Fiorre - One
The ship was being tossed from side to side with the waves, churning, swirling, pulling at the hull and almost breaking through the thick wood that kept them afloat. Wet strands of hair clung to Fiorre’s face and she pulled with the wheel, struggling to hold her steady. She was alone, no crew or helmsmen aboard to hold the man the sails. Always so alone.
Waking with a start, Fiorre sat up and tossed coins onto the whore’s bed, feeling the weight of her gold purse in her other hand, before leaning in to press a kiss to the girls’ pale lips. “I should make you one of my regulars,” Laughed the girl, pulling the sheets up to her neck as Fiorre searched for her boots. She winced slightly at the thought of it, trying to work out how it would feel to be regular in any sense. Since leaving her home, nothing in her life had been as it should. Although as she perched on the corner of Alia’s bed, she could hardly say their relationship was usual. She had visited the whorehouse on her first night on the Red Isle, leaving the ship and crew she had used to flee her home, and making sure the captain’s purse was much lighter than before. She had been shown the girls room, and told to have her way as long as she could pay for it. And she had, she’d spent the night in the arms of the woman who called herself ‘Alias’, with her thick accent that Fiorre could not figure out, those tumbling blonde curls that fell far beyond her waist and eyes that reminded her of the oceans that now felt like home. At first, she came for the company, yet now, she came to soothe the nightmares. It was only with Alias next to her that she could sleep for an hour or so, rest her head so that she might think straight again. She reached for her coat, raising an eyebrow as she glanced back to the bed. “Do so. It seems I may be needing you still for a while yet.” She took longer to attach her belt than usual, watching Alias stand up from the bed and pull on her thin dress, so slight you could almost see her naked self through it. Almost. Alias moved closer, pressing one soft, lasting kiss to Fiorre’s lips before pushing her away, out of the curtained room. Fiorre’s time was clearly up.
Leaving the whorehouse behind, the streets of the Red Isles sang with a chorus of black market traders and drunkards, the midday sun high above. She pulled her hat down, hiding her face from the passing crowds and making her way towards the harbour. Her home. Despite the nightmares, she felt far more at comfortable being buffeted by the waves than on the firm ground of the Isle. She could not wait to set sail with her own crew, the freedom to give commands as she pleased. But a hard days drinking lay ahead of her if she was to find men, buying them enough ale to sign away the next few years and then giving them enough coin to stay sweet with her. Soon enough, she would be able to end the false flirting and empty promises to get them aboard. “Soon enough,” She echoed aloud, glancing from her ship to the tavern and heading for the latter.