Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The burning rays of the sun wake you with a jolt. 

The sound of the ocean waves waking you wasn't unfamiliar. You were a sailor, after all. It was apart of the job description.

But waking up on land, was jarring to say the least. Not waking to the comforting tilt of your ship on the ocean made your heart race.

You had been sailing around the world with your crew for the past two years. And the last you woke, you were on your ship. Desperately searching for a place to dock and replenish your crew's supplies. For the lot of you had begun to run out of the essentials.

And now, you wake on the shoreline. With more questions the answer, and a nasty ache in your back.

You slowly stand upright, turning in circles to find exactly any monuments that could expose your location. You hoped there would be some sort of signage, that would give away the fact that there were other humans on the island. The more you scanned the horizon the more you noticed how abandoned the island looked. 

Or at least you assumed the land you found refuge on was an island. You couldn't really tell without your maps, not that they would be of any use to you now. Even if you had them, you still wouldn't be able to pin point your spot on the map without some sort of clue on where you were. 

No, from the looks of it, the island seemed to be littered with just sand and trees. There was nothing but shrubbery for miles. No sign of human life.

Just your luck.

From such luck you had wound up on a deserted island. Alone, bathed the heat of the suns rays, lost. Without another person in sight for miles, a pit began to form in your stomach. The severity of the situation dawned on you. 

You were alone, on an abandoned island. Without any supplies for survival. You peered down at the tattered fabric of your pants, soaked with the salt water filed the sea. Tiny grains of sand decorated your skin, and you moved to sit mere feet away from the ocean's edge. 

What happened to you is a blurry memory. One that included flashes of light from a horrible storm. It's all quite hazy, none of the details come rushing back to you as you had hoped.

The last thing you remembered was your body hitting the water.  

You were certain that was the end for you, who survived in the ocean long enough to find safety on an island? The currents of the ocean was cruel, and if you went against her tug, she would give you no mercy.

And yet, you survived it. With no knowledge of how. You were just grateful to be seeing another day.

You allowed yourself to lay on the sand dune, facing the waves. You were hopeful to see another vessel passing by. Perhaps if you looked out long enough you would see the flicker of white sails along the horizon. You could swim out to the boat and escape with whoever picked you up. Bring you back to the mainland, and save you from life alone on an island.

You waited and watched the ocean waves as the sun moved across the sky. The pit in your stomach grew with each passing hour. You stayed determined, even without another ship in sight. 

In your mind, if you had survived the sinking of your ship, then you would find a way to flourish on the island. Find a cave somewhere and secure enough food and freshwater until a ship drifted close enough to the island to pick you up. A ship had to be headed in this direction at some point, you were certain of it.

Even if your mind told you otherwise.

With bare feet, and bruised hands you walked the shoreline, in hopes to find some sort of drift wood you could turn into a flotation device. You trekked along the shore, kicking sand out of your path. And found there was no such luck, all the wood you had found was far too small to make into anything extraordinary.

The best you could do with the wood on the beach was make an escape ship for an ant, if ever such a thing was needed.

You didn't know how long you had been laying on the shore, but from the ache in your stomach you knew it had to be at least a day or two. You were a sailor, not a survivalist. And unless the island had a village with a shop, you were out of luck entirely.

Another hour of nothingness passed. And with it, broke your resolve. You fell to your knees, feeling utterly hopeless. Tears pricked the corners of your eyes, and your vision blurred. You were far too dehydrated to waste your energy on crying, but it was all that you could think to do.

It seemed the more you willed yourself to stop crying the more you felt you had to.

You were so lost in your own world, you didn't even notice when a stranger walked up on you. 

“Why hello there,” the voice reached you in a soothing tone. A shadow crossed along your face, covering you from the sun's harsh rays that burned at your skin. Your vision cleared with as the figured reached to swipe away the tears. You jumped at the sound, unfamiliar with the voice.

She looked at you with a frown and pity at your current state of distress. The tear streaks on your cheeks were enough to make her feel protective over you.

And that's when you saw her for the first time.

A brilliant woman, built with muscle and beautiful hair that decorated her head like a crown. She wore a black cloak, that covered most of her frame from your view. Scars embedded the length of her body, from previous endeavors before your time.

You wished to know more about her, and couldn't help but stare up at her, dazed.

She offered you a friendly smile, and you were certain you had gone mad with hunger. That the gorgeous woman in front of you was an illusion. Your brain's last gift before allowing you to parish on the island so far from your home. 

“A little minnow caught swimming upstream,” she hummed out loud when you didn't respond. Mainly speaking to herself. It seemed you had wandered far enough away from your group that you had become a target. Just like a minnow.

You sat up slowly, as she reached a hand out to you. You grabbed it with a fever, jumping when her hand touched yours. Something fluttered deep in your chest. When you stood, she towered over you. You had to crane your neck a tad to make eye contact with her.

Fuck. She was real, this wasn't a dream. Her cool hands against your skin skin proved it to be so. If you weren't so exhausted you could've cried once more. Except this time, the tear would be ones of joy. You weren't going to parish on the island, alone at least.

You were so ecstatic to see a friendly face you could practically kiss her boots.

“My name is Ambessa Medarda,” the woman hummed, reached for the satchel at her hip, and pulling out a leather bladder of water. Your eyes lit up at the sight. Your mouth had gone dry without water. You were just beginning to debate drinking the ocean water when she showed up. “Please, drink,” she holds the bladder to your lips, and you drink the liquid without another thought.

You probably shouldn't have taken a drink from a complete stranger. But this was hardly a time to be picky. You drank deeply, savoring the water that danced across your tongue.

The cold freshwater hydrates your cracked lips, the soreness of your throat slowly vanishes with each sip. She watered you like a plant, reviving you after being out in the sun for far too long. She doesn't allow you to hold the drink on your own. And you don't mind, your just happy to get water after going so long without.

In the back of your mind, you knew you should be more skeptical of a complete stranger offering you kindness. But you were so desperate for aid that you would trust just about anyone who walked up on you.

You give her your name in between sips, the syllables swallowed by your ragged gasps. Revived from the cold water, your mind comes back to you. Ambessa cautiously lays a hand on your head. Like one would when attempting to pet a wild animal.

She's gentle with you, the stranger that washed up on her shore.

She could threaten you, unsheathed her sword and demand answers. But she can tell just from the looks of you, that you're no threat to her.

You were as harmless as a minnow.

“Why don't you come with me, back to my home?" She offers, when you finish with the water. Your eyes still glossy with tears. "I can get you some new clothes, a meal, and you can bathe the sand out of your hair,” she hums, noting your the condition of your attire. The white blouse you had thrown on the night before was now torn in places. The brown pants that matched had grown dirty from walking among the sand.

The question ate at you. 

Why was she being so kind to a stranger? And why did looking at her make you feel warmer than the sun?

“I cannot stay,” you blurted out, clasping your hands at your front. Moving to sit down at the edge of the water once more. You were walking a fine balance of not wanting to seem rude, but having no time for manners. “I must wait here, for a ship,” you whisper, even though the idea of getting on another boat makes your stomach flip. It is not lost on you that you should've perished when your body hit the waves, and yet you had swept upon the shores of the island.

It had to be for a reason, you had to get back out to the ocean.

“And what is the reason you cannot stay?” Ambessa hummed, kneeling to your side, something she never did. She was a lot less intimidating when she was at eye level with you. You sighed, curling your legs into a ball, staring out to the ocean. Hoping the words would come easier if you weren't ensnared in her gaze.

“My wife,” you whisper. Ambessa sours at the word wife. And she moves to thread a fist in your hair. She felt a need to take care of you, her little fish out of water. And to think you had someone on this earth that was awaiting your return. It made her royally jealous. She felt quite possessive over you.

You had just washed up on her island, there was no way she was letting you escape her. 

Your near silent whispers were nothing but falsities. The word wife among your lips was a foreign feeling. For you had no wife waiting for you back home. But perhaps if Ambessa believed that you had someone else she would help you escape the island.

Although, you foolish thing, Ambessa was not as merciless of a woman as you thought her to be.

Her fingers moved to toy with your hair. Allowing the fist that had been woven so tight against your scalp to fall, the pressure against your head lessened. She inspected the tendrils of your hair. Noticing tiny intricate braids that had been woven through your luscious locks.

If she was daft, to believe your story, she would have thought your wife had woven them. Something to remember he by while you were out on the sea. For the braids were unkempt, woven eons ago, messily done. Although the truth of the story was that you had gotten bored one afternoon and woven the braids yourself. With no visual aid, they were imperfect little twists.

Ambessa grinned, an image of you with your hands raised above your head, tying the braids entered her mind. She grinned at the thought, attempting to rid the thoughts from her mind. As to not get too excited over you.

She could just imagine how hard it must've been for you to do such a thing. Sail across the sea alone, in a crew of men.

She could tell by the way you preened at her attention, that you probably weren't looking in their direction anyways.

“And this wife of yours,” she hums, pinching the ends of a braid between her first finger and thumb. A shiver racked your spine at the light tug she gave the braid. “That you so longingly speak of, does she have a name?” It's an innocent question, one laced with accusations.

Like the flounder that swam unknowingly into the nets of a fisherman's boat, you had been caught. Your lie was as visible as an ink splotch on a cotton blouse. Ambessa didn't have to know you too closely to read you like a book.

The question startles you, freezes you to your spot. You know for certain she can see through your lies. Her eyes are piercing as she looks down upon you, as if she was knowledgeable of every aspect of your life leading up to this encounter.

She was a stranger, and yet, she spoke of you like an acquaintance. Perhaps more. 

Perhaps it's a power she had been gifted by the gods. Although deeming by the way she looked at you, it was more likely due to the fact that she had spent years alone on the island. Time only broke every few years when a man would crash onto her beloved island. After all, she had only spoke to said men over the course of her lifetime.

You were something new, the first woman to visit her island. And unlike the men she had spoken to before, she was certain she would not be letting you go.

Her little minnow, that had swam too close to the current.

“Yes,” you blurted out, too far gone to back down now. Your brain was working overtime trying to craft a lie. You were never a liar, and it was easy to tell. “My wife, she has a name,” you fumble your words, and tilt your eyes skyward. As if you would find the name of your supposed wife somewhere written among the clouds. Ambessa smirked at you attempting to play her.

She thought it was cute, although fruitless.

You could never get the upper hand with her, no she would always remain one step ahead of you.

Just like right now, you thought you would lie to her and she'd leave you alone. How wrong you were.

“Her name is Caitlyn,” you blurt out. Finding the name of an enforcer you had known back in the day. A woman who was now happily married. A woman you had pined after all those years ago. Your stomach curled at the memory of her, and shook your head as if to physically rid your mind of her. The memories of her long black hair plagued you when nights upon the ship made you feel loneliest.

“Hmm,” Ambessa released your hair from her fingers, and you found yourself missing the feeling of her touch. She backed away from you, no less then a footstep. But the distance bothered you. It had been so long since you had seen spoken to another woman, especially one with such gorgeous features.

You ached for her, in a way that you hadn't thought possible.

In a way you had never ached before.

For no man had ever made you feel the way she did. Even in the few moments she touched you, you felt it. Being near death had never made you feel so alive.

“And did you forget your wife's name because you're on my island?”

“Or was she a falsity you made up in order to escape me?” She asked although both of you already knew the answer. A dark look crossed over her, as if the thought alone enraged her. You had just met the woman after all, and she had already grown quite possessive.

Ah. So she had caught you red handed.

“Its okay, my minnow,” she soothes the crinkle of worry that appeared when you furrowed your brow. Her thumb reached to rub against your cheek. An attempt to soothe your anxieties. “I do not care for liars, but we will have time to work though that now that you're on my island,”

Ambessa reaches for your hips, one hand planted on the seam of fabric that covered your waist from her view. She toyed with the hem your blouse, running a thumb along the sensitive flesh of your side. Her touch felt like a shot off espresso. In one moment you were too exhausted to walk, and the next you were ready to pace the whole island.

Your mouth went dry at the movement, heart beat roaring in your ears.

“I knew you were not wed,” she dips her fingers under the hem of your blouse, admiring the goosebumps that followed where she touched. The sun was beginning to dip under the clouds. And in an hour or so, the beach would become very frigid. Ambessa knew she needed to get you somewhere warm for the night. For she had no idea how long you had gone without warmth.

She made a silent vow to herself. She would find a way to ensure that you would never have to go sleep another night in the cold.

“You're far too skittish to be a married woman.” she teases, watching the blush dance across the arch of your cheek. And to prove her point, she reaches her hand up the small of your back. A movement that causes you to jump. Unfamiliar with the sensation.

“Unless your wife has left you innocent and untouched after all of these years?” your face turns a deeper shade of scarlet at the words. Her words are truthful, and mortifying when spoken out loud so boldly. Ambessa reached to whisper into your ear.

“Perhaps your wife knew you were meant for me,” her words light you on fire. And a small part of you enjoyed the way she whispered to you so softly.

“I lied,” you blurt out, Ambessa thumb reaching up to the strap of your bra. Toying with the fabric that held you together. You were at war with yourself, one part of you wanted to shove her away. And another wanted her to take everything you had.

Her tactic, although deceptive, had worked. She had gotten you to speak truthfully.

“I figured that, minnow,” You expect her to take something else from you. But she just backs away from your shivering form. Now the sun was really starting to disappear, and she really wanted to get you back to her home. She turns to stare into the forest. And you cant help but wonder what shes searching for. She turns back to you, and notices the pink of your cheeks.

“Oh, don't be embarrassed,” she laughs, and you attempt to memorize the sound. “Come along now, my home isn't far,” she holds her arm out for you to take.

You look past her shoulder, and back to the ocean. The waves that crashed against the shore were more ferocious now. If you happened to spot a boat, and attempted to swim to them, there would be no guarantee that you would be safe.

You could play coy and stay at the edge of shore for the night. Although you doubted you could spot any ships in the dark. And you had no clue how to get around without a map. Plus you weren't too fond of sitting in the sand until the sun came back out.

You were out of options, and had no other choice but to grab her arm.

Your body fit with hers like a puzzle piece. It was almost eerie how safe you felt with your arm locked with hers.

She moved to tuck you closer to her side. She was soft with you, like a lover would be. Even if this was nothing more then a fond gesture from a stranger. You tried to push the thought away, because for some reason it bummed you out tremendously.

She led you along the path into the forest, and you gave one last glance to the ocean.

With no other options, you follow her blindly. And allow her to drag you further into the depths of her island.