Rating: T for violence, language, alcohol use & romance (kissing… hugging… googly eyes… the horror!)

Disclaimer: I don't own Treasure Planet, OR the lyrics used in the chapter openings. I just think it's awesome and want to explore John Silver's past. Particularly in the *cough* romance department. E-hem… anyways… I don't own Treasure Planet or it's characters, but I do own my kick-butt OC. Feel free to write your own stories using her, just give credit to moi. Arigatou.

"No light, no light in your bright blue eyes.

I never knew daylight could be so violent.

A revelation in the light of day––

You can't choose what stays and what fades away."

-No Light, No Light, by Florence + the Machine

There's something beautiful about the vast expanse that is space.

Most of the time, people wax eloquently about things like the moons orbiting their planets, or the brilliancy of the stars–– even their sun.

I won't deny how incredible they are. But it's space that holds them.

The vastness that is space makes you feel small. Like a single quark of an atom within an entire being. It's beautiful and horrible and very, very humbling.

I see space every time I close my eyes. I want to be out there. I want to be cradled in its vast expanse.

Breathing the night air in and out in one colossal sigh, I open my eyes and look back up into the sky.

I'd like to say it's waiting for me, but space waits for no being.

I have to take it in my hands.

"Eversly? You up here?"

Tristan appears on the rooftop. His too-long blonde hair sways in the evening breeze.
"Yeah, come on up."

He lies down next to me, his hands tucked behind his head as he stares up at the stars. "I thought your mom didn't want you to be out at night anymore after what happened last week."

"What she doesn't know shouldn't kill her. Besides, last week was an anomaly."

"Anomaly?"

"It was a strange occurrence. I'll be certain it doesn't happen again."

"You can't just think away things, Eversly. The world doesn't work like that."

I shrug. "Why can't it?"

"It just can't."

We lay in silence together. He's my best friend. We've lived next to each other since we were born. We've shared each other's dreams of space since grade school.

"The raids are getting worse, Eversly. You know they take no prisoners."

"Then me sitting on the roof isn't going to make any difference. If they come, they come."

He shrugs. "I guess so. It's a good thing it was a few towns over any ways."

We pause for a while, looking out at space and listening to each other's breathing.

"Why do you think they're attacking us?"

"Who knows? Do pirates need a reason to attack common villages?"

"It just seems strange," he says. "Odd that they'd be so riled. I wonder if the council recently passed anti-pirating laws."

I shrug. "I don't know. The council never tells us anything."

Tristan turns onto his side, his head still cradled in one hand. He looks me over with his pale mint-green eyes. He reaches out and tucks some hair behind my tapered ears.

"Sometimes I forget you're not completely human," he murmurs.

I smile, letting him catch a glimpse of my fangs. "You know I just want to fit in."

"I know." He smiles back and touches my forehead. "I wish you didn't want to."

"Want to what?"

"Fit in."

I shrug. "It's uncomfortable being the only non-human in a village of humans."

"I know. But you shouldn't have to hide who you are. Plus, you have purple skin. If it's not obvious that way…"

I turn away from him and look back up at the sky. He doesn't understand. He's my best friend and he doesn't understand.

I've known Tristan my entire life. We were born together–– our mothers had been best friends.

My father had saved Tristan's father's life, which makes us almost kin. When someone saves your life, you're bound to him or her. It's something that not even our people understand. By our people, I mean my non-human father's side. Those people.

Some people say it's a spiritual connection, like a linking of the souls. When one of us saves someone, or we are saved by someone else, our hearts are bound together until we satisfy our debt through service or saving their life in turn.

To repay his debt, Tristan's father brought my father here, to begin a new life in peace.

"What're you thinking about?"

"The past."

"Which part?"

"Our fathers."

He's quiet for a bit before he says, "It's weird to think that we're kin without being kin."

I shrug. "Not really."

"To you. Your mind just works differently."

"I guess so."

He glances out across the rooftops of the other houses. Smoke wafts from their chimneys and dim lights flicker in the windows. In the distance, the docks reach out over the cliff-face with their built-in lights glowing faintly.

"You want to go shooting tomorrow morning?" I ask.

"Why not?" he says with a smile. "I just love getting beaten."

"But it won't be a competition."

"With you, everything is a competition. Good night, Ever."

"Night, Tris."

He stands up and, swaying slightly, tiptoes across the roof back to his house. He turns back to look at me. "Six?"

"In the morning?"

"Yeah. Before school."

I shrug. "Why not. I'll bite."

He grins, then grips the edge of his house's roof and swings through his open window.

The cold bites at my bare toes as the wind picks up. I lay out, staring at the night sky until my eyes grow heavy and I drift off into the world of dreams.

I wake up as a scream pierces the darkness. Bolting upright, I look out over our town. The bright orange glow of flames quickly flares in one of the streets. Low, grumbled shouts and arguing voices push away the original silence.

Lights come on in almost every house, including mine. Front doors open and men holding torches, their pistols jammed into their pockets, or brandished in one hand, many with their wives and children peeking out from behind them, look out into the street.

"Eversly?" I hear from just below me. "Eversly Carson! Get off that damn roof!"

I stand up and dash to the edge, then swing into my open window.

"I told you not to––"

"I'm sorry," I say quickly. "There's a fire. We have to hurry."

"You're not going anywhere. Let the men-folk take care of this."

"I can shoot a pistol better than any of them, except Papa. Please––"

"Hush. You're a young woman, Eversly. You need to leave the fighting to the males, who're better suited to it. You know I don't mind you practicing and learning to shoot, but war isn't kind to women. I don't––"

"You just don't want me to get hurt. I understand. But I'm––"

"End of discussion, Eversly," my mother says, her quiet voice breaking with fury.

I glance at the pistol my father gave me four years ago for my fifteenth birthday. Its handle sticks out from under my pillow.

She glances at it too, then says sharply, "If you use that, then I'll have to confiscate it."

"Mom! There might be pirates! Raiders! If it is, then you won't have to! We'll all be dead!"

She purses her lips. "Your father will take care of it."

I hang my head and look away. She takes me into her arms and kisses the top of my head. The purple glow of my skin contrasts against the pale white of hers.

"I love you, Ever. Forever."

"I know, Mom," I murmur.

"Now, don't leave this house. Understand?"

I nod. I don't plan on staying. There's no way I'm staying behind and letting them torch my village and murder our friends.

"Good."

She closes the door on the way out.

I glance to my open window, then hurry to my closet. I slip out of my pajamas and into some regular clothes. I jam my feet into my worn brown boots.

Grabbing my pistol on the way out, I throw myself out of my window and through Tristan's open one.

He's not in his room. His sock drawer, where he keeps his blaster, is still open and his bedroom door swings on its hinges.

I walk out of his room and stride down their upstairs hallway. Sliding down the stairs, I reach their kitchen. Tristan's mother holds a pistol as she wraps her arms around Tristan's younger siblings.

She glances up and her eyes widen. "Eversly? What's––"

I turn tail and dash out their front door. I hear shouting and the shots of blasters being fired. A woman screams somewhere nearby.

There's no time. They've come for us this time.

I take my blaster off its safety setting and creep across the street, and then dash down an alleyway.

Hauling myself up the side of a building, I pull myself onto the rooftop and look down.

The house below me creaks and fire roars. Adrenaline jolts my system as I realize was was stupid enough to jump onto the top of a burning house. As I run to try to get out of the smoke and onto a more safe home, I take aim at the nearest being I don't recognize.

Its green skin and tentacles pulse once before it explodes, spattering blue, gel-like blood across the street.

I see a few people look up, but I keep running. I hear the shot of a blaster and feel the burn of its plasma biting into the side of my arm. The feeling dies into a tingling numbness as I bring my hand to it.

I let go of it and lower myself down towards the roof edge. I don't know if I can support myself completely with both arms, but I definitely can't do it with just one.

Gritting my teeth from the pulling of injured muscles, I grab the gutter's edge and swing down as fast as I can to get it over with. I push through a window and tumble to the floor, rolling before I push myself up.

My arm sears with pain like I'm pressing hot coals to my skin. I glance down at it and have to look away. The nick is shallow, but ragged and slowly oozing purple blood. Already my shirt-sleeve is stained with a circle of violet.

I look around for some kind of rag to stop the blood-flow. Tearing open the drawer nearest to me, I pull out what I assume to be a man's undershirt. I can't confirm how sterile it is, but it'll have to do, especially since I'd rather use an undershirt than a dress shirt, which would be cleaner.

Quickly ripping a long swath from it before I fold another shred of it into a square pad, I press the square to my arm, then put the long piece between my arm and my chest.

Holding one end between my teeth, I struggle to wrap the other end around it and tie a tight knot.

The smell of smoke has crept up on me and I can almost hear the inferno in the house two down from this one. I hear more blaster fire, and the ruckus of battle continuing.

I dash through the house, my feet pounding against the worn, wood floors. Down the stairs. Across the living room. Out the front door.

Into a pirate.

Its soft, cream-colored flesh almost melts as someone fires a shot through it. It pools into a puddle on the ground and I jump over it.

I see my father, in a fist-fighting brawl with a tall and broad-shouldered humanoid. My father's normally purple skin is violent, midnight purple as he bares his fangs and bites into the man.

He keeps his jaws closed, so when the humanoid rips his arm away, his fangs rip across the flesh, leaving giant lesions.

Suddenly, I'm pushed from behind and tumble to the ground. Quickly turning to look up, a gigantic olive-gray alien takes a step backwards.

I roll out of the way before his giant foot crushes my legs.

Pushing myself to my feet, I take aim with my pistol and fire at the alien my father is fighting. It goes straight through what I presume to be its head.

It turns to look at me, and my father draws his knife and rips it through its torso, letting its innards flow and flop onto the pavement. It slowly falls to the ground.

My father runs towards me, his long, thin legs making it easy to reach me.

"Eversly. Go. Now! Go protect your mother!"

"But Papa, I––"

A blaster fires and it's like the world slows. My father's eyes grow wide and he looks down at me. He glances to his torso, his white shirt quickly staining with violet blood.

"Papa?"

He smiles faintly before his eyes roll into his head and he falls backwards, his head cracking against the pavement. A trickle of blood stains his now white face with purple.

I feel my blood boil. I see red. My skin is black. A tar black, burning so hot my clothes smoke. With a scream of fury, I rush forward into battle, towards the pirate who just murdered my father.

Before I know it, blood stains my hands. The only way I can tell is because it drips from my fingers and stains my shirt.

Then, I realize I am alone. I breathe heavily, slumped in the entryway of a house. The street is dark. I smell smoke and burning plaster. My pistol is missing. I look around wildly for it, then dash up.

They killed my father. Those sons of spaceport floozies killed my father.

I sprint down the street, past some of the bodies.

Stop.

I glance back at one of the bodies. Too-long blonde hair. Glassy blue-green eyes that stare up at the sky like he had just done a few hours ago.

Tristan lies face up in the street in a pool of his own blood. It coils around his stomach and head, staining his hair a disgusting burgundy-brown. His eyes reflect the stars he had always wanted to visit.

A scream lies at the front of my mouth, but refuses to leave as I fall to my knees at his head. My body curls over his as I sob into his frozen chest. His woolen scarf still smells like him, despite all the blood.

I take the gun he has gripped in his still-warm hands.

I'll kill them all.

My ears soon hear the screams of the others in our town. I hear blaster fire. I stand. Scarlet blood stains my pants and shirt.

Brandishing the gun, I sprint to the main road, towards the gunshots that still ring out in the night. The pale sun peeks onto our world, as though afraid to shed light on the destruction of our village.

I shoot the first pirate in sight. The shot sails through his head and green blood drips down from the entry wound. He quickly topples to the ground and his blood drips down the pavement. I aim and fire again. There are no more screams. Just the crackle of flames. The next pirate falls. I can't control myself. I can't help but kill the men who took my father and my friend away from me.

I've killed three of them by the time they turn on me. Then, I run. I turn and run as fast as I can.

My lungs burn with the effort, but I keep running. I want to die with Tristan. Next to him. So that we can share the blood we never shared in real life.

Pirates–– especially raiders–– don't take prisoners.

I hear the blast before I feel the shattering pain in my leg. My knee crumples underneath my weight. I bite my lower lip to prevent them from hearing me scream.

No longer able to walk, I drag myself closer to his body. I can see it lying just a few feet in front of me.

One of them steps on my right arm, grinding it into the pavement. It shatters like a milk bottle under his boot, crunching and quickly going numb before it feels like a thousand knives rake the inside of my arm. I almost scream and instead grip my bottom lip with my teeth. I taste blood and I know I've split my lip. Tears roll down my cheeks as I try to pull myself just a bit farther.

They laugh as I drag my body along the ground with my one good arm. I finally reach Tristan, then grip onto his scarf–– the one his mother knitted for him so long ago. The wool has the scent of smoke and his family woven in with the thread.

Suddenly, everything goes black. My cheek presses into the blood-soaked pavement.

So this is what death feels like.

I can barely see through the haze that encompasses my vision. Everything is blurry, but I can smell blood, some kind of latex and something akin to antiseptic.

A hospital? My eyes open a bit further. I can see a few people through the haze. My eyes are so heavy. The room is dark, except for the huge lights that hang over my head. I try to sit up, but I'm so dizzy.

I can't move.

Voices break through the silence. They're muffled, but I can just make out their tones and a few of the words.

A mask goes over my face and I breathe in. Then out.

My eyelids grow heavy again. I don't want to go back to sleep. I want to enjoy death, if this is actually what death is.

I try to sit up again, but can't. I turn my head to the side. There's a bronze leg lying across a stand. Wires dangle from the end that would plug into a hip.

The afterlife makes no sense.

I can't fight whatever I'm breathing in through the mask. My eyes slowly slide shut and my entire body relaxes.

The darkness returns.

Why am I not dead?

I wake, nestled into the sheets of a bed. The whole room rocks. Slowly.

My arm has a metal brace on it, but has obviously been mostly healed and put back together. My head pounds as I try to sit up. A heaviness pervades my every movement and thought.

"Ah, ye' be awake, lass?" says a voice from across the room. "Me apologies on behalf of those bullheaded idiots. They obviously don't know t'not hit a lass that hard."

"Excuse me?" I demand. Then, I remember.

Tristan. Dead.

Father, and no doubt Mother. Dead.

I can't move the grief is so crushing. Why couldn't I have died? Why couldn't they have just shot me and left me for dead?

I want to die. I want to die so badly that it feels like my organs are ready to heave themselves out of the shell that is my body.

A wave of nausea jumbles through me and I try to hold onto the bile in my gut, even though I know I should let it out.

I turn away from the voice, slowly easing myself to no longer face him.

"The name's Silver. John Silver–– and y' should tell me your name, or else y' be called by your new nickname."

Tears roll down my face. I hate them all. They will pay for what they did. They will––

"Lass? What be your name?"

I think.

"Go to hell, pirate."

"That be an int'restin' name, lass. Never heard o' the name Gotohellpirate. It be a family name, or––"

"Tris," I murmur. "Tris Eversly."

I turn over and look at him. He's tall and broad-shouldered, with thin, triangular ears. His skin is a dark tan. With a bandana tied over his head, a hat in his lap and an earring through his left ear, he looks exactly how I expected a pirate to look.

"So, your kind does have eyes like the stories we hears."

I blink. My eyes are bright yellow with tiny slits for pupils. I realize I'm blinking with my third eyelid when I can still see him through my blinks.

I consciously blink with my outer lids.

"You be strangely silent for a woman."

"You killed my family and my friends," I reply, trying to bottle up my emotions like my father always could. "And you wonder why I'm silent."

He turns his head to the side. "Wha––? You think…" He looked away. "That weren't me crew, lass."

"You lie, pirate."

He scowls and clenches his jaw. "We may be pirates, but we're not trained for that kind o' destruction."

"Explain," I demand. "My family is dead. I have a right to know why."

"They don't tell you about the wars your planet be fightin' in?"

"What wars? We're a peaceful people."

He rests his face against his hands before looking back up at me. "Soldiers did that to your village. Not pirates. Pirates are the ones who get blamed, since we come and take the things what gets left behind. We're scavengers. Not murderers. In general, that is."

I frown. "I can't trust you."

"Don't believe me then. I figured you would've noticed that they be wearing the same uniform, but that's all right. Who would––"

I tune him out as I think and remember. I hadn't noticed it. The same pistols. The same brown and scarlet jackets. Same boots.

How could I have been so stupid?

I close my eyes and rest back into the pillows. Then, I notice the dull pain gradually increasing in my left leg, just at the hip joint.

There's a sharp jab, then it returns to being dull. It pulsates and slowly grows. I scowl and pull back the covers slightly to touch my hip.

Metal. Bright, shining bronze. Down my entire leg to the tips of my toes. My eyes widen in horror.

"What have you done to me?" I demand. I try to make my leg move, and it does. It bends at the knee slightly. It's heavy and takes effort. I turn to him, my skin quickly growing dark from fear and anger. "What have you done?"

Anger briefly flashes in his eyes, before it's replaced with pity. "Do you really want to know?"

I don't want to listen to him. But I know I have to. I have to know.

Why didn't he leave me for dead?

"Here. Drink this. It's supposed to help the pain." He hands a cup to me.

It looks and smells like regular water, so I down it. Almost immediately, the pain begins to fade.