So my I was checking my brother's English homework and there was an essay prompt of "I couldn't believe my eye(s) when I saw her standing there". The teacher had made every correct the typo and I was like "But what if that person was a pirate?", hence the birth of this Pirate!England plotbunny. The setting is a medieval fantasy AU of sorts, inspired by Tortall from Tamora Pierce's books, with themes from AtLA and various Disney movies.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Hetalia
Artwork is mine, full image on deviantART (link on profile)
Enjoy!
The White Demon
I couldn't believe my eye when I saw her standing there. Her long ghostly white hair and blood red eyes piercing through the mist.
'Are you a demon?' I gasped.
She did not answer immediately, instead walking towards me until her nose was an inch from mine and our breath mingled in the frigid air.
'Perhaps,' she whispered, in a dangerous, low voice. 'If you believe in such things.'
She turned her back and gave an airy, hissing laugh, her tattered white cloak whirling around to reveal a black cross insignia as she walked away. After a few steps she looked behind her, cocking her head.
'Well,' she demanded. 'I saw your boat dock. You're trapped here until the fog lifts, so unless you want to freeze to death overnight, you'd better follow me.'
I did not intend to freeze, and as much as I was intrigued by her, I could not allow her to believe I would follow her blindly.
'You never made it clear whether you were a demon or not,' I retorted. 'How can I trust you?'
'You're one to speak about trust,' she'd begun her stride into mist again. 'Given your occupation, pirate.'
'How would you know I'm a pirate?'
Surely where I had landed was far to secluded for anyone to recognise me.
The white haired woman made a derisive sound.
'If your eye patch didn't give you away, the fact you face is on every wanted poster in the continent would. You're not just any pirate - you're the infamous Captain Kirkland.'
She paused and turned to look me in the eye.
'Whatever are you doing here without your Mahogany Queen?'
I immediately bristled, the sting of losing by beloved ship to that swine Antonio Fernádez-Carriedo, still fresh in my memory. I had not expected to be betrayed for the promise of more gold, but at least the mutineers had the grace to set me adrift rather than let me drown.
'That is not your business, whatever you are.' I muttered as the hulking ruin of a castle appeared in front of us.
She gave another airy laugh and stepped into the ruin.
I followed her into the castle, and faced an empty corridor. Perhaps she was not a demon after all, perhaps she was a ghost. I should have suspected that first, with her white hair and white clothing materialising from mist, what else could she have been.
Continuing into the ruin, I ventured into what must once have been the great hall; a large cavernous space now devoid of furniture. In the far corner a dull shine caught my eye, as I approached it, it became apparent it was a suit of dirtied armour. I moved closer to inspect it and suddenly found a hand upon my shoulder and a sword at my throat.
'Don't touch it,' the same dangerous, low voice from earlier hissed in my ear.
It seemed that she was not a ghost after all, her breath was as warm as her solid vicelike grip.
I chuckled.
'It takes skill to catch a pirate, especially an unarmed one, unawares,'
Her grip tightened for moment before the sword left my throat.
I turned to face her, remembering the talk I'd heard when I'd occasionally gone on land. She stood in a fighting stance, sword at the ready if I made a move towards the armour - her armour. I knew who she was, my mind added up the details; the armour, the white hair, the insignia on her cloak.
'You're the White Demon, Lady Maria of the Northern Fiefdom. You're almost as notorious as I am.
She glared at me with her blood red eyes, not lowering her sword.
'Yes,' she finally replied. 'Now if you would please move away from my armour. I should like to clean it.
'Despite my notoriety, I at least am on the right side of the law.' She added as I obliged her.
'You may stay here for the night,' the White Demon said, still keeping her eyes on me, despite her relaxed pose. 'But if you so much as lay a finger on me or my belongings you will regret it.'
She made a point of testing the blade of her sword.
I raised my hands in surrender and backed a good distance away from her. Satisfied, she picked up a gauntlet and began to polish it with her cloak. The thought of stealing her armour had only briefly crossed my mind, granted, it was fine handiwork and would had raised a hefty price, but i could not have carried it far, and it would have raised suspicion if I tried to sell it in this vicinity. Besides I was unarmed and did not doubt her swordsmanship, the stakes were simply too high.
We sat in near amicable silence as I watched her meticulously clean each piece of her armour. However, a single thought nagged my mind as I say there, "I at least am on the right side of the law", she had said. Finally I had to ask her out of curiosity:
'Why did you bring me here?'
She made no indication of having heard my question.
'Why?' I pressed. 'You know who I am. You could have left me out there and I would have never have found this castle in the mist. You said it yourself; we are on opposite sides of the law.'
I did not expect a reply, given she had ignored me the first time, but she did:
'I am a Knight of God,' she did not lift her eyes from the breastplate she was polishing. 'It is my duty to help those in need.'
She cut off my protest with a derisive look, those red eyes enthralling me once again.
'You spent an hour drifting in that little cove, you know. You had no idea where land was. At first I thought it was an abandoned fishing boat, then I saw you when the boat neared and considered calling out, but you'd finally noticed the shore.' She paused, amusement glinting in those eyes as she recounted my helplessness. 'Don't get me wrong though. Don't push your luck, Kirkland. It is not against my morals to kill you in self defense.'
She grimaced as she turned her attention back to her armour and I noticed the red stain spreading across her white tunic and seeping into her cloak.
'You're injured,' I noted.
The White Demon barked a laugh.
'Surely you've heard of the other lady knight? Elizaveta Hédeváry of Lord Magyar's fiefdom?'
While I had not heard specifically of the knight in question, I did know of Lord Magyars' rivalry with his neighbouring Northern Fiefdom, and heard of the many altercations between their knights.
'I lost the skirmish, in case you were wondering,' she said as she removed her cloak, tore off a length of fabric and slipped her tunic off her right shoulder to reveal the badly wrapped, sodden makeshift bandage beneath. She must have reopened her wound as she threatened me.
'I lost my horse too,' she said just as matter-of-factly, peeling the darkly stained cloth from her wound. 'In case you were wanting to leave, you'll have to do it on foot.'
She then attempted the wrap the new length of cloth over her shoulder.
I stood and walked over to her, up close I could see the silvery scars across her pale skin.
'Allow me,' I said, reaching for the cloth.
Her shoulders stiffened, and I was reminded of the tavern tales told of her wildness.
'I've had to do this for members of my crew when they got injured,' former crew my mind hissed as I attempted to placate her, carefully pulling the cloth from her hands.
She relaxed slightly, but I noticed her frown as I cautiously wrapped her wound.
'Consider it a favour repaid,' I said, before remembering she'd used this same cloth to clean her armour. 'This cloth is soiled, you're risking infection of your wound.'
'Why should you care,' she scoffed. 'You're just repaying a favour. Besides I'll be back at my lord's castle tomorrow.'
'If you say so,' I finished wrapping the bandage, gaze perhaps lingering slightly too long as she slid her tunic back over her narrow shoulder, sitting down beside her as she continued cleaning the last pieces of her armour.
'I am going to sleep now,' she declared when she'd finished. 'And you are going to stay on that side of the room.'
She punctuated her words with a sword gesture. I'd noticed that she favoured her left hand, both as her sword hand and in general, possibly another factor for her moniker of "demon".
She watched me until I had walked far enough in the direction she'd pointed out. Satisfied she placed her sword behind her piled armour which she then laid her head upon before wrapping herself in her cloak.
I looked over at her in fascination, and wondered whether she was doing the same the same to me behind her shuttered eyelids.
We must be legends to each other, other people must have wondered what it would be like to meet the ruthless pirate captain or the violent lady knight who'd unhorsed so many male challengers in person, and here we were, in each other's company.
Presently I too slept upon the cold floor of a ruined great hall.
By the time I awoke the lady knight had already risen and was reading what appeared to be a letter as pale morning light filtered through the windows of the hall. In this light she appeared more human, softer - despite having donned her armour - and less supernatural. Perhaps this could be also be attributed to the small yellow bird which now sat in her hair.
I found my gaze drifting towards her right shoulder, the patch of blood had dried and there was no fresh blood.
She felt me watching and turned.
'I see you're awake, Kirkland,'
'Good morning to you too, Lady Beilschmidt? Lady Maria?'
I tried using the names I'd heard in the taverns.
Her expression twisted.
'Neither of those are my names anymore,' there was a barely detectable waver in her voice.
She must have noticed my confusion, as she flourished the letter she had been reading towards me.
'As of today, the feud between the Northern and Magyar fiefdoms is null. There is to be an alliance sealed by the betrothal of my lord's son to Lord Magyar's daughter, under condition of my exile from the fiefdom.'
I sensed she was feeling the same magnitude of betrayal as I had felt toward my crew's mutiny. I understood her exile stripped from her the title of knight, and the protection afforded from her feudal lord, making her vulnerable to attacks from knights she'd previously defeated.
'Then your name is just Maria now?' I asked. 'I don't know if they put it on the wanted posters, but my name is Arthur.'
'Giselle. My name is Giselle Maria Beilschmidt, I went by my second name as it was more befitting of a Holy Knight, but it means nothing to me now.'
'Giselle is a nice name—'
'What do you want, Kirkland? You have nothing to gain from me. All my gold and food were in my saddlebags. I'm exiled from my fiefdom. Other fiefdoms will be hostile to me for what they perceive as insults. So what do you want?'
'A fighter,' I said simply. 'My crew mutinied, and I need replacements.'
'Mutiny,' she seemed amused again, her eyes an even vivider red in sunlight. 'I could have guessed. Why else would you be without your ship.'
She laughed, not the airy hissing laughter, but a hollow bitter sound.
'You want me to join you?' she asked incredulously.
'Yes—'
'I was a Holy Knight, do you expect me to turn my back to the law so easily? What have I to gain? You have nothing to offer me, you're just as option-less as I am.'
Her derision towards me was clear.
'What have you to lose?' I countered. 'You yourself said you would not be welcome in any fiefdom. Why not make a new life at sea. As for turning your back to the law, well it abandoned you when your lord signed your exile.'
She was not convinced, but I pressed on; if she were to join me, what chance would Fernádez-Carriedo have against two legends.
'I may have lost the Mahogany Queen, but a pirate never keeps all of his gold in one place. I have a chest of gold hidden in a cave somewhere to the west of here. However, I will be unable to reach it myself, unarmed as I am.'
She gave a dry laugh.
'I see, I'm your best chance of survival.'
'Together we have the best chance of survival,' I reaffirmed. 'Providence brought us to the same place, I'm sure we can work together.'
For a few moments our eyes locked in what seemed like a battle of wills. It was quite unnerving, the twin oceans of red as well as the beady black eyes of the messenger bird - now perched on her shoulder - watching me. Finally I must have passed whatever test she had as she spoke.
'I'll think about it,' she said before pushing a tapestry aside and stepping through the corridor behind it. Secret passages, I mused that must have been how she'd disappeared the previous evening. I decided not to follow her; it would not do to become lost in the bowels of a decrepit castle.
She reappeared a while later carrying her bundled up cloak and threw another of the objects she had been holding at me. Despite my instincts being faster than most, I barely intercepted it before it flew into my face.
'A water skin?'
'Yes, filled from the castle well,' she smirked. 'How would anyone survive any sort of sea journey without fresh water?'
She drank from her own water skin as if to prove her point, before placing her cloak down. It fell open, causing apples to roll across the floor.
'Breakfast,' she smirked again, enjoying my surprise. 'There's an apple tree beside the well, it's not the first time I've stayed here. I keep supplies here in the case of being thrown off my horse.'
'Supplies, you say,' I mused.
Her eyes hardened, pre-empting my thoughts
'You push your luck too far. If I kept any weapons here, I would not give them to you, pirate.'
'But you are you not joining me?' I asked, heart sinking.
Surely she would not hold her morals so high as to doom us both by setting me adrift again alone.
Her smile was terrible, all but confirming my fears.
'Giselle...' I tried, she cut me off with the withering look in her blood coloured eyes.
'I'll come with you as a mercenary, to be paid with part of your gold. I am not as well known in the western fiefdoms.'
It took all of my self control not to sigh in relief.
'Even in that case,' I pushed. 'Would it not be safer if we were both armed?'
She considered my argument for a moment, then left the hall again. When she returned she was carrying a bow, and a quiver half filled with arrows, which she handed to me.
'Spoils of war from a knight I unhorsed,' she explained, grinning. No doubt she was reminiscing her victory.
'If you cannot shoot, I cannot help you,' she added, a moment later.
I nodded and picked up an apple, having already emptied my water skin.
We ate in silence, before Giselle commanded me to pick more apples while she refilled the skins. I obeyed her gladly, climbing the gnarled tree and taking the opportunity to observe her from a bough.
Her frame was slender, I noted, but she was lithe and undoubtedly lethal when she wielded a sword. She was not one for vanity, it seemed, for her snowy hair was tangled and in some parts matted with dirt. She laughed as her bird flew from her shoulder to avoid the water that sprayed as she pulled the bucket from the well. It circled her several times before settling back onto her shoulder after she'd filled the water skins, causing her to smile and pet it gently.
My lips twitched before I shook my head and turned back to my task, which was just as well, as my lack of activity had not gone unnoticed.
'Kirkland! Stop daydreaming and pick the apples, at this rate we'll be here for another day!'
Once her cloak was filled with apples, we made our way to where I had finally run aground yesterday. Using her sword, Giselle had hacked a branch off the tree to be used as an oar.
She was now looking at me dubiously.
'Do we push it out?' She asked.
I shook my head.
'Not you, put our supplies in the middle then sit in the boat. I'll push it out then jump in.'
She looked doubtful but did as I asked, clambering onto the seat.
'Is my armour too heavy?' She asked as the wooden boat creaked.
I shrugged, handing her the branch.
'We'll have to see,' I said as I pushed the boat away from the shore, before jumping onto the boat myself and using the branch to push the boat further out.
'It's not yet noon,' the former knight commented. 'The sun should still be in the east, we'll paddle away from it once we leave the cove.'
I nodded as we both watched the shore and ruined castle beyond, faded into the distance.
Please leave a review, I love getting constructive feedback or just a message plain telling me I've done something right.
I'll update ASAP but no promises on when cos of my hectic schedule.
