To Yonder

Young Folks
“If I told you things I did before, told you how I used to be
Would you go along with someone like me?
If you knew my story word for word, had all of my history
Would you go along with someone like me?”
- Peter Bjorn and John

Her face was porcelain, her cheeks were powdered with a lovely blush, and her lips were tinted with the faintest twinge of pink. He couldn’t stop staring. She looked like a pristine doll he could stick on his shelf and admire from time to time.

Tanek appreciated how her hair was a golden halo that framed her perfect face. The Captain could swear he had never seen such beautiful eyes. It was like looking into a clear night sky and seeing stars… well, something like that. She reached out to him – how could someone so perfect ever want someone like him?

He must be dreaming.

She was radiant and ethereal and magnificent – he could go on forever. It had been quite some time since she had first arrived and Tanek could hardly remember his crew without her presence. It must have been dull… although he probably had a much more productive crew. He laughed. There was no denying the dynamic of his crew had changed immensely. And he could admit, maybe it was for the better.

Well, in most cases…

Don’t even get him started on William. The Quartermaster who had thrown caution to the wind and had become just as much engrossed in the other woman as she with him. Will could deny it all he wanted. Tanek still saw the truth. His good friend was twisted around a little finger and bowing down to a woman.

Tanek then thought about his own angel and he was suddenly blinded. He felt a warm feeling overtake him and wondered when other in his life he had felt like this. Almost as if on fire. Ever? Maybe. Never? Probably. Was it love? Of course not.

His thoughts were tender and her image was inviting. His heart fluttered unevenly in his chest and then squeezed as he began to get lost in the abyss of his mind. At first it was soothing, almost like a hug, but it quickly became uncomfortable. The constricting feeling did not relent and he began to feel panicked. His heart was beating rapidly. Suddenly, the angel before him turned into something absolutely horrifying.

Was he dreaming?

Before him stood a woman elegiacally with her likeness except she now possessed a glassy look. Somehow, her gaze managed to simultaneously be piercing and he felt its effects prick at his skin. He fell to his knees and his eyes were shut tight from the pain. His heart was pounding erratically and he couldn’t take in enough oxygen. Everything began to feel smaller, a little darker, and definitely surreal.

For a quick second the pain subsided. Slowly, Tanek looked up and the sight before him was utterly terrifying. Atop her beautiful head was a shiny, gold band that seemed to somehow weigh down his being. It mocked him with its simplicity. It couldn't be, could it? How could this be possible?

He was definitely dreaming.

She looked so perfect. The same as before except now he knew who she really was. It haunted him even after he had given up. Could she still be perfect? He wasn’t sure. His mind was hazy and he couldn’t sort up from down. He hardly knew who he was.

Tanek, he reminded himself. Fierce pirate brute, Captain of the most renowned crew sailing the seas, liability to law and order… It almost seemed as if he was trying to convince himself of all this. Tanek. Tanek. Tanek.

He couldn’t tell if he was dreaming.

He tried to talk but found he had no words, no breath. He was gasping for air and choking all at the same time. Meanwhile, the woman before him looked at him with a sadistic smirk juxtaposed with a pitiful, sad look in her eyes. Maybe he was drowning… suffocating. This was his own personal hell and Tanek was never escaping.

She opened her mouth to talk. Tanek didn't want to hear her voice. He couldn't. Something about it would just be too cruelly realistic. The Captain willed himself to wake up. God forbid it was the same chime bells that rang when...

"Nik..."

Tanek shot up from his bed in a cold sweat. His sheets were unattractively drenched as he threw them off of his heaving body. What a terrible dream he had just had. He tried hard to catch his breath and he subconsciously rubbed at his chest, which he could've sworn felt sore. This was not okay. He needed to end things now.

Right now.

He jumped out of bed not bothering to put on a shirt and headed out of his room needing to get out of there as soon as possible. Perhaps the stars would console the Pirate. If not, the waves were always there to help clear his mind. Even the moon.

The night air was absolutely frigid. The Captain closed his eyes trying to think of something peaceful. Anything. He thought back to one particular memory of his Mother. It had been Christmas time. Tanek had yearned for his own sword and without a Father the responsibility fell solely on his poor Mother. At his age, all the other boys had already received swords and were being taught by their fathers. His Mother, always the peacekeeper and level minded had denied him on multiple occasions. Yet at the tender age of somewhere between extremely impressionable and too recluse and apathetic to care, Tanek needed to fit in with the others.

Come Christmas, Tanek had been shocked to find his present, the most beautiful sword he had ever seen… not that he had seen many. A boy filled with excitement and delight, Tanek could laugh. It had been such a long time since he had felt anything close to that. He could distinctly recall running off to the palace to show his best friend without even a second thought, he'd almost forgotten to thank his Mother.

Looking back, it had probably been his Grandfather's doing. Whether or not Tanek was a bastard his grandparents had loved him unconditionally and he was immensely thankful for that. He wondered if they were still living in that quaint castle town. Probably. Perhaps one day he would pay them a visit.

One day. Tanek’s Grandmother would probably drop dead thinking she had seen the ghost of her Grandson. He wondered if they ever thought of him. Did it matter? They were worlds away from one another and Tanek was a completely different person. The boy he once was could hardly be found. Tanek had been swallowed by the sea and reinvented.

Ultimately though, these were the people who had shaped him. He was indebted to them. These were the people who taught Tanek how to protect himself and how to survive in the world. It had begun with that sword.

Subconsciously, Tanek's hand went to feel for the sword at his hip. Of course it wouldn't be there. Anything that had ever once mattered to Tanek had been taken by his Father a long time ago. The sword was petty compared to everything else he had lost.

He thought about his Father. Somehow the man had the power to taint every good thing in his life. Every pleasant memory turned sour once Tanek’s Father entered the picture. Undoubtedly, he would. He has always been a selfish man, demanding and the center of attention regardless of circumstance. And somehow, the man still had some inexplicable hold on Tanek.

"Tanek?" That voice.

“What did you call me?”

The Captain whipped around. Before him she stood, not quite as haunting as in his dreams yet she still unnerved him immensely. She took a step toward him and without even thinking he took a step back. His hand went to feel at his side once again and he cursed.

He couldn't possibly still be dreaming, could he?

---

Alessia didn’t even bother knocking. For once she was going to open Tanek’s door without being forced in or snuck in or anything else of that nonsensical matter. She took one final, preparatory breath before she entered the lion’s den and pushed on the heavy wooden door. Unfortunately, the air escaped her before the door was even open. She couldn’t breath knowing what she was about to do. Knowing what she had already done. She didn’t deserve air.

The frightened look on Tanek’s face last night had terrified her. It just reinforced the truth. There were so many things they did not know about one other. Seeing Tanek last night had woken Alessia from her peaceful slumber. No longer could she daydream. The Pirate… he was complicated and brooding and unpredictable. Possibly dangerous…? Alessia shook her head furiously dispelling the thought.

No, never.

But the truth still nagged her. She was just prolonging the inevitable and it was about time the Princess made her grand return to civilization.

Tanek was shirtless and caught off guard when his door was suddenly thrown open. He was ready to bark at whoever had dared enter unannounced, but immediately softened when he saw who it was. There was no way he was in love, but he definitely had a tender spot for the woman looking so determined in his doorway.

“Come in.” Who was Tanek kidding? She had already been halfway through the door when he said it.

She watched him cautiously. His lack of shirt wasn’t helping her cause, but she wasn’t going to let that stop what she had come here to do. Alessia saw a flash of his bare torso from last night. Under the moonlight he looked as if he were carved from marble… no. Stay focused. There was no way she was backing down now. She took in a shaky breath and swallowed collecting her thoughts once more before speaking.

No backing down now. Not when she was already standing awkwardly and rather improperly in the middle of his room unannounced in the middle of the day.

Tanek moved forward ready to touch the woman. He didn’t know what came over him, but the urge to feel her soft skin was growing by the second. He got just close enough and realized he had no idea what his motion was for. Slowly but surely his arms reached out rather to gather her into an embrace. She was just out of arms reach when she took a single step back. His fingers had just grazed her bare arm.

His fingers recoiled as if burned and quickly withdrew into a fist and the confusion began to set into the Pirate’s mind. All it took was one single step and a wall seemed to build between the two of them. Tanek was confused, but quickly set in place his expressionless façade. Whatever just happened was in no way going to dictate the way the woman looked at him. He was still Captain of this ship.

“We need to talk,” She uttered those horrible words, but sounded like an angel while doing so.

In all of Tanek’s years he had come to know that those four words were deadly. Whether it was from his Mother or any other woman in his life, Tanek knew what they meant. Surely there hadn’t been many women, but it didn’t take a genius to understand something wasn’t right. He suppressed a groan and anticipated a major headache.

He waited for her to speak. Tanek stayed quiet and kept his eyes steady while he waited patiently. He wasn’t about to say anything in a conversation he didn’t know the topic of. That was a fool’s job and Tanek was no fool.

It didn’t matter how he felt when he looked at her or when she looked at him. He had too many responsibilities to let feelings get in the way. He was in charge of a crew and sole protector of his pride. No longer was he the weak boy he had once been. No longer was his Father here to abandon him in the shadows to clean up his mess. No longer would Tanek set himself up for that kind of abuse.

He braced himself. He wasn’t about to let whatever she had to say affect him. He was not in love. Only imbeciles in love acted erratically. He wasn’t going to be irrational because of a single woman. He mentally prepared himself for whatever she was about to say. What was the worst that could happen?

Nothing that hadn’t already happened to the Pirate.

“We need to stop this,” Tanek knew what she was talking about, but still asked ‘what’ silently in his head. He knew it would come to this eventually, he could have predicted this. This was what women did, they constantly needed reassurance, and that was reassurance Tanek did not have. He could lie, but he was too much of a gentleman to make up stories. He knew it would only cause trouble later on anyway. He didn’t lead a stupid life.

He knew, it was all a matter of time, “Last night... Tanek…”

Tanek’s head snapped up, “What did you call me?”

Alessia was confused. He had done the same thing last night, “Tanek…?”

The Captain was hit with a bout of déjà vu. His thoughts returned to last night as well. So it hadn’t all been in his head. He tried to clear his thoughts but found his judgment clouded and his memory hazy. He couldn’t shake her off. He hardened his resolve. She was right this had to end. Tanek was responsible for so many. He couldn’t risk anything just for fleeting euphoria.

He knew better.

Tanek wished so badly to say something. He knew what was coming and wished to intercept it. But then he stopped for a brief moment. Hell, he didn’t even know her real name! What was he to expect from a relationship like this? Was it even a relationship? It was a joke; there was no way he was in love.

He didn’t even know if it existed.

“I am sorry it had to come to this…”

“Of course,” It was out of his mouth before he had even thought up the words and he wasn’t even quite sure he meant it. The words sounded horrifically insincere to his ears.

Tanek watched. She too looked like she wanted to say something but shut her mouth. The lips that he had kissed were pressed firmly in a straight line. He watched silently as she tipped her head in his direction before fleeing the cold atmosphere that had spurred.

Tanek wasn’t sure. From her extreme change in demeanor he could almost swear another had replaced her when he had blinked. He yearned to make contact with her. He couldn’t help but feel that she was disappointed in him.

Suddenly, she was gone. He hadn’t even seen her leave. The closing of the door snapped him to attention and a chill ran down his spine. His room suddenly felt very cramped, and with her leave, very empty. Even though he was convinced there was no way he was in love, he knew he surely should have said something, and alone in his room, he did…

Tanek walked over to his window and stared out willing himself to wake up from this bad dream, “I am sorry too.”

What had become of him?
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