James Mulligan
First Mate of the Gilded Teeth Crew
The perpetually belabored right-hand man of Captain Ebenezar Moon, Mulligan is known for being the stablizing element within the crew's leadership. Quick-witted and slow-considered, he executes the lofty ambitions of the crew with a grim solmenity and grimmer means.
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James Mulligan watched the sky, and he thought again that the world always seemed to reveal the most of its truths in half-light. As the sun desperately fled the finite sheet before him, chasing the infinite blackness that was surely the known-unknown of the rest of the world, he saw how the process bruised the sky welt-purple. He thought it looked the same as the way vague dims made a house or a shack strewn with trash and bottles look all the more shabby, made the grime of things shine so much more sickly. The sky, in the bright light of day, lashed one's eyes for looking too closely or too carelessly. In darkness all was too obscured. But in this, the sunset at the dead center of the sea, he saw the way of things. The gold-violet gradient of a fresh bruise, the messy mauve splotched where clouds stuck like dried blood, and it was in this sense that he knew life as a bleeding. If not on the outside, then the inside, where the flesh kept up with decay until it couldn't anymore.It was much like the ship. Even the lowliest of these lowly excuses for pirates were vital to staunch the bleeding. The most sodden of them could at least empty the bilge, provided Mulligan could trust them not to piss in it. Rotting planks needed replacing, food stores always perilously dwindling, even water lasting precious days before the others had to make due with rum. As First Mate of the Gilded Teeth crew aboard the Soggy Trogg, Mulligan oversaw the unending push to staunch that bleeding. Whether he fought circumstance, the crew, or even the lofty ambitions of Captain Ebenzar Moon himself, even acts as simple as tossing out chamber pots in the officer's part of the lower decks were things he fussed over and did himself if need be.Which is why Mulligan stopped and turned clean on his heel-axis when he noticed a short figure with a lamp that he passed below deck. He knitted his brows and felt his face tighten for a moment as he nearly failed to recognize the powder monkey walking towards his private cabin, the goblin lacking the constant layer of gunpowder and grime that darkened his skin to the shade of rotten olives. "Wizlek." He ground out, "What are we wasting the good oil for?" He knew it was the natural thunder in his baritone that froze the goblin in his tracks."I was, uh, actually on my way to see you." The goblin stammered, looking defensively at the lamp."You see me now. You see me during the day. For every gallon of oil we’ve burned, a drop of a man's blood was spilled." He said, a bit harder than he intended. "What needs my attention in the dead of night?" He asked, realizing that what little time he might have to himself tonight was about to fray to thin threads. He at least hoped he might have been able to finish off his bottle of whiskey before he collapsed."Er, I'd prefer if we did this in your office." Wizlek said, shrinking back.Mulligan gave him a hard stare. "You mean my quarters. If this isn't good, I'll be tempted to put you on third watch since you seem to enjoy keeping me up during it." He said, trudging onward until he reached his door. He shouldered it open and closed it when Wizlek slunk in. He plopped his ass on the desk roughly and lit his candle with but a snap of a finger, drawing upon his well for but a sip of that energy. "Speak." He grunted.The goblin stood awkwardly, seeming to gather his nerves within the space of a single, unsteady breath. "It's about the Captain."That much was easy to tell. As the First Mate, he was the sturdiest bridge between the crew and its Captain, ensured that Moon’s ambition and the limits and petty desires of the men who exacted it were balanced. The posture and affect of all crew members who came to him was always the same, the sort of curling in on one's self as if they expected a lash. He supposed it was better than outright insubordination, but it was his tireless job to ensure one didn't boil over into the other. “It usually is.” He said, rolling a lumbering shoulder in a half-shrug. “Out with it.” And while Mulligan waited for the goblin to find his balls somewhere inside himself, he reached into a drawer under his desk and plunked the bottle a little harder than he’d wanted.Wizlek’s lips pursed, and his ears wilted. Mulligan knew what was coming, he stunk of the sort of shame one bore when trying to relitigate a matter long since settled. “I w-wanted to know what exactly we’re spending all of coin on when–.”Mulligan wanted to snap at him right there. Time felt like it slowed while he sharpened a bladed retort, but he took in a deep breath and let the goblin stumble through his sentence as he took to mind words from the old man who had once trained him in monastic living:Silence is a hammer that shatters the walls of speech.All he needed to do was give the goblin a heavy stare, let his bushy brows push down on his eyes and let his mustache set itself into a grim line. All the while he pinched the cork of his bottle with two thick fingers, not quite enough to pry the too-large cork from the cold bottleneck. With a breath through his nose, he managed not to grind his teeth into dust and let hotter frustrations show.“A-and maybe if we saved up, we could maybe get out of this awful business, live a little less lean, and–... and…” He eventually trailed off, realizing that Mulligan was a wall he was not going to pierce with words.“Cap’n Moon pays you your share, yes?” Mulligan asked, another futile jerking motion with the cork.“Y-yes.” Wizlek said.“And that share is adequate?”“Yes…” Wizlek squeaked.“So what does it matter that Moon sees to the relief of our men while you squirrel away your coins?”Wizlek swallowed, mastered himself, and finally spoke, “I don’t want to do this forever. I can’t. My lungs and my body and everything will fucking char and crack and crumble before I can do something other than this on a sailor’s pension!” He said, each word emboldened the next until it was a vomit of his fears. He was panting with the effort when he finally stopped.Mulligan considered him for a moment. He was not, by a long stretch, their first powder monkey. It was not an enviable job to squirm between decks where the powders are stored, to see to the maintenance and the dirtier handlings of cannons. In dingier crews, it was a disposable lot left to wrangled children and often ended with death before a barkeep would come to serve him grog without squinting. Wizlek was a man Mulligan vied for, an attempt to bolster the ship with experience, for disposable men did shabby work – and shit was shabby enough on the Soggy Trogg as it was. But as Mulligan looked at the now sweating goblin, he realized why boys and chattel were preferred by lesser crews: A man who cannot hope for better does not make demands.He would not succumb to baser impulses, to see him lashed or thrown off the ship or simply keel hauled until he stopped moving or had learned his lesson. A normal pirate crew could afford to churn, to settle for inexperience so long as it made a half-measured substitute for cohesion. But plundering was simple in concept, could allow for that broad margin of error such a crew would inevitably need.Moon sought more. Specifically, Sharas’dal, scepter of the depths, the relic that would make them kings of the sea. Or, at least, that’s what the curse-blighted visions told the Captain night after night. He had served more addled Captains than him, trauma and ego made for more difficult men than voices and dreams, Mulligan found.Regardless, the crew was curious at best, indifferent at its most common, and skeptical at worst about Moon’s ambitions. But so long as the coin flowed and the ship stayed above water, few men would truly take umbrage with the reasons why the Captain was captaining.Save for Wizlek, who’d been shrinking further and further back towards the door.“It is not an easy life.” Mulligan first conceded, “But your life is yours to lead, Wizlek. I can see to what I can with your lungs with the resources we have. We will not see your shrivel up when you do good work.”Wizlek grimaces, “Only keep me at the brink!”Mulligan’s brows furrowed at that. “We live at the brink. Putting yourself in a fuckin’ wooden box and leaving yourself at the mercy of the tides is to accept teetering on the knife’s edge. It’s a shit life, until it’s not.” He said, flopping a flippant hand before he tugged at the cork again, finding more and more purchase upon it as it slipped bit by tiny bit.“Well I don’t get to see the not!” Wizlek nearly screeched.“Because you live as an ascetic, hoping to live so miserly that you can escape the need for work once and for all.” Mulligan spat, thrusting the truth as if it were a rusted dagger.“And would that be so bad?” The goblin asked, weak and waverly.Mulligan frowned. “As much as I enjoy our chats, I’m behind enough already on sleep. If we’ve nothing left to discuss besides fucking philosophy, I’d prefer t’ table that shit until we’re in port.” He said, nearly wrenching the cork free.Wizlek threw his hands up, “It’s always later! Later! When you have time! You never have fucking time for us!”“Wizlek.” Mulligan ground out, “I’ll forgive the outburst if I’m allowed t’ get some fuckin’ sleep. Deal?” Though even as he said this, his frustration was betrayed by the cork, as it suddenly and all at once popped from the bottle, causing Mulligan to knock it over and bleed half of what was left of the whiskey. The precious amber liquid shone like blood upon the planks in the dim light, and it was all that Mulligan could do not to visibly seethe.Without a word, the goblin rounded away from him and stomped back towards the crew quarters.“Never have time for them.” Mulligan said, as if chewing on the words, as if he were sifting through the complex flavors of a better whiskey than he had on the ship. Bitter notes of oak and the chemical sour of resentment. But it was for the crew that Mulligan gave all his time, every little bit of pressure that mounted on his shoulders was channeled through his arms, staunching that ever blasted and always-going bleeding.But even as he thought that, the old man’s words creeped into the forefront:Your words are boxes built too small to hold the truth.“Shut the fuck up, Thurgood.” Mulligan murmured to no one, save for a memory. He’d lurch onto the bed and succumbed to the stone weight of fatigue in his bones before he could even undress. He’d simply hope he’d reach Wizlek in his own time.But hope always proved to be a miserable bitch, in the end.