cookies 'n' cream and rocky road with chopped nuts
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Eye of the Storm
Rating: G
Challenge: Cookies ‘n’ Cream #28: cry, Rocky Road #16: where it all happened
Toppings/Extras: chopped nuts
Wordcount: 832
Summary: The sinking of the good ship Kraken.
Notes: I secretly love this AU.
The early morning ocean was wreathed with a thick, still fog. Wreathed seemed the appropriate word, Adele Merritt reflected, as she watched the remains of the Kraken slipping beneath the tugging, breaking waves. The white cotton sails sprawled beneath the water, darkening, sinking, disappearing. Ropes and wood trailed into the dark ocean, the broken spine of the mast trailing along invisible currents, the gleaming decks they used to walk over snapped and cracked and disintegrating.
She kept seeing in her mind the water flowing down into the belly of the ship, sucking through gaping holes in the hull that had been made by Voskoy’s warships. Cold, heavy water, filling the ship completely as though filling a person’s lungs. Drowning it.
On the dinghy, trying not to shiver too much as the wind pressed her wet blouse to her skin, Adele peeled a sopping wet strand of hair from her face and turned to look at Isaac, who was sat next to her, offering her a little warmth by pressing against her though it was clear he was doing his best not to shiver too.
“Why’s Jacob crying?” she asked quietly. On the other side of her, the captain was sat, watching the ship being claimed by the sea-that temperamental mistress that he knew so well-with his face impassive, but tear after tear running out from his eyes.
“He always cries when a ship he’s captained goes down,” Isaac murmured, not looking away from the wreckage.
Jacob Graham was an unruly, unregimented man of free emotions: nothing stopped him from expressing them, even the fact that he came from a time that heaped disrespect upon a man that cried. Besides, he never cried of physical pain and rarely in front of others-only when his ships went down. Each one he captained seemed to claim a piece of his heart as personally as any human being.
“Hey,” Adele said, nudging him. “It’s just a ship.”
Even she didn’t have the heart to say it sharply. Despite the tears streaking down his face, Jacob turned to look at her and raised one debonair eyebrow.
“She was a fine ship,” he said a little huskily.
She was. The Kraken had been her home for the past six months; it had been an object when she’d first stepped on it, but over time it had become a place. Her place. It was the place she had puked her guts up almost every night at first because she suffered from seasickness-it was the place she had faced humiliation at the hands of the pirates almost every day-it was the place Newson had sent her almost as punishment.
But the sickness had abated and the pirates had become… not friends, perhaps, but comrades. Part of their own breakaway community.
And it was the place she had fallen in love…
Her hand curled tighter around Isaac’s as Jacob leaned over the edge of the dinghy and pulled a floundering pirate on board, spluttering and dripping even more cold water all over the painted wood. More warships were looming in the fog and Adele didn’t know what to do. She knew that they were in the eye of the storm; the pause before total obliteration.
It just didn’t feel like it. It didn’t feel like anything, really.
“Are we going to be OK?” she asked, feeling and sounding like a young child. Isaac let go of her hand and wrapped an arm over her back; her blouse was translucent from her time in the cold, rolling water and sticking in all the wrong places. She looked an absolute mess.
“O’course we are,” Jacob said when Isaac didn’t reply. He threw himself back across the dinghy, shaking his curly brown hair out. He grinned. “You think I’d let anythin’ happen to us?”
“I’m not going to leave you,” Isaac said to her seriously, which was the most truthful promise he could make. It was enough. It was just about enough.
Adele smiled tightly and nodded, gazing back towards the wreckage. Her eyes were drawn to it constantly, the flotsam and jetsam lethargically spreading itself out, the haze of smoke joining the mist and turning everything into nebulous mystery. After a moment, she nodded again, this time more resolute.
“I bet the guys in the warships don’t know that Newson wants me dead,” she said. As far as they were concerned, it was just another pirate raid, after all. Newson wouldn’t want news of his backstabbery getting out. She squirmed out of Isaac’s grasp and shakily got to her feet. “Can you get us over to one of the warships?”
“I can try,” Jacob said with a wild shrug. “They might shoot at us though.”
“Oh, they won’t,” Adele assured him. That devilish smile was back at her lips. She tugged the band from her ravaged hair and then pulled it all back into a tight ponytail, which was the best she could do just then. “Let’s go.”
Title: Eye of the Storm
Rating: G
Challenge: Cookies ‘n’ Cream #28: cry, Rocky Road #16: where it all happened
Toppings/Extras: chopped nuts
Wordcount: 832
Summary: The sinking of the good ship Kraken.
Notes: I secretly love this AU.
The early morning ocean was wreathed with a thick, still fog. Wreathed seemed the appropriate word, Adele Merritt reflected, as she watched the remains of the Kraken slipping beneath the tugging, breaking waves. The white cotton sails sprawled beneath the water, darkening, sinking, disappearing. Ropes and wood trailed into the dark ocean, the broken spine of the mast trailing along invisible currents, the gleaming decks they used to walk over snapped and cracked and disintegrating.
She kept seeing in her mind the water flowing down into the belly of the ship, sucking through gaping holes in the hull that had been made by Voskoy’s warships. Cold, heavy water, filling the ship completely as though filling a person’s lungs. Drowning it.
On the dinghy, trying not to shiver too much as the wind pressed her wet blouse to her skin, Adele peeled a sopping wet strand of hair from her face and turned to look at Isaac, who was sat next to her, offering her a little warmth by pressing against her though it was clear he was doing his best not to shiver too.
“Why’s Jacob crying?” she asked quietly. On the other side of her, the captain was sat, watching the ship being claimed by the sea-that temperamental mistress that he knew so well-with his face impassive, but tear after tear running out from his eyes.
“He always cries when a ship he’s captained goes down,” Isaac murmured, not looking away from the wreckage.
Jacob Graham was an unruly, unregimented man of free emotions: nothing stopped him from expressing them, even the fact that he came from a time that heaped disrespect upon a man that cried. Besides, he never cried of physical pain and rarely in front of others-only when his ships went down. Each one he captained seemed to claim a piece of his heart as personally as any human being.
“Hey,” Adele said, nudging him. “It’s just a ship.”
Even she didn’t have the heart to say it sharply. Despite the tears streaking down his face, Jacob turned to look at her and raised one debonair eyebrow.
“She was a fine ship,” he said a little huskily.
She was. The Kraken had been her home for the past six months; it had been an object when she’d first stepped on it, but over time it had become a place. Her place. It was the place she had puked her guts up almost every night at first because she suffered from seasickness-it was the place she had faced humiliation at the hands of the pirates almost every day-it was the place Newson had sent her almost as punishment.
But the sickness had abated and the pirates had become… not friends, perhaps, but comrades. Part of their own breakaway community.
And it was the place she had fallen in love…
Her hand curled tighter around Isaac’s as Jacob leaned over the edge of the dinghy and pulled a floundering pirate on board, spluttering and dripping even more cold water all over the painted wood. More warships were looming in the fog and Adele didn’t know what to do. She knew that they were in the eye of the storm; the pause before total obliteration.
It just didn’t feel like it. It didn’t feel like anything, really.
“Are we going to be OK?” she asked, feeling and sounding like a young child. Isaac let go of her hand and wrapped an arm over her back; her blouse was translucent from her time in the cold, rolling water and sticking in all the wrong places. She looked an absolute mess.
“O’course we are,” Jacob said when Isaac didn’t reply. He threw himself back across the dinghy, shaking his curly brown hair out. He grinned. “You think I’d let anythin’ happen to us?”
“I’m not going to leave you,” Isaac said to her seriously, which was the most truthful promise he could make. It was enough. It was just about enough.
Adele smiled tightly and nodded, gazing back towards the wreckage. Her eyes were drawn to it constantly, the flotsam and jetsam lethargically spreading itself out, the haze of smoke joining the mist and turning everything into nebulous mystery. After a moment, she nodded again, this time more resolute.
“I bet the guys in the warships don’t know that Newson wants me dead,” she said. As far as they were concerned, it was just another pirate raid, after all. Newson wouldn’t want news of his backstabbery getting out. She squirmed out of Isaac’s grasp and shakily got to her feet. “Can you get us over to one of the warships?”
“I can try,” Jacob said with a wild shrug. “They might shoot at us though.”
“Oh, they won’t,” Adele assured him. That devilish smile was back at her lips. She tugged the band from her ravaged hair and then pulled it all back into a tight ponytail, which was the best she could do just then. “Let’s go.”