A panicked yipping as well as the sounds of her newest crewmates' angered/heartbroken pleas drags the tired sailor from an already uneasy dozing. The dipping sunlight painted the skies an ominous shade of pink and red not at all helping her tense mood when she manages to make her trembling fingers cooperate long enough to fling open her cabin door.
"what's this about?" Alice demands in a yawned breath fumbling only a little farther in fastening her sword belt around her middle thanks to her newest battle wound throbbing in angered reminder as she moved.
Robin's mouth now gagged with a dirty strip of torn cloth tied over it to quiet her protests as three of the crew working in cruel tandem managed to both subdue and restrain her. Not that Alice's attentions stayed trained on the rigged struggle long once she noticed the main draw of Robin's immediate focus and what seemed the actual reason the trio had gained such an upper hand on one Alice knew for true was a far more skilled fighter than all three together.
Out on the gangplank, the ship's Quartermaster stood balanced with an equally struggling scrap of a thing held only by the scruff of its neck out over the open sea waters.
"Hold" Alice bellowed dragging all eyes to her as she entered the fray.
"Clayton bring the pup back on board" she instructs her gaze flickering to the tearful one now wrestled down to her knees as she was forced to watch all this unfolding. Alice felt her blood boil at the beaten state of the one now looking only at the ragged boards of the ship decking.
Could it have only been a few hours before that she'd had the privilege of knowing the delicately warmed feeling of the woman's hands probing with such care at the bloody mess that was her sliced-up ribcage? Even now Alice feels that fluttered tingling where Robin's hands had brushed along her skin whilst the taller hunter had stitched her wounds taking care to dab each new thread line with a splashing of pilfered liquor from the captain's smaller held rum storage.
Not that her papa actually touched the heavier stuff much anymore, but he did say he liked keeping the reminder of his wilder days on hand for those of the crew who wished a tinkered or three when the tied granted a bit of free time.
Alice didn't dare let her mind linger further still in the memories of when feather-light kisses replaced the soft brushing of her lover-turned-surgeon hands along her skin after the stitching had been wrapped with ripped strips of one of Robin's own shirts.
"'tis a bad..." Clayton's voice was a mercy in a way drawing Alice's attention away from remembered stolen moments with the huntress she was falling more in love with every second they could steal away to be together.
Even times like now with her rogue beaten and bloodied as she was Alice couldn't help but love her.
"i said hand it back." Alice barks letting her anger at the rough treatment of her lover layer her sleep-husky tone standing at the ship's end of the pulled-out planking her hand extended and expectant. She could see her kneeling temptress struggling once more against the unyielding hands holding her captive as the ship rocked steadily with a strengthening tide. "the dog. Give it to me!" the ship's first mate barked when her orders were not immediately followed.
"tis a black fur mutt and the runt of the pack at that given the look of it" one of the three holding Robin hostage points out as if that proves the need for such a cruel act. "Any crew worth their sails knows the foul luck of a black mutt..."
"I don't care about superstitions I'm ordering you to bring the pup back on board" Alice snaps hating the defeated sagging of Robin's shoulders she catches out of the corner of her eye as the girl bowed her head in a poor attempt at hiding her tears over the seeming upcoming loss of one Alice can already guess the newcomer considered a friend.
Something in shorter and shorter supply these days.
Robin's tears mingled with the fresh drop of blood from a cut to her lip only adding more fuel to the boiling fire humming through Alice's veins as her hand dropped in warning to the hilt of her sword. 'I'll make them all pay dearly for what they've done to you love' the pirate's daughter vows in her own mind as she readies for the fight she was sure would break out at any second.
"do as she says."
Again, all eyes even Alices turn toward the voice.
"Papa you should be resting" Alice scolds her eyes burning with the threat of tears at the mere sight of the famed pirate captain limping yet swaggering towards them all. Robin too attempts what they all guess to be some kind of scolding at his appearance although her words are less likely to be understood passed the tightly secured gag tied over her mouth.
"As should you, starfish" her father reminds with a guilty hitch of a breath has his gaze slides to the seeping spots of blood spoiling what he knew to be his daughter's favored green-clothed shirts he knew for sure hadn't started as part of Alice's blue coloring favored wardrobe before a certain green clothed favoring stowaway was found below deck.
This too earned a garbled "fank woo" from Robin earning a childish sticking out of her tongue from Alice in a now seeming to be snickering Robin's direction as the ship's captain turns his full attention to the one yet to move from his balanced stance out over the turning tide of open water.
"tis an omen cap. A sign of evil..." Clayton scoffs keeping a tight hold on the whimpering growling scrap of a pup but then he stops, his eyes narrowing towards the ship's unfit first mate inching not so smoothly towards the lass his few loyal followers held captive then back to the restrained stowaway Clayton had yet to get ejected with a wicked deadly half smile when he saw the growing fear in the girl's eyes as both caught his gaze on them.
So, they finally realized he hadn't been 'telling tales' when he'd said he knew their secret.
'Maybe now they'll show me the respect I deserve." Clayton considered straightening his stance in the glaring face of his scowling captain. "you know who she is." The man says instead once again needing to grip the wriggling mutt tighter when the thing in his grip attempted another hard bite to his fingers in an attempt at freedom.
it wasn't a question. The postings had been plastered on damned near every wall the last time the ship had been to port. The offered reward for even a scrap of information on the rogue's whereabouts would be more than enough for acquiring a new and much grander ship than the one they now maned.
"you know the target you..."
The zing of an unsheathing sword fills the sudden hush as Clayton pauses at the action "as this ship's captain" Killian Jones says straightening his stance despite the obvious grimaces of pain even a deaf man would be able to detect. "I've given the girl the same sanctuary as her father once gave me when I was, but a young scrap of a sailor stranded along shores of Sherwood Forest with a far fiercer adversary chasing me."
Clayton scoffs again his teeth gritting as his eyes flick once again between the two also targeted in his upset. "'tis it truly a simple honor debt that stills your hand, Captain." None of the bodies gathered around miss the way he spits out the word before he draws a long breath and then finishes his asking "or is the true reasoning for keeping her around longer than she's wanted because you know for true, she beds your daughter?" he growls wanting to slash out one last mental wound before he deals his fair share of physical ones before the day was out.
The rest of the crew they'd locked away in the lower decks would soon come around in time once he was captain and if they didn't…. well…. The sharks could always use some fresh chum in the waters. He's already spotted a few hungry-looking ones trailing the ship from his time on the evening watch.
If the news startles him the captain doesn't show it other than giving a cool "my daughter can bed whoever she wishes so long as the bedding is consented to," The old pirate brushes off his weapon still drawn and raised the fading afternoon sunlight glinting warmly from the deadly sharpened blade. "way I see it them together isn't harming the running of..."
"You see it now" Clayton growled to the other three crowded the ship's deck. Seeming unafraid of the weapon trained on him as he swaggered back towards the edge of the ship. The mutt cast away back onto the deck to go scuttering towards the things equally weak choice of an owner. "You all see for yourselves how he isn't fit to lead us?"
"So, this is a mutiny," Killian sighed noticing what the others missed in the way the clever pup was now quietly tugging at the bloodied bindings tied around Robin's wrists as all other attention even Alice's was trained on himself and this mutiny craving crewman. "threatening the dog or casting light on my daughter's relations was only a cover"
"Cover or not you've been bringing this on yourself for a long while now old man." Clayton barked only for his words to be half drowned by an ominous clattering from below deck before those Killian would consider his true crewmates burst onto the deck.
"Second mistake you've made today." Sabina the ship's cook scoffed lifting her trusted rolling pin in warning as she fell into step flanking her captain as Alice fell into line on his right the rest of the four of the ship's other freed crew having already moved to deal with the traitors three crowding the ships recently gained archer. "Never lock a cook close to ingredients worthy to gunpower strength in the right hands. She may just take the idea."
"And the first?" Clayton scoffed
The Jones father and daughter shared a single glance that ended with the father inclining his head in quite offering before rocking back onto his heels even going so far as to lower his saber under Clayton's smug gaze.
Rather than giving a true answer Alice chooses to quietly take her father's place glaring down at the mutineer snickering at her before his smile turns to a flash of realized panic when Alice's heel rams hard against the thick planking pushed out over the ship's side.
"You dared lay a finger on her."
The last thing Clayton heard over the creaking groan of the board kicked free of the mother ship. The glaring motion of the action making him stagger backward only added to the falling buckling of the board under his weight sending him falling into the pathway of a trailing shark's fin newly cresting the darkened waters below.
Not that Alice could savor the satisfying splashing of Clayton's fall over the blocking clash of a blade aimed at her would have been unprotected back had it not been for her Papa's quick save.
Then all hell broke loose on the deck of the Jolly Roger.