A/N: The full title is here in the text, since it wouldn't fit in the drop down menu. Since when do chapter titles have character lengths?
An Unexpected (and somewhat unwelcomed) End to the Doldrums
We hit doldrums around suppertime on the fifth full day of our trip and, if that wasn't bad enough, it left us roasting under the Caribbean sun. Even after the sun set, there was no reprieve from the heat, as there was no wind to blow away the hot air. Well, we had one thing that could cool us down, but only for so long: Dumping buckets of ocean water on ourselves. But that soon left our clothes stiff and uncomfortable with salt.
The next two days didn't treat us much better. If we were below deck, it felt like we were being baked alive, but if we were on deck, it felt like we were in a frying pan. The heat was unbearable to the point that Fitzy took off his fine jacket—something a proper nobleman rarely did when in the presence of others, let alone a lady. Arabella, meanwhile, had pinned her hair up and out of the way so that it didn't roast her neck, but her cheeks were still red and sweat ran down her temples. Jack…Well, he barely cared about modesty and was moping about in just his trousers and his shirt, which he had thrown open as wide as it would go.
As for me…Well, I had my sleeves rolled up to my elbows and I wasn't wearing my vest. Out of the four of us, I was the only one willing to jump into the ocean rather than have water poured over me. The others didn't like the thought of being out of the boat for very long, even if we weren't moving.
Well, that wasn't exactly true. Sometimes, at night, the boat would sail for a few miles—very slowly, mind you, given that there was no wind, but it was better than nothing. By morning, however, it would come to a halt once more.
On our eighth day, things were especially bad. We were all irritable and thirsty; our supply of fresh water was beginning to dwindle and that was with extreme rationing. However, things were about to change.
"It's been days now!" Fitzy spat, his anger and frustration evident in both his tone and his expression. "There hasn't been a single breath of wind for two days and we've lost track of where we are."
"We know, Fitz," Arabella grumbled. She sat in the shade of the sails, which we kept lowered in hopes of catching any sort of wind. In her hands, she held Fitzy's compass, hoping she would see the little needle change direction, but it remained still. "I thought ye three were sailors."
My brow rose and I opened my mouth to speak, but Jack beat me to the punch. "Well, I know I am," he protested. He frowned when Fitzy and Arabella gave him a bland look. "A sailor…o' sorts."
Arabella sighed and rolled her eyes, closing the compass with a snap. "An' what about ye, hmm?" She tossed the compass at Fitzy, who barely caught it in time. "'Oh, me father, the earl, taught me all 'bout readin' maps an' charts an' all that nautical navigational nonsense!'" she mocked.
Fitzy rolled his eyes in turn. "If we had a map, I could read it," Fitzy snapped.
My brows furrowed; my fingertips had begun to tingle. After barely two minutes passed, the tingling had filled my entire hand. Getting to my feet, I walked towards the bow of the ship, where the tingle lessened. But as I walked to the stern, it grew stronger.
'What the…?' I thought, my brows furrowing in confusion. 'There's nothing around us for miles…unless…'
Ignoring the others as they argued about maps and hidden treasures on magical island (none of which would be useful anyway, given our lack of wind), I hopped overboard. I swam under the boat, holding onto its keel as I peered down into the depths and looked for anything ominous shapes or nearby creatures that may make the tingling stronger. But there was nothing in the fathoms below.
And that's when I felt it: The ocean was beginning to grow uneasy.
Returning to the surface, I pulled myself back aboard the boat only to find Jack standing at the stern, a spyglass in hand as he peered off to the southeast.
"What is it, Jack?" Arabella asked, her tone more curious than irritated.
"A wind, finally," he replied.
"Huzzah!" Fitzy cried, making us all look at him dubiously. He cleared his throat and shifted slightly. "I mean yo, ho, ho! Wind! Er…yar," he quickly said, the words sounding very unnatural in his proper accent.
I moved to stand by Jack; unlike Arabella and Fitzy, I had heard the worry in his voice. In combination with having felt the waters becoming uneasy, I knew something was up. "There's a storm coming," I stated quietly.
He nodded, handing me the spyglass so I could look. "It's comin' in fast, too. From the looks o' it, it's going t' be strong."
But I didn't need the glass—the storm was moving towards us fast enough that I could see the dark clouds of rain approaching. And, as I stood there, the tingling was getting stronger. 'It's Torrents,' I told myself while closing the glass. 'If our first night in Tortuga was any indication of what his storms are like, then we're in for quite the challenge, especially in this small vessel.' Glancing over my shoulder, I could see Jack giving the other two orders. I wished I could tell them that this wasn't an ordinary storm, but what was I supposed to tell them? That Torrents possessed magic and could create storms?
They'd think I was insane.
Shaking my head, I moved to join Arabella below deck so we could secure any loose items. Since we didn't have much, it only took us about five minutes, but in that short span of time, the storm was nearly upon us, with just the first drops of rain starting to sprinkle over the deck.
"Where did it come from?" Arabella gawked, her eyes wide. "I mean, the sky an' the sea were so still just a moment ago. It's so strange…"
"It's not the 'where it comes from' that worries me," Jack said, the rain getting harder and harder by the second. "It's the 'where's it going' and 'where will it take us' that has me worried. Drystan, help Fitz batten down the hatches."
Fitzy cocked a brow. "Come now, don't scare Arabella," he scolded. "It is probably no more than a squall and, should we be able to stay afloat, it'll be over in just an hour or two. We shall get through this with ease."
By now, my entire body was tingling thanks to the magic.
I was about to scold him when thunder clapped right above us, the sound deafening. Blinding bolts of lightning streaked across the sky barely two seconds later. If we weren't already drenched by the rain, then we were thoroughly soaked by the large wave that swept over the deck, knocking us all from our feet. Getting back up was tricky, as the boat was being tossed about by angry waves.
"Oh, yes, we shall get through this with the utmost ease, Lord Dalton!" I mocked in a perfectly proper accent of my own. I was pleased to see the stunned look on his face, but I was quickly pulled out of my amusement.
"Drystan, help me grab the line!" Jack ordered. "Reef the sails!"
Nodding, I hurried over and grabbed hold of the line that would help furl up the sail.
"What?!" Fitzy cried. "Why are you lowering the sails when we finally have a wind?"
"Of course, we have winds! How utterly pleasant an' convenient for us!" Jack walked right up to Fitzy and looked up at him, staring him in the eye. "They'll just get caught in the sails an' push us on our merry toward Isla Esquelética or they'll tip this boat over like a child's toy. Savvy?" That was the first time I had heard Jack take on a serious tone.
Fitzy, however, understood the importance of his words and moved to help batten down the hatches as best they could.
Just as Jack and I got the booms secured and made the rigging fast, the storm hit us at full force. It was hard to believe it hadn't already been at full force. The Barnacle was tossed about wildly thanks to the churning waves. It was nearly impossible to hear any voices above the wind and thunder while walking across the deck was just as difficult thanks to the pitching of the boat.
At the wheel, Jack and Fitzy were struggling to get the boat turned around to run with the storm, but it was having none of it. Arabella and I did our best to rush over and add our strength, but the magic of Torrents' storm was too strong and we were all knocked back.
"It's no good!" Fitzy shouted. "We're being tossed around like a toy!"
"Get your axe!" Jack ordered. "We need to take the mainmast down!"
Arabella and Fitzy stared at him in shock. "You are mad!" the latter shouted.
"Just listen to me!" Jack snapped. "You can tell me I'm wrong later—when we are not dead! I'll lower it down from the other side. Bell—" He turned towards Arabella, "I need you t' make a sea anchor—grab anythin' heavy you can, like a barrel or Fitzy's bag, his ego, whatever—somethin' that will give us some drag. Tie a rope t' it firmly an' feed it off the aft end, savvy?"
"Aye, aye!" she called before running off.
Jack then turned to me. "Drystan, as Fitzy an' I lower the sail, you try t' get control over that wheel, savvy?"
"Savvy." Making my way back to the wheel, I swore under my breath when I caught the out-of-control wheel. I scrunched my nose up and put all my strength into trying to get it to stop. 'Even with the mast down, these waves are so bad, we'll soon be capsized…' Swallowing hard, I glanced up and watched the two lads begin working at bringing down the mast.
Fitzy started to chop into the mast, though I couldn't hear the sound of the hatchet through the storm. 'Calm down,' I thought, my jaw clenched in determination as the wheel continued to fight me. 'Calm down, calm down, calm down!'
The sight of Jack swinging down from the top spar caught my attention and I looked up to see him land on the deck. Just in time, too, as the mast was beginning to list to starboard. He and Fitzy quickly grabbed onto some ropes, trying their best to get the mast lowered down onto the deck in relative safety—an extremely hard feat, given the circumstances. Somehow, though, they managed to do it and with minimal damage to the boat. There was a hole in the deck from where the top of the mast landed, but it would be easily repaired with a few boards and wooden nails.
The wheel finally started to ease up, though not by much. It was then I noticed that the boat wasn't being pitched about as much, either. While bringing down the mast had helped a bit, I knew all too well that that alone hadn't enough to make the boat this calm.
Looking out at the waters, I saw that the waves immediately around us weren't nearly as violent as the ones a few yards away. A small grin came to my lips.
"That'll do for now," I muttered under my breath.
Jack came sprinting over, his shoulders heaving from all the work he had done in such a short amount of time. "How's the handlin'?" he asked, panting. Without waiting for me to answer, he nudged me out of the way and took the wheel himself. "Oh, that's much better!" Despite his words, I still had to dart forward to help him keep the wheel steady.
"Aye. Bringing down that mast was a good idea," I told him. "We're not pitching nearly as bad as we were before. Still a bit of a struggle keeping her on course—if we even had one."
"To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure it'd work," he admitted, "but I had a feelin' it would."
My brow rose. "You had a feeling it'd help, but didn't know for sure?"
"Well, think o' it, Drystan: The mast is a big ol' piece of wood juttin' right out into the open air like a lever." As he spoke, he clung to the wheel with one arm while he gestured with the other one out towards the fallen mast. "Even with the sails furled, it'd still be battered around by the wind. Bringing it down made the most sense. Putting it back up, however…"
I let out a sigh, continuing to keep hold of the wheel. "Putting it back up is going to be a challenge, given our lack of supplies," I told him. "We might be able to make do with what rope we have, but getting it to stay in place while we tie it back up is going to be difficult."
"We'll worry about that when the time comes. For now, you an' me need to keep our focus on this wheel while Fitzy an' Bell deal with the ballasts an' whatever water's accumulated below deck." He looked around us, assessing our situation and, soon, his brows furrowed. "Drystan, I'm about t' ask you somethin' completely serious, so I don't want you pokin' fun at what I have to ask, savvy?"
"Savvy."
Despite giving me the warning, he still seemed a bit hesitant to ask. "Is it just me, or does it look like the waters 'round our ship are calmer than the ones further out?" As he looked at me, it seemed like he was hiding something—something more than just curiosity about the waves around us. But what that something was, I couldn't guess.
I pretended to look confused as I glanced around us. "…They do look a wee bit calmer," I admitted, "but I think it might just be a trick o' the lightning."
"Hm. Maybe it is just the lightning," he thought aloud. "But it feels like the water's calmer, doesn't it?" When I glanced at him from the corner of my eye, I could see that he was giving me a bit of an odd look; it was the same look he had given me the day of our contest. It looked like he was trying to look into me rather than at me, if that makes any sense.
I shrugged. "Kind of hard to tell when I've been trying to keep my footing while wrestling a ship's wheel."
He gave me a bland look. "Some first-mate you are, Drystan," he said, his tone sarcastic. There was, however, a bit of an amused lilt to it.
The current suddenly yanked at the rudder and, in our attempt to keep the wheel in place, we ended up accidentally jabbing one of the handles into my diaphragm. I grunted and doubled over as my midsection was temporarily filled with pain.
"You alright, Drystan?" Jack asked with a wince.
"F-fine," I wheezed. Rubbing the area, I stood upright once more, though it still hurt to breathe a bit. Taking hold of my side of the wheel once more, I let out a sigh.
The two of us stood in silence for some time, adjusting the wheel a bit when needed. At this point, neither of us could be sure of the direction we were facing, thanks to the ship having been tossed about so much earlier. We could only pray that we were heading for land—and not towards our deaths on a reef.
I glanced over at Jack again; though he had a determined expression on his face, I couldn't help but notice that he was also beginning to look tired. With how much running around in a near-panic earlier and how he was now fighting the wheel with me, I was surprised he hadn't collapsed from exhaustion. It wouldn't surprise me if he ended up sleeping for a day and a half straight after this, though.
After what seemed like hours, the storm finally began to calm down. Jack and I were more than a little thankful for this, as we were both sore and exhausted from having to hold onto the wheel for so long. The only downside was that, without the lightning, it was now pitch black; the storm had lasted the entire afternoon. There was no telling what time it was now.
"You should go get some rest, Jack," I told him, wincing slightly when I rotated my right arm. "I can take the first watch." I looked skywards, but saw nothing.
Though I couldn't see it, I had a feeling his brow had risen. "You are not takin' first watch, mate. We'll let Fitzy or Arabella take it."
"And why not?"
"Because you fought that wheel durin' the whole storm." We both looked over at the hatch leading below deck when a warm glow suddenly appeared out of it. As if they had heard their names, Arabella and Fitzy emerged from the depths of the boat, each carrying a lantern. Once our eyes adjusted to the reintroduction of light, we could see that Arabella was, in fact, carrying two lanterns—one of which she was moving to hang off the rigging near the bow of the boat.
Both still struggled a bit with walking, as the Barnacle still unpredictably pitched about. The wind had died down considerably, but the waves had only slightly calmed.
Fitzy, on the other hand, came towards us. "Do you think the storm's over? Or are we just in its heart?" he asked, his brows furrowed. He grunted, suddenly grabbing onto the railing as the ship lurched to starboard.
Jack frowned. "That's…a good question. There's a chance we're just in the eye o' the storm."
I shook my head. "I'm fairly certain we're out of the storm."
"How can ye tell?" Arabella questioned. It was hard to see, but it looked like she had her brows furrowed at me.
Shrugging, I gestured out at the vast nothingness of the night only to wince as my right arm twinged slightly. "The waves would be rougher than this if we were in the eye of the storm. As they are now, they're actually calming down."
"Well, there's the first bit of good news today," Fitzy sighed. "Now that we're relatively safe, who is going to take first watch?"
"I am," I said before Jack could place the duty on Fitzy or Arabella. Beside me, Jack had his eyes narrowed and his lips pursed in a pout. "I'll just need your compass so I can try and get us back on course once the waves calm down a bit."
His brow rose as he untied his compass from his belt. "You mean, this entire time, we actually had a course? I thought we were just sailing northwest and hoping for the best." With a bit of difficulty, he made his way over and handed the compass to me.
Jack pouted and puffed his chest out slightly in indignation, making him greatly resemble a half-drowned pigeon. "I'll have you know that I did, indeed, have a course set for us," he told him. He paused a moment before adding, "An' just so you know, we were goin' nor-nor-west." He then looked at me, a stern expression on his face. "However, before any one o' us goes on watch duty or t' bed, Drystan, Fitz, an' me need t' get this mast back up and in somewhat usable shape."
"We'll be sitting ducks otherwise," I said when I saw the look of displeasure on Fitzy's face. Though, whether it came from having to somewhat repair the mast or from Jack calling him 'Fitz', it was hard to tell.
"I suppose that would be for the best," he sighed, slouching somewhat. "Jack, you go fetch the ropes while Emil and I start to get this mast wrangled back into place."
"Arabella, lass, could you man the wheel while we work on the mast?" I asked her. From the corner of my eye, I watched Jack scurry below deck. "It shouldn't fight you too much, since the sea's beginning to calm down."
She nodded. "Aye, I can do that for ye," she said, pushing some stray locks of soaked hair from her face.
It took me and Fitzy some effort to heave the mast up off the deck; the two of us were fairly strong, but the combination of the solid wood mast and the rolling of the boat made it hard to keep it in one place. As we did our best to hold it both upright and steady, Jack scurried his way between us, doing his best to make sure he got the rope nice and tight. It was just as our arms were about to fall off that he declared the job was done.
Fitzy beat the side of his fist against the mast to see how much it would wobble—which, thankfully, wasn't very much. We would still need to find a way to make a better repair once we reached land, however, by either replacing it entirely or making some braces to make it even sturdier.
With that out of the way, I returned to the wheel, relieving Arabella and telling her she had done well. Watching the three disappear below deck, a sigh of relief left my mouth and I allowed myself to slouch forward slightly. After a few seconds, however, I opened Fitzy's compass and found that I could just barely see the needle in the dim light. It moved around for a few seconds before somewhat settling with the pointed end facing me.
'We're way off course,' I thought, shaking my head. 'I just hope getting us back on course will take us further away from the storm…' Taking hold of the wheel, I grunted as I gave it a good spin to starboard.
