10) Talented Fishies

We were off duty, now. On the Dutchman, things go in a cycle; half of the crew work, half of the crew rest, and vice versa. My half of the crew was bored. Of course, I had a brilliant idea. I looked around at them all, sitting around, chatting a bit, not really up to anything.

"I know what to do," I said with a slow smile, "Let's have a talent show..."

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They seemed to warm up to the idea surprisingly fast; I guess they'd all developed their own talents and suchlike during their time here, which came with their fishy bodies. And everyone likes to show off something – anything about themselves that was special and different. And if the dear crew of the Dutchman were anything, it was... 'special' and different.

So, crates were pushed around, arrangements were made. There was a bunch of table and chair crates and barrels, arranged to face a sort of stage... which was made up of another bunch of crates. Also, being seamen, an ungodly amount of rum found itself accidentally wandering around on the tabletops. And, honestly, you'll be able to tell – they just got rowdier and rowdier. Heh. I wont go into detail of all of the performances, but I will showcase to you some of the more... extraordinary ones.

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The Twins did a rather unique performance, in which they read each other's minds; they'd roll a dice and let one of them see it and the other one not, and then the second one would, after a few seconds, tell you what was on the dice. It was pretty good.

Koleniko's special act was... uh, odd. "Don't even ask how I foun' out I coul' do this," He said to us with a shrug, before putting a hand over his nose, taking a deep breath, and then he closed his eyes and strained, his breath unable to escape. Immediately, half of his face started ballooning, which made the crew roar with laughter and begin causing havoc, downing rum and catcalling. One of his eyes bulged, and his cheek was stretched to nearly three times it's normal size. He looked pretty freaky. Then he took his hand off of his nose, though his face stayed in it's swollen state, and then did a running jump off of the stage, shouting something along the lines of 'bleargh!' at a bunch of men; upturning a table, and causing a minor scuffle between him and Broondjongen. Playfighting? Huh, boys will be boys...

When Hadras was pushed onto the makeshift stage, there was not a sober man, or fish, in the house. On the stage, he turned towards a couple of crates, and then leaning back, whacked his head against it as hard as we could. Before we could all wonder what sort of a talent this was, his head suddenly came off – flying into the audience. Oops, bad idea. Men were picking it up and throwing it to each other, while Hadras' body staggered about on the stage.

Jimmylegs was also called up to the stage... he jeered at the crowd, thrashing his cat o' nine tails through the air, "You all knows what my talent is," he said with a sneer. There were shouts of agreement, though some of the men near the front sounded a little apprehensive. Jimmy looked around from the stage, and smirked, "I'm goin' ta need a volunteer..."

Absolute silence fell.

"You, get up 'ere," He said, pointing at Angler, who swore loudly. The sound of jeering and mockery once again filled the air, and I wanted to intervene, wanting this to be just harmless fun, but there was no point in resisting once Jimmy had his mind set on something. Angler was stood on the stage, where he eyed Jimmy distrustingly. Jimmy raised the whip in the air...

And then spun towards the audience, bringing the whip smashing down towards one of the front tables. Barrels that were being used as chairs rolled and bounced away across the deck, as the men on that table – the ones who had been jeering at Angler most – leapt backwards, alarmed, with general shouts of fear. When Jimmy brought the whip back towards him, entwined in it's tails was a bottle of rum; he stuffed the end of it into Angler's mouth, who downed it, and then Jimmy laughed heartily and gave him a colossal pat on the back which made him spit the bottle out of his mouth, sending it rolling away across the floor. One of Jimmy's 'friendly' pats on the back are strong enough to kill a lesser man. The crowed roared with laughter once more, and I smiled, glad that the violence hadn't come up.

Maccus walked in, looking down at us. Obviously thinking, this isn't meant to be happening, but he had no basis to punish us on, as this wasn't exactly against the rules. It was our break, and we'd do what we liked with it, thank you very much! I'd noticed him sort of eyeing the stage, trying to pretend he wasn't watching the show. I threw a rum-bottle at him, and he caught it deftly, looking around to me. I gave him a thumbs up. He scowled at me.

But he did drink the rum.

"Hey, Palafico, why don't you have a go?!" I cried out to him suddenly. And I have to admit, I was a bit... tipsy, too. And, uh, by that – I mean I can't really remember too much of what was happening at this point. Hey! If you can't beat 'em, join 'em...

There was some mild protesting on his part, but that's what all of the men did; and you could tell that they were all positively glowing at the prospective of showing off some of their tricks. As far as I can remember, Palafico did some neato tricks with his swords. Like, stuff that wouldn't bee too useful in a real fight, but was impressive nonetheless. Being ambidextrous does have upsides!

"I thought you were pissed off of your head?!" I said as he sat down again.

"I am," He said with a shrug, "Or else I never would've been able to do that. 'S weird like that." Hmm, nice reasoning there, Palafico.

After a while, attention suddenly came to Maccus, after Jimmylegs made some sneering comment about being 'too shy'. Maccus? Shy? Yeah right, and Maccus proved as much by smacking Jimmy's head into the table he was sitting at. This started a minor brawl, though the fighting subsided after a few minutes.

"I knows wha' Maccus can do," Koleniko slurred, "'E can sing. I 'eard 'im."

"Go to hell, Niko," Maccus snarled at him, but our minds were set on it now. The men started up their shouting again, thumping on the tables and suchlike.

"Go on, Maccus!"

"'Ave a go!"

"Give it a try!" At the calls, Maccus frowned severely, and shot us all look as if he were above this childishness. I pouted at him.

"If you don't sing, I will!" I called out. Some men groaned, but most of them just laughed. Maccus shot me an evil look, but stayed where he was, folding his arms – an act of finality. He was first mate, so the men decided they wouldn't goad him any more... in any other case they probably would have picked him up bodily and thrown him on stage.

"Go on then, Bibsy," Palafico said with a smirk. Damn, he wanted revenge for making him go on stage too, right?

"Well, I'm the judge, y'know..." I said, uncertainly, "I'm not meant to perform. I choose who's the winner. So who's goin' to go next?" It was fruitless. The men were all sniggering at each other, probably wondering what talent I possessed, and what on earth I would do on stage.

I did have one talent... but I couldn't do it on a stage. See, my transformation had changed me into... well, a half-dolphin thing, with gills so I could sort of breathe underwater, my feet had grown to a ridiculous and unreasonable size, bigger then some of the men on board, and heaven forbid, that's next to impossible. (Ugh. I don't even want to think about what they say about men with big feet...)

My legs can do this thing... even I'm not sure how it works... the joints that attach my legs to my pelvis (biology was never my best subject) sort of snap into this position, and my legs are sort of sealed together by this flap of skin, and I can use it as a sort of tail, and it makes me one of the quickest swimmers on board. Not that I ever need to swim. Sigh. Still, if you have a talent, it's better then nothing. But it was nighttime, and the waters were black and dangerous. No thanks.

"Alright, I'm going," I said, and the men all started laughing again, still tipping back the rum, and I thought, I can use their drunkenness to my advantage. I wonder what stupid things they'll do...? I clambered up onto the stage, taking a bow. There only songs I could think of that would work at the moment were mostly shouted so there was not too much need for tune, which was a good thing.

Major memory lapses at this point. To be totally honest with you, 'tipsy' went on to mean 'completely off my head' at this point, and whenever I bring up the subject, the crew just start smirking about how 'Bibsy can't handle her drink'. Ughhh.

But I know it was good. I showed them some crazy dance-moves, breakdancing style, as well as showing them the art of headbanging; which wasn't too good for Hadras at the moment, but hey, it worked, sort of. And the stage was gone and the crates were scattered, and then there was just laughter and shoving and shouting and singing. More men seemed to arrive out of nowhere; I realised that the shift of the other half was over, but didn't care. I just wanted to stay at this party forever.

And suddenly, I was being grabbed roughly by the arm and there was silence and I didn't know what was happening, because I was too funked up on rum which I shouldn't have drank because I was little and not used to it and hadn't eaten in a while. I looked up at Davy, who was frowning, probably because he doesn't like the sound of fun and laughter. I was too confused though, too happy. The other men were well used to the effects of alcohol, and shut up immediately, but it made me weird.

Uh, weirder.

"I should've guessed you were the little ringleader," He said quietly, dangerously. He looked up, at Maccus, who was sort of edging away, as if trying to disassociate himself from us all. I wasn't sure if he'd joined in with the... general madness that had just occurred. I guess not.

"Ringleader?" I asked, blearily. I heard a distinct laugh somewhere in the crowd, as I slurred insanely.

"Duty change was one minute ago," Davy said, his voice dangerous, "If you're not all in your places in exactly fifteen seconds, there will be a lot of work for the bo'sun's cat." Men immediately began vanishing; and the men who had just come off of their shifts were laughing at the insanity that had just taken place, grabbing bottles of rum that were left over and downing them before heading off.

Davy dropped me onto the decking, and shot me a look full of, 'you are so dead when you're sober, missy,' with a hint of, 'I can't believe how stupid you are'. Yeah, I'm good at reading these looks, aren't I? Anyway, I staggered to my feet, and smiled happily. Clanker, who'd just come off duty, gave me a prod in between the shoulder blades, which made me nearly fall over.

"Who let her drink rum?" He asked, in pretend disbelief.

"I'm not drunk... I'm... full of rum..." I said, glancing around, wondering where my half of the crew had vanished to. Everything seemed to be wavery.

NB: Yay! Party! ...there isn't much else to say. I'm not so good at writing from the point of view of somebody drunk, am I? Oh well... another thing for the list of things I need to improve on... starting with fight scenes... haha, I'm always saying about how crap I am at them.

Trust me. They will explode your brain.