Pain and Memory

[Morgan LaLuna]

TW: Physical abuse






Morgan hadn’t been idle in the downtime the storm had given them. The ship was nearly fully repaired, and they’d likely be sailing by morning. He’d discussed shipping lanes with Bosun, learned the ins and outs of what goods travelled best at what times, and plotted a decent course to skirt an area that seemed most likely for a good haul. The young captain now sat in the dingy common room of a tavern alone with a thick tome open next to his plate, chewing and scratching away with a pen into the blank pages. Nothing so fun as memoirs, unfortunately, but rather he was copying a schedule from a waterlogged roll of parchment that he’d had to piece together with the help of Bosun earlier in the day. The tavern was always quietest this time of day, just before lunch, and he found that it was also when the stew was at its best. He wasn’t sure where they got the meat from, as he hadn’t really seen any cattle, or swine, but it was delicious nonetheless. Spooning the last of his meal into his mouth, he looked up when another person entered, given away by that telltale lightening of the room as the door opened into the brightness of day, letting sun spill into the comparably dim atmosphere of the space.

He’d expected some sailor, or maybe a town drunk getting an early start, or even one of his own people when he peered to the silhouette in the doorway. Instead, he was met with the strange lines of some tall man in a long black robe… A priest? His top lip lifted in a vague sneer, and he stood, closing his book with the sweep of a hand beneath the cover and stuck his pen behind his ear. He gathered his things, and started toward the door that had been vacated, when he was stopped in his tracks.

“You there!”


Oh, god. He’d been caught out. Morgan turned his head, giving the stranger a view only of the profile of his face, and tilted it on the axis of his neck in an annoyed sort of way. “What?” Was it a mistake to talk to this guy? Nothing good ever came of Morgan talking to a man in a cassock.

“Do you have a moment to-”


“No. I have no moments for you. All out. Gave my last one to the guy in room 5. Go ask him. Maybe he’ll be able to find it for you.” He turned his head then, and started to move back toward the door with a snarky little pleased smirk. He didn’t even know if there was a room 5. But if there were, maybe someone was sleeping off a keg or two, and likely would not be very happy at all to be woken up by some asshole with a high collar. He opened the door to leave, hefting the tome under his arm securely, when the other spoke again.

“Captain LaFey, right?”


That stopped Morgan in his tracks, one foot out the door and all. His eyes rolled almost as if by reflex, and he let his head fall back with a sigh. “Who’s asking?” He was suddenly feeling the urgency to leave. He really didn’t want to talk to the holy man. “Look, man. I don’t need to go on some soul searching for J-”


“I would like to book passage on your ship. I’ve been here for a month, and no other will take me. I figured since the merchants won’t take me…” The man lifted a hand helplessly, and shrugged one shoulder. “Someone told me to talk to you.” Morgan finally turned to take a closer look, his eyes narrowing as he allowed the door to close. After the bright sunshine that had him squinting in the portal from relative darkness, he found it was hard, at first, to pick out the features of the priest. His dark hair seemed to be pulled back into a ponytail, and he wasn’t terrible to look at. His dark eyes seemed to stare impassively, his lips were thin and serious. He seemed not to be the type to joke about, or go on whimsy. Morgan gave a sigh, and threw up his arms, shaking his head.


"Fine. Be on the ship before we leave tomorrow, or you'll be here another month, Padre." He opened the door once more to leave, pausing only long enough to add, "Half your payment before I even let you look below deck." And with that, he left the priest behind in the tavern.


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


It seemed the priest had taken the small captain rather seriously, for a crewmember approached Morgan that evening as he boarded the ship for the night to tell him the man had given Bosun a decent sum of money for a private bunk. Morgan's nose wrinkled in distaste, and he huffed. The nerve! "I never said anything about a bunk. What a dick!” he stomped below deck, and crew moved out of the way of the small man. Really, he’d never looked quite so irritated before! “Where?!” he looked back, and waited for a portly gnomish man to point to a door. Morgan only gave three steady thumps on the wooden door with the side of his fist before he swung the door open. “Nobody said anything abo-” But he never got to finish his sentence as he grew pale, and stumbled back. Seemed something had knocked the wind right out of his sails.


It wasn’t that he didn’t know what a penitent was. Of course, he didn’t know what they were called, just knew what it looked like. What he saw before him was the bleeding and scarred upper back of the priest, a hand whip still in mid flay across the flesh of his shoulder blades. Morgan shook his head, and dropped back against the wall, lips trembling as he waved desperately. He couldn’t pull his eyes away. But no longer did he see the priest who was turning and looking at the captain with concern. He didn’t notice being dragged away in a flurry, or even feel the gentle slaps on his face from Bosun. All activity disappeared for the hyperventilating man… And he wasn’t even aware enough to realize what he'd done. He only saw flashes. Memories.


His father, looming over him with a woven leather belt. The sting across his face. His body huddled over a twin form curled on the floor. A hand out, begging. The crack of leather wrapping around his wrist when it was slapped away. That belt became his nightmare. It had been used so much, it had started to fray. Had started to cut into his skin. It hurt when it hit his arms, so he stopped reaching. It hurt when it slapped his face, so he tucked it into himself, into the neck of Corbin beneath him. Always he protected the other. Always he took the beatings of two. Never did he complain.


It had become routine. He had been just fine. And then the belt frayed completely. Started to become unwoven. Perhaps the universe was feeling particularly persnickety that day, for it was when his father also found… religion. Or something like it. Never the church sort, but the kind that pulled his sons out of school, in the middle of their third grade years. The kind that screamed in the face of a child about sins. The kind that fashioned that old frayed woven belt into something that could be held by a small hand, and used to beg forgiveness from a deity the child knew no love from. Only fear. 


Morgan often found himself thankful for every day his back was healing, for as long as the wounds were visible and angry, his father was appeased. Mostly. The boy still got his knocks. Still received his black eyes, the deep purple bruises on pale skin that all of the adults around him so conveniently did not see. That belt. The whip? Flail? He never knew what to call it. Never wanted to call it anything. Never liked to look at it, hated the way the leather bit at his palm nearly as hard as his shoulder blades from the leather weave that moved in his steadily tightening grip.


For years, he added to the webwork of scarring across the top of his back. Building the pattern until it resembled wings set backwards. A bird that would never fly, for it had been deformed. Disgusted looks from any that touched him there without knowing about them. More, when they did see. More and more often, when he and his brother had managed to sneak away to swim in the pathetic excuse for a pond nearby, he wore a shirt, when all the others were starting to show off their burgeoning new bodies that were blossoming into something more adult. 


He remembered looking upon his brother's lithe body, his perfect back, and cringing at the jealousy he felt. It was in an attempt to fit in that he cut his first shirt short like he saw the football players do in the field when he secretly sat against a fence to watch. To pretend he was part of those boys that got to go to school. He had paid very dearly for it.


Ungrateful. Hateful. Defacing clothes bought with hard earned money. Filthy. Pay penance.


When Morgan finally awoke, his glazed eyes finally focusing, it was on a face that was green. Like he felt. Concern?


"-Gan… Morgan, you have to answer me… Cap- Ah. There you are!" Bosun clasped the young man's shoulder, and shook him lightly, a great grin spreading over his tusked mouth. Relief. Morgan sat forward from against the wooden planking of the Heathen, and lifted a shaking hand to mop at sweat from his brow. He smelled vomit, and didn’t even have to look to know he'd lost the contents of his stomach at some point. He didn't remember. Without a word, he lifted to his feet, and tottered on weak legs as he braced one slick hand on the wall. After a long moment taking those deep, cleansing breaths, he started to walk away, toward the steps that would take him to fresh air, and eventually his own quarters.


"Give him his money back. I want him off my ship." These were the last words to be spoken by the captain that night, the final order of the day, before he disappeared completely, shutting himself away behind strong wooden doors. Of course, it was not the last anyone heard of him. For the baleful cries that came from within needed no words to convey the pain the man in the cabin felt.


The Heathen's crew that night were strangely somber, and quiet that night. It was not a night to celebrate.