Real Men Actually Do Die [ADVENTURE]

The shipyard grave seemed like a fitting place for her to be. The bare bones of former vessels called to her, singing a song of their former beauty by every creak and crackle of worn wood touched or trampled. Kara could see the glory of their glide across the sea in their dilapidated shapes. Her soul ached to stop by the side of one of them to rest, as if to be the wreck walking was untoward and disrespectful in this place where things of beauty came to end. So enspelled was she that to be told to watch her step was actually useful, her trail so far something close to a dreamwalk.

Her surviving self awoke from behind a vacant gaze, the light of awareness flickering precariously low but present as she reached out for the ladder. It was a strange sensation going up – not one of the creaks ruffling her instincts, most of her quietly ready to have a backward drop to an early grave, tresses trailing in the wind as she closed her eyes. But her hold on the ladder never gave, and against all of the resurfaced pain she rose up, higher and higher until they reached the top. Her unspoken anguish stayed internal, and when he said they required to wait, she gave him a simple look and nod.

For all intents and purposes, she wore armor of a type that wouldn’t break, not even as result of internal corrosion. Now on the ledge and looking down at the metaphorical yet physical representation of her heart, she trained her attention to keep vigil for the sights of truth beyond the self-designed illusion. “We’ll be lucky if the one you wounded will be here. He’ll be the one we can easily spot and also recognize seen closer.” For clearly there were more of the slavers than the pair of men that had escaped them that day.

Kara preferred to speak to Emile without looking at him, her attention still not as sharp as it could be.

“Leave the close range fighting to me, if possible” she requested, feeling an actual need to employ her sword. “Under the circumstances, you’ll do better from range, correct?”

Kara steadily took in a deep breath, allowing the pent up emotion to take hold and spread from her core down to her limbs. She sat in its weight as they gazed out the window in prowling wait, acknowledging that the grief had not ended, that she had probably many more leagues to go, that maybe it would never again be okay. Underwater was a sensation she knew how to live with, breathing in the pain to allow it to run its course until finally she could resurface.

“Are you scared?”

The question lured her empty gaze, and she watched Emile’s eyes for one long moment. “Afraid?” She echoed almost curiously, half for the fact that this man had chosen to ask, half for the value of the sentiment itself. “Perhaps I will be when we come to blows and I can feel death’s claws on my neck, waiting to cut.” She turned her stare away, to lay its shallow vigilance back outdoors. “Perhaps not. Once you lose the one thing you believed you could not live without, once your whole world falls apart to the worst case scenario, it’s difficult to fear anything.”

Pain coming from betrayal, pain from wounds, pain from rejection, pain from loss – all of these things could cut deeply yet could be survived, she’d learned.

”Are you?”

Emile was an oversensitive man, and while she was curious for what lay behind his fortification, she knew for a fact it could not withstand her. Over the course of time, she had proven to be fire to people like him, leaving behind only scorch marks and debris. As such, she would not beat on his walls in hopes to create a door. There was no point.

After the simple admission, his back had turned to her, which was good. Kara had fallen through the cracks to be in the company of her ghosts, and Emile was making it easy for her to feel alone with them. Only minimally in touch with reality, she sailed an in-between place where in the distance she saw silver shores. If she happened to reach them tonight, she would experience no regret.

And yet.

“Why did you join my sister’s crew?”

It was something Suzie had not told, something Kara had not asked. Emile had been presented as a good candidate for her goal and that had been that. While her curiosities were many, this in particular was important.

Kara had to turn to listen, her relationship with and full exposure to feelings from the past placed on pause. What was surprising wasn’t so much that Emile had opted to respond at length, but the content of the revelation itself. Her sister’s dream. She stood watchful for a moment – clearly slightly surprised. Had Suzie’s ambition expanded well past sailing the seas and finding Percy’s past? Or was that what had inspired him? One of these days she really had to sit down with Suzie to have a long, deep chat.

The sound from outside drew attention from both, but whatever it was came from very far away, shrouded in darkness. Kara watched the window with unwavering focus, on the lookout to observe the first sign of movement when it presented itself. Emile’s question put a nostalgic smile on her face, but she didn’t turn to respond, preferring to keep vigil.

“I followed someone very dear to me into their ranks. He wanted to make the world a better, more just place, and we both decided going into the marines would satisfy this quest.” Then the smile slightly dimmed along with the hint of uplift from her tone. The look in her eyes gained some vacancy, but not the sort caused by inattention. “We were not entirely right but we were not entirely wrong.” And whether or not Emile had had the misfortune of being sent against those very ideals within his time of service, she wouldn’t want to ask. It had the potential to open up a can of worms she preferred to keep lidded for a variety of reasons.

From around one of the wrecked and pilfered ships, a group of men who walked not unlike a pack of wolves had stepped into view. Seeing them prowl filled her with familiar desire to hunt, her hand already aching for the sword and cut.

“Also, the “easy life” you described sounds like no life at all. This is living, to me – going into the deep and close to the fall, all the while armed with a goal. To live for nothing and have nothing, that’s just being dead to begin with.” Kara preferred the pain and the pleasure and all that life had to offer. She didn’t want to die, but equally she didn’t cling to life.

“I miss him,” she stated, clearly and without hesitation. “I miss him and I can’t replace him.” And nothing about their current circumstances could truly get to frighten her, for she didn’t fear dying, and she didn’t fear Emile dying either.

It appeared the brooding male was chock full of surprises, and in all honesty she had no idea what had inspired him into an authentic exchange. Kara had them all the time with anyone willing, the ins and outs of her emotions something she explored regularly. Quite aware of all the pain she still had to work through, she handled it one bag at a time, the process of healing a long and arduous one. And no one could help or make it worse by mere words – at least no one she knew, because words were just leaves in the wind.

She listened to his story with the same practical form of attention she had decided to employ a few moments prior. He spoke of a burning that she had channeled into vengeance, not stopping until all the pirates who had taken her crew and fiancé were dead. What made her curious was how he spoke about this affecting his remaining relationships. “Did you feel like the weight of the pain was overwhelming, to the point you had to push away anyone who could make you feel anything?” It was the way she had made sense of his description, and needed to verify she had understood.

But she let him go on, her eyes ignoring the streaking star.

Something missing she could definitely understand. “It’s normal to seek out relief, and feeling numb is a good way to achieve it,” she commented, figuring that if he stopped wanting to respond, he would simply do so. “I’ve personally rarely been there – feeling nothing. All of my pain flooded me at once, demolished me. I was in pieces at the end of it, completely shattered, but that was when something magical happened. With no way to go but to rebuild, I could finally decide who I wanted to be and how I wanted to interact with the world.”

Most people were slaves to their emotions, easily tossed about, but Kara didn’t feel all that helpless at all. To great extent, she chose to dwell, she chose to feel well. This wasn’t to say she could fully control the impact of something she had let happen – things still hit her hard when she opened up to receive them, but the saying was true. Pain was unavoidable, suffering optional.

“Do you know what’s missing?” Was the last thing she would ask before rising up, having decided before him that it was time to head out and face the remaining slavers.

Unable to help herself, Kara chuckled, her lips staying to a smile even a little while after, the vacant expression beginning to lighten as she breathed in the night air. “So you get along with people by not talking to them? How does that work?”

Her suspicion at this point was that he was concealing a highly critical nature, but it could always simply fall back to preferring to keep people out. It was easier, less messy. It was difficult for people to love or hate you if you never declared opinion for evaluation. In Kara’s case, she was out to rub people the wrong way until she found the ones who asked for a full massage. The moment she encountered someone she actually wanted to give one to was rare and precious.

She listened attentively as Emile opted to refer to what was missing within him. That was not the angle she had cast out, but she would reel in the fish either way. “It sounds like you have the opposite problem to mine – my ambition has often placed me in danger.” Except for lately, when even her own fire stumbled for lack of clear direction.

His question made her glance to him with a small grin. “I don’t intend on dying, but if I could chose a way to go, I would pick this. Going away warm in your bed isn’t my kind of story.” She mused, sword out of its sheath and ready to meet some flesh. She looked away. “But if you want the truth: I rarely want to die. It’s far more likely for me to want to see what’s next. Somehow it feels like it’s not over. It wasn’t over then, so there must be something else, and for the sake of that something that’s expecting me to be there, I want to march on.”

And reminded of this fact, she would definitely not die tonight.