Toe to toe with destiny [closed]

[Silver]

Silver waited in Barnstable Coast, where the peak of the Hills of Noddendoddy could be seen striking up against the sky in rebellion and defiance. He had with him, more accurately slumped in the sand to his right side, a bag with all of his amenities, the mouth of it drawn tight and tied together. The sun was some ways away from wedding with the horizon but it had nonetheless passed its prime and it painted the sky with lurid sashes of pink, violet, orange and red.

Silver stood with his back to civilization, his fore to the vast stretches of as yet unperturbed and glass-like portions of the ocean, inhaling with wide nostrils the smell of the sea as the waves crashed against the Barnstable and chucked into an air a nebulous sea mist.

Silver rented a boat for the journey that lay ahead. The instructions on the map were very clear that their entire voyage must occur on a seafaring vessel, because if the conditions were not correct then the preternatural could not take root and take them where Silver desperately needed them to go. Despite owning a fleet of them under the patronage of his contractual obligation to the Dead, he wanted them and their gold-eyed shadow to have no part of this, so he took the boat under a pirated name and made sure to liquor the owner up something fierce.

She sat a little ways off, anchored where she could float calmly on the placid surface of the sea, tranquil for the time being but Silver knew too well how fickle a mistress the sea truly was. Much closer at hand was the small boat which would take them to the much larger ship. Silver wore his characteristic bandana, covering his forehead with a patch of color and the tails of the bandana flapping out behind him like the spindly legs of an animal whenever the wind grew capricious.

"Aye an 'our more and then I shove off wit'out 'em, curse the lot. Nay two hours if I be wanting to be called a fair man and a fairer man than me there never was. Aye but I'm generous as well. Three hours then. Three hours on the head of a pin and I'm off even if I 'ave to go it alone, and when I come back not a one of 'em will take a share in me treasures."

In one hand Silver clutched the map that would take them far, far away from this land. The air was growing denser, the skies a little blacker, the seas heaved and frothed a bit more than they were just moments ago. Nothing concrete, nothing truly solid, but little whispers and hints that perhaps a storm would be visiting them soon.

"Three hours and that's it."

[Eternity]

With the sunset on the horizon, Lydia found her way towards the vast opening to the ocean. Off in the distance she could see Silver just standing there waiting, waiting for the crew to make their appearance for the long voyage. The wind was soft as it picked up her long firey red hair, the sashes ends flowed with her hair the teal and gold catching nicely in the last rays of the sun. Lydia kept her tattered cloak wrapped tightly around her neck, and the massive hoops of her earrings laid nicely against the sides of her face. Stopping a mere few yards from Silver, she adjusted the old worn military duffel she carried on her back the belt of ammo around her waist took place of what was usually her tool belt. Lydia on land was a little different than Lydia in air or sea, she always carried her personally modded pistols and more than enough rounds to get herself out of a brawl.

Finishing the few feet to get to Silver, she stood off to his left slightly behind him. A smirk always laid upon her soft pink lips, as she just looked out to sea where the boat waited. "So how much longer till we shimmy our way to our boat Sir?" Dropping the weight of her duffel to the ground, she leaned herself lightly upon the worn material. Lydia was one to give her Captain respect, as well as the other crew members that earned it. She was a woman with a military history, and one to earn many others respect. Leaning forward adjusting thing tops of her stockings, she glanced behind her to see if any of the others would be coming along any moment now.

[Silver]

He caught her scent long before he saw her. The alluring musk of woman mixed with the smell of gun oil called Silver's attention over his shoulder, towards where the distance made sky and ground meet like lover's intertwined, and it was impossible not to pick out the halo of fiery red hair he'd come to know as the trademark of one of the newest additions to his crew.

Silver turned his attention back to the ocean, to the humble little ship anchored in that pacific blue, rising and falling with the undulations of an unseen mistress. In a little while Lydia came upon her Captain and spoke, calling his attention back to her. He greeted her with a sidelong glance from his only working eye, and a curt, courteous nod.

"Roundin' on about two hours now I'd say. Iffin two hours' time not another soul finds their way to this shore so as to accompany me on one o' my greatest ventures, I'd say that's a crew wort' throwin' away and startin' anew. If not for plunderin' booty, why become a pirate at'all?"

Though Lydia was a fresh face to Silver's eye, her name so new in uttering that it left his mouth feeling odd, the Captain appreciated her demeanor. Her military background instilled in the woman a sense of discipline and posture that Silver often, and rightfully so, found lacking in the common pilferer and pickpocket what often found their way aboard his ship.

"But iffit's jus' you and me what make our way out, I suppose that just means the booty gets split naught but two ways." He turned to her and flashed a smile. "Not too shabby a recompense, aye?"

[Eternity]

Nodding to his words about the crew, she stood herself up straight. "IF it must be us two, I would say that isn't too shabby of a compensation." Not too shabby at all really, the loot was usually just a bonus for her. It was just about the adventure for her, she loved to be challenged in finding something others couldn't find, or getting her hands on items that were always sought out by other pirates.

Reaching into her back pocket pulling out a small plastic wrap, she pulled it open to find the bits and pieces of dried meat she had placed in it. Popping a small piece into her mouth, she would offer it to her captain. Holding it out to him, she wasn't sure if he was in the mood to eat something. She had met people who would be too hyped up for the adventure and would spend lots of time planning and would push other human habits aside.

"Want some?" Keeping the dried meat held out to him, she waited to see if he would take some or turn it down. With her free hand she would pull her hair over her left shoulder, it framing that side of her face bringing out the color in her eye.

[Aleksei]

Small toes curled into the warm and cozy limbs of the sand. They were long-term loves taking the time to ponder the origins of marks on skin. Being kept apart for such a long time it was a reunion with hugs and the lack of kisses. The sensation of warmth and texture tickling the bottom of her toes made a small shiver tickle the length of her spine. As the water picked up momentum so did the wind, pulling back her hair from her face, sticky hands in nut brown. Every now and then she would glance over her shoulder, eyeing Silver and the new arrival. Her attention was replaced as the water ran across her naked feet. A cascade of perfect dewdrops, a symphony of color, sliding like dancers over ice.

They are to go on a casual adevnture with a selected few, but only has showed face. Silver spoke of hours while minutes slipped by and by, waiting for the rest to show up. Ausra listened to them exchange subtle words, passing them back and forth on flash cards before letting the silence of the sea mark their wares. Moving forward into the warm water till it reached her waist, her hands hovering above the ripples in a taesing manner. She noticed a few small lines across her fingers that had been fading for years, but were only fresh some days ago. She charted them to write poems later, wearing such things like a constellation.

Satisfied with her need to touch and feel she exited the water and slugged her way towards the other two. The walk was a long and slow one, thinking that whole world was a swa and she, a boat floating listelessly toward land. A casual smile knocked upon her lips as she greeted the two with a soft nod. Her voice was somewhere or another, but it'd come back when the moment was right.

[Silver]

Silver had turned the totality of his attention back to the ocean. His face had wrinkled, around the brow, face and eyes, with either contemplation or consternation as he took in the endless swells, the continuous cresting and falling of the waves, as they lapped against the shore. Troubled either by memories past or troubles ahead, Silver had let his mind wander into a distant place. Lydia's voice called him back to this one.

"Hm? No thank ye lassie. I'll take a few puffs of the pipe when we're on board if I feel the wee ol' thing," Silver poked his belly, which had become more generous since his crew had nearly tripled in size; the hungry times were long over, and this made the man wonder if he still had it in him to hunt. "Actin' up a piece."

Just then, farther away than a stone's throw, Silver spotted Ausra in the water. Silver blinked. Had she just arrived, and he didn't notice? Or had she always been there and he failed to notice her all the while? Either one was slightly distressing, told the captain that he was allowing himself too much margin for error in being distracted. That he needed to sharpen up, or else the unforgiving ocean would dash him on the rocks like it did everything other fool caught unawares.

Ausra walked over to the two of them, her hands out and feeling through the air, her feet working through the sand like a child on their first day at the beach wanting to crystallize the beauty of the moment. And she would, for days at least, capture a perfect panoramic memory of the day. But in a few weeks, if not in a few months, if not then in a few years all of this will be surrounded in half-coherent mist.

"Ausra m'dear! Glad yah c'uld make it wit' us! I reckon it shouldn't be much longer now. Doesn't look like t'other lily-livered bilge rats had enuff sense tah follow to the ends of the earf and back tha man what made them a crew to begin wit'."

[halfnhalf]

Over a nearby but again somewhat distant dune of sand, a voice slipped over the slope and into the range of the three. "And who is a lily-livered bilge rat? 'Cause I certainly ain't." A wave of sand came toppling over on the nearer side just as hands clawed at the top of the precipice, only to sink through and spawn a clumsy cry.

A few moments later, between the silence - from that part of the dune anyway - came the same voice but from another dune of less altitude. "That any way to tawlk t'your bloody maid and deckwench? Captain or no, I'll have your sheets go black and your briefs go brown if ye mutter such a title again!" Eight fingers plopped up onto the dune from two seperate sunburned hands but this time, after a grunt, a figure began to pull itself up. A hand on the dune shifted into an elbow which winched up a torso and soon half of Scylla was visible, her bosom resting itself against the top. She gave a big sigh. Fair apricot hair with long thick curls and a flax tunic blended in with the sands but her badly sunburned skin was all it took to distinctly seperate herself from the environment. She eyed the three before her in the moderate distance with those piercing blue eyes of hers, eyeing more of Silver than anything. That bastard.. She grunted, and made an ugly face before she was able to lift her entire weight above the dune, only to find herself toppling down over, spinning along with the cascade of falling sand. She felt like a barrell throughout the fall, tumbling on its side unable to find its feet.

She landed upside down but quickly toppled sideways and picked herself up, brushing the excess of sand in her tunic and shook out the rest in her hair. Can't imagine how I looked throughout all of that...no worse an entrance than that. With what remaining dignity she had left, she gracefully walked over to the three members of her crew. Still dizzy she swayed, still jumbled she didn't quite remember why she came along, always ditzy she didn't know quite what to say.

So she didn't say anything else. Instead she leaned quite close to the new mate Lydia, close enough to look her dead in the eye and get a whiff o' the woman, before quickly snatching what remaining meat the girl had in her hand and tossing the bit into her own mouth. She withdrew a bit and nodded to Silver, "Capt' " She made a curtsy bow and laughed at the three for no apparent reason.

[Eternity]

There was no surprise to Lydia of the other shipmate that came literally out of the sand to join the three on the voyage. Nodding a hello to Asura, Lydia's eyes turned to the other. Having watched her graceful entrance, she just smirked. Letting the woman take the meat from her hand, she brought the now empty hand to rest dangling from the belt of ammo that rested around her fit waist. The captain was somewhat in a hurry to get the adventure on its way, but his sense of time seemed odd to others.

Figuring that it was almost time to head their way to the ship, Lydia reached down for one of the straps of the duffel she had brought along. Grasping the handle of the bag with one swift swing it rested on her shoulders, the sound of it hitting her body was of a slight jingling. Not the normal jingling one would expect like jewelry but of tools, and other things a mechanic like her would carry.

"Are we expecting any others, sir? " Throwing a question at Silver, Lydia found herself in somewhat of a at ease stance waiting for what was going to happen next. Excitement boiled down inside her with the beginning of a new adventure, boredom found it's way to her too often when she spent too much time in one place particularly on land.

[Silver]

When he heard Scylla's shrill voice piercing through the salt-laden ambiance of the shore, Silver couldn't help the smile that painted itself across his lips with near-comical proportions. Not only had he found in Scylla a loyal crew member, but he felt personally responsible for the situation she found herself in. After all, if he hadn't bedazzled her with flashes of his silver tongue, maybe she'd still be married and living a quiet life with a timid husband in a sleepy town this very moment.

Lydia's query snapped him back to reality. Silver turned his attention to her, dragging his focus out of past nostalgia and reminiscences, so as to address her.

"No m'dear. I think I done all the waitin' I can bear. Asides, I'd rather get us aboard that floating piece of driftwood afore the sun winks away. Best to move on the sea while there still be enough light to see the sea wit'."

Food did not interest him at the moment, and so he left Lydia and Scylla to feast on dried, salted meat while he meandered across the shoreline to a makeshift pier. What as little more than a wooden post buried halfway into the ground, with a rope tied around it. After bracing himself against the post, Silver grabbed hold of the rope and bean pulling the small dingy in with a twisted countenance that showed his effort.

After a brief but intense struggle the small boat pushed up against the shore, causing small banks of sand to build up around its nose. Silver took the time to catch his breath, wipe his brow with his bandana, and then clambered on board. He immediately made for the back and sat down, laying against the boat's side with his feet up.

Then he looked at Ausra, Lydia and Scylla.

"Skiff won't row itself ladies."

[Aleksei]

She giggled watching their new arrival make a dove intrance with a rather colorful vocabulary. New arrivals or old arrivals, every aquaintance was a new flavor and a comforting memory to lean on. They were a few disciples short of this adventure, but these women hardly lacked any strength when compared to a man. Sometimes it was hard not to be small; to take a wide, shrill and solar force like pride and fit it in a cell-based human soul. Ausra felt excitment run through her veins as the minutes ticked closer to their departure. Her raptures so caught upon the two other women she hardly noticed Silver working what slender muscle he has. She probably could have helped him in the endevour.

When he was done, gracefully he perched his feet up and mentioned the fine vessel not rowing all alone. His words stuck in her mouth like a lollipop. She smiled some and combed through such casual features and found a bit of redemption and possible loveless summer. He was a prideful little creature, causing her to shrug her shoulders towards his personal conversation. How did he know it couldn't row by itself? Obviously he wasn't making much of an effort to honestly see what it could do by itself.

The slender form turned, glancing a bit over her shoulder to eye the other women before sauntering slowly towards Silver. After sixteen thousand sunrises it didn't seem to matter, his face and mannerisms always appeared to be current. It never seemed to be enough, to just be alive, but the heart didn't just beat to live with the final expectations of dying. Was he even aware that there was a god on his shoulders?

"Row."

Ausra folded her legs and sat some off to the right of him, staring at his face with bright eyes.

[halfnhalf]

"The past is not simply the past, but a prism through which the subject filters his own changing self-image."
- Doris Kearns Goodwin

"Ladies" her captain had said. She perked up and smiled at the title. Too long had it been "wench" or "maid" or "lass", though the captain had always treated her with gentleman courtesy in private, the man treated her like any of the other crew in public. She had become her role to him, a barmaid, not the lady he had spirited away. Scylla had scorned that behavior when she was first brought aboard but she in recent months she had come to accept her role. Addressing me along with the udd'er rest of these ladies now is he? Seems this adventure will make me one of the 'noted' crew. She had heard too often, usually at the bottoms of their ale or in their decline after climax, the crews frustrations on how they weren't noticed individually like some of the others.

But Scylla knew that was because they were just weak..cravens and cowards...despite how good they may have been at their job. She understood her Captain, or at least thought she did. He was fair, left it up to them. "If you want to be special..step up and put yourself in the position" his actions seemed to say. She knew he was a man who valued his crew, but the crew were men and mortal men were so weak. She thought back on that past thought: Why did I think that just now? When have I come to that conclusion..Am I not mortal myself?

She laughed at the absurdity of such a rhetorical question. Weird thoughts had been floating about her head recently, often dark and disconnected. Scylla knew she had to go out more, being cooped and screwed every night on a floating sky-ship was like to ruin her sanity.

One of the ladies took her initiative and sat her slender form down beside Silver.

Of course Scylla knew of Ausra, the venerated idol of their crew. Every bit as important as their captain. She admired her confidence, the understanding of her power, and was jealous of her exclusivity. Then again, who would want to plough something they didn't understand - let alone an avatar of the ship. Nonetheless, Scylla sometimes fantasized of that amount of power, whipping the men she once served with flaming whips then forcing them to serve her. Here was a lady who could do so..

"Row", the order had severed her vision in half and bound her in habitual chain. Instantly, as if by order of the captain himself, Scylla stepped onto the boat and took an oar in her hand. All this despite the command not being directed towards her. "Yes me lady." She dutifully responded.

Coming to the full realization of what she had just done, she let the oar go limp in her dull grip and stared out at the sand. Embarrassed on how weak she must seem at that moment. I 'ave been need'n this here Capt'ns quest...I'll not be reduced to some engine, doing as someone commands always and without freedom...I once had freedom...unlike all the rest of the crew I should be gaining my freedom here Upon the sand, was the half chewed piece of dried salted meat that she had taken from Lydia. "...When did I drop that? Littering is so...unlady like."

[Eternity]

Silver's words left Lydia in thought, nodding to him. She watched as he had pulled the boat to the shore, and the others followed him into the piece of wood that would carry them out to their main piece of transportation. With her bag resting on top of her shoulders, she followed the rest of them taking up the rear. Tossing the bag with ease into the boat, she proceeded to take the rope away from the wood pole of the make shift dock. Tossing the worn rope into the boat, she grabbed hold of the nose of the boat. Leaning enough forward to give all the world a great show of her cleavage, she pushed off the bank using her legs.

Giving the others a wink while pushing the boat out into the water, she shifted her weight sending herself into the boat. Reaching for one of the free oars, she stood at the head of the boat shoving her oar down into the water where it was still shallow. Glancing back at her captain with a smile, she pushed the boat with her oar farther into the water while turning the boat to face their main destination. Taking her seat on the left of the boat, she brought the oar to rest in the water slightly against the edge of the boat.

Using her feet to tuck her bag under the plank of wood she sat on, she was ready to row. Lost with her thoughts, Lydia sat at somewhat of an attention position. A woman of military history, and great at taking and giving orders. What did this adventure hold for her? And really how well would the women of the crew work together?

[Silver]

Silver took survey of his fledgling crew.

Internally he hemmed and hawed. The bigot in him told him he'd be in a better spot alone then surrounded by a bunch of women, murderous harlots that they all were, and that he needed to keep an especial vigil when the moon marked that time of the month. But further down than this veneer of prejudice, this necessity of poor experience, Silver knew that these women had more balls between the three of them than did the simpering crew awaiting him back on the Bumbling Fool.

Silver leaned further back against the edge, pressed his fingertip against the brim of his hat so that it shaded his face from the overbearing sun, and fished a small bag out of the small rucksack he had stashed beneath him. His eye alighted on Scylla. He usually did not extend the invitation of plundering to someone with sensibilities so clearly sensitive, but he saw it in her. The crisis. The struggle. She stood on the edge of the precipice and gazed into the abyss, and did not know whether she would fall off, or pull back, or fly.

"Everyone's gotta row."

He this both in response to Ausra's command, and in response to Scylla's sudden awkwardness about having picked up the oar when that was the thing she was supposed to have done to begin with. Lydia seated herself, took up the oar, and applied herself diligently to her work. As far as new faces go, she was already starting to become familiar to the captain.

Silver rolled a slim cigarette with loose papers and a substance of green leaves (tobacco was brown), which he smoked while lazily sketching on a pad with a pencil, both of which he'd procured from the same rucksack as the bag for his cigarettes.

It took them just long enough to reach the boat. Silver was about halfway done with his drawing. After rolling it in a tube and tucking it within his shirt, and after hoisting himself up to the deck with surprising agility, Silver went about his duties with a somber attitude. Rigging the sails, pulling up the anchor and such, allowing each woman to tend to other duties to get their vessel ready for sail. But Silver finished his duties prematurely, walked to the side of the ship and smoothed out the paper. As the works about him carried on, he strove with a quiet intensity to finish the drawing.

Off topic:
Ladies, feel free to push the ship forward at your leisure. Just get us going and out. We're going to spend some time on the ship without too much happening, since I don't think every second of a thread needs to be action packed, but feel free to move things forward or introduce any elements you find interesting. I don't want to be the only one doing stuff!

[Aleksei]

Ausra had rolled the word 'row' from her vocabulary as to only practice a language she had suddenly lost; in no means was she demanding or indicating that the rest row while she sit on a throne of gold, and they do the work. They had willingly shifted around her, bejeweled with their currency of acceptance which cannot be exchanged. For a very miniscule piece of time she felt it best to allow the other two to be used with words as they simply fell victim to a misunderstanding. She could simply detach from them, but that would be like hollowing a lighthouse, smashing a rare beacon only for an advance of understanding. Row was just an odd word and it wasn't used in their sentences often as it was sky they floated through, rarely water.

Her feeling of insult was further ignited as Silver joined in with the accusation. Out of anyone he ought to have known better, just because she was a solid form didn't change her ideal on manners and smiles. Without holding back she glared at him and with that he might have felt a small spark flash between them, but it was gone with the cinders of her thoughts. She shouldn't be thought of anyone or anything special, she was part of this crew and journey as any other person. Their thoughts and feelings about her were of their own making, she influenced nothing.

Holding her hectic stare towards the Captain some seconds later, she turned her mind to address the other women. Her features softened as she blew away a small piece of hair tickling her nose. There was no use in being angry, but her pride as a friend would be injured for the remainder of their time. Her body had been broken down times innumerable, crumbled under the ruthless weight of their expectations. Ausra was aware of her abilities and would use every drop to make sure they lived another day. For a moment she went inside herself to hide, kicking herself like a tiny pearl to the bottom of the ocean. These emotions were raw and wholly new, and her mind was mixed in a whirlpool of dissatisfaction.

Giving a listless sigh she added her own contribution to the rowing: letting their little ship move on its own. These were ladies and the thing they needed the least were callouses upon such fragile hands. Indeed they were a pirate crew, but that didn't mean you had to let go of all meaning of being a woman or so far as going, being human. She would make things easy for them, just not everything. Trial and tribulation kept the mind going forth, giving you something to think about.

Feeling satisfied with her moment of thought, she lifted a slender arm and smashed her knuckles to the hill of Silver's shoulder. Sure, she could forgive him but it was more of a relief to just hit him and release emotion.

She smiled casually at the ladies.

[Silver]

Silver finished his recreation of the map.

"Hah! That'll do just fine it will!"

Then rolled it up and tucked it inside of the lining of his hat. A wild-eyed kind of fervor was beginning to take the man. You see, he had become accustomed to the low-hanging fruit of paradise. A man didn't even have to reach out; the fruit was level with your hand, just waiting to roll off its stem and into hungry hands. Hands that kept eating even when the hunger subsided.

Silver hobbled his way to the steering wheel, brandishing the long dagger customarily strapped to his hip, and began to assault the wheel. He took on the face of a man consumed by his work, his eyes squinting in their strain to focus on the smallest available detail; wood shavings peeled off and were carried away by the breeze. When sweat speckled his brow, Silver wiped it away with the back of his hand or bandana and carried on.

Then he stepped back, placed his hands on his hips and took survey of his work. Scratched across the wheel, from point to point and across the intersection, was a cross-section of the map. Silver broke away from the wheel, his hobble smoothing out into a more even walk even though there remained a hint of a limp, and he gathered the women in the main cabin. Sat them down. Handed out bowls and gave them apples, bananas and kiwi then sat down and began crunching on an apple of his own.

When half the apple was nothing but chewed up core, Silver slapped the map he'd been working on prior face up on the table with a ponderous clap.

"Lydia, Scylla. You weren't t'ere wit' us but I'll catch you up. Just a little while ago Ausra here asked me a favor, and I happily obliged cause jus' lookit that face. I won't go getting' intah all da specifics here but I think we were inside a meeeeemoryyyyyy," Silver stretched the word, to make it spooky and mystical. "And in that memory, this old guy was selling a map.

"Now I recognized the map soon as I saw it, by t'under. Heard talk of it since I was a boy, seen bits and pieces of it scattered across a thousand tomes. When I saw the old man pull the map out I nearly fainted! By then I suspected that things weren't what they seemed tah be and so I took pains tah memorize every lil line and hatchmark and here you have it before ya ladies.

"Our first stop is the Land of the Blind. Their king has but one eye, that he does, and in that eye is one of three parts that we need to make the Key. On the steerin' wheel I the coordinates o' the Land mixed wit' a bit o' hoodoo that'll put us on the rough path but Ausra I'm going to need you back there occasionally to handle any finesse work. When we're done we shave it done, put in the new set o' numbers and do it all over again."