Private Tales After the storm

- "Now, that's a name." - He muttered, as much to himself, as to the initiate next to him. Secretly though, he counted his blessings for nanna Irwin's name being something that actually inspired respect, because he reckoned he wouldn't have had the heart to turn down Lachlan's name choice otherwise... and by Kress, sailing on something named the Henriette's Revenge sounded about as silly as it could get.

- "I think you overestimate how much she loves you." - He grinned. The feeling of having someone that actually cared for him waiting back home for his return was rather alien to him. He had seen it in others yes, those comrades back at the Academy that feared how the family and friends they'd left behind, would fare with them gone, but such sentimentality was - in all fairness - rather lost on him. - "In any case, you'll go back to her." - He clasped Lachie's shoulder. - "Though I guess how mad she'll be at you will depend on the manner of your return." -

Before them, the thugs had followed Lachlan's bidding and had, in the meantime, set the Arnim ablaze. Already the first columns of smoke could be seen rising from the lower decks.

- "Anyways," - He said, turning to the prow. - "then is then, and now is now; so let's enjoy the moment shall we?" - Another grin.

- "Pick a course Master Irwin, let's set sail." - ​

It had taken Ivan a surprisingly little amount of time after Lachlan had left to figure out where they were. Beyond his natural sense of direction, he also had Admiral Verceg - and his lessons during the trip to Malakath - to thank, as it'd taught him those few factors he had been missing on the high seas, that he'd relied upon while on dry land.

In any case, while Irwin had been busying himself with... whatever it was he had been doing, Ivan had immediately - and predictably - started getting absolutely hammered with the rest of the crew. Though the pirates hadn't had much gold on them, they sure had stocked up on rum.

As Lachlan returned onto deck, he'd find Ivan lazing about, sprawled over the flight of stairs that led up the stern castle, and drinking heartily with their new crew. He raised a brow as he heard Lachlan whistle from across the deck, reluctantly walking over to where his friend was. He poured over the map, pointing then to an unwashed piece of paper, representing the sea just to the south of the Cortosi Coast.

- "Here." - He said, then adding with a shrug: - "If we just sail west, southwest, or south we'll land somewhere." - Truth be told, he didn't have much of a clue about what there would be in those places, but that was a problem for later.​

​

For now, the rum flowed and the sun was setting, a perfect time to drink and celebrate the capture of their new ship. - "Tomorrow we can figure out to which island we sail first, but for now let's have some drinks, shall we?" - He offered Lachlan a half-full cup. - "Get to know the crew." - He clasped the other initiate's shoulder, leaning his head slightly. - "You better, actually, your life may depend on it at some point." -

He then changed his mind, retracted the cup, and handed Lachie a full bottle of rum.​

Though he might not have expected it, Lachlan would be able to observe as the entire crew mimicked his gesture, their boots all hitting the deck in unison, the clamouring of hard leather on wood enough to thunder well past the Dawn's Revenge.

As those last echoes died down, complete and utter silence followed; sepulchral, and deafening at the same time.

- "And how did you feel afterwards?" - The blonde broke the silence. Should Lachlan stare back at Ivan though, he'd find the friendly, sly demeanour gone, fully erased from his face. In its place was... well, it would not be clear to anyone what that expression was. It was impenetrable, mysterious, inscrutable.

There was no comradery on Ivan's features, but neither was there hostility, or disdain.​

A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. It was one of sly understanding.

- "So you want power," - He said, taking his cup to his lips. - "and the freedom to use it." - As far as he was concerned, Ivan saw the two as complementary, rather than separate desires. What was power, after all, if one did not have the freedom to use it? He had always heard others call the arbitrary abuse of might as "tyranny", though, alas, he had never been able to bring himself to see why. Maybe it was due to his situation - having been raised as an initiate, a living weapon of power and destruction, and yet with his puissance always at the whims of others - that rendered having the freedom over how he used his power nothing more than a distant fantasy, but having a say over how to use his might, to have his fate truly in his own hands, now that was something he felt as an overwhelmingly intoxicating prospect.

He could've shared these musings - inebriated as he was by this point - however it would seem as though the crew had other plans.

- "What about you, Skender?" - He heard a voice ring out somewhere, its tone halfway between playful challenge and genuine curiosity. - "What's your sad story? Who was your first?" -

He snorted.

- "My sad story?" - He repeated, as though he was thoughtfully pondering the question. - "My sad story is the same as every other one at the Academy." - He snorted again, and shook his head.

Not many knew about that tale. It was not something he discussed; indeed, it was not something he liked talking about. Even in spite of the amoral, cold, emotionless demeanour he carried himself with, that episode of his life was something even Ivan himself preferred to keep buried. Livia Quinnick had caught a glimpse of the story, back in Tel Arran in that dark room in the silk merchant's abode, but not even she knew the full story.

- "I should've been around that same age when it happened." - He pointed with his chin to Lachlan. Eight or nine years old seemed about right, by his reckoning. - "Though it starts a bit earlier than that.” - He leaned his head, seemingly attempting to recall every little detail of that buried tale he was about to spew onto the others. - “I joined the Academy when I was about four years old.” - He said, his gaze fixed in some distant point in the darkness, focusing on nothing in particular. - "I was just an orphan. I didn’t have any family, any protectors, nor any skills, really. I was a sitting duck in the most lethal place in Aniria… But at least I wasn't alone.” - He set down his empty cup, and instead took out a full bottle of rum. He took a hearty gulp, as though the memory had triggered a painful reckoning of some sort within his mind.

- "There was this one kid.” - He started again, his eyes shifting once more to some nondescript spot in the darkness. - "He arrived the same day I did, from some shithole near Arnim. We were the same age, and so we ended up sharing a bunk bed.” - A faint smile flashed through his features, but soon died down. - "We became really good friends, really quickly. We watched each other's backs, against both our classmates and the proctors, we got into all sorts of shit together,” - He shook his head, furrowing his brow slightly at how silly all of it sounded now. - "and we even had the same life goals.” - He threw his head back, now overtly reminiscing at how ludicrous it all sounded to him now. - "To graduate into House Urahil, the house of the knights of means, and to live dashingly and courageously in the service of Vel Anir.” - He made a little flourish with his hand, making the dreams of his younger self sound even more of a sickly mirage.

- "Yeah, we were pretty alike, however we were not the same. He, for one, still had a family, and one night - after we'd gotten beaten up much harder than usual - he tried to leave the Academy and go back to them.” - He steeled his voice, trying to hide from the others just how painful it was for him to talk about it still.

- "Of course he didn't get far, and soon enough he was dragged back, screaming and kicking.” - His gaze shifted, sweeping through the rest of the crew before coming to rest on those opposite him. - "You see, the Academy doesn't deal well with desertions, so the first thing the Proctor in-charge that night did, was to wake up the entire class so that we would witness what happened to a traitor.” - He inhaled deeply.

- "First, he had us beat him up… violently. I refused.” - He tightened his grip on the bottle's neck. The next part was always hard, no matter how long it had been. - "And so this fucking Proctor just hands me a knife and then says that for every step the deserter took away from the grounds, I was to take a cut off his skin… and that if I refused again, then he would be the one to do it instead.” -

He leaned back, tossing his head backwards, as he came to stare blankly at the night sky.

- “And so I did it. It was for compassion, you see. Because if I was the one to carry the punishment out, then I could save my friend from most suffering that fiend of a Proctor would inflict on him. ” -

He snorted again.

- “Turns out I should've stayed still. The Proctor would never have let anything too serious happen to this kid. Initiates tried to run from the Academy all the time. That is no reason, in and of itself, to mangle or murder a promising pupil. But me? I was young and inexperienced. I didn't know what I was doing, and so, in my compassionate drive to save my friend, I ended up cutting too deep, and drawing too much blood.” -

He turned to face the crew yet again.

- "I killed him. I stood there, as those last shreds of life escaped his body, and as that last light dimmed in his eyes. I still remember his expression: pain, fear and betrayal. He didn’t want to die, he had not expected to die that night, and certainly not by my hand.” -

He then took the bottle to his lips, and chugged the entire thing in one go. Though, through his words, it was rather easy to see he was in pain, the suffering did not seem to take hold of his features. His face remained as serene, as impassable as it had been before, even as he drained the very last drop out of the rum bottle.

- "What I did was as good a lesson for the class as the punishment of a deserter would've been. It taught us that compassion is not a virtue, but a flaw; a weakness. Friendship should never stand in the way of you performing your duty for Vel Anir, lest you ended up like Ivan Skender: broken over the corpse of a traitor.” -

He leaned back again, admiring the stars with an empty glimmer in his eyes.

- "That night the Proctor took me out for drinks. My very first time. He told me forgiveness lay at the end of those bottles. I puked my insides out three times before I realised what he meant. That there was no possible forgiveness for what I'd done, there was no escaping the pain. The best you could do was to dull it until you forgot what ailed you so." -

And that was how the Academy broke them. By aiming at their weak spots, and bashing them in until there was nothing left but a broken shell behind.

- "The next week he dragged me to Arnim with the corpse, and made me break the news of my friend’s death to his family in person.” -​