The Bloody Lullaby cut calmly through the vicious dim waters, waves of murky blue battering against the sides of the ship’s colossal hull. A heavy downpour of rain pelted the vessel, drenching the deck’s wooden planks, and smattering against its sail. 

A distant crack of thunder lit up the clouded sky in a display of potent fury, before vanishing as quickly as it had appeared, leaving behind a perpetual grey gloom.

Whispering winds gently rocked the ship, whistling past in silent streaks, as blasts of salty seawater spilled over the ship’s gunwale. 

The Bloody Lullaby was truly a sight to behold; a hull of dark wood wrought together with shimmering metal, a towering mast with sails of bright crimson upon a field of deep black, and a bulky yet sleek design. 

Amidst rain and sea and storm, the ship pressed onwards, being gently rocked back and forth by the elemental bombardment of wind and water. 

A loud thudding awoke Ravette Bolton from her sleep, which she deduced to be the sound of a fist hammering against her cabin door. 

The cabin in which she resided was confined and cramped, with only a hammock and a small wooden desk to occupy it. The cabin’s lone candle was currently unlit, and no single ray of light entered the room, not even managing to straggle in through a crack in the wall. Ravette preferred the darkness to the light, and had developed excellent night vision because of this, doing most of her pirating whilst the rest of the world lay sleeping and vulnerable. 

However, to Ravette’s knowledge, it was not currently night-time, and the sudden awakening was most unwelcome. 

Her vision was blurry and her head pounded, which the loud banging at the door was doing little to ease. Her raven hair fell in messy clumps around her shoulders, hard and knotted from having been slept on. 

She stumbled, weary eyed, from her worn out hammock, shambling across the stiff floorboards as she made her way to the door.

Ravette gently creaked open the door, squinting as her eyes adjusted to the dim light of the lamp-lit corridor, to be greeted by Gap-tooth Gariss, looking an awful lot more awake than she felt. 

He beamed at her through the gaped teeth for which he got his name, looking mighty please with himself. 

“Afternoon, Cap’n.”

She hissed fiercely at him, grabbing hold of his leathery hand and yanking him inside the dark cabin, slamming the door behind him as she did so. 

“What in the seven hells do you want?!” She seethed, fixing him with bloodshot eyes.

Gariss could not see her in the lightless room, but the sheer venom in her voice made her lack of appreciation for being so abruptly woken evident. 

“A-apologies for the interruption, Cap’n” He stammered, gazing roughly into the area where he had heard her voice come from. “But I spotted somethin’ I thought might interest you.”

[i] “What?! [/i] She fumed through clenched teeth, futilely attempting to keep the strained rage from her tone. 

“A M-merchant vessel on the h-horizon, Cap’n; Looks to be from the Free Cities.” 

Ravette unclenched her fists, and a slick smile spread across her likeness, bolstered by the wicked scars that ran along her cheeks, forming a distorted smirk that covered a great portion of her face. 

“Make sure the men are ready,” She instructed, the prospect of plunder dominating her thoughts “I’ll meet you out on the deck.” 

Gariss soon scurried from the room, to do as she had bid him, leaving Ravette to clothe and prepare herself. 

Ravette fished her attire up off of a heap on the floor, sliding into her tunic, and fastening her breeches around her waist with a chord of hempen rope. She scrambled into her dark leather boots, placing a pasty white foot in each. 

Her gloves and cloak were a frayed yellowish brown in colouring, with her own mismatched needlework having patched them together. 

[i] Farlen Reensworth, cabin boy of the Lady Erena [/i] she thought, as she pulled the gloves down over her pasty white hands, taking some satisfaction from feeling them rub against her own flesh. 

[i] Erryk and Emmon Pyke, Gawen Rivers, Rollard Redmane, and One-eyed Duncan Farring [/i] She mused inwardly, as she slung the ragged cloak over her shoulders, fastening it to her tunic with pins of tarnished brass. 

She unhooked Bloodletter from a peg on the wall, sliding the gleaming blade into its scabbard, one lithe hand coiled around the rawhide grip. 

She joined her men up top, the motley crew drenched through and through by the still persisting downpour of rain, awaiting her in a shambled line. 

Ravette gazed out into the blue-grey sea, spotting a fat cargo ship with furled sails drifting uneasily nearby. 

“There’s our target!” She exclaimed, having to battle over the sound of the rainfall to be heard, one outstretched hand pointing at the vessel, that slick smile creeping across her features once more. “What say we go raid some southrons?” 

A cheer went up from her crew, their weapons raised above their heads, gleaming dimly as rainwater ran off of their metal blades. 

By now, Ravette’s previously knotted hair had become dank and soggy, plastered to her head by the ceaseless downpour. 

She yanked the cloak’s hood up over her head, a waif-like faced, blotched and pale, blocking out the rain, the mouth and eyeholes having been sewn shut. 

She inwardly thanked Emmon Pyke for providing her with his likeness, so that she might shield herself from unsavoury weather, and remain warm in the long years of winter.

It did not take long for the Bloody Lullaby to cut across the murky waters, swaying in next to the merchant’s ship.

It was a fairly compact vessel, seemingly fashioned from oak, with square rigging and unadorned sails. Intricately crafted, and painted in a smattering of bright colours, it was certainly a pretty little boat, but looked to be lacking in ways of defence, with only a few sellswords littering the deck. 

The Lullaby’s ram, an armoured beak of painted black metal, battered into the side of the vessel, tearing through its hull, and sending a burst of immense wooden splinters spraying through the air. A chunk of the boat fell away into the Narrow Sea, landing with a mighty ‘SPLASH!’, and the sheer force of the assault knocked a few of the vessel’s inhabitants off of their feet.

Ravette was the first to board, screeching like a banshee, Bloodletter raised above her head, the stitched together face of Emmon Pyke concealing her own visage. 

She leaped from the Bloody Lullaby’s deck, landing on the Merchant vessel with a definite ‘THUD!’, sending off a spray of rainwater that had congealed beneath her feet. 

A mercenary, clad in light scale mail, was quick to meet her, but the sheer force with which she came down on him sent him staggering back across the deck. He moved to parry her attacks, but was too slow, and soon his head went rolling across the deck, blood spraying from the stump of his neck, streaks of crimson mixing with the rainwater. 

The wind sent her skin-cloak wafting behind her, and the face that formed her hood, contorted in a permanent grimace, with its stitched grin and its sealed eyeholes, sent men recoiling backwards, gapping in horror at the beast that stood before them. 

“You would let a single little girl frighten you?!” Barked one of the sellswords, surrounded by men who clutched swords and shields and spears. 

Ravette grinned, running her slender tongue through the gapping chasms in her cheeks, showing of rows of needle-like teeth. She raised her hand and bid the mercenaries to come and face her, purring like a jungle cat all the while.

The sellswords rushed towards her, but even now she could smell the fear that gripped their bodies, could test the terror lingered in the air. 

She swung left, Bloodletter biting into the chest of a man who had not raised his shield in time, before blocking the cold steel of another man’s sword, mid-swing. She forced him backwards with bestial might, before slicing though his shoulder, leaving him to die in a pool of his own fluids, thrashing about on the deck like a sickly mule. A third man rushed her, but she simply ducked below his swing, slashing him in two whilst he was vulnerable. 

Soon, her men came vaulting down behind her, raining arrows and steel onto their enemies. The battle did not last long. 

Broken bodies littered the deck, and dismembered limbs were scattered about the place. Ravette had her men bind the merchant’s wrists, and gather them at the centre of the ship. They knelt before her, quivering in fear, dressed in expensive silk and rich finery. 

She spun on her heel, turning to address Pale Lorimier, who was using a knife to pick at the grime beneath his finger nails. 

“Scavenge all that you can from below decks, and then put the ship to the torch.” She instructed him. They had done too much damage to the vessel when they had rammed it, and it would be more trouble than it was worth in its broken state. 

She turned back towards the merchant, smirking at the ripe terror that was in their eyes, as they awaited their fates. 

That night the crew of the Blood Lullaby feasted on meat which was soft and sweet, and when the morning came they still had plenty to fill their larders. 

When they next came into port, they sold off all of the goods that the merchants had been carrying, and made a pretty penny for all the expensive silk clothing that they had acquired.