Would that I

Beatrice holds one hand in the other. Her nail digs into a red and raw thumb, peeling back thick chunks of skin, watching as blood pools around the site again and again. 

"Would you please stop that."

Her eyes flit upward to the two people who sit in front of her, her mother and father. A woman no older than 40, though she appears much older, deep lines of worry and discontent burrowed into her tan face. And a man, ancient, decaying, senile. They sit facing her in the velvet upholstered seats of a medium-sized carriage adorned with gold leaf and intricate designs. Everything about them seems perfect… their posture pin straight, their teeth gleaming, their clothes an extravagant display of expendable wealth.

You could tell that once upon a time, her mother had been a great beauty. Her elegant sloped nose, her long wavy hair, plump lips, the freckles that dapple the space underneath her big brown eyes, eyes that once might have glimmered with hope and joy. Not that Beatrice had ever seen anything of the sort, she was more used to the look of disdain and disappointment that seemed etched into her features. 

Her mother continues to speak. Her words edged with a familiar disgust. "I don't want the church to think we're giving them damaged goods." 

Her lip curls on the last two words. A sharp laugh breaks out from her father's side of the carriage. His fat, wrinkled fingers curl around the tip of his cane as his laughs grow louder and more grotesque. He curls in on himself as the laughs finally transform into thick, phlegmy coughs that scream out of his pathetic little body.

Her mother doesn't move, doesn't flinch. She stares at the coughing fit in front of her with blank bemusement. Beatrice's fingers return to each other, and she runs them over the pockmarks of exposed flesh that litter her carefully manicured hands.

"Damaged goods."

She already was damaged goods. She doubted that a few little cuts would change that. They all knew who she was. They all knew she was defective. In fact, that was the only reason she was in the predicament she was in. Her parents had given up. Her suitors had given up. The only thing left was to toss her on the doorstep of some nunnery across the ocean. Damaged goods left to rot.

A sharp pain ricochets across her knuckles as a cane is brought down upon them with a heavy hand. Beatrice looks up again to her mother, whose face has hardened into a mask of outright anger instead of her usual subtle glances and lip twitches. Her voice comes out in a venomous hiss, little white flecks landing on her lips as her tongue slams against her teeth.

"I told you to stop that, girl."

Something hideous wells up in the back of Beatrice's throat, clawing its way to the tip of her tongue as she looks at the woman in front of her, the woman that created her, the woman that destroyed her.

"I-"

'We have arrived."

Her mother breaks off their wretched staring contest as she turns to the carriage driver offering him a strange smile before turning her gaze back to Beatrice, her words edged with the cruel knife of time.

"Do not disappoint us, Beatrice."

Nostalgia hits Beatrice like a truck as she steps out of the carriage. Their location is none other than the makeshift market at docks on the edge of town. A place her mother and father used to take her when she was younger, still moldable in their eyes, still fixable. Fresh produce floods the poorly paved cobblestone streets. All sorts of characters file out of the boats that pull up, battle-worn and clearly loved, aged with the sun, and chipped in various places—laughing and comradery between long-separated friends, money slipping from one calloused hand to another, yellowed teeth and ragged clothes, dirt seemingly permanently wedged underneath the fingernails of the lot of them. Everything her father had warned her about. Everything her father had begged god not to let her become.

She lets the sharp salty air bite at her eyes and prick at her lungs as her hand hovers daintily in the hand of the coachman, a man whose face she knew more than her own father's. Her hands barely graze at his thick, calloused palms, worked over by rough leather reigns and restless horses. He offers her a smile as she walks down the handful of steps to the ground, a smile attempting to be reassuring. She flashes him a sad, knowing smile. The edges of her mouth fighting to stay upturned.

"Beatrice?" Her mother shoots her a stern look. Her head tilted slightly to the side as she watches a few feet away from the carriage, her body radiating impatience, nearly twitching in irritation.

Beatrice turns away from the coachman, her face shifting into the solemn grace that was beaten into her.

"Coming, mother!"

She lifts the frills of her ridiculously puffy dress as she trots over to her two captors. They walk in uncomfortable silence, her mother always the epitome of elegance to those that did not know her, her back like a ruler, her head held high, her daughter and husband following her dutifully. She slows her militaristic march as the targets of her determination come into view.

They're a strange sight against the fray and chaos of the market, a handful of women in their carefully starched, blindingly white habits, their charcoal gray robes stark against the setting sun. Though, Beatrice couldn't imagine the three of them were faring much better in terms of standing out. A smile pulls at her mother's lips, twitching up unsettlingly as she strides towards the women, her mouth stretching wide enough to bare her gleaming fangs. 

The oldest woman, all sharp lines and rigid edges does not smile back, nor do any of the nuns behind her.

"This is the girl?" The older woman's voice is cold and unfeeling, her lidded eyes cast down at Beatrice.

Her mother's grip tightens on Beatrice's shoulder. Her mouth fills with bitter bile.

"Yes, this is her."

Her tongue worries at her teeth, and her fingers have returned to picking at each other. 

"Right, co-"

"BOARDING HAS STARTED FOR THE ICARUS. PLEASE START BOARDING NOW."

The older woman is cut off by a loudmouthed sailor that shouts from the deck of a great ship. The hand on Beatrice's shoulder loosens. The nuns have already started walking towards the ship, though the older nun looks back at Beatrice.

Beatrice turns back to the two people who failed to raise her. Her voice is as cold and flat as her face.

"I'll be seeing you, then."

Her mother gives her a curt, formal little nod.

"Certainly."

"Right. Until then."

She swivels on her heel, digging her feet into the mortar between the cobblestones. She follows the flock of nuns, who remain a few paces ahead of her. She does not look back.

It had already been a number of days since the Icarus had set sail, and it still had a number of days before they would land in Spain, and for all intents and purposes, it had been peaceful. More peaceful than many days that Beatrice had had at her home. During the day, she was free to do what she pleased. As long as she didn't mind the ever-watchful eye of the sisterhood, she became more accepting of the freedom of the night. 

Freedom wasn't exactly the right word. It was more the feeling of freedom that seemed to emanate from the smell of coal and grease, oranges and barnacles that radiated from the ship, constantly clashing with the sharp sting of the sea salt. The smell that would fill Beatrice with the sort of warmth she thought only existed in myths. But that didn't mean she didn't feel it. Feel that awful, sinking feeling in her gut as the helm of the ship got ever closer to their destination. A horrible knotted thing twisting through those fleeting moments of freedom, tightening around her heart with each passing day. She couldn't be free forever. 

There was a new smell in the air. One that claws at Beatrice's throat, burning her from the inside out. Her eyes water as they open. The air is thick with that smell. It is not one that she is unfamiliar with—the scent of fire. The knot grows tighter around her stomach as she launches herself from the cot. The floor is hot. Everything is hot. Burning. The distant sound of screams echo from somewhere outside. Pleading and desperate. Her body is moving her somewhere her mind does not know. She reaches for the handle slowly. The metal eats away at the skin of her palm. Beatrice doesn't let go. Instead, she pulls at the disintegrating wood again and again. Her flesh screams in agony as the white hot metal digs further and further. Finally, the door gives, and Beatrice is faced with the reality of the situation. Thick black smoke penetrates every pore of her skin. Her lungs burn in ways she hadn't thought possible. Her heart rams itself against her ribs as if doing it hard enough will let it burst out of her chest and escape into the night. Her legs seem to move of their own volition, weaving Beatrice through the smog, through the carnage, and towards the hazy orange light that flickers at the end of the passage. 

Chaos confronts her as her legs slow and eventually halt altogether, right at the edge of the madness. Smoke pours from the blazing ship, making the night sky's dark blue grimy, and gray. 

The surviving passengers, including most of the sisterhood, have all been rounded up and stripped of anything and everything. Bulky, ridiculously grimy men and women run from place to place, avoiding the fires scattered throughout the ship's deck, their arms laden with glittering jewels and extravagant garments that they seem to toss in one of two piles, the fire or the floor. And in the middle of all of it, of all of the chaos and the smoke and the horror, is the most beautiful thing Beatrice had ever seen.

A woman Grinning a ridiculous grin, her eyes alight in the blazing fire, gleaming with passion, with adventure. Her hair is short, and her cheeks are full and pink. Her face is round, but her features are sharp in a strange way. She is adorned in a mess of treasures, no real cohesion, captains coats and pants and hats and shoes from different plunders, rings and chains, and a gold tooth that glints in the orange light. Her plump, pink lips round over each syllable with a curl upwards as she shouts instructions at the shaking, terrified passengers with a tone that seems she's doing this for no more reason than she wants to entertain herself and a smile that confirms it. 

Her eyes flit to Beatrice, only for a second, but that's all it takes for two rough-handed brutes to grab Beatrice and shove her to the ground with the rest of the lot. Her hands scramble at the crumbling burning wood beneath her as the two men advance, smiles creeping up their scarred, knotted faces. That familiar twisted feeling tightens around her screaming heart.

"Leave her be."

The two men's heads snap up as they turn towards the woman perched on the crow's nest.

"She's just another one of those nuns. She's got nothing worthwhile." She says, flapping her hand dismissively.

"Just a nun? " A glimmer of defiance shoots through Beatrice's veins at those words. She was barely even a nun, let alone Just a nun.

"Oh?"

Regret replaces the defiance in Beatrice's eyes almost immediately as the oddity of a woman above her jumps from her perch, her black leather boots thudding against the wood. A sinister sort of bemusement glints in her eye as she crouches down to meet Beatrice face to face. 

Beatrice breathes shallow breaths. Her heart rams against her chest like a rabid dog desperate to attack. Every line and pockmark of the strange pirate woman's face is visible. Every little battle scar and dimple, every worry line, the corners of her soft, downturned eyes crinkle as she scrunches her lids together. 

"Was I wrong about you?"

Beatrice doesn't respond. She doesn't say anything. Saliva wells in her mouth, and her blown-out eyes widen even further as the woman tucks her rough hands underneath Beatrice's chin, commanding her head with her hand, tilting it slightly as the Pirate attempts to examine her. Beatrice's heart is deafening, a constant plea to escape ringing through her ears as skin meets skin. Her lips parted slightly, just enough for the Pirate woman to notice. Raising a thick eyebrow, a slight grin gracing her face. She keeps her hand gently tucked beneath Beatrice's chin as her pulse slams against it.

"Come on, princess, don't make this harder than it has to be." 

Beatrice gulps, and the Pirate woman's hand lifts with her jaw. She smiles again, this time all teeth, bright and wide and mesmerizing, as she gazes down at Beatrice as if she were the sun gazing down at all the little people on earth. Her eyes are gentle but commanding, almost curious.

Beatrice finds herself pulling out a large, golden cross from between the chest of her dress, a gift from her father before she left. The hand falls from Beatrice's chin, and her stomach drops as the Pirate woman meets her gaze. 

"See? Wasn't that hard, was it?"

The Pirate woman starts to turn away from Beatrice, her business with her now concluded, her seduction skills no longer required. She turns to her crew, the softness in her replaced with hard edges and commanding presence as she puts her fingers to her lips and produces a shrill note. The crew drops whatever they're doing and starts to round up their haul. 

The knot grows bigger with each step the woman takes away from Beatrice. With each second that the flames grow larger and larger, consuming everything in their wake, it claws its way up, digging its gnarled fingers around her lungs. This was it. Around her heart. She was going to die here. Around her spine. They were all going to die here. Around her esophagus. She was going to die nobody. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  

"Wait."

The Pirate pauses in her tracks, not of her own volition but more because Beatrice's arm has shot out from her body, and her fingers form a vice grip on the woman's exposed wrist. The woman forces an inquisitive smile and turns back to Beatrice. 

Her throat burns, and her tongue feels thick and uncomfortable in her mouth as she looks up at the Pirate woman. Her face is a desperate plea for something more, her eyes glossy and red, her mouth downturned in a strange quivering frown. She does her best to meet the Pirate woman's eyes.

"Take me with you."