The pirates seas

A story about a pirate captain with a tragic backstory, an abused girl who ran away, and a spy trying to redeem themselves.

 

~1 Nora

   

    “Please one more chance I can do this!” The King and Queen looked quite skeptical. “I know I screwed up the last one but I can do it this time!” They shared a pitiful look, not a confidence builder but it made me feel better about my chances.

    “Nora, you’re one of our best fighters bu-” The queen nudged the King in the side, she always seemed to like me.

    “Of course Nora,” I couldn’t let them down, if I screwed this one up I’d never go undercover again. “But this is it.”

    “Thank you so much!” I practically ran out of the throne room, my happiness was quite obvious.

    I had a tendency to mess up my undercover missions, but this time I get to be a pirate. And not just on any ship I get to work on the ship of the notorious Captain Anker, a king among pirates. I went to my commander to get any and all information about the mission, apparently Morgan (Captain Anker) is looking for new recruits. The king and queen had been waiting for quite a while to get someone on his ship, he’s stolen from them more times then they can even count. And along the way killed more than a few guards, royal or otherwise.

I’ve only ever seen him once, and the drawings they do of him don’t even kind of do him justice, he’s probably the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen. Not that I’m into guys, they’ve just never appealed to me as sexually attractive.

When I finally arrive my commander is sitting next to what I assume are my pirate clothes and a small stack of papers, probably with an unneeded amount of detail. “Smith, how long is that briefing?” I swear every time I actually went undercover Smith wrote a twenty page briefing.

“Hardy, har, har,” I smiled, he smiled back, “Here are your clothes, AND your information.”

“Thank you!” I turned to walk out the door to get ready.

“Hey, be careful, Anker is dangerous, and so is his crew.”

“I’ll be fine,” I smiled at him and gave him a wink, he is absolutely my favorite person in the world. I had to be ready in a couple hours, there was a meeting spot for those who wanted to become part of his crew. You’d go and tell them who you were and then probably do something to test your skill or intelligence so they could decide if they wanted you aboard. I went home and changed.

My outfit was sexy, a tan (slightly revealing) shirt with a purple and red corset, the skirt was the same color as the shirt and had a slit down the side providing free movement for my legs, my sword was expertly crafted by the royal blacksmith. Usually undercover guards wouldn’t get weaponry from the royal blacksmith, only royal guards got that privilege, but I had earned the right, I was their best fighter, strong, smart, sadly being a royal guard requires someone who can keep a secret. Something completely out of my skill set.

~2 Captain Anker

    The whole place was a wreck, we’d just gotten through a storm and the entire crew was slacking off again.

    “Stop slacking you sea sick barnickles! The sooner we get our asses moving the sooner we’ll get to land” I rolled my eyes. “Steck, how many did we lose?” I walked up to the bow of the ship, followed by a small blonde teenager who served as my right hand man.

“About thirteen sir” he put his hand on the back of his head and I leaned on the front of the boat, grabbed tight to it and jumped over so that I could sit on the edge.

“That many? Dear Poseidon does anyone on this damn ship know how to sail!?” I yelled

“So… should we head back to the island of the kings?” Steck leaned on the bow and looked at me.

“Right” I sighed “hopefully some of them will actually know how to SAIL!” I flinched as the boat took a sharp turn and I glared behind me at Mex who was steering the ship, “SERIOUSLY! ALRIGHT YOU LAZY B******S, GIVE ME THE DAMN WHEEL WE’RE HEADING TO THE ISLAND OF KINGS!!” I jumped back onto the ship and walked up to the wheel, glaring at Mex as he flinched away.

~

We sailed for about almost a day before finally seeing the Island within range.

“Almost there boys! Kaden, you’re in charge of stock, get us some rum and supplies, take some of the other crew members with you, I don’t really care who” I walked away from the wheel and Mex stepped in after as I walked away.

“Captain Anker!” I walked through my door and turned around at the call of my name

“What is it Amber?”

“I just got word from the people on shore, there are several wishful recruits, and six of them are said to be very promising” they smiled at me and I returned it.

“Good, I look forward to it” The door closed behind me and I laid down onto my bed, few hours before the ship would dock. “Time’ll pass quickly if I sleep” I smiled and held my necklace in my palm, the crystal was glowing a colorful blue and it reflected from the light on the wall.

~3 Veronica

    This is it. The day I leave everything behind, including who I was. In my new life I won’t have an aunt who treats me like a slave, an abusive uncle, or the lingering pain of my brother’s death. I won’t be the shy sweet girl who goes along with anything happening around her. Somehow, I will break free of the walls I made for myself. I was going to be a pirate.

    I know that might sound optimistic and a little absurd, especially since I just described myself as ‘shy and sweet.’ It’s true that I probably don’t have it in me, but I’ll never know if I don’t give it a shot, right?

    I’m standing within view of a secluded dock, the place where I’m told the pirate ships come in so they don’t get caught. There are a few other people around, they all look tough… and dirty.... More pirate-y than I do in my white and yellow cotton dress. I took a deep breath and moved slowly towards the little crowd, I stuck out like a sore thumb right now. I had kind of expected every one to be staring at me because of how out of place I was, but fortunately only a few heads turned. I forced a small smile at the few people I made eye contact with. I know I came out here to get out there, but I felt myself retreating into my shell with little to no intention of coming out.

    “Hi, so, where are coming from?’ I jumped a little when I realised the question was directed at me. There was a woman, with caramel skin and platinum blonde hair, her outfit was rugged and dark, her face seemed friendly, but I felt like a shy, awkward,do and untrusting mess.

    “I, um... downtown?” I inadvertently posed my answer like a question, which is fairly classic me. I’m good with words but that does me no good when I can’t properly deliver them.

“You sure?” She chuckled and I made a nervous, laughter-like sound.

“Yeah” I forced a smile and looked around awkwardly. “Is the, um, boat going to be here soon?” The woman laughed again and I just sort of bit my lip until she stopped.

“Sorry, you just don’t seem the type,” She shook her head and I nodded a little.

“I… um… I’m not usually… I just need a change of scenery I guess.” I smiled at her. I looked away when I heard the conversations around us get louder and the sound of the water splashing, the boat was here. I held my breath and my heart started racing, this was the most impulsive thing i’d ever done, so naturally I was incredibly nervous. What if they didn’t want me on their ship? I can’t believe that thought is only occuring to me now. The disorganized clump of people began to relocate so we were all standing in a line on the shore right before the dock.

The boat came to the pier, a wooden ramp was lowered down, and a short line of people filed down. Following the line was a person I could only assume was the captain.

“ALRIGHT LAND LOVERS! IT’S TIME TO SEE WHAT YOU’RE MADE OF!” he smirked and looked down towards us. I took another deep breath in an attempt to steady my breathing. He walked forward slowly, making eye contact with each one of us he went along the line. “Well you look nice” he stopped in front of a guy about three people over from me and punched him in the face, the guy flew backwards and hit another person, knocking them both out. “Right” he laughed and continued. I shifted from one foot another and my heartbeat speed up again. The woman from before leaned over and whispered in my ear.

    “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” I glanced at her skeptically.

    “And who might you be?” The guy stopped in front of her and she stopped speaking to me. “I swear if you’re just another little cat that can’t fight, I’ll leave you to the sharks” he smirked at her and my nervousness grew.

    “Trust me when I say, I’m not.” The woman leaned in closer to his face, somehow despite the extreme height difference, she looked super intimidating. He suddenly bursted out laughing.

“You're feisty, I think I like you. Take her to the ship!” he yelled towards the two guys walking behind him and they took her with them, back towards the ship. I followed her with my eyes, and looked back at him slowly, he had moved directly in front of me. And because I’m the most awkward person on the planet, the first thing I did was smile at him nervously.

“Hi.” I said, because i’m an idiot, with the smile still on my face.

“Hi?” he lifted an eyebrow at me and his posture softened a bit,

“It’s a fairly common greeting” I snarked, and he smirked.

“you look like you just came out of a bar” He smiled, I looked down at my dress then back at him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he sighed.

“Nevermind… I’ll finish this conversation later, get on the ship and ask Mex to bring you to my room” he walked away and the two guys walking behind him gave me a funny, surprised look. And I can’t say I myself wasn’t surprised, he wanted me on the ship? He didn’t ask if I could fight or anything… One of the captain's men dragged me onto the ship, but I was still looking behind my shoulder in disbelief.

“Um… the captain said for me to go to his room…?” I asked the first guy I saw on the ship, hoping it might be Mex or whomever. The guy nodded and lead me down, through a short hallway, and into a room where he left me alone. It was a good size for a ship, decorated with red cloth and shiny trinkets here and there, with a large bed tucked away in the corner. I walked around uncomfortably and unsure of what to do or what was happening. I sat down on a chair near the door and listened to the hustle and bustle happening above me.

“Captain wants everything set, newcomers are supposed to be in the cabin below deck!” someone spoke above me. I took a deep breath and stood back up, I was still very unsure of what was going on, but I felt like I should probably be standing, as a sign of respect or something.

“It’ll be fine, I’ll be fine.” I mumbled to myself when I heard footsteps approaching outside, and then again when the door creaked open.

“Get the whiney dogs down to the barrel, I’ll bloody be down there in a moment.” the captain guy from before grumbled and slammed the door behind him, he hadn't even looked towards me yet. I cleared my throat and he looked up at me.“Oh hell, I forgot you were in here” he sighed and rolled his head back, walking past me and sitting on the bed with a glass in his hand.  

“Right, ok… but why am I in here?” I shifted from foot to foot, trying my hardest not to be too awkward.

“Because I’m the damn captain of this bloody sea ship and I can do whatever the hell I want!” he growled and laid backwards onto the bed. “If you want an actual reason then you’re going to have to wait until I’m done beating the new recruits” he smirked and sat up.

“I… um… ok… So I should stay here, or…?” I trailed off and took a fraction of a step back.

“Yes. Stay right bloody there” I flinched a little but nodded.

“Sure… but, will you tell me why eventually?” I asked a little more confidently.

“If you don’t piss me off and I shoot you first” he closed his eyes and I flinched back a bit. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have fresh meat to cook” he sighed and stood up, walking towards me. I froze and stared up at him, unable to say anything because I was now pretty scared and had come to the conclusion that perhaps I had made a huge mistake. “Don’t touch anything” he slammed the door behind him. I let out a long breath and huffed down onto the chair. This was going to be an interesting experience.

~4 Nora

    The two men brought me down into a small undecorated room, they told me to unpack and then head back up on deck. The air was dusty and warm. I didn’t really have much to unpack but I put the other two outfits I did have into a small old dresser. I wouldn’t call it antique, just old, there were condensation rings all over the top, and one of the knobs was missing.

    I stepped out of my room paying close attention to the layout of the ship, I walked down the hallway and up a small set of stairs where several other recruits were waiting on deck. They stood in a very organized line and didn’t dare speak to one another. I joined in and stood waiting for the captain to come back, slowly the rest of the recruits piled in, although I didn’t see the girl I had spoken to before. Then the captain.

    “Alright, training begins right now and I’m going to talk with each one of you, separately, I’m going to find your skill sets and make them useful to this ship. If it happens that I find your skill set boring or distasteful then I’m going to throw you over board” he smiled and crossed his arms in front of him. I started to feel nervous, if I went off character for even a second, if I wasn’t killed on the spot and somehow managed to escape I would probably, no definitely never work under cover again. “We’ll start with you” he stared at one of the guys in the middle of the line up and the person looked pale, like he was about to throw up.

They both walked away into a room that was right off of the deck.

“Weren't we supposed to bring everyone below deck?” one of the crew members whispered.

“Right… maybe he forgot…?” the other one replied. The conversation made my mind wander, were we supposed to go below deck? If so why did the guards tell us to go back on deck? My train of thought was interrupted when Morgan burst back through the door with the recruit.

“Well I’ll be drown in poseidon's blue waters again welcome to the ship, take him below deck would you, you know, where I wanted them to be in the first place” he rolled his eyes and started pacing back and forth in front of us, which was about eight or nine, maybe ten… The two guys left and went through the hall to where I couldn’t see them anymore. “You’re up, slick” he stared at a bulky man with long hair and the guy followed Morgan.

They went back into the small room and I was once again confused. Whatever happened to that girl, I know she came on the ship, I saw that much. She definitely hadn’t looked the part of pirate. She seemed so cute, and innocent, and she was beautiful and- This is definitely not a priority.

“Well you’re boring but at least you can fight” the captain pushed the bulky man through the door and I flinched a bit. He was so much bigger than Morgan… it was so weird that he let himself be beat up by someone so much smaller than him.

“S...so … it’s… it’s um.. Captain Anker right… b..but your real name is Morgan..?” One of the new guys, who looked about twenty, spoke.

“Why?” the captain stepped in front of him.

“I… was just asking.. To make sure.. You know?” some of the crew members gave the kid a pitied look, I could tell that had been a dumb thing to ask. The look on the captain’s face said it all.

“No. I meant why, are you talking at all!?” he grabbed the guy by the throat and glared at him as the guy fell to his knees and clawed at Morgan’s arms. I almost jumped, the captain looked so, almost happy, while he choked the kid out. Just before it seemed he’d pass out he released his grip, the kid grasped for air. “Speak only when you’re spoken to brat”

Morgan knelt down in front of him and smirked, “oh yeah, and don’t call me by my name, we aren’t friends” he stood up and looked at one of the actual crew members, nodding. “Mex! You’re in charge of the wheel. Set the sails everyone! We’re heading out. I’ll finish this in a bit, I have to deal with this overspoken prince first.” he glared down at the choking guy below him and then looked at the rest of us, “take them all below deck Eren.”

The man led us down below deck to what was clearly a very public space. There were several other crew members socializing around a thing that looked like a bar, it probably is actually. The captain had taken the kid into a room. I couldn’t hear any of their conversation until the door flung open. Morgan had been completely beating him down, so hard he pushed the door open. The kid flew across the hall, followed by a loud thud.   

“Wow that felt good!” he smirked and looked around the room, the newcomers were all staring but the rest of the ship was avoiding eye contact and pretending like nothing had happened.

“Captain, there’s another ship ahead” a crewmate with dark black hair and an earrings that formed two giant holes in his ears had come down from the stairs and was looking at captain Anker. I stretched to see above the crowd of pirates that had formed. I wasn’t very tall. I found a small window of space where I could clearly see the kid lying on the ground, bruised, cut, and bleeding.

“Alright! Can we blow s**t up now” a girl with red hair and grey eyes stepped in front of the first guy that spoke.

“Hold on Amele, we should check it out first. I’ll let you know if we start blowing things up” Morgan smiled and followed the first guy up the stairs, the girl followed behind them both. This left the crew and all the new recruits in a room together, yet somehow no one said a word, I sure as hell wasn’t gonna break the silence. One of the other recruits however wasn’t too shy to strike up a conversation.

“Hi, so, ah… Come here often?” I rolled my eyes and glared at him, his lame attempt at flirting was completely idiotic. The redhead came halfway back down the stairs calling both to the crew and the new recruits.

“Alright, if you know what you should be doing, do it. If you don’t follow me!” The crew ran to their battle stations and the rest of us followed the girl. She took us deeper into the ship, where the cannons were. “If you don’t know how to load one of these things I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing here!!!”

I walked over to one of the canons and began to load it. Out of the porthole I could see the other ship It was another pirate ship.

~5 Morgan

    “This is awesome! Not only do I get to beat the s**t out of a newbie who thinks he can say my name but I also get to sink another ship!” I smiled and let myself hang from the ropes that I was climbing on. Somehow I just kept getting out of having to deal with the newcomers.

    “Should we fire now captain?” Eren looked up at me and I smirked

    “Tell Amele she has my permission to go overboard with this one. It’s Ricky’s ship” I climbed onto the lookout post and pulled out my sword, “Mex, bring us in closer! I want to get on the ship!”

    “Aye aye captain!” he turned the wheel and the other ship started turning around as our cannons fired.

“OH DON’T BE SUCH A SEA FIZZ RICKY!!!” I laughed and held onto the sides as the wind blew the ship forward towards them.

“Captain…” I looked down at Steck, who was holding onto the ropes for dear life and looking up at me. I sighed and climbed down next to him.

“What are you doing, you know you can’t climb this thing” I grumbled and helped him untie himself. We’d already hit Rick’s ship about seven times, which honestly were probably all by Amele. The ship was starting to sink and we were getting close enough to jump on, yet I was stuck having to help Steck off the ropes.

“I have to tell you something, it’s important.” I rolled my eyes

“Tell me later, you need to get down first.” I climbed down and he jumped after me, I caught him and helped to steady the landing.

“We’re close enough to board captain Anker!” Mex smirked from the wheel and I looked at the ship. Some of our crewmates had already jumped onto the other ship and were fighting amongst the crew mates.

“But captain… it’s important!” Steck stared at me hoping that I would listen and I sighed again, I really wanted to kill something.      

“Tell me after this” I grabbed onto a rope and cut the other end so that I could swing onto Rick’s ship.

“Damn you!” one of his crew member swung his blade at me and I rolled my eyes dodging it and the cutting his hand. He screamed and dropped the blade.

“I’m out of your league buddy, where’s Ricky?” I grabbed the collar of his shirt and he put his hand up.

“I...I don’t know” he flinched.

“Then I guess you’re useless to me” I aimed my blade up, ready to strike.

“MORGAN!!!” I looked up towards the back of the ship and smirked, “that’s enough. We both know this ships going down anyways, no need to kill my crew” he jumped down towards me, sword in hand and I chucked the kid to the side of the ship.

“Oh but what fun would that be, I’m just gonna pirate your stuff and you all happen to be in my way” I blocked his sword and twisted as he swung at me again. I grabbed his wrist and twisted it behind him, watching as he dropped his sword. His crew had been mostly slaughtered, and the few that were left were already on my ship as prisoners. I was just playing with this guy while my crew got everything on his ship.

“You’re pure evil you know that” I smiled.

“Why thank you good sir” I slid my blade across his leg and he bit his lip to keep from screaming. “Get him in one of the cells!” I ordered.

I jumped back onto my ship and watched in glee as his sank. Practically my entire crew, aside from the ones taking the prisoners below and Mex, were all standing on the main deck, staring at me. The newbies looked spooked and the rest of us were cheering.

“Lots of rum tonight lads!” I laughed and glanced over at the blonde girl from before that I’d let on for her sharp temper and spite. “You’re next lassy” I smirked and glanced around at the rest of my crew. “What are you blubbering fools waiting for, get back to work! All of you land lover newbs stay in line on deck, anyone moves Eren, make ‘em walk the plank” I laughed and nodded for the girl to follow me into my little intimidating room of interrogation, or at least that’s how my crew described it. “Well. speak.” I crossed my arms and sat down.

“What do you wanna know?”

“What are you good at, name some talents, anything” I smiled.

“My name is Nora Baker, I’m a skilled fighter, and if I do say so myself I’m quite clever.”

“Humor me then” I smirked and put my hand on my cheek, tilting my head at her

“Okay?” she made a questioning face.

“What are you really on my ship for?” My face went serious for a moment before I burst out laughing, “you looked terrified. Calm down, this isn’t an interrogation.”

“I ah, I’m just, trying to, get away from... something I did.” She was clearly nervous and I was starting to regret joking around.

“I don’t care what happened in your past life, we’re crew mates now, not buddies.” I rolled my eyes and stood up. “You’re free to go if you want, send one of the others in on your way down would you?” I dusted off my pants and sighed, only a few more to go. The next to walk in was the scrawny brown haired kid that I’d passed earlier, at this point I just went through the motions. Several. More. Times.

“Finally” I stretched my neck and walked out of the room. “I’m going to hit the sack guys, hold tight and don’t screw anything up while I’m out” I laughed and walked back through the hall towards my room. I opened the door and the ginger girl that I’d left in here before sat up… right… I had actually forgotten about her… again. “Oh nix… I just remembered” I turned around before she could say anything and closed the door.

Steck had been trying to tell me something earlier, where in poseidon had he run off too? “Come with me for a second alright?” I opened my door again, I couldn’t just leave her in my room again, she’d literally been in there all day.

“Um… ok…” She followed cautiously.

“OI!” the girl flinched behind me as I yelled towards one of my crew members, “have you seen Steck?” Allen shrugged and then Benny poked his head through the doorway and smiled.

“I think ‘e went below deck captain’ proby’ ta find you actually” he smiled and I nodded. The girl followed me through the hall and down the steps to where half my crew and all of the newbies where.

“Captain!” Steck ran up to me and put his hands on his knees.

“What was it you were trying to tell me earlier?” I looked down at him and he glanced behind me at the girl.

“Well actually everything's  been settled now.. by Amele.. but I just wanted to let you know anyways… just… uh.. Miles escaped earlier.. Of course we put him back obviously…” I flinched.

“How the hell did Miles escape!!” I growled and Steck flinched back, the room fell silent but no one looked over except a few of the new kids. I sighed, “it doesn’t matter, as long as he’s back, and guarded, it should be fine. He is guarded right?” I glared down at him and he nodded.

“Yes captain well guarded, by two of our strongest. Plus Amele, who offered to go after the battle.” I smiled.

“Oh, if Amele is there then everything is fine.” I sighed and turned around “as you were then. You, come with me” I nodded my head at the girl, who surprisingly hadn’t said a word. She continued not to speak until we got into my room and I shut the door behind me, laying down face first on the bed. I really didn’t want to deal with this right now.

~6  Veronica

    My first day on the pirate ship had been spent doing nothing, confined in the captain's room for a still unknown reason. I moved toward the captain who was laying face down on his bed.

    “Um… Captain, why am I being kept in here?” I asked, a little more confident than before but not by much. He sighed and sat up, shuffling towards me a bit to try and sit in a more comfortable position.

    “You don’t seem like the fighting type, and yet you’re covered in scars and bruises. They don’t look recent but they’re still there” he crossed his arms and stared at me, not breaking eye contact. I clammed up a little at the mention of my scars.

    “They’re not um… it doesn’t matter. I guess I just wanted a change of scenery.” I took a step back and he stepped forward.

“Alright you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I brought you in here because even if you just want a ‘change in scenery’ I’m not sure being a pirate, on my ship, is what you really want. Honestly I can pick out a lot of hidden talent from you, that’s why you’re here. You clearly can’t see it and haven’t used it but it’s definitely there and I want it” he smirked.

“Really?” I tilted my head.

“If you didn’t, do you think you’d be here?” he rolled his eyes and then his smile faded to a straight, unreadable face. “I think that you’ll be really useful on this ship but I don’t want you here if you don’t want to be here, last chance. Stay and have to deal with me, or leave and be free from everything that a pirate has to go through?” he tilted his head at me and put his hand on his face.

“I want to stay.” I didn’t stutter, even if being a pirate wasn’t perfect, it might at least be better than how I lived before.

“Good choice, if you had said no I probably would’ve just thrown you overboard” he laughed. It sounded like a joke but considering the threats he’d made before, I really wasn’t convinced that he was actually kidding. “Well no matter, I’ll start your training tomorrow. It’s dark out now so if you want to sleep you should do it now before the crew gets all riled up” he laid back and slammed his head on the pillow.

“Ok… where?” I looked around awkwardly, because I hadn’t actually been given a place to sleep.

“You can sleep with me if you want” he smirked and my face went a bit red and my eyes widened a little.

“I-I um… I… right…” I made my way to the bed and lay as far away from him as I could. I felt ridiculous, and frankly a little embarrassed. The night was long and the sounds of other crew members still awake kept me up until very late.

~

I woke up scared and in a cold sweat, it took me a minute to realise that my nightmare wasn’t real and I wasn’t in my hell of a home, instead I was in a surprisingly soft bed on a boat. I sat up to find that I wasn’t alone, the captain was still asleep on the other side of the bed. I sighed and layed back down slowly, unsure of what to do now.

“Get the hell off me!” his voice was soft but it still made me flinch, I looked over at him but he was still fast asleep.

“What?” I whispered, half to myself, and half to him even though I knew he wouldn’t answer. For some reason he looked so innocent and… afraid, is he having a nightmare? I wondered. I felt like I should wake him up… but if I did, the chances that he might kill me become higher. “Um… Captain.” I slowly and steadily lifted my hand and nudged his shoulder. He flinched and his eyes shot open.

“Ah!” he looked over and me and fell backwards off the bed. “What the hell!?” I looked down at him and he rubbed his head.

“Oh! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean-” I jumped.

“... so… it was… just a dream..?” He stared at me for a moment, completely ignoring my apology. He shook his head and regained his unreadable expression from before, “I didn’t actually think you’d stay…” I inadvertently let out a little huff.

“I didn’t have anywhere else to go.” I regretted it pretty quickly, back at home sarcasm was not looked upon kindly. He burst out laughing and covered his mouth with his hand.

“Well most people usually just glare at me and go ‘excuse me!?’” he laughed “I figured you’d just leave the room honestly, anyone on the ship would’ve showed you where to stay” he paused his laughter and smiled. He didn’t seem to care about the fact that I’d been sarcastic, in fact it seemed more like the opposite, like he liked it. I smiled, just a little.

“Well, I didn’t know that.” I got out of the bed and stretched my arms over my head. “So um… what should I do… like on the ship I mean?” I was feeling a little more sure of myself now.

“You can do whatever you want, as long as it’s productive. I’ll probably be training you on how to fight and master the basics of sailing in between everything I have to do but while I’m doing all that boring stuff you can just do whatever I guess.” he shrugged and stood up. His face suddenly turned bright red and he turned and stared at me for a moment. “Hold on… did I say anything while I was asleep?”

“Um… yeah you said ‘get the hell off me’ but that was it… why?” I tilted my head with curiosity.

“It’s nothing… nevermind. As long as that’s it… I’ve been told that I talk in my sleep and I usually say things out loud that I say in the dream that I’m having… so I’m glad that’s all I actually said out loud” he laughed a bit and sat back down on the bed. I wanted to inquire further, but I think I’ll let it be for now.

“Right ok.” I smiled tiredly, I really hadn’t slept very well.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he tilted his head at me and crossed his legs so that he was fully sitting on the bed.

“What, is it obvious?” a smile formed at the corner of my mouth.

“No, I’m just really good at reading people.” he looked down at the bed and sighed, “you can go back to sleep if you’d like. I can show you to the other rooms or you can stay here. My bed is probably easier to sleep on then the other ones so if you want then I’ll go somewhere else?” he looked up at me and shrugged.

“Oh, uh, no, I’m ok. I’m used to being tired, I’ll manage.” I nodded. His face suddenly went dark.

“You shouldn’t do that to yourself, it isn’t good for people to not sleep. Here, lay down” It sounded like an order rather than a request.

“Um… I don’t know…” I shifted uncomfortably, I did want to go back to bed, but I wasn’t sure if I would be able to.

“Look, I’ll sleep on the floor. You need to sleep. I’ve had crewmates die from lack of sleep, they went crazy. Now at least lay down” he stood up and pointed at the bed. I nodded quickly and moved towards the bed.

“Sure…” I laid down, facing away from him, in a poor attempt to hide my awkwardness. I could hear him lay down onto the floor beside the bed. I turned over slowly, so that I could barely see him from the edge of the bed. “Um… if you don’t mind me asking… what were you dreaming about before?” I whispered, he flinched at the question and his body seemed to tense.

“It was… just a bad dream is all… just something that happened awhile ago..” he didn’t turn to look at me and he seemed nervous.  

“Ok.” I bit my lip and glanced up at the ceiling. I sighed, I knew going back to sleep would mean nightmares, but back at home sleep was a rare thing for me, so it is both comforting and slightly disturbing that a pirate captain is nicer and more accommodating than my family. I looked back over at him, but his breathing had steadied and his body relaxed, implying that he had fallen asleep. I sighed again, but it was kind of a sigh of relief, I was fine, I would be fine. I was free, and for the most part, I was safe.

~6 Morgan

    I woke up naturally this time, but uncomfortably. My neck hurt and I was really cold because of sleeping on the floor. I sat up and looked over at my bed, it was morning now but she seemed to be asleep, I smiled.

“I think that’s the first time I’ve slept without having nightmares.” I stood up and cracked my neck, trying to roll out the knot that had formed, maybe Annabelle would fix it for me later. I looked down at the red haired girl laying down on my bed and flinched. “Damn it… what kind of a*****e doesn’t even ask for someone’s name?” I put my face in my hand and grumbled to myself.

Her body seemed tense for some reason. I sat down on the bed and folded my legs. Her hair was in her face and the blanket was only halfway over her body, she didn’t seem cold yet she was shivering… I placed my hand gently on her forehead, I tilted my head. “She’s sweating… a nightmare?” she shuffled a bit and I flinched back as her eyes started to open. I stepped off the bed and knelt down, leaning my arms on the blanket. “Morning…” I smiled, she rubbed her hand over her face.

“Morning?” She mumbled groggily.

“Are you ok…? You look like you just jumped out of a volcano...:” I tilted my head.

“Thanks… Um… I’m fine.” She smiled, but it seemed forced.

“If you say so.” I stood up and opened the closet. I was still wearing the same thing from yesterday and I’d gotten blood on it from the battle with Rick, who was actually probably being gaged because of how much he talks. “You want to wear something other than that dress?” I looked over at her and she sat up.

“I guess so… I mean this isn’t very pirate-y” She laughed nervously and looked down at herself.

“You can wear something of mine if you want… If not there are several other girls on this ship that wouldn’t mind letting you have something.” I asked.

“Yeah, ok, um, who should I ask?”

“I’d start with Amele, she has the best fashion sense if you ask me, but if you don’t feel like talking to our crazy explosive specialist then I’d suggest Rinka.” I pulled out an outfit from my closet and threw it on the bed. “I can show you where they are once I get dressed”

“Alright.” She nodded and looked in the other direction. I changed into a brownish-tan shirt and a vest with my reddish scarf wrapped around them and threw on a random pair of pants that matched the outfit.

“Ok. ready?” I walked over to the door and opened it.  

“Yup.” She got up and followed me out. I led her down the hall and below deck to where I assumed Rinka would be, which she was.

“Rinka!” I walked up to her and took the glass of wine out of her hand.

“Whhhhhat?” she rolled her eyes and looked up at me, “oh… um... Captain, sorry... Didn’t realize that was you” she laughed then looked the girl behind me, who I still hadn’t caught the name of, up and down. “Who might this be?” She smirked.

“Veronica Quinn.” I turned when I heard her small voice come from behind me. Veronica what a cool name.

“Yes. Rinka, Veronica. Veronica, Rinka.” I gestured to both of them and Rinka smirked.

“Newcomer eh’?” I nodded and she walked up to Veronica, “already caught the liking of our captain has she, careful who you trust, this pretty boy might get you killed” she laughed and I set her glass down on the counter.

“Shut up” I rolled my eyes and looked back at the girl from before, I knew her name now, but for some reason it was hard to put her face to one name. Like it suited her but it also didn’t…

“HA! HOW ‘BOUT IT DEN A*****E!!” I looked over at the other side of the room, Benny was standing in a fighting position towards Jack and I laughed. The room filled with excitement and chants.

“Let’s go to your room shall we?” I looked at Rinka and she nodded, leading us both through the hall and into the quarter of the ship where most of the crew members slept.

“Did you need somethin’ captain?” she sat down on one of the beds and I nodded.

“I was wondering if she could borrow some of your clothes? This is all she brought with her” I shrugged and Rinka laughed.

“You let her come onto your ship in that?” Veronica shifted uncomfortably, I glared down at Rinka and she froze. “Yeah ok, I’ll let her have some. Sheesh” she went under the bed and pulled out a chest. “Take whatever you like sweetheart” she stood up and blew me a kiss as she walked out.

“Ignore her, she’s half drunk” I rolled my eyes and gestured to the chest. Veronica nodded and knelt over it. When she stood up she was holding a bundle of clothes in her arms.

“Is there somewhere I can change.”     She kind of half smiled and tilted her head.

“Wow, you really aren’t a pirate yet” I laughed and she tilted her head at me.

“Um… yeah, but for the meantime, is there somewhere I can change?”

“You can change in my room, or in the main room off the deck if you want, but there are probably other pirates across the rest of the ship.” I shrugged

“Ok, i’ll change in your room.” She nodded and turned to leave.

“I’ll meet you on the deck, I’m showing everyone around. Kidding, that’s Jack’s job” I laughed and she walked away. I sighed and walked towards the deck out the opposite door. “Amele!” I stopped her as she almost ran through me.

“Oh, captain. Didn’t see ya there sorry” she shrugged and stepped back so that we weren’t so close.

“What happened to MIles?” I crossed my arms and continued walking, she followed at my side.

“He’s fine. I left him with Heather and Tiben.”

“No, I meant how did he get out in the first place?” she walked a bit faster to keep up with me.

“Oh, I’m not sure. Considering that Alex was and is still knocked out, my guess is that Miles convinced him to go closer to the cage, grabbed him, slammed him against the bars and then took the keys. Luckily for you though, I’m on board so I took care of him. Not that he could’ve gotten far anyways” she shrugged.

“Alright Amele, as you were then”

“Aye” she smirked and walked backwards so that she was going the opposite way. I rolled my eyes and climbed up the ladder that led onto deck.

“Oi Eren! Are you taking care of the sails?” someone yelled above me, it sounded like Steck but I couldn’t really tell from where I was.  

“Yeah!” A voice that I assumed was Eren yelled back. I pushed up the trap door and climbed onto the deck. Everyone was running around frantically and others were trying to calm people down.

“What’s going on?” I walked next to Steck and he shrugged.

“I ain’t sure captain” he shrugged and smiled a bit, “they been like this since the mornin’ sir. I ‘erd some rumors but…” I tilted my head at him and lifted an eyebrow

“What kind of rumors?” I crossed my arms and he looked down.

“I’m thinkin’ they ain’t true but… the whole ships been whispering’ about how a girly went into your room wit’ ya and then didn’t come out ‘til mornin’” I sighed and put my hand on my forehead, should’ve seen that one coming.

“Of course”

“They’ll probably stop once they see ya though” he was right of course, some of the crew members had already gone back to work while others were slow to notice that I’d come onto deck.

“Mex!” I walked up the steps to where Mex and the wheel were.

“Yes captain?” he turned the ship a bit but then steadied it. Suddenly the entire ship fell deathly silent, even the wind seemed to pause. The crew was staring at something coming from the hall.

“What happened?” I jumped down to look at what everyone was gawking at and found myself staring at Veronica.

 

~7  Veronica

    The clothes were fine, pretty simple, maybe a little small but not enough for them to really be uncomfortable. It was a brown dress a red skirt and a cheap corset, but when I walked out of the captain's room and out in plain sight, every single person stopped and stared at me, including the captain. I felt my face go hot, and I began to feel more timid, I coughed uneasily to break the silence.  I wasn’t used to attention, and I wasn’t really sure what I should do about it. The Captain jumped down from above me and turned so that he was facing my way.

“Veronica?” He tilted his head and then looked back at the rest of the crew, as he did they seemed to look away and continue whatever they'd been doing before.

“Yeah?” I inched closer, relieved that I was no longer the center of attention.

“Right um… sorry. Steck, tell Amele to grab me a few of the training swords and equipment” a boy with short blonde hair and crooked teeth nodded and walked past him through the hall, smiling at me. “I’ll have Mex teach you how to control the ship, probably tomorrow though" he smiled.

“Really?” A small smile formed on my face. I was going to learn to control the ship? His smile widened, just a bit.

“Yeah, why? You don’t believe me?” He lead me out onto the open deck of the ship.

“No, I just… I guess I didn’t really think you were serious about teaching me this pirate stuff. Because as much as I want this, I’m the least experienced person here.” I was probably saying too much, but at this point I was weirdly comfortable around this man, who in some instances could be described as ruthless and violent.

“Well how are you going to get experience if you’re never taught?” He smirked and rolled his eyes at me.

“Touche” I mumbled. We were standing by the ship’s railing now, I think we were waiting for the guy who he had sent to get swords or what ever.  We stood there silently for a minute, then he spoke.

“So, I’ve been meaning to ask- and I know I kind of have already-, but how does an innocent, pretty little thing like you, find yourself in a line of low life pirate recruits?” He glanced at me sideways, I bit my lip. I wasn’t going to tell him about my past, so what do I say other than ‘fresh start’ or ‘change of scenery’ because i’d already said that. I opened my mouth to speak but, thank god, the man the captain sent to get swords came back with two in hand, and I didn’t have to answer. The captain looked at me with an expression I was having trouble reading, before turning attention to the boy. “It’s about time Steck. Make sure the new recruits are working.”

“What? She can’t fight? Why is she even ‘ere?” A girl, who I assumed was Amele laughed, I furrowed my brow a little and my face felt hot, I mean she’s right but I still felt a little bad.

“You can go now Steck.” The captain’s words were stern and his eyes narrowed a bit. “You too” he looked at the girl and crossed his arms.

“Yes captain” she bowed in a very overdramatic sassy form and turned around. “Good luck” she whispered to me, just before leaving and heading back below deck. It sounded like a warning… I looked back at the captain and he smiled, handing me one of the wooden swords.

“So uh, what do I do now?” I turned the fake sword in my hands, I felt a little embarrassed of my complete lack of combat knowledge.

“First, hold it like this” he stepped closer to me and placed his hands one behind the other with a little bit of space in between, “the closer your top hand is to the blade, the more control you’ll have” he shifted his front hand closer to show me and I did the same. I took a deep breath and looked back at the captain for further instruction.

“What do I do next?” I tightened my grip on the sword.

“How are you with your reflexes?” he tilted his head and stepped into a position that made it look like he was about to full on attack me.

“Here it comes!” one of the crew members tapped another's shoulder and they stared in our direction with excitement. They spoke in a whisper, as if trying to keep us from hearing them, yet failing. I looked around nervously and tried to mimic the captain’s stance.

“My reflexes are.... Mediocre… at best.” I laughed nervously.

“I guess we’ll have to work on that first then” he swung the sword towards me, I jumped back and held the sword in front of me.

“Begginers luck” one of the crew members huffed.

“You’re just angry cause you got cut the first time” another laughed.

“Nice job, next time though, try blocking it” the captain smirked and swung again, this time towards my mid section and further so that it would be hard to dodge. And again I tried to jump back, but this time I landed flat on my a*s.

“Damn, this one’s quick on her feet” there was a voice to my side that I almost recognized. Stick..? Wait that wasn’t right.

“Sure is” the captain smiled and looked down at me, I ignored him and got back up.

“Try using the sword!” one of the crew shouted, he was hanging on the ropes and from the angle I was at, it looked like he was upside down. I mumbled something under my breath, but held the sword out in front of me again.

“Come on girly fight him, swing!” Clearly the crew was waiting for something, but what? The captain swung at me again and this time, I somehow managed to block him with my sword. With this brief success, came a little more confidence, so I tried swinging my sword at him. He barely looked like he moved at all, but his sword was caught with mine.

“What’s he doing, usually he takes them out by now?” I heard someone whisper. His sword twisted and he ducked under my arm, swinging his sword towards my leg. I inadvertantly shrieked and took a step backwards, and he missed me. barely.

“Why’s he going easy on her?” The guy who hung upside down on the ropes crossed his arms. I broke focus on my poor fighting skills and looked at whomever had said that.

“Hey!” I flinched and looked back at the captain, who had stood up straight. I stared at him with wide eyes and fumbled with my sword. “Stop letting them distract you, in time you’ll learn to fight and know what’s around you without even having to look, for now, just focus on me” I clenched my jaw and nodded. This fight was going better than I thought it was, but then again, one of the others did say it was just because the captain was going easy on me. Which brought me to my next thought of ‘why?’ Why is he going easy? Why does he seem to have taken a special interest in me?

The captain smirked and moved back into his fighting stance with the wooden sword pointed directly at me. He lunged at me and I reacted, I blocked his attack, and for the following moments we were in a steady fight. He swung, I blocked, I swung, he blocked, but then I stumbled. I ended up on the ground with the captain standing above me, pointing his sword.

“Captain” a girl stood next to us now and he looked over at her, not moving the sword.

“What is it?” he sounded a bit annoyed but it didn’t leak through too much.

“A certain someone has requested to talk with you about something” she looked down at me and made a displeased noise. The captain removed the sword and made a motion as if he was about to put it in with the actual sword on his waist, that I’d just now noticed.

“Did he say what he wanted?” who were they talking about?

“Come on Amanda! It was just about to get to the good part” the upside down guy climbed down and crossed his arms in front of us. “Speaking of though, why were you going so easy on her, have you gone soft captain?” I looked up at Captain Anker who was completely ignoring him.

“No, he didn’t say captain” the girl shook her head.

“Alright. EREN!” I jumped as he glared at the guy from before, “another word out of your mouth and i’ll cut your tongue out” he growled. I stood up and dusted off my dress. The captain started walking away and the girl was leading him back toward the interior of the ship. I on the other hand just stood there, still in the open with everyone else, who were all staring at me again.

“So… what’s with you and the captain huh?” one of them with greenish tinted hair and yellow teeth walked up to me and smirked. Followed by a few other crew members.

“Hmm? Nothing. Why- why would you ask that?” I answered a little too quickly and a little to nervously.

“Mhm, did he happen to tell you anything? Say about a few years ago?” the guy who’s name was Eren suddenly started glaring at the green haired kid.

“Um no…” I tilted my head curiously.

“Shut up Ant! No one’s supposed to talk about that!” Eren hit the back of his head and glared at him, suddenly flaring my curiosity.

“Uhh… talk about what?” I asked, even though I kind of doubted they would tell me.

“I..it’s nothing, ignore him” the rest of the crew had walked away after the mention of something happening a few years ago, so it was just the three of us.

“It doesn’t matter anyways, it’s not like he’s gonna find out unless you plan on telling him?” the green haired kid rolled his eyes.

“Huh?” I tilted my head and the others just exchanged glances.

“Don’t worry about it girly, everyone on the ship finds out somehow at some point” he laughed and Eren pulled him away.

“Sorry ‘bout him miss” Eren pushed the other guy towards where Captain Anker had gone. I tilted my head in confusion again but didn’t ask a second time.

“It’s fine, So uh… What should I do now?” I smiled shyly at Eren.

“We’ll find someone to spar with I guess, for someone who’s clearly never held a sword before you sure picked it up quick, even if he was going easy on you.” I looked down shyly.

“Haha… right… ok.” Eren brought me over to one of the other new recruits. I think it was the girl who had spoken to me before we got on the boat.

“Hi, I’m Nora”

“Hi… Uh, Veronica.” I smiled nervously and held out my hand for her to shake.

“It’s nice to formally meet you!” Her handshake was firm, but kind.

“Yeah, so how’s being a pirate going?” I winced at my own words, it was all I could think of to say.

“Good..I guess, ah, hey what happened, you completely disappeared for a while?” She tilted her head and I bit my lip.

“Oh… well… that… I was with the Captain.” My face was probably bright red right now, she raised an eyebrow curiously. “Uh not like that!” I sighed. “Anyway… I think you’re supposed to show me some basic sword stuff.” I half smiled and she mirrored me.

“Alright then, let’s get started, shall we?”

~8 Nora

    “Alright, show me what you got!” I smiled at her and she smiled awkwardly. We both got ready in our fighting stances, I swung. She blocked, she was pretty good, not amazing, but she only started today. “You’re pretty good.”

    “Thanks, but I don’t really think so…” She was shy and quiet.

    “Don’t sell yourself short,” I smiled, “Do you have any kind of fighting experience, at all?”

    “Mmm… no.” She shrugged a little but smiled.  I got a little distracted and forgot that I was supposed to be going easy, and more teaching than fighting. I swung too hard and knocked the sword out of her hand.

    “Oh gosh! Sorry!”  I felt terrible.

    “No, I’m ok.” She mumbled and leaned over to pick up the sword. The captain came back up on deck addressing the new recruits.

    “Alright that’s enough, everyone that just became a new member of this ship goes below deck right now!” Captain Anker grumbled and crossed his arms, looking at a cute girl who stood beside him.

    “I’ll bring them down.” Eren nodded at the captain and led us all back down to the bunker. I snuck away from the group down another staircase, it continually creaked, but luckily no one noticed. Everything was dusty, it looked like no one had been down there in years. I walked down the hall it wasn’t very long but there were lots of doors leading into small rooms.They were all almost empty, I heard foot steps down the hall so I ducked into one of the empty rooms. I couldn’t hear more than a mumble and it wasn’t enough to understand.

~9 Morgan

    “Apparently.” I paused, everyone who wasn’t one of my official crew members had left at this point, including Veronica. “We have a guest that’s coming onto the ship soon” I crossed my arms and smiled a bit, everyone gave me a nervous and questioning look.

“Who be that captain?” Kaden sat down on a barrel and looked at me.

“His majesty Ricky thinks that someone is coming to save him from my ship and that the kingdoms are sending spies amongst us to help him” there was a pause before the whole ship burst into laughter.

“Rriiiiiight” Eren laughed and climbed up onto the ropes, high fiving Jared  who was on lookout.

“Moron” Allen laughed.

“Either way we should keep an eye out at every kingdom where we stop, we might get pirated” I’d almost finished the sentence without laughing but I couldn’t do it. “Seriously, who does he think I am, I’d never let a spy onto my ship, they’re so easy to spot” I laughed and the crew joined in.

“Who’s watching him anyways?” Steck tilted his head at me

“Amber went down with Benny” I shrugged plus Heather and Tiben that we’re down there watching Miles. “Well that’s all I needed to say. Figured you’d all get a kick out of it, the fresh off the surface pirates wouldn’t understand ‘cause they don’t even know the guy” I shrugged and turned around. “Now get back to work!” they all scrambled back to their ‘stations’ and I smiled as I walked through the hall to get below deck.

As I walked through the group of drunk pirates I realized that I’d been subconsciously looking for Veronica. She was like no other pirate that I’d met, never carried a sword and yet she did extremely well the first time I’d sparred with her. She had a lot of hidden talent that she didn’t even know she had and she wasn’t even the least bit afraid of me.

“Captain?” Neir tapped my shoulder and I turned around to look at him. Neir was a small kid, my youngest recruit but one of my strongest and most creative. His brown hair was short in the back and on the sides and he had long bangs that covered his green eye.

“Somethin’ wrong Neir?” I looked down into his white and grey eye and tilted my head.

“No, I just ran into someone who snuck on board. She wasn’t one of the new recruits and I haven’t seen her around before.” He pulled Veronica forward and I laughed a bit.

“Sorry Neir, I guess you missed that part. She’s with me” I nodded and his face went red.

“Oh… sorry.”  he looked at Veronica and nodded. “I also found this one snooping around by the prisoners, she was listening in on my conversation with Heather, Tiben and Miles” he glared backwards at one of the new comers and I glanced over. Veronica had walked next to me so that she was away from Neir and I stared back at the girl with blonde hair that I’d spoken to before and had her spar with Veronica.

“What were you doing back there?” I glared at her and crossed my arms. Neir had tied her hands together and was holding onto an attached rope. Anyone else and she probably would’ve gotten away, but Neir is so quiet that no one even hears him coming, let alone expects him to be as strong as he is.

“I...er, I was, I got lost?” Neir clearly wasn’t buying it.

“Why did you even leave the main room?” I looked around me, we’d summoned a crowd but they were pretending not to listen because I was there. “Let’s go to an empty place shall we?” I nodded down and Neir pulled her towards the opening, away from everyone. Veronica looked at me and I nodded for her to follow.

“Here” Neir opened the door and let us all into an empty room with only  a few chairs lining each side of it. Mostly it was just for people that wanted privacy to hang out but we used it for random interrogations sometimes.

“Alright, question was asked” I folded my hands together and looked at the girl. I honestly had no idea why I’d brought Veronica, but I had, and there was no changing that now.

 

~10 Nora          

    “I was...um, looking for a, bathroom.” I chuckled very awkwardly and smiled

    “Didn’t Jack show everyone around the ship?” he sounded annoyed, but not at me.

“Er, with all the commotion, he didn’t, get a chance.” My speech was awkward and staggered.  

“Right, he was helping me fight Ricky’s crew… of royal asswholes…” he grumbled and put his hand on his forehead. “You should just ask someone next time.”

“Of course!” I realized how dumb I sounded. “Should I go?” I pointed toward the door, incredibly uncomfortable, and eager to leave.  

    “Your call Neir?” The captain looked at the kid who had taken me in, he was so small, and he couldn’t be any older than like.. twelve or thirteen. My heart started to pound, he didn’t buy it, I was done.

“Alright, let her go,” I let out a sigh of relief “But I’ve got my eye on you.” I stood up walked out the door. They all watched me as I left the room, I needed to be more cautious. I heard the captain sigh as I closed the door behind me. I walked to my room and collapsed on my bed, my legs were trembling and I was sweating. I changed my clothes and went back out onto the deck where crew and recruits were scattered around chatting, and working. I walked up to Veronica who was standing awkwardly, clearly not knowing what to do with herself.

“How’s it going?”I smiled at her and she smiled back shyly.    

“Um, pretty good actually, you?”

“Pretty good, that meeting was intense though,” I thought for a moment and then continued, “Why were you there?”

“I don’t know…” It was a useless answer but it was sincere.

“Weird, the Captain has really taken a liking to you huh?” I was still confused about that part. He hadn’t taken any of the other recruits away for no given reason.   

“I guess so, but I can’t say I see why.” She shrugged.

“Veronica” I turned my head and looked at a girl with brighter red hair than Veronica and grey eyes that only had a little more color than the boy that had taken me before, Neir? I think that’s his name. She walked up with a few wooden training swords in her hands and she smiled.

“Me?”

“Of course you silly, isn’t that your name?” she laughed a bit “anyways, Captain Anker told me to come over here and help you train, I say this newbie and figured she could join. Cap’ll be over ‘ere in a minute.” she smiled and held out a sword for Veronica and then one for me.  “He said he had to grab something” she shrugged and dropped the fourth sword so that she only had one.

“Hey look, the new kids are gonna get decked be Amy!” One of the crew mates spoke in a whisper but it was a bad whisper because I could still hear him.

“Shall we start then?” Amele smirked and stepped into a fighting stance.

“We shall,” I smirked at her and got into my own stance. I didn’t like the fake wooden swords, I wasn’t used to it, they were to light. She swung at me, hard, she was good, I blocked her strike and swung back, but I was better.

“Damn you’re good” she smiled “I’m the bomb and explosives person so I’m not surprised that you’re this hard to spar with” she laughed and continued swinging. Her moves weren’t as good as mine but they weren’t sloppy.

“Thanks, lots of training,” I realized I sounded kind of pretentious, “But you’re pretty good yourself.” A couple more minutes of back and forth and I took my c

“I think you should spar with captain Anker after this!” she smiled and glanced over at Veronica before quickly looking back to me and our fight. I knocked her down to the ground and stood over her with my sword pointed at her face. “Oops” she smiled.

“Amele?” I looked back at the captain who had walked up behind me without me realizing it.

“Yes captain?” she smiled beneath my sword and the captain looked up at me.

“Did you take her down?” he asked.

“I did” I sounded proud, I was. He smiled and crossed his arms.

“I’m impressed.” he walked over to the fourth wooden sword and picked it up, glancing at Veronica and then looking back at me. “Care to show me how you did it” Amele smirked beneath me and the crew fell silent.

“Ah…...Sure,” I started to panic slightly.

“Good.” he smirked and stepped back into a stance that I didn’t recognize. Amele stood up as I stepped away from her and took my stance. Veronica backed up and Amele did the same. I waited for a moment, I couldn’t tell his plan, my gut started to turn. He shot forward and his sword came inches from my face before I blocked it. He was definitely stronger then he looked.

~11 Veronica

The rest of the day was spent with people sparing, and teaching me how to fight. I still wasn’t great, but at this point I could hold a sword and stand so I wouldn’t immediately get knocked over so I think I’d call it a productive day.

“So are you going with the rest of the recruits to sleep tonight?” Captain Anker laughed a bit. We had been together for pretty much the whole day, the captain hardly let me out of his sight.

“I guess I should, right?” I bit my lip and looked over my shoulder at all the pirates who had stopped working and were now just sort of hanging around and drinking.

“Unless you want to stay with my snoring a*s again” he laughed, I was half sure that he was buzzed, but he hadn’t really had that much to drink.

“You don’t snore?” The boy from back on deck, Steck, stood at our side now laughing.

“How the hell would you know mate?” Captain Anker replied laughing, yep, definitely drunk. I laughed awkwardly.

“I think I’ll sleep with the other recruits.” I glanced sideways. To be honest, I would have prefered to sleep in a room that didn’t have ten other people, but I didn’t want to make the captain sleep on the floor again. Also I think people would get the wrong idea...

“If you say so” he shrugged and looked around the room.

“I feel like… you should probably get some sleep.. If you wake up in the morning after drinking and staying up all night, you’ll kill Eren.” Steck smiled, but he sounded very serious.

“Yeah alright fine” the captain mumbled and looked at me with a smile, “come wake me up if you need anything” Steck pulled him out of the seat and off towards his room. I waved to him as he left and turned to face the others, who were all staring at me but instantly looked away as I turned.  

“What?” I asked a little more sharply than I meant too. But I didn’t get why people kept looking at me like that.

“I don’t know why they always think he’ll kill me. I’m not that bad” I looked over at the guy who’d sat in the seat where the captain had been, it was the guy that had been hanging upside down, and pulled the green haired kid away from me… “They’re just lookin’ at ya hun because of how easily the captain took a likin’ to you. He usually just bullies the new recruits but you seem to be the exception, so they’re all weirded out by it” he shrugged and drank a shot of something that had been placed in front of him.

“Oh” That’s all I could really think of to say.

“And you’re red hair is really unusual. The only person I’ve ever met with red hair is Amele, and no one messes with her” he laughed a bit.

“Uh… thanks…” I smiled a little, and my hand instinctively went to my currently unbrushed, messy red hair. He gestured for me to sit next to him and I cautiously did so.

“So where’d you come from anyway?”

“The town we were picked up at the other day.” I shrugged and he handed me a drink. I stared down at it, I’d never actually had a drink before.

“Really? What’s it like there?” He smiled and picked up another drink that the bartender guy had set in front of him.

“It’s fine I suppose, I never really got out much.” I sipped my drink, it was bitter and unpleasant, and it burned my throat as it went down. I coughed and put the cup down.

“Well someone doesn’t drink” he laughed, “So is your hair natural? I mean I’m only asking because Amele dyes hers” he shrugged.

“Yeah, it’s natural.” I smiled shyly. “I never would have guessed Amele’s is dyed.”

“Yeah well if she asks, I wasn’t the one who told you. She likes people thinking it’s natural cause she’s a soul eater” he laughed again, and I did too this time.

“Alright.” I smiled, the pirates here were a lot nicer than I thought they’d be, but maybe that’s only because the captain liked me?

“Anyways, which quarter are you in?” He put his hand on his cheek and took another sip of his drink.

“Aren’t all the new recruits in the same one?” I tilted my head.

“No of course not. They separate everyone usually by skill level or personality, that’s why the captain has his own” he laughed but I didn’t really get the joke he was making.

“Oh… then I don’t know what room I’m in.” I laughed nervously. “Um who should I ask about that?”

“Well Jack… I guess, he’s usually the one who assigns everything to the newcomers.” He shrugged and started looking around.

“Which one is he?” I looked around too.

“Tall, bulky, blue hair, beard, you can’t miss him” he pointed towards a table around the corner of the room.

“Great, thanks. I think I’ll ask now, I’m pretty tired.” I smiled and got up, making my way across the room.

“Ok” he waved as I walked away and then went back to drinking. I stood in front of the large man with blueish hair, he looked up at me with a flat, bored expression.

“Hi, I’m Veronica, I’m not sure what room I’m in? I was told to ask you?” I smiled timidly, trying to make myself seem friendly, because this man was kind of intimidating.

“Veronica… Oh right the Captain’s newbie.. You’re looking for your room? First let me ask, did Captain Morgan say anything about a certain member or bring you into any yet?” He stood which made me even more nervous because he stood at least six feet.

“I uh… no… I stayed in his room last time…” I stared up at him and my face turned red again.

“Are you sure, he didn’t even just walk into one with you? That’s weird. Ok then, did you find anyone other than the captain on the ship that you would be fine staying around?” He folded his arms across his chest and gave me a funny look.  

“Well, I think i’d be fine with anyone…” I looked away from his eyes.

“You aren’t helping you know” he mumbled.

“Sorry.”

“Just name someone you’ve met and spoken too, with mild interest” he shook his head, “and don’t apologize, it makes you sound weak” he rolled his eyes.

“Oh… um… Nora?” It was just the first name that came into my head.

“Nora… oh right, the blonde chick with sword skills.” He put his hand on his chin, “I think she’s in the quarter with Amanda and Neir…” he was talking out loud but it was more like he was talking to himself.

“Did you call for me Jack?” A girl with sea blue eyes, black hair, and designed shark earrings dangling from her ears appeared from behind him.

“Oh perfect, Amanda is that new girl in your quarter the blonde chick who sword fought the captain and got an almost serious cut on her arm earlier?” Jack spoke as if it was the most normal way of describing something but I’d actually forgotten about the sparring match from earlier.  

“I believe she is.” She smirked and glanced over at me. “Is this the Captain’s new girl?” I sighed and rolled my eyes, mostly to myself.

“She is, and she’s also going to be staying in your quarter.” Jack smiled at Amanda, who was still looking at me. I nodded.

“Awe cute! Maybe I’ll get to know you more then!” She smiled and held her hand out to me, I shook it and managed to smile back.

“Would you mind showing me where the room is now?” I asked when she let go.

“No of course, I was actually headed there myself.” She smiled even brighter and walked past me. “Catcha later Jacky” she smirked at him brightly and he rolled his eyes.

The room Amanda brought me to was small and cramped, there were five sets of bunk beds and two chests under each. She lead me to the bed in the far right corner.

“Here, you can take the top, someone’s already on the bottom.” She smiled a little and sat down on the bed directly across from mine.

“Thanks.” I said quietly.

“Is she staying in here?” A voice that I actually recognised came from the bottom bunk of the bed across the room.

“Yeah, why?” Amanda looked down at the kid from before who had taken me to the captain because he had thought I was an intruder.

“Just asking…” he rolled over and I tilted my head.

“So what’s your name anyways?” Amanda turned to me and rolled her eyes, “and ignore him, he’s probably just cranky cause he’s tired” she laughed a bit.

“Veronica.” I climbed up to my bed, which was hard and almost the complete opposite of the captain’s bed.

“Pretty name. Anyways, I’m gonna hit the sack, if you need me I’ll be over there” she smiled and pointed to a bed in the other corner. I glanced around the room, there were only about four people in the room so the other six must still be around the ship.

“Ok, goodnight.” I stayed sitting and stared out over the room, my eyes eventually landing on the boy with green hair, who was staring back. He smiled when I noticed him and looked over at Amanda, who’s eyes were shut, and then back at me. He made a motion with his hands that said ‘come here.’ I quirked an eyebrow and shifted a little, but didn’t get down. He rolled his eyes and looked over at the kid on the bunk across from mine, he looked like he’d fallen asleep. I sighed to myself, got up, and climbed down out of curiosity. He smiled as I walked over and leaned over the side of the bed.

“It’s Veronica right?” His voice was soft and he spoke in a whisper.

“Yeah, and I don’t think I caught your name?”

“Oh it’s Anthony, but everyone just calls me Ant” he shrugged. I nodded.

“Why did you want me to come over here?” I whispered.

“Right, ok so you wanted to know what I was talking about earlier right?” He smirked. “About Captain Anker.” He said the name so weirdly that it actually gave me chills.  

“Yes.” I said it quieter than I meant too, but somehow I still sounded very direct.

“Come on up then, cause boy do I have a story for you, and I might not finish tonight. Unless you want the short, boring, non descriptive version” he shrugged. I climbed up the ladder and sat cross legged across from him.

“Ok, let’s hear it.” He smirked.

“So basically, the Captain used to be known as Captain Morgan, but after a certain incident he became known as Captain Anker.” He crossed his arms and stared at me. “It started with a storm, we’d lost a lot of people and the ship was completely wrecked, there was no choice but to stop at the nearest island, and the captain was completely against it. However, the storm had other ideas. The whole ship was dragged towards the Temple Island, and both the captain and Mex had to control the wheel for it to head away from the rock and actual ports of the island.”

He paused as the door opened and put his finger over his lips, telling me to stay quiet. Eren walked in and stretched, looking around and stopping at Amanda’s bed.

“Yo, Mandy, you awake?” He shook her shoulders and I tried to shrink down in case he looked over.

“Yes, what is it?” she grumbled.

“Well… uh… Mex kind of got drunk and hurt himself and our medic is currently steering the ship so we need you to take over” she sat up and sighed, standing.

“Yeah ok. Whatever, it’s not like anyone on this ship sleeps anyways” Eren led her out of the room, leaving me with just the kid and Ant who smiled as the door closed.  

“And then what happened?” I whispered curiously.

“Well Temple Island hates pirates and they especially hated the captain at the time because he’d taken one of their higher ranking royalty, and turned him into a pirate. Meet Heather, who is currently guarding Miles. But that’s not what we’re talking about.” He shook his head. “So the Captain had set up a hiding place in the forest but they had recently attached something into his arm that acts like a tracker and since the storm had come so quickly and unexpectedly he hadn’t had time to remove it. So of course he knew he couldn’t stay in the hiding spot with the rest of us.”

He paused, “Now I don’t know what actually happened after that, because I wasn’t with him, but as far as the story goes, he went to an inn, one that hides pirates and asked to stay for the night. Supposedly he was in the process of digging the tracker out of his wrist when the soldiers came and attacked him.” Ant made a jumping movement to try and scare me but I was too wrapped up into where the story was going, and what it had to do with the reason he was called ‘Captain Anker’ instead of ‘Captain Morgan.’ “I should stop now, everyone’s gonna start piling in soon and you don’t want them seeing you up here with me.” He laughed.  

“Uh, ok.” I started down the ladder and paused when I got to the bottom. “Are you supposed to be telling me this?” I looked up at him.

“Nope” he smiled, “but that doesn’t stop the fact that you want to know, does it?” He smirked. I stared up at him and furrowed my brow a little but didn’t answer, because he knew. I turned and walked to my bunk, climbed the ladder, layed on the rough mattress and closed my eyes.

~12 Morgan

    I woke up to a nightmare and a splitting headache. Everything hurt still and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why, I sat up and stretched my arms, cracking my back and knuckles.

    “Damn it, why the hell did I drink so much?” I rubbed my forehead and mumbled to myself, it really wasn’t a very good pirate quality to be a lightweight amongst a crew of people that could drink an entire barrel and still walk fine.

    I stood up and walked to the door. There was only silence, which was actually really surprising. I opened the door and walked down the hall a bit.

    “It’s still night?” I walked out onto deck and looked up at Amanda who was standing at the wheel.

    “Captain, you’re up?” She smiled at me and I walked up next to her.

    “Yeah, as weird as that is, I have a splitting headache and why didn’t we drop anchor so you could sleep?” She shrugged.

“I guess because we were in the middle of the rain, someone had to drive us out of there.” She laughed.

“As right as you are Amanda, I think you should get some rest, let me take over here.” She nodded and let go of the wheel.

“You look a little tense, let me know if you need anything alright?” I laughed.

“Always” I smiled and she walked off. I sighed and stared at the water, it was weirdly relaxing to see the ship empty and to only hear the sound of the waves.

“You’re up early?” I looked down at Steck as he walked through the hall and yawned. “You should still be asleep” he chuckled a bit and walked up the steps, next to me.

“I guess, I couldn’t really sleep though” I shrugged and leaned on the wheel.

“Drowning again?” I flinched and glared sideways at him, “sorry, just asking”

“Well don’t” I growled and he sat down on the back of the ship, “really Steck, you should know by now that I don’t like people bringing that up” I sighed, “I didn’t mean to snap at you, just tired”

“I can get Mex to take over so that you can sleep captain?” He stood and I waved my hand.

“Don’t, let him sleep.”

~

I took a deep breath, everyone was bustling again and the calming breeze had filled to sunny water mist. Mex had taken over the wheel again and I was sitting on the bow of the ship, waiting for the waves to splash me. Unfortunately the water wasn’t in a very splashy mood though.

“Captain, should we wake everyone up now?” Benny walked up to me and smiled.

“Everyone isn’t up yet? It’s like the afternoon?” I looked up at the sun, it was more like ten in the morning so I was exaggerating a bit but it was still weird that people were still asleep.

“So is that a yes?” I laughed a bit.

“Sure, give them the funny alarm too” he smiled.

“Will do captain” he walked away and I flipped backwards off the bow so that I was standing on the ship’s deck.

“Land ho!”  Jared yelled from the crow’s nest. I tilted my head and stared towards the horizon.

“Isn’t that….?” Allen stepped to my side and his slicked black brown hair blew behind him a bit, part of it stuck up and I laughed a bit.

“I think it is” I stared at the volcanic mountain that made the small island of traders look so much bigger than it actually was.

“Oh, just so you know, Miles wanted to speak with you. Not that anyone cares what he thinks but… Tiben was complaining about it this morning when Amele took over the watch.”

“Right… and how’s Heather doing?” I tilted my head and stared at the water, no matter how much I tried I couldn’t help but feel anger towards that person, female, male, neither, both, it didn’t matter and even though I knew it wasn’t their fault, I still hated their parents, to to be fair though they did too, I sighed.

“Oh, they’re fine” he shook his head, “they were complaining about hearing Rick talking all night but so was everyone else down there” he shrugged.  

“I’m seriously considering just killing that guy” I grumbled, “is there a reason I haven’t yet?”

“Um… Captain Anker?” Benny called from the hall and I turned around, holding my hand up to Allen.

“Hold on, we’ll continue this later.” I walked over to Benny and he gave me a weird look.

“Well, I uh.. I went to wake the people in the high quarter, and your um… female friend from before looked a little panicky, I didn’t want to wake her up but I just wanted to tell you.” I nodded and walked past him.

“She ended up with Amele, Mandy, Neir, Amber, Eren and Anthony huh? This won’t end well” I laughed a bit, “she’ll learn a lot with those pirates” I walked into the room and Neir turned to look at me.

“Captain!” He sat up and almost hit his head on the bed above his, “what brings you in here?”

“Looking for someone, do you happen to know which bunk Veronica is in?” I looked around but I wasn’t tall enough to see anyone on the people laying on the top bunks.

“The redhead?” He tilted his head and pointed to the top bunk across from his when I nodded.

“Thanks” I climbed the ladder and looked at her, she was shaking, and sweaty like when she’d stayed in my room. “Hey! Wake up!” I shook her and she sat up with a start, breathing heavily.

“I… what?... Captain?” It took her a minute to calm down.

“Yes” I tilted my head and sat on the edge of the bed, by the ladder, “are you ok? You were shaking”

“Um… I’m fine…” She seemed nervous, a little more so than usual.

“Yeah right, that’s exactly what I would say. Except I’m more convincing” I rolled my eyes and she stared at me blankly for a moment. “Nevermind. Mex is going to teach you how to sail today, so hurry up and get changed, you’ll be steering us to the island and you can get new stuff there. It’s a trade place, good for thieves” I laughed, trying to change the subject because she looked uncomfortable.  

“Um ok… these are the only clothes I have…” She looked down at her dress and back at me, a little disoriented.

    “That’s fine, just take some of Amele’s, she won’t mind. Or Mandy’s.” I shrugged, she nodded and moved to climb down the ladder. I jumped down and Neir looked at me.

    “You’re showing her how to control the ship? Already?” He tilted his head, stood up and brushed himself off.

    “Mex is, yes” I smiled and looked back at her. “If of course, she’s ready?” I smirked and looked back at her as she stepped next to me.

    “Ready for what?” She smiled softly, and I noticed there were subtle dark circles under her eyes.

    “To control the ship miss” Neir spoke softly and added a small hint of ‘he literally just said it’ into his tone.

    “Oh right, sorry, I’m still waking up… um I’m not sure if I am…” She looked between Neir and myself.

    “Don’t worry, we’ll give you time to fully wake up. Breakfast? I think the new kids cooking today, scrawny one with brown hair. I think his name was Nut, or Nuit or something” I shrugged and Neir giggled a bit.

“Yes captain, it was Nuit.” We all smiled and walked down to the bar together.

“Yo! Cap’in get a load a this guy” Rinka hit Nuit’s shoulder and he smiled, “damn he can cook!”

“We dropped anchor by the way, give time to let you decide if we’re heading to the island or not” Mex smiled and walked by me with a plate of food in his hands. I had actually not eaten anything except for dinner yesterday so breakfast sounded wonderful.

“Also gives everyone time to eat!” Amber smiled at me, “should I bring some down for the prisoners sir?” They asked.

“You can bring Miles some. The other guys can settle for the grub we have in the ice box” I laughed and they nodded. “Oh also, Amber, specific thing today?” I tilted my head at them.

“I’m feeling quite feminine today” she smiled and I nodded

“Understood, oh Veronica, this is one of our gender fluid crewmates, currently, she is great” I smiled “Amber this is Veronica” Amber smiled.
    “Nice to meet the captains new favorite” she winked at me and I rolled my eyes, pushing her to my side.

“Oh go watch Miles, would ya” I laughed.  

“Who’s Miles?” I looked at Veronica who was tilting her head and staring at me quizzically.

“Oh, he’s one of our, currently, nine prisoners. to be honest though I’m probably just dropping seven of them off onto traders island, Rich can be sold to someone who wants his annoying a*s but Miles is actually important.” I smiled and we walked over to one of the tables where Annebelle brought us each a plate of food. The new kid Nuit had made some kind of sausage and bacon, and waffles. I smiled. “He was once a pirate too, but a captain on another ship. We took out his crew and took all their stuff so he’s pissed but he has a lot of information that we still need, so we keep him around.” I shrugged and looked at Veronica.

“Oh… uh what information are you trying to get?… If you don’t mind me asking” She picked up her fork and started eating.

“Well he has a lot of random things of his hidden on islands and he knows how to get to my homeland of a lot of different ancient ruins, one of which could help me find something” I looked down at my necklace and sighed, wherever my mother was she could tell me what else this thing could do and why she gave it to me. She quirked an eyebrow. “Here, hold it, watch what happens” I pulled the necklace over my head and held it out to her. She took it gently and held it in the palm of her hand, it started to glow and she flinched. “It glows when in someone else's hands, and if I’m dying or in danger, it stops glowing. If I die, It’ll crack.” she looked from me to the necklace, with a confused look streaked across her face.  

“It’s very nice… but where would you get something like this?” She smiled a little bit.

“My mother gave it to me. Miles knows how I can find the island where she got it, which is why I keep him around, so that I can figure out more about it.” I shrugged and stared down at the necklace, then back at her. She nodded and handed it back to me. I pulled it back over my neck and it stopped glowing.

“So… um, last night one of the others was telling me about you… something about Arenada kingdom? But they didn’t finish the story… and I was wondering if, um, you might tell me what happened?” I flinched as she stumbled over her words nervously. Where the hell had that come from? I stared at her shocked. There were a few sharp breaths coming from the crew members that knew as they flinched.

“This is not the time or the place to be asking about that, in fact I’d rather you not bring it up. Everyone on this ship knows not to bring that up so whoever is telling you needs to stop.” I didn’t mean to sound as angry as I did but I hated it when people disobeyed my orders. Especially that one.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She looked away and I sighed.

“It’s fine, whoever is the one telling you that should be the one apologizing, not you.” I looked around and Amele made eye contact with me from another table.

~13 Veronica

    After last night my curiosity about the captain had grown, but then I asked and now I felt bad. I mean I didn’t like talking about my past either though, so it didn’t seem fair that I could easily figure out his, even without him knowing. Now I was standing next to the captain and Mex, watching him steer because I insisted I wasn’t ready and observing first would be a better idea.

“We’re almost there, are you sure you don’t want to try miss?” Mex looked at me and  I shook my head a little.

“I don’t think i’m confident enough to pull up to the dock.” I smiled and Mex nodded.

“Maybe you can try once we leave the port” he smiled.

“Maybe.” I looked at Mex, then out of habit, I looked over to the captain, who smiled at me reassuringly. The ship pulled into the port, and the crew began to hustle about moving cargo or whatever it was. While I on the other hand, just stood behind the Captain who was shouting commands. I felt kind of useless, but I hadn’t been given anything to do.

“Captain… um is there something I can do to help?” I stepped closer and looked up at him, he stared back and for a second I swear I saw a look of sincere disappointment flash across his face.

“What? You don’t like being here with me?” He smirked, and I awkwardly tried to say that that wasn’t it, but instead just let out a short laugh. He smiled, and shook his head a little. “Alright, why don’t you help Nora carry that box.” He pointed to Nora, who’s very small, who was trying to lift a box almost three times her size. I smiled at him fondly and made my way over to Nora.

“Do you want help?” I smiled but she seemed too distracted to really acknowledge my presents. “Nora?”

“What?” She looked up and almost dropped the box, but I steadied it before she could.

“I asked if you wanted help with the box.”  I rolled my eyes a little and she nodded. I ended up carrying it, with her just kind of spotting me. We brought it down off the ship and some of the others took it from there.

I turned around to look at the ship, mostly to see if the captain was still there, he and a few other pirates were hauling a couple of guys whose hands seemed to be bound behind them. Probably the prisoners the Captain told me about before.

“Eren, can you bring Ricky here to the kingdom and see if they’ll take ‘im? The rest of them can just be sold to anyone who cares” he laughed and Eren nodded, pulling one of the guys with weirdly smooth hair, with him. The other pirates followed with seven other people that didn’t look like pirates, and were definitely prisoners. I bit my lip, I wasn’t sure why, but I was feeling kind of anxious. I stepped aside as the prisoners were pulled down the ramp and onto the pier.

“Veronica, can you go with Heather to take over Miles’ watch?” The captain smiled down at me from on the higher deck.

“Uh… yeah, sure.”

“Heather should be down by my room waiting for the order, just let her know what’s going on” he nodded. I smiled a little and made my way back up the ramp, and down into the Captain’s room. Where sure enough, Heather was waiting.

“Hi, um, the Captain said I should go with you to take over Miles’ watch?” She looked me up and down, and I watched her awkwardly.

“Sure” she didn’t look like the rest of the people on the ship, and I recognised her name from something but I couldn’t quite remember. Her hair was short and she had only one earring in that dangled down and then looped up the side of her ear lobe. She had brown eyes and her hair was half blue, half white. She gestured for me to follow her, we walked down a short flight of stairs and into the bottom floor of the ship where there were several rows of small dark cells.

“You’ve got to be kidding me? Morgan is selling them!?” A soft, yet angry voice came from one of the cells down the walkway where a boy with black hair, all black clothes and two different colored eyes, stood.

“Yes, Captain Morgan, is going to sell them and then we’re leaving after we get supplies so don’t expect anyone to come for yo-” he flinched and looked over at us, looking me up and down. “Heather, and… the captains girl?”

“We’re taking over down here Tiben, you can head up to help the captain get everything ready if you want.” Heather nodded and he walked past us.

“Be careful, he’s tricky” Tiben shook his head and stared at me as he walked by.

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep him in check and fill the new girl in, now shoo” she waved her hand to get him to go away and he walked out of the hall. I was a little afraid to turn the corner and look into the cell, what the hell did this Miles guy even look like? “Sup pally, how was breakfast?” Heather leaned against the wall at the side of the cell and I turned around. His hair was ghost white and his eyes were as blue as the seas we were sailing in, he was still wearing pirate closes and they looked surprisingly nice for a prisoner. He had a headband almost like the captains except his was a brownish maroon with flowers and the captains was red, without designs.

“It was really good actually, new cook?” He smiled and leaned his head against the wall. His hands and feet were tied together by chains that locked into the walls of the cell.

“Actually yes. I’ll make sure to tell him you liked it” she laughed and he looked at me.

“She’s new?” He tilted his head and we made eye contact.

“Yeah, the Captain’s new favorite too.” Heather looked back at me, but I was still staring at Miles.

“What?” He flinched a bit.

“Yup.” She smirked and I looked between the two of them.

“No I mean what’s she staring at me for?” He looked me up and down and then met my eyes with his own.

“Oh Sorry.” I mumbled and tore my eyes away.

“But that too, I’m supposed to be his favorite” Miles laughed a bit and shifted in the cell because he’d been leaning on one leg.

“Good one” Heather rolled her eyes and I suddenly felt extremely left out, he seemed so, nice… and like he was friends with everyone, including the captain.

“So how’d you manage to catch the feelings of that feelingless pirate king?” He looked at me and I flinched.

“I uh… Um… what?”

“Captain Anker, the only pirate king to almost die of drowning. Feelingless, fearless and a man without attachments. How’d you find a weak spot in that?” Heather looked at me and shook her head.

“He doesn’t have weaknesses Miles, quit trying to find any” she rolled her eyes and mumbled.

“Ok ok, nevermind.” He lifted his hand a bit but not by much because the chain prevented it from going any further. “She’s really quiet” he looked at Heather, talking to her like I wasn’t there. Although, to be honest I didn’t really care. He looked back at me and pouted a bit, “can you please say something, quiet people give me the creeps?”

“Like what?” I leaned against the wall.

“I don’t know, just something. Maybe your name?” He smiled and shrugged.

“Veronica”

“That’s pretty.” He smirked.

“Thanks…” I glanced at Heather who had sat down on a stool and wasn’t paying attention to me anymore.

“Ok… so um… what’s the last few days on the ship been like?” He smiled, trying to make conversation.

“They’ve been fine I suppose.” I squinted at him, he seemed nice, but I knew I should not trust him.

“Well that’s descriptive” he sighed and stuck his feet straight out, staring at the chains tying his feet together. About ten minutes later he mumbled “This really sucks...Hey what happened to Amele?” He looked at me and tilted his head.  

“I think she’s helping with the other prisoners… why?” I tilted my head a bit.

“Because she actually talks to me.” He sighed, “It gets really boring in the cell of a pirate ship, I never realized.” I rolled my eyes a little.

“I don’t think it’s supposed to be fun.” I snarked, and he smirked.

“Well, well, you have a quick wit, no wonder Morgan likes you. Speaking of that lovable guy, how’s he doing, what with the nightmares and all?” I looked at him, how did he even know about that? I bit the inside of my lip and let out a small sigh.

“I don’t know.” I mumbled, that question had been in the back of my mind too, but I wasn’t going to tell the prisoner that.

“So you know? What happened I mean?” He glanced at Heather who was now glaring at him.

“That's enough out of you.” She growled and leaned back against the wall. I sighed again and looked down at my feet. The door at the top of the small staircase opened, the light that shone through made me realise how dark this room actually was. The Captain made his way down the steps toward Heather and I.

“Who's that?” Miles leaned over but couldn't see past me and the wall.

“Captain.” Heather stood up to face him.

“I came down to let you know that we're getting ready to set sail” he nodded at her and she walked past him.

“Understood captain. I'll get everyone ready” she walked off and he smiled at me, glancing to the cell.

“Hey Morgan” Miles smiled and waved a bit, still chained up.

“Did he say anything rude to you?” The captain looked at me and ignored Miles.

“Not really.” I smiled reassuringly, taking comfort in his presents.

“Good.” He smiled at me, then glared back at Miles threateningly. He put a warm hand on my shoulder, my face reddened a little, he smiled softly and said; “Anyway. Veronica, you should go back up to the deck. I’d like a word with Miles.”

~ 14 Morgan

    Veronica had gone as instructed but now I felt weird being alone with Miles.

    “So how’s the waves been treating you Morgan?” He tilted his head and I crossed my arms.

    “You know damn well I’m not here for small talk.”

    “Yeah yeah. I wanted to see the water ok? If you’d bring me onto deck a little then maybe I wouldn’t have to sneak out” he had a tone of ‘you really should do that more ya know.’ I laughed a bit. “Come on Morgan, they’re going to find out sooner or later, why can’t you just tell them?” He sighed and toyed with the chains around his wrists.

“Sorry” I took out my keys and unlocked the cell door, kneeling down next to him and unlocking the chains.

“Look, all I’m saying is that it’s a useless act to keep up, and for what? Just to get into a kingdom that might just kill us both?” He sighed and pulled the chains off his legs, standing and stretching.

“I need to figure out what this is, even if the consequences are harsh.” I lifted the necklace and he nodded, “and it’s just easier to act when it’s only the two of us, as my best friend you know my moves and actions inside out, as I know yours, but the rest of them… They might not be able to keep up the act.” I sighed and he shrugged.

“You’re probably right. Oh, by the way” he stretched his arms and yawned, “who’s the new girl, Veronica, should I be worried about being replaced?” I laughed.

“No one can replace you, a*****e” I hit his back and he smiled.

“So how long can you stay down here?” He put his hands at his sides and I sighed.

“Not long, unless you want me to make it look like I was torturing you for answers” I mumbled and cracked my knuckles with a smirk on my face that didn’t last long because I was just kidding.

“Well you have to go so I won’t keep you too long. I WON’T TELL YOU ANYTHING YOU HEARTLESS B*****D! LET GO OF ME!!!!”  He screamed and I  laughed a bit, under my breath.

“You always were quite the actor Miles” I laughed “a little extreme though, don’t you think?”

“With you? Never” he smiled and sat back down, holding his wrists out, “alright, I had my fun, time for you to get back to your pirating, the crew awaits it’s king” he joked and I tied him back up.

“Are you sure you’ll be ok?”

“Yeah I’ll be fine, the one guy, Tiben, he’s really rude though and sometimes he’ll like stick things into the cell and  hit me with them. So maybe if you could avoid him as my guard then that’d be wonderful” I flinched and growled.

“I told them not to touch you without my orders”

“It’s fine Morgan, calm down I’m fine. You act like I’ve never taken a hit before.” He rolled his eyes and I smiled.

“Ok fine, you win” I laughed and closed the cell door, giving him a worried look.

“I’ll be fine, Captain” we both smiled.          

~   

I’d sent Amele into the hall to watch Miles since she’s always nice to him and I went to find Veronica. His words kept repeating in my head as I looked for her, was I really getting attached to someone else too?

“Look at who decided to join us” Eren was plopped down in one of the seats at the bar and Veronica was sitting behind him.

“Sorry, I had to take care of something with our little annoying prisoner.” I felt bad making fun of him, but I also didn’t because what are friends for? I guess I just didn’t like making fun of him when he wasn’t there because jokes aren’t as funny when he isn’t around to make some at me.

“Yeah ‘Taking care of’” Eren mocked with laughter, “have you gotten the chance to beat him up yet after the stupid failed escape attempt that he made?” Everyone laughed at his comment and I smirked.

“Not yet, I’m still planning it out before I torture his a*s, but hopefully he’ll actually give me the information I want” I sat next to Veronica and smiled.

“You should invite us when you actually do that, I want to see it. F*****g a*****e” I glared back at Tiben as he spoke, I wanted so badly to punch him but I knew that was a bad idea.

“Yeah, and while I’m at it maybe I’ll torture you as well” the crew laughed as I jabbed at him and he flinched.

“Yeah… nevermind” we all laughed and I leaned on the counter.

“So how did you like watch duty?” I looked over at Veronica and smiled.

“It… was alright I guess” she shrugged.

“Ok then. Come with me” I took her arm and pulled her through the crowd to the hall, we walked out onto the deck and up the stairs to the wheel where Mex was.

“Finally gonna give it a shot?” She glanced at Mex and the wheel, and finally back to me.

“Ok, you’ll show me how?” A small smile spread across her mouth.

“Of course” I smiled and Mex stepped out of the way.

“Ok.” She stood in front of the wheel and looked over to me. I walked up behind her and put my hands on the wheel beside hers. We were so close, she was warm and her breath hitched slightly when my hand overlapped just a little with hers.

“Well I’m gonna go below deck, take a nap maybe” Mex winked at me and I rolled my eyes as he walked away.

“Like this ok?” I tilted my hands slightly to steer the ship, she did the same and it started to turn. The turn was sloppy and unsteady but she managed to fix it with ease.

I was surprised at how quickly she’d picked up how to manage the ship, I’d shown her the turns and a few different ways to tell which direction the wind was blowing. It had taken Mex about a week to master just turning alone and yet Veronica was picking it up in only about three hours.     

“You’re surprisingly good at this.” I smirked and leaned against the railing by the wheel, she was steering by herself at this point. She smiled and shrugged.

“I’ve always picked up on things pretty easily I guess.” Her cheeks flushed and she bit her lip, a habit i’d noticed she does when she’s nervous, or whenever she’s talking about herself. Everyone was right, Miles was right, I was growing an attachment, and I internally cursed myself for it.

“About time I have someone on my ship like you” I smiled, she smiled back, and again I cursed at myself for liking her.

~15 Nora

    I walked into the bar area on the ship where crew members and recruits were drinking and chatting. I went up to Eren, hoping I could get some information, “Hi, Eren? Right?” I smiled innocently at him.

    “Yeah, that’s my name. I don’t think I caught yours though?” he smiled and took a sip of whatever he was drinking.

“Nora, I was wondering if I could ask you a couple questions, I’m still a little confused,” My smile became more awkward than innocent at that point.

“Like what?” He paused, “Do you want a drink?” I nodded my head.

“Well what’s the history between the captain and, Rick?” His smile faltered slightly, I would never find out now, ugh. I shouldn’t have been so straightforward.

“Oh, well you’ll find out eventually, ah, let’s talk about you, Nora, what’s your last name?” His voice took a flirtatious turn and I mentally rolled my eyes.

“Baker”

“Okay, Nora Baker, what’s your story?” I wasn’t really a fan of the personal questions but I played along, I had a fake story I always used for undercover. Not that I was very good at telling it.

“Well, I grew up on The Island of Kings, as an outlaw, and eventually I decided to leave, not very exciting.” I started to twirl my hair with my finger. I took a sip of the beverage and pretended it was to strong for me, personally I enjoy a strong drink but that wasn’t the game I was playing. He laughed and I smiled.

“You want something else?”

“Ya, sorry, I’m such a lightweight.” I chuckled and smiled, meanwhile in my mind I was barfing at the idea of this persona.

“Well, get the lady a drink Tiben, slacker” he laughed and looked at the black haired guy behind the counter. “ So anyways, you were asking about Ricky right?” He took another gulp of his drink and looked over at me.

“Ya, but if you can’t tell me that's okay,” I made a kind of pouting face, but I kept my flirty smile.

“Why wouldn't I be allowed to tell you?” He laughed. “It's not like the captain keeps it a secret that he hates royals,” Eren shrugged and I tilted my head.

“Well then please,” I traced the rim of my drink with my finger while I spoke.

“Well Ricky is a royal, cousin of one of the Kings on the island, that's why we captured him. Made a lot of money selling him back to the royals” he shrugged and leaned onto the counter. “They met a long time ago and Captain held a grudge because Rick killed one of our allies so the cap just wanted some payback. That's pretty much it” he looked up at me and shrugged.

“Well, why does he hate royalty so much?” I leaned forward, showing off slightly more cleavage.

“Well… actually I'm not sure, I've heard bits and pieces of the story but only a few of us know what really happened. We aren't really supposed to say anything about it though.” He scowled and stared into his drink, “all I can say is that it was bad.”

“Oh well too bad, I really wanted to hear, you know you’re really good at telling stories,” I smiled and took a sip of my drink.

“Well… I guess I can tell you different stories but I'd rather not say something and get killed because the captain found out” he laughed nervously and looked back at me.

“How bout you? What’s your story?”

“My story… well it's kind of boring but I guess. Basically I've always been a pirate and after the incident with the captain, that I can't say anything about, he became very well known and I wanted to see for myself” he shrugged “we actually ended up fighting on our first meeting but it didn't take long for him to take me out. He took an interest in a few of my talents so I just joined his crew.”

“Is there, anything else you can tell me?” I grinned.

“Like what?” he smirked and took another drink from Tiben.

“Anything, about the captain, or, about you,” I winked at him.

“Well. Not really, we're really quite boring. Unless you give us a battle, then we're interesting.” He smirked.

“Are you asking me for a fight?” I smiled a small smile.

“Are you accepting?” He smiled back.

“Of course,” I grinned and finished my drink in one sip. “Any time.” We walked out on the deck to get our wooden swords, none of the new recruits were allowed to use real swords until we were official crew members.

“Don’t worry I’ll go easy,” I guess he hadn’t seen any of the previous times I had sparred. I smirked, he swung first and I easily blocked his hit. “Or I guess not,” This time he came at me with his full force, and while I did once again block it, but it wasn’t with the same ease as before. I swung out at him and knocked him off his feet, but he quickly got back up and kept fighting, he swung I dodged, I rolled behind him. By know we had built up a crowd around us, our sparring continued for a while until I knocked him down, standing above him I struggled to catch my breath. I held out my hand and pulled him up off the ground.

“You’re pretty good, for a newbie” He smirked and I rolled my eyes except now it was actually appropriate and not just rude. I looked up, the sky was getting darker now.

“Anytime,” I began to walk away, but he stopped me.

“Let’s head back to the bar, I could use another drink,” He laughed and began to head to the bar with me following behind him. We sat back where we were before and I continued to be as flirty as I could. At this point I was extremely curious about the story with the captain, maybe if I talked to Veronica she’d know something, she did seem to be his favorite. Now that I thought about it, I’d actually seen her at the back of the ship when me and Eren had been sparring on the deck. She was with the captain, controlling the ship.

~16 Morgan

    I layed down on my bed and put my hands on my face.

    “What’s happening to me?” I sighed and smiled, she was amazing and even since the first time I’d seen her I’d been intrigued. The main reason she'd caught my eye was the scars on her hands and neck, and the fact that she was just so… hard to read, I could easily read everyone and yet there she stood, blank and in slight fear. No hints on her backstory other than the scars that laced her hands and neck and most likely the rest of her as well.

    I just needed to rest. Hopefully if I slept then this stupid feeling would just go away and I’d stop being so weirdly flustered about everything.

~Dream of the Past~

    My body ached and I woke up to the sound of people yelling and others scurrying about, my brain couldn’t fully process what was happening at that moment until the door to my room had slammed onto the ground.

    “Found you!” I shot up in my bed and gripped the handle of my sword as the Arenada soldier spoke. One against one, I could easily take this guy out. I flinched back as a few more soldier piled in behind him.

    “S**t!” I jumped out of the bed and behind it, only one way out and they were blocking it.

    “Is this who I think it is?” A girl pulled her sword from its sheath and stared at me.

    “Yes it is, Captain Morgan. Be careful, I’ve heard he’s sneaky and powerful” they all began to pile into the room to surround me.

    “Come on guys, at least make this a fair fight” I laughed and held my sword out, ready to fight.

    “Yeah right you cheeky pirate, we aren’t stupid” the girl spoke again, I was cornered, no way out except through them.

    “Well it was worth a try” I shot forward, taking out three of them as I bulleted through. Everyone turned around, a bit surprised and then they came at me, I jumped over one of them and a blade slit across my leg. I landed and rolled out of the way of a few more blades, one almost cutting my cheek.

    “Damn it” six guards stood in front of the door and now I was completely surrounded with about four swords to my throat.

    “Surrender or we’ll cut your head off.” one of them growled and I dropped my blade, putting my hands up. A soldier grabbed my wrists and tied them together. I could’ve taken him out but with all the other soldiers around me, there was no way I could take on all of them alone.

    They took me to the castle and locked me into a prison cell, letting me know that I’d be met with the king and queen as soon as they were ready. My hands were bound tightly above my head and locked to the wall, I was sitting with my legs tied together and none of it was in any way comfortable.

    A few minutes passed and I heard footsteps coming up to my cell. When they got closer I could see three soldiers and the King and Queen of Arenada, which meant that I was in deep s**t because usually the soldiers bring prisoners to the royals not the opposite.

    “Captain Morgan Rehara.” The Queen unlocked the cell and walked inside, glaring down at me.

    “Beautiful day isn’t it your majesty?” I smiled sweetly and she glared harder, rage in her eyes.

    “Let’s cut to the chase, pirate. Where is my son?” She crossed her arms and pulled out a sword from the holster on her waist, which she then pointed at my throat.

    “Well first of all miss, Heather is gender fluid and would currently like to be referred to as they” I smiled up at her and she growled, slashing the already deep cut on my arm with her sword. I winced and bit my tongue to control the pain.

    “He’s a boy and his name is Nathaniel.” she growled again.

    “Well I won’t tell you where they are because they don’t want to be found, especially not by you.” I smirked and the King walked into the cell, holding something in his hand behind his back.

    “I guess we have to do this the hard way then.” He waved his empty hand at the guards, they nodded and stepped away from the cell. This isn’t going to end well. He walked closer to me and and knelt down so that we were eye level with each other.

“It doesn’t matter what you do to me to you majesty, I won’t tell you anything.” I smirked at him and he pulled his hand from his back, revealing a small knife. My smile faded into a scowl of pain as he ran the blade across my chest right below my collarbone.

“Care to give up any information yet?” he pulled the blade out of my chest and I winced, clenching my jaw. If I opened my mouth then I’d probably end up screaming so I decided to keep my mouth shut instead of retaliating with some stupid comment.

“I doubt He’ll say anything, even if we torture him” the Queen spoke from behind him and he stood.

“You’re probably right, but we can at least get rid of one evil. If the captain is on the island then the crew is too.” He looked at the soldiers and I flinched.

“Search the island and look for the ship and it’s crew.” The Queen ordered and I growled.

“Stay away from my crew!” I pulled at the chains and winced. The Queen turned around and smirked, lifting her sword.

“I think he deserves more than just an easy, simple death.” she ran her hand across the smooth part of the blade and put the tip at my chest.

“Do you have any ideas?” the King put the blade into his back pocket and crossed his arms.

“I think that it would be very ironic for a pirate to die drowning.” She looked down at me and I growled, still biting my tongue from the pain now all over the top half of my body. S**t.

~17 Veronica  

I’m used to the nightmares. I’ve been having them for years, so of course I was used to it, however I was not used to sleeping in a room filled with other people who were now well aware. They also seemed to be telling the captain about it, so for the third time since I’d been on the ship I woke up to him next to me, watching with a look of concern, he asks me what’s wrong, and I say I’m fine. I can see it on his face that he doesn’t believe me, but he doesn’t push it. Probably because he knows what it’s like. Despite the captain telling me not to further inquire about his past, Ant, the boy who was telling me the captain’s story, continued telling me. Stopping for suspense yet again, instead of just finishing the story.

I sat up, a little shakily, and climbed down the bunk bed. The Captain stared quizzically, like maybe he was trying to figure me out, or understand the nightmares, without actually speaking. I sighed and smiled tiredly.

“So what’s on the agenda for today Captain?” I stretched my arms over my head, and he smiled.

“Well I had planned to keep training you but you look like you could use a little break. Would you be alright with watching Miles for a little while after we eat?” He tilted his head at me, and I consciously rubbed the back of my neck.

“Yeah… sure that sounds good,  but there’s probably time for you to train me later right?” My face flushed as I spoke. It was kind of ridiculous how much I was starting to like him.

“If you’re up for it then of course” he smiled. I nodded and he lead me out of the bedroom and into the bar, where most of the other pirates were already eating and laughing and talking. When I walked in I noticed a few people were staring and when I caught their eyes with mine they would casually look away. The captain and I sat together at the same table we did yesterday, and someone brought us food.

“So” One of the other crew members walked up, I’d seen him before but I couldn’t remember his name. “How’s the training going with the newbies?” He spoke to the captain, but was looking directly at me.

“Extremely well actually, for the three of them that I’ve seen. One is quite the cook, one’s quite the expert in martial arts and swordplay, and this one is just good at everything once she’s taught” he smirked at the guy who sat down next to him. “Why, how is it with the others Steck?” he smiled.

“Eh… they’ll take a while.”  Steck was still looking at me, so I quirked an eyebrow, he smirked and walked off. The captain and I sat in a peaceful silence for a minute, every now and then it seemed like one of us might say something, but for some reason we were having trouble holding a conversation. So for the rest of breakfast it was mostly quiet between us with the exception of a little awkward small talk.

When we finished, he escorted me down to the prison cells, even though I knew he didn’t have too. He lingered for a minute, glancing between Miles, the prisoner, and me, someone he barely knew yet seemed to like more than a lot of the people on this ship.

“Well hello again.” Miles smirked when the captain left and I took a seat on the stool by his prison.

“Um.. Hey.” I smiled nervously.

“You seem nervous? Am I that scary?” He laughed a bit.

“What? No I just um…” I bit my lip. “I- I’m just bad at talking to people for the most part.” I shrugged awkwardly and tried to force a small smile.

“Why? It’s so easy...” He tilted his head, with the smirk still in place. I looked down, trying to avoid the question. It’s something I’d asked myself before, maybe every day, every time I stutter or hesitate to speak. I knew the answer, I did, but I didn’t like it so I always tried to think of a new one. “Nevermind. Not everyone is the same, I shouldn’t have said it that way” clearly he’d realized that I didn’t like the question.  

“No, i-it’s fine.” I looked back up at him.

“Ok… did something happen? Like when you were a kid.. That made you hesitant to speak?” He tilted his head. “If you tell me, then I’ll tell you what happened to Captain emotionless.” I lifted my head a little more and quirked an eyebrow, I think Miles could tell I was considering his offer.

“Ok… but why would you want to know about me?” I stared at him a little suspiciously.

“No particular reason, just curious.” I bit my lip, I probably shouldn’t… if I did this It could end very badly…

“Deal.” Curiosity always wins me over, and with hardly any battle against the part of me that’s rational.

“Ok, you go first” I took a deep breath and leaned against the wall.

“I suppose you weren’t too far off when you asked if it was something from when I was a kid… When I was about seven… my parents passed away, it was too long ago and I was too young for me to really remember the details, but you know they were my parents, so it hurt, and still does I guess.” I looked down and ran my thumb over a scar on my other hand. “Anyway, when they died, my brother and I moved in with our aunt and uncle. They were sympathetic at first, of course they were, we had just lost our parents. But the sympathy didn’t last very long. My aunt became sick pretty shortly after we arrived, and my uncle thought it was our fault. He started beating my brother and I…”

I paused as a tear fell down my cheek, I wiped it away quickly. “But my aunt got better, so my brother and I thought maybe my uncle would stop hurting us, but he didn’t, he had gotten used to it, a bad excuse I know. The abuse was terrible, and seemingly random, though it was more serious if my brother or I ever did anything that went against my aunt and uncles beliefs or rules. It was horrible… but we lived with it, for years… But then one day, my uncle went just a little too far… and my brother died from internal bleeding…”

I stopped talking again, I was starting to choke on my words, I hadn’t said any of this out loud in so long and it was bringing up a lot of stuff I’d forced to the back of my mind. I took another deep breath and kept going. “It was the worst day of my life, worse than when my parents died, because he had been the only person there for me in such a terrible time… and he was gone. After that it was only worse, I was a slave, an object, I was like a ragdoll being thrown against the wall, and for the longest time… I forgot how to talk to people, how to be around other people, and I believed that I was nothing… But then, about a year ago, I realised I could get out. If I ran away, I was too afraid of being caught to do it sooner, not to mention I was far too weak. But eventually I managed to build myself back up… and I did what I’d wanted to do for so many years, I ran away.” I bit my lip and finally made myself look over at miles. “And I became a pirate.” I wiped the tears off my face and quirked an eyebrow, I thought I would have felt terrible after telling that story, and I did, but I also felt weirdly confident. “Your turn.”

“Oh my poseidon…” he stared at me blankly for a moment… “I guess I can sympathize with you on losing parents but if my best friend, which in your case was your brother, I don’t think I could be as brave as you’re being…” he looked from me to the ground “no wonder he likes you so much” He sighed and looked down. “I won’t make you reply to that. So have you heard any of the story already or should I start from the beginning?” he asked.

“Actually I have heard a little, In the story I was told, got up to the point where the captain was being tortured by the king.” He lifted an eyebrow and then looked back down at the floor, leaning his head on the wall behind him.

“Well after they’d cut him up as much as made them happy, leaving a very, very large scar across his chest” he paused and closed his eyes for a moment. “They took him onto a ship and tied his hands together to the back of an anchor, which they obviously didn’t think through because they used rope. They got a little smarter tying his feet because they used chains and an actual lock.”

He looked up at me because now I was staring, slowly putting the pieces together. Anchor. Anker. Captain Morgan. “For the whole ship ride, they had him chained to the ship over the water, wrists and ankles bleeding. He had spent the whole time tearing at the ropes so that when they finally dropped him in, he could break free and use a rock or something to break the chain, which is exactly what he did. Morgan was dropped into the water and broke the ropes as the anchor hit the sea floor, he’d almost passed out by the time he finally found a rock to break the chains and it took him a few tries-”

“Wait… hang on… why do you know all of this?” He smirked and looked up at me.

“Because I was the one who saved him.”

“Uh… what?” I raised my eyebrows.

“Well we weren’t always enemies you know. Morgan used to be my best friend.” He shrugged and I flinched. “I’d been with the ship the whole time, without the crew knowing of course and Morgan had given me his necklace so that I could find him if he was in danger. He told you how it works right? That if it stops glowing then he’s dying, and that if you squeeze it after it stops glowing then it uses your blood to draw a map on your hand that shows you where he is?” He asked, the Captain had told me the first part but not that it could find him when he was in danger. “He passed out as soon as he’d broken the chain, I technically only brought him to shore, and kept him from actually drowning.”

“So what changed…between you and Morgan?...” I tilted my head.

“Well, I planned a mutiny, his being captain was pissing me off because he always goes so easy on everyone so I was going to overthrow his leadership and he’d be in here, or overboard that is.” I flinched, he’d seemed so nice that I’d almost completely forgotten that he’d had to do something bad to be put in here and now that I knew what it was I didn’t really feel as bad for him anymore. I glared at him and he looked up at me and flinched, “Hey don’t look at me like that, you’re the one who asked” if he wasn’t tied up he probably would’ve crossed his arms but he was, so he didn’t.

“The captain is requesting your presence on deck” I flinched and disconnected the eye contact competition we’d accidentally created, to look at Amele.

“Of course, tell him I’ll be right up. You might have to unchain me first though.” Miles smiled and Amele rolled her eyes.

“Not you dumbass. Come on Veronica.” She walked toward the door and gestured for me to follow. I paused in the doorway and looked back at miles.

“Thank you… for um… for listening, and telling me about the Captain… this stays between us right?” I bit my lip. Miles smirked up at me and nodded silently. I smiled faintly and left without looking back again. Maybe it was a mistake to have told him about my past, but what could he really do with that information? Besides, it felt good to finally talk about it out loud.

 

Author's Note

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