"If those fingers come near this bowl I'm eating them too."
Name: Vaani
Age: Twenty-two.
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Bounty: 0 Beli.
Personality: Personality? Can't say as I have much of one of those really. I'm just some guy, you know? I mean. I guess I get along with most people. They tend to like me. I tend to like them. Certain types of people that is. I doubt rich kids and polite ladies would like me. So I suppose I must have some personality. Huh. Never really thought about it before...
See, I guess that's something about me right there. I never really thought about it. That's a common thing for me. I ain't sure if that's a good thing or not. But I don't think about things much. I'm more of a do-er than a thinker. It's the only way I've survived. Sit there wondering if you'll get caught by the guards too much and you don't steal the loaf of bread from the stall. You don't steal the loaf, you don't eat. You don't eat, you don't get to keep living. So I don't think. I steal the loaf. I don't ask why the bar fight started, I just know that this big guy in front of me has more teeth than he needs so I gotta help him loosen a few.
What else? I like food. I love food. Food is life. And I don't want to stop living. Don't try to take my food. Growing up poor, homeless and hungry makes you kind of possessive of your food. And oh, man. The people who deal with food? Chefs! Chefs are like. Such a weird and amazing concept to me. These awesome people who just get to be with food. All day. They eat food, they cook food, they buy so much of it and just store it on shelves. They cut and they crush and they put things in little jars. They put flowers and plants on things. They have all sorts of knives and pots and stuff. I don't know how they do what they do. As a kid I'd look through windows in restaurants and watch the chefs. It was mind-blowing. I can't really explain it. I've still got a weird kind of 'thing' about chefs. I don't know what it is but... chefs, man... chefs.
History: All my life I've been a nobody. A nothing. It always felt like I was an inconvenience to the world. An baby orphan that nobody wanted to raise. A begging child nobody wanted to feed. A troublesome teen nobody wanted to teach. I thought I was destined to become either a corpse bobbing in the docks or a criminal with bad balance, standing on a half trashed stool with a snug loop of rope around my neck. It wasn't looking good from my perspective. Occasionally when I thought about it too much I'd get pretty down about it. About life in general. Nothing good had ever happened in mine anyway. Maybe there was just no point in it. It was in one of these moods that I found myself, aged nineteen turning down an alley to see a beautiful woman being held at knife point by a nasty guy called Grag. I knew him. Not personally, but by reputation. Nothing good had ever been said about him, unless "He's close with that brutal crime gang, The Slicks." counts. And it doesn't count in my book.
So I stood there. Hungry. Dirty. The cold night air trying to seep it's way through my thickened hide. In the worst mood of my life. And I look at Grag. And he looks as wretched as I feel. And I look at the woman. She's beautiful. Clean. Dressed nicely. So shocked and appalled at the idea that this is actually happening. That a thing like Grag exists. She shouldn't have had to deal with this, I decided. The sight of her compared to the idea of me. There was no comparison. She was like a member of a different species. One that was good and happy and pure. Not a bunch gutter-dwelling, low-life criminals like me and Grag. And I found myself standing in front of her. Unarmed and just barely clothed in more than dirt and grime. Against Grag. Grag, his connections, the liquor burning in his stomach and his long sharp knife. He started to talk. His foul breath telling me to get out the way boy.
I headbutted him.
Apparently he'd brought his hands up to defend his face because the knife slid through the skin on my lower left jaw like it was mist. That thing was sharp. But Grag hadn't expected this. He'd been surprised. I surprised him. A man with such a reputation as his. And I was beating him to a pulp. I had never considered for a moment that I could do something like this. I'd defended myself in the past. But I was never particularly violent. That I could just... do this. To a man like Grag. Untouchable Grag. With as many connections as he had personality faults. And nothing was stopping me from doing this. Nothing at all. I hadn't realized that the rules could be broken so easily. That you could actually do just... anything. At any time. Sure, he may have stabbed me in the stomach, there was consequences to doing things and for breaking the unspoken rules. But it didn't matter. I didn't matter. I just wanted to keep the woman safe. And she was. My life for hers was a fair trade for the world. I was worth nothing. But her? She looked like she had food on the table. A roof over her head. A family that cared.
Grag dropped his knife at some point. How long it had been I couldn't tell you. But my knuckles hurt. Kinda funny how that's what I remember. My knuckles hurt. Not my cut jaw or my stomach that had a brand new hole in it. My knuckles. I smiled at the woman, because it was okay now. She was safe. Her eyes were wide. Tears were on her cheeks. I felt the need to apologize for some reason. I wasn't sure why. But it was important. Before I could say anything I coughed out a mouthful of blood and fell into the blackness of sleep.
I woke up in a clinic some time later. A woman had had some men bring me in, and payed to get me patched up. She didn't leave a name. I never met her again. But I knew I'd done a good thing. The right thing. And not just for her, or the world, but for me. I'd broken the rules. And now I was no longer bound to them. I could do things now anything I wanted. I had learned my personal meaning to the word freedom. I didn't know it at the time but that was when I awakened the pirate in my soul.
Before I had had the wrong attitude to life. Before I'd thought, life is bad and this is where it happens. But it didn't have to be. I didn't have to stay in that city that had kept me in it's murky depths. I could leave. Somehow it had never occurred to me before to just do it. It was always a plan. A nice thought. Get some money and leave. But now I realize I could just leave right now. Just like that. I didn't need money. I had legs. I could just walk away. Besides, The Slicks were probably not going to be too happy with me when Grag tells them who beat him down.
So I left.
I spent the next few years traveling around. I sailed up and down the coast on merchant ships and ferries. I know my way around a boat now and have a decent reputation in my little corner of the world. Nothing spectacular. Just that of a good worker. A fine hand on deck. Someone who never tries to dip his fingers into the cargo. Of course, this is just the start. The ship-life has it's hooks in me now. I can't look back. Only forward. I spent a few years crewing on various vessels purely to serve one purpose. A good Captain should know how to run a ship. And so I worked the decks. Because a good Captain knows how to do everyone's jobs on ship, so as to know if they've been done well. It makes me smile to think about it. Because I do like to dream big. One day not too long from now I'll get my own ship. And I'll go after One Piece.
Pirate King Vaani has a nice ring to it.
Talents: Fortitude. Strength. Endurance.
Skills: ~
Inventory: ~
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