Dances With Pirates

 It's been a while since we've heard from our pirate fanboy Sherman, so I thought I'd give a little update. This excerpt takes place right after the last one and was still written some time ago.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Shutting the glass door to my three-foot balcony, I toss the curtains closed and go to my closet. It’s not as spacious as the price tag would seem to imply, although I tried to limit my wardrobe to outfits without many layers. Since Caribbean temperatures aren’t jacket-worthy, it’s not too much of a sacrifice. I’ll only be here a week, anyway. If I survive that long.

I thought the mountainous pile of release forms I had to sign before I got my boarding pass was some sort of joke, but I’m starting to see why they were needed. You’d think a bunch of twenty-first-century guys, pirate fanatics or otherwise, wouldn’t be so keen on real-life violence. The worst stuff seems to be the bar brawls, and that’s probably the same for any society. I’m able to avoid most of the drunken fights since I’m still two years under drinking age, but there are so many bars on this ship I’m hard-pressed to walk from my room to the restaurant without passing in front of a few. With the surprising amount of hot girls here, I’m not always safe at that distance.

Of course, I’m starting to believe this is not the best place to pick up chicks. Half of them have brawny and perpetually drunk boyfriends, and the other half look lethal enough by themselves. I just can’t help it, though. I mean, look at these babes. I have to at least take a chance. I’ve only gotten one considerable bruise so far, anyway.

On the other hand, everyone does get a rapier upon boarding. They’re not pointy-edged or anything, but, with the whole alien-beekeeper costume fencers wear, I don’t think that I’m properly protected. Thankfully all I have to do is leave my weapon in my room, and nobody will try to stab me. Even with their neuroses and constant air of fermented molasses, these guys have a good sense of honor. That doesn’t mean they never pick on the skinny guy, but I’ll take what I can get, you know?

I pick out my dress suit—a weird, pinstriped, greenish thing that I wouldn’t be terribly upset about losing—and check the rest of my room again before shutting the dressing room door. It’s not like I’d feel totally violated if someone got a glimpse of me changing, but it’s still kind of creepy. I haven’t spent any time in sports locker rooms, so I haven’t had the chance to get used to the idea. Of course, if a hot girl decided to watch me, I might not object so much. Although I’d be really surprised and kind of suspicious if anyone wanted to observe my lack of muscles in an attracted fashion. I hook them with words, not physique, and that’s okay with me.

Words are my specialty, anyway. I’m not a journalism major because I want to work out all day. And I’m not writing an article over this cruise line because I’m just a huge pirate fanboy. I’m only a little bit of a pirate fanboy. Possibly not enough to survive this vacation. But we’re a little too far from shore to turn back now. Besides, I need my story, if I can string anything coherent together out of this chaos.

I clip on my necktie and straighten the spikes in my bangs—if they’re long enough to be called that—as I eye the mirror. This ought to do. It may be formal night, but I don’t exactly have a date. And I’ll be there with a bunch of yahoos, anyway, so I don’t think anyone’s going to be that concerned with dressing super-neat.

Piracy Cruise Lines (NFI#28) Excerpt

Herein lies the beginning of Piracy Cruise Lines. I'm tempted to make it the whole first chapter, but it's easy enough to keep writing afterwards I'll try to push myself further. I always feel like my chapters are a lot shorter than normal novels'.

Feedback appreciated!

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I just manage to get the door closed behind me before I'm impaled by a rapier. The blade thumps into the thick wood behind me as I fumble with the lock.

"I didn't know you were together, okay?"

My assailant keeps yowling as I stumble back to my skinny, maid-made bed, but I can't make out half of what he's saying. Something about how unbelievable it is that a landlubber managed to outpace him. Yeah, maybe it would be more impressive if you hadn't downed enough rum to fuel a rocket ship.

Panting, I sit on the edge of my bed and glance out the window. Blocking my view of the sky is the tall, toned figure of Francisco.

"How the heck did you get in my room?" I sputter, looking him over as the man outside groans in defeat and staggers away with thumping footfalls.

Tossing a length of curly, brown hair over his shoulder, Francisco snorts. "I merely leapt from my balcony to yours, mi amigo. If you ever put any treasure in your room, you ought to start locking the windows." He turns his neck to look outside, the hooked outline of his nose sharp against the blue sky.

"The fact that you'd just smash your way through the glass aside—" I push some sweaty, blonde bangs out of my face—"our balconies are, like, twelve feet apart."

Francisco scratches his stubbly chin. "I would put it closer to thirteen."

Exhaling, I flop back on the mattress, loosening my scarf. "What I mean is, it's a bit far to jump. If you end up falling into the ocean next time, you can't say I didn't warn you."

He laughs in his usual way—worthy of theatre. "But if I fall into the ocean, I won't be saying much of anything, no?"

"You know what I mean."

Oh, wait, I'm talking about sensible things. Of course he doesn't know what I mean. We don't barge into other people's rooms, Francisco; we're strangers, not fellow crew members. We don't immediately challenge our poor, scrawny neighbors to fisticuffs after we introduce ourselves; that's just… weird.

Of course, I'm the one that decided to spend Fall Break on the PCL Scurvy. Hey, it sounds like fun, this is one of the cruise line's newest ships, and I'll be able to go back to the university newspaper with an article worth reading. Yeah. If I make it that far. It's only the second day aboard, and I've been chased by drunks, had my room broken into several times, and I'm pretty sure some expert pickpockets have swindled me out of my camera because I haven't found it and Francisco hasn't stolen it from me in plain sight. I was going to vlog with that, too…

"Listen," I start, sitting back up.

Francisco looks up from where he had been investigating my curtains. Like I would hide anything good behind those.

"It's formal dinner night, so I'm going to start getting ready for that." I pause, but Francisco just nods and goes back to pulling the curtains around.

"You are welcome to leave my room for the time being," I tell him.

"Oh, come now, Davey." Apparently "Sherman" isn't a good enough pirate name, so he's been abbreviating my middle name. Dropping the curtain, he continues, "If I left your room every time you asked, I would never be in here!"

I open my mouth but really have no good response to that. Eventually, I stand up and say, "Well, leave this time. You have to get ready for dinner, too, don't you?"

"It won't take me long, though."

"Francisco."

With a sigh, he says something to himself in Spanish, adjusts his three-cornered hat, and steps out onto the balcony. Before I can inform him my room indeed has a door, he perches on the railing and shouts, "Jerónimo!" Pouncing on his balcony rail, he flips himself back onto solid concrete and waves a goodbye.

Show-off.

New Fiction Idea #28

Working Title: Piracy Cruise Lines

Genre: Comedy/Mystery

Protagonist: Sherman, a reporter assigned to this ship and secretly a bit of a pirate fanboy. He's generally rather meek and could easily be called scrawny. At nineteen, he's of average height; wears thin, rectangular glasses; and dresses a bit in the hipster vein.

Other Main Characters: Francisco, a flamboyant twenty-eight-year-old man with frizzy, brown hair and a thick Spanish accent. He likes to gamble at card games, especially when it gives him the chance to accuse someone of cheating and have a sword duel. He's rather haughty, to the extent it could all be just an act.
Darla, a blonde twenty-year-old who typically wears a green bandanna and lots of mascara. She's not very modest, although she doesn't tend to flirt, and she's an excellent fencer (though fist-fighting, not so much).

Antagonist: Unknown. Likely a corporative something-or-other.

Setting: The PCL Scurvy, one of the newest fleet of PCL's luxury cruise ships for pirates. Being on its maiden voyage, it's not nearly as battered as other ships in the business, and it has every facility one would expect on a cruise ship: swimming pool, piano bar, sushi stand, sports bar, casino, more bars... Rank aboard the ship is determined by ticket fare; i.e., those who stay in the cheapest rooms on the boat be deck-swabbin'. Prices are high, and amenities are not well-guaranteed throughout the trip (due to contact with other PCL ships), but in a time where honest piracy isn't enough to make a living anymore, this is the only good alternative.

Plot: Sherman embarks on the ship for his story, soon befriending his neighbour Francisco and setting his sights on Darla. Amongst the normal happenings on the cruise (rowdy bar fights, carousing, huge battles with other ships in the fleet), a line of deaths a bit too orderly for a place like this starts lining up. Sherman plans to get to the bottom of this, if his newfound companions prove to be better at keeping him alive than giving him away.

Point of View: First person (Sherman).

The original idea of "piracy on a luxury cruise ship" could have been some sort of gritty story worthy of Liam Neeson in a film, but somehow it took this turn when I looked the other way.

New Fan Fiction Idea #10

An old idea I could possibly revive someday.

Working Title: My Cup of Tea

Fandom: Hetalia: Axis Powers

Genre Tags: Adventure/General

Length: Multichapter

Protagonist: England

Other Main Characters: The rest of the Allies, possibly Romano and Spain as well.

Antagonist: Usually America. Sometimes the others on the ship.

Plot: Drowning in dull, modern-day paperwork and politics, England wishes for his old pirate life a bit too fervently. The next time he wakes up, he and several others are aboard an old pirate ship with no land in sight and no way to contact anywhere else. The crew tries to survive storms, attacks, and each other as they search for land. Between dwindling rations and the nations slowly reverting to their 17th-century selves one by one, they'd better hurry.

Setting: A wooden pirate ship of some age but decent condition. Most of the story is in open ocean, although a few small islands and (if I'm nice to the crew) a final spot of land are also involved.

Point of View: Third person, omniscient or static.

Because I feel the need to demonstrate that England can, in fact, be awesome, despite the fact that I have a disturbing tendency to kill him off at every opportunity available.

That's not to say plenty of other people haven't written a pirate England fic, probably with a similar premise, but it could be one of those things that, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." And any story is going to be different under a different author, right?