James’s head felt fuzzy, as though it no longer belonged to his shoulders, but this was by now a familiar feeling to the pirate. He started to get up, felt his legs shift as though not his own, and thought better of it. Compromising at simply sitting up, he peered through the dim prison towards the familiar sound. A smile quirked the corner of his lips. “Did I dream that voice?” he drolly asked the pale-faced apparition across the aisle from him. It had been only months since last he had seen her, yet she looked older - or perhaps she’d been growing older all along under his very nose, and he’d simply failed to notice. James bit the inside of his lip, deciding to ignore that question for now. He wasn’t terribly fond of it, after all.
He drew near the bars, unconsciously mimicked her stance as he, too, grasped the bars. Narrowing his eyes, he glanced around them. “Odd,” he commented, spotting a finely dressed dwarf in the midst of these bloodthirsty scallywags. Was that Alexandir Godiva? He turned to make a face at Valery.
“Well,” remarked James with a slow grin. “I think we can agree this isn’t the worst scrape we’ve ever faced.” He still thought the exploding volcano and the rising tide of lava had this beat, as did that particular time the Revenge ran afoul of some Karrian pirates. Still, even James knew this wasn’t good. “What on earth are you doing here?” he inquired. James, like a fool, had walked straight into his predicament. He doubted that were true of his one-time companions. “Well, I kissed a lady and her mother decided to call it treason,” joshed James, arching his brows humorously. He shook his head. It was a longer tale than that, but humor was James’ last line of defense.
He shifted uncomfortably in the stiff bowels of the Imperial Palace. “The Queen certainly knows how to treat her guests,” he muttered, casting another glance towards the Godiva. He had thought, at first, that revealing his true identity might be a saving grace. Now, he wasn’t so sure. It was just as well, however. He hadn’t been considering so drastic a step, anyway. Until recently, he had always been of the mind that he would rather die as James Garin than live as Harrion Mortain. Celia had made him wonder…but what was the point of being Harrion Mortain if it was only to die as easily as he would have by another name?
James grasped the bars tighter as he pulled himself to his feet. He felt stiff, had to move. He couldn’t sit there and stare at her, if he was going to tell her the story and, in truth, he felt Valery was one of the few people to whom he owed a real explanation. She alone, after all, had tried to defend him and James hadn’t forgotten that. He doubted he ever would. No one had ever done that for him before. He doubted anyone ever would, again. It had been, of course, simply because she was a child and didn’t know better, but the gesture had still meant something to him.
Still, he decided to downplay his troubles. He didn’t want to worry her and Valery, he knew, could carry a grudge. Now that his family was back together, why engender more bitterness than need be? Besides, he’d give everyone different versions of his truth: to Godfrey he would wax eloquent about his sufferings, to Sybil he would talk of how no impediment could keep him down long, to Celia he’d emphasized the most impressive bits and downplayed the miserable parts…None of them were outright lies, but somewhere in between all the stories lay the actual truth.
“In truth, it turns out that island was quite pleasant. Sweet, exotic fruits grew in great abundance, the shores were of such fine sand it felt almost like silk to walk across. The waters were warm and refreshing. Valery, the fish! You would have admired them, so. They were of the brightest colors I’ve ever seen…but the duller looking ones proved tastier,” he intimated. “I found myself a little cave that was dry, as well as a spring of fresh water and I made a little abode for myself. I also found a nice shapely tree to cut down and started building a little boat for myself. Now that was time-consuming work…and begun not a moment too soon.”
He shrugged, deciding to skip over the volcanic eruption. “I eventually found that, as wonderful as a taste of paradise had been, I longed for home. So, I took my little ship - in truth, it wasn’t quite finished yet, but I confess I was rather eager to be gone,” he added, remembering his desperate climb and the boiling waters he left behind, the fear that it would eat through his boat before he could get to waters that would not boil him alive should he be forced to swim. “Out to sea for its maiden voyage. It didn’t survive, but it lasted long enough to where I could swim for shore.” He shrugged. “Given that I was a first-time shipwright, I frankly felt quite accomplished.” James laughed.
“Once ashore, I happened upon a damsel of royal blood who was being escorted to the South, where she would marry that booby, Loys Mortain,” a name which, in the South, was synonymous with the word joke, but said with a tad more bitterness than he’d meant to convey. “Thanks to you, tossing my things to me, I was able to knock her fine escort down to size, and I seized the maiden. My plan was to bring her back to the capitol and sell her back to her mother for enough gold to pay back Godfrey but,” he turned and grasped the prison bars once again. “As you can see that plan…backfired, somewhat.” He laughed, spotting Godfrey for the first time. “Or perhaps I ought to consider it a raging success. How else would I have met with you so quickly?”
When James asked if he had dreamed her voice, she couldn’t help but smile. It felt ages since she had. It was easy to lose track of time down here in the dark: she knew it was likely that it had been only days but it already felt like weeks, months, years since she’d seen the sun. The punishment for stealing from the Queen was death, but she wondered if they didn’t meant to keep them down here until they begged for it.
Perhaps this wasn’t the worst scrape they’d ever been in, but until this moment, Valery had never felt like they’d had no chance of escape before. Perhaps it was because they’d surrendered so easily to Cassius and his dragon or perhaps it was because this was the first time that they’d be in a bad spot without all four of them together. But seeing James here, alive (even if he was in the same situation they were in) someone made her feel like they might just make it out alive, after all. And she found something she hadn’t had before: hope.
“We stole from the Queen one too many times,” She said, “We were stupid and careless. We’d come in and out so easily before we stopped being as cautious as we once were. This time someone discovered we weren’t who we said we were and we ran. We made it safely back to the Revenge, but it wasn’t long before Cassius and his dragon caught us and brought us back.” She’d wanted to fight and die on the ocean, but she’d listened to her captain and laid down her sword.
Even if they died here in these rotting cells, it would have been worth it to have seen James once more. They might not die on the sea, but they would die together.
She couldn’t help but chuckle when he explained what he was doing here. “That sounds like you. You always kiss the wrong girls.” This certainly wasn’t the first time he’d found trouble because of it. “Perhaps you should stop.” She teased.
She listened as he described the Isle of the Damned to her and his time there. She’d imagined it to be hell on earth – not this paradise that James spoke of. Part of her wondered if he was lying, but she did not think he would have been able to have survived the Island, otherwise. She did not think that he was only telling her a half truth.
“Why would someone name a place like that The Isle of the Damned?” She asked, “To keep anyone else from ever sailing to it?” She wondered aloud. Although by James’s description, it sounded as though he was the only one there — so perhaps the tales of it had worked too well. She liked the idea, however, of a beautiful island that everyone was too scared to sail to that only they knew about.
“I feel sorry for the lady,” She said, “She was saved from marrying Loys but then she was kidnapped by you. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.” She teased. Perhaps his plan could have gone better (in fact, most of them could), but it had, as he said, brought them together. And together, maybe they would be able to escape.
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