-- -- --
She could still see the sudden bursts of emerald fire, the heavy smoke of the burning hull of her ship still strong in her nostrils. Behind closed lids, she dreamt; horrible nightmares that stank of charred flesh and bone, the cries of her loyal crew, the stars shimmering high above them with nothing more than a glimmer of sorrow. The sea gods did not save them.. no, they damned them. Their enemy a mad man who dared call himself a pirate king over her own.. her lover. Her mate.
The last glimpse of his face still haunted her as she drifted. Her memories tugged and pulled, showing her how they had all been surprised, terror sinking in and drowning them in fear. So sudden, so unexpected. The perfect target for a night raid in the middle of the wide ocean blue. Her muscles twitched as she remembered the taste of wine on her tongue, the feel of her lover's lips grazing hers before the screams started. Ambushed; their beloved crew taken, under siege. The sharp tang of metal on metal as her king clashed with his cutlass, and she with her own rapier. She would not let their rivals overtake them; her blood had sung a war cry that broiled deep in her bones and her heart. Stronger than the call of the ocean itself, her need to protect and defend burning brighter than the green fire that began to eat away at her own ship. The hull exploding in sheets of wood, splintering as the sea began to drown them.
They were ocean-blessed sea fairers that were drowning drowning drowning; in salt and brine and blood.
She shook, silently crying as her mind relentlessly replayed the memory. Her stomach pitched as she recalled falling; her last view of the ship and her beloved's face as he looked at her. The shock that lined his beautiful features, his silver eyes going wide with anger and grief, and rage before he turned back to take on his enemy captain headlong. Then she had smacked the water, sinking deep below and choking for air before she reached the surface, sweet oxygen flooding her lungs like the bliss of tasting sugar. She recalled searching; for her crew, for something to grab hold to.
She did not remember pulling herself onto a large plank of wood before the smoke coating her lungs and her wounds lulled her to sleep.
Where her skin did not touch the water lapping at her sides, and her back legs still halfway plunged beneath the ocean's surface, heat flooded her skin. Shivers of warmth ran the length of her spine, bright sunlight burning the back of her eyelids as she whimpered, her dreams continuing to replay the terrors of the night before. Dawn had risen, the sky streaked in the colors of morning; and the shores of a new land laid close to her. Unconscious, unknowing. The shore encircled her, the waters becoming shallow more and more as she drifted ever closer to the sandy shores.
The sea princess, the Takarian Queen, was asleep and unaware of where she was and how her crew, her ship, and her mate had fared from the horrors before.
Gods help anyone who told her.
coding by Avis. BG from Unsplash.
