The Princess and The Pirate

Kyle was dragging Jacqueline through the crowds of Paradiso. He kept pulling her arm, making the Princess keep up with his long strides. He couldn’t return to his ship. He had no crew. He had nothing but a girl and fat leeches on his chest.

People began covering their lanterns and lights, protecting their flames from the incoming rain.

“P-please stop!” Jacqueline called out, panting, having been forced to keep up with his pace for the better half of an hour. She pulled at her wrist, trying to call it back to her. “I can’t run anymore!”

This interrupted the good captain’s stride, annoyingly. He clutched the Princess’s wrist tighter in defiance to the request. “Do you want to die?”

Jacqueline put her spare hand on her heaving chest, taking in deep breaths of air. “Of course not, but I’m tired!”

His face tightened up and he raised his hand as if to strike her, but rather, he changed his palm’s course, knocking off a few bloated leeches. “I’m tired too! Don’t you ever think of that? I’m fucking exhausted!” Kyle snapped loudly. A few in the crowd turned their heads. “But do you know what a mutiny means?!”

Huffing, sliding her hand up against her collar bone, Jacqueline twisted her wrist, still in his hand. He wasn’t going to give it back. “It means you’re not a captain anymore.”

“Rudimentary understanding! What more could I expect?” Kyle said with a snide, curt smile. He closed the arm’s-length distance between them. “It also means that it’s open season. They kill me and they get away with it. Or, I kill them, and it never happened.”

Looking up at his face, she tried to pull her wrist away quickly, but he only clutched harder, “Of course I don’t know anything. I’m royalty, for God’s sake, I’m not ex—”

Kyle quickly brought his other available hand to Jacqueline’s face, covering her mouth, silencing her. “Shh! Cursed woman, shut the fuck up.” With her spouting off about her royal lineage, surely there were worse men, or better men, than himself listening. “You think everyone, everywhere, is so friendly?”

His brown eyes burned downward into her grey ones, but it was hard to take a man covered in leeches seriously. Regardless, Jacqueline internally acknowledged his deep drive to simply live. She was happy to be attached to that.

“Oy! Lovers get a room!” came a catcall from a whorish-looking woman staring down at them, paused dead center in the busy walkway. “Can’t you see people are trying to get to places?!”

With an annoyed eye roll, Kyle turned around and kept walking, slightly slower, but dragging his princess along for the ride.

Jacqueline kept the pace, lifting her skirts with her free hand, trying to not ruin the edges more than they were with mud and filth. The rain got harder, thunder clapping loudly above them.

“Where are we going?” she called out, dodging a bystander as they sliced through the populated streets.

“Away from the ocean,” he called back, having no real plan. Assassins were lurking in the shadows, his ship was gone, he was barred from the sea, completely landlocked, and he was completely responsible for an utterly useless soul. If Hell existed, it couldn’t have been worse than this.

A pot shattered beside them, a crossbow bolt stabbing into the dirt. It was enough to put the fire back in Kyle’s step. “C’mon, run!” he shouted, tugging her weight along.

Jacqueline felt a gust cut through her loose red hair. A bolt pierced a severed lock to the building beside them. “They’re shooting at us!” Unfortunately, she didn’t know who they were, exactly.

Before the pair could really sprint, a group of men appeared from an alleyway, interrupting their escape route. They were Kyle’s ex-crewmen, ready with chains and clubs. “Evening, captain,” the largest of the men said with a gap-toothed smile.

“So we’re street thugs now? Killing our own in cold blood?” Kyle replied, deeply disappointed that there was little honor amongst thieves.

“LET ME GO!” Jacqueline shouted, one of her arms ensnared by a second group. “Mr. Chatillon! Dogs! Unhand me!”

“Give us the girl and maybe we’ll let you have a head start. Fair is fair after all,” said a second man, tugging at Jacqueline’s forearm. She scoffed in protest.

“You know Donavan isn’t coming back, right?” Kyle took a step back, not letting his hold loosen on the Princess. “This is an ignorant, fruitless endeavor.”

“Oh, I dunno about that, captain. It’s been a while comin’.” Both groups attacked and a brawl broke out in the middle of the street.

Kyle drew his sword, the only weapon he had, and fought forward, still preoccupying his other hand with the Princess. He didn’t fight them with any pleasure or excitement. Despite his situation, he was trying not to kill these men.

His men, however, weren’t returning the courtesy.

Jacqueline, sick of being manhandled, threw her head backward, letting the crown of her skull smack the pirate hard in the bridge of his nose. His hold let loose, the pain in his face overcoming the bravery in his heart.

Wincing, she clutched the back of her head. Bravado really hurt!

“THAT LITTLE C—” the pirate roared before a sword was plunged into his gut, keeping his foul language locked within his throat. The captain whipped Jacqueline away, pushing her towards the cobble street, placing her behind him.

“Now! Go about your lives so you can sail again!” Kyle shouted at the approaching group.

“Chatillon…” He heard Jacqueline, but didn’t pay her any attention.

“…Your life is a prize, there’s no more reason for such carnage,” he continued.

“KYLE!”

“WOMAN! WHAT IS I—” and suddenly, they were both moving! Jacqueline had her hand around his collar and the two of them were quickly exiting the scene. The heels of his boots were clicking swiftly against the road. Looking up, he saw that Jacqueline was holding onto the luggage rack of a passing carriage. The many yards of fabric of her dress were smacking him in the face.

He could hear the horse’s quick gallops.

The Princess, never having to lift more than a feather her entire life, struggled with the weight of a full-grown man.

“P-please, help…yourself,” she whimpered out, assisting the Captain to some footing on the slim rack.

Kyle watched as Paradiso grew smaller. The crowds, the lights, the sounds, the pirates, and the ocean were left behind. Eventually, the plains of the city’s perimeter disappeared altogether.

The two didn’t talk much along their stolen ride. The developed city, with its nice roads and developed buildings, turned into a forest. Rich, mighty pines cast weird shadows in the evening, rain still following them, splashing mud from the wagon wheels and spraying them with rock and stone.

Tapping her hand, Kyle motioned to the side wordlessly. This road would only take them so far before it led them completely astray. He also didn’t want to be here when the riders grew wise to their unwelcome guests.

She looked at him, seeming sadly to come to the same realization too, and nodded.

It was a horse-drawn carriage, so the pair dismounted easily, only landing on a muddy, rainy road with a splash.

Eventually the jangling, neighing, clomping carriage was far off in the distance, leaving the two alone in the dark rain.

Kyle started first, heading towards the tree line.

“Where will we go?” she asked while picking up her skirts, as pointless as it was as the hems were already quite ruined.

“I don’t know. Stop asking,” he snapped, meandering into the forest. They needed cover, some kind of shelter from the elements and the incoming storm. It looked like his jacket over a tree branch was going to be their likely home.

Jacqueline, burnt out and having no ideas of her own, silently pursued him. Nature tore at her dress and muddied her ankles.

Along the way, he knocked more leeches off, crushing their plump bodies under his boots. He found a path, neglected and covered in weeds. Someone used this path once but now it was little more than a rabbit trail. Between the flashes of lightning, a looming shadow stood uniquely amongst the stark silhouettes of the trees and the haze of rain. Broken windows and a clay shingled roof were highlighted between during another streak.

It was a building taken back by nature. Kyle made a beeline for the shadowy structure with Jacqueline in close pursuit.

Still standing, it had a roof and the better part of two walls. It was practically high class for their current predicament.

She saw him climb the stone stairs, a door waving in the wind, and his figure sinking into the darkness of this ruined structure.

“Hey! Wait!” Panic took hold of her and she sprinted up the stairs. She threw open the door and the darkness inside echoed.

Kyle stood there, looking around. It was an abandoned church. The pews were covered with tarps, the windows needed repair. It was cold, but it was drier than outside. Lightning flashed, highlighting the religious detail within.

The only sounds between them were the drips of water from their clothes.

Jacqueline sighed and dropped her skirts, letting their ends plop on the ground. She ran her hand through her matted, wet, muddy, brambly hair.

“It’ll have to do,” she called out. Any good humor she had was gone. Her attitude was all she had left.

This ungrateful nature resonated poorly with the stressed pirate. The heel of his boots squeaked at his sharp turn and thunder clapped as he looked at her. “‘This will have to do?’ You think you deserve better?”

Twisting her face to the side, she put her hands on her hips, closing the distance between them. "This is your fault. If you hadn’t kidnapped me, I’d be home, you’d have a ship, and we’d go on living our lives just fine! You made your bed! Now you lie in it!” Jacqueline poked him hard in the chest, nearly shoving him.

Smacking her hand hard, he stood tall, cutting whatever space they had between them, and pressed his chest against hers. The Princess had to tilt her eyes upward to look at him.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” he snapped, anger making the corner of his eyes twitch. “Alright, fine. It was my mistake to assume you’d be a simple, routine score. But I’ve lost near everything! Men, my ship, my livelihood... I’m not asking for your pity or your stupid sympathy. Just care that men are dead, needlessly, on your behalf.”

“Me? Care about a dead pirate? Men who stole me and treated my cruelly? No, I don’t even care to know their names,” she replied with a sneer, only wanting to be vicious and mean. Her current state didn’t allow pleasantries.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve, standing in the shadow of the leader of those nameless men.” He grabbed her, digging his fingertips into her icy, fleshy shoulders. “You are the most selfish, unconcerned brat I’ve ever had the displeasure of trafficking.”

Jacqueline winced, trying to wiggle out of his cold hands. “Let me go! I’m sick of your filthy hands!”

“No,” he said quietly, his voice dropping to the same pitch as the rain dulling ticking on the roof. “I dreamt of strangling you last night.” Before she could even retort, Kyle had his hands tightly wrapped around the Princess’s soft, pale neck.

Jacqueline let out a broken gasp, grabbed at his wrist, and felt his thumbs press into the center of her windpipe. “K-Kyl—”

By his hands, he forced her downwards. Rage boiled hot just under his skin, wanting to smother the life from this troublesome girl. She clawed at him, digging her nails into his hands, looking upwards, terror in her eyes. She must have never known real fear in her comfortable life.

“You... You have cost me too much for nothing in return,” he muttered, seeing the tears build in her eyes and feeling her pulse quickening under his fingers. “If people are trying to kill you, I can save them all the trouble.”

Lightning lit up the inside of the church.

She whimpered in his hands, relaxing her nails and simply holding his knuckles.

“I’m sorry,” Jacqueline said with dry, chapped lips. The fear was sobering. “I’m just so scared of absolutely everything.” She breathed with shallow breaths, her chest puckering. She feebly hit his wrists, wet and glistening with rain and sweat.

Kyle kept his firm hold upon her throat, but found himself lowered down to his own knees, staring in her eyes. Donavan, his ship, his love of the seas, assassins, all his problems… right now, they didn’t know where he was hiding. They couldn’t find him in this ruined church within the woods. He was filled with anxiety at all the sudden hostility of the outside world.

As if finally acknowledging his own apprehensions, Kyle’s constricting hold relaxed, letting the sides of his hands rest atop her collarbones.

“I am, too,” he softly sighed. Everything was trying to kill them.

Another loud boom of thunder shook the very panes of glass in the building. Rain hammered downward, beating the church roof. A blazing bolt of lightning came crashing down near the outside of the dilapidated walls.

Jacqueline moved first, sitting herself upwards and sharply pushed her lips against his. Keeping her hands on the Captain’s, she quickly pulled back, changing her mind. She had never kissed a soul before! With a heavy blush she let out a breath, embarrassed.

The hardened pirate was shocked, sitting still. The Princess anchored him to the very spot and his fingers spread against her skin, unsure of what to grasp. When the kiss broke, as spontaneous and sudden as it was, Kyle stared at the features of her face. Her cheeks were flushed, her pupils constricted, and her bottom lip was more plump than her top.

He grabbed the back of her neck as she softly exhaled. Dipping his messy face downward, Kyle returned Jacqueline’s kiss. Her core was so warm. His bare chest welcomed the heat. The Princess’s hands slid up his arms, finding the collar of his damp trench coat and slid it off his shoulders. The captain pressed his thumbs into her soft, hot cheeks and overpowered her form, laying their weary bodies on the old church carpet.