Natasha sat next to Jack aboard the small rowboat as they departed from The Nightingale. Castille sat in front of them, arms working the boat's oars steadily to propel them further, and two other men sat at the other end. One she recognized as the third man involved in the conversation John and Castille had been engaged in the night before, Maverick, she caught as his name, and up close she could tell that he was one of the men not pleased with her presence. He had glowered when John had ordered him to join their boat, dark brown eyes glaring at her as he navigated his large, muscular body into the rickety boat with ease. He had scowled at her for a long moment before resigning to stare down at this shoes, wringing together his olive-tanned hands. The second man, Adan, seemed slightly more pleasant. He hadn't smiled at her, but he hadn't grimaced at her either as he climbed aboard their boat, his night-dark skin crinkling around the corners of his eyes. Natasha had studied him, committing his face and name to memory, knowing she would need all the allies she could get.
Their journey back to land was quiet, save for Jack occasionally chattering beside Natasha, but even he fell silent after a while, giving Natasha the chance to take in her surroundings. They hadn't sailed The Nightingale far, just to where the mountains directly met the ocean waves, and then they had turned to hide the massive ship behind some of the protruding, gray rock. It was to keep the pirate ship hidden from the village, Jack had told her, because they had to assume that the townsfolk would not take kindly to the presence of pirates, and to keep the ship as close as possible, in case they had to escape quickly.
Natasha stared up at the mountain as they passed it, taking in the details of the landscape she had sketched so many times from her perch in the willow tree. Up close, the details of the jagged rock, the shadows created by the uneven edges, the moss that dripped down the gray stone in various shades of green to meet the deep blue sea, made Natasha's fingers ache for her sketchbook and the ability to preserve that image forever. She stared at the edge of the mountain, taking in all of the points to sketch later, and the hues to hopefully capture one day when she could afford colors, only until they passed by enough to bring the next village into view, and then Natasha couldn't look away from the new sight.
The town she had left behind was dilapidated, crumbling after the years of neglect. The combination of lack of resources, stifled by their inability to import or export any goods, and the lack of residents to perform upkeep on anything other than their own residences or buildings, meant that over the years, much of the town had started to fall into a state of disrepair. The mundane wooden buildings looked worse than usual, roofs and walls patched with timber from abandoned buildings, yards and farms overrun by weeds that the remaining residents eventually gave up trying to maintain. The village was dark, mundane, and Natasha had often imagined what her home would look like if it could be rebuilt, if it could have the kind of color and beauty she saw in the natural world around her.
This new village was exactly what she had imaged her home could be. It was beyond that, in fact. Closer to the water, what Natasha could see most clearly, the village somewhat resembled her own home, as she imagined it to be when it was first built. The homes were built close together and narrow streets cut between them, but these residences were larger, two-story homes, painted in various hues of whites, browns, and grays, yet they did not appear dull in the way that her village seemed lifeless. Even the natural tones stood out, and the buildings all had colorful doors and flowerboxes underneath the windowsills that brought more life to the earth-colored houses.
Beyond the center of town, the houses grew in size and available space around them, build deep into the rising mountains and forests. They were painted in the same natural hues as the smaller homes along the water, but their walls crept with vines, pointed roofs, archways. Some of the homes were structured with what seemed to be brick or stone, and the way the masonry contrasted the shades of green in the trees made them appear more magnificent than anything Natasha could have imagined.
As they drew nearer to the shoreline, pulling up to a distant section of the coast instead of where other boats bobbed in the water by a long wooden plank, Natasha could now begin to see movement of people between the spaces of the buildings. She studied them carefully, too, taking in the diversity of what she saw. Some men and women were dressed in clothes much like what she was used to seeing in her own village, drab and ill-fitting clothes of dull colors, but she was left with the impression that this was an indication that they were less-well of than other in town. In between the movement of earth-toned colors, Natasha saw flashes of color. Women wore vibrant dresses with full skirts, hair curled neatly around their necks, elaborate hats with what appeared to be feathers or fur or ribbons as accessories. Men strode in neat blank paints, shirts with collars and jackets that bellowed behind their waists. They too wore hats, tall and black as their pants and jackets, and walked arm-in-arm with their female counterparts. Natasha had never seen clothes so beautiful, and as she looked down at her own garments as she stepped onto the sand, disheveled from her escape, she realized how much she would stand out amongst the women, as even those who worked down at the docks wore dresses.
"I'll need a change of clothes," Natasha said, coming up beside John as their small crowd began to gather on the shores. John paused in his motions, pulling his boat up onto the beach with the others, and looked her up and down. Natasha tried not to blush.
"If I am to fit in here or in Acalia, I'll need to look like the rest of the woman. I'll need dresses, and, I'm afraid I have no money." John straightened after pulling the boat up shore, his eyes moving past Natasha for a moment before landing back on her face.
"I can have some of the men escort you to a dressmaker, if that's what you want," he offered, looking uninterested. Natasha looked back at the village, thinking about the women in beautiful dresses.
"Jack. Adan." The little boy appeared next to Natasha, while Adan came to stand a few paces away from where John stood. John reached into one of the pockets of his jacket and withdrew a small leather pouch, which he tossed towards Adan. Adan caught the pouch fluidly, and when it hit his palm, Natasha heard the sounds of coins clinking against one another. He nodded once, while Jack eagerly grabbed onto Natasha's hand beside her. She looked down at the boy and smiled gently, finding it amusing and endearing that he'd rather stay with her than continue on with John. When she looked back up, John had closed the space between himself and Adan, and was whispering something that she couldn't make out. She watched as Adan nodded once more and then stepped through the sand to where she and Jack stood.
"Ma'am," he nodded towards her, his voice rich and deep with an accent she didn't recognize. He extended his arm out, and after one last glance at John, who had busied himself with talking to Castille and the four other men who had joined them, she started walking with her escorts across the sand towards the village.
Her movements were awkward as she followed Adan, Jack pulling her along until he finally released her hand so he could bound ahead of them. Although she had her own clothing back, she was still without shoes. John had found a pair of boots for her aboard the ship but they were many sizes too big, and as her feet slipped against the insoles, her sore ankle still pained slightly with every step.
When they finally reached their destination, Natasha was exhausted from the effort it had taken to cross the sands and the cobbled streets in the uncomfortable shoes, trying to keep up with Adan and Jack, who both moved stealthily through the sand and crowded streets. She stopped outside the shop, staring up through the oversized windows. Two life-sized figures stood at her left, one at the right, and all three were clothed with the most beautiful dresses she had ever seen.
The foremost dress was cream colored, trimmed with an intricate, pale pink floral pattern that stretched across the bodice and the sheer sleeves. It reminded Natasha of her mother's wedding dress, the only dress she'd ever seen in her mother's closet. Natasha had sketched her mother wearing that dress a dozen times, and looking at the soft material pooling around the floor of the shop, Natasha felt her heart wrench in her chest as she thought of her mother.
Pulling her eyes away, she looked at the dress in the background. It was simpler, a soft green with pale trimmings and a fuller skirt. The dress to her right was a deep black gown, a lower cut at the bust and a fuller skirt out of all three. She looked at all three in awe, wondering what occasion would call for these kinds of dresses. Women in her village only wore dresses for two occasions, weddings and funerals. Otherwise, pants and shirts were much more suitable for the work that most of them have to perform in a day.
"Maybe you can get a pretty dress like that," Jack said, and Natasha snapped back into the reality of standing beside the young boy in the busy street.
"I don't think so," she said, although she couldn't help but wonder what the material of those dresses would feel like against her skin. "I just need something simple, something so I don't stand out so much when we're in town." As she spoke she looked around, catching the eyes of women who looked at her with disapproving glances.
"Come on," she tugged Jack's hand and ascended the steps into the shop. Adan had already gone inside and was speaking with a short, plump woman with round cheeks and kind eyes. The woman was tucking the leather coin purse into her bosom when Natasha and Jack entered, and the woman looked at them, smiling broadly.
"Welcome, dear, welcome," she chirped, her voice light as she reached for Natasha's hands. Her eyes scanned Natasha's body in a surveying way, and Natasha could see her mind already working behind her eyes.
"I think we may have a few pieces that should fit you with just a bit of taking in or letting out, quick fixes," she said, one hand leaving Natasha's shoulder to wave in the air dismissively. Her hand want back to Natasha's shoulder, and she used her grip to start ushering Natasha away from the main room. "Come along, dear. Let's see what we can do."
******
A/N: Hey guys!! I hope you're enjoying the story this far! I've been brainstorming a lot of ideas so I'm excited to keep working on this. Let me know what you think! Vote and comment :)
A/N: Edited 9/4/18