#Sadgen Doz

[garethocuinn]

the pirate and the piney

Skyler told me her story today.

There was a dwarf family ice skating on the pond, so we sat out of view and ate the lunch I had brought.  It was the children’s first time out on the ice.  As they struggled to keep their balance, as they fell and got back up again, their laughter bounced off the ice.  Their parents were out there with them, patiently showing them how and holding their hands when they needed it.

Even from our perch, we could tell the parents were tired. Dad moved a little slower than he wanted, Mom would correct her slouch and stand a little straighter. They were stiff, tired, and sore from a hard week’s work, but they were here now because this is what was important to them. This is what they lived for. This is why they worked so hard.

“I never knew my father,” I said, then quickly corrected, “well, I mean, I can count on one hand how many times we’ve been in the same room.”

Skyler produced a flask from a satchel.  “This was given to me by . . .”  She scrunched her nose as she tried to remember, “Sadgen Doz, a hunter out of Velen.”  She poured me a cup and then one for her.  As she crammed the cork back into the flask, smacking it with the palm of her hand, she warned, “it’s a spice whiskey.  It’ll warm you up, loosen you up and clear your sinuses.”  We toasted Sadgen, thanking him for the drink, and burned ourselves from the inside out.

I could barely hear her laughing over my coughing.

“You tried to warn me!”  I laughed.

“I did at that.”

“I grew up in a tavern, you’d think I could handle just about anything!”  My cheeks were red, my entire face was pulsing.

“Your mom run a tavern?”

I nodded, “The Salty Dog’s Pollucks, in Tulmene.”

“I think I’ve heard of that.”

“It’s a nothing hole in the wall.”

“You’ve just described all of Tulmene.”

It mas my turn to laugh, “I did at that.”

“That means,” she sipped her whiskey, “your father was . . . a merchant -- no, a sailor!  No, a pirate!”

“We have a winner!” I cheered a little too loudly.

She shushed me, shooting a glance down to the pond.  The dwarves hadn’t heard us -- or didn’t care.

“The son of a pirate!”  Skyler marveled.  “Anyone I know?  Anyone I heard of?  Someone infamous?  Wait!”  She held up a finger.  “What did you say your name was?  Ó Cuinn?”

I waited.

“Ó Cuinn, Ó Cuinn, Ó Cuinn . . .”  A dreadful wave of recognition washed over her face.  “Not Captain Ó Cuinn!”

I nodded.

“Cruel Captain Coin was your father!?”

“Still is,” I nodded, “I think.  Haven’t heard one way or the other in a couple of years now.  And,” I added, suddenly feeling defensive, “he wasn’t always ‘Cruel’ Captain Coin.”

I don’t know why I felt defensive.  I don’t know why I felt like I had to explain him to her, but I did.

“He was a good guy.”

“Oh,” her eyes widened mockingly, “he was one of the good pirates.”

“Hoarding wealth was not the game he started out playing, but . . .”  I trailed off.  We both knew where that thought ended.

“Freedom for the wolves,” Skyler said, softly breaking the silence, “often means death for the sheep.”  She sipped her whiskey.  “It’s the sheep’s job to clothe the wolf.  If they can’t do that, they feed the wolf.  If the sheep finds a way to live and keep its wool, keep its skin, the wolf says the sheep is cheating.  The sheep says, ‘but I’m just doing what you’re doing,’ and the wolf says ‘know your place,’ and sics the pack on it.”  She gave a quick shrug and a smile.  “But what do I know?  I’ve have rejected human society and live alone in the forest.”

“Do pineys have the same problems as humans?”

“We’re all the same,” Skyler said with disgust.  “Elves, dwarves, orcs, humans or pineys.  Everyone wants to be on top and in order for there to be a top, there has to be a bottom.”

“I think,” I nodded, “I mean, I don’t know, but I think that’s what made my dad set sail.  There’s different stories I’ve heard, how he stowed away on his first boat, how he became a cabin boy and how he took over his first ship.  The one thing they all agree on, though, is that he wanted to help others.  He targeted ships from kingdoms that could handle being robbed.  If he could do it without spilling blood, he would.  He paid his crew well, took care of his ship, squirreled a little away for a rainy day and when he came into port, he would just give the rest away.  At some point . . . At some point he began to believe everybody owed him something.  He was changing their lives, saving them and what was he getting return?  Shouldn’t every port celebrate his arrival?  Shouldn’t the taverns give him a place to stay, food to eat, ale to drink?  Forget brothels charging him and his crew, what woman dare say ‘no’ to him?”

I don’t often talk about my father.  It always leaves me in a fouler mood than when I began.

“You carry so much with you,” Skyler prodded, “don’t you?”

“I guess so.”

“You measure yourself to him.”

I nodded.

“Again, it’s so different with pineys.  In the traditional human sense of the words, I know who my mother and father are and they loved me very much but I was raised by village.  I was everyone’s child and everyone was my family.  There were far fewer specific roles anyone played.  It was by looking at everyone, and comparing myself to all my surroundings, I was able to learn who I was.  I didn’t measure myself to someone, I measured myself to everyone.”  Then with a smile and a flare she said, “and this is who I decided  I am.”

“It’s a good choice.”

“Less of a choice and more of a discovery.”

“But you chose this,” I said, “this form.”

“Because it’s who I am.”  She tapped her heart.  “Inside and out.”

“So,” I prodded back, “if pineys are so great, why are you out here?  By yourself?”

“Ugh,” Skyler’s face soured.  “It’s a long story.”

The dwarf family was still skating.  “I’ve got time.”

“I met a boy.  Human boy.  Dark hair and dark eyes.  Loved him.  Fell madly, deeply, uncontrollably and foolishly in love with him.  The village didn’t like him, he was human.  Can’t trust a human.  He tried to win them over but they weren’t having it.  They rejected him.  So I appealed to the magic of the forest and became a woman for him.”  Skyler winced.  “Not for him but things might be different if I had met a girl.  Humans let all these organs and things define them way too much but -- I will say -- when I saw my reflection for the first time, it was like I was seeing me for the first time.  This is who I was born to be.  We ran away, he and I.  Married under the full moon.  Got pregnant.”  Skyler stared into the bottom of her cup.  “Lost the baby.  Tried again and again and it never happened.  Then one night he left me a note and I never saw him again.”  Her laugh was a mocking laugh.  “It was too much for him and I never saw him again -- well, that’s not true.  About a year later I found a gnawed up skeleton wearing his cloak, so . . .”  She looked at me.  Her eyes swirled with melancholy conflict.  “That’s me.”

“Wow,” I said, eager to lighten the mood but profoundly appreciative that Skyler would share this with me, “he just became my absolute least favorite person.”

Skyler laughed.

“Did he have a name?”

“Alec McQuillan.”

“No!  You fell in love with someone named Alec?  Alec!  Really?”

Skyler laughed.

“Rubbish name for a rubbish human being.”

“I think it’s partly why they won’t take me back, why they cut me off.”  Skyler theorized.  “They tried to tell me.  They saw him for what he was and I turned my back on them.”

“Wait.  Does that make your Skyler McQuillan?”

“Fuck no.”  Skyler almost did a spit take.  “The night he left me, he lost every part of me.  I pruned him out of me.”

“Well, speaking for humans . . . and for men, I’m sorry.”

“He ruined me for both.  Never again.”

Then she gave me a look, a testing glance, that said that might not be entirely true.  Neither of us lingered on it.

“You don’t have to sit up there!”  A big, surly voice boomed off the ice.  We looked over the dead, leafless bush we sat behind.  The dwarf family was waving at us.  “You can come down here and skate with us!”

So we did.

#Skyler #Fisher's Pond #Sadgen Doz #spice whiskey #pirates #laws #piney