Late night shift

[alex]

Bryn raised her eyebrows, surprised at his calm response. She looked at him deeper in the eye and raised her voice. "Fine! You are not fine! You walk around refusing to eat and hardly speaking a word, and you expect me to not worry about you and think that you are fine! Owww, let me tell you Sinbad, if you don't lighten up and start being positive, you will die before you even have a chance to see her again. Who knows, she may come back, or she may not. Fate will decide. It sounds like you lost hope of her ever returning. Maybe you are right. But I hope not. And you should hope not." She turned around and crossed her arms. She had never felt so mad and insulted. After thinking for a quick moment, she turned back to Sinbad and opened her mouth to speak, but this time in a slightly calmer voice. "Okay, tell me, why are you so pessimistic? Don't all brave and beautiful women, like Maeve, fall in love with people..." She was unsure what to say and used her hands to come and think up of something. But a thought popped in her mind, and she completed her phrase, saying, "...like you."

[Sinbad]

Her sudden outburst caught him completely off guard, even though it was in a way understandable. Bryn was usually a calm and focussed person, so he must have angered her a lot to get something like this, Sinbad thought. Much of what she said was right, some of it were things he did not see as clearly. He did not see himself as pessimistic, just ... realistic. Of course he hoped for her to come back, more than anything. But he had only recently felt again how much it could hurt to hope too much. And this had made him thing that trying to live along with a positive, yet not overly hoping attitude, would be the best way. There was a long fall from over-enthusiastic hopes and the last fall had hurt. A lot.

One of the crew further along on the other side of the deck turned his head when Bryn raised her voice and Sinbad noticed, so his first impulse was to try and calm her down. That, or just yell back. But he didn´t want to insult or hurt her any further, yelling was not in her nature, nor was fighting with him. She wasn´t Maeve.

He swallowed whatever had been on the tip of his tongue though, when she spoke on, her voice a little less furious then. Her words reminded him of something very similar Maeve had once said, in a completely different situation and time. One of their verbal banters she had won (which he would never have admitted) and for a moment he almost saw her, not Bryn and he had his mouth open already to snap something back at her, before the moment passed and he noticed his senses had tricked him. He tried to hide his confusion well, but it was there, somewhere, in his eyes.

"I´d prefer to call myself a realist." he answered instead after a few seconds where he took a breath before he answered in a composed voice, pointedly ignoring her latter remark. "There´s a huge difference between that and being pessimistic."

[alex]

She looked at him strangely. "A realist," she chuckled. She turned away from him again, and crossed her arms but covered one hand over her mouth trying not to laugh too hard. "A realist. This is something I have to laugh." After a while she calmed down and turned back to Sinbad. It was so hard not to laugh, seeing his face. There was still a faint chuckle in her voice which slowly died down. "Sinbad, I have grown to admire and respect you for your courage, your strong heart, and your strong faith. But I question your faith with the fact that Maeve will return. A realist can see the beauty of life with a hope for a better future. A realist does not sit around and ponder about the past, but accepts it and moves on. Are you truly a realist?"

[Sinbad]

He didn´t join in her laughter for this conversation was as serious to him as it was uncomfortable. And quite obviously, it proved again that one always only truly saw the outside of a person. Bryn couldn´t see the struggles he was fighting within, even though she believed she could.

He watched her, his eyes narrowed just a bit, waiting for her laughter to die down. "This is not just about Maeve." he then said, making sure he had her attention again. "It´s not just just about hoping for a friend to return. And thinking about that and everything ... needs realism." He put an extra emphasis on the last word because it was important to him. He couldn´t just get alone all happy, shrugging off the shadows that lay behind. Maeve was connected to his change in the last year, to a change that would have been fatal in the end. Only by admitting that he had been on the wrong way could he set his life right again. Hope was a different matter. He had blindly followed hope and had disregarded everything else around him, even himself. In a way, this was even connected to optimism, he mused. A new sort of optimism that went along the lines of: this can´t happen again if you don´t let it happen and just keep expecting nothing of the next day. Look ahead with a free mind like you used to. Of course, this didn´t solve the whole matter, but it was better than what he had done ever since her disappearance.

[alex]

Bryn looked up at Sinbad. A small tear formed in her eye. She looked down and closed her eyes, shaking her head. “I’m sorry.” She raised her head and looked in his eyes. “But tell me, if it is not just about her, than who else is it about?” She turned and walked away, but before she left to go below, she turned around to Sinbad. “I’ll be in my cabin if you want to talk.” She raised her hand for Dermott, who perched on her arm. Then she went below.

[Sinbad]

Great, Sinbad thought. Just ... great. Not only was it difficult enough already to deal with his inner demons and the aftermath of that conversation with Scratch, now he had also made her cry. But how could he explain to her? He knew she was a gentle person, so it wasn´t in her character or anything. The problem was, the problem that she couldn´t even know about, was that she had arrived after Maeve´s time. She had not seen the change from the light hearted, boyish captain into someone far more gloomy. Her amusement at his humourous moments today showed that all the more clearly.

He cursed under his breath, but it was a curse directed at himself, then he waved towards one of the patrolling sailors (the one who had had half an ear on the conversation anyway) to take over the tiller, before he followed her. "Bryn? Wait!"

[alex]

Bryn had just about closed the door when she heard Sinbad's call. She hesitated alittle and just stood there motionless. She looked at Dermott and then at her hand which was still on the door knob. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door wider and stood face-to-face with her captain.

[Sinbad]

He had made his way towards the door, but had hesitated, wondering whether she would react at all, half expecting a door to be slammed. It didn´t happen of course. Hands on his hips with half a scowl directed at himself and at the situation in particular, he waited, then the door opened.
"Let´s talk somewhere below." he said calmly. He knew he probably owed her an apology as well as an explanation, but he didn´t feel like discussing things in front of half the crew.

[alex]

She looked at him with neither a smile or frown and nodded. She turned around and led him to her cabin. She walked to Dermott's perch and let him hop onto it. She then sat on her bed and looked at Sinbad, waiting for what he had to say. She had left the door open, expecting Sinbad to close it if he wished.

[Sinbad]

Sinbad stepped in and closed the door, however remaining close to it. The cabin, just like all the cabins, wasn´t too spacious and the place he chose was also indirectly showing that this was a situation he did not really like himself being tossed into. "I didn´t want to make you mad." he said, feeling that an apology was in order before he went any further. "or make you cry for that matter. I´m sorry."

[alex]

Bryn looked at her captain, smiled a little, then nodded. She took a deep breath. "I understand. I know you did not mean it." She paused before going on. "But still Sinbad, can't you see that I feel your pain. When you are saddened, I also feel sad. When you go crazy, I also go crazy." She got up, walked to him, and placed both hands on his shoulders. "I feel this because I care deeply about you." She put one hand on his cheek. "I just want to make your pain go away. Not just for you, but for me." She lowered her hand of his cheek and crossed her arms. "Now tell me, what's bothering you? And don't lie to me." She smiled although she knew Sinbad had not really lied to her. At least, not completely.

[Sinbad]

Sinbad smiled slightly. He could tell that Bryn really meant her words and he had always valued her caring nature and greatly valued her as a friend. And only with her reaction towards his behaviour that on the other side had seemed natural and understandable for his brother, had he realised that there were indeed some things that she simply couldn´t understand. Trying to read him there had to be like prodding around in the dark. And that didn´t really seem like a fair thing to do.

"It´s difficult to explain." he said, rubbing his neck with a hand, but not breaking the eye contact. "you´ve be around for a year, so maybe it´s even more difficult to understand." Because a year was too short a timespan to see the contrast between old Sinbad and what he had become and was stirring away from again now, with visible effort.
"I did quite some things I shouldn´t have done." he continued. "many of these things I wouldn´t have done when I was younger. I changed. And I didn´t even notice." He stopped rubbing his neck and started to pace the cabin, a sign that he was somewhat uneasy and was trying to somehow work that out. "I noticed some days ago." He halted in his step, now his back towards her, frowning slightly. "It´s like waking up from a bad dream. And that takes time."
He suddenly noticed how things were starting to fall into place in his mind. It was all so logical.

[alex]

Bryn looked at him, puzzled. Her forehead narrowed, and her smile vanished. But she was not mad at him, just confused. "Changed? In what way? And why would it be a bad dream?" She walked toward Sinbad and turned him around so he would look at her. "And why do you think I would not understand? I may have been here for only a year, and therefore have never experienced this change, but I can still imagine it, if only you would tell me."

[Sinbad]

Sinbad gave a shrug, as if pretending this was indeed an easy conversation to lead. It was not. "You said earlier you liked humourous Sinbad." he said. Bryn had reacted in a mildly amused but also bewildered way. Of course she had. He´d have his humourous moments now and then but in the previous year they had mostly been sarcasm more or less, little of the light hearted man he had once been. "I was more like that. I don´t really know how to describe it, I´m not that good at words really..."

Actually, there were some ideas of how to do it. I was less determined, less bitter. Less angry with the world. But that was something that he wouln´t share. Because these emotions were connected to what had caused him to become like that. He crossed his arms and leant back a little, trying to look more casual.

"When the devil aks you to join him because he thinks you´d fit in his rows, you kinda start to rethink things." It was supposed to come off as a humourous remark but there was a trace of bitterness in his words and the smirk that accompanied them looked a little off.

[alex]

She looked at him and bit her tongue. After thinking a while, she spoke. "So Scratch is the cause of this." She looked down at the ground then returned to look at Sinbad. She took a deep breath. "So you were more humorous a light-heartened when you were younger, but you became a darker, more serious, and less compassionate man. Even if this is true, I find it hard for Sinbad the Sailer to join the devil. Remember, your soul is pure." She looked down at the ground, but quickly returned her gaze to Sinbad. A smile turned on her face. "Now this makes sense. You said that because I have only been here for a year that I would not have understood. And that is exactly when Maeve left. You have changed because you couldn't bear the fact about loosing Maeve. You took the blame on yourself. Anger is a way of suppressing pain. But you don't have to blame yourself. And you have not lost Maeve. She is just not here now. You have to have hope, Sinbad. Only through hope can one push the past aside and join the light again. I have to do that every day. I have to keep hope, faith that someday I would learn my past. This is what keeps me from going mad."