The Aftermath

Theo was gripping the rails on the upper deck as she heard her crew shouting at her. The second the word 'Vaith' left her mouth there was an uproar from the crew. Through the unintelligible waves of anger emanating from the crowd, Theo managed to catch onto enough of the comments to understand her crew was far from happy. Some of the women had resorted to name-calling, traitor and liar were thrown around quite a bit. Other women had tried their hand at yelling out reminders to Theo as to what exactly Vaith had done to them. Villages destroyed, unfair classifications for their family, decisions he made on the council that affected their lives.

Theo took a deep breath trying to keep down her anger and frustration from being yelled at. She didn't need a reminder as to what Vaith had done, she knew first hand. For many of these women, Vaith had ruined their lives. And if he hadn't, another councilmember most likely had. So Vaith represented the ultimate prize. Whether he directly affected someone or acted as a symbol of the system, Vaith and the other council members were easily the most hated men amongst those lower in Baethean society. After the initial volley of insults and protest the crowd had quieted down enough for Theo to be able to speak.

"I've sat down with all of you at one point or another when you first joined my crew and promised to never lie to you or keep things from you," Theo admitted and the women in the crowd nodded along, some unhappy mutters slipping through, "I broke that promise and I am infinitely sorry. This has weighed on my mind for a while and I promise you I will not keep secrets from you again."

Theo scanned the crowd and saw Ava squeezing past pirates on her way inside the deck. Cooker, Theo noted, followed in pursuit of Ava and slipped into the deck too. Theo was confused but pushed it out of her mind, she had other things to attend to.

"I do not know how to repair the damage I have caused beyond apologizing and asking for your understanding and forgiveness. My door will be open all morning, aftermorning, and night for any concerns or questions you might have. We are going to be sailing for another six suns to Niveal where we are going to dock for an indefinite time until we figure out our next course based on any new leads we get."

"Will you keep those from us too?" A woman from the crew yelled out and it was met with various snickers from the others.

"Clever," Theo said, grip still tight on the railing, "Night crew, your shifts start now. That is all, pirates, thank you."

She pushed herself off from the railing and walked to the helm of the ship waiting for Navi to join. She planned to stay on deck and around the crew until late hoping that burning the midnight oil would make the crew forgive her a little easier. Navi marched up the stairs and positioned herself at the helm, arms crossed in front of her.

"Navi, any updates? We still projecting a six sun journey?" Theo asked.

"Don't know why it would have changed since I told you two hours ago."

"I was just asking."

"I'm not in the mood for small talk, Theo," Navi snapped at Theo and turned to face away, overlooking the crew.

Theo sighed and pushed past Navi and back down the stairs. She knew she was in the wrong but she was not going to deal with Navi's attitude. No productive conversation would come out of it anyway. Navi was just as stubborn as Theo so she knew firsthand the degree of cold shoulder Navi was capable of. Working against the voice in her brain screaming at her to keep Navi and Xyra at a distance, she found Xyra and patted her on the back.

"You're on night duty with Navi tonight. Captain's orders," Theo informed her and quickly made her way inside the deck before Xyra could say anything.

Theo felt a bit lost on her own ship which was an odd feeling. She didn't know where to go or who to talk to, she was positive the majority of the women on the ship were in too sore a mood to be faced with their lying captain. Theo decided it would be best to retreat into the kitchen and help Rose clean up dinner, pirates tended to be messy. She walked into an empty mess hall, Rose in the kitchen. Silently, as Rose preferred, Theo began to pick up the plates and cups from the tables around the room.

Slowly, the room started to look cleaner and Theo heard Rose putting some tea to boil. Theo walked into the kitchen with the last of the plates and flashed Rose a smile. The kitchen was as spotless as a pirate kitchen could be and Theo's helping hands allowed the cook to get her kitchen cleaned a lot faster than usual. Theo leaned against one of the counters and watched the older woman making her way about the kitchen.

"Here you go," she said in her signature thick accent, "You need it."

Rose handed Theo the cup of tea which she gratefully accepted, "At least one person is speaking to me."

"Aye," Rose let out a small chuckle, "they will be punishing you enough."

Rose had been on Theo's crew for four lengths and Theo recruited her onto the ship only ten cycles after becoming Captain. Miss Yurwa and Rose were a package deal and they both came on to the ship together. Rose and Miss Yurwa both lived with their sons who supported them. Their sons were drafted into the Baethean army and died trying to quell an uprising in Aeliz. The Center sent them a year's worth of wages but it wasn't enough to keep them alive. When Theo stumbled across them in a small South Efritian port city, Miss Yurwa and Rose did not hesitate to agree to come on board. No one dared to ask them how old they were but the most accurate estimates the crew had come up with was around 50 lengths old.

Rose was a woman of little words and Theo appreciated it sometimes. Rose's kitchen was always a welcome escape. It was Rose's her of intrusive questioning and the ability to not be influenced by the moods of the crew made her company welcome. Theo sipped her tea in silence, relishing the warmth in her hands from the cup.

"You need to choose," Rose said, breaking the silence.

"Come again?"

"You need to choose. Be a captain that keeps secrets for the best of the crew or be a captain that doesn't, even if it means risking the crew. There is no right answer, but you must choose," Rose offered a piece of seldom given advice.

Theo was floored. Obviously, in the time that Rose had been a part of the crew, Theo had been privy to a few pieces of advice from Rose but they were far and few between. Theo would often compare Rose to the gods, only meddling in the affairs of humans when they were of the utmost importance. Rose had a point in her advice. Theo couldn't protect her crew and promise to be honest all the time, one had to give at some point. She wanted to do it all, protect them, keep their best interests for the long term at heart, and have full transparency with them but she realized now she couldn't. Rose, in her godly wisdom, had given Theo the clarity she had been floundering for all that time.

"Aye, you're right," Theo sighed, "But it's fucking hard to choose."

One thing she wouldn't give up was allowing the women on her crew to have a voice. Her ship was the only place in all of Baethos where women were accounted for in every decision and no one's voice was spoken over. She had robbed the women of a vote by lying to them. She wouldn't do that again, she decided. It was as simple as that. She would stick by her word of never keeping her crew in the dark even if it cost them their safety and their lives. These women were pirates and they understood the dangers they signed up for when they came on the ship.

Theo knew that she was overthinking and kicking herself about the whole situation a little too hard. There would most likely never be another time where she kept something this big from her crew. Nothing would ever come close to the magnitude of what Theo lied about, she had kept to herself the map to the ultimate treasure. Theo put her cup down and leaned forward to kiss Rose on the forehead. She had decided to heed Rose's advice and now all that was left was the simple task of winning her crew over again.

Making her way out of the kitchen she decided to start with the two people who had slipped out of the assembly earlier, Cooker and Ava. She had seen them come inside the deck and assumed if they had gone anywhere it would have been the library. When she opened the door to it she found only Ava sitting in the chair, book on her lap, staring at the wall. Her head snapped over and she paled a bit at the sight of Theo.

Theo walked into the room, shutting the door behind her, "You missed out on the assembly."

Ava cleared her throat and licked her lips nervously, "Aye, I've had the worst headache all sun from all the drinking last night. It was just a lot of noise at once and I just wanted to get out of there."

"You must have had a hell of a lot to drink last night then," Theo tried to joke and flashed Ava a smile, only to be met with nothing in return.

"It was quite the evening, yeah," Ava said looking down, toying with the pages in her book.

"I was just going to ask if you wanted to pass by my room later tonight. I'm going to be out trying to talk to the crew for a little bit I should be in my quarters soon," Theo asked, a hopeful smile on her face.

Ava felt horrible, she was going to have to turn Theo down. She didn't know what to say. The last thing she wanted to do was spend a couple of hours in a room alone with Theo after Ava just found out what her role in this whole thing was. But at the same time, she really wanted to spend time with Theo; which was a thought she pushed aside to examine at a later point in time. Theo looked dejected and the way the girls were yelling during the assembly would have made Ava cry. She wanted to be there for Theo, her new Captain, but she couldn't. It took all Ava's will power to turn Theo down. She couldn't trust herself not to spill her secret, not with all the guilt built up in her chest.

Ava looked up and Theo and offered a polite smile, "I was going to head to bed after I finished this page, actually. I'm sorry, it's just been a long few suns."

"I understand. You need time to rest," Theo answered quickly and rubbed her hands together awkwardly, "Tomorrow when you wake up, stop by my quarters. We'll talk about training and what job you're going to start with."

Theo kept a smile on her face as she exited the room. After she shut the door she pressed her back up against it and let out a deep breath. She didn't want to admit to herself how much that had stung. A rejection, from someone who was on sun zero of being a pirate. More than that, a rejection from Ava. It shouldn't have affected her the way it did but she felt awkward and embarrassed and ready to crawl into a hole. Theo had figured that if anyone on the ship would not be upset with her it would have been Ava.

Theo could not get a firm read on her. Was she genuinely feeling sick, was she still torn up about her kill the sun before, or was she angry at Theo for concealing what the lead was? It was messing with her more than it should and as a captain, she should have been less concerned with the opinion of Ava. However, as much as she tried, she couldn't stop thinking about it. She walked away from the library and back onto the deck, figuring that she might as well get to work and help the crew. She wanted to find Cooker and ask her why she felt the need to leave a crew wide assembly but in the grand scheme of things, Theo could let that go. Plus, she had a feeling Cooker would not any more inclined to have a conversation than Navi or Ava were.

The reception from the women on the night shift was icy at best. No matter what part of the ship or who she worked with, it was either barely polite conversation or complete silence. After a few hours, her ego could not take the lack of attention her crew was giving her, and she retired into her room. Theo felt a bit childish for reacting in the way she was. Her crew had every right to hold onto a grudge with her at least for a few suns but because of it, she was shutting herself in her room to mope.

Theo realized as she sat at her desk, door open as she promised it would be, that she hadn't checked in on Morgana at all. It wasn't from a lack of thinking about Morgana, Theo's mind had frequently reminded her that she needed to go see her friend but fear was preventing her from it. She did not want to walk into Tuni's and get an update she didn't want to hear. Three suns was Tuni's magic number. If she could get an injured person to survive infection for three suns they were more likely to make it out alive. Theo wanted so badly just to wait the three suns but she knew that it would be far too long. Morgana was family. Theo didn't think she could live without her friend and Theo didn't want Morgana feeling any other way. She decided her first order of business in the morning would be to go pay Mor a visit.

For the time being, she thought it was best to just go to bed. It had been a long sun. What started off as a promising morning quickly turned into an emotional sun. Theo had managed to turn everyone against her in the span of one sun and couldn't get any one of them to see her side of things. She climbed into bed and opted to leave her door open, making true on her promise that she was available for her crew at whatever time.