this kind of life

if the journey of a thousand miles starts when you take the first step

'Is that the worst that would happen?' Eloise couldn't quite tell what was believable in this new world, especially in Torchline.  She'd heard stories of gods smiting those who appeared at their shrines just for fun, of abandoned being sent off in flames. Then again maybe it was just something the accepted told themselves to feel better about their lack lustre lives.

That sounded like a no. "Close as we are, I don't know if Raza would tell me if she had any. Then again, it wouldn't do her any good, so.." Eloise thoughts would already have betrayed her this next question, and she supposed that once she thought something around Jack, she might as well just come out and say it. "Who else knows." Her voice didn't need to rise at the end to indicate it was a question. There was nothing else she could be referring to. Who else knows what you are? What you can do?

"Normally intimidation is all I need. Why bring real steel when you can make someone think their skin is melting off." Pausing before heading towards her bunk, Eloise raised a brow unable to tell if Jack's offer was meant to be helpful or not. "What, as..bait?" With no muscle to speak of really and no experience with weapons, she wasn't sure how a bit of job-shadowing was going to improve her situation.

i'll travel for a little while, & i won't be coming back

I’m not an artist I’m a fucking work of art

"I wouldn't know - I ain't ever seen a god or had one tell me know to make the comparison." Jack snorted. He touched the feet of the statue before a long voyage like every other Torchliner, and he looked to the stars to navigate the sky and thanked Safrin when the skies were clear enough to look properly. He thanked Rae for good weather and Frey for good pleasure, and that was the extent of his religion.

The idea of she and Raza being close had a smile spreading across his face, and it was not the sneer Eloise might expect. "She's a strong woman - you'd do well to know her better. Could kick my ass in a heartbeat," he muttered, with the closest thing to affection as the captain was likely to muster, and he headed across the deck towards his cabin.

Turning as he realised she meant to walk to her bunk instead, he nodded towards the cabin door, as if to tell her they weren't quite finished talking. Besides, she had asked the question, and this time she might recognise the way the captain grew very still, very careful, as though he were putting up mental defences. (Against what?)

"Not a single living soul," he told her simply. "You are it. And no, not as bait. As you say, why bother bringin' steel when I got someone who can make people believe their skin's meltin' off?"

if the journey of a thousand miles starts when you take the first step

Eloise filed away this brief spark of respect she thought she saw, already the seed planted in her mind that she might one day win Jack over. "Oh, I more than intend to get closer with her." The illusionist hummed, her mind fluidly bringing up images of lingering looks between the two, shots offered on the house, Raza's dark eyes and how they drank her in when she thought Eloise wasn't looking. Or perhaps knowing instead that she was.

Earlier Eloise had pranced into Jack's cabin without so much as a thought. Now as he nodded towards it, she couldn't help but internally criticize the special sort of naive she'd been. Tuned to his movements now, that knowing them might help her avoid further conflict with the captain, still Eloise didn't understand what his stillness was meant to suggest, other than that she ought to tread carefully.

"We could let them think it was you doing it." Eloise said, the image of her disappearing—or at least appearing to. Making herself unseen was a hard illusion to manage especially if you went from visible to invisible. But if you didn't know where to look? Black flames glistened around Jack's fingers for a moment, as if the magic was his and his alone.

i'll travel for a little while, & i won't be coming back

I’m not an artist I’m a fucking work of art

"Good. She's a fantastic fuck," Jack said casually; as she didn't push the matter about his telepathy any further, he continued towards his cabin and held the door open expectantly for her. He kept those images, too, for later enjoyment. Jack was nothing if he was not a seeker of his own pleasure. Pausing to gaze down at his suddenly burning hands, turning them this way and that, he glanced up again to the spot where he knew Eloise's magic condensed around her.

"I appreciate it, but I've a reputation already well established. Throwin' some random magic into the mix just now will just confuse people. But things happenin' just... independently? Spooky shit." Jack was cemented in Torchline as a capable captain who always seemed to get out of situations that should really have killed him or worse. That would do for now.

if the journey of a thousand miles starts when you take the first step

Well that killed her buzz. Eloise wasn't entirely sure she wanted her tongue anywhere near where Jack's dick had been. But perhaps that was a bit premature. She still wasn't sure entirely what she thought of Jack in that regard, and knowing what she did about him now, would be wise not to jump to assumptions.

A touch deflated, Eloise appeared and nodded. "Is it..all the time?" She asked, voice gentle and wary despite the curiosity bright in her eyes. "Or can you turn it on and off?" All of Eloise' magic was of this latter type. She controlled her illusions and telekinesis and though they might get away from her at times, the magic always came through her.

i'll travel for a little while, & i won't be coming back

I’m not an artist I’m a fucking work of art

Snorting at the idea of him killing her buzz, he shot her a look that read plainly: same here, princess. Pretty little thing she might be, but Eloise had already proven to be far more of a pain in his ass than he had ever anticipated. This latest development (still so new that he felt twitchy just considering it, paranoia and secrecy demanding he put right this wrong sooner rather than later) hardly made her more likely to end up tumbling in his sheets. Unless it was to stroke his hair when he had a headache, apparently.

Her questions were the special sort of personal, and he waited until she stepped into the cabin where he could shut the door before responding. Because silence would get them precisely nowhere, and really... what the fuck was there to lose now? "It's always on," he said, sounding awkward in a way entirely foreign to the man he presented to the world. Jack did not talk about his magic - that much must already be clear.

"I can block it, if I need to. Shut people out, let people in. But it's always on, like something passive."

if the journey of a thousand miles starts when you take the first step

Returning the stare, now finding herself wanting to bed Raza something awful if only to prove a point, Eloise leaned against the doorframe, clearly expecting to walk out sooner rather than later. Then he shut the door and that assumption went straight out the window.

"So theoretically if I was thinking..." Eyes on his, Eloise let her imagination run. There were masks and the sort of high-energy tension that came with what the masks represented. A night with no consequences. Skin made red by softly lit lanterns writhed on carpets made of thick velvet. Teeth against nipples, both male and female. Wrists bound with leather, a riding crop from the stable grabbed earlier with hopeful anticipation now slapped against lily-white skin that juxtaposed beautifully against the cries for more that were anything but virginal.

Eloise' brow raised slightly. 'And you'd just block it all out?" She asked in a low suggestive tone.

i'll travel for a little while, & i won't be coming back

I’m not an artist I’m a fucking work of art

Jack rolled his eyes and grinned, moving to sink down on his bunk - the covers were still untidy from where he'd been laying around earlier, and the bottle of rum she had left was empty now. "Bed her if you want to bed her, I don't care," he said, leaning down to unlace his boots before pausing to rub at his eyes, clearing vision that had tried momentarily to blur. Theoretically, if I was thinking...

The smuggler straightened up at that, brow furrowing as he gazed across at Eloise. Quite what she was getting at he couldn't tell - those thoughts were buried too deeply - but he could absolutely enjoy the images dancing through her mind. If she was expecting him to be flustered she would be sorely mistaken, and he tilted his head as if to ask what she rightly thought she was going to do with thoughts like that.

"I could, is what I said," he murmured. "If it were an inappropriate time, I would. Luckily enough, I've nothin' else planned right now but our conversation."

if the journey of a thousand miles starts when you take the first step

"You know exactly what I'm going to do with thoughts like that." The walls of the ship were thin as it was, but she doubted if that mattered much when it came to thoughts. At some point Jack must have picked up on an errant masturbation-fueled fantasy from her when passing by her bunk.

Eloise let her thoughts clear then, that long-ago masquerade back where it belonged in the depths of her mind. She grinned a touch at that, that at inappropriate times he'd mask it out. Mhmm. Sure you will she thought, and the gleam in her eyes suggested that she didn't mind him picking up on that thought. Luckily as a duchess she was quite skilled at keeping her thoughts from being read on her face. Was Jack as practised? Maybe it wouldn't be all doom and gloom then, know about his ability.

"So that headache earlier..." She asked, still leaning against one of the walls unsure precisely where or how to be. With the door closed and Jack sat on his bed, Eloise was by no means under the impression that all was peachy.

i'll travel for a little while, & i won't be coming back

I’m not an artist I’m a fucking work of art

In a ship filled with horny men, Eloise's errant masturbation fantasies were a fucking breath of fresh air, truth be told, but Jack only graced her with a roll of his eyes. As for how practiced he was at keeping a poker face? Well, given that he'd been doing this for some time before she came along, he had high hopes for himself. "You may as well make yourself comfortable," he informed her. "It ain't like you'll be goin' back to your bunk tonight."

As for his headache? "Still there - what of it?" he said, raking a hand through his hair. "I get 'em often enough. As luck'd have it, it's not as bad as earlier, so I could follow you down into the Fingers." And the rest, as they say, was history.

if the journey of a thousand miles starts when you take the first step

That made Eloise' heart race and while she tried to school her expression there was little she could do for her runaway thoughts. Was she staying for sex? Had he changed his mind? Wrists overlapped behind her, Eloise' fingers touched the wooden walls of the cabin as if meaning to anchor herself there. "Come on, I've bothered you enough for one day, yeah?" No amount of casualness in her voice would help her now though, not with him in her thoughts to see the reality of it.

"I just...is it related? To the thought magic?"

i'll travel for a little while, & i won't be coming back

I’m not an artist I’m a fucking work of art

Jack blinked slowly at Eloise, his expression a mix of puzzled and amused. ”First of all, no, I ain’t askin’ you to stay for sex. It’s just I’d have to be a fuckin’ idiot to let you toddle off alone straight after shit like this. But d’you maybe wanna decide what it is you want? Sendin’ over thoughts like the ones you had just now, braggin’ about it, and then bein’ all frightened that it might have put the thought of sex in my head?” He snorted and flopped back on the bunk.

”No idea - ain’t really anyone you can ask about a magic like mine,” he muttered, rubbing a hand across his eyes. ”That’s my assumption though, from what I’ve pieced together.” Jack let out a long sigh, his gaze on the cabin ceiling. ”The fuck am I gonna do with you,” he muttered.

if the journey of a thousand miles starts when you take the first step

Eloise smirked a bit at that, letting herself have an indulgent moment of not-terror amidst all this strangeness. "Well you'll have to forgive me that. It isn't like I've ever had to police my thoughts before." She replied with a slight toss of her head, pushing strands of hair back with both of her hands and sighing. "You can see all me there is to see, and you're just as much of an enigma as before, if not moreso now. Hard to get my footing." But she'd gained her sea-legs rather quickly on his ship. Hopefully, she'd be just as quick a learner when it came to this strange new balancing-act.

Humming a bit at that, Eloise paused, eyes narrowing at this last sentiment. "We figure out a way to make this arrangement work." She said at last with a light shrug.

i'll travel for a little while, & i won't be coming back

I’m not an artist I’m a fucking work of art

The longer Jack was around Eloise in any kind of serious capacity, the more he felt the whiplash of her ever oscillating thoughts. Was she afraid or cocky? Horny or shy? Keen to share or wanting to clam up? Fucked if Jack knew. So he remained laying back on the bunk, letting her have whatever weird moment of self confidence that she wanted, in the meantime scoffing at her impression that he knew her - all of her - as a result of his magic.

”It doesn’t work like that,” he said. ”I only get surface thoughts and feelin’s, so if you don’t want me knowin’ your deepest and darkest, don’t think about ‘em.” Would she do just that as a result of his warning? Not his issue.

She was right though, in that they would have to come to an arrangement. Sitting up at last, Jack let out a sigh. ”As far as the crew are concerned you’re shacked up with me now.” That should take care of her jealousy about the other women on the ship. ”Tomorrow, you can come with me and learn about Torchline properly.”