#delton

As much as Delton wanted to consider that answer deflective, he found himself nodding along. After all, it was true enough. He’d done a lot of things he wasn’t proud of in Starkhaven. Most people in the Rat Pack had. There was a reason they named themselves after vermin. Rats knew how to survive no matter what anyone thought of them. 

“I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into.” 

Delton glanced up, surprised that Damiros had continued without being prompted. The Antivan seemed thoughtful, his dark brow lowered ever so slightly. It wasn’t a frown. Delton wasn’t really sure what it was. 

“I ran with a shit crowd, back home,” Damiros continued. He shifted position slightly, lifting his boot of the pile of wood and adding a small piece to the fire. “We were always getting into shit with town guards. Causing trouble.”

That was something Delton could relate to. Sort of. “Why?” he ventured carefully. “I mean, it’s not like ye didn’t have a place to go? A home? Sure, I’ve been in my fair share of tussles too, but if I could’ve avoided it…”

“I was a shithead, okay?” For a brief moment, a kind of defensiveness flared in Damiros, his eyes cutting the distance between the fire and Delton like a knife. But almost as quickly as the emotion arrived, it bled away again. “And yes, I know. I still am. I’ll say it before you go pointing it out…”

In truth, Delton hadn’t been intending to, but he supposed a bit of self-awareness was healthy so he wasn’t going to argue. “So… this crowd of yours… got ye into piracy?”

“Sort of.” Sighing, Damiros leaned back against the trunk of the tree, letting it bear his full weight. It seemed like such a relief that Delton wondered why hadn’t he done it sooner. “It wasn’t… well, they told me it was just a quick job. Something exciting and different that would get us out of our shitty backwater town. You know. For a while. We stole some supplies from a guardhouse - just old swords and crossbow bolts, mostly - and were meant to deliver it to this ship in the dock.”

Delton had a feeling he knew where this was going. “Guessin’ once ye boarded, that was it?”

Unsurprisingly, Damiros nodded. “They figured we were useful. Good at being little bastards. That’s a pretty desirable quality for people like them.” He shrugged. “Guess they figured a bunch of brats like us wouldn’t be missed.” A faint smile tugged up the corner of Damiros’ mouth, but it was… distant. Sad. “Guess they were right.”

There was something about his words that left a weight in Delton’s chest. It ached in the absent way he barely remembered. A remnant from when he was a child. It was like when you expect something to happen, and you spend so long anticipating it, and in the end there’s just… nothing. And life goes on, but with one thing less. And those things? They add up.

Funny, how the absence of something could feel so heavy.

“It was a bit of a trial by fire. Or water. Whatever.” Damiros seemed intent on filling the silence. There was a nervousness to his speech now - a frenetic sort of energy as the words, with their foot finally out the door, took the chance to bolt. “They were a rough lot. The Red Herring had a reputation and for good fucking reason. Three of us were dragged into that fucking world. Just three idiots from the edge of Rialto Bay.”

A thought struck Delton, although he knew asking might mean trouble. He did it anyway. “What happened to the others?”

Damiros snorted. “Vierre got his skull bashed in by one of the crew in the first week. He was always running his mouth. Elrado ended up overboard in a storm, although I reckon he pissed someone off too and was ‘helped’ over the side.” The way he described his friends dying was so… calm. Like there was an air of inevitability about it all. That shifted, however, as Damiros focused on the last of his friends. “Cezar, though… he managed to stick around. Didn’t really surprise me.”

“Why not?”

“Fucker had a mean streak wide as Rialto Bay. The way he’d talk was bad back on shore, but surrounded by pirates?” Damiros wrinkled his nose distastefully. “The first ship we boarded - some poor bastards running spices to Rivain - tried to fight back. Most aren’t that stupid. Cezar… turns out he had a knack for it. Didn’t matter how much they grovelled or begged.” Damiros huffed. “I knew he was a cold bastard, but I’d never seen him kill anyone. I remember the colour of the deck after he’d finished. You know what he did? Just stood there, grinning like a lunatic, and called it a canvas. His art. He thought it was beautiful.”

The fire crackled softly as Damiros trailed off, the faintly glowing wood casting only a dim light across the their exhausted bodies. Delton wasn’t sure which of the pirates was Cezar, but somehow he still swore he could picture the man standing on a bloody deck, a red-dipped blade for a brush. The idea of it sent a shiver down Delton’s back. It was one thing to kill. It was another to enjoy it.

“What about you?” Delton asked after a moment. When Damiros just fixed him with a confused look, Delton continued. “Did you… agree with him?”

Half of him expected Damiros to scoff or curse at him for suggesting it, but truth be told, they barely knew a thing about each other. This seemed like an important boundary to establish. But, to Delton’s surprise, Damiros’ confusion just shifted into something weary, like an man much older in years realising he had far too many left to go.