snow white & rose red, snow/rose, sailor songs, pg-13 (2/2)marketchippieSeptember 22 2011, 01:48:27 UTC
She stops, looks. Looks up, as he shrugs-six, seven feet tall, a giant, a hedge-bramble with sea legs, clipped into a shape that is rough and square. "Now I'm looking for a ship of my own."
"You want to be saved?"
"You in the saving business?"
"We don't save captains."
"How about poor swabs with nothing to call their own?"
She represses a smile and shrugs, a single rise-fall of her shoulder blades. On the sticky table, Rose walks, plank-like; she stumbles and caws a laugh, not falling.
"Ain't she something?" he asks.
"Ain't she just."
She shakes her head. "We leave at sunrise," she continues.
Later, she will wonder at herself. Rose shall not: this she knows. As the night pales and the sun slips thin fingers of light onto the sandy spits of shore, she will swallow her thoughts, her protestations to herself. And Rose shall laugh and shan't ask a damn thing.
-
They leave when the sun is bright and too hot to see through, when the crew stinks worse than usual and grumbles at the sear of its light; they load and the women watch from a spit off the rocks, no splinters to be seen.
The bramble-bear from the night before hoists a barrel off the ground without a hitch and Rose whistles low and hard between her teeth.
"Should always put you in charge of recruits," is the only thing she says, then-squinting through a dwindling fog of rum and sleeplessness. Rose can't sleep on land anymore, Snow thinks, doesn't like solid ground. All the solidity she can take is in her own body, her flesh and bone and level stride against a shaky world.
Brambles with his flashing eyes bows low and ironical, and then there is a flash of a sword and the sand pools red and hot.
"Told you I didn't need your help," the small man in salted metal medals crows, drawing his sword from the man's side, eyes glinting mad like abandoned islands in his stark skull. His sword, thickened with red in the sunlight swings toward Rose-red calling to red, encroaching. "This man is a wanted criminal, and I am here to collect-"
Mayhaps that's where the sentence ends and mayhaps not, but his voice dies in his throat. Around Snow's blade, that is, choking thick with blood.
He falls to the sand, head only half hanging onto his neck.
For a moment there is no movement at all. But stillness never lasts among sailors and not with Rose around: the air shimmers with demented heat and she shouts, not trembling. "Lazy sons of bitches! Catch you standing still and I'll put you to moving myself."
Lower, she mutters, "Crazy marooned piece of shit," and buries her toe hard against his ribs.
"No," Snow says. Not shaking.
"No," she agrees, and scuffs her boot against the sand, pushing the toe into a soft hill. She is looking down at the red gumming beneath her boots. The bearded man lies groaning on the sand.
"Soft-"
He pushes himself up on his elbow, winces, and lies back down.
"Soft military piece of piss. Didn't-" a hiss- "hit anything I needed, don't think."
It is Rose who kneels first, offering her shoulder for his arm. It is Snow who wraps an arm around his waist, steady and straight. She's bloodying her fingers and somehow nothing in the world matters less.
Her spare hand scrapes her scimitar through sand and salt-water, and by the time they arrive onto the boat, it is something like clean.
-
"You ladies in the savin' business?"
"No," Rose says firmly, and gives him a bandage. "Do it yourself," she says, but they sit with him all the while and they watch him all the same.
Snow catches her humming between clenched teeth. The songs don't plan for two maidens, she thinks. Not for them saving each other or anywhere else.
The bearded man's eyes slip closed with pain, fatigue. Let him sleep, she thinks, and Rose bites off a snatch of wordless melody in the back of her throat. Maybe it'll slip into his dreams, maybe he'll wake up knowing everything and they won't have to explain a thing.
Now, silent and briefly unwatched in the chamber, Snow lets herself be hugged by Rose, lets herself fall easy and hard into her sister's body, lets her hiss with teeth against the skin of Rose's neck.
But the moment subsides. There's an anchor to hoist.
Re: snow white & rose red, snow/rose, sailor songs, pg-13 (2/2)tiltySeptember 25 2011, 02:12:57 UTC
Oh god, stars in my eyes over this. All of my favorite things in one place-I want to make artwork for it. Like I feel like I have something stuck in my throat reading this. Gorgeous. ♥
"You want to be saved?"
"You in the saving business?"
"We don't save captains."
"How about poor swabs with nothing to call their own?"
She represses a smile and shrugs, a single rise-fall of her shoulder blades. On the sticky table, Rose walks, plank-like; she stumbles and caws a laugh, not falling.
"Ain't she something?" he asks.
"Ain't she just."
She shakes her head. "We leave at sunrise," she continues.
Later, she will wonder at herself. Rose shall not: this she knows. As the night pales and the sun slips thin fingers of light onto the sandy spits of shore, she will swallow her thoughts, her protestations to herself. And Rose shall laugh and shan't ask a damn thing.
-
They leave when the sun is bright and too hot to see through, when the crew stinks worse than usual and grumbles at the sear of its light; they load and the women watch from a spit off the rocks, no splinters to be seen.
The bramble-bear from the night before hoists a barrel off the ground without a hitch and Rose whistles low and hard between her teeth.
"Should always put you in charge of recruits," is the only thing she says, then-squinting through a dwindling fog of rum and sleeplessness. Rose can't sleep on land anymore, Snow thinks, doesn't like solid ground. All the solidity she can take is in her own body, her flesh and bone and level stride against a shaky world.
Brambles with his flashing eyes bows low and ironical, and then there is a flash of a sword and the sand pools red and hot.
"Told you I didn't need your help," the small man in salted metal medals crows, drawing his sword from the man's side, eyes glinting mad like abandoned islands in his stark skull. His sword, thickened with red in the sunlight swings toward Rose-red calling to red, encroaching. "This man is a wanted criminal, and I am here to collect-"
Mayhaps that's where the sentence ends and mayhaps not, but his voice dies in his throat. Around Snow's blade, that is, choking thick with blood.
He falls to the sand, head only half hanging onto his neck.
For a moment there is no movement at all. But stillness never lasts among sailors and not with Rose around: the air shimmers with demented heat and she shouts, not trembling. "Lazy sons of bitches! Catch you standing still and I'll put you to moving myself."
Lower, she mutters, "Crazy marooned piece of shit," and buries her toe hard against his ribs.
"No," Snow says. Not shaking.
"No," she agrees, and scuffs her boot against the sand, pushing the toe into a soft hill. She is looking down at the red gumming beneath her boots. The bearded man lies groaning on the sand.
"Soft-"
He pushes himself up on his elbow, winces, and lies back down.
"Soft military piece of piss. Didn't-" a hiss- "hit anything I needed, don't think."
It is Rose who kneels first, offering her shoulder for his arm. It is Snow who wraps an arm around his waist, steady and straight. She's bloodying her fingers and somehow nothing in the world matters less.
Her spare hand scrapes her scimitar through sand and salt-water, and by the time they arrive onto the boat, it is something like clean.
-
"You ladies in the savin' business?"
"No," Rose says firmly, and gives him a bandage. "Do it yourself," she says, but they sit with him all the while and they watch him all the same.
Snow catches her humming between clenched teeth. The songs don't plan for two maidens, she thinks. Not for them saving each other or anywhere else.
The bearded man's eyes slip closed with pain, fatigue. Let him sleep, she thinks, and Rose bites off a snatch of wordless melody in the back of her throat. Maybe it'll slip into his dreams, maybe he'll wake up knowing everything and they won't have to explain a thing.
Now, silent and briefly unwatched in the chamber, Snow lets herself be hugged by Rose, lets herself fall easy and hard into her sister's body, lets her hiss with teeth against the skin of Rose's neck.
But the moment subsides. There's an anchor to hoist.
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