The Pirate King's Daughter

In the Depths

His voice was hoarse from screaming her name, chest tight as the image of Kera's body going over the railing with the naval soldier. Hearing the crash of the water below. Bloodied hands shaking, Mark almost didn't notice as one of the enemies came swinging for his neck. His only focus on that damned rail. Why wasn't she climbing back up?

"Fackin' idiot," snarled Jones above him, "Are you daft? You nearly lost your head!"

"We lost Kera."

There as a pause, bringing to Mark's attention that the screams of battle had stopped; only the moans of wounded and dying men pierced the air alongside the sounds of the ocean. If they didn't know better, none would have guessed such a bloody battle had occurred.

"What do you mean we LOST Kera?" The light in Jones' eye was like a fire, burning and ready to destroy. 

Mark drew himself to his feet, muscles aching. His legs even shook meeting that fierce eyes, "She went over the rail with one a those bastards, heard the crash of the water and she ain't come back up. She's gone."

The slap was sharp and precise, the impact a tingle at first that slowly grew into an aching throb. It would bruise by morning. 

"You fucking moron," Jones said through bared teeth, an inch from Mark's face. "Ya were 'sposed to watch her! She was our only leverage, our only way out of this bloody mess! Now we-"

There was a gargled that cry startled them both, drawing their attention to the middle of the deck where Caleb was crouched. Blade slicing the throat of a wounded officer.

A blade tip poking out the back of Caleb's own neck. 

"Die, bloody pirate," spluttered the downed officer over his own blood before falling to the deck. Caleb hovered on his knees before falling atop the other's dead body.

Jones' voice cracked as he screamed Caleb's name, rushing over the blood-slicked deck to the man's body. He rolled him over, begging him to wake with the dagger still in this throat. Blue eyes staring blankly at the sky. A trail of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth, disappearing over his jaw. There was no other sound than the broken wail of Jones as he pulled the limp body of his comrade to him.

Mark was numb as he slowly turned, looking back out over the ocean hoping that some black head would pop up. Hoping that the raven-haired pain in the ass wouldn't have to be counted as those among the dead. He didn't know if he could bear it.

"Mark!" Morris' booming voice called from across the deck, an exhausted and ragged tone to it.

He found Morris at the helm, looking out over the damage to his crew and ship, covered in blood and gore. It was impossible to tell which was his. "You called me, Cap'n?"

"Where's Kera?"

"She...went overboard, sir," there was a tightness in Mark's throat he tried to clear, "dragged over with one a the naval officers."

Morris stared at him, hard. The kind of gaze few could match. A gaze Mark knew to look away from, especially now with all that had occurred. The captain made a low rumbling noise, "We keep goin', we have no time for a dead girl."

"But sir-"

"Ya heard me, Mark." The captain's voice was vicious, but underneath there was crack, "I've got twelve dead men and a missing helmsman. If she's done gone over there's no helpin' her now. If the waves haven't devoured her, the creatures below will. Now get the bloody navy bodies off me ship and prepare the body's of our men."

A firey ache formed in Mark's chest, spreading to his throat. She's gone. She's not coming back.  An idiotic part of him wanted to scream that someone go down there, that she didn't deserve to be left behind like this. Yet, like the good crewman he was, Mark nodded and walked away. That burning ache now consuming his body as he started to clear bodies.

Often I had thought of death, as I'm sure most people do. It's hard not to when everyone knows that's where life leads. To darkness, a hole in the ground, and then what lies beyond. Most praying they'll go to paradise, others not caring whether they suffer or flourish as long they can live the life they wish. As for me, I had never given it much thought. Whether I was good enough to get a mansion among rolling hills or suffer for my worst sins. I only ever thought how I would die and not where I would go.

I never expected I would feel so weightless...or cold.

It felt like the first time I had gone to the ocean, my father with me. He'd said the first lesson to swimming was submerging myself so he threw me beyond the shallows. To the point where my feet couldn't touch the sand and keep my head in the air, so I floated. Suspended in the cool blue waves. Unafraid of what could lurk beyond, what waited beneath the safety of the light.

That's where I was now, I supposed. Beyond the light.

Beyond help. I forced my eyes open, peering past the sting of salt. Surrounded by inky blackness. Submerged, held fast in the cold. My mouth opened to scream but only bubbles escaped as I sank further into the depths.

As my eyes adjusted, I watched as pieces of ship floated past. Weapons soon followed by the dead, a few faces I knew. A dull ache in my head had begun to ease as a face floated past, eyes open in desperation. The officer who had dragged me over, who'd hit me over the head as we went down. Who I suffocated just before I lost consciousness and got...lost.

Breathing was the last of my concerns as I realized I didn't know which way was up. Or where even the ship was or if they even expected me to submerge. How long had I been under anyway? Had they counted me among the dead? Doing my best to remain calm, I started to swim the direction I believed to the be the surface.

Until I felt something wrap around my ankle, painfully tight as I yanked through the water suddenly. A silent scream refusing to leave my lungs as I tore through the water. Debris scratching and tearing at my clothes as I was brought face to face with a giant, golden eye. The pupil dilating and constricting as it took me in.

My chest constricted in fear as it looked over the massive beasts, one of its tentacles slithering around my waist. Squeezing so tight any form of breathing was impossible. As it stared me down, I could feel everything within me begin to groan in protest.

That massive pupil constricted suddenly as it reared back, revealing a gaping beak. Inside it rimmed with rows of pointed teeth, ready to shred and devour.

Panic gripped as I began to thrash, clawing with my nubs for nails at the tough skin of the beast. My abdomen burning, chest heaving. No, no I couldn't as some damn beasts dinner! I wouldn't die like this! Not now, Mark would never let me hear the end of it. 

Tension started to build beneath my skin, the water around me began to thrum. Bubbling similar to when water was at a boil. With a scream, a hot pulse went out. Earning a scream from the beast as it threw me. Threw me straight up, sending me shooting through the water at impossible speed.

My skin stung as I broke straight through the surface, into the cool night sky. For a brief moment, I thought I would touch the stars. I even reached out, seemingly suspended enough in time that I could touch those shimmering specks embedded in the velvet sky. All too soon and too fast I was plummeting back down. A scream leaving my body this time.

I grasped for the air, foolish enough to think something could stop me. Could slow me down. But nothing could, not as the air whistled past my ears. Tearing at my hair and clothes. Oh, gods, what would the impact on the water be like from a height like this be like? 

As I fell, my body felt leaden as I had the awful realization. Closing my eyes to brace for whatever pain I might feel.

It never came.

Instead, I sank into a taut mesh of something, which tossed me back into the air and down again. Again into the air and back down again, bouncing. A gasp escaped me as I settled, then dropped abruptly on a hard surface. Wood. A deck.

I flung my eyes open, coughing up the water which had clung inside my lungs. Part of me expected to see the familiar mast, the posts. But no, these posts were a deep, worn blue. Speckled with white. The deck around me was a smooth cherry. 

Boot steps thumped on the floorboards beyond my head, coming close. A chuckled above me as I looked up. Meetin familiar blue eyes, crinkled in a smile.

"Welcome aboard, Miss Kera," said the stranger from the tavern.