Private Tales On Shores of Gold

[Brandar the Burned]

Azzarro, off the Cortosi Coast​

The bells tolled. It was the day of worship, and somewhere in the dusty streets, a service was letting out. Brandar smiled, because in a town of pirates, worship was just one side of the dice. Just a few streets away, beneath a baking tropical sun, a slave auction was being held.

It was one of many in this land of squat buildings, shingle roofs, and pastel colored homes. No one who lived here was a pirate themselves, but it was as close to civilization as a pirate could get safely. There was a semblance of order here. Brawls and fistfights were fine, but anything more and you'd find yourself in trouble.

With who? Your fellow pirates, of course, and the Blue King who reigned from his marble throne, nestled as it was on one of the mountain slopes flanking the idyllic blue of their deep bay.

He set a coin purse onto the table in front of him, eyeing the proceedings without much interest. Most of the slaves would wind up in the holds, doing the worst, backbreaking work the pirates could find. Some of the unlucky ones would be bed slaves, and the luckiest might get their freedom in a few years.

Brandar? He just wanted water and meat for In Irons, and unfortunately the marketplace was overcrowded with people who ducked beneath vibrant red awnings and ambled through dense stalls of goods. There was at least one brothel in this square - at least of repute - and far more than that in terms of grain merchants, butchers, farmers and hunters. The sheer volume oppressed the senses.

"That a good enough down payment?" He asks, eyeing the tanned woman across from him. He always did fancy the women of Azzarro.

"For a ship your size? I suppose." She responds, trying to play up her charm with a smile.

He dug out a smaller purse and tossed it over to her. "Make it happen, Vira." He says, quite serious, and she nodded.

"I'll get my men on it immediately. Same routine as always, yeah?"

Brandar nodded. "Take it to the tender, we'll pull it up. Same as always."

 

[Nina]

The sea was calling her, the distant sound of its waves washing away the shore, drowned out by the tolling of bells and the cries of the slave master. Nina closed her eyes and swallowed the tears away. The ground was too still, she was still swaying in her mind but she'd nothing left to decorate the slave master with as he passed her.


Pity.


The retching noise still made him jump back cursing and earned her a nasty crack with the short whip in his hand. The tears threatened again “You'll drown. The next time you sail, She will drown you. You'll die choking with your blood money on the bed She'll make for you and be forgotten.”


“Shut the fuck up, sea rat.”


“Lot 49!” the auctioneer bellowed. The slavemaster gestured and the procession she was chained to begab to move.


“You took away her Blessed!” she shrieked at him. “Curse you and all all you touch!”

His only reply was a wicked grin as she was dragged to the podium with the rest. Chained together by their ankles to be paraded before the crowds.


She sat while the rest stood and tried to wiggle her feet free, splitting open barely healed scabs. Another whip cracked across her back splitting skin and she screamed.


“CURSE ALL OF YOU!”

 

[Brandar the Burned]

No sooner did Vira get up then he heard a commotion, and no sooner did he hear the commotion then he knew that today was going to be fucking awful. There wasn't enough whores in this city to improve his mood, having had his lunchtime relaxation shattered.

Kiva? Invoked here? It was a port, but you didn't hear people screeching curses typically. Usually it was just gross sobbing and entreaties for mercy.

Pushing himself up from his chair with the stiff purpose of a reanimated corpse, he shambled into the crowd, following the source of that onerous noise. His broad shoulders parted the crowd, and the closer he got to the platform, the quicker he moved, until he was hopping up onto the wood while a pair of brutes came towards him.

They stopped when they saw his face, but only for a moment. When they started in again, he sighed, bringing his cutlass from it's sheath. The whip cracked, but anticipating it, he'd stepped to the side, and then lunged in, impaling the man through his torso - he wouldn't die, but he'd bleed like he was about to.

Hopping back, blood dripping from the blade, he huffed, keeping his weapon up and his stance steady.

"Right, how much for the girl?" He asks, looking to the auctioneer. "And don't you jack up the price, either. Sod it, I just wanted lunch in peace." Flabbergasted, the slavemaster stammered something.

"G-g-g-g-get yer shit together, mate." Brandar said, mocking him. "How much for the shrieking harpy?" He couldn't be more angry, and with his complexion and scarring, he was more than a little sure that'd buy him a few more moments to seal the deal. Some time, before he was summarily hauled off to the castle for breaking the peace.

 

[Nina]

Nina stopped screaming when he hopped onto the platform, eye wide. His face twisted and shining with scars. He'd been kissed by fire and lived to tell the tale.


Blessed.


Her mouth hung open in awe as he skewered a minder and demanded her price.


“T-thirty s-silver-"


“LIAR.” she shrieked again, spitting at the slavemaster, wrestling once more with her iron clasps, blood making her feet slick like oil. Just a little longer and she'd get free.


“Shut up you little bitch!” he spat at her. She screamed in fury in response.


“Ten silver coins!” he roared over her noise.

 

[Brandar the Burned]

He didn't have time to deal with her shrieking. He whirled on Nina, hooking the guard of his cutlass into her jaw to shut her up. It was a swift jab with the fist, really, and it allowed him to turn back to the slavemaster.

"Ten silver?" He asks, reaching a free hand to his waist. "I'll give you the thirty - if you tell the Blue Jacks there isn't a problem when they show up."

The slavemaster made a show of considering it, and Brandar tightened his grip on his blade, just in case.

 

[Nina]

The sharp snap across her jaw shut her up, and filled her mouth with a copper tang. It stopped her screaming but it didn't earn the ugly one any points. Nina glowered at him.


The slavemaster hesitated. He could get more, but the sea rat had been far more trouble than she was worth from the get go, let her unleash her ire on someone else and be done with it.


“Deal, but you better have a leash because she'll run the minute you take those off her.”


Nina spat at him again, spittle stained red with blood, dashed across his robes. “I don't run from kin.”

 

[Brandar the Burned]

Brandar snorted, taking the girl by the shoulder and pushing her towards the steps. He didn't turn his back to the slavers, not until he was out of easy reach, and only then did he sheath the cutlass. "Get moving, girl." He says, quite firmly. "I don't know what yer damn issue is but yer too damn loud and of all the damn places to invoke the Mother."

He was rambling, irritated, and certainly not feeling particularly friendly. "Breakin' the damn peace a' ma' lunch, damnit." He was muttering now, taking them both into the crowd in a hurried, but methodical pace. Once out of sight, he slowed them down so as not to attract attention.

"What do you mean, kin? Both my eyes still work."

 

[Nina]

She wanted to run. Oh she did, she wanted to run to the sea, to dive beneath the surface and let it wash away unspent tears. She wanted to tell Her she was back, that she would never leave her willfully. Nina wanted to tell Her about the slavemaster, about his ship and the one who’d sold her to him. She'd give her blood and ask for them to be punished.


But she didn't, not while his hand was on her shoulder. Not while he rambled, she'd run when she could see Her proper.


“Just coz you paid a different price, don't mean we're not kin. She took my eye and gave me my life. She took your skin and gave you yours. You're Blessed, jus’ like me.”


The sound of the waves was getting louder, she could taste the salt in the air. “What's your ship called?”


She imagined it was as dark and ugly as he was. Hell if she ran for the water now, she'd probably be able to find it herself. A ship was a reflection of its Captains soul. She would guide her.


“They'll all drown in the storm.” she muttered, casting a glance over her shoulder. “She promised.”

 

[Brandar the Burned]

"You aren't stealing my ship." He says firmly, gripping her shoulder more firmly. She was in chains, so it's not like she could swim very well right now, anyway. "Let alone getting aboard it." He scowled, and as they slid through the crowd and out onto the docks, she'd see it.

The thing was impossible to miss.

It dwarfed the other craft in the harbor by two decks, and it's artillery, while shuttered, would easily cripple anything that sailed against it. But it's big, black sails were furled, and it's hull was covered in seaweed, barnacles and other debris, and where it wasn't, blackened wood shown through.

A reflection of the Captain's soul? Not likely. A reflection of how people saw him? Assuredly.

"And they aren't drowning in any damn storm." He mutters, "She ain't drownin' no whole city what cause you were made a slave. Stop bein' a nutter."

 

[Nina]

“I don' wanna steal your ship, stupid.” she clicked her tongue, “Just wanted her name is all.” She would get aboard it though, oh yes, she would.


“Ain't no man who laid hands on me that didn't drown. She'll drown those that touch me wrong. And I'm not a nutter.” She felt her heart in her throat as the docks came into view. One eyed, she might have been but she was keen eyed all the same. The ship was as ugly as he was and just as terrifying to the inferior.


But not to Nina. She jerked her shoulder out from his grip and turned to face him, making them stop in their tracks.


“If i ain't boarding your ship, then take ‘em off and let me go.”

 

[Brandar the Burned]

He snorted, "In Irons." He says, staring down at her. A moment later, he looked down, then huffed again. "Fuck. C'mon." He didn't have a key for those damn things. They were going to have to find a blacksmith.

"Next time. Don't fuckin' shriek like a madwoman. Gave me a damn headache." She might want to go out into the water, but until they found someone to pry those irons off her they weren't going anywhere. "Shoulda taken the damn key from the damn slavemaster."

Once more, the muttering. Finally, a block down, he stopped and ducked her into a small building wherein a shirtless, sweating man with a barrel gut was laboring over a furnace. "Oi, Smith." The balding man looked up, and visibly flinched. Even for a pirate, Brandar was ugly.

"Get her shackles off, yeah?"

 

[Nina]

“Did I shreik? Or did She just deman you answer? Can't ignore a cry if it rattles your skull.”


She was silent as they moved through the city looking for the smith, scoping out escape routes. Once inside, she had everything she needed. The smith hesitated looking between the pair, uncertain. For all he knew he could be about to aid a theft of a slave and that would be bad business. While he contemplated, Nina commented “Your ship's name is as ugly as you.”


Her eye was fixed in the Smith as he seemed to decide arguing with Brandar was a far worse option than whatever trouble might follow. “Here.” he beckoned her into better light to inspect them. Blood and scabs caked them and her ankles. “Bloody hell, girl, what were you trying to do, slip out of them.”


“Could've.”


He muttered under his breath and fetched his tools shaking his head the whole while. “Don’t move.” she stood perfectly still, eye boring into Brandar, trying to decide what was her next best move, the clink of iron ringing between them.

 

[Brandar the Burned]

"You shrieked, and as someone compelled to uphold and convert in her name that means you shrieking demanded I answer." He wanted to smack her. He wanted to smack her at least seven times over. Damn girl should have stayed a slave. She'd be more useful when forced to work than she was being allowed to use her tongue for whatever she saw fit to say.

He scowled at her, one hand on his cutlass, his eyes on her. "Shame you aren't as pretty as your eye suggests you'd be. No wonder they whipped you so much. You've got a tongue like a dagger and about as much sense as an empty coin purse."

 

[Nina]

Clink


Clink


Nina shrugged. “Sense is subjective.”


Clink


Crack


The weight upon around her ankles lifted and Nina gave a wide grin, bending down to kiss the top of the smiths head. “Thank you.”


She moved with light steps to the door and stepped back outside, once more resisting the urge to run. “Am I free?”


No. Never. She served the sea, from now until her death. She would always serve Her.

 

[Brandar the Burned]

"Go on, git." He says, waving a hand. "I'd avoid going back to the market, though."

Turning back to the smith, he gave him some coin for his trouble and waited for her to no doubt make for the docks before heading that direction himself.

 

[Nina]

She didn't need telling twice, turning on her heel she ran bare feet kicking up dust, joy spreading through her chest. She skipped round a group heading for the market before her feet hit the docks, the soothing thunk of the wood beneath her feet as she pelted along a pier, drawing the eyes of the occasional surprised shout and she whizzed past people.


Toes curled about the end of the pier muscles taught for a second before she flung herself from the end, there was a brief weightless moment before the sea rushed up to great her, consuming her from fingers to toes as she dove. Salt stinging wounds with sweet satisfaction, the waves sung, celebrating her return.


Nina resurfaced a minute and a half later, a good ten meters out. The tide was retreating, sucking the current out past the ships. She wasn't afraid, instead she adjusted her direction towards In Irons, and let the current carry her towards it.

 

[Brandar the Burned]

He knew where she was headed. Damn lunatic that she was. But by the time she was close to the ship, he was getting into the tender to row out. She wouldn't find any handholds to get up - the hull was seaweed, barnacles, and nearly rotted wood. All the artillery ports were closed.

Or, perhaps, she'd find a more ingenious way in. Not that the ship would take kindly to her intrusion. The captain even less so.

Pulling the tender up, it was connected to the winches once they were lowered, and they were hauled up towards the ship. It was best to stay aboard the ship for the time being. They'd be left alone here.