A promise to kill

An Ugly Kind of Smile (edited)

    Everything became apparent to me when the sun shown brightly on my face and I could see nothing but white light. I could hear voices all around me and felt the small vibrations of people against the floor I laid upon. I couldn't focus my mind enough to make out their words but I was certain that they meant no ill will towards me. Someone held my hand so gingerly as if I would break with too much pressure and another, I could feel them wrapping me in warmth, softly as you would a babe.
Perhaps somebody, who was willing to listen to a desperate prayer, had heard my cries as the ocean engulfed me. I was certain that I was saved by someone, be it a man or a god, it didn't matter, I lived to breath another day, though it was quite painful to do so in that state. Even so, my vision slowly cleared, as if it were hesitating to gaze upon who had save me but as I stared up, nothing came to mind. I could see the blue in the sky and the wisps of clouds drifting so elegantly like a river of white. As I focused my senses, I could feel the wind pushing and pulling at me even even as i laid on my back and up above, just below the sky, dancing in the wind was a flag. One word, a name for these people, came to mind.
"Pirates." The one holding my hand kneeled closer to me, I then knew that the person, he was a large man with sea foamed colored hair. A head of long blond hair appeared in my line of sight as well and I felt that man sitting me up. I could feel the prominent ache of my body even with the support of his hands on my back but I could see so much more from a sitting position.
"You were drowning so we fished you out of the sea" The sea foam haired man explains so unenthusiastically that I found it hard to listen without assuming he had more to say. I couldn't help but stare at the strange appearance of that man.
He smiled so breifly at me that I could have mistaken it for a sudden twitch of his lips, and the man who held me up, i felt his chest rumble in what I assume to be a laugh.
"Heat, go let the doctor know we got ourselves a patient and that I'll be bringing her down." The man ordered with a hint of amusement present in his voice.
Heat, as the man called him, didn't even seem to have the time to reply as he jumped up and disappeared out of sight before another word could be said. I gave myself a moment to take in everything around me. Every fixture around me seemed to be made of wood and I could hear the sails rattling over head being lead by the wind. I could see men of all shapes and sizes, walking around us, possibly finishing up their daily tasks, all kissed by the sun, and then there was the man who kneeled beside me. I couldn't tell if he was a handsome man or not but the mask he wore, it looked to be well crafted. He, along with his clothes looked well kept; the color faded but clean. His blond hair hung well past his shoulders, almost gold, as if the sun has melted out of the sky and landed on his shoulders. The exposed skin of his arms were littered with thin white lines, scars i should call them and his eyes, though they were hidden behind his mask, I could see the fleeting gleam of blue, as if he'd captured the ocean in them.  He wasn't hideous or monstrous as you'd expect any pirate to be but he wasn't like any man I'd ever seen. I stared at him so long that my eyes caught his and I couldn't have possibly denied that I was staring at him.
"So your name?" He asked this as if he were simply passing the time or maybe he was trying to fill the silence that was there.
Even from where I sat, I knew that there were many people listening in but i didn't care much for them. I was mesmerized by this man, fascinated even. I had never met this man before, never met these @pirates before, but I knew that they didn't see or look at the world as you and I would. None of them seemed to care for the shackles that had once bound my arms behind my back, nor did they seem to have cared for who I may or may not have been.
The pirate man lifted me up onto my feet, arms secured around my shoulders to keep me upright. I thought he would lead me to where ever the said doctor would be but he lifted me even higher and into his arms. Never in my life, or I should rather say, not since I was a young child, had I ever been carried in such a way that I needn't carry even an ounce of my own weight. He held me with an arm under my knees and shoulders, my ear pressed tightly against his chest, so much so that I could hear the thundering sound of his heart.
I thought that he would ask me my name again but instead he said, "You best start thinking up a name for the doctor or he'll name you the first thing that comes to mind."
    Anne of Goa. I'd long forgotten that name, if not for that moment of when he asked for my name, I'm sure that I would have lived the rest of my life, having forgotten that name. The name of a girl that once was. It was a grim name. A frown had made it's self apparent on my face and the arms around me tightened.
"Forgot? No worries. The doctor will name you." I could tell that he was trying to make light of the situation but my frown deepened.
" What would you name me?" I couldn't help but ask the strange man.  He thought for a moment, he genuinely thought and pondered before nodding slightly, maybe even grinned, I'd imagine under his mask, he would have grinned with a tooth poking out from under his lip.
"Layla." Is what he said with an unfathomable amount of confidence almost as if he knew a day would come when he would meet and name me.
After that day, I never called myself Anne again, like I've said I'd even forgotten that I was once called that name until today. I'd like to believe that the girl named Anne, I want to believe that the ocean freed her. The little girl that her brothers named was finally free and after that day, when that man, a pirate no less , named me, a new woman was born. Free of her past, and free to do what ever she wished in the future. 
" Well, try 'er out. How's it sound in your own voice." He stopped for just a moment, waiting, for me to test the sound of my name. " Go on, no one gonna hear you but me."
" Layla. Layla, Layla." I paused between each attempt as I sat in the arms of this stranger and let the name spill out of my lips enough times until it sounded familiar to my ears. At the time, I didn't realize that I was smiling while I did this. I was told some years later that as I memorized the sound of my  own name, my eyes shined like a jewel put to the light and my lips curled up into a smiles that most men lose as children.
" Layla. Nice name yah?" He states once again and I can almost hear the smile in his voice.
" Why Layla?"
" Would've named my ship Layla if I had one. Lady Layla, " He says this with a tilt of his chin up and again his chest rumbles with a silent laugh.
" but sounds like Layla suits you better than a ship that could have been."
Lady Layla. I didn't know what to make of this new information. I was named after a ship but never-the-less, it was a name that was already engraved in my heart as my own. Even to this day, I love my name, it's a name that makes people's head turn and wonder what kind of person is named Layla. All the while I thought on my new name, the pirate man whose arms I sat in, carried me the rest of the way to the ship's doctor, who I later learned to call Noda.
" So she's my new patient? Does the Cap'n know you brought 'er in Killer?" This new man, possibly the doctor, his voice was a much lower pitch than that of the pirates named Killer, and unlike the said pirate, this man look just about what you'd imagine a troll would look like. His face was as wide as the ship's deck and his nose prodded out in the shape of an egg plant with 2 or 3 warts comfortably growing on the surface of his skin. His hair had streaks of white running through them and his hands were rough, weathered with time. The wrinkles on his skin were so deep that you could possibly fill a cup with how much water would sit in them. The color of his skin was no longer what you would called sun kissed but stained the color of stretched leather. When he spoke, his th's would hiss like a snake and some of his words were so drawn out that you'd forget that he spoke the same language as you and I.
" So, what's yer name?" Just as Killer had previously stated, the first question asked by this doctor was my name. I stayed silent as Killer sat me down on the uneven wooden table that the doctor sat at. I catch a quick glimpse of his eyes, Killer I mean, and i could see it. He was silently rooting for me, something about him was telling me, "Go ahead, it'll be alright," and I thought maybe, I was just imagining it all until he shot a  quick nod of his head but before I could answer the doctor he stood up.
" I'll be takin a quick trip down to let the cap'n know bout our Layla here. Mind watchin her till i get back?" Killer was already out the door before the doctor could reply and I was suddenly left with the new man.  The doctor turned to me with a puzzled look.
" Layla, like his ship?" I could only nod, slightly embarrassed, before he burst out laughing, grasping at his round belly wheezing for air. Makes you wonder if Killer had told everyone about his ship that could have been and as it turned out, he just about told everyone about his Layla. After my experience with Noda, the doctor, I never told a soul that I had let a pirate name me, I was just too mortified by how everyone would make fun of this fact.
The doctor, Nodall Chimale, who everyone calls Noda and I made small talk as he bandaged up my cuts and bruises. Before long, he started to talked story, on and on, not interested in hearing my thoughts or words, he kept telling the tales that accompanied his age. Between trying to comprehend his words and trying to process the new information that I'd gather in the short while, my own thoughts had started to run wild in my mind. Before I could drown in my own mind, a direct knocking of wood signaled that my time with Noda had run short as Killer and a taller, bigger man opened the door, entering the doctor's room.
That man, that bear of a man was absolutely frightening. I try to remember how afraid I was and I simply can't recall exactly how I felt. That's just how genuine my fear was. While I stared up at this man, I found myself wondering what will become of me. Yes, Killer and that other man, Heat, fished me out of the sea like a mackerel but this man, most likely the captain, could very well toss me back into the waves. I thought of what I could possibly say to perhaps convince the beast of a man to let me stay but again, what would become of me as a pirate. These thoughts had suddenly filled my mind in an instant and momentarily, I had forgotten my fear.
"Name?" One question he asked. His voice was firm, absolute, assertive, and though these are all synonyms, they are all needed to describe his voice and how he held himself at that moment. I wanted to look towards the pirate beside him for guidance but somewhere in my heart, I knew that this moment, this exchange between the beast of a man and I would decide my fate. Somewhere, somehow I knew, that this man, this captain, what ever he makes of me, would change my life forever. So when he asked me that question, I answered with a new found confidence and pride.
"My name is Layla."
For a moment, everything seemed to freeze in time. Nobody seemed to move even a muscle, not one breath. The first sign of life I spotted was the lips of the captain turning up into a smirk.
"and what are you Layla? You a slave? A runaway noble, a lost child?" I couldn't look away from him. He held the type of smirk that would make a young child cry.
" My name is Layla. I don't know what I will be or who I'll become. I am neither lost nor do I know where I want to be. All I know today, is that my name, is Layla." I watched as his eyes narrowed slightly before his smirk returned and grew wider. Without asking anymore questions about who I am or where I'm from, he gave one decree, a welcome.
"Pledge yourself me. Offer me your blood and sell me your name and in exchange I'll give you place to belong. So if your dare, so long as your name belongs to me, you'll have a place on my ship." He held out a blade and I knew what I needed to do, what I wanted to do.
" So be it, my name will be yours to call"
I remember it to be painless, the scar that is now unnoticeable on my hand. It's gone from sight but even in this stage, I can clearly see the  pledge I made that day. I even remember the first time I had written out my name on a piece of paper. The nib of the quill gliding effortlessly across the page and I remember how unfamiliar it felt to sign my new name. A short single line, spelling out my name.
"Lady Layla, from today you'll be one of my, Captain Eustass Kid's pirates and you'll be just the same as the rest of us damned bastards raised by the sea" I could hear the joking undertone of his voice as he deliberately called me Lady Layla but I couldn't help but smile big, ugly even, a smile where you no longer care what you must look like.
Back then, I never thought to question why this man so easily let me into his crew, it never occurred to me as strange. More importantly what I had failed to see that day was that Killer, the pirate man who fished me from her ocean's depths, well he mirrored my smile under his blue and white mask.