Prompt 292 - Head Over Heels - Rolling Waves - Tekia - Original

[tekia.livejournal.com]

Title: Rolling Waves
Fandom: Original
Prompt: Head Over Heels
Warnings: none
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The back story of just who The Thunder Princess is.

The Thunder Princess had been born on a night terrorized by a storm. The night had been violent, and the dawn had broken bright and clear after the storm, the clear light showing damage from the storm in stark relief.
It was her mother that had named her equally after her father and the storm. Her father had been out somewhere at sea, not to learn of his daughter’s birth until weeks later when he returned to his home berth. While still proud of his get, he was sharply disappointed that she had been a she and not a he.
The Thunder Princess took no note of his disappointment and proved to be just as capable as a boy in her willingness to learn and sail, despite the taboo against it. When she was old enough, she cut her hair and roughened up her face to appear as a boy and applied to a stranger’s crew.
She started out on the lowest rung, merely scrubbing the deck until her knees were scrapped raw and her hands burnt from the lye. She cut vegetables in the galley and she sewed the ripped sails after storms that made her blood pound in her veins.
She killed her first man when pirates attacked the cargo ship she served on, his blood warm where it spilt over her shaking hands. Then her stomach upturned and the quartermaster was shoving her below decks and out of the way.
She didn’t cry. She couldn’t give away the game this far into it, so she bottled up her fear and pain and buried it deep inside. The second time she killed was just as bad as the first, but the third time it was easier, for the man knew her secret and was ruthless enough to attack her for it.
She received a dashing scar on her ear for that fight and a shiner over her left eye. Ever after, she swore never to drink with her crewmates again.
By the time she moved onto her fourth crew and third ship, she was a seasoned sailor and nearly seventeen years old. She was head over heels in love with the ocean and all its moods. She knew the sea was for her, and that the deck rolling under her heels was enough to keep her happy.
She had taught herself how to read the written word as well as the stars in the sky. She could navigate and read maps and predict the winds. She knew as much about sailing as any man, and could put a ship through her paces in her sleep. Storms were no problem for her talents.
On her fifth crew, she was hired on as quartermaster, despite her frail form and youth, her talent far outweighing either.
By her twenty-first summer, she was the leader of a small group of men that went wherever she did. They called her a good luck charm. Every man that went on a crew with her returned to their home berth. The five of them were highly sought after and The Thunder Princess had her choice of which crew to join.
It was in her twenty-fifth year that things changed for her.
Her team had been hired for a three month trip to the Blessed Isle and back to the island of Solon. Nearly half way through the trip, they had been attacked by pirates and The Thunder Princess fought viciously beside her mates. Then the very captain betrayed them. He ordered them to set down their weapons and allow the pirates to board. Enraged at his cowardice, The Thunder Princess tried to revolt and was subsequently marooned on the nearest abandoned island.
A sharp look from her piercing green eyes made her fellow crew members to stay their sword arms, and she was left tied to a stake in the center of the island with rumors of hungry ghosts haunting the place.
The first day she tried to escape the chains that held her prisoner until her hands bled. The second day she tried to reach for a tool to reach the bountiful fruit that was just out of her reach, her mouth dry and her stomach rumbling with hunger.
The second night the ghosts came to her, but the circle in which she was held protected her from their hunger. They circled her, howling and screaming like wild creatures as they fought the magic that had been laid down decades ago. She sweated in the boiling sun during the day and shivered in the cold of night with fear.
It was on the fourth night that the tone of the hungry ghosts’ moans of pain changed. She pressed up against the stake she was tied to and sorely wished for a weapon.
The ghosts were a pale white glow all around her, like a mist rolling over the island, vile and nasty faces glowering at her, and then they were suddenly gone. The air changed from the freezing cold to the more natural moderate temperature.
Still, the hair on the back of her neck stood on end, her heart pounding in her ears.
She could feel eyes on her and that was far more frightening than the ghosts that couldn’t step over the spell circle. A living beast was immune to the spell. Hungry and mad with thirst, she wished the beast would come to her and end it.
When the large, sleek cat finally stepped into her view, she met its yellow eyes without fear, ready for her death. She licked her lips, felt the cracks and the seeping of blood and knew it was either the cat killing her now, or the sun killing her later that day. She wished for the cat to make it quick.
The cat circled her, slowly inching closer with each pass, its eyes never leaving her face, unblinking.
She didn’t know fear, her whole body relaxed and limp. Then she smiled.
“Come Master Cat. Feast before my flesh turns to leather.”
The cat froze at the dry croak of her voice, and then blinked slowly.
While she was distracted by the cat, the mist returned, but it was different than the mist of the hungry ghosts. A wispy form of a ghost emerged from the fog and came to a stop beside the cat, just out of the stretch of her legs. It took her a moment to focus on the new ghost; another to realize that it wasn’t a hungry ghost and that it was standing inside the spell circle.
They stared at each other in silence before she swallowed hard. “Who are you?”
“You are the child of the king.”
Her head rolled on her shoulders, her lids heavy. “My father is the pirate king.”
The ghost nodded and seemed to kneel before her. His hand reached out, stopping short of touching her. “My brother was once the pirate king. He was Thunder, the storm of the seas.”
She blinked tiredly and tried to focus. “Thunder? I’m Thunder.”
He shook his head. “My brother was Thunder. Before he died.”
She tried to lift her head. “My father and his- his father were Thunders.”
“You are my blood.”
Her eyes slipped closed and her head fell forward, the chain pulling hard on her neck.
When she woke next, the ocean was splashing over her face, the salt stinging her cracked lips. She gasped in shock and sat up abruptly, her head swimming violently. She blinked hard, holding her hand to her aching head.
She smelt blood all around her. The water swirling around her was pink and her previously brown shirt was dark with stains. She gathered her feet under her, confused.
Hadn’t she been dying? Starving? Dehydrated? Surrounded by hungry ghosts and stalked by a beast of a cat?
She felt well. Her body didn’t ache and her mind was clear despite the swimming sensation from standing too quickly. She looked around her and recognized the same island she had been on for the past week.
Her stomach rumbled as if she had only delayed her midday meal.
What happened? The ghost had called her blood kin and then she could remember nothing.
First thing first, she found fruit to eat, and she ate like she were a wild beast herself, spilling juices down her chin as her teeth tore into the meat. She drank the sweet water gathered in cupped leaves from a rainstorm days before. Body seen to, she explored the island and found neither the source of the ghosts, nor the holt of the giant cat.
What she did find was the grave of an unknown man.
She knelt beside the marker and traced the scrollwork, reading the spell to herself. A curse and a binding spell.
The ghost of her kin was tied to this island. He was killed here and he was lost to her family.
She knew him.
Her grandfather was the first Thunder, Storm of the Sea, pirate king. He had had a brother that had disappeared, whom he had never stopped searching for, nor mourning the loss of.
Red Nimbus. Great-Uncle Red Nimbus. She patted the marker and stood. The spell was poorly made and she bet she could unravel it. She couldn’t do much more than that.
“Sorry, old man, but at least I can set you free.” She quickly set to work erasing the spell and freeing him.
The work went quickly, far quicker than she had expected and she thought, in the dim light under the cover of the fruit laden trees, her hands glowed green. She finished the unraveling of the spell and blinked at the fading glow.
“It is enough,” his voice came from the shadows and she turned to look at him. He was still a ghost, and the cat was still at his side. He smiled. “Thunder Princess.”
She stood and bowed. “You saved me.”
He shook his head. “We saved each other.”
She smiled and looked to the cat. The huge black panther blinked up at her, its eyes wide. Red Nimbus glanced down. “Take him with you wherever you go.”
“Can I?”
“He is me.” The ghost faded and the white aura descended into the cat, his yellow eyes turning gold. Then he tilted his head and seemed to grin.
The Thunder Princess grinned in return.
“All right. We can do this. We can really do this. I’m The Thunder Princess and you’re Red Nimbus and we’re the royal family of the Ocean and even the Dynasty fears us.”