Works in Progress

Ed would act all nice with the captain while simutaneously REALLY playing Stede up

"Okay mate, we can resolve this situation like gentleman can't we? No problem here, right? Let's just have a little chat, and then you can go on your way"

and

"My friend here killed two english officers by accident, trust me, you don't want to see what he does on purpose"

(Stede would theatricaly lurk in the shadows, trying to be as silently intimidating as possible).

Then when the captain resisted for enough time, Stede would threaten to intervene, Ed would pretend to be desperate like "C'mon man we could've avoided this" and "I warned you, mate! nothing is gonna stop him now."

Maybe he even feins trying convince Stede to not go for it "Hey we don't need to do this, remember last time? Dude couldn't even stand properly. This one seems nice enough, just give him a little more time!". Stede would then start making his "I have seen things" face and maybe he even makes a very menacing little speech spoken in hushed tones.

You’re the meanest sonofabitch on the seven seas. Everybody knows your name. You reputation alone can win the day before you even fire a shot.

And you are fuckin bored.

So bored that the instant you get wind of some weirdo who appears to not be even a little impressed by you, you run to meet him. And by god, the first thing he says to you and your lustrous black beard is: “Do you work for Blackbeard?”

It immediately rotates your worldview. “Never thought of it like that before. Yeah, I suppose I do.”

But then he tells you about retirement. And you think, yeah. Yeah, actually, that sounds great. How do I do that?

Well, a fuckery of course! A good one, too. Something worthy of Blackbeard, with a tiger or something. But the important part is that there’s a corpse—the corpse of a man you made sure is similar enough to you in height and build to wear your clothes.

So now you’ve got a plan. You’re great at plans! And all you have to do is learn how to be a fancy ponce so you can go live the fancy ponce retirement of your dreams. Easy as that. How hard can it be to learn how to use silverware?

But it all goes wrong, doesn’t it? Catastrophically wrong. You struggle with the basics because you panic, and when’s the last time you panicked? Then you’re laughed out of a room by people who would wet themselves if they knew who you really are, and it occurs to you, suddenly, miserably, that if you go through with this, if you choose this life, you will never have that crutch again, because Blackbeard will be dead.

Worst of all, though, is the blooming doubt that this is what you want. This glittering world is meant to be your scrap of silk writ large. You’re not sure if it is, any more. You’re not sure if a world like that exists.

Now what?

Well. Now, along comes this silly man. You wrote him off as naïve because why else would he ever want to be a part of your world? Why would he claim he wanted to be “like Blackbeard” when he has his secret passages and model ships and summer linens? But you’ve seen what he’s running away from, now. You’ve seen he’s as much a master of that world as you are of yours. And you feel understood. You feel like an equal.