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"My beautiful liar, why are you crying on you knees? You've crusified yourself and now denial is rising...why?? Why?? So tell me...so tell me how did you lose yourself at sea? Drifting within..."
The demon sang as she ship rocked gently back and forth.
The captor lie above, and everything was being done in an attempt to get their attention.
"Cease that squawling! I shall hear no more of it."
The captain called, making the demon smile in chaotic pleasure...they were getting somewhere.
"So tell me why did you cast yourself away??" She sang, like a siren in the mist. "Its such a SWEET addiction you should celebrate~"
The captain looked up from their book, closing their eyes in annoyance as they knew what nerve this was meant to poke. Granted, they were in fact trying to ignore it but this certain little lylet had a precious talent for nerve poking.
Getting up, the captain grabbed their coat and made their way down to the brig where the female demon was shackled- tightly...they weren't making that mistake again. Those legs were almost as deadly as the words she spoke.
"My beautiful liar...you are drowning in your fear. You're cutting into me, you think if I bleed it can save you. Why?? Why???" Raven sang, locking eyes with the captain, her eyes solid yellow with now humanity left in them. Blood ran from her wrists that were shackled too tightly, veins bulged on her neck from the collar that was ill fitted and leaking poison into her system; there was no trigger on this one as that method seemed too calm for the captains tastes now, the demons legs were shackled as well though one ankle looked to be crooked as she had been fighting to get out.
Her clothes were torn, and scars were left all over her body from Damascus steel. Scarlet curls fell around her shoulders and in her face- tangled, blood caked, and dirty.
Mystique was barely recognizable.
The captain stepped into the faint light of the brig; Her beautiful blonde hair was well kept, her white dress was pristene and her pearl and lace adorned jacket was as well, her boots were the finest france could offer and her eyes were colder than the devils could ever hope to be.
"I have no sympathy for you, nor will I stand your insessantly horrid refrain. Keep it in your throat, demon, or I will cut out your tongue...again."
Raven threw her head back and cackled at her response, feeling her anxiety peak at the thought of the pain she'd have to endure if her captor so chose, but god what a feeling it would be. To feel something other than loneliness, regret, guilt...she deserved this and she knew it.
Emma tilted her head and squinted, infiltrating Ravens mind making her scream in pain- she refused to be gentle.
"He lingers in your mind...on your lips..." The blonde said, stepping forward and grabbing the prisoners jaw, digging her nails into the skin and watching the blood slowly drip around them. "What did he see in you, besides himself..."
In more was than one, she thought, but that was the problem.
"You're a peasant and he, a King, saw himself in you? Pathetic. He must have been truely desperate for affection, for understanding, for-"
"For actual care instead of the faked moans from a cunt like you."
At this Emma gasped at the sheer lewdness, then her eyes grew cold with anger, she turned her right hand into pure diamond and jammed the fingers- sharp like spears- into Ravens abdomen.
The redhaired woman coughed in shock then bit back a scream as pain overwhelmed her...it felt perfect. Her nerves were screaming in agony, firing on full compacity, and muscles tensed as her body reacted by trying to pull away if only for a moment. She then sighed, and opened her bright yellow eyes once again, staring into her captors icy ones...like diamonds, beautiful diamonds.
No wonder he found her beautifully replaceable.
"Your screams no longer call to your false god or your Damned king." Emma whispered, getting in Ravens face and watching her healing abilities attempt to heal the wounds of her jaw, but it was slow. The poison was doing its job then- so that was one new thing to dictate in her research papers.
"My god...is dead...and my king...has forsaken me..." Raven coughed, poison hitting her system again as she tried to heal.
It destroyed her to think of it that way...
Shaw was a fantastic man because power over took him, then when Emma had told him the Angels had killed him Raven wasn't know what to think or to feel: on one hand he was so wonderful, kind and strong that he deserved such a longer life but on the other...he had slipped so far. She was unsure if he would have ever come back from it. Then again, things had becomes drastically different once Emma had shown her face and stuck around- she brought out the worst in him.
And Azazel?
They claimed him dead, she sent him back herself, but she knew that Draco lurked beneath, awaiting the right time to resurface and take this world down for what he had endured...and he'd take her down with it for turning on him. She'd claim no ill will was meant but so much was said to her, she had heard so much about what he'd thought of her, could she ever believe that he thought otherwise?
He claimed love, he claimed her his queen and his Lilith, but she wasn't strong enough. Raven knew she belonged on that ship with Erik, a gun for hire at best and a bed warmer at night. Her talent was lying and seducing, but when it came to love? Well, she'd seen how well that had gone for both Azazel and Shaw.
They were so drastically different, the two Kings.
One was very much a fighter, with blood paving his way to hell and back with enough venom is his growl to destroy this world in its entirety- and yet he seemed to harbor this calming love for her that no one could seem to rip from him.
While the other, a strategist...and a bit of a 'trigger happy' privateer at times, he had gentle hands, a suave smile, and he could somehow calm her in just a few words-
"ENOUGH"
Raven felt a pain in her head that rivaled being shot and she screamed in sheer agony as Emma glared at her. Moving away from her and grabbing the Damascus steel she had sitting on the side, tearing open Ravens shirt exposing her chest and dragging the end of the blade along her right breast making her jerk in reaction and shiver slightly.
"He is not yours to think of! He deserves more than your ignorant thoughts of love and worship. You're a fool for thinking he loved you...You were a pawn in his game, do you not understand that?" Emma said, watching blood pool to the surface of the light scratches left in the blades wake. "Look at you. Im not sure what he saw in you honestly, except the obvious fact that you can cloak yourself and be anything he fantasized about; blonde, brunette, dark haired, red headed, blue eyed, violet, yellow, male or female, tall or short, tight or experienced-"
"Stop talking about him as if he was some crude individual who wanted nothing but sex! You should have known him better than that."
"One would think." Emma replied, emotionless as she watching the blood roll down Ravens emaciated ribs and stomach, down to her hips where the hip bone portruded from malnutrition. "But then he called me a cancer, an addiction, and he took a thing like you to bed."
Raven could say she didn't know he was taken, as she didn't. He mentioned nothing of the sort and even so, they hadn't been 'together' in that way for some time from her understanding. Shaw was simply in the claws of a harpy, fighting for a life of his own, for a love of his own, for a heart of his own and ...bless him, he never really got it. That understanding between the two of them was never supposed to happen; but thats the thing about two broken people, you get them together and sometimes they fix each other.
How beautiful a thing it was to believe that he never lied to her, that his touch meant what he claimed it did, that his words were sincere and that he really did want her with him.
'I'd give you the seven seas if you so wished it.'
"Captain Frost."
They were both jerked, from their thoughts as her firstmate called down the stairs:
"The Black King has boarded, miss, he wants to speak to you."
Emma froze, eyes wide in sheer terror.
He had impeccable timing and she hated him for it.
His footsteps sounded upstairs, and blue eyes stared up at the ceiling and then back to her captive, who looked like she was about to break.
Emma could move fast enough to stop Raven:
"CAPTAIN!!!"
"Hush!" Emma whispered, backhanding Raven so hard her jaw broke.
But it was too late, she footsteps had stopped upstairs as had the idle chatter from the crew. The energy grew thick, electric, and almost too strong to take as even Emma felt dizzy from it. His power now was unstoppable and she had just been caught doing something she most certainly was not supposed to do...for Emma had told him that Raven was dead...
Uneven steps slowly, methodically, made their way down the steps to the brig. Emma stood directly in front of Raven as if that was going to hide or solve anything, as she blue woman behind her cried softly and kept her eyes to the floor; blood pooling from her mouth now as it desperately tried to heal, it was doing a bit better as she was willing it to heal quickly- but she could feel the poison coursing through her veins.
The air was sucked out of the room.
Raven looked up, trying to peek around Emmas shoulders.
There he stood- he had been injured getting off the island, as a prosthetic now replaced on of his legs from the knee down, but he was as handsome as ever...perhaps more so than she remembered.
"Sebastian, I can-"
"No, you cannot explain." He said cutting her off, choosing to not yet fully look at Raven as he knew if he did so with Emma still here, this entire ship would be lost to Davey Jones' locker and he wasn't on good terms with him at the moment.
"Leave."
"This is my ship! You can't tell me-"
"Its /MY/ ship as /I/ gifted it to you when /YOU/ were still loyal to me and not completely out of your mind." Shaw snapped, the energy getting thicker as he locked eyes with her and made his way to her, stopping inches from her face. "Get. Out."
Taking a moment, Emma blinked, sighed, and finally moved around him and retired to her cabin.
His icy eyes fell to the floor, not yet ready to lay eyes on the woman chained before him. This was an odd mixture of guilt, love, regret and pride that he'd been here to save her...he didn't like this.
"Tie the knot, tie the noose, here we lie in love and truth in a coffin built for two..." Raven sang softly. "...when all thats left is skin and bone I'll still have love for you. Rest in peace, rest with me, through the dark and through the light I'll hold you close... I'll hold you tight, forever yours, forever more....forever more...so close your eyes for one last time if tonight we fall asleep I'll pray...my soul'll be yours to keep...to keep..."
"Is it wise to speak of coffins and souls around me? Sounds like its more of /his/ department, is it not?." He replied, keeping his eyes to the floor.
"...Captain..." Raven cried softly, leaning forward in her chains. "I thought...you dead...She said-"
"She what?!" Shaw said, looking up at her suddenly in anger, but it instantly faded when he finally laid eyes on her condition.
He took a step back in shock, for a moment it wasn't her he saw in those shackles- thats why Emma did it. This wasn't just research, no this was getting even with him. This was a message.
He felt sick for a moment, looking away and collecting himself before he slowly approached her and truely looked her over- her scars, her bruises, her malnutrition, her collar and godforsaken shackles...
Taking a few deep breaths to calm himself, he then reached up and very easily broke all of hr bindings- freezing when he went to touch the collar, knowing it would fire one last time as it was being undone...god, he didn't like this. The tides had turned and it made him sick. Maneuvering his fingers underneath the collar, he locked eyes with her for the first time in about two years. Her eyes were solid gold, savage, demonesque, and yet he could still see the pain and heartache that calmed when he looked at her- and it made him feel so damn guilty...
"Im sorry, my dear."
He pulled slightly, releasing concentrated energy, and the latch on the collar snapped.
Raven gasped for air, as it send poison through her one last time and she jerked and convulsed slightly- but not from the poison.
It happened so quickly, Shaw wasn't entirely aware of what had happened until it was too late. He quickly caught Raven as she fell forward in his arms, both of them falling to the floor as she shook, gasping for air as blood pooled from the slit across her pale blue throat.
The last collar hadn't had that...Emma made this one special...release the lock without the key and...
"EMMA!!"
A pale figure appeared on the steps, silently, blue eyes watching coldly as her Captain and his whore were both drenched in blood.
"So eager to call on me when you need me now, Klaus?"
He can't blow up this ship.
Raven is still on this ship.
He kept repeating that over and over in his head in a sad attempt to keep himself calm.
"She..did...NOTHING...to you..."
"She was mine. I had her shackled and you, once again, tried to take from me. You took that demon child, you took the demon father and now you think you can rescue Lylet from my clutches? Im so close to breaking her." Emma said coldly, watching with no remorse or emotion. "She thinks of you often...Hardly any of it is foul, is disgusting how much faith she had in your existence. If only she knew it was all because I pushed you that you reached this potential."
Raven was still on this ship.
He couldn't blow up this ship.
"We can talk when you're done. She should heal once that poison leaves her system...this will be a true test. How long can she stay dead and then regenerate? Do let me know the results."
---
Hours had passed, he believed, and he had scooted back against the wall, holding Ravens lifeless body in his arms. Thoughts ran through his head like mad, making it seem like he was in a crowded room though silence surrounded him.
Emma hasn't returned, she knew if she did he wouldn't be able to restrain himself; the only thing that kept him down here currently was the fact that Raven was actually healing, but slowly, and if she woke and he was gone?...he'd already abandoned her once, which he deeply regretted.
Icy eyes looked around the room, looking over all the blood stained implements, tattered pieces of Ravens clothes, dark blood stains on the floor around her chains, white fragments of what he could only assume were bits of her own bones that had regrown since then, and clumps of tissue...Emma had lost her mind. The Queen he'd once known was dead, and a true demon took her place.
But was he truely any better?
Of course he was. He hadn't meant to kill the beast at first, he was merely saving this precious being in his arms from the poison and cancer that held her...and then he left her.
He slammed his head back against the wall with a sigh. No, he didn't think what he'd done was wrong, but this? Raven had done nothing akin to the things the demon had done...god, he still loved her.
"...Cap..tain?"
He quickly snapped out of it and looked down at the woman in his arms, smiling seeing her golden eyes- now more humanesque- looking up at him. He wound wasn't completely closed, but closed enough for proper blood flow to circulate once again.
"Raven..." He said softly, moving to gently pet her hair and make sure she was comfortable.
"...You...left me..."
Shaw visibly winced, sighing and nodding slightly.
"I did...I...regret that, greatly."
"You were supposed to kill me...not save me." Raven joked, trying to move slightly, but he held her tighter, a gentle sign that perhaps she shouldn't attempt that just yet.
"Sorry to disappoint you." He replied with a small laugh, shifting slightly so he could hold her better to him, preventing her from moving at this moment in time- until she got full use of her legs back, at least.
"...Are you going to leave me with her?"
"Absolutely not." Shaw snapped. "We're going home."
Raven flushed lightly, smiling weakily as she rested her head on his shoulder for a moment, trying to regain any bit of strength she possibly could.
"Don't do this if it doesn't mean anything...I...I can't take losing anyone again...I'd rather be dead."
And there it was.
Something he'd caused, something he'd made worse and what was so horrible is he knew about it prior and never intended to play off of it, he never intended to exploit that fear of hers and never meant to do this.
"You're coming back with me, I will hear no more of this."
And nothing more was heard.