TITLE: The Emerald Wanderer
AUTHOR: Jersey13
RATING: T
WARNINGS: Violence, some sexually suggestive dialogue in certain scenes. This fic is not for small children.
SUMMARY: Colonel Sheppard and his team find a world of sea-faring people, only to fall victim to a kidnapping plot that could involve them in a brutal war as they search for their missing teammates.
NOTES: If there's too many words in this fic that you don't understand, try googling for a page called "A Pirate's Glossary of Terms". The first page that comes up was the page I used the most as a reference.
A/N: Yes, this is an SGA fic, even though this first chapter here doesn't have the team in it. This is sort of a prologue to the actual story, and is meant to give some background information on this character I have created for you all. The team DOES appear in the next chapter.
On another note... I am NOT a sailor, nor have I ever been on a boat more than once or twice in my entire life, and I get sick as a dog, too. If I have misused or mangled any terminology or words here despite my research, please message and tell me about it, and I'll fix it.
"Aiye! Boy! Get down from thar an' start swingin' tha lead. We're headin' inta shallower waters."
A small, bright face timidly peeked over the rim of the crow's nest, and then carefully began to up climb up and over its edge. With a well-practiced hand, the boy, whose years of age could only have been barely past the single digits, threw his lanky form over the ledge and began to expertly climb down the main mast. Upon reaching the deck, his emerald green gaze passed across the deck of the ship until he spied the lead lying to one side. Picking it up in his small hands, he wound the line a bit, and then threw the lead over the ship's gunwalls.
Turning a sly eye warily back toward the captain, the boy breathed a slight sigh of relief to see that he'd turned his gaze out toward the horizon. A small, proud smile still echoed in his features, though, and so the boy returned to his duty, as menial and simple as it was. To swing the lead was simply to measure the relative depth of the water that the ship was sailing through; a simple task, even for a small boy.
A stiff and chilly ocean breeze began to bite into his back as he hauled the line up and threw it again. The season had been turning mostly unawares to the rest of the crew, but this day had certainly been the turning point of autumn for them all. When the temperature was just right and the waters were warm and calm, faint wisps of water vapor could be seen rising from the blue-black depths around them. It was almost surreal sometimes how it managed to twist the imaginations of the men around him into seeing sea monsters and spirits of the deep, and the boy had laughed when the men had told him of the sweet siren calls of the water nymphs that lived at the bottom of the sea.
But today he had not laughed. The mist was growing thick on the horizon and it often made sailing treacherous in shallow waters. If he was not careful and mindful as he swung the lead, despite the simplicity of its use, he could allow the ship to be careened on a reef or on an underwater rock shelf. He would not want to face the captain's wrath after what he had witnessed when such a mistake had been made by his predecessor; he'd had to clean up the blood himself. But so far he'd been diligent and competent, and the captain had at least seen some worth in him.
After taking a few measurements, he determined that the ship was not in any danger of being careened yet, but he would not allow himself to risk a flogging with the cat o' nine tails by the provost should he seem inattentive or unenthusiastic in his work. He was about to swing the lead over the gunwalls once more when the deck suddenly bucked beneath him. A white wall of chilly water and flecks of wood from the hull pelted him, driving him to his knees on the deck.
Upon regaining his senses, his first thought was that he'd made a horrible miscalculation and that the ship's damage would be blamed on him. His knees went weak and his hands trembled with panic as he stared blankly at the line that was still firmly in his grasp, oblivious to the men shouting around him. He lost his grip when the deck roiled under him again. More splinters of wood and stinging, frigid water sprayed him, and he scrambled back away from the warping gunwalls.
His hand bumped into something behind him as his panic drove him back toward the center of the ship; it was slimy and covered with wood chips and fragments of the hull, and it squelched when his hand sank into it. He turned his head to see what it was. If there had ever been any one thing he had ever regretted over the course of his life, it had been turning his head at that very moment. He snatched his hand away quickly, trying to fling the blood and gooey shreds of human entrails that coated his hand back toward the crashing waves of sea water.
Deaggert the boatswain was dead, and his shattered remains began to slide starboard. The boy heaved himself back to the gunwalls and retched. The ship listed over to its side, men shouted and screamed and dove into the water after an overloaded wherry that was drifting away, its occupants dead. Hail shot after hail shot had killed most of the crew and shredded the sails. Transoms split and the quarterdeck broke into pieces, engulfed by fire.
Without another moment to ponder his fate, the boy was flung over the side and into the water. Wooden fragments and shrapnel rained down on him from the mast, and he managed to bring his head above the water just in time to see a large chunk of the main mast falling… falling down… about to crash into the water at the very spot where he was struggling to stay afloat.
Taking a quick gasp of air, he ducked his head under and pushed at the water, trying to place as much of it between him and the falling debris of the mast as possible. He heard the resounding crack and splash as it impacted the water, and then felt a heavy weight hit his head. Too dazed to move any more, his lungs leaked precious air in a slow, steady stream of bubbles that floated lazily to the surface of the water above him. He began to sink.
Cold blackness encroached on his vision and numbed his fingers and toes, but did not claim him in death quite yet. The passage of time began to lose all meaning as a white aura of a ghostly presence suddenly surrounded him, comforted him, before he suddenly felt himself being drawn away from it into the inky black depths of the sea. He clawed for the shroud of whiteness, but his last burst of strength was soon spent. He continued to sink.
Ghostly figures and images haunted him, but strangely, he was not frightened by them. When his eyes began to drift closed, he was comforted that the last vision that he'd see was the sight of an ocean nymph of the sailors' tales reaching out for him, grasping for him, and then whispering sweetly into his ear.
Te'Lan… It was whispering his name softly. The ghostly voice echoed loudly through the depths and through his head. You will find us again one day, Te'Lan. Search for us, free us, and we will give you our secrets… and our treasure.
His breath left him, and blackness surrounded him for a long time. And then, some indefinite length of time later, a light suddenly shone in the distance. Rough, warm hands were pulling him up and out of the water, and then set him down to shiver on the deck of the tiny galley. A few men dressed in simple, but practical attire clapped him on the back, smiling broadly.
"There ye go, lad!" one of them chuckled heartily, then sat across from him and took up an oar into his broad hands. "Pity we couldn't free ye from yer servitude ta those bastards earlier!"
He looked up into each of their faces, terror etched on his face. He'd allowed himself to be captured by brigands that served the enemy! If he ever got back, he knew that his captain would never let him live it down. He'd be flogged to death for sure!
Upon seeing his expression of sheer terror, they laughed as they worked their oars. A sea chantey bellowed from their lungs, and the boy found it strange that they should sing such a comfortably familiar tune. Standing up on shaky legs, he was half tempted to dive over the sides of the galley, but as he looked out across the misty horizon, almost nothing was left of his old ship. Only a few splintered fragments of wood and the countless drowned and mutilated bodies of the crew still floated in the water.
It was a horrific tragedy to become cannon fodder to pirates, considered a dishonorable death at sea, and a death unworthy of being remembered and honored for. Good, competent soldiers in the King's navy didn't fall victim to pirates. It had been decreed that to die at their hands was an insult to your country and commanding officer, and being captured alive was even worse. He sighed hopelessly, looking out over the water for something, anything that could bring him hope. But there was nothing left.
Then the mists over the water whispered to him, as if in a dream-like sleep, and he jumped back in surprise. Save us… Help us, Te'Lan… Free us!
Looking around nervously to see if any of the brigands had heard it too, the boy trembled with fright. But none of the other men around him displayed any signs of having any interest in him or the charred remnants of the ship that was left floating in the water as they rowed. His life as he had known it was gone, but his primary concern of the moment should be the fact that he would soon be subject to the pathetically short life of a prisoner of war at a forced labor camp, or perhaps even an execution at an enemy stockade.
The night was soon upon the small galley as it docked aside a larger brig, and the boy had fully expected to be shackled and chained and thrown into the bilge space of the ship as a prisoner. But the pirate captain had instead looked at him strangely for a moment, and then ordered his men to make him a bunk in the crew cabin. It would probably be at least a couple of months before they'd stop at a large enough port long to offload any prisoners, he'd said, but there would be use for an extra deck hand since the attack on the ship. Several of his men had been killed in a failed counterattack, but the captain had been gracious enough not to mention it, nor did he directly ask the boy for his services.
So there on that pirate's ship he'd stayed for many long months at sea while the pirates looted and plundered the King's navy, and all the while, there was nothing he could do to stop them. More months passed, and his anger and frustration had gnawed at him enough that he occasionally sparred with the other sailors, soaking up anything about fencing and fighting that he could learn, and he had even begun to help out with the rigging and lookout duties.
He didn't even realize how much he'd grown to love the thrill of plundering ships and sharing the spoils of war with those men he'd now come to think of as brethren. As they grew rich with loot, new faces took their places, and he'd even been allowed to keep at bit for himself. He'd stayed on as a deck hand of his own accord then.
Years passed, flying by with the speed and lividness of the excitement his new life brought him, and as he gained notoriety and fame of his own, he'd been given a new name by his comrades. His emerald-green colored eyes were fancied by the sea girls at the ports, and so they called him 'The Emerald Wanderer'.
The sea mists still spoke to him on occasion, and he never told anyone about them. Over the years, he had learned to quietly tune it out and focus himself on the task at hand. But one day, despite having the repute of a strong and brave sailor lad, the mists would not go ignored and unheard. They haunted his dreams, drove many faces of the dead into his mind, and brought up memories of his past that he'd long left for dead at the bottom of those chilly waters.
They haunted him day and night, and had even gone so far as to force him away from the dearly beloved sea for a some time. But still they haunted him, slowly driving him mad with visions of ghosts, death, and wanton destruction until he had finally capitulated to them and used his small acquired fortune of loot to buy a ship and solicit a crew of his own.
It was from that day on that the King's sailors were fearful to sail into unknown waters alone or venture too close to enemy ports without much protection. Te'Lan, The Emerald Wanderer, the unrelenting and fearless, had set loose upon the seas and showed no mercy to his enemies. He bowed to no one, but was gracious and generous to those who showed him loyalty and respect. He was a man who got what he wanted, and was driven by his dreams and nightmares unto the edges of the world.
And he knew not what it was that he sought, and had not even a clue to it, until a strange group of off-worlders would chance upon involving themselves in the affairs of his world. They could not have known the trouble they would be in for when they stepped through the portal of the Ancient Ancestors and found themselves, unbeknownst to them, in the same port as he.