rise up, ting ting

“How dull.” Giuliano sighed at the captain’s reaction. He would’ve expected a pirate to be stirring up trouble wherever she went, not sitting in the library reading quietly. He perked up a bit at her final statement, though. “Then don’t be peaceable. Simple solution.”

The sigh of apparent disappointment set something alive in Captain Blythe Briarcliff: the last thing she ever wanted to do was surrender to the quagmire of being boring. ( Once people were bored, it was an arduous task to drag oneself back out, much like fighting for the survival of a ship that was taking on water. ) 

After a moment to take in a breath, she turned her page, in thought. After all, she was trying this whole ‘peaceability’ thing mostly for Isira’s sake, for the impact that could be made if only they could change things. 

Isira had never had an example of love, true love, as a child. She should have had that example in her parents, by all accounts, but her parents did not love each other. Merely tolerated one another. She heard whispers of what true love should look like, but whispers were nothing compared to the feeling when she truly did fall in love.

But when all she wanted was to declare her love to the world, she knew she had to hide it instead. So she hid it in a smile to a visiting lord or a dance with another courtier. All the while, wishing the man before her would instead be Blythe Briarcliff. 

She was sure her heart had broken beyond repair when they had finally been caught, when her heart had to escape on a ship out of the kingdom or lose her head. 

But it hadn’t. 

Her love could never die. It was all that kept her going for the years that she still had to sneak her way out of the palace ( out of her golden cage ) to be with her love. The thought of being free, of being in the open, unafraid of what could happen, was almost too much for her to believe.

Many would not believe that Blythe could be so gentle, but here in this moment ( as in many of their private moments ) gentle was all that existed for her pirate. “I shall have to take your word for it.” She was the one who had seen what the world had to offer, after all. 

“I need you to rest - you beautiful, stupid pirate - so we can do all that we wish.”

Such was an experience they shared; those who ought to have taught them of love never had — Constantine and Sabina indeed often lived to spite one another, until the former left and the latter decided the rest of the world need not suffer that family’s remembrance — and so they’d had to muddle through for themselves, with similarly ( in the opinion of those more empathetically proficient ) sub-par results. 

Yet both were trying, with each other at least, even if they were not ready to extend the softness & vulnerability to others. Their families ought to have have taught them to love, but instead they taught them to build high walls around hearts and souls wrought of steel.

When Blythe sailed away from the kingdom of Elesea, her heart did not necessarily shatter like Isira’s had done, but merely did not accompany her when she left; it was entrusted to the princess for safe-keeping, for the rest of time if that was the lovers’ terrible fate, but it explained much of the pirate captain’s heartless reputation. And now that they were, fully, reunited, it was yet to be seen what that would mean. Now that her heart could once again jump in her own chest, now it was known that she and her beloved would never be parted.

“I thought his affections quite obvious. Do you tell me you truly do not see them?” A brow lifted. “My dear. Your own affections are not so easily hidden. Nor are the Princess’s. Perhaps the rest of court cannot see them, but I do.”

Oh, to be able to hold her love in her arms. To be able to love again without fear of someone taking her away ( for her privacy was well-respected here. )  She doubted anything on Earth could compare to this.

And she didn’t think she could ever get enough. No. There was not enough time in all the world ( in all the universe, even ) for her to truly get enough. But in all the hiding and sneaking around they had dealt with, at least in this instance they could be together without worry. 

And soon, she hoped, they would never have to worry. They could sail away and perhaps never hear another word from her father. They could travel the world, and perhaps their names would go down in history ( she, of course, as the missing princess who somehow seemed to travel after death ) for all their deeds, whether good or bad.

Blythe’s repeated murmurs had Isira’s heart melting. Any worries she had ever had melted right with it. Her voice soon mixed with her pirate’s and she could only describe how she felt as complete bliss. She pulled back only a moment, wiping the tears from both their faces. “I have never seen such beauty in my life,” she whispered. “I should think nothing could match what my eyes see now.”

Every touch Isira gave to her was as though she was set aflame, soft and yielding — yielding, the greatest show of love for the otherwise immovable — breaths falling from her lips.

Reverence was, as with all things, an absolute. Reverence was, at its simplest, a sea ( were all feelings not just that, a sea; did she not see herself from every angle, in every way, as if related to the bitter but beautiful expanse of world and water? ) that engulfed. For all her life the world had believed nothing could put Captain Blythe Briarcliff — the commander, the rebel, the icarian — on her knees, not least at prayer; it was said she had embraced the pitiless life of those without faith, avoiding and embracing the gaping maw of the promise of oblivion, but such an assumption was wrong. 

Yes, Blythe knew that oblivion rested beyond the horizon, knew its presence, the insatiable and great devourer. And yes, she feared it not, simply faced toward it with her chin tilted upwards in challenge: take me if you can, and if you dare to. 

( Her new beliefs — that oblivion was there, that there was no shining God awaiting nor red-glowing Lucifer to drag you by your heels down to hell, and that even that oblivion could not handle her — were educated ones, perhaps, having stepped into that liminal space of the human soul between death and undeath: she had tilted back & forth over the edge of that void, an experience that provided the most brilliant of adrenaline-bursts, once the decision was made to expel her back into the realm of the living. )

However, the captain knew what it was to be on her knees. Never in surrender — she would sooner meet her death with pride than shed it — but in that same manner: of reverence, offering herself wholly and completely. The captain had faith, too, though it was oft-forgotten because it was not placed in the God of most men. The faith and reverence of Blythe Briarcliff was devoted to Princess Isira of Elesea, and for reasons — a brand of prayer the world in all its ignorance decried as sin ( how could love, the purest emotion; and in the case of the pirate, the sole purity left, be a sin ) — she had many times gotten, and would gladly still get, on her knees. 

Love, in its truest form, was mutual worship: it was all about finding your altar. Some never found it, and some tried many before they found what was right, and some — whether by choice or by no fault of their own — lost theirs, and existed thereafter in constant hope until at last it was found again and the world slotted into place. Into euphoric, non-mimicable, perfection. 

It was not a matter of whether there was enough time in the world or in the universe. Time was abstract, dictated only by the men who deigned to track it, and yet it was always there in the goings of the sun as it sets in the west and rises in the east. Not containable: a wider catchment area ( a country, as opposed to a city; a world, as opposed to a country ) could not help you, as time was not cumulative in such a manner. Regardless of how broadly you cast your net, the matter always boiled down to the same: it was not whether the world had enough time, but whether you did. 

“Then, my love,” Blythe’s hand lightly caressed over her princess’ cheek, lips grazing together. In that gentleness, there was no lesser desperation, and an abundance more of meaning from one who was gentle so rarely. “If you believe that, it is clear to me that you have never seen yourself as I see you, as the world can have no greater treasure — not in an eternity of searching — to behold.”

Alessandra did not like to be laughed at, so she hoped the woman was perhaps laughing at the situation and not her. Still, the smile never left her face as she listened to Blythe. True, reading was an adventure of sorts. If you read the right things, you could travel to a place you had never been and still see and hear all that it had to offer. 

“I quite like poetry,” she answered. “It’s much more beautiful than other writings I’ve found. I get lost in the pages quite easily with poetry.”

She paused, wondering if that had made any sense to the captain. “And you?” she turned the question around. “What is it you like to read? Are they all adventure stories?”

“I find novelists are simply poets with more room for their thoughts; the poetry is not lost, merely...” 

Blythe drifted off for a few moments, expression one of thoughtful consideration as she sought the right word to finish the saying, fingertips toying with the material of the dress she’d put on. “...Extended. A poem is a tragically brief thing, is it not, and perhaps most poets are tragically brief people. But novelists, forging worlds — forging their own hypothetical dominion, where the right sentence can do the unthinkable — well, they make gods of themselves. And: well, who is there to grant absolution for gods? They may be the most powerful, but also... the most unforgiven.”

Talk of the literary brought forth the side of the pirate that did not bear swords coated with blood; the Blythe Briarcliff without the ‘captain’ before her name, though her words were quietly authoritative in a whole other manner. The girl who would once have sat in a library for hours, hair held out of her eyes, finding the next riveting tale to steal away the hours until it was dark outside and the people were sleeping. 

anonymous asked: blythe + modern au [ meme. ]

“Did they make me a freak? Yes. Did I hate them? Absolutely. Did I kill them? No.”

Blythe Briarcliff will do just about anything for the right price; she’s the chess-master of an organised crime ring. A liar, a thief, and a murderer all in one. 

This is known, but the issue is that the burden of proof falls upon the authorities. If they can only find their evidence — catch her in the act — they could have her behind bars for dozens of crimes: there’s been a myriad of times she’s been on the opposite side of the table, smiling: “If you think I did this, then you have to demonstrate how and why.” Every time, the resignation is the same: “I know. And I won’t be able to do that, will I?” 

Freedom was something the princess of Elesea had barely known. She had fought for it more times than she could count, but each time she was pulled back into her gilded cage. 

Oh, how she had longed to be free of that cage. How she wanted to fly far away from all that kept her trapped in a life she wanted nothing to do with. Raised to be queen one day, but never to make the choices that mattered to her people. She was nothing more than a pretty face, a symbol of beauty for the people to gawk at. 

True freedom had been denied her many times. And here it was, within her grasp. She need only reach out and take it. But this freedom came at a cost. All the hope and joy she was feeling was battling with uncertainty. Could she truly leave the only home she had known? Could she go on living here ( or anywhere a ship would take them ) and know that her parents thought her gone from this world?

It was worth the risk.

To be happy. To be free to love whomever she chose. 

So when she heard the woman’s question, her answer came immediately. “Truly,” she nodded, a smile brighter than the sun on her face. Isira moved from her chair to sit on the edge of the bed. “We shall be free. Nothing in the world will stop us again.” 

She leaned down, pressing a kiss to Blythe’s forehead for a moment. “I love you. And I shall never leave you again.” Then, her lips pressed against the pirate’s, and she was sure the woman could feel the tears that had begun to fall from her eyes. Tears of hope, of joy, of love. 

There were, in life, simple inevitabilities. 

Two, she tried to counteract —death & taxes — and one she did not: that she would always belong to the sea. 

To the damp boat-deck, to the sunrise upon a new horizon, to the thrill and the acquisition of treasures; to blaze-hot blood and clashing steel, to the wind in her hair and upon her skin, to the colours hoisted high; to Isira of Elesea. What would become of her if the princess chose the ease of certainty, and the parents who had woefully mistreated her — not able to shoulder the cost of truest freedom — it could not be said; would it twist her faster, further, darker, until she snapped into some unthinkable demon of fear and fury and fire, never resting as it all burned until she was satisfied with the retribution she had delivered upon the world that had done her so wrong?

( Since it was already known that she was a being of true insatiability, the world itself ought to be grateful — as Isira’s truly rang again, and again in her ears — that it would never find out. )

Isira had always been heavenly to behold, a seraph almost unbelievable in her perfection, but Blythe believed she had never been more so than now. Settled next to her, right where she belonged, the light painting her in brightness, smiling in a manner so brilliant, and closer, and closer still. And the princess would not deceive Blythe ( likely wouldn’t try to ), particularly not when it was the most vital and victorious of matters. Before she kissed her, she embraced her: a gesture longer, and more intimate even, than the kiss. Their bodies pressed together, impossible grin alighting her face, breathing and taking in everything of her. 

Her Isira, in this joyous moment of confirmation: the one she loved could be Isira of the Sea.

The Many Faces Of Blythe Briarcliff:

Younger Blythe: Bridget Rose Satterlee

Current Blythe: Keira Knightley

Phaedra had meant to stop by sooner, but her father had done nothing but hover for two days since her return back to the castle. So much so that despite their night together, she had hadn’t seen Elias since. The brunette was jumpy, edgy, and rightly so, constantly looking over her shoulder waiting for someone to try the stunt that got her taken in the first place. She hated it. She also hated that she had let down her guard, had shown her hand and was pretty sure everyone involved in the rescue had seen her and Elias’ display. Sh needed to know that they would keep it to themselves.

Finally with a free moment, the fairy made her way to the infirmary, the ebony wolf ever present at her side .since the whole ordeal. Phaedra made sure to stay as quiet as possible, just incase the captain was sleeping, not wanting to wake her, but was pleasantly surprised when she saw Blythe was awake.

“Hello.” She repeated back, taking another step into the room.  “How are you feeling Captain?”

Hover-parents had never particularly been an issue the captain had to confront, and particularly not a hover-father. 

Constantine Briarcliff had been gone since she was twelve years old — a round dozen, her mother once noted — so the concept of one being present at all in the adult life of their child was foreign to her completely. It was far from the first time, too, that Blythe had been in peril and even stabbed, so the event did not have the same profound impact that it seemed to have on the younger woman; perhaps because her reception for fear was almost non-existent, that even the coming of death could not intimidate her. 

Phaedra was a surprise arrival, though she had liked the young woman in their last run-in, and certainly now they would have something to talk about. Kindred spirits, perhaps — though from opposing ends of such situation — both entangled helplessly in loves convention dictates they must not feel, and yet, feel anyway; she would not breathe a word to anyone outside those who certainly knew. 

Love was a fragile thing, and outside forces believed it was more easily and painfully severed than it was. Blythe knew she would rather die than sever her connection to the Princess of Elesea, and perhaps ( she hoped ) Phaedra felt the same about Elias. After all, Blythe cared for her fellow pirate like she cared for family, and she would defend him as such.