Natasha sat next to Jack aboard the small rowboat as they departed from The Nightingale. Castille sat in front of them, arms working the boat's oars steadily to propel them further, and two other men sat at the other end. One she recognized as the third man involved in the conversation John and Castille had been engaged in the night before, Maverick, she caught as his name, and up close she could tell that he was one of the men not pleased with her presence. He had glowered when John had ordered him to join their boat, dark brown eyes glaring at her as he navigated his large, muscular body into the rickety boat with ease. He had scowled at her for a long moment before resigning to stare down at this shoes, wringing together his olive-tanned hands. The second man, Adan, seemed slightly more pleasant. He hadn't smiled at her, but he hadn't grimaced at her either as he climbed aboard their boat, his night-dark skin crinkling around the corners of his eyes. Natasha had studied him, committing his face and name to memory, knowing she would need all the allies she could get.
Their journey back to land was quiet, save for Jack occasionally chattering beside Natasha, but even he fell silent after a while, giving Natasha the chance to take in her surroundings. They hadn't sailed The Nightingale far, just to where the mountains directly met the ocean waves, and then they had turned to hide the massive ship behind some of the protruding, gray rock. It was to keep the pirate ship hidden from the village, Jack had told her, because they had to assume that the townsfolk would not take kindly to the presence of pirates, and to keep the ship as close as possible, in case they had to escape quickly.
Natasha stared up at the mountain as they passed it, taking in the details of the landscape she had sketched so many times from her perch in the willow tree. Up close, the details of the jagged rock, the shadows created by the uneven edges, the moss that dripped down the gray stone in various shades of green to meet the deep blue sea, made Natasha's fingers ache for her sketchbook and the ability to preserve that image forever. She stared at the edge of the mountain, taking in all of the points to sketch later, and the hues to hopefully capture one day when she could afford colors, only until they passed by enough to bring the next village into view, and then Natasha couldn't look away from the new sight.
The town she had left behind was dilapidated, crumbling after the years of neglect. The combination of lack of resources, stifled by their inability to import or export any goods, and the lack of residents to perform upkeep on anything other than their own residences or buildings, meant that over the years, much of the town had started to fall into a state of disrepair. The mundane wooden buildings looked worse than usual, roofs and walls patched with timber from abandoned buildings, yards and farms overrun by weeds that the remaining residents eventually gave up trying to maintain. The village was dark, mundane, and Natasha had often imagined what her home would look like if it could be rebuilt, if it could have the kind of color and beauty she saw in the natural world around her.
This new village was exactly what she had imaged her home could be. It was beyond that, in fact. Closer to the water, what Natasha could see most clearly, the village somewhat resembled her own home, as she imagined it to be when it was first built. The homes were built close together and narrow streets cut between them, but these residences were larger, two-story homes, painted in various hues of whites, browns, and grays, yet they did not appear dull in the way that her village seemed lifeless. Even the natural tones stood out, and the buildings all had colorful doors and flowerboxes underneath the windowsills that brought more life to the earth-colored houses.
Beyond the center of town, the houses grew in size and available space around them, build deep into the rising mountains and forests. They were painted in the same natural hues as the smaller homes along the water, but their walls crept with vines, pointed roofs, archways. Some of the homes were structured with what seemed to be brick or stone, and the way the masonry contrasted the shades of green in the trees made them appear more magnificent than anything Natasha could have imagined.
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The Nightingale
Adventure[Completed] [Editing/Re-Writing] [10/9/19] For hundreds of years Natasha and the rest of her village have been prisoners within their own town, their own homes, as a punishment for what she believes was a failed revolution attempt against their unju...
