Warnings: lady whumpee, blood, death mention, stabbing
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Less than a hour later, Adelaide’s boots are planted on the deck of Virginia’s Daughter, sword clutched in a sweat-slick hand, fear coursing through her veins. The good news for her is that this isn’t one of the vessels full of families, so she doesn’t have to worry about traumatizing children.
The bad news is that instead, it’s full of men with swords.
Or, it was full of men with swords. Some of them are still fighting with the pirate crew, some have been cornered and their weapons confiscated. Others now lie bleeding on the deck.
So far Adelaide has done nothing but stay out of the way, staring wide-eyed, wishing she’d stayed behind. She’s never had the chance to try out her sword fighting skills on anyone but Marshall, didn’t expect to really have to use them today, and certainly doesn’t want to actually hurt any of these innocent people.
But if she continues to just stand here she’ll be in trouble. Never mind the necklace, the Captain is likely to be angry enough with her to punish her again, too.
Even if she could convince herself that it won’t happen, it ends up that she doesn’t get a choice in the matter. Suddenly there’s a sword coming at her, and she parries automatically. The man on the other end’s eyebrows shoot up as he seems to realize that he’s attacked a woman, but it doesn’t stop him. He pulls back and swings again, and again, Adelaide blocking him each time. Her mind is fully occupied with keeping him at bay now, no time to worry about what’s going on around her or how this fight might end.
Until another two-man fight swerves near them, throwing off her focus for just long enough that she allows his sword to slide past hers, embedding itself in her left shoulder. She sucks in a sharp breath that sticks in her throat. The full force of the pain hits an instant later, nearly making her knees buckle.
The man yanks the sword back, ripping through her skin, and she stumbles forward with a cry. Immediately warm blood soaks her shirt. It burns, white hot pain dissecting her shoulder, and she tucks her arm tightly against her side, trying not to move it.
He isn’t satisfied, though. She’s still standing, and in his eyes, she’s a pirate trying to take over his ship. Technically she supposes that’s exactly what she is. She doesn’t blame him for wanting to eliminate her.
But that unfortunately means she has to keep fighting him. Keep swinging her sword with one arm while the other bleeds and feels like it might fall off at any moment. Keep risking hurting him, who doesn’t deserve it, even though the alternative seems more and more likely to be her own grievous injury or death.
She’s not really sure at this point which outcome she dreads more.
The longer the fight goes on, the harder it is to focus. Adelaide stumbles over her own feet, vision wavering, shoulder pulsing with pain, but she doesn’t give up. And somehow, thanks to the hours of training, she’s able to see the opening when it comes, using all her remaining strength to lunge forward and slash a deep line across the man’s torso.
He falls back with a cry, sword clattering to the ground. Gasping for breath, she stares in dazed horror after him, only distantly aware of the fights continuing around her, of someone scooping up his sword as he crumples to the deck, bleeding.
She won the fight. But in doing so, she’d seriously injured a man who just wanted to protect his ship, his belongings, his comrades. Her stomach churns with guilt.
A new commotion breaks out as fights end and the crew of pirates begins herding their defeated opponents to one side of the ship, while others plunge below decks to look for loot. Adelaide loses sight of the man she wounded. She herself is somehow corralled into an opposite corner, where she sheaths her sword and finally is able to press the heel of her hand into the stab wound. Her head spins at the new jolt of pain it causes. As the minutes stretch on, she finds herself sliding down without consciously deciding to sit, blinking furiously to chase away the spots that keep trying to take over her vision.
She’s…she’s very tired. That fight was more intense than anything she’s ever experienced, seems to have drained all of her energy away.
She blinks again, and everyone on deck suddenly changes to new positions. The ones from below are back, lugging crates up the stairs and across the planks back to The Dark Storm. Marshall is directing them. She should talk to him. She needs to tell him that she won her first real fight, but that she’s not sure she’s happy about that fact.
Luckily he notices her a moment later. His face creases in what could be construed as worry, and he quickly crosses to her, dodging the flow of traffic.
“Miss Gray. You’re injured.” He crouches next to her, examining her shoulder.
“I think…did I…kill him?” She never wanted to kill anyone. Didn’t want to hurt anyone at all. “He…he was bleeding. What if I killed him?”
Marshall doesn’t say anything to begin with, just stands and walks around to her other side before bending back down and grabbing her good arm to drape over his shoulders. “You did well, Miss Gray. Let’s get you back to the ship and take care of that injury.”
She thinks she makes some kind of noise when he pulls her upright. It’s hard to tell for sure when all light and sound completely cut off for a moment. But she presses her lips together after that, refusing to swoon or show pain in any way as they hobble their way off Virginia’s Daughter. She won’t give Captain Payne the satisfaction.
Warnings: lady whumpee with male whumper, implied attempted noncon, fear of noncon, mild referenced gore
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“Going to meet with Marshall again, eh?”
A ripple of chuckles runs around the bunkroom. Adelaide slows her movements momentarily, but then returns to quickly retying her boots, ignoring what is clearly a taunt. Why it’s a taunt, she hasn’t yet figured out, but everything these men say to her is meant to either insult her or get a rise out of her.
Footsteps approach, a pair of worn black boots stopping just in her line of vision. She knows it’s Jones without looking up. “Yeah, we all know all about your little, eh…visits.”
“Who knew it would be Marshall that’d end up getting what all the rest of us want?” someone else sneers from further away.
Heat rises into her cheeks, and her stomach turns. Is that what they think she and Marshall have been doing all this time? Of course it is. These men can’t possibly think she’s doing something like sword training, learning to defend herself from them. No, they apparently still have one thing only on their minds, and it makes her simultaneously sick and furious.
“Of course he did. He’s first mate. So while we get reprimanded for even trying to touch her, he gets to -”
In one, swift movement, Adelaide snatches her dagger from its scabbard at her hip and stands, placing the point of it directly underneath Jones’ chin. The look of surprise on his face nearly makes her smile. He covers it up quickly, of course, scowling back at her.
She raises her chin. “What I do is none of your concern, and I’ll thank you to keep your opinions on it to yourself.” She could dispute him on what they’re actually doing, attempt to dispel this nasty rumor, but she knows it would do no good. Shutting his mouth will satisfy her.
Jones snarls. “You think you and your little knife can stop me? Can stop us?” He gestures to the two other men in the room.
Fear threatens to turn her legs to jelly and steal away her voice, but she draws on the bit of confidence she’s gained from Marshall’s lessons and stands her ground. “I think slitting your throat would do nicely toward stopping you, yes. And I thought you were smarter than disobeying a direct order of the Captain, but…perhaps I was wrong.”
“You little minx -” He steps forward despite the knife, and it nearly works. She flinches at the movement and nearly lets him in closer, but at the last second she remembers she’s the one with the weapon. She pushes it back toward him, digging the point into the soft skin beneath his beard. He stops, glaring, but there’s a wariness behind the look, too.
His voice lowers, threatening, spit flying from his lips. “If you think that you can just keep hiding behind the Captain, you’re sorely mistaken. Trust me, I can have you without the Captain ever knowing. You’d better watch your back, miss.”
She does watch her back. Constantly. Every moment that she’s not on the upper decks, she’s afraid. His words make that choking, crawling fear even worse.
But she steels her expression, refusing to show it, refusing to back down. She knows that if he and the other two men really want, they can knock the dagger right out of her hand and do whatever they want. It’s three against one, and the one is far less experienced. They know it, too. She’s just hoping that the threat of the Captain finding out will sway them.
An eternity passes before anyone speaks again. “You’d better let her go, Jones,” one of the other men finally says. “We have to report for duty any minute.”
“Fine. I’d rather let her wait and wonder, anyway.” He gives a wicked smile as he backs away from the knife before turning to stroll out of the room.
Adelaide nearly collapses when the door shuts. She wants to curl up in the corner of the room and sob, to ask herself for the thousandth time why she’d ever left home, but she knows it would do her no good. The moment would end, eventually, she’d have to stop crying and get up and go on with this life that she was now trapped in, and all of the crying and questioning wouldn’t have made her feel any better. Or worse yet, someone would walk in and find her in the midst of her tears.
Besides, she does have a meeting with Marshall to get to, and she’s already running late.
As soon as she walks into the storage room after a tense walk through the bowels of the ship, she blurts out, “When can I begin carrying a real sword? I feel I’m ready for that now.” The dagger he’d given her helps, yes, but it’s nothing compared to the swords everyone else carries.
Marshall tilts his head to one side, studying her. “Did something happen?”
She’s shaking all over, she suddenly realizes, and she still has the knife gripped tightly in her hand. She slides it back into place a bit too aggressively. “I do not wish to talk about it.”
“Alright.” He still looks concerned, but he doesn’t push the matter any further. “Let’s see how you do today, and then we’ll discuss whether you may carry a sword. Remember, we agreed at the beginning that you had to be fully ready to fight with one before anyone else saw you with it.”
Teeth clenched, she nods tersely. “I remember. But I need to be ready now.”
“Very well.” Marshall draws his own sword, gesturing with his head toward where hers is leaning against a stack of crates. “Show me. Prove to me that you’re ready.”
He doesn’t believe in me. He thinks I’m just as weak as everyone else does. Grabbing up the sword, she dives into an attack immediately, swinging hard, barely focused on her aim past the need to hit, to be strong. Marshall deflects several in a row before spinning away and backing across the room.
“You’re angry. It’s making you sloppy.”
She grinds her teeth together and lunges after him, not bothering to correct her form at all. He deflects again, then shoves her away.
“Miss Gray -”
“Yes, I’m angry!” She attacks again, punctuating each statement with a swing of her sword. “I hate this life! I hate them, I hate this ship, I hate you for bringing me here!”
It comes out her mouth without thought, but she fumbles once she realizes what she’s said. Marshall, on the other hand, doesn’t seem fazed. He merely nods, sword still held ready.
“Good. It’s about time that you got angry. You deserve to feel it. And you can use that anger, you just have to pull it in and focus it.”
Hewants her to be angry? She’s never been allowed to be angry before, and it certainly has never been encouraged. Adelaide paces in a circle, emotions pounding energy through her veins and making it impossible to stand still. “I don’t know how.”
“Well, let’s get some of it out, first.” He beckons her forward with his hand. “Come. Give me your anger. Hit as hard as you need, and if you want to say what you’re angry at, do.”
She doesn’t need a second invitation to get back into fighting. It feels awkward at first to start talking again, to pour out her thoughts to this man, but after a moment the feelings bubble over into words.
“I was never supposed to be here. I wasn’t supposed to have to spend my life frightened, waiting to be attacked, or punished.” The more she speaks, the faster the words and her strikes become. “I’m so tired of being scared! I just wanted to get away from Charles. I wanted to have a chance to live without a man forcing himself on me, and instead, I have a dozen of them attempting it!” She chases after Marshall as he dodges her. “And I hate myself for leaving, and I hate that living with him now seems like it wasn’t that bad, and I hate that this is probably my punishment for forsaking my marriage.”
This time when he pushes her back, she stays, panting, slightly embarrassed for revealing all of her sins, but surprisingly calmer than she had been.
Marshall, thankfully, doesn’t comment on anything she’s just said. “Now that you’re not exploding, we can work on focusing it. Feel it in your center. Don’t try to suppress it, let it give you strength, but keep your head and remember the skills you’ve learned at the same time.”
Right. She can…do that, she thinks. The anger is certainly still burning inside of her, just smoldering now instead of flaming up into a wildfire. She still wants to hit something, still wants to prove herself. But her mind is clearer.
Nodding, she drops back into her ready stance, sword raised. And she waits. Steadies her breaths, slows her heart beat. Marshall has taught her to always be wary of making the first move.
He rewards her patience by making it himself. She blocks his swing, and the next, ducks under a third and skips backward to reset. By the time he’s turned around she’s charging. She bombards him with a flurry of strikes, which he can only continuously parry, stepping back each time until he’s up against a stack of crates. Just as she’s ready to pin him, though, he spins out of the way and finds his footing again in the center of the room.
If she didn’t know better, she’d say he’s…having fun. Almost smiling. She is fighting better than she ever has before, but she can’t dwell on that or she’ll lose her momentum.
Their fights have been getting longer, as she’s been able to hold out better, but this may be the longest yet. It almost feels as if they’re evenly matched for once.
He does still win, eventually, locking down her sword arm and feinting a blow to the head, but she finds she doesn’t mind at all. They’re both out of breath, but she feels like the warmth inside of her is less from anger now and more…a glow, from knowing she’s done well. She’s actually proud of herself, for once.
“I believe…” He huffs, digging the tip of his sword into the wooden floor and leaning on the hilt, “…that you are correct. You areready.”
A/N: So about a week ago, i got inspired by thisawesome prompt about pirates by @whump-maniaand@deluxewhump and wrote this little piece! I’d hoped i’d get the inspiration to write a bit more because i do like, but I don’t know if I will, so here it is anyways.
CW: body horror, past abuse, past torture, near-death, drowning, dismemberment (not to the MC), guns, murder
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Cannon balls exploded through The Galway’s thick belly, flinging lethal shards of wood in every direction. Huddled down with his shaved head clamped between his knees, Indy gritted his teeth and tried not to piss himself.
At first, the noise had been unbearable; the shattered wood of the ship’s leaking sides flying apart, the chest-vibrating explosions of their and the pirates’ cannons, the men’s violent and terror-filled screams, the crack of rifles up on deck and clashing of metal as the rifles ran short of shot and the Navy resorted to steel blades and galley knives. Now, Indy’s ears were thick with ringing and he couldn’t have said what was happening more than two feet away from him, let alone who was winning the battle above deck.
Filmy, debris-filled water sloshed across the filthy boards of the brig’s deck and Indy’s hyperventilating breaths hitched on a hysterical sob. Maybe the Navy and the pirates attacking them would kill each other and both their sorry ships would sink with steady inevitability into the uncaring, thrashing sea.
God wouldn’t be so kind, Indy thought. The sea didn’t care whether it swallowed up a good man or an evil one, a whole man or a broken one, but Indy didn’t dare wish that his sins would be washed away with any such quiet dignity. It would be too much to hope for that the whole ship and its crew would be lost to the sea beds, no-one alive left to tell of what hell he’d been through, or how his will had been so easily broken.
A cannonball ripped a ragged, gaping hole through the ship’s wall at the far end of the brig and Indy screamed into his arm, clamped over his face. The ship shuddered, a giant beast in the throes of death, and Indy wrapped his other arm even tighter around the brig’s thick bars as the deck tilted alarmingly. The sea frothed and churned, soaking him up the waist in icy water, black in the dim light. Indy sobbed, shaking violently as the sea dug its salty fingers into his numerous cuts and set them throbbing like a fresh jellyfish sting.
If the ocean had cared for the morals of the men it took, it would spare Vince, Indy decided as he screwed his eyes shut, his heart thunderous in his ringing ears. And, hell, maybe Rudy would make it too. The cat hadn’t done anything wrong either, Indy thought with panicked humour. Knowing the scraggly, sly beast, she’d managed to find somewhere dry and safe to wait out the battle. Indy only wished that he could slip through these bars and do the same. He’d lost half his bodyweight or more, but the bars were still too closely packed together to let him escape between them. If the water rose further, or a cannonball erupted through the ship’s side too close by, or any one of the innumerable wooden splinters flying around hit him; he was dead and there was shit all he could do about it.
It took a long time before Indy’s hearing returned enough for him to realise that the battle that had been warring up above had fallen quiet. The water was still rising, lapping at his chest and leaving him numb with the chill. It was hard to hear anything from above deck with the slap and shclish of it butting up against the ship’s walls but Indy caught snatches of shouting. His heart drummed against his ribs, as trapped as he was within these bars.
A gunshot ricocheted through the air, cutting through the lingering ringing in his ears, and Indy flinched like a kicked horse. His bruised ribs ached as he jerked backwards, as if he could possibly push himself any further into the brig’s corner.
The sea continued, indomitably, to rise. When it began to slosh against his neck, Indy forced himself up to standing, clinging to the brig’s bars as he sagged against them, giving the keen of an injured animal at the pain. He struggled to balance once he was up, the sway of the ship so much harder to ride out when he was upright and his slick, frozen hands barely able to hold onto the bars. The sea was up to his hips, frigid and angry at being caught inside the ship’s walls, and it roiled with repressed power, growing stronger with every inch it rose. Indy’s face was so cold he didn’t know if he was still crying or if it was just the salty ocean spray, not that it mattered. He didn’t know if he wanted the sea to keep climbing till it closed over his head, or if he still held out on the hope of someone rescuing him.
How stupid was that? All this time and he still had half an eye on the wooden staircase, watching for a saviour that didn’t exist. Regardless, it didn’t matter what he wanted. He couldn’t change anything. If the captain had taught him anything, it was his own utter uselessness.
The sea continued to climb and Indy clung to the bars as he was lifted off his feet by the force of the waves. The ship was groaning under the strain and Indy didn’t know how much longer she would be able to stay afloat with all the holes punched into her sides.
Indy was gasping at the last half a foot of air space between the sea and the ceiling, fully afloat in the churning water, when the sharp clatter of boot heels came from the stair way. Indy whipped his head around, continuing to cling to the brig bars but unable to make himself call out. A wave of water sloshed over his head and, numb limbs flailing, it took him too long to get back to the surface.
Choking and coughing, eyes streaming, Indy yelped when a rough hand grabbed his arm. Instinctively jerking away, Indy swallowed another mouthful of foul water as the waves tugged him back under. He’d lost his grip on the brig’s bars in his shock and, disorientated in the black water, Indy’s lungs burned as he lost track of which way was up.
Strong hands yanked at his arm and this time, Indy grabbed onto them. The terror of drowning was too strong and he found, as he was dragged forcefully back into the gunpowder-filled air, that he still wanted to live after all.
The brig door was somehow, miraculously open, and Indy was towed out of his loathed cage with barely a moment to catch his breath. The sea was almost at the ceiling and Indy didn’t have any chance to see who was dragging him determinedly forwards before the air ran out and it was a dizzying, lung-burning scramble the last few feet through the water to the stairs.
Knocking his knees hard against the wood, Indy retched up salt water and acid as he pulled himself out of the water on hands and knees.
“Move, fucking move,” a gravelly voice barked at him. The hand on his arm roughly tugged him up the stairs and, uncoordinated with cold and breathlessly disorientated, Indy could only try to keep up.
Water seeped through the floorboards of the middle deck and the Navy soldiers’ belongings washed back and forth in the shallow water. There were bodies up here, sprawled prone and leaking blood into the sea like scarlet paint.
“Move!”
Indy dragged his gaze away from the splatter of brain matter across the wall. As they climbed up the stairs to the main deck, he caught a glimpse of the unfamiliar blond hair and broad shoulders of the man in front of him, his scarily large hand gripping Indy’s matchstick arm with enough force to leave a black and blue bruise. Then the incongruously bright sunlight blinded Indy’s eyes, so used to the squalid darkness, and he staggered up into the chaos on the main deck.
Men were screaming, giving furious orders or yelling in desperate pain, and The Galway was beginning to tilt at an alarming angle. Through his blurred eyes, Indy barely recognised her. Her mast was barely there, cannonballs had wrought unfixable damage all across the shot-pocked deck, and the sailors that had previously manned and mopped and run errands and slept and pissed within her walls were now lying in haphazard, bloody piles.
The ship groaned and creaked as she leant alarmingly to port. A severed arm rolled across the deck towards Indy and he retched violently, his ears ringing deafeningly. The wind was cutting up here and it swept right through his sodden, thin clothes, chilling him utterly and leaving him numb and disconnected.
The one spot of warmth – the harsh grip on his upper arm – dragged him along without relenting and Indy staggered after them without conscious thought. When he fell over a body, hitting his knees on the slick with a bone-juddering impact, he was lifted bodily up and thrown over someone’s shoulder with enough force to knock the air from him. As the blood rushed to his head, he let himself hang limp. He couldn’t hear a thing and his vision was swimming with black dots, but he was somehow acutely aware of the drops of water leaking out of his wet hair and falling to the swaying deck below.
~
so there you are *shrug* <3
@whumpthisway I’ve been on a sea-themed whump kick for reasons I think we can all discern and this was delightful
I love the way you used environment to build intrigue!!! and all of the sensory details felt so visceral, so urgent. I really felt the sympathetic claustrophobia of Indy and you really captured the chaos of the scene interspersed with the introspective moments that didn’t feel forced or abrupt at all!!
you have a great gift for writing action - which is so hard! - and it was so realistic how little details jumped out vividly at Indy (like the arm rolling across the deck, oof) highlighting the panicked state of his brain rather than merely showing his thoughts racing. it was so cool that as the action built and built, more details get revealed!!
am very intrigued about poor Indy his seeming sense of self-hatred…his jaded view of things…how did he end up in this brig? I wanna know more…
