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The Detailed Record of Icibas Grim

Section I: The Beginning

Let this be a proper introduction to what will unfold to be a vast recollection of my existence. In the most basic of tales (although let this choice of word not fool you, what I will reveal to you is absolutely factual) the author must be recognized. Being this a depiction of my life I will enlighten you to many aspects revolving around myself, but in simple texts we will once again begin with the basics.
I was born 30 odd years ago in the later reaping months (the exact date has slipped my mind consequentially, although I have just reason for my current lapse in memory; Coincidental how I now retell so much, yet loose mind to the simplest of basic knowledge) to the name Leon Alexander Mackenzie. The sea port town in which I was brought into this world was titled Harmbury; a poverty stricken cesspool I see when looking back at it although it was a perpetual paradise as a small boy. Many interesting places to perform rituals of youth such as chasing fowl down alleys and smashing glass bottles with pebbles flung from crude sling shots. It was a simple recurring pattern that never aged to dull. Personally I was not (and am not ashamed to state this) the most hospitable child of the adolescent hierarchy I belonged to. Consistently I was on the better receiving half of the lifestyle we had established. By many various descriptions, I made affirmative that I was dominant over my counterparts. At many points of my recent life, I have reviewed my childhood and compared my actions to other points of mention. Eerily I have been rather still in change of personality for the majority of my developing age.
My mother I knew very little of for she passed away giving birth to me and my father was reluctant to tell me anything about her. I was raised solely by paternal instincts for my father never remarried in honor to his lost wife. She was a well kept secret it seemed, when he would purposely avoid inquiries about her. Sometimes I wondered why he bit his tongue so, if cross memories were too bitter to mouth, why hadn't he have just mouthed lies and satisfied my curiosity?
He was a kind man, my father was, never struck me as the fathers of my companions would. I respected and loved him dearly, as any son or daughter should. The man was extremely average in all accounts. With the lack of any superiority, he learned to use what he was born with to progress himself. This gave him somewhat a heightened self-respect than others. He was respected for that, for his positive stance with his own self was reflected unto others. This is what made him such a friendly character, and an exquisite ally for one to possess.  He was not the most brawn endowed individual, but in the case where that specific trait was required, he found his quick tongue much stronger than his fists. I cannot recall how many occasions I have witnessed men who showed violence and hostility towards him turn away with bright grins after hearing a quirk from his skilled lips. However, on a negative turn, Samuel Mackenzie had a rather unhealthy habit in the game of chance and put me into work at the early age of 10 as a cabin boy to a merchant vessel to aid in paying for his debts.
Many years I labored on the oak deck of the Sister Sun to ease my father's burden. Needless to say I was the freshest meat of the crew and was rather impressionable at that time in my life. Quickly I became accustomed to the nautical life and my peers and superiors saw great potential in my talents. Even as such a plebian among serfs, I learned to navigate by stars and read the winds just as well as the captain's navigator. Think how embarrassing it must be to be equaled in skill by a boy younger than yourself at least seven fold! Perhaps I was seen as a nuisance to some, but for the majority of the accumulated crew, I was very popular. It was an enjoyable life for me, no need to go into any great detail about this portion of two years. I would have remained in that line of work for a much more elongated time, but to the dismay of Sister Son, her crew, and myself, the cargo we transported was being targeted by thieving eyes.
Men of piracy had followed us for several hundred miles across the Warm Sea before moving in close enough to begin the bombardment that with lack of exaggeration obliterated the hull. We were boarded, slaughtered, and robbed, those who were lucky were taken prisoner. As could be assumed, I was one of the few of significant chances to be captured. This is where my life took a dramatic lashing; an unfired pot being remolded into a vase. For many more years, I was known as Leon the Seadog or Mackenzie the Scalawag, both of them deplorable epithets that gave no justice to my abilities. They had no minds to comprehend what I was capable of, just scurvy and plague infested pirates. Forgive me for my aggression, but I felt very strongly against them for the method in which they had suppressed me.
Perhaps I was around six years elder when I first received my due compensation. During a rather high importance raid of a rival privateer cove, I was chosen to be a part of the offensive. The position was accepted greedily I must admit, for I was appallingly bored scrubbing tar on the deck constantly. Taking axe in one hand and rapier in the opposite, I set out to deal as much damage as I possibly could manage. For the first time, I experience with a first-hand account how exhilarating murder was. Perhaps murder is not a proper term for such an act, after all it was for a cause. With any word used, I enjoyed every aspect of it. The shouting, the screaming, the danger and the blood, all of these made my adrenaline soar and my rage fly. In a rough estimate, I had felled twenty men. The men whose lives I stole were of no importance further than my own on their respective ship. The true prize was in the head of an individual by the name of Edgar Saul. This man was the newly appointed captain of our rival crew and had obtained an accumulated bounty of two hundred gold pieces for his severed head. That head, which had become so expensive from numerous offenses had been severed clean by my quick steel. His long hair, rather knotted and greasy from lack of bathing, felt delightful gripped within my fist. The grotesque face grimaced with infinite pain as I swung it over my shoulder and made my blood-letting path back to where I had come. Friend and foe alike were prompt to vacate my path once they witnessed my dangling prize. My own captain stood on a bluff overlooking the beach which had changed within a few hours into a crimson battlefield. With a hickory pipe pressed taut in between his lips, he gazed down on my with a questioning eye (his opposite eye ceased to exist). I had to have been positioned no less than five feet in front of him before he recognized my return as well as the cranium I possessed. It was quite out of character for captain Van Whall to greet me in the manner he did that day, but even to this moment, it is too vivid to be a false memory. With open arms, he welcomed me into a tobacco-scented embrace and stroked my hair while whispering to me,
"Thank you, thank you."
My captain instructed me to remain by his side for the remainder of the battle so that I may see how my precise assassination would detrimentally affect the moral of our enemy. As expected, they did crumble beneath our heels and we reveled in the victory. It was absolute, no prisoners were taken; dead men did not fare well as laborers. Van Whall clapped me on the shoulder repetitively, proud of what I had accomplished perhaps even more so that I,
"This is your doing my boy… You shall reap the benefits."
So he stated, and so I did; an unfortunate casualty for our side was the loss of our first mate. This spot was vacant for mere minutes before his death came to the attention of the captain and I was appointed first mate in the stead of the late Garth Herb. In the span of one day I had progressed from a deck scrubber to the second in command of The Red Plague. If I may state so boldly, it was quite a worthy promotion for someone of my stature at that time. Finally I was beginning to see the treatment I rightfully deserved.
Time passed at a rather swift pace after that point and only retarded in pace when John Van Whall grew deathly ill. Thinking upon it, I remember standing by his bed side with his chilled hand held within my own. He looked at me with the eye that had grown lifeless and wan as of late and hacked his words from his throat ,
"You have shown me your mettle… I can trust that you are ready to take on a great… responsibility…"
His grip tightened, and fell once again,
"I want you to become her captain… Sail her across the Cold and Warm Seas and witness… witness things I have never seen. This is my dying wish for you."
Perhaps his position in relation with immediate demise warped his mentality, but he was not speaking with a clear tongue. Our ship was governed with just laws and regulations that prevented a captain from being chosen by the one prior; a captain must be elected by the majority of the crew. I mentioned this to him, which he responded to with a startling exclamation.
"Bother that tradition!" His statement was interrupted by a series of violent coughs and gasps. "The boy who could kill any man he dared. Who… who would deny you this, Leon?"
His logic was unfailing, and I knew at that moment it would follow through. As I nodded with ample acceptance, kneeling beside him politely, his last smile cracked his lips and his hand fell to his side, limp and dead. The feared and respected captain John Van Whall of The Red Plague had fallen to disease and had passed on his title to me. The melancholy of the situation was broken by my selfish grin as I took his hat and affixed it upon my scalp. It was a much more fitting position than on anyone else's I boasted to myself. I was fully intent on  becoming a god of the sea, or perhaps a demon, titles are not self obtained, but are received from the public. So be it what words the world whispers adjacent to my name, they will fear me just as they had feared John Van Whall.
Once again, time fell into abyss as my work came to bear fruit. Years passed as I ravaged the world with my armada. The minute pirate crew that had once been confined to the wooden hull of The Red Plague grew into a vast fleet under the identical title. The plague sailed and spread just like a nautical pestilence. Port cities were ravaged and razed to ruble under fire from our many ships. Just as anticipated, I had become infamous for my actions against the world. Although difficult to recall, my head was prized at several thousand gold pieces; enough to purchase small towns and villages. Let he who believed himself so bold come against me and attempt to separate my head from its trunk. He is a fool if he believes I hid behind my soldiers (which is what I preferred to call them above the title of pirate) to save my life. Trained had my hands become from constant conflict; I was a god among men in the ways of warfare. To kill was as simple as breathing, and I took many breaths as a captain. Insane it may seem but many a time I have isolated myself from my following and walked the heavily populated streets of Ellion and Groval City. Was anyone so bold as to strike me, even from behind or the flank? Nay, reader, nay. Invincibility shrouded over me in the form of reputation. Every man, woman, child, and humorously, beast parted from my path. If this was my punishment for the life I had lead, clearly murder was the simplest thing the world could offer.
The greats seas gave me much prosperity when I was their king, but soon I grew to favor land and the riches it offered. My practical army of sea-faring men were forced to replace their legs with those accustomed to solid land and follow me to conquest. I did not intend to stir sore feelings with some of the Imperial armies that despite my sole strength had the potential to make my legend as well as legacy vanish from the earth. I found a perfect civilization to make my own; my own it became effortlessly. By returning to Harmbury with my entourage of violence, a siege by sea made the aristocrats of that poverty-stricken slum came crawling to me begging for mercy. Of course I could not allow them to remain existent for the danger that they may encroach on my coffers, but I took the city as well as their lives. A worthy exchange I believe.
My first order of business was to find my last remnant of blood should he still be alive. My father, I assumed, had already been murdered by some private party that he owed a substantially large amount of money to. This assumption did not prevent me from putting significant effort and resource into finding him. Despite what I had though, he was very alive, but not in a much more favorable condition. He had remained confined within stone jail walls for many years. Apparently, he had attempted to aggressively rob an imperial ship single-handedly after my abduction caused him to loose much of the funds supporting his debts. He should be grateful for such a fate, perhaps had he not been arrested, he would be surrounded by soil walls as opposed to stone.
The jailhouse that he was held in was easy to locate for it was advertised via post boards scattered through the town. It was queer to me that the location of a prison would be so displayed, but it was a welcome convenience. I traveled alone through the littered streets until I came upon the building that held my kin within. The riveted doors that stood in my path were opened promptly by the constable and allowed me entrance. He was a large man, both vertically and horizontally, but his face turned gaunt in my presence; a sweating man he became with my passing. The inside reeked as any prison would, but the unmistakable salt in the air proved this was rather a sailor's brig. Despite the potent scent, my father was not a sea-faring man. Perhaps my nose led me to him, but the strangely arranged catacombs were navigated through with ease. There he was, sitting limp in corner of his cell stroking the head of a large rat within his grasp.
He was despicable to watch; how could my blood be so reduced to such filth? The skin on his body was pulled across his arthritic joints and around his malnutrition bloated abdomen. A tattered coagulation of ash-grey facial hair dangled from his chin to touch the cold cobblestone floor. I gazed upon Samuel with near agony, and as I approached him, he released his companion and exclaimed jubilantly. How peculiar it was that after so many years, he still recognized my face. Perhaps the paternal instinct creates a bond to ones offspring that allows one to sense them. A rather illogical notion, but I have been enlightened that the world offers many more breeches in logic.
Upon his knees he crawled to his bars and held his bony fingers out to me as if begging. Tears welled in the corners on his eyes until they overflowed and thin rivulets trailed down his weathered cheeks.
"How long has it been since I've seen your face? My son… My dear son…"
It was quite clear that my father was crying now, and I nearly found it difficult to continue looking at him. With lack of enthusiasm I answered,
"Fourteen years and one month…"
"Gods be praised… You're face hasn't changed in all of this time… You still have your father's face."
This was insulting; the man's features were decayed along with his self-respect, and my narcissism did not respond well to the comparison.
One of his long fingers wiped across his nose and pulled away with a thick tendril of mucus; I was repulsed. To my dismay, he spoke again.
"Come closer to me, give me your hands."
I obeyed reluctantly, but I supposed that this was the last time I would see him, I should at least give him the courtesy of being his son. Luckily my hands were gloved so I offered them to him, which he grasped and used to wipe his tears.
"My boy… You were but a child when I sent you to work… What became of The Sister? I heard tales of it being taken by pirates, was this true?"
His eye were in contrasting nature to the tone in which I noticed beforehand. They were far more intense; of a more solid hue. Gossip spreads quickly in Harmbury, it was no wonder that he would have known the cause of my disappearance.
"Yes, we were boarded and I was taken captive."
"Did they harm you? What did they do to you?"
"They treated me with the same due respect as given to any abducted individual on a piratical vessel."
I tried to keep the conversation to a minimum. I already had the desire to leave, but his grip restricted me from that luxury. For such a withered individual, his hands proved the sheer intensity that of a young grizzly bear.
It was at this time that he noticed my naval uniform and hat and gazed into my eyes with a questioning impression.
"You are no longer a peon to the ship, are you?"
"The captain rather."
Shock, and then fear; he let loose my hands and leaned away from the bars.
"A pirate? You're a true pirate?"
My lips curled, as they had grown to do when I felt dominant over a situation. He feared me, my own father cowered before me… Beauteous.
"Perhaps that is what I have become in this time, perhaps I have transformed into what I hated long ago. You may see me as a pirate, but I see myself as much more. How long have you been in this jail?"
"This one specifically, three years."
"I became captain three years ago, word of mouth must not reach through steel bars."
I placed one of my fingers upon the metal rivets that held the poles together to feel its thickness. By that age of twenty four, I had matured to become a tremendously powerful man. With proper motivation, I could have definitely physically forced my way through them.
"It did not… But why? Why would you become this?"
"Because I had earned it."
Aggression was in my voice now, and I could tell that his heart beat faster with each word.
"Do you know what it was like to be a prisoner of criminals? I worked everyday, constantly, deteriorating my hands to nothing but callous and bone! Years of this, years! Only by slaying my captors enemy did I gain respect. Upon the sands of fate I stood and took my place in the world. No longer as a child of burden, but a true face, a true power!"
My fist collided into the metal with enough impact to bend the hinges of the cell door. Samuel scrambled backwards until the stone which from it trickled cold perspiration and thin moss gave him no more retreat. Understandable, really, I possessed an intimidating physique.
"Standing before you is no longer your child, I am Captain Leon Alexander Mackenzie of The Red Plague fleet. This is the respect I earned, this is the respect I deserve!"
Weep again my father did, and I could stand to look at him no longer. Let him return to life as a cretin. Let him resume his company with vermin and wallow in the shallow pool of his tears and sweat that from his body would grow scarce through the years of constant outpour. I had many things to attend to. I had a world to conquer.
I about-faced and escaped this unfavorable situation, leaving with nothing but a new hatred, and leaving nothing but a wave from my coat-tail. A persistent man he was, and before I could escape vocal range, he cried out to me.
"Never forget yourself, my son!"
Quite a profound phrase coming from the mouth of a failure… But I have never forgotten it…
My petty work had been completed in this place, now it was time to initiate in my original intent. I returned to the docks and rode a dingy back to my ship where I gave the orders that would shatter the lives of the Harmbury residents.
"This day, we will do something quite different. Go forth, and kill the town guard, or any resistance you face, but leave all citizens. Blockade the gates and allow no one to escape. I want to capture this town, not destroy it."
They seemed confused at my command, but men of such simple minds would inevitably find it difficult to comprehend the idea of specific targeting. As was ritual, we howled and shouted, cursed and clamored, and within moments my soldiers had boarded the small ships and stormed Harmbury in a force equivalent to thunder. I followed suit shortly behind the main legion, not with the mind set to do any damage myself, but to observe as my army decimated my enemies. Exhilarating, the feeling was, and despite my efforts, I could not resist it. But did I really desire to? That was an unanswerable inquiry.
Radical perhaps my behavior might seem to some, corrupt to others, but I offer a simple defense. Do not all humans desire what I have achieved in such short lapse? Do not all humans desire power? Do not all humans desire wealth? Do not all humans desire fame and respect? I personally obtained all of the material and psychological substances that by instinct, humans crave. Leon Mackenzie was a human, and he used the tools available to him to retrieve his desire.
Strange that I speak my name in third person it may be, but fret not, for I will explain in greater detail further into the writing. As a matter of fact, there is much more to explain and much further detail to delve into. But patience must be upheld to understand fully what my existence offers the reader.

Section II: The Seige of Seaport Town.
The assaulted port offered much more of a struggle than I had anticipated; civilians, even women and children brought it upon themselves to defend their homestead. This was an unfortunate turn for the efficiency of the mission but was dealt with effectively by my strike force. I had no doubt that they would not take into consideration my specifications of sparing the uninformed. But I supposed that I did direct them to defeat any and all resistance, including citizens. Such abound carnage was so extensive that the air around me was scented red. Upon the wind carried the screams of the unfortunate; the garbled shouts of men and the high shrieks of women and children. How bloodied would the steel of blades be when this ordeal was over? To maintain the symphony of agony that played so smooth and constant. Seldom was there breach in the siren drone, long enough to even hear my own thoughts. The sound was commanding but not in the least unpleasant. Lost in a dream I had become while I trotted in contrasting silence. Only by the startling shouts of a stout sailor was I shaken from my somnambulism. This occupation was discovered from recognition of the nautical apparel that was strapped and twined to his elder figure. He wielded a cutlass of antique valor in his main hand and gutting hook in his opposite. The fire in his soul burned brightly and was displayed in the glisten of his weathered eyes. I let myself be taken by his looks as I stood examining the man who stood in reflection with intent to slay me. Leather replaced the skin he was born with, and calluses replaced his palms. With no exaggeration I declare that I witnessed a similarity between the two of us. Perhaps it was our eyes, or perhaps even the tale-telling marks upon our knuckles. I was unsure at that time, but in one aspect my vision was unclouded; I would regret killing this man.
"Stay your blade old man, I have no intention of drawing my own this day."
I spoke clearly but without aggression as I anchored myself and stood tall against him, but he did not comply, nor did he waver in my presence. Like an ox he stood his ground in response, hunched over with an arthritic spine he appeared predatorily vicious. One eye winced with apparent distaste at my command and his old lips parted over mangled teeth.
"Afraid I can't do that gov'na,"
This was the first I had ever been addressed as such, and I couldn't ascertain whether it was being directed as a positive or negative title.
"I've got to defend home, ye see? I know who ye are, Leon. I heard the tales that traveled on the waves. This is your home too."
He paused for a moment to wipe moisture from under his nose,
"I saw yer ships on the blue commin' in and I knew it was you. Why have ye come back? Just to burn the dirt where you were born?  You're a monster Leon, just like the tales tell."
The tales spread of my doings were brought to my attention, but I had never actually listened to one. I would have enjoyed hearing one, especially if it described me as something inhuman.
"I did not return for mere slaughter, I intend on apprehending this port and transforming it into a base of operations so to speak. I have ordered my men to kill the guard but leave the unarmed at peace. Please…"
I found myself speaking words of a beggar, pleading with him to surrender.
"Lay down your weapons and I will go on my way, I do not want to murder a fellow sailor."
He spat at the ground and only tightened the grips of his fists; all his fury elevating with every passing moment. I felt a bond at an instant time with the sailor, but I dare not inquire his name, for I would mourn the loss of his life should I be so learned. His breath heaved his shoulders like that of a sickly bear cornered by a hunter's troop and defending its life with every ounce of strength it could muster. Broken was he, and I
"You are delirious, I am the only sailor in this lot. I was born in Harmbury, and I'll die for her just the same! Now show me your steel!"
This was courage that I could not refuse and so I obeyed and pulled my rapier from its sheath. The day sun was particularly complimenting on the lustful surface of my metal; it shone pleasantly. Shame to spoil the sleek with blood of the honorable.
Before I had the time to fully resume my gaze towards him, the man was upon me, slashing wildly. Spittle flew from his crusted lips which were sneered back to bare his gnarled teeth. A man with fangs not only in a symbolic sense, it seemed he had filed his canines to a sharp point. I evaded his first flurry of sword dancing with properly executed footwork and a loose waist. So uneven, and so easily countered, but I could not bear to strike him down; my hands trembled at the thought of it. My first slight of weakness revealed to my own conscience. It was a feeling I could do nothing less than despise. The connection to another stayed my blade, and restricted me to eluding the metal that severed air with a majestic hum. In this absence of character I pondered who exactly was I pretending to be? In my vanity, had I set a charade and expected my peers to follow suit? Perhaps my reputation had become my only means of protection. Nay, I was not a false image, not a powerless deity with only rumors to adorn my flesh. Deviation from the static lord that had so long conquered and kneaded the earth to his binding; my name was this, and I had earned the title. Confront Leon Alexander Mackenzie with any weapon, any force, any determination, and he will dispatch them without discretion. Killing was as easy as breathing, so it was, and I took many breaths.
In a single, inclimactic motion, I ran my sword through his stomach and watched as his eyes fluttered to a close. My free arm braced his weight by supporting his back as I laid him down to the earth and drew the sword from his insides. I assumed he would attempt to whisper something profound in his dying breath, but only hot air flowed from his lips. An air that tainted my soul and quaked my knees within my own boots.  Blood trickled down the blade's edge like crooked river, and I found it an eyesore. Much more profitable to bare blood on a kerchief so I pulled mine from my neck and swept in against the rapier until it shone again like polished silver. Such was a waste of good life, and I would not enjoy the blister it would manifest in my conscience.
I returned promptly to my acquired path after saluting the wan corpse with what respect I could offer my victim. I would send word for his body to be found and properly laid to rest once this confrontation was at a close. Should he possess a family, they would be compensated for their loss, including a currency transaction enough to support them for a decent span of time. I imagined he would (in the most accurate assumption) be roughly seventy years of age, perhaps older. With the volume of manifested determination I experienced, he would do well to show the same to Death and strike him dumb for at least twenty further years, had I not lent aid to Death. What was done must be accepted I suppose, and I moved on in my own thoughts to balance focus in the favor of my immediate situation.
I will take a small pause from the current directive and speak of myself in a more physical sense. Let my admittance at this moment be precise, and let nothing be misinterpreted or misconstrued. At that time in my life, I was extremely narcissistic; seeing my own image as god-like among the other shadows that scattered across the waters of reality. Who would dare appose my established image to my face (besides the courageous fisherman, noted) and rank himself as superior? From my fingers I did touch stone, and from that touch, gold of a metaphoric nature replaced. Might I also pronounce that I was indeed a charming man, quite handsome if I may so declare, noting that beauty is in the eye of he who has beheld it. Roughly six feet and five inches of stature and two hundred pounds of weight. Hair of mahogany reaching mid-back and held loosely by a strip of cloth or hide for most of the duration in which I present my figure.
Unlike many of my counterparts, I stressed hygiene and bathed regularly. This justifies why my face visualized itself bolder and contrasted with the standard crowd I associated myself with regularly. In a sense, I was a regal captain of the Imperial Naval Fleet commanding the privateers. Subtract the powdered wig and knee-high stockings of course, but the appearances remained comparable none the less.
With my sturdy brow, my eyes were pushed into shadow by high-tide as well as my jaw below the cheek. This shadow was favored for I preferred to avoid acknowledged eye-contact and peer about at my own will. My eyes were a most valuable asset to my defensive entirety, and did well to be concealed. Like blades amidst the hiding sleeve are drawn and thrown, as too is my sight.
A most peculiar story derives from the topic of my optical advantages, and I shall thus share it with you. One morning, many years ago, in the most turbulent of the winter months, where tears would solidify to a man's cheek just as the wind had thrashed them out; sitting in the frosted corner of the Red Plague's cargo bay was I. Huddled in a fetal position, gripping my goatskin shawl with enough pressure to turn my bulging knuckles white. The knotted pelt was the only means of warmth I could ascertain, and so I held it with matching intensity to that which I hold my life. Each breath I gave out billowed in my face in a staggered rhythm that held no even beat. Slowly, I could feel my digits grow pitch with frostbite, and along with that black would come an even darker veil in mere hours. If it had not been for a punishment sentence against me, to hold me within the icy planks until half a fortnight, I would be on the deck, working my blood to allow my temperature equilibrium to continue functioning normally. Unfortunately, I had committed the heinous crime of stealing an unripe apple from the captain's gallery and was unfit for manual labor. Were it not this time of the month, I should say that my punishment would have been double timed duties of the working sort. I would have wished for such a fate in this my condition. However, that would only have elongated my comfort and thus nary a lesson would have been learned. The story behind my captors suppression was all too realized; thieves disapprove of thieving. As I sat in my silent cubby awaiting the sort of slumber that the elders will fear or embrace, I began to seethe. This burden within my heart broke free and I let the released inferno that was my tortured being warm me and my mind. I had never before experienced a manifestation of my hatred burn so wildly, so vividly, to at which point I swore I mayhap combust and take with me the wretched ship and it's despicable contents to the bottom of the Cold Sea it a flaming torrent. Within my eyes the spark of my fury erupted, and it was within those eyes that may have allowed my life to remain in my possession. During my fit, one of the more weathered of seafaring men descended to the bay in search of a cover to ease his chilling pains. Upon sighting me and the fur I tightly adorned upon myself, he approached with intention on claiming it as his own.
"Bitter cold down here aye?" he spoke through mangled lips and scarce teeth, "But ye be better off handin' that to me before I have to cut it from ye." With that note, he pulled a stiletto from the yellowed sash on his waist and slashed thrice in my direction, keeping his distance from my location however, directing towards intimidation rather than violence. At that moment, I was too frozen to manage movement, or even speech. I was paralyzed and watching as my immediate assailant came ever closer in shuffling steps that signified scurvy joints. The anger fueled heat I felt flow within my shaking limbs had left me as swiftly as it had arrived, but the core of my loathing, the heart of my despise remained in the glaring orbs that had replaced my eyes. Staring at him from my position with all the accumulated passion I could force had considerable effect. His gaze caught mine, and he was struck still. The steps he made in advancing were promptly retraced, and he abandoned me without a further word or remark. The fear that was witnessed at that moment was marvelously entertaining. A man well into his forties and chiseled into a murderer was chased off by a boy's face. Such a notion was so absurdly whimsical that it forced a weary smile to my lips. An expression I embraced and enjoyed after so long without it. My eyes alone had given me protection in a very literal sense. My eyes, perhaps, have always been my most profound feature. That sensation gave me the will to survive the further duration of my punishment, and I was quite alive once the bars were removed and I was retrieved.
Understanding of my unique attributes are acquired through example, and this is just one of the many scenarios I will describe anon. This is, as the title emphasizes, an intensively detailed recollection.
With my secondary descriptions, the conflicting struggle for militaristic dominance heaved on. I trusted my boys to never disappoint me, for they had never done so in the past, but how surprised was I when a well-dressed man was forcibly thrown to his knees before my feet by a troop of several comrades. From his silken embroidered top hat, to his alligator-hide loafers, he was stitched and patched with but the finest royal blue. A thin, gold-link chain swung from one vest pocket to the other in a deep parabola. Who was this man that decorated his fingers and ears with gold and silver? Who was this man that gave off an almost chokingly strong scent of musk and sandalwood? A handlebar moustache curled obnoxiously off of his lip that was complimented shrewdly by a slick goatee that pointed off of his chin like a stiletto; a product of consistent preening. His identity found itself beyond my range of memory, for I had never encountered the likes of him beforehand. From the visual hints upon his face, he had not been taken on his own accord; the declaration of his captors announced that he was the Baron of this humble village. Humbleness was not a characteristic this individual shared internally or externally.
"Speak your name, man." I demanded sharply, pointing forceful digit towards his grim face; already beginning to turn sallow from fright.
"My name is Richard…" He paused and lowered his gaze from mine, perhaps holding the floodgates within his sockets back from releasing his cowardice in broad streams. "As is my uncle; family title, you twat!" The consonants of my exclamation trailed spittle as they were spat from my lips. To compliment the insult, I lifted my dominant leg and plowed it into his gut with decent potency. Enough to ease his tongue, along with his tears.
"R-richard Fonrey," slurred the weeping man "I am the entitled mayor of this port… P-please, do what you will with her, but leave m-" I struck him again, this time I had leaned over to deliver the rear of my fist against his temple, dazing him enough to allow only my shouted words to reach his ears.
"Vermin! I'll run you through with silver by the end of this day if you do not show me any value above vermin! Do you know who stand before you?" With this, I knelt; my face mere inches from his. I could smell the salt from his eyes, and the iron in the blood flowing thinly from his ear.
"You are… You are a captain." His eyes began to gleam, and for a moment, a flash of courage shone from his repulsive visage. "They call you a demon… But you kneel before a helpless man while your lackeys ransack and rape what rightfully belongs to me." He spit on the ground, revealing that he also bled from his mouth. "You are no more mortal than I, you will meet your end just the same as anyone else… Who's really the vermin in this conflict?"
Being spoken to in this way was above all incomprehensible, almost as if I was seeing myself from a foreign perspective. His eyes were listless, growing dead with each passing moment although his vitals were still stable. My petty strike was by no means lethal. His will to live, however, seemed to be fading. Soon his eyes would match his state, for I held within my hands his cranium, and with a swift motion, his neck was snapped.
His physical being was in harmony with his will. His mind set at rest for as long as eternity allowed.
"You will find your demons…"
I released, and observed as this limp form molded to the earth. This town was ungoverned; I had only to reap what I had sown.