#merilwen reports back to dob and egbert that prudence moved first

[dobsmoneylake]

Prudence. Corazon. First actual date. (Or, it doesn't have to be a DATE-date...but the two of them as a pair for the first time.)

AN: I am so sorry that this took so long (Corazón wasn’t talking to me until I insulted him), I hope it was with the wait! Thanks for the prompt!! <3 I own nothing. Also thanks to the Historian for beta-ing for me.

At the sound of footsteps, Prudence looked up from where she was laid out in a sunchair on the deck of the Joyful Damnation, attempting to enjoy some of the sun. “I see you’re alive,” she called out to the owner of the footsteps, causing the sound of them to stop before starting to head toward her purposefully.

“Alive?” their owner proclaimed. “Of course I’m alive! It takes more than a few drinks to keep this pirate down!” A head popped into her view. “Honestly, Prudence, who do you think you’re dealing with here?”

Glaring at Corazón, Prudence took one hand and shoved against his shoulder, “Get out of my sun,” she warned.

Stumbling back at the force of her hand, Corazón straightened up and put his hands on his hips, looking around. Instead of the busy sight of their remaining companions that he expected, he instead saw a deck that was empty of everyone but Prudence. “Where is everyone?” he huffed. “We were supposed to set sail first thing this morning!”

“Well, you probably should have thought about that before sleeping the morning away,” Prudence said, smirking. “Now, I need to go into the town myself; are you going to sit around and sulk all day, or will you be accompanying me?” She stood up and stretched before reaching over to grab the robe that she usually wore, casually shrugging it on.

Corazón felt his cheeks heat up and he quickly looked away. “I don’t know, I have some things to do around here to make sure we’re ready to go as soon as you all get back,” he told her. “It takes a lot to get a ship as incredible as The Damnation ready to go, you know.”

“Yes, but how often do we get to spend time in public without having to talk Egbert out of blowing something up or making sure Dob doesn’t run off with all the gold?” she asked.

When he looked up, she was smiling. “You may have a point,” he conceded, “And I do deserve a vacation after all the work I do for you guys.”

“Exactly,” she said, brushing by him as she walked off the ship and looking over her shoulder at him. “Why don’t you say we have some fun?”

‘Fun’ led them to the market, which was in a little bit of a disarray when they arrived. Prudence immediately took off towards the most lethal looking stall, which was full of various sharp and pointy objects. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Corazón disappear, presumably to make use of the last bits of chaos from whatever had happened before they had arrived.

Letting all thoughts of her partner for the day leave her brain, Prudence started looking over at what this stall had to offer. There were a few bigger weapons that she looked at with some interest (they would be such a great benefit to her rage), but they weren’t elegant enough to really fit her aesthetic. In the middle of the table were a collection of sharp knives and daggers that her eyes kept getting drawn back to.

Idly casting detect magic (and how good it felt to be able to do that again), her eye was immediately drawn to a stiletto dagger in the middle of the table, which was just pulsating with energy.

“Are you going to, like, buy something or what?” the bored voice of the shopkeeper asked her.

“Can I try out that dagger in the middle?” She asked.

“Huh? Yeah, whatever. Just don’t steal it or anything.”

Picking it up, Prudence couldn’t help but let a grin spread over her face. The dagger was perfectly balanced in every way-- in fact it was perfect in every way. “How much for this, then?” she asked.

“That? 500 gold pieces.” The shopkeeper was still looking at her nails.

Prudence deflated. There was no way the party would be okay with her spending that much. She put the knife back on the table, but kept eyeing it, debating how much work it would be to just take it.

“Prudence!” Corazón said joyfully, walking up to her with his arms full. “Would you like any of these delicious artisan meats?”

“Sure,” she said, absentmindedly taking one.

“What do we have here, anything good?” he asked her.

“Nope,” she said.

“Really?” he asked skeptically. “Because you’ve been standing here for quite a while, and usually you would have left in disgust at this point.”

She glared at him. “Honestly, it’s all rubbish,” she said, “waste of my time.”

“Okay, if you say so,” he said. “Although if you really wanted something, I’m sure that we could afford it.”

“I said IT’S FINE,” she hissed at him before storming off towards the tavern. She needed a drink.

********

Corazón met up with Prudence just outside the tavern, which she was staring at for some reason. That reason became clear when the noises from inside the tavern drifted out as someone else entered-- specifically the sound of two familiar voices and the even more familiar sound of chaos.

“Oh, great,” Corazón said. “There goes our relaxing day.”

“Hm.”

“Hm? What do you mean ‘hm’?” he asked, pointing dramatically at the tavern. “That doesn’t exactly sound relaxing.”

“Yes, but this isn’t the only place to get drinks,” she reminded him.

He thought for a moment before sighing. “You want to go to the nice restaurant.” When she nodded, he threw up his hands. “But Prudence! It will be expensive! They’ll expect us to actually pay! Please, think this through!!!”

“I have thought this through,” she told him. “I’ve thought that I don’t want to go in there.” She pointed at the tavern for illustration, where a conveniently timed crash happened for emphasis.

Corazón sighed. “Pirates don’t do fancy establishments,” he told her.

She took off walking. “Okay, I’ll go by myself then,” she said. “There might be someone I meet along the way who would want to get a nice dinner with me.”

He jogged up to her. “I never said I didn’t want to get dinner with you!” he said.

“Oh good,” she took his arm. “Then you can buy me something nice.”

Looking down at the top of her head, he smiled. “Don’t push your luck too far, I never agreed to pay.”

*******

Dinner went well. Appetizers had been served, main dishes had been critiqued, and dinner was on its way out when music started and other people in the restaurant got up and made their way to the dance floor.

Corazón watched as they started to dance and scoffed. “Honestly, look at those idiots,” he said, never taking his eyes off the couples as he started moving his finger to the beat of the music.

“Why, because they’re dancing?” Prudence asked.

“Because they’re dancing horribly!” He said. “Honestly, look at that form! Dob could do better than that-- and I definitely could do better than that!”

Prudence took a sip of her wine, hiding a smile. “You’re sure about that, are you?”

“Am I sure about that?” He rolled his eyes. “Believe me, Prudence, I could dance circles around anyone in this restaurant-- no, around anyone in this town!” He sat back in his seat. “Honestly, ‘am I sure about that.’”

“Well then,” she said, setting her wine down, “You’ll just have to prove it to me.”

His eyes went wide. “Pro-- prove it to you!” he let out a shaky laugh. “I don’t need to prove it to you-- if anything, you should prove your dance skills to me!” He nodded decisively. “Yeah, Prudence, why don’t you prove your dance skills to me?” He raised an eyebrow at her.

“Okay,” she told him simply.

“What?” His eyes went wide. “What do you mean ‘okay’?”

“Okay, I’ll prove it to you,” she said. “Let’s dance.”

“You’re joking,” he told her.

“Well, unless you can’t dance after all,” she told him.

He stood up suddenly. “I am going to dance with you so hard you see stars!” he told her, holding out her hand.

“I’m sure you will.”

Still holding onto her hand, he led her out onto the dance floor as a tango started, pulling her into a picture perfect position and desperately trying to remember the steps of the tango-- for some reason, it was hard to focus when she was so close. He was so busy running through the steps in his head that he didn’t notice how quiet they were.

“You know, you’re right,” she said, breaking the silence. “You are a very good dancer.”

He smirked confidently down at her. “I told you so,” he said.

“But I think you’re overlooking some of the benefits of being not so perfect,” she continued.

He raised a confused eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“I mean this,” she said with a smile, allowing herself to drift even closer so they were pressed together.

Corazón’s steps stuttered as she pressed closer to him, and he started moving with less confidence. “Prudence,” he said softly so only she could hear. “What are we doing?”

“Do you trust me?” she asked him.

Corazón didn’t even have to think about it. “More than anyone.”

“Then just keep doing that,” she told him, pressing her face to his chest.

*******

As they walked down the path back to the ship (Corazón had ended up paying), Corazón grabbed Prudence’s hand. “Wait,” he told her, bringing her to a stop.

“What is it?” she asked, turning to face him.

“I know you said you didn’t want anything, but here,” he said, slipping out the dagger from earlier and shoving it into her hands. “You were obviously into it.”

She looked down at the dagger. “Please tell me you didn’t pay full price for this.”

“What?” he scoffed. “No. I nicked it. The shopkeeper was absolutely oblivious.”

“I don’t know what to say,” she told him.

“Don’t say anything.” When she went to open her mouth, he continued. “Really, don’t say anything. Let’s just agree to never bring it up again.”

“If you say so,” they made their way up to the ship. “Well, thank you so much for the lovely date,” Prudence told him.

Corazón stopped in his tracks. “Date?” he asked, his voice rising. “What do you mean, ‘date’?”

“Oh Corazón, you really are an idiot sometimes,” she said, shaking her head and grinning.

“What?” He sputtered, “I am the smartest member of the--”

He was cut off by her lips.

“You kissed me,” he said when she had pulled back.

“Well,” she smirked, “I certainly didn’t kiss myself.”

With that, she pressed her lips against his again. Corazón froze for a moment before slowly lifting his definitely not shaking hands to brush against her cheeks. When she didn’t pull back, he relaxed down into her, giving her the angle she needed to wrap her arms around his back.

After a few moments, Prudence pulled back and smiled almost shyly at him. “Have a good night, Corazón,” she said before walking into her room.

Corazón watched her go with his mouth half open before he closed it into a smile, reaching up to rest his hand on the back of his head. Suddenly, there came a rustle from above and the cat form of Merilwen jumped down to sit in front of him. If a cat could smirk, she was definitely making the facial impression.

“Oh, you shut up,” he told her irritably, turning around and walking into his captains’ quarters. He let the door shut behind him before leaning against it with a grin on his face.