Of Heroes and Happenings

Rowan, Chapter 2

Dubbed 'Kid' by the pirates, Rowan struggled valiantly to retain her sense of identity and to honor her family name. Her constant battle to remain true proved an inspiration to Trice as well. The two forged a deep bond in resisting the constant pull of their captors.

Despite her slavery, Rowan's wild magic continued to grow within her, often spilling out in unintended ways if she didn't consciously use it enough each day. In an effort to control the occasionally dangerous nuisance of Rowan's sorcerous ability, her captors found ways to keep her weak or incapacitated. Once she'd finished her work and eaten what little might be allowed her, Rowan's hands and feet were chained together and then fastened to the chain about her neck in order to wrap her into a ball. The pirates had learned by accident that the only other way to dampen that magic was to draw enough blood that doing so put her nearly at the point of unconsciousness. It also, however, left her useless as a slave.

Rowan's sense of honor and morality constantly nettled at the pirates, provoking retaliation when she or Trice refused to act contrary to their own lawful, good moral alignments. Most of the pirates had started as slaves, themselves, and had been either broken in will or indoctrinated by the pirates before them. Several slaves joined the pirates or were killed by their circumstances, only to be replaced by others, chained to the walls of that damp, cold tunnel that led to the surface of the rocky island.

The visible island rested atop an underwater structure that formed the top and sides of a cave, deep below the surface. Rowan had traveled down, deep inside that cavern on a regular basis after the inhabitant, a dragon-turtle, demanded care and discovered that Rowan's small size made her useful at removing debris from his body or between his teeth that he could not reach. Omaira, for that was his name, was ancient, and missing most of one back leg. Rowan's task was usually to remove some piece of debris that had been wedged between massive teeth or in the ragged ends of the stump.

Omaira's nest was a large pile of coins, gems and other precious items. There, he rested when he wasn't hunting for food or ships to plunder. He spoke directly into Rowan's mind, as he did with all creatures, which terrified Rowan every time. Though Omaira's voice held no malice toward her, Rowan understood that it would only allow her to live as long as she was useful to it. Unfortunately for Rowan, her small size made her very useful in a way no other creature that the dragon-turtle controlled could be.

Seven years of slavery at the hands of pirates had not been kind to Rowan. With no one to teach her how to properly utilize her arcane ability, Rowan had also no way to learn a controlled use of the wellspring within her. Each time the fount of magic spilled forth from Rowan, an irritated pirate would take his ire out on her, beating or lashing Rowan with whatever was easiest to grab, until her small frame was riddled with scars from chains, lengths of rope or leather, rods and staves of varying sizes.

Trice did his best to tend his beloved friend with his limited means each time she was beaten nearly to death. Despite his best efforts, Rowan's back was marred over the entirety of its surface by a dense network of scars that extended from her neck downward and crossed over each other until there was hardly any one place that was not marked at all by the brutal pirates. The only thing that stayed their hands from killing Rowan outright was the dragon-turtle's view of Rowan as useful to him.

The captain of the pirates was a half-elven woman who had, as a young adolescent, spent a very short amount of time in slavery before joining the pirates willingly. Over a century after becoming the captain, she maintained the loyalty of her crew with a fair hand of leadership combined with a ferocity as a warrior that inspired the same in others. The only name that most had for her was 'Captain'. Rowan's terror of the dragon-turtle was eclipsed only by her terror of Captain; it had since watching the half-elven wizard lead the attack on the Tidewind's Fortune and personally destroy Perrin Greenmere with but a word and a wave of her hand. Captain flew into battle upon the griffin that was bound to her and loyal to her control, unlike the wyverns who were controlled by Omaira.