This is a private role play between Samphire and Clorissa. Please do not post unless you are one of us two.

Name: Dara Meraud
Age: 22
Gender: Male
Personality: Dara ia a born leader. Unfortunately for most, he chooses to exercise his skills on board a ship. He speaks his mind, and can easily garner respect from his comrades, either that, or rile them. He is a hard taskmaster, but off duty, you will find him to be rather relaxed.
Appearance: Dara wears sandy coloured breeches, and thick brown leather boots, worn with age. A white dress shirt, which has become rather scruffy adorns his torso, and on his back, he has a modified longcoat from a navy official. He is well built, but also sprightly in his physique. His hair, brown in hue, is long and unkempt from long period away from a barber, and stubble grows upon his chin, which he sees to occasionally, preventing it from turning into a beard. He has deep green eyes.

Name: Mischa Lee Knox
Age: 18
Gender: Female
Personality: Mischa has always been a sweet, fair lady. She loves to cook and serve people, which makes her job at her father's Inn a perfect match for her. She's relatively quiet, obedient, et cetera, and went to school until she was 14.
Appearance: Mischa tends to wear long, simple frock sort of dresses. Her favorite colors and blue and green, and those are usually the dresses you'll see her wear. She enjoys flat shoes, and wears a pair of small black leather ones with everything. Her skin is quite light, as she doesn't spend much time out in the sun, and her hair is a soft strawberry blonde, slightly curly, that falls to her shoulders. Her eyes are a resillient blue.

The Solemn Hope had moored in the harbour of the small port town as soon as the harbour gates had opened in the morning. As soon as the gangway was lowered, the crew began to disembark, taking the merchandise off that they would sell, making repairs to the ship, before setting off to explore the city and take in some of the pleasures that could only be found on land in plenty, namely, women and alcohol. So far then, things seemed to be normal about the ship, had it not been the fact that the ship held a secret. This was no merchant vessel. It was owned by pirates...

Dara Meraud opened the door to the inn, immediately making his way over to a stool by the bar. He leaned his elbows on it, pointing at the barmaid behind the counter. "Your finest", he commanded in a slightly gravelling tone, throwing a bag of coin onto the bar, "whatever it is."

Mischa had spent a long portly morning tending the bar at Hard Knox, her father's tavern/inn. Nearing the end of her worktime, a large group of sailors, or more, pirate type looking folk, barged into the quieting down inn, it was the end of the lunch rush and only a few crusty old stogies lingered with their fish and chips and wine and whatnot. A man with a commanding air made his way to the bar and when he asked for their finest, Mischa twirled a strawberry curl around her finger and thought for a moment. "One minute sir, I'll fetch you a bottle of eighty year aged brandy.. its the best and strongest we have sir." She gave him a little bow of her head and bustled off into the store room where they kept the expensive stuff.

After finding the bottle she was looking for, Mischa carried it out to the man and set it in front of him. "Here you go sir, is there anything else I could get you?" She asked, smiling as she handed him a glass for the brandy and took a stack of coins from the bag before handing it back to him. "We have fresh carved pork and potatoes for lunch today."

The man waited as she retreated into the back room to get the item that he had requested. He watched her carefully as she brought it back and set it on the table, paying close attention to the amount of money she took from his coin purse. She seemed to take an adequate amount, and was not going to fleece him of his earnings, so he let things stand. The girl had then brought over a glass for him, and set it down on the bar next to the bottle, asking him whether he wanted a meal as well. Meals were a rarity in a pirate's diet, often consisting of any edible fish caught in the net slung from the side of the ship as they sailed, and the flavourless ship's biscuits, whose taste and dry chalkiness left much to be desired. Often, at the start of a journey, dried and cured meats were available, but on a long trip, these supplies often depleted, and salted meats were never as good as fresh.

"How is the meat?" he asked her, "is it fresh, or cured?"

Mischa noticed the sailor's critical gaze, he must be quite the hardened sea man.. A captain perhaps? He sure did seem to have the air of a leader.

She smiled at his question and nodded, her curls bouncing lightly, "Only the freshest, dear sir! We are provided with the very best fresh hogsmeat from a farm just outside of town, all of our vegetables too!" She said this with pride, knowing very well that it was true. "I cooked it myself, you know, it's really quite good." Every regular at the tavern knew that Mischa made wonderful and hearty grub.

The man nodded as she explained the pork's origins. "Then it shall do", he replied, "grab me a plate." He yet again handed the coin purse to her, being too lazy to pick out the funds himself. He began to pour himself a glass of the brandy, filling the small glass halfway, before taking a sip. It was strong, with a nice flavour, and it warmed his throat as it made its way down. Perfect. A contented smile moved its way across his face, a rare thing to happen. A pretty lass, good drink, and good food. Something he had not had in weeks.

Mischa smiled politely again, delighted that she'd made this seafaring man happy. She loved putting smiles on those hardened seafarer's faces. "As you wish, sir!" She chimed, taking another heavy coin from the purse before she disappeared through a set of double doors behind the bar, into the kitchen. She grabbed a large bowl and opened the roast pot. It was filled with melt-in-your-mouth tender pork, with hearty chunks of potatoes, carrots, and huge slices of cabbage. She ladled a king-sized serving of the delectable mixture into the bowl.

She whirled around with the bowl and placed the lid back on the pot. Mischa grabbed a very thick slice of still-warm bread that she'd baked just hours before, and placed it on top of the bowl full of roast and veggies, bringing it out to the man. Her skirts rustled a bit as she bent down to pull a fork, knife, and spoon out from a little cupboard behind the bar and also placing them in front of him. "Eat up, mister! You look like you could use a good hearty meal."

He waited fro the woman to return, absent-mindedly drumming his fingers on the surface of the bar, as he waited for to come back with his meal. He could smell it before he could see it, as the girl put it in front of him with some cutlery. He moved the bread with his hands from the top of the bowl to prop up against it, so that he could get to the stew underneath. He would use the bread to mop up the remains afterwards.

"Thanks", he nodded to her, spooning it into his mouth, with the table manners of a pirate. Which, as you would guess, were none.

Mischa topped off the man's glass and busied herself with cleaning some glasses and cleaning up dirty bowls and plates left by finished diners. She kept on eye on him though, and once caught herself giggling a bit at his sloppy pirate-like table manners, covering her mouth with a hand. It wasn't a mocking giggle, more of a.. 'oh, how cute' sort of thing. After a short time passed, and the man was nearing finished with his bowl, Mischa stopped back at his spot at the bar. "Is there anything else I can do for you, mister?"

He noticed that the girl watched him as he ate. He raised a brow at her, but did not alter his eating style. When it appeared he was getting to the bottom of the bowl, she walked over to him, and asked whether he needed anything else. He shook his head. "That's all for me", he responded, "I'll just enjoy my brandy now."

"Alrighty, sir!" She chimed, topping off his glass for him again. Looking around the bar, she noticed business had slowed down a bit. The lunch rush was ending, and people were slowly filtering out of the tavern and back to their work out in the salty sea port air. Mischa looked back to the man and thought, well, he sure looks interesting, and decided that she'd try to talk to the man a little bit.

"So, mister, what brings you here, to this port?" She asked softly, not wanting to impede on the man's enjoyment too much or anything like that.

"Business", the man shrugged, taking another sip of his brandy. That was all he was going to say, after all, he could not just blurt out his true occupation, a pirate, and terror of the seas. "Why do you ask?"

((writer's block is blocky.))

((I totally understand.. I've been suffering from it lately))

Mischa smiled and leaned over the bar a little bit, resting on her elbows. Business huh? 'How vague..' she thought as she looked the man over again. "I dunno.." She shyly replied, looking down at the bar for a moment. "Just curious, I guess. You look like an interesting person." Mischa laughed softly to herself, a bit of a nervous giggle.

"I am not that interesting" he replied rather casually, "quite the opposite. I am nowhere near remarkable."

It was then that a man ran over to him, obviously fatigued from a run from somewhere. "Captain, preparations are done!" he told him breathlessly, "we.. we are ready to set sail, captain!"

The man nodded, and began to stand up, capping the bottle of brandy, and slipping it into his long-coat pocket in a rather seamless fashion, giving a salute to the barmaid, before making his way towards the door.

Mischa was a little surprised as to how.. nonchalant the man was being. "Well, everyone's got something remarkable about them, sir.." She was going to say more, but a man ran up and began speaking to her patron. Must've been one of his crewmates, the way he spoke.. And the man she had served, a captain. She'd had her suspicions. He really had a sort of captainy air to him. Mischa nodded to him as he got up, and gave a little wave.

Something told her she'd be seeing him again.

He made his way back to the ship. Preparations were complete, but they would leave in the night. They had matters to attend to at sunset, and that was why the crew had returned and assembled so early. They would raid the town as soon as the sun began to make its descent below the horizon. The crew made themselves busy, making sure they were ready for a quick getaway, looking like any crew would when preparing for departure.

Dara, meanwhile, stood watching the sea and skies. Only a few hours more..