Chapter Text
Really, it was a beautiful view. The sky was cornflower blue, puffy cumulus clouds drifting lazily across the sky, wispy cirrus high above, the sun beaming down on the turquoise waters, a slight breeze ruffling Jaskier’s hair.
He supposed he should be grateful that he was outside. After all, the air in the cabins was still and stuffy, and the warmth of the sun ensured that it would be stiflingly hot inside, and that, combined with the movement of the ship underneath him, always spelled motion sickness.
Thing was, it was difficult to be grateful at being out in the sun when your hands were tied behind your back with a thick length of rope, and you were being led by the buccaneers who’d boarded and sunk the ship you were onboard, and you were now being taken to the captain. Jaskier still wasn’t certain why they hadn’t just killed him outright. He supposed they’d taken a look at his clothes — nice clothes, expensive clothes, still clean, despite being at sea for three weeks now — and decided to hold him hostage. Or maybe they’d decided he was an important person, and the captain had wanted to kill any of the important people. Or maybe they’d decided they felt sorry for this poor man who was very obviously not a sailor, and were going to take him back to a port and let him go free. Or maybe (and now his mind veered in the opposite direction) they were going to keep him as a slave and force him to do all sorts of horrible things.
Focus, Jaskier. He was alive, and right now, that was all that mattered. The rope chafed at his wrists, and he winced just thinking about how red and raw they would be afterwards. If he ever got out of it. He could imagine it now, huddled in the corner of a dirty, rat-infested brig, his lovely clothes ruined, his wrists rubbed raw and bleeding from the rope that continued to keep him from escaping to freedom, spending each day (although did day have any meaning in such a place, where the walls had never seen daylight?) wishing desperately for a change of heart from the captain, a cruel man, scarred and mustachioed, with hooks for hands, or hoping against all hope that his family back at home would be able to pay the ransom that the evil captain was demanding.
No. He needed to focus. Something he struggled with at the best of times. It was something that would be almost impossible right now, given the events of the past half-hour, and how quickly everything had gone to shit.
The other ship had been spotted, but didn’t appear to be flying any flag, so the captain had ordered the sailors to be on their guard, but he couldn’t do much else. It was a merchant vessel, laden with goods, not guns.
Of course, all hell broke loose when the buccaneers (at least, Jaskier assumed they were buccaneers. Surely they weren’t being attacked by outright pirates, were they? If they were, all hope was lost. He may as well wrest himself away from his captors and throw himself into the sea.) boarded the ship, guns blazing and cutlasses swinging. (Actually, there had been a remarkable absence of cutlasses, but if Jaskier ever lived to tell this story to anyone else, he’d be damned if he didn’t include some proper sword fights, just to make it seem like a proper pirate story. What was the point of becoming a pirate or buccaneer or whatever these guys were if you didn’t get to swing a cutlass around every now and then?)
He’d run and hidden while the fight had ensued, cowering behind some barrels below deck, hoping that he wouldn’t be found. The captain had told him to do so right from the beginning, when they’d first embarked on this voyage.
“Lad,” he’d said, even though Jaskier hadn’t been considered a lad for years, “I have to warn you, there’s a chance we’ll be attacked on this voyage.”
“Really?” Jaskier had asked, feeling his eyes widen. “Did you do something to annoy a pirate lord, or steal cursed treasure, or–”
The captain had let out a gruff laugh, his suntanned, weatherbeaten face crinkling in amusement. “Pirates are always a danger unless you’re a warship, boy,” he’d replied. “But there isn’t no such thing as a pirate lord. There’s always danger from pirates and buccaneers, and even greater danger from the mistress.”
Jaskier’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“The sea, lad,” the captain had quickly added, and he raised his hands into the air, like he couldn’t believe he was talking to someone who didn’t refer to the sea as “Mistress.” “Hurricanes can blow up, and even then, you can get storms near as bad, lightning that can crack a ship in half. Say a prayer to Melitele before we go, eh?”
Frankly, Jaskier didn’t know what Melitele could do about hurricanes, storms, pirates, or the sea monsters that the captain insisted didn’t exist, but which Jaskier couldn’t help but think did. All of these things seemed decidedly out of her jurisdiction.
“Now, before I forget,” the captain had said, changing the subject from storms and tempests, “if we do get attacked, I don’t expect a man like yourself to be much use against pirates, so go hide if you can, and if the ship goes down, go down with it. It’s better to rest eternal in the sea than to be captured by some of them pirates as sail the oceans.”
Of course, Jaskier had, in the months since then, idly considered what he would do if pirates attacked. He had decided that he would swoop in, sword flashing brightly in the sunlight (or glinting in the pale moonlight), and single-handedly save the day. He’d kick the evil, cartoonishly mustachioed pirate captain, firmly in the chest, and he’d topple overboard, falling with a splash into the ocean, never again to menace the good sailors of honest merchant vessels.
When the buccaneers had attacked, though, Jaskier had followed the captain’s advice and hidden. He was a coward at heart, and he knew that, but he was also a great romantic, and there was nothing he’d have liked better than to come swooping in, all swashbuckling and dashing, and save the ship. His sense of self-preservation had won out, along with his common sense reminding him of how much he’d hated those fencing lessons his parents had made him take as a child and teenager. He’d been atrocious at it, really.
He’d stopped following the captain’s advice once he was caught by buccaneers, though. The sounds of the battle had begun to die away, leaving an ominous silence hanging over the ship like an omen, and Jaskier had remained still, hoping that his limbs wouldn’t cramp up, folded as they were into this space that was really far too tiny for him.
And then the pirates — no, they were buccaneers, they had to be, they had to report to some monarch, they couldn’t just be bloodthirsty murderers — had come below deck to haul off goods and spices and the fine silks they’d picked up to bring back to Cintra, and they’d moved some barrels and boxes and uncovered Jaskier.
He still didn’t know why they hadn’t just killed him. Next thing he knew, he was being held at gunpoint (not swordpoint, which was very disappointing, if a relief just in terms of keeping his doublet from snagging) and another pirate was tying his hands behind his back with a thick length of rope, the same rope that was now chafing most irritatingly on his wrists. He’d tried asking them where they were taking him, and they’d snapped at him to shut up, and when they’d brought him to the edge of the ship, he’d really thought they were going to throw him overboard, but they’d just marched him back over to the pirate ship. No, not a pirate ship. They were buccaneers. They had to be. Buccaneers held people for ransom, pirates killed. They couldn’t be pirates.
But they knocked on the door of the captain’s quarters, and a moment later, the door opened, and Jaskier was shoved inside, and the door shut behind him.
It took him a moment before his eyes adjusted to the dimmer light. There were windows, allowing sunlight to pour in, but it was now dappled and filtered, dimmer. The air was still, but surprisingly cool.
He’d been expecting an obviously piratical evil villain, all dark curls and mustache and hooks for hands. Maybe a peg leg, or a parrot perched on his shoulder. An eye patch, a large hat with a jaunty feather, a sneering expression, a brace of pistols.
But as his eyes adjusted, he gasped, without meaning to. The captain was wearing ordinary clothes — ordinary for a sailor, anyway — and no hat. He had no eyepatch, but his eyes were the most extraordinary color, like liquid gold. At his waist, Jaskier could see the hilt of a sword — not a cutlass, much to his disappointment, although he supposed a sword was better than no swords. A pistol sat on a desk farther back in the room, but it was clearly partway through being cleaned. The captain, Jaskier suspected, had contributed to the fighting, but let the crew unload the Posada.
He was tall, taller than Jaskier, even if it was only by a little bit, and he was broad-shouldered, clearly muscular underneath his loose black shirt. His hair was straight and long and white-blond, closer to white than blond, in fact, and although most of it looked fine, there was a conspicuous dried clump of what looked like blood on a section of hair falling over his shoulder. He looked Jaskier up and down, hand resting loosely on the hilt of his sword, clearly not feeling threatened. It was almost a lazy stare, the way a cat toys with a mouse.
“Who the fuck are you?” the captain asked.
“Ah! Well, I’m glad you asked that,” Jaskier said, his voice considerably brighter than he felt. He bowed, ever so slightly, and resisted the urge to stick his hand out. Not that it mattered whether he resisted the urge or not, since there was a bloody thick rope holding his hands where they were. “I was a passenger on the ship back there, not a sailor, and after the fighting ended, well, I was discovered, and your crew marched me back here, where I will presumably come to the end of my life, such as it is. I wish I’d lived a bit longer, but I suppose I shall have to rest knowing that it was ended by such a mighty hand as yours.” Jaskier realized he was babbling, but he wasn’t about to stop. Maybe he’d strike on something that would be the key to his survival.
The captain looked at him blankly, almost angrily, his mouth set firm. He grunted, then said, “But who the fuck are you?”
Jaskier sighed. “Call me Jaskier,” he tried. He wondered who this buccaneer was working for.
“Is that your name?”
“It’s close enough.” Jaskier paused, waiting for a response, but when he got none, he continued. “Come on, do you mean to tell me pirates don’t have scary names and epithets by which they go? You can’t tell me that Blackbeard was christened Blackbeard at birth. I mean, it would be ridiculous, a hairless little baby, being named Blackbeard! Surely pirates, of all people, would be the most understanding of someone who doesn’t want to go by his true name.”
The captain let out another grunt, but this one was softer. Less of a grunt, more of a hmm. “Or maybe pirates use their own names,” he said, “and everyone else imposes names on them.” He looked Jaskier up and down again, then said, “Turn around.”
“What?”
The captain nodded at him. “You heard me.”
Jaskier turned around, wondering if this was the end. He’d tried his best, done his utmost to keep this from happening. And really, he couldn’t think of a finer specimen of a man to kill him. He’d always assumed he’d be killed, anyway. His lifestyle rather encouraged that, and he’d rather be murdered than die of syphilis.
He waited for the ring of steel being drawn from its scabbard, but it didn’t come. And then he felt, rather than heard, a tugging at the rope on his wrists, and then it fell away entirely.
He turned back around slowly, rubbing his wrists gently, to see the captain slipping a knife into his boot. “I suppose I should thank you,” Jaskier said, stammering slightly, glancing from his wrists (which were, as he suspected, very red) and the captain.
“I don’t like talking to bound men,” the captain replied shortly. “Sit down,” he added, gesturing at a chair near the desk. He turned, too, and began walking back towards the desk, and as he did so, a silver medallion fell out of his shirt, a medallion with an etching of an animal on it.
Jaskier didn’t know much about pirates, he’d admit, but there were some that everyone knew and feared, even when you were from the little landlocked area called Lettenhove.
“Oh, fuck,” he breathed, before he could stop himself. “You’re the White Wolf.”