章 33: Woodcarving

As much as Mariana hated to admit this, she was more than a bit disappointed by just how uneventful the night was. They did not leave the port just yet, seeing as David was currently in control of Aja Vana and no one dared to whisper anything that he would have taken as offensive or hostile.

She fell asleep on a pile of cushions. Someone had brought them, but they didn't have any specific feel or smell to them, and she had trouble remembering just who had decided to make her comfortable. A shame; she would have loved to thank this person.

Madeliene got an opportunity to come to Captain Mariana early in the morning. The musician had visibly calmed down, but Mariana could not read anything from her eyes.

The captain could only hope that it was a good sign.

"I have the cube," Madeliene whispered to her as they were washing their faces in a bowl of cool water.

Mariana's heart sank and shriveled up.

This was way worse than she had predicted. The ace in her sleeve was in danger of Daniel noticing it and there was little she could do. They had almost lost their advantage already.

If Daniel was a demon, there was nothing worse than him getting the sacred dice and being free from all attempts to summon him.

"Come to me later," Mariana whispered, because she saw someone approaching them from the corner of her eye. She could not risk the pirates thinking that they were planning anything close to an escape.

Madeliene nodded.

Another plan was brewing in Mariana's pretty…no, beautiful head. She was afraid of dissolving the great design by thinking about it too much, so she did not put it into words. She didn't formulate it into a series of sentences, keeping it in images of their escape instead. Some kind of a spark of hope kept her thinking that visualizing the plan would eventually help her with the actual deed.

Sadly, she could not harbor her mistrust and fear much longer. She found Daniel carefully carving his initials into a block of wood just outside the washing room. He didn't notice her. He was too focused on the block he was cradling in his arms. The carving was already starting to look nice; the letters surpassed calligraphy, seemingly more inspired by ancient drawings of monks who had copied every holy text by hand and illustrated every letter with painstaking diligence and a whimsical take on the task at hand. Daniel was so handsome, and somehow more human than usually when all of his attention was directing itself towards something this harmless.

"What are you doing, Captain Daniel?" she cooed.

"I am…desecrating a piece of an ancient tree, long since cut down," he said, making another curve in the B. "I shouldn't be doing this…it's from an old tree…older than most civilizations."

"Um, can you add my initials into it?" Mariana asked.

He shrugged. "You want to partake in vandalism?"

"Like I would ever refuse…"

They sat there for a moment. The pirate king did not give the knife to her, of course, their dynamic changed in other ways.

"I actually took classes for this," Daniel said suddenly, with concentration scrunching up his face into a cute frown. "It's harder than it looks. Normally, one would do this with ink…on paper, or into a softer wood with an instrument more precise than this crude tool."

"Mm-hmm." Mariana did not want to disturb him. Although she still intended to escape, she wanted to drain as much of this thing from him, this affection that closely resembled…

No, she couldn't think of that word, not now. Not yet.

"Don't you think it would look even better if you extended that curve?" She trailed her forefinger across the A of her initials.

"Which curve?"

She was shocked to notice his eyes licking her outline, forming an obvious double implication from her words.

She was uncomfortable and tried to judge whether she should bring this to his attention.

"Do you still love my mind?" she whispered.

"I don't understand why that is relevant," he muttered, still entirely absorbed in his craft. "Calligraphy, woodcarving, illustration, I don't think many people even understand how many hours of studying and work go into a thing like this one. They merely see the result: a nice carving done into a block of wood."

"Daniel."

"Indeed, I think that the appreciation for culture - what is it, Mariana? Why are you nudging me?"

"I want to know."

She couldn't keep the complaining voice away, she had to ask him again.

"Why do you look at me like I have nothing going on inside my head, Daniel? It makes me feel like you don't want to start off fresh…"

"Who has said anything about a fresh start?" Daniel snapped. The carving was ready, as if he had timed his burst of anger according to the craft. It was a beautiful thing.

"I think…I thought…"

"Would be the first time you did that!"

Daniel got up and walked away, leaving Mariana in a confused heap of tears and aching limbs.

The wound had started to heal, though, it was mainly the bandage limiting her movements that bothered her in a physical sense. She had no idea what Daniel had done to the bandages. Surely, he had not managed to put anything in the actual wound without her noticing…what if this was a demonstration of his demonic powers? Could something demonic in nature also be healing? She felt so uneasy, remembering where his skin had burned her skin with pleasure and pain, it was a tactile memory without any specific words attached to it.

Her hands drifted somewhere in the hem of her dress, but she knew she couldn't lull herself into a state of relaxation. Someone was coming and they would leave Aja Vana sooner or later.

The footsteps were gentle, though, and this lack of boisterous movements alerted Mariana to the presence of the female musician.

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