The Nightingale

Chapter Three

"Isn't it obvious, Miss? You're aboard The Nightingale. The fastest ship ever built! The best, most fearsome ship to have ever sailed the seas!" The boy raced from the door over to the large windows and excitedly waved her over. "Come look!" Natasha stood slowly, wincing when her bare feet hit the ground. Her ankle had almost given out with the pressure she put on it, and when Natasha looked down she realized that her left ankle was bound in strips of cotton that wound underneath her foot and halfway up her calf as well, and what she could see of her other foot was skin marked with healing scabs. The sight of her battered feet brought flashes of memory back to Natasha. With every step she took towards the window that made her ankle throb she thought of running, running across her town, through the caves, across the beach.

When she came to stand next to the boy and peered through the clear glass, seeing only bright blue sky meeting rich dark waters, the rest of her memories from that night had returned to her. Closing her eyes, Natasha inhaled slowly through her nose, her eyes burning as her fathers' last words began to echo in her ears.

I do not have a daughter.

For fifteen years, Natasha and her mother had believed him to be dead. She watched her mother wither away for months as she mourned, spending nights sitting at the window waiting for him to come home, even though they all knew that once you disappeared in the night, you never came back. Natasha, still young but old enough to understand the severity of the Guards and what her father's disappearance meant, took care of her two younger sisters to aid her mother until one day, when she was twelve years old, her mother married another man whose wife had died in childbirth. He was good to her, to Natasha and her sisters, to the sons they had together, and over the years Natasha remembered less and less about her father. She kept his memory alive in her sketches, by spending countless hours drawing and redrawing his face, believing that he was dead.

Last night changed everything she believed about her father, everything she believed about her home, her family, her life. And then she had lost her father all over again. The thought left her conflicted, as she had spent so many years already believing that he was dead, it felt almost strange to mourn him again, but she had now witnessed his death, seen the sword pointed at his chest and heard it tear through his flesh, and it was concrete this time. There was no more guessing, no more wondering if maybe, just maybe, she would see him again.

"Miss?" Natasha's eyes flew open at the sound of the voice, and the young boy tugging on the hem of the cotton shirt that was two times too large for her pulled her back to her new reality. She looked down at the boy and followed his gaze and outstretched hand to where the door now stood open, two men standing in the doorway.

Natasha recognized one immediately. In the daylight he looked just as grizzled as he had in the night, except now she could see Castille's dark hair was actually streaked with hints of gray that matched his eyes, and a gnarled scar streaked across his tanned right cheek that she scarcely remembered noticing as she sat across from him in the small rowboat, begging him to turn around.

The man in front of him, Natasha recognized only after studying his face intently. She hadn't gotten a very good look at him in the light, most of the moments she was near him she remembered focusing on her father, catching only glimpses that she didn't consider enough to commit to memory, but she finally realized she was standing in front of the captain of this ship, the man who held a sword to her father's chest and lunged. The fact that she had managed to forget his face at all now surprised her.

"Jack." His name was all it took for the young boy to rush out of the room. Castille followed, but Natasha suspected he didn't go far.

"Is my father dead?" If the captain was surprised by her directness, he didn't show it. Instead, he crossed the room at a leisurely place and began pouring himself a drink of amber liquid that was set in one of the many crystal bottles at the corner of the desk. He hardly even looked at her as he moved.

"No mood for pleasantries, it seems," he mused, looking mildly pleased with himself as he took a small sip of his drink and then sat behind the desk where Jack had once perched. "Sit." His back was to her and he didn't turn as he spoke. Natasha crossed her arms over her chest and shifted her weight onto her uninjured foot, glowering at the back of the man's head.

"Is my father dead?"

"Your ankle is badly sprained and you suffered a substantial head injury two nights ago that left you unconscious for the duration of the time between then and now. I suggest you sit down." His tone was less cordial and more demanding this time, but Natasha still hesitated. After a moment of stubbornness, Natasha finally exhaled and limped to the other side of the desk, hating that he was right and she felt relieved to be off her feet as she sank into the wooden chair, as uncomfortable as it was.

"Is my father dead?" An instinct in the back of her mind told her that the captain was testing her, trying to read her, and so she kept her face as neutral as possible, arms still crossed over her chest, as she kept his gaze, waiting for him to respond. After a long moment, the faintest of smiles seemed to twitch at the corner of his mouth before he took another swig of his drink. He set it down, seeming to deliberately take his time as he poured another drink, this time into a second glass, and he held it out in her direction.

"Yes. Your father is dead."

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A/N: For some reason I had a tough time getting into the groove with this chapter, and it didn't really happen until about 3/4 through. I'm still not sure how I feel about it... Let me know what you think, and make sure you vote, comment! :)

A/N: Edited 9/3/18