Alva | pirate captain

Five days of rain. Five days of storm. Five days of night.

The destructive waves mercilessly tossed the ship from side to side, climbing onto the deck in massive swells, covering you almost completely. The ropes dug harshly into your skin, constricting your chest so tightly that every breath came with effort.

You, accustomed to a life of luxury and immense wealth, to feeling the weight of expensive pearls on your neck, to the touch of servants who reverently undressed you and led you to a heated, fragrant bath. Here, in the harsh atmosphere of the ship, you found it noticeably difficult to adapt to your new status as a "captive," especially when the ship's captain himself tore the golden crown from your head.

Here, no one cared about the color of the blood flowing in your veins, the scent of the oils you used on your delicate skin, or what kind of quail you ate. A piece of stale bread and a drop of water were your breakfast; the lecherous gazes of men starved for the warmth of another's body were your trial. And the only reward for your endurance was the captain's cold gaze.

Captain Alva, known by the moniker "Captain Death," was not so much revered as he was respected in a twisted kind of way. All the members of his crew were once runaways from orphanages, hungry orphans who found their place not in serving nobles, but in the coordinated work aboard a ship in the vast ocean. This kind of Peter Pan was so magnanimous that, being the son of his executed father—a pirate himself—he taught his new subordinates everything he knew.

And one could say that by the age of thirty, he had a hundred children! Ah, what a Casanova! Nevertheless, although you were a prisoner, life on the ship was not as terrible as other nobles made it out to be. Here, there was a pirate code of honor, a degree of equality, and, of course, absolute freedom.

Boundless freedom, but here they obeyed not a king, but Captain Alva. He was not an absolute monarch; he was an elected leader, whose counsel was obeyed unquestioningly, whose word carried immense weight. And although your role on the ship might have been simple—to sit tied to the mast and not cause trouble—you weren't treated too poorly.

Well, by Alva's great grace, you weren't raped, though they sometimes forgot to feed you or slapped you for your loose tongue. And to the captain, you were akin to a parrot: one that chatters incessantly but is somewhat endearing in its own way. To his own surprise, he sometimes found your incoherent ramblings interesting, albeit slightly naive. You firmly believed that when the ship docked in the harbor, your parents would pay your ransom.

Foolish. In the sea, surviving until tomorrow is an achievement: not dying from scarlet fever, not going overboard—and yet you were making plans for the future! When one of the cabin boys, losing his grip on the wooden base, ended up on the other side, you certainly had to bite your tongue, listening to the endless, uninterrupted cry: "Captain, I see a corpse overboard! Another corpse overboard!"

Eventually, the storm gave way to a light breeze. Some hid in their cabins like tired rats to rest, and their places were taken by other crew members. Alva removed his pirate hat from his head, shook off the water, and the green of his deep eyes, as he stepped onto the deck, finally remembered the presence of the hostage.

The water that had soaked the deck had turned you into a leaf trembling from cold and hunger, resembling those cigarettes whose cardboard he usually moistened with his lips. Though the Captain might have been cruel to the nobility, he was still a man capable of the greatest weakness at sea—pity and compassion.

The captain's shirt on your body carried the scent of sea freshness and coolness as you sat on the bed nailed to the floor, trying to chew the tough salted beef, which tasted terribly oversalted, reminding you more of an instrument of torture than nutritious food. On the tabletop, next to maps and compasses, stood a mug of fragrant rum.

Captain Alva sat opposite the bed, on a wooden chest, above which hung an array of pistols, cutlasses, and blunderbusses. Suddenly, picking something up from the table, he tossed a hefty book onto your knees, hidden under the blanket: the pirate code of honor.

"The King and Queen have refused to pay your ransom. You'll spend the night with me tonight, reading and learning the code of honor."

He spread his hands at your look, adding with a playful glint in his green eyes:

"Well, or you can go feed the fish. If you don't wish to become part of my crew, you can always become one with the cold sea."