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The Shy, the Wicked, and the Cynical - Chapter 1

Summary

A former do-gooder pirate, Shy Kelsey de Bouff now works for the Armada underneath Deacon due to circumstances beyond her control. But after failing to complete her previous mission, Kelsey volunteers a target to make up for it: former friend and rising Witchdoctor, Wicked Saffron Bosworth. However, the stakes are much higher than she realizes, and she must work with a team of unusual clockworks in order to set the Spiral right. Or as right as it can be, anyway.

The satchel of gold fell lazily onto the ship vendor’s outstretched hand. He opened it greedily and laid the contents out on his hand. Several moments passed. Gold clinked against one another. He stopped and looked up at Kelsey, beaming from ear to ear.

“All accounted for,” he chirped. “Might I ask what you’re buying this for? I’ve seen you around plenty of times on different ships.”

Kelsey swore in her mind. She had forgotten her mask today, otherwise she would have dodged the question entirely. She couldn’t afford to waste time here. She glared at him as she offered her answer, not wanting him to press further. “My old one is in repair.”

He looked at her incredulously, but thankfully, he got the message. Kelsey didn’t care what he thought. He held the bottle out to her. She took it a little too quickly, unbottling the ship as soon as it touched her hand. She strode towards it quickly. She shouldn’t waste any more time on Cooper’s Roost docks.

The galleon itself was of Bison origin, something she wasn’t all that comfortable with for cultural reasons. She didn’t bother to name it. The ship would serve its purpose of getting around discreetly well. It wouldn’t be out of place for Cool Ranch, nor would it have a flag to identify her with. She couldn’t afford to have her usual markers on display either. Kelsey had already purchased the necessary equipment should broadside combat become an issue. Good enough.

The small Armada crew she had been allotted for this mission stood at the edge of the docks away from most of the ship vendors. She nodded towards them and they approached. They were an odd sort even for the Armada’s branding, which is why they had been assigned to her. They consisted of four soldiers of different designations: Parallax, a modified Battle Angel serving as a diplomat; Paradox, a lively and jovial clockwork jester with a colorful face that moves; and finally, Custos Decimus and Custos Sentus, an Armada Dragoon and an Armada Marine respectively. Both were considered defective. Custos Decimus’s programming was never quite right, and he was far too soft-hearted to enter combat as a regular Dragoon. Custos Sentus, on the other hand, had gained a disobedient streak after an incident during the arrest of another Witchdoctor left him with full sentience. If Kelsey was honest, he was the most aggravating of the crew, even with Paradox’s backhanded nature taken into account. Surprisingly, it had been Deacon who vouched for both of them and recommended that they be assigned to Kelsey.

Parallax, her first mate and trusted confidant, approached. She tapped her finger on her arm impatiently. “Awaiting your orders, Captain. Are you ready to depart?”

Kelsey nodded. Parallax was proactive-minded, which was a quality that Kelsey didn’t mind about her. As a whole, Kelsey felt an inexplicable kinship to her new crew, for perhaps she was the most different of them all. “Help me prepare and we’ll be off.”

Within the hour and the help of Kelsey’s crew, they set sail. Kelsey steered clear of the various factions roaming Cooper’s Roost Skyway and went for the pink wind-lane that she knew encircled the outer edges of Cool Ranch. They were considered neutral territory, and thus safe for her to leave the helm alone if she needed to. The winds would carry the ship if such a thing occurred.

Two days passed before Kelsey finally sailed into Tumbleweed Skyway. She had passed navigation and sailing duties onto Parallax while she rested uncomfortably over those cold nights. She had Decimus and Sentus–her nicknames for the pair–take inventory of the ship in the meantime. Paradox stood in the crow’s nest of the ship for the majority of the ride, keeping eyes on the skyways around them. Kelsey stood at the helm again, guiding the ship beyond the borders of Big Sky and into Tumbleweed.

Parallax approached from the deck. “Captain,” she said quietly as she leaned down. “We are almost at your destination. Are you sure what you are doing here is worth it?”

Kelsey nodded. “Yes, it is.” She paused. “Just before we dock at Tumbleweed, gather everyone else and take them below deck. You all are to stay down there until we set sail again. It is critical that my contact does not know that I am working with the Armada.”

Parallax bowed slightly. “As you wish, Captain.” She strode off to pass her instructions to the other crew members on deck.

Kelsey swore she could hear a hint of exasperation in Parallax’s voice, but she wouldn’t complain. Parallax wasn’t too keen on backwater places like Cool Ranch. After all, she had been working in the courts of other nobility alongside her sister, Paradox, prior to their assignment under Kelsey. But that did not–should not–matter here. Kelsey would be the one doing the information gathering. She vitally needed their skills in combat.

If the rumors Kelsey had heard were true, her target would be too difficult to capture on her own.

Kelsey lowered the board to the dock just as the sun was setting over Cool Ranch. She carefully stepped down, trying not to make note of the long way down in her periphery should she miss a step. Despite sailing for years, she didn’t think she could ever get over that intrusive fear of falling into the skyway. When she touched the docks of Tumbleweed, she almost wanted to kiss them.

She left her mask and cane behind this time. She needed to pass as her old self as much as she could. But each ever-so-slight limp towards Tumbleweed proper grew to be a huge ache in her half-clockwork heart. She climbed up the ramp, which she heard had been renovated courtesy of her contact, and finally set foot into Tumbleweed. Just to the left of the entrance was the Desert Rose Tavern. She made for it.

The tavern smelled of cinnamon and nutmeg. It was warm and lively today, if not a little busy. A pianist sat at the upright piano in the corner. Her hands moved elegantly from key to key as she played upbeat ragtime music. Kelsey found her fingers tapping along to it unconsciously. People from all walks occupied the tables, but Kelsey found an open spot at the bar.

Kodak the Barkeep–or better known to her as Cynical Jonah Landon–was a flurry of movement behind the bar. Patrons signed to him their orders and he made them with few questions.

She sat down and waited for him to finish with another customer. She was eager to get out of the dust storm that was Cool Ranch. Her heart pounded in her ears. Every thought in her mind shouted at her to turn around and leave the bar, to return to her ship and set sail again. She shouldn’t get Jonah involved, she shouldn’t–

Before she could turn around and leave, his green eyes met with her hazel ones. Jonah smiled and gestured for her to wait one moment. Kelsey nodded and compiled. Guess I’m staying put after all. He placed a cocktail for another customer at their spot at the bar, then approached Kelsey.

His hands became water as he signed to her. “Hey Kelsey!” His smile widened.

Kelsey’s voice shut off as hers found the same flow. She wanted to retch at how fake it must have seemed, but she didn’t. “Jonah! Long time no see!”

“How have you been? Where have you been? What can I get you?”

“A bottle of Yum, please. I’ve been fine,” she lied. “I’ve been sailing around, keeping up with the same old adventures we used to have.”

Jonah tilted his head at her. She assumed that it was the fact that she was not, in fact, fine. Nor was she having the adventures she said she was. She wanted to tell him everything that happened to her over the past five years, but her mission depended on keeping that critical information from him. He would not be pleased to find out who exactly her target was, but she wanted to ease him into that realization.

Kelsey had always been a terrible liar, even in her childhood. And Jonah’s uncanny ability to read facial expressions had been mastered at a young age due to his profound deafness that occurred in the middle of his childhood.

Thankfully, he didn’t press any further and went to the back. Kelsey let out a sigh she’d been holding and stiffened when she heard him come back. He uncorked the bottle for her and slid it over the countertop. She caught it in her organic hand. Kelsey took a sip of it and set it gently on the table. She lifted her hands to sign again.

“Do you know where Saffron is?”

Jonah’s face fell. “Always so business-minded, Kel. Why do you want to know?” He crossed his arms and glowered at her.

Kelsey paused. “To make amends,” she signed back. But that wasn’t the truth, not even close. She wasn’t sure how much he knew, but Kelsey wanted to make Saffron pay for the suffering she inflicted on her all those years ago. Maybe Jonah could read that on her face. But it didn’t matter to her. “I miss her a lot.” The signs felt vile on her hands and face, but she tried to keep face as best as she could. Her expression fell flat.

Jonah pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. Regardless of whatever he found in her expression, he began signing again. “There were rumors of her being in Haunted Skyway. I don’t know why in the Spiral she would want to go there. It’s a mad, mad place.”

Kelsey’s eyebrow raised. What Jonah said about the skyway itself was indeed true. Undead plagued the skyway like nobody’s business. Between the undead pirates and the sky snakes made of bones, venturing in there was a madman’s errand. But if there was anything Saffron liked, it was spooky aesthetics and anything Hoodoo-related she could get her hands on. The skyway was filled with bad mojo according to Old Scratch, but it would be a perfect draw for Saffron. It was too early to tell for sure, but that would be the place to start.

She went to sign again, but found that Jonah’s attention had been pulled away by another patron flapping their hand in his periphery. Kelsey took this brief moment of reprieve to sip from her bottle of Yum and let it soothe her soul. The body of it was pleasantly heavy on her tongue, with a fruity and floral flavor that almost reminded her of lavender. It was a comfort she needed given the arduous task ahead of her. She would have to thank Captain Gunn’s corpse later for the bastard’s ingenious idea to bottle it.

Jonah returned. “Anyway, yeah. Haunted Skyway. People have told me she’s hanging around her. Some brave folks are saying she was last spotted in Miranda.”

Her eyes widened. “Miranda?!”

He nodded. “I don’t know why, nothing good came of that place.”

She agreed. It was where they had taken down Captain Blood, but the sheer sight of that ghost town left lasting memories on herself and Jonah. The undeath and trauma alone had been suffocating. Saffron, on the other hand, was eager to explore the town despite the horrible tragedy that occurred there years prior to their intervention. Jonah and Kelsey looked at her like she was crazy then. Saffron, of course, didn't care.

“If I had to guess, she found something else magical about that town.” Jonah rolled his eyes. “You’d best stay out of that skyway, Kel. Find a way for her to come to you. Talk then.”

Kelsey wanted to retort that she didn’t have time to find an artifact that Saffron would like, but she kept her hands and face together on that one.

As she raised her hands to sign, Jonah had once again been pulled away by other customers. Kelsey opted to leave him be. She had finished her first bottle of Yum and found herself craving a second. Another bartender stepped out from the back and got to work, Kelsey asked them for another bottle. She slid the coins just as they had slid the bottle to her.

It would be a long while before Kelsey would ever be able to have an evening like this. She decided she would make the most of it. The exhaustion from all the sailing she had done these past few weeks was wearing on her. She was eager to spend the night on dry land for once. Tonight, she decided, her crew could wait. She could spare a little time to rest before the arduous task ahead of her.

Kelsey was halfway through her third bottle of Yum when Jonah appeared and tapped her shoulder, startling her from her thoughts. She glanced at the lit candle he had in one of his hands and raised her brow. He motioned for her to follow him, and they went over to one of the secluded tables underneath the second floor. He set the candle in the middle of the table. It illuminated the space between them and not much else.

“I’m on break,” he signed. “Tell me what’s really going on. I know you wouldn’t look for Saffron just for that, Kel.” He scowled at her. “There’s more to this.”

Kelsey sighed. So he had spotted her lie after all. She pursed her lip, trying to put her thoughts together into an acceptable explanation. She chewed on her lip, glancing at the table, the floor and anything that wasn’t Jonah. But in her peripheral vision, she got the impression he was still scowling at her. Her expression slipped somewhere between sorrowful and earnest, perhaps both.

“Can you promise you won’t be angry with me?”

Jonah raised a brow. “I can’t. But if it’s why I think you’ve been missing for all these years, then…”

Her face fell. “I’ve been forced to work with the Armada. To make a long story short, they saved my life, and as a result I have a debt to pay to them.”

“So the rumors were true. About you working with them.”

She nodded slowly. She glanced away, only turning back as he signed.

Jonah pinched the bridge of his nose. “And even with what they did to my parents, you’re still just going to help them anyway?”

“I’m at their gunpoint, Jonah. I can’t do much else. Hell, I’m lucky to be out here by myself right now.”

He let out a long sigh. “Okay, fine. So how does Saffron play into this? Why do you need her?”

Kelsey’s lips stretched into a frown. She explained her side of the story: that the Supreme Commander believed that she would also be a threat to his operations if she wasn’t dealt with right away. So as punishment for her previous failure, she was sent to capture Saffron, alive ideally. At least, that was partially true. That was all he needed to know.

In reality, Kelsey was the one who volunteered Saffron as a target. She was still angry with Saffron for setting her up all those years ago, only to take the fall for Saffron’s smuggling operations. She had no qualms about carrying out this mission, even after the trio worked together for Marco Pollo’s Map post-Erebus breakout. But those days were long gone, and any truce they had was dust in Cool Ranch’s winds. Jonah retired with some of Pollo’s gold to take over the Desert Rose, and Saffron had gone her own way altogether.

“I haven’t been told good things about Saffron, either. I heard she was amassing an undead crew. An army, some called it.”

Kelsey’s eyes widened. “Why?” Her expression shifted into confusion and concern.

Jonah shook his head slowly and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, Kel. But even if it’s for the Armada, you still have the best chance of stopping whatever scheme she’s got going on. She’s going on a dark path that’s only getting darker, and I wouldn’t be enough to save her anyhow.”

“Jonah…” she sighed. Her shoulders slumped and she leaned against the table. “You know, I really did try to continue our work after Cool Ranch. But at Knossos…” she paused as she manually signed the name of the island. “Between the Minotaur’s sons and the Armada ambushing us there, I didn't have a choice. The only way I was going to leave there alive was with them.”

“Kel, you don’t need to explain yourself. I trust your judgement in whatever it is that you’re doing.” He lowered his head and continued signing. “But please, make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons.”

Kelsey furrowed her brow. She really couldn’t discern what was what anymore.

Jonah stood up from the table and took the candle with him. He extinguished it with a quick breath. Kelsey followed quickly and grabbed his hand.

“Can I stay overnight in one of your rooms?”

Jonah nodded. He retreated to the back of the bar once more. Kelsey fished out a pouch of gold from an interior pocket and counted out the gold for one and a half night’s stay. When Jonah returned with the keys, Kelsey handed it to him. He counted quickly, then looked at her confused.

“Please, keep it. You need it more than I do.”

“Thank you,” he signed, the back of his flat hand extending towards her, and led her upstairs to a door on the side of the floor.

The door opened up into a mildly dusty hallway, with many more doors lining it. He led her to one at the end of the hallway on the back wall and gave her the keys.

“Here you go. Best room on the block. Return the keys to the barkeep in the morning.” He turned and walked away, but stopped and turned back to her. “And Kel, please come back sometime. Knowing you, you’re probably gonna set off at sunrise. Just…tell me what happens.”

Kelsey half-smiled and chuckled to herself. “You got me. I will though.” Whether it was a half-truth or an outright lie, Kelsey couldn’t tell. After everything that would happen, there was some part of her that believed that Jonah would hate her guts just as much as Kelsey hated Saffron’s.

Jonah left her to the comfort and privacy of the guest room, which was rather quaint. She sighed and undressed into her undergarments. The room got chillier as she did so, making the bed all the more inviting. She decided her crew could wait for a little bit. She wanted to sleep on dry land just this once, she got the feeling that she wouldn’t have this luxury for a long, long while.

She plopped on the bed and got to work unstrapping her prostheses for her left arm and left leg. As she gently pulled off the arm, she admired the intricate details required to craft such a sensitive thing. The design was partially her own, perfected by the Armada’s–no, Kane’s–intervention. She set her metal limb aside and looked at the stump that was the upper half of her forearm. The illusion of connectivity she had shattered, and she waved it about uselessly, if only for her amusement and no one else’s. She did the same to her leg, stripping it down to the barest half-limb. She ran her hand over the stump. Despite it being removed years ago by some of Valencia’s finest surgeons, she couldn’t ever not be amazed by it.

Kelsey got comfortable underneath the bed sheets and let her mind wander. First about Saffron, then Jonah, and where she would be after all of this. Would she even be the same person? A vague unsettling feeling crept into her stomach. It was too early to make any sort of prediction. But with the news that Saffron was amassing an undead crew, she found it harder to get comfortable. What in the bloody biscuits of Marleybone could she possibly be doing this for?

It didn’t take long before the desire to rest overtook her.

When the sun shone warm beams of light through her window, Kelsey stirred. She awoke from a deep and comfortable sleep and sat up in her bed. She rubbed the sleep away from her eyes and mentally planned out her day.

She would leave the inn and set sail alongside her crew for the Haunted Skyway within the hour. She was not thrilled to be returning there, as she was certain that the Armada’s intervention had awakened Captain Blood and put the skyway in the state that it was. She wasn’t eager to return to Miranda either, as after the game between Death and Captain Blood, she was sure it would be a ghost town in the truest sense of the phrase. Too quiet for comfort. Even subtle movements wouldn’t go unnoticed.

And it was also in the Haunted Skyway where she destroyed Deacon. She wasn’t sure if he had forgiven her for that one, or if he ever would. She had an inexplicable sense of sympathy for him, though she would never admit that to her friends or either of her crews.

But most of all, it was also where she’d find one of her former best friends gathering an army of undead pirates for Saint-Fido-knows-what purpose. The threat of the Armada aside, none of this situation had good prospects for the rest of the Spiral.

Kelsey wasted no time getting ready and leaving the Desert Rose Inn. The air still felt cool and dry, making it a pleasant time to leave. She hurried past the folks in the early morning, barely slapping the room key on the counter for the bartender to take back. She jogged out of the doors into Tumbleweed, and down the rail to the docks.

The board was already waiting for her when she reached the docks. She carefully climbed it, trying to avert her gaze from the skyway below. She didn’t have time for those intrusive thoughts to play now. When she was fully boarded, Kelsey caught sight of a certain clockwork Marine leaning nonchalantly against one of the masts.

“It is about time you showed up,” Custos Sentus said, his hollow eyes meeting hers.

Kelsey folded her arms. Her brows furrowed. “I thought my instructions to stay below decks until I returned were abundantly clear, Sentus.”

“It was too warm.”

Her eye twitched. “I don’t have time for this today,” she groaned. She glanced over to the Captain’s Quarters, where Parallax waited, peering through the circular window in the door. Kelsey motioned for her to come out.

She must have spied the concerned look on Kelsey’s face as she hurried over to her position. “Is everything alright, Captain?”

She shook her head. “Not in the slightest. Gather the rest of the crew and prepare to set sail. We’re going to Haunted Skyway.”

#pirate101 #pitty101 #p101 #writing #fanfiction #fanfic #oc: Shy Kelsey de Bouff #oc: Cynical Jonah Landon #oc: Parallax #oc: Paradox #oc: Custos Decimus #oc: Custos Servus #quill's fanfiction #Just a heads up: this is my first work that I'm posting in a long time; it'll be updated as I finish the chapters #I hope whoever reads this fic will enjoy this as much as I enjoy brainrotting about the fic sdlgsdfklhj

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