Good evening, actually doing this at a somewhat reasonable time, only an hour after I mean to, go me! I am still trying *fingers crossed* to actually stick to 10-15 minutes.
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Prompt: She could feel it; every drop. Her blood pattered against the wooden decking with every second that passed. Her breath was short and stolen. Each step she took felt like an accomplishment. Slowly, she…
What happens next and why? You decide.
Genre: Pirate/Fantasy Writing Exercise
Source: The Only 10 Creative Writing Prompts You Need
Time Spent: 40 minutes
Word Count: 1335
Prompt: She could feel it; every drop. Her blood pattered against the wooden decking with every second that passed. Her breath was short and stolen. Each step she took felt like an accomplishment. Slowly, she…
What happens next and why? You decide.
She could feel it; every drop. Her blood pattered against the wooden decking with every second that passed. Her breath was short and stolen. Each step she took felt like an accomplishment. Slowly, she inched her way toward the rear cabin of the ship, bracing herself against anything within reach to help her take the next, painful step. The deep gash that ran along her side burned with pain as she pressed the tattered remnants of her overcoat into it to try and stop the bleeding.
Around her shouts and screams competed with the sounds of weapons ranging from clubs to muskets. Canons boomed at infrequent intervals and were often accompanied by the sound of wood being torn apart. None of this mattered to her, she had to get to her cabin.
Alice Winterblade, Pirate Princess of the Salt Brotherhood, Scourge of the Northern Isles, and Witch of the Tides was a name feared and respected by all that sailed. Her infamy, success, and her powers had grown steadily since she had first raised a crew and sailed off into the Briny Deeps to seek her fortune some ten years previously. Where the young, raven haired woman had come from no one knew, and she would not speak of it, which only added to her legend. It was perhaps this overconfidence that was about to cost her everything.
She had raided a convoy the Storm Alliance three days previously, and her ship ‘The Summoned Gail’ was cruising, leisurely, to the Free City of Sarnhelos to fence their wares in the extensive black market there and with a steady wind, and a calm sea, she had allowed her crew a day of relative leisure, and even joined in some of the games and revelry.
What she had not counted on, and had not known, was that the Wizards of Skaldara had granted a boon to shroud two of the pirate hunters of the Island Kingdom of Belvan, and their ships, from detection until the moment they should attack another. As such none of her crew had seen, nor had she sensed until it was two late, the two fearsome warships slowly gaining on her vessel and easing into close range. Alice had just enough time to cry for her crew to take cover, which spared many of them from the initial cannon volley.
It was a testament to her crews training and experience that they were able to arms themselves and begin fighting and firing back. They only had time to get off one cannon volley of their own before both of their hunters reached close enough to board. Alice had been at the fore of her ship when the attack began and immediately tied to make her way to her cabin, where her more dangerous weapons and magics were kept. She had reached amidship when the first boarding wave had come aboard, and she found herself, for the third time in her life, face to face with Wolforn Gallar, perhaps the most feared and infamous pirate hunter several decades previously, and even in his old age still a fearsome opponent.
Wolforn had landed heavily in front of her, and she had wasted no time in drawing her knife and leaping forward. She knew that armed as she was she needed to stay inside the effective range of his great cutlass. She was grateful that much of his agility was gone with age, as it did not take her long to worm her way inside his defense and plunge her dagger into her old enemy’s throat. Her triumph was short lived as, with his last act, he had slammed his cutlass hard into her ribs. She cursed, for the last time, the skill which had served him so well as she felt several of her ribs break and the heavily bleeding gash on her side. She thanks the luck of the seven sisters that he lacked the leverage, falling backward as he was, to completely cut her in half.
She had to make it to her cabin, she had to, there she had the tools to at least seal her wound, there was not time for a proper healing spell, and then she would make them all pay. She thanked her luck again that without her great coat, her hat, or any of her normal regalia that she just looked like a wounded crew member, so hardly anyone paid her any notice. Slipping once on the bloody deck, and careening hard into one of the masts as another cannon volley tore into the lower decks of her ship, she staggered on.
At last, after what felt to her like hours, although could not have been more than a minute or two, she reached her cabin. Feeling lightheaded from the blood loss and almost blinded in pain, she clung to the door to catch what break she could before trying to enter. Muttering the spell to unlock her door, she stumbled in and shut it behind her.
A pistol shot rang out. She felt a pinch in the side opposite the cutlass wound and so shocked was she that it took her a moment to realize that a small ball of lead had just broken several more ribs and torn through her lung. She let out of a faint exhale and collapsed to her knees. With vision darkening, the Alice Winterblade beheld the stern face of Carissa Longspear.
If she had the breath to do so, she would have chuckled. Carissa had been on her original crew, raising to be first mate and occasional lover. Everything had changed five years previously when Alice had decided to conjure a storm to punish the Island of Longacre for having sent a pirate hunter after them. Carissa had begged Alice not to as her family was native to the island, but Alice listened to no one when her temper was up. When Carissa received news at the next port that multiple members of her family, including a much beloved cousin and the aunt who raised her, had been killed in the storm, she had left that day and sworn vengeance. Alice had only narrowly avoided her former flame and protege, now turned pirate hunter, on several occasions.
Alice’s breath came in painful gasps and she looked up into the amber eyes, filled with rage and hate, of her one time first mate and tried to speak, but couldn’t. Carissa stepped forward and pointed a fresh pistol at her head and began to speak. Alice did not hear her, it was taking all of her effort to keep herself conscious for just a few seconds more. With the last of her strength, she pulled the pendant that she always wore from around her neck, a small crystal vial with what looked like a dancing flame inside it. Carissa screamed and fired her pistol, but it was too late, the impulse to crush to vial, unbreakable to anyone but her, had already been sent to her hand and even as the Pirate Princesses blood and brains splattered onto the wall behind her, muscles in her hand and forearm tensed and a faint crack was heard.
The magical explosion was heard and caused panic on islands and coastlines hundreds of miles away and until some Sea Witches had been employed the calm the elements, much of the surrounding sea boiled and seethed like a cauldron. The Summoned Gail and both pirate hunter vessels, and everyone aboard, were consumed and utterly destroyed in a massive magical explosion. It would take those in the surrounding area several months to piece together what had happened. The Tale of the Last Act of Alice Winterblade became a famed tale, told and exaggerated with each telling and many agreed it was a fitting end to the legend of the woman who would come to be regarded as one of the greatest of all pirates and the most powerful Witch of the Tides to ever sail the vast seas.
Oh well, another story that got away from me, but that I greatly enjoyed writing. Let me know your thoughts and also post how you would right such a character.
Hope you enjoyed and that you are having a wonderful day and get to do, or experience, something creative.
– Jon
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