━━━━━━ ♡ ━━━━━━

According to the legend, Titans once created the world by plunging a needle into the ocean and pressing a thin thread of earth into the depths until it formed an island. Then they continued the thread underground until they brought it back to the surface in another place, hundreds of miles away. A new island was born, longer than the previous one - before the thread had to be pushed back into the ground a few miles later.

It was a story that sailors told each other, and it varied because not everyone believed in the Titans - and not everyone in the world travelled the seas.

However, every creation story always had one thing in common. No matter what cult or religion, whether sailor or whore, they all believed in the heroes of the stories.

And anyone could become one; after all, the great heroes had always been normal people. Shoemakers, priests, mothers, and fathers who just wanted to live like everyone else, only to stumble into an adventure.

The world's great religions still preached today that their creators and gods could make anyone a hero.

The wandering religious shouted at the marketplaces in the cities of the Shards, “It takes more than a ship and courage, more than gold in your pockets! It takes faith!”

But not everyone could be a hero - not in the world's historiography and sometimes not in their own lives either.

Heroes. Vandemeer rolled her eyes at her thoughts as she continued to dance with the old, almost toothless pirate who had been making eyes at her all evening. This world no longer needs heroes. Instead, it requires whores and drunks, pirates and musicians who laid a nice melody to dance to over the misery that lurked on every street corner.

Wearily, she looked over the goings-on in the old tavern she called home.

Pirates had come in, occupied the old, creaking wooden chairs and stools, and had long since become so drunk that they believed the Klabautermann was the lord of the sea and not just an annoying mythical figure from their sailors' yarn.

She quickly loaded the next full glasses of rum and beer onto her sticky tray before they made their way through the pirate crowds.

The tavern, which had stood for generations in the fusion point between the harbour and the market of the old town, became completely overcrowded. The tables, which barely had room for four people, had more chairs pulled up to them. Today, eight pirates were sitting there, playing cards or organising drinking games for gold.

Others were singing near the bar with the waitresses who were cosying up to the men - always hoping to earn a gold piece or two to buy a new set of sewing threads to fix a broken dress.

Her colleagues — or rivals, to be honest — had attempted to look good today. Vandemeer noticed that some of them had gracefully styled their hair into towering hairstyles, while others had applied makeup and powder. She hadn't even attempted to look good today; had merely pinned her wild, curly hair back with a cheap hairslide so that it didn't keep falling into her face and put on the same bottle-green skirt and white blouse that she wore every evening.

And yet some stupid idiot had thrown his gold into her arms today. As soon as the sun went down and he stumbled into the tavern with his crew of miserable pirates, she realised that she would have no peace tonight.

The dim light in the taproom made it difficult for her to see the floor at her feet, but she knew the tavern like the back of her hand. Carelessly, she navigated between the drunks and gamblers, placing a glass here and there on the table to refill the empty glasses with the rum flask she carried in her belt.

"Are you avoiding me, beautiful?" A rough hand grabbed her free arm. "That's not very nice."

Vandemeer would have liked to roll her eyes. Why did pirates always think they were being ignored when I am just doing my job?

It was the toothless old pirate who, at barely forty, already looked like he was well into his seventies. In his dilapidated rags, one couldn't tell that he had gold galore in his pockets.

"Come on, dance with me," he whispered to her promisingly. "Just one dance to get your bones in the right mood."

The right mood for what? She had liked to ask him but bit her tongue before the words could slip past her lips.

"Just one dance," she said instead with a mock admonishing look. "Then I have to get back to work."

He immediately snatched the tray out of her hands and carelessly placed it on a table where his mates applauded him. Then the stinking pirate waved to the singing whores at the bar, who immediately started a faster song.

He whirled her around quickly, always in time with the new song, and pulled her close to peck her cheek before she spun round again.

"I've already given you so much today, beautiful," he whispered as soon as she was close enough and immediately Vandemeer felt his rough fingers slide down her bare arms. "Don't you think it's time to pay me back a little?"

His hands roamed over the delicate skin of her neck, down to her waist and when he finally grabbed her bum before spinning her around in time, Vandemeer had to hold back from groaning in annoyance.

That's how it always ended. She gave them her little finger, and the pirates tore off her entire arm. She would have liked to slap herself for her stupidity. Why had she only given him her valuable time? Out of pity, because he had looked so pathetic?

She was still spinning, completely detached from the beat of the song that one of the other waitresses had sung with some pirates before the old man pulled her back against him.

Her back collided hard with his chest, but before she could put a few meters of distance between herself and the stinking pirate, he quickly wrapped his arms around her torso.

"I know you're nothing but a high-necked whore who likes to be asked," he whispered into her ear over her shoulders. "Men tell when they're at sea. And oh, you do not know how many times I've touched myself while the others whispered at night about all the things they could do to you."

Vandemeer let out a disgusted snort. “And of course, you believe everything they say because pirates are widely recognised for their incredible honesty.”

She pushed his arms away and freed herself from his tight embrace before he caught her again two steps later.

This time his arms didn't linger around her waist, but travelled higher, to the base of her breasts, while his dry mouth settled against her neck.

She felt the smirk on his lips as he said, "Playing hard to get, eh?" His fingers dug into the base of her tits as he continued to caress her neck. "I'm willing to pay a lot of gold for your services. Even more than those other idiots have given you."

Gold - that was all that mattered.

Gold - a curse and a blessing, not only for the pirates and mercantile marine but also for the common folk - the scum who didn't sail the seas and filled their days with licking the arse of the important lords to somehow survive.

Scum, that included Vandemeer, who had long since accumulated debts like other citizens shit in her chamber pot, and who had to sleep on the bar of this run-down tavern every night.

So she closed her eyes, swallowed in surrender and took a deep breath before saying. "Twenty gold pieces up front." She gave the old man a hard look over her shoulders. "And if you want any sick shit, I want another five gold pieces after that for every abnormality you make me do."

Twenty gold pieces were four times as much as she usually asked for, but this old pirate had been throwing gold around all evening, so he seemed to have enough. Not that she would feel guilty if this idiot left the island with no gold at all. Quite the opposite.

She heard his harsh laugh and felt his fingers slowly sliding over her plunging neckline. "My God, you negotiate like a real pirate whore, but good, twenty gold pieces up front." Vandemeer felt his left hand disappear as his right hand pressed her against him. "Be warned, sweetie, from the tales of the men on the ship," he grunted breathlessly. "Believe me, I have some concrete ideas in mind. Ideas that will make your pretty little head spin. Ideas as dark as a pirate's soul."

Or as disgusting as all pirates, she thought to herself, trying not to roll her eyes.

Not a second later, she heard the soft clink of a handful of gold. "Where do you want your coins?" he almost groaned in her ear. "In your coin slot?"

Vandemeer groaned, not in pleasure but in utter annoyance, even though she suspected that the old idiot would never recognise the difference. Sailors only saw and heard what they wanted. Even an insult became a caress, if only the right story was told, and pirates were good at inventing stories.

"Well, then... Shall we retire somewhere more private?" His tongue licked from the shell of her ear over her neck while his hand slipped the gold pieces into the pocket of her apron. "I can't wait to see how many more of those gold pieces I can spend tonight."

Vandemeer hated this man already. Hated the way he touched her and licked her like he could get away with anything just because he had gold. She hated this life, this city - the whole blasted island. She hated the sea and the ships because without all that there would be no merchant navy or pirates mining gold from the depths of the seas. Gold is worth nothing to sailors because they have so much of it they throw it back into the ocean if they don't like the shape of a coin.

But she didn't say any of this. Didn't let him know how much she loathed him - him and everything he embodied. Instead, she just nodded.

"There's a storage room behind the bar with a plank bed. If you want a proper room, there's a hotel next door." She turned to face him, his hands still on her skin. "The hotel charges by the hour."

"A plank bed sounds perfect to me, my love. After all, I'm just a pirate, not a mercantile marine officer. And who needs a proper room when we will not get any sleep, anyway?" The grin that the pirate gave her evoked nothing but disgust in Vandemeer.

His mouth was a black hole with three teeth rotted down to the gums. They were as black as his soul must be. The mere idea of having to kiss that mouth made Vandemeer's stomach rebel.

"Let's get this over with." Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed his hand and pulled him to the back of the tavern. Past his crew, who had long since realised what purchase their comrade had just made, and whistled loudly in approval.

Vandemeer felt sick. She was just a transaction. A thing you could buy and borrow if you had enough gold. There were days when she was in tune with her fate, knowing that she - like all the other landlubbers, as the sailors mocked her - could not escape it. And then there were days like today when she simply wanted to slit every single sailor's throat.

Still, her steps were quick and purposeful as she led him through the maze of tables and chairs to the bar where Agnar stood, nodding approvingly at the pirate.

"Have fun with the wildcat," she heard the burly barkeeper say as she opened the squeaky door that led into the storeroom.

Two candles had been mounted on the wall in an old brass candleholder, creating dancing shadows behind it. The corners were piled with sacks of grain and flour, while heavy wooden shelves stored hundreds of bottles of wine and spirits.

She saw the rats scurrying under the plank bed on the left-hand wall of the room when the door opened unexpectedly.

No sooner had she pushed open the door to the back room of the bar than he pulled her inside. The bellowing of his mates, which could be heard loud and clear a moment ago, now became just background noise, distant and muffled.

Not a second later, he was on top of her - his hands already roaming over her body as he captured her lips in a hard kiss.

He stank from his mouth and the taste of rot, vomit and whisky mingled with his saliva brought by his tongue invading her mouth. The taste alone turned her stomach, but she pulled herself together.

His hands wandered over her body, fighting against the fabric of the dress that seemed to bother him. Again and again, he tore at the fabric of her blouse, the buttons of which never gave way.

Vandemeer felt like a rag doll, unable to escape but also unwilling to make it any easier for the pirate, at least until he had had enough of looking for a hole in her armour.

"Take it off," he pressed out between his compressed lips.

"No," she returned in an equally harsh voice before lifting her long skirt to her hips. "That will do, won't it?"

Her nudity was not something she liked to reveal completely. Even for a cheap hooker like her, there were limits. And so far, no one had paid enough to wrest them from her.

"You think you're clever, don't you? Trying to enforce your silly little rules, aren't you?" He reached for the hem of her skirt, yanking it up further to expose her thighs. "Well, I've got some bad news for you, love," he growled. "I'm not some naïve landlubber who's going to be impressed by your little tricks." With these words, he gripped the fabric of the skirt with both hands. "You will undress," he hissed angrily at her, "or I will tear your clothes, so help me God, and then you will have to continue working stark naked for the rest of the evening."

She glared at him, furious and full of hatred. "Just the skirt! I'll open my blouse for you, but I won't take it off."

No one had ever seen her back before, and that wouldn't change tonight.

"You're a real bitch, aren't you?" He spat out the words, his voice low and menacing, but to her surprise, he then nodded. "All right, so you want to bargain for every scrap of fabric, so be it." He tore down the fabric of her skirt, exposing her thighs and underwear to his hungry gaze.

"Don't think this fight is over," he hissed before dropping to his knees and getting closer to her cunt. "I have a lot of plans for you...plans that don't involve clothes."

With those words, he pressed his chapped lips against her most intimate part.

His breath was hot and heavy as he pressed himself even closer to her. She could feel the rough stubble of his beard scratching her skin.

A shiver of disgust ran down her spine, but this was far from her first time.

Vandemeer had perfected the spectacle that followed over the years. A little shudder, a little moan, a few words that made every sailor immediately throw themselves at her with passionate desire.

These men were all the same. Tell them what they wanted to hear and then they would finally leave you alone.

But when his tongue, coated in his stinking drool, penetrated her dry pussy, she felt nothing but disgust.

He must have felt it because, after a few quick thrusts of his tongue into her, he let go of her briefly and looked up at her. "Not getting wet, eh? It's like a desert down here, but that's no problem. Believe me, I can spit on you to make it something."

Even as he spoke, he reached up to her small breasts, grabbed a nipple and twisted it until she cried out before pushing her back hard with his other hand.

She fell onto the plank bed, her head crashing roughly against the wall, but he didn't give her time to collect herself. Again, he firmly pressed his head against her lap while using his other hand to touch her breast.

The pirate didn't seem to notice or care about the pain he had caused her. His focus was solely on what lay between her legs.

While his tongue penetrated her hard, his hand continued to play with her nipple, twisting and pinching it until she cried out in pain again.

"You taste so good," she heard him growl. "So sweet... like the most expensive red wine." He paused for a moment before adding in a low voice. "I could eat you whole..."

She held her aching head. Dark spots danced in the flickering shadows of the candlelight in front of her field of vision. She should have made the idiot pay extra for this pain and the bump she'd have tomorrow.

"You're not even doing something," Vandemeer heard him say before she was dragged off the plank bed by her ankles and bounced hard on the floor with her arse. Her head was now resting on the hard wooden edge of the old bed, which was covered in old linen and had seen so many naked men and women.

When she opened her eyes and blinked, she found herself face-to-face with his hard dick.

"Do what I paid you so much for, whore," he hissed down at her before forcing his cock between her lips and into her mouth.

She gagged immediately but could not retreat from him because of the edge of the bed. The old man's hips thrust forwards and drove his cock deeper into her throat.

This was nothing new for her, either. Whores, most people believed, were there to use them, even if they didn't want to. Once money had changed hands, as it always did, Vandemeer no longer had any rights. Not that she had before that.

Yet she was the one who had sole power here. She had his best piece between her teeth and if she bit down...

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

The thought made her grin.

It would be a victory for her if only a short one. After all, she wouldn't survive the night if she bit off a pirate's most valuable treasure.

"What else can I do with you?" the toothless pirate said as he thrusts his cock into her mouth. "I still have 15 gold left...and you said 5 for every crazy thing, eh? Then surely we can both think of something nice."

His eyes travelled downwards, first to her hate-filled gaze, then to her bare breasts and the wild black curls that had fallen around her face like a mane. A wicked grin spread across his face. "I know exactly what will satisfy me..."

Suddenly, he pulled his cock out of her mouth with a wet smack.

Vandemeer immediately sank breathlessly to the side. Air, finally, she certainly couldn't have held out much longer.

"Spread your legs," he ordered as he pulled a dagger from his holster, which was still around his shoulders.

"What the hell is this?" she shouted at him with a huff. "Five more gold pieces for the abnormal shit, that's what we agreed! And a bloody knife isn't normal!"

If Agnar, the barkeep, sensed any commotion from the back room, he had promised all the waitresses, that he would intervene. The consequence of this, however, would be that Vandemeer could not keep the gold. A circumstance that had already cost many women their lives. A clever pirate would pay, take what he wanted and then beat the woman up, so he had received the service but didn't have to pay. After all, someone had interrupted him.

"Five more gold," he imitated her and lowered the dagger between her legs. She could feel the cold steel against her skin - a sickening contrast to his hot breath on her thigh.

He stared at her with his eyes firmly fixed, anchored by her gaze, and she guessed what he saw: panic. Panic, anger and disgust.

"They say you can lure out the shard sirens by mixing the blood of a whore, brought forth by silver, with seawater," he said, a wild gleam in his eyes. "Many have tried and failed with the literal realisation. Well, I rather believe they mean it philosophically. If it was any whore, hundreds of men would have found these sea-wives by now. I want the blood of a satisfied whore," he told her, still drawing the cold steel across her skin.

"Shard sirens?" For a few seconds, Vandemeer didn't know whether to burst into roaring laughter or hysterical tears.

And then she laughed. So loud and unrestrained that everyone in the taproom had to hear it. The twenty gold pieces and the pain slipped from her mind. This story was so laughable that it was impossible to remain serious, and Vandemeer knew that all the waitresses working hard for their wages outside would have reacted in the same way.

"I don't know what I find funnier about it," she wiped the tears of laughter from the corners of her eyes. "You trying to bring a whore to orgasm when you know you can't, or the story that you're doing it because of mythical creatures?"

"Hold your tongue, whore!" This time, he held the knife to her throat, but she couldn't stop laughing. If he killed her now, at least she would have died laughing.

"You know exactly which women become whores in this world, don't you?" she groaned, out of breath. "Whores, maids, slaves, mistresses, huh? You must know."

"Of course I know," he growled as he wiped his wet lips with the palm of his hand. Apparently, she had killed all his lust with her laughter. "Incapables, that’s what they call those poor souls, the ones who never climax no matter what you do and can't conceive brats."

Or so they said, but Vandemeer had also heard of women who had become pregnant even though they had never felt an orgasm. Doctors, she always found, were strange people with so much power that they could have rewritten the sexes themselves if only they had felt like it.

Still grinning, she straightened up to button her blouse and retrieve the now dusty skirt from the corner of the room. She would disappear before the toothless pirate realised he had given her far too much for this disgrace. And she would generously overlook the five gold coins for the knife. If she didn't remind him, he wouldn't stop her and hand her to the guards for theft.

When Vandemeer pushed open the door to the back room, the entire taproom fell silent, and once again, she felt the genuine power of a simple whore. She alone could now ruin the old man's reputation with his entire crew, who she knew for a fact were in this tavern for a long, long time. A single gesture, a sardonic smile, or a clearing of the throat at the right pitch would be enough to make him the laughingstock of his ship.

And for a few blinks of the eye, she considered carrying out this tiny act of revenge. For once, she wanted to be the winner, not just the whore with a headache because a customer had pushed her against a wall or a bed.

Better not push my luck, she thought quickly. He hadn't yet realised that he'd received none of what he'd paid for. And Vandemeer had no desire to feel the icy blade of his dagger again. So she stroked her hair back breathlessly and stumbled a little before buttoning her blouse and licking her lips. The familiar image of a whore who had done her job and completely satisfied her customer.

The toothless pirate's crew roared as he stepped through the door behind her, and some even stood up to put their arms around his shoulders in appreciation.

Unexpected help for Vandemeer, who smiled softly as she crept to the stairs leading up to the second floor to stash the quietly jingling gold in her apron pocket. If any of the other whores found out that she had so much gold, she would certainly not live to see the next morning.

She could already feel the tingling of their eyes on her skin. It felt as if a giant spider was slowly crawling up her spine. In some places, it paused briefly, pacing on the spot, before moving on.

Someone is watching me, she thought and suppressed a cold shudder. Could it be that one of the other waitresses had noticed how much gold she had taken from the stupid pirate? No, I had been far too quiet for that when I had announced my price.

At the top of the stairs, she looked around the taproom again, again aware that she was making herself very suspicious.

The pirates were drinking; the waitresses were serving, and no one was paying the slightest attention to her. Even the toothless old pirate, whom she had just laughed at, seemed to regain his confidence in the company of his comrades. She watched as he pulled the next waitress onto his lap, only to touch her with his fingers, which were swollen from the boat ropes. And yet her skin was still tingling, and this time Vandemeer couldn't suppress an unpleasant shudder. Something was very wrong here.

Vandemeer shook her head. When had she become such a fear-filled maiden that a simple gaze lingering on her could make her so nervous?

Standing up straight, expelling the fear and nervousness from her veins and face, she continued to walk across the second-floor gallery, from which one could see into the taproom, to the door of the dressing room, when...

"Maud Van De Meer?"

She hadn't noticed him, and had assumed he was a guest waiting for the whore in the room behind to finish with her suitor so that he could get his time with the whore.

The stranger who had been standing near the door looked at her as if he knew he had found the right woman, but for reasons she couldn't quite define herself, she didn't want to know why he had been looking for her. Nor how he knew her entire name, or how he knew that Vandemeer, which he actually pronounced like the surname she had denied for years and then made her first name, comprised three different words and was not one.

Vandemeer looked at him again.

Far too many weapons, in far too good a condition to be a normal pirate. A leather holster across his chest held pistols, and he carried a shiny dark green sword that she was almost certain had been polished only hours ago. Also, a dagger was held by a leather strap around his leg. God only knew what else he was hiding in his black cloak.

The stranger didn't look like he was from the merchant navy, either. No uniform and no insignia, not enough shiny copper and gold. He wore a headscarf like pirates, hiding his dark hair, which only peeked out in a few places, but it was far too clean to have come from a nasty pirate.

Now that she had inspected the man closer, she realised he wasn't wearing any jewellery at all. Instead, his fingers and arms were bare - not even a tattoo was visible. Only his grim expression adorned his face.

Misinterpreting her secrecy, his left hand crept to the hilt of the sword. "You are Maud Van De Meer, aren't you?"

Vandemeer knew that there were two ways to escape this misery. Either she pretended to be the one he was looking for and a simple whore, who thought he was a suitor she had been expecting. If he was surprised, he would at least afford her a little time to work out her plan.

Or else she would flee immediately. A stupid idea, because he would follow her and immediately believe that there was something she needed to escape from. Only criminals fled. Women who had done nothing wrong would simply ask what a stranger wanted from them and how he knew her name.

But Vandemeer was not a woman who had always been law-abiding.

"Hello handsome," the words got stuck in her throat - literally. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get another syllable past her lips.

The stranger curled his full lips into a disgusted, tight line, while his tired brown eyes looked as if he was struggling to hold back a gag.

What now? If she couldn't charm him with words, it would have to be a touch, but her insides resisted even setting foot in his direction. Her instinct told her to do the opposite.

Run, far and fast, away from it all, the voice in her head seemed to whisper, and if there was one thing Vandemeer had learned, it was that she should never ignore that little voice.

So she turned, gathered her dress and ran down the stairs, her eyes still fixed on the stranger.

The speed and lack of planning of the escape doomed it to failure, and yet she was surprised by how quickly she failed.

She collided with something hard, cried out, and then held her forehead, blood running down her face.

"Well, little birdie, who's going to want to escape?"

She looked up, straight into the face of the man whose arms she had run into. He was older than she was but younger than his rough, dark voice suggested. Vandemeer estimated him to be just under forty, if not a few years younger. He wore a shiny uniform - not a Merchant Marine, no; the fabric was finer; the colours were far too dark. His fingers were on her shoulders, digging into her flesh, through the fabric of her dress, though she didn't understand how that was possible.

She quickly glanced over her shoulders to the stairs, at the end of which the stranger with the dark green sword blade was still standing, surveying the scene, bored, and shuddered.

"Someday and somewhere," the stranger, who was still holding her tightly, spoke in his dark, smoky voice, "we will meet again, didn't I promise you that?"

The pain that followed felt like someone was reaching into her chest and ripping her heart out. Her body writhed forward in the arms of the man she had never seen before. Then her legs gave way to the agony that seemed to spread from her heart to all her limbs.

She heard someone screaming - loud and shrill, panicked - and it took her a few seconds to realise that it was her voice.

"Someday, somewhere," she heard the stranger's voice murmur in her ear before the world faded into darkness. "And then we'll be inseparable."

━━━━━━ † ━━━━━━

That there were people who seemed to be invisible to others, yes, everyone had heard of that, but for Osheen, it was sad everyday life.

A few decades ago, a court sentenced him to eternity, and since then he has been living invisibly among the population of the Shards - a ghost who could do nothing but peep. And Osheen truly enjoyed doing that. He loved chasing after people and knowing all their secrets.

Not that he had any choice but to do just that. After all, one had to fill the years somehow without going mad.

He had arrived on this island with the pirates; and had left the ship with them after sailing between the Shards for months. He had always looked over the captain's shoulders, had long since memorised the secret codes with which he had filled his logbook, and in the early hours of the morning, when the rising sun was brightly colouring the ocean, he had stood at the helm and shouted orders.

Of course, no one had obeyed a single one of his orders.

And when the pirates had entered this run-down tavern, yes, he had to stay outside then too. Souls could not enter buildings and to this day - Osheen did not understand why. Did the gods think that living without a body in this world wasn't punishment enough, that they made it even harder for the poor disembodied?

After all the years he'd spent invisible among the living, he would have done anything to watch two married couples fuck in their bed. Instead, all the excitement Osheen got was a listless fuck between whores and their punters out in the alleys of the harbour or some pirates execution, which had become so boring by now that he didn't even bother anymore.

Evenings like this, when he waited alone in an alleyway for the pirate crew to leave the tavern drunk as a skunk to make their way to the ship, were, unfortunately, no exception. And Osheen almost believed that his evening would be just like all the other evenings when the crew enjoyed their shore leave until a soldier in fine threads entered the tavern.

He wore fine linen and had a perfectly pressed and clean uniform, which Osheen was sure would stand out like a nun offering her body in this run-down gutter tavern.

But it was only when the uniformed stranger walked out of the pub with the woman, who was now lying unconscious on the old cart, that Osheen's evening became interesting.

Confident as only an invisible man could be, he strode towards the woman. If only he could touch her. To gently stroke those firm thighs once, to let his fingers glide up to her cleft - by God, that would be his last wish. Then he could die in peace.

Osheen leaned down to the unconscious woman, inhaled deeply and smelled... nothing. It was always the same. To shout orders; to touch a woman's butt; to smell and to drink, you needed one thing: a body. And Osheen's body was hanging in chains in a dungeon somewhere, unable to do anything except die.

Sighing in frustration, he sat down next to the woman on the cart, which was still unmanned in the street.

He had once been the great Naoise Osheen, a legend among sailors, at least in his mind. In reality, he had barely made it past the rank of cadet in the merchant navy and the rank of ship's jester in the pirates.

And perhaps even now, as a drifting soul, he was still nothing but a fool.

"Hey," he heard an angry voice, then a roar, and immediately raised his eyes. "What are you doing with that woman?"

Osheen smiled. He certainly wouldn't say 'no' to a bar brawl over a half-dead whore. At least it would make his evening a little more interesting. It was only when he raised his head to inspect the opponents that he realised he was being spoken to.

A stranger, just as neatly dressed as the uniformed man before, but far younger than his comrade, looked at Osheen with wild brown eyes. He carried a sword, its green blade shimmering through the fabric of the scabbard, and the pants of a pirate. His loose, dark shirt looked far too good, far too new to have ever seen salt water.

"Are you talking to me?" Osheen asked, perplexed. Could it be that someone was really talking to him after all these years? Or was he just imagining it all? Had he gone mad without realizing it?

"Who the hell are you?" The man with the shimmering green sword drew his blade immediately. He seemed to be the kind of person who killed first and asked questions afterwards, but for Osheen, this foreign soldier was more than that: his ticket to freedom.

"I asked you a question!" The tip of the blade was now pointing right at Osheen's throat, but he only laughed silently.

He tilted his head, smiled enthusiastically, then pushed the blade away from him and jumped off the cart.

"By God, you're the picture of a man!" He strutted carelessly around the armed man, who was still watching him with eagle eyes. "Surely the ladies throw themselves at you willingly," he pointed to the whore on the hard loading area of the open carriage. "Surely there's no reason for you to fuck a fainting whore." He put his hand over his lips. "I hope you will let me watch. I swear I'm enjoying quiet, even if I seem more like a chatterbox right now. I'd certainly be able to show you a few things, but I've been out of practice for a few years and," he searched for the right words before continuing with a laugh. "Let's just say I'm almost invisible to the opposite sex, but watching shouldn't be a problem. Maybe you'll like it."

No sooner had he finished the sentence than the tip of the blade was right under his left eye. "Careful, pirate, or I'll cut your eye out."

Osheen laughed at the top of his lungs. "That would truly entertain me, you know! A little excitement in my dull everyday life of watching and spying. I'd almost ask you for it, you know."

The stranger shook his head disdainfully. “You should be hung, drawn and quartered, you disgusting lot,” the stranger said, shaking his head disdainfully. "Get lost, pirate rat. Find yourself another whore to throw yourself at."

This stranger, Osheen was now sure, did not know that he was talking to himself in an alleyway and pointing his sword at nothing but air. All this could only mean one thing: he was a gadalka - a vessel for souls separated from their bodies in exile. It was one of the highest court spells you could get - and also the hardest.

How many times had Osheen wished he had been sentenced to death instead of roaming the world as a soul, but today, yes, today seemed to be his lucky day.

He had lived alongside the living for fifty years, only to finally be given a way out today. Yet Gadalkas had been nothing but a myth he had picked up during his trial.

Myths, he chuckled. Apparently, more of them were true than anyone wanted to admit.

"Didn't I tell you to get lost?"

But how do you take someone else's body? Should Osheen just try to run into him?

He looked down at his hand, then at the stranger's chest. Does everything happen in the head or in the heart? Maybe I should start with one or the other.

Shrugging his shoulders, he reached for the stranger's chest, who turned around at that very moment.

"What the hell -" That was as far as the stranger got because Osheen was already gripping his heart.

It felt different than he had thought, much more brutal and colder as if a man was being stripped of all his understanding until he relied only on his instincts. Osheen felt the man's resistance as he pushed back his mind.

He felt a groan escape him as he realized that the toes of the body were listening to his instructions, while the rest were clearly on the side of the stranger, who was drawing his sword against an opponent who could not be killed.

It felt better than sex, Osheen thought. Much more satisfying, harder and longer. Like a war that he could only win, but he dragged it out to torment his victim.

Yes, fight a little longer, he thought mischievous. For fifty years I've been nothing but a ghost, so please - please - give me a fight worth waiting for.

The stranger held something back, but Osheen heard nothing but the blood rushing in his ears; saw nothing but a few fragments of a strange life that did not interest him in the slightest. All Osheen wanted was the power to possess this body - to possess any body.

He finally wanted to be part of life again, whatever the cost.

He moaned again, feeling his legs obeying him, followed by his fingers and arms.

Osheen clenched his hands into fists, only to open them again. He felt the chill of the night on his clothes and shivered briefly. God, how he had missed all this.

He heard an angry scream in his head, saw bloody water in front of his eyes, and then it was over.

The voice of the man who had pressed his blade against Osheen's face just a few minutes ago had faded.

And Osheen laughed so loudly that it echoed in the alleys. "What an evening! Blimey, if I'd known all this...."

He briefly felt the new body, grabbed his steely chest, his defined arms, whose muscles he could even feel through the linen fabric, and, last but not least, his crotch - well-filled and hard, as if the stranger had just been waiting to be alone with the unconscious whore.

"Hmm, could have been worse, really," he said aloud, before pulling a new face. "The voice, yes, I have to get used to it. A little too deep for my taste."

Osheen then turned his gaze to the woman, who was still lying motionless on the cart. Surely she wouldn't mind if he briefly stroked her delicate-looking skin - just for a few seconds - would she? He wanted to touch someone for once without reaching through them. He wanted to feel warm female skin under his fingertips that gave way under him and didn't disappear.

"Sorry, milady, but you're the first one I've come across." He strode towards the cart, his gait prancing like that of a man who had been sentenced to death, only to receive royal clemency in the last few seconds.

And perhaps it had been the same, Osheen thought to himself. Perhaps he had received some kind of late acquittal when he had run into the stranger with the gleaming blade.

He was reaching out for the bare legs of the whore, about to finally touch them, when...

"Zebedaios, what the hell are you up to?"

Osheen paused, confused by the new name that sounded so wrong, but maybe he wasn't the one being addressed. Slowly, he turned around, still reeling from the exuberance this new body brought with it. "What?"

"Are you drunk?" The old man eyed Osheen intently, almost as if he suspected he was no longer the true Zebedaios.

Osheen smiled. "How am I supposed to have done that, old friend? You were in the tavern, not me."

"Old friend?" The other man's countenance darkened. "What's the matter with you suddenly?"

This time Osheen preferred to remain silent, not wanting to appear any more out of character with the man whose body he had stolen. Not that anyone could have made any sense of it. After all these decades, the people he had been forced to accompany never talked about punishments like his.

“Let’s go.” The old man was still watching him, lurking. “I need to wash off the filth of this tavern before I catch any diseases.”

Silence fell over the two of them. Seconds in which Osheen didn’t know whether to salute or say anything, so he just nodded and uttered a quick “Yes, sir!”.

A reply that made the old man’s brow furrow even deeper. “Are you sure everything’s all right?”

Osheen, who still felt like he was wearing new, far too tight clothes in Zebedaios’ body, stalked to the coachman’s seat. “Sure, everything’s perfect,” he groaned cheerfully before his gaze fell on his new companion, who was now looking at him dismissively. “Excuse me, sir.”

Apparently, Osheen now realised, Zebedaios was not a cheerful man, but the opposite. There was no other way to explain the old man’s reaction.

Why be cheerful when you could brood to yourself? He almost laughed at his thoughts.

“Let’s take the whore home so we can doctor her and interrogate her.” His companion glanced over his shoulder at the woman, who still wasn’t moving. “You didn’t have to rip her heart out right away, boy. I’m pretty sure she would have gone with us like that.”

What? Osheen looked at him.

“Maybe I overshot the mark a little,” he looked at the old man to see if he was saying something Zebedaios would never say, “again.”

“A little?”

Osheen almost conjured up his gigantic, apologetic smile on the strange lips that now belonged to him. A smile so charming that every whore had always forgiven him as soon as her gaze fell on it. But Osheen very much doubted that Zebedaios smiled much. He also doubted that the man whose body was now his had ever enjoyed anything.

“You don’t keep the Convent waiting, and if I understood you correctly, you were supposed to get her on a ship tomorrow, weren’t you?”

Osheen did not know what the old man was talking about but didn’t dare confirm or deny anything. This guy was suspicious enough as it was, but hadn’t he said something about an interrogation?

“The interrogation first. After that, we will decide everything else,” Osheen said, clearing his throat and giving the horses a pat on the bum.

This seemed to dampen the uniformed man’s suspicions at least a little, and Osheen, proud to have deceived him, smiled to himself.

“Am I still going to interrogate her, or have you changed your mind?”

Don’t be too cheerful, Osheen warned himself immediately. Don’t smile or he’ll think his brooding friend has lost his mind.

“Do what it takes to get answers,” he pressed out, struggling not to smile. “That’s what counts.”

Seems like life has a thing for me after all, he mused as he drove the horses through the narrow streets to the city prison. There was no other way he could explain why he had found a body that was so easy to occupy. Moreover, the body belonged to someone who was respected and held a standing that Osheen could only have dreamed of in the past.

He quickly glanced over his shoulders at the woman, who was being tossed back and forth by the trot of the horses.

A body, respect and a warm, voluptuous female body that invited him to linger - what more could an old pirate need?