worthallthis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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pennysheets2024-09-14 10:22 pm
worthallthis) wrote in pennysheets2024-09-14 10:22 pm
Entry tags:
Pieces of Eight - for @worthyobjective
It is an accident. A fluke. A freak twist of fate.
The ship they're on gets caught in a storm, blown far off course. The clan can't find them quickly enough. The spells start to erode.
They do as they are programmed to do when the spells start to erode: they slaughter everyone on board in an attempt to get them to turn around. The last one they kill, a young wild mage, in desperation, throws something at them both that leaves them dazed and orderless, surrounded by bodies and one bleeding wild mage who likely won't last very long either.
One is the oldest of the Pieces of Eight the clan sends out on missions of murder. He knows that. He also knows that he loves the other pieces, whether they feel the same about him or not. He knows they're his family, even when he can't remember how they came to join him with the clan. And he knows that he is made for killing.
And now he's staring around him at the deck of the ship, bloody knives in his hands, realizing that that's pretty much all he knows.
"Seven?" he asks uncertainly. He doesn't know if she has another name. He doesn't, just his number, just One. Maybe she doesn't, either.
He wonders suddenly if he knows how to sail a ship.
The ship they're on gets caught in a storm, blown far off course. The clan can't find them quickly enough. The spells start to erode.
They do as they are programmed to do when the spells start to erode: they slaughter everyone on board in an attempt to get them to turn around. The last one they kill, a young wild mage, in desperation, throws something at them both that leaves them dazed and orderless, surrounded by bodies and one bleeding wild mage who likely won't last very long either.
One is the oldest of the Pieces of Eight the clan sends out on missions of murder. He knows that. He also knows that he loves the other pieces, whether they feel the same about him or not. He knows they're his family, even when he can't remember how they came to join him with the clan. And he knows that he is made for killing.
And now he's staring around him at the deck of the ship, bloody knives in his hands, realizing that that's pretty much all he knows.
"Seven?" he asks uncertainly. He doesn't know if she has another name. He doesn't, just his number, just One. Maybe she doesn't, either.
He wonders suddenly if he knows how to sail a ship.
no subject
She knows enough about healing to know even trying to make the man - boy, really, barely even old enough to shave - comfortable is a losing proposition. At least now, he won't die slowly in terror and agony, over the course of hours.
"Captain's quarters," she says. "She'll have maps in there."
no subject
Maybe they can throw all the bodies overboard...
There is one map on the table, held down with heavy books at each corner to keep it from rolling up, and more in oiled tubes on a shelf, protected from humidity and sea spray. One looks the open map over, notes the string pinned down on it to mark their intended path, ending in the port city of De Sarc. Their mission was supposed to be there. All One knows now is that they aren't going there, now.
"I can read this, but I don't know where we are on it now," he tells Seven, stepping aside to let her look.