Thomas shivered in spite of the warm water that lapped across his bare skin, responding pleasantly to Antonia’s kiss at his shoulders and the delicate caress of her fingers across his back. He looked to her, his eyes drifting across the glittering outline of her figure as the white chemise clung to caramel skin bathed in the silver face of the moon. The sight was like a siren’s call to desire for Thomas, and the intoxicating air of sensuality from the earlier exchange in the woods flooded back to his senses.

“Dieu dans le ciel…” [i]God in heaven…[/i] Thomas said softly, managing to repress a groan that threatened to bubble up sensuously from his chest.

It was an exercise in will for Thomas to not turn and envelope Antonia with his lustful embrace, to simply succumb to every carnal need he had entertained since his eyes first fell upon the rogue, but he managed to restrain himself. He forced his eyes into the night sky and demanded his mind to focus upon only the beautiful rogue’s words, and not the proximity of her divine curves. 

“Indeed, it is a grand tale,” he said at last. “Though not one that oft passes my lips. It is extraordinary enough in truth that not many believe it, and so I don’t burden people’s faith with the telling.”

Thomas shrugged and smiled, his eyes narrowing mischievously at Antonia. “Though, I imagine you [i]have[/i] to believe me, no?”

He leaned over to kiss Antonia upon the ebony curls atop her head before turning his gaze out towards the open sea. 

“When I turned fifteen,” Thomas began, his voice vaguely pleasant and airy, “Lightfoot and his crew were on a campaign in the Lesser Antilles, raiding settlements and shipping lanes all the way from Aruba down to Trinidad. It was a strange time in my life, as it was the first time that Lightfoot had ever kept me from traveling with the [i]Skate[/i]. He gave no reason for his decision to leave me in Tortuga, save for a mention that I had yet to live upon the burden of my own will, and that it was high time I did so.”

Thomas snorted. “I was crestfallen. I took his meaning to be that I had not yet proven myself man enough to be among his company. I remember sitting in his friend’s hovel, a transplanted cutthroat from Jipangu named Goro, and holding back hot tears of shame and resentment. Never in my life had I felt so worthless and betrayed. Like every boy at that age, I looked upon my father’s hard lessons with scorn. I blamed all the world for what I saw as the ultimate injustice a man could bestow upon a boy that held him in such high esteem.”

“So I vowed to prove him wrong, to show Lightfoot that he had made a mistake in underestimating the man I was to become.” Thomas looked to Antonia once more. 

“I had heard a rumor along the docks, you see? There was said to be a small privateer sloop that had sank in shoal water off the coast of Isla Tolinga. Though the nature of her prize varied with whoever was telling the tale, everyone agreed that she carried a sizable chest of silver ingots. Certainly enough to warrant diving for.”

“Of course, I was not the only person that thought as much, and several dozen attempted to dive and find the wreck. Nothing was ever discovered, and as the months passed, the consensus came to be that Neptune had claimed the silver for himself.”

A smile crept up the corners of his lips, and Thomas rolled his eyes a little. “But, [i]I[/i] knew better. I was young, strong, and fearless. Certainly, Thomas Lightfoot, being the great pirate that he was, could look into the face of Neptune, and steal his ill-gotten silver.”

“So, one day I chartered a berth aboard a fishing boat that was to put out nets nearby where the sloop had supposedly sunk. They dropped me off along the shores of Isla Tolinga, with a promise to return in two days to collect me.”

Though the smile stayed upon Thomas’ face, his eyes grew distant, their coppery sheen fading with recollection. 

“I remember just how eerily calm the water was that morning. My good fortune with the weather stoked my confidence, and I just knew that that very day I was to change my fate forever, and prove to Lightfoot that I was a boy no more.”

“I swam out some distance, looking down into waters more clear than I have ever seen again. I tell you, Antonia, it was like providence was shining down, piercing the blue of the sea.”

His face grew alight, and a soundless laugh shook him. “Looking down, I swear I saw her there, the sloop. Not more than thirty fathoms beneath me, in the deep blue, her broken outline seemed so clear and distinct. Without waiting, I dove, drunk on my own promised future. With each thrust of my arms and legs it all seemed that much more real, more definitive. Never had I been more certain of anything before in my life. I had found what no one else had. I was about to change my stars.”

Thomas narrowed his eyes as he paused. For a moment he seemed to be holding onto the glory of that very memory, as if it were some delicious morsel that had alighted upon his tongue but only for an instant. It left him quickly, that flash of glorious remembrance, before it was replaced with a grim mask.

“And never have I been more wrong. What I had seen, what I had mistaken for the sloop, was no construct of man at all. It was a creature of the deep.”

His hand snaked over his back, pointing without looking to the spot on the tattoo that depicted a great squid-like head, with a large bulbous eye, and the open maw of a beaked mouth.

“It was a kraken.”

At the sound of the beast’s name, Thomas grew silent. He found Antonia’s gaze, and after a time he smirked, almost sheepishly as if he had been caught in a lie by his mother.

“It sounds outlandish, but in truth the beast tossed me around the sea for a time. I was certain I would die in its clutches, but to my utter surprise it tossed me on shore, and to this day I have never seen another sign of the creature again. All that I have left of my encounter are the scars on my back, and the memory of a day that even now seems like a dream.”

Thomas shrugged. “The fisherman kept their promise, and returned for me. Of my story they believed not a word, though they were happy to return me to Tortuga to tell the tale of a boy who went hunting for treasure, and ended up fighting a kraken instead.” 

“Only Goro believed me. No one else in Tortuga did, and even now I’m still known their by the story. It was still on the lips of the town when Lightfoot finally returned some months later. With Goro at my side, I told him of my misadventure, and the man said not a word. All I can say of his reaction is that he granted me a permanent position at his side, and never again did he question me about the kraken.”

“Before he died, after I had been voted the new captain of the [i]Skate[/i], he sat me down one last time. Delirious with rum and fever he told me that it had been him that had started the rumor of the sloop before he had left for the Antilles.”

Thomas smiled down into the waters that lapped about his waist. “Of course, it’s ridiculous to think that he could have had any knowledge of the kraken when he came up with the story. Still, a part of me has always dreamt that the great, infamous pirate known as Lightfoot had somehow tamed a kraken, had forced it to lay in wait, biding its time for when I would come, and at last prove that I was ready to be at his side.”

“So, that’s why I have the tattoo.” Thomas said matter-of-factly, slapping at the water. “Goro has been working on it for some time, the old dog. It was to be a memento, a constant reminder of what it took to make me into the man I am today.”

Thomas looked up into Antonia’s grey eyes. He could not keep the smile from his own face, and the glitter returned to the copper orbs of his own pupils. “Well, how is that for a tall tale my dearest rogue? Worthy og a song, is it not?”