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Jack has found books!

OK, so the pirate probably looks a bit weird, leaning back in a chair, his boots crossed on a table as he soaks up Homer's Odyssey and muches on an apple.Bt there he is.

And he's reading the Greek and the English as the pages come up, all very interested in the fact the two languages exist.

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Jack shakes his head, and shuts the book.

"If I'm reading you right, you're not of my world."

He's studying Tom rather carefully.

Tom sighs heavily.

"Yeah. Feckin' 'course I'm not." He's more bitter at his own reaction and crushed hopes than angry at Jack - though there's a bit of that, too.

"If it makes you happier, no one here hails from mine either," Jack offers, and smirks. "Which means I lucked out."

Tom makes an effort to sound less petulant.

"Your land ain' a good one, 'en?" Which accurately describes Tom's, too, come to think of it.

Jack shrugs cheerfully.

"My land is a fine one for those that like land. But I'm no fan of the men that lord over it."

Tom knows that feeling, and his crushed hopes are long-forgotten.

"Lemme guess - rich men that leech off the poor an' grind 'em underfoot? They got so much clink they can 'scape the law - if it ever comes for 'em?"

Jack gives a somewhat fraternal grin.

"Rich men create the law," he remarks. "Bend the truth. Turn it into a tool to bind those that would have freedom."

The man has politics of a sort.

Tom grins back. He grew up with this sort of talk from age twelve on. There's something of nostalgia in his tone when he adds, "Ain' no man free in a system like that. 'Cuz everyone's in chains."

Tom was never the most attentive listener to such talk, so his thoughts don't get much more complex than that.

"That's what's said," Jack agrees. "S'why I left for sea."

"As a pirate," Tom fills in, having seen posters for a few pirate-centric plays in his time, though actual pirates are a lot rarer in his day. Tom has no qualms about teasing after the first few seconds of meeting: "'Less all in your land dress so mad."

"As a pirate," Jack confirms without the faintest hint of shame.

"Wasn't going to make a good navy boy, with my ideas about rules."

Tom laughs. "'Spect not," he agrees.

"Name's Tom Therin. Ain' never done nothin' excitin' on the high seas, but I know a thing or two of thievin' on land."

"Jack Hollins." A hand is offered. "Always glad to meet someone does their bit for entropy."

What the hell does entropy mean?

Tom shakes Jack's hand while looking confused at his elevated vocabulary.

"Chaos," Jack explains helpfully.

"Shit," Tom says with an amused snort, "An' all this time thought I was doin' it for money."

Jack's amused snort is a little louder.

"There's that."

"Ever nicked anythin' real big?" Tom asks, eyes bright with curiosity.

"Bigger 'n a ship?"

Tom shakes his head. "What sorta ship, is what I meant.

"My mates an' I scammed the church." Tom does not take long to getting to boasting.

Got anything that cool on your resume, pirate?

"My money's on that as a story and a half."

Jack smirks and sits forward.

"Trade that for the time we took the Iberian treasure fleet."

"Mmm, sounds impressive," Tom says skeptically.

"Righ', to catch you up - I'm a ratskin," certainly not a plague rat, that just sounds evil, don't it? "Got bit by accident when I was a lad," lie, it wasn't an accident, "tossed outta home once I survived my first change, an' was accepted by one of the best feckin' rat-gangs 'round - The Protectors of the Poor.

"Now any skin - we got a lotta 'em, some got demon powers, some're unlucky sods," lie, they all have demon powers, "- any skin got the Church after 'em. Church sees a skin, they see a demon, plain as that. Church's motherfeckers're the 'Sworn, an' they got ways of sensin' skins - an' killin' us, too. Call it Holy Fire - burns only flesh."

Tom shrugs off the threat of Godflame with a smirk and, "Stings like a bitch, I'd imagine."

Hey, lies just make a story interesting!

"The system hates a man can't be controlled," Jack observes. "Specially one with powers."

"Yeah," Tom agrees, "an' we Protectors weren't content to just sneak 'round tryin' to scrape by. We shat on the rich men's lawns often as we could.

"Righ', so it's comin' up to Man Day, big winter party on the longest night of the year. The Church is drawin' clink from a nearby bank like mad. We figure if we can get the head pastor's signature, we can have one of our boys dressed up as an acolyte and walk out with a sackfull of paper money. But to get the signature to forge it, we need into the bank.

"We payed some brat to run up to the bank an' shout 'Rat!' and lead the 'Sworn to a distraction - which was me. Ducked and weaved while he shot that white fire an' swung his sword. Feckin' 'Sworn took my tail off 'fore I got away." This is the only part that's a lie.

"But my mates did it. Got the signature, dressed Derrick Anyface up as in acolyte black, painted the flame on his head and sent him on in. Nicked at least two thousand pounds. Took the Church three weeks after the Man Day rites to notice."

Tom chuckles in fond remembrance.

Jack shouts wordlessly in approval.

"Chaotic and free, that showed them!" he declares.