Risks and Reason

Artful words poured from calloused hands, rough and bruised from work at sea, yet gentle in touch on the skin of her patients and the gentle embrace of the parchment her quill drifted against. The very composition of the first few words, My Dearest, betrayed its own appearance, the hand of a calligrapher sewn to the arm of a pirate. Victoria paused for a moment, rolling back in the chair whence she sat, spaced only a few feet from those of her comrades, scallywags and vagabonds uniting together under the pirate codes for a greater purpose or a larger payout. To each man lay his own designs.  And she was no different. Victoria’s gaze fixed upon a very specific set of rapscallions before her, brushed by the sea and branded by the governments to which they swore no allegiance, cursed just as she. It was because of them, or at least one, that she found herself here. Hell, it was because of him that she found herself anywhere these days. Was that why she found herself willing to follow him into the unreachable? The reason she dared take step with him every time before, following at close pace despite every danger, every betrayal, and every hidden word? Every time she finally felt she was getting away, she found herself caring just a little bit more. She wanted to say this was for her, but even within her intentions there lay a boiling sense of affection reserved only for the few who had ever come to deserve it. And even among all the chaos and torment, Jack Sparrow, the man she had always known as Captain, had come to deserve it in more ways than she would ever be able to describe to anyone. She smiled as she watched he and Gibbs plotting, halfcocked on her face aware of the scheming and the half told lies that must have encouraged the voyage they dared prepare for. Security and comfort were not her life. She smiled once more as she took the parchment in her hands, folding it tightly to her chest. Her reservations, her intentions, and her concerns, they were hers and hers alone. It had always been risk, from the very start. So why play safe now?