Pirate; The Seavey Pendant

15. Finally Back

Kieran had, for the sake of safety, tied the life boat as far away from the north gate as he had dared.  Cinnia thought he had exaggerated safety a little bit too much as she desperately wished she had any other shoes than her thin slippers to run in.  Several small ferns and twigs tore at her exposed ankles and feet as she ran.  She panted heavily as she struggled to keep up with Kieran and Adorno.  The sound of water washing on a shore caught her attention,  "Are we--are we close yet?" Cinnia forced the words out from between each breath.

     "Yeah--yeah, we can stop here."  Kieran said, stopping to lean on a nearby tree as he tried to control his ragged breathing.  A sash, brown from dirt and grime, had been tied around the trunk of the tree.  Kieran yanked on one end of the sash and the knot was undone.  He folded it messily and stuffed it in a pocket.

     Adorno sat down on a boulder and spat into a small patch of grass between his feet, "Damn, you'd think being a pirate would help you stay in shape, eh?"

Cinnia sat down near the trunk of a tree as neither she nor Kieran answered him, for Kieran had already recovered and started searching for the life-boat.  He approached the shore, disappearing between the bushes and trees.  She could hear him rooting around among the greenery.  Adorno was still heaving and Cinnia's sides hurt from cramping.  She leaned down to rub her sore ankle carefully.  Her feet were numb from the chill of the weather and her stomach grumbled greedily.  Her patience had grown thin and all she wanted now was a warm meal and a comfortable bed.

She stood up and brushed off the dirt from her pants.  Behind her, she could hear Adorno following her example.  Still breathing heavily, she followed the sound of Kieran's searching, only to find him scaling the shore, lifting brushwood and ferns.  The shore consisted of a small sandbank, divided from other portions of the waterside by boulders and impassable ferns that grew wildly in all directions.

     "Need help?" Adorno asked, stealing the words right out of Cinnia's mouth.

     "Sure," Kieran said over his shoulder.

Adorno hurried over to search through the ferns on the other side of the secluded beach.  When Cinnia believed he was out of ear shot, she awkwardly moved towards Kieran.  She stood there for a moment, watching his arms and back move as they moved branches and leaves around.  She didn’t know how to do this.  How to talk to a man she . . . liked.  Liked?  It sounded awfully childish in Cinnia’s head when she described her potential feelings like that.  Cinnia could, if she wanted, disarm a mediocre man in under a minute.  Yes, she assumed she could even kill if she so needed to.  But talk to a man romantically?  Wasn’t that what women were supposed to do?

Playing man, in a man’s world, Cinnia thought as her jaw clenched in annoyance with herself.

She mentally slapped her own will back into place and raised her hand.  What do I do?  Just put my hand on his shoulder?  Just tap him?  Damn you Cinnia, it’s just Kieran, she thought.  Ignoring her own cowardice and the heat that inched its way up her neck to her cheeks, she gently tapped Kieran on the shoulder blade.  Kieran’s head turned immediately, “Yeah?  Is something wrong?  Should I do something?” He asked, his eyes roamed over her body, as if to look for some kind of problem.

     “Damn it Kieran, I can take care of myself.  There was something. . .I wanted to talk about.” She said nervously, suddenly feeling as if all of her stubborn nerve that she constantly tried to show off escaped her.

     Kieran dropped the handful of branches and turned his entire body towards her.  “What?”  He fidgeted with the hem of his shirt, trying to hide his uneasiness at the fact that they were wasting valuable time.