Frelka Frie was a fascinating subject to the quartermaster. As a self-proclaimed aficionado of history, he found himself pestering the poor woman on all things Severos, writing line after line in a small leather book he once used as a ledger on the Weeping Jade and now formed into a sort of semi-biographical tome of knowledge no one has on Severosian life. Though sometimes reciting her life story and explaining what fruits were and were not in a Severosian Mead, and the difference between a Crocothaw and a Snow Gator were an easy and fun new pastime, it did become wearing on the Lady of Clan Frie.
It was then that she would find herself with a different guest from the Weeping Jade. Who took well to the frosty coastline of the Elder Island where the Summit sessions took place at the crack of dawn each day. The Captain of the Weeping Jade enjoyed looking out across the waves to his old ship. Frelka would stop by his resting place along the cold beach and have a swig of his favorite Salkayvian rum. She would tell him tales of her late husband and of the days hearing in the Pink Tower. The one place in all of Severos that all tribes held sacred. Quartermaster Goborn asked Frelka on the ride to the island about the Summit, its rules and history, the significance of the island and the tower, who were Elders and why, the developing migraine kept her from thinking of the cold that brushed her cheeks.
“Jarl-less jit of a leader!” The large and grotesque looking man whom Frelka saved the crew of the Weeping Jade from said as he spat and walked by the Captain and the Madam of House Frie. She called him Farouhk when the captain first laid his eyes on him, and she continued to call him this now.
“Move along, Farouhk.” She said from her seat along the coastline. Marx noticed that a group of his underlings arrived behind him bearing their rancid decaying fangs alongside his.
“Once you finish playing with your northern meat, send it my way. The least you could do for wasting our fucking time!”
“Listen to Lady Frie and move along, Gulechs.” A proper, yet odd voice sounded from behind the mangy group. It was a warrior, for sure, but compared to the raggedy, cannibalistic Gulech clan, and the traditional and honor bound Frie clan, this man did not fit in. Farouhk gripped his bald head and knocked on his skull with a snarl before guiding his men away.
“Sarason Neftar, of the Neftar Clan.” He gave an odd rigid bow as if he was mimicking an old memory of what a bow was.
“Marx....Captain Nard Marx.” The captain was distracted by the clean black leather armor that seemed to have painted, pinned ears where medals would go on an Arkin uniform. Sarason seemed to stand idle, waiting for some sort of cue. His eyes looked towards the ship and back to the dizzy captain. Through the liquor Marx was able to somehow put it together. “Oh, yes...Of the Weeping Jade!” He said raising a bottle of rum in the air.
“Forgive me, but your accent seems off for an Arkin.” Sarason questioned.
“I could say the same for you.” Marx said, presenting the bottle to the rigid clansman.
“The Neftar have a fascination for your employers.” Frelka explained with a glare as Marx slowly pulled the bottle back to his chest, nulling the offer.
“Employers? Are you not of the north?”
“Way more north, friend, and a little west, really, bit of a trip!” Nard Marx answered the rigid man’s curiosity.
“Those bodies you saw floating in the waters, they aren’t always dead. Sarason’s great grandfather, Jarl Desot Neftar, saved one. They learned a lot about the north from them and the result of which is this.” She flicked her palms out in frustration at the sight of Sarason and his makeshift Arkin suit of armor.
“We hope to be above the bloodiness of the other clans, that's why we hope that Lady Frie will change her mind on the summit floor soon and allow us to work with the great northern Arkins.”
Frelka grew fiery and lifted herself from her seat like a cannon “The Arkins kill their own people! And now they ask us to kill more for what? For more land they don’t need? Starting a war with people we have never spoken to? Ripsnorters all ‘em!”
The well armored Neftar feigned a smile and gave a nod to the captain before walking himself off, knowing he was not welcome anymore before her gaze.
“Fools, every one of them.” Frelka huffed before sitting back down and looking off toward the cold waters.
“Seems to me, the Neftar simply want to be more than what they are.” Marx took a swig of his rum and handed it off to the Lady of the Frie clan.
“The Neftars want to be rulers, the Gulechs want to shed someone else's blood for a change and the Kulhkets want riches to pillage.”
“And what do you want?”
“Peace.” She answered softly. “I want a quiet night on those waters out there, sailing across the cold blue with only the sound of the waves as company. I want peace, Marx.” She took a heavy swig of the rum and chuckled to herself. “Maybe my husband too, I guess.” She snorted in laughter.
Mornings in Severos came with a natural alarm as the sun peaked over the ice filled waters that ricocheted into the eyes of all dull headed enough to sleep under its sky. Captain Nard Marx was one such dull headed man, yet he found an antidote for such a sun in his drink. He slept with icicles that once were drool hanging from his mouth in his chair looking over the waters toward his beloved ship with a bottle in his hand and his other tucked between his groin and his pants. He awoke as his chair fell to its side and crashed his head into the cold, hard sand. “Aye, there cap’n!” Brock and Benji said smiling like dullards behind Shaynee who had her foot resting comfortably on the sideways chair.
“What a way for captain’s crew to wake him.” He muttered to himself with his face buried in the cold, hard sand.
“Are you, our captain?” Shaynee coyly questioned. “I thought you might be vacationing, by the looks of it. Haven't left this spot since ya planted the chairs ‘ere!” She watched her captain pick himself up slowly and brush off the white sand from his coat. Even in his hungover state he seemed to have a permeant, smug smile that seemed to tame her temper. She was eerily calmed by it, yet subtly disturbed.
“Part of the plan, Shaynee, as always.” He said searching the sand near his tipped over for his bottle.
“Me and these two dimwits have been robbing these blood lusted maniacs for three days now, trying to make this trip worth it, and every time I see you, you are sitting staring off into that blasted fucking cold water. Tell me how any of this is part of your fucking plan?”
The captain dug from the cold sand his half empty bottle of rum and took a swig. The three stood waiting for an answer as Marx exhaled in delight as the warm spiced liquor let him forget about the cold for a moment. “Our host has made an enemy of herself every clan.” Like a switch the charming captain began to dive into what he has learned. “Not only is clan Frie considered ‘Jarl-less by the other clans, she has a hatred for the Arkins that runs deep and has caused the Summit to last longer than it has needed to. All clans, but clan Frie have sided with the Arkins.”
“Anyone of us could have asked a Severosian and learned that!” Shaynee crossed her arms in frustration.
“How do you loosen a tight tongue?” The captain repositioned his chair and sat down leaning back as he swirled the sand covered bottle.
“Well, if ya cut it a certain way-” Brock began to answer before Benji jabbed his brother in the side.
“You’ve been drinking with her.” Shaynee answered with a slight smirk of respect growing on the side of her lips.
“Perceptive and astute.” Marx smiled like a fox and waved the bottle in his hands playfully. “The Arkins have been here before. Years ago, I don’t believe the boy Tiso knows, and if he does know, well then, he definitely doesn’t know the grizzly bits.” He shrugged his lips and took another swig of rum. “She told me on the first night we drank together, that the Arkins tried, failed though, to take a Frie dock on Helvig. Wanted to use it as a launch point in the first war. Jarl Frie took the lead in the battle.” He raised his bottle almost as if to toast the fallen man. “All this is to say...There is no way to change her mind.” The four were silent for a moment. Brock and Benji look at each other waiting for either the carpenter or captain to speak up, neither did, they were in thought.
“So we kill ‘er then?” Brock asked trying to break the uncomfortable silence.
“Out of the question, we are dealing with people who believe how many people you kill in battle brings you a better afterlife. We would be slaughtered.” Shaynee refuted.
“He’s not wrong though, love. It’s the only option on the table, she won't budge. If we wait much longer the others will cave. Or they will break and kill each other on their own hallowed ground which sounds like a lovely sight, but no Severosians, no pay for us. Same either way unless we can remove her without any complication.”
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Midday came and Elder Island was rife with drinking, partying and debauchery of all sorts. It was something Marx was use to across the Speckled Isle, but for Quartermaster Goborn it all was still new. Even the Huxwell docks were enough for him. Eli Goborn scribbled all he could in his leather book as severosian after severosian bumped and knocked into the meek Arkin. The wearisome demeanor he wore on the ship seemed to have been lost in a flurry of inquiry and curiosity. He was not scared anymore, just simply fascinated.
“Captain!” He called out after giving his eyes a moment away from the paper and seeing the captain’s signature sailors coat in the distance. “Captain!” He could see the captain of the Weeping Jade squint toward the Arkin sailor before quickly spinning on his heels and walking away. Eli rushed through the crowd of deranged devilish debauchery hunting for his ship’s captain. He passed fields of tents calling for the man who helmed their ship, until finally the shaky quartermaster found his captains toes in a metal tub of steaming water beside Farouhk’s.
“Goborn, just the little bastard we needed!” The captain’s smile was warmer than the water he dipped his feet into. He knew that his captain was up to something. “Farouhk and I found that our wants align rather well, so I asked him some questions of how Severosian clans deal with leaders passing away.
Farouhk knocked on his hairless head “If a jarl dies, the house is led by the lady of the house until she remarries.”
“Listen to this, Eli.” The captain smiled with giddiness behind his eyes. “What if the lady passes afterwards, Farouhk?”
Farouhk scratched his head and then knocked on it once more “Then, I'd say the first kiddie gets to be in charge.”
“And what if there is no child to speak of love?” Marx gave a wink towards the quartermaster who was truly bewildered at the sight at this point.
“Then...Then...” Farouhk knocked on his skull hard looking for an answer. The Severosian trivia began to wear on him. He felt as if he should know this but could not for the life of him find the answer. “Then...”
“Then the house is no more, dissolved. Good work, Farouhk!” Nard Marx gave the large beastly man a pat on the shoulder and a quick, charming smile. “Quartermaster Goborn, from your findings does that seem like the logical outcome of such an unfathomable tragedy?”
“Uh...Yes, but the clansmen would riot! All the warriors would be vying for power, you...you would have warlords scattered across the isles!” What was Marx planning? Goborn had no idea, but he knew whatever it was, was not good. It reeked of backstabbing and intrigue.
“Not if all the warriors were on one island though, and if they were loyal, true Severosian’s they wouldn't attack during a Summit, would they?”
“What are you doing Marx?”
Nard Marx turned to Farouhk. “You know nothing of this conversation, right?”
“I ain’t never listened to snowbirds.” The bald man grinned. The suave and inebriated captain took the young quartermaster in his arms and pulled him away toward the edge of camp.
“Buddying up to a cannibal, speaking of jarls and ladies dying, houses dissolving. Please tell me you arent talking of killing Lady Frie.” Goborn held his leather-bound tome close. His knuckles turned white as he held it.
“I am talking about getting her out of the way! The Summit is unified!”
“Not until she changes her mind!” Goborn bared his teeth as his head lunged forward. The intrepid captain pulled back. He knew he pulled at one of his quartermaster's strings. “I didn't come to this bone chilling, blood ridden land, to become one of them!” The captain stood silent. Though Goborn watched as the edge of the captain's lip curled and he released a small snort through his nose and crossed his arms in thought.
“No, you are right.” The captain said disapprovingly. Goborn looked at him with dread growing across his face. He had never seen the captain so aggravated. “You came here to study them like animals. To annoy them with your asinine questions, not at all the reason we are being paid to be here.” He growled as his body became stoically rigid. Marx was not an overly tall figure yet, somehow Goborn felt as if the captain was looking down on him. “You want to write some shit book, written in my ship’s ledger, go ahead! The crew will do the job we were asked to do, just be on the ship before we leave.” The captain stared the young Arkin down as he walked away from the scene leaving the man shaking at the thought of what was to come.
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The lady's tent was more distinguished than the rest of her clansmen. It held fur rugs that covered her feet from the cold soil and candles made from the fat of the sea life of Severos, hanging from post along her tent. A crude painting sat atop a dresser that depicted her and her late husband, the Jarl. It was far from a Mahvienne. From what captain Marx could discern from the rough stroked painting the Jarl of clan Frie was a brutish looking man who could rule with a fist, yet the smile and eyes of a kindhearted, charitable soul who took care of his people.
“Beautiful is he not?” The fair skinned lady of the clan gave a somber smile as she handed Marx a glass of her best Severosian mead. It was his time to try the drink of her people.
“A gorgeous man.” Marx nodded and clinked her glass with his own. “No man, finer.”
“And yet, they wish me to wed another.” She sighed in aggravation. “As if a women can’t take care of man children. They ask us to be rulers in our homes, yet cannot rule outside of them?” She fell onto her finely made bed, covered in blankets made from boar skin and river bear pelts.
“It's common across the world, my lady. They expect you to marry for crowns not for love. They expect the violence inherent in men to rule rather than the compassion of a woman.”
“Ripsnorters.” She cursed, yet not to any specific thing. It was to the world itself, to everything, to the universe.
“Why don’t we go night outing, my lady?” He spun away from the crude painting of the pair with its crass brush strokes and untamed coloring theory.
“Night outing?”
“I would love to see Helvig, see his resting place, pay respects.” He gave a kind smile, yet the strong mead impaired her from seeing that his smile had not reached his eyes. She sat a moment in thought. She took another swig of her mead and sat the glass down on her nightstand.
“Fuck it all, lets go.” She laughed “maybe it would do me some good to get away from the Summit for a moment, see what all this is for, you know?”
Marx guided the lady to his ship and rounded his crew to sail off into the night with Frelka guiding toward the clan’s port. She glided her hand across the side of the ship and looked in awe of the smoke that bellowed out of the chimneys at the stern of the ship.
“This is fascinating design! The north, has changed since I last saw them.”
“The Arkin Navy doesn’t have anything like this. It's Salkavian in design. They need mercenaries and privateers to rule their waters, their navy is so broken.” The captain said with pride.
“Then why do they ask Severos for help and not this Salkay?”
“Pride for one, I'd say. Salkay and Sarin Seal they see as competition. Ruthlessness for another, and then I’d assume they know Salkay has its own problems, rampant pirate problems up there, I should know.” He grinned a devious grin.
“We’re veering off course.” Frelka said as she furrowed her brow. “I should let the crew know.”
“The wind picked up a bit, just pulling the ship, they know, they’ll handle it.” He leaned against the railing with her. “Did you know Severos use to be a hotter climate?” He moved the conversation. “As in scorching, when the fire in the sky came down, whatever hit here, changed the weather itself, amazing!” The raft below then rocked awkwardly and made a strange knocking noise that began to make Frelka wary. “It’s funny, what the cold seems to do to places. Severos and Salkay aren't too different. Your people pillage each other wildly, and my people in the far north pirate, rob and steal. The only difference is we like to act as if we have some sort of civil order. Thats what I admire about your people so much, you don’t hide who you are. It makes things so much... Simpler.” A grin only a devil could make grew on his face like mold.
“What are you on about?” The raft began to sway erratically, and muffled noises came from the chest at the bow of it.
“The system of the Summit, its rules and laws are built on honor, something not a single one the other clans has. The Neftars wish to be, but it's not in your blood, your culture. It's exploitable. To break a system like yours is to make a few deals. Farouhk is in your tent right now, making sure your candles are lit and a body is in your bed. By the time we get back it’ll be burning bright. No heir to the Frie clan, no Frie clan to deny the Arkin request.” He looked off to Shaynee on the quarterdeck steering Weeping Jade. She gave him a nod and he let out a sigh. “Seems we have reached our destination.” In the dark of the night his smile seemed to bare razors for teeth to the lady of clan Frie.
“So that's it then, you are just going to kill me at sea? Drop my body into the ocean over a damn job?”
“Money, is money, love.” he said with an apathetic shrug. “No worries though, I’m a sucker for a second chance. Speckled Isle code and all that.” He leaned over the railing and started the motor on the raft before taking aim with his pistol and firing at it. He looked over the pistol and then bashed it against the edge of the ship. He looked over it again and shrugged before tossing it to Frelka and waving over the two brutish brothers to force her into the raft. “One bullet, one broken pistol, two castaways!” The thrashing and muffled screams from the chest grew louder as she was thrown into the raft and the rope was lowered into the cold waters. “Let Goborn know I did always like him, just not a fan of moralists, ya know?” The Weeping Jade’s engines revved to life as the rafts sputtered and wheezed trying its best to kick on. Soon the Weeping Jade was a distant brown blob. She opened the chest and pulled the Arkin Quartermasters sack from his head. One bullet, one broken pistol, two castaways.
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The bells of the Pink Tower rang high as the vessel came to port on the coast of Elder Island. Cries for order and buckets of water pierced over the chimes as the fire illuminated the night.
“I know you did this Farouhk! This screams Gulech!” The young Neftar growled. A crowd had formed near the burning tent and with it a circle where the two clan leaders sneered and growled at each other ready to kill. “You never liked her, even before the Summit!”
“If I did this I would’a made it worth the lost meat!” He said, bashing his knuckles on his head. “Aint worth nothing that burnt!” His clan laughed behind him.
“You gutless!-”
“Please! Stop this! A loss has happened on sacred land!” One of the Elder Keepers of the island said trying to stop the inevitable fight. The ringing noise of a gunshot flooded the crowd as captain Marx pushed himself into the ring of people. His crew followed closely behind carrying weapons of their own.
“A tragedy has befallen all of you. Frie clan is left without a leader. No Jarl, no lady and no heir. I feel for you all.”
“Do you know something, outsider?” The elder asked.
“I know this! Without Lady Frie, the Summit comes to a unanimous vote! Am I wrong?”
“At a time like this, you wanna talk about voting, snowbird?” A Frie warrior growled through the crowd as he tried to push his way through toward the captain.
“Hey, hey now! You can come after me all you want, but until the Summit makes a decision, we are still under its law, you cannot touch me.” Marx spun around the crowd that encircled him and his crew and gave a smile of endearment to them all. “So, what say you, jarls of Severos? Have you lost your taste for adventure? Of loot? Blood? There’s a whole world out there waiting to meet your blades and not a damn person standing in your way now!”