Lesia
Xin Tigerson
On a Xandrian Slaver

Like a ravenous animal he leapt upon the hard tack and rum, shoveling it by the fistful and slurping by the mouthful. It burned his throat as he swallowed it, but it quenched his desperate thirst. The shameful way he'd completely lowered his guard to their generosity burned him, and were he not so desperately dehydrated his eyes would have welled with tears.

Snarling and scarfing down an entire pound of dry bread, there was a full minute and a half of this profoundly uncomfortable event, after which he rose back and rocked onto his bottom. Sitting upright and looking back at Fransi, and closing his eyes slowly at him. "My thanks. You saved me."

Pronouncing it back at him he failed to say it properly. "Pah relay?" He shook his head. "This word is not known to me. You saved me, and I ask for help." Then he gestured towards the boat that they had come from. "I cannot swim far and this boat does not move. Yours does."
Jesus
Fransiscus Dwyer
On a Xandrian Slaver

"Parley" Fransi repeated slowly. "We agree we do not attack eachother or cuase eachother any harm."

Scroggs ran up to Fransi's side. There, the Captain whispered something on to Scroggs, and he ran back to the Tidesplitter with half the crossbowmen. Fransi then turned to the rest of his crew, then after a quick exchange, turned back to meet the man's gaze. He took a step forward, retrieving his saber, holding it by the blade with the handle out. He stood there a while and after a moment passed, arched his heel and turned an angle. The rest of his crew followed. They moved over to the side, little by little, until there was a clear pathway from the deck of the slaver to the plank connecting it to the deck of the Tidesplitter.

This was Fransi's silent and discreet way of allowing the madman access unto his vessel. On the other side however, Scroggs had the crossbowmen guard the railings atop the captain's lodge, just as a contingency in case the captain's bearings pointed south and his assumptions about the strange man were false.

In that moment, it was all a matter of waiting. The crew, Scroggs, and Fransi himself were on tender hooks- waiting, once again, not knowing what they were waiting for.
Lesia
Xin Tigerson
On a Xandrian Slaver

"Parley." The concept made enough sense to him, the word was ugly though. "No harm comes, no harm goes." He took a long gulping breath before throwing back the rest of the rum, tossing the empty bottle to the side. 

The uniformity with which the captain's crew moved had not been lost to the tigerman. Like insects in a swarm they moved with precision and coherence, certainly more organized than the slavers of this ship. A melee with them would spell death, and besides, they'd saved his life. Grateful as he was, he had no intent to harm or even slight these men. 

Animals are not so inhuman as to lack complete understanding of a debt owed. 

After a few moments where he blinked hard to recuperate his vision he rolled forward onto his hands and toes, rising a few inches and raising his hind quarters and shoulders over his head. Then he slowly prowled on all fours towards the men, eying them cautiously but keeping his eyes nearly closed as a sign of calmness and comfort. 

Then he crawled across the gangplank into the other ship, immediately noticing the difference in quality by the feel of the wood at his finger and toe tips. He waited for the captain to come across, rather than presume to know where he was allowed to go. This was not his territory, it was the territory of the captain and his men. He was being allowed in, not simply given free reign.
Jesus
Fransiscus Dwyer
Getting on the Tidesplitter

Fransi let out a relieved sigh, as if a thousand pounds had been eased off his chest. With thrown over shoulders and a slumped over posture, he took off his black sharkskin uniform and folded it over his arm, ordering the crew back on board. The entire endeavour was mentally exhausting, for Fransi was mostly a 'go get em' class of problem solver. He was not used to using subtlety and critical thinking. He ordered the men not to speak of that night and when they'd return, he'd just tell Fransiscana that there had only been one survivor from Hainii that they could find.

He told his men to get to there usual stations around the ship and prepare to head back to Windrip before the sun rose back up and the evening winds changed. He instructed four cabin boys to prepare the stock room for their guest and bring out, as per his specific instructions: a tub of warm water, a bottle of cask rum, hardtack, and a sack filled with hay and all matter of cushioning. He asked the cabin boys not to tarry and sent them to their task immediately.

When he reached the deck of the Tidesplitter, he walked up to the madman and, having witnessed him capable enough of coherent- yet broken speech, attempted to converse with him.

"Do you have a name?" Fransi inquired. He was often seen and is actually more diplomatic and well spoken than that rushed 'do you have a name?' bit might suggest, but after seeing a room full of corpses, one could understand how much that could take out of a man's ability to muster up a few words. 

"What do you call yourself? We'll need it for the ship's record..."He looked down unto a green ledger than Scroggs had handed to him but couldn't seem to get his eyes off the writhing, corpse like figure before him- a look of unsurity and mellow confusion disfiguring his face from its normal resting expression.
Lesia
Xin Tigerson
Aboard the Tidesplitter

A name was a label, something that people called other people. A means of distinguishing one from another, despite their clearly different appearances. The slavers had given him a name to distinguish him from the other slaves, even though he was visibly different from them. 

This aspect of human behavior was completely lost on him, and he only obliged out of necessity. "They call me Xin, Tigerson." He gestured vaguely in the direction of the ship they'd just left. "Mother tigress tiger Son." 

He wished he could convey the confusion he felt towards the necessity of names. The memory of humans seemed to be broken into words, rather than images. If they were near him, he spoke to them, they existed in his world and he would know them by their faces. If they were far from him, and he could not see or interact with them, they were gone. Why remember a label for something you will likely never see again?

It confused him.

He remembered what he'd been asked, and supposed they wanted more information. "They hunted mother and took me." It kept dwelling in his mind, that thought of never seeing something again. "Forced in chains. Forced in boat." The look on his face descended again, as he was crushed by the realization returning that his home was now something he was likely to never see again. 

"Home gone."
Jesus
Fransiscus Dwyer
Aboard the Tidesplitter

"What are ye, exactly?" Scroggs asked. "You don't look very human-like to me, no he doesn't, doesn't he Cap'n?"

"Scroggs..." Fransiscus bellowed. "If it be more fact that he does consume human flesh, then the very moment he hungers for it, I'm throwing you in the store room with him. Now can your shut!" He bitterly hissed in a hushed voice.

Fransi turned to Xin and with his posture and body language, speechlessly asked for him to ignore his ignorant sailor's question. He walked over to the man, arms daintily akimbo to balance over the deck. And when Infront of him, made intentions to strike a deal with the man.

"Though I have to go over with my sister on what to do with you upon your return, I have plans on having you naturalized as a citizen of..." Fransi ceased his thought and went over how he could convey his suggestions in an easier and more simplex way: "...You'll have a place to live and job to work at. You'll be able to live by yourself and won't have to worry about slavers. You'll be free. Not as free as you want to be, but as free as we can offer you to be. Savy?"
Lesia
Xin Tigerson
Aboard the Tidesplitter

For the first time since he waved at Scroggs did he turn his attention back to him. The look in his eyes was completely inhuman, his eyelids pulled back both top and bottom to reveal the full whites of his eyes. Bloodshot veins surrounding a pure white ring around a bright green circle with irises completely dilated. Almost making the direct center completely black in their expansion. "I do not look human?!" He almost screeched these words, like a wildcat that had just been kicked. Then he looked down at him self. 

Reeling back onto the balls of his feet he patted at his body, looking down at himself then back up at Scroggs. A lifetime of confusion at his differences with his mother had been answered by the arrival of men into his home, but now he'd been told that he did not look like men either? "What am I?" He parroted Scroggs' own words back at him, squatting on his heels inspecting every part of his own body.

It took a fair amount of time for Xin to comprehend this was not a real question, by the reaction of the Captain. Rather it was an insult, that he was not actually human but a thing unlike a human. When this realization came upon him he shot a far fiercer look at Scroggs, one that truly twisted his face into an inhuman visage. Every muscle on his face, every line every crease, truly turned his face into that of a bestial half man. His numerous teeth blunted emphasizing his canines, sharpened by constant scraping against bone. From his chest, not his throat came a deep throaty growl before he realized where he was and how he was here.

His face cowed quickly and he shot his eyes into the corner of the ship, averting his gaze just enough to not lock eyes at all with the captain but keep him in his peripheral vision. The questions that the captain had levied at him were not quite understood in his moment of frustration, but he responded. "Yes. Free." Not exactly knowing what he'd just agreed to.