I'm sorry that this chapter took longer than expected - but, as you'll see, I wasn't eager to write this one.
WARNING: THIS CHAPTER IS GRAPHIC. If you do not feel up to it, do NOT read it.
The Shadows Dance
Delmaria stayed in the fortress for quiet away, under the watch and guidance of his father. His "staying area" was relocated from the dingy old cell in the jail area to small, old storage room, decorated only by a few empty boxes and a cot against the back wall. There was nothing special about it, but Delmaria was determined to make due.
He became a part of the society of pirates just like he always did, assimilating and knowing where his place was. There was no work to be done around here - the only real jobs were carried out by the guards and the captains, seeing as how small of a population the hideout actually held - so Delmaria mainly kept to himself the first few weeks he stayed, especially because the room often was cooler than the rest of the pirate palace. Yet it was roughly in the first few days of August when this all changed. A guard was sent to Delmaria's room, instructing that he meet his father in one of the holding rooms down past the right wing of the armory.
Delmaria went down through the hallways of the corridor, looking in to the large rooms that he passed as he made his way to the room given to him. He watched as some of the guards that patrol the jail areas where the prisoners are held jab, swing, and cut at targets furnished out of wooden posts and bags of grain, acting as rough with them as they did the actual jail dogs. They grunted, fought, and even at times pushed around the dummies like they were attacking them, aggressiveness slowly building in each of them.
He finally wrapped around in to the room he was instructed to go, where he was met by his father staring at him from the middle of a blank, tan stone room, save a small window that sat atop the far wall. His father gave him a blunt stare, showing no emotion as his son stepped forward, a look on his face mired by confusion and misunderstanding. "Father....? Are you al-"
Before he could complete the sentence, Delmaria heard a loud, raging yell come from behind him, accompanied by forceful footsteps that pounded their way towards him. He turned his head quickly, but stopped his head short just before the blade that was stuck at the side of his neck. A short, iron cutlass shaved the side of his neck, held still by Teague's firm hand, which held it out from the hilt of the sword. He exchanged a glance with the boy, before slowly pulling back the sword and sheathing it, walking past Darkskull to stand next to the captain.
Balnette gave another cold, long stare, before taking a short breath, and speaking. "Do you know why I brought you here?"
Delmaria looked around the room, still dazed and confused as to what was going on. "Apparently not." he said comically. He had become comfortable around his father once more, except not in an obedient matter - instead, in a matter of almost equality between the two. But he was beginning to feel that wouldn't hold up, by his father's face of sheer lack of amusement.
"There's a lot I've been keeping from you, my boy." Balnette said with a withdrawal, like he didn't want to say it, but had to. "I believe I'll start from the beginning. What you are standing on was once a fortress used to hold only the lowest of criminals. Treasonists, political enemies of the Crown, privateers of a rival nation, and of course, pirates. Unfortunately, it was abandoned due to constant riots and rebellion from within the cells - yet instead of all the men here being left to die, they used this place as a way to forge and build their anger.
"They used their years of experience from all known reaches of the world to create a new mecca - a Pirate Babylon, if you will. And when their opportunities came, they used their new knowledge and brought it with them to the areas they sought out to return to, whether to live in peace, or pillage the men that betrayed them. Yet they all carried the same idea, and with them the same flag - the Jolly Roger, established here as the symbol of the Brethren of the Coast, which has acted as a "free government" for the pirate nation.
"And now, that our nation is under attack, we find ourselves at war. And you are going to help, by becoming a soldier." Balnette patted Teague on the back and stepped backward a few steps. "Draw your sword."
Delmaria reached for his sword and slowly began to draw it out, yet before it was even halfway out Teague let out another blood-curling battle cry, rushing forward and raising the sword to strike. Delmaria rushed to get out the cutlass, but it was too late by the time Teague rested the tip of his blade lightly on Delmaria's shoulder. A physical, gruff sigh came from the back of the room, and you heard the father's voice call out. "Again."
Teague returned to his original spot, waiting for the boy to draw his sword again. Seeing as how speed was the name of the game, Delmaria waited a moment before lashing his hand to his side and drawing his sword with a quick speed. As Teague moved forward, Delmaria drew the sword out and prepared to fight, awaiting Teague's sword to be blocked by his. Yet instead of a clash of metal, Edward raised up his leg and kicked the cutlass out of the boy's hand, then thrusting his sword out inches before his neck.
Another sigh came from the back of the room. "You can practice as many techniques and blows as you want on your own, but nothing will come of it. In battle there is no time to think, it just has to flow easily."
For a moment, Delmaria thought of his time aboard the Commodore's ship, taking in the same advice. Had he repressed those thoughts already?
He focused back in to his father, who was still talking. "War never sleeps, my son. You're going to find yourself fighting for your life at times you would never anticipate. And that is what we plan to do - from now on, at any given moment, whether you are sleeping, training, or eating, you can count on one of us to come after you. And you better be ready."
And sure enough, the man stayed true to his word. The next couple of weeks were true torture to the boy, as every waking moment was left to be lived in anticipation and anxiety. It seemed as though the entire crew was in on the training, as around every corner he would be met with another attack or another fight. Sometimes, he was left to fight against a masked guard with a bloodied dagger in the dead of night, who had somehow broken in to his often-barricaded door room. Other times, he would be eating in the common area when a bottle was thrown from across the room towards him, often shattering small pieces of glass in to his arm or body.
It was after a while that he began to learn how to survive in this place that things started to become more and more aggressive, not as though they were trying to teach him their ways as they were trying to hurt him. On one occasion, he was passing through one of the jail corridors when one of the guards jumped out from around the corner flailing a large, swung cutlass. Delmaria quickly drew his sword and attempted to disarm the pirate, but even after he sent the cutlass across the hallway, which was often the end of such encounters, the guard ran back to his sword, picked it up and engaged in battle once again, twice as furious. Delmaria, who was caught off-guard, tried to block the blow, but instead a trail of blood down his arm, crippling him from using a sword for the next few days. It was nice to get a break from his crusade, but not necessarily how it was brought on was welcome.
He stayed up late that night, not even attempting to sleep through the dull, throbbing pain. Even after all the months he had spent living this life, it still felt like a dream to him - just a very bad nightmare that at one point would end. And even though he had finally found his father, it was still a dreadful journey, because now it was assured to him the rest of his life would be lead like this. He longed once again for the quiet nights in his home, the silent cackling of the fireplace - and most of all, the shining, beautiful smile of his mother.
But she was dead.
And he felt dead, too. He felt that in the blink of an eye, all of his innocence had been slain on the floor just like his mother, bleeding and gurgling. It sent shivers down his spine, the memories of the past, just by how distant they were from the life he lived right now. It all seemed foreign to him, but it was a love for foreign things that had captivated him so - just that idea that the one thing you still have left was so far out of reach. And that was on two respects, one for his lifestyle, and the other for Maria.
Every night could not go without a thought of that pretty girl from the north of Spain with the long, black hair, which just so perfectly complemented every feature of her fine face. Her eyes still sparkled in his whenever he laid down for rest, and it gave him a comforting feeling to just think about her. But he still missed her, longing to see her in person. He thought of where she was, how she was, what she was doing, and all of that. She had become an obsession of his.
It was one night when he was about to sleep that he remember something that had slipped his mind all of this time. He remember the small package that she had slipped to him the first time they had met. He quickly jumped to his feet, pushing the lightheaded-ness that came with getting up so quickly, and ran over to the small bundle of his stuff that sat in the corner of the room. He doubted it could have survived all that it's been through - surely he had been knocked over and around one too many times for it to still be in his pos-
He felt the tips of his fingers brush on a soft piece of fabric, nestled in between a pair of shirts and pants that had been given to him by his father as a fresh pair to slip in to after his current clothes become tethered and bloodied beyond belief. He tore the shirt off the top of it and there, wrapped around by a small piece of leather string, was the small bundle. He latched on to it and bounded gleefully back to his little bed, where he tugged off the string and began to furiously unravel the small thing. Only his imagination could give him an idea of what it was until he actually saw it, and then did puzzle it.
Sitting in his lap was a small, golden ring, the band of which was slightly orientated and twisted like the curving waves of the ocean. Atop it sat a very odd purple gem - it radiated a dark yet fiery purple with red hues around the edges, with a small star-like design sitting just in it's center. Delmaria could feel a few ridges as he tried to slip it on his finger - which fit surprisingly well - and so he took it off and looked on the inside of the band, where there was a small loop of writing running around the inside whirl. He could barely make any of it out, but just as he leaned in to give it a closer look, a banging noise echoed from the door.
1
The two pirates hurried down the corridor, their boots tapping loudly down on the cracked dry stone. It was dark - all of the torches were unlit down here, in the deepest recesses of the building. He was told to never go below the level to which he stayed in when he first came here, but now he had done just that - and he realizes his curiosity was ill-fated. The stone was eerie and black, hallways notably smaller, and the cells close together. But what was different here, was that the cells actually occupied by men, prisoners of war and sailors captured by the rogue band of pirates, grossly thrown together and packed in to the rooms. It was lethally unsanitary, as bodies of the sick rotted in the corner of the cells, piling up like the flies on top of the heaps of rotten flesh.
The stench filed his nose all the way to the back of his throat, shoving his face in to the elbow of his sleeve until he finally reached the end of the long hallway - the very end of the tunnels beneath the fortress. Around the corner was a group of pirates, huddled around in a group, turning to look at the boy, and staring in blank silence. They looked around at each other briefly, before looking back at the boy. One of them, who stood at the front of the group, looked at the guard who had escorted the boy, and nodded.
The next thing he knew, Delmaria felt suffocated. His vision had become blocked, his breathing feeling very narrow and short-sighted as he felt himself being spun off of the ground. The soft fabric that brushed against his face let him realize a bag had been thrown over his head, and as he tried to kick and fight the man who had picked him up, thinking this was another test, but instead was met with almost surprising brute force. The man caught his wiggling legs and threw them back down to their place violently, and a big hand slapped his back, knocking the wind right out of him and giving him a sense of lightheaded-ness.
While he tried to regain himself, he was put down in to a sitting position on a floor that felt just like one in the hallway. He tried to jump to his feet and flee, but he was knocked back by a painful whip that nailed the front of his body like a freight train - it was metal, and that same metal was now being forcefully wrapped around his wrists as he screamed and yelled in protest. It became so tight that his hand felt like it was going to fall off due to lack of circulation, and his bone would collapse under pressure alone. He was forced to stand as the chain was lifted up, but as soon as he maintained a standing position, he felt another fierce piece of metal hit the back of his knees, leading him to rely solely on the chains around his wrists as he sank.
The bag around his head was torn off as he stopped screaming in protest, his throat becoming so tired and cracked it could barely make a noise anymore. His teary eyes looked around the dark room - it was an empty storage room much like when he first fought Teague, only much darker. He watched the backs of the pirates that had subdued him in ambush walk out of the room, and before his voice could muster anything, the large door to the room slammed loudly shut, echoing the complete darkness and isolation he was now in.
He hung in that room for five days.
Not once did the door open, neither for food, nor company, nor even bathroom breaks. He never had to go to the bathroom, however - he was starved to the point just try to give feeling to his stomach hurt him. He was never able to stand up either - accompanied by that still throbbing, consistent pain, he had no strength to muster to help him up. He was left there, bound by his wrists in pain as the skin began to crack, dry, and then bleed. His exposed muscles began to sting against the dirty metal.
When you have nothing to do, your mind runs loose. Delmaria just kept wondering why he had been left here, letting his mind run wild with conspiracy, fear, and horrors. He imagined the worse possibilities, and then his mind allowed them to become worse and worse, allowing him to become more restless and scared. He felt helpless - but more than so, abandoned once again. He wondered if his father was trying to get rid of him, or he had been mutinied against, and his body had been tossed in to the ocean carelessly. Every little thought made his spine shiver.
And not only had he lost his train of thought, but his entire mind. He began humming to himself sensely, without even thinking, as his brain tried to distract him. He became paranoid, so much so that his heart raced at an abnormal rate, and he could not sleep because of his fear. He saw the shadows shift around him, figures of demons and disfigured creatures dancing and prowling around him, or just staring at him from the corner. He would often shout in to the emptiness, thinking it would be away to regain his confidence, and "scare off the monsters."
It was around the break of the fifth day he began to see his own mother before him, standing vividly right before him, fully in color as though she were standing in a brightly lit room. She looked at him with no emotion, as he pleaded to her begs for mercy, help, and belonging. He almost became a child again, begging over and over "Please help me, mommy, please help me..." And as she would once again receded in to the shadows, he mustered a thick, deep, shallow cry, that seemed to carry on in to the darkness forever.
It was the end of the fifth day when the unimaginable happened. The door opened, a line of light slivering through the door, as it was almost blinding to his crust-covered eyelids. He leaned forward in an undead moan, hoping for something to walk in. And somebody did - and they carried a leg of meat. He became excited, but he knew he could not eat it - yet the guard knew, as well. So when she approached Delmaria, she tore off pieces of chicken from the bone and shoved them down his throat, force feeding him. After he had nearly gagged, she forced him to guzzle a bottle of wine, before throwing it to the ground, shattering it to pieces, and walking out of the room, closing the door.
Five more days passed.
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Delmaria's ears slowly perked up as he heard the door to his confinement open again. He barely had any strength left to lift his head, as though he was a lifeless doll trying to gain enough energy to crawl across a floor. He wondered if he really was still alive, or that the light he saw was the gates to the afterlife opening to him. But then, he realized it was real - not because of the figure that entered the room, but because he remembered if anything, he was going to Hell.
His father closed the door behind him, the darkness no longer consuming them by the lantern he placed next to where he stood. He stepped forward, his hands behind his back as he looked over his son. His face had no remorse, nor regret - only the slightest sense of satisfaction, that his son had survived.
Without saying a word, he pulled out a single item from his coat - a dagger. The man dropped his long coat on to the floor, and walked behind his son, again without saying a word. He lost his father, but he knew where he was, the footsteps stopping right behind his back.
The father took the dagger and put a slit in Delmaria's shirt, then grabbing it at both sides and tearing it apart at the seams. The boy had forgotten about all the sweat he had worked up on his back, and accompanied by the murkiness of the room, the stank that came from his back was enough to blind a man. Still, it felt good for some part of his body to be exposed - not for long, though.
He finally was able to let out a scream as his father did a quick cut with the blade on his son's back. As he felt the warm blood run down his son's back, the man spoke. "I do this not in vain, nor vengeance, but in love. In war, any man is left to fight for his own, and war is the true pain a man can deal with. By bringing you here, we have given you something to look back on - something that you will try to repress, but should embrace instead - so that you may understand that life will always have it's perils, but you will always survive."
Another cut.
"You are a soldier of a different breed. You fight for your freedoms based on the pain which you have endured, for all freedom fighters are only justified in their own right if they have already been through the opposite of what they strive for."
Another cut. "Ergg..." Delmaria tried to push through his rotted throat. "Fath.. stop..."
He was ignored. "You will look back on this one day and realize that this has made you strong."
Another cut. "Puh-le-se.."
"You will endure nothing more than this, but so only death."
"Sto..."
"It will b-"
"FATHER!" Delmaria shrieked in the deepest, darkest tone his exhausted voice could muster. The pain was simply becoming too much, his face looking like that of a fish out of water struggling to breath.
Behind him came silence. He thought it was over, until the voice spoke a final time. "In here, I am not your father."
Another cut.
By now, Delmaria could feel a design being carved on to his back, as though his father was making a work of art of him. The pain began to numb, as did his whole body - he was finally beginning to sleep, his mind giving out under the pressure. Whether it would continue or not, or whether he would wake up, he knew this nightmare was over as he faded out once again.
As his senses were just about to close, he heard a final, blurred voice. "In here, I am your retribution."
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I hope you see why.
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