Savvy? [Will Turner]

XXI

21.

Money is a terrifying thing. Pirates lusted after it as though it were their last meal. It was alluring and lustrous that had good men on their knees despite their strife. The group of pirates that had helped locate and capture Lynn stood off to the side of the grand room they were currently housed in, watching the situation on with a mixture of bored contempt looks of eagerness. Eagerness for the familiar shiny coins that would make them rich in their own luxuries.

His father looked the same and completely different all at once as he sat atop the dais. Lynn noticed as he kneeled before the king, forced down onto his knees with two men on either side of him, weapons just brushing the nape of his neck. It was nothing less than excruciating. The disagreeable position he had been forced into had done nothing but worsen the throb in his knee. It had been under loads of pressure these past few days and the strain he was under only increased tenfold.

Contempt was etched across Lynn's features as he bore daggers into the Kings' gleaming, slightly gray ones as they studied one another. He had aged since Lynn had last seen him, the beard he donned had grown and was nearing white from where it sprouted from his chin, the thick bushy eyebrows that Lynn was always caught staring at when he was younger seemed to have double in width and clashed with one another whenever the older man's eyes brows moved a particular way and the wrinkles on both his eyes and forehead were ever so prominent. All signs of the many years he had passed on to his life showing easily. It was no wonder that Lynn had been brought here despite the man lies he had hinted towards indicating that he was not the prince. The king was growing old.

An eerie silence was cast over the hall, everyone looking to the pair in the middle of the room as they bore eyes onto one another's frames. It was the eldest of the two that spoke first.

"Are you my son." The king spoke in statements rather than questions. Lynn noted the similarities they held, never once realizing just how close they were.

"When has it ever been that easy?" Lynn replied with little hesitation, he knew he wasn't the first one to kneel before him under the impression that the lost prince had returned. The king chuckled slightly. A good sign that Lynn could continue talking without the man's patience wearing thin.

"No... it never is,"  the man mused from where he sat on his grand chair that was levels above Lynn. It made him feel small. A feeling that he never wished to feel again but lately, it seemed that nothing was going his way so it would be best not to give his hopes up. "You were brought here under the impression that my son has been found. In recent cases I found.. the men came to me on their own account claiming to be my son with little hesitance. You, however... have failed to state who you are."

"Hans Guispe," he paused, a slight smile tugging at his lips. Not from the weapons pointed at his back but at the familiar walls that encased him now. Not all his memories of this place were formed upon in fact- he could vividly see his younger self running around the grounds with his mother in tow. "-your majesty." he finished with almost a mocking tone.

"An odd name for someone that has clear descent from here." The king tried, watching Lynn's face for any signs of a lie. The king prided himself on his ability to distinguish truths from lies but his son had caught on well and felt his face clean of any tells.

"My parents favored the unknown," Lynn replied easily. The man in front of him scratched at his beard, dragging two slender fingers through them as a means to untangle the ties that bound them together. Though the king was moving, he made no move to speak. A tactic Lynn knew his father liked to use when he was trying to get the other person to talk more. Lynn remembered his father telling him that whenever he remained silent and stared long and hard into the other person's eyes, they tended to break under unforeseen pressure and reveal what they intended to keep. Given that Lynn knew what the king was playing at, he diverted his eyes to the ground and pursed his lips.