Author's Note:

Hmm… here's some more story goodness! Thanks so much for the great reviews and thanks to Whisperwings for editing with great finesse.

Chapter 22: Drink 'til You Drop

After dinner's conclusion, there was an unusual air of celebration in the RLS Legacy's mess hall. Barrels of alcohol were pulled from the provisions and served to the sailors by the pint. The captain herself had even joined her temporary crew in on the festivities, though she acquired a small table solely for herself.

There was mostly jeering and laughter throughout the mess hall as sailors grouped around the tables to get their share of alcoholic beverages.

Ariah silently entered the rowdy mess hall. She knew what this celebration was for… but it gave her more of a feeling of dread than of merriment.

The young scullery maid caught a snippet of conversation between the sailors of her crew who lacked cunning. Something about obtaining the real bearings to wherever they were voyaging to; through a means of getting Doctor Doppler drunk enough to blabber them.

Ariah chuckled softly to herself, hoping dearly that the unfortunate doctor could hold in his alcohol. The crew was always looking out to drink someone under the table for their own profit, even each other.

Though figuring out the actual whereabouts of where they were going would've been convenient; Ariah felt as if the information would not only take away from the fun of ignorance, but also would give her a feeling that her days on this particular voyage were numbered the closer they got to reaching their destination.

Ariah weaved through the crowds of sailors; being careful not to hit anyone's drinking arms nor spill any alcohol on her account. She eventually came up to the short wall that separated the mess hall from the galley and provided a small corridor down towards the RLS Legacy's pantry.

There was absolutely no one in the RLS Legacy's dark pantry, and for good reason… all the shelves of alcohol had been emptied.

There was a dull rumble as a few of the musically talented sailors brought out instruments and began playing the few songs they knew by memory in the mess hall.

Ariah elbowed the door behind her and climbed down the dark steps, deeper into the depths of the pantry. She ran her hand across one of the shelves on the mess hall's side of the pantry. She located a lantern and activated its solar-charged batteries, likely plugged into a power grid that was attached to one of the RLS Legacy's solar generators.

The dull lantern shone a deep amber glow across the pantry, shedding light on barrels and crates of provisions. The young woman looked around the large pantry, feeling a bit of claustrophobia rack her system; not that being in confined spaces had ever affected her before, else she wouldn't have made it this far in the sailing life.

Something was eerie about this place…

Suddenly, there was a loud smash from one of the shelves that caused Ariah to jump up in fright. She quickly snatched the lantern from its bracket and hurried towards the source of the noise.

Upon inspecting the shelves of the pantry Ariah concluded that there was nothing but a smashed pot. She sighed, frustrated at her insecurity and knelt down to observe the pot's damage.

The pot in question was a ceramic-based, the colour of clay bricks. Its contents, a series of strange marble-sized seeds, were scattered across the wooded floor of the pantry.

Ariah picked a seed up between her fingers and curiously examined it. She cautiously raised it up to her nose and sniffed it slightly.

A spicy humour entered her nostrils, but one that was pleasantly familiar. Ariah smiled, recognizing the exact spice that made Volcanic Lava Bursts one of the spiciest meals in the cosmos. She knelt down and set her lantern at her feet.

The black-haired teenager pushed aside the shards of broken ceramic, gathered up the marble-shaped seeds and located a small, empty burlap bag hanging nearby. She dropped all of the seeds into the bag, each falling with a gentle click.

Ariah hung the bag up onto on of the hooks in the pantry and then she sighed. Carefully to avoid injury, she piled up the broken pot's remains and searched for a safe place to put them. The pantry only bore stocked shelves of provisions, leaving hardly any room for anything else. Ariah sighed; her hands were full from the broken ceramic so she wouldn't be able to hold the lantern. She pondered for a moment until something dawned upon her.

"Morph." She called out over the muffled noises from the mess hall.

There was a small squeak from within the pantry as the tiny transformer entered the lantern light. Every time there was a celebration involving alcohol with the crew, Morph was always locked away, safe from the toxic drink.

Alcoholic beverages affected morphs ability to transform and too much of the substance lead to death in the young creatures. Silver had explained this to Ariah and had also locked her in small closets or pantries with Morph when she was younger. It was either her own good –as most of the time she was under-aged as far as drinking went- and also because Silver had a way of sweet-talking her into keeping Morph company.

Morph looked up at Ariah sweetly, his mouth full of food as usual. Ariah smiled down at the innocent transformer.

"Can you carry the lantern for me, Morphy?" Ariah asked.

Morph gulped down his food and nodded his head. Then the pink blob zoomed over to the lantern, chomping down on its handle with his mouth. Morph quickly flew at Ariah's eye-level, lighting the rest of the pantry.

Ariah quickly weaved through the confined pantry with her handful of broken clay-coloured ceramic. She glanced backwards at the empty pantry before using her foot to open the door and entering the noisy festivities in the mess hall.

"How's the tongue-loosening coming?" Scroop whispered discreetly to Mister Gillis –a short, rat-like alien who served as a quick messenger in Silver's crew.

Mister Gillis snickered quietly. "The doctor can hold in his alcohol…" His bright-green eyes widened at the angered look Scroop soon gave him. "Unfortunately he's drunken some of our crew under the table." The dark brown-furred alien shuddered a bit and gnawed his yellow pointed teeth against his thin lips. "Even Birdbrain Mary is starting to lose it… and she's one of the best drinkers in the crew." He tugged nervously at the edges of his sleeveless navy-blue jacket with his clawed paws.

"What about Ariah?" Scroop suggested. "She's the hardiest drinker in the crew."

Mister Gillis shivered a bit, his eyes flicked through the packed crowds. "We haven't seen her since the party started." He flinched and shoved his paws into his black trouser pockets. "Silver said that she'd likely be occupying Cabin Boy so he wouldn't get in on our case." His eyes shifted nervously.

Scroop paused. "For once her relationship with him is of use to the crew." He muttered silently under his breath. The crimson arachnid looked down at the quivering rat humanoid. "If Birdbrain Mary fails then get someone else, use the entire crew if we have to pry the bearings from the doctor."

The arachnid glanced at the passing by scullery maid, who strangely was carrying a handful of broken pottery and had the ever-irritating Morph floating at her shoulder.

"Silver should be able to keep Ariah in the dark." Scroop hypothesized. "…And in turn, Ariah should be able to keep Cabin Boy in the dark. Which means that we're still safe."

The rat alien nodded. "I'll pass the message on…" Mister Gillis glanced at the black-haired teenager exiting the mess hall. "But I'm not sure how much longer Birdbrain Mary is going to last." He motioned to the nearly unconscious, female sailor across from a rather cheerful Doctor Delbert Doppler.

There were many passed out sailors littering the floor around the table and Captain Amelia seemed to have retired to her personal chambers.

"I wonder if he actually is consuming the alcohol…" Gillis narrowed his bright green eyes suspiciously and his ears twitched slightly. "Or if it's some trick."

"Just do what I told you to do." Scroop hissed, turning away from the rat and disappearing into the hoards of sailors.

Mister Gillis shrugged and he crept towards the table where the drinking challenge was under way. He would likely be the next sailor in line if Birdbrain Mary failed to out-drink the doctor. This night wasn't going to end well for him…

Ariah pulled on her bungee chord harness and secured it to the side of the slightly swaying RLS Legacy. The ship had been anchored for the evening in an asteroid field, especially because the evening's festivities that would've surely impaired many of the sailors; thus making the job more dangerous than necessary.

The young scullery maid hopped up onto the railing of the ship with her handful of broken pottery and she scanned the tilting starboard side for some crater-riddled asteroids. A particularly large one resided an arm's length away from the ship and it had many deep holes that didn't go all the way through the hunk of rock.

Ariah carefully hopped onto the asteroid, balancing herself appropriately as it spun under her weight. The space matter soon halted its dipping and swerving to finally settle in the reduced solar winds. Ariah smirked and began dropping shards of the shattered pottery into the crevasses of the asteroids.

Once she had completely disposed of the ceramic, Ariah cautiously stepped back onto the RLS Legacy's starboard railing and watched the asteroid drift away. She smiled proudly and unlatched herself from her harness. The young woman then coiled the bungee chord and took her bundle of effects up into her arms.

"Morph, you should probably get back into the pantry…" Ariah stated. "Silver won't like it if he catches you near alcohol again."

Morph whimpered slightly, remembering one of the only times John Silver had ever gotten mad at him. He looked up at Ariah innocently.

"I'll be sure to get you early in the morning." She smiled. "So… we can watch the starlight on the space dust."

Morph giggled jovially at the thought and glanced at Ariah suspiciously.

"Well… if you want to sit around in the crew's quarters all night with me then yes, you can join me." She smiled slightly.

Morph cheered loudly, snuggling his cool body affectionately against Ariah's cheek.

Ariah chuckled and walked down through the lower decks towards the crews' quarters.

Upon entering the dimly lit room she bumped into someone.

"Hmm." Ariah snapped out of her thoughts and looked up at the person she had collided with. She smiled warmly. "Hey Jim…"

Morph instantly zoomed from Ariah's shoulder over to Jim's and licked Jim's face like an affectionate pet would.

"Hey… knock it off, Morph." Jim pushed the pink transformer away and shook the slobber from his face.

"Why aren't you at the party?" Ariah enquired.

"Same to you." Jim folded his arms over his chest but smirked at Ariah's presence.

Ariah chuckled lightly. "Well…" Ariah slipped past Jim to placed her bungee chord and harness into her duffel bag. "I'm not really feeling up to partying tonight." She hopped into her hammock and casually turned towards the brunette cabin boy.

Jim raised an eyebrow and sat down in the hammock across from Ariah's. "What exactly is the party for?" He asked faced the black-haired teenager.

Ariah shrugged. "It's all really from some sailing superstition." She stated and then sighed tiredly. "On the unluckily numbered week –that is, the thirteenth week- in any voyage –assuming that it's been on its voyage for that long- is some spiritual celebration for luck." Ariah pushed her slipping bandana back into place. "Really it was all about praying… rabbit's feet… horseshoes… and stuff, but now it's really one day of partying at the start of the week, and another day of partying at the end of the week; or that's how it seems." Ariah looked up into Jim's pale blue eyes. "I've never actually gotten through the entire thirteenth week as a sailor."

"How come?" Jim enquired, leaning forwards with his elbows on his knees.

Ariah frowned. "Either the voyage is already planned to end before that, or something bad happens that forces it to end..."

"Like what?"

"Um… storms, and pirate invasions." Ariah huffed. "Like I said, I've never ended a thirteenth week of voyaging." She looked up at the bottom of Birdbrain Mary's hammock above her bitterly. "I guess I just don't have a sailor's good luck…" She sighed.

Jim looked over the moping teenager curiously. "But you are pretty lucky as far as I can tell…" He smirked lightly.

"How's that?" Ariah looked at Jim with a raised eyebrow.

"Well…" Jim inhaled deeply. "For starters; you can cope with Spider Psycho all the time, and me too." Morph quickly transformed into his caricature of the crimson alien and pranced about in mid-air, waving around his disproportionately large pincers.

Ariah smirked minutely. "Yeah… I guess that makes me lucky." She stated sarcastically.

"And…" Jim waved his finger, indicating that he was to continue. "You survived a black hole and an eclipse on Winterchill. Plus one mast race… Plus two fights; one against a gang of mobsters and one against Scroop… Plus one day in the as-hot-as-hell brig... And finally, all of the crashes and malfunctions of that day we tested your solar glider."

Ariah smiled back. "That's not all…" She sat up from her hammock and faced Jim.

"What did I miss?" Jim raised an eyebrow.

Ariah chuckled. "Luck isn't just about all of the near-death situations I've avoided on this voyage, Jim." She looked into Jim's pale blue eyes and smiled warmly. "I'm very lucky to have met you on this voyage."

Ariah leaned forwards and tenderly locked lips with Jim. She felt Jim's smile on her lips and she pushed herself gently from her hammock to lean against the brunette teenager.

Morph giggled at the two teenagers' romance. He transformed into a heart-shaped cloud and pierced it with an arrow, the kind that Cupid typically shoots into people's rear ends to make them fall in love.

Jim laughed lightly when their lips separated. His arms encircled Ariah's waist and he eased back in the hammock. Ariah's eyes seemed to glow in the dimmed lantern light.

"I'm glad to have been lucky enough to have met you too…" Jim beamed. Ariah smiled her widest and gently locked lips with Jim once more.

Suddenly Jim stopped sharing the embrace and Ariah looked up into Jim's pale blue eyes.

"What's wrong Jim?" She blinked.

Jim sighed and he slipped past Ariah. He smoothed his fingers through his ever-messy bangs and stood up from the hammock.

"I just think that, we might be taking this too fast…" He looked down at Ariah. "And I don't want to mess this up, Ariah."

Morph changed from his cloud image and looked at the two teenagers in confusion.

"Okay…" Ariah sighed. "So… exactly then what do we do?" She asked.

"Beats me." Jim shoved his hands into his jacket's pockets.

The two teenagers simultaneously sighed hopelessly. Morph mimicked them exactly.

"Who gave you the idea to go slow?" Ariah enquired.

"Can't I have my own ideas?" Jim snapped.

"Well yeah…" Ariah shrugged. "But it doesn't really seem like you." She stood from the hammock and gave the cabin boy a confused look. "You can talk to me…" Ariah held Jim's hand in hers. "You know that, right Jim?" She looked Jim in the eyes with concern.

"Look," Jim gently pulled his hand from Ariah's. "It's… hard to explain." Jim rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed hopelessly.

"Did Silver tell you to take this slow?" Ariah asked.

"No!" Jim shouted loudly, but the all-knowing look -that Ariah gave him- stopped him short. "Yeah…" He mumbled in defeat.

"Great!" Ariah threw her hands up in the air from frustration. "Silver is getting on my case again because he doesn't want what happened with me and Ortona to happen with you and me." She huffed and tapped her chin. "But the weird part is… he was the one who suggested me getting together with you."

"What?" Jim yelled.

"Oh come on, Jim." Ariah narrowed her eyes. "Couldn't you tell? 'I'll take a rain check' and 'why don't yeh an' Jim go swab the helm'…" She recited what Silver had said. "Stuff like that, he obviously was setting us up."

"So." Jim folded his arms over his chest. "This relationship between us is only because of Silver?" He narrowed his eyes. "…Because Silver told you to get together with me?"

"No… it's nothing like that Jim." Ariah stated. "Silver suggested to me to get to know you." She smiled weakly. "And I'm glad I took his advice."

Jim sighed, easing a hand through his bangs. "Sorry…" He looked away. "I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions."

"It's alright." Ariah patted Jim on the shoulder.

"It's just…" Jim sighed. "All my life… I've been played by people I loved, people like my father, only to be let down." Jim's knuckles whitened from tension as his hand balled up into a fist. "I am so sick of things like this happening, that I'm a bit jumpy when it comes to trusting people."

"You can trust me, Jim." Ariah stated.

"How do I know that's true?" Jim asked bitterly, he turned away. "How do I know you're not playing me?" He narrowed his eyes. "Like all of the people who pretended to be my friends back on Montressor until my father abandoned me and then they left? Like how my father, who always said 'oh Jim, that's nice…' but never even noticed that I could build a solar surfer when I was eight?" He paused. "How can I trust you, Ariah?"

The female sailor frowned, feeling sadness well up in her chest. "You… don't trust me?"

"Well, we've only known each other for…" Jim stumbled around a hammock as Ariah advanced towards him with the air of anger about her. "For thirteen weeks…"

"And that length of time isn't long enough for you to develop a relationship in which one person trusts the other and vice versa?" She raised her voice slightly.

"It's not just that…" Jim was beginning to wish he hadn't said anything on the subject.

"I would think, that the first time we kissed -without someone forcing us to- was enough to show you that I cared for you!" Ariah stated; her eyes began to water. "That I trusted you!" Her voice cracked with emotion. "And don't get started about what's happened in the past, because I've been played for a fool before… you know that, Jim!"

The young morph squeaked in alarm as he saw the tears falling from Ariah's eyes, but they were tears far more complex than those of sadness.

"You just didn't get the picture, did you?" Ariah seethed. "So who's playing whom, Mister Hawkins?" She grabbed the front of Jim's jacket and shook him forcefully.

"Well, what about Scroop?" Jim shoved the black-haired teenager away from him.

"What do you mean?" Ariah panted from fury and looked away. "He's just a friend…"

"Just a friend?" Jim hollered. "You said it yourself that he likes you."

"I don't know that from him." Ariah retorted. "I was just guessing;" She admitted. "It's not like Scroop's the kind of person you'd spontaneously bring up stuff like that."

"Oh really?" Jim advanced towards the scullery maid. "And what type of person is Scroop anyways, because I'm interested in what you've learnt over all of the years you've known him…" He seethed.

"I only like him as a friend!" Ariah screamed loudly.

"Have you ever told him that?" Jim shouted. "Have you ever told him that his feelings for you are pointless because he's only a friend to you?" The young man growled. "Huh?"

Ariah balled up her hand into a fist, and was tempted to do something against every fibre in her being. "Just- just get out..." She snapped angrily, turning away before she could strike the brunette teenager.

Jim scoffed. "Fine." He said shortly, turning away and leaving the crew's quarters.

The miserable scullery maid clenched and unclenched her hands until she felt her legs become gelatinous. Ariah fell to her knees, her right arm curled around her now aching stomach and her left hand came up to her face. Some sobs shook her body as she allowed herself to cry. The tiny transformer looked upon her sadly; his mouth trembled.

"What have I done?" Ariah sobbed tearfully into her hand.

Author's Note:

Wow… Chapter twenty-two's finished already. And the story is slowly drawing to an end. (Sigh) But no worries; check my profile and get some information that I hope will please you!

MG#6