Drifting – Part Six: Compromise
Aamalie: After a LONG wait, I give you… (drum roll)…
x.x
The Wanderer wasn’t
a particularly amazing ship by most standards. She was a brig, a type of ship
most often used for the shipment of merchant goods—in Sango’s
mind, there was no doubt that the ship had been obtained by less than honorable
methods. The boards that made up the hull were painted a customary, rather
unobtrusive black, and the sails were a crisp white, probably new. Below the
bowsprit was a figurehead in the shape of a mermaid, her arms extended towards
the distance and scaled tale twisted anxiously, her carved hair made to look as
though it were billowing in a gale. She looked very much as though she longed
to dive into the waves and swim towards the horizon she reached for.
"She’s
not the grandest vessel, admittedly," Kagome said cheerfully as Sango eyed the ship. "However, she’s seaworthy, and
the men love her like she’s their mother."
"That’s
not too surprising, somehow," Sango said dryly.
"But to me, a ship is a ship, and I’ll probably end up seasick either
way." In fact, her stomach was already unsettled at the prospect of
climbing aboard The Wanderer. All in all, she was very much a landlover with no sealegs to
speak of at all.
"I dare
say Lord Miroku will take care of that."
"Take
care of what, Miss Kagome?" Startled, the two young women turned, only to
find that Miroku had happened upon them.
Sango was a tad surprised at his appearance—his choice of clothing this
morning differed from yesterday’s attire in the extreme. No longer did he look
the part of a good, proper gentleman with pressed clothing and shined shoes.
Rather, he had donned canvas pants and a loose white cotton shirt; typical
sailor garb. It was all in good condition—excellent, actually—but Sango still found herself marveling at how much more a
pirate he looked. That was strange in itself, considering that all of the
stories she’d heard about pirates before had involved them wearing outlandish,
gaudy clothing. Much like her original captors had.
But... Miroku looked like any other tar one
would see at a port, and somehow that made him more piratical to her than he
had been yesterday. It was like, just by changing his clothes, he could change
someone’s impression of him. If he wanted, he could be a dashing gentleman or
an enigmatic criminal, a rich government official or a
sailor for hire.
With that
talent, it was no wonder the man had chosen piracy as a profession.
When neither
woman replied immediately, Miroku made his own
assessment of the situation; it was evident in every feature that whatever he
was thinking would have afforded him some physical discomfort had he voiced it
aloud. "Why, Sango—"
"Hold
your tongue, Pirate, unless you rather I cut it out."
Far from
feeling threatened, Miroku offered a grin to the two
women. "We should board, now. Nearly everything is prepared to set
sail." He stepped closer to the two, and Sango
tensed reflexively. Far from any ulterior motive (for the moment, at least), he
merely relieved them of their baggage, nodded to them both, and said,
"Follow me."
The two young
women did just that, and the pirate led them up the gangway onto The
Licentious Wanderer’s deck. Sango found herself
oddly at a loss when both of her companions shared quick pleasantries when they
passed another pirate on their way through the central hatch to get below deck,
only to glare at the man when he made an appreciative comment. She was too busy
doing that to notice that Miroku was actually sending
a similar dark look at the man, who quickly made
himself scarce.
Kagome just
shared a smile with herself at the scene.
"I trust
you and Kagura didn’t switch rooms, Miss
Kagome?" Miroku asked absently as they made it
down the steps to the lower parts of the ship. He turned left down a split in
the narrow corridor, which afforded just enough room
that two relatively average-sized men could pass each other without much
trouble, though it would be uncomfortable to walk side-by-side in a similar
fashion.
"That’s
right. Same as last time."
He nodded, and
passed two doors set into the corridor before opening the third and setting
down Kagome’s bag in a room. While not entirely roomy, it
wasn’t uncomfortably small, although it was rather dark. Sango could just make out a bunk, equipped with a mattress
and sheets, which was anchored to the wall on one side, and a dresser on the
other. Sango recognized it as a typical room for
passengers; her own room on The Charity had been almost identical.
"All right, I trust you’ll be fine from here?"
"Mmhmm. Inuyasha will probably be
along shortly, no doubt."
Miroku sent the blue eyed girl a grin. "Don’t you dare preoccupy
him too much; we pirates have work to do,
remember?"
Kagome laughed
and waved him off, telling him to leave so she could get everything set away,
and he exited the room to reunite with Sango, who had
been waiting at the doorway. Her baggage still in his hands (as Kagome had
managed to secure several articles of clothing for her from some friends), he
beamed at her good-naturedly.
"Shall
we?" he said with a short wink. Sango made a
show of rolling her eyes, and Miroku chuckled. "Alright, enough of that. Let’s go get you settled
in."
Sango had been expecting him to put her in one of the other cabins near
Kagome’s, but he did no such thing. Instead, he led her back the way they had come, back up the stairs, onto the deck and towards the
stern of the ship. Confused, she asked him, "Where are we going?"
He cast her a glance of benign amusement. "You’ll see."
Realizing she
wasn’t going to get anything else out of him, Sango
resigned herself to being patient. Although she had abandoned that particular
virtue as of late, patience was something that she had been raised with as an
expectation. Ever since her first encounter with pirates, however, she’d rather
abandoned that trait in favor of impatient sarcasm. Seeing as how sass wasn’t
really getting her anywhere at the moment, maybe, she thought, it was about
time that she cooled her temper a bit.
Diverting from
her thoughts, Sango realized that Miroku
was still taking towards the stern of the ship, and now up onto the
quarterdeck. But, that didn’t make sense. He had been taking her to ‘get
settled in’, hadn’t he? The only things on the quarterdeck were the ship’s
wheel and…
Sango gave Miroku a look when he
pulled open the door to the on-deck cabin. "The captain’s quarters?"
"Yes."
Sango raised an eyebrow. "Isn’t this where the captain is supposed
to stay?"
He gave her
what could only be described as a devastatingly roguish grin. "I assure
you, I won’t mind the extra company at all."
…
"Eh!"
Miroku sighed good-naturedly, taking her stunned surprise as a chance to
pull her through the door. The cabin was definitely more comfortable than any
of the rooms Sango could have gotten below deck. For
one, it had an actual bed, which was built into the portside wall,
that was covered with blankets of rich looking fabrics. Opposite the bed
were several trunks, which undoubtedly held personal possessions. The other
side of the room had its own table and chairs, a mahogany desk, and a rather
comfortable looking sofa, all of definite high quality.
In other
words, it didn’t look like the room belonged on the ship at all.
Sango shook herself out of her stupor. "You’re the captain?"
Miroku angled her a look from the corner of his
eyes as he dropped her luggage beside the bed. "Yes. Kagome didn’t tell
you? I’m surprised." He shrugged, before moving over to the trunks and
opening one, beginning to sort through the contents.
Forget
patience.
"And you
expect me to stay in here. With you?"
"Yes,"
he said lightly, although there was a slight curtness underlying his words that
hadn’t been there before. "At least for a while, until you’ve learned your
way around this ship. Even though I have no doubt that you’ve got enough bite in
you to keep some of the more unruly men on this ship in line, I’d prefer to
keep you close to me for the time being."
"Oh really?" Sango hated being
babied. "Did you afford Kagome the same treatment when she first came onto
this piece of junk?"
Miroku was silent for a long moment, before he gently closed the trunk
and straightened from his crouch. His striking eyes turned to hers, and she
could see the vague irritation in them—her difficult attitude was beginning to
touch a hard to reach nerve. Good.
"No.
Kagome was not my charge, and thus I only oversaw her stay, to make sure all
went smoothly." As he spoke, he slowly moved closer to her, so that by the
time he spoke his next words, he was less than an arm’s length from her.
"And Sango, I recommend that you do not insult
my ship from here on out. If you absolutely must, then do not do it in the
presence of any other ears of my own, lest you aggravate the crew. They take a
certain amount of pride in their profession, and The Wanderer happens to
be a physical embodiment of that pride. You understand?"
He was
serious. Very much so.
"Oh, very well. In other words, coddle their egos. Whatever
you say, Pirate."
Unexpectedly,
he chuckled. "Has anyone ever told you that you’re nothing short of a
firecracker?"
"You
bring out the worst in me," she informed him, folding her arms.
The smile he
gave her then was fonder than anything Sango could
have expected.
She blushed.
x.x
Miroku eventually tore himself away from Sango’s
company to go ensure that everything was going smoothly on his ship. Sango, therefore, was left in the captain’s quarters,
feeling defiant and having no outlet for this sentiment. She sat primly on a
corner of the bed, her hands folded in her lap, and
stared at some shiny thing on the nearby bureau. How did she get herself into
these messes? They were about to set sail, meaning that she would be out in
some unknown area, leagues and leagues from home.
Home.
For the first
time in a while, she remembered the circumstances of her arrival. She realized
that her family had to be worried sick—and rightly so. She was, after all,
sitting in the captain’s quarters of a pirate vessel… Not only this, but she
realized in that instant that she missed them terribly.
There was a
soft tap at the door, and Sango looked up, her eyes
blurry. Blinking away what might have eventually ended up as tears, she stood.
Before she had the chance to cross to the door, however, Kagome’s voice called
from the other side. “Lord Miroku has called a
meeting. Everyone on the ship is required to be there.”
She paused,
not because she was finished, but because she was suddenly confronted with a
cherubic smile from Sango. Not good. Sango pushed the door closed behind her and quite calmly
asked, “Why did you fail to mention that Miroku was
the captain of this ship?”
Kagome looked
puzzled for a moment, scratched her head, and finally answered, “I forgot?” It
was obvious that Sango didn’t believe her; in truth,
Kagome didn’t even believe herself. “Well,” she began again, a bit flustered,
“what would it have mattered, anyway? Come, follow me.” She turned on her heel
and headed for the stairs that would lead them down from the quarterdeck. The
rest of the ship’s occupants were already milling around, talking amongst themselves. They easily spotted Inuyasha
by virtue of his unique hair, and they were swift to stand beside the only
pirate, other than Miroku, that Sango
knew. Not that Kagome gave her much choice in the matter, of course.
The crew
talked among themselves for a long while, speculating about their destination
and the riches that awaited them under the guidance of their captain.
Uninterested in this sort of talk, Sango studied the
ship, mapping out its structure in her head. The white sails billowed gently as
they all waited for Miroku’s reappearance, who was apparently in no great hurry.
A few minutes
passed before Miroku appeared out of seemingly thin
air. One second, they were all congregating, and the next, their attention was
riveted on the quarterdeck. How Miroku had worked his
way through the crowd and up the stairs was anyone’s guess. For just a moment, Sango was able to forget her initial idea that he was some
sort of moral-lacking, cutthroat pirate and entertain the fact that he was
captain of The Licentious Wanderer, feared and loved by his crew.
This moment
passed swiftly, and she frowned. “Ah. The Pirate King.”
Kagome looked as if she wanted to laugh for a moment, but held up a hand to
silence Sango when the captain began to speak.
“Men! …and women,” he amended, glancing directly at Sango and grinning for a moment. “The time has come to set
sail for riches and fame!” The pirates cheered loudly at this, pumping their
fists into the air and generally making a lot of noise. Miroku
held up his hand to silence them, and they quickly quieted, but those
disconcerting grins remained on their faces. The ones that weren’t already
clutching some unlucky salope to their sides looked
especially eager to leave. Sango immediately felt a
strong urge to swing something incredibly heavy at their heads.
“A Spanish
ship has set sail for a port at Hildemar. That ship
is carrying a huge shipment of African artifacts… in the form of gold and
diamonds, of course.” He paused again as another cheer went up, this one louder
than the last. The greed was visible on every face, save that of the few women
on board. In all of the ruckus, Sango
didn’t notice someone approach until she sidled up beside Kagome and began to
speak.
“What did I
miss?” the young woman who’d just come up asked of Kagome, yawning. Her hair
was dark brown and pulled up into a neat bun. The only decoration in her hair
was two white feathers; whether from a seagull or something more exotic was
anyone’s guess. Her scarlet eyes appraised Sango
briefly, and she fired off another question. “Who’s this?”
Kagome smiled
at the newcomer. “This is Sango. She’s the captain’s
companion.” She turned her attention to the newest female on the ship. “Sango, meet Kagura. She’s Kouga’s companion, and I daresay you’ll meet him before
long. Apparently, we’ll be at sea for quite a while – Hildemar
isn’t near here at all.”
Sango and Kagura locked eyes, and what seemed
to be a staring contest began. Kagura wasn’t prone to
welcome newcomers, especially because they tended to be whiny little brats who were
outraged with the indignity of serving pirates. Luckily for her, they tended to
throw themselves overboard rather quickly. She apparently found something to
respect in Sango’s gaze, however, because she nodded
as if in approval. “Welcome, Sango. You’ve got the
best bed of all of us, it would seem.”
Sango opened her mouth to reply with something appropriately indignant,
but Kagome launched into conversation before she could manage a word. The crowd
around them was still a bit rowdy, so their talk went unnoticed for the moment.
“Kagura, you know how Lord Miroku
is all about punctuality. Why were you late?”
Kagura yawned again, as if in defiance. “I’m not a pirate. I’m a damsel
in distress. Captain Pretty-Boy will not dwell on the matter of little old me.”
She fluttered her eyelashes mockingly, then chuckled.
Kagome sighed and rubbed her temples as Miroku once
more called a halt to the ruckus.
“All right,
men, settle down!” There was no need for an addendum to include the females;
they weren’t the ones celebrating the imminent destruction of a ship. “The
Merciful Maiden is large, nearly twice the size of
The Wanderer, but The Maiden does not carry very many armed men.
It is a passenger ship, but was chosen to transport the goods in order to mask
the fact that such precious cargo is being transported. Out of the
people on the ship, the only ones that will be armed to fight will be below
deck, guarding the treasure… and by the time they realize that something is
wrong, we will have them surrounded and outnumbered!”
The third
cheer of the day went up.
Miroku put a hand on the banister at the edge of the quarterdeck and
leaned forward a bit. “Onward to wealth, my crew!” he shouted, not even
bothering to signal for silence. “Lower the sails and haul anchor! We sail
immediately!”
With these
orders, the men filtered off to do their jobs. A group of men seized a thick
rope that was only a few feet away from the women and untied it from a thick
metal rod protruding from the mast. “Heave!” the man in front called, and the group tugged on the rope until the
immaculate white sails unfurled and immediately caught the light wind, bulging
out toward the sea.
“Come on, Sango.” Kagome touched Sango’s
arm and smiled at her. “We should get off the main deck. They’ll be working around
here for a while.” Kagura nodded to punctuate this
statement, and soon, all three were up on the quarterdeck, looking out at the
bustling crew.
“Enjoying your
first impression?” A voice asked from somewhere much too close, and Sango turned to see Miroku
standing a few feet away. It was truly annoying how he managed to appear
wherever he chose; he knew the ship so well that his movements often went
undetected.
Sango gave him a severe glare. He’d set this up in advance, to be sure.
Three pirates were nearby, and seemed to be checking the ship’s bearings. They
were within earshot, and remembering Miroku’s
statement from earlier, Sango knew that she shouldn’t
speak ill of the ship while they were around. Her eyes narrowed, she spoke very
slowly and pointedly. “The ship is beautiful and the crew is absolutely
charming.”
“Very good,” Miroku answered with a very irritating, smug grin. He
stepped closer to the ladies under the pretense of peering down at his busily
working crew. Shaking her head in exasperation, Sango
turned to face Kagome and Kagura, intending to
suggest that they show her around. Anything to get her away
from the Pirate.
Any escape
plan, however, would have been much too late. As soon as she turned around, Miroku’s hand found its way to an area on her body that
earned him a swift, sound slap.
The noise of
the crew below ground to a halt, and the ones who hadn’t directly seen what was
going on quickly got the message; “She slapped the captain!” was being muttered
from man to man. Silence reigned for a few moments, in which Sango got the distinct message that she’d done something
very wrong and lowered her hand to her side. Miroku
cleared his throat and straightened quickly, then the
noise picked up again.
“She’s a
feisty one, eh, captain?” One of the men shouted, accompanying his jest with a
hoarse laugh. This seemed to open the door from the others to jeer as well, and
soon, the rest of them were catcalling. Miroku
attempted to be unconcerned at first, grinning in a self-deprecating way.
This went on
for a while, until Miroku finally called a halt to it
all. “That’s enough!” The crew shushed themselves immediately. A slow smile
spread across the captain’s face. “What goes on in the captain’s quarters is no
concern of yours!”
The taunts began
again, only this time, they were aimed at Sango. The
woman was currently spluttering indignantly, staring at the pirate captain in
disbelief. Kagura and Kagome shared a glance; this
was something that they expected of Miroku, but they
felt at least some inking of pity for Sango.
“Come with me,
Sango,” Miroku said airily,
putting his hand on Sango’s shoulder. Her initial
reaction was to slap the hand away, but she didn’t dare follow through with her
thoughts. Miroku’s grip on her shoulder was tight,
almost warningly so, and she allowed him to guide her across the quarterdeck
and to the captain’s quarters. He pushed the door open and guided her inside,
closing it behind him and turning to face her.
“Well? Is
there a problem?” Sango asked, trying to seem nonchalant.
Miroku crossed his arms and leaned back against the door. “Sango, I am captain of this vessel. I know that means
almost nothing to you, what with your being unused to this life, but you are
making absolutely no effort to appreciate who I am. My men respect me, and if I
let it be seen that you can handle me however you wish,
there are going to be problems.”
The woman
shook her head derisively. “I know you have a point. What, exactly, is it?”
“The point is
that I want you to promise me something – that you
will not strike me again as long as you are on this ship.”
Sango laughed outright. “You expect me-”
“Yes.” The
word was firm, and left no room for argument. Sango
had seriously expected him to fold rather quickly; there was no way that he
could control every aspect of her existence just because she was on his ship.
Now, however, she saw that this was one thing on which he would not fold.
She sighed. “Fine. I assure you that your men will never see you slapped
again.”
Miroku beamed and stepped toward her. “I am very glad that we have an
agreement. I must say that your beauty is even more enhanced by your acquiesc-”
Four seconds
passed, and Miroku found himself tossed out of the
door, a handprint on the other cheek to match the first. The men, quite predictably,
roared with laughter.
x.x
Aamalie: …I adore this story. I need to write more of
it. ;) Miroku cracks me up… But for some reason, Corisu’s half of the chapter gave me Hook
flashbacks. xD Go figure.
x.x
Starzki- I’m not usually one much for description… It
gets boring to write after a while, and I’m a dialogue person. However, in this
story, it just fits. Why? Beats me. And I’ll make you
love Pirate!Miroku if it’s
the last thing I do. That’s a promise.
Siren of Erised- …maybe we should all invest in mosquito netting then?
Personification
of Fluff- Err… No, Sesshoumaru has a different
part in this story. As for the sleeping arrangements…
Well, I don’t think the past ones matter so much now. (grins)
chocolate chipp- Sango’s past? Uh… I’ll get back to you on that one. Not something we’ve
put a lot of thought into at this point. We’re still trying to figure out what
to do chapter-to-chapter, although we do know the basic outline of this story. xD But that’s just how co-writing
works.
Kyoko Kasshu Minamino- ‘The world of Miroku’, eh? …Maybe you should run while you still have
the chance. ;P
Clickster- Trust me. We’re trying our
hardest to keep this out of PoTC-territory. Simply
because I think that that movie is overrated, and we hate being that
disgustingly cliché. The reason we even mentioned
x.x
We heart reviewage. (wink)