Piracy for Fun and Profit

by ~Pudding-4-Evar

                                           Piracy for Fun and Profit

Piracy could be said to be among the oldest, and possibly least respectable, occupations in the world, second only to a certain other profession also beginning with the same letter. For hundreds of years, hairy, bearded men have been making their living on the high seas at this noble art, much to the chagrin of less suitably hairy and bearded people who also happened to like carting around large amounts of treasure on their ships. When the application of both magic and technology had advanced to the point where ships could be made to fly without large numbers of continuously chanting wizards being strapped to their sides at all times, and ships began to sail the clouds, piracy too moved into the air, and things like walking the plank and swinging on ropes to board ships suddenly became quite a bit more exciting. Quite a few more people became interested in the career, due to frequent opportunities for advancement, competitive plundering, varied stock portfolios, and the fact that yelling vigorously and slicing people up with a large sword was a key part of the job.

Some noted that the offered dental plan was lacking, but for the most part they were ignored.

‘Scar’ Harrison, currently second in command of the airship Aurora, had once been a pirate during a particularly interesting time in his life. At the time when most were pursuing apprenticeships or going off to make their own way in the world on soul-seeking adventures he was learning crucial life skills, like how to grow a large beard and how to yell vigorously and slice people up with a large sword. He took these skills on to his future pursuits, these being service during the war and subsequently sharing the responsibility of raising two adopted children, where they had served him well.

Scar therefore could conclude that his early experiences in piracy had been most beneficial, and also, he had reflected, extremely profitable in comparison to his current job, where the entire crew’s net income for the last month had been a fish and fifteen bales of hay.

Piracy, he thought to himself, was easy and rewarding, and the Captain, being as perpetually unmotivated as she was, would jump at anything with a minimal work to profit ratio. And so, on the same day they had discovered that the food stores were at best minimal and at worst nonexistent, he put the idea forward to the crew over dinner, also nonexistent.

---

‘Morally,’ said Garrett Sinclair, as they sat at the empty dining table, ‘I have to say I’m against this.’

‘I think you’ll find I’m the captain and you’re the cabin boy.’ said Lynne Greenwood. ‘And I think morals aren’t going to make us want any less for breakfast.’

‘Ye may not like stealin’, but we do need t’ eat.’ Scar said in his best approximation of a reasonable tone. It sounded slightly less gruff than usual.

‘It’s still not right, taking people’s money like this.’ Garrett grumbled without much conviction. ‘And what if it turns into a fight? I don’t want to kill innocent people over my lunch.’

‘Look, if it’s such a problem, we can be nice about it.’ Lynne grinned. ‘I’ll shoot them gently.’

‘How do you shoot someone gently?’ Garrett raised an eyebrow.

‘I’ll work that out when I get to it.’

‘Ye probably won’t have t’ shoot anyone at all.’ Scar said, chuckling. ‘All ye have t’ do is strut around with yer pirate crew and yell a lot and usually th’do what ye tell them.’

‘Pirate crew?’ said Garrett incredulously. ‘There’s only four of us.’

‘Then we’ll just have to yell more.’ Lynne said, getting up. ‘I’ll go tell Ty the plan, and then we can play Shoot the Badger.’

‘We always play Shoot the Badger.’ Garrett complained after her as she left the room.

---

Several minutes later, Lynne found herself on the bridge trying to explain the plan to Garrett’s sister, and for some reason she couldn’t quite fathom, it wasn’t working.

‘What, exactly, would you like me to do?’ said Tyrey Sinclair, looking at Lynne in the way that most reserve for looking at a particularly stupid child.

‘Find another ship.’ Lynne said. It seemed quite simple to her.

‘Ah, yes. I’ll just sail around in circles until I ram into one, shall I, captain?’

‘Don’t you get smart with me.’ Lynne glared at her. ‘It’s not hard.’

‘Do you have any grasp of how large the world is, exactly?’  said Tyrey, in a tone that clearly indicated  she already knew the answer to this question.

‘No, but I know what’s been mapped out, and I know where the rich ships will be.’

They stared each other down for a second. Lynne noted somewhat uncomfortably that the girl was almost a foot shorter than her and she was still feeling vaguely intimidated.

‘So, er, where will the ships be?’ said Lynne.

‘I don’t know, you tell me, fearless leader.’ Tyrey replied, with a mock bow and a gesture towards the charts laid out on the table.

‘Hey, I haven’t been able to keep track of where we were. You know I’ve been in bed all day.’ said Lynne. ‘For my constitution.’

‘After you spent the night drinking in the city? You were hung-over.’ Tyrey snorted derisively.

‘No I wasn’t! I just needed my beauty rest.’ Lynne said defensively.

‘It hasn’t helped.’ Tyrey smirked.

Lynne glared at her. ‘Look, just shut up and tell me where we are.’

Tyrey pointed at a spot on the map. Lynne looked at it. Her eyebrows raised.

‘How the hell did we get all the way there?’ Lynne said, surprised.

‘No one realized you weren’t up and flying the ship until noon.’ Tyrey was clearly annoyed. ‘We only noticed when we almost rolled right into a typhoon.’

‘Sounds like fun.’ said Lynne. ‘And would you look at that, it’s only fifty miles to the Archipelago shipping lanes from here. Hard starboard, Ty, we’re going to eat tonight. Find us a nice small one and then call me.’

‘Port, Captain.’ Tyrey corrected her.

'No, I don't think I'll have any more to drink for a long while.' said Lynne. 'But thank you for offering.'

Tyrey sighed and retied her bandanna, heading for the stairs and waiting until after Lynne had turned around to make rude gestures.

---

Garrett looked at the woman across from him. Their eyes locked – hard emerald and steely flint vying for dominance. The time had come at last. The sweat beaded on his forehead. A lot was riding on this. It was all or nothing. Time to play the game.

He slammed his cards down onto the table. ‘Triple Badger.’ he said triumphantly.

‘Oh dear, looks like I’ve got a Triple Crossbow. I Shoot the Badger.’ Lynne said cheerily, taking the pot and the last of Garrett’s spending money.

‘Ye should have folded.’ said Scar. ‘She be cheatin’, as usual.’

‘Boys, boys, can’t you ever just believe that I’m lucky?’ Lynne said sweetly, raising her arms and settling back in the chair.

‘You have the Red Badger sticking out of your sleeve.’ Garrett said, noticing the white of the card against the dark blue of her coat and glaring at her.

‘I, er… believe in always having an extra?’ Lynne attempted a disarming grin.

‘I want my money back.’ Garrett growled.

‘Too bad. I won it, fairly.’ Lynne smirked and folded her arms. ‘It’s not my fault you don’t know when to stop.’

‘That was because I didn’t think you’d sink to cheating with your own friends!’ Garrett rose to his feet, fists clenched, light brown hair falling into his eyes.

‘I wasn’t cheating!’ Lynne stood up quickly and slammed her fists on the table to emphasize the point, but the effect was somewhat ruined when half the deck fell out of her shirt as a result. Garrett was about to leap across the table and forcibly recoup his losses when Tyrey knocked on the door, decided she didn’t much care whether they were busy or not, and threw the door open. The door hit the wall with the dull thud of wood on wood and when Garrett turned to look at the source of the noise Lynne punched him in the stomach and took off with the money, laughing hysterically.

‘Well, I found a ship, and now I’m going to have to go make sure our fearless leader doesn’t attempt to assault it singlehanded.’ Tyrey sighed and turned to go back up the stairs.

‘Aye, we should probably get after the Cap’n, ‘fore she does somethin’ stupid.’ Scar said, walking out after Tyrey and shaking his head at the memory of the last time the Captain had run off with a sack of money and they had ended up with a life-size statue of herself made entirely out of cheese. As an afterthought, Scar turned back to the table. ‘Comin’, Garrett?’

Garrett made a vague, pained whimper and curled up in a ball.

‘Righto, we won’t wait up fer ye.’

---

‘It’s spooky, how completely dark it is. You can barely see it.’ Tyrey said, with a hint of apprehension, as they drew up alongside the silent ship. 'Come on, Dad, talk her out of it.'

‘Aye. Maybe we should be lookin’ fer a slightly less menacin’ ship, Cap’n.’ Scar turned to her. ‘There be somethin’ mighty unsettlin’ about this one.’

‘You’re a bunch of shameless pansies.’ Lynne said, checking to see that her sword was strapped on to her belt and twirling her gun theatrically into its holster. Grasping the rope she had set up for the special purpose of dramatically swinging onto other people’s ships, she stood up on the deck rail and looked back at them, brushing her red hair away from her eyes. ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’

---

'This,' said Lynne Greenwood, struggling against the ropes that had been used to tie her to the mast of her own ship, 'is quite possibly the worst thing that could have happened.'

'I did tell you this was a horrible idea.' said Garrett, from the other side of the mast.

Lynne and Garrett were, as mentioned, tied securely to Aurora's mast as an entire crew of pirates went back and forth between their ship and the one that had foolishly attempted to attack them by way of a cleverly placed set of planks, carrying up anything of interest from the hold and cabins of their ship over to Lynne's.

Things, Lynne reflected, had gone downhill almost immediately. She had swung onto the deck of the ship, pistol and sword drawn, and had demanded all the treasure on board, as Scar had instructed her was proper.

It was somewhat disheartening when they had all burst into laughter at this, and slightly more disheartening when the nearest one drew his own weapon and waved it at her.

In retrospect, she concluded, given that she had been outnumbered quite completely, it had probably been a mistake to shoot him, as that had given them an excuse to crack her over the head with a bit of wood. She had thereafter woken up tied to the mast with a horrible headache, left to think about where her chosen path in life had duly taken her.

For Garrett's part, he had been expecting Lynne to come fleeing back in terror, but he had not been expecting an entire pirate crew to come along with her. His sister had quite disappeared in the confusion, and Scar, demanding certain provisions under the Pirate Legislative Congress' Unilateral Pirate Practices and Regulations Act of 1461, Paragraph 7, Section 3, had been brought over to the other ship to meet with their Pirate Captain and had not been seen since. He was altogether quite annoyed with the entire affair and had occupied the time he had spent tied to the mast simmering at Lynne and grumbling to himself.

Fortuitously, both were distracted from their miserable reverie by the arrival of a pirate.

'Well well well.' said the pirate condescendingly. 'So ye picked the wrong day t' try 'n out-pirate the Black Ship Pirates!' he said, sticking his face right in Garrett's and growling loudly.

'Hey, it wasn't my idea, it was hers.' Garrett said, motioning with his head towards Lynne.

'Oh... aye? Er... sorry, matey. My mistake.' the pirate said sheepishly. He walked around the mast.

'Well well well.' said the pirate condescendingly. 'So ye picked the wrong day t' try 'n out-pirate the Black Ship Pirates!' he said, sticking his face right in Lynne's and growling loudly.

'Yes. So we did.' Lynne said, decidedly unamused.

'How could ye be such fools?! Have ye not heard of the Black Ship Pirates?' he said, somewhat incredulous at the idea.

'Of course I have.' Lynne muttered, cursing her luck and inability to distinguish between brown and black in pitch darkness.

'Then why did ye attack, ye fools? We would've left ye alone if ye hadn't been belligerent! Hell, we would've let ye go with a warnin' if ye 'adn't shot Pirate Ted!'

'I did say I was sorry about that. It just sort of went off.' Lynne said, looking away embarrasedly.

'He was only three days until 'is Pirate Retirement! Ye swung into 'is retirement party!'

'Look, I've already apologized, what else do you w-'

'What'm I goin' t' tell 'is Pirate Widow 'n Pirate little'n's? Who d'you think 'as t' do that? It's me job! It be th' most 'eartwrenchin' job in the world but somebody's got t' do 't!' the pirate bellowed, tears streaming down his face. Two of his pirate friends came over, trying to pull him away from the mast.

'Look, I...'

'What'm I goin' t' tell 'em? Ye tell me that! Ye tell me!' he screamed after her as his friends dragged him away and attempted to sit him down and comfort him.

Lynne was silent for a long time as she watched him sob brokenly for several minutes. When he showed no sign of stopping, she turned her attention to Garrett instead. 'So, how are we going to get out of this?' she said, straightening up and attempting to look around at him.

'You shot a guy who was three days from retirement and had a wife and kids?' Garrett said incredulously. 'That's just cold.'

'He had a sword in my face!' Lynne protested.

'It was 'is retirement cutlass! 'E was showin' everyone 'e met th' engravin' of 'is name! He just wanted t' show ye!' came a tearful, anguished cry from the other side of the deck.

'Oh, that's just great, Lynne. Good going.' Garrett said drily. 'I can see he was a real threat right there.'

'Look, would you focus on the problem at hand?'

'I mean, he was all excited about his retirement present and he wanted to show it off to you so you shot him in the face.'

'Focus, Garrett! They are going to kill us!'

'Ooh, I wonder why. It's not like either of us actually shot one of them... oh. Oh wait. Well I guess it's okay because you shot him gentl- oh. Hey, it killed him anyway. Imagine that!'

'Right, I'm not speaking to you anymore.' said Lynne, attempting to cross her arms but, on finding that the rope prevented this, settled for a sulky expression.

'Fine! Maybe if I don't talk to you anymore you won't shoot me for no reason.'

'At the rate you're going, that's looking less and less likely.' Lynne growled.

---

Scar had expected to buy Captain Greenwood some time to make her dramatically appropriate escape. He had expected his conversation with the Pirate Captain to be short, contrived, and ultimately only to stall for time.

He had not really expected the Pirate Captain to happily recognize him immediately upon seeing him and offer him a flagon of grog and a seat with a rather nice cushion. He had not at all expected the Pirate Captain to be his father.

'Scarlett, me boy! I 'aven't seen ye since ye quit bein' a pirate and went off t' the war!' the grey bearded Pirate Captain roared, clapping his long-lost son on the back. 'It's good t' see ye back in the fam'ly business, lad.'

'Aye. 'Ow've ye been doin', Dad?' said Scarlett, looking at the floor. 'An' it be 'Scar' now, not Scarlett.'

'Ye'll always be Scarlett t' yer ol' Dad.' said the Pirate Captain. 'So, I 'eard there's been a spot o' bother with yer crew 'n mine? Why don't ye sit down 'n tell me about it over a nice mug o' grog?'

Scar reluctantly took a seat, still rather in a daze, as his father filled up two large grog mugs and slapped them down on his Pirate Desk, sloshing grog all over his Pirate Paperwork. Scar picked one up and gingerly took a sip as the Pirate Captain crashed into his chair, slammed back the grog in a single gulp, quite soaking his impressive beard, and looked expectantly at his son.

'Well, t' start, ye can't exactly call 'em me crew.' Scar said, dreading where he now knew the conversation would inevitably lead.

'No? Well, ye are Cap'n of th' ship, right?' his father grinned, leaning over the desk and smiling at his son.

The silence was thicker on the room than the grog. Scar looked at the floor.

'Twenty years since I last saw ye and ye aren't even a cap'n?' the Pirate Captain said incredulously.

---

Garrett saw Scar come back across the improvised bridge first, recognizing him from afar by his large beard. Garrett had always considered Scar's beard to be quite impressive and piratical, but in a moment his preconceptions were dashed as he was struck dumb by the one that followed closely behind it. Though greying with age, its size and fullness were such that it was commanding even as it lost its thick, jet black hue to the ravages of time. Impossibly thick, it filled his face and most of his chest and almost seemed to continue up to his eyebrows in an unbroken loop, epitomizing the ideal hirsute piratical demeanor.

Garrett was left babbling incoherently at the sight.

'What are you on about now?' said Lynne, briefly forgetting that she wasn't speaking to him anymore.

'beardbeardbeardbeard' Garrett gurgled to the air, wide eyed and shaking. Lynne strained to turn her head to see what he was looking at and gasped, disbelieving.

'Sweet gods, It's like he glued  a sheepdog to his head.' she half whispered. And then it was before her, in its glory, and it spoke unto her, and she did know the name of the beard.

'I,' said the beard, 'am the Pirate Captain.'

Lynne could only nod, rendered incapable of speech before the indescribable majesty of the beard.

'This is now me ship.' the beard said commandingly, yet firmly.

Lynne felt a vague yet pressing idea that she should protest at this development, but the beard spoke to her, singing its gentle, benevolent song. She did not resist the beard. She could not resist the beard. She trusted the beard. The beard understanded her, knew why her heart ached and how she suffered. The beard was her friend. It was her only friend. She nodded again.

'Ye can have me old ship.' said the beard. Lynne could not help but feel this was quite generous of the beard. 'Just as soon as me mates 'ave finished getting me stuff off o' 't, ye c'n 'ave 't.'

Lynne nodded again, lost in the gray and black mass of beard. The beard reached out, cutting through the ropes with a single movement of its mass. The beard told her to go. She obeyed, the fervently babbling Garrett trailing in her wake as she stumbled dazedly across to the other ship.

---

The Pirate Captain turned to his son, grinning widely. 'Now that we've got th' new ship sorted out, ye c'n get lessons on bein' a real Cap'n from th' best 'n th' business!' Scar, ashamed, was silent as he watched Lynne and Garrett wander over to the other ship, one chattering about the merits of gratuitous facial hair and the other clutching his ears and moaning 'mustaches' to himself.

The Pirate Captain's crew, informed of the newest development and led by the anguished pirate who had just composed himself after a good cry, began to raise a protest. 'Ye're givin' up our old ship t' give yer son a crash course in bein' a pirate?' said the emotionally unstable pirate, looking accusingly at Scar, who was still occupying himself looking at the floor.

'Aye, I am.' replied the Pirate Captain, returning the gaze. 'This one be nicer anyway. Be there a problem?'

'Aye, there be!' growled another pirate. 'Ye just tol' the woman 'o shot Ted th' she could 'ave our old boat!'

'Aye, so I did, mateys. But I didn' say th' they could 'ave it fer long, did I now?' The Pirate Captain grinned, and the other pirates all grinned happily as well, as they could see from his trademark grin that there was a cunning plan of piratical treachery afoot.

The Pirate Captain walked up the stairs on deck and affixed his Pirate Hat on his head, grasping the ship's wheel in both hands. 'All 'ands prepare t' set sail!' he bellowed, swinging hard to starboard as his crew scurried about.

Slowly but surely, Aurora began to fly away.

---

When next she took an interest in things, Lynne Greenwood found that everything was blurry and that visions of beards of all shapes and sizes danced through her head with no distinct explanation forthcoming as to why. Blinking several times and rubbing at her eyes, she realized she had come to her senses aboard a ship that was decidedly not hers, and that the ship that decidedly was hers was disappearing rapidly into the distance. She stumbled to her feet, bracing herself against the deck rail as the world spun around her. By the time the dizziness had faded, Garrett was on his feet, staggering around the deck waving his arms and moaning about goatees.

She slapped him so hard he went cross-eyed, but this only made him begin a rant about muttonchops instead.

'Damn it, Garrett, of all the times you have to be completely useless to me, it has to be when somebody's stealing my boat.' Lynne growled to herself, turning to go below deck, resigned to getting the ship moving by herself.

As Lynne Greenwood is now making a rather laborious and uninteresting journey down into the bowels and inner workings of the pirate ship, it would be more interesting to note at this time the exact mechanism by which airships operate. As previously mentioned, in the past the only way to effectively lift any sort of conveyance up to the level where it could be referred to as aircraft was to continuously have in attendance several high-order wizards who were well versed in the practical application of the principles of lift and thrust and of the manipulation of air. Since these sorts of wizards, by definition, had studied well into their elder years to attain this level of mastery, they had a distressing tendency to die of old age, often due to the strain of having to continuously stay awake and chant to keep the relevant object in the air.

This process was much expedited by the discovery of a certain subset of diamond which was found to be amazingly receptive to arcane energies, to the point of being able to store multiple thousands of applied wizard hours in smaller sized gems. Free of the constraint of having to have a wizard on hand, previously complex procedures could instead be powered by a suitable gem, essentially acting as a magical battery, and several pieces of machinery to direct the energy at hand.

What most people who use magitechnology in their daily lives would prefer to forget, however, is that inside these relatively small, fist-sized gems lies hours upon hours of concentrated wizard's work – in simpler terms, a vast reserve of pure energy. When properly controlled by the correct procedures and machinery, this energy is perfectly safe and easily applicable to almost any reasonable task. However, as early accidents in the field found, the large gems required for industrial or aircraft scale work are unfortunately prone to damage. The slightest crack or flaw, easily induced by concentrated force on the gem, results in its quickly shattering completely. Thereafter, the complete amount of pure, undirected arcane energy contained within is forced suddenly outward, all but instantaneously annihilating any unprotected matter caught in it in a reaction best described as a really big explosion.

In the case of an airship, even if this catastrophic explosion did not completely obliterate it, the sudden loss of power would cause gravity to look sharply in the direction of the fragments and reassert the natural order of things, in other words sending the remains of the unfortunate ship hurtling towards the ground.

Knowing that upon reaching the engine room of the ship and being confronted with a curious device just outside the door which, upon opening, revealed that it had lit a quickly burning fuse leading towards a small pyramid of several kegs of gunpowder, with the gem removed from its protective housing and sitting on top of the pyramid,  it is easy to then see why Lynne Greenwood abruptly skidded to a halt, ignoring the masses of red hair that fell into her face at the sudden stop, said several things that cannot be reprinted here, and ran back towards the stairs, yelling for Garrett.

There was a sound best described as FOOMP.

And then there was silence.

---

From just above the horizon, a brilliant flash of white light briefly brightened up Aurora against the night sky. The pirates cheered at the light show. Scar looked on sadly from the window of the Captain's cabin as the cheer went up from the deck. His father turned around, grinning mightily.

'Now th' yer old crew're out o' the way, I c'n teach ye t' be a real pirate Cap'n!' the Pirate Captain roared cheerfully, pouring several mugs of grog.

'Aye, I was afraid o' that.' Scar said dismally.

---

Lynne woke up on a beach. The pleasant, warm sun beat down on her as gulls soared overhead, squawking.

'I must be dead.' she said to herself, sitting up on the beach and beginning to tie her hair back into a ponytail. 'Not quite as much fire and brimstone as they told me there'd be. Nicer beaches, too. Must be heaven.'

'Sideburns!' said Garrett, wandering into her field of view, having stuck his vest to his face in a vague approximation of a beard.

'Or hell is a lot worse than I thought.' she groaned, rolling over to see pieces of shattered boat washing up on the sand. She attempted to recall the events that had led up to this – a loud sound and blinding light, the sensation of falling, water, then nothing. She supposed they must have been flying close enough to an island that they had washed ashore after the ship had blown. How she'd survived impact with the water eluded her, but the vague childhood science lessons she had mostly ignored told her it was likely their low altitude combined with the falling bits of ship breaking the surface tension or something of that ilk. Declaring this boring, she attributed it to sheer dumb luck and sat up.

Grimly, she looked up at the sky and found it empty of ships. Unlikely survival did not mitigate the fact that she was trapped on some deserted tropical island. It was, she reflected, like her own personal floating prison.

Shaking her head and trying to push the lingering uncertainties of her situation out of her mind, she settled in for what was no doubt going to be a long and uncomfortable stay.

'Draeb draeb draeb!' Garrett burbled, rolling around on the sand.

---

Tyrey was not pleased with Scar at present, as she stood in his cabin telling him such in no uncertain terms.

'You let them kill my brother?' Tyrey hissed, staring up at the significantly taller man with fire in her eyes. Distressingly, he found himself intimidated.

'He's me father! What was I supposed t' say?' Scar said lamely.

'How about 'no, I will not blithely send off my adopted children to their inevitable deaths, that would be bad'? Did you think of trying that one?'

'I tried, lass! He gets t' talkin' and ye just don't get a chance to contradict 'im! It's th' beard! Gives 'im a commandin' presence!'

Tyrey threw up her arms, exasperated beyond her considerable ability to verbally relate irritation. She sat down in the bed in the corner, head in her hands. 'What on earth am I going to do now? My brother is dead, Greenwood's toast too, and you turned into a spineless pushover the moment your father showed up!'

Scar thought to protest, but did not. She was, after all, quite right. He was saved from having to wallow alone in guilt when his father, laughing cheerfully, kicked in the door and announced loudly that they were nearing the pirate cove. Tyrey rose to her feet stomped up on deck with her adoptive Pirate Grandfather to look at the cove he had spent the last two hours babbling about, leaving Scar alone to stare at the wall.

She was quite taken aback at the sight. An entire pristine tropical island lay spread before her as the airship slowly dropped altitude and came in for a landing in a sheltered cove that glittered as the sun shone down on it. Scant feet away from the water rose an opulent Pirate Fort fit for a Pirate King... or a Pirate Queen.

‘And o’ course, since I’ve been Pirate King fer so many years, I was plannin’ on retirin’ soon… well, I’ve always needed someone t’ take over ‘n me son isn’t lookin’ up t’ snuff.’
For the first time all day, Tyrey smiled. Pirate Queen wasn't all that bad a job, after all. It was, to be sure, a step up from airship mechanic.

---

Lynne was not having good results finding food. She had emptied the last few shots from her pistol chasing after some sort of jungle animal and, having managed to miss completely five times in a row, was now attempting to silently stalk through the brush after it, sword in hand.

'Fu Manchu, handlebar, imperial, horseshoe' Garrett sang to himself, trundling along after her with his vest attached to his face.

'Would you be quiet?' she said. 'You're scaring away the animals.' Lynne turned around to glare at him.

'Enormous mane.' said Garrett suddenly, his eyes widening.

'Would you shut up about beards for just a minute, you loony git?' Lynne said, preparing to smack him again.

'Enormous mane!' Garrett insisted, pointing over her shoulder.

Lynne turned around and came face to face with an enormous lion, which duly opened its mouth and roared so loud as to make her hair blow backwards.

'Or, you're attracting all the wrong animals.' said Lynne weakly. Garrett waved cheerily at the lion, but was quickly dragged along by Lynne when she started running.

'Van Dyck.' Garrett protested, barely staying on his feet as he was pulled along, hard pressed to keep up with Lynne's breakneck pace. Lynne crashed through the jungle, desperately fleeing back towards the beach, wishing she hadn't been quite so enthusiastic about shooting at anteaters. They probably didn't even taste good anyway, and she was effectively weaponless, having dropped her saber in the panic of being able to look straight down a lion’s throat. She couldn't outrun a lion in the jungle and she didn't have much in the way of defenses.

Out of options, she picked up Garrett and began bludgeoning the lion with him. This strategy was quickly ended when a single swipe from its paw sent the pair spinning in different directions. Stumbling to her feet, Lynne took off running again, not looking back despite Garrett's panicked yelling. Suddenly, sunlight came spinning into her view as she tripped over a fallen tree and rolled into a clearing, nearly slipping into the nearby river.

When the world stopped spinning and she could sit up, she was pleasantly surprised to find that she was no longer pursued. Jumping to her feet, she delightedly informed the surroundings of her current state.

'We're alive!' Lynne whooped. She had not expected this to be the outcome, and was pleasantly surprised as a result. Turning to take Garrett by the shoulders, she yelled it again for emphasis. 'We're alive, Garrett!'
Except he wasn't there.

'Oh.' said Lynne weakly. She turned and stared at the jungle for several minutes. He did not emerge.

'Oh dear.' she said, and sat down heavily. She hadn't meant for this to happen. The minutes went by like years, but Garrett did not reveal himself. After almost half an hour of dejected sitting, Lynne all but gave up on seeing him again. Garrett had undoubtedly been made into some sort of tasty snack, and he had been such a good cabin boy too, Lynne thought, by now quite depressed. He had so enjoyed the job, despite the poverty and the verbal abuse she routinely threw at him. Indeed, Garrett had really only been along with her to get in on the sort of swashbuckling adventure that she frequently found happening to her by accident.

She didn't know what he saw in it, but it must have had some appeal to him, given that in the entire year they had been shipping out together he had actually been paid only twice, once being entirely in pasta because Lynne didn't have anything else in sufficient quantity at the time. His grandmother was briefly inundated in mail-home macaroni paintings in place of conventional postcards with his earnings tucked in, but to Garrett it seemed this was the only material difference. He didn't care about the money. He never had.

And now he had been eaten by a lion.

Lynne rose to her feet, shaking her head and trying to dismiss these thoughts. 'I survived, and that's what's important.' she said out loud to the trees.

She didn't think they believed her.

---

Sprawled across her throne, the new Pirate Queen was finding she quite enjoyed her new job. Being carried around her own personal island in her own personal litter and waited on hand and foot very much appealed to her, and this aspect of life had been rather lacking in her previous job. She was of the opinion that the personal litter would be a bit more appealing were it made out of something appropriate, such as solid gold, rather than the splintery wood the pirates built their ships out of, and once the trips around the island were over the long bouts of sitting in the throne room doing very little of interest were quite boring, but on the whole it was still better than being a mechanic.

Except, of course, for all the splinters.

'Ow.' said Tyrey, pulling another one out of her hand. 'That's the fifth splinter I've found!'

'Sorry, Pirate Queen.' said a pirate with a hat. 'Would you like some more soothing balm?'

'No.' said Tyrey, irritated. 'I would like a conveyance that is not made entirely out of splintery wood!'

'But Pirate Queen, splintery wood be all we've got in sufficient quantities for buildin' things out of!' said the pirate responsible for construction.

Tyrey's eyes narrowed at him. 'Are you saying you can't?' she growled.

'I'm sayin' that splintery wood be our primary nat'ral res-'

'Walk the plank.' Tyrey said.

The pirate blanched. 'What?' he said.

'You heard me. The plank.'

The pirate hung his head and walked over to the shark pool in the center of the throne room. Throwing a mock salute to his comrades, he walked to the end of the plank and began an impassioned and poignant final monologue that was rudely interrupted by a shark snatching him off the platform and eating him whole.

Tyrey grinned. She had found a new way to entertain herself.

---

'At least I'll always have you, Wilson. You're my best friend.' said Lynne Greenwood to the coconut on which she had drawn a smiley face. It, being a coconut, did not reply. She gazed into its eyes.

‘You’ll never leave me, right, Wilson?’ she said, somewhat disturbed by Wilson’s silence. Wilson did not reply.

‘Wilson? Talk to me! Please!’ she yelled. When he did not speak, she responded by desperately throwing Wilson to the ground and attempting to find his chest. ‘You’re going to be all right, Wilson!’ she said, mostly to reassure herself as she began compressions in roughly the centre of the coconut. Succeeding mostly in hurting her hands on its hard shell, she finally gave up and collapsed, crying, into the dirt. Wilson was gone. She hadn’t been able to save him.

‘I… I’m all alone.’ she sobbed. Realizing there was nothing left for her here, she stood up. Taking Wilson’s lifeless body in her arms, she stepped uncertainly over to the river. After a momentary look at the waterfall at the end of the river, she threw herself in with a strangled cry of ‘I’m coming, Wilson!’.

The shock of being suddenly immersed in cold water brought her sharply back to her senses, as cold water often does. As she reflected with new perspective on the events of the last hour, she found herself somewhat embarrassed that she had made friends (and briefly fallen in love in a whirlwind romance) with a coconut. However, this was quickly replaced with a more immediate concern when her head broke the surface and she noticed where all of the water in the river was quickly disappearing to.

Scrabbling madly at the riverbank, she found no handholds forthcoming and the waterfall distressingly coming closer with every passing second. In a final, desperate gambit as her legs went out from under her and the riverbed disappeared to be replaced by gravity, rapidly proving to be today’s nemesis, she leapt upwards, catching hold of an overhanging tree branch. Clambering up to sit on it, Lynne was pleasantly surprised to find that she had not fallen to her death and whooped with barely contained delight at this development. It seemed her luck might finally have turned around, and given everything that had happened to her today, she considered it to be about time.

Just when she was considering that recent events could not have been better, given the circumstances, a voice rang out from the jungle.

‘Hail to the beard, baby.’

Garrett strode forth from the jungle, carrying a shaved, shivering lion that looked as if it had had things done to it that no lion should have to endure. He  was wearing most of the lion’s mane on his face and looked extremely pleased with himself. Dropping the lion upon seeing Lynne, he clambered up on the branch with her as it scampered away, whimpering.

‘Garrett! You’re alive!’ she said with joy, barely able to keep herself from hugging him. Karma was paying her back for that last year of misery, and, throwing back her head and laughing out loud to the air, she could only wonder what good fortune would come to her next. Garrett, equally happy to see her, began bouncing up and down with mirth on the branch, gurgling lyrical on the subject of stubble.

Then the branch cracked and broke.

As they plummeted to the glittering lake below, Lynne made a mental note to find a lower rank than ‘cabin boy’ to assign to Garrett, but further thoughts on this subject were interrupted by the water, and subsequently the rocks under it.

---

ow
rocks
fuzzy
whee
beard
wet
beard
foomp
draeb
branch
air
foomp
crack
why
lynne
beard
goatee?
lion
rocks
pirate
moustache
ship
pirates?
toothbrush
lion
mane
rocks
vest
mane
goatee
lion?
floating
tyrey
grandma
ship
mane
beard
mane?
lynne
tyrey
breathing?
breathe

now

ow

water
ow
light
air
surface
beard
muttonchops
lion
sideburns
lynne
lynne?
where
air
lynne
water
not
air
lynne

up

---

Lynne Greenwood found herself pulled from the water by a quite haphazard looking Garrett Sinclair, who was babbling frantically about nothing in particular and looking altogether quite anxious as he stared down at her, waiting for her to open her eyes.

She spewed water in his face, mostly because she was not enjoying having it in her lungs but also because she was rather shocked upon opening her eyes and finding a deranged young man wearing soaked lion furs prattling away at her.

He frowned at this, but helped her to her feet anyway. Looking around, Lynne took stock of their new location – a warm, jungle lined cove and inlet, over which the sun was beginning to set. If she were the sort to notice these things, she would have noted the unspeakable natural beauty of the sunset over the glittering sea, but instead she noticed the ship, moored in the cove.

‘Garrett!’ she said, pointing excitedly. ‘We’re saved! We can get off this island with whoever owns that ship!’

Lynne took off at a flat out run towards the gangplank of the anchored ship. Running up onto the deck, she excitedly ran up to the first man she saw on deck, who, she regretted not noticing, could only rant in disbelief about the fact that she was not dead. The second and third sailors had a similar reaction, so she walked up to a fourth man, whose eyes were red and bloodshot and whose dirty face was streaked with clean spots from a long night of crying into his pillow.

‘Excuse me? Could you tell me who owns this ship?’ Lynne asked as politely as she could muster. The man turned around, and on seeing her, turned red with unbridled rage.

‘You!’ he sputtered. ‘Do ye know what I ‘ad t’ go through this mornin’, tellin’ ‘is entire extended family about what ye did? I’ll gut ye, ye lily livered…’

‘I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ Lynne said mildly. ‘I just want to know who owns this... ship.’

Lynne trailed off suddenly, looking around the oddly familiar deck slowly and suspiciously, eyes stopping on the large bronzed plaque, hung above the door to the galley.

It read ‘Aurora’.

‘Hey… this is my ship!’ she said, turning around. ‘What are you all doing on…’

And then she put things together, just slightly too late.

‘Bring ‘er t’ the Pirate Dungeon, lads! She’ll see some Pirate Justice!’ said the emotionally unstable pirate who had just moved on to the ‘anger’ stage of grief and was feeling rather vengeful.

‘Oh f-‘ said Lynne, but was cut off suddenly when she was cracked over the head by a pirate with a bit of splintery wood.

---

Lynne came to her senses in a dark, smelly jail. She did not like waking up in jail, as it usually meant the consequences of her actions had managed to catch up with her, and as consequences were something she attempted to avoid as diligently as possible, her presence in a jail suggested failure in this endeavour, and usually signaled the start of a bad day that was only going to get worse from there on out.

The day abruptly got worse when Scar arrived at the cell door, looking quite ashamed of himself.

‘You.’ Lynne sputtered, rather understandably furious at him. Scar took a step backwards to avoid the pair of hands that reached through the bars for his neck and looked at the floor as Lynne told him exactly what she thought of his recent actions, the full text of which includes several unprintable nouns, verbs unfit for human consumption, at least five unsavoury adjectives and an adverb that made his knees go shaky.

When Scar had sufficiently recovered his composure after the verbal beating, he began to speak. ‘Look, Lynne, I know I can’t justfy me actions, and…’

‘You’re damned right you can’t justify them.’ Lynne spat. ‘Do you know what you brought about?’

‘Aye, lass, I know. Ye lost yer sh-‘

‘No, not that. I was always planning on getting it back. You… indirectly… made me emotionally dependent on a coconut to the point of kissing and whispering sweet nothings to a vegetable for a full hour!’

Scar was silent for a moment. ‘Tha’… tha’ be a new one.’

‘Now whatever you’re going to say to me had better be good, because the only thing keeping me from strangling you with my bare hands is the fact that my arms are too short to reach you.’ Lynne snarled.

‘Would ye settle fer a plan that got ye yer ship back and deposed a pirate governmen’ in a bloody coup?’ Scar said hopefully.

Lynne looked on stonily. Scar sighed.

‘And ye’d get t’ steal all th’ Pirate Treasure.’

‘…I’m listening.’ said Lynne.

---

Lynne was understandably surprised to find the Pirate Queen, resplendent in her false beard and lounging on her throne, had until two days previously been employed as her mechanic, but she took it in stride, since mocking the Pirate Government that currently had her at its mercy was inadvisable at best. Sucking up her pride, she dropped to one knee before the throne.

‘O Mighty Pirate Queen, unto whom all pirates must pay tribute, I would be forever indebted to you were you to set me and my companion free.’ Lynne groveled, trying as hard as possible to sound sincere.

‘Yes yes.’ said the Pirate Queen. ‘I’m afraid I can’t.’

‘Er, what?’ said Lynne.

‘I can’t just let you go. We have to put you on Pirate Trial.’

‘Pirate Trial?’ said Lynne incredulously. ‘That’s ridiculous. Who ever heard of a Pirate Trial?’

---

‘Pirate court is in session in the case of Greenwood v. the Pirates.’ said the Pirate Queen, who was also the Pirate Judge, slamming down her Pirate Gavel.

‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ said Lynne, face in her hands.

‘The Pirate Defense will refrain from such statements or they will find themselves held in Pirate Contempt of Pirate Court.’

‘Look, oh mighty and benevolent Pirate Queen, I  have a few things I need to… ‘

The Pirate Queen glared at her.

‘But I don’t want to… oh, gods, do I have to?’ Lynne muttered.

The Pirate Queen nodded.

‘Objection.’ Lynne said, raising her hands. The Pirate Queen slammed her gavel as the throne room erupted into disorder and the Pirate Prosecutor stood up.

‘Objection. Improper syntax, your Pirate Honour.’ said the Pirate Prosecutor officiously.

‘Sustained.’ said the Pirate Queen.

Lynne sighed. ‘Pirate Objection.’

The throne room settled down. The Pirate Queen said ‘The court will hear your objection to these proceedings. What would it happen to be?’

Lynne cleared her throat and began an impassioned plea for justice. ’Your honour, these proceedings are based entirely on the assumption that my crew and myself are held liable under Pirate Law as Pirates. However, there remains one, crucial hole in this line of prosecution – neither I nor my crew have ever been entered into the Pirate Registry as Pirates.’ Those present in the throne room gasped, realizing she was right.

‘As I am no pirate, it is clearly impossible to prosecute me under Pirate Law. Your entire case against me is based on a fallacy. I move that it be thrown out, your Honour.’ Lynne folded her arms, smirking.

The Pirate Queen stood. ‘You are absolutely right, Captain Greenwood. I can find no record of your ship or crew in the Pirate Registry. Therefore, we cannot try you under our justice system.’

‘Thank you, Pirate Queen.’ Lynne said, turning to leave the courtroom.

‘So we can skip right to making you walk the plank.’

Lynne’s triumphant manner quickly melted away as Pirate Guards surrounded her before she could get to the door.

‘Oh hell. Tyrey, I give up. You are so getting a pay cut.’ Lynne said, menaced on all sides by cutlasses.

‘You don’t pay me anymore, Captain Greenwood. I’d like to see you manage that.’

‘That’s right, isn’t it. You take your pay straight out of the Pirate Treasury. Well, I’m thinking a 100% pay cut is in order, wouldn’t you?’

Lynne grinned and pushed the guards aside, striding forward towards the Pirate Queen before they could react, not that they were particularly enthusiastic about stepping in, given the history of the Pirate Queen’s rule. Tearing the tricorne Pirate Hat off of a nearby pirate, she slapped The Pirate Queen across the face with it. Silence fell across the throne room as Lynne’s voice rang out.

‘I challenge you to a duel for the Pirate Throne!’ she said, snatching a sword from the same pirate, who was still somewhat dazed at losing his hat.

‘I hate you, Greenwood.’ muttered the Pirate Queen. Lynne smirked as she continued. ‘But if this is how you want it, then I suppose I must oblige. Have at you!’

At that last cry, Tyrey snatched out her own Pirate Sword and leapt headlong at Lynne. Her challenger turned to the side and stepped back, bringing her own blade up in a flash.

---

‘Ow. Ow ow ow ow ow.’ said Tyrey Sinclair, nursing a cut on her hand and looking somewhat bitterly at Lynne, who was sprawled across her new throne snoozing.

‘Ye’re lucky she didn’ cut it right off, lass, with the way ye’ve been actin’ out.’ Scar growled, bandaging it. ‘Ye’ll go t’ yer bed wi’out supper.’

Tyrey began to pout as Lynne woke up and sent Garrett off for more Pirate Iced Tea. Lynne kicked back, grinning widely and basking in her victory. They could leave in the morning – for now, she was the new Pirate Queen and intended to use the powers and privileges inherent to the position, not the least of which included having all the Pirate Treasury moved into Aurora’s hold for ‘safekeeping’.

She considered having Tyrey walk the plank, but Garrett would probably take offense, or he would were he currently capable of talking about anything that wasn’t facial hair.

Lynne kicked back as Garrett came back with an entire jug, and motioned for him to just tip the entire thing into her mouth. Sucking down massive amounts of Pirate Iced Tea, she began to savour its distinct piratey flavour.

Then the Pirate Captain walked in, beard both glorious and magnificent, and she abruptly spat it all out again.

‘You!’ she sputtered around the iced tea, leaping from her seat and drawing her sword.

‘Aye, ‘tis me.’ said the Pirate Captain, grinning widely. ‘I see ye taught me granddaughter a valuable lesson.’

‘A valuable lesson?’ yelled Tyrey. ‘She nearly cut my arm off!’

‘And what did ye learn?’ said the Pirate Captain.

‘Not to let people hit me with a sword?’ she said sarcastically.

‘Ye should probably ‘ave learned a lesson abou’ the perils of rulin’ in a totalitarian manner wi’out the best interests o’ yer subjects at ‘eart, because it inevitably leads t’ them abandonin’ ye when ye need help, but aye, I suppose I’ll settle fer that.’

Tyrey looked at the floor, somewhat ashamedly looking away from the memorial shrine in the corner that had been set up for the pirate who had been in charge of construction before he had been abruptly and tragically eaten by sharks.

‘Now then, there remains but one formality before me important lesson t’ me grandchildren be concluded. I do need me throne back, as it were.’

The Pirate Captain snatched off his hat. Lynne blanched and reflexively took a step back as he stalked forward and struck her with it. ‘I challenge ye t’ a duel fer the Pirate Throne!’ he roared enthusiastically, drawing a sword that was approximately the size of Lynne.

‘I don’t think we thought this cunning plan all the way through.’  Lynne whimpered.

---

Lynne had, she reflected, been lucky to get out of the whole affair with just a nasty bump on the head. The fight had been over quickly, although she had not anticipated her sword getting stuck in and subsequently apparently consumed by the Pirate Captain’s beard. He had, at least, been relatively merciful, having let her live thereafter and also keep all of her limbs. He had confiscated the Pirate Treasury, but he’d given them back Aurora, and let them stay the rest of the night as his honoured guests. Garrett had spent an hour with the Pirate Psychiatrist, who had subsequently been able to assure them that Garrett was on the road to recovery and that the effects of direct beard exposure had already begun to wear off.

Things might have ended fine if it hadn’t been for the Pirate Captain’s enthusiasm and generosity. Lynne had lost her father’s old saber in the jungle when abruptly surprised by a lion, and the Pirate Captain had decided to be generous. He had sent out a Pirate Search Party to recover it, realizing the sentimental value such things could have. Pirate Tim, who had to his great excitement found the sword, presented it to Captain Greenwood in dramatic fashion, swinging through the window up to her in the hallway and, with a flourish, turning it over to her.

Garrett looked up from his attempt to remove lion fur from his chin in surprise as a haggard and panicked looking Lynne burst through the door to his room and set a chair against it before striding over and attempting to unbolt the window of his Pirate Suite. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ he said, turning around from the mirror and rising from his stool apprehensively.

‘We have to get out of here, Garrett. Make yourself useful and make a rope out of those sheets.’ she said, pointing to his bed. She abruptly gave up on the bolt and simply put her boot through the window and set about collecting things of value from the room.

‘Why? Why have we got to leave? I was just getting ready to go to sleep!’ said Garrett, annoyed that he would not be getting to rest after his long day. Lynne ignored him, instead stuffing a diamond studded mirror into her pants and attempting to remove the gems from the classy bathroom fixtures and put them into the pockets of her jacket.

Cries of alarm rose out in the passageway.

‘Tis Pirate Tim!’

‘E’s been shot!’

‘Oh gods, not again! What will I be tellin’ ‘is little ‘uns?’

Garrett turned slowly to Lynne. ‘What did you do now.’ he said flatly, resigned to yet another panicked late night escape.

‘It wasn’t my fault!’ Lynne said defensively. ‘He surprised me out of nowhere and I… it was reflexes! I swear!’

‘Shot him gently, did you?’ Garrett glared at her and began collecting his belongings. ‘How are we going to get Scar and Tyrey?’

‘Scar said he was more comfortable sleeping on the ship, and right now I could honestly care less about Tyrey.’ Lynne said. ‘But I’d guess she’s on board with him, as I don’t think any pirate in here is considerably fond of her right now.’

‘Yes, well, they’re also not considerably fond of us now, and with what you’ve gone and done, they’re probably going to be guarding the pier. Care to tell me how we’re going to get past a fort full of armed and angry pirates?’

‘I’m still working on that one. Now shut up and hurry with the rope before they figure out where we are.’ Lynne hissed, stretching her head out the window to judge the distance.

‘We can ‘ear you in there!’ said the emotionally unstable pirate, now simultaneously in the anger and depression stages and feeling rather violent. ‘Come out so I can stab ye!’

‘I think you’ll find threatening to stab us doesn’t work so well as an incentive!’ Lynne shouted back. ‘Hurry the hell up, Garrett.’ she added.

There was a loud thump against the door, and it audibly cracked. Garrett frowned and lowered the rope he had hurriedly tied together out the window. ‘I think it’s still short of the bottom, Lynne.’ he said, concerned.

‘No time to worry about that, they’re coming in!’ Lynne grasped the rope in one hand and leapt up on the windowsill just as the door caved inwards and three angry pirates with swords burst into the room. ‘Nice try, ‘me hearties’, but it’ll take more than that to catch Lynne Greenwood!’ she laughed, turning to face out into the night.

‘Wait!’ yelled Garrett, but Lynne had already jumped out into the air, whooping, as he halfheartedly trailed off and the end of the rope slipped out of the window. ‘I haven’t tied it to anything...’

From far below, there was a splash as she hit the ocean and a loud cry of ‘Ha ha! I’m too lucky to die!’ as Lynne swam off to attempt to hijack her own ship. Garrett turned back to the pirates and smiled winningly, but they advanced on him anyway, their desire for revenge outweighing their care for who specifically the revenge was inflicted on.

Out of options, Garrett sighed loudly, resigned himself to being along for the ride again, and, grinning at the pirates and letting out a swashbuckling yell, threw himself headlong out the window.

Things like this, he reflected shortly before impact with the water, were why he loved his job.