Chapter 14: Currently Pirates

A hand on my shoulder gently shook me awake. I opened my eyes slowly and found myself not in the hotel’s bed, but on the floor of a cave. The stone wasn’t comfy but it was nice and smooth and cold.

I sat up and turned to Seyari. Our conversation replayed itself in my mind.

“You don’t want to kill me, right?” I blurted out.

“Nah,” Seyari actually smiled at me. “You’re too cute when you’re curled up sleeping.”

I think my brain stopped for a moment. I hadn’t ever imagined being called cute. I’d hoped for a bunch of other words, but I didn’t think “cute” was in my wheelhouse. I felt a dark blush creep onto my crimson cheeks despite the serious situation we were still in.

“Thanks,” I smiled openly.

Seyari looked up at my fangs. “Did I say cute? I meant terrifying. Also, I don’t think most demons sleep.”

I pouted and stood up, stretching all of my arms and un-kinking my tail. “Well, I’m not most demons. And do I really have to wear my stuffy glamour? If you know these people, won’t they be okay with me?”

Seyari took a moment to reply, “You really hate that glamour, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I feel off-balance without my tail and I keep trying to use hands and arms I don’t have.”

“I get that actually.” Seyari’s mouth twisted into a frown and she furrowed her brow. “I’d try to pass you off as a half-demon or something, but it wouldn’t fool anyone who mattered.”

“The church would hunt me down for being a half-demon then, yeah.”

“Yeah, I’d bet you know as well as I do, they’d call you evil if you had even a little demonic blood in your ancestry.”

I thought back to the Church’s stance on ‘demon-blooded’. A family in our neighborhood back in Linthel had a newborn with horn nubs and the Church had taken the baby away. I was barely old enough to remember it. I'd assumed they took the child to be purified or something and then returned. I wondered darkly if I just had the wrong definition of purified.

“Do they kill anyone with even a little demonic heritage?” I asked.

“Depends. The Church takes a lot of them in ‘to ward off the influence of evil’ or something.”

“What happens then?”

Seyari sighed, “Again, depends. Some places they can go back to their lives, but in Ordia where the Church is stronger, they end up wards. They can work at a variety of levels, but are always treated like they’re one bad decision away from ‘corruption’.”

“What happens when someone is corrupted?”

Seyari looked at me and I felt her anger flare white hot for a moment. “I don’t know.”

“Oh.” I wondered what connection she had there.

“You should get dressed.” Seyari’s mood was once again cold. “Sorry, but you’ll need to wear your glamour. The folks here aren’t going to try to kill you on sight, but you’d be a liability they wouldn’t risk.”

I got myself dressed in the traveling clothes, choosing the black blouse. Stuffed once again into a human shell, my mood dropped as we walked through the dark passage.

“My full name is Zarenna by the way, Zarenna Miller,” I broke the silence.

Silence for a long moment.

“That’s a pretty name. Normal,” Seyari replied, but didn’t continue the conversation.

“Are you angry at me?” I could still sense her anger.

“No,” Seyari paused for long enough I thought she wouldn’t continue. “I’m angry at Lorelei and Markus. But they’re far from the worst.”

She said the last part quiet enough that she probably didn’t want me to hear it. I decided not to press the issue and tried to think positive thoughts.

We continued to walk in silence until the tunnel opened into a vast cavern. It was still dark outside, but I could see stars at the top edge of a narrow opening on the far side. Two ships were moored in the cave’s small harbor. Several ramshackle buildings edged the water and a couple nicer ones cramped up against the walls of the cavern, filling most of the rest of the space. We’d entered high up along the back wall by a ring of odd-looking lanterns that provided dim light to the whole base.

Between us and the secret pirate harbor was a sturdy gate manned by a sturdy man. Human, by the look of it. He and Seyari exchanged some rather heated words in Turquoiser. Sadly, while the language shared some aspects of Cavenish and Ordian, I couldn’t understand what was being said.

How many languages did Seyari know? I hoped I wasn’t perpetually stuck needing an interpreter. I hadn’t even considered this part of traveling before.

Maybe demons learned languages faster? I was picking up Cavenish really quickly from Salvador so I should try to get Seyari to teach me Turquoiser as well.

Some gesturing and pointing at me later, we were allowed through and into the packed hideout.

The place was crowded almost like Port Princely’s harbor, and the atmosphere didn’t seem very different. People of all kinds mingled, although there were significantly more weapons, primarily blades, worn by the crowd here. The air stunk of seawater and unwashed bodies.

Seyari grabbed my hand and dragged me behind her, moving with purpose.

Several people stared at us as we powerwalked through the compound. I didn’t need to understand the language to guess the intent of some of the comments aimed our way. Abby had opened up to me about people, men particularly, making comments or trying to chat her up. I thought back to earlier this very night.

Would this become a common occurrence? How do other people deal with it and how do the people making the comments not know how creepy they’re being?

Abby had warned me that the comments could be even worse for me after transitioning, but I remembered being too hung up about how shitty the whole situation was for her to even think about me at the time. I certainly thought about the comments now. I also gave a middle finger to some of their spawners.

Had this occurred under more normal circumstances shortly after my death and rebirth, I may have gotten some amount of ironic euphoria from the validation these comments gave. Here and now, it just made my skin crawl. Thankfully, between my size and Seyari’s presence, along with the dense crowd, nothing more came of any of the comments.

Seyari weaved us through the throng to a rather large building. Like several others we passed, this one was made at least in part by repurposing bits of old ships, although this one looked to have the entire prow of a ship for a roof and upper floors.

The wooden front door looked heavy and was flanked by a pair of large burly human men. One had a poorly healed broken nose.

Seyari reached for the door and the other one spoke something in Turquoiser, revealing many missing teeth. Broken Nose grabbed her other arm.

Seyari snapped back in the same language. I only caught her name. Both of the men seemed to pause in their assessment of the woman. She wrenched her arm free of Broken Nose’s grip and stared them both down.

Missing Teeth banged on the door and shouted something while his partner finally acknowledge me by pointing. A quick comment from Seyari and he calmed down some.

We waited on the stoop for a moment before a different voice, masculine, shouted from inside. More shouting from the two door guards and Seyari followed. I wondered if there was some magical way for me to understand languages because I felt very out of place.

The door opened just enough for me to see half of a face and a single triangular furred ear at the top. The eye was shaped like a cat’s, blue, and currently narrowed. Its owner started speaking, but Seyari interrupted him then looked to me and back.

“Fine.” The man switched to Ordian. “What do you want? You quit the crew. Go walk the straight and narrow or some other shit and get out.” Their accent was difficult for me to place.

“You know damn well I’m neither straight nor narrow. Now open the fucking door and let us in. I’m calling in that favor Captain Torrez owes me, Aarsh. I should’ve sent a runner yesterday. Or are you too cheap to even pay attention?” Seyari’s tone was exasperated, but I didn’t feel anger coming off her or the other individual.

“You haven’t changed, Sey,” Aarsh sighed. “Fine. Gimme a minute and I’ll get the Captain.”

He moved to shut the door. Seyari wedged a booted foot in it. “We’ll wait inside, thank you.”

“Fuck, fine!” Aarsh trailed off into grumbling in a different language.

The two guards moved aside and Seyari led me through the door.

“Aarsh is an asshole, but he’s fast on the rigging and good with a dagger,” Seyari sighed. “Never thought I’d be back here. Can’t say I miss it.”

I looked around the room. Aarsh was retreating up an unsafe-looking staircase at the rear, tail hanging limp. Despite the exterior, the interior of the place was nicely furnished, although with a mismatch of styles that bordered on gaudy. The floor was uneven with small steps and slants and the room was an odd shape with beams and ceilings that made relatively large space feel slightly claustrophobic.

Arrayed around the room were half a dozen other individuals dressed in a mishmash of styles. Most were human or whatever species Aarsh was, though I spotted one feminine figure with pointed ears.

They all turned to us. I got a variety of looks, from confusion to surprised glances at my height, but surprisingly no leers. At least I don’t think the leers were at me. And they didn’t seem sexual. I looked down at Seyari who gave the lot of them two middle fingers and what I assumed was a barrage of curses in several different languages. I even recognized one of the Cavenish swears I asked Salvador to teach me.

A couple of them laughed. Some looked confused, and others seemed to actually get angry. Seyari steered us to a corner of the room away from them.

“What species is Aarsh?” I whispered as we sat on a moderately stained off-green couch.

“Kazzel. Surprised you haven’t heard of them, but that’s Ordia I guess.”

“We called them something else in Ordia,” I replied and Seyari gave me a look. “But I know that’s wrong and I should learn better.”

She just sighed and leaned back into the cushion.

A couple people, including the woman with the pointed ears, walked over to us with scowls on their faces. The woman with pointed ears said something to Seyari who responded with a derisive laugh and shook her head.

They went back and forth and the conversation quickly became heated. I felt my head snapping between the two trying to read expressions. I could sense anger rising, particularly in the woman who was accosting us.

It was clear this was Seyari’s old crew, so I didn’t want to cause offense. However, I could see Seyari was really becoming agitated. Everyone in the room was paying attention to us. When hands moved to daggers, I acted almost on instinct.

I knew I wanted to stop a fight. I focused on the offending woman’s anger and seized it. The woman immediately stood straight up in shock. Feeling an emotion like this was odd. Almost like calling on my mana and getting something foreign instead. I didn’t have control over it, but I felt I could influence it; take some of it or fan the flames and intensify the emotion.

In my panic, I pulled. There was resistance, like pulling on something held taut by threads. I gave a harder tug and one snapped. The woman’s expression went slack for a moment and I let go. Part of the anger came with and I felt it being absorbed into my mana.

A shudder went through my body. Her anger felt good. Way, way too good. I also felt some of my magic return.

What the hell did I do? Was she okay?

I looked up at the woman. One of her lackeys, a rail-thin human man with a thin mustache, was staring at me, pale in the face. Seyari looked from them to me and back to the woman with pointed ears.

I could feel her anger had lessened. She seemed out of it. Her face had returned to an angry scowl only to flash into confusion. She put a hand to the side of her head and said something in a much softer voice.

Seyari replied. The pointy eared woman turned to leave. Her mustachioed lackey, however, started shouting at both of us, pointing at me.

Seyari shrugged and said something in a casual tone. The man’s face reddened as my own blush was starting to creep in from embarrassment and fear. What had I done?

Thankfully, the situation was saved from escalating by a booming voice that came from the base of the stairs. Standing there was a goddamned mountain of a man dressed in a teal and silver outfit made primarily of an immense cloak with straps, pockets, buttons, patches and weapons littered about its surface.

“Seyari!” He boomed. “I heard yer callin’ in that favor I owe ya! Civilized life get boring yet?”

“Hey Captain Torrez,” Seyari’s replied evenly. “It’s great actually. I just wanted to cash this in before I never see you again.”

The large man walked over to right in front of us. “Aww! One last sail for old time’s sake, eh? And ya brought a friend? Prospective recruit? Fling? She’s got muscles on her, that’s for sure!”

If a person could speak in all capital letters, it was Captain Torrez. With his entrance, all conversation died down. He looked me over and I squirmed a bit under his gaze.

“She and I need passage to the Turquoise Coast. That’s all? We’re not together.”

“Well, you’re sure sitting close then! Bah, you and your mysterious shit again. Fine, fine. We’ll transport ya, but I’m putting both of ya to work for it.”

Seyari looked about to argue the point, but instead gave up and shrugged. Behind the man, mustache guy piped up and pointed an accusatory finger at me and back to the woman with pointed ears who had sat down and was cradling her head in her hands.

“Mind magic?” Captain Torrez looked at me and the woman then back to the lackey. “Boy, I think you’re fulla shit.”

Lackey responded.

“Eyes looked wrong for a second? Glowed, did they? Did something weird to Elnie?” The immense man turned to Seyari. “Your friend here some kind of mind mage?”

“No,” Seyari answered. “I can vouch for her integrity.”

“Good enough for me!” The captain shifted over to the pointy-eared woman and shouted at her in Turquoiser.

She responded and they talked for a minute. All the while I was doing my best to not look guilty and failing miserably. Seyari grabbed my wrist and squeezed, turning her head and making eye contact. Eventually, the Captain walked back over with Elnie in tow and forced an awkward apology out of all of us. For my part I was sincere. I didn’t know what I did, but I knew that it really wasn’t okay. I hoped whatever string I broke could fix itself.

I found out we’d leave here to ready the ship in about an hour. The group that antagonized us still shot us angry glances (well Elnie’s was more confused and afraid than angry), but I did my best to ignore them.

“What did you do to Elnie?” Seyari whispered.

“I don’t know. I just grabbed her anger and pulled part of it out. I panicked and tried to take all of it, but couldn’t and stopped when something broke. I’m sorry.”

“Whoa, slow down. You what?” Seyari seemed shocked. “Okay, that bitch always had anger issues so maybe she deserved it, but…fuck. Careful with that.”

“Do you know what I did?”

“Fuck no. I’ll mentally deal with all this shit once we’re on the boat.”

“If you need to talk, I can try to help. Maybe we can figure some things out?” I offered.

Seyari thought for a moment. “No. I need to try to unpack all this shit. What you are and what that means and shit.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Ugh, fuck. You being like this kinda turns a lot of what I thought I knew about the world on its ass. It’s gonna take a while to process.”

“Oh, okay.” I managed to hold off from offering to help again.

Over the next hour more of the crew came downstairs, from back rooms, or showed up through the front door until the place was packed with people, probably two dozen or so. Everyone gathered their things (I grabbed my battered suitcase) and we headed down to the docks as a semi-organized mob.

Unlike when I was alone with Seyari, this time the crowd parted for us. No catcalls either. We headed straight for the larger of the two ships in the harbor. Many more people were already helping to load and prep the ship to set sail. The Lady of Liseu was larger than the Swordfish had been, still three masted, but with an additional deck, a much larger aft section with large windows made of smaller panes of glass, and a notable number of cannons. Seyari told me it was a small Turquoiser galleon and I could only think how massive a large one must be.

Seyari and I were shuffled into a small cabin with four hammocks, two of which were ours. I’d hoped for a private room so I could sleep without a glamour, but this would have to do and I’d recharged at least enough magical capacity to go for a while yet. I’d volunteered to help out in the mess hall while Seyari would help up on deck where needed.

Setting off was, thankfully, a smooth affair, though I was nervous we’d somehow be caught out. Outside the hidden grotto the island rose out of the waves behind us as a wall of high, rugged cliffs. Surrounding the area were nasty looking rocks that we navigated through with practiced ease and a lot of shouting.

Once we got away from the entrance it disappeared into the folds of the cliff. Unless you got into the dangerous rocks, you’d never notice the hidden harbor. I felt like we were going on an adventure, which was technically true despite the circumstances that kept me from truly enjoying the experience.