Author's note: Quadruple drabble for the "Alive" prompt at the Broken Compass. Thanks a bunch to FreedomOftheSeas for beta reading – and even more thanks for beta reading it so quickly :o]
Disclaimer: wonder what would happen if you introduced the actual Mister Mouse to the actual crew of the Black Pearl – with both captains :D Anyway, let them sort it out, 's not mine.
Alive
Night had fallen on the Caribbean sea.
As with the four previous evenings, it seemed to take an eternity for the darkness to finally settle, but when it did, it encompassed everything.
'Encompass'.
Funny word, Ragetti thought idly. Wonder if it's got aught to do with 'compass'.
He thought of asking Pintel, but after glancing at his old comrade's face, he thought better of it.
Plus, there was the fact that he didn't remember feeling so bloody tired in decades. One decade, to be exact. In fact, he couldn't remember feeling anything in this particular decade.
Escaping hanging in a dinghy was all very well, but they had a bit of a nasty shock when they discovered they'd forgotten to steal any food. They had been damn lucky to find the box of worm-ridden biscuits and smallish bottle of bad wine under the thwart.
That was almost five days ago, give or take a couple of hours.
Now, every crumb eaten, every drop drunk, they waited. And waited. Sometimes they did scull half-heartedly.
The day had been a beautiful, sunny one, without a spot of cloud in the sky, and, as a result, the crushing heat was quickly giving way to a damp cold. The salt made your skin sticky and raw all over. The sun only made it worse. It felt to Ragetti as though every inch square of him had been beaten by a sledgehammer handled by some very enthusiastic bloke.
Lately, he even found it difficult – or at least, worthy of a debate with himself – to pick up the bucket they used to bail. Sometimes he just watched his fingers twitch as though of their own accord and wondered why it felt so hard to move them when they seemed to be doing fine on their own.
And he could tell, for all his sarcasm, that Pintel was feeling that way too. (Well, maybe not the bit about the fingers, since there were times when Pintel seemed to be thinking there was something not quite right with Ragetti's brain, given the way it came up with apparently strange stuff.)
But the important thing here was that they were feeling something at all.
They weren't cursed.
They weren't hanged.
They were alive.
"Yer turn teh bail, Rags," said a weary voice, totally devoid of its usual bite.
For how long, though, he didn't know.
For the record, I think the currents did make them drift to Tortuga, where they resupplied before we find them off the Pelegosto island. And "encompass" is related to "compass" – it's a 1555 word, from en– ("make, put in") and "compass" (according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, space, area, extent, from Old French compas, from compasser 'to go around, measure, divide equally'. (...) The mariners' directional tool (…) took the name, perhaps, because it's round and has a point like the mathematical instrument.)
TTFN :o]