Story for the Day: Lord Danaco Divelima

Lord Danaco Divelima is Prince Lamir's oldest friend and greatest supporter, but before he was Captain of the Lucentian Royal Guard, he was considered an enemy of the crown. During King Reneldin's time, Danaco was exiled from his kingdom for what were deemed treasonous acts, when really all he did was have an excellent night with the king's concubines. He was expelled for his actions, and outside Lucentia he remained for nearly thirty years. During that time, he became a pirate, a trader, a friend of the Bizmarin, a practitioner of Parteze, a prizefighter, an assassin, and an antiques collector-- and developed a shameless love of tea. Here he is during his time at sea, as depicted in his semi-biography Damson's Distress:

A few moments spent in the haze and brume of half consciousness, and Damson opened his eyes to discover that, despite his best efforts to think himself teetering on the precipice of death, he was somehow alive. Moving his neck to look about him soon proved impossible, however, being encased in broken boards as he was, surrounded by crates and casks peering out of the purlieu of darkness, but he could look up, could gaze at the luffing sails, oaken masts, and clear skies above him. He heard the rataplan roar of the waters, the fluctisonant swaff of swallocking waves dashing against the hull, the plangent pobble and purl of barm from the deck dripping down onto his armour, the glox and glink of nearby barrels, the skirl of gulls beazing and beeking in the crow’s nest, and the fremescent exsibilation of a rather displeased crew. The sounds diminished and gave way to the slow cadense of footfalls echoing from the deck above. “Fortune be that they are not pirates,” Damson could just articulate. He tried to right himself, but his broken form forbid movement, and he lay goosing and gauming at the vacant skies until the face of a Lucentian, with straight brows, sharp eyes, and expression disapproving, stared down at him from above.  

“Hullo there,” the Lucentian called down to him. He stepped closer to the hole in which Damson lay and perused the knight’s bent limbs. “I think he’s gone and killed himself,” the Lucentian scoffed. His long black mane carried in the passing gale, the silver rings adorning his pointed ears gave a complacent coruscation, and the traditional Lucentian garb in which he was caparisoned, the silk pantaloons, sash, and waistcoat, all enjoyed their scroop and susurration in the breeze. “He’s not dead, is he?” said he, seemingly to no one, and then shouting into the hole, “You’re not dead are you? I don’t like persons dying on my ship.”

He did not look half so ruthless as a pirate should, nor did he speak like a pirate, and therefore Damson must be satisfied with being alive and not on a pirate vessel at present. “No, sir,” Damson grunted, remarking his twitching limbs. “I don’t believe I’m dead, sir.”

“Well, there is a relief,” said the Lucentian, evidently discontented. “I think I might rather have you dead, however. You have broken my ship. I did well to bring her away from Sesterna unmarred, and here you’ve destroyed my deck. And near the mizzenmast too. You haven’t damaged the mast have you?”

Damson’s eyes rolled to the side. “I don’t believe I have, sir.”

“I suppose I should be thankful for that at least. You couldn’t have just cracked the board, could you? You had to splinter it and make a hole.”  

 “I am terribly sorry, sir,” Damson rasped, “but I did just fall a few hundred feet to my near death.”

“Well, what business did you have falling from the cliff? Couldn’t you have missed my ship and hit the shoals like any decent person would have done?”

“I should have tried, sir, had I seen your ship passing before I fell, but as it was, sir, I didn’t have much time to look about me.”

The Lucentian scoffed and turned aside and muttered something about how inconsiderate Marridonians were nowadays, his waistcoat luffing, his silken garments rustling and scrooping, the gold ornaments hanging from the sash at his waist clattering against the deck.

“Forgive me, sir, but, are you the captain of this vessel?” Damson called up.

“I am something of a captain, yes. And no, I do not forgive you.”

 Damson wracked his mind to understand this, and after an unsuccessful journey into the various vancancies of his mind, he returned, “Would you happen to have an apothecary on board?”

The Lucentian fleered. “This is not the medical academy, sir knight, as I collect from your interesting and heavy apparel. This is a frigate, and there are no apothecaries here. Even if there were, I wouldn’t allow you to avail yourself of him. You’ve broke the deck of my ship. Do you intend to do anything about that?”

“Yes, sir, if I can but be helped,” said Damson, though he knew not what he should do had he control of his limbs. He tried again to right himself, and though he got his arms and legs in working order, the moment he tried to sit up, he winded himself and was forced to lie down again. “I think I have broken all of my ribs,” was his sad exclamation.

The Lucentian inspected him with curiosity. “That is very likely, as you just fell from the cliff, but your armour sustained the brunt of the shock, and you should live, medicine man or no.”

                The Lucentian turned to someone out of Damson’s view and began speaking indistinctly  shaking his head and seeming disgruntled, and Damson, alone with his broken body and delicate thoughts, became increasingly aware of a discomforting sensation, a warmth and dampness seeping out from under him.