Nobody Likes Fairytale Pirates (34 page)

“We need to go.”  Ransom agreed. 
“If we don’t move, we’re dead.”

Uriah turned to look back to the
beach.  “There is a huge cloud of black smoke out there…”

“…which they’re going to see…” 
Ransom continued for him.

“…and know right where to come
looking for us, if their agents on our ship haven’t already told them.”  Uriah
finished.

“I still don’t understand why
they’re even following us.”  Din complained.  “What could they possibly want
from us?”

Ransom knew exactly what they
wanted:
her
.

“I told you already,” Uriah heaved
a dramatic sigh, “they want the map, obviously.”

“Everyone is always trying to steal
my gold.”  Ester agreed, ever eager to view herself as the victim of a jealous
world.

“But that doesn’t make any sense.” 
Dory objected logically.  “How would they even know…”

“Oh, do shut up, Badroulbadour.” 
Ester snapped.  “No one cares what you think.”

Ryle ignored the issue, remaining
focused on the larger problem.  “Well, if we can’t stay put, what would you
suggest?  Walking along the coast?”

“The coast is still visible to our
pursuers, and I might add, still populated with Mother Ester’s very real and
very dangerous mystery men.”  He squatted down next to the map drawn in the
sand, apparently scrawling another line.  “No.  We’re going cross-country.”

“You can’t be serious!?!”  Ester
gasped.  “You’ve lost your mind this time, you ugly Grizzle!”

“Yeah!”  Ryle agreed.  “What the
old lady said… only less racist.”

Ransom frowned, uncertain of this
new plan.

“I don’t approve either.”  Din
decided, like anyone gave a shit about what he was thinking.  “It seems to me
that there’s no way we can possibly get to our destination with no supplies.”

“It’s equally difficult to get
there when dead.”  Uriah snapped.  “I don’t know what to tell you.”  He started
off.  “I’m going through the Wasteland and I’m
getting
what I came for.”

Ransom’s brow furrowed, wondering
why exactly her partner was so dead set on getting to this particular
treasure.  He was greedy, sure, but he wasn’t usually reckless about it.  He
liked having his little adventures and he did a lot of ill-advised stuff, but
it was usually in pursuit of something other than almost certainly imaginary
riches.

This was… out of character for
him.  And Ransom wasn’t used to not being able to predict the man’s actions.

“Ransom?”  Ryle asked, evidently
expecting her to talk some sense into Uriah.

She considered her options for a
moment, uncertain.

“It’s suicide to go that way.” 
Ryle pressed-- quite logically-- sensing her hesitation.  “We’ll die.”

She was quiet for several beats.

“I go with Uriah, shot or shell,
drink or drown.”  She decided.  “Period.”  She started off after him.

“This is stupid!”  Ryle yelled, but
the sound of his footsteps soon followed her up the sandy hill towards where
their few scant supplies were stored.

Uriah hefted something heavy onto
his back, straining slightly from the weight and making a soft noise.

She felt around and grabbed several
large bottles of water, then fell into step beside him.  “We can make it,
right?”

“Nope.”

She frowned.  “But… but you’ve got
a plan or something?”

“Nope.”

She let out a sigh, almost
expecting that.  “I can see why you usually leave the big picture stuff to me,
Captain.”

“Yep.”

“So… we’re just going to walk till
we die then?”

He stopped in his tracks.  “Rance,
we were dead the second the ship sank.  It really doesn’t matter what we do at
this point.  If we remain on the beach, your countrymen will kill us.  If we
move along the coast,
my
countrymen will kill us.  If we walk this way,
we’ll die.  But personally, I’d rather die on my feet trying to live, than sit
around and waiting to be killed.  Plus, there’s unimaginable wealth in this
direction.”  He started along the path again.  “So yes, I’d going to walk until
I die.  Because, as my mother used to say: ‘I don’t quit until I’m dead.  And
then I’ll come back and haunt the bastards.’”

She considered that for a moment,
then hurried after him.  “Sounds like a plan.”  She cleared her throat.  “So…
are we going to talk about what happened?  On the boat?”

“It sank, that’s not my fault.”  He
defended, like she was about to accuse him of something.

“Not that.”

He didn’t reply for a moment.  “We
were drunk.”  He said, his voice low.  “I think we should just forget it and
move on.”

“Uh-huh.”  She nodded.  “Is this
going to be the part where you pretend that’s what you think I want and I
pretend that’s what I think
you
want, because we’re really both just too
afraid to admit what happened actually happened and take a risk?”

“I think so, yeah.”  He paused. 
“If it’s not too clichéd.”

“No, it works for me.  Because
I’m…”

“…kind of afraid of stepping over
the ‘Friends/Lovers’ line.”

She nodded again.  “Pretty much.”

“We both were… you know…”

“…drunk.”  She supplied for him. 
“We were very drunk.”

“Yeah.”

“So, there’s no need for anything
to
really
change…”

“Not at all.”  He agreed
immediately.

“But, we could still…”

“Absolutely.” 

There was really no question about
that.  She
needed
him to touch her on a very physical level, but it also
felt… right.  “I mean, I obviously want to as well, yeah.  Just so long as we
realize that it goes no further than that on an emotional level.”

“Or physical.”

“Or physical.”  She agreed.  “Touching
and…”

“…other things.”  He supplied,
obviously thinking up fun new games they could play which didn’t involve actual
sex.

“But other than that,” she cleared
her throat nervously, trying not to think about the many wonderful things he
could do to her body and she could do to his, “I think we should keep things as
they’ve always been.”

“Yep.”  His tone implied that was
obvious.  “’Cause you think that’s what I want.”

“Uh-huh.  And
you
think
that’s what
I
want.”

“Uh-huh.”

They were both quiet for a moment.

“Dammit.”  He swore under his
breath.  “When did we become such cowards?”

“About the time we started gambling
with the thing that means the most to us, I think.”  She swallowed.  “I…I don’t
want to lose you.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Neither am I.”

He made an annoyed sound.  “Well,
then why did you say that you wanted to think that I thought you thought that
it didn’t matter and that’s why you wanted me to say it didn’t matter?”

She shook the water bottles at him
in irritation.  “Because
you
said you thought I wanted you to think I
thought it didn’t matter, so that you’d tell me it didn’t matter and I could
misinterpret!”  She snapped at him.

They both paused to try to decipher
their meanings.  She was fairly certain at least one of them missed a double
negative or two.

He stopped in his tracks.  “Cards
on the table: it sure as fuck mattered to me.”

“Well, obviously!  If it didn’t
matter, there’d be no need to have this elaborate charade, which we both suck
at.  Which surprises me, since we’re both good liars and I really expected to
do better at this.”  She shook her head.  “But I don’t want to go back to the
way it used to be.”  She said softly, the words both a relief and a trial to
get out.  “Not at all.”

“I want us to remain the same,” he
explained, “but I want us to be able to do new and exciting things together
without fear of endangering that.”

“Sounds good.”  She nodded, liking
this plan.  “I’m in.”

“At the same time though…”

“I am so terrified.”  She agreed,
finishing his thought.  “But excited.”  She quickly added.  “I’m kinda liking
the ‘forbidden’ quality we’ve managed to add to this though.”

He let out an amused breath, like
he was laughing at himself.  “It’s weird.”

“It is.”  She smiled at him.  “It
really is.”

“Alright.”  He started walking
again.  “We’ll just get through this job, take our idiot clients where they
want to go…”

“…then steal their gold…”

“…and leave them for dead.”  He was
obviously in a much better mood now, their looming deaths in the Wasteland
forgotten.  “Then you and I will figure out… you know.  Us.  We’ll just get
this done, then we’ll have more time to talk.  One of us will get over their
fear and either admit their love or their inability to keep themselves from
making love.”

“Okay.”  She fell into step beside
him.  “You realize of course that that’s the kind of agreement people make
right before one of them dies, right?  It’s like
asking
for one of us to
be horribly killed and the other to weep tragically over the body.”

“Let’s try to buck that trend.”

“Agreed.”

“This is still stupid!”  Ryle
called to them again, apparently having loaded himself down with the remainder
of the supplies.  “In case you’ve forgotten.”

“We haven’t forgotten, Swab.” 
Uriah shouted back to him.

“We just didn’t care to start
with.”  She finished for him.

Someone came racing up the path
behind them, breathing hard.  “The sailors… the sailors refuse to come,
Captain!”  Din shouted.

“Good.”  Uriah sounded pleased. 
“Because there aren’t enough supplies for everyone.”

“Plus, you just took everything we
were able to salvage from the ship.”  Ransom added for him.  “They’re not going
to be happy when they realize you left them behind with nothing to eat or drink.”

“I’m
a
captain,” Uriah
explained in his most mistreated sounding voice, “not
their
captain.” 
He scoffed in disdain.  “If one group is going to starve to death here, it’s
sure not going to be you and me, Dove.”

“It’s a mystery why all your crews
end up turning on you, ‘Rai.”  She teased.  “Your loyalty to your men is
inspirational.”

“As my dear mum used to say: ‘loyalty
counts… but survival counts for more.’”  He paused in his tracks.  “Speaking of
which… listen, there are seventeen different deadly species of snake in this
kingdom.  Five species of bear, four of which actively hunt people.  There’s a
plant here that causes permanent insanity if you touch it.  There are
sinkholes, quicksand, and a species of fly that lays eggs beneath your skin
which hatch from blisters into maggot-looking worms that will eat your flesh
from the inside out.”

She made a face.  “Ew.”

“Just…” he sounded worried, “just
please be careful, okay?”

“I’m always careful.”  She cleared
her throat, finding herself oddly affected by the concern in his tone.  “You’re
the one who’s always doing stupid stuff.”

“How long a walk are we talking
here?”  Ryle shouted to them, unwilling to let the topic of their death march
drop.

“Well, we need to…”

Ransom somehow hit the ground.  She
swore, recognizing that Uriah would never let her hear the end of that.  She
got back to her feet.  “Okay, what just happened?”  She asked her partner. 
“Because I didn’t trip or anything, it was like the ground just…”

She couldn’t feel him.

Uriah was gone.

Or, more accurately,
she
was
gone.  As were the bottles of water she was carrying.

Dammit.

“Hello, child.”  Someone said from
behind her.  Cultured.  Female.  Older than Ransom.  And able to move as
silently as a fucking ghost.

Ransom spun ahead, instantly
backing up to put more distance between herself and this strange person.

There were two other women in their
party, neither of whom spoke like that.  And Ransom had no doubt the lady knew
who she was.

“What do you want?”  Ransom asked
cautiously, taking another step away.

“I want what I’ve always wanted.” 
The woman’s sweet voice sounded innocent, like she was confused by the
question.

“Which is?”

“I want to be the most beautiful
ruler this world has ever seen.  And I want more power than anyone else has
ever held.”

“Ah.”  Ransom had no real response
to that.  “I’d settle for something that has the kick of whiskey, but without
the associated hangovers.”

The woman was silent, either
smiling or glowering, it was hard to tell.  None of her emotions seemed…
right.  She was hard to get a read on.  Ransom was excellent at picking up on
non-visual clues, but this woman had none.  She was a total blank.

“Do you know who I am, child?”

“If I had to guess?  I’d say you’re
probably that crazy lady from Adithia who wants to eat my heart for some
reason.”  She paused, trying to track the woman’s movements in case there was a
fight.  It was next to impossible though because she didn’t seem to have
footsteps at all.  “If you could just go ahead and put a hold on that plan,
it’d really help me out.”

“You have me all wrong.”  The woman
defended, somehow having moved to Ransom’s right.

“Do I now?”  Ransom backed away
again, trying to find a more defensible space.

“All I want is you returned to me.”

“Especially my internal organs.” 
Ransom finished for her.

“I’m not used to you being so
paranoid, child.”  The woman sounded amused.  “While we didn’t always see eye
to eye,” the woman used the expression deliberately, “we still had a silent
understanding.  Your newfound mistrust is most abnormal.”

“Lady, you’re trying to eat my
heart because you think it’ll somehow make you prettier.”  She backed away
again.  “You’re not really what I’d call a reliable source on ‘normal’.”

“This is your pirate companion’s
doing, isn’t it?”  The woman sounded irritated now, her emotions suddenly
turning.  “You never used to be this way.”