Hey y'all, here is the new chapter! Hope you enjoy!
New edit: This chapter is now a fully-fledged 2017 wonderful rewritten thing!
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Max
Yeah, so this pirate stuff is a bit harder than I thought.
We work through the day, scrubbing down the decks, and setting out the sails to greet the winds. Iggy prepares food for the evenings, while someone else takes over at the helm. Then we sleep in dark dormitories at night. Everywhere has the distinctive scent of salt, while Nudge's room is peppered with occasional smells of sharp perfume, which she seems to spray when I'm not around. My hair smells of it now, too. Horribly, I'm actually getting used to it.
I'm getting used to a lot of things on this ship, actually. Breakfast of biscuits. The loose and comfortable clothing. Endless heat of the day, and the stinging, endless cold of night. And, of course, Captain Talkative being a complete and total pain in my derriere. Not all that unexpected, however. He doesn't talk, just looks at me like I'm a piece of crud on his shoe. So I show my indifference, by not glaring when I feel like it.
Sometimes, I go out on deck at night, when it's lit by pale moonlight, and watch the others. The people I don't know, and those I met on the deck. The boys laughing, and throwing around drinks, and clashing of swords. Like some sort of primal dance, they bounce back and forth, swinging glinting metal in deep arcs, over and under their opponent. Playing, and not intending to hit their target. I want to learn how to fight, but that would never be allowed. For the same reason I can't join their little meetings in the end cabin. It's because I'm not part of the crew.
Iggy jokes about that, anyway.
Time is strange here, too. The days pass slowly, with the sun barely rolling past across the child, like a sleeping child that doesn't want to get out of bed. Then, just like that, the moon is sliding and gliding across midnight skies, and the night eventually slipping away from me again, as another day passes through my fingertips, like smoke. I don't bother counting the days, and hardly even register that they are there, because time drifts in that same undisguisable way, and there isn't need to take notice. Back home, I would watch the hours tick by, and wait for moments that I knew were coming. Now, I don't need to know the time, and I have no way to check it anyway. I know I have to be up at sunrise, be at breakfast, lunch when called, then sleep when the sun sets and the shifts are finished. It's dull, but it's routine.
I guess you could say I've made friends too. Iggy and I apparently became friends when I puked beside him. Nudge and I share a room, so we end up talking at some point - no matter how begrudgingly it was, at first. Though, I say talking, she really kind of talks at me, and occasionally pauses after she asks questions. I haven't met Ella properly - she's so busy downstairs all day that she's never around when I'm about, although she supposedly helps Iggy with cooking. She doesn't eat with us though, instead eating with the kids in a 'less hostile environment'. Yeah, that made me laugh too.
"Max?" a voice calls from several feet away, accompanied by a sudden pattering of feet. I turn, trying to block the bright sunlight from my eyes, and look over the tall figure standing over me. Iggy, it has to be. "Sunlight in your eyes?" He jokes at my expense. Iggy is the joker, I realise. Captain Talkative smiled once at a joke Iggy made before Fang turned away. Some sort of vulnerability complex maybe?
"Hi?" I say, remembering to respond.
Who the heck is steering the ship?
I have no idea
Thank you to that sarcastic inner voice in my head. Iggy is here, kids are below with Ella, and Captain in his cabin. That leaves... Nudge. Oh crap. Nudge is steering the ship. Will she be okay? Has she done this before? Are we all going to perish at her ribbon-filled hands? Iggy looks behind him at Nudge steering, and he laughs shortly. Like a 'she'll probably be fine' kind of laugh. But then his face is serious again.
"Captain Walker wants to see you," Iggy explains, frowning. This action makes it easier to see the lines where sunburn has harmed his especially pale skin. The frown looks out of place on his face - ha, rhyme - because I'm so used to seeing him carefree.
"Why?"
"He didn't say." He pauses. "He said it's important though. Maybe he wants to give you something. In private." Iggy raises an eyebrow. I hit him in the arm, hard enough to get him to break the façade of seriousness.
"Guess I'll follow you then," I mutter. With one final glance, back at Nudge, who waves genially, I follow Iggy to the door of many doors, down below. I'm not sure why, but it definitely feels like I'm walking the death march to a hanging of some kind. As far as I'm aware, I haven't done anything wrong. I stuck to my timetable, and did everything I got told to. Sure, I'm a bit sarcastic...
Iggy's bright hair flickers like flames from the candlelight, dimly lit at this time of day. Before us, the corridors seem to twist and turn, and I am completely lost after we pass the room in which Nudge and I sleep. It seems like a long time before we reach a heavy, dark-red door, and Iggy is knocking three times against it. He leans back against the wall beside the door, and I copy him, opposite. We wait for the voice to invite us inside. While we are waiting, I'm sifting through the thoughts of what the heck is going to happen to me. Am I finally going to be thrown off the ship? I am currently at the bottom of the food chain.
"Come in," grumbles a deep voice from the other side of the door. Iggy pops the handle down, and pushes the door open. He gestures for me to enter. Oh crap, don't be nervous.
"Good luck," Iggy mutters under his breath, before patting me lightly on the shoulder, and leaving. Damn him.
I stare into the room before going inside, glancing briefly back at Iggy's retreating form. Faint yellow light fills the room, adorned with various belongings. Captain's office, I find myself thinking. A desk is positioned before a wide window, with Captain Walker sitting behind it, in a plush, burgundy chair, stony-faced. I simply look back at him, hoping to seem fearless in spite of my sweating palms and crazily-fast heart-beat. He breaks eye contact first, glancing down at the papers before him, then tucking them away in a manila folder, and into a drawer in the mahogany desk. Finally looking away, I turn to the rest of the room. Dark red curtains, a great view of the sea, and three candles lit around the room for extra light. Two stand beneath a lavish painting of a red-haired beauty, a silken blue scarf clung to her body.
I really hope he doesn't throw me out the window
Shut up, he won't do that.
The thought just won't escape my mind, though. He could do. The water is right there. Churning beneath us. I'm pretty sure I can swim, but not well enough to survive something like that. Suddenly I feel as though I have walked into the proverbial jaws of the beast. The door clicks shut slowly behind me, like the snapping of a set of teeth; it leaves my arm tingling with nerves. Captain Walker looks up at me again, dark eyes set in a frown.
"Quit looking at me like that," I murmur quietly, but knowing that he can hear me. He cocks his head to the side, raising an eyebrow. Crap, don't antagonise him!
"Like what?" he asks, leaning forward on his hands, dark hair shining in the light falling onto it. An eerie silence fills the room, and I have to prevent it from making me clammy. Everything about him is too dark; he is too much of a shadow to leave me any shred of comfortable in his presence.
"Like I'm some kind of sacrificial goat."
It's true. He stares at me in a way that makes me think I will be the goat he sacrifices to the devil – not that I am that important – or that he might viciously attack m at any given moment. It's like he can't make up his mind about whether to kill me, or keep me around to cause my own personal torture. Definitely something sinister about him. Too quiet for his own good, and he's not around much to make much more of an impression. It might just be a scary pirate thing, with the brooding. Maybe I'm paranoid.
The captain shrugs.
"What do you want from me?" I ask, in spite of my racing heart. I fold my arms across my chest. Power pose. Hopefully I look coolly fed-up. He hasn't killed me yet, so I'm on the side of the bet that says he won't kill me. Maybe he'll just shout, or ask me questions. It's undetermined whether he's going to be civil or not.
"You know what we do on this ship?" I nod in response. Fighting, trading, piracy. "Then there are rules, if you're planning to stay."
"Fine, like – wait, what? You're letting me stay?" He simply nods. It makes me mad that he doesn't even qualify the question with a verbal response. "Why?"
For one, why the hell would he want me on the ship? I'm new, and therefore unreliable. No one here has any idea about my life, apart from the minimal information I've shared with Nudge at her incessant questions. The crew are all friends. Not a single one of them know me in any respect. I never planned to be a part of this, or a part of anything for that matter. I just wanted to get away from my life on the island.
"As much as I hate to say it, we can't afford to lose you," he says shortly. "You've become part of routine, and a member of the crew. You just have to decide whether you want to continue your role as 'one of the guys', or with Nudge and Ella."
"What are my options?" I'm thinking that if I was with the other girls, I would not be doing any of the cool piracy stuff, and would be involved with children. The very thought of that makes me feel sick. On the other hand, do I want to potentially lose my life in loots, or fighting my way across abandoned shores. "Sewing or sword fighting?"
"Pretty much."
"Sword fighting then. I hate sewing."
At this, I swear he almost cracks a smile.
Problem is, I have never wielded a proper sword, or done anything pirate-like in my life. Some of the boys from the Home played with wooden ones, and I occasionally joined in on the cool nights by the fire. Those very few moments in which I managed to get away from the girls' dormitories and headed way out into the night with my best friend, John. My only friend.
"I'm going to go ahead and assume you're not trained?" I say nothing in response. "Fine. Then you can be taught here."
"By who?" I blurt.
"Me."
GREAT. Captain Crazy-Pants is going to be throwing swords at me, and probably killing me a lot more publicly on the deck in a short while. Just great.
Maybe it won't be like that…
And yet, my mind cannot help but conjure up horrific images of myself pinned to a mast by a sword to the chest, on display like a bad homework on a corkboard. I would never have expected to get one-on-one lessons with this guy, especially in sword fighting. It definitely does feel like a death-wish. Like he will actually be carving me up for dinner. Urgh.
"Tomorrow morning, meet me on deck and we'll see how you handle it. You have to learn from the best."
God, his ego is horrific for someone so quiet.
Pay attention!
"That's it. Leave now," he says curtly, turning back to his desk and the folder laying in the drawers. He doesn't look up again, and I scowl at his rudeness. Whatever. This means I am going to have to show him every ounce of the strength I have. And learn how to be damned good at sword fighting overnight.
When I return to the deck, the sun is still shining hotly, and just starting to set against the sky. My tin bucket is where I left it, with the now-dried rag lying beside it. Back to work then, and tomorrow will bring a whole new set of skills into play.
This could get interesting.
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