A/N: This update made possible by all the (sudden) reviews Chapter One received this past month. Sorry it's taken me so long to update, but you ought to be happy to know that I have bits of the next chapter set down. Unless this chapter disappoints you and you stop reading, that is.
For now, we have Chapter Two, which I've actually had done for almost six months, but every time I look at it I revise something. In all those revisions, I've learned one thing: I can't spell "guard" for the life of me. Be grateful for spell-check, hm? I'd like to say that's the only reason I haven't updated this one, but...at heart I'm a review-whore, so my other stories got fed first.
Thanks to everyone who reviewed Chapter One, and hopefully you'll like this one, too.
Honda:
Captain ordered that we drug the prisoners. So I hurry down to the cargo hold where we keep everything important; food, gold, metal, weapons, medicine. Captain may not trust us, but he's far from afraid of us. He lets us handle his treasure, polish his gold, touch whatever we want because everyone knows he could tear us apart and feed us, mind and body both, to sharks and dragons if we so much as spit the wrong way. So nothing is locked up. The gold is out and open, just there for the taking. It's tempting and it makes my fingers itch just to look at it, but in the end I always turn aside.
Malik, our former first mate had his own share of the treasury. He actually wore more gold than the Captain. We always hinted at "something more" going on between those two, for Malik to be in such good graces with the "Cap'n", but who would actually say it? Not me, at least not while I like my tongue in my head instead of wagging at me from the top of the sails. Malik often threatened other sailors with that, and even went ahead and did it once or twice.
After gathering the sedatives I dash back up to the prisoners. I think I'll deal with Malik and the white-haired thief since they're nearest. Captain insists the thief was out to get our treasure. I never saw any proof that any mainlanders even suspected our crew was anything but a bunch of fishermen, but I'll say again, I like my limbs in tact so I kept quiet.
The thief fights at first, but not much. He's shivering with pain, and probably not thinking about much besides staying still, so it's easy to get him to suck on the wad of plant root until he falls into near-sleep.
Malik, on the other hand, knows full well what I'm trying to do to him. He lashes out as much as he can and won't open his mouth, so I call Katsuya over.
Katsuya kneels on Malik's arms as I hastily press the small bundle of roots under his tongue. Malik's full mouth of teeth (often a source of envy for those of us who have already started to lose ours) clamp down on my fingers. Katsuya laughs and punches the other blond clean across the jaw. He failed to notice--or just ignored--that Malik's teeth are still firmly attached to my hand, and it tears the skin.
I stifle a yelp and wallop Katsuya, knock him to the deck, and kneel on his chest.
"I'm sorry, alright?" he says around a mouthful of blood. I let him up and he spits it out on the deck, wipes what's left, and stands up. We glower at each other and decide to head to opposite ends of the ship. We're friends and I trust him more than I do anyone else, but sometimes I think the only reason we haven't killed each other is because we always split up to cool off. The other guys just duel it out.
Malik smirks at me. He shouldn't be able to do that. The drugs are enough to keep him down for hours, but there he is sneering at me, even with his eyes glazed and half-shut.
I kick him as I make my way across the deck.
Ryou Bakura:
They've given me a job; my arms are still shackled, but loosely now. It's better than what is happening to the other prisoners I suppose. Mother always had me clean fish, too. She spent hours teaching me about it; 'be very careful to take the scales off'.
And here I am, sitting on dusty planks, tearing scales off of flat-eyed fish. The blade of my knife screams every time I move it against the little dead creature in my palm.
I used to get so sad when I had to do this. The fishes' sinking eyes would stare and in dry whispers they would beg me to let them go. I learned not to look at them, not in the eyes. It helped a little.
I pause to watch the movement on the port side of the deck. I recognize the plant they're giving my other prisoners, and suddenly I'm very glad I'm not over there. It's a sedative and I'm allergic to it. Mother never gave it to me like she did her other patients because it would kill me. I doubt the pirates know about allergies. I doubt they'd care.
I study my look-alike, frowning. He's still in shock; the pirates didn't do anything about that. The sedative might kill him, too. Shadows cling to him like bruises. His eyes are glazed and his head lolls a little with the movement of the ship.
Wind that tastes like seaweed and fish and tears sweeps across the deck, blowing salt against my skin. I blink and inch closer to the look-alike. No one notices. The two guards have vanished, tending to the sails or whatever else needs looking after on a ship.
There is nowhere to clean off my hands, either. Fish-scales and fish-blood will only make his wound worse. I have to settle for just wiping my hands off on my pants. It's not much, but I hope it's better than nothing.
As soon as I touch him-as I thought, he's in shock-I float away.
The sun shines down into me, blackening everything around me, and I hear faint whispers urging me to hurry, to be careful, to not forget this, to do that.
As soon as I've done all I'm told, the sun retreats and the world stills. Seconds later I'm back with the tilting lurch of a ship at sea. I hurry back to the fish.
Katsuya:
I can't believe he hit me. It's one thing to deck each other over something little, but it's...it's stupid, to do it in front of a prisoner. Even I know that. I glare across the ship, searching for him, itching to finish what he started. All I see are my shipmates. The stupid bastard probably ducked down to the galley or something.
I sigh and sit down on the empty stairs leading up to the helm. Underneath these very stairs is the doorway to the Captain's chambers where he does god-knows-what all day while the rest of us slave like apes. I rub my jaw and snort. Piss on the Captain. If I was a little dumber, I'd have joined Malik's mutiny.
...Malik did make it seem possible. For a moment, I even listened to him. We'd come up here to check over the nightwatch and he'd told me of better worlds we could go to, if I'd just help him and his crew. His crew.
That's when I knew he would lose. Sure, he made it seem like I was in spitting distance of all the gold I could ever want, and all the women and ships and pigs too if I wanted them. But then he said that. He called us his crew...and I knew the Captain was going to stop him. I almost pitied Malik then.
See, out of all of us, I think I'm the only one who's ever seen the Captain mad. Most of the time he's happy to let us do his filthy blood-work, but step on his toes the right way and....
Sharply, the wind stops smelling like ocean and becomes coppery, cold, sticky, as if memory itself is trying to slip up inside of me. I feel sick. I can't think about this right now. I haven't eaten all day, if I get sick now I'll waste away to nothing.
I bet Honda's cooled down by now. He'd better be anyway, cause I'm going to the galley and I don't care what he has to say.
Yugi Mutou:
You'd think you'd never get used to cleaning chamber pots. And now that I think about it, 'chamber pot' is a really polite word.
I'm used to them. You would be too, if they were all you did, day in and night out for years and years and....
My god. I've really been here that long.
"Yugi?" It's Katsuya. He's probably looking for Honda.
I look up at him and don't bother hiding how stunned and...saddened I am right now. Katsuya falters and finally stops in front of me, careful not to get close to the chamber pot I'm carrying.
"Yugi, are you alright? You look like..." he frowns, scrambling for what I look like. "...someone kicked you or something."
"No, it's just...I've been here a long time." I turn back to cleaning. "I wonder what my family has done since I came here, that's all. I've always thought I came here a day or two ago, and so my family would be searching for me. I guess...I guess they've stopped by now."
He shuffles his feet uneasily. "They all stop looking, Yugi. If they even...." He stops talking, takes a step closer to me and pauses again. "They'll be alright."
I have to believe him. He's never lied to me yet, and that's why we're friends. We don't say anything to each other we don't mean. "Okay."
He walks on, and his steps are quiet.