Part of GF.
Well Wiggles. You wanted to know how Shinta comes into the story.
Here's part of how it happens, the basics.
Damian knocked softly on Topknot’s office door. There was no response, and he knocked a little louder. After a few minutes of silences he walked down the hall, past her study, and to her quarter’s door.
He knocked here too, but this time he got an immediate response. “Come in.” Topknot called, and the door creaked open slowly.
He walked into her room, and realized that her great bookshelf, all the items on her desk, and her many baubles and ornaments she had collected on her world travels, where all packed up in boxes, which she had stacked under her desk. Her bed was stripped and on it lay a well used leather traveling pack that might have once been black.
He looked to his captain, running his hand over his close cropped hair. “Captain, are you leaving?”
“No,” she answered, smiling to reveal ivory teeth. “I thought I’d pack up all my things and live on the deck.”
He shook his head at her playful answer, and received another wave of shock. The woman standing before him was dressed in a way he wouldn’t have thought possible. She had traded her corset and envelope shirt for a black wrap around top that bared much more of her light skin than he had ever seen at one time. The usual men’s trousers where gone, traded for a knee length green skirt, embroidered with silver threads. Her feet where completely bare, and she wore large gold bangles on each ankle. Her mass of braids had been undone and pulled into a high horse tail. She even more slight makeup.
“Captain, where are you going?” he asked, indicating the pack.
“Well…” she hoisted the pack. “I got a message from an old companion. There’s a gathering to be held, and he has requested my presence.” Damian quirked an inquisitive eyebrow at her. “Oh don’t be silly,” she chided. “You know I wouldn’t leave if it wasn’t important. Have the ship pull up port, and tell the crew I am on a mission.” She paused to think then added, “I think Wolf should have a go at running the ship.”
She walked to the still open door and blew out the lamp, and the dark walls of the room and sudden lack of light, seemed to make the room pitch black. Damian hurried out after his captain, and saw black ink on her skin under the pack straps. He had to trot to keep up with her long strides. “Captain I didn’t know you had a tattoo.” He said.
She looked down at him, as she fished in her pocket for something, fixing him with an amethyst eye. At Damian’s height of four feet the captain could be pretty intimidating. “I don’t have a tattoo.”
“But I just saw…”
She just watched him waiting for him to come to the proper answer.
“Oh!” he piped, “you have more than one?”
“I am surprised you never noticed.”
“How many do you have?”
She stopped walking, looking into the distance. He frowned; the captain had always been a bit eccentric.
“Between four and six.” She concluded, climbing the stairs to the deck. “It depends on whether or not you count a set of tattoos as two or one.”
When they came out topside, it was already dark. The sea was so gloomy; the fog concealed anything further than a few steps away. She turned to him and handed him a sealed envelope. “This is for Wolf. Do not bother waking her up, shell just bite your head off. Wait until tomaro morning.”
He nodded. “Yes captain.”
She smiled. “Good man.” She murmured, looking off into the fog. “Stay safe.” She whispered.
Damian watched her, and wondered whether she meant him, or the boat. “Aye,” he said.
She walked into the fog. Damian’s ears perked up the sound of a long, low whistle somewhere in the fog, high above him. He frowned, and began to fallow the captain. But by the time he got to the edge of the boat she was lost in the fog. It took him several minutes to realize that they where several miles from the nearest land source. Deciding not to think about it, he shook his head. The captain had always been a bit eccentric.
…….
Topknot strode along a dusty path, her feet padding silently on the reddish dirt beneath her.
Keeping her ears peeled for any noise out of the ordinary, she walked slowly, with short strides. Within the hour she would reach a village she knew, and from there it was only half a day’s walk to the place she was headed.
Somewhere in the distance a hawk cried out suddenly. She bit her lip, that noise had always made her nervous. She paused, looking along at the tall trees with dark leaves, the low lying fog, and the reddish path.
Carefully she reached into her pocket and drew out a fat gold watch. It rested comfortably in her palm, and the heavy, cold a comfort. Letting the gold link chain dangle, she began to walk again.
After about another ten minutes she heard the hawk again closer, and stopped in her tracks. She bit her bottom lip and whistled through her front teeth. She knew that a wild hawk wouldn’t come closer to her, nor was it likely to let her get close to it. Her whistle was met by a short sharp cry, and she saw a huge hawk loom towards her through the gloom. She waited and it swooped past her, and landed carefully on her pack.
She shudderd and said quietly, “Smart bird.” Normally a trained bird made straight for a shoulder, or an arm, but since she had protection on neither it had chosen to land on her pack, sparing her skin its talons. It cooed quietly at her compliment, and resettled its weight. She had only ever seen a bird this big once, and it had been an ancient raven. She didn’t much care for birds and the sheer size of this one made her edgy. If it sat on her back and spread its wings, and she spread her arms, she doubted that she could have touched its wing tips. Even with her impressive height of six feet one inch, her arms reach would still have been dwarfed b y them immensity of the bird.
“So.” She said, speaking to the bird as if it could understand her perfectly, “what brings you here this gloomy after noon, hmm?”
The bird held out a leg, stretching it out over her right shoulder. She reached up and a tiny glass phial, in which a role of parchment lay, dropped inter her empty palm. She tucked the watch away again, and uncorked the wax sealed phial. Letting the note slither from the bottle into her hand, she glanced back at the bird. Apparently it expected an immediate reply. She unrolled the black paper, and Witten on it in long, slanting letters was written in white ink:
‘You missed your appointment today. I do not appreciate tardiness, as it cuts into my valuable time. Please refrain from repeating the infraction.’
She scoffed and shoved the bottle angrily into her pocket, along with the note. She shrugged her shoulders, startling the bird off her pack. “He warned me if I didn’t hurry…” she muttered angrily. “I take it this is from my opponent?” She asked furiously, spinning to face the bird as it hovered over the path. It squawked at her indignantly, and then flew off.
Topknot called after it, “Yeah!? Tell him I said I would take my dear sweet time!”
She huffed, and wrenched the watch back out of her pocket. She ran her fingers over the gem on the front and walked down the path, trying to sooth her boiling anger. She loathed being ordered about.
She carefully measured her steps and took deep breaths. Her fingers worked carefully over the carvings on the watch.
After a few moments she carefully tucked the watch away again and drew out the tiny roll of paper. She unfurled it and scanned the paper.
She was still headed for the place that her friend had contacted her from. Thinking again she reached onto her back pocket and pulled a tan envelope from the folds of the soft green fabric. She opened it, holding the black paper between her first and middle fingers. Reading over the message from her friend again she looked past the simple words printed in the paper:
‘Dearest Topknot,
There is trouble brewing in my homeland.
A tournament is to be held, and I am to enter for the glory of my family. Topknot, the man they matched me against first is the G.O.D. I fear for my life.
-Your companion,
Kyoshro Silvermoon.’
He certainly was worried, she thought. Kyoshro had impeccable handwriting, and the letters scrawled across the page where of uneven thickness, and she knew that it must have been written in haste. The paper was also puckerd in the middle. She doubted this had been composed on a writing desk.
She looked back at the black note and looked closer at it as well. What information could she gather from this that was not written in the words? The writing was tiny and perfectly straight. It was written on expensive black paper, with white ink. She hadn’t ever seen white ink used outside of music composure or art. She tilted the paper said ways, and then flipped it completely over. She ran the back of her left hand over the back, and could feel the letters on the backside. He had a hard hand.
She put both letters away, and looked back up the path, frowning. This all seemed pieces of a puzzle…and she hadn’t the slightest clue as to what the picture would be in the end.
She knew this letter and Kyoshro’s opponent where somehow linked. Could the black note be from the G.O.D.? Just because Kyoshro’s first opponent was the infamous assassin, didn’t mean the G.O.D. wasn’t set to fight someone before.
Perhaps she was set to fight him first?
She shuddered. The rumors of the G.O.D where all vague, and of course most of them where likely to be lies. The part that bothered her most about them was that it was said that no one had ever escaped him. That was bad news, she knew. IT meant that the G.O.D was after blood as opposed to money. After all, with most assassin when they came to take you, if you offered them more money than their commissioner, then they will refrain from killing you. More than once she herself had been lucky enough to catch assassins in the act of trying to take one of her crew members while on land, and had been able to pay them off.
Topknot shook her head. Perhaps this was the reason the man was called The God Of Death.
…….
She reached the small town a little later than she had anticipated. The sun was setting over the trees than surrounded the town; witch was built in a huge clearing.
They do call these nests after all. She mused.
It was unmistakably a vampuric town. Places such as these where built to cater to the pleasures of man. She walked into the town, down the main street, and saw that her assumption had been correct. A Brothel disguised as a stately country inn was situated at the end of the main street, and the windows of most houses and shops had the curtains drawn. Doors where left opened, inviting passersby into smoky musty rooms. Women stood on corners, smiling at men as they passed, flicking short skirts over their knees. On one side of the brothel was a three level house, lit up with colored lanterns. Loud talking issued from the neon painted building, and as she got closer, she saw through the huge bay windows men sitting at huge round tables, flipping cards and shuffling clay disks across the tables. She stopped a few steps away from the building, and saw luck charms painted along the frame of the door, and the sign hanging over it had a huge pair of red dice on it. She chuckled, and looked to the other side of the ‘inn’. There was a pub, also painted garish colors. She grinned and headed that way. It had been a while since she had been in a proper pub.
…….
When she entered through the orange painted door, and was delighted at the size of the pub. Repositioning her yellow tinted glasses, she walked into the expansive room. Not only where there tables of various sizes, but a bar at witch fifty men could sit stretched across two walls, curving around a corner into a darkened hall.
As she made her way to the bar she noted that the only woman here wore tight fitting clothes that glittered in the dim light, carrying treys to the tables. Men leered at them from across the room. They held their heads high and merely smiled as the men called out invitations to them.
Topknot sat at the bar, and smiled at the bar keep as he eyed her from a few stations away. E walked to her, swiping out an already dirty glass with a filthy rag.
“We haven’t any room here for more table maids.” He grunted, fixing her with a red eye, that glowed dimly in the poorly lit room.
Vampire, Topknot thought ruefully. Their spices had two kinds. Extremely polite, and extremely rude. She decided that acting herself was the best way to talk to this man. She smiled at him, allowing her glasses to slip to the end of her nose. She saw that he watched her with more interest now. “Good maro barkeep.” She purred. “I am in need of an inn.” She continued as he opened his mouth, “And not a brothel.” She allowed her pirate swagger to enter her voice, “Might there be a room here that I could persuade you to surrender for the night?”
“What’s your name, miss?” he asked, and she saw a small smile creep across his face.
She had a hunch he already knew. It seemed as if her reputation proceed her in many places, thus her idea to dress as a simple wood elf. She tiled her head and the glasses slipped back into place. “Well, it seems as if you all ready know that.”
He nodded. “Ar. Well, there are a few nicer rooms to be had, but not here.” He chuckled darkly. “Not for a woman such as yourself, at any rate.”
She nodded. “So? Where be these ‘nicer rooms’?”
He stood up straight and resumed pushing the grime around the inside of the glass again. “There’s a small building behind the Brothel. It’s owned by the same man, but meant to…er, cater to people who wish for a quiet night.”
Topknot nodded slowly, her eyes straying to the back wall, where thousands of bottles were shelved, lit from above so that they each glowed a different warm color. She said, “All right. But there’s still a while before it would be acceptable to turn in…” Her eyes trailed along a line of bottles with clear fluid. She grinned at the bartender, pushing her glasses to the bride of her nose. “I suppose there’s time for a drink.”
.......
Current Mood: 
relaxed 
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
capt_topknot's journal
busy
working
tired
frustrated
Nail Biting...
sick
dirty