The Birth of a Pirate

It was cold, dark and damp. From where she was, hidden away under a shawl between two barrels, there was little to be felt but the soft sounds of the sea, and the steady rocking of the ship. At least four hours it'd been, she thought to herself. It must have been. And she was starving. Like most ideas that seem great at the time, this one was turning out to have been rotten. What was she even thinking, she wondered to herself. She was stone cold sober at the time, yet for whatever reason it struck her as a fantastic idea to sneak on board the moored ship and hide. And why? So far all that had been gained was sea-sickness and a deepening feeling of self-loathing. What an idiot she was.

As the time passed, and her hunger grew, she began to hear shouting. Shouting, which soon became the sounds of action. Men running to and fro and about their stations, the creaking sounds of what she could only assume was part of the ship as she turned, and a loud domineering voice barking instructions, muffled to her ears by her position down below. Suddenly all that was drowned out. Great big explosions of noise, like thunder, but all the more intense. They rang again and again, pounding at her eardrums, along with an array of other loud but not as deafening bangs. Cannon and gunfire. Fantastic, she thought to herself. Stowing aboard a ship for no reason whilst on an empty stomach was bad enough, but stowing aboard a ship for no reason whilst on an empty stomach and then dying in a crossfire was so much worse. At that moment, part of her gave up on life, while the other thirsted for action, to get close to the battle she could hear. Both these parts of her psyche joined forces for one act; to lift up the shawl and to wander out of her hidey-hole, straight up onto deck. Here, the noises were all the more deafening, and the sight of the carnage made it all the more potent. There was another ship off to starboard, sailing a flag she recognised as Kul Tiras. At that moment, in the midst of the carnage, she realised she had no idea what the ship she had shown away on sailed under, and thusly inclined her head upwards. The flag was black as the night sky, painted with a twisted visage of a skeleton, holding a bloodied knife in its rotting hand. Pirates.

The battle raged on and on, and she was ever so surprised that nobody had noticed an out of place girl cowering behind a barrel. Then again, they probably had other things on their mind. At this point, the Kul Tirans had boarded the ship. Being no expert on the matter she could not say for certain, but it seemed to her that they were winning the engagement. Part of her was glad. Begone, pirate scum! Yet an equal part of her was rooting for the pirates. Who was in the right here? The Kul Tirans certainly appeared to be offering no quarter, which was, in her innocent opinion, a little naughty of them. But pirates are still pirates. Confusing thoughts, best to not dwell on. Think about them later, she would! This confusing train of thought was broken when she heard the booming, domineering voice from earlier. It came from a huge, bulbous man with a long, wiry brown beard, stood at the centre of the deck. His clothes were fancier than the rest of the pirates. His manner of address was fancier than the rest of the pirates. Even his hat was fancier than those of the rest of the pirates. The Captain, she thought. It must have been.

At this point, the fighting had more or less died down. The Captain was laying some smooth and fancy words onto the Kul Tiran, whom it would be easy to assume to be their little leader, stood directly in front of him. The pirates had lost, and the wounded lay everywhere, while the able were being bound and shackled by the lawful victors. From where she was, she could see the back of the Kul Tiran leader, and just about see the pirate Captain stood in front of him. Not a great bum on the Kul Tiran leader, she thought. Too flat and shapeless. He must have been old. Before thinking too deeply into this matter, her train of thought was interrupted once more as the Kul Tirans moved to bind the captain. Thinking about her freedom, about her life, about how the pirate captain looked so much better than the Kul Tiran, and most of all not thinking at all, she leapt from her position, speeding to the back of the Kul Tiran leader. At his side was a sheathed pistol, a flintlocke of beautiful design, engraved and emblazoned for decoration. Before anyone around them had the chance to react, she reached around his waist, drew the flintlocke, cocked the hammer back, pressed it against the back of the mans head. And fired. Before the now lifeless man could hit the ground, the pirate captain too leapt into action, unsheathing the sword from the side of one of his captors and turning on them with a great shout, as his crewmen joined in the carnage once again. Between kicking a man overboard and parrying the attack of another, the pirate captain glanced over to his saviour, his expression one of foul disdain, but equally one of amusement. "And who the fuck are ye, fair maiden?" he bellowed across. And she answered, a smile curling her lips. "Meg."