'Yarr, well, maybe ye'd be best settin' an example, eh?' says the Captain, coming up behind them. 'A ship of fools it may be, but a ship of sorry fools it be if my decks ain't scrubbed clean like honest men! Now GET TO IT!'

amelia: yo
i am a yoyo.

Chris: yes

Grumbling to himself under his breath about letting standards slip that an officer managed to get the drop on him and hefting his own pail of water, Harris about faces and heads off to the kitchens to begin on the washing up, considering what to concoct for the evening meal later...

Slightly looked bleary eyed around the busy deck... there seemed to be an awful lot of people cleaning [i:78a0118804]his[/i:78a0118804] deck and doing a bloody awful job of it too. His hands started to twitch with the need to clean it properly and the desire to French polish was almost overwhelming...

What had he dreamed about? It must have been the fumes from the overabundance of cleaning products he was constantly surrounded by. There was cleaning, of course, and it was night time and the decks were empty and for some reason a girl he didn't know was jogging on decks... It was all very strange, and made him want to clean more.

At that moment the smell of strong liquor assailed his sense. "Hooray" he whispered, did no one else appreciate the cleaning potential of alcohol? He felt he'd died and gone to heaven...



[color=blue:78a0118804]*Duly noted. Sorry I was having a mental blank story wise and was reaching for anything. So now it was all a dream and Oliva never really went jogging, and it really wasn't night time. Such a cliche. I so ashamed.*[/color:78a0118804]

PhD Student: Research information sheet

There once was a man named Bruce
Who liked to sit on a spruce
He ate lots of chowder
And yelled at me louder:
"I'm talking to YOU, Mrs. Hughes!"
--> The Literary Genius: Mowgli

Edward was feeling a little put out; after all, he had signed up for this trip for some fancy swordwork and a new audience to give him some constructive criticism on "Blackbeard's Pajamas" and scrubbing decks fit into neither of those categories, being something that people did to Earn an Honest Living and therefore something Edward had solemnly swore never to do. Nevertheless, he rolled up his lacy white cuffs, gave his floppy hat a tug, and set to work, mentally rewriting the third stanza of "Six Days at Sea with a Drunk Parrot."

"ALL HANDS ON DECK!" shouted Captain Turbulent.

"The deck be being nice an' clean. Ye done a grand job, yarr." The Captain's voice took on more of an edge. "But I be noticin' that some of ye aren't pulling ye weight. Thar be no slackarrs on the Brown Emerald.

"Amor! Bloodbeard! Shembles! Ye have a nice night in store in thar brig," he pointed to a small cage at one end of the ship with his cutlass, "in ye go, unless ye want to feel the point o' me sword."

He watched Bob Amor stroppily enter the cage, followed by Victoria Shembles. He watched with half a grin as they tried to twist around to make room for Bloodbeard.

"Arrr," said the captain, "me brig be too small for ye all. But yer captain knows what ta do. Bloodbeard, ye can spend the night in thar crow's nest, and if I catch ye sneaking down..." he looked pointedly at the large pirate, who stared back before making his way to the mast.

"Yarr. Karies! Be you knowin' how to navigate?"

Karied nodded that he did.

"Good, take the wheel an' set course for these co-ord'nates," he handed a small slip of paper to the dutchman, "I be going fur me sleep. The rest o' ye shu' do the same. Yarr."

(Playing blind Pictionary, me drawing)
Ella: Is it a giraffe?
Me (stops drawing): No
Ella: Star Trek?
Me: Yes!

Paisley, who had been standing to attention as best he could and trembling lest the captain think he hadn't been working as much as he could, suddenly sagged with relief as the captain turned his back and went below. He hadn't even been below himself yet, even to visit, so he picked up his carpet bag that he had hung neatly on a hook so it would be out of the way, and started down the hatch.

A strange smell was wafting up from the galley, although to Paisley, anything that wasn't turnip smelled strange. He made his way down to the crews quarters, and tried to find a place to hang up his home-made hammock. His mum had sown together some old sacks, and the words "Prime Turnip" still showed in places. He tied the hammock to two appropriate-looking hooks, in the same way as the others were done, and climbed in. The sacks were rough and made him itch, but the smell of turnip was strangely comforting, and after a day's hard work, he fell asleep quickly without even waiting for supper.

Damn Spider pig

Harris stepped back to admire his work in all it's glory, the 'stew' was bubbling along nicely, some of the bits floating at the top were even vaguely recognisable as potato, carrot and bits of grey meat. Even the dishes had been properly scrubbed, to some extent. He tried giving it a cursory sniff but his sense of smell had departed long ago in protest at working with tar, tack and sailors who'd been at sea without a wash in months.

At least the big spoon he'd been stirring it with hadn't melted, he considered, that had to be a good sign.

Filling a sack with bowls to ladel the food into, he blows out the fire and pours as much as can be carried into a smaller cauldron before hefting that up to the main deck and setting up on a dis-used cannon carriage, "right lads, get it while it's hot and still lively!"

Woodle Needlebaum looked around with curiosity at the gang of sailors, milling about and going below. He was hungry and hoped the cook knew how to make a good stew, the kind of stew that would melt a ladle. Yeah, that was his kind of stew.

"gotta have good stew, see" he mumbled rtying to pick up his mop and put it away. He looked around to see if there was anyone who would likely help him pick it up.

Fuck Shoes.

Karies stood at the bridge, one hand on the rudder, the other hand holding the charts, fighting against the evening breeze. [i:9393d4892d]Aaahh, I've almost forgotten the sensation of handling a threemaster[/i:9393d4892d], he thought.

"One of you lads mind bringing me a plate of that?" he yelled absentmindedly, still focusing on the charts.

Reading another captain's charts was like reading a diary of the ship's endeavours. He noted several plotted sunken ships in darker ink, that he couldn't remember from any Dutch charts, most likely sunk by Turbulent himself. [i:9393d4892d]Whatever happens, I have to copy these charts, somehow[/i:9393d4892d] he decided.

Bob grumbled under his breath.

"This aint no pirate ship. Back in my day, pirates pirated! they swung swords, not brooms! they drank grog and wore their scars with pride! they didn't wear feathers and medals, or curl their hair, or pussyfoot to anyone!"

Bob glared around at the inside of the brig.

"This aint even a birg worthy of of a drunk parrot. You mark my words, Shembles, you'll soon see what being a real pirate is about. A pirate knows his ship! he knows her every contour, from her sails to her masts to her decks. But a pirate don't bow. a pirate don't scrape."

Now talking loudly to himself more than Shembles, Bob waved his arm through the air in an expansive gesture of irritation.

"Pirates take! They take from the rich! and the poor! and everyone in between! then they drink and spend and eat and use what they take! aye, a pirates life is a damn good one if you have the spirit."

Bob poiinted out the bars of the brig to Brian.

"And as for your question, lad, say yarrr as much as yer please. but sayin' yarrr don't make you a pirate. Or your damn parrots would be pirates, wouldn't they? damn noisy buggers. anyway, tell me." He settled against the bars and got comfortable. "How're you liking the pirate life so far?" He snorted. "Excitin, aint it."

That would also be... CONDENSATION.

There is a squawk near the brig. The Captain's parrot flutters down and perches on top of an empty, upturned bucket. It watches Bob Amor.

amelia: yo
i am a yoyo.

Chris: yes

Oliva, who had a little dust in her hair from scrubbing underneath the captain's large bed, carried two tin cups of stew away from the ship's cook.

Half stumbling up the stairs to the prow, she held up one of them to Karies, who squinted at her.

'I'm not a lad, but here,' she said. 'Hurry before i spill it.'

She waited for him to take the cup from her and then slurped a few slurps from her own.

'Where we goin, eh, sir?'

joe pancake?

Bob glares at the parrot.

"What do you want?" he snaps. "Before you ask, no, i aint got no crackers."

That would also be... CONDENSATION.

The parrot squawks and departs, flying up to the crow's nest. It wheels above Bloodbeard's head to get his attention before diving back down to its bucket. And again, it watches Bob Amor.

amelia: yo
i am a yoyo.

Chris: yes

Bloodbeard eyed the parrot.

A fine animal, a parrot. Good and piratey. Apart from when they shit on your shoulder. And the smell.

And the way they peck at your face.

Actually, what in the name of the bluebeards barnacles did pirates have parrots for?

"Yer a fucking flying rat!" snarls Bloodbeard in the direction of the bird. The parott seems dissapointingly nonplussed by this.

Bloodbeard spits in the general direction of the parrot, and goes to make himself comfortable.

Then, something catches his eye.

That pirate in the brig. Aye, he wasn't one for doing any washer woman either. A kindred spirit amongst a crew of landlubbers who wouldn't know pirating if it bit them in the arse.

"Yarr! P'raps I'll go see if he be wanting to share a bottle of grog. Course, that would be disobeying the cap'n!" he muses.

He smiles, and swings himself over the edge and back towards the deck.

Why are pirates called pirates?