#is this sloop like it's not intended but also this is very much sloops by proxy

[chronologically-challenged]

Hmmm. Siffrin taking Stardust as a middle name.

[nyarlathotep-thecrawlingchaos]

I've had this chapter finished for a few days, and I must apologize for not posting it sooner.

Particularly considering the last time I updated this fic was a few months ago. I just couldn't find the will to do all the formatting stuff. But I have the will tonight, so here I am.

Also forgive me if I miss anyone in the taglist or add anyone that didn't intend to be there (kind of a new thing for me)

Please also forgive me if my formatting is a little fcked, my external mouse on my laptop is currently in the process of dying on me (it's confusing left clicks for right clicks and vice versa) and it's been quite a pain for the past couple days.

ANYWAY

MihawkxOC (started as OPLA but will progress in mixed live-action and anime/manga canon)

Previous Chapter Link

Chapter 1 Link

Chapte 8: Nightmares

Tag List: @sirenmelody23 @nerium-lil @ruledbyproblematique @sexc-snail (I think you asked in an ask a while back) @ruledbyproblematique (idk if you asked but I noticed you’ve reblogged quite a few chapters and it’s been a while, if it’s an issue I can delete)

Word Count:3.4k

Tags: Slow-burn, Enemies to Lovers, !!NSFW on this chapter!!, uh, if I think of more I'll add them or something

Summary: After having her sloop sunk by the Buggy Pirates and losing most of her worldly possessions in the process, the normally solitary mercenary Karimi Lionne finds herself teaming up with the rag-tag little crew that is the Strawhat Pirates to defeat them. She bonds with them far more quickly than she bargained for, and that quickly turns into a problem for the Kiku Kiku no Mi devil fruit user when she learns of Nami's plans to leave them high and dry, and Zoro issues a challenge at Baratie that he very likely won't live long enough to regret.

Karimi couldn’t fathom how she had ended up in her present position. She would have sworn under oath that minutes earlier she had been pacing the length of her guest room, fuming in anger with the warlord she had left behind in the den after he had humiliated her without a second thought to anything but his own entertainment.

That she had been finishing the glass of wine she had taken with her, pausing perhaps halfway through to shout a series of profanities into one of the heavy feather pillows on the bed.

That she hadn’t had so much wine that she should have any holes in her memory at all—and yet here she was, back on the sofa again, pinned beneath the jerk again, his powerful grip wrapped around her wrists and shoving them over her head, denying her the right of defending herself.

But he didn’t hold his knife in his other hand this time. No; he held the edge of her green dress instead, his fingers curled around the hem of the shimmering material, pushing the skirt up her thighs, up to her waist, at the same lazy pace that his lips grazed across the delicate skin of her neck, biting down lightly just below her earlobe, just hard enough to leave a mark and pull a whimper from her parted lips.

“You see, darling…” Her eyes slipped shut as he murmured in her ear, her heart racing as his hand crept back down from the hem of her dress now bunched around her ribs, his fingertips trailing a slow path down the plane of her stomach and slipping just beneath the waist of her panties. “I’m not so cruel a master as you think. You behave…” And just a little lower, her breath coming in short uneven bursts as he pushed her thighs further apart with his knees between them, the pads of his index and middle finger brushing past her slick entrance. “And you’ll be rewarded in kind.”

Drawing in a sharp breath as he pressed his fingertips against her and ceased moving his hand entirely. She opened her eyes and found his sharp yellow gaze boring straight into hers, her breath hitching in her throat, a small smirk curving his lips as he lowered his head until his forehead rested lightly against hers.

“Now be a good little bird and beg for it.”

And she did beg—barely coherent, barely even registering her own pleas as they left her in a breathless whimper, she shamelessly begged. Each time she tried to arch her hips toward his touch he simply shoved her with one hand back down to the sofa, still rubbing the pads of his fingers against her clit in slow, teasing little circles.

Pulling her closer and closer to the edge with every touch, every caress, every murmur in her ear or against her lips, until what few words she could form became nothing but incoherent whimpers and moans, until she could register nothing but slowly mounting pleasure—not his words, not the almost painful pressure of his grip tightening around her wrists, not the sound of his voice or the warmth of his breath or the crackle of fire or smell of smoke.

Smoke.

Crushing his lips to hers to muffle her sharp cry of alarm and relief when he pushed two fingers into her. She clenched her eyes shut, moaning breathily as his lips left hers.

Fire.

As his hand drew away from her, leaving her with a feeling of emptiness that bordered on pain.

Pain.

As something cold and smooth pressed against her throat—something sharp, cutting into the soft skin, and she couldn’t even whimper at the sharp pain, as if her own voice had been stolen from her, stolen like everything else, stolen by fire and vengeance and—

Another voice, but it wasn’t Mihawk’s. She knew it wouldn’t be before the words even broke through the crackling of the fire, growing louder and hotter with every passing second, licking and burning at her skin. It was a voice that had haunted her for years, a voice she would never be allowed to forget, that would continue to live with her even with its owner long since gone.

“Let this be a lesson to you about what happens to pirate whores and filth.”

Vesper.

Karimi’s eyes shot open the second the name passed through her mind, sitting straight up in the bed in the guest suite.

A dream. Just a dream. “Just a…just...” She couldn’t even force the words out beyond her rapid, trembling breaths, so Karimi simply leaned forward, bending her knees up and resting her forehead there, not daring to close her eyes. She knew she would see him, plastered to the back of her eyelids, she always did after he visited her in her dreams—his maniacal grin, the twisted purple and red scars that covered the left side of his face, his empty eye socket filled with fire, his white Admiral coat half-dyed crimson with blood and his bowie knife pointed toward her.

“Nightmare?”

“Ni…nightmare. Just a nightmare.” She swallowed between her halfway incoherent mumblings, her hands shaking as she gripped the bedsheets. “Just a…”

And she stopped breathing as she jerked her head to look over at the Warlord leaning against the post at the head of her bed on the right side, arms crossed, observing her with the air of a cat that had happened across an interesting insect.

“What...?”

Looked down at herself, every ounce of blood in her body rising to her head as she took in that she was still dressed down for bed, wearing only an old, slightly tattered tank top and a pair of thin lace panties.

And back at him again, fury and embarrassment swelling into an entirely new entity within her as she gritted her teeth in utter rage.

“What the fuck, w—were you watching me sleep?!” she shouted, quickly drawing her covers up over herself, and Mihawk lifted his eyebrows at her in mild alarm. “What the f—”

“Why in seven hells would I have any interest in—?”

But she was already grabbing a pillow from behind her, without thinking, and swinging it toward him. “Get out!!” she all but shrieked, and he clearly hadn’t expected the sudden attack, as the pillow connected and knocked his hat from his head. He caught it easily before it could fall further a foot and set it back atop his head, sighing as he straightened it and leveled his eyes with Karimi’s.

“That,” he said slowly, straightening out from his relaxed posture against the bedpost and taking a step toward her, “was a mistake.”

Karimi hugged the pillow to her chest as he drew closer, her face burning, her jaw set, but she had left one weak point completely open, and the moment she realized it, it was already too late. She cried out as he wrapped his hand around her neck, just under her chin, and jerked her from the bed and to her feet, up to her tiptoes as he brought his face within an inch of hers. She had to wince against the burning in her eyes when he tightened his grip, not hard enough to cut off her airway entirely but more than enough to make breathing a physical chore.

“If you have any value at all for your continued good health, you will refrain from doing anything that stupid ever again.”

He leaned in the slightest bit closer and Karimi swallowed, her heart only racing faster. Closer, too close, too close, nearly as close as he had been in that accursed dream—no, now was not the time to think about that.

“Do you understand, little bird?”

She bit her lip and nodded—with his fingers only gripping tighter and tighter around her neck, she wasn’t sure she could have formed a word if she wanted to.

“Good.” His eyes drifted down, away from hers, across her bare shoulders, lingering on her left arm a moment. She flinched slightly as he lifted his free hand and brushed the pad of his thumb down the column of uniform scars that spanned from just above her elbow to the base of her wrist, her shoulder tensing until he lifted his hand.

It came to settle at her hip for a moment, and she averted her eyes as far away from him as she could as his fingertips grazed across the waistband of her panties.

Then, without warning, he shoved her back toward the bed, releasing her neck so she stumbled backward onto the mattress, rubbing at her neck and gasping for air, watching him turn on his heel and start toward the bedroom door. “You have half an hour. Be prepared to sign our contract and set out when you make your way downstairs.”

He didn’t wait for her response before he pushed through the cracked door, leaving it hanging open behind him, Karimi sitting there in her undergarments and staring in shock at the empty doorframe. Still rubbing at her neck, she couldn’t help but wonder if she would even survive a year working for the man.

She wasn’t sure just how long she sat there before she pulled herself to her feet and set to pulling a change of clothes out from her meager satchel of personal effects, striding across the bedroom to close the door before any of the help could pass by and see her. She made quick work of changing her clothes, straightening her hat on her head, bending down slightly to tighten the leather straps around her right calf that held her throwing knives, reaching for the doorknob.

And someone knocked. She rolled her eyes skyward—it couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes, why the hell would he be back?

“Would you please just leave me alone?” she half-groaned.

Silence met her in reply, a long silence, and after a moment of deliberation she pulled the door open—and flinched as she found Kaya standing there, blinking at her in alarm.

“I—is everything alright?” she asked, baffled.

“Y—sorry, yeah,” said Karimi, grimacing in embarrassment. “His royal pain in my ass just left a few minutes ago, I thought—” She sighed irritably, shaking her head. “Doesn’t matter. I suppose we won’t be staying for breakfast.”

“You’re more than welcome to,” said Kaya, her frown only deepening with the concern in her eyes as Karimi shut the door behind her lightly and joined Kaya in the upstairs corridor. “It would make little sense to set straight out to sea without eating first.”

“Not my choice,” said Karimi, walking level with Kaya in the direction of the grand staircase. “I’d definitely stay a bit longer, if possible.”

“Then stay,” she said, shaking her head. Karimi sighed, grimacing. “You said it’s a contract—you’re not his…” She seemed then to notice Karimi’s grimace as she looked over. She lowered her voice a little when she spoke again, her tone a bit gentler. “Forgive me for asking, but…you’re not working for him by choice, are you?”

Maybe there was no point lying. Kaya had hit the nail on the head, after all—and really, Karimi had led her to it herself. After a moment, she gave a quick shake of her head, crossing her arms over her stomach. “It was my choice,” she said. “It just…didn’t seem like there was any other choice at the time.” She hesitated for a moment as they stopped at the top of the stairs, Kaya leaning her elbow against the banister, her brow furrowed in steadily mounting confusion and concern. “While we were at Baratie…Zoro thought it would be a good idea to challenge him to a duel. To the death. Winner takes the prestige of being known as the World’s Best Swordsman—I know,” she said, as Kaya pulled both her hands to her mouth, her eyes growing wide as saucers. “He’s alive,” she said, deciding it best to leave out the state he was in when she left. “He’s alive, and…I’m working for his would-be killer for a year, without pay. That’s the contract. I play errand girl for a year, Zoro gets to live in spite of his idiot challenge.”

“Oh—oh, heavens, Karimi—that’s—” Without any warning, she crossed the few paces between them and wrapped Karimi in a tight hug that made the mercenary tense and cringe slightly, as if she had been struck rather than shown kindness and affection. “Is there nothing you can do?”

“I somehow doubt it,” she said, briefly returning the hug with one arm before quickly backing up a couple paces, glancing down the stairs. She sighed irritably to herself at the sight that met her eyes. Mihawk was already standing at the bottom of the stairs, leaning against the bannister, his back to the two of them as he flipped through a small stack of papers. No doubt it was the contract she had suggested herself, the words that would bind her in her own promise for the remainder of the coming twelve months. “And I wouldn’t anyway,” she admitted, shrugging a shoulder as she brought her gaze back to Kaya’s, the younger girl still frowning in sympathy. “I don’t break my own terms. Not a good look in my line of business.”

“No, I…suppose it wouldn’t be. And…” She hesitated a moment, glancing down to the foot of the sprawling staircase herself, her frown deepening. “I suppose working for one of the seven warlords could gain you some notoriety?” she offered.

“It could.” Karimi gave a small, humorless laugh. “Not really looking for notoriety, though. Luffy might be intent on racking up a bounty, but I’m definitely not.”

“Well...considering you would be under his employment, that should mean you’d gain some degree of immunity as well, wouldn’t it?” she said thoughtfully, curling her hand over her chin as both of them watched Mihawk roll the papers up and cross his arms. Karimi’s mouth turned down in a thoughtful frown at that.

“I guess it might,” she said. “Depending on what he has me doing.”

If, as Karimi had suggested upon first making his proposal, he did no more than send her off to complete government contracts he deemed unworthy of his time or effort, then she would likely be in the clear. She had made it six years on her own without drawing enough attention to possess even a small bounty—it seemed fairly likely that working for a Warlord might benefit her in that regard more than it would hurt.

It did hurt a bit to bid goodbye to Kaya again so soon. It was difficult not to scoff at the younger girl’s sentiment of don’t be a stranger—Karimi doubted she would be going anywhere she wanted or doing as she pleased for a considerable amount of time, if the contents of the contract were any indication. She followed behind Mihawk as she skimmed through them on the way back to the docks, her lips turned down in a frown.

As she had expected, the contract all but stated that she would veritably be his property for the remainder of the coming year—not permitted to protest any order she was given, expected to complete any task set before her without question.

“So,” she said as she stepped onto the small deck of Hitsugibune, folding the papers down slightly to look at him as he took his seat. He didn’t regard her, simply flipping open the newspaper he had picked up on their short walk through Syrup Village. “I’m a slave, then.”

“I thought we had settled on ‘indentured servant,’” he said absently.

She gritted her teeth to bite back a scowl, crossing the deck and pressing the papers against the back of his seat as she drew a pen from her bag. “Indentured servant,” she repeated coolly, rolling her eyes. “Yes. Right. That.” She finished reading through the last half of the final page, detailing that she would also be subjected to a rigorous training regime to ensure her work would meet his standards, before quickly scrawling her signature across the line at the bottom.”And where, O Master, shall I set our course for?” she asked, flipping the papers over the back of the chair, between his face and the newspaper.

He snatched them away, tucking them behind the newspaper. “Cocoyasi Village.” Karimi froze in pulling the rope from the dock, looking slowly over her shoulder. He didn’t look up from the newspaper as he went on. “You mentioned at dinner your friends might be headed in that direction. I’m curious as to what business they might have with the fishmen, considering all the trouble they’ve already managed to stir up.”

He didn’t need to look over to know the girl was looking his way, no doubt with suspicion laden in her green eyes. Even as she resumed readying his vessel for sailing, the weight of her gaze remained heavy—and her slow, cautious tone as she spoke up again spoke volumes. “You said—”

“I’ll be dropping you off,” he said, anticipating that she would make some protest regarding the green-haired moron who was so intent on challenging him. “I have business of my own to attend and will return to retrieve you the following morning. I expect a full report on their activities. You may assist them however you see fit, so long as it poses no threat to your continued good health.”

He flipped a page as she gave a snort of laughter. “That almost sounded like concern.”

“I wouldn’t want my property damaged.”

She gave another scoff before going silent, save for the occasional grunt of effort as she hauled up the anchor. That was good—he had expected more protest, more questioning. It seemed she had accepted the terms of their contract more openly than he had anticipated. He folded the newspaper over and lifted the parchment, his eyes drifting across the loopy scrawl of her signature.

Lionne. The surname again struck him vaguely familiar, little more than a ghost of a memory. His gaze fixed upon it as she shifted the sails overhead.

“You were looking at a bounty poster yesterday morning,” he said slowly after a moment. He heard her freeze again, ceasing in her movements. “If you damage my boat you’ll compensate for it with an extra six months added to your contract.” She gave little more than a small noise of frustration before resuming her work behind him. “Which one was it?”

“I wasn’t looking at any in particular,” she said, her voice level—but there was still a small degree of caution there.

“Is that so?” She gave a small affirmative hum in response. “I find that difficult to believe.”

“And why is that?” she sighed.

“After you chose to retire last night, I took an evening stroll to ensure my boat was secure,” he said. “And I noticed something interesting upon stopping by the posted bounties.” His tone remained casual, but a small smirk curved his lips as he heard her slow in her movements somewhere behind him—as he stood, pushing a hand into his pocket to retrieve the folded poster he had collected from the wall with a well-aimed toss of his knife to sever the top of the paper, from that high corner of the wall she had stared so intently at before changing the subject. He unfolded it as he stepped slowly around the edge of the chair. “Do tell me…” he said, flicking his wrist to unfurl the last fold, “who exactly is one Lyon D. Rollo to you?”

He held the poster out to her as she stood rooted to the deck a few feet away, her posture rigid as a statue as she met his eyes.

As her eyes darted to the sea water on every side of the ship, down to the deck itself, before flickering back to lock with his gaze again, avoiding looking at the poster entirely.

“Or...” Mihawk went on slowly, taking a couple steps forward to close the distance between them. He wrapped a hand around her wrist and lifted her hand, harshly enough that she flinched in alarm but not with quite enough force to hurt her, and shoved the bounty poster into her hand`. “...we could find out what happens if you choose to lie to me again.”

Previous chapter link again, for your convenience

First Chapter link again, for your convenience

[saltyroseshiftz]

Hello!

You can call me Rose if you'd like to. I'm fine with being called sir and mx. ma'am and other variations of it I'm not comfortable with atm but I'm working towards it! Any pronouns are fine, but I prefer he/him and they/them

This is a reality shifting blog! If you're not interested, please block and scroll!

DNI:

▪︎ terfs, bigots, sexists, homophobes, racists, facists, etc.

▪︎ shipping discourse ppl, ped0s, zoos, etc.

▪︎ anti-shifters

▪︎ really anyone that just wants drama. I'm just here to vibe and talk about something I enjoy; if you try to start something, I simply won't engage, but I do hope you get therapy.

List of my IR's!!

IR stands for Intended Reality, basically DR but said differently.

Will be minorly censored to try and avoid showing up in fandom searches. Not censoring names bc I feel like that won't make much of a difference.

If I happen to have a name in any of these realities, they will be listed in orange.

♡ Arc@ne - Viktor

♡ Htt/yd

♡ C@rs (humanized tho dw 😭 also altered some of the story to fit my personality way more bc I cannot. Be rude for the life of me lmao) - Lightning (just a stage name, actual name is undecided)

♡ Undert@|e and some AUs - Papyrus

♡ Detro!t Become Hum@n - Connor

♡ Minecr@ft

♡ P.|.E (Ventur¡@nt@le. This was actually my first DR which I will talk abt a bit) - Ghost

♡ De|t@rune (once the full game comes out bc I have. No idea what to script currently)

♡ Se@ of Th¡eves (this might actually be my waiting room! Salty Rose is the name of my sloop.) - Cas / Caspian

♡ FN@F (idk I just think being a robot is fun)

♡ The St@n|ey Parab|e (again idk why other than it'd be so very silly)

♡ Sher|ock (Have not decided on which version to go to or if I want to just. Make my own interpretation.)

♡ D/C and M@rve| potentially but eeeh. Idk.

♡ Outer Wi|ds (no supernova stuff tho that's horrifying)

♡ RD/R2 - Ollie

This list will most likely change, especially because I have a lot of personal ideas that I have yet to actually write. Also some of these are just concepts so I probably won't talk abt them rip.

When I post about specific realities that aren't this one, I'll have my name in that reality stated in it as well!

Rules!

I'm open to dms and asks! I love talking to people despite being a bit socially anxious and a tad awkward- please just keep in mind that I am autistic and may need tone tags, though they aren't required.

I might post art here for my DRs. If I do, there's potential that I may start taking commisions - I'll make another post if that does happen. In the mean time, if you have an idea for a themed drawing, please send in an ask!

Obviously don't reupload my art on other sites- if you see it anywhere else, please tell me because I only upload here! You may use my art for scripts, banners, pfps, whatever you want as long as you ask beforehand (I'll always say yes, I just like knowing if it's being used :) )

There's not really much else I can think of; I kinda just wanted to state that it's safe to interract with me and my boundaries on any art I choose to post.

My upload schedule will be inconsistent because I'm a BIT silly, but I will be hanging around here quite a bit!

If anything here is difficult to read, please tell me and I will update this post to be more accessible.

I'm bad at making things look aesthetically pleasing so I might change this around and add emojis and symbols?? Idk if it's worth the effort tho 😔

[lilietsblog]

it has occured to me that i should preserve this from the discord chat it happened in

inciting incident:

"So if you click through to this set of images about ORV you will find that a shocking number of them also apply to ISAT [...]" - @luvbloggingandreblogging

(long long response sequence from me under the cut) (all appropriate content warnings apply for what there is to discuss in isat) (spoilers also obviously)

Yeah we're at the point where it's more interesting to point out which ones DON'T apply to Siffrin

The "unwanted in childhood". Siffrin's trauma is Very Specific snd Not That One. The "man forced to be a myth": Siffrin avoids certain social situations but we never see them perceive the kind of pressure Mira does except on her, and the only audience he performs for is himself and his loves ones.

Does not in fact have a suitcase. That's the exact thing the opposite of which the story is about.

Loyalty doesn't actually outweigh morals for any of them except specifically Odile my beloved who just doesn't strike me as having many of the latter. Explaining to Bonbon that Siffrin would do the same thing again and again because they're a kid is the one thing the loops never change. Siffrin would do that for anyone their age, personal loyalty never enters the chat.

The soulmates thing just doesn't apply, to me. There's nothing specific about the way the party fits together, Siffrin just grabbed on with both hands and refused to let go and would have whoever they were (short of, y'know, very bad). If anything the way their issues are decidedly not complementary is a big part of the story. Mirabelle's Cis Angst has literally nothing to do with anyone else in the party, for example, Siffrin is just very good at Being There For People. Like they don't force each other to grow by sheer dint of who they are or anything, or yknow the story would never have happened. The only person who got Siffrin thru the horrors was literally another version of himself and while I am very pro clonefucking "sharing a soul as in you're the same person" is a different genre of connection than soulmates.

Divorced in a polycule homophobic doing a bit is also not Siffrin. It's more of an Odile genre of thing, though not the one happening on-screen right now. Siffrin actually has remarkably defined relationships with the rest of the party, and while there are obviously fics that ship him with every other adult, it's still just a very different vibe. Isabeau/Siffrin has immense sweet puppy love vibes, and sloop while fitting this premise generally is far too specific in What's Going On There.

Also this one is actually a very interesting question but I would argue that "let me be used" is also not Siffrin!!! Yes he would get hurt over and over again for others' sake, but it holds no inherent appeal to him. (Siffrin's actions that are actually specifically self-harm bring no benefit to anyone and aren't meant to.) Siffrin is always doing things for himself, and very aware of it. His spiraling is not in the direction of "just let me serve you", it's "that nice and kind thing I just did was actually mean and selfish because it made me feel better and if I want to be a good person I should self-isolate". Which is the exact opposite. Siffrin wants to be wanted, to be loved, very specifically, being needed is not something he shows any interest in. (Beyond the basic "it's not great if I'm so bad at my job that everyone will die", and even that one takes a few repetitions to get to him)

Let's see other parts too >:3

Part 1 actually applies remarkably little. Siffrin very specifically doesn't like or intend to go dangerous places ever again, and to the degree that they had to this time, they were very much the one following someone else there (who also was very much forced to)

Loop has some Unwilling Narrator vibes, I suppose, though unlike Chara Undertale they don't actually do a lot of narrating. You can kinda get through most of the story without talking to them ever, there's like one or two forced dialogs I think.

Doubting this is truly you is fully Siffrin brainworms, nobody else thinks that

Find you in every lifetime doesn't apply, see above my point abt soulmates.

Siffrin doesn't think they're being authentic, if anything their problem is the opposite: they feel like they're acting even when they're very much Acting On Their Character Traits (And their perception of themselves is mostly Entirely Absent, due to the horrors)

"Reader keeps character in a time loop" is certainly something you can read into ISAT if you really want to, but even adrienne themselves has said that every time you finish the game you Save A Siffrin, you just generate a new one for replays :)

The doomed/haunted/mourned thing is specifically the opposite of what is happening because the entire inciting incident is that there is No narrative. It's about forgetting and being forgotten. If the King could have told a story about what had happened that anyone could have heard, Vaugarde would have been fine in the first place There is in fact a story in-universe, but it's the one about Mirabelle, starring as Lord Josephandre. Siffrin gets antimemetic horror instead, and even the audience never actually gets to learn what happened, and what few pieces of their own history Siffrin gets to recall during the events are immediately forgotten, and the general facts Siffrin manages to retain, their party never hears about in the golden ending (the only possible one). Even the King doesn't get the dignity of being taken seriously as an antagonist, for all that he's obviously Siffrin's foil. However long it takes you to beat him, you'll most definitely take longer than that trying to break out of the loop around him. The personal confrontation with him is every time about how much the party doesn't care about his reasons, problems and emotions, and just wants him to disappear. The one time Siffrin attempts to do otherwise, the King rejects the offered hand, but even what he tries to do - scare Siffrin out of continuing to fight him - splashes uselessly against the monolith of the loops. Even the title he claims isn't taken seriously in Vaugarde, or particularly unseriously, or in any way whatsoever. It's just his chosen name, to them, and means nothing. There are newspaper articles about his fashion sense, and the super important symbol he puts on everywhere isn't even noticed. It's just a weird losenge. The King's story is an un-story, told by no-one in-universe, interesting to no-one in-universe, and the game has no interest in focusing on it either. It's highly likely that the King's wish coming true in the last loop was crucial to the overall resolution, but it's never mentioned, brought up or addressed in any way whatsoever!!! Loop has narrative vibes to them. But they're not an omniscient narrator - they know the mechanics, but about the things that actually matter to the story they don't know jack about shit. They're not a dramatic twist character - they're not very subtle, and you get a chance to guess their deal correctly very early on, at the start of Act 3. Obviously they matter to the audience emotionally, but you don't actually get the explicit confirmation of what's up with them and dramatic confrontation unless you do a very specific sequence of actions of the type that otherwise never affect the story whatsoever. They're a secret boss, but the ending sequence literally doesn't change depending on whether you have the encounter or not!!! The ending of the encounter itself doesn't depend on who wins the fight!!! If you've spent long enough in the loops they're pathetically easy to beat and it takes careful engineering & choreography to lose!!!! And in the end we don't even get an actual answer for what happens to them as they LITERALLY DISSOLVE INTO THIN AIR IN FRONT OF OUR EYES!!!! Loop doesn't get SHIT from the narrative!!! I said before that ISAT isn't claustrophobic, and I stand by it. It's agoraphobic instead. The Universe is vast and indifferent, and you drift unmoored from time and space, unknown and unremembered even by yourself/the audience unless you keep Memory of Self equipped every time you loop. (You have the chance to find out that the God of Change actually is audience you have, and they're the one tether of the events to reality, which is hella thematic)

Anyway, "anything you need as long as you don't leave" is also not Siffrin and not anyone else in the story either. If ANY of them were willing to take ANY SORT OF ACTION WHATSOEVER towards staying together, the story would have never happened.

"Why won't you stop dying" is straight up funny because NO-ONE KNOWS SIFFRIN IS DOING THAT. Except Loop, and to them it's how Siffrin stays. When he breaks out of the torment nexus, Loop loses him!!!

Part 2 is un-Siffrin too.

Nobody wants him dead!!! Not the narrative (the narrative very much wants him un-dead which is both relief and its own kind of horror), not himself (they give up very briefly against Mal du Pays, ONCE, which is remarkable given the length of the whole sequence and torment nexus-ness of it all), not Loop (they pretend to but fail at it so bad), not even the King who would rather they join him. Siffrin's death is a fully neutral event that matches no-one's interests, and in context that's its own genre of depressing. Shoutout to the rock and to the plantain peel.

Siffrin needs put 0 effort to surviving. The loops just happen. Maybe if Siffrin had had to work for it at least a little, they'd feel mildly less trapped and useless.

Loop WANTS to play the tragic hero, but they don't even recognize their own actual contributions to the narrative! On the list of people who know Siffrin (any Siffrin) he himself is number last. Even the King manages to score higher somehow. (It's the antimemetic horror)

If anyone in the story at any point recognized that there's something to fix about any other person involved, the story would have been very different.

"Ceaseless flow of events" would be a pretty big relief if it were actually happening!!!! (There's time loop as in "too many things are happening and I cannot control them all no matter how many times I try" and there's time loop as in "I know this play by heart, these characters are puppets in my hands, and nothing that changes does so on its own")

Siffrin is not remarkable, not noticed, and the one god we talk to is too entertained by his flailing to be mad at the problems he's accidentally caused. He nearly ends the world, and everyone hugs him and tells him that was kinda cute.

Sloop is not true love. It's true seesawing between self-hatred and self-compassion, which is in an entirely different realm of things that happen.

Again the anount of drama in they're worsties they're besties is what Siffrin WISHES were happening. It would have solved like half of their problems

All doomed by the narrative is Loop real, gotta admit that

Love did in fact save everyone and there were 0 (zero) forces against it. That's the irony of it all.

Do you guys like me is Siffrin real, again shoutout to nailing it exactly

Favorite little cosmic joke is Loop and we all adore them for it. Actually I have a new postgame headcanon. Loop shows up a week later covered in weird ichor visibly uninjured: "yeah I went to have a word with the Change God. Tore their limbs off their body, poked our their eyes and gnawed their head off their neck. I'm sure they'll be fine teehee!"

Enteric coating on his ibuprofen: if only Loop actually realized they were doing this

Break the gayass cycle is confession quest

Twink with the sharpest collarbone is Isa's POV. He fails to act fast

Trying to be normal is BOTH Loop. Siffrin isn't aware he's trying he thinks he just IS normal and it's people asking why he's covered in blood who are being weird.

Act like a normal functional human being is, yeah. Not in-universe. But so real.

[...]

Ooo ooo part 4

"Just a blade that people use" in Siffrin's pov he is of no use to anyone whatsoever so yea not

No fourth wall breaks in isat! In Siffrin's little mental breakdown he IS the narrator and he WISHES the characters broke the fourth wall and got angry with him about it

"That protagonist super definitely dead!" - the Change God to themselves hopping excitedly, completely sincerely invested even though it's the tenth time Siffrin has died to the boulder.

Self-sacrifice... yea. Shoutout to Dave Strider

I can fix him (great burden) is sloop

Predicted the whole plot is a punchline setup to Sif revealing they predicted nothing, this is just the tenth time in a row

Stunned and overwhelmed is, yea. This is why there are so many postgame fics.

Tragedy is Loop mood

Foreshadowing. Yeag. Bonniequest (stupid rotten adults edition

Horrified by past is everyones favorite postgame trope but I secretly think Siffrin would be fully aware and avert it as best they can (being worried about feels bad) (their problems do still need to be pried out of them with a crowbar) Like yes sweet innocent Siffrin is an obvious take but while Siffrin is in fact very sweet he is not at all innocent in the sense of unaware. It's one of the most compelling things about them to me: they're immediately genre savvy about time loops, they're at least somewhat aware of mental health and self-care (touch therapy arc my beloved) (we never do learn what happened there do we), they're decently self-aware and willing to open up about it in the right context (friendquests <3) Siffrin is an adult, it just doesn't help.

Wrt characters who tear themselves apart for a goal, it is VERY compelling to me how Siffrin is willing to do Whatever It Takes for a goal that isn't his at all and he isn't going to actually get anything he wants out of completing it. It's only in Act 5, burning up with fever and torn to shreds by Mal Du Pays, that Siffrin finally falls apart about it. It's only in the last loop of Act 4, terrified of hope and exhausted by struggle, that you get the option to say no, not yet, let's stall a little. The entire time before this Siffrin is fully devoted to breaking the loops and giving everyone their happy ending, even after Loop forces them to confront how they don't see a happy ending for themselves at all. It devastates Siffrin that defeating the King doesn't break the loops, cracks their facade for the first time since the time they died for the first time. Siffrin wants the victory so so badly even though it's going to take everything from him. Just... yeah.

"I'll follow you into hell / don't go where I can't follow" Isabeau darling have you tried saying it out loud. Oh wait yeah you did and it didn't work. RIP you.

"Writer falls in love" is exactly an element absent from ISAT. Loop fucking wishes a writer out there would fall in love with them [this is not a commentary on adrienne, this is about the in-universe forces and perception of them]

"Unflappable character" is very much Siffrin but they don't have much of a mask wrt people in danger and haven't since the eye incident. (Odile is Odile. Trickster deity is not the same as unflappable)

Loop we both know neither you nor Siffrin could ever kill each other even if you're the only ones whom both of you would let do it

Love in this story is. Certainly the only thing we have left of the island.

Unreliable narrators. Yeah. Siffrin is always and forever a theatre kid.

[jesterjamz]

hello jeztie beztie whats one night at flumpty's

ok SO you know five nights at freddy's right. game made by shit cawthon & it blew the hell up. well BECAUSE fnaf got all popular a lot of people decided "hey lets make cool fangames of fnaf to be cool" & so they did. theres a lot of them & so i couldnt possibly name them all, but the one we're talking about here right now is one night at flumptys. (onaf for short!)

onaf was made by a dude named jonochrome (who just so happens to be the creator of riddle school as well, if you know riddle school). unlike a lot of the fnaf fangames that followed the 5 nights format, there is only ONE night (two if you count hard-boiled mode lol) & the characters are NOT animatronics. they are just lil creatures!

this is flumpty bumpty. he's an egg. he's immune to the plot & can transcend time & space. also, as he says in game, "im coming to kill you!" (which is what i based my blog header off of <3). sometimes i will refer to my beloved oc h as a flumpty ripoff, even though the similarities are not intended, but now you know what im talking about when i say this jfldksfdsfds

this is birthday boy blam. i would call him the sexyman of the onaf community if i had no dignity, but i honestly just think he's a silly little guy. hes my silly little rabbit. anyways he's flumpty's best friend & he also has a lil guy he turns into sometimes called kevin jr, who looks like this:

according to the onaf wifi kevin jr is blam's future self (despite the lack of a kevin sr) but hey! fancy lil dudes are always neat.

this is the redman! he used to be human but then he drank lava & lived (kinda) now hes this fucked up little creature & thats so cool of him honestly. also in the second game he can give a virus to ur security cameras so <3

grunkfuss the clown!!! grunkfuss is a silly little fucked up clown who likes to go through holes in the wall. in the first game he appears in a wall in your office & in the second game he'll just sloop through the declaration of independence. very cool guy. love him.

the beaver!! this creature likes to just stay in the toilet most of the time but occasionally he WILL run down the hallway to jumpscare you in the first game. also he usually doesnt have knives for feet this is the first image i could find of him lol

golden flumpty!! flumpty, but golden, & surprisingly LESS fucked up & evil. i dont have much to say about him. he's just kinda there lol

the owl!!!!!!! quite possibly the best character in video game history. his first appearance is in the SECOND onaf game, as a replacement for the beaver, because sometime between the events of onaf 1 & onaf 2, the beaver died (from falling in the toilet). the owl sits on a urinal & will occasionally vent (haha like among us) into your office. very cool guy.

eyesaur!! fucked up abomination of human corpses turned into flumpty's cool & sick pet! i love eyesaur. eyesaur is TECHNICALLY in the first game but they dont try 2 attack you because of music, instead they stay in the eye pit & show you how many camera uses you have left until grunkfuss kills you lol.

this is the beavowl! (this is the best image i could get of them ok lol). in the THIRD game the owl has presumably also died (from falling in the urinal) & someone (presumably flumpty) frankenstein'd the beaver & the owl together, creating the beavowl! i love the beavowl.

if u have ANY other questions abt onaf please ask me i will tell u everything i know :-]

[angelqueen04]

Hamliza Month, Day 6

@megpeggs @historysalt

Toxic Summary: Eliza arrives at her parents’ home in June 1798 to find letters waiting for her.

Merit, virtue, and talents must have enemies and is always exposed to envy so that, my Eliza, you see the penalties attending the position of so amiable a man.  All this you would not have suffered if you had married into a family less near the sun.  But then the pride, the pleasure, the nameless satisfactions, etc.[1]

Eliza sighs, tossing the letter down on the secretary in front of her. It joins the pile of other letters that she had found waiting for her when she had arrived at her family’s home, her daughter and infant son accompanying her. Because of course there would be letters waiting for her. There are always letters. Hamilton is never one to remain silent, even at a distance.

She had been surprised to see a letter from Angelica, however. They had seen each other the day before Eliza had left by sloop. Why the need to write the very same evening after her departure?

In all truth, her sister’s words do nothing more than irritate her. Of course her sister would seek to blame all of Eliza’s misfortunes upon others, and not just that, but blame others for Alexander’s own sins. Eliza has spent nearly two decades refusing to acknowledge whatever whispers might crop up about the relationship between Angelica and Alexander (she certainly never gave one grain of credence to the vile suppositions that Alexander had bedded all three of the eldest Schuyler sisters), but she has never been blind to the simmering attraction between them. Eliza has simply always had faith in her sister and her husband to never let what lay between them take them anywhere inappropriate. She has always trusted them.

Of course, Eliza had trusted her husband never to betray her at all, and he had certainly made her feel the fool for that, hadn’t he?

Eliza leans back in her chair, rubbing her eyes. That was why she had left, really. Why she’d had to get away, out of the city, away from all of it. Ten months. For ten months she has endured the virulent attacks of Bach’s rag, The Aurora[2]. For ten months, she has endured both the scorn and pity of the citizens of New York, depending on their political sympathies. For ten months, she has lived with her husband eyeing her like a dog who knows it has done wrong and is waiting its punishment. For ten months, she has had Angelica standing at her side and pouring excuse after excuse into her ears, blaming all of it upon Alexander’s enemies.

It is the last that truly makes her angry. While she does not deny that Alexander’s enemies have pounced upon the opportunities afforded them, Eliza dislikes her sister’s attempt to render Alexander blameless in all of this. He is not blameless, far from it. He is the one who made the mad choice to write and publish this pamphlet, announcing his sins to the world in an attempt to vindicate himself of the charges of financial misconduct. Alexander chose that path, chose to write about his… affair in excruciating detail, when a few well-chosen words would have been enough.

Alexander is the one who chose to go to bed with another woman in the first place, chose to conduct an affair behind his wife’s back. Eliza will not wipe away the sin of that. She has never been someone who willfully blinds herself to things, and she will not start now. Her husband must and will bear his share of the blame.

In the end, it all grew too much, having Angelica on one side prattling on about wishing all of the Democratic-Republicans to the devil, and Alexander fluttering around her, wanting to fuss as he so often did after she gave birth but terrified of being slapped down in a fit of temper. All of it left her feeling smothered. She could never have a moment to herself, just to think.

So Eliza had nearly wept with relief when her father had written to her, requesting that she visit him and her mother, and that she bring young Angelica and little William, whom they had only seen once since his birth the previous August. She had leapt at the chance, so grateful for the excuse to get away from New York, from the whispers.

And from both Alexander and Angelica, Eliza admits to herself guiltily. Anything to give her the chance to catch her breath, to take stock of everything on her own terms, not her husband’s or her sister’s.

Eliza looks at the opened letter again, and shakes her head. She ought to have expected this, that her sister wouldn’t be able to resist sending her words after Eliza as she fled. She reminds herself – again – that Angelica means well, and cannot be expected to know that her words have the opposite effect that she intends them to have.

Angelica has crowed about Alexander’s genius for years, delighted in his every achievement and victory. Of course, Eliza has too – she is proud of what Alexander has been able to do in building their nation’s government. But Angelica has never been cognizant of the costs of his work. She has cheered his devotion to his various plans to build the credit, but has never seen how he works himself to the bone, neglecting his health for it. Eliza has never forgotten that Alexander was the first to catch the damned yellow fever, during that dreadful summer in ’93. He had been so buried in his work, dealing with an obstinate Congress and decidedly unhelpful fellow Cabinet members, that he had worn himself out, leaving his body weak and easy prey for the fever to take hold. It had nearly killed him.

And that had not been the only time Alexander had been so overwhelmed that he’d been led into bad choices. He’d refused to take a break, to join her and the children in Albany, and had stayed behind in the city. That had been when Maria Reynolds had walked into his life, Eliza recalls with a sickening twist in her stomach.

Angelica has never seen this. Instead, she sees only Alexander’s greatness, and when faced with his mistakes, she seeks to absolve him of it, blaming everything upon his enemies, so that he might remain the unsullied hero she has always seen him as. But Alexander is not blameless. He is a grown man, brilliant about his work, but careless in so many other things. Careless enough that he makes enemies of those who should be his friends, leaving himself vulnerable to attack where he is at his weakest. And it has led them to this, where Eliza cannot help but watch him when he leaves the house and wonder if Maria Reynolds had been his only bout of infidelity, if there are other women standing in the shadows, waiting to step into the light to further tarnish their lives.

Eliza shakes her head, and gathers up the letters before shoving them into a drawer. Standing up, she leaves the room, trying to shake the thoughts from her head. She came here to think, to clear her head, and she cannot do that if she continues to stare at those pages. She needs to be calm, at peace… so she can decide how she wishes things to be going forward.

[1] Angelica’s letter to Eliza, commonly known as the “Icarus Letter”. I utilize @runawayforthesummer’s theory that it was written in June 1798, of which you can see the details here.

[2] ‘Bach’ being Benjamin Franklin Bach, Benjamin Franklin’s grandson. He was the owner of The Aurora, one of the papers that sided with the Democratic-Republicans and took great pleasure in ripping apart people like Hamilton and Washington in its pages. This is the paper that decided to also take aim at Eliza after the publication of the Reynolds Pamphlet. The oh-so-classy line directed at Eliza about Hamilton ‘lolling in the lap of a harlot’ can be attributed to, if not Bach himself, then to his editors or someone who worked for him. Bach would die just a few months after this ficlet takes place, in September 1798, of a yellow fever outbreak in Philadelphia.

[carewyncromwell]

Next installation of the POTC AU, at long last! Sorry for the delay...RL has been a bit of a hindrance, and I also had to kind of restructure some things in the storyline to help with flow and such, and that resulted in me having to draw another drawing, and yeah, blah blah, Tory lost her sense of rhythm and pretty much daily update schedule in the process. XD; Mea culpa!

In this part, we’ll have focus on both sides of the “divide,” with both Carewyn and her new ally Davy Jones/Finn McGarry @theguythatdraws and Charlie Weasley (pictured above in an even more pirate-y coat and hat than we saw last) and his sloop’s passenger Chiara Dalma. Will our pirate friends be able to reach Shipwreck Cove before they’re cut off by our non-pirate ones?

Interestingly enough, there was a pirate called Moody in the 1700s, though this one was Christopher Moody, not Alastor. Not much is known about him aside from his brutality (refusing to take prisoners), his unique Jolly Roger flag (which was red and gold rather than black), and his death by hanging in 1722. Pirate!Mad-Eye is going to be much more like his book/movie/game counterpart, but I just thought it was a fun coincidence. (Particularly his red/gold color scheme for his flag, which of course are Gryffindor colors!!)

Jules Farrier-Weasley belongs to @cursebreakerfarrier, last part is here, and whole tag is here! Hope you enjoy!

x~x~x~x

Carewyn knew there was no way she would be able to get Jones’s heart as long as her men were guarding the Chest -- yet, at the same time, she couldn’t just order them to abandon it without cause...and she’d need that time, if she wanted to unlock it without stealing the key from Rakepick. And so she’d need a proper diversion.

Davy Jones himself came up with a solution. If the Flying Dutchman was engaged in battle, then the soldiers might have to jump in to help defend it. All they’d have to make sure of was that the enemy they engaged in battle was one Cutler Beckett would approve of -- namely, one of the more wanted pirates in the Caribbean, and someone who could end up being one of the Pirate Lords.

“I do not know any of the pirates’ current list of so-called ‘Lords,’” said Jones, “but if I were to guess, I would say your brother’s a viable candidate.”

Carewyn shook her head. “Rakepick blew up the Tower Raven. Jacob managed to escape, but he only has one other person with him and he won’t have a ship.”

“Not his flagship, perhaps, but the rest of his fleet would have still survived,” pointed out Jones. “And the more ships there are, the most justification there would be for your Navy reinforcements. Once I have my heart returned, I can always call off the attack -- there’s no need for me to capture or kill them, aside from following Beckett’s direction.”

And so it was very reluctantly that Carewyn agreed to let Jones covertly seek out the remainder of the Tower Raven’s fleet while supposedly looking for Shipwreck Cove. Little did Carewyn know that the Tower Raven’s fleet was likewise headed for Shipwreck Cove, and that they were on a collision course with a tiny red sloop steered by Charlie Weasley.

When Charlie came upon the fleet of pirate ships, he initially wasn’t too worried. Yeah, naturally, they dwarfed his vessel easily, but he presumed that they were heading for Shipwreck Cove as well, and they didn’t have much reason to attack a small sloop like his. What Charlie hadn’t factored in was that the captain of one of those ships -- Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody -- had gone through his fair share of trauma when he used to be in the Navy and was something of a paranoid sort...and so within minutes, the little sloop Charlie and Chia Dalma were on was soon pursued by Moody’s much larger galleon, called the Phoenix.

Fortunately Charlie was more than talented enough of a sailor to keep his head. Using the advantage of his boat’s size, he weaved expertly through the remainder of the Tower Raven’s ships to evade the Phoenix’s cannon fire.

“Oi!” Charlie bellowed up at one of the ships he was hiding behind. “Tell your mate to bugger off! I’m not with the bloody Navy!”

Chia made no move to help Charlie: instead she stood on the other side of the sloop, watching the seas with a wary eye. There was something troubling on the wind -- something in the air...

A pirate from the Phoenix came up to the railing to look down at Charlie and Chia on their sloop as Charlie sailed it around his galleon. He was a broad-shouldered man about Charlie’s age with dark red hair under a black bandana and small emerald green eyes, and he was dressed in a burgundy-colored coat.

“Hey -- you!” the pirate bellowed down at him. “Down there! Shout up your name!”

Charlie hesitated at first. He knew it was unlikely that most pirates would recognize his name as being that of a pirate -- if anything, the name “Weasley” was associated more with the Navy, even if he, Jules, and Bill had recently been branded criminals.

‘Even so,’ he thought, ‘I’m never going to be able to build a reputation as anything other than a Navy veteran if I don’t use my name. And well, these guys answer to Carey’s brother -- it should be safe...’

“I’m Charlie Weasley!” he shouted back. “Quartermaster of the Revolution under Captain Jules Farrier-We -- ack!”

Before Charlie could even finish, both he and Chia had gotten a net thrown over them and they were hauled aboard the Phoenix.

As Charlie had feared, the name “Weasley” made everyone on the Phoenix tense up with suspicion. Charlie’s “twin,” it turned out, had been swept up by Cutler Beckett, who was now flaunting the fact that the famous, brilliant young Commodore Carey Weasley was answering to him and helping him with his new anti-piracy campaign. Charlie knew full well the only reason Carewyn could be associating with Beckett was to try to sabotage him, but the Phoenix’s Captain Moody seemed doubtful of that explanation. His First Mate, Barnaby Lee -- the young man who had first demanded Charlie’s name -- seemed noticeably less suspicious, but wasn’t half as assertive or articulate as Moody, so the Captain’s conclusion won out among the crew.

Charlie and Chia were soon hauled down to the brig with the thought that once the fleet arrived in Shipwreck Cove, Moody’s superior, Black Jack Roberts -- were he still alive -- would be able to discern how best to deal with them. Charlie hadn’t been too surprised that Jacob hadn’t told everyone in his fleet that “Carey Weasley” was really his sister, but he couldn’t help but curse the fact that Jacob had merely ordered that his men not “damage anyone with the name ‘Weasley’ and immediately bring them to him to deal with.” Even if he had to keep up a “tough guy” image, it would’ve been nice if Jacob had factored in the possibility that he wouldn’t be leading his fleet.

Unfortunately Moody’s suspicion had a real cost. Because of his focus on Charlie and Chia Dalma, he wasn’t focusing on the turbulence of the seas and skies that Chia picked up on -- and so had no warning whatsoever when the Flying Dutchman attacked. Soon the entire fleet of ships that once sailed under the Tower Raven was hotly engaged in battle with the infamous ship of the damned, pirates facing off against both cursed sailors and Navy officers.

While Davy Jones, his crew, and the Navy’s officers were fighting on the upper deck, Carewyn had stowed away below deck to where the Dead Man’s Chest had been left. After sending the remainder of the patrol above deck to help with the sea battle, Carewyn immediately got to work picking the lock on the Chest. Although it was a bit trickier to do it on her own than it had been with Percy, that hindrance was counteracted somewhat by her having unlocked the Chest once before. Within fifteen minutes, Carewyn had unlocked the two-sided lock and opened the Chest.

But when she opened it, she found it completely empty.

“It seems we truly are as alike as I thought.”

Carewyn whirled around.

Rakepick was leaning her shoulder against the door frame. She’d discarded her tricorn hat just as Carewyn had since they were no longer on deck, and her dark blue eyes were locked on the Commodore’s face as though it were a target.

Carewyn immediately pulled out her pistol, pointing it right at Rakepick.

“Where is the heart?” she said very coldly.

“I confiscated it,” said Rakepick simply, “back when I checked to make sure Jones’s key works.”

“On Beckett’s orders?” asked Carewyn.

Had she truly not fooled Beckett, after all? Had Rakepick been sent to watch her as well as Jones? Her face blanched at this thought.

“For my own benefit,” said Rakepick. “Just as I daresay your attempt to steal the heart also was.”

Carewyn’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not stealing anything.”

”I don’t know what else you’d call picking the lock on a Chest that’s in the custody of the British Navy,” said Rakepick with a rather cool smile.

Carewyn clicked her pistol and pointed it right at Rakepick’s head.

“Hand over the heart,” she murmured, “now.”

Rather than looking the least bit intimidated, however, Rakepick almost looked more pleased. She eased herself off the door frame and took a few steps closer to Carewyn.

“You intend to kill me, Commodore?” she said.

“I would prefer not to,” Carewyn answered icily. “But I suggest you don’t push me -- I can still shoot you in plenty of places that would be extremely painful or deadly, if left untreated. And no one would come to help you with your wounds -- there’s more than enough noise above deck to muffle any gun shots that might come from down here.”

Rakepick’s lips spread into an even fuller, satisfied smile as she came to a halt just a foot from Carewyn. “I see. If I’m dead, you won’t learn where the heart is. Very astute, Miss Weasley.”

Carewyn stiffened sharply.

“I knew it as soon as I saw you,” said Rakepick softly. “I daresay because your family is poor, you didn’t have enough prospects to just marry into money. Probably were too independent and self-sufficient to settle for that, as well....so you joined your brothers in the Navy by dressing as another son. I suppose ‘Carey’ is just a play on your real name -- is it Cara? Or Carina?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Carewyn whispered.

She tried to obscure her fear with anger, but it was proving difficult -- her face was as white as a sheet.

Rakepick couldn’t fight back a scoff. “Now, really, Commodore -- do you truly think you’re the only woman who realized how few opportunities there are, for us to get ahead in this world run by men? I dressed as a man and joined the Navy myself during the War, fighting the French off the coast of Africa as a privateer for his Majesty’s Navy.”

She started striding in a leisurely circle around Carewyn, even as the Commodore kept a beady eye on her.

“‘Patrick Rakepick,’ I was called then. I probably would’ve continued that way too, had privateering not been outlawed with the end of the War. Suddenly all of the skills I had learned -- just as with all privateers -- became illegal and therefore useless. I was at the bottom once again, even worse off than before, thanks to the time lost and the injuries suffered. So I did what many other privateers did -- I became a pirate, so I could continue using those skills the Crown had taught me to support myself -- ”

“By pillaging merchant ships and attacking innocent people,” Carewyn spat. She wished she’d been able to keep her temper, but the mental image of this woman shooting Jacob in the back and pushing him overboard had rippled through her mind and it was a knife to her heart she couldn’t bear.

“We all have to do things we’re not proud of in order to survive, Miss Weasley,” said Rakepick very quietly. “That’s the reason you’ve stayed in line with Beckett yourself, is it not?”

Carewyn’s eyes narrowed. Rakepick took her silence as an excuse to press further.

“I saw the way you treated the prisoners from Tortuga. You did not treat them as Jones would, or even as any other officer would. You insisted they be fed and watered consistently, despite their large numbers and their shortened lifespans. You gave one a Bible, on request. You even moved a woman into a different cell so she could be with her husband for the rest of the voyage back to Port Royal, without even being asked.”

Rakepick’s dark blue eyes surveyed Carewyn with something interested, almost admiring, as she came to a halt just behind the shorter young woman.

“You have the heart of a guardian, Miss Weasley. Something not frequently seen in any line of work I’ve ever been part of -- privateering, piracy, or pirate hunting...and something never found among men like Cutler Beckett. It makes you want to protect others as well as yourself. It makes you a natural leader -- one that anyone would be foolish to deny their proper place.”

“I don’t need your flattery, Rakepick,” Carewyn said coldly, turning on her heel to face the older woman once again.

“This is not flattery,” Rakepick answered just as coldly. “It’s advice from someone who has been in your shoes. It’s not easy for anyone without money and status to get ahead in this world, but it’s even harder for a woman. Even when she’s able to acquire those things, there’ll always be a man attempting to clip her wings, so as to make him feel more powerful -- more in control. Even the tale of the goddess Calypso herself proves this. She ruled the seas, until the Pirate King and his Brethren Court ‘bound her’ into human form and stole control for themselves. They were powerless in the face of the Crowns of Europe...and so they exerted power over someone they could hurt.”

“Yet Cutler Beckett hired you, regardless of your sex,” said Carewyn, raising her eyebrows.

Rakepick crossed her arms over his chest. “Cutler Beckett will clip anyone’s wings, female or otherwise, if it benefits himself. Hence why I need this leverage over him.”

“Seems like the leverage is much more over Jones, considering you hold his life in your hands,” Carewyn cut her off harshly. “Now enough stalling -- give me Jones’s heart.”

Rakepick gave a half-frustrated, half-exhausted sigh. “Miss Weasley, do you truly think I wouldn’t have handed the heart over to you already, if I could? I’ve already made it more than clear I trust Beckett as little as you do. I’m not in this fight for him. I have no more love for either the Navy or the pirates than you do. I assure you -- we’re on the same side in this.”

‘Doubtful,’ Carewyn thought spitefully.

Nonetheless she could tell that she’d been outmaneuvered. Rakepick wasn’t going to hand over Jones’s heart, whether because it wasn’t on the ship or Rakepick was just too brave to give in to any threats she might make. She’d lost the element of surprise completely...and if force wasn’t going to work, then a new strategy was clearly needed. She needed to find out the heart’s new location. So, very reluctantly, she tucked her pistol back into its holster.

“If you’re so out for yourself,” said Carewyn coldly, “and you believe me to be just as out for myself...then we can’t be on the same side, Rakepick.”

Rakepick’s eyebrows rose over her narrowing dark blue eyes.

“I never said you were out for yourself, Miss Weasley -- merely that we are alike.”

She swept past Carewyn and headed for the door. When she reached the door frame, however, she paused. Turning her head back toward Carewyn, she spoke a bit more seriously.

“The battle between the Navy and the Pirate Brethren Court is going to be a fierce one. It would truly be in your best interest to get and stay off the Dutchman, before that fight begins.”

Carewyn shot a suspicious look over her shoulder without turning around.

“What battle?” she asked lowly.

“The place where all pirates will have to make their final stand.”

“You’re so assured of that? We haven’t even found Shipwreck Cove,” Carewyn pointed out. “Come to think of it...shouldn’t you know where Shipwreck Cove is, since you were a pirate yourself?”

Rakepick’s eyes flashed.

“I’m afraid not,” she said, her voice noticeably icier than it had been previously.

The question seemed to have gotten under Rakepick’s skin, and Carewyn suspected she knew exactly why. Only pirate captains were generally told the the location of Shipwreck Cove -- since she hadn’t assumed captainship through “Code-sanctioned” means, Rakepick couldn’t have been told by anyone else on the crew of Howell Davis’s ship where Shipwreck Cove was.

‘Serves you right, for what you did to Jacob,’ Carewyn thought, and she couldn’t completely fight back a small smirk.

“Regardless,” said Rakepick, “it won’t take long to find it. You saw the map Beckett designed, in your office -- it’s been finished, since you last saw it. The world’s edges have been drawn and charted, and so too have all of the places pirates could’ve once hidden. Now that they’ve been fenced in and the British Crown has allocated its Navy to the East India Trading Company’s war on piracy...it’s only a matter of time before all pirates face extinction. Those in power will not surrender it peacefully...least of all to those they’ve decided to treat as inferiors...so they’ll use every bit of that power they’ve accrued to try to quash any resistance. Those remaining pirates will have to either adapt to this terrifying new world their rebellion has molded...or perish.”

Rakepick turned away.

“And you, Miss Weasley...should not remain on the Dutchman. You don’t belong on a ship like this.”

Even as Rakepick left, Carewyn remained where she was, standing straight-backed in the center of the room with her fists clenched. Then, after a long moment, she brought a hand up to the lid of the empty Dead Man’s Chest and shut it with a harsh SNAP.

The sea battle up above raged. Captain Moody, it seemed, was truly a force to be reckoned with, despite his age and wooden limbs. When Navy officers and Dutchman pirates found their way onto the Phoenix, he fought four of them off single-handed, even going so far as to yank a blunderbuss out of his pants and shoot one of them right in the head before smacking two of the others with it as if it were a club. It was just fortunate that Charlie -- newly escaped from the brig thanks to a charm of Chia Dalma’s -- was able to block the sword belonging to the last of them with his own dragon-hilted blade.

Despite this, the Phoenix and the rest of the Tower Raven’s old fleet was severely outmatched, since Jones’s crew couldn’t die. Many ships had already started to flee, only for the Flying Dutchman to cut them down with cannon fire. Even though the Dutchman was no larger than the pirate galleons, it seemed to have the supernatural ability to heal any damage dealt to it within the span of a few minutes -- an ability not shared by Captain Moody, when he swung over to the Dutchman and pursued Jones with singular, irrational focus, only to finally be overpowered and killed by Jones himself.

“NO!” bellowed Barnaby.

Charlie straightened up sharply, his eyes widening in horror, at the sight of Moody falling to his knees, Jones’s blade stuck right through his chest.

Jones regarded the old man with a grim expression.

“Alastor Moody,” he murmured, “do you fear death?”

Moody glared up at Jones with his one good eye, but was clearly too badly injured to speak. So instead he spat at his feet.

Jones looked almost jaded by the reaction -- the way any embodiment of Death would likely be, whenever anyone got mad at them for doing their job.

“Clearly not.”

With this, he rather callously tossed Moody back over onto the deck of the Phoenix and whirled back to his crew.

“Ready the cannons!”

Barnaby immediately rushed to his captain’s side to help him up.

“Captain -- Captain, are you -- ?”

Alas, Moody was still too injured to speak clearly. When he opened his mouth, all he could do was cough up blood. Charlie rushed over too.

“He’s hurt bad,” he muttered. He turned to Chia. “Is there anything you -- ?”

Chia shook her head, her gray eyes very solemn. “I’m sorry, Charles Weasley. There’s no more time I can give him.”

Charlie was startled by the sensation of someone grabbing the collar of his shirt. Moody pulled him down closer to him, trying to whisper into his ear.

"You -- ” he choked through the blood in his mouth, “ -- have the Pacific Ocean’s Piece of Eight -- ?”

Charlie blinked in surprise. He glanced down at the anchor-trimmed “S” button Chia gave him, which he’d pinned to his vest for safe keeping until he could properly sew it somewhere more secure.

“...Yeah,” said Charlie. “Chia Dalma gave it to me.”

Moody squinted up at Charlie.

“...Shipwreck Cove -- is due west, of here. Fifty miles -- through the D-Devil’s -- Throat. Take -- the crew there.”

Charlie was completely blind-sided. “What?”

“Lead them. Take them to -- Shipwreck Cove. To the rest of the Court. To -- Black Jack.”

Charlie’s brown eyes rippled with sadness, seeing how much difficulty Moody was having talking. He was out of time, as Chia had said -- and yet, here he was, putting his crew first.

‘For all of his faults,’ thought Charlie, ‘Mad-Eye Moody is a good captain.’

The second-eldest Weasley took Moody’s wizened hand in both of his and gave it a squeeze.

“I will,” he said firmly. “I promise.”

Blood streamed from Moody’s lips as they curled up in a pained smile. “That’s a good lad...”

He coughed, trying hard to take another breath. This time, however, the blood blocked his throat enough that no oxygen could reach him. And so Moody, in the last shreds of his life, bravely raised his eyes to the sky with a smile.

Barnaby had brought his two large fists up to obscure his face as he started to cry. Charlie hung his head respectfully over the fallen captain of the Phoenix. After a moment, he brought up a hand to close Moody’s eyes and then rose to his feet, his eyes blazing with determination.

“ALL HANDS, PREPARE THE CANNONS!” he bellowed. “We need all the explosives and smoke bombs we have -- we’re getting the Hell out of here!”

Charlie’s strategy was to assault the Flying Dutchman with two waves of attack. The first would be to damage the ship enough that it would need a few minutes to repair itself -- the second would be a smokescreen, so as to hopefully put enough distance between the Phoenix and the Flying Dutchman that the second couldn’t actively take down the first with its cannon fire. When Charlie ran to the edge of the Phoenix beside Chia Dalma to make the order to fire, he was startled momentarily by who he saw coming up onto the deck of the Dutchman.

It was Carewyn.

Jones confronted her immediately, his eyes narrowed sharply as he barked something to her -- Carewyn looked rather frustrated herself, but Charlie couldn’t make out what they were saying. Within seconds, however, both Jones and Carewyn turned their focus to the battle -- and they both caught sight of the two people at the railing.

Jones’s eyes flickered with shock, disbelief, and something oddly more vulnerable. He’d never seen the human woman on that ship’s railing in his life...but he knew those gray eyes...

“Ca...lypso...?”

Chia Dalma’s hands clutched the railing as her eyes filled with tears and a weak smile prickled at her features.

“Finn,” she breathed.

Carewyn, meanwhile, had met Charlie’s gaze straight on. Her eyes were very wide at the sight of him, just as much as Charlie’s was at the sight of her.

“Carey!” cried Charlie.

His heart felt like it was fit to burst, seeing his surrogate twin again. Part of him just wanted to throw himself over his ship’s railing over to her and pull her into the biggest hug, and yet --

She was on the Dutchman -- the Flying Dutchman, the ship of the damned --

Carewyn’s eyes flooded with fear as she shot her head around, taking in her soldiers fighting off pirates from the rest of the Tower Raven’s fleet on the deck of her ship and the Phoenix’s cannons being turned into the proper position.

Her gaze then shot back to Charlie’s face with urgency.

“BECKETT IS COMING!” she mouthed to him desperately. “BECKETT IS COMING! GO!”

She then yanked her pistol out of her belt and purposefully shot right over Charlie’s head, to make her point. Clenching his jaw, Charlie nonetheless nodded firmly, blinking back some traces of tears as he whirled on his crew.

“FIRST WAVE, FIRE ALL!” he roared.

With the Dutchman effectively hampered by both waves of attack, the Phoenix was able to successfully put a respectable distance between it and the Flying Dutchman. Carewyn tried to keep their focus on the rest of the fleet and on capturing prisoners from those vessels, but Rakepick contradicted her, ordering the Dutchman to shadow the Phoenix in case it was heading to Shipwreck Cove. What Carewyn did not expect was Jones agreeing with Rakepick.

“I want everyone on board the Phoenix locked in my brig,” said the captain of the damned icily, his gaze flaring with raw emotion as he glared at Carewyn. “I will not let them escape me.”

Carewyn knew she’d been outmaneuvered again. There was nothing more she could do, to protect everyone now. It was all up to Charlie now, to warn Bill, Jules, and Jacob...to warn Orion...

The memory of the pirate captain’s calm, dark eyes made Carewyn’s heart clench with longing and pain. He’d always made her feel so much stronger, whenever she felt most useless and hopeless...but right now, more than anything, she longed to have him at her side -- to feel his shoulder resting against hers and see his soft smile once more...

Rakepick was right -- the final battle was coming, sooner than anyone could’ve ever predicted. It was all up to Charlie to warn the Brethren Court now.

[rohad93]

Sea Glass: Ch 3

18+ 

“Up ahead Cap’n!” The barrelman called from the crow’s nest, pointing off at the horizon. 

Yellow climbed back up to the helm, snatching the spyglass from her first-mates outstretched hand.  

She held the spyglass up to her eye and could see the merchant’s vessel. It was easy to spot, its hull was painted a vivid red that stood out starkly against the endless blue of the ocean and sky.  

The ship was docked about two-hundred yards out from a large island and Yellow frowned.

Why had they docked in the middle of the route? There was nothing out here except this island, and a lone merchant ship in too often pirate-infested waters, should have known better than to stop for any length of time on the open ocean. There were very few reasons for a merchant vessel, a small ship that held few cannons and crew, to stop where it was dangerous.

Usually, only when a man died would a ship dock to bury the soul, lest the foul rot infect the ship, but only if the voyage was going to be more than a few days from land, otherwise most ships waited until they docked. 

That, or if the ship was damaged and no longer capable of sailing; broken masts, torn sails, leaks, and the like. 

While she couldn’t tell if the ship was leaking the rest of it seemed in fine condition. 

Her mouth screwed up in thought as she lowered the spyglass. Something about this didn’t sit right with Yellow. 

“Captain, The Menagerie is fast approaching!” The call came down from up in the rigging and Yellow cursed, hand around the brass of the spyglass tightened into a white-knuckle grip. If she didn’t move now the decision would be made for her when Blue swooped in on the much swifter Menagerie.

The sloop was smaller and faster and thus by proxy, more maneuverable than The Cluster, a carrack, a much larger, heavier, and slower ship.

It also carried more crew, cargo, and most importantly, cannons. The Cluster was a fortress on the sea. It had been Yellow’s plan from the start when she had acquired the vessel. Where most pirates prioritized speed for a quick getaway or catching up to the larger cargo ships that carried valuables across the ocean to Europe, Yellow had opted for a full offense.  

She had to sacrifice speed but gained the ability to plow straight through most problems with heavy cannon fire.

A strategy had that had made her one of the most well-known pirates in the Caribbean. Something she did not intend to let Blue trample all over with her games, or whatever this was she suddenly found herself entangled in. She unconsciously ran her tongue over her lips.

The spyglass snapped close with the scrape of metal; the decision made.

“Stay the course!” she called and a chorus of “Aye captain!” sounded back at her.  

Today more then ever she needed to make a statement, to her crew and to Blue. 

She wasn’t going to let Blue run roughshod over her with her mind games or her body.

The blonde exhaled sharply, pocketing the spyglass and stomping back down the steps.

“Ready the cannons and prepare to board!’ she called out, walking toward the bow, pulling out her pistol, and checking both barrels were loaded. She had fired at a seagull that had been sitting outside the window of her quarters the day before; it had been annoying her.

Satisfied with the state of her gun she slipped it back into its holster before checking her sword once done she stood at the bow, trying to let the sound of the wind and water as they cut through it take some of the tension out of her shoulders.

Something about this bothered Yellow and she couldn’t put her finger on it. If she didn’t know better, she might think her now muddied thoughts about Blue was probably what it was.

She frowned, crossing her arms over her chest. 

That was probably exactly what it was. She’d let the damnable captain manage to crawl under her skin. She was much too fixated on what had transpired last night, rather than the task at hand.  

Yellow scowled at the ocean in front of her as the bloody red merchant ship grew steadily closer on the horizon. 

They needed to make this quick. Board, subdue the crew, get the valuables and get out before Blue had a chance to get there.

Simple, in theory.

Once a ship realized who they were dealing with they didn’t normally offer up to much resistance, and even when they did Yellow had proven time and time again why it was better to just let her have her way than to lose your head over it.  

“Joe!” She looked over her shoulder. 

“Cap’n?” The bald boatswain jumped to attention, dropping everything else.

“Gather up the boarding party.” 

“Aye, Cap’n!” He scurried away and Yellow turned toward the stern, teeth grit at the ever-approaching form of The Menagerie. 

As they slowly pulled alongside the merchant ship, cannons at the ready, the yawning pit of uneasiness in Yellow’s gut grew.

Not a soul was on deck. It looked as if it had never been boarded to start with. 

Gangplanks were thrown down and she, along with twenty men boarded the other ship. Its sails flapped quietly in the breeze, the only sound on the ship besides the heavy footfalls of her crew as they scoured the deck.

~ ~ ~ 

“They’re boarding already…,” Rose said, looking through the spyglass and watching The Cluster, still a little way off as they climbed across to the merchant ship.

“What?” Blue asked, finally coming out of her quiet contemplation of the sea to look at her from her place leaning against the railing. “I didn’t hear any gunfire…” She stood up straight, eyes turning toward the two small dots she knew were the ships in question on the horizon

“Because they didn’t fire. The merchant ship is docked at that island and didn’t fire either…” Rose lowered the glass to look at her, the worry clearly written on her face.

Something about all of this made Rose uneasy and she told Blue as much as she took the spyglass out of her hands to look at the two ships in the distance. 

Blue pursed her lips as she lowered the glass.

Rose had always had a keen sense when it came to these things. She had never been able to explain it and Blue had never questioned it because very rarely was she wrong…

But it was still a possibility and Blue had a point to make, to herself and Yellow.

Though she wasn’t entirely sure what that point was yet. She just knew that she needed to do this. 

“Keep the course.” She turned to look at Holly, who nodded.

“Aye Cap’n” 

“Blue…,” Rose started, biting her lips. 

“It’ll be fine, Rose,” she assured the younger woman with a gentle smile but the thief’s stomach only twisted up more at her words.

~ ~ ~ 

“There’s no one here, captain…” a deckhand observed and the blonde frowned at the obvious statement.  

"Check the hold," Yellow ordered as she walked around on deck. It was eerily quiet. The gentle flapping of the sails in the wind hammered the silence home. The hair on the back of her neck was standing on end. Several large crates sat scattered across the deck as if the cargo had been thrown on board and then the ship cast adrift on its own.

What was going on here?

Everything about this set her on edge. 

“Only thing in the hold is cargo, Cap” One of her gunners popped his head out of the hold.

“Bring it up, load everything onto the ship, quickly!” she barked. She wanted off this ship and to be away from here as quickly as possible, and no longer just because Blue would be here soon. 

Everything about this set her her teeth on edge. 

Within an hour they had all the large crates on deck and were just starting to move them aboard The Cluster when The Menagerie sailed up on the other side of the merchant ship and Yellow scowled.

From this position, all her cannons were of little use unless she wanted to completely blast thorough the merchant ship first, which while in theory was possible would take time and all of their ammo.

Something Blue was well aware of. 

“To arms!” she snapped as the crew of The Menagerie lowered their planks and began to board the ship. Swords slid from their belts and pistols were cocked in anticipation. 

It seemed like the entirety of The Menagerie’s crew was now standing across from them on deck, they parted for Blue as she came sauntering across with a smirk, her sister trailing behind her.

“Well, if this isn’t a pleasant surprise.” She smiled coyly at the other captain as she stepped onto the deck with a quiet thump of her boots. “Fancy meeting you here, Yellow.” 

“Cut the shit, Blue,” Yellow snarled and the smile fell away from Blue’s face. Evidently she had pushed a little to hard last night if Yellow was still in this sour of a mood. “This is ours, so shove off,” she growled, pistol locked and loaded in her right hand, though it stayed down at her side. 

Blues lips pulled into a frown as she and Yellow shared a long unwavering look before she finally sighed, breaking the stare.

“Well, we are pirates… we’ll just take it.” In a flash, she’d pulled the dual pistols from her waist, aimed right at the gold rogue whose arm had whipped up at the first sign of movement. 

The two caused a chain reaction of pistols cocking and daggers being pulled free of their hiding places on both sides.

The air was still and tense as the two stared each other down, a certain trepidation all around, this was the most serious the two had ever engaged each other. Pride had guaranteed their face-off here, neither willing to back down.

Yellow swallowed thickly, finger locked tightly around the trigger.

The loud crash of wood made them all jump as the crates scattered around the deck burst open and men with muskets jumped out, leveling their weapons on the pirates. 

Their dark blue and gold uniforms told Yellow immediately what was happening as they spread to try and better surround the stunned pirates. 

It was a trap

The tip she’d been given was bait to lure her, and by extension Blue, who was well known to appear after Yellow often enough your chances were fifty-fifty of getting them both. 

Movement in the corner of her eye made her turn to look to see two galleons flying the white ensigns of the royal navy from their masts, coming around the bend of the island and heading straight for them. 

A man dressed in a royal navy officer uniform appeared, a piece of parchment in both hands  

“By order of the governor of port royal and the royal navy, Captains Marigold Faust, Ciel Doyle and their crews are hereby under arrest and ordered to surrender immediately!” He informed them, looking at the two captains with obvious contempt. 

Blue and Yellow glanced at each other.

Time was of the essence.

“I’d rather die,” Yellow sneered, and before anyone could blink had fired off a shot straight into the neck of the officer, who dropped to the ground, blood spurting from the new hole in his throat, bedlam erupting all around them before he even fell dead on the deck in a widening pool of blood.

Shots rang out in deafening blasts all around them as all sides began to fire, creating clouds of smoke that they used to their advantage, getting in close and gutting the royal navy sailors.

Yellow blocked a bayonet from impaling her with the barrel of her pistol, pushing it away long enough to whip the weapon around and bludgeon the man in the side of the head with the solid wood handle.  

Somewhere behind her Rose had buried her dagger into a sailor’s ribs as he grabbed for her sister, who was to busy shooting a man advancing with a saber in the chest to notice. A well-placed foot slammed into his midsection, knocking him over the railing, the splash going unnoticed among the shouts and blasts of gunfire on every side 

“Back to the ship!” Yellow ordered once they had whittled down some of the opposition.

“Go, pull up now!” Blue flagged her crew back toward The Menagerie. They had to get out of here before the galleons got to them and they were sitting ducks away from their cannons.

Most of the crew had already made it back to the ship when Rose turned to join them, only for a hand to dig into her curly locks and yank her backward.

She cried out, dropping her dagger as she was pulled back and whipped around to face a navy sailor.

“Where ya think you’re going ya damn sea whore?” He yanked at her hair, ripping a louder scream from her throat that caught Blue’s attention.

“Rose!” she yelled, running toward her. 

Blue wasn’t the only one who had noticed.  

A saber came slashing down and the sailor screamed as his arm was severed at the elbow and blood came gushing out, splattering Rose, but his scream was short-lived as Yellow pivoted her arm upwards, slicing his head clean off. It rolled across the deck as his body fell into a heap with the others.

Amber and cerulean locked for the briefest of moments before Yellow turned away to sever another limb.

Blue grabbed the thief’s arm and pulled her toward the ship.

“We have to go, now!” The Menagerie was already beginning to slowly move forward.

The two galleons were going to be upon them soon but Yellow had stayed to ensure all of her crew got off and lost her window by saving little Rose Doyle, now, with grim realization, there were enough navy sailors between her and The Cluster that she knew she’d never make it back.

“Shove off!” she yelled and Jasper who had been making her way back to the gangplanks stopped dead, but the look Yellow was sending her was clear and she quickly ran to the helm.

A handful of minutes later The Cluster was pulling away, the gangplanks falling away and dropping any navy sailors attempting to board the pirate ship into the sea. 

They weren’t going to make it...

That was the thought in Blue’s head as they ran toward her ship that was slowly pulling away. The crew standing at the railing calling for them. 

She knew what she had to do.

As they hit the edge she reached back and fisted both her hands into her sister’s blouse and flung the girl with all her might across the ever-widening chasm between the ships. 

She flew, and wouldn’t have made it were it not for the deckhands hanging from the railing that grabbed her arms as she sailed past them. They quickly dragged her aboard.

“Ciel!” Rose screamed as Blue stood on the edge of the merchant ship while The Menagerie pulled farther and farther away.

With one last look, she squared her shoulders and turned back to where Yellow was still fighting off the last of the navy sailors. The Cluster was moving away and it seemed the golden pirate had accepted that.

It looked like they would be going to Davey jones together. 

So be it.

She threw herself back into the fight until she was back to back with the tall blonde, who was panting, blood oozing from several cuts on her face.

They were surrounded at bayonet tip.

Yellow looked beyond them to see one of the galleons was about to board them and then they really would be finished. The other had decided to chase the much slower Cluster. She couldn’t help but smirk at that. 

Once they were back in open water The Cluster would decimate the other ship and they had managed to kill enough of the officers on this one that the other galleon would be to busy with them to offer aid.

“I’m open to any ideas…” Blue glanced at Yellow over her shoulder, holding her sword in one hand and her empty pistol in the other like a club. 

“Kill as many as possible before you go down…” Yellow’s gravely voice hit her ears and she couldn’t help but choke out a laugh.

“For once, I think we’re in agreement,” she mumbled lunging forward to stab one who got to close, kicking the fighting off again, but once the gangplank of the galleon lowered it was over.

With her sword shoved into the neck of one officer someone behind her grabbed Yellow’s arm and jerked her back, three more quickly piled on, shoving her to the ground and holding her limbs. Her sword jerked from her grip and her hat falling off somewhere. 

She heard Blue cry out somewhere behind her, followed by the sound of struggling. 

She snarled and struggled but then a boot came down and her world went dark in a shower of pain and stars.

[qqueenofhades]

Hilary, my expert on all things pirates and sailing and so forth. Do you happen to know, in your research, if there was a system that ship companies or crews had for figuring out how much food they'd need for a trip? Something like... oh we know that one person eats five pounds of x and one pound of y a day, so times that by how many people and how many days, that sort of thing?

Aha well most of my research is on the 18th century Royal Navy, but if any of it is helpful:

Salt Pork, Ship’s Biscuit, and Burgoo: Sea Provisions for Common Sailors and Pirates is a long and very informative article about what it says on the tin, i.e. food on sailing ships in the 18th century. You could probably get most of what you needed from there, but try also:

Could you survive on an 18th century seaman’s diet? gives you a pretty exact breakdown, ration-wise, of what a crew would be eating by week. 18th-century Sailors’ Food offers two provision lists, one for a 74-gun Navy ship in 1760, intended to supply 650 men for four months, and one for a much smaller sloop in 1777, for a crew of about 60 men. How the Royal Navy Fed Its Sailors 200 Years Ago also has a more exact breakdown, cooking-wise, and will cover some of the 19th century as well.

Anyway, I hope that is helpful!

[historybehindassassinscreed]

In Game:

Charles Vane was an English pirate captain who sailed the West Indies on his brigantine, the Ranger. He made a name for himself by targeting English, Spanish, and French industry ships from 1716 until 1719, and was notorious for his harsh treatment of merchant seafarers and soldiers alike.

Like his compatriots, Benjamin Hornigold, Edward Thatch and Edward Kenway, Vane worked as a privateer under the British crown. 

After arriving in Nassau in 1717, where he and Jack Rackham informed Edward Kenway of a large prize in a nearby fort, Vane became a leading member of Nassau's pirate community. In May of the same year, sobered and enraged by the rum shortage in Nassau, Vane recklessly attacked the ships of the area and was only saved through the timely intervention of Alonzo Batilla. The French pirate was sent by Christopher Condent to stop Vane from dooming himself and the Pirate Republic with him by attracting too much attention on Nassau.

In July 1718, he was present when Woodes Rogers arrived in Nassau to offer its residents the King's pardon, absolving them of their crimes if they chose to give up piracy. Unlike Benjamin Hornigold, Vane was not keen on accepting the pardon, and worked with Kenway to orchestrate an escape from the barricaded Nassau. Together, they planned to build a fireship with gunpowder to clear the blockade.

While Kenway stole the gunpowder from the British, Vane managed to secure the pine pitch. However, they overheard that Commodore Peter Chamberlaine intended to disregard Roger's orders and destroy all pirate ships in Nassau's harbors. In order to ensure the success of their plan, Vane suggested that Kenway deal with Chamberlaine.

After Chamberlaine was assassinated, Vane met up with Edward to load the gunpowder aboard Rackham's ship, the Royal Phoenix. Before they left, Vane violently berated Rackham for smoking a pipe near the gunpowder. The fireship proved to be successful, destroying the ships blockading one of Nassau's harbors, allowing the Jackdaw and the Ranger to escape, with Vane shouting oaths and insults back at the foundering British.

When Edward Thatch announced his retirement from piracy, Vane sailed to North Carolina in a bid to dissuade him, and convince Thatch to help take back Nassau. However, his efforts were in vain and he departed, empty-handed and cursing Thatch.

After Thatch's death at the hands of the British, Vane decided to help Kenway find the Observatory. The pair tailed the Royal African Pearl, a slave ship belonging to the Royal African Company, in the hopes of finding information on the Sage Bartholomew Roberts.

Vane recklessly fired on the Pearl, apparently heedless of the danger such an action posed to the slaves below deck. However, the slave ship outgunned the Ranger by a significant margin and returned fire, crippling Vane's ship and leaving it dead in the water.

Vane and his crew were rescued by Kenway, who brought his Jackdaw alongside the Ranger, and joined them in the subsequent battle and capture of the Royal African Pearl. They learned from the Pearl's captain that Roberts crewed a ship called the Princess and could be found in Kingston, with Vane subsequently shooting out the captain's left hip. Seconds later, Rackham and the surviving crew mutinied against Vane and Kenway, commandeering the Jackdaw and marooning both of them on Isla Providencia. During their time on the island, Vane's behavior became increasingly erratic; he took to hiding in the jungle, emerging only to steal food that Kenway had gathered.

Growing frustrated with Vane's actions, Kenway pursued the man, and Vane fiercely retaliated with an arsenal of recovered weaponry. Despite this, Edward managed to neutralize Vane – but spared him – abandoning the man on the island while he escaped by commandeering a passing fisherman's schooner.

Sometime later, a British ship arrived, but its captain recognized Vane and refused to save him. Several weeks later, another British vessel arrived and Vane was allowed aboard. Unfortunately, the captain of the first ship happened to be aboard as well and spotted Vane after only a few days at sea. He then pointed him out to the captain and had him arrested on the spot before taking Vane to Port Royal, where he remained for the next two years.

Kenway, who was also captured due to Bartholomew Roberts' treachery, managed to escape his gibbet and found Vane, who by now had gone completely mad, in his cell singing "Down Among the Dead Men." Knowing that Vane's state of mind was beyond repair, Kenway left him behind, lamenting how he wished the pair could have parted as friends.

Shortly after Edward's escape, Vane was hanged for piracy on March 29th, 1721. His body was later left on display in a gibbet outside the harbor as a warning to other pirates.

In Real Life:

Charles Vane was born sometime in 1680. Very little is known about his life prior to piracy, save for the fact that he lived in Port Royal, although it is likely that he was not born there.

His pirating days began in 1716 when he became a crewmember under Henry Jennings. Jennings, like many other pirates, raided ships and camps of the sunken Spanish galleons' salvagers, on the coast of eastern Florida. In 1718, just before Jennings took pardon from the new governor of New Providence, Woodes Rogers, Vane became a captain and continued sailing on his own. Captain Vane became quickly infamous, because he captured many vessels, tortured and murdered many prisoners.

Vane was one of the few pirates that did not accept the king’s pardon. In fact,  when Rogers arrived in the region with the flagship the “Delicia” and two warships the “Rose” and “Milford”, Vane set on fire, his recently captured French prize vessel and set it to sail straightforward Rogers ' ships. While they were trying to avoid the ship in flames, Vane sailed away laughing. He even fired a few shots. That was a clear message that Vane will not accept the pardon. Provoked Rogers sent a former pirate, Captain Benjamin Hornigold to hunt him down. He caught many runaway pirates, but Vane evaded.

While he was sailing to the Carolinas, Vane captured a big warship. He used it as a second ship and promoted his quartermaster Yeates as the captain of that ship. Together, they easily plundered a lot of ships. Their biggest prize was the slave ship, brigantine from Africa with 90 black slaves.

(Image source)

As the pirates' attacks became a constant threat, the governor Spotswood of South Carolina hired many capable pirate hunters to capture the pesky pirates. One of them was famous colonel, William Rhett, who wanted to capture Vane personally. During his chase, Rhett encountered ship which had been plundered by Vane. The crew from robbed vessel said that pirates headed south. That was a deception. Vane's crew gave contrary statements to their prisoners. By going north, once again Vane evaded his pursuers. In the end, Colonel Rhett managed to save his reputation by capturing another wanted pirate, Stede Bonnet.

Captain Vane always treated his pirate companions with little respect. Although Yeates was second in command, he decided to leave Vane's command because of that treatment. One night, Yeates and his followers took one of the Vane's ships, with part of the plunder, all 90 slaves and fled from him.

Disappointed pirates continued to sail together and harass throughout Carolinas. Although they plundered a lot of ships in Carolinas, Captain Vane always evaded well-armed ships and crewmembers' dissatisfaction grew. In September 1718, he met his good friend Blackbeard. Together they celebrated their union by holding a week-long drunken party. Even traders and women from near Bathe Town joined them. After the long party which ended by the end of October, Vane headed towards New York, and there he robbed more vessels and decided to come back in Carolinas to sell goods.

Charles Vane's downfall began in March. While “operating" in Windward Passage between Cuba and Hispaniola, he and his crew attacked a vessel and expected little resistance. However, it was a powerful French Warship, and after a few shoots, Vane decided to flee from the battle. The day after, led by his quartermaster, Calico Jack Rackham, crew accused him of cowardice. Rackham took over lead of the ship, and Vane was left behind in a small captured sloop. A few loyal pirates joined him.

Skillful as he was, he quickly captured a couple of small ships and rebuilt his pirate fleet. However, while they were at the Bay of Honduras, Hurricane wrecked his ships. Almost entire crew drowned. Vane and another survivor somehow stranded on a small fisherman's island. They were waiting for any ship that would rescue them. Unfortunately, his “rescuer” was the former Buccaneer, Captain Holford, who knew Vane well. He imprisoned and extradited him to authorities in Port Royal. Vane was put on trial, found guilty and hanged in November of 1720.

Sources:

http://www.republicofpirates.net/Vane.html

http://www.thewayofthepirates.com/famous-pirates/charles-vane/

http://www.goldenageofpiracy.org/infamous-pirates/charles-vane.php

[sweetsunrayssr]

Max, the stray cat

“Many men have played a role in Nassau's story, but none have been able to break the cycle of brutality and failure. Your granddaughter came as close  as anyone before or since. But at the end of the day and despite her best intentions, there was one truth even she was unable to see. That at some point, progress cannot begin and suffering will not end until someone has the courage to go out into the woods and drown the damned cat.” (Max to Grandma Guthrie, XXXV, 4x07)

We know what Grandma Guthrie did with Richard Guthrie’s tomcat. And certainly 4x07 had the plot guns veering into the direction to aim for Flint. But is that the sole cat in focus, or is there another stray cat who was saved by a Guthrie so many times? There is: Max.

Remember those fairytales where an envious friend/sister/chambermaid abused the trust and generosity of a female lead character, procured her posessions, status and power, displaced the trusting soul by manipulating her? Right at the end of the story this social climbing deceiver is asked by a powerful ruler who suspects her of wrongdoing how she would punish someone who committed such crimes. And after the deceiver answers with a death sentence, she is demasked and executed in the manner she offered.

The whole scene between Grandma Guthrie and Max has that same foreshadowing vibe. The entire focus is on Max revealing bit by bit something about herself, including her unwillingness to answer certain questions that are dangerously close. It appears that Grandma Guthrie is not unsympathetic towards Max, but I would wager it is pure appearance alone. Grandma Guthrie is doing needle-point the entire conversation, something that visually connects her to Eleanor who was learning in 4x01 to look the part, to play her role. In other words, Grandma Guthrie is pretending here, playing a part, playing a role, including being sympathetic to Max. Eleanor was taught needle-point by her spying chambermaid. Grandma Guthrie was spying earlier in the day, when Rackham sought an audience with Grandpa Guthrie. She is observing and assessing Max in the later scene, like a spy.

Now let’s inspect some very relevant and pointed questions from Grandma Guthrie

“So, Richard would feed the tomcat  and Joseph would flog him for disobeying,  kick the tomcat for instigating. But the next night, the tomcat would return,  and on and on and on it went. See, none of them was capable of changing. The cat a slave to his hunger, my son to his decency, my husband to his rage. [...] Suppose the question is in Nassau's story, which of these roles do you play?” 

Grandma Guthrie stresses that none of them was capable of changing their nature. One can grow, one can pretend to play a role, but the nature to hunger to be given power/wealth, the nature to rescue and the nature to rage is an unchangeable instinct that returns over and over. And in Nassau’s story, Max was a stray cat, while Eleanor was repeatedly her savior: from Charles Vane, from Mr. Hammond and his colleagues, Woodes, Berringer, the pirates.

What was Max’s response to this? She blamed Eleanor for the Ranger crew raping her and remained with her rapists. She stole leads and gave them to Ned Low. She got her hands on Eleanor’s business.

Not so coincidentally Eleanor’s needle-point scene has Max being alarmed how much they are changing, with Eleanor responding that nothing important or fundamental would change quickly. And it did not.

Max managed to manipulate Eleanor into holding Vane’s trial on the island, to manipulate her into believing Nassau was lost and that Eleanor and Woodes alone were to blame for it, to guilt trip her into Max losing everything (though she arrived with nothing and all she owned was Eleanor’s business she had undermined and bought cheaply). And Eleanor kept feeding her stray cat Max.

Max never answers Grandma Guthrie’s question about the role she played in Nassau’s story. But notice how Grandma said the cat was a slave to hunger. That was a deliberate word choice of hers to a woman who obviously had some slave origin.

Richard and Eleanor’s roles in Nassau’s story of Black Sails were those of saviors. In Richard Guthrie’s office in 1x01 Billy eyes a painting strangely: it’s a painting of beheaded John the Baptist, the man who heralds the coming of the savior who ends up on the cross or martyred. Richard is found murdered by Vane on a cross in S2, where earlier Ned Low was beheaded by Vane. Eleanor pretty much dies as the villified martyr, majorly because of Woodes’ choice, Woodes who also had Blackbeard beheaded. 

Grandma Guthrie: “So, how exactly does one rise  from a slave plantation in the French West Indies to a library in Philadelphia, trying to remake the world?” 

Max: What difference does it make?    

Max’s evasion and Grandma Guthrie’s dagger look suggests that it makes quite a lot of difference. Eleanor’s grandmother is on to Max, or very soon will be.

What reason could Grandma Guthrie possibly have to “drown Max, the cat”? Woodes Rogers gives us a hint earlier in the episode.

“Eleanor turned her guns on me. Eleanor betrayed me. Surrendered Nassau out from under me. None of that sounded like anything that would ever occur to her to do. Not her. Not after everything we'd been through.  But if it had occurred first to someone else [...] Someone standing so close to her,  who could and would manipulate her to secure their own survival.”  (Woodes to Mrs. Hudson, 4x07)

Ding-dong! Not Mrs. Hudson, but Max was close to Eleanor. She throws a pity-party over all she lost, blames Eleanor and Woodes. Eleanor apologizes and makes emotional amends by revealing she loved Max enough that she wanted to say yes in 1x02.

“I truly am sorry. For all of it. If there was a way I could make things right here, I'd do it.” (Eleanor to Max, 4x04)

Shortly after Woodes Rogers appears in the bay with the Man O War and Eleanor beames with love and relief. And she gives Lieutenant Utley the orders to move the guns in the direction of the beach.

And then Max decides to remind Eleanor of what she is willing to do, to make it right again for her.

Afterwards, Eleanor sends an invite to Flint and Silver and proposes the fated cache-exchange deal.

Eleanor obviously saw it as a way for Woodes to repay his debts, rather than give it to Spain. Spain and England are at war. He could have legally regarded it as a war prize. Woodes suspects Mrs. Hudson and Eleanor had a deal. But Eleanor needed no such deal to relieve Mrs. Hudson, and Mrs. Hudson would have helped her regardless her plan. There was a deal between Max and Eleanor: Eleanor promised to give a portion of the cache to Max.

When the Spanish fleet arrives, Eleanor is at the beach at the other side of the island to retrieve the cache. While the rest of the council is unwilling to try and retrieve Eleanor, Max flies to the site with ONE HORSE, not two, not a cart, but ONE HORSE for HERSELF. More importantly, as self-sacrificing it seems of Max to ride to Eleanor’s rescue and Eleanor’s whereabout is all that Max is interested in when she finds Rackham on the beach, she easily abandons Eleanor to her fate and boards the governor’s sloop that Rackham captured. Something is very off here. It just doesn’t add up at first sight.

The key is that Max is not phased, not disturbed about Eleanor in the interior during the discussions between Mr. Frasier and Mr. Soames on whether to defend themselves or surrender to the Spanish, until Lieutenant Utley informs them that the lead ship just sent the governor’s signal and ordered them to stand down.

And she shows signs of extreme nervousness and fear the moment Mr. Soames decides they will follow Woodes’ orders.

So what about it being Woodes behind the Spanish fleet coming upsets her more than the Spanish fleet arriving without Woodes? It meant that Woodes intended to give that cache to the Spanish. On top of that Berringer had accused her of treason, and while Eleanor might have protected her from Berringer, she would be unable to protect Max from Woodes, especially since her closest associates Featherstone and Idelle were with the pirates. It was game over for Max, and she raced on horseback to Eleanor to get her portion of the cache at least, hoping to inform Eleanor of Woodes bringing Spain and hide in a cave or take a boat, likely with the intent to convince Eleanor into leaving with her.

Max did not go to the beach for Eleanor, but herself, for the cache, so she would have something “to show for”. And so when no Eleanor, no cache, she joined Rackham to the ship, making no effort at all.

In a way, Max is likewise responsible for Eleanor’s death. And this is something that Grandma Guthrie would not like.

Which brings us to the last question by Grandma Guthrie to Max:

“But there is one question remaining  that you will have to show me you can adequately answer. What will you do when the cat fights back?”

As Grandma Guthrie has not yet made any demand here about Flint, the cat can be seen as Nassau, but certainly Woodes. What happens to Max if Woodes is arrested and taken to Philadelphia and learns of Max’s involvement? What happens if Woodes fights back, connects the dots and accuses her of putting ideas into Eleanor’s mind that forced him to get Spanish help and all her “treason” before that? Hence, Max pronounced her own demise to Grandma Guthrie when she suggested to drown the cat.

ETA: I’m not trying to point out that Max does not mourn Eleanor. I’m not saying she does not care for Eleanor. But that there is far more self-interest (and a material one at that) in Max’s motivations and behavior, especially in S4. I don’t think ill of Max looking after herself more than the ex-lover wedded to another. I’m only pointing out that Max did manipulate Eleanor into choosing to do more for her than she was wiling to do in return, and it set recent chain reaction events in motion with deadly outcome. I don’t see Grandma Guthrie particularly shrug that off plot-wise, especially when Max uses the emotional angle of “revengeon the person that got your granddaughter killed.” Grandma Guthrie proved to have a larger scope than just the obvious link to Eleanor’s death by wanting Flint taken out.

[nyarlathotep-thecrawlingchaos]

AAAAHHHHSKFNN^^;?[@^ I FINISHED A CHAPTER GUYS

Literally so relieved. 

Also made a shiny aesthetic thingy for the fic

So shiny

OPLA!Mihawk x OC

Previous Chapter Link

Next Chapter Link

Chapter 1 Link

Chapter 4: Parting Ways

Word Count: 3.2k

Tags: Slow-burn, Enemies to Lovers, eventually NSFW, uh, if I think of more I'll add them or something

After having her sloop sunk by the Buggy Pirates and losing most of her worldly possessions in the process, the normally solitary mercenary Karimi Lionne finds herself teaming up with the rag-tag little crew that is the Strawhat Pirates to defeat them. She bonds with them far more quickly than she bargained for, and that quickly turns into a problem for the Kiku Kiku no Mi devil fruit user when she learns of Nami's plans to leave them high and dry, and Zoro issues a challenge at Baratie that he very likely won't live long enough to regret.

"What are you doing?"

Gritting her teeth, Karimi only kept stuffing clothes into her bag. She didn't have much anymore, only the few meager belongings she had managed to rescue from her sloop before it descended to the bottom of the ocean barely a week earlier. She ignored Nami's question, not turning her head.

"Wh—wait, are you leaving?" she asked in alarm—and with more than just a hint of anger. "Now?"

"I said from the start this was temporary," Karimi pointed out

"So did I," said Nami coolly. Karimi could practically hear the glare that Nami no doubt had fixed on the back of her head. "And I seem to remember you giving me and entire speech about it last night."

"Yes, well. Unfortunate as that is." She pulled her satchel over her shoulder. "My chariot awaits, and my pilot isn't exactly known for his patience."

Nami all but gawked at Karimi when she turned Round, her arms hanging limp at her sides, eyes widened in total disbelief. "You can't be serio—him?" she demanded, gesturing in the direction where Zoro's disastrous duel with the Warlord had taken place in front of the Baratie. Karimi gave a short jerk of her head, pushing past Nami. "He almost killed Zoro and you—"

"I made a deal," she said through her teeth. "Unfortunately I failed to specify how alive he should leave Zoro."

"You...made a deal with him?" Karimi hummed in affirmation. "That—when you were talking to him last night—" She just hummed again, a little more impatiently; she had intended to leave the ship without anyone noticing, leave behind a quickly penned note of goodbye and apology with no details at all about where she was going to avoid anyone attempting to follow, and be done with it. She didn't do well with emotional goodbyes, and the last thing she needed was Luffy making the same stupid decision as Zoro in some harebrained attempt to save her from her own botched deal.

"What kind of deal?" Nami asked as theg stood at the railing if the main deck, and Karimi sighed, shaking her head. "What kind of—"

"I have to work for him for a year," she said shortly. "No pay. Handle World Government favors and contracts he can't be arsed to deal with himself."

"You...a year?" And Nami was gawking at her all over again, shaking her head. "That's—are you out of your mind? You saw what he did, he's—he's a damned monster, you might not even survive a year—"

"I can handle myself. And I really don't want to see any of you die," she interrupted. "Especially not over something as stupid as—that," she said, gesturing toward the cabin where Zoro was unconscious and barely clinging to the realm of the living. "You've all got dreams. I...don't. I don't think a year of my time is that big of a price to pay, personally."

"You said you were looking for someone." Karimi cringed a little at that, closing her eyes with a sigh. She had mentioned it in passing in front of Luffy, and he had yet to cease in asking her who it was. Of course everyone else on the ship knew by now. "That it had something to do with the contract you took from Buggy to steal the Grand Line map."

"And I'm still capable of keeping an ear out for information regardless of who I happen. To be working with or for," he said simply. "And it hardly counts as a dream. It's something I have to do."

"You think that bastard's going care about that?" said Nami.

Karimi looked over her shoulder and fixed her eyes on Nami's. "Probably no more than Arlong cares about you saving your village." It was a low blow, for sure—but Nami silenced at the counter immediately. "And has it stopped you?" She turned around fully, leaning back against the railing, her dark green eyes scanning Nami's face as the younger woman glared at her defiantly for a moment...and then crossed her arms with a scoff and rolled her eyes.

"Alright, fine," she said shortly. "And I guess you don't want the guys to know anything, right?"

Karimi rolled her eyes a little herself, digging in one of the pockets of her cargo shorts. She produced from it a folded piece of paper on which she had quickly penned her short, vague letter of farewell before Nami caught her packing, and held it out.

Then briefly pulled it back when Nami reached for it. "This," said Karimi, giving the paper a small shake, "is all I want them to know. I kept your secret." She pressed the note into Nami's palm. "I would appreciate it if you kept mine."

"Sure. Whatever." Nami tucked the note in her pocket without opening it or glancing at it. She met Karimi's gaze, and held out her arms in a shrug and let then fall heavily back to her sides. "So...what? Bye, I guess?"

Karimi frowned, shrugging one shoulder herself. "I'm not exactly good at this sort of thing," she said, her frown deepening, a crease forming between her brows. "Are we supposed to hug or something?"

Nami pursed her lips, clearly struggling for a long moment to keep a straight face—and then broke into a few quiet, chuckles, bringing her palm up to her face and shaking her head. "Yeah, I guess we're 'supposed to hug or something.'"

Karimi really hadn't said it entirely to be fecitious, to crack a dry joke—it was more than a bit awkward to wrap her arm around anyone, to feel anyone's arms around her. It had been a long time since she had, felt like practically a lifetime ago. The familiarity of it wasn't particularly comforting either—with it dawned a sense of mingling nostalgia and nausea in the pit of her stomach, and she was fairly quick to pull back and pat Nami's shoulder with a forced smile.

"I'm sure I'll be back again," she said—and she meant it, genuinely. Maybe it would be a long while from right now, but she wanted to see what might become of the crew, of her brief comrades.

"I'm not planning on staying much longer," said Nami. She swallowed, glancing back toward the cabins, and lowered her voice. "Arlong's not exactly known for his patience, either."

Karimi had no intention of trying to talk her out of it—there was no point. No point, and it would have been wildly hypocritical of her to do so. If Karimi could have had the chance to save her own village, she would have given anything.

But that was a lost a cause.

Still, she gave a small laugh.

"Doesn't mean you won't be back, too." Nami frowned at her as Karimi pulled her hand back, amd adjusted her satchel on her shoulder. "Our 'captain' might be an idealistic idiot, but I think he's got enough heart to make up for it. Don't you?"

Nami glanced back toward the cabins again, nd gave a little bit of a sigh. "I guess he does, she agreed, with a quiet laugh. She looked back at Karimi with the same half-hearted smile as the older girl took a few steps back. "Just...be careful."

"Always," said Karimi, tipping her tricorne a bit as she started the descent toward the docks. She stopped briefly, and added, "You too."

Nami gave her a short nod. A small but genuine smile. Karimi returned both without any hesitation.

Out of everyone aboard the Going Merry, and in the days before they acquired the ship, Karimi had found Nami to be the most difficult to get to know, to even get along with, making it clear from the start that she didn't trust the green-haired girl or her story that she was essentially a prisoner of the Buggy Pirates herself. Karimi understood full well her reasoning now—it was much the same as Karimi's for avoiding familiarity with others. It was easier to remain solitary than risk losing anyone else.

Zoro hadn't really cared one way or the other whether she tagged along with them, but Luffy had been a different story. As soon as Karimi had asked about his hat and told him she had sailed with the Red-Hair pirates, the young self-proclaimed captain had all but glued himself to her side, questioning her about them constantly, reveling in stories of the infamous crew and her time on the East Blue and Grand kine with them.

Reveling in stories of the greatest idol of his childhood, the captain of the crew he had begged years earlier to be a part of, who has gicwn up his own arm to save Luffy's life: Red-Haired Shanks.

Luffy's idol, nd for Karimi's first two years on the sea, her mentor.

She had thought Luffy'a eyes might pop right out of his head when she informed him of what Shanks's bounty had been when she parted ways from their crew six years ago—well over two billion berries.

"Two billion.... Wow." And he grinned ear to ear where he sat near the stern of the boat that night after their fight with the Buggy Pirates. He reclined back and laid down right in the deck, tucking his hands behind his head. "I can't *wait* to get a bounty." Karimi lifted an eyebrow row at that, glancing over her shoulder from where she leaned against the railing at the port side of the tiny sloop—honestly far two small for four people.

"You...want a bounty," she said slowly, a smirk beginning to curve the corner of her own lips. "You want Marines chasing you everywhere you go? Not to mention other pirates. Bounty hunters." She half-nodded toward the hammock where Zoro was sleeping.

"Well, yeah, that's half the fun of it," he said, as if it should be the most obvious thing in the world. "I mean, that Boggy guy had a bounty, and we beat him, right? Pirates are supposed to have bounties." He tilted his head to the side a little, frowning up at the night sky. "It's like a..."

"Right of passage?" she offered, growing more amused by the minute.

"Exactly!" he said, pointing at Karimi, and she couldn't help but chuckle at his enthusiasm. "Can't be King of the Pirates if I never even get a bounty."

"No, I guess you couldn't," she said, not bothering to hide the amusement in her voice. "Still..." she turned around, leaning back against the railing, her elbows propped up against it. "You've already got one hell of a right of passage. It's sitting on your head right now." Luffy looked over at her with childlike curiosity, placing his hand atop his straw hat. "You said Shanks told you it was his greatest treasure. One of the most infamous pirates in the entire world entrusted you with his most valuable possession." His eyes widened a little as that sunk in properly. "Bounty or no bounty, people are going to notice. Buggy noticed. He won't be the only one."

"Yeah..." He laughed a little, and then he laughed a bit more, sitting straight up again. "And he had a bounty of fifteen million berries and he recognized it. That's got to be—wait, do you have a bounty?" he asked curiously. "You said just about everyone on Shanks's crew had one. And you said you were a mercenary for six years, you have to have one, right?"

"Nope," she said, smiling. She had only been with the Red-Hairs for two years, give or take a month, and as a thief on the crew she had always been discreet, able to keep off the Marines' radar. It didn't hurt either that Shanks, due in no small part to his history with her father, had been particularly protective of her. "I've...made a point of avoiding familiarity with Marines over the years," she went on after a moment. "Not really interested in being a wanted woman."

His frown only deepened at that. "But...you're a purate," he said, tilting his head in a manner not dissimilar to that of a puppy hearing a strange new sound for the first time. "Pirates always end up with bounties."

"Mercenary," she corrected with a sigh, shaking her head. "Who...also usually end up with bounties," she allowed. "But I'm careful. I have to be careful traveling alone."

Luffy's frown only deepened at that. "Sounds boring."

Karimi gave a snort and rolled her eyes. "Oh, yes," she said, her tone drenched in sarcasm as she lowered herself to sit down across from him, "how terribly boring it has been working with dozens of different crews for the past six years and making loads of money and potential allies..."

"I mean the traveling alone thing," he said. He rested his chin on his palm, his elbow on one of hisbknees. "You were with the Red Hair Pirates for two years, why didn't you just stay with them?"

In truth, Karimi still asked herself that question sometimes. It had been two of the best, two of the happiest years of her life since the massacre at Conch Cove. She had thought about staying with them. It had been all too much like having a family, a community, for the first time since she had lost hers.

But her goal was too personal to share with anyone else, to weigh anyone else down with. Even now she felt like she was practically searching for a ghost, trying to find her father. To find why he had disappeared nine years ago, where he and his entire crew had gone.

Whether he was even still alive or not—and if he was, to be able to tell him the truth of what had happened. The truth of the atrocity that she and she alone had survived a decade ago.

Karimi descended onto the docks, shielding her eyes with one hand as she looked around at the ships docked around the restaurant—other patrons who had remained there overnight, new ships arriving as Baratie prepared to open for the day. Karimi knew the vessel she was looking for; she had never seen it in person, but she had heard of it, mentioned in passing once or twice during her time with the Red Hair Pirates before she set out on her own at eighteen.

A small craft with black sails, shaped like a coffin, with a seat that resembled a throne. She had sincerely thought the description to be an exaggeration, until she caught a glimpse of the boat.

It was docked far back away from any other vessel, it's only prominent features being a pair of green flames at the port and starboard, the central mast that was clearly modeled after the black blade carried by its owner—and the throne-like seat, where the warlord was seated, leaned to the side, his elbow propped against one arm rest and his fist at his temple, eyes closed.

Karimi heaved a sigh as she started down the docks to approach the ship. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Shanks and his crew were among the most powerful and notorious pirates in the world, and she had more than enjoyed her time with them.

Yet she still really couldn't get over the sheer gaudiness boat.

"How quaint," she mumbled under her breath dryly as she neared the small vessel, her eyes scanning over it.

Evidently his ears were as sharp as his gaze, for Mihawk cracked an eye open the moment the sarcastic quip slipped quietly from her lips. She stopped in her tracks as his eyes became level with hers, not adjusting from his leisurely posture. "If the accommodations aren't to your liking, you are welcome to swim." He closed his eyes again, and added just as dryly, "Oh, that's right. You can't."

Karimi rolled her eyes a little—no, she wasn't getting her hopes up that a single minute of this arrangement she had gone and gotten herself trapped in would be enjoyable.

"Permission to board," she droned after a long moment.

"Granted," he replied shortly.

He did open his eyes again when she tossed her bag aboard and it landed with a muffled sort of flump a few feet behind him on the starboard side, glancing at her as she stepped across the short gap between the dock and Hitsugibune without any further hesitation. Mihawk still wondered whether her nerve the previous night had simply been a mere symptom of her inebriated state. Now, however, she seemed completely sober as she leaned to the side against the railing, raising a hand just over the green flame at the starboard torch and frowning.

"Copper, I'm guessing?" she said, drawing her hand back and rolling her eyes with a scoff. "Quite the aesthetic you have going here."

She took a seat on the deck, tucking her hands behind her neck and reclining back against the railing, shutting her eyes.

"So where to, Captain Edge-Lord?"

The slight smirk on the girl's face indicated that her sass definitely wasn't limited to excessive alcohol consumption. Mihawk chose to ignore it for now—her ability to follow orders was more important at the present. There would be plenty of time to deal with her insubordination later.

"Once you have gotten us clear of the docks," he said sharply, his eyes scanning over her, "we will head due north-east, toward Syrup Village."

She opened her eyes at that, meeting his eyes without any sign of hesitation. "Syrup Village?" she said, frowning. "Not really much there."

"Toward Syrup Village," he repeated. Her eyes widened the slightest bit as his meaning seemed to sink in—evidently she was aware of exactly what, or *who*, might be near Syrup Village. "I need to have a word with Vice Admiral Garp. You will get us there. I'm sure you're capable navigating, considering your 'six years experience as a mercenary.'"

"I don't do Marines."

Mihawk quirked an eyebrow at her sudden and blatant protest; at the clear reluctance, nigh fear that dawned in her eyes. This was different from the attitude she had already presented toward him. She showed no fear in his presence, but the suggestion of sailing toward a ship full of Marines had clearly set her on edge in an instant.

That was interesting.

But there was plenty of time to unravel the reasons behind it. She had, after all, pledged to serve him for an entire year. Right now, the most important matter at hand was getting to Garp—and finding out why the man had thought it appropriate to send him after his damned grandson. Mihawk scanned over her once more as she sat on the small deck of the vessel, before meeting her defiant gaze.

"You do what I tell you, and you will do so without question," he said firmly. He shifted back in his seat, closing his own eyes again. "Due north east. I'd prefer to get this meeting over with quickly."

Next chapter link again for your convenience

[oldtimermillenial-blog]

Currently, I am getting into one part of the hobby myself, RC SEA-Worthy Watercraft. It appeals to my creative competitiveness to build a watercraft since the best ones don’t seem to be offered by the manufacturers I have aligned myself with. If I chose airplanes or cars, the problem doesn’t exist. But I only found one sanctioned racing sloop I could offer for sale. It is very nice, but all I found. Not content with that, I opted to take matters into my own hands, as it were, pun intended, and build something beginning with a standard keel and maintaining a frame that after cladding the old-fashioned way, would yield sleek lines that I sincerely wish was full-sized. Maybe someday. When I finish, I will sell it on the site and move on to something a little bigger, also sanctioned to race.

In the meantime, I know others besides me are interested in this, as well, and wondered if a few might seek me out, add sage advice, offer things they might like to see in future builds, that kind of thing. Presently, this particular activity seems to gravitate mostly in the UK, Australia, and parts of Europe, not so much here in the US-I don’t think. I don’t know everything.

[antoniodias]

A Craft Inspired by The Kingston Lobster Boat in Figure 59…

It’s been over forty years since I first laid eyes on this page in Howard Chapelle’s American Small Sailing Craft. While in boat school I built a half model, thirty-six inches long, of White Pine…. I even lofted the body plan.

I never did build one; but this design has continued to fascinate me. I still get a thrill every time I turn to the page….

“Figure 59 shows a later boat, measured at Duxbury in 1937. This plan shows the “improved” model, having a fishing schooner’s counter and the altered run in which the deadwood is planked and hollow garboards are used. The model was now more like that of a sloop-yacht of the late 1880’s.

Chapelle’s sober warning against excesses driven by fashion still rings true. This design does seem…, just a bit too much…. He’s right, but still….

It’s taken this long to attempt my own interpretation. I did loosely base the hull form of the Arey’s Pond Daysailer on these boats, but that’s not the same thing…. This time I wanted to stick as close to the original as I could. Try as one might to cleave to a source of inspiration, if, as we work, we’re honest about what strikes us as fitting, changes will creep in.

Here we have their lines superimposed.

I’ve seen a replica of Ransom’s boat. It’s all I hoped for. Severe as well as extreme. It carries a purposeful air. We can see how this lobsterboat was as much the pride and joy of its master as it was the locus of his many hours of unremitting labor. Pride shone in her form, rakish and confident. In its modest materials: oak and cedar and pine; finished in pine-tar and linseed oil, it glowed from a patina of wear and exposure that matched the lines and calluses on its master’s hands. This was no frivolous craft.

A design needs a reason. What mission will this craft take on?

Not an easy question although one that is commonly simply taken for granted. Developing a boat from a traditional type and imagining how it might fit into today’s world takes some effort. Too often, to my eye, this leads to a flurry of cut & paste. A traditional profile stuck between a contemporary underbody and rig. The whole intended to flatter everyone involved without challenging anyone to consider what we might actually learn from letting our selves be touched by our past.

My life-long fascination with boats has been fed by the power they have over us to bend us to their circumstances, get us to accommodate to their world. Step aboard any boat and we cannot help but have its needs and possibilities grab hold of us. This is true of any boat, something to do with the mortal immediacy of being afloat perhaps.

Albert Pinkham Ryder, Moonlight, 1887

What continues to intrigue me is the opportunity to channel our imaginations that this power to affect us gives us. Maybe not channel, so much as free…. Not free in the sense of being without restraints, a fool’s errand…. A boat we engage with as a choice; a boat we must then commit effort and sacrifice other demands to afford; such a boat transports us imaginatively.

This is not about acting out a fantasy. It’s not playing-at some thing. When a boat embodies certain values of integrity and puts us into situations that rhyme with and reflect the lives of those who came before us….

It’s best not to try too hard to pin this down. The important thing is that we be aware that this imaginative connection fills our every fiber as we tend to our vessel.

A replica has its own justifications and rewards, but to develop a new design, we must find a way for it to engage us differently.

One way to peer through these ephemeral wisps of intangibles, is to grasp the fundamentals. No, not hydro-dynamic theory, or material-engineering. What does a boat do? It holds us, carries us.

How will this boat transport us?

Twenty feet is an in-between size. We perch atop smaller boats. Larger craft carry us on their broad backs. On a small, open boat our every twitch brings a reaction. Large craft are indifferent to where we sit, windward or leeward. We spend a few hours at a time in small boats. We inhabit large craft for weeks, months, years at a time. This size of boat can be too much boat and not enough boat all at the same time. But if we approach it right this size can combine benefits found at both ends of the spectrum. Small enough to be responsive and relatively easy to deal with, yet large enough to give us some shelter and extend our range.

What is the smallest usable cabin? This design aims at an answer, providing a place to sit upright below and have room to lie out flat beneath a solid shelter, protecting us from the elements. Such a cabin can be squeezed into a boat under twenty feet. I’ve done it. Though I’ve always felt that unless some hard-and-fast, drop-dead limitation holds us to eighteen feet –

and not just a frantic wish to limit the cost! Length is not as great a controlling factor in this as we might think. In fact it can be more reasonable not to over-constrain length against other parameters in the long-run. We are most likely better-off if we let a boat be the length it needs to be. And a bit of lankiness brings its own rewards. Especially when we’re so close to a hard-and-fast limitation imposed on us by the un-scalability of the human body. We require about thirty-six inches of height to sit up straight. Around six-feet of length to lie down flat.

This cabin meets these minimum requirements. There is a bench seat across the after end under the companionway where we can sit under cover while working on something, or just gathering our thoughts. We can sprawl on the sole propped on cushions to read or nap. For a good night’s rest we can swing a pair of hammocks, port & starboard. They do take up the entire cabin, but then we only need to fulfill one of these functions at a time.

This cockpit is also a place of habitation. A deep space with room under the seats to stow gear and provisions. Room to sprawl and room to bring three, four, even five friends out for an afternoon romp.

“It’s not self-bailing….” We’ll hear that from just about everyone we meet even as they settle-in, arms spread wide on the coaming, stretching their legs, sighing from the rightness of the space.

“No, but….” We begin to answer, waiting for the realization to sink in that a wholesome craft does not have to have such a thing. Especially at this size. To force the cockpit upwards six, eight, twelve inches above the waterline to accommodate the drains? How much is enough? This is not a boat intended for an outside passage. A sump with a bilge-pump will handle spray and rain, and a cockpit cover protects the whole structure from sun and weather while on a mooring.

So, to get back to the character of the way this particular boat holds us we could say it is embracing and intimate. Enough, not less, not more. At least to venture upon the right sort of waters. In this case, looking back to her ancestor, the creek on which she was built leads into a series of bays nesting one inside the other, Kingston Bay, Duxbury Bay, Plymouth Bay. All within the grand embrace of Cape Cod Bay. These can be boisterous waters. The summer’s southwest breeze blowing twenty knots raises a square, four foot chop; but shelter is never too far off. Anyplace with comparable conditions would be a suitable base for our Vixen.

A quick note on this name.

“A few of the Kingston boats had some outside ballast; the Vixen, a Ransom-built boat, whose lines were taken off by Erismann, was one of these.”

Chapelle’s writings are full of these laconically specific notes, often followed by a pronouncement like this one,

“The quantity of weight carried in the ballast shoe seems small, and it is very doubtful if any marked advantage was obtained.”

And so closes the short section, a matter of a couple of pages, in which he gathered and preserved the record of one out of the hundreds of local types, spanning three centuries, he bound in American Small Sailing Craft. Along with his Elements of Yacht Design and The American Fishing Schooner, this volume has been a touchstone for my ruminations on our maritime cultural heritage. Old enough to have been my father, dying the same year and at the same age as my actual father, I’ve held Howard Chapelle close to my heart all these years.

So, from this little note, and a conflation of this other boat named Vixen in my mind with the design illustrated in figure 59, Vixen has always just seemed the right name for this boat. That foxes frequent the rippling expanses of marsh grass fringing Cape Cod Bay, on “my side” as well as on Ransom’s, seems fitting….

Beside the non-bailing cockpit, and if my experience at boat shows from Portland Maine to Mystic Connecticut and beyond is any guide, the most “problematic” aspect of this design, the thing you’ll likely expend the most breath trying to explain – at least until you learn to just smile and go on about the weather – will be the winged rudder.

I first developed it on the Arey’s Pond Daysailer mentioned above. The Kingston/Cape Cod connection is not the only reason it shows up again here. This short video of the AP Daysailer shows this feature’s astonishing effect on performance. It is particularly suited to relatively shoal craft. I do want to develop a related configuration for use on deeper and larger vessels at some point. You can read about the boat and my description of the concept in this back-issue of WoodenBoat Magazine.

Along with the cut-away dead-wood aft and a ballast shoe Chapelle would raise a bushy eyebrow over, this rudder is the most visible effort to build on developments made during the century I grew up in and the one we find ourselves in now. Others are more subtle: massaging the hull’s volume and form to generate the least drag-inducing wake and provide the most stable platform for rig and crew. In these I don’t follow any particular dogma. Traditionalists and high-performance techies alike may find much to disagree with in my approach, reflecting on aero- and hydro-dynamics and following my own intuitions as they have played-out in models and prototypes over the years. I’ve attempted to be open to new research while remaining mindful of the deep wisdom captured in centuries of incremental evolution embodied in the boats of our ancestors.

Starting out, and even today, if it hadn’t been for Chapelle, and a handful of other designers and historians willing to publish their lines plans, I would not have been able to find a way into the complexities of form depicted in what my wife Kay calls, “The Spaghetti!” These tangles of crisscrossing lines, a basket weave that captures a three dimensional form on a sheet or screen, are not just a record and repository of hull-forms. They provide a way to interpret and question the hull-form depicted. After years of staring, drawing, and staring some more, it’s possible to learn to think our way into a new form, learning to fit it to the water and the tasks we ask it to perform. This is why, as much as I feel the need to “protect my work,” I can’t not show at least a partial view of the lines at the heart of each design.

As well as being in-between in length this design has an in-between draft. Two foot three with a stub keel and a metal centerboard, for lift and to drop the center of gravity that much deeper, this boat could be shallower. The AP Daysailer draws 13″ and is only a bit smaller. But that is a pure daysailer while this one has accommodations to fit in below. Achieving sitting headroom and sleeping space, without going to a slab-sided high sheer line, requires a little more boat in the water.

In small open boats I tend to prefer not adding any ballast. In a tender boat with live-weight ballast in the form of a crew on the rail extra weight just adds inertia, slowing acceleration and increasing heeling force. Since the boat won’t stand-up on its own anyway, you just end up fighting against the ballast, hiking out more desperately to counter the excess heeling force resulting from the sails leaning to the wind instead of squirting the boat ahead.

Once a craft is too large to fit this type of sailing, even if, as in this case, crew weight to windward is still a factor in balancing the heeling forces, ballast is a necessity and the answer lies in finding the best mix of features, behaviors, and limitations that best fit the overall craft. We want every aspect of the design to express and add to the over-all character of the vessel we intend. In this case, this mix of moderately shallow draft with some inside and some outside ballast and a heavy centerboard, brings us an interesting, and in these days rare, opportunity to experience a boat that is both fast and comfortable.

When we talk of the potential performance of a boat we tend to ignore the two most salient factors: Good sails and a crew that stays awake and stays ahead of the situation, never falling into dull complacency; always willing to see if they can’t do a little better, meeting the demands of the moment and making winnable bets on how conditions might be changing. These life-lessons make sailing a unique crucible in which youth is transmuted, sparking sentience to life!

Vixen‘s rig is a high-peaked gaff sloop. The original Kingston Lobster Boats flew sprits’l cat-ketch rigs. I’ll be adding an open, half-decked version without the cabin with a cat-ketch rig, but I think that for this arrangement the gaff sloop is the best choice. These boats can be weatherly. BitterSweet, at 23 feet, walks away from high-performance Marconi rigged boats and refuses to be run down by anything under around forty feet! My own Little Cat, Harry, outpoints lots of boats that should be able to wipe the bay with him….

The key to powering a boat with more than minimal wetted surface and some extra heft is to have enough sail area. This rig does this simply and with low-tech materials. A boat with enough sail, and a straightforward method of reefing and taking in area as the breeze picks up, can ghost. It’s one of my greatest pleasures out on the water, to take whatever stray zephyr might hit the sails and watch the slightest ripples peel away from the hull registering that we’re making headway. Heel the boat down to leeward, sit still, and feel…, everything.

This brings up something else about the sails. These sails are cotton. Not Like-Cotton-Colored™ plastic. Cotton.

If you’re ever at Mystic Seaport on a summer’s day find a cool spot and just watch the Catboat Breck Marshall sail around for a time. His sails are cotton, a dull off-gray color from the effects of sun and rain and maybe just a hint of mildew. It’s easy on the eyes. No glare. Easy on the hands. The sailcloth behaves like…, well, cloth. Not boardy, woven-plastic. But the thing that caught my attention one particular day, watching her incredibly skilled and practiced skipper nose in and out of his berth, taking on passengers while single-handing in a crowded cockpit. He coaxes the Marshall, shooting straight into the wind and then tacking on an Indian Head Dime. Part of this is timing, and all that practice, knowing his boat. And part of it is the weight of a heavier displacement boat. But another part, something I’d never seen before, was the way the soft canvas seemed to caress the air, maintaining flow and lift in the fluky, fluttering backdraft off the lee of a nearby fish-house.

No Dacron sail can do that! I thought. It won’t. It can’t. Dacron is made specifically not to stretch, That’s good right?

Well, there might be another side to the question.

This glorious cotton catboat sail responds like the soft wings of an owl, catching and holding onto airflow in turbulent and marginal conditions, getting drive out of the sail when any more, so-called, efficient sail would just flap. Dead. That’s the kind of sail I want for Vixen. That’s the kind of sail that should work best with the blend of features and capacities this boat has on offer.

We haven’t touched on a few more oddities in this design. The biggest question left hanging might be, “Where’s the engine?”

This is related to the construction type specified and also to those large cotton sails….

See the twelve foot sweep in the Construction Plan? There only need be one. A couple of paddles would be nice at times.

We tend to see an engine on a sail boat as a “Safety Feature!” I don’t agree. What brings us the most security on the water is sound seamanship, an awareness of limits, letting go of any get-there-itis. People call for a tow today because their engine has failed – on a sail boat! They are not safer for having that engine. None of us are ever safer for breathing its fumes…. And even the warm and fuzzy aura of an electric motor comes with its price in industrial pollution and waste….

I can’t think of a more important and less addressed virtue for us to work on today than learning to adapt to limitations by using our wits and yes, practicing patience.

It’s not patience until we have taxed our willingness to wait, is it? Not having a motor, having to resort to the pleasurable exercise of pulling on a sweep or simply anchoring out and waiting for conditions to change, these can add to the satisfaction we gain from our time on the water.

Does that mean that sometimes we need to stay ashore? Maybe. Probably.

Patience!

What is the construction?

Chapelle tells us that the original boats tended to be strip-planked. White Pine, a local wood in southeastern Massachusetts, was often used. The frames and backbone were White Oak. The strips were beveled to a close-fit and then edge nailed together with galvanized, wrought-iron cut-nails. This made for a boat with a smooth inside that didn’t need closely spaced frames. They could be winched up the beach on rollers during stretches of bad weather and they would stay tight. It’s not a bad way to go even now. If you can get good wood and the right sort of nails….

We could go with epoxied strips, although at this size I’d also edge-nail them some. If so, then the backbone will need to be a wood compatible with epoxy, something like Douglas Fir instead of White Oak. Its acid and sheer strength and propensity to move when wet does not make for a good, lasting epoxy joint. I’d also avoid White Pine for the planking. Probably because the wood available now is fast growing, it’s my experience that White Pine is prone to fracture with little reason and no warning. Kind of like an epoxied joint….

I’d use more Fir for the planking. This boat can use the extra weight and Fir has a much harder surface than Cedar.

In the end I’d like to see the construction done as traditionally as possible. There is a quality to a boat finished in Pine Tar and Linseed Oil that is simply lacking in our lives today. Let’s leave it at that.

As a final provocation let me say that this boat would be a fine candidate for a minimal composting head, a cedar bucket, White Cedar, soft, with a tight-fitting lid. We’d carry a duffel filled with fragrant peat moss and stow it forward. The whole rig is quite suitable for a boat whose sorties are of short duration. Our bucket resides under a cockpit seat, lashed in place, sporting a hempen-line bail. Before and after each use a generous layer of peat moss is added. At the end of our short voyage, we take the bucket ashore and till its contents into our compost pile. Anyone who considers this to be beyond what their squeamishness will allow needs to try emptying a conventional porta-pot or attending the pump-out of a holding tank…. It’s not the waste itself, but how we treat it…. There’s nothing more telling than our lack of a relationship with our own waste.

You may complain that we’ve gone pretty far afield! Not so. I can still hear L. Francis Herresshoff entreating us, “Gentle reader…” to consider the joys of the cedar bucket before going on to suggest we carry a sounding lead, a good time-piece, and a slate with some chalk to help us navigate a coastal fog. Today we know it’s not prudent to pour our bucket’s contents into the bay. Those nutrients are better utilized elsewhere. But let us focus on what our boats are for. When we consider how they hold us; how they help form us; these questions strike to the heart of the matter.

I did think that it might be a stretch to consider this a boat for difficult times. Perhaps because I tend to expect such craft to have some further utility…. It appears to me now that this is very much a boat for our difficult times. Or, at least it could be. If while we build, tend, and sail her we hold these transformative capacities in mind.

  Click on any image below for a slideshow.

Dimensions:

LBP              20′ – 3″

LWL             17′ – 6″

Beam           7′ – 2″

Draft             2′ – 3″/4′ – 3″

Displacement   3,700 lbs.

Sail Area:

High-Peaked Gaff Sloop:

Main                          216 sq. ft.

Jib                                73 sq. ft.

Total (Working)  289 sq. ft.

Genoa                        95 sq. ft.

Total (Light Air)    311 sq. ft.

  Construction is either strip or carvel.

Plans

Plans are available as .pdf downloads. Five sheets of drawings and a table of offsets.

Cost for amateur construction is $850 USD plus a $75 PayPal transfer fee.

Price includes permission to build one boat for personal use.

Commercial builders contact me to work out an arrangement.

[contact-form]

  This is a challenging design to build. Not suitable for a beginner.

It is offered in the spirit outlined at the masthead of this site:

Design is a distillation of Craft

The best design is not a set of instructions

Good design inspires us to relate both to the materials at hand and our place in the world: physically, socially, and spiritually

Design provides a framework for Craft where we may develop our skills

Design is not a prison of intention

Design is a trellis

  Vixen A Craft Inspired by The Kingston Lobster Boat in Figure 59… It's been over forty years since I first laid eyes on this page in Howard Chapelle's…

[sorawcreative]

Ona Judge Staines: She Challenged George Washington and Won Her Freedom

The following text from : http://www.theroot.com/ona-judge-staines-she-challenged-george-washington-and-1790854513

Written by Steven J. Niven

A plaque depicting Ona Judge Staines on the wall of the President’s House in Philadelphia Courtesy of lwf.4pha.com

On May 24, 1796, a runaway-slave advertisement was posted in the Pennsylvania Gazette by the steward at George Washington’s house in Philadelphia. It read:

Absconded from the household of the President of the United States, ONEY JUDGE, a light mulatto girl, much freckled, with very black eyes and bushy hair. She is of middle stature, slender, and delicately formed, about 20 years of age. She has many changes of good clothes, of all sorts, but they are not sufficiently recollected to be described—As there was no suspicion of her going off, nor no provocation to do so, it is not easy to conjecture whither she has gone, or fully, what her design is; but as she may attempt to escape by water, all masters of vessels are cautioned against admitting her into them, although it is probable she will attempt to pass for a free woman, and has, it is said, wherewithal to pay her passage. Ten dollars will be paid to any person who will bring her home, if taken in the city, or on board any vessel in the harbour;—and a reasonable additional sum if apprehended at, and brought from a greater distance, and in proportion to the distance.

Oney, as she was known to George and Martha Washington, was one of nine enslaved African Americans who served in the President’s House in Philadelphia from 1790 to 1796. Judge was the only slave who escaped from the Philadelphia Executive Mansion, although Hercules, the president’s famed chef, made an even more daring escape on Feb. 22, 1797, the president’s 65th birthday, from the Washington plantation at Mount Vernon, Va. There is no record of Hercules after his escape, but a fairly strong paper trail enables us to piece together the fate of Ona Judge, in part because of the Washingtons’ strenuous, but ultimately unsuccessful, efforts to reclaim her.

A Taste of Freedom in Philadelphia

Ona Maria Judge was born around 1774 at Mount Vernon. Her mother, Betty, was recognized as the finest seamstress on the plantation and was a “dower slave,” technically still owned by the estate of Martha Washington’s first husband, Daniel Peake Custis. Ona’s father was an English indentured servant who had worked at Mount Vernon.

Since a slave’s status followed the mother’s line, Ona was born enslaved, as was her older half brother, Austin, who had a different father and would later serve Washington as a stable hand at the Philadelphia President’s House. From an early age, Ona would have performed whatever domestic labors were required of her at Mount Vernon. By the age of 10, she began attending Martha Washington. Her main work involved sewing and making clothes; Gen. Washington praised her as a “perfect mistress of the needle.”

George Washington was elected the first president of the United States in 1789, and in 1790, when the capital moved to Philadelphia, Ona traveled with the family to their official residence. She served as the main personal attendant to the first lady, and her tasks would have included dressing and powdering her mistress, accompanying her to official receptions and other public and social duties, and being ready, at all times, to meet Martha Washington’s needs. It was important to the first family, too, that Ona was herself always seen to be impeccably well-groomed and clothed in public.

Ona, Austin and Hercules were allowed to attend a circus, the theater and other public events on their own. They also interacted with Philadelphia’s increasingly assertive free black community, which had grown from only 240 in 1780 to 1,849 in 1790 and would exceed 6,000 by 1800. She had arrived in Philadelphia just as the Free African Society and the first independent black churches were being established, and it is likely that she was inspired by the example of Absalom Jones, Richard Allen and other African-American founders. In addition, white refugees from the Haitian revolution were given refuge in the city after 1793, many of them bringing their slaves.  By 1796, over 450 Haitians had claimed their freedom under a Pennsylvania state law that enabled them to do so after a full six months’ residency.  

Ona Judge Plots Her Escape

The Washington slaves knew that the president had taken precautions to prevent them from taking advantage of this law. His plan was to send them back to Virginia before they completed six months’ residence, then return them to the Philadelphia for another period of service. Washington informed his secretary about this scheme, stating his “wish to have it accomplished under pretext that may deceive both them [the slaves] and the Public.” One historian has suggested this was “perhaps the only documented incident of George Washington telling a lie.” The primary reason for this subterfuge was financial: Ona and all but two of the Mount Vernon slaves in Philadelphia were Custis dower slaves. If they gained their freedom under this law, Washington not only would lose their labor but also would have to personally reimburse the Custis estate for their loss under his supervision.

In the spring of 1796, Washington entered the final year of his second term in office, and the staff were informed they would be returning to Mount Vernon for good that summer. The first lady, now in her mid-60s, also told Ona Judge around this time that she was to be bequeathed to a Custis family granddaughter back in Virginia, a prospect Judge dreaded, since she despised her intended new owner. Realizing that the relative freedom she had enjoyed in Philadelphia would soon become a memory, Judge carefully planned her escape.

As she recalled 50 years later, the entire household was preparing to leave for Virginia, and so it was not seen as suspicious when she began packing the “many changes of good clothes, of all sorts” mentioned in the runaway ad. Assisted by acquaintances in Philadelphia’s free black community, she stored her belongings at a friend’s house and found a merchant sloop, the Nancy, that would transport her to Portsmouth, N.H. Judge made her way to the Nancy one evening in late May while the first family was at dinner. By the time they learned of her escape, Judge had arrived in Portsmouth. She was not legally free and was at risk of recapture under the federal Fugitive Slave Law—which Washington had signed in 1793—but for the first time in her life, she was free of the demands of Martha Washington.

The First Family’s Desperate Search

The Washingtons were shocked, and the Gazette advertisement suggests that they initially had no idea why she had fled. Martha Washington, in particular, took Judge’s flight badly, viewing it as ingratitude and as a personal slight, and came to believe that Judge was pregnant and had been seduced by a mentally unstable Frenchman. At least, that is the story that George Washington used in his efforts behind the scenes to recapture her. Certainly there were many Frenchmen and French- and Kreyòl-speaking Haitians in Philadelphia, but there is no evidence that Judge had relations with any of them.

In late August, however, Judge’s luck ran out. The daughter of Sen. John Langdon, a close friend of the Washingtons and a frequent visitor to the Executive Mansion, came upon her on a Portsmouth street and expressed surprise that she was not attending the first lady. President Washington was soon apprised of the situation and immediately ordered Oliver Wolcott, the secretary of the treasury, to engage the Portsmouth collector of customs to retrieve her.

That action was illegal by the terms of Washington’s own Fugitive Slave Law, which required a slaveholder to use the federal courts. Washington was aware, though, that a public attempt to openly return a possibly pregnant slave to bondage would be bad publicity and might even provoke a riot. The Portsmouth collector initially agreed to comply with the request from his commander in chief, who warned him to act cautiously so as not to alarm Judge’s alleged French seducer. Judge herself, in Washington’s view, was “simple and inoffensive.”

But the collector came to quite a different conclusion about her motives once he interviewed her. She convinced him that there was no seducer, French or otherwise, and that a “thirst for compleat freedom” had been her only motivation. He reported that Judge, though, might be amenable to returning to Mount Vernon if the Washingtons promised to emancipate her upon Martha Washington’s death.

George Washington was livid, replying that, “To enter into such a compromise with her, as she suggested to you, is totally inadmissible,” since it would reward her unfaithfulness and set a bad example to his other “more deserving” slaves. The president also continued to insist on his story of a French seducer, although he may have finally abandoned that idea when informed of Judge’s plans to marry a local free black sailor, John Staines. The couple married in January 1797 and had a daughter a year later.  

Finally Free

Until recently, most Washington biographers believed that at this point George Washington abandoned his efforts to regain Judge. Perhaps the president had given up hope, but his wife had not. In July 1799, Martha Washington made one more attempt to kidnap Judge through a family member who traveled to Portsmouth, but the plot was thwarted when Sen. Langdon heard of it. Langdon was appalled and warned Judge, who managed to find refuge with another free black family several miles away in the town of Greenland.

Following Gen. Washington’s death at the end of 1799, and Martha Washington’s three years later, Ona Judge Staines was finally able to enjoy her freedom—although she and her children remained fugitive slaves according to the law. She worked for a while as a house servant and had three children with John Staines: Eliza, William and Nancy. Judge Staines was widowed in 1803, and 17 years later her son, William, left for sea, never to return. Her daughters died in the early 1830s, and Judge Staines lived her final years in Greenland as a pauper.

Brief interviews by abolitionists in 1845 and 1846, when she was in her 70s, provide the only direct record of her thoughts and actions. She stated that she had received no formal education or religious training while enslaved and criticized the Washingtons for not properly observing the Sabbath. Asked if she regretted leaving the relative comforts she had enjoyed for a life of poverty, Ona Judge Staines insisted that she had made the right choice, having learned to read and write in freedom, and having been made a “child of God” by that means.

On Feb. 25, 2008, 160 years after her death, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter declared the first “Oney Judge Day.” Since 2010, her defiance of the president and the first lady and her remarkable escape can be explored at the historic site located on the grounds where the President’s House—and his slave quarters—once stood.

[readbookywooks]

The Torres Strait

DURING THE NIGHT of December 27-28, the Nautilus left the waterways of Vanikoro behind with extraordinary speed. Its heading was southwesterly, and in three days it had cleared the 750 leagues that separated La Perouse's islands from the southeastern tip of Papua. On January 1, 1868, bright and early, Conseil joined me on the platform. "Will master," the gallant lad said to me, "allow me to wish him a happy new year?" "Good heavens, Conseil, it's just like old times in my office at the Botanical Gardens in Paris! I accept your kind wishes and I thank you for them. Only, I'd like to know what you mean by a 'happy year' under the circumstances in which we're placed. Is it a year that will bring our imprisonment to an end, or a year that will see this strange voyage continue?" "Ye gods," Conseil replied, "I hardly know what to tell master. We're certainly seeing some unusual things, and for two months we've had no time for boredom. The latest wonder is always the most astonishing, and if this progression keeps up, I can't imagine what its climax will be. In my opinion, we'll never again have such an opportunity." "Never, Conseil." "Besides, Mr. Nemo really lives up to his Latin name, since he couldn't be less in the way if he didn't exist." "True enough, Conseil." "Therefore, with all due respect to master, I think a 'happy year' would be a year that lets us see everything - " "Everything, Conseil? No year could be that long. But what does Ned Land think about all this?" "Ned Land's thoughts are exactly the opposite of mine," Conseil replied. "He has a practical mind and a demanding stomach. He's tired of staring at fish and eating them day in and day out. This shortage of wine, bread, and meat isn't suitable for an upstanding Anglo-Saxon, a man accustomed to beefsteak and unfazed by regular doses of brandy or gin!" "For my part, Conseil, that doesn't bother me in the least, and I've adjusted very nicely to the diet on board." "So have I," Conseil replied. "Accordingly, I think as much about staying as Mr. Land about making his escape. Thus, if this new year isn't a happy one for me, it will be for him, and vice versa. No matter what happens, one of us will be pleased. So, in conclusion, I wish master to have whatever his heart desires." "Thank you, Conseil. Only I must ask you to postpone the question of new year's gifts, and temporarily accept a hearty handshake in their place. That's all I have on me." "Master has never been more generous," Conseil replied. And with that, the gallant lad went away. By January 2 we had fared 11,340 miles, hence 5,250 leagues, from our starting point in the seas of Japan. Before the Nautilus's spur there stretched the dangerous waterways of the Coral Sea, off the northeast coast of Australia. Our boat cruised along a few miles away from that daunting shoal where Captain Cook's ships wellnigh miscarried on June 10, 1770. The craft that Cook was aboard charged into some coral rock, and if his vessel didn't go down, it was thanks to the circumstance that a piece of coral broke off in the collision and plugged the very hole it had made in the hull. I would have been deeply interested in visiting this long, 360-league reef, against which the ever-surging sea broke with the fearsome intensity of thunderclaps. But just then the Nautilus's slanting fins took us to great depths, and I could see nothing of those high coral walls. I had to rest content with the various specimens of fish brought up by our nets. Among others I noted some long-finned albacore, a species in the genus Scomber, as big as tuna, bluish on the flanks, and streaked with crosswise stripes that disappear when the animal dies. These fish followed us in schools and supplied our table with very dainty flesh. We also caught a large number of yellow-green gilthead, half a decimeter long and tasting like dorado, plus some flying gurnards, authentic underwater swallows that, on dark nights, alternately streak air and water with their phosphorescent glimmers. Among mollusks and zoophytes, I found in our trawl's meshes various species of alcyonarian coral, sea urchins, hammer shells, spurred-star shells, wentletrap snails, horn shells, glass snails. The local flora was represented by fine floating algae: sea tangle, and kelp from the genus Macrocystis, saturated with the mucilage their pores perspire, from which I selected a wonderful Nemastoma geliniaroidea, classifying it with the natural curiosities in the museum. On January 4, two days after crossing the Coral Sea, we raised the coast of Papua. On this occasion Captain Nemo told me that he intended to reach the Indian Ocean via the Torres Strait. This was the extent of his remarks. Ned saw with pleasure that this course would bring us, once again, closer to European seas. The Torres Strait is regarded as no less dangerous for its bristling reefs than for the savage inhabitants of its coasts. It separates Queensland from the huge island of Papua, also called New Guinea. Papua is 400 leagues long by 130 leagues wide, with a surface area of 40,000 geographic leagues. It's located between latitude 0 degrees 19' and 10 degrees 2' south, and between longitude 128 degrees 23' and 146 degrees 15'. At noon, while the chief officer was taking the sun's altitude, I spotted the summits of the Arfak Mountains, rising in terraces and ending in sharp peaks. Discovered in 1511 by the Portuguese Francisco Serrano, these shores were successively visited by Don Jorge de Meneses in 1526, by Juan de Grijalva in 1527, by the Spanish general Alvaro de Saavedra in 1528, by Inigo Ortiz in 1545, by the Dutchman Schouten in 1616, by Nicolas Sruick in 1753, by Tasman, Dampier, Fumel, Carteret, Edwards, Bougainville, Cook, McClure, and Thomas Forrest, by Rear Admiral d'Entrecasteaux in 1792, by Louis-Isidore Duperrey in 1823, and by Captain Dumont d'Urville in 1827. "It's the heartland of the blacks who occupy all Malaysia," Mr. de Rienzi has said; and I hadn't the foggiest inkling that sailors' luck was about to bring me face to face with these daunting Andaman aborigines. So the Nautilus hove before the entrance to the world's most dangerous strait, a passageway that even the boldest navigators hesitated to clear: the strait that Luis Vaez de Torres faced on returning from the South Seas in Melanesia, the strait in which sloops of war under Captain Dumont d'Urville ran aground in 1840 and nearly miscarried with all hands. And even the Nautilus, rising superior to every danger in the sea, was about to become intimate with its coral reefs. The Torres Strait is about thirty-four leagues wide, but it's obstructed by an incalculable number of islands, islets, breakers, and rocks that make it nearly impossible to navigate. Consequently, Captain Nemo took every desired precaution in crossing it. Floating flush with the water, the Nautilus moved ahead at a moderate pace. Like a cetacean's tail, its propeller churned the waves slowly. Taking advantage of this situation, my two companions and I found seats on the ever-deserted platform. In front of us stood the pilothouse, and unless I'm extremely mistaken, Captain Nemo must have been inside, steering his Nautilus himself. Under my eyes I had the excellent charts of the Torres Strait that had been surveyed and drawn up by the hydrographic engineer Vincendon Dumoulin and Sublieutenant (now Admiral) Coupvent-Desbois, who were part of Dumont d'Urville's general staff during his final voyage to circumnavigate the globe. These, along with the efforts of Captain King, are the best charts for untangling the snarl of this narrow passageway, and I consulted them with scrupulous care. Around the Nautilus the sea was boiling furiously. A stream of waves, bearing from southeast to northwest at a speed of two and a half miles per hour, broke over heads of coral emerging here and there. "That's one rough sea!" Ned Land told me. "Abominable indeed," I replied, "and hardly suitable for a craft like the Nautilus." "That damned captain," the Canadian went on, "must really be sure of his course, because if these clumps of coral so much as brush us, they'll rip our hull into a thousand pieces!" The situation was indeed dangerous, but as if by magic, the Nautilus seemed to glide right down the middle of these rampaging reefs. It didn't follow the exact course of the Zealous and the new Astrolabe, which had proved so ill-fated for Captain Dumont d'Urville. It went more to the north, hugged the Murray Islands, and returned to the southwest near Cumberland Passage. I thought it was about to charge wholeheartedly into this opening, but it went up to the northwest, through a large number of little-known islands and islets, and steered toward Tound Island and the Bad Channel. I was already wondering if Captain Nemo, rash to the point of sheer insanity, wanted his ship to tackle the narrows where Dumont d'Urville's two sloops of war had gone aground, when he changed direction a second time and cut straight to the west, heading toward Gueboroa Island. By then it was three o'clock in the afternoon. The current was slacking off, it was almost full tide. The Nautilus drew near this island, which I can see to this day with its remarkable fringe of screw pines. We hugged it from less than two miles out. A sudden jolt threw me down. The Nautilus had just struck a reef, and it remained motionless, listing slightly to port. When I stood up, I saw Captain Nemo and his chief officer on the platform. They were examining the ship's circumstances, exchanging a few words in their incomprehensible dialect. Here is what those circumstances entailed. Two miles to starboard lay Gueboroa Island, its coastline curving north to west like an immense arm. To the south and east, heads of coral were already on display, left uncovered by the ebbing waters. We had run aground at full tide and in one of those seas whose tides are moderate, an inconvenient state of affairs for floating the Nautilus off. However, the ship hadn't suffered in any way, so solidly joined was its hull. But although it could neither sink nor split open, it was in serious danger of being permanently attached to these reefs, and that would have been the finish of Captain Nemo's submersible. I was mulling this over when the captain approached, cool and calm, forever in control of himself, looking neither alarmed nor annoyed. "An accident?" I said to him. "No, an incident," he answered me. "But an incident," I replied, "that may oblige you to become a resident again of these shores you avoid!" Captain Nemo gave me an odd look and gestured no. Which told me pretty clearly that nothing would ever force him to set foot on a land mass again. Then he said: "No, Professor Aronnax, the Nautilus isn't consigned to perdition. It will still carry you through the midst of the ocean's wonders. Our voyage is just beginning, and I've no desire to deprive myself so soon of the pleasure of your company." "Even so, Captain Nemo," I went on, ignoring his ironic turn of phrase, "the Nautilus has run aground at a moment when the sea is full. Now then, the tides aren't strong in the Pacific, and if you can't unballast the Nautilus, which seems impossible to me, I don't see how it will float off." "You're right, professor, the Pacific tides aren't strong," Captain Nemo replied. "But in the Torres Strait, one still finds a meter-and-a-half difference in level between high and low seas. Today is January 4, and in five days the moon will be full. Now then, I'll be quite astonished if that good-natured satellite doesn't sufficiently raise these masses of water and do me a favor for which I'll be forever grateful." This said, Captain Nemo went below again to the Nautilus's interior, followed by his chief officer. As for our craft, it no longer stirred, staying as motionless as if these coral polyps had already walled it in with their indestructible cement. "Well, sir?" Ned Land said to me, coming up after the captain's departure. "Well, Ned my friend, we'll serenely wait for the tide on the 9th, because it seems the moon will have the good nature to float us away!" "As simple as that?" "As simple as that." "So our captain isn't going to drop his anchors, put his engines on the chains, and do anything to haul us off?" "Since the tide will be sufficient," Conseil replied simply. The Canadian stared at Conseil, then he shrugged his shoulders. The seaman in him was talking now. "Sir," he answered, "you can trust me when I say this hunk of iron will never navigate again, on the seas or under them. It's only fit to be sold for its weight. So I think it's time we gave Captain Nemo the slip." "Ned my friend," I replied, "unlike you, I haven't given up on our valiant Nautilus, and in four days we'll know where we stand on these Pacific tides. Besides, an escape attempt might be timely if we were in sight of the coasts of England or Provence, but in the waterways of Papua it's another story. And we'll always have that as a last resort if the Nautilus doesn't right itself, which I'd regard as a real calamity." "But couldn't we at least get the lay of the land?" Ned went on. "Here's an island. On this island there are trees. Under those trees land animals loaded with cutlets and roast beef, which I'd be happy to sink my teeth into." "In this instance our friend Ned is right," Conseil said, "and I side with his views. Couldn't master persuade his friend Captain Nemo to send the three of us ashore, if only so our feet don't lose the knack of treading on the solid parts of our planet?" "I can ask him," I replied, "but he'll refuse." "Let master take the risk," Conseil said, "and we'll know where we stand on the captain's affability." Much to my surprise, Captain Nemo gave me the permission I asked for, and he did so with grace and alacrity, not even exacting my promise to return on board. But fleeing across the New Guinea territories would be extremely dangerous, and I wouldn't have advised Ned Land to try it. Better to be prisoners aboard the Nautilus than to fall into the hands of Papuan natives. The skiff was put at our disposal for the next morning. I hardly needed to ask whether Captain Nemo would be coming along. I likewise assumed that no crewmen would be assigned to us, that Ned Land would be in sole charge of piloting the longboat. Besides, the shore lay no more than two miles off, and it would be child's play for the Canadian to guide that nimble skiff through those rows of reefs so ill-fated for big ships. The next day, January 5, after its deck paneling was opened, the skiff was wrenched from its socket and launched to sea from the top of the platform. Two men were sufficient for this operation. The oars were inside the longboat and we had only to take our seats. At eight o'clock, armed with rifles and axes, we pulled clear of the Nautilus. The sea was fairly calm. A mild breeze blew from shore. In place by the oars, Conseil and I rowed vigorously, and Ned steered us into the narrow lanes between the breakers. The skiff handled easily and sped swiftly. Ned Land couldn't conceal his glee. He was a prisoner escaping from prison and never dreaming he would need to reenter it. "Meat!" he kept repeating. "Now we'll eat red meat! Actual game! A real mess call, by thunder! I'm not saying fish aren't good for you, but we mustn't overdo 'em, and a slice of fresh venison grilled over live coals will be a nice change from our standard fare." "You glutton," Conseil replied, "you're making my mouth water!" "It remains to be seen," I said, "whether these forests do contain game, and if the types of game aren't of such size that they can hunt the hunter." "Fine, Professor Aronnax!" replied the Canadian, whose teeth seemed to be as honed as the edge of an ax. "But if there's no other quadruped on this island, I'll eat tiger - tiger sirloin." "Our friend Ned grows disturbing," Conseil replied. "Whatever it is," Ned Land went on, "any animal having four feet without feathers, or two feet with feathers, will be greeted by my very own one-gun salute." "Oh good!" I replied. "The reckless Mr. Land is at it again!" "Don't worry, Professor Aronnax, just keep rowing!" the Canadian replied. "I only need twenty-five minutes to serve you one of my own special creations." By 8:30 the Nautilus's skiff had just run gently aground on a sandy strand, after successfully clearing the ring of coral that surrounds Gueboroa Island.