#forestay

[vermilionwinds]

18. Devil’s Advocate

[CW: Alcoholism]

Just one for the road. It made everything warmer, right? (She so hated the cold) Stop the shivering Keep the bones right where they belong Let them swim and sway The closest she can still get to the ocean.

What was a good memory without a drink? She raises a glass. “Ta our arrangemen’, then.” She raises a glass. “To friendship, and looking forward.” She raises a glass. “T’ new friends, an’ new business associates!” She raises a glass. “Ta chance encounters, an’ wherever the hells you got those sunglasses.”

And so many glasses are pressed into her hand blackberry sour fine Malbec whiskey and pomegranate double of rye, cherry bourbon and cold brew on the side grapefruit and tequila watery ale with grain like sawdust

This was right. It was a pairing, a cocktail with two notes. drink and company, company and drink

Words as soft as silk that say “I’ll tell you when you’re drunker,” “Talk like this is better in person over a big bottle of something,” “Is that still your first glass?”

She never needs convincing, but she’d trust every word from those blue-tinged lips Thrills every time their fingers brush against each other at the neck of a whiskey bottle Everything made sense if she said so Pour herself into her schema What did a bottle do but give liquid shape And what shape did she have without

And it lets her feel without breaking Cry without shaking Numbness then catharsis Unlocking doors that she keeps closed In front of people she hardly knows- Halls gathering dust that beg for company Vulnerability with plausible deniability The escape hatch of “sorry, I was in my cups.”

So she washes herself away Lets the waves crash against the shore Wearing rock to sand

But as she sits at the thousandth thousandth bar To order her third drink of the night And thrils at the prospect of a friend Opening a new keg for her nameday tomorrow night A voice at her shoulder says something new,

“Going to nurse that problem of yours?”

“...It’s less of a problem, an’ more of a talent.”

“Yeah, whatever gives you your fun with easing the shake in your hands.”

and that for once gives her pause.

[gvnbreaker]

A small package arrives for Aja, wrapped in Starlight paper. Within is two packs of a dozen cigarettes each, the packaging of the box a simple but sturdy paper product with a Doman trademark on the front. The tobacco's high-quality, the brand - if familiar - a luxury one. The packages are accompanied by three cigars of likewise quality. A note accompanies it, written in neat, precise writing. 'Happy Starlight.'

Aja does not see the postmoogle arrive, bound to bed as she is--but even from the lower floor, she can hear the soft flap of their wings when they go. Fewer and fewer letters have reached her in the last several turns. Packages even scarcer--even still, she throws her legs over the side of the bed, feet flat against the hardwood planks. Breathes, hesitates, and hesitates some more. When at last she's composed herself to take on the stairs, reaching the top, let alone the front door, is a near thing.

She touches the note into bruised, cut fingers, thumbs the neat, careful handwriting while she inspects the box's contents. It's thoughtful--she'll give them that, but mystery is always a mixed notion.

Is it Kjat's? Bold. Too bold to send this, even for her. No. It isn't cheeky enough. There isn't a flower, there isn't a threat implied in cigarettes. The paper--she gives it a sniff--isn't infused.

Forestay? Maybe. It seemed a gift unlike Gjola, and why would --

Right. Kiaran.

Aja laughs. A tiny laugh, barely a puff through her nose to mark the crooked smirk, worsened by a bloodied lip half a sun healed. A full, real laugh is hard to muster. And it isn't worth the zigzag of pain it would send through her, she knows. She chances a long, slow inhale, letting the chill fill her lungs. A dull ache sets in. More than the cold, more than the way deep breaths strain her bandaging. It livens the bruising about her ribs with a steady, thrumming pulse.

When she returns to bed, Aja places the box on her dresser. The box is worth staring at for half a bell before she decides it's wasteful not to indulge, and plucks a cigar from the rest.

[vermilionwinds]

23. Soul

It’s been a while since Remeraux’s done ‘people’, really, on any grand sort of scale.

Not since Bozja, anyways. Since then her road’s been long, and it’s been largely a solitary affair.

Sure, there are chance encounters; there always are. People to while away an evening with and then, once the dawn creeps up on the horizon it carries you down the road again. Right back to looking, but never finding.

It’s a good thing that this doesn’t work forever. There was only so much she could do alone, locked in an inn room with a brush and glue, trying to piece enough of herself back together to walk around in the daylight. 

And as Llymlaen tended to, nudging her down a path laden with chance encounters, serendipitous and strage, Remeraux finds herself absolutely surrounded by people. When she goes to bars, it’s not to drink alone-- and even if it is, a familiar face tends to find her anyway. First conversations turn to seconds now, and then to third. Typically by the fourth, at least, she realizes that she doesn’t even know what in the hells she’s doing. 

Typically speaking, she rarely ever makes it this far. When first impressions cease to matter, when you really can’t get by anymore on a quip and a wink, trusting your outfit to speak for you more than yourself. It’s at this point that she usually starts to crumble under scrutiny. And, to her chagrin, some folks in her orbit are shrewder than most. People like that can read you like a book, and understandably they tend to take it off the shelf with reluctance. Every conversation is a game that she can’t win, because all she knows about the rules is communicated by scowls and sneers when she inevitably breaks one. But, blessedly, there are faces among their number who getting on with is as easy as breathing. It’s something that she can usually feel in her gut, right at the first meeting. The way that conversation just flows like a river downstream. A dance, not a waltz with rigid steps. And the more she learns about them, the more it only reinforces that feeling she had at first brush. 

These are the kinds of folks she’d gladly share a bottle with: Well-trafficked smirks set above tired eyes. Folk that had seen too much to ever stand on ceremony. Humor like glue, like a hammer and nails, keeping the house together. Folks that had taken a thousand knocks but still only trained their daggers on the ones responsible, meeting fellow travelers with an open hand. And to them she always offers a look: softened brows, kind eyes, a warm smile and a passed glass, that screams at the top of her lungs without saying a word: Hey, I fucking get it. Me too. It’s the same way with me.

The Star might be harsh all over, but sometimes-- if you’re lucky-- you’ll find someone whose soul has been tuned to the same key as yours. And every time Remeraux does, at the moment their hands shake, something in her knows… how did her new boss put it?

Right. Remeraux knows that they’re going to get on like a house on fire.

[svgimmeshelter]

When did you last inspect your rigging?

When did you last inspect your rigging?

We had several blocks and lines meet the end of their useful lives during this year’s Icicle Series, but it wasn’t until we finished race four that someone on my crew said, “Hey your forestay pin is really bent.

Sure enough, the furler and the forestay had loaded up the pin that held it all together and put a nice curve in it. There was no pulling it out.

Since I know very little about rigging,…

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[farashasilver]

Forestay, 2 and 4.

2. What’s my favorite part of the fic?

The part my mind keeps going back to is the part near the end of Chapter 1, when Flint and Silver finally come clean to each other, about the lies and the feelings both at the same time. It was such a massive turning point in their relationship - not everything is settled yet, but it’s the point where they both realize they want it to settle, that they want to forgive each other the past and move on into a real partnership with another human being.

4. What part of the fic was the hardest for me to write?

The section in Chapter 2 when Flint tells Silver about Thomas - I struggled through that section because I don’t think he’s ever had to tell anyone the whole of it. It was hard to judge what he could bring himself to say and what he still wouldn’t be able to talk about, but I also know that James Flint isn’t the kind of man for stammering over his words or long awkward pauses. I re-wrote it more than a couple times, but ultimately I am satisfied with how it turned out.

[farashasilver]

Fandom: Black Sails Pairing: James Flint/John Silver Rating: R/Explicit Word Count: 9992 Warnings: Permanent injury (amputation), referenced character death Summary: Things between Flint and Silver fall into place.

This concludes the “Any Port in a Storm” series

[farashasilver]

shadow-in-the-light replied to your link: Forestay (Chapter One) - by Farasha - Black Sails

This chapter was exactly what I needed. Everything was absolutely perfect! Since the finale I’ve been waiting to read something like this. The ending is making me insane! I need more! Vane doesn’t know what he’s gotten himself into, or maybe he does?

Vane... well. Vane is dangerous, Flint is dangerous, having two crews that fucking hate each other on the same ship is dangerous, much less when that ship is becalmed.

Next chapter should be interesting. Thank you :D

[farashasilver]

Fandom: Black Sails Pairing: James Flint/John Silver Rating: R/Explicit Word Count: 10421 Warnings: Graphic medical procedure, permanent injury (amputation), referenced character death, aftermath of torture Summary: After Charleston, certain truths come to light that have Flint and Silver's relationship hanging by a thread.