Prompt: conversation between Max and Thomas( about anything: sertain ginger pirates/society/books/etc)

complaininginthedark:

(AAHHHH my two favs talking is a great idea so I ran with it)

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“How did you survive?”

Max jolted, hiding her surprise well. The room had been silent even with the two of them having only just met. Thomas Hamilton spoke little, it seemed, and she had been unsure at first as to how to react to him. But he had sat down on a simple chair in her office and simply kept to himself as she worked on ledgers and papers.

She straightened her back and cleared her throat.

“I assume you mean how did a slave, a woman, free herself and come to secretly rule over an island of thieves and whores?” She said, raising an eyebrow at the man.

He nodded, the shaggy blond-grey hair falling in his eyes for a moment before he swept it back. “But also a woman in love with another woman.”

Max balked, not shame but something akin to shock flooding her body. But of course he would notice; this was a man who had been imprisoned for loving another man. It hadn’t been as simple as that, she knew, but that was the crux of it. She looked him dead in the eye and drew on every ounce of strength she had. “It nearly killed me more than once. But I refused to give them the satisfaction of seeing me fail.”

Thomas smiled. It was a small thing, broken and fragile, and she knew how it felt to smile like that. But he smiled and she thought he knew a little of her experiences.

“You are perhaps the most remarkable woman I’ve ever met,” he said softly. “I’m glad you are here, glad to have met you. It is good to know the world hasn’t broken us all.”

“You are not broken, not yet,” she said, “only in a state of repair. If what you have been through did not kill you, you have won. If you wake each morning and live your life as you wish, you have won. You have beaten them-” she gestured to the group of well-to-do merchants down below in the tavern, “and their bigoted opinions. Every time you kiss the man you love, every time you breathe free and fresh air, you have won.”

He gasped, a small sob falling from his lips and she almost stopped.

“Be yourself, be more than yourself and rub their pale and upturned noses in your happiness and freedom. Rise above them. Let them pick at your leftovers and laugh,” she grinned, taking a sheet of paper and dropping it over the balcony with a handkerchief. The men below clamoured to reach the items before their fellows, almost brawling to get their hands on what had been offered; a touch of power. She saw Thomas’ eyes water, saw how he was gazing at her in awe, and thought that he might make it. “You were a lord once; be that lord again, and make sure everyone knows who you are.”

Captain Flint, though he no longer bore that title, came up the stairs then. He went to Thomas’ side and she saw the concern there, plain on his face for all to see.

“Do not worry, mon cher,” she said with a laugh, “we both have a fiery protector to swoop in when our brazenness gets us into trouble.”

Thomas laughed then, a bright sound that made her smile, and the confused look on Flint’s face made her laugh too.