NISA, THEY CALLED HER, WITH NO SURNAME EVER TACKED ON; THOUGH SHE MUST HAVE HAD ANOTHER NAME, NO ONE EVER USED IT, THEIR MOUTHS TOO FULL WITH THE BLACK VELVET OF THOSE TWO SYLLABLES. THEY KNEW HER, OF COURSE, IN OTHER WAYS. THOSE SOBRIQUETS SO UNIQUE TO THE TEMPTRESS OF THE ISLE: THE MERLING QUEEN. THE BLACK PEARL.
SWATHS OF IMPORTED FABRIC HUNG FROM THE CEILING AND THE WOMAN FOUND BEHIND THEM ALL, LAYERS LIKE STEPS TO HEAVEN / BARE LEGS CROSSED ON THE ARM OF A THRONE, THE RIGHT HAND TO GOD ⸺ OR, AT LEAST, THE FLESH UNDER HIS PALM / THE SLOW REVEAL OF A SHARP PEARL SMILE FROM BENEATH BLACK PARASOL / YOUR NAME INVOKED AT THE TAVERN, HOUSED IN THEIR LEERING SONGS, THE PATRON SAINT OF PIRATES / A MILKY PUDDLE OF SILK FALLEN AROUND SLIM ANKLES, VENUS RISING FROM THE FOAM / THE ECHO OF A SONG FROM WITHIN A HALF - SUBMERGED CAVE, THE CALL DRIVING YOU INTO THE DEPTHS, INTO THE EMBRACE OF THE DARKNESS / A MOTH EATEN CROWN ATOP A HEAD OF SILK CURLS / FAVOURS AND GIFTS LEFT UNATTENDED ON THE DRESSER, AN ALTAR OF TRIBUTE TO A FLIPPANT GODDESS / BOTTICELLI'S THE BIRTH OF VENUS WITH A CONSPICUOUSLY EMPTY SHELL / DOZENS OF HANDS OF DEVOTION RAISED TO THE GIRL ON HER BALCONY, VIOLENT IN THEIR RELIGION, AND THE CALL OF THEIR FILTHY HYMNS / A SPIDER'S WEB OF SPANISH LACE / SOAPSTONE CARVED IN YOUR LIKENESS, HANDED OUT TO THE WAITING AS CONSILATORY FAVOURS: THE CLOSEST MOST WILL GET TO TOUCHING YOU / A RING OF GUNPOWDER ON THE UNDERSIDE OF DELICATE CHIN, A BLACK MARK LIKE ROT .
FULL NAME . nisa SOBRIQUET(S) / ALIAS(ES) / TITLE(S) . once long ago, and always with derision, the little princess ╱ on land, velvet, the dark lady, and most predominantly, the merling queen ╱ on the high seas, the black pearl AGE . thirty - two ( 32 ) GENDER + PRONOUNS . cis woman, she + her ORIENTATION . bisexual, male lean OCCUPATION . siren at the nest + ( contracted ) silk aboard the widow's wake ALLEGIANCE . her hungers
( + ) captivating, silver - tongued, clever, persuasive, passionate, flirtatious, charismatic, ambitious, seductive, ambrosial, magnetic, fervent, adaptable, languid, astute, witty
( - ) sybaritic, cruel, vain, selfish, irreverent, delusive, hedonistic, self - indulgent, demanding, challenging, manipulative, fickle, jealous, flippant, prideful, distrusting
TOUCHPOINTS . salome, the bible. scarlett o'hara, gone with the wind. johanna swann / the black swan, asoiaf. chel, the road to el dorado. esmeralda, the hunchback of notre dame. scarlett & giselle, potc. estella havisham, great expectations. westley, the princess bride. ned kynaston, stage beauty. bella baxter, poor things. milady de winter, the three musketeers. irene adler, sherlock holmes. daphne kluger, ocean's eight. helen of troy, greek mythology. scylla, greek mythology. lola montez, history. phryne, history. angelica schuyler, hamilton. vanessa, the little mermaid. margot fenring, dune. angelica neal, the mermaid and mrs. hancock by imogen hermes gowar.
WATERLOGGED PAGES .
trigger warnings : death, sex work
nisa ( as she was as a girl, of a different name and identical disposition ) does not remember the sea journey from turkiye to england, but she can remember the story of her ruination of it: a screaming babe who would not be quieted for bribery or threat. we made a mobile of your mother’s finest necklaces to entertain you ⸺ not so fine, it should be said, but the best that could be found in the meager wooden box ⸺ called the man down the hall – an italian tenor — to sing you to sleep. in desperation we even bought all the ice on board, baba said, lined pieces along the silk of your crib in case you were hot. we were penniless when we arrived. nothing worked. it was misery.
you were born difficult, mother said.
it is a truth among few that nisa has held onto.
01. the child of a merchant and his seamstress wife, the small family emigrates from turkiye and eventually settles in england to improve upon a fledgling textile business. nisa's father, though single-minded to the point of recklessness in his ambition, is successful. the business grows substantially in nisa's youth, while she runs half-wild in the streets, a dark-haired and velvet-eyed creature known to be as troublesome as she is charming.
02. still in the throes of childhood, nisa is employed as a lady's maid & companion to a young daughter of aristocracy, a girl of similar age. determined to improve social standing and fretting over his eldest child's untamed spirit, her father reiterates over the cries of protest this is an advantage she cannot squander. he expects her to learn all that she can in order to become a proper lady; a woman that will one day take what she is owed from the world.
03. the noble family to which nisa is employed elects to join a british colony in the caribbean. though the notion of leaving her family unravels her, both mother and father insist she will go. she blames herself for their obstinance: if the wildness of her soul had driven them to action, the suppleness of her mind had solidified the choice. observant and adaptable, the girl-child inherits the mannerism and grace of a higher class as if it is birthright. her parents take this as a sign that their choice was the right one. nisa will one day come to believe it the first mark of her thieving heart.
04. it is this talent what makes her believable, in the end. or the start of the end, perhaps. on a voyage from the colony to another, the ship housing nisa and the nobles is boarded and eventually burned by pirates. having witnessed her own employers, friend and charge slaughtered by a stray bullet, nisa plunges into the sea to save her own life. found later by scavengers prodding the wreckage for remaining goods, they find a dark-eyed girl clutching a piece of driftwood. brought on board, she snaps pearl teeth at their dirty hands, proclaiming to be the noble daughter found on a recovered charter. they might have wrung her neck where she stood, but still she barks from somewhere deep in the throat: the governor will hear of this. he will send people for me.
born difficult, her mother had always said. she may as well die difficultly too.
05. brought back with the scavengers to tortuga, she is listed as the gem of their haul: the alleged daughter of a duke, haughty and captivating. she is plucked from the flotsam and paid for by a congregation of sirens who had arrived at the dock to peruse wares, and instead found themselves purchasing a daughter. the sharp edge of her personality only makes them laugh; these are women whose teeth are filed down into points. her beauty, certainly, is painful to look at even than ⸺ but perhaps more importantly, she exists as a foreign good unlike anything else found on the befouled island of tortuga: she is a creature that can teach them the ways of graceful aristocracy.
06. she practices drowning beautifully in salt water. that is another way to say she studies under sirens. their beloved little creature, a daughter to the nest, she is raised from girl to womanhood among the heady perfume and heavy sin of the brothel. they craft her carefully, across years, though the hands crafting the greatest expanse of marble are her own ⸺ nisa, as she is known by now, had long since ceased to allow others to dictate her destiny. in return she instructs the women in etiquette and elocution, gentility and grace. her virginity, upon debut, sells for an unheard of sum. a number yet unmatched, and a marker of what she would become: a legend.
07. a man would take the storm between his teeth to meet the merling queen in her nest, they say. there's not a pirate on tortuga that does not know the name, and few men on the sea who have not heard tell of a velvet-eyed siren who resides in a silk-strewn cave. if there is a woman more adept at handling love or slicing it open, it cannot be said, nor can they be found ⸺ which is why many moons after her name has fallen across the sea like white moonlight, a silk-gloved captain finds its way to the nest, proposition in hand. i have a job for you, love.
HEADCANONS .
if she ever had a surname, and surely she once did, it has never been known on the island. she is the eponymous nisa, a name as well-known and oft-repeated as a pirate's favourite threats.
loves tortuga's specialized pastimes almost as much as she does the stolen finery its ilk drags in. she participates in the drinking, gambling, and carnal pleasures with all the dark velvet of her heart, though at times she finds it all inexplicably rote. boring. this is not an impression she shares.
what she never tires of are luxuries, and she has deals with many of the crews that frequent the islands to offer her a first pass at the cargo they've stolen. ornate bedframes, imported gowns and bolts of cloth, silk curtains, pearled knickknacks... there's a reason they say she's got the finest room in the nest.
nisa does not join the widow's wake as a silk for every voyage, but instead works via contract ⸺ typically brought on for only the most difficult or demanding of jobs, due to her skill and exorbitant fee. she prefers life in the silk cocoon of the nest, with no wish to spend every day under the harsh conditions of the sea. still, for the right price, she can be bought.
has many an act at the nest, but perhaps the most famous is a performance that combines aerial silks with the famous dance of salome/dance of seven veils. the layers she wears and the silks she hangs from cannot be distinguished, and she as she maneuvers, layers shed, leaving her increasingly naked.
as a teenager brought to tortuga, she continued the lie of her noble birth due to it carrying the greater chance of survival; as a siren, building a mythos attracted more attention. over a decade later, her relationship with this facet of her story has grown complicated ⸺ perhaps she doesn't believe she was that noble girl, but she has come to have faith in the notion that she deserves it to be true. that she is deserving of the sweet untruths she's told, and therefore in some way, they are true.
though she likely has the finest manners in tortuga, that isn't saying very much. nisa found quickly that the rabble were not impressed with the infinitesimal details of etiquette, and compulsively interested in the more dramatic/obvious gestures. as such, she's learned to play up + exaggerate certain traits while dropping others altogether. it's a pastiche of a genteel disposition, but they do love to call her the dark lady nonetheless<3
it is still something of a joke, the supposed once-lady who wound up on tortuga… though some call her the dark lady with sincerity; others love the jest" however could a lady so fine never have been found by her dear family?
despite the oft-repeated fact that nisa's virginity was sold off at an unheard of amount, she was no longer a virgin at the time, just a fantastic actress<3 jack sparrow vc: what? pirate.
there is a small bay on the island known as nisa's pillow. despite the affectionate-sounding name, the little inlet garnered its informal moniker for the half-moon it makes, seemingly perfectly round. as round, they say, as nisa's breasts.
highly requested, always booked, charges an insane rate. she is essentially her own pr person, and comes up with schemes to keep this going. generally occupied by high rollers, in the last year or so she's begun a 'raffle' for the array of would-be suitors who want her time: though they still pay a premium, those unable to buy their way to a booking are able to put their name into a collection (with a small entry fee, thank you) which is drawn weekly. the name drawn receives an hour of her time, the lucky soul. those who do not get selected may be offered party favours in consolation... small soap- or limestone carvings in her image. you can spot many a pirate walking around with these babies
a particularly rum-daft shipmate once mistook the carved figure of nisa as one of a saint, and began praying with it in times of duress. this caught on ironically, but now you can see some reaching for her figurines genuinely ⸺ invoke her name for luck, for lust, they say ⸺ or out of ignorance
there are a few simplistic drinking songs which have been made for or name her. they might be complimentary, but not particularly wholesome
takes daily walks. she likes fresh air (as fresh as it gets in tortuga) and knows to show off the goods. often she takes some of the younger/training sirens to act as a version of lady's maids
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