Chapter 4 - If My Main Don't Open Wide.
Bellemere dropped her rucksack. Her calf muscles bunched in her legs and she sprang forward.
The ocean eats things.
The temperature of the water hit her like a fist. Bellemere pushed and pulled and kicked her way to the surface, gasping for breath. She willed her eyes open, blinking the stinging saltwater away and cursing her long hair.
The girl who had fallen was being pulled under by the weight of her rucksack. Two strong kicks had Bellemere at the girl's side. She tried to tug the tight straps off of the woman's shoulders, but the newbie was flailing around as she tried to stay afloat.
"Catch!" A flotation device bounced off the back of Bellemere's head. She grabbed it and shoved it into the girl's arms. Then she almost had her face taken off by a barnacle encrusted hull.
Bellemere pushed the girl back and kicked hard, trying to get away from the small sailboat before it ran them both over.
"Easy, Hellgrau, you almost killed them!"
A barrel-chested Marine with a full mustache stood at the rail. He leaned over and grinned at the two girls floating in the water. "Hey, look at this. We've got two of them. Best catch we've had so far."
Her leap and the cold water had ripped away any gratitude their rescuer deserved and Bellemere yelled, "Stop gawking! Pull her up into the ship!"
The Marine laughed and hooked his hands around the other girl. In one smooth motion, he pulled her, rucksack and all, over the side of the boat. He took a long look at Bellemere, who was glaring back at him like a furious, soaked cat. "This one's small, Hellgrau. Maybe we should throw her back."
Bellemere's teeth chattered together angrily. "Fuh-fuh-fuh-"
He crossed his arms and waited.
"Fuh-freezing!" she managed.
The Marine laughed and grabbed a fistful of her shirt. He yanked her out of the water and the next thing she knew she and the other girl were bundled into heavy wool blankets.
Another Marine, who must have been Hellgrau, was standing aft and holding a large mirror in his hand. "Well?" he asked his partner.
"Wet, cold, and kicking. They're fine." The mustached Marine shoved hot mugs into the girls' hands.
The mirror glittered in the sun. There was an answering flash at the top of the cliff.
Bellemere gaped. "What was that?"
The Marine who'd pulled her into the boat nodded up at the cliffs. "Someone always falls. We're just telling the guide that everything is O.K. Now drink your cocoa before it gets cold."
"And who the hell are you to tell me what to do?" Bellemere spat, wrapping the blanket around her.
The other newbie was horrified. "You're speaking to a Captain!"
Bellemere turned her fury on the woman next to her. "I don't care if he's the admiral! And watch where you're walking next time!"
"A fifty foot leap and listen to her!" The Marine roared with laughter and stuck out his hand, big as a bear's paw. "Captain Garp."
Bellemere juggled her mug into her left hand and shook hands with him. "I'm Bellemere."
"And that's Captain Hellgrau." Garp hiked his thumb at the Marine standing at the wheel of the boat.
"Hey," Bellemere said in greeting. Garp's jovial attitude and the sharp taste of rum in her cocoa had launched her into a better mood.
Hellgrau regarded her disdainfully. "You fell too?"
Her good mood disappeared like mists in the hot sun. "Do you think I'm stupid? I jumped!"
Hellgrau's expression easily conveyed what and who he thought was stupid. He cocked his eyebrow. "Wanted to be a hero? Show everyone how brave you are?"
Bellemere poked at the girl sitting next to her. "She could have hit her head or broken her arm or anything and we were wearing those huge rucksacks."
Garp looked pointedly at the single set of equipment he'd pulled into the boat.
"Well, she was wearing a huge rucksack," Bellemere amended
"At least you had the common sense to take yours off - before you jumped off a cliff into unknown waters to save someone you just met, that is," Hellgrau said sharply.
Bellemere glared at him. "Is that bad?"
"You'll find out when we get to the training camp," the lieutenant said. "Garp, the newbie's leaking."
It was true. The girl was biting her lip to keep the sobs in, but her nose was red and her eyes were brilliant with tears.
"Why are you crying? Are you broken or something?" Bellemere asked impatiently. She didn't have any use for tears, especially when everything was fine. Tears after the fact were a waste.
"No," the girl whispered, wiping her eyes. "It's just that I wanted this so much."
"Yeah? Great. Good for you." Bellemere took another gulp of her cocoa, then waved her empty mug in Garp's direction. "Can I get more of this?"
"You can have mine." The woman handed it over, and Bellemere recognized that this was the newbie who'd drawn the map in the sand.
Bellemere softened a bit, and tried to cheer her up. "Look on the bright side. At least we don't have to carry our stuff anymore. Now we get a free boat ride to camp. No harm, no foul."
"You don't know anything." The woman pulled the blanket further up her shoulders and stared out to sea.
Bellemere looked to Garp for an explanation.
"She fell, so she's disqualified for this round of training. She'll have to wait until the next cycle," he replied.
Bellemere turned to the despondent woman. "Lucky us. We get a break."
"A break?" the newbie muttered. "I don't want a break. I want to be a Marine."
"And no one's ever jumped before, so who knows what you'll get - probably fire duty for the next fifteen weeks," Garp added.
"How long is this pleasure cruise going to take?" Bellemere asked, letting her gaze follow the cliff's vertical ascent. She couldn't see the other newbies who were trekking along that path, and she enjoyed a moment of malicious glee imagining the fun that they were having, battling the wind and grit on their way down.
"Four hours," Hellgrau said curtly.
"Then we'd best get comfortable." Bellemere stuck her hand out from under the blanket and offered it to the girl she'd saved. "I'm Bellemere of Kokoyashi Village, which you've probably never heard of."
The girl pushed a string of wet hair out of her eyes and shook Bellemere's hand. "I'm Avianne Finn. Call me Avi."
Hellgrau whistled lowly. His cynical expression changed. "Finn? As in Commodore Finn? And Major Finn and Captain Finn and there's one more."
"Warrant Officer Finn," Avi said.
"What is a South Blue Finn doing at Kerris Island?" Garp asked.
"Trying to get away from the South Blue Finns," Avi replied dourly.
Bellemere listened to the exchange with interest. "You're famous?" she asked. "Then I'm glad I jumped after you. You could be useful."
Avi was shocked at Bellemere's blatant opportunism, until Bellemere grinned. It still took the girl a moment to realize Bellemere was pulling her leg. "I don't think my name will do you much good now," Avi said ruefully. "I'll be waiting for another month before I start training."
Garp leaned up against the rail and beckoned the other Marine to join them. "Come on and be sociable, Hellgrau. We might as well have fun while we've got time to kill."
"I wouldn't be in this mess if it weren't for you," the other captain muttered from under his cap. "Stupid scheme."
"No one made you do it," Garp said amiably. "And it worked a hundred times before."
"What'd you do?" Bellemere asked.
"We were smuggling contraband onto the island," Garp explained.
"But that's - that's - that's unscrupulous!" Avi sputtered.
"The officers don't like the rules any more than the recruits do. Unfortunately, we just happened to get caught by the only officer on the island who cares and now we have newbie trawling duty for a month. I think it's a great time to relax, but my partner doesn't agree," Garp hiked his thumb at the other captain.
"Don't call me your partner," Hellgrau growled.
"Partner in crime, whether you like it or not. If you hadn't been so keen on getting those smokes - "
"Two words. Jelly donuts." Hellgrau crossed his arms. "Not to mention what you didn't tell me about."
"Didn't want to worry you," Garp said evasively.
"Wrong! You didn't want me to say, "Hell no, I'm not helping you bring a dog onto the island, you crazy fool!"" Hellgrau retorted.
Bellemere laughed at the banter, but the other newbie didn't seem to find it as funny. She had the same dark look on her face that Gen got whenever he heard a dirty joke. So she told Avi the same thing she always told Gen. "You need to lighten up."
Avi mumbled something that Bellemere couldn't quite hear.
"Say again?"
"I said, I can't believe you're going to go into training, while I have to wait for a month."
The tone of Avi's voice pricked at something in Bellemere, reminding her of people and conversations she had put out of her mind since leaving the island. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Avi sighed. "Nothing. It doesn't mean a thing. Like you said, it was stupid to have fallen. I should count myself lucky that I'm not being shipped back home."
Bellemere thought it was useless to worry about something they had no control over. "We're with two Marines who got caught smuggling jelly donuts. You don't find that the least bit funny?"
A glimmer of a grin reached Avi's lips. "That's better," Bellemere proclaimed. She held up Avi's mug. "Captain Garp, could you top us off?"
"Certainly, newbie."
After their cups were filled, Bellemere loudly declared, "I propose a round of toasts. I'll go first." She stood and held her mug on high. "Here's to the highly overrated advice to "look before you leap.""
"Here's to dogs," Garp said after a moment's thought.
"To fools," Hellgrau said, gesturing at Garp.
"To the reason I'm here. To the Marines," Avi added quietly.
They drank. As Bellemere finished her second draught, she reflected that being in the Marines wouldn't be so bad if there were plenty of times like this.
==============================
A few hours later, the newbie-trawler pulled into the docks of the women's training camp. The two girls craned their necks to see what their new home looked like.
Bellemere was decidedly unimpressed. "I've seen piles of driftwood that looks better than this."
"It's a training camp, not a beach resort," Hellgrau said curtly as they walked off the landing and onto the sandy ground.
"Look - there are the barracks where we'll be staying and the halls where we'll be taking our lessons and the chow hall and beyond that is the training field and, oh my goodness, is that the obstacle course?" Avi asked breathlessly as they walked to the administrative offices.
"Only a Finn could get this excited over a training camp," Garp said remarked to Hellgrau.
Bellemere was glad that the other newbie was distracted by the training camp and not thinking about their meeting with the Commander. It gave Bellemere time to cement the details of her plan.
They entered the low, unassuming building. A lieutenant greeted them as soon as they walked in the door. She gestured down a hallway. "Captains Garp and Hellgrau. If you would like to wait in the officer's lounge."
Garp's thick mustache bristled as he gave the two girls an encouraging smile. Then the rescuers left the newbies to their fate at the hands of the Commander.
"The Commander would first like to see the.er, 'tripping' girl?" The lieutenant was not quite sure what his superior had meant by that phrase, but one of the newbies bolted up and headed for the office, relieving him of having to ask for an explanation.
"Wait! What are you doing?" the other newbie cried.
Bellemere ignored Avi and slipped into the office, shutting the door quickly behind her. The commander's chair was turned around so it faced the window that looked over the training grounds. Bellemere didn't waste any time and the lies began to gush out.
"Look, Commander. I was an idiot and I fell off the cliff. If my friend hadn't jumped off, I would have drowned."
She waited for some kind of response, but none came. Bellmere barreled on ahead. "Give her fire duty for the next month or so, but don't make her wait with me for the next training period to begin. I'll take the blame."
The chair swiveled around and Bellemere blurted out, "What the hell?"
"That would be 'What the hell, Commander.'" Nyuta, the Marine who had guided her along the cliffs, scowled. "Call your friend in here and we'll begin."
========================
Author Notes - I hope I haven't lost your attention! Garp is the way I like to spell it; if there's a canon spelling, feel free to pass it on. I'm going on vacation for a month - so no updates. However, new year, new resolutions = new chapters.
Bellemere dropped her rucksack. Her calf muscles bunched in her legs and she sprang forward.
The ocean eats things.
The temperature of the water hit her like a fist. Bellemere pushed and pulled and kicked her way to the surface, gasping for breath. She willed her eyes open, blinking the stinging saltwater away and cursing her long hair.
The girl who had fallen was being pulled under by the weight of her rucksack. Two strong kicks had Bellemere at the girl's side. She tried to tug the tight straps off of the woman's shoulders, but the newbie was flailing around as she tried to stay afloat.
"Catch!" A flotation device bounced off the back of Bellemere's head. She grabbed it and shoved it into the girl's arms. Then she almost had her face taken off by a barnacle encrusted hull.
Bellemere pushed the girl back and kicked hard, trying to get away from the small sailboat before it ran them both over.
"Easy, Hellgrau, you almost killed them!"
A barrel-chested Marine with a full mustache stood at the rail. He leaned over and grinned at the two girls floating in the water. "Hey, look at this. We've got two of them. Best catch we've had so far."
Her leap and the cold water had ripped away any gratitude their rescuer deserved and Bellemere yelled, "Stop gawking! Pull her up into the ship!"
The Marine laughed and hooked his hands around the other girl. In one smooth motion, he pulled her, rucksack and all, over the side of the boat. He took a long look at Bellemere, who was glaring back at him like a furious, soaked cat. "This one's small, Hellgrau. Maybe we should throw her back."
Bellemere's teeth chattered together angrily. "Fuh-fuh-fuh-"
He crossed his arms and waited.
"Fuh-freezing!" she managed.
The Marine laughed and grabbed a fistful of her shirt. He yanked her out of the water and the next thing she knew she and the other girl were bundled into heavy wool blankets.
Another Marine, who must have been Hellgrau, was standing aft and holding a large mirror in his hand. "Well?" he asked his partner.
"Wet, cold, and kicking. They're fine." The mustached Marine shoved hot mugs into the girls' hands.
The mirror glittered in the sun. There was an answering flash at the top of the cliff.
Bellemere gaped. "What was that?"
The Marine who'd pulled her into the boat nodded up at the cliffs. "Someone always falls. We're just telling the guide that everything is O.K. Now drink your cocoa before it gets cold."
"And who the hell are you to tell me what to do?" Bellemere spat, wrapping the blanket around her.
The other newbie was horrified. "You're speaking to a Captain!"
Bellemere turned her fury on the woman next to her. "I don't care if he's the admiral! And watch where you're walking next time!"
"A fifty foot leap and listen to her!" The Marine roared with laughter and stuck out his hand, big as a bear's paw. "Captain Garp."
Bellemere juggled her mug into her left hand and shook hands with him. "I'm Bellemere."
"And that's Captain Hellgrau." Garp hiked his thumb at the Marine standing at the wheel of the boat.
"Hey," Bellemere said in greeting. Garp's jovial attitude and the sharp taste of rum in her cocoa had launched her into a better mood.
Hellgrau regarded her disdainfully. "You fell too?"
Her good mood disappeared like mists in the hot sun. "Do you think I'm stupid? I jumped!"
Hellgrau's expression easily conveyed what and who he thought was stupid. He cocked his eyebrow. "Wanted to be a hero? Show everyone how brave you are?"
Bellemere poked at the girl sitting next to her. "She could have hit her head or broken her arm or anything and we were wearing those huge rucksacks."
Garp looked pointedly at the single set of equipment he'd pulled into the boat.
"Well, she was wearing a huge rucksack," Bellemere amended
"At least you had the common sense to take yours off - before you jumped off a cliff into unknown waters to save someone you just met, that is," Hellgrau said sharply.
Bellemere glared at him. "Is that bad?"
"You'll find out when we get to the training camp," the lieutenant said. "Garp, the newbie's leaking."
It was true. The girl was biting her lip to keep the sobs in, but her nose was red and her eyes were brilliant with tears.
"Why are you crying? Are you broken or something?" Bellemere asked impatiently. She didn't have any use for tears, especially when everything was fine. Tears after the fact were a waste.
"No," the girl whispered, wiping her eyes. "It's just that I wanted this so much."
"Yeah? Great. Good for you." Bellemere took another gulp of her cocoa, then waved her empty mug in Garp's direction. "Can I get more of this?"
"You can have mine." The woman handed it over, and Bellemere recognized that this was the newbie who'd drawn the map in the sand.
Bellemere softened a bit, and tried to cheer her up. "Look on the bright side. At least we don't have to carry our stuff anymore. Now we get a free boat ride to camp. No harm, no foul."
"You don't know anything." The woman pulled the blanket further up her shoulders and stared out to sea.
Bellemere looked to Garp for an explanation.
"She fell, so she's disqualified for this round of training. She'll have to wait until the next cycle," he replied.
Bellemere turned to the despondent woman. "Lucky us. We get a break."
"A break?" the newbie muttered. "I don't want a break. I want to be a Marine."
"And no one's ever jumped before, so who knows what you'll get - probably fire duty for the next fifteen weeks," Garp added.
"How long is this pleasure cruise going to take?" Bellemere asked, letting her gaze follow the cliff's vertical ascent. She couldn't see the other newbies who were trekking along that path, and she enjoyed a moment of malicious glee imagining the fun that they were having, battling the wind and grit on their way down.
"Four hours," Hellgrau said curtly.
"Then we'd best get comfortable." Bellemere stuck her hand out from under the blanket and offered it to the girl she'd saved. "I'm Bellemere of Kokoyashi Village, which you've probably never heard of."
The girl pushed a string of wet hair out of her eyes and shook Bellemere's hand. "I'm Avianne Finn. Call me Avi."
Hellgrau whistled lowly. His cynical expression changed. "Finn? As in Commodore Finn? And Major Finn and Captain Finn and there's one more."
"Warrant Officer Finn," Avi said.
"What is a South Blue Finn doing at Kerris Island?" Garp asked.
"Trying to get away from the South Blue Finns," Avi replied dourly.
Bellemere listened to the exchange with interest. "You're famous?" she asked. "Then I'm glad I jumped after you. You could be useful."
Avi was shocked at Bellemere's blatant opportunism, until Bellemere grinned. It still took the girl a moment to realize Bellemere was pulling her leg. "I don't think my name will do you much good now," Avi said ruefully. "I'll be waiting for another month before I start training."
Garp leaned up against the rail and beckoned the other Marine to join them. "Come on and be sociable, Hellgrau. We might as well have fun while we've got time to kill."
"I wouldn't be in this mess if it weren't for you," the other captain muttered from under his cap. "Stupid scheme."
"No one made you do it," Garp said amiably. "And it worked a hundred times before."
"What'd you do?" Bellemere asked.
"We were smuggling contraband onto the island," Garp explained.
"But that's - that's - that's unscrupulous!" Avi sputtered.
"The officers don't like the rules any more than the recruits do. Unfortunately, we just happened to get caught by the only officer on the island who cares and now we have newbie trawling duty for a month. I think it's a great time to relax, but my partner doesn't agree," Garp hiked his thumb at the other captain.
"Don't call me your partner," Hellgrau growled.
"Partner in crime, whether you like it or not. If you hadn't been so keen on getting those smokes - "
"Two words. Jelly donuts." Hellgrau crossed his arms. "Not to mention what you didn't tell me about."
"Didn't want to worry you," Garp said evasively.
"Wrong! You didn't want me to say, "Hell no, I'm not helping you bring a dog onto the island, you crazy fool!"" Hellgrau retorted.
Bellemere laughed at the banter, but the other newbie didn't seem to find it as funny. She had the same dark look on her face that Gen got whenever he heard a dirty joke. So she told Avi the same thing she always told Gen. "You need to lighten up."
Avi mumbled something that Bellemere couldn't quite hear.
"Say again?"
"I said, I can't believe you're going to go into training, while I have to wait for a month."
The tone of Avi's voice pricked at something in Bellemere, reminding her of people and conversations she had put out of her mind since leaving the island. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Avi sighed. "Nothing. It doesn't mean a thing. Like you said, it was stupid to have fallen. I should count myself lucky that I'm not being shipped back home."
Bellemere thought it was useless to worry about something they had no control over. "We're with two Marines who got caught smuggling jelly donuts. You don't find that the least bit funny?"
A glimmer of a grin reached Avi's lips. "That's better," Bellemere proclaimed. She held up Avi's mug. "Captain Garp, could you top us off?"
"Certainly, newbie."
After their cups were filled, Bellemere loudly declared, "I propose a round of toasts. I'll go first." She stood and held her mug on high. "Here's to the highly overrated advice to "look before you leap.""
"Here's to dogs," Garp said after a moment's thought.
"To fools," Hellgrau said, gesturing at Garp.
"To the reason I'm here. To the Marines," Avi added quietly.
They drank. As Bellemere finished her second draught, she reflected that being in the Marines wouldn't be so bad if there were plenty of times like this.
==============================
A few hours later, the newbie-trawler pulled into the docks of the women's training camp. The two girls craned their necks to see what their new home looked like.
Bellemere was decidedly unimpressed. "I've seen piles of driftwood that looks better than this."
"It's a training camp, not a beach resort," Hellgrau said curtly as they walked off the landing and onto the sandy ground.
"Look - there are the barracks where we'll be staying and the halls where we'll be taking our lessons and the chow hall and beyond that is the training field and, oh my goodness, is that the obstacle course?" Avi asked breathlessly as they walked to the administrative offices.
"Only a Finn could get this excited over a training camp," Garp said remarked to Hellgrau.
Bellemere was glad that the other newbie was distracted by the training camp and not thinking about their meeting with the Commander. It gave Bellemere time to cement the details of her plan.
They entered the low, unassuming building. A lieutenant greeted them as soon as they walked in the door. She gestured down a hallway. "Captains Garp and Hellgrau. If you would like to wait in the officer's lounge."
Garp's thick mustache bristled as he gave the two girls an encouraging smile. Then the rescuers left the newbies to their fate at the hands of the Commander.
"The Commander would first like to see the.er, 'tripping' girl?" The lieutenant was not quite sure what his superior had meant by that phrase, but one of the newbies bolted up and headed for the office, relieving him of having to ask for an explanation.
"Wait! What are you doing?" the other newbie cried.
Bellemere ignored Avi and slipped into the office, shutting the door quickly behind her. The commander's chair was turned around so it faced the window that looked over the training grounds. Bellemere didn't waste any time and the lies began to gush out.
"Look, Commander. I was an idiot and I fell off the cliff. If my friend hadn't jumped off, I would have drowned."
She waited for some kind of response, but none came. Bellmere barreled on ahead. "Give her fire duty for the next month or so, but don't make her wait with me for the next training period to begin. I'll take the blame."
The chair swiveled around and Bellemere blurted out, "What the hell?"
"That would be 'What the hell, Commander.'" Nyuta, the Marine who had guided her along the cliffs, scowled. "Call your friend in here and we'll begin."
========================
Author Notes - I hope I haven't lost your attention! Garp is the way I like to spell it; if there's a canon spelling, feel free to pass it on. I'm going on vacation for a month - so no updates. However, new year, new resolutions = new chapters.