-Ardent Survivor, on the way to Turtle Toga, Jacky-
“Captain, pirate ship coming up on our stern, they don’t look like they are going to use their cannons though. Either they don’t have them or they prefer boarding actions.” Looking over my shoulder at Gene wielding a griffon mask as a telescope, I turned back and saw it approaching quickly. “Gene have Flotsam stow the cannons and seal of most of the rooms, Tell Nefer he will be a wandering distraction, I want everyone to knock them out without injuring them too much, tell Savannah to put a hold on lunch and to get up here, Belfry will cover the doors to below deck and will make sure nothing is stolen. I’ll of course deal with the captain.”
Gene didn’t say anything and was off to carry out every single one of my orders as I locked steering and stepped away from it.
As Savannah came up onto the deck with me, I readied myself for a fight by placing my talons over the saber I had at my hip.
It didn’t take long for them swing over on ropes, I pulled my sword and then waited for us to get down to business.
“Well if it isn’t the Ardent Survivor and The Wild Savannah!” The female parrot stated and raised a sword ready to fight Savannah who was going to stick primarily to using her fists.
I blinked.
“Uh, I’m the captain.” I pointed out.
“Seriously?” The female parrot muttered.
“Yes, she’s our wonderful Captain Blackcap.” Nefer said as he came up to us as we started forming a line to face the other pirates.
“Really now?” The parrot said again as if still disbelieving this fact and scratching at the side of her head in confusion.
“She’s the only one who can actually captain this ship effectively, because I certainly don’t want the job and neither does anyone else in this crew.” Way to give me a vote of confidence Flotsam. She flopped up to me and bit off a chunk of an unpeeled banana ad began chewing.
“So the most promiscuous and notorious member of your crew isn’t the captain?” I still think the parrot looked familiar, it had been probably a few years so something important could have changed about them.
“You know, I’m kind of insulted, I’m ‘The Blackcap’ and my crew has had some really ridiculous adventures thanks to my horrible luck.” Though I pointed my sword at her, I quickly lowered it and asked a question quite plainly. “Okay, I really need to know this, how in the world is Savannah more prominent than me?”
“Well word gets around that’s she’s good at what she does, mostly she listens to people and helps them if they have minor hang ups in life and need to relax. That you need your medical documents to be perfectly up to date to get anywhere with her physically is also a commonly known thing and that it’s absolutely going to be a just friends situation. Quite frankly she’s the reason why medical checkups are becoming more common worldwide, especially among pirates… will she be available later after this?” That didn’t answer my question… wait, Celaeno? Huh, she’s missing a leg and replaced it with a large chunk of crystal. That’s both cool and stylish. Savannah made a gesture to Celaeno and she nodded. “Anyway, she’s not notorious because she’s evil or anything, but she has been said to be good at close combat with her bare claws and is good for a bar fight. The real reason why everyone knows about her? Well she’s been with Saddle Arabian delegate Amira, the kindest warlord of Zebrica and his mixed harem, she slept with one of Blue Beret’s more high profile crew members in Saddle Sore Shores and I heard rumors that she slept with both empress and princess of the longma at the same time. So yeah, word gets around that she really is wild and untamed, but not in a bad way.”
“No I slept with them on two completely different occasions.” Did Savannah really need to confirm that? “Of course when I was with the empress, the emperor was there too. I’m something akin to a cuddle toy when not doing business and making fun connections for Jacky to exploit.”
“Your reputation definitely precedes you and is quite impressive , the crew you’re with… not so much.” Ouch, that really hurts my little pirate heart Celaeno.
“At least she didn’t sleep with ‘my’ mother and father…” Flotsam mumbled through the mouthful of banana she was still chewing as Gene took up a position in our line up with his spear. Belfry was already guarding the door and staunchly on the lookout.
“Enough talk about the news or about the famous Queen in your crew, I am in the middle of raiding this ship you know!” She swung her sword for me and I deflected it away from my face, the fight was on as our respective crews started moving.
I can tell that Celaeno was far better with a sword than ever. As we traded blows I decided to go for the old time pirate classic of insult fighting.
“How did you lose the leg, did you trip on an ant and break it beyond recognition Celaeno?” I asked as I parried and thrust my sword forward, this made her jump back.
“I don’t like to talk about it, but you have to admit that the crystal peg leg is pretty nice looking right? Also it’s nice to see you too Jacky, Captain of your own crew huh… so many other pirates are going to owe me so much money for winning the pot on the bet about your survival! Also I see you are taking good care of this ship, I’m quite surprised it hasn’t been destroyed in an accident brought about by your curse like the many other ships you’ve been on.” Celaeno answered. We traded blows, deflected them and ultimately avoided getting an injury in because we were both quite skilled. She soon decided to throw her own insult, as she slashed at my waist. “Where did you learn to fight, from a whacky waving inflatable flailing leg tube pony?”
“Wow that was a mouthful, I’m surprised you can speak half as well as you can fight.” I kicked her in the privates and she stumbled back grunting in pain.
“Okay, that was low blow there…” Celaeno gasped out.
“Still a Pirate, even if a blue one.” I stated calmly flicking my sword at her. “Also those ballroom dancing classes helps with kicking strength and I dance with my griffon regularly to keep in shape. That and you made an offer to one of my crew members. It's the principle of the matter, so I get a free shot.”
“Right!” She charged and clashed the sword against mine harshly.
I threw a punch, she stepped to the side and smashed me across the temple with a nasty hook that had me stumbling back. She took a step forward to attack me, but yelped and tripped as Nefer got under foot.
I smiled as the best looking pirate in her crew tripped over Celaeno.
“You have your own partner to dance with I see.” Both parrots blushed and quickly separated, Celaeno seemed to be taking me more seriously now.
That pirate was slapped in the face by Nefer whipping him with his three tail tips and then he hopped off the guys shoulder. That pirate, once again, was angrily chasing as our cabin cat. Nefer ran around our other crew members in various states of battle.
“Tree!” Gene shouted in the midst of fighting as he spied one coming at us.
I rolled to my left and Celaeno rolled to her right following my movements exactly, it was a good thing she did that. A full pine tree soon struck the deck where we were and performed a rolling bounce that nearly clobbered me with all its spinning roots and almost took out one of Celaeno’s crew members. The tree went sailing overboard between both of our ships.
“You’re luck still hasn’t exactly gotten any better has it?” Celaeno commented idly as she tried to get me with her sword while I was distracted.
“Not in the slightest, those pine needles are going to take forever to clean up!" I deflected and tried to scratch her face, I only lightly hit one of her longer green feathers as she ducked back. "When my first mate and fiancé Gene calls ‘tree’, everyone should pay attention.”
“Hey, watch the feathers, it’s hard to keep them looking this good when my crew is mostly made of males!” Giving Celaeno a long eye roll, we got back into making our blades dance. “Nice to hear you met someone that’s special who doesn’t mind your bad luck. Hope the marriage lasts, he looks like a keeper.”
We circled about striking out at each other and for the most part taking a few moments to gaze at our surroundings to make sure no one was getting seriously hurt.
“Some would say my luck is better than yours given I still have all my limbs, but we both know better than that.” I needed to give her an insult back or I might never live it down. “Wow your hat sure is fancy, what trash bin did you get it out of?”
She came at me with a strong blow. She must really like that hat, given she staggered me and nearly slashed my arm. I quickly twisted my sword, caught hers and deflected it at the deck. I flourished my sword outwards with a complex and confusing series of twirls to send a cut across her vest, mildly scratching her.
“The same one where you got your talent apparently, my wound should be three times as worse! So yeah, there’s more of you to hurt when your body is entirely intact… also, why don’t you have a fancy hat? I’m guessing you can’t afford one with how poor your crew is because of all the repairs they need to make with keeping you around.” Celaeno was practically goading me to tell her about how much cash we had on talons, I didn’t rise to that obvious bait. “Your lot must be sucking down bird seed gruel like no tomorrow.”
- Later during the storm king’s rise, but before his fated fall-
“I really shouldn’t have opened my beak to the luck challenged parrot several years back…” Celaeno muttered, the irony was not lost on her as she shoved some gruel into her beak.
Her crew was being forced to work for the Storm King and all they had to eat was bland bird seed gruel.
At least they were alive.
-Back to the story in progress-
What Celaeno didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, we were still pretty flush with funds and the longma paid us for services rendered for the various ways we aided them with Teatime and the Shadow Horde. Having food that never perishes while in the sacks in storage really helped ration our money too, we could buy whatever perishables we wanted without regret.
“I simply prefer my skull cap, besides it fits that a blackcap has a black cap. My crew has their own little caps too if you haven’t noticed.” Now that we have been fighting for a bit, I decided to bluntly broach the topic. “Why are we fighting if you think we have absolutely nothing of value onboard? Also, did it hurt?”
“It was one of the more painful moments in my life to be sure, but I think I’m still able to live fairly well. At least it was only a leg and not my arms.” As soon as Celaeno said that, we distanced ourselves from one another clanging our swords together with a few sparks. “Also we’re fighting because it’s rumored you have a red gem I might be looking for.”
“What’s it called?” Holding out a talon for her to tell me what she’s looking for.
“It wouldn’t happen to be the Good Fortune Garnet would it?” Celaeno asked hopefully, I shook my head no.
“What I have is a Bloodstone called the Dragon Burst Gem of Huoshan.” Thank goodness for my ship breaking tendencies, otherwise it would have been much harder to get the Dragon Burst Gem back. “It’s a cursed gem and I’ll have you know I’m a cursed artifact hunter. It spews flames in a controlled direction and randomly explodes fire that will either kill or severely injure the user.”
“Hmm… okay guys I’m calling it, stop fighting!” Everyone immediately stopped, we both looked around saw the kind of states everyone was in.
Nefer was standing on two unconscious parrots licking himself. Flotsam was in the middle of smashing a guy against the ground by his leg repeatedly with her banana peel given powers. Gene just disarmed and was holding one at spear point. There were also several of Celaeno’s crew members wandering around in a daze near Belfry.
“I’m a pretty pink ballerina!” That one fell over and even started puking his guts out. I swear our giant butterfly was a chemical warfare problem waiting to happen.
“… I… have no words...” Celaeno stated while putting her talons to her head, she rubbed at it vigorously while groaning in dismay.
“My small eclectic crew is surprisingly competent at many things. They have to be, I taught them after all.” I offered that as the explanation as to why most of her crew members were out of action. “When your luck is as bad as mine is, you’d make sure every crew member works on their skills to survive it and if they can survive being near me for as long as they have…”
“They’ll survive just about anything.” Celaeno followed up. “Since you’re the worst they’ll ever have to deal with on a daily basis.”
“Exactly, so… lunch?” I grinned at Celaeno and she just gave me a dirty look.
“My ship better not crash by the end of it.” Celaeno warned.
-Celaeno’s ship, some hours later, Celaeno-
Savannah was better than rumored.
“Thanks for meal Celaeno!” I watched as Jacky got off my ship without it going up in flames.
So Jacky's curse could be courteous at times, now if only it hadn’t caused Jacky to find so many loose planks on my deck to raise up and smack her in the beak or butt. We had to nail those down extra hard now to make sure The Blackcap’s curse didn’t effect anything permanently.
Thus our search continues. I also noted that her ship has lasted against her luck for quite a long time, she must love that airship more than anything and I know the feeling.
I loved my airship and my crew more than anything too, I’m not about to break up another family like ours just trying to steal from them. Jacky is doing pretty good for herself, though I noted that the Abyssinian she was with the last time we met wasn’t present. I was not going to pry about it.
It looks like she was heading towards Turtle Toga, she’s likely to pick up more discount treasure maps after showing me the ones she’s already used.
“Lix set a course…” I then order my crew to a new adventure. We’d still be looking for clues to the Good fortune Garnet, but my men wanted a more completable adventure.