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In case the outfit didn’t give it away, I’m a pirate. Used to be, anyway. These days I just stick to the dry land.
By the age of five, I was sailing across the whole world. Never knew my parent, but my crew was my real family. They took me in and showed me how to be strong.
One day, I was out playing by myself while the ship was docked in Ashrion, a small city on the coast of Briquanasa. No one on the crew was around. They placed a bag over my head and snatched me up. I would have sent them running with blood in their boots if I’d had the chance, but I didn’t and that was that.
They were slavers, by all appearances, and took me by boat to a small but well-defended island prison. My home for the next while was to be a dank and dusty cell. Not much else to say about it except that it was a stinkhole.
Those low-lives barely said a word to me the whole time I was there. All I had for company was the nightly announcement of “lights out!” barked at me every sundown. It didn’t matter how much I screamed and shook my cell bars, most of the time they just ignored me.
When it was all said and done, I had spent three long and, honestly, extremely boring weeks there. I’m getting a touch ahead of myself, though.
Although the cells weren’t the nicest I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a few, at least I got fed. I really had no idea who these people were or what they wanted with an urchin like me. The guards weren’t even there half the time. They used to leave during the day to sit around the drink ale, and then come back at night to keep watch.
I tried damn near everything to get out of that pit. I tried breaking through the window bars, slamming myself against the door. Hell, I even tried picking the lock with some straw from my bedding. No surprises on how well that went. It was pointless and they knew I couldn’t get out. After five days, I resigned myself to just sitting there and making friends with the rats.
After one week and five days, someone else actually joined me. Judging from his look, I knew he came from a different world than I did. His clothes were nice – not the nicest, but nicer than anything I had ever owned.
His name was Hal Underbrok, he told me, a noble scribe from a mountain city called Namaturathor. Lotta snow there, or so he said. I had never seen snow before. I think I got on his nerves a bit ‘cause I kept asking about it. It was nothing to him, but for me, you know... However, I digress. He was out on the road on consignment when they nabbed him. He was good to me, very patient and understanding. Truth be told, I started to see him as somewhat of an uncle, a rich and funny one that I’d never had the pleasure of knowing before. We were very different but he did his best with me and we got along well.
After two weeks and three days, yet another unfortunate soul joined us. It was an elf girl – one of the pale ones. I thought she might have been a ghost at first, with hair, eyes, and skin as white as the snow I’d always heard about. I had never even seen one of her kind before; plenty of elves, sure, but none of her specific ilk. She was small, but clearly a worker. You don’t get hands like those from just sitting around all day.
So, that’s how I met Renna. I caught a glimpse of her when they wheeled her in, though she was limp as a dead fish at that stage. They threw her in the cell and there she lay. From that point on, I heard no sounds coming from her direction except for the daily clinking of her spoon against the bowl at lunchtime. No matter how much the guards would bark at her, she never said a word.
I can still remember the first time she spoke to us, though, as clear as though it were yesterday.
ns 18.68.41.175da2
