The Pirate and the Soldier Boy

Chapter 1

Author note/disclaimer: I'm aware most of this is crap. Bear with me. I figure this is like the cat that showed up on my doorstep the other day. It's gonna take a bit of fleshing out so it doesn't seem unnatural. I just haven't gotten there yet... This is just a first draft. I'm currently revising in google docs, so there won't be updates for a while now that the story arc is complete. Sorry.

It was the rocking that woke Carmen first. Then the weak light shining from the hanging lamp. The combination of the moving floor and the yellow light swinging sickeningly back and forth made her stomach turn. She staggered over to a bucket in the corner and retched dryly, nothing in her stomach to throw up. Sliding down the wall to sit on the ground, she put her head in between her knees and groaned.

It was another five minutes before she felt well enough to look up and take in her surroundings. She sat in a room with wooden walls, floor, and ceiling. A heavy looking iron grate in the ceiling sat over the only opening in the room, to which a ladder led up to. At least 10 other women lay on the bare floorboards sleeping. Many had bruises and cuts on their faces. Carmen put her head back down and listened to the sea birds outside the rocking room, trying to remember how she had gotten here.

The only thing she remembered for sure was traveling with her father on a navy ship around the tip of Gibraltar from Italy back home to France. They had just sailed out of sight of land after passing Spain, and then everything after that was a blur. And now here she was, sitting in her shift, corset, and her underskirt, all finery gone.

Standing, Carmen walked over to the ladder, swerving between people on the floor. She climbed as far up the ladder as she could and pressed her face against the grate. Almost nothing was visible above her with no lantern in that room, yet there was a square of light in the ceiling, and she could see indistinct silhouettes of people in the blinding sun. She had never seen a sun so bright, and squinted until her eyes adjusted slightly.

Carmen moved her face from the grate and stuck her arm through, twisting her neck and shoulder at awkward and painful angles to reach around the immediate area outside her iron trap for anything to help lift the heavy grate. She was just losing hope when the back of her fingers brushed across something leather. She grabbed it and tried to drag whatever the object was forward, when it moved up out of her grasp and then crashed down on her fingers. She gasped in pain and surprise, knees collapsing slightly, leaving most of her weight on the hand pinned to the rough floorboards. She had unknowingly grabbed someone's foot, clad in a leather boot.

She grit her teeth together, determined not to show any pain to her captor, whoever he was. The weight of the boot grew heavier, as if the owner was standing on one foot, turning it back and forth to roll the bones in Carmen's hand excruciatingly.

Regaining her feet, she moved her free hand, slipping it through the grate behind the foot. She dug her nails into her captor's leg, glad for once fashion had required she keep her nails absurdly long. She heard a hiss of pain and was able to pull her hand from under the hard sole of the boot, taking that hand and grabbing the man's leg, pulling both hard in one direction. A body hit the floor hard and Carmen quickly withdrew her hands as a fist slammed down where they had been a mere second before. She could hear cursing and see someone shaking their hand back and forth in pain as there was nothing to cushion it's blow as it slammed into the hard iron.

Carmen sniggered slightly and sat on a rung of the ladder, until she heard an angry growl from above and the grate shifted to one side. The hand came down and grasped the back of her shirt, forcefully pulling her up both ladders and into the blinding sunlight of above.

Unable to do anything but squint, Carmen could only see dark and light shapes. They eventually developed slightly into blurry silhouettes, but something wasn't right. The silhouettes weren't right. She couldn't come to anymore conclusion's as a foot slammed into her face. And another in her stomach. She curled into a ball. Waves. Muttering voices. A seagull. The smell of salt and wind. The sea. She was still at sea.

The mast rising over the horizon. The black flag on the tip. The ship's crew running back and forth, readying cannons...

A loud voice took her from the past. "She dug her nails into my thigh and pulled me to the ground! A prisoner you have barely fed and given water in three days!"

Carmen turned towards the voice. A woman's voice. The silhouettes. Every one of these people standing around her was a woman. Some were looking at her face sneering. Many were wearing bandanas over their hair and shirts that would put any tavern waitress to shame. There was one who stood silently on the side wearing a tricorn hat and long coat, her blonde hair easily long enough to fall to her waist if it hadn't been tied up into a ponytail. She was the picture of a ship's captain.

This was who the girl with the very painful knee high leather boots and tangled hair was complaining to. "Look!" She turned her back on Carmen, showing the frowning captain a series of slightly bloody marks in her tan canvas pants just above her knee. "Just look what she did to me! She's a shrew!"

Carmen whipped her arms above her head on the deck, anchoring her palms on the wood planks. She swung from her curled position on the deck and slammed the bottom of her bare feet into the ankles of the girl, straightening her legs as she made contact to get power, sending the girl with the tall boots to the floor for the second time in five minutes, this time with a startled "Ack" sound. Unfortunately, she landed on top of Carmen. They both grunted as the breath was knocked out of their lungs. There was a raucous laugh across the deck. Even the captain cracked a small smile, which Carmen guessed was a significant achievement.

Still lying on the ground after the girl's crew mates helped her up, Carmen looked up the tall mizzenmast of the ship she was on and the flag, stark against the blue sky. The black flag, flying a skull and crossbones. A flag she had seen before, recently, but she couldn't recall where.

Stretching her mind back she stumbled upon a very fresh memory. It couldn't have been more than a day or two ago. The hull of the ship becoming more visible over the horizon, the first mate pushing the women traveling on his captain's ship toward the cabins. But she had looked back, and something was different about that ship. The figurehead was...

Carmen's head turned towards the bow of the ship, but nothing was visible beyond the railing. Someone grabbed her under the shoulders and hauled her to her feet, holding her arms painfully behind her, causing her to arch her back. The person behind her pulled them even more out of their sockets until she was biting her lip in pain, closing her eyes briefly, again determined not to cry.

She was marched across the deck to stand in front of the captain, who looked her over up and down like a slave trader assessing the strength and monetary value of a purchase. She jerked her head back towards the galley. "Get her a drink of water, a pair of trousers, and a rag to keep her hair back. Stick her in the second captives room. Locked from the outside. No food." She turned to leave. "Oh," she said turning back. "And somebody take care of those daggers on her fingers. I can't have her digging those into another one of my crew."