CARIBBEAN FREEBIRDS

That’s RIGHT — because I’m a PIRATE I will DIE. It’s easy to DIE. Even if I lead COUNTLESS fleets. Even if I boast UNMATCHED strength. Still, a PIRATE’s fate is bound to be like this. What a FRAGILE existence it is…

An independent and selective blog for ANNE BONNY & MARY READ of FATE / GRAND ORDER, featuring alternate verses for a number of series including but not limited to GENSHIN IMPACT, LEAGUE OF LEGENDS, FINAL FANTASY XIV, and WORLD OF WARCRAFT. Lovingly penned by KEIS.

    •  𝐆𝐔𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐒    •    𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐄    •    𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐄𝐒

It must have been nearly eleven o'clock at night, and yet the office building seemed to be as bustling as ever. Hardly a surprise, either, given its true nature. On the surface of things Iron Koi Logistics was just an ordinary shipping company, yet their true purpose laid in transporting more than merely mundane goods. Under the leadership of the Nakazawa Clan, a family of Eastern-born magi, they'd come to be one of the foremost couriers for magical cargo coming in and out of Japan.

The clan's patriarch, Nakazawa Souta was undoubtedly a powerful foe. His home was a neigh unassailable fortress, and even his place of business seemed to be protected by an ungodly amount of protective wards and hired help. If it were on his terms, a fair fight would be tantamount to suicide but... Really, that was just it. Like most magi, especially among the older generations, he'd expected the Holy Grail War to be fought with honor and dignity. As if the pirates and their Master who were perched on a rooftop 3,000 meters away had any concern with concepts like that...

"Alright..." Anne's tone was breezy as she began to shift more of her balance towards her back leg. "I think I've got the target in sight. That should be him, three floors down from the top and two rooms over from the left."

The rifle in her hands went from laying across her bracing knee to cocking against her shoulder. She closed her left eye and squinted down the sights; a formality, but one which simply felt right after years of building up the habit. No matter what, she wouldn't miss. It wasn't her nerves that kept her finger from the trigger, but a need for just a quick, few words of affirmation. It was a good thing that she'd waited for them too, or so the blonde would soon learn.

"Not him." A quiet interjection comes from the white-haired woman at her side. She raises the photographic in her grip, presenting it for her partner's appraisal.

It's a little hard to get a perfect sense of the man in the photo. The angle is odd and the focus is blurry. It's probably about the best that they could ask for, given that it had to be taken covertly, but an awareness of those extenuating circumstances does not relieve its burden.

"Looks a bit too young. Ain't got the wrinkles, or those first grey hairs." Mary continues as she gazes out at the distant office. It's utterly remarkable that she can make out any details, aside from the silhouette of the building itself, but that is one of the boons that comes along with being more than merely human. "His son maybe? He did have a son, yeah?"

@liecoris said: ❛  my own mother thought i was a monster ... she was right of course, but it still hurt.  ❜

"Yeah." Her nostrils flare as she exhales. Warm breath coalesces under the collar of her coat and refracts against the contours of her jaw; a little luxury, born from herself and gifted to herself. "Mine wasn't too hot about me, either. I was 'useful' and that was better than being 'nothing', but... Hah..."

Having value and being valued are not at all the same. Even as a child, she was able to comprehend the difference between the two. This should be the sort of recollection that simmers the venom in her stomach, and yet amid the bitterness there's a trace of honest mirth. Nothing about the subject is so funny, nor are there any fond memories that bubble to the forefront of her mind. God forbid, anyone believe that she loves her mother, either. It's just funny to think of where she started, compared to where she is now.

It's been a long journey with an equally long fall.

"It's really kinda hard to argue with those sentiments, seeing where we've ended up and all of that. I mean... A fine, fine bunch of worthless cutthroats we are..." The corners of her lips curl as she speaks.

It's difficult for her to be soft or comforting, least of all when the subject at hand digs into her own scars. How can a monster tell another monster that they're something more human, as if they'd have any grounds to say? Salvation isn't hers to give.

What she can do is offer a hand. Damnation deserves good company.

@ardensfides said: ❛  i'm angry at myself!  ❜

Of course, a captain should bear the lion's share of blame when a ship is set off-kilter. The right to delegate is ill-bestowed if not shouldered by someone who can bear both triumph and defeat. In that way, it's a rather unenviable mantle.

Why is it that so many dream of leading others into the fray? She has never understood it. Even now, she has to question just why this girl has chosen such a path. Unlike some, she does not hold onto truly childish naiveties. There is no selfish sense of heroism here. But is that better, or is it worse? Is there really something at the end of the road that will make the journey worth it? It is not hard to flee from one's duties. Not if one wants to do so.

Even now, she can taste the ash on her tongue from when she set fire to everything she owned and slipped into the night. Perhaps it was her luxury to care not one bit about what was right and what was wrong.

"It's a bit of a pickle... That much is sure..." To hear the blonde speak so coolly is rather unnatural. Much of her mirth may be manufactured, but rarely does she let it slip. Perhaps it speaks to just how far her mind has traveled.

Best to reel things in. The past is unchangeable, and the future uncertain. All that matters, (all that is worth living for), lies in the present moment.

The heels of her boots clattered as she approached the magus. Tensing muscles left her movement unpredictable, and her eyes betrayed no hint of her intention. There was nothing to do but grin and bear whatever was to come. Anticipation settled only to be cleaved by the crack of thunder.

Was it too forceful? The way that her hand gripped the magus' shoulder? Perhaps a little, at least at first, but there was no anger in the gesture. The grip of her gloves was supple and smooth, but equally so were the soft fingers that laid beneath. It's odd to think how simplistic touch can attempt to convey so much.

Is it weird that she can feign most anything with ease, but struggle to speak the same words sincerely?

@miraruinada​ said: ❛  the greatest illusion of this world is the illusion of separation. things you think are separate and different are actually one and the same.  ❜

"Pretty much." Her intonation is as calm as ever, but there's a certain forcefulness with which her reply is thrust. Even though she offers her agreement, there is something about that suggestion has irked her. Perhaps it has less to do with the words themselves and more to do with the memories that they evoke. "Where we come from, or what we look like, or who our parents were... That and everything else like that... It doesn't mean really shit, even if some folks would prefer to say otherwise."

There will always be those who have and those who have naught, but it takes a special kind of fool to try and find meaning in that imbalance. Even now, after a lifetime and then some, it exhausts her to recall the flowery platitudes that others have spilled when trying to explain why some deserve to starve and others deserve to feast. Birthright, providence, and other such concepts... All such abstractions are equally farcical...

She has seen 'blue-blooded men' sully the ground with fetid crimson. At their ends, writhing and gibbering, they look no different from anyone else. Some would call it uncouth, but that's how a boor They're no more dignified than the worst sea dog.

"If you wanna poke and prod then you can find things that set us apart. Some folks are stronger than most. Other folks are smarter. Stuff like that is real, yeah? But I hate hearing about how luck and effort have gotta mean something more. Human beings aren't special enough to justify all that sort of talk."

To say that the garment was ‘worn’ would have been something of an understatement. Its edges had been run ragged, with no shortage of fraying along each and every ridge. Cuts and gouges dotted its cover like the markings of a map. In essence, they were no lesser in their demarcation of her path. From the slightest scratch atop the cover of her left thigh, to the deepest gouge across her aft, they were all proof of her endless struggles.

“I should really learn to sew one of these days…” So she mused, while knowing that she never would. Her mind lacked the discipline for so tedious of task and besides, there really was something to be said for leaving her clothes exactly as they were.

An errant finger caressed her back as she deigned to muse over that errant thought. Bundled against the curves of her spine laid the remains of what once had been sleeves. All but torn to ribbons now, they could only hope to serve as profusely peacocked decorations; useless, yes, but remarkably beautiful in spite of their inadequacies.

Small life update? Kind of? Still looking for a good opportunity to get back to writing here, because I really miss it. I’d like to hope that I’ll be able to pull myself back here soon, but there’s kind of a reason that I haven’t been able to. It’s like, a lot. Sort of.

  While patching wounds wasn’t an unfamiliar thing for Mukuro, she was more used to the ‘old-fashion’ way so this new method of using magic to heal was something entirely new to her。 So Mukuro couldn’t really say if this was suppose to be painless or not, but she’d try her hardest to make this process go as fast as possible。

  Having looked down at the wound as she patched it, when Mary began to speak again, Mukuro lifted her gaze, watching as Mary’s face contorted slightly。 Having an assumption of what she wanted to say, Mukuro looked back down as she waited for Mary to choose the wording she wanted。 Neither Mary’s nor Mukuro’s bodies were considered ‘normal’ by typical standards, so when Mary went with human, Mukuro just lightly nodded。

「I’m trying to go as fast as I can with this,」 Mukuro stated softly, normally she wouldn’t give a second thought to hurting someone, but she quite liked Mary so the thought of putting her in pain really didn’t sit too well with her, so she really was trying to rush a bit while still making sure the wound was properly taken care of, just so Mary wouldn’t be in as much pain as she was currently。

「Would pain killers help you out any？」 Even though Mary mentioned earlier that traditional first aid methods wouldn’t exactly work for her, maybe taking some sort of pain relief could possibly help。

“Pain killers?” The pirate’s brows shifted oddly as her mouth mimicked the unfamiliar term. Bleh. The Throne of Heroes could be so fickle when it came to the knowledge that it passed on to it’s residents. It was annoying to say the least, but she could still hazard a guess at what her Master’s words had meant. “Like... Opium? Or alcohol?”

Intoxicants were nothing if not good at killing pain, and while both of the ones that she’d listed were dangerous in their own ways neither of those poisons could harm her body as it’d become. It was, she supposed, one of the less discussed perks that came along with the form of a Heroic Spirit. Not quite as useful as both superhuman strength and endurance, but far from devoid of it’s proper occasions.

“Couldn’t hurt to try it, I guess.” The white-haired woman shrugged. “All I’d say is that if it’s an ‘either or’ type of situation then I’d rather have the drink. Don’t care too much for smoking, ‘n I’m never gonna pass up on booze besides.”

As she spoke her gaze flickered down towards her fingers which she’d brought up to bear against her chest. One by one she strummed each digit against her raw flesh, testing their mobility as a pretense to avoid the words that yet lingered upon her lips.

“Hey... If that’s where we’re at then pour out something for yourself as well. I might be the one bleedin’ all over the couch but I think we could both use a pick me up after a night out like tonight.”

     Scathach’s fingers slowed in Anne’s hair as the pirate answered her, and she raised her eyes from the half-braid in contemplation. She could be firmer with her hair? Well, that put images of pulling her hair through Scathach’s mind and she swiftly shooed them away. 

     Scathach could hardly respond when Anne said she trusted her, a mutually shared sentiment, because Anne made physical contact with her and silenced her tongue. She looked down when Anne’s hand came around, brushing her hip right where it curved upward and in to her midsection. 

     She did not understand what was happening here. There was a weight on her chest along with a warm feeling inside her chest. Anne was only saying that Scathach could pull a little more on her hair to tighten the braid — why was the spearwoman reading into it so much? It was almost embarrassing that she had the audacity to imagine that Anne might… be speaking between the lines. Surely whatever suppressed feelings that had been bubbling up on Scathach’s behalf towards Anne these past few weeks on the sea were not returned. Hell, Scathach had been beating her with polearms and Anne had been teaching her how to pirate; it wasn’t exactly a romantic getaway.

     Scathach swallowed again. Anne was… ‘fragile’ looking in a way that greatly appeared to Scathach. She was so beautiful, so soft and feminine, and with the sweetest of smiles; she was nearly made of Caribbean sunlight. And the best part? Anne wasn’t actually fragile. She may claim to be, but Scathach knew better. Anne was a woman to be reckoned with; perhaps she would present no challenge to Scathach in a duel to the death, but Scathach had an unfair advantage of being a three thousand year old nearly immortal Witch. She acknowledged Anne’s strength, and that was truly saying something.

     Scathach took a deep breath and continued braiding. Down Anne’s back went the thickest plait, and when it was done, she began to work on the thinner braids. These were faster to work, tighter per Anne’s request, and then Scathach wove them back up into her hair to form loops. These would be challenging to un-braid whenever Anne may want to wash her hair or take them out, but in the meantime, her hair was bound in a way traditional to Scathach’s era. Scathach imagined that she could have walked past Anne on a trail in the mountains of Skye and not thought twice. All the while she worked, Scathach was deep in thought.

     Scathach finished and placed her hands on Anne’s shoulders, hesitant to let go of having physical contact with her. She had come to the conclusion, however ill-advised it may be, that she certainly harbored feelings for this pirate in front of her… She could not just outright say it, though.

     “It is precisely because you are not fragile, in neither body nor spirit, that I treat you as such. You are… … … precious to me,” she said, her heartbeat racing. 

     “But… if you wish for me to be more aggressive… just say clearly. And… I will oblige.”

     Were they still even talking about braiding hair? Arranging her words as such gave Scathach plausible deniability if Anne did not return her feelings.

Oh... Now that was something...

She had not thought her words through, or at least not beyond their applications to her hair. It was meant to be such a simple thing, and yet perhaps she’d allowed some deeper feelings to slip down into the undercurrent. For as self-conscious as she was it was certainly not unheard of. The blonde was, after all, nothing if not poor at constraining her desires. 

Her features froze as she processed and reprocessed the Lancer’s words. Of course she could be counted on to read between the hazy lines. It would’ve been unfair of her to ask so often of others what she could not manage to do by herself. Palpable was the tremor that seemed to seize her pupils as they focused in on Scathach’s lips, waiting for an utterance. If she hadn’t meant precisely what she’d said then it’d only be so long before she caught her errant words. 

With bated breath she waited. It could not have been for longer than a minute that weighted silence fell between them, and yet it felt akin to an eternity; certainly for racing minds and beating hearts it was. As far as the blonde was concerned it really was more than long enough. She readily allowed the sly grin that slid across her lips. 

“I am ‘precious’ to you... Ah. I see, I see...” The blonde’s eyes narrowed as she shot her companion a knowing look. Firm was her tongue as it pressed against the inner ridges of her teeth. She could barely stand to keep it in check but for every ounce of self-discipline within her body. “But you know... I really, truly meant nothing more than to remark upon my hair... As I said, it has always been too unruly to be reigned in without some worthy effort...”

So she said but then why were her fingers spreading wide across the Lancer’s hip? Why did they edge as far around the curve of her rear as their angle would allow? Why, most of all, were her nails digging so pointedly into the thinly spread fabric of Scathach’s attire? Was she so determined to squeeze at the tender flesh that laid below? So blatant was her provocation.

"I realize that I’m speaking sight unseen, but still I dare say that you’ve applied the proper sort of discipline...” Her other hand swept up towards her nape, brushing briefly with the digits that steadied themselves atop her shoulder. She reached towards the tightly sewn braiding that swung wide across her back, idly tracing against it’s strands. “It does feel good... Your handiwork, I mean... Most would not compare, if asked to do the same...”

There was no sparseness to the admiration shared by her lips, whereas by compare her fingers seemed to be much more quick to finish with their praises. Lazy inspection fell towards the wayside as she slipped her hand beneath the weight of her new plaits and balanced their bulk atop the back of her hand.  Errant strands spilled from her grasp as she raised her arm skyward and set her new braid apart from a sea of matching gold. No longer was she admiring it, but instead offering it up as something to be seized upon.  

“Mm... But that is, I suppose, nearly always true of you and your endeavors... You wear a crown of shadows and yet you shine like the sun... Truly there is not a single part of your being that fails to outshine the sun... If you say that I am ‘precious’ to you, then how I can reply but by saying that you are precious to me as well... I am smitten... Truly and utterly so, if not for the sight of your slightest flaw...”

Gazing half across her shoulder, the blonde’s gaze lit up with a crimson glimmer.

     Scathach’s eyes widened subtly as Anne released her hair from its bindings, cascading down her back in ever soft curls. Her hair was so thick, so golden, that she must have been blessed by Aine herself. Scathach knew it couldn’t be true; Anne lived well after the Age of Gods, but the comparison stood, and she believed there was a reason Aine and Anne had similar names.

     She took the ribbons from Anne and looked at them briefly before looking at the heaping of blonde hair before her. She wasn’t sure if these ribbons would be the right size for what she planned to do… but, well, she would figure it out. 

     “I don’t think I could bear you laughing at me over something so trivial, so I had better get this right…”  she answered, tilting her head and squinting her eyes in concentration. She stepped to the side of Anne and gathered a half-handful of hair from the very top of her crown, from her forehead to halfway across her head. She held it gently as she walked to the other side and did the exact same. Then she stood behind Anne, and divided each handful into threes… and began to weave the braid at the top of her head. It would be a medium tight braid, enough to stay in place, but loose enough to be comfortable with Anne. Braids were stricter in Scathach’s day, but she did not want to damage Anne’s hair. 

     “Your hair is so beautiful…”  she murmured, absent-mindedly. She turned her palm up just to look at the strands of gold against the dark of her hand, covered in her silk black bodysuit. Realizing she was speaking out loud, Scathach swallowed and continued braiding, her brows raising somewhat nervously into her bangs. She took a ribbon and wove it into the hair, lamenting that now some of those strands would be covered.

     “…”  She worked in silence for now, slowly growing rosy in the cheeks. For whatever reason, braiding Anne’s hair was feeling far more intimate than she had anticipated.

     After a few minutes, her braid nearly a halfway done, Scathach said quietly, “I am not hurting you, am I? It is not too tight?”

“I kid, I kid...” Anne reassured. Her gaze followed Scathach’s movements as the Lancer stepped towards her side. “I’m not that callous about the feelings of others...”

Or at least not when it came to the feelings of people whom she liked. A technicality. One which the pirate kept to herself, as she closed her eyes and allowed herself to focus on the feeling of fingers running through her hair. To give was satisfactory, but to receive was divine. 

A smile, and the slightest hint of a blush, flitted across her features at the complement towards her hair. Her tongue, however, opted to be still. Lest she rock the boat, it seemed better to file away the Lancer’s words for later. A quiet chuckle was the most acknowledgement that she gave. 

So they went in silence until a tinge of doubt passed from Scathach’s lips.

“Really now...” The blonde’s nostrils flared as she let out a knowing huff. “If anything, you could stand to be a bit more firm. I’d hate to see your work come undone too soon.”

She’d seen the Lancer’s fury. Hell, as of more recent times, she’d been on it’s opposing side. Still then and there her clothes covered the faint memories of scrapes and bruises won by blunted spear tips. To take pride in them still felt like a foreign concept, but that was really neither here nor there. What mattered was that she understood the insurmountable vastness of the gap between them. It was something that no mere modicum of training could ever hope to bridge. 

She wasn’t being foolish with what followed, she merely had faith.

“You do know that I trust you, right?” Anne mused quietly.

An unsteady hand reached out behind her back, grasping for whatever presence that they could find. An arm, a stomach, a thigh. The matter of what was irrelevant, as long as her fingertips brushed against something. In their gentle warmth she offered every reassurance that her words alone could not convey. 

It wasn’t that she thought Scathach couldn’t harm her, nor that she was so utterly naive as to think that the Lancer never ever would. What it was, was that she simply had faith in the notion that Scathach would never break her. 

“You don’t need to force yourself to be so gentle. I’m not half as fragile as I might appear.”