The king and his men
Stole the queen from her bed
And bound her in her bones
The seas be ours
And by the powers
Where we will, we'll roam
Yo, ho, all together
Hoist the colours high
Heave ho, thieves and beggars
Never shall we die
Twenty years since she was first tricked and trapped, forced into a vulnerable, mortal, human body--locked and bound within her bones.
Twenty years since that bloody bastard Uther Pendragon traded the treasonous turncoat Kilgharrah, “The Dragon of the Seas”, his freedom for the secret of how to bind the goddess to his will and force her to serve as a captain aboard one of his numerous ships--and not even the flagship of his grand navy! Oh, no, Guinevere would not be given that honour. No, she was made to be a mere privateer among the merchant marine. Made to become “Gwen Smith”, and sail the seas she had once called home.
To sail upon the seas, but never more be fully a part of them as she once was.
And now, twenty years later, she met the bastard’s son.
Not even of her free will, either. Stripped of her command and chained within the brig of the very same ship she had captained this past score of years, while the boy with the gold of the sun in his hair and a face so very much like his father’s--and yet so very unlike it as well--stood in her place.
“Come to gloat, lad?” Dark eyes the color of freshly turned soil glare out between the bars of her cage from beneath the wide brim of a tricorn hat, from a face framed by a wild mane of curls just as dark as her irises. "Come to hold your victory over the head of the woman whose ship you didn’t even have to fight for to win?”
She loathed him already. He, the spawn of the man who had stolen her freedom, stolen her life from her.
Yo, ho, haul together
Hoist the colours high
Heave ho, thieves and beggars
Never shall we die
Some men have died
And some are alive
And others sail on the sea
– With the keys to the cage...
And the Devil to pay
We lay to Fiddler's Green!
It wasn’t the captain’s job to tend to their ship’s cargo. That duty belonged to the bosun, really.
Truth be told, Gwen could have stayed in her quarters onboard the Ocean’s Heart when they made port. But that would have felt too much like being caged.
The sun shone bright and warm on the harbor marketplace. It felt nice, and she could almost imagine true freedom, wandering about the stalls.
Until she heard the voices. One male, one female. The woman’s voice was...strangely familiar? Of course she turned towards them.
Raven tresses, skin the color of porcelain, eyes green as the seas could ever get...Gwen knew this woman. They had never spoken, but she had seen her from afar, interacting with the golden boy who’d usurped her command for a time.
And it looked like the uniformed man--oh, that slimy smile on his face marked him, just as clearly as his uniform, to be an officer in Uther’s navy--was getting far too close for comfort.
A flash of gold in green irises, and a breeze kicked up briefly. Not violently enough for the mundane folk in the marketplace to recognize it for what it truly was, but Gwen did. Silent as cats’ paws, she closed the distance.
Her Damascus steel blade was at the man’s throat before he could blink.
“The lady said ‘no’, mate,” she purred quietly, a calm like the eye of a hurricane giving her voice the deadliest edge--more so than that of her sabre. “Now, you’d best pay her due respect and heed her words before I sully the cobbles with your filthy blood.”
When the man had tucked tail and run, spouting such nonsense as, “His Majesty will hear of this,” when he’d been reaching far too far above his station--and what man would admit to pissing his breeches because a woman threatened him? No man who thought he was such a treasure as this one apparently did, that’s for certain--Gwen sheathed her blade and glanced over to see the lady scowling at her now.
“I could have dealt with him on my own.”
“Aye, I know.” Salt-chapped lips part to bare pearl-white teeth in a knowing grin. “But it wouldn’t have been worth the trouble you got for it, milady.” A step closer, lowering her voice so only the lady could hear. “You know as well as I Uther won’t pardon magic, no matter how dear to his son the wielder may be. Better I take the flak than you.”
The bell has been raised
From it's watery grave...
Do you hear it's sepulchral tone?
We are a call to all
Pay head the squall
And turn your sail toward home!
She didn’t know what compelled her to give the boy--what a pale child, with hair as dark as the Pendragon heir’s was golden--any modicum of her attention, but something did. Something powerful.
Her gaze locked with his, and the tiniest voice within the deepest depths of the center of her quintessence seemed to sigh, “Ah, there you are.”
A son of the earth, the sea, and the sky. A child of magic.
Dear child of magic, why have you come to a place so fraught with peril? If you are found out, it will be your doom, and I can do naught to protect you.
The sudden recognition flaring in those eyes as blue as the sky on a cloudless day alerted Gwen to the fact that she had sent that thought, rather than keeping it to herself.
Don’t let others see you know.
Putting on a teasing smirk and arching a brow, she turned to the other captain beside her. “This the newest li’l lost lamb you’ve taken in, ‘Gana? Bit old to be a cabin boy or powder monkey, ain’t he?”
Yo, ho, all together
Hoist the colours high
Heave ho, thieves and beggars
Never shall we die!
@arthur-rex @sorceress-queen @thewritcrinme
