Life was good. Vincent Dion had decided that when he was just a little boy, stealing his first purse. If the means to survive were that easy to come by, life had to be good. Right? Right. So life was good, even on a blistering hot day in Illian, of all places. When Vince hopped onto the back of a wagon, intending to go just about anywhere or everywhere, Illian had not been on his mind. It wasn’t that he minded the weather much… but the people. Oh, the people. That stupid Illianer brogue that they were so proud of, and then there was the smell, and the heat, and the complete and utter lack of available people to rob.

 

After the third day of having no luck what so ever, Vince felt himself get a little reckless. It was a sensation that he had no control over, even though it was bound to get him only one thing. Trouble. And he was allergic to trouble. “Stupid Illianers.” He muttered, which got him a glare from someone about twice his size. Being reckless had it’s advantages though, as the lack of caring about the repercussions had gotten him quite a few purses already. He was just about to feel good about himself again when a big, meaty hand landed in his neck.

 

“Ack!” he exclaimed, feeling the meaty thing squeeze his flesh. “You be coming with me, bucko!” a loud voice rumbled behind him. “Well… ehm… sir? I’m really not that kind of boy. You see, I prefer wome…” A firm shove cut off his line of speech, sending him sprawling to the ground. “Aye, that do be the weasel that’s been thieving here in these parts.” Another voice rumbled. Vincent gave the big man behind him his best innocent look. “Me? I do be harmless, kind sir!”

 

The meaty hand dove under his shirt, bringing forth yet another exclamation from Vince. “Ack!” the hand brought forth two of the purses he’d snatched so far. “Ehm… well… I have no idea how those got there.” He tried, even though he knew that he couldn’t talk his way out of it. He could try, of course, but would these morons even understand him? They couldn’t even speak properly.

 

Some thoughts were meant to stay inside the head. Before Vincent even realised he’d spoken that last bit out loud, he was strung to a rack, with his best shirt torn off his back. “That was uncalled for!” he cried out. Really, if you were going to hurt a man, you could at least leave his clothing in tact so he could walk out looking somewhat dignified. The meaty man picked a whip off of the little hook right next to his head. There would be pain. Vince would have shrugged if he could. Who cared about a little pain anyway?

 

~Vincent Dion

 

"I'd sell my woman,

I'd sell my child,

I'd sell my mother,

I'd sell my bride,

Give me a ship,

and I'll call her mine,

I'll call her the Merry Pauper!"

 

CRACK!

 

Shuddering, Jak looked about wildly as the bottle he'd been drinking from fell from his grasp to the ground, bouncing about before settling into a steady roll off the pier.  There was a small man, tied to a post with his arms stretched high as if he were on a rack.  There was a man there with a whip, laying blow after blow into the little man's back.  Jak could feel the blows even as he ceased to hear Mr Sweeper who had been drinking and singing with him try and get him to turn away.  Each crack, each cry, Jak could feel his back burning even as he was unable to feel Mr Sweeper trying to pull him away from the sight, the feeling.

 

RAAAAAAAAH!!!!

 

Pulling free of Mr Sweeper, the trio of men supervising the whipping didn't even have a chance to stop Jak as he simply ploughed through them like they weren't there.  Crashing into the man with the whip, he ripped it from the man's hand even as he got a ready grasp of him.  Surprised, overwhelmed, the man was strong but the rage that had overcome Jak was so intense that he moved the man with seemingly little effort.  So lost in the haze of madness, Jak was unaware of Mr Sweeper behind him dealing with the trio that he'd blithely pushed through as he hauled the man towards the post where the little man still hung, bleeding profusely from the wounds that had been inflicted.

 

Grabbing the back of the man's head, there wasn't a word that could describe the sound that came from Jak's diaphragm as he broke the man's face on the post just above the little man's head.  Again, blood could be seen on the post, again, blood showered as bone broke through the man's skin, again, bone was forced inward.  Again and again, even as the man slackened in his grasp, even as the little man was freed by Mr Sweeper and pulled aside, he continued to bury the man's head in the post until the corpse slipped from his grasp due to the man's hair becoming so slick with blood.

 

Pounding his fist against the post as if the man was still held, it took a few blows for Jak to realise that the man was dead though he wasn't sure of where he was.  He wanted to kill the man again, but the mess of blood and bone that stared up at him from the ground meant that the man was out of his grasp now.  Fists clenched so tightly the bone might have popped from its joints, deep shuddering breaths were all that Jak could manage as he slowly began to come to his senses.

 

 

Jak

Pain. Pain, pain pain pain pain. Painful pain. Nothing he couldn’t deal with though. He’d been in pain before, and even though this pain was of the particularly painful kind, he’d be fine. That’s what Vincent told himself as he gritted his teeth and cried out on occasion to satisfy his tormentor. Really, there hadn’t even been a trial. Why was there no trial? Were the Illianers so barbaric that they didn’t believe in trials? Were they like Aiel then? Aiel, Illianers… it all sounded the same anyway.

 

Vince was just counting the strokes when something very odd happened. The whipping stopped short of fifteen when a loud roar interrupted the show. “eh?” Vince uttered, trying to get a glimpse at his meaty tormentor. Soon enough he got an up close look when someone or something took hold of the man’s head and slammed it into the construction Vincent was tied to. “Oh dear.” He said, feeling the warm spray of the man’s blood on his face. It was a good thing his shirt was ruined anyway, because it would have been impossible to wash out.

 

Trying to inch away from the carnage right next to him proved to be impossible. Damned ropes. Damned Illianers. Damned… “Hey!” he exclaimed as someone or something stepped in and cut him loose. Without the support he instantly sagged to the ground, just in time to see the man who had been whipping him crash down as well. There wasn’t much left of his face to recognise him as the man who had been wielding the whip. Despite having a generally strong constitution, Vincent felt a little nauseous at the sight. “Ew…”

 

A pair of strong hands grasped him, and pulled him away from the pulp that used to be a man, and the monster who had been beating through the man. The monster could have been a man as well, but Vince would have to wait until the man calmed down to see if that was the case. “Woah.” He said as he turned around, and laid eyes on the man who had apparently freed him. And had a little slaughter fest of his own, if the three corpses behind him meant anything. The man was huge. Huge huge. “So… Please don’t kill me?”

 

It seemed like the proper thing to ask from a man who was about twice his size.

 

~Vince

 

Jak was only vaguely aware of how he had gotten back to the ship.  Mr Sweeper had guided him away even as he'd dragged the little man along with them, Jak hadn't been able to process much of the why of it at the time so he'd simply allowed himself to be led along.  They'd vacated that now empty pier and made their way to the Merry Pauper as quickly as they could manage.  It was only as Jak set foot on the gangplank that he finally snapped out of the spell he had been under.  He could still feel the sting upon his back, but that memory was receding, the phantom pain subsiding as his conscious mind began to better assert the reality of the here and the now.

 

Feeling the need to sit down as the familiar deck came underfoot, Jak took a couple of steps aside before sinking against the siderail.  Drained of feeling, bone tired and sobered from the experience, if he could summon up any feeling it would have been satisfaction at what he had done to the man with the whip.  No remorse, no regret, no pity, the man had brought it upon himself the moment he had thought to wield the whip.  The memory of the man looking up at him with the shattered remains of a face was a good one, he'd never use a whip on anyone ever again.  Nor his friends that Mr Sweeper had dealt with...

 

Mr Sweeper dragged the little runt of a man across the deck and dumped him quite unceremoniously on the wooden boards.  Why they had to have the luck of passing by a whipping was beyond him and he didn't care to think about what if.  What happened was that he'd kiilled three men and Jak had savagely drilled a man's head into a post until it resembled a ruptured watermellon.  As no one had seen them, the only witness to what had occured was the little man who was now sitting on the deck before him.  It would have been easy to break the little man's neck and toss him into the water, preferable even, but Mr Sweeper had seen what happened when someone Jak had just saved was disposed of.  It wasn't an experience he cared to repeat.

 

"Well my little lovely, welcome to the Merry Pauper.  Ye be wanting to make yeself a-c-q-u-a-i-n-t-e-d with 'er cause she's now yer new 'ome.  Be a fine life, sure ye be coming to love it.  Try and leave and I'll crack ye 'ead like ye friend with the whip."

 

 

Jak/Sweeper

With a loud thud Vincent found himself on the deck of what was supposed to be the Merry Pauper, if the giant of a man was to be believed. That didn’t sound too promising. Vincent might have lived the life of a pauper here in Illian, but he had had high hopes of increasing that status to something more… wealthy. He glanced around him, observing the situation from his sprawled position. People did look awfully tall from this point of view. He slowly got to his feet, only to fall to his knees straight away.

 

“Woah… little woozy there. All that carnage and people dying and blood and whips and…” Just thinking about it made him a little green around the nose, so he decided not to. With a firm shove he pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind, where they could simmer until they were proper nightmare material. Giving up on standing, he folded his legs underneath him properly, and glanced at the tall man who had been kind enough to drag him onboard the ship.

 

“Right then. The Merry Pauper, eh? I suppose I could get a-c-q-whatever with it soon enough. I ain’t never been on no ship though. What’s there to do around here? Don’t suppose you lot would care much for getting your wallets snatched by a sticky fingered lad like me…” Vince glanced sideways at the man who had so kindly disposed of the meaty man with the whip. “Is ‘e always that violent, or was that event on the dock just a special occasion? ‘cause convenient as that was, I rather like my face the way it is. You know, intact and all that.”

 

The second attempt to get to his feet was a lot more successful, as it ended up with him actually being on his feet, instead of sprawled on the deck. “Care to lend me a shirt, mate?” he asked the tall light skinned man. “That idiot on the dock tore mine straight of me body. Bloody rude of him, if you ask me. What’s a man to do without a shirt? I’d have given him hell over it if he hadn’t had me tied to that rack thingy back there.” The man’s look had darkened significantly since Vince had started talking, but the smaller man decided to ignore it. After all, he didn’t ask to be brought here, and if they wanted him to stay, they’d have to get used to his chatty nature.

 

~Vincent dion

 

As Vincent was contemplating how best to insinuate his chatty nature, Mr. Sweeper was contemplating how many uses there actually were for a tongue, and how few of them were necessary on board the Captain’s ship. Wind and water; the creaking of the boat and luffing of the sails, these were ocean sounds. John experienced a terrible vision of those sounds replaced by the sound of ceaseless gum flapping. No. This just wouldn’t do.

 

Mr. Sweeper wished he did not have to tell the Captain what had occurred and why they would have to leave the port with all haste. If there were someway he could talk Jak into doing it … with a glance at Jak he discarded that idea. Jak looked as though he had been whipped and not the boy. Even the thought of the Captain’s displeasure was not enough to completely dismiss with the entire situation … save bringing the boy with them, but maybe the Captain would let John keelhaul, that was always fun.

 

 

Bobby sighed, rubbed his forehead and stepped away from his desk. There was no need for a lecturing or even scolding; John knew he was annoyed, every angle of his manner reflected it. As always the Captain carried his cup of tea with him as he emerged from the hatch. The message had been sent out that shore-leave was prematurely cut short. The sailors would understand the importance of the announcement and return quickly, but even so some may be left behind: Irritating.

 

Bobby looked at the newest member of his crew, for the lad could not leave The Merry Pauper intact. Jak had, through his act of mercy, stolen the boy’s free will. He was of a slight build, but would no doubt be useful around the vessel; if it came time to slit his throat, Bobby knew that his first mate would relish the opportunity. Seeing that the boy was about to speak, the Captain frowned slightly and moved on toward Jak, then decided against it. His senior officers did not need downdressing no matter how appropriate it felt.

 

Instead, he turned back to the boy and commanded him to speak his name.

 

 

 

 

Oh boy. Just his luck. The first thing Vincent usually did when he was in an unfamiliar situation was chat his head off. There was always someone who took to the chatty thief. Always. There was no denying it. Chatty Vincent had his charms. As he glanced around him on the ship, he was fairly sure that this would be the first time in his life where no one took to chatty Vincent. The man who’d just saved him by going savage on the docks was clearly in no state to like or dislike him. The man who’d untied him and dragged him onto the ship was clearly having murderous thoughts. The other man, whom Vincent assumed was the captain, didn’t seem all that interested either.

 

With a sigh Vincent sat down on the deck. It was a hard knock life, that’s what. “Vincent Dion.” He muttered, staring at the wood of the deck in front of him. His back was starting to throb a little more with each passing moment. He assumed it was the salty air around him. He’d never even liked the sea. Sure, he liked swimming, and bathing, but the sea was awfully big. And blue. That couldn’t be natural. “I was just thieving a bit, minding my own merry self when some vigilant citizen decided to give me a whipping. Quite rude, if you ask me. Didn’t even throw me in the brig first. Just went straight on to the punishment. Guess the laws don’t count here. I’ve never liked Illian anyway.”

 

He glanced up at the Captain. “I’ve never worked on a ship before, so I’m pretty sure I’ll be completely useless. Really, it would be better if you just let me off at the nearest port. I’ll mind my own business, you mind your own business, and we pretend your big Sea Folk friend never bashed anyone into a pole repeatedly. How’s that sound?”

 

~Vince Dion.