Here are some scene fragments from my project for class that is also a story I've recently been inspired to write in the last year or so. It tells the tale of a crew of women pirates led by Captain Charlotte Van Reyes on the Shimmering Starling. I'll list a segment of the opening scene as well as fragments of scenes from other stories - breaks will be denoted with a "--".
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PROLOGUE
THE MESSAGE
[Listen up to 1:19 for the tune that drove the opening text of this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiqJjxQiNbY ]
This is a tale of adventure endless in bounds, of revenge so sweet, and of emotion so cruel. A tale that has gone unheard for more than a millennium, but must be read for the lasses who wish to push the bounds of their minds, for the lads who want to see what lies beyond the laws of “the ordinary, civilized culture.” A tale of one ship who sailed with a most infamous and rebellious crew in the black fog of the night, stalked the seas as her territory regardless of who else laid claim to it, and stood up to many a competitor with her weight of gold and riches well defended by a fierce artillery array.
This, my friends, is the lost story of The Shimmering Starling and her crew.
The night was a ghastly grey, not the usual black one would expect. And while it is the darkness that is feared on land, at sea, it is grey fog that floats on the water which gives sailors the tremors. However, it isn’t the color or the cold that haunts seafarers on nights like these, nor is it the fog itself. Rather, it is what one cannot see, deep within the clouds, that gives even the boldest sailors the spooks. It is on nights like these that lookouts of the British Empire’s most valued trade ships stare hard with trembling lips into the fog, looking for trouble that cannot be so easily spotted. And ‘twas on one such night that one of the many things sailors fear at sea occurred to an unsuspecting cargo vessel - pirates.
The Mary Hampton, commanded by Captain George Henderson and bound for the Virginia penal colonies with a supply of rum for the guards, glided through the fog, with just another day’s journey ‘til her arrival in port. But behind her, a shift in the fog exposed the movement of another ship, the oak wood of her hull blackened with the powder of previous battles, her sails ghostly grey like the fog hugging her, but no flag up. The Shimmering Starling, her name being, was not the boastful type who liked to announce herself to her prey like a lion. Rather, her captain and crew preferred the silence of an owl, gliding silently without a sound as she neared her prey and catching them by surprise so they wouldn’t have a chance to fight back.
The dark ship quietly snuck through the fog, with the Mary Hampton in its sights, yet the latter was unaware of her stalker. The ship then caught an extra gale in her sails and gained on the freighter before steering starboard side and coming up silently on her prey, still managing to remain hidden in the thick fog. By the time the Mary Hampton’s crew noticed the silhouette of the other ship in the fog, the latter’s cannons had rolled forward and, just as the lookout began to warn of the hostile ship, opened fire.
The freighter took three direct hits to the upper deck and two balls that dug into her hull, one of which crushed a cannon just before it could be lit. Another struck the upper rail, sending splinters flying like needle-sized spears, and two more hit the lower hull again, one of which killed another few of the gunners onboard and tossing two more cannons out of action.
With the freighter’s port side defenses disabled, the Shimmering Starling steered in closer before harpoon like hooks on thick rope were tossed out and secured the ship to her prey like the talons of a hawk.
“To arms men! To arms!” Captain Henderson shouted, and right thereafter, he saw the pirates swinging from the ropes of their ship onboard.
These pirates, though, were quick, dodging shots from the crew’s rifles and slaying or disabling them with some of the quickest and most brutal swordsmanship and hand-to-hand reflexes Henderson had ever seen. But he couldn’t get a good view of the pirates, as the majority of them kept scarves tied around their faces and kept their hats tilted forward. But as he rushed to his quarters to retrieve his musket, he thought he could hear higher pitched tones, calls, and grunts coming from the pirates, as though they weren’t men. Henderson had never heard of women becoming pirates, but he didn’t have time to examine - it was his ship that was the priority.
Just as he made his way down the steps to the main deck and wove around to the door to his quarters, he heard one of the pirates land behind him. Wheeling around, he managed to block the hand of a pirate his height who tried to jab a dagger into him from behind. But seeing as he didn’t have a weapon to defend himself with, Henderson just delivered a retaliatory punch to the pirate’s jaw and was stunned to hear a painful cry that was definitely that of a woman as the pirate struggled to the side and slid down against the wall to his left, grabbing her jaw.
Breaking into his quarters, Henderson dashed for his desk, but then a shot exploded in the back of his thigh, causing him to fall against the desk in pain. He struggled desperately to work his way around the desk, but the pirate responsible for the shot grabbed him by the shoulders, wheeled him around and stabbed the flat heel of her boot into the arch of his buckled shoe before using a whole arm to roughly shove the captain against his desk and restrain him.
“Easy Spearhead,” ordered a moderately young voice warped with authority and muffled by the mask on her face, “Give him some space to breath. The swine’ll probably come to his senses and learn that it ain’t worth it to fight this evening.”
With that, Henderson’s captor took her arm off but kept her hand clutched tightly on the back of his uniform. She also drew a flintlock pistol from her belt, clicked the hammer back and held it against his side while maintaining a cold look through her mask to further dissuade Henderson.
The apparent captain of the pirates then strolled slowly into Henderson’s quarters, each step from her tall and apparently well-polished black boots torturing the floorboards with hard steps and long, loud creeks. Like her crewmates, she still kept her scarf around her mouth and nose, so Henderson couldn’t get a good look at her, though he assumed her to be quite the charmer from her moderately slender build, some light brownish-orange hair, peach-white skin, and almost maple-brown eyes, all barely visible through her disguise. The captain only gave a brief glance at Henderson before turning to observe the rest of the room, soon coming across Henderson’s book case. The captain’s fingers swept softly over each title, until she came across a green-covered book, which she pulled out slowly and read the title of.
“Expeditioner’s Guide - Charting the North Atlantic,” the captain repeated with some intrigue, then read the author’s name with a little less flavor in her voice, “Lawrence Carlton.”
“One of the British Empire’s best charters this side of colonial waters,” Henderson commented, trying to be friendly, but his captor twisted the skin on his wrist to shut him up.
“And one of the best deceivers and cheats,” the captain replied, tucking the book under her arm before approaching him personally.
When she was just short of breathing distance from him, the captain removed her scarf to show a clean, beautiful, and enchanting face that left Henderson staring at her for a few seconds. But then he noticed something recognizable about her - this face he swore he’d seen somewhere before, near Boston possibly.
“And of all the pompous, rich swine I’ve dealt with in my life,” the woman continued with an enchantingly venomous tone, “He’s the prize. What I wouldn’t do to slit his godforsaken throat. I assume you know him?”
“Well, I...I can’t say that we know each other as friends,” Henderson stuttered back, trying to find words appropriate for the beautiful villain, “But he’s well known. I uh...I would think that a lot of traders know of him.”
--
[Charlotte's friend Gloria Astley introduces her to a new potential crew mate, before they have their own ship at this point - Maria "Matadora" Santos. When Santos learns that Charlotte aided in the death of her father's murderer, a pirate named "El Sepulturero", which I translated from English to mean "The Grave Digger", Maria decides to test Charlotte's skills in a friendly sword fight inspired by the friendly sword fight between Westley and Inigo Montoya. Check out the inspirational scene here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUczpTPATyU ]
“Hooold on though,” Gloria then interjected, “I thought you were made of tougher stuff, Maria. Ya don’t trust people right off the bat. Why does Charlotte deserve any better?”
“You’re right, I don’t,” Maria replied, “But I do respect people who have a reputation for dignity and honor outside of the civilized world. However,” Maria then backed up several steps before withdrawing from her belt her own shiny rapier and holding it out, “If you expect me to keep my end of the deal, then you must show me that you are capable of upholding your end of the deal, Charlotte Van Reyes. After all, if you had the ability to skewer El Sepulturero like a pig, then I’d expect you to have some good swordsmanship.”
Although naturally surprised at this sudden encouragement to a duel, Charlotte quickly retrieved her smile and then her shiny, long and narrow cutlass. Upon holding it out to copy Maria’s pose, Charlotte briefly flipped the sword around in her hand before adding, “And if I am to even enact my end of the deal, you must prove yourself worthy of keeping your end of it in the first place.”
“Ha,” Maria replied with a toss of the head, “If you insist, my lady.”
At first, the two ladies circled each other, eagerly waiting to see who would make the first move. Knowing that Maria was likely very skilled with that rapier in her hand, Charlotte chose to go with a more reserved style that Roberto had taught her years ago, a strategy he liked to call “testing the waters.” At the right moment, Charlotte slowly advanced forward and probed her cutlass out toward her opponent to see how she would counter. Naturally, Maria pushed the blade aside with a couple quick flips of the wrist, but instead of going straight into the duel, Charlotte backed up and returned to a wait stance. They did this a couple more times before Maria decided to get a little more aggressive and started swinging the rapier in a series of faster rotations, some of which Charlotte managed to parry but others which she was forced to retreat from as they were just too fast.
It wasn’t long, however, before the more active advances and retreats began, with Maria making the first few advances until Charlotte retaliated with some aggressive swipes. To a point, Maria managed to force Charlotte up onto one of the rock shelves that rose out of the tide, which Charlotte backed up onto while maintaining her defensive and trying to keep Maria’s feet in the water in the hopes that her opponent’s focus would dwindle due to the cold of the occasional tide. But Maria wouldn’t stay put for long, setting one foot up first on the same layer as Charlotte and eventually forcing the younger pirate to back up another step as Maria gained full footing on the first rock. With some additional advances, Maria finally managed to push Charlotte to the top of the rock, which didn’t have nearly as smooth a surface, thus making it harder for Charlotte to keep a firm stance while concentrating on her defense. Luckily, though, she recalled another technique which Gloria had taught her. As Maria got closer, as did her swings, Charlotte held up her blade to intercept a swing from her left and swept her opponent’s rapier down such that it was temporarily stabbed into the rock and Charlotte could keep it there with her cutlass.
“I must admit, you really do live up to Gloria’s word,” Maria complimented.
“Thank you, señora,” Charlotte complimented, trying to be culturally polite despite knowing hardly any Spanish whatsoever.
“And you have the courtesy to compliment your opponent,” Maria replied as she finally managed to unsnag her blade from Charlotte’s parry, “I gotta wonder if you’re this polite with your other opponents.”
“Depends,” Charlotte replied as she began to push Maria back down the rock with some swings, “Many don’t wait for me to make the first move, and even fewer of them bow to me to show some respect on their part to begin with.” She then managed to parry and once again paralyze Maria’s swings before she got closer and added, “As you have demonstrated both in your character, it’s only fair for me to show some respect in return.”
“Ah, but there is one thing I must tell you however, señorita,” Maria warned with a smile, “I don’t like to play nice, even with my friends.”
With that, Maria broke the parry and battled forward some more, to the point that she almost caused Charlotte to stumble off the rock and fall into the low-tide. But instead of just jumping back down to continue the duel, Charlotte parried and then performed an envelope in which she swept Maria’s blade down but then outward, causing the latter to briefly lose it as the rapier clattered against the side of the rock. Although she grinned, Charlotte held the blade up in a wait stance instead of at Maria’s neck, indicating she didn’t want the fight to end there.
“Go on, I’ll wait,” Charlotte even added with a jerk of the head towards Maria’s fallen blade.
Although it didn’t take long for Maria to dash to the side and retrieve her rapier, Charlotte decided to retreat with a move she’d perfected from training with Gloria. Whipping the blade around, Charlotte abruptly sheathed the cutlass before doing a backwards handstand and flipping over onto her feet, then retrieving her blade once again. Although stunned, Maria again shifted her head with a smirk before stabbing her rapier into the ground before jumping, doing a brief somersault through the air and splashing back on her feet before casually retrieving the blade.
“You didn’t think I got by at sea with just the basic arts, did you?” Maria challenged as their advances moved the two lasses back to drier land.
“Who said I thought you were basic?” Charlotte returned, “And what makes you think I survived on basics also?”
“Can’t say,” Maria replied, briefly tossing her blade up and letting it rotate in the air before catching it by the handle again, “If I did, then there surely wouldn’t be a reason for the civility.”
“A point of truth that is,” Charlotte returned. But just as Maria began to start swinging more aggressively again, Charlotte stopped her opponent’s rapier midway and forced it down before making a stabbing move directed at but not actually contacting Maria’s lower midsection. Startled by the sudden gesture, Maria skidded back but loosened her grip on her sword, allowing Charlotte to sweep her cutlass up and send the thinner blade flipping up and sticking into the sand several steps to the side. This time, Charlotte, with one hand behind her back, held her sword just a few inches short of Maria’s throat and, with a downward nod, encouraged Maria to surrender.
“Dios mío,” Maria replied while remaining on her knees, “You really are as good as Gloria says. I therefore uphold my respect and commitment to you, Charlotte Van Reyes.”
“Well, considering that you fought valiantly yourself,” Charlotte returned, flipping the blade away before returning it again to its sheath, “I’m in your debt too, Maria Santos, daughter of Francisco Gilberto Santos from New Spain. So I guess that puts us at an equal standing.”