I'm Safe With You

Pilot

I folded my cards as soon as I looked at them, knowing that Roach probably had a better hand tucked away in his apron somewhere. Frenchie was strolling around the ship playing his lute, singing some silly song about piracy. Never had I ever been on a ship with someone as musical as him, but I gladly welcomed the change.

I gave him a warm smile as he finished his song and took a seat next to me, leaning into the much taller man as I observed the game and he draped an arm round my shoulder.

Black Pete had been staring at his cards for quite a while now since I had made my move, and the others had begun to grow impatient.

Roach was the one who finally spoke up, tiredly "It's your bet"

"I know it's my bet" the bald man replied harshly, obviously frustrated with everyone else's impatience.

"Then bet. Why are you always taking so long?" Oluwande pipes up.

Pissed off with everyone nagging at him, Pete slammed his cards down on the table with a "Fuck this, I'm out" and used his hands to shuffle around all the cards on the table. And of course, this then pissed off everybody else.

"I didn't sign up to play cards - weeks we've been out here with nothing to show for it. I should have twenty kills by now, at least!"

"Twenty? Don't flatter yourself Pete," I joked with a smirk on my face. He gave me an offended look back. "Relax mate, I'm sure you'll have your chance soon enough."

Frenchie decided to back me up, adding "Yeah, maybe Captain's trying a new kind of...slow pirating?"

Our conversation was cut short when our first mate, Buttons, announced the arrival of Captain Bonnet. He was dressed in his most frilliest, pastel blue suit and approached us slowly. I will admit, after sailing for a little over ten years now, Stede Bonnet was the most untraditional pirate captain I had ever had the pleasure of sailing with.

Gradually, he made his way towards us on deck. "What we're about to do will be perilous. Very perilous! Some of us won't be coming back. Others may be wounded. Still others may come back looking totally fine, but in reality be mentally devastated by what they've witnessed." How inspiring. "So, if that's the case, what'll we do? ...Anyone? Come on. It's something I've always encouraged?"

All of the crew had gathered together at this point and we all looked as clueless as one another.

"Bottle it up?" Frenchie suggested.

"No, Frenchie! No, that is the worst thing you could do!"

The bearded man looked apologetic as Stede continued to search for answers. He finally found one when Wee John suggested that we are supposed to 'talk about it' whenever we become mentally devastated.

"Exactly! Remember the rhyme? If someone returns from the raid mentally devastated, we talk it through - as a...?"

I shouted the word 'crew' quite enthusiastically to finish off the Captain's sentence, which contrasted with everyone else's bored tones. It felt nice to finally have a captain that allowed me to express my feelings for once, especially on a pirate ship surrounded by mostly men.

Soon after, Buttons announced that we were approaching another ship that we were prepared to raid, however we were disheartened to discover that it was only two old fisherman on a tiny rowboat. Despite the weakness of the other vessel, Captain Bonnet still treated this as though we were facing a much larger threat; he even got the Swede to drop a cannonball into the water as a "warning shot".

As Stede began to board the tiny boat, Wee John leaned over to me and whispered, "That's just a couple of geezers".

I offered him a laugh and a nod as a reply, adding, "Poor blokes look more confused than scared".