A Pirate's Life
It was the time of fighting, 1588. The "invincible" Spanish Armada was about to conquer the sea and prepared itself for a war with England - a thorn in Arthur's eye. The Spanish Armada was the Spanish fleet that sailed against England with the intention of overthrowing Elizabeth I of England and putting an end to her involvement in the Spanish Netherlands and in privateering in the Atlantic and Pacific.
7 o' clock in the morning, he could hear the rain pattering on the little window of his room. They were on the ship since more than a week now but it wasn't the same as usual. Their ship wasn't only sailing around the world to conquer new countries, no. It was on its way to destroy the Spanish Armada, the ships of his former friend, Antonio Fernández Carriedo.
It was always the same, he would get up in a few minutes and would wash himself first, slip into his clothes and hurry onto the ship's deck to check if everything was alright and if the crew was working correctly yet. That was exactly what he did just now. No- it wasn't the same this time because before Arthur left to walk outside of his stateroom he took a sip from a bottle of rum and shook his head felt oh-so-wrong but right at the same time, he knew he had a very mighty fleet and he was conviced they would be able to defeat the Spaniard's armada. But maybe that was the problem?
Eventually the blond Captain got himself to open the door and walk outside on the deck, he checked if everything was alright and then took place behind the control wheel. He felt the eyes of his crew staring at him but he actually didn't really mind. His own green soul-mirrors were looking straight ahead into the infinitely wideness of the ocean in front of their sailing ship, seemed to be empty. Arthur's didn't actually realize what was happening. He didn't want to fight the Spaniard and wasn't able to believe everything went that far suddenly, was he captured in the good old times again?
Suddenly he was ripped out of his dreams when one of his men on the ship yelled, there was a ship in front of them and they weren't able to recognize the flag on it yet. The Captain's heart began to race and he trembled slightly but didn't even show he was afraid on the inside, he just acted tough like he used to do. During the minutes they went closed to the other ship the crew already prepared themselves for fighting but then they noticed it was a ship of their allies - the Netherlands. The two ships sailed past each other quite close and all they did was to salute to the other crew, then the work continued.
Arthur was captured in his thoughts once again and eventually he gritted his teeth, there was this hatred; jealousy? Nobody but himself was the most powerful sea power, no way! At the same moment there were the memories of Antonio and himself. How they fought against each other as an exercise, how they used to go out for drinking in a pub together. Even how they kissed once when they drank a little too much, and also how they kissed without even drinking the smallest sip. The blond used to like the brown-haired, no mistaking. Maybe he even liked him too much, who cared. He shook his head for himself and narrowed his eyes as his heart ached and his breath went heavy, turned the wheel to the right briefly.
Everything on the ship was wet and everybody's clothes and hair was rather sodden from the rain. Arthur himself was rather glad about the rain. First because it reminded him of his home and second because it was hiding his tears perfectly.