Intemperate Seas

1

"Well, you're a strange fish to catch." Salt water poured out of the woman's mouth as she spluttered, limbs still tangled in the net she'd been fished up in, steam roiling off her skin. She glanced up, nauseous, only to freeze at the sight of black sails on a lidless black sky. It wasn't exactly the saviors she expected that fished her out of the dark waves with their net. "What in blazes are you doing in the middle of the sea?" Came the gruff voice again. The woman shrieked, scrambling backward, nails clattering against hard oak, only succeeding in getting herself more tangled up.

"Put me back!" She demanded, the shakiness of her voice failing her, steam billowing around her in ribbons.

"Into the ocean?" one of the sailors sneered, brandishing a dagger. "Or do you want a different sort of death? But I believe my Captain asked you a question." The first speaker stepped forward suddenly out of the fog, eyes gleaming, placing his stunted dagger beneath the vein jumping in her neck to still her. Not sailors, pirates! She thought.

"What's a pretty thing like yourself doing floating in the middle of the ocean?" The woman glanced at the captain in the dim light of his blade, searching the metal for disturbances. A hard gleam began to dance in the shadows of his eyes. "Armstead!" He barked to another pirate, "Show our guest the courtesies awaiting in our brig," The woman from the sea kept her gaze sternly fixed on the captain and his perpetually downturned eyes. The quaking mole on his nose nearly broke her focus but the long hair sticking out of it was something, that while appreciated in the periphery, was a feature she did not want to become too well acquainted with. If the man quietly approaching her hadn't been as gentle as he was leading her into the depths of the wooden menace, things may have gone much differently.

The descent was quiet, with the exception of small squeaks and the squelching of boots marking any other presence than the man and the woman from the sea on the ship.

Do it! Do it now! The woman shook her head, trying not to give any heed to the voice drifting in the wind.

Armstead swung the door to the small cell open with a shriek that caused them both to jump. The woman cautiously tiptoed into the rancid chamber, eventually deciding upon a defiant perch on the three legged stool struggling to stay upright in the corner. Armstead watched as the woman plucked a leaf of seaweed stuck to the floor, examined it, and cast her piercing stare up at him. Hastily, he left to gather a meager portion for the prisoner.

"Do you drink rum?" Armstead asked upon his return, cautiously pushing a small plate and mug through the bars. The only answer awaiting him came in the form of more blank stares that caused his hair to stand up straight. As he decided to turn and retreat, the deeply sage eyes darted over him, from the budding lines of past smiles, down to the scabbard and sheaths hugging his right hip. The pommel of a plain yet manicured dagger peeked out over the leather of his belt, and she strained her neck for a better look at the blade.

A vague and distant memory surfaced in his head, a tanned face, striking in the moonlight, floating in front of him within a thin metallic ring of light. A simple melody accompanied the image, and just as he finally found himself again on stable ground and back in the belly of the boat, he saw the woman's long finger tapping a pattern, the whisper of a hum gracing her throat... the same one from his dream the night before her arrival.

Without knowing it, he moving closer to the bars and studied the woman a little more closely than when he first laid his eyes upon her. She was quite tall and strongly built, however, something about her physique put him off. She was beautiful, he couldn't deny that, but there was something dangerous behind the beauty, something wild.

Gupling, he dared,"Now... what did you say your name was, again?" His question was met only again with a biting stare that made his hands shake. Fingers shooting behind his back to grasp one another in veiled anxiety, for a moment he thought she was going to keep her silence. He contemplated turning away and going back to his bottled mistress awaiting him under his pillow.