What's up guys? Here's a story I started writing. Hope you'll like it. I certainly do, and that's a good thing too - because there's like 4 stories for this character on this site, and I guess, this will be the 5th. Oh boy, here we go again. *cue the music*
Disclaimer: I do not own this world, that's Tolkien's thing. I simply breathe life into a story I wish would have been written. I do not own the characters (well, some of them I do own, but who's splitting hairs?), I simply write them down as they have been running amok in my head for years now.
(See at the end of the chapter for fun facts and / or author's notes!)
The Pirate Prince and the Fishmonger's Daughter
by Magdalenara
"Try to find some happiness, it's all any of us can do in this life."
"Without you, I shall never be happy again a day in my life."
1) The Meet-Cute
He didn't know how it happened exactly.
From one day to the next his sister was gone – married off to some stranger from the North, some brute who had the fucking audacity to call himself king – and along with her, all light seemed to have been drained from the sun. Whatever joy he might have derived from his former pleasures, it simply did not please him the way it did before – it simply felt hollowed out, meaningless.
That was not to say, however, that he didn't seek out those pleasures anymore; quite on the contrary, if anything, his search for pleasures was all the more intense because he was all the more desperate to take his mind off things that hurt too much to think about. The nights were spent in a rush of alcohol-infused forgetting and cold, impersonal touches, and the days were spent in a daze, permanently half-asleep. It was a vicious cycle that just kept on spinning and spinning until the days and nights were starting to blend into each other and until up was down and down was up.
It must have been after one such drinking spree that he had been staggering through the streets of Moray Trench, the poorer underbelly of the prince's beloved city of Dol Amroth, singing as he went – or rather caterwauling – and more or less barging against huts and houses, stalls and walls, that he took the wrong step and ended up face-first in a fish stand, practically wrecking the little hut in the process. Well, at the time it must have seemed perfectly fucking funny as he was laughing like a mad-man before falling asleep right then and there.
The joke, however, was on him – and it wasn't even a funny one – as the rude awakening came in the morning … in the form of a bucket of ice-cold water dumped on him. Waking up with a start, the pirate prince sat up at once, and, blinking, breathing hard, affronted, he looked up to find out who would dare to wake him so rudely. But all he saw were two angry brown eyes, a flash of golden skin under a shapeless, worn linen dress and a shock of dark, curly hair, and even though his cynical mind had coolly judged that she wasn't his usual type, something in his chest had reacted quite differently.
It was only a trick of light, he had told himself back then, the remnants of his sleep blinding his eyes, and yet, as much as he tried to play it down with reason and anger, a part of him could not help but acknowledge that before him stood quite the pretty young woman. However, that young commoner beauty standing before him, arms akimbo and with quite the sulky frown, did not seem to share the same sentiments that transfixed him. Quite the contrary!
With an angry growl, she went into a furious tirade, chiding him at every turn and giving him a proper talking-to – or, so it would seem. He couldn't be sure really, because rather than shouting at him with all the little wrath and might she had, the young woman remained completely silent, except for a few angry huffs and puffs, and a few more growls and hissing sounds. Instead, she left it to her hands and fingers, gesturing wildly in the air, to give voice to her anger and misgivings.
Amrothos blinked rapidly, too tired and too drunk to understand who she was or what was going on here, but even if all he wanted to do was to get out of here, so he could go back to drinking and sleeping, he would not have been able to, because that commoner girl had the fucking audacity to stand in his way and thus to keep him from leaving. And again, she was fixing him with a menacing glare, fingers that flew to speak – or rather to shout at him without any sound – and even dared to poke her sharp little index finger into his chest.
What the fuck is up with those gestures?!, Amrothos thought with no small amount of exasperation, why the fuck isn't she just talking? But the prince had precious little time to ponder that question as he was too busy staggering backwards while she advanced on him step by step, stabbing at him with her finger, claiming every inch he yielded, and he could do nothing but stare at her in wild amazement.
No one had ever dared to treat him like this – or at least, no one who wasn't of noble blood had ever dared to treat him like this – and with something akin to morbid fascination the prince realised that the young commoner before him must have no idea who the hell he was. That in and of itself was not so unusual, as they were in Moray Trench after all, and few enough princes had ever dared to come to this seedy underbelly of their city, and even if a nobleman would ever have stooped so low as to grace these streets with a visit, its people would have rather torn him to pieces before acknowledging that they were in the lofty presence of blue blood.
Not that anyone would have recognised him as such – with his worn out pirate rags and alcohol-deranged appearance, few enough people would have dared to call him a prince now. But the whole business here made him wonder, with a sprinkle of manic glee, whether she would continue to chide him with so little civility, if she knew who he actually was – and the pirate in him hoped she would. He was a man lusting for all things new and inappropriate, and so, of course, this right here was right up his lane.
Another jab to his sternum pulled him out of his thoughts and back into the here and now where a young commoner woman still stood before him with anger in her eyes and fury in her gestures, and at long last, the prince stooped low enough to actually pay attention to those wild gestures she was making. It took him a while to decipher what she had been trying to say all along, but he finally grasped the picture she was painting.
Apparently, in his drunken stupor he must have crashed into her stall with such force that he had wrecked it in the process; and granted, it was only a shabby wooden construction, but it had been her place of work and he had practically ruined it, effectively putting her out of business. So, naturally, there was the question of compensation, but to his utter surprise she had a very unique take on how he was supposed to pay her back.
'You want me to work for you?!', the pirate spat out, blinking with disbelief, still trying to process what he had managed to decipher from her wild gesturing. But nope, there was no mistaking the signs she was making – she actually, really expected him to physically work off his debts by working for her. Amrothos couldn't help it anymore, he simply had to laugh at this point: a prince of noble blood apprenticing to a fishmonger from Moray Trench?
All of the sudden, the tail fin of a dead fish hit him square across the face, putting an abrupt and disgustingly wet end to his laughter. Apparently, his little commoner had not been able to find the same humour in all of this as he had done, and while he had been roaring in laughter at the absurdity of it all, she had been fuming in her never-ending silence, and ultimately decided to teach him not to laugh at her. Shocked speechless, the pirate prince stared at the young woman standing before him: eyebrows pulled together in a menacing frown, the limp fish still clasped in her fist, ready to strike again.
A moment passed, and then another, and then another one, and just like that the shock from before turned to sudden anger. Oh, yes, he had always been easy-going and lax when it came to inappropriate behaviour, and he often enough preferred the rougher coarseness of the lower classes, and yes, he himself was not much better when it came to putting his foot in his mouth – but today he realised that even he had a line when it came to other people taken liberties with their respect with him, and right now, she had crossed that line indeed.
As he ground his teeth and balled his hands to fists, there were several different insults and quips he had ready at hand to throw at her, and another part of him even considered to grab her by the collar and to put her over his knee … to teach her not to slap strangers with fish and to respect her betters. But then he hesitated, thinking.
Of course, he knew he could deal with the situation in a heartbeat: drop a name or two, throw in a bag of coin or two, call in a few guards from the city proper, and off he could have been. But his head was throbbing so painfully from the drinking that he was in no mood to handle the embarrassing fall-out that would inevitably follow the revelation of who he was. And also, her wild gesturing and inappropriate manhandling of his princely hide made it clear that she was unapologetically unaware of who he was.
Perhaps it was the alcohol or the aftermath of that fish-stained slap, but her crude and clumsy tactics of intimidation, her trying so hard to get him to cave in and to work off his debts, well, one could almost call it cute. And, perhaps, a part of him even craved the amusement of playing along with the image she had of him, wondering how long he could play this game before he would finish it off with a triumphant revelation of his identity, and the idea of it alone, of seeing her angry little brown eyes widen in panicked realisation – well, that alone was enough to soften the next blow with a dead fish.
Slapped – literally – back into reality, Amrothos quickly shook his head to get the stench of dead fish out of his nose, and it was a lucky thing too, because it allowed him to dodge the next blow that came right after it. Leaning back to be out of her reach, the prince had earned himself some momentary respite from her ongoing fish-fuelled attacks, and he used it well to put up his hands in a universal sign of surrender, eyeing her with a show of begrudging acceptance.
'Will you stop hitting me with the fish, if I say yes?', the prince asked pointedly, and the effect of his words was immediate. One moment his little commoner had threatened him with a fish in her hands held up high, and then, as she was processing his words, she slowly lowered her arms. But even though she was still eyeing him with no small amount of suspicion, and her eyebrows were still pulled together in a menacing frown, Amrothos could tell that she was about to fall for him – hook, line and fucking sinker. A moment passed, and then another one, and then she nodded at long last.
Grinning with relief, the prince lowered his arms, and, acting on sheer impulse here, held out his hand in an offer of partnership, to signify a bargain well struck. And even though his little commoner – and he had to give her credit for that – was still sizing him up, from the smug grin on his lips to the golden tooth in his smile, all the way to his golden earrings and the missing fingers of his right hand, he was about to learn that she could be as good a sport as he was. Holding out the fish in her hand, that little shrew had the audacity to smile just as smugly as he had, and with a chuckle Amrothos held on to the fish's head as they shook "hands" as a sign of their deal.
And that's how the pirate prince of Dol Amroth became the apprentice to the daughter of a fishmonger.
FUN FACT #1: I spent some time with the character of Amrothos in my main fic "The Day the Horse-Lord wed the Lady of the Seas" and I guess, I got stuck on that obnoxious little fucker? He is just so much fun to write, don't you think?
FUN FACT #2: Myra is my spirit animal! What do you think - will she be able to hold her own with this new apprentice of hers?
FUN FACT #3: I'll just continue the tradition of developping Middle-Earth further. Moray Trench - the Bronx of Dol Amroth.
FUN FACT #4: I based the character of Amrothos - as I realised way too late - on my partner actually. Now, I will leave it to you to imagine which parts of that character I actually live together with in the flesh.