Prompt# 372 - Driving in the Dark - Thunder's Reach - Tekia - Original

[tekia.livejournal.com]

Title: Thunder's Reach
Fandom:Original
Prompt: Driving in the Dark
Warnings: a bit of blood, ghosts, and pirates
Rating: pg-13
Summary: She came from a long line of famous pirates, and she was going to be damned if her little rat of a cousin took that fame from her.


They were going to call her the Thunder Princess, only because her great-grandfather had been the Thunder King, and her grandfather the Lighting Lord. It had been her uncle that got the name Thunder Master, and his son's hadn't received a name worth of renown. Her own father had been Typhoon.
That wasn't to say that her father hadn't been just as cunning, just as ruthless, as his forefathers, but he hadn't been as feared, she supposed.
Not the way her great-grandfather and grandfather had been. Not the way she was quickly becoming.
Or so she had fancied, before today.
Before today, she had easily believed the complements the men of her family had told her, about how she had the look of her great-grandfather about her, about how she was far more clever than the cousins that had proclaimed that they would be the next to take up their ancestor’s mantles.
She had become the captain of her ship through her own mettle, and she had earned her right to stand proud at the helm of her ship. Her sword was a drenched in blood as the rest of her family’s. She would kill her cousin Cirrus when she freed herself from this prison.
Then she had to swallow as her eyes took in the cage that held her prisoner. It was a flimsy device, made of waterlogged twigs and twine, but she couldn’t even reach it with how her arms were tied over her head to the pole driven deep into the wet sand. She kicked her feet uselessly, scattering sand and spewing curses that would have made her mother take her over her knee in years past.
Her loving cousin had left her her dagger and sword, both also out of reach of her kicking feet. There was even a bottle of rum settled in the sand, the cork pointed away from her, the brown glass glittering in the sporadic sunlight that broke through the canopy of broad banana leaves. She struggled with the bonds holding her, the twines growing tighter with her struggles and as they dried.
She was well and truly screwed.
Heaving a sigh, she bowed her head, letting her chin rest on her chest, her eyes slipping closed. She was out of ideas. Cirrus had taken her ship and crew, leaving her to die on her own on this tiny island in the middle of nowhere.
Over the sound of the surf and wind, she heard a leaf crunch, and her head snapped up. The rest of the crew had abandoned this island hours ago. A cold shiver went up her back, starting at her legs and ending at her scalp.
Her father had told her of ghosts and monsters that lived in the unknown parts of the ocean, and she didn’t for a moment disbelieve him. She wetted her lips, eyes moving frantically as she sought the source of the noise. Her father’s first mate had told her about the time he had to face off a ghost that drank human blood out of freshly ripped off skulls, and she could clearly see that ghost in her mind’s eye, waiting just beyond the shadows of the trees.
Another crunch, slow, like a foot falling with trepidation and stealth. Her breath hitched in her throat, and she could feel her lip trembling as fear beaded on her skin in cold sweat.
The first thing to emerge from the shadows was a pair of yellow eyes, somber and steady as they stared at her without blinking. She gulped in a breath and held it as the large cat padded closer, its nose twitching as it smelled her fear. The thing had to be tall enough to come to her waist at the shoulders, and weighed nearly twice as much as she did. The fur was a glossy black that hinted at the darker black spots. The paw that extended the past rest of its body was large enough to cover her whole face were it to strike out at her.
It took another step closer, and she screamed, kicking her feet and thrashing her whole body, ignoring how blood was now dripping down from her ripped wrists. The leopard bared its teeth, saliva dripping from the open mouth, and fangs that instilled more fear in her than the size of the beast had. Its round ears flattened and it swiped at her.
It was still too far away to touch her, and only jostled the wooden cage. It snarled and screamed at her and stuck the cage again, daring to come closer. The massive claws caught on the twine and brittle wood, pulling the cage away and crumpling the poorly made structure.
She cursed and kicked, and the cat batted at her booted feet. She felt the claws sink into the leather of the boot’s sole only a moment before the cat turned and hissed over its shoulder.
Panting frantically, she kicked at the paw still attached to her boot, trying to either dislodge the claw while the cat was distracted. Or to injure the cat itself, she didn’t know which.
Then the cat turned away from her completely, turning its back on her, the cord of a tail whipping back and forth before her face in clear agitation. The claw left her boot, and the cat swiped at the air. Confused, she glanced away from the beast toward the darkening forest and felt the blood drain from her face.
A ghost stood just in out of the shadows, his body blue, and she could see the trees through him. He wore a hat with two feathers jauntily flowing over the brim, a cape, and heavy boots. At his hip sat a sword and dagger, and after a moment, she bit back her fear and tilted her head to one side.
“Father?”
The ghost mimicked her head tilt and took a step closer. The cat screamed at him, taking two small steps closer and swiping at the air. When the ghost didn’t react, the cat crouched back, snarled, and then jumped into shadows, fleeing.
The ghost watched it go before turning its gaze back to her.
Her-her father wasn’t dead. And this wasn’t her father, although he looked eerily similar. She had to swallow twice before she could force more words out of her fear tightened throat. “Who-What do you want?”
The ghost stepped ever closer, waved a hand, and the rest of the cage between them was swept away. She flinched, ducking her head away, eyes clenched shut. Her whole body was tense as she felt the cold of death begin to surround her. Something cold and solid touched her arm where a warm rivulet of blood had made its way down from her wrist.
She bit back a sob as the stories of blood drinking ghosts came to the forefront of her mind once more. The touch was gone, and when nothing more happened, she dared to peek up.
The ghost was kneeling before her, his finger in his mouth and she could see her blood bright and there on his lips. This sob she couldn’t hold back as she pressed her back firmly against the pole holding her captive, wishing for more distance between them.
Then the ghost spoke, and she had never heard stories of ghosts speaking. His voice, she thought, if he had been alive, would have been low like her fathers, slow and drawling, but as he was dead, it was overlaid with a cold bite, and a distance that came from the beyond the grave.
“You are of my blood.”
She forced herself to study his face, features so familiar to her, as he studied hers in return. His eyes, she knew, would be a deep blue like the ocean in the midst of a storm, his hair as black as the pitch used to seal her ship. His skin would be the same copper as her own. She licked her lips, fear settling into her stomach.
“Are you- Are you the Thunder King?”
He tilted his head and brought his eyes up from her chin to her eyes. “Thunder King? No, I am not he.” He reached out, and she flinched away, but he didn’t stop, his cold, lifeless fingers touching a lock of her hair where it had settled over her shoulder. “Are you his daughter?”
She clinched her eyes closed and shook her head. “His great-granddaughter.”
If the dead breathed, the sound he made would have been a gasp. She peeked up at him. His lips had parted, and his eyes were wide, but he wasn’t looking at her. “So much time has passed,” he said softly, disbelief thick in his voice. Then his eyes returned to her. “You look like him.”
She took a deep breath and stilled her resolve. If she were to die here…
“I will take up his mantle,” she said, her chin tilting up. “It will be me that all pirates will call king.” Her voice growled with stubborn tenacity. “It will be my flag that puts fear in the hearts of law abiding men, and it will be me that retires amid mountains of gold and silk.”
He smiled. “You sound like him, too. But, pray tell, how do you think to do that from here?” He gestured to the twine that held her prisoner still.
She cursed and kicked out, but her legs went right through him. Perhaps her fear was gone, because the chill of her legs going through his ghostly form only had her deflating in defeat. “I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
He stood, towering over her. “I have thought of something.”
She bowed her head, the strain on her shoulders numbing her. “And what would that be, ghost?”
“Chew your hand off.”
Her head snapped up, incredulous, before she snorted. “So I can be called Hook? And what would that accomplish besides freeing myself from the ropes? I’ll still be stuck on this island without rescue.”
He nodded and turned away, walking silently back into the shadows. She watched him go, for a moment tempted to call him back, but she stopped herself. She was better off without the so called help from a ghost.
She shivered and brought her feet close, her knees close enough to prop her brow on and give her a bit of protection from the outside world.
She feared the cat coming back. She feared the ghost coming back. She feared the approaching night.
How could she have been so stupid as to trust Cirrus? She had known from childhood that he was vile and untrustworthy. He would sell his own mother, give the right price. If he thought for a minute that the Thunder King’s title would go to him after this…
Well, there wasn’t much she could do about that. She was trussed up like sail against a storm. What hope did she have with a flesh eating cat stalking her, a blood drinking ghost mocking her, and her arms loosing sensation?
She wondered which one was going to kill her first.
~*~*~
Dark had fallen while she slept. One moment, she had been all but panting in the heat of the day, and when she next opened her eyes, a cool breeze was drifting through the trunks and underbrush, shadows dancing in the moon's light. Her flesh felt feverish and her lips were chapped.
When she woke, she jostled her hands, and the dried blood around her wrists broke, little flakes drifting on the wind as new blood welled through the cracks.
She blinked her eyes against the grit that had settled in them and licked her lips, trying to focus her wayward thoughts.
She was still tied to the post, but the cage had been crumpled to the side by the cat and ghost.
Her pulse thundered in her ears and she shifted her legs closer, eyes shifting rapidly to the left and right in search of either monster. She was currently alone, and she couldn't help but wish one of them had killed her in her sleep rather than while she was awake.
The rum bottle was still sitting just out of kicking range.
She licked her lips again and tried to tilt her head back to see the twine biting into the skin of her wrists. The skin was bruised and ugly with both wet and dried blood, and puckered around the twine.
She bowed her head again and waited. Soon enough, she heard the crunch of leaves under a padded foot.
The cat then.
She lifted her head and could only see the glowing yellow eyes watching her. Had she more hope, she would have screamed and kicked and tried to frighten the cat away like she had before, but as it was, she merely murmured, "Come on then."
The cat stalked forward, stopping just out of reach of her bent up legs, and sat back on it's haunches. It stared at her for a long moment before yawning widely and laying down, its large head resting on its paws.
Dumbfounded, she stared at it as it closed its eyes. Silence descended broken only by the sounds of bugs and the ocean.
And then the cat seemed to glow, the tips of the black fur lighting with ethereal blue light. The ghost emerged from the cat's body, unfolding to his full height and grinning at her. He threw out his hands as he stepped out of the cat's body. The leopard opened his eyes, blinked tiredly at the two of them, and then dropped its head to sleep.
"What do you think?"
"Did you possess the cat? Why?"
He came to a crouch before her, and she shifted her feet further away. The night air was cool, but the air around the ghost was even colder.
"What do you know about how the Thunder King came into his riches?"
She blinked, her mouth dropping open. "He captured several wealthy merchant ships. The greater part of his wealth was hidden away on an island until he could retire." The ghost was nodding in agreement. She went on: "For some reason, he never returned for that wealth, but the rest was enough for him to build a house for his wife and to take over a city that called him king."
"Why didn't he come back for the hidden wealth?"
She tried to shrug, but the pull against her abraded wrists made her wince. "Nobody knows, he never talked about it."
"Do you want to know?"
She looked up at him, her eyes wide. "Who are you ?"
He grinned and crouched before her. "My name was Samraat Monsoon, and the Thunder King was my brother."
His eyes were her father's eyes, she knew, and his hair was her grandfather's. She had first mistaken him for her father when he had shown up before, so this revelation wasn't much of a surprise. The fact that it was the Thunder King's own brother standing before her was a bit of a surprise, she had to admit.
"You were killed during a raid."
"I wasn't."
Her brow shot up. "You weren't?"
"I wasn't. We had come to this island, the whole of the crew of the Silent Storm," he said, waving to the trees around them. "Once, there was a small cabin built up there, on the ridge overlooking the cove."
She tilted her head, but could only see the tops of the trees hidden in shadows. The moon's light tried valiantly to cut through the thick layer of leaves, and only a few beams made it. "It's gone now?"
"Fallen into the ocean during a storm. It was old. But we arrived here, and hid the treasure that we had accumulated, and were on our way back to the ship when the quartermaster started a mutiny. They killed me, and the Thunder King killed them."
"Nobody ever said a thing about that."
He smiled. "Yeah, he wouldn't have, would he? Those that died were his friends."
"Family."
He paused and flicked his eyes back to hers before bowing his head. The feathers on his hat bounced with his every move. "Yes, my brother. He was loyal and honorable. I don't remember what happened when I died. I wasn't... here for that." He shook his head. "Anyway, the man that started the mutiny lived on. He escaped on a small vessel hidden in the cove, taking with him the source of the Thunder King's magic."
Her brow shot back up. "Magic?"
"Yes, magic. How do you think I'm here, still? It was magic that let us become so successful as pirates, and it was magic that made the Thunder King unbeatable."
"He was beat many times. He was an excellent pirate, make no doubt, but he wasn't supernaturally powered."
"Before or after my death?"
She had to think about that, which was much harder than it should have been. Who would have thought that sitting on her butt would be so tiring? "I don't know," she finally confessed. "It was so long ago."
"We had magic," he said. "We had it, and with its help, we became unbeatable. When Jib stole the artifact, we were left to fall."
"Wait. Jib?" Where her heart had finally slowed from its erratic tattoo against her chest, it now seemed to stutter. "Jib Boom the Bloody?"
"The one and the same. You know him?"
She licked her lips, trying to focus her thoughts. "He's my uncle. His son is married to the Thunder King's granddaughter." She shook her head, trying to clear the fog. "He's dead now, and was an old man when they married."
Samraat Monsoon leaned forward, his eyes intent on her face. "His belongings?"
She growled. "My cousin," she spat. She kicked her feet, consciously avoiding the sleeping panther. "That filthy rat!"
He tilted his head in a fashion so familiar to her, a question clear in his transparent face.
She hissed her breath out between her teeth. "He's the one that left me here. Swore up and down that he was going to take over our family's title." She grinned at the ghost, feral and blood thirst. "But he's not a pirate. He's barely a sailor. He could only stand in the sun if he got rid of me. He turned my crew against me, because he's stupid enough not to be able to make his own crew. Without my carefully selected crew, he'd be driving in the dark, with incompetent and greedy sailors."
"How'd he get your crew on your side?"
Huffing a breath, she knocked the back of her head against pole. "There was a merchant ship. We were just going to take it, an easy mark. They were laying low on the water, so we were so sure that they were heavy with goods." Her lips tightened. "It was guns. They were waiting for us. They knew we were coming. Nearly put us into the deep." She cursed. "And somehow the captain had my token." She tilted her chin down, gesturing to the cord around her neck."
The ghost reached for the collar of her tunic, but then hesitated as she couldn't hold back a flinch from his cold touch. His hand dropped to his side.
"The crew believed his lies over my defenses. They marooned me here. He would never have gotten away with killing me outright. Our family would have strung him up."
"The crew?"
"I couldn't figure out how he had convinced them to turn on me, despite his poorly executed scheme."
"It had to be our artifact. It gave us the edge to convince others we were far more deadly than we actually were. It gave us the wherewithal to know when to attack, where to attack. It wasn't much, but it was what put the Silent Storm at the top. Before I can rest, I must return that to my brother's hand."
She gaped at him like a fish for a moment. "He's dead."
"Sadly, yes."
"How? He was buried at sea over fifty years ago."
The ghost stared at her, looking a little lost. Then he brightened. "If I did none move on when I discovered that your cousin, my brother's great-grandson had the artifact in his hand, then I must give it to you."
He stood and turned back to the cat. "Come, we have much to do, and quite a ways to go."
He mimed pulling up his hands, and the cat's head came up, large yellow eyes looking at him. As he approached, the leopard's ears flattened, and it exposed its fangs, but didn't retreat. Samraat Monsoon stepped through the beast and became one with it, the glow of his ghostly-self fading away into the night.
The leopard shook its head, as if fighting the possession, before turning those yellow eyes on her. She tensed as it approached, pushing her back against the pole. The leopard bypassed her person, and it only had to reach its leg up a bit to reach the twine holding her. The deadly claws easily slid through the bindings, and then she was free.
Her numb arms dropped to her sides, her hands throbbing painfully. She hissed as she dragged them into her lap. The leopard sniffed at her wounds, its nose wet and its whiskers prickling her skin. Then it moved away, leaving her to gather herself.
Her first order of action was to reach for the bottle of rum, dragging it through the sandy ground with one finger looped through the glass handle and a hiss of pain. She sank her teeth into the cork, and it came free with a loud pop.
More rum went down her chin than into her mouth, but the burn and the bite let her forget her wrists for the moment. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve, careful to avoid her bloodied hands as she gathered her feet under her. She gathered up her dagger and sword, replacing them at her hip, where they belonged.
The leopard had sat at the edge of their camp, watching her over its shoulder. When it saw that she was standing, it too stood and starting walking.
Bracing herself, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and followed.
The leopard led her through the dense forest, uphill the entire way. She had to duck branches and climb over fallen trunks while the cat easily slid through the underbrush like a shadow. She kept her eyes glued to the cat's black back, half in fear that the leopard was going to turn around and attack.
It didn't. It didn't even pause to look over its shoulder to make sure she was still following, or pause to let her catch up with it.
Finally, they stopped, and she leaned heavily against a tree, trying to catching her breath. Before them, the land dropped away into the cove that she remembered from the beach level. From up here, the wind was sharper, the air crisp. She gazed out that the cool blue of the ocean as it gently rolled its waves into the cove, onto the beach. The moon bathed the landscape in blue light.
"It's beautiful."
The leopard sat on its haunches beside her, following her gaze. After a moment, it moved to lay down while the ghost stood.
"I loved this place. The cabin that used to stand just there," he said, pointing just to the left where the trees were thin and young. She could see the broken earth from the landslide that had taken the house with it still exposed like a broken bone ripped through skin. "We grew up in that cabin."
Her eyes turned back to the ghost who was still staring out at the ocean.
"Our grandfather had built the cabin for his wife when it was discovered that she was hunted by the despot of her homeland. He snuck her away and brought her here where they lived until they died." There was a small smile on his lips. "They only had one child, and had no family besides." He looked at her, only his eyes moving. "Nobody knows about this cabin hidden in the middle of the ocean."
She grinned. "The Thunder King's treasure is still here."
"I made sure none of Jib's attempts to retrieve the gold and jewels were successful."
She pushed away from the tree. "Oh, I could learn to love you."
He returned her grin and turned away. "This way to the cove."
She groaned. "We just got up here." Throwing herself back on the tree, she slid down its length. That trek uphill and through the trees had left her far more tired than she had expected. The heat had taken more out of her than a day on the rigs. "I need to rest."
Samraat Monsoon watched her as she carefully held her hands in her lap and she settled herself against the tree.
"We should hurry."
She opened one eye and looked up at him. "Why? We're stuck here without a boat. Soon, I'll be as much as a ghost as you. Haunting this island until I can get revenge on that rat."
"Do you know how long I've been dead?"
She closed her eye and shifted against the tree. There was a bit of bark biting into her back and no matter how she shifted, the bark was always biting her.
"Longer than the Thunder King. I guess around sixty years or more."
She felt him crouch before her, the cold of his unearthly body making chills spread over her skin.
"Sixty-one years," he said. "And in that time, I've had plenty of time to think of revenge." She opened her eyes to regard him silently. "Do you think that I don't know every step of how to get off this island and to get that artifact?"
Her grin returned to her lips. "All right. Let's do this." She shoved herself to her feet and started down the slope. And then the cat was loping at her side, urging her away from the direction she had been going and toward another greatly overgrown path. He led her through more trees and underbrush and down sharply broken rocks until, suddenly, they were at the beach.
She could see where the dingy had cut into the sand, the sharp indents filled with water, and growing softer with each lap of the ocean.
The leopard skirted around the beach, keeping to the shadows of the forest. She tried to keep him in sight, but with the black fur in the dark shadows, he was easily lost to her. She cursed and reached for the dagger. She slashed at the vines and leaves in the way, searching for the beast.
"Samraat Monsoon! Dammit, where did you go?"
The cat popped up to her left and hissed at her. She corrected her path and found herself looking into a dank cave. She ducked her head and shoved aside the overhang. The moon's light was faint, coming from the far part of the cave, carried by the waters and small stones of quartz. In the cave, she saw three rowboats, two of which were not seaworthy, but the third was. She rushed to it and dug through the debris inside it.
There were two oars, a tarp, a water skin that had dried up ages ago, and the dried bones of a rat. Not much, but she could make use of the water skin and the island had an overabundance of fruit to see them well into the voyage.
"This should do us well. If we can get to a trade rout, a ship can pick us up and take us to the nearest port." She looked up and found that the leopard wasn't anywhere in sight. She turned around in nearly a full circle until she spotted the black panther sitting next to a wall, its back to her.
She walked over to it as the ghost left it. The cat ambled away to lay on an outcropping of rock.
"Touch this rock here," Samraat Monsoon said, pointing to a rock that protruded from the wall only a bit farther than the others around it. "Push it in and then down."
She had to stand on her toes to reach it, and then had to really work with it to get it to go in and then down. Once the trigger was in place, a bit of the wall near the ground fell away, exposing a small tunnel. She crouched down, but couldn't see anything passed her nose. She backed up to look up at the glowing ghost.
"You go first and light the way."
Instead of crouching down, the ghost walked through the wall, his legs lighting the tunnel. Sighing, she glanced once more at the sleeping leopard, still sleeping, before following.
The tunnel wasn't long and she soon emerged into a cave covered in dust. There was a desk littered with yellowed papers, and a lantern that she made a beeline for. She found a fire starter hidden under the papers and lit the wick. The yellow light filled the room, and she lowered herself to the sit at the stool before the desk.
The ink on the papers were faded, but they seemed to be nothing more than ledgers of merchant ships that the Thunder King's pirates had taken. She dismissed them and turned to the ghost.
"What's this?"
"My brother kept records of his wealth."
She nodded. "So did my grandfather and my father."
"Father?"
"He's alive, still."
"I should like to meet him one day."
She smiled. "Someday."
He gestured to the far wall. "There's a lock on the ground there."
She stood. "Trapped?"
"Not this one."
She walked to the wall and found the trigger with her foot. The pressure pushed a trapdoor up only a pace away. She caught the lip of the door and threw it open. A rope ladder descended into darkness and she hesitated only a second before she swung her leg over the edge.
She held the lantern aloft in one hand as she carefully made her way down the rope ladder. At first all she could see was the dark brown rock the ladder was facing, but once she reached the bottom, turning in place, a huge grin split her cheeks.
"Hello, lovely," she murmured as she took the first few steps forward, kicking a few coins that had fallen to the ground.
The walls were covered with shelves, and the shelves burdened with chests, buckets, and bowls of gold, silver, jewels, and not a few bottles of liquor. She trailed her fingers through a bowl of gold coins before she scooped up the handful and stuffed her pouches.
The ghost watched her, not at all bothered that she was taking his treasure. Why else had he showed her this treasure trove?
She grabbed a second bottle of what she hoped was rum and made her way back up the rope ladder.
"We have rum and a boat. Really, that's all one needs."
He nodded and gave a small hop, the force of that small hop sending him floating up into the stone over her head. As he disappeared, she climbed up the ladder, the lantern clutched in her hand.
When she stepped out of the trap door, she kicked it closed and scuffed sand and dirt and dust over it, hiding the crack and the trigger. She replaced the lantern on the desk, extinguished the flame, and crawled back through that small tunnel.
She slapped her hands on her thighs, knocking free dirt and sand, eyeing the dingy. It was tied down the cave's wall, on a ledge of a height with her waist. She tossed in the bottles of rum and tucked the tarp under the benches, out of the way. Her dagger made short work of the ropes holding the dingy, and she put her back into pulling the dingy off the ledge and into the water sloshing about her knees.
As soon as the dingy was settled in the water, the cat startled her by jumping from the ledge over her shoulder and into the small boat. It turned to look at her over his shoulder, and if a cat could laugh, it would have been at the look on her face, she was sure. Shaking her head, she started pushing the boat out of the cave and into the cove.
She pulled it up to the beach, securing it in the sand so she could pile fruit into the open spaces. She knew the leopard was going to want meat, but as the cat was the only creatures she had seen besides a few birds, it was going to have to make do.
Once that task was done, she shoved the boat into the water once more, holding tightly as the tide tried to pull it from her grasp and throw it back at the beach. Once the waves started to threaten to knock her over, she pulled herself into the boat and the oars into her hands. "Fat lot of good you're going to be," she told the cat as it found a place to curl up and sleep.