A Spamono story centered around a young, slave-Romano and pirate!Spain. I have... certain parts of the plot drafted out but not much else. 

The world was bleak. Colorless. Bland, dull, devoid of anything worthwhile. Humans were simply adrift on this blank canvas, wanting for vibrancy and color and life and love and all those meaningless things.

The only thing Lovino wanted for was freedom.

With every fibre of his mediocre being, he wished for freedom. Not the concept, not the thought; he wanted his reality to consist solely of his own, physical freedom.

His shackles were real enough, and they had left scars that at times felt surreal; but Lovino was always quickly disillusioned and brought forcefully back to what had become his truth and existence.

The world was cruel and broke the backs of boys even younger than himself every day. He knew this, was all too aware it was a blatant fact. In this world, there were no wise people who could see past the bloodshed and the violence and the mayhem and find beauty; there were only those powerful enough to inflict the torture and those who took the brunt of it.

Like live stock.

Lovino was, unfortunately, one of the latter. He held no strength, could call forth no connections of any worth. And so he had fallen into the hellish landscape of the nightmare called reality, of which he'd been blissfully ignorant until doing thus. His tiny world may not have always been a happy one, but it was paradise compared to what he endured now.

For over a year, a year, fate had deemed him unworthy of hope or solace and tucked him deep within the folds of misery and suffering.

Fate was a callous mistress; he expected no less of her. But he was at his breaking point. His heart, his mind, his body - none of it would last. He cradled no hope and took comfort in no prayers.

All he had left was his desire to be free.

Only one question remained: Would he find his freedom in the hands of some unlikely hero, or would he succumb to his fragility and satiate his desires only in death?

____

Log: Day 97 at sea

We've seen no signs of British ships in our waters as of late, nor any Frenchmen. The seas are calm, the weather fair, made all the better by the absence of our enemies. The only pressing concern is our lack of provisions. We've no clue of any nearby ports, and with the recent storms we've been knocked off course so that we can't turn round and return home, as our current position is unclear to us. The crew isn't panicking yet, but it's only a matter of time until someone loses themselves to their fear of starvation. I'm prepared to deal with it but I'd prefer not to lose any men, as we don't--

The quill darted across the page, striking a harsh line through the man's scrawling script. His eyes narrowed at the ink-splattered page. This log would have to be rewritten. It was his own fault, he supposed; he'd been engrossed in his thoughts, completely devoted to the task at hand, when there'd been an unexpected knock on the door. Broken from his concentration, he'd nearly jumped, and his hand had skittered.

Nonetheless, blaming himself was out of the question; his pride demanded it.

"Que es?" he called rather bitingly, slightly annoyed over his mistake.

"Capitán?" The knuckles rapping at the gilded door paused. "We've spotted a ship off the port side. Diego says it might be an Italian merchant ship."

The captain's quill froze, hovering mere inches from the lip of the ink jar. An Italian merchant ship? His lips curled in a charming smirk, his emerald eyes brightening at the prospect of both supplies and goods. Merchant ships were generally well-stocked, as well, more so than the average vessel. And seeing as how the King hadn't put any restrictions on Italian ships...

He pushed back his chair, rising from his seat, and flung open the door, wearing a grin so vibrant he challenged the sun for radiance. "Hombres!" the Spaniard greeted, spreading his arms in honor of the current drama. "It appears we've stumbled upon a rare find, a tesoro, if you will. Ready the canons, hombres" - to his crew, his smirk was downright devilish - "we'll be dining Italiano tonight!"

_________________

He couldn't be effectively certain, but he had a nagging suspicion that it had been nearly a year.

A year of imprisonment, a year of servitude.

A year of torment.

The ship rocked among the waves, rolling the floor beneath him; many an unsteady child fell prey to the violent motions, unaccustomed as they were to the requirement of sea legs, and found themselves sprawled out over the splintering wooden boards, chipped varnish tearing into their cheeks, their chins, digging in underneath their tender fingernails.

He gave no indication that he cared, whether it be about the whimpering children encircling him or the worsening of the weather in general. He nestled his chin atop his knees, eyes staring sightlessly at the wall adjacent to where he sat. Swathed in darkness, with no simple candle to ward off the veil of black, he saw nothing but a faint outline of a trapdoor, a square of lace-like light, above him.

With the low ceiling bringing the hatch within jumping distance, freedom should have felt very close at hand; he should have been able to taste the sea breeze already, feel the spray of saltwater across his cheeks as he viewed home on the horizon.

But it was not to be.

Should he even have attempted to raise himself from his living hell - the feces-encrusted floors, blood-stained walls, withered adolescent bodies scattered haphazardly among the space - he would be immediately snatched and tossed back into the writing pits; after, of course, bearing a barrage of new scars and freed of another ounce of his humanity.

A cruel, merciless world it was, a world that demanded strength where there was only weakness, wit where eyes were pale with a lack of understanding. And he had endured it for a year.

The ship pitched again; several bundles careened into walls, others met with brittle chests and backs or smashed ruthlessly into shoulder blades that poked precariously out of hunger-taut flesh and patchwork cloth.

The boy braced himself between two pillars, his palms straining against the roughened wood; slivers poked pinpricks into his hands, each sprouting a perfect globule of blood that gradually converged within the lines marring his palms, veritable streams of crimson. His hands slipped during the next plunge and he was tossed nearer to the opposite wall, his fall broken by a limp body that offered him no reaction to their collision.

Dead, he thought, rolling to his feet, arms spread to steady himself as the compartment jolted for a third time and any straggler who had withstood the previous bouts found themselves knocked off their feet and joining the fallen.

This was different somehow.

Though waves continually slapped at the hull - the tide seeking vengeance for the vessel's trespassing - that wasn't what caused the ship to shudder and groan under such duress. This instability was new, fascinating if not for the uncertainty that swamped over him in its wake. What was happening? Tendrils of forgotten fables touched at his consciousness, fought for dominance in his addled mind.

Sea monster...? No. No, that was ridiculous. A creature as mutated and monstrous as say... the kraken did not exist in this world, twisted and warped as it was already.

No. Whatever monsters stalked this world were flesh and blood humans. Man itself was the feared beast adrift in the night, the terror of the seas and the skies.

Which means... we're under attack. The thought seemed grimmer than any relating to the supernatural. What was there to do against man except kill or be killed? And he was nothing more than a common slave; hardly a rare commodity. He possessed no worth or value apart from what they would auction him for.

If it's pirates especially, they won't care about anything that isn't gold or supplies or some sort of precious gem. With us, they're likely to...

He swallowed, dislodging his heart from where it had crept into his throat.

They - this group of catatonic children and himself - would either be left for dead, adrift at sea without rations or any hope of setting foot on land again, or killed outright. Beheaded or shot point-blank. Or perhaps this crew preferred slitting throats so as to enduce an agonized few final moments in which they watched the poor unfortunate soul struggle to breathe through the tide of blood that rushed down their throat.

He brought a hand to his neck, the movement as unconscious as the spark of fear that fizzled through his gaze.

With so many of his fellow slaves lying broken or out cold in quivering heaps over the floor, he had no competition as he picked his way over to the trapdoor he knew to be in the center of the cabin. He could hear it now: shouts, orders, maddened cackles and despairing wails that were abruptly cut off. The din of a raid.

Shadows sporadically passed over the door, plunging him into a more volatile darkness for a few heartbeats before they moved off, accompanied by the clatter of swords or the explosion of a gun. As he watched, transfixed, something drizzled in through the cracks and splashed onto his bare toes.

Warm and sticky.

His stomach rolled. Someone's blood - their life force - was now splattered over his gaunt flesh. He pressed a hand to his mouth, staying the rush of bile that threatened to join the gore already staining his skin.

Then - as quickly and unexpectedly as it had begun - the fighting lulled, tapered to a stop. Utter silence rung in his ears, buzzing inside his head and drowning out even his erratic, thunderous heartbeat.

Deaf though he was to it, there was the subtle clack of the latch being undone and not a second later the trapdoor was thrown open. The boy blinked away both his stupor and the dizzying array of black splotches that plagued his vision after the sudden onslaught of sunlight streaming in through the opening. He threw his arms up to block out the light, obeying his pleading retinas.

A pair of unfamiliar eyes leered at him quizzically; eyes streaming, his could only stare back uncomprehendingly.

"Ey, capitán! You should really come and see this!"

The lyrical language spoken by the man was lost on the young boy, though he could infer enough from his own native tongue to know that the next man who crouched over the hatch was captain.

The boy eased backwards, a single step that failed to incite a creak or a moan of protest from the beaten wooden floor. This man was dangerous, more so than even the slavers who had held him captive for so many months. His smile was manic; greed and warning glittered behind his emerald eyes. He was not safe.

"Oi, chico." Gold flashed at his ear as he tossed his head, sweeping bangs from his eyes, craning his neck to better see the staggering boy. "You're an esclavo, no?" He spoke in English, sprinkling native words in that strange language intermittently throughout his speech. "A slave?"

The boy's nightmarish year had endowed him with a handful of English words, picked up from uproarious conversations overheard below deck, and one word that had cropped up numerous times was slave. He nodded, his chin digging painfully into his collarbone as he averted his gaze from the man; he was outlined in searing daylight that caught ostentatiously on the gold ornaments he'd adorned himself with.

He heard a faint chuckle but dared not lift his head. The fear had ebbed, replaced by a wary sense of caution. He had nothing to fear but death and that was an outcome he had welcomed not so long ago. Anything, he reasoned, was better than entertaining his captors.

"Chico!" The clap of the captain's hands brought the boy tumbling back into reality. He met the man's inquisitive stare with a green-eyed glare, to which he heard another lilting laugh. He amused this man. "You're interesante, chico. Interesting. And" - he gave a careless survey of the bodies awkwardly tossed around the boy's feet - "it looks like you are the only working esclavo here. The others are muerto, no? Or close to it?"

The boy gave no nod of confirmation; he'd not understood half of what was said. It hardly mattered, though, as another glance at the scene made it abundantly clear that this boy was the last of the herd to remain in relatively good health. Sickness and injury had rendered all others incapable of straying more than a few feet from their selected corner of the compartment. They would not survive the outside world, no matter how immediately they were met with medical treatment.

"You're lucky, chico. I was looking for a new cabin boy." It was now not only his crew that could claim his smile to be absurdly devilish. "The last one died much too quickly, too rápido. Hopefully, chico, you'll fair better."

______

Freedom is a fleeting, intangible thing.

No sooner had the thought of procuring a lifeboat and risking an escape crossed the boy's mind than he was hauled across deck and parked unceremoniously before the ship's captain.

The man did not bend to meet his gaze, lessen his intimidation. He crossed his arms over his chest, chin tilted downwards so as to look the slave in the eye - if not for the fact that the boy refused to raise his head.

Defiant he was not - his stance was too weak, shoulders pressed forward, shadowed face curtained by greasy bangs and turned unwittingly toward the deck. One bare foot scraped at the other's heel. Under the captain's patronizing stare, he felt like little more than a petulant ant.

"Your name?" he asked in smooth, accented English.

The boy's lip curled back, baring his festering teeth, glinting a sickly yellow in the unfettered sunlight.

A curve of white split apart the captain's sun-kissed face. This child possessed a backbone, despite all points to the contrary. "Your name?" he asked again, angling himself forward so as to catch the boy's attention, his fingers capturing his soft chin when compliance proved to be another trait the boy had severe want for.

Something unpleasant roiled within his twisted gut. Feverishly warm, unrelenting, it slithered too through his blood, pumping from his erratically thumping heart into his pale, sallow cheeks, flushing them a brilliant scarlet that well matched the captain's flamboyant coat.

"Fuck off," he spat bitterly.

If even here he felt such white-hot loathing, perhaps that dreadful confinement had better suited him after all. Had he lost his taste for fresh air and salty sea-spray, for the exhilaration of open space and movement beyond a only a few feet, where he was unobstructed by decomposing corpses of once wailing children?

Had his soul already been ripped from his chest while in the care of those vile, lecherous men?

Stinging agony whipped across the boy's sunken cheek; his head cocked at an uncomfortable angle, his chin digging into the soiled fabric of his shirt. Again the captain took his chin between tan, calloused fingers, jerking his face upwards as a means of filling the child's watery gaze with the entirety of a devilish smile - meant not for mortal eyes, even less for those who were predisposed to quiver in the face of unbridled terror.

"Chico, I would be grateful if I were you," the captain said softly, his voice barely above a whisper; his warm breath fanned across the boy's flushed face, prickling his skin with unsettling ease. "I used an open palm this time; show such disrespect again, and... well." He drew a thumb beneath one green eye, succeeding in bringing the boy's attention to the gaudy rings lining the captain's coarse fingers, flashing a rainbow of glittering colors in the glaring sunlight. "These are quite effective at leaving reminders, I think," he sneered as the boy visibly recoiled, wrenching himself free of the captain.

Seething in wretched silence, wary of a continued assault (this lot had no morales; he couldn't press his luck here anymore than in his previous year of captivity) the boy traced the angry, swelling flesh beneath the blow, wondering if the pain would ebb naturally or if his mind would submit to the numbness of an eternal abyss before Fate could twine her fingers into his ravaged soul once more.

There was shouting he paid no mind to; only snippets of intelligible language penetrated the veil that now lay draped over the green-eyed captain and the fractured boy. Jeers rose and fell from craggy, salt-dried lips along with the crashing waves bombarding the ship's unlucky hull.

Then, a voice, clear and singsong in the thrall of discordant rumbles:

"Captain!"

It was a woman, of all things. A woman admist a pack of wolves. Fragile, willowy, she'd draped herself in all manners of mannish garb, tucked her hair up beneath a sodden cap (though several wisps of blonde down escaped their bindings and framed her satin cheeks), buried her feet in boots buckled much too tight.

She stalked across the deck, a ravishing, destructive figure admist the winds beginning their nightly howls, already hailing down the gaudy captain in stark disrespect. The crew continued on with their general mockery, unmoved by the display; she was no stranger on this voyage, nor were her flagrant ideals.

"Captain!" she snapped again as she placed herself between the Spaniard and his prey, a wonderfully immovable and destructible blockade. "He's obviously unwell; what good is hitting him going to do?"

Looking rebuffed, the captain's words fell darkly through the transparent silence. "Chica, this one is none of your concern. He is an esclavo, pain is a blessing to his body. Right, little esclavo?"

The boy said nothing, more to do with his general lack of understanding than a desire to remain obstinate, but the effect hardly differed.

"So you say, Captain. But he's just a boy! And isn't he meant to be your cabin boy? Beating him will only hinder his work!"

His interest was piqued, finally, beyond the inaudible whisper of curiosity he'd felt behind the ocean of fear that had swallowed him whole only mere moments before. This woman spoke with the same lilting accent as her captain, but her mouth, her lips, her darting pink tongue formed the words differently, made shapes the captain's did not. His language was not her native tongue, his words not her own.

And somehow, that calmed him, caged his fear with iron bars and lifted him from his baffled stupor.

"Fine, chica!"

The boy blinked, having been so intently focused on the woman's fancifully dancing lips the man's vigorous outburst startled him - surprising, considering his tolerance for pitiful and agonized screaming had been so high only that morning.

The captain looked transformed, no longer the charming pirate with his devilish grin, but a mere man angered by insubordinate behavior not wholly unexpected. A god toppled from his throne by the charm-speak of women.

"Do as you like with the esclavo," he barked. "So long as you don't drop him in a longboat, I don't care!"

Astonished, the boy watched as what was rapidly appearing to be his latest captain disappeared through a cabin door, the tail of his coat fluttering tantalizingly in his wake, abruptly leaving them alone in the bubble of sanctity.

"Ah, that went much better than expected!"

In a whirl of smiles and greetings, the woman was on him, fretting over the state of his abysmal clothing and the damaged cheek he'd all but forgotten about and the cross expression marring his "youthfully adorable" face and --

"Oh! I've gotten carried away. My name is Anri, what's yours?"

Begrudgingly, he mumbled, "Lovino. Lovino Vargas," because it was his first sentence successfully grasped and his pride demanded a response before his head could reason against it.

"Adorable!" And she pinched his cheek while the sea raged and the crew sneered and Fate sat wringing her hands, eager now that her servants had taken the stage at last.