OOC: This thread is for cdnflirt and myself only. No joiners, please.

The sky was on fire.

There was blood raining from the sky.

The man in black turns away from the cry of the shore and stands alone upon the brink of the world.

The sea-spray lashes his face with unparalleled viciousness, as the waves clamor against the keel. He gazes into the sunset, dark hair plastered against his pale brow, jade eyes slitted against the dying sun. It would be dark soon, he knew, and the callous eyes of stars would be their only companions through the dark and unfeeling night. The horizon is stained crimson now, and he watches the world-weary sun spill its last fire over the receiving waves.

It is far from there, far from the fair-lands and the forgotten shore, measured in miles where the mere stands. The pale sun burns away the evening chill and the clinging damp mist, revealing a gigantic silent world of morose twilight. Amid the screams of the dying, he stands and watches the stars come out.

The last, he turns and gazes on a sea-bound battle-field, roiling with blood, seething with gore. His blood, rich and dark, dots the wood, blood as dark as his deep-set eyes. His mind fills with white magic, walking in the ways of exile, the warring of the waves. He collapses among the dying, with the hot copper scent of his own blood in his nostrils, breathing heavily, as the world breaths and sooths him, wrapping him in tendrils of shadow. The waves, salt-heavy, heady with poison wash over him, choke him tenderly, and he knows its scent, like a old friend, like a lover.

He closes his eyes and sleeps.

***********************************

The night was slowly starting to shrink. The vastness of the dark was beginning to constrict everything about it. What once was large and impenetrable was now small and broken. The body of a youth was being borne upon the shoulders of men. Whispers grew and spread like an unspeakable flower blossoming from a dark seed. Darkness oozed out from between buildings, through the tangled maze of the streets, from behind the great fantastic and unstirring silence; the darkness, mysterious and invincible, incurable; the darkness scented and poisonous.

There was also death mingled within, or coming death at least , a scent like scant, soft earth and sweet old blood. There was no name for the youth that was brought into the relative warmth of the tavern that morning, no name. His face was still a child’s face, noble and beautiful despite the pain and death that crept into the corners of his mouth and eyes, shadowing the hollows of his cheeks. His eyes were closed, dark, lush lashes curling upon the pure whiteness of his cheek, his body curled, his coral lips parted. They could feel his blood, hot and vital, painting his ivory peasant shirt a sinister red. The slanting beams of light brushed him with a fiery glow, throwing his slender and distorted shadow far from his prone body.

One of the men that brought him drew a slender coastal sword, and struck, cutting not flesh but bloodstained cloth, pulling the hindering fabric away from the wounds. They were grievous. Two bullet wounds bled trails of crimson, narrowing missing the heart. The youth groaned as one of the men brushed the wound, exposing his pale chest. His eyes snapped open, feverish and half-mad with pain.

“What did he do to them”, he whispered through numbed lips. He grabbed for the man’s hand and held it, his nails digging into the man’s skin. “What did he do to my family?” He coughed suddenly, explosively, and released the man’s hand, and when he looked up again there was bright scarlet on his lips.

“Your family”, the man replied quietly, “is dead”.

A regal woman, about 25 years of age, with pale skin stands behind the bar cleaning glasses of all sorts. Her forest green eyes stand out beautifully from the rest of her features. The humans long black locks cascading down her back freely, and bouncing with each step she took.

The womans parents had died many years ago, having been born to a wealthy family that had lost everything just before the loss of her beloved parents. Now she was forced to work in the tavern in order to pay her bills. She lived in the Tavern to cut her costs down to the bare minimal. Victoria was the name of the rich-born, now tavern dweller that felt alone in the world. After their parents death, she could clearly remember her sister running off with a Pirate. Of all people, her older sister Lily had to go run off and start a family with a pirate.

Septimus Sandalwood was the pirate that had promised her sister a wonderful life. The kind of life that died with their parents only a year before they met. The day she saw Septimus she knew that Lily had made the wrong choice to run off with him and become a pirate. That day she vowed to hate pirates, no matter how smooth they talked.

Corelan was the worst thing to ever happen to them, in her opinion. Since they moved here, they lost their parents, and Victoria lost her sister to the most well-known pirate in the open waters. Victoria could sometimes swear that she was the only woman who didn't want the pirate in any means shape or form. Yet as a bartender, she had to listen to everyone's fantasies and play as if she agreed with their every statement.

Suddenly the doors had burst open and the one pirate she disliked the most was suddenly in her bar. On his death bed, she shook her head and found a clean cloth, rinsed it in warm water and walked over to him soundlessly. Shaking her head slightly she spoke "Septimus Sandalwood, what has happened to you?" she didn't ask him, but was more asking in general. Slowly she went to work on healing her sister's lover.

Silence and darkness came to create the effigy of nightmares in his mind. His blackened gaze swept over his saviour listlessly. They were animal’s eyes...not quite human....coloured with the sharp, fevered intelligence of a animal that would not speak if it could. His eyes wandered slowly, tracing her, watching the smooth untaught grace of her movements, her cool forest eyes, her ebony hair that draped in a glorious fall over her delicate shoulders. There was so much of Lily in her and yet so little.

The faint, dreamy light highlighted his dark hair, the agony and sadness across his features. Tears of pain streamed across his pallid features, his eyes, so innocent and ancient, so bright and so sad fixed upon her with a lucid clarity. The face of her, although so near, was blurry, wavering dangerously, like a candle within the shadows. He cast his despairing eyes around at the silent, rugged faces, and saw not one. His flesh jerked at her touch as she wiped the running bloodstains from his chest and as gently as he was able he caught her wrist. He stared forth, searching, longing, wanting, knowing.

“No one knows”, came a murmur within the dark. A heavy-set, broad-shouldered man stepped forward, his normally rubicund complexion an alarming shade of white, his gaze fixedly set on the dying youth. He sighed and ran a hand through his greasy locks. “We found ‘im clinging to wreckage in the midst of the ocean, no one knows how ‘e got there. “ He glanced up sharply at the mention of the youth’s name. “So that’s ‘im, eh? No wonder ‘es dying. “ He scratched his nose reflectively and grunted. “Some of the lads, they’ve been telling me all sorts o’ rubbish about the government being after ‘’im eh? They’ve got nothing to do but to sink a few ruddy pirate ships while the rest of us go starving…”.

“The Falcon don’t exist”, a lithe hard-faced man responded coldly. “Even you know that. It’s only children’s tales, mate, and I tell you this Septimus chap doesn’t exist neither. “. The other man snorted.“If it don’t exist and it wasn’t destroyed”, he retorted, “’ow’s come we ‘aven’t been seeing it?” The lithe man slapped his friend upside the head. “You idiot. We ‘aven’t been seeing it because it don’t exist”.

“Then what ‘appened to ‘im, eh?”, the heavyset man questioned. “E’s definitely been fighting”. He pointed a ruddy finger towards the pale, shivering youth. His dark hair lay tousled, nearly covering the dark, depth-less eyes that still focused intently on Victoria, eyes as maddeningly bright as a rabid fox’s, two endless poisoned wells. “Lily’s dead”, he murmured through his trembling, and his hand tightened on her wrist. He shivered violently and rolled over on his side, coughing. Blood ran from his mouth in thin streamers, his body shook unmercifully with tremors. “My girl is dead”.

He ached. Pain was the only thing that managed to convince him that he was still alive. He had cheated Death once again it seemed. These thoughts slowly crawled through his mind. A mind that has been slowed and dulled by lack of nutrients and any kind of substance for days now. Pain. Again the nagging, tugging, intense pain. What was pulling at him so? Was it Death himself, indeed, unwilling to let him go so easily, refusing to relinquish its’ hold as it saw him slowly rising to consciousness like a drowning swimmer in a lake, seeking to pull him back down?

“The Red Man is back”, he cried out feverishly, creating words of uneasy astonishment from the rough sailors. “ I knew you would understand! He murdered your sister. He slaughtered my children”. Beads of sweat stood out on his milk-white skin and fell, running in streamlets over his pitifully thin chest, the exposed rack of his ribs. “My children are dead”. A sharp barking laugh escaped his numbed lips, devoid of any sanity. “He sent his men to kill me, but I am still alive”.

His nails dug into her skin.

“I…am… still…alive...”.

And just as quickly as it began, the madness ended. The tremors ended and his body became perfectly still. His eyes slipped closed and his hand fell limply from her wrist. Short, uneven breathing racked his thin chest.

The two bloody bullet-wounds shone with a sickly beauty, like two rubies embedded deeply in his white flesh. “My daughter…”, he whispered, and the tears ran from beneath his closed eyelids. “My son…”.

He raised his head to look at her, his eyes opened slowly and they were terribly lucid, tragically sane. The horrors those eyes had seen shimmered within the darkness, and there was something far worse then anger, than regret in their expression.

They were pleading.

And then his head fell limply against her and all expression faded as the edges merged and blurred into unconsiousness.

The faint, dreamy light highlighted his dark hair, the agony and sadness across his features. Tears of pain streamed across his pallid features, his eyes, so innocent and ancient, so bright and so sad fixed upon her with a lucid clarity. The face of her, although so near, was blurry, wavering dangerously, like a candle within the shadows. He cast his despairing eyes around at the silent, rugged faces, and saw not one. His flesh jerked at her touch as she wiped the running bloodstains from his chest and as gently as he was able he caught her wrist. He stared forth, searching, longing, wanting, knowing.

Shaking her head slightly as she felt his hand catch her wrist, she stopped instantly. Her eyes shifted questioningly. Yet she didn't speak to him.

“No one knows”, came a murmur within the dark. A heavy-set, broad-shouldered man stepped forward, his normally rubicund complexion an alarming shade of white, his gaze fixedly set on the dying youth. He sighed and ran a hand through his greasy locks. “We found ‘im clinging to wreckage in the midst of the ocean, no one knows how ‘e got there. “ He glanced up sharply at the mention of the youth’s name. “So that’s ‘im, eh? No wonder ‘es dying. “ He scratched his nose reflectively and grunted. “Some of the lads, they’ve been telling me all sorts o’ rubbish about the government being after ‘’im eh? They’ve got nothing to do but to sink a few ruddy pirate ships while the rest of us go starving…”.

“The Falcon don’t exist”, a lithe hard-faced man responded coldly. “Even you know that. It’s only children’s tales, mate, and I tell you this Septimus chap doesn’t exist neither. “. The other man snorted.“If it don’t exist and it wasn’t destroyed”, he retorted, “’ow’s come we ‘aven’t been seeing it?” The lithe man slapped his friend upside the head. “You idiot. We ‘aven’t been seeing it because it don’t exist”.

The woman laughed "The Falcon exists, as much as I would hate to admit it. But yes, it exists, and yes this is Septimus Sandalwood. Known pirate, the one the government seeks. If anyone would know it would be me. He's been in and out of my life." she didn't continue her statement, but instead tried pulling her wrist free from his grasp.

“Then what ‘appened to ‘im, eh?”, the heavyset man questioned. “E’s definitely been fighting”. He pointed a ruddy finger towards the pale, shivering youth. His dark hair lay tousled, nearly covering the dark, depth-less eyes that still focused intently on Victoria, eyes as maddeningly bright as a rabid fox’s, two endless poisoned wells. “Lily’s dead”, he murmured through his trembling, and his hand tightened on her wrist. He shivered violently and rolled over on his side, coughing. Blood ran from his mouth in thin streamers, his body shook unmercifully with tremors. “My girl is dead”.

She gasped and froze, turning pale "No. That can't be! She was a fighter, and always had been. There is no way that she is dead! Tell me the truth!!" she was fretful. Her face pale as milk, her body frozen solid. The woman could tell he was in pain, but she shook her head and struggled to keep him conscious so he could reveal what happened.


“The Red Man is back”, he cried out feverishly, creating words of uneasy astonishment from the rough sailors. “ I knew you would understand! He murdered your sister. He slaughtered my children”. Beads of sweat stood out on his milk-white skin and fell, running in streamlets over his pitifully thin chest, the exposed rack of his ribs. “My children are dead”. A sharp barking laugh escaped his numbed lips, devoid of any sanity. “He sent his men to kill me, but I am still alive”.

His nails dug into her skin.

Her features froze as if suddenly she were a statue, and she gasped, her eyes swelled up into tears. The woman had always hated Septimus, for stealing her older sister from her, shortly after the death of her parents. Leaving her to work in this bar. The woman didn't move at all for a short while, her features frozen in place. The only sign of movement from the woman was the tears that had swollen in her eyes, and began falling freely down her face. "No! Tell me it isn't true!"

“I…am… still…alive...”.

And just as quickly as it began, the madness ended. The tremors ended and his body became perfectly still. His eyes slipped closed and his hand fell limply from her wrist. Short, uneven breathing racked his thin chest.

The two bloody bullet-wounds shone with a sickly beauty, like two rubies embedded deeply in his white flesh. “My daughter…”, he whispered, and the tears ran from beneath his closed eyelids. “My son…”.

In this moment she bit her lip, tears flowing, she pulled out the bullet shards, and cleaned his wounds. Despite her hatred for him. She had an obligation to heal him. Her sobs were silent, and for the first time since she was young, she mourned the loss of her parents, mourned the loss of her sister, and her niece and nephew. While tending to her sister's love.