New Vellarton #1- Cross the Kingdom

Chapter 1: Into the Night

  Nothing interesting ever happened at night. Or at least, that was how Crispin felt. There may have been a time where his father's ship was ravaged by an onslaught of midnight attacks from other pirates, but those days had long since passed. Crispin had been living on his father's ship for the past three years, and not once had there been a night attack. There hadn't even been any close calls or false alarms. It seemed to Crispin that having someone stay up to guard the ship at night was rather redundant, but his father clearly felt otherwise and Crispin knew better than to try and reason with him.

 Which brought Crispin to where he was now, sitting perched in the crowsnest of the Mad Maiden, clutching a telescope in his right hand and a dagger in his left while the rest of the crew lay sleeping soundly in their quarters. He had lost track of time several hours ago, and stopped seriously guarding the ship long before that. At one point he had carved his name into the side of the crowsnest, just to pass the time.

 There was nothing in sight for as far as Crispin could see, even with the telescope. It was just his father's ship just sitting alone in the middle of a vast expanse of dark nothingness. If he had anticipated that living on a pirate ship could be this dull, he might have opted to stay with Roger instead. At least if he were still living with Roger then he could be asleep like everyone else in Toltova right now. Things always felt safer at Roger's place anyways.

 It wasn't that he couldn't handle the fights that frequently broke out on the ship during the day, because he absolutely could. It was more the fact that Roger was the only one who knew about his power, and that his father would likely try to kill him if he ever found out.

 Crispin liked to think that his father wouldn't actually kill him, but he also couldn't see it as something that would go over well. His father harboured a deep hatred towards people with powers, which according to Roger, stemmed when his father's entire family had been killed by an all-powered crew of pirates. Most people would have grieved and moved on with their lives, but Marcus Hadley had responded to the tragedy by becoming a pirate so that he could track down the ones who had killed his family and avenge their deaths.

 Everyone dealt with grief differently, but unfortunately for Crispin, his father's grief manifested in a dangerous way. So, following Roger's advice, he kept his powers a secret. Which was almost a shame, because if powers were something that were widely tolerated he imagined that there were a number of ways in which his ability to fly could be made useful. But because some people-- namely his father-- felt like any kind of special powers were unnatural, and shouldn't be allowed, his power was basically useless. He couldn't even be subtle about using his powers, because there was nothing subtle about a person with wings flying high above sea in broad daylight.

 It was a good thing then that it was not broad daylight. Even better, but no one else was around to see him. Crispin stood up, leaving the telescope on the floor, and sticking his dagger back into its respective sheath. He braced himself against the edge of the crowsnest.

 Crispin had never been completely sure how his powers worked. He was never really able to fully comprehend how his wings could retract into his back when he didn't want to use them, but it was something he'd always been grateful for. His father probably would have found out about his powers years earlier if he had to keep them hidden beneath his clothes all the time.

 Crispin had also never quite gotten used to the feeling of his wings extending out of his back. When he was younger he used to compare it to getting stabbed from the inside out. Now that he had actually been stabbed, however, he felt like the comparison was a massive exaggeration. That didn't change the fact that it was still incredibly uncomfortable.