Cursed Seas Pt. 02: The Witch-Eye

This work is a sequel chapter to 'Cursed Seas Chapter 1: The Wishing Stone'. This chapter features lesbian sex, masturbation, cunnilingus, and scissoring, among other acts. It also has violent and action-filled content completely unrelated to any sexual acts or sexual depictions.

Thanks to Gamina for Beta Reading.

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As always, Veradine Stoker woke up sore. Her bunk was too short for her, with her head banging up against the headboard and her feet hanging off the end. The sheets weren't enough and the pillow was about as thick as two sheets of paper. The rocking ship didn't sway her mood much either; she could tell that the winds had gotten fiercer from last night. It was the way her wall decorations swung on their nails and clanged against the wall with particular vigor. Old rusted instruments of torture and imprisonment, from thumbscrews to manacles, were hung up like trophies but because of the waves they slammed against the wood of her cabin.

She sat up and swung her legs over the bed. Sitting flat on the bed made it all to obvious that one leg was slightly longer than the other. Not to mention the nibbles of pain dancing along her skin. Setting her left hand against the bed's edge was all right, but setting her right hand made it bend awkwardly. Furthermore, she was sitting on her whip, and she could feel her weight through it.

That was the crux of the problem, Veradine thought as she pulled at some black straps wrapped around her chest. It was these bindings on her. Black belts and leathery straps, wrapping all around her so much that she didn't know where they began or ended. What wasn't wrapped up was invariably pinched between two or more straps. Even her entire head was wrapped up and she could only see out of her left eye. And it ached, all the time, all over her body. Everything was too tightly wound on her, just a few steps from breaking a bone. She could undo a few of the straps, like around her mouth, but that was the only mercy. The rest had a life of their own, tightening as they saw fit.

Veradine readjusted her straps and let the whip slither free. The whip was part of her bindings. Her right hand had been crushed and turned numb over the years from the straps, but in turn, the curse had bound a whip to her right palm as a new hand. Some hand it was. It was a whip that moved like a snake all of its own accord. She could feel through it like a part of her body, but could barely control it save when their interests aligned. It was like a tongue, with hungers all of its own. It always craved to feel someone's broken flesh underneath it and it thirsted for blood.

She stood up slowly, her body creaking and sparking with new pockets of pain. The only thing she could do was endure it. It had been this way for 40 years now, and it wasn't going to change.

Veradine grabbed her clothes off of the off-kilter chair and slide into them -- a shirt, boots, and pants, with a long-coat spilled over the desk. As soon as she had wormed herself into her clothes, the straps wormed their way out of holes and around her clothing. Soon, her clothes were bound with her. Taking her clothes off was the straps' limit and sometimes they would add in a new tear just to spite her.

Pulling her long-coat off of the table let much of the rest of the small room come into focus. It was cramped, but space was a premium on a sailing ship like the Harpy. The cabin was about long enough for her bunk and wide enough for her bunk and a desk. Her windows were incredibly grimy, letting in sickly gray light. Her one wall without a door or windows was the one clanging with the old instruments. On the desk was a captain's log. It was filled with the names of the Harpy's prey and when it had found them, but nothing else. Beneath the desk was a small cupboard. That was personal -- nobody else save one had even seen inside of it.

Veradine opened the door and ducked through it onto the open deck of the Harpy. On deck, women of all sorts of curses stiffened to her presence. She shut the door behind her and stalked through the crew. Every single person aboard the Harpy was a woman. Every single one of them used to be human, and now they were each a monster. It was all too easy to sympathize with them; Veradine was a monster too. But to the crew of the Harpy, she was Captain Lash.

Grey clouds rolled overhead, bloated and miasmic. It was early morning, but the thick cover of clouds made it feel like night. As Veradine twisted her head around, neck joints popping, she saw an angry swathe of gray-green cut across the horizon behind them. Her eye swept across the crew until it fell across a woman with dozens of needle-thin teeth in her mouth and waving tentacles for an arm.

"S-sorry, Cap'n. Di'int want tae disturb ya," the woman sputtered. An eyeglass was wrapped up in her tendrils. The woman should be in the crow's nest on the look-out.

Veradine stalked over to the woman. She loomed over the spotter, though she loomed over everyone. "Angela, what is so important about a storm that you'd come down from your nest?" Veradine hissed, her voice muffled from the straps.

"Well, I just spotted it a lil' while ago, but there's a ship ridin' the storm. 'S too far away t' tell if it's friendly. They're headin' for us," Angela said, quivering under Veradine's eye.

"So? Do I need to tell you what we do?" Veradine asked, stooping lower and back joints popping. "We are killers. Ships like that are our prey. If they seek to turn the tables on us, they die."

Angela quivered and nodded and Veradine bent back up. There was another woman close by, ignoring Veradine and looking despondent and aimlessly over the waves. Her skin and frilled dress were both a pearly near-translucence, but it only took a moment to see that they were one and the same, her form something similar to that of a jellyfish. She was as beautiful, and as fragile-looking, as a statuette made of glass, but she did have her purpose.

Veradine cracked her whip. Around her, the damned women jumped, the jellyfish-woman in particular looking like she had been shot. Veradine asked, "How's our prisoner?"

"No change, captain," the woman answered.

Veradine began ascending the stairs to the upper deck, with the woman following her.

"It's been months, ma'am. She's not waking up," the woman said. The woman was named Gwen, and she was the appointed keeper of their prisoner. Whereas other ships locked traitorous bitches like theirs in the bilge or in a brig, they had a different solution. The prisoner had taken away the chance of a life-time from the crew of the Harpy. She deserved to see every day in pain and punishment. If only she would, as Gwen put it, wake up.

Their prisoner sat limply against the back railing, a tall, inhumanly beautiful woman whom they had torn every scrap of clothing off of. Her skin was a deep, dark, rich brown, her waist narrow and belly flat. Her breasts were large, full and firm with black nipples and her buttocks equally firm. Her face was well-defined, with a Nubian nose and a full-lipped mouth. It was almost as if they had a human up there.

But she wasn't human. Her feet were wide and long, like flippers, with pointed nails. Gill slits occupied not only her neck, but her ribs as well. Her hair was like seaweed, green and wavy, and almost covered her eyes. Those alien eyes were sea-foam green in their entirety, with a lighter patch acting as an iris.

In many ways, she was enviable. Beautiful, almost human, possessing what Veradine didn't have. But not now. She lay limp across the back railing, with a thick rope tied around her neck to the railing. Her eyes were dead inside; she hadn't moved under her own power since they had tied her up. If anything, it reminded Veradine of a crushed insect.

Veradine crouched next to the woman. "Wake up," she commanded.

No response. Veradine grabbed the woman's chin and jerked her head about. Her eyes didn't so much as twitch. Veradine let go of the woman's chin and raised her hand. She whipped it across the woman's face. A hearty slap rang out, and Veradine's hand left a red mark behind that quickly faded. But the woman didn't react.

"Come on, Shella, do something," Veradine hissed.

Shella still sat there, defeated. Veradine stood back up, sighed, and then slammer her foot into Shella's ribs. The fish-like woman jerked from the force, but did little else. Veradine slammed her foot into Shella's ribs again and again, hitting the same spot over and over again. Shella just lay crumpled against the railing like a useless doll. The spot where Veradine was kicking grew darker and darker as ribs broke and blood pooled. With a hiss, Veradine slammed her foot back down on the ground. The dark spot lightened up as flesh and bone mended. Within a few seconds, Veradine's efforts had vanished.

It could've all been so much better, Veradine reflected. But, through Shella's own foolhardy choices, she fucked everything up. Shella couldn't even face the consequences properly. Nothing that Veradine or the crew did had any effect. They whipped her, beat her, stabbed her, shot her, strung her up, crushed her bones, pulled the flesh off of her bones, and it did nothing. Shella could take it easily; she healed monstrously quickly, and even a removed limb would be back before the day was over.

No, it was Shella's non-response. It was like that damned bitch was mocking Veradine! Not only did nothing the Harpy's crew do to Shella work, it didn't give the crew any satisfaction! What point was there in punishing someone who couldn't feel guilty?

Veradine slammed her boot against Shella's windpipe and pressed downwards. She could feel Shella's throat crumple underneath her weight, but Shella wasn't even giving the impression of struggling to breathe. Her breaths grew weaker and weaker until they stopped. When Veradine took her foot off of Shella's throat, it grew back into shape and the useless woman continued to breathe.

Hissing in anger, Veradine grabbed Shella by the throat and hoisted her upright. "If she's not going to do anything, we might as well use her for bait," she spat.

Veradine tossed Shella off the back railing, watching her dark shape fall to the choppy waters below, watching the water burst as she hit, watching the rope grow taunt as Shella dragged behind the Harpy.

"That was a bit harsh," Gwen said, her arms crossed.

"So you feel sorry for her? She gave up on you," Veradine said.

"In all due respect, captain, you also gave up on me, and when I found you, you whipped me," Gwen said.

That particular incident had been done in the midst of Shella's betrayal. Both Shella and Veradine were racing for something incredible, and it felt like Veradine was losing. The whipping happened before Veradine knew it. But she remained silent. If she even thought about being sorry, she wouldn't be Captain Lash.

The green-grey clouds of the storm hovered ominously behind the ship. Shella would have a hell of a time down there, being tossed and turned about. It'd give Veradine some satisfaction if she knew that it would do something -- anything -- to Shella.

In the midst of the storm clouds, a smudge of blue-gray floated on the horizon, seeming to grow steadily closer. Veradine huffed and snapped her whip. Several crew-mates obediently came bounding up the stairs. "Get Angela," Veradine commanded.

Angela came to the upper deck quivering.

"That's the ship you saw?" Veradine asked.

Angela nodded.

Veradine held out her hand expectantly. Angela gave her her spyglass. Veradine extended it with a jerk of her hand and held it up to her one eye. Immediately the far-off ship came into view.

Its sails were barely in sailing condition. They were torn and poorly mended, like somebody did a rush job. The sails were stretched to their fullest, snapping and cracking from the on-coming wind. The ship was coming in fast, but it was riding the edge of the storm. She couldn't see any trace of flags on the vessel. Whoever was captaining it clearly had a death wish.

"Do we attack?" asked a skeleton in a bloody, once-fine dress named Jenny Ivory. She had torn into Shella with particular relish, and she seemed to enjoy her revenge for at least a little while longer than the other women.

Veradine mulled it over. "Keep watch on them. If this storm clears up, we attack. If they divert their course, we follow it. But we don't attack for now. They'd be as easily sunk by that storm they seem to love so much as from our cannons. Make sure you are prepared, though."

The crew nodded and broke up to arm themselves. Only Gwen remained behind, watching the rope pull and swing to and fro in the water. Veradine didn't anticipate a conflict. The enemy would be a fool to attack in this weather, but more foolish things have happened. At her side, her whip twitched and writhed eagerly. It wanted fresh blood to run along its leathery length, not the blood of some dead-brained traitor or the blood of a loyal woman.

Veradine remained watching the ship on the horizon, spyglass in hand. It bobbed loosely on the gray waters. Was it a ghost ship, abandoned because of plague? Unlikely. All such vessels were claimed by the man that Veradine worked for; Ol' Saltbeard, the Master of the Damned, Admiral of the Dark Seas, he had a number of names. No matter what caused its abandonment, He'd not pass up a free ship; he'd always have souls to crew it.

As she watched the enemy ship, she read it and learned. The way it seemed so fragile, like it was made of paper, floating about on a mad world. The way the storm winds pushed it onwards. Its ragged shape, its poor condition. She could see more details, like the gray planks it was made out of. So many of them looked cracked or broken. Whatever the ship was, it was nearly empty. She didn't know how many men could be on board, but it'd have to be a collection of truly mad individuals. Everything she saw and learned, Veradine realized, was because it was catching up.

Veradine tore the spyglass away from her eye. Yes, that gray smudge of a ship was getting larger and larger. It was trying out-run the storm and catch up to the Harpy. Truly a ship of madmen.

Her eye drifted to the rope connecting that living corpse of a woman to the ship. It was taunt and soaked with seawater. Every now and then Shella would breach the water like the corpse of a mermaid. She was unresponsive as ever, but Veradine could care less about what Shella did or didn't do right now.

As much as Veradine hoped that keelhauling Shella would get something out of her, perhaps it hadn't been Veradine's best move. That rope was pulled very tight. If something went wrong, it could snap and Shella would be thrown into the sea. Unresponsive or no, Veradine needed Shella on the Harpy. Ol' Saltbeard had given her expressed orders to keep Shella on the Harpy, and Veradine didn't want to know what the punishment was. Her only watch on it was Gwen.

Cursing herself, Veradine snapped and pointed at the rope. "Get her secured."

Three women, including Gwen, scrambled to the rope and began hauling Shella up. Strung up like meat and beaten by the waves, and Shella was still unresponsive. Using the length of rope Shella was tied to the railing with, the women secured Shella to the railing by her wrists as well as her neck, doubling the amount of knots on the railing.

While they had been busy strengthening their grip on Shella, the mystery ship sailed ever closer to the Harpy, becoming more pitiable as more of its cobbled bulk became visible. It wasn't at all sleek, and it could have only been so fast because it was empty. It bothered Veradine, but she didn't think it'd attack. Besides, one good cannonball would rip the entire thing apart.

Veradine descend back to the main deck, her whip swaying eagerly.If there was some mad fool aboard, then the whip would taste blood, then it'd be slaked for a little while. Still, the insanity of whomever was on board could result from the minds of others working for Ol' Saltbeard. The crew looked at Veradine expectantly. "Keep the cannons below deck loaded. Fire on my signal, but only on my signal. They may be one of ours," Veradine ordered.

The crew waited for the mystery ship to sail up to them. Fat drops began falling upon them, claws snapping and fingers flexing around the handles of sheathed weapons. They wanted for the ship to be an enemy, too. They weren't expecting anything else. But Veradine didn't know what to make of it. She'd sunk plenty of ships before, and none of them acted like this.

Veradine glanced to the sky as the mystery ship sidled up to them. The gray-green clouds were threatening to crush them. Lightning flashed among the clouds, thunder roaring like cannon-fire. Winds tugged at the ropes and sails, rain beginning to slick the deck.

When she looked back at the mystery ship, she saw a lone figure standing on it ill-fitting deck. It was a young, thin woman. The wind yanked at the woman's long, pale hair, covering her face. Her arms were straight at her sides, her pale dress plastered to her skin by the rain. She didn't seem to care. It was like Veradine was staring at a version of Shella.

"Give the word, captain?" Jenny Ivory asked Veradine. A boarding axe and pistol were in Jenny's hands, her boney knuckles cracking in anticipation.

Veradine didn't know what do. Was there anyone else with this woman? She couldn't see anybody else on the deck. A single woman sailing an entire ship by herself? The thought of that bothered Veradine. "Keep back. Something is wrong," Veradine told Jenny.

The ships bobbed together, bouncing with the waves. Grappling hooks suddenly burst from the deck of the mystery ship and wrapped themselves around the Harpy's railing. The crew jerked back, pulling out a multitude of weapons. The woman aboard the mystery ship didn't react.

"Fire!" Veradine barked out. Thunder erupted from below decks in irregular blasts and cast-iron shot slammed into the opposing vessel. They ripped through its hull like arrows through thin skin and burst out the other side, making white flowers blossom upon the sea as they hit the water.

The woman was unperturbed as the lower decks of her ship were wiped clean. No loaded cannons or barrels of gunpowder exploded, no fire kindled in the ship's creaky wooden form, nor was any sailcloth or rope carried out the other side like guts. The cannonballs had gone straight through and hit nothing.

And then, the woman did something even stranger. She moved jerkily to a ripe tied tightly and hoped up onto it. Her dress was pulled at by the wind, revealing the long, fine boots she wore. Balancing perfectly on the rope, she walked across it. Her arms were not held open like wings, but she didn't wobble once as she passed from the mystery ship to the Harpy.

The crew murmured to themselves in awe. The strange woman put her boots on the Harpy's railing. The snatching wind pulled her hair away enough to reveal two frosted eyes and a gentle, if haunting, face as she scanned the crew. She stepped down on to the deck. Around her, the damned and their weapons stood at the ready. Her face didn't so much as twitch so close to them. It set Veradine on edge.

"What's your business?" Veradine asked harshly.

The mystery woman made no reply. She began to try and push through the crew.

Jenny gave Veradine a quizzical glance. "Hold her back," Veradine said with a sigh.

The crew pushed back against the woman, sending her back against the railing. Weapons were raised in warning, and the crew parted to let Veradine access to the woman. Veradine's whip twitched hungrily as she demanded, "What's your business? Who sent you?"