#also: Ben is still that recurring joke pirate with a crush on the captain. in this incarnation the crush dies when Faris is outed

[ajoraverse]

I mostly just wrote this on a whim. Trotting out a couple of OCs from the 20-year-old FFV fic. Ben and Ridha versions 2.0, on the outside looking in and being concerned about Faris and Lenna’s relationship. 

Also, it should be noted that Ridha was always meant to be intersex and had no real attachment to any gender. He just presents himself as male most of the time, but has no qualms with presenting herself as female either. Or androgynous. Really, they find this whole gender thing tired and unnecessary. 

Ben’s accent is West Country/Cornish Tulish as a nod to Cornish being frequently pillaged for the infamous mass media “pirate accent”. I tend to use Scottish dialects for Carwen; in my ficverse the Highwinds migrated from North Mountain (north of Carwen) to the west (what would become Tycoon territory after Grandpa Tycoon annexed Tule and the surrounding areas to acquire the Wind Shrine) after the world split in two. The Highwinds still retain a bit of that north Carwen accent. 

There are three things Ben does well: numbers, haggling, and keeping his best mate's secrets. It's the last what keeps him on his toes. Seems there's always some new secret he's finding out.

The bit about this lad he grew up with being a lass? Well, that checks out, he supposes. Faris was always a bit teazy about personal space and hiding to keep from being seen in the altogether, 'specially starting from puberty on. Certainly explains Faris' monthly absences as a deck hand and minching to the cabin more frequently as captain.

The long-lost princess bit? 'Twere proper comical. But Ben reckons it explains the way Faris gets all facety when she's right tired and slips into that snooty Tycoon accent of hers that he was never able to pin down as a child.

It's the bit about the sister that hauls his legs out from under him every time. He recalls the jokes made over royal families and their tendency for inbreeding. He recalls that more than a few of the eight-pagers from back in the day included right filthy cartoons about Faris and King Tycoon, shortly after the bold attack by ten united pirate captains against the Tycoon Navy. Faris had a good laugh about them back then.

Ben suspects she's not as likely to laugh about those types of cartoons now.

The subjects change a bit after Faris' identity as the long-lost Princess Sarisa came out, mind. Queen Tycoon being a sweet young lass, it's expected that the artists tend to be kinder to her than they were to Queen Karnak. Thing is, folks love a proper scandal, and Faris' history sets the imagination ablaze. More and more, Ben finds himself arguing that Faris would never touch the pretty bird like that. She's had choice aplenty, and for years she'd been a known womanizer. What'd she get from her own sister but her ruin?

'Twould bleddy 'elp if the cap'n weren't makin' a right cauch of it. Proper answer would be to just up and haul out. Disappear or something. Do what most sailors do and drown her feelings in spirits and opium. Faris opts to stay by the pretty bird's side, instead. Oh, she'll sneak out every now and then, but she always goes back. And she's good at hiding their relationship, but Ben knows Faris probably better than any man alive and can tell. Cap'n doesn't look at anyone else like that.

So Ben runs up the numbers in his head. Credit: the two met in adulthood, before they knew about their blood relations. Debit: incest. Credit: at least they can't have children. Debit: still incest. Credit: they didn't grow up together. Debit: royal incest, at that. He can count his justifications like beads on an abacus, but they're still all zeroed out by incest. What keeps the account in the black is that Faris is still a friend, and one who saved him and had his back often enough that he'll still defend her to the lathered carousers wagging their tongues.

It's that loyalty that brings him to Tycoon. He's a sound hand with numbers and Faris suspects some embezzling, so he'll just take a gander at the books and see what all he can find.

Ben turns up at the castle in the morning of the queen's dragon's first mating flight's underway. Now, he remembers something of Syldra's...whatever it's called when sea dragons go acourting...and it concerns him because Faris had always been extra teazy when that happened. Would lock herself in the cabin if it happened too far from shore, and in a room at the nearest inn elsewise.

While the guards knew him from his last outing here, they still watch his every step. Ben hardly cares--he'll not rob from his own best mate or her family, no matter his profession. Doesn't need to. In the interest of divorcing herself from her past and keeping her pretty bird safe, Faris passed her enterprises to him.

Once he makes it to the well-guarded room which splits to two doors, he finds that sallow-faced, red-headed cousin of the Queen standing watch at her door. The light from sconces does him no favors. Ben isn't quite sure whether more sun would do the boy any good, or just make him look jaundiced.

"The Queen will not be available today," the cousin says, hand tightening on his spear's shaft. There's a right peculiar trace of something else to his voice. Almost northern Carwenish under that Gentry Tycoonian accent everyone in the castle seems to speak.  

"'Ere for the princess, lad. Faris anywhere abouts?"

The hand tightens at the shaft until the lad's knuckles show yellow in the light. "And you are...?"

"Ben Inomoto." Though he'd refrained from spitting in his palm before stretching out his hand, the cousin still eyes it dubiously. "Served as Faris' quartermaster for 'bout five years. Wasson?"

"You don't sound Istorian," the boy says. But he shakes his hand anyway, 'least before he pulls it away quickly.

"Pressganged into playin' Faris' minder when I was but a tacker meself." Ben has no regrets, not regarding that. Istory had never been a place that welcomed boys like him.

The boy nods, still looking a bit wisht. "I'm Ridha Highwind. Queen Lenna's third cousin on the father's side. The, ah, princess' dragon caught the queen's during her first mating flight. She will, um, likely be as indisposed as the queen for the day."

Now Ben isn't the brightest among the brethren of the Great Tycoon Sea, being as he'd grown up with Faris and never once noticed that she was a woman all along, but he can add up the numbers when enough of the variables are available. His voice drops low, quiet enough that he's sure no one else can hear him. "They're in there together, aye?"

The boy tries not to flinch at his candor, but he can't seem to stop himself. "I haven't seen the princess all day, even before the flight. It's not, er, advisable that the mating dragons' riders be, um, in the same space if they're not, ah, already romantically involved. Or so inclined."

Ben reckons one might hear a pin drop in the silence afterwards. Part of him wants to cuss up a storm, because this isn't helping. Part of him resorts to taking action to minimize backlash, instead. "Yer lookin' wisht, lad. Go rest. I'll keep watch."

"Thanks." The boy manages a faint smile and shoulders his spear.

The boy almost passes him on the way out, but Ben grabs his elbow to impart some words. "Unless someone gets hurt, whatever the queen and the princess do with each other is none of our business. Like your cousins? Don't say a thing against them. It'll be hard enough as it is."

"But, it's--"

"None of our bleddy business." Ben sighs and looks over the boy. Can't be more than a teenager. "Take 'e from an old queer, lad. The heart wants what 'e wants, and 'e'll listen to no talking-to."

Despite the nerves on full display, the boy snorts. "You don't look that old."

Ben smirks and waves him off. Almost lets the boy go completely before he minds why he's here. "Oh, send up the ledgers, would ye? Won't let the Cap'n find me takin' caulk when she shows 'erself."

Ridha waves in acknowledgment, leaving Ben alone to consider how to deal with this mess.