In the tavern, they sat at a round table with a dinner that Blue didn't think was particularly incredible. The three men with her were plenty happy with it, tales of battles entertaining them far more than the meal did.
The ship that their guests had targeted was known to work for the Gold Hoarders. After discussing it, they hid their ship behind one of the massive rocks that jutted out of the water and swam to the island they predicted it to go. Their guess had been right and from there they were able to get a good look at its deck and saw it glittering.
While Jackson had stayed at the island to keep an eye on their prey and be ready to disable it, Rylund and Marcus had merfolk take them back to their own ship. When the time came, somehow Jackson's role in all of it had gone wrong, hence his next boarding attempt being so overzealous and leading to the detonation of a gunpowder keg.
In a way, Blue thought this was all funny. The men laughed, too, but surely for different reasons.
"So we chased 'em all the way over here," Marcus had explained.
"They put up a good fight, though," Rylund said with a nod, followed by him stuffing his mouth.
Surely a brigantine that was capable of running for multiple days was not worth the hassle. Things having gone so wrong only served to prove her point further, though Blue refrained from voicing these thoughts.
Besides that, the men caught up on what they had missed in each other's absence. Rylund and Marcus were quite curious of how Z had spent his time — manning a brigantine with Jackson had been an amusing topic to them. How much time she and he had spent together seemed to surprise them.
"Wow, really?" Marcus had asked.
"Is there something wrong with that?" Blue was eager to know just what was going on in their heads.
"No, not at all," Rylund said.
"We get on pretty good," Z sternly stated.
Rylund countered, "Yeah, but normally you're runnin' with Jackson and maybe somebody else. Before then, you said ya ran with different crews all the time."
"So I prefer the consistency. What of it?"
"Yeah, but…" Marcus seemed to debate voicing this thought. "But Blue, are you really that new to here?"
She made a face. He recoiled slightly.
"While others have mentors or learn through the trial and errors of violence, I avoided both. That is all there is to it."
Rylund leaned forward. "But you talk and dress so well, you uh… Ya stick out like a sore thumb with us."
Blue looked at him, certainly long enough to make him wonder how she would chastise him. Instead, she looked expectantly at Z.
"Wh-What?" he shot. "So what? Y're good at sailin' and fightin' and thinkin' — y' fit in just fine far as I'm concerned!"
Blue looked from him to his friends and they looked at her.
"I am somehow both flattered and offended," she said.
They laughed; Z gave an exasperated sigh.
"I do indeed, as you say, stick out like a sore thumb."
"Y' look just fine in trousers," Z said. "An' y' ain't gonna trip on 'em neither."
"It's a bit more than that," Rylund explained cautiously. "We're all, like, uh —" he shrugged "— seasoned professionals."
"Uh huh?" Z looked at the other with a raised brow. He gestured to Marcus. "Should I remind y' how I found him and Jack t'gether? They've come a long way, and you with 'em."
"This is true," Marcus chimed in.
"Forgive me for butting in," Blue started; she was amused that Z was defending his stance of sticking around her, but… "It is not only that I do not look like I belong, but we have very different ideas of how to gather our riches."
"Yeah! Yea, that's what we're gettin' at," Rylund said with a pointed finger. "A, uh, uh… a different…"
"Differing philosophies," Blue said for him.
"Yeah, that!"
Z glanced at everyone at the table. "If we only ever worked with people we all shared the same exact ideas with, we'd've never gotten as far as we have when we sail t'gether. Now, enough'a whatever y're tryin' t' get at."
The two toothpicks looked at each other before nodding their understanding. Whatever they were trying to get at, Z wasn't about it and they… respected that? Blue wasn't quite sure if it was a case of them being polite or Z commanding that much obedience. She did get the feeling that his choice to mentor her wasn't unique to her, though.
"My turn to ask a question," Blue started, eager to change the subject; "How often is it that you lot sail together?"
"Mm, pretty often," Rylund said as he glanced at everyone. "We sort of change out who's out running about a lot depending on whose family needs them around. Or doesn't. Y'know, time apart's healthy and all that, that sort of thing."
It still surprised her that they had families. Though, that shouldn't have been so strange once she gave it a little more thought. All sorts of people existed — of course, some would be so like-minded that they would bond so deeply. Stranger bonds had happened before, too.
As the group spoke, Blue decided that they couldn't have been so bad. They were able to get along with one another, get along with others well enough to form families with them — anyone who could manage that certainly had some redeeming features. That Z had argued in favour of her presence had left her uncertain of where exactly they stood. The men were certainly friends — more than that? The thoughts lingering about her mind were not ones she was happy to be considering.
Then someone said something ridiculous and she wasn't sure that she had heard right.
"Wait, say again?"
"Well, we're stranded here without a ship, right?"
Blue took a deep breath in.
"We just wanna go to Thieves' Haven."
Why there, what could have potentially been there, Blue wanted to ask. She refrained when she recalled the original destination that Z had given her so long ago. Redeeming features or not, this was a lot that was never up to any good.
"I suppose that distance is a tolerable one," she said, poking at a piece of food on her plate. "Four people on a single sloop will be a miserable experience."
The men had a chuckle.
"I think we'll live," Z said.
Blue agreed with a strained, "We will manage."
Everyone got some sleep that night. How much exactly, Blue didn't know; she had turned in to her spot on the sloop's canopy just after sunset and slept through the night. The men, however, were not up at a decent hour. She wasn't surprised. What was surprising was finding the lot of them strewn about the rooftops. The two interlopers had draped themselves atop the tavern; it took her a while to find Z, spotting his pegleg hanging off the top of the water tower.
Blue decided against both waking them and asking any questions as neither would lead to anything good. Instead, she spent some time that morning entertaining herself, filling out the ship's log. How exciting the last two days had been.
Later in the morning, when she became more restless, Blue relocated to the tavern. She had herself a late kitchen-cooked breakfast while she waited still and had been finished with it for a short while when Rylund came through the doorway, followed by Marcus a moment later, and then Z. They all looked a little dishevelled but Z especially so.
"Good morning, you lot," she greeted, looking them up and down. They gave small responses as they sat down. "Had a rough night?"
Z looked unenthused by her interrogation. The other two seemed to get a kick out of it.
"Well, the time got away from us and the house grog isn't too bad," Marcus explained.
"Uh huh," she replied with a side-eyed glance. "And would you three like to eat something so we can get our day started?"
The two gave her a loud confirmation while Z simply got up to grab food for the three of them, almost before they had even responded. She wasn't sure of what to make of that — a sort of familiarity? Mere impatience? Whatever the case was, Blue didn't bother her shipmate about his mood and instead made pleasant conversation with their guests while the three of them ate.
After breakfast, everyone made sure they were not needing anything before departing the outpost. Being friendly enough with the Company, Blue haggled with the Merchant Alliance representative at the dock to sell what they needed to get rid of, primarily all the ammunition they had pulled out of the water. Z got himself a new pair of gloves that didn't look as though they were about to fall apart; his friends bought themselves nothing after inspecting the supplies carried aboard the sloop. Though there was quite a lot there and she said nothing of it, that hadn't sat quite right with Blue.
It was mid-day when they finally left the outpost and Blue decided that her place for the day would be at the helm, up on the quarter-deck away from them. They would be at Thieves' Haven until at least the next morning and she resented them slightly for that, but spending a good portion of time asleep would help pass the time. Then again, she got the feeling they would keep her up late into the night — or at least try to — and she became more certain of this as the day went on and their energy levels stayed high.
Or at least, Marcus' did. From her observations, Z got along with both men, both of them got along with him and each other, but Marcus and Z got on together best. While all three of them chatted throughout the day, it was Marcus who spoke the most. Anytime someone brought up something that reminded him of something else, he made a big deal out of recalling the story. Blue couldn't tell if he was peacocking about or not and his consistency had her unnerved.
Apparently, events like the one that had taken them to Plunder Outpost were not terribly uncommon. A story was told of how a four-strong group of them had abandoned their galleon and commandeered a brigantine reminded her of how Z and Jackson had ended up at Golden Sands Outpost on a different brigantine to the one she had seen them take off on. Near here, so long ago it seemed, Z had abandoned his sloop to exchange a chest for gold and then bother her.
Willingly losing ships, it seemed, was a running theme among this group.
"Do none of you have ships to call your own?" she blurted out.
Everyone paused to look at her, then each other, and then back to her.
"Uh, no, not really," Marcus responded sheepishly. "We're, uh…"
"We're aggressive think's the answer y're lookin' fer," Z said.
"Yeah, that."
Blue stood there at the helm and stared at them in disbelief. With the way some sailors spoke of their ships, it seemed crazy that none of them, absolutely no one, had a ship that they held dear to their heart. Blue was certain that had been a common theme among sailors, especially when she realised some time ago that the sloop that had been forced upon her had grown on her.
"We don't really need ships. A rowboat works, or swimmin', or somebody else's ship," Z added.
… and yet, how very resourceful and callous that simultaneously was.
"I see your point…"
"But y' don't agree with it."
Blue adjusted her grip on the wheel. "I… am not sure what I think about it."
That seemed to surprise him. With how often they were at odds with each other, she wasn't sure what to make of this situation, either. His words made sense, but to have no sentiments, or at least none strong enough to make them work to salvage a ship… it was an alien thought to her. Perhaps her understanding of pirates was not as thorough as she had believed. That, or the breed of pirate on these waters was made of a very different tack.
The rest of the time they spent sailing was just a little quieter. It seemed that no one was quite sure what to make of the subject change that Blue had brought up. Their fleeting attention made a new subject change easy. They also asked about the flotsam that she and Z had investigated; she explained how little there was to it and that she had been able to just barely spot the shadow of a ship too deep in the water to dive down to. The two of them seemed to get a kick out of that for some reason.
When they arrived at Thieves' Haven, the sun was touching the horizon, casting long shadows along the island. As Blue recalled the discussion she and Z had when they visited this place together about where to stop the ship, she wasn't entirely sure of what to do. Figuring they would be of his opinion, she decided to bring the sloop around the west side, stopping it against the southern entrance into the vast cavern the island made up. No one commented on it so she decided it must have been a good spot.
"Why did you want to come here?" Blue asked when there was a lull in the talking.
"It's a good spot," Rylund said with a certain degree of casualness that unnerved her.
"This place is close enough to Plunder that I figured you guys wouldn't mind taking us here," Marcus explained more thoroughly.
Blue couldn't believe what she was about to say, but… "Could you not simply wait at the outpost for another ship to come by? In fact, would that not have been preferable?"
"Maybe, but we're not about waiting around."
While her idea seemed a better option for men in their line of work, she could also believe that they were too impatient to stay in one place for very long. Then again, these men apparently had families… Well, that just raised some questions.
While she tied the sail ropes tight for the night, the other three disembarked from the sloop and started inland. Rylund paused to look back at her.
"You comin' with?"
"What for?"
"Well, we're gonna go look around the island, make sure it's clear of any nasties, and then… I dunno, hang out?"
Done with that rope, Blue leaned against the railing. "Well, I am quite tired. Go on without me."
"Well, all right." He paused. "You sure about that? We won't be bothering—"
"You will not bother me as long as you are not so boisterous around the ship. If you get thirsty, there is rum downstairs in the clothing chest."
"Oh." That got his attention. Something seemed to cross his mind. "Uh, your clothing chest? You su—"
"It is there because it is the safest place for it," she said casually, holding a hand up to silence him. "Take it if you want, it makes no difference to me," she said purely to be polite. "And before you ask: I sleep up here on the canopy because I like to."
"Oh. All right then." He hesitated to leave.
"… do you want me to get the rum for you?"
"Yes, please, ma'am."
She really should have seen that coming. Blue nodded to him and made her way downstairs, fished for it and gathered the crate up in her arms. When she came back topside, Rylund was patiently waiting beside the helm; the other two had disappeared deep into the island's jungle. The rum exchanged hands.
"I should be good to jump off here with this, right? It's not that far'a drop…"
"You should be good to make that one drop," Blue said with as much confidence as she could muster. A bottle or two might crack, perhaps even break, but…
He made the small jump to the island.
… thankfully, none did.
Blue watched as Rylund walked away from the ship with his new goods, a little bounce in his step. She hoped for the sake of the bottles that it didn't increase as he went through the island. Hopefully, the drink would keep them all plenty occupied.
Finally alone, Blue made her way to the desk. While all day had been spent chatting, the stories hadn't given her any meaningful new knowledge of the Sea of Thieves or told her anything significant about any of the men. There was really very little to make note of, and the most amusing moment — and by proxy the most interesting — of the day had just happened. She didn't have to write much before she exhausted all of her thoughts and satisfactorily detailed out the day.
With that taken care of, Blue set about retiring for the night. She changed her clothes, grabbed a favoured blanket, and settled down on the canopy of the Forlorn Phoenix. She lay there for a small while, contemplating just what the three men might have been doing on the island. It didn't seem to her that there was anything worth celebrating, perhaps each other's presence she supposed, but they didn't seem that close to each other… Perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps not. The thought lingered in her mind as she drifted off to sleep.
While everyone had gotten some sleep the night before, Blue was starting to think that she was the only one who had gotten a decent amount last night. When she decided it was time to get up, she spotted the three of them sitting about the main-deck and looking quite excited to see her rousing.
Getting breakfast started was a little different than usual, requiring double the amount of fish. That she did this at all seemed to catch their guests off guard, though they were quite happy to let her be when she insisted that she could manage the fish and bait alike.
Three small ancientscales were pulled from the water. On the fourth cast, a particularly large one took the bait and Blue found herself almost cutting the line out of frustration. In the time it would take to tire this one out, she could have caught another one, two, perhaps even three little ones. Rylund and Marcus cheered her on from the main-deck, however, and she found it in herself to pull it from the water. Considering their excitement, Blue didn't doubt that they'd be able to eat it anyway, especially when they let slip that they hadn't eaten last night. In the same breath, they stated that they had gotten some sleep, at least until the rising sun's light woke them.
As enthused as they had been about breakfast, they were less energetic than they had been yesterday, more soft-spoken, and that made her wonder…
"Did the three of you finish off that crate of rum last night?"
They all looked between each other and her. Z's expression was easy to read but it was Marcus who spoke.
"Nnoooo…?"
She sighed, just a little disappointed, though also slightly amused. And while she had their attention…
"And did all of you get a good amount of sleep?"
"Define a good amount'a sleep," Z said with some degree of defensiveness.
Blue gave him a knowing look from the quarter-deck. "I will take that to mean you got some sleep." It was almost a question, though one that she knew he wouldn't answer.
"I wish I'd've gotten more. This headache is awful," Rylund complained.
She made a mental note to serve them water coconuts and tea with breakfast.
They — mostly the guys — spent a little while longer talking about nothing in particular, merely enjoying each other's presence and a hearty meal. Jackson's untimely demise was lamented once more; Blue wondered how much time would pass before he met up with any of his family or the crew, and so did they.
"I suppose it is very unlikely that he will be finding any of you here," she said, hoping that statement and the mid-day sun would prompt them into leaving.
Rylund agreed, getting the hint and saying, "Yeah, we should be getting outta your guys' hair."
Marcus nodded. "Yeah. And we really appreciate you guys bringing us out here."
Something about his tone sounded off. Blue leaned forward. "… but?"
"But, uh, can we have the rowboat?"
Blue stared at him for a moment. Her kneejerk reaction was to say no but after so many comments of how useful rowboats could be… She looked at Z and he shrugged.
"I suppose we can spare it. You two need it more than we do, anyway."
"Thanks!" he said with a small laugh.
"Some food as well?"
That got a grin out of the two. "We'd appreciate it."
Blue nodded. "Go pick out what you want."
Rylund and Marcus both gave their thanks before making their way downstairs. Once again that was something that they would need more for themselves. Blue couldn't quite fathom travelling a far distance in a rowboat, and they… well, it seemed that they would be on one for the foreseeable future. For their sake, she hoped that they had a destination in plan.
While their two guests were downstairs, she and Z both expectantly looked at each other. She didn't have anything to outright say at that moment, and it seemed that neither did he. She looked forward to politely getting rid of their company and wondered if the same went for him.
Hearing them ascend the stairs, Blue went and met the two on the mid-deck; Z followed a moment later. Rylund and Marcus were finishing up by shoving a mixture of good fruits and fish into their pockets.
"We really appreciate this," Rylund reiterated.
"It is no problem," Blue said. "We are well stocked and can spare it."
"'Sides, we can't have the two'a you hangin' 'round forever," Z added. That got a snicker out of them.
Rylund and Z took each other's forearms into their grasp to say their goodbyes; Blue didn't notice Marcus next to her until she was being held. Shocked, she didn't get an opportunity to return the hug — not that she would have — and was placed back down, somewhat uneasy on her feet, though not so much that she didn't notice the stupid grin on Z's face. While she recovered, Z stepped away, trying to avoid the same treatment and failing. She and Rylund just looked at them with some amusement.
"All right, that's enough'a that," Z said, lacking some amount of dignity.
Marcus laughed as he stepped away, the other joining him. "We'll get outta here now."
Pleasant nods and spoken goodbyes were exchanged as the two of them climbed into the little rowboat. They looked ridiculous, Blue decided, and that using a rowboat for an extended period of time was doubly so. She said none of these things — what could even be said that wouldn't involve them staying aboard? — as they started rowing away and watched as they disappeared behind the island.
"Well, that was interesting," Blue said after a long moment. Z gave her an amused look that she ignored. "Shall we leave as well?"
To that he nodded. She stepped past him and went back up to the quarter-deck to do just that.
From Thieves' Haven, they sailed east. As they had departed late in the day and had no specific destination in mind, they stopped at the first island they reached: Mutineer Rock, a tiny little island. Besides, Z wasn't totally alert and that clued her in to the idea that he could use a full night's rest.
With dinner on the mind, Blue finally got a look at their food situation after offering to have it pilfered. As she already knew, their guests had taken some of the best and freshest items for themselves, but it was manageable. She wasn't surprised that they had left the water coconuts but appreciated it nonetheless. With that knowledge, she set about catching some fresh fish.
While she did that at the mid-deck, Z had moved onto the quarter-deck where she later joined him. A plate was handed off to him and they sat on the edge of the canopy as they so often did. It wasn't long until he shifted and she knew the silence was about to end.
"So what'd ya think of 'em?"
Blue refrained from sighing as hard as she wanted to. "They are… excitable. Nosy and presumptuous, but they are polite enough, even if that requires some… finessing."
He took on a thoughtful expression for a moment. "That's fair, I guess."
"Is there something specific I was supposed to think?"
"Jus' wonderin'. I sail with 'em a lot and y're uh… well, they ain't wrong 'bout you bein' a bit diff'rent t' them."
Blue couldn't help a whisper of a smirk. "What, having second thoughts about sailing with me now?"
His expression mirrored hers. "Y're not gettin' rid'a me that easily."