gypsies and thieves ~ {finch brothers}

[florentine, d4b ❁]

[presto]

charlie finch
fourteen
district four

[/presto]

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ALL THE ROWBOATS IN OIL PAINTINGS

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Charlie Finch was due back at the boat at sun-fall, no exceptions. She was supposed to have unloaded her haul at the Libertine shop and collected the list of wares in her dress pocket. By the time the sun began to fall from the sky, however, she was sitting on the back doorstep of the shop and trying to untangle the mass of ropes that slid between her shaking fingers. She was already late, and the shadows were already far too long and dark , so her family would have to wait. Frustrated, Charlie tossed the stubborn mess of string down into the snow and got heavily to her feet. The door was open a jar, but nevertheless the girl knocked slowly and carefully, tapping out the code she had agreed upon. After a moment of waiting and absentmindedly biting her lip, the child blinked into the gloom. Another girl, with shining red curls and wide eyes stood, half-concealed in the darkness. "I've brought everything I could," Charlie smiled uneasily, suddenly aware of her tangled mane of dirty blonde hair. "You're late," replied the smallest of the Libertine girls, raising her eyebrows and beckoning the pirate inside. Charlie shrugged, still smiling despite her companions downcast eyes. Punctuality wasn't her thing. When she thought about it, she wasn't altogether sure what her thing was. Swinging from the riggings, perhaps. Swimming, or lying her way around trouble. Sometimes she wondered if she was worth anything to the crew that had formed her new family and the ship that became her home. Then she shrugged the doubts away, because despite her controlling tantrums and fiery rages, she worked hard. Glancing behind her as she closed the door, Charlie calculated that she would only be a couple of hours. Back on deck before anybody truly began to worry about her absence. "It wasn't a great haul this time - a bunch of trinkets heading from One to the Capitol, apparently. Necklaces and a whole lot of stuff I couldn't name if you paid me." Charlie paused, hoping that Nessie was intending to pay her with money, rather than the assortment of junk she usually returned to the ship with. The shop was dark and cold, and Charlie watched, fascinated, as dust spilled into the air. On the ship, nothing settled for long enough to collect. There were many things she was certain she missed about life on land, but often things struck her when she wasn't expecting it. Frowning again, the girl waited for Nessie Libertine to move among the shelves and produce a small brown bag. Tentatively, Charlie reached out and took it, glad of it's weight in her hands. Without looking inside, she turned and fled. Charlie didn't agree with regrets. Japser was filled with them, she could see them in his eyes. They seemed, to her, like unnecessary burdens that didn't fix nor change anything, so she preferred not to dwell on them. Today, more specifically, Charlie Finch had decided that regretting stealing the bread from the bakery would be a waste of time. She crept inside, jacket pulled around her slight frame in a useless effort to ward away the cold. Winter, Charlie did not like. It was far harder to wander around barefoot when the ice shattered beneath your feet and snowflakes fell across your toes. At least Jasper would approve of the scruffy, secondhand boots she had given into wearing that morning. Perhaps Hark, to whom they belonged, would approve to a slightly lesser extent. She was in and out quickly, the hammering of her feet on the tiles reminding her of the spring showers that bordered on hurricanes and tore the sails apart. The loaves of bread were lined up, a careful pressession of honey-coloured dough in twisted shapes, specked with seaweed and so warm in the frosty winter air that the steam could be seen rising slowly from their midsts. Charlie grinned, her hands reaching out for the nearest loaf, pausing, and on second thought snatching up the second and third as well. Jasper wouldn't approve of her greed, but even as the child turned on her heel and rushed back out of the door and down the street, she could feel her stomach aching with hunger. Jasper might not approve, but at least they wouldn't go hungry that night. Charlie doubted him often, reprimanding his honesty and devotion to taking only the bare minimum and going without everything they possibly could. Personally, Charlie preferred to sleep in beds with blankets, and wear clothes that consisted of more original fabric than patches. Perhaps she was a little too used to comfort, having grown up in the capable hands of two hardworking fisherman, rather than the orphanage like some of the others. Charlie returned to the boat in a whirlwind of words, none of which were apologies. "I've got some stuff, and some bread!" She tossed the bag on the ground, shoved the bread into the hands of the nearest of her brothers. Grinning, the girl began to climb the sails, one foot over the over in the netting, finally free and high and looking out over the ocean. Careless. "I don't think the baker even saw me, there was nobody in the shop and I was running so fast, you should have seen me!" Charlie shouted, hooking her legs over a reasonably sturdy plank of wood and letting her hands fall over her head and her body topple backwards. She welcomed the jolt as she caught herself, dangling from her knees and watching the night sky from the wrong direction. "And I hope all of you got what you were supposed to because I did it all!" Charlie laughed, suddenly overcome with excitement. The night after docking, they headed out to sea to catch the last shipments, the ones that lagged behind. Tonight, she would have things to do and her sword would not lie untouched by her hammock. Not tonight, not today. The girl righted herself and dived from the wooden beam towards another section of the mast. Her hands grazed the place she was aiming for and her heart dropped in her chest, panic flooding her veins. In the last moment, Charlie Finch caught herself and scrambled down onto the deck, eyes shining and cheeks glowing in the moonlight.

THEY KEEP TRYING TO ROW AWAY

[cass]

Looking out from underneath,
Fractured moonlight on the sea
Reflections still look the same to me,
As before I went under.
And it's peaceful in the deep,

”Pirates.”

The word had been spat with enough venom that Jasper could particularly see it dripping from his chin. The other boy’s had laughed, before Jasper had shoved him off of the ship, letting him be claimed by the sea. He had stood there and watched as the waves had surged over the man’s body, as he had flailed, trying to desperately tug at the ropes that kept him bound tightly and slowly he had sunk, unable to swim or move. Jasper had been left with gut wrenching guilt that night. The hateful cries of the man still echoed in his mind, but he knew he had had to do it. He had to had been the one to push him off, to kill the man. The other boy’s had wanted to do it; Two of them had jumped forward eagerly wanting to send their captive to an early grave. Some of them, like Charlie had hung back, watching wide eyed.

In the end Jasper had said he would do it. He had already killed a man and he knew that if he was to ever let one of the other boys do it they would live with it for the rest of their lives. They would carry that burden around with them forever and sometimes they would wake up with the man’s face swimming at the surface of their mines, plaguing them, tormenting and teasing them. Jasper could never let one of his brother’s take that kind of weight, feel that pain as he had done. It is no easy thing to take a man’s life, especially when you were so determined to never do it, especially when everything you knew went against it; everything Jasper believed in went against killing that man.

Regardless of what he had thought he had killed him. The many other ships they had raided had ended with no kills, but this one had been different. He had been the Captain of the ship, and when the rest of his men had surrendered, the Captain had turned and spat at them before drawing his own sword and driving it through one of his own, helpless men. One of his own men. Such a traitorous act cannot go unpunished and so he had showed mercy to the dead man and the Captain’s crew, by dishing out a punishment that had left him shaken trembling. He often woke in the middle of the night shaking, sweat clinging to his skin, the dead men crawling towards him. Before he could think, before he could even begin to wipe them away and tear down the walls of fantasy that tormented him.

The ship rock gently under his feet and his boy instinctively swayed with the motion. It was a Captain’s job to know his ship better than anyone else. He knew her movement, her feel and every little tiny detail about her, from the number of planks that border her to the amount of knots that tied the sails to the rigging. The Red Star was his ship and he was her Captain.

The ship stood tall and menacing, in the shadows of the fading light. The sun had begun its slow descent to the edge of the ocean, where the water would swallow the fiery ball and send the world into cold darkness. At times like this Jasper would often pause, his eyes swallowing in the small ripples of the water. He loved the foam and the way that has the sun fell the ocean water glitter, flicker and sparkle with a thousand lighter shades of the blues and greens that mingled in the salty water. The sun sent a thousand different shades of colours dancing across the sky as a final show before plunging the world into darkness, only lightened by the stars that speckled the sky. And Jasper loved it. He loved the power and beauty held into the Earth and whilst he watched he could forget, the killings escaping his mind for a few moments.

As ever the clumsy footsteps of his crew drew him back to the present. He swivelled his head around as he turned to face them. Tonight was going to be a very busy night, they were going hunting. They need new supplies, new clothes and food. They needed equipment and everything they could get, winter was coming and at sea it would be extremely harsh and cruel. Besides his boy’s had grown bored and restless, they had been moored for the whole day now, whilst most of them went ashore, trading some of the things they had. He had feared for each of them, scared that some peacekeeper would notice them and drag them away. Most of all he had worried when Charlie had fled the ship, hoping ashore with a few goodies to trade.

He had bit his tongue back, holding himself for calling her and telling her to stay. She was old enough to care for herself and the young girl did not always take well to protectiveness. She could care for herself. Right now she was the only one to return as he waited, impatience pulling at him, he started issuing orders. His commands came out crisp and clear, but they were under toned with doubt, the continuous question of his own authority always came from within himself. He always doubted himself more than any of them. In fact none of them doubted Jasper Finch, they all looked up to him and as far as they knew he was the boy that had lead them to the ship. The boy that had given them all a new life and protected them in everything they had faced.

”Edwin.” He beckoned his first mate and best friend over to him. “The ship we are going to hit is a merchant ship, it is slower than ours and heavily laden with goods of all sorts, mostly food. It is headed towards the Capitol, but it has lagged behind the other ships, that left yesterday.” He grabbed a map from his pocket, where he had carefully drawn and marked the travels of every ship that had left the district four harbour for over the past month. Searching for a moment he then pointed to a small black dot only a few centimetres from the other another dot labelled “Red Star”. “That is where it was only an hour ago, I scouted earlier today and so by now, it should have actually moved closer to us, the currents would have pushed it closer.”

Just then a loud shriek tore through the air. Jasper spun around alarm prickling across his skin, but it quickly faded, replaced by a small grin that played across his lips. Charlie was finally back. Looking back at Edwin he turned and faced the rest of his crew. “It’s time to go hunting.”

[/justify][/blockquote][/blockquote]

Cathedral, where you cannot breathe,
No need to pray, no need to speak
Now I am under, Oh.
And it's breaking over me,
A thousand miles onto the sea bed,

[rook]

HENRY FINCH

as the ship went down
i could see your face
through the bubbles
as driftwood's journey began
ours came to a close

Henry spat on the sodden wood of The Red Star's deck. The timber was already damp enough, but far too salty. What he really needed was some soap, or something frothy to get the heavy layer of crystallised salt and scum off the deck, but such luxuries were scarce, particularly in winter. The exercise was pointless, Henry knew that all too well. It didn't matter if he could get the grime off of the deck, because by morning a new crust of salt would have formed. It was supposed to be character building, at least that was what Jasper had called it. Henry had other names for it.

The Red Star

[/i] wasn't moving at any rate. The port in District Four was now made of ice, and not just concrete. The hull was ghostly pale with frost, whilst the sails were still rigid from the cold winter blizzards. Even bobbing on the water was no great movement. The Star lay on a thin layer of ice, she was almost frozen herself, stuck at an angle. Henry supposed one of his older brothers would be tasked with chiseling away the ice later on, when Jasper wanted to leave. It would be tough work, and a job for someone better built than the young pirate.

A harsh wind continued to blow from the west. Henry's face was bitten red at the cheeks and his eyes streamed from the breeze. Small hands wrapped in fingerless gloves frantically scrubbed at the deck, not just to get it clean but to keep warm too. The jacket he wore over his sleeveless vest was once black, but had weathered gray in the cold months. The goggles that always rested on his forehead were steamed up by a strange combination of condensation and frost. He wanted nothing more than to put his goggles on and climb up to the crow's nest, but there was no time for that. That would be time he had to earn.

It irritated him to see his brothers running around with more interesting tasks at hand. Some were checking stock, others were breaking ice or practicing knots. He wanted to be doing something that didn't involve cleaning, but Henry was the youngest, and thus he was stuck with the worst jobs. Bottom of the pecking order. Jasper had told him that everyone was in his position once. He told him that he had to work his way up, just like everyone else. We're all cogs in the wheel.

The sound of footsteps pounding hard on the deck made the young teenager drop his wooden scrubber and look up. The blur of blonde and fabric sent a flush of red up his neck. Charlie had that affect on him. She was like summer in the midst of such a harsh winter. The boy pushed himself to his feet and followed, a smile on his face for once. By the time he found her she was upside down, just hanging there like a little child in a playground. This ship is her playground. Jasper was there too, and Edwin. The Captain glanced at him briefly, but then moved on. He was addressing everyone, talking to all his crew like a good captain should. Henry took a mental note. He wanted to be just like Jasper when it was his turn to be captain. He couldn't wait to be old enough.

"-actually moved closer to us, the currents would have pushed it closer." He finished. Henry held his breath for a second, and felt dizzy. He hasn't listened to Jasper because he had been lost in his daydreams again. The boy looked to Charlie, who still hung like a deranged bat, a look of distance about her.

Jasper stood strong and faced his crew again.
"It's time to go hunting." He called, receiving several cheers back. Henry did not cheer. He didn't like hunting. They had only recently returned from a raid. Jasper had killed a man, pushed him overboard and let him drown. It wasn't too bad, but sometimes it could be worse. Sometimes the swords and knives came out and there would be blood. Henry didn't like scrubbing the blood from the decks, it made him feel lightheaded.

He looked to Charlie again. He often hid behind her when things got violent. He would clutch to her skirt like a baby. Stupid, pathetic wimp. He reached up and pulled his goggles down over his eyes to hide the red sting of tears. [/color][/size][/blockquote][/blockquote]

it was on my watch
when the creature struck
i'm sorry
a moments neglect
and we enter the see

lyrics "vessels" by tall ships
notes yay
words 740

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[chelsey]

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"So tired of living like a kite, kite, kite." - HIGH HIGHS,

[/size]Open Season[/blockquote][/blockquote]

FOR A BOY WHO SPENT the better part of his life at sea, you'd think he'd stop getting seasick.

Well, you're wrong.

Jasper kicked a man who had his hands and feet tied into the sea, last night, under the gentle gaze of the moon. He thrashed like a fish on land. I held my breath as I stared at him (and, as water filled his, I felt the ocean also fill my lungs, until I was sure The Red Star could set sail in them itself), and exhaled in relief once the black sea finally swallowed the last of his squirming figure. It was like staring at the stars until the rising sunlight drenched every bit of them away - but, at least with the stars, you always knew they'd come back.

I was the sailor who tied the knots around the drowned captive's wrists and ankles.

I like to think I'm a good sailor; I'm obedient, I follow my captain's commands, I never question his intentions. But, am I a good man? That's an entirely different question, with an entirely different answer.

Last night, I watched a man drown. The night sky seemed darker, and the stars duller.

Whether or not I'm a good man is a question I can yet answer (I'm not quite sure if I can even call myself a man, yet) - but my brothers, my crew, my captain and his sailors, are the bravest and truest men I know. And, I'll be damned if the anatomy of their existences don't synchronize with the definition of "good."

Often, I believe my brothers are heroes worthy to be charted like coordinates on a map, or graphed like constellations on the surface of a glowing globe. I'm a man who will study star charts, and my brothers are men who will study the stars. That's the way it works aboard The Red Star, that's the way the ocean churns beneath these creaking wooden planks. And, if it means Jasper must send someone to walk the plank, it still takes away no weight or light from his own stars.

So, by the time Charlie returns home (her voice is a tornado and her mischief is something even more dangerous), all doubts of sin or blood or corruption within me are as still as the winter sea. The ocean is once again a symphony of cascading siren calls and sweeping kisses from the tide to the shore, and no longer a blasphemous grave.

She stumbles aboard with the enthusiasm of a child high off freedom and the fumes of salty sea air, hurdling loafs of warm bread into my arms while her mouth runs marathons even a blizzard couldn't keep up with. "I don't think the baker even saw me," She begins, as I head to the below deck to stow away our dinner, "There was nobody in the shop and I was running so fast, you should have seen me!"

By the time I return to the top deck, I hear Jasper's command just in time. I know this drill - ready the masts, raise the sails, and man the wheel. For a flicker of a moment, I see last night's captive again, his face barely buoying above the surface of the black abyss we pushed him into. Some could say we are cruel - murderers, even - yet that man who drowned killed one of his own men. He was not a man of virtue, of morality, of family. He had no sense of what being a captain meant, and, therefore, he had no place to set foot upon our ship. The winter seas are cold, but this man's heart was colder, but my brothers can weather any storm.

It's hunting time. It's a pirate's life for us.

[/blockquote][/justify]

ooc - i tried?

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