In a wide room that was barren as the sea outside a man sat still against a wall, his arms going round and round his wide trunk and his legs folded as close to his chest as they would go. Eyes closed and breath soft he kept his ears peeled to listen at the people outside. He heard the shouts, the screams, the calls, and everything in between and his lips turned downwards as he remained there without hearing a single note outside of the usual. Only the anger and the shame and the lust of everyday was outside, there was no one with anything softer than iron on the other side of the wall.

And so his day went by, limbs folded and eyes closed, waiting for a scuttling sound to make its way to his room and let him taste something new, something to let him hear his heart beat to a different rhythm. But it was a fact that everyone wore a chain that they had to follow, that there were only so many places they could go to and only so many faces they could show before it started yanking at them and pulling at their necks. There were but a few that were free to make music as they pleased, and it was those that he was dragged to deal with. To pound them until they fit back in their irons, and he felt his lips sink further.

Right when the colours that seeped by the small window above his head began to turn into the wounded reds and stained yellow voices started to enter. They were of a woman and a man and he heard them loud and clear, their words making his heart drum in his chest as they spoke in songs that were new to his ears. Their voices went up and down as they chatted, the words were raised and twisted and stretched to fit as much of what they were into them and as much of what they wanted. The man spoke with the voice of a drum, a low sound that went all the way to the bones and shook them, he spoke by raising and softening his words going from a war to a whisper in the same sentence. But it was the woman that made his heart punch in his chest, her voice was the one guiding, the one that set the pace of everything and he could hear the people fall silent as she spoke, her notes went over that of others and called for attention and he had no instrument to compare it to. He hadn't heard enough plays to put a name to the metal and wood that could put such eager notes in the air. But it was so sweet a song that it did not matter a bit.

But just as they came, they started leaving, and his throat clenched as their songs grew dimmer and his world started going back to being just the barren room, as their notes became the bricks and their voices the bars over the window. He stood up, for the first time, and his arms went this way and that until his hands gripped the sill and pulled him up, he needed to see. There was a question in his heart that needed an answer, who was it that made such music. He needed to put a face to such a wonder just like everything else in the world needed a name.

His mouth was dry and bitter with disappointment as his eyes couldn't find them, all there was outside were the backs of people dragging their chains back or away from their home. His lips sunk further down, and he thought they might fall off his chin.

"We could use some light here," a voice like sand on rust came from the corridor of the door and he bundled himself back again, as small as possible, as weak as possible. Even if they kept him for being all the opposites.

"Remember to bring a lamp next time then," another soft like wind through a keyhole answered as the locks came undone and the sheets of metal were pulled back into the corridor with a screech of protest from the hinges.

"Someone needs to oil that, gives me the foams every single time,"

"Have you ever thought that that someone might need to be you? Ever crossed your mind?" the man with the soft voice was the first to leave the gloom and step in the red light of the room. His face was soft as his voice as were his arms and his belly, he was but a big soft bit, and he remembered he had said he bruised easily when he had brought him a meal and had a black eye that had turned every other shade of colour throughout a month.

"I am paid to protect you. Not clean," retorted the one with a rash that went up his neck, all orange like the rust in his voice.

"Well you should see if your skills can reach all the way to oiling a door and remembering to bring a light. Maybe then I will get a day free of your complaints,"

The one with the rash eyed him as he grumbled under his breath and undid the locks upon his feet, the bonds upon his neck, and lastly the one on his waist. Great lengths of iron and bronze fell to the floor in a rattling heap and pooled there like a snake's shed skin, one made of grey scales and jaws of linked metal.

"You can stretch later, move it," the tip of a blade prodded him and its sting made itself known every single time, always close to his back, always close enough to hurt even if there was no reason to. He was going nowhere but where they pointed at, they should know that by now.

"Did you take off the chains this time?" asked the man that had bought him all those years ago when his scars where still raw and he could still remember which face that swum in his memories belonged to whom.

"Yes, Mr. Lotta. Aught a scratch on the boards or anything," answered the one with the rash, hands pressed to his body and trying to be as small as he could. Just another slave without a chain.

"Very well you can leave us now," and he bounded out the door quick like a mouse and just as scared and he was left looking at the floor, waiting for his orders. "You are with Orillas tonight, you know where he is," and with that he was dismissed just as quickly as he came.

The man called Orillas was an old hand at this kind of work, had been with the Master even before him and he had a seen a lot of moons and listened to a lot of bands while here. So that meant he had been here for a long long time, more than he knew how to count, more than there were numbers, surely. But at least he was a kind old man with steel grey hair that went down to his shoulders and his beard touched his chest, he always kept a comb to cover a patch of cheek that had a big bald spot and never failed to give him something. Even when he had done nothing to deserve it.

"Ah, child. You are here! And with an hour to spare to practice writing. Want to do that?" the slave was thankful to him for talking and not expecting an answer for no matter how hard he desired it, he had no way of making a sound. And that hurt, almost as bad as watching his hands scribble the paper, letters, words, and sentences but scratches of ink, cuts of black that were simply wounds. It hurt to be tone deaf, to not be able to sing like everyone. But that was his punishment.

A hand rested upon his shoulder, Orillas peeking over him at the paper and smiling as if he had done a good job, "here boy, have some before we leave. Rest until then," and he handed him a piece of candy wrapper full of wild colours and silly pictures. He let it rest in his mouth until it melted into nothing, it tasted of nothing.

Their work today was in one of the docks at the back of the island, one of the fists as they were called by most people for they were hidden from those coming to moor. They served as the out of sight spot for those bringing goods that were better off unnamed. Why they couldn't be named he didn't know nor understand, everything needed a name to be worth something. He was named slave and that was worth nine hundred thousand and five hundred bellies. The men near him were named goons and were worth twenty thousand a week, give or take actions that demanded more, everything with a name had a price.

The goons of tonight were a rough lot, dirty heads with hair plastered to their scalps by the pattering drizzle. Some had frowns, others had complaints with voices broken or jagged like old metal, and others just stood there maybe hoping to be worth more after tonight. And he was apart from them, besides Orillas who kept a sad smile on his face as he turned to let the strings of his voice sound to catch everyone's attention.

"Lads, we are cracking down upon a group that chose to bring some substance to our docks. That chose to spit on us and our children's fate by putting poison by them. What will we tell them?" he roared in the rain, droplets falling off his beard as his voice like a guitar was strung by sad notes.

"Back to the sea with you!" they clamoured like broken recorders, no emotion in their voices. They were as dead as the sound of foot falls and scraping soles and rustling blades, there was no song to be heard in them. They were tone deaf just like him. And the old man knew he was the only one that felt anything for what they were doing but still tried to inspire in them, hoping that his words might strike a piece of them that would make some noise. He had had seen this time and time again, sometimes it worked, most times it didn't.

"Show me you mean it then," he answered.

They spread out around the two ships that had come, a pair of galleys with prows caked in the green of rot and ruin with figure heads of beasts that had their paint torn from them by the claws of time and sea. The rails had flakes of white all over them like the thorns of a bramble, and the masts were withered and old like trees ready to be made wood.

He was sent to be first on deck, stretching his arms he grabbed the wood by the tip of his fingers to avoid being seen and swung around the ship, leaving the planks of the docks behind and having nothing but the black waters below. He was told to be silent, make sure no one hears a thing before they are aboard. He was already at the stern when he heard something, a whistle that reached him despite the rain, a funny tune that he hadn't heard yet and it was coming from one of the windows near him just a meter or two away. It was as good a place to start as any other.

His fingers gripped tight around the little bars that held the rails up, he inched closer to the window. Slowly. Silently. And the whistling grew, to his delight, a sharp sound that tickled his ears and gave him goose bumps and then it climbed higher like a dove, ever higher and full of life. Eyes closing he gave let his ears do all they were meant to do, he was taken by it, taken by the beauty he couldn't reach. His chest was barely hidden the window's frame now, but he didn't care. The song had to be heard.

But like all in his life, like all that is good it ended abruptly. A voice rose within the cabin and the song was cut to pieces by it, torn down from its flight, its wings broken and feathers scattered and just like that something in him screamed. His chest sunk at its death and his hand reached inside, one arm long as a snake took the one that had killed the melody by the neck and dragged him out the window. Their head cracking against the frame as he didn't fit through it and their body slumping on the floor when the slave gave up on throwing them into the sea as everyone had said they should do.

He went inside, his arms dragging his body forward like those of a spider, joints clicking and snapping into odd positions as he fit himself through the opening. There were two men, the one that had been whistling was wide eyed, slack jawed, and snow pale while the other was white eyed from the hit. And once in there was a job to do, he tore down the planks around the window and broke them apart before lifting the unconscious man and throwing him back to the sea, the other one hadn't even made a sound since. Looking back at him he saw he was frozen in place and had not move a finger away from his spot, the slave had a job to do but the man had gifted him something precious and so he was in a dilemma.

Should he grab him and throw him or should he punch him and throw him, but he was scared that if he punched him he would break his teeth or bite his tongue and then he wouldn't be able to whistle. He couldn't afford to take something like that from someone, but he also couldn't afford to wrong his job. So he tried a third option. He pointed one finger at the whistler until he reacted, still quiet and that was good, with two fingers he signalled for the man to walk and then jump with one hand over the other.

And the man screamed, it was sad to do it but he hit him, a gob of blood sailed away from his mouth and the sound like breaking glass stopped. His lips were pulled down once again as he grabbed the man by the shirt and threw him into the sea. There was a lesson there, he thought, and that was what starts bad ends mostly the same way, he concluded as he threw the door down the corridor to break a man's leg and catch another under its weight. His hands taking both and dragging them along to the hole that led towards the night.

Back to the sea they said and back to the sea they go.

The job was done by the time the spluttering rain was over and by the time Orillas' beard stopped dripping they were back at their Master's house. They stood outside the room as Diena spoke, her voice was nice, like the song of the sea that tinkles the thousand thousand little pebbles against each other. A song of calm waves and soft caresses.

"He broke an arm and a pair of ribs on Coltello's boys, did as you told me and didn't involve myself since your son stayed upstairs," she said and he could hear the little tinkling become a little rougher. Anger probably or just frustration.

"And why in hell didn't you stop them?"

"I tried, told him they would get hurt and he told me to scram. Thought they all needed a bit of a harsh lesson,"

"If I tell you to keep him out of trouble, you keep him out of trouble if you have to bash him in the head for it! He can't keep behaving like this and you let him? How does that make me look?"

"Can't hit your son boss and that's a fact,"

"Let me tell you what is a fact! You not doing your job, that's a hard fact if I'm a judge," he bellowed with the sound of someone sharpening a knife. It was dangerous to go in now.

"I am sorry boss," the words were crushed out of her, "but he needs to learn that no one outside will bend their knee to him. Only way he can learn that is if someone knees him hard enough,"

"I am the one that decides what to do with my son!" there was some rustling inside, the sound of wood hitting wood and then there was silence and then a sigh, "do me a favour and see who this people were. Don't do anything to them, don't touch them or follow them, just find out who they are,"

"Yes, sir," and Diane came out the office with a grim set to her face that settled when she saw him. She gave him a pat and went to shout at someone else, she treated him the same as Orillas and he didn't know why but it was nice. He just hoped he could end the day without being yelled by the Master. Hoped to be wrong in what he had learnt a few hours ago.


Still sunday over here so it isn't a late chapter, lol. I have been shearing off the edges off my ideas this time around. Choosing songs and names and people and the most important. Their pirate names! Anyways hope you had a Merry Crisis and a Happy New Year, I got plastered at both instances so it was pretty good.