The Crystal in the Chasm

chapter 4

The evening had been a blur. I drank more than I could handle and found myself stumbling to the hammock to be alone earlier than intended. That is, of course, after I hurled all of the plate Death Bringer had prepared for me over the edge of the ship into the roaring waters below. I couldn't wait to be back on land. I didn't know how pirates or sailors lived on waters for months on end. It was enough to drive me insane.

I was nearly asleep with nothing but the sound of the waves and the flickering of the lantern I had stolen from the card table now resting on the nightstand. The door creaked open and a large shadow hovered in the doorframe for a moment. I blinked through my drunken haze at Death Bringer's blue eyes lined in black staring at me.

"What?" I mumbled and tried to wrap the hammock around myself.

He scoffed, "Must you always be so hostile?"

I groaned, "Must you always be insufferable?"

"I believe so." He blew out the lantern then climbed into his hammock and turned his back to me.

We sat in silence for only a moment before the alcohol started speaking for me. "Who is the captain? I can't seem to figure out who is in charge."

He grumbled under his breath something about how I talk too much before sighing, "Captain Silver Tongue is away on secret business as he usually does since he is the lord of all pirates. I am his first mate, which leaves me in charge until his return when he has other business to tend to."

"How did you become first mate?"

"Why do you care?" Death Bringer glanced over his shoulder with a scowl.

I shrugged. "Sorry." The room was spinning too much for me to push him any further than that.

"Captain found me as a lad only a handful of years ago. I hadn't eaten in days and had pick-pocketed a rich fellow on the street when a pirate spotted me. Claimed I was quite the looter and could use my ability to move quicker than 'em, since they be ordinary men. Took me in as their own, been here ever since..."

I swallowed my flash of pity before speaking further, "Where were your parents?"

"I do not wish to speak to the likes of you about such a matter..." he snapped.

I flinched once but chose to focus on how light my body felt in the hammock rather than whatever venom was laced between his words. Instead of letting it get to me, I just rolled over and tried to get some rest.

————

I awoke to the sound of cackling through the floorboards. The ceiling creaked above me with footsteps as the ship swayed in the water. Through a small crack in the wood, a small cloud of smoke crept through in a small wave. I sniffed the air only to smell an unmistakable smell: dream flower. It was a powerful hallucinogenic plant that creatures often smoked or consumed in some way to get high. I had done it only once in my existence and never felt anything like it before. It was very difficult to find and primarily grew in the Kingdom of Faerie by pixies; a place I had only visited twice.

A flashback to my younger years blinked through my memory of visiting the Kingdom of Faerie. I had been there to finalize my betrothal to Grimm Hastings, the Prince of Faerie; an agreement that quite literally went up in flames. Sometimes that boy still crossed my mind on occasion. When I was escorted there by two royal guards, the first time I left the Kingdom of Fae without my parents by my side, they allowed me my first taste of freedom. The guards left me to my own company where I could roam without restriction throughout the castle grounds. After a formal introduction to the King and Queen of Faerie, two equally insufferable figureheads as my own parents, I frolicked through the vast fields of flowers and hills surrounding the castle. I remember lying in the soft grass and soaking in the warmth of the sun on my skin. It was quiet and more peaceful of a feeling than I knew to exist prior to that moment. When I opened my eyes to the sound of a twig crunching, I laid my eyes upon the one boy who I nearly shared the rest of my eternal life with.