Chapter Text
Like every day, Gyuvin is awoken by the ring of a housemaid. His father, governor of a small unimportant port town, insist on getting Gyuvin used to the way the town is run.
As the eldest of three siblings, it is his duty as well as birthright to take on the title as governor when his father ultimately dies and leaves all of the work to him.
Never once has Gyuvin been asked what he wants, but his father won’t hear him out any time he brings up the fact that one of his younger brothers is much better suited for the job.
So he is dragged out of bed at an ungodly hour every morning to attend boring meetings, go over ledgers filled with numbers and assets, and is forced to make sense of it all.
Today is slightly different though. Today, a colonial secretary sent by the queen is arriving to check on the state of their town. If they implemented all the laws the queen wished to be maintained in her outposts and how good they are on forcing the poor out of the protective city walls.
He is expected to wear a fancy silk shirt imported from Spain and a stylish vest over that coupled with sleek black slacks. The clothing is suffocating him, especially in the humid and warm climate that dominates their small island this time of year.
He lingers if his room for as long as he can before the inevitable can be delayed no longer. A frantic knock at his door informs him that his father is getting impatient and ready to lash out at the house maids any time now if he doesn’t appear before him.
Gyuvin takes a last steadying breath, before he faces the nightmare that is his father under pressure.
“Took you long enough.” His father grunts as soon as he sees him stepping down the stairs into the foyer. “The colonial secretary is expected to arrive at the town hall in half an hour. The queen would never let us forget if we were late.”
“No one said you had to drag me with you.” Gyuvin mumbles. It’s true, Gyuvin doesn’t have an official position in the council, nor is he otherwise obligated to make this visit.
“Don’t be so ungrateful, you brat.” His father chastises him. “You should see this as an opportunity to charm the secretary and other council members. Politics is all about charming people and having them in your pocket. No one will have you as their governor if they despise you. Before you know it, your positions could be questioned and overthrown.”
They step into their carriage and it takes off towards the town hall.
“I’m only twenty, father.” Gyuvin reminds him. “You have at least another twenty years left to live. I don’t see how this is any of my business now.”
In the carriage, his father gives him a seething look from, where he sits across from him. Now more than ever, Gyuvin is reminded of the fact that a carriage is such an uncomfortable way of transport, especially if you’re stuck with a person you hate.
“It is your business because I say so. We need to show a united family front. And you better not make a fool of ours at the meeting, or else.” He threatens.
In a show of self-restraint, Gyuvin manages to keep his mouth shut and not quip back. The best way to not make a fool of himself is by not being notices at all, so he plans to hide quietly in a corner the whole meeting, if his father will let him.
After a short while, they reach their destination and climb out of the carriage in front of the town hall. It’s and imposingly large building that has seen better days, but the fundament stays strong, even after multiple pirate attacks.
“Remember, don’t embarrass us.” His father says to him under his breath as they’re met by the first delegate. He greets them with a smile that could not be any faker, but his father eats it up every time.
“Ah, I see you’ve brought your strapping young lad with you, such a delight! I’m sure he will do great at the meeting!” the delegate gushes in an effort to appease his father. As governor, whatever he decides on is law in this town after all, while all the delegates can do is make suggestions. This specific governor is keen on getting funding and approval for his newest project to rid the poorer citizens of their fresh water supply so that he can open a great koi pond in the garden in front of his mansion.
His father has not given his approval ye, but Gyuvin knows it is only a matter of time before he does. His father doesn’t care much for the normal citizens of this town.
Before either of them can continue with their false compliments, trumpets announce the arrival of the honoured guest, the colonial secretary.
He drives into the square in a carriage that is even more opulent than their own, decked in enough gold to make the horses carry more than half the weight of a normal carriage.
Before he steps out, a footmen lays a stepping stool at his feet and a red carpet is rolled out all the way from the carriage to the entrance of the town hall.
Gyuvin bites his tongue to keep all of his thoughts about that kind of behaviour from spilling out.
He keeps himself to the back of the meeting room for most of it. His father is too busy kissing the secretary’s ass to reprimand him for not charming any of the delegates as he would put it.
During the meeting, the secretary goes through a long list of demands from the queen, and wants to hear how they follow through with them.
It’s nothing he wasn’t expecting. After all, his father basically drilled the agenda of this meeting into his head for weeks now. But he looks up when the topic of pirates is introduced.
With the more and more frequent pirate attacks, not only in their town but in all major cities along the Main Waters as well, it’s no surprise that this topic is brought up. What shakes Gyuvin, however, is the way they go about it.
“As I’ve heard, you’ve had recent pirate attacks as well. I’d like to hear how you dealt with captured pirates and how you plan to prevent them in the future.” The secretary declares.
Proudly, his father pulls himself up before he answers, “All captures pirates have been hanged or otherwise executed, just as the protocol decrees.” Then he gestures to a stack of military plans before them, “And as for preventing them, we’ve taken measurements to secure our port from foreign invaders by installing ten new canons and have arranged for a constant lookout and a new alarm system.”
But the secretary doesn’t show the signs of satisfaction his father was hoping for, instead he furrows his brows and asks, “How long did you keep the pirates imprisoned before execution?”
Gyuvin thinks that is a weird question to asks. From the way his father stumbles slightly, he thinks so as well.
“Not long at all, sir. At most, we keep them in the cells for one night and execute them at dawn, two nights, if it takes us longer to repair the damage in the town square.” He explains, now a bit hesitant.
At that, the secretary is visibly displeased. “And you just leave them in their cell before the are brought on the executioners block?”
“Yes?” his father answers.
“In response to the increased frequency of these attacks, the crown has decided on harsher measures to dissuade the pirates from attacking.” He begins. “From now on, any captured pirate shall be subjected to torture by branding or nail pulling for at least 72 hours before hanging. The screams of the prisoners should be loud enough to dissuade any pirate near enough in the vicinity who might hear.” The secretary holds up the stack of official papers and hands them to his father.
A cold shiver runs down Gyuvin’s back. Torture? The pirates who raided their town never hurt anyone, all they were after was food and other supplies. In his mind, it was bad enough for piracy to warrant immediate execution, but now torture as well? For no reason other than to scare other pirates?
“Do you have anyone in employment who is trained in the arts of torture? If not, the crown is ready is supply you with one.” The secretary explains.
His father is faster in pulling himself together again. “We do not.” He proclaims. “But we would gladly take up the offer of our most gracious queen.”
Finally satisfied, the secretary nods his head and hands over the documentation needed to sign for a royal interrogator.
Gyuvin can’t believe this. His father is just agreeing to this? This kind of behaviour is inhuman, and he won’t stand for it.
“Are you out of you mind?” he suddenly erupts from his corner. “Torture? For what? They have no valuable information that is worth tutoring someone over. They’ve never harmed a single person on this island in their raids, and yet we are subjecting them to a fate worse than death, before sending them to their imminent death days later? This is madness!”
Silence engulfs the room after his outburst. A look at his feather reveals his face, swollen red in anger with the vein on his forehead pulsing wildly.
“Will you be quiet!?” his father demands in a whisper, unwilling to attract more attention.
“Is this your son?” the secretary intervenes.
“Yes.” His father reluctantly admits. “And I’m sorry for his behaviour. The sun must not have become him very well today. I shall send him away immediately.” He tries to minimise the damage inflicted by Gyuvin.
“No need for that.” He replies, “I’m walking out myself. I want no part in this.”
With that he straightens from where he was slouched in the back of the room and walks out.
He knows a lecture will await him back home, but after what he just heard, he plans not to be there when shit is about to go down.
He takes a horse and rides the way back home. Once inside their mansion, he first knocks on the door of his younger brother.
No one answers. After asking a maid for his whereabouts, it turns out that his siblings are out for the day.
He wrestles with himself. He does want to say goodbye to his siblings in person, and at least explain his reasons for leaving. But he doesn’t know at what time they come back, and he can’t afford his father catching him at home. He knows the repercussions of his actions will leave him unable to leave the house the next few days.
His father stopped hitting him years ago, as people in their household started to notice the bruises, but Gyuvin is sure he will make an exception now.
In the end, he settles for writing letters to his siblings, explaining his reasons for leaving and expressing how very sorry he is. He hopes they will not resent him too much.
He grabs the biggest bag he can find and starts packing his essentials, mainly money. He raids the vault in his father’s office and feels no remorse while doing so. The old bastard can survive without a few hundred coin.
Just to rub it in, he takes the family ring with him as well. The ring is made of pure gold and rare yellow diamonds, and Gyuvin quickly chucks it into a small leather pouch with the rest of the coins.
Before he leaves for good, he takes one look at his childhood bedroom. The bed is unmade, as usual, and several stacks of paper are scattered across his desks. In a corner, the collection of rocks from his favourite beaches sit on a shelf next to bottles of ink and books.
He tries to brand the imagine into his memory, before he closes the door and walks down the hallway to his siblings rooms. He puts their letters on each of their beds before walking down the stairs into the main hallway. From there, he takes the servants entrance to exist the building.
His pace is fast and determined. He can’t stay on this island, so to the docks he goes.
Off to a better life.
~
As ironic as it is, he ends up in Tortuga, an unofficial pirate stronghold. The ship that was supposed to take him to another island across the Main Waters got caught up in a storm, and they had to sail to the nearest port before the ship would give in to the damage inflicted upon it.
Before he knew it, he was booked in an inn for two months with still enough money to enjoy all the benefits a free city brought.
Like tonight, where he sits in a tavern and nurses his third pint of rum while watching the other patrons. This establishment is one of the more posh ones, frequented by privateers or other people with money who try their best not to be entangled with any pirate business.
Try as he might, Gyuvin has spent twenty years in a household that despised pirates and often decreed their hangings, so forgive him if he is not used to mingle with them on the regular.
Still, it is obvious that one pirate has made his way into the tavern tonight. He is seated on the table next to Gyuvin and practically has the whole room eating out of his hand.
He is on the shorter side, with short brown hair and a smile that makes him appear friendly and harmless.
The other patrons listen to his every word as he tells his tale about some treasure hunt, and Gyuvin can’t help but overhear.
“Listen to this!” the man proclaims loudly, “There I was, up dancing on top of one of the tables in the Drinking Duckling, someone had the audacity to complain that I toppled over some mead during the activity, and when I went to tell him off he pushed me, yes, he actually pushed me off the damn table! And my mate saw, so you know he had to go up to the dude and tell him off, because how dare he! And I would’ve done it myself but I was still a bit woozy after the fall,” He conspiratorially leans in closer to the person next to him “and maybe due to the excessive drinking, but who cares-“
The whole table erupts into laughter.
“Anyway, since my mate got involved, naturally a fight broke out. So there I was in an all-out tavern brawl, crawling between the tables to not be seen and dragged into the fight when I stumbled upon a back room. In it sat the crew of the Black Rose, acting all secretive and talking about some hidden treasure they were going after. While pouring over a map.”
Nearly every listener bends forward. A treasure? Everyone is curious to hear more about this.
“C’mon, carry on!” one of them demands when the stranger has paused for too long. Satisfied to have them hanging onto his every word, he finally resumes his tale.
“Do you know of the old Pirate King who sailed the Atiny’s Destiny in the East Waters?” Many of them shake their head. It is pirate lore, after all. All the usual patrons try to avoid it.
“According to the Black Rose captain, the old fucker had some real big treasure and hid it all together with his ship when he died. So they want to go about finding the ship and the treasure in it.” He explains. “But now I knew about it, and immediately went to my captain with the information. We decided we wanted to take the treasure for ourselves, no matter the dangers of sirens and treacherous seas-“
“Sirens?” One of the patrons interrupts the pirate, aghast.
“That’s right.” He nods. “The ship wreck is supposed to be buried in the White Isles, which are famous for being in siren infested waters. But we are positive that the map shows a safe passage through the White Isles so that one may find the treasure unscathed.”
“But the map,” the pirate continues, holding up his drink in celebration, “is why I’ve come to this splendid establishment tonight. In only a few hours, the map will belong to us! Right this second, my crew is devising a plan to distract the Black Rose crew and steal the map from them. Then we will be the only one with access to the treasure!”
In a toast, he raises his glass again, the rest of the tables joins him in the celebration, and soon enough liquid slushes over the brim of multiple tankards as they cheer and toast to their sure success.
Gyuvin guesses that the pirate must’ve been well into his cups before coming to this tavern. Surely he wouldn’t just blurt out his crew’s plans in front of random strangers without having lost his mind?
Gyuvin shakes it off. This is none of his business. He is not entangled in treasure hunts or rivalling pirate crews.
~
Meanwhile, one hour later on board of the Soul Seeker, captain Hanbin is anxiously pacing back and forth on his ship. Their plan to steal the map from the Black Rose had failed miserably. The map was not on the ship as he assumed, so their search had turned up empty.
Their plan to distract all of the enemy crew members had been useless. Turns out, the captain was wearing the map on his body all along. And now he was on his way back to ship and readying it for immediate departure, taking with him the map and chance to get enough gold coins to fill their empty coffers.
He is about to give up on this whole endeavour and starts to plan what bank they can rob for more coin, when a strange man walks up to their ship.
He seems to be around the same age as Ricky, and his short brown hair gives him a harmless puppy look. He is tall and wears an expensive silk shirt and spotless clean clothes. A fashion that is completely at odds with this part of town, something a lord would wear, but not a pirate.
After getting a closer look, Hanbin can discern that the stranger is twirling something between his fingers.
“You looking for this?” the stranger asks when he comes in earshot. He holds up the small glass bottle that he was dangling before.
Caught by curiosity and the sheer audacity of this strange man, Hanbin moves closer.
“What’s this?” he asks, gesturing to the glass.
“I believe this is the precious map that you’re looking for.” He states boldly.
Hanbin is stunned into silence. Why would he have that map? How does he even know that they want this map? And idea suddenly strikes him and he turns towards Matthew.
Matthew is their spymaster. And while he always gets all the information they need at record speed, Hanbin knows that he accidentally spills just as much information about his crew as well.
The stare he greets him with leaves no room for excuses or lies, and Matthew quickly folds.
“I,” he drags out, hoping to delay the inevitable for as long as possible, “may or may not have told some people that we were planning to steal a certain map…” he finally admits.
Hanbin doesn’t know what to even say to that.
“You what??” he yells distressed. “How could you be so careless? You set the whole mission in jeopardy because you can’t keep you damned mouth shut!”
“I only talked about it in a tavern that is not frequented by pirates! Usually only higher landlubber folk go there, I have never seen any pirate cross that threshold, ever! I promise!”
“So, do you want this or not?” the stranger voices again and temporarily spares Matthew the talkdown he’s ultimately going to get.
“How am I supposed to believe that it’s really the map were looking for?” Hanbin asks sceptically.
“Let me on board and I’ll tell you.”
“Fine.” A pause. “What’s your name, anyway?”
“My name is Gyuvin.” He tells them.
“Alright Gyuvin, come on board and tell us the tale of how you came into possession of the map.” Hanbin finally concedes.
And so Gyuvin tells the story of how he got his hands on the glass bottle. The crew has gathered around him to listen, and Hanbin has ushered all of them under deck so they are not accidentally overheard any further.
As it turns out, Gyuvin did hear about their plan to steal the map from Matthew, but he didn’t actually plan to steal it himself.
“I was just about to go back to my inn when I nearly crashed into this guy. He wasn’t drunk, so I don’t know what possessed him to walk into me like that. I nearly fell straight over him, and in my effort to not fall on my ass I grabbed at his clothes to steady me.” Gyuvin starts to explain.
“I must’ve ripped the chain around his neck in the process. After that, the dude just yelled at me and hurried on. When he left, I realised something was left on the floor and picked it up. It was this glass bottle, and I notices some sort of paper inside it. I pried it out and tried to read it, but the font is incredibly small. But I was able to make out the layout of a map and the words White isles. Then it came back to me that-” he pauses and turns, “Matthew, was it?”
After Mathew nods, he continues, ”-that Matthew was talking about a map to the White Isles earlier that he was planning to steal with his crew. I figured this was it. I reckon you need a magnifying glass to read it, though.” He finishes.
Hanbin still has so many questions, but first of all, “Why would you come to us with this though, and not give it back to the captain?”
“Because I have Daddy Issues.” He explains offhandedly.
“Come again?”
“My dad is a town governor.” Ah, Hanbin thinks, that explains the fashion ensemble. “He fucked up big time by sucking up to the crown and forgetting his humanity in the process. He was planning to sign a document that decreed the torture of all captured pirates before they were sentenced to death. I wanted no part of that, so I left. Maybe when he sees my face on a wanted poster, he will overthink his decisions.”
“So you want to join a pirate crew to piss off your dad?” Hanbin tries to surmise. Ricky snorts next to him.
“Sure.” Gyuvin noncommittally shrugs his shoulders.
Hanbin supresses a sigh.
“You don’t know what you’re getting into. Give me that map and go back to your boring but safe life on land. You have no idea about the dangers we’re heading into.” He tries to dissuade Gyuvin.
Next to him, Rickys expression shows his displeasure as well. “You don’t belong on a ship. Go away.” He straight up demands.
“I’m only giving you this map if you let me join the crew.” Gyuvin persists, arms crossed stubbornly across his chest. He slips the little glass vial containing the map back into his pocket to prove a point.
Hanbin thinks about pointing out that they greatly outnumber Gyuvin and that they can easily recover the map by force. But then he remembers that his crew is lacking some skill, and maybe another helping hand won’t be that bad.
“Do you have any skill that could be useful for us? Navigating the stars? Not scared of blood? Or are you perhaps in possession of a magical item that lets you know the weather forecast?”
“You can’t seriously consider this, captain?!” Ricky says outraged.
But Hanbin ignores him and listens to what Gyuvin has to say.
“I don’t know about the magical item, but apart from the fact that I’m apparently a really good pickpocket, part of my education was medicine, so I know my way around a medic kit.” He tells them.
“Good enough.” Hanbin decides. God knows they need a medic on board.
“Boys,” he now addresses the rest of his crew, “Any objections to Gyuvin joining the crew as a temporary member until he’s proven her place?”
Apart from Ricky who grumbles his displeasure, no other crew member says anything against it.
“Well then, Gyuvin, welcome abord the Soul Seeker. We set sail right now, before Black Rose can realise that they lost their map.”
“For your sake,” Ricky spits venomously at Gyuvin, “You better don’t get seasick, it would be a shame to see you miserable.”