The North's Galleon

Chapter 8: The Assassin's Tale

"The Pheisian war, that I'm not sure why it's called a war, considering Pheis had no military and was burned to the ground in a single night, resulted in the complete genocide of the Pheisian people, minus like...six or seven of us."

"Show her your face!" Millard hollered.

"No."

"Why do you have your face covered?"

Lawrence sighed. "We'll get there--"

--Gunther yanked the mask down, showing Lawrence's horribly scarred face.

Denise yelped and flinched away. A massive burn scar covered most of the lower half of his face, running down onto his neck and under his shirt. The worst of it left half of his mouth essentially non-existent, his lips having healed together years before.

Lawrence turned to smack Gunther. "You're an arse."

"It's vital to the drama of the story, now keep going."

Lawrence rolled his eyes. "I was only five at the time, and as you can see, no thanks to Gunther, I barely got out with my life. My whole family was killed, most of my friends...in fact, I thought I was the only survivor for years. I've found a few others since, although I wouldn't say they really lived." He sighed. "I didn't either, not at first, so I did what seemed most rational to my little five-year-old self, and became an assassin."

"An assassin!" Denise gasped. "That's where I've seen you! You've got wanted posters all over! You tried to kill--"

--"I'm getting there!" He snapped. "Lots of people hate the royal family, so it wasn't hard to get a good sum doing something I would do for free. I was good at it too, took out two Lords, a Duchess, and at least ten other nobles."

Denise shuddered.

"Proved myself to my employer pretty well, and they asked me to go after none other than Prince Edward the Firebrand." Lawrence smirked. "Offered me double my usual pay if I could pull it off."

Gunther chuckled. "And it went so well for you..."

"Don't push me to tell the story and then spoil it." Lawrence smacked him again. "I actually did do quite well. Got into the palace, past all the guards, into the prince's room...only to find that he was not asleep like I'd expected."

Gunther snorted.

"I found out later that he'd been trying to escape, so I find comfort in knowing that we mutually messed up each other's plans." Lawrence shrugged. "And I could've still done it, he wasn't paying attention, but, you know, I wasn't expecting to walk into his room and find him halfway out his window, so I kind of shouted 'what are you doing?' and he turns around and sees me and goes 'what are you doing?' and, well, I'd already blown my cover at this point, so I just told him, 'I'm supposed to be killing you.' Now, I still have no idea where he pulls this sword from, but he pulls a sword from somewhere and starts trying to stab me, so, obviously, I'm trying to defend.

"Well, in all the hubbub, the guards hear and come bursting in, and, well, now I'm surrounded and still confused, so I wasn't fighting my best--"

--"Keep telling yourself that, Lawrence. You lost a sword fight to the prince."

"In my defense, I'm better at killing than fighting, and I had one knife against a gods-damned sword." He retaliated to Gunther's comment. "So yes, I lost, and when twenty guards come busting in, I wasn't sticking around for the trial, so I jumped out the window, and took off."

Gunther was starting to turn red trying not to laugh.

"Quiet." Lawrence glared at him. "Anyway, I get back to my employer, and y'know, who wants an assassin who now the entire kingdom knows his face, so he's trying to kill me so I can't snitch if I get caught, and thankfully, I get away from him, but everyone knows I tried to kill the prince, so it's a bit difficult getting a job, y'know, besides just being Pheisian, and that makes it hard too. So, I pretty quickly decide that revenge is cool, but having money for food is better, so I'm going for anything that'll hire me. Turns out, sailors don't care if you're a former assassin, as long as you can work. I'm not a huge fan of water, but I got used to it pretty quick, although swimming lessons by way of getting tossed overboard might not be the best way of learning."

The whole crew laughed at that.

Lawrence shrugged. "Within a month I'd worked my way up to first mate, apparently the Captain likes me even if I can't sail worth a damn, and then this asshole shows up and steals it away." He shoved Gunther.

Gunther busted up laughing. "And I'm still ahead of you, ten years later, and the Captain knows I was lying, so ha!"

"Shut up." Lawrence folded his arms. "So that's my story. Ten years later, still here, couldn't leave if I wanted to."

Denise had gone pale. "And you don't know what happened to the prince?"

"Hm? About him going missing? Yeah, came up sometime after Gunther joined the crew. We all found out that apparently his majesty had snuck out of the castle, was spotted one last time in the Capitol Port, and never seen again. Not surprised. Had a silver spoon in his mouth his whole life. Probably didn't know how to live without it. Not to mention with hair that red, anyone would've known he was royalty. Any number of people would've killed him. Especially if he really did end up at sea." He shared a glance with Gunther, who was fixing his own flaming red ponytail.

"I...see."

Gunther shoved away from the table. "I should go check on the Captain. Make sure he's not snooping around somewhere." He walked out.

Everyone started leaving the table, as lunch had been done for a while, and there was still work to be done.

"You were one of the last people to see him." Denise mumbled.

"Yeah." Lawrence collected his plate and cup and stood up. "Y'know, Rendita, I think had he and I met in a different life, we would've been good friends. Pity it didn't work out that way." He walked out.

Sebastian patted her head. "Come hang out with me in the kitchen. The air's a bit less heavy in there."