Riding Into the Typhoon

Storm's Eye. The mountain range housed a city that would have made the ancients whose remains they'd built it on proud. Between magic and sheer numbers, the citizens had managed to raise towers both inside and outside the mountains in a matter of months. And sitting in the middle of the city, under the largest three towers, was a castle flying a black ship on a red flag. That was Typhoon Company's home.

It was also where Watcher lazed about, playing with his cat. Of course, he couldn't see her, but he could feel the fur under his hands, and he could hear the purrs and mewling as he pet and played with her. There were a whole range of other things he could discern just from those two bit of sensory input - From the size of her, this cat was barely more than a kitten. He imagined that she must've been adorable to look at.

Scooping the cat up, he walked out the door to his room, to the lift that would bring him down the tower, into the main part of the castle. It was time to actually start his day.

The salty sea air was the first thing Zandri noticed when she awoke. The second thing was the distinct, rancid scent of human existence, a glorious mix of sweat, piss and vomit. The distinct sound of a bustling city was just audible over the sound of the ships crew frantically preparing to dock.
With a groan, Zandri sat up from where she lay beside two barrels and a spider desperately spinning it's web in a corner. She rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand, shook the flask beside her head. When she heard the faint swish of liquid inside, she grinned and downed what was left before finally standing up. Someone groaned several feet over, rolled over and went back to sleep. Zandri made sure to give him a little kick on the way out.

"Up ye," she said with a heavy accent, "Ve vill be arriving."

She heard the man sit up as she ascended the stairs to the ships deck. As the sunlight hit her face, the city came into view. Another one. Another city, another port. But this one was surrounded by a mountain range. She found herself looking at those more than the city itself. In an abstract way, it reminded her so much of home, the way the sand dunes towered in the distance, sometimes as large as castles. Climbing one could take hours. But those mountains were taller than her sand dunes by far, and this cities towers were bigger than their palaces.

She headed to the front of the ship, tan hands gripping the rail. As they pulled in to dock, she sunk to a knee and prayed to the Great Mother, giving thanks for a safe journey.

As the lift went further down the tower, Watcher rubbed his eyes sleepily. He seemed to have gotten some sand in there at some point, and it was bugging him, no matter how little function his eyes might have had. The movement disturbed the furry little cat, who leaped down and sat on the blue-haired man's boot. The lift was basically a huge, empty, cask with chains attached to pull it up and down. Who had set it up, Watcher didn't know, but it had proven to be an indispensable tool all over the city. Certainly, running down the stairs was less convenient.

The lift stopped, and he turned his attention to the messengers, traders, and his fellow Typhoon members chatting and lounging in the hall outside the kitchens. Then, there were also the guests. Outsiders who either needed security, or a temporary place to stay while they tried to sell whatever they sold to the Typhoon crew. In short, the area around the kitchens was a mess of people. Watcher could pick out individual conversations as he passed. Some of them were very private ones that might have made great blackmail material. That wasn't something the Admiral did, though. he didn't like to blackmail people.

In fact, his mind wasn't on any of that at all. He just wanted to eat breakfast and play some cards before he had to go on his rounds. He insisted on doing a shift of rounds himself, no matter how much anybody wanted him to stay in the castle.

At the bottom of the ramp, Zandri adjusted the small burlap rucksack over her shoulder before taking her first step onto this foreign soil. She glanced around, nodding to her travel companions these past few weeks at sea, now scattering like sand in the wind, never to be together again. It was a fact of life, and she did not feel sad for it.

With a smile on her face, she drove into the crowd, seeking out a tavern.

"Much sorry," she apologized as she bumped shoulders with a stranger. As he turned to grunt a 'don't worry about it', her fingers snaked around the ties of his purse, loosening it and shoving it up her sleeve. She grinned and kept walking until she was around a corner. Only then, did she dare explore the contents of the purse she had stolen.

Quickly, she emptied the bag and threw the silk purse away behind a barrel, hiding the evidence of theft. What she found inside was disappointing to say the least. Only three of these foreign coins, and a spool of white thread with a needle stuck into it. She kept the coins in her hand and tossed the thread into her light rucksack. Her shirt needed mending anyway.
She continued on, pausing only briefly to ask directions, as best she could, to the nearest tavern.

Watcher's breakfast was pretty huge. It had to be, for some reason. The sheer amount of energy it apparently took to keep his senses working well enough to keep his blindness from being a hindrance was a whole lot more than anybody would've guessed. Ten minutes into his massive meal, a man came tromping into the main hall. Even through all the chatter, the Typhoon's leader could hear who it was. Barq. Fucking Barq. Acted all cool until one tiny thing went wrong. And then the tiny thing got blown out of proportion. He calmly continued slurping up noodles, not visibly paying the man any attention until they were face-to-face. As Barq shouted, Watcher imagined lots of hand motions and a red face accompanied his speech.

"Watcher, I've been robbed. Robbed! In your city. Do you see this?! My purse is gone! My money!"

Now, Watcher was quite sure that the older man hadn't been carrying much. Somebody who hadn't heard this idiot before might have dropped whatever they were doing and go looking for what he assumed was probably nothing more than your average pickpocket. Of course, most people might have also had the imagery of Barq patting his belt for his money bag. The blue-haired man just looked up, slightly disinterestedly.

"Oh, whatever would I do without your blustering, Barq? Finish a meal, maybe? Actually enjoy that trash beer you sell me four times a year? Not go chasing pickpockets because you're an oblivious fucking waste of oxygen?"

The Typhoon Admiral at his full height was a couple of inches shorter than the source of his annoyance, but the crazed look on his face was enough to make Barq flinch. Very few people had ever heard Watcher actually yell. It was a new experience for most of the crewmen currently eating. His eye was actually twitching as he searched for the largest bit of food he could hold in his hand and grabbed a sandwich before angrily stuffing it halfway into his mouth and stalking out. Barq might have been a tremendous idiot, but it was bad for the Company if people heard about their associates getting stuff stolen from them. On a hunch, he walked to the lift that brought him down to the docks, continuing to munch on his sandwich and letting the look of disgust fade as he ate.

The Lady Luck saw to it on that day, that she would have to test her child. Zandri, for all her efforts to be discrete, just happened to seek directions from the very person who had gone out searching for a pickpocket. Fate was a curious thing. Fate saw fit to kill her people, her family, burn her home to the ground and wipe her existence from the face of the desert. But fate also brought her here. Fate brought her to the sea, to the wide, beautiful ocean. She'd never have seen so much water, of not for fate. Fate was the ship that carried her through life.

"Excuse. Just off boat. Look for dvink?" she asked the blue haired man as he ate, "And bed to sleep? Yew know vere?"

In her hands she held the coins she had stolen, unaware that this man she had chosen to speak to, was looking for what she had taken.

It took Watcher a moment to respond. He took a last bite, and then turned on his heel to face the owner of the distinctly accented voice he'd just heard. It was an interesting one, for sure. Pretty familiar, considering the amount of traders that came in from the desert, but this wasn't a trader. A trader wouldn't have asked somebody in a Typhoon uniform for suggestions on places to stay. Not usually, anyway. He moved his eyes up and down for a moment before deciding that the woman's eyes were probably a few inches below his. For a moment, the sound of coins clinking in what he assumed was her hand raised his suspicions, but then he mentally shook his head. A pickpocket wouldn't walk up to somebody in uniform, right? Not unless they'd never been to the city before. Either way, showing one traveler a place to sleep wasn't a big deal. He shrugged at the woman.

"Sure. But it might take some walking. It's a busy season in Storm's Eye."

He gestured up the road with his sandwich, then turned, waiting for the sound of footsteps behind him.

The soldiers in her home land did not have uniforms, exactly. They carried certain weapons, marked with the sign of the Father. Men, women. They dressed almost the same, think woven robes to protect from the harsh sunlight, or light clothing for the warriors. But there was no uniform, because nobody was the be set apart, put higher in rank. Even Kings and Queens, Princes and Princesses, were expected to do their share for the community. Even more so, because they were a servant, not only to the people, but to the Gods as well.

Zandri felt a stab of homesickness, but quickly buried it like a sandstorm. She grinned at the strangely dressed man and nodded her thanks.

"You is kind," she said, "Not many help. The Goddess smiles on Kindness."

She followed, having no reason not to trust this strangely dressed man, but she was no fool. She'd had her share of negative experiences traveling. Foreign woman with no companions? Seen as an easy target.

She would not let her guard down again.

"Yeah, well... meh."

Really, all Watcher was doing was dragging some poor woman along with him for company while he made his rounds. Many of the more public inns and hotels were on the water, anyway. So, he waved off her compliment. He didn't think of himself as a particularly kind person. He ran the biggest mercenary organization in the region, and possibly the continent. While he might've been kind on the surface, even he didn't quite know why. His eyes wandered as they walked and he wondered exactly what the foreigner behind him was seeing of his city. He knew what it looked like, in theory, but his blind eyes couldn't show him the reality. He looked at her curiously.

"I don't suppose you've seen anything like the Eye back east, huh? Or this many ships."

That was another thing he was curious about. He was from the north end of the desert, not the east. The towns there were laughable compared to the ones that had sprung up along the river that Storm's Eye sat at the end of. He had no clue what the other large cities in the nations he traded with were like at all. And it was unlikely that he would be able to go see for himself unless he handed his job off to one of his assistants, which was not something he wanted to do.

His question made Zandri pause. The displaced Princess touched the scarf draped around her head, remembering how her father presented it to her, woven with his own hands. The intricate, geometric patterns in the fabric told a story like a tapestry, if one just knew how to see the abstract shapes and symbols as people and animals and cities.

"Zere is nothzing to ze east," she replied faintly, continuing to follow. "Nothzing."

She took a deep breath, then forced a smile back on her face.

"Zis city es... how say? Ehh... Beauty! But I never come to here. It is, ah... good place?"

Without even pretending to look in the woman's direction, Watcher heard the pause, and then the change in her tone. Something had happened. Nothing that was any of his business, but it was something. Perhaps when he had time to go poring over books again, he'd search for something about settlements to the east. People from around there came through often enough, but he'd never really questioned them about it. Apparently, he wasn't going to question this one, either. But the conversation went back to the Eye, and he couldn't not talk about his city. He was proud of it.

"I certainly hope it's a good place, miss. Otherwise me and my friends are tossing money down the drain while we play around with merchants."

He tossed a slightly cynical smile over his shoulder at her, but it turned into a more good-natured one as he gestured towards the huge lake that the mountain ranged around.

"I assume it's beautiful to look at. It's certainly a lovely place for a walk."

Lakes. Mountains. Where she came from, these were unheard of. Water was scarce. Her people had adapted, learned to find water in unexpected places, but their had been an oasis near enough. And when it rained, they collected the water. Her people were never thirsty, despite living in dry sand.

"You loved by Lady Luck." She grinned. "You have home, water, safety. Many go without."

A reminder. Her mother reminded her constantly about that fact. It kept her humble and generous. Kept them aware and their minds open.

Watcher stopped and turned to smile at the woman walking with him. She was right, of course. He knew that the people he did business with probably had much rougher lives than his. Hell, the people who lived in the undercity probably threw him dirty looks when he passed by. Storm's Eye was nice as cities went, because of the overall lack of gangs and the violence they caused, but he wasn't naive enough to claim that it was perfect here. All the Typhoon Company could do was protect the city from large threats. Policing the whole area wasn't their thing.

"Lady Luck, huh? I think I like that. Takes luck and skill for a blind man to fight people with working eyes."

He winked at her, then started down one of the ramps to the dockmaster's office. A quick check of the man's numbers was all he needed, and he didn't mind the woman watching while he checked.

Blind. He was blind! Zandri had not even noticed. When he winked, Zandri examined his face, the way his eyes would just not quite focus on her, but more in her general direction.

"Ze Gods work in strange ways," she said with a nod. "Vat one may see as disability, may be yer strength."

When her sister lost her hand, she received a blade attachment for her arm. She was deadly, strong. It was never a weakness.

"Is zis way to sleep and drink?" she asked, looking a little confused, "I not so good at zis language..."

"I can't disagree with that. But it's not quite public knowledge, so I'm glad you were fooled."

Watcher gave her another smile, which turned into a more apologetic look as he led her to the office. He'd hoped that she wouldn't mind him dragging her out of the way a bit, but it wasn't like there were more than three or four of these offices around the port. He could get away with sending someone else.

"Sorry... I actually came down to the port to see this guy before I ran into you. Part of my job is to check with the dockmasters when there's a lot of new ships arriving."

Zandri only nodded in response. He had other duties. And Zandri was in no rush. She was a drifter now, lacking purpose. Survival was her only goal. She could afford a detour.

"Vat is job?" she asked, "You... check ships?"

The foreign woman adjusted her head scarf, still walking beside him. She'd had work back home. They all did. Every citizen, from the poorest widow, to the crown Princess herself. They'd all been expected to put in equal work. Zandri had been a scout with her sister. But that was a long time ago. Now? She had nothing. She stole to get by, she did dirty work, she killed men in alleyways for coins. In a way, she was envious of this strangely dressed blind man.

"Sometimes."

Watcher ran his fingers over the door's handle before he opened it. He couldn't tell much about this woman, but he was pretty sure telling her how things worked in Storm's Eye wouldn't do either of them any harm. A sigh escaped him as he opened the door and gestured for her to follow, before turning towards the dockmaster. The sound of him scribbling away this early was a sure sign that the port was busy. Otherwise, he didn't think the man would be here at all. The blue-haired man decided to leave the man to his scribbling and run his hand over the ledger, letting his fingers read the letters for him. Damn, but there were a lot of ships docked. He'd have to visit some of them for news and possible trade contracts sooner or later. After about a minute, he stood up and made for the door, waving as he left.

"Good luck with the numbers, Tom."

"Fair winds, Admiral."

Zandri stayed out of the way, but her eyes watched every motion with interest. Everything seemed so new in every town she went to. Different coins, different dialects, some had completely different languages as well. And the scribbling... Zandri eyes the marks on the paper, quite unable to read them. She could read things written in her native tongue, but not this. Nobody had taught her. It had been hard enough just trying to grasp this language, and she was still certain that she made quite a few mistakes.

When they were outside again, Zandri spoke up again.

"I looking for ship to west. You know one?"

A ship to the west? No. That was not something they had. Raiders, maybe, operating out of some coastal cove somewhere... but nothing friendly. Nothing that Watcher would be willing to let into his harbor long enough to bring passengers aboard. He shook his head, making a gesture as if he'd been lighting a match.

"The last ship we had that claimed to be going to the west, we set on fire and scuttled. Mercenaries work for their coin, pirates come to steal it, we light 'em up and watch them sink. Or, well, I heard them."

It was a bit of a nasty memory, but it was one of the first naval battles Watcher had ever commanded. He sighed as he thought of it, then spread his hands in an 'oh well' gesture.

"If you're just wandering, there's plenty to wander around near the Eye... And if it's work you want, you're in luck."

Her ears perked up at the word 'pirate'. They had those out here? There were desert pirates, those who stole from wandering tradesmen and caravans. Dangerous. But out here? With so much water? What would they have to steal? Wasn't life rich enough already, in this beautiful, wet, mountain land?

"No ships west?"

Now she looked disappointed.

"But what work? I need work for coin, yis?"

Watcher could almost hear the woman's facial expression when he told her about the pirates. Excitement, followed by the immediate realization that she probably wasn't going to get west anytime soon. And then interest. So she did want something to do. And she wanted money. That worked out just fine.

"Mmmm... what work?"

He shrugged and started walking away from the dock, talking over his shoulder.

"Anything and everything. We're all mercenaries here. And I'm the one who's got to keep reins on 'em all. The killers and thieves and merchants... oh, and the pickpockets. Forgot about them. We're all absolutely mad here."

The word 'pickpockets' got a tiny smirk from the woman. If he only knew. Maybe he did? Well, thieves were only thieves because it cost money to eat, and you had to eat to live. In many places, thievery was seen as a symptom of a corrupt nation, not the cause of it. Back home, thieves were treated with pity, punished with labor, then given a job to do, food to eat. Back home, thieves were few.

"Zandri can work, if Zandri get's paid."

She grinned, looking out on the ocean.

"Zandri love to sail. You know of work on ship?"

"Zandri, huh? I'm Watcher."

Off the top of his head, he couldn't think of many local captains who would hire a girl from the east who'd just popped out of nowhere. He also couldn't think of an eastern captain who would allow his hires to be dictated by a foreign ruler. Tch. Annoying. Finally, he just sighed. Jobs seemed to be like party favors he handed out to lost people.

"Well, it's not quite sailing, but I have a few ideas. Can you fight?"