Cursed Seas Pt. 01: The Wishing Stone

Gritting her teeth through the wonderful pleasure, Shella clutched Gwen's head to her breast. Her fingers mingled with Gwen's hair, like threads of silk. Both her breasts were being played with, one by lips and the other by curious fingers. Looking down at that pale, straight hair, it was just like...

... Lily.

Shella shoved Gwen away from her. Gwen sputtered as she fell to the floor. "Whu- what?" she cried.

Shella ignored the hands that clutched at her feet as she stood up. She walked to the entrance of the building, staring out into the dark.

"Why?" Gwen cried out.

Shella looked back on the pale, glowing woman. Gwen looked desperate, tears like fireflies drifting down her cheeks. "'Cause I need Lily back, n' I don' wanna kill anymore," Shella replied.

She left, feet kicking through the black leaves of the night, leaving Gwen crying behind her.

* * *

Shella stumbled through the forest, numb and tired. She fell so many times in the dark but ignored it and got back up. It didn't matter that it was dark, just as long as Shella got closer. Above the canopy of leaves, black turned to grey. Morning arrived, clouds gathered and unleashed their cargo of rain. Fat drops splashed onto leaves and rained down on Shella. Her clothes grew damp and heavy and clung to her skin. Her dark nipples were visible through her soaked shirt. She ignored the rain. It was just water, come and go.

The rain let up eventually, and sun filtered once more through the leaves. Water ran down the creases and folds in plants and dripped onto the ground. Rainbow-hued flowers bloomed, their colors rich among the forest's dark verdancy. Shella still walked on. Her feet may get sore, her legs may get tired, but she needed to atone to Lily.

Blue-green rocks poked out of the ground, some coated with moss and others turned into nubs by rain. Eventually, dirt peeled back from scale-like bricks, and what at first looked like tree trunks stripped of branches turned out to be columns of stone. As Shella passed between them, dull amorphous symbols glowed underneath layers of lichen and moss.

She stopped to stare at them but moved on after she figured they weren't important. The columns seemed to be under their own kind of organization. Two rows funneled Shella towards an open courtyard, with towering, tree-like columns standing at the corners of a compass. But other than the occasional soaked dead leaf, it was empty. Abandoned, like few other structures Shella had seen on the island.

Somebody giggled behind Shella. She stiffened and whirled around. Nobody. The barest tendrils of mist began to curl around Shella's toes unnoticed.

Shella licked her teeth nervously and drew the dagger out. Captain Lash could be hanging around the place, along with the crew. They could be anywhere on the island, including here. Shella wasn't about to let them make off with her only real chance.

She began to walk to the other side of the courtyard. Fog was up to her ankles, and it was pouring out of the runes on the stone columns. Shella ran a finger across a symbol. Cool to the touch, damp from the mist, and the glow was coming from within again. The fog certainly didn't look like anything dangerous.

Columns rose like phantoms out of the mist as Shella made her way out of the courtyard. It felt like the ancient civilization of the place had planted down a forest of the columns, because Shella was rapidly losing track of her direction and she had underestimated the fog the columns were producing. It swarmed around her and blanketed the skies. The sun couldn't pierce through the fogbank, and Shella was trapped in a sea of clouds.

And someone giggled behind her again.

Shella whirled about, her grip tightening on the dagger. Nobody. At least, nobody she could see. Shella could see her hands, but anything past five feet was murky, and past ten feet was a guess at best. Columns rose out of the mist at random, their shadowed, blocky forms the first thing Shella saw as she walked through the mist.

Another girly giggle rang out through the fog. Shella just couldn't pin down where it had come from! Could it be someone from The Harpy? It had to be. Gwen could make that kind of giggle, though Shella didn't put her down as one to taunt. Besides, Shella had left her behind. She'd come fetch Gwen once all of this was better, she had no intention of leaving Gwen behind, but Shella just needed to take care of this first.

As Shella pushed her way through the soup-thick fog, another column-like shape rose out of the fog to greet her. It was human-sized and shaped in a very particular manner. Didn't Shella dream about something like this?

The column revealed itself to be a woman as Shella got close. The woman had pale skin, long pale hair and wore a simple loose dress. She was thin, with a small bosom. Delicate lips and a straight nose on a gentle face, with the pale hair sticking to it like as if the woman had just exited a pool of water. Her frosted eyes opened and looked at Shella longingly.

The last time Shella had seen that face was in a dream. "Lily," Shella said breathlessly.

Lily smiled softly and beckoned for Shella to follow her. It was so easy to do so. It had been over three years ago since they were truly together. Three long years, not alone, but not complete.

"'S tha' really you? Ye're really there?" Shella asked, reaching out to caress Lily's face. Slightly cool flesh, smooth, near-polished smooth skin. Just like how it had been.

Lily nodded, pulling back further into the fog. It was just like Shella's dream, wasn't it? Lily would take her to the wishing stone and -

"Lily. How're ye here now?" Shella asked.

Shella was answered with a silent, seductive finger pressed to Lily's lips. That'd come later. They were here, now, together, right?

"Ye know wha' happened, right? B'tween you 'n me. Is it all right?" Shella asked.

Lily paused and nodded. What was that pause about?

"D'ya know wha's it's been like fer me? Oh, god, I been terrible," Shella said.

Lily smiled faintly, as she always did, and nodded slightly, as she always did. 'Don't worry, I'm here for you now.'

Shella stopped walking. Lily had never talked before. She could start doing it now, in theory. Shella didn't know what rules Lily played by. "Wha' was it like fer ye, back o'er there," Shella asked.

Lily cocked her head.

"Ye know, where I was stuck wi' ye an di'int know any better," Shella said with a small smile of disbelief.

Lily didn't answer. She didn't move, except to step backwards and beckon Shella to go with her.

"Name someone from there. Name anyone," Shella asked.

Lily didn't answer.

"Come on, me girlie, say somethin'. I di'int imagine ye talkin', did I?" Shella said, almost growling.

Lily didn't answer.

The dagger trembled in Shella's hand. It was just a mirage, wasn't it? Like when you saw land or another ship at sea, but they weren't really there. It certainly felt more real. It could be something granted by the Wishing Stone as well, like something to protect it.

Lily saw Shella's hand. She smiled faintly and began pushing down the wide neckline of her dress. Erect, pink-purple nipples poked up past the scandalous hem. 'I'm here for you, forever and always. I can take care of your every need. Just say the word, and I'm yours forever.'

"Yeah, but you ain't her!" The dagger whistled upwards and came flying down. The point touched Lily's pale skin, and just as Shella was afraid she was wrong, Lily burst apart into strands of fog.

The fog around Shella vanished. She was still in the courtyard. She'd never even gotten past the edge.

Shella sighed. There were tears coming down from her eyes she wasn't even aware of. She quickly wiped them off and looked around. Captain Lash loomed behind her.

Shella stumbled back, her heart hammering. The crooked Captain Lash towered over her, breath raspy through the straps. Shella waited for a screech, a rasp, the whistling of the whip.

But nothing happened. Captain Lash wasn't moving. She stood stock-still, with a rivulet of a tear staining the leather straps below her eye. Her whip wasn't so much as twitching. Behind Captain Lash stood a number of the crew from The Harpy, just about twenty.

Shella walked in between the women. They were each standing absolutely still, and many of them were crying. A few of them were whispering. Towards the back was Gwen. She was beaten and rumpled. Angry red lash marks covered her front and back, and a few tender patches of skin were scraped open.

Gwen must've found the crew, or they found her, and the captain had gotten angry. It was another thing that was Shella's fault. But Gwen was whispering. Shella put an ear close to Gwen's murmuring mouth.

"...you don't need the stone anymore? Oh, thank god, Shella. We need to get back to Captain Lash and tell her. What? Yeah, you're right, she would flay your hide off of you..."

Was everybody else here trapped in some kind of dream? Shella looked to her feet. Mist washed over it, pouring from the glowing symbols on the stone columns.

Shella walked to the edge of the courtyard. That'd take care of Captain Lash and her cronies. They'd be stuck there for a good long while. Possibly forever, Shella thought with her foot on the outside of the courtyard.

She took one look back at them, and one look forward. It was a simple straight path onwards towards a set of stone stairs leading up a large, blocky temple. She couldn't see what lay at the temple's top, but there was an inexplicable feeling she had looking at it, like her heart was as light as a butterfly.

Shella went back to Gwen. The pale, jelly-fish like woman's face was covered in tears. "Christ, was I really tha' big a deal fer ye, Gwen?" Shella asked quietly.

With the dagger back in its sheath, Shella raised a hand. She wouldn't like doing this, but it was the most effective thing Shella could think about. Her hand whipped across Gwen's face with a hearty slap ringing out.

Gwen's eyes widened with shock before blinking twice. "What the fuck?" she said.

"Welcome back t' the lan' o' th' livin'," Shella said, her hands wide to reveal the mist-bound courtyard they were in.

Gwen looked around, her eyes locking onto Captain Lash and then drifting around. "None of that was real, was it?" she asked.

"Yeah, it weren't," Shella said, turning around and walking slowly to the stairs.

"Wait! What happened?" Gwen asked, grabbing Shella's shoulder.

"Ye saw what ye wanted most. 'S as simple as that," Shella said. "Th' others are still stuck, looks like. Go n' wake them up. I'm goin' fer the Wishin' Stone. Let me have this, please."

Shella pulled out of Gwen's grasp and continued walking forwards. She'd gotten half-way down the path when a shot rang out. Something small flew through Shella's chest, accompanied by a lance of pain. Shella grimaced and continued walking. The wound writhed closed.

"Don't you dare!" Gwen shouted, almost screeching.

Shella cast a glance back. Gwen hadn't woken anybody else up. She'd only taken a few pistols off of them. "Wake them up fer me, please? I can take anything ye throw at me, an' I'll take anythin' th' Captain wants t' dish out, but I don' know wha's gonna happen an' I don' wanna leave them behind."

Gwen leveled another pistol at Shella and pulled the trigger. The lead bullet went through Shella's head and out the other side. She stumbled, but it was as ineffective as ever. The wound closed and healed, and Shella continued walking.

Another gun's clap, another lance of pain through her leg, another stumble, another writhing of flesh as it healed, and all for naught. Shella was at the stairs, looking upwards.

"Stay with me, please!" Gwen begged. Shella could almost hear the sob across the distance. "We could run away, live forever somewhere else! You could leave the Stone for somebody else! Everything would be all right!"

Shella rested her foot on the first step, pausing for just a moment. She didn't want to look back. More importantly, she didn't know what would happen. The Wishing Stone may grant her wish, but it could just as easily be another illusion, or it could have run dry long ago. It was even possible that it had never existed in the first place, just a dream of a Spaniard wishing for the glory days of yesterday.

There'd only be one way to determine if it was all true or if it was nothing but a fantasy. One foot passed the other, one step more above the last. No more gunshots rang out as Shella ascended the stairs. She arrived at the top uninterrupted.

The top platform had only one thing on it. It was a large, broad rock, exactly like the one Shella and Lily had last loved each other in Shella's dream. The symbol on it, complex, full of writhing lines, barely glowed internally. It was as weak as Shella's dagger when it had only one soul in it.

Shella went to the stone and placed a hand on it. It was unnaturally warm, and she could feel something weak try to connect to her mind. The Wishing Stone, for however faint it was, lived.

"Alright," Shella said quietly, "It's time. I want Lily back. I wish The Sea Lilith back into this world. She was gone, I'd left her to get back here, backstabbed her really, and she needs to be back here. Do ye get this?"

The stone pulsed comfortingly underneath her hand. Its ancient symbol flashed stronger and stronger, until it was blinding Shella. Finally, the light died down. The stone seemed to give up, like a wounded animal that had seen too much. Beneath her fingers, the Wishing Stone grew cold. When Shella lifted her had away, the rock fell apart into sand and gravel. It was gone.

Shella looked at it and hooked her thumbs into the hem of her pants. Above, it was a glorious day. The bright sun was just past noon, the clouds rolling gently past like lazy sheep.

Behind Shella, Captain Lash ascended the last step. Her leathery whip skittered across stone, twitching angrily. Shella didn't need to turn to see Lash's inhumanly furious gaze. She turned around anyways.

"'S all right, everythin's been done now," Shella said, opening her arms up wide. "Ye can do anythin' ye want t' me."

* * *

Somewhere else across the ocean, a pale grey ship lay impaled across rocks. It had been beaten by countless storms passing over it, but some peeling lettering still clung to the side; The Sea Lilith. In the captain's cabin, on a beaten but luxuriously large bed, lay a pale, doll-like woman. She opened her eyes.