ambulatio | stroll

For the next two days, Cirrus spent her time in her room reading. As she neared the end of “Romeo and Juliet”, she recalled the captain’s offer of allowing her to borrow another book once she had finished reading the one she was currently holding between her fingers. With the peaceful silence of the ship and the melodic sounds of the waves, Cirrus was starting to become accustomed to living on Baekhyun’s ship.

Each day, the captain would enter her room in the afternoon and take her for a walk. Even if it was for a brief 20 minutes, Cirrus found herself looking forward to that time of day. Initially, she was intimidated by him and stayed quiet while he talked to her.

On the second day however, she felt like she wanted to walk just a bit harder on the thin ice she was standing on.

“Why are you taking me out on these walks?” she asked him. The pair was currently taking their routinely walk on the ship’s deck when the princess suddenly spoke out.

“Why does an owner take their dog out for a daily walk? Because the dog needs exercise,” Baekhyun replied, yawning in the process.

“Am I a dog?” the princess scoffed.

“I see no difference,” he replied mischievously.

“I can assure you that I am a human being,” she replied, slightly offended by his words.

“One that cannot take a joke.”

Biting the inside of her cheek, the princess cleverly thought of a comeback, “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?”

Baekhyun laughed – not one that was mischievous or sinister, but was genuine and out of amusement. “I was never a big fan of ‘The Merchant of Venice’, but I applaud the effort. Also princess, what you just described I could also do to a dog and get the same reaction out of the animal.”

Cirrus huffed a breath in defeat, and chose to prop her elbows on the ledge of the ship to gaze at the sea. “But, I will admit,” he continued, “A dog wouldn’t be able to quote Shakespeare.”

He stood next to her and rested his elbows on the ledge of the ship. Staring at the endless blue ocean, he combed through his raven black hair with one hand. Cirrus stole a glance of the pirate from her peripheral vision, wondering what in the world Baekhyun Lux had in his mind. He brought her food, albeit measly portions but food nonetheless, and offered her books to read. With him by her side, she was allowed to step outside. Her current lifestyle was starting to overlap with her life in the palace.

She chuckled silently at the thought. If my current lifestyle as a prisoner is starting to resemble my previous one of as a princess, what does that say? I have been a prisoner since the start.

“He’s not a bad guy, though.” Ardent’s voice rang in her head.

Cirrus tried to shake the first mate’s words out of her head. In her eyes, Captain Baekhyun of the Lux Pirates was a notorious fiend, who killed others and had stripped her of her royal lifestyle all for the sake of greed. The image of his dark silhouette standing over a pile of corpses and gold suited him sickeningly well. Wearing a devilish grin on his face and clutching a rapier dripping with blood, the captain would laugh sinisterly. The very thought of it sent Cirrus’s stomach into knots, and made her want to hurl.

Then, there was the image of Baekhyun silently reading a novel at his desk. His mischievous comments and snarky attitude, she deduced, were part of his personality and meant no harm (for the most part). He brought her out on walks, which he didn’t have to, but did so anyway. When they took their walks, which she deduced also acted as means of a break for him, she often found him staring at the ocean. Despite being a pirate and having spent majority of his life at sea, it seemed like the captain’s admiration for the ocean never dwindled.

She didn’t understand him; how could someone who seemed to enjoy the same things in life as she did also be the exact type of person she loathed? With each encounter she had with him, the mystery that was Baekhyun Lux only grew larger and larger.

“So what are you saying? That you’re a good pirate who’s in it for the adventure?”

“You bet, love,” Ardent replied immediately. “Truth is, Baekhyun’s also in it for the adventure.”

“You, I can mildly believe,” Cirrus started. Then, crossing her arms she added, “But Captain Lux? I don’t see it, and I refuse to believe it.”

“What you believe is up to you,” he replied.

“What’s next? You’re going to tell me that I can trust you and the captain of this pirate gang?”

“Do you trust me?”

“Not one bit,” Cirrus replied coldly.

“Well, I trust you.”

She had misjudged Ardent at first; could it be possible that she had misjudged Baekhyun too?

.::.        .::.        .::.

Sometime in the afternoon, Cirrus finished reading Shakespeare’s tragic love story. She set the book on her desk and prepared to take a nap. As she made her way to the hammock in her room, the small sliding door over her desk opened suddenly, revealing a pair of fatigued eyes.

Cirrus was startled by the action – it had been her first time witnessing Baekhyun using the sliding door. The captain stared at her for a few moments before his raspy voice broke the silence, “Are you done reading yet?”

Cirrus nodded her head in response, confused by his actions. Why is he asking me this?

“Good. I figured it’d be about time. Is there another title you’d like to read?” Baekhyun asked nonchalantly.

Cirrus stayed silent, but a myriad of questions flooded her mind. What’s the point of all this? Why is he allowing me to read his books anyway? Should I pick another one to read? Which one do I want anyway? What should I tell him?

“Fine, if you don’t want to read then feel free to stay bored inside your room all day,” he said with a smirk.

“Hamlet!” Cirrus exclaimed, a little louder than she had hoped.

Baekhyun raised a brow at her sudden outburst. His face disappeared from sight and in a few moments he returned with a book in his hand. He slipped the book through the metal bars into her room, and it landed with a “plop” on her desk. She walked towards the book, turned it over and read the title, “Hamlet” written in golden letters.

“You really do like Shakespeare, huh?” he asked.

“He’s my favourite,” she replied. Cirrus lifted the copy of “Romeo and Juliet” and slipped it through the metal bars in a fashion similar to what Baekhyun had done.

Baekhyun received the book with his hand. He cleared his throat and quoted, “For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.”

Cirrus furrowed her eyebrows and stared at the captain. She recognized the line from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, but she questioned why he suddenly decided to quote from Shakespeare’s play – and why he had chosen that specific quote.

“It’s my favourite line from the play,” he continued. “The mind is a powerful thing, princess. The quote makes one feel quite... liberated, don’t you agree?”

“Why then, your ambition makes it one. ‘Tis too narrow for your mind,” Cirrus said, quoting the next line from the play.

Baekhyun revealed an amused smile, and continued, “O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.”

“Which dreams indeed are ambition, for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream,” Cirrus quoted diligently.

There was a pause, then Baekhyun closed his eyes and scratched his head. “I don’t recall the next line.”

Cirrus chuckled quietly, then quickly cleared and regained her composure so she wouldn’t be caught by the captain. She replied dutifully, “A dream itself is but a shadow.”

“Ah yes, it went like that,” Baekhyun nodded his head. He scowled at himself for not being able to remember the simple line, then muttered something about needing to revisit Shakespeare’s plays once his schedule clears up.

“You mentioned that it was your favourite line,” said Cirrus. “Why?”

Baekhyun’s mouth turned into the half smile that he wore so well, and with twinkling eyes he replied, “Because it goes to show that nothing in this world is truly good or bad. It’s all about what is advertised to the public to make them think a certain way. But beneath it all, there lies the truth. Are the Marines good? Are bandits bad? What is justice?”

Cirrus gulped, wondering where he was taking this conversation. The captain continued, “Justice is what is defined by those with power, don’t you think? Because those with power are able to influence the public into thinking a certain way, which then dictates what is good and what is bad.”

Cirrus stared at him, both awe-struck at his interpretation and taken aback by his choice of quote. Surely, he wasn’t telling her that although he, a pirate, is considered to be “bad” the truth is he might be “good”? She continued to study his poker face, which provided no hints to support her hypothesis.

There’s no way he could have planned for all of this, right? Cirrus asked herself, still skeptical about Baekhyun’s choice of quotes. It seemed that he was trying to tell her, in his own indirect and discreet way, that she could trust him. Although, she would never be able to wrap her head around the concept that pirates might be good and the Marines bad.

Baekhyun checked up on her frequently, so that had to mean he was concerned about her well-being, right? He used to send Ardent to deliver her meals, but the captain had decided to take the job up personally as of late. He never missed a single walk, and he even gave her access to his personal library. Cirrus was starting to think that they had started off on the wrong foot. Granted, she was aware that she was useful to him because of her linguistic abilities, but if she doesn’t piss him off then perhaps they would be able to share a mutually beneficial relationship. For once in her life, she could escape from the strict laws of the royal castle.

Then she remembered her first encounter with him when she had awoken on his ship. She was stuck in a prison cell, and he had threatened to end her life then and there. Her hand flinched as she recalled the memory of his cold rapier grazing the side of her neck, and she felt the urge to cover the area. He had told her she had two options; either she was to die then and there, or he would put the death sentence off for a later date.

Her hopes of being able to share a mutually beneficial relationship with the captain were shattered as she remembered the cold look in his eyes on that day. As she stared into the same dark eyes of the man behind the sliding door, her hands began to tremble and her knees felt weak. She felt terrified, and so helpless. She began to curse herself for thinking that they would be able to find a compromise, because he had already announced her death.

Her seemingly peaceful life on his ship had nearly made her forget about her true position in the grand scheme of things. She was being held captive by him, this was not a vacation, and he was not to be trusted.

“Don’t stay up reading too late, now princess,” Baekhyun said in a snarky tone. “We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. We’ll finally be examining that treasure map, so make sure you get some sleep. I want accurate translations.”

Cirrus gulped, and her hands instinctively clenched onto the fabric of her dress. Up until now, her life on the Lux Pirates’ ship had been more or less peaceful. But when she recalled her inevitable fate on his ship, the fear returned fresh as ever, and was amplified at the mention of the treasure map.

Anxiety started to well up within Cirrus as she let her fears get to the better of her. Baekhyun would no doubt make her translate the entire scripture tomorrow. She would have fulfilled her purpose on his ship by the end of tomorrow, which then gave rise to the question: what would he do with her then?

A/N: Was that suspenseful? I don't even know anymore lol. Anyways, look forward to the next chapter because I'll be revealing the contents of the map :)

\\ xoxo