Vetra (🌠)

♥My Pirate Wife♥

Vetra Langley Mears was born into a fairly poor fisherman family in the piers of London, England on October 23rd, 1654. She grew up in a home with a handful of other siblings: her brothers Michael, Samuel, and Joseph as well as her sister Margette. Her mother was a stay-at-home mom while her father worked in the ports with transporting cargo between many of the large trade ships. She and Samuel were the most adventurous of the siblings, though, being the oldest out of all of them, she got most of the blame is something were to go wrong on one of their little "excursions". As stated previously, she was the oldest, then Joseph, Samuel, Margette, and Michael as the youngest. Years progressed somewhat smoothly with the family, their father able to support them and put food on the table, and soon Vetra, Joseph, and Samuel were old enough to start helping around the docks. Vetra cut back her hair and lower her voice (as well as wear cloth in a similar fashion to a binder) to pass for a man so she was able to take more manual labor than a woman would be allowed to do. She learned plenty about the working process of ports, cargo ships, and even the Royal navy at the time.

Though, most of her learning came to a quick end at 17 when her father passed due to a severe injury from working ship ropes and having them cut open the artery under his armpit. With the main source of income for the family now gone, it became harder for the three older sibling to get good enough work to help their mother who was now becoming increasingly ill. In a last-ditch attempt to get the family enough funds to support themselves, Vetra made the difficult decision of giving herself into an Indentured Servitude with one of the wealthier dukes of the area in exchange for a rather large sum of money to her family. her family threw a small farewell meal for her and wished her farewell, the last time they would ever see their strong curious worker ever again. At the new place she was living in, she was given food and board, though not much of either. She resided in the servants quarters, which, truth be told, felt more like refurbished horse stables. The food they got was portioned gruel most days, and often was tasteless or freezing cold. She hated her time spent here and oftentimes acted bitterly to other employees, tough she quickly realized they were to be her new allies, and should treat them with respect. Instead, she began turning her hatred to the man who had employed her, the landlord who stole more people’s lives than he ever would want to give away. As the days grew on, when she was around 23, she decided enough was enough, and demanded her contract be broken off early, and she would pay out of pocket for the remaining 10 years of servitude. The man refused, instead resorting to violence in an attempt to stop her, but he quick reflexes and time on the docks taught her well, and she wound up killing him. Both relieved and horrified at the situation, she fled the land, telling the other servants their employer had left and they were free to go wherever. A handful went off with her back towards the docks where they had grown up. 

After reaching the sea, Vetra searched for her old home, but to her dismay found the place almost entirely abandoned and disgusting. It had become apparent in that moment her employer had done nothing to fill in his part of the bargain with feeding her family, and they had either all died or been evicted due to lack of funds. She marched off to the ports, looking around for anything or anyone who could get her a job. She was turned down at nearly every stop she made, save for a handful of clearly crude gentlemen and a woman who offered her a stay at a brothel not to far away. Now unable to work, she managed to meet up with 3 of the others from the duke’s service who also had nowhere else to turn. The four of them concocted a plan: steal a ship and steal our way into a living. They decided on one of the faster cargo ships in the port, set a date, and raided it swiftly in barely ten minutes. The attempt had gone smoothly, and they were off within the night, boat full of a month’s worth of food and enough sailors to expertly pilot and maneuver the cargo. After a brief discussion between all crew members after they had reached safer waters in the open ocean, it was agreed upon Vetra and one of the older crew, a man named Geoffrey, would both remain in charge as a single functioning leader until a better leader could be proven through time + trial. 

Their first stop after a long ways of sea travel to territory that did not immediately see them as seafaring pirates was a small island on the Caribbean called St. Lucía Island, and upon arriving Restocked supplied, made as many friends as possible, and hired/offered positions to a handful of people who had moved recently under their new French rule (many people who accepted were slaves who had been brought over, interracial children who didn’t have a community to fit into, and a handful of natives who wished to leave the new oppressive french government). The ship set sail again, now ready to start what it had set off to do; pirate. Vetra herself took total control of the ship as sole captain after Geoffrey was killed during a particularly nasty battle with a Spanish naval ship near the coast of Portugal. After-which, she became and extremely fair captain, but often acted with a sense of absolutism, that if her crew were to fail, as she often told them, they would surely not be shown mercy if caught.

During one of their common island stops, Vetra came across a rather peculiar cave system carved into a small cliffside on the island. As she and another 2 of her crew entered the cave, it became apparent the carving of the walls here was far from natural-made. As the group stepped further into the cave, a soft blue glow was seen from within, and as they rounded a corner, they saw a magnificent stone statue of a shrike. The shrike was a beast of myth, a humanoid bird with four eyes, a razor sharp beak, and something which towered over most of the natural wildlife on earth. Perching on the statue was a small magpie (the crew did not recognize the bird, nor did the island natives, as magpies were far from native the Caribbean) which seemed rather at ease at the sight of three pirates. Vetra approached, putting out a hand to the bird in a curious but wary manner, and it landed so softly in her palm she swore she had never seen a bird so tame in all of her life. At once, the statue began to glow a bright glue, and Vetra only managed to cover a single one of her eyes before it let out a burst of harsh magical energy, mutating her right eye permanently, and knocking her two crew-mates unconscious (one was permanently blinded in both eyes by the blast). Vetra shook with a new internal feeling as the small bird perched comfortably on her should seeming to already doze off. She hauled her crew out of the cave, looking around for the rest of them and calling out for assistance. At once, her crew was horrified by the appearance of this "odd" or "Evil" eye she now possessed, though she felt no pain or discomfort from it. Her two injured friends were taken aboard and she clambered on, more people becoming aware of the newfound avian friend on her shoulder. Later that night, as she was pondering what this new eye meant, she decided to give the small bird a name; Alto, as it seemed to enjoy speaking in a tall and commanding caw.

Thus, the bird took to her side, and they have been inseparable since. Even so, something seems a bit off about this bird's complexion, it's almost too calm and smart . . .