Brownie Sundae Challenge! [Horizon Tales]
AUTHOR: Shrimp
CHALLENGE: Mango 22. Damage Control; Butter Rum 12. Jolly Roger; brownie
WORD COUNT: 5059
RATING: PG-13 (cursing)
NOTES: This is... literally the fist thing I've written since the last time I posted. I desperately need to get back into the habit of writing everyday. I also need to go back and get myself caught up on everything that everyone else has been posting! I missed last week's sundae start but hopefully I stay on track now that I've started. This is also a different flavor than I said I was going to use for the challenge but I just couldn't get into the one I wanted to use originally. This piece takes place directly after the last piece I posted.
The ship was dark and quiet. Even the stars seemed dim, the waves crashing against the hull muted. Vala stood blinking, feeling the fear pressing against the base of her spine. Night shifts were always like this, she tried to argue to herself. It was the dream that had upset her and that was all. It wasn’t the first time she had dreamt of Shore Shine since she ran away, not the first wave of homesickness that had fallen over her. But there was something more to it this time, wasn’t there? The panicked feeling in her blood told her that but little else. She took a few cautious steps out onto the deck, her fingers holding onto the doorway that led below deck. She had been washing the floors from the bottom to the top. She had almost been at the top deck when she fell asleep into her bucket. She hadn’t woken up at first either. She had almost drowned there in that soapy water. She took a few more steps forward until her hands no longer reached back.
The night was cold, a metallic chill in the air that bespoke the late season and bad weather to come. Normally she found this a comfort that reminded her of home. Shore Shine was chilly even when it was warm. She had never experienced real heat until she had begun working aboard The Merchant’s Mirage. Idly she spun the ring her father had given her around her finger. The motion, the feel of the metal against her skin, the weight of it on her hand seemed to ground her. Still she couldn’t shake the feeling of wrongness that had wriggled into her guts between her bones. She could hear nothing over the sound of the sea. There was no hushed muttering of the men going about their tasks. There were none of the sounds that had slowly become merely a part of her world.
“Wees?” She whispered when she came across a body on the floor. She bent next to it, her heart erratic and loud in her ears. “Wees?” She questioned again. The man made no response, no movement. She shook his shoulder, her stomach falling at the lifeless way his head lolled back and forth. Vala stuck her finger in her mouth and then brought it under his nose. She felt the faint warmth of his breath. Her stomach relaxed slightly. He wasn’t dead. Only sleeping like he was. Her mind spun. Hadn’t someone at the last tavern mentioned something like this? A sickness that made a man sleep and never wake up? Her mind was blurry on the details. The night had been an experiment in her tolerance and she had come away with a headache and a series of blank spots in her memory. Carefully she stood, turning to look across the deck and spotting more dark lumps on the floor as she did.
A hand came around her mouth and Vala tried to scream. The noise was blocked by the tight grasp. She squirmed and was pulled backwards. Her joints spun with nerves. She was dragged behind the large collection of coiled rope off to the side of the deck by the edge. The person whose hand was around her tossed her to the ground with a hushed curse. Vala scrambled into a sitting position, muscles tensed and ready to brawl. But the man before her wasn’t a threat she saw instantly. It was Ekvy. He squatted next to her. His whole body was taut with fear. “What’s going on?” She whispered into his ear, casting a glance behind her when the feeling of something wrong pressured her to. “Wees is passed out and won’t wake up. I saw others too.” A thought occurred to her and she pressed urgent fingers into Ekvy’s shoulder for attention. “I was asleep too but I woke up.” He looked at her silent and grave. She knew him well enough to read his expression. “I don’t know how but I did.”
“I never fell asleep,” Ekvy offered as explanation. “I mean, I was already asleep but I woke up when I heard Fat John fall.” His throat bobbed in an anxious swallow. “It’s like what the crew at the tavern was saying.”
“I can’t remember what they said,” she confessed. “It’s a sickness or something?” Ekvy shook his head and shrunk further down against the ropes. Vala followed his example.
“Magic,” he breathed. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. Despite the typical Uniss mindset of superstition that she had tried to leave behind magic left her with a bad taste in her mouth. Ekvy had explained it to her when they were in Suttil, but the sight of the destitute magic addicts that infested the city had done little to shake what she had been taught. Magic was bad. Magic was wicked. Magic made man go mad. “I didn’t believe them when they said it because magic isn’t supposed to work that way. But maybe… I don’t know.”
“The ghost pirates,” Vala supplied for herself as memory came into focus. Her grip on Ekvy’s shoulder grew tighter. She watched him wince beneath it. “We’ve been boarded by the ghost pirates.” He looked at her and she waited with dull hope for him to assure her that was not what was happening. There are no such things as ghosts, he would say in that mildly condescending attitude he got when her Uniss background made her say silly things. She had realized the culture of Uniss was backwards while she was there, but Ekvy seemed to get subtle pleasure from showing her just how backwards. But the words never came. He just looked at her with his flat black eyes, his face a mask for all the emotions she could smell brewing beneath the surface. “Is that possible?” The words were barely there. Her throat was tight and dry. She watched Ekvy’s gaze drop to his hands and then back up to her face.
The ship shook and whatever response Ekvy had been working up fell out of priority. Vala was holding both his shoulders now, scared by the sudden disruption of their easy sailing. Ekvy’s hand were on her wrists, holding them still and keeping her grasp steady. He was frowning. Sounds began coming from behind them. Vala shifted, attempting to peer through the tight layers of the rope and failing. There was the sound of hooks and ropes, a gangplank being set up. Boots scuffing along lazily. Men’s wheezing breath and muttered phrases. The rustle of movement against the still air. Vala swallowed. They really were being boarded.
“Hey! You!” A voice shrilled in the silence. Vala thought she might pee her pants. Ekvy slipped his hand back over her mouth before she even realized she was mewling. She glanced at him, embarrassed, but when she saw the look in his eyes she moved a hand over his mouth in turn. “Leave the bodies alone. How many times do we have to be through this? Don’t touch ‘em. They aren’t important.”
“But I thought I saw that one moving,” a second voice explained.
“They ain’t moving. They ain’t never gonna move,” the first voice again, irritated by something he must have explained countless times before. Vala heard unhappy muttering but apparently the conversation was over. She and Ekvy stayed the way they were for what felt like ages. Finally, when the noises seemed to have moved past them she shook herself free of his hand.
“What’re we gonna do?” She let her hand fall from his face and the other off of his shoulder. He looked at her for a moment with tight brows and pinched cheeks. Without a word he spun, stuck his head carefully around the edge of their hiding place, and then turned back to her.
“We’re going to do the only thing we can do. Leave.” He ran his tongue along his lips as if to bolster him. “If we can reach one of the lifeboats we can try to lower it without being seen.” It was a weak plan and even Ekvy knew it. He nodded though as if all was decided and turned back to peering around at their surroundings. Vala saw his legs tense, his back bend slightly as he prepared to make a run for it. She grabbed him by the back of his shirt and yanked him on his ass. “What’re you doing?” He hissed. She frowned at him and shook her head.
“What about the crew?”
“You mean the crew of pirates who may or may not be ghosts but most certainly have access to some weird magic?”
“No. I mean the crew that we’re a part of.” When no outward sign of recognition passed over his face Vala ground on. “We can’t just leave them.”
“Why not?” Ekvy offered. “They’re already done for. Unless whoever cast the spell on them removes it then they’re just going to sleep until they die.” He showed her his palms in a gesture of supplication. “There’s nothing we can do. Better that we get out while we can.” He made a movement to get going again and Vala pulled him back. He looked at her with a wide, frustrated gaze. “What’s wrong with you?”
“We can’t leave them. It’s wrong.” Ekvy put a hand on his forehead as if he were combating a headache.
“Is this another of your strange Uniss cultural things? Honor and glory and whatever else it is that you people worship.” Now Vala frowned at him and gave him a frustrated look. It seemed to annoy him more than anything else she had done. He removed his hand from his head and poked a finger at her chest. “You need to get this need to play the hero out of your head. You’ve been like this the whole time I’ve known you and it’s the wrong way to be, okay?”
“What’re you even talking about? Play the hero?” Her whisper came out angry. She felt heat in the bottom of her stomach. Ekvy was being ridiculous. He rolled his eyes.
“We’re really doing this now? Fine.” He held up his hand and began ticking off instances on his fingers. “You get yourself in a fight with Daron Five-Wives, probably one of the biggest bully pieces of shit on the seas. You took my side in a fight and saved me from getting my ass handed to me, not that I’m not grateful. You stabbed a fucking sea monster when it attacked the ship. You paid Yanen’s bounty when we were in Suttil. And now you want to, I don’t know, fight ghost pirates to save the ship?” Vala reached over and closed her hand around Ekvy’s so as to make his counting hand a fist. She grinned slightly and watched his eyes try to trace the source of her sudden amusement.
“You said they might not be ghosts.” He shook his head, exasperated.
“But they’re definitely pirates.” He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. “Vala,” he said though she could hear the beginnings of resignation in his voice.
“Ekvy,” she encouraged.
“These men haven’t been kind to you. Why do you care what happens to them?” She could only shrug. Maybe it really did come down to where she was raised and things she had been taught. How could she abandon the men she had lived and worked beside for over a year? How could she save her own skin when there was a chance she might have saved hers? Weren’t they a sort of family now? She had an obligation to them, to at least try in whatever way she could to help them. It seemed like too simple and too complex a concept to explain. Especially to Ekvy who had been raised in an eat or be eaten world, who had endured countless slights for his heritage, who might have never known any sort of kindness outside of the Captain.
“The Captain,” Vala repeated her thought. Beside her Ekvy’s body grew defensive. “We can’t leave the Captain.” He was frowning solidly but she knew she had him. Ekvy tried to be aloof. He tried to be cold and independent. But he wasn’t those things. He had offered her a job when she was alone and scared because he felt for her. He had taught her all the ways of the world because he knew what it was like to be blacklisted for your culture. He had sat with her in the bowels of the ship when she nearly died of spotted fever because no one else would and he was her friend. Ekvy may have scoffed at the haughty notions of loyalty and integrity but he had them more than many she had met back home.
“Fine,” he hissed. “You do what you’re going to do and I’ll do what I’m going to do.” With little more than a whisper across the boards Ekvy disappeared from behind the ropes and left Vala sitting cold and confused. She blinked at the place he had been sitting in, stared at the empty air that had surrounded him. Her throat constricted painfully and she felt fear and loneliness and betrayal building in her chest. He had… left. Vala sniffed, spared a glance out beyond the hiding place, and took off in a crouch across to where the Captain’s quarters was. Alone. Because Ekvy had just left.
Vala had little plan about what she would do after she found the Captain. She supposed she would have to drag him to one of the other lifeboats and make her own escape. She didn’t know how she would do it only that she had to try. It would be harder now without Ekvy. His resistance to help her sat sour on her tongue. She thought she had known him well enough. She thought they were friends. She thought of all the bad things that the other men had said about Ekvy. She thought of the way they avoided him and kept him out of their camaraderie. Maybe what she had taken for racism was really something else. What if Ekvy was disliked because Ekvy was a bad person?
She pressed herself into the shadows when she saw movement. She held her breath, frozen with fear, until whatever it had been was gone again. She had to be careful. As she skulked across the ship she saw dark figures with pale faces dragging cargo up out of the bowels of the ship. All the things they were smuggling. All the things she could sell for the money for their wages. All of it stolen out from under them while they slept. She frowned and wriggled along the deck on her hands and knees. She shook the shoulders of any crewman whose body she passed, hoping that one might wake up just as she had. None of them did and the more she saw the more she was forced to wonder… What was she going to do with the Captain once she had him? Even if she got him away from the ship and to somewhere safe what then? Would the magic wear off? Would he wake up if they got far enough away? Or would he eventually starve, dehydrate, die? She felt scared and helpless the more she thought about it. She wished she had her sword. She wished she had Ekvy. A part of her even wished she had never woken up.
It occurred to her that Ekvy had been right about her. She did want to play the part of the hero. She had grown up listening to tales of heroes and had always hoped to be one. Now was her chance, her real chance not like those other things that Ekvy had listed, and she was petrified. She didn’t have a plan, didn’t know what to do. The heroes in the stories always knew exactly what to do. They always had plans and backup plans. They never had to wonder if everything they did even mattered in the end. She tried to clear her mind, tried to push the negativity and uncertainty faraway. She could do this. She was a long way from Shore Shine and from luxury. She had grown from the girl who only used her sword to duel potential suitors. She was Vala No-Wives! A smuggler on the open sea! And she was at the Captain’s quarters.
Vala looked over her shoulder and then crawled down the stairs that led to the Captain’s rooms. She sat at the bottom and caught her breath, staring up the narrow passageway back out to the deck. She expected to see a pale face pop into her line of sight. She waited one heartbeat, two, three and when nothing appeared behind her she let out a sigh and leaned her head against the wall. She felt a wave of fatigue overcome her as the swiftness that had helped her sneak left her body. Or maybe it was the magic trying to lull her back to sleep. She thought of her dream of home and her family. She thought of the ring her father gave her, the ring that he had spoken to her about in the dream. She touched it and felt restored.
She stood and cast one last glance at the stairway. Vala jumped as a silhouette appeared and then quickly stilled herself when she realized it was Ekvy. He descended the stairs quickly, pressing himself tight against the opposite wall and doing much as she had done. He looked up and out, waiting for the appearance of someone who had caught him. Vala waited him in silence. When he finally looked at her he held up a hand to silence her before she could talk. He sent another nervous glance to where the pirates were on the deck and the two headed into the Captain’s rooms silently. Inside was warmer than out on the deck had been. There was a candle burning low in the corner that cast hesitant light on the small room. Vala immediately saw the Captain slumped over his desk. A bottle of wine had fallen and spilled on the floor. She turned her attention to Ekvy.
“It’s not what you think,” he argued petulantly. He walked with his arms crossed over his chest towards where the Captain was asleep. “You need at least two people to get the lifeboat down.” He glanced at her furtively. Vala knew this was to see if it looked like she was believing his story. In order to keep things calm she kept the grin as much off her face as she could manage. It seemed enough to satisfy Ekvy. “So, what’s the plan?” He asked. Vala looked from him to the Captain.
“I guess we get him to a lifeboat and then commence with your plan of getting out of here.” She would much rather have rescued everyone but had no idea how she might even begin such a task. Ekvy was rather an impediment to that dream than an aid. He might help her save the Captain, but he had great respect and admiration for the man and thought little of the others. Plus, there weren’t nearly enough boats to get each of the men into while they lay prone.
“It’s going to be hard to avoid the pirates while dragging him along,” Ekvy reasoned. Vala frowned and looked at their surroundings as if something in the room would help them do what need to be done. She looked up when she heard footsteps above their heads. Ekvy stared from the ceiling to the door, his eyes flitting over to Vala as their thoughts came to the same conclusion. Someone was coming down into the Captain’s quarters. Panic caught in the back of her throat. She took quick steps to where Ekvy was standing next to the Captain’s desk. He was shaking his head slightly, trying to figure out something that they could do. Footsteps now, more than one set, on the stairs leading to them.
“Pretend to be asleep,” Vala hissed as she lowered herself to the floor. She lay on her stomach, trying to make her arms and legs as akimbo as possible. She heard Ekvy curse and shuffle into a similar position. She bit the inside of her cheek at the sound of the door opening. She breathed as lowly as possible, kept her face slack and neutral. Her heart was beating madly.
“What the fuck do you keep fidgeting for?” The gruff voice of a man asked.
“This shit he makes us put on our faces makes me itch like mad.” A second male voice whined. They stepped further into the room. Vala heard their hands touching things, felt their bodies against the creaking floor. She fought the urge to tense, to cry, to scream. “Why do we even wear the stuff? Who’s gonna see us? Everyone’s asleep!”
“Well, remember what happened on that one boat? They had Mer working on the ship and the boss’s magic didn’t work on them.” A pause and more noises of shuffling through things. “Or that time we was on that one ship and that other ship sailed by real close? It’s just for just in cases.”
“It’s stupid. I’ve been a pirate a long while and I never had to do anything so stupid.”
“You know how magic users are. Theatrical. Dramatic.”
“Why do you even work for a magic user? Sick.”
“Cause he pays better than anyone else around.” Someone kicked the wine bottle. She heard is spinning across the floor. “What’s it matter if we gotta do a little dress up? Easiest job I ever had.”
“I didn’t become a pirate for easy. I became one for fucking shit up.” The second man was becoming angrier the more he spoke. Vala tried to suppress the nervous tickle in her throat. Tried not to swallow or cough. “Where’s the fun in putting a crew to sleep and just letting them waste away to die?” A grunt. “Seems like a bit of waste.”
“Oh, and you’d prefer we make ‘em walk the plank or something?”
“No, drowning is a bitch of a way to go. I’m just saying a nice slit along a man’s throat is a beauty to watch.”
“You are a strange man.” Someone slammed drawer after drawer. That meant they were going through the Captain’s desk. She wondered if they were looking for anything in particular. Actual money the Captain might have secreted away. “You find anything?”
“I don’t even know what we’re supposed to be looking for.” A shuffling noise.
“Anything interesting.”
“There’s nothing interesting in here. Let’s finish up so I can wash this crap off my face.”
Their boots thudded just as heavily as they turned to leave. There was no sound of the door closing but the stairs whined beneath their weight. Soon their noises were above them, outside and back with the rest of their pirate crew. Vala opened her eyes to find Ekvy already sitting upright. He looked over at her with a frown. She sat up and ran a shaking hand through her hair. Her heart felt like it was ready to bust out of her chest. The fear had left a metallic taste in her mouth. She wondered what those men would have done if they had found Ekvy and Vala awake.
“I have a new plan,” he said. The hint of smile touched his lips. “You’ll like it.”
“Will I?” She questioned shakily. He nodded his head and stared at the open door.
“Yeah. It involves saving everybody.” Vala looked at him for a moment in disbelief. She had gone from trusting Ekvy, to disliking him, to trusting him once again. She didn’t know if she could take another act of disappointment. She stood up and leaned against the Captain’s desk.
“So, it was the ghost part that you had you most scared before? Now that we know they’re just regular pirates you’re willing to take a stand?” Her voice came out harsher than she meant it. It was supposed to be a joke but everything inside her was so mixed up that her tone was edgy. Ekvy didn’t really seem to notice. He looked back at her with that same subtle grin in place.
“I told you to get that hero stuff out of your head. We’re not taking a stand. We’re going to hide.”
Ekvy wanted to shut the door to the Captain’s quarters and then go into the following room and shut that door as well. Vala convinced him that they needed to stay with the door open and in the first as they were. If the two men who had previously explored it came back and found them in different positions or simply missing it would provoke some kind of inquiry. Thankfully he had little argument against that even though she could tell he wasn’t happy with her logic. She couldn’t blame him for wanting to put as much space between them and the pirates as possible. Every noise above them had her shrinking in her seat.
They sat on the Captain’s floor mostly in silence, eyes trained on the door that led out or on the ceiling that creaked and thumped with danger. Ekvy’s plan was simple. They were just going to wait them out. The pirates would raid their stores and talk everything of even remote value but after that they would move on. Vala had heard stories of pirates that burned the ships after they raided them but from what both of them remembered of the tavern tale all of the ships were found in shape. It was merely the crew that the pirates intended to suffer. So, they waited. And they waited. And even after the noises stopped and ship swayed against the wake of something leaving they still waited. The sun was coming up by the time they finally felt safe enough to venture out onto the deck.
In the light of day it all seemed worse to Vala. Anywhere you looked there were men collapsed on the floor. She wondered if any of them had collapsed in compromising situations or if any in dangerous ones. She felt guilty for not checking on everyone even though it would have been impossible last night. They would go through now, before the second part of Ekvy’s plan, and check the men. If any had fallen from the riggings when the sleeping spell was cast she wanted to know. If any were missing, perhaps having fallen overboard, she wanted to know.
“How hard do you think this is going to be?” She asked. The plan was to get the ship as much in order as they could with just the two of them. If they could manage to get it headed in a direction where they were more likely to run into someone that might help them then things wouldn’t be so bad. They could hitch The Merchant’s Mirage alongside another ship and get taken to a dock.
“Not too hard. Not for us,” Ekvy smirked. Vala tried to think of what they would do once they had the ship safely secured somewhere. Ekvy might want to just throw his lot in with another ship, but even has she thought it she doubted that was the case. He had put in years aboard this particular smuggling ship and still had not been in a position that he enjoyed. She couldn’t imagine that he would be eager to start over on a different ship. Vala thought they should try to find someone who could help the crew. If they could find a healer from Suttil perhaps that person could reverse the sleeping spell. They had to at least try, didn’t they? They couldn’t just let the men waste away into nothing.
“You know,” Vala ventured. Her voice was light and tired, “this is the sort of thing I would have imagined for myself as a game when I was younger. Ghost pirates and magic and trying to save everyone against the odds.” Ekvy looked at her almost as if she wasn’t making sense. She shrugged her shoulders and looked up at the slowly lightening sky. “I never really thought about the reality of any of it when I was dreaming of adventure back home. The fact that people’s lives are actually at stake or even that it’s just hard to know if you’re doing the right thing.” Ekvy put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed.
“Here’s the way I figure it.” He paused and cracked his neck. “As long as whatever we’re doing is the thing that you think is the right thing to do then it’s probably the right thing to do. Morally speaking anyway.” Vala laughed and nudged her shoulder into him. Their bodies swayed lightly with the motion on tired legs.
“So I have to be the moral compass?” Ekvy let go of her shoulder and walked backwards across the deck towards the rigging. He held up his hand and shrugged as if there was nothing that could be done on the matter.
“Do you hear me complaining about having to be the voice of self-preservation?” She watched him almost trip over a body he hadn’t been ready for and frown. He turned to continue walking in the proper manner. Vala smiled as much as she felt capable of in this moment. She looked down at her hands and touched the ring on her finger again. A part of her wanted to believe that her family had saved her. She knew little enough about magic that it didn’t seem an impossible thing for her. She knew she could probably ask Ekvy but she wasn’t certain she wanted the truth. It felt better to think that when she had been in danger her home had responded. Her ancestors had sent that dream to her, told her to wake up, and stopped her from drowning in that bucket of water. Maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe it was impossible. But the very thought of it gave Vala hope, and that was something she could use a little of at the moment.
CHALLENGE: Mango 22. Damage Control; Butter Rum 12. Jolly Roger; brownie
WORD COUNT: 5059
RATING: PG-13 (cursing)
NOTES: This is... literally the fist thing I've written since the last time I posted. I desperately need to get back into the habit of writing everyday. I also need to go back and get myself caught up on everything that everyone else has been posting! I missed last week's sundae start but hopefully I stay on track now that I've started. This is also a different flavor than I said I was going to use for the challenge but I just couldn't get into the one I wanted to use originally. This piece takes place directly after the last piece I posted.
The ship was dark and quiet. Even the stars seemed dim, the waves crashing against the hull muted. Vala stood blinking, feeling the fear pressing against the base of her spine. Night shifts were always like this, she tried to argue to herself. It was the dream that had upset her and that was all. It wasn’t the first time she had dreamt of Shore Shine since she ran away, not the first wave of homesickness that had fallen over her. But there was something more to it this time, wasn’t there? The panicked feeling in her blood told her that but little else. She took a few cautious steps out onto the deck, her fingers holding onto the doorway that led below deck. She had been washing the floors from the bottom to the top. She had almost been at the top deck when she fell asleep into her bucket. She hadn’t woken up at first either. She had almost drowned there in that soapy water. She took a few more steps forward until her hands no longer reached back.
The night was cold, a metallic chill in the air that bespoke the late season and bad weather to come. Normally she found this a comfort that reminded her of home. Shore Shine was chilly even when it was warm. She had never experienced real heat until she had begun working aboard The Merchant’s Mirage. Idly she spun the ring her father had given her around her finger. The motion, the feel of the metal against her skin, the weight of it on her hand seemed to ground her. Still she couldn’t shake the feeling of wrongness that had wriggled into her guts between her bones. She could hear nothing over the sound of the sea. There was no hushed muttering of the men going about their tasks. There were none of the sounds that had slowly become merely a part of her world.
“Wees?” She whispered when she came across a body on the floor. She bent next to it, her heart erratic and loud in her ears. “Wees?” She questioned again. The man made no response, no movement. She shook his shoulder, her stomach falling at the lifeless way his head lolled back and forth. Vala stuck her finger in her mouth and then brought it under his nose. She felt the faint warmth of his breath. Her stomach relaxed slightly. He wasn’t dead. Only sleeping like he was. Her mind spun. Hadn’t someone at the last tavern mentioned something like this? A sickness that made a man sleep and never wake up? Her mind was blurry on the details. The night had been an experiment in her tolerance and she had come away with a headache and a series of blank spots in her memory. Carefully she stood, turning to look across the deck and spotting more dark lumps on the floor as she did.
A hand came around her mouth and Vala tried to scream. The noise was blocked by the tight grasp. She squirmed and was pulled backwards. Her joints spun with nerves. She was dragged behind the large collection of coiled rope off to the side of the deck by the edge. The person whose hand was around her tossed her to the ground with a hushed curse. Vala scrambled into a sitting position, muscles tensed and ready to brawl. But the man before her wasn’t a threat she saw instantly. It was Ekvy. He squatted next to her. His whole body was taut with fear. “What’s going on?” She whispered into his ear, casting a glance behind her when the feeling of something wrong pressured her to. “Wees is passed out and won’t wake up. I saw others too.” A thought occurred to her and she pressed urgent fingers into Ekvy’s shoulder for attention. “I was asleep too but I woke up.” He looked at her silent and grave. She knew him well enough to read his expression. “I don’t know how but I did.”
“I never fell asleep,” Ekvy offered as explanation. “I mean, I was already asleep but I woke up when I heard Fat John fall.” His throat bobbed in an anxious swallow. “It’s like what the crew at the tavern was saying.”
“I can’t remember what they said,” she confessed. “It’s a sickness or something?” Ekvy shook his head and shrunk further down against the ropes. Vala followed his example.
“Magic,” he breathed. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. Despite the typical Uniss mindset of superstition that she had tried to leave behind magic left her with a bad taste in her mouth. Ekvy had explained it to her when they were in Suttil, but the sight of the destitute magic addicts that infested the city had done little to shake what she had been taught. Magic was bad. Magic was wicked. Magic made man go mad. “I didn’t believe them when they said it because magic isn’t supposed to work that way. But maybe… I don’t know.”
“The ghost pirates,” Vala supplied for herself as memory came into focus. Her grip on Ekvy’s shoulder grew tighter. She watched him wince beneath it. “We’ve been boarded by the ghost pirates.” He looked at her and she waited with dull hope for him to assure her that was not what was happening. There are no such things as ghosts, he would say in that mildly condescending attitude he got when her Uniss background made her say silly things. She had realized the culture of Uniss was backwards while she was there, but Ekvy seemed to get subtle pleasure from showing her just how backwards. But the words never came. He just looked at her with his flat black eyes, his face a mask for all the emotions she could smell brewing beneath the surface. “Is that possible?” The words were barely there. Her throat was tight and dry. She watched Ekvy’s gaze drop to his hands and then back up to her face.
The ship shook and whatever response Ekvy had been working up fell out of priority. Vala was holding both his shoulders now, scared by the sudden disruption of their easy sailing. Ekvy’s hand were on her wrists, holding them still and keeping her grasp steady. He was frowning. Sounds began coming from behind them. Vala shifted, attempting to peer through the tight layers of the rope and failing. There was the sound of hooks and ropes, a gangplank being set up. Boots scuffing along lazily. Men’s wheezing breath and muttered phrases. The rustle of movement against the still air. Vala swallowed. They really were being boarded.
“Hey! You!” A voice shrilled in the silence. Vala thought she might pee her pants. Ekvy slipped his hand back over her mouth before she even realized she was mewling. She glanced at him, embarrassed, but when she saw the look in his eyes she moved a hand over his mouth in turn. “Leave the bodies alone. How many times do we have to be through this? Don’t touch ‘em. They aren’t important.”
“But I thought I saw that one moving,” a second voice explained.
“They ain’t moving. They ain’t never gonna move,” the first voice again, irritated by something he must have explained countless times before. Vala heard unhappy muttering but apparently the conversation was over. She and Ekvy stayed the way they were for what felt like ages. Finally, when the noises seemed to have moved past them she shook herself free of his hand.
“What’re we gonna do?” She let her hand fall from his face and the other off of his shoulder. He looked at her for a moment with tight brows and pinched cheeks. Without a word he spun, stuck his head carefully around the edge of their hiding place, and then turned back to her.
“We’re going to do the only thing we can do. Leave.” He ran his tongue along his lips as if to bolster him. “If we can reach one of the lifeboats we can try to lower it without being seen.” It was a weak plan and even Ekvy knew it. He nodded though as if all was decided and turned back to peering around at their surroundings. Vala saw his legs tense, his back bend slightly as he prepared to make a run for it. She grabbed him by the back of his shirt and yanked him on his ass. “What’re you doing?” He hissed. She frowned at him and shook her head.
“What about the crew?”
“You mean the crew of pirates who may or may not be ghosts but most certainly have access to some weird magic?”
“No. I mean the crew that we’re a part of.” When no outward sign of recognition passed over his face Vala ground on. “We can’t just leave them.”
“Why not?” Ekvy offered. “They’re already done for. Unless whoever cast the spell on them removes it then they’re just going to sleep until they die.” He showed her his palms in a gesture of supplication. “There’s nothing we can do. Better that we get out while we can.” He made a movement to get going again and Vala pulled him back. He looked at her with a wide, frustrated gaze. “What’s wrong with you?”
“We can’t leave them. It’s wrong.” Ekvy put a hand on his forehead as if he were combating a headache.
“Is this another of your strange Uniss cultural things? Honor and glory and whatever else it is that you people worship.” Now Vala frowned at him and gave him a frustrated look. It seemed to annoy him more than anything else she had done. He removed his hand from his head and poked a finger at her chest. “You need to get this need to play the hero out of your head. You’ve been like this the whole time I’ve known you and it’s the wrong way to be, okay?”
“What’re you even talking about? Play the hero?” Her whisper came out angry. She felt heat in the bottom of her stomach. Ekvy was being ridiculous. He rolled his eyes.
“We’re really doing this now? Fine.” He held up his hand and began ticking off instances on his fingers. “You get yourself in a fight with Daron Five-Wives, probably one of the biggest bully pieces of shit on the seas. You took my side in a fight and saved me from getting my ass handed to me, not that I’m not grateful. You stabbed a fucking sea monster when it attacked the ship. You paid Yanen’s bounty when we were in Suttil. And now you want to, I don’t know, fight ghost pirates to save the ship?” Vala reached over and closed her hand around Ekvy’s so as to make his counting hand a fist. She grinned slightly and watched his eyes try to trace the source of her sudden amusement.
“You said they might not be ghosts.” He shook his head, exasperated.
“But they’re definitely pirates.” He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. “Vala,” he said though she could hear the beginnings of resignation in his voice.
“Ekvy,” she encouraged.
“These men haven’t been kind to you. Why do you care what happens to them?” She could only shrug. Maybe it really did come down to where she was raised and things she had been taught. How could she abandon the men she had lived and worked beside for over a year? How could she save her own skin when there was a chance she might have saved hers? Weren’t they a sort of family now? She had an obligation to them, to at least try in whatever way she could to help them. It seemed like too simple and too complex a concept to explain. Especially to Ekvy who had been raised in an eat or be eaten world, who had endured countless slights for his heritage, who might have never known any sort of kindness outside of the Captain.
“The Captain,” Vala repeated her thought. Beside her Ekvy’s body grew defensive. “We can’t leave the Captain.” He was frowning solidly but she knew she had him. Ekvy tried to be aloof. He tried to be cold and independent. But he wasn’t those things. He had offered her a job when she was alone and scared because he felt for her. He had taught her all the ways of the world because he knew what it was like to be blacklisted for your culture. He had sat with her in the bowels of the ship when she nearly died of spotted fever because no one else would and he was her friend. Ekvy may have scoffed at the haughty notions of loyalty and integrity but he had them more than many she had met back home.
“Fine,” he hissed. “You do what you’re going to do and I’ll do what I’m going to do.” With little more than a whisper across the boards Ekvy disappeared from behind the ropes and left Vala sitting cold and confused. She blinked at the place he had been sitting in, stared at the empty air that had surrounded him. Her throat constricted painfully and she felt fear and loneliness and betrayal building in her chest. He had… left. Vala sniffed, spared a glance out beyond the hiding place, and took off in a crouch across to where the Captain’s quarters was. Alone. Because Ekvy had just left.
Vala had little plan about what she would do after she found the Captain. She supposed she would have to drag him to one of the other lifeboats and make her own escape. She didn’t know how she would do it only that she had to try. It would be harder now without Ekvy. His resistance to help her sat sour on her tongue. She thought she had known him well enough. She thought they were friends. She thought of all the bad things that the other men had said about Ekvy. She thought of the way they avoided him and kept him out of their camaraderie. Maybe what she had taken for racism was really something else. What if Ekvy was disliked because Ekvy was a bad person?
She pressed herself into the shadows when she saw movement. She held her breath, frozen with fear, until whatever it had been was gone again. She had to be careful. As she skulked across the ship she saw dark figures with pale faces dragging cargo up out of the bowels of the ship. All the things they were smuggling. All the things she could sell for the money for their wages. All of it stolen out from under them while they slept. She frowned and wriggled along the deck on her hands and knees. She shook the shoulders of any crewman whose body she passed, hoping that one might wake up just as she had. None of them did and the more she saw the more she was forced to wonder… What was she going to do with the Captain once she had him? Even if she got him away from the ship and to somewhere safe what then? Would the magic wear off? Would he wake up if they got far enough away? Or would he eventually starve, dehydrate, die? She felt scared and helpless the more she thought about it. She wished she had her sword. She wished she had Ekvy. A part of her even wished she had never woken up.
It occurred to her that Ekvy had been right about her. She did want to play the part of the hero. She had grown up listening to tales of heroes and had always hoped to be one. Now was her chance, her real chance not like those other things that Ekvy had listed, and she was petrified. She didn’t have a plan, didn’t know what to do. The heroes in the stories always knew exactly what to do. They always had plans and backup plans. They never had to wonder if everything they did even mattered in the end. She tried to clear her mind, tried to push the negativity and uncertainty faraway. She could do this. She was a long way from Shore Shine and from luxury. She had grown from the girl who only used her sword to duel potential suitors. She was Vala No-Wives! A smuggler on the open sea! And she was at the Captain’s quarters.
Vala looked over her shoulder and then crawled down the stairs that led to the Captain’s rooms. She sat at the bottom and caught her breath, staring up the narrow passageway back out to the deck. She expected to see a pale face pop into her line of sight. She waited one heartbeat, two, three and when nothing appeared behind her she let out a sigh and leaned her head against the wall. She felt a wave of fatigue overcome her as the swiftness that had helped her sneak left her body. Or maybe it was the magic trying to lull her back to sleep. She thought of her dream of home and her family. She thought of the ring her father gave her, the ring that he had spoken to her about in the dream. She touched it and felt restored.
She stood and cast one last glance at the stairway. Vala jumped as a silhouette appeared and then quickly stilled herself when she realized it was Ekvy. He descended the stairs quickly, pressing himself tight against the opposite wall and doing much as she had done. He looked up and out, waiting for the appearance of someone who had caught him. Vala waited him in silence. When he finally looked at her he held up a hand to silence her before she could talk. He sent another nervous glance to where the pirates were on the deck and the two headed into the Captain’s rooms silently. Inside was warmer than out on the deck had been. There was a candle burning low in the corner that cast hesitant light on the small room. Vala immediately saw the Captain slumped over his desk. A bottle of wine had fallen and spilled on the floor. She turned her attention to Ekvy.
“It’s not what you think,” he argued petulantly. He walked with his arms crossed over his chest towards where the Captain was asleep. “You need at least two people to get the lifeboat down.” He glanced at her furtively. Vala knew this was to see if it looked like she was believing his story. In order to keep things calm she kept the grin as much off her face as she could manage. It seemed enough to satisfy Ekvy. “So, what’s the plan?” He asked. Vala looked from him to the Captain.
“I guess we get him to a lifeboat and then commence with your plan of getting out of here.” She would much rather have rescued everyone but had no idea how she might even begin such a task. Ekvy was rather an impediment to that dream than an aid. He might help her save the Captain, but he had great respect and admiration for the man and thought little of the others. Plus, there weren’t nearly enough boats to get each of the men into while they lay prone.
“It’s going to be hard to avoid the pirates while dragging him along,” Ekvy reasoned. Vala frowned and looked at their surroundings as if something in the room would help them do what need to be done. She looked up when she heard footsteps above their heads. Ekvy stared from the ceiling to the door, his eyes flitting over to Vala as their thoughts came to the same conclusion. Someone was coming down into the Captain’s quarters. Panic caught in the back of her throat. She took quick steps to where Ekvy was standing next to the Captain’s desk. He was shaking his head slightly, trying to figure out something that they could do. Footsteps now, more than one set, on the stairs leading to them.
“Pretend to be asleep,” Vala hissed as she lowered herself to the floor. She lay on her stomach, trying to make her arms and legs as akimbo as possible. She heard Ekvy curse and shuffle into a similar position. She bit the inside of her cheek at the sound of the door opening. She breathed as lowly as possible, kept her face slack and neutral. Her heart was beating madly.
“What the fuck do you keep fidgeting for?” The gruff voice of a man asked.
“This shit he makes us put on our faces makes me itch like mad.” A second male voice whined. They stepped further into the room. Vala heard their hands touching things, felt their bodies against the creaking floor. She fought the urge to tense, to cry, to scream. “Why do we even wear the stuff? Who’s gonna see us? Everyone’s asleep!”
“Well, remember what happened on that one boat? They had Mer working on the ship and the boss’s magic didn’t work on them.” A pause and more noises of shuffling through things. “Or that time we was on that one ship and that other ship sailed by real close? It’s just for just in cases.”
“It’s stupid. I’ve been a pirate a long while and I never had to do anything so stupid.”
“You know how magic users are. Theatrical. Dramatic.”
“Why do you even work for a magic user? Sick.”
“Cause he pays better than anyone else around.” Someone kicked the wine bottle. She heard is spinning across the floor. “What’s it matter if we gotta do a little dress up? Easiest job I ever had.”
“I didn’t become a pirate for easy. I became one for fucking shit up.” The second man was becoming angrier the more he spoke. Vala tried to suppress the nervous tickle in her throat. Tried not to swallow or cough. “Where’s the fun in putting a crew to sleep and just letting them waste away to die?” A grunt. “Seems like a bit of waste.”
“Oh, and you’d prefer we make ‘em walk the plank or something?”
“No, drowning is a bitch of a way to go. I’m just saying a nice slit along a man’s throat is a beauty to watch.”
“You are a strange man.” Someone slammed drawer after drawer. That meant they were going through the Captain’s desk. She wondered if they were looking for anything in particular. Actual money the Captain might have secreted away. “You find anything?”
“I don’t even know what we’re supposed to be looking for.” A shuffling noise.
“Anything interesting.”
“There’s nothing interesting in here. Let’s finish up so I can wash this crap off my face.”
Their boots thudded just as heavily as they turned to leave. There was no sound of the door closing but the stairs whined beneath their weight. Soon their noises were above them, outside and back with the rest of their pirate crew. Vala opened her eyes to find Ekvy already sitting upright. He looked over at her with a frown. She sat up and ran a shaking hand through her hair. Her heart felt like it was ready to bust out of her chest. The fear had left a metallic taste in her mouth. She wondered what those men would have done if they had found Ekvy and Vala awake.
“I have a new plan,” he said. The hint of smile touched his lips. “You’ll like it.”
“Will I?” She questioned shakily. He nodded his head and stared at the open door.
“Yeah. It involves saving everybody.” Vala looked at him for a moment in disbelief. She had gone from trusting Ekvy, to disliking him, to trusting him once again. She didn’t know if she could take another act of disappointment. She stood up and leaned against the Captain’s desk.
“So, it was the ghost part that you had you most scared before? Now that we know they’re just regular pirates you’re willing to take a stand?” Her voice came out harsher than she meant it. It was supposed to be a joke but everything inside her was so mixed up that her tone was edgy. Ekvy didn’t really seem to notice. He looked back at her with that same subtle grin in place.
“I told you to get that hero stuff out of your head. We’re not taking a stand. We’re going to hide.”
Ekvy wanted to shut the door to the Captain’s quarters and then go into the following room and shut that door as well. Vala convinced him that they needed to stay with the door open and in the first as they were. If the two men who had previously explored it came back and found them in different positions or simply missing it would provoke some kind of inquiry. Thankfully he had little argument against that even though she could tell he wasn’t happy with her logic. She couldn’t blame him for wanting to put as much space between them and the pirates as possible. Every noise above them had her shrinking in her seat.
They sat on the Captain’s floor mostly in silence, eyes trained on the door that led out or on the ceiling that creaked and thumped with danger. Ekvy’s plan was simple. They were just going to wait them out. The pirates would raid their stores and talk everything of even remote value but after that they would move on. Vala had heard stories of pirates that burned the ships after they raided them but from what both of them remembered of the tavern tale all of the ships were found in shape. It was merely the crew that the pirates intended to suffer. So, they waited. And they waited. And even after the noises stopped and ship swayed against the wake of something leaving they still waited. The sun was coming up by the time they finally felt safe enough to venture out onto the deck.
In the light of day it all seemed worse to Vala. Anywhere you looked there were men collapsed on the floor. She wondered if any of them had collapsed in compromising situations or if any in dangerous ones. She felt guilty for not checking on everyone even though it would have been impossible last night. They would go through now, before the second part of Ekvy’s plan, and check the men. If any had fallen from the riggings when the sleeping spell was cast she wanted to know. If any were missing, perhaps having fallen overboard, she wanted to know.
“How hard do you think this is going to be?” She asked. The plan was to get the ship as much in order as they could with just the two of them. If they could manage to get it headed in a direction where they were more likely to run into someone that might help them then things wouldn’t be so bad. They could hitch The Merchant’s Mirage alongside another ship and get taken to a dock.
“Not too hard. Not for us,” Ekvy smirked. Vala tried to think of what they would do once they had the ship safely secured somewhere. Ekvy might want to just throw his lot in with another ship, but even has she thought it she doubted that was the case. He had put in years aboard this particular smuggling ship and still had not been in a position that he enjoyed. She couldn’t imagine that he would be eager to start over on a different ship. Vala thought they should try to find someone who could help the crew. If they could find a healer from Suttil perhaps that person could reverse the sleeping spell. They had to at least try, didn’t they? They couldn’t just let the men waste away into nothing.
“You know,” Vala ventured. Her voice was light and tired, “this is the sort of thing I would have imagined for myself as a game when I was younger. Ghost pirates and magic and trying to save everyone against the odds.” Ekvy looked at her almost as if she wasn’t making sense. She shrugged her shoulders and looked up at the slowly lightening sky. “I never really thought about the reality of any of it when I was dreaming of adventure back home. The fact that people’s lives are actually at stake or even that it’s just hard to know if you’re doing the right thing.” Ekvy put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed.
“Here’s the way I figure it.” He paused and cracked his neck. “As long as whatever we’re doing is the thing that you think is the right thing to do then it’s probably the right thing to do. Morally speaking anyway.” Vala laughed and nudged her shoulder into him. Their bodies swayed lightly with the motion on tired legs.
“So I have to be the moral compass?” Ekvy let go of her shoulder and walked backwards across the deck towards the rigging. He held up his hand and shrugged as if there was nothing that could be done on the matter.
“Do you hear me complaining about having to be the voice of self-preservation?” She watched him almost trip over a body he hadn’t been ready for and frown. He turned to continue walking in the proper manner. Vala smiled as much as she felt capable of in this moment. She looked down at her hands and touched the ring on her finger again. A part of her wanted to believe that her family had saved her. She knew little enough about magic that it didn’t seem an impossible thing for her. She knew she could probably ask Ekvy but she wasn’t certain she wanted the truth. It felt better to think that when she had been in danger her home had responded. Her ancestors had sent that dream to her, told her to wake up, and stopped her from drowning in that bucket of water. Maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe it was impossible. But the very thought of it gave Vala hope, and that was something she could use a little of at the moment.