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Acacia Merrowe. I'll have that deceitful woman's head on a pike.
Through the ages I am sure my ancestors have dealt with greater terrors, monsters and their like. The Great Empress Thura had the Reformation. Emperor Alexei had the usurpation of the nobility. Perhaps my own antagonist comes in the form of the devil-woman they call the captain of the Ser— the tyrant, Acacia Merrowe.
I may think this a menial obstacle to overcome, a mere joke when contrasted against the beasts those before me faced— but I feel there is something more to her. A deeper uncertainty lies beyond her wall of smoke; and I feel like if I misstep, tread just slightly in the wrong direction, I will stumble and fall into the jaws of her beast.
Why do you torment me?
Where did you come from?
What are you?
As I stare up at her portrait, so curiously clear to my eyes alone, I wonder why she's chosen me as her prey. Why do her cold grey eyes pierce so deeply into mine own, judging me, casting her hook and intertwining the cold metal with my flesh, my duty with her existence. Perhaps she sees we are alike, but no. It cannot be. The difference between the captain and I is separated by the likes of the Nelkian barrier– she shall never see through my lens, and I refuse to see through hers, lest I open myself to sin.
Acacia Merrowe. What an interesting woman you are.
Her hair flows like a river of wine and blood. With pearl beads sewn into her locks, they remind me of snowflakes that settle on crimson blood— a beautiful display of cruelty. There is a reason pearls are regulated in the Winternian markets, but seeing as they adorn her chest, her fingers, her clothes; it's safe to say she has little care for the life of any creature besides her own.
The Captain has lashes as red as fire and eyes as cold as the steel forged from it. When I am unfortunate enough to be the subject of her gaze, it is as if I am staring right into a turbulent storm— as if I am a sailor looking up at the clouds that will devastate my ship.
When the captain looks at me, it is as if I am being stripped bare, layer by layer.
My coat, my shirt, my skin, my bones. They dissolve under her gaze and all that's left is my heart, seething with hatred and I know she knows I hate her. I hate how she brings out the worst of me— how she has me in the grasp of her long, manicured claws; surely, I am no better in the sense that I am quick to anger and prone to irrationality around her.
I must calm myself.
I do not like being violent.
But when she strikes me, whether it be with blade or by tongue, it stings.
It is humiliating and shameful and it hurts me.
My oath tells me to grin and bear it.
My dignity tells me to strike back.
Well, I am the lowliest man I know.
She makes me insane in a way that is baffling to me. Sometimes I look back with a more sober mind and I think about how deranged I must be from the perspective of an outsider. I am almost like a man in love— no, a man infatuated. Obsessed. Burning with the idea of defeating her and becoming, well, a hero . I see it now.
When I kill her, will I be freed from my torment? When I wring my hands around her neck, will the wound upon my shoulder finally heal? Will I have gained my dignity back? Will she haunt me no longer?
When I sleep, all I can think about is her. and I turn restlessly in my sheets, shaking with excitement when scenes of my victory play out in my head— but more often I find myself spending sleepless nights just praying for her. My stomach twists with dread that I sometimes lay on the floor digging into the boards hoping to somehow magic myself a grave because I do not want to deal with such a wretched woman!
I wonder what she thinks of me. Not that I value her opinion. I know she thinks I am amusing sometimes, for when I pass by the Serpentine's storefront— that quaint little shop that curiously draws in many a customer, she whistles lowly and laughs with her crew as I pass by. I surmise I have become the laughing stock of Ry'finch, and I am ashamed to show my face in public, so I have taken to letting Killian run all my public errands for me.
Her laugh, so prideful, is like ice cutting through skin. It sends chills down my spine, yet everyone else seems to laugh along with her. Why? Is it something I'm not seeing? Is it her beauty— which I cannot deny, that captivates others?
Captain Merrowe is without a doubt a key player in the games of Ry'finch. She is not of Winternian descent; her tan skin and softer features indicate such, yet, when I skimmed through the paperwork— everything is there. Her father, Johnston Carlac, was a respected officer in the Royal Navy. Since she is significantly younger than her brother, perhaps they share different mothers? They look vastly different. That would surely explain the difference in surnames.
She doesn't look Hayarithian— I would know. My mother and grandfather were Hayarithians. Her accent is different, and when Killian and I spoke in the language, she gave no indication of knowing it.
Lumirainian? Airoy? Seithian, perhaps? I'm… not certain. Her features are very ambiguous. I can't seem to place a defining feature— I can't draw her out without feeling off .
And there's the matter of her blade. That wretched thing that struck me. Herblade is around the length of my arm and curved like a cutlass almost. Once a beautiful sword, it's metal, I heard, is intentionally rusted; which would be disadvantageous in combat, but that is the point.
You never win with the Captain. She is small in stature, nimble enough to escape blows— and she always gets away . Always gets the final say.
She strikes you once, laughs in your face, and flees.
Acacia's blade struck me once and the wound has never healed. Albeit the fact I never went to the doctor to get it tended to, but what was I to say?
My pride is nearly non-existent.
To be killed would've been a better outcome, but alas, the Captain hates to see me rest.
It is as if that blade is cursed, alive only by the sheer blood spilt by it's owner. It screams at me— tells me to run far, far away, yet I find myself chasing its master like a fool.
Am I a fool?
…
….
…..
I shall go to the blacksmith tomorrow and forge myself a sword of my own. A nice, straight edged blade that'll only be used by me, and only me.
I shall polish it so that the metal gleams silver like her eyes, so that when I strike her, she'll see herself fall in the reflection of my blade.
And I will laugh in her fucking face.
[Evander stares down blankly at the words he'd written and scrunches his face. Too personal for a report, no matter if it was to keep up false pretenses. It joins the other scrapped letters in the bin. He sighs, putting his head in his hands. What the hell had gotten into him?]