By the time he first boarded the Sibylla Guillermo had already done many disreputable deeds. He consoled himself by maintaining that none of them changed who he was on the inside. He was an upright mule caught in lopsided circumstances. No one could blame him for doing what he needed to survive, let alone to have any chance of showing his face back home.

This attitude persisted in his new position under Captain Barefang, by which point he fully understood the difference between committing acts of piracy and being a pirate.

The change of milieu made no difference. He would continue to do whatever was required of him and he would not let it change who he was on the inside.

He would complete his chores diligently, maximizing the time he had to tend to the man he still remembered being. He would be scrupulous with the pay he received, never gambling it away or squandering it at taverns. He would keep himself true until he either reached his longed-for destination or perished having sought it.

But it was still a dangerous edge he walked upon.

Men who were pirates "on the inside" were by their nature incapable of grasping the proportional relationship between hard work and reward. They would see a man who spent half the day absorbed in pursuits they couldn't comprehend—a man who was "loaded" at that—and wonder why he didn't do more to pitch in, to spread his good fortune, to join them.

He knew what would happen if he started giving out favors to get them off his back: the favors would quickly become expected of him and he would never be repaid.

He especially knew what would happen if he lent out money. It would start with a few coins here and there to "make ends meet" and end with one of them realizing that the quickest way to wipe out his debt was to throw the creditor overboard.

And running to the Captain would never be an option. Victor Barefang was a pirate "on the inside" like the rest of them. There were only three judgements he might hand down: Guillermo was either a lazybones worth punishing, a workhorse worth squeezing for every drop of sweat or—the worst by far—a reliable minion worth promoting and making responsible for executing his unconscionable orders.

No, the best course of action was to keep his head down and avoid attracting the Captain's one-eyed gaze entirely. This was not out of keeping with other ships he had been on. Still the iron logic of the pirate vessel prevailed: when the cat's away, the rats shall play.

...ah well. Let them be mystified and resentful for the time being. He still preferred reading out here to his dark and dingy cabin, distractions be damned. It's much easier to see, for one, and the air smells better than the things Artie drags in, coughs up or hides under his bunk.

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Artwork by  Krysiilys