memoir of a forgotten pirate

VI

Cold steel to my neck shouldn't be a feeling I'm familiar with, but it was a familiar feeling nonetheless when I came to. I had entered a small inn in a small village, turning in Tianyi's golden coin as payment. Fitfully, I'd tried to get some sleep to no avail, the sounds of my fellow crew screaming and the burning sensation of fire haunting my dreams. And yet, just as I had been chasing sleep, I was rudely awoken.

I don't even think there was panic as I woke up. I tried to move slowly to try and get a bearing on my surroundings, only to quickly discover there was a foot on my chest.

"Now, little missy— don't throw a fit, or I might have to do something drastic," a cheerful voice purred.

Fuck.

That's what I get for trusting random innkeepers and lowering my guard enough to not keep watch.

"What do you want?" I breathed. The room was still dark— the fucker wanted to remain unseen. I saw the faintest hint of a form shifting in the darkness, hand extended on a pistol at my throat. The jugular. "My bounty? I know there's a handsome one above my head."

"Oh, no. I'm not interested in that— I'm interested in killing scoundrels." The pressure on my throat increased. "Which one are you, Mo Qiangxiang?"

"Why not blow my brains sky high?" I asked, avoiding the question instead. There was a subtle panic, even so– he knew my name. Had I really become so notorious as a member of the Pirate King's crew that my name– my face– could be common knowledge?  "Pistol like yours— I'm sure you'd get a much cleaner kill by putting it to my head."

My assailant paused, as if genuinely in thought. There was a click of metal.

"I don't know. That depends if you're a scoundrel or not," the voice said lightly. "Blowing your brains out is mercy. If I strike you in the jugular— oh, you're guaranteed to die, but a painful one it'll be. Perfect for scoundrels who've lived lives of horrible crime."

Ghosts.

The ghosts of my past curled around me, darkly whispering.

You will never, ever escape us, they whispered. This is retribution.

"Well," I said. "If you're going to kill me, kill me like a scoundrel."

Pause.

"I wasn't quite sure Tianyi knew what she was getting herself into, dealing with someone from the Pirate King's crew," my attacker admitted. There was a faint hissing noise as he lit a match, illuminating his face. The man's hair was tied up in a ponytail, and the fine stubble on his jaw cast strange, uneven shadows across his face. For what looked like all of this man's mischievous nature, a certain tiredness ran through him. The man smiled wolfishly. "Sorry for the scare. I'm Sarovar."

He pulled his gun back, lifting his foot off my chest. I sat up, rubbing at my neck, at the strong pulse that beat under my throat.

"Someone dear to me was killed by the Pirate King and his crew," Sarovar admitted. "So I wasn't sure what you would be like. If I had to kill you, that could have been a little bit of comeuppance– but, bah, no matter. Tianyi says you cashed in a favor to get out."

"I did," I said. Whether for better or for worse, I had burned my old family to the ground. Tears threatened to sting my eyes at the thought– at the warmth of that burning fire on my skin.

"You must not be all that bad, then," Sarovar said. "Not the scoundrel that the rest of them are."

"They're dead," I whispered. "I killed them."

"Did you?" Sarovar said, surprise in his voice. "A scoundrel killing scoundrels?"

"No." The words were cloying against my tongue. "I might as well have killed them, but I didn't– I didn't kill them on purpose." I didn't want to. My family– my family. What had I done?

Sarovar was silent.

"So," I said quickly. "Tianyi sent you?"

"She did," Sarovar said. He flashed a small insignia on his cloak. A golden telescope. "Fellow member of the Wanderers' Guild. She's busy with some other stuff right now, so she sent me to find you and cash in your favor. It doesn't count, by the way. She said she's doing this as your friend."

"And despite all of that, you were going to kill me," I said dryly.

"Hey now," Sarovar protested. Then he paused. "No, yeah, I was going to. Technically I didn't have a written agreement with Tianyi about what I was going to do with you, and to be fair– you're a member– ex-member? – of the Pirate King's crew. You're dangerous. And hey, I mean– look, I'm not gonna kill you. All's well that ends well."

I rolled my eyes.

"She gave me a place," Sarovar continued. He opened my room's window. Cold wind blew through, causing his hair to billow messily. I squinted against the cold draft. "A small town. She knows a friend of a friend who will take you in. You used to be a blacksmith?"

"Sort of," I said. In the deepest recesses of my mind, I remembered crackling embers against my sensitive skin. I remembered lifting heavy metals, and the smell of charcoal and coal. Yao told me my father and mother were blacksmiths by trade– surely it meant that I must have learned something, but that girl didn't even feel like me anymore. She felt like a stranger.

"Well, good enough, I guess." Sarovar swung his body out of the window, turning back to offer me a hand. "Are you coming?"

I laughed.

"Is that how you got in?" I asked, shoving his hand aside and approaching the window myself.

Sarovar hummed.

"Basically," he said. And then he jumped.