plotted starter for @pecuatas :
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Jesse sprang from the cabin-window, upon a crate which floated close to the vessel, and was nearly borne away by the waves, or lost in darkness and driving rain. But she'd no intention to abandon her ship, much less her crew, at their greatest hour of need. She was surrounded by them, arm in arm, clinging and screaming and shouting each other's names. Every head turned about bewildered in the onslaught of the black salt water and blinked away its sting as best as they could. It was all they could do. It was all any of them could do.
The Firecracker, the Red Hands's most beloved ship, was a pyre in the dark ocean storm.
Golden light licked the surface of every single wettened eye. Every charcoal crested wave and every quartzen sliver of needle sharp rain drove like a nail. Lightning had struck the mast and split it long be for the rain began its chilly offensive. Fire had caught every sail and when they fell, the flames had spread. The wave battered web of women could only hope that the fire had been seen from the shore before the rain and wind arrived. Only hope that another boat of the Red Hand fleet had boozed their engine and was speeding to the rescue. But hope is hardly a good defense against Mother Ocean, and she saw fit to sink this ship.
For as the burning home was tossed by the sea, it had begun to tilt. The screams of the women on the other side would haunt the captain for the rest of her life. Those women, who'd also jumped ship, but had by sheer bad luck picked the side the ship would roll on, were surely crushed or drowned. The loss of life would fall on her alone. And whats more, her Firecracker, both her mother on the water and her baby she raised from birth, lay ended and dead right in front of her. KIlled by Chance and nature themselves. But adrenaline soared though Jessica and her words and shouts carried over the waves. Laser focused she drew her dagger and drove it into the wood in and attempt to begin to climb. Crying and shouting, stumbling over knife sharp barnicalls, what crewmen who could followed her; clamoring up the bottom of the steaming vessel to find a rail or rope to grab onto. Visibility was low, shards of rain like glass and the wind driving all out of the water to their knees. And with the keeling of the boat, the fires dimmed, slowly being swallowed by the storm. Jessica grabbed for hand after hand, pulling up any she could from her precarious foothold on the slowly sinking hull. For as long as she drew breath and as long as she could move she'd captain her crew through the thickest hell for their safety. And while her heart ached for them and her ship, she had to lock in if she were to survive. She could only handle each emergency on its own; one burning misery at a time....
