Expand all - Collapse all

Previous Index

# Silvio

Story
The house always changed its breathing when Thessa returned.
Silvio felt it first in the servants, the way they stopped speaking mid sentence, the way hands hurried to smooth cloth that did not need smoothing. Even the lamps seemed to pull their light inward as if brightness could be blamed for something. He was in the corridor outside the bathing room with a folded stack of linen in his arms, trying to be exactly where he was supposed to be and nowhere that could be noticed. The stone beneath his feet was cool. The air smelled of oils and citrus and the faint iron tang of the training yard that clung to her when she came in from the city. He lowered his gaze and made his shoulders round, the posture of someone who was not a person, just a piece of the house that could be moved without thought.
Thessa’s boots struck the floor like punctuation. She did not walk like other people. She arrived. The sound carried ahead of her, heavy and certain, and it told the whole household what shape the next hour would take. When she entered the corridor her cloak was half undone, the clasp hanging loose as if she had ripped it open rather than unfastened it. Her hair was damp at the roots with sweat, and a thin line of red marked one knuckle where she had split skin against something hard. She looked past the servants who bowed. She looked past the carved pillars and the fine mosaics of spear maidens and sunlit victories. She saw Silvio in the same way a person sees a cup when they are thirsty, not as something alive, but as something useful.
He tried to step aside. He tried to melt into the wall. He held his breath because sometimes even breathing felt like noise. Thessa stopped anyway, right in front of him, and for a moment he thought he had succeeded, that she would move on, that she would take her anger to her steward or her sisters or the sparring ring. Her eyes dropped, focusing, and he knew the moment she decided.
"You," she said, like a command to an object.
Silvio’s mouth went dry. He managed the smallest nod. "Mistress."
Her hand shot out and closed on his arm above the elbow, fingers hard as clamps. The linen slipped in his other hand, the stack tilting as he scrambled to keep it from hitting the floor, because spilled linen meant a lecture from the housekeeper, meant extra work, meant another reason for someone to be irritated. Thessa did not care. She pulled him close enough that he smelled the heat on her skin, the bitter edge of wine and frustration.
"I have had a day full of fools," she said. Her voice was low and controlled, which was always worse than shouting. "I need to relax. You will make yourself useful."
Silvio’s throat tightened around the words that wanted to come out, words he had learned not to say. Please. Not tonight. I am tired. I am afraid. He swallowed them like stones. He nodded again because nodding was safer than silence. She dragged him toward her chambers, not violently, not like a fight, but with the casual certainty of ownership. His feet stumbled once on the edge of a rug. She tightened her grip in warning and did not slow.
Inside, the room was too clean. Too bright. The bed was made as if nobody slept there, only performed. As Thessa dragged him in, Silvio caught sight of Halen, one of the house men, waiting outside with a rag over his wrist and a bucket at his feet, eyes down, expression blank. He did not look up. He was already there to erase whatever would be left behind. Thessa shut the door with her heel and finally let go, but her attention remained on him like a hand around his throat.
She dropped onto the bed. "Make that mouth useful," she barked. Silvio kept his movements careful. He did what he had learned to do. He tried to be compliant in all the correct ways. He tried to anticipate. He tried to keep his face blank enough that it would not invite anger, soft enough that it would not invite cruelty.
It did not work.
Thessa’s breath came sharp, impatient. She moved like someone trying to force calm into her body and finding it would not hold. The tension in her shoulders did not ease. Her eyes stayed hard, pinned on something he could not see, some insult from the city that had followed her home. Silvio felt himself trembling and tried to stop, because trembling made her notice him as a failure. He tried harder, tried to disappear inside obedience, he could not undo her day, could not erase whatever shame or irritation she had brought through the doorway.
Her expression changed first. Not to sadness, never that. To disgust, as if the air had gone stale.
"Useless," she said, flatly, and the word landed like a slap even before her hand moved.
She kicked him away. He stumbled back, hit the edge of a low table, and fell. The impact knocked the breath out of him in a thin, humiliating sound. He curled by instinct, arms up, knees drawn in, the shape that made him smaller, the shape that made him less interesting. Thessa’s boot clipped his side, not to kill, not to break, just to remind him what she was and what he was. She kicked again, impatient, like moving a piece of furniture out of her path. The room spun slightly. He tasted dust and copper. He kept his eyes down because looking at her face would make it worse.
"Get out of my way," she said. "I will find someone who can actually do something right."
Then she was gone, the door opening and shutting, the sound of her footsteps retreating down the corridor to some other part of the house, someone else to absorb her mood. The silence that followed was not peaceful. It was a vacuum. Silvio lay where he had fallen, shaking with pain and shame and the strange relief of being dismissed. His lip was bleeding. His body ached where the kicks had landed, and his mind raced in circles that always ended at the same truth.
He was not safe here. He never had been. He never would be.
He stayed curled until the trembling eased enough that he could move without making noise. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and hated himself for it, hated that he was still trying to keep the room neat, still thinking like a servant who might be punished for leaving a smear on the floor. He forced himself to sit up, slow, careful, listening for footsteps. None came. In the distance he heard laughter, the bright sound of other people’s lives, and it made something in him go cold.
He looked at the door, at the line of light beneath it, and in that thin strip he saw the shape of the rest of his life if he stayed. More days like this. More nights where she returned irritated and he became the place she put it. More bruises. More apologies. More shrinking. More disappearing until she finally lost her temper enough to kill him.
Silvio pressed his forehead to his knees and breathed until the nausea passed. When he lifted his head again, the decision had already settled in him like a stone that could not be moved. He did not know the details yet. He did not know how. He only knew that the first real opening, the first moment the house blinked, he would be gone.
He would leave even if leaving killed him, because staying was killing him already.

Letting her anger out on an innocent victim

## Overview

Silvio is a late teen who looks younger than he is because he learned early that looking small keeps blows lighter and attention lower. He came to the Blue Marlin as a stowaway and stayed because the ship rewarded usefulness instead of obedience. He is now the crew’s quiet specialist for climbing, infiltration and the sort of work that solves problems without starting fights.

## Appearance

Silvio is lean and wiry, built for hanging from beams and squeezing through spaces nobody else would try. His hands are marked by rope burn and old bruises that healed wrong. He keeps his hair short for practicality and because long hair was something his former owner liked to grab.

He dresses like a sailor who expects to be dirty fast. Loose shirt, soft boots, a belt with small pouches that never jingle. When he needs to work, he darkens his face and hands with soot and oil, not as theater but because it keeps him from being seen.

## Background

Silvio was enslaved in Amazireth as a house slave, which sounds safer than it was. His owner was a prominent amazon warrior named Thessa Vael of House Arkeion, celebrated for victories and feared for her temper. In public she was disciplined and glorious. In private she used him as an outlet when rage or humiliation needed somewhere to go.

He learned the rules that keep you alive in such a household. Speak only when spoken to. Learn footsteps. Predict moods. Become invisible before anger arrives. He also learned the hidden geography of a large house, where servants sleep, where guards drink, which doors are watched and which are only meant to look watched.

His escape was not heroic. It was desperate, quiet and ugly. A dockside errand. A moment when the right overseer looked the wrong way. Silvio vanished into cargo shadows and crawled into a ship’s belly. He did not know the name Blue Marlin then. He only knew it was leaving.

## Joining the Blue Marlin

They found him quickly, not because he was clumsy but because the ship is run by professionals who notice everything. Silvio expected the usual result. Pain, chains, being sold back, being made an example.

Instead, an accident gave him a narrow chance. A line failed high up and the repair needed someone light enough to climb and brave enough to do it without freezing. Silvio went up like he had been born in rigging, hands and feet moving with instinctive precision, tied the new rope and came down shaking but alive.

After that, he had value that could not be denied. He earned a place by doing what he could do better than anyone else and by never abusing that trust.

## Life Aboard the Blue Marlin

Silvio lives small. He sleeps where he can hear trouble coming, often near the rigging access or in a corner of the sailors’ quarters where he is not boxed in. He eats fast, eyes down, leaving the table as soon as it is polite enough to do so. He keeps his tools hidden and organized: picks wrapped in cloth, wax for locks, a thin blade that is more utility than weapon.

On the ship, his gift is vertical movement. He can reach the top of a mast in weather that makes other sailors cling and pray. He can cross an outrigger spar in darkness without a lantern. In port, he becomes a different kind of useful. Windows, roofs, back alleys, bolts and barred doors. He gets in, he gets out, and most of the time nobody knows anything happened until the crew already has what it needs.

He does not steal for joy. He steals like someone performing surgery. Quick, careful, no extra harm.

## Talents

Silvio is a natural climber and an exceptional cat burglar. He can move on walls, beams and ropes with a kind of calm competence that does not match his ordinary shyness. His hands are sensitive. He feels a lock the way a musician feels a string and he has learned to listen for the smallest change in tension.

He is also good at being overlooked. Crowds slide past him. Guards forget him. People remember a young figure, not the person beneath it. This is not magic. It is survival turned into craft.

His weakness is open confrontation. He freezes when voices rise and he flinches when someone moves too fast. His instinct is to shrink, apologize and vanish, even when he has done nothing wrong.

## Personality and Temperament

Silvio never had a real childhood and this has shaped who he is. He is shy, socially awkward and easily embarrassed. He is polite to a fault and tends to answer questions too honestly because he cannot think fast enough to lie smoothly. When he is nervous he talks less, not more, and his eyes drop to the floor as if the deck might offer instructions.

Violence repulses him. Not in the abstract, but physically. Raised voices make his stomach tighten. A fist on a table can make him recoil. If a fight breaks out he does not cheer and he does not watch. He looks for an exit, a hiding place, someone who might need help getting away. He has seen too much violence used as entertainment and too much used as entitlement.

He does not judge the crew for doing what they must. He simply cannot be comfortable around it. When he is forced to act, he chooses restraint first, flight second and only then whatever is necessary to survive.

## Relationships With the Crew

Scarnax is the person Silvio trusts in the way a former slave trusts anyone: cautiously, with constant testing, with quiet attention to patterns. The captain’s consistency matters more than kindness. Silvio watches for the moment the mask drops and it never does.

Skarnulf has taken him as a kind of apprentice. Skarnulf teaches him ship habits and street habits, how to read a crowd, how to spot a knife hand before the knife appears. Silvio, in return, gives Skarnulf a much needed emotional anchor, even if his tough man image does not allow him to admit it.

Junia is Silvio’s private gravity. He is in love with her and it shows in small betrayals of self control: how he appears when she needs something carried, how he listens too closely when she speaks, how he blushes when she praises him for being careful. Junia does not notice, partly because she is busy, partly because she has her own social awkwardness, partly because Silvio has no idea how to be seen on purpose. The rest of the crew knows and finds it quietly endearing.

Amaxia intimidates him. Her build, her directness, the way she occupies space, it all echoes his former owner too closely. Amaxia noticed the pattern quickly and has tried to soften around him. That attempt makes him more nervous because it feels like a trap or attention and attention used to be dangerous. Over time, this can become a slow, meaningful bond if handled gently, Silvio learning that strength can be protective and Amaxia learning that gentleness is also strength.

Ayesha treats him with professional respect. She does not coddle him and she does not push him into social performance. When she needs something done quietly, she gives him clear instructions and a clear exit. That simple competence is one of the ways Silvio measures safety. Her diplomatic skills can get him to sometimes open up to her, but he still finds her overt femininity intimidating.

Silvio’s relationship with Ileena is complicated in a way neither of them chose. Ileena feels close to him because she is naturally affectionate and treats proximity as ordinary, sitting too near, leaning on him, touching his shoulder or wrist as if contact is just another kind of speech. To Silvio, that ease reads as power. Her lack of shyness feels like a quiet declaration of "I do what I want" made so casually she does not even realize she is saying it, and his mind translates that into the old rules of masters and slaves. Her touches scrape against old instincts that mistake attention for possession. He tenses, his eyes drop, he goes quiet, and Ileena does not connect any of it to fear. In her mind she is being kind, so she offers more of the very thing that makes him retreat.

Pelonias taught him to read, which was a very big emotional step for him, as slaves are not taught to read in Amazireth. To him, it became a mark of freedom, for which he is very greatful.

He is broadly liked. His awkwardness reads as harmless, his work saves lives and his refusal to brag makes him easy to root for. The ship has many loud personalities. Silvio gives it a soft center.

Silvio pining for Junia

## Wounds and Triggers

Silvio’s past left him with a learned fear response that can be mistaken for cowardice. If someone grabs his wrist, blocks a doorway or raises a hand too fast, he may shut down or bolt. He hates being cornered and he hates being watched while he eats.

He also struggles with praise. Compliments can make him suspicious because praise used to be the calm before demands. If someone thanks him warmly, he may dismiss it, minimize what he did or physically retreat.

These are not flaws to fix quickly. They are habits to unlearn slowly.

## Growth Arc

Silvio’s long arc is learning that safety can be real, not temporary. The Blue Marlin gives him something Amazireth never did, belonging without ownership. His skills already give him a role. The harder part is letting that role become an identity instead of just camouflage.

If you want a direction for him, lean into three slow changes. First, he begins to ask for what he needs instead of enduring. Second, he begins to accept being seen when he does good work. Third, he finds a way to face violence without becoming violence, which might mean protective action, medical assistance, sabotage or simply the courage to speak up when someone stronger is about to do something cruel.

## Using Silvio in Play

Silvio is a problem solver for barriers, surveillance and urban obstacles. He is also an emotional weather vane. If he is panicking, something is truly wrong. If he is calm, the situation is probably manageable.

He works best when given clear goals, minimal spectacle and an exit plan. If a scene forces negotiation, intimidation or public performance, he becomes a pressure point that can reveal the crew’s character. Do they protect him, use him, dismiss him, tease him too hard. The answers matter.

## Roleplaying Notes

Keep three things in mind when playing Silvio: Likeable, harmless and emotionally protectable.

- Keep your voice soft and your sentences short, especially in groups.
- Avoid eye contact until trust is established, then glance up in quick checks.
- Flinch at sudden movement and raised voices, then try to pretend you did not.
- Do not brag. If praised, deflect or change subject.
- Move like a shadow when working, but become visibly unsure when attention turns toward you.
- Show care through action rather than words, especially around Junia.
- When violence starts, look for escape routes, hiding places and nonviolent ways to end the situation.

Previous Index