Sinbad Prompt Meme!

This is the comm's prompt meme for all your creative needs. This is how it works.

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From:

bigbrasskey

"Come on," Sinbad says. "You expect me to believe that?"

Gunnar steals a glance at his face, gregarious and smiling and untrustworthy. He does not regret his choice and he will not act on it, certainly not with her severity, but he does not contest the lady's judgement of his character. This is not a boy who has lived well on any honour or great love in and of the hearts of other men.

"I have given you your answer," Gunnar says. "Be satisfied with it or not."

Sinbad looks at him sideways, in the way that he has, taking a man's mettle without meeting his eyes in case square offence could be taken and a blow dealt. Gunnar wishes for surer ground in this place and this company, but perhaps he is simply out of practice. Sinbad is not always an easy man to read, but his emotions are clear.

Gunnar picks his next words carefully. "You owe me nothing," he tells Sinbad.

"Ah," Sinbad says, shrugs. "Well in the end I owe you my life, don't I?"

"Or you owe the storm," Gunnar says.

A shadow crosses Sinbad's face and then is gone, leaving behind a lopsided smile. "I wouldn't have been there for the storm to save me if not for you."

"Is this your way of giving thanks?" Gunnar asks. "An interrogation?"

Sinbad laughs full-throated. "No," he says. "I promise."

"The answer to your question is..." Gunnar falls silent, looks at his hands. Big hands, good at their tasks, tough with the falling of the years and the salt of the sea. "It was none of my business," he says.

Sinbad nods, as though out of all the answers Gunnar could have offered up, from mercenary to sentimental, this one suits him best. "And now?" he says, squinting briefly at the horizon.

"If survival is our aim," Gunnar says, "then none of us have the luxury of neutrality any longer."

Sinbad pushes away from the railing and stretches, one hand locked around the opposite wrist. His expression is at first easy, then traced with bitter amusement at some distant thought. "Looks like I arrived just in time, then."

Gunnar watches him go.