Private Tales Above Deck

[Gal]

“Lady?” She blew out an empty laugh. “There ain’t a chest of gold big enough in the whole of Arethil to make me wanna shove that stick up my arse.”

“Ooh. The kitten has claws.” Gal snorted and threw the covers off her body. Her feet were a whisper across the floor as she padded over to the desk. The warmth had returned to her bones and her damp skin had dried off – it was time to wrap new bandages around her forearm before she bled all over the sheets.

“So now you’ve known solitude and lived under the thumb of your father… and you still wanna go back?” She made a noise in the back of her throat and poured more grog down her gullet. “Some lesson you’ve learned.”

 

[Selene]

"Do you know what I could do if I got back? The power I'd have? All I'd have to do is marry that sod down bellow and I'd have more influence over the realm than your father on a good day,"

In was in this moment that she was beginning to see Gal's harsh words as something more complex than simple rejection. Truly, if the woman felt actual disdain for her she wouldn't be inside her bed. She wouldn't even be alive. It was something more then, and fine, she accepted begrudgingly.

So she wouldn't be welcomed back into the world with warmth and kindness. She was discovering she was dried up of it herself. Contrary to before, she made no offer to help with the bandages. Despite hearing the ruckus of them beyond her.

"You're just miffed I haven't made up my mind to join your crew," she grumbled, wrapping even Gal's portion of the blankets into herself.

 

[Gal]

“I’m miffed because I don’t get it. Why would you choose to go back into a world you hate?”

Her motions stopped as she looked at the bundle of blankets where Selene lay. Her shoulders drooped, and she let out a chuckle that somehow lacked all of her devilish amusement.

“It’s the power, isn’t it?” She shook her black curls and tipped the bottle again. “My father’s the chieftain of a tribe on a tiny island that doesn’t even exist on your maps, Selene. Realm my ass.”

 

[Selene]

"... I don't know," she finally admitted, her voice softer than she would like. "Maybe. Sometimes." She tossed in the bed, going to her back and staring up at the ceiling.

"I don't know who I am anymore." She expected a mocking laughter for the remark. She didn't care. There was some freedom in admitting. Some fucklessness to confess a weakness to a woman she'd never see again.

"All those years alone bled it out of me. And now I don't know what to do with myself. Married, bah. I don't want him," she confessed. "I hate my father, I'd rather see him gutted than hug again. But can you picture me out on your deck trying to hold down those ropes? Or being some slave girl to some kind merchant you sell me off to? If I don't reach for that power, what else has life left me with?"

She threw up her arms, having no answer.

"Better I sell my soul and try than keep it and amount to nothing," she concluded softly, the words feeling right even as she said them.

 

[Gal]

“Selling your soul,” Gal echoed with a faint smile, “is harder than it sounds.”

The bottle made a hollow thunk as she set it down on the desk, the liquid sloshing about the dark glass. She sighed and hung her head over the edge of the seat. “Well, you won’t be the first. Sometimes what you want is who you are.”

She shrugged in the darkness and shifted until she could look out the window into the angry foam of the storm. After what might’ve been minutes, Gal turned her gaze back to the girl, her eyes blacker still than the starless night outside.

“So what do you want, Selene?”

 

[Selene]

A pain prick in her throat, an face bubbling up to her. Soft, yet unyielding-- eye lashes that tickled cheeks-- full lips that devoured and set her on fire. The answer came unbidden to her, tearing at the hole in her heart she thought time would have filled.

"Love," she whispered, her voice cracking. She was aware of how naive that sounded, the years had opened her eyes to that. She cleared at her throat, unable to just lay there with those emotions building in her tear ducts. She sat up, incrementally harder as the blanket slid from her and she carried on.

"But that is lost, and now I want my revenge."

 

[Gal]

“Fair enough,” she said, rising out of the chair. “And an upgrade, if you ask me. Easier to get it, anyway.”

Hooking the open bottle between her fingers, the pirate tracked her way back through the swaying cabin to the bed. She flopped back onto the hard mattress without ceremony and offered the grog to the blonde without a word.

“You gonna kill your dad?”

 

[Selene]

Selene followed the woman's movement back, eyes slipping to the extending bottle, then back up the arm to the bare form her vision had adjusted to seeing.

Her gaze lingered, a few spare blink before she could be heard swallowing hard and taking the bottle. "You pirates," she chastised lightly, pulling up the blanket around her.

"Always so quick to stab. " She took a healthy drink, trying to banish the salt from her mouth. She sputtered and coughed, pulling back to look at the bottle that clearly wasn't the fine rare make treated to her on the first night. She wheezed, handing it back over. "H-Horrid tastes in wine t-too." Like drinking oj when you expected milk. Almost unfair to it, really. Almost.

"What lesson does he learn dead? He wouldn't be able to understand like that-..." She spilled her mind out to the darkness and the pirate, unable to stop herself now. "It's cheap, it's not enough. He can't go destroying lives and without a restitution. I want him to know how it feels. I want him to fall." A calm confidence filled her tone for the first time, an end goal she didn't have to know how to fulfill yet for it to feel right.

"Then, maybe, I'll poison him," she allotted. "Like he did to my Lucretia."

 

[Gal]

“It’s easier.” Gal said it like it explained everything.

“And it’s grog. Booze. Swill.” She grinned, claiming the bottle for another long swig. “Crap’s brewed down in the bilge. Right next to that noble arse you ain’t lookin’ to marry.”

Her brows shot up then. If they could, her eyes would’ve darkened. “Poison? Fucking coward.” She scoffed, lip curling into a derisive grimace. “Stabbing’s more cathartic, you know? Get that rage flowing outta you. There’s no kinda enjoyment in watching someone choke on their own tongue.”

She shrugged and drank again. “Or maybe that’s just me.”

 

[Selene]

Selene's lips pulled back in distaste. "But the bloodstains."

She shook her head, uncurling from the blankets with a sigh and giving up parts of the cover to gingerly place it over Gal's lap. Her adjusted eyes slid anywhere but on Gal in that quick moment, a slight tension leaving her body once she was able to sit back. A quick pat to the blanket was done, a 'there there' motion as she assured Gal had some semblance of decency before her.

"That's not the way things work in Vel Anir. You can't say what you think to a person never mind outright murder them. It's not cowardly, it's smart. Besides, it's not exactly brave to stab a man then board a ship and never return. You get to avoid any retribution out here. You're bias."

 

[Gal]

With each layer of blanket deposited onto her, Gal’s brows rose higher. The question, though it remained unvoiced, echoed in the small cabin nonetheless – What are you doing?

“Common mistake,” she said after wetting her lips with the grog again. It had kindled a pleasant fire in her belly, and the flames were now spreading like questing fingers up her limbs. She smacked her lips in satisfaction before offering the bottle to Selene again.

“It doesn’t pay to murder a lot of people as a pirate. Easier for everyone if the merchant just surrenders, you know? No need for stabbing. We take what we need, set them down on some nice stretch of coast so they can leg it back to a fishing village or somethin’... works out for everyone.”

Gal nodded sagely and slid a few inches down the mattress, black curls spilling onto the sheets like the inky waves of a stormy sea. “Killing people for fun is stupid. And it gets you killed faster’n you can say ‘Whakamoemʻomaikaʻiʻiaʻoe, e ke akua kahiko o ke kai’.”

 

[Selene]

Selene blinked, silent for a pause as that sunk in.

"...Well I think anyone would get killed trying to mouth that one out."

She gave the bottle in her hand an unsure look, bringing it to her nose and sniffing it. "You don't... use the water down there to make this, right?" Almost a silly question; if you had told her it was sewer water down there she'd believe it. Still, Gal drank it so she gave it another tentative try.

"Gods." She gasped as it burned down her throat, finding the second go not so bad now that she knew what to expect. She licked her salt-crusted lips, then took a deeper draft, trying to smother the excessive thirst with the fire burning its way down to her stomach.

She coughed and handed it back, wiping at her mouth and prickling eyes. "Now I see why you resort to eating people."

 

[Gal]

Her only reply was an indignant snort as she snatched back the bottle. “We might,” she said, swallowing a grin along with the stiff drink. The alcohol scratched down her raw throat, but she enjoyed the burn nonetheless.

“Yeah? Enlighten me, then.”

 

[Selene]

She fell back into the bed with a flop, letting out a deep breath. "If all your stuff on here tastes like that-" she stretched, the warmth licking her belly. "Well people are better than paper." Not that she'd ever consent to being quoted on that.

She pulled her arms out of the blankets and tried to run her fingers through her long, knotted curls. She crinkled her nose at the course texture, the sea salt leaving every part of her feeling ever so slightly sticky.

"Do you actually like it? Living out here, like this."

 

[Gal]

“No,” Gal deadpanned, gaze set on the blackened planks of the deck above. Saltwater from the spray was gathering in one of the grooves, trickling further down the wall every time the ship crested a wave and dipped low.

“I’m here for the company.”

Once they found a good beach to careen on, Her Ladyship was in for a good scrubbing and tarring.

“It’s quiet.”

A few days out under the sun, stretching her land-legs. Maybe they’d catch some game in the jungle, eat proper food again.

“And no entitled motherfucker gets to tell me what to do.”

 

[Selene]

Goosebumps prickled along her skin, the chilly air whispering over her booze-warmed body.

"That I understand," she murmured softly.

She rubbed at her arm, letting herself slip into the odd sensation of the rocking boat as thoughts swirled through her.


“Your crew has to listen to you ordering them about. Guess that makes you entitled-... motherfucker number one.” A trill hit her stomach at the language used. She turned her head towards Gal, a smile hitting the corner of her lips.

 

[Gal]

Gal chortled without a thought to propriety. “The day I piss off my crew is the day I end up marooned on some rock in the middle of 'Āina o Ka Lā.”

She shook her head, then leaned against the planks of the cabin with a thud. The cool wood was a pleasant balm on her overheated skin. Between the swim in the freezing underwater currents and the nasty gash on her forearm, Gal wouldn’t be surprised to pick up a fever.

Fuck.

“This ain’t a navy ship.” She closed her eyes. “Everyone gets a say here.”

 

[Selene]

"Huh," Selene commented softly, head tilted up as she continued to watch Gal.

 

[Gal]

Black eyes narrowed at the princess lounging in her bed.

"You're drunk."

Her mouth twitched into something that wasn't quite a smile, sour as the swill they'd downed to the dregs.

The floor creaked, the door yawned, and then she was gone.

 

[Selene]

Selene sat up, swaying over the covers and blinking into the dark. "Wait... where ya goin'..." The question fell to the empty room, the silence only broken by a hic as her body protested behind held upright.

She startled into action, pulling herself up and flat out taking the blanket with her. She dragged its heavy length to the door and wobbled there before managing to get it open and follow the woman out. "Are you crazy, the storm- you're going to lose toes." She tried to get herself and the blanket to Gal with admittedly compromised motor skills.

 

[Gal]

Between the crashing waves and the roiling clouds above, Gal couldn’t hear a thing. Even the tortured creaking of wood and the sharp snap of line barely carried on the howling wind.

That was, as far as she was concerned, the point.

A raging tempest brought its own brand of peace, drowning out every thought. The twin whips of salt and rain on her bare skin grounded her more firmly than soil beneath her feet. Gal never felt more anchored when drifting in the grasp of a boiling sea, surrendered to the will of the elements.

She moved across the slickened deck with her eyes closed, dancing to the peal of thunder as blue lightning arced across the sky.

 

[Selene]

Selene gaped at her, watching her from the doorway of the cabin.

"She has lost it," she murmured to herself in high Velnarian. "You wouldn't even see this in books." She hicked, standing entranced for a moment before the cold washed up her body.

She shivered, a round of hesitated entering her. She sucked it up and dropped the blanket, scrambling out the door and across the slippery deck. The world spun and the waves knocked her to and fro, but her cold fingers did find their way wrap around Gal's arm like a vice.

"I don't think you're well." She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, it taking some effort to switch tongues again.

"I am not the drunk one here. Come on, please, before you fall into the sea." She leaned heavily on Gal, swaying more than the ship.

 

[Gal]

Gal blinked her eyes open to an onslaught of rain. She was drenched to the bones, dark curls clinging to her skin like seaweeds. With her sharp grin and black gaze, the Nazrani looked a thing from the depths of the ocean.

“Don’t be stupid, Selene.”

All it took was a swift twist of the arm and then Gal was free, turning to face the swaying blonde. “This is my home.”

 

[Selene]

Selene snuffed, bristling at Gal's. "Excuse you." She would have insisted she was not stupid and that it was Gal who was half out of her senses, but after a day like today and with the alcohol in her ... She resisted the urge to slump in defeat.

She snuffed again, her arms snaking around her as she struggled for words. "Well. Fine. Fall into the sea but see that I won't throw myself in after you!" Another snuff, Selene lingering without confidence in place. She didn't want to leave Gal out to harm, but boy was she offended and run down and cold. She'd have better luck reasoning with a rock.

She turned dramatically, hair wiping about. And then she started her shaky stumble back to the dry warmth of the cabin, her mind numb.

"See if I care!"

 

[Gal]

Her only reply was a slow rise of two dark eyebrows. Gal didn’t move, but her eyes followed Selene’s shambling return to the cabin nonetheless. Between land-legs and the alcohol, she had a fair bet going with herself if the girl was gonna make it at all.

Once the princess was safely inside again, the pirate turned her face back into the rain. Summer had imparted warmth to the deluge that the depths below didn’t possess – she felt neither cold nor pain as she walked the perimeter of the gunwale. The deck was slick under her feet, yet she never slipped; the lines snapped and creaked, yet she was never whipped.

Finally the expanse of the sea opened before her. She stopped at the prow of her ship, braced against the forestays where they were lashed to the bowsprit. The fathomless black cracked open its foaming maw whenever Her Ladyship crested a wave, and Gal grinned with growing joy whenever they bit into the slope of a new swell.

Pitching her will and wit against the storm, she remained there until sunrise limned the clouds with gold, dashing them north where they could linger in the shadow of the night a few hours more.

---

The grog had drained from her veins ages ago, and her joints were stiff when she finally climbed back down. Feyrie frowned at her from the helm, looking like he knew exactly what she’d been doing.

“Cap’n,” he grunted when she walked past, her usual sashay diminished by fatigue. Gal barged back into her cabin with no regard for its doubtless hungover inhabitant, beelining for the bed and its soft embrace.