Yay, another long chapter!
Most of you were correct in your guess that the ship belonged to Sydney :3 It wasn't exactly hard to figure out, but I had to leave some kind of cliffhanger last chapter ^^
Also, today marks the ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY of Common Motives! The first chapter was published last year on 5/5/2013, and although today is 5/4/2014, it is close enough. :)
With that said, enjoy!
Chapter 25: (In) Stability
Jewel had never been more relieved in her life to hear the words "drop the anchor" bellowed from the lungs of her Captain, almost immediately followed by the thudding footsteps of Samantha as she ran to execute the command and the even louder thud of the anchor itself as gravity dragged it down. As usual, she felt rather helpless at the current moment, but like she had told herself many, many times before, there were certain tasks that muscular people like Samantha were just plain out better at accomplishing.
Not that it mattered now, she knew, because they were finally back.
Just like a normal pirate crew would, they had returned to Skull Island, the infamous haven of the Resistance, after one of their 'daring, adventurous quests'. It was what a great majority of the pirates trained by the Resistance did, for this was how important information and locations were relayed, released into the massive network that they had subconsciously established.
The swashbuckler was glad that they, for once, were going along with the majority. The majority was solid, the majority was stable.
She liked stable, she needed stable.
Sydney descended the short (but steep) staircase from the helm to the main deck, hands on her hips as she turned to her crew members. She was satisfied, pleased with what they had accomplished, as Jewel could tell from the absence of tensing in her brow.
"All right, we have about three days before we plan to set sail again. I'll take care of any and all information transfer, so you two can go wherever you please." Jewel nodded, pleased to hear it. No tension for three days. No pressure for three days. She would enjoy it greatly.
The privateer's voice soon faded into an unreadable drone inside of Jewel's head, and the petite swashbuckler was only slightly aware of Sydney's words of dismissal before she had subconsciously turned around and followed Samantha down the gangplank and out of the docks before they parted ways, with Samantha presumably heading to a fight hall to temporarily quench her never-ending thirst for adrenaline and action and Jewel to the small house that the three of them owned on the island, although it was more of a massive storage shed than anything else.
She pushed open the door silently, surprised to find little to no dust in the air and a substantial lack of cobwebs compared to the last time she had entered the building.
Inferring that she would be alone for the duration of the three days, since Samantha was much too energetic to ever sit down quietly and Sydney would be 'relaying the information' – hopefully.
Instantly, Jewel chastised herself for still holding onto her doubt, her nudging suspicions of her Captain.
You'd think, she thought to herself bitterly, that after all we've been through, I would be a little more grateful, just like a decent person would.
If it wasn't for that same privateer that she suspected, if it wasn't for Sydney, she would have never made a friend in her life, she would never have experienced camaraderie and the thrill of those risky situations that the pirates of the Resistance always managed to get themselves into.
It hadn't been that long ago, really.
Two years, maybe three.
She had been born In Mooshu, to two oppressive parents who were both human masters of medicine. Although it was an honorable profession indeed, at most times it had seemed like they loved their jobs more than they loved her.
Jewel had never seen how they could bear it, sitting inside all day over boiling beakers and flasks, never seeing the sunlight once as they frantically put together every imaginable concoction and antidote for every imaginable aliment known.
One would presume, as this was Mooshu, after all, that Jewel would be educated in the family trade from a young age, but no, that had never happened, not to her. Her parents were firm believers that if you wished for something to be done correctly, the only way to do it was to do it yourself.
Often times, Jewel had wondered if it had ever struck them that they were not immortal.
However, she did not complain. It would have been absolute torture for her, working day in and day out with her parents with chemicals and plants that she did not understand, being forced to marry another master of medicine, and eventually, carrying out the profession for the rest of her days.
Instead, her father, having been the nephew of a precarious assassin of the Resistance, trained her in the usage of the daggers and sword, teaching her how to be as agile and as quick as a hummingbird, yet as deadly as a viper.
Her job would be to guard. She was to guard the massive, stone-made storage vault right outside her house, for it was the vault in which they housed every known solution to the many diseases that crawled around the Spiral, and some could not be found anywhere else.
She found it cruel, at times, to strike down those who were sick, dying, and delirious with desperation for the sake of keeping Mooshu's secrets of medicine, but at times of war, none could be trusted, she was told.
And then there was that one encounter.
It had just been like all of the other times, at first, the footsteps outside, the rattling, jolting noises of attempted entry, and Jewel, silently waiting inside on the rafter beams of the roof, tensed, readied her two diamond-shaped daggers. Although it was highly improbable, as the force behind the pounding became greater, Jewel couldn't help but fear that they had been discovered by the enemy.
The pounding and rattling had gotten increasingly louder and more frequent, and eventually, the intruder had forced entry, hacking apart the wooden door with unexpected ferocity, and leaped in in a cloud of debris and dust.
But, much to Jewel's surprise, it was not a soldier of the dreaded clockwork Armada, like she had almost expected, come to destroy one of Mooshu's only advantages.
It was a human.
A human girl, perhaps about fifteen or sixteen, judging from her appearance.
She was much bigger than Jewel, with strong facial features, dark hair, an aggressive posture, and unusually muscular legs. The handle of a massive poleaxe was gripped in her right hand, and instantly, Jewel had felt a jolt of fear and apprehension.
This intruder was dangerous. Truly dangerous.
However, her fear was quickly shoved aside, just like she had practiced, and the slight girl jumped down to the floor, landing without a single sound. Even so, she still felt uneasy – this intruder was not like the others.
This one was animalistic. She could smell her out, and no amount of silence could hide her, Jewel feared.
Quietly, stealthily, she crept up behind the other girl's figure, her daggers raised, and she swung-
But the grey eyed intruder had turned long before that.
With a roar, the other girl spun herself around, using the momentum to power her own swing, her own swing of that massive, heavy axe blade.
The flat side of the blade hit Jewel, instantly knocking the wind out of her slender frame and sending her flying against the stone wall, her head spinning from the impact of her skull against the granite as her fingers fumbled across the ground next to her, frantically searching until they managed to wrap themselves around the handle of one of the daggers.
And just in time, it seemed, for just then, her opponent charged at her, eyes clouded with rage, all muscles in her body tensed, like a bull would at a scarlet cape, and Jewel sliced at the air in front of her, a desperate move to regain her upper hand.
A splatter of crimson and a stifled groan told Jewel that she had struck a hit, and it was confirmed when she looked up. The other girl, not having dared to drop her poleaxe, cradled her left forearm to her chest, the blood staining her black sleeve a strange shade of maroon.
Jewel was quick to act again, given the opportunity, and she delivered several short, but sharp jabs to the intruder's body, once at the side of her waist, once right underneath her acromion, and a last one to the base of her neck. Just as expected, the girl seemed surprised at first, for her blows did not seem dangerous, but what the grey-eyed intruder would soon realize was that the feeling had somehow disappeared, vanished completely from the tips of her fingers, her wrists, and now, her forearms.
The poleaxe clattered to the ground with a thud, abandoned for now, and she scuttled away as Jewel aimed slash after stab at her, dodging left and right frantically, as well as aiming the occasional kick at the dagger-wielder's torso. Her kicks were powerful, she knew, she had the lower body power of a horse, but the lithe, nimble girl was far more agile than she was.
Eventually, her movements tired and slowed, and Jewel, honing in for the kill, delivered a slash to her torso, and the other did not bother to hold in her bellow of pain as she fell, landing on her back, Jewel leaning in to hold the tip of her dagger directly at the hollow of the intruder's throat.
And so, in the end, this was just routine.
And so, like always, she had fulfilled her task.
And so, just as every trespasser before this one, she would finish her-
" No, WAIT! Don't kill me! I need your help!"
Well, that had never happened before.
Jewel did not lower her dagger, but she did raise her eyebrows in an expression of inquiry.
"Really, now? Breaking into my vault wasn't exactly the smartest way to ask for it." The girl on the ground let out a scoff of impatience at Jewel's remark.
"My shipmate's sick. I don't know what's wrong with her, I don't know how it happened, and I don't know how to fix it. "
"And so you thought you'd come crashing in here?"
"Well, knocking wouldn't exactly have worked."
Jewel internally agreed, as that statement was indeed accurate. She had been taught to never open the doors, not even for her parents, as she had always been the one to transfer medicine in and out of the vault.
"Please...she really needs your help…"
Jewel's grip on the knife slackened. She didn't appear to be dangerous, this 'intruder'.
She could be tricking you.
However, even with her strong doubt, Jewel could not help but notice the opportunity in this girl's request.
Shipmate, she said. Judging by her clothing, she's a member – a pirate – of the Resistance.
The legendary Resistance, a group of individuals who led a life much different from hers. They took risks, they went on daring adventures, they lived off of action, adrenaline, and victory. It seemed like an exciting life, especially to Jewel, who had been tasked with guarding a stone vault day in and day out with no sign of an end. She was quite sick of it, after so long.
Jewel lowered her dagger.
. . . . . .
The grey-eyed girl – who had introduced herself as Sydney Underhill, a privateer of the Resistance – had ended up leading Jewel to the nearby docks, where a massive ship was stationed, waiting for her. The entire body of the ship had been painted black, with the massive sails – billowing folds of black and grey – bearing a crossed axe and sword.
It had a presence, just like Sydney.
Not necessarily fear – inspiring, but merely commanding.
The petite girl climbed the gangplank up to the main deck, attempting to keep pace with Sydney's long strides as they continued to a staircase that would lead below decks. Sydney took a sharp left turn then, revealing a short hallway with two doors on each side.
Cabins…?
Jewel's guess was correct. Suddenly taking on a much more cautious demeanor, Sydney lightly rapped the first door to the left with her knuckles, putting her ear to the door immediately after. After a few seconds, she pushed the door open, revealing a small, but compatible room containing a box bed and a table, on which were strewn various pieces of heavy armor and weaponry.
The girl on the bed was of a much larger build than Sydney was, and had she been standing upright, Jewel would have been terrified, but instead, she was curled up on her side, her freckled, fair-skinned face clearly displaying an expression of exhaustion.
"Sam? You awake?"
The girl on the bed – 'Sam' – cracked her eyelids open, her light blue eyes hazy and unfocused as she looked around lazily.
"Yeah…now I am."
"Well, it's about time." Sydney stepped to the side, motioning to Jewel. "This is Jewel. Jewel Zabra. She's going to fix you." Samantha didn't speak after that, she merely gave a lazy thumbs-up before letting her hand flop back to her side.
And from there, Jewel had examined Samantha, immediately rushing back to her vault when she realized that the buccaneer had been infected with a rare remaining strand of Monquistan Flu - one that, if not treated, could become life-threatening. Luckily, after the Spiral-wide outbreak of it that occurred about a decade and a half ago, Jewel's parents had, naturally, taken it upon themselves to do everything in their power in order to prevent such a catastrophe from occurring again.
She had never performed such an act of charity, of selflessness before – it felt different to her to help another simply for the sake of it.
Not necessarily bad, but different nevertheless.
And she would later find that it was the best decision she had made in her life – for immediately afterwards, Sydney extended an offer to her to become a member of the crew of her ship, the Grand Fife.
It seemed way too surreal for Jewel, the way everything fell together, the way everything just seemed to happen.
The constant camaraderie, the thrill and excitement that she had always dreamed of, the intricate instructions and training that she had received at Skull Island, the unbreakable bonds between her, Samantha Hawkins, and Captain Sydney Underhill.
She had been awestruck, awestruck at how, in a matter of three weeks, they had become as close as sisters.
Sisters in arms, Sydney had once called them.
And how dare I be so selfish, how dare I be so skeptical, especially after she has already proven to me countless times that I have no reason to be.
Now, in the present time, Jewel wanted to smash her head against a wall, she wanted to beat the doubts out of her head. She hated the way she thought, she hated the way she immediately saw the faults, the disadvantages in every opportunity, every object, no matter how bright or how virtuous.
She wanted to be a leader, just like Sydney, instead of nosy and calculating.
She wanted to be strong, just like Samantha, instead of small and fragile, able to be blown over by the wind.
She wanted to command power, inspire awe, just like they did, but yet she knew that she could not, as she had tried before.
Seething in frustration, the swashbuckler grabbed the object closest to her – a wooden chair – and smashed it against the ground, only growing even more enraged when it merely seemed to fall – without breaking, without shattering.
Weak weak weak weak weak weak weak.
Jewel screamed, yanking her diamond-shaped daggers from her belt and slashing at the very air in front of her, the blades whistling through the air.
"I CAN BE STRONG TOO!"
Cutting the air in front of her did nothing. It had no substance, no resistance, no proof of her power.
That's because you have no power.
No power here!
And suddenly, without any reason that the swashbuckler herself could identify – she raised the dagger in her right hand and hacked it across her left forearm, her brain nearly oblivious to the sound of the fabric of her violet coat tearing and the warm gush of blood that then spurted out of the slice in her flesh.
It was some time after that, only several seconds later, that she fully realized what she had done.
And even then, she still remained strangely calm.
Okay.
As if she was a puppet on strings, Jewel was only somewhat aware of her hand moving to retrieve the dropped (and now bloodstained daggers) and place them on the table several feet to the side of her, and then her feet carrying her up the stairs to the bedroom that the three of them occasionally stayed in on their rare visits to the island.
Before she knew it, she was sitting cross-legged on her own small cot, bandages wrapped tightly around her left forearm and her mended purple coat in her lap.
Just like that.
Just like that.
And just like that, she felt numb.
Totally, completely numb.
Here Jewel's backstory is explained, as well as her inner thoughts towards her crew in general. She doesn't exactly get a lot of "screen" time, so it may or may not be somewhat of a shock to actually explore her POV. She's a pretty conflicted character, so it was interesting to write from her perspective.
Also, review!
REVIEW.
See you guys next chapter!
- Severina