betterthanaplan | The Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom (and Beyond!), Wednesday afternoon

Not that it was any of anyone's business, but Octavia was maybe a little excited about today. Not that it was showing, either - her stride along the dock looked just as purposeful as it always did.

She stopped once she was by the Cape Rouge, just for a more close-up look. She was probably in the minority in finding the rustiness endearing, somehow. It reminded her of practically every metal structure still standing back where she'd come from.

Personal moment over, she made her way onto the deck itself. "Hi."

"Hey," Duke greeted, setting the ukelele aside and standing (sending the porgs scattering away). "Welcome to the Cape Rouge. Tour first, or should we get right out on the water?"

Octavia was already not even surprised to see the porgs. She shot them a faintly amused look before glancing around, then finally back at Duke. "I could do with a tour."

Just to get herself a little more situated. Seemed like a decent idea.

It’d probably help her start getting used to the bob and sway before they hit open water, too.

“Sure.” Duke looked around and spread his arms. “So this is the deck. As you can see, I use it as kind of a lounging area most of the time. And some general storage. That up there,” he pointed towards the stern at the glassed-in room a story above them, “is the wheelhouse. We’ll head up there when it’s time to get moving. All the ship’s steering and radio equipment is up there.”

Octavia nodded as she looked around, following his gesturing with her gaze.

Though she found something only slightly related to be curious about. "Does the saying about something being in your wheelhouse have anything to do with that?"

The saying had survived the apocalypse up on the Ark. The etymology had not.

"Pretty sure, yeah," Duke said. "Never really thought about it before, but it makes sense." He led her over to one of the hatches leading below decks. "Down here's the actual living space." He couldn't help but smile as he stepped aside so she could see the galley. He never going to stop being proud of what he'd made out of his place. "Only a handful of rooms are actually finished, the rest are storage."

It was a large ship. He had a lot of storage.

"... Oh."

That was an 'oh, wow' in Octavia Speak. A tiny sound, but accompanied by a more open look on her face.

So she probably agreed that he had reason to be proud.

From her, that was downright expressive.

"Rough on the outside, comfortable on the inside," he said. "Just the way a pirate ship should be."

Every shell needed a few cracks, every once in a while.

She turned to him. "Did you do all this yourself?"

"I did," Duke said. "Took a few years. When I won her she was just a busted up fishing trawler."

Octavia gave him a wry look. There was some kind of a spark in it, though. "From the outside, she rasped, "she looks like half the buildings in Tondisi."

'Ton dee cee'.

"And all that metal went through an actual nuclear disaster."

But her implication here was two-fold.

"So . . . you're saying my ship looks sturdy enough to survive a nuclear war," Duke decided, grinning. "Thank you."

That had been the more hidden implication. Which left Octavia with the more obvious one to say out loud!

"And that it looks like something that's been left rotting for a hundred years," she said, almost looking like she was suppressing a smirk. "But, that too."

"I'll take that as a compliment too," Duke said cheerfully. "People don't really expect you to do much when your boat looks like it might sink at any moment. Which means they're way less likely to stop you from doing it."

"Like a disguise," Octavia agreed, because yes, she could see how that worked.

She pushed one of her braids back over her shoulder. Glanced around, though something she didn't say, then asked, "What would they be stopping you from doing, anyway?"

"Exactly like a disguise." Duke liked those. Though he was not always as good at them as he thought he was. "And, uh. Let's just say I've been known to carry cargo with somewhat . . . less than legal status. You know. From time to time."

He'd offered to get her a fake ID. Odds were good she'd already worked out that he had criminal tendencies.

Yes.

Odds were also good she didn't care.

"So like a smuggler," Octavia said, nodding, like it was nothing. Because, it was nothing. Being considered a criminal since birth did not leave a person with a very high regard for the law. "And you said you won the ship?"

"Just like one, yes." Duke laughed. "I'm still not used to how people around here just take that in stride."

His best from home was a cop. He was very used to talking very deliberately around certain words.

"I did. In a poker game on my 21st birthday. Best damn birthday ever."

"I've been in prison, if that makes it less weird," Octavia replied with a drawl, a little flippantly.

... And then just sort of glided on from that, because maybe she didn't want to let that tidbit just sit there for very long. So, she was already raising her eyebrows. "Also, it sounds like it's probably for the best if you don't teach me about poker in the next week or so."

Yeah, but that was probably a post-apocalyptic prison, where they locked people up just for, like, existing.

. . . So just like 21st century American prisons.

"Oh? You thinking you're going to win her back off me after I teach you?"

"I haven't had very many good birthdays," Octavia replied, as if she was considering it. "And you said it was the best of yours. So I would try."

No, but it amused her to say so.

"I actually kind of want to see that," Duke said. "But sorry, I'm not betting my boat for anything."

"I'll live."

Because that was such a harsh blow, you see, but she was made of some pretty sturdy stuff.

"Especially since we haven't even made it to the sailing part yet."

"And that's the best part," Duke said. He gestured to the ladder on one end of the galley. "I've got to untie her and pull the anchor up before we can head out. You can come with, or head up to the wheelhouse to wait, if you want."

Octavia didn't have to think twice. "I wanna see everything."

Meant she was coming with. Because she was infinitely curious - when she allowed herself to be.

"So you can run her properly when you win her off me at poker?" Duke said with a laugh. "Alright, come on, then."

"Or when I steal her."

Criminal, remember?

Anyway, she was already following him.

"You're welcome to try. Don't think you'd get too far with her, though." He led the way back onto the deck and along the starboard side as he set about getting the Rouge undocked. "She's a finicky thing."

And Octavia had never even been on the water before.

Time and circumstance had also burned that type of recklessness out of her, anyway.

"Also all I know about sailing before right now is from the Odyssey," she supplied freely. "I don't think that helps."

"Not with running a post-industrial boat, anyway," Duke said. "You're probably set for getting around sirens though, at least."

And on this island, that might come in handy.

"Sirens are easy, it's just wax or rope or both," Octavia said, the quippy tone mild but still there. "The cyclops, that's the tricky part."

She'd loved that part of the story as a kid.

"I don't know. The Cyclops was just pissed about trespassing. Was eating people an overreaction? Maybe. But a person has a right to defend their home."

Octavia snorted. "By holding the trespassers captive and eating them?"

Just wait until you're Blodreina, Octavia.

"Is this a justification for what's going to happen to me if I try to steal the ship?"

"Well you know. There are no laws at sea."

That wasn't entirely true.

"But as a rule I try to avoid eating people, so you're safe on that front."

Octavia shrugged one shoulder. "Shame," she said lightly, immediately burying the (dirty) implications of that with a glance around the deck. "Should I check for porgs?"

Maybe they didn't need to come out to sea, if they were still around, though maybe they wanted to.

Edited 2019-10-03 00:26 (UTC)

Duke snorted at the innuendo, but let her change the subject.

"You can try. I've been trying to shoo them off the Rouge since last night. They just keep coming back."

Remembering how to flirt was hard when you'd suppressed the urge for years. That was why she did it in fits and starts.

"At least they have good taste," she said, spotting one waddling away from them with a great deal of porgish purpose. She went after it, in an effort to corral it the other way and back off to shore.

"Hopefully not literally." Duke went to weigh anchor while she attended to the porgs. "Keeping them out of the hold's been worse than herding cats."

"Maybe this is the newest invasion," Octavia mused, managing to catch one porg in her arms only for another to appear at her feet.

But at least that one seemed to take well enough to her shooing it with her foot and directing it the right way while she carried the other one, squirmy though it was.

"Come on, now," she told it, half muttering the words. "Gon we."

Edited 2019-10-03 14:42 (UTC)

Duke took a moment to just lean against the gunwale and watch her. It was sweet, the way she handled the little creatures. He'd seen enough hints now to be sure there was someone caring and passionate under her stony demeanor.

It was too bad she was so damn young. Still, friendly flirting wasn't hurting anyone, right?

"Anchors aweigh," he called, straightening up. "Once you're all done playing sheepdog we can head out."

Octavia was young in some respects, felt ancient in others, and was probably kind of a disaster in all of them.

But in this moment, she was just focusing on herding some birds off a boat. The one at her feet went surprisingly easily, just chittering up at her when she nudged it the right way. The one she carried, however, was a wriggly little thing, and also tried to take a few experimental bites at one of her braids. But, she got them both safely onto the dock - and far enough away that maybe they wouldn't immediately manage to get back on as soon as her back was turned.

"All done," she called as she made her way back aboard.

Edited 2019-10-03 19:39 (UTC)

"Thanks for that. To the wheelhouse!" He pointed grandly and started up the ladder. "I figured we'd circle the island a little, then head out into open water. Looks like there's some nice cliffs on the Preserve side that should make for great views."

And he'd just go around the cove where he'd seen the sleeping sea monster. No big deal.

But that was the most Odyssey-ish place around!

Still, probably not worth it.

"Sounds like a plan," Octavia agreed, quick on her feet to follow him. And, well, hands. Because ladder. She might not have had any sailing experience, but at least she seemed well-suited to moving about aboard a ship. "Been a while since I was even that far off the island."

Which was exactly why it counted as being off it.

"Don't take a lot of trips to the mainland, huh?" Duke asked. "Is it still 2019 across the causeway for you, or do you end up in . . . I guess it'd be the 22nd century, when you're from?"

"If it was that easy to get back, you would never have met me," she replied, dry but also kind of matter-of-fact. It was a whole thing, not being able to get back where she'd come from. "But, it's probably 2019? I haven't actually ever been much past the causeway."

She said it easily enough, considering the mainland actually kind of freaked her out. Shh.

"Why, is it not 2019 for you over there?"

"No, it is," Duke said. "But when I sail I usually end up back in 2008. And my, uh, friend from home managed to drive in from 2008 when he came to visit this weekend."

"Makes about as much sense as anything else on this island." About as unfair as a lot of the shit the island pulled was. But at least this thing benefitted a lot of people, if not her. "How did that go, anyway?"

"Nathan's visit?" Duke shrugged. "We managed not to punch each other." He smiled, a small one, but more genuine than most of his broader expressions. "Managed a fair bit more than 'not punching', actually. It was good to see him."

"Good."

That was sincere, too.

Also, she'd already put Nathan in a mental box labeled 'Duke's Lincoln', and that smile didn't dissuade that classification any.

"Seems like it was a pretty good weekend for everyone." Everyone with visitors, but anyway. "I'm glad."

"And you? I know you didn't have any guests, but you still managed to have some fun, right?"

"I think I ate my weight in free food."

That sounded like a good time to her!

But she shrugged and glanced aside as she thought of a more sincere answer. "I think last week in general was... a good week." She didn't have a lot of those, and it was weird.

She looked up at him again. "So I guess you could say I had fun."

"Glad to hear it," Duke said. He started the Cape Rouge's engines and started to pull away from the docks. "It's hard to beat free food three days in a row."

You know what was soothing to a space station baby, even well into adulthood?

Engine hum.

Wasn't nearly the same - because what was? - but, apparently still enough that Octavia sighed quietly without meaning to. "Even lured my brother out eventually," she said, but there was distraction in the mildness. "No one can resist that much free food."

Duke noted the shift with a little inward smile. He liked the sound of his boat's engines too.

"And I missed him. Damn. I've been starting to wonder if he really exists."

He wasn't. He just liked to tease.

It earned him a withering look, even if it was lacking most of its bite. And was a lot soft around the edges.

Okay, it wasn't very withering at all.

"You'll wish he didn't if he decides to come at you, acting like an overprotective big brother."

He wouldn't be the first one Duke had had to face.

"For what? We're just hanging out. Having fun."

"That's also what I said," Octavia replied, in a tone that counted as 'brightly' to her. "But, 'he's not going to let anything bad happen to me' and so on."

She was definitely quoting something there. Something she'd heard a thousand times.

But, she shrugged. "I think he remembered I can protect myself, though."

"Not letting anything bad?" Duke asked. "Or not letting anything?"

They were making their way out of the harbor now, and the boat rocked slowly up and down over the swells. An ocean breeze came through the open doors on either side of the wheelhouse. Engine noise was part of Octavia's happy place -- these things were Duke's. Something relaxed in him out here that never did when he was on land.

"Brothers. What a pain."

The first guy Octavia ever kissed had found himself tied up in a tree for a night. So there was a time it really had been anything.

"His sister, his responsility," Octavia said, but the distant, distracted quality was back. Her eyes were no longer on him, but on what she could see through the windows.

Something about the breeze reminded her of the dropship doors opening for the first time.

"Your life," Duke argued. "Your choices."

He watched her watch the water for a moment, then looked on ahead himself, steering the ship slowly around towards the wild side of the island.

"But what do I know? My brothers were never even a little bit protective."

Things might have gone a bit differently growing up if they had been. Or if any of their mothers had been willing to take on their kid's half-feral half-brother.

"Your brothers sound like idiots."

Octavia felt it was a fair assessment, and not even a particularly rude one, under the circumstances. His brothers should've looked after him, end of story as far as she was concerned.

Her gaze stayed on the water. "But I don't know if mine had a choice." His life had changed irrevocably the day she'd been born, after all.

That tended to happen when siblings came along, yes.

"You're not wrong. I don't think I would have done too well with anyone trying to be protective of me, though."

His parents hadn't ever really bothered. And when Nathan tried, all Duke could see was a rejection of everything he'd had learned to be in order to survive.

To be fair, becoming a cop was a terrible way to try to protect a criminal.

"Why's that?"

She did actually glance over to ask, but just about only for the second it took to ask that.

It was a fifty-fifty split between not wanting to miss how the island looked from out here, and just finding it easier to talk about these things while looking away.

There were definitely topics in this world that required a complete lack of eye contact.

Duke shrugged, keeping his own eyes on the water. (He was trying to steer! He had an excuse.) "Let's just say I've never done well with authority."

Octavia huffed out some vaguely, wryly amused noise.

"Me neither," she said. "Authority took a while to fully understand that, though."

“They always seem to think they can fix you by throwing more authority at you, don’t they.”

"And all it ever does is make you want to tell them to go screw themselves even louder," Octavia agreed.

She closed her eyes. The rocking of the boat was an unfamiliar feeling, far more pronounced than the subtle way the Ark had always felt like it was breathing under her feet.

She was taking a second just to feel it.

Duke glanced over and frowned. "You feeling okay? Some folks get seasick."

Octavia shook her head, then opened her eyes, glancing back at him.

"Just homesick, I guess." Kind of, anyway. "It's stupid and it'll pass."

She was also grateful not to be seasick.

Duke tilted his head. "What's 'home' like for you? We talking post-apocalypse or space station?"

There was probably some symbolic value to her looking out towards the island at that question, even though that wasn't why she didn't.

"I don't really use that word much, actually," she said after a pause. "But I only ever had one place I called that, and that was on the Ark." Wait, he probably didn't know that name yet. It was easy to guess, but: "That's what the station was called. We had this little cramped one-room place for me and Bellamy and Mom, and that was home."

She shrugged. "This reminds me of that, I guess."

Duke decided not to take 'cramped' as an insult. "Lot of bobbing over swells in space, huh?"

That wasn't the part she was reminded of, anyway.

"Not exactly," Octavia drawled. "But it still feels a little like the station's alive under your feet."

Duke nodded. "Ground's too still," he observed. "That's part of why I still sleep on the boat even when I'm at port."

Also because, like, his bed was there. And if he had to pay for a boat slip anyway, why bother shelling out more for a hotel room?

"It's home for you," Octavia said. "Right?"

"Best one I've ever had," Duke agreed. ". . . Admittedly that's not a very high bar."

"The quarters I just called my home was my prison before I was in prison," Octavia noted with a rather dark sort of muted humor to her tone. She shook her head. "Your low bar is safe with me."

Duke rolled his eyes. "Do not get me started on prisons. I've been in several."

Both literal and metaphorical!

"What'd they put you in for?"

"Having been born."

She said much too easily, considering how he was only the second Fandomite to ever be told that.

There was a slight, sarcastically perky-by-Octavia affectation to the head tilt that followed. Sort of downplaying the whole thing. "You?"

Duke quirked an eyebrow at that, but didn't press.

"Theft, mostly. Some fraud. Been accused of murder once or twice, but they never managed to make that stick. First time was for trespassing. Joke was on them though, since the only reason I broke into that place was to find somewhere warm to sleep. At least the jail was heated."

Not that he ever got much sleep when he was in a cage.

Probably said some things about Octavia that she could hear 'murder' and not bat an eye at it. Didn't even have to do with whether it was baseless or not.

"I couldn't sleep for the first week after they locked me up," she rasped, watching him. "Rations were better than what I was used to, though."

"All they ever gave you at the Haven jail was slim jims," Duke said. "I got my revenge though. Fucked with their vending machine. No Baby Ruths for them."

"That's not a loss." Magnus kept shoving snacks and candy at her. She'd former Opinions. "But, no peanut butter cups either?"

"They didn't have any to begin with. Haven PD has terrible taste."

Octavia snorted. "Good riddance, then." You know, as if she hadn't been vehemently against them already. "Peanut butter cups are the best."

She was quiet for a second again, watching the water.

And shrugged. "I guess they had to feed us on the Ark. I bet starving us would not have let them feel as good about the mercy they were showing us by not just imediately floating us, the way they did every criminal over eighteen."

". . . Floating. Like -- launching you into space?" Duke looked suitably appalled. "Jesus."

"Mm-hmm," Octavia hummed with the tiniest nod. "Right through the airlock. Doesn't matter what the crime was, either. Treason, murder, vandalism? You get caught and you're an adult, they're floating you."

Capital punishment went great with everything!

"Jesus," Duke said again. He felt vaguely ill at the idea. "And let me guess, there's not much by way of trials or appeals, either."

"Everyone gets a trial, but some are shorter than others," Octavia said, the dry tone a little muted, now. "Pardons are practically non-existent."

It was a form of population control, but she took one glance at his face and decided not to point that out.

"Sorry if this is upsetting," she added, in slightly more of a murmur. (Also, if? O, come on.) "Or too depressing."

Duke shook his head. "You're just kind of confirming that I really don't need to be going into space," Duke said. "I'm not stupid enough to claim no one on Earth ever decided to just straight up murder each other as a way to keep law and order, but still. At least here I know how to run away."

"I'm sure space on a private ship like this one would be fine," Octavia noted. "Space stations just hang out in orbit, however... I can't recommend."

Her hair didn't really need pushing behind her ear, but she found herself doing it anyway.

"Sixteen years of experience hiding on one, and let me tell you," she added, sighing quietly. "There's nowhere to run or hide."

Duke shuddered, not entirely performatively. "Sounds like a total nightmare to me."

Octavia snorted. It came out sounding a little soft.

"Do you want to hear the most nightmarish part?"

"Sure," Duke said wryly. "Hell, I'm already traumatized, might as well go all the way."

Octavia shot him a wry look back, but there was an odd note of warmth to it. Don't ask her why.

"I wasn't supposed to exist, because Mom already had Bellamy," she said. Just to clarify what it was really about. "And because I wasn't supposed to exist, I couldn't leave our quarters, ever. But, just in case that wasn't bad enough, there were surprise inspections. Guards would come in and check everything was how it was supposed to be."

And to harrass her mother.

"And there was this part of the floor that my mom had pried loose, and underneath, there was this tiny crawlspace that could be hidden by the piece of floor and then Mom's workbench over it. And that's where I would go, whenever there was an inspection. For sixteen years. And that hole did not get any bigger along with me."

Duke shook his head. "I had my share of hidey-holes growing up, but at least I got to pick mine myself. How'd you end up down on Earth? Sounds like if you'd been caught you would have been locked up until you were old enough to, uh, 'space'."

"I would've had my trial at eighteen, then been floated," Octavia confirmed with a nod. She couldn't know whether that would have been the outcome, of course, but she'd always assumed. "Instead, I came to Earth at seventeen on a dropship. The Ark started running out of resources a full century ahead of schedule, but the ones in charge didn't know how far along Earth was in its healing process."

And here was where her tone got really dry. "So who do you send to the ground to check out if it's survivable yet? Good, law-abiding citizens, or a hundred of your most expendable?"

They'd literally been called that in Counsellor Jaha's video message, to their faces. Expendable. Explained some of Octavia's rather bitter tone, there.

"You mean kids, right?" Duke asked, a little sharper than he'd intended. "Like you were, just stuck in a shitty situation and trying to make the most of it? Fuck, I really hate people sometimes."

Octavia did not seem to mind the sharpness one bit.

"If nothing else," she said, mildly, "at least I got to be the very first Ark-born person to step back on the ground."

"One small step for Octavia, one giant fuck you to the mankind you left behind. . . ."

Octavia snorted.

"Not that anyone would believe it now," she said, her lips quirking into a lopsided little something that she tried to hide by tilting her chin down some, "but the very first thing I did on Earth was actually to scream 'we're back, bitches' at the top of my lungs."

In case he was wondering whether she'd always been this reserved and stoic.

"Scream?" Duke asked. "Or 'spoke slightly louder than your average speaking voice?'"

"Scream," Octavia told him, glancing over, that lopsided smirk-thing still surprisingly intact. "What, you don't think I have it in me to be loud?"

"I'm sure you contain multitudes," Duke said. "You just strike me as being pretty . . . reserved."

She'd even prefaced this thing with 'not that anyone would believe it now', so, fair.

The smirk waned as she shrugged one shoulder. "Maybe I wasn't, always."

"Apparently. Mind if I ask what changed?"

This time the shrug was more in her tone than it was a physical action. "The ground happened to me." She'd thought about it a fair bit, lately, but hadn't come up with a better way to put it than that. "Warriors don't chase butterflies."

"I mean, they can. But I guess that'd be asking to get, like, shot or stabbed or something."

"I think I just closed that part of myself off."

Just because it was kind of sad, didn't mean it wasn't true.

"A closed door is made to be opened," Duke said. "You want to head out into open waters, or keep cruising by the island?"

"Open waters," Octavia said, without much in the way of hesitation. "Please."

Maybe she couldn't do boisterous, these days, but sincere was was still easy to hit even when she didn't necessarily want to.

"Aye-aye," Duke said, and steered the ship into a wide curve.

The ocean spread out in front of them, broad, empty, and deep, sparkling blue.

"God, I love that view."

Octavia's little forward lean was not a conscious decision, and yet it was so very necessary.

She exhaled like there was a weight sliding off her shoulders. "It's beautiful," she said, though maybe mostly to herself, judging by how murmured it was.

(She didn't know it, and neither would he, but she looked almost exactly like she had when she'd first seen the butterflies she'd mentioned in passing before.)

Duke grinned, wide and lazy. “Some people think it looks empty. They’re usually just not looking hard enough.” He pointed to a patch of extra-turbulent water. “You see those little silver flickers?Those are fish, catching bugs over the water. A whole school of them.”

"A school of fish," Octavia repeated, like she was committing that to memory. Because, hey, new terminology. She sighed again. "That's one of best things about being in this time," she said. "If you pay attention, there's so much life."

There had been life on the ground, too, but nature was still bouncing back. It was a delight whenever she saw something new here.

"There is," Duke agreed. "In all sorts of sizes and shapes." He pointed out past the fish. "And where there's one type, there's usually another."

Larger shapes were breaching the surface, visible more by their movement than by any contrast of color with the water. And by their small, pointed dorsal fins.

"Porpoises," he explained. "Having a feast."

Octavia didn't so much raise her eyebrows as they just bounced naturally on their own. "Wait, aren't porpoises kind of like dolphins?"

She knew dolphins first and foremost from myth, but she'd also seen a nature documentary or two.

"They're very similar," Duke said with a nod. "A lot of people can't tell them apart, especially from this distance. But look at the fin: see how it's small and pretty triangular? Dolphins have taller, curved fins. Their faces are pretty different, too, but you'll only see those if they --"

Fandom being what it was, and the Cape Rouge being very close to Fandom, one of the porpoises obliged Duke by leaping all the way up out of the water. Duke beamed.

"-- Do that."

Octavia was developing kind of a weird soft spot for his smiling, but anyone thinking she'd turn her gaze from that had to be crazy. It was like her eyes shone for a second.

"I saw it," she said, like there was any doubt. "Dolphins, they're slimmer in the face, right? Porpoises are more blunt, kind of."

... Relatable.

"Exactly. Dolphins have kind of a beak. Porpoises not so much. Their teeth are different, too, but you're not likely to see that outside of a rescue organization or an aquarium."

Or a theme park, but Duke liked to pretend those didn't exist.

Octavia was probably going to throw a fit about those as soon as she found out about them, yes.

"I've been close enough to the teeth of enough things that I probably don't have to get that familiar with them," she noted with a wry drawl. "I think I might like an aquarium, though."

"Baltimore's supposed to have a pretty good one," Duke said. "You've never been?"

Octavia shook her head. "I haven't really been on the mainland much. I'm not sure I've actually gone far enough to lose sight of the causeway."

No, she knew she hadn't.

“Worried you won’t be able to get back?”

"That's part of it."

It seemed like a fairly understandable bit of paranoia to her, considering.

Duke nodded. “And the other part?”

"Too many people," she said. "I looked it up on Bel's phone once --" One day she'd have her own but guess that day hadn't come yet. "-- that over six hundred thousand people live in just Baltimore. That's overwhelming."

Not that she'd tested that theory.

"Cities do tend to get pretty crowded," Duke said. He was maybe wondering how easy it would be to break into the aquarium after hours. "If you pick, like, a rainy weekday . . . maybe in the winter . . . it might not be too bad."

Now there was an idea Octavia would not dissuade him from.

She sighed. "That sounds like being cold and miserable to avoid being uncomfortable." Or panicked, but that was a step too far in what she was willing to say. "But, maybe. I didn't mean to let it hold me back this long."

"Maybe you can get one of those portal things? So you can get back fast if it gets too -- uncomfortable."

"I don't know if I trust those, either," Octavia said - and yes, she could actually hear how many directions her paranoia was going with this, and so she made a slight face. "Sorry."

What for? She couldn't say.

"No skin off my back," Duke said. "No worries about going to sea though. Nice to see your priorities are in order."

Octavia shrugged. "It's like space." Proper space, not being on a space station. "Open, vast, not filled with people looking at me like I don't belong."

"You know, I was just telling Jack the ocean could be like space. Good to know I was right."

"You were."

Octavia wondered whether Jack's take on the comparison would be similar to hers. She knew Jack's experience of space was different, at the very least.

Maybe she should ask her, sometime.

She fell quiet for a moment, watching the water. A few thoughts drifted by, but one was insistent enough that it made its way out of her mouth. "Feels like we overdid the topic of why I'm a basket case," she rasped, with no small amount of wryness. Then she looked back over at him. "What did you do before you were this, a smuggler with a boat? Apart from the jailtime."

She'd picked up bits and pieces, but hadn't actually asked yet.

Duke shrugged, looking out over the water. "Grew up in a small beach town in Maine, about a thousand miles north of here. My dad worked on the docks, started taking me out on the water by the time I could walk. Sailing's pretty much the only decent thing he ever taught me."

"Better than nothing," Octavia replied. So, so mildly. "But he didn't look out for you."

No, it was not a question.

"Not so's you'd notice," Duke said. "Had to spend more than a few nights looking out for him instead." He sighed. "He died when I was eight."

"I'm sorry."

More for the rest than the death, honestly, but that was the beauty of not specifying out loud. Her tone had dropped back into a neutral, but there was an undercurrent of... something.

She sounded like she cared, was the thing.

Octavia watched him in profile for a few seconds more before turning her eyes towards the water, too.

"What about your mother?"

Duke let out a single, bitter laugh.

"Yeah, I don't talk about her."

"Says enough."

For her not to press on any further with that. Instead, she fell quiet again, just watching the view for a moment.

“Been thinking of looking into a glass bottom boat,” Duke said, after left the silence sit for a moment. “I bet there’s some weird shit to see down there.”

"That's an option?" Octavia asked, though immediately on second thought it was not that surprising. "Like a window right into the sea."

“Exactly. It’d be a smaller one than this, more of a skiff really. Though the water’s probably not quite clear enough up here. They’re a booming business in the Caribbean.”

Octavia's brief pause and look to the side with an ever so slightly furrowed brow was her trying to place the Caribbean on a map in her head.

And then failing, of course. But, whatever.

"I can see why people would like that," she mused. "You get to see things without having to be in the water."

“‘In the water’ is a spooky place for a lot of people,” Duke said. “Am I right in guessing that you don’t swim?”

"I wade, if that counts?"

You could tell by the faint wry smirk that she knew it didn't.

“Well. It’s a start anyway.”

"I was the first Ark-born person in the water," Octavia drawled, "and immediately after, I was almost the first Ark-born person eaten by some kind of a snake monster." Mutated fauna was a blast. "That's my reason and I'm sticking to it."

She was mostly joking about that one, not that it was easy to tell.

"Learning's on my to-do list, though."

". . . Yeah, I can see where that would put you off it for awhile. I myself haven't gone swimming since I saw the giant sea monster that lives right by Fandom." He shrugged. "Also it's cold."

"... Fandom has a sea monster?"

A beat.

"Of course Fandom has a sea monster. Why wouldn't it?"

"Thank you," Duke said. "Everyone always looks at me like 'oh poor baby' when I react to stuff like that. Yes. Fandom has a sea monster. And it would have been really nice if someone had warned me about it before I happened upon it while free diving."

Octavia wasn't the type to say 'oh my God', but that didn't really matter when her raised eyebrows were really saying it for her.

"Oh, no. That is definitely worth a significant reaction." And also news to her, and maybe she would just continue to skip the swimming, after all? "And one they don't advertise much, apparently."

"I gather it spends most of its time sleeping. I might just have to brave it and try again -- just, you know, on the other side of the island."

"Good," Octavia decided. "I don't want you to get eaten."

Because, again, she'd almost had that happen and so she knew first-hand how terrible that was.

But also just in general.

“I prefer to avoid it, myself,” Duke said. “I’m very trouble-avoidant.”

God help him, he actually thought that was true.

Octavia had known him for like a week, and yet here she was, giving him a silent look that was on the dryly judgey side.

Because, really?

“What?” Duke asked at that look. “I am! I can’t help it if trouble always manages to find me anyway.”

The look melted into something a tad more amused - but also snarky.

"So what you're saying is that you're just not very good at being trouble-avoidant."

Duke opened his mouth to respond, then sighed and nodded. "Yes. I guess that's exactly what I'm saying."

And from snarky to smug, now. Still faint, though, though there was almost a smile that went with it.

"That's okay," she said. "I still want that ID, anyway."

And fully trouble-avoidant people probably wouldn't make that happen for her.

"Glad to hear it," Duke said. "Since my guy's already working on one for you. You don't mind being from Texas, do you?"

Okay, that definitely counted as a smile, the way it widened some. Guess the trick was to surprise her.

She tempered it down pretty quickly, though. "They have a lot of horses in Texas." That was the sum total of her knowledge of Texas. Well, 'knowledge'. "I'm okay with that."

"That they do," Duke said, smiling back. He was definitely going to try to get more of those out of her, however he could. "I should be able to get it next week."

"Then maybe they'll even start serving me at the Devil's Nest around the time they should."

And she'd be able to throw axes and have beer, the way the gods intended.

The wry expression softened into something a little more sincere. She glanced out the window, then back at him. "Thank you," she said. "For that. But also for this." It was a fairly wide and accommodating 'this'.

"No problem," Duke said. "You're good company."

"Yeah," Octavia replied, lightly, like she was half-humoring him there but still pleased to hear it. "Yu laik seintaim."

This afternoon? Was a good afternoon.

"How do you say 'thank you' in Trig?"

"Mochof."

How that had evolved, she could only guess.

Duke blinked. Yeah, that didn't even sound a little bit like 'thank you'.

"Mochof, then," he said with a smile. "I try."

This was the culture that had taught Octavia to be as closed-off as she was. Maybe they just didn't want to be obvious about the sincere stuff?

There was a brief warmth in her eyes. Then she shrugged. "Did I see some beers on the deck?" she asked. "And is that a thing we can do? Stay here in the nothingness for a while, with beer?"

"Hell yes," Duke said. "Beers and snacks. Let me just drop anchor so we don't drift, and we can go chill. Maybe fish a little."

Octavia nodded, clearly pleased by her own standards. "Then that's the plan."

It'd kill a few hours before the inevitable return to the rest of civilization, and maybe that would be exactly what she needed.

The Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom (and Beyond!), Wednesday afternoon

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject