"The Girl from the Golden Isles" (closed)

[CutiePie1997]

Deleted. I am restarting this with another writer simply to keep all of the storylines of this universe with one writer. No offense to the writing partner that I had in this thread.

 

[CutiePie1997]

Not that I am in a hurry...

Adee recalled the last words she'd spoken to her mother before the woman's death 18 days ago. As if committing one last violation against her rebellious daughter, Lady Quinn had stopped breathing during the dark hours of that very night. Her frail body had been cleaned and made pretty for a viewing before being taken to the shoreline where the pyre filled the night with crackling flames that could be seen by fishing boats out beyond the western horizon of the Known World.

The frantic activity that always followed the death of a land's Titled Noble had finally died down, and now Adee had the halls to herself. She had temporarily been the Lady of the Golden Isles. For 18 days, she'd ruled the isles and had been able to tell the others what to do and where to go. And her orders had all been of one direction: leave ... me ... alone!

Adee reached the end of the outer wall and looked out between the crenellations to the port. The Nurvan envoy's boat was still tied to the dock, where it had been for moons, waiting to take Adee to her new husband. Now in charge, Adee could have sent the boat and its Noble occupant away without her.

Now...

Now had ended this morning, though, when the boat anchored farther out in the bay arrived. It carried Adee's sister, Paula, who as the eldest of Lady Quinn's surviving children was the real Lady of the Golden Isles. Also on the boat had been Paula's husband, the son of the Baron of Kinth, in the eastern reaches of what had once been the Meretheni Federation. Paula had barely stepped into the coach that would take the sisters back to the castle before she began telling Adee what was going to very quickly begin happening.

Little had the youngest sister known, but the Barons of Nurva and Kinth had been negotiating a number of treaties during Lady Quinn's sickness. And now with the woman's death, it was time for Adee to fulfill her part of the arrangement by sailing to the Frenkish Empire and spreading her legs to receive the Baron's seed and give him an heir who, in turn, would someday be wed to an heir of Kinth.

"M'lady...?"

Adee flinched out of her daydreaming, turning from the window to find her Protector, Wurvin, bowing respectfully to her. "What is it, Captain?"

"We have an issue that requires your attention, m'lady," he said with a reluctant tone.



Adee looked through the barred door of a cell in the Port Sheriff's Keep at a man whose eyes were swollen shut, whose lower lip was swollen and cut, and whose ankle was shackled to a ring anchored in the wall. He wore the uniform of the Castle Guard, which would have been bad enough; but even more than that, he had been slated to be one of Adee's Protection Detail for the voyage to Nurva.

"He raped and murdered a tavern wench who commented on the size of--" the Sheriff began explaining, stopping suddenly when he realized the inappropriateness of his description. The Sheriff finished, "The tavern owner felt slighted."

"Slighted...? Adee asked, snorting in derision. She turned to leave, no longer having any more use for this man. "Punish him without concern for who his former employer was."

Adee may have been young, but she knew the punishment for killing a whore. The man would spend five years in shackled servitude to the Barony in any one of its many labor intensive industries. She also knew that the life span of men sentenced to such labor.

Wurvin was waiting for Adee outside, telling her, "I have already assembled several men to replace him, m'lady."



Back at the castle, six Guardsmen -- all males -- were lined along one side of a passageway, facing five others on the other side. The latter, which included two female archers, had already been chosen to escort Adee on her voyage. Wurvin would have liked to see a thousand men make the transit with the teen. But the Nurvan envoy feared attracting attention from the growing population of pirates operating near the mouths of the Western and Eastern Yall Rivers. The fleet, therefore, would be limited to the envoy's boat and a second Nurvan craft that had recently arrived. Although the boats were fast, they were small. The passenger manifest on the first boat would, therefore, be limited to the envoy, Adee, two Protectors, and two crew; and on the second boat to the other four Protectors and two more crew.

Adee looked over the six Guardsmen standing tall and straight. They varied greatly, in height, build, skin tone ... and aesthetic-ness. Trying to be inconspicuous, Adee studied the man at the far end of the row...

http://i.imgur.com/D9Ued6j.jpg?1​

He was ... scary looking. Big, muscular, fierce. She had heard tales of other cultures holding Gladiatorial events in which men battled one another, sometimes for money, other times for glory. She could just imagine this man in such a stadium, swinging a hammer at another man's head, crushing it into bloody mass; or stabbing a heavy sword through the armor covering a man's torso, easily penetrating the steel and flesh alike.

Stadiums aside, it was likely that the man had used his weapons. The Golden Isles had once been the safest place to live in the whole of the Known World. But after the Falling Wars and the collapse of the forces that had once protected them, the isles had suffered greatly at the hands of rebellious Nobles and pirates alike. Lady Quinn had always believed that her exile to the Isles had been an effort by her dead husband's brother to see her meet a violent end. She had prevented that by expending all of her wealth and selling off her daughters in an effort to secure and pay for a Protection Force.

"Introduce me," Adee requested of Wurvin.

She nodded toward the row of men. Despite the Captain beginning with the closest of the men, Adee's attention often went back to the scary man at the end. There was something simply intriguing about him. Her Protector walked slowly down the line, naming each of the men before telling them to describe their history prior to and during their service to the House.

Adee turned to look at the line of Protectors behind her at the mention of one man's name, then again at the mention of another. She met the gaze of one of her female Protectors, Braana, who looked to the floor in embarrassment. Braana had been the only adult with whom Adee could talk about adult things, and during one night of explicit talk that often left a blushing Adee giggling in disbelief, Braana had confessed to having had some interesting sexual relations with these two men, something she'd regretted later.

Adee looked back to the row of wanna-be Protectors and crossed the two of them off as Wurvin continued. When they got to the last man, Adee studied him as he was introduced and asked to tell about himself.

 

[KaosuMakoKino]

http://i.imgur.com/D9Ued6j.jpg?1
"Nihilo Duitae. 19 years of age, family... don't have them... not anywhere near here, anyway. My skills reside in tracking, mid and close ranged combat, and a few more... unusual tricks," Nihilo's tone was dry and didn't sound all that interested.

His dark amber eyes flickered to the other 'Protectors', noting that none of them had their bodies tense and prepared. He tilted his head slightly, his gaze scanning around keenly before his gaze drifted back to the slim young woman who was 'hiring them'. A soft inhalation was the only sound of mild annoyance he made, though he did note that the girl, at least, was tense.

His past, in many ways, was extremely complicated. He had grown up almost the exact opposite as he was now, a 'rich' boy, though he'd rarely enjoyed such wealth, seeing little need as he preferred action to sitting around and having things handed to him. There were slight, old burn scars beneath the armor of his forearm bracers, revealing he'd had experience at the forge, which explained part of his muscular frame. Unknown to the other guardsmen, his armor was actually highly modified to push his body to the absolute limit with every slight movement. It was, however, not noticeable unless he pointed it out. He had also modified most of his own weapons, especially the heavy blades diagonally hanging over his back, to be both close and ranged in nature. He had a heavy sword hanging at the small of his back, one that most men would have great difficulty picking up as it was... temperamental at best. His abilities were.. unusual, to say the least. Most would have said 'superhuman' or... more risky, 'supernatural'. However, he rarely employed beyond the Zanjutsu and Taijutsu abilities he possessed. His more dangerous and lethal skills, he kept to himself, though he was lethal enough without them.​

 

[CutiePie1997]

Adee studied the man, this Nihilo, as he spoke. He was confident, there was little doubt about that. That would be helpful if ever Adee ran into trouble with outsiders, such as the pirates the Nurvan envoy had warned them of. But, could a little girl such as Adee trust a big powerful man such as Nihilo if ever the two of them were alone? Adee had heard horrific stories of what a strong man could do with a vulnerable woman. Hell, she'd just seen one such man locked up in the Sheriff's cell.

She looked up and down the line, then spoke with a confidence that was hard to muster in the face of such brutes, "The voyage to Nurva will not be a long one, but your return to the Golden Isles ... should you choose to return, may be Moons, even Years away. If you have family you do not wish to leave behind, speak up now."

Glances between the potential Escorts, Wurvin, and Adee told her that there was some hesitance on that part. The men before her had only been told they would be escorting a noble woman via boat to a distant land. They'd never been told that their return might be so far into the future, if ever.

"There may be dangers for which you are not prepared," she continued. "Not only men with weapons such as yourselves ... but treacherous seas ... rocks just below the waves that can rip a boat apart, sending a man in armor to the bottom of the sea ... blood thirsty pirates who walk the waters of the Great Circle Sea as well as you walk the land of the Golden Isles ... plagues that once inside you make your eyes bleed..."

Adee didn't really know what she was talking about, and that which she did know about she was stretching quite a bit. She was just testing the resolve of the Guardsmen, to see who flinched at the tales she was weaving. There were snickers from some and wide eyes from others. It was obvious from their reactions who could be easily scared by known and unknown things; or who was too superstitious to venture to a distant land about which they knew little to nothing.

Adee had reduced her choice to just two men. One was about the prettiest man she'd ever seen in her life, and she could see herself sitting alone with him under the stars, talking about adult things that would make her heart beat faster. Of course, he was one of the men who had already made her female Protector's heart beat hard and fast, so Adee knew that that might become a problem.

She walked down to stand before Nihilo for a moment, then -- trying to show her bravery -- stepped up close to him. She picked up his manly scent in her nostrils, something she rarely detected as she never got this close to men as a matter of propriety. She studied his face, then let her gaze drop to his amazing strong body. Looking back up, she asked, "For your Lady ... we you leave the Golden Isles ... for months ... maybe years ... maybe the rest of your life?"

After he'd answered, she studied him another moment, then continued, "Will you always show your loyalty to your Lady ... will you always be by her side ... protect her ... do for her every thing she asks ... even if it is contrary to the orders and wishes of the Baron of Nurva ... her betrothed-to-be?"

Again he answered, again she studied, and again -- this time in a softer but still serious tone -- she asked, "Will you kill for your Lady?"

After he'd finished, Adee's lips spread a bit wider, showing her satisfaction. The man still scared her a bit, but ... she knew that if he scared her, he would probably scare anyone who might ever consider harming her, too. She backed up and turned to look at the five Guardsmen who were already part of her Protection Detail, telling them with a confident, demanding voice, "We leave morning after next on the waning tide."

She looked to Wurvin, who snapped his fingers at another Guardsman. The latter moved to the five as Adee continued, "You have tonight to enjoy yourselves in what ever way you wish."

The Guardsmen began handing each of the chosen Protectors a small purse of coin. There would be enough there to have one hell of an evening ... or pay off some debts ... or prepare a family for their bread winner's extended absence.

"Do not arrive at my boat morning after next with your head pounding from drink ... or I will have it cut off and mounted on a post even as I am finding your replacement," Adee continued, sounding very much the confident Lady and not the scared down deep girl that she was. As the Guardsman reached the last of the five and turned, Adee gestured for the last of the purse. She turned, looked to man at the end of the line, then underhand passed it to him, smirking as she said, "Welcome, Protector Nihilo."

A moment later, Wurvin called out, "Dismissed!"

 

[KaosuMakoKino]

http://i.imgur.com/D9Ued6j.jpg?1
Nihilo Duitae
Nihilo cocked his head fractionally as she listed possible threats, most of which he'd already prepared for. "It matters little where I live. What matters is that those whom I protect survive," was his reply to her initial question. He snorted softly at her question about following orders. "The one I swear loyalty to will be my Mistress. Only if a potential suitor proves themselves worthy of my respect would I tolerate them at my back," his tone was cool and controlled. "For the one holding my loyalty, yes. It is action that makes the person, not bluffs and deceit," his reply was simple, if cautious.

He barely shifted his gaze from the young woman's as he let his gaze flick for a second before his hand flashed up from his side, the pouch striking his broad palm before his fingers curled over it.

"The drinks I imbibe aren't strongly alcoholic, nor are they from around here," his tone was deadpan as his gaze flickered over the other guardsmen. "Be cautious of those whom you don't know well. It is not difficult for a traitor to reveal their true colors. It is not something I tolerate, alongside rapists," he said quietly.​

 

[CutiePie1997]

(Map, should you wish to see it.)


Departure Day:

Adee hadn't had a quiet moment since selecting the last of her Protectors day before last. She'd had many moons to select and pack what she intended to take with her on the Envoy's boat, and yet her trunks and bags were still empty and laid out across her bed chamber when she returned to them. For the most part, all she did for next several hours was point an extended finger at things and say yea or nay or give it away as her Bed Chamber, Kurstin, and several other servants rushed about.

Then, despite her short tenure as Lady of the Golden Isles and the fact that it was already over, Adee found herself taking more than three dozen thankfully quick audiences with Nobles, Merchants, and Peasants alike who -- also despite Adee's youth and status as the youngest of Lady Quinn's daughters -- lobbied her for this favor or that to hopefully be fulfilled either before Adee left, as she traveled, or after she arrived in Nurva.

"Where the hell is Fairweather Island?" Adee whispered to her long time Advisor after one peasant had begged the young noble to deliver a letter there on the way. And again later, after a Merchant spoke at too much length about some flower with healing properties of which the Golden Isles needed seeds, she again quietly asked her more knowledgeable aid, "Will these seeds heal me of my throbbing head?"

It seemed as though everyone in the Golden Isles -- many of whom had long been reluctant to do anything for Adee and her House -- suddenly wanted something from it. For moons, Adee had dreaded the day of departure, but by the time the morning of it arrived, she was more than eager to get it over. She loaded into her coach and headed out of the castle gates ... to find the road to the port lined with thousands of citizens, cheering and waving the traditional bow of Golden Spruce as they bid her farewell.

Adee was emotionally unprepared for the show of love and devotion, and as she extended her hand to wave to the masses, tears flowed down her cheeks and thought of not ever leaving once again filled her head. Then, when they reached the dock and Adee was being helped from the coach, she caught sight of a little peasant girl waving a bow and smiling. Instead of heading for the boat, Adee turned to go speak to the little girl, and from within the tighter mass of celebrating citizens, she overheard one of the Advisors to her sister, the new Lady of the Golden Isles, saying to another, "Can you believe that Lady Paula gave up a full months taxes to arrange this spectacle?"

As Adee rose to look at the man, still out of his sight, another advisor standing with him added with a laugh, "The Golden Isles are on the brink of financial collapse ... and our Lady is padding her little sister's ego by lining the pockets of the peasantry. Outrageous."

By the time the second man had finished speaking, Adee's blood was running hot and fast. She spun and stomped her way down to the boat, ignoring all attempts by Nobles, Merchants, and Peasants alike to get her attention and bid their own personal farewell to her. At the boat she ordered Wurvin, "Get us out of here!"

"M'lady," the Captain has just advised me that--"

Adee shot him a hard look and demanded, "NOW!"



Many hours later, when she came up from her tiny stateroom for the first time -- her eyes still poofy from crying -- the Golden Isles had already disappeared from the stern view of the boat. All that remained in their wake now was the slowly setting sun which would, for another couple of hours, put on a spectacular show of colors.

One of the Nurvan crewmen -- also a Protector to the Envoy, who was on the boat a hundred yards to starboard -- bowed to Adee and, without being asked, pointed off over the port bow, then the starboard bow, to explain, "The head rocks of False Bay, m'lady. We will go ashore there for the night."

"No, we continue to Nurva," Adee said sternly. When the Captain of the craft heard this from down below, he poked his head up from the cabin for clarification. Adee asked if they could sail safely through the night, and when the Captain reluctantly told her yes, she waved a hand to the east and said, "Sail on."



The two boats continued to the southeast, past False Bay and toward the mouth of Poisonwater Bay. The two captains used lantern signals to plot a safe course and communicate, deciding that the fleet of two craft would next attempt to port at one of the villages near the Mouth of the Kokalla River, where they could take on water and put up their charge in a real bed for the night.

(In all honesty, the crews of the two boats -- which had been enjoying the fruits of the local taverns for moons -- were already missing the warm, wet pussies that the Golden Isles' desperate financial status had made so inexpensive to rent for the night; and they were hoping to find some equally desperate young women at any of a number of ports between here and Nurva.)

But by noon the next day, a rising storm in the south -- about which the Captain had wanted to tell Adee back on the docks in the Golden Isles -- had shifted and was now bearing down on them. The Captain found himself in a dilemma: trying to outrun the storm on open water to the east could see both boats sunk without any chance of survivors reaching the shore; while turning inland but not reaching a safe port before the storm hit could mean striking any number of uncharted shoals with very much the same result of loss of life.

"I thought this was what you did for a living!" Adee chastised when the Captain came to her with the choices at hand. She had been raised on an island that was often racked by storms, but she was no sailor and didn't understand the dangers of being on the sea in a storm. She again demanded, "Get us to Nurva!"



Adee had returned to her tiny quarters without further discussion to ride out what she assumed would be an hours-long storm. But after three days, the little boat was still being battered by high waves and harsh winds. The second boat had disappeared from view by now, and one each of her and the Envoy's Protectors had gone overboard while attempting to secure the sails and save the mast and rigging.



By the fourth day and the end of the storm, the Captain had no idea of his boat's position. The only thing to do, of course, was sail north until the found land, then find a port at which they could rest, stock up on provisions, do repairs, and continue onward. That wasn't to happen, though.

"Sail!" an excited voice called out. When one of the other crew asked if it was the missing boat, a studying pause was followed by the scariest word ever uttered upon the high seas, "Pirates!"

Adee rushed to the deck at the word, finding the crew rapidly adjusting the sails to achieve the greatest amount of speed on a path away from the quickly closing boat. For almost two hours, as the gap to the land to the north closed, the gap to the pirate craft to the south closed quicker!

"Are we going to make it?" Adee asked Wurvin, who had helped with getting the craft heading away, but was now preparing himself for a fight by arming himself. When the man told her to get below and stay there, Adee begged, "You'll kill me before you'll let them take me, yes?"

"Yes, m'lady," Wurvin said without hesitation, knowing his duty in such an event. He bowed his head to her, then smiled. "But that won't happen ... because I and your escort will give our lives to prevent it."



Adee wasn't sure exactly what happened after that. As feared, the pirate boat had reached the Envoy's craft before the latter reached the shore. From her stateroom, the teen listened to the shouting of the belligerents and the clashing of blades. At one point, an arrow passed through a gap in the hull and sunk into the wood just two feet from Adee, causing her to scream out. Men were dying, she knew. And suddenly, the fear was simply too overwhelming for her to simply hide in a corner and wait for the worst.

She stripped off her gown and, in just her undergarments and boots, fled to the deck. She had intended to leap overboard, believing that with her swimming skills, she would be better off alone in the water heading for shore than trapped in this waterborne coffin where she would surely be raped repeatedly before being fed to the sharks.

But just seconds after leaving the cabin, something struck her...



...and when she came to, Adee was on the beach of an unknown shore...

...and the only face looking down upon her was the most recent of her acquaintances, the Protector Nihilo Duitae.

 

[KaosuMakoKino]

http://i.imgur.com/D9Ued6j.jpg?1
Nihilo Duitae
Nihilo exhaled softly and slowly, managing to steady his breathing. Blood ran down from a cut along his hairline above his right eye. There was also a fresh, deep gash that ran over his left eye, missing the ocular organ and leaving a shallower cut along his jaw. He exhaled softly as she awoke with a start.

He had found the simpering crowds mildly annoying, as he'd dealt with that too much in his past. His eyes drifted closed as he looked out over the sea. He knew they were a few days north of the False Bay, yet closer to the Grand Steppe, at the present time.

"The pirates will not pursue us. They did not survive," he said coolly, not revealing how, precisely that had happened. It was a very dangerous secret of his, however, one that, if he so desired, could pass to others, though it could take various forms. He was fortunate, however, that his grandfather had left him with something... or more precisely, someone... that had been with him all his life. He had chosen not to pass the burden onto his children, but he had, however, passed Kurama's assistance to his grandchildren, and considering his father, aunt, and grandfather all lived close to three hundred years each, while he was only in his early twenties, said a lot about how long his life would likely be.

He had, unfortunately, been forced to reveal one of his more lethal skills, though it hadn't really done much good.​