering wench into his embrace wif, er, with one beefy arm.
Now that he could breathe, Jones did not seem so flustered. "Delilah and I used to be good friends. And besides, she kissed me, not the other way around."
The man did not seem convinced, and as seems to naturally happen during such times, a gaggle of his goony friends picked up the scent of a fight and elbowed their way over. "Wot's wrong 'ere, Tommy?" one growled. The man - Tommy - narrowed his eyes at Jones.
"This 'ere boy's been pawin' at me Delilah."
"Your Delilah?" another, heavily tattooed man said. "That's not right at all."
"What's all this 'my' and 'your' business anyway," said Dana, evidently a touch too loudly. "From what I've heard, it's against the rules in Tortuga to form a monogamous* relationship with anyone."
With large, incredulous eyes, the scruffy gang turned to Dana, as though noticing her for the first time. She regarded them in turn. "I don't know who ye be, little miss," Tommy warned, brandishing a sausage-sized finger at her, "but unless ye'd like yer turn after this miniature man here, I suggest ye keep t'yer own business." There was an ominous cracking of knuckles from the man at his side and a muttering of agreement from the rest.
Dana still had Tommy's gun in her hand. She spun it through her fingers now, and presented it to him handle first. "Then you'll probably be needing this in order to take care of your business. But I warn you, sir. Point it at my friend, and you and your associates will find yourselves in more trouble than you thought you'd be in tonight."
Tommy's mouth creaked open in a smile. He was missing several of his teeth. "And if I point it at you, little thief?"
Dana smiled too. She had all of her teeth. "That's why I'm giving it back to you. You ~are~ going to point it at me, and it's going to be in your last, laughable, attempt at self-defense."
There was a hearty 'ho ho ho!' from all around Dana and Jones, but Tommy made no move to take back his gun. Dana clucked her tongue and shook her head. "I didn't peg you for a cowardly man, Tommy. But I suppose if you don't want to take it back - "
Tommy suddenly made a swipe at Dana's hand, and following that, several things happened at once.
Dana, who found both hands abruptly empty, immediately and gleefully filled them with her own pistols. Pip vacated her shoulder. Tommy pulled back the hammer on his own pistol, and Delilah fled deep into the crowded Tortugan street until she was out of sight. Jones, eyes blazing, punched the tattooed man solidly twice in the stomach and he doubled over. That all happened first.
Here is what happened next: Jones delivered - what he proudly considered - a perfectly executed left jab to the tattooed man's nose and a right hook under his chin, causing both to erupt in scarlet. Dana had cocked and readied both of her own pistols and brought them to meet Tommy's chest behind his outstretched arm and half as many pistols. Two large men descended on Jones from behind.
Keeping up? Good, I'll introduce the third step of this, the Tortugan Waltz: those two men laid hold of Jones, though they nearly had to bend over to do so. Tommy's finger tightened on his trigger, then slackened because Dana's fingers had tightened faster. Both Tommy and Tattooed Man fell into heaps on the ground.
Lastly: Dana, eyes watering from the acrid gunsmoke, turned to Jones, and was as surprised as his would-be assailants to discover that he was no longer there. All of this had happened so quickly that Dana's heart had barely sped to more than its contented pace, and so neither did it startle her when her sleeve was tugged in the direction of 'away' by someone she could not see. She blinked the tears from her eyes, and found herself immersed in the crowded street. She wove between and ducked underneath arms and arms, then started to slow as the scene of Tommy's demise and Tattoo's bludgeoning was left, unnoticed by everyone and everything else, amidst the din. She slid her still-warm pistols back into their holsters and looked around for Jones.
She opened her mouth to call for him - useless as she knew it would be among the multitude of voices the air was heavy with - and was startled to find that he was already at her elbow and speaking. "Leave the talk for later. It would be best to disappear for a bit right now." His hair and eyes were slightly wild.
He put one hand on her arm to tug her through the crowd, and as they fought their way through the throng, his other hand - she noticed distractedly - fumbled something back inside his buttoned shirt. For the second time, the wink and sparkle of a metal chain on Jones' neck caught Dana's eye. But as soon as she thought she saw it, it was gone, and the saying of 'out of sight out of mind' held true for the gun maker who was led this way and that down the street.
Jones had come abruptly to a door - Dana had hardly noticed them approaching the building - and had opened it.
The inside was brighter than the exterior Tortugan evening, and Dana blinked several times as Jones (without relinguishing his hold on her arm) led to a table that was - time to act surprised and not analyze too much how convenient this always seems - nestled in the relatively uncrowded and infamous back corner. Unnoticed, they sat.
"Well, that was interesting," said Jones brightly. He tore a thin length of material from his shirt sleeve and proceeded to bind it around his knuckles, which, Dana now noticed, were bleeding steadily. "You did very well back there. A proper welcome to Tortuga, wasn't it?"
Dana nodded and absently wondered what Pip had gotten himself into. "Did you know any of those men?"
Jones shook his head. "You don't need to here. I knew - at one point - Delilah, and that was enough for everyone."
"That's amazing. If things like that happen to us when we're just walking down the street -"
" - then what in the world could be happening to Will?" he finished. "Excellent question. But I have no clue."
"We shouldn't have left him." Dana sighed and leaned back in her chair. "That was so stupid of me." She tipped her head back and studied the wooden ceiling.
Jones tried to be reassuring. "You know he'll be fine ... probably." Dana didn't look at him.
"I just wasn't thinking." She sounded angry. "I don't know what I'll do if Roberts kills him! I need Will."
Jones cleared his throat and studied the handiwork of his bandaged knuckles in silence. After a moment he said, "Do ... are you and Will ... ?" He trailed off, cheeks flushing. Dana straightened in her chair.
"What? Oh, Jones, no. No. It's just that - "
Just then, and with a swirl of skirts and dark hair, a familiar figure dropped into the remaining chair at the table.
Leave it to Carine to spoil a potentially interesting moment.
"Oh, you Flint!" she crowed, ignoring completely the startled Jones. "Just 'oo d'you think you are? Eh?" Dana, Jones thought, looked decidedly less than thrilled at the unlikely appearance of this lady.
"How - uh, Carine, how did you get here?"
Carine shook a finger at her and she flinched. "Oh, Carine's got 'er ways, don't you doubt that, you thievin' little 'ooligan. Where's me William?"
"Will? I don't know." Carine paused in mid-fingershake.
"Wot? You mean 'ee's not wi' you?"
Dana shook her head. "We had sort of ... a quarrel. We went our separate ways for a bit. I have no idea where he's gone."
Carine considered this. Jones looked her over as she did. "You know, you look a little familiar." She glanced up, saw him and decided to look longer than a mere glance allowed, and smiled.
"Name's Carine Cash - bookkeeper an' cook o' the Poco back in Port Royale."
Jones nodded. "I know the Poco. Nice little place. Good food there." Carine beamed, and Dana rolled her eyes.
"Speaking of Port Royale," she put in before Carine could gloat, "why aren't you in Port Royale?"
Carine's triumphant grin faded and was replaced with an indignant sniff. "Well it's your fault, really. There I was, runnin' the Poco as usual when days pass an' pass and there's no word from me sister. Melanie Cash is me sister, you see," she said to Jones. "An wot's more, she sends me letters a few times o'week, wot wif 'er bein' in such a dangerous line o' work an all. So I says to meself, 'Where's that Will? 'Ee's the one 'oo sent 'er out on this last job, and so 'ee's the one I should be seein' if she don't come back and don't send me nothin'.'
So off I go, look look look, an there's not a William to be found. 'This is surely strange,' says I, 'for no man would up an disappear from a nice place like our Port, especially wif cookin' like mine to see 'im through each day.'" She looked pointedly at Dana. "Leastways, not one 'oo's in 'is right mind." Dana coughed. It sounded like a chuckle.
Carine continued: "'Carine, Carine,' I says again to meself. 'Where's that no-good-boots-on-me-table Dana Flint? I bet she's got me William somewhere.' So around and around I looks, and do I find a Flint? Not a one, not a bit. Well, things are turning just luverly fer old Carine, wot wif no sister and missin' Will an Flint." She leaned close into the table, as though imparting a great secret. "So off I go to the dock and put some coins in the right pockets to find out where you've run off to wifout so much as a by-your-leave. And now I've found you, but I think you're one Willaim short."
"I think your accent is getting stronger," Dana remarked.
"Nonsense. The author's just getting' the 'ang o' writin' it.." She paused and turned serious. "Do you 'ave any idea wot's befallen me sister, Flint?" she ventured quietly. "I am worried."
"I wish I had an answer for you, Carine. All I have is an idea. Will mentioned something about her finding Jack, but then being marooned." She laughed, a short bark. "Would you believe that's why we're here? To go and find her?"
"Wifout Will?"
"It wasn't my idea - it was his. But yes, now that you mention it, it does seem very foolish to have let him wander off on his own." She grit her teeth. "To wander off, indeed. And now we don't even know where he's going."
Jones cleared his throat. "Regretting what we've done won't change that it happened. We'll find him, Dana."
She looked strained, but nodded in agreement. "In the meantime, Carine, just how did you get here?"
"Oh that? That was the easiest part, dearie. This gent Fraser's a regular at me Poco, and a few days before 'ee'd mentioned to me that 'ee'd gotten a new job over 'ere in Tortuga. I went wif 'im."
"What sort of job did he get?" Jones asked conversationally, and yawned.
Carine scrunched up her face in thought. "Mmm ... ee was goin' to be mannin' the rigs on a boat. A ship run by a Roberts fellow. I thought the name sounded a bi' familiar, but I didn't think to ask 'im. Last o' that 'ee said was the fact that 'ee was meetin' 'is new Cap at the Cliffs of Insanity hostel." She stopped, then looked at each of them. Jones' eyes were wide and Dana's mouth had dropped open. "Wish I could be more 'elpful, loves."
"Oh," Dana managed to get out. "I think you've done plenty, Carine."
"You did," agreed Jones. "Now all that's left is to get ready for the exciting chapter."
Carine grinned. "What wonderful timin'!"
* For those of you who haven't already clicked on the Dictionary function (you can do that you know, and you all should much more often to make sure all these authors are using their words properly)'monogamous' means an exclusive, one-on-one relationship. Not the stuff of port-towns, methinks.
Sixteen
As dawn broke over the island in the same way that it had before and that it surely would again, Jack Sparrow was to be found -
"All right, love! That's enough! Just forget it!"
Umm ... pardon me?
"Look darling, we're no good to you without Will, are we? So you just rewind that bit and start again, and make sure Will saves us so we can play a decent part in this story! Savvy?"
Uh ... okay. Savvy.
Then, um, then I guess we'll try this again? Okay.
Ahem. Here we go.
Sixteen
Dana and Jones strolled down the street. It's very easy to say simply that, but in truth, there was much more to it.
The street was a street in Tortuga, and as such, it is possible to make several - and most likely correct - assumptions. Firstly, it can be assumed that Dana and Jones were not alone in the street. That assumption is an accurate one, because there were, in fact, many other people in the street. There were rather a lot of them.
A second assumption might be that, in keeping with the nature of Tortuga, the alcohol was flowing freely. As such, mugs were clapping together in cheers and brandy was wetting lips and beards and these many (many) people were becoming very (very) drunk.
Lastly, these numerous merry people were all of them displaying the correct attitude and demeanor recommended by Tortuga: they were all yelling and they were all breaking something. It can then be inferred that those people were in a rather rough mood that evening - though it wouldn't really have made much difference if it had been any other evening. So perhaps it would have been much more true to say that Dana and Jones fought their way down the street through a teeming, cursing, drunken mass of people.
Keeping all of that in mind, it's really not surprising what happened.
Jones was excited about showing Dana the bar where he had been employed when he was younger ("Ppffftttt ... younger," Dana snorted) and so Jones was threading a path to the door of the Bag End pub when he was stopped. A slim brunette had slunk into his way with clearly amorous intentions, then did a double-take and squealed with delight when she saw him.
"Jones!" she, well, squealed and threw her arms around his neck. "I can't believe it's you, darling!" And before Jones - or the bewildered Dana - could protest, she kissed him, long and hard, on the mouth.
Blue eyes wide, Jones grabbed hold of her upper arms in order to detach her from his face. At the same time, a large (aren't they always?) pot-bellied man with a wild shock of hair that seemed to have crept onto his face and formed a beard, appeared. He laid his watery, bloodshot eyes on the spectacle of his - another very probably correct assumption - lady smooching another man. Another short-and-easily-squashable man.
"Oi!" he bellowed, and Dana would have allowed herself to be rocked back on her heels by the force of his voice if she hadn't seen the glint of gun metal at his belt. Quicker than quick, she realized the direction this encounter might take, and she slipped the angry man's gun from his belt with the finely polished motion of a thief. There, she thought: if this should turn ugly, three guns for Dana and zero for the poorly groomed gentleman.
"What're ya doin' wif me girl?" he boomed, and swept the spluttering wench into his embrace wif, er, with one beefy arm.
Now that he could breathe, Jones did not seem so flustered. "Delilah and I used to be good friends. And besides, she kissed me, not the other way around."
The man did not seem convinced, and as seems to naturally happen during such times, a gaggle of his goony friends picked up the scent of a fight and elbowed their way over. "Wot's wrong 'ere, Tommy?" one growled. The man - Tommy - narrowed his eyes at Jones.
"This 'ere boy's been pawin' at me Delilah."
"Your Delilah?" another, heavily tattooed man said. "That's not right at all."
"What's all this 'my' and 'your' business anyway," said Dana, evidently a touch too loudly. "From what I've heard, it's against the rules in Tortuga to form a monogamous* relationship with anyone."
With large, incredulous eyes, the scruffy gang turned to Dana, as though noticing her for the first time. She regarded them in turn. "I don't know who ye be, little miss," Tommy warned, brandishing a sausage-sized finger at her, "but unless ye'd like yer turn after this miniature man here, I suggest ye keep t'yer own business." There was an ominous cracking of knuckles from the man at his side and a muttering of agreement from the rest.
Dana still had Tommy's gun in her hand. She spun it through her fingers now, and presented it to him handle first. "Then you'll probably be needing this in order to take care of your business. But I warn you, sir. Point it at my friend, and you and your associates will find yourselves in more trouble than you thought you'd be in tonight."
Tommy's mouth creaked open in a smile. He was missing several of his teeth. "And if I point it at you, little thief?"
Dana smiled too. She had all of her teeth. "That's why I'm giving it back to you. You ~are~ going to point it at me, and it's going to be in your last, laughable, attempt at self-defense."
There was a hearty 'ho ho ho!' from all around Dana and Jones, but Tommy made no move to take back his gun. Dana clucked her tongue and shook her head. "I didn't peg you for a cowardly man, Tommy. But I suppose if you don't want to take it back - "
Tommy suddenly made a swipe at Dana's hand, and following that, several things happened at once.
Dana, who found both hands abruptly empty, immediately and gleefully filled them with her own pistols. Pip vacated her shoulder. Tommy pulled back the hammer on his own pistol, and Delilah fled deep into the crowded Tortugan street until she was out of sight. Jones, eyes blazing, punched the tattooed man solidly twice in the stomach and he doubled over. That all happened first.
Here is what happened next: Jones delivered - what he proudly considered - a perfectly executed left jab to the tattooed man's nose and a right hook under his chin, causing both to erupt in scarlet. Dana had cocked and readied both of her own pistols and brought them to meet Tommy's chest behind his outstretched arm and half as many pistols. Two large men descended on Jones from behind.
Keeping up? Good, I'll introduce the third step of this, the Tortugan Waltz: those two men laid hold of Jones, though they nearly had to bend over to do so. Tommy's finger tightened on his trigger, then slackened because Dana's fingers had tightened faster. Both Tommy and Tattooed Man fell into heaps on the ground.
Lastly: Dana, eyes watering from the acrid gunsmoke, turned to Jones, and was as surprised as his would-be assailants to discover that he was no longer there. All of this had happened so quickly that Dana's heart had barely sped to more than its contented pace, and so neither did it startle her when her sleeve was tugged in the direction of 'away' by someone she could not see. She blinked the tears from her eyes, and found herself immersed in the crowded street. She wove between and ducked underneath arms and arms, then started to slow as the scene of Tommy's demise and Tattoo's bludgeoning was left, unnoticed by everyone and everything else, amidst the din. She slid her still-warm pistols back into their holsters and looked around for Jones.
She opened her mouth to call for him - useless as she knew it would be among the multitude of voices the air was heavy with - and was startled to find that he was already at her elbow and speaking. "Leave the talk for later. It would be best to disappear for a bit right now." His hair and eyes were slightly wild.
He put one hand on her arm to tug her through the crowd, and as they fought their way through the throng, his other hand - she noticed distractedly - fumbled something back inside his buttoned shirt. For the second time, the wink and sparkle of a metal chain on Jones' neck caught Dana's eye. But as soon as she thought she saw it, it was gone, and the saying of 'out of sight out of mind' held true for the gun maker who was led this way and that down the street.
Jones had come abruptly to a door - Dana had hardly noticed them approaching the building - and had opened it.
The inside was brighter than the exterior Tortugan evening, and Dana blinked several times as Jones (without relinguishing his hold on her arm) led to a table that was - time to act surprised and not analyze too much how convenient this always seems - nestled in the relatively uncrowded and infamous back corner. Unnoticed, they sat.
"Well, that was interesting," said Jones brightly. He tore a thin length of material from his shirt sleeve and proceeded to bind it around his knuckles, which, Dana now noticed, were bleeding steadily. "You did very well back there. A proper welcome to Tortuga, wasn't it?"
Dana nodded and absently wondered what Pip had gotten himself into. "Did you know any of those men?"
Jones shook his head. "You don't need to here. I knew - at one point - Delilah, and that was enough for everyone."
"That's amazing. If things like that happen to us when we're just walking down the street -"
" - then what in the world could be happening to Will?" he finished. "Excellent question. But I have no clue."
"We shouldn't have left him." Dana sighed and leaned back in her chair. "That was so stupid of me." She tipped her head back and studied the wooden ceiling.
Jones tried to be reassuring. "You know he'll be fine ... probably." Dana didn't look at him.
"I just wasn't thinking." She sounded angry. "I don't know what I'll do if Roberts kills him! I need Will."
Jones cleared his throat and studied the handiwork of his bandaged knuckles in silence. After a moment he said, "Do ... are you and Will ... ?" He trailed off, cheeks flushing. Dana straightened in her chair.
"What? Oh, Jones, no. No. It's just that - "
Just then, and with a swirl of skirts and dark hair, a familiar figure dropped into the remaining chair at the table.
Leave it to Carine to spoil a potentially interesting moment.
"Oh, you Flint!" she crowed, ignoring completely the startled Jones. "Just 'oo d'you think you are? Eh?" Dana, Jones thought, looked decidedly less than thrilled at the unlikely appearance of this lady.
"How - uh, Carine, how did you get here?"
Carine shook a finger at her and she flinched. "Oh, Carine's got 'er ways, don't you doubt that, you thievin' little 'ooligan. Where's me William?"
"Will? I don't know." Carine paused in mid-fingershake.
"Wot? You mean 'ee's not wi' you?"
Dana shook her head. "We had sort of ... a quarrel. We went our separate ways for a bit. I have no idea where he's gone."
Carine considered this. Jones looked her over as she did. "You know, you look a little familiar." She glanced up, saw him and decided to look longer than a mere glance allowed, and smiled.
"Name's Carine Cash - bookkeeper an' cook o' the Poco back in Port Royale."
Jones nodded. "I know the Poco. Nice little place. Good food there." Carine beamed, and Dana rolled her eyes.
"Speaking of Port Royale," she put in before Carine could gloat, "why aren't you in Port Royale?"
Carine's triumphant grin faded and was replaced with an indignant sniff. "Well it's your fault, really. There I was, runnin' the Poco as usual when days pass an' pass and there's no word from me sister. Melanie Cash is me sister, you see," she said to Jones. "An wot's more, she sends me letters a few times o'week, wot wif 'er bein' in such a dangerous line o' work an all. So I says to meself, 'Where's that Will? 'Ee's the one 'oo sent 'er out on this last job, and so 'ee's the one I should be seein' if she don't come back and don't send me nothin'.'
So off I go, look look look, an there's not a William to be found. 'This is surely strange,' says I, 'for no man would up an disappear from a nice place like our Port, especially wif cookin' like mine to see 'im through each day.'" She looked pointedly at Dana. "Leastways, not one 'oo's in 'is right mind." Dana coughed. It sounded like a chuckle.
Carine continued: "'Carine, Carine,' I says again to meself. 'Where's that no-good-boots-on-me-table Dana Flint? I bet she's got me William somewhere.' So around and around I looks, and do I find a Flint? Not a one, not a bit. Well, things are turning just luverly fer old Carine, wot wif no sister and missin' Will an Flint." She leaned close into the table, as though imparting a great secret. "So off I go to the dock and put some coins in the right pockets to find out where you've run off to wifout so much as a by-your-leave. And now I've found you, but I think you're one Willaim short."
"I think your accent is getting stronger," Dana remarked.
"Nonsense. The author's just getting' the 'ang o' writin' it.." She paused and turned serious. "Do you 'ave any idea wot's befallen me sister, Flint?" she ventured quietly. "I am worried."
"I wish I had an answer for you, Carine. All I have is an idea. Will mentioned something about her finding Jack, but then being marooned." She laughed, a short bark. "Would you believe that's why we're here? To go and find her?"
"Wifout Will?"
"It wasn't my idea - it was his. But yes, now that you mention it, it does seem very foolish to have let him wander off on his own." She grit her teeth. "To wander off, indeed. And now we don't even know where he's going."
Jones cleared his throat. "Regretting what we've done won't change that it happened. We'll find him, Dana."
She looked strained, but nodded in agreement. "In the meantime, Carine, just how did you get here?"
"Oh that? That was the easiest part, dearie. This gent Fraser's a regular at me Poco, and a few days before 'ee'd mentioned to me that 'ee'd gotten a new job over 'ere in Tortuga. I went wif 'im."
"What sort of job did he get?" Jones asked conversationally, and yawned.
Carine scrunched up her face in thought. "Mmm ... ee was goin' to be mannin' the rigs on a boat. A ship run by a Roberts fellow. I thought the name sounded a bi' familiar, but I didn't think to ask 'im. Last o' that 'ee said was the fact that 'ee was meetin' 'is new Cap at the Cliffs of Insanity hostel." She stopped, then looked at each of them. Jones' eyes were wide and Dana's mouth had dropped open. "Wish I could be more 'elpful, loves."
"Oh," Dana managed to get out. "I think you've done plenty, Carine."
"You did," agreed Jones. "Now all that's left is to get ready for the exciting chapter."
Carine grinned. "What wonderful timin'!"
* For those of you who haven't already clicked on the Dictionary function (you can do that you know, and you all should much more often to make sure all these authors are using their words properly)'monogamous' means an exclusive, one-on-one relationship. Not the stuff of port-towns, methinks.