"Captain, there's a sea king following us," commented Benn.
It had taken them the better part of a week to actually catch a good look at it. Whatever it was, the sea king was as big as the ship, if not bigger. The only reason Benn even noticed it was because Lucky Roo had been complaining something kept eating the fish he was trying to catch and the only real sign they had of it's presence was the slight darkening of the water below the ship.
Shanks blinked.
"A sea king?"
Benn pointed over the rail, where Shanks could see the darkened water below. There was a distinct shape to it once he took out his spyglass that revealed a massive shape directly under them.
Almost as if it sensed Shanks' presence, a massive head poked out of the water.
And Benn meant massive. The eyes were as big as Shanks' head and the horns looked like small swords. Deep red scales almost the same shade of crimson as Shanks' own hair covered the creature. Deep, verdant green eyes stared back at them. The head was almost horse shaped, but with the sleekness of a massive snake. It was pretty easy to tell that the sea king in question was definitely a carnivore, particularly with those teeth. The thing that terrified Benn though was the intelligence behind that gaze.
No creature should have eyes that seemed to imply a human-like intelligence.
Whatever the creature is, it's rather evident that the long neck (they can't even see the main body and the neck only just widens once it hits the water's surface) is big.
Shanks, on a hunch, takes out the snack he had pilfered from the galley fifteen minutes earlier. It's a simple sandwich and a couple pieces of fruit.
He tosses the sandwich towards the creature, which snaps it out of the air. It gives them a much better view of the thing's teeth, all of which are razor sharped and curved in a way that would make it easy for the creature to latch on to prey and make it very difficult for the prey in question to escape without further harm. The tongue is long and slightly forked, and the way it flickers out of the creature's mouth makes Benn think the creature can sense heat like a snake. Shanks watched fascinated as the inner membrane of the creature's eye 'blinked'. The two sides of the membrane closed briefly, creating a vertical slit which was followed by the two eyelids closing with a horizontal slit.
Shanks tossed it an apple. The creature ate it with no problem and came closer.
Benn was not very comforted by the fact his Captain was basically drawing a massive predator closer to them. They had no idea how fast the thing was or how aggressive it could become.
Shanks threw the pear, and once again the thing ate it.
This time it's head was leveled with Shanks own face. It crooned in curiosity, causing Shanks to grin. He held up another apple. It stared at him.
Shanks lightly tossed the apple, causing it to disappear into the thing's gullet...right before a suspiciously timed wave hit both the humans on deck.
Shanks sputtered from the sea water, and noticed something long and red disappear back under the water.
"Did you just splash us with your tail?" he said incredulous.
The thing made an odd chortling sound. There was no mistaking the fact it was laughing at him.
The head disappeared under the water, but there was no doubt in Shanks' mind the thing was still there.
It didn't appear to be aggressive to humans, so he decided to ignore it.
For the next month and a half, the lizard (as Benn 'affectionately' dubbed it) continued to follow them and even let Shanks pet it a little after he tossed some meat. The crew mostly learned to ignore it since it wasn't aggressive towards them and was mostly just curious.
That changed when a Marine got a lucky shot with a cannon and almost sheered the main mast in half. The ship was effectively crippled because the mast tore into the sail in front of it, leaving them only a small sail that wasn't going to get them very far. Worse, they were too far from any islands where they could restock and do repairs.
They were as close to 'dead in the water' as one could get. Shanks knew that the food stores would barely last them a week at most. Two if they managed to ration it against Lucky Roo's appetite. And that wasn't getting into the water and rum situation.
Things looked pretty bad. So when he saw the curious head of the odd lizard, which Shanks had dubbed "Ruby" because of the coloring of it's scales, he sighed.
"I don't suppose you could give us a ride to the nearest island with a proper port, could you?" he half-joked.
The head tilted, then noticed the condition of the ship. Shanks gave it one last apple before going in to try and see if Benn had figured out any plan to get them out of this mess.
It wouldn't be until early dawn the next morning that Shanks became aware of the fact that the ship was moving.
No, not just moving...something was clearly pulling the ship faster than any wind safely could without a storm being involved. Benn was staring dumbfounded at the ropes tied to the front of the ship that were taunt from something underwater. A familiar shadow was at the front and Shanks took the time to examine the rope.
It was thick...it had to be at least as thick as his own arm and would likely weigh a hundred pounds coiled up. It was the sort of rope that would be a pain in the ass to move around freely, never mind getting through the proper holes, particularly when wet. It was just slightly thicker than the rope used to make the rigging that allowed people to climb up to the crow's nest and the masts.
Shanks was pretty sure they didn't even have this sort of rope on the ship, which baffled him as to where it came from.
More importantly how the hell did someone rig this up without the lookout noticing?
It took Shanks a few moments to notice that the rope lead to a very familiar shadow. To his shock, the head broke out of the water...and the ropes lifted up slightly to reveal that Ruby had the other ends of them in their mouth.
That was when Benn noticed something important. He tapped Shanks' shoulder and pointed at the sight of a seagull.
Birds always meant there was land nearby, hopefully with a port where they could get some repairs done.
To the relief of the crew, Ruby had taken them to what was clearly a well stocked port. The lizard dropped the rope and ducked out of sight for a moment...Shanks watched with fascination as it clearly swam around to the back of the ship. It didn't take a genius to realize that the lizard was pushing them towards port to avoid being seen by anyone that wasn't part of the crew.
Benn turned to his captain.
"I am never complaining about you befriending that lizard again," he said flatly.
The sea king had almost certainly saved their lives, because there was no way they could have made it this far without it's help with the masts being in such bad shape.
A week later...
Shanks was rather happy when Ruby appeared without warning a day after they left the port.
After the way she saved their hides, the crew had warmed up to her presence considerably.
"How big are you, Ruby?" asked Shanks while drunk.
If he had been sober, he would have recognized the impish gleam in her eyes. Considering the crew was partying a bit to relieve the tension of their near miss and most were out on the deck, Shanks would only have himself to blame at the shock they were all about to get.
One minute Ruby was just barely poking out of the water...the next they all felt something surge under the ship.
Everyone turned to look at the starboard side of the ship as Ruby flowed out of the water...and the full length of her body could be seen. (Shanks was mostly basing her gender on a hunch he had.)
They had severely underestimated how big she was.
Ruby was easily as big as the ship itself, if not slightly bigger due to the size of her wings.
Now that she wasn't submerged, the crew couldn't help but gape at what they were seeing.
Ruby wasn't a sea king. Not by a long shot. It was pretty clear from the way her body was shaped that her kind was built to dominate the air, not the water. Her massive wings were bigger than the ship itself and lazily beat in the air to hover. Her tail spiked outwards, but she flattened it a bit to create a make-shift fin to swim easier. Her claws were closer to what you would find in a bird of prey, and looked closer to small swords that curved much like her teeth did. Sharp spines ran down the length of her back down to her tail, and the scales flattened out much like a snake would.
Seeing her full form was both breathtaking...and if she had been inclined to attack, terrifying.
Then the cheeky lizard topped it off by breathing honest-to-god fire from her mouth. Shanks dropped his tankard at that...fortunately it was almost empty anyway.
He would swear that overgrown lizard was laughing at him. Especially when she splashed everyone on the deck once she re-entered the water.
"How the hell does a fire-breathing lizard breath underwater?" demanded Shanks.
Ruby gave him a very amused look, before inhaling deeply...and not doing anything with it.
Shanks blinked.
"You can hold your breath?" he guessed. A breath of hot air that smelled of cinnamon and peppermint mixed with some sulfur blew across his face.
"Why did you help us?" asked Benn.
Ruby nudged Shanks with her head, making it clear she was sniffing for something. He pulled out some fruit he had in his pocket and daintily took it from his hand.
"You helped us because Shanks fed you?" said Benn.
Ruby gave him a long stare, and even drunk Shanks could tell she was calling him an idiot.
"You helped us because we didn't attack and were nice to you?" guessed Shanks. Ruby trilled. Shanks rubbed the scales on her face, which were surprisingly smooth.
Shanks was almost disappointed when Ruby disappeared a full day before they made port again.
Shanks' reaction to the much smaller version of Ruby in his bed was absolutely hilarious. It made her wonder how he would react if he knew she wasn't a real dragon, but a human that could take the form and power of one.
Ruby growled at him when he tried to move her, but eventually budged over so he could at least take over part of his bed. Once he cautiously settled in, she immediately wrapped around him in a decidedly possessive manner.
Shanks discovered he wouldn't need a blanket so long as Ruby was curled around him...she was warm enough to keep the room at a comfortably toasty level and her scales were surprisingly soft instead of sharp.
He looked at the amused fire-breathing lizard.
"Can you change your size at will?" he asked.
Ruby gave him an amused look. The next morning the crew was very startled to find that the massive "sea-king" that had developed a liking for them was now wrapped around their captain's neck like a scarf.
Benn looked exasperated more than anything.
"I take it this means we're keeping the lizard?"
Ruby set his pants on fire, or at least the cuffs of them. Shanks cracked up.
"Call me a lizard again and I'll set your hair on fire next," said an annoyed rumble.
Dead silence.
"Did she just talk?" asked Benn in shock. Shanks looked at Ruby dumbly.
"Of course I can talk, even if my mouth and vocal cords aren't suited for it in this form. Besides, telepathy bridges the language gape more effectively than anything I've ever come across."
"If you could talk, why didn't you speak up before now?" asked Shanks curious.
Ruby gave him an incredulous look.
"I had to know I could trust you and your crew. Unless you think the Marines would leave someone like me alone," snarked Ruby.
Shanks winced.
Okay, that was a pretty good argument to keep quiet and pretend to be a sea king. Just look at what the fishmen and mermaids had to go through!
"Besides...this allows me to prank you and your crew without anyone aware of the fact until it's too late to escape the minor embarassment."
That made Shanks perk up...and Benn look at the dragon suspiciously. That look had never spelled anything but trouble for him.