the keelwalker.

widow's silk.

[soracities]

“To feel anything deranges you. To be seen feeling anything strips you naked.”

— Anne Carson, from Red Doc   (via days-of-reading)

[cursedsails]

rika was so achingly bored and painfully shackled by this port, by her captain, by the fucking pirata codex that had no right telling the lawless how to behave. so when a merchant ship nestled at shore, most likely siphoned by the same government armada that awaited any pirates out at sea and needing to to recuperate, she wondered if finally there might be some entertainment for her. they weren't local, they weren't important... they were practically begging to be robbed and bled.

but when she had scouted the ship and noticed a particular shadow making it their newest target, the game was truly afoot. if rika was going to fuck with this trading ship before, seeing that bastian had gotten involved only meant she had to do it faster, and with far less mercy than she had intended. which admittedly had been little to begin with. that man would not get in her way, never again.

toying with him was the most alive she had felt since she had stepped foot on shore. she made no effort to hide, walking through the corridors of the ship as if she belonged there, seeking him out and prepared to kill anyone that got in her way. which, to her disappointment, had been none so far. useless.

when she heard his voice and how inconvenienced he was to see her, she stopped plainly in the middle of the corridor and grinned. "and let you have all of the fun? not a fucking chance."

[bastian-vos]

he sees in those eyes of bottomless rage that this, right here, is not going to be remotely where his evening ends. a tired hand glides over features, the fucking embarrassment of even being involved in this. whoever was responsible for rika's marooning deserves to be marooned just for the sheer failure of a job they have done.

vos escapes the shadows clearer into sight, movement unbearably silent still, eyes tracking for traces of weapons. signs of fighting, perhaps? no. managed to wait for desert this time; rudhrika. such eager seeker of the less dignified, petty parts of him.

"very well. be my guest," a lofty, slow wave of his hand as he comes closer. the guards' footsteps echo faintly from somewhere beyond the hull, above them, below them, irrelevant. he knows the distance by sound alone. they can play. "watch your back."

strangely courteous, for a threat. bastian hates the wretched raidling. entirely useless, the entire predicament, to him and to this. an inconvenience and a variable where there should be none. rika could disappear tomorrow and he'd raise a glass.

the exhaustion leaves him by some small, irritating degrees.

entirely too educated by now in the priorities of this set up — the pleasure of fucking up the masterpiece of his work will always mean more than gutting him on the spot, wouldn't it? — he stands still, in lieu of a lean, close just enough. "do me proud?"

[bastian-vos]

whatever souls are made of, yours and mine are opposites. explode

where: a merchant ship with: @cursedsails

bastian's cleanest and simplest desire is to get home aboard the wake; between him and his bed are the final stretch of a dockside escape and a whole ship of men who do not yet know they have been robbed.

he'd been at this for days, a live ghost in the walls of this ship, the entire trajectory so well mapped and remembered it might as well have been imprinted on eyelids. the wooden cipher wheel fastened neatly to his chest with a rope, it is now merely a matter of biding his time until the next guard switch.

... but in the depths of an empty long corridor, a familiar flash of hair crashes his hopes and dreams of a swift, seamless return. a feral cat. a plague to any plan. wonderful.

"you," he hisses from the corridor's alcove. "get the fuck out."

[starlxvrs]

starter : open || location : at the shambles

leyla eyes the shiny trinkets as she picked them as if inspecting them for any inconsistencies one by one. she enjoyed the little charms and other small glassware along with the pressed flowers. she did not know which she had wanted when deciding between them when her eyes glanced to a couple of daggers. some simple and others that were decorated with jewels on the hilt. she picked up a small gold one with red gems and brown leather for the grip. "what do you think?" she said turning to the person next to her and flashing a smile. "you think this could actually cause some damage or is it more decorative?" they asked with a tone of innocent in her voice.

[bastian-vos]

"well i'm afraid it depends. are you decorative or can you cause some damage?" it lacks bite, of course, the slow absent-minded drawl. he just can't look at any more rings and pressed flowers. bejewelled daggers glitter in leyla's delicate hands, pretty, though he has survived long enough to know better than to truly mistake beauty for harmlessness.

clearly, nothing would ever beat the broken marlinspike filed down into a blade and secured in the sheath strapped to his shin; loyal and present even in the dark churn below open water. but for a fun afternoon, these could do.

bastian shifts the fabric of his coat aside, revealing a white linen shirt, the map of his body exposed. "show me. where do you stab?"

[theblood1ess]

he's sure bastian knows. more than that, he's sure bastian knew before he'd knocked thrice. it isn't like laurent to spare anyone from companionable ribbing, and bastian would have caught the minute stiffness in his approach, the inflexible lilt of his voice when he'd interrupted. his presence at laurent's threshold only confirms it.

not that laurent had tried terribly hard to hide it. stumbling upon such intimate knowledge of bastian's captivity had felt like a violation of exceptional order, like wandering uninvited into a surgical theatre to find someone laid open, their innards left haphazardly upon the table.

bastian never knocks back, but laurent watches the light beneath his cabin door flicker and pulse with the rhythm of anxious strides. for several minutes, he leaves him to it. then several more. but he's never known the silk to pace like this before, and unrest begins to prickle unpleasantly in his gut.

had he erred more gravely than he'd thought?

the door swings open onto bastian.

“you're going to wear the floorboards thin,” laurent says simply.

behind him, candlelight stretches his shadow long across the corridor until it eclipses bastian. even half-swallowed by it, the silk's face is unreadable. what a talent.

laurent steps aside.

“come in.”

[bastian-vos]

a million cutting remarks — such pleasant daggers of swift relief, compared to the noose of self-reflection around his neck — die without making it past his mouth simply because this is laurent.

it being only a matter of hierarchy would make things easier; he had thought of it, an alternate universe in which he'd ended up with another ship and another leader to govern it. he’d gladly dance taunting circles around the line of subordination right up to his own marooning, should that be the case; he still often did here, with others.

with laurent the impulse had not occurred to him once.

the consideration that he’d been shown. the humanity. so much truth, offered freely, from a man whose lies the wisest among them could not tell from fact.

where wit will not do and a blank face no longer holds, best he can do is nod, as he enters, the first fault line running beneath old stone. what is this today? his eyes travel, snagging on the tasteful and organized clutter of laurent's cabin. anything but him. bastian's hand finds a pair of brass dividers left beside the charts; he opens them a fraction, watching the points separate. what a peculiar thing. what do you know? he offers a stare from the middle of his captain's room, stopped by a vile thought of his own torture recounted back to him, a facial expression affronted so abstractly he does not worry laurent will think it directed at him.

are we truly going to require a direct question? feet that have crossed the stillest of nights unheard now pace steady, but loudly. his stride keeps shortening by a fraction over the same plank on the floor — give it another month and it will creak loudest precisely when laurent most needs the room to swear itself empty. the toe of bastian's boot presses against it several times. he turns.

"this board’s been replaced."

[stexdfxsthexrt]

adeola nodded as bastian confirmed that he wasn't here to cause any trouble. a part of her wasn't sure that she totally believed him... though maybe that was more because she knew better than to trust pirates completely. unless they were her pirate.

" soup i can do. " adeola nodded. she quickly busied herself and pulled together a bowl of soup, a little bit of bread and some ale. she knew her customers well enough by now. the ones who came in often, adeola liked to ensure that she knew what they wanted before they could ask her. it was part of her job, she thought. it was important to pay attention to the little things.

once her hands were empty, adeola placed them on her hips and tilted her head slightly. " so what is it that you're here for? " she may not have any interest in piracy for herself but she couldn't help but be curious about their goings on. she was only human, after all.

[bastian-vos]

bastian would ordinarily feel impossibly studied beneath eyes so attentive to detail as adeola’s, had his presence here truly been his own. fascinating, the position one can occupy. people think physicians most privy to their innermost secrets; he'd be willing to wager the heart of a beloved establishment could put them to shame. if so inclined.

"do you not know?" curiosity threads quietly through the question. he supposes it would not ruin much for him, if it turned out adeola knew. amusement softens his gaze and blunts whatever point the question carried. "the heat inspires full-stomached idleness. has this not been my refuge for the better part of the week? perhaps i’m biding my time to ask for your cassava bread recipe." vos idly turns the cup between his fingers. "and whatever else you might say."

[firestne]

who: open to anybody (4/4) where: outside sawbone

afternoons in tortuga were always quite hot. it didn't help matters that nya had to go bring their supplies in, because she wasn't going to wait for someone else to do it, not when they needed it badly. she was struggling to lift with her small form but she was determent to it anyway, knowing she had at least two more trips to make. just when she was at the treshhold of sawbone, the box broke and all that was contained inside fell to the floor. "oh no." she said frustratingly and ran inside to find an empty box to fit the things inside, only when she got outside someone was already picking the things up. "that's not for stealing." she said, half joking.

[bastian-vos]

"you must think so little of me." bastian's hazel-blue eyes settle on nya, calm; seawater under a windless sky. "to steal in broad daylight."

gathered glass vials roll smoothly over his palm, green and periwinkle in the late-afternoon light. he has no particular need to steal these; su shi's lethal precision keeps his own stock reliable, from opium’s gentler surrender to the unruly temper of henbane. the widow surgeon knows his work well. but antidotes are a less obedient science; dependent so inconveniently on what one has thought to keep nearby.

bastian's thumb skims the labels as he lowers the vials into the container, catching names and quantities in swift passing, and lifts boxes with ease, strength built by endless hours swimming against currents and hauling himself over hulls. thrown over his shoulder as he walks it into the sawbone, an afterthought:

"re-stock day?"

[theblood1ess]

with @bastian-varga / several years ago in tortuga

the sky is clear and redolent with flickering starlight by the time he makes it back aboard the widow's wake, and he finds the sight mocking, as if to taunt him for the knowledge he now possesses.

drunk men were always terribly charitable, giving away their secrets and misdeeds as if they were sweets. there had been a particularly loud one a seat or two away from laurent and conversation partner of the evening, a red-cheeked merchant, telling some story loud enough for half the tavern to hear. luckily, laurent is adept at appearing to be engaged in a conversation while eavesdropping on another. something about a prisoner. hungarian. land infiltrator. did not take to water well, least the way they administered it.

by the time laurent reaches the wake, some of the crew are loitering on deck with drink in hand, sprawled over barrels and crates, their laughter skipping across the black water like stones. bastian among them. ‘you look like a fuckin’ tomato when you’re drunk, you know that?’ ‘stick it up your arse, you don’t even need one drop of rum to have all the barmaids in tortuga clamoring for your hide. someone outta keep youse in a crate!’

raucous laughter, howling and barking. the taste of wine still bitter and burning in his mouth.

“yeah? if i’m a dog, never seen a bigger drowned rat than bastian! shoulda seen him when we first hauled him out the water, swear he coughed up half the ocean in my face!” a stomach churning impersonation of said gagging and spluttering.

“oh, i’m sure baptiste has had greater public humiliations,” laurent cuts in. “surely i’m not the only one who remembers when he tried to impress that pretty little thing at the siren’s nest and fell straight through the table.”

“captain! how could you! the table was rotten.”

“and the six cups of rum?”

the story catches on quickly. someone remembers the splinters that assailed them. as quickly as laurent cut into the conversation, he is as quick to retreat to the empty far end of the ship with a bottle an import captured from their last merchant ship. but not before lightly knocking on the railing thrice.

[bastian-vos]

// flashback thread: several years ago in tortuga

bastian's lounging half-sprawled, one shoulder brushing against a stack of secured crates on a night so akin to many others, swapping insults and bored dirty looks, tipping the rim of a crewmate’s cup just to watch him swear. it's a love language, of sorts, to annoy each other. they would of course never know that some remarks drop clean through him. he would gladly make his anger known over the proper way to coil a line, about baptiste using his knife to cut cheese, or the slanderous accusation that he apparently snored. but this? he knows precisely how quickly he would start detesting the people he has grown to like if pity ever found its way onto the deck, and thus learns to exist silently alongside the blade, cutting as it may be.

yet laurent's involvement is a factor entirely new. bastian catches laurent’s eye as the captain enters the conversation and turns it beneath his hand without anyone noticing, away from memories laurent could not possibly know still taste vile in bastian's mouth. the room readjusts, easy as a sail catching wind. yet it cannot be a rescue. laurent is not sparing him ridicule ; neither of them would insult each other so, that he trusts.

more like a subtle, deliberate adjustment of where the current is flowing, it feels. laurent would not have done this yesterday, in a discussion like this, or many a time before. the hours afterward lose their shape as it dawns on him, what it must be. bastian hates, vehemently, that he suddenly can't bring himself to look at anyone, despite the conversation continuing to flow as free as ale. he only follows laurent with his eyes at first, the three knocks. the familiar signal feels newly invasive; a kindness he has accepted a hundred times becoming unbearable the moment it contained knowledge he never gave. he keeps tracking laurent until he's out of sight.

yet he finds himself at laurent's door hours later with no formed plan; beneath a perfectly composed face, terror cogs turn over the true details and what laurent must know of them. incensed and grateful ; every inch of him abrasive and bristling, yet vaguely guilty at how he's only returning the knocks without really returning them. distrustful somehow, while knowing him standing here is still as good a sign of trust as they come.

[stexdfxsthexrt]

who: adeola & open

where: the devils cask

the cask had been quiet and while adeola lived for the lively nature that could come with running a tavern, she was certainly glad for the moments of quiet, too. moments of quiet reflection were hardly sought just about coming to the end of contentment with it ... when the door opened. she raised an eyebrow as she saw who it was that walked in. " don't want any funny business  " adeola narrowed her eyes at the newcomer. " so if you're in some sort of mood, turn around and take yourself elsewhere. " it was a warning and adeola wasn't someone who would give chances. if the person in front of her decided not to heed that warning... well, they'd know what was coming to them. " otherwise - welcome. what can i get you? "

[bastian-vos]

"not in a mood." it is a simmering hot day in tortuga, and bastian varga would like the mercy of a mast’s shadow shifting with the quick water, or the touch of the salt wind off the harbour ; but beholden to someone else's routine he is, enduring the habits of a mark that evidently likes nothing more than to eat. have they the necessity, to venture into the same place every day? a scanning glance travels slow around the emptiness of the tavern, and his voice follows with the same procedural lilt. "no funny business."

bastian takes the seat opposite adeola, as he had before, where the tarnished mirror over her shoulder holds just enough of the room. "i promise to be profoundly uneventful, should you have a bowl of fish stew."

[bastian-vos]

name. bastian vos, keelwalker. age. 32. ship & role. widow's wake, the silk. skills. close-quarters stealth, physical infiltration, surveillance, learning a target’s habits and getting close unnoticed. + swimming & intimate knowledge of ship anatomy. bounty. two hundred pounds. accumulated partly as a retrieval specialist, partly as the widow's wake pirate. a certain percentage of it is composed of unsolved crimes the crown attributes to him solely on the strength of there being no evidence whatsoever.

content warnings: captivity, water torture / simulated drowning, physical abuse, coercive control and emotional manipulation, near-drowning, injury, trauma responses, and dehumanization.

the origin.

a land infiltrator at twenty-five, bastian varga holds neither experience nor vague knowledge of sea, and to be kept aboard a ship for information he does not possess and as living security for a ransom is a very special mark in his personal ledger of horrors. they pour water into his nostrils and hold his mouth shut; afterward, they invite him to dine. they bolt his cabin; they bring him his favourite books. the mundane violence of it, funny, he knows. the hand that strikes is the hand that feeds. you have hardly touched your wine, bastian. surely the company is not so poor. come, tell us about the last chapter.

he learns beatings can be lesser a violence.

no stranger to the steep-tiled red rooftops and unlatched windows of the kingdom of denmark, bastian varga flings himself off the rail of the ship in the night, but walls have seams. buildings keep still. it is a different beast, the black teeth of the sea.

they drag him from its maw bruised and battered, feed him soup from a spoon, hold him in a wool-blanket embrace. bastian varga has always considered his hands and feet his finest tools; but to survive such a fondness one has to believe in it. some games can't be outlasted. only, perhaps, outplayed.

his tools are: a smile. a handshake. a lie so honest that all the lines blur.

it lasts thirteen months and eleven days.

through earned trust, he escapes.

the widow's wake.

bastian varga is hauled aboard widow's wake half-alive, more seawater than man, and lies on the planks staring at the night sky with nothing left in him. he gives no speeches and offers no gratitude; barely, half a name.

and they leave him be. no crowd, no guard, no questions to answer, no price attached to his life. he's damaged cargo, at best.

being less than a person feels like the sweetest of mercies. a kindness.

bastian varga reclaims his personhood clumsily, in ugly, uneven, beautiful bursts. a playful kick of his foot to the shin of a crew member. a dry laugh, not tainted by forced warmth and assurance. he says too much; disappears for days; sleeps in odd places, afraid of a closed berth; one day trusts the captain with his back to him, calm.

it is not a dangerous, torturous thing to him anymore, being likeable. he keeps it buried deep under blades, anyway.

keelwalker, the silk.

the first time he earns his keep on the night that another ship docks too close, when a year's worth of knowledge clicks into place with the rest of his life; the feel of wet timber under a hand, the rhythm of the hull dancing during the tide, palm stretched over the sleekness of a ship's keel in pitch dark outside of guards' sight, the wait in the ceiling beams of a hidden room as he dries.

bastian varga retrieves what the widow's wake needs from the target without an attack, without a death, and without so much as a wet footprint; a black-clad figure rising soundlessly from the water.

keelwalker, the silk.

the now.

methods. plain human intimacy to bastian varga is a disgusting blade wrapped in silk; he knows its uses, he knows its scars, he knows the powerful feel of it in his palm. he remembers both being cut by it and discovering that he could cut back. he would like to not wield it again for as long as he lives; preferring wherever possible any obscure method available otherwise.

the quiet insolence of his worldview and conduct is the clearest remnant of who he was before. a flintlock shot through a painted ballroom ceiling. setting traps for prey by extinguishing lamps in all passages but the one. a glove pinned to the wall by a dagger to send a message... the old self survives in him mostly in flashes. and although bastian varga no longer feels the pull of carelessness for its own sake, the elegance of audacity is a beautiful thing.

people he's close to. what is tenderness but a taunt, and a lure, and a disaster you sign up yourself for? he tries to close himself off for the greater good. sometimes things escape sideways. highly disordered ideas of intimacy include: correcting your clothes, leaning his full weight against your side in rowdy company, saying something completely unhinged if he forgets himself, and not looking you in the eyes if you ask a personal question.

[rp-musings-tbd]

the bay of naples at moonlight night, vesuvius, 1870. ivan aivazovsky.