Dundunduuuuun

Hopefully you're not sick of reading about Brogan bleeding, because I found one more.

Brogan dragged herself through the vent. Her side bled from the knifewound and she was continuously torn between the urge to cover it with her hand to stop the bleeding and to continue crawling and stumbling. She felt like a poisoned rat that sought the sunlight to be its last sight and fresh air to fill its last breaths. The cramped, dark vent had never felt more oppressive than it had right then. The vent was safety-- none of the pirates were small enough to fit in unless they had abducted another child to clean for them. Maybe they had. She couldn't be sure. Still, the vents were safety. It did not make her want to leave them any less.

Her mind tossed images before her eyes, grotesque visions of her own corpse after a few weeks of rot, limbs twisted like a cockroach's, eyes glassy. She did not want to die in this way, no. She was overdue for death, had cheated that grim reaper so many times that she had lost count, but she didn't want to die this way, right then. Years of running her mouth in taverns, of living among bloodthirsty pirates that tended to grab her by the hair and dangle her over the plank when she did something they foud displeasing, of picking pockets, and getting into fights with armed men twice her size. She had brushed shoulders with death these times, and she had felt powerful and invincible while doing it. She had dared death to claim her, for she was hollow and empty and without purpose or direction. She survived merely to piss off those that wished to see her harmed. She had spent many a night awake, with her face pressed up to cold metal in an attempt to alleviate the swelling in her broken cheekbone. She had pissed blood for days. She had not died yet.

And here, now, she had people that talked to her. That called her Brogan instead of 'rat' or 'potatoes' or 'you lousy little fuck', who patted her on the shoulder or the head when she did alright, who scolded her with gentle words instead of a fist. For the first time in years, she had a family. She loved each of them, (even Percy, who was more infuriating than anything on most days!) and she thought-- sometimes, even though she had a hard time believing it-- that they loved her too.

She was incredibly cold, which did not make much sense given how much moving she was doing in such a small space. The vents were always hot. Her limbs grew heavier. She wanted to see the sun again. Sweaty hands slipped as she lowered herself from the vent. She lay in agony, curled up around her wounded side, unable to breathe or think through the pain. A puddle of drool and sweat and silent tears had formed under her head by the time she was able to pull herself up. Her whole body shook as she pulled herself to her feet. She had to take the ladder one rung at a time-- hadn't she teased Everyn just last week for climbing that way? Her weak arms betrayed her as she struggled to open the porthole. She twisted at the waist to unwind the lock and cried out as it pulled the wound in her side open. Her bloody shirt stuck to her, a discomfort that was an annoying gnat buzzing at her ear compared to the alligator slowly swallowing the rest of her. She could smell the sea, could hear the seabirds that nested on the ship chirping amongst themselves.

She pulled herself up. She lay on her stomach by the porthole and concentrated on breathing. In. Out. It was always the same, a constant in her life that had never shifted no matter where she was or what she was doing. In. Out. --the sweet scent of her mom's potatoe-meat pie, sitting on the counter to cool. No, they couldn't have any until dinner and wouldn't they go out and play and stop pestering her? In. Out. --sputtering and choking, icy water gripping her, the sight of her brother's terrified face as he extended a hand to her. The ice was so thin and precarious. He reached, never-minding the danger he was in, never-minding that he could fall in alongside her and drown. He reached for her, and as her thin, pale fingers skimmed his, he reached again and further. He seized her fingers, and it hurt, but he pulled her yet closer to him. And then he had her wrist and he was pulling with strength that he couldn't have, that he didn't have, because he was a thin boy for thirteen and always picked after the girls for sports. Scooting backward along the ice, slipping, his boots crunching through when he reached the shallows. He hauled her to his chest with this sudden, impossible strength, and crushed her tight to stop her shivering. She was breathing too fast, too fast, and he was saying--

"I've got you, I've got you. Open your eyes."

No, that's not what he said. He said--

"Brogan, Brogan, open your eyes," urgent, rushed. A slap to her cheeks. No, Brogan never would have slapped her, and he certainly wouldn't have called her Brogan. She was never Brogan to him, never Brogan until the night that he breathed his last breath. Out.

Her eyes fluttered open. The smell of meat pies and the icy chill of the pond behind her family's cottage a distant memory once more. Her head pounded. Her tongue felt thick and a bitter aftertaste plagued her mouth.

"Ah, Herr Brogan. You are awake," Willhelm observed. "The pilot will be most pleased."

"Willhelm?" Brogan croaked, voice almost too weak to be heard. She recognized the ship's medical bay, but could not remember how she got there. She tried to sit up and hissed out her pain through her teeth.

"Nasty wound, that. It was a good thing that Frauline Harper managed to get you when she did. You would not have lived much longer if she had not."

"What were you thinking, trailing blood all over my ship?" ED asked, brow furrowed. "You shouldn't have run off like that."

"I'll clean it up," Brogan promised weakly.

"You're right, you will," ED agreed, but her eyes and voice were soft when she said it.