Back Story

Easy you tell yourself. A common emotional response that you have never allowed yourself. You’re crying.

You see through your tears the form of Paco over the rail. He is waving a seashell in a weird pattern and the water around you begins to whirl and lift you up, up and over the deck. You manage to wipe your head and face of the water and tears before anyone can see you closely. With the second splash of the day, you land on deck. You look around. Dukalu must have been on a shore boat. Everyone else is on deck watching you. The goons are a bit listless as if they did not know what to do without direction.

The crew responds to your command. Poca nods and leaves. You stand alone, wet.

Dinner was light as long as no one mentioned anything about today’s main event. Dukalu came back from a shore trip to get more bamboo for Poca. You half expected him to race up to you as soon as someone told him, but he didn’t. You have me all kinds of excuses for not coming to you, all of them practical and plausible and necessary and safe. That still didn’t matter deep down. At the first of dinner he did come up to you and put his hand at the base of your neck and Slowly he moved his gentle hands up under your hair, to hold your brunette hair to his mouth and nose. Hmmm Azul’s bath salts smell so good. He was joking and performing for the crowd, but this time you could see deep concern in his eyes as he cajoled. It didn’t take much at all to see that he sensed danger and he needed to say something because saying nothing in public earshot would be even more dangerous. He let 7 bells go by, and he poured one pass of grog and locked the rest away. There were groans from the pirates but no open complaints. Everyone was under a great deal of strain. He bid everyone a good night and left. You thought he was going to just leave without even a glance, but just as he closed the door he did look back. Your eyes locked. Everything was spoken.