(A/N): I have decided to switch point of views every three chapters, and so with the first three chapters in Rose's point of view, I will condense what has happened into one chapter in Miguel's point of view. Tulio will be joining me at the end of this chapter for a quick talk about what we think about Miguel and Rose's relationship so far.
It had been a long day, and even though I had spent years building up callouses playing my mandolin, my fingers hurt. I had been strumming non stop, wooing a couple women, most of whom were swooning. When the sailor, who I assumed led the gang we were gambling with, proposed we use his dice for a map, I was ecstatic. Here was what I had been waiting for, longing for, my whole life! Adventure was right there, and as I scanned it, I realized we had to do it. It was our destiny, our fate. And as I expressed so to Tulio he scoffed and threw the loaded dice in my face.
Once I convinced Tulio he started getting ready, and I went and got nice and close with a young woman, seemingly quite well off. She giggled, and I heard a scoff. My head snapped in the direction the scoff came from and that, my friends, is where I saw her. A beautiful girl stood by the archway, in a tattered barmaid's dress, looking at the other women and rolling her chocolate colored eyes. She had no shoes on her feet, and her wavy brown hair had no way of being contained, so it fell in her face. Her aura was one of confidence, yet everyone in the vicinity towered over her short stature. My gaze lingered on her no longer than a few seconds, before I turned to the sailors, strumming my mandolin and going to stand next to Tulio. An abrupt jolt to my mandolin caused me to stop strumming, looking over at Tulio who aggressively told me to "Stop that!".
"Show. Me. Seven!" Tulio ground out from his clenched teeth, throwing the dice and covering his eyes to avoid the mass humiliation that he was sure would come. The first die landed on four, and as the other die continued to spin, no one was breathing. My eyes glanced over to the beautiful woman in the corner, who seemed uncaring to this whole ordeal, and then back to the dice. The second die finally stopped spinning, landing on a… three! 4+3=7 thank you very much!
I ran over to the sailor holding the map and snatched it out of his grasp quickly, him and his friends still standing slack jawed. As Tulio picked up the gold and jewels, our diced tumbled out of his pocket, landing on 5 & 2. The sailor, suspicious, leaned down, testing the dice, before shouting "I knew it! Your dice are loaded!".
"Wow, you only just figured that out." A feminine voice said, as we all turned to look over to the girl I had been staring at earlier. She knew? Her eyes widened as we all looked at her, seeming to realize she said that out loud. As the sailor accused her of being in cahoots with us, a preposterous idea, though one I would have liked, he pulled out a knife, starting to go towards her. She rolled her eyes, pulling out twin daggers from under her skirt, and my eyes widened as I realized she knew exactly what she was doing handling those dangerous weapons.
The sailor was quickly disarmed, his knife flying in front of a soldier. My head snapped to Tulio.
Tulio - Left eyebrow raise, right eyebrow raise (what should we do?)
Me - Blink, left wink (help her obviously)
Tulio - Eye roll, glare (fine but I'm not happy about it)
I approached the girl, whispering in her ear "play along". She rose her eyebrow in confusion as I rose my hand. After she was "knocked out" everyone continued on, ignoring her. Tulio and I went through "Escape Plan 0-4-7" And ended up on the other side of a house. Someone apparently followed us, landing behind us. We turned around with two manly shouts of surprise, then realized it was the girl. She was even prettier up close, and now I knew she was intelligent and resourceful as well.
"Oh, it's you." Tulio stated, calming down a bit.
"Yeah, thanks for the help back there, but now I owe you, so you're stuck with me until I save your sorry asses." She explained quickly, and I picked up on a slight Portuguese accent, she rolled her eyes, then froze, looking behind us and whispered "bull." Confused, I turned around to see… a bull.
"Oh," I mumbled. There actually was a bull.
"How about… you… pet it," Tulio suggested.
"Uh huh." I muttered, reaching out my hand.
"And I'll… RUN!" he scrambled to his feet and booked it, leaving me and the Portuguese girl to eat his dust. She quickly helped me up, and we ran after Tulio.
"Oh well THANKS A LOT!" I shouted after him, the two of us finally catching up.
We scrambled to get over a wall, the bull headbutting it and us sliding back down.
An extremely thrilling chase involving the three of us, the townspeople (who quickly fled at the sight of the bull), the bull, and some soldiers with crossbows and swords. We stopped short at a ledge overlooking the docks, directly below us were three conveniently placed barrels.
I turned to Tulio, "I bet we can make that." The guards were closing in.
"Two pesetas, says we can't!" he shot back, the three of us locking eyes and jumping.
"You're ONNN!" I shouted, us falling into the barrels perfectly. "You lose," I said once we were safe inside. I heard clinking of two coins before a *plop* of them falling into water.
"Pass that on will you?" I heard Tulio grumble to our Portuguese acquaintance.
"Nope! Mine now!" she laughed.
Suddenly we were moving, however due to us being in barrels we couldn't see a thing.
"HOLY SHIT!" I heard the girl exclaim.
"What's happening?" Tulio questioned.
"We're both in barrels, that's the extent of my knowledge," I responded, just as confused as he was. Suddenly I was jerked on my side and violently thrown around in the small space of the barrel, and I could only assume we were being rolled.
Tulio and I devised a plan of lifting the lids, and running to the docks.
"1, 2, 3!" We counted, pushing against the lid with no success. We heard a scuffle, and a nervous 'hey guys…" from the girl, and I realized she must have gotten on deck. A couple minutes later, her screams were heard echoing throughout the ship. Growing worried, I consulted Tulio, deciding on trying one more time, we counted to three once more, and popped out of the barrels.
Looking around, we noticed the sailors from earlier, I looked to Tulio as we slowly lowered back into the barrels.
"Who ordered the… um… pickles?" Tulio questioned, trying to close the lid, before we were shackled and put before Cortes.
After hearing our punishment, all that was going through my head was our destination. "Nice, Cuba!"
We were unceremoniously thrown in the brig, then we started to whisper to each other.
"What should we do?" I asked him.
"I don't know, give me a bit to think of a-" Tulio was cut off by a soft groan coming from the corner of our cell. We again let out two very manly shouts of surprise, before seeing a figure slumped in the corner. Looking over to Tulio, he nodded, and we slowly started to walk towards the figure on the floor. A thump was heard as what I assumed was their head smacked on the floor, and my eyes were finally able to make out their face. It was the Portuguese girl!
"Shit!" I exclaimed, rushing over to her, lifting her head and placing it in my lap. Tulio meanwhile was staring at her back, I followed his gaze and saw her dress was soaked with blood and torn from whip lashes. We looked at each other in surprise, because the damage to her dress didn't match how much blood there was, but we were too tired to talk about, so we decided to go to sleep.
When I woke up, the Portuguese girl was still unconscious, and lying in my lap, but Tulio was awake and formulating a plan. Banging his head against the wall helped him think, so I left him to it. Suddenly the girls head was nuzzling into my crotch, and if I wasn't awake before, I was now.
"Uh…" I really hoped she'd wake up. Her eyes slowly opened and then quickly widened. She shot up and scooched away from me, hurrying out an "I'm so sorry!" as I held my hands out, ready to catch her in case she fell, I didn't want her to hurt herself.
"It's alright," I assured her. "Just, uh, take it easy…" She repeated the statement, confused, and Tulio informed her how bad her back was. He asked her about it, and she groaned when he called her out on her bs answer.
"I'm way too sober for this," she said, and we both looked at her in confusion. Usually women weren't so blunt. I have no problem with it, it's just odd in this society.
The girl changed the subject, asking who we were, well, demanding it really.
"Miguel," I said, giving her a small smile.
"Tulio" he sent a slight wave in her direction.
She smiled. "Rose," oh my gosh even her name is pretty. She seems like some fairy tale character I'd read about when I was younger. Tulio nodded, going off to the side to continue formulating a plan, and Rose and I conversed until sundown. I learned that she was 24, and originally from Portugal (I was right!). She joined a travelling circus when she was 11, and left two years ago in Tulio and my city to become a barmaid. She'd never owned a pair of shoes, I found learned, which was very interesting. I asked her what she did in the circus.
"Aerial silks," I blushed, imagining her in a leotard, and almost had to slap myself to get me to stop thinking about it.
"Well, goodnight boys," she said, lying down on her side, and I waited until her breathing evened out until I turned to Tulio. I sighed.
"What am I gonna do?"
"Did you say something?" he asked.
"Nothing, brother," I responded, sighing once more, before deciding to get some sleep as well.
It had been a couple days, and I was enjoying moving Rose into my lap every night after she fell asleep, it gave me some comfort. I was half asleep, and I felt the warmth of her body start to leave, so I pulled her back into my chest, she let out of yelp of surprise, and I was then fully awake. Letting her go, slightly sad that I couldn't hold her longer. I pretended to be embarrassed, scooting back, when I heard Tulio groan loudly.
"Are you two done acting like teenagers? I need to think!" he exclaimed, and now I was actually embarrassed. Rose scooched so she was sitting on my right, and she jumped when an apple fell into my lap.
"So uh…" I started. "How's the escape plan coming?" Tulio told banged his head twice more before telling us the plan. Rose seemed to be pretty skeptical, but I liked the plan. I expressed as much, then asked how we got on deck. Tulio repeated the plan, again leaving out the important detail, and I threw my hands up.
"Oh, great! Sensational!" We started to argue before I actually came up with a plan for once, finally getting the keys by luring Al Tivo with an apple. Rose suggested we get some rest, so we all laid down, ready to sleep.
A couple hours later it was the middle of the night, and I woke up, going to shake Rose's shoulder.
"Rose," I said softly, she hummed, smiling. I repeated her name, louder. Her brow furrowed. "Rose!" I kind of shouted her name. She jolted awake, looking at me in confusion, shaking her head a little.
"Sorry," she said, wincing. Perhaps she wasn't being completely truthful about her back healing. I sent her a soft smile.
"It's time," I said as I helped her up.
Tulio: OH. MY. GOD. When they gone fuck?
Author-chan: TULIO!
Tulio: We all know it's gonna happen!
Author-chan: Well, yeah, but YOU DON'T JUST ASK THAT ABOUT YOUR BEST FRIEND!
Tulio: But…
Author-chan: NO BUTS!
Tulio: I happen to like butts…
Author-chan:Do I need to get Chel?
Tulio: NO I'LL BE GOOD!
Author-chan: *Evil cackling ensues*