[M] Of Dragons and Buccaneers [Ashen & cwlee]

[Ashen]

[The following roleplay is rated [M] for Mature and may contain adult themes. Reader discretion is advised.]

A raging storm in the pit of his stomach woke him like a bad omen. Kinta sat up in his cot with his hands around his middle, willing his pain away. The forest beyond his small cave looked normal, and the weather was calm and warm, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen.

After waiting several minutes for the pain to subside enough for him to walk, Kinta hopped off his cot and motioned towards his companion. When the creature did not follow him, Kinta spared a glance at the sleeping dragon. Anyo was curled on top of a pile of damp leaves. His eggshell-colored scales reflected the few strays of sunlight that made it into their cave, and the scarred gaps between the iridescent patches looked as painful as they had when Kinta had found him. When Kinta walked over to poke the dragon on his wide nose, Anyo huffed and finally got to his feet.

Blind, pale green eyes blinked back at Kinta. Anyo was a small thing, only reaching the boy’s waist, but he contained the sass of someone twice his side. He turned his snout up at Kinta, but the boy only laughed at his dragon’s irritation. “Yes yes,” Kinta said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “We wake early today. But that does mean early breakfast, does it not?” That got the dragon’s attention. Anyo lifted his head, and though he still scowled, he followed Kinta. His long, scaled tail swished excitedly behind him, leaving a trail in the soft dirt of the cave.

Kinta knew they had to eat. His stomachache warned against it, but his dragon would not be happy if they skipped another meal. The thing was useless at gathering his own food, blind and feeble as he was, and normally, Kinta didn’t mind caring for him. He had gotten good at hunting, and he liked feeling useful. But today, Kinta wanted nothing more than to stay in his cave and let this awful feeling pass. With a long sigh, he grabbed the spear by the entrance of the cave and headed into the forest.

It didn’t take long for Kinta to find a rabbit to kill and carry it to the beach. The pale sand was hot even through his sandals, but the sparkling sea made for a better view than his cave. He hummed to himself while he skinned their meal, and Anyo chirped along happily beside him. Their catch was a small thing, but it was big enough for a boy and his dragon, and there was a calming sense of normalcy that came with the monotony of preparing breakfast. Kinta almost entirely forgot about the bad feeling he’d woken up with.

Until he looked up. Through the smoke of the cooking rabbit, on the distant horizon, Kinta could see a huge moving house approaching his island. It was a large wooden structure with colored flags billowing in the wind and spires touching the heavens. This thing was so unlike anything Kinta had ever seen that he dropped the rabbit onto the sand to get up and walk towards the water’s edge for a better look. The house was extraordinary, and Kinta could spot windows on its side housing… Were those weapons? Amazement quickly fizzled to dread, and Kinta realized he had seen something like this before. This ship looked a lot like the one that had docked on his island five years ago, bringing men with swords and handheld cannons and the intentions to massacre his people.

Kinta’s breath hitched. He rushed back to the breakfast fire to snuff out the flame and curse the conspicuous smoke. Anyo had been eating the abandoned, half-cooked meat, but Kinta scooped the dragon into his arms. Anyo was vocal about his distaste for the interruption, but after Kinta shushed him, he seemed to realize how dire the situation was, and he quieted. His blind eyes scanned the island and his nostrils flared, in search of what had his master so spooked.

The boy ran with his dragon away from the shore and to some nearby tall grass, where he set Anyo down and crawled onto his elbows. His skin would blend in with the warm hues of the dirt, and his matted hair would be indistinguishable from the dead leaves and grasses around him. His dragon, however, stood out brightly against the browns and greens of the earth. “Anyo, to me,” Kinta called, and as the dragon obeyed, Kinta wrapped his arms around his dragon and held him to his chest. His heart thundered as possibilities whirred in his mind. Had the pirates come back for him? How could he escape genocide a second time? Terrified, curious, Kinta’s eyes watched the rise and fall of waves that brought another ship to his shore.

[cwlee]

A raging storm had the whole crew up and about. With five neon red lightbulbs out of the twelve glowing dimly, the nixie tubes indicated a time almost five in the morning. One crew member cautiously peered out of a porthole, only to be met with a fierce onslaught of the rain and ocean. His dark hair whipped wildly in the wind as he struggled to retreat back inside the safety of the ship. With a dazed expression, he called out to the captain, his hair now completely disheveled by the typhoon's force. "Captain! Turn starboard, starboard, starboard!" the man hollered into a network of brass colored pipes that snaked all along the walls of the ship, their metallic forms intertwining with one another.

"Jensen, why are you giving orders?!" screamed a feminine voice from another pipeline. "Stop confusing everyone with your callouts, Jensen! Just fuckin' stick to making sure our damn ship don't explode!" she screeched into the pipe amidst the sounds of metal clanking and wrenching, as if someone was desperately trying to secure something. "Fuck, man! We've got a leak over here!"

Another voice interrupted the communication pipes. "Ey-a, keep it-a down-a over there, ya? My whole-a kitchen's-a flooded! My-a vegetables!" The entire vessel rocked violently, severing all conversation the crewmates were having and rolling any unbolted objects around. Finally, once the vessel seemed to have stabilized, Jensen roll called.

"Jensen, I swear by the Heavens above that once this fuckin' storm end, I will come down there and tie you to the motherfuckin' engine. Stop using the damn pipe without the captain or the vice-captain!" The female screeched like a banshee, frighteningly vibrating all of the pipelines. The shriek was followed by a loud, dull thud that was felt by the entire ship. "Ya! The turret got loose!"

As chaos ensued below deck, the captain and the navigator were braving the storm above deck, soaked head to toe by the relentless deluge of seawater. The captain held steadfast at the stern, steering the vessel and its precious cargo toward calmer seas. Beside him, the navigator stood, him serving as a second pair of eyes in the brutal tempest. Despite the communication pipeline being right beside the pair, their attention was consumed by the everything happening above deck, making them completely oblivious to the events happening below. "Captain," the navigator called, pointing towards their right side. "The eye, sir!"

Following the navigator's call, the captain swiftly adjusted the helm starboard, the ship's momentum carrying everything unbolted in its original trajectory. "Good eye, Sinha," the captain exclaimed, a hearty laugh escaping him as he wiped the seawater from his face, spitting out a mouthful in the process. Clinging to the captain, the navigator braced as the immense vessel abruptly turned towards the gaping hole in the demonic sky. And within minutes, everything was calm. "Let's keep 'er at the same pace as the storm, aye?" the captain ordered Sinha to which the younger navigator nodded his head and gave the captain a half-assed navy salute. Thankfully to their favor, the storm dissipated an hour after, lulling the ocean.

Throughout the remainder of the morning, the crew toiled to drain the cabins of the leaking seawater, attempting to find and bolt back loose screws that displaced metal plating, compromising the ship's integrity. Despite their best efforts, there still remained a stubborn two-foot pool. While the vessel remained operational, it bore scars of the tempest, unable to withstand another onslaught without repairs. The captain, occupied with salvaging the map, labored in vain to dry it, only to find that much of the ink had been wash away.

The captain's focus was shattered by Sinha's shout, "Land ho!" The captain stood, gaze fixed beyond the horizon, where a distant mound gradually expanded in size. It seemed, by some divine intervention, the crew had stumbled upon land. Though the captain was uncertain if it was the sought-after island, this island offered respite nonetheless. After enduring the relentless storm, the captain realized the urgent need for his crew to set foot on solid ground. As the vessel drew nearer to the supposed island, the crew beheld a sight more majestic than they imagined. Towering cliffs loomed, encircling the island's perimeter like impassable guardians, leaving only a handful of beaches as potential points of access for ships. And consequently and guided by the captain, the crew navigated towards one of the beaches, hopefully aiming for a safe and steady docking.

The first one to hop off the vessel was none other than the loud-mouthed engineer, Jensen, a four foot dwarf-man. "Yahoo!" he cried out, his creaky voice echoing throughout the seemingly uninhabited island. "Land!" The rest of the crew of five trailed quickly afterwards, plummeting and kneeling onto the sands, exhausted but nonetheless alive. The captain looked around the wilderness as he wondered, "Was this the mythical draconic island that they were searching for? Or was this just some random island?"

[Ashen]

The boy was petrified among the reeds, unable to do anything but watch as the strange ocean house drew closer and closer to his shore. He didn’t know what to do. These were strangers, were real people on his island, and that could only mean one thing. His family’s murderers had realized he was still here, and they had come back to finish what they’d started.

Kinta hadn’t spent much time thinking about last time. It was too difficult to stomach the memories, the grief, the oceans of blood that even now still stained what had used to be the most animated part of the island. It had been so long ago, but now, Kinta closed his eyes and forced himself to remember. When those pirates had come, brandishing their steel and their cannons, he had been told to hide. His mother had shoved him and his cousin into a hole in the wall behind a tapestry. It was that quick thinking that had kept him alive. It was his mother who had ensured the pirates never noticed him. It was her harrowing screams that had kept him hiding long after the pirates had gone.

But things were different, now. Kinta was a man now. Maybe things would have been different if he hadn’t hidden, if he had taken up arms and fought alongside his brothers, his family would have been here today. They would have never let him, of course, and his spear would have been meaningless against the pirates’ cannons, but… He couldn’t know. But he did know that now, he would not hide. He would not watch as more people came to his home and took everything from him. No, this time, he was going to fight.

Anyo wriggled from beneath him and peeked above the reeds, as if his unseeing eyes could catch a glimpse of what Kinta feared. Kinta grabbed for the dragon and called his name sharply. Anyo hadn’t been with Kinta for the last attack, and Kinta had never told him about it. The only time he’d tried, his tears had choked his throat, stolen his voice, and the dragon could only curl into his lap and let him cry. Anyo didn’t know the danger these people brought to their island, and Kinta didn’t have time to explain. Kinta grabbed the dragon’s tiny hand in his own and he yanked him along, away from the shore.

The dragon’s legs were much shorter than Kinta’s still growing ones, and Anyo struggled to keep pace with his human. His wings, mangled and twisted on his back, were useless, but they fluttered behind him as he ran. After several paces, Kinta scooped Anyo into his arms, and he ran across the island and back to the cave they slept in. There, Kinta approached a collection of tools in the back, tools he had never used and had hoped he’d never have to.

He didn’t know how to use a sword. His family had left him so many, though not consciously, but he didn’t know the difference between the varying angles of the steel, the grips of the hilts, the runes carved into the blades. Kinta looked over them before randomly deciding on one. It wasn’t too heavy or light, and as he balanced it in either hand, he squeezed its hilt. He had only chosen it for the purple cloth wrapped around its handle, but he nodded to himself, satisfied with his choice. “I will not let them end my people.” Beside him, Anyo chirped nervously. Kinta called him, and Anyo followed after him, limping on all floors. Kinta left his cave wondering if he would ever return, or if he, like his family, would spend eternity spilt across the earth.

Back on the shore, the moving building had stopped, and people were stepping from it onto the sands. Kinta paused and stared at the people, awestruck. He had never seen beings like that before. Were these pirates? But they looked nothing like the men who had come last time. Fascination whirled around his wrists, and so interested in the strangers, his grip on his sword loosened, and the weapon fell from his hands. Kinta jumped back, nearly cutting himself on the worn steel, before picking it up again. He looked up again, and luckily, it didn’t look like the newcomers had heard him.

They spoke loudly, and Kinta cringed at their harsh voices. Anyo, however, chirped excitedly. The dragon hadn’t known other humans, and it ran from the reeds to rush through the sands towards them, eager to learn more about the beings so like Kinta.

The boy panicked. He called after the dragon, but it was too late; the strangers had noticed them. Kinta ran towards the shore, his sword drawn. His heart thundered and his legs wobbled with nerves, but he had to protect his best friend. He had to protect his people’s legacy. He was the man of this island; any visitors would answer to him.

He stopped once he was within earshot of the pirates, and Kinta tried to make himself as tall as he could. He crossed his arms, careful around his sword, and made eye contact with each member of the crew. “Halt!” he commanded, summoning a confidence only a child could still possess. Anyo stopped too, just a few small steps from collapsing into one of the humans’ legs. Kinta glared at him before turning back to the pirates. “What are you?” His voice, despite his best efforts, was light, gentle, a child not yet acquainted with puberty. “For what reason do you come to me?”

Admittedly, Kinta was a small thing, short and underweight, with worn clothes that were too small and sandals that dug into his feet. His sun-kissed skin hid beneath a layer of dirt and sand he’d kept telling himself to scrub soon, and his hair, dark and tangled, was worn in a short and horribly uneven, choppy cut. His eyes were the same crystalline blue of the ocean surrounding his island, and in them shone determination, fear, but most prominently curiosity. He looked every bit like a boy who had been on his own for too long, and though he knew he should have been more fearful of these people, he was also excited. Maybe they were pirates, and maybe he and Anyo would die here too—or maybe they were friendly, and they could tell him about his family. They could teach him to be a man.

[cwlee]

Once everyone disembarked, the crew scattered about the beach to explore and determine their exact location on the island. With the map soaked and unreadable, the captain and his crew speculated whether this was indeed the infamous island of the dragon genocide that every pirate claimed to have witnessed, yet no matter where the crew looked, there seemed to be not a single sign of a civilization having been here. Sinha, the navigator, raised his spyglass and scanned the island, seeing nothing but rocks and dense foliage.

"Captain, I don't think this is the place," called out Sinha, whose skin was the darkest among the crew. He hailed not from the desert but from the deep jungles, though many often confused the two. While desert people were known for their deep, dark complexion, jungle folk had a rich and spicy brown hue, a bronze glow to them. Sinha was also the shortest and the youngest of the crew, but his maturity and expertise far surpassed that of his other crewmates, making him invaluable to the captain.

"Maybe. Hard to tell from here," the captain chimed, twizzling his brown handlebar mustache. With his other hand, he adjusted the gray cap on his head, shielding himself from the now blazing sunlight. He stood a full three heads taller than Sinha, towering over the young navigator. His eyes darted to every movement on the island, none holding his attention for more than a moment. Yet, a sense of unease prickled at his skin, as if he sensed something was amiss. If this was indeed the infamous island of the dragon genocide, it seemed far too barren with not a single evidence of there ever being a fight.

Jensen, the engineer, had wandered the furthest from the vessel, his ultra-magnifying glasses guiding him along sparkling trails scattered across the sand. His venture, however, was abruptly halted when he tripped over something solid and unmoving, knocking him off balance. Sinha, observing through his spyglass, laughed at the sight. "Ow, what in the blaze was that?" cried Jensen, angrily tossing his glasses aside and wiping the sweat from his brow with a worn, greasy sleeve, freeing his frizzy blonde hair. Squinting, he carefully examined whatever had tripped him.

It's a rock, Jensen thought. Or no, it's ... a skull! With his rear on the sand, Jensen scurried away from the bone, only to find himself atop a pile of more bones. So spooked, he couldn't even scream and instead sat paralyzed by his own fear. "C-Captain...!" Jensen tried to call out weakly, but the captain and the rest of the crew seemed preoccupied with something else... or rather, someone.

Priscilla, the only female crew member, was the first to spot two tiny creatures approaching from within the island. Swiftly, she reached for her modified revolver, pointing the barrel at the closer one, a petite four-legged lizard. "Captain! I've got a shot, captain!" Just give me the go!" she shouted, one eye shut and the other peering through the gun's scope, the crosshair trained on the amphibian's head. "Captain!" she called again as the captain stood still, unresponsive. Her finger tightened around the trigger, ready to send a lead ball straight into the dragon.

"No, stop!" Sinha was the first one to object. "That's a kid!" He pointed to the figure in the back. "A kid, Priscilla! Stop!" he pleaded, but as the lizard continued to approach, Priscilla felt she had no choice but to pull the trigger. But just as she began to squeeze the trigger, the boy's cry reached her ears faster than she could react. She froze, her finger relaxing its grip on the trigger.

Priscilla exhaled relievedly, thanking Sinha for the warning. A single bead of sweat rolled down her face as she holstered her weapon and wiped the sweat and the stray blonde hair from her face. She kneeled in front of the lizard creature that stopped himself in front of her, tilting her head in a dream-like gaze as she realized that she was staring at a real, breathing dragon. And seemingly, despite the captain having been quiet during the entire encounter, the captain had made himself over to Priscilla, gazing down at the tiny dragon then the child.

"We are pirates," the man with the funny mustache admitted. "But we're probably not the ones you're thinking of," he added, hoping to ease the child's mind a little. The child was scared, terrified. If this island was in fact the island, then this kid was likely a survivor of the outcome, the only survivor as far as they could tell. "We're looking for treasures, kid. You happen to know where I can find them?" he inquired, grinning ear to ear, revealing a single gold tooth on his upper right canine. For now, the captain acted oblivious to the reality of the situation, seeing how the child and his ... companion would approach this situation. If the child was truly the only survivor, then the crew had nothing to worry about, never mind the weak looking dragon.

[Ashen]

Kinta hardly had time to look between the pirates when one of them drew a cannon. It was one of the handheld ones, just like the ones that had been used to blast holes in his family’s skeletons. Kinta froze when he saw it, but when he noticed Anyo running straight into the cannon’s gaze, dread settled like a boulder on the boy’s chest. He was paralyzed, frozen in fear and remembrance, until one of the other pirates called off the attack. It was only then that Kinta could breathe again, only then that the rash dragon could run back to the safety of his master.

Once his heart stopped pounding, Kinta took a moment to size up the person who had threatened his friend. She was a woman, maybe, though she wasn’t dressed like one, and her hands around her weapon would suggest that she was not. To Kinta’s people, women weren’t fit to wield weapons like that one. She couldn’t have been a woman then, but she didn’t look like a man either. It was confusing, and Kinta had more important things to worry about for now.

He did think that her reaction to Anyo at all was strange. Kinta wasn’t the only one afraid; these pirates, for whatever reason, were scared of Anyo. Interesting. The small, pale dragon was one of the most pathetic creatures Kinta had ever known, and though he loved him with all of his heart, Kinta didn’t think anyone should have feared him. But what else would make the pirate try to kill him so suddenly? That didn’t make sense either. Maybe all pirates were thoughtless, belligerent monsters. He wondered what they wanted with him.

One of the pirates responded to him, stating the obvious, and Kinta only pouted his lip in childish indignation in response. It these pirates had ventured all the way to his secluded island for treasure, then they were sorely out of luck. “There is nothing of yours on my island,” he replied lowly, voice like a growl. Even Anyo pulled back his ears at the sound. The dragon stood between his master and the strangers, wanting to protect the child but not understanding the situation. He was cowering, afraid, but when Kinta patted his own thigh, Anyo crawled to him and let his master pick him up and hold him to his chest like a baby.

Kinta still wielded his sword, and he turned it to the woman who had aimed her cannon at them. Since she was clearly not the leader of this group, he spoke instead to the mustached man. “You come to my land and threaten my friend and ask from where you can steal my things,” Kinta snarled. “You have nerve.” He narrowed his eyes at the man. He was dressed so strangely—they all were—but his facial hair in particular pulled the child’s interest. It was unlike anything Kinta had seen in his own tribe, and he briefly wondered if he could make his own hair grow like that, but he shook the thought. Now was not the time for such childishness.

He lowered his sword, and when Anyo started squirming, he let the dragon fall back onto the sands. Anyo chirped contently and took refuge behind Kinta’s legs. The boy looked again at the captain. “I do not wish for you to be here,” he said, lacking the social intelligence to see the rudeness in his words. “But,” he added, “you are our first guests in a long time.” He looked carefully between all of the pirates again. “If you are not the pirates of whom you assume I think, then who are you?”

[cwlee]

Priscilla brushed her hair out of her face and holstered her gun at her hip. She knelt down in the sand in front of the two tiny creatures as unease welled up inside her as she noticed the little boy staring at her, trying to determine if she was a man or a woman. Clicking her tongue, she stared back at him intently, offering no words to console or clarify. The child, as Priscilla observed, was frail and malnourished, probably not even strong enough to swing the sword more than a few times without getting exhausted.

The captain standing behind Priscilla raised his arms halfway in a gesture of surrender, signaling to them that he meant no harm. He wiped away his smirk, adopting a serious and confident demeanor. From his brief interaction with the island's supposed native, he deduced that this was likely the correct island. If so, the child was probably a survivor of his people's genocide, and the dragon a descendant of the great, divine dragons feared by pirates worldwide. Despite the pirates' boastful claims of slaughtering every sentient being on the island, the captain now saw otherwise.

"We will leave if you do not want us here," admitted the captain, lying through his teeth; they had no intentions of leaving, not after they had just arrived to scavenge the remainders of the once flourishing draconic civilization. Surely if the pirates had been wrong about massacring everyone, then certainly there had to be valuable remains worth looting, or so the captain thought. Whether or not the child and his companion would pose as an obstacle was up to them.

"We are," the captain began to answer, before coming up with a clever answer on the spot, "Buccaneers!" Priscilla rolled her eyes, holding back a laughter. The captain gambled; certainly, the kid could not differentiate between a pirate and a buccaneer. "We're like pirates, but we... don't hurt... people." Priscilla sighed. "Unless we need to. We, uh, we just do the treasure hunting part." The captain took a step towards the two, wanting to see how they would react, his arms still raised in surrender.

Onboard back on the ship, Sinha had entrusted the encounter to the captain and Priscilla as he went on to assist the ship's cook who had been attempting to salvage any ingredients that had not been washed in the salty ocean water. "Laurent, there's a bag of onions here. Seems pretty dry. I'll bring it over to ya," the young crewmember said as he hauled the bag of onions to the kitchen where Laurent, the ship's cook, had been reorganizing everything.

[Ashen]

There was something strange about the way the lead pirate spoke that made Kinta doubt his words. The child, of course, was familiar with the concept of lying, but he had lived alone since he was very young, so he didn’t know the signs to tell when someone wasn’t being truthful. If he had to guess, though, he would assume the pirate didn’t actually mean that he and his people meant to leave. Kinta looked between them, trying to decide for himself what they were here for since no one seemed interested in answering his questions.

The leader pirate continued to speak, and Kinta paused, watching the way his lips smiled into the new word. “Buccaneer,” Kinta repeated slowly. He didn’t know what that meant; he hadn’t heard the term before. The leader’s explanation didn’t inspire much hope, and Kinta’s ear caught on his unless we need to. The child snarled. These people were here to hurt him after all.

Kinta turned towards his dragon, trying to share a questioning look, but the blind reptile was listlessly staring at the pirates still, likely listening for their motions. Kinta put a hand on his head and patted him. Now that he was no sooner to discovering what these people wanted, he didn’t exactly know what to do. He glanced at the potential-woman pirate again, but Kinta swallowed his question, assuming it, like the rest he had asked, wouldn’t receive a direct answer. So Kinta shifted, his eyes wandering between these people again before he settled on their house behind them.

He had never been aboard one of those before. His family might have had them, for fishing maybe, but he had been too little to remember them. The only—were they called boats?—Kinta could see clearly in his memory was the one that had taken his family’s murderers away. He wondered what such a thing contained, and before he could stop himself, he nudged his dragon forward, clutched his sword, and walked past the people to head towards the floating structure.

Kinta wanted to see for himself how a house could float on the ocean, and what those strange banners looked like up close, and how he’d even get on something so big. But when he reached the ship, he paused, unsure how to climb it. Was he supposed to use the ropes at its side? Kinta looked up at the gigantic thing, and he heard other voices yelling at each other onboard. Just how many of these pirates—no, buccaneers he’d said—were there?

Beside him, Anyo kept walking until he reached the water, and he started as a dying wave crashed into his pale stomach. Anyo cried and ran back to Kinta, who let him climb into his arms again. When Kinta turned away from the ship, he saw the pirates staring at him as if he were acting strange. Maybe he was. Did it matter anyway? He approached the leader again and raised his chin. “I do not intend to let you take my family’s things,” he said. There was no malice in his voice, only simple fact. They wouldn’t find any treasures here anyway; the last of their kind had made sure of that.

“But,” the child continued, eyeing their leader again. “You may stay, and eat of the island’s fruits, if you can teach me about your culture.” Maybe it was foolish, inviting the enemy to eat with him, but Kinta wanted to know about the world beyond his island. He’d been longing for stories about it since his own family had stopped being able to tell them. Kinta pointed to the ship behind him, and with eyes brimming with childlike curiosity, he asked, “How can something like this exist?”

[cwlee]

The boy's eyes darted towards something behind the captain and Priscilla. Ignoring their conversation, the boy fixated on their ramshackle ship, the buccaneers on the beach watching the boy shuffling his feet across the sand past them and toward the docked vessel. The pair, intrigued by the boy's curiosity, continued to observe as the ship he approached was much smaller than the ones that had likely come to slaughter his people. It looked like a haphazard collection of junk welded together to form what they generously called a ship. Metal pipes of various colors and types adorned its exterior, held together by an assortment of bolts. Any seasoned sailor would wonder how this patchwork vessel managed to stay afloat.

"Captain, should we stop him?" Priscilla inquired. The captain simply shrugged, his hands resting on his leather belt, his eyes showing a keen interest in the child. If the boy was indeed a survivor of the genocide, his curiosity might suggest otherwise. Likely, the boy was terrified, yet his curiosity seemed to drive him forwards rather than make him cower. How often did men choose to be driven by their curiosity rather than by their fear, the captain wondered.

Priscilla turned her head towards the tiny reptile sitting not too far away, her legs fatigued from days of nonstop ocean travel. She had seen creatures like this before in texts but never with her own eyes. "You speak?" she asked the tiny, seemingly calm dragon, admiring its natural beauty ever so naively.

When the boy was waist-deep in the chilling water, a head popped out from one of the ship's many portholes. A friendly brown face appeared, grinning at the sight of the child. He wanted to wave, but the boy seemed more interested in the workings of the ship. With a shrug, the man ducked back inside to resume his duties. The captain's eyes followed the boy as he trudged out of the ocean, the child's curiosity seemingly fulfilled.

The captain's eyes lowered as the boy walked back toward him to continue their conversation. What an interesting thing you are, the captain thought. He brushed his hair out of his face as he peered down at the boy. "I can teach you anything you would like to know," the captain told him. "I..." he began before chuckling at his own thought. "I am rather allergic to fruits, but you best bet I'll tell ya what you want to know, son." The captain relaxed his stance, revealing to the child that he truly meant no threat.

As the captain opened his mouth to answer the boy's follow-up question, a mole-like man appeared, popping up from underneath the sand and landing behind the captain. "That's what I'm saying!" the mole-like man exclaimed. "How can something like that exist?! I keep telling the cap' that we need new parts for our ship, but noooo, he says we ain't got money for it!"

The captain's arm stretched behind him, his index finger pointed at the mole-like man. "Jensen. Quit it. You know our situation. Now, survey the area before I replace you with this boy," the captain ordered strictly. Jensen humbly obliged, shuffling himself across the sand on his belly like a snake now. "Hells, he is the strangest man you will meet, boy." The man sighed. Priscilla watched their interaction, shaking her head in amusement. The captain looked down at the boy. "Do you have a home?" he asked softly before he waved his hands over towards the two members working inside the ship.

Taking Priscilla, Jensen. Survey. Flare if trouble. The captain signaled them with his hand. The great mythical island of the once-powerful civilization awaited the crew, shrouded in mystery and anticipation. The captain and the others were unsure what they would find. They might find leftovers at most, but perhaps something more valuable awaited them if it hadn't already been discovered.

[Ashen]

The buccaneer’s crew was proving more and more bizarre the longer Kinta observed them. He cocked his head at the captain, trying to understand what he meant by his words. Anyo had slid from his arms to poke at the sands, as if he sensed something Kinta could not. The lady-pirate was speaking to him, but with no way to answer her, the dragon had turned all focus to his new task. Kinta kept the dragon in his line of sight while he pondered what the captain had said. He didn’t understand how someone could be allergic to fruits—Kinta would have died years ago if resigned to such a fate—but he supposed the island had many other things to eat. He was a decent hunter, and there were plenty of fish in the seas, and though he’d never got the hang of farming, he was sure between the lot of them they could figure it out if need be. Though Kinta wondered how long these strangers would be here, and how much of the island’s bounty they would need to take.

The captain continued, promising Kinta whatever knowledge he wanted, but it wasn’t the prospect of that that made the boy freeze up. Son. The captain had called him son. No one had ever called him that before, and as strange as it felt coming from a stranger, it also felt validating. He wasn’t this man’s son, he wasn’t anyone’s son, but… Kinta wanted to be.

Before he could respond, the ground shook, and a new person appeared from underfoot. Kinta jumped away with a frightened yelp, bumping into Anyo and nearly knocking the dragon off his feet. Kinta straightened himself and stared. A man had appeared, his voice too loud and his skin too dusty. It took Kinta several long moments to realize this guy was speaking to him. The boy glanced at the ship again and shifted awkwardly on his feet. He didn’t understand what the man was saying—what was money?—so he just stared, still, waiting for someone to explain what was going on.

But no one did. The captain dismissed the man—Jensen, apparently—and made some comment about replacing him with Kinta. The boy couldn’t tell if the man was serious. Surely they all knew he knew nothing about ships? About their crew? He barely knew a thing about other people, especially not people from far beyond his little island. Kinta kept quiet until Jensen was gone, and then it was just him, the captain, the lady behind them, and Anyo, the only one who could understand his confusion.

The captain’s next question didn’t make much sense. “The island is my home,” Kinta responded flatly. He wasn’t trying to be smart; he did not understand what exactly the captain was asking. Kinta cocked his head to the side, wondering why the man would bother asking something so stupid. He turned towards the lady, confused, before shrugging it off. “Anyo and I sleep in a cave not far from here,” he continued. “We keep our tools and food reserves there. I can lead you.”

Kinta was aware that guiding people he did not know or trust to his sleeping quarters was probably not the most intelligent idea, but he was still curious about what the buccaneers had to teach him, and besides. With or without his help, the crew would probably find his cave eventually. Even if was hidden, the whole island wasn’t that big. Plus, maybe if Kinta worked alongside them, they would spare him if ever their intentions turned violent.

Anyo, hearing his name, chirped and rubbed against Kinta’s legs, and he followed along as the boy started away from the beach and towards the forest where his cave was. Kinta’s eye caught on the captain as he waved to the people on the ship. His movements were too specific to be random, and Kinta gaped at them for a moment. “What are you doing?” he asked, pointing. “You speak with your hands?” His own tribe had had a signed language, but Kinta had never learned it, and now, he supposed, it was lost forever. The thought saddened him, so he added, “Can you teach me?” with a hopeful grin lighting his words.