Capítulo 10: Chapter 9: A knowing gaze
Inside the castle of the Yarara kingdom, Jack Sparrow, who was now pretending to be the merchant Captain Sisco, had been waiting in a room for several minutes and was already getting a little restless... yes, his patience was not his best quality.
Luckily for him, he didn't have to wait much longer as after a while the king's butler returned to the room where he was waiting and finally guided him to the throne room where he would meet the king.
...
...
Meanwhile, inside the throne room now there seemed to be some sort of discussion going on inside.
"Hina requests you to reconsider just having a few marine stationed at both ports."
"Commander Hina, I sympathize with your need to provide security on the island now that you were assigned to the Marine base stationed here in place of Commodore Shayo"
"Yet I again remind you that the marines have no jurisdiction in my private port, something Commodore Shayo fully understood and respect "
" Indeed I know, still Hina requests you to reconsider to change this and allow some marines to enter in order to provide a better security."
"Oh, but there is no such need, as I already told you, that port is perfectly safe, my men are perfectly capable and in all these years we have never encountered any problems."
" Hina must still insist..."
"The answer is no, commander" the king stated with a final voice as he glared at Hina.
Just at that moment a call for the king came over the den den mushi on his desk.
"Uh..., you see, I must take this call, you may be dismissed for now."
"Alright, with your permission" nodded Hina rather frustrated leaving the throne room quickly while the king answered the call.
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...
On the other hand, Jack finally arrived at the corridor leading to the throne room, the king's butler instructed him where the door was and warned him that once he arrived he was going to have to wait again just a few seconds until the butler verified that he could enter.
At the exact moment that the butler and Jack were going to the door, both heard the sound of a door closing and then loud footsteps coming towards them.
The two of them then saw that out of the door came a woman who rushed out without looking around, which caused her to cross Jack's path, almost colliding with him but stopping herself just in time to suddenly come face to face with him.
Jack noticed in the woman's facial features that she was not at all glad for some reason.
However, she quickly recognized and apologized to Jack for her sudden, careless, aggressive, and impolite manner:
"Hina laments and apologizes for what happened, realizing shouldn't have walked so absentmindedly…"
Her third-person speech managed to weird Jack out a bit, but he guessed it was probably some sort of peculiarity of hers, yet many pirates had their own weird peculiarities beyond her, ones enough to give even Jack himself chills.
"Ah, no worries, darling. One can never have enough surprising encounters in this life, eh?" raising an eyebrow and winking, Jack offers her a charming smile.
"And I must say, even though your encounter was a bit abrupt, it's a pleasure for the eyes if you ask me" he looks her up and down with a playful glint in his eyes.
Upon hearing these words Hina took a second look at the man in front of her, it was then that she noticed a pair of chocolate brown eyes that stared at her with simple amusement and a golden smile that slowly formed on the man's tanned face.
Clearly, he was younger than she was, five or six years perhaps, but his eyes gave her the impression of someone much older than he appeared to be.
Behind the playful glint in his eyes, she can see a knowing gaze is an enigmatic mixture of wisdom and experience, revealing a man who has traversed countless trials and tribulations. It's a look that speaks volumes without uttering a word, leaving one with a feeling that he knows far more than he lets on.
"This... Captain Sisco, if you excuse me I will go first to check if the king is ready to receive you, could you wait a little longer?" the butler interrupted, sweating a drop of sweat, knowing perfectly well who the woman was.
"Well, that won't be a problem" Jack Sparrow replies, offering a sly grin as he leans against a nearby wall, seemingly at ease with the delay.
"Ah, so darling, now where were we?" Jack casually inquires, a crooked smile dancing on his lips and a glint of mischief in his eyes as he sees the women in front of him.
Hina didn't appreciate or even particularly impressed with the way he spoke or his unusual accent, but still, she was quite intrigued to know more about the man and maybe she could even get more information about the king's private port from him as well as the business with merchants like him...
Besides it seemed that he didn't know who she was, so he also had no idea that she was from the marine.
For a few moments, the two of them talk until the butler finally came out of the throne room and informed Jack that the king at this time had a major call to attend before meeting with him.
Not bothered by this, Jack casually tells him again that it is no bother and that he can wait.
Jack then takes advantage of the time and occasion to continue his little chat with the beautiful woman named Hina.
She strangely kept asking him different kinds of questions that made Jack think that maybe she had figured out or suspected that he was not the merchant captain Sisco, but anyway, he played along and answered all her questions confidently using the cover he was carrying as Sisco.
Yep, he told her the false story that he was a merchant, of course, Jack didn't mention that Sisco was indeed a slave merchant as it was known that you couldn't just mention such a thing, even slave dealing businesses had other names to pretend.
Then if Hina asked any question that he had no way to answer, Jack would simply improvise or astutely change the topic to avoid saying something that might give him away.
As odd as it may appear she seemed to do the same as Jack since she often changed the subject when he asked her a question or two, but just like Hina, he let those things pass in order to keep the conversation going.
It had been quite a while since Jack had had such a strange and interesting talk in which both sides seemed to be hiding something and at the same time trying to determine what the other wasn't saying or knowing.
It was like a struggle to get the most information out of the other one.
Sort of like a war of wits and cunning to see who could get the information they wanted through constant comments, questions, and answers.
...
After a few minutes the butler came back out of the throne room again and seeing this as his sign to finally see the king Jack said adieu to Hina.
"If we ever cross paths again, I hope it's under less accidental circumstances, you know? It'd be a shame to miss the chance to get to know you better, don't you think?" with a tip of his hat, Jack continues on his way to the butler.
Hina just simply nodded to him, turned around, and left the castle.
The two of them had been talking about all sorts of things, even the most absurd ones, which were usually the topics of conversation Jack usually brought up.
Hina wasn't sure why or what exactly he wanted to know about her with such non-redundant subjects, but she was pretty sure that he at least hadn't figured out that she was from the Marines, yet he most likely did manage to figure out everything from her tastes in alcohol to her favorite color..., which was extremely weird.
She couldn't find any sense in this but still, she left rather satisfied as she had managed to discover a few things, nothing concrete but some clues like the fact that there were lodgings for VIP people, a bunch of new merchants hired by the king, probably illegal shipments arriving for the king himself...
However, Hina just sighed and shook her head knowing that in many kingdoms, if not most of them, things like this were actually taking place.
Now, on the other hand, Hina was also quite shocked to find that Captain Sisco was actually a man with whom she actually enjoyed talking to, despite his obvious flirtatiousness and not-so-appropriate comments, she had to admit that he was extremely knowledgeable and his point of view on things was really interesting, also it seemed that he never lacked a topic of conversation to talk about, no matter if it was about something absurd, which made it quite entertaining.
Yep, Hina had to concede that he was a very peculiar person to whom she would have no problem talking again despite his flirtatious attitude.
In addition, despite the fact that she initially thought of his accent as a rather odd one, after conversing for a while with him she came to the conclusion that it was very nice to the ear and every time he spoke he gave her a touch of elegance, sophistication, and refinement.
...
On the other hand, Jack didn't think too much about Hina, after verifying that she really didn't doubt his identity he relaxed and acted as usual, it was an entertaining chat but now he had other matters that required his immediate attention...
At least that's what he assumed.
It turns out that Jack was wrong since he was sure that now he was going to enter the throne room.
Still, the butler only apologized to him and informed him that there had been some unplanned matters that the king had to attend immediately so he would have to postpone their talk to another day.
The butler then told him that once the king was available he would inform him personally and that until then he could stay at one of the VIP residences on the island free of charge.
Jack just looked at the man for a few moments in silence wondering what to do, until he finally agreed.
Upon leaving the castle Jack explained the situation to the king's guards.
They spoke to the butler who verified that what he said was true and so Jack took the slaves back to the ship...
Of course, first, he told the king's men that he would return to the castle with the slaves when the king could meet with him, but until then the "merchandise" would remain on his ship.
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