Somewhere Weaknesses Are Strength

Yelling pulled Sebastian from the dark haze surrounding her brain. With effort, she forced her eyes open. Her head gave off a slight pain; her vision was blurred. She pushed her body to a seated position. A stabbing sensation ran through her brain in immediate protest of the position. Sebastian groaned, shut her eyes again, and massaged her temple. The pain in her head was unbearable; it caused tears to perk in her eyes and her entire body to ache with it. She made a mental note, which she would hopefully remember over the sensation, to ask Anne for some pain medication or herbs.

Sebastian opened her eyes, this time with little difficulty. Her vision cleared within a few blinks and she found herself looking at a wooden wall as opposed to her floral wallpaper. She turned her head sharply from side to side, ignoring the protest her head made, to investigate her surroundings. There were no windows but the room was lit; the walls and floor were all made of wood; and there was a door on the opposite side of where she sat. She was obviously not in her room. The glint on her wrist caught her eyes, forcing her to look at the shackles attached to her wrists. The chains connected to the shackles were stuck to the wall she was now leaning on.

Where was she?

She searched her mind for any recollection of what happened before she returned to the waking world. Images of the massacre in the castle surrounded her. She thought it was just a nightmare, a simple set of fictitious images meant to haunt her night. It must have been real; unless she was still in her nightmare. That was unlikely. Sebastian's life had been torn from her before her eyes. She was either on the pirate ship or in hell.

She was hoping for the latter.

"I told you I wanted her alive. What part of that didn't you catch," a familiar female voice floated into the room, cutting into Sebastian's soul.

"You can still have fun with her while she's dead," another voice asserted.

It was a male voice, of that much Sebastian was certain. But she couldn't connect it with the massacre that occurred in the castle like she connected the female voice. Not that either man talked much; the woman called the shots. One had called her "captain." It couldn't have been possible for such a feminine looking woman to be the captain of a pirate ship. Then again, Sebastian was being trained to rule a whole country. Judgment couldn't be passed on the situation.

"I'm not a fucking necrophiliac. How many times do I have to tell you freaks that?" the woman yelled.

Sebastian shuddered at the word, the one that reminded her why she was on the ship. Female relations were illegal in Sebastian's country, but the pirate most likely wouldn't care.

They thought she was dead. She could use that to her advantage. If she played dead, maybe they would throw her overboard. Then she could swim to safety.

There was only one hole in her plan: she couldn't swim.

Sebastian felt the urge to cry. For her dead family and friends, her ruined village, the multiple innocent lives lost. Most importantly for the feeling of weakness and desperation overcoming her. She had been taught for years not to be weak, never to let her mind believe she could be defeated. That was an emotion for girls, not for rulers. Now she was on the verge of tears. Her father would be disappointed. She remembered him scolding her for crying at the funeral for the last of her three brothers. She was told to do that in private. A ruler with emotions was one that could not be trusted to protect the country.

None of her training should have mattered anymore. Part of her country had been burned; it was likely that the rest had been destroyed as well. There was no reason for her to care if she was acting as a ruler. She was in a position that no ruler would find themselves in.

She didn't want to let that part of her go though. The training she endured was a major part of her life. It held memories of her father and brothers. She couldn't let them go.

"I don't see what's so wrong about doing things to dead bodies. They don't cry or yell for you to stop. They're quite calm," the male voice argued.

"And dead," the female replied.

There was an edge to the woman's voice. She was progressively becoming more aggravated with the men as they argued. She must have been disciplining her crew for hours. Sebastian wondered if she would apologize when she realized her captive was alive.

She doubted it.

Sebastian knew little about pirates. What she did know, she learned from listening to the sailors share stories. Each story depicted pirates as horrible creatures with no morals. They only wanted sex, money, and booze. Those were the necessities to their life and that's what they spent their time searching for. They pillaged any city they came to, often burning it to the ground after. They raped innocent people. They did anything they needed in order to attain what they wanted, regardless of the cost. They were rude, vial; they cursed and drank till they passed out or were spewing vomit. They were everything a princess, or ruler, should not associate with.

And Sebastian was locked in a room on a pirate ship.

"What am I going to do with the body?" the woman asked.

Her voice came from directly outside the door to the room.

"Fuck it and throw it in the ocean," another male suggested.

"I'm not fucking a dead body," the woman exclaimed.

"Captain, I think you should suspend whatever morals you have this one time. That girl is hot, dead or alive."

"And if you don't plan on taking that advice, find your own solution to this," the first male voice stated.

"Well I'm not taking your damn advice," the woman growled.

The door swung open. The redhead woman from the castle massacre stood in the doorway, a set of clothing in her arms. She wasn't looking at her captive but at the clothing in thought.

"What am I going to do with these; they were made to fit her," the pirate mumbled.

Sebastian watched the woman shut the door and step farther into the room, still looking at the clothing. Was it too late to pretend to be dead and get thrown overboard? Death was a more appealing sentence to Sebastian.

The woman pulled her gaze from the clothes in hand and looked at Sebastian. Her eyebrows drew together and her head tilted to the side; her lips pursed together. Sebastian froze in fear.

"You’re alive?" the woman asked.

It couldn't be too late to pretend to be dead.

Sebastian said nothing, just stared at the woman in front of her. She wasn't exactly intimidating in appearance. Her petite frame, height that would mirror Sebastian's if she stood, makeup clad eyelids, bright red hair, and alluring appeal did nothing to aid the woman's captain image. It completely shattered the stereotypical intimidating pirate image. Sebastian would venture to say the woman was gorgeous; never out loud of course. She wouldn't give the pirate that satisfaction. Nothing about the woman's physical appearance scared her.

What did scare Sebastian was what the woman would do to her. It had been instilled in Sebastian's head that any sexual relations between two women were a sin. She could not take part in any acts with the pirate and expect her soul to remain pure. But the pirate would force her to anyway.

The woman walked forward a few steps, traveling the full length of the room and stopping directly in front of Sebastian. She kneeled on the dusty, wooden floor. Sebastian's breath caught in her throat. She attempted to keep her head held high. This woman would not know that she had an affect on Sebastian.

"You know," the woman started, "when I heard that King Harold had one remaining heir, I thought it would be some prepubescent boy. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon a fully developed female. In fact, I heard the heir's name was Sebastian. But that can't be your name, sweetheart. You're much too delicate, fragile, for a name like that."

Sebastian ground her teeth together. Her jaw hurt from the pressure she was exerting in her mouth. Fragile was a term meant for frail princesses, the stupid ones who had to marry at young ages because they couldn't take care of themselves. Sebastian was not one of them. She was a perfectly capable heir to the throne.

"So what is your name then? Something floral, like Rose? Or maybe Elizabeth to give the illusion of a great queen?"

"My name is Sebastian," she replied through clenched teeth.

Sebastian kept her authoritative tone, the one she used when dealing with servants and dabbling in business. Sebastian would not allow the woman to know the fear running rampant in her body.

"Your parents seriously named you Sebastian?" the woman asked.

"They did."

"Why?"

"These matters do not concern you."

Amusement played in the woman's eyes. She smirked at Sebastian and inched her face closer until only centimeters separated their lips.

"I don't know if you're aware, sweetheart, but you're in my territory now. You have no control. Give in; it'll make things a hell of a lot easier on you."

"Get away from me," Sebastian returned.

The woman pulled away, still smirking, and stood.

"Fine, have it your way. Put this on, you're staying in my sleeping quarters," she tossed the clothing she had been holding at Sebastian.

Sebastian held up the clothes to investigate them. The top was low cut and the hem would stop just below her breasts, if it covered that much. It was white—save for the two, large, black, X-shaped stitches down the front—and looked to be solid. Sebastian, however, could see the skin of her hand through the fabric. The skirt, though Sebastian's favorite color red, would barely cover her behind. The entire outfit was demeaning to her status.

"I'm not wearing this," Sebastian tossed the clothing to the other side of the tiny room.

"Oh really? You're not in any position to disobey me."

"What are you going to do, kill me?"

"Do you know who I am, sweetheart?" the woman asked, still amused by Sebastian's disobedience.

"I can't say I do."

"My name is Hayley, Captain Hayley Williams. Perhaps you've heard of me."

Sebastian's blood ran cold. The most notorious female pirate of her generation was her captor. Sebastian had never had the misfortune of meeting her until now; none of the sailors of her country had either. But there were stories passed around from sailors of neighboring countries.

None of them were pleasant.

From what Sebastian had heard, Hayley Williams was an amazing swordsman and navigator, not to mention a deadly shot. But most pirate captains had those qualifications. Hayley was most known for her torture techniques, ones that made the roughest sailors quiver in their boots.

Sebastian was screwed.