Beheaded
The Irate flagship, adorned with a gruesome trophy
"Let her be a reminder to the Kartians. When you see the boy's skull tied to our main mast and painted in our flags, remember that we stole from the rotten king even the chance to mourn an entire son"Heliom
Flag of Karte by Naelin
She was launched during 3001 E.Alz and traded mostly between the City of Dia and the island of Ruh.
As the pirate activity got more frequent and violent in the sea, the Sand Bird's route got reduced to mostly the rivers and coastlines of the island of Karte. By the year 3004 E.Alz, Karte's king Rastapuj launched a military operation he called the War on Pirates, which required merchant ship's routes to be closely tracked to ensure no pirate vessel entered the coastline and rivers. The 18th of Burning, 3006 E.Alz marked the day where a big group of organized pirates launched their retaliation. Led by a woman called Heliom, the criminals assaulted the city of Dia, capital of the kingdom. There was only one remarkable conflict during the passage of the pirates between the coasts and the city: Out of luck, the Sand Bird was traversing the river in the night and crossed paths with the pirate fleet as they were avoiding the patrols. Immediately, it was surrounded and captured with no resistance, with many crew members jumping to the water to avoid capture.
Floating cage of horror
The following section contains violence and abuse of a minor.
The Sand Bird was added to the fleet as decoy and taken north.
Shortly afterwards the pirates managed their goal: they captured Kuja, the 14 year old only child of the king. The kidnapper made haste to the Sand Bird, where the prince was taken prisioner. The Kartian guard spent several days frantically searching for the prince, as the pirates scurried away and took them off the trail every chance they had.
On the 1st of Swimming most groups of pirates had scattered and retreated to their ships already and the Kartian guard found the Sand Bird after being alerted about its capture by a surviving crewmember. Surrounded on the land side and with the troops about to chase them on water as well, the pirates took the bruised, chained prince to the deck as the crew prepared the ship for a quick departure. There a woman pushed the boy to bend over the railing and, in front of a shocked mass of guards, she cut the head off the prince and threw the body overboard into the waters, as the sails took the wind in and the captured ship departed with the head of the prince and the victory over the Kartian kingdom.
The Beheaded
Irate Hideout by Naelin through Inkarnate
Aftermath and recounting of the facts
After Kuja's death, his father went mad with grief and forbade the discussion of any details about his son's destiny.
However, four years after the incident as the civil war was brewing in Karte a journalist finished reconstructing the crime scene, having managed to interview some of the guards, and allegedly two of the pirates involved.
She published a recounting of the palace's assault and kidnapping, as well as the torture and execution of the prince in gruesome and precise detail, which went into horrendous descriptions of the torture and abuses endured by the prince before his death. One of the components of her article was a sketch she commissioned of the Sand Bird, marked with the locations and depictions of where and how the prince was taken, tortured, murdered and left as a trophy. She was immediately declared a traitor by the king and ordered to be captured to be executed. Her work was collected and burned and it is unclear whether she managed to escape or was killed. A member of the Kartian resistance, however, managed to recover an only partially singed copy of her article, with the diagram of the ship mostly intact.
She published a recounting of the palace's assault and kidnapping, as well as the torture and execution of the prince in gruesome and precise detail, which went into horrendous descriptions of the torture and abuses endured by the prince before his death. One of the components of her article was a sketch she commissioned of the Sand Bird, marked with the locations and depictions of where and how the prince was taken, tortured, murdered and left as a trophy. She was immediately declared a traitor by the king and ordered to be captured to be executed. Her work was collected and burned and it is unclear whether she managed to escape or was killed. A member of the Kartian resistance, however, managed to recover an only partially singed copy of her article, with the diagram of the ship mostly intact.
"We know what they did to the prince and we know not to talk about it"
That is a quite gruesome but interesting history. With that action they must really have made quite the name for themselves.
Thank you Kefke!! The article is now completed and I guess more gruesome than when you read it hahahaha But yep. Nothing like child assassination to get some renown huh?