Nobody Likes Fairytale Pirates (16 page)

It always blew up in his face and
ended up destroying the things he wanted.

Fucking fruit baskets, every time.

He swallowed the lump in his
throat.

It just wasn’t…

A noise from the woods behind him
startled him so much he nearly fell over.  He spun to focus on an altogether
unexpected scene: the Adithian girl sitting huddled by a fire.

He wasn’t so much relieved to see
her, as he was… confused.  Or perhaps downright terrified.

His people didn’t believe in the
afterlife, in the strictest sense, but he began to wonder if he had ever made
it out of the water at all.

A beautiful sunset and a beautiful
woman would feature rather prominently in his dreams of how he’d like the world
after this one to be.  But then again, he simply couldn’t imagine ever being
rewarded for anything he’d done in his life.  He wasn’t a good person and by no
stretch of the imagination was there a paradise awaiting him on the other side.

Which meant he was still alive.

He slowly made his way towards her.

“Hello, again.”  He said softly.

The girl jolted and pulled away,
huddling down closer to the fire.

He put up his hands.  “It’s okay… 
It’s just…”  He stopped, getting a better look at the damage to her face and
remembering what had just been done to her.  “Oh god…”  His stomach dropped in
sympathy and he tried not to be sick.  “I don’t…”  He tried to think of
something to say, but was coming up empty.  “I can’t…”  He swallowed.  “It’ll
be okay.”  He assured her.  “It’ll all be okay.”

They were both silent.

He frowned down at the fire.  “How…
how in the world did you manage that?”

It would have taken him a few hours
to get a fire going, even with sight.  How the girl had accomplished the feat blind
and bloody was a mystery.

She didn’t say anything.  She
remained with her knees up to her chest, her face hidden from view.  Her entire
body was shaking in the tattered remains of her uniform.

At first he had assumed she was
afraid of him, but now he could see that wasn’t the case.  Or at least, it
wasn’t the only problem.  She was reacting to him merely on an instinctual
level, like an animal, but she herself seemed far away.

“You’re in shock.”  He told her,
keeping his voice calm and even.  There was no sense in letting the girl know
how terrified he was.  “I’m going to have to tend to…”  He swallowed again,
trying to get over his fear.  “I’m going to need to sew up your wounds.”  He
said simply.  “If I don’t, they’ll get infected and you’ll die.  If the shock
doesn’t kill you first.”  He cleared his throat.  “I have experience with
sewing up wounds, miss.  I grew up in…”  He almost told her where he came from,
but then thought better of it.  No girl in her position really wanted to hear
about being stuck on a deserted island with one of the Grizzwood folk.  “…a
house which saw a lot of injuries.  I know what I’m doing.”  He glanced to his
right and saw the remains of some sort of structure.  “I’m going to go look for
something in that cabin over there, okay?  Just… just try and stay calm.  I’ll
be right back.”

He hurried to the building, his own
substantial injuries forgotten, as he frantically sifted through the few
decaying contents inside, looking for anything he could use. 

Inside the small hut, he was
surprised to find the skeleton of a dead sailor, wearing an old coat and hat,
hanging from a noose strung over one of the roof beams.  The man must have been
marooned here quite some time ago and had done himself in, which didn’t really
make Uriah confident about his own chances at survival.

Carved into the wall beneath the
skeleton with the antique looking hooked sword were the words: “Fuck the
bastards.”  And then below that: “Life is Blood and Treasure.”

Uriah had no idea what that meant,
but he liked the sound of it.

He tore his eyes from the grim
occupant of the structure and went back to searching for supplies.  Sadly,
there wasn’t much.  But his childhood had taught him how to improvise medical
treatments and had given him the ability to quickly identify wild herbs and
plants which had medicinal properties.  There weren’t exactly a lot of doctors
in a lawless swamp filled with madmen, so if you wanted to survive, you needed
to know how to treat your own wounds.  It took him a few moments, but he
managed to find enough to get the job done.

He ran back towards the beach and
found that the girl hadn’t moved an inch, sitting deathly still, aside from the
shaking.

“Okay,” he walked closer to her, “I
think this should…”

The girl huddled further from him,
like a terrified animal.

“I assure you, all I want to do is
sew up your wounds.  I mean you no harm.”  He tried.  “If I had wanted to hurt
you, I think we can both agree that I had ample opportunity yesterday.  It
would have made my life so much simplier if I had, but I didn’t.”

She didn’t look convinced,
remaining where she sat.

His mind raced, trying to come up
with something he could do to show her he wasn’t a danger.  Finally, he sat
down in the sand and reached to his belt, where he’d hung the hooked sword he’d
found in the ramshackle shelter.  “Miss, there is one weapon here on this
island with us.”  He very slowly crawled forward and dropped it at her feet. 
“You now control it.”  He turned his back to her.  “I am going to sit right
here, with my back to you, and we’ll talk.  I’ll even sit on my hands, so you
know I can’t move them.  If I do or say anything you don’t like, stab me.  Put
the blade to my throat if it would make you feel better, I don’t care.  Because
I know that I will
never
give you reason to use it.”

The girl immediately did as he’d
suggested, and Uriah had never been happier to feel a knife pressed to his
throat.

“We’re the only ones here.”  He told
her softly.  “And you have me dead to rights.”  He let that sink in.  “I’ve
done a lot of terrible things in my life, miss.  I’m a pirate and a killer and
a thief.  But I’ve never brutalized a woman.”  He paused.  “Granted, I’m also a
liar, but not about that.  And until you’re convinced, I place my life in your
hands.”

The blade stayed where it was.

“A cautious woman.”  He smiled in
admiration.  “I respect that.”  He swallowed.  “I’m not going to pretend I know
what to say to someone who has been through what you’ve been through.” 

Her shaking was growing worse and
the blade was beginning to cause small cuts to his neck.  But he didn’t move.

“So how about we talk about
something else, yes?”  He swallowed, the sword digging into his throat deeply
enough to cause a droplet of blood to drip down his neck, where it mixed with
the wounds on his chest.  For an old weapon, it was still razor sharp.  “We
could start with names.  I’m Uriah.”

Silence.

“A woman of few words.  I respect
that too.”  He sighed.  “I would regale you with the amazing story of how I
rescued you from drowning, but I’m afraid I don’t remember it.”

Silence.

“You didn’t.”  She croaked in a
soft voice, filled with pain and the sound of blood.  “I rescued you.”

“Ah.”  He tried to process that. 
The girl was apparently tougher than nails.  You cut her face into strips,
blind her, and beat her half to death, and she still had the energy to swim for
however long it’d been, dragging Uriah with her.  And somehow light a fire on
the shoreline of an island she couldn’t possibly have seen from the water
because of her injuries. 

What an amazing woman.

“Do I know you?”  She asked, her
voice rough and wet and filled with a slightly hollow slur from her wounds. 
The sword pressed against his skin more forcefully, the woman’s panic
building.  “
Do I?
”

He frowned, trying to decipher the garbled
words and what they meant.  “Do… do we have to keep speaking Adithian?”  He
asked her, in what he knew was a terrible approximation of the tongue.  He
hoped she could at least understand the basic idea of what he was trying to
say.  “Because I don’t know the language well.  I can try, if it makes you more
comfortable, but I’m not the best at it.”

She didn’t reply, which either
meant she didn’t know any other languages or his use of hers had been so broken
that she didn’t understand him at all.

The blade relaxed against his
neck.  “No.”

He nodded, unsure if the girl meant
that they didn’t have to keep using the language or that, no, he’d have to keep
using it.  He decided either way it didn’t much matter though.

“How about this?”  He asked her in
what was a more common tongue.  “Good?”

“Yes.”  The blade moved another
half inch away from his neck. 

“What’s your name, miss?”

Silence.

“I… I don’t know.”

His eyebrows rose in surprise. 
“Seriously?”  He blinked several times, trying to come to terms with that
news.  “Like… for real?  That actually really
happens
?”

The knife was pressed harder
against his skin again.

“Okay, okay.”  He tried to keep her
calm.  “You’re in shock right now and you’ve had a rough day.  I’m sure your
memory will come back in time, okay?”

“Do I know you?”  She asked again.

He paused, trying to decide how big
an asshole he was.  He could
easily
tell the girl they were partners. 
Friends.  Hell, lovers.  Her past was evidently a complete blank upon which he
could create whatever reality he wanted.  He could be anything to her he wanted
to be.  Everything, if he so chose to tell her that.  He could instantly become
the man he’d always wanted to be and have exactly what he’d always wanted to
have.

And she’d probably thank him for
helping her fill in the blanks of her life.

It was
very
tempting.

But he always tried to avoid lying
to people who had a knife to his throat.

And he didn’t really want to lie to
her anyway.  For one thing, when she did regain her memory, he’d murder him for
lying to her, and for another, it just… it just wasn’t who Uriah was.  He was a
cheat and a liar, but not about the important stuff. 

Not to someone like her.

So, he told her the truth. 

“Not really.”  He shook his head. 
“I mean, we met briefly, but then they…”  He trailed off.  “Well… they didn’t
really like the partnership we were creating.  Personally, I think they were
jealous.”

Her hand moved across his back and
he tried to keep from crying out in pain as she touched the ragged wounds.  “Is
this blood?”

“Yes.”

“How do I know that I’m not the one
who did it?”

His mind raced.  “Because I think
if you had done it, I wouldn’t be alive to be talking to you right now about it.”

She was silent for a moment, then
removed the knife, accepting that.  “I… I can’t stop shaking.”  She admitted,
her façade of strength dropping.  “And… and I can’t see…”

“I know.”  He nodded.

“
Why can’t I stop shaking!?
!” 
Panic filled her voice now, edging towards outright terror.

“You’re in shock.  It’s…”

“
I can’t stop!
”  She
sobbed.  “And I think… I think… My eyes are…”

“I know… I know… I got this, okay?” 
He smoothed.  “Please calm down.”

Her breathing was coming in ragged
gasps now, as her body attempted to cope with her injuries.  She was moments
away from passing out, which given the serious nature of her condition,
probably wasn’t the best idea.  If she lost consciousness, she’d almost certainly
never wake up.

But the girl was a warrior, even if
she didn’t remember it.  And Uriah had grown up in a warrior culture, so he
knew what to do.

“Are you beaten?”  He demanded.

The girl’s gasping slowed somewhat.

“They knocked you down, miss.  I’m
not going to lie… they’ve hurt you bad.  Worse than I’ve ever seen.  And now they
expect you to give up.”  He softened his tone.  “So, I’ll ask again: Are. You.
Beaten?
”

“N-n-n-no.”  She croaked after
another moment, straightening slightly and somehow regaining a modicum of
composure.  Her hand tightened on the hilt of the sword.  “Not done.”

“Good.”  He moved towards her and
she instantly pulled away.  “Steady.  Steady, you’re okay.”  He slowly turned
around and saw her wounds up close for the first time.  Blood coated her entire
face, a crisscross of deep cuts blinding her and leaving large sections of skin
hanging open and allowing him to see the tissue beneath.  Just how she was
managing to hold a conversation with him when she was in that kind of pain was
a mystery.  It was physically impossible.  She was…  She was a tough little
thing.  Certainly far tougher than he could ever be in similar circumstances,
which was saying quite a bit.

He closed his eyes, trying not to
cry. 

It had been his fault.

If he’d been stronger, that never
would have happened to her.  “I’m sorry.”  He breathed, hating himself more
than he ever had before.  “I can’t…”  He bit his lower lip, trying to keep his
voice from breaking.  “I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t want your pity.”  She
huddled by the fire again.  “Just leave me alone.  I’ll do it myself.”

He could tell instantly that his
words had pissed the woman off and made her feel worse.  Since the girl’s day
hadn’t gone especially well, the fact that he’d somehow made it worse was truly
amazing.

He cursed at himself for his
stupidity and did the first thing that came into his mind.  He turned it into a
joke mocking himself.

“No, I mean I’m so sorry because
now you’ll never get to see what a pretty man I am.”  He sighed in exaggerated
resignation.  “I mean, the wounds will heal.  The whole blindness thing?  A
strong woman like you can get over that fairly quickly.  But not being able to
admire how gorgeous I am?”  He gave a mock shudder at the thought.  “Honestly,
I don’t know how you’ll make it.  I haven’t even been without a mirror on this
island for an hour so far, and the strain is already taking its toll on me.”