Also Sorry Apparently She Had A Lot To Say - Tumblr Posts
It’s hard to find a good place to be left the fuck alone in the Republic of Pirates. Luckily, Anne’s managed just that, squeezing into the small alley and following its blind turns until she’s come back out onto the tiny public outlook just at the hill above the docks. She’s joined a few minutes in by a man who knows well enough to mind his own fucking business and they stand in the amiable silence of two people ignoring each other as flashes of sunlight dazzle the water below. Before she can lean over and really let herself go enough to start figuring things out, though, four new strangers turn up. Four new strangers who don’t know well enough to mind their own fucking business, dumb enough to go sticking their noses where they aren’t welcome—sniffing for crumbs around the “captain’s strumpet” with ugly laughs and lingering leers.
“ Fuck off, ” Anne warns them once, hoarse. One makes a crude joke about fucking but not off. He’s on the ground before the others even have a chance to get a proper laugh in, clutching his gut from the unexpected blow.
If Anne killed every man she fought in this damned port, it’d be half corpses before noon. She fights like the hellcat she is, but never once do her hands touch the sword or the knife on her belt, except to keep other hands off them. She doesn’t grab the knife in her boot, nor the one hidden away in her trousers; she fights with surprising honor in that way. In the ways in which she utilizes literal tooth and nail, actual blows below the belt, feinting and thrusting and letting the broad little idiots use their own momentum against themselves, however, she certainly fights dirty. The one she got in the gut staggers back up just as she fells another with a hard knee to the groin, though he finds himself dazed and in his back almost as quickly as she can grab him.
That’s when the first stranger who arrived decided to step in. Anne hadn’t thought twice about him, wouldn’t have blamed him at all for staying all the way out, for watching, for leaving, whatever he did—this is one of the roughest ports on some of the toughest waters in the world, no one stuck their neck out for anyone else without the certainty of a payoff for it—but here he was.
The man in the ground, clutching his jewels, doesn’t stop sobbing when the first stranger whistles, but otherwise, all eyes find a way to his face. The stranger repeats a familiar phrase—a refrain echoed everywhere in the Republic—but this time, the braggarts listen. The standing two help their fallen companion, one under each arm; their thrown companion gets to his feet on his own, clearly still winded. He glares, and she spits, straight into his eye. She watches their retreating backs as they limp away in shame, only bending to fetch her hat (snatched off in the scuffle) when they began to take the first turn.
This is going to be a problem.
On the one hand, she’s glad to be spared the rest of the fight, having come all the way here for some peace and goddamned quiet to begin with. On the other…not finishing the fight means there’ll be a story now of Rackham’s whore needing someone else to save her. Something that will no doubt spawn a repeat incident in the near future. Anne sighs and brushes the hat off, donning it again without flourish.
“ I appreciate the sentiment, ” she quips, eyeing the man as she does so, “ but I had that under control. ”
Strong nose and jaw. Salt and pepper hair and beard. A short bastard, but no less imposing for it, with dark, piercing eyes and two tattoos Anne knows immediately: the x and the swallow. Eyes so pale a green they seemed almost colorless narrowed to sharp shards of sea glass. She knew of someone, didn’t she?, fitting this description. The details are hazy, but—yes, yes, she knows this man. Shit. The knowledge of that crashes over her like a wave and leaves her struck dumb, almost staggering back with the force of it: Israel Hands. Second to none other than than the devil himself, Blackbeard. Legends she has long stood in awe of, even to the point of chasing sad shadows of their presence—Anne is breathless, and a little star struck, and fighting her every impulse so it won’t show.
Shit. Leave it to her and her thorny, idiot tongue to lash out at the wrong person. Anne winces and belatedly adds, “ …sir. ” But it sounds sour and forced even to her ears. Christ alive. Anne slams her eyes shut in frustration and tries again, although gratitude sounds clunky on her tongue.
“ That is to say—thank you, Mr. Hands, sir. ” And? Surely there’s more to say in this moment than just that, but nothing comes to mind that it isn’t completely idiotic, and Anne refuses to look any more the idiot than she already must. If only she could have stopped her idiot tongue in time. “ I didn’t realize ye were in port. ”
Small talk. Dear God. May the earth open its mouth and swallow her whole before she has to face the consequences of trying to make small talk with Israel Hands.
It's hard to find a good place to have a smoke on the Republic of Pirates. Luckily, the reputation of 'Izzy Hands' gives him some respect. People know not to try and stick their hands anywhere near him, lest they lose it.
It's not so much the bothering him directly though. It's the tendency for a fight to start right next to him.
Israel looks uncomfortable as he watches a group of four men corner some woman. She's taller than the lot of them at least, and he doesn't really care about the end result, just that they're only ten or so paces away and he's trying to fucking relax.
He's still smoking as fists start flying, acting as though he doesn't see a damn thing. Not his fucking problem. If he got involved in every fight he ran into on this damned port, he'd never leave.
What does catch his attention is the way she fights. Whoever she is. It should be over fast, but it isn't. She bites and kicks and seems half feral. Izzy ends up watching the show that unfolds before him, the way she slips away, the way she punches. It's almost familiar in its ferocity. Reminds him of when he was still on Hornigold's, trying to defend himself from the fuckers twice his size. Stabbing people with dull forks and all that.
It's not until there's only two left standing that he interrupts, whistling to grab everyone's attention.
" Fuck off. " He looks at the two men, gesturing idly over his shoulder with the cigarette between his fingers, his hand falling to his sword at his side, a warning. " Find someone else to bother. "
@neverhangd