Loyalty

Loyalty is something I prize very highly. I prize it among my crew, my flaggies, my hearties, and my pirate family. It’s an issue that’s been on my heart lately as I’ve been looking around and am starting to realize who my true friends are by how loyal they are to me.

If I have ever called someone friend and then they are attacked then their attacker becomes my enemy. Anyone that would attack one of my friends can not themselves be a friend, even if they once tried to be. The moment they attacked my friend the attacker lost any right they ever held at being called my friend. Though I seem to have some people in my life that do not care when I am attacked. These people call me friend, but their actions disprove their statement of friendship toward me. They condone the actions of my attacker and reinforce the behavior against me by patting her on the back and telling her it’s all right that she did it. They are not my friends.

I do not condone the actions of any enemy against any friend and am fierce with my protection in favor of my friendships. Some might tell me I expect too much when I expect the same kind of loyalty from my friends as I give them, but I can look around now and see friends that give the same loyalty back to me.

When the sparks are flying and the smoke is so thick you can’t see through it, I reach out into the chaos of life and some pirates reach back for me. Together, hand in hand, we ride through the storm. Those are my true friends.

Friends stand with each other, not against each other. And likewise friends do not stand with those that stand against their friends.

Now the argument of not wanting to pick sides might come up. But even if both parties involved had once been your friends, when one attacks the other they make themselves the enemy. It is of their own doing. If you ever valued the friendship of the victim your choice in who to stand next to is clear.

Sometimes the attacker isn’t always clear, and sometimes she is. In my case for instance, I was betrayed, lied to, and lead on for a number of months all just to get money from me and because my attacker thought it was a fun little game to toy with me. I admit my fierce loyalty and ideals of friendship made me an easy target, but I will always refuse to see these traits as a weakness. I was purposely lied to and swindled, spending somewhere between 300k to 400k on this pirate before I realized she was not a friend but an enemy. I would never speak to anyone that did that to one of my friends ever again. Pirates of Imperial Coalition are continuously breaking my heart.

Once the sea starts to churn it’s clear who a pirate’s real friends are. Some will abandon ship to save themselves, some will stand on the docks and claim friendship and not mean it, but some will batten down the hatches and ride out the rough seas at your side. I am proud to call those pirates my hearties. If you stick with me, I’ll stick with you, always.

When the tempest rages, where do you stand?

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