A Magister's Confessional.

Febuary 12, 2019 / little fix: a name was changed from "William" to "Sinclair."

June 1xxx

“Tell me a story about you. Not about your family. Not about your siblings… but about you. Have it explain who you are. Tell me about your love of painting or your skill in music.”

Tell me about your first love.

I hooked onto that last part… The prompt originally sat as boring to me at first, but then I thought about it. I could tell a better story about love and loss better than any of the people in this room right now. You must come to the thought that each story you receive will be the same—someone owns a garden. A stranger lost his cat. Another fell in love with opera singer they have no chance with. One of these will be a lie, but mine won’t.

So, I’ll bite and tell you a story about love and loss that’ll eventually place me in the eyes of the military as a traitor to the Isles, but honestly? I couldn’t care less.

When I was young, I was a troublesome sort. Rebellious would be a kind word used for what I was. There was blood on my hands—not in the sense of death, per se, but I was a fighter. I would pit out my anger in late night pit fights and skip classes just to take up weak and meager hits on other thugs. Eventually, it died down and I begrudgingly dragged my feet behind my family… and then I met him.

I remember it so vividly now. Surrounded by women like some type of playboy—mind you, we were in the open area of a women’s lavatory. There were a couple sat draped over him, legs over his and fingers in his hair, but what stood out more was his smile. Broad, wide, and beautiful… but it hadn’t struck me yet. From there, he reached his hand to me and told me his name, “Sinclair.”

And from there sat a blossoming friendship that would last for years.

I was eighteen when we met. Twenty when I saw him. Charming and frightfully kind… but he understood me. He was stuck on this forever floating boat of being distrusted by his family for acting out that I lost him for a year. Drafted to the Eclipse due to his family ties within the United Front. Stuck at sea in a hope to reform him and build him into the perfect soldier—it didn’t work. Not in the sense of becoming a great fighter, but…

Allow me to explain.

He returned home lost and quiet. Steered far from others in hopes for peace… but he always came back to me. That rambunctious streak had died out, probably because he had come home with a bruised and battered with a broken arm. But the stare he had in his eyes? That wasn’t him. It was as if life on the waters had eaten away at him, forced him into seeing things his mind wasn’t ready to understand.

He never explained what exactly threw him through such a loop., but I remember one thing: he loved being out there. Sinclair loved seeing the sea, even if they did nothing but make him a deck hand. He told me that it gave him a reason to be up every morning and enjoy the sight of the sun on the horizon, glistening in the water. He may have not been much of a sailor, but he couldn’t deny that this is where he needed to be. He needed to be out there in the fresh water or salt and feel that breeze… but not under the United sails.

For a temporary moment, Sinclair guarded Captain Brynn Willard after his capture. He told me that sitting with him opened his eyes. “He wasn’t a threat,” Sinclair told me, “sat there and told me of his riches and achievements. At first his world was just travelling for fun, stealing and profiting on what he could… and then he saw the world for what it was.”

And he asked me if I knew that most pirates actually raid land to save people. In my heart, I didn’t want to believe it. Pirates? Saving people? I have to laugh… but the look in his eyes? He was serious.

We were nineteen.

He disappeared for a while. A couple months became six then seven and soon eight. But I saw him. Brighter than the sun itself. His smile had come and it filled him with excitement again. I remember the hug he gave me, so tight and smothering and very different than how they once were. He looked like them—loose blouse, a filthy bandana, old trousers, and rough boots… yet the claim was that clothes were ruined on the ride home. They had to work with what they had.

I believe it. Water is hard to manage through wood.

However, I had him again. I had him in my arms again. I didn’t want him to let me go. Then again, I had not come to terms of how I felt about him. I just knew I needed him. A pirate, no less! So, mindlessly, I dragged him home. Promised him a bed and fresh clothes all with the mindset that I’d keep him at my side. Never once thinking that he’d disappear to the sea again…

We were twenty when he kissed me. When it happened it was sudden. Such a heat that lit me on fire for weeks. I couldn’t tell you if it was just my mind questing for this for years or if it was the moment. I refuse to question it. But that trapped me. It kept me at his side like a love-sick puppy and I loved every moment of it.

And I always think about it. So many people look down at how I felt about him. So many people got in the way of us being friends that I stopped caring. Hate him all you want, but nothing will change anything.

Queer that this is so hard to write. It’s a story that I cannot just tell with full details due to the fact that most of it hasn’t quite unfolded yet. As I write this it’s been… five years? Almost? We were split again for what feels like an eternity. First, I drafted then sent here, deep within Prestige country where no pirate can dock, even if death was chasing them down.

I hate this place.

I miss him.

I’ll do anything to be back at his side.

Understand that you asked this question. I gave you my answer legitimately. Is this a confession? No. Never has been. Many have known of my ordeals for months, you can choose to believe my words if you may, because you would be the first to think I was making everything up. Why would a Prestige Magister care so much for a pirate? What is the point of a Prestige caring so much about the people beneath them?

“Why do you care so much?”

I don’t. I learned to bypass that. I do not care how people see me. I do not care if they want to see me as some romantic, pathological liar seeking fanfare. Honestly? I write this as my final words to someone who unwillingly wanted to listen. If I disappear, I fled. If I’m still here, I can’t escape. I’ll simply strive in my own cloud of depression and hope. For as long as I’m optimistic, I’ll see him again… but hopefully not down the barrel of a rifle.

Remember, you asked for this. I gave you a story. Believe it if you may.

— Kilian Vitorro Santiago, Magister Prestige.