Thread: the new world || bear & dragonfly

They spoke of the New World in a reverance that she thought at times they surely must be speaking of Heaven. When Charlotte thought of the New World, she didn't imagine a land of opportunity and riches but instead another slab of land in which she would be prisoner of circumstance until her father found use of her. It was a shame, her mother told her, that her father hadn't been capable of siring a son. A true shame. Instead of dreaming of the New World, Charlotte dreamed of the Sea. Though rough at times and difficult to love, there was an openness here that she enjoyed more than she could express. The Sea was where she felt she truly learned about herself, watching the sun rising from seemingly nothing and watching the stars still in the sky as they transversed endless miles upon miles to a new home. There was a still in the silence that couldn't be matched and at night she lay on the deck and watched the moon in its humble home in the sky, her lips curving into a soft smile as she mused over what life must be like to live beneath this all year round. Her life, in comparison, was nowhere near as lovely as all the stars in the sky. Quite contrary to that, she lived a life that was mundane and scheeduled. Hair neat, dresses pressed, and cheeks rosy at all times. Even at sea it must be perfect. She liked much like every other woman that existd, though perhaps that was what saved her when true tragedy struck. In the dead of the night, she'd heard the call cried out from the bird's nest above, terror in the sailor's voice as he'd screamed the one word no one wanted to hear -- Pirates! Time passed, slowly as if it they had suddenly been dropped into molasses instead of air and she watched in quiet mixed horror and amusement as the crew and passengers alike tried to find safe places. There was, honestly, no battle. There was nothing much as the much better-armed and out-numbered the skilled fighters. In the thrill of chaos, they didn't notice someone as small as Charlotte slipping way, nearly hugging the planks that had been tossed from ship to ship to allow the pirates to board. Their ship wasn't kept in neraly the same shape as the one she'd been on, and it quite obviously had been well-loved and often sailed.But it was quiet. She found a spot between supply barrels that was small enough for her and her dresses to fit, and this was where she hid herself, among the sound of distant waves and in the shadow of the moon. This, too, was where she sat audience to the sudden sounds of gunshots and screams. They echoed over the water and brought horror into her chest as laughter roared across the deck, her blood cold as the sound of nearing and passin footsteps came. She sat crouched as she covered her ears to mask the sounds of further screams, the empty splash of bodies a cold noise that made her stomach sink down into her hips. There was something final in the wood-on-wood sound of the planks being pulled back, her muscles screaming in her cramped space as time passed as endless as the sea. Morning would come eventually... But now, at this moment, her legs screamed for release. She was hesitant, but she crawled from her hiding spot and let her legs stretch, her body arching as she worked the kinks from her thin frame. There was nothing out here anymore, no neighboring ship and hardly any moonlight... But there was a man. Danger, perhaps, was closer than she realized...