KingSweet

Titled Target

I danced with knives, my bare feet shuffling across the rough shingles at the peak of the roof.  Music blared in my ears, blocking out the any sound I would have heard in Angola at two a.m.  It focused my energy on my training, kept my attacks sharp and reflexive while my mind remained blank.  The training kept me sane, reminded me of who I was. 

Here, by day, I was required to play the part of the perfect lady.  I was called Darling, though that was not my name by birth.  Yet I was the perfect model of the name.  I cleaned willingly, dressed modestly, and embroidered various articles of clothing… for fun.  My mother ate it up, dragging my brother and me all over town to show us off to her friends.  She pointed out, day after day, that I was unlike any teenage girl in the city.  I was calm and respectful, had perfect posture, and thought of others, no longer putting myself first.  Her friends would congratulate her, praising her on her decision to send me to Effugere, the etiquette camp in Tuscarora. 

Yet at night, when I knew my mother and brother had long since gone to bed, I practiced what I truly learned at camp.  I brought out the large butcher knife from the kitchen and the little butterfly knife I had purchased from a 24 hour convenience store a few miles up the road.  On the roof, with only music to fill my mind, I was a pirate.  I trained with the knowledge that once I returned to camp, I would be fighting for my life.  Last year, during my first year at camp, there was a price on my head.  Many of the pirate captains feared my ability to produce and control fire, claiming I was too strong to be allowed to live.  It had been my captain, Mají-jalio Rose, who had kept me safe, taking me into his crew even though I was a girl and worse yet, a tag-a-long. 

At the thought of my former captain my foot slipped from the very peak of the roof, shifting my balance and sending me tumbling down the side of the roof, one foot hanging over the gutter before I caught myself.  Despite my best efforts, Mají-jalio Rose had stolen my focus once more, and whenever he arrived the rest of the painful memories were always soon to follow.

            I had loved Mají-jalio… I still did.  But when he betrayed me, I attacked him.  I failed of course; he was a better pirate than I ever would be.  He turned my own magic against me, and could have killed me but my best friend, Briamy, had saved me at the last moment.  He killed her for interfering, and for killing her, I killed him, taking his titles of Captain and King of Pirates in the process.

            It wasn’t until later that I realized that by killing him I had taken his titles as well.  Now, technically, I was Captain Gittoran Flame Scarlet, Queen of Thieves, and King of Pirates.  With that mouthful, it meant I was the most powerful person in the game, and that anyone who killed me, would take my titles, and my power.  It was for this that I trained every night, because I wanted to stay at camp, in Effugere.  If I was killed I would have to come home, attending high school like a normal junior while still acting the painful part of the perfect lady. 

            Yet even with all the training, I was nervous to return to my pirate world within Effugere.  Not a day passed by when I didn’t think of Mají and Briamy.  I was plagued by “what if’s”, by anything I could have done differently; anything that would have kept one or both of them alive.  I could have forgiven him for betraying me, or left Briamy where she would have been safe.  Hadn’t I known she was a pacifist?  She had refused me the first time I had tried to give her my red-hilted dagger.  Why did I think she would magically know how to use it when I gave her firesweet?   The more I thought about it, the more I missed them, and the more I blamed myself.  No one else did of course.  We were pirates, and vengeance was expected.

Even Mají’s best friend, Jumé-falio, didn’t blame me.  He had actually warned Mají that I might kill him from the very beginning.  He had explained about the prophesy surrounding the Griffon’s child.  Both he and Mají knew that the child would arrive, bring back magic powers, fall in love with his or her captain, and then kill the captain love.  I had done all of those things, fulfilling the first half of the prophesy and confirming Jumé’s suspicions.