by C. Vandyke
“What are your orders, Captain? Do we pursue the wizard, or get the Harpy back out to sea?” Mary looked towards the coast, her face pale and strained.
Tempest watched the scene below. There were too many fishguard down there, even for a seasoned pirate and a flame-throwing wizard to deal with. Nasal, rasping clicks sounded in the broken courtyard.
“Captain, the way is clear to the east. We should fly before we’re glimpsed.”
She had a crew to think about. An insatiable screaming dryad to feed. Sheena hadn’t given those same concerns a passing thought when she jumped ship and headed for Torganal.
“Captain?”
Halberds were raised. Flat feet pattered on stone. Tempest wrenched her gaze from the Nexus and turned to Mary.
“Let’s be away, Quartermaster.”
If Sheena survived, they would find each other again.
Select Letters
Caroline Bernard-Smith
Selected Letters Sent and Received by the Famed Elven Pirates of Scourge Cove During the Second Golden Age - Volume III Compiled and edited by Kell’tan, Head Librarian of the Gloaming Spires
Librarian’s Note: The following is a small sample of the many letters sent by Captain Tempest Brack of the Screaming Harpy to Ms. Sheena McKracken (née McIvor) of Vista, Noddingtown. These pirates are of historical interest in part due to their early co-captaincy—unheard of amongst other elven pirates—and in part to the unusual nature of their ship and the dryad living between its decks. Many continue to search for the wreck of the Harpy, spurred on by those who claim to have heard its screams of starvation echoing from the caves and cliffs of Elysium Cove.
Dearest Sheena,
Let me start by telling you how sorry I am about how we parted. I shouldn’t have thrown that grappling hook at you. I hope your shoulder has healed.
I hate this feeling of being left behind. I find myself wandering the Harpy’s decks like a rum-soused ghost, lost in a way I’ve never experienced before. On days when the seas are quiet and the ship is sleeping, I like to imagine what you are doing. I see you poring over some water-warped tome in a wizard’s private library. That, or weaving stories of our shared exploits in a palm-shadowed pub, keeping the locals spellbound as they jostle to buy your drinks.
I just hope you’re not lonely.
Return to me. Let me heal this rift.
Forever yours,
Tempest
Dearest Sheena,
We finally unspelled that map you filched at our last Conclave and have unearthed a large cache of mermaid pearls. The crew toasted our victory, but the rum hit me cold because you weren’t there to celebrate with us.
You know I worry. You were wild with boredom back in Scourge, I can only imagine how torturous the quiet streets of Noddingtown must be. I often remember that Winter Solstice at the Lavender Drum when you jumped in the grog barrel. A woman ready to punch the barkeep for attempting to drag her back out is not a woman content to stare into the horizon day after day on the head of a placid turtle. The Harpy offers more years of gifted life than I would ever wish to live alone. Just send word, and I will chase that bastard turtle down to reach you.
Forever yours,
Tempest
Dear Sheena,
Please reclaim your bilge-dragon. It keeps setting fire to the rigging, and the ship doesn’t like it.
How long am I supposed to captain without you? Last month we narrowly avoided capture by the Pirate Kings. Kindly tell those greedy fools the Harpy will do them no good—the dryad will only share her blood gifts with us.
I wonder if you would even recognise me should you see me now? I avoid the glass; my face belongs to a stranger. The magics we wove through this ship are toughening my features and those silver eyes you were so fond of are now a flinty grey. All would be easier to bear if you would only return to me, my love. This bounty of years was supposed to be shared between us.
Yours,
Tempest
Sheena,
I have taken on a quartermaster, an educated woman with a fine head for maps. She tells me she’s a mermaid; but if she was, she no longer has a tail, so I can’t be sure.
I’ve changed my mind about the dragon. It’s an excellent rat catcher. The provisions have never been so little nibbled at, but the beast has a taste for rum and will set the ship’s biscuits ablaze when refused a bottle.
We will soon be docking at...
Librarian’s Note: The rest of this letter has been rendered indecipherable due to extensive scorching.
Sheena,
This will be the last time I write to you.
I will learn to live without you. I will endure. Please put me from your mind, as I have put you from mine.
Sincerely,
Tempest
Librarian’s Note: No return correspondence from Ms. Sheena McKracken has survived, although scholars have long debated the possibility that such letters never existed.
Exposed
A.R.K. Horton
Oriana missed the soothing cold waters of the ocean home she shared with her selkie colony. Even three years later, she hadn’t acclimated to the mugginess of the Archipelago. It remained as foreign to her as everything else about this world of land dwellers.
The discomfort she experienced on land had been worth all the wonders she marveled at on the topside, though. If Oriana had stayed underwater, she never would have cast her bets at the Hydra’s Bones arena nor stared into the distant and mysterious beam of the Lighthouse at the End of the World. She also wouldn’t have known the many passionate nights she spent rolling around in bed with a gentleman pirate captain.
Everyone knew her lover, Gallant Grant, as the man who spread his wealth from island to island. While Oriana stood in line to view the Death Waters Fountain, he remained at The Quays, spoiling his crew with a tour of taverns and brothels. Oriana had no interest in their carousing, so he sent his first mate, Cait the Cruel, to escort her.
They had been standing under the summer sun for hours, staring at the backs of heads queued up to enter the small ruin ahead, which held a fountain known for its magical but deadly waters. Every single prediction seen in its reflection had proven true, making it popular with those trying to dodge the Reaper.
“Still don’t see why we couldn’t have gone shopping at Salty Rest, instead,” Cait said, her arms crossed and eyes far away.
“Where’s your sense of adventure, Cait?” Oriana asked. “It shows you your death. Surely, you’d want to know if it’s one you can avoid or one that promises a fulfilling life.”
“Only you would see the wonder in something so morbid.”
Oriana gave Cait a light punch on the shoulder, causing the tall and fearsome first mate to look down at her companion. The scowl twisting Cait’s features would have scared off even the most heart-hardened pirate, but little Oriana responded with a crooked smile, and Cait laughed.
“Never tell a soul you punched me and got away with it,” Cait said.
“That was a tap,” Oriana said, rolling her eyes. The fountain’s keeper waved for them to come forward. “Oh! It’s our turn!”
Oriana skipped over to it with all the exuberance of a child at a fair. Cait shook her head and followed behind. In front of them, water poured from the kneeling elf statue’s screaming mouth into the murky pool below.
“Don’t drink the water,” the keeper said. “Last man who did became part of the fountain. Why do you think the water’s so dark?”
Oriana gulped. Maybe she didn’t want to look into the fountain after all.
“I’ll go first,” Cait whispered to her. “Give you time to make up your mind.”
Oriana offered the first mate a grateful smile and watched her kneel over the pool. Cait’s eyes widened and then turned from the water to Oriana’s face.
“What did you see?” she asked when Cait returned to her side.
“I earn a pirate’s death,” Cait answered. “It’s not so bad. Give it a go.”
> Oriana took in a deep breath and knelt as she’d seen Cait do. She peered into the burgundy liquid, which shimmered and then shifted into a short scene. Oriana could have sworn she had opened a door to another world. The vision came through so clearly and its setting seemed so familiar. She saw herself as a selkie again, with greying fur around her big, black eyes. Her long-lost son and other selkies nuzzled her with their whiskered snouts until she fell asleep and never woke.
A tear trailed down Oriana’s cheek, but she looked at Cait with a beaming smile. “Oh, Cait. I die a selkie. I—I must find my skin one day. And my son. My son was there. I have to tell Grant!”
He had saved her from the storm that stole her skin from the shores so many years ago, sweeping it into the ocean depths while she slept under the branches of a palm tree on Torganal Island. He had even tried to help her find it. Day after day, Oriana watched the ocean. Though she couldn’t return to her selkie form, she still looked for the son who remained with their colony below the waves. Grant would understand better than anyone how excited she felt, how much hope bloomed within her.
Yet, Cait shook her head, a worried look on her usually stern face.
“Think about it,” she said. “If you’re a selkie again, that means he loses you. He might not like that news as much as you think.”
“Oh.”
Oriana’s bright eyes darkened. She had grown to love Grant. Still, not one day in her human form had ever been as happy as her selkie days. While she longed for travel, romance, and adventure, her heart belonged in the ocean with her son. When she walked the shores at night, the waves pleaded for her to come home. She dreamed of holding her child again, and woke with tears on her cheeks.
On the carriage ride back to The Quay, Oriana noticed Cait seemed off. The first mate typically walked with a swagger, and her eyes could pierce through even the most terrifying orc. Instead, she fidgeted with her sleeve hems and her eyes had softened. What had started off as such an exciting day, resulted in both Oriana and Cait falling into an uneasy silence, and the selkie’s heart sank even further.
On the ride up to the fountain, Oriana had chatted away with the other passengers. She delighted in their stories, flinging one question after the other at them. On the way back, even the fae soldier sitting across from her couldn’t bring back her inquisitive nature with his battle stories and plans for exploration.
Oriana’s somber mood continued to her room on the ship, where Grant waited for her with open arms. She nestled under his handsome chin and laid her head against his chest to hear his heartbeat.
“Where’s my bubbly selkie?” Gallant Grant asked. “Perhaps you should have stayed at The Quay. Seeing your own death must have been grim.”
Oriana lifted her head at the mention of her death vision and gazed up into her lover’s handsome, smiling face. “Actually, it was wonderful. Grant, I die a selkie.”
The captain’s smile stiffened, becoming a thinly veiled grimace. His fingers dug a hair too deep into her flesh. Oriana winced, but Grant didn’t seem to notice.
“I guess the fountain’s lost its magic,” he said. “There’s no way you could become a selkie without your skin. Look, I bought you some pretties. I’ll be right back.”
Grant walked to their room’s exit and stopped to say, “Stay here, Ori.”
As Grant left their room, a dark suspicion crept into the back of Oriana’s mind. She listened to his footsteps as they disappeared down the hallway beyond the door that was closed in front of her. He had told her to stay. Why?
Defying Gallant Grant’s orders never worked out for any of the crew, but Oriana’s hands soon turned the doorknob and she tiptoed out of their room. Skirting the shadows on silent feet, she trailed far behind him and then watched her lover open a small room she must have passed by hundreds of times over the years. It was Grant’s personal treasury, which he alone possessed the key to enter.
Oriana held her breath and pressed her back against the wall when the light from Grant’s candle splashed into the darkened hallway, reaching just a few feet away from her. She gave a silent prayer of thanks to all the saints of the Holy City when the captain’s eyes passed right over her presence in the corridor’s deep shadows. His light turned back into the treasury room interior, and she saw him clutch a handful of jewels. Then he stopped and turned to look at a small chest, which Oriana hadn’t even noticed in the crowded space. Kneeling, he checked its lock and let out a relieved sigh.
Oriana scurried back into their room, her heart pounding. Doubts, never known to her before, screamed in her head. What was in that chest?
Grant didn’t notice her lack of enthusiasm when they made love that night. He fell asleep right away. Oriana stared at the ceiling and tried to give in to the ship’s hypnotic sway as they traveled west to Brig Island. They planned to sell some treasures at the Magician’s Marketplace there.
Memories floated through her mind of the storm that had separated her from her seal skin and her child. She remembered feeling naked and exposed when Grant scooped her up in his arms and carried her to shelter. Fear had rippled through her for her child. Yet, that very night, the captain had charmed his way between her legs. Looking back on this, Oriana understood how strange it was that she would feel any urge to make love during such a moment. If he had her skin, he could control her heart.
Oriana studied the captain’s chiseled jaw and black lashes. Men and women alike were drawn to him like moths to a flame. He didn’t need any magic to win them over. She had nearly talked herself out of believing this terrible suspicion until she remembered how quick he had been to give up when they searched the shores the next day for her skin.
Realizing she wouldn’t fall asleep any time soon, she slid out of bed and pulled on a night shift. Moonlight streaming in from the porthole shone down on the pile of Grant’s clothing on the floor. Glinting from the folds, his keychain was just visible. Oriana bit her lip, weighing the risk before stooping to pluck it up.
The keys jingled, and she clasped a fist around them to stop the sound. To Oriana’s surprise, Grant remained undisturbed in their bed. So she retraced her steps down the dark path from her room to the small treasury, noticing every creak she made in the blanket of silence.
The crew kept a strict curfew; no one would see her lurking around the hallways. Her shaking hands dropped the keys at the doorway to the forbidden room, and Oriana had to scramble to pick them up. She opened the door and darkness waited for her. Without a candle, she had to use her memory of where things were placed. Her searching hands fumbled over the various containers filling the room until she found the small chest.
More than her physical senses confirmed what she already suspected. Something inside this chest called to her, pulling her spirit closer like an esoteric magnet. It wanted her as much as she wanted it.
She tried key after key in the chest’s lock until, finally, one opened it. Slipping a hand inside, she felt the dense, slick fur that had once been hers. Her skin blossomed with goosebumps, and she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Her spirit soared, only to crash when the glow of a candle lit up the small room, and a cry tore from her throat.
“Ori?”
Oriana whirled to see Cait standing in the doorway with a stunned expression. Worried that she must appear to be stealing from the treasury, Oriana pulled her hands out of the chest and held them up to show she had nothing in them. She had to explain.
“Cait, he had my skin. He had it this whole time.”
“Is she there?” Grant’s voice asked from the hallway. Oriana’s heart leapt up to her throat. The captain’s face appeared next to Cait’s, and his eyes widened when he noticed the small chest sitting wide open. “It’s not what you think.”
“You monster!”
Oriana jumped to her feet and lunged for her lover. He grabbed her hands and easily twisted them behind her back.
“Ori, I loved you at first sight,” Grant whispered into her ear. “How could I let you go?”
<
br /> “You took me away from my son!” Oriana cried.
Grant said nothing, but dragged her through the halls as she struggled in futility. At barely five feet tall and light as a feather, her efforts only exhausted her, while the tall, muscular captain remained unfazed. Oriana twisted and writhed as he took her below deck to the brig.
“You’ll sit in here until you realize what I did was best.” Grant pushed her into the wrought-iron cage of a room and locked the door. Oriana spit through the slats onto his face. He wiped her spittle off his thin, displeased lips. “You’re overreacting.”
“You lied to me for years and stole my identity,” she said.
Her words fell on deaf ears, and Grant turned around, leaving her behind.
“What about my child?” she cried.
This made Grant stop. Still with his back to her, he said, “I can put another one in you, once you realize how good you have it.”
Oriana crumpled to the ground, a torrent of tears gushing from her. She leaned against the bars of the brig as she re-examined her memories in a different light. Until tonight, she had never quarreled with the captain. From the beginning, she had been happy to give him all of her love and fealty. When he snapped, she came running.
More than once, she had been willing to risk her life for him. When she saw him in danger during a ship raid, she didn’t even think before throwing herself into the battle to defend him, and she never failed to heal his wounds with her selkie tears. That alone made her worth keeping around.
He said he had loved her at first sight. Yet, he and his crew never shied away from brothels. Was she just another treasure for hoarding?
Her mother had always told her she would know true love when the other person valued her happiness above their own. That’s how Oriana had felt about her son. She hadn’t worried so much about his safety since they were separated. She knew her colony would take care of him. Still, she longed for her child the way any mother would, missing his rounded cheeks and lamblike bleat. She could almost pick up his unique scent if she concentrated hard enough.