a lot of people will look at you
Aria
He’d never been the sort to shrug off what was owed. A life saved, a hand lent in need — those weren’t things to be smoothed over with a nod and forgotten. In Halo, debts were paid or they came back around to bite harder, and Damien carried that truth like a second spine. So when he weighed her gaze, it wasn’t suspicion that rooted him still, but the simple fact that until the scale between them balanced, he meant to stand his ground.
“Captain, then.” The word hung for a beat, his voice still flat, though not dismissive. Ships were far from his home ground, but the word carried enough weight to make his mind turn. He had known shipwrights in the past, men who could build a hull that outlasted storms, mend planks split by sea or cannon, rig a sail to stand against the sky itself. Damien had learned enough from hauling lumber and hammering braces to follow their lead. He wasn’t a sailor, but he knew wood, rope, and tools, and what steady hands could make of them.
“If it’s swabbing decks you want, I won’t balk at it.” His shoulders rose in a slow shrug. “But I can do more than push a mop. I’ve worked alongside men who built vessels from the keel up. I know how to set a board to take weight, how to brace a line so it doesn’t give in the wind. So if you need something shored up, I can see to that. I can even put my own crew together.” So her crew could continue swabbing, or take a break, or whatever; that was more her business than his.
Aria chirruped at the sound of his voice, rolling over to her feet again and giving the rope another proud tug, as though she thought she’d done her share of the day’s labor already. Damien glanced down at her, offering a pat, mouth twitching in a faint shadow of the grin he’d worn before, before he straightened up and his gaze lifted back to Thalassa.
“Your call, Captain."
Damien
but only a few will see you
