Setting Sail 13- Talk of the Town

Mopping up had taken about as long as he had expected. The scant drops of blood were cleaned within the first ten swirls. Wringing it out in the bucket took even less time. Simple and clean, the deck was back to how it should be. It practically sparkled under the afternoon sun. Pauline had been intently watching him the whole time. No longer scribbling notes, now just staring and failing to hide that she was staring. Hopefully she wouldn’t be on the voyage with them. As attractive as she was, being stared at like a cut of meat was starting to become unnerving. At least when Beatrice did it he knew she was probably about to flirt with him or steal a kiss. Leaning on the mop now he waved up at Captain Tellish. The gruff man gave him a curt nod. That was more or less code for him being told to go home. Without being able to go out and catch fish, there was little for him to take direct charge of. Unless he wanted to swab the entire deck repeatedly, it was best to get a move on. As his feet fell across the deck Pauline initially walked with him. Once she realized he was leaving she stopped. Naval duty preventing her from leaving the deck they were surveying. A sly smirk came across his face.

“I’ll see ye around Polly, do keep the gracious pearl company in my absence!” He called over his shoulder and heard an annoyed huff from the redhead. He laughed to himself while walking the length of the dock. It had gotten significantly warmer today. A warm breeze blew past and carried the smells of the mixed spices and sea salt. A deep breath filled his lungs, and he found himself content again. He needed to find a way to enjoy his time on the island while he still had it. Time to be a social butterfly.

Waving at the friendly faces as he passed them, he embraced Thellin warmly. A few times he stopped to talk with strangers just about the weather, about his new shirt, or just what kind of bait to use while fishing. On his little stroll a child’s ball ended up rolling in front of him after a stray kick. Dribbling it between his feet he gave a gentle pass so they could resume their game of kicking it around the street. He waved as they thanked him and continued on. The cobblestone gave way to packed dirt and loose rocks. His shack stood in the distance, clearly waiting on his return. He swung the door open to let Daisy out, but the hound simply remained curled up on her bed. Beatrice was sitting at his dinner table and idly whittling something.

“Oh, Bea, yer here. How’s it going darlin’?” He greeted her casually, she glanced up at him and gave a warm smile. Her hair was down rather than in her usual long braid. It worked for her, framing her face nicely as it fell neatly to the small of her back. A small scattering of bones on the table made the reasoning for the change in appearance clear, she needed to make new hair pins and wanted a clearer reference.

“Hi Wilkes, you’re home early. Did dad not take the pearl out onto the water?” She was excited to see him, but still focused on her whittling. Daisy raised her head from her nap to look at him, then just slowly lowered back down to go back to napping. She was so cute when sleepy.

“Nope, the navy’s doing a survey on us. Think they wanna give us an escort to Osan rather than just leave us be.” Wilkes mused, pulling up a chair at the table. She raised an eyebrow at that and he simply shrugged.

“Can I ask you something, Wilkes?” Beatrice set down the bone and her knife with a soft clinking on the table. She reached across the table and took his hands in her own. She seemed nervous, and had waited for him in his house.

“Of course, is everything alright?” Wilkes’s mind began to race at a mile a minute. Her hands fidgeted with his own. The worst conclusion immediately snuck up on him. She was going to ask to end things. To let him be single on the voyage out, and she’d be here.

“Yes, better than alright really. I spoke with Hannah earlier. About her feelings, your feelings, my feelings.” She flushed a bit at that. “Would you mind going on a date with her? I can share you, and I understand if you don’t want to be shared, but it would mean a lot to her. As a closure thing.”

The gears in his mind ground to a halt. His lover, his courtship, his Beatrice had just asked him to take another woman on a date. He stared at her, lovingly but blankly for a few seconds. Hannah was cute. He had said she would make a good wife one day. Beatrice had mentioned being okay with him lying with other women. She was now asking him to potentially court another woman.

“Uh, I could, I guess?” He was still confused, but she seemed to want this from him. Sure as a younger lad he had dreamed about having multiple women in his bed at once. However the practicality of it now loomed over him. If Erik was the man of will at his wedding would he be willing to do it repeatedly or would he need a new one each time? He ran a hand through his shaggy hair. He was overdue to have it cut, it was nearly to his shoulders rather than just covering the top of his neck now. If he was going to go on a date that seemed to be the proper thing to do. That and shave. “I know you prefer me looking scruffy Bea, but would you mind if I cut my hair and got a quick shave?”

She blinked. Then her smile turned from warm to sly. A smug look took over her face. “Tell ya what handsome, I’ll trim your growing beard. Though, you’re going to keep some stubble.”

She lifted the knife from the table, twirling it idly. Stalking behind him she began to massage his shoulders. Her bust pressed against the back of his head. Holding his chin, she began to shave down his facial hair. The angle she was working with left his face covered in five o’clock shadow. The hair he had grown accustomed to stroking while thinking was reduced to bristles. With a small kiss to the top of his head she let him know she was done. The hair went uncut. Judging from the look she gave him there was no argument to make there. The huntress wanted a man who seemingly just wandered in from the wilds. Fine by him.

Before he left he took a long hard look at her. Cold feet snuck up on him and swapped out his usual gait. The threshold of his house seemed an impossible terrain to cross. There was something about how she sat at that table, in the chair his mother used to fill. He couldn’t bring himself to go adding another woman yet until he really knew she was okay with it.

“Bea, ye said you talked to her about everyone’s feelings right?” Wilkes asked softly. His hand rest on the front doorway. He glanced back at her, a beam of sunlight from the afternoon bathing her green skin in a shine of gold. “Did you really talk to her about your’s?”

There was a quiet moment that fell over the little shack. Daisy’s snoring was the only sound filling the room. Distant cries of gulls and the crashing of waves reminded him there was a world outside. Somehow he felt like he was standing on the edge of the deck and about to jump into choppy waters if he did this.

“I did, I promise you. I just… it doesn’t fully feel right I guess? To have someone as great as you to myself when I have everything else. Obviously I want you, I deserve you, and I love you. I’m just not entirely sure I can be the only one for you.” Beatrice spoke slowly. As if she had to wash her mouth out after each sentence. There was a pain in her eyes, beneath a the welling of tears. His feet warmed immediately and he moved to her. Wrapping around her in a warm embrace.

“I am only going to go on this date if you’re going to be alright with it. I don’t want anyone besides you in the long term. We talked about me finding women to lay with only in your absence. As it stands you’re currently very present.” Wilkes reassured her from behind.

“Wilkes, I can be a part of a harem for you. I think I can anyway, I won’t really know until it happens.” Beatrice spoke plainly, she still seemed nervous but almost reserved at the same time. Like she had already braced for a heavy blow.

“Until you tell me to go, I’m staying right here.” He said softly into the top of her head. She didn’t respond for a while. One of her hands rose up to cling onto the arms wrapped around her. He noticed the trembling as she clung like that. In his gut he knew what caused it. A prophecy that the sailor she loved would leave her for someone with great knowledge. He could see the chain of events in her mind now. It clicked into place like a wicked puzzle. He planted a kiss on the crown of her head. The tears started.

“I… I just want to be good enough. And you’re about to sail away to a continent of all things, somewhere they have proper schools, proper educations, where all of the women will possess great knowledge in their fields. I’m fine with Hannah, I’d even be fine with Meryl, but just not some woman you find over there.”

“Beatrice, you are good enough. I’ll prove it, I was gonna wait until I asked your father first, but screw it. He can try to kill me about it later.” Wilkes let go of her and got down on one knee in his humble shack. With only Daisy as his witness he took her left hand in both of his and kissed the back of it. “After the mainland voyage, and after Erik has had his wedding, I’m going to marry you.”

Beatrice tackled him in a hug. The pair once again rolling on the floor of his shack. The difference was it was purely a romantic culmination rather than a passionate one. Beatrice kissed five, ten, fifty, maybe even one hundred times. Upon regaining her composure she fixed his hair and cupped his face.

“Now go, before Hannah thinks you wouldn’t do it.”

Waltzing out of his house, having changed not only his shirt but his perspective, Wilkes felt nearly ten feet tall. Or at least, he tried to feel like it. He was admittedly concerned about it all. He had seven nights left here, and he was about to spend part of one on a date with a childhood acquaintance his lover had arranged. On top of that, he had just proposed without Jonah’s permission or Rangpar’s knowledge. The storm on the horizon about that was one he couldn’t cast Sailor’s Shelter to punch through.

Slowly but surely, the bakery came into view. The afternoon rush was quieting down. With a slow breath he pushed the door open. Alice waved to him from the counter. Hannah seemed to have her hands full with an order. He stood awkwardly there, not entirely sure what to do with himself. After shifting his weight for the fifth time, he realized that trying to take her on a date when she was still actively at work was foolhardy. Instead he decided to make good with his downtime. He knew the bakery would close at dusk, and with there still being a few hours until then there was something he had meant to be doing.

Leaving the bakery, he continued to walk north. The edge of town disappeared behind him. It wouldn’t be too much further. The cobbled path held steady beneath him. The wrought iron fence enclosing his destination came into view. He pushed the gate open slowly. It moved without groaning or creaking. Stepping gently across the grassy grounds, he found what he was looking for. A headstone for his mother. A plot of earth that still had a variety of flowers at it. He knelt down and pulled the weeds and overgrown grass around the stone.

“Hey mom, it’s me. I know I haven’t visited yet. It’s been hard to visit. To accept that this is where I have to come to talk to you now. No more waiting up for your town meetings to end at the table. No more coming home from sailing to you with Daisy curled up at your feet.” His hand rested beneath her name now. Rebecca of Thellin. “I’m gonna go to Osan soon. The mainland, I knew you were worried about it on account of me getting shipwrecked on the way there last time.”

He laughed by himself at his own joke. Trying to picture what his mother would say in response to that. Probably tell some anecdote from her own time at sea or about life in the clergy which she had apparently been warming up to tell him about.

“You protected me, but you also kept quite a few secrets mom. Not exactly a fair trade, but I can grasp why you did it. I guess I should tell you I met dad in a dream. He’s a prick. I met my older sister Sayila though. You’d love her, we even have the same smile. She seems to be a cheery gal, and she taught me what a bassoon was. It’s a wind instrument, so a little funny I wasn’t the one playing it because of the magic I can use. Weird isn’t it?” He finished his second little monologue and stared at the cold stone. No response came. His words just hung in the air over the grave. “I proposed to Beatrice. Well, not with a ring, but I promised I would propose. That was after she told me to go on a date with Hannah, the baker. Almost said the baker’s daughter there, but uh no she really is her own woman now. Good on her right?”

Having said everything she needed to know, he readied himself to leave. He picked up the wilted flowers that rested there and made a mental note to return with fresh flowers before he left for Osan. Kissing his fingers, then pressing his fingers to the stone he turned away from his mother’s grave. He stopped after a few strides and turned back to make a promise.

“I know you wouldn’t want it, but I promise you this. I am going to hunt down every last one of the tide reapers. I am going to make them pay for taking you away from the world and the people you loved so dearly. Once I’ve done that I’ll announce my name, Wilkes Tempest. I love you mom.” He swore over his mother’s grave. That was bad luck or in bad taste in just about every circle he knew. All the same, he had planned to dig two graves.

His stride carried him out of the cemetery. Town just a short walk away, and the midafternoon sun telling him there was only a brief time to be by himself. The stones under his feet were solid. Yet he felt himself wavering all the same. Every step he took carried him further from the man he knew his mother wanted to be, in at least one way now. Yet at the same time, someone had to do something about the Tide Reapers. Why not a demigod that was rapidly learning magic?

Cutting through the square in the center of town he passed an arrangement of lanterns and a table fit for a feast. That must’ve been what kept Hannah so busy. He hadn’t heard anything about whatever festival this was. It was too soon to be the coming of age one, that wouldn’t be until the current apprentices completed their fifth year of learning. Probably wasn’t for him if he hadn’t heard about it. Might be the Truebranches celebrating another business deal. Waxing poetic on it would only drag his feet.

The sun wasn’t quite setting yet, so he decided to do the one thing that could truly level his nerves before a date. Wilkes walked into the tavern on his lonesome. Barry was already at the bar, with seemingly his third pint of ale in front of him. With a cheeky grin, he slid into the stool right beside his old mentor.

“So, stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but two sailors walk into a bar.” The beginning of a joke left his mouth as Barry turned to stare him down. Not an ounce of mirth on his face.

“I’ve heard this one. Usually ends with the former apprentice being thrown out and messing up his nice new shirt.” Barry drawled. The foam of his pint clung to his lip in an almost mustache. It was an ultimate test of will not to laugh at the sight. Thankfully, Wilkes managed to persevere.

“That’s not how I’ve heard it going. I heard that the older sailor learns to trust the young one, and the young one learns to take advice where he can get it.”

“That the case lad?”

“Aye, far as I know it. Been a while since it’s been told.”

“Been a while since ye were trusted to be in here.”

“Well, I’m only having the one, and then I’m having a date.”

“Moderation and mediation eh? Good for ye lad. Make sure ye get yer fill of the womenfolk before we set sail.”

“Aye, aye Barry.” Wilkes ended their conversation on a lighter note. The single pint was put in front of him and he drank with fervor. It was cool, the foamy head prepping him before the slightly bitter but ever refreshing drink hit his lips. With a hearty gulp he let it wash the dust of the day from his throat. “Ahhh, now that’s worth every coin.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Barry clinked the base of his mug against Wilkes’s. The ale he had just payed for rapidly foamed and began to spill over. Cursing Wilkes rapidly chugged down what he could. With a scowl he smacked Barry playfully on the arm.

“Ye old bastard, I just bought that!” Wilkes fussed at him with a smile. His mentor just kept on smiling and drinking his beer. With all but the last quarter gone in two simple swigs, it seemed enjoying a casual pint was out of the question. He’d be forced out ahead of his schemed schedule. “Was gonna have a heart to heart with ye over the pint, but I reckon ye told me all I need to know with that eh?”

“Reckon I did, whatcha learn lad?”

“Trust the people ye know, enjoy every drop, but keep your eyes where danger could be lest what ye enjoy gets ruined.”

“Attaboy.”

The last gulp was just as refreshing as the first smooth one. Wilkes pat Barry on the shoulder and decided to split after one before any sort of temptation crept up on him. Beautiful shades of purple painted the sky, clouds offered to be white speckles similarly bathed within the array of colors. His feet found themselves planted outside the bakery right as their sign flipped to closed. Alice raised an eyebrow and waved to him again. Hannah noticed his arrival and pulled her sister’s arm down immediately. The older baker practically sprinted across the room.

“Oh, hi Wilkes, what’re you doing here?” Hannah eyed him with a mix of hope and caution.

“Uh, Beatrice told me she had talked to you. Figured I’d see what you were up to after closing up shop?” Wilkes did his best to sound suave. Instead, even he heard how nervous he sounded. A smile bloomed across Hannah’s face. His own stupid grin matched it. He leaned his forearm against the door, stooping over her. With a free hand he brushed a bit of her blonde hair back behind her ear. It had fallen loose when she took her cover off by his guess. Both of them leaned in ever closer, she rested a hand on his chest before speaking softly. He watched her lips part with a faint hunger.

“How about you walk Alice and I home, and then the two of us can be alone?”

“Hey Wilkes if you’re gonna marry Alice would that make Beatrice my sister?” Alice cut in on their semi-private moment.

“If you want to see fifteen, stop talking.” Hannah turned on her heels and pinched her younger sister’s ear hard. Wilkes winced in sympathy.

“To give her an answer, assuming you won’t take my head off for it?” Wilkes tested the waters. No immediate hostility came as both bakers looked at him. “I’d be marrying Beatrice first, and if things with your sister go well enough for marriage they would be sister wives I guess? So, in a way she’d be your sister. Same way I’d be your brother.”

Alice beamed at him. The stars in her eyes reminded him of Dortas. Rampant giggling proved she was positively giddy at the idea. With tension resolved, he offered his elbow. Hannah took his arm in both of hers. Alice huffed at that and walked determinately in front of the pair. Hannah’s hands were soft compared to most. Though his frame of reference was probably skewed a bit. Her blonde hair swished side to side in the ponytail she had put it into after work. He admittedly found it similar to when Daisy couldn’t help but wag her tail on a walk. To keep his head attached to his neck he did not share the thought. Their home came into view after a relatively peaceful stroll. A few heads had turned, whispers exchanged behind fans or hands.

“I guess this is where I’ll wait until you’re good and ready?” Wilkes asked casually, leaning against the door frame. Hannah simply grabbed his hand and tugged him into their home again. Same cozy atmosphere. The bakers were better off than him, the tile floor carrying heat from the fireplace out to the middle of the den. The kitchen had seating for four, though one chair looked to be out of use. Wisely, he elected not to sit there if he could help it.

“I’m going to change out of my work slip and put some tea on, if you’ll sit tight?” Hannah asked him, if she was nervous she wasn’t letting it show. He nodded with a sly smile. Trying to put on a larger air of confidence than he really had. Pulling up a chair, he sat at their dinner table quietly twiddling his thumbs.

Muffled sounds of shuffling came from the room he knew belonged to the sisters. The other bedroom remained almost entirely silent. He knew Hannah’s mother had fallen into a deep despair and hadn’t made it to the other side of it yet. When the tide reapers took her husband it seems they took her will to carry on. It wasn’t the only case. Hopefully his vow could help her in some way. Blood for blood. Hannah came back out in her brown dress, devoid of apron. Her hair had been brushed out and she smiled at him softly.