Bird Feed gulped quietly, opening the door to the brig shakily. Fear for his life had diminished considerably since his first visit to his room, but he still found himself on edge every time he came down here. It's inhabitant tended to be wily and mischievous, and took great joy in his paranoia. She always hid when she heard him coming, and although she tended to pop out to try and spook him, if she didn't want to be found, it could be days before they found her.
It seems this time, she really wanted to be found. The room contained nothing but a treasure chest in the center, with a note attached that simply read "Not A Mimic" in loving letters, signed with a cute heart.
"You can come out, Mimidae. We brought food."
The Treasure Chest swung open, and in the brief second he took to blink, the note shifted to simply read "I Lied". A long pink tongue lolled out of the chest, flopping lazily onto the floor.
Bird Feed swallowed, gently placing a dirty plate of collected scraps from their dinner onto the tongue, cringing as his hooves brushed the bumpy surface. Immediately it snapped back, and the chest opened and closed a few more times to crunches and slurps beneath. Next time something on board broke down, Bird Feed knew he would see shards of porcelain used to repair parts of the ship.
The chest opened one last time, belching loudly, before slamming shut. A low giggle echoed through the room.
"Hiya, birdie! This is the fifth time in a row you've offered to come down here to feed me. You must really like me, huh?"
"I got voted unanimously to do it..." He muttered under his breath.
"Aw, c'mon, don't try to lie to me. You know I can see everything in here! Just admit you like me, it's kinda cute!"
Bird Feed rolled his eyes, sighing dramatically, but couldn't hold back a small grin.
"Well you know, someone has to tame the great bloodthirsty beast to restrain it. Figured I might get try to get some enjoyment out of it." He pulled himself up, looking around at the walls curiously to see where she might be. Or rather, where she wanted him to look.
"Hey, don't be mean! I always spit out a meal if it squirms for more than 30 seconds. Finding where I spit it out is your job."
The chest flipped open again, and a pink mass of tongue shot up again, this time with a significantly more equine form. Mimidae leaned over the side of the treasure chest, tapping her forelegs together excitedly. Wet squelches sounded with each tap.
"But you can't hide from me, Birdy! I know you're holding out on me! Just a simple matter of forgetting your duty, right?"
Feed's eyes widened, and he began to stammer. The brig's walls seemed to shrink in on him as he backed out the door, and Mimidae's equine avatar smirked as it began to slink back into its chest.
"No, I didn't forget, I'm saving that, THAT'S MINE-!"
He turned tail and ran out of the brig. Jail doors slammed open and close, each emitting a laugh as they did. Racing up through halls, the lights were never on in the corridors he needed to take, up until he caught the burning candles in the kitchen and mess hall the crew had just left. He pushed past a few stragglers to reach the inside, just as the entire room lit up in a frenzy.
The dinner table in the middle, supporting freshly made cupcakes, snapped in two, and drawers and cupboards snapped open, a fleshy tentacle, tongue, hand, or other appendage reaching out to snatch at the cupcakes and reel them back into the room's many mouths. An evil cackle filled the room as Bird struggled to save the remaining pastries, swatting at limbs as they reached for his loot. Finally, he felt a finger tap his shoulder, and as he turned around bony grey fingers dug into his barrel, pulling him up and tossing him into a large ceiling-hung cupboard usually reserved for plates and cups, now sporting shards of wood jutting out to make impromptu teeth, and another of her seemingly limitless supply of tongues.
The door shut behind him as he was tossed in, and for a minute all he felt was darkness and the rough tongue below him as he raced through the boat's interior. Part of the reason heading so low into the ship freaked him out is because he knew that Mimidae enjoyed having living, pulsating organs, and he didn't really want to know where she kept them. Combined with the fact that she constantly shifted her layout just for fun made grasping the full complexities of her wooden form nigh impossible at best. He was being strung completely by the seat of his non-existent pants through a creature that seemed to enjoy teasing and taunting him more than any other crewmate; although that could be largely because he always gave the most entertaining reactions.
His yelps echoed all throughout the ship's workings before he finally hit wood. The boards snapped immediately, and he flew up through the air over the deck, before being caught by another bony hand that seemed to grow out of the ropes hanging off the center mast. The rope snapped taut and pulled him and the hand up through the air, wind racing past him and plastering the ends of his lips below his eyes as he was whipped up, finally coming to a stop as he was casually dropped onto the Crow's Nest, high above Mimidae's other riders. Feed gripped onto the flag flying above them, eyes widening as he took deep breaths.
The ghost of some song drifted by his ears, sung from some out of sight mouth grown out of the wood below him.
"But I got stop wishing, got to go fishing, down to rock bottom again, Just a few friends..."
"Mimi... You have got to stop doing that." Feed panted, electing to look up at the sky to ease his vertigo.
"Maybe stop screaming, and I might. No fun in playing with someone who's used to it."
"Surely you'll run out of people who are used to it eventually."
"By the time that day comes, I'll have a new crew! I've been doing this gig for years! Just mysteriously show up in a dock one day, outfitted with whatever new technologies you land dwellers have cooked up in the years since my last crew, and wait for the newbies to drool all over me! Suddenly, bing bang boom, yet another easy stream of food. I'm the ultimate master of fate; If I don't like what we're doing, where we're going, or just feel like I've been running the same routine for too long, I just eat the crew and start over again. That's been life since back before the steam engine."
She laughed, and the mast suddenly creaked and thrust down at an angle, tossing him off with a yelp. At the same time, their largest sail sprung up at the same angle, catching him beneath it and sliding him down to the bow. He stumbled up to catch his balance as the bow rotated 180 degrees, and the hippocampus figurehead on the front tore itself off of where it was nailed, kicking onto her back and sliding down to where the ship converged into a single wooden pole sticking out over the sea.
"You weren't wrong when you said I liked you, but... That eating flesh thing is seriously unnerving."
"Makes you feel any better, I'm sure I could spare you. Just maroon you on Rumrunner's and hit the road. Besides, it's not like I haven't eaten you before. Just left the chewing out."
"I remember. It was less than pleasant." Bird grimaced, turning around and leaning against the railing.
Mimidae joined him, copying his position exactly. "I know I talk a big game, but I really do appreciate you constantly coming to see me. Nobody else ever wants to."
"Could be the fact that you turn into giant sentient tongues when they do."
"Hey, that was just a you thing! And for your information, I do enjoy creeping people out, but... Part of the reason I restrict myself to the brig when it's not just you is that, well, they're always creeped out. Just of me, regardless of what form I take." She sighed, tilting her head back to look up at the sky. Her neck tore open as she did, not having any joints or mobility.
"Well... I'm always here if you need to talk." He smiled at her, trying to look above the splintered wood.
Her neck reformed and just as quickly twisted out of shape as she turned to grin at him, leaning in to plant a soft kiss on his cheek. "I appreciate that."
"Thanks. I would appreciate you a lot more if your lips weren't made of wood as you did that."
"I figured the tongue form would be worse."