Long chapter ahead. Fun and madness.
Edit: iacus, I was editing the chapter.
--------------------
Chapter 12While the drama on the second floor was playing out, a different show of another kind was about to unfold on the ground floor as well. Definitely a place for entertainment, the Sea Coconut was. Unorchestrated theatrics, playing for the last 12 hours. Too bad there was no way to collect ticket fees and invite in an audience, otherwise Ayaka would have been able to cover the repairs for her tavern easily, and still have enough for a complete renovation.
Said characters of the unplanned "show" were currently in the process of waking up. Well, one of them was anyway. With any luck, the one will serve to provide us with enough entertainment, all on her own. But let us be quiet now and watch them, lest we disturb the outcome.
Mmmpf... Risa swam to wakefulness slowly and reluctantly, the pain in her skull feeling like a hammer pounding repeatedly within it.
Augh... Her eyes still firmly shut, she nuzzled unconsciously into her pillow, biting into it as was her usual habit...
Nnn? Her half-conscious mind paused in mid-bite, instinct and habit taking over for thought, since she wasn't awake enough to be thinking much of anything at the time. Habit told her that her pillow didn't taste like that. It also informed her that the warmth from that "pillow" wasn't the same kind of warmth that she was used to when she first wakes up. Instinct then decided to tell her that pillows generally didn't shift on their own as well.
Still too groggy to properly process the information, Risa nuzzled back into the comfortably warm pillow, drooling contentedly as she dreamed about food.
Mmm... Unconsciously working her jaw as she mimed chewing, the young sailor pressed harder against her "pillow", her lips attacking the surface it was pressed against.
Nnnn...tasty... Risa could practically imagine the delicious mixture of her favorite
monjayaki running down the spatula she was slurping from in her dream. It was about to drip off though, so she absently licked it clean, her tongue unconsciously reaching out in reality at the same time to lick sensuously at the soft surface...
A startled shiver from her pillow, followed by a soft gasp. Risa frowned sleepily. Since when did her food giggle? Or her pillow, whatever? The strangeness of the whole situation warranted a visual confirmation, her mind groggily decided. It took a few seconds to force open her eyelids, since they had been gummed shut in sleep.
Pink. That didn't make sense. The first thing that had met her blurry eyes was the soft pink of...flesh?
What do you mean, flesh? A part of her mind was asking indignantly, even as the rest of her struggled to catch up. The pounding migraine that was forming in her head wasn't helping her in re-orientating to the real world either.
It took a few more awkward moments for her mind to piece together the random snippets of information that were present to her.
Flesh...skin...soft...warm...a very fast heartbeat...?When the realisation finally hit, Risa's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as she detached her face from a very flushed neck of one Takahashi Ai, who looked just like Risa at that moment, groggy and very shocked. Except for the fact that Risa didn't have any marks on her, and Ai, well, did.
People often use the term 'my thoughts were running at a mile a minute' casually and without truly understanding what the reality of it was really like. Risa, however, had no problem emulating that phrase at that point as her poor, overworked, and hungover brain went into serious overdrive at the situation.
OhmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodwhatamIgoingtodowhatdidwedowhatdidIdowhereamIwhatamIdoingAHHHHHHHHHHHHGODDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!!! Even as she panicked inwardly, Risa was suddenly aware of the full length and breadth of the position she was in. She was pressed tightly against Ai, her hands were somehow under the barmaid's blouse, and their legs were pretty much tangled together, with Risa's thigh wedged in between the older girl's legs, hiking the skirt up almost scandalously high.
All the evidence wasn't doing anything to calm her in the least. If anything, it only accelerated and intensified the panic attack she was currently experiencing. Her breath came in short gasps, she felt dizzy and lightheaded, and was sweating profusely. Her chest was tightening painfully as her mind and body went into panic mode.
Then she saw the hickey on Ai's neck.
Takahashi Ai gaped as Risa promptly fainted, nosebleeding profusely.
What in the world...~*~*~
"You look well." That was the first thing that slipped out of Yossi's mouth as Rika neared her, and she kicked herself mentally for saying something so inane after 10 years of separation.
Now she probably thinks you're an insensitive idiot...gah!Rika couldn't help but smile as she replied. "10 years and still the same old Yocchan huh?" Yossi blinked at the teasing grin on her long lost friend's face. Huh...what?
"You're blushing." Rika giggled, and immediately Yossi's hands shot to her burning face. The tall pirate swallowed nervously. It probably didn't help that Rika had grown up to be so...pretty. Or "hot", as Mari had bluntly observed earlier. Yes, the promise of beauty when they were but mere children had blossomed into the gorgeous lady that stood before her now. Yossi suddenly felt awkward. How was she going to deal with a grown up Rika that she barely knew?
Mari looked at the two girls gazing at each other, a thoughtful look on her face. Making up her mind in a snap, she strode over to Eri, who was lurking around behind Rika, and took her by the arm, forcibly dragging the taller girl away as she called out to Yossi.
"Take your time, we'll be right over there!"
The two childhood friends stared in amusement as Mari practically hauled a protesting Eri away while cheerfully explaining to her why they had to leave those two alone. The moment passed though, and now they were back to square one, complete with awkward silences and wary glances.
Rika was getting irritated by their silence, both at her own inability to say something meaningful, and at Yossi's inability to do the same. Finally, she burst out.
"Well, say something already!"
Caught offguard by the uncharacteristic outburst from the usually composed woman, Yossi blurted the first thing that came to mind.
"Uh, you're pretty?"
Now it was Rika's turn to blush. She had heard the compliment many times before from exalted people like princes and nobles, but somehow hearing it from Yossi affected her more than she had thought possible. Her voice came out shakily, almost in a stutter, which had
never happened in her whole life up to now before.
"R-really?"
Great, now they sounded like a pair of starstruck teenagers. Yossi wanted to go jump into the harbor and drown herself, never mind the fact that she knew how to swim and would probably only just get wet. Deciding that this careful edging around the main topic wasn't going to work anytime soon, the boyish pirate took a deep breath.
"I'm sorry."
Rika blinked, clearly confused by the sudden change in direction, as Yossi struggled on to express herself.
"Well ah...sorry for making you worry about me all this time...and umm, well, I uh, Ireallymissedyou."
It took but a moment for her to decipher the last bit. When she did though, her smile was probably bright enough to light the whole waterfront on a moonless night.
Yossi suddenly had her hands full when Rika all but jumped into her arms.
Well I'm glad she's happy... The pirate thought, tentatively hugging her once best friend back. The sensation of contact, real, honest contact felt strange, almost foreign. She hadn't let anyone touch her like that for so long. It just never came up in her new life as a fugitive and pirate. She had almost forgotten what it was like to hold and be held by someone.
A small sob broke her concentration, and the taller girl looked down in mild panic. "Rika...why are you crying?" Indeed, the noblewoman was crying, sniffling into Yossi's shoulder as she choked back the gurgled sobs as best as she could.
"N-nothing...I'm just happy to see you..."
"Shhh...I don't seeing you cry..." The words slipped out easily, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and Yossi was somewhat pleasantly surprised. She had said something like that before, but what was it...?
I don't like seeing you get hurt. Yes, that was it. Over a decade had passed, and suddenly they were back at when they were 10 years old. It felt nostalgic. A long-forgotten, yet pleasant warmth filled that empty space in her chest, long left void by the trials of her circumstance. Years of being alone, and even after joining Yuko's crew, she had felt isolated and dead on the inside. Now, a fragment of her past had come running back to her, and instead of the pain and resentment that she thought she would have felt, there was only relief. Maybe it was because Rika was the only part of her past that she was really happy with, especially after the death of her whole family.
It still hurt, to have been the only survivor of that bloodbath that had rained down on her entire clan. Survivor's guilt, perhaps. Her father had sent her away, before she had known what was going on, and by the time she did realise the truth, it was too late. She had wanted to run back, but the man who had been given charge to take her to safety had prevented her from joining her family in their direst hour. She was put on a ship, kicking and screaming and crying, taken away from the capital while her entire family had perished in a single day.
The whole incident had left her numb for weeks afterward. It didn't help that the ship she was on hit a storm, and had gone under. She had only survived by a freak stroke of luck, clinging to a loose timber while stubbornly refusing to let go of the sabre her father had given her at the same time, no matter how difficult it had been for her to stay afloat because of that. She had been washed up, battered and barely alive, still clutching that weapon with a deathgrip, and was subsequently discovered and rescued by a wandering clan of nomads. The two she spent with that clan was relatively peaceful, if difficult, since she remained silent and withdrawn all the time, only showing passion for her sword-training. That single-minded obsession proved sort of useful when their camp had been attacked by raiders. While most of the nomads had been killed and those who had been alive enslaved, her skill had impressed the leader, and they "recruited" her into their ranks. It was a year later, when in town with the other raiders, their leader had gotten into a disagreement with a certain female pirate captain and in the subsequent fight, had been killed. Yossi had stayed firmly on the sidelines then, refusing to fight unless she really had to, and that alone had impressed Yuko enough to invite her to join them. The rest, as they said, had been history.
Rika, Yossi decided, looked heartbreakingly beautiful with the tears staining her cheeks. But that wasn't the point. She hated seeing other people cry, least of all someone who meant this much to her. Tenderly, she reached out, brushing away the sparkling droplets with her thumb. A roughly callused hand, that contrasted so much with the delicate skin on Rika's cheeks. Suddenly, Yossi felt ashamed of even touching the other girl, and was about to lower her hand, the better to hide it, when Rika caught hold of it firmly.
Yossi looked away as Rika gently traced the rough surface of the pirate's hands, feeling and memorising every detail of it. The noblewoman's heart felt as if it might break as she looked at the rough, weathered hand of her best friend, feeling it twist like a knife in her heart as she imagined how much the other girl must have suffered all these years. Before she knew it, tears were welling up in her eyes again.
The pirate was about to open her mouth to say something to comfort the sobbing girl in her arms, but someone else beat her to it.
"Ah, the Lady Ishikawa. Your fiance won't be at all pleased to see you in the arms of someone else. Playtime's over, time to go back for your long overdue wedding!"
They froze, Yossi in shock and Rika in fear. Well, nuts. It appeared that the bounty hunters had caught up with her. Mari and Eri had come up quickly to join them, the pint-sized pirate with her cutlass already drawn, and Eri slipping on the metal-clad gloves that were her primary close combat weapon.
"You're supposed to be married?" Yossi managed to choke out, feeling a strange stab of emotion that was almost totally alien to her. The very idea of Rika being married to some strange man hurt her, somehow.
"It wasn't my idea." Rika hissed back, looking nervously back at the armed brigands under the command of that annoying bounty hunter that had been tracking them for almost 2 weeks now. It had been a relief to her that Aya had not deigned to simply hand her over to them, especially since the naval captain was under no obligation to help her at all. In fact, the young captain could have gotten into a lot of trouble by helping her escape from the arranged marriage, even if only by accident at first.
"It'll be a lot easier if you just come with us, my lady. Your father wouldn't be pleased if you got hurt during our scuffle, least of all that young man you're engaged to. A piece of work you are, running away on the wedding day." The bounty hunter was shaking his head in a sort of amusement.
"On the wedding day?" Mari asked with an amused tone, but not diverting her attention from the men in front of her. "Wow Yossi, a real spitfire you have there."
"Be quiet, you." The taller pirate grouched out, setting Rika down and pushing her behind them, drawing her sabre with her other hand. "We're not letting you have her." She said in a low, bristly tone to the group in front of her. The irritation she felt from the fact that Rika had been engaged to someone, as well as the fact that their reunion had been so abruptly interrupted by these men, made her coldly angry.
There were 6 men, not counting the leader himself. Almost 2 to 1 odds, which wouldn't be so much trouble if Yossi were at her best. As it is, both her and Mari were still recovering from injury, and while her ankle had mostly healed, Mari's side still gave her more trouble than the older girl would admit. Yossi didn't know about that other girl's ability, so they might have a bit of a problem here.
The hirelings came forward first. Yossi had stepped up to flank Mari, who had parried one of the cutlasses coming at her and was shifting to dodge another thrust aimed at her midsection. The sneaky thrust was intercepted by a gloved hand, and Eri slid her hand up along the blade, closing in fast and wresting the cutlass out of the surprised brigand's hands, before clocking him in the face with her free fist. It came away bloody as the man clutched at his smashed face, courtesy of the spikes on the knuckles of the glove. The short pirate gave her a quick nod in appreciation as she kicked her opponent, doubling him over before a quick slash downwards sent an arterial spray upwards from the neck, splashing her face.
Yossi was engaging two men at the same time, and they were effectively trying to keep her off balance once they realised that she had difficulty moving around quickly with that limp. While she was capable of holding her own, she was having a bit of trouble trying to take them down. One cutlass clanged against her blade, and another cut forward, aiming for her hand, and she barely had enough time to shift around slightly to wedge it against the crossguard of her sabre. The combined strength of the two men were forcing her backwards, and she gave ground grudgingly, trying desperately to hold up against the attack.
"A little help please!" The tall pirate called out, sweat beading her forehead. Mari wrenched her cutlass out from a brigand's stomach, quickly turning (and wincing at the same time) as she swung at one of the men harassing Yossi, and he was forced to divert his attention, leaving Yossi free to push the other man off her blade. She took the opportunity to press her advantage as he was off balance, her lightning fast slashes forcing him to pinwheel backward, before he lost his balance and plummeted into the harbor. Behind her, Mari calmly dispatched of the man she was fighting, even as Eri deftly flipped a man who was charging her, using his own momentum against him and sending him crashing painfully into the cobblestones. A quick smash of her gloved fist against the back of his head made sure he wouldn't be getting up anytime soon, if ever.
A startled scream from behind them alerted them to their mistake. The bounty hunter had taken advantage of the chaos to close in on Rika, grabbing her roughly by the arm even as she tried to struggle, clawing at his arm to make him let her go, but that didn't work. Smirking triumphantly, the man was about to pick Rika up bodily and escape, when a hurled harpoon sliced across his arm, almost impaling it entirely. The bounty hunter let go of Rika's arm involuntarily, clutching at his bleeding arm, even as Reina raced forward, hefting another slim harpoon in her left hand, ready for another cast, while her main weapon was slung across her back.
Seeing that the situation had turned around, the lone man turned to escape, running surprisingly fast. But he had not counted on the steely determination in Reina's eyes.
"Oh no you don't." The running cast of the slim projectile gave it extra power and distance, and the bounty hunter stiffened in mid-stride when it crunched all the way through his lower back, the point coming out through his stomach in front.
A smugly smirking Reina skidded to a halt next to the panting Rika, folding her arms triumphantly. "I never miss a second time." She declared. The wonky-eyed pirate then turned to look at her shipmates.
"So, care to tell me what's going on?"
~*~*~
They stared at each other. Or rather, were ostentatiously not looking at each other, all while sneaking tiny glances at intervals, turning back hastily when their gazes met. It helped that the only two other people who were in the area were unconscious and therefore could not be a party to their discussion (or non-discussion, as it were).
But then again, it also meant that the two were painfully alone and aware of each other's existence like never before.
After Risa had passed out from the shock earlier, Ai had had to wake the other girl up by splashing water on her face. When the young sailor finally came to, she spluttered again at the concerned face of the barmaid leaning right over her, somehow managing to scramble backwards while on her back and putting a sort of a safe distance between herself and the other girl.
So now they were at an impasse. Risa was quietly gibbering in a corner, shooting nervous, guilty glances at the older girl, who had her own dilemmas to deal with.
Ai never had been placed in the situation in which she had woken up in today. Unlike some of the sleazier examples in her profession, she had never "entertained" any of her patrons in any way beyond serving them drinks at the tavern. Also, she had a decent alcohol tolerance, so it wasn't easy getting her drunk, but Yuko had pretty much overrided that tolerance by piling even more alcohol than she had ever tried at one sitting down her throat. As a result, she couldn't recall what happened after she passed out.
Neither could Risa, either. Both of them only had spotty recollections of being tipsy, then drunkenly singing at Yuko's instigation, before everything became a blank not long afterwards.
It was certainly a shock though, to wake up to someone sucking on her neck enthusiastically, even licking her. A fierce blush adorned her cheeks as she self-consciously touched the reddening bruise on her neck. Definitely a first to have someone that close...
Risa, meanwhile, was silently panicking on the inside as she fought for something to say that wouldn't make her sound like a total jerk or a total idiot, or both. 'I don't remember' sounded too flippant, and 'I don't know what I did' wasn't any better. Risa wanted to just roll over and die. What was she supposed to do in such a situation? Apologise, and offer to take responsibility? The poor girl didn't even know what the latter would involve. What, ask the barmaid to marry her?! But they were both girls! That wouldn't be possible...would it?
Even as the younger girl turned that possibility over in her head, Ai decided to edge closer. No point in them just ignoring each other, or pretending to, at least. It wasn't going to solve any problems that way. When she sat down next to Risa, the younger girl suddenly snapped her head up, her eyes wide as words came pouring out of her mouth.
"I'm so sorry! I didn't mean any harm! Sorrysorrysorrysorry!" A stream of apologies were spilling so quickly out that Ai began to feel more amused by the whole situation than awkward. Taking pity on the other girl, who was rapidly turning blue since she wasn't pausing long enough to take a breath between apologies, Ai spoke soothingly to calm Risa down.
"It's alright, breathe. That's right, breathe. In, out..." She coaxed Risa, who finally returned to a normal breathing pattern following the older girl's instructions.
Risa took an extra deep breath as she stared back at Ai, mentally mustering up enough courage to speak. Ai waited expectantly, her hands folded in her lap as she looked back at the sweating Risa.
"I'msosorryItookadvantageofyouforgivemewillyoumarryme?" The rush of words caught Ai by surprise, and she tried hard to separate the long sentence that had been mashed together by the panicky Risa. She managed to pick up the 'sorry' and the 'forgive me', and was about to say "yes" in response to that, before her mind clicked in on the last bit. Her face flamed crimson in response, even as Risa looked pale enough to scare off real ghosts.
The silence in the room was deafening after that moment, as the two awkwardly looked at each other, Ai not quite believing her ears, and Risa not quite believing that she just said that. Eventually the stalemate was broken, but not by either of the two involved.
"Ho HO! Did I hear someone say marry?" Apparently, Yuko was not as asleep as she had seemed. Of course, she was also not as susceptible to the effects of a hangover, and had been listening in on the awkward conversation with interest while pretending unconsciousness.
Both girls spun around to face the pirate captain, who had just sat up, stretching lazily with an evil grin on her face. Yuko yawned widely before continuing, her eyes keen and alert as she got up, prowling closer to the younger girls. Unconsciously, both of them held on to the other as they scooted backwards, clearly not liking the mischievous look in Yuko's eyes.
Smirking lazily at the two terrified girls on the floor in front of her, Yuko went on in a mockingly serious tone. "As you know, ship captains can perform legally binding marriages...if the two of you want to get married, I can perform the ceremony, right here and right now."
Ai didn't know what was scarier, the fact that Yuko looked more sane and sober than she had ever seen her before, or the fact that the pirate captain had just offered to marry her to another girl she had only just met the night before.
Risa, for her part, was just in shock, and was basically clinging on to the older girl she had just unwittingly proposed to minutes ago.
Yuko just grinned a very shark-like grin at them.
Meanwhile, Natsumi, who was supporting the still unconscious Maki on one side, was standing at the base of the stairs with Kaori, who was helping to hold up Maki on the other side. She had a slightly amused expression on her face as she watched the little scene play out.
"Shouldn't we tell them that nothing happened?" Kei, who had come down the stairs behind them, whispered to the two in front of her.
Natsumi and Kaori exchanged a look even as Yuko gleefully made the two younger girls stand up and face each other. Almost simultaneously, they both shrugged, identical blase expressions on their faces.
"Nah."
~*~*~
The attack came suddenly. The carriage was swarmed in an instant, and masked men fought their way in to face the carriage's startled occupant, who already had a pistol out and shot the first man that came at him. He put up a valiant struggle, but someone knocked him out from behind, blacking him out in an instant.
When he next awoke, he had been blindfolded and tied up, in a moving carriage. A short struggle with his bonds earned him only a sharp rap to the head, sending him to the land of unconsciousness once again.
The next time he painfully came to, his head throbbing, he was lying on cold wet stone, the musty smell reminding him of a dungeon. The ropes had been replaced with iron shackles, and the blindfold remained on. He could hear nothing, except for the dripping of water in some dank corner, echoing in the unremitting silence.
Even as he struggled to a sitting position, the man thought grimly to himself.
I should have expected that he would never have let me come back from that place, especially not after what I found out.The man sighed to himself, sounding old and full of regret. He could only hope that his family would be spared.
May God be with you...================================================
I wonder if I went too fast with Takagaki...hmm. Poor Risa. Confused and hysterical.
So tell me what you think people!
Topic: All Aboard! [Chapter 26! --sorry for the wait] (Read 139686 times)