18-Tybalt Part 2

“HEAVE!”

The lead foreman’s voice bellowed over the dock, directing the energies of the sweating dock workers. With brawny arms and bulging veins, they harnessed their collective strength to maneuver the central mast into an upright position. The sun-kissed skin of the orc men glistened, their black tattoos expanding on their arms with every tug against the mast crane’s pulley system. Little did they know that it was Tybalt’s grandfather who had invented the mast crane in the first place.

Tybalt watched the men work from a nearby hillside overlooking the shipyard. Altered by the application of makeup and swaddled in a dark hood and scarf, he blended in with the crowd and remained anonymous. It had been a long time since Tybalt had been able to escape the monotony of lunch meetings and discussions on taxation to simply wander his city without being recognized.

As he prepared to leave his secluded vantage point, ready to explore the city, Tybalt’s thoughts drifted back to his grandfather’s old study. He remembered exploring the Vindina family estate as a boy, lonely and taciturn. The land was verdant and relatively untouched, with few visitors beyond the wayward salesman or, more likely, a half-orc prostitute brought in by his human father.

As his father’s indiscretions began to extend beyond the master bedroom and into other parts of the house, Tybalt found his only solace in his grandfather’s old study, where he would pour over tomes on history, politics, engineering, and business. It was a world of knowledge and imagination, untainted by his father’s indolence.

Tybalt’s father didn’t mind his son’s intellectual curiosity. Being the child of a half-orc concubine initially made Tybalt a bastard, undeserving of inheritance or family name. Normally such children would be sent away, left in a forest, or raised by the mother— in fact he did live for with his mother for a time until she died.

Yet somehow Tybalt’s father had no children of his own — at least no human children — and he fancied Tybalt’s mother despite her lowly station and lack of political usefulness. When she died, the maidens sent a courier to his father’s estate where Tybalt’s father seized on the opportunity to gain an heir. What a boon! To be gifted with a human-passing heir who was unseen, unheard, and well-behaved while the father was allowed to continue to live licentiously. In such an environment, Tybalt saw to it that the books and memories stored in his grandfather’s study would make a better father figure than his own flesh and blood one.

The history books say that Tybalt’s grandfather, Ignacio, was an eccentric — too creative for his own good with too much disregard for conventional standards of shipbuilding. What Tybalt discovered as a young man, was that his grandfather wasn’t eccentric, but simply a man before his time. His designs were viable, but the world hadn’t manufactured the materials yet to support his unusual designs. It wouldn’t be until decades later that the world would provide him the refined materials that he needed. Of course, by then it was far too late for Ignacio, but just in time for Tybalt.

Tybalt was looking to implement his grandfather’s more outlandish designs — something that could end slavery forever — but like Ignacio, Tybalt ran into a problem. While the new metals were light enough to keep the boat afloat, the natural wind did not carry the force necessary to move the ship’s weight. Tybalt originally thought that he needed engineering marvel — a mechanical way to propel ships without the aid of wind.

What he received, however, was a workaround.

Lost in thought, Tybalt eventually returned to his senses on the main street of the city. The city center was a circular dirt path surrounding a cemented central area containing a bronze cast statue. The statue depicted Tybalt’s grandfather sitting at a desk, as various half-orc engineers stood around him passionately discussing how to improve his designs. It was a fairly complicated and expensive work of art to procure, but it sent the message clearly about the relationship between the Vindina and the half-orc population: Humans built this place, but half-orcs improve on it and control its destiny.

Surrounding the statue were teems of multilevel buildings ranging from stores, finance offices, and the city hall. The roads leading to the city center had formed an X shape around the central circular street. Tybalt decided to take the street that led northwest. It was the education and technology district that contained their tertiary school as well as other research buildings dedicated to the development of manufacturing and materials. It wasn’t much larger than a small college on the mainland, but for them it was a marvel.

At the edge of the city block, a modest stone building stood, its walls sheltering the city’s public library. As he ascended the stone steps to the library entrance, Tybalt joined a small crowd of patrons entering the building. The doors opened to a spacious room, with an open area for tables and seating in the front and rows of bookshelves lining the walls, containing volumes on every topic imaginable. Yet, Tybalt was pleased to see that they also stocked a variety of texts on half-orc history and culture.

Continuing through the open area, Tybalt turned right and ascended a stairwell to the second floor, where even more rows of bookshelves awaited him. As he walked among the shelves, his fingers trailing over the spines of countless books, he felt a wave of nostalgia wash over him. The scent of bound paper brought him back to his childhood memories of being in his grandfather’s study.

There, amidst the shelves, Tybalt found a familiar book that he had never read before — The Blessings of Besmara. It was a rare collection of poems written by a pirate captain and priestess of the sea goddess Besmara.
The book was a favorite of Naru, the lead instructor at the Naval college. Tybalt appreciated her sharp thinking, ability to read a room, and cool-headedness, but he couldn’t help but feel her fascination with the lesser-known goddess bordered on the cultish.

Nevertheless, out of curiosity and respect for Naru’s quirk, he decided to grab the book off the shelf and took it down to the checkout counter. His eyes beamed with pride as he was met by a half-orc librarian (the words themselves sound like the beginning of a rude joke), who checked out the book with the same level of efficiency and professionalism as any other library he’s been to in the Albion interior.

As Tybalt emerged from the library, he found himself enveloped in a throng of bustling dock workers. The shipbuilding industry was a constant hum of activity, with shifts changing around the clock. The cacophony of footsteps and voices filled the air, a chorus of grunts and groans punctuated by the occasional burst of laughter.

Amidst the din of their conversations, he overheard a father chastising his son. The older man was weathered and worn; a product of years spent toiling under the hot sun. His body scarred and calloused from the backbreaking work. His son, a free-born half-orc, stood beside him.

“You can’t mess that up again!” the father bellowed, his voice carrying over the crowd. “You have no idea how good you have it, to be born here. If you wanna be respected by the old heads, you gotta pick up the slack and get your head outta your ass. They’ll never accept you otherwise.”

As the father’s words echoed in Tybalt’s ears, he couldn’t help but reflect on his own experience growing up as a human-passing child of a half-orc concubine. In his father’s final years, Tybalt’s father couldn’t understand his fascination with his half-orc side and thought that his humanitarian project was a mistake of the heart.

“You look nothing like them.” said Tybalt’s father while lying on his sick bed and expelling phlegm from his lungs, “And more importantly, you act nothing like them.”

A younger Tybalt sat nearby dressed in fine clothing and polished hide shoes. He looked down at his hands— pretty and untouched by manual labor.

His skin was fair like any other human. His orc features only showing in his unusual height and fast-growing nails. He was pig-blooded, but as far as anyone else could tell, he was just a human.

“Your mother…she was different. She was one of the good ones. Smart and beautiful. Cut from a different cloth. Special.” he said trying to convince his son to stop his fruitless endeavors.

“They’ll never accept you.” said his father before coughing incessantly. “And I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

For two months, Tybalt watched as his father’s breathing grew more belabored before eventually dying of heart failure.

One week after that, Tybalt unveiled his third successful ship design to the world and secured his first investor for his impossible refugee city.