Guava, Fudge Ripple and Malt
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: A Lesson In Chivalry
Rating: PG (mild cursing)
Challenge: Guava #25: when hell freezes over, Fudge Ripple #21: guilt
Toppings/Extras: malt
Wordcount: 638
Summary: Captain Graham is amused by throwing people overboard. Isaac Prowse is not.
Notes: Shortly before Et In Arcadia Ego. Malt prompt from Marina: “Intervention from an unexpected source”. Man, I love Captain Graham. BTS malt piece! Isaac's getting all the love these days, I'll write about someone else soon!
“Throwin’ wenches overboard... always good for a laugh,” Captain Jacob Graham was saying right before Isaac Prowse showed up and grasped him by the arm, spinning him around quickly. The captain looked surprised a moment and didn’t say anything else.
“Did you just throw Ad... Miss Merritt overboard?” he asked, dreading the answer, because Graham’s expression already told it to him.
“Oh, aye... t’was fair hilarious, ‘ee should’ve seen ‘er face...”
“Hilarious?” Prowse asked blankly. Graham nodded. “What’s wrong with you, you stupid bastard? You can’t just go throwing women overboard!”
“Well, look who’s become master o’ chivalry all of a sudden,” Graham smirked.
“You think... chivalry? You just...”
Prowse could scarcely continue. The sky was bright above them, gleaming and taut, and the sea reflected it in a thousand diamond-like shards of blue. Kraken tipped gently atop the heavy waves and a gull squawked somewhere overhead. Something felt wrong to Prowse, but he wasn’t sure what. It was as though the sun had slunk away.
“Listen, lover, this is a mutiny,” Graham said, turning away from him and striding across the lustrous wooden boards of the floor. “No time for mercy. Pah!”
“I can’t believe you,” was all Prowse managed.
“If ‘ee really like ‘er all that much, go after ‘er!” Graham said near-illegibly, waving one of his calloused hands in the air. He turned and jerked a thumb overboard. “She’s still alive, an’ by my reckonin’ she’ll be at yonder island in jus’ a few minutes; tide’s goin’ in.” He smirked all of a sudden. “Our rowboat’s gone, though.”
“Gone? Gone where?”
“In all remarkable ‘onesty-and ‘ee don’t get ‘onesty from I that often-I don’t ‘ave a clue.”
“Do you know you’re an awful captain?” Prowse remarked irritably as he crossed to the edge of the ship. Perhaps he could just about make out a vaguely Adele-shaped blob amongst the tumbling waves, fast approaching a vast green island. And then, across the way from her, several of Newson’s warships. He took a deep breath.
He wasn’t a good person, not really-not a bad person, either, mind. But who could be easily divided into one of the two? People were people. He’d done bad things. Most people do bad things, but he supposed that, in retrospect, not everyone killed people for a living. He’d always known that it wasn’t a career choice smiled upon by many, and sometimes the whole thing had felt like a mistake, but he’d never been bothered by it much. He’d blamed it on the orphanages, on the streets of London, on Ashdown’s corrupt upper-crust world of intrigue.
But some things you can’t blame anyone or anything for.
“I ‘ave to say, I don’t agree with ‘ee on that one,” Graham responded idly as Prowse sighed and began unlacing his boots. “Criminy, you’re goin’ through with it? I always thought you ‘ad a few loose bolts but this is...”
“Stow it,” Prowse growled in response, throwing his jacket aside and taking off a thick shoulder-to-hip bandoleer belt that contained his prized throwing knives. He slammed it into Captain Graham’s hands. “Don’t lose these.”
“Remember the time ‘ee nearly took me ear off with one o’ these?” Graham asked mildly, grinning at the memory. “’Ee only missed ‘cause my good friend Keller stabbed ‘ee in the leg. I’ll give ‘ee one thing, yer a damn good shot.”
“I know,” Prowse spat in reply. “If we ever get back to our own time, you’re getting a knife in the bollocks, I promise you now.”
Captain Graham had no chance to reply, as Prowse hit the water a moment later.
“Lawks,” the captain said a moment later, tossing his thick, tangled hair over one shoulder. “Rosy?”
“Aye, cap’n?”
“Keep an eye out fer that’n, will ‘ee? That Prowse ain’t right in the ‘ead.”