rhubarb with chopped nuts, malt, milkshake and brownie
Story: Crossover: Timeless and In The Heart
Title: Seeing Red
Rating: PG
Challenge: Rhubarb ‘My Treat’ #1: what’s the worst that could happen? (pirates, that’s what)
Toppings/Extras: malt, milkshake, chopped nuts, brownie
Wordcount: 5,078
Summary: Ivy Hirschfeld-Kendall is a pirate seeking vengeance. Unfortunately for Lord Ashdown.
Notes: Rather cracky crossover with Timeless and the brilliant bookblather’s In The Heart. Did you know Ivy invented the f-word? Yep she did for sure, which is why it is here in the seventeenth century. Also: timeline is all messed up, officially. In this AU Prowse is apparently younger than Ashdown and is a newbie even when they’re in the Caribbean. I can’t resist a bit of hopeless young!Prowse. Marina’s Treat and credit for Snowflake Milkshakes malt game. :D
Lord Ashdown could always appreciate a good entrance. An entrance, he felt, was a necessity of style. Even though this particular entrance meant that someone broke in through a top-floor window, threw a grappling hook through his mother’s face in a portrait on the wall of his dining room and sailed through the air, allowing for two oversized boots to land on the dining table in front of him with an almighty crash, inches from his face.
Now that was an entrance.
Warily, he looked upwards. There was a cutlass in his face, but beyond that the sight was even more intriguing. The intruder was a woman, and one that-not so surprisingly, given the circumstances-did not look happy at all. She had bright red hair gleaming in the cordial lamplight, upon which was thrust a weathered brown tricorne hat. Her baggy men’s clothing consisted of a loose jerkin held in place by a thick leather belt wrapped tight around her narrow waist and a slightly tatty blouse that had sleeves so large they cascaded over her thin wrists. Her features were sharp-boned and angular, with audacious smoke-blue eyes studying him closely.
He noticed at this point that the hand not holding the cutlass an inch from his nose was holding a pistol.
So this would be one of those visits, then. He glanced sidelong at his wife, and then further sidelong at the assembled members of his family that he had invited around for dinner. Then back to the woman wielding the sizeable blade.
“Where is she?” the redhead asked in a low, danger-riddled voice. Her eyes were narrowed into bright slits.
“I beg your pardon?”
Her response was to crush the heel of her boot into his plate of food with a crumple of china and then flick it halfway down the table. The point of her cutlass moved downwards until it was nearly touching his throat.
“Summer.”
Ashdown stared at her.
Everyone stared at her.
“I don’t know what-...”
“My sister! What have you done with her? If you’ve hurt a hair on her head, I swear to God I’ll fucking stab you through the neck.”
“Excuse you. There are ladies present.”
“I know,” the woman on the table said between gritted teeth. “In case you didn’t notice, I am one. Now tell me where she is.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ashdown said, genuinely baffled. “Who are you?”
There was a short pause.
“Ivy Hirschfeld-Kendall,” the woman said said, lifting her chin. “Captain.”
Ashdown would have expressed mild disbelief at a woman being captain of a ship, but decided not to. He wasn’t particularly feeling like a kick in the face that day.
“And who are you looking for?”
“Summer Kendall, my little sister. Fourteen. Red hair. Don’t you keep track of all the kids you abduct?”
“I’ve never even heard of her,” Ashdown protested. “Why in the world would I kidnap a teenage girl I’ve never met who has nothing to do with anything?”
Ivy responded by brusquely bringing her cutlass down to smash a teacup resting on the table by Ashdown’s hand, splintering it to bits. Ashdown looked up at her as though she had cut off his arm while Verity picked a small piece of china from her hair and politely set it down on the tablecloth. Ashdown’s wife seemed to be rather enjoying seeming him held at sword-point.
This done, Ivy turned and leapt from the table to land on the floor opposite. Slowly, she turned to face Ashdown, completely ignoring the other dinner guests, who were still staring... although quite a number of them had resumed eating in the slow, popcorn-popping way of spectators everywhere. Her eyes were blazing with emotion, although she was keeping on top of it. Just about.
“You’re not lying?”
“Having a sword in my face is rather a good deterrent for that...”
“Where is she, then?” Ivy barked. “If not here, where?”
“I’m not clairvoyant,” Ashdown said a little rudely. Clearly a little bitter about the lost teacup. “But I dare say you’ve been misinformed. Is that sorted? Mr Prowse, will you show this woman the door?”
Prowse looked a little nervous even before he sidled forwards-and Ashdown knew right then what was going to happen. Not that he offered any warning whatsoever. He really wished that Prowse didn’t have such a big thing against getting into scraps with women, sometimes. Because it was painfully obvious what was going to-
Ivy didn’t take her time; she screwed her fist up, drew her elbow back as though aiming a bow and then landed a blow to his head that impacted with the exact same noise as the first bite into a toffee apple. Isaac Prowse was felled like a tree.
Useless boy, Ashdown thought somewhat unsympathetically as he landed on the stone floor. Ivy twirled to face him, bunches of hair swaying. Although it was evening, the Caribbean night was pleasantly warm and the windows were thrown wide open, showing Ashdown’s ornate garden tipping downhill and overhanging the nearby port of Grand Bahama Town.
“I want some answers,” she scowled. “Why would I be told you have my sister if you didn’t? If she’s not here, where is she?”
Fearing for his teacups, Ashdown decided it was time for some rational thought. He made a courteous ‘excuse me’ gesture to his guests and got to his feet.
“Maybe because they knew you would go into an apoplectic rage and come screaming your way down here to jump on my table and punch my aide in the face?” he responded testily. “The poor boy’s only been working for me for two months. Who told you that I had your sister?”
Ivy eyed him with open mistrust for a moment.
“Duggery Jenkins.”
“Mr Skulduggery Jenkins?” Ashdown asked, seeming astonished. Then he gave a catlike little smile. “Oh, our paths have crossed many times... you know, with him, the clue is in the name.”
“Shut up,” Ivy said, who was trying to think uninterrupted by Ashdown’s irritating twittering. She was more concerned about where her sister was.
“Can you think of any reason why he would want to direct your attention away from... wherever you were?” Ashdown asked lightly, being one of those people unable to resist a puzzle no matter where it came from. Besides, he had a bone to pick with Skulduggery Jenkins. Several bones.
“We did a raid on Santa Matilda not so long ago... that was quite a lot of loot.” Ivy allowed her sword to come crashing down against the masonry of the floor heavily, sending up a sharp yellow spark. “Well, shit.”
Ashdown glanced over towards his various family members-some very elderly-and then decided to pretend that the curse-word had never happened. It was probably easier that way.
“Well,” he said brightly, “Seeing as you have incapacitated my so-called bodyguard, I can only suggest with utmost kindness that perhaps you go on your way.”
Ivy squinted at him a moment, continuing to tap the pointed tip of her cutlass against the floor. She then dragged it across the masonry with a short scraping sound.
“When you say you’ve dealt with Jenkins before,” she said slowly, “What do you mean?”
Skulduggery Jenkins wasn’t a trustworthy man, but in a crew of pirates one would expect no less. He had only meant to be a temporary member of her crew anyway: he helped out in the raid of Santa Matilda, but his intention had apparently been to hitch a ride to Florida Keys. He’d been earning his keep, as Ivy expected him to. And then Summer had disappeared...
“My profession is hunting down and capturing dangerous pirates,” Ashdown said, arching an eyebrow and pulling her from her thoughts. “Is there really that much to explain? Mr Jenkins has evaded me thus far, but it will not last.”
“You’d quite like to get your hands on him, would you?” Ivy asked.
Ashdown looked surprised.
“Are you thinking of striking some sort of deal, Mi- Captain Hirschfeld-Kendall?” Not many pirates decided to work with Ashdown-it was seen nearly as betrayal of their own kind. However, Ivy’s little sister was involved in this and she would get her back by any means possible. A tentative murmur of conversation had returned to the dinner table, which by now was behind them-Ashdown had stepped out from behind the table and the two of them moved aside for more private discussion.
“I’m lacking a boat,” Ivy said. “Jenkins has it.”
“May I ask how you got here?”
“On the other boat, obviously. But it got blown up.”
“You are asking to borrow one of my ships immediately after telling me that the last ship in your possession was destroyed? How lovely.” Nonetheless, it was tempting. He didn’t like Skulduggery Jenkins one bit and had been after him for quite some time.
“It needs to be a fast one,” Ivy said, defiant and already firm in her mind that Ashdown was going to accept this proposal. “Duggery’s going to have buggered off as quick as the wind would take him.”
“Where was he supposed to wait for you?”
“Havana.”
Ashdown nodded slowly.
“He has a hidey-hole east in Port Mourne, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were there.” Ashdown said, who was surprised at how helpful he sounded. Sharing valuable information was not usual for him. “If you swear under oath to bring Mr Jenkins back to me alive, I suppose I could lend you a fast ship and a crew.”
“Don’t need a crew,” Ivy said instantly. “I brought my most trusted people with me.”
“And you left Mr Jenkins in charge of the loot?”
“My sister is missing, Ashdown.”
She hadn’t expected him to understand but he did. Perhaps thoughts of Rosalind were affecting his decisions; after all, it was utterly abnormal for him to accept the word of a pirate.
“Very well,” he said. “You can take the Gambler... provided that you also take my associate Mr Prowse.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” Ivy protested.
“More of a boatsitter, Captain,” Ashdown replied, pokerfaced. “I would rather like to have the Gambler returned to me in one piece. Mr Prowse is coming with you... er, once he regains consciousness.”
“Alright,” Ivy sighed like a young child being forced to eat vegetables, before turning her gaze towards the prone body of Isaac Prowse, which had not been moved from where he fell. “Sorry about that,” she said after a moment.
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Ashdown replied airily. “I have witnessed him breaking down a door with his face. I am quite sure he can handle a few punches.”
“Breaking down a door with his face?”
“Not on purpose, obviously,” Ashdown said, for a moment looking rather long-suffering. “He is still in training and has... a few rough edges to smooth out, shall we say. But he is getting there.”
“Right,” Ivy said, rubbing her still-raw fist.
“Go and gather your crew,” Ashdown said, arms snapping behind his back as he turned to face the rest of his guests. “I shall wrap up dinner and see if anyone can revive Mr Prowse. The Gambler will be ready to sail within the hour.”
“Cheers,” Ivy said, grinning weakly for the first time.
“And make sure to bring Mr Jenkins back alive, please,” Ashdown said, neatening the sleeve of his frockcoat. “We have a score to settle.”
“Right you are,” Ivy said, sheathing her cutlass at last. The two of them-pirate and pirate hunter-were at an unexpected truce. “Exactly how alive does he have to be?”
“Oh, as long as he can still speak, there’s no harm done...”
Sticking her pistol into a holster at her hip, Ivy continued to grin and began backing towards the door.
“The dock,” she said. “One hour.”
Now they were getting somewhere.
-----
Prowse’s expression was very sullen as he stood opposite to Ashdown’s desk in his study, a red cut gleaming through one of his brows and his eye socket turning an interesting plumlike colour. He looked as though Ashdown had just broken him news of a relative’s death, not the fact that he was going on-as Ashdown had put it-‘a little trip’.
He tore his gaze up from his boots and looked at Ashdown helplessly. Why do you do these things to me? his expression seemed to say.
“Oh, don’t look like that, Mr Prowse,” Ashdown said, unable to help but smirk a little. “It will be invaluable training.” A pause. “And perhaps next time I tell you to do something, you will follow orders rather than being knocked unconscious by a madwoman.”
“I don’t hit girls,” Prowse mumbled.
“To be perfectly honest, I rather suspect the result would have been the same whether you swung at her or not,” Ashdown said, looking all too amused for Prowse’s liking. “Now, pack your things, Mr Prowse: you must be at the dock in twenty minutes. And keep the boat safe, will you? I rather like the Gambler.”
Prowse’s training in etiquette had been long and arduous and most of it was now ingrained into his mind, but that didn’ts stop him from slamming the door hard enough to split the frame on his way out of the study.
With a small shake of the head, Ashdown moved behind his desk and began rifling through whatever information he had on Jenkins.
-----
The Gambler was a pretty little ship with a sage-green hull and creamy trimming. The railings around the outside were dainty, curved little affairs and it was very clean. What more could be expected of a quasi-naval vessel? Ivy folded arms and grinned as one of Ashdown’s footmen laid down the gangplank.
“Why, thank you,” she said in her most posh voice, taking off her hat and offering him a sweeping bow as she tramped up onto the deck. The footman merely looked at her, apparently stunned.
“Nice,” the crew’s quartermaster, Danny Sierbenski, said appreciatively as she looked around at the wood gleaming in the lamplight. Night had well and truly fallen and the ocean was a blackish carpet before them, the waves glinting diamond-sharp in the sparse light of the moon. “Though we need to scratch some of this paint. It doesn’t look right.”
“Try to resist,” Ivy grinned. “Ashdown wants this back.”
“What’s one sloop to a rich feller like him?” Danny asked as she made her way idly across the deck to see what was happening. Ivy became aware of a hesitant presence behind her and turned to see the man she had punched was stood there looking formal and awkward.
“Pretty standard sloop,” he said before she could say a word, “Fore-and-aft mainsail, lengthened bowsprit, fifteen cannons. Shallow seven-foot draft so it can get virtually anywhere, including over the Bahama Reef.”
There was a pause. Ivy realised he had finished his little introduction.
“Thanks,” she said. “Sorry about the-...”
“Doesn’t matter,” Prowse overrode her, before turning away to stare over the banister dolefully. Oh dear, Ivy thought, more amused than sympathetic. Someone’s in a bad mood...
The young man was dressed as smartly as would be expected of the aide of a man like Ashdown, yet there was something not quite right. His accent had a heavy cockney undercurrent to it, thrusting his vowels this way and that, and the cravat around his neck seemed out of place.
How interesting.
“Port Mourne is in Great Abaco, if I remember correctly,” she said for the sake of talking. She usually left the delicacies of map-reading up to Gina-and at that moment she was too worried about Summer to consider going into discussions about wind direction and compasses and knots.
“You do remember correctly,” Prowse muttered. Ivy pushed herself off of the banister and decided to join Lars at the helm. Jeez. It was only a black eye.
-----
The double-masted brigantine, the Bedrock Drift, was one renowned throughout the westernmost areas of the Caribbean and the crew on board it were based mainly in Cuba, although not too many people knew that. From above it was a brown splinter in a glittering ocean, canvas sails pale beige and not without a respectable amount of patchwork. Love and work had gone into the ship over the years, and now it cleaved a path through the ocean-although not locked in its usual course.
Ivy Herschfeld-Kendall had been its captain for years but things had recently changed.
When the captain had taken her most trusted friends with her to hunt down Summer and Ashdown, the Bedrock Drift had pulled into a small, shambling dock on the outskirts of Havana, quietly slinking into port and being tied in. Skulduggery Jenkins had then put his premeditated plan into action.
His men had swarmed the ship, throwing overboard or to the street the rest of Ivy’s crew. The number of Ivy’s crew left had been greatly reduced and they hadn’t been expecting the attack: Jenkins unexpectedly turning on them had driven the nail into the coffin, and hard. It had sailed out of Havana within the hour, crew replaced by Jenkins’ men. He had been after this vessel for a long time.
Only one member of the original crew remained. She was fourteen years old and locked in one of the cabins underneath the poop deck.
Being somewhere familiar made her slightly happier than she would have been, but that wasn’t saying much. Summer Kendall sat cross-legged on her bunk and stared at the wall in front of her, thinking hard about her sister. All she knew was that she had been locked into this cabin; all that happened outside remained outside. She wasn’t sure what was taking Ivy so long to find her, but she had faith in her.
It had been three days by her reckoning, and approaching the fourth day. She was judging by how long it took her candle to burn to a stub before she lit the next one. Vaguely she considered the notion of using the fire to help her in some way, but she was locked in a room and she didn’t really want to burn down the Bedrock Drift so she let it be.
Next time Skulduggery Jenkins unlocked the door to bring in some food for her, she was rubbing the fabric of her skirt between two fingers.
“Can I have some more clothes?” she finally asked as he set the food down on a small side-table. She hadn’t spoken to him since she had first been locked into the room but now she had been wearing the same dress for nearly three days and didn’t like it. She levelled her clear blue gaze at him and lifted her chin like Ivy did.
Skulduggery Jenkins was a wiry man with a dark moustache and even darker hair. His face was hard-boned and reasonably attractive, although the skin upon it was deeply pockmarked from suffering smallpox as a child. His eyes were a strange colour-an intense, mad gold-brown.
“S’pose,” he said carelessly. “We’re droppin’ yer off at port soon anyway. We don’t really need yer any more.”
Summer didn’t know what he meant by not needing her any more and neither was she sure what she felt about being dropped off at port. She supposed it depended on whom she was with. Getting away from Jenkins would be very good indeed, but she knew that it could only mean trouble to be abandoned in some random colonial town.
“Where is Ivy?”
“Lookin’ for you.”
-----
Indeed she was. It was a typical Caribbean morning; dazzling aquamarine glory, the shallow ocean around them littered with bright sand-spits. The sun was gaining height and everything was basking in its whitish glow, shivering over the warm waters and bleaching the sand pale. The Gambler was approaching Port Mourne from the north and there was a frisson in the atmosphere as the crew waited to see if Jenkins had gone back to his old hideout as Ashdown had suggested.
Lars had been assigned to the crow’s nest after much grumbling and he was up there at that moment, scouring the surroundings for signs of the Bedrock Drift, which so far had eluded them.
Ivy was stood near to the prow, watching dolphins skitter through the waves created by the ship cleaving its path through the glittering ocean. Their glistening bodies rolled and twirled. They were only animals, but there was something so damn happy about them. Ivy felt a faint touch on her waist from behind and turned to Gina, smiling haphazardly.
Honey-coloured ringlets glowing as they always did, Gina offered her what felt like pure and liquid comfort-soothing and cool in her abdomen-in the form of a returned smile and took a hold of one of her hands.
Gina Caravecchio was a member of the nobility-or rather, she had been. Her father was the governor of Newton, on the island just off the coast from Cuba, and the whole lot of them had been very well-to-do. According to most authorities, Ivy had forcibly kidnapped the gorgeous woman with gently glowing skin now standing before her. Ivy and Gina both knew different.
“What do we do if Ashdown’s wrong?” Ivy called across to Prowse, who she knew was standing somewhere behind her on the deck. He had mellowed somewhat after a night’s sleep and seemed less inclined to glare at her now.
“Keep looking, I guess,” he replied. “Jenkins has a few boltholes. This is just his favourite.”
“There’s nowhere he can hide,” Gina said sweetly. “He’s a dead man.”
“Er, yes,” Prowse replied, seeming a little unnerved. Gina generally looked so sweet and harmless that it was easy to forget she was a pirate. The same could not be said for certain other members of the crew.
“Good to see your black eye’s going down,” Ivy said pleasantly, as though reading his mind.
“It’s good to see at all,” Prowse muttered. “How did you manage to destroy your last ship, anyway? Was it anything to do with an insane degree of recklessness?”
“We piledrived it into the side of another vessel, if that’s what you mean.”
Prowse put a hand on the side of his face.
“Yes, I had a feeling it would be something like that...”
“Oi!” Lars called down from far above them. All three of them looked up to the crow’s nest. Hope swelled in Ivy’s heart but it was short-lived. “The Bedrock Drift isn’t docked at Port Mourne.”
Ivy groaned in frustration-she knew that Lars would recognise their precious ship no matter what. If he said it wasn’t docked, it wasn’t docked. As was habit for her when angered or frustrated, Ivy moved her hand to the hilt of her sword in its scabbard and running her fingers over the timeworn leather.
“Son of a bitch,” she growled. “Jenkins is even more dead than he was before.”
The constraints of physical possibility would not prevent her, Prowse was sure.
“Where shall we look next?” Gina asked, touching Ivy on the arm reassuringly. “Do you know any more places he could be using to hide out?”
“There are a couple of possibilities,” Prowse said, frowning, “But-...”
“I can see it!” Lars sudden called from above, voice raw with the force of his shouting. Ivy’s head jerked up to stare at the silhouette of Lars high in the nest. “Bedrock Drift is just ahead and coming our way!”
Ivy, Gina and Prowse all exchanged a long, slow look of realisation.
“We beat him here.” It made sense: they had only been coming from Grand Bahama, with a southerly wind to get them over the tip of Abaco. Jenkins, on the other hand, had been forced to journey from Havana, going north against the wind and east against the tide. And now there he was, the Bedrock Drift ploughing magnificently through the waves, approaching Port Mourne as fast as it could against the wind.
There was silence aside from the creaking of the shining sails for just a moment. The rest of the crew, working hard on the mast-arms and across the deck, had heard too. They all turned to see how their captain would react, wiping sweat from their brows.
She gave a diminutive half-smile that could not entirely be attributed to happiness and nodded slowly. The Captain knew exactly what needed to be done. Reaching up to tweak the top of her hat between her thumb and forefinger, she lowered the brim so that a shadow was cast over her glinting eyes.
“Piledrive,” she said in a low voice. The cry ripped through the rest of the crew, turning from Ivy’s whispered syllables into an almighty bellow.
“Pilvedrive!”
The crew went into a frenzy. The wind was with them, the sea crystalline around them, and there was nothing they liked more than a good piledrive. Most of the crew leapt to the riggings, the canvas sail flapping wildly as the ropes were retied-and then they pulled taut, bright white and bulging, the Gambler almost doubling in speed.
Wind roared and the crew were all crowing amongst themselves but Prowse was determined to be heard. He followed Ivy towards the prow of the ship and put a hand on her shoulder, speaking vehemently.
“A piledrive? Are you mad?”
“I’m going to get to Summer no matter what,” Ivy said flatly as Gina left to organise the handing-out of weapons. Things tended to get messy without her sorting out rather rowdy crew serving under Ivy.
“You’re going to destroy your ship!”
“I don’t care,” Ivy scowled at him. “Bombing it could harm Summer. If we plough into the fore-quarters, we could snare it without causing to much damage to the helm. Got it?”
Prowse shook his head.
“You’re going to destroy Ashdown’s ship too!”
After pausing to look at him despairingly, Ivy turned entirely to face him and folded her arms.
“You’re a city boy, aren’t you?” she said after squinting at him.
“Um...”
“Because one thing’s for sure: you don’t know anything about boats.” Ivy turned her back to the vessel they were speeding towards and leaned towards him. “I’ve done a lot of piledrives in my time, kid. The vessel with the wind behind her never loses.” She looked down at the clean deck. “The Gambler will be fine.”
Although an amateur when it came to being Ashdown’s bodyguard, Prowse was the perceptive kind and tilted his head to one side as he saw Ivy’s gaze sweet over her boots.
“And the Bedrock Drift...?”
“Well,” Ivy said, suddenly twirling to face the ship they were about to attack. Fighting against the wind, it was clear that Jenkins and his crew were yet to realise the Gambler’s intentions. “She’s served us well. She’d be proud to go down for Summer’s sake.” Ivy’s voice suddenly went tight. “God, I love that ship.”
“What’re you going to do after it sinks?” Prowse asked, apparently bewildered. “You can’t be the captain of nothing.”
“I’ll think of something,” Ivy said with a crooked smile. They were approaching fast. Slowly, she pulled her trusty cutlass from the sheath on her hip. “You might want to go hide now, Isaac. Just saying.”
“Do you think Ashdown hires me for nothing?” Prowse snorted. His hand moved underneath his long coat and Ivy spotted a rather interesting belt going across his chest shoulder to hip. He pulled out a light, ivory-handled knife and flipped it over in his hand in a manner that suggested some degree of skill with it. Ivy couldn’t help but raise one brow.
“Your job is looking after this ship, remember?” she asked. “You don’t have to help.”
“Just call me the Good Samaritan,” Prowse said warily. “If I get stabbed or shot, though, I will take you with me.”
“Right you are,” Ivy said. Her teeth were bared in a grin that was partly malice and partly hid a slight anxiousness about what had become of Summer. But she would be all right. She would be. The Gambler was ploughing through the ocean now, roaring its way over the glimmering waves, metal bowsprit gleaming, crew armed to the teeth.
The clash was magnificent.
-----
“One task,” Ashdown said from behind his desk, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “I gave you one task. What was that, Mr Prowse?”
Although not fond of being treated like a schoolchild, Prowse bore it.
“Bring back the Gambler in one piece, sir.”
“Indeed. And what, exactly, was it that you did instead?”
Prowse poked at the edge of an opulent rug with the toe of his boot.
“Brought back nothing... sir.” He looked up hopefully. “Um, aside from Jenkins.”
“Oh, yes. Congratulations. Have a dog biscuit,” Ashdown said in a rather cold voice. He’d really liked the Gambler. “I was prepared for it arriving back damaged, but to have it not arrive at all? That takes effort, Mr Prowse. Destroying a vessel like that takes a real bloody effort.”
“Sorry, sir,” Prowse replied.
“I think you need to spend some time on clerical duties again. Perhaps it will expand that tiny brain of yours.”
Prowse tried not to sigh too loudly.
“Yes, sir.”
I am far too kind for my own good, he thought. But he didn’t, as such, regret it.
-----
On the deck of the Bedrock Drift II, two sisters watched the ocean. Red hair blazed their brightest in the crimson of a Caribbean sunset, clear sky becoming orange fading to lilac and peppered with such gentle stars, yet to bloom in all their brightness. Summer liked to watch the horizon, Ivy knew. She liked its gentle, perfect curve that only the ocean could display.
“Sorry that you lost your ship,” Summer said hesitantly. She was very happy indeed that her sister had come for her-like she had known she would-but couldn’t fight the feeling that the loss of their first vessel had been her fault.
“We found a new one, didn’t we?” Ivy asked with a lazy grin. All she felt was gladness to have her little sister back with her. “And I promise you now, on the Two we’ll have more adventure and more fortune and more fantastical battles than the first Bedrock Drift. All right?”
Summer nodded slowly.
“All right,” she said at last.
And they did.