On the Felixes of Lumaria

“To hell! Oh god, to hell and back!” The captain fell to his knees, his bloated form shaking the deck as he clung to the bulwark, rattling the old rotten thing until it nearly tore free. “To hell and back!” He kept wailing, all but crying. “To hell and back!”

He had not taken the loss of another ship well. Their pursuit of their target had led them through a storm, which swallowed two of their ships. And now, hanging dead from high up on the mast of yet another one was its captain. One did not need to be told to know this was the work of a mutiny, and that this was probably the last time the fleet captain would ever see his vessel again as it gradually faded into the horizon.

Tensions had been rising on their sister ship for a while, just as they had on their own. After all, they were going beyond their most detailed maps, into uncharted waters; dangerously close to the edge of the world - or worse - the dreaded hellhole rumored to exist down south: Lumaria.

Of it, only legends were known, although he’d say there were far too many for it not to exist. It was a place where even the lost would never find you, where horror lurked under every brush, predators preyed, and dark nameless things wailed in the night.

So great was the terror every sailor felt about that place that it was more than likely the reason why the crew from the other ship had hanged its captain to rot. The bravest among them could barely even stomach the thought of nearing that place.

Their mission was a simple one: ensure that those aboard the fleeing ship were all dead. They had even been assured that the ship would not fight back, something about a plague stowed away. It should have been a simple boarding expedition, easy money. Who knows, maybe even some of the famous high-four-eyes’ tomes would be stashed there as well, there had to be some stuffy old monk willing to pay good coin for them somewhere. But no, instead, they were three ships short, had no target in sight, and all winds were blowing south. To Lumaria.

“I swear it, Omar, my children will go to the markets for this! Oh god!” The captain kept wailing.

“Captain, the men are looking.” He leaned in, whispering in his ear.

“Let them look! I am ruined either way!” He banged his fist in the bulwark, rippling a bang throughout the ship.

“Not if we succeed, the bounty-”

“Fuck the bounty! And fuck the realm! We should have stuck to slaving! We just ought to turn back, lick our wounds.”

This sent a shiver down his spine. Omar had debts, lots of them, he himself was not far from being escorted back to the auction block. The same carried for the rest of the crew. Knowing this trip would cross into dangerous territory, he had hired only the most desperate seamen he could find. This was probably the only reason the captain hadn’t been strung up the mast by now. These men were not likely to give up, and their stares all but spelled that out.

The captain was not one of them, not really. The bounty was his on paper, just like the vessels, but he was a slave trader first and a pirate second, raiding was something he could wear and discard like a hat or a coat. Despite his crying, he had flesh trade to retreat to - this was not his world. To be fair, the captain was right: acquiring and selling striped Islands natives was safer and more lucrative in the long term – he should know. Still, Omar needed money now, and the captain had bitten off more than he could chew at just the right time.

The captain and every man who owned a ship with an armed crew got settled with the same offer from the realm: search and destroy. It was sheer luck they got this close and yet the storm botched it all up. Nevertheless, it was too late to turn back, they had to press forward. Omar tried reasoning with him again “Captain, we must push forward. Our supplies…”

“Fuck supplies!”

“Your children, then!”

“Bah! I can always make more but there is only one Dario Nur!” He pushed his first mate aside before storming down the parapet, his heavy steps shaking the deck. Omar recomposed himself and followed him, noticing the silent request in the crew’s eyes.

“There is nothing down this far south but death!” The captain kept saying as he busted his cabin door open. Omar sneaked in just in time, closing it behind him.

“Captain, I must protest!”

“You protest nothing you mestizo pest!”

Mestizo - Impure. The word struck him like a blow. He had heard it before, of course - pirates were not known for their tact - but it still gnawed at him. That one word spelled out so much about him. It led to many assumptions, none of them pretty, and the worst part is that most of them would be correct.

Piracy had been in his life since before he was born. He was conceived in a night of horror during a pirate raid in her mother’s village and was born in the pleasure house to which she was sold. His mother was from the striped Isles, not too far west. Pirates and slavers frequently visited the islands for gold spices and flesh. They would raid a village and round up as many women and children as they could before sailing away, selling them to the highest bidder in the eastern markets, from which point they could end up anywhere in the world.

Of course, until sold the sailors would take many liberties with their captives. Mestizos came from that: the product of violence and lust. When Omar glanced down at his not-quite-yellow hands, all he could see was the color of sin and the faint sound of his mother’s screams.

The fact he was even born was nothing short of a miracle. Most if not all girls drowned their babes in the womb, but his mother kept him. Their masters allowed this, hoping for a girl. It was said mestizos made the best whores, after all, they were the color of sin, and men liked to sin. He disappointed them by having a dick.

No matter though, for the one thing the masters of the pleasure houses specialized in was making use of flesh. As soon as he could walk, they chopped his balls and sent him to clean after the clients in the pleasure rooms. Long, grueling, viscous work.

Every morning, his mother would try spinning tales of her home, but she never managed to describe past its shores before tears came out and she started sobbing while calling out for the dead.

She was always moping like that, always wailing, always sad. One could not ask for a better slave than his mother. In all their years in captivity, not once she spoke out of turn, not once tried to escape. When rebellion crossed his mind, she was the first to quell it, sometimes going as far as shutting his mouth before the words escaped his mouth.

But none of that obedience ever spared her the rod. Truth be told it made her even more ripe for senseless beating than the others. At least if she snapped back maybe they would see her as a person instead of just a whimpering bitch. He hated her for that. Hated how helpless - how pathetic she was, how all of them were. All they did was give and give.

Now their clients were another story. They took what they wanted, and did as they pleased. They were men, not bitches, and that’s when it dawned on him: there are two kinds of people in this world—those who give and those who take, and he was determined to be the latter. Not like the women, never like them – weak. For now, however, he had to bide his time.

Then one day he heard one of the girls whispering about a rebellion, and he was all for it. For the first time, he felt a hint of what it meant to take, and he was not about to let it go. Then, his mother stands and warns against it “They will kill us all!” she says. She got beaten by them for that.

Despite that, courage prevailed, and they all marched to the square armed with whatever sticks they could find and a list of requests for their masters. Even his mother joined, which surprised him given how staunchly she was against it. To this day, as they walked, he remembered her holding his hand with a strength he did not know she had, and for the first time, they felt something dangerously close to hope.

They killed them all.

It was a simple encirclement: the men cut off the exists and were soon upon them. They fought of course, or rather, tried to, but their sticks did little against shields and spears and soon the panic set in. The lucky ones got stabbed, but most suffocated as they were compacted upon each other. He didn’t see most of it. At some point, he felt a form pushing him up and shielding him, but the height did little to subdue the chaos. All he could hear all around him was the sound of ribs cracking as all those he knew were crushed as they vied for space.

Come morning, they were all dead. He never found out why he survived, not daring to open his eyes – feigning death. There, he hid among the bodies for the better part of the day as they were cast out of the city to prevent disease. But, when it was all said and done, he was taken for dead, which, provided he never stepped foot in that city again, meant he was just as good as free.

He wondered why he even went along with this plan. What did they think would happen after they marched up to the master’s manses with a list of requests? Nothing is given, everything taken, if they wanted changes, they should have started by cutting the master’s throats in their sleep, not begging for scraps like good little bitches. That day he decided this would be the last time he would ever ask for anything.

He takes what he wants now, and this bounty is his.

“Are you sure I cannot convince you to continue, captain?” He asked once more after the fat man leaned onto his window, bent on catching the last sight of his investment sailing away while doing nothing about it.

“Leave me alone, let me mourn my life in peace!” The captain waved him off; his eyes fixed on the sea.

He took one last look at the captain. So fat, so bloated, so used to order. A master thought and through - a force to be obeyed and be reckoned with. Except Omar is nobody’s slave anymore.

He sighed, “Very well, captain, mourn your life all you want,” he muttered before stepping forward and shoving him out. The captain was heavy, and for a second, he thought the mutiny would fail, but his force was just enough to trip the captain over, causing him to fall overboard with a thunderous splash.

As they distanced, Omar gazed upon the drowning captain as he flailed in the water. He could not make up his words but assumed it was nothing pretty. He probably just had a brand-new set of curses weighing on his back. He never understood curses, they never did anything, besides, it was just business, there was no point in pleasure or guilt. Things just were.

As he emerged back on the deck, he could see the crew were already pretending not to see the drowning captain as they sailed away. A pirate crew wagged their tail for none for long – same as him; something he would do well to remember. Loyalty was for dogs, like his mother.

He climbed the stairs to the steering wheel, where his soon-to-be first man guided the ship while avoiding his gaze. “Where to, captain?”

“South, we keep sailing south." To hell, and hopefully back.