If there was a night to battle against a rival pirate ship, this was not the night to do it. The winds scooped up the ocean and dumped it will all its force upon the deck. The ocean and the sky were in a battle of turbulent dominance. Thunder stabbed the night. Even the moon was so terrified it shut it's one eye and left the sky in darkness.
The Dalton was a formidable ship, it was sturdy and well build. Its thick canvas mask was graced with the red and black Dalton emblem. It would strike fear in the hearts of sailors but tonight it was as daunting as a child's wooden toy. The Dalton tumbled through the waves with more force than a shark in a feeding frenzy. This was its saving grace, for a moving target was difficult to hit.
Somewhere in the smoky distance gunpowder sparked and illuminated the Adrenaline, the largest and deadliest of all the pirate ships of the ocean. It was only a matter of time before the Dalton faced off against them. But considering the weather conditions, Captain Blaine had made the most un-pirately of all the decisions, he had commanded the ship to flee.
"I cannot believe you are doing this!" First-man Sam screamed through the roaring winds. His blond hair was drenched and sticking to his face. His white shirt clung to his chest, scratched and torn in places. The rain made the blood from his shoulder run down his chest. The wound was not deep but large enough to cause concern. "There will be mutiny tomorrow. No pirate ever runs from a battle."
"If we stay and fight there will be no tomorrow and no Dalton." Blaine screamed in return. He looked like he had been dumped in the ocean and dragged back out. His blue coat was ruined with sea water. "Besides, we have far too precious a cargo for them to be getting a hold of." Whatever that cargo was, it was a mystery to Blaine. But the only person who knew was in that watertight box was a certain peculiar man who had paid an exuberant amount of money to board the ship. He insisted that within this box was most prized of all and needed to be kept safe at all costs.
"I'll tell them to hitch the sails." Sam replied. Blaine knew that whatever happened tonight, whatever mutiny he may face, Sam had his back. It was an honour to have the most loyal first mate any pirate could ask for. They had sailed together for many years and were like brothers.
The Adrenaline blazed its cannons. Blaine saw the thunderclap of cannon fire and the screaming hurl of the cannon coming directly for him.
"Blaine, no!" That was the last thing Blaine heard before he felt the crack of wood beside him and the shock wave of force beat across this chest. The cannon has smashed the captains lodge, sending glass and wood chips flying across Blaine's body. Blaine was pushed backwards, stumbling as the boat tipped with another wave. Before he knew what was happening, Blaine tumbled over the edge of his ship, smacking himself headfirst into the ocean. The water crackled around him. Blaine's lungs expelled a rugged scream and his body felt it was being pelted by boulders. The whole world was crushing his chest and pulling him limb from limb. Above him thunder and cannons cracked, and his body flipped to look up at the black sky.
Blaine, despite being in a occupation fraught with danger, had not given much thought to dying. Now that it was happening, all he could tell himself was to open his eyes. See the stars, the stars that were cannon and fire through the water. What he did not expect to see was a shark flash across his vision, no not a shark, a fish tale. The water was so dark he could barely see his hand beside him, but he swore, he swore he saw a brunet man stare at him.
Blaine's heart thudded it's last few beats. It could not go on much longer without air. His chest ached, but for a moment it ached for a different reason. That face was ghost white, like a sea angel, something that would be carved on the front of a ship, the face that belonged on every coin in a secret treasure chest. If Blaine was dying right now, he was content that that was the last face he would see. So happy in fact, that in his fading delirium he smiled a mouth full of bubbled and waved to the imaginary face in the water. He swore for a moment, that that face smiled back.
"Captain! Captain! Blaine! No, no, please don't die, please. Come on!" Blaine's body was being tugged in all directions. His limbs felt like they were made of rocks. His chest was being crushed around the middle by a set of familiar muscular arms, crushing his lungs tighter than he ever thought possible. His body expelled a small pond of ocean water. Immediately he gasped salt spray and air. He wasn't sure where he was, he couldn't even form words all he knew was that he was still in the ocean, the sky was turning purple, his ears were ringing and the only thing that was keeping him afloat was the chest and arms of his first mate Sam.
"Blaine, Blaine, say something." Blaine couldn't say anything at all, but Sam had begged him, wanting to know he was alive, so he rasped.
"You… jumped ship." Sam's chest was pressed to his back. The man was keeping them both afloat.
"I jump ship all the time Blaine." Sam chuckled. "I love dive bombing of the plank."
"Did… did the ship…"
"I don't know Blaine. As soon as I saw you went overboard, I jumped in after you. I spent the night squeezing the ocean out of you. You have been drifting in and out of consciousness until dawn." Blaine blinked and opened his eyes to find that Sam was right, it was almost daylight.
"I don't remember anything."
"Understandable." Sam chuckled. "Do you think you can hold onto this?" Sam pulled one of the driftwood pieces closer to them and pressed Blaine's hands to the plank of wood.
"How are we going to get back to the ship." Each word was a drag of air through his wounded lungs. Blaine slumped himself across the thick plank of wood. Sam waded in the water beside him as if he hadn't already been carrying himself and another human for hours.
"Well, we just have to hope that they come back for us, don't we? Or that we find land. Bud, stop trying to swim, just, here, lie down on the plank." Sam maneuverer his captain onto his back on that plank of wood. The smaller pirate fitted easily on the plank. "I will be honest with you, I don't think there is a ship." Sam muttered knowing how devastated Blaine would be. That ship was his life. Blaine, however, didn't seem to hear him.
"I thought I saw something in the water last night." Blaine gasped.
"Save your breath, Blaine."
"But Sam, I thought I saw a merman."
"I'm sure you did, Blaine." Sam sighed, humouring his best friend. Sam pushed the plank through the water, kicking his legs through the gentle ocean current. If it went for the scattered driftwood and debris surrounding them, no one would have suspected the ocean had been a savage beast the night before.
Blaine did not know what precious cargo Sebastian Smyth had on Blaine's ship. When a wealthy and respectable man propositions a pirate captain with more wealth than he could possibly imagine, that pirate tends not to ask too many questions. Of course, a pirate would quickly draw his cutlass and turn Sebastian into pollard for the sharks, but this man was clever. He had ensured he had leverage, leverage enough to control a crew of pirates. That meant no questions, no gold until the cargo was delivered and upon completion, a rather hansom pardon for all crimes committed by himself and his crew. Blaine was not sure if he believed that last proposition, but Sam clung to it with so much hope he couldn't break the man's heart. Besides, at the very least Blaine would receive a hansom income, and at worst, one more gentry to use as fish bait.
What Blaine had not anticipated was the Adrenaline hitching a ride on their tail for the past two days only to catch up to them and chase their ship off course. Whether it was coincidence or something more, Blaine would never know. Not that it mattered now, Sam and Blaine were stuck in the middle of the ocean and bound to die if someone didn't save them soon.
"Blaine, are you still alive?"
"Yeah man." Blaine had spent the past few hours staring up at the sky focusing on his breathing. His ribs hurt like every single one of them had been broken.
"Good. Because I've seen people drown on dry land. Something happens to your lungs and they like, just fill with water."
"Not helping, Sam." Blaine rolled himself on his plank of wood to face the water, balancing himself on his forearms. He noticed then that Sam had found his own plank of wood and was lounging across it. Blaine stared into the water. It was inky dark and impenetrable. That was, until a flash of emerald green scales darked underneath his plank of wood.
"Gah!" Blaine jumped and wobbled and almost fell into the waves.
"What?" Sam scrambled to pull as much of himself onto his piece of driftwood as possible. "Is it a shark? The Kraken?"
"Nothing." Blaine muttered, believing himself to be hallucinating. "Just thought I saw something."
"What? Another merman?" Sam laughed, relaxing a little, splashing his friend in his sunburn face. Blaine should have come back with some snappy retort, instead his eyes returned desperately back to the water. For a moment he swore he saw a face. Sam watched his friend, staring at the water. He presumed Blaine was just concentrating on his breathing and let him be. Blaine, however, barely breathed at all when he saw that face again. This time that face lingered. Blaine gawked and his heart caught in his chest. That face was flawless, green eyes, set in a face that shone like a prized pearl. The man reached his arms above his head and point a finger upwards, up along the horizon. The face pointed again and again, then with two flicks of an emerald tail disappeared back into the inky depths.
"I think we should swim this way." Blaine commanded, unsure of his own eyes. But what better direction to swim than the direction a figment of Blaine's imagination commanded.
"Sure thing Blaine." Sam sighed, because he didn't have a better plan. "You are captain of this driftwood."
"The driftwood Dalton." Blaine laughed, his eyes still on the water.
"It's more like a plank rather than driftwood. We could call it the Plankton?"
"The Plankton it is with its trusty side plank." Blaine gestured to Sam's own plank keeping him afloat.
"That's right, always here and will never let you drown."
"I see what you did there. This way!" Blaine gasped, seeing a slender hand rise and navigate them slightly to the left. Sam Swung around and began to kick and paddle in the direction Blaine was pointing.
"You know, this imaginary merman could at least give us a bit of a push. I mean, I know there's not much by way of choice, but I don't want you falling head over heels for some sea monster that doesn't have the decency to help two stranded pirates." Sam was one of the few people Blaine had told about being gay. Well, rather he hadn't had to tell Sam at all. Sam just knew. He knew and he just accepted it. Pirates weren't exactly in a position to judge anyone.
"So, you don't think I'm crazy for seeing mermen in the water?" Blaine's heart felt like it was at the end of a fishing line, waiting for the next glimmer of scales in the inky depths.
"Oh, you are crazy. I mean, I totally believe in mermaids, they so exist, but we will never be lucky enough to see any. It's like the Kraken or Atlantis." Sam body boarded on his plank of wood, bumping into Blaine's and pushing him forward. The ocean was kind to them today, with very little waves and wind to veer them off course. All they had to ensure was the sun and the thirst.
"Think you can sing us a song, Blaine?" Sam huffed, kicking through the water. the man had outstanding endurance. He had been paddling for hours. The sun was at its highest peak now, and even Sam was feeling its sting.
"Sam, I almost drowned, what do you think?" Despite the ache in his chest Blaine began to hum, singing a broken choking song, cracking through notes as he expelled each breath. It wasn't a proper song, but Sam knew it was the best he could do. When Blaine sung, he swore he that flask of emerald scales glimmered a little closer to the surface.
"I think I see something." Blaine squinted his sunstroked eyes along the horizon.
"Oh, gods of the seven seas please let Blaine be right." Sam panted spitting out ocean water. he had been paddling them for almost half the day. Thankfully Blaine was right. The ocean began to brighten as the sea floor rose from its depths. Blaine searched the waters. It's imaginary mermaid with the perfect face was nowhere to be found.
"Blaine, you are not going to like this." Sam warned as they approached the shoreline. This was not a deserted island, in fact, it was very much occupied. It was one of the island colonies, one that Sam and Blaine knew very well, easily recognisable by the double peaked volcano puffing an easy haze of smoke out of one crater but not the other. Myth has it, that the day that the volcano peaks swap and one stops huffing smoke and the other starts, that is the day the world ends. All hokum, of course, but Blaine was curious as to why one peak smokes yet the other does not.
"What is it Sam? Oh, no!" Blaine toppled off his plank and waded through the water towards the shipwreck. The Dalton, once the finest boat in the North Atlantic Ocean and now wet firewood. The ship had crashed into the reef rocks and split into two. Its mast was waving like a surrender sign in the light wind. Blaine raced towards it, stumbling in the shallow waters. Sam struggled to keep up, his legs shaking and out of break.
"Blaine, wait up!" but Blaine didn't hear. He was heartbroken. This was his ship, his life crumbled before his eyes. Blaine touched the side of his ship, knowing the damage was impossible to repair. The ship was splintered with cannon balls. The only consolation was that Blaine did not see any of his crew members lying amongst the wreckage.
"My ship." Blaine cried. "It's all gone."
"The crew are probably in the town on the other side of the island." Sam placed a comforting hand to Blaine's shoulder. "But let's get you seen to first."
"Huh?"
"I'm serious about men drowning on land. You need a doctor, or the closest thing this island has to one."
"I need to do one thing first." Blaine began to climb the wreckage of the ship.
"What are you doing?"
"The sail, I need the sail." Blaine explained, staring up at the tattered Dalton emblem. a cannon ball had blasted right through the canvas fabric.
Despite his aching, shaking legs, Sam couldn't deny his friend the only thing he had left, and so with great effort Sam clambered up the Dalton to retrieve the sail. He folded it up as best he could considering he was only one person and tied it up with remaining rope to sling it across his shoulders.
"It's ok Blaine. Even if we don't have out ship, we still have our crew." He capped the man by the shoulders and the two of the trudged through the reef rock into the sand. "Just a little further. Madam Penny's cottage is not too far away."