A/N: After careful consideration, I decided to remove my first Pirates of the Caribbean story ("Maybe It's Time for Me to Dream Too") and extensively revise it. This is the result. I hope it will please my readers.
Don't forget to leave constructive criticism for me. It is not only very helpful for future chapters, but it does make me feel good when people take the time to write a little review for me. It also helps me update faster. So please don't forget to hit the little button at the button on your way out.
Title: Lovebearing Storm
Summary: Emotion is weakness—we cannot be rid of it. Desire is reality—we cannot escape it. Love is a storm—we cannot fight it.
Characters/Pairing: Maccus x Lena (OC)
Rating: M – rated for some graphic detail and language, as well as eventual sexual content. Ye have been warned.
Disclaimer: I do not own Pirates of the Caribbean or any affiliated characters. I own my personal characters and the plot of this story.
Chapter 1: Will Ye Serve
The name of the ship was hardly new to her ears. Ever since she was born, she could recall the stories…the old tales, passed down from captain to sailor, from grandfather to father to son…rumors of the plague ship, a vessel that brought only terror and damnation to ship and sailor alike.
It was the stuff of nightmares.
It was the spawn of the darkest, coldest depths of hell.
The captain was cursed, and the crew with him.
Even now, she could hear the voice—his voice, Master's voice. It was a low voice, gravelly and spoken with a throat rasped by years of inhaling thick clouds of grey smoke, slurred by a tongue scarred and mutilated after a 15-year prior encounter with the East India Trading Company. It was a hated voice…though not nearly as much as those which belonged to his following generations.
She could still remember the faces—the skin weather-beaten and worn from harsh winds; the thick, jagged scars of battles fought and victories won; the smears of dirt permanently absorbed into the natural coppery hue of flesh.
But more than that, she remembered sounds—the scrape of metal against metal, the soft gasps of steam rising through the floorboards…the hiss of leather slithering from around a waist. And smells…there were always smells—the sulfur of cannons and gunpowder, mold mixing with steam in the bathhouse, and perhaps the most prominent of all, the musk of a man, the salty smell of sweat on skin.
But now she was surrounded by different sounds, different smells, new to her senses, and the unfamiliarity was welcomed with open arms. The smell of salty skin was stronger now, emitted by flesh completely saturated in sea water, perhaps even down to the very cells. It would hardly be surprising if such was true of this crew; this crew so engulfed by the sea that each and every one of them bore marks of the ocean: barnacles, shells, and small forms of life latched into the skin; strange appendages, mutations of the body that transformed each and everyone of them into the cursed, monstrous beings they were rumored to be.
Pale eyes lifted from the broken and splintered deck she'd been kneeling upon for the last hour. Her shins were protesting, and as she had done so often before—too often, perhaps, for one of her years—she pushed the pain aside, preferring instead to distract herself by looking for the crewman who had brought her up on deck.
For a fleeting moment, she allowed herself to remember the crash. It was difficult to remember everything, even if she had cared enough to try. Recalling details from a mind locked down in a numbed state—a well-practiced defense mechanism—was perhaps a truly impossible task, but still there were some things that had left distinct impressions upon the mind.
There had been no warning; only a sudden explosion of wood and small debris shattered throughout the cabin: large, jagged chunks of the walls thrown in every direction. There had been a sharp pain in her upper arm—shards of glass from the demolished lantern piercing clean through flesh and muscle. And then a steady, unchecked spreading of liquid heat, the mess originating at her collarbone and streaking down exposed flesh from there. She had been sorry to watch the stain spread over her clothes; now they would never be clean again.
Ah, there he was.
Her memories were pushed aside once again as she caught sight of him—a solidly-built, though perhaps a bit stocky, crewman. She supposed at one time he'd had long hair escaping from beneath his hat, but now there were only heavy strands of shells or barnacles hanging down to his shoulders. The pair of chain-shot he'd carried in hand earlier—he'd used both to break down the door—were now latched to his belt, dragging along his thighs with each shuffling step he took.
Two crewmen, dredged up from the depths of the ship, had been forced down on their knees beside her some time ago, and now she became aware of the erratic, sniveling gasps coming from the man on her left. The other, on her right, was putting up a façade of determination, of resilience and defiance. She was not fooled. This display of strength would be shattered all too easily—she could see it in the way his eyes twitched and avoided lingering on the crewmen for too long.
"You stay close and keep quiet, you hear?" this man hissed in her ear. She fought down a shudder of disgust, an urge to lash out and act upon violent desires that had remained suppressed for too long, "Stay silent, girl. If you don't—"
"Quiet, maggot!" the command was followed by a sharp blow to the face, delivered by one of the Dutchman's crew, and once again she fought down an urge: the urge to smile, to derive twisted satisfaction from the punishment. Still, her eyes only blinked and fell down once more, this time to her torso. All too aware of the eyes lingering shamelessly upon her flesh, stark white even in the flickering glow of lanterns and bare from the waist up, her body shifted, trying to shield herself from leering eyes. Behind her, both wrists twisted in the coarse rope binding her hands, trying to find any weakness in the knot. There was none; the crewman who had bound her knew what he was doing.
A sharp thunk echoed across a silent deck, followed by a softer, nearly inaudible sound, then thunk once more. Her eyes did not move, allowing instead her ears to serve their purpose. The footsteps, though she wondered very much which one was actually a human foot, drew closer, each thunk growing louder with each step. Finally, they came to a deliberate halt, something strong and unyielding scraping against the wood.
A voice, this one new to her ears, spoke. It was definitely a man's voice, but there was a cruel hiss wrapped around each word that doubted the very humanity of the speaker.
"Three still alive." The voice stated, cold and calculating with no expressed regard to the dead or alive.
Thunk—thunk—thunk. Three steps forward, and now she could see the legs—if they could be called such—of this newcomer. The limbs shifted, though they did not move closer yet. And then another voice addressed the three survivors, speaking with the authority of a captain, heavily laced with an accent she could only recall hearing once or twice before, namely from sailors who had run afoul of Master's shores and were pleading for mercy, just before finding they would receive none.
But this voice, though it shared a native tongue with the figures of her memory, was not whimpering or begging. This was a voice who had listened to pleas for mercy, and more likely than not, had granted none.
"Who among you can be named captain?"
On her left, the whimpers and sobs resurfaced with a vengeance; on her right, under a gaze which she could imagine cold and demanding, the figure began to quiver, the façade shattered with mere words.
Thunk! A sharp step forward, voice raised, "I said, who among you can be named captain?" thunk—thunk, he moved toward her left; the sniveling sobs grew louder, nearly shrill.
Finally, her head lifted, allowing her eyes to look upon a face that haunted the words of all sailors across the seven seas, feared by even the most bloodthirsty of them. Numerous tentacles hung as a strange beard across the face, splayed down over the chest, twisting and sliding over one another with their own intentions. She would have permitted herself to be intrigued had the situation been different.
"The captain has moved on, sir."
Her voice was strong enough to get his attention, yes—stronger than perhaps she felt in this moment—but a feminine voice among a crew of men was enough to attract the attention of any ears. The captain turned sharply, the anger of his question going unanswered fading from his expression, replaced with intrigue. Thunk—thunk, he stepped back over to her, leaning forward a bit. "You said what?"
"The captain has moved on, sir." She repeated, her eyes meeting his with little hesitation. "You'll find his body in the cabin, or you could just look at my clothes and judge for yourself whether or not he could have survived."
Dark eyes swept over her clothes, red and stiff from the impressive stain stretched across garment and flesh alike. Seeming satisfied with what he found, the captain moved back to her left, eyeing the whimpering man with blatant amusement.
"Tell me, sailor…do you fear death?" his voice was little more than a hiss, and the man's body wracked with trembles.
A cold breeze flitted over the ship, and she could not resist the cold that shook her body. Lifting her eyes once more, she spoke. "Seeing as he won't answer that question until he stops shaking," her voice continued to sound stronger, braver than she felt, "could one of your crew untie my hands, sir? I'd like to compose myself, if you please."
The intrigue returned, even more apparent than before, as he looked back at her. "There be no need to stand on ceremony or impress my crew." He stated, though his tone was not yet dismissive of her request.
"Though I may not have been raised as a lady would," she answered, "I would like to present myself with the decency of one, whether for your audience or for the afterlife."
Something that looked very much like a smile curved a lipless mouth, and with a short, brief gesture from his hand—a hand with one finger replaced by a thick tentacle—a crewman shuffled forward with a blade, slicing the rope clean through and freeing her wrists at last. Though it was a temptation to show relief, to rub the burns out of her wrists, this was not a right but a graciously granted privilege. Swiftly, she laced her bodice back together, then returned her hands to her lap.
"Thank you, sir." She spoke with a polite, grateful nod.
The captain was in front of her once again, looking at her carefully. "You be far too young to sail these seas." He stated quietly. "What purpose would the captain have for you on his ship?"
"My purpose is not to tie a sail or steer a vessel." She answered quietly. "The captain's need for me was a more private matter."
"Filthy whore." The man to her right spat, his tone intended for her ears only. Yet no sooner had the insult passed his lips than a large claw—an appendage to replace the captain's left arm and hand—clasped around his throat, holding tight while air escaped lungs in short, desperate little spurts.
"I don't believe your opinion was invited." The words were carried on nothing more than a cold hiss. After observing the man's frantic attempts to breathe for a little longer, he released him, a darkly satisfied expression on his face.
His eyes returned to hers and found the gaze still steady, as though waiting for him to look at her once again. "Tell me…" he murmured thoughtfully, "What opinion do you hold of your mates?"
She blinked, somewhat surprised by the question. "I am but a slave, sir…they are not my mates, but extensions of my master."
He nodded, still looking expectant of her answer. "But you must hold some opinion of them, do you not?"
A moment passed in silence, as though his crew shared his anticipation of her response. She felt two additional pairs of eyes on her—one accusing and degrading, the other terrified with the gaze focused solely on her lips, waiting for the words to pass.
The silence, the responsibility weighed on her mind, on her thoughts, this moment that seemed to stretch nearly an eternity. She was a very good liar—one employed as she had been needed such skills as a survival mechanism. And she could lie now just as easily; recite these well-memorized words as she'd done many times before. But if her fate was to be no different than those of her fellow prisoners, then what use were false truths here?
"They are men." She spoke quietly, but each word was strong in its own right and deliberately chosen. "Men who speak with vulgar, unchecked tongues and touch with crude, filthy hands. And perhaps even that could be forgiven if they had something else to offer in the services of manning a ship. But their souls are weak, sir…weak and useless."
The smile twisting his features could only be described as cruelly satisfied, and perhaps there was a trace of awe, pride even. With a dignified air, he straightened and turned to a man standing beside him, one who had retained some of his human features and yet was easily the most unsettling profile among the lot with elongated, clawed appendages replacing the fingers of his left hand, and a skull reshaped and twisted from that of human being to hammerhead shark, complete with a row of jagged teeth protruding from his lower lip. He looked to be one in charge of the others, save for the captain—would she be correct to think him the first mate?
"The lady has spoken." The captain said with a sweeping gesture of his clawed hand. "To the depths with them."
A bout of dark, cackling laughter spread throughout the crew as they descended on the sailors. Her eyes watched with a detached, though perhaps twisted, sense of intrigue as blades rose to tender, vulnerable flesh of bared throats. A sharply executed motion—one she suspected to be well-practiced—and both bodies slumped, only briefly before they were heaved carelessly into the crashing waves.
Another moment passed, with the crew's attention fixated on the captain. She could see one of the sailors fingering his blade almost hungrily, and though she could not see his eyes, she was certain they were lingering on her.
Thunk—thunk—thunk. The captain stood over her, looking down as though observing a strangely fascinating subject. He shifted in place, and then finally addressed her. "Stand."
Obeying this particular command was all but second-nature to her, and she would perhaps allow herself to imagine he was impressed with the way she stood straight, at attention for his inspection. She could feel his eyes studying her, though not nearly in the same way she was accustomed. He was most assuredly looking at her body, but not as men before had. If anything, she felt her body was being compared to that of the other crewmen. If he was sizing her up against his crew—imposing, strong figures against that of a girl barely out of childhood, with a body fit for a dancer, not a sailor—she would be joining her fellows very soon.
"You definitely be young…and it doesn't look like you've been fed an honest meal in your life," the captain noted, eyes lingering on her thin waist, "and you most definitely haven't ever helped man a ship, nor seem cut out for the work." He looked at her carefully. "Might be an act of charity for me to let you join the others. So tell me…do you fear death?"
She kept her eyes steady, not allowing herself to show the fear she felt with every fiber of her being. "Death is nothing but a new beginning, sir." Her voice was quiet, respectful. "If a new beginning to life could erase the memories of the past, what is there for me to fear?"
Now she was certain of it—awe and intrigue all over the captain's features. His head nodded, tentacles drifting lazily over his chest. "Well said." He noted quietly. His voice seemed softer in nature with those two words, but with his next, he had resumed his role once again. "Well then, lass, you have a choice before you. Take your chances in the afterlife," he nodded to the waves, "or accept a new beginning with my crew. 100 years before the mast." his voice lowered, as though these words were to be meant for her ears only.
"Will ye serve?"