So about to go to Louisiana for a bit, so won't be online for about a month. So I wanted to get this out of my head.
Its short and a rushed beginning like all of my first chapters.
So here you go.
A storm enveloped the crew of the Oseberg. They didn't know what had happened. But Thor must have been angry. The waves were the size of the tallest trees they could find. And the lightning would never stop. It was constant. And there was nothing they could do to stop it.
"What in the name of Hel is going on?! The weather was fine an hour ago!" A man yelled out in their native tongue as he looked toward a man with long blond hair nad a reddish beard.
"I don't know, but I guarantee you this has something to do with you getting drunk during our protection ceremony!" The man snarled as he was just trying to see what was going on.
"I told you that has nothing to do with it, If the gods didn't want us to drink to our victory, then they wouldn't have given us mead!" The man said as they had just come back from a raid.
They had been returning from England after another successful raid. Their ship had been loaded up with gold, jewels and other precious items, and more importantly the anglo saxons would forever fear the might of the Northmen. However it wasn't long after leaving the kingdom that they had run into this storm.
And needless to say, the man in question was pissed. This was the first raid he had been a part of, and he prayed to the god Tyr that it would be fruitful. And yet now it would appear that they had done something to anger Thor.
"Brother! We lost half of the crew!" The old man from before said as the leader turned to see that a wave had taken away some of their men.
"There's nothing we can do for them! At best we try to survive!" He knew they had to survive this storm.
KRA KRACK!
He looked up to see a giant flash of light, and then the mast of the ship falling right towards him.
"LOOK OUT!" Was the last thing he heard as he felt something hit his head.
And then all he knew was darkness.
THE NEXT MORNING AT MENAGERIE
It was a regular day on the island of the faunus. The white fang had been going through some troubled times. They were trying to peacefully protest. But there had been rumors that there were some who would prefer to use violent means. But those had to have been just rumors right? The point was that Ghira and Kali Belladonna were wondering just what they were going to do. It was hard to improve human faunus relations as it was. After all, no humans tended to visit Menagerie as it was, so the local populace had almost no interaction with them. And those who had usually did not have good things to say about them.
They couldn't improve faunus human relations by staying here on the island, but it was getting increasingly difficult to improve them on the mainland too.
"Are you okay Honey?" Kali asked her husband as she saw her Husband in his study.
"I'm just worried, we're trying so hard to make this world a better place for both humans and faunus, but its getting difficult." He knew this was going to be hard, but never this bad.
"I know, its kind of hard to interact with humans when we have so little experience, not to mention how many faunus and human don't feel comfortable around each other, its not like we can just wipe the slate clean and begin anew." Kali knew this would be difficult.
The truth was that if there was a way for them to start over with someone who had never seen a faunus and prove that humans and faunus could get along, that would be perfect. But the scars of the war were still ingrained deep into both sides of history. And after something like that, how do you recover from that when some people couldn't let the past go? It felt like they were fighting an uphill battle. And there was no end in sight.
"I just want Blake to grow up in a society better than this one. I mean we've made progress, but it would be best if she didn't have to grow up worrying about this…" He said as he pushed his hand through his hair.
"My Lord! A ship is on the horizon!" A white fang member came through the house.
"What of it? It's probably just a ship here to trade or to drop off a month of supplies." Ghira had no idea why he chose to interrupt him at this time.
"Well, that's what we thought too my lord, but this is no trader, in fact, we don't know who it is…" The faunus in question seemed confusd.
"What do you mean?" He asked as this was starting to sound unusual.
"My lord, its best if you just come look for youself." With this Ghira sighed and stood up.
What could be so important that it required his attenti-
He suddenly saw why the guard was so confused.
"The hell is going on?" He said as Kali stood up.
"Whats the matter?" Kali asked as she walked over.
"That's no merchant ship, no traders, I've never seen a ship like that, more importantly, it looks positively ancient…" Ghira said as Kali walked over.
And she could see what had her stumped and what had so many people on menagerie wondering what was going on.
She saw a ship. But it was unlike anything they had ever seen before. It was huge in length, and wide at the sides, at the front and at the back were the figures of two dragons snarling at whoever was unlucky to get in their way. The entire thing was made of wood, something which hadn't been used in shipbuilding as a main substance for years. After all, when steel and metals began to take over as the main source of ship and vehicle building, no one would bother to build a ship out of wood. And yet, this thing was looking like it came out of ancient times.
But was even more striking was how damaged it was, its main mast was torn down, and the ship was in tatters, it was a miracle it was still afloat. They saw something flying in the wind towards them as it fell at their feet.
A red and black flag with a raven on it.
"What in the hell is going on?" Ghira said as the shipped hit the beach.
"I don't know, but lets get down there, this warrants a search." Kali said as they heard a voice.
"Mom? Dad? Whats going on?" Their 12 year old daughter came out of her room with a yawn.
"Just something odd is happening sweetie, just wait here." Kali said as they walked down to the beach to check it out.
Blake however was curious. They didn't seem too worried, she saw the big ship from her room, and she wanted to see what was in it too! So she followed her parents down to the beach where the ship had stopped.
Needless to say the whole island was gathering around, some were taking photos on their scroll. While some were doing poses in front of it, needless to say it had become very popular amongst the civilians who were seeing it as nothing more than a piece of junk that looked cool. Ghira and Kali found themselves at the bow of the ship.
"Doesn't look like anything you would see tourists using…" Ghira said as he hopped on board.
"Oh my god…." He said as he couldn't believe his eyes.
"Kali! Get up here!" He yelled as Kali jumped up.
"What, whats wro-" She covered her eyes as she saw what had made her husband so shocked.
Aboard the ship she saw treasure, not just a small horde, but a large cask of gold, jewels and items that would surely be priceless considering how vast it was. Despite the currency being composed of Lien, there was no doubt that you could sell Gold and silver for a lot of lien these days. Whether it was to privat e collectors or to a museum, or even art shows, there were people willing to pay a lot of money for the stuff.
"Ghira…" Kali started.
"Yes?"
"Weren't we just talking about how the island was going through financial troubles?" She couldn't believe the conincidence.
"Yes, but you're acting as if some sort of God brought this ship here." This whole thing was just surprising.
"I'm just saying, this is awfully conveniant." She said as she held up some sort of gold drinking goblet in the shape of a dragon.
It's true, the other day they were talking about how while the crops and fishing had been getting better on the island, they still needed money to buy supplies they couldn't get. So they had to resort to trading with the mainland in order to get those supplies. But shipping costs, plus the extra money it took to risk coming to the island during bad seasons mde transportation cost a pretty penny. And even the wealth of the Belladonna's could only do so much.
And yet, a ship loaded with what appears to be treasure shows up on their front door.
"Wow." Blake said as she couldn't believe what she was seeing.
"Blake? I thought I told you to stay at the house.." Kali gave her daughter a stern look.
"I know, but I couldn't help it! I was curious!" She said as Ghira muttered under his breath.
"Curiousity killed the cat."
Blake was looking at all the coins and treasure, but what really caught her eye was the strange language she saw on some of them, it definitely wasn't anything she recognized, adding on to that, some of the coins had a human on them that she did not recognize, must have been an emperor or something, all she knew was that it wasn't anything she knew about.
Crack!
She stepped on something as she heard a groan.
She looked down to see it was a hand, and the groan was coming from a human man with his face covered in blood.
"AAAHHHH!" She screamed as she thought it was a dead man.
"Blake!" Kali and Ghira rushed over to see what had made her scream.
"By Oum! Someone get some help!"
The man in question was barely conscious, and couldn't open his eyes to look at what was going on. But one thing was for sure.
Things were never going to be the same.