Oren [On Hold][EDITING]

Prologue: Swashbuckler

The night began much like the others in Oren: with a great howl through the Ciscoz Prairie Wilds and screams of pleasure and pain throughout Shark Anchorage Port. On the open sea, however, quiet was common in the dead of night. A slow and whining creak in the floorboards and the soft snore of a few pirates was all could be heard under that moonlight. A girl, no older than six, clad in her father's shirt, awoke with a start, her hands searching the bunk beside her.

Young Evie slid quietly from her sleeping place, lowering her feet with a hushed thud on the boards. Across the cabin, a slender elven woman slept, her easy breathing whistling through her nose. Her pointed ears twitched at the padding of Evie's feet, but she did not stir. Fat Tom slept above her, swinging gently from side to side in a hammock. It was a wonder that he had never buckled and fell and crushed her and her father. Evie, small and swift, hurried to the door, only stumbling along the way. She pushed the door open and shuffled down the hallway, grasping at her blonde messy locks and shoving them out of her face, her legs wobbling with the sway of the ship.

Above deck, there was no one. She looked to the helm, but the helmsman was nowhere to be seen. Where was Old Mellon and his sons? Where were the elven twins, Rumeus and Hackwell? An eerie feeling swept over her and her tiny shoulders quivered. If her father was not in bed, and was not out reading the stars, then where could he be? Her eyes scanned the horizon. Blackness seeped into her vision and then she suddenly became more aware. Her pupils grew. The wind whipped her hair in her face and obscured her view for only a moment before she noticed one of the rowboats had gone missing from deck. Evie bolted, hoisting herself on top of the rail and peered over the side. Just below, a figure moved hastily by lamplight, covered and disguised under a cloak. She searched the horizon for just a moment to recognize no other ship in sight. A crewmember, she realized. He stacked crates evenly up and down the length of the rowboat.

"Father!" Evie hissed down at the cloaked pirate.

The man looked up immediately, bringing a gloved finger to his lips, hushing the girl. "Quiet now, sweetling," he beckoned to her.

Evie scrambled to keep her balance in the haphazard waves. "Father, where are you going? Why didn't you wake me?" she asked in a panicked whisper.

She could not see his face properly, but she believed him to have smiled under the dim light. "I'm heading to find your mother, child." He reached down and picked up the lamp. He held it up to have a better look at her. "Back away now, you."

The young girl's heart thumped with anticipation. "Mother left. She doesn't care about us. Don't go," she pleaded, the pain evident in her voice. Evie's eyes stung; it was a familiar feeling that she had felt once when she opened her eyes under the sea. 

"Shh, Evie. If the crew catches me, it'll catch me a keelhaul. I must find your mother, and then I will be back."

The girl's fingers dug into the splintered wood and her fingernails began to ache. "They won't. Captain won't. Father, please don't leave," she begged again, her cheeks crusted and soaked with tears. Her nose felt sour and taut and it started to leak. She wiped away the fluids with the wrist the old shirt.

"Evie, this isn't farewell, aye? I promise I'll be back."

"But what... will I... do without you?" she gasped between her words.

"Captain Enigma, and Nebula, and Fat Tom and Kelpie... they will all take care of you while I'm gone. You are just a little girl and--" 

"No," she replied, reaching down toward him. "I'm not a girl, father," she objected. Her fingers curled around the crisp night air. His mouth set into a sincere smile.

"Aye, you're a swashbuckler, Evie. And soon, if you trust me, and most of all, if you trust Enigma, you will be the most fearsome pirate to sail over the seas of Oren." He untied the rowboat from the vessel and sat, his hands curling around an oar. It was in the water at once and he was pushing away from his home by the time the small girl spoke again.

"Even more fearsome than Captain Chaos?" she called out to his drifting boat. She stood on the rail, clutching sail ties. But he did not reply. She watched as the silhouette of her father became nothing more than a simple dark spot across the fog on the horizon.

Evie, weak with dismay, slunk back down to the ship's deck, curling herself tightly into a ball. First mother, now father. She counted the scuts in the wood as far as her eyes could see and she quickly cried herself to sleep. But that night, she dreamed she heard the howling across the sea in the Wilds, and the pleasure houses' cries of ecstasy. And she dreamed she was a strong pirate, much like her father, with twice the skill and thrice the loyalty to her crew. And she dreamed she were the Captain. And then she woke up.