Chapter Text
Laura Hollis pulled her belt higher up so that it was resting on her hips, rather than dragging down onto her right thigh. When she’d first put it on its tightest size had been laughably large on her, so she’d had to knot it at the front, weaving the end of the strap through the metal buckle a few times and hoping that it would hold.
She took in a deep breath, thick with the smell of fish and the sea, and strode into the docks with her head held high and her hand on the pistol tucked into her belt. The sounds of fishmongers selling their wares, the steady clunk of the wharves against the rock wall, and bells tolling the return of ships, exploded around her. Alive and full, in a way that her home district had never been.
No, not home district, she corrected herself, the Burrows.
As a fishmonger slapped a fish down on the table next to her, sending up a spray of guts and blood, Laura reminded herself that she would never be going back. Not to the balls, not to the dresses, not to the marriage her father had arranged.
She pulled harder on the strap of her duffel bag, tucking the bulk of it under her left arm, while her right held onto her belt and pistol. She felt ridiculous in the clothes she’d stolen from the groundskeeper, but they had done their job. With the baggy clothes, her hair piled on top of her head and stuffed under a fisherman’s cap, and the soot that she’d carefully smeared on her face, she was unremarkable in the crowd.
She walked through the stalls, eyeing the crates of fresh fish that were lain out for display, and resisting the urge to hold her nose as she walked through. She’d only ever encountered already-cooked fish, and seeing them fresh like this made a hard lump rise in her throat. It was nauseating to watch the fishmongers slice the fish open with deadly looking knives, spilling their guts across the wooden tables. They moved with precision, the knives little more than a quick flash in the sun as they prepared the fish for customers.
Some of the fishmongers would talk to the buyer as they did it, voices loud to rise over the din, others would work in silence and barely look up from their table. As she rounded the end of the row, a pair of fishmongers burst into boisterous laughter and Laura started, her grip on the pistol tightening.
After clearing the stalls area, she was confronted with the collection of bobbing wharves and ships of all shapes and sizes. Some of them were tiny, hardly enough space for three people, full of nets and other fishing equipment, while others were much larger. She walked along the docks, staring up at the wooden beasts, until she reached the far end and there waited the grandest of them all.
It wasn’t the largest - that honour belonged to a trading ship that was designed for long journeys with a lot of cargo - but it was the most impressive looking. Three masts towered up from the deck, the sails still furled around the horizontal spars that ran the width of the ship.
The ship wasn’t that wide, but it was long, and it looked like it could cut through water like a hot knife through butter. At the front of the ship, a bare-breasted mermaid clung to the bow, and Laura averted her eyes out of habit.
“You!”
Laura froze, wanting to run, but knowing she had done nothing wrong. It wasn’t against the law to stand on the Docks, but her mind worked quickly and imagined that her father had found her somehow.
“Boy!”
Perhaps not.
“Hey, you!”
Laura turned away from the shouting, which was coming from the fishmongers stalls, and started to walk quickly towards where the docks ended, hoping that there would be a walking space between the large wooden warehouse to her right and the water.
The sound of running followed her and she broke into a sprint, gripping onto her bag and the pistol, so that there was nothing to keep her cap on her head as the fierce wind from the sea sent it flying, letting her hair tumble down in long waves down her shoulders.
When she reached the edge of the dock she saw that there was no such space between the warehouse and the water, so instead she turned to the left, the wharf where the ship was docked. Without looking behind her, she ran there, and darted up the gangplank, making the plank of wood shudder under her feet.
She tripped on the lip of the deck, but caught herself, managing to fall into a crouch. The gangplank behind her clattered as the person followed, but before she could stand, she heard their footsteps stop abruptly.
She raised her head, curious as to what had caused them to stop, and spotted someone lounging on the hammock nettings that she hadn’t seen in her haste to board the ship. They swung out of the hammock, landing easily on the deck and Laura couldn’t help but be impressed.
She was a woman - she couldn’t have been much older than Laura - wearing a sailor’s dark navy clothes, and a grey kersey wool jacket that fit her perfectly. Her dark hair was wild, thick with waves, and looked like it had been rubbed raw by the sea, ropes, and wind. Her eyes, however, were the most striking. So dark that they were almost black, but still somehow electric, they reminded Laura of the way the stray cat that lived next to her school would look at people as they walked past. Steady, still, but dangerous all the same.
“What are you doing on my ship?”
Laura was ready to reply, when she realised that the woman wasn’t talking to her, she was talking to the person behind her.
“I- I thought-”
Nothing more needed to be said, Laura heard the person behind her retreat hastily, leaving her alone with this sailor on the deck of a ship that she certainly didn’t belong on.
“I hope you have a better reason than he did.”
Laura raised her eyes from the wooden planks of the deck, to meet the sailor’s.
“I... wasn’t thinking.” She ducked her head. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re not from around here, are you?”
Laura glanced back up and instead of danger, there was now curiosity. She tossed up between telling the truth and lying, before deciding that there would be no point. This sailor was surely better at knowing if someone was lying, than Laura was at lying.
“I’m not.”
The sailor stepped forward, and Laura felt rooted to the spot as her black eyes dragged slowly up and down Laura’s body. Laura had never felt as naked as she did under this woman’s stare, but for some reason she had no urge to hide from it.
“These-” the sailor pinched at Laura’s clothes as she walked around her “-are not your clothes. And this-” she ran a finger down Laura’s cheek, gathering the soot, and then rubbing it in between her pointer and thumb “-is not from labour.”
The sailor’s eyes slid from the soot she had rubbed between her fingers, to Laura’s face, and Laura’s breath caught in her throat.
“No,” she admitted, her voice hoarse from the sailor being so close.
The sailor nodded, satisfied, and stepped back out of her space, letting Laura feel like she could breathe again.
“So what are you doing here? I assume you’re far from home.”
Laura stuck her chin up, meeting the sailor’s eyes defiantly. “I have no home.”
The sailor’s lips curled up in a way that made Laura’s stomach drop and her dislike for the sailor grow. “You want to run away with a ship crew. Make some grand voyage, like in all of your favourite books.” The sailor leaned forward again, and the oxygen pressed itself out of Laura’s lungs. “The seas are nothing like the tales, princess.”
“I don’t expect them to be,” Laura replied, the dislike growing further and pushing past the feeling of breathlessness.
The sailor arched her eyebrow. “Does a months long journey on a boat with a crew of the dishonourable sound like something you’re interested in then?”
“Is that an offer?” Laura challenged.
“We do need more crew,” the sailor mused. “Have you ever mopped before, princess?”
A hot flush crept up the back of Laura’s neck as she lied, “Of course.”
“Well then,” she replied as she offered Laura her hand, “welcome aboard.”
Laura shook it. “Laura.”
The sailor’s head tilted, not letting go of her hand, although they’d stopped shaking. “Carmilla.”
The sailor, Carmilla, let go and pulled herself back onto the hammock netting before Laura had a chance to respond.
“Wait,” Laura called, her voice faltering slightly.
There was a pause and then Carmilla’s head appeared at the edge of the netting. “Yes, princess?”
“Where are we going?”
Carmilla’s smile grew, turning wicked. “Why, the end of the world.”