Stavanger Bay towers and shadows

Raptor shook his head as Smokestep — in a move his sable companion could not have predicted — twisted the blame onto himself. The more the pale Captain spoke the more Raptor swung his muzzle in a gesture of no. The blame lied squarely on his shoulders, and his alone. He had failed himself and everyone that had ever been gathered around him.

"Naw," he answered, almost too casually. He had resigned. "I did it because I screw everything." Raptor drew a slow and steady breath. There was more to cover yet. More to say before he accepted whatever was coming for him. Still convinced was he, that there would be no day after today. "I don't deserve nothin'. I ain't even a real pirate. I was captured as a whelp, aye, spared because the Captain found me funny. 'Look at his little fangs! Look at his little fangs! Har har har! Look how he cowers!'" Raptor slid his long tongue — also an oddity — across the exposed tips of his canines.

He couldn't face Smoke anymore and once again looked away, hanging his sorry head below his shoulders as he drew another breath. "I'm a good thief, ye know? I had to be. I'd have starved if I wasn't. I tried to be one of them... I learned to make real good rum because rum made them all so happy. I thought they took a likin' to me and wanted to make me a real crew member... and maybe they would have eventually, but they asked me to kill a little girl when we went raidin' one night and I couldn't. They kicked my tail and marooned me, told me they'd watch me starve to death or watch me strike for the other shore and get picked off by a shark or drown."

Heh. The most fleeting of smirks flitted across his lips. He might have rolled onto the far shore gasping for breath and near dead but he had never felt more alive or triumphant in that moment. "I met you not long after. Tellin' ye a bunch of tall tales about what a fearless pirate I am... but I ain't nothin'. I proved that. I still can't kill. I care about more than just the crew. I know I ain't supposed to give a hoot about nothin' outside this ship, but I felt real bad about disappointing that silver female. I..." He trailed off with a heavy breath, lost for any more words but this:

"I just want to eat, and get drunk, and have a bit o' fun, and... and I don't want to be alone."