By: Vema
I shivered slightly as the ship rocked, wondering at how coldness always filled me, even with the curse. There was no escape from it. I had been cold all my life, the few times I had been warm a fond and unreal memory. I rubbed at my eye, and though I could feel it leaving particles of wood in my flesh, it wasn't feeling as I would once have described it. I simply knew they were there. It wasn't true pain.
I would have welcomed that.
Pintel shifted on the cot beside mine, his breathing just uneven enough that I knew he wasn't asleep, but it fooled the others. I listened to him breath every night. The air felt heavy, and I knew that if I could smell, my nostrils would be filled with the stink of many men. I trembled again, wishing for a blanket and knowing that wouldn't help. I was tired, but I couldn't sleep.
A soft voice came from behind me. "Wot's wrong wif you?"
"Nuffin'." I blinked in the darkness, trying to hold back tears. Apparently the curse only made you unable to feel physical sensation, for I felt the despair of years of torture pressing down on me in that moment, and a despair of a different sort. It was an odd fact that tears never fell from my right eye, as the wood absorbed all the moisture.
"'Ey…don' be like that." Clothing rustled as he shifted again, and his voice was clearer as his face turned to me. "You can talk 'bout it. They're all in la-la land."
"I said, it's nuffin'." I curled in tighter around myself, wishing I could say what I need, knowing it would ruin everything. I couldn't control my voice, my sentences were coming out warbled. "Go ta sleep."
A few moments of silence followed my order. I quietly wished away all emotion, hating the curse yet again.
"Ragetti." The tenderness in that sound made my heart rip open. "Wot is it, mate?"
A tremor wracked my frame, and I desperately tried to hold back a flood. Closing my eyes, I said the only thing that was logical. "I'm…cold."
There was silence, and I waited anxiously for some sort of response. I heard his cot creaking slightly, and then a welcome weight settled behind me, his leg thrown over mine and his arms wrapped around me protectively.
I felt myself breaking and the pieces tumbled down into that embrace, relaxing my head against his shoulder. My body was still cold, but I was warm for the first time in a long while.
~fin