The Sole Prince

I won't kill ya or anything. [part 1]

The captain leaps off his bed, pulling out his long coat and putting it on quickly. He runs to his desk to get a candle as well as his sword that he laid on his desk. The door slams behind him as the captain briskly walks to the compartment. The fucking prisoner. The captain just knows it, regretting his decision already. He navigates the ship with ease, making it to the compartment door and lighting the candle before pushing the door open with his shoulder.

"Where is he?" The captain yells out into the room, trying to search for the prisoner who's most definitely stabbing somebody in the gut right now. The prisoner who definitely somehow got ahold of a sword or dagger or knife and is taking out his bottled-up anger on the crew. And is definitely not laying down on the bed right next to the door, and thus right next to the captain. And there definitely isn't a pirate, a member of the captain's crew, covering the prisoner's mouth with one hand and sliding his other hand into the prisoner's shirt.

... So maybe the captain was wrong with his preconceived notions, but he barely hesitates before acting on the true situation. He extends his right arm out, the one holding his sword, bringing it to the pirate's Adam's apple. The pirate freezes in place, his arms slowly coming off of the prisoner. The captain then turns to look over at the prisoner, the smaller man teary eyed and fearful.

"Hey," the captain tries to say in a soothing tone, despite the anger inside of him boiling over. "Hey," he continues, finally gaining the smaller man's attention. "Aye, exit out this room, then go up the hallway and go in the first door, okay?" The prisoner seems to snap out of a trance, scrambling out of the cot he was sleeping on and to the compartment door. The captain switches back to the man, who still has a sword pointed into his neck.

"I swear I wasn't doing nothing," the pirate says, scrambling backwards. At this point, the rest of the crew is awake, all sitting on the edge of their bunks and trying to see what's happening despite how dark it is. The captain holds the candle in his left and the sword in his right, not letting the blade get farther than a centimeter away from the pirate's neck.

"Then I'm not doing anything either," the captain replies, pulling his sword back, then swinging it forward right onto the pirate's neck.

***

The captain is wiping blood off from his hand onto his black coat as the cold ocean air lingers over his exposed upper body and the front of his legs. His coat can only cover so much. He walks down the hallway, grumbling a slew of curses and this is why I don't take prisoners and stupid, stupid, stupids. He turns right, then pushes open the door to his cabin. It swings open to reveal the prisoner standing inside the room a few feet away with his back towards the captain. As the captain walks inside, the prisoner turns around to face him.

At this point, the prisoner has had a few tears fall down from his eyes and decorate his cheeks before being wiped off by his palm. He opens his mouth to say something, yet seeing the taller man holding a bloody sword with only the light of a candle illuminating the dark night stops him.

Unlike the prisoner, the captain actually is able to speak. "Are you okay?" His voice, now light for the first time since the prisoner has met him, reverberates in the wooden room. The captain takes a few steps to the side to place his candle down on his desk before grabbing a towel to clean his sword.

All the prisoner does is nod.

Finished with the cleaning, the captain places the sword onto his desk which is close enough to the prisoner that he could reach it. But the captain doesn't even think about that. He's focused on other things, like nodding in response to the prisoner's reply and trying to figure out what to say next.

"Sorry that that happened," he speaks, clear and precise, yet slightly hesitant. It's not often that the captain has that certain nervous edge to his voice, but he has it now. The prisoner doesn't respond. "It's one of the reasons I don't take prisoners. People start to view them as sub-human and think they can have their way with you," he adds, now sitting down at the edge of his bed. "He's dead, by the way," he finishes, looking to the right of him at the man standing frozen in the room.