Kailor: Welcome back aboard, my darlings! Thank you for all the reviews and messages! As always, enjoy the ride!
She decides very quickly that she likes Emily, despite her being a pirate. She's one of the younger members of the crew, a few years younger than Chloe herself, but she seems to be one of the most important women on the ship. Everyone they pass bows their head to her or offers her food or drink.
"I'm the surgeon," she explains when Chloe asks about it. "So everyone takes really good care of me. I've stitched up just about every soul aboard. We're pretty much sisters at this point."
"Surgeon?" Chloe blinks, looking her up and down. "You're barely my age!"
Emily shrugs, smiling. "My father was a doctor. I used to read his books and his notes and I would sneak in to watch when he tended to people."
"And how did you end up here? On a…" Chloe lowers her voice, unsure if it would offend one of the women around them. "Pirate ship?"
"Oh! Well, actually, it's a thrilling story!"
"'Thrilling' she calls me almost losing my life." The pink-haired pirate drops from above, making them both jump. She's dressed now, in only a black leather vest, leaving her tattooed arms scandalously bare. Dry, her short hair is untamed and windswept, sticking up in all directions. Chloe's lady's maids would faint just by looking at it. Dark roots are starting to show at her scalp and Chloe wonders briefly what she uses to dye her hair such a bright color.
"Ven!" Emily says, voice lifting a little. Her entire face flushes red and all of the giddy energy she's been putting into showing Chloe around suddenly manifests in fluttering hands and an extra little bounce in the step she takes forward. Then she clears her throat. "Um, I mean. Ven, this is Chloe. Chloe, Ven is many things on the ship, but she's mainly our carpenter. She takes care of the actual ship."
"I see." Chloe bows her head in greeting. "Well met. You said something about your life?"
"Ah, yes." Ven's smile grows wider. "I was Emily's first surgery." She wraps her hand in the net-like ropes beside them and hops up to sit on the railing. "Would you like to hear the story?"
"Oh no, are you telling you two's love story again?" Cynthia Rose plops against the railing beside Ven, resting back with her arms crossed.
Emily's red face burns even brighter. "It is not our love story!"
Ashley appears at Chloe's side. She's even taller than Emily, and between the two of them, Chloe feels very small. But Ashley gives her a smile as she takes a seat on a nearby barrel, bringing them to roughly the same height. "Oooh, I love this one. Go on, Ven. Tell us."
Ven's dark eyes slip to Chloe and she leans forward, elbows on her knees. "Do you want to hear it, Milady?"
"If you've a mind to tell it."
"I've always a mind to tell a good story." Ven pulls herself up on the ropes until she's standing on the railing. The rocking of the ship barely seems to affect her balance. She just leans and sways with it. Other pirates gather around them, playfully groaning or cheering for the story about to be told. Ven spreads her arms wide. "I was barely thirteen summers old when I was brought to the Americas. I spoke no English. I hardly knew which side of the ship was port and which was starboard!"
The crew laughs and Chloe joins them, though she suddenly wonders if she knows which is which.
"We were being sold as slaves in the city square. Bunch of us. Young'uns and old. All in a line up on the gallows." She laughs. "Think they planned to hang the ones that didn't sell."
The pirates laugh, but Chloe doesn't find this joke that funny.
"So there I am, up on the gallows, watching rich Englishmen bid on me. Not understanding a word they say. When, out of nowhere, this arrow comes flying out of the crowd and strikes down the auctioneer." She slaps her hands together, hooking an elbow around the rope, and Chloe jumps. The pirates laugh. "Suddenly, everyone is screaming and running. And these cloaked people are racing up on the gallows, grabbing us. I didn't know who they were or what they wanted, so I fought back. Got away, even." Her voice drops, breathier, though it still carries over the crowd. "And I ran straight into one of the slavers."
The pirates boo right on cue. The big blonde, Amy, makes a gagging sound.
"He tried to grab me and I kicked and clawed and bit as hard as I could. I guess he decided I was more trouble than I was worth." She pulls up the bottom of her vest, showing the long, white scar again. Chloe stares at her bare skin, shocked at the sudden reveal. "He slit me open, rib to hip, and left me bleeding on the ground."
She says it so simply but the very thought makes Chloe's skin crawl. How can she talk about such brutality so...easily?
"I thought that was it." Ven drops her vest and leans against the ropes, one hand propped on her hip. "Thought I was going to die right there, so far from home that I couldn't even imagine how to get back. But then…" She smiles. "A girl about my age leaned down over me. I didn't know what she was saying, but she started pressing her cloak to my wound and yelling. She turned and called another girl over, this one even younger." Ven winks at Emily, who flushes brighter than ever. "I passed out and woke up on a ship, with the first girl holding my guts together while the younger one tried to stitch me up."
Emily waves a hand. "I heard the call for help and I answered it. I didn't know at the time that I was helping pirates." She shrugs, grinning. "I figured it out pretty quick once they got us back to their ship, but, by then, I couldn't leave Ven to bleed out. So I came aboard and never left." She glances at Ven. "And it really wasn't that bad."
"There was bone showing." The voice sends more chills down Chloe's spine than the whole story. The Crow slips out of the crowd of women, parting them with nothing more than her presence. "Ven was shaking uncontrollably and spitting up blood. She stopped breathing multiple times and Emily brought her back each one."
Ven smiles and crouches on the railing, obviously content to let the captain take over.
The Crow rounds on Chloe suddenly, hands tucked behind her back. It's so reminiscent of the way she looked last night, the first time Chloe had seen her, that it suddenly feels like she's back in that dark room, alone and scared of every shadow. Ashley stands off her barrel, a looming presence at Chloe's back and a reminder that as nice as these women have seemed so far, they are still pirates, still just like their captain in many ways. Not all of the stories she's heard of the Belladonna can be true, but in turn, neither can they all be false.
The Crow tilts her head. "I held Ven open for hours while Emily patched her insides. And then I held her shut while Emily sewed her up."
The image that springs to Chloe's mind turns her stomach and she clenches her jaw tightly, hoping the Crow doesn't notice.
"By the time she was finished there was more blood on the table and floor than in Ven." She slides one foot forward, barely resting her weight on it. "We pulled in other crew members and took their blood to give to her. It took weeks of constantly watching her, but Ven lived. Thanks to Emily." She finally looks away and, like a shadow come and gone, the chill that had settled on Chloe's skin goes with her gaze. "Don't belittle how much you did," she says to Emily. "And you." She turns to Ven who jauntily salutes. "Didn't I tell you to stop distracting my crew?"
"Oh, aye, Captain." Ven grins. "Can't help myself sometimes."
The Crow huffs through her nose. "Get to work. All of you." She never raises her voice, but the rest of the crew leaps to action as if she'd yelled. They all bustle away, Amy whistling an off-key tune.
Emily tugs at Chloe's sleeve, shuffling sideways a bit.
Before they get more than a few steps away, the Crow turns on them again. "Emily."
"Ah, yes? Captain?"
"I believe I told you to put the girl to work."
"Yes! Yes, Captain. I am. Right now. Doing it, I mean. Right now." Emily shuffles some more, pulling Chloe along.
Turning her back on that cold gaze is somehow harder than facing it. But Chloe tucks her head down and sticks to Emily's side until they're below deck and she can finally breathe again. "Good Lord," she mutters, pressing a hand to her racing heart. "Is she always like that?"
"Hm? Who?" Emily glances back as she leads the way down one of the halls. "Ven? Oh, yes. She's always been…" She waves her hands about. "Theatrical. It was much more amusing before she learned to speak English."
"Not Ven. The Crow."
Emily's steps slow and she turns, walking backward to look at Chloe. "Oh. Well. She's...a little difficult to get along with for most people. But once she gets used to you, you'll not find a better friend than Beca."
Chloe blinks, the name so starkly unexpected that she doesn't quite know what to do with it. "Beca?"
"Yes. Beca." Emily winces and turns back around. "Not sure I was supposed to tell you that."
It's...strangely easy—her first day aboard the Belladonna. After the Crow disappears below deck, anyways.
It doesn't take long for Chloe to forget her own mental warnings that these women are pirates. Murderers and thieves. Criminals. Because, for pirates, they're all actually quite nice. Yes, they're a bit improper—they eat with their mouths open and they curse a lot and Ven isn't the only one that seems to have a penchant for running around half-dressed. But they're kind to her. Emily leads her all around the deck, pointing out ropes and sails and naming them. Chloe doesn't remember a single one once they've moved on to the next, but she can't bring herself to dull the shine in Emily's face when she repeats after her and nods.
Emily really is nothing like the girls Chloe is used to. They're all frilled wealth and carefully built reputations. Controlled, obedient. Perfect pictures of grace and poise. Emily is exuberant in almost everything she does. She practically tremors with excitement when anyone speaks to her and there's no grace or poise to her. She's rough around the edges and a little clumsy, but more beautiful for it, Chloe thinks. She's real and raw and Chloe finds she likes that.
All of the pirates seem that way. They laugh and joke without glancing over their shoulders to see if anyone notices or cares. They sing loudly. They drink, they dance. They wear brightly-colored vests and shirts. It's like a whole other world aboard the Belladonna.
When she takes a break in her room just before nightfall and dinner, she finds herself mostly calm.
Chloe sits on the edge of her bed, sighing. Her stomach is a little queasy, still growing used to the constant movement, and her body aches. Muscles she didn't know she had are sore—in her legs and arms. She'd done little more than pull a rope or two, but it's more physical work than she's had to do in her life. It makes her realize how weak she really is.
Despite all of that, Chloe feels good. She's still afraid, but not like she was back home. There's no Thomas around every corner. Her father's eyes aren't on her every second of the day. She feels almost...free. Almost.
But the thought of her father, as it so often does, brings a creeping uneasiness. Because as Chloe thinks of him, she realizes that not a woman aboard has asked for her family name. She had told Stacie her first name the night before and hadn't thought much of it when the other women knew it. She just assumed knowledge passed quickly on a ship. But now she wonders if they didn't ask because they already knew. Her father is fairly well-known.
Perhaps asking for a family name was just bad form on a pirate ship. At least she hoped, because her stomach turns as she thinks of what could happen to her if they all knew. Her father has always been loud and set in his hatred of pirates, wherever he goes. Surely if these women knew who she was, they would have thrown her overboard immediately in revenge. Or cut her into pieces and shipped her back to her father.
There's a knock on her door and she jumps, bumping the little desk hard enough to rattle the drawers.
Stacie's smile is bright, though the hallway is much darker with the sun dropping. Shadows sit beneath her cheekbones and in her eyes. "My lady. The captain requests your presence."
Unease curls tightly in Chloe's stomach and she twists her head to look down the hall beyond Stacie. It's empty. "Now?"
"Yes, ma'am," Stacie says, nodding. "Come. I'll accompany you."
She doubts a refusal is an option here, so she steps out, carefully closing the door behind her. Stacie turns on her heel and strides off. Chloe trails behind her, trying to tamp out the crawling fear beneath her skin.
Why would the Crow be calling on her again? She hasn't done anything, has she? Emily said most of the crew should be retiring for dinner very soon and that she would fetch her then.
Stopping at the open door to the very same office she'd led Chloe to the night before, Stacie gives her a half bow and sweeps her arm out, motioning her inside. As soon as she's cleared the door's path, it snaps shut behind her. And she's alone again with the Crow.
It's strange, how much larger she looks here, in just the single light from the hanging lantern. Almost as if she takes up more space in the darkness than she does under the sun. Like the dark is part of her, so that she fills the whole room until she's all Chloe can pay attention to. Until all that's left is her, bent over the desk in a loosely tied, black shirt and fitted pants.
Chloe tries to set the name "Beca" to her, but it feels wrong. Too bright a name for this dark creature.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm sorry?" Chloe blinks, startling at the voice that slices the silence.
The Crow lifts her head and her dark eyes trek over Chloe's face before dropping back to the papers on the desk. "Where are you going?" she repeats slower. Only then does Chloe realize it's a map she's looking at, thin fingers trailing over scribbled names and jagged drawings of mountains and coasts.
"S-Spain," Chloe says. The Crow's eyes flutter closed and she sucks in a breath through her nose. Aggravated. Chloe knows that look well. Her father wears it often. So she rushes to fix her mistake. "Um. Santiago de Compostela. My aunt is a nurse at the university there."
The Crow's fingers slide across the map—the soft scratch of skin on paper filling the room—and stop on the northwestern tip of Spain. "I see." She pushes off of the map and straightens. "Do you know what's happening in Spain right now?"
Carefully, Chloe takes a small step closer. "The war."
"The Anglo-Spanish War." The Crow moves as the ship sways, rounding the desk. "Dangerous waters to be sailing."
Is she going to change her mind about taking Chloe there? Panic rises hot and boiling in her throat.
"Before we take you there," she says, as if reading Chloe's mind. It sends a chill through her blood that should douse the panic, but instead just turns it cold. "We sail for Port Royal. Have you heard of it?"
She has. From the same folk at the tavern that whispered stories of the Crow. They said Port Royal is a place for the worst types of people. The murderers and rapists and cannibals. The prostitutes and vagabonds. The "scum of the earth" as her father would call them.
The pirates.
Again, it's like the Crow knows what she's thinking. "It's also a dangerous place. More dangerous than Spain, I would wager."
The quiet starts to tear at Chloe almost immediately. So she opens her mouth. "Then why go there?"
The Crow shifts and she's suddenly closer, though Chloe isn't sure she actually saw her feet move. She tenses, waiting. For what, she isn't sure. If it were Thomas or her father, she'd be waiting for a hit. But with the Crow, she just doesn't know.
The Crow stops just within touching distance. Chloe could reach out and touch a pale cheek if she wanted to. Or one of her bare collarbones.
She blinks. What a strange thought to have.
"We need to resupply." The Crow tucks her hands behind her back. "Take a rest before we set sail. It's a very long journey. There will be Spanish ships. They're trying to reclaim Port Royal, so we often have to fight them to get there. And they hate pirates in Spain. They'll fight us there as well. Some of my crew may not live to see the end of this journey." She shifts again, sliding just a little closer into Chloe's space. Close enough that Chloe can see the lantern flame in her eyes. "Women I have sworn my life to. Women who have sworn theirs to me. All to get you to Spain."
There's a shake in Chloe's voice that she hopes isn't in her body. "Then why bring me?"
One shoulder lifts and falls. Dark eyes trail down Chloe's face and then off, to the darkness in the corner. "Perhaps...we can help each other." Her voice is slow and thoughtful, free of the bite it's carried so far.
Well, not bite. But the promise of teeth.
She steps past Chloe, stirring the air just enough for her to feel it brush by and Chloe suddenly realizes what the Crow is asking her for. The payment she'd accidentally offered. That's why the Crow had told her all these things. To show her exactly how much she owed.
The light shirt and pants that had felt so freeing earlier, suddenly don't feel like enough. She misses her corset and her skirts. Her thick cloak. The sunlight that had shown how small the Crow really is.
Because here, in the dark, Chloe feels helpless. Almost as scared as she'd been the first time Thomas had shoved her into a wall after too many drinks. When she'd realized there was nothing she could do to stop what was about to happen.
Almost as scared, but not quite. And that seals the deal for her. If just the thought of returning to Thomas scares her more than the very present risk of a pirate demanding her body, then she knows she's made the correct choice. It's a sacrifice she's prepared for. Anything, everything, to get away from him.
Then the Crow speaks and Chloe jumps again. "You'll be put to work on the ship. A few days will be given for you to grow accustomed to the labor, but after that, you will be treated just as everyone else is." Chloe turns to find the Crow prowling slowly along the bookshelf, one long finger skipping from spine to spine. "Which means, if I ask you to do something, you do it. No matter what it is. Do you understand?"
Anything. Everything. "Yes, Captain."
"Good." The Crow stops and turns on her heel to face her. "First order of business. Your hair."
It takes a few moments for the sentence to break through the fog in Chloe's mind. "My...hair?"
The Crow nods sharply. "It's too long for a new sailor. It can be dangerous to have long hair while working on a ship."
Chloe touches the braid that falls to her hips. "How short would you—"
"To your shoulders only." The Crow rounds her desk and takes a seat in the heavy wooden chair behind it. "It's a safer, more manageable length." Her hands settle on the arms of the chair like a queen's on a throne. "You'll also be put directly under the charge of our quartermaster. You know what that is, yes?"
She has been on her father's ships many times and she's heard the term. But she was always fussed when she asked her father questions and there was no one else to talk to after her mother passed. Vaguely, she remembers mention of sailors being reported to a quartermaster. "I am familiar with the title, but not the position."
"Mm." The Crow's dark eyes flicker over her face. "The quartermaster is in charge of discipline and order. She doles out punishments when rules are broken."
Chloe's hands are shaking so she tucks them together at her waist.
"She will teach you your duties and she will handle you if you fail to do them. Understood?"
"Yes, Captain."
The Crow stands, crossing the room to pull the door open. There is a tall, beautiful woman standing in the hall, waiting patiently with her hands tucked behind her back. Her blonde hair is tied in a perfect bun at the base of her neck and her face is still, impassive. Her posture alone tells Chloe that this is not a woman to be messed with.
"This is Quartermaster Aubrey. If you need anything or have any questions, you report to her." The Crow slips back into her shadows, lip curling. Her voice is low and full of disdain when she says, "Don't become a burden on my ship or you'll be dropped off at the nearest port, wherever that may be." With that, she turns back to her desk and Chloe knows she's been effectively dismissed. Her face burns with embarrassment as she hurries out. Even though she had been summoned, she suddenly feels like she'd been intruding on the captain and it makes her stomach burn hot.
She hurries out, shutting the door behind her.