October 23th, 1678
Bored.
Santana was incredibly bored. It had been a weird couple of days. It rained for 2 nights since she got here, and yesterday the rain kept on for the whole day. Thank god, she had managed to gather more food on her second day and had saved some of it, but that didn't change the fact she was very, very bored the previous day and remained bored through this morning.
She gulfed down her breakfast, thinking she couldn't have been stranded on a more boring island. There was nothing to do during the day, especially being locked up in a small cabin; plus there was no secret stash of rum hidden anywhere or even a secret treasure buried, just the chest full of clothes as far as she could tell, so much for excitement.
There weren't even any local morons for her to pick on.
Santana leaned back against the wall with a sigh, she finished her meal in less time than she intended. With an audible grumble she got up and gathered her stuff, picking up a piece of fabric on the floor and rolling her breaches up, deciding to have a look outside as the rain finally seemed to have stopped.
Santana stepped out of the cabin as she strapped her dagger to her waist, noticing there weren't even any clouds in the sky as if it hadn't been raining for more than a day.
Damn strange weather, she thought to herself.
Everything about this whole situation was odd, she remarked as she remembered when she got up in the middle of the previous night to do her business, grateful that at that point the rain had briefly stopped and noticed once again that the red dot had appeared in the sky. There it was again, mocking her. That red sign had always reminded her of her Papi, her family and she felt a pang at remembering the things she had already lost.
She shook her head as if trying to get rid of her depressive line of thought and started making her way towards the beach, trimming her usual path of wondering branches on her way there.
Santana breathed in the fresh salty air of the beach when she stepped into the sand, wriggling her bare fingers in it. She was so glad she didn't wake up with a headache today, the day was warm and pleasant and she hoped to catch some fish with the makeshift net she had made with some pieces of clothing on the previous day; at least she had made good use of her time locked in the cabin.
The brunette started walking down the beach, searching for a good place to test the new net she held in her hands when she noticed an odd but familiar form about a hundred something meters away from her. Her hand automatically went to the dagger at her waist. Santana took a few more steps in the things direction and squinted her eyes trying to distinguish exactly what it was.
After she took several hesitant paces towards it, Santana realized it was a dinghy. This was even stranger, since it didn't seem to be any ships around; she double checked just to make sure. The woman carefully walked to the tree line and hid behind a tall tropical plant. From afar, it didn't look like there were people near it or aboard the dinghy, but Santana cautiously continued making her way towards it, hidden by the forest alongside the beach, just in case.
As she got just a few meters from the small boat, Santana finally came to the conclusion it was empty. The woman looked around searching for anyone in the premise or if something caught her eye, only moving from her hidden position once she was sure she was alone.
Santana approached the empty dinghy; located in a pool of water, protected from the powerful waves by large rocks. The pirate couldn't help getting a surge of excitement as she hoped this would be her way off of the island. She inspected the small boat closer and slumped in disappointment when she realized half of it was submerged in water due to severe cracks on its side, probably a product of hitting those big rocks.
"Damn!" She cursed, kicking the boat with her foot and wincing in pain. "Idiot!" Santana then grunted in frustration at herself, having completely forgotten she was bare footed.
Her hit caused the boat to move, slightly floating away from her and Santana noticed the stretched rope tied to it. Forgetting her pain and spurred on by her curiosity, she inspected the rope for a brief moment and followed it to the other side of the dinghy. As Santana slowly walked around it, she noticed with a gasp that just a few paces from the small boat there was a body in the very shallow water.
She carefully approached what appeared to be the body of a lean man and her gaze instantly fell on the Cutlass tightly strapped to the man's waist. Santana took her time analyzing the rest of his attire, realizing he was most definitely a pirate; the high boots with breaches darken by salt water held by a thick belt, the shirt that was clearly ripped in some places with hints of dried blood splashed on it, the worn open waistcoat also tainted by hints of blood and the blue bandana in his head holding some of the long blonde hair that lay disheveled across the man's face, hiding it from view.
By his attire, she could also know that he may have been not just an ordinary seaman.
Santana bowed her head in respect for the poor fool body of a pirate in front of her. If he was sent in a dinghy in the middle of such a storm, he was probably sent to die. He almost made it, she thought to herself with a shake of her head.
Getting closer to the unmoving man, Santana stopped abruptly to think; she was a pirate, so she might as well take advantage of this man's poor luck, and she was in need of a Cutlass after all, plus he may even have something interesting stored in one of his pockets.
She crouched down to his level, wetting her breaches in the process and went for his belt to try and get the Cutlass free. But a sudden movement cause by the man stirring in his sleep startled Santana and she immediately brought her hand to her dagger but froze upon the sight in front of her.
The hair that was once covering the man's face had fallen and a delicate face was hidden beneath it, a clearly feminine delicate face, Santana discerned. Even if this person was wearing man's clothes, she was clearly a girl, and from the looks of it probably around Santana's age.
Santana also noticed how beautiful this woman was even if her face seemed to be heavily bruised. One of her eyes was swollen and had a dark circle around it and her thin dry lips were cut at each corner, but she still seemed beautiful with her defined cheekbones and straight long nose with a light layer of freckles on her sun kissed skin.
In a moment of though, Santana bit her lower lip. What should she do? She was about to rob a dead body and didn't feel guilty about it at all, and now for some reason, she was feeling bad for robbing a living woman? That didn't make sense to her.
She heard a pained grunt coming from the injured woman as she squirmed for a moment in pain. Santana imagined what this woman must have been through and how injured she must be and couldn't help but feel sympathy towards her.
Even though she knew she may regret this later, Santana had already made her decision the second she laid eyes on the blonde woman's face, she was going to help her.
To insure her own safety, Santana took the woman's Cutlass and strapped it to her own waist along with her dagger, and patted the blonde's pockets to make sure she wasn't carrying any other weapons.
With a lot of strain Santana picked the girl up from the shallow water, drenching the rest of her clothes before making her way back to the cabin. She hadn't realized before that this girl would be so heavy and she was too tall compared to Santana's smaller stature, so the brunette was having difficulty walking on the soft sand with the woman in her arms.
Santana released a sigh of relief when she finally got to the edge of the forest where the ground was more solid and easier to walk on, and adjusted the stranger in her arms for a better grip. But woman started squirming in her arms and fighting her hands, mumbling something Santana couldn't understand.
She laid the wriggling girl on the ground before both of them could fall. Santana sat on the ground next to the blonde and waited for the girl to stop struggling. By instinct, she put a soothing hand on her pale sweaty forehead and caressed the skin with her thumb feeling small tingles at the tip of her hand where their skin touched. She tried to ignore the feeling and her curiosity but she found herself wondering what color this stranger's eyes might be.
After a few seconds, Santana noticed the woman falling back into a more peaceful sleep; her face no longer looked pained and her squirming had subsided. So the tired brunette got back on her feet and stretched her back, getting ready to pick the tall girl up again and start their journey back to the cabin.
The sun seemed much hotter now, approaching its highest position in the sky. It took longer than Santana thought it would to reach the cabin and as she felt sweat dripping from her forehead and neck, mixing with the salt water on her body, she kicked the cabin's door open and carried the stranger inside, laying her down on the makeshift bed as smoothly as possible.
She noticed the woman seemed even limper now, and that she had completely stopped stirring. Worrying for her, Santana moved her hand to the stranger's neck to feel for a pulse, and was instantly relieved when she found one; she couldn't help but notice how soft the woman's skin felt even under her current condition and also couldn't ignore the flip her stomach made when she felt that almost electric feeling at the tip of her fingers for the second time.
Retreating her hand, Santana stared at it for a moment in wonderment before she moved to light the fire. She wasn't a medic, but years living at sea and talking to her crew's medic Mike taught her a few things. For one, Santana knew cuts and bruises were always in need of a proper cleaning as quickly as possible. So when the fire was done, she went to get some water with an old bucket she had found the day before by the nearby river so she could heat it up.
When she got back to the cabin and put the water on the fire, Santana noticed her unconscious guest seemed to have moved a bit in her restless sleep. Santana truly didn't want to disturb the stranger, but for her to see and treat this woman's injuries she would have to remove her clothes, and Santana subconsciously gulped at that thought. She didn't even know why she felt the need to help this woman in the first place. But she just couldn't seem to really help wanting to.
Santana approached the blonde woman again, careful to not make any loud noises, and decided to start with the removal of the woman's boots. The high boots along with most of her clothes were heavy and wet and Santana scoffed at herself as to why she didn't think to take those off on the beach so she wouldn't have to carry so much weight. She easily took both boots off and the woman didn't even stir as she seemed to be in deep sleep now, if the light snoring was anything to go by.
Santana quickly wiped away the small smile that she felt tugging at her lips at the endearing sound. She then moved to the woman's breaches, also taking them off with a bit more difficulty due to the damp fabric sticking to the woman's skin. But Santana did notice with a frown that the blonde's underpants also had stains of blood on them.
She re-positioned herself closer to the woman's torso, so she could lift it up and take her waistcoat and shirt off.
Once Santana managed to get both items off, after some stirring and unintelligible mumbles from the woman beneath her, the blonde was left in only her underpants and a tight binding wrapped around her chest; Santana guessed it served to hide its volume and scolded herself for the heating she felt creeping along her own face.
Santana couldn't help but think one of the theories in her mind seemed to fit this stranger. It wasn't unheard off, even if Santana had never witnessed firsthand, but she was aware some women posed as man to be able to go aboard ships; as most ships wouldn't allow a woman aboard due to it being a bad omen. The question that remained running through her mind was whether this woman was just posing as a male pirate to get somewhere or if she was actually a pirate who happened to hide her true gender. Santana was hoping for the former but a feeling in her gut told her otherwise.
Looking down at the woman, Santana swallowed dryly at the state her body was in. She was clearly fit, Santana couldn't deny, but her abdomen was covered in deep purple bruises and so were her lean arms, which also sported some small contusions. The brunette touched them gently one at a time to make sure there wasn't anything broken, even with girl's faint grunts of protests at each touch.
Santana lifted her gaze to look at the woman's face, wondering again what happened to her and felt a pang she couldn't explain at the thoughts running through her head. She shoved those thoughts to the back of her mind, she couldn't worry about that now; actually she shouldn't worry about this woman at all, she reminded herself futilely.
Absentmindedly touching the thin hairs at the blonde's neck, Santana stopped herself, and remembered that she hadn't checked the woman's head for injuries yet. So with the utmost care, she carefully and gently unwrapped the blue bandana. Relief washed over Santana upon seeing that the woman's head seemed to be intact; aside from her black and swollen eye and split lip.
After Santana took an overall look at her guest, grateful she didn't seem to have any major injuries or broken bones, she moved to get the warm water. Santana dampened a cloth and sat by her side to start cleaning the cuts on her face. But, as soon as the warm cloth touched the bruised skin, the woman jolted awake. Her unfocused light eyes opened and she seemed to panic, jumping from the bed in a hasty but precise movement, bumping into Santana on her way in a graceful flash of blonde, as she managed to steal her Cutlass back from the smaller girl's waist before Santana could even notice or understand what was happening.
As the blonde woman stood a few paces from Santana, pointing the Cutlass directly at the brunette's chest even if her eyes remained glassy and her legs visibly trembled. Santana's only thought in the moment was 'By god, this woman is good' as she stared mouth agape at the half naked woman.
She was cut off from her thought when the distressed stranger took a step towards her. Santana lifted her hands in surrender and tried reasoning with the girl as she said, "Wait, I'm not going to hurt you."
The confused woman tried focusing her eyes on the stranger in front of her. Santana saw the woman's stance faltering as she started collapsing in slow motion. Quickly, Santana threw herself on the ground to catch the woman and was thankfully successful in softening her fall, at the cost of her own back hitting the hard floor with a loud thud.
For the second she laid on the ground with her back hurting from the fall and the woman's dead weight on top of her, Santana wondered what the hell was wrong with her. Not only had she thrown herself out there for a complete stranger, but the fact that her immediate reaction to a sword being pointed at her wasn't to reach for her own dagger and defend herself scared her the most because that had never happened before. And the worse was that all she could think about at this very moment was the warm touch of soft bare skin on top of her.
Santana realized right then that her previous words to the girl ran deeper than she had first thought. She had absolutely no intention of hurting this woman, even if it conflicted with the way Santana had been raised to be; her survival should be the uttermost and most important thing to her, as her father had taught her many years ago.
She finally maneuvered herself from under the blonde and picked her up from the ground, slowly moving the girl back to the bed. Santana released a deep sigh as she picked up the piece of cloth she'd had before and dipped it into the bucket of still warm water. She took a moment to appease the woman's troubled expression while she slept, and started cleaning the cuts. The woman flinched at first but didn't wake again, much to Santana's relief, and instead after a while seemed to lean into Santana's touch.
Santana took her time, cleaning every cut and every bruise on the girl's body. She still wanted to keep the girl's modesty and felt herself flush at the thought of taking the girls underpants off; it's not like she never seen that before since she was a woman herself but even so. Instead Santana cut the dirt and blood stained parts of the woman's underpants to look for bruises and clean the ones she found there.
When she was done, Santana looked for her pouch and searched for Mike's cream. The substance had a horrible smell, but it was incredibly effective and she carefully applied it to the girl's injuries then cut into one of the many pieces of fabric she had laid out beforehand to wrap around each of the said injuries, to keep it from getting dirty. One of the many things Mike had told her was that they had to be kept clean in order to properly heal.
As Santana finished, she stood up and looked at her handy work with a sense of accomplishment. The girl before her had each of her arms wrapped in a thin fabric as a bandage and the green smelly substance spread across the bruises on her abdomen; just looking at it, Santana remembered how she unintentionally flushed upon feeling the woman's well defined abdomen.
One of the woman's legs was also tightly wrapped and Santana had carefully applied the sticky healing substance to the swell on the girl's eye so it would heal faster. Satisfied with her work, she decided to leave her guest to herself, and get on with the mind-numbing chores she still had left.
Santana was leaving the cabin when she smacked herself in the head for her own stupidity as she realized she had forgotten her makeshift fishing net at the beach. She really didn't want to leave the girl alone for that long, but she didn't have much of a choice as her stomach growled and the brunette just couldn't continue eating only fruits for the rest of her stay here, however long that was going to be.
She made her way back to the beach, hoping her net would still be there when she arrived. Even though it shouldn't have taken as long, Santana was still tired from carrying the woman earlier so she made her way at a much slower pace.
Getting to the beach, the pirate went back to the place she had found the mysterious woman and thankfully her net was still lying near the beach, covered in sand. As Santana was already in the area, she decided to check the small boat again. She felt bad when she realized there was nothing around except the rope; not even paddles. Once again she wondered what had happened to the stranger in her cabin.
Gathering the net in her hands and shivering as the cold water grazed her feet, Santana entered the ocean, searching for a good spot to catch fish. Approaching a few rocks by the beach, she laid the net and prepared to catch some fish. Even as she concentrated on the task at hand, her mind couldn't help but ponder all the recent events; washing up on this island, finding shelter, the crazy weather, finding a stranded blonde stranger.
She scolded herself for thinking about the woman again. But it was inevitable; a hundred questions ran through her mind about the girl. What happened to her? Why was she dressed like that? Who did that to her? How did she survive the storm last night in the state she'd been in?
Santana didn't have an answer to any of those questions except one. After she thought about it, she did remember the woman had tied herself to the dinghy, and for some reason it only came to Santana now, she'd woken in the middle of the night and curiously the stormed seemed to have stopped.
She also remember looking into the skies late that night and finding that red glow shining down on her. That certainly had been strange and she couldn't help but remember her Papi and his words, immediately feeling a shiver run through her body. So Santana brushed that thought aside once again, she figured that was why the blonde had survived, because the stormed had ceased at some point last night. That was very lucky for her, she thought.
Her father came to her mind again, and she wondered if maybe it wasn't luck after all.
The sun was setting on the horizon and Santana figured she had enough fish for one day. It had taken her longer than she thought it would to catch these damn fish. It was like they had legs or something. When the last one had almost ripped her 'new' net she reckoned 5 fish were enough for a hard day's work on her first day of fishing; groaning loudly as she thought that she hadn't worked this hard in so long.
Santana started making her way to the cabin, and now felt bad for leaving the woman alone for so long. She briefly wondered if she would find the woman there at all, thinking she might have ran away and taken the brunette's possessions with her. Santana quickly discarded the thought when she remembered the state the woman was in, and how she had collapsed right after getting up. She frowned at that. For some reason, this woman being injured made a discomfort settle in Santana's stomach, and she felt an unexpected hint of growing rage at the thought of what might have caused the injuries.
Arriving at the cabin, Santana found the blonde in practically the same position she had been before and was thankful that almost none of the medicine had fallen from her body. She still blushed for some reason at seeing the girl's barely covered body but quickly shrugged it off; she hadn't flushed this often probably in her entire life.
Before she could think on that, Santana began to prepare supper. She thought about frying the fish, which would be an easy choice, but upon further thought realized it would be hard for her new guest to eat that way. Santana kept mumbling to herself why she even cared but it didn't stop her from making a fish stew for supper.
She put the stew in a coconut shell when it was done and sat next to the unconscious girl, thinking about how the hell she was going to do this. She put the improvised bowl at her side to cool down and put her hand on the blonde's forehead, noticing the electric feeling again at the tip of her fingers but also noticing how warm the woman was, too warm. She stood up and grabbed a cloth and dipped it in some cold water she had in a corner.
Santana moved back to the girl's side and put the cloth on her forehead, careful not to hit her swollen eye. After worrying her lip between her teeth for a few moments, Santana made a bold move and tried sitting the woman up slightly, hoping not to wake her as she put a folded dress under the woman's head to prop it up, and was relieved when she could still hear the woman's faint snoring.
Santana positioned her hand under the woman's neck to hold her still as she started to stir a little and brought the shell to slightly parted lips and softly whispered near the pale face. "Drink"
The woman stirred a bit more but as the liquid touched her lips she accepted it and drank, still without opening her eyes in her half asleep state. She drank the warm liquid so fast, Santana started to wonder how long the woman had been drifting at sea before she washed ashore. She hoped it had not been that long.
When the half asleep girl was finished, Santana wiped the woman's face with the back of her hand and covered her body with a thin blanket as she saw the woman shiver a bit.
Santana went back to the hearth to pour some stew into her shell. She sat by the fire to eat and stole a glance towards the woman, noting she was already fast asleep, if the recurring light snoring was any indication.
If any of Santana's friends could see her now they wouldn't recognize her. Of course she would do the same for them if needed, but they knew she would never do the same thing for a complete stranger, and not only that but another pirate, from possibly a rival ship.
She scoffed at her own recent actions as she quickly gulfed down her food, she couldn't fathom why the hell she was doing this, but she just couldn't stop herself. There was just something about this girl that made her want to and she couldn't explain what that was.
She put things away and sat by the fire, realizing just now how sore her body was. She'd really done a lot of work today and carrying the stranger's limp body for such a distance hadn't helped. Santana looked around the cabin and fixed her gaze on the sleeping woman. Shit, she thought, "I gunna have to sleep on the floor." she mumbled under her breath, realizing the girl was occupying the only 'bed' available and the blonde was now splayed out on it taking up all the space.
Groaning in frustration, Santana stood up and went to the chest to pick up another blanket, suddenly very grateful for the amount of garments and blankets that she'd found in there. She took another glance at her guest, just to be safe before she put her most precious belongings inside the chest, along with the woman's Cutlass. She promptly locked the chest with her hairpin and hid it safely in her hair, along with her trusted small blade.
With her dagger safely resting on her waist, she draped the blanket on the ground near the fire, not too close, and lay down grunting as the hard ground came in contact with her sore muscles. She thought it would take longer for her to sleep in such conditions but soon her tired body gave out and Santana drifted into sleep.
Ahoy, mateys!
So the long awaited Brittana meeting! (Even if Britt was unconscious for most of the chapter lol) What did you guys think about it?
I was overwhelmed with the response I got from the last chapter and I just wanted to thank all of you for being so great :) Some of you had guessed where the dinghy would end up, so four for you, my dears.
This is was beta'd by a lovely friend of mine, so thank you m'lady ;)
Ducks