This is an AU world similar to our own, set in the distant past during the times of privateers and pirates. Hope you enjoy!

A young male crouched,  hidden in the corner, listening to the merchants as they took turns  telling stories to the female that sat among them. Her bright (e/c) eyes  were wide with wonder as she listened to the man and his friends as  they weaved tales of wonder and mystery for her enjoyment.

It had been like this  ever since they had found her as a child, half starved and not knowing  where her parents were, the town decimated by war. It hadn't taken long  back then for them to decide on bringing her with them, her wide eyes  looking up at them with innocence.In the years since then, they had come  to see her as a symbol of blessed luck, their travel usually smooth and  without a single sign of pirates or privateers.

The female began  entering into the conversation once the males began winding down and  that is when the young man was truly caught, her almost musical sounding  voice enchanting him on the spot. He was captured by how much the room  seemed to brighten when she began laughing after one particular tale of  her mischievous deeds. He'd almost gasped aloud when she talked about  how close she had come to not making it back to the ship in one piece,  his heart racing in time to what he was sure her own must have been  beating at the time of the event.

When they finally  finished their tales and went upstairs, he crept out of his hidden  corner and wandered back to his own ship, his mind still spinning from  the tales he'd heard her tell. It would be several months before he ever  saw that group of merchants again, months that his mind spent thinking  about the female who told such wonderous stories while laughing so  easily at how often she had teased fate and survived. Months spent  wondering what it would be like to hear her telling him stories every  night, as well as create new ones if she was by his side in his travels  instead of with those foreign merchants.

--------

It was almost like a  sign to him when he was given a note of commission to become a privateer  for his country, the target being any and all ships he saw that flew  the flag of their enemy. The very same flag he had seen flying from the  merchant ship the young lady had boarded in the company of those men  from that night in the inn.

She deserved far better  than anything they offered her, obvious by how much danger she was  always in. They didn't protect her like he would. They couldn't protect  her like he wanted to. Sure, he had only been in her presence for a few  hours one night but he felt like he had known her for months, years  even! He felt like they had a connection, tales of soulmates spinning  around in his mind as he'd begun seeing her as such a person for him.

And he was determined not to let anyone get in the way of him claiming what was meant to be his.

--------

I watched the waves  moving across the ocean as the ship slowly made its way back home, the  ships cargo hold filled with a variety of rare spices and herbs, rolls  of silk cloth, barrels of strange spirits and even a few exotic animals  to give to our king as a gift. He was known for enjoying the keeping of  animals from foreign lands.

Reminding myself of my  task, I left the deck and went blow, ready to feed the animals. It was  hard not to grow attached to them, especially the small furry one with  the large brown eyes and soft red fur, it's long tail stretching out  behind it.

It would be a long trip  back home. I hope the strange pole-like plants they had sent with us  would survive the small amounts of water we were able to give them since  the leaves of these plants were supposed to be the red-furred  creature's main food supply.

Giving the unexpectedly  gentle creature a soft scratch on its back, I began the process of  cleaning up the area and preparing its food for the evening.

--------

Mystras looked through  the spyglass, hoping to finally be able to spot the merchant ship he had  spent the past several weeks searching for, but all he saw was an empty  sea. He was starting to think they were purposely hiding his destined  bride from him, something he was very eager to punish the men for.

Holding a hand to his  chest to try to subdue the pain in his heart, the youthful red-headed  Captain turned and re-entered his private cabin, heading to the table in  the middle of the room to gaze upon the map. Reaching forward, he  grasped the quill and wrote a new note on the nearby parchment, moving  the marker on the map to match their current position.

Before he pulled his  hand back, he paused and carefully picked up the delicate looking glass  chess piece he had been using to mark where he thought the merchant ship  might be based on the rumors he had heard from other ships and coastal  towns.

"Don't worry, my precious queen. I will find  you, I promise." Giving the chess queen a light caress, he placed it  down on the next destination, a trade harbor they heard might be  expecting a shipment from a distant land.

--------

We had gotten to the  port town far earlier than any of us expected, taking the chance to  spend some extra time trading goods with other merchants and with those  townspeople who were able to afford the goods we had to offer. As the  sun set that night, most of the crew went to bed early, me and those I  considered family staying up late to tell tales, starting with those we  knew by heart and continuing with new tales from our recent travel.

It was after the rest  could stay awake no longer that I snuck out of the inn, ready to explore  the town for myself and see what adventures could be found before the  new dawn broke. I would have to be sure to return before the sun rose  above the horizon, since whenever I was later than that in returning,  the crew would be sent out to search for me so my family could stop  worrying what had happened.

Ducking into a nearby  alleyway, I began traversing the nearly empty streets, avoiding the few  guards that roamed during the night. They might have the job of  protecting the people who lived there but that doesn't mean I would  trust them to protect me as well. I'd been attacked without cause enough  times to be more than cautious of guards, no matter what town I was in.

--------

I'm not sure how to  explain what happened, but one moment I was staring in shock at the fire  as it ravaged through the city, the buildings acting as little more  than fuel to the raging inferno. I had barely made it back after  spending a few hours exploring the rocky coast for hidden caves in time  to see the inn the others slept in come crashing down as its walls caved  inward, screams filling the smoke filled air.

Looking to the docks, I  saw a mid-sized galleon removing cargo from our own merchant vessal  while the rest of the boats were already beginning to sink into the  murky depths of the bay, ash from the fires floating gently down to land  upon the water's surface. It was with despair filling me that I noticed  the floating bodies of the few crewmen that had remained behind to  watch over the cargo, leaving me little hope that anyone else from the  ship had survived, the boat being the most likely route for escape they  would have taken.

As heartbroken as I was  by the heavy losses, I still somehow managed to harden my heart and turn  away to head back down the long beach, wishing to escape the massacre  that was occurring so that someday I could perhaps take revenge for  those who were lost today. Already, I was planning how to gather money  to buy a boat and hire a crew to man it, more than ready to aim it at  the galleon behind me. Even if it meant going down with it to take them  out.

--------

Mystras was furious as  he watched the town burn, no sign of his precious soulmate anywhere to  be found. He'd had the merchants questioned on her whereabouts but they  seemingly had no clue, the only guess was that she must be exploring as  she was known to do. He'd sent his crew out to search the town, setting  it alight when no sign was to be found.

One of the merchants had  shakenly admitted that if she had been in the town, she would have  headed for the docks if something happened. And so he'd watched it burn,  waiting for some sign of the one they had called (y/n), the name like  honey upon his tongue when he'd whispered it into the wind.

When he failed to see a  sign of you, he'd turned away from the burning buildings and screams  that filled the night, seeing his men placing the last of the merchant's  cargo into his own ships hold. With one quick order, said merchants  were  placed into a different part of the hold, Mystras wanting to get  any and all information he could from them about his (y/n) before being  rid of them.

His crew, although they  thought his behavior odd, dared not to open their mouths as they  remembered the last time someone spoke out on his growing obsession for  the unlucky female. As for rebelling, it wasn't even a thought that  entered their heads, so many of them owing their very lives to him for  one reason or another.

If only he would return to being the captain they knew him to be.

--------

It had taken far longer  than I had wanted to even get to the next town, having quickly found  myself in a far more desperate situation than I had realized during  those weeks that I had struggled to survive from day to day. Food had  been somewhat more available near the coast, fish abundant to one taught  to handle a line and hook, in this case one made of braided hair and  carefully carved wood, as well as certain plants and late season fruits  and mushrooms familiar from years spent trading in food items.

No, it had been when I  had to head inland that things became hard, the coastal land rising from  the waters and becoming too treacherous to navigate safely, forcing me  to go into the forest if I wanted to continue this direction. Knowing  that the nearest town to me was further west, I had continued traveling  based on where the sun was in the sky at any given point in time, away  from it in the mornings and towards it in the afternoons.

Sadly, the days were  growing shorter this time of year so my travel time was getting cut  shorter each day as night fell that much sooner. It surely didn't help  that they were getting colder as well, making it vital to build a fire  whenever I could so as to keep myself from getting deathly ill and  cutting my venture short.

By the time I found the  town I had been seeking desperately, I was verging on starvation since  most of the food one would forage for had grown scarce. If the weather  hadn't killed off the plants, then the animals had scavenged most of  what was edible from them.

Collapsing shortly after  I had made it to the town had definitely caused a bit of a setback  since it had taken several days for the fever I'd manifested to break,  let alone to convince the doctor of who I was and what had happened. As  far as they had known, pirates had attacked the port town I had come  from and left no survivors.

For me to show up so  unexpectedly and claimed to come from there had been almost unbelievable  for them, a lone female surviving the wilds long enough to make it to  their town? It was simply unheard of! But I had done it and I would be  damned if I let their lack of belief get in-between me and my revenge.

--------

Two months, it had taken two months to  get back home and buy a boat fit for battle, let alone find a crew  willing to sail under a female captain without me having to worry about  them dropping me into the ocean once we had gotten out into the deeper  waters.

In the long run, I had  found it best to cut my hair short and dress as a man would, disguising  myself as simply being an effeminate male and working to deepen my voice  when I talked. Luckily I could pull off the mannerisms well enough,  having been raised by men with very little feminine influence in my  life.

At least if the crew  thought me a male, even one they thought to be having an eye for other  men, they would respect me more than they would if they knew me to be  female.

--------

For over a year I had us  sailing the waters as I searched for the ship I had seen, praying every  day to be able to find them and have my revenge against the captain and  crew that had taken everyone I loved from me. So many months I had  devoted myself to this quest of mine, defending my ship from others who  would attack us and learning how to handle a sword and pistol even  better than I had before. It is amazing how much one learns in actual  battle that could never be picked up simply through practicing routines.

I became a stronger  leader to the men of the crew, hiding my identity until sometimes I  found myself forgetting that I wasn't a man for a short span of time,  until nature reminded me. I was just lucky that I did not have bad  monthly cramping, the bleeding light and easy to hide from the men. One  more reason I insisted on doing my own wash.

It was during the time  that winter's chill was finally releasing its hold upon the world that I  saw the familiar ship that had haunted my dreams for so many long, cold  nights, the flag rising high above the galleon named Sasan's Pride.

And so that cold morning  was started with the boom of a cannon, the course of the battle already  decided without my knowledge as another ship came out from behind the  first.

--------

"You know, I almost  didn't recognize you in that costume you had on, pretending to be a man.  Silly girl, trying to be something you aren't. Don't you know by now  that we were meant to be together?" I pulled against the shackles on my  wrists, trying to escape the chains that held them behind my back so I  could attack the man before me.

I wanted so desperately  to kill him while he raved at me in his madness, spouting nonsense about  us being soulmates and destined for each other. Unable to do anything  to escape, I spat at his feet.

"As if I would ever  belong to someone like you, you monster! You took my family from me! You  took away that which mattered most to me!" Spitting at him again, I  couldn't help the flinch I gave when I saw him raise his hand and step  towards me, bracing myself for the hit I knew was coming. I didn't  expect the gentleness of his hands as he cupped my cheek, tilting my  head up to meet his eyes as he knelt before me.

"Ah my love, did you  really think I would kill them? When I could keep them alive and use  them to make you stay with me once I caught you? I'm not so foolish as  to think you would be so ready to understand our destiny together. I  expected to be the only one to know what we have since i doubt those  people would have taught you of such things." His gentle voice did  nothing to reduce the fear I began to feel at his words. I was happy to  hear my family was not dead, but to know that he had been keeping  them all this time? I could only pray he hadn't made them suffer more  than most prisoners did in the hands of their enemies.

"You're a monster..."

--------

Years down the road, I  would find myself wondering why I had pursued revenge so much that it  had cost me everything and I hadn't even gained the satisfaction of  gaining that which I had desired. From time to time during the first few  years, I had tried various means to eliminate Mystras with poison but  that had come to a quick end when he had started using my loved ones to  test his foods.

In the end, I had  quietly resigned myself to the fate life set before me, watching with  sad eyes as a red-haired child ran across the courtyard below as I in  turn was watched by the red-haired male standing behind me, his fingers  combing slowly through my hair as he began to speak.

"Tell me a story, my love."