Okay, let's try this again. Sorry about the mix up. So here we have a new story. It was inspired by a writing prompt from The-Modern-Typewriter on Tumblr, it has been used with permission. Again a warning the story does contain a character death and very little romance, ye have been warned. Please don't fill up my inbox telling me just how horrible of a person I am. Part of this was used as a writing exercise for myself to work on writing non-romance geared stories and to also see if I could kill off a character and not make it utterly cheesy. Anyway, on with the story!
Kai had always been a rule follower. Even as a child, when his classmates acted like little terrors, he sat quietly and did as he was told. He couldn't explain why it was so ingrained in him, it just was.
The day he disobeyed the Navy captain's command was a momentous day indeed. The captain had been a despot from the minute the sails were unfurled, and it really shouldn't have come as any shock when the whole crew mutinied. Something broke inside Kai that day.
That had been ages ago, and since then Kai had become a notorious pirate, Captain of the Imperial Dream. He would have liked to say he was as fair as a pirate could get. Mostly they just took a percentage of goods off the ships they stopped.
Now they were under attack. Kai had heard of this particular crew. They'd quickly risen to fame among the pirate brotherhood, mostly due to the fact that the Luna was manned by a crew of women. The captain, going under the name Cinder, was notorious for the peg leg and hook as well as for the precision of her attacks. She knew exactly how to cripple a ship with minimal cannon fire.
"Stand down, men." He shouted looking for something to use as a flag of truce.
"Come again?" Carswell Thorne, Kai's first mate, shot him a look.
"It's the Luna, Thorne. She'll take what she wants no matter how much we fight. And I'd like to leave this encounter with my life, if you don't mind." Kai pulled out a spyglass and looked over at the other crew. Everyone on board was a woman, just like the rumors said.
Grappling hooks descended and hit the deck with a thud.
Cinder pulled her sword from its sheath at her waist. She'd heard tales of the Imperial Dream, she wanted to see the crew for herself. According to the tales she heard, the captain would only rob the ships they caught. But then she'd seen their flag floating among the burning wreckage of an Artemesian ship. Not that she really blamed them for burning the ship and killing the crew. Levana Blackburn was the queen of that little hamlet and she'd experienced first-hand just how cruel her royal navy could be. They were responsible for the fact that she had a prosthetic hand and leg. Honestly, if it hadn't been for her ship's surgeon, a technically gifted individual by the name of Cress, she'd sport the peg leg and hook most pirates did when they lost a limb. She still had no idea how Cress had rigged the hand and leg to move with Cinder's will, but she had … and it came in handy in instances like these where she boarded another ship.
She stepped onto the deck scanned the crew gathered, at least fifty men strong. Kai would ooze with authority, but so far all she saw were a rag tag collection of misfits. Her eyes caught on two men, easily two of the tallest men onboard. Side by side, defiance dominated their posture. There he is.
"Captain." She nodded.
"Captain Linh, I presume." His arms remained folded across his chest.
"That's right. I must say I've been looking for you for some time." Her lips twitched into a smirk.
"Your reputation precedes you."
"That is wonderful, and here I thought it was because you just didn't like me." Cinder tapped her blade on Kai's shoulder.
"What do you want? We don't have cargo." A vein in his neck thrummed.
"Perhaps she wants one of our dashing sailors." The dark haired man next to Kai winked.
Cinder scowled at him. Of course he'd think that. She'd learned early on in her career that sailors expected her to bat her eyelashes and wilt at the first sign of hardship. "I could kill you—."
"But you won't." Kai interrupted.
"Won't I?" If there was anything Cinder despised, it was being told what she would and would not do.
"No, if the tales I've heard about you are true, you are not without mercy."
"He's right. Actually, why don't you let us go?" The man beside Kai winked. "We can spread the word about how we barely escaped with our lives." His flirty expression infuriated her.
"I'll tell you what." A smirk played on Cinder's lips as she poked Kai in the chest. "Choose one member of your crew to take a flogging, and I'll spare one member for every lash they take."
Kai's face turned pale. "I'll do it—"
"No, no, that wasn't part of the deal." Cinder's smile broadened. "Pick someone else or I'll kill them all."
Kai shuddered as he cast a glance around at the men gathered around them. His mouth opened and closed like a fish. She had him. He wouldn't be able to pick a crewman to take the fall for all of them. He turned back to her, panic in his eyes.
She raised her hand, ready to signal Scarlet to open fire.
He couldn't do it. There was no way he could condemn one of the loyal sailors around him to be flogged to save his own skin. Captain Linh raised her hand … he was going to die with his men.
"I'll do it." Next to him, Thorne's voice broke the silence.
"What are you doing?" Kai hissed.
"How disgustingly heroic of you." She folded her arms. "Why would you volunteer?"
"Because I'm quite attached to being alive, and I'd like to stay that way. You said you'd kill us all if Kai didn't offer someone up. So I'm offering myself." He folded his arms over his chest, mirroring her stance. Captain Linh narrowed her eyes before she turned to the ship at her back.
"Iko!" She barked.
"Yes Captain?" A dark skinned woman with blue braids scurried over the plank between ships. The two women conferred in hushed tones for a moment before the captain turned back to them. She bound their hands behind them. "You two and your tall friend over there follow me."
Kai could understand why she wanted him and Thorne, but Ze'ev? Where was the logic in that?
He moved closer to Thorne once they were on Cinder's ship. "What were you thinking?"
"I was thinking exactly what I said. You wouldn't have been able to pick anyone out to sacrifice. And I quite like being alive. Yeah this is gonna hurt like hell, but it won't kill me." Thorne kept his eyes on the horizon.
He shook a lock of dark hair out of his eyes. "You're an idiot."
"Yeah, I know. You don't think she's gonna make Ze'ev use the cat, do you?" If the two men hadn't known each other as long as they had, Kai wouldn't have thought much of it. But this was Thorne, the set jaw and the stoic look on his face belied how worried he was.
"I don't know, for your sake, I hope not." He knew Thorne could handle most things thrown his way. However Ze'ev was 6'4" of pure muscle. He made a fantastic bo'sun, and he usually handled doling out punishments at sea. If Captain Linh made Ze'ev take the cat, Thorne didn't stand a chance.