{ cover your crystal eyes } // troy

The port was bustling with people; too many people for Troylus while he was feeling this way.  Some nights he enjoyed going to the pub, packed with sailors while he got drunk, sang songs and flirted with the waitresses, the alcohol soothing his shyness away.  But today he didn't feel like that.  He wanted to be alone, with no one shouting orders like they did all day and night on the ship for months at a time. 

He realized that it wasn't so much that he wanted to be alone, as he wanted to be no where near any sailors or shouting or even the sea.  That was unusual for him, but it had been a long time since he'd had shore leave and he wanted a break from it.  


He wandered the streets, enjoying how quiet they became as he left the docks.  No one else seemed to be venturing out into the frigid winter's air.  He tugged his jacket in tighter as best he could.  It didn't really fit him anymore, and he had to leave it open across the chest, but it wasn't as cold as he was at sea, drenched and exposed to the wind and weather.  


The houses in this area were larger and nicer than the ones where his parents lived by far.  His head was lowered to keep it into the wind, and if it hadn't been for the delicious smell of soup and hot chocolate wafting on the icy breeze, he might never have seen her there.  He lifted his nose and sniffed, trying to identify the scents that were combining and confusing his senses.  He smiled when he saw her, a mass a bright red curls, in stark contrast to the greys and dull tones of winter.  

She was smiling too, her lips almost as red and tempting as her hair.  She was pouring over a book as if utterly transfixed, and for a moment he wondered if she were another statue, like the stone ones he could see dotted about her garden.  He stood watching her for a long while, transfixed by her beauty.  When she turned the page he knew she must be flesh and blood, and then he was curious as to why someone so pale and lovely would sit outside on such a cold day all alone, with nothing than a book for company.  He tried to imagine what it would be like to read stories, and not rely on yarns told at night around the fire, and to have the leisure time to sit idly and indulge in the pages.  


He also tried to imagine what that chocolaty smell must taste like, for he had never eaten it and it smelled almost supernaturally good.  His mouth was salivating a little when he realized he'd been staring for quite some time, and his mother always told him it was rude to stare at a lady.  She must be rich to live in such a big house, eat such wonderful food and sit about reading in a garden full of statues and wooden arches.  His parents had a tiny patch of garden and it was always crammed with as many sad, wilted vegetables as his mother could desperately will to grow.  

He cleared his throat, not wanting her to see him there and be frightened.  She might call the peacekeepers and have him arrested for loitering.  He'd heard that is what rich young women could do if you got on the wrong side of them.  "Hello, miss. Sorry ta' disturb your readin'.  Hope you're havin' a good day?"  It seemed a strange greeting, but he couldn't think of what the proper thing to say would be.  Nor could he lie and ask for directions, seeing as he wasn't really heading anywhere specific and knew his way back to the docks when it was time.

Troylus felt the girl's yelp of alarm like a knife in his guts.  It was exactly what he hadn't wanted, to scare her like that.  She dropped her book into the snow and he worried that it might be ruined. He watched the girl stand and fumble with her hands for a moment at her sides.  He wondered if she was trying to find a weapon to fend him off with.  She stopped that after a moment though and knelt down to scoop up the book and brushed it off.  

Troylus felt his cheeks burning with shame and embarrassment at having scared her, and ruining her peaceful repose in the garden.  

She stared at him for what felt like the longest time, and there seemed to be the hint of recognition in her eyes although Troylus was pretty sure he'd never seen her before.  she tugged at her coat sleeves as if she wanted to hide from him and he realised once again he was staring like an idiot.  What was wrong with him? First he scares her, then he stares at her stupidly!.  He was about to mumble an apology and hurry away in order to spare her any more anxiety, when she smiled at him and he stood transfixed.  Then she did another strange thing indeed and walked towards him.

She glanced back at the house, as if hoping someone would came and defend her from this vile ruffian who had so rudely scared her half to death, but then she spoke, and didn't seem in the least to confirm Troylus' fears.  


"I've been enjoying this book lately. It's quite excellent. Have you read it?"  

He stared at the book, and then at her face. He blushed even more and tugged his hat from his head, clutching it against his chest.  "Sorry miss, I can't read none." He bit hard into his lower lip and added, "I'm sorry, so sorry.  I didn't mean to startle you like that.  I'll go and leave you be in peace.  Please don't call the peacekeepers, I didn't mean you any harm, I promise." He took a step backwards into the path but kept his eyes on her, even more transfixed by her beauty up close.  Her hair was so glorious in colour it looked to him like it was molten gold.

She stared at him with disbelief when he said he couldn't read, her pretty mouth gaping open.  His mother would have said she looked like a goldfish, but she was far too beautiful for any such a comparison.  She laughed breathlessly, but he didn't take offence; somehow it didn't seem she was laughing at him in a cruel way.  Even if she were being cruel Troylus decided he didn't overly care.  He was just glad she didn't seem scared of him anymore, especially when she took a step towards him as he stepped away and told him not to go.  He stopped moving back obediently, running his strong fingers through his messy straw coloured hair.  

Her smile was fleeting but even so it seems to send shivers of electricity through him.  Her mouth was captivating.   

"Why on Earth would I call the Peacekeepers? You didn't even do anything wrong."

Troylus wanted to explain eloquently how he had startled her without meaning to and that rich young ladies who discover poor, ignorant sailors staring at them while they are alone in their private gardens, might be inclined to call the peacekeepers, but he couldn't find the words.  Instead he just did his own goldfish impersonation and stood there dumbly string at her once more as she fetched her delicious smelling drink from the tray.

When she pressed it into his hands he felt the lingering warmth of it seeping into his cold fingers.  He was freezing cold as she said, but there was no way he could drink some of her drink. He hesitated, feeling utterly confused and perplexed.  She must have misunderstood his delay on drinking it as she reassured him that she hadn't drunk any herself.  As if I would care that her perfect rosebud lips had touched the cup! he thought to himself. He wanted very much at that moment to kiss those lips of hers, but the very thought was so inappropriate that he blushed even more and bit the inside of his mouth by way of self-punishment.  

He realised too late that he hadn't thanked her, but was relieved when she kept on speaking ignoring his rudeness.   "I don't know if you're going anywhere, or if you need to get back - you're a sailor, aren't you? - but if you want, you can stay a while. Or at least until you've warmed up a bit. My name's Finley, by the way. What's yours?"

She was sitting on the bench and Troylus thought perhaps she expected him to sit beside her.  But how could he? A common dirty sailor sitting side by side with this angel? No.  "Can you really not read at all? Not even stories or letters? How... what do you do instead?"

He shuffled his feet, holding the cup in his hands as if it were a precious treasure liable to crumble to dust in his hands if he weren't excruciatingly careful with it.  "I am a sailor, aye miss.  I ain't got to be nowhere just now though, on shore leave, see.  You sure you don't mind me stayin' here with you like?" He took a few steps into the garden and looked over his shoulder at the house as if he expected to see an army of peacekeepers descending at any moment to take him away for trespassing.  

When nothing happened he turned back to her and smiled, the movement causing wrinkles to form around his mouth and his eyes to twinkle.  "Name's Troylus Cobbler, miss, and I real can't read. I went to school when I were little, but it just never took." He went to pat the side of his head, but didn't want to risk spilling his precious cargo in his hands, so lost as to what to do he gave her a wink instead, almost flirtatious.  As soon as he had done it he felt a little nauseous, like he'd just made a huge mistake.  

He pressed on speaking, hoping she hadn't noticed his ridiculous behaviour.  "I can read a few letters, enough to recognise me own name, but it's pretty long so I can't write it all, just the T and C for me initials.  And what does I do instead? I dunno quite what you mean, sorry miss.  I work on the ship, if that's what you mean.  It's called the Sea Sprite and it's a deep sea trawler, so we go out for months at a time.  I don't think I'd have time for no readin' even if I could."  It was more words than he'd strung together in many years, and he took a deep breath when he was done.

Troylus watched the girl gnawing on her lower lip.  It made him want to kiss her rather a lot and he tried to think about something else, as he was embarrassed enough by his own behaviour.  The wink had made her terribly uncomfortable and as the poor girl tugged at her sleeves and her cheeks flushed red, Troylus scolded himself harshly in his mind.  He decided to make it up to her by being as polite and charming as he could muster.  He tried to think of a role model in his life for charm and making young ladies feel at ease.  There wasn't much to choose from, unfortunately. He suspected the sailors he knew who were easy and amiable around girls at the docks and pub might be inappropriate for a young lady of much higher social standing.  

Finley said that she'd NEVER been to sea and Troylus tried to imagine what that would be like. He was so used to the roll and pitch of the deck beneath his feet that these days it seemed to take him longer to adjust and get his land legs back than it did his sea legs.  When she commented that it must be hard to be away and miss his family so much, Troylus nodded sadly. "Yeah, used ta be real hard, like, as a little kid.  Bein' away from me Ma and Pa, used to make me cry meself to sleep most nights." He looked embarrassed as he said it, "I suppose I were only eleven, but doin' a man's job, so I should'a been tougher'n that." He closed his mouth suddenly, realising what he'd just said.  It was a subject his parents had told him not to speak about with anyone.  Troylus would never lie, but he wasn't supposed to tell people that he'd been at sea so young.  It was against the rules for young children not to go to school and he didn't want to get his parents into trouble.

Thankfully Finley broke the tension by inviting him to sit down.  He sat obediently, careful to keep the hot chocolate steady, still clutched in both hands.  It felt intimate and precious to be sitting so close to this beautiful young woman and he revelled in the way she chattered on so merrily.  

"But what about stories?" Her eyes were bright and sparkling and she seemed so animated and full of life, so different from the grumpy, gruff sailors he usually spent time with.  Even his parents, quite old and world-weary never seemed to have the energy for this sort of chatting.  "I hear stories quite a bit.  No one tells a yarn quite like me Cap'n when he's had a few, but not so many that he's all mad.  An' I sing stories sometimes, while I work.  Men like it when I sing, because they reckon it sounds alright.  Not like when Aldrinalin sings.  He sounds like a chook bein' strangled, so Mr Saxon says. Some of them stories go on for a long time, lots of verses, but I can remember them alright."

She asked if he was curious about what was in books, and he scrunched up his face.  "I suppose I am sometimes.  But all them squiggly letters make me head hurt, and that's stronger'n the curiosity, I suppose."

When she spoke of the desert, bandits and an oasis, his face lit up.  It sounded terribly exciting to him and he wanted to know what happened next.  "SOme people reckon the sea is a bit like a desert, even though it's real wet, coz you can't drink the sea, see?"  He wasn't sure exactly what an oasis was but it sounded romantic and exhilarating.  "Bandits are like pirates too, eh? They're pretty scary.  I hope they get away from 'em in your story." He peered at the cover of the book as if it might reveal it's secrets to him that way.

"I could teach you." Her face lit up with excitement as she said it, and Troylus felt a surge of guilt. He didn't want to let her down, but so many had tried to teach him to read and it never seemed to take.  His own father also had the same malady, perhaps even worse than Troylus, for he could not even make out his own name, nor write his initials, only ever making an X for his mark when asked to sign something.  

He remembered his school teacher getting so angry with him that she hit hit across the head with the book and made him stand in the corner all afternoon.  Normally that teacher wasn't so bad, and Troylus thought she probably felt bad for her angry outburst, because she was more patient with him after that.  Other teachers had frequently belittled him, caned him and kept him in at lunch times and after school, trying to force him to read and write.  When he was about eight a teacher had kept him in class all day and not allowed him to leave the room, even to relieve himself.  He'd been in terrible pain just trying to hold on to his bladder and not make a complete idiot of himself.  

Somehow, even though he'd only just met Finley he knew she would be far more patient and kind than any of those teachers.  His Ma had been kind to him but never really had the time, what with looking after his Da and running the household.  

Finley said she wasn't doing a good job, only she was selling it all brilliantly.  He wanted to listen to her talk all day and night if he could.  When she showed him the little picture and described the heat of the sand he realised for the first time in his entire life the joy that could come from the written word.  He indeed did know what it was to stand on the hot sand, your toes sinking into the warmth, delicious even as it burned you slightly, and the cooler sand underneath soothing and moist.  


"Even if I'm not a good teacher, you should at least hear the story. It's a very good one." Her voice was enchanting, just as her appearance was, and he felt himself drawn towards her.  he felt he would be a better person if he was just near to her, friends with her, and maybe more - but no, that was well above his station.  He schooled himself once again to stop thinking such inappropriate things.  


"You could even take me to the ocean as a trade. Seems fair, doesn't it? A story in exchange for the sea?" She laughed an adorable laugh that made his heart sing with joy to hear it.  It was as if that laugh carried away all the sadness and loneliness he'd felt out at sea, away from his family, and with often cruel and violent men as his only company, in one long release of giggles that bounced on the walls and were carried away on the breeze into the grey wintery sky.

The trade sounded like she might be joking but he desperately hoped not.  He wanted to spend time with her again and the thought of taking her to his ship and letting her feel the roll of the waves and the fresh sea spray on her skin, made him tingle all over.  "I dunno if you're just jokin' and it's okay if you are, of course.  Only I'd real like to listen to you read, n'that, if you have the time.  And then I'd happily take you to the ocean, if your family wouldn't mind." He had an image of Finley's parents chasing after him screaming that a wicked sailor scum had kidnapped their precious daughter.  He wasn't sure if his Captain would allow him to take Finley on board; he had a strange superstition about women being bad luck on ships, but Troylus figured he would sort something out.  Anything to make Finley happy.  

He glanced at the mug of hot chocolate, still clutched in his hands and starting to go cold.  He realised then that Finley had given it to him for him to drink and if he didn't that was probably ruder than drinking it.  He took a tentative sip, as if expecting the girl to shout at him as he lifted the mug to his lips.  The expression on his face when he tasted it was comical.  He had never tasted anything that good in his life. He exclaimed helplessly, swearing like the sailor he was. "That's AMAZIN'! What is that?"