I look up as I see the captain come in the room and close the door behind him.
“I thought Isum was supposed to come back.” I say, trying to avoid eye contact. For a second I think I see hurt but it quickly vanishes.
“Yea, everybody likes Isum.” He says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well, unless of course he doesn't like you, because in that cais, you're fucked.” He says, seeming to laugh at an old memory. “Anyway, I told him I'd finish patching you up.” He sits next to me after getting the rag off the nightstand and taking a role of wraps out of the drawer. He then looks up at me and stares at something on my face for a moment before reaching his hand out towards me.
“Sorry about the cut, I-” He stops as I flinch away the second his hand touches my skin. It stays in the air a moment as he lets out a sigh. He then uses that hand to rub his neck again.
“Look kid, I’m not going to do anything to you. I couldn't help myself before, you're too easy to teas. And especially since you're hurt, I won't do anything, alright?” He says a little apologetically. I relax a bit. “Well, that is unless you want me two.” He says a smirk creeping onto his face as he looks back at me. Then I did something that not even I expected.
“Pffft” I started laughing. For some reason, in that moment, I couldn't take him seriously at all. He looked taken aback but ended up laughing a bit too.
“You're a strange kid, you know that?” he says, patting my head with a big smile on his face, his large hand was warm and almost comforting. I tried to catch my breath after laughing so hard. “You know, I probably should have asked you this a while ago, but what's your name kid?” Oh yea, I guess we hadn't told each other our names yet.
“Sebastian.” The moment the word leaves my lips I realize what a horrible mistake i've made.
“Wow, named after a prince, talk about high expectations huh?” I laugh nervously at his comment.
“Yea… I'm kind of surprised that you know that sins you don't exactly live in england.” I say, trying to steer the conversation away from me as I tried to internalize the panic attack I was having.
“Yeah well, my mom is English and when she heard about the new prince she couldn't stop talking about how he was going to become a good king because he was raised a commoner. I always found it funny though because everyone said that without even knowing the prince’s character. Just because he’s a commoner doesn't it mean he's got good character.” I felt a sting in my chest from his words. The pain I had been feeling in my wrists couldn't compare to the one in my heart.
“Even so, being the Prince can't be easy, I mean he would have gone from having a peaceful life to suddenly having everyone around him trying to kill him for the right to succeed the throne.”
“Well I guess you'd know.” I quickly turn my head to face him, completely taken by surprise and starting to panic. Oh my god, he knew!? How did he find out? What the hell?
“Oh come on,” he said in response to my probably petrified facial expression. “you think I wouldn't have noticed. Kid, you're wearing some damn expensive material, it's obvious you come from money.” I start to panic a little less. Oh, does he just think I come from a random noble house? “Although that doesn't exactly explain why you were stowing away on a cargo ship.” And there it was, the question I was hoping he didn't ask, luckily I had some sort of a story figured out though.
“Yea, that kinda happened by accident.” He looks at me for a moment, as if waiting for me to say ‘just kidding’, but when I don't he starts to laugh.
“Jesus kid, are you serious?” He says still laughing a little. I roll my eyes at my past self deciding to hid in a fucking barrel. Yea, I wish I were kidding but that's literally how that shit went down. I let out a sigh and look up at the ceiling.
“What a mess I got into. What am I going to do?” I say more to myself.
“You know kid, we could drop you off on the next piece of land we see. One of the ships there are bound to leave to England, or anywhere else you want to go.”
“Thank you, but I don't know if it's going to be that simple.” I say feeling a bit dejected. The Captain just raised his eyebrow instead of actually asking me what I meant.
“I was running from people who were more than likely trying to kill me, for my dad's money. I ended up at the port and hid in a barrel, so I'm here.” He sat on what I had said for a bit.
“You know kid, you could stay on my ship for a while, work as a part of the crew until you have enough to hire yourself some mercenaries.” I think about if for a second but don't see how my complete lack of knowing anything to do with boats could help.
“I don't really know what I can do to help.”
“Look kid, I'll admit that I'm not exactly going to hold my breath for you in a fist fight, but shit, when it comes to a sword fight, you damn well know what you're doing.” He said seeming to go back to our blades clashing in his mind. “ Don't worry though, I'm not going to send your scrawny ass out in the middle of a fight,” I frown at him calling me scrawny. “you still need some practice. There are lots of random things that need to get done around the ship so just go where you're needed.” He then looked me directly in the eyes for the last part. “And make damn sure to get the hell out of dodge when the fighting starts.” The way he said it made it clear it was not a suggestion. I nod quickly, probably a few too many times as his face softened with a small laugh and he pats my head again, taking the opportunity to mess up my hair as he does. His hands were huge, bigger than Isum’s. I looked up at him, with his hand still on my head, tousling my hair
I spent most of the afternoon mopping the deck and actually ended up enjoying myself. It reminded me a lot of when I was a kid still living on the farm with my mom. I'd be complaining half time back then but I did my chores anyway. As soon as we moved into the castle everything changed and I started to feel useless. Every single person in the castle had a job that took care of everything. I ended up missing something as simple as cleaning up my own room which I no longer did. Every time I came back my stuff was put back to where it was. So doing this with the sparkling ocean all-around and the warm sun mixing with the cool ocean wind made the perfect temperature. It was really an amazing thing.
“Capitain! We have a problem.” I hear Isum call as he quickly opens the door, his face bearing a serious expression. The Captain quickly got to his feat and his face suddenly boar a frown. “One of the men on the men from the cargo ship, his gums are bleeding.” The captain's face bears a moment of horror the anger.
“Damn it!” He yells while punching the wall. Isum looks at the Captain for a moment, waiting for orders. I don't really understand what's going on but it's obviously bad.
“Do you want me to take care of it Captain?” Isum asked. The Captain, with his head hanging low and his fist still on the wall took a moment before answering.
“No it's alright,” he says with a much calmer tone. “I'll take care of it.” He says while putting his hand on Isum’s shoulder as he walks past him. I get up, not really knowing what to do. The creak of the floorboards beneath my feet and the sound of my boots hitting the floor, let him know I just stood up. He turned around to give me a serious look.
“You stay here.” He says authoritatively.
“But I don't under-”
“Just do as I say!” He says a little louder making me jump a little. “Isum, stay with him, make sure he doesn't leave this room.” He said to him seriously. Isum’s face turned to concern.
“Captain, are you sure you don't want me to come with you?” He asked. The captains eyes softened a little.
“Thank you, but i'll be ok, this is the kind of thing a Captain should do.” He said then leaves. Isum watches the Captain with a frown of concern as he walks away and heads down to the cargo hold.
Isum walks in and closes the door behind him. He pulls a chair out from the desk on the right side of the bed against the wall with a window just above it. He put the back of the chair against the desk and sat down. I fold my right leg onto the bed and let the other dangle off so I can face Isum who still stemmed troubled with his arms crossed on his knee and his back arched forward as he frowned at the ground. He doesn't say anything so I decided to.
“Isum…” I say trailing off a bit. He looked up at me as if he had forgotten I was there for a second. He sighs before speaking again, sitting up with his hands now on his knees rubbing his thighs a bit.
“Sorry my boy, he just has to do something unpleasant, don't take offence, he makes sure everyone does not see these kinds of things.” He said with a small smile that seemed a little forced.
“Ok, but I still don't understand. What do you mean by something unpleasant?” I ask, still confused. Isum takes a deep breath before explaining it to me.
“Living on the sea, means always living on death's doorstep, waiting for the day when that door opens and you get pulled in. But sometimes that door opens agonisingly slow and someone needs to lend you a hand to throw that door open. Being in between is torture. So when you're in a situation like that, even if you don't realise it yourself, someone helping you to open that door is a kindness.” He paused for a second before continuing with a bit of sadness being carried in his eyes. “ The captain at the moment has to go help open the door for somebody right now, he hates it because he cares about the crew so much even someone who's only been part of the crew for an hour or so.” I felt the urge to cry listening to Isum’s words. I couldn't help but think back to a few moments ago at how upset the caption was when Isum told him about the man. Seeing this I don't understand why anyone would want to be captain if these are the things you have to do. Isum suddenly had a small and sincere smile that made me feel like he was saying thank you for something. I didn't understand until he spoke.
“Oh my boy, are you crying for the Captain's sake?” He asks. Am I crying? I take my hand and run my fingers beneath my eyes to find that the tips of my fingers were now wet. I didn't even notice that any tears had escaped.
“It's just, to have to kill someone that has done nothing wrong. I know he's a pirate but I can see that he doesn't want to do this as much as anyone else would. I can't imagine how awful it must be to have to do something like that.” Just as those words escaped my lips I could hear pleading and screaming from somewhere underneath me. I felt a pain in my chest and I ended up grabbing a wad of my shirt just above my heart once again. This pain was different though. It felt like my heart was spreading immense sadness to my whole body, like it was trying to take over. And it succeeded. Once the screaming and yelling is suddenly cut off, the silence sunk into me, helping the pain of the sadness take over.
I was just sitting there, my eyes completely out of focus and my hand gripping my shirt with even more force as tears streamed down my face with no sign of stopping. I just sat there in silence, my face not changing from its expression as the tears continued to flow. Time passed and I didn't move, the tears just kept on falling.
I felt my body shake and in an instant I was tuned back into the world around me.
Isum is standing in front of me and has his hands on my shoulders, shaking me. I looked at him, and he stopped, letting out a sigh of relief as he put his hands down on his thighs. He looked at the ground in silence for a second before speaking.
“My boy, I do not know where you go when you do this, but since you're stuck on this ship for at least a few months, you're going to get killed if you do that when you get to scared or sad.” This is the first time I hear Isum speak seriously to me. The way he spoke, and the words he said, scared me. Especially since I knew what he was saying was true.
The door opens and the Captain is standing there, a streak of splattered blood is across his shirt and on his chin and cheek. He had a serious face on, and for some reason it seemed forced. Isum strood up straight as soon as he heard the door. He went up to the Captain and looked like he was about to say something, but then held it in. The Captain hadn't moved an inch sins he opened the door.
After a moment of no one saying a word Isum left the room, as if the Captain had given an order without doing anything. Once Isum was gone the Captain finally moved. He closed the door, but left his had on it and didn't turn around.
Then I saw it, his hands were curling into tight fists. The next moment he was punching the wall rapidly with both hands, yelling in frustration. It scared me a bit but I understood. He stopped after a while and turned to lean his back on the wall that just cracked. I looked at him and saw that he was still upset. It doesn't matter who it is, no one likes to see another person in pain. I wanted to do something but felt powerless. What could I possibly do? Then I suddenly think of something. He might kill me if I do this but I would feel to useless if I did nothing. I get up and walk towards him.
“Look kid, I'm sorry about that just now, I-” he was cut off when I wrapped my arms around his waist to hug him. My head was on his abs. I am five ten and he's still so much taller than me. He didn't say or do anything for a moment, probably surprised by my sudden actions. But then i find myself being the one a bit surprised as big warm arms came around me to hug me back.
A few minute passe with neither of us saying anything, I expected it to get awkward but I find myself being oddly comfortable in his arms. I squeezed a little tighter. It has been along time since I had hugged somebody like this.
With my mom sick and my dad never wanting to see me unless it had something to do with me inheriting the throne, there was not much human interaction. Plus it's not like any of the maids were willing to have a normal conversation with me. As for the rest of my family, well, they think of me as trash. They know the king had to pull out every record possible just to try and find the smallest relation to any kind of royalty for my mom so that he could marry her and finally have me. Since I was already born and his wife had died and he was getting old he felt I was his last chance to get an air. So the mistake he had made eight years prior ended up being his actual son when it was convenient.
I feel the Captain's hand move off my back. I look up at him to say something, though even I don't know what. I suddenly feel a hand underneath my chin as my head is tilted up to look at him directly in his emerald coloured eyes. He’s smiling which I guess was my ultimate goal but the kind of smile he has looks a little more mischievous than I had wanted. Then, before I could ask what he was doing, his lips were pressed hard against mine.
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