The meeting was taking forever. The island was more quiet than usual other than the occasional crash from another pirate ship that was docked at the island. The Sea Grail was also quiet, like the island. One or two crew members walked around the deck, trying to find something to do while patrolling. Rigger was on the bottom floor of the ship, sleeping on his bed next to the steps. There were also five other members of the crew who still were onboard, for safety reasons most likely.

The five kids were all patiently waiting, surprising for younger kids, for the rest of the crew to get back. Tawny, Oliver, Edith, Roulan, and Ivo all remained on the bottom deck as well, where all the beds and hammocks were placed for sleeping. Roulan sat on his own bed, Tawny and Oliver sat on another bed, and Edith and Ivo swung on one of the hammocks. Despite the five of them being together, the lower deck was bare and boring. They were all used to each others' company, so not having other snoring and squirming members of the crew laying around them was odd.

"When do you think they are coming back, " Edith asked while scratching at her head, moving her fingers through her short dirty blonde hair, which she still wasn't used to. The other kids just shrugged.

It wasn't so much that they wanted the whole crew to come back as it was that they wanted Lewis to come back. When the crew had left for the meeting, Lewis seemed to disappear, so they all assumed that he had went with them. They didn't know why, considering the group of kids were just seen as helpers on the ship and not actual pirates yet.

They had already caused some trouble since they arrived at the island. But they only saw it as defending themselves, not trying to prove anything.

"It isn't fair! We should be allowed to go too! We are a part of this crew!" Ivo didn't bother hiding his irritation.

"They went to a pirate meeting. Are you saying that you're a pirate, now?" Roulan growled, glancing in the general direction of Ivo.

Ivo went silent. He wasn't about to call himself a pirate, but what was he thinking? Saying that? None of the kids saw themselves as pirates. They were just kids who were taken by pirates and forced to join their crew. That didn't make them pirates...did it? None of them had ever stolen anything, collected gold, or killed anyone, so surely they weren't.

Each of the kids stayed silent for a period of time, considering the question. Were they pirates? Were they turning into pirates? Each of them missed their homes in Greymouth. They wanted to go home to Greymouth and act as if nothing had ever happened. Even if Greymouth had been rebuild and repaired and things were the way they were, not everyone could return back to a normal life.

Tawny looked down at the ground, memories flashing in her head. The ship in the shadows of the sea. The flag with crossbones. The canons. The Inn. Her mother...

She shook herself out of those thoughts, standing suddenly. "We can't just sit here. We need to do something. We aren't going to sit at the bottom of this ship and wait for them to come back. Even if we aren't pirates, we have a right to know what is going on, " she stated, surprised at her own confidence.

For a moment, the other four kids sat in silence, staring at her with confused looks on their faces. It didn't last long as Oliver stood up next to her. "I agree. Just because we are kids doesn't mean we can't know. Come on guys."

He stated, walking towards the steps of the lowest floor of the ship, not waiting to see if the others were following. He tried to make his footsteps quiet since they didn't want Rigger or the other two members that were still on board to know what he was doing. He quickly and quietly made his way up the steps to the middle floor, turning his head to see that the other four kids were all right behind him. He turned again, checking the top of the steps for the other crew members. He didn't hear or see anyone, so he started to climb the steps, keeping himself low to them incase the other two were awake. He peeked up onto the main deck of the ship. He saw one of the crew members standing at the back of the ship, staring out at the sea. The other member was asleep against the railing of the upper deck, a dark colored bottle hanging from his hand.

Oliver turned around to face the others, keeping his voice low. "One of them is awake, but we can sneak passed him. I'm going to get to the edge of the ship and see if I can hide behind one of the canons. You guys can get off first. I'll keep watch. But only come one at a time, okay?" The other four kids nodded. Roulan didn't seem overly thrilled of the idea, but Oliver didn't care.

The red-haired boy glanced at the awake pirate again before getting onto the deck, tip-toeing over to the canon that was closest to the docks, crouching down behind it. The pirate was still standing there, not moving. Oliver motioned with his hand for the first of the kids to come over. Roulan was the one who pushed passed the others, checking the two pirates before making a quiet dash towards the edge of the ship, not bothering to stop to hide with Oliver. He climbed over the side of the ship's railing, making his way down the ramp connected to the ship and onto the main dock. Oliver lightly shook his head before motioning to the next kid. Ivo was the next one to come, only he moved very slowly, constantly checking to see if either of the pirates were looking. He made snail-like progress all the way to the canon that Oliver was at. The next to come was Tawny. She checked both of the pirates before quickly walking over to the canon, hiding behind it next to Oliver. The only one left was Edith.

She looked back and forth between the two pirates, starting to creep towards the other kids. She suddenly stopped, staring over at the awake pirate. He was letting out a groan while stretching, cracking his neck and knuckles. Occasionally he would turn his torso to crack his back, which made Edith duck low to the deck. When he seemed done with whatever he was doing, she crawled over to the other kids, hiding behind the canon and trying to quietly let out the breath she didn't know she was holding.

Each of the kids took turns climbing up over the railing like Roulan had done, Oliver being the last to do so. Once all of them had made it onto the dock, they ran towards the land, making it off the dock and hiding in a small patch of trees and bushes that were next to the docks. Each of them, except Roulan of course, let out silent giggles, thinking about the fact that they had just snuck off of a pirate ship, which was something they never thought they would ever be able to say that they did.

While they did, Roulan pointed out something that none of them had really thought of. "Do any of us even know where this stupid meeting is happening?"

They all stopped and exchanged looks, realizing that they didn't know where it was. None of them were ever told where the place was, just that it was a building meant for pirates only. Though, to them that didn't make sense, since Lewis had went with them.

Roulan smacked his face with his palm, shaking his head before checking the area around them. He climbed out of the bushes and went towards the circle of bars that they had originally been in. They couldn't really confirm it, but most of the drunks that had been there before were hopefully all at that meeting.

"I don't think we should be going this way, " Edith said quietly, not moving from the very edge of the bushes they had been hiding in. The other kids looked back at her, somewhat confused as to why she would say that. Some of them seemed more open to going in a different direction, but two of them weren't.

"What are you talking about? How are we suppose to find out where this meeting is if we don't either look for it ourselves or ask someone where it is, " Roulan growled, walking out into the center of the circle of bars, looking around for anyone.

"Come on Edith. We can't stay right here. We can try to find Lewis, " Ivo stated, reaching out for her hand. For a moment the girl considered taking it, but she hesitated. She looked back up at him and shook her head, grabbing onto Tawny's arm. "I'm not going. We aren't going."

Ivo frowned, but didn't seem angry. He turned and followed Roulan into the open, looking in the windows of the bars to see if anyone was still there.

Tawny and Oliver both looked at Edith and each other, considering what other options they had. Oliver looked back at the docks, seeing the Sea Grail right down the trail from them. He then looked at some of the other ships that were currently positioned at the docks. It was too dangerous to ask any of the other pirates for help, but they also couldn't do it on their own. If we try to ask someone in town or on the ships there's a chance that we wouldn't get answers or would just get hurt. But if we try to go out and find the meeting ourselves it might be over by the time we find it. Even if we did find it, what would we do then? Walk right in and say we are pirates?

He shook his head, grabbing onto both Tawny and Edith's hands before walking off to the right, not towards the docks or the bars. Both girls looked at him, puzzled in where he was going, or where he thought he was going. He took note of their looks, but didn't say anything. After a minute of walking he turned again, towards the ocean. They got to the beach when he stopped and sat in the sand. Edith and Tawny looked at him and each other, watching as he started drawing something in the sand with his fingers. "What are you doing?"

"Drawing what places we know." In the sand there was a curved line, a couple squares, a few letters, and more boxes above those. Both girls had no idea what any of this meant or what picture Oliver had in his head, but whatever it was made no sense.

Once he thought he was done, Oliver pulled his hand back onto his lap, rubbed the sand off of them, and looked at what he had drawn. He pointed beneath the line he made, closest to him, where there was SG written in the sand. "This is the ship. The boxes above it are the docks, and this line is the edge of the land where the water comes up to. We are right here, " he said as he placed a small star right above the line that represented the shore. He then pointed at squares above the docks that were in a circle. "We know that these are all bars in this area and maybe an inn, but that is it."

"If that's what those are, then what are the lines leading away from the circle?"

"When we first got here I saw two paths that lead out of the bar area. One of them went off to the left, the opppsite direction we came in to get here. The other lead the opposite direction of the ship. I would guess that the place the meeting is at would be somewhere near the middle of the island. But we don't know how big this island is or how many other pirate crews are here. We should-" he turned to look at the girls, but both of them were looking towards the ocean, eyes wide. He turned his head to look in the direction that they were looking.

Through the darkness he could see a ship, a large ship, coming towards the island. He couldn't really tell for sure, but from where he sat the ship looked dark brown and had black sails, though that was usually normal for a pirate ship. Maybe a crew was late? But he looked again, closer this time as the ship made its way closer. If he was correct, there were holes in the sails. Somehow that didn't seem right. He didn't know a whole lot about the sails, but surely nobody purposely wants there to be holes in them, right? All three of the kids watched as the ship came to one of the empty docks. Stopping slowly. The ship and any life on it went still.

A loud thud came from a ramp falling down against the wood planks of the dock. Pirates began climbing down from the ship, some of them looking normal while others had odd features. The three kids watched as nearly the whole crew seemed to walk off of the ship. There was one pirate that stood out to them though. A man walked off of the ship wearing a large black hat with feathers on it. He had long hair down to his shoulders and a beard to match. They could see that he was talking, but none of them could hear what he said. They watched as he walked across the dock, stopping suddenly in the middle of it. He looked around for a moment before spotting the three kids.

In a way, the three of them didn't blame him. They didn't know pirates or pirate islands very well, but they had a feeling that seeing three young kids sitting on a beach at a pirate island wasn't common. For a moment he looked at them, but didn't seem to say or do anything, or really react. he then turned and continued walking, heading towards the circle of bars.

The three kids looked at one another, thinking for a moment. They hadn't heard very many stories about actual pirates, just ones that were made up. For a few seconds they thought about why he seemed familiar. That was until they realized where he was going. Him and his crew are going to the bars...Roulan and Ivo are there, they all thought, jumping to their feet and starting to run in the general direction of the bars, not going straight too them. As they arrived and were able to see into the circle, they saw some of the crew members from that ship, holding onto two figures. The kids gasped when they realized that Roulan and Ivo were both being restrained, the pirate with the feathered hat standing in front of them and looking down at them with a grey, toothy smile.


It took a while, but I got it done. Some things are starting to pick up. Some new people are showing up. I'm not gonna give away too many clues, but I'm sure everyone can guess who just showed up. Ask and you shall receive.

Hope you enjoyed!