Story
The sea was calm, the kind of quiet glassy calm that made sailors nervous. Scarnax stood at the bow of the Blue Marlin, one hand on the rail, the other resting on the knife at his belt. The crew whispered behind him, trying not to stare at the thing bobbing in the water ahead.
It was a galley oar. Long, cracked, and sun bleached. The kind used in the Empire’s rowing decks.
Pelonias glanced at him. “We can swing wide if you want,” he said gently.
Scarnax did not answer. He stepped forward as the current carried the oar closer. When it scraped against the hull he reached down and caught it with both hands. For a moment he held it there, water dripping from the wood onto his boots. The deck was so quiet he could hear the run of the rigging like breath.
He lifted the oar onto the deck. The weight was familiar. Too familiar. He could feel the phantom pull in his shoulders, the rhythm hammered into his bones by years he never wanted to recall.
Caelin approached. “Captain,” she said. “We can throw it back.”
Scarnax shook his head. “No.”
He knelt and ran his fingers along the old splinters. Someone else had gripped this. Someone else had bled on it. Someone else had rowed until they collapsed. He imagined a face he would never know, a man who might still be chained somewhere waiting for the sea to take him.
Junia stepped closer but said nothing. She watched him with the quiet understanding of someone who knew what it meant to escape only once.
Scarnax rose. He carried the oar to the rail. The crew watched as he lowered it back into the water. Not tossed, not discarded. Returned.
“Let the sea have it,” he said.
He stood there for a long moment as the current claimed the oar and drifted it away. Only when it was a dark shape in the distance did he speak again.
“Pelonias,” he said. “Keep course.”
The navigator nodded.
As Scarnax turned back toward the deck his face was calm, but the crew saw something soften in him. Not weakness, but a reminder that even the hardest men carry ghosts, and sometimes the only way to keep them quiet is to let them go back to the water.

Background

Scarnax was born in a small settlement on the Desert Rim, a place where water was a treasure and danger walked with the sun. His early years were hard but simple. He herded goats, carried water, and listened to stories of wandering spirits that stalked the dunes. That life ended when raiders struck at dawn. They killed those who resisted and took the rest. Scarnax was dragged from the sand while still half asleep and thrown onto a slave caravan headed for the coast.

He was sold to a galley soon after, one of the long lean ships that fed on human muscle. Life at the oar was suffering made routine. He rowed until his back was a lattice of scars and his palms were raw. The overseers punished him for slowing, and punished him again for daring to raise his head. He learned to survive by folding himself into silence and doing anything that kept the beaters away. At night he dreamed of sand and open sky, and woke to wood tar and salt.

Escape and Pirate Years

His chance came when pirates ambushed the galley during a coastal run. The slaves revolted, fighting with bare hands and chains, desperate for any chance to break free. The fight was short and brutal. When the smoke cleared the pirates found the chained rowers and hacked the irons loose. Scarnax followed them because he had no other path. He did not trust them and they did not trust him, yet he learned quickly and earned a place among them.

Life with the pirates was chaotic. Some days were feasts, others disasters. He learned knives and rigging from men who cared little if he lived or died. He also learned that he did not share their hunger for cruelty. A failed raid that left good men dead shook him deeply, and it was then he realized he could not stay forever. When he finally gathered enough gold to leave the pirate life, he left without regret.

Working With Captain Solonex

Before Scarnax bought his first ship he spent several years taking work wherever he could find it, saving every coin for the right vessel. During that time he served under Captain Solonex on one of his earlier ships, long before the Waverider was built. Solonex saw past the scars and understood the discipline beneath. Scarnax admired Solonex for his fairness and for the simple fact that he did not rule through fear.

They shared long nights on deck, trading stories of storms, raids, and the strange corners of the world. Their friendship was built on quiet trust rather than grand gestures. When Scarnax finally left to pursue his own command Solonex wished him well without hesitation. The news of the Waverider’s disappearance struck Scarnax harder than he expected. This mission is not simply work. It is a debt of respect, and he refuses to let Solonex vanish into myth without someone trying to bring him home.

Becoming a Captain

With his savings Scarnax bought a small merchant cutter and worked honest runs, carrying grain and cloth and sometimes things better left unspoken. His profits grew, though he was never entirely free of the fear that everything could be taken from him again. When Galenor unveiled the strange vessel that would become the Blue Marlin, Scarnax was the only captain who saw possibility rather than danger. He placed his savings on the line and bought her. When he first touched the rail he felt something he had never felt before. The ship was his, and no one else’s. This was a ship so fast that no one could catch it. It felt almost alive, like a sea creature.

Personality and Role

Scarnax looks weathered and dangerous, a man in his late forties shaped by sun and hardship. His voice is gravel and his stare is sharp enough to cut. Yet beneath the surface lies a gentleness he hides behind gruff words. He considers every member of his crew as something close to family, though he rarely says so outright. He listens before speaking and judges slowly.

He despises cruelty not from principle but from memory. Chains are not symbols to him. They are the sound of metal dragged across a deck. They are the weight of years stolen. At times he freezes when he hears certain metallic sounds, but he covers it quickly. He trusts few people in authority, a habit born from too many overseers and captains who treated lives as tools.

He runs the Blue Marlin with a steady hand. He expects discipline and loyalty, and he returns both in full. When he speaks the crew listens, not because they fear him, but because they know he will bleed for them long before he abandons them.

Relations on the Ship

He sees Nasheem as an equal and respects the man’s grace in situations where Scarnax himself is blunt. Pelonias is someone he trusts for quiet competence, even if he sometimes wishes the navigator would stop staring at horizons and give a straight answer. Caelin feels like the closest thing he has to a sister, stubborn and steady. Galenor frustrates him and impresses him in equal measure. Junia he treats with a careful distance, protective but never overbearing. Ayesha he respects, though he keeps some space between them because her world of courts and secrets is one he does not understand. The marines he trusts like a shield wall, though he remains quietly wary of their tempers.

Roleplaying Notes

Scarnax speaks plainly. He rarely embellishes. He dislikes bullies, slavers, and anyone who masks cruelty with charm. When he smiles it is brief but genuine. He is slow to anger, yet when he decides someone is a threat he reacts with the clean finality of a man who knows hesitation can kill.

Each death in the crew hits him hard, and his hard exterior cracks as he cries openly.

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