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Backstory competition runner-up 5 |
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Written by Captain Obvious
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Friday, 09 December 2005 |
And so we're on to our fifth and final runner up. I feel the need to remind people that the runners-up are in no particular order, they're all joint for their place in the winners. Congratulations to rogue_eight for this one, he's won himself a beta access key!
I never knew my real name. In truth, most of my early years are darker than the innards of pitch barrel to me.
The earliest things I remember are grubbing in the festering streets with the rats. I spent most of my early years smelling like a midden, doing my best to beg money or food from the fat merchants outside taverns, until the day that he came into my life.
Sebastian LeFavre caught me trying to cut his purse. He dragged me into an alley and beat me senseless with his belt. As near as I can reckon, I was 6... After that, he took me away to his miserable lodgings and tossed me into the outhouse. Inside were 7 other children, all my age. We were his 'petits lapins' - his gang of cutpurses and beggars. I worked for him now.
Every morning he would scatter us about the port, directing us to beg and steal from whoever we could. In the evening he would gather us and we would hand over the fruits of our labour. If he was satisfied, we ate. If not, we starved.
I soon noticed that when the other young girls in our little band reached a certain age, LeFavre would come for them, and we would never see them again.
I wondered what had happened to them until one day I saw him hawking Marie to French sailors at a tavern like a side of salt beef... Once we were too tall to steal, we were put to wenching.
I know not how long after that it was, but I noticed things changing in my own body. I tried to hide the more obvious signs by binding my chest in sackcloth. I felt sure that my time was up, until my life finally changed for the better.
The memory is as strong and bright to me as the first dawning of a winter sun. I was trying to steal his purse. Half starved and still unable to see properly from one of my eyes after another beating, I fumbled and cut his leg.
I tried to run, but he caught me, and I saw the pity in his eyes. He took me back to his church, fed me, offered me clothes and a bed to sleep in. Father Ravenwood saved my life, that is why I still take his name.
He taught me to read and write, both French and English. As he taught me I gradually opened up and shared details of my life with him. I remember the pride in his eyes as he told me how amazed he was that I had survived so much, yet never broken. I was like a willow tree in the harshest of storms.
So that's how I got my name, Willow Ravenwood.
To my eternal shame, I failed to repay the kindness that he showed me, and my moment of weakness disrespects his memory and generosity...
In 1714, 2 years after my rescue, I finally caught sight of LeFavre again. In an alley, he was gloating and counting his coins as a French sailor made sport with another of his girls.
It was all over very quickly. I picked up a broken bottle from the gutter, and with a swiftness that surprised me I was on him. The broken bottle flashed in the guttering torchlight as it weaved about his face and loins. I don't remember the screaming, just the feel of his hot sticky blood as it bathed my hands. But screaming there was, as I soon heard the sounds of the militia approaching.
Taking his bulging purse, I ran for the harbour, losing myself in the alleys that had been my home for those many years. The next morning, I signed on as a cabin boy on a Schooner 'The Sparrow'.
It soon became clear to the rest of the crew that I wasn't like them. Being a superstitious lot, they tried to have me tossed overboard. My bootknife soon taught them to keep their distance.
Luckily, Captain Heggarty was blind to my sex - hard work and results were all that mattered to him. For 5 years I fought my way up the ranks until I was First Mate.
Then one day we ran afoul of a storm from the very mouth of hell. Captain Heggarty was lashed by a flying sheet and sent overboard. No one could save him, we were all too busy trying to save the ship and our own sorry hides...
We limped back to port, where I laid down my claim to the ship as First Mate. The crew was split, and the disagreement short and bloody.
But now I find myself Captain Ravenwood, and my newly repaired and renamed craft, 'The Libertine' is ready to sail once more.
I've no love for the French and I bow to no man. My life is my own, and I'll suffer the very fires of hell to bring profit to a crew that knows their place and does their duty.
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