Scattered Thoughts

Story Outline / Concept (UNFINISHED): Pirates

• The main character, Tara, who is a lowly merchant's daughter and an employee at said merchant (Silas)'s shop, is taken hostage by a band of pirates because Silas owes a large debt to the pirates' captain, Fernando.
• Tara stays in a cage in the cargo hold of the ship for a while, but during that time, a member of the crew, Benjamin, pays her constant visits, having been assigned to bring her meals, but also attempting to make conversation and small talk with her. She starts off resenting him simply because he's a member of the band of pirates that stole her away from her father, but she soon sees that he's sorry that such a thing happened to her and he just wants to make her stay more comfortable and be someone she can talk to and such, so she befriends him.
• Eventually, Captain Fernando lets the hostage out of her cage during the daytime, deciding that she's no good just sitting around doing nothing, and is, in fact, more of an inconvenience that way, since they also have to bring her meals, so he puts her to work on the deck just above the cargo hold. There, she witnesses a fencing match between two unfamiliar crew members, a boy and a girl. The girl ends up winning, despite that the boy had initiated the fight.
• Word of Tara's arrival and rumours about who she might be begin to travel around the ship quickly, and it isn't long before this talk reaches the girl from the fencing match, a rowdy, energetic, enthusiastic, and slightly overbearing girl by the name of Cassandra, who happens to be the best person on the ship at hand-to-hand combat and short-range weaponry, such as swordfighting. She is also the captain's second-in-command. Cassandra decides to greet Tara and try to converse with her, as well as ask questions and either confirm or deny the rumours. The newcomer doesn't know what to think of the girl or the encounter except that she's being surprisingly friendly (and that she doesn't want to get on her bad side after the way she'd seen her fight), and she also thinks that it would be helpful to have an expert combatant on her side, so she befriends her as well.
• The captain eventually grants Tara access to a small dagger in order to defend herself, not wanting her to be completely defenseless and severely injured or dead before they reach their destination, but the problem with this is, she doesn't know how to use the sharp object properly, so she seeks guidance from Cassandra, who agrees to train her in the art of swordfighting.
• One fateful day, without either of the two girls noticing, Captain Fernando accidentally stumbles upon one of their training sessions and begins to watch them, unable to tear his gaze from it. After this, he starts to take breaks from his work in order to watch more and more of these training sessions, beginning to become captivated by his hostage, liking her fiery spirit, her fair looks, and the way her body moves; however, he tries to rid himself of these thoughts and feelings, realizing that he'll eventually have to let her go in order to auction her off to the highest bidder in the slave trade, anyway, and there's also no chance of her ever feeling the same way about him.
• A while later, a ship belonging to a rivaling band of pirates comes into view, and a very intense war breaks out between the two captains and their crews, in which Tara is given a chance to prove herself - against Captain Fernando's wishes, since he doesn't want her to purposefully put herself in danger, having only given her the dagger "just in case" she would find herself in a compromising situation, and he doesn't think she's ready to go out into an actual battle quite yet. However, she manages to kill one member of the other crew and injure two others, though it does result in some of Fernando's ship's property being damaged. She's promoted to a higher-ranking job, now being put in charge of keeping watch over a certain sector of the ship rather than just mending outfits, doing minor repairs, cooking, and cleaning, but she has to make up for the damaged property by working extra hours.
• One night, while Tara is working her shift and doing her guard duty, she sees a man she'd never seen before, which is odd, considering she knows most of the crew by this point, having been a member of it for a couple of weeks now. He looks around 19, while she's 17 - so around her age. She watches him closely while keeping herself out of sight, not being able to hear what she's saying from the distance she is away from him, but following him from a ways away, mesmerized by him.

So, what do you guys think so far? Do you have any ideas for things that I can add? Please let me know in the comments! And thank you so much for reading through all of this mess, if you did!
—Maya