A/N:
Key:
Thoughts/Dreams
Regular Words
Get it? Got it? Good!
Disclaimer: I do not own Treasure Planet or any characters in it. sniff…sniff :'(
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As the week carried on, Jim was truly spending every minute of his day doing work. The moment he tried to rest, or even daydream for that matter, Silver would find him some of the most ridiculous and disgusting jobs for him to do.
As a sack of potatoes was emptied in front of him into a large pile, Jim realized this would be a long day. It seemed like with each passing day the chores piled up more and more, like those blasted potatoes, and made him hate being the only cabin boy even more. Sora threw the empty sack into his lap and she turned to leave. "Good luck." She muttered, sarcastically.
Like his loathing for his job grew, so did his for this girl. Every time an opportunity presented itself she'd find ways to make him even angrier without even doing much. Like for instance, later that night, after supper, he just knew there was a smirk plastered on her face as she helped Silver clear the tables, loading up big stacks for Jim to clean. For goodness' sake she even knocked him when she walked by in any hallway.
OoOoOoOoOoOo
Later the next day, the Legacy flew closer to a star than usual and made the day unbearably hot. As if things couldn't get worse, Sora stepped out onto the deck.
As she walked by him her shoulder collided with his. So, what? Sora liked picking on this boy for various reasons, one of which being he was new and seriously didn't know how to pick his fights. Jim didn't doubt for a second that it was on-purpose.Was she just waiting to see how long it took before he cracked? "That's it!" He shouted, throwing the mop down. "What's your problem?"
Sora stopped and spun on her heel, and as her voice rose to a shout, Jim recognized an English accent. "My problem? You're the whining little brat who won't shut his mouth!"
"Me? Shut my mouth?" A few men stood up from their busy schedules of laying about the deck all day to watch the trouble brewing. Fortunately there was only about four or five of them.
"Uh, yes you! And you want to know what my bloody problem is? It's you! When I came on this ship I didn't think my job would be to baby-sit some idiot cabin boy, makin' sure he does his chores without getting himself sliced up by Scroop!" She crossed her arms over her chest and started to walk away when she heard his whisper.
"Women!" He muttered.
"You're in for it now." One man said.
"Why? She's just a girl."
You're dead now, Newbie. Jim turned back to his work, seeing she was just clenching her fists, and not trying to kill him. When the sound of knuckles cracking filled the air, he turned around, only to come in contact with someone's fist. He couldn't have blocked it if it had been the only thing he desired in this life. Those men were right, Jim thought, as he stumbled back. She's one quick opponent.
Sora stood only a few feet away, with tight fists, and pure anger burning in her heart. Lesson learned- don't tick her off. For 'hell hath no fury like a woman scorned'. And Jim was going to pay. He stumbled back into a few of the men, who pushed him back towards Sora. Bad idea. As he tripped forward, she pushed him to the ground. His head hit the deck with a thud.
From his point of view he saw Sora's boyish boots walking away. His anger getting the best of him, he tripped her. As she fell her head hit the side of the ship, cutting her lip also. The men's laughter filled both of their ears, Jim stood up, using the mast for support, and rubbed his jaw. Sora could throw a pretty good punch. He looked towards the men as they laughed, just getting angrier.
The sound of wind whistling near his right ear made him wonder what made the noise. Looking over he saw a knife, bouncing and swaying from the force of the impact on the mast. In fact- it was a gully. Jim hurriedly looked at Sora, who stood, now, only a few feet away from him, wiping the blood off of her lip.
Ok. Jim wasn't going to take his chances with this girl- especially since she was twice as fast as him. "Nice aim." He complimented without sarcasm.
Walking up to him, so her face was only inches from his, she pulled the gully out with a bit of trouble and smirked. "Thanks," She paused, the smirk left her face. "But, I missed."
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As it reached mid-day, Jim was mopping the deck. Again. How in blazes did it get dirty again so quickly? His jaw still sore, he remembered the 'fight'. If you could even call it that. Jim was content knowing he hadn't seen Sora at all yet today.
He shouldn't have jinxed it. Sora walked out from the crew's quarters, looking very tired. "Slept in?"
She sent one of her famous glares at him. "For your information, I have the night watch so I sleep during the day when I can. Mr. Onus may have three sets of eyes but they aren't nothing in the dark."
Sorry I asked. Sighing, he knew he should apologize for yesterday, even though he loathed the very idea. Better now than have Silver make him, after all, the man said he'd be pounding some sense into this lad's head and that probably included 'learning to say sorry'.
"Look," Jim knew this would be difficult and it showed in his voice. "I'm sorry 'bout yesterday, I-"
"I don't do apologies." Sora pushed past him.
Out of nowhere Mr. Onus shouted from the crow's nest "Land ho!" Jim's head jerked up as he heard this. It was way to soon, wasn't it? Many of the crew rushed out to see the nearing planet. Most of it was completely tanish-brown with darker brown lines and waves covering the entire planet, it also had white streaks on it, which was probably snow. Jim recognized it as Tronacor. A well known trading planet, it was also a kind of 'pit-stop' for ships on long voyages, as the planet was covered in enormous canyons, wide enough to allow any ship to pass through and dock.
Sora noticed the confused expression on his face. "You can't really expect us to go the entire journey to T- um, where ever it is we're going with out extra supplies."
As far as you know the crew's not supposed to know where we're going, and I almost let it slip! Why do I have to be such an idiot sometimes? If he asked, she'd just tell him the crew doesn't know and 'they just told us we'd have lots of cargo coming back' or something. She tried not to laugh at her own excuse, while she was snickering on the inside.
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After they were good and safely docked, every man was put at work, hauling in more supplies, like food and other necessities. To Sora's dismay, she and Jim were in charge of hauling the smaller barrels down below deck. She pulled on her fingerless, but still warm black gloves, but Sora didn't mind much, as long as she didn't have to be outside the whole time, as the planet was currently experiencing winter, thanks to the position of their star.
Snow crunched under her boots as Sora walked down towards a large pile of barrels, waiting to be loaded, Jim following behind her. The winds were strong here; they blew the ends of her coat behind her, revealing for the first time her apparel. She had hunter green cargo pants, which ended just above her black boots, and a dark, deep, and almost black violet shirt.
Lifting up a now slightly snow covered barrel she looked around at the scenery. This planet hardly had any trees, or any kind of plants in the first place, but now every trace of them was buried in snow. There were bare trees, the branches under a fresh blanket of snow, as was the entire port.
They worked, lugging the heavy barrels down below deck in complete silence. Jim finally broke it. "So…how old are you?"
Sora sighed. "Fifteen."
"Shouldn't you go to school instead of being just a part of some ship's crew?"
She didn't answer and again the silence overtook them. "So," He said, trying to get her to talk, even he hated the unbearable silence. "Remember when Silver said he met you on Proteus 1?"
"Hmm…" Sora tried keeping her concentration on the heavy burden, to refrain from dropping it, of course, or… to try and ignore him.
"Why were you on Proteus 1, anyway? I heard, besides those morph things, hardly anyone lives there, like there's only a few cities or something."
"Actually, there were three or four small towns." Placing the barrel down with the rest, she thought about this. How much was she going to tell this boy? "I- um, ran away."
"Why?"
"Lot's of reasons, I guess. Besides, the last letter I got from my father said he was living there, so that's where I went. Though, it turned out he moved a while ago, my mom had stopped accepting mail from there, so I hadn't known." She turned back to walk up the stairs to the deck, and Jim walked along side her, with a confused expression on his face. "Oh- my parents got divorced. It was pretty bad, but it was like four years ago."
"Wow, I'm so sorry."
"Save it- I don't need your pity. Besides, I'm doing just fine." Hmm, that's what I said to Silver, Jim recalled.
"Where did you live before you left?"
"Do you ever shut up?" They reached the end of a boring routine, and started again, picking up another barrel each. They repeated this process many times before Sora seriously felt her fingers were completely frozen.
"Jim!" Shouting, only a few feet away was an overdressed and half frozen Doppler, holding what looked like a letter. "There's a message from Sara!" The snow was blowing furiously now, and it made him just near impossible to hear.
"I'll uh, see ya." He ran off to speak with Doppler. Sora noticed there were only a few barrels left, thank goodness! Though eager to be rid of the tedious work, eavesdropping was one of her favorite hobbies. She fumbled around with them, while she listened.
"It's from Sarah." Doppler held up the letter. But what looked like an envelope was actually electronic. Pressing what resembled a seal, a hologram popped up of an angry and familiar face.
"Delbert! When you said a 'couple of months in space' I didn't know you were serious! Did you know you were lying to me? Did you know it was two months, one-way? Of course you did! If this takes longer than his summer break than your in big trouble, Delbert! If he misses school then I'll-"
Doppler placed his hand over the prerecorded hologram message and whispered to Jim. "Uh, your mom says Hi."
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Every single snowflake is different. Each and every one has a different and unique pattern to it. Sora watched as a few melted on the wood of the crow's nest. Standing up so high made it, if possible, even colder.
The cold night's wind swept across the deck, and the wind grew stronger up on one of the yardarms, then up to the crow's nest. She stood, trying to keep balance from the wind, as it pushed her slightly to the side, and from her weariness. Cold eyes watched, unblinking, at everything that came onto the deck. Her eyes followed anything that moved even the slightest; Her ears could catch even the smallest breath that escaped through a young boy's mouth that stood on the deck.
He was wringing his hands, apparently chilled to the bone. She gazed down at him in remembrance of their previous discussion. Sora could not find one reason, one reason at all, why told him anything, or even spoke to him for that matter. After a few moments her best explanation was that she actually enjoyed talking to someone her own age for once.
Right now though, she was furious at him. For a while now her dreams were of her past, running away and all that, but during the day it was forgotten. She completely loathed remembering her mother, and her old home and planet; Sora wished he'd have never brought it up. At least she didn't tell him what planet she lived on. If he knew that- well, what did she care if he knew? If he had any problem with it she'd just punch him. Again, she thought with a smirk.
Soon, Jim felt her gaze on his back and turned around, looking up at her. Their eyes locked and she glared down at him as he smiled. What's he so smiley about? And why is it every time he smiles it gets so annoying? But no use asking unanswerable questions, get back to your shift!
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Morning came all too quickly, and the Legacy had launched before an hour past sunrise. The crew had breakfast, or dinner for Sora; it was getting all too confusing. She stumbled into her hammock, shutting her eyes tightly, trying uselessly to shut the blazing bright light out. Though her watch was terribly tiring, the last thing she wanted was another dream. Or nightmare, as she would have described it. But, even though her brain protested, her body was too weary to have it any other way. Her eyes closed, and she slept peacefully- for the moment.
Everything was pitch black, the kind where you can wave your hand in front of your face, and not have the slightest idea that it is there. Sora stepped forward, though she could see nothing, and it seemed a picture was painted in front of her eyes that very moment. A girl's bedroom- a large, pink, canopy bed, walls pink also. The room seemed- hmm, a little to 'cute' for Sora's present taste. She walked forward, and saw there was a little girl, sitting upon a bench, perfect for looking out the enormous window. She wore a- you guessed it- pink dress, and couldn't have been a day older than ten or eleven. Her black hair was kept up in a neat little bun, with a white ribbon. She sat with her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms around them, and her forehead was leaning against the windowpane. Sora walked closer, and sat next to the little girl, though the girl could not see her. She never could. The door opened, and light streamed into the dark room. A man walked over and sat on the other side of the girl.
"I'm guessing you heard us fighting again?" His accent was English, much like Sora's, his face was kind, and aging, his ears were pointed and cat-like and undoubtedly non-human. The girl nodded but didn't turn to him, for fear of him seeing her tear covered face. The man sighed and placed a hand on her shoulder. With a very shaky voice the girl spoke to him. "Kathy- in my class," She sniffed. "Said that when your mother and father fight a lot they get a divorce."
"It'll be alright sweetie, even if that did happen, I'd still see you all the time." This only made the girl cry even harder it seemed, but she continued staring outside at the softly falling rain. "So it's true then, you are!" Her shaky voice still present, she tried to stand up and leave, but her father pulled her back down by her arm.
"Sora Angela Thompson!" He lifted her chin to look him in the eye. "You gotta have faith that it'll be alright. Okay?" He smiled down at her, and she up at him. "Okay." She whispered, and hugged him tightly. "I love you, dad."
He squeezed her tightly. "I love you too, Sora."
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A/N:
Yay for longer chapters! Not much of an A/N but from now on I'll give ya the title of the next chapter and a brief summary, hopefully they wont be changed much before I post them Oh, and I gave some thought to the JimOC thing. While I don't at all loathe the concept, you'll just have to wait and see :)
Next Chap:
Reminiscence. –Reminiscences of a young girl's past. And if Jim hasn't already gotten the message, he realizes this girl is much more strong than he thought.