"I gotta find a way off this damn ship," Akira muttered to herself as she looked around the admittedly cozy den, wishing she had her own furs from her own cave. It had taken some time acquiring those—actually, it had taken months. Finding the right mammals, not ones close to their rocky home, had been difficult, to say the least. Not to mention finding furs that didn't make her skin crawl.
The sabress sighed, bypassing a kick or two from her cubs as she peered outside the den and over the edge of the ship. The pathway in and out was precariously placed but it wasn't a guaranteed fall although, she was more than prepared to leap if she had to. Akira mumbled under her breath, absently trying to figure out a way for her and her herd to leave when a spray of mist lightly dusted her face. "Wha—"
She glanced around, confused for a moment before there was a low bellow beneath her. From the ocean. "Oh my God." She whispered, eyes wide with awe as she stared down at the gigantic whale beneath her. It was a slate gray, its eye a deep green as the whale floated along on its side, peering up at the sabress with a massive eye. "Precious?" She called tentatively, huffing in disbelief as the name got her a sharp-toothed grin and a happy groan in response.
Akira hadn't once reprimanded Granny for her belief in the supposedly dead pet because what harm would encouraging the sloth have done but now, to see Precious before her very eyes was a bit. . . surreal. "Oh my—hi!" A soft bellow and crinkling of her eye and Akira was as fond of the whale as she was of Granny and Sid. Dangerously so. There was something oddly endearing about all three. Sid was understandable—they'd been together for decades—but Precious and Granny, in the extremely short time, had their own little carved-out hole in her heart.
"You with us, then, kid?" Manny asked as he shook the shredded ropes off his body. His eyes were fixed on Gutt and his crew, their backs to them as they were intently trying to coax Granny to walk the plank. If the mammoth didn't know better, he'd say the sloth was taunting them, playing dumb as she babbled about how this was a nicely-set bath and that the goldfishes—monstrous narwhals, Jace corrected in disbelief—were a great touch but ugly.
"If it means my sister's as far away from this as she can be? Hell yeah." Jace murmured under his breath, wary that his crewmates would be alerted sooner than intended. He'd gotten the sloth untied and now, he needed to get to the sabre.
"Good, cause then we'd have to kill you with everybody else," Manny muttered, partially joking as he watched Jace's expression morph into wariness. "Kidding." He really wasn't. He wasn't a cold-blooded murderer but nobody put his family in danger and faced no consequences.
"He's really not." Diego chimed in from above as Jace scaled the tree, walking along the branch that held him.
Manny paid no mind to the pair as he and Sid crept forward to the crew. "Hey, Sid?" The sloth looked up at him with a steely expression of determination. "Yeah, Manny?" The mammoth assessed the situation before him, "Don't forget to grab Granny in the commotion. Don't know if those narwhals are meat-eaters."
Sid barely got a chance to reply as Manny seized him by the neck and slid him across the ice, knocking the smaller pirates askew and alerting the ones too big to be jostled by the ground sloth. Upon seeing him free, Gutt's eyes widened in shock before they narrowed, the ape baring his teeth in a snarl. "How!?" His eyes flickered around, presumably landing on Jace freeing Diego before he bellowed, "Shira! Stop him! Leave the mammoth. He's mine."
Manny prepared himself, grabbing a spear as the sabress sprinted past him with a growl, the other crewmates occupied with Sid and Granny since they weren't given an order to join the fight. "Now, how did you manage to corrupt my most faithful friend, Manfred?" The mammoth deflected the blow of the rigid spinal cord being used as a sword as he scowled at the use of his name by the ape. "It didn't take much once he figured out what you had planned for her."
Manny hoped foolishly for some shock, for some sign of regret or guilt of what he'd certainly had planned for his "most faithful friend's sister" but there was nothing of the sort. In fact, Gutt seemed to come more alive as the topic steered towards his sinister intentions. "So many mammals die with their cubs inside because they've got no other way out—and the wee little babies suffer. I'm just on standby if anything happens to. . . go wrong." Gutt said with a pronounced grunt as he swung, trying to catch Manny off-guard.
"Oh, so you're preparing to gut her in the worst-case scenario out of the good of your heart? Yeah, right." The mammoth scoffed, as he steered Gutt towards the trunk in the centre of the ship, a plan settling in his mind. "Why is that so hard to believe? It was my honest intentions."
Admittedly, Manny faltered at that and it nearly cost him an eye. "Was?"
Gutt sneered, his movements growing uncontrolled and more fueled by his anger. "Was, Manfred. Now, I'm going to gut that sabress regardless. Jace knows better than to cross me. It'll be the last thing he ever does in this world." The ape neared as Manny slowly backed away, apprehensive to hear what his intentions were now with Akira—and speaking of, he hoped that one of his herd members had found the sabress or that Jace had, at least. "I've never gutted a pregnant mammal before—I'll have to make it last."
Gutt lunged.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Shira snarled as she hopped onto the outstretched branch, intercepting the sabre before he could finish cutting their prisoner loose.
"Protecting Akira! She's not safe here, Shira." Jace growled, narrowing his eyes at the sabress.
In his time with Gutt, Shira hadn't been around for half as long but she'd become a fierce friend since joining their crew. Jace liked her, he really did, but he couldn't choose her nor Gutt over his family—not when they were in danger. Shira and Gutt would survive whatever would transpire on this ship but if Gutt had any say in it, Akira and her cubs wouldn't.
He had hoped to convince the sabress to help but Jace decided there and then he wouldn't drag her into this. Shira thrived on the ocean and while Jace had, at one point, he couldn't now. Not when he knew his family was alive and waiting for him to come home to them. He couldn't confidently stay at Gutt's side anymore, turning away from his murders when it would further be on his mind that those mammals and reptiles and sea creatures most likely had a family like he had his siblings and parents but no one willing to put their life on the line for their safety. No one was willing to stand up to Gutt.
"You're giving it all up for her? You've been with Gutt for decades—you're his first mate and his first crew member and you're gonna drop all of that?! I'd kill to be where you are, Jace." Shira roared, lunging and tackling the sabre to the ground before he could fully free the Southern sabre. "You're pathetic."
Jace bared his fangs as he wriggled beneath the sabress, jostling her enough to gain the upper hand. He swiped a clawed paw in her direction, barely grazing her cheek as she dodged it. He grunted as he moved back, keeping the others in his peripheral. "I'm pathetic? You worship the very ground of a murderer, one that thinks everyone on this ship is as expendable as the slaves he brings on before he swallows them down. You don't care about Gutt out of the good of your heart—he terrifies you so badly you're loyal to a fault. All of you are—even me, until I opened my eyes.
"At least I can think for my damn self when it comes down to it—and I am now because Akira and those cubs mean the world to me and I'm not letting him take that away. I thought I lost everything I had all those years ago but I didn't, Shira. I've got a second chance and I'm not giving that up. I'll forever be grateful to Gutt for saving my life but twenty years has been long enough. I'm done. Just let me go—let me get her out of here, please. She'll die on this ship."
Shira wanted to be angry. She wanted to be furious, actually. She couldn't fathom how Jace could give it all up in a heartbeat for a sabre he hadn't seen in decades when he had a crew he knew better, a Captain who had saved his life and was practically his best friend. He was closest to Gutt and had the most advantage being on this ship but, all at once, it didn't seem to matter to him.
Shira knew loyalty so intense, she was familiar with it and painfully so but it was to her Captain. She could never turn her back on him like Jace did but if she was going to stop him. . . if she was going to stop Jace, it was clear that he wasn't going down without a fight. He'd probably die for her. Though, whilst Shira could only envy the sentiment, she couldn't let him get away with what he wished. Gutt would kill her if she so much as hesitated where he could see—and he could see now, as occupied as he was with the mammoth.
"I'm sorry." And really, she was. She didn't care for the sabress or her cubs much, couldn't stand the thought of her without a nasty churn of her stomach but she was sorry that she would be hurting Jace. That he would be hurt once this was all over.
Jace had expected as much as his expression shuttered. There was no friendliness in his gaze, his eyes cold as he regarded a sabress who was once an old friend, now turned enemy. "Of course." He readied himself for a fight, "I hope this was worth it when it's all over."
Shira seemed baffled by his statement, hesitating to lunge as she glared at him. "Why wouldn't it be?"
The northern sabre's gaze was torn away from the sabress, a potentially fatal mistake if she'd been ready to attack. "Because in the end, you'll be alone. Gutt will get someone you care about too eventually and you'll be where I am, pleading for help and getting nothing in return." Manny and the captain in mention were just behind the sabress, sparring when Manny, seemingly deliberately, collided with the towering tree in the centre of the tree.
Jace's eyes widened as the trunk teetered precariously, leaning too far to one side and snapping the supports as it pulled too far at the ropes. The sudden dislodge of the tree was going to sink the ship, surely as it cracked the vessel in half but he couldn't care less. He was worried for his sister, forgetting Shira in the commotion and vaguely aware that Diego—Manny had slammed into the trunk to free him—was by his side.
"We don't got a lot of time! The den's—no!" Jace skidded to a stop, narrowly avoiding being crushed by one of the supports as they came crashing down. It blocked off the path to the den, time running low as the ship was sinking fast. "The den's at the back of the ship, a hole carved into the ice. Diego, go!"
It had to be him. The Southern sabre had made it past before the tree came crashing down but Jace would have to linger back and make use of himself which, considering, wasn't difficult as he heard the angry cries of his former crew behind him, narrowly dodging a fishhead dagger thrown by an angry Squint. "Traitor!"
"You got shit aim, Squint. I know you can do better than that!" Jace snarled, trying to keep the worry out of his face as he was intensely aware of the rapidly sinking ship beneath his paws. He purposely avoided Gutt's predictably furious gaze, not wanting to deal with that aspect of his future any time soon. It was certain his betrayal would be his undoing but Jace didn't think he'd ever made a better decision in his life.
"You'll regret this—" He heard Gutt's threat, his voice cutting through the cries and screams but before he could continue and possibly get vulgar, a sharp scream echoed followed by a horrified roar. "Akira!"
The herd of mammals and Jace all turned at the sound of the scream, unable to see anything but well aware something was wrong. "Diego?!" "Akira!" "She's fine."
"Kira? Akira!" Diego hissed, urgent as he could hear and feel the ocean swallowing up the no longer floatable vessel.
"Diego?" The voice came from within the carved ice, just as Jace had told him and he sighed in relief, running over to his mate.
"The ship's sinking. We're back at square one but Switchback Cove shouldn't be too far off—the current should naturally take us there and once there, we'll figure something out." Diego rambled slightly as he nuzzled his mate, feeling significantly better with her before him, unharmed and better than she'd been before they came across the pirates. He didn't cherish the experience but if they hadn't come across the ship, they would've floated aimlessly and Akira would've barely made it on no food and water when she had who knew how many cubs inside her.
Akira hummed, relishing in Diego's warmth for a moment before she registered what he was saying. "The wha—the ship's sinking? Right now!? Wasn't there something less dramatic?" She began muttering under her breath, pulling away from Diego and ducking back into the den.
Diego nearly called back out to her in worry, taking a step to follow her when she exited so quickly, they nearly collided. He eyed her oddly due to the bundled fur she held in her mouth, Akira seeing his look and merely shrugging. "Food and fur—waste not, want not. We could use this, you know, in case I give birth in the middle of our little pirate fantasy. Would fit, to be honest, with how the kids came about. Perce from a flood, Peaches in the Plates of—whoa!"
Diego had felt as if he was prepared for anything. He was so certain he could deal with any and everything as long as Akira was by his side but he should've known better. Caught in floods and avalanches and traversing into the Lost World weren't things normal mammals got caught up in. Their luck was nothing to marvel at when it came to their adventures, wanted and unwanted. Their half of the sinking ship tilted precariously and as a snapped support whipped him in the face, forcing him to stumble back, he couldn't do a single damn thing as his mate was knocked off the ship and into the ocean below.
He hadn't been aware Akira was gone—not at first as he hissed and rubbed his newly-forming bruise—but he suddenly realized all at once when her scream of surprise or pain—he didn't know—echoed in his ears. "No," he whispered, pausing in his horror before he was able to move, no longer frozen. "Akira!" He roared, sprinting to the edge of the ship. They weren't far above the ocean now but the drop would've still hurt upon impact—could've possibly been sufficient to knock her unconscious because Diego, horrifyingly enough, didn't see her.
"No, no, no!" Diego couldn't find her as he leapt into the water, the ocean's surface so close, he barely made a splash. As he treaded through the water, desperately calling and searching, diving down to look below the surface—caring not for the water as it burned his eyes—he couldn't find her. But she wouldn't sink—she couldn't.
Akira was a better swimmer than he was. He could recall all the times she'd rubbed it in his face with a cheeky grin. But, Diego wasn't unable to ignore the fact that she hadn't swam since she'd gotten pregnant with the cubs. What if they interfered with her ability? What if she'd struggled with the addition of the bump and had grown tired before she'd even begun, sinking beneath the waves and lost forever?
"Akira! Akira!"