I added a new song to the playlist, just fyi!
Might be uploading through the weekend cause I simply cannot wait to get this lore off the ground
Enjoy, lovelies!!
xoxo

Caspian

How on the sword of King Daedron himself did I now find myself here?

I stared up at the wood panels that formed the ceiling of this bed chamber. The pattern they made spanned across the entirety of the room.

The bed was comfortable.

It was far better than the cots on the merchant ship.
As was the food.

And the air, surprisingly. When I boarded this ship, I felt it almost instantly. The air felt somehow clearer on this vessel. My stomach didn't turn with almost damaging discomfort once my feet hit the floorboards, and I wasn't sure what to make of it.

All of it.

I wasn't sure what to make of its Captain either. He was...

Most definitely mentally deranged.
That wasn't debatable.

My mind traveled back to that sinister smile of his first, then everything else seemed to materialize around it. He wore a black eyepatch covering his left eye, which hid the majority of a scar you could see peeking through the top and bottom of the fabric.

That patch matched his all black collared coat that draped so low it slightly dragged against the floorboards as he walked. He wore a flute around his neck which at first puzzled me, but I quickly learned that was the least of my worry. His face was a thing of nightmares, but not in a monstrous way, he actually faired quite handsomely. His features were just very... very rigid. It made the hair on my arms stand to attention whenever that one eye found mine.

Then there was his stature. It was the thing that drew my attention first when he knelt down in front of me on that merchant ship. I knew then that he could certainly do it.

He could kill me.

Little did I know the man was absolutely insane. Had I known that, I would've begged for my life in hopes he'd end it. I thought about Lemont. How he had begged for his.

I should've given more effort in keeping him alive, I thought, but considering my own efforts with trying to die, I thought it best we said our fair wells on that merchant ship. It had been a good long eleven years of running, something I'd forever be grateful to Lemont for accompanying me on. Not that he had much of a decision in the matter.

But it was time for us now to both rest. I was tired of running, and he should've been, even if he wasn't.

His demise came just a little sooner than I had predicted. I was quickly learning that Alistair wasn't a predictable man in the slightest, and it was inherently my fault for assuming he was to begin with. Somehow I was now this man's slave.

A shiver ran through me at his very real threat the night before— choosing to leave me bound below deck.

That was something I would need to avoid at all costs. If that meant I had to learn how to work this ship, then so be it. I would adjust...

Alistair.

That name had sounded familiar when he said it, but I couldn't place why. I didn't know much about the sea, or piracy for that matter, but something told me I'd soon need to learn if I was to survive here. Had Lemont mentioned that name before? Maybe something we heard in passing over our years of travel, I thought to myself.

Or could it have been...

No, I shook my heard, clearing that thought immediately. I wasn't at the castle long to learn about the sea. All that experience had come after...

I took a moment to clear that thought as well.

Instead, I started to count the wood paneled ceiling, hoping that would help me find some sleep.

The unfortunate outcome was that it hadn't.

-

The entire crew was up at the first sight of daylight. My body was already sore from the inventory both myself and the other merchants had done shortly before our ship was ambushed. I had only just gotten to sleep when a man had yanked me from my cot and bound my hands in front of me, forcing me above deck with the rest of the men.

In that moment, it felt like a blessing from the gods.

I looked over at Alistair who was talking to the man that had dragged me onto this ship. How wrong I was about this being a blessing. So very, very wrong.

"You!" The man besides Alistair pointed to me. "Come here."

I did as I was told, taking a few strides towards them on the main deck.

"This is Snips." Alistair spoke, his entire presence doing the same it had last night. It made me weary. "He's our boatswain, the position I was explaining to you before. You'll keep to him like his shadow, allowing him to instruct you on what's expected each daybreak to nightfall. If you are to question something not pertaining to a learning opportunity, may I suggest you keep it to your fucking self. Snips otherwise prefers quiet when he works."

I glance back over at the man. Snips. He had a grin on his face that made my skin itch. He was also the one enjoying the bloodshed most during the massacre the night before, if I remembered correctly.

I really needed to learn what ship I was on.

I gave Alistair a nod, before Snips immediately turned sharply on his heel and stalked off. I kept my strides brief to keep pace with this shorter man as he led us towards the heart of the ship, where the inner poles were tied to.

"First we check these here." Snips pointed to a cluster of knotted ropes that were anchored to a perpendicular wooden pole. I gave him another nod, peering past him closely as he untied each knot. I noticed a thick coating on each end of the rope, and after much deliberating amongst myself, I decided this question couldn't be nonsensical enough to be killed over.

"What's that?" I asked, pointing to the white coat. Snips looked closer at the ropes.

"It's binding wax." He explained, turning back to me. "This ship is... different. It's imperative each rope is as secure as possible before battle, so we bind them." I slowly nodded, trying my best to understand what this man meant by that. By this ship being different. "Interesting." Snips's voice cut through my thoughts. "A question with sense from a man of little words. Maybe this won't be as mind splitting an experience after all."

I wasn't sure how to respond to that, so I chose not to.

And as went our day. My quiet nature proved more fitting for Snips, who took me off guard with how well an instructor he was. As we moved through the ship, Snips made a list of items needed off the coast of Azultia. I noticed he hadn't written anything down, which only further surprised me.

This entire crew was full of surprises in all honesty. When I asked Snips who the man that kept himself near the Captain was, he told me his name was Cael.

Something about him didn't mirror the rest of the crew, or Alistair himself. Cael was large, about the same stature as Alistair, yet he carried that great build differently. His steps were light when he walked across the deck, much like my own. It was a contrast to his patterned tattoos that lined every part of his arms. That darker skin glistened when the sun touched it, and I couldn't help but observe his movements through the moving sun itself.

Snips also mentioned the man was one of the best fighters of the crew, and that made my curiosity grow. Would I see him fight during my time here? Would I see the Captain?

Considering how effortlessly our merchant ship was overtaken, I had my doubts. According to Snips, the Captain hadn't even boarded until almost all the merchants were slaughtered, and Cael raised no weapon during the entirety of the night. Yet the way he spoke of both men's abilities, it made me question what was to come, if it were to come.

I had asked what Cael did, but Snips hit me over the head hard with a piece of scrap wood, almost knocking me off my feet, and told me to focus. He had cut skin with that blow but I forced myself to ignore it. In some disgusting twist of fate, I had to focus on my survival just long enough to formulate an escape.

So I could then figure out how to die.

This dying ordeal was starting to grow with complications.

-

Alistair didn't spend much time with his crew through the day. Rather I had only seen him once or twice more since daybreak, which took me by surprise as well. He had kept out of his crews path whilst they completed their tasks, which they all seemed to appreciate as they worked below the scorching sun.

It was very clear every man here feared him. Immensely.

I was starting to fear him myself, which was far from what I imagined this would be when I was first forced to kneel on that blood stained deck.

It couldn't really be this complicated to die, could it? This was only adding to the hatred I had for my bloodline. For who's blood ran through me.

As the sun buried herself back into the water, the Captain reappeared on his ship like he had been here all along. Somehow, he knew exactly what work had been completed and what work hadn't, I could hear his evaluation of the work from across the deck. This was when I noticed how clean this ships floorboards were. For a man who clearly didn't shy away from spilling blood, he seemed to avoid it on his ship whenever possible.

The first moment my eyes caught sight of him tonight, he was breaking up a dispute amongst his men. I expected him to thrive in this beknownst chaos, and yet this ship was nothing else if not orderly.

I really did need to work out what ship I had somehow found myself on.

As the sky grew darker, Snips informed me he and I were finally done for the evening, and I finally felt my muscles release some tension. He told me to find the Captain, to which I started my aimless wandering, assuring myself he must've still been on the main deck.

I felt a sudden breeze pass through the open deck, forcing my eyes closed as I stilled for just a moment. The sea felt different on this boat. It felt... it felt beautiful, almost. I noticed the night had started to fog some, but the entirety of the ship was crystal clear. It was like this ship was and wasn't apart of the sea. Like it did and didn't conform.

I couldn't explain it, but something was different here.

"Are you done for for the day?" A voice asked from somewhere behind me. I turned quickly, taken back by how close Alistair had managed to get to me without me noticing. His steps were usually heavy, almost demanding on the wood.

I gave him a nod.

"Good. Let's have dinner."

I let him guide us around to the front of the main deck, before heading up those wooden stairs to his quarters. Exhaustion spread through my arms and legs from the labourous work from the day, coupled with the very little sleep I had found. All I wanted to do was rest my legs but I forced myself to continue.

Alistair didn't wait a moment once we entered the quarters with him heading straight to the dining, and I must say the smell from the food coerced me there myself.

The food was much better than the merchant ship.

"How was today? I don't see any open wounds so Snips must've taken some liking to you."

I wasn't sure if I would say that exactly, I thought to myself, keeping my hands at my sides regardless of the sudden urge to touch the cut on my head Snips had definitely inflicted.

"It went well." I replied.

Alistair nodded approvingly, before he helped himself to a large cut of ham.

"Good. Tomorrow you'll work with Coop, he's our Cooper."

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion before I could stop myself, and the irritation that flashed across Alistair's hard face made my already growing uncertainty even more uncertain. His sigh was dripping with anger, and fully directed at me.

"A Cooper is the person in charge of barrel making."

That only made my confusion worse.

"It's one of the most important jobs on a ship." Alistair continued. "Cooper keeps all our rum packaged and ready for each voyage. He also maintains the integrity of the barrels for drinking water, but the rum is far far more important."

My lips curled up into a slight smile, surprising both Alistair and even myself.

When was the last time I smiled?

There hadn't been much to be jolly over given these last years, and this captivity should've proven no different for me, yet...

This man— Alistair, he was beyond the scope of rational understanding, yet he was unapologetically that way. He was fully demented, yet also intriguingly alluring.

He lacked all manners when he ate which made me wonder what he himself had done today to stir up such an appetite, but I held my tongue. It was his men that had tended to the ship all day, not him.

"You look like shit." Alistair added after swallowing his last bite of food. It was as harsh as any other word he directed towards me.

And I didn't doubt those words. I felt like shit. I had for a long time. It was an odd feeling- living in a body you knew would now die, but not knowing when. I wanted it all to be over and done with now. I didn't want to play this waiting game.

"Sleep didn't find me last night." I replied with.

"Did you look for her?" He asked.

I studied him a moment, digesting his words. Had I? I wondered.

No, my body answered me. So I shook my head, displaying that honesty.

"Tonight, you must. You won't last till daybreak at this rate, and the work Coop does is far more labourous than Snips's duties. If you're to fall behind..."

"I won't." I told this Captain with every shroud of sincerity I could muster.

"Good," he nodded again, "for there's a post down below with your name etched into it if you do. Am I making myself clear?"

"Yes." I nodded, working on loading my own plate with dinner now. Alistair wasn't one to wait, and something told me that if I didn't eat now, there'd be no food again until the next evening. There was no room for me to complain however, us merchants were accustomed to one meal a day and it was nothing this lavish.

Meat was hard to come by for any common man, let alone those who fell into the merchant business to feed others, like their family as opposed to themselves.

Here, it seemed there was no shortage of anything. Especially alcohol, Alistair managed to handle drink after drink with his food.

Alcohol was poison to my own blood, which forced me not to take any. It couldn't kill me, but it would make me wish it could. It felt like gunpowder running through my veins.

-

Alistair kept this dinner brief. I didn't quite understand why, especially given how actively he was working to uncover who I was. He couldn't understand this now, but the discovering of my identity would not only hinder all of my future plans... which pretty much consisted of dying, it would surely sending this Captain to his own death.

This was part of why Lemont had to die. The more who took my secret to their grave with them, the safer everyone was.

As I laid in bed now, sleep almost claiming me whole, my mind traveled back to the very thing that troubled my dreams most nights. The very thing that had started it all really.

It was the night Azultia caught fire. The night I called upon something I knew would shatter my immortality entirely, and yet the cries of my dying mother overshadowed all of that. The cries of my family as they were slaughtered... my immortality was a price I was too willing to sacrifice in order to save them, and yet it did nothing. I had saved none.

Life took pity on no one, it seemed. Not even my bloodline.

I hadn't remembered when sleep finally found me, or I her. The dreams I had of Azultia were tumultuous, a thing of nightmares, but I forced myself through it. My body was nothing if it couldn't have a moments rest, and I had deprived myself of those moments for too many long years.

But this ship demanded more, and I soon learned that when I heard a voice cut through my nightmare like a hot sword cutting skin. I awakened in a panicked state, unsure of where or when I was. The only voice I registered was Alistair's when I blinked the drowsiness away from my eyes.

He was telling me to get up. Now.

Though he stood at the entryway to my chambers, I found myself glancing back out the window to my chambers, at the still night sky.

My confusion was later answered by the first scream that shattered through the night, awakening its demons.

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