036. Precious Treasure
Characters: Arthur & Francis
Genre: Friendship
Rating: K
Time Period: after Tomatita

Pirate Battles

"Avast, maties! Yo ho ho!"

Captain Arthur Kirkland was currently traveling the seven seas, on the grandest adventure of his pirate life. Which was actually saying something, since he'd been on lots and lots of adventures since he'd become a dastardly pirate. He'd fought the Kraken and defeated the annoying pirate captain Francis and he'd pillaged all sorts of villages.

Right now, though, he was on a quest that was greater than any of those, as he was currently traversing the ocean in order to find the secret, hidden treasure of the evil Captain Dreadbeard. Hidden away on one of these abandoned, monster-filled islands.

"Swab the poopdeck!" he shouted.

But he immediately received a response of, "Non, I don't want to. I'm first mate, so I don't have to do the swabbing."

Captain Arthur turned and glared at where Francis, his now-first mate, was leaning against one of the walls of his ship, grinning from under his not-as-awesome-as-Arthur's pirate hat.

The only thing that would make this adventure much better was if he had a better crew. Unfortunately, he hadn't been able to choose a decent crew, as he'd arrived at the park this morning with his mum to find that only Francis, Antonio, and Lovina were playing on the playground. And Antonio had his own ship over near the sandbox.

Although Arthur supposed that at least Francis was a better first mate than Lovina. He couldn't imagine why Antonio wanted to play with her when all she did was yell at him and hit him with various objects.

"First mates have to do what the captain says!" Arthur explained as he pushed his hat up. It kept threatening to fall over his eyes, which definitely wouldn't help him inspire fear into his mutinying crew.

"I think I'd make a much better pirate captain," Francis responded, as he reached out and poked at Arthur's hat, sending it falling over his face. He flailed about for a few moments before he was able to settle it back into place.

Mutiny! "I'll make you walk the plank if you don't listen to me!"

Francis, of course, just shrugged and then crossed his arms over his chest. "Then I'll just join Antoine's crew and you can have no crew at all."

…You know, Arthur would much rather have Gill here to play with. Sure, she'd want to be captain too and they'd have to play rock-paper-scissors to decide, but at least she didn't talk back the entire time they were playing. But she had to go to piano lessons, which meant he was stuck with Francis.

Arthur frowned as he thought, and then sighed. "Fine, you don't hafta swab the poop deck. We're almost at the island anyway. It'd just get all dirty when we go out to search for the treasure."

And that seemed to satisfy Francis, as he grinned and leaned over the wall of the ship. "Bon, now where's the island?"

"It's…" Arthur hesitated, as he realized that he hadn't thought too hard about where the treasure would be hidden. His gaze crossed over the sea-playground. He could see his mum sitting next to Antonio's mum on a bench nearby, probably talking about boring grown up things. Near them were the swings and teeter-totters and sandbox.

"Over there," he finally decided and pointed toward the teeter-totters. "To get to the treasure, we have to go over those rickety bridges and past the swinging blades."

"Okay," Francis agreed easily. "Do we get to go now?"

Arthur thought about it for another moment and then nodded. "Yes. Before evil Captain Antonio and his crew get there first."

Although Antonio seemed more focused on Lovina than the treasure, as he seemed to be trying to convince her to give back his hat and spy glass. She was crushing both against her chest and presumably refusing to release them.

Which meant that Arthur and his crew currently had the upper hand. Francis immediately left his post and headed toward the rope ladder that led off the play place and down to the ground. "Last one down's a rotten egg!"

Of course, Arthur didn't have a chance at beating him, since he'd cheated.

"I'm gonna feed you to the sharks!" he shouted as he climbed after his renegade first mate. Who was already running toward the teeter-totters.

"Gotta catch me first, Captain!" Francis was laughing as he raced toward the teeter-totters. He climbed on top of one of them and carefully walked across, easily keeping his balance as it shifted with his movement.

It didn't take too long for Arthur to catch up. Francis was only about halfway across when he reached the end.

"I'm the Captain! I'm supposed to be leading!"

Francis turned his head and sent him an amused smirk. "Maybe that means I should be the captain. I'm faster and smarter and better than you."

And that was it. Arthur was the captain; he shouldn't be disrespected by his stupid crew. He sent Francis an infuriated glare and then threw himself heavily on the end of the teeter-totter so the opposite side was thrown upwards and knocked Francis off balance.

Which probably wasn't a good idea, he realized, as Francis fell hard onto his knees and just barely managed to keep himself from toppling off the teeter totter. Arthur heard the sound of feet rushing toward them and knew he was going to be in big trouble.

"Arthur!"

Yeah, that was Mum's 'you are in so much trouble right now' voice. He winced as he walked over to where Francis was holding his knee and saw that there was blood and his pants were all torn up from where he'd fallen.

Francis didn't cry, though; he just pressed his hand over the cut and sat there. And Arthur wasn't sure what to do.

All he could really do was wait until his and Antonio's mothers arrived after a few moments that seemed like much longer to Arthur. Antonio's mum immediately knelt down in front of Francis with a package of tissues from her purse. She smiled up at him and murmured reassuringly, then pressed a wad of tissues against his cut to stop it from bleeding. Meanwhile, Arthur's mum started scolding him and then grabbed his hand… "We are going home right now, Arthur Charles Kirkland, and you are grounded for the entire weekend!"

"But…" He could see Antonio and Lovi watching him from their ship. "But, mummy…"

She ignored him, turning toward Antonio's mum. "Are you okay to take Francis and the others home or do you want me—"

"We're all right. It is not a bad cut." She turned and sent Arthur a smile. "I am sure Arthur didn't mean to hurt his friend, yes?"

"No…" He'd just wanted to stop Francis from being stupid and now he was in lots of trouble and Mum would probably tell his dad and he'd yell at him…

Mum tugged his arm sharply. "You should tell Francis you're sorry."

"Sorry." Francis didn't look super mad or anything, at least. He was distractedly playing with the strings hanging off his ripped jeans right now.

He tilted his head for a moment as he stared at Arthur, as if thinking about whether to accept his apology. Then he smiled slightly. "It's okay. But this means that next time I get to play the captain!"

Arthur supposed that seemed like a fair trade, although he wasn't looking forward to giving up his captain hat. He nodded, though, and then followed reluctantly as his mum tugged him toward the parking lot in a walk of shame past all of the other kids.

A/N: Short little story today… Arthur and Franny have forever been frenemies, even when they were tiny little pirates.

Mm, not much to say. Please review? I haven't been getting many reviews on my chappy's recently and it makes me a little sad.

Oh, and Arthur's middle name is Charles... Because... Charles was an English king? And I'm doing my senior thesis on him so right now I think English kings and I'm like CHARLES. Or JAMES. Oh senior thesis, I should be working on you. Instead I am writing fanfics.

Precious treasure is because 1) they're precious little things and 2) they're looking for treasure. Weee~

Next prompt shall be Eyes.