Marauder Meeting

Dante strolled across the deck to join them. Perhaps stroll, however, was too strong a word. The stroll, as he would consider it, was interrupted every other step by his slight limp from the wound Noelani had left on his thigh a bit over a week ago. All of his wounds were healing nicely, albeit too slowly for his taste, and he would be back in tip-top shape soon enough. He glanced toward the island in the distance as he joined them. For a moment, he was quiet, but unlike Saoul, silence wasn't one of his strong suits. "Somehow, it's not how I pictured it."

Attila faced her crew, giving each of them a nod as more filtered in. "Well well, my dears. We've arrived at our destination, as Nova said we would." She nodded to Saoul, "You may unshackle her. She'll need her legs beneath her for this." Attila pursed her lips, "Before we go ashore, we have something we must discuss. As some of you may have heard, a mermaid has been captured and brought on board. She has told me that the island is a gathering place for sirens, and impossible to access by those who possess greed. She claims that she may enter, and take one other with her to claim the treasure. Now, as you can imagine, the problem is that we've wronged her." Her eyes lingered on Dante, Saoul, and Teddy. "She could easily be leading us to our deaths. We have Beastie, but even he would fall to the hordes of mermaids I'm told gather here. This could also just be a bluff." The sea breeze tousled the captain's curly blonde-brown locks, and her eyes appeared troubled. "I rarely seek counsel from you all. But I believe this matter affects you all, more than any other before. What do you think?" Attila would make her own decision in the end. The opinions of her crew mattered, but Attila knew she craved the infamy of being the only captain in the world who got the treasure from the forsaken island.

Dante glanced toward Nova and shrugged. "I thought it would be... Spookier. It looks pretty normal from here," he said, then turned his attention toward Attila as she spoke. As her gaze lingered on him and a few of the others, he stared back at her; if there was a hoard of mermaids lurking there, they wouldn't have known about it unless they'd captured Noelani, and if there wasn't a hoard of mermaids there, they could sell her for profit, so he'd done them a favor either way, really. He was quiet for a moment, considering the question and Saoul's response, before shaking his head. "She would do anything to be free again, including lie to us. As soon as we free her from the ship, she'll kill whoever goes with her and then escape into the sea."

Saoul immediately bent to free Nova, his heart soaring as Attila gifted her her freedom. He scowled as Dante and Nova bother raised their dissent. “We don’t really have a choice. If we all try to go aboard we may not all live. What would you two rather do?”

Noelani was on the mat in her cell, head resting against the cool bars. She had improved slightly since her first and second days aboard the ship - she wasn’t constantly nausea and her head didn’t feel as though it were splitting open, but she still wasn’t steady on her feet and her joints ached from sleeping on the hard mat. She hadn’t had many visitors, not even the pirate who had initially captured her, but she didn’t mind. Unlike humans, she didn’t need the company of others and. She especially didn’t need the company of pirates. Instead, she occupied her time dreaming of all the different ways she could sink this ship and everyone aboard it.

She heard someone coming but only opened her eyes when her cell down banged open and someone barged in. The pirate grabbed her hands roughly and began winding a rope around them, pulling tight. She tried to pull back but he was too strong. He tried to pull her forward and onto her feet and she used the momentum to kick her knee forward straight into his balls. He dropped to the ground with a scream of pain but only stayed down for a second. When he came back up, he backhanded Noelani across the face so hard she saw stars.

The walk up to the deck was a struggle. Noelani definitely hadn’t gotten any better at walking and with her hands tied in front of her, she couldn’t use them for balance or to grab onto things. Any empathy the pirate had for her was probably killed when she kneed him in the balls so she was more or less dragged up the stairs. By the time she made it above deck, her knees and elbows were red and bleeding from falling and her cheek had already started to bruise.

Noelani squinted and took her first look out at the ocean since becoming a captive. She quickly assessed that there was no easy route to the railing, not when she was so unsteady and there were so many pirates up here. She would never make it over. Nevertheless, she smiled when she saw the island and looked back over to the captain, “Seen any sirens yet?” She called out. If they hadn’t already, they would be shortly. The threat was there - she was the only one that would give them safe passage from her kind.

Saoul rubbed his temples, “I will go. If I do not return within an hour, you Amy decide if you wish to leave me or to come ashore.” He looked at Noelani, hoping perhaps his treatment of her would earn him a shot at living.