Re: The BATTLE of the CENTURY! [S!7] - Round 1: The New Frontier
01-05-2013, 02:54 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by XX.
It was warm to the touch. Almost alive. Enough to distract from the fat seaworm crawling along its rim that was trying to burrow into Fletcher’s fingers.
“So this is, uh…huh. Do I have to wear it?”
The skeletal arcs of the Ragazza’s exposed sides gave a rasping groan, century-old water sloshing fitfully in its hold. Underneath him the floor began to tilt to starboard. Crustacean shells and old bottles clattered to the far wall as the great chandelier swung pendulously, creaking on its perilously deteriorated chain. Shriveled barnacles pelted Fletcher from their long-dead footholds in its sockets.
Yes.
The captain’s quarters (and he knew these were they, though they reeked of the sea and of rotting paper and wood) were spacious- more than he would have guessed by the ship’s desiccated exterior. He felt as though he’d been swallowed by some enormous beast, coming down through the Ragazza’s blood-red corridors and into the ragged hull where its portholes beamed through the stringy carcasses of curtains. It had seemed a much further walk than one would need to reach the end of such a relatively small ship, but he’d decided to dwell on that later. It was enough of a hassle evicting the vessel’s menagerie of sealife from what seemed like every available surface. He’d had to evade a carpet of mussels on the cabin’s floor before uncovering the hat beneath a decade’s worth of missing lobster traps.
Fletcher stretched and stood, mostly to avoid further discussion on the ship’s part. He circled the cabin, whistling conspicuously and examining the walls: giant maps of places he was sure didn’t actually exist were framed in magnificent beams of pitted oak, annotated in illegible handwriting and illustrated with tiny doodles of sea serpents and portly mermaids. Fletcher poked at them, watching the paper crumble. “You ever seen a sea monster?”
A staccato creaking of ancient wood.
“You ever fought one?”
Two ropes snapped somewhere. A bottle somewhere belowdecks crashed to the floor.
Fletcher leaned back, running a hand through his close-cropped hair. He wondered if he could pass for captain material. He’d been living on a cramped transport ship for months now, gradually trading away what few spare possessions he’d managed to salvage in the final few days. A rusted shaving razor was one of the last things to go, along with his only working watch. Weren’t captains supposed to have beards? The man who’d headed the transport hadn’t, but he hadn’t been so much a captain as a professional refugee herder. Fletcher didn’t consider him a role model.
“You don’t have a mirror, do you?”
The ship shuddered forward and he got the strange impression of a coy shrug. Windows rattled to either side of him; the floor bucked once and then a large section of the cabin paneling flew open with a bang that nearly made him lose his footing. Heaps of cloth slithered out like bloated snakes into a damp pile that Fletcher sidestepped politely. The red paneling had split directly down a wooden seam into what he supposed could have passed for a closet the better part of a century ago. Ragged brocade coats had begun to grow into stalagmites of fat boots that only vaguely resembled footwear. A sword leaned against the rear wall, its hilt shining with a greenish gleam that Fletcher mentally noted to pry free at a later date. Between two sodden overcoats the splotched silver of a badly tarnished mirror winked at him playfully. He only managed a glance before slamming the closet doors shut with a strength he didn’t know he had a desire to possess.
“Why is there a dead man in your closet?” he said.
Captain, my Captain…
The vision was brief: his golden dragonfly pinup girl, in the arms of an older and stockier man who resembled Fletcher from a distance if one wasn’t paying close attention; same generally shortish hair, thin face, dark skin, bored expression. He was dead. She wasn’t, and the only thing she was wearing was the hat Fletcher had found in her cabin.
She winked. Her crimson eyes glittered.
“Stop that,” Fletcher said, rubbing his eyes. Electric rubies lit up like fires behind his lids. “Okay. Proxy. Got it…”
Another vision. Fletcher standing on air, a question mark above his head.
“Uh. Well, technically, another ship, you know….”
Jealousy.
“Not a ship like you’re a ship,” he said comfortingly, patting the wall. He felt it writhe under his hand. “More of a boat. Really barely above a glorified canoe.”
Emphatic jealousy.
“Only for a few weeks! Don’t call her that!”
A pulling feeling just above his right ear- navigator- and she and he were thinking very hard about where the airskiff had dropped him off. South-southwest by her guess- and her guess was correct- and beyond that… a shadow hanging in the sky? A vessel like a bloated fish. The... the... what was her name? What was her damn name, boy? Corelia. Corelia? What a slutty name. All those filthy people. You could do so much better.
A rushing underneath his feet. The light streaming in from the portholes changed: not her golden glow but the weak milky sun filtered through noonday clouds. He squinted. They were at the base of the island, not gone too far-
She moved like a knife moves for a stomach, but like a lady she let him know first. He braced himself as she roared and leapt through the air, speeding over the bulging cliffs skirting the island’s base with terrifying speed, flying out over the open sky to circle high above the dull brown splotches bobbing in the New Frontier’s shadow. What a slut. He pressed his nose to a porthole. The Corelia looked like a toy, one dark dot among a flock of minnows.
The ship/captain negotiations bypassed him entirely. The Ragazza roared like a thunderhead and her starboard cannons fired at once, four red fireworks streaming down through the sky down towards the Corelia with impossible precision. They exploded into red showers of festival sparks where they skirted across the Corelia’s decks and sent her engines smoking up in columns of flame. The transport bucked once, as if in surprise; slowly, almost comically, it began to lean lazily to its side, nosing down towards the hidden sea. Tiny black ants fell off its sides and were swallowed instantly by the clouds.
When had he put on the hat?
Fat black plumes of charred plastic and metal spiraled aimlessly across the pretty blue sky as the Corelia took her last bow, blowing out an engine like a girl blows a kiss. The clouds parted before her as she flung herself gracefully under their cover and vanished from sight, only the ugly grey scars of her smoking decks marking the end of her long voyage. Fletcher giggled.
Book-demon-ghost, said the ship who didn’t know the words for ‘Quino’, Now I am finished. My captain will speak with you. Wear something presentable.
It was warm to the touch. Almost alive. Enough to distract from the fat seaworm crawling along its rim that was trying to burrow into Fletcher’s fingers.
“So this is, uh…huh. Do I have to wear it?”
The skeletal arcs of the Ragazza’s exposed sides gave a rasping groan, century-old water sloshing fitfully in its hold. Underneath him the floor began to tilt to starboard. Crustacean shells and old bottles clattered to the far wall as the great chandelier swung pendulously, creaking on its perilously deteriorated chain. Shriveled barnacles pelted Fletcher from their long-dead footholds in its sockets.
Yes.
The captain’s quarters (and he knew these were they, though they reeked of the sea and of rotting paper and wood) were spacious- more than he would have guessed by the ship’s desiccated exterior. He felt as though he’d been swallowed by some enormous beast, coming down through the Ragazza’s blood-red corridors and into the ragged hull where its portholes beamed through the stringy carcasses of curtains. It had seemed a much further walk than one would need to reach the end of such a relatively small ship, but he’d decided to dwell on that later. It was enough of a hassle evicting the vessel’s menagerie of sealife from what seemed like every available surface. He’d had to evade a carpet of mussels on the cabin’s floor before uncovering the hat beneath a decade’s worth of missing lobster traps.
Fletcher stretched and stood, mostly to avoid further discussion on the ship’s part. He circled the cabin, whistling conspicuously and examining the walls: giant maps of places he was sure didn’t actually exist were framed in magnificent beams of pitted oak, annotated in illegible handwriting and illustrated with tiny doodles of sea serpents and portly mermaids. Fletcher poked at them, watching the paper crumble. “You ever seen a sea monster?”
A staccato creaking of ancient wood.
“You ever fought one?”
Two ropes snapped somewhere. A bottle somewhere belowdecks crashed to the floor.
Fletcher leaned back, running a hand through his close-cropped hair. He wondered if he could pass for captain material. He’d been living on a cramped transport ship for months now, gradually trading away what few spare possessions he’d managed to salvage in the final few days. A rusted shaving razor was one of the last things to go, along with his only working watch. Weren’t captains supposed to have beards? The man who’d headed the transport hadn’t, but he hadn’t been so much a captain as a professional refugee herder. Fletcher didn’t consider him a role model.
“You don’t have a mirror, do you?”
The ship shuddered forward and he got the strange impression of a coy shrug. Windows rattled to either side of him; the floor bucked once and then a large section of the cabin paneling flew open with a bang that nearly made him lose his footing. Heaps of cloth slithered out like bloated snakes into a damp pile that Fletcher sidestepped politely. The red paneling had split directly down a wooden seam into what he supposed could have passed for a closet the better part of a century ago. Ragged brocade coats had begun to grow into stalagmites of fat boots that only vaguely resembled footwear. A sword leaned against the rear wall, its hilt shining with a greenish gleam that Fletcher mentally noted to pry free at a later date. Between two sodden overcoats the splotched silver of a badly tarnished mirror winked at him playfully. He only managed a glance before slamming the closet doors shut with a strength he didn’t know he had a desire to possess.
“Why is there a dead man in your closet?” he said.
Captain, my Captain…
The vision was brief: his golden dragonfly pinup girl, in the arms of an older and stockier man who resembled Fletcher from a distance if one wasn’t paying close attention; same generally shortish hair, thin face, dark skin, bored expression. He was dead. She wasn’t, and the only thing she was wearing was the hat Fletcher had found in her cabin.
She winked. Her crimson eyes glittered.
“Stop that,” Fletcher said, rubbing his eyes. Electric rubies lit up like fires behind his lids. “Okay. Proxy. Got it…”
Another vision. Fletcher standing on air, a question mark above his head.
“Uh. Well, technically, another ship, you know….”
Jealousy.
“Not a ship like you’re a ship,” he said comfortingly, patting the wall. He felt it writhe under his hand. “More of a boat. Really barely above a glorified canoe.”
Emphatic jealousy.
“Only for a few weeks! Don’t call her that!”
A pulling feeling just above his right ear- navigator- and she and he were thinking very hard about where the airskiff had dropped him off. South-southwest by her guess- and her guess was correct- and beyond that… a shadow hanging in the sky? A vessel like a bloated fish. The... the... what was her name? What was her damn name, boy? Corelia. Corelia? What a slutty name. All those filthy people. You could do so much better.
A rushing underneath his feet. The light streaming in from the portholes changed: not her golden glow but the weak milky sun filtered through noonday clouds. He squinted. They were at the base of the island, not gone too far-
She moved like a knife moves for a stomach, but like a lady she let him know first. He braced himself as she roared and leapt through the air, speeding over the bulging cliffs skirting the island’s base with terrifying speed, flying out over the open sky to circle high above the dull brown splotches bobbing in the New Frontier’s shadow. What a slut. He pressed his nose to a porthole. The Corelia looked like a toy, one dark dot among a flock of minnows.
The ship/captain negotiations bypassed him entirely. The Ragazza roared like a thunderhead and her starboard cannons fired at once, four red fireworks streaming down through the sky down towards the Corelia with impossible precision. They exploded into red showers of festival sparks where they skirted across the Corelia’s decks and sent her engines smoking up in columns of flame. The transport bucked once, as if in surprise; slowly, almost comically, it began to lean lazily to its side, nosing down towards the hidden sea. Tiny black ants fell off its sides and were swallowed instantly by the clouds.
When had he put on the hat?
Fat black plumes of charred plastic and metal spiraled aimlessly across the pretty blue sky as the Corelia took her last bow, blowing out an engine like a girl blows a kiss. The clouds parted before her as she flung herself gracefully under their cover and vanished from sight, only the ugly grey scars of her smoking decks marking the end of her long voyage. Fletcher giggled.
Book-demon-ghost, said the ship who didn’t know the words for ‘Quino’, Now I am finished. My captain will speak with you. Wear something presentable.