Յյ 𝔇𝔞𝔶𝔰 𝔬𝔣 ℌ𝔞𝔩𝔩𝔬𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔫 [𝔄 𝔗𝔚𝔖𝔗 𝔉𝔞𝔫𝔣𝔦𝔠]

𝟏𝟏 | 𝐉𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐋𝐞𝐞𝐜𝐡

Jade too, rose to his feet, approaching the bars. He shuffled forward, his bare feet scraping along the ground. Just as he was nearing the bars, the chains around his feet locked in place, preventing him from walking any further. He cursed, glaring down at the metal, wishing that it would freeze and snap off. He would rather lose his feet than be prevented from reaching the bars. 

"Jade."

The boy looked up, his heart breaking when he saw the state of his captain. An eye, black and blue from the force of the punch that had knocked her back. Her lip, formerly perfect save for a single scar on her under lip from where she had been nicked as a child, was now cut and broken from the stale air and the beatings dealt out by the guards. Eyes that had one shone in the moonlight, dancing with the freedom of the sea, now hollow and dead, as if her soul was barely clinging to her, ready to let her go at any moment. 

Y/N reached out through the bars, and Jade leaned towards her touch. The tips of her fingers met his cheek and he let out a shaky breath. The touch was like a blazing hearth in a cabin, lost to the rest of the world in a blizzard. Like a steaming beverage after running in the rain. It was everything he loved, and yet there was a hatred in his heart for her touch. It wasn't enough. He felt like a starving man, desperate for food and drink. He hated how her touch made him long for her embrace, long for her lips on his, and long to see her sailing away on the horizon, outlined by the hues of violet and rose.

"Jade?"

Jade broke from his thoughts, wondering what his captain had said. Or asked.

"You aren't too hurt, are ya?"

Jade glanced down at his body. No longer adorned with the rugged pirate clothing that he had grown to love. They had been replaced by what felt like a burlap sack, and his feet had been torn from his boots, which lay tauntingly just out of reach. Both his and Y/N's possessions were hanging on the wall opposite them. Beyond being stripped of his possessions, he had been left unharmed, for the most part. There was a single wound on his shoulder, caked with dried blood. The sting that had kept him tossing and turning now burned with a gentle throb. Nothing to worry about.

"I'm all right," he said. He lifted his chained wrists and gently cupped Y/N's hand, rubbing his thumb over her palm. He both hated and loved how addicted he was to her touch. He loved how gently she touched him as if he would break at any second, but he hated how he wanted more. He wanted to be lost in her. Perhaps spending time in the dungeon, starved of her touch, was starting to drive him mad. 

"How's your cut?"

Jade glanced at the wound and shifted his shoulder to try and drop the shoulder of his garment. "It's fine." He turned to Y/N. "What about you?"

She chuckled. "I'm the captain, Jade. I've suffered worse than this." She gestured to her eye offhandedly. As if to prove a point, she pulled up the edge of her shirt to reveal a nasty scar that rose out of the hem of her trousers and continued to stretch up towards her chest. Jade had seen it before, but now... seeing it in the gloom of the dungeon, knowing that they might hang from the gallows at any second, the off-colour skin seemed to shine with the gloom of death.

Suddenly the grinding creak of the dungeon's door opening echoed through the room. Jade froze, his grip on Y/N's hand growing tighter. It was the one time he felt fear. The one time that he feared the phantom of death as it glided through the door in the form of two guards.

Y/N squared her shoulders, pulling her hand away from Jade and letting it rest on the bars that separated them. She had no fear of showing her love for her fellow prisoner, but these lowly cowards who hid behind the bars, making threats when they knew they couldn't be hurt, were not worthy of seeing the gentle side of the captain. They would be faced with only the ruthless ruler of the sea that yearned for their blood to spill.