I Will Bring You To Your Knees

There was something particular about partnered dancing, which quartet or larger-group dancing managed to avoid. If one misjudged one’s lead in a quartet or larger, it was easy to recover, for one’s partner and for the quartet itself. The vast majority of the time, in a quartet or larger, mistakes became unnoticeable. With partnered dancing, however, a single wrong step had one careening into their partner. Most of the time that resulted in disaster. One particularly memorable case had included knocking a partner clear to the ground.

These days, Nat would be more likely to compare a quartet or larger to being like a well bonded ship’s crew. Everyone moving in unison, clear on their own steps, and ready to step in to cover for one another’s occasional missteps.

Nat’s current position, however, was far more like partnered dancing. Facing someone one-on-one. Worse still, Nat definitely didn’t know the steps and, certainly, should not have accepted the dance. Or egged on the Naval Commodore in question with a comment so boastful as not needing a sword of their own to defeat him.

The Commodore's sword rasped from its scabbard. The click of his heels meeting carried over the swoosh of the waves and the quieting sounds of the fight below.

Nat's heart demanded their attention, thumping heavily in their chest. What had they been thinking inviting him to fight? No. They knew what they had been thinking. That maybe, just maybe, their absurd over-confidence would be enough to put him off fighting all together.

Still. Such was the situation they found themself in.

Nat didn’t even own a sword.

The Commodore thrust his sword toward them. Nat sidestepped the blade, feet moving in steps more practised in a very different scenario. The Commodore's feet, set shoulder width apart, moved. The front one stepping, the back one filling the gap.

"Are you seriously trying to fence with me? You can't fence a weaponless opponent, Peaches." Not to mention that wasn't a fencing sword. Who promoted this guy?

"You will not pick up a weapon with which to defend yourself," the Commodore snarled.

Nat presented their practised dandified smile. All ease and a little bit of snark. "I told you, I don't need one."

The next sword swipe held more aggression. With aggression came speed, leaving Nat reeling away from haphazard swings. The edge of the ship rapidly approached. Did he intend to push Nat overboard? As if any pirate captain worth their title wouldn't know ever millimetre of their ship with their eyes closed?

The blade glinted in the sun. Nat's eyes stung with the light. They swung an arm up to block their face. A burn of pain slashed across their forearm. Shit. The blade had caught them.

Still blinking away sunspots, Nat squinted as the Commodore whipped the blade at them once again. It came down as if to cleave their arm from their shoulder.

A tiny "Eep" escaped Nat, completely without their permission. They dashed to one side.

The sword lodged in the stern of the ship.

The Commodore yanked it. It didn't budge. He drew a dagger from his belt.

Nat didn't quite dodge fast enough. The blade cut into their waistcoat fabric, clanging against the boning that sat under the line of buttons down the front. It bounced out, bringing frayed silk with it.

"I will remove you from that high horse, deviant!" the Commodore snarled. "I will drag you to your knees."

They always seemed to think words like 'deviant' would hurt Nat's feelings. Always dove for them in the wake of a gentle prod like Peaches. Nat had heard worse. Nat had claimed worse.

On the Commodore's next jab, Nat spun around him, a move entirely drawn out of the popular dances from the last time they had been present in high society and been forced into dancing even though they never wanted to. They grabbed the man's shoulder and yanked his torso down into their rising knee. That wasn’t part of the dance.

The wind rushed from the Commodore's lungs. The knife in his hand clattered to the wooden floor beneath them, skittering down the stairs to be lost in the chaos on the main deck.

Continuing their momentum, Nat grabbed the Commodore's wrist and yanked it behind his back. They whipped off the man's cravat –really? A simple slip knot?– and wrapped the fabric around the captured wrist.

They slammed their knee into his ribs again, further winding him so they could grab the other hand and secure it in the cravat-ropes. A harsh hand on his shoulders, they shoved him down onto the deck, whispering delicately into his ear, "What was that about knees?"

The Commodore struggled in his restraints, trying to at least drive to his feet. A broad hand clamped down on his shoulder, pinning him to the deck.

Nat smiled up at Bear. "You've corralled his men already, I take it?"

Bear nodded, pride fluttering over him as clearly as his neatly tied cravat strings. At least there was someone around who could tie a decent cravat.

"Well, Peaches," they said to the Commodore. "If you're a good boy, we can all come out the other side of this alive."

The Commodore's eyes gleamed, eyebrows drawn low over them. His jaw stood out starkly under the at-sea beard. Did nobody have any pride in their appearance anymore?

"Bear, if you wouldn't mind escorting him back to his ship?"

Once he was over the plank and back on his ship —speed encouraged by a few gentle pokes of a sword from Jay— Kajal the rigger and Nat shoved the boarding plank into the sea, stirring up white foam.

Nat blew a kiss over the gap between the vessels as Mercy's Myth began to sail away from the gutted naval ship. The clean white sails billowed in the wind like jellyfish tentacles in a strong current, cut to ribbons by Nat's crew.

The gold handle of the sword now lodged in the ship glittered in the early morning light. The gilt wire knot swinging lightly with the motion of the ship. It had cleaved straight into one of the last vestiges of the previous Captain's reign: a mostly worn away carving of the ship's original name. One of many changes Nat had implemented upon being voted in as Captain. Alongside the insistence that everybody go out and buy themselves new clothes with no obvious damage.

After all, Nat’s first task upon boarding had been to repair the endless stacks of damaged, aged clothing that the crew had been offered as their only possible attire. It wasn’t that, as Captain, Nat had any real issue helping to mend crew’s clothing if needed, but that pile of broken clothes had been the first thing to go. Why set themself the endless task when there was plenty of money available to just buy new clothes. Especially ones that helped the crew feel comfortable in their own bodies.

With a final glance at the sword, Nat slipped away from the main deck and into the captain's cabin, closing the door behind them and leaning their head against the wood.

In the almost-year that Nat had been freely aboard, they liked to linger on the deck, interacting with the crew, moving around the ship that had once been their prison, proving themself useful. But that interaction had been way too close to taking Nat out. They should have known better, should have done better. Aleksei was always telling them to hide if they ever got boarded. Nat had all but promised to do so. But when it had actually happened, they'd frozen. All too caught up in the last time they had been on a ship that got boarded.

The knock reverberated through them, yanking them all too brutally out of that memory.

Nat surged away from the door, trying to pretend they were looking at something on the huge desk that took up most of the space in the captain's cabin. Sadly, they'd actually tidied away all the papers so that ruse fell apart before it began.

Thankfully, Aleksei was too wrapped up in what had brought him into the cabin in the first place. His pale eyebrows tugged low over his stunningly golden eyes. "You need to be more careful."

"It's all about the destruction of their confidence," Nat argued. They didn't want to seem weak. They couldn't afford it. They brushed hands down the front of their waistcoat, grimacing when they came across the damage, poking at the similar hole in their shirt sleeve. "At least I wasn't wearing the jacket," they mourned.

Aleksei opened his mouth, sighed, and closed it. He folded his arms, covering his partially exposed chest where he hadn’t bothered buttoning his shirt. For all that their frames matched one another; Aleksei was the antithesis of Bear when it came to clothes. Aleksei was a little shorter, a little narrower in the shoulder, but it hardly made much of a difference. He, like Bear, was a giant specimen of a person.  They had made quite the impression, each stood behind their particularly short previous captain with her ridiculously sized hat. Especially since, back then, they’d been in a similar state of undress, Bear unable to wear a shirt with the way it pressed against the damage done to his throat in some long ago and unforgettable past.

If Nat hadn’t met a pirate like Tao, they might have started thinking all pirates —bar said ex-captain— were bulky like Aleksei and Bear. Everyone on the ship was corded with muscles. But Tao’s frame was so much like Nat’s own. In the comfortable ranges between average heights for various genders —in Tao’s case, short for a man— and slim built. In their year of relative freedom aboard the ship, Nat had yet to meet another pirate shaped like Tao. Or themself.

"I've asked Hui to take us to the nearest Pirate Port to trade the loot anyway,” Aleksei said, finally finding his words. “You can replace or repair it there."

"That would be...” Think of them and they shall appear. “Tao?"

Nat was still learning a lot about navigating the seas, and the exact location of the Pirate Ports were a closely guarded secret. Even to pirate captains, or at least pirate captains like Nat. They unbuttoned their shirt cuff and rolled up their sleeve to check the wound beneath. A small scratch, it wasn't even bleeding. "We'll have to come up with a gift for tribute. But I suppose there are no other options when the navy besieges you without warning."

“Do they ever give warning?”

Not in Nat’s experience. Their hand crept to the line of scars decorating their left arm. Nobody did.

Aleksei cleared his throat, looking away from Nat’s reminder of the injury he had been party to. Another gift from the previous captain. "I'm sure you regaling Lord Tao with tales of taking down a naval officer with nothing but his neck cravat might appease."

Nat didn't think about their experiences with Tao and cravats. They definitely didn't think of the feeling of Tao sliding the fabric from around their neck and using it to bind their hands the same way they had done with the naval officer. Except Tao and Nat hadn't been in a fight when he had done it, they had been in a bed. The fight part had come later...

"It's just a cravat, Lyosha, not a neck cravat."

Aleksei said nothing.

Nat sighed. If Aleksei had already set in the course there was little they could do to change it. At least not without a reason the crew would agree to. And they'd been holding off returning to Shenai for long enough. It would start looking suspicious soon. "How long until we arrive?"

"Less than an hour."

"I should change into an uninjured outfit. See if you can get that blade out of the ship when you have the time?" The fewer reminders about the navy around them the better.

Copyright © 2024 Will Soulsby-McCreath, nopoodles everything books

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form without prior written permission from the copyright owner, with the exception of short quotes for the purpose of review. All characters, locations, and events in this publication are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-917179-00-3 (paperback), 978-1-917179-01-0 (eBook)