Requested by n1lss3n (you changed your username a lot 🤣)

INTP (male) x ENTJ (female)

A.N. I've been MIA for some time, haven't I? I sincerely apologize for that. Things have not been normal at home that it has led me to being an insomniac for weeks.

I'm slowly getting better now, so I decided to write this request which has been in my head for months.

Enjoy :)

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Elias lost one of his sheep again.

It irked him every time this happened. Being a shepherd takes a lot of patience, but when it comes to losing one sheep it could cause a great deal of damage. 

He brings a hand to his forehead to wipe off the sweat that has accumulated there. Under the hot sun, this is not what he wanted to be doing. Around this time of the day, all his sheep are supposed to be under the shed and should stay there until it’s time for them to leave the shed again. Elias was going to use this time to continue building the newer and improved shed he had planned for the sheep. Apparently, time is not in favor of him today. 

“Come on,” He mutters under his breath as he goes down the small hill he has set his small house and sheep shed on. “You at least have to be nearby.” 

Elias continued his way down, internally happy that he’s wearing his comfortable leather boots instead of his normal boots that he wears mostly at home or when he needs to purchase goods at the old town square. Living on top of the hill, overlooking the vast sea, has brought the solitary peace he aches for, but it does add a bit more work for him because he lives far away. It never is a win-win situation. 

Just as he arrives at the base of the hill and starts to walk through the forest, he hears the bleating of sheep from afar. He follows the sound, passing through the wide and tall trunks of the trees that offer shade from the hot sun. The dry leaves and small branches crunch under his boots as he continues to follow the never-ending bleating of the sheep. As he goes a bit deeper into the forest, he’s going to find his way to the town. 

He instantly stops in his steps and widens his eyes out of shock when he finally sees his sheep but it is being held by a man in a poet shirt and trousers both dirtied and showing signs of it not being washed or cleaned for a long time. Beside him is another man that is laughing raucously as he playfully poked the sheep with the tip of a dagger causing the animal to make those bleats. 

Are those...pirates? When did pirates arrive in town? And why was he not made aware of their presence?

Elias wants to run and take his sheep away from those mean-looking and brutish men, but he has nothing to defend himself. He hides behind a tree, using this time to devise a plan on how he can get it back. He leans a bit to the side, peeking through the trunk to watch them. 

“Do you think this would last the whole crew for days?” The man carrying the sheep asks.

“Let’s see what the Lady has in store for it,” the other one replies.

The man scoffs, “The Lady? Isn’t it tiring to be taking orders from that woman?”

“I can end your tiredness early if I aim a bullet straight through your head.” A new voice rings above the air and behind those men, a woman in a doublet and a waistcoat lined with a tint of gold emerges from the trees. She holds her head high and narrows her eyes at the two who have seemed to shrink under her glare. Even Elias feels intimidated by her stature. Adjusting her Monmouth cap that sits atop her head, she quirks an eyebrow at the one holding the sheep. “Was I hearing blasphemous words come from your mouth, fool?” 

“F-Forgive me, my Lady. I never meant to displease you-”

“That is what they all say,” the woman drawls before unsheathing her sword from the leather holder hanging around her body. She uses the sword to point at the sheep in the man’s arms. “And what is this sheep that you have found for our crew?”

“A-Ah, we f-found it running around,” the other man stammered. “We thought of bringing it back to camp and share it amongst the crew for our meals-”

“Idiot!” The woman exclaims in a loud voice which causes the men to shudder a bit. “Has it not occurred to you that if there are sheep here then there is a shepherd tending to it? Use a bit of common sense to deduce that we could plunder their house and their whole flock.”

Elias gasps upon hearing that and takes a step back without his knowledge of a large fallen branch lying behind. He accidentally steps on it, losing his balance, and falls backward in a loud thud. The sound causes his heart to hammer more against his chest, causing him to freeze out of fear, and it gains the attention of the three people standing before him. 

It’s the woman who first whips her head toward the direction of where the sound came from. Without any sign of reluctance, she stalks her way to where Elias lays on the ground with the two men following her. It does not take long for her to spot the wide-eyed Elias. 

“Gentlemen,” she utters, a devilish smirk growing on her face, “I think we found our shepherd.”

------------

It did not take long for the pirates to break into Elias’s house and his shed where his flock of sheep stays. They did not take anything from him and brought them back to their ship. Instead, the captain of the crew, who goes by the name Lady Aurora since she also owns land in different areas of the world, decided to use his house as a place for them to stay at. Some of her crew stay with her while the rest are in different areas of the town. 

Elias knows that it’s better if he does not say anything at all or even goes against them for he is only one against many. 

They don’t hurt him, but they love to intimidate him at times, especially when the crewmen would near his sheep and sometimes play around with it. They have not taken any of his sheep away and used them for clothing or ate them as food which is surprising. Lady Aurora does not allow her crew to toy with the sheep or to even destroy anything in the house. Elias does not understand why she gave such a command to them, but nevertheless, he’s thankful. Still, that woman scares him the most.

“That’s not how you do it,” Lady Aurora speaks up one time as Elias is in the kitchen slicing this kind of vegetable called an onion. He’s never heard of it before but the pirates love it so much with their food and he was demanded to cook them their meal including the weird vegetable. That is if it is really a vegetable. 

He sniffs and wipes away the tears starting to fall from his stinging eyes. Turning to face the woman who is only in her poet shirt tucked in black trousers. She has her hair tied into a bun behind her head. “H-How do you do it then, my lady?” He sniffles. 

Aurora walks to him and takes the knife from his hand. She shows him a half-smile and utters, “What you’re doing is amateur work.”

“Of course it would be since it's my first time to encounter such a...vegetable." 

"It's what one would consider a bulb," Aurora tells him. Then she puts away the half-sliced onion before grabbing a new one. "Here, shepherd, watch this." She douses the knife with water from the basin. "You need to make sure your knife is wet before slicing into the onion. It will lessen the stinging feeling in your eyes." She shows proof by slicing into the fresh onion before putting the knife down to place her hands over her eyes. “See? I feel nothing.”

“Fascinating,” Elias murmurs in awe and Aurora smiles at him. It also mesmerizes him to see how the way she smiles makes him feel different. He’s been growing to find her beautiful especially when she does not wear her full pirate gear. He averts his gaze from her to not give anything away with what message his blushing cheeks may send. 

Aurora leans a bit forward, peering at him. “Are you still frightened of me?”

“What?” He whips his head, freezing to now notice how close she is. “M-My lady, I-I’m n-not-” 

“Please, call me Aurora,” she interrupts him while pulling away with a dismissing wave of a hand. “I’m tired of my crew calling me Lady. A woman wants to rest sometimes, you know?”

The man chooses to stay quiet for a moment to which the woman instantly notices. Elias softly clears his throat and focuses his attention back on slicing the onion, this time following the directions of Aurora. 

“I am not afraid of you,” he confesses in a quiet voice, “I feel intimidated at times, perhaps. Though, I do not fret over something I cannot control. I accept whatever happens and learn to live with it.” 

Aurora breaks off into a light chuckle. “You can be a pirate,” she says. “You will always continue to live in the moment. It will never be a dull moment on the high seas.”

“It’s not the kind of life for me. I wish to not live a life filled with constant stress.” 

“It’s a dishonest life, as well,” the woman adds in a whisper. She watches him slice the onion into smaller pieces and crosses her arms, leaning on the wall behind. With her voice turning solemn, she continues, “If I had the choice to leave, I would.”

Elias pauses with his slicing and looks up at Aurora with curious eyes.

“It’s tiring to know that with one mistake, I can die at any moment,” she finishes with a rueful smile before turning to leave the kitchen. 

------------

Their peculiar civil relationship continued in an alike manner. Aurora would continue to visit Elias as he prepares their food in the kitchen which ultimately led to her lending him a hand at times. After supper and the pirate crew would head to the shed or in other areas of the house to rest, Aurora would stay behind with Elias around the hearth, basking in the warmth brought by the fire. They would not talk most of the time. Well, the woman would do most of the talking as she would share different stories of the places she has visited (and assumingly plundered as well) while the man would listen and become highly amazed and amused with each passing tale. 

Elias was getting used to having the pirates around. He wondered if the authorities would ever catch them at his house, but it seemed highly unlikely since these pirates could beat them in all ways. Also, the authorities might be receiving gold from the pirates as some kind of bribe and an unspoken truce to not do anything against them. 

There were some days though when he would overhear the crew members talk in hushed tones when it came to Lady Aurora. It seemed...odd for Elias to hear how secretive they could be regarding some matters, especially those that the lady has no idea about. He continues to stay quiet when working, but his ears are always alert when the crew would start talking about the lady. 

It’s the sound of a clay pot breaking into pieces that immediately rouses him from sleep one night. He sits upon his bed, fully alert and his mind going haywire. Who made that sound? It seems like it came from outside. 

In the darkness, he gets to his feet and lights the candle by his bedside. With the now lighted candle in his hand, he gingerly places a hand on the wooden door of his room, ready to push it open to check what’s going on outside. The scuffling of feet and more hushed whispers stop him from doing anything. 

“Quiet!” Elias hears a man shout in a whisper right as he places his ear against the door. Again, another thing falls to the ground. “You are going to wake up the shepherd!”

“She keeps on moving!” Another man replies in a hushed voice. 

She? The crease between his brows deepened out of confusion and growing dread.

“Hit her with something then! We need to make sure that she will be lost at sea without a trace!”

Elias then hears the disgruntled voice of someone very familiar and then another bump on the ground followed by the sound of a low pained groan. 

His eyes widen in sudden realization and clasps a hand over his mouth just as he emits a loud gasp. No...it can’t be. 

He does not want to believe it, but as he hears the voice filled with pain continue even as the group leaves all the more his worry grows and fills every fibre of his being. He knows who that voice belonged to. 

And he also knows that he cannot just stand there and do nothing to help.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hope you liked this! ♡ and I hope you did not mind my changing of cowboy to shepherd :)

A part 2 is in the works

Thank you for requesting and waiting!

Some positive traits of INTP: observant, ingenious, highly intelligent
Some positive traits of ENTJ: confident, strong-willed, charismatic