Chapter Text
There was something about the sea. The crashing waves. The salt that made her skin sticky and cool. Anne lifted her chin toward the wind and tightened her grip on the wheel. Here she was on her own ship of dreams, she was truly the bride of adventure. The captain of her own future. For a moment she could see her past, the little girl she had been so long ago, dreaming of a family and a home, a steady warm fireplace. Maybe even a little gable room that had blooming flowers and a starry sky to catch hold of those firelit dreams.
But she had grown up in the cold dark asylum. Her dreams had changed, under the watchful eyes of Headmistress Mariah, stern and thin. Now Anne knew how to hold her tongue, to stand tall and unafraid of harshness or cruelty. No, Mariah had seen to it that any weakness was beat out of her. Anne knew she had once been soft, had worn her heart on her sleeve and looked to the sky and the trees and longed for flight and safety and the warm sun. She still at times felt like that small child. Breathless in the face of the open sea, like the wilds in which she came from. Now, Anne made her family at the helm of her ship the ‘Inward Treasure', she filled the ship with others like her. Misfits, the poor and obscure, the ship of the unwanted. Led by the red headed devil herself. She felt herself shift again, no longer taken by the past. Here Anne was devilish and whole when from below she heard a shout.
“Anne! Anne!” Hugo bound up the steps, his face scrunched and his one good eye narrowed. The other side of his face held a deep jagged scar that was pale against his dark skin. “Floaters!”
Her breath caught but she pushed through. “How many?”
“Four but maybe two living.”
“Any sign of hidden ships?” Just in the past month or so there had been word that she had become wanted. She couldn't risk her crew for two dead men and a trap.
“Polly saw nothing.”
She could leave them. Those floating bodies meant nothing to her. She had 60 others to think about and to say nothing of whatever diseases they could be carrying.
It would do her no good to invite danger.
“Bring them aboard.” She said instead.
She remembered being saved herself once. She may be a pirate but it was out of necessity not hatred. There was no place for a women seeking freedom but the sea and her own country she claimed on the waves.
“Take Cole and Jerry. If the floaters seem too sick, toss them, leave the dead.”
Hugo nodded but before he turned to leave, he eyed her. “What of the officers?”
“If there's no other ship in sight, have no worry of it. If the floaters look like navy, leave them.”
“Aye.” He said as he turned to follow orders.
Anne called out to him. “I have trust in you. Do what you think is best and it will be.”
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They had pulled the sails and stagnated while the small boats rowed to the bodies. Anne took to her office to think. She plied over the numbers. Calculated the pay and time they'd been drifting. Divided what supplies they had and how soon they could make it to a friendly port. Two more to feed. And they may not be capable of work. And Mills having to shabbily coax them to live and Anne knew how hard she would take it if her nursing failed. Mills needed her wards to live, Anne saw her spirit shutter every time someone slipped away. If only, Anne thought, they could get her some real knowledge. The ship would fare better also. Anne's stomach clinched thinking of how it could go, for a moment while she though alone in the office cabin, she feared she could have made the wrong choice.
But it was done. She could not appear to waiver on her decision. She turned her focus back on the numbers. They had enough to sail another couple of months and soon they’d be near enough to a port, one close to Capetown. And those floaters would heal and when they did she put them to work and then let them free when they docked. If they wanted. And if they died. Then the ocean would be there to swallow them back up.
A knock made her pause. "Yes." She called out.
It was Cole's voice that came back to her. "Anne, they've been brought aboard. There's two of them alive. Both men. Don't look like sailors, but definitely not officers either. Neither one is awake quite yet. Mills has them below. Trying to get them to drink something. They seemed to be breathing fine. But they have red and cracked lips."
Anne nodded. She looked Cole up and down as slyly as she could. He'd only be on ship a year, he was running from something she was sure. Most of her crew was. Women captains didn't fit with the common idea of pirating. So the crew she found herself commanding tended to be kind that were of a different mind. There was something almost kindred in his lanky body. A fear and quietness to him that made her remember who she was once.
"And tell me Cole, what do you make of them?"
He didn't answer for a moment. She could see his eyes shift though, as if he working out the right words.
Finally he settled on, "I think you know what you are doing."
She thinned her lips. "Yes," she said."I do know. But I want to know what you think."
Cole's shoulders squared. "I can't say I am not hesitant. But I think they pose no real threat. As of now, at least. They are weak and could be easily disposed of, I think giving them a chance, can't hurt what with you gaining fame. Although." There Cole broke of and she saw again the hesitation.
"Go on. Let's hear it."
"It could set us up for trouble in the future by the same reasoning."
She rolled her finger at him to motion him to continue.
"If they know we'll rescue. It could be used to trap us."
"Yes. Very true, Cole. I am wondering if we shall have to keep them captive. To not let word out of mercy." Anne kept her gaze on the slender man. "We may have to kill them anyway. I thought to let them off when we next dock. But with the news of the posters." She shook her head. She could not show hesitation of her own but she could make them think she was listening those around her. Let them have a voice.
Cole nodded and the last of his reservation dissolved before her. "It may come to that."
"For now, we'll wait and see. But do not get to close. We cant afford to feel to much for them should the situation change."
"I'll let the others know."
"Yes do. And tell me when they wake. I want to know what type we are dealing with. If they should gain strength we'll need to know what we are dealing with."
"Of course. They look the rich sort. They were wearing once nice suits. Although, one was black."
"Servant, maybe. If true, his 'master' will learn to serve instead." Her eyes hardened at the thought of anyone giving orders based on something as arbitrary as skin or station. They men and women worked for her. Never to her beck and call but for the sea. She lead them but never controlled her crew with classism. They maintained the ship for their own sakes and for them she pulndered where need be and fought along side them as the helm, to help carry, never to be hoisted above them. On her ship, the crew was as equal as if they were born in gates of heaven itself. It was her own country and no one was rated on sex or skin or anything beyond the ships own moral code.
"I'll make sure he knows."
Anne nodded her dismissal and turned back to the numbers that lay before her.