deep in the sea (I give you my heart) // jenlisa

Chapter 6: Reaching the Capitol

Lisa was vaguely aware that she was moving. She could tell she was laying on her back, feeling something hard beneath her slowly moving. Her hearing was muffled at first, slowly struggling to come back to reality one sense at a time.

Her eyes were closed, but she could see bright sunlight shining pink through her eyelids, the rays tingling warmly across her skin. As her hearing slowly started to make sense of the world, she realized the low rumbling she could hear was the noise of cart wheels turning.

Slowly opening her yes, Lisa squinted through the bright afternoon sun to look around. She was laying on a large bundle of furs, traveling in the back of a cart. The sky above her was a bright blue that matched her eyes, tiny clouds speckled throughout the beautiful color.

Looking around more, she could see that there was an older gentleman with a hunch sitting just above her head, driving the cart. She must have made some sort of noise, because the man looked back to her with a curious glance. Seeing she was awake, he gave her a practically toothless smile.

"Ah, finally awake, I see... You must have been real tired; you've been asleep almost all morning." His voice was wispy and slightly slurred, his wrinkled face wrinkling even more through his grin.

Her head was pounding- it seemed to be constantly doing that now and days –and her entire body felt like it had been tumbling inside a barrel full of rocks. Memories of the night before flooded her mind; The boat, the rapids, Momo leaving, Taemin branding her... Athena saving her.

Lisa wordlessly looked away from the man, wishing she could stare up at the sky for the rest of the day. She was so, so tired... Maybe she really should have just run from Taemin, so he could have shot her and ended all this damn pain.

The old man had turned around in his seat, continuing to drive the bumpy cart through the narrow pathway. Lisa had no idea where Athena was- or where she was on the line of travelers for that matter. Part of her felt obligated to get up and go find the pirate captain, but the other part was reluctant to move.

Lisa noticed that she had been changed out of the clothing Athena had given her the day before; Now she was wearing a grey-green top that had short, rolled up sleeves and dark string tying up the low V-neck.

Her pants had changed into dark grey canvas trousers, which seemed to be a little too long. To Lisa's relief her officer's boots had been kept on her; they were tall black leather with a golden button on each outer bootstrap that had taken her months to properly mold to her feet.

A loud, high whistle sounded way up the line of the traveling party, a few other pirates echoing the call for those farther down. The old man sighed happily, pulling the cart off to the side of the road. "The captain must have stopped ahead; she's probably found a good spot to water the horses and take a break."

Lisa sat up, mistakenly leaning her weight on her left hand. She hissed through her teeth, feeling an agonizing burning pain blossoming from her wrist. She lifted it up to see that about three inches of thick bandages were wrapped around where she had been branded.

Well, at least her brand wasn't going to get infected or anything... Still, it was incredibly painful to even think about moving her left hand. Lisa sighed, holding the injury close to her chest as she started to scoot off of the cart.

It became obvious that Lisa has been put at the very end of the traveling party. She could see where the large group dissipated into a gravel path that disappeared into the trees. All around her were the old and the sick, multiple people huddled around in carts much like the one she was sitting on the back of.

She looked up the line, silently wondering how far up the head of the caravan was. She knew there were a ton of people traveling, and the path was rather narrow. Judging from the size of the camp she was sneaking around last night, it wouldn't surprise her if the group was the size of a small army.