"Hello," I said.
"Hello," she said, smiling.
I smiled too.
We all smiled, everyone in the crew- the sailors… the pirates… everyone. Even the massive sea monster thing in the ocean… probably.
"Where are we?"
"I'm not sure yet."
"Where are we going?"
"We'll know when we get there."
"Where is Alustur?"
"Oh he took a dive earlier to hunt fish."
I didn't know why but I was starting to get a little… restless.
Not only was this lady fully free and armed, the other blonde guy… was also here and he was sitting casually on the other side of the deck also fully free and armed. The two of them were strong and could kill me at a moment's notice. Without Alustur, I had absolutely no hope. Still, it was a little too much to think that Alustur was dead or had been thrown off the ship.
"When is this coming back?"
"I'm not sure. He didn't mention."
"IS he coming back?"
The lady shrugged and the ship moved along just fine.
Oh fuck….
Yeah… life… fucking life.
Gulping like my life depended on it, which it probably did, I made my way to the ship canteen and secured a fresh plate of grub and hardtack. There were some holes in the tack, and I didn't need to be a fucking genius to know about the crawling thingies inside. I did not want to eat it, no.
Still… hungry stomach demanded to be fed and I had to oblige.
Ach- god… bu- ahem! Took a lot… a lot of willpower to somehow swallow. The dry heaving and gagging were really tiring me out. I had to intentionally numb my senses just to somehow swallow it….
Not to mention the occasional lofty aromatic smell emanating from within the tack and the grub…. Argh….
A couple of minutes later I half-finished my portion and gave the stuff back to the counter lady and expressed my heartfelt apology that I could not finish. She didn't even bat an eye and just dumped the stuff in the fish tank.
Why the fuck do we have a fishtank?
Probably so we could have them protein when we didn't have enough prey, I suppose? Probably.
Catfish!
I hung around the ship, restlessly moving about the whole deck, waiting… waiting for Alustur to pop back out of the water like a mermaid with a handful of big fish.
Noon turned to afternoon, afternoon to evening… but no Alustur. Just thinking about dinner had my gut wrenching.
"Man I hope they're at least serving Dory fish today," someone said.
The fuck is a dory fish?
"Oh you know, those things with whiskers," one guy explained.
Apparently, it was catfish. Fried catfish.
I didn't know why… I really didn't but I fucking loved the of eating something, anything, other than that horrible stuff.
As I kept dreading and worrying and panicking, the sun eventually set and came the moment of truth.
Crunchy…
I ate without gagging. Food in boats were usually terrible but because we'd just started the journey, things were fine but now that we were in the middle of said journey, things were no longer fine. We didn't have fresh produce, no fruits, no preserved meat and stuff, and the occasional fish we caught were not enough to sustain the whole crew for more than a single meal a day. One of the primary reasons we were eating hot grub and tack.
But yeah… fuck I hated catfish but right now… I loved catfish. I love you dory!
"Why's he crying?" Someone said. I looked back and it was the blonde and the lady.
"Why're you crying?" The lady asked.
"Good food," I said.
"Yes," she said and sat beside me. The blonde said on the other said, in other words, I was now surrounded.
Most of the men in here were pirates; bout two of the original sailors.
"Why are you so afraid?" The blonde said.
"You tried to kill me."
"As did you," he said. "Arnet Drowlsy."
"Sol," I said.
"Kayla Drowsly," the lady said.
Oh, they were siblings.
"Don't worry," Kayla said. "He'll be back," she smiled.
The man, Arnet also smiled.
I had to smile too… I had to fucking survive.
Fuck you Alustur, where the fuck are you?
***
A couple of days passed. I didn't get even remotely used to the shit food. The fish too proved to be sort of stinky the more I ate it. Alustur did not return and my days only got weirder and weirder.
"Move, move it, movit!" A sailor yelled, followed by a thrashing sound. I thought he'd caught a fish but apparently the fish had caught him and he went- "WOAHHH!!!"
Overboard.
"There goes another one," some pirate said and laughed.
The sailor did not rise above the water. He was gone.
Yup… bro was fishfood.
I kept staring at the distant sky and wondering how things were back in the academy. How they were doing. How furious the Baracks would be to know their daughter was missing. And how Den was handling everything.
In other words, I had way too many worries and my mind wasn't in the present. No, perhaps I was deluding myself.
"You're only thinning," Arnet said sitting down beside me. "You should eat more."
"I should yes. But first, there's not enough food. Second, the food tastes terrible. And third, what's the point of staying healthy if I'll end up on a pirate island and probably locked up for life or sold?"
"So many excuses…" He cocked his head a couple of times. "Why?" he turned. "Kayla!?"
"Yeah!?"
"Are we headed to a pirate island!?"
"No!?"
The guy got back to me and again cocked his head again. "Where did you even hear that?"
"I assumed," I said. "Where are we going then?"
"Shirushi port," the man shrugged. "From there we'll take the highway and go to Axel port, then take a ship to-"
"Xanir port," I mumbled.
"Yes. And deliver you to the academy."
"What? But we're supposed to go to Sun port!~"
"Not exactly," someone said. Crash! A sailor crashed onto the floor. A minute later a burly man with amazingly squiggly hair climbed up: Alustur. He'd brought a fat fish with him the size of a dolphin… Tuna.
Ah, Tuna!
"Why?"
"You have noble duty to report to the Baracks, the Dukedom, and the academy. Only then can you go to Sluntun and settle your private matters."
I opened my mouth but stopped… "At least let me choose?"
"I cannot. I'm bound by my word to your-" he paused. "I'm bound. You will have to report to the academy first."
"Then why aren't we heading straight to Xanir, or, actually, we can land on Siran's port-"
"We cannot. It's the sea king season. Hence, we didn't take that route."
"F….fuck."
My shoulder lowered… I honestly didn't have enough fucks to give. So I sighed, stared at the sky and sighed anew.
Fuck adventures.