“Here” Obsidarian said when the laughter faded. “It’s time I gave you these… a dead man’s standard means nothing.”
My first mate took a deep breath before unwinding the strips that had bound his hands for years. They were symbols of Mají’s crew; all of us had worn them. The crimson and black showed our allegiance to him, while the third color, unique to each crew member, was for loyalty to ourselves. Obsidarian wore grey with his colors, Jumé wore royal blue, and I had worn hot pink, the same color now on my flag.
Obsidarian’s bindings were filthy with age, stained with sweat and faded where they had been exposed to the eternal summer sun. He placed them gingerly in my hand, fingertips lingering in a last goodbye before he stepped back. His lips were pressed tightly together and he took a moment before speaking again.
“If my captain would be so good as to give me her colors; I’ve seen them on the boy, Flint. A crew should match, and a first mate leads by example.”
I caught myself staring at his hands, the backs of which were as pale as old scars. My own hands still bore the tanned lines from my bindings, and I had been cast out of the crew within a year. Obsidarian had been with Mají for almost three years. He hadn’t taken those strips off since he joined the crew, and the sharp contrast of his ebony skin made the lighter color hurt my eyes.
I shook my head slowly in an attempt to clear away some of the confusion. Flint wore a hot pink strip of fabric tied about his forehead like a child playing ninja. It looked alright on him, with his boyish smiles and over exuberant enthusiasm, but on Obsidarian… he would look a fool. Yet the man had a point. My crew didn’t match. Flint wore his band, the rest of the crew wore Mají’s bindings, and Sparx; Sparx didn’t have a standard of any sort. I needed something to show their loyalty to me while still permitting the men to keep their self-respect, and instilling the old fear into rival crews.
I turned away from Obsidarian silently, placing his former bindings on one of the many plush furs on the floor. I then opened the chest of cloth strips that sat beneath my flag. Last year, my hot pink had been at the bottom of the chest, out of sight, rejected, forgotten, now hot pink littered the top. I picked up the first strip of my color and draped it over my hand. After a moment’s thought, I grabbed a second one as well.
The black was next, the dark and dangerous to contradict my feminine color. The strips I picked up were slick and rough, as if they’d been torn from a proper Jolly Roger.
It took me a moment to find the final color. I dug through the box, searching for the smoky grey associated with my first mate. But it wasn’t there. I already had the perfect color, faded and worn soft by constant use. I took the grey strips Obsidarian had given me, folded them in with the others, and stood to show him.
“In my crew,” I said softly, “pirates will bind their hands with cloth to pledge their service. I have chosen black and hot pink for myself. You are free to choose a third color to call your own, for we are the elite, and may stand alone in our achievements.”
I held my hand out, offering Obsidarian his new colors. The smile on his face was radiant, the relief palpable, and his eyes… there was something I’d never seen in his eyes before.
“Thank-you”.
He left before I could respond, deftly rebinding his hands on his way to the door. I retreated to the chest once the door shut, sinking onto the fur covered floor to contemplate the colors before me. I had my own color to pick out. Mají had doubled his, with two strips of crimson and one of black. I didn’t fancy doing the same thing, but that made the decision all the harder… or that’s what I tried to tell myself.
Truthfully, I knew what I had to have. I didn’t have a choice. The prospect of seeing one of my crew members with his colors would rip me to pieces. I’d have to face them day in and day out, pretending that the crimson they had chosen meant nothing to me. The worst part would be their ignorance, for no returning pirate would choose Mají’s color… it was too close to mutiny. Yet if I took my old colors, crimson, black, and hot pink, it would be like I was still serving the old captain. I would look weak, sentimental even, and I couldn’t afford that.
Despite logic, I wound the old colors around my palms. Crimson, black, and hot pink wove through one another around the top of my wrists all across my hand; leaving the fingers free. For the first time in months, I began to admit what I felt.
I missed Mají. For the few weeks before everything had happened between us I had started to believe in a sort of happily ever after. I thought we would find the blood diamond, and use it somehow to secure my place beside him. I would have been content there, with him on one side and Briamy on the other. But Mají suspected what I never knew; my fate.
As Griffon’s child a storybook ending wasn’t in my cards, and as much as I wanted to hate Mají for keeping me in the dark; I understood. He was right after all. I killed him. I couldn’t blame him for trying crazy things to keep himself safe. It wasn’t his fault.
It was mine. I’d blown my top over something that had probably happened to hundreds of pirates in the past. I was proud, and refused to acknowledge that my wild emotions had almost killed Briamy out in the forest. And then I’d repeated my mistake. I had known. Briamy hadn’t even carried a weapon before I pressed the red hilted dagger into her hand, but with FireSweet coursing through our systems I thought we couldn’t lose. It was my revenge that killed her. Her sacrifice… it should have been me. I should have died.
It was for her that I wore the crimson band. I’d worn it as her friend, and I’d wear it now as a token of the fiery revenge that had cost her life.
I stood with a new determination, rolling my shoulders and cracking my neck to clear out the last of the dark thoughts. I could choose the new recruits now, pirates who would be shrewd and strong, guys and girls with mischievous smiles and devious eyes. Yet when I opened the door Sparx was right there, amber eyes widening in shock at my appearance. Up close, those eyes…
“Obsidarian said I should pick out my colors before the new recruits get the best ones,” the girl rushed out.
“I was just on my way there now.”
“Then it’s good I caught you,” she said. “You look like you’ve been rolling in the dirt.”
Sparx turned me around and pushed me back in the room, ignoring the rich surroundings as she looked for a mirror.
“If I heard right,” she said while she searched “I wear your two colors, plus one of my own.”
“Right.”
“Well what I’d love is a burnt orange. Do you have anything like that?”
I moved slowly, very aware that she had practically given me an order. I opened the chest, grabbing my two colors and her one when I found it. Sparx had found the mirror she wanted, and it didn’t look like she would be moving, so I went to her instead. She grinned and grabbed me when I got close, whirling me around until I was before the mirror and she was behind me, bindings in hand.
“You need a look,” she said, peering at my reflection thoughtfully. “Something that says ‘Queen of Thieves’ and ‘King of Pirates’ without being girly or showy; you should look dangerous. Right now you’re… normal.”
“I’m a pirate queen,” I said coldly “not a little girl playing dress-up.”
“Really? Because I can’t tell the difference.”
I growled and yanked the Queenblade from its sheath, swinging it toward the girl’s side as I spun to face her. The red-hilted dagger met my dirk, and Sparx smiled.
“Still can’t see it,” she sighed, shaking her head in mock disappointment. “I know all about the fiery Gittoran Flame, and you’re not her. You’re a widow, not a pirate. A pirate looks proud, and you look like you rolled out of bed a minute ago. It’s obvious you lock yourself in your room for weeks at a time, crying over love.”
She spat the last word, and I went at her again. She retreated under my onslaught, backing until her heel touched the chest of cloth. She lunged at me, and when I leapt back she jumped up on the chest, her smile never flickering.
“Even now, you call this fighting? Who in their right mind would lose to you? No wonder the crew doesn’t respect you, you fight like a girl!”
I lunged, moving her off of the chest and back into a corner. That’s when the magic hit. I didn’t have to summon it this time, it flooded down my arm and set the Queenblade alight. Sparx flinched from the heat the next time our steel met, leaving me enough of an opening to flick my blade around hers, sending the red-hilted dagger spinning out of her hand.
“I AM a girl,” I said softly. “I am the Griffon’s child, Queen of Thieves, and King of Pirates. I killed Mají-jalio; and next to him you’re nothing.”
I would have said more, but Sparx was smirking; triumphant.
“What?” I asked, fire fading away.
“I can see why you’re such a terrifying person,” she said. “I could see my death in your eyes.”
“Next time I’ll kill you.” I promised.
“You should be thanking me. Your anger gives you power, and that’s what the men will follow. I had a point… and you see that now.”
“Put your bindings on,” I said “and then find me something to look the part. I’d rather not have to fight every pirate on the street.”
“As you wish my queen.”
By the time Sparx and I agreed on something, I had to admit I looked better. I’d left the heavy Kingblade on my sword rack, trading it for a matching pair of daggers with pink garnets set in the hilt. That made three blades on my belt, with the stiletto tucked against my back and hidden within the scarlet sash I’d tied around my lower ribs. Sparx had found a long black captain’s coat with gold buttons, and when I put it on it fell past my cut off shorts, making me look like I was in a dress from the back. Regardless, it made me look tall and proud, a true captain. I’d refused to wear boots, so I was still happily barefoot, and much to Sparx’ dismay; hatless. With the coat, Red’s hoop earring, and my three golden rings to mark me as captain, queen, and king, I was set to go.
Sparx followed half a step behind me through the hallways and down to the yard, where the potential recruits waited with Obsidarian. My first mate had them standing shoulder to shoulder. Some wore the standards of other crews, Storm’s blue bandana or Vinyé’s green sash. A few wore the tattered attire of rogues, others were the girls left abandoned now that Carnie had aged out of the game. But the overwhelming majority of them were new, stealing glances at Obsidarian as they tried to look fierce.
“Sparx” I said softly. “Go find Flint and Narasia. Take them back to my quarters to choose their color and wrap their hands. When you finish take a double handful of the hot pink and give them to any other crew members you can find.”
“Yes Captain.”
When she left I paced the rows of recruits, any pirate that couldn’t meet my eye was dismissed. I wanted a bold crew, one that wouldn’t be lost when I left half of them behind so I could break down the walls. Over thirty of the recruits had no spirit, but with the cowards gone I had around twenty guys left, and four girls. I decided to test their spirit a second time, with the most frustrating thing I could remember. Obsidarian pulled a target forward, took ten steps away from it, and toed a line in the dirt. He then handed his dagger to the first recruit, a beefy blonde guy wearing Storm’s colors.
“Hit the target,” I said. “One try.”
The recruit shook his head, “I use a cutlass Captain. I’ve never thrown a dagger before.”
“I’m not your captain,” I said coldly “and it looks like you never will. You can go.”
The recruit looked like he wanted to argue, but thought the better of it and left.
Recruit number two was a skinny guy, fresh blood. He at least tried to throw the knife, but after he missed the target he apologized. What sort of pirate apologizes? He was dismissed as well, though he didn’t seem surprised by my decision, and apologized half a dozen times more before he finally shut up and left.
Recruit number three was a girl with cropped brown hair and a permanently pissed expression. She hit the center of the target and stood to the side, daring me to contradict her. She was definitely a keeper, though I was curious where she’d learned to throw. Carnie’s girls technically weren’t supposed to have weapons. Not that I would have listened in her place.
A few more guys tried their hand, those who apologized left, and those who shrugged or promised to practice got to stay. One guy, one of Vinyé’s, actually managed to cheat. He sat the dagger in front of him and stared at it, palm outstretched, shaking in concentration. Eventually the dagger rose into the air, the earth beneath it clearing away from the tiny updraft. Painfully slow, the dagger floated across the ten paces to the target, and nudged the tip in. It wasn’t center, but that wasn’t the point. The guy had a power, and had thought about how to use it to his advantage while watching those before him fail. He would get to stay as well.
That brought me down to twelve, three of them girls. I motioned for the angry girl from Carnie’s crew to step forward. She did so defiantly, her feet a bit too far apart, shoulders back, chest puffed up.
“Your name.”
“Nyx.”
“Welcome to the crew Nyx. You may go stand behind Obsidarian. When the rest of your crewmates are chosen you shall all go up and get your colors. You will have first choice.”
“Thank you Captain Flame.”
I liked her.
The guy with the air magic was called Cirrun. He stood behind Nyx to wait as I judged the last ten recruits. I only wanted five of them, and told them as much. By this time most of the rest of the crew had shown up to watch. I couldn’t help but smile to see them, the hot pink woven into the bindings around their hands, all traces of the crimson gone. Sparx and Flint stood at the front, knocking elbows with Jumé as they moved for better views of the spectacle. Mají had never held try outs before.
I turned back to the last ten, knowing all I had left was to test their fighting skill, but who to pit them against? Fighting one another would be pointless, and any sort of free-for-all would result in the girls being collectively shoved out. I had to pick a crew member…
“Sparx.”
The girl stepped to my side, waiting for further instructions. I knew the rest of my crew was watching her. They, like Jumé, would want to know her worth. This would prove it to them.
“You’re to match off against these would-be crewmates.” I said. “Take the space you need, but I expect it to be quick. It’s only to first blood after all.”
Sparx nodded, smirking slightly. “It would be an honor my queen. I ask only that I be given a cutlass, for I left mine upstairs.”
It took most of my self-control to nod without speaking. I had fought her only an hour ago, and she had held her own, with a dagger. She could have grabbed a cutlass from the rack, I owned four of them, yet she didn’t. Why would she need one now?
I looked back to Obsidarian, but Jumé stepped forward first, offering his cutlass to Sparx hilt first. He glanced at me as she took it, but it was too quick to tell what he was thinking. He then returned to stand with the rest of the crew, and Sparx stepped forward, waiting for her first opponent with the dagger in one hand, cutlass in the other. I pointed to a guy at random, beckoning him forward. The recruit stepped back, and opened his mouth for the first time in my presence, revealing that he was an idiot.
“Sorry cap’n, but I don’t fight girls. It wouldn’t be fair.”
I heard snickering from behind Obsidarian. That would be Nyx; it seemed she had a firm idea of how I operated. I smiled at the unfortunate recruit, nodding in sympathy.
“You’re right of course. Sparx deserves a bit more of a challenge, someone with a spine maybe? You may go.”
Before the recruit had recovered, a rogue stepped forward, drawing his cutlass against Sparx. My crew member nodded to him in acknowledgement, and then swung into a defensive crouch. She looked strange. I didn’t understand at first. She was facing me, as was the recruit. He held his cutlass normally… but hers was in her left hand.
I thought quickly. I hadn’t faced this problem earlier. Sparx had fought me right handed, both in my quarters and when she drew against me in the clearing.
Sparx stepped to circle with the recruit, forcing him to walk the wrong way. He slid his feet as he circled, checking and rechecking for anything he could possibly trip over. It was a promising start. He knew what Flint didn’t, not that that said much, Flint was a spastic swordsman on a good day. Sparx stomped her front foot, only moving it forward an inch. The rogue didn’t flinch. His eyes never left her cutlass. She then began to sway, creeping forward with such fluidity it looked like she was dancing. That startled the rogue. He took two proper steps backward, choosing to retreat and break the circle. Sparx lunged, cutlass snaking under the rogue’s guard. He blocked the blow at the last second, but he only had one weapon to her two. The downswing of his block had left his face vulnerable, and Sparx’ dagger left a thin line of blood across his cheek.
The rogue nodded to me, and turned to go.
“Do you think half of you will win?” I asked.
The rogue froze, turning my words over for a moment. He looked at the other recruits, and then at Sparx. Eventually he sat, awaiting judgment.
The next recruit was a girl, and it was apparent within seconds that she had never been in a proper fight before. Her stance was unbalanced, her footwork uneven, and her grip too light. Sparx disarmed the girl in a minute, lunging forward and rapping sharply on the girl’s knuckles. Despite the complete failure, the girl sat beside the rogue until I told her to leave.
The next seven recruits were fair enough. I was able to dismiss two more guys who couldn’t make it a minute, and the last girl held her own for almost five, so she sat with those waiting judgment. No one had touched Sparx.
The last recruit was a hulk from Storm’s crew. He was as tall as Obsidarian, but with broader shoulders and uncomfortably large muscles. I expected him to pull out a broadsword, but he chose twin cutlasses instead, something I’d only seen Jumé do before. He hung low in his stance, trying to minimize the huge target that was his body. He was the only guy to look unimpressed at Sparx’ left-handedness. His footwork was sure, even going the wrong way around the circle, and when Sparx leapt forward, he matched her blow for blow. Sparx backed away after a minute, forcing him to come out and chase her. She led him on a merry dance, working around the recruits sitting in the dirt and back up in front of me. He had her hard pressed by then, his blows had more force behind them, and Sparx had already fought 9 other recruits, and me an hour before that. She was tiring. I could see it, and he could too. He changed tactics, and swung at Sparx with both blades. Sparx leaned away from the right blade, but his left rang against her cutlass. The sword spun out of her hand, landing at my feet.
Still standing in her left handed stance, her entire body was suddenly vulnerable, and when the hulk swung at her, she opted to drop and roll rather than try to block two swords with a single dagger. But she botched the roll, and the dagger ended up down near her feet as she was flat on her back. The recruit smiled, and took half a second to decide where to land the blow. Even if she blocked with her hands, he would still draw blood, and that was all he needed. She rolled in a vain attempt at a dodge… and then the hulk yelled in pain. The red-hilt of Sparx’ dagger was protruding from the back of his calf.
He dropped to the ground and Sparx stood over him, face expressionless as she looked down on him. After a moment she looked at me, waiting.
“Narasia,” I called. “Heal him, he can stay. He fought well.”
“Of course.”
I looked over to the six recruits awaiting judgment. I kept the girl, and rogue brave enough to volunteer to fight first. They stood behind Nyx and Cirrun, and were followed by a pair of younger guys new to the game. I waited for Narasia to heal the hulk who had formerly belonged to Storm. He stood with a grunt when she finished, massaging the back of his calf with one hand and holding the red-hilted dagger in the other. Convinced that his leg was whole, he took two great steps toward Sparx, and held out the dagger in his left hand. When she reached for it he shook her hand, holding her right hand a second longer than needed.
“Name’s Grim,” he said.
“Sparx,” she replied. “Welcome to the crew.”