A/N: Another drabble from the Broken Compass. The prompt was "justice."
Pintel squinted at the girl, who was trying to remain invisible beneath the tavern table, despite the fact that tears had trudged their silent ways down her cheeks. "Oi there!" he barked, wanting to enjoy his rum without nagging pity. "Get yourself back to your mum, eh?"
The girl merely shook her head and began to cry harder. Huffing and rapidly turning red, Pintel grabbed his nephew's arm and yanked gangly Ragetti down to the girl's height. "Fix her!" he ordered, a slight edge of worry to his voice.
Ragetti reached a hand to the child, who sniffed softly but took it. She looked to be Barbadian in descent, Ragetti reasoned.
The girl clutched a doll hastily tied together from old bits of cloth in her right hand. "That's mystical jumbo, that," Pintel sniffed. "Fancy giving it to a child!"
"It's not just jumbo," Ragetti mumbled, half to the girl and half to himself.
"Just because you believe that old sea witch's stories, now you're qualified to tell what's jumbo and what's not?" Pintel took a deep sip of his rum and eyed the girl. "Trust me, there ain't nothing I know better than mystic-magic-jumbo, and that's it."
Ragetti picked the girl up and sat her gently on a bench. "You're not doing it justice," he said, taking the doll from the child's loose hand. "You got to tell her story right."
She was no longer crying, but rather looking inquisitively at the narrow man and his missing eye. Tugging gently on his sleeve, she pointed at the doll, a question on her face.
Ragetti, smoothing the doll's crackling grass hair, sat down beside the girl as his uncle grumbled to his rum. "Well," he began, his voice serious, as to remember all the details, "There was once a man in love with the sea."
