Drifting
– Part One: Boarded
Disclaimer:Nope. Don't own Inuyasha...
But Aamalie owns this idea. x.x And I suppose Corisu
does too, since she's helping in the writing... Gotta love the free help.
Aamalie: What's this? A
new fic? v.v
I admit it. I went on the PoTC ride about five too many
times on my trip to
Corisu: I've gone insane. Absolutely insane. Joining forces with the beta who already
prods me with pointy things to make me write? I'm gonna
diiiiieeee.... On a lighter note: I can already tell
that I'm going to love it. Drink up, me hearties, yo-ho!
---
Ocean travel did
absolutely nothing for Sango.
Well, that wasn't entirely
true. It did do something. It made her wretchedly seasick. It was so bad that,
after a few hours on the open waters, she had almost fallen overboard as she
tried to walk to her cabin from where she had been clinging to the portside
railing. Since then, she had been confined to the cramped, dank room that would
serve as her living space for the entirety of her journey. After a long
residence on her father's plantation on
Considering that for the
past two days, she'd constantly been on the verge of regurgitating her
stomach's scarce contents (she hadn't eaten since before she boarded), those three months were starting to look like Hell itself.
At least from Sango’s viewpoint.
All that she wanted to do was dive headfirst into the waves and swim
frantically for the closest strip of land.
Unfortunately, that wasn't
an option, so Sango settled with the next best
option: Sleeping.
So, sleep she did, or
tried to. Noises kept reaching her ears, sounding quite like shouted commands,
mixed in with the occasional oath. Sango groaned,
wishing she had something to cover her head with, besides the ratty blanket
that covered her. Her head hurt so much...
The door to her cabin
burst open, and she made herself peel her eyes open. A man stood, looking
flustered, at the doorway, and she recognized him faintly as the second mate of
the ship. She wondered foggily what he seemed so
frantic about.
"Miss! Please, you must get up
immediately! We must move."
"Move?" she
muttered. "Why?"
"Because, Miss. The
ship has been-" That was the last word he managed to get out, because at
that very moment, his head was cut cleanly from his shoulders by a shining
cutlass. Another man, this one unfamiliar and grinning arrogantly, made his
presence known by kicking the body aside.
"Boarded and taken
over," the man finished. "I do hope you weren't headed anywhere of
importance, little missy. We've got a new destination in mind."
Any other day in any other
place, Sango would have stood up and given him a
piece of her mind, particularly for calling her a "little missy".
However, she was too sick to care, or to realize that the man was a pirate.
Instead, she merely passed back into her dizzy unconsciousness again, completely oblivious of the predicament she was now
in.
It was bound to be a long
journey indeed.
-
When Sango
next awoke, the first thing that she realized was that she was no longer in the
hard, uncomfortable bed that she had grown accustomed to suffering in. No, the
surface that she was lying on was harder and most unforgiving, and it took her
a moment to get her bearings.
The churning in her
stomach told her that she was still at sea. Luckily, she felt nowhere near as
ill as she had before. The area in which she was confined was so dark that she
could hardly see anything upon opening her eyes. The only light that filtered
into the room came from the cracks around a trapdoor in the ceiling.
Moving slowly so that she
wouldn't agitate her lingering seasickness, she sat up and blinked, trying to
force her eyes to see in the opaqueness around her. Slowly, very slowly, she
realized just how small the compartment that she was in really was. A lump in
the corner caught her eye, and it took her several rounds of blinking and
squinting to realize that it was a body.
Sango cleared her throat, looked up
angrily at the trapdoor, and hissed to herself, "What's going on
here?"
The person on the other
side of the compartment shifted, then sat up abruptly and muttered something
unintelligible. The cadence of the voice reached Sango,
however, and she could tell that the other person was female - putting both of
them in the same boat, both literally and figuratively.
“What did you say?” Sango pressed, squinting as her vision slowly adjusted to
the lighting, or rather, lack thereof. There was a brief hush, before a
trembling, yet comprehensible, whisper touched Sango’s
senses.
“You’re awake?”
"Yes," Sango replied, her eyes finally adjusting enough so that
she could make out the huddled form of the other girl leaning against the far
wall. "What's going on?"
There was a choked sound
which she guessed to be a mix between a gasp and a sob before the other young
woman managed to gain control of herself. “The... The
ship was taken over... P-Pirates... Sailors tried to fight back, but they
killed... everyone...” Her composure was lost then, and she broke down, leaving
Sango to awkwardly crawl towards her and try offer
comfort while processing what little had been revealed.
Pirates? The infamous
scoundrels of the sea? The ones who were hanged by water’s side as a
warning to their fellow outlaws? The men who ship merchants dreaded and the
English Navy hated? They had boarded and captured The Charity? The idea
was not very consoling. In fact, it was downright terrifying. However, there
was no point in going to pieces, unless she wanted to annoy some swashbuckling
halfwit and find herself with an extra hole in her head, courtesy of a pirate's
gun. Of course, there was always the ever-present alternative - walking the
plank like a damsel in distress out of a rumor or sailor's tale.
“Hey...” Sango began, having noted that her companion had quieted
some. “What’s your name?”
“Ayumi,”
she sniffled. “Yours?”
“Sango. Ayumi, what happened that’s
gotten you so worked up? What did those cursed men do?”
The other girl inhaled
shakily. “They... My husband. They-” Ayumi stopped abruptly, before letting out a whimper and
cowering back. Confused, Sango opened her mouth to
inquire as to what had caused these strange actions, before she heard the heavy
footsteps overhead. They stopped, and with a creak, the trapdoor above swung
opened to allow lantern light to flood the tight space. Sango
found herself having to shield her eyes from the glare.
“Ah, what’s this? Both of
the beauties have woken up. Come ladies! Don’t jus’ sit there...
Get up ‘ere!” There was a clatter, and Sango lowered
her arm to see that a rope ladder had been dropped from the hole in the
ceiling. Although she would have much preferred to remain where she was instead
of ascending, Sango bit the insides of her cheeks to
keep from retorting and reached for the ladder. She honestly doubted that any
pirate would have any qualms about coming down and retrieving her if she chose
to be stubborn. And frankly, she wasn’t prepared to let one of the filthy
brutes touch her.
As she neared the top
rung, however, a hand locked itself around her forearm and pulled her up the
last few feet, depositing her on the ground. Lips going thin, Sango glared up at the three shoddy men as they took their
time in looking her over. It was like they were appraising her as though
she was something on sale at a market, and it brought bile to her throat.
‘What I wouldn’t give
to claw their eyes out...’ Sango thought darkly.
Even so, she was thankful when their attentions turned to ‘helping’ Ayumi out of the trapdoor. It didn’t take much time though,
and soon both girls were being rushed up a short stairway. Sango
set her mind on trying to memorize the path they took, just in case an opportunity
arose in which she could break away and try to escape. The matter at hand had
driven all thoughts of her earlier seasickness from her mind and from her body,
and Sango felt significantly better for the
improvement.
Suddenly, Sango was grabbed by her shoulders from behind and was spun
to face the one pirate who had to be the worst of the three who were
“chaperoning” the two captive women. His breath was rotten and his teeth were
yellow lumps in diseased and blackened gums. His weathered, pocked, and ugly
face was covered and framed with coarse, matted hair, and his nose looked as
though it had been broken more than once. Needless to say, when he leaned in
close to leer at Sango, as well as give
her a good whiff of that breath, she was sorely tempted to break it again.
“Now, now missy...” he grounded out, his voice as pleasant as a mud puddle of
starved leeches, “don’t be a-walkin’ there, lookin’ so entranced. You looked about ready to be a-wanderin’ off...”
Refrain from turning and
gagging in the manner she truly wanted to, Sango
plastered a simpering, fake smile onto her face. “Wander off?” she repeated,
batting her eyelashes to create what she hoped to be an overly innocent, if not
naïve, visage. “Why would I do a silly thing like that when I’m in the company
of such fine gentlemen?” The pirate didn’t seem to detect the underlying
sarcasm in her tone, and his companions made no comment if they managed to
catch it. In fact, the gruesome man seemed rather taken with the idea of being
considered a gentleman. Too taken.
“In that case, a pretty
lady like yourself wouldn’ mind giving this seafarin’ gent a kiss, now would she?” He moved in closer,
and Sango felt as though she needed to vomit. There
was no way she was going to let her lips so much as touch the filthy man!
“Oh! I couldn’t do a thing
like that!” she giggled, raising her hand to her face as though she were
embarrassed, although it really was a subtle attempt to block the lout’s smell
from her senses. “You see, I’m, ah... Betrothed. To
kiss anyone but my intended would simply be dishonorable!”
This caused one of the
other men, a more wiry man with a horse-like face and a closely trimmed
moustache and goatee, to fall into a fit of laughter,
making the lantern he held swing wildly. The light tilted back and forth,
leading the shadows of the ship in a dance around the corridor. Sango turned her head to look at the man, and could see Ayumi standing like a wraith a few steps behind him, eyes
wide in the unsteady gloom. The cackling rogue finally calmed himself enough to
speak. “Dishonorable? Ha! Where you two will be goin’,
honor ain’t gonna mean
shit.”
Sango had every intention to ask just
what was meant by that, but that was when the third ‘chaperone’, a tall black
man of a frightening demeanor, decided to make his opinion known. “Enough. The
captain said to be silent about it, and the watch ends soon. Let’s make this
quick and shut these wretches back where they belong.” There was a murmur of
reluctant agreement from the other two men, and all conversation ceased save
for the orders Sango and Ayumi
were given.
They were first allowed a
brief visit to the ship’s head- the on board privy- before being herded into
the galley. Each was given a chunk of hardtack and a lukewarm cup of tea and
told to consume it all, which they reluctantly did. A short while later, the
two women were hurried back the way they had come and all but shoved down the
ladder back into the stinking hole that was their prison.
A sudden heaviness of her
eyelids soon made it clear to Sango that the food had
been drugged; she had had no intention of falling asleep in such a situation. Ayumi slumped to the ground, her breathing slow and
measured. Soon after, Sango slid into unconsciousness
as well, unable to ward off the unwanted, unnatural weariness.
---
Aamalie: Sorry it's short, but hey! It's the
first chapter, and Cori ish
lazy... ¬¬...
Review!