By the time she stumbles back out into the clearing, the cave collapsing in on itself behind her as she goes, the Spaniards are nowhere to be found. The men they'd been fighting have been corralled into the center of the clearing, watched carefully by Emily's men, and before she can make any kind of further move…
Someone's fist connects with her face. Again.
"Did – did I even deserve that?" She gasps out, bringing a hand up to feel at her bruising jaw. "I'm not certain."
"You threatened to keelhaul me." That's Jo. "And then you died." Her fists are clenched and her eyes are hard and she's really rather tiny so it's kind of funny how she manages to be rather intimidating. The rest of the men gathered around now are just watching, not seeming too keen to get in her way.
"Oh." Emily says, as if this make perfect sense. "Nothing to say as far as that first one goes, but it's not like I wanted that twisted little French gargoyle to shoot me."
"And none of that would have happened if you hadn't been fool enough to let her on your precious ship in the first place!"
"Ah. Well, when you put it that way…"
"When I put it that way it's no wonder you ended up locked in your own bloody brig!"
"Aye, well – not a mistake I'll be making again, is it?" She gestures to the older woman's still clenched fists. "If you'd like another go, best do it now while I'll still be forgiving about it."
Jo looks sore tempted, the way she almost brings her fist back up, but she crosses her arms instead. "Keelhaul me? Honestly."
"Oh, come on, I only half meant it."
"Half!"
"Tell you what, don't ever accuse me of groveling again, especially not for a deal with the Admiral, and we'll call it square."
There's amusement dancing behind the older woman's eyes now, though somehow the scowl manages to stay on her face. "Oh, alright then, square it is. I mean, that does sound just bad, now that I think of it. With that mouth of yours, the Admiral'd shoot you before you could manage any kind of deal anyway, I expect."
Emily is offended, but only briefly. She ends up just shrugging in a 'fair enough' kind of way, to which Jo gives an incredulous laugh. The men around relax as the tension eases as quick as it had built…and then Riley looks around a bit, a hard look in his green eyes. "Peg. Captain LaBelle…"
Adrienne. Oh. Oh. She'd forgotten just a moment there, but maybe, if she's quick enough…
Pushing past Jo and through the men gathered around, Emily takes off back into the jungle.
She can just see the beach, hot on the heels of her six boys. Her Sapphire iswaiting a ways out from shore, and she's already working it out in her head. Emily wouldn't immediately follow, she's got quite a mess to deal with right where she is now. So, how far can Adrienne get? Hopefully, far enough.
She's just about to clear the jungle, is just at the point where the trees thin out and the ground beneath her becomes sand, when it happens. She trips, flying forward, nearly sailing face first into the sand. Her hand flies out to grab at the first steady thing it can find, and it just happens to be Louis in front of her. He stumbles as she flies into him and spins around with a thunderous expression…but his eyes widen in the next moment, the expression softening with bewilderment as he catches a glimpse of something over her shoulder.
"Capitaine." He says, and then she hears it.
The sound of a pistol being cocked.
She spins around, hand on her sword, prepared for anything at this point…except what she actually finds. Little Joshy Turner is just emerging from the tree line now, having run after her full tilt it seems as his chest is heaving. Clutched in both his hands, which are shocking steady, is a pistol. One of Adrienne's pistols, in fact, and she's impressed.
"Capitaine?" Louis again, wary and hesitant, unsure of what to do.
"Aller. Prêt du navire." She tells him, keeping her eyes on Joshy. "Je suivrai." Louis hesitates, but she glances back at him sharply, and he does as she commanded. She refocuses her attentions on the boy stood before her. "Your sister – she is alive. You saw this, no?"
"I saw." He says, still gasping a bit, but cold. "I saw you kill her, is what I saw. I thought…I thought she was gone. All those weeks, I hadn't said a word to her."
Adrienne nods, slow. "Pirates. Don't pretend you do not know what you are living with, boy."
"I know…"
"You know. You're a smart little one. And yet you chose to stay with her."
"She's my sister. She – she came back for me, she's a good woman. Not like you."
"Oh, but she and I are very much alike, though she would not admit it. But I think you know very well what she is and is not, so tell me. What does staying with her make you?"
"I…" He hesitates, unable to give an answer.
Adrienne watches him carefully. "Perhaps now is where you begin to make that decision. I understand, what you want." She nods at the pistol, still clutched in his hands. "So make your choice."
He hesitates, just briefly, before his expression turns fierce and determined. He cocks the pistol. "You don't think I'll do it. I'm just small yet, I know, so you think I won't – can't…"
"No." Adrienne shakes her head. "No, I know that look in your eyes. You could." She holds her hands out to either side a bit. "Do it."
"For my sister."
"You would do her proud, no? She thought you hated her." She taunts, pushing him, because this would be just perfect. "She thought you wouldn't care if she died, I'll bet. All that time alone in her own…"
"Stop – stop it!" His grip on the pistol tightens further.
"How would that have been? If she had died believing she did not even have her brother?"
He screams, a wild sort of rage forming itself into a noise and tearing its way out of his throat as he pulls the trigger.
.
A cold grin spreads Adrienne's lips as she watches his facial expressions. Shock and bewilderment turn to frantic, primal rage as he tries again and then a third time, but nothing happens. "You are feisty and clever as your sister, but you are young yet. Did you really think I would have sent my men off if the pistol was loaded still?"
He looks up at her, features contorted with anger, but he's thinking it through. "You just wanted to see if I would do it."
"I just wanted to see if you would do it." She bends down to retrieve her pistol. "And you did not disappoint. I very much wish I could be there on the day your sister realizes what she does to those around her. What she turns you into without trying. You, though. I like you, boy. So I will tell you that there are many who would admire you for what you have just done, to spite what your sister will likely have to say about it. You remember that." And with this, she turns to take her leave…
"She'll get you for this."
…and freezes only a few paces away, glancing back at him over her shoulder.
"My sister will have your head on a silver platter, Captain LaBelle. Just – just you remember that."
She just snorts, softly, and nods before continuing on her way.
She runs. She's exhausted to the point every muscle in her body aches and screams in protest as she gasps for breath, but still, she runs. Maybe, just maybe…if she can just… Jo calls after her, and Riley too, begging her to slow down, stop, think. But she can't slow down. She has to finish it.
She stumbles to a halt as she reaches the beach, falling to her knees. Honey brown eyes trail along the vast expanse of blue until they land on the ship in the distance. So far in the distance. How did they make it so far? Her shoulders slump as a sick feeling twists her stomach in knots. Too far. But maybe, if she uses just a bit of magic…
"Peg, for the love of our goddess!" That's Jo, gasping as she comes up behind Emily. "What's in your head now?"
"Finish it. I have to finish it, I have to…" Emily babbles. Her head is all a mess. She can't think anymore. "She killed me. She killed me." She tries to use her magic. Uses all she has left in her to try and build up just enough…but she's near-died and then come back and then near-died again waltzing through that cave and then there was the showdown with Adrienne and the sprint through the jungle and…it's too much, and she's only half immortal anyway, there comes a point when enough is enough. She just can't manage anymore right now. "She killed me. She…"
A hand comes up to rest on her shoulder. "Peg." Jo again, voice softer. Emily starts a bit, looking up at her with eyes wide and wild, and the older woman goes on slowly. "It's too far. We'd never catch her up from here. I'm…I'm sorry."
"Emmy." Another voice, her brother sounding so grown up, too grown up and tired. "Please." Her eyes land on him, meet his big green ones, and he's pleading. "I'm sorry too, but let's…let's just be done for now."
Emily turns to stare back out at the ship growing ever smaller as it sails away. "Sorry. Somebodies always sorry." Brows furrowing, she scoops up some sand and throws it harmlessly in the direction of the Sapphire. "Why's it always got to be me?"
They search the ship from stem to stern and find…well, things of interest only to Emily. For instance, the fact that the hold is situated in a way to suggest it was indeed meant to be some manner of slaver, though it wasn't put to that particular use on this journey. Actually, it's full of food and drink and plenty of other supplies the Queen had been running a bit low on, which is good fortune indeed. It means they won't have to find a port to stop off at before heading home.
Riley had been worried about Emily when she wandered off so absently, still babbling a bit to herself, but Jo had held him back from going after their captain. Perhaps it was a good thing she did. When Emily finally reappeared, she was sounding a bit more herself again, the time alone allowing her to sort herself out. In fact, by the time they make it back to the Queen and start loading the supplies they've plundered, she's all-too-typically suggesting a bit of a celebration. And the Queen's crew takes to the idea with vigor after the strangeness of the past weeks.
Riley included. For the first time, he accepts the drink when he's offered it, and it's not long at all before he's singing merrily along with the rest of the men as Miss Gibbs playfully tugs him along for a dance. It really hadn't been his imagination, he notes. Emily had dumped so much of her own magic into healing the older woman that she's healthy as ever now, but she still seems tiny to Riley. It excites him. He hasn't felt like a boy anymore for so long…the idea he's starting, perhaps, not to look so much like one either is cause enough for celebration on its own.
He's so caught up in – well, not having something to be caught up in, it takes him far longer than it should to realize that Emily herself has disappeared. He ends up stumbling a bit away from where the rest of the men are crowded, breathing deep the cool night air and trying to think. When was the last time he'd seen her? How quick had she disappeared? Where had she gone? Down to her cabin, he thinks, probably. Though, after spending so much time in the brig surrounded by traitors, one would think the playful company of her men now would be all she wanted.
Well, maybe he'll just go see for himself. With a half full bottle clutched in his one hand, he makes his way on feet somewhat unsteady to see his captain.
"Emily?" He peers into the room, blinking in the dim light. He gets no response. Brows furrowed, he slips into the room. It's not as though he's ever not welcome, anyway. "Em-Cap-Peg." He stumbles over his words a bit. She doesn't like it when he calls her Emily, but he's having a hard time keeping that straight at the moment. "S'just me. Wanted to make sure you're…"
Oh. She'd left the lantern on her desk burning bright, so he hadn't thought, hadn't realized… her slender frame is laid out in the window seat, her legs curled in a bit towards her chest. Her brunette waves are splayed out around her head, making her look a dark angel, the prettiest you'd ever seen even with the scar marring her cheek – or, so he certainly thinks. Without thinking he reaches out a hand to brush a stray strand away from her face…but he stops himself in time. She looks so peaceful, he doesn't want to wake her. Instead, he turns away and makes to head back out of the room – but he's misjudged things a little. He ends up stumbling into the chair behind him and nearly falls over.
"Mmm." The softest of sounds reaches his ears, followed by a lazy yawn. "Riley?"
He spins back around, a bit too quick. He sways as the room spins, and backs into the desk. He grasps it to steady himself. "Erm, yeah. Sorry, I…"
She's sitting up now, runs a hand through her hair sleepily as she tilts her head at him in a curious way. "You alright, love?"
"M'fine. Jus', was won'rin – wondering where you'd gone. Di'n't mean to wake you, I jus'…" He can feel his cheeks growing more flushed than they were to start. "Bloody chair decided to trip me."
Her brows furrow at the same time there's a smile tugging at her lips, and her eyes are dancing with confused amusement. She glances down at the bottle still clutched in his hand. Realization dawns as her amusement grows quite visibly. "Chairs can do that, mean ole things." She gets to her feet and comes to face him, her hand trailing down to take the bottle away. He thinks, maybe, he's about to get a scolding, if a half playful one. But she meets his eyes, and winks as she brings the bottle up. "Didn't suppose you'd be the best at holding your rum. We'll have to work on that." She looks about to take a swig herself, but then just sets it aside. "For now it sounds as though you've had enough."
He rubs the back of his neck, eyeing her up. "Really am sorry I woke you. Mean…you mus' be tired."
She snakes a hand up to cup his cheek, leaning in – and up just a bit now, he notes – for a kiss. "Mmm." She rubs her hand against his cheek a bit. "Riley Connelly." She says, playful. "I do believe that's a bit of scruff I'm feeling there. Hadn't noticed that before."
His own hand shoots up to feel at his cheek, his eyes widening a bit, and then he's blushing as he realizes she's right. "S'ppose it had to happen sometime 'r other."
"Suppose." She pauses, just looking up at him a moment.
"What?" He asks, uncertain.
"Nothing. You're right, love, I'm exhausted. Come to bed?" She leads him over to her bed and goes to remove her leg brace, but he stops her. He fumbles with the straps a bit, but gets it off for her before slipping into bed as well. She plants a gentle kiss on his lips before curling into him, and he hadn't realized how tired he was himself. His head hits the pillow, and just like that…he's sound asleep.
He thinks it's almost certainly Emily's doing when he wakes the next morning feeling – well, a little fuzzy, but not near as awful as the rest of the crew. She brushes it off as though she doesn't know what he's talking about when he asks, but he knows the effects of magic when he feels them now. He isn't upset, far from it; he's so happy to have her back, so happy that he wakes next to her and she's alive alive alive…he kisses her so deep and so fierce, pulls her into his lap and stays her there so firm, that she responds more vigorously than he can ever recall her doing before.
They spend the entirety of this morning in bed.
"It's a fair question to ask." Jo. She's stood next to Emily at the helm, facing Riley. "I've no idea what's gone on these past weeks. You were the one keeping it all together this time."
"Well, it's not as though there was much involved in that." He shrugs, careless. He's leaning back against the rail, arms propped up on it, and looking a bit the part of some over-handsome ginger demi-god. His shoulders have, finally, grown broader than the rest of him, and his cheeks and chin are shadowed lightly with stubble. "All I did was play nice with Captain LaBelle."
"But the men listened to you when they started to shake her spell." Jo counters. "And hearing what you were thinking, gods," she turns to Emily, "you should've heard him. Sounded not a bit like you, the way he was scheming."
Emily glances at Riley as a smile tugs at her lips. He's blushing a bit again, but attempts to play it off as though its nothing.
"Well. I can do clever when I try hard enough, but we all know who's the real queen of it." His eyes fix on her.
"Oh, now why'd you have to say that?" Jo asks Riley, and Emily can hear the eye-roll in the older woman's tone of voice. "Go straight to her head, it will."
"Straight to my head – he just pointed out everyone already knew that, how could it just now go 'straight to my head'?"
"Queen of clever?" Jo asks, pointed, hands on her hips now with one eyebrow raised.
"Well. I do quite like the sound of that. Queen…"
"See what I mean?"
"Ladies." Riley cuts in, laughing. "I think we've completely forgotten the point of this conversation – erm, what was the point of this conversation again?"
"The point was…" Jo sounds a little more serious again. "The point was maybe you ought to be first mate."
Riley sobers some as well, a hand coming up to run over the stubble on his cheeks. "Oh. Right. Where'd you get such a crazy idea again? Peg's supposed to be the one with all of those."
"Well… Just, it does strike one as odd, is all, a ship run by…"
"And since when did either of you care?"
"Look…" Jo huffs. "Forget the why of it. Peg, what do you think?"
Emily stares straight ahead and takes a moment to turn this over. She can't imagine why Jo would suggest this but figures if somethings wrong the older woman will tell her eventually. Really, they end up telling each other everything, eventually. "I think – I think I don't want to think about this now. I just got you all back. Let me bask in it a while 'fore you try to change things up on me again, eh?"
Jo nods in a 'fair enough' kind of way. "By the way, your brother's been hiding down in the galley, if you were wondering. I think you're going to have to come to him."
"I will." But right now it feels so good to be at the helm again she can't bring herself to hand it off to anyone else. "I will, I want to. Just…later."
Jo seems to understand. She makes her escape without another word. Riley stays, however, studying her but saying nothing. She isn't bothered. In fact, after a few moments, she quite forgets he's there. Her mind is already on to other things, because there are so many other things for it to be on to. The gem that could inhibit her magic, the witch down on the hold that was undoubtedly the culprit when it came to Emily's missing memories, the slaver that Emily's sure she'd spent some time on, and then Adrienne to top it all off…
Adrienne. Her grip tightens on the spokes of the helm as a knot forms in the pit of her stomach and her blood begins to boil…
"Emily!"
"What?" She snaps a bit, startled, turning to Riley – before re-tightening her grip on the helm. The weather is calm, why is the ship suddenly being tossed about like… oh. It takes her a moment to realize the knot in her belly somehow became a real thing. Her magic is acting up, making the waters around her choppy to match Emily's darker turn in mood. She uses the rest of what she'd inadvertently built up to calm the waters again, taking several deep breaths of the salty air. She can feel Riley staring at her, and glances at him again. "I'm fine."
"Mmm." He grunts, skeptical like.
She clears her throat, scowls a bit. "And don't call me that."
"Sorry. Just, you wouldn't answer."
A pause. "Captain. I'd answer to that." It's a request of some kind she's making, though she doesn't really know what it is she needs at this point.
He seems to understand, though, at least as well as anyone could. She's not looking at him, but she hears his footsteps – heavier than they were – as he comes up behind her, wrapping his arms around her. "Captain."
She leans into him a bit. "Captain."
He leans down, murmurs into her ear. "Captain." He presses a kiss to her neck. "You're the captain because it's over now. You didn't get her, but you won."
Emily lets out a breath and nods slow. "It'll do for now."
"For now, let's just go –," there's a pause, and his tone is a little more playful again as he goes on, "you know, I was going to say 'home'. Where is home, exactly?"
"Home is right here, standing on this deck surrounded by blue – if you ask me, that is. Not that anyone would."
He chuckles a bit. "Well, forget home then. Familiar, that would be nice. Familiar and safe. Relatively."
"That would be Shipwreck, I should say."
"Well, you're at the helm. You take us wherever you fancy, Captain."
Captain. She liked hearing it before, but now she'll never tire of it. She's the captain, her ship is her home, and things are - well, still not good. But alright, maybe, and she can more than live with that for now.
He's silent when she enters the galley. His big green eyes meet hers just briefly before flicking away in what might well be fear, or something close to it anyway, and she instantly decides that – well, no. She simply isn't going to do this with him.
She strolls across the room and pulls up a chair at a table, sitting in it backwards, arms resting on the back of it. "So."
"So." Joshy replies quietly, but apparently can't find the words to go on, because he doesn't.
Emily heaves a sigh. "So – I suppose we could go on like this a while. You'll be miserable and I'll be worried all the way until we get to Shipwreck where Papa will undoubtedly find some way to set us to rights because goddess knows the man can't just leave things be, but if I might shed a somewhat more pleasant ray of sunshine on this whole gloomy situation… it might be at least marginally less painful if you just say sorry and I forgive you because that's what siblings do, last I checked."
There's a long pause where he looks at her, a little wary, brows furrowed as though trying to figure something out. Then… "You know, Miss Gibbs is right."
That was not at all what she was expecting, but alright. She'll bite. "Miss Gibbs says quite a lot of things about me, and between you and I, I wouldn't believe about eighty percent of them if I was you, so…"
There it is. A smile, if a small one, and a chuckle, if a soft one. "She says one day someone's going to keelhaul you just on the off chance it'll stop you talking."
"Ah. Well, it'll be there loss for the trouble, because I doubt it would work." She waves it off, and he laughs again, a bit louder. She beams. "There it is! Oh, I missed that sound."
He gets serious again too quick. He meets her eyes, but his are troubled and shining with unshed tears. "You really forgive me?"
"Oh." She runs a hand through her hair, heaving a sigh. "Joshy, I forgave Miss Gibbs, and believe me that is much more a feat after the conversations I had with her."
"But Emmy…" He doesn't go on. He does curl in on himself a bit, bringing his knees up to hug them to his chest.
She wants to go to him. To hold him and plant a kiss on his head and sing to him and promise him everything's just fine now, but something about the look in his eyes has her worried maybe it really isn't. "Joshy." She says, soft but firm. "Come on, out with it already. What's wrong?"
"You promised me once. You said you couldn't hate me."
"And I meant it." She meets his eyes again, making sure he believes her.
"I did something – I did something terrible."
"Terrible? I wonder, sometimes, if you understand who you're living with. There's nothing you could've done that would shock me. Best just come out with it."
He's trembling now. The tears spill over, just two, one trailing slowly down each cheek. "I killed her."
The words don't quite register. It takes her a moment. "Killed – killed who? When?"
"Captain LaBelle." His voice is small and he's shaking all over and Emily really doesn't understand now.
"Captain LaBelle." She shakes her head. "But Adrienne's not dead. She ran off, was a few leagues out by the time…" But where had he been? She hadn't seen him until they'd made it back to the beach. "Joshy, she's not dead. Is she? Tell me you didn't."
He shakes his head quick. "No. I mean, she walked away, she…"
The panic that had built eases just that quick. No, she couldn't hate him, not even if he had killed Adrienne. She'd mourn for him and what he'd left behind too quick. "Alright, just take a breath and explain, slow and easy."
"I stole her pistol. It was before you even appeared, cause she told me to hide and I wanted… well, anyway then I saw her running back for the beach and I thought – I mean, you were dead. Emmy, please, I mean, you weren't just gone, I thought…"
She softens. "I wasn't coming back. There's a difference."
"And I had her pistol and she – she kept talking, saying these awful things, and she took you from me and she'd made me think all those lies about you and I just, I… Emmy, I pulled the trigger." He meets her eyes again, and she recognizes that look now. "It wasn't loaded, but I didn't know and I pulled the trigger. I killed her!"
Never quite sure how to deal with things of this nature, she makes the trek over to him with tentative steps, but she needn't worry about how to help. He throws his arms around her, and somehow they end up on the floor, her just holding him. Sometimes, just sometimes, he really does sound so very grown up but in this moment he is very much just a boy, head resting on her chest as he clutches her shirt, though he doesn't cry. And for a long moment she just lets him as she softly sings the song she'd sung to him the first time he'd asked for this.
She tries to come up with something to say. But it seems this is one of those rare instances when she truly has no words. So she just quietly decides she'll leave him with their Papa in Shipwreck next time the opportunity arises because she isn't good for him (is worse for him than her Papa had been for her) and always knew it but can't get around it now.
She's making a pirate of him. And for the first time she understands why her Papa gets so upset with her.
It's been so long since she's had the luxury of the rum that she thinks she really might be in heaven when she takes the first sip of the bottle she finally allows herself to retreat with. Her brother's settled down some, is probably sound asleep already with the rest of the crew, and there'll be no one else come to bother her now. So that single sip quickly turns into several and before she knows it the bottle is slipping from her fingers, drained of every drop, and she's falling hard asleep herself.
She doesn't dream of Alex, but thinks nothing of it this time. She's passed out so cold, she doesn't remember dreaming at all.
…
"Peg." His voice is soft, his touch feather light against her cheek. "You have to come back to us sometime, you know."
All at once she is more than aware of, well, two things really. One, its morning. Two, she might've overdone it after going so long without a drop of anything besides water. She doesn't manage much beyond a groan as she shifts onto her back and throws an arm over her eyes. A sigh and the sound of footsteps, and Riley presses something into her other hand – a bottle. "Perhaps not the healthiest of solutions, but I'm told it helps, and you'll want to be good and awake for the news I bring."
Beyond caring, she brings the bottle to her lips and takes a hearty sip, then another before collapsing back onto her bed. "News?" She prompts him.
"The witch. She's awake."
And now so is Emily. She's out of bed so fast Riley scarce has time to get out of her way. "How long?" She slurs a bit as she staggers around her cabin, trying to dress herself as she'd been wearing nothing beyond her shirt and pants.
"About two hours now."
"You waited that long to wake me?"
"You barely stirred when I first tried."
She huffs, annoyed (though at what, she's not even certain), and stalks out.
…
She's more than a little on edge. This witch is strong. Stronger than Emily and using a sort of power that neither Emily or Jo can begin to understand. That being said, why is the old hag still in the brig? With so much power at her fingertips, she could snap her fingers and be miles away, anywhere she chose. Emily just doesn't get it, and it makes her very, very nervous.
She doesn't like not knowing.
"Ahaha, here she is, here she is, hello my beauty."
Emily hesitates several paces away from the hag's cell, a chill going down her spine at the way the witch coos at her. "You know me?" Emily asks, wary.
"Oh I know, I know all about you Captain Peg, so pretty, so strong his Captain." The hag croaks, seeming excited in a way that's unnerving.
His captain? Whose captain? "So – it was you. My memories…"
The witch cackles as she darts forward to clutch the bars at the front of her cell. "Remember me, remember me, you can't remember me." She taunts and cackles some more.
"I'm beginning to wonder if I'm better off." Emily mutters, grimacing, but plows on. "Why did you do this to me? Are you working for someone?" She's having a hard time imagining anyone gaining enough control over the mad old hag to make her do anything.
"Work work work for him, he keeps hunters away," the hag pulls away from the bars, sits herself down, curls in on herself some, "no more hunters, no more, no more."
Well, that explains that. Balance. For every evil in the world there must be something to counter it; apparently, even beings like the old crone need a place to find refuge. "Who is He?"
The hag looks up, and two beady, glowing eyes meet Emily's. "Admiral, Admiral, handsome Admiral, wants the Captain, wants her, needs her."
"The Admiral. Well, should've seen that coming." Emily runs a hand through her hair and closes her eyes against the hangover she's still fighting. "Why would he want my memories erased?"
"Control the Captain, needed control, pretty jewel on the island."
"And he needed me not to remember for that? I don't understand."
"No map. No map, island big, island dangerous, needed map." Her babbling is becoming less coherent.
Emily pauses a moment, trying to piece something together. "So the map of the island was missing to begin with. He needed another way to get to the jewel. So – Adrienne…" But this is where she gets stuck. It just isn't fitting together.
The old hag looks up at Emily again, and for just this moment, her eyes seem a little more clear. "Smart little Captain. Pretty and strong and smart. Worthy opponent, his little Captain. So much fun. Job is done now, jewel is his, I fix the Captain."
Brows furrowed, Emily steps forward a few hesitant steps. "Now wait…"
"Can't, can't, have to go, hunters catch up, handsome Admiral keep me safe. Have to go, have to go, come, come, quickly Captain."
Understanding that she may not get anything she needs if she doesn't take a leap of faith, Emily crosses the space between her and the hag's cell. The old crone reaches out, abrupt, and pulls Emily closer. Emily gasps, eyes widening as she tries to pull away but the hag is strong.
"Remember me, remember me, remember me now. Lots of fun, we meet again, hope so Captain. Practice, practice, come and challenge me. We'll have fun, so much fun." The old crone's hands begin to glow a brighter red than the rest of her, and the aura envelopes Emily as well. "Bye bye, Captain."
A cloud of dark smoke swirls into existence, and Emily crumples as the old hag vanishes into nothingness. Eyes closed, she clutches at her head, gasping as the pain increases, grows sharper, more intense until…
Peace. All is calm, all at once. Sweet relief.
She remembers.
Ok, so anything resembling a schedule for updates on my end has been completely obliterated. That being said, I promise I'm alive, and I'm still writing. Thanks for reading! :)
French:
Aller. Prêt du navire. – Go. Ready the ship.
Je suivrai. – I will follow.