…
The cook discovered that I could fish. The last time I did was with my Dad…I miss him.
Anyways, I stood at the rail of the ship with a length of cord, a bent hook, and a chunk of old bait while three sailors watched in curiosity.
"You know," Pelli said, "we do have supplies."
"That cannot be the answer to everything, my small friend; a man's gotta catch his own!"
Pelli took offence at the small comment, and the cook wiped his hands on his apron. "If you catch something, I'll fry it."
"When I catch something." I corrected.
He smiled faintly. "Sure, When."
I did not catch something, I caught nothing for two hours.
The sailors drifted away one by one. Pelli stayed out of loyalty or for entertainment; I couldn't tell which. Maybe both.
Finally, a fish bit so hard the cord snapped tight; I grabbed it with both hands and yanked. The fish flew out of the water quite easily, and very furious, it smacked Pelli in the face, bounced off the deck, and landed in a coil of rope.
Pelli stood there with wet scales on his cheek.
I picked up the fish by the tail and held it high.
The fish flopped once.
"Behold," I said, "tribute from the sea. The ocean apologises."
The cook, from across the deck, slowly raised both arms. "Dinner."
The crew cheered!
Pelli wiped his face. "The ocean hit me."
"The ocean knows what you said about my boat," I exclaimed.
"You are never letting that go."
"My boat died yesterday." I lied.
"It was weeks ago." Pelliu mumbled
"My grief has no expiration date," I said, slapping him with the fish.
…
I knew spending time at Shells Town was worth it; it also helped that at some point, I adapted to the fuckery they called combat.
A sailor passing by muttered, "That's useful."
I heard him.
They thought it was punishment at first. That was fair because I said it verbatim. "If you're going to point weapons at people, you should at least be less embarrassing about it," which did sound like a threat.
But I did not beat them bloody. I made them stand properly, just the small things I learnt from she who must not be named. One guard, the one with the bandaged nose, lasted longer than the others. He came at me with a wooden practice blade. I stepped aside, tapped his wrist, hooked his ankle, and put him on the deck.
He groaned.
"Again," I said.
He looked up at me. "Again?"
"You moved better that time."
His face changed.
Not much. Just enough.
He got up.
Again, he came at me, and again, he hit the deck.
By the fifth try, he made me move my back foot.
I grinned. "There."
He blinked from the floor. "There what?"
"You learned something."
Pelli, sitting on a barrel and eating an apple, clapped once. "Success!"
The guard looked like he wanted to smile; we shall convert this tsun-tsun, soon enough.
I offered him a hand.
He stared at it, then took it.
After that, the guards still sorta kept their distance, but not like I was a monster. More like I was a very dangerous instructor.
Which was accurate.
…
Rusk and I argued for an entire morning about charts.
"You cannot just point at the map and say go faster," he said.
"I can if I believe in you."
"That is not navigation."
"It is leadership."
"It is idiocy."
"Leadership has many forms." I shrugged
Rusk jabbed a finger at the chart spread across the table in his cabin. Pelli stood near the door, wisely close to the door, to escape. The chart showed islands, currents, reefs, and marks I did not understand, but it showed the entire East Blue. A small inked route bent south-west toward the place Rusk had refused to say too loudly.
Port Tragedy.
Rusk's finger stopped near a cluster of jagged marks. "These reefs slow us. We go around or we risk tearing the hull open."
"Can we pass through?"
"No."
"Can you pass through?"
His glare sharpened. "No."
"Can a better captain pass through?" I mumbled.
Pelli whispered, "Kai."
Rusk leaned over the table. "Listen carefully. I do not care how strong you are. I do not care how many men you have punched, threatened, or fed into your ridiculous sense of justice. If this ship hits a reef, strength will not keep water out of the hull. You want to reach Port Tragedy? Then stop treating the sea like an enemy you can punch."
I held his stare.
FAH! I hate that he's right
"Fine," I said.
Pelli's eyebrows rose.
Rusk seemed just as surprised. "Fine?"
"Go around."
"You are agreeing?"
"I'm not stupid."
Rusk said nothing.
Pelli opened his mouth.
I pointed at him. "Careful."
He closed it.
Rusk looked back down at the chart. His voice, when it came, was still rough, but less sharp. "If the wind holds, we reach the outer waters in a week's time. Port Tragedy by the morning after."
My hand tightened around the edge of the table.
"Good," I said.
Rusk looked at me, and for the first time since I had taken his ship, there was something in his expression that was not only fear or anger. It was not trust. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But it was close to acknowledgement, so a small win.
"You really intend to walk into Grest's business with half a list, stolen cargo, and no plan beyond violence?"
I thought about it. "Yep."
Rusk rubbed his face.
Pelli nodded. "That does sound like you."
"I also have questions," I said.
"That is not a plan."
"It's two plans."
"It is not."
"Violence and questions."
"Those are not separate plans if you do them in that order."
"I can be flexible."
Rusk stared at me for a long moment, then gave a tired, bitter laugh under his breath.
It was small.
It counted. Heh.
…
Its now been a month since taking over this ship, and the crew started to warm up to me, asking me for help with various things.
A stuck hatch. I opened it.
A crate wedged behind two others. I moved it.
A guard's shoulder was still sore from when I had thrown him into a mast. I told him to stop sleeping curled up like a shrimp and showed him how to stretch out. He looked offended until it worked.
The cook asked if I could lift a flour sack.
I lifted three.
He gave me extra bread. （￣︶￣)
This, I decided, was how civilisation should function.
By afternoon, one sailor asked me to settle an argument about whether a scar on another sailor's arm looked like a snake or a rope burn.
I inspected it with great seriousness.
"Snake," I declared.
The sailor with the scar slapped the table. "I told you."
That settled it.
At sunset, the Blue Gull was loud in a way it had not been before. Men talked while they worked. Someone sang badly near the bow until the cook yelled that his singing was curdling the broth. Pelli moved around the deck with easier shoulders, no longer stepping between me and the crew every time I spoke. Sometimes he still did, but now it was mostly to stop me from saying something that would make a normal person panic.
Rusk remained near the helm, distant as ever. But when one of the younger sailors stumbled while carrying a lantern and nearly dropped it, I caught the lantern before it hit the deck. The sailor went stiff, stammered thanks, and hurried away.
I looked up and found Rusk watching.
He gave the smallest nod.
I nodded back.
"I think your ship likes me better." I mocked.
Rusk's face closed immediately. "The ship has no thoughts boy"
"That's what people say when the ship likes someone else." I shrugged
Pelli, passing behind me with rope over one shoulder, said, "The stew room likes him too."
"Galley," Rusk snapped.
"Stew room," I said.
Two sailors answered at once, "Stew room."
Rusk scoffed.
I had never been prouder.
That night, I did not sleep on the rope. The crew had cleared a space below, not in the best quarters, not anything soft or fancy, but dry and warm and out of the wind. There was a folded blanket on the bunk and a chipped cup of water beside it.
No one said who put them there.
I sat on the edge of the bunk for a while and looked at the cup.
It was not my boat. It was just a blanket and a cup of water on a ship I had stolen from men who were beginning to laugh when I talked.
Still.
I drank the water, and I slept. The next day was to be my last.
The Blue Gull moved through a long, slow swell, her sails full enough to carry us steadily but not enough to make anyone cheerful. The crew worked quietly. Not fearfully, not like before. I stood at the bow with Pelli beside me.
He had a strip of dried fish in one hand and had been chewing the same bite for far too long.
"You're nervous," I said.
He swallowed. "You're not?"
"I am." I smiled.
He looked at me.
"What?" I said. "I can be nervous."
"You don't look nervous."
"I adapted to that long ago" ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Pelli was unsure what I meant.
Behind us, the crew moved through their morning tasks. The cook's voice came from below, low and grumbling. A sailor adjusted a line, glanced at me, and gave a quick nod. I returned it.
That had been happening more.
It was strange.
A month ago, these people had been cargo smugglers and hired guards. Now I knew which one snored loud enough to scare rats, which one always saved the burnt bits of bread, which one pretended not to like Pelli's jokes but laughed when he turned away. I knew the cook added pepper when he was worried. I knew Rusk stood straighter whenever his ex-wife was mentioned.
Rusk came up beside us, chart rolled in one hand. He looked out at the horizon and said nothing for a while.
Then he spoke. "We should sight the Port's markers by tomorrow morning if the wind keeps up."
Pelli's chewing stopped.
I looked at the water ahead.
Rusk cleared his throat. "The crew will follow orders."
I glanced at him. "Your orders or mine?"
His jaw tightened.
Pelli looked between us like a man watching two barrels of powder roll toward a candle.
Rusk said, "Mine."
I smiled.
He continued, bitterly, "Unless the situation becomes unreasonable."
"My favourite kind."
"In which case," Rusk said, each word dragged out like it hurt him, "they may listen to you."
Pelli's eyebrows shot up.
I turned fully toward the captain. "Was that appreciation I hear Captain?"
"No."
"That sounded like appreciation."
"It was a warning."
"To them or me?"
"Yes," Rusk grumbled.
I grinned.
Rusk scowled at the horizon. "You are reckless, loud, ignorant of basic sailing terms, and possibly the most irritating man I have ever allowed to remain conscious on my deck."
"The ship prefers my company."
Rusk ignored my last words. "But you work. You've a keen eye for detail. You seem true to your word. You share food even after threatening people over stew."
"The stew mattered," I mumbled.
"I know the stew mattered." Rusk replied
"And?"
Rusk's mouth twisted. "And the crew is less afraid than they were."
I looked back across the deck.
One of the guards saw me looking and quickly pretended he had not been listening. A sailor nearby failed to hide a smile. The cook shouted from below that if anyone called it the stew room again, he would serve breakfast cold. Three voices immediately yelled, "Stew room!"
Pelli laughed.
I did too.
Even Rusk's scowl weakened at the edge, though he turned away before anyone could accuse him of being alive inside.
The Blue Gull creaked beneath us and cut onward through the grey water. It was not my boat. It was too big, too loud, too full of people, and it had an alarming number of ropes with stupid names.
It belonged to Rusk, officially.
But it really belonged to its crew, practically.
And if I was stretching it, it belonged to the sea if the sea was feeling greedy, as I assume it normally would.
But for now, for this strange little stretch of water between losing everything and finding the man responsible for it, it carried me.
Pelli leaned on the rail beside me. "You know, for a guy who took over the ship by force, you're making a decent temporary crewman."
"I'm the captain."
"You're not the captain," Rusk yelled behind me.
"I defeated the captain." I grinned.
Rusk said, without looking back, "I am still the captain."
"You're the…steering captain."
"That is the captain."
"I'm the violent captain I guess"
Pelli rubbed his chin. "That does sound official."
"It does not," Rusk said.
A sailor from the rigging called down, "What about the stew captain?"
The deck went quiet.
I slowly looked up.
The sailors froze halfway through tying a sky rope.
Then the whole deck burst into laughter.
Pelli was bent over, wheezing.
Even Rusk, the hard-shelled captain, cracked a small grin.
…
End of Chapter!
Word Count - 2244