Wax Candles

It was a dark night and raging fires engulfed the town of Port Royal; I was trapped in my bedroom. My nurse was in the room next door, helping my pregnant mother into a safe place, so I was alone. I sat in a corner of my room, knees to my chest and my arms hugging my legs to my body. Before my nurse had left, she had handed me a worn wooden rosary, which I clutched to my heart now.

I was in danger of two things: the fire and pirates. The fire was started by pirates, so I had some worrying to do. They wanted my father because he is the town's banker, they might want me to hold as hostage. Things weren't looking so bright for me. I listened to the screams and evil cackles that seeped through the thin walls of our house. I shivered at the thought of how easily they could get inside. And once I thought it couldn't get any worse, I realized how wrong I was.

I heard the main door to my house crash down and drunken cheers filled the room. I felt my doom settle in now. I pressed my ear to the floor, hearing them scatter around the downstairs. Maybe I was safe for now. Suddenly I heard a single pair of footsteps hurrying up the spiral staircase. I needed to stop thinking so quickly. The footsteps dashed past my room at an amazing speed and down the hall, but suddenly stopped and hurried back towards my room. I tucked back into my corner, closing my eyes tighter than I knew they could go. Please make this all go away.

The footsteps stopped in front of my door; I could see a shadow from under the door. The handle to my bedroom door jiggled with such force I thought it was going to snap in half, and it did. The knob that was on the inside of my door clattered to the ground and I opened my eyes. It had left a dent in the wooden floor. Like a flash of lightening, a boy dressed in mostly white entered my room. He was quick on his feet and reached me before I knew what was happening.

"Miss Montague I presume?" the boy asked me with a cool, velvet voice. He wasn't too tall, around five feet and eight inches, two inches taller than I. He had an interesting hair style that consisted of mostly blonde hair with black underneath.

I merely nodded in response to his question.

"Well, hurry now. We don't want them to catch you," he instructed, yanking me to my feet. I felt so weak though, that I almost fell back to the ground again. He draped my arm over his shoulders and lead me over to my single bedroom window. "Get ready to jump."

Jump? Oh no, no, no. I don't "jump". "Excuse me," I asked roughly, "But who do you think you are? How dare you handle me!" I slapped him away from me, hitting his pale face with the back of my hand. I gasped, drawing my hand to my chest; he was stone cold.

The boy ignored my hit and turned to me. "My name is Kiro and you, Miss Independent, need to jump," he explained in a hurry, pushing me towards the window again. I wasn't going to give into this stranger that easily.

"You're a pirate! I'm not going to go with you. I'm not stupid," I snapped, crossing my arms and standing against the wall. As I glared at Kiro, I noticed his eyes were the color of butterscotch. I was told that people with butterscotch eyes were--

The pirates from downstairs were starting to make their way up.

"We need to go. Now!" Kiro pleaded with me, thrusting the window open.

I had two choices. Stay and get captured by pirates, or possibly jump to my death.

"Someone is going to catch you when you jump," Kiro chimed in as if he had read my thoughts. I scowled, I couldn't believe I was going along with this.

As I put my legs through the window, sitting on the window sill now, the pirates entered my room, yelling and spitting out threats. In one fluid motion, Kiro shoved me from the window sill and jumped out after me. I screamed as I plummeted to the ground, no one was there to catch me. Suddenly two strong arms caught me right before I was going to hit the ground; I stopped screaming as I was set back on my feet. The boy who had caught me looked like he could almost be Kiro's brother, although this boy had just blonde hair and dressed in black.

"Can you führen?" the boy asked me as Kiro walked quickly past us towards the docks.

I was about to ask what "führen" meant, but Kiro called back to us: "Shin, carry her! It will take less time."

With a quick sweeping motion, the boy named Shin scooped me up in his arms and hurried after Kiro. He ran with such fluidity that he seemed inhuman; he ran without jostling me at all. As Shin ran through the town, I realized everything was burning now, nothing was safe. My mind blurred as we reached the docks, still behind Kiro.

Shin set me on my feet and walked with me once we were next to a large black boat. Kiro stood in front of the boat with a slight grin on his pale face, what was his problem?

"Is this your boat?" I asked, following Shin up the gangplank; Kiro on my heels.

"Ship," Kiro corrected me.

"Right, ship," I said, "What is it called?"

"She," he grumbled, "What is she named."

I gritted my teeth. "Okay. What is she named?"

"Luminor," Kiro grinned, pushing the gangplank into the murky water below.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Luminor. She was named after a good friend of mine. Although he was a male." He shrugged, telling Shin something in what sounded to be German. Shin walked to a cabin door, hurrying down the wooden steps.

"Was a male?" I asked, wondering what he was trying to say.

"He's dead," Kiro muttered, dragging himself to the ship's wheel.

"Oh. I'm sorry I--" I started to speak, but I was cut off when Shin and three other boys burst through the cabin down from below. And I thought Kiro and Shin looked odd.

The first one to rush onto the deck was a tall boy, around six feet and two inches tall, with black and red hair. Light brown eyes were set in his head and he looked at me for a brief second before helping Shin pull up the starboard anchor.

"That's Yu," Kiro said from behind me; I jumped.

"How did you--?" I was going to ask how he had gotten next to me so quickly, but he cut me off.

"That's Strify," he told me, pointing to yet another boy with black and blonde hair. "And that, over there, is Romeo." Romeo seemed to be the only one who had normal hair; plain black.

"And they are--?" He cut me off again.

"Friends and fellow crew members," Kiro nodded, striding back to the ship's wheel. I followed with haste.

"Right. Don't you--" I counted how many boys there now were, "Don't you five draw attention easily? I mean, you surely don't look like anyone I've ever met or seen."

He laughed at that; it sounded like bells ringing. "We get that question a lot," he smiled, gripping the wheel, "And we don't really pay attention to people that stare at us anymore." He hollered something in German to the other boys, who responded by letting the black sails drop, catching the wind.

Slowly, Kiro steered the ship out of the bay and into the ocean. Wait a second, out to sea?

"Where are you taking me?" I shrieked, hurrying over to the side of the ship we had boarded from.

The one known as Yu dashed over, grasping me tightly around my waist. He held me like a statue and didn't flinch, not even when I thrashed my arms. I tried to kick him, but he didn't move.

"You monster!" I cried, "I'll have my father destroy you when he finds out you've taken me! You monster!"

Suddenly a stone cold hand struck my face. I gasped at the force and temperature; this hand was freezing as well.

"Yu! Unhand her," Kiro snapped, pelting to my side as his shipmate dropped me. "You know not to hurt her in such ways. We want no blood spilled."

As I staggered to my feet, I saw the boys glance worriedly at each other at the last sentence.

"What...was...the meaning of that!" I gasped, heaving for breath.

Kiro supported my weight as I tried to stand up straight, saying a few words in German to the boys. They drifted back to their previous work. "Be careful with what you say," Kiro warned me, "Calling someone a monster on this ship may cause you getting thrown off. And trust me, the rest of us would try and stop that, but we can't control others actions. Do you understand?"

My head was spinning, but I nodded weakly. "Where are you taking me?"

"Far away from Port Royal, that much I can promise," Kiro assured me, helping me towards the cabin door.

"But I don't want to leave! Especially if your crew keeps slapping me around!" I growled as he helped me down the creaky wooden steps. The below deck was warm and surprisingly cozy with candles and hammocks hanging in different rooms.

"Is this where you sleep and all?" I asked, taking everything in.

"Mhm," he mumbled, leading me over to a hammock with the name "Kiro" sown into the side in black thread. "You can use my hammock for now," he told me, helping me up, "Romeo will put up the spare hammock for you by tomorrow at the latest."

"Romeo," I muttered tiredly, "Is he the only who doesn't have multi-colored hair?"

Kiro chuckled, draping a white blanket over me. "Yes, I suppose you could say that." He then walked back towards the steps to the main deck. "Sleep well," he cooed to me in his velvet voice, climbing the wooden steps.

I glanced around the cabin in the dull candle light. There didn't seem to be anything special down here, just a desk with maps and what seemed to be a bunch of junk, and the hammocks for the crew. Great, I was going to have to live here for only the heavens know how long. I turned on my side, facing a wall; I was going to have to get used to these hammock things. So far, the only thing I liked was the fact that the blanket Kiro lent me was soft as a cloud.

I yawned, closing my eyes, and then I remembered my town. Port Royal was like a charred graveyard, leaving nothing but burned angels in its wake.