[center][b]*A collab between TNY, Peik, cider, and Yorg*[/b][/center]

Emilio recognized the clothing, the strange form, even through his slight drunkeness. This man, who stuffed his face with a strange combination of foods, placed between bread, interested Emilio greatly. He appeared to be intelligent, individualistic, wise. Emilio could gleam this from his eyes, his hands, his clothing. Then a spark ignited in his mind, and he remembered the dark, empty galley. This man could do work there, and he was perhaps as good as any. Besides, it didn't mean he would be confined there, giving him responsibilities and power would make him easier to befriend, easier to ask favors of, if he had anything to truly offer. Emilio moved himself around the table, directly behind the man. Emilio retrieved a flask from his breast pocket, one he had found in his room, and took a swig. It was a dull whisky, but it did the trick. He held it between his fingers and held it directly above the man's sight, then lowered it slowly in front of him. "Something to wash that down with." He said. 

Emilio sat next to the man, looking at the game still going, then glancing at the man. He looked a little older up close, but he still had that grown baby look to him. "Emilio," he said, extending his hand for a shake. "You are?"

''Ombre.'' Hata'i had finally recognized what the men were playing. The cards were rugged, a ramshackle set - some of the cards were of Mughal make. He had learned of this game while trading in the Netherlands. Not that he knew how to play it - he had simply recognized the general outlines of the game. He didn't know much about card games. The men were playing quite intensely, however - one had removed his shirt to prove that he wasn't hiding cards up his sleeves (he had seen this in the Zaporozhie as well), and the other was biting the pipe in his mouth so hard it looked like it could crack. Hata'i took another bite from his meal. Pear and fish sounded quite horrible. Maybe years of asceticism had simply killed his sense of taste. Or maybe his sense of taste was just plain bad. He didn't know. He didn't put much thought into it. He was too busy looking at the Mughal cards. He liked their color.

He heard a croak. Then the colors of the Mughal cards were blocked by a flask, which was then put on the table. The man he had seen earlier today, the man who had lied to the crowd, was sitting next to him. He could sense a faint smell of alcohol on the fellow. A tanned, handsome fellow, probably in his twenties. "Something to wash that down with." He looked back at the flask. The distinct smell of whiskey was emanating from it. Looking back at the man, he saw that his hand was extended. ''Emilio,'' the man said in a voice that tried to be friendly. ''You are?'' After going through a bunch of made-up profiles in his mind in an instant, he decided to go with one that was true and false at the same time. ''Mahmud,'' he said as he shook the fellow's hand. ''I'm coming from the Dutch Republic.'' He then put down the meal in his hand, and politely slid the flask towards the man. ''Thank you for the offer, but I don't drink.''

Emilio watched as the flask was slid his way, he felt a little embarrased, but soon realized he wasn't really sober enough for that to effect him. He shrugged and pocketed the flask again. A flock of gulls flew overhead, taking the winds toward the cliffs.Emilio looked over to the side to see the little arab boy from earlier, Rasad? He couldn't remember the name. The boy's mother, Esra-- her name he could remember-- was sat a little ways away, seperate from the crowd. Someone still found her and her children, a portly man. Emilio chuckled as he thought of the difficulty that man would have. 

Emilio came back to the man he sat with. "You [i]come[/i] from the Dutch Republic, but you are not of there. From where do you hail?" Emilio asked, producing the half eaten pear from his side coat pocket. 

''You come from the Dutch Republic, but you are not from there. From where do you hail?'' Hata'i decided to keep going with the 'true lies', believing that they'd be the safest in his situation. ''I lived in the Dutch Republic for some time, did some trade, but mostly translation and writing. I'm originally from the Ottoman Empire.'' He took another bite. As he chewed on his meal, the sweet-sour taste of pear dominant inside his mouth, seeing the man produce a pear from inside his jacket made him feel somewhat weird. Gulping the bite inside his mouth, he leaned his arms on the table. ''I've been traveling for the last two years, however.''

Emilio took a few large bites, chomped them down to bits, then swallowed. "I could wager on a guess as to where in the Ottoman Empire you are from, but that would be a moot point, wouldn't it?" He could hardly taste the juices of the pear, his mouth was a little numb and most everything tasted dull. "Now, aside from making fish and fruit sandwiches, would you be of any use in a kitchen? Our galley is empty and needs to be organized as well as properlly stocked. It's a simple job, really." Emilio wasn't looking at the man, only the Sintra mountains, the waves crashing against the sheer cliffs closer still.

The young captain took a large bite out of the pear in his hands as Mahmud watched him. He spoke of how he could guess where he used to be while in the Ottoman Empire. Hata'i sighed as the words filled him with nostalgia. He hadn't seen Constantinople for a dozen years. His old acquintances were dead. Sultan Ibrahim was dead. Katip Çelebi was dead. His sheikh was dead. He put down his sandwich. The man offered him to be the ship's cook. He had done cooking before, at the tariqa hanqah. It was simple - as long as the food was hot, the taste wouldn't be all that apparent. ''Cooking. I can do cooking.'' He started polishing the 12 cornered star-like onyx medallion hanging from his neck while thinking. ''I would need a list of the ship supplies, however. And an assistant.'' 

Emilio chewed more pear as Mahmud thought, cleaned his jewlery, and finally spoke. He found no issue with the demands, they were rather reasonable. "I'll have my yoeman work on the list as soon as possible." Emilio lifted his neck to try and find Gaspar in the crowd, but, indeed he couldn't be. "As for your assistant," Emilio's eyes wandered to Esra, then her son. He was perfect. "What about a young Arab boy? He speaks Portuguese, I think."

''A young Arab boy? Are you talking about that child in the courtyard? What was his name again?'' Hata'i scratched his beard with one hand, and grabbed his sandwich with the other. ''Shahid?'' He took a bite and chewed it slowly. ''Isn't he too young? I don't think he could carry a cauldron or hack with a cleaver. Looks too frail.'' He took another bite. He coughed for a second after swallowing it. ''I'm just voicing my concern. I don't think I could look at his mother's face if something were to happen to the boy.''

"That may be true." Emilio admitted, taking a second look at the family across the deck. "Well, I'll leave that to you then." Emilio stood, unlatched his key chain and removed the old one to the galley. "Come to my quarters for the inventory later, I need to find that blasted boy." And Emilio turned away from the table toward the thick crowd of feasters. He moved onward to seek out Gaspar among them. 

--

Taking another bite out of his piece of bread, Ciríaco turned from the railing of the ship, and looked towards the other people on it. The sky was darkening, but there was yet plenty of natural light. It took him a few seconds, but eventually Ciríaco made out the captain from among the crew. The man was walking across the deck, at an angle towards Ciríaco. Ciríaco swallowed and moved forward, cutting the captain off. He knew this Scar Captain by reputation only, and it was quite the reputation. He was an accomplished and infamous pirate, known for slaying monsters most people weren't sure were even real. Ciríaco had thought the stories fictional, made-up to boost the reputation of Emilio Cicatrice. Of course, that was before Ciríaco had faced the horror haunting Sintra the night before.

"Captain Cicatrise. A pleasure to meet such a reputable man." the old spy said in fluent Spanish as he shook the captains hand. "Allow me to introduce myself; my name is Ciríaco Moreno, a humble merchant from the previously lovely town we just departed, Sintra. When the... beast, struck, I felt obligated to join this crusade of sorts, but I must ask; what will happen next?" Ciríaco finished his sentence with a friendly face and a faint smile playing on his lips, patiently waiting for the Scar Captain's response.

Emilio was accosted by a portly man, a man probably well known, both in Sintra and beyond. This was a man Emilio would have robbed at some point in his past. Not today, however; today he was an adventurer, and a rogue agent of the papacy. What ghastly propositon this would have made to a slightly younger Captain Cicatrise? Though the same could be said for his unfortuitous mutiny. 

Emilio sauntered up the man, his body slightly askew to make up for the current wave. He took the man's hand with a bit of resignation, sweat stuck to his palms. The man spoke Spanish, but he was clearly Portuguese, it was evident in how he carried himself, how he dressed, and of course the fact that he mentioned it. Then he mentioned a beast. Emilio had hoped that he was coercive enough to diswayed such questions, at least so early. He recoiled, "Well, Ciriaco, in order to answer that one would have to accept that there was a beast there to begin with." He spoke in his native tongue, the castillano of old and it made him rattle. He could practically smell the pansies in his mothers garden. The sweet smell of his false fathers study after midnight, when he smoked with his comrades. What a fool that man was, Emilio thought, and he regretted not killing him before he left, at so ripe an age, as well. "I'm afraid I can't be convinced," He continued, "Not that it's any of my business, really, to care in the first place." Emilio glanced at the horizon, something he did often partly for consolation and partly to stave off vertigo and dizziness. He pulled the flask from his pocket and took a swig, offered it again, no hint of the pain from his earlier rejection. He wasn't sure why he was offering it to this man; perhaps it was just habit. "Do you believe it is your business, [i]Don Moreno[/i]?" The man seemed embarrased, and the night was winding down, so Emilio took the sip himself, nodded to the man, and walked off. 

--

It was a blessing that, despite his healthy geographical knowledge, Gaspar could not truly comprehend the distances that would soon lay between him and the little peninsula that had been his world since birth. Had he any inkling, the prospect may have overwhelmed him.

It could also be considered a kind of providence, then, that he was unable to find any nautical maps to occupy his imagination during the young hours of the evening, which he spent holed up in the captain’s quarters. Their departure from Sintra had so excited his nerves that he’d been forced into a hasty retreat below decks long before Portugal disappeared into the darkening horizon. There he’d looked for maps but settled on the next chapter of a novel he’d been reading avidly before the fires. 

For an hour or so he tried to read alone; not long, for the story now rubbed him the wrong way and he could not distract himself with it. Giving up, he emerged around eight o’clock on the main deck to discover that a party was underway. An assortment of folk milled about the deck, ejoying the fresh sea air and plentiful food. There were a scant few faces that Gaspar recognized, and none that he could put a name to. He spotted the large American who he'd run into on the docks, and the offbeat man whose bed he'd unintentionally stolen. There were several children darting about, oddly enough, and Gaspar wondered at their presence.

As he began to lament the fact that the only name he knew was that of the ship's captain, he spotted Emilio talking to a familiar face; Ciríaco Moreno, a local tradesman and wealthy owner of much of Sintra! Gaspar thought for a moment of greeting them, but decided against it. Moreno was not likely to recognize even his name, much less his face, and they looked busy besides; perhaps at a quieter time he would approach the don. He was genuinely curious about the merchant's reason for accompanying them.

Gaspar ran a gently trembling hand through his curls as he eyed the deck and the crowd. It had been a while since he'd eaten, a detriment that was likely contributing to his feeling of general frailty. Food would be welcome, even if his stomach was sending him mixed signals. As he headed for the bountiful feast they'd been provided with, Gaspar spotted the wine: as sure a lifeline as any nervous soul could wish for.

So it was that, about an hour later, Emilio found Gaspar perched on the stairs leading up to the poop deck, happy as a clam. The boy had his red journal open on his lap and a quill in his right hand, though his eyes were pointed upward, observing the night sky. A wooden plate rested on the step beside him, upon which a mostly empty wine bottle sat ensconced by the remains of a hefty meal. A few leaves of paper were tucked under Gaspar's legs to keep them from blowing away in the night breeze.

"What are you writing boy?" Emilio yelled through the misty darkness. He climbed the steps and sat near the boy, moving the plate to the step below him, and peering at the journal's contents. His eyes were slightly glassy, his vision only slightly blurred. He stood and unlatched a lantern from a masting pole and sat back down, lantern held overhead. 

"Noting the positions of the stars, Captain!" Gaspar grinned widely, only a little of his anxiousness showing through his eyes. His face appeared flushed in the lantern light, and the hint of a lisp had edged into his voice. "We sail under the Dolphin, there-" he pointed with his pen "-the Swan, and the Fish-Goat, there. Over there, I believe, is Microscopium. We are sailing under the Microscope, you could say." He chuckled to himself. The page open on his lap held several crude sketches and a number of labels hastily written. "Virgo, the Virgin Maid, will be our companion for several days longer. If the church did not frown -and justly so!- on mysticism, I would warn you to watch for others prying into your affairs." The boy gave Emilio an exaggerated finger wag and knowing glance, then laughed again.

Emillio nodded along with an approving demeanor as he looked back from the inky firmament to the illuminated pages below him. The boy seemed to be unusually perked, almost blissful. He might have had a few drinks in him, as almost anyone else in the ship, but Emillio could not tell what was happening in the boy's head, aside from the remnants of his own memories aboard a pirate ship at about his age. He remembered the pungency of alchohol, and curses, and the glinting of blade edges. This was all tinted beforehand, however, with an inexplicably easy shift from aristocracy to naval life in the short span of adolesence. Emillio could project his own story on the young man's current understanding of his situation, but it was pointless, the two seemed to be as different as it could get. Aside from all that the boy showed himself to be smart, if not slightly naive. Then the boy mentioned prying eyes. Emillio recalled the tense exchange between himself and Ceasar before the masts were full of wind, and he felt a chill reach down the small of his back and echo into his arms. Instead of succumbing to this feeling, as was easily done, he shook it off, brought his slightly drunken mind to the issue at hand. 

"I'd like you to get to work, Gaspar." Emillio said this with a easy tiredness. "We have a new chef and he needs a list of our materials. There is a large inventory book in my quarters atop the podium, you need only copy down our food stores onto a parchment and deliver it to me-- subtracting the things clearly removed from our stores this afternoon." Emillio's eyes scanned the darkness of the deck, noticing the sudden sparsety of people, and then turned back to Gaspar. He stood and hitched the lantern back on the post, "Come on, I'll show you where it is. Then we can finish off that wine bottle we started." Emillio added with a slight grin and a faint wink, since his eyelids were currently rather heavy to begin with. 

"Uh, yes, of course! Sir. Captain." Gaspar balked for a moment, having perhaps not yet given thought to the actual work he would be doing aboard. He recomposed himself quickly, though, and after gathering his things stood up to follow Emilio. The pen slipped from his fingers, and he had another quiet chuckle as he stooped to pick it up.

Emillio quickly picked the pen from the floor and put it back in the boy's hand, patting him on the shoulder as he walked away, "You might be interested in building up a higher tolorence as well." He commented. Emillio made his was to his quarters with little difficulty since there wasn't a crowd, and his drunkeness seemed to help with the uncertain ground. The wooden doors were swung open and Emillio pointed to his right and the podium which leaned against the wall there. He moved forward to the wine bottle and uncorked it. He poured half of the contents into a large snifter and then delivered the bottle to the boy, "yeomen have the pleasure of the bottle" Emillio said facetiously. After that he retreated to his desk, and removed a pile of books and scrolls to reveal a small map of the Mediterranean, his snifter held gracefully at his side. 

Gaspar approached the wooden podium, eyeing the sizable inventory book that rest upon its top. It was a new volume, unweathered, its corners sharp, its pages still a lovely off-white pallor. He could almost fancy he smelled the glue drying. The boy took a swig from his bottle then set it down, and leaned against the podium while he opened the book; still none too sure of his sea legs. 

Like the captain had said, the pages contained a detailed log of the ship's inventory. Gaspar frowned at the list while he tried to reel in his faculties from their hiding place amid the drunken haze. He peered over his shoulder at Emilio, who was at his desk looking over a map. The map immediately piqued Gaspar's interest, but he dispelled that urge and returned to the task at hand.

For a while Gaspar worked away, jotting down the items as he saw them listed, abbreviating or compartmentalizing where necessary. He struggled at times to maintain his focus, and would at those points relieve himself with a swig of wine. As the time wore on he repeatedly found himself bending closer and closer to the paper, and would correct his posture with a crack of the shoulders and a chuckle. 

Eventually he neared the end of the list. As he recorded the last few items the boy spoke up. "Will we go to the Mediterranean, sir?"

Emillio used his compass sparingly, arranging pathways as he saw them. When the boy spoke, which was only after a little while of silence in the creeking quarters, he asked about Emilio's map. This boy was attentive, observative, curious. He tapped a pencil against the canvas surface as he prepared for an answer. 

"Not unless we have to. I'd prefer to approach from the west, better walk that way, but we may have no choice. If there's a blockade, or the Spanish are having another showdown with the Berbers, we'll need to diverge, come from the north. Either way's fine," Emilio said as he brought a fist to his mouth, staring at the topography as the map showed it, "as long as we get there." He concluded with a lump in his throat. He couldn't bear imagining what the powers that be had in mind for him if he failed. Though, realistically, going after this beast was probably his death warrent, in and of itself. Either he would fail and die, or succeed and die, and there was no getting around it. There was a certain solice in that, something Emilio couldn't escape as a part of his darker nature. "As long as we get there," he repeated, finishing the glass of wine he had. 

"The Rock of Gibraltar must be a sight!" Gaspar said, oblivious to the fall in Emilio's countenance. "They say that Tariq ibn Ziyad burned his ships once he had landed on it, during his invasion. Why would he do that?"

Turning from his finished work, Gaspar made his way over to the captain's desk. "I met a Berber girl once. She told me that powers in Morocco will change soon. Do you think there will be, ah... danger, between them and Spain? While we are there? It's not... well, I want to see a Saadi palace before it's..." he punched his palm and grimaced. The boy eyed his bottle and then turned it up, downing the last of the wine.

Emilio chuckled at the boy and his inquires. "I never really understood the Muslims" he noted before turning back to the rest of the room. Emilio watched Gaspar gulp the last of the wine, the dark bottle clasped in his hand. Just then, as the bottle was brought away from Gaspar's lips, an aura awakened somewhere in it's glassy form. The light was a bright yellow light, as if a piece of the sun were trapped in the bottle. It shook and rumbled a little before the light finally shot out from the top, bouncing from Gaspar's face toward the back of the cabin, richocheting off a wall, and then behind the long table at the center of the cabin. Emilio followed the light for half of it's journey, dodged it as it sprang toward him, and managed to draw his scimitar. Gaspar cried out in alarm, nearly falling as he scrambled behind the captain's desk.

On the floor, behind the table, lay a women dressed in leather garments, specks of yellow light falling from her into nothingness. She quickly lifted herself to her feet and brought her hands together, a slight aura forming in her palms. Emilio reacted with haste as he grabbed her by the wrist and twisted her into a subdued position, raising his scimitar to her neck. "Don't move," he said in Portuguese, anger raising in his voice, "or I'll open you like a fish."

The woman, who had angular European features and dark black hair, chuckled a little before Emilio put more pressure on her arm, causing her to moan. "Don't get too comfortable making threats, Cicatrise" She responded in kind. "The tables may be reversed sometime soon."

Emilio had to smile at the woman's confidence, he brought the curved scimitar blade even closer to her neck. "I doubt it," he quiped. Emilio glanced over to his yeoman, "Gaspar," he called out signaling to the firearm on the table, "grab the blunderbuss. Help me out here." Emilio could understand if the boy was a little dazed, a tad confused, so he would let him collect his bearings. "Do you work for Luna?" Emilio asked calmly. 

"Why ask questions you already know answers to?" She asked rhetorically, trying to keep her skin from nicking the sharp metal blade at her throat. 

The captain nodded at the woman. "Cover her, Gaspar. With the gun."

Gaspar stared glassy-eyed at the woman, uncomprehending. He looked from her to the bottle in his hand, then back at her, then at Emilio, his mouth agape. It was only after the captain asked him a second time that he seemed to hear, and haltingly crossed the room to the blunderbuss. Soon he stood next to Emilio, the weapon held limpy at his side, a look of drunken confusion on his face as he tried to form a question. 

Emilio brought his scimitar down as Gaspar awkwardly held the woman in his sights, the blunderbuss pointed at her chest. He crossed around the table, his brown eyes narrowing as he watched her calm face. She wore light eyeshadow which finely accentuated her nearly red brown eyes. The woman eyed Gaspar, smiling dully when she noted his youth, his soft skin and bright eyes. His pink nose stood out to her most of all, it was a sign, and like all signs it pointed in one direction or another. She winked and raised her hands above her tumbling hair. The boy continued to stare in bewilderment, his brows furrowed as he tried to make sense of the situation through his drunken haze.

"Why did Luna send you?" Emilio asked through his gritted teeth. 

"To be stuck up by a handsome young lad like this, mission complete." The woman said with a heavy mocking tone. 

"Alright!--" Emilio began before being interrupted by a coarse scream from behind the closed doors. He glanced out the stained glass and tried to see beyond it to the dark deck. "What was that?"

"How should I know?" The woman responded blithely. Gaspar stared around at the cabin walls.

"Damn you! What is going on?!" Emilio yelled, filled with a dark fury as he crossed over the table and grabbed at the woman's hair. He pulled her half way over the table and brought her face close to his, her full lips almost meeting his chapped ones. "You tell me right now or I start cutting limbs off." The young yeoman sannk back in dismay, stumbling for a moment, his aim faltering.

The woman swallowed the lump which had formed in her throat, stared deeply into Emilio's eyes. He had no way of knowing if his threats meant anything to her. She had just been poured out from a botttle, what other tricks did she have hidden under her sleeves? For now, the threats seemed to at least keep her restrained, so Emilio thought he would keep going down that route. 

"It's a harbinger." The woman responded, falling into compliance. 

Emilio let go of her, and began walking to the doors to the deck, looking back only momentarily to check on Gaspar. "Hold it tightly, watch her. And keep a distance, at least ten feet."

The woman chuckled and whipped her head over to the captain, her eyes narrowing, "he won't be able to hit at ten feet." She said playfully. 

Emilio considered this for a moment, stopping at the door to wrap a bang around his fist, in case he needed to punch. "He'll hit," Emilio finally said, with all the confidence he could muster, and he nodded at Gaspar, hoping that, indeed, he would, and even moreso that the harlot never gave him a reason to try. As Emilio partially opened the door he noticed a very dim red hue, coming from a part of the deck he could not see past the door. The woman stared deeply into Gaspar's eyes. 

"You are the one who released me, correct?" She asked, sultriness oozing from her eyes. 

Emilio opened the door even more, just enough to see a figure, potentially human, clad in armor as black as the darkest night sky, and emanating a red, blobby aura with inky black centers. He wielded a lance, and at the end of that lance was one of the crewmen. The lance was tipped only slightly over the side of the boat and the half dead man slid from it and into the brine. Emilio could see across from him, half hidden in the stairwell down, was Lenord Comstock. His carbine was settled into his shoulder, and he fiddled with the sights a little, glanced over at Emilio. Emilio nodded and Leonard took his shot, and the pellet left a small chink in the armor, ricocheting off and hitting a beam. The armored figure moved forward with an unexpected speed, his boots almost bending the floorboards as he moved. Emilio ran right after him as Leonard took another shot with his pistol. The figure staggered a little, but continued his momentum. "Go get Epu!" Emilio yelled out from behind the massive form. Leonard ran down the steps and the armored figure turned to the voice behind him. Emilio immediately rolled forward and behind the hulking thing, taking a slice at it's knees. There were no weaknessess on this thing, as far as Emilio could tell, and his scimitar was certainly not good enough to work on any of this things parts. But, as Emilio already knew, he could not let this thing destroy the ship. He ran what the woman had said through his mind, a harbinger? And the obvious following question, of what?

The lance swung around it's master's body like a rope, found its way to its mark and drilled toward him. Emilio jumped back to another section of the ship, and the armored figured only moved an inch, bringing his lance back again for a second strike, a slash. Emilio dropped to the floor, then rolled out of the way as the lance drilled across the floor. Emilio rose to his feet, jumped back another few feet, just out of range. "What do you want?!" He yelled across the misty night air, his naive tongue all he could speak in that instant. 

The armored figure relaxed from his fighting stature, resting the lance on his shoulder. "[i]Peccavit tibi munus , miles . Domos quadro lapide ad caput gladio et ponite Hispaniae. Pacem habete , et non vult agere cum domino vestro.[/i]" Responded the glowing form. 

Emilio, wide eyed, felt he could hardly breathe, probably something to do with his recent maneuvers. But he also felt a tidal wave-like sense of impending disaster, of unavoidable loss and doom. At that moment Leonard popped his head up from the navigation deck, and Epu appeard from one of the far off stairwells. "I'm--I'm afraid," Emilio responded, stuttering, his heart beating faster than he could know, "I can't do that."