Return to the City of Gold An El Dorado Fanfic

~Chapter Three~

A New Trail to Blaze

The ship swayed back and forth calmly as Chel, Tulio, and Miguel slept. Chel and Tulio had taken Cortes's cabin after having a good laugh about, as they put it, how they would completely destroy it. Miguel giggled this off and decided to take residence in one of the officers' quarters on the other side of the ship and Emita would take the other one. Although Miguel was able to get little periods of scattered sleep under his belt, in the early morning he had finally woken up and been unable to go back to sleep. Truth be told, he was too excited. Excited about Emita, in fact, but also a little concerned as well. Who was this girl? How had she gotten into this situation? Was she a stow away? Was Cortes going to make his way back here soon? Emita hadn't revealed much about her backstory, only answering a few questions periodically, and vaguely at that.

All they could make out was that she was 21 years old and had found herself aboard Cortes's ship entirely by mistake, just as he and Tulio had. These things buzzed in Miguel's mind quite fervently, but it was Emita's beauty and her air of mystery that had piqued Miguel's interest. In the midst of his pondering a small knock came upon the cabin door. That's weird…he thought. Tulio usually just barges right in. Miguel got up and opened the door tentatively. To his immense surprise, Emita was on the other side.

"Hi." Was all Miguel could muster. She smiled.

"May I come in?" she asked quietly. Miguel grinned.

"Please!" he said happily. She entered, almost cautiously and took a seat on the tiny bed.

"Oh, I'm sorry. May I?" she asked gesturing to the bed. Miguel nodded enthusiastically, which made her chuckle. Miguel took a seat on the other end of the bed, so as not to seem to forward. He placed his hands on his knees hesitantly. He sighed.

"Sooooo…" he said. Emita gave him a concerned look.

"I'm sorry I didn't reveal much about myself yesterday….it's just that your friends...they kind of make me feel…well…" she hesitated. Miguel nodded.

"Don't worry about it, I understand. Tulio can seem a bit….well, that's just the way Tulio is. He's intrusive, to say the least." Miguel replied. Emita grinned and nodded. She looked Miguel right in the eyes, which made him feel a little self-conscious.

"You don't seem to be that way though. You seem…different." She said gently. Miguel smiled.

"Is that…..a good thing?" he asked cautiously. Emita nodded.

"You know, I actually am not on Cortes's ship by accident." She said after a beat. Miguel knit his eyebrows.

"What do you mean?" he asked. She couldn't hide the huge smile that was beginning to spread across her face.

"Heh, well…I'm sure you already figured I'm a stow away." She laughed. Miguel shrugged.

"No, of course not." He said innocently. She laughed again.

"Oh don't lie." She said playfully. "Well, I did, I stowed away. But it was only because I was so bored in Spain." She stopped and leaned back on her palms. She glared at the ceiling.

"I wanted adventure…I thought I would find it in Spain because it's where my father was from and he always told the best stories about it. I was raised in England, ironically enough, because that's where my mother is from. Funny, huh?" she chuckled. A huge smile spread across Miguel's face.

"Actually, I was also raised in England for a time! My father was actually from England and my mother from Spain. After my father died, my mother took my sister and me back to Spain and I met Tulio a few years later. We've been partners ever since." Miguel explained. Emita seemed to light up when he said this, but this was only for a moment.

"I'm sorry about your father. My mother had died in England too and that's when my father decided to move us to Spain. He said staying in England was too painful for him. Anyway, it was just him, me, and my two brothers after that. However, after a while, Spain got really boring for me and so my father encouraged me to board one of the ships bound for the New World. It was a great idea, except I had no money…..sooooooo…." she trailed off. Miguel chuckled.

"So you stowed away?" Miguel finished. She nodded and then sadness overtook her face.

"I had no idea this was Cortes's ship though! And then when I got caught…I just hoped I would make it home to see my brothers again. I didn't know how much time had passed after they locked me up down here, but we had already been out to sea for three weeks…it wasn't until the fourth week that I got caught. But we landed soon after so I must have been down here for at least a week or so. Anyway, Cortes ordered that I stay down here and had someone keep watch over me…but after a while that guy disappeared and had left me only a little food in my cell. After that, I was too weak to try to escape and well, that's when you found me." She said. Miguel rubbed his chin.

"You've been through quite a lot, haven't you?" he said gently. She shrugged.

"I wasn't worried for me; I was worried for my brothers. They are still so young and I promised I'd be back….but, I felt something was calling me out to it." She stopped and again looked right at Miguel.

"Maybe…something was?" he offered shyly. Emita grinned.

"Yeah, I think you may be right on that." She said gently. They sat in silence for a while, going over their conversation in their minds.

The sun began to peak through the porthole in the room, knocking them from their thoughts.

"It's morning." Miguel said. Emita nodded, looking at the ray of sunlight that was beginning to fill the room.

"Tulio will be up any minute, and I suppose Chel too. We should find them and figure out our next move. After all, didn't you say it's been a week since someone was here?" Miguel asked. Emita nodded.

"Yeah, we might need to get out of here….." she paused for a moment. "I'd actually really like to explore what's out what's out there. I bet it's an entirely new world out there!" she said, the excitement she felt evident in her voice. Miguel placed his hand on her shoulder.

"It is." He said encouragingly. Emita grinned.
"Well then, what are we waiting for?" she said and leapt out of her seat. She headed for the door. Just as Miguel was about to get up to follow her, she rushed back to him and looked him in the eyes.

"You have beautiful eyes, by the way." She said softly. She leaned in and gently laid a kiss on Miguel's lips, which took his breath away. She grinned at him.

"Why did you do that?" Miguel asked breathlessly. She winked.

"I'm beginning my adventure."