Closed Pirates of the Hard Nox [archive]

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ANNASIEL

"Very nice, very nice," he said with a grin, handing the card over. He then gestures - second from your right.



Something feels off about this, as you focus. The spinster - moved? Is there even one in his hand at all?
 
FANG

Head tilted, golden eyes narrowed as the card flipped. Leo turned the four hearts card over and smiled insincerely at the dealer. ”Looks like luck favors you more than me.” Leo’s hands remained on the table for several moments as he studied the cards in front of him and the burning within.

Almost slowly Leo lifted his left hand and pointed to the card he wanted. Not one of the ones on the sides, nor those next to them. Again he pointed to the middle card. ”Do it again.”
 
ANNASIEL

The man smiled, moving to turn over the card - then a queen of spades slipped out of his sleeve and onto the table.

He stared at it.

"Ah. Well. That's a surprise, isn't it?"
 
FANG

The lady in black made her appearance, showing her face not from the card Leo had chosen, but from the dealer’s sleeve. As the card settled on the table between them and the gambler gasped his surprise Leo snapped his blade from the table. Unfamiliar as the game may have been the evidence of cheating was quite clear. Leo bared his teeth as he swung the steel at the dealer’s wrist-

Only to be grabbed from behind by several pairs of hands.

”Easy there, fella. Can’t you have you roughing up our man over a little misunderstanding.” The voice whispered in his ear even as another pair of hands grabbed his boots. As Leo spun the owners of the hands faded into the confused crowd effortlessly. Leo snatched his fluffy soft feather from the table and whirled back around.

”One gold piece!” he shouted toward the dealer, angry words shattering in the short space between them. ”Pay me for my boots or pay for your trickery by steel!” Leo raised the sword threateningly, half expecting another set of hands to pull him away.
 
ANNASIEL

The dealer, however, had disappeared in the momentary confusion, coattails flicking around the corner of the alley.

The small crowd seemed surprised, some even upset - impossible to tell which were on his side, or which were as much victims.
 
FANG

Only coattails met his wrath, sword waving uselessly in the air as the man disappeared into an alley. Leo’s grin returned in full savagery, knuckles going white against the steel handle of his weapon. So it was to be a chase, was it?

Leo sprang into action, jumping over the table and following in the man’s footsteps with powerful, quickening strides. He hastily tucked his feather into the waist of his trousers as he darted around the corner into the alleyway, shirt forgotten behind him as the lion pursued his prey. Just a glimpse of coat or hide was all Leo needed.
 
ANNASIEL

"Woah, there, buddy," came a gruff voice as he nearly ran into a large rough-looking man around the corner. The street was busy - people loitering about in droves, visiting the market stalls. A familiar sight. The straw boater on the ground, blowing along, trampled underfoot.

No head that wore it, though, to be seen.

The man placed his free hand on Leo's shoulder, his other holding a rucksack slung over his back. He grinned a mismatched grin, tan-green face round and homely.

"Goin' someplace in a hurry? Seem all frantic-like."
 
FANG

A hand fell upon Leo’s shoulder and a gruff voice stopped his tracks as the straw hat blew farther down the street. Leo slammed the point of his dull blade into the ground, cracking the paving stone beneath it slightly. The large greenish man smiled down at Leo’s rage twisted visage and his ire cooled slightly. No sense in harming those who had done him no wrong.

”Man in coat. Wore hat. Cheat. Gold. Boots.” The words came out in a rush, no time for arrangement or sentences. Leo scanned the crowd for that satisfied smirk, eyes that might linger a moment longer than necessary. He wouldn’t give up on the hunt until he held the prey between his teeth and took what was owed. Leo glanced back up into the verdant man’s face. Would he have seen the scammer? Was he stalling him so the man could get away?
 
ANNASIEL

The man nodded slowly.

"Saw a man like that, pair o' boots over his shoulder. Went -" he paused, looking thoughtful. "That way."

He gestured towards the cliffs.

"Can't stand no thief, no I can't. You go get him, buddy."
 
FANG

He couldn’t help but smile at the big man, something about the honesty in his words reminding Leo of his scaled friend. Leo shook his head as Emer’s clouded eyes filled his vision. No time for that, now. He would help his friend and the Doctor with their problems once he found the cheater and his boots.

”Thank you!” Leo called to the man as he took off in the indicated direction. His eyes darted left and right, not trusting the slippery card dealer to keep to a straight line toward the cliffs. Leo would slow just long enough to look at the faces of those garbed in similarly pigmented coats, only to regain his full speed once he realized they weren’t his target. His instinct told him the man was nearby, but with all of these people about Leo could hardly find his own breath. It pushed from his lungs and was immediately stolen by the crowd as he tore his way after the retreating man with deadly focus.
 
ANNASIEL

Behind Leo, the large man watched him part, then turned - with a swish of his coattails - to walk into the crowd. He bent down momentarily to pick up the hat, frowning at its trampled condition, then slipped it in his sack, before shifting into a fair-haired elf and disappearing into the throng.
 
FANG

So many people! Leo could hardly move without running into someone, bumping into another. No matter how many faces he scanned or how much closer he got to the cliffs he found no sign of the card dealing prey, and after only a few moments Leo threw his hands up in disgust.

”FINE!” Leo roared out, his scream so deep with raw, unfiltered rage that it hardly sounded like words at all. A body drifted too close, and like a snake Leo snapped his fingers around the offending person’s tunic and threw them out of his way. The table was still there, and the kind green man might help him search. With flames bringing renewed vigor, perhaps even excessive amounts, Leo darted back toward the kind green man with the large-

He wasn’t there, of course. Leo turned into the crowd, shoving people aside as he searched for a clue. He sniffed at the air, scanned every corner until finally he could take no more of the press. With a few quick steps and a leap he brought himself to the edge of a low hanging roof, levering himself over the side and peering at the crowd with a bird’s eye view. Savagely he screamed again; wordlessly, the eyes below drawn to the half naked man standing upon a rooftop, just as he wanted.
 
ANNASIEL

It was a long walk back.

No more long than the walk there, but time stretched without company, with only ruminating thoughts. By the time she made it back to where the ship was anchored, her legs ached. She made her way up the gangplank - unaided - and entered her clinic. The first thing she did, of course, was make tea. Tea was good. A hot cup of chamomile, one cube of sugar.

Always the same - the same was good.

New things could be good too, she supposed, but why change what isn't broken? Or, did she really think that. Ah, sky bless, her mind was a mess. She tried to sit in her clinic, but the walls felt tight (and the window faced the sea) so she instead moved a stool to the deck so she could watch the sky instead. The sky and, of course, the cliffside, if only to make sure those who were spending the night on the ship made it back safely.

Delicate fingers slipped the plain antler bangle off her wrist, rolling it between them. Simply carved. Little more than a trinket. Roughened edges, and poorly polished. Cheap. She was no jeweler, but she could safely assume such a thing to have little worth.

Emer clutched it tight against her chest beneath the shawl with one hand, other moving to lift her tea tin to her lips.

Waiting.
 
FANG

His consuming rage did nothing to assist in the search as Leo surveyed the crowd for a familiar coat, mottled tan and green skin, or boots both on hand and covering foot. Red tinted the corners of his vision as the onlookers gawked and pointed, some deep enough in their cups or their confidence to hurl taunts back up to the angered rooftop wild man. No faces stood out, no hands carried his stolen boots and no flesh matched the hue of the one man who had assisted him so briefly.

As men clad in armor and armed with long bladed sticks began pushing through the crowd Leo spat on the street below in disgust. The card dealer had gotten away with Leo’s boots, and Leo could do nothing but rumble an unpleasant growl from the back of his throat. Perhaps if he had chosen violence from the outset his pockets would be more full and his feet less bare. As he picked his way to an adjacent roof and down to the empty alley below Leo considered what he would do when he finally found the petty crook.

And find him he would, no matter how long it took. Leo slipped into a moving crowd of drunks, gritting his teeth against the uncomfortable closeness and stench of the group as he followed their stumbling steps toward the town square. As the group diverted to the nearest tavern Leo settled between competing food stalls, his back to a wall and arms crossed. Perhaps he would use the card dealer for practice, test how long and how much pain the man could stand before finally ending his pitiful existence. King, to his credit, stayed exactly where he belonged. Leo would have little trouble finding him, when the time came. A ship like the Truth Teller left evidence of her passing on every pair of lips that spotted it.

A fleeing scam artist? That was a common enough sight to be unworthy of note, and Leo doubted he would find the man so easily or with any help. For all Leo could tell the man might not have been in the city anymore. A heavy sigh sung out from his lips, eyes fixed on the rough blade in his hands and the paving stones below. Caleb would be quite displeased, the fairy’s distaste for wasting his money or his time likely to rain down upon Leo’s head as soon as he made an appearance. Leo had hated the boots, and truthfully didn’t want them back for anything more than the principal of the theft and as a shield from Caleb’s anger. As his stomach rumbled again Leo looked to each of the food stalls at his sides, palms rubbing against his pockets as if the action would somehow make coin appear. He still wanted to find things. A pirate really didn’t need money to get what they wanted, right?
 
KATPRIDE

“I’ll be here all day!” Lula glances up at the man as though she expects his scales to just fall off all at once, for her convenience. Sadly, they stay stubbornly attached. Shame.

She considers the offered hand, setting aside her charcoal and swiping something off the table beside her. She doesn’t so much shake his hand as slap a small object into his palm. It’s a broach of simple design - a coil of bronze wire twisted into the shape of a bird, a miniature version of the same symbol which hangs from the corner of the small canopy over her booth. There’s a bit of black dust smudged on it from her gloves.

“Lula. Thanks for the luck, feel free to find me if you rustle up some silvers.” She considers him for a moment that stretches a little too long before turning back to her metal and picking up the charcoal stick to twirl between her fingers. “Or shiny things. I do trades, you never know what might come in handy.”
 
GOLDEN

One of her pretty blue wings twitched, as if knowing it was being discussed, and not in a favorable manner. Their mentioning might've seemed like a friendly warning, but Alys was inclined to believe it was a subtle threat, purposefully said to foster fear and doubt, specifically in relation to their dear, fae-loathing Captain. Despite knowing the meaning behind that statement, it still hit home, further reinforcing her earlier concerns. It might've been more effective than she thought because the faerie began to think back to those brief looks; the amber eyes following her movements, boring holes in her pretty wings. She'd thought nothing of it at the time, as those moments lasted milliseconds - if that. But now that it was on her mind... maybe there was something there.

Alys ignored the movement her wing made and kept her eyes on Caleb, considering the rest of his words carefully. She could keep an eye out, keep her ears attuned, hell, she hadn't stabbed him in the back yet either. Gods, was she actually considering this? The girl who kept her head down, avoided any sort of responsibility for fear of standing out or being noticed. That girl a mutineer? Hell, she'd been ready to abandon the ship a couple hours ago. But was that what she wanted the rest of her life to look like? Powerless, jumping from crew to crew to get her fix? What if the answer was simpler, less complicated, at least in the long-term. Short-term, they'd have an uphill battle, one filled with uncertainty and the possibility of sudden death. But long-term? Fuck, that mental picture looked tempting. And the feeling she got just thinking about it? The way her heart began to race, not from fear, but from excitement?

She shifted forward, placing her elbows and forearms gently against the counter, the wound on her wrist still visible, though scabbed over. Her hands continued to fiddle around with the knife, as it sat comfortably between them.

"You're a crazy son of a bitch, you know that?" Alys whispered, a light smile visible on her face. "If I were to do this, I want the exact same fucking thing from you. No secrets, no bullshit." She paused, her tone softening somewhat. "And you'll watch my back?"
 
DELFI

If there was one thing Caleb had learned over his decade long journey as a pirate was that in order to achieve great things, one had to put themselves at risk. It was a risk for him to trust Alys, but if he wanted to pull this off, he'd have to trust her and whoever else decided to joined him.

A mutiny couldn't be pulled off by one man alone.

A chuckle escaped his lips as Alys questioned his sanity, but her intentions were made clear not only by her smile, but the words that followed. Caleb was right in assuming there was more ambition to the blonde than she let on.

Not soon after Alys posed her final question the same prostitute from before placed a cup of ale on the table. The one-eyed pirate waited for her to leave before answering.

"You have my word." He raised his half empty cup, his eye locked on hers while his heart raced inside his chest. "A toast to a strong partnership. No secrets, no bullshit."
 
UMBRASIGHT

“I don’t think it’s money” Nessa said with a tilt of her head as she watched Alys’s retreating back. She never quite had an eye for reading wings, beyond the obvious cues, too many wiggles and flicks she couldn’t quite understand not having wings herself. But, something there nagged at the back of her head with a hazy half-memory of something that should have been important. “Seems a bit wrong sided, though,” Nessa trailed off as her nose caught the sweet tang of lemonade as Sinéad finished her glass.

Nessa lifted her arm, a little faster than she meant. She blinked her eyes against the spray, as that little nag in the back of her head lurched, the water was cooler then, but it wasn’t dissimilar. Nessa shook her head before reaching behind her and pushing her untouched cup of mead in Sinéad’s direction.

“Yours if you’d like. Not quite sweet enough for my tastes.” Nessa said. Pushed on by the disturbance in the water, a pair of sliced oranges bounced off one another in the edge of her vision, but neither fell here to the dark stone below and that nagging thought was gone.

“Well, hopefully they keep it ‘tween them, dalliances between the crew always seem to end messily, and I don’t care to be the ear for more crying.”

Was dalliances the right word? Had been in that book she had borrowed from Sinéad and that seemed like how they always used it.
 
GOLDEN

A second cup of ale appeared, some of the amber liquid sloshing over the side, as the whore delivering it couldn't help but keep her eyes glued to the quartermaster. Once she was sent away, Alys moved the dagger to the side and reached for the drink, raising and clinking it to the side of Caleb's. "No secrets or bullshit," she repeated in a whisper, before taking a sip.

"Who's Sol?" The faerie asked, placing the cup back down onto the table. "Sinead said something about Sol wanting her help to take over the Floating Isles."

Alys wasn't sure whether it was relevant information or not; he was the quartermaster after all, perhaps he was already privy to this knowledge. If not, well, no secrets between them, right?
 
QUIRBLES

Emryk fingered the broach a moment, turning it over in her hand to wipe at the smudged charcoal before clutching it firmly in his palm and slipping the jewelry into his jacket pocket. "Trades," He murmured idly, stroking his chin a moment longer before brandishing a departing smile. "I'll have to remember that! I'll let you know if I find anything worthwhile to exchange. Have a wonderful rest of the festival, Miss Lula."

And then, with a nod, it was back to wandering through the festival. Idle glances were spared to the remaining booths, but his thoughts inevitably returned to that which weighed so wearily upon his conscience. What would he say to her, upon his return? Perhaps it was best just to give the herb and cloth over without acknowledgement. He'd-- leave it in her clinic, yes, and be out of her hair. Perhaps he'd linger until the next port, and then get a job there-- or perhaps he would simply remain at the festival once his obligations had been fulfilled to the doctor.

"Hmh."

First, it had been a plan between the two of them to eat, hadn't it? With the coin Emer had given him, Emryk visited a simple baker's stall and purchased a bit of bread and cheese-- nothing expensive, certainly, and just a bit of food as a parting gift. Then, it was back to the ship, alone with his thoughts once more. The walk was as long as it was silent, save the bickering within, and he boarded the Hard Nox with nary a sound. Only the creak of wood, telltale and heavy, brought word of his arrival. The Baron was large, after all, which meant hiding was a near-impossibility. The return to the clinic was equally as conspicuous; the main deck creaked under his weight, and the floorboards shook with every pounding footfall of his brisk pace. Normally, he'd give a bit more thought to courtesy, but most of the crew was out celebrating. Perhaps it was best he'd slip away now, when they were all occupied. Less time for them to care, and they'd all soon forget he was ever there. Including her.

Emryk opened the clinic door with a soft creak, stepping gently upon the boards of the room and setting the herbs alongside the clothes Emer had bought. For whom, he did not know. He supposed it was not his business to ask such things, closed off as she was, and he certainly wouldn't pry again.

Looking over the collection of bottles and flasks a final time, the Baron shook his head, sighed, and made for the exit.
 
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