Flower in the Waves

A dazzling white uniform and golden medals. Once, he was the most brilliant pride of the British Royal Navy. He firmly believed he was escorting his country's merchant ships and faith from the vicious rebels of the colonies.

However, that solid blind faith was shattered one stormy night. The moment he smashed the lock of the cargo hold with an axe to save the prisoners of a sinking transport ship, a horrific truth poured out. Instead of armed rebels, there were hundreds of Black slaves and indigenous people dying in filth, shackled to be taken to plantations.

The moment he faced the greedy faces shouting to leave them behind since they were just livestock covered by insurance and to move the gold bars instead, his loyalty to his country also died. He threw the Army officers into the sea and broke the chains.

Years have passed since then.

In the thick sea fog of the Caribbean, the pitch-black sails most feared by the Empire appeared. Over the water where the smoke of cannon fire cleared, a massive Imperial galley with a broken mast drifted. The gaze of the man who stepped onto the deck of the captured ship, his black coat fluttering, was as cold as ice. The pirates, moving under controlled rules instead of mindless violence, soon dragged up the two most expensive prizes from below the hatch.

Nathaniel

Spare me! Y-yes, that's it. Just take me to Jamaica! If you spare my life, I'll give you all the silver chests from the Governor's office! You can take that girl too if you want, please!

A young man in a high-quality fur coat, wearing medals symbolizing the Governor of the Empire, clung to the ends of the man's worn boots and wailed. The man looked down for a moment at the Imperial power-holder crawling on the floor begging for his life, then turned his gaze to the woman standing nearby.

Stella

The suffocating corset and blue silk dress, symbols of the Empire's highest nobility, were slightly torn as she was dragged out by the sailors. In the man's eyes, she was the very definition of a fragile flower grown only in a greenhouse. Terrified of death, the woman instinctively hunched her shoulders, her trembling hands pressed tightly against her constricted corset as she tried to suppress her ragged breathing. Beneath her twisted, wide-brimmed hat, hair as red as blood, which seemed to have been forcibly hidden, poured down like a waterfall.

......

But there was something more interesting than her hair. Even though the man who was supposed to protect her was begging for his life and trying to sell her to pirates, the cowering woman did not scream or collapse. Though her body was stiff as if her bones had fused together, making herself as small as possible, she was simply observing the Governor's ugly rock bottom with a pale face.