Chapter 22:
Tala hadn't slept so soundly since she was a child. She woke feeling completely refreshed, having slept in what she was convinced was the most comfortable bed in Neverland. Her mind had to fight her body to convince it to leave the warmth and softness of Hook's silk sheets.
After a groan of disapproval, she finally managed to pry herself from the bed and rise to her feet. She stretched her arms above her head and moved to the trunk at the end of the bed frame.
There were some clothes inside of it for her that Hook brought along. He didn't like her wearing her traditional furs after all. She chose the light blue dress that she had already modified for herself. Hook looked as if he was going to weep when she cut it up to her knees, muttering about her habit of destroying expensive fabrics.
To Tala, it didn't matter how fine the fabric. She didn't like wearing clothes that restricted her movements at all, and the long, dense dresses that the ladies on the Isle wore were heavy and claustrophobic. Cutting them shorter and loosening the sleeves were the only way to make them comfortable for herself.
After dressing, Tala moved to the vanity across the room, taking a seat in front of the mirror. She wondered why he had such a vain piece of furniture in his cabin, especially since she had never seen him use it. Maybe it was for another woman in another time. In his other world.
She never liked to look at her reflection, but for some reason, she felt compelled to sit there and try to comb the tangles out of her hair. Tala didn't look like herself in the dresses that Hook bought for her, but maybe that wasn't a bad thing. After everything, she didn't feel like the same person she was before anyways.
Once she mostly tamed her wild raven curls, she rose to her feet and moved back to the bed. She was just about to lay down again to wait for Hook when she heard shouting outside the cabin door. Tala leapt to her feet and moved closer to listen through it.
"In the water! Enemy in the water! Prepare the cannons!"
Perhaps it was a merman. Hook hated those. It could be one of Pan's men as well, but they didn't really use boats. They wouldn't have strayed so far away from the main island. Curiosity pushed her to the nearest porthole. After wiping some of the grime off of it with her hand, Tala was able to peer through and see what enemy they were preparing to fire on.
Her heart sank to her stomach when she realized it was a primitive little canoe with two members of her own tribe steering it.
"No, no," she muttered in a panic, rushing back to the door. She grabbed the handle and tried to pull open the door, but she found that it was locked. "Don't fire!" Tala screamed, banging her hands on the door. "Don't you dare!"
She pulled on the door, kicked it with her feet, and rammed her shoulder against it to no avail. The shouting was growing louder, mixed with vicious laughter and excitement.
Fear rose within her as she heard them rolling a barrel across the deck. They were going to kill her tribesmen if she stood behind that door and did nothing. Even if she had been betrayed and disowned, they were still her people. They were just young warriors doing what they were told, the same as she was.
Tala hurried to grab the knife she kept packed away with her furs. With a reckless disregard for her own safety, she used the butt of the knife to break through the glass on the door to Hook's cabin. The broken glass created a very small opening at the top, but Tala was just small enough to slip through it.
Even though she tried to swipe as much glass off of it as she could, Tala felt the remaining pieces puncture her dress and skin as she hoisted herself out through the top of the door, through the space she had made for herself.
Tala quickly located the man preparing the cannon on the side of the ship, and she rushed him. Sweeping up behind him, she kicked the back of his leg to knock him to his knees, then pressed the sharp edge of her blade to his throat.
"If you light that wick, I will slit your throat," she said as her chest heaved with ragged, tired breaths. She was bleeding. She could feel it running down her outer thigh and hip, but she had to ignore it. She had to defend her tribesmen.
"We don't let savages live."
"Are you really so afraid of two men? Against your entire crew?"
"We know what your people can do with only a few men," the pirate scoffed at her.
"Then you should know what I can do to you if you fire at those men," Tala growled back at him, pushing that knife edge a little harder against his throat.
"They want to board the ship."
"And you will let them."
It was a dream. He knew it as he looked over her mostly bare form lying beneath him, wearing nothing but those liberal little furs that left so much exposed. Her hands were sliding under his shirt, up his sides, pulling him closer.
"James..."
His name never sounded so sweet, but it was only an echo of the voice he heard before falling asleep. That desperate, longing voice that almost begged him to stay as he walked away.
He could remember that moment, that choice, yet there she was, right back in his bed. And now he was in it with her, on top of her, kissing her neck and shoulders tenderly as if she was made of glass.
"Captain..."
That wasn't right. Tala had called him many things, but she never really referred to him as Captain. He pulled away from her and everything suddenly became very foggy.
"Cap'n!" Smee's loud, nervous voice startled Hook out of his wonderful dream. He sat up in a daze, blinking the sleep from his eyes.
Hook woke with an aching neck and with many parts of his body painfully stiff, including the one below his belt. He tugged the raggedy blanket he had been using a little further into his lap to hide it.
"What is it, Smee? We better be sinking for you to be shouting like that while I'm sleeping."
"Well... Y-You better come up and see for yerself, Cap'n," Smee stuttered out. "There's a bit of an altercation takin' place."
"An altercation?" He pondered on that for a split second before realizing that Tala must somehow be involved. He never had so many fights on his ship as he did once she came aboard. "Go up ahead of me. I'll dress and be there immediately."
"Yes, Cap'n."
As Hook stepped into his boots and shrugged on his coat, he wondered how Tala could have gotten out of his cabin. He had been sure to lock the door for her safety when he left her alone the night before. Smee must have let her out, since he now had the key.
Preparing for whatever argument he was going to have to mediate, Hook hoisted himself up the ladder to step on deck. He hadn't expected the scene that lay out before him.
Tala was holding a man hostage with a knife, telling everyone to stay back or she would slit his throat. She was wearing one of the dresses he bought her, but he could see red bleeding through the skirt of it. Something had happened. She was hurt.
Smee was doing something over the side of the ship where the ladder to the water was placed. After a moment, two men, skin as dark as Tala's, pulled themselves onto the ship with Smee's help.
"How could I have missed so much on my own ship?" Hook asked aloud, dusting off his captain's hat before setting it atop his head. "Smee! What the bloody hell is going on?"
"Well, C-Cap'n," Smee twiddled his thumbs. "These young men were approaching in a canoe, and Mr. Rutledge ordered the crew to fire the cannon at them. Ms. Tala must have overheard because she... W-Well she broke through your door and came out to stop him from firing."
"Broke through my door?" Hook raised a brow. He turned to see the shattered stained glass window above his door, and he realized that she must have cut herself while climbing through it. He was also disappointed because he wouldn't be able to replace it in Neverland.
"Tala," Sebastian's voice appeared behind Hook as he climbed on to the deck. "Ye better put that down before ye hurt someone or get hurt yerself."
"He was going to kill them," she tried to defend herself.
"We won't let anyone kill them. Right, Captain?" Sebastian glanced over at Hook, who nodded his head in agreement.
Tala let out a little huff of annoyance, then kicked Mr. Rutledge forward so he could crawl away from her. It wasn't lost on Hook or Sebastian that immediately after she freed him, she clutched at her side with her hand.
"Why are you here?" Hook asked the two tribesmen.
"We were sent to retrieve Tala," one answered.
"Why?" Tala interjected. "I'm no longer a part of the tribe."
"Pan wants you returned."
"Tell that miserable little welp that if he wants to take something from me, he should come get it himself," Hook said through his teeth. "Leave before I fire that cannon myself."
"He's punishing us," the other spoke, this time directly to Tala. It sounded like he was pleading with her. "He's been taking the livestock and burning our lands. He won't stop until we bring you back to him."
"He can burn down the whole island for all I care," Hook shrugged. "She isn't going anywhere with you."
"Why does he want me so badly?" Tala furrowed her brows. "He didn't seem very interested in me when he did have me."
"He wants you because you are a treasure of the pirate captain," the first tribesmen explained. "Your betrayal is why he wants to possess you now."
"My betrayal?!" Tala shouted, taking an unsteady step forward. She raised her blade towards her tribesmen, blood now staining her hand. "Your chief betrayed me. All I wanted was to come home, but he sold me to that little monster. Don't speak to me about betrayal."
When she staggered again, Sebastian rushed to her side on instinct. He wrapped an arm around the uninjured side of her waist and tugged her close to him to give her more support.
Furious now, Hook approached the men and pulled his sword from its sheath. He pointed the very tip of the blade right at the tribeman's throat.
"Get off my ship, or you and your dingy will spend the next decade being devoured at the bottom of the sea."
They didn't protest or argue this time. The tribesmen seemed disgusted at Tala and defeated by her refusal to help them. Smee helped them climb back down the ladder, and used an oar to help push them off from the hull of the Jolly Roger.