On each and every night aboard the Rotsman, the sound of scraping metal coming from the deck was a crude lullaby that most pirates fell asleep to the sound of. Quiet but persistent, it continued without faltering until the roar of the crew faded to snoring and secretive murmurs, dying only when it was the last thing that any man heard besides the wind whipping against furled sails. To the Crow, it represented one of several rituals he performed to distance himself from his colleagues. He refused to join them while they ate, openly mocked them while they worked, and maintained his weapons while they slept, unwilling to risk a direct encounter with any conscious sailor save for the captain himself. Among the many consequences of his self-imposed isolation, the most immediate was always that he was forced to pick through the remaining scraps of meals that would make a healthy man retch even coming fresh out of the kitchen.<br/><br/>With a sigh, Ganelon tried to focus upon his task rather than the smell of turtle soup that grew stronger with each pass of his whetstone. Living like a scavenger wasn't quite what he had in mind when he started calling himself the Crow, even if he harbored few regrets about his profession as a whole. Piracy suited him well - almost as well as swindling had suited him before his ambition cost him both his tongue and his home. It was true that life on the sea was never as glamorous as he wanted it to be, but it wasn't the gallows and he was still turning a tidy profit for far less effort than he deserved. That was his definition of fine living, earned through careful observation of the local aristocracy where he used once lived. The only difference was that he enjoyed none of the benefits they did - a fact which he chose to ignore for the sake of his own contentment.<br/><br/>Lost in his thoughts as he was, it took several seconds for him to realize that he wasn't imagining the smell of turtle soup at all.<br/><br/>"Ahoy."<br/><br/>The sight of Aris climbing into the crow's nest was one that Ganelon hadn't dared to hope for. That she had also delivered him a still-warm shell filled with soup was enough to leave him blinking in disbelief, though he tried to hide it as best he could behind his usual calm demeanor. Luckily, the time it took to set his tool aside and take the offering from her gave him a chance to recover from the initial surprise and find the words he needed.<br/><br/>"Ahoy, lass. Come to watch the Crow preen 'is feathers?" he asked, watching the stowaway take a seat in what little space remained in front of him. Although he was far too grateful to object, it couldn't have possibly been much more comfortable than standing when he was the only one present with a box to elevate himself with. Even then, the thing was far too short to keep his legs off the floor and not a much more forgiving surface besides.<br/><br/>"So, that's your haul from that trading ship? Kinda small, don't ya think?"<br/><br/>Ganelon smirked and leaned over sideways to look at the prize he was sitting on. "And what'd ye suppose traders put inside their smallest crates, hm? All the men down there, call 'em wolves or pigs... they only have eyes for food, ale, n' coins. While they make off with the largest catch, it's the clever birds who line their nests with silver. I<span style="font-style: italic">know</span>I can survive without a few days' supply of fresh turtles."<br/><br/>Lifting up the shell in his hand as a sign of acknowledgement, he brought it to his lips and took a sip of the delicious soup inside. "'Course, I'll take both without complainin' if the opportunity's there."<br/><br/>"Makes me wonder what kind of loot you got from Greenport..." was the girl's only reply, uttered absent-mindedly as she stared up into the clear sky above. The Crow wasn't certain that she had even been listening to him, but he knew better than to interrupt her. As a stowaway aboard a ship that never docked, she could have only come from one place in recent history. A place which no longer existed thanks to Captain Rotter and his crew.<br/><br/>"...You must have gotten one heck of a look at that town from up here. Or, maybe you were walking around the town. Hardly able to take a step without tripping over dead people, with their throats slit, burnt up, and crushed under the rubble. All you can hear is the crackle of fire, and the screams of the townsfolk, simply trying to survive. To no avail. You know that it's just you and the pirates that are alive here, and that there's nothing you can do. You escaped your fate, and for that, you will have to live with the hellish fact that it's your fault. You did nothing to save them and now they are gone. Everything you ever knew, everything you've seen during your seventeen years on this earth, up in smoke. And you didn't do anything to stop them-"<br/><br/>Much to Ganelon's relief, she managed to catch herself before he was forced to intervene. A crying, shivering, traumatized, and probably drunk girl pouring her heart out at his feet was already enough trouble without her doing it loudly enough to wake the crew, and he wasn't sure that he could deal with her even without the unwanted attention. His greatest talents were throwing knives, evading suspicion, and exploiting his fellow man, none of which were especially helpful when comforting someone who likely held him personally responsible for the destruction of her home. When her eyes turned back towards him, he tightened his grip on the blade that he had been sharpening and waited to see if she would draw her own weapons in a fit of anger. He didn't want to see her dead, but he wanted to hang from the point of those curved swords far, far less.<br/><br/>All of those countless months spent in the company of the most vicious and cruel swashbucklers ever to inhabit the known world could not have possibly prepared the Crow for what happened next. Aris looked away, laughed weakly, and then offered to bed him between one very long swig of rum. If he hadn't been anticipating a need to defend himself, he likely would have ended up spitting soup all over the poor girl. Instead, he merely stuttered for a moment before falling silent again. When he finally regained his composure, she was looking at him expectantly, although of what he preferred not to think about.<br/><br/>"Y'see these, lass?" Ganelon asked, lifting up the hem of his coat to show her the identical set of knives dangling from it. "They were my share of the plunder from your peaceful little town. I sat up here watchin' the sea for ships as the men burned it to th' ground, and when it was over, I picked out the whole set one-by-one from what they dragged onto our deck. I ain't apologizin' for any of it, and sure as this ship flies, I ain't laying a finger on you while the captain's orders stand. I'd be a fool to even try, after what you did to my so-called<span style="font-style: italic">mate</span>."<br/><br/>Still holding the knife in his spare hand, the Crow took another sip of turtle soup before setting the shell down next to his whetstone.<br/><br/>"Ye can go ahead an' hate me, or the captain, or the crew, or<span style="font-style: italic">yourself</span>... but it won't keep you from makin' a hole in Queen Efer's deck come tomorrow, an' I'm not here to help girls who have no interest in helpin' themselves. So what's it going to be, lass? Are ye really here just to get drunk and share your last night with a pirate, or are ye going t' suck it up and listen so ye can finish that sad story of yours another day?"