Furry-Within

The moon was rising high over the small coastal town, at the docks a great swath of ships were docked and anchored. A great black Galley was docked at one of the central stations, two boards leading from it's top most deck down to the dock itself, a skeleton crew were moving cargo off of the ship and moving sundries and similar supplies onto the vessel. It's wood was lacquered black, it's sails the same, and across the back of the vessel was a wooden vine of roses wrought in silver and black wood, silver paint named her "The Black Rose" and her captain was well known as "The White Diamond" many people had their own rumors about why that was his name but they varied so much it was hard to tell which was true.


There was a small tavern near the docks themselves, known as a dive that attracted sailors and briggands and all manner of other vagrants. Within it were several vessels entire crews, including The Black Rose. The captain was at the bar itself, listening to the stories of two of his men and drinking from a horn of ale.

"Ugh," she grunted as she pushed through the heavy double doors of the tavern open, looking weary and weathered, the cloak she wore obscuring her from all prying eyes. She panted heavily, having walked from from the next town over, hoping to start anew. She was running from her past, again. This was the third town in a month.

The lithe form pressed her way though a throng of people before she took her seat at the bar in the farthest corner she could find, her back to the wall and her eyes front. A comfort thing, she told herself. It was really to keep her escape routes open, but she'd never admit that.

"A beer," She managed, waving down the barkeep. Upon first glance, this seemed like every other tavern she'd been in. Rough looking crowd, thieves, pirates, the usual lot. She dropped the hood of her cloak and took a sip of her beer, grunting as her horns caught the fabric.

The bartender handed the horn of beer to the girl and quickly came back to wiping down his counter as various people smeared grease, dirt, salt etc. over it. One of the pirates nearby her turned around as the horn was given and looked her up and down. "Bit young t' be drinkin' beer ain't ya lad?"

Another man near him put a hand on his shoulder and said "oh leave the boy alone, he's trying to run from something, clear as sunrise . . . much like you when you joined my crew, remember?" The first man gave a frown and shook his head. "Nah, ain't t' same at'll! this one's jus tryn'a get his first sideways wakeup!" The other man, a tall wolf in black long coat with dark red vest and black beneath shook his head smacked the first man across the back. "Oy! why ya got'ta be such a stern fuck eh? Comeon White Diamond . . ."

"It's Captain to you . . . now shut up, come dawn we're setting out whether you've managed to crawl back to the shit or not, so careful of your OWN drinking Willem."

At first glance, she was always mistaken for a boy. It always worked well in her favor, too and frankly, she didnt give a damn whether she was called a lad. It kept her safe. And, lucky for her, she wasn't gifted with large breasts like her sisters.

With her hair kept short, the light grey hair ruffled lightly, sticking up in various places. She wore trousers instead of dresses and a pair of boots she swiped off of some poor drunk made her look the par of "boy" really well. A loose buttonup short, smattering with dirt completed the ensemble.

Kar, the dragon was super skilled at hiding in plain sight...

"I'm old enough to drink, trust me," she grunted, slamming the rest of the beer back into her open maw.  Ignoring the comments and speculation of her being a runaway, she set back to watching the room, sort of eavesdropping in on conversations...

One caught her attention... it might just be the out she needed.

She narrowed her eyes, listening. At dawn, she mused to herself... she had to find her way onto that ship. With a grin, she set out how to stow away...

Willem was shaking his head as he kept talking to the wolf in the black coat, there was a hat on his head that coverd most of his forehead, but there was a small triangle of white that could be seen poking out from under it. He clearly was in charge, but it was unclear how many of the people in the bar were his.

A few hours went by before he finally stood, and gave a loud whistle, around 15 of the people in the bar turned and looked. He said very loudly to all of them around "Like I told Willem, remember lads, we sail at Dawn, so make damn sure you're back by then." Then he turned to the bar, drained the last of a horn then turned, facing toward Willem and the girl, he lifted the hat, a rough diamond shape of white was on his forehead, and he scratched it eagerly, the sound however was louder than it should have been, and almsot sounded like he was scraping his claws on something hard. He put the hat back down and walked out of the bar.

She wasn't aware of how many people were on his crew, but she could see a few here and there that looked like they might be seaworthy.

Kar was content to drink a few beers and people watch; ordinarily she'd be scoping out people to pickpocket, but this group was way to aware of their surroundings to even attempt that... So, she sat.

She might have dozed off for a short period of time while propped up against the wall because she was startled awake by a sharp whistle. The captain, again, it seemed, informing his crew of their leave in the morning.. She wrinkled her nose and fiddled with the rings on her hand. How in the hell was she going to make this work?

"So," she spoke, keeping her voice low in an attempt to keep the feminine lilt out of her tone. "What's his deal?" She poked a finger in the Capitan's general direction while speaking to Willem.

Willem eyed her hard after that, though, whether he knew what she was or not was unclear. "Him? he's the captain o' the ship, and don't think of trying to pull anything over on HIM . . . he sees scams and treachery coming from miles off." He leaned closer to her, the smell of ale and stronger things thick on his breath. "That's how he got the name . . . the one time he didn't see it comin . . . heh." He gave a yellowed, crooked grin.

The Captain was walking through the bar and as he did a young woman passed by him, leaning on him in a clear attempt to catch his attenion, as she did, he turned, grinning at her and looking down her dress, which she didn't seem to mind, but he also reached to his side, grabbing a man passing him on the other side by the throat. When he turned to the man he put his hand out. "Hand it over . . ." The man argued at first about what he meant, then finally handed over a small pouch that jingled with coins. He leaned up close to the man, and while it seemed like he might be trying to whisper, it was clearly audible when he said, with a growl under his words "The next time you try to filch my plunder from me . . . it'll be your beating heart in this hand, not my pouch . . . am I being perfectly clear?" The man nodded and was clearly nervous, and when the captain let go, he dropped to the ground, crawling back from him.

Several others around started laughing loudly, Willem among them, and he leaned forward, laughing till he was coughing, and smacked Kar on the back hard in his guffawing.

Shit. She raised her eyebrow at him, hoping that she didn't just give herself away. She was genuinely curious about him too, though. She didn't mean it in anyway. Though, now it was perfectly clear that she wasn't going to just 'stow away' on this ship. Getting killed would probably be the only outcome of this and by the looks of it, the Capitan wouldn't hesitate to take her head for any infraction. And, she was quite fond of her head.

She was about to get up and slink out the back door but was stopped by Willem slapping her on the back. She grunted at him. "Wha... Oh." And with a laugh and a raise of her glass she fell in with the energy of the room, still plotting her way onto that ship and watching the poor sap slink away from the incident.

As things settled down, she decided that Willem was going to be her best bet on to that godforsaken ship. Getting close to him might prove difficult, though...

"So... Uh. I didn't get your name?" She questioned, handing him a horn of ale. "I'm Kar," she offed him her hand.

He took the hand and shook it roughly, up and down and toward himself as he was already quite drunk, and grabbing another horn from her to drink. "The name's Willem, and if you call me wee'um or willy, I'll chop YOURS off!" he started laughing again, his statement clearly being meant to emulate the Captain's own harsh demeanor, and clearly he didn't see what she was really doing at all.

"Ye said your name is Kar? the hell is that short fer anyway? Karmen? Karthas?" He started coughing in his laughter again, and tried to drink, spilling almost as much of it on his face and chest as in his mouth. The captain stayed to linger near the door, talking to another woman, this one however was much more plain than the first, and much younger too, his hand slowly went up and down her arm, and she blushed while talking to him. A moment later, he was leaving, the girl under his arm, and several of his crew members were screaming frankly disgusting suggestions to him, one or two of which he replied to with cheers or agreements.

She felt like Willem was going to tear her arm from its socket if he kept this up. It was clear now that he was trying to follow in his captians footsteps with how he carried himself. She filed that away for later use. She tossed her head back and laughed at Willem's joke.

"Nope, just Kar. It isn't really short for anything.." She trailed off, gritting her teeth and wishing she chose a whole new name instead of shortening her given name, Karrah. Too late now...

"So...," she prodded, taking in to consideration now that the captian left, that she could probe him for some more information. "How long have you been in the captians company?"


She was really grasping at straws here... she still hadn't come up with a plan, and she was quickly losing the evening.

Willem stopped smiling and started looking proud and stern instead, leaning slightly from one side to the other as he spoke. "Lad, yer' lookin' at tah FIRST MATE o' the Black Rose!" Several other men in the tavern started speaking up, one or two gave mocking cheers, one of them said "Sit down ya bloody dog, it's only cuz ye don't question him! and because yer' too damn big to knock over!" He immediately threw his horn of ale at the one that said it, and he started laughing after he finished getting back up.

Willem shook his head and ordered another ale, turning to face Kar as he sat down. "Been on that ship 12 years now, serving proud under Captain White Diamond!" The name he all but screamed, and a chorus of "HERE HERE!" came echoing through the tavern, Willem clearly wasn't, but the captain appeared to be popular among his men. "And let me guess, yer' wantin' ta run away from yer shit life by joinin' up with a bunch o' brigands eh? every little boy's dream, be a pirate, go to strange places, bed strage lass' and gather all manner o' plunder . . . HA."

She took a step back as his expression changed, but quickly realized he was just getting super excited when proudly exclaimed who he was. The first mate, she felt her stomach fall into her gut. Shit. She swallowed hard, waved the bar tender down and then took her seat again. She was just about to figure away out of this god awful, dead end of a conversation when he spoke again. Something told her to sit tight.

And you're wanting to run away. The words slammed into her like a freight train and all she could do was nod.. Maybe this could go right?

She narrowed her eyes at him over the rim of her now half empty horn. "Eh..," she started, setting the horn down. "That's half right. I do want to get away. Nothin' here for me. Ma's dead, Pa ran off with some whore. S'jus' me.." She gave him the saddest look she could possibly muster without over doing it. Hopefully he'd take pity on her? Ah, who was she kidding.

She shrugged, "I'm quite useful.. Good at shit work that n'one wants.."

Willem started coughing again from all the laughing and screaming and looked her up and down again. "Yer mom's dead and yer' daddy's a beast who don't care what you turn out to eh? Heh, heard that one before." He laughed hard and then turned and threw up, most of it was ale, a little bit of it was bread or meat he'd clearly been eating earlier. Then he wiped his mouth off with the back of his arm and looked at Kar again "Runnin from somethin', runnin' to a new life, just wantin' to get a new outlook . . . it doesn't fuckin' matter boy . . . if you REALLY think you can handle it, even the shit jobs, sloppin out privies and scrubbin' down the bunks, I guess we might could find a barrel or some shit fer' ye to sleep in, ye don't look like ya take up that much space."

All she could do at this point was nod at him. She hadn't taken into account that he would have heard all of this before... She took a step back as he threw up. She idly fiddled with the hem of her shirt, looking up at him.

"I don't take up much space," she muttered. "You'll never even know I'm there.."

At this point, she'd almost worn the hem of the shirt down by playing with it. Her nerves were shot..

"Does that mean you're taking me with you?"

He gave a drunken laugh before he finally answered. "You don't get it do ye Lad? 's not up tah ME." He laughed again and finally fell over, passing out on the floor. The barkeep shook his head leaning over the bar to yell at the unconscious man. "OI! get up ya bloody mongrel!" He growled down at the lump and threw an empty horn at him, which did nothing but illicit a few laughs from other members of the crew. "Oh, fine then boys, YOU deal with him!" Then he turned around and went back to wiping down used horns and flaggons and filling orders. A few men came around to pull him out toward the street. One came back to the bar, putting a small pouch of coins on it "That's the stool." The barkeep took the pouch, weighing it in his hand, and grumbled as he went back to work.

The one that paid the barkeep turned to look the girl up and down. "If you really do think you could cut it as a crewman . . . be at the dock at dawn. The captain makes that choice, not a one of us." Then he turned and left out to the street, following his comrades.