[GREAT] Awakening

[PepsiWhirda]

The first two days of their journey aboard the Sea Sprite passed with Whirda’s questions still unanswered.  True to Captain Deudermont’s word, it seemed Tia Dalma’s presence on the vessel ensured uncharacteristically smooth sailing.  They made steady progress toward Costa Del Sol, taking a direct route that brought them within sight of several outlying islands, the ship’s sails full of favorable wind and its crew in good spirits.

At dawn on the third day, Whirda leaned on the curved railing of the forecastle, allowing the sea spray coming off the ship’s lurching bow to wash the sleep from her sore muscles.  In the distance, the sun crested the horizon in a tapestry of gold, pink, and purple hues.  The spectacle would have brought a smile to the face of even the most curmudgeonly sailor.

But Whirda’s eyes conveyed a tainted picture.  She sensed the wariness with which she was regarded by the crew of the Sea Sprite.  Her arrival anywhere on the ship provoked an abrupt and awkward silence more deafening than the rowdiest celebrations, and furtive eyes seemed to follow her wherever she went.  It was a familiar feeling for the plagued woman, who had borne the same suspicions all those years ago when she was turned away from Darkshire’s gates, an apostate left to wander the Moors in search of a cure.  While the ship’s crew obeyed their captain’s orders and showed a healthy respect for Tia Dalma, Whirda knew her presence did not sit well with the grizzled sailors. 

Tia Dalma, too, had all but abandoned Whirda since their arrival on the ship.  Consumed with concern for the mounting threat she perceived in the Vasty Deeps, the voodoo priestess huddled with Deudermont in the sea captain’s private quarters late into the night, poring over maps and speaking in hushed tones.  Whirda was not often permitted access to their meetings, and so her time on the ship was spent in uncomfortable solitude, kept company only by Jack when the capuchin wasn’t busy scampering up and down the thick ropes connecting the ship’s masts and sails.

“Can I blame them?” Whirda wondered aloud.  In truth, she knew herself to be a frustrating companion, prone to dour moods and long bouts of silence.  The frightened look on Tia Dalma’s face when she defeated the naga raiding party haunted Whirda.  She recognized her unpredictability, and understood the difficulty inherent in trusting someone shadeborn, especially one of Whirda’s prowess, despite the tenacity with which she combated the contagion every day.

The ever-present roiling and churning in her gut increased in tandem with her frustration.  How many more horrors would have to perish at the end of her blades before she found acceptance?  Since arriving in this accursed realm, her existence had been one long crusade against its evils.  The shade, the githzerai, the drow… infected wolves and great, undead, winged monsters of the night… the tarrasque… goblins, orcs, naga.  The parade of creatures she had defeated could grace the most epic of history books, and yet Whirda was still an outcast, still relegated to the interminable existence of someone on the outside of it all.

“Enough,” she breathed, and the anger in her voice almost gave her pause as she spun on her heel.  It was time to get answers.  She deserved answers.  For too long Whirda Windstrom had both literally and figuratively dwelt in the dark, resigned to her fate, wearily accepting of the suspicion, even revulsion, placed on her by those she fought to protect.

The Sea Sprite’s crew scurried out of her way as she strode down the staircase to the main deck, hooked right, and descended another staircase leading toward Captain Deudermont’s private chambers.  While Whirda herself remained oblivious, the grizzled seafarers surely noticed Whirda’s pulsing black veins and the inky blackness flooding the whites of her eyes.