• Closed • You Wouldn't Pirate A Ship

[Sade Sauterne]

There were only a few things left to move onto the ship when he saw it: three of the owner’s proper crew shared meaningful looks between each other, conveying some silent message that Sade didn’t know any of them well enough to decipher. They took off before he could question it, and that was that. With Vermund and Giles’ help, he moved the rest of the cargo onto the ship and was on his way back down the pier when he spotted a more familiar silhouette across the docks.

Sade raised a hand, fully intending to wave the hunter and his four-legged companions over, only for the limb to freeze mid-air.

What… was that?

Two of the sailors that he’d seen exchange looks each held long leads at either side of a beast – one Sade had never seen before, one he certainly had not accounted for – and a flash of worry broke through the thief’s mask. Only for a trill, if that, but the worry was there all the same. Whatever that thing was, he had not seen it before, and yet the other crewmembers of this ship cleared the way and helped bring the mighty beast onboard, numb to the surprise he felt. His eyes found Vermund, his frown a clear question – but it was one that the biqaj clearly had no answer to.

Useless. Vermund had worked alongside these men for how long now? And he was as ignorant to the creature’s existence as Sade!

Whatever it was, he would… figure it out. And he would hope with every fiber of his being that it was not something that the other sailors could use against them.

It wasn’t difficult to brush the concerns away. A scheme’s likelihood of running smoothly tended to rely heavily upon the confidence that one had in it, and Sade would not let anything derail his plan.

“Oi!” He redirected to the hunter, and the man that’d already taken to giving him trouble. “That’s Brillby’s latest.”

“This one? What’s wrong with him? All he’s done is stand there.”

“He’s got no mouth!”

A bit more drastic than a cut tongue. Sade saw the sailor’s bewilderment cut through his irritation, and stepped merrily on his way nearer to Hunter.

“Born that way, or so I’ve heard. Trust me, the mask is for your benefit.”

“And he’s the one Brillby wants brought with all this stuff?” The crewmember – Arn, maybe, Sade hoped – scoffed. “Made him out to be something real important in that letter.”

Sade tsked, as one side of his mouth curved in a sly half-smile.

“Of course the boy’s important to him,” he cooed. “I heard he spent a fortune on him, after all.”

He let his eyes return finally to the hunter beside him, dark and not entirely kind.

“Way I see it, this is Brillby’s test for him. He’s here to make sure everything gets to Brillby’s fancy house in one piece. Aren’t you?”

Another scoff, this one borne of a deeper annoyance, came from Arn.

Good, thought Sade. He’d suspected that the sailors held a lack of respect for their employer, being the delicate sort that he was – and it just seemed the logical thing to conclude that at least some of them had to be skimming from his purchases before they ever reached Scalvoris Town. That’s what he’d have done, had he been a member of the crew in good faith. In any case, the idea made sense enough for Arn to turn away and go fetch the last crate, and Sade’s smile eased into something smaller. Softer.

Meet again. Happy.

“Come on then. Got everything you need? We should be leaving soon,” he said, and gestured for him to follow back to the ship.

[Jinyel]

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sade seemed likewise shocked but the appearance of the… whatever it was. The sailors led the animal aboard and, at the center of the main deck threaded its chains through iron loops bolted to the planks. They did not force it, but every time it turned, another few links were drawn through, until it was compelled to twist tighter and tighter, moving more and more in search of comfort. Eventually, when there was nowhere left to shift, it had to lay down to avoid being tied into a knot. That was where the chains were locked: enough slack to let it adjust its posture but not enough to stand.

As the bitter sailor turned his ire upon Jinyel, Sade called out to placate him. Brillby. That was the ship owner’s name, tucked safely away in Scalvoris Town as others brought his vessel to him. He’s got no mouth! Sade declared, as if that was a condition someone could simply be born with and survive to adulthood.

A year ago, such a thing would have been beyond the scope of Jinyel’s imagination. Judging by the sailor’s bewildered expression, it was beyond him as well. Now, with stranger things at work in his own body, Jinyel could imagine it easily.

He could do more than imagine.

The Sade who approached was not the Sade Jinyel remembered. His head tilted at a different angle. His eyes were dark. His tongue echoed the faint ghost of derision.

Perhaps the Jinyel who looked back was not entirely the same, either. He stood motionless as he met the thief’s gaze. Not friendly. Not hostile. Not anything. As empty a vessel as this one would soon be.

The bitter sailor turned away to fetch the last crate. For a moment Sade and Jinyel had the privacy to simply look at one another, and it was then that the thief softened. Just for a moment. Just enough for happiness to curl his fingers.

I acknowledge.

In the back of his mind, Jinyel knew this was not the response Sade wanted. But now, for this moment, the back of his mind was the only place he knew anything at all. His body moved almost by itself, aboard the ship before he’d thought to move his legs, before anyone could order him aboard. He got out of everyone’s way without having to think about it. He needed no command; the flow of sailors showed him where they would go, and the shift of their eyes told him what they would do next. More than that, he noticed instinctively what their eyes did not linger ― the nooks and crannies that were so unimportant that not a single thought was spared to them. Nooks and crannies where they would not spare a thought to Jinyel, if he remained there.

Jinyel found such a place where the main deck rose into the forward deck. By the rail, away from the stairs, Jinyel hitched up Lotus and began the methodical task of tallying every supply once more, simply to appear busy. Busy hands were hands often left alone. Monya was a sensitive creature, prone to absorbing his intent and mirroring it; when he was tense, she was tense. When he wanted to remain unseen, so did she. The wolf had no halter, but she stood beside Lotus as if she too had been hitched. Her eyes swept over the sailors, and looked away whenever one of them looked back. Both of them coiled, ready to fight or to flee as the situation demanded. And as the now and then began to blur, he had difficulty remembering which one they were meant to do.

[Sade Sauterne]

Oh.

The smile fell from Sade’s face, and in that fleeting moment all of Port Diablo could have up and disappeared, for all he cared. Maybe he deserved it, the response he was given. So quick that it was there and then gone, and felt colder than the salty wind that blew in from the seas. And then the moment passed. He turned. Hunter followed, or rather found his own way onto the Widowmaker, and his own way through the chaos of preparation to a place that he saw fit.

Sade slapped on another smile and cleared his throat, like the feeling could be shaken and swallowed down as easily as anything else. And even though it couldn’t, he couldn’t afford to think about it right now. In his peripheral, he made a note of where Hunter had settled with Lotus, and did not look at him again directly.

It almost felt wrong. When he was with Hunter, he could hardly stand to tear his eyes away from him unless he had to.

The others did not struggle half as much when it came to ignoring the latest addition to their numbers. Vermund spared the young hunter a glance on his way past, and when his eyes met Sade’s, the thief nodded once in confirmation.

“Almost all set.” Vermund’s hand raised, but this time Sade knew its path. His shoulder ducked away from the biqaj’s hand when it came down.

“Change of plans,” the thief whispered hurriedly. “Don’t push. Finish it. Got it?”

Make sure they’re dead, he thought, hoping desperately that Vermund wasn’t as dumb as he sometimes seemed to be. He was obedient, at least when it came to him and Sel’wyn – but to follow an order the way it was meant to be followed, one had to understand what they were being asked to do first.

Something twisted Vermund’s face. Disappointment perhaps. Concern.

“Okay,” he agreed nonetheless.

That done, it was Sade’s turn to duck his head and follow Vermund across the ship. To be led around and shown what to do, and told in hushed whispers why they did it. It was true that he had wormed his way onto the crew, but that meant little. He had spent time enough wandering its planks in the night, when the scanty crew left had their own schemes to keep themselves distracted; he had worked alongside them by the light of day, thrown to whatever cleaning or maintenance task they deemed unimportant enough to give to him. But setting out for real travel, no matter the distance, that was completely new to him.

He fumbled his way through. Copied whatever Vermund did, whatever he directed him to do. The pain of following his direction would be over soon, he told himself, once they set sail and made it far enough out.

Sade had strolled his way closer to where Hunter was, by then, when the docks of Port Diablo slowly began to withdraw from their grasp around the Widowmaker. Past the strange, white-maned creature bound so tightly to the deck that its body was forced to embrace it. The sight of such a mighty beast captured and tied down so brutally stirred discomfort even in him; not necessarily because he hated the chains that bound, but because he had begun to care deeply for someone that did.

Let him break those chains then, if that was what he wished when it was over.

He wandered nearer. Near enough to give the pony and the various supplies it carried a curious look over, or at least to look like he was doing as much.

Soon, he signed, and could only hoped that Hunter saw it. Be ready.

“Never been out this way before,” he chatted idly, glancing back to the docks. Gradually, the people that strolled through Port Diablo’s streets became not but blobs of color, growing smaller in his view with every bit that passed.

“She’s a fast one, this ship, isn’t she? It’s my first time out too. We’ll be out of Almund’s waters quicker than I’d thought.”

Be ready, he signed again, as succinct as hands could be, and then turned to leave the hunter to do as he would to prepare. Sade himself meandered into the stacks of crates they’d loaded on, and removed the lids from the barrels, as the water between them and Almund stretched far enough that the city began to fade.

His eyes sought out Vermund.

Vermund’s gaze met his own. The biqaj was situated a fair distance away, nearer to Henry and the ship’s captain.

Sade, having crossed Giles’ path, stood a little too close to the older man when he paused at the rail to look out across the water. But it wasn't Giles' voice that he heard next.

“Brillby’s boy.”

The thief’s head turned. It was Arn, and though his words and his narrowed eyes were clearly angling down the ship towards the hunter, it was to Sade and Giles that he spoke.

“Don’t he look familiar, somehow?”

“Familiar as every other hooded man with a mask,” Sade pointed out, but it still didn’t stop Giles from stepping away from the rail. The older fellow, having paid little mind to the ship’s silent passenger before, cast his own glance down the way. His weathered features scrunched, wrinkles multiplying.

“What’dye mean, Arn? Familiar how?”

“I think I’ve seen him,” decided Arn, his mind made up. “Least, someone that looked real close. Same trial those two dogs got put down.”

Dogs. He meant the Eyes. The Eyes that Hunter had gouged out.

“That one?” Giles frowned. His disbelief was written plainly in the creases on his face, and he said, “Hasn’t made a peep, has he? Don’t seem th’ kind te be capable o’that.”

Arn leaned in, and whispered, “Heard it was magic, what done it.”

“Magic? What’s Brillby messin’ with a mage fer?”

“I told you he knew,” hissed Arn. “He’s got his fat fingers in more than we know. Wouldn’t surprise me if he’d a hand in the killing of those dogs, either. He asks about the beast a few seven-trials back, an’ now he’s sent a silent watchdog with us?”

As subtly as one could kick anything, Sade kicked his leg up behind him and hit the closest barrel, and coughed over the noise. The two more experienced sailors didn’t seem to care what he did, now that they had something more interesting within their grasp.

[Pirvek Dj'Toraj]

It felt like trials that Pirvek had been rotting in this awful, cramped barrel. It wasn’t like he’d readily agreed to it – he’d spent a fair amount of time fighting with Sade to get out of doing it – but in the end, he was the one in the barrel, and not one of the other little wretches Sade had employed to help with the scheme.

How could he do such a thing to his own father!

Still. Waiting in the barrel didn’t come without its few perks, he supposed. Other than the fact that it reeked worse than anything he’d likely ever experienced, and how painful it’d been to be shoved around and rolled onboard, at least he got some time to practice.

A camp knife rested in his hand, and the side of the barrel was scratched up with little marks from such “practicing.” If he wanted to cut up the sailors of this ship badly enough to kill them, he needed a little practice beforehand. At his side, facing downwards, was the dull shortsword he’d hardly ever used. It excited him – more than it should have – that he was finally getting a chance to.

Surely they hadn’t forgotten that he was in here, right? It seemed impossible, but the sheer eagerness of the task ahead of him was clouding his ability to calculate time. It seemed like it’d been far longer than it had.

Pirvek was by no means a violent man. The instructions given to him by Sade – to slice, hack, cut up the sailors and shove them overboard, to their certain deaths – didn’t even occur to him as unnecessary violence! If something was fun, how could it possibly be wrong? And pushing no-good, scummy sailors into the freezing waters was nothing short of a great time.

He might not have trusted his son all that much, but he trusted his schemes. Sade’s plans hadn’t quite led him astray before – and Pirvek was sure there was no way for that to happen now! Anticipation only growing, he frowned, coughed, and tried not to breathe. There was a live fish, somewhere – flapping around in the barrel, that had kept slapping him as he’d been rolled on board – and without so much as looking for it, he stabbed his dull knife downwards in a rapid flurry of hate.

He didn’t care if he hit it or not. It was the thought – the intent, that counted. He wanted to hit it. That meant more than actually killing it.

Voices were nearby, standing around the barrels, though Pirvek couldn’t make out what they said, or who they were. When the lid came off of his, he was sure it must’ve been Sade. The light nearly blinded him, after being stuck in the dark for so long, and he blinked rapidly to reorient himself.

Then came the kick. One slight kick of his barrel was all that it took – Pirvek sprung upwards, knife in hand, and wasted no time in grabbing the shortsword. He glanced around as quickly as possible – two men nearby, along with his boy.

The shock on their dirty faces filled him with glee, as he charged forward towards the first one he saw – a skinny, older man – who reached for a knife attached to his belt.

“That barrel-” one of them started, pointing where Pirvek had just jumped out from.

Too slow! The excitement from finally being released from his barrel was enough momentum for Pirvek, who ran up to him, swinging blindly. His knife made contact somewhere – the side of his neck, maybe, and Pirvek used all of his strength to spin the man around, and push! Too excited to remember to retrieve it, his knife had gone with the sailor.

He didn’t look back to see if the man had drowned yet, and paid no mind to what any of the other members of their heist were doing. Only looked at his next target – who already held a sword, and appeared to be charging at him – and Pirvek screamed, flailing his arms around.

“Sade! Oh, fuck, he has a sword! Sade, help!”

The sailor faltered for only a trill, confused by the sight, and that was enough time for Pirvek to remember that he, too, had a sword. He frowned, gripped it tighter, and swung. He missed, but stepped forward and swung again – and missed.

His opponent managed to slice his lower arm, and Pirvek could only be grateful he did not wear his nice shirt. If the barrel hadn’t ruined it, the sword that’d just cut through it and stained it with blood would have.

It wasn’t his fault this sailor was better at fighting than him. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t really know how to use a sword! Maybe if he thought of it instead as a particularly large knife…

Pirvek lifted up the shortsword and bore it down into the man's shoulder when he moved closer, as one would stab with a knife. As he was lifting it, a sharp pain pierced his side – that bitch had stabbed him!

Fueled by a new anger, he drew it back again, this time hacking at whatever part of the sailor was closest. Tossing his shortsword to the ground, he gripped the man by the shoulders, and pushed him up against the side of the ship.

This one had hurt him, and he wanted to watch. He shoved the sailor, who fell backwards, into the water and watched gleefully as he saw red swirl around him. The man couldn’t swim – not with a wound like that in his shoulder! Pirvek laughed, clearly pleased with himself, but quickly stopped when the pain in his side and arm settled in.

The others could fulfill the plan if he wanted to take a short break, couldn’t they? The choking, sputtered cries of the drowning sailor filled his heart with joy, even through his new injuries. With a pleased, yet pained smile, he picked up his sword.

[Jinyel]

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Jinyel was on a ship. Jinyel was in the wilderness.

Jinyel was amongst sailors. Jinyel was amongst bandits.

Bitterly, against his will, the hunter recognized this backslide of his mind into places long gone, the weight of eyes long dead. It was in the way the sailors looked at him: curious, cautious, familiar. They were going to poke at him. He knew it from their sidelong glances. They were going to test how dangerous he was and then see what use to make of him. They would command him, if they could, just to reassure themselves that he was their creature and not simply a creature.

The glances lulled as the Widowmaker pulled away from port. Almund shrank behind them until it was nothing more than a child’s armada of broken toy ships stacked on top of each other to make the shape of a city.

He’ll make himself useful, said none of the sailors and all of the bandits.

The hunter tracked Sade with his eyes, but more than that, he tracked the other one: Vermund. What he did with his hands, the name of the ropes and rigging. The other sailors shifted sails and called their names ― foresail, mainsail, jib, mast, gaff ― and the hunter remembered every one.

They would not tell him those names to his face. They would ask him to work regardless. Ignorance would never be an acceptable answer as to why he did not obey.

Monya whined. Almund slipped fully into the ocean behind them. One of the sailors ambled over, and Jinyel’s gaze snapped back to Lotus and the work he was pretending to do. He was not ready for the test to begin.

Never been out this way before.

Sade. It wasn’t a bandit. It was Sade. Sade was here and he wasn’t here to begin the test.

The ship swayed beneath him, or perhaps Jinyel swayed above it. It was difficult to tell. The world was slipping, was the important part. Jinyel held onto Lotus’ saddle with an iron grip to keep himself steady.

Yes, was all Jinyel replied. All he could think to reply.

He unfastened the crossbow from Lotus as Sade returned to the other sailors. He put its stirrup to the ground and braced it with his foot. Drew the string back. Slowly released it. Pulled it. Released it. Lifted the weapon in both hands, as if merely examining how well it worked, then he put it back to the ground, foot in the stirrup, and drew it properly.

The sailors were talking about him, clustered on the other side of the deck. Their narrow glances were dangerous. The captain’s attention felt like an accusation.

Do not, Jinyel warned eyes that did not understand.

Thud. A shout. Then several more.

Jinyel turned to look, as did the rest of the crew. Although he saw what happened, it took several moments to understand.

A man was in a barrel.

Or rather, had been in a barrel, bursting out like a rabbit from a warren. The bedraggled figure sprinted forward and lodged a knife in the nearest sailor’s collarbone, and it was all so fast and inexplicable, that for a heartbeat Jinyel forgot there was supposed to be a mutiny at all.

The sailor stumbled back ― or was pushed, perhaps ― and fell clean over the rail.

Only then did Jinyel remember what happening. The rest of the crew seemed to realize it at the same time. Swords were drawn. Shouts flew as everyone tried to orient themselves around the bizarre intruder and how he had gotten aboard.

Jinyel drew an arrow from his supplies and loaded the crossbow. With all eyes fixed upon the madman from the barrel, the hunter moved with the crowd toward him ― until the fool stabbed the captain, was stabbed in turn, and then shoved the captain into the water.

“Captain overboard!” someone shouted, rushing to cast a net.

Damn it.

Jinyel broke from the crowd and ran to the rail, quickly gauging the captain’s position in the water. Unlike the first sailor, the captain had only been wounded in the shoulder, and was already kicking his way back to the surface. He burst through the foam, gasped for air, and then―

Rupturing: Snapshot.

With a rent-metal roar of magic, the point of Jinyel’s arrow vanished off the crossbow and appeared in the captain’s mouth. Confirmation for the whole world that the captain was dead, and that a mage stood amongst them.

Two pairs of eyes turned toward Jinyel. He ran through what Sade had told him, trying to tally his enemies. Six crewmembers to kill? Two of them dead, four of them, left, and two of those four were coming straight at him―

Jinyel ducked as a sword slashed toward him. His hips met the rail; behind him was only ocean. That sword came again, and a second one besides, so Jinyel did the only thing he could:

He raised his arms to protect his head.

The impact nearly knocked him overboard. An impact ― not a cut. His own blood sprayed in his face; one of his arms had been opened, but not shorn through. The blade had entered flesh and struck something harder than bone.

Fangs. The blade had struck boulder snake fangs.

For a heartbeat, all three of them stared at one another, equally stunned that Jinyel had blocked a sword with nothing but his arm. That moment ended when Monya entered the fray, jaws open, and threw one of the sailors away from Jinyel. She kept him there, duelling alone, leaving Jinyel with the man to whose weapon was lodged in his arm.

The sailor snarled and tried to yank his blade free. It caught on fang and dragged Jinyel’s arm with it. Jinyel clenched his good hand into a fist and sank it into the sailor’s jaw. The man stumbled, seized his sword with both hands, and wrenched it ever closer to his face in his attempts to free it.

With a clench of muscle and blinding pain, worse than the cut itself, Jinyel’s fangs unsheathed from his arm and punctured the sailor’s face. One fang through the mouth. One fang through the eye and brain. An instant kill which turned into instant dead weight.

The sailor dropped, and Jinyel’s arm dropped with him. He could not sheath his fangs, nor even dislodge them from the skull. They would not retract. The muscles which had so readily released them refused to take them back, and Jinyel was solidly anchored to the spot.

In all this, a single, absurd thought crossed his mind: I should have spent more time with the knitting needles.

Details

Monya is duelling one sailor by herself. Jinyel has killed one sailor and is physically anchored to the corpse by extendable fangs in his arm. By my count, that's two sailors left unaccounted for.

[Sade Sauterne]

All at once, everything changed. Everything happened too quickly for Sade to have stopped any part of it if he’d tried – which he did, when Pirvek burst out of the barrel at one kick, which meant get ready, and not the two kicks he’d been told to wait for! Shock alone sent Sade stumbling a foot or two back from the barrel, away from Pirvek, and out of the path of violence onto which the ship so suddenly and brutally steered. Good thing, too, because he needed that trill spent outside of the fray in order to process how exactly he was going to jump back into it.

Pirvek attacked. Pirvek pushed. It was Giles that went overboard first, and Sade sprung into action, appearing at the rail before his thoughts could catch up to his feet. He caught the old man by the ankle, other hand clinging to the rail. His father either hadn’t heard him when he’d whispered not to push them over – or, more likely, he hadn’t paid attention to a fucking word.

Giles, stunned out of his right mind, hung heavy and limp off the side of the ship.

“Fuck,” Sade cursed, straining to keep hold of his weight. Bracing his legs and hips to the rail, praying to any Immortal that’d listen, Sade let go of the side and grasped the old man’s leg with both hands. He pulled him up higher, until he could grab onto more of him, and with a frustrated groan hoisted Giles back onto the ship.

His eyes bulged. His face was swollen, red. He might not have been dead, but he was close enough. In his neck lodged a camp knife, which Sade promptly yanked free from the muscle and flesh in a burst of crimson blood.

The captain might have gone over, and there was nothing he could do about that. But he could make sure that the rest of them were kept on board until Hunter was satisfied with the state of them.

Already breathing heavy from the strain of pulling Giles up, Sade looked up, camp knife in hand, and tried to make sense of what was happening around him.

Pirvek was still standing. Injured, bleeding silver through his clothes, but standing. Sade whistled to get his attention. Once he’d gotten it, he tossed the knife back over.

Vermund was on the way from the other end of the ship, sprinting in his effort to reach them before the battle ended – clearly as shocked as the rest of them that it’d happened when it did. From the other barrel, Sel’wyn had pulled herself out, and ignored all else to make a beeline for the wheel.

Three dead. Or, close enough to it. One soon to be lost in the waves, one bleeding out on the deck, another pinned to it by the massive spike protruding out of Hunter’s arm. In the flurry of everything, of making sure that each of them were accounted for, this did not strike Sade as particularly unusual. Just, for the moment, a vulnerability for as long as it kept him fixed in place.

“Hunter!”

Sade dashed to his side, pulling one of his knives free while his mind raced with thoughts such as: Should I cut around the spikes? Is it even a spike? Should I stomp the skull around it? How the fuck do I dislodge whatever the fuck that thing is?

And maybe, had Henry not decided to take the moment to rush them, Sade could have figured something out.

Something jabbed hard at his back. Something glanced off his back, after cutting through the fabric of his cloak and shirt and meeting armor too hard to pierce through. The impact, blunted through it was, still knocked the thief forward, knocked the breath out of his lungs. He was saved the pain of being stabbed through – but Henry didn’t stop swinging, and the second time his sword aimed for skin.

Steel ripped through his flesh, slicing deep in that muscle where his neck met shoulder. Sade cried out, hissed, made some strangled sound that was half pain and half rage – and reeled around just as quick, slashing furiously at his assailant. He didn’t care that he was still swinging that sword. Didn’t care that it hit him again, and cut the front of his neck in a burning, slanted line from his collarbone to the opposite end of his jaw. He just slashed, and stabbed, until his blade finally found purchase in the side of Henry’s neck.

The sailor didn’t drop his sword, but he was useless with it then. His other hand flew up to protect his neck, so then his hand was stabbed. Palm, fingers, the neck underneath, the clavicles, the shoulder, the side of his face. Sade stabbed over and over, each plunge barely sinking to its full depth before it was pulled free to stab in again.

Henry fell.

“Pirvek,” he called through gritted teeth, slapping his free hand to the silver wounds in his own neck. “Make– make sure Hunter’s…”

Fuck, it hurt to talk. He hadn’t thought the cut at the front of his throat was all that deep, but speaking stretched the injured skin. Sade groaned, frustrated and high off adrenaline.

There was still another sailor to take out. But the fucker had disappeared somewhere in it all, and Sade didn’t have time to stand around wondering where. With an unhelpful, vague gesture of his blood-soaked knife, he left them there – the useless Vermund, the stuck Hunter, the bumbling Pirvek – and went to seek out the vanished sailor.

“Caine, where’d you go?”

That coward. He had reason to want to live through this, Sade supposed, but didn’t all of them? Caine was the youngest, the most sharp-minded, but did that mean his life held more value than any of the others they’d already downed?

Sade stalked across the deck, dripping red from one hand, silver from the other. The great beast they’d bound to the center had been disturbed by the commotion, but there was nowhere for it to go.

“Caine!”

“S-Sade? Is that you?”

Ah. He sounded scared. He sounded like he was on the other side of that beast. So that was the direction Sade went, trying through the pain to even out his breathing and slow down his steps.

“Yes, it’s me,” he returned, a note of fear creeping into his own voice. “Are you alright?”

“I saw the captain go overboard! Wh-what happened?”

“It’s alright,” Sade cooed. A few steps past the beast, in the shadow cast by the stairs – was that a young Caine, trying to make himself small? Sade stepped softer still, and hid the bloody knife behind his back. When he saw that shape lift its head, and those eyes peer from the shadows to spot him, his features twisted with concern.

“Come here,” he said. “Are you hurt?”

“Are they gone? Where are the others?”

“We pulled Arn out of the water. Giles didn’t make it.” Sade remained still while he watched Caine peek out from the shadows. The strange creature bound to the ship blocked whatever view he might’ve had of the rest of the ship’s remaining occupants. Watching him slowly emerge from beside the stairs and come closer, Sade continued, “There was a stowaway. Madman, don’t know what he wanted – but–”

He held back a cough. His neck hurt, and now that the immediate high was wearing off, he felt… lightheaded. Caine crept closer, worried eyes trained in the direction the violence had come from.

“But… uh– we… took care of it. Him. Fates, would you take a look at my neck for me? I think I’m injured.”

“Shit, Sade, you’re more than injured,” gasped Caine. As his hands raised to try and pull the thief’s clothes away from his wounds, Sade’s moved from behind his back.

Too slow. Too sluggish. Caine spotted it, and more importantly spotted the knife within it, and that was that. The young sailor shoved and darted away. Sade fell back and hit the wooden planks hard.

“Fuck!” he cursed, head spinning. Blade still gripped tightly, he slapped both hands against his face. “Pirvek! Find that fucking sailor!”

summary

Sade pulled one dying sailor back onto the ship and killed one more. Besides the one Monya was dueling, there is one more left, Caine, who is spooked and trying to hide.

[Pirvek Dj'Toraj]

Pirvek’s short moment of relief – watching that horrible man suffer, as he drowned – was over nearly as quickly as it’d begun. Someone had killed him with an arrow! He’d been put out of the misery that Pirvek was so greatly enjoying.

“Hey!” He shouted, to no one in particular. “Who the fuck did that? Wh-”

His words died out when he saw something very strange, something that didn’t quite seem to register in his brain as possible. Another man – a sailor, maybe? Or one of Sade’s helpers? – pinned to another, dead sailor, by some odd contraptions protruding from his arms. Pirvek had never seen anything like it.

As he approached to get a better look, and heavily debated whacking those odd spikes with his sword, the chaos he’d started caught back up to him. First, a whistle, then Sade trying to throw something to him.

His knife! He’d completely forgotten about it. He smiled, reached out with his free hand, and abruptly screamed. Instead of catching the knife, it seemed to have caught him – slicing through the center of his palm, and falling to the deck.

“I- oh, Sade!! Ow! You stabbed me,” he yelled, angered by his newest wound. “You have got to learn how to aim!”

Hand bleeding and held firmly shut, his attention quickly drifted from his son to the familiar woman climbing out of a barrel – Sel’wyn! It was a good thing he hadn’t chosen her to be his wife, he supposed, if she was the type to get involved with schemes like this.

“Hey,” he snapped, as he ran over to see the sailor he’d already stabbed and pushed, lying back on the deck. “Who did that? Sade!?” Why his great work kept being ambushed, Pirvek simply could not understand. He was only doing what Sade had told him – and it didn’t help that he had been so looking forward to shoving people off of a boat.

Everywhere he looked, he saw commotion, and something that made him angry. Off to the sides, a wolf seemed to be fighting another crew member, which was another sight he couldn’t quite seem to wrap his head around. He didn’t even want to imagine why or how there was such a creature on their boat right now – but he had no complaints, since it seemed to be on their side.

Then there was that rascal Sade, getting thoroughly beaten by another sailor, and that strange man-creature with the spikes in his arms, right beside him. He couldn’t spare the worry for his son – Sade would find a way to deal with that, he supposed, and Pirvek was already injured! He couldn’t risk anything worse this close to his wedding.

Nobody would care if the groom’s son was a little beat-up, but the groom himself? That would just be unacceptable.

When he watched Sade stab that man over, and over, and over again, Pirvek knew that he was right! He smiled, cheered, and laughed a little at the poor bloody mess.

“I think you got him, Sade!”

It was only a trill later that his son addressed him. Pirvek stared at him, eyebrow raised, before glancing around the rest of the boat. No one else was running to attack them, so he assumed they were safe, for now, but – who was Hunter, and what was Sade asking Pirvek to make sure of?

He was sorely mistaken if he assumed anyone – let alone Pirvek – could understand those vague pointing gestures he was making with his knife.

“Make sure who is what,” he shouted, growing angry when his son began to walk away. “Sade! I don’t- ugh!” With a frown, he glanced over the few other bodies around the deck – most dead – until his eyes landed on the one Sade had been standing closest to. “I guess… you,” he decided, orange eyes narrowed.

“Are you Hunter?” he demanded, crouching closer – though not too close – to the spiky man. Pirvek assumed he was stuck – or maybe those things were killing him? Perhaps that was what Pirvek was supposed to make sure of, he thought, and gripped his sword tighter.

Suspiciously, he waved his sword at him, and jabbed it closer in the air a few times – but in the end, made no contact with it. Pirvek didn’t quite know whether he wanted to scare him, confuse him, or was just terribly confused himself.

Luckily for him, he didn’t have too much time to think about it, once he heard Sade call for him again. He stood up – extremely slowly, thanks to his new injuries – and shook his head, still waving his sword in the air.

“Don’t move until I come back,” he instructed, then laughed. “Well. It doesn’t look like you can!”

He ducked around to a few different parts of the ship before he found Sade, unsure of where he’d called from. He seemed mad – but Pirvek didn’t quite know why. The plan was going well, he thought, and they were all a little injured, so that couldn’t possibly be why!

It made a little more sense once he saw Sade sitting on the deck. Pirvek frowned, and reached a hand out towards him, an effort to help him up.

“Did that bad sailor push you?” he asked, and pointed with his sword in the opposite direction. “Does the boy need his Papa to kill that man for him?” Though his tone was condescending, Pirvek still didn’t like the fact that someone had gotten the better of his son, and he shook his head again, slightly more serious.

“He can’t run very far, and he can’t hide for very long. Which way did he go? I'll just do all the work."

[Jinyel]

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It was a storm of chaos, not a planned execution so much as several people doing several things at once and hoping for the best. Jinyel wrenched his arm this way and that, as though that would loosen it. He tried to reach Monya’s side, but there was a whole corpse attached to him and nothing to do except physically drag it bodily across the deck.

Sade was there, somehow, though Jinyel had no idea where he’d come from. The thief raised his blade with clear intent to help, but was no closer to a solution than Jinyel himself. With a few moments to breathe, they might have devised one. They did not have those moments.

One more sailor came charging ― the last one? The fifth? Jinyel struggled to count how many were definitely dead ― and chose the enemy who could still move.

“Sade!”

A free Jinyel would have pushed Sade out of the way. Bound to a corpse, all he could do was lurch forward, cry out a warning that came too late, and watch the sword―

―glance off.

The sword skidded across Sade’s back as if it had no edge at all, then reversed and struck with a very real edge at the junction between neck and shoulder.

For a moment, the whole world tilted on its axis.

Rupture: Porthole

Graft: Energize: Repair: Artery

Jinyel didn’t know which rang louder: the pounding in his ears or the rip of air as a doorway opened between him and the space ten feet ahead. Six inches across, it was barely enough to slip one hand through. That was all he needed.

He forced his fingers under Sade’s shirt, under the armor he was wearing, thank the fates, and drove raw ether into the man’s body. Neck. Artery. He flooded the site with magic, fortifying the lethally precious blood there until he knew it would not spill. Then the veins, which were slower to bleed but no less deadly if―

―he couldn’t stop them.

Dazed by pain or adrenaline, Sade pulled away. Jinyel barely saw why, or why the thief was suddenly drenched in red. His vision blurred. The magic slipped his grasp. For a terrifying moment, Jinyel thought the portal would cut his hand off.

He fell to his knees, gasping, as two spells from two sparks came unravelled.

Men screamed. Wood groaned. Wind sighed through sail, and somewhere in the din, a wolf yelped out in pain.

“Monya?” Jinyel tried to stand. Failed. Tried again. Here. To me. Where are you?

Another yelp.

Jinyel braced his heels against the deck and hauled toward the sound, corpse dragging behind him. His vision cleared enough to catch familiar dark fur darting ahead on three good legs.

A sword swung toward her. Jinyel did not need to see clearly to aim.

Rupture: Porthole: Knife

It was both a porthole and snapshot spell: ether spread along the edge of his hunting knife as he cut through reality itself. His hand followed through the tear, driving the blade down into Monya’s opponent. Over the collarbone and straight down into the top of the lung and the cluster of nerves over the heart.

The sailor screamed and swung wildly behind him. He struck nothing, because Jinyel was not there. The motion wrenched the knife free, and Jinyel let it go. The wound would be fatal eventually, and that was all he could afford to care about.

“Monya!” he commanded. Here!

The wolf came at once, barking in distress. He seized her fur and surveyed her injuries, relief crashing through him when he found no lethal wounds. A severed hamstring in her rear leg, a deep gash across her side: serious, but survivable. Things to mend later, once he knew no one else on their side would die.

As far as he knew, ‘their side’ consisted of Sade and Vermund. For Vermund, he cared little. It was Sade who had nearly lost an artery and then staggered off with his neck open.

Before he could find his dear one, the madman from the barrel approached ― a wild-eyed figure who windmilled his blade as if he had never held it before.

The man waved that blade in Jinyel’s direction. He didn’t stab, merely brandished.

Are you Hunter? he asked.

Not for you, Jinyel replied.

Whatever the madman thought of him, of the wolf, the fangs, of the corpse dragging behind, he did not attack. Instead, he turned and took his blade toward what Jinyel was actually looking for:

Sade.

The thief knelt beside the chained beast, speaking ― or rather, rasping ― to someone hidden behind it. His clothes continued to turn from red to silver. His neck continued to bleed.

Once more, Jinyel dug his heels into the deck and hauled. Weight be damned, shoulders be damned, it meant nothing now. A trail of blood followed behind him, and the damned madman was in his way. Jinyel could hear him, sneering as though all that silver blood was nothing but paint on the deck.

A deep, scorching hatred bloomed inside Jinyel. But that, like all else, was just one more weight to shove aside.

“Move.” If he had to, Jinyel would throw that madman out of the way. Another dozen sailors could not have stopped him from seizing the thief’s ankle and dragging him within reach. No. You won’t. Not today.

Pants. Calf. Skin. Jinyel magicked as he pulled, both clotting Sade’s blood and assessing the wound. He dragged Sade underneath him, straddled that tough shell of armor at the thief’s midsection, and locked his knees around him so no sailor or madman could pry them apart.

Sade’s artery was intact, but so many veins had been severed that Jinyel couldn’t count them. He just closed them, stemmed them, did whatever he could as quickly as he could to put a stop to all that silver.

He did not notice that his eyes were glowing gold.

You will stay down or you will be held down, Jinyel signed against his neck. Do. Not. Move.

Details

(Rupturing: Competent Mutation) Whenever Jinyel uses magic, his eyes glow with bright light. Rupturing causes his eyes to glow blue, and Graft causes his eyes to glow gold. This is very easy for bystanders to spot, even at a distance, unless Jinyel is physically blindfolded. If an onlooker knows Jinyel personally, they will be able to predict what magic he’s about to use.

Monya’s opponent is dead, Caine the only sailor remaining.

[Sade Sauterne]

No. No! This was wrong, it was all fucking wrong and the whole thing was ruined! Sade knew that he never should have trusted anyone to be a part of this, never should have relied on anyone else, never should have thought that in sharing the weight it would make his own burden any lighter. All it did was add weight to everyone else, which promptly crushed them into the wooden planks he laid and spilled so much of his filthy silver blood upon. Sure, when he worked by himself he often got hurt – but he was hurt here and now, only this time there were others around to witness his shame.

He knew Pirvek was there standing above him. Heard him and his condescending tone, and felt the words stab through him just as sharp as the sailor’s sword. He kept his hands over his eyes to shield himself away from having to see it, though, as if by remaining blind he could pretend things were different than they were.

“I don’t– know,” he coughed, “he went–”

Something grabbed him by the ankle.

Sade kicked.

Never in his life had being dragged like that ever led to anything good, and while later on he might look back at this moment and realize the necessity behind Hunter’s actions – while it was happening, no amount of reassurance or injury could have stopped him from thrashing and kicking at the hand that grabbed him. His body lurched upwards as if drawn by a string. Trying to pull his legs away, trying to push his hands against. But it was useless, all of it – for all that Hunter’s magic did to mend the severed veins and torn flesh and muscle at his neck, the thief had already lost a lot of blood, and was too weak and lightheaded to fight it when he was held in place beneath the mage.

“Stop,” he hissed – or at least thought he did. “I’m–m fine! I’m fine!”

Weak. Pathetic. His efforts to get away might have been fruitless, but that didn’t mean he stopped trying. Only that, upon registering fully that it was Hunter who held him, he didn’t try to kick and hurt him anymore. Hunter was trying to help. Hunter was saving his life. Sade knew this, rationally, but he was not a gentle creature that was used to being held and helped.

At the captain’s wheel, Sel’wyn observed the scene below her with a furrowed brow. Beside her, Vermund wiped his knife clean of the blood of the downed sailors. Whether they’d been dead already or still breathing by the time he’d found them, he’d cut their throats to be sure, before returning to the new captain’s side.

“Sade’s hurt,” she mentioned. Vermund, having paid little attention to the fighting thus far, raised his head to look out at the chaos.

The tall biqaj sprinted into it himself in short order. His eyes swirled conflicting hues, darting between the men on deck before he ultimately went towards Sade and the man straddling him. The thief wasn’t thrashing underneath him anymore, but he didn’t look any happier about being pinned down.

“What happened? Is he alright? You’re– you’re healing him right?!”

“Go!” Sade all but screamed up at him. “Go find–”

Another cough. A sputter. Hunter was right; even healing, he was only making it worse each time he moved.

“Pirvek,” he croaked. “Please. Take–” Vermund, his wild gesturing with the knife seemed to suggest. “Find Caine.”

It didn’t matter to him that the fight, in all reality, was over. It didn’t matter that there were more of them and only one of Caine, and that the sailor wasn’t much of a threat to begin with. He’d failed to dispose of him as he’d set out to do, and the failure blazed inside of him as painfully as the injuries he’d earned.

Unable to conceal his doubt, his fear, Vermund looked between the men on the ground and the one standing upright.

“Y-you want me to go with him?”

All Sade could do in response was slam his knife down against the deck, frustration long boiled over. But in any case, it worked – Vermund jumped at the harsh noise, and immediately went to Pirvek’s side to aid him in his task.

[Pirvek Dj'Toraj]

Someone had told him to move. Pirvek paid little mind to who, or what, that voice was – until its owner grabbed his son by the ankle, and did – something? Pirvek wasn’t quite sure what was going on, just that this strange, spiked man had crawled on top of his son.

“Hey!”

He stared on in horror as Sade kicked at him. Pirvek wasted no time in copying him – kicking out weakly at the man still pinned to the corpse. It didn’t seem do much, if anything, but at least he could say that he tried.

“What the fuck are you doing to my son!” He demanded, and only stepped back once Sade stopped thrashing like a fish stuck on land. “What- stop that!”

This trial seemed to get stranger and stranger. He couldn’t tell whether this man was trying to hurt or to help, but either way – he did not like it – whether it was due to Sade’s obvious discomfort, the strangeness of it all, or the fact that that man had refused to answer his questions was less clear.

When the other biqaj – Vermund, Sade’s other helper – ran up, Pirvek glanced at him with a frightfully serious expression on his usually friendly face. Eyes swirling orange, he didn’t even try not to shout at the other biqaj.

“No, he isn’t alright! That lunatic is- well, I don’t know! He’s fucking killing him!” Pirvek waved his arms around in despair, still brandishing his sword. “And nobody but me seems to care!”

And there went Sade, again with that wild knife gesturing. This time, Pirvek knew what he meant – it was clear enough, simply by how much he meant it. He was supposed to take Vermund, that big, stupid helper of his, and find that sailor that Sade had lost. He was supposed to clean up this mess!

“Oh, fine,” Pirvek huffed, discontent made obvious. “But what about-” he frowned, raised an eyebrow, and shot another wary glare at the awful, wild man still on top of his son. Sade didn’t seem to be dying any faster than he had been before, Pirvek supposed, but he still didn’t like the idea of just leaving him there.

It was a good thing that his father was so competent, and surely would be able to find and kill that last sailor quickly! It would take no time – except for the time that Vermund would slow him down – and he would be back to his son’s side, making sure he wasn’t quite dead.

Pirvek didn’t care much if he was hurt. But if Sade died, there would be no one else to plan his wedding. It was up to him to make sure that his wedding went well – therefore, it was up to Pirvek to make sure that Sade attended.

He pointed at the strange scene in front of him.

“Don’t die,” he demanded, before his glare turned to Vermund. “What! What does that mean?!”

The sound of Sade’s knife angrily slamming against the deck sent Vermund to his side, and Pirvek only shook his head, already walking away. His wounds still dripped blood, and caused him to walk even slower than his typical, meandering pace, but he was on the way nonetheless.

“Shut up. And come on. We’ve got to kill that little bitch and avenge my boy,” he said, and reached over to slap Vermund on the shoulder. The other biqaj looked uncertain, and maybe a little scared, too. Pirvek didn’t look at him for long enough to be sure. “Where do you think he went?”

Pirvek looked at him and squinted.

“Where would you hide? If you were the one being chased.”

Vermund didn’t seem to appreciate the question. He looked confused, and after a short moment, tilted his head towards the ship’s cabin.

Pirvek smiled at him, gleeful once again. He wiped his bleeding hand off on his shirt and made a mental note to get Sade to help him steal a new one, after all of this was over. He couldn’t be grubby forever – not with a beautiful woman like Victoria soon to be his wife!

“Well, Vermund. To the cabin we go,” he decided, and gestured for him to lead the way. Pirvek would never willingly admit that he had no idea where anything on the ship was.