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kreetthekobold · 6 years

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34 - Sigmundurr

Sigmundurr knocked on her door a little later. Kreet opened the door to let the big man in. His blue eyes looked unexpectedly sober.

"Gator," he began. "I've been thinking..."

"Always a plus," she smiled and beckoned him to sit on the bed. "I've been hoping to catch one of you anyway. I need some things for tomorrow."

"Oh? Like what?"

"Well, I need 6 amber bottles for one, the darker the better. Some sandpaper too. They'll have some at a blacksmith's shop if not here. Some tools too. Mostly a good small, sharp knife and a file or rasp. Glue too. And a good length of dark cloth. Cloth you can't see through."

Sigmundurr repeated the items back to her.

"I'll give you some more gold for this," Kreet assured him, but he shook his head.

"I don't need more gold, Gator. That's what I came up here for."

"What, are you rich or something?"

"No. I just don't need gold. Ever. Handy to have a bit around, but it ties you down. You may have noticed I'm not exactly... civilized."

Kreet laughed. "Sig, you are nearly the definition of chaos embodied."

"Gator, I'd like to go with you tomorrow."

She sat back in her chair at that. In many ways, he was the last person she would want to travel with them. She'd seen him go berserk at the least provocation. Murderously berserk. She didn't want to imagine how many people he'd killed.

"Sig... you know I couldn't stop you if you wanted to. But... Sig, I don't like you. I've already tried to fight you before. You are the opposite of everything I believe in."

"I know. But you need me anyway."

"I need somebody Sig. I don't think I need you. You're too much for me to handle. I was going to ask Dinkle. Besides, you're an adventurer. I don't plan on this being an adventure. I just want to find my home!"

"Dinkle? He couldn't fight off an orc!"

"I don't know. You saw him. He's resourceful. Plus he's a monk. Not exactly the same as a cleric like me, but he follows a moral compass, while you..."

"Chaos," the big man said.

"Yes. I can't control you. I don't want to have to try. I'm no leader, Sig. I'm not even backup. Until recently I was working at a tavern and the most excitement I'd have was a slap on the butt. I like it that way, Sig. I don't want... this," she said, indicating her surroundings.

Sigmundurr looked to be considering something.

"You can't stop me from coming with you, you said."

"Well, that's for sure! Unless you're bound and shackled, you pretty much go where you want."

"I'm coming with you," he smiled.

"Sig! No! Did you not hear anything I just said?! I don't want you to!"

Sigmundurr stood up and shrugged, smiling. "I don't care. I'm going with you. You need me, at least until we get out of the Underdark. After that... well, we'll see."

"But why? For Pelor's sake, why would you want to?"

Sigmundurr stepped to the door, holding it open before he left. "I like you, little kobold. That's enough reason for Sigmundurr. I don't like people often. I will be your leader. Till we're out anyway. I'll get your stuff. Oh, you can come back down now. The crowd has left."

He closed the door. This was definitely not going the way she'd envisioned at all.

She looked up at the ceiling and envisioned it in her mind. Beyond it was the roof, she supposed. A roof that had never seen rain. And above that, high above it, was the roof of the gigantic cavern that held the entire city she was in. Above that was probably miles of rock, dirt and who knows what else. Then above that was the great Outside as the residents here called it. Outside the Underdark, where light and darkness alternated. Where rain fell and wind blew and flowering plants grew. And above that was the sky. She was trained to think of that as the dwelling place of Pelor, though the presence of her own powers even here in the Underdark argued against his abode being in any specific place. Beyond that was the stars and moons. How far away they were, she couldn't fathom. Maybe this was Pelor's will after all. She might be a acolyte, but she knew as little as anyone how his mind worked.

Or maybe this was the work of Nerull, the God of darkness. Presumably the god of Kallid. This was undoubtedly his domain. She'd read enough about her own kind, even if she hadn't grown up with them, to know that they worshipped and feared their god of darkness. She didn't fear Pelor. She loved him. "It!", she laughed to herself. She couldn't picture the God of Light with some gigantic penis, even if that's what all the monks she'd known had implied he must have. What would he even use it for? No, for her at least, Pelor wasn't a man or a woman. He wasn't a he. But "It" sounded too impersonal, and she did feel a personal connection with him. So she'd just keep calling Pelor "He" for sake of convenience. He could be a kobold for all she knew, or cared. He gave her strength, comfort and the meager powers she did possess.

As an acolyte, she felt like she was failing. As far as she knew, she'd not converted a single soul to Pelor. But her method was the method her Master had taught her - to lead them to Pelor by example, not by proselytizing. In the end, her Master had let her down when she learned of his true history, in the harshest of ways. But she still followed his methods. She knew no other way. She went on her knees. She knew instinctively that kneeling was in no way related to praying, but it did focus her mind.

Then, something happened. Something like a white light washed over her. It had happened once before, and she knew what it was. She had been Raised. Somehow, with all her mistakes and foolish actions, Pelor had seen fit to raise her to the next level. She thanked him, but was too eager to find out what new powers she had gained. The knock on the door was annoying. But she rose anyway and opened the door. Sigmundurr was there with her supplies.

"Thanks Sig! Well, I've accepted you are coming whether I like it or not. I don't want too many people though, so it's just you, me and Kallid. Just leave those on the bed."

"That's a smart lizard," Sigmundurr laughed.

"Well, when a boulder comes crashing down the path at you, you don't try and stop it. You just try to stay out if its way," Kreet replied, not without humor.

"That's right!" Sigmundurr agreed and patted her head. It was an annoying thing he did, and botheringly patronizing. She'd gotten used to it. Being a kobold, it was pretty much a requirement. It didn't help that until recently she had played the part of 'stupid little naive kobold', and once someone's opinion of you has been set it's not an easy thing to change. She accepted it with good grace.

"Sig, if you're coming with us, would you mind terribly getting supplies together? Take some coin. I'm going to be busy here for quite a while."

"Sure Gator. 5 gold should do it."

"Thanks Sig. And Sig..." Kreet said as he turned around at the door.

"Yeah?"

"Look... I'm sorry about what I said before. It's not that I don't like you. It's just... you're YOU, you know?"

"Always have been. No problem Gator. I know I'm a bit much. But sometimes you need someone like me."

"And sometimes you don't! Try and control yourself, will you? For me?"

"No promises, Gator. I am who I am. But I'll try... a little," he said and closed the door behind him.

She sighed and turned to the supplies on her bed. It was getting late it was going to take a long time to make two good, functional sunglasses for her and Kallid. She picked up the empty bottles and the tools and began breaking glass carefully. She'd done this so many times over the years, she didn't so much as scratch herself. Working with unfamiliar tools was the only challenge, but it was a slow and intricate process anyway. Yet she had gotten good at it. She wondered idly while she worked if this craft making mindset was why kobolds were legendary for their trap making ability. Probably.

Finally she had finished and the night was getting late. She put away the debris, made her necessary oblations to Nature and Pelor, and crawled into bed. She didn't have to blow out any candle - she had been working in all but pitch darkness the entire time. A bell rang from the tavern room and she heard footsteps in the hallway open and close as voices passed by her door. She recognized some of them.

Then a light knock came and she opened the door. Kallid stepped in and she took his hand, not saying anything. She closed the door quietly and locked it. Then she led him to her bed. True to his word, he didn't try to do anything too intimate or dangerous. But she did enjoy his attentions and returned them with attentions of her own. An hour later she fell to sleep in his embrace, his head under hers. She could come to like this, she realized. Yes, she could definitely get used to this.

#kreetthekobold #kobold #fiction #d&d #underdark #series

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poeticsandaliens · 7 years

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A Pirate’s Life for Me (Ch. 2)

I would like to make a request that someone who is a good artist please draw this pirate Stella for me because I desperately want an actual visual of pirate Stella. I just wanna see Gillian Anderson as a pirate.

AO3 link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11405793/chapters/25602801

Scully wound her way through the cracked cobblestone of Los Barriles, her right hand resting firmly on her father’s flintlock pistol. It was an exquisite weapon, hand-crafted in London and carved ornately into its handle handle a ship bested storm-ravaged seas. She would not call herself experience with a pistol, for she’d never had occasion to use one, but its presence at her hip comforted her, and—or so she liked to think—intimidated any would-be assailants.

After all, Los Barriles was not famed for its morals. The inlet town, built around a makeshift port only a few kilometers from Port Washington, attracted washed up sailors and buccaneers seeking to set their feet on dry land without running into the British Navy. Pirates were rumored to make port at Los Barriles on moonless nights, to fill their freshwater barrels in one of the area’s countless springs.

Pirates, Scully mused, were at once her greatest concern and the very reason she came here at this late hour. She’d had no encounters of her own with legendary scourges of the sea; all she knew of pirates came from Mulder’s legends and her father’s death. The Flying Dutchman lurked at the front of her mind, but she dispelled it—myths of the undead had no place in Mulder’s rescue.

Scully wrinkled her nose as she stepped over the threshold of the Blue Baron. The muggy tavern air smelled of salt and rum and decaying fish, clinging to her skin and sticking in her throat as she breathed. Three men stood off with rapiers on the second floor balcony. A rat scurried across the floor, and then a flurry of wings dropped into view and snatched it in glinting talons, carrying it to an empty table. A pale owl perched on a chair and promptly ripped off the rat’s head, its heart-shaped face staring curiously at Scully. Lingering in the doorway, she stared back, mesmerized—it was a fascinating creature, elegant and ruthless.

A sudden gunshot rang out behind her, and she stepped decidedly into the tavern. As she scanned for a safe seat, she brushed a smudge of dirt off her trousers—a practical item of clothing her upright mother had not been too thrilled that she’d purchased. Her mother always meant well, of course, and had been nothing if not the rock of her family, especially since her sister had passed and her brothers gone to sea.

Sitting down at the bar, she wondered if she’d ever see her mother or Bill or Charlie again. If she did find herself a ship and crew to chase down Mulder’s captors, would she live to lay eyes on Port Washington and the white cliffs upon which her home rested?

“Can I get you anything today, Miss?” The scraggly man behind the counter gave her a toothless smile.

“Pint, please,” she said, eyeing the murky, probably illicit bottles of rum and ale shared between the Blue Baron’s patrons.

“Of what?”

“Whatever’s closest.” She would need a little liquid courage to ask one of these sea-weathered men for help.

“Pint of rum, it is.” He slid it over the counter.

Scully took a couple gulps of the foul stuff. “Yo ho and a bottle or rum,” she muttered cynically, if only to disguise her apprehension. Drinking in Los Barriles at this time of night, she felt well on her way to becoming a pirate herself. Once, she’d vowed never to associate with the skull and crossbones—it had become a herald of death in her mind, ever since her father had been slain under its wrath. Desperate times called for desperate measures, of course, but she considered herself an upstanding (if proudly rebellious) woman. Even trifling with the sailors in the Blue Baron she would hold to her morals.

“So,” the raggedy barman leaned over the counter, and she could smell at least three types of whiskey on his lips. “What brings a young lass pretty as you to Los Barriles?”

“Actually,” she said, leaning away from his intruding features, “I’m looking for a pirate.”

He grinned, and his grey eyes swept the bar knowingly. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“My friend—a man by the name of Fox Mulder—was aboard the Macbeth, which left Port Washington a fortnight past. Last I’ve heard, pirates sunk the vessel and took him as their prisoner.” She hardened her jaw and wrinkled her brow, stubborn purpose settling comfortably into her typically soft face. “I aim to bring him back.” She reached into the pocket of her trousers and brought out a handful of doubloons. “Three are for the pint; the other five are for anything you can tell me about who sunk the Macbeth.”

The bartender scratched the stubble on his neck, then scooped the coins off the counter. “I don’t think I could tell you who,” he confessed, “but I’ve heard of a ship.”

“By what name?”

“The Claudius. A man passed through this morning, said the Claudius had destroyed a British vessel and taken its navigator aboard. No negotiations, no parlay. They just took him—doesn’t happen too often.”

That sounded promising. Scully opened her mouth but found herself interrupted before she could respond.

“The Claudius, you said?” A woman’s voice, classy and weathered, piped up from the far corner of the room. There, a blonde woman in a red-feathered hat rested with her boots propped up on a small table. Shaded beneath the brim of her hat, her face was all cheekbones and weathered poise, calculating blue eyes fixed on Scully. Her pint of whiskey trembled as two men began to grapple on the tavern floor.

“And are you familiar with that ship?” Scully asked, ignoring her stutter as she stared down the imposing newcomer to her conversation.

“Aye, I am.”

“Last I heard, it was sailing toward an impossible island, seeking an impossible treasure,” said the bartender. He turned back to Scully. “Maybe that’s why they’ve got your navigator friend on board.”

It made sense—Mulder had brought dozens of maps with him, most of them limited to the confines of reality, but some supposedly leading to mythical treasures and islands of the dead. Mulder had a reputation for knowing (and believing) every sea legend he stumbled upon. Scully always considered it her duty to keep his feet on the ground.

“Do you know what they might be searching for?” Scully asked.

“I know what they seek,” the woman in the corner said gravely. She got to her feet and approached them with a slow swagger to her step—sea legs, possibly, or the confidence of the world-weary. She was dressed in trousers and black embroidered waistcoat belted at the waist with a hip holster. (It seemed Skinner was right.) She sat down beside Scully and leaned close, her aquiline profile made harsher in the pale candlelight. “They sail for the heart of Davy Jones.”

Intimidated as she was, Scully stifled a snort. She’d heard quite enough about Davy Jones and the Flying Dutchman from Commodore Skinner that morning. Were the circumstances not so grave, she might find it funny that Mulder’s favorite sailors’ tale would be the motivation for his capture.

“Davy Jones is only a story told to frighten would-be mutineers.” She chuckled grimly. “‘Take me orders or ye be sent to Davy Jones’s Locker’ and ‘the Flying Dutchman will scavenge your soul from the depths of the sea’ and so on.”

The barman seemed slightly horrified—or perhaps offended—and the woman rather amused, the corners of her mouth lifted into the slightest smirk.

“Have you ever heard the story of Davy Jones?” the barman asked in a reverent hush.

Scully arched her eyebrows. “Only the part where he cuts his heart out and buries it on some God forsaken island.”

“Oh, there’s more to it than that, Missy.“ He lowered his voice and leaned close to the two women. ” Davy Jones was once a ruthless young pirate by the name of Captain Philip Padgett Jones. He sailed the Flying Dutchman over these very seas with a crew of human devils, and as tribute to his victories, Pagett cut out the hearts of the Lord and Lady of every port he raided and collected them in an iron chest. For his beastly cruelty, he earned himself the nickname Davy Jones—the Devil Jones. But evil as he was, Pagett was also a gifted poet, and for each poem he finished he would wrap it around a human heart and drown it in the sea.

“For ten years, he terrorized these waters. But one night, he found only a woman in Lord’s house, and when he cut out her heart she revealed herself as the goddess Athena. The goddess was furious that Captain Padgett had abused his talents and defiled the poetry she guarded so fiercely.

“Filled with grief and remorse at having angered the goddess he worshipped every time he wrote, Pagett cut his own heart from his body and placed it in the iron chest. But Athena wasn’t finished. She cursed Pagett for his crimes, dooming him to sail the Flying Dutchman with the tortured souls of his victims until the day someone put the same knife through his heart that he used to carve it out. He could only touch land once every ten years, a penance for the ten years he sailed the living ocean. Now, alone but for the dead, Pagett truly became Davy Jones.”

Scully listened, wide-eyed, as the barman finished his story. Even if it was an old wives’ tale, she couldn’t help her curiosity, and this grizzled old man certainly knew how to captivate his audience. “Did anyone pierce Davy Jones’ heart?”

The barman shrugged. “I don’t know who would. According to legend, he who stabs the heart must take its place, sailing the Dutchman for eternity with spirits for company.”

“I don’t know,” the blonde woman mused beside Scully, drumming her fingers on the counter. “It hardly seems like too awful a fate.” Scully gaped at her, but the lines in the woman’s face told of the many hardships which informed her opinion.

The barman shivered. “Terrible, if you ask me. Imagine watching your brothers and sisters, your wife and children, aging and dying without you.”

“If you have none of those, the grief is spared.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Scully interjected decisively. “Everything aside, it’s still just a ghost story.”

“One day,” said the mysterious woman airily, “the truth of these tales might surprise you.”

Scully crossed her arms. “Who are you?” she demanded, tired of the nonchalance with which this woman had inserted herself into Scully’s quest.

The woman cocked her eyebrow. “Captain Stella Gibson,” she said, holding out a hand. “Stella to you.”

Tentatively, Scully shook it. “Dana Scully. Just call me Scully.” It was what Mulder called her, and she’d grown accustomed to it.

“And your friend—Mulder, wasn’t it—is trapped aboard the Claudius.”

Scully dipped her chin in assent. “I believe so.”

“Well, I can tell you with no small amount of certainty that the Claudius’s captain doesn’t give a rat’s ass whether you believe in the Flying Dutchman. He wants the heart of Davy Jones, and he won’t let something like rationality get in his way.”

“It’s a good thing I don’t aim to negotiate with him, then,” Scully said calmly.

“I’m curious what you plan to do, Miss—Scully, was it? I don’t doubt your fortitude, but one person is hardly enough to man a sizable ship, much less send it to battle.” Stella leaned her chin on her hand, elbow digging into the counter. She slapped three coins on the table and slid them to the barman. He left to fetch her another pint.

“What would you suggest doing, then?” Scully challenged. It wasn’t as if she could concoct a detailed strategy from some pub in Los Barriles. If she were being honest, she had a mind to simply sneak on board the Claudius, free Mulder, and sail home, but realistically, she needed a better plan than that.

Stella cocked one eyebrow. “I have a ship.”

“How lovely for you.”

“You could sail with me. I aim to pursue the Claudius myself, and I know exactly where to find it.”

She’d mentioned that something of hers was aboard the hostile ship, and Scully suddenly found herself quite curious as to what that thing was.

“And why should I trust you?” She remembered something Mulder had told her years ago, reading two contradictory accounts of a Greek pirate. Trust no one, Scully, he had said. Everyone had a bias.

“I never told you to trust me,” said Stella flippantly. “I’m simply making you an offer—we leave tonight, find the Claudius; I fetch my lost items, and you fetch your imprisoned man. I could use your help, and you could certainly use mine.”

“Don’t you have a crew?”

She shrugged half-heartedly. “My crew can only do so much.”

“Why me?”

Another half-shrug. “You seem competent. You have your wits about you, and you carry a pistol. Do you know how to use it?”

“Not particularly well,” Scully admitted.

“A sword, then?”

“I can effectively fight with a sword, but I don’t have one.” Her father had taught her swordplay when she was young, in case she ever found herself in trouble. This probably wasn’t the situation he’d had in mind.

“Well that’s easy enough to find.”

The barman returned with her pint of ale. “Here you are, Miss.” He beckoned for Scully to lean closer and pointed to a wiry young man a table away from her. He looked beaten, despite his youthful face; his tri-corner hat had a patch on the brim, and his breeches were torn at the knee as if from a knife.

“See him?” asked the barman. “His name is John Jack.”

“Quite a name,” Scully muttered.

“Says he’s got a ship and a crew ready to leave the dock. All he needs is a direction, and he’ll bring your friend back for you within the month.”

“Well that’s not going to do.” Scully lifted her chin. “I have every intention of being on that ship myself to see things go as planned.”

But the barman only laughed. “You’ve some spirit, Miss, and I can’t fault you that. But it’s bad luck to have a woman aboard, and you’ll find no one here willing to bring that upon themselves.”

“Oh?” Beside Scully, Stella fixed the barman with a cold stare. “I wouldn’t necessarily say no one.”

He looked skeptical. “Captain Stella Gibson,” he tried her name on his tongue once; then his own aged eyes met hers. “How’d such a woman gain command of her own vessel, eh?”

“Gunpowder,” she responded with a quirk of her lips, “like an upstanding pirate.”

Scully swallowed a mouthful of musky air. Perhaps she was in over her head, if her only ally was a proud-grinning pirate. But what had she expected in Los Barriles? Everyone here committed treason for a living. They were all pirates; if nothing else, she’d happened upon a smart one, who dared not underestimate her sex.

“And Captain Gibson,” the barman urged, “are you plagued with rotten luck?”

Stella downed the last of her drink. “That depends on who you ask.”

The tavern door burst open to reveal a burly, red-bearded man with a scimitar, who ducked his head simply to fit in the doorway. The room fell silent as he marched across the floor, creaking its rotten wood with every step. Fist-fighting crewmates froze in their places, following him with their eyes, and men around the tavern had their hands on the hilts of their sabres in case of a scrabble. Even Stella, leaning calmly against the counter, kept her sword firmly in grip.

He stopped in the center of the tavern, swayed for a moment, and Scully noticed the wildness in his eyes. He was likely just drunken and angry. He took a swig from an empty bottle of rum and turned a circle around the room. All eyes were on him.

“It’s here,” he croaked in a voice like splitting rock. “I saw it, I tell ye. I was filling barrels at the spring, and I saw it.”

Stella narrowed her eyes and leaned forward. “Saw what?” she asked slowly.

“The ship of demons.”

Scully rolled her eyes. All this talk of demons and curses and women bearing sour luck; pirates were a superstitious lot, clearly, for she saw no more evidence to support their claims than she had Mulder’s.

But the red-bearded pirate seemed genuinely spooked. Perhaps the sea was playing tricks on him, as it often did on these foggy nights. He had the entire bar on edge, as well.

“What ship?” Stella asked again, more sharply this time.

His lips trembled as he said in a hush, “The Flying Dutchman.”

Immediately, chaos erupted once more in the tavern, but it wasn’t a rowdy, lively chaos as before. This chaos was perilous, as every patron raced for the door. Gunshots echoed in her ears as one man blew a hole in the window and leapt out. Scully leapt behind the counter and crouched beside the barman as a bottle flew over their heads, the back of her red ponytail pressing uncomfortably against the wall.

“What do they think they’re doing?” she hissed. “Risking their lives to escape a mythical ship.”

“S’not a matter of whether the Dutchman is real, Missy,” said the barman. “They’ve heard tales, each more horrible than the last.”

One man leapt the counter and snatched handful of money from the box of nightly earnings. He glanced sidelong at the barman. “Get out of here while you have a chance!” he urged before jumping out the shattered window. The barman didn’t try to stop him, only sighed.

“They’re taking what they can before they go—to their ships or the afterlife, only time will tell.”

“Do you believe the Flying Dutchman is really here?” She couldn’t help asking—Skinner’s words had stuck in her mind. Perhaps the Dutchman, for all the tall tales it spawned, was a living ship commanded by living men. After all, what was the old saying—dead men tell no tales.

“I can’t say,” he confessed, but she could hear the panic in his voice. “But I seen it myself, once, back when I was a seaman. I woke up one morning, and through the dawn mist, I could see a ship with the pirate colors flying high. I readied the cannons, but when it got closer I saw only one man aboard. And the ship, it had crabs on its flanks like it’d touched the ocean floor. I went to the crow’s nest for a better look, but when I opened my spyglass, it just sank. Thought I’d just watched a man drown, but then I looked to the water, and its silver sails passed me, just beneath the waves.”

He shivered. “Don’t y'dare tell me I dreamed it, Missy. The water’s a lot bigger than you think it is; just wait and see. Y’don’t know what’s out there.”

Scully didn’t know what to make of the barman. Compared to the rest of this place, he seemed reasonable. “I suppose I will have—”

A rapier poked through the barman’s chest. A little scream escaped her mouth, and she clapped her hand to her throat. She grabbed his limp shoulders and shook, but he didn’t stir. His dark eyes were already glassed over when she slapped his cheek. Good God, she hadn’t even learned his name.

A pair of rough hands seized her by the collar. She looked up to the bulging eyes of the same young pirate who’d offered her his services earlier—John Jack. “Sorry, pretty lady,” he growled, “but I’ve got to take my plunders and run.” He pulled her toward him, over the dead barman’s legs. Her hands scrabbled at the floor; she reached for her pistol but found the holster empty.

“Looking for this?” The man taunted, waving her pistol in his free hand. When he sneered, his gold earrings flashed. His breath smelled sour, a mixture of whiskey and aged grime. It was the jolt of reality Scully needed. Gritting her teeth, she kicked with all her might at his knees. They buckled, and he released his grip on her shirt-scruff, stumbling backwards into the fray.

Scully crawled away desperately, back over the barman’s corpse, and scrambled to her feet. She elbowed her way through the crowd, searching for an exit. The Blue Baron was an absolute wreck, with men plundering goods left and right, killing each other over gold pieces and running into the streets, presumably to set sail.

“Not so fast.” John Jack grabbed her ankle, tugging her down. He still had her pistol, but by this point she couldn’t care less—her only want was to escape the fray. “Yer coming with me, if I’ve got to drag ye the whole way.” She kicked at his face, but his bony arms held surprising strength.

She lost her balance and tumbled to the floor. As John Jack reached for her calf, a black boot crushed his wrist to the floor.

“I would let go if I were you,” said Stella Gibson, and if she’d been intimidating before, she sounded now like the first claps of thunder before a hurricane. Scully got up while she had the chance and backed away from the pair. No use fighting without a proper weapon.

John Jack didn’t seem to intimidated by Stella, though. He flashed her a charming smile. “Sorry about that,” he breathed, tugging at his smashed fist. Stella cocked her eyebrow like a loaded gun and let him to his feet.

“What are you doing?” Scully whispered through clenched teeth. Stella gave no answer, but she’d drawn her sword. The owl once munching on stray rodents rested peacefully on her shoulder. Its head swiveled around, and its coal black eyes met Scully’s in some strange form of reassurance. So the bird belonged to Stella. It was a strange companion, to be sure.

When John Jack stood, he was a full head taller than Stella. Scully backed away until her legs pressed against a table. Stella did nothing, and John Jack winked cruelly at Scully over her shoulder. He raised the gun, but Stella didn’t budge. Apparently no pirate shied away from a duel, no matter the situation.

He cocked the pistol and pulled the trigger, and the shot seemed to bounce off every wall in the Blue Baron. Those who were still pilfering whatever they could find stopped and looked up. Scully could feel her breathing go ragged, as if the bullet had pierced her own chest. She had no sound left to scream with.

John Jack grinned his wild, death-heralding grin. He made for Scully, but like lightning, Stella had her rapier blocking his path. Her coat fell open, revealing a white bell-sleeved shirt and a hollow bullet-wound that did not bleed.

“Don’t waste precious ammunition,” Stella advised with a twitch of her misaligned lips.

Scully saw his expression shift from satisfaction to confusion to horror. He shot her again. And again. Two more hollow holes, no blood. The tavern looked on in a haunted silence. Scully kept waiting, in agony, for her to die—a part of her desperately hoped that Stella was as ghostly as she appeared, but her mind wanted only for the scene before her to conform to reason. She waited what felt like minutes for Stella to crumble, but she never did.

“You better die fast,” John Jack said, his voice shaking. The pistol fell from his hands. “Or your soul will belong to Davy Jones.”

Stella took a step forward. She pulled down the hem of her dirtied shirt. A pale, distinctive scar sliced brutally across the right side of her chest. “I am Davy Jones.”

Scully choked.

“Now return that pistol to its owner or you’ll be steering the Flying Dutchman tonight. And don’t think we’d sail to Heaven—eternal righteousness is rather dull for women like me.”

He picked up the pistol and handed it to Scully. She holstered it immediately, holding the anxious bile down the back of her throat. Then he fled into the night. Stella turned to Scully.

“I apologize if I’ve frightened you, Scully. You’re still welcome aboard the Dutchman, alive and healthy as you are.” Her eyes had lost their fire; they seemed to hold genuine kindness. They were living again.

“You’re Pagett,” Scully whispered, horrified.

“Absolutely not.” She pursed her lips. “Only Davy Jones. And, of course, Stella Gibson, which it holds that you may call me if you choose to come aboard.”

Scully moved her lips, but no words came out.

“Well,” said Stella, “I must be off, then.” The bird on her shoulder hooted, and the crowd parted before her as she strode out the door, sword still in hand. Her coattails were the last thing to vanish.

Frozen in time, Scully thought of the barman’s stories, of Stella’s—or Davy Jones’s—offer, Stella saving her life despite no obvious motivation to do so, and the advantages of befriending a captain who couldn’t be slain. Wasn’t this what she came for? To find a ship that would take her to Mulder?

Trust no one, Mulder had told her. She was fairly certain he had only meant the living.

She gathered her wits and marched after Stella.

#Television: The X-Files #television: the fall #dana scully #stella gibson #xf fic #a pirate's life for me #stella x scully

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