Common Motives

Chapter 51: In Hope

Samantha had lost count of the days that she and Jewel had been locked in the brig of the very ship that they had come to call home.

From the very moment that Sydney had slammed the door after bolting out of the brig, Quintus being dragged behind her, the buccaneer had somehow known that she would not be coming back – there had been a certain sense of abandonment that had lingered for long enough afterwards.

Sydney had not glanced back.

Not even for a second – no, she had torn out of the room.

And Samantha had lost hope.

She herself found it extremely ironic – as she was known to herself and to her shipmates as the strong, energetic, bright eyed buccaneer, who was never dissuaded or discouraged by anything, who always picked herself up after a setback, who never held a grudge or a hateful thought.

She had lost hope.

After Sydney had sprinted out of the door, after Samantha had consoled the sobbing, screaming swashbuckler, who was wrought with the despair and pain of betrayal, after Samantha had realized that Sydney wasn't coming back down.

After she had heard footsteps run across the deck after exactly three days, three days of feeling her mouth parch and dry and her tongue turn swollen in her mouth from the dehydration, her head pounding and her body aching and her mind left to wonder if this is how it ends, and her hopes had absolutely soared when the thudding of boot heels could once again be heard, even though they were overtop her –

But then they had left.

The sounds had grown farther and father away, and soon they could no longer be heard.

And Samantha had screamed.

The raw cavern of her throat, dry and rough from dehydration, had grated against itself and the buccaneer soon found herself retching blood onto the floorboards below her, the crimson liquid spilling out over her lips and sinking into the tears and cracks of the flesh, where they would dry and harden and only add to the mountain of pain that had been set upon her shoulder.

Jewel was in no better state; she had screamed herself silent within four hours after Sydney's mad dash of abandonment from the brig, and she looked a ghastly sight.

Her skin was stained with her own blood and tears, her lips darkened, cracked, torn, and almost shriveled – Samantha inwardly shivered, partially horrified that the swashbuckler practically mirrored her own condition.

Samantha wanted to speak to her.

She wanted nothing more.

She wanted nothing more than to reach out to the swashbuckler and to reassure her, even if it would be with false words of comfort, for she could not take this mental denial anymore.

More often not, she had found herself lost in endless spans of floating, numb, and dull clouds of thought – and it was only then that she remembered that one of the effects of severe dehydration was hallucinations.

Samantha prayed that Jewel did not hallucinate first.

Oh, don't let her, she would plead, don't let her fall victim first – yet, what she truly meant was more along the lines of oh God do not let me see my fate before I am subjected to it.

However, soon after Sydney had departed for what Samantha had concluded to be the last time from the Grand Fife, it had began to rain.

At first, neither the buccaneer nor the swashbuckler moved – their brains had turned to mush, unable to process thoughts anywhere close to a normal speed, and it had taken them several minutes to finally realize that it was, in fact, pouring.