Nobody Likes Fairytale Pirates (27 page)

“Mother, I really think…”  Dory
began, sounding embarrassed.

“Quiet!”  Din commanded, anger in
his tone.  “I don’t need you to defend me!”  He stomped his foot.  “You
never
defend me!”

“There is no defense for you!” 
Ester bellowed.  “Do you have any idea what a disappointment you are, Din?” 
There was a silence as she probably gestured to something.  “And haven’t I
already suffered enough disappointment in my life?  Huh?”

“Mother… I’m standing right here.”  Dory
said softly, evidently being the “disappointment” her mother had indicated.

“The point is, if Badroulbadour had
been born with a brain or a spine, I wouldn’t have to go on this damn mission! 
I could entrust it to capable hands!  But noooooooo…” Ester drew the word out theatrically,
“instead, I’ve got to make sure that her idiocy and your ineptitude don’t fuck
this up for me!”

“So stay home!”  Din screamed.  “I
sure as hell didn’t ask you to come!”

“And let you take all the glory!?! 
Do you think I’d give you the satisfaction!?!  I’d rather end up with nothing
than see you get it!  Although frankly, I don’t think you can do this on your
own anyway.  But even if you
could,
I want to make certain that you are
forgotten by history!  Because one day, they’ll write stories about this
voyage!  And me!”

“I think it’ll be called: ‘Dumb
Bitch on a Boat.’”  Ransom predicted, her voice serious.

Uriah and Ryle both snickered in
amusement.

“You’re so mean.”  Her partner
praised, still chuckling.  “Don’t ever change, Dove.”

“…and not you, my simpleton
daughter, low-bred Grizzle pirates, or the entire Adithian fleet is going to
keep me from taking what’s mine!”  Ester promised, stamping her foot on the
decking.

“I just…”  Ransom began.  “I just
don’t understand them.”

“What’s to understand?”  She felt
Uriah shrug.  “Their present conflict seems to involve less a difference of
perspective and more that...”

“…they’re assholes.”  She finished
for him.

He snorted.  “You use that word
quite a bit.”

“The world gives me cause.”

“Oh, that’s not a criticism, just
an observation.”  He patted her arm.  “You know I have the upmost respect for
your perceptive nature.”

His hand continued to rest on her
forearm and she found that she very much liked it.  “First rule of piracy:
speak to the good like the good…”

“…and speak to the bad like the
bad.”  She finished the thought.

“You know, I’ve been your captive
for a while now.”  Ryle sounded gloomy.  “Rumor has it that I’m supposed to be
bonding with you people by this point.”  He paused for a moment.  “But I think
that’s total bullshit, because if everything, I hate the lot of you even more
now than when we started out.  And I didn’t exactly love you then.”

“I’m positively
inconsolable
over
that news, Swab.”  Uriah retorted barely paying attention to the boy.  “The
happiness of my hostage is always my first concern, obviously.  I awake every
morning and think to myself: ‘Have I truly done enough to make my prisoner’s
incarceration a magical one?’”

Ransom giggled.

“Thankfully, we’ll only have to see
each other a little while longer.”  Uriah continued cheerily.  “We’ll sail west
for a few more days to get around the last of the Adithian navy, then cut north
to reach the far side of the Wasteland.  Then it’s a simply a matter of climbing
a mountain and strolling into the lost city to get what we came for.”

Ryle made an unimpressed sound,
then was silent, thinking about something.  “They’ll bargain Ransom away to get
the Adithians off their backs, you know.”  He predicted.  “It’s their only play
here.”

“They can only sell us out if they
know that it’s a possibility, lad.”  Uriah lifted his head from hers to glare
at the boy.  “And if that happens, I’ll know
just who to blame
for the
news leaking out.”

“I have no intention of telling
them.”  Ryle promised.  “I dislike them even more than I dislike you.”  He
paused.  “Well… at least ‘as much’ as I dislike you, anyway.  Besides it’s not
like they’d really shake my hand and give me a cut of the treasure at the end
of it, even if I did tell them.  I’m
your
hostage, not theirs.  When
they sell you two out, they’d sell all three of us to the Adithians.”

“Excellent.”  Uriah returned his
head to rest on hers again.  “Then what a lovely partnership we’ve made here.”

“Go team.”  Ransom deadpanned.

“Yeah, ‘go team.’”  Ryle sighed,
laying down on the crates.  “But I still loathe you.”

“Ah, the predominant characteristic
of
all
of my crewmen.”  Uriah sighed in admiration.

“He’s really fitting in.”  Ransom
agreed.

Their little group fell into silence
as the argument between their clients continued to rage.  Ransom quietly
listened to the terrible things being screamed and just couldn’t imagine living
in that kind of environment. 

On the surface, they looked like
they’d be a happy family.  You assumed they’d be supportive and loving.  An
economic and social support structure, making them stronger people. 

Meanwhile, Ransom had no idea who
she was and lived out of a suitcase.  She was broke most of the time and
basically only knew one person. 

From the look of it, she should be
miserable and they should be blissfully happy.

But Ransom’s entire five years of
life had been characterized by total and complete acceptance.  She didn’t have
to worry about someone putting her down all the time or plotting against her.  She
always knew she had a home where she’d be welcomed and she’d always have a
friend to lean on if she needed it.  No matter what.

And their clients didn’t have
anything like that.  They hated each other, living only to cause each other
misery and unhappiness.

Ransom’s family was… perfect.

Their family was horrible.

It was kind of strange to think
about.

One more reason why Ransom had
never really believed in appearances.  What you could see was never as
important as what you could
feel
. 

She really didn’t like the idea of
having a family which hated you though.  It made her afraid for some reason.  A
bone deep fear, which made her want to grab Uriah and run away from those
people lest their attitude spread and take away everything Ransom had.

In her mind, “family” meant safety
and security.  It meant sunny days on deck with Uriah and Dinner, listening to
her partner mock his crew and talk to her about what she was thinking.  It was
a deeply fulfilling and enjoyable existence.

And she didn’t want to lose that understanding
of “family.”

She let out a long breath.

“You okay?”  Uriah asked, sounding
serious.

“Fine.”

“You upset about something?”

“Nope.”

“Okay.”  He shrugged again, patting
her hand tenderly.  “Well, when you feel like talking about it, I’m here.”

A moment later, her partner reached
down beside him and pulled out his oddly shaped Grizzwoodian concertina.  The
small accordion-like instrument produced a shrill and slightly off kilter tone,
somewhere between bagpipes and a dying animal.  Basically, if you had ears and
weren’t from his homeland, you cursed the damn thing as the most annoying noise
ever produced by man.

But Ransom had never minded it. 
The alleged “music” it produced had a layered quality to it, where one note
came out on top of another.  She found it… interesting.  Sound was important in
her world and the instrument was certainly capable of creating some…
unique
ones.

Her partner began to idly play his
favorite song, a mixture of what sounded like a pirate sea shanty and what
could only be the folk music of the Grizzwood.

It was an enthusiastically
infectious tune the man played when he was bored but still in a good mood,
filled with an utterly unpretentious
joie de vivre
, and bubbling with
humor and down-to-earth grandiosity.  It was a quirky little melody which
played in the background as the hero of a story rambled along, having another
fun adventure.

It was Uriah’s song.

Which he played to pass time and
entertain himself, changing the lyrics and speed as desired.

And it always made Ransom smile for
some reason.  It was her signal that no matter what else was going on or how
upset she might be, she was still right where she was supposed to be and that
everything was fine.

She found that jarringly horrible
instrument so comforting.

At the moment, her partner seemed
to be playing his favorite tune as both a way to drown out the argument and as
a means of giving it a soundtrack.  He used one arrangement for the old woman
and one for Din, as if the music were having the argument with itself as it
switched verses.

Quick shrill notes locked in battle
with slower deeper ones, each trying to shout the other down.

“Yep.”  Ryle finally announced. 
“Congratulations, Uriah.  You’ve found a way to make them even more annoying.”

A particularly shrill wheezing note
perfectly encapsulated the old woman’s irritating voice and Ransom couldn’t
help but chuckle, utterly delighted by that for some reason.

“You bastard.”  Ryle’s snicker
joined hers a second later.  “Okay… that one was pretty good.”

Ransom nodded off to sleep to the
sound of her partner’s deep laughter.

Uriah didn’t sleep.

Well, no.  That wasn’t true. 

He slept, he just didn’t sleep
well.  Especially not around other people.  Growing up the way he had, he’d
developed a deep seeded distrust of most people and the idea of being
defenseless around them didn’t really make him comfortable.  Particularly when
he was trapped in close quarters with the only thing in this world he loved,
and several dozen strange unscrupulous men.

Uriah didn’t know them.  Uriah
didn’t trust them.  And he sure as hell didn’t like the idea of them being
around Ransom.

As such, he did most of his
sleeping in short naps on deck throughout the day, when at the very least, the
Swab could wake him if there was trouble.

Better safe than sorry.

To further safeguard his partner,
he had also insisted that she get a cabin entirely to herself.  Technically, it
probably belonged to one of the officers of the ship they had hired, but Uriah
didn’t care.

So, Ransom had a room.  And Uriah
sat with his back to her door, eyeing the darkness which filled the interior of
the ship, silently daring something to move against her.

Uriah had spent most of his life
looking out into the darkness and trying to spot hidden dangers.  He was used
to it.  Some of his earliest memories were sitting around a low fire, watching
the forest for looming horrors.

His mother had been a careful
woman, but even she had advised against his constant watchfulness.

“Don’t waste time fighting
shadows.”  She had told him.  “Life comes at you too fast for worrying to make
one bit of difference.”

But that philosophy hadn’t turned
out the best for her, so it was one piece of advice he rarely followed.

He looked down at his boots,
wondering what time it was.

His partner didn’t keep to a
standard sleep cycle either, due to her blindness.  Since telling day from
night was often difficult for her, she basically just slept when she was tired
and woke when she wasn’t.  Of course, that could have also been about her
desire to avoid her nightmares.

Uriah understood them.

He had them as well.

It was yet one more thing they had
in common and one more reason why Uriah didn’t like sleeping.

The worst moments of his life on a
nightly repeat, again and again, showing him his failures.  Making him feel
that shame and humiliation on a loop, so that he could never forget what it
felt like to disappoint her so completely.  To watch her in pain and know that
it was his fault.

It was…

“URIAH!!!”  His partner shrieked,
as if on cue.

He swore, hating the sound of
terror in that woman’s beautiful voice.  Some of the first things he’d ever
heard come out of her mouth were screams of pain and he just never wanted to
hear anything like that again.

He immediately burst through the
door.  “I’m here, Dove.”  He soothed, trying to keep his voice calm and gentle
so as not to scare her further.  He quickly secured the door behind him however,
just in case anyone else on the ship decided to come investigate. 

The girl was standing next to her
bed, shaking and looking lost.  Her arms were drawn up to her chest
protectively and her shoulders hunched, as if trying to disappear into a ball. 
She was turning in a frantic circle trying to figure out where she was, bumping
into things she couldn’t see and growing more and more panicked.

Typically, she didn’t see in her
dreams.  Since she couldn’t remember seeing anything in her life, her brain
wasn’t able to dream sight.  She apparently had no idea what that would even be
like.  Instead, she dreamed sounds and smells and touch, because that’s what
her brain understood.  Those were the only experiences she had and the only
things her subconscious could draw from.

Sometimes though… sometimes she
dreamed she could see.

He had only the most basic
understanding of what she was seeing, as a memory of her former sight somehow
floated to the surface of her mind and took control of her dream, but whatever
else she was actually seeing, she always woke up screaming.

Then it always took her a moment to
ascertain what was happening and where she was, since her world was once again
one of darkness.

“U-u-uriah?”  She called again
softly, her voice quivering in relief.

“Steady, Rance.  Steady.”  He calmed,
making his way over to her.  “Everything’s fine.”  He leaned closer to her. 
“We’re fine.  I’m going to hold you, okay?”  He always tried to warn her,
because otherwise his would be a hand grabbing her in the darkness.  His
partner almost always slept fully dressed, due to her characteristic personal
space issues, so there was no risk of her misinterpreting the offer.

She didn’t bother answering and
instead practically threw herself into his arms, sobbing against his chest and
trembling.

“It’s okay…”  He said softly,
gently massaging her back.  “I’m here.  Together we can deal with anything,
okay?  There’s nothing here that can hurt us.”

Her hands grabbed handfuls of his
shirt and held on tight, for fear he might try to leave.  “I…”  She sniffed, tears
still traveling down her scarred cheeks.  “I hate that.”

“I know.”  He tried to swallow the
lump in his throat. 

“That’s just…”  She sobbed again. 
“There’s so much blood…”

“I know.”

“I don’t…”  Her voice broke and she
began to cry harder.  “I don’t like red, Uriah…”  Her voice never sounded so
tiny and afraid.  “I don’t want to see red anymore…”  She pulled him closer,
burying her face against his chest.  “Don’t make me see red anymore…”

“I don’t see how I can…”

“
Please
…”  She begged, close
to hysterics.  “Please… please don’t make me…  I don’t want to…”

“I swear to you, if it’s within my
power…”

“Please stop bleeding…”  She
collapsed to the floor in a heap.  “Oh, god…  There’s so much red…”

He sat down on the floor beside
her, his hand on her shoulder.  “Dove?”

She continued to sob softly.  “It’s
on my hands…”  She held them up so that he could see, her voice frantic. 
“Please stop bleeding, Uriah…  Oh, god!  Please, stop!  I don’t know what to
do!  I don’t…”

“Dove?”  He asked again, gently
squeezing her shoulder.  “There’s nothing on your hands, sweetheart.”  He
assured her, trying to keep his voice calm even though he felt like crying too. 
“They’re clean.”

She held them up so that he could
inspect them again, still shaking.  “You’re… you’re sure?”

“I’ve never lied to you in my life,
Dove.”  He paused.  “Well… not about important things anyway.”  He took one of
her hands, so soft and warm in his, then wiped the tears from her face.  “And I
swear to you, we’re both fine.  It’s just you and me here, and there’s nothing
to be upset about, okay?  There’s no blood.”

She sniffed, firming her lower lip
and trying to keep it from trembling.  “I don’t… I don’t like red.”  She said
softly, her voice breaking again.  “I really don’t.”

“I know.”  He nodded.

“And… and it was everywhere…”

“I know.”

“And I couldn’t stop it… you were
bleeding… and I couldn’t stop it…”  She started crying again.  “I tried so
hard, but I couldn’t stop it…”

“I know.”  He gently kissed the
back of her hand.  “But you did stop it, remember?  I sewed up your face and
then you sewed up my back and we’re both fine now.”

She let out a shaky breath. 
“Just…”  She swallowed, calming down slightly.  “Just…”

“I’m not going anywhere.”  He
assured her, knowing what she was going to ask.  “Not until you tell me to,
right?  I don’t go anywhere unless you tell me to, you know that.  I’d be lost
on my own.”

“Okay…  Okay…”  She took a few deep
calming breaths, trying to keep from hyperventilating.  “Okay…  Sorry.  I
just…”

“You don’t like red.”  He
repeated.  “You don’t ever have to apologize to me for anything, you know
that.”

His partner seemed to have two
different kinds of nightmare, each of which required a different response from
him.

She usually dreamed about unseen
people holding her down and cutting her face, which was usually solved by
giving her a weapon and reminding her that together they could fight anyone.

Every few weeks though… she dreamed
of blood.  And of the two options, the blood dream scared her more.  A deep,
elemental terror which usually required much more time for her to calm down.

Whatever else she saw in her dreams…
there was a lot of blood.

“I’m okay.”  She told him, more for
her benefit than his.  It was a very unconvincing reassurance on her part, as
she was still essentially curled into a ball on the floor.  “We’re together and
everything’s fine.”

“Exactly.”

They sat on the floor together
silently for a long time, just listening to the ocean against the hull.

“It’s like living someone else’s
life, Uriah.”  She finally said softly.  “And your blood is just…”  Her hands
were still trembling.  “It’s all over…”

“I survived.  We both did.  It’s
only scary because you’re not used to seeing it.”

She shook her head frantically.  “It’s…
it’s scary ‘cause it’s
your
blood, you dope.”

“You don’t need to worry about
me.”  He put his hand on her back again reassuringly.  “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m… I’m fine.”  She ran her
hands over her face and started to get back to her feet.  “Can you just… can
you please talk about something?”

He frowned.  “What?”  This was
usually the part where she kicked him out of the room and went back to quietly
sobbing alone all night.  They’d done this little dance hundreds of times over
the years.  “What do you want to talk about?” 

“Whatever you want.  Just… just
please stay with me.”  She put her face in her hands again, her shaking
beginning to get better.  “I… I want to hear your voice, okay?”

“Okay…”  He sat down in one of the
chairs positioned next to the table in the middle of the room.  “Well, when I
had nightmares, my mother always told me that ‘Fears are like butterflies; some
stay put for a time but all of them fly away in the end.’”

“Not if they’re dead.”  Ransom said
seriously, sitting down across from him.  “If they’re dead, butterflies don’t
go anywhere.”  She paused.  “‘Cause they’re dead.”

He stared at her in silence for a
moment, then started laughing.  “You are just the
dreariest
little
flower in the garden, aren’t you?”

Ransom joined him a second later,
laughing her beautiful laugh but mixing it with relieved sobs, her emotions on
edge.  “I need a drink.”  She announced and grabbed the bottle off the table to
take a long swig of alcohol.

“Little early in the morning to be
drinking like that, Dove.”  He observed.

“Are our clients still onboard?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I’m still drinking.”  She
took another swallow, obviously trying to dull the memory of the nightmare.  “I
spent an hour this afternoon listening to the old lady announce her
requirements as to how we can ‘better serve’ her.”  She belted back more
alcohol.  “Not to spoil the ending for you, but her list of demands is as long
as a whore’s dream and just as pointless.”

He snorted in amusement.  “My
‘silent treatment’ plan is looking better and better isn’t it?”

“Yep.”  She polished off her
bottle.  “But the bitch won’t shut up.”  She pointed at him.  “Present
indications to the contrary, I’d step over your corpse to get away from her.”

“Thanks for saving me some of
that.”  He frowned at the bottle, ignoring her teasing. 

“I’ve got more.”  She pointed to
the cabinet.  “Or at least the guy whose room this was has some more, anyway.”

“Ah.”  He made his way over to
where the bottles were stored and looked down at the blank label.  “What is
this?”

“Does it matter?”

“Nope.  Not if it’s good.”  He
returned to the table and took an experimental swig.  “Tastes like brandy.”

She made a “gimme” gesture with her
hand.

He snorted in dismissal.  “Why
should I share with you when you didn’t share with me?”

She held up her fist and pounded it
down into her palm three times.  He did the same.  She opened her hand to
reveal “paper,” while he chose “rock.”

“Fucking ‘rock.’  It never wins.” 
He swore playfully, then slid the bottle across the table and she somehow
caught it in one hand before it hit the floor.

She took a long swallow of the
booze.  “Ah, another night of drunken ‘rock, paper, scissors,’ with my captain,
‘the Ocean’s Shame.’”  She smiled widely, looking amused.  “I do live an
exciting life.”

“The envy of priestesses and
princesses everywhere.”

She took another long swallow.  “Everyone
wants to be me.”

He leaned back in his chair.  “To
the merry and short life, chasing blood and treasure.”

“Black Flag Forever.”  She slid the
bottle back to him.

“Black Flag Forever.”  He raised
the bottle to her in toast and then gulped it down.

She let out a long breath, sounding
lost.  “What are we going to do, Uriah?”

“Right now?”  He shrugged.  “Looks
like ‘get drunk’ is at the top of our itinerary, although I fully expect to
continue mocking our clients and hostage as well.  That fills most of the day.”

“No, I mean…,” her voice took on a
more serious tone, “what are
we
going to do?”

“I…I have no idea.”  He admitted. 
“I really don’t.”

“When did our lives become so
complicated?”

“I blame our employers.”  He
decided.  “They’re always jerks.  The problem is that sane people just don’t
hire pirates to solve their problems anymore.  We need better advertising.”

“I blame the fact that everyone in
the world keeps trying to kill you.”  She reached for the bottle again. 
“They’re always trying to take you away from me.”